Cannes Competition Contender ‘Lingui, The Sacred Bonds’ Snapped Up by Mubi for North America, U.K. & More (EXCLUSIVE)

Chad Michael Murray like you’ve never seen him before. After starring on TV faves like and, the 39-year-old actor is channeling one of America’s most infamous serial killers in.

Shirley Halperin Executive Editor, MusicJenna Andrews, the hit songwriter and producer whose credits include BTS’ chart-topping “Butter” as well as “Dynamite” and “Permission to Dance,” has signed with Milk & Honey for management.

Christopher Vourlias Mubi, the London-based streamer and theatrical distributor that’s been on a buying spree this week in Cannes, has acquired the rights for North America, U.K., and a host of other territories for Kira Kovalenko’s “Unclenching the Fists,” which took home the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, Variety can reveal.Set in a former mining town in Russia’s North Ossetia region, “Unclenching the Fists” is the story of a young woman, played by Milana

Sony Pictures Classics said Thursday that it has acquired North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Middle East rights to Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6, the Finnish film that just had its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The deal was struck with Totem Films.

is set in the outskirts of N’Djamena in Chad, where Amina lives alone with her 15-year-old daughter Maria. Her already fragile world collapses the day she discovers that Maria is pregnant.

The dilemma of a poor 15-year-old girl seeking an abortion in an Islamic African country where the practice is both taboo and illegal is dramatized with understated compassion in Lingui, The Sacred Bonds.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAsghar Farhadi, an Oscar winner for “A Separation” and “The Salesman,” is in Cannes with “A Hero,” the Iranian auteur’s fourth film to world premiere in the festival’s competition after “The Past,” “The Salesman” and Spanish-language “Everybody Knows.”“A Hero,” which sees Farhadi returning to filmmaking in Iran, is about a man named Rahim who is in prison because of an unpaid debt.

EXCLUSIVE: Motion Picture Exchange (MPX) has sold North American distribution and NFT (non-fungible token) rights of Brian Baumgartner (The Office) music-comedy Electric Jesus to 1091 Pictures.

EXCLUSIVE: Streamer and theatrical distributor Mubi has closed its first on-the-ground Cannes business, signing a multi-territory deal for Sebastian Meise’s second feature Great Freedom, which premiered here in Un Certain Regard.

Christopher Vourlias Three years after his musical drama “Leto” bowed on the Croisette, Kirill Serebrennikov returns to Cannes’ main competition with “Petrov’s Flu,” a deadpan, hallucinatory romp through a post-Soviet Russia in the grips of a mysterious flu epidemic. The acclaimed director spoke to Variety about living with fear and making the most out of solitude.How did you get involved with “Petrov’s Flu”? I was hired to write the script.

CANNES, France -- Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, whose drama “Lingui” has been a standout of the first week of the Cannes Film Festival, has a unique relationship as a filmmaker to his native country of Chad.Haroun is one of the African nation's only film directors and easily its most prominent. That role — national cinematic spokesman — has given him a heavy responsibility.“If I don’t bring images from Chad, my country will be forgotten,” Haroun said in an interview.

Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie will be busy in Cannes with two films world premiering in Competition. It’s not a new phenomenon for onscreen talent to be supporting various movies, but Lie stands out as likely the only professional actor who will be heading to the Palais while taking time off from his other job as a full-time physician: the doctor has lately been working with the Covid-19 vaccination program in Oslo, and has for years straddled both callings.

Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds,” a slow burn from the Chadian filmmaker, operates through a deceptively simple premise: A single mother living on the modest outskirts of N’djamena, Chad watches her 15-year old daughter emotionally withdraw only to discover she’s pregnant. In a Muslim country where single motherhood is already frowned upon.

Christopher Vourlias Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun returns to the sun-scrubbed Sahel region of West Africa for his latest feature, “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” which competes for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.Set on the outskirts of the capital city of N’Djamena, “Lingui” is the story of a single mother, Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), whose already fragile world threatens to collapse when she learns that her daughter, Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio Brahim), is pregnant — a

Cannes Film Festival rolled out the red carpet for its third day with the premieres of 'Lingui', by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat Saleh Haroun, and the US film 'Stillwater' presented outside of the official competition.

Guy Lodge Film Critic“We are all brothers in Islam. Anyone with a problem can come to talk.” With these words, a local imam offers supposed comfort and counsel to troubled single mother Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), not considering that addressing her as his “brother” might not be the most welcoming invitation.

Surprising reception! Chad Michael Murray has wonderful memories from his time on Gilmore Girls — but he didn’t expect fans to share the same sentiment about his bad boy role.

Chad Michael Murray is looking back at one of his most iconic roles as Tristan on Gilmore Girls.