Berlin Showbiz Latest News and Updates

The trailer for Julia Louis-Dreyfus‘ new movie has been released.

Coheed & Cambria have announced a run of UK and European dates on their ‘No World For The Waking Mind’ tour.So far, the tour has seen the rock band perform their seminal album ‘No World For Tomorrow’ in full alongside a mix of songs from their most recent album, ‘Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind’, which came out last year.While the band is in the UK for Download Festival this summer, they will be playing shows in Glasgow and London before moving on to Paris, Tilburg, Hamburg and Berlin. Soul Glo will be opening for them in London, Paris and and Tilburg.You can see the full list of dates below and buy your tickets here.JUNE11 – Glasgow, SWG3 Galvanizers13 – London, O2 Forum Kentish Town16 – Paris, Backstage19 – Tilburg, O1320 – Hamburg, Gruenspan22 – Berlin, Columbia TheatreElsewhere, the band has also shared the music video for ‘Beautiful Losers’, which was filmed while they were playing a live show in Germany.Per a press release, “the live performance clip illustrates the bond between the band and their fans around the world.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LILLE, France —  “Yours, Margot,” from  “Compartment No 6’s” Juho Kuosmanen, Guatemalan Cannes Camera d’Or winner César Díaz (“Our Mothers”) and Brazil’s Beatriz Seigner (“Los Silencios”) have won the three prizes on offer at the first edition of Seriesmakers. A mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut, after an inaugural edition delivering one of the most talent-packed project lineups at any festival, film or TV, in 2023, Seriesmakers backers Beta Group and Series Mania opened on Wednesday a call for admissions for a second edition.   Though all three series range hugely in setting and creators, all three see their protagonists go back to a recent past to explore events that have impacted their family (“Yours, Margot”), their modern-day country (“The Invisible Ink”), or traumas in the present (“Amigas”). 

Patti LuPone, 73, has nine huge shows remaining on her ongoing ‘Don’t Monkey With Broadway Tour’ all over the U.S.That includes two stops in the Garden State followed by a pair in New York.First, the three-time Tony winner will belt standards by Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and more at Englewood, NJ’s Bergen Performing Arts Center on Thursday, March 23.Then, on March 25, she’ll perform at New Brunswick’s State Theatre.Come summer time, the tour will drop into Poughkeepsie’s Bardavon Opera House on June 17.For those willing to wait over a year, you can see the show in Manhattan — ‘Don’t Monkey With Broadway’ is scheduled for a night at Carnegie Hall on April 8, 2024. And the best news of all is you won’t have to pay Broadway-like prices to see LuPone live on the road.At the time of publication, we found some seats going for as low as $58 before fees on Vivid Seats.So, if you want to see LuPone deliver what Front Row Reviewers called “autobiographical snippets (and) powerful song(s)” live, here’s everything you need to know.A complete calendar including all tour dates, venues and links to the cheapest tickets available for all remaining concerts can be found below.(Note: The New York Post confirmed all above prices at the publication time.

A project from Finland and a Belgium-Uruguay co-production have won the Seriesmaker initiative here at Series Mania.

The stars of the new Dungeons & Dragons movie are continuing their press tour across Europe!

EXCLUSIVE: Greek production and sales house Heretic has upped its long-time head of sales and acquisitions exec Ioanna Stais to partner.

Charna Flam After “Enough Said,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus reunites once more with Nicole Holofcener in the filmmaker’s recent Sundance feature “You Hurt My Feelings.” A24 released the first official trailer for the upcoming dramedy, “You Hurt My Feelings,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth and Tobias Menzies as Don,a married couple who have reached romantic and professional crossroads. Holofcener wrote and directed the film, her second indie collaboration with Louis-Dreyfus, which co-stars Menzies (“The Crown”), David Cross (“Arrested Development”), Jeannie Berlin (“The Heartbreak Kid”), Arian Moayed (“Succession”), Michaela Watkins (“The Unicorn”), Amber Tamblyn (“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”), Owen Teague (“It”) and Zach Cherry (“Severance”).

The first international show to be greenlit in Ukraine since the start of the war has entered production.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Strand Releasing has bought all North American rights to Emily Atef’s last two movies, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” which competed at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as her Cannes entry “More Than Ever.” Both films are represented in international markets by The Match Factory. Based on Daniela Krien’s novel, the film is set in the summer of 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, in the countryside of former East Germany. Marlene Burow plays Maria, who is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend at his parents’ farm. She engages into a passionate and lustful affair with Henner (Felix Kramer), a reclusive neighbor who is twice her age.“More Than Ever,” meanwhile, premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard. It stars Vicky Krieps (“Corsage,” “Phantom Thread”) and late French actor Gaspard Ulliel as a couple whose bond is tested when one of them is diagnosed with a terminal disease.

Holly Jones Brazilian media titan Globo bowed its ambitious doc series “Extremists.br” to market audiences in Berlin last month alongside a slate of equally promising emerging concepts. With sights now set on France, the telenovela and docu-centered powerhouse readies for buyers at Series Mania. Directed by journalist and documentary filmmaker Caio Cavechini (“Marielle – The Crime That Shook Brazil”), the project examines Brazil’s far-right movement, from the sociology of its radical idolatry to the underpinnings of corrosive propaganda campaigns that urge it on, shining a torch on the country’s highly divisive political climate. With unnerving ease, the eight-part series captures how readily a captive audience takes to fastly-spread tall tales, with original and nuanced thought thrown out the window as devotees cling to their dogmas, waging war with cut and paste battle cries while the vivid green and yellow flag of their country hangs around their shoulders, representative of a certain painted-on patriotism.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren’s celebrated Spanish feature “20,000 Species of Bees” and Kattia G. Zúñiga’s Panamanian drama “Sister & Sister” took the top prizes at the Malaga Film Festival, garnering the Golden Biznagas for Spanish and Latin American pictures respectively.   “20,000 Species of Bees” also won best supporting actress for Patricia López Arnaiz and picked up theSpanish Cinematographic Informers Association’s Feroz Puerta Oscura award. The film’s success follows two awards in Berlin, including a Silver Bear for Sofía Otero for her portrayal of a young girl going through a gender crisis. For Zúñiga, the Golden Biznaga is sure to help further propel “Sister & Sister,” an autobiographical story about two teenage sisters who travel from Costa Rica to Panama in search of their absent father.

The Favourite”). Set in the eighteenth century, the drama follows the famous last Queen of France (Schüle) beginning with her teenage years, as she’s sent from her home in Austria to France, in order to marry the awkward Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham), who won’t talk to her and doesn’t appear to bathe. She’s a fish out of water in Versailles, struggling to understand their way of life and deal with court intrigue, while Louis XV (James Purefoy, “Rome”) rules.  “It changed my view on her entirely,” said Schüle, who is German and is based in Berlin. “I do think that there is a very wrong image out there about her.

Daði Freyr, Iceland’s 2021 representative in the Eurovision Song Contestant, has announced his debut album and shared four songs from it.‘I Made An Album’ will be released in late summer, and today (March 17) Freyr has released the tracks ‘I’m Fine’, ‘Limit To Love’, ‘Shut Up’ and ‘Thank You’.Of the upcoming release, he said: “Good vibes only. Love who you are, unless you’re a horrible person, then change! I’m making an album. I started making it in 2021 and I’m almost done with it.

Natalia Zoppa by her throat.The “Run It” singer, 33, brought the reality personality up on stage to serenade her for his song “Take You Down” during his concert on March 13.Brown proceeded to give her a lap dance and she looked uncomfortable as he grabbed her neck, as seen in a video posted on Newsflare.Zoppa had been a contestant on the sixth season of “Love Island.”The Manchester gig is one of the stops during the European leg of his “Under the Influence” tour.Social media users seemed shocked at the R&B crooner’s antics, with one tweeting: “Aggressive as usual.”“She looks really really distressed,” one person noted. Someone else asked if the event was “consensual” and another wondered “why does the girls sit there and take it?”“Is there no boundaries to this disgusting man.

Callum McLennan Recently, there has been a consistent tide of well crafted and highly regarded films coming out of Spain. “Alcarràs,” “The Beasts,” “Lullaby,” “La Maternal,” “Prison 77,” to name just the five that the Spanish Academy Goyas singled out in early February.  This level of quality, over a short period, is getting noticed internationally. Last week the Glasgow Film Festival, Scotland’s largest, shone a light on eight films in its Viva el Cine Español program. A cultural moment is a strange beast, hard to fathom, but there are strong signals that Spanish Film is having one.   In addition to the aforementioned five, Glasgow added Andrea Bagney’s debut “Ramona,” “Wild Flowers,” from Jaime Rosales, another debut with Elena López Riera’s “The Water,” and a Penelope Cruz starrer, in Juan Diego Botto’s “On The Fringe.” 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Kino Lorber has bought U.S. and Anglo-Canadian distribution rights to Nicolas Philibert’s poignant documentary “On the Adamant” which just won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release later this year followed by a digital and home video release on all major platforms. Sold by Films du Losange, “On the Adamant” takes place at a unique day-care centre for adults suffering from mental disorders. Located in a structure floating the middle of the Seine, in Paris, the center heals these adults with a blend of therapy, education, and culture rooted in music and the arts. The affecting documentary follows the team running the Adamant as they attempt to transform and uplift the lives for these people.

In “Kill Boksoon,” a female hitman finds out that killing is simpler than raising a kid. Fresh off its world premieres at the Berlinale last month, South Korean director Byun Sung-hyun‘s new film stars “Secret Sunshine” actress Jeon Do-yeon as an assassin that sees her family and professional lives collide to antic results.

Emiliano De Pablos Confirming the increasingly strong interest by international buyers in Spanish animated features, Pink Parrot Media has scored a bevy of key European pre-sales on upcoming Spanish family adventure toon film “4 Days Before Christmas,” led by deals with Splendid in Germany and Kaleidoscope in the U.K. Produced by Spain’s 3Doubles Producciones and Capitán Araña with Canada’s PVP Media, directed by Steve Majaury and Andrea Sebastián, “4 Days Before Christmas” was one of the five noteworthy animated works in progress presented at this week’s Malaga Film Festival–Spanish Screenings to the international industry.  The film has also been acquired by Voxell por CIS territories, GPI (Baltics), FMA (Former Yugoslavia), Kinoswiat (Poland), Front Row (Middle East), Just Ent. (Benelux), Romania (SC Idea Films), Nos Lusomundo (Portugal) and Scandinavia (Angel Films).

Full Disclosure: Sue me but not only have I never played 80’s iconic video game Tetris, I had never heard of it before encountering this new film, Tetris, which world premiered tonight at SXSW and comes from Apple Original Films, I realize that probably makes me a bit of an oddity to the Gameboy generation, but I can only say my lack of knowledge on this product did not hurt one bit in being wildly entertained by a movie that tells its origin story. In fact it seems to be part of an encouraging, but unlikely, new genre this young year: movies all about the backstory of well known products – Blackberry from IFC and Paramount; Flamin’ Hot from Searchlight; and now Tetris from Apple. All three have been on display this week at SXSW (Blackberry actually premiered at Berlin), and if you think watching the emergence of a smart phone, a Cheetos brand, and a single player video game is , well uh, less than compelling, think again.

Charna Flam The so-called “crackberry” is back. IFC Films has released the first official trailer for the upcoming comedy-drama film, “BlackBerry,” which provides a peek into exactly how the handheld device revolutionized the cell phone industry. Director Matt Johnson, along with co-screenwriter Matthew Miller, adapted Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry” for the big screen. Johnsonplays BlackBerry co-founder Douglas Fregin in the film, alongside Glenn Howerton as chair and co-CEO Jim Balsillie, Jay Baruchel as co-founder Mike Lazaridis and Cary Elwes as Palm CEO Carl Yankowski. The cast also includes Saul Rubinek, Michael Ironside, Rich Sommer, Michelle Giroux, Mark Critch and SungWon Cho.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi’s documentary about love, memory and Alzheimer’s disease “The Eternal Memory” has scored a slew of international sales after making a splash at Sundance and Berlin. Dogwoof, the British sales company specialized in high-profile docs, has announced multiple deals on “Eternal Memory,” which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary in January and was a recent standout at the Berlinale where it had its European bow. The hot doc is screening later this week at the CPH:DOX documentary film festival in Copenhagen. Dogwoof partnered with MTV Documentary Films to represent “The Eternal Memory” for international sales soon after its Sundance premiere. They have now scored sales on the doc to: Edge Entertainment (Nordics); Madman (Australia and New Zealand); Sherry Media (Canada); I Wonder Pictures (Italy); BTeam Pictures (Spain); Periscoop (Benelux); Atnine Film (South Korea); Synca (Japan); LEV (Israel), and Restart (Former Yugoslavia).

Eloise has shared a new single ‘Therapist’ and announced a UK and European tour for June – see details below and buy tickets here.The London-based singer-songwriter is set to unveil her long-awaited debut album ‘Drunk On A Flight’ on April 14 via AWAL, and is previewing it with an upbeat soul-pop track.“Ending a long-term relationship at 23, you feel such a loss of time and adolescence and that can make you so frustrated,” she explained of inspiration behind the track. “What have I learned from all of this? And what am I stuck with at the end of all of this? My songwriting has always been honest, but this feels raw – like I’m exploring all the shades of emotion.”Watch the video for ‘Therapist’ and see Eloise’s 2023 tour dates below.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “We 12,” a movie featuring the entire group of 12 Mirror Canto-pop stars is part of the expanding production slate of Makerville, the talent and production arm of Hong Kong telecoms and TV group PCCW. The development is paralleled by an expansion of the production operations of Viu, PCCW’s multi-territory video streamer which recently confirmed its profitability. Makerville is the talent agency behind Mirror, which was created in 2018 through the “Good Night Show – Kingmaker” talent show on ViuTV, a PCCW terrestrial channel. And it was able to put all the band members on stage Wednesday at a promotional event within the FilMart rights market in Hong Kong.

Sofia Kourtesis has shared a new single – listen to the openhearted and upbeat ‘Madres’ below.The track marks the Peruvian artist’s first new music of 2023, following the release of her Manu Chao collaboration ‘Estación Esperanza’ in January last year.“This song is about my mother, her mother, my sisters who are mothers, my brothers who are mothers, and all the LGBTQIA+ members who are mothers to their communities,” says Kourtesis. “Madres has no gender.

On paper, the idea of a film about the rise and fall of the BlackBerry smartphone sounds dull as hell. A few Canadians get together, create a smartphone, and then Apple comes along and screws the whole thing up? Yawn.

Yusuf/Cat Stevens has spoken to NME about his newly-announced album ‘King Of A Land’, as well as his thoughts on the Glastonbury 2023 legend’s slot, Rishi Sunak’s government, and his dream of working with Green Day. Check out new single ‘Take The World Apart’ below, along with our interview with the icon.The first wave of artists for this summer’s festival was revealed earlier this month, with Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses set to join Elton John in headlining the iconic Pyramid Stage – and Yusuf/Cat Stevens filling the coveted legends slot on Sunday afternoon.Fresh on the heels of the announcement, the iconic singer-songwriter – who first found fame ‘Matthew And Son’ when he was just 18 in 1967, before releasing the likes of ‘First Cut Is The Deepest’, ‘Father And Son’, ‘Morning Has Broken’, ‘Peace Train’ and ‘Wild World’ – has today (March 15) revealed details of his new album, ‘King Of A Land’.“I didn’t have a plan for what this album was going to be and, in a way, I’ve been recording it for 12 years,” he told NME.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix has acquired global rights to Italian rom-com “Era Ora” (“Still Time”), marking a rare instance in which an Italian comedy is set to gain worldwide visibility. “Still Time” is directed by Alessandro Aronadio, a Los Angeles Film School graduate whose first work “One Life, Maybe Two” launched from Berlin’s Panorama section. The concept comedy stars Edoardo Leo (“Perfect Strangers”) as a workaholic named Dante who is perpetually late to everything important and Barbara Ronchi, soon to be seen in Marco Bellocchio’s “La Conversione,” as his girlfriend Alice with whom Dante winds up leaping ahead a year every few hours, just as he wants to slow down.

Emiliano De Pablos The Walt Disney Co.’s Star Distribution has taken Latin American distribution rights to Argentine writer-director Pablo Solarz’s coming-of-age film “Desperté con un sueño” (“I Woke Up with a Dream”) An Argentina-Uruguay co-production, teaming Buenos Aires-based Pampa Films and Aramos Cine with Montevideo’s Mutante Cine and Bocacha Films, “I Woke Up with a Dream” screened March 14 at the Málaga Film Festival’s main competition. Top Argentine producer Pablo Bossi’s Madrid-based company Gloriamundi is handling “I Woke Up with a Dream” rights outside Latin America.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kowloon Walled City — one of Hong Kong’s most famous landmarks, or infamous trouble spots, depending on your point of view — fell prey to the developers’ bulldozer 30 years ago. But it remains an icon of the territory’s gritty spirit and is being painstakingly re-created for action thriller feature “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.” The film is a beacon for how Hong Kong cinema is now evolving. Directed by hot-shot Soi Cheang, whose “Mad Fate” recently played in Berlin and is set for imminent local release, “Twilight” boasts leading stars Louis Koo, Sammo Hung and Richie Jen, plus emerging talents Philip Ng, Raymond Lau and Terrance Lau.

starring Kirsten Dunst.  Other credits include Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” HBO’s “True Detective,” “The Newsroom,” “Carnivale,” “True Blood” and “Six Feet Under”; Showtime’s “Homeland,” “Ray Donovan,” “The Tudors,” “Dexter,” “Weeds,” “Queer as Folk” and “The Borgias”; AMC’s “The Walking Dead”; FX’s “American Horror Story: Asylum” and “American Horror Story: Coven”; and the Emmy-nominated TNT miniseries “Into the West.”Additionally, he wrote and directed three award-winning feature films, including Samuel Goldwyn Films’ “Fugitive Pieces” starring Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival; “The Five Senses” starring Mary Louise Parker, which premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; and “Eclipse” which played both the Berlin and Sundance festivals.His upcoming work includes Netflix’s sci-fi adaptation of Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” trilogy from “Game of Thrones” writers David Benioff and. D.B.

EXCLUSIVE: Mila Kunis has been set to star opposite Michael Keaton in comedy Goodrich, we can reveal.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights for Belgian director Bas Devos’s film Here which won best film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section last month as well as the Fipresci prize.

EXCLUSIVE: Douglas Smith (Big Little Lies), Mark O’Brien (Arrival), Rebecca Liddiard (Alias Grace) and Vinessa Antoine (Diggstown,) have been cast opposite Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout) in Seven Veils, the new feature from filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter).

The Cycle: Frontier, has told NME that he has bet his career on cracking an Escape From Tarkov-style extraction shooter that serves casual audiences.While a number of games and game modes – including Battlefield 2042‘s short-lived Hazard Zone mode – have tried to create a more welcoming version of the extraction shooter genre popularised by hardcore shooter Escape From Tarkov, none have found the same success as Tarkov‘s Battlestate Games.“I thoroughly enjoy Tarkov, but I also think it’s a very fair point to say that’s not aimed for a casual audience,” Lightfoot tells NME. “It’s meant for people that can learn all the weapons, that can fundamentally know all of the really quick routes, and can identify another player’s location based on their audio.”“What we want to do with The Cycle is make sure that this awesome gaming experience […] is also appealing to a more casual audience on PC that isn’t currently well-served by extraction shooters.

Marta Balaga Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, behind “Compartment No. 6” and “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”– both awarded in Cannes – will now turn his attention to new series “Yours, Margot,.”  The upcoming series is one of the 10 projects chosen for Series Mania and Beta Group’s Seriesmakers. Based on Meri Valkama’s novel, “Compartment” will be produced, just like his previous films, by Helsinki-based Aamu Film Company, with “Compartment” scribes Andri Feldmanis and Livia Ulman also on board. This time Kuosmanen dissects the experiences of Vilja, who spent her childhood in East Berlin, following her foreign correspondent father. After his death, she finds old letters to “Erich,” all from mysterious “Margot.” Now, as an adult, she decides to return to Berlin and track her down.