From the rugby field to the palace! Former pro athlete Mike Tindall became a member of the royal family after his wedding to Zara Tindall (née Phillips).
11.05.2023 - 16:07 / variety.com
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, whose movies “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness” have won two of the past five Palmes d’Or, will attend Cannes this year not as a competitor but as jury president. Over a lively phone chat, Östlund (who lives on Majorca with his fashion-photographer wife, Sina Görtz, and their son) shares his wildest aspirations for the festival. What made you want to take on the role of jury president? When you look at the history of who has been the president of the Cannes Film Festival’s jury, you get humbled. My biggest inspirations come from the directors connected to this festival. And the way Cannes is fighting for the intellectual European perspective of cinema is something that is important and unique in the world.
I’m sure you’ll be great, but you’re not a star. Yes, I am! You’re not as famous as Kristen Stewart, who presided over the Berlinale jury and joked during the press conference that she doesn’t watch movies. I know Kristen Stewart, and she’s definitely not a stupid person. So I wouldn’t criticize Berlin’s decision to put her as the head of the jury. There’s a reason why you use the red carpet and romantic ideas about success and stars to draw attention to the content of the films. What kind of jury president will you be? I’m going to be a very Swedish president. I’ll be a Swede rather than a president, and a producer rather than a president. And I’m going to be a Social Democratic one. How so? The biggest challenge when it comes to being a jury president is to not fall into the trap of looking for consensus. You want all members to independently fight for what they believe in, and not have the most socially skilled people dominating. I
From the rugby field to the palace! Former pro athlete Mike Tindall became a member of the royal family after his wedding to Zara Tindall (née Phillips).
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari‘s “Terrestrial Verses,” the sole Iranian film premiering in Cannes’ Official Selection, has been acquired for distribution in key European territories. Represented by Films Boutique, “Terrestrial Verses” has been acquired for France (ARP Selection), Benelux (September Films) and Germany/Austria (Neue Visionen). All three banners are leading distributors in their respective territories. Those deals were closed following the film’s well-received world premiere. “Terrestrial Verses” marks the first collaboration between Khatami and Asgari, who are both acclaimed directors.
star Ariana Madix is feeding Bravo fans with more details about that's been the main character in our lives for the past two months. Madix, who ended her nine-year relationship with Tom Sandoval after discovering with her best friend, Raquel Leviss, appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast in an episode that aired Wednesday, May 24, where she shared brand new details about Scandoval.Throughout the podcast episode, called Sandoval an “absentee boyfriend,” and said, "I didn't lose him.
Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor About an hour after Bravo released the ratings for the Season 10 finale of “Vanderpump Rules” on Tuesday, producers Lisa Vanderpump and Alex Baskin were in Hollywood campaigning for Emmy consideration at an FYC event. The finale scored big, ending on a series-high with a combined audience of 4.1 million viewers on Bravo, on-demand and the Peacock platform within three days of its May 17 airing. No doubt interest in the show skyrocketed because of #Scandoval, the drama stemming from Tom Sandoval cheating on his girlfriend of a decade, Ariana Madix, with her best friend, Raquel Leviss.
Lise Pedersen The highest award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s sidebar dedicated to documentary, Cannes Docs, has gone to Ya-Ting Hsu’s debut feature doc “Islands of the Winds.” Twenty years in the making, the film follows the anti-eviction struggle of the patients of Losheng Sanatorium for lepers, which became a symbol of the fight for democracy in Hsu’s native Taiwan. The prize comes with a €10,000 ($10,800) cash prize and project follow-up by IEFTA (the International Emerging Film Talent Assn.). It is produced by Hsu’s Taiwan-based Argosy Films and Media Productions, Huang Yin-Yu (Moolin Films, Ltd. & Moolin Production, Co., Ltd, Taiwan and Japan) and Baptiste Brunner (Wide Productions – La Cuisine aux Images, France).
Two heavy hearts. Ariana Madix and ex Tom Sandoval paid tribute to their late friend Ali Rafiq after his sudden death.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent FLX (“Quicksand”), the Nordic banner owned by SF Studios, is set to adapt the bestseller “Shadowland” (“Skuggland”) into a thriller series revolving around bullying. The show will take place at an exclusive private school in Stockholm and will follow 11-year-old Daniel, who isn’t from a rich family unlike his classmates and is constantly bullied. After a serious incident, the school can no longer turn a blind eye to the harassment. In search for vindication, Daniel’s mother, Vicki, soon sees that even the truth comes with a price. The founder of the school, a billionaire called Gunnar Grentz, rules in the background. But this incident now threatens his position.
Sunday night at the 76th Cannes Film Festival was all about the world premiere of the Jude Law and Alicia Vikander Henry VIII period pic Firebrand, which received a royal response from the crowd in the Grand Theatre Lumiere with an eight and a half minute standing ovation.
In a typical household, most of the energy used is on heating. In fact, for the average UK household, heating is responsible for over half of each month’s energy bills, according to a report by Energy Saving Trust.
It was a great night for Disney as Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny had a smash debut in its World Premiere Thursday evening at the Cannes Film Festival where the June 30th release received a warm 5 minute standing ovation, especially for Harrison Ford in his swan song in the title role he started playing 40 + years ago. There noticeably to witness the French love and affection was none other than Disney boss Bob Iger attending his first-ever Cannes Festival (believe it or not) and even taking his own photos during the ovation for the movie. At the Carlton Beach after party I told him Deadline had just been the first to post its review, a rave (from our colleague Stephanie Bunbury) and you could see the absolute relief on his face. “You have made me very happy to hear that, ” he told me, and he meant it. All this came on the same day Disney took another shot at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by announcing the cancellation of a plan to move several thousand California employees to Florida. The Cannes respite must have been nice.
Films Boutique has closed multiple territory deals on Agnieszka Holland’s “The Green Border,” which just completed principal photography in Poland. The film has been sold to Condor (France), September Films (Benelux), Movies Inspired (Italy), Leopardo Filmes (Portugal), MCF Megacom (former Yugoslavia), Kino Swiat (Poland) and AQS (Czech Rep./Slovakia). “The Green Border” tells the story of a family of Syrian refugees, a solitary English teacher from Afghanistan and a young border guard, all of whom meet on the Polish-Belarusian border during the most recent humanitarian crisis triggered by Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko, who opened the country’s doors to migrants as a back door to enter the EU.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mikael Marcimain, the popular Swedish director of “Call Girl” and “Gentlemen,” is on track to direct “Devastation,” an epic and horrific tale of survival set in 1867. “Devastation” is one of the first projects developed by Mylla films, the new banner set up by Jakob Abrahamsson and Patrik Andersson (“Midsommar”). Mylla films has enlisted Nordic distributor and co-producer Scanbox and French boutique genre specialist Alexis Perrin of Rumble Fish as co-producers. A period piece set in Northern Sweden, “Devastation” is penned by Melina Maraki (“The Liberation of Harold Kvist”). Unfolding during the ever-ending winter and famine of 1867, the film revolves around two brothers, one the local industrialist and the other the local preacher, who keep a sawmill society in a tyrannical stronghold. An uprising begins from the most unexpected place.
Glazed donut fans, listen up: Hailey Bieber's highly-anticipated skincare line, Rhode, is finally available to purchase in the UK. Since launching Stateside last year, fans over in the UK have been eagerly waiting to get their hands on the glow-giving products. Rather than launching an extensive range of products into an already saturated market, Bieber's decision to launch a tightly curated collection, with gentle yet efficacious formulas, makes the brand easy to navigate as each product fits easily into your skincare routine, whatever that might look like.
“Elemental” and Martin Scorsese’s Apple-produced “Killers of the Flower Moon” an additional veneer of vindication. As to the box-office futures of the 20-odd films competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, certainly none will reach the international highs of James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but then, none were ever expected to.Instead — and at its best — Cannes works as a sophisticated shell game, channeling the glamour of the red carpet and the frenzy of 40,000 accredited guests to make glitzy international events out of existential Turkish dramas like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” existential Finnish dramedies like Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves”or intimate two-headers about 19th-century French gastronomy like Tran Anh Hung’s “The Pot au Feu.”Other Palme d’Or contenders will come with built-in SEO, as Wes Anderson’s more-star-packed-than-usual “Asteroid City”threatens to saddle red-carpet rubberneckers with a permanent case of whiplash once the Texan auteur’s full repertory company mounts the Palais steps alongside new additions Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson.That all the aforementioned filmmakers could walk those Palais steps in blindfolds is another notable element of an official competition marked by staggering high fidelity.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The last love of Franz Kafka, the celebrated Czech author of “Metamorphosis,” will be portrayed in romantic drama “The Glory of Life.” TrustNordisk has boarded international sales ahead of Cannes, while Majestic is handling the domestic rights. Currently shooting, “The Glory of Life” is directed by Georg Maas (“Two Lives”) and is inspired by the love story between Kafka and Dora Diamant. The period drama was penned by Michael Gutmann and Maas. Producers are Helge Sasse and Solveig Fina for Tempest Film and Tommy Pridnig for Lotus Film. Kafka and Diamant met in 1923 on the Baltic Sea coast, a year before the author died from tuberculosis. The worldly wise Diamant, who was working in a Jewish community, took him to Berlin, and as Kafka’s health deteriorates rapidly, they traveled together to a sanatorium in Austria. The memory of their time together will shape Diamant for the rest of her life.
EXCLUSIVE: In 2016, the hottest book in Hollywood hadn’t even been published yet. Circulating in galley proofs, it was the latest non-fiction work from author David Grann, whose 2009 book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon had recently been filmed by James Gray and produced by Plan B. His new book was another mouthful — Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI — and it proved just as tasty.
EXCLUSIVE: UK production company Mad As Birds (MAB) — best known for pics such as Six Minutes to Midnight, POMS, The Vanishing, and The Almond And The Seahorse — has landed a major cash injection from a private investor as it sets out a diverse slate of projects for the Cannes market.
EXCLUSIVE: Palisades Park Pictures (PPP) will be representing global sales for action-thriller Duchess from director Neil Marshall (Hellboy).
—and the first footage is just as intense as you'd imagine. Following next week's , titled “,” Bravo will begin airing a three-part reunion special on May 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Frida Kempff (“Winter Buoy”) is set to direct “The Swedish Torpedo,” a period film inspired by the life of Sally Bauer, the first Scandinavian to swim across the English Channel in 1939. The prominent Nordic cast is led by Josefin Neldén (“Border,” “438 Days”), Mikkel Boe Følsgaard (“Royal Affair,” “Borgen”), as well as Lisa Carlehed (“The Emigrants”). Produced by David Herdies and Erik Andersson at Momento Film, the film will start shooting in August in Sweden, Estonia, Belgium and England. “Five years ago I didn’t know who Sally Bauer was and even less what she had achieved. Five days ahead of the outbreak of WWII she swam across the English Channel,” said Kempff I feel this is a story that needs to be told, about a woman who accomplished the impossible and shattered both social norms and world records.”