Nostromo Pictures Partners with Beta Fiction Spain to Launch Marcel Barrena’s Doc ‘Hermano Caballo’ (EXCLUSIVE)

A gunman who killed seven people including an unborn baby at Jehovah's Witness church in Hamburg has been named.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America. Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.

Avril Lavigne and Tyga might not have confirmed their relationship in as many words yet, but they looked like a couple when they attended the Y/Project fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday (March 7).

Popular TV presenter Jonnie Irwin made a surprise return to A Place In The Sun as he appeared at A Place In The Sun Live in Manchester on Sunday. The TV star, 49, was initially given six months to live when first diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2020, but has outlived doctor’s predictions with the help of medication, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

BreAnna Bell Polaris, the television network and digital platform owned by radio personality Sway Calloway and Rahman J. Dukes, is partnering with Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group (AMG) free-streaming digital platform, HBCU GO in an exclusive deal to create content for the video on demand service as well as AMG’s other properties including The Grio. The programming will be focused on culture, music and news with special coverage around cultural moments including a special celebrating the 50th year anniversary of Hip Hop, and an investigative series around Jam Master Jay. “It’s important for us to showcase not only the amazing sports and news programming, but also the heartbeat of the HBCU and Black Experience – our culture,” said Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group. “This new partnership with Polaris will provide amazing programming for our HBCU GO and TheGrio audiences highlighting music, Black culture and more.”

Emiliano De Pablos Boston-based sales agent 34T has picked up international sales rights to Spanish writer-director Ana Ortiz’s feature debut, psychological thriller “El claro de las luciérnagas” (“Firefly Glades”). Produced by Sergy Moreno at Madrid’s White Leaf Producciones, the film is structured as a Spanish regional co-production, teaming with Magnética Cine’s María Barroso in Andalusia and Joaquín Calderón at Navarra-based Melitón Films. “Firefly Glades” figures among the 22 projects selected at Málaga’s 2023 Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF), which runs March 13-16 as part of Málaga Festival’s growing Mafiz industry area.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Raven-Symoné will receive the Icon Award at this year’s Better Brothers LA Truth Awards. Broadcasting on Fox Soul, the gala, which is co-presented by Sheryl Lee Ralph and her The DIVA Foundation, will also honor Netflix’s The Upshaws (Cultural Affirmation Award), Judge Greg Mathis, Greg Mathis Jr. and “Mathis Family Matters” (Family Award), Starz #TakeTheLead (Corporate Leadership & Diversity Award), Tabitha Brown (Ally Award), Byron Perkins (Courage Award), Dr. Darnell Hunt (Excellence in Education Award), Dr. David Malebranche (Advocate Award) and the Unique Woman’s Coalition (Advocate Award). Better Brothers Los Angeles (BBLA) is a networking and social organization for members of the Black LGBTQ+ community.

Pet Shop Boys‘ Neil Tennant wrote and sent to the late Janice Long in the ’80s has been discovered at a record shop in Altrincham, Trafford.As BBC News reports, the frontman thanked the Radio 1 DJ for playing the synth-pop duo’s debut single ‘West End Girls’ in the note, which was found in a 12-inch vinyl edition of the track.The letter is dated “12 April, 1984” – three days after the song was released.Tennant, who worked as a journalist at Smash Hits at the time, provided some information on how he and bandmate Chris Lowe had recorded ‘West End Girls’ with producer Bobby Orlando after meeting him in New York.“We’ve now recorded over half an album and are due to go back to New York quite soon to finish it,” he continued in the unearthed letter.“Anyway, hope you like the 12″ I’ve enclosed and thanks for playing ‘West End Girls’ on Thursday. As far as I’m concerned, you’re now an honorary Pet Shop Girl!” See an image in the tweet below.A letter written by Pet Shop Boys star Neil Tennant, thanking Radio 1's Janice Long for playing the band's debut single (“West End Girls”) in 1984.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Former top VIS exec Laura Abril has been appointed EVP of scripted and global business development at Buendía Estudios, producer of “Veneno,” “Cardo” Season 1 and “Offworld,” in a move which signals the large international ambitions of one of Spain’s key production powerhouses. Abril will report to Ignacio Corrales, Buendía Estudios CEO.  Rising through the ranks at Viacom from 2009, Abril crowned her career at the studio as the highest-ranking international TV executive in Spain named in 2019 as head of ViacomCBS International Studios (VIS) for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. 

Calling off the bidders. The foreclosure auction of Kim Zolciak-Biermann and husband Kroy Biermann’s Georgia mansion has been canceled.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Film Independent has partnered with the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to present a live reading of “Triangle of Sadness.” Oscar-nominated director Ruben Östlund will helm the reimagined and recast stage reading at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts’ Bram Goldsmith Theater on Feb. 27. The cast will be led by Fred Armisen, Nicholas Braun, Alison Brie, Tia Carrere, Ayo Edebiri, Jordan Firstman, Brett Goldstein and Kumail Nanjiani. “What a joy to do a table read with this group of fine actors. Together we are planning for some surprises. I don’t want to scare anyone off, but there will be some risk involved in attending this,” said Östlund.

Emiliano De Pablos Buenos Aires-based production outfit Mil Monos is teaming with writer-director Pablo Agüero (“Primera nieve,” “Akelarre”) and writer-creator Nicolás Britos (“Limbo,” “Pibas en orsai”) to develop dystopian coming-of-age thriller series project “Decibel.” Produced by Mil Monos’ Maximiliano Monzón, “Decibel” is currently at pilot script stage, and a shoot start is planned by January 2024, tentatively in Argentina. Written by Britos, the eight-episode, half-hour thriller follows five deaf teenagers born in a mountainous region. When The Hum, a sound that transforms every person who can hear it into a frenzied killer, is unleashed, their deafness makes them immune.

Less than a month after her newborn son’s passing, Sarah Herron admitted she had no regrets about going through IVF.

Still one big family. Christine Brown gushed over getting to meet the latest addition to the Sister Wives brood: Janelle Brown‘s granddaughter.

Emiliano De Pablos Madrid-based Aquí y Allí Films, one of Spain’s most successful auteur movie production houses, is joining forces with popular Spanish actor turned writer-director Daniel Guzmán (“Nothing in Return,” “Canallas”) to produce drama thriller “La deuda.” Backed by Spain’s pay TV giant Movistar+ and public broadcaster RTVE, “La deuda” will be produced by Aquí y Allí’s Pedro Hernández and Guzmán at El Niño Producciones. The film is scheduled to roll in Madrid by the fall. Written by Guzmán, “La deuda” tells the story of Lucas, a 37-year-old man and the 86 year-old woman Antonia, who live together in a city too big to be alone. Lucas is looking for a job but the job seems not to be looking for him.

Emiliano De Pablos Spanish TV production house Mediacrest is joining forces with Helsinki-based outfit ReelMedia and Finnish public broadcaster YLE to develop climate change thriller series project “17kHz.” The co-production model resulting from the “17kHz” development deal will be one focus at the showcase “Spanish Fiction Contents: New Releases & Financial Opportunities,” which takes place Feb. 20 at Berlin’s European Film Market. Organized by ICEX Spain Trade & Investment, the meeting’s panelists will include Mediacrest‘s executives Gustavo Ferrada and Winnie Baert.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent German powerhouse ZDF Studios and U.K.-based Factual Fiction are reteaming for “#DorianGray,” an updated social media spin on Oscar Wilde’s classic, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” In Wilde’s original, first published as a novella in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, the self-besotted Dorian Gray sells his soul in exchange for eternal youth, a picture painted of him recording the decay of his soul as in outward appearance he remains physically forever young.  Currently being written by Maiya John, a young London-based screenwriter, the contemporary reimagining is described by ZDF Studios as “a suspenseful ride through the life of a teenager as they construct their identity.” 

Emiliano De Pablos Spain has found a place on the global film industry’s radar as an attractive market for co-producing projects, boosted by its bigger-than-ever-public-sector funding. The trend comes in a moment of maturity for its audiovisual industry, with competitive tax incentives and the emergence of fresh talent, often female, whether directors or producers. Unlike U.S. indie producers, hard hit by streamers pulling back, European counterparts still have public sector financing. But to make movies of any artistic ambition, which might justify that funding and break out to foreign sales and a theatrical release, producers are looking overseas more and to other parts of Spain for production partners.

Emiliano De Pablos Spain has proved ever more successful in luring some of the biggest movies and series, and although 2020 saw a large rise in tax breaks, the big hike came in December. New record tax advantages raised relief for international productions to up to €20 million ($21.4 million) per movie and $10.7 million for any single series episode. In the Canary Islands — operating a special tax regime — the film tax break ceiling is now an extraordinary $38.6 million, one of the highest in Europe. Effective Jan. 1, deduction rates for foreign productions are set at 30% for the first $1.1 million of deductible expenses and 25% for the rest in the Peninsula, and 50%- 45% in the Canaries.

Emiliano De Pablos Top Spanish indie producer-distributor Vértice 360 has teamed with Madrid-based outfit Dexiderius Producciones to produce coming-of-age thriller series “Verdugos” (“Executioners”). Structured as a six episode mini-series in Spanish and Basque, “Executioners” has been picked as one of the 15 finalist projects selected at next month’s Series Mania Forum Co-Pro Pitching Sessions. The mini-series is created and written by Dexiderius co-founder Pedro Ríos (“Mis adorables vecinos,” “Fuera de control”) and Rodrigo Martín (“Manos de Seda,” “Lex”). Dexiderius co-founder César Martínez and Alberto Rull, EVP production and content at Vértice 360, will produce.