Hungary Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Italian actress Luisa Ranieri, known for her role as Aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” has joined the cast of Johnny Depp’s directorial project, “Modì.”

Italian actress Luisa Ranieri has joined the cast of Johnny Depp’s upcoming Amadeo Modigliani bio-pic Modi as filming gets underway in Hungary.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian star Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally troubled Aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” has joined the cast of the Johnny Depp-directed film “Modì,” about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The film has started shooting in Budapest. Ranieri is starring in “Modì” alongside fellow Italian Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays the bad boy painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France and became famous for the groundbreaking modern style of his portraits and nudes.

Emiliano De Pablos “A Hunt for Hedgehogs,” the new film by Hungarian director Mihály Schwechtje and “Rock Bottom,” the feature debut of Spaniard María Trénor mark two potential highlights of San Sebastian’s pix-in-post sidebar WIP Europa, that runs Sept 25-27. In 2020, the San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world, launched two new pix-in-post showcases, WIP Latam and WIP Europa, replacing respectively Films in Progress and Glocal in Progress sidebars.

EXCLUSIVE: Main cast has been revealed for The Daily Wire’s adventure series The Pendragon Cycle, which is currently filming in Europe.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor European pay TV platform Sky has released the trailer for Sky Original film “Dance First,” ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 30. The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”).

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Wire has cast its lead in fantasy series The Pendragon Cycle, which is underway in Europe.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Charades has closed multiple deals on “There’s Something in the Barn,” Magnus Martens’s (“Fear the Walking Dead”) comedy horror movie from “Dead Snow” producers at 74 Entertainment and XYZ Films. The English-language movie is headlined by Martin Starr (“Freaks and Geeks,” “Spider Man”), Amrita Acharia (“Game of Thrones”) and Jeppe Beck Laursen (“The Last Kingdom”).

HBO and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson have been accused of ripping off the work of photographer Petra Collins.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The political backlash surrounding Agnieszka Holland’s Venice Special Jury Prize-winning refugee drama “Green Border” hasn’t kept the movie from being a hot seller. The film explores the injustice and terror perpetrated at the Polish-Belarusian border from the perspective of refugees, Polish activists and border guards.

Ellise Shafer SkyShowtime, the European streaming home to releases from Paramount and Universal, has revealed its upcoming film and TV slate through the rest of the year, including “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Poker Face.” Just one year since the streaming service’s launch in the Nordics and six months since its rollout in 20 more European markets, SkyShowtime is on track to have 50% of this year’s box office on the platform. “Less than a year since our launch, SkyShowtime boasts an impressive line-up of amazing content,” SkyShowtime CEO Monty Sarhan said in a statement.

The New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat scorched the novel in a piece headlined “How America Made James Bond ‘Woke,’” warning that it juxtaposes a progressive version of the globetrotting spy against a caricature of conservatism, “007 is charged with protecting King Charles III from a dastardly plot hatched by a super villain,” Aethelstan of Wessex, who can be described as a “Brexiteer, a right-wing populist, apparently the true and natural heir to Goldfinger and Blofeld.”He goes on to note that Bond, known for womanizing in the past, is in a romantic “situationship” with an immigration lawyer he permits to sleep with other men, and that his mission is that he “must travel to Viktor Orban’s Hungary to infiltrate the vast right-wing conspiracy and avert a terrorist attack at Charles’s coronation.”Douthat lamented it as yet another example of “American-style wokeness” asserting its power throughout the Anglosphere or countries culturally and linguistically connected to England.

Hungary has selected Annecy-winning title Four Souls of Coyote as its official entry for the International Oscar race this year. 

French filmmaker Claire Denis has been announced as the jury president for the Official Section of the 71st San Sebastian Film Festival, running from September 22-30.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Vogter,” a psychological thriller directed by Gustav Möller, whose previous film “The Guilty” won the Audience Award at Sundance, has been pre-sold by Les Films du Losange to multiple territories. “Vogter,” which was just completed and is now in post, has been picked up for Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (La Aventura), Italy (Movies Inspired), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg (Cineart), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (Kino Pavasaris) and Hungary (Vertigo). Les Films du Losange has closed these deals since unveiling the project at Cannes and is negotiating further sales in other key territories.

Guy Lodge Film Critic If we’ve learned anything from the last few years of polarized political discourse surrounding everything from gun control to gender identity, it’s that when somebody pulls out the “won’t somebody please think of the children” card, the children are rarely the first thing on their mind. Even as it plays out on a specifically Hungarian social landscape, the satire of Gábor Reisz’s astute, drily funny third feature “Explanation for Everything” — in which an underachieving high-schooler becomes a right-wing cause célèbre on the strength of some dicey tabloid reporting — resonates more widely.

‘Bardot’ Series Sells After Netflix Launch

arrived at the with her heels in hand, stepping barefoot onto the dock in full glam. The 29-year-old Hungarian model, who recently married former child star , smiled for the camera as she headed to the Poor Things movie premiere in a stunning Giorgio Armani navy gown with a dramatic thigh-high slit and asymmetrical cutout detail.Palvin kept her makeup understated with a subtle smokey eye and pale pink lip, letting her Bridgitte Bardot-inspired updo speak for itself.

Christopher Vourlias The question of whether Hollywood stars will light up the Lido this week has roiled the film industry in the run-up to the Venice Film Festival. “Poor Things” lead actress Emma Stone was among the marquee names that were holding out for a SAG-AFTRA exemption allowing her to promote the Frankenstein-inspired period film from Oscar nominee Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), which bowed in competition Friday to a lengthy standing ovation and rave reviews.

Christopher Vourlias On the surface, it looks like any other teenage love story: Abel, an absent-minded high-school student in Budapest, hopelessly pines for his best friend, Erika, dreamily staring out the classroom window when the teacher calls his name. On the day of his final exam, he draws a blank: Rather than bury his head in his history books, Abel’s had his head in the clouds.

Naman Ramachandran The bipolar nature of Hungary’s politics and the country’s education system are the targets of Gábor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” which world premieres in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand. The film is Reisz’s third feature after the acclaimed “Some Inexplicable Reason” (2014) and “Bad Poems” (2018). Set in summer in Budapest, “Explanation for Everything” follows high school student Abel, who is struggling to focus on his final exams while coming to the realization that he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka.

EXCLUSIVE: Roman Polanski’s dark comedy The Palace has sold to a host of key territories ahead of its Venice premiere, with distributors getting behind the film in spite of the controversy surrounding the director. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Triple Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” which will premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, before going onto Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival, has sold to multiple territories. Variety has been granted access to an exclusive clip from the film, and Holland’s notes on the production, which we quote from below, again exclusively.

Summer may be drawing to a close, but the blockbusters of the season are still basking in box office glory. To wit: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is poised to become the highest-grossing Warner Bros movie of all time globally on Monday. Through today, the worldwide estimate is $1.34B, meaning just $1M separates it from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 to attain the record.

Formula One racer Daniel Ricciardo will no longer be competing in the Dutch Grand Prix over the weekend after a broken wrist pulled him from the competition.

Naman Ramachandran International sales agent Films Boutique has revealed the first sales and a trailer for Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” which will world premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand. Films Boutique has sold the film to I Wonder Pictures for Italy and Filmtett for Romania.

Jessica Kiang According to Hungarian animator duo Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó, we have only a century until the dessicated, infertile dystopia of their animated festival hit “White Plastic Sky” becomes our reality. A few years ago, this grave and wistful film’s 2123 setting would have seemed hyperbolic, but the rapidity with which we seem to be hurtling toward environmental collapse recently makes its parched landscapes — it could be the surface of Mars but for the rusted hulls of ships jutting up like tombstones from arid lakebeds — seem only a mild exaggeration of the wastelands our literal grandchildren might have to call home.

Ilker Çatak’s drama The Teachers’ Lounge will represent Germany in the Best International Film Category at the 2024 Oscars.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Tony Leung Chiu-wai, the Hong Kong star of “In the Mood for Love” and Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” has joined the cast of “Silent Friend” by Oscar-nominated Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi (“On Body and Soul”). Leung will be honored at the Venice Film Festival, where he will receive a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. He previously starred in three movies that have won the Venice Golden Lion: “A City of Sadness” (1989) by Hou Hsiao-hsien, “Cyclo” (1995) by Tran Anh Hung and “Lust, Caution” (2007) by Ang Lee.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent TrustNordisk has unveiled the international trailer and poster for “The Promised Land,” Nikolaj Arcel’s historical epic drama starring Mads Mikkelsen (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), which is slated to world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. “The Promised Land” tells the true story of an impoverished captain, Ludvig Kahlen, who set out to conquer the harsh, uninhabitable Danish heath with a seemingly impossible goal; to build a colony in the name of the King. TrustNordisk is describing the film as “a gripping story about the conquest of the heath, the tale of a proud and uncompromising man, and the woman who becomes his ally in the fight against evil, death and perdition.” Mikkelsen stars opposite Amanda Collin (“Raised by Wolves”).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Dance First,” a portrait of Irish writer Samuel Beckett starring Gabriel Byrne and directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, will close this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, playing out of competition. Byrne, a memorable lead in “The Usual Suspects” and “Miller’s Crossing” who also won a Golden Globe for his performance in “In Treatment,” plays Samuel Beckett, driving into his deep contradictions and inner torment of a writer who was a Parisian bon vivant, a WWII Resistance fighter and then Nobel Prize-winning playwright who, however, became a recluse, living the last years of his life in a single room in a nursing home, ashamed of past actions and convinced that for much of his life he had been a failure.

Ron Cephas Jones, the beloved actor known for his Emmy-winning role as William Hill in the NBC hit series This Is Us, has died. He was 66.A rep for the late actor told that Jones «passed away at the age of 66 due to a long-standing pulmonary issue.»«Throughout the course of his career, his warmth, beauty, generosity, kindness and heart were felt by anyone who had the good fortune of knowing him,» the statement to the outlet read.

Tara Karajica The idea for “My Mother, the Monster,” which won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Co-Production Market Thursday, came to Hungarian director Olivér Rudolf three years ago after seeing a picture of a woman walking in a dark forest in the middle of the night and wearing a scary monster mask. “There was a tension between this harsh mask and the vulnerability of the person wearing it, so I wanted to find out who was behind that mask and examine more the mother [underneath it],” he says.

Estonia has selected the Sundance prize-winning doc Smoke Sauna Sisterhood as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Oscars.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K. edition of iconic game show “Password” will bow imminently on broadcaster ITV, and new countries are being added. Variety can reveal that the Fremantle-owned format is getting versions in Greece (Alpha TV), Hungary (TV2), Israel (Channel 13), Mexico (TV Azteca) and Slovakia (TV JOJ).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Olivér Rudolf’s “My Mother, the Monster” has won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink, its industry section that featured projects from Southeast Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Hungarian feature film project, which is produced by Genovéva Petrovits at Kino Alfa, received a cash prize of €20,000 ($21,727). The film focuses on Éva, a mother in her forties who is disappointed with her life and tired of feeling insignificant.