Film Distributor Kino Lorber Launches Kino Film Collection Streaming Service

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Green Border,” Agnieszka Holland’s Venice Special Jury Prize-winning refugee drama, has been acquired by Kino Lorber in the U.S. (“Scrapper”) and Modern Films in the U.K. (“Drive My Car”).

Disney+ has dropped a teaser trailer for BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, an eight-part documentary series about the global K-pop superstars, as well as announcing a launch date of December 20. 

EXCLUSIVE: In a matter of hours, the latest feature from MTV Documentary Films will premiere on Paramount+: A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: OMOIYARI.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Even Meghan Markle can’t fathom what has made her old USA Network drama “Suits” pop off on streaming services this year, but she’s here for it. While walking the red carpet at Variety’s Power of Women event Thursday, Markle, The Duchess of Sussex, was informed by Variety’s senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson that the legal drama has now crossed 45 billion minutes streamed on Netflix and Peacock combined, as of Nielsen’s latest weekly streaming report, released earlier Thursday.

Valerie Wu Intern Former the CW network co-head John Maatta has launched a litigation-only law firm, Frost LLP, with litigator Christopher Frost and trial lawyer Josh Stambaugh. In addition to serving as co-head of the CW, Maatta has also served as COO and general counsel for the WB network, as well as the former CEO of Wizard World Entertainment.

All hail, The Fall Of The House Of Usher.

EXCLUSIVE: The Jackson Hole International Film Festival will debut December 8 to 10 in Jackson, WY, via a new partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Zeitgeist Films, in association with Kino Lorber, has acquired North American rights to filmmaker and art critic Amei Wallach’s Taking Venice, a doc that explores the rumored rigging of the 1964 Venice Biennale.

The 2023 edition of Deadline’s live-music event Sound & Screen: Film hit the stage November 9 showcasing the songs and scores from 12 of the ramping-up awards season’s buzziest movies. Panelists and performances came from the likes of Diane Warren and Mark Ronson and from movies as varied as Barbie and Creed III to Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon. The packed crowd of industry voters saw a 60-piece orchestra perform the music live.

Holly Jones West Hollywood-based indie distribution outfit Indican Pictures (“Gossamer Folds”) has secured North American rights for Santiago Fillol’s political thriller “Matadero” (“Slaughterhouse”). The debut fiction feature from the Argentine director saw its world premiere in competition at Locarno in 2022, with further festival bows at Mar Del Plata and Seville before December theatrical runs in Argentina and Spain via Cinetren and Begin Again Films, respectively.

Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters, Netflix series Barbarians) is set to direct the thriller Ice Fall, produced by Arclight Films and Addam Bramich.

Ellise Shafer Cineflix Media, a leading independent producer and distributor, is expanding its operations by opening a Vancouver branch of Cineflix Studios run by industry veteran Mark Miller. The Vancouver office will “focus on producing and co-producing scripted series, movies, and factual content for North American and international streamers and broadcasters,” according to a press release.

Kino Lorber has launched a new subscription streaming outlet, Kino Film Collection.

This year’s Tokyo Film Festival closes this evening with the world premiere of Godzilla Minus One, the latest edition in Toho’s monster franchise, directed by filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki. 

EXCLUSIVE: James McAvoy (X-Men franchise), Lucas Bravo (Emily In Paris), Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale) and Almudena Amor (The Good Boss) have been set for thriller Turn Up The Sun! which has begun production in the UK under an Equity PACT agreement.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical has taken North American distribution rights for James Rowe’s crime thriller Breakwater starring Dermot Mulroney, Darren Mann and Mena Suvari as Film Mode Entertainment kicks off sales at the AFM.

EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution announced they have completed production on the military action/science fiction film Agent Recon, featuring legendary martial arts expert and action hero Chuck Norris (Expendables 2, Walker Texas Ranger), and will launch sales at the American Film Market (AFM) with Millennium Media selling foreign territories. Sci-fi icon Marc Singer (Beastmaster, V) and Hong Kong’s new action vanguard Derek Ting (Agent Revelation), who also writes and directs, unite with Norris to tackle two kinetic genres. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent 2023’s American Film Market may be shaping up for “a rather quiet year,” says Martin Moszkowicz, chairman of the executive board at Germany’s Constantin Film. That said, Moszkowicz will stay in Los Angeles for around 10 days. “We have so much business there – and much of it is not related directly to the market,” he says.

Kim Kardashian‘s underwear company SKIMS has launched men’s products and now the brand has been named the official underwear partner of the NBA, the WNBA, and USA Basketball.

Neon is launching sales this week at AFM to the It Follows sequel, They Follow. Filmmaker David Robert Mitchell is back to helm and write, with Maika Monroe reprising her role as Jay Height.