Berlin Showbiz Latest News and Updates

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.

Guy Lodge Film Critic “We need a new idea of beauty,” says Michele De Lucchi, the Italian architect who talks us through certain stretches of “Architecton,” a singularly imposing and sonorous new documentary from Russian non-fiction auteur Victor Kossakovsky. His argument is that the earth can no longer sustain the kind of hefty architectural grandeur, built from the fabric of the Earth itself, that we’ve asthetically prized for centuries, and nor can the cycle of more disposable concrete construction continue without devastating environmental impact.

Stockport is being recognised for its nightlife after receiving a prestigious award.

Mubi has snapped up rights across multiple territories on Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger, the Martin Scorsese-narrated doc set to debut this week at the Berlin Film Festival. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Kirsten Niehuus, head of German film fund Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, is confident that the changes to film funding proposed by the German government recently will have a “very positive effect on the production scene in Berlin-Brandenburg.” The proposed changes to the funding system were presented last week to German lawmakers in the Bundestag by commissioner for culture and media Claudia Roth (see here). Speaking to Variety Saturday at a party Medienboard hosted at Berlin’s Holzmarkt, Niehuus said the changes “will mean that we would have a tax system in place that could compete, for instance, with Budapest or Prague, so that not so many German productions would go and shoot somewhere else, and more foreign productions would come and shoot in Germany.” Looking at the media landscape across Germany she notes that one major challenge is the decision by high-end outlets such as Paramount+, HBO and Sky to cancel local productions, and she noted “the streamers are not such reliable partners anymore.” She added: “So I think producers are having a really hard time at the moment.” On a happier note, the Berlin government raised Medienboard’s budget by Euros 6 million over the next two years, which will be targeted at the exhibition sector in the region, allowing for the upgrading of facilities at movie theaters.

Alex Ritman ‘Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,’ the documentary produced and narrated by Matin Scorsese, has been acquired by Mubi ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. The arthouse streamer, distributor and production company has bought all rights for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Latin America, Turkey and India.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent As the European Film Market starts to unwind, the verdict is already in: Even if global economics are rocky, buyers are back and on the lookout. This week, dealmaking has been happening on both star-driven packages as well as arthouse and foreign-language movies.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has had a busy EFM, where it’s locked a raft of major deals on “The Devil’s Bath,” a period psychological thriller in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. “The Devil’s Bath” is directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian filmmaking duo behind “Goodnight Mommy.” Set in rural Austria in 1750, “The Devil’s Bath” stars Anja Plaschg, the up-and-coming singer and composer known as Soap & Skin. Plaschg plays Agnes, a young married woman who feels oppressed in her husband’s world, which is devoid of emotions and limited to chores and expectations.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, has debuted its trailer (below). The film, directed by Andreas Dresen, centers on a group of young anti-Nazi activists in Berlin during World War II. (Read Variety‘s review here.) The film, which is being sold by Beta Cinema and is produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel for Pandora Film, stars “Babylon Berlin” breakout Liv Lisa Fries and Johannes Hegemann.

Callum McLennan Chile’s Storyboard Media brings its latest documentary venture to Berlin, a project centered on Jorge González, a Latin American music legend frontman of Los Prisioneros. Set to be shown at the EFM, the doc feature charts the life and legacy of a musician whose songs became anthems of resistance during Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, and are still played loud when protests flare.

EXCLUSIVE: Martin Scorsese is returning to the Berlin Film Festival tomorrow for the first time in a decade. The cinema legend, currently on the awards circuit with latest epic Killers Of The Flower Moon, will be feted with the Berlinale‘s highest honor, its lifetime achievement Golden Bear.

With the indie film business in buoyant mood here in Berlin, it’s The TV industry’s turn to take stock today and tomorrow, and it’s safe to say the drama crowd are navigating some choppy waters.

Naman Ramachandran British actor Solly McLeod‘s career is on an upward trajectory with Berlin-premiering “Last Swim” and Viggo Mortensen-directed “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” which premiered at Toronto 2023 and is bound for Glasgow next. Set over a hot summer day in London as the high-school year is ending, “Last Swim,” from feature debutant Sasha Nathwani, follows British-Iranian teen Ziba (Deba Hekmat) as she leads her friends on an eventful journey across the city, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. McLeod plays Shea, one of the key members of the group.

Christopher Vourlias Following on the heels of his Oscar-shortlisted “Refugee,” veteran U.S. producer Brandt Andersen (“Everest,” “Lone Survivor”) makes his feature directorial debut with “The Strangers’ Case,” a kaleidoscopic and deeply felt portrait of the refugee crisis that world premieres Feb. 23 as a Berlinale Special Gala.

Alex Ritman It’s been five years since “Chernobyl,” HBO’s phenomenally successful miniseries about the catastrophic 1986 disaster and a show that garnered both widespread acclaim and a whole host of Emmys, Golden Globes and BAFTA TV awards. Its creator Craig Mazin has since brought us zombies galore in the video game adaptation “The Last of Us,” but now “Chernobyl’s” BAFTA and Emmy-winning director Johan Renck is about to unleash his next project.

Christopher Vourlias Oscar nominee Abderrahmane Sissako (“Timbuktu”) returns to the screen for the first time in nearly a decade with his latest feature, “Black Tea,” a lushly lensed romantic drama about a love spanning cultural divides that world premieres Feb. 21 in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Christopher Vourlias A cross-country journey in search of a mysterious treasure puts the nature of faith to the test in “The Great Yawn of History,” the feature debut of Iranian director Aliyar Rasti, which premieres Feb. 23 in the competitive Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of a man of wavering religious conviction who dreams of a box of gold hidden in a cave.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief France’s Isabelle Huppert, one of the leading actors of her age, has crafted a unique relationship with Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo. Hong’s “A Traveler’s Needs,” which premieres this week in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, is the third time that Huppert has starred in one of his unique pieces of minimalist cinema. She says she hopes the partnership can go much further. Huppert plays a footloose and intense French woman at large in Korea and vaguely making ends meet as an untrained language tutor with eccentric methods.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Antonia Nava, producer and sales chief on Brad Anderson’s “The Machinist” and “Transsiberian” when she headed up Filmax Intl. for over 10 years, is returning to the sales arena, joining forces with Spain-based sales agent Liliana Bravo to launch Neo Art Intl., a new division of Nava’s Barcelona-based Neo Arte Producciones.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales company Iuvit Media Sales has closed multiple deals at the European Film Market in Berlin for the suspense horror slasher “Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge.” Buyers include Gussi Films for Latin America, Pioneer for the Philippines and Front Row for the Middle East. Directed by Craig Rees (“Annabellum,” “Whispers”) and starring Olga Solo, Abigail Huxley, Rees and Julian Amos, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Death and Porridge” is an “intelligent” horror slasher, in the vein of Wes Craven horrors, and with comparables such as “The Strangers” and “The Purge.” In this adaptation of the fairy tale, Goldilocks and the three bears live together in an isolated house in the woods.

Ed Meza @edmezavar An unsung master of movie magic, Solon Luigi Colani has worked on some of the biggest Hollywood movies ever shot in Germany and beyond, among them works by Quentin Tarantino, Ron Howard, George Clooney, Denis Villeneuve, Paul W.S. Anderson, Gore Verbinski and the Wachowskis.

Rooney Mara is pregnant!

CinemaChile announced in January. One month later, CinemaChile, the national promotion board, is turning 15 at Berlin. The consequence of longterm uninterrupted promotion of an industry must not be underestimated.

A youthful crowd of industry professionals filed into a bustling room at the Gropius Bau Saturday afternoon for the inaugural AfroBerlin symposium here at the Berlin Film Festival. 

Somebody — or something — is speaking from inside a timber crate. “It’s so dark in here… a night so deep and opaque” read the subtitles; the voice is speaking in Fon, the local language of the West African country that was once called Dahomey and is now Benin. As the slats are nailed down, the voice is increasingly muffled; we are outside, but we are inside too, watching the light disappear.

A group of pro-Palestinian supporters staged a protest against Israel’s ongoing military action in the Gaza Strip in the main Marius Gropius Bau venue of the Berlin Film Festival European Film Market on Sunday.

EXCLUSIVE: After we broke news of the studio acquiring Margot Robbie starrer Big Bold Beautiful Journey, we can reveal that Sony Pictures has boarded another of the European Film Market’s most in-demand projects: Past Lives director Celine Song‘s next movie, Materialists, which A24 is selling.

Kristen Stewart is in Berlin this weekend for the international premiere of her lesbian crime-thriller Love Lies Bleeding.

The first-ever edition of AfroBerlin put Africa in the spotlight at the Berlin Film Festival and in one key session asked how festivals, streamers, and the wider industry can — and should — support films and filmmakers from the continent.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Twin directors Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, who are known to Berlin Film Festival audiences for stylishly gritty dramas “Boys Cry” and “Bad Tales,” are back with eclectic detective series “Dostoevskij,” premiering in the fest’s Berlinale Special section. Set in the stark Roman hinterland, the six-episode show — produced by Sky Studios with Rome’s Paco Cinematografica — stars Filippo Timi (“Vincere,” “The Eight Mountains”) as Enzo Vitello, a policeman whose mind is warped by an incident involving his daughter Ambra.

Ellise Shafer At the Berlin Film Festival press conference for her new film “Love Lies Bleeding,” Kristen Stewart said she thinks the era of queer films “being so pointedly only that is done,” adding that it’s time for films to focus on “sidelined perspectives” while “not making it all about the reasons that they’re sidelined.” “Love Lies Bleeding” stars Stewart as reclusive gym manager Lou, who “falls hard for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream,” the film’s synopsis reads. “But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.” When asked if filming the gory and twist-filled “Love Lies Bleeding” had changed her perspective on how queer stories are centered in cinema, Stewart sounded off on the topic.

Rumours have been swirling here at the European Film Market in Berlin that a market later in the year, the American Film Market, is moving location.

Ben Croll Launching in competition in Berlin, Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” traces the path of 26 royal treasures purloined by French soldiers in 1892 and restituted to the country of Benin in 2021. Moving from Paris to Cotonou, the inventive documentary allows the artifacts to speak for themselves, reflecting on their journey in Fon-language dialogue often set against an ethereal and evocative synthpop score. Variety spoke with filmmaker ahead of her film’s world premiere.

Christopher Vourlias Greek filmmaker Yorgos Zois, who’s set to bow his sophomore feature, “Arcadia,” in the competitive Encounters strand of the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 18, is developing his first TV series. “Play” follows a lone cinephile who joins a mysterious group of strangers that reenact scenes from movies in real life.

“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor When Laila Stieler’s script for “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, first came to director Andreas Dresen he was a little reluctant to take the project on. The issue was not the script but the subject-matter: set in Nazi-era Berlin, “From Hilde, With Love” is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis.