Simon Moutaïrou on Telling the Story of French Colonial Slaves in ‘No Chains, No Masters: ‘It Was Important to Be as Close to the Truth as Possible’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Rolling off “The Three Musketeers,” Pathé and Dimitri Rassam’s Chapter 2 (a Mediawan company) have unveiled the teaser and poster for their next period epic, “The Count of Monte-Cristo,” starring Pierre Niney (“Yves Saint Laurent,” “Black Box”) in the title role. Based on Alexandre Dumas’ literary masterpiece, the film tells the story of a young man, Edmond Dantes, who becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit.

Graeme Souness has reignited his feud with former Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba by blaming him for "wasting his career" due to a doping ban. The ex-Sky Sports pundit often criticised Pogba during his time at Old Trafford.

Caroline Brew editor GKIDS is bringing the hand-painted animated film “Chicken for Linda!” to select theaters nationwide. It will be released April 5 in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and April 12 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent A rare flagship indie producer left on the French market, Bruno Nahon‘s Paris-based company Unité is preparing to conquer international audiences with “Rematch,” a period psychological thriller chronicling the historical battle between world chess champion Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke, “That Dirty Black Bag”), and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997. The sprawling show, directed by Yan England (“The Red Band Society”) and co-created with Nahon and André Gulluni (“Sam”), was commissioned by Arte in France and has already been sold by Federation Studios to major outlets around the world, including HBO Europe for Spain, Portugal, the Nordics, Iceland, Baltics, Central Europe, Greece and the Netherlands.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Playmaker has closed a raft of pre-sales deals on “Ploey 2 – The Legend of the Winds,” which was presented to international buyers for the first time at the European Film Market this month. The Playmaker screened an exclusive first-look teaser at its booth in Berlin as well as a promo for attending buyers.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michael Fassbender is in negotiations to star in “The Department,” an espionage thriller series directed by George Clooney. Set to start shooting in London this spring, “The Department” is based on “The Bureau,” the hit French spy show created by Eric Rochant. It has already been given a straight-to-series order by Showtime.

Annika Pham One of Banijay’s scripted centrepieces at the London TV Screenings, the Swedish crime drama “Fallen” (“Sanningen”), sees the first reunion of star actor Sofia Helin, writer Camilla Ahlgren, and Stockholm-based Filmlance International since the multi-season hit crime show “The Bridge” (2011-2018). Their collaboration has paid off again as “Fallen” has wooed a first batch of global sellers – including MHz Choice for the U.S.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind docuseries “The Staircase,” has once again struck a chord with “Samber,” a limited series about a French serial rapist that explores the damages of sexual violence against women and children. “Samber,” a six-part thriller series directed by de Lestrade, charts the true case of Dino Scala, a seemingly ordinary family man who sexually assaulted and raped more than 50 women and minors over three decades in Northeastern France.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner‘s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky‘s documentary “Architecton.” “Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. Variety‘s review describes the film as “a profoundly affecting exploration of life and loss.” The Match Factory closed deals for the film in France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media), Poland (Aurora), CIS (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (MCF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film) and South Korea (Pancinema).

Welcome to Deadline’s London TV Screenings list, our definitive look at next week’s buzzy event taking Soho by storm. If you’re wondering who’s exhibiting, what’s on offer and want to dive deeper into the distribs’ strategy, we’ve done the hard work for you, presenting profiles from nearly 30 exhibiting sales houses. Below, check out profiles for the companies headed over from the States and other nations around the globe. Read on, and find all our London TV Screenings content throughout the week here.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Since its establishment in 2018, Gaumont Germany has produced a wide range of series and TV movies, among them such timely shows as the critically acclaimed “Deutsches Haus” (“The Interpreter of Silence”), which was nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, and the Ukrainian series “In Her Car.” A subsidiary of the French entertainment powerhouse, the Cologne and Berlin-based company also created such ambitious shows as Netflix’s historical epic “Barbarians” – the first season of which was one of the streamer’s most successful non-English-language series worldwide – and the award-winning Sky Original comedy “The Wasp,” about a professional dart player seeking to return to his former glory. Discussing the company’s latest productions, Gaumont Germany President Sabine de Mardt says it’s important to combine broader entertainment with relevance, something both “The Interpreter of Silence” and “In Her Car” offer.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Berlin Film Festival hosted the 10 young European actors selected for the Shooting Stars program, run by European Film Promotion, at a gala event Monday. The presentation of the Shooting Stars took place prior to the screening of Claire Burger’s “Langue Étrangère,” which plays in competition.

Christopher Vourlias Following on the heels of his Oscar-shortlisted “Refugee,” veteran U.S. producer Brandt Andersen (“Everest,” “Lone Survivor”) makes his feature directorial debut with “The Strangers’ Case,” a kaleidoscopic and deeply felt portrait of the refugee crisis that world premieres Feb. 23 as a Berlinale Special Gala.

Jessica Kiang In November 2021, 61 years after Benin gained independence from the French empire, 26 of the many thousands of plundered national antiquities were returned by France to their African home. Inserting an inquisitive, imaginative intelligence into this key moment in the troubled timeline of post-imperial cultural politics, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc “Dahomey” as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Olivier Assayas, the celebrated French director of “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “Irma Vep,” is making his Berlinale competition debut this year with “Suspended Time,” his most personal film to date. Speaking to Variety ahead of the movie’s premiere at the Berlinale, Assayas says the film retells his experience during the lockdown and is based on his personal diary.

“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor In Christine Angot‘s documentary “A Family,” which premieres Sunday in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival, the French novelist explores how various members of her family reacted to the revelation that she was repeatedly raped by her father from the age of 13. The film starts with a startling confrontation between Angot and her stepmother in Strasbourg, with Angot pushing her way into her stepmother’s apartment with a camera-person and proceeding to question the woman about Angot’s late father’s crimes and the wife’s view on that. Angot says that this incident was not planned at all.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cohen Media Group, the U.S. distribution company behind Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano,” has acquired North American rights to “The President’s Wife,” a biting movie starring Catherine Deneuve as the former first lady Bernadette Chirac. The deal closed during the European Film Market currently taking place and running alongside the Berlin Film Festival.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent FilmSharks has taken world sales rights outside Spain to “The Bus of Life,” next up from Arcadia Motion Pictures, producer of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Cesar and Goya winner “The Beasts” and Neon U.S. pick-up “Robot Dreams,” nominated last month for a best animated feature Academy Award.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Dark Star Pictures has acquired North American rights to “Zenithal,” a kung fu comedy directed by Jean-Baptiste Saurel, an up-and-coming filmmaker whose previous short, “The Dickslap,” premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week. “Zenithal” is being represented in international markets by Best Friend Forever, which will unveil an exclusive promo reel at the EFM. Currently in post-production, the film will world premiere this year.