Catalyst Studios Launches With Female-Fronted Film Slate, Highland To Handle Sales

Fremantle’s Fiction Valley Ties With ‘Dirty Lines’ Creator Pieter Bart Korthuis

Shakira is a better dancer than Jimmy Fallon, but it’s still fun to see them battle it out. The Colombian singer stopped by The Tonight Show this week to talk about her new job as a judge on the upcoming NBC series, Dancing with Myself.

Buenos Aires is set to offer Argentina’s first incentive for international shoots, a 20% cash rebate on productions’ expenditure in the Argentine capital.Capped at Pesos 75 million ($600,000) per title, the BA Cash Rebate requires a minimum spend of Pesos 80 million ($680,000) and an at least four-day shoot in Buenos Aires.Whether shooting totally or partially in the city, both co-productions and totally foreign titles are eligible for incentives. Reimbursement must be made via an Argentine co-producer or service company on a totally overseas shoot.

Carole Horst John Woo’s “Silent Night” recently wrapped principal photography in Mexico City. The film is the first U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: LeBron James may have lost an attorney, but gained a law firm in the end.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLeading Japanese indie studio Gaga Corporation is launching suspense thriller “#Manhole” next week at Cannes.Being directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi (“My Man,” “Sketches of Kaitan City”), from a screenplay by Okada Michitaka (“Masquerade Hotel”), the film depicts a promising young man, with everything going for him, who falls to the bottom of a deep manhole on the eve of his wedding. Trapped and imagining all sort of horrors, the prospective bridegroom uses his smartphone to reach out to friends, the police and social media. But his predicament becomes worse.

The Cherokee Nation Film Office recently partnered with Green Pastures Studio and SeriesFest to present the Season 8 Storytellers Initiative, specifically aimed at increasing Native representation within the television industry.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSince Cinecittà Studios was founded in 1937, the sprawling facilities have driven the golden age of Cinema Italiano.The famed city of cinema has also, albeit intermittently, been a magnet for international productions and endured wild fluctuations in the country’s political climate, before recently reemerging as a new frontier for the country’s film and TV industry.Located in the heart of the Mediterranean basin, a short ride from the center of Rome and its airports, Italy’s top production hub has to date, hosted more than 3,000 films that have earned 53 Oscars.During the period following World War II, the studios forged close ties to Hollywood, which helped the Italian industry gain its international standing. The myriad Italian pics made at the studios range from Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8½” (1963) to Nanni Moretti’s “Sogni D’Oro” (1981), Sergio Leone’s epic “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), Giuseppe Tornatore’s “The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean” (1998) Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo” (2008) and, more recently, his TV series “The New Pope” in 2019.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s iconic Cinecittà Studios turn 85 this year and it’s never looked so young.The famed facilities, which in their Hollywood-on-the-Tiber heyday hosted sword-and-sandals epics such as William Wyler’s “Ben-Hur” and were later home to Federico Fellini, are undergoing a major overhaul that now sees Europe’s largest LED wall situated on the lot near Fellini’s huge Studio 5.Known as Cinecittà’s T18 Virtual Production Stage, the 412-square-meter (4,434-sq.-ft.) semicircular screen made up of hundreds of high-def displays that serve as interactive backdrops for actors on a smart set, is one of more than a dozen state-of-the art soundstages being built there thanks to a multimillion-euro cash injection provided by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund. The revamp is being spearheaded by Nicola Maccanico, managing director of Italy’s Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, the state film entity that operates Rome’s expanding Cinecittà Studios.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentPresiding over the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, director Thierry Frémaux has assembled some serious Hollywood star power, world cinema auteurs amid indications that despite COVID, the film world is buzzing with anticipation for the films, the deals and most of all the glamour the fest brings.While Frémaux has been credited with expanding the horizons of the Cannes Film Festival since taking over the reins of its Official Selection in 2001, he’s also been praised for building relationships with American studios and filmmakers.This year, he’s lured them back in spite of the ongoing pandemic, with a lineup including James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” “My first red carpet was for ‘Moulin Rouge!’ with Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman in 2001 and it will be engraved in my memory forever,” says Fremaux. “I’m happy to reunite with Baz this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Schlesinger, who was previously President, Warner Bros Worldwide Television Distribution, has set up his own consultancy shingle.

K.J. Yossman Independent Entertainment have boarded M.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorCannes Critics’ Week film “The Woodcutter Story” has debuted its trailer. It’s the feature film directorial debut from Mikko Myllylahti, the writer of Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki.” The film is being sold by French sales outfit Totem Films.“The Woodcutter Story” centers on Pepe, a woodcutter in an idyllic small town in Finland.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Ralph Fiennes’ hit London stage production Four Quartets is getting a screen version directed by his sister Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema).

Manori Ravindran International EditorA new documentary about “The Power of the Dog” director Jane Campion has been picked up for sales by WestEnd Films and Cinephil.Directed by César Award-winning “Since Otar Left…” helmer Julie Bertuccelli, “Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman” is screening as part of the Cannes Classics line-up.The New Zealand director was the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, for “The Piano,” and this year won the best director Oscar for her Netflix western “The Power of the Dog.”  Bertuccelli’s documentary on the 68-year-old filmmaker, which spans 40 years, is described as “the portrait [Campion] deserves, in a film that is unapologetically subjective and offbeat, very much mirroring [Campion’s] own trailblazing journey in cinema and life.” The film is produced by Academy Award nominee Estelle Fialon (“The Gatekeepers,” “Flickering Ghosts of Loves Gone By”), and crew members include editors Laure Gardette (“Capernaum,” “Polisse”) and Svetlana Vaynblat (“Flickering Ghosts of Loves Gone By”), as well as César Award-winning sound editor and mixer Olivier Goinard (“Adolescentes,” “Le Chant du Loup”).“Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman” is produced by Les Films du Poisson, which had three films in Cannes in 2021. The outfit recently produced the French remake of Hagai Levi’s “In Treatment,” with showrunners Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, which became French broadcaster ARTE’s most watched broadcast with more than 60 million viewers.Bertuccelli said of her documentary: “Jane is the director for whom I have the most admiration and with whom I feel a genuine connection.

Father John Misty delivered a live rendition of ‘Kiss Me (I Loved You)’ on US TV last night (May 3). Check out the video below.The singer-songwriter – aka Joshua Tillman – appeared as the musical guest on the latest episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in support of his fifth album ‘Chloë And The Next 20th Century’, which came out last month.Having recently shared its David Raboy-directed video, FJM played ‘Kiss Me…’ in Fallon’s New York City studio with the help of a small orchestra.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentUrban Sales has nabbed world rights to “Hug Me – The Movie,” an English-language animated feature directed by Anna Błaszczyk. The pre-school movie is produced by Animoon, the Polish company behind “Even Mice belong in Heaven.”Urban Sales, the Paris-based banner previously known as Urban Distribution International, will host the market premiere of the movie at Cannes’ Marché du Film.An eco-friendly tale, “Hug Me” follows the adventures of a bear cub and his papa bear as they search for honey to prepare a birthday cake for the little one.