Playtime Boards Olivier Assayas’ Lockdown Comedy ‘Suspended Time’

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based genre specialist Reel Suspects has taken world sales rights on Argentinian filmmaker Pedro Cristiani’s directorial feature debut horror Deus Irae.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Los Angeles Times announced Tuesday that it is laying off 115 staffers, as billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong looks to stem losses that have grown to $30-$40 million a year. The layoff figure includes both union members and non-union managers. Matt Pearce, a Times reporter and president of Media Guild West, said on X that 94 union staffers were being let go, which he said was “devastating” but less than the number expected a week ago.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Ben Lobato, co-showrunner of Alice Braga-starrer “Queen of the South,” a top-three Nielsen ratings performer for USA Network, has boarded “Hot Sur,” a fast-moving thriller set up at Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fabula and at Fremantle Mexico, the burgeoning Mexican production hub of the global production-distribution giant. Lobato will showrun the TV series, which will be helmed by Gabriel Ripstein, writer-director of acclaimed Mexican Amazon Original “An Unknown Enemy.” Shaping up as one of the biggest new projects being brought on the market at Content Americas, “Hot Sur” will be presented at Content Americas Copro Pitch on Tuesday, one of the TV market and forum’s industry centerpieces. In it, Maria Paz, an undocumented Mexican immigrant looking after her bipolar sister, becomes a fugitive after being falsely accused of murder.

EXCLUSIVE: HanWay Films will represent international sales at next month’s EFM on Berlinale Competition title La Cocina. Fifth Season co-financed the film and is co-representing North America with WME.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Argentina’s newly elected president Javier Milei is bent on keeping his chainsaw-wielding campaign promise to cut state spending, including scrapping the country’s national film institute (INCAA) and its film schools (ENERC). His mega draft bill, aimed at reining in Argentina’s hyper-inflation, has prompted more than 300 directors, producers, actresses, critics and colleagues from across the world, led by Academy Award winners Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cannes winners Aki Kaurismäki (“Autumn Leaves”) and the Dardenne Brothers (“Rosetta”), to sign a communiqué protesting the far-right libertarian’s proposal.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has boarded “The Devil’s Bath,” a period psychological thriller directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian filmmaking duo behind the critical and commercial hit “Goodnight Mommy.” The movie reteams Franz and Fiala with Ulrich Seidl, who also produced “Goodnight Mommy.” Set in rural Austria in 1750, “The Devil’s Bath” stars Anja Plaschg, the up-and-coming singer and composer known as Soap & Skin. Plaschg plays Agnes, a young married woman who feels oppressed in her husband’s world which is devoid of emotions and limited to chores and expectations. A pious and highly sensitive woman, Agnes falls into a deep depression, before committing a shocking act of violence that she sees as the only way out of her inner prison.

The Match Factory has acquired world sales rights to Berlinale Golden Bear contender Dying by German director Matthias Glasner.

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition and its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international rights to Lenny and Harpo Guit’s new feature “Heads or Fails,” the duo’s follow-up to Sundance comedy “Mother Schmuckers.” Now in post, “Heads or Fails” tells the story of Armande Pigeon, a queen of shenanigans in Brussels who struggles to make ends meet because she can’t stop gambling on everything, always ending up on the wrong side of luck. When she teams up with Ronnie one night, everything changes – they win it all.

The Los Angeles Times is planning “another round of major layoffs,” the publication’s guild warned its members in a memo, after executive editor Kevin Merida announced his surprise departure last week.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Jean-Claude Van Damme, the global martial artist turned action hero whose 2021 movie “The Last Mercenary” was a hit on Netflix, has another film on the horizon. He will star opposite Michaël Youn (“BDE”) in “Le jardinier,” another high-voltage action-comedy reuniting him with “The Last Mercenary” director David Charhon.

Daniel Radcliffe joins Weird Al Yankovic while arriving at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday (January 15) at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Rachel Brosnahan and the cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are being celebrated by the Emmys just one final time.

The Primetime Emmy Awards are finally here. Originally scheduled for September 19, the 75th Anniversary edition was delayed due to the WGA and SAG strikes.

Tonight’s the night — finally.

Ben Croll Orange Studio has boarded true-crime-tinged psychological thriller “An Ordinary Case” and will launch sales at this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris. Top-lined, co-written and directed by French cinema stalwart Daniel Auteuil, this pulled-from-the-headlines drama also boasts “Borgen” and “Westworld” star Sidse Babett Knudsen alongside acclaimed actor Grégory Gadebois (“An Officer and a Spy”).

So many stars stepped out for the 75th Primetime Emmy performer nominees celebration on Saturday (January 13) at the JW Marriott LA Live in Los Angeles.

EXCLUSIVE: Annette Bening is joining Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s Frankenstein lore feature at Warner Bros; the studio making it official that this is a go-project. Cameras roll in Q1. This package with its attachments has been out there since it was at Netflix, and the deals have finally closed with everyone.

Jordan Moreau Retired actor Daniel Day-Lewis made a surprise appearance at Thursday night’s National Board of Review Awards gala to honor Martin Scorsese with the best director award. Scorsese and Day-Lewis previously worked together on 1993’s “The Age of Innocence” and 2002’s “Gangs of New York,” but if it were up to Scorsese that wouldn’t be their last collaboration. The legendary filmmaker teased that “maybe there’s time for one more” film together during his acceptance speech.

Playtime will launch sales on Emmanuel Courcol’s new social comedy The Marching Band, about two brothers separated by fate and reunited by music, at the upcoming Unifrance Rendez-vous in Paris next week.