Brazil Supersizes Film, TV Funding, Unveils New Sao Paulo Rebate (EXCLUSIVE)

Dierks Bentley!The country music superstar — who is gearing up to hit the road for his tour — tells ET that he's been asked if he wants to cross over into the world of acting on TV or reality competition, but decided that he's cool with staying in his lane.«I don't think I'd be good enough to doing those things,» the «Drunk on a Plane» singer tells ET's Rachel Smith. «It requires, like, more time away from home and I just, I don't want to. I had a chance to audition for Larry David and I decided not to do it.

With a flurry of fresh starts, including a new fiancé, Jana Kramer is literally stepping into her next life chapter.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is feeling brand new with the perfect ‘do. The actress served up major hair inspiration with a fresh haircut. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Brazil’s on fire, and rapidly putting into place the policies that will rebuild its film and TV industries, which look set to transform it into the film-TV powerhouse of Latin America. That cuts several ways.  Under Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian president over 2019-2022, ApexBrasil, the Brazilian Trade and Investment Agency, saw its funding for Brazil’s audiovisual sector almost entirely nixed. Often working together, promotion agency Cinema do Brasil, backed by Audiovisual Industry Syndicate of the State of São Paulo (SIESP), Projeto Paradiso, a philanthropic org focusing on new talent and project development, and SP Cine, the energetic São Paulo City film commission, did an extraordinary job to support and promote Brazilian filmmakers and companies’ presence at festivals, drawing on highly contained resources.

Night in the Woods co-creators Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson have announced their game Revenant Hill.Revenant Hill is the first project from Hockenberry and Benson’s new studio The Glory Society and was unveiled during the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase last night (May 24).The game is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and looks quite similar to 2017’s Night in the Woods while the game’s cat protagonist — Twigs — also looks a lot like Mae. The announcement trailer can be viewed below:A new PlayStation blog post offers more details, including a plot description.“The year is 1919.

Charna Flam Subject Matter, the nonprofit organization that supports social issue documentary films and other nonprofits, announced that its second annual round of grantees have been awarded a total of $100,000. Subject Matter and Tribeca Festival unveiled that Tribeca’s Documentary Film Program’s “Breaking the News” and “Every Body” have both been awarded $25,000 grants. The documentaries’ corresponding nonprofits, The 19th* nonprofit with “Breaking the News” and interACT nonprofit with “Every Body,” have also received $25,000 grants. Subject Matter will present “Breaking the News” and “Every Body” at the Tribeca Festival in an effort to raise awareness and support for the selected nonprofits.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent If São Paulo state were a country, its 47 million population would make it the third largest in South America: Only the rest of Brazil and Colombia are larger.  From the turn of the century, it has consolidated ever more as Brazil’s artistic powerhouse, growing to represent 50% of Brazil’s creative industries GDP, said Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy Marília Marton at Cannes Marché du Film.  Audiovisual production is in São Paulo’s DNA, she told Variety. “As some other sectors decline, creative industries have a large potential of returns, employment and a market future, so our idea is to grow and broaden the audiovisual market,” she explained. 

Netflix has been warning people for a long time that they were going to crack down on password sharing and the time has finally come.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Elevated genre has just been turbo charged by a new strategic alliance between Globalgate Entertainment and Morbido Group, the fast expanding horror conglomerate in Ibero-America. Co-founded in 2016 by former Pantelion Films CEO Paul Presburger, Globalgate Entertainment is a local-language film & TV production and co-financing consortium formed by Lionsgate and 14 other prominent international entertainment companies, including key players in major markets. The strategic partnership, dubbed MorbidoGate, aims to develop elevated genre content by generating and acquiring IP while fostering emerging talent in key markets worldwide.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Spain’s Revelations showcase has focused on shorts, not features, unveiling the huge breadth of animation talent and techniques in Spain. Some shorts directors are already stars, such as Alberto Mielgo with the Oscar-winner “The Windshield Wiper.” Diego Porral, director of “Leopoldo From the Bar,” served as animation lead on “Love, Death + Robots” episode “Kill Team Kill.” Standouts among new projects in Revelations included “Latente,” a Next Lab Generation winner from Carlos Zaragoza and Aurora Jiménez, and Martín Romero’s “To Bird or Not to Bird,” from Uniko and Abano Producións, which is a 2D short made largely in black and white featuring an angst-ridden clock cuckoo and other birds beset by environmental destruction.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rio de Janeiro city authorities are looking to increase Rio’s cash rebate for international shoots launched last October by city org RioFilme with a 35% deduction rate on expenditure and R$15 million ($3.0 million) in total funding.  “We have on the table a proposal to double that,” Marcelo Calero, Rio de Janeiro city secretary of culture told Variety at Cannes. That 100% hike would be subject to the “approval chain that we have to follow at the city hall,” he added. A decision may be made by June when RioFilme is set to issue the call for applications for a second year of the cash rebate. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor London- and Paris-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation is launching sales on the remake rights of Spanish thriller “Fatum.” Directed by Juan Gualinanes and produced by Vaca Films, the outfit behind box office successes “Sky High” and “Cell 211,” “Fatum” was released in Spain by Universal Studios on April 28. Film Constellation has already reported sales to 50 territories on the original Spanish version. A compulsive gambler and an elite sniper’s destinies meet on a fateful day when the local betting house gets robbed. When a single gunshot is fired, the next 24 hours will set them on a race against time that will define their lives forever.

K.J. Yossman Bitpix TV and Myco have partnered on a feature film development fund. Open to filmmakers worldwide, the fund, which was launched on Friday at Cannes, aims to support three films a year each with a budget of up to $2 million per feature. Bitpix TV is the official streaming arm of HollyShorts Film Festival while Myco is a decentralized content ecosystem. A number of short-form genre films will be showcased on Myco’s streaming platform where viewers can vote on their favorites, which will be selected for feature film development with the fund’s help. Among the package of help available is funding, consulting, mentorship, and production support from finance and production company Goldfinch.

Globo Filmes, the powerful film production arm of Brazil’s Globo, Latin America’s largest media company, has unveiled 11 new movie projects which join the biggest production slate of any company in Brazil. Directors of new titles, all co-productions, range from star auteur Gabriel Mascaró (“Divine Love,” “Neon Bull”), and celebrated doc director Eryk Rocha (“Cinema Novo,” “Edna”) to multi-prized actor Dira Paes, who broke out in John Boorman’s “The Emerald Forest.” Also in the cut is David Schurmann (“Little Secret”), who and Jean-Pierre Dutilleux whose 1976 “Raoni,” scored and was Oscar nomination and was championed by Marlon Brando. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor K5 Media Group has rebooted its international sales arm, K5 Intl., recruiting five industry veterans. It will sell and distribute eight to 10 new titles a year, across both film and TV. In its former incarnation, K5 Intl., which was founded by Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur, represented premium film titles like “ANON,” directed by Andrew Niccol and starring Amanda Seyfried and Clive Owen; Cannes competition title “Paterson,” directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Adam Driver; and Academy Award nominee “Land of Mine,” directed by Martin Zandvliet. K5 Intl. will be represented by its partners in Paris, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Berlin and Cologne.

Globo Filmes, the powerful film production arm of Brazil’s Globo, Latin America’s largest media company, has unveiled 11 new movie projects which join the biggest production slate of any company in Brazil. Directors of new titles, all co-productions, range from star auteur Gabriel Mascaró (“Divine Love,” “Neon Bull”), and celebrated doc director Eryk Rocha (“Cinema Novo,” “Edna”) to multi-prized actor Dira Paes, who broke out in John Boorman’s “The Emerald Forest.” Also in the cut is David Schurmann (“Little Secret”), who and Jean-Pierre Dutilleux whose 1976 “Raoni,” scored and was Oscar nomination and was championed by Marlon Brando. 

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “The Voice” has not been much concerned with current Broadway voices until now. That’ll change in a big way with this coming Monday’s episode, which will feature a show-stopping number from “Shucked” — marking the first time a song from a currently running Broadway show has been featured on the long-running singing competition series. The song is “Independently Owned,” a major nightly showcase for Tony nominee Alex Newell. It’s been cited as the rare example of an original Broadway musical having its first and possibly biggest standing-ovation number come in the middle of the first act… and it’s a testament to “Shucked” as a whole that the production doesn’t feel like it’s going downhill from that early barn-burner.

Love Island's Faye Winter has been branded "unreal" after she posted a new video to Instagram and showed off her new ponytail transformation.The 27 year old, who recently enjoyed a trip to Crete with her Love Island besties Liberty Poole, 23, Kaz Kamwi, 28, Sharon Gaffka, 27, and Abigail Rawlings, 28, looked sensational in the video, as she showed off a new ice blonde colour in her hair. In the video - which appears to have been taken in the corridors of a hotel - Faye could be seen staring sultrily at the camera and flashing numerous poses as she showed off her ponytail, which was positioned high up on her head and was styled into loose curls.

Jamie Genevieve has given her fans some insight into her new life as a mum a few days on from welcoming her little girl. Influencer and make-up artist Jamie, who boasts an impressive 1.4 million followers on Instagram, announced back in November that she was expecting her first child and has since given birth to her tiny bundle of joy. Sharing a snap of her little girl’s hand holding on to her and her partner Jack’s fingers, Jamie shared on Thursday, 11 May: “She’s here, and she’s perfect”.

Amber Dowling “Luxe Listings Sydney” is getting a Canadian edition. Production on new Canadian Amazon original docu-reality series “Luxe Listings Toronto” began on May 15. The series follows “one of the most cutthroat real estate markets on the planet,” highlighting the city’s multimillion-dollar listings along with some the country’s top real estate agents who move and shake the market. The first season features Brett Starke, founder of The Starke Group, and power couple Peter and Paige Torkan, founders of Team Torkan. In each episode the trio works for demanding clients to close their deals, all as the cameras capture these self-made experts going about their personal lives.