India’s ‘The Spark’ Shines a Spotlight on Victims of Violence – HAF

HBO Max original series picks up 15 years later, with the beloved original cast spending two months in Rivera Maya in Mexico.  Three generations of Garcias sit in a beautiful room, while the family matriarch makes an announcement.

HBO Max is slowly turning into the home for projects directly connected to the cinematic side of WarnerMedia. The streaming service hosts multiple feature films set in the DCEU and even two shows directly set in the world of Matt Reeves‘ “The Batman.” Now, HBO Max is setting its sights on a recent billion-dollar horror film property.

The true-crime phenomenon—documentaries, movies, documentaries, series, and everything in between—has obviously hit an absolute zenith in recent years. This inexorable truth would explain why HBO Max would bother rehashing the mysterious circumstances of the death of Kathleen Peterson with their new scripted series “The Staircase” from showrunners Antonio Campos and Maggie Cohen (“American Crime Story”)—there’s still so much meat on the bone.

The phrase, “Well behaved women rarely make history,” attributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Harvard professor Lauren Thatcher Ulrich, gets bandied about a lot these days in conversations about women who push the boundaries of acceptable feminine behavior. But that particular brand of feminism, in which women are allowed to be anti-heroes in search of their ambition, rarely seems to rear its head in the slew of recent documentaries and series about women who made history in the mid-20th century.

reboot!In the season finale, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) are all making big moves in their lives. Carrie decides to spread the ashes of her late husband, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), off a bridge in Paris, France, and comes back to New York City to start a new podcast, appropriately titled, and makes out with her podcast producer, Franklyn (Ivan Hernandez), in an elevator. As for Miranda, she divorces her husband,  Steve Brady (David Eigenberg), and jets off to Los Angeles to be with her new romantic partner, Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), as they start their new pilot.And as for Charlotte, she has a bat mitzvah for herself after her youngest child, Rock, refuses, and is facing menopause later than the rest of her friends.'s finale also opens a door for one leading lady to return.

HBO Max announced on Tuesday the renewal of the Sex and the City sequel series And Just Like That... for a second season.

What happens after you blow up your entire life to be with the person you love? The second season of “Starstruck” explores the question that rom-coms generally leave unanswered after their happy endings, wisely acknowledging that a big romantic gesture doesn’t erase all the obstacles present between two people getting — and staying — together. On its surface, the British import on HBO Max seems like a standard wish-fulfillment fantasy à la “Notting Hill”: a “normie” finds unlikely romance with a star.

Manori Ravindran International EditorHBO is developing a long-awaited adaptation of Rohinton Mistry’s critically acclaimed, award-winning novel “A Fine Balance,” Variety can reveal.The seven-part series is being produced by “A Very British Scandal” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” producer Blueprint Pictures and “Anne With an E” outfit Northwood Entertainment. Ritesh Batra, who directed the late Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur in “The Lunchbox,” is attached to both write and direct.The show would look to shoot in India from early June through November.First published by Canada’s McLelland and Stewart in 1995, “A Fine Balance” went on to win the 1995 Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize.

, plus the raunchy pirate adventure,  and a few Oscar-nominated films arriving on the platform. Fans of the Fox sitcom should be stoked to hear that the Jake Johnson-led  is now streaming. Set in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s, the series follows Johnson's Doug and second-wave feminist, Joyce, as they push to publish the very first erotic magazine for women.Best picture nominees , , , and will also be made available to stream on the platform in this month. HBO Max currently has two subscription tiers, an ad-supported subscription for $10/month and an ad-free plan available for $15/month.Sign Up NowFor even more streaming recommendations, make sure to check out our guides to everything that's new on Prime Video, what's new and what's leaving Hulu this month and the best TV and movies to stream this week.

HBO Max has been rolling out original series that have really sunk their teeth into audiences and one of their most popular shows, “The Flight Attendant” is coming back for a second season with star Kaley Cuoco reprising the role of Cassie Bowden. The streaming service has announced that episodes for the anticipated original show will begin airing next month and have dropped a teaser trailer (See below) revealing more shocking events are on the way in season two.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefColleen Kwok’s “The Stars The Sun The Moon” won the top prize for a Hong Kong-produced in-development project at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. Mainland Chinese title “Not Found” by Huang Ningwei won the equivalent prize for the best non-Hong Kong project.A total of 14 prizes were announced at a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, with “Silent Ghosts,” another local project, directed by Hang Yeng, collecting the top work in progress award.HAF organizers said that this year’s online platform hosted more than 900 private meetings between filmmakers and potential backers, a figure that was almost double the level of activity in 2020, when COVID forced the project market into a virtual format for the first time.

“The Wire” wrapped up almost a decade-and-a-half ago, but it’s still one of HBO‘s most beloved shows. A lot of that comes from showrunner David Simon.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAfter “Parasite” and “Squid Game” struck planet-wide notes with their critique of elitism, Trevor Choi’s “Smashing Frank” is a timely Hong Kong twist on the revenge-against-the-rich theme. It is being pitched at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) that this week runs alongside the FilMart rights market.“This is a comedy-drama about four millennials who form a squad to rob the rich. During the course of the crime, they are outraged as they gradually realize that the older generation will never change their ways.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated Israeli filmmaker Matan Yair, whose “Scaffolding” has had festival play at Cannes, Zurich and Singapore, is nearly ready with his new film, coming-of-age drama “A Room of His Own.”The film, which is in the work-in-progress strand of Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), follows 17-year-old Uri, who has botched his first army interview. Since Uri’s father moved out, his mother has been sleeping in Uri’s room.

Naman Ramachandran HAF work in progress project “In Retreat” is a deeply personal project for debutant Syed Maisam Ali Shah.A graduate of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Shah made several globally seen shorts before embarking upon his fiction feature debut “In Retreat.”In the film, a man returns to his hometown after many years and undergoes a one-night pilgrimage.“We were allowed and encouraged to make our own personal films [at the FTII],” Shah told Variety. “I made a couple of shorts there as part of the course and a kind of inner artistic journey began for me there over a period of five years and I hope to continue that engagement in my other films as well.

We haven’t seen any directorial work from Michael Mann in a while. The filmmaker hasn’t returned to the director’s chair since 2015’s “Blackhat.” Well, that’s about to change thanks to the HBO Max limited series, “Tokyo Vice.” As seen in the trailer, “Tokyo Vice” follows the story of an American journalist, in the late ‘90s, trying to make a name for himself in Japan.

Holly Willoughby is set to appear on a new BBC One challenge show, Freeze the Fear, which will follow famous faces as they take on epic mental and physical challenges set by the famous Dutch extreme athlete and cold-water therapy advocate, Wim Hof.The star of This Morning will present the show alongside comedian Lee Mack as several celebrities go on a “once-in-a-lifetime, epic adventure”. Holly recently shared a behind-the-scenes look at her new BBC TV show with fans, which she'll present alongside the Not Going out comedian.

In what comes as no surprise given the running $301M global grossing success of The Batman, HBO Max has given a straight-to-series order to the pic’s spinoff series The Penguin which will see Colin Farrell reprising his villainous role from the pic as one of Gotham’s legendary kingpins.

The Bingeworthy buds, Mike DeAngelo and Playlist Editor-in-Chief Rodrigo Perez, are back to talk about all of the TV news and shows that are worth your time. This week finds our hosts digging into one of the new HBO series, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” LISTEN: David Jenkins Talks ‘Our Flag Means Death,’ Working With Taika Waititi & More [Bingeworthy Podcast] The new Adam McKay (“Succession,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Anchorman“) show follows, as the title suggests, the rise of the 80’s Lakers Dynasty led by a new and controversial team owner, Jerry Buss (John C.

Holly Willoughby recently shared a behind-the-scenes look at her new BBC TV show with fans, which she'll present alongside comedian Lee Mack. Several celebrities go on “once-in-a-lifetime, epic adventure” in the BBC One challenge show named Freeze the Fear with Wim Hof.