Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Viacom18 Wins Field Hockey Media Rights for India – Global Bulletin

Naman Ramachandran Viacom18 and Marflix’s Bollywood actioner “Fighter” was the highest grossing film of the weekend at the global box office, with box office revenues of $25.1 million, according to data from ComScore. The film, directed by Siddharth Anand, whose previous film, Shah Rukh Khan starrer “Pathaan,” was one of the biggest Indian hits of 2023, stars Bollywood A-listers Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor. “Fighter” revolves around the Indian Air Force and released on Thursday, Jan.

Refresh for latest…:We’re still in a holdover pattern for Hollywood at the global and international box office, though milestones continue to be reached on an offshore and worldwide basis for existing releases. Meanwhile, Anyone But You saw an uptick overseas and drops were good for others (including newly-minted Oscar nominees). One new local entry, India’s Fighter, flew to the top of the global weekend chart. 

Liberation which is coming to screens later this year through Signature Entertainment in the UK.Starring Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones), Katrine Greis-Rosenthal (A Fortunate Man), Morten Hee Andersen (Herrens veje), Peter Kurth (Babylon Berlin), Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration), Liberation is directed by Anders Walter (I Kill Giants) from a script he co-wrote with Miriam Nørgaard (The War Show). Here’s the official synopsis.This historical drama will make you question how far you’d go to help someone in need. When a folk high school is turned into an internment camp for German refugees, the headmaster couple Jakob and Lis and their children are thrust into an impossible situation. Should the family help the refugees – or stand firm in the Danish resistance against the Germans? Signature Entertainment presents Liberation on Digital Platforms 29th January.

Nick Holdsworth There is a certain inevitability about a film inspired by Hermann Hesse’s novel “Steppenwolf,” first published in German in 1927, and two famous Westerns of the 1950s — John Ford’s “The Searchers,” and Howard Hawks’ “Red River.” In acclaimed Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s latest film — also called “Steppenwolf” — two characters who are essentially loners existing outside of the usual moral boundaries of the world come together united in a common task: to save a small boy who has gone missing. The world premiere of “Steppenwolf” is slated for International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition.

open letter from the Strike Germany movement, which called for a boycott of state-funded cultural events, claiming that the “use of McCarthyist policies” suppressed “freedom of expression” in relation to displays of solidarity with Palestine and criticism of the Israeli state.The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism cites examples including “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”.Strike Germany claimed that the IHRA definition was “increasingly becoming official state policy, effectively censoring criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionist perspectives from the German cultural sphere, furthering a dangerous false equivalency that ultimately harms the fight against anti-Semitism”.A post shared by STRIKE GERMANY (@strikegermany)As of Monday (January 22), however, the clause has been dropped. “I must take the legal and critical voices that saw this clause as a restriction on the freedom of art seriously,” said Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, in a statement (via The Art Newspaper).

Naman Ramachandran Revered Indian actor and filmmaker Aparna Sen is the subject of Suman Ghosh‘s documentary “Parama: A Journey with Aparna Sen,” which has its world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam‘s Cinema Regained strand. Sen came to notice as an actor with the “Samapti” segment in Oscar winner Satyajit Ray’s “Three Daughters” (1961). She acted in several more films by Ray and also worked with Indian cinema greats Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and Rituparno Ghosh.

Sony Group Corporation has initiated a Singapore arbitration case against Indian TV giant Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), alleging breaches of their failed merger agreement, Variety has confirmed. The $10 billion merger, which would have seen the two entities merge their TV and streaming businesses in India, was terminated on Monday by Sony after a two-year process. Sony is seeking a $90 million termination fee from ZEEL.

Naman Ramachandran Indian star Shruti Haasan will headline India-U.K. film co-production “Chennai Story.” Haasan, who is also a renowned musician, has acting credits across India’s various language film industries and in the U.S. and U.K.

Ghostpoet has described the new German culture strike as “misdirected”, while also declaring his support for Gaza.In recent weeks figures from the arts and entertainment industry have voiced their support for the Strike Germany movement in response to the government’s “use of McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression” related to showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.An open letter from the movement claims that Palestine solidarity protests have been “mislabeled as anti-Semitic and banned” while activist spaces are “raided by police, and violent arrests are frequent”.It adds that Strike Germany is a “call for international cultural workers to strike from German cultural institutions”.However, British artist Ghostpoet – real name Obaro Ejimiwe – has expressed scepticism over the strike’s “wave of blanket cancellations”.In an Instagram post shared last week, the Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter wrote that while he shares the anger over “Germany’s unforgivable support of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians”, it will not “achieve the desired results”.A post shared by Ghostpoet (@ghostpoet)He added that the strike is “misdirected”, because many of the affected institutions are “spaces for dissent against these genocidal policies” but are the ones “paying the price for the government’s position”.Other shortcomings he claimed to be hindering the strike included that there was “no mutual aid plan” that would help provide financial, political, legal and logistical support to strikers, while also noting that arts and culture workers in Germany were “not a cohesive category”.He said most were freelancers whose income depended on exhibitions, gigs and events.“Ultimately, instead of bearing

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Australian actor Rebel Wilson has been named as the emcee of the 2024 edition of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) awards. Wilson will take to the stage on Saturday, Feb. 10. Two days earlier, on Feb.

So, here we are in mid-January, and though we’re staring down the barrel of a tough year ahead, it’s not all wintry doom and gloom on an international box office (and combined global) level. 

Naman Ramachandran Despite a resurgent 2023 for Bollywood both at home and overseas, the industry’s international box office performance is likely to be weaker in 2024, a leading U.K. distributor has said. London-based Pranab Kapadia, a seasoned Bollywood media executive with stints at studios Eros and Zee, now runs U.K.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery, the Board of Control for Cricket in India and Pitch International have signed a package of rights that will see them broadcast live international cricket hosted in India on its linear and digital platforms, TNT Sports and Discovery+, for the next five years.

EXCLUSIVE: German Films, the agency that promotes German cinema globally, has unveiled the seven participants for the ninth edition of its annual Face to Face campaign, which include talents who have worked on projects ranging from television series such as Deutschland ‘89 and Kafka to feature film Turning Tables. 

Naman Ramachandran A screening of Isabel Herguera‘s San Sebastian winner “Sultana’s Dream” will kickstart the inaugural edition of AniMela, India’s first-ever international festival for animation, VFX, XR, gaming and comics, in Mumbai. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Herguera, alongside her Spanish and Indian crew, including Indian animation expert Upamanyu Bhattacharyya.

With its streaming operations facing scrutiny as 2024 gets under way, Paramount Global continues to pursue a diversified approach to distributing its flagship, Paramount+.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Be For Films, an independent film sales company based in Brussels, has acquired international rights to German filmmaker Michael Fetter Nathansky‘s “Every You Every Me,” which has been selected in the Panorama section of the Berlinale. “Every You Every Me” won two Work-in-Progress Awards, under its previous title “Mannequins,” at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The British Film Institute has revealed the list of TV, film, and animation companies that have won funding from its latest £3.3M ($4.2M) Global Screen Fund payout.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has revealed a lineup of nine titles as part of its licensed Tamil-language film slate for 2024. Ajith Kumar headlines Lyca Productions’ “VidaaMuyarchi,” directed by Magizh Thirumeni. Lyca is also the company behind S.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Jean-Claude Van Damme, the global martial artist turned action hero whose 2021 movie “The Last Mercenary” was a hit on Netflix, has another film on the horizon. He will star opposite Michaël Youn (“BDE”) in “Le jardinier,” another high-voltage action-comedy reuniting him with “The Last Mercenary” director David Charhon.