Escape the hustle and bustle in Marrakech with a visit to Le Jardin Majorelle

Manchester United and Chelsea are reportedly battling it out to sign RB Leipzig centre-back Castello Lukeba.

EXCLUSIVE: June Zero, the latest from writer-director Jake Paltrow (Young Ones, The Good Night, De Palma) and producers Oren Moverman (The Messenger, Bad Education), Miranda Bailey (Swiss Army Man, The Diary of a Teenage Girl) and David Silber (Incitement, Junction 48), is set for theatrical release in New York on June 28, Los Angeles July 5 and nationwide July 12 by Cohen Media Group.

Lise Pedersen In an exclusive interview with Variety after picking up the top industry prize at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel, Franco-Iranian director Mehran Tamadon outlined the intention of his upcoming feature documentary “The Last Days of the Hospital.” Set against the backdrop of France’s public health crisis and shortage of personnel, the film will show patients from a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Paris taking charge of their own ward. Tamadon has been running film workshops with the patients at the hospital for the past eight years, and decided it was time to make a film to denounce what he describes as “the ultra-liberal policy which plans the death of the public hospital.” “French public hospitals are not doing well, nurses and caregivers are leaving because they are mistreated and poorly paid.

A popular bar in the Northern Quarter has closed down without warning after signs were put up outside the venue informing customers it has ‘ceased trading’.

Lise Pedersen Two new cash prizes introduced this year in Swiss film festival Visions du Reel’s industry section, VdR-Industry, were among a flurry of awards handed out as the program wrapped in Nyon, Switzerland, on Wednesday. The Eurimages Co-production Development Award, created to promote the fund’s role in encouraging international co-production from the initial stages of a project, and which comes with a cash prize of €20,000 ($22,000), went to “The Last Days of the Hospital” by Mehran Tamadon (“My Worst Enemy,” “Bassidji”).

Jon Cunliffe's line of work has taken him worlds away from his birthplace of Bury.

Cannes parallel section Acid, run by France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (ACID), has unveiled its 2024 line-up. (scroll down for full list)

When the late, legendary filmmaker William Friedkin called Kiefer Sutherland to gauge his interest in playing the lead in the Showtime and Paramount+ film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the actor hung up almost immediately. But not because he wasn’t interested in working with the director he’d long revered, Sutherland explained. “I thought it was one of my friends making a joke.”

Studiocanal’s The Copyrights Group Bolsters Exec Team

Alex Ritman Rwandan actress Eliane Umuhire (“Augure by Baloji,” “My New Friends”), French producer Sylvie Pialat (“Timbuktu,” “Staying Vertical”), Belgian cinematographer Virginie Surdej (“The Blue Caftan,” “Our Mothers,” “Casablanca Beats”) and Canadian film critic, journalist and frequent Variety contributor Ben Croll have been named on the jury for the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival. The four will now join Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who last week was named Critics’ Week jury president, with the group set to choose the sidebar competition’s award winners, including the Grand Prize for best feature film, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star award for best actor or actress and the Leitz Ciné Discovery Prize for best short film.

Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Oh are stepping out for the premiere of their new HBO series!

THE BOYZ have announced their upcoming 2024 ‘Zeneration II’ world tour, featuring concerts in Asia, the US, Europe and more.Today (April 8), THE BOYZ announced the first batch of dates for their upcoming 2024 ‘Zeneration II’ world tour. The trek will follow their 2023 ‘Zeneration’ world tour, which had featured 24 dates in Asia.‘Zeneration II’ will kick-off in July with a three-date show in South, South Korea, before the boyband head to the US for a solo tour the first time since 2022.

The Challenge: All Stars is nearly here!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oscar-winning Japanese animation film “The Boy and the Heron” earned a chart-topping $34.9 million between Friday and Sunday at the mainland China box office. Over its full five-day opening run, it took an even more spectacular $73 million. China was the last major territory to play the Studio Ghibli-produced fantasy in cinemas – it released in its native Japan in July and is imminently headed to streaming in many other territories – but that did not stop Chinese audiences from lapping it up. While most films release in China on a Friday, “The Boy and the Heron” was given a Wednesday outing in order to capture momentum from the Thursday-to-Saturday Qingming public holiday. Consultancy firm Artisan reports that it earned RMB248 million ($34.9 million) over the conventional Friday-to-Sunday weekend.

EXCLUSIVE: In Playing Nice James Norton stars as Pete, a doting dad who finds out his son was switched at birth, giving him a different kind of hero to portray. “He’s a kind of small hero,” Norton told Deadline. “Unlike most of the characters I’ve played, he’s very likable, very amenable and recognizable. There’s a simplicity to him, which I hadn’t really played before, and a likability and quietness that made him feel very real.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Talpa Studios, the company founded by “The Voice” and “Big Brother” creator John de Mol, has closed further territory sales for quiz-show format “The Floor.” Variety can also reveal that the show has been named by research organization K7 Media as the “Format to Watch” in its “Tracking the Giants” format sales report, which was released Saturday at MipFormats. The recognition is based on the show’s territory sales. K7 said: “’The Floor’ is the best-selling format in 2023 and early 2024 among all the unscripted formats that were newly created in 2023.

Ringo Starr, Sheila E. made history as the first female solo percussionist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Sheila Cecelia Escovedo, most popularly known by her stage name, Sheila E., came from humble beginnings. She was born into a musical family in Oakland, California, and was the first child born to her French Creole mother, Juanita Gardere, and her father, Pete Escovedo, the legendary Mexican-American jazz percussionist.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In an acquisition which underscores the often shared sensibility between Canal+, France’s biggest pay TV operator, and Movistar Plus+, the largest Spanish pay TV player, Canal+ has acquired Canneseries winner “The Left-Handed Son” (“El hijo zurdo”), a Movistar Plus+ original series. The series will bow on Canal+ on April 5 in a deal brokered by Movistar Plus+ International. A psychological thriller with a lyrical undertow which surfaces to moving effect in key scenes, “The Left-Handed Son” marks the auspicious directorial debut of Rafael Cobos, the career-long co-scribe of Alberto Rodríguez, from 2005’s “7 Virgins” through international hit “Marshland” to 2017’s “The Plague,” still one of the biggest series which Movistar Plus+ has ever made.

EXCLUSIVE: Top Belgian distribution and production company Belga Films Group is teaming up with French director Cédric Nicolas-Troyan on an English-language, live action adaptation of the iconic, European comic book The Yellow M.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Hulu‘s new reality show about the drama-ridden Vanderpumps is finally here.