Karisma Kapoor Talks Zee Studios‘ Berlin Series Show ’Brown’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Jen Shah is sharing her first messages from behind bars!

K.J. Yossman Mercury Studios, the production company behind recent Abbey Road Studios doc “If These Walls Could Sing,” have unveiled their new feature, about composer Felix Mendelssohn’s genius sister Fanny. Although Felix, who is best known for writing “The Wedding March,” is still world-renowned 175 years after his death, his sister Fanny was also a prolific musician, composing 450 works – including her own wedding music – before she died in her early 40s. “Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn” tells her story. Sheila Hayman (“Mendelssohn, The Nazis and Me”) directs the doc, which also stars classical artist Isata Kanneh-Mason bringing Mendelssohn’s works to life. Filming has taken place in Berlin, New York, London, Oxford and Buckingham Palace, where Kanneh-Mason played Queen Victoria’s piano.

Landon Barker wants to assure fans that his dad, Travis Barker, is on the mend. The 19-year-old son of the Blink-182 drummer attended the 2023 Kids' Choice Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend to support his girlfriend, host Charli D'Amelio.«He's doing amazing,» Landon told ET's Deidre Behar about Travis' recent finger surgery.

Katcy Stephan SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from Episode 8 of “The Last of Us,” now streaming on HBO Max. Troy Baker has been at the center of the “Last of Us” universe for a decade. The esteemed voice actor originated the role of grizzly survivalist Joel Miller in the 2013 game and its sequel in 2020. When HBO’s series adaptation was announced, Baker didn’t expect to be a part of it. “If there was a role for me, then I would have been happy. But if not, I was completely content to just be an observer for this onel,” he says. Luckily, co-showrunner Neil Druckmann, who is also the co-creator of the game, had a role in mind for him.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter HBO Max’s “The Batman” spinoff series “The Penguin” has cast Clancy Brown in a recurring role, Variety has learned. Brown joins a cast that includes series lead Colin Farrell, who will reprise the role of Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot from “The Batman, as well as Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Deirdre O’Connell. Brown will appear as Salvatore Maroni, a notorious Gotham City crime boss. The character was referenced repeatedly in “The Batman,” as his arrest by corrupt Gotham officials and the collapse of his criminal empire allowed for Carmine Falcone’s organization to rise. Maroni has previously been portrayed onscreen by actors like David Zayas in “Gotham” at Fox and by Eric Roberts in “The Dark Knight.”

fan footage, the embattled entertainer selects a ticketholder to take a seat while he sensually performs his 2007 song “Take You Down.”The excited woman pulls out her phone and positions it selfie-style to try and record Brown standing behind her. Unimpressed, he calmly takes the phone out of her hand and places it in her lap, so she can fully enjoy the moment. A short time later, she tries again — and Brown quickly grabs the phone and launches it into the crowd.

Amazon Studios has ordered “Twin Love,” a new reality dating competition show from ITV Entertainment, to series. Premiering this summer on Prime Video and the free, ad-supported Freevee, the show will be hosted by WWE Hall of Famers and TV personalities Brie and Nikki Bella.Billed as a “social dating experiment,” “Twin Love” explores the love lives of identical twins.

Bill Murray and star Jeannie Berlin set foot on the red carpet of the 2023 SAG Awards holding hands.Murray and Berlin appeared quite close when they arrived together for Sunday's soiree at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The star wore a black tuxedo with a colorful bow tie, while Berlin sported an all-black suit and shades.Berlin, who portrayed Hadassah Fabelman in the Steven Spielberg film, was there for the film's nomination in the Best Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture category.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor To director Mira Fornay, there are no three things more important in life than trees, water and children. And with “She-Hero,” playing as part of the Generation strand at the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, the Slovakian filmmaker gathers all three in telling the story of Romy (Rozmarína Willems), a young girl who embarks on a grand forest adventure in search of her lost budgie, Mimi. Fornay, who won the Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam Tiger Award in 2013 with her sophomore feature “My Dog Killer,” did not originally set out to make a children’s film, but was fascinated by the natural charisma of Willems. “I already knew Romy and she is immensely photogenic, but I didn’t know if she could act as well. So I tried working with her back when she was six, and she was just amazing. When COVID hit, I realized I had to shoot quickly otherwise she would grow. This is why I wrote a story for her.”

EXCLUSIVE: Love Island distributor ITV Studios has hired a Disney sales exec on the eve of the London TV Screenings.

A little less than five years after a tax-evasion scandal saw Chinese star Fan Bingbing disappear from public view for several months, the actress today addressed the Berlin Film Festival press corps in support of her latest movie, Green Night. 

European Film Market which at one and the same time has underscored the challenges still facing the international independent film business.  Following by way of an industry wrap, a dozen takeaways on the 2023 Berlin market, including its Berlinale Series Market, an ever more building proposition at the Festival.  The Verdict If the European Film Market is anything to go by, broadly, the international movie market is in some ways making a international comeback, despite still vastly challenging circumstances. On Thursday, the EFM reported “record results” of a total of over 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. “It was a rather busy market, with no single must-have, but much mid-sized product,” recognizesConstantin’s Martin Moszkowicz of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, noting that Constantin received about 90 project submissions prior to market, “which is a lot.” “There’s been more deals happening at the EFM than at Sundance and we sense a new vibrancy in the international markets,” says Nick Shumaker, at Anonymous Content’s AC Independent.

Naman Ramachandran Berlin’s just concluded European Film Market (EFM), which had a physical edition this year after two online editions in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, has reported “record results” according to the organizers. There were 230 stands and 612 companies from 78 countries and more than 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. Some 773 films were shown in 1,533 screenings, including 647 online screenings and 599 market premieres. The total number of buyers also rose to 1,302. 629 film projects were presented on the new Producers & Project Pages. “After the past two irregular years, we’re pleased to return to the physical in full force, and with a vibrant, bustling and strong market. The exhibition areas at Gropius Bau and the Marriott Hotel were sold out, and the exhibitors reported strong sales and good business. The decision to group all the market happenings together with the Berlinale Series Market and the market screenings at Potsdamer Platz, and to provide the industry with an efficient infrastructure, was extremely well-received by our market participants,” said EFM director Dennis Ruh.

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed actor Vijay Varma is one of the leads in “Dahaad” (“Roar”), the first Indian series to compete in the Berlinale Series Competition. Produced by Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby and directed by Reema Kagti (Amazon Prime Video series “Made in Heaven”) and Ruchika Oberoi (Venice winner “Island City”), the other leads are Sonakshi Sinha, Gulshan Devaiah and Sohum Shah. “‘Dahaad’ is about the investigation of a series of crimes conducted by a small town, rookie police officer at a small police station in Rajasthan [western India] – there are these disappearing girls and somehow the young police officer finds a certain similarity between these these disappearances,” Varma told Variety. “It’s a slow burn, investigative drama and it’s also very atmospheric and moody and noir-ish.”

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Mary Elizabeth Winstead has signed on to star opposite Ewan McGregor in the upcoming Showtime & Paramount+ series “A Gentleman in Moscow,” Variety has learned exclusively. McGregor was first reported to be starring in the show back in August 2022. It is an adaptation of the Amor Towles novel of the same name. Production on the limited series is now underway. It will debut on Showtime in the U.S. and on Paramount+ in additional markets around the world. Per the official logline, the series “follows Count Alexander Rostov (McGregor) who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history. Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol, threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, Rostov’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.”

Naman Ramachandran Shout! Studios has acquired U.S. and Canada rights to Studiocanal and Working Title’s cross-cultural British romantic comedy “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” with a view to releasing it in late spring, it was revealed at Berlin’s European Film Market on Tuesday. Directed by veteran Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (“Elizabeth”), “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” follows documentary-maker and dating app addict Zoe (Lily James), for whom swiping right has only delivered an endless stream of Mr Wrongs, to her eccentric mother Cath’s (Emma Thompson) dismay. For Zoe’s childhood friend and neighbor Kaz (Shazad Latif), the answer is to follow his parents’ example and opt for an arranged (or “assisted”) marriage to a bright and beautiful bride from Pakistan (Sajal Aly). As Zoe films Kaz’s journey from London to Lahore to marry a stranger, chosen by his parents, she begins to wonder if she might have something to learn from a profoundly different approach to finding love.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Elsa Zylberstein, one of the most famous – and bankable — faces of French cinema, known for her Cesar-winning performance in “I’ve Loved You For So Long,” is preparing to emerge as a major film producer. Having recently set up banners in France and the U.S., Zylberstein is actively developing a raft of films and series, working with the likes of Oscar-winning Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad (“The Cave”), Ted Braun (Darfur Now”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton (“The Father”), among others. These include “Kingdom of Hope,” a movie about Elise Boghossian, a French acupuncturist and humanitarian worker in a war zone who has healed children victims of ISIS . The movie will be directed by Fayyad, who is based in Berlin, and is being penned by Braun, based on Boghossian’s autobiographical book “Au royaume de l’espoir, il n’y a pas d’hiver.”

EXCLUSIVE: India’s Zee Studios, headed by CEO Shariq Patel, is starting to become a regular on the international film festival and TV market circuit. 

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International One of the hottest packages at the EFM has been taken off the table for international. Sources tell Variety that Prime Video has snapped up all international rights, excluding the U.S., to Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” which stars Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in a story about the titular white supremacist organization that operated in the 1980s. The project is penned by Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated writer Zach Baylin (“King Richard”), who based the screenplay on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s book “The Silent Brotherhood.” Published in 1989, the book details the activities of the radical-right hate group The Order, which was one of the most sinister organizations to emerge in America since the Ku Klux Klan.