Israel’s Keshet and HOT in Commercial Spat Over Copyright Infringement (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor DR Sales has sold Canadian distribution rights for Norwegian director Tonje Hessen Schei’s “Praying for Armageddon” to LevelFilm. The deal was revealed follows the film’s North American premiere at Hot Docs Film Festival. The film made its world premiere in CPH:DOX. The film explores the power and influence of powerful U.S. fundamentalist evangelicals as they aim to fulfil the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. With close quarters journalism, the feature documentary embeds with American believers who prepare for the Holy War and exposes how powerful megachurch pastors call for the “final battle” that they believe will trigger the Second Coming of Christ. A deep dive into power and policy, the film unveils how politicians driven by faith embrace Israel as the key to their prophetic vision for the end of days. At any cost.

Sam Smith‘s set at Summer In The City in Tel Aviv is no longer scheduled after festival organisers said the event’s first day was cancelled due to “unforeseeable problems”.Smith was due to perform in Israel for the first time on May 31 but now the whole day has been scrapped. Ticketholders can still watch live music on June 1, with acts including Robbie Williams and Martin Garrix on the bill.In a statement shared via The Jerusalem Post, festival organisers said: “Due to unforeseeable technical and logistical problems on May 31, the concerts of that evening (including Sam Smith) will not happen.

Their rainbow baby! Maya Vander and her husband, Dave Miller, are expecting a child nearly one year after suffering a miscarriage.

The strike has begun, Insiders. The industrial action, the first in the U.S. since 2007-08, dominated news coverage in film and TV this week but there’s been plenty more going around the world. Jesse Whittock here to take you through. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter here.

Iranian-American writer Azar Nafisi’s classic memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran has been adapted for the big screen with an ensemble cast led by actors Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson) and Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (Holy Spider).

William Earl “Rain in My Head” was the big winner at the 10th annual Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, taking honors for best film, director Chrissy Marshall and actor Layne Apffel. Also saluted were Nathan Cox, editor for “Smash or Pass”; Rachel Handler, writer, “Unlucky in Love”; and Judith Rubin and “Leap of Love” for best awareness campaign. The winners were announced May 4 at an orange-carpet ceremony and reception at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.  For the competition, registered filmmakers were given five days within a designated timeframe to write and produce short films (three-to-five minutes) promoting disability inclusion. Every year’s contest has a theme, and this year it was romance, which resulted in a wide range of viewpoints on the topic.

A trove of documents that were in the possession of disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein reportedly show he interacted with people who included a former Israeli prime minister, a former treasury secretary, other high-powered financiers and Woody Allen. The documents revealed Epstein's scheduled meetings with former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Emeritus Lawrence Summers, billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black and others, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Business entrepreneur Oudi Antebi spent 18 years in the United States and 20 years in the high-tech space before returning to his native Israel to kickstart a new venture, Session 42, a music production shingle that harnesses the ballooning globalwide power of AI technology.  “I was reading about how AI is just changing everything, and I decided that I wanted to start a company with a focus on creating music, a company that blends technology and music together,” says Antebi.  “I knew that I wanted to find the best technology and AI out there and use this technology and AI to unleash creativity.” 

EXCLUSIVE: Trailer has dropped for Unsilenced, the latest Israeli drama picked up by Fauda and Shtisel producer Yes Studios.

Prime Video Picks Up Karl Lagerfeld Doc

EXCLUSIVE: Keshet Studios, the U.S. division of the Israeli media company behind scripted series including NBC’s La Brea, is moving into unscripted.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Leo Maidenberg’s Paris-based company Place du Marché Productions is developing a slate of French and international films and TV series with acclaimed talents, including Daphna Levin, the creator of the Israeli series “Euphoria,” as well as Sarah Kaminsky (“Raid Dingue”) and Leïla Sy (“Banlieusards”). Maidenberg, who launched Place du Marché in 2018 after a career in diplomacy and made his producing debut with Caroline Fourest’s politically charged action film “Sisters in Arms,” has teamed with Kim Younes at Elvie Productions on a pair of high concept Israeli series. The first title produced by the two banners is “The Truth,” a police thriller series co-written and directed by Levin, whose credits also include the original Israeli series “In Therapy.” Set in Tel Aviv, “The Truth” opens on the day of the final verdict for the most controversial murder case in Israel, 10 years after the incident which took place in a high school gym. That same day, a new murder happens in identical circumstances. Juvenile inspector Rachel Zohar, a student at the high school at the time of the first murder, must revisit her trauma to solve the case. Aurit Zamir (“Babysitter”) co-wrote the series with Levin.

EXCLUSIVE: Ben Cosgrove and Josh Foer’s Leviathan Productions has tapped Daniel Handler, the visionary behind the hit children’s book series A Series of Unfortunate Events, to pen a contemporary horror film based on the Golem legend from Jewish folklore, which Cosgrove will produce.

Marta Balaga Norwegian political satire “Power Play” proved unbeatable at Canneseries, just like its headstrong protagonist, picking up awards for best series and music. The show, focusing on Norway’s first female Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and starting out in the 1970s, turned out to be a timely proposition, as noted by showrunner Johan Fasting, who co-wrote with Silje Storstein and Kristin Grue.   “It’s hard to persevere in politics, especially for women. We wanted to go behind the scenes of social democracy as well, see how it has dissolved and turned into what we have today. It felt like the right time to look at the mechanisms of power,” he told Variety earlier this week.

Netflix Orders Season 2 Of ‘Rana Naidu’

Ed Meza @edmezavar Studiocanal has sold two new thrillers from Benelux to international buyers at MipTV in Cannes. The eight-part crime thriller “1985,” produced by Eyeworks for Belgian public broadcasters VRT and RTBF, follows three friends as they move to Brussels and get caught up in the horrifying events of Belgium’s most notorious unsolved crime spree that shocked a generation and left a scar on the entire country. The series went to SBS Australia; Filmin for Portugal and Spain; Canal+ for France, Czech Republic and Slovakia; TG4 in Ireland; and Free TV in Israel.

Regal parent Cineworld has decided to terminate the marketing process for its businesses outside of the U.S., UK and Ireland. Although it received offers from “a number of prospective counterparties,” the proposals “did not meet the value level required by the group’s lenders,” the exhibition giant said today. The so-called “rest of world” businesses include cinemas in Israel, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Radiohead guitarist and Academy Award-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood has long had an affinity for Israel. Radiohead first toured the country in the mid-1990s and Greenwood married Israeli visual artist, Sharona Katan. Now Greenwood is pairing with acclaimed Israeli singer Dudu Tassa for a collaborative album, “Jarak Qaribak,” which is due out June 9 from World Circuit Records. The album’s debut track, “Ashufak Shay,” which loosely translates to “Your Neighbor in Your Friend” and features Lebanese vocalist Rashid al-Najjar, dropped last week. Produced by Tassa and Greenwood and mixed by Nigel Godrich, “Jarak Qaribak,” is a celebration of multicultural talent, bringing together singers and musicians from across the Middle East, including Egyptian vocalist Ahmed Doma, Palestinian vocalist Nour Freteikh and Safae Essafi, a singer from Dubai. There are songs on the album from countries such as Algeria, Jordan and Morocco.

Roger Waters has said he will play in Frankfurt despite a planned performance there being cancelled over claims of anti-Semitism.The former Pink Floyd frontman was supposed to play at the publicly owned Festhalle on May 28, but the council called off the performance over the musician’s views on Israel. They later described him as “one of the world’s most widely-known anti-Semites”.According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the cancellation notice cited Waters’ boycott of Israel – also known as the BDS campaign – as well as the musician’s talks with Hamas-affiliated media, comparisons of Israel to apartheid South Africa and what many see as anti-Semitic imagery at shows.It also referenced the sensitivity surrounding the venue, which was used as a detention centre for some 3000 Jewish people who were then deported to concentration camps in 1938.Now, however, Waters has suggested he’s “coming anyway” despite the cancellation.

EXCLUSIVE: Canada’s Crave has swooped for the U.S., UK and Australian versions of The Traitors while the smash Dutch format is set to made in six more territories, bringing the overall total to 20.