EXCLUSIVE: As it preps for the release of notable titles like Nickel Boys, production company Louverture Films has added a handful of key execs and collaborators, including two principal partners and a chief financial officer.
28.06.2024 - 12:29 / deadline.com
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German Deep Dive
From ‘CSI: Berlin’ to nothing at all: The Munich Film Festival kicks off this morning, almost a year to the day that it emerged Sky Deutschland would be exiting the scripted original game in Germany, a decision that rocked the local production community. The tide has barely turned since, with Paramount+ and Starzplay (aka Lionsgate+) following suit and exiting drama and comedy production. “Paramount+ went from wanting CSI: Berlin to flatlined communications,” a well-known drama producer mused to Jesse and Stewart, who have spent plenty of time in Germany this past month. They’ve pieced together a comprehensive investigation spotlighting how the market has reacted to myriad setbacks, with potentially hundreds of projects back on the market and stuck at development stage and money tight everywhere. Streamers including Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ are active in the market but commission in small volume as the global streamer correction is prolonged. Netflix is making more commitments, but a lot of the downward pressure is still falling on the terrestrial networks. Dozens of production companies are concerned there just isn’t the money in the market to sustain something similar to the pre-2022 environment, when the likes of HBO and Sky were still big players. “There were so many productions in the gold-digger atmosphere,” German screenwriter Annette Hess told Stewart on stage at the Seriencamp event earlier this month. “It was a bubble – and now it’s over.” But at the same time, German drama is having a moment: Dear Child is a huge hit on Netflix, Maxton Hall – The
EXCLUSIVE: As it preps for the release of notable titles like Nickel Boys, production company Louverture Films has added a handful of key execs and collaborators, including two principal partners and a chief financial officer.
Naman Ramachandran The international documentary market Sunny Side of the Doc concluded its 35th edition in La Rochelle, France on June 27, drawing 2,100 participants from 68 countries. The four-day event, themed “Mapping the Future,” showcased 90 exhibitors and hosted 250 international decision-makers.
Sunny Side of the Doc, the world’s biggest documentary-focused marketplace in the world, wrapped its 35th edition Thursday, after gathering 2,100 participants over four days in La Rochelle, France.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Baby,” which premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week where it won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for joint acting lead Ricardo Teodoro, has closed further sales. Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal have sold the distribution rights to Ama Films for Greece, Mezipatra z.s for Czech Republic and Slovakia, and Falcon for Indonesia.
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Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Playmaker has acquired international sales rights to the provocative satirical thriller “The Protected Men,” based on the novel “Les hommes protégés” (The Virility Factor) by Robert Merle. The film is set in Germany, where a mysterious disease afflicting only men strikes, leading to a women-led government takeover.
Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 keeps on soaring, reaching $799.7M globally through Tuesday. Within that, its international box office crossed the four-century mark at a running cume of $411.9M from 44 overseas markets through Tuesday. In North America, Inside Out 2 rose to $387.8M, moving well up the domestic animated chart.
Ally McCoist thinks Cristiano Ronaldo should be dropped by Portugal manager Roberto Martinez.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Malaysia International Film Festival (Miffest), which runs July 21-28, will open with horror film “Indera” by local director Woo Ming Jin and starring Shaheizy Sam and Azira Shafinaz. The festival will conclude with the double feature of “Love Lies” by Ho Miu Ki and “Peg O’ My Heart” by Nick Cheung.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Noaz Deshe‘s “Xoftex,” which has its world premiere July 1 in the Crystal Globe Competition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, has debuted its trailer (below). MAD Solutions is attached as the film’s sales agent. “Xoftex” is Deshe’s second feature film.
When Comcast-owned Sky Deutschland cancelled its usual drama event at the Munich Film Festival at short notice last summer, it came as a surprise. That surprise quickly turned to shock and bitter disappointment when the pay-TV giant revealed it wasn’t simply nixing a networking bash, it was exiting the original drama business full stop.
Jamie Lang The fifth and final season of the global hit series “Babylon Berlin” has received an official green light, and eight new episodes will be shot this fall. “Babylon Berlin” is produced by X-Filme Creative Pool in co-production with ARD Degeto, SWR, WDR, Radio Bremen and Beta Film.
Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter After just two weekends of release, “Inside Out 2” is towering above the rest as the highest-grossing movie of the year. Disney and Pixar’s sequel has generated $355 million in North America and $724 million globally to date, overtaking the previous record holder of “Dune: Part II” ($282 million domestically and $711 million worldwide). At this rate, it’ll soon be the first movie of 2024 to cross $1 billion worldwide.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A jury headed by French Vietnamese director Tranh Anh Hung awarded its Golden Goblet (Jin Jue) prizes for the Shanghai International Film Festival’s main competition. The top prize for best feature went to “The Divorce,” directed by Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Salamat. The jury praised the film for its sophisticated story-telling which mixes comedy, farce and tragedy, and “which moves fluidly from public sphere to the intimate relationship of a couple in crisis” and its feeling of innocence.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Wim Wenders will be a special guest of Italy’s Cinema Ritrovato Festival dedicated to cinematic treasures of the past where a freshly restored copy of his “A Trick of the Light” (“Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky”), which pays tribute to forgotten pioneers of the moving image, will have its world premiere. Shot by Wenders with a group of students from the Munich Film Academy in 1995 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema, the film is about the origins of cinema and its German inventors: the Skladanowsky brothers who On Nov.
Refresh for latest…: Wednesday was yet another joyous day for Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 as the sequel set opening benchmarks in new overseas releasing markets. The full offshore day was $29M (22% of the weekend), lifting the international box office cume to $203.3M in 42 markets, and global to $438.7M. The half a billion worldwide mark is around the corner.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Flow,” a director-driven animated feature which world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and just swept three awards at Annecy Film Festival, has been embraced by a raft of major distributors in key territories, including the U.K., Japan, South Korea, Germany, Spain and Italy. The movie is represented internationally by Charades.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Along with a red-carpet opening ceremony, a press conference with the members of the main competition jury is a staple event of major film festivals and the 26th edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival kicked off in traditional form on Friday. Along with Vietnam-French director Tran Anh Hung, previously revealed as jury president, the other members of the decisive committee this year are: Australian director and screenwriter Rolf de Heer; German director Matthias Glasner; Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka Fai; Argentinian director Santiago Mitre; Chinese director Sonthar Gyal; and, the jury’s only woman, star actor Zhou Xun. A packed audience lobbed familiar questions about the criteria they jurors would employ to decide the Golden Goblet prize winners, and what informs those views.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed further deals for Ray Yeung’s “All Shall Be Well,”following the North American deal with Strand Releasing and the first international sales previously announced by Variety.The film has been acquired by Nour Films in France, One From the Heart in Greece, Mezipatra in Czech Republic and Slovakia, HBO Europe in Eastern Europe, Beta Film in Bulgaria and Falcon in Indonesia, in addition to the already announced deals with Vedette in the Benelux, Karma in Spain, Trigon in Switzerland and Lev in Israel.Films Boutique is in negotiations with potential buyers in the U.K., Latin America, Germany and Japan.Additionally, New Voice Film Productions Ltd. secured distribution deals with Golden Scene for Hong Kong and Macau and Flash Forward Entertainment in Taiwan.“All Shall Be Well” is written and directed by Yeung and was produced by Yeung’s frequent collaborator Michael J.
Stuttgart striker Serhou Guirassy says his future will be decided in the coming weeks, following links with Manchester United.