Lithuania’s Romas Zabarauskas Opens Screen Doors for LGBT Storytelling in Eastern Europe

Free bus passes for teenagers are fuelling anti-social behaviour in shopping centres such as Livingston, local councillors claimed this week.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Asian premiere of Soi Cheang’s “Mad Fate” is just one of three locally-produced movies that have been set as the opening and closing titles of the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival. “Mad Fate” is joined in the festival opening slot on March 30 by “Elegies,” Ann Hui’s documentary portrayal of the topography of contemporary local poetry, which will have its world premiere. The closing film, another world premiere, is “Vital Sign,” an affecting drama directed by Cheuk Wan-chi and starring Louis Koo, Yau Hawk-sau, and Angela Yuen, which will wrap up proceedings on 10 April. In total, the festival has programmed some 200 films from 64 countries and territories. These include nine world premieres, six international premieres, and 67 Asian premieres.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Autlook Filmsales has sold “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” which won the directing award for Anna Hints in the World Cinema Documentary section at Sundance, to more than 20 territories in North America, Europe and Australia. Deals are confirmed with Neue Visionen in Germany, Trigon in Switzerland, Against Gravity in Poland, Fidalgo in Norway, Ost For Paradise in Denmark, Vedetta in Benelux, Filmtrade in Greece and Cyprus, FilmIn in Spain, Alambique in Portugal, Filmladen in Austria, Pasaka Films in Lithuania, Artcam in Czech Rep. and Slovak Rep., Best Film in Latvia, Mozinet in Hungary, and Madman in Australia and New Zealand. The rights in U.S. have been picked up by Greenwich Entertainment and in Canada by Sherry Media Group. The theatrical release in Estonia is by ACME Film.

Opening up. Prince Harry sat down with Dr. Gabor Maté for a special livestream on Saturday, March 4, to promote his memoir, Spare.

Prince Harry had a lot to say in his new interview!

“We’re doing this totally independent, we don’t even have a distributor!” exclaimed Independent Spirit Awards host Hasan Minhaj from the broadcast-less Santa Monica Beach tent this afternoon.

Charna Flam The Duke of Sussex has expanded on the difficulties he faced in confronting his mental health, saying that he thought therapy “would kill” him if he pursued it. Joining Hungarian-Canadian physician Dr. Gabor Maté Saturday morning for a recorded conversation, the pair examined the intricacies of trauma, mental health diagnoses, mental health awareness and Prince Harry’s personal experience with trauma growing up as a member of the Royal family.

Boygenius, Fred Again.. and Primal Scream are set to headline Connect Festival 2023 – see the line-up so far below.The three-day event is due to take place at the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland between August 25-27.

The competition winners of the 73rd Berlinale are about to start rolling in as the festival draws to a close Saturday evening.

Latin Grammys will be hosted out of the United States for the first time in history. After years of discussion, it appears like the awards show will take place in November in Spain.Marc Anthony reacted when a fan mentioned his ex-wife, Jennifer LopezRosalia looks stunning in a new revealing photoThe announcement was made by Juan Manuel Moreno, the president of the regional government of Andalusia, who was joined by the CEO of the Latin Grammys, Manuel Abud.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent In the first few months of 2020, huge swathes of Northern Italy were hit by the COVID-19 virus. Soon the death toll in the city of Bergamo reached such heights that an army convoy had to transport coffins out because its cemeteries and crematoriums were full. In his powerful doc “The Walls of Bergamo,” which world premieres on Friday in Berlin’s Encounters section, prominent Italian documentary director Stefano Savona – whose “Samouni Road” won the Golden Eye prize in 2018 at Cannes – and a team of student filmmakers take the pulse of the city when it is on the brink of collapse and, subsequently, as Bergamo begins its healing and recovery process.

A 59-year-old man has been jailed following an extensive police investigation into a series of sexual offences in Whitburn between 2011 and 2016.

Marta Balaga The Polish film industry is embracing variety and high-profile international collaborations, with a slew of new co-productions already generating buzz among buyers and festival programmers. “More and more established filmmakers, who used to look for collaborators in Romania or Hungary, are now coming to Poland — mostly because we are backed by concrete institutions and because there is money,” says producer Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska of Madants, heading to Berlinale’s European Film Market with “Ultima Thule” and Goran Stolevski’s “Housekeeping for Beginners.” “Our crews speak English and work abroad. We are visible internationally,” she adds.

Berlinale Series Market kicks off Monday as Spanish series “The Snow Girl,” a missing girl suspense thriller produced by Spain’s Atípica Films, has attracted huge heat for Netflix, punching 101.7 million hours watched in its first three weeks. Doing so, it ranked as the streamer’s No. 1 non-English show in the world over Jan. 30 – Feb. 5.  In all, Spain has more shows and movies in Netflix’s all time non-English Top 10s than any other country in the world, seven to France’s two, for example.  Spain, it could be argued, has cracked online. But its drama series industry wants to ring more options. 

Luton Town director Stephen Browne has taken aim at Manchester City and the Premier League following allegations of over 100 financial breaches.

Brent Simon There’s no shortage of movies that gauzily peddle the notion of art as a balm. Few, however, are as invested in the charged immediacy of art’s relationship to real-life pain as “Kiss the Future,” a documentary enjoying its world premiere Feb. 19 in the Berlinale Special slot, with Fifth Season and WME handling worldwide sales. Directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain, and based on American-born aid worker Bill Carter’s “Fools Rush in: A Memoir” (the pair share a screen story credit), the film is a savvy mélange of history and cultural portraiture that affectingly chronicles the struggle of Sarajevo’s besieged civilians during the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

A disheartened mum has revealed how losing nine stone after having bariatric surgery has left her feeling more 'broken' than she did before. Sami Mannings had ballooned to over 27 stone before she underwent weight loss surgery in Lithuania in November 2021 to 'fix' herself, the Liverpool Echo reports.

Christopher Vourlias When a rock festival held in Tallinn in the summer of 1988 was shut down by Soviet authorities, thousands of Estonians took to the streets, waving Estonian flags and singing patriotic songs in a bold show of defiance of Soviet rule. By the festival’s final night, some 200,000 people had joined what would later be dubbed the Singing Revolution, a catalyst for the non-violent movement that swept across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the early-‘90s and paved the way for independence. Even under Moscow’s thumb the Baltics demanded to be heard. For decades the three small nations have drawn on their historical, cultural and economic ties to create a sum that’s bigger than its parts, a collaborative spirit that’s also energized the countries’ growing screen industries, which will share the stage as joint Countries in Focus at this year’s European Film Market.

Christopher Vourlias This year, Latvia is sharing a spotlight with neighboring Lithuania and Estonia at the European Film Market, which has dedicated its 2023 Country in Focus Spotlight to the Baltic nations. It’s a sign of the tremendous strides the country has taken to put itself on the world cinema map, with the screen industries both producing more films and TV series than ever before and luring increasingly ambitious international projects to Northeastern Europe. Here’s a rundown of some of the top Latvian projects in the pipeline that their producers will be pitching in Berlin: Blue BloodDirector: Juris KursietisProducers: White Picture, Stellar Film, Asterisk*The follow-up to Kursietis’ Cannes Directors’ Fortnight player “Oleg” is the story of a successful couple whose comfortable life is turned upside-down when the husband is implicated in a massive corruption scandal.Sales: N/A

Christopher Vourlias When the European Film Market kicks off in Berlin on Feb. 16, the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will share the stage as the EFM’s joint Countries in Focus. The showcase, which is supported by the Estonian Film Institute, the National Film Center of Latvia and the Lithuanian Film Center, will offer a range of events within the framework of the EFM, along with a selection of market premieres and screenings of Baltic films already making waves on the festival circuit. Twelve up-and-coming Baltic producers will also be presented to the international industry during a happy hour on Feb. 17 in the Gropius Bas. Here’s a selection of Baltic buzz titles that the region’s top producers will be taking to Berlin: