HAF Project Market Adds Works-in-Progress

Selome Hailu To celebrate Black history month, Ava DuVernay’s indie distribution, arts and advocacy collective Array has produced “28 Days of ‘Sankofa,'” an event series where select cinemas, universities and festival locations throughout the U.S. are screening Ethiopian director Haile Gerima’s “Sankofa” for free, one screening for each day of February. In addition, Array created a free learning companion designed to help viewers process the weight of what they’re watching.Gerima is best known as one of the leading members of the L.A.

The Berlin Film Festival’s industry wing, the European Film Market (EFM), has confirmed that 600 exhibitors from 62 countries took part in this year’s virtual edition, up from last year’s figure of 504.

HBO – check out the trailer below.Set to be released on March 1, The Larry David Story is a two-part documentary where he’ll discuss his childhood and career breakthroughs with director Larry Charles.“I never thought of myself as being funny,” David says in the trailer. “Anything I was associated with that could be successful was a shock.”The writer, producer, actor and comedian is known as the co-creator of Seinfeld along with Jerry Seinfeld.

For years, HBO has been the gold standard as far as prestige TV series goes. The network has won dozens of awards, and TV fans are basically under the assumption that every new show on HBO warrants a watch because it’s probably really great.

Jamie Lang SF Studios has announced that the 2021 Berlin Generation Kplus player “Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent” is getting a sequel. The original was a hit among kids and parents alike in its native Sweden and won a pair of Swedish Guldbagge Awards. Based on Martin Widmark’s popular children’s books of the same name, the film features rising star Matilda Gross as the titular Nelly, a young girl who, along with her dog London, are dragged into a world of ghosts, vampires and werewolves.Johan Rosell will direct with Jon Nohrstedt and Niklas Larsson producing for SF Studios.

Just as Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia is entering the final stretch, HBO/HBO Max is living up to its status as one of the most prized assets in the proposed deal.

Berlinale Series Market. It has grown into one of continental Europe’s biggest TV events. Following, seven takes on this year’s edition.TV Tail Wags Film DogThe Berlinale Series Market used to be a burgeoning sidebar.

Succession boss Jesse Armstrong has said that there’s going to be a very definite moment when the story of Logan Roy and his rotten cabal is over and HBO is taking its lead from its creator.

Marta Balaga Shooting mostly in Iceland and Greenland, the team behind Netflix’s upcoming release “Against the Ice” – now shown in Berlin – had to battle punishing weather conditions and freezing cold, as well as star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.“It was quite challenging, working with Nikolaj. Apart from that, it was alright,” joked actor Joe Cole during the press conference. “My character is quite different from me.

HBO and HBO Max are gearing up for a must-see spring TV schedule, with a number of new, star-studded series slated to premiere in the next few months. During the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, the networks shared new images for the biographical series  , an adaptation of the popular true-crime docuseries; the series adaptation of David Simon's return to Baltimore with  and more.Get your first look at what's to come:Starring Colin Firth as Michael Peterson, is the anticipated limited series recounting the events surrounding the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen Peterson (Toni Collette).

Jamie Lang Norwegian broadcaster NRK has boarded Hummelfilm’s coming-of-age crime drama series “Nowheresville,” one of 10 projects participating in this year’s Berlin Co-Pro Series where producer Marte Hansen and series creator-director Rebecca W. Kjellmann are virtually pitching the series to potential partners, financers and broadcasters.Development on the project is already well underway, with four finished scripts and outlines for the show’s other four episodes already banked.“We are currently continuing the writing process, while working on the financing and production set-up for the series,” the partners explained to Variety before pitching in Berlin.

European Film Market has felt lopsided.Sony’s $60 million deal for Tom Hanks’ “A Man Called Otto,” an adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s bestselling Swedish-language novel “A Man Called Ove” — which was made into an Oscar-nominated  Swedish feature — that grabbed headlines early on (Variety understands it boiled down to a bidding war between the studio and Apple), but hasn’t necessarily spawned the usual flurry of deals from Berlin halfway through the festival.One buyer from a major U.K. distributor says the EFM vibe has felt “muted” for a company of its size, with an absence of broad-appeal product available once “Otto” was snapped up by Sony.

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain, known for her powerful women-centric films, has a new project participating in the Berlinale Co-Production Market and is launching a female filmmaker grant.Her Berlinale co-production market project, “The Difficult Bride,” follows Novera, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka who is in love with the groom and the idea of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body, which does not seem to comply with the wedding rituals. She makes continuous trips to the beauty salon and uses home remedies to “cure” her body.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Top Argentine sales and production company, FilmSharks Int’l, has picked up worldwide sales rights to Matias Lucchesi’s latest film “The Broken Land” (“Las Rojas”) ahead of its debut at the European Film Market (EFM).This will be the second time for a Lucchesi film to be present in Berlin. Lucchesi snagged the best feature prize at the Berlinale Generation Kplus sidebar with his feature debut, “Natural Sciences,” in 2014.Shot mainly in the majestic Cordillera de las Andes of Mendoza, Argentina, “The Broken Land” can be described as a thriller with Western undertones, highlighted by the soulful music of composer Hernan Segret.Drama centers on two female paleontologists, played by Argentina’s Mercedes Moran (“La Cienaga”) and Uruguay’s Natalia Oreiro (“The Unseen”), who are at loggerheads from the moment they meet. Oreiro’s character, Constanza, has come to the protected national reserve where Moran’s equally strong-willed character, Carlota, has been toiling for years.

Tom Hanks, Gerard Butler, Evan Rachel Wood and Rosamund Pike headline projects being brought onto Berlin’s virtual European Film Market.Just how large its top-tier offers may be is, and the volume of deals, are still open for debate.“Very compact,” Constantin’s Martin Moszkowicz said mid-last week of the EFM, which swelled somewhat thanks to a flurry of title announcements on Feb. 4, followed by a steady trickle of big unveils.“The EFM does not look like it will have the comparable volume of the AFM,” Mister Smith’s David Garrett said.

EXCLUSIVE: Clay Epstein’s Film Mode Entertainment (FME) has bolstered its slate for the virtual European Film Market (EFM) with several fresh titles.

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford has taken the blame for the sudden changes to the band’s line-up, which saw the firing and re-hiring of their touring guitarist within a week.Back in January, Andy Sneap – who has toured with the band since 2018, subbing in for Glenn Tipton – was removed from the band ahead of their forthcoming North American tour. Five days later, however, the band announced that their touring line-up would remain “unchanged” and that Sneap would stay on.Now, in a new interview with Billboard, Halford has spoken about the confusing saga – ultimately attributing it to “a crazy idea” of reverting to a four-piece to reflect the band’s origins as a quartet.“That all came from me, it didn’t come from the band,” he said.

Radiohead side-project The Smile have announced a UK and European tour for 2022 – see all the details below.The trio – comprising Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner – released their debut single ‘You Will Never Work In Television Again’ and its follow-up ‘The Smoke’ earlier this month.The Smile then took to the stage for three gigs at the Magazine venue in London over the weekend (January 29/30), with each performance being live-streamed online.Today (February 1) it’s been confirmed that the band will hit the road this spring for a run of European headline shows. Kicking off in Zagreb on May 16, the tour also includes appearances in Vienna (May 17), Prague (19), Berlin (20), Stockholm (23), Oslo (24) and Amsterdam (27).Yorke and co.

Chris Willman Music WriterGawvi, an artist and producer in the Christian hip-hop community, has been dropped by his label, Reach, and from an upcoming tour in light of a developing scandal involving his allegedly sending unsolicited sexually explicit photos to women.“Due to behavior that is inconsistent with our core values, we have ended our professional relationship with GAWVI,” Reach Records said in a statement Monday afternoon. “This was a tough decision for us because of the level of complexity and because we invest in our artists not just for their talent, but also as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christopher Vourlias Heretic, the Athens-based boutique production company and sales agent, has acquired world sales rights for “Working Class Heroes,” by director Miloš Pušić, which will have its premiere in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand. Variety has also been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer.Starring award-winning Serbian actress Jasna Đuričić, who played the lead role in Jasmila Žbanić’s Oscar-nominated “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” “Working Class Heroes” follows a cold-hearted businesswoman working for a construction investor of dubious morals.