Japan’s Gaga Launching ‘#Manhole’ at Cannes Film Market (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSpanish streaming service Filmin has acquired Lars von Trier’s “The Kingdom” trilogy, along with the full library of films by the director, from TrustNordisk.Von Trier is currently completing the third and final instalment of “The Kingdom,” his cult 1990s TV show about the good, evil and paranormal inside the neurosurgical ward of Denmark’s main hospital.Filmin is also acquiring the restored Seasons 1 and 2 of the show and will launch the complete series in Spain. The trilogy has already been acquired in several territories, including Germany and Austria (Koch Films), Japan (Synca Creations) and South Korea (AtNine).“We are pleased to experience this high level of interest in the series among buyers, who are evidently intrigued and excited about the series’ epic story, director and cast, which of course comes as no surprise,” said Susan Wendt, TrustNordisk’s managing director.

Broker and Decision to Leave have made history at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean works have won at the same ceremony.The upcoming Korean films Broker and Decision To Leave have both taken home one award each at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean films have won an award at the festival in the same year.South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who rose to international prominence in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite in 2019, took home the Best Actor award for his role in Broker, which was directed by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. This makes Song the second Korean, after Jeon Do-yeon for 2007’s Secret Sunshine to win the award, and the first Korean male actor to do so.During his acceptance speech, the 55-year-old actor thanked director Hirokazu Kore-eda, along with his Broker co-stars Gang Dong-won, IU, Lee Joo-young and Bae Doo-na.

A diet of rice and tofu, plenty of regular, gentle exercise and excellent hospitals: the Japanese have nailed the formula for getting old prolifically. With a little less than 30% of the population over 65, Japanese society is now officially termed as “super-aged.” Meanwhile, thanks to a low birth rate and an ingrained opposition to immigration, the total number of people is falling dramatically. Each year, there are fewer younger people to look after more older ones. It’s a slow-burn economic crisis.

Following the sparsely attended media conference for Close at Cannes this morning, journalists packed their way into the press room to hear Broker director Hirokazu Kore-Eda and cast, giving them a standing ovation.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKore-eda Hirokazu, director of the well-received Cannes competition film “Broker” says his diverse and lonely characters constitute a family of choice.“This film tells the story of a family which came together by choice. Each character had been rejected. They set off on a car journey, as if by accident.

Broker, starring singer-actress IU, was given a 12-minute standing ovation at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.Broker, the first-ever Korean-language film by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, recently premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 27. Once the screening had concluded, the fil received a 12-minute-long standing ovation from those in-attendance, according to a report from Korean news outlet Edaily.The publication also claimed that the standing ovation began with Cannes Film Festival’s executive director, Thierry Frémaux.

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” a group of small-time thieves forms their own makeshift family, living every day not only through pure survival instinct but a genuine love for each other. For his first film set in Korea, the Japanese filmmaker reflects on similar themes in “Broker,” a road trip odyssey reflecting on the family we choose and the family we tearfully let go of.

Esteemed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda walks a fine line between keen social observation and overt sentimental emotionalism in Cannes competition title Broker.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed further deals for Jan Gassmann’s “99 Moons” in Italy (Teodora Film), France (La Vingt-Cinquième Heure) and Japan (AT Entertainment), following the film’s world premiere in the Cannes’ ACID sidebar.“99 Moons” follows the passionate and turbulent relationship of Bigna and Frank, two people from different worlds who become entwined in an erotic love story. With raw and intimate cinematography (Yunus Roy Imer, “Systemcrasher”), the film takes an unflinching look at the magnetism and power games of sexual attraction.

Naman Ramachandran The late Govindan Aravindan’s 1978 masterpiece “Thamp̄” (“The Circus Tent”) is one of two Indian films at this year’s Cannes Classics selection, alongside Satyajit Ray’s “Pratidwandi” (“The Adversary”) from 1970.“Thamp̄” was painstakingly restored by India’s Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), an organization founded by filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (“Celluloid Man,” “CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel”) in 2014. Dungarpur facilitated the restoration of Uday Shankar’s landmark film “Kalpana” (1948) by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, the restored version of which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKawase Naomi, the Japanese auteur who won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and has had films in competition on multiple other occasions, is paying a flying visit to the festival with “Official Film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Side A,” which screens on Wednesday evening.A feature-length documentary, “Side A” is focused largely on the athletes. “Side B,” Kawase’s next project, casts a wider net and captures what Kawase calls a turning point for Japanese society.The International Olympic Committee hired me to do it. I was elected or nominated by the IOC.

While Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden dealt with a lot of sex and kink in its story of a handmaiden who gets into the good graces of her Japanese heiress, only to defraud her, the Korean filmmaker in his latest Decision to Leave, dotes on a detective Hae-Joon (Park Hae-il) who is head over heels with a very possible murder suspect, Seo-rae (Tang Wei).

Olympics premiered on Monday, shown to reporters and other invited guests in the Japanese capital.The work of Japanese director Naomi Kawase, the 120-minute film looks at the Olympics primarily from the point of view of the athletes — but not just the winning athletes.After Tokyo, the film will be shown on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival in the Bunuel Theater, named for Spanish-born iconoclastic filmmaker Luis Bunuel.“The Olympics are not just about getting prizes, being first and going after a victory that is right before you in the moment,” Kawase said in a recent interview. “I tried also to depict the pursuit of becoming winners in life.”Kawase has also made another film looking at events away from the athletes, which called “Side B.” It will debut in Japanese cinemas on June 24.

The Duchess Of York Sarah Ferguson has co-founded a Paris-based production house with Oscar-nominated The Voorman Problem director Mark Gill and The Open’s Cyril Cadars.

Emilio Mayorga Film Factory Entertainment has taken international rights to “Loli Tormenta,” the next film by one of Spain’s foremost auteurs, Agustí Villaronga (“The Belly of the Sea,” “Uncertain Glory”). Shooting is scheduled for the first week of July in Barcelona.Enrique González Kuhn’s Caramel Films distributes “Loli Tormenta” in Spain.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentThe Japanese film industry has long been notoriously insular, a tendency the pandemic only exacerbated. As the Hollywood pipeline shut down in 2020, local audiences flocked to local films.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed its new team line up and structure as the festival revamps.

EXCLUSIVE: Argentinian Distributor FilmSharks has taken on international sales of horror Karem the Possession from Dark Water creator Junichiro Hayashi and sold the Russian and Baltic Rights to Big Film at Cannes.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefEpic Pictures Releasing has licensed North American rights to Korean action film “Hot Blooded,” from leading Seoul-based film sales agency Finecut. The deal is one of several struck by the agency ahead of Cannes, where it is also launching sales on Critics’ Week title “Next Sohee.”Starring Bae Doona and Kim Si-eun, “Next Sohee” is directed by Jung July, whose acclaimed “A Girl at My Door” played in Un Certain regard in 2014.

Originally planned to open the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year before the worsening Covid situation forced the festival to again go virtual, Oscar-winning writer-director Michel Hazanavicius made the right decision in insisting his comedy Final Cut (Coupez!), about the making of a low-budget bad zombie movie, should be presented with a full house in a theatre, thankfully not to be watched on your computer at a prestigious film festival. In holding out for the real thing he scored big as it was chosen as the opening-night out-of-competition film of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.