Chile’s Quijote Films Reteams with El Viaje and Gema Films (EXCLUSIVE)

Proud fiancee Gemma Atkinson revealed her man Gorlaka Marquez drove through the night to get home to his family while on his current tour. The Strictly Come Dancing professional, 32, is touring with his co-star Karen Hauer with their show Firedance.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Driving ever more into Latin America, Wild Sheep Content, the L.A.-based label of former Netflix head of international original series Erik Barmack, has launched the Mexico City-based Wild Sheep Latin America as well as a dedicated film completion finance-distribution fund targeting five-to-eight investments a year in the region.  “Three Idiots” producer Jimena Rodríguez, who also created the distribution arm of Mexican exhibition giant Cinepolis, will head up Wild Sheep Latin America following on her production with Barmack of a burgeoning line in star-studded, character-driven crime thrillers begun by Netflix Mexico original “Invitation to Murder.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America. Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mk2 films has enlisted leading distributors around the world for “Reality,” Tina Satter’s feature debut starring Sydney Sweeney, on the heels of its buzzy world premiere at the Berlinale. The movie, which bowed in the Panorama section, stars Sweeney (“White Lotus,” “Euphoria”) as Reality Winner, a 25 year-old whistleblower who spent five years in prison during the Trump administration. A former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator, Winner was convicted for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media. The film is based on Satter’s 2019 stage play “Is This a Room” and contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of a FBI audio recording. “Reality” captures the tense and surreal 90 minutes of FBI’s interrogation with Winner at her home in 2017.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sideshow and Janus Films have bought North American rights for “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Paul B. Preciado’s film which won four awards at the Berlinale. In “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Preciado sheds light on Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando,” the first novel in which the main character changes sex in the middle of the story.  A century later, Preciado, who is a trans writer and activist, decides to send a film letter to Woolf, telling her that Orlando has come out of her fiction and is living a life she could have never imagined. Preciado organizes a casting and gathers 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, from 8 to 70 years old, who embody Orlando.

Gemma Atkinson has jokingly said 'sorry' to her fiancé Gorka Marquez after making an observation about their daughter as she prepares to become a big sister. The Hits Radio host and her Strictly Come Dancing star beau announced back in January that they were expecting their second child together.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for German director Christian Petzold’s new film Afire, following its award-winning world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to the Berlin-premiering family drama “Tótem,” written and directed by “The Chambermaid” helmer Lila Avilés. Winner of the festival’s Ecumenical Jury Prize, the film follows seven-year-old Sol, who spends the day at her grandfather’s home, helping her aunts Nuri and Alejandra with the preparations for a surprise party they’re throwing for her father, Tonatiuh, who is terminally ill. However, as night descends, a strange and chaotic atmosphere takes over, shattering the bonds that hold the family together, and Sol will come to understand that her world will change dramatically.

Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art have set Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Sundance Special Jury Award winner Mutt, both debut features, as opening and closing film at the 52st edition of their collaboration, New Directors/New Films, running March 29–April 9 in NYC.

Callum McLennan Laura Ferrés’ “The Permanent Picture” has been acquired by Be For Films. The deal is announced a fortnight before the film screens at Malaga WIP where it ranks as the most buzzed of the section’s titles.  The debut follows Ferrés success with short “The Disinherited,” which won the 2017 Cannes Critics’ Week Leica Cine Discovery Prize, in addition to grabbing Goya and Gaudi gongs. It depicts the director’s own father reluctantly facing the end of the family business. “The Permanent Picture” is produced by Spain’s Fasten Films, in co-production with Le Bureau (France), and Volta Production (Spain).

Aamu Film Company will invest in Jenni Jauri’s new production company Silmu Films, Variety has found out exclusively. Aamu, founded in 2001 and co-owned by Jussi Rantamäki and Emilia Haukka, has become a local arthouse powerhouse thanks to its festival-friendly slate, especially Juho Kuosmanen’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki” and Golden Globe-nominated “Compartment No. 6,” awarded the Grand Prix in Cannes. “We had a good film with decent sales and we started to think about what we should do next,” Rantamäki said. “Aamu’s brand is simple and clear: we only work with a select few directors. We don’t want to change that; we don’t want to turn into a factory where you don’t know what is happening and with whom. So first we decided not to grow, and then realized we could invest in a new company instead.”

Prime Video has secured the return of Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin), Chloe Coleman (Avatar: The Way of Water), Kristen Schaal (What We Do in the Shadows), Ken Jeong (The Afterparty) and others for their My Spy sequel, My Spy: The Eternal City. Among the new additions to the ensemble in the second installment are Anna Faris (Mom), Craig Robinson (The Office) and Flula Borg (Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin).

Anna Marie de la Fuente Mexico’s Yalitza Aparicio, Oscar nominated for her career-launching turn in Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” and Infinity Hill, producers of the Oscar-nominated Argentine drama “Argentina 1985,” have boarded sweatshop thriller “Bonded” as executive producers. The drama features a stellar cast that includes Golden Globe nominee Diego Calva (“Babylon”), Chile’s Alfredo Castro (“From Afar”), Mexico’s Paulina Gaitán (“Narcos”) and Jason Patric (“The Lost Boys”). The directorial feature debut of helmer-scribe Mohit Ramchandani, “Bonded” is produced by Mexican filmmaker Luis Mandoki (“Innocent Voices), Jon Graham (“The Vault”) and Kyle Stroud (“In Full Bloom”).

K.J. Yossman S.N.A.P. Films have unveiled their new development slate, including a film and true crime limited series about the first female mob boss Bessie Starkman. The Canadian production company, founded by Sergio Navarretta and Alessandra Piccione, has also secured Dr. Bernie Siegel’s life rights with a view to working on a documentary and feature film about what they describe as “America’s most controversial doctor in the field of mind-body healing and patient empowerment” as well as optioning the rights to the book “Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada’s Most Notorious Bootlegger” by Antonio Nicaso, which they are also planning to adapt as a feature.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In what marks a first for Chile’s Storyboard Media, Baremo Films of Mexico has boarded its psychological thriller “Quizas es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras” (“Maybe It’s True What They’re Saying About Us”), which has been shooting in Santiago since Feb. 1 and will wrap later this month.  Written and directed by Sofía Gomez (“Trastornos del sueño”) and Camilo Becerra (“Perro muerto”), the co-production also involves Chile’s La Jauria Cine as well as Argentina’s Murillo Cine and HDArgentina. “We’re delighted to have our first co-production with Mexico, which is such an important market, given its relevance in terms of promotion and visibility in our region,” said Storyboard Media’s Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Núñez.

Marta Balaga Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool will adapt one of the most successful German-language podcasts, “Zeit Crime” (“Zeit Verbrechen”) into an anthology series for Paramount +. Awarded the German Podcast Prize, “Zeit Crime” is based on the criminal investigations of Sabine Rückert and Andreas Sentker. According to producer Jorgo Narjes, it currently boasts 5 million streams per month and an average of 1.5 million listeners per episode, “most of them female and in their late twenties.” So far, the podcast consists of more than 100 episodes.  Filming started this month and will continue until the end of June 2023.

Liza Foreman German production outfit MMC Studios (“Amelie”) is backing romanic drama “Dear Eszter,” from writer/director Alex Balassa. Bastian Griese and Lucas Hamacher will produce the film for MMC Studios in Cologne, alongside Balassa. The film’s co-producers include Peter Seres (“World War Z”) at Hungary’s Punk Films, as well as Ondrej Beranek (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) from the Czech Republic’s Blindspot Capital.  Two of Chile’s foremost TV producers, Maria Elena Wood (“Locas Mujeres”) and Patricio Pereira from Maria Wood Producciones (MEW), serve as executive producers. 

Pablo Sandoval “Los pequeños amores,” the latest film from Celia Rico who made a splash at the 2018 San Sebastian Festival with “Journey to a Mother’s Room,” has been acquired for international sales by Spain-based Latido Films. Produced by Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures, which co-produced Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s 2023 Goya winner and box office breakout “The Beasts, and France’s Noodles Production (“One Year, One Night”), Rico’s second feature is set in a bucolic countryside. It weighs in as a mother-daughter two-hander sparked after strongly independent mother Ani falls over walking the dog and is forced to use a wheelchair to get around. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Uncork’d Entertainment has acquired the North American rights for suspense sci-fi thriller “I’ll Be Watching” from Iuvit Media Sales at the European Film Market in Berlin. The film has also been picked up by Falcon Films in the Middle East and North Africa, while Dolphin Medien has taken German-speaking territory rights. The film is directed by Erik Bernard (“Free Dead or Alive”), and stars “The 100” stars Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley, along with Bryan Batt (“12 Years a Slave”), David Keith (“An Officer and a Gentleman”), Hannah Fierman (“VHS”), and Seth Michaels (“Red Notice”).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor 101 Films Intl. has secured worldwide distribution rights for World War II adventure film “War Blade,” starring Joseph Millson (“Casino Royale,” “The Last Kingdom”), Paul Marlon (“Trigger Point”), Michael McKell (“Murder Investigation Team,” “Doctors”) and Rebecca Scott (“The Capture,” “Transhuman”). The sales company is presenting the film to buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin. The film was written and directed by Nicholas Winter (“Robin Hood: The Rebellion,” “Breathe,” “Bone Breaker”). “War Blade” follows Robert Banks, an agent of the British Special Operations Executive, who is tasked with rescuing a French resistance fighter from a hidden Nazi bunker. With the help of a German nurse and a ragtag group of allies, Banks must journey to the belly of the beast.