Christopher Vourlias Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Christopher Vourlias “When business in brothels is slow, that means the economy is on the ropes.” Those words, uttered by the indelible madame at the heart of director Eva Stefani’s “Days and Nights of Demetra K.,” offers a fitting introduction to the way in which the ups and downs in the life of a single sex worker mirror the larger political and economic uncertainties rattling post-crisis Greece.Stefani’s feature-length debut, which has its premiere in the main competition at the Thessaloniki

Christopher Vourlias To succeed in the motley and polyglot world of 21st-century media, where the borders between film and TV have grown porous, and global streaming platforms have become such a disruptive force that the very word “TV” seems old-fashioned, one could do worse than get a schooling in the rough-and-tumble world of Ukrainian television in the post-Soviet era.With the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the old ways of doing business were crumbling, new players were

Christopher Vourlias To understand the success of Triggerfish, the fast-rising, Cape Town-based animation house, which won the prestigious MIFA Animation Industry Award this week in Annecy, one need look no further than the circumstances of its birth 25 years ago.South Africa was finally emerging from the shadows of apartheid, a cruel and exploitive system of institutionalized racism that had oppressed its Black-majority population for nearly 50 years.

Christopher Vourlias Walt Disney Animation Studios and the pan-African entertainment company Kugali revealed the first images of their hotly anticipated Disney Plus original series “Iwájú” during a presentation Wednesday night at the Annecy Animation Festival.Set in a futuristic version of Lagos, Nigeria, the series offers what production designer Hamid Ibrahim described as a “Kugali-Disney mash-up.” “This is a true collaboration.

Christopher Vourlias The CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for women documentary filmmakers conceived with a focus on Southern and Eastern Europe, has selected the four projects that will take part in its showcase as part of the Cannes Docs program of the Cannes Film Market, Variety can reveal.Hailing from the program’s backyard in the Balkans to as far afield as Brazil and Taiwan, the selection reflects the growing ambition of a program now in its third year.“Although CIRCLE

Christopher Vourlias Russian state film promotion body Roskino and public broadcaster Channel One are launching sales on a lavish, eight-part series based on the life of poet, singer, composer and cabaret artist Alexander Vertinsky, a cultural icon whose life played out against the backdrop of history-altering events in the first half of the 20th century.The series, which is being presented during Roskino’s Key Buyers Event, is available in two versions.

Christopher Vourlias Having chronicled countless landmark moments in African-American history, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson (“The Black Panthers,” “The Murder of Emmett Till”) understands the stakes at a time when both the culture at large, as well as the documentary industry, are in the midst of a wholesale reckoning.

Christopher Vourlias Marcela Santibañez, who was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary contender “The Mole Agent,” is executive producing a new documentary about a company of heroic firefighters, Variety has learned exclusively.Set against a backdrop of protest, pandemic and social unrest in the city of Valparaíso, “Piropolis” follows the firefighters of the fifth company as they battle the epic forest fires raging around their city.

Christopher Vourlias When the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the globe last year, Canada’s Hot Docs, one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals, was among the first international fests forced to pivot to an online edition.

Christopher Vourlias Radu Jude’s “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which won the Golden Bear for best film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, has sold to major territories for Heretic Outreach, Variety has learned exclusively.The Romanian writer-director’s latest feature is an irreverent satire about a schoolteacher, Emi (Katia Pascariu), who finds her reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is uploaded on the internet.

Christopher Vourlias When she was a young girl growing up in the U.K., where she was born and spent most of her early life, classmates would struggle with Mosunmola Abudu’s name. One took to calling her “Monsoon.” Another called her “Mozambique.” In Yoruba, the name Mosunmola roughly translates as someone who is close to wealth, but the elegant appellation so flummoxed friends and neighbors that they eventually settled on a pared-down, characteristically British shorthand.

Christopher Vourlias When “Stranger Things” recently returned to Lithuania, where parts of season four of the Netflix supernatural drama were filmed in early 2020, the Baltic winter delivered on its usual promises of frigid temperatures and frosty weather.

Christopher Vourlias “Dreams of Alice,” a supernatural teen drama centered on a girl haunted by strange dreams as she plots her escape from a mysterious Russian town, is among the standout projects chosen for the Berlinale Series Market Selects, a newly created label that highlights series with high commercial potential.Created by Anastasiya Volkova, and directed by Andrey Dzhunkovskiy, the series is produced by Valeriy Fedorovich and Evgeniy Nikishov of 1-2-3 Production, the team behind the

Christopher Vourlias When Polish lawmakers tabled a contentious new bill last fall that would all but make abortion illegal, tens of thousands took to the streets across the country in protest, voicing their anger at the steady erosion of women’s rights in the conservative, Catholic nation led by a right-wing government.Among the demonstrators on the front lines was Agnieszka Holland, the three-time Oscar-nominated director, who has become almost as recognized in recent years for her staunch

Christopher Vourlias When Ketie Danelia was approached a few years ago with the script for “And Then We Danced,” Levan Akin’s gay romantic drama about a young man’s sexual awakening in the masculine world of Georgian dance, the producer knew the risks. “Everyone was telling me not to take this project, because it’s very dangerous.

Christopher Vourlias Polish director Paweł Maślona (“Panic Attack”) is prepping a lavish period drama about the American Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kościuszko.Produced by Leszek Bodzak and Aneta Hickinbotham for Aurum Film, the production house behind Jan Komasa’s Oscar-nominated “Corpus Christi,” the historical epic — with the working title “Scarborn,” from a script by Michał A. Zielinski — received development funding from the Polish Film Institute.

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.

Christopher Vourlias SK Global Entertainment, BlueLight and Black Mic Mac have boarded “Halo Daze,” the sophomore feature from South African director Sibs Shongwe-La Mer, whose acclaimed debut “Necktie Youth” premiered at the Berlinale, the companies announced during the Sundance Film Festival.Currently in production in Cape Town, “Halo Daze” follows the dark voyage of an aspiring young rapper whose internet fame fails to bring him and his family the better life he’d hoped for.

Christopher Vourlias When the cameras again began to roll this summer on Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion,” one of the first major Hollywood studio films to resume production since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the restart was a boon for the island nation of Malta, where a second unit crew for the $200 million blockbuster filmed in August.Despite a spring shutdown for the local production sector, Simon Sansone, head of the Malta Producers’ Assn., estimates that roughly nine

Christopher Vourlias From its 2018 launch in Johannesburg as an industry event rooted in the local community, the Africa Rising Intl.

Christopher Vourlias “Identifying Features,” Fernanda Valadez’s searing abduction drama set along the U.S.-Mexico border, was awarded the Golden Alexander for best feature film at the 61st Thessaloniki Film Festival.The awards were announced Monday at the conclusion of the Greek fest’s digital edition, which ran Nov. 5-15.

Christopher Vourlias Dating back to her childhood in Greece, first-time director Janis Rafa has spent the better part of her life contemplating death. The title of her feature-length debut, “Kala Azar,” takes its name from the parasitic disease that swept through the country in the 1990s, ravaging the animal population.

Christopher Vourlias A German-speaking juvenile offender community in northern Greece is the unlikely setting of “Daniel ‘16,” the second feature film from Dimitris Koutsiabasakos.

Christopher Vourlias When Nigerian cinemas reopened in September after a months-long lockdown, Moses Babatope, co-founder of the distributor and production company FilmOne Entertainment, began looking ahead to a busy fall season that could get the local industry back on track.“We were just beginning to see a recovery,” Babatope says, with “Fate of Alakada” — the third installment in Kayode Kasum’s blockbuster Nollywood franchise — bursting out of the gate after an Oct.

Christopher Vourlias Alex Rodrigo, a director on the acclaimed Netflix drama series “Money Heist,” is making his feature film directorial debut with “The Last Shot,” one of 16 film projects being pitched to prospective buyers this week during Rome’s MIA market.“The Last Shot” is a biopic about the late Spanish photographer and humanitarian Luis Valtueña (pictured), who was killed in Rwanda in 1997.

Christopher Vourlias When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Hollywood earlier this year, shutting down productions and throwing the industry into chaos, not even veteran TV executive Michael Ellenberg, the former HBO head of drama responsible for commissioning iconic series such as “Westworld,” “Big Little Lies,” “True Detective,” and “The Leftovers,” could have predicted such a robust, industry-wide call to arms.“If you had told me today that Hollywood would have a vast series of testing

Christopher Vourlias “Game of Thrones” co-executive producer Vince Gerardis is setting up a production company in Italy, Variety has learned.The new venture, dubbed CIAO, or Creatività Italiana Americana Organizzata, is the latest move from the Miami-based executive, who specializes in packaging and selling large-scale, world-building film and television projects based on literary properties.Gerardis is in talks with an Italian publisher for a deal that would give CIAO access to a range of

Christopher Vourlias MTS Media, the production arm of leading Russian telecom and internet service provider MTS, is partnering with Sreda Production to co-produce seven new series for the MTS TV streaming platform. Four of those projects will launch international sales during Mipcom Online+ this week.In the psychological thriller “Crystal City,” a veteran investigator is forced to return to the city of his childhood to investigate a string of murders.

Christopher Vourlias “Around the World in 80 Days,” the David Tennant-starring adaptation of the beloved classic by Jules Verne, is set to resume shooting in Romania and South Africa, Variety has learned. Production was suspended by the coronavirus pandemic in March.Production restarts next month in Romania before traveling to South Africa, which last week announced that international flights into the country will resume on Oct.

Christopher Vourlias When settlers began opening up the wild frontier of Western Australia in the 19th century, they relied heavily on immigrant cameleers from India, Afghanistan, and Persia.

Christopher Vourlias Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić, whose latest feature, “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” world premieres Sept.

Christopher Vourlias With Nigerian cinemas set to open Aug. 28 for the first time in more than four months, local exhibitors are hoping that Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” will help a reeling box office return to its pre-pandemic heights.Nolan’s mind-bending, time-twisting thriller, which Warner Bros.

Christopher Vourlias When a wolf pack attacks the herd of a shepherd living in the mountainous hinterlands of Anatolia, he vows to get a better gun to protect himself, his sheep and his family: a Mauser, the so-called “king of rifles,” and the most powerful gun of its time. He strikes a bargain with a local dealer who agrees to give him a rifle if he can prove his mettle as a hunter.

Christopher Vourlias Bosnian director Pjer Žalica recently found himself standing before Sarajevo’s National Theater, which in less troubled times would have hosted the world premiere of his comic drama “Focus, Grandma”—the opening film of the 26th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “In front of the theater, there is this red carpet and nothing else,” Žalica told Variety.

Christopher Vourlias When Marina Abramovic left Yugoslavia as a young artist in the 1970s, she could have hardly imagined what the years ahead would bring.

Christopher Vourlias Mongolian filmmaker Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s “Ze” won the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors co-production forum, which featured eight projects from Southeast Asia and Mongolia looking for international partners.Purev-Ochir’s feature debut tells the story of the budding relationship between a teenage shaman and a young woman, set in the rough-and-tumble yurt district of the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.