Paramount’s Republic Pictures Acquires Homelessness-Themed Ballet Doc ‘Lift’ From Oscar Nominee David Petersen; Ballerina Misty Copeland Among The EPs

EXCLUSIVE: Max Hollman, a rising star drama executive at HBO, has left the premium cable network to join Middle Child Pictures, the film and TV company launched recently by David Bernad (The White Lotus, Jury Duty). Hollman will continue to work with HBO as he sets off to run television for Middle Child Pictures as Producer/Executive through a first-look TV deal the company has signed with HBO and A24.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Republic Records’ Kids & Family division and the Rock and Roll Playhouse have announced an exclusive partnership with a multi-album record deal. Founded by Brooklyn Bowl owner and live music entrepreneur Peter Shapiro, the Rock and Roll Playhouse is set to release their premiere album, “Friends Rock!,” on Friday, September 22.

The Frasier sequel series from Paramount+ is set to premiere on October 12 with two episodes followed by a weekly drop of new episodes every Thursday. Internationally, Frasier premieres a day later with new episodes available on Fridays.

Naman Ramachandran Evanna Lynch, the actor best known for portraying Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter franchise, will star in “Influenced!,” a black comedy set in the world of social media influencers that has been inspired by Oscar Wilde’s classic 1891 novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Lynch will play Dora, a makeup sales assistant who goes on to become one of the world’s biggest influencers. But the more ruthless Dora becomes in her pursuit of insta-fame the more grotesque and distorted her social media profile photo also becomes.

The 19th HollyShorts Film Festival has handed out its awards, including the Grand Prix Best Short Award to We Were Meant To, an honor that comes with a $60,000 prize from Panavision.

Initial cast has been announced for Broadway’s Prayer for the French Republic. Written by Joshua Harmon and directed by David Cromer (The Band’s Visit), Prayer for the French Republic begins performances on Tuesday, December 19 with opening night set for Tuesday, January 9, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The jury for the Docu Talents From the East Award, presented Sunday as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival, split the award between two projects: “A Picture to Remember” by Ukrainian director Olga Chernykh and producer Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon, and the Czech-Slovak co-production “Chronicle” by Martin Kollar. The award comes with a cash prize of $5,000. Eight documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the next 12 months, were presented in the program, which is curated by the Ji.hlava Intl.

A shoplifter has been banned from entering Co-Operative stores in Cheshire for two years. Christopher Downes was handed a criminal behaviour order for "over two decades" of shoplifting.

Sophia Scorziello editor “A lot of what we do as directors is just putting out fires,” said “Ted Lasso” director Declan Lowney. Whether those are unavoidable or self-made fires, the directors at Variety’s Creative Collaborations: Directors on Directors panel all agreed that their shows and films faced serious challenges — but that didn’t stop their projects from earning Emmy nominations. Directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton of “Fleishman is in Trouble,” Peter Hoar of “The Last of Us,” Lowney of “Ted Lasso,” Glenn Weiss of “The Oscars” and Davis Guggenheim of “Still: A Michael J.

Christopher Vourlias Beta Film has acquired international distribution rights to “I Know Your Soul,” a new series from Oscar nominee Jasmila Žbanić (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”) that premieres Out of Competition next month at the Venice Film Festival. The six-episode limited series is led by European Film Award-winning actress Jasna Đuričić, who plays Nevena Murtezic, a prosecutor in the process of divorce and single mother to a teenage son.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Yellow Veil Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome announced have co-acquired North American rights for “Riddle of Fire,” the feature debut of writer and director Weston Razooli. The movie follows three mischievous children as they embark on an odyssey when their mother asks them to run an errand. The film was also an official selection at this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and will screen on the closing night of the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music On the heels of the sale of their award-winning rock documentary “Immediate Family” to Magnolia Pictures, film producer-musicians Greg Richling and Jonathan Sheldon have announced the launch of their production company Pfonetic and are unveiling a slate of music-driven film and television projects. The roster includes a long-in-the-works authorized documentary on the enormously influential but unsung producer Tom Wilson, who produced Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” and the first Velvet Underground album and recordings by John Coltrane, Frank Zappa, Sun Ra and many more — which is now titled “Like a Rolling Stone,” fittingly enough.

Match Me! Shepherding them are 30 producers hailing from the length and breadth of Europe, plus Taiwan and the Dominican Republic, in town for the three-day event, kicking off Friday. Set up at mainly young-ish production houses, they underscore major trends now coursing through European cinema: the rise of genre and animation – such as Christophe Reveille’s “To Live and Die with Che Guevara” an animated doc feature about three guerrillas who pledged allegiance to Che Guevara – as well as films of large artistic ambition made on contained budgets, such as Taiwan’s “Goodbye North, Goodbye.” Above all, there’s a gathering shift from straight-arrow arthouse drama to genre-bending thrillers that nevertheless maintain art pics’ traditional social issue focus.

David Albert Pierce, an entertainment attorney who founded Pierce Law Group, LLP, in Beverly Hills in 1996 and over the course of his career represented clients from Milton Berle and The Comedy Store to such films as the 2012 Oscar-winning film The Artist, died July 29 at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 56.

Another person has stepped forward with allegations against singer Lizzo in the wake of a sexual harassment and hostile workplace lawsuit from former backup dancers.

Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac have been friends for over 20 years, and have starred together in multiple projects.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sophia Nahli Allison, whose short film “A Love Song for Latasha” (2019) was nominated at the Oscars for best documentary short subject, revealed on her social media pages that she exited her role as the director of a Lizzo documentary in 2019 after only two weeks because she “was treated with such disrespect” by the Grammy-winning pop star. Allison’s post went live several hours after a trio of former dancers for Lizzo filed a lawsuit against the singer accusing her of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. “I usually do not comment on anything pop culture related,” Allison wrote in her post.

bicep kiss heard round the world.When Oscar Isaac, 44, planted his lips on the left arm of his “Scenes From a Marriage” co-star Jessica Chastain, 46, on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, he appeared to have shed the baggage of their fictional broken marriage.But in a new Vanity Fair profile, Chastain revealed filming the gut-wrenching HBO miniseries took a toll on her longtime friendship with Isaac.“‘Scenes From a Marriage’ was very tough,” Chastain told the outlet in a story published Tuesday. “And I love Oscar, but the reality is, our friendship has never quite been the same.”The Oscar winner‘s relationship with the other Oscar dates back to the turn of the century, when they were classmates at Juilliard.

EXCLUSIVE: DNEG, the visual effects firm behind titles such as Oppenheimer, Dune, and Knives Out, has hired Oscar-Winning VFX vet Tim Burke as Visual Effects Supervisor.

EXCLUSIVE: Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment has acquired UK distribution rights to the Ben Kingsley and Ezra Miller pic Dalíland alongside docs RoboDoc – The Creation of RoboCop and Hollywood Dreams and Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. All three titles will debut on the Icon Film Channel.