Beta Film Sells Ukrainian War Drama ‘In Her Car’ to NHK Japan as Creator Eugen Tunick Speaks Out: ‘We Are Still Here and We Are Still Fighting’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Following its world premiere in the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival, Beta Cinema has revealed first sales across Europe and to Australia and New Zealand for Andreas Dresen’s “From Hilde, With Love.” The drama about anti-Nazi activists in Berlin, which is led by “Babylon Berlin’s” Liv Lisa Fries and introduces Johannes Hegemann in his first big screen appearance, will be released in France by Haut et Court, in Italy by Teodora and throughout Scandinavia by Angel Films. Beta Cinema also closed deals for Benelux (September Film), Portugal (Outsider), former Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Cirko) and Czech Republic (Film Europe). Palace Film picked up the film for Australia and New Zealand.

EXCLUSIVE: Beta Film‘s Crown-esque high-end drama series Maxima has sold to networks in Lat Am, Israel and across Europe.

Emiliano De Pablos “Professor T,” the crime series produced by Eagle Eye Drama, and starring Ben Miller (“Bridgerton”), has been greenlit for a fourth season by ITV and PBS Distribution. Attracting audiences of over four million viewers on ITV and making a successful debut on France 3, the highly acclaimed drama has been sold to almost 120 territories worldwide. Most recently, Telekom acquired rights in Germany, TV3 bought the series for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova 1 for Moldova, and BBC and TVP for Poland.

Naman Ramachandran The Asian Film Awards Academy has revealed several events around the annual Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong. Veteran filmmakers, jury president of this year’s awards, Japan’s Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, will share their filmmaking experiences and artistic concepts in a joint masterclass. Thai star Metawin Opas-Iamkajorn (“2gether” series and film) known as Win, will be honored with the AFA Rising Star Award and the event will host the world premiere of his new film “Under Parallel Skies.” There will also be six themed panel discussions featuring actors Wan Fang (Taiwan), Rachel Leung and Yoyo Tse (both Hong Kong), Tergel Bold-Erdene (Mongolia), Awat Ratanapintha (Thailand) and Shirata Mihaya (Japan).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent European giant Beta Film, known for ambitious titles such as “Babylon Berlin” and “The Swarm,” has shared with Variety in exclusivity a first-look picture of 1o-part series “Rise of the Raven,” which it hails as “one of the most epic European TV productions of all time.” “Rise of the Raven” weighs in as a passion project of Hungarian-born and Canada-based producer Robert Lantos, behind “Sunshine,” “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Barney’s Version,” “Eastern Promises” and “Crimes of the Future.” A highlight at Beta Film’s showcase this Tuesday at the London TV Screenings, “Rise of the Raven” turns on the extraordinary feat of Hungarian army commander Janos Hunyadi, played by discovery Gellért L. Kádár, who in 1456 won a bloody, brutal Battle of Belgrade against a vast Ottoman force twice the size of his troops who were often farm labourers armed with just slings and patriotic fervor. Hunyadi largely halted a full Ottoman expansion in Europe for the next 70 years, allowing its Renaissance to lift off in Italy.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Underscoring the enduring popularity of crime drama, Abacus Media Rights (AMR), an Amcomri Entertainment company, has announced a slew of sales on two titles, led by Showmax Original “Catch Me a Killer,” a true crime drama with “Game of Thrones’” Charlotte Hope playing South Africa’s first and most famous serial killer profiler. Hope also headed “The Spanish Princess,” as Catherine of Aragon. AMR has moreover closed further deals on fiction drama “Scrublands,” a scripted drama about the real reasons for a country town massacre.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Paradises of Diane,” which premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival, came out of an exploration of the “dark side of maternity” and the role of the mother in society, director Carmen Jaquier tells Variety. The film, which was directed with Jan Gassmann, starts with Diane abandoning her new-born baby at a maternity clinic in Zurich, and heading to the seedy Spanish seaside resort Benidorm, without telling anyone.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “A True Novel,” directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, manga-inspired “Issak,” written by Itaru Mizuno (“Double Booking”) and “4 Blocks” Richard Kropf, look like potential highlights at this year’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, the centerpiece at Series Mania’s Forum, as its projects expand ever more their geographic compass, here welcoming their first titles co-produced by Japan. They are joined by titles from around the world such as Argentinean Daniel Burman’s “Witness 36,” which won the Series Mania Award at the Berlinale Series Market on Tuesday, and a slice of Vatican noir and which reunites the team of “De Grace,”and The Forum runs March 19-21 during Series Mania, Europe’s biggest dedicated TV festival, which will unspool this year over March 15-22 in Lille, Northern France.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut “Gloria!” has scored a slew international sales ahead of its world premiere in the Berlin Film Festival competition. RAI Cinema International Distribution has sealed deals to nine territories on Vicario’s vibrant musical comedy set in a late 18th century Venetian female orphanage where a young rebel named Teresa leads a group of performers to challenge classical canons and invent a precursor to pop music.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two Taiwan-based production companies with features in this week’s Berlin Film Festival have joined forces to launch new venture, Long Hu Bao × An Attitude. Taiwan’s Yi Tiao Long Hu Bao International Entertainment, is one of eight co-producers on main competition film “Shambhala,” from Nepal’s Min Bahadur Bham.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Since its establishment in 2018, Gaumont Germany has produced a wide range of series and TV movies, among them such timely shows as the critically acclaimed “Deutsches Haus” (“The Interpreter of Silence”), which was nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, and the Ukrainian series “In Her Car.” A subsidiary of the French entertainment powerhouse, the Cologne and Berlin-based company also created such ambitious shows as Netflix’s historical epic “Barbarians” – the first season of which was one of the streamer’s most successful non-English-language series worldwide – and the award-winning Sky Original comedy “The Wasp,” about a professional dart player seeking to return to his former glory. Discussing the company’s latest productions, Gaumont Germany President Sabine de Mardt says it’s important to combine broader entertainment with relevance, something both “The Interpreter of Silence” and “In Her Car” offer.

Marta Balaga Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu and his Bucharest-based company Mobra Films will join forces with Poland’s Kijora Films on “Tales of the Golden Age – The Warsaw Pact,” a follow up to his 2009 sketch comedy referencing urban legends from the Ceausescu regime. Expanding to accommodate stories from different ex-communist Eastern European countries, including Poland, it will be written by Mungiu and directed by Ioana Uricaru.

EXCLUSIVE: After we broke news of the studio acquiring Margot Robbie starrer Big Bold Beautiful Journey, we can reveal that Sony Pictures has boarded another of the European Film Market’s most in-demand projects: Past Lives director Celine Song‘s next movie, Materialists, which A24 is selling.

Christopher Vourlias Africa’s growing screen industries are making their mark on the global stage, with three titles in the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, but how to unlock the continent’s still-untapped potential was a question on the minds of many at a conference hosted on Saturday by the European Film Market. A partnership between EFM and Prudence Kolong’s Stockholm-based consulting firm Yanibes, AfroBerlin was launched to give a platform to filmmakers from Africa and the diaspora and “to find a place where they can share stories and experiences and be heard,” said Kolong, who also organizes the Cannes Film Festival’s AfroCannes industry showcase.

Marta Balaga Beta Film has picked up international distribution rights to Latvia’s “Soviet Jeans.” Presented at Berlinale Series Market Selects, the show will premiere at Series Mania in March. Set in Riga in the late 1970s and based on multiple true stories, it zooms in onto young rock fan Renars (Karlis Arnolds Avots), sent to a mental asylum for political reasons. Undeterred, he starts illegal production of counterfeit U.S.

Holly Jones Buenos Aires-based sales outfit FilmSharks has closed major territories on dark comedy “Lobo Feroz,” from director Gustavo Hernández (“La Casa Muda”), and on “The Forgotten Killings,” the latest from Ines Paris (“Miguel and William”). Produced by Uruguay’s Mother Superior and Spains’ Bowfinger Intl. Pictures, “Lobo Feroz” is a remake of Israeli film “Big Bad Wolves” from Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado.

Christopher Vourlias K5 Intl., the international sales arm of K5 Media Group, has acquired world sales rights excluding North America to “Stay Online,” a tense Ukraine war drama that was entirely shot in the Eastern European country after the Russian invasion, the company announced at the European Film Market. The film, which debuted last year at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival, recently sold to Dark Star Pictures for North American distribution in a deal brokered by XYZ Films. A U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Production has wrapped on indie feature Bad Man, starring Seann William Scott (American Pie) alongside Johnny Simmons (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Rob Riggle (21 Jump Street), Chance Perdomo (After We Fell), Andre Hyland (Barry), and Lovi Poe (Chelsea Cowboy).

Megan Fox has responded to accusations of “xenophobia” in a caption to a photo of herself on Instagram.The actor posted a photo to her Instagram which featured herself, Machine Gun Kelly, Taylor Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce, seemingly at an after-party following the Super Bowl.In the post’s caption, Fox wrote that she looked “like a Ukrainian blowup doll” and “one of those super expensive real sex dolls you can only get in Japan.”Some Instagram users took to the comments to show their disapproval of the caption. One wrote: “I guess xenophobia towards Eastern Europeans is still a thing in Hollywood”.A post shared by Megan Fox (@meganfox)Many defended Ukrainian women, particularly with regards to the ongoing conflict in the country, with one user writing: “It’s disgraceful to offend any women, but offending Ukrainian women, who now stand as icon of strength and heroism in the brutal war, is absolutely disgusting!!!!”In response to one of the critical comments, Fox wrote: “Dear God.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Cinema has sold political thriller “Hammarskjöld — Fight for Peace,” which is a box office hit in its home territory Sweden, to multiple key territories. Sales include Italy (Rai Cinema), France (Swift Prods.), Spain (Twelve Oaks), Portugal (Outsider Films) and former Yugoslavia (Discovery). A U.S.