Kumar Shahani, Pioneer of India’s Parallel Cinema Movement, Dies at 83

Naman Ramachandran India premieres of France’s “The Taste of Things” and Korea’s “Exhuma” will open and close respectively the first edition of India’s Cinevesture International Film Festival. Tran Anh Hung won best director at Cannes 2023 for “The Taste of Things,” which was subsequently submitted as France’s official entry to the Oscars’ international feature category.

Naman Ramachandran Bollywood film “Shaitaan” has scored a hefty opening, according to data provided to Variety. The film marks the first collaboration between billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Studios, Bollywood A-lister Ajay Devgn’s Devgn Films and Panorama Studios. “Shaitaan” scored a worldwide weekend gross of $9.8 million, including India, according to numbers from Panorama Studios.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 44th edition of genre film festival Fantasporto, which runs in Portugal’s second city Porto from March 1-10, has bestowed its best film award on Japanese sci-fi fantasy pic “From the End of the World,” directed by Kaz I Kiriya. The movie follows 10-year-old Hana, whose dreams transport her across various eras in Japanese history, and have the ability to save humanity. The jury’s special award went to “The Complex Forms,” Italian director Fabio D’Orta’s debut feature.

Netflix’s has unveiled a slate of female-led African projects to coincide with International Women’s Month.

Good afternoon Insiders, Jesse Whittock with you in London, where the TV world has decamped this week for a series of screenings. Read on, and sign up for the newsletter here.

Naman Ramachandran Jim Reeve, a British entertainment executive and producer with more than 40 years experience in the business, died on Feb. 27. He was 64.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery and Room to Read have partnered on “She Creates Change,” an animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world. Room to Read is a global education nonprofit aiming to creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Following its world premiere in the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival, Beta Cinema has revealed first sales across Europe and to Australia and New Zealand for Andreas Dresen’s “From Hilde, With Love.” The drama about anti-Nazi activists in Berlin, which is led by “Babylon Berlin’s” Liv Lisa Fries and introduces Johannes Hegemann in his first big screen appearance, will be released in France by Haut et Court, in Italy by Teodora and throughout Scandinavia by Angel Films. Beta Cinema also closed deals for Benelux (September Film), Portugal (Outsider), former Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Cirko) and Czech Republic (Film Europe). Palace Film picked up the film for Australia and New Zealand.

$10 billion Sony-ZEE merger plans and late February’s confirmation that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (which incorporates Viacom18 and streamer JioCinema) is to tie up most of Disney’s streaming and pay-TV businesses in an $8.5 billion deal, Indian media is set to gain a new market leader. For local and international operators in the world’s most populous nation, the consequences of those tectonic shifts extend across streaming, pay-TV, channels, advertising, sports and content.

Drishyam,” a hit Indian thriller in which an ordinary man confounds the police in order to protect his family, is to be re-made in English. Production is by India’s Panorama Studios with U.S. companies Gulfstream Pictures and JOAT Films.

Naman Ramachandran MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Paramount Global and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered on “In Bloom,” a short film anthology focusing on gender equity. Directed by emerging female filmmakers from Nigeria, Kenya, India, the U.S. and Brazil, the anthology addresses a range of issues including period poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, HIV self- stigma, family planning and women’s economic empowerment.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner‘s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky‘s documentary “Architecton.” “Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. Variety‘s review describes the film as “a profoundly affecting exploration of life and loss.” The Match Factory closed deals for the film in France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media), Poland (Aurora), CIS (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (MCF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film) and South Korea (Pancinema).

EXCLUSIVE: The news when Deadline speaks to Lisa Kramer is the launch of a Paramount+ branded hub with African pay-TV giant MultiChoice. But a conversation with the President, International TV Licensing at Paramount Global Content Distribution (PGCD), offers a much wider insight into the world of TV in 2024.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Netflix has acquired the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “To Kill a Tiger.” The film, about a father’s pursuit of justice in rural India, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and was awarded best documentary at the 2023 Palm Springs International Film Festival. “To Kill a Tiger” was, up until now, the only film this year to be nominated for the best feature doc Oscar without distribution.

Dahomey,” a highlight of this year’s Berlinale competition and directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantics”), for North America, Latin America, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India. The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema.

Lunar New Year is a key box office period in several Asian territories, but nowhere was it more hotly contested this year than in Vietnam, where several local, Japanese and Hollywood movies were slugging it over the week-long holidays (February 9-15).

Naman Ramachandran Tokyo-based global advertising giant Hakuhodo Inc. is further expanding its India footprint.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Spanish indie film studio Filmax has sold sleeper hit “The Teacher who Promised the Sea” to Italy’s Officine Ubu following sales to Nachshon Films in Israel, Angel Films Scandinavia, India’s BookMyShow and airline rights to Encore Inflight. “The Teacher…” is based on the real story of Antoni Benaiges, an instructor from Catalonia who, back in 1935, was assigned to teach at a little village school in the province of Burgos.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA) has launched a new film fund called Big Time Investment to boost production of quality Arabic movies and announced a slate of Egyptian feature films toplined by a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer. Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, whose epic “Kira and El Gen” about local resistance to British occupation, is recent hit, will direct the film titled “El Set.” Egyptian star Mona Zaki will play Kulthum who from the late 1920s onwards became the first prominent Arab singer to disseminate her work to the masses via the new technologies of the times: radio, the phonograph, cinema and television.

Rima Das’ upcoming “Malati, My Love.” Das, who is known for her touching dramas from Assam in Northeast India, has become a regular of the international festival circuit. Recent titles include “Village Rockstars” and “Tora’s Husband.” The new film, which was launched at last year’s Asian Project Market in Busan, will shoot by 2025.