Bleecker Street and LevelFILM Strike Exclusive Canadian Distribution Deal

Rod Stewart delighted fans by sharing throwback snaps of him performing in a leopard print suit.

Amber Dowling Amazon Studios wants to beef up its content library in Canada. And the quickest way to do that, according to Brent Haynes, the studio’s head of originals in Canada, is with half-hour formats. “With the exception of ‘Three Pines,’ we are doing half-hours and that’s because they help quickly build our library. But, that is also one of the gaps in our programming,” Haynes said recently during a Content Canada session in Toronto. “A lot of our other territories are doing one-hours and crime dramas, so we don’t need to repeat that,” he continued. “We are aware of what’s coming out around the world and we try to each make something that would help our other territories.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor More investors are counting on the ability to count advertising dollars. Thompson Street Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Endicott Capital, an investment entity focused on information services, have made a strategic investment in MediaRadar, a tracker of advertising outlays. It is the latest transaction to have financial players gravitate to the discipline of measuring ad spending. Thompson will take a controlling stake in the business, though financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In an interview, Todd Krizelman, MediaRadar’s founder and CEO, indicated the investments would be utilized to create more products around such areas as retail media and social media, but also to help gain scale in the marketplace. As more media entities start to offer their own methodologies for being measured, Krizelman said, the marketplace is likely to seek a single third-party entity to examine spending. “That’s a missing puzzle piece, for sure,” he said.

Bulgaria has re-entered the International Film race for the 2023 Academy Awards with In the Heart of the Machine, directed by Martin Makariev.

David Bowie was honoured with a stone on Camden’s Music Walk Of Fame yesterday (September 22) – see footage and reaction below.The ceremony, originally set for September 15 before being delayed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, saw Bowie’s friends and collaborators unveil the stone and celebrate his life and legacy.Among those paying tribute and unveiling the stone was Spiders From Mars drummer Woody Woodmansey, who told Reuters: “It’s another landmark for his legacy basically music, the films, the videos, and everything he did for the culture.“He was just an amazing artist – 24/7 he was on the job and it always showed in the products. To be able to move through all the different characters and the musical genres that he did and pull it off, I don’t think anybody’s achieved that ever, [he was] one of a kind, unique.”Lee Bennett, the founder of the Walk Of Fame, said the release of new Bowie film Moonage Daydream was the “catalyst” for the series to “come back with David and unlock the rest of the schedule” after COVID-related delays to new stones being laid.“[There was] no one better to come back with,” he said.

Love Island's Tasha Ghouri and Andrew Le Page looked as loved-up as ever as they strutted the red carpet for David O. Russell's new film Amsterdam on Wednesday night.

Mother, the Bulgarian submission for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar race, has been deemed ineligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film’s director, Zornitsa Sophia, announced the decision on social media this week.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Live sports streaming service DAZN has acquired rights to broadcast the English Football Association (FA) Women’s Super League soccer matches and Women’s FA Cup for two seasons across multiple territories including in their key markets of Spain, Japan, and Italy. Under the deal DAZN will be offering live and on-demand access to at least two FA Women’s Super League matches per round, while multiple Women’s FA Cup games will instead be visible for free on DAZN’s UEFA Women’s Champions League YouTube channel for the next two seasons. Coverage of these matches will be available in Spain, Italy, and Japan, which are DAZN’s key markets, as well in as other European countries and territories including Albania; the Balkans; Bulgaria; Greece and Cyprus; Hungary; Malta; Romania; and Turkey.

Naman Ramachandran Prashant Nair, Sundance audience award winner for “Umrika,” and veteran producer Ronnie Screwvala (“Uri: The Surgical Strike”) are teaming up on series “The Support Group.” Nair serves as the director-showrunner on the multi-season series, which follows three characters from very different backgrounds who form an uneasy alliance to escape the consequences of an accidental killing. The series is produced by Screwvala’s RSVP in association with Sidharth Jain’s House of Talkies. While a streaming or broadcast partner has not been revealed yet, typically Screwvala prefers to develop content on his own steam and then negotiate with partners who buy into the show’s vision.

Addie Morfoot Contributor “In Her Hands,” a Netflix documentary produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, has won the 18th Camden Intl. Film Festival’s audience award. While the in-person component of the Maine-based festival ended on Sept.

Diane Garrett On Friday, during the 18th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival, organizers unveiled a Diane Weyermann Fellowship at Points North Institute.Weyermann, the former chief content officer at Participant and former director of the Sundance Institute’s documentary film program, died last October of cancer.

The list of which Canadian officials will be attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London, U.K., on Monday is now clear.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The “Yellowstone” prequel series “1923” at Paramount+ has added Brandon Sklenar to the cast, Variety has learned. Sklenar is the latest addition the cast of the series, joining previously announced cast members Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as well as Darren Mann, Michelle Randolph, James Badge Dale, Marley Shelton, Brian Geraghty, Aminah Nieves, and Julia Schlaepfer. Per the official description of the series, it will “introduce a new generation of the Dutton family and explore the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition, and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.”

Production on the 16th season of “Heartland” is currently underway in Alberta, and ET Canada has exclusive first-look photos from the upcoming season of the longest-running one-hour drama in Canadian TV history.

Manic Street Preachers and Suede have announced a co-headline US and Canadian tour. Check out the dates and ticket details below, as Manics’ frontman James Dean Bradfield tells NME about their history with the band and other recent activity.Come November, the Manics and Suede (known in the US as The London Suede due to copyright reasons) will be both be hitting the road once again – recreating the line-up of a European tour they did together back in 1993.“I can’t think of a band I’d rather share a stage with than Manic Street Preachers,” said Suede frontman Brett Anderson.

Canadian distributor Sphere Film has signed a multi-picture deal with A24 under which it will handle the release of nine of its titles in Canada.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Bleecker Street has signed an exclusive output deal with Canadian distributor LevelFilm. The partnership will see LevelFilm handle the Canadian distribution to Bleecker Street’s films where they control the North American or worldwide rights. The first movie that will be released under the new joint venture is Catherine Hardwicke’s action comedy “Mafia Mamma,” which stars Toni Collette and Monica Belucci. The film is set for a nationwide release in 2023. Bleecker Street’s Kent Sanderson negotiated the output agreement with Avy Eschenasy, while John Bain and Dave Hudakoc negotiated on behalf of LevelFilm.

U.S. indie distribution stalwart Bleecker Street has announced an exclusive output deal with Canadian distributor, levelFILM as it heads into a busy Toronto International Film Festival.