Christopher Vourlias Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Christopher Vourlias Russian director Alexander Zolotukhin has sky-high ambitions for “Brother in Every Inch,” which has its world premiere Feb. 13 in the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Encounters section.Zolotukhin’s sophomore feature is the story of twin brothers whose inseparable bond complicates their efforts to fulfill their shared dream of becoming air force pilots.

Christopher Vourlias “Gotham” star Ben McKenzie and “Instinct” actress Bojana Novakovic are attached to star in the new J-horror film “Bloat,” Variety can reveal.Produced by Bazelevs, the production banner of Screenlife pioneer Timur Bekmambetov (“Unfriended,” “Searching,” “Profile”), “Bloat” is a co-production with Russian streaming platform Okko, French production and sales house Pulsar Content (“The Deep House”), and Japanese production company flag Co., Ltd.Filming has already started in New York and will continue in Japan. Pic marks the first time Okko has co-financed an international production.

Christopher Vourlias Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, whose latest feature “Rimini” plays in the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, is winding down production on his next film, Variety can reveal.“Sparta” is a companion piece to Seidl’s competition entry and revolves around the brother of that film’s protagonist, the washed-up singer Richie Bravo. “[‘Rimini’] actually originated as a much larger story,” the director told Variety.

Christopher Vourlias Berlin Golden Bear winner Radu Jude (“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”) is set to begin production in Romania on his next feature, Variety can reveal.“A Case History” analyzes the relations between individuals and multinational companies in the mad dash of new Romanian capitalism, starting from the real story of preparing and shooting a problematic work safety video. Principal photography is slated to begin in summer or early fall.“The film is composed of two parts which respond to each other, forming a diptych of sorts,” said Jude.

Christopher Vourlias When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Iceland last year, shutting down production on Netflix’s eight-part supernatural volcano drama “Katla,” veteran filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur was quick to rise to the challenge.With the support of the streaming giant, Kormákur came up with measures that would allow the production to get up and running again, introducing frequent testing and devising a color-coded system to control the flow of cast and crew on set.Since then, there’s

Christopher Vourlias When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Iceland last year, shutting down production on Netflix’s eight-part supernatural volcano drama “Katla,” veteran filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur was quick to rise to the challenge.With the support of the streaming giant, Kormákur came up with measures that would allow the production to get up and running again, introducing frequent testing and devising a color-coded system to control the flow of cast and crew on set.Since then, there’s

Christopher Vourlias Samuel Theis’ “Softie” won the top prize at the 62nd Thessaloniki Film Festival, which wrapped Sunday night with a ceremony in Greece’s second city.The film, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics’ Week section, was awarded the Golden Alexander and a €10,000 ($11,400) cash prize by a jury comprised of writer-director Nanouk Leopold, sound designer Roland Vajs and actor Michelle Valley.The Special Jury Award was given to “Clara Sola,” by Natalie Álvarez Mesén, while the Special

Christopher Vourlias M-Appeal has closed more deals on “The Man With the Answers,” Stelios Kammitsis’ gay road trip dramedy about a spontaneous summer journey that unexpectedly turns into something more.The company announced sales to Poland (Tongariro Releasing), Japan (Edko Films), and Taiwan (Joint Entertainment Int.) during the Thessaloniki Film Festival, where the film played in the Meet the Neighbors competition. Previously inked deals include North America (Artsploitation Films), U.K.

Christopher Vourlias Jacqueline Lentzou’s arresting and long-awaited feature debut, “Moon, 66 Questions,” has its national premiere this week at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, after bowing earlier this year in the Berlinale’s new Encounters competition section.The film tells the story of a young woman, Artemis (Sofia Kokkali), who decides to return to Athens after a long absence because of her father’s (Lazaros Georgakopoulos) declining health.

Christopher Vourlias Araceli Lemos’ mystical drama “Holy Emy,” which received a special mention for first feature after its Locarno world premiere, arrives at the Thessaloniki Film Festival this week, where it plays in the main competition just days ahead of its North American premiere at the AFI Fest.The Athens-set drama, which screened in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente competition, is the story of Emy, a young Filipina, played by newcomer Abigael Loma, searching for the missing links between

Christopher Vourlias Vasilis Kekatos, who won the Palme d’Or and the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 for his short film “The Distance Between Us and the Sky,” is prepping a TV series centered on an unwanted pregnancy in a provincial Greek town.An eight-episode limited series, “Milky Way” follows 17-year-old Maria, a high school senior with dreams of becoming a dancer, whose starry-eyed plans for the future are put on hold when she gets pregnant by her boyfriend Tasos, a young

Christopher Vourlias When the curtain rises Thursday on the 62nd edition of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, it will be a long-awaited return to form for one of the oldest fests on the circuit, after a surge in COVID-19 cases last fall forced the organizers to pivot from a hybrid to a fully online edition.Attempting to sum up his feelings on the eve of opening night, festival director Orestis Andreadakis was gripped by emotion, using words like “strange,” “happy” and “anxious” in the same

Christopher Vourlias When U.K.-based Camelot Films’ “Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher” was forced to relocate to Lithuania earlier this year, after the film’s Welsh financing fell through, executive producer Kestutis Drazdauskas knew the first challenge facing director Daniel Graham’s period drama would be re-creating 19th century England in 21st century Vilnius.“It was an extensive set construction for us, because locations for us are minimal that could play as that period in England and

Christopher Vourlias Joe Russo weighed in on Scarlett Johansson’s “Black Widow” legal battle with Disney on Thursday, calling it “unfortunate” that the conflict spilled out into the public domain, but suggesting that it’s a sign of the times for an industry gripped by uncertainty.“There’s a lot of tension, just like there is in a lot of industries, because there’s a lot of disruption,” he said.

Christopher Vourlias SMF Studio, the venerable Russian animation house, and leading publisher Bubble Comics are partnering on a new series based on the comic book “Coolics” which they’ve premiered at Mipcom this week.Created by creative producer and SMF Studio director Alexandra Bizyaeva, Bubble’s editor-in-chief Roman Kotkov, and creative producer Evgeniy Eronin – a scriptwriter on the animated feature film “Major Grom: The Plague Doctor,” which was released by Disney in Russia earlier this

Christopher Vourlias “Czech It Out!” stars actor and foodie celebrity Lukáš Hejlík and his daughter Klára Hejlíková as they explore the architecture and gastronomy of the Czech Republic while discovering unusual places to stay.

Christopher Vourlias When the Soyuz MS-19 spaceship blasts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on Oct.

Christopher Vourlias Three mercenaries on the run with a plane full of gold and a dark secret in their past are the starting point for Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegalese genre-bender “Saloum,” which has its world premiere in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto Film Festival.The film centers on the Bangui Hyenas, a mythic trio of mercenaries whose plane is shot down as they’re fleeing a coup in Guinea-Bissau.

Christopher Vourlias South African filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass might not seem like the obvious choice to direct a horror movie. For most of her life, the 35-year-old helmer has steered clear of scares.

Christopher Vourlias When producer Robert Lantos began developing the big-budget historical drama series “Rise of the Raven,” adapting Hungarian author Bán Mór’s series of bestselling novels presented obvious challenges. “It’s an 11-volume novel, each volume being 500-600 pages long,” says Lantos.

Christopher Vourlias “Rise of the Raven” Producers: Robert Lantos (Serendipity Point Films) and Tibor Krsko Showrunner: George Mihalka Synopsis: An epic drama series about Janos Hunyadi, a fearless warrior who defeated the vast Ottoman army and defended Europe in 1456 at the Battle of Belgrade.

Christopher Vourlias Sebastian Meise’s “Great Freedom,” a prison drama about a gay man repeatedly incarcerated under a draconian law outlawing homosexuality in West Germany, won the award for best feature film at the Sarajevo Film Festival.The Austrian director took home the Heart of Sarajevo at Thursday night’s ceremony, while leading man Georg Friedrich won the award for best actor for a film that won the runner-up prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar.

Christopher Vourlias Wim Wenders says cinema is facing an “existential crisis” brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and the rise of streaming services, urging film lovers to “fight” for movie theaters, and calling on his fellow filmmakers to rise to the challenge at a time when their voices are needed more than ever before.“[The pandemic] made me realize how much responsibility we have as filmmakers, and that this crisis that the whole of humanity is going through is also a task for us

Christopher Vourlias U2 frontman Bono made a surprise appearance at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Sunday, where he introduced a digitally restored version of Wim Wenders’ “The Million Dollar Hotel” – a film the iconic rock star presented at the Bosnian fest more than 20 years ago.Addressing a full house at the Sarajevo National Theater – where fans had gathered outside for more than an hour in the blistering heat, clutching photos and singing along to U2’s hits as they waited for his arrival on

Christopher Vourlias Philipp Yuryev’s “The Whaler Boy,” which took home the Venice Days award at last year’s Venice Film Festival, won the top prize at the Transilvania Film Festival on Saturday.The jury praised the Russian director’s feature debut, an offbeat story of a teenage whale hunter on the Bering Strait who sets out to meet a webcam model, for being “beautiful and meticulous in its sense of time and place” while also being “really resonant and contemporary at the same time as being

Christopher Vourlias South Africa’s Local Motion Pictures, whose dystopian sci-fi feature “Glasshouse” will world premiere at the Fantasia Intl.

Christopher Vourlias Three volunteer workers set out from Bucharest in a convoy destined for the mountainous hinterlands of Romania, where they plan to distribute aid supplies to remote villages. But when their SUV breaks down after they decide to help a lonely old man on a desolate mountain road, their notions of empathy and charity get put to the test.

Christopher Vourlias A young gay police officer who’s worked hard to keep his sexuality hidden must face his inner demons when he’s forced to intervene during an anti-gay protest at a Bucharest movie theater.

Christopher Vourlias Saul Williams spent nearly a decade bringing his directorial debut “Neptune Frost” to the screen, but not even the multi-talented, multi-disciplinary artist could have scripted the mad dash it took to take his passion project from the rolling hills of East Africa to the Croisette in Cannes.Shot on location in Rwanda over the course of 27 frenetic days, “Neptune Frost” had just wrapped principal photography last spring when the coronavirus pandemic began grounding planes and

Christopher Vourlias When she was growing up in Nalchik, the capital of Russia’s remote Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Kira Kovalenko wasn’t particularly interested in cinema. She can cite few films that inspired her as a girl.

Christopher Vourlias When she was a student at the prestigious Lodz Film School in Poland, Jagoda Szelc was offered the chance to shoot a feature film. It was an unexpected opportunity for the aspiring filmmaker, who was then in her third year.

Christopher Vourlias The Netherlands and South Africa launched a new co-development fund July 10 in Cannes. The two counties signed a co-production treaty in 2015, and are looking to build on that through stronger collaboration.The SA-NL Thuthuka Fund will provide selective script and co-development support for feature film and documentary projects with South African- and Dutch-related content.

Christopher Vourlias Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun returns to the sun-scrubbed Sahel region of West Africa for his latest feature, “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” which competes for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.Set on the outskirts of the capital city of N’Djamena, “Lingui” is the story of a single mother, Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), whose already fragile world threatens to collapse when she learns that her daughter, Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio Brahim), is pregnant — a

Christopher Vourlias French distributor ARP has acquired the rights to “Fools,” an upcoming drama by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski (“United States of Love”). Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales brokered the deal.“Fools” is the story of Marlena and Tomasz, who are hidden away from the world in a small seaside town and have been in a happy relationship for many years.

Christopher Vourlias When she was growing up in Croatia, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović would often spend summers on her grandparents’ island in the Adriatic Sea, an experience “that really informed my childhood,” she says. Years later, as she was pursuing a Master’s degree in film at Columbia University, a simple image came to her: the deep blue of the sea thrust against a summer sky.

Christopher Vourlias Monoduo Films, the leading distributor of feature-length music documentaries, has acquired world sales rights to “Faith and Branko,” an intimate story that chronicles the relationship between two musicians over the course of seven years.