Leo Barraclough International Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Vicky Krieps, best performance prize winner in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard for “Corsage,” will star as Sophie Toscan du Plantier in six time-Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-creation,” which is being presented in the Venice Gap-Financing Market. The docu-drama, which centers on the brutal murder in 1996 in Ireland of French film and TV producer Toscan du Plantier, has been co-written and will be co-directed by Sheridan, best known for “My Left Foot” and “In the Name of the Father,” and Merriman.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Carlo Chatrian is to step down as Berlin Film Festival artistic director after the next edition of the event. In a personal statement posted on the festival website Saturday, he wrote: “For the past four years at the Berlinale, I have been fortunate enough to work along with extraordinary people, as in love with movies as I am, who are totally dedicated to revitalizing one of the world’s great film festivals.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Stella. A Life.,” which stars Berlinale best actress award-winner Paula Beer, has been sold to France, Scandinavia and Australia. The film will have a market screening at Toronto Film Festival, and will have its world premiere with a Gala Screening at the Zurich Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Stage 32, the entertainment industry social network and educational platform, and Catalyst Studios, a U.S. production company supporting female-fronted projects, are partnering to launch a screenwriting contest for feature films with a focus on social impact, the companies announced Friday at the Venice Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor In support of the SAG and WGA members, and those affected by the strikes, entertainment industry social networking and education platform Stage 32 is giving away $100,000 in free education so they can hone their skills and be in the best position when the work stoppages lift. Stage 32, which recently reached 1 million members, is offering free codes to the platforms webinars and workshops, which typically cost $49 each.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Fien Troch’s “Holly,” which world premieres in competition at the Venice Film Festival, has debuted its trailer. MK2 is handling world sales. Troch’s previous film, “Home,” won the Horizons best director award at Venice.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Triple Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” which will premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, before going onto Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival, has sold to multiple territories. Variety has been granted access to an exclusive clip from the film, and Holland’s notes on the production, which we quote from below, again exclusively.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Not a Word,” which is being sold by international sales agency Beta Cinema, will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in the competitive Platform section. Variety speaks to the film’s writer-director, Hanna Slak, and debuts its trailer. “Not a Word” tells the story of a relationship crisis between a parent and her teenage son.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Evil Does Not Exist,” the new film by the Oscar-winning auteur Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, has sold to several additional territories. The film will world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will have its North America premiere as a special presentation at Toronto, and will go on to screen at New York and San Sebastian. Hamaguchi received Oscar nominations last year for directing and adapted screenplay, shared with Takamasa Ôe, for “Drive My Car.” The film was also nominated in the best picture category and won the international feature film Oscar.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor First Hand Films has taken international sales rights to German director Julia Fuhr Mann’s documentary “Life Is Not a Competition But I Am Winning?,” which will premiere in Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival. Variety is debuting its trailer exclusively.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has partnered with brand and culture consultancy BSBP to curate a series of exclusive Q&A screenings in London of some of the industry’s most anticipated films. The screenings, which are targeted at BAFTA and AMPAS voters as well as key players in the showbiz community in the U.K., will take place at London’s The Cinema at Selfridges.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Ed Herzog’s comedy-crime movie “Rehragout Rendezvous” is on the verge of supplanting “Oppenheimer” as the No. 2 film in Germany, behind box office champ “Barbie.” In Austria, “Rehragout Rendezvous” is the top film. “Rehragout Rendezvous” is the ninth in the Bavarian Eberhofer franchise, centering on laid-back cop Franz Eberhofer, who battles crime in a small town in the state of Bavaria, Southern Germany.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sara Summa’s European road movie “Arthur & Diana,” which will make its world premiere in the Discovery section of Toronto Film Festival, has been picked up for world sales by Vienna-based Square Eyes. The film is debuting its trailer with Variety.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Olivér Rudolf’s “My Mother, the Monster” has won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink, its industry section that featured projects from Southeast Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Hungarian feature film project, which is produced by Genovéva Petrovits at Kino Alfa, received a cash prize of €20,000 ($21,727). The film focuses on Éva, a mother in her forties who is disappointed with her life and tired of feeling insignificant.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Sarajevo Film Festival has modified its scheduled activities on Wednesday after the Bosnia and Herzegovina government declared it to be a “Day of Mourning” following three murders committed in Gradačac on Friday. The perpetrator, a bodybuilder, reportedly livestreamed the murder of his first victim, his former wife, on Instagram.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “The Hollow” won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best TV drama series at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Sunday, and also came away with a host of other awards. The in-competition series came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The trailer has debuted for “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” the latest film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin Film Festival with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.” “Mademoiselle Kenopsia” had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival this month, and will premiere in North America at next month’s Toronto Film Festival in the Wavelengths section, which was unveiled Friday. H264 is handling international sales.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Rome-based sales agency True Colours has added Edoardo de Angelis’ “Comandante,” which opens the Venice Film Festival, to its slate. The film, which plays in the main competition section, stars Pierfrancesco Favino (“World War Z,” “Angels & Demons”).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival has revealed to Variety the projects that the participants of its 2023 Emerging Producers program are working on. The producers were asked to deliver an elevator pitch for their projects. Every year since 2010, the festival has selected 18 up-and-coming producers of documentary films (17 European and one representing a non-European guest country), which are then provided with educational, networking and promotional support.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Production has kicked off on “A Better Place,” which is produced by Komplizen Serien and Studiocanal Series in Germany. Komplizen Serien, headed by David Keitsch, is the TV arm of leading movie production company Komplizen Film, whose credits include “Spencer,” for which Kristen Stewart was Oscar-nominated, and “Toni Erdmann,” which was Oscar-nominated in the foreign language film category. “A Better Place” is the first German TV show to be produced by Studiocanal Series, the German TV arm of the French production powerhouse.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The lineup for Docu Talents From the East – a showcase of standout documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe that are in post-production – has been unveiled. Eight documentary projects will be presented on Aug. 13 at Sarajevo Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Wes Anderson will be honored at the 80th Venice Film Festival, which runs Aug. 30-Sept. 9.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino,” which began filming last week, has eroticism, a recurring element in his films, as the backdrop. The Match Factory is selling the international rights.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Italian producer Andrea Iervolino, whose credits include Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” “Waiting for the Barbarians” and “Tell It Like a Woman,” has invested around 50 million euros ($55 million) in the construction of Tuscany Film Studios, a technologically advanced studio with the largest virtual set in Italy, and a 360 studio for live-action productions. The production facility, which is being built just outside Florence, will also host a movie theater and luxury hotel with the aim of attracting premium international productions to Italy.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor French-based sales agency Lightdox has acquired the international rights to feature documentary “Body” by Slovenian director and screenwriter Petra Seliškar ahead of its world premiere at the 29th edition of Sarajevo Film Festival. The trailer for the film has just been released (below). The film screens on Aug.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Gerhard Zeiler, president of international at Warner Bros. Discovery, will give the opening keynote at the 39th edition of TV market Mipcom, which runs Oct. 16-19 in Cannes.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Roland Emmerich’s gladiator drama “Those About to Die,” which Prime Video has acquired exclusive streaming rights for in several European territories, is an ambitious project creatively, but it also breaks new ground in business terms. With a budget north of $150 million for a 10-episode first season, it is the most expensive independently produced European series ever. For Emmerich, the German filmmaker best known for blockbuster movies such as “Independence Day,” the show is a new departure as well as it is his first foray into television.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Messages have been pouring in to pay tribute to Jess Search, producer and co-founder of U.K.’s Doc Society, who died Monday from brain cancer at the age of 54. Search was a founding director of Doc Society, the mission of which is to “unleash the transformational power of documentary film to address the two critical and intertwined issues of climate change and democracies in crisis.” Before that, she was a commissioning editor at Channel 4 and a founder of Shooting People, the online filmmakers network.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Cinema has boarded international sales on “Not a Word,” which will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in the competitive Platform section. The cast is led by Maren Eggert, who won the best acting award at the Berlin Film Festival for “I’m Your Man.” The film is written and directed by Hanna Slak, whose credits include the Slovenian Oscar entry “The Miner,” and was lensed by Claire Mathon, the cinematographer of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” “Saint-Omer,” “Stranger by the Lake” and “Spencer.” Eggert plays ambitious musician and conductor Nina.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Zurich Film Festival will honor the chief executive of German film and TV company Leonine Studios, Fred Kogel, with its Game Changer Award, which is presented to a leading personality from the film industry whose “extraordinary efforts serve to advance the sector.” Kogel set up Leonine four years ago, and it has grown rapidly to become Germany’s leading independent film company, as well as a major TV producer. Its successes as a film distributor have included the release of “The School of Magical Animals,” “Knives Out” and the “John Wick” franchise.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prime Video has acquired the Ancient Rome gladiator drama series “Those About to Die” in multiple European territories. The show is directed by “Independence Day” helmer Roland Emmerich and Marco Kreuzpaintner. The 10-episode first season will debut exclusively on Prime Video in Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Andorra, Monaco, Luxembourg and Belgium.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has boarded “Forever-Forever” (“Nazavzhdy-Nazavzhdy”), Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova’s feature directing debut, ahead of its world premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition. After transferring from a downtown high school, Tonia (Alina Cheban) befriends a group of badass youngsters, trying to find protection from the people from her past and a place she truly belongs. They spend time together, roaming around Kyiv’s post-socialist suburbs, having fun and getting in trouble.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman will receive the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival, in recognition of his contribution to the art of filmmaking. The festival will also hold an open-air screening of 2002’s “Adaptation,” which was written by Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor TorinoFilmLab has unveiled the 2023 editions of SeriesLab and SeriesLab Talents, two initiatives devoted to TV series creation. Exclusively, Variety reveals the details of the nine projects, and the five participants. The seventh edition of SeriesLab has nine innovative and market-oriented series projects from around the world.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Film has sold more than 100 hours of drama series to PBS Distribution-backed Walter Presents for the U.S., and Channel 4-backed Walter Presents for the U.K. Five seasons of Italy’s gritty crime series “Rocco Schiavone” as well as Canadian mystery dramas “The Wall – The Chateau Murder” and “The Wall – The Orchard” will be available in both territories.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Gianluca Matarrese’s “The Zola Experience,” which will have its world premiere at Venice Days, has been picked up for international sales by Syndicado. Cinecittà will distribute the film in Italy. According to Matarrese, the film “explores the boundaries between fiction and documentary.” It centers on Anne, a theater director, who has separated from her husband and is moving house.