Nigerian Production Powerhouse FilmOne Brings Slick Commercial Slate to EFM (EXCLUSIVE)

Rebecca Davis editorDespite the ongoing trade war and frostier than ever ties between China and the U.S., “Detective Chinatown 3” producer and financier Shawn Yue (aka Yue Xiang) is still betting on collaboration in the film industry — though perhaps not in the way you’d expect.Chinese production budgets and visual ambitions have lately begun to outgrow China’s ability to achieve them, given the country’s lack of existing talent and resources to execute such projects.

Tencent Games, the video game division of China's media conglomerate Tencent, has partnered with Its Just Us Productions to expand cross-promotional opportunities inPlayerUnknown's Battleground Mobile. The Los Angeles-based Its Just Us, an independent production and finance company, will identify opportunities for PUBG Mobile'sin-game and offline platforms.

Christopher Vourlias European Film Promotion, a network of 37 film promotion bodies from across the continent, is gathering 29 European sales companies from nine nations under the Europe! Umbrella at the virtual edition of the Hong Kong Intl. Film & TV Market (FilMart).For the second year running the annual event has been moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlinale Competition entries from two actors turned directors, Maria Schrader and Daniel Brühl, were among titles on the Beta Cinema slate at the European Film Market to prove popular among international distributors.Schrader, an Emmy Award winner as the director of “Unorthodox,” premiered comic-tragic tale “I’m Your Man,” starring Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”), Maren Eggert (“I Was At Home, But…”) and Sandra Hueller (“Toni Erdmann”), at the virtual

Thomas Jane tracks down his prey in this exclusive first-look image from upcoming western thriller The Last Son. The film — previously entitled The Last Son of Isaac LeMay and being sold at Berlin's virtual European Film Market by VMI Worldwide, which first announced it at the AFM in 2019 — also stars Sam Worthington, Machine Gun Kelly and Heather Graham.

Veteran screen legends Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) and William Shatner (Star Trek) get stopped by the police in this exclusive first-look image from upcoming comedy Senior Moment, from which Film Mode Entertainment is screening footage at the virtual European Film Market.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorDavid Fincher’s “Mank” takes audiences back into 1930s Hollywood, a black and white world where the screenplay for “Citizen Kane” comes together. In Disney’s “Mulan,” audiences are transported to the Imperial City for the live-action heroine tale based on Chinese folklore.

Ed Meza @edmezavarPalestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s Gaza-set drama “The Oblivion Theory” has won the top prize at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.Presented by Paris-based Incognito Films and Berlin’s One Two Films, the film is based on José Eduardo Agualusa’s novel “A General Theory of Oblivion,” although the book’s story has been moved from Angola to Palestine during the First Intifada, the sustained protests by Palestinians against Israel occupation that lasted from 1987 to 1993.The

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winner Allison Janney, Schitt’s Creek Emmy winner Annie Murphy and Dear Evan Hansen star Ben Platt are set for The People We Hate At The Wedding. Emmy winner Claire Scanlon (Set It Up) is directing an adaptation of the Grant Ginder novel that is a character-driven wedding comedy that aspires to be a next generation Four Weddings and a Funeral. UTA Independent Film Group is introducing it today at the Virtual Berlin Market.

True Blood's Stephen Moyer and Golden Globe nominee Colm Meaney (Con Air, Gangs of London) exchange bloody vows in this exclusive first-look image from upcoming thriller Confession, which Signature Entertainment are shopping worldwide at the European Film Market.

Jamie Lang Brussels-based Best Friend Forever Sales has given Variety exclusive access to the international trailer for Berlin Panorama player “All Eyes Off Me,” the sexually charged sophomore outing of actor-director Hadas Ben Aroya.Told in three distinct yet related chapters, the film begins at a party in Tel Aviv where young Danny is trying to find Max to let him know that she’s pregnant with his child.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterLena Dunham just wrapped her first feature film as a writer-director in over a decade.“Sharp Stick,” an indie financed by FilmNation that will screen for potential buyers on Tuesday out of the Berlin International Film Festival, was shot successfully in secret and in compliance with COVID-19 protocols in Los Angeles over the past months.While plot details are under wraps, the film stars Kristine Froseth (“The Assistant,” “Looking for Alaska”), Taylour Paige

Lise Pedersen The new action-horror film set to be shot by acclaimed blockbuster director Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2,” “Cliffhanger”) is being introduced online at Berlin’s virtual European Film Market.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based distributor FilmRise has struck a deal with sales firm WaZabi Films for U.S. rights to TIFF 2020 and Berlin 2021 drama Beans.

Self-taught Vietnamese filmmakerLê Bảo's directorial debut Taste takes place in the Ho Chi Minh City slums where he grew up, but the film centers on a displaced Nigerian man who is a world away from home.

Christopher Vourlias When Joel Phiri and his partners at Known Associates Entertainment began financing “uBettina Wethu,” the South African remake of the megahit Colombian telenovela that inspired the ABC series “Ugly Betty,” the Johannesburg-based producer says, “We talked to anybody that would listen.”That those talks would involve both local and global streaming services was a given.

EXCLUSIVE: In what shapes up as a hot package for the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin, Ryan Gosling has committed to star in The Actor, with Duke Johnson directing a script he wrote with Stephen Cooney, based on Donald E. Westlake’s hard boiled novel Memory.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based sales outfit Reel Suspects has taken world sales, excluding Russia, on Uldus Bakhtiozina’s debut feature film Tzarevna Scaling, which has been selected for this year’s Berlinale Forum program.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFor nearly two decades the European Film Market has had, at its core, the Berlinale Co-Production Market, where hundreds of producers, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and, more recently, some streamer execs have been drawn to a bunch of curated projects.The EFM has always been Europe’s quintessential co-production germinator.