Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight Appoints Julien Rejl as Artistic Director

Still going strong — and laughing along the way. Matt James and Rachael Kirkconnell opened up exclusively to Us Weekly about their dynamic more than one year after meeting on season 25 of The Bachelor.

EXCLUSIVE: Samuel Goldwyn Films has closed a deal with Italian outfit Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment to acquire U.S. distribution rights to star-studded female-powered feature Tell It Like a Woman, whose filmmakers and actors include Taraji P. Henson, Jennifer Hudson, Pauletta Washington, Cara Delevingne, Catherine Hardwicke, Margherita Buy, Marcia Gay Harden, Eva Longoria, Leonor Varela, Jacqueline Fernandez, Anne Watanabe and Mipo O.

A young boy has tragically died after catching a stomach bug that made him constantly throw up in a popular holiday spot. The boy's dad is currently in hospital fighting for his life.

In a move that wasn’t unexpected, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ Board of Trustees has announced that Jacqueline Stewart will become the institution’s Director and President. She succeeds Bill Kramer, who last week officially assumed his duties as the new CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he takes over for departing CEO Dawn Hudson.

EXCLUSIVE: French film sales powerhouse Wild Bunch International (WBI) has unveiled a slew of deals on key titles on its 15-title Cannes 2022 slate.

Ground-breaking France-based British theater director Peter Brook, who revolutionized 20th-century theater, has died at the age of 97-years-old in Paris.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentPeter Brook, the British-born director who won Tonys and Emmys but is best known for his theater work ranging from Broadway’s “Marat/Sade” and “Irma La Douce” to experimental productions like “The Mahabarata,” has died. He was 97.Brook’s death was confirmed by his long-time publisher, and later the BBC, on Sunday.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAlbert Serra’s “Pacifiction” has lured major distributors around the world following its critically acclaimed world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Berlin-based Films Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom,” “Charlatan”) is representing the film in international markets.“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.

Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight has appointed former arthouse sales agent Julien Rejl as its new delegate general.

Sparring partners! While Hayden Christensen has proven handy with a lightsaber, he was decades out of practice before his Obi-Wan Kenobi return before his daughter, Briar Rose, helped him get his skills back into fighting form.

Film director Paul Haggis appeared in court in southern Italy on Wednesday amid a police investigation into a woman’s allegations he had sex with her without her consent over the course of two days. Haggis, 69, made no comment as he arrived with Italian attorney Michele Laforgia at the courthouse in Brindisi, a port town in Puglia, the region that forms the "heel" of southeastern Italy.There was no sign that members of his family who were in Italy at the time joined him.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentOne year after merging with the promotion org TV France International, Unifrance is preparing a series of strategic events in key markets across Europe, the U.S., China and Japan to fast-track the global distribution of local series and movies. The French film and TV advocacy banner will host trade shows bringing together French sales outfits and international distributors in Paris in January, Biarritz (Southwestern France) in September, as well as in Roma in April, Madrid in June, Berlin in November, New York in March and Yokohama in December.

The “love bubble” lives on! Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice and her fiancé, Luis Ruelas, celebrated their new home together with an elaborate party — and a little bit of drama.

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Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning director behind the 2004 crime-drama has been arrested in Italy on sexual assault charges. According to reports from both Italian media and a statement from public prosecutors in Southern Italy, Haggis was detained in Ostuni on charges of sexual assault and aggravated personal injury. An unnamed woman has accused the director of forcing her to engage in sexual intercourse over a two-day period.

Italian authorities have detained Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Paul Haggis for investigation of allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in southern Italy, according to the Associated Press, quoting Italian news media via local prosecutors.

Emiliano De Pablos Suggesting an appreciable recovery in the dynamism of international film markets, Madrid-based Latido Films has unveiled a raft of deals on its Cannes line-up, led by standout sales for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Cannes Premiere player “The Beasts.” The Spain-set rural thriller was acquired by Movies Inspired in Italy and Imagine in Benelux. Co-produced by Spain’s Arcadia Motion Pictures and Sorogoyen’s Caballo Films with France’s Le Pacte, “The Beasts” has also been taken by Kino Mediteran in former Yugoslavia territories and Transilvania Film in Romania.Meanwhile, fruit of Latido’s strengthening of its remake rights sales strategies, the company has optioned Mexican movie adaptation rights on Nicolás Postiglione’s drama “Immersion” to Paloma Negra Films and Whisky, as a French redo of Gastón Duprat’s Spanish-Argentine drama “Masterpiece” is moving into production.  Also, Latido is in advanced negotiations on further remake rights deals in France, Italy and Mexico, among other territories.“Our sales expectations are beginning to approach pre-pandemic levels,” said Antonio Saura, Latido Films managing director.“We saw a market with multiple signs of dynamism but, at the same time, we feel that less and less risks are being taken,” argued Juan Torres, head of international sales. “Projects with a commercial vocation today attract the attention of many buyers more quickly,” he explained. “On the other hand, films that are more fragile from a commercial point of view but which previously managed to find acceptance in various territories today seem destined more than ever for festivals or minor online exhibition,” he added.Regarding signs of dynamism, Saura points out, “we see that independent distributors,