Logical Pictures Expands Scope with Acquisition of French Distribution Banner ‘The Jokers’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSpecialty U.S. distributors Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures have acquired Italian director Pasquale Marrazzo’s LGBTQ drama “The Neighbor” for release in North America from Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales.“The Neighbor” (which is titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy) is about two young men who are in love but get bullied by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads that makes their life impossible as hatred and intolerance seeps into the rapport between their respective families.It’s the fifth feature written and directed by Marrazzo whose debut “South of the Sun” launched from Toronto’s Discovery section in 2001.

EXCLUSIVE: Marking her first feature since she won a Best Actress Oscar for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain and Dopesick and The Batman star Peter Sarsgaard have just wrapped on Michel Franco’s (New Order) new film, which we can reveal is called Memory.

Christopher Vourlias Rising South African filmmaker Thati Pele, the director of the hit Netflix teen drama “Blood and Water” and the streamer’s new original series “Savage Beauty,” is preparing her first feature film, which will be produced by the team behind the Oscar-shortlisted LGBTQ drama “The Wound.”“Brace Yourself” unspools on a failed romantic island getaway, where straitlaced orthodontist Dr. Shaloba Molefe decides to kidnap her unravelling family and won’t let them leave until they love her again.

EXCLUSIVE: By May 4, the cast and crew of Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher had moved on. It had been three weeks since star Frank Langella had been fired following an investigation into complaints of unacceptable behavior, and Bruce Greenwood had just been cast as his replacement. Then the incident returned to the headlines with Langella’s fiery guest column on Deadline, in which he portrayed himself as “collateral damage” and a victim of cancel culture which he called “not fair,” “not just” and “not American.”

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” which plays Cannes Classics this Saturday, begins with French film great Jean-Claude Carrière in a train, singing an ancient song in Occitan, the language of Provence, where he came from.Visiting Goya’s birthplace, he’ spies a cauldron and comments that there was one like that in his own family home.Towards the end of the film, surveying “The Colossus,” Goya’s painting of a giant dominating tiny people in a valley below who flee in all directions, Carrière observes that the painting capture a sense of immigration. Unlike so many of his friends, and indeed his wife,  Nahal Tajadod, Carrière notes, he will have the privilege of being buried in the same place where he was born.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorA visit from the dead? How chic.The Cannes Film Festival sprung back into action on Tuesday night, as this year’s opening night movie, “Final Cut (Coupez!)” received a 5-minute standing ovation. The gory zombie line, which straddled a tone somewhere between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Call My Agent,” kicked off a festival where few patrons were wearing masks in these COVID times.To commemorate the 75th edition of Cannes, festival director Thierry Fremaux selected a French movie — not to mention a French jury president, “Titane” actor Vincent Lindon — to keep things local at the start of the celebration of movies in the French Riviera.

Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux took part in a ‘meet the press’ session with journalists in Cannes yesterday afternoon.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMarie Kreutzer’s “Corsage,” which premieres in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, has debuted its first clip exclusively with Variety (below). MK2 Films is handling international sales.

EXCLUSIVE: Vision Films’ CEO and Managing Director Lise Romanoff has closed a deal with Andrei Bocharnikov of Ukraine’s Festivals Cinema to theatrically release six films in the region—the goal being to provide a little respite, distraction and hope for those in the country who are struggling.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCannes Film Festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux didn’t just have to field questions about Russia and the dearth of female directors at the fest during his meeting with journalists on Monday afternoon. He also had to address a claim that the festival is attempting to censor the press — and confirmed that he has asked publications to revise his quotes.Reading his quotes before publication is just a “French tradition” and “not a big deal,” he told journalists.But Fremaux denies that he has asked to change what journalists have written or to remove certain questions.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIn one of the first major deals of the Cannes market, Sony Pictures Classics has swooped on Un Certain Regard title “All The People I’ll Never Be.” The distributor has picked up rights in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.The film, which is written and directed by Davy Chou (“Diamond Island”), will be re-titled as “Return to Seoul.” It premieres in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.The pic centers on 25-year-old Freddie, who impulsively returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. The headstrong young woman starts looking for her biological parents in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.

Long a bastion of artistic freedom, the Cannes Film Festival has a secret: it censors interviews with festival head Thierry Frémaux.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales company The Match Factory has acquired distribution rights to murdered Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius’ documentary “Mariupolis 2,” ahead of the film’s premiere next week at the Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening.Kvedaravičius was captured and murdered by the Russian army in Mariupol, Ukraine in early April. The film was co-directed by Kvedaravičius’ fiancée Hanna Bilobrova, who was with him at the time of his death, and was able to bring back the footage filmed there, and edited it with his editor Dounia Sichov.The Match Factory worked with Kvedaravičius on his debut feature “Barzakh,” which played in the Berlinale in 2011.

EXCLUSIVE: Disney’s Onyx Collective has ordered the four-part limited docuseries Gigante from Don Francisco (Mario Kreutzberger, Sabado Gigante) and filmmakers Alex Fumero and Kareem Tabsch. Gigante will be streamed exclusively on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America, and Disney+ in all other territories at a future date.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentPresiding over the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, director Thierry Frémaux has assembled some serious Hollywood star power, world cinema auteurs amid indications that despite COVID, the film world is buzzing with anticipation for the films, the deals and most of all the glamour the fest brings.While Frémaux has been credited with expanding the horizons of the Cannes Film Festival since taking over the reins of its Official Selection in 2001, he’s also been praised for building relationships with American studios and filmmakers.This year, he’s lured them back in spite of the ongoing pandemic, with a lineup including James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” “My first red carpet was for ‘Moulin Rouge!’ with Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman in 2001 and it will be engraved in my memory forever,” says Fremaux. “I’m happy to reunite with Baz this year.

EXCLUSIVE: James DuMont (The Righteous Gemstones), Christopher James Baker (Ozark), Manny Galan (City on a Hill), Juvian Marquez (Power Book II: Ghost) and Anirudh Pisharody (9-1-1) will round out the cast of the thriller Unit 234, from director Andy Tennant, which is currently in production in the Cayman Islands. The quintet will star alongside previously announced cast members including Isabelle Fuhrman, Don Johnson and Jack Huston.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilms Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom”) has acquired four films set to world premiere at Cannes, including Albert Serra (“The Death of Louis XIV”)’s “Pacifiction” which will compete in the 75th edition’s Official Selection. The Berlin-based international sales banner has also acquired rising Morrocan helmer Maryam Touzani (“Adam”)’s “The Blue Caftan” and Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante Meza’s “Domingo and the Mist” which will both play in Un Certain Regard; as well as Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues (“The Ornithologist”)’s “Will-O’-The-Wisp,” set for Directors’ Fortnight.“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.

part ways with Langella after an investigation into claims of “unacceptable behavior” on set, Langella penned an open letter Thursday on Deadline decrying his forced departure.“I have been canceled. Just like that,” the 84-year-old thespian began in a lengthy statement.“In the increasing madness that currently pervades our industry, I could not have imagined that the words collateral damage would fall upon my shoulders. They have brought with them a weight I had not expected to bear in the closing decades of my career.

EXCLUSIVE: Wolfe Releasing has acquired North American rights to the Italian LGBTQIA+ dramedy Blessed Boys (La Santa Piccola) from Minerva Pictures, ahead of its North American premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Festival on June 11th, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital this fall.

K.J. Yossman Frank Grillo will fight a group of “terrifying, deadly creatures” in upcoming feature “The Dagon.”Brad Anderson (“The Machinist”) is set to direct the thriller, working from an original screenplay by Peter Mattei (“Outsiders”).In “The Dagon,” Grillo (“Kingdom”) will play Jack, a father who lives an isolated rural life alongside his family.