Model Romee Strijd Is Engaged to Longtime Partner Laurens van Leeuwen

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMemento International has closed major sales on Ursula Meier’s Berlin contender “The Line,” and “Boy from Heaven” by Tarik Saleh, the Swedish-Egyptian helmer of “The Nile Hilton Incident.” A religious and political thriller, “Boy From Heaven” is set in Cairo, in a Koranic school following the collapse of a grand imam which marks the start of a ruthless battle for influence.The movie is headlined by Tawfeek Barhom and Fares Fares, who previously starred in “The Nile Hilton Incident.” Saleh’s Stockholm-based outfit Atmo is producing the movie with Memento. Memento International has sold the film to Benelux (Cineart), Spain (La Aventura), Italy (Movies Inspired), Greece (Cinobo), Hungary (Vertigo) and Middle East (Falcon). Other territories in negotiation.

Ed Meza @edmezavarWarnerMedia and RTL Deutschland are partnering for the first time on the six-part co-production “Two Sides of the Abyss.”RTL Deutschland has secured first-run rights to the Warner TV original for Germany, where it will initially stream on its newly renamed RTL Plus platform, as well as free-TV rights thereafter.Warner TV Serie (formerly TNT Serie) will offer the series on pay TV in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, while WarnerMedia streaming platform HBO Max will launch the series as a Max Original in 61 territories across the U.S., Latin America and Europe. WarnerMedia International Television Distribution will handle international distribution outside of these territories.Created and written by Kristin Derfler,  “Two Sides of the Abyss” follows Wuppertal police officer Luise Berg (Anne Ratte-Polle) as she heads for an inevitable catastrophe after her daughter’s murderer is released early from prison.

Ben Croll When developing films like 2008’s “Home” and 2012’s “Sister,” French-Swiss director Ursula Meier began by focusing on geography, imaging what stories may spring from a forgotten stretch of highway or how a remote mountaintop might shape the lives of those living upon it. But when she began work on “The Line,” which premiered on Friday at the Berlin Film Festival, the filmmaker had a different terrain in mind.“The setting for this film would be the character’s body,” Meier tells Variety.

Violence and motherhood make for an unusual combination in Ursula Meier’s Berlin Film Festival competition title The Line (La Ligne). Set in remote present-day Switzerland, it stars actor-singer-playwright Stéphanie Blanchoud as Margaret, whose anger towards her mother Christina (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) frequently turns physical. While she’s a grown woman, there’s something primal and childlike about Margaret’s visceral fury that suggests a disorder that’s never named.

first met his partner Lisa Liberati on the set of the film Split, casually confirmed he’s tied the knot during a chat with The Guardian. Asked if he’s now an honorary Philadelphian due to Lisa hailing from the American city, he responded: ‘Yeah, it’s like a second home for me. ’However, the  42-year-old star declined to comment further on their relationship.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentHere, Variety talks with Fernando León de Aranoa, director of the Javier Bardem-starring “The Good Boss” (“El Buen Patron”), Spain’s Oscar entry, which is a big box office hit on home turf and has scored more Spanish Academy Goya nominations than any other film in history.What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?I feel a mix of joy and responsibility. It means following the steps of some of the greatest Spanish filmmakers who have done it before, being among a group of brilliant directors from all over the world and having the opportunity of showing “The Good Boss” to a wider audience.What’s been the most challenging aspect of your campaign thus far?To make our film visible amidst the strong contenders.

Has any Broadway production in recent (or even not so recent) memory arrived with as much emotional baggage – or carried it as lightly – as the visually and sonically ravishing MJ? The Michael Jackson musical, as unlikely as such a prospect might have seemed a year ago, now appears poised to take Manhattan with the same hurricane force that the real Jackson funneled when he moonwalked into television history on Motown 25.

Frank Rizzo Passions were never in short supply in Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play “Intimate Apparel,” where loneliness, longing and hope hover in every scene. In the latest, long-in-the-making collaboration between Lincoln Center Theater and the Metropolitan Opera, those passions fly free, revealing the operatic heart of “Intimate Apparel” in a new opera adaptation of this story of a 35-year-old Black seamstress aching for love in 1905 New York.The tight construction of the play, with its spare two-hander scenes and focus on the lives of ordinary and overlooked people, makes it a natural as a stripped-down chamber opera.

Hoda Kotb and her longtime partner Joel Schiffman have broken up.

Willem Dafoe, has had one of the most celebrated careers in Hollywood with four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor in 1987’s Platoon and one for Best Actor for playing Vincent Van Gogh in 2019’s At Eternity’s Gate. The 66-year-old Wisconsin native found a new legion of fans as the supervillain Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the original Tobey MacGuire Spider-Man trilogy, as well as in the most recent edition of the Marvel web-crawler franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Holy cow, this may be the most direct repudiation Britney Spears has launched at her sister!

Halle Berry has revealed she has had a commitment ceremony with her longtime partner Van Hunt, 51, according to a new interview.The 55 year old Hollywood actress, who just starred in Netflix’s thought-provoking drama Bruised, in November, has been busy making career moves while keeping her relationship on the down-low. But during a heartfelt chat, the star, who recently fooled fans into thinking she'd gotten married to Van, revealed she and musician boyfriend Van tied the knot in a sweet ceremony led by her son Mateo.The Oscar-winner also gushed over her “new amazing love”, whom she confirmed her relationship with in September 2020. Speaking to American publication AARP, Halle shared: “My son, Maceo, of his own volition did this little commitment ceremony for us in the back seat of the car.

The post included black-and-white pictures taken at what appears to be the same rally where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust saying, “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAmazon Prime Video has ordered its next French series original, “Darknet-sur-Mer,” (“On the Darknet”) a crime comedy series produced by Noor Sadar’s White Lion Films, a Mediawan Group company. The six-episode series, directed by Remy Four and Julien War (“On The Other Side of the Tracks”), has just started filming in the Charente Maritime region of Southwest France.

Romee Strijd is engaged!The 26-year-old Dutch-born model took to Instagram Tuesday to share that her longtime partner, Laurens van Leeuwen, proposed to her during a romantic trip to the Swiss Alps.In the photos, the pair is dressed in snow gear as they enjoyed a picnic filled with cheese, fruit, champagne and other delicious treats. Van Leeuwen is seen proposing to his model girlfriend, who later gives him a big hug as she appears to say yes.