Finnish Fantasy ‘Yellow Sulphur Sky’ and Colombian Drama ‘The Rust’ Acquired By Feel Content Ahead of EFM

Finnish skier Remi Lindholm went viral this weekend after he revealed just how cold his body was during the Olympic men’s 50km mass start cross country skiing race.

Karol G just needs a tail to become a mermaid! The Colombian singer took to social media to share suggestive pictures of herself submerged in the ocean without a swimsuit. The “Mami” singer shared with her legion of followers how happy she was and took the opportunity to thank her fans for all the birthday wishes.“Photos of me in the sea, my favorite place.

Adriana Martínez Barrón, most recently VP of Film at Eva Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, has moved to CBS as Vice President, Drama Series Development.

Marta Balaga As the industry starts paying closer attention to Finnish films and talent – following the Cannes success of Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” and Zaida Bergroth’s crowd-pleasing “Tove” – Finnish TV drama is next in line, argued the participants of the Berlinale Series Market Focus on Finland drama showcase.

Jamie Lang AMC Networks’ genre-focused streaming platform Shudder has acquired the rights to horror maestro Gustavo Hernández’s “Virus: 32” in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.The deal was closed between Shudder and Pip Ngo from XYZ, CAA Media Finance and Juan Torres from Latido Films. Spanish sales powerhouse Latido is selling the film and has been showing it to buyers at this year’s European Film Market.A high-profile title to track since it was first unveiled at the virtual Cannes Market in 2020, “Virus: 32” stars Paula Silva (“In the Quarry”) and former Berlin Silver Bear winner Daniel Hendler (“Lost Embrace”) in a story about a rapidly spreading virus which transforms people into intelligent, ultra-violent, extra-fast zombie hunters.

Guy Lodge Film CriticIt’s been nearly seven years since the devastating November 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris that left 137 dead, and while the effects of the tragedy have been indirectly felt in a surge of French films centered on terrorism, security fears and cultural conflict, filmmakers have largely shied away from direct dramatizations of the events and their fallout. Isaki Lacuesta shows no such hesitation in his ambitious, windingly structured “One Year, One Night,” which provides an explicit anatomy of trauma as experienced over the course of a year by a Franco-Spanish couple who survived the Bataclan nightclub massacre — itself reconstructed in claustrophobic, stomach-knotting flashbacks.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at Oscar winner Penelope Cruz in Italian drama L’immensita, which is in post-production.

EXCLUSIVE: Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales has closed two significant deals on Omerta 6/12, a Finnish action thriller.

Emiliano De Pablos Media giant Mediaset has acquired Italian distribution rights to Spanish writer-director Benito Zambrano’s drama “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake,” produced and sold by Barcelona-based studio Filmax.News of the deal comes just before Filmax screens “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” to buyers at this year’s online European Film Market.Described as high-quality cinema for adults and predominantly female audiences, “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” adapts the novel of the same title by screenwriter and casting specialist Cristina Campos. It has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide.A member of  Spain’s generation of directors that broke out in the 1990s,  helping Spanish movies find far larger favor with audiences at home, Zambrano’s breakout debut, 1999’s “Alone,” won the Panorama Audience Award at Berlin.

Manori Ravindran International EditorA crowdpleaser that quickly became a word-of-mouth hit in Cannes, Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” follows Finnish academic Laura (Seidi Haarla) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Russian miner Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) on a train from Moscow to Murmansk, a city in northwestern Russia. The Finnish film, which has drawn parallels to the Before Sunrise trilogy, was quickly snapped up out of Cannes for major territories, including North America, by Sony Pictures Classics.

HanWay Films has closed several international deals on McCarthy, Václav Marhoul’s drama about the infamous U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, ahead of this month’s virtual European Film Market.

Annika Pham Versatile Finnish helmer A.J. Annila (“Sauna,” “Shadow Lines,” “Peacemaker”) is on board to direct the thriller series with a working title of “ID” which marks HBO Max’s first commission of a Finnish premium TV show.Set in the art fraud world, the six-part series is co-created by seasoned writer Aleksi Bardy (“Tom of Finland,” “Moscow Noir”) and Mia Ylönen (“Bad Apples,” “Moscow Noir”) for Finnish production powerhouse Helsinki-Filmi, a subsidiary of Finland’s Aurora Studios.“ID” revolves around art fraud investigator Emma who goes undercover to infiltrate an auction house in Stockholm in order to investigate the firm’s connection to a notorious money launderer known as Blanko.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharades (“Petrov’s Flu,””Diamantino”) has come on board “Hit Big”, a dark humor-laced crime film set in Spain and directed by critically acclaimed Finnish filmmaker, Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa (“They Have Escaped”). Currently in post, the film is being presented at the work-in-progress sidebar of Goteborg Festival’s Nordic Film Market.

Alissa Simon Film CriticHelsinki-based helmer-writer Aino Suni makes her feature debut with “Heartbeast,” a queer love story with a dark twist about a Finnish teen whose mother moves her to France. It world premieres in Nordic competition at this year’s Göteborg Festival.What inspired the story?Suni: The documentary “Never Again” I made about Finnish rapper Mercedes Bentso definitely gave me a lot of inspiration. Mercedes Bentso, one of my closest friends today, uses rap as a way to express even the darkest emotions, fears, wants and the most forbidden fantasies, as does Elina, the protagonist of “Heartbeast.”It’s personally important for me to tell stories about queer people.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“You’re a horse person?” a Belgian stable owner asks Johanna, a young Finnish journalist delving into the discovery of a microchip in a baby’s meat patty at a Helsinki daycare center. Only creator-director Auli Mantila’s own horse affiliations as a qualified farrier may explain in part one of the most singular of entries at this year’s Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize: “Transport.”This is Scandinavian crime drama, but “ordi-noir,” Mantila told the Nordisk Film & TV Fond newsletter, in that it “happens in broad daylight, involves people with no special talent or trauma, and takes place in locations anyone could just walk in.”It also addresses a massive but little explored subject, turning on pan-European food fraud which embroils three women: Marianne, a by-the-book bank loans exec forced to money launder earnings of a sinister food import company; an insurance investigator checking the disappearance of a border control veterinarian; and the indefatigable Johanna.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorWorld War II refugee drama “The Path” (Der Pfad) has debuted its international trailer (above) ahead of its market premiere at the European Film Market in Berlin. Warner will release the film theatrically in Germany, while Global Screen is handling international rights.“The Path,” directed by Tobias Wiemann, is based on Rüdiger Bertram’s novel and is inspired by true events.