ESPN Films Nabs Lacrosse Doc ‘Fate of a Sport’ From Tribeca (EXCLUSIVE)

Disney+ has teamed with Beta Film and Morena Films on an adaptation of young adult mystery novel franchise The Invisible Girl from leading YA author Blue Jeans.

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.

K.J. Yossman President of Heyday Television Tom Winchester has departed the company to set up his own production outfit, Pure Fiction Television.See-Saw Films (“Power of the Dog”) and talent agency Hamilton Hodell have minority stakes in the new company.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterTaylor Sheridan is stepping in as showrunner on his Paramount+ series “Lioness,” Variety has learned exclusively.Thomas Brady (“NOS4A2,” “Hell on Wheels”) was originally attached as showrunner and was present throughout the show’s writers’ room. But once the writers’ room wrapped, sources say creative differences led to the producers and Brady agreeing to part ways. Production on the show is slated to begin in September.Sheridan created “Lioness” under his expansive overall deal with Paramount.

The film was acclaimed for its rich visual style of sensual cinematography that never feels vulgar or exploitative of the couple in question. It can be seen plainly in the trailer, which shows Hermes and Betta passionately kissing inside a pink bathroom filled with balloons, a parade of bodies in lingerie on a runway and one man even trying on a black g-string.

K.J. Yossman Director James Marsh is set to direct a new hybrid animated documentary feature for Submarine and Sandpaper Films.“Oasis, Saving the Baghdad Zoo” (working title), is a feature-length animated documentary partly based on “Babylon’s Ark,” the book about a year-long rescue mission of animals abandoned across Baghdad by Saddam Hussein and his son Uday.Billed as a 21st century Noah’s Ark, the film will show how a team of American soldiers, Iraqi zookeepers, and international volunteers tended to lions, camels, bears, exotic birds, monkeys, pigs and even an ocelot in the middle of a brutal war, risking their own lives in the process.

Game of Thrones’ Arya Stark likes the D — but that was apparently news to Maisie Williams when she was filming the final season of the series!

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,

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilms Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom”) has boarded “White Plastic Sky,” the animated feature debut of Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó, the duo behind the critically successful shorts “Les Conquerants” and “Leftover.” A dystopian eco-fantasy, “White Plastic Sky” is set in a near future, where the last humans live in an artificial dome with a very high price for survival: At the age of 50, they are implanted with a special seed turning them into a tree that will provide oxygen and food for the community. A young man, Stefan, supports this system until the day his wife Nora gives her life up for voluntary implantation.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMusic Box Films has acquired North American rights to “Rodeo,” the bold feature debut of Lola Quivoron which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes where it won the Coup de Cœur du Jury special prize. Produced by Charles Gillibert (“Annette”) at CG Cinema and represented by Les Films du Losange, “Rodeo” stars newcomer Julie Ledrue a Julia, a hot tempered and fiercely independent young woman who infiltrates an underground dirt bike community in France.After a chance meeting at an urban ‘Rodeo,’ Julia finds herself drawn into a clandestine and volatile clique and striving to prove herself to the ultra-masculine group, but is she is faced with a series of escalating demands that will make or break her place in the community.

This weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, Academy Award-winning documentarian Ross Kauffman (“Born Into Brothels”) debuts his newest documentary, “Of Medicine and Miracles,” to the world. The film tells parallel stories of an incredibly resilient child battling a rare form of leukemia and the researcher who pioneered her treatment.

“I come from a family of geniuses and criminals,” confesses inventor David Hanson. And it’s not at all apparent if Hanson is the former, or a less pernicious version of the latter.

The horrors of opioid addiction, greed, corporate interests, and the exploitation of the drug and patients are nothing new, and shows like “Dopesick” have done a great job of putting the epidemic in a great cultural, capitalistic and political context. But a new true-crime documentary, “American Pain” is showing one specific slice of the story that’s almost too unbelievable to believe.

Emilio Mayorga Two-time Oscar nominee Bill Plympton (“Your Face,”“Guard Dog”) has boarded the series “Guard Dog & Bill Plympton in Brazil,” directed by Brazilian animator Cesar Cabral.Cabral’s stop-motion “Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People” won best feature at the Quirino Awards last May.Currently in pre-production, “Guard Dog” follows the celebrated over-anxious or just neurotic yellow canine of te title alongside his creator Plympton. “The series’ general idea is to bring Guard Dog and his owner –in this case Plympton himself – to tour Brazilian cities and draw their tourist and artistic impressions of our country,” director Cabral told Variety.The Coala Filmes and Cup Filmes co-production is backed by Federal incentive body Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual (FSA).

Alexandre O. Philippe is no stranger to the film festival circuit.

Last year, Robert De Niro, co-founder of the Tribeca Festival, stated, “The Tribeca Film Festival was born out of our mission to bring people together in the aftermath of 9/11.” With that mission still leading the charge, the annual festival is returning to New York this week, June 8-19, to bring artists together and allow them a platform to grow their audience and their network. With films from 40 different countries, we believe the festival will do just that again this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight documentary De Humani Corporis Fabrica has sold to U.S. (Grasshopper Film and Gratitude), Australia & New Zealand (Madman) and Spain (Vitrine Filmes) for Paris-based sales firm Les Films Du Losange.

EXCLUSIVE: Gary Gilbert’s Gilbert Films, Mike Jackson and John Legend’s Get Lifted Film Co., and Harvey Mason Jr.’s Harvey Mason Media have set director Numa Perrier to helm The War and Treaty about the Nashville husband and wife vocal duo.