Israel Showbiz Latest News and Updates

William Earl Peter Chernin’s North Road Co. has pacted with Israel’s Sipur production banner for the drama series “Bad Boy” from the creators and producers of the original “Euphoria.” North Road and Sipur will partner on the production of the series from creator Ron Leshem and director Hagar Ben-Asher. Israel’s HOT platform and Tedy Productions are co-financing the series, which began production in January. “The North Road team is thrilled to work with the incredibly talented Ron Leshem and Hagar Ben-Asher and the teams at Sipur, Hot and Tedy to bring this exceptionally compelling and poignant story to life and launch our promising foray into international co-productions,” said Kristin Jones, president of film and TV for North Road.

Peter Chenin’s North Road Company has struck its first international co-production deal – backing Euphoria creator Ron Leshem’s latest drama Bad Boy, which Leshem described as “the next Euphoria.”

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LILLE, France — The gauntlet thrown down by the opening stretches of Viaplay banner title “The Fortress,” one of nine series in main competition at Series Mania, is to believe that this is fiction.  News footage plays of a pandemic, then a war; huge protests rage around the world as Norway’s prime minister addresses his nation to announce that Norway is building a wall to keep everybody else out. That’s been done before (Israel) and in metaphorical terms (Brexit).  Cut to nine years later: Norway is a bucolic paradise, Sweden next door a refugee camp hell, until strange bacteria kills fish and then humans, and Norway will, foreseeably, need international help and “what starts as a wall, ends as a prison,” comments Filippa Wallestam, Viaplay Group chief content officer.

Fremantle has launched a premium documentaries label helmed by Mandy Chang.

Roger Waters from performing in Frankfurt, Germany.The former Pink Floyd member was set to perform in the city on May 28 as part of his This Is Not A Drill tour – however the show was pulled by the officials at Frankfurt City Council following accusations of anti-Semitism.Now, famous faces including Eric Clapton, Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello and Pink Floyd’s own Nick Mason have rallied behind Waters, and backed a Change.org petition aiming to have the decision overturned.Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and Soft Machine founder Robert Wyatt have also shown their solidarity, as well as actors Susan Sarandon and Julie Christie, and film director Ken Loach. Currently, the petition has more than 10,000 signatures.“Waters’ criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is part of his long-term advocacy on behalf of human rights across the globe,” reads the description alongside the petition.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Yes Studios, the Israeli producer and distributor behind “Fauda” and “Shtisel,” has boarded “Unsilenced,” a six-part series about sexual violence which is inspired by Odelia Carmon’s novel “The Confidante.” The multi-layered series stars Yaakov Zada Daniel (“Fauda”), Avraham Shalom Levi (“Shtisel”), Nelly Mira Rubin (“Fire Dance”), Dana Meinrath and Irit Nathan Benedek. Loosely inspired by actual events, “Unsilenced” is set pre-#MeToo, in the early 2000’s, when powerful men could readily mask and perpetuate abhorrent behaviors with the help of people they installed around themselves.

Lille’s Series Mania Forum is kicking off today with a packed schedule of talks, screenings and competitions.

Bryan Cranston, Michael Stuhlbarg, Hope Davis, Andrene Ward-Hammond and Isiah Whitlock Jr., originally slated for a one-season run unlike its predecessor, “Kvodo” (“His Honor”), which ran for two seasons (and 22 episodes) on Israeli television from 2017 to 2019.Plan A changed after “Your Honor” set Showtime viewership records upon its December 2020 premiere, triggering a no-brainer second season, though it was hard to fathom where the series could go after the finality of Eugene Jones (Benjamin Flores Jr.) — seeking vengeance against Carlo Baxter (Jimi Stanton) for killing his older brother, Kofi, in prison — missing his target and shooting Adam Desiato (Hunter Doohan), who died in his father Michael’s arms. That wrapped the Shakespearean storyline in poetic fashion, with Adam’s death karmic payback for accidentally killing Rocco Baxter, the son of New Orleans mobster Jimmy Baxter (Stuhlbarg) — setting into motion the resulting disastrous coverup orchestrated by Judge Michael Desiato (Cranston) … and its tragic conclusion.

Imagine not only believing the world is coming to an end, but wanting it to happen. Eagerly. Then, take it a step further and imagine people with such a mentality engineering American politics and foreign policy to bring about the very thing they seek — the apocalypse.

EXCLUSIVE: American-European media fund APX Group has appointed film industry veteran Anthony Buckner as Director of Film and Television Distribution and Acquisition, to head up a new department created as it continues its international expansion drive.

Michael Winterbottom has devoted much of his filmmaking career to revisiting real-life events through works blurring the boundaries between documentary and drama to various degrees.  

Decades of love! James Van Der Beek and wife Kimberly Van Der Beek (née Brook) have been a swoonworthy pair for more than 10 years.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene. Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.  But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth. 

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent With an International Panorama spangled by gems  – think Spain’s “Apagón,” Sweden’s “Blackwater,” and Canada’s “Disobey” and “Little Bird” – Series Mania also weighs in this year with one, if not the, strongest and most mouthwatering of international competitions in its history.  Including the opening and closing series, Amazon’s “Greek Salad” and Netflix’s “Transatlantic,” nearly all the global streamers have titles in the lineup, from Apple TV+’s “Drops of God” and Paramount+’s “Fleeting Lies.” The lineup also features some A-List international writing talents, such as the U.K.’s Jack Thorne and Israel’s Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen, whose “The Virtues” and “No Man’s Land” rank among the most memorable of recent Series Mania competition titles, and closing the festival, out of competition, “Unorthodox’s” Anna Wenger.”Fleeting Lies” also represents one of the first series from Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar’s El Deseo label in Madrid, opening series “Greek Salad” Cedric Klapisch’s first works a TV series creator.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Xavier Henry-Rashid’s London-based sales agency Film Republic has closed deals for multiple territories on “F*cking Bornholm,” a tart comedy of social discomfort. The film had its international premiere in the main competition section of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label award. In his review, Variety’s Guy Lodge commented that Polish writer-director Anna Kazejak‘s “precise, piquant film deserves wider festival exposure and discerning distributor interest.” It has now been acquired by Iceland’s Bio Paradis, Arsenal for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Lithuania’s Garsas, Slovenia’s RTV, Israel’s Yes and Sweden’s Lucky Dogs. The international trailer has its debut below.

Marta Balaga High-flying Access Entertainment, a division of Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries and equity investor in A24 and “His Dark Materials” producer Bad Wolf, is investing in “Red Skies,” one of the biggest titles set to world premiere at this year’s Series Mania, in main International Competition.   Blavatnik and Danny Cohen, Access Entertainment president, will serve as executive producers on “Red Skies,” a position they also hold one upcoming movies such as Beau is Afraid, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jonathan Glazer’s “Zone of Interest,” “Iron Claw,” starring Zac Efron, and “Conclave,” from Edward Berger, director of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”  

Roger Waters may take legal action against the motion to cancel upcoming performances in Germany – something which he believes to be “unjustifiable” and an attempt to “silence him”.The news follows an announcement last month, in which the German government decided to halt one of the songwriter’s upcoming shows, following allegations of anti-Semitism.

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).

Oscar-nominated The Case Against Adnan Syed documentary director Amy Berg has become the latest creative to strike a first-look deal with Fremantle.

Marta Balaga Israel’s Reshet 13 is attached to “Dust and Coal,” selected for Series Mania’s Forum Co-Pro Pitching Sessions.  The eight-episode thriller focuses on a Mossad assassin, Esther, whose world collapses when her father reveals to her that she is, in fact, a Syrian sleeper spy. Planted in Israel as a child, as part of a KGB program, her activation time has come.   Produced by Ronen Ben Tal for Bental Productions Ltd and France’s Morgane Le Moine for First Love, the show was created by Ben Tal, Ron Ninio – who will also direct – Eleanor Sela and Ofer Seker, co-creator of “Uri and Ella”, now airing on HBO Max.

UK director Michael Winterbottom has suggested that his 2022 Gaza documentary Eleven Days In May had a tougher time securing a UK broadcast partner following an article in the London-based Jewish Chronicle linking his Palestinian co-director to Hamas.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Israel’s Yaron Shani, best known for his feature debut “Ajami,” nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar in 2010, is presenting his debut television series, “Innermost,” at Series Mania. Variety is unveiling an exclusive first look at the series, which world premieres March 20 at the prominent television event unspooling in Lille, France over March 17-24. The six-episode limited series, world premiering in Series Mania’s International Panorama section, follows three characters whose lives intersect. Among them is a police officer, played by Eran Naim, a former cop himself, who first appeared in “Ajami.” The second is an upcoming writer who struggles to recover from a traumatic experience, while the third is a young aspiring musician who chafes against his parents’ wish to do his duty and join the military service, mandatory in Israel.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Pink Floyd’s proposed $500 million sale of the rights to their iconic five-decade, multiplatinum recorded-music catalog is “basically dead” because the surviving bandmembers “just can’t get along,” four sources close to the situation tell Variety — however, sources close to the band insist that it’s not. “You could say the deal is no longer ‘active,’” one of the four sources says. “But at the same time, it’s still on the table. It’s a strange situation!” It’s par for the course with this long-running and contentious proposed deal, which sees Roger Waters and David Gilmour, the two long-feuding principals of one of the most critically and financially successful acts of the rock era, taking public potshots at each other while simultaneously trying to find enough common ground to close a deal sources say could reach a half-billion dollars.

In Love and Warcraft, Madhuri Shekar was heralded as one of today’s fastest-rising and most prolific American playwrights.Since that 2014 debut and its focus on video games and gamer culture, Shekar has also earned praise for her mastery at tackling intricate and distinct genres, as varied as science and science fiction, and historical drama and horror.Shekar is at it again, this time with a contemporary American dramedy, or what Olney Theatre characterizes as “firmly in the mold of the great American kitchen sink dramas, leavened by a good dose of comedy.”A Nice Indian Boy is a story about Naveen Gavaskar, a Marathi-speaking Hindu boy, meeting the boy of his dreams — another Hindu boy, Keshav, who loves the same Bollywood films and can cook a mean dal makhani.It’s a match made in heaven that might even curry favor with his tradition-minded parents. Except, that is, for one small detail: Keshav was raised in an immersive and culturally rich Indian household by the Indian foster parents who adopted him, yet he himself is white.Still, the two are madly in love and ready to announce that to the world, starting with Naveen’s parents and the Gavaskar family.

The universe’s biggest drag queen singing competition is back.

is finally back with season 2. The world's fiercest competition, which sees each drag queens debuting a new musical number in front of a live audience and a «Pop Dival Panel» of judges, returns to Paramount+ on Friday, June 2. And among this year's contestants are queens from nine countries including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Israel, the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia. Executive produced by RuPaul and hosted by Graham Norton, follows some of the world's most talented performers as they battle it out for global domination during head-to-head singing battles spotlighting their wide range of talent.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV fest, and German film-TV powerhouse Beta Group has revealed the 10 projects in the first edition of Seriesmakers, unveiling what must be one of the most talent-packed project lineups at any festival, film or TV, in 2023, A mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut, Series Mania features in development drama series from “Compartment No 6’s” Juho Kuosmanen, ‘Bang Gang’s’ Eva Husson and “Birds of a Passage’s” Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego. Also in the mix is “Amigas,” the first TV project of Beatriz Seigner (“Los Silencios”), one of Brazil’s foremost young movie directors, “The Invisible Ink,” teaming Cannes best first feature winner César Díaz (“Our Mothers”)and New Uruguay Cinema founding father Fernando Epstein; and Indian arthouse filmmaker Pushpendra Singh, who scored with Berlin Encounters’ title “The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs.”

Oscar and BAFTA-winning film producer David Parfitt is hoping to reunite with French producer Philippe Carcassonne following their successful collaboration on Florian Zeller’s Oscar-nominated drama The Father. 

Tara Karajica Cinephil has sold Valerie Kontakos’ documentary “Queen of the Deuce,” which charts the rise of Chelly Wilson, the queen of the porn industry in 1970s New York, to several key territories. The film premiered at Doc NYC and is now playing in the International Competition at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival. Greece’s ERT, Canada’s Doc Channel, Switzerland’s Radio Télévision Suisse and Israel’s Channel 8 came on board at the funding stage. It has now been acquired by Spanish streamer FilmIn, Swedish broadcaster UR, and U.S. theatrical distributor Greenwich Entertainment. The film follows Wilson from pre-World War II Greece to New York, where she rose to become a major figure on the porn circuit in Times Square from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. She is shown to be a trailblazing, taboo-breaking entrepreneur and an unconventional matriarch. It is presented as an empowering story of survival, as well as an alternative take on cultural history at a time of the rise of feminism, the sexual revolution and the emergence of the gay liberation movement.

Israeli actor Chaim Topol, known for his iconic role of Tevye in the film "Fiddler on the Roof," has died at the age of 87. A cause of death was not revealed, however his son told the Israeli press last year that his father was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.  Raised in Tel Aviv and revered as a top actor in his native land, Topol appeared in over 30 movies across Israel and the United States.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mk2 films has enlisted leading distributors around the world for “Reality,” Tina Satter’s feature debut starring Sydney Sweeney, on the heels of its buzzy world premiere at the Berlinale. The movie, which bowed in the Panorama section, stars Sweeney (“White Lotus,” “Euphoria”) as Reality Winner, a 25 year-old whistleblower who spent five years in prison during the Trump administration. A former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator, Winner was convicted for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media. The film is based on Satter’s 2019 stage play “Is This a Room” and contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of a FBI audio recording. “Reality” captures the tense and surreal 90 minutes of FBI’s interrogation with Winner at her home in 2017.

Chaim Topol, a leading Israeli actor who charmed generations of theatergoers and movie-watchers with his portrayal of Tevye, the long-suffering and charismatic milkman in “Fiddler on the Roof,” has died in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders said Thursday. He was 87.

Nordic Networks Team For ITV Studios Drama Deal

Flash Gordon and James Bond star Chaim Topol has died at the age of 87, Israel’s president has now confirmed, with fans taking to social media to remember the star.The Israeli actor was best known for his portrayal of Tevye in the 1971 musical Fiddler On The Roof alongside acting legends like Rosalind Harris, Norma Crane and Leonard Frey. Chaim's death was confirmed in a statement shared on Twitter by president Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, in which he paid tribute to Topol as “one of the giants of Israeli culture.” Herzog described Chaim as “a gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and above all entered deep into our hearts”.

Herzog said. “A gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and above all entered deep into our hearts.”“Topol was one of the giants of Israeli culture and he will be greatly missed. Condolences to his dear family and all his loved ones,” he added.Alzheimer’s was given as the cause, according to reports.

Carmel Dagan Chaim Topol, who became professionally known solely by his last name in a career that included starring in “Fiddler on the Roof” on stage and screen and co-starring in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” and the sci-fi film “Flash Gordon,” died Thursday in Tel Aviv after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87 years old.Topol’s death was confirmed by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, who described him as a “gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and especially entered deep into our hearts.” Topol began his long association with the starring role of Tevye the milkman in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1967, appearing in the West End production, which ran for 2,030 performances. He starred in Norman Jewison’s 1971 film version, which carried a budget estimated at $9 million and garnered a domestic gross of $80 million. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture and best actor for Topol. It won for cinematography, sound and music.