‘Gamera,’ ‘Daimajin,’ ‘Zatoichi’ Titles on the Menu as Classic Cult Film Streamer Cultpix Feasts on Japanese Content at EFM (EXCLUSIVE)

TWICE took to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform new single ‘Set Me Free’ – check it out below:‘Set Me Free’ is the only song on ‘Ready To Be’ that has both Korean and English-language versions.TWICE’s appearance on Fallon saw the nine-piece band deliver slick choreography and glorious harmonies while the audience lost their minds.Check out the performance below:‘Ready To Be’ was released on Friday (March 10) and comes eight months after the release of TWICE’s last mini-album ‘Between 1&2’, which the group released after renewing their contracts with agency JYP Entertainment earlier in 2022.The launch of ‘Ready To Be’ was also marked by the release of a music video for ‘Set Me Free’.Following the release of ‘Ready To Be’, TWICE will debut their first-ever sub-unit comprising Japanese members Sana, Momo and Mina. Dubbed MISAMO, the trio will release their first original Japanese mini-album on July 26.Earlier this month, TWICE were named Billboard’s 2023 Women in Music Breakthrough act.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Asian premiere of Soi Cheang’s “Mad Fate” is just one of three locally-produced movies that have been set as the opening and closing titles of the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival. “Mad Fate” is joined in the festival opening slot on March 30 by “Elegies,” Ann Hui’s documentary portrayal of the topography of contemporary local poetry, which will have its world premiere. The closing film, another world premiere, is “Vital Sign,” an affecting drama directed by Cheuk Wan-chi and starring Louis Koo, Yau Hawk-sau, and Angela Yuen, which will wrap up proceedings on 10 April. In total, the festival has programmed some 200 films from 64 countries and territories. These include nine world premieres, six international premieres, and 67 Asian premieres.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery and Japan’s U-Next have announced an extension of their relationship with a renewed deal to supply content to the SVOD platform. The agreement sees U-Next continue as the streaming home of HBO in Japan. Featuring exclusive content rights for HBO, HBO Original and HBO Max Original series, the strengthened agreement includes: current and future seasons of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” and “Succession” as well as returning HBO Original and HBO Max Original series “True Detective: Night Country,” “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and “And Just Like That…”

Sparks have shared the title track for their new album ‘The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte’.The Los Angeles duo – comprising brothers Ron and Russell Mael – also announced that the song, which you can listen to below, will come with a video featuring actress Cate Blanchett at 5pm GMT tomorrow (March 3) here.They said via press release: “We met Cate Blanchett in Paris at the César Awards last year, little knowing that a year later, one of the great actors of our time (and a splendid person!) would graciously consent to lending her bootie-shaking skills to the first video from our new album, ‘The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte’. Dreams really do come true.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Films has closed a deal for U.S. rights to the Berlin Film Festival buzz competition title Reality. Directed by Tina Satter, the docudrama is a breakout turn for Sydney Sweeney as convicted classified document leaker Reality Winner. Sweeney stars in the hit HBO series Euphoria.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor To director Mira Fornay, there are no three things more important in life than trees, water and children. And with “She-Hero,” playing as part of the Generation strand at the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, the Slovakian filmmaker gathers all three in telling the story of Romy (Rozmarína Willems), a young girl who embarks on a grand forest adventure in search of her lost budgie, Mimi. Fornay, who won the Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam Tiger Award in 2013 with her sophomore feature “My Dog Killer,” did not originally set out to make a children’s film, but was fascinated by the natural charisma of Willems. “I already knew Romy and she is immensely photogenic, but I didn’t know if she could act as well. So I tried working with her back when she was six, and she was just amazing. When COVID hit, I realized I had to shoot quickly otherwise she would grow. This is why I wrote a story for her.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlinale competition film “Music” opens with gray clouds racing across the face of a Greek mountain as a storm prepares to break. It is a suitably dramatic prelude to the tumultuous events that will unfold, albeit rendered in an understated manner by German director Angela Schanelec, who won the Berlinale best director award in 2019 for “I Was at Home, But.” As the storm lifts, an abandoned baby boy is rescued a paramedic, who names him Jon. Years later, Jon, now a young man, kills another man, accidentally, and ends up in prison. Here, he is tended to by a female guard, Iro, as his eyesight begins to deteriorate. When he is released, the two get married and have a child. But several years later, his wife discovers a terrible secret.

European Film Market which at one and the same time has underscored the challenges still facing the international independent film business.  Following by way of an industry wrap, a dozen takeaways on the 2023 Berlin market, including its Berlinale Series Market, an ever more building proposition at the Festival.  The Verdict If the European Film Market is anything to go by, broadly, the international movie market is in some ways making a international comeback, despite still vastly challenging circumstances. On Thursday, the EFM reported “record results” of a total of over 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. “It was a rather busy market, with no single must-have, but much mid-sized product,” recognizesConstantin’s Martin Moszkowicz of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, noting that Constantin received about 90 project submissions prior to market, “which is a lot.” “There’s been more deals happening at the EFM than at Sundance and we sense a new vibrancy in the international markets,” says Nick Shumaker, at Anonymous Content’s AC Independent.

Makoto Shinkai’s latest pic Suzume is the first Japanese animated picture to play in competition at Berlin in two decades. However, Shinkai told a press conference in Berlin that a successful festival run has never been high on his list of priorities.

Japanese Breakfast has caused a stir online by sharing her controversial thoughts on The Beatles‘ seminal seventh album ‘Revolver’.Released back in 1966, the record is widely regarded as the Fab Four’s best full-length project. Using cutting edge studio technology, the LP is one of the most innovative pop records ever made.Taking to Twitter last Sunday (February 19), Japanese Breakfast – real name Michelle Zauner – claimed that “‘Revolver’ is the ‘Tusk’ of Beatles albums”, referring to Fleetwood Mac‘s experimental 1979 follow-up to ‘Rumours’.“I’m not saying either of these albums are bad!” Zauner clarified in a follow-up tweet.

Naman Ramachandran Shout! Studios has acquired U.S. and Canada rights to Studiocanal and Working Title’s cross-cultural British romantic comedy “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” with a view to releasing it in late spring, it was revealed at Berlin’s European Film Market on Tuesday. Directed by veteran Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (“Elizabeth”), “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” follows documentary-maker and dating app addict Zoe (Lily James), for whom swiping right has only delivered an endless stream of Mr Wrongs, to her eccentric mother Cath’s (Emma Thompson) dismay. For Zoe’s childhood friend and neighbor Kaz (Shazad Latif), the answer is to follow his parents’ example and opt for an arranged (or “assisted”) marriage to a bright and beautiful bride from Pakistan (Sajal Aly). As Zoe films Kaz’s journey from London to Lahore to marry a stranger, chosen by his parents, she begins to wonder if she might have something to learn from a profoundly different approach to finding love.

The Japanese House has suggested new music is on the way.The singer-songwriter, real name Amber Bain, posted a photo of herself on Instagram with the caption ‘News coming soon’, directing fans to sign up to her mailing list to hear it first.The Japanese House last released new music in 2020 in the form of the EP ‘Chewing Cotton Wool’. Her only studio album so far, ‘Good At Falling’, came out the year prior.A post shared by The Japanese House (@thejapanesehouse)The announcement comes off the back of the news that she is set to appear at The 1975‘s biggest ever UK headline show at London’s Finsbury Park, with a capacity of over 40,000, on July 2.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Coming of age thriller “The Gymnasts,” one of the most recent titles from Europe’s public broadcaster partnership The Alliance, has been licensed to over 30 territories, London-based super indie All3Media International confirmed on Monday at the Berlinale Series Market.     Based on Ilaria Bernardini’s bestselling novel “Corpo Libero” (“The Girls Are Good”), the six-part series is produced by the Oscar-winning team at Indigo Film, behind “The Great Beauty,” in co-production with ZDF Neo’s German company Network Movie.  The series has been made in collaboration with Rai Fiction and Paramount+, and in association with All3Media International.

Marta Balaga Director: Vita Maria Drygas Producer: Vita Żelakeviciute Production companies: Drygas Film Production Sales: Dogwoof Documentary is a journey to places devastated by military conflicts, seen through the eyes of thrill-seeking tourists. (Generation 14plus) Director: Asaf Saban

As the 73rd Berlin Film Festival rolls into its first weekend, one of the buzziest titles on the ground is the taut political thriller Reality, starring Euphoria and White Lotus breakout Sydney Sweeney.

EXCLUSIVE: Pig and Manodrome producer Ben Giladi is formally launching his production banner Liminal Content at this year’s Berlin Film Festival where Manodrome debuted in Competition.

Liza Foreman Hot on the tail of a recent slew of pickups and sales, Paris-based sales-producer-distributor Alief has snapped up international rights to the West African folktale “Mami Wata.”   North America rights to the film are represented by Marissa Frobes at CAA Media Finance. Alief is presenting the film to buyers and festival programmers at this week’s European Film Market in Berlin. The first film from a Nigerian-based director to play (and win an award) at Sundance, this visually striking feature took home the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Cinematography for Brazilian DP Lílis Soares.

Naman Ramachandran “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” star Sydney Sweeney communicated with the real-life Reality Winner to portray her in Tina Satter’s “Reality,” which world premieres at the Berlin Film Festival. The film, which contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of an FBI audio recording, follows a tense 90 minutes in the life of whistleblower Winner as the FBI interrogate at her home in 2017. Winner, a former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator, was sentenced to five years in prison after she leaked an intelligence report to the media. “I had the honor and privilege to be able actually communicate with Reality. I was able to Zoom with her — Tina connected us — and I would text her throughout the process,” Sweeney told a press conference at Berlin on Saturday.

Martin Dale Contributor Portuguese director Susana Nobre’s first scripted fiction film, “Cidade Rabat,” is about a producer who grew up in the Cidade Rabat neighborhood in Lisbon, and who suddenly has to come to terms with the death of her mother. The title is partly inspired by her own life, since she grew up in the “Cidade Rabat” district of Benfica in Lisbon. Much of the action takes place in the nearby mixed-race neighborhood, Reboleira. Nobre describes the film as a “melancholic comedy about a woman who is about to turn 40, whose life enters a period of chaos when she loses her mother and suddenly lives a second adolescence.” There is a nostalgic feel to the film, of a district that was once brimming with energy but is now crumbling. This nostalgia is mixed with hope for a new life, embodied by the main character Helena’s 12-year old daughter, for which Nobre cast her own daughter.  

Christopher Vourlias Five years ago, South African director John Trengove’s feature debut, “The Wound,” scored coveted berths at Sundance and Berlin before being short-listed for an Academy Award — even as the powerful gay drama set in the secretive world of Xhosa initiation ceremonies faced angry protests in his home country. His sophomore effort, “Manodrome,” which plays in competition in Berlin, stars Jesse Eisenberg as a down-at-the-heels Uber driver and expecting father who begins to lose his grip on reality. He’s taken under the wing of a charismatic, self-styled father figure (Adrien Brody), who inducts him into a libertarian masculinity cult, even as his repressed desires — suddenly awakened — push him toward a terrifying descent into violence.