International Disruptors: Israel’s Arik Kneller Talks Building The Kneller Agency & Why The Country’s Growing Talent Pool Continues To Punch Above Its Weight

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentYes Studios, the Tel Aviv-based producer and distributor behind hit series “Fauda” and “Shtisel,” has appointed Sharon Levi as managing director. Levi’s appointment follows the exit of Danna Stern, who spent two decades at the Israeli broadcaster. Levi, who is joining the Israeli banner from ITV Studios-owned Armoza Format, will take the lead of Yes Studios’ distribution and co-production arm.

EXCLUSIVE: Sharon Levi has been hired as the new Managing Director of Tel Aviv-based producer and distributor Yes Studios, known for hit series such as Fauda, Your Honor, and Shtisel.

Naman Ramachandran DAZN chair Kevin Mayer and Rene Rechtman, co-founder and CEO of Moonbug Entertainment, will deliver a joint keynote at this year’s in-person MipTV (Apr. 4-6). Mayer also serves as co-chair and co-CEO of Candle Media, which purchased Moonbug, the company behind the wildly popular children’s show “CoComelon” in Nov.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMunich-based world sales company Global Screen has closed further deals in major territories for the family entertainment adventure “School of Magical Animals,” the most successful German film at the local box office last year. Global Screen will also be selling the sequel, it announced Tuesday.Deals have been closed for China (A-Quest Culture Media), Japan (Fine Films), Latin America (Discovery), Hungary (ADS), Serbia and Croatia (Investacommerce), and Portugal (NOS).

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIf you asked a random group of Israelis and a random group of Palestinians to describe the events that surrounded the founding of Israel in 1948 (chief among them the War of Independence, which lasted close to a year), you’d probably come about as close as you could get to a world political “Rashomon.” The Israelis would likely tell the story of their nation’s founding as a heroic saga of Zionist destiny cloaked in historical justice. The Palestinians would likely tell the story of how they lost their nation, and would evoke that loss with the phrase they have always used to describe it: The Nakba (“The Catastrophe”).Hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed by the Israelis in 1948, and at least 750,000 Palestinians became refugees.

Whoopi Goldberg is facing major backlash for the comments she made about the Holocaust.

Two men arrested in Manchester in connection with a siege at a synagogue in Texas have been released without charge.

Refresh for latest…: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home scaled fresh heights this session as it reached an amazing new milestone by crossing the $1B mark at the international box office. The offshore cume through Sunday is an estimated $1.003B for a global total of $1.74B.

Kristen Stewart is ready to get behind the camera on her new movie, The Chronology of Water.

Scotland has recorded 18 coronavirus -linked deaths and 6,679 new cases in the past 24 hours, according to recent figures.

Rabbi Israel Dresner was a civil rights activist who protested segregation alongside his friend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968).Dresner began his life of activism young, well before he became a rabbi, as World War II raged overseas.

EXCLUSIVE: Juliana Canfield, who plays Kendall’s loyal assistant Jess on Succession, has been tapped as the female lead opposite Jeff Wilbusch in The Missing, Peacock’s eight-episode series from David E. Kelley based on Israeli crime writer Dror A. Mishani’s international bestselling novel The Missing File.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentNaples-set young adult series “The Sea Beyond,” which depicts the world of a juvenile jail in the crime-ridden Italian city, is scoring a slew of international sales prompted by its phenomenal ratings on pubcaster RAI.Germany’s Beta Film, which is selling the show about kids behind bars produced by Rome-based Picomedia and RAI Fiction, has inked deals with WarnerMedia Latin America for HBO Max, Sweden’s free-to-air channel TV4, cabler HOT for Israel, and streamer Blu TV in Turkey.The deals mark a rare case of an Italian young adult series traveling abroad.Set in a youth detention center overlooking the bay of Naples, “The Sea Beyond” depicts a world populated by kids apparently without hope, “given that they mostly belong to [the Camorra] organized crime syndicate that Naples is known for,” said Picomedia chief Roberto Sessa, who added that the show also has “all the color and vitality of that city.” Instead, “It’s like the flip side of ‘Gomorrah’ in that it gives a sense of hope,” Sessa noted, because “there is light at the end of the tunnel for these kids.”Sessa also pointed out that they took some poetic license by making the youth penitentiary a place for both men and women who get to interact “with all the relationships and passions that stem from this.”The jail warden is a woman named Paola Vinci, played by Carolina Crescentini (“Bastards of Pizzofalcone”).Directed by Carmine Elia, Milena Cocozza, and Ivan Silvestrini, “The Sea Beyond” is now at its second season which debuted on RAI in mid-November 2021 both on the pubcaster’s linear RAI 2 channel and on its RAI Play streaming platform.It has become a minor phenomenon in Italy because it’s the first show that proved a

K.J. Yossman The BBC has apologized over its coverage of an antisemitic hate incident in central London following an internal investigation.The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) investigated both a BBC website article and a broadcast report that critics said “victim-blamed” a bus full of Jewish students who were abused on London’s Oxford Street shopping district while celebrating Hanukkah.The ECU concluded that the broadcast did “not breach editorial standards” but partly upheld the complaints over lack of accuracy and impartiality.The complaints stem from a Dec.

Disney+ To Launch In 42 Countries

Terrorism police investigating a siege at a synagogue in Texas have arrested two more men in Manchester.

Naman Ramachandran The Walt Disney Company’s streamer Disney Plus has confirmed a summer 2022 launch across Europe, Africa and West Asia in 42 countries and 11 new territories. New countries for the service include South Africa, Turkey, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.The countries that the streamer will launch in include Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Oman, Palestine Territories, Poland, Qatar, Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City and Yemen.