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Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Tennis champion Naomi Osaka’s company Hana Kuma has boarded Leonardo Van Dijl’s debut feature “Julie Keeps Quiet” ahead of its world premiere on Saturday in Cannes Critics’ Week. The film is being sold by New Europe Film Sales. Osaka and her longtime agent and business partner Stuart Duguid’s Hana Kuma, an Emmy Award-nominated creative house, will serve as executive producers on the film.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor AGC Intl., the international sales arm of Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios, is launching sales in Cannes on director Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary feature “Nobu,” about world renowned chef and hotelier Nobu Matsuhisa. Nobu’s path to success was strewn with obstacles, adversity and tragedy.

Jessica Kiang (Baby) It’s cold outside. Strings of gaudy rainbow lights twinkle from gables.

Alex Ritman Signature Entertainment has acquired the U.K. and Irish rights to Sylvester Stallone(“Tulsa King”)action thriller “Alarum”from Highland Film Group. The feature is produced and financed by Convergence Entertainment Group (“Cash Out”) and is directed by Michael Polish (“Force of Nature”) from a script written by Alexander Vesha (“Deadly Impact”).

Anna Marie de la Fuente Buenos Aires-based production, sales and distribution company FilmSharks has picked up all worldwide rights to the new crime thriller by Argentina’s Sebastian Schindel, “A Silent Death” (Una muerte silenciosa”), to which it has sold Latin American theatrical rights to Disney’s Star Distribution, slated for release later in the year. Said FilmSharks CEO Guido Rud: “This is likely to become one of the biggest Latin American films of the year.

Siddhant Adlakha A radical vision of Indian womanhood collides with scattered storytelling in director Konstantin Bojanov‘s “The Shameless,” a provocative queer drama laid low by its oblique narrative. Following two women destined for a life of sex work, the drama is lucid in its politics, but often opaque in its drama — a dynamic embodied by two wildly different lead performances. Anasuya Sengupta is remarkable as “Renuka,” a Muslim woman who dons the moniker of a Hindu goddess while on the run from police.

Francis Ford Coppola shared his thoughts on the current studio system during the Cannes Film Festival press conference for his self-financed epic “Megalopolis,” saying that they might not be around much longer. “I fear that the film industry has become more of a matter of people being hired to meet their debt obligations because the studios are in great, great debt.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Variety will present a Women in Cinema Panel at the Cannes Film Festival in tandem with the Red Sea International Film Festival featuring top talents from Egypt, India, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Senegal. The panel will take place at La Plage Des Palmes on Saturday, May 18, at 12pm CET.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent On Sept. 12, 2022, the day before Jean-Luc Godard died by assisted suicide at 91 in his home in Rolle, Switzerland, the Godfather of French New Wave completed his final 18-minute film, “Scénarios,” which premieres on today in Cannes. “Scénarios” — which comprises two components called “DNA, Fundamental Elements” and “MRI, Odyssey” — is followed by “Exposé du Film Annonce du Film ‘Scènario,’” a 34-minute, behind-the-scenes doc about the making of Godard’s last short.

Jamie Lang Spanish sales, distribution, and production company Filmax has picked up international rights to the upcoming kids and family animated feature “The Light of Aisha” and is sharing the project with buyers at this year’s Marché du Film. The CG-animated film tells the story of Aisha, a young girl living in XI-century Al-Andalus in the south of modern-day Spain.

Lily Gladstone took a break from jury duty at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday to present Ron Howard with Variety’s Profile in Excellence Award. Howard was the guest of honor at the annual Welcome to Cannes Party, hosted in partnership with the Gotham Film & Media Institute at Lucia Beach, where an array of industry veterans — including The Gotham’s Jeffrey Sharp, Focus Features’ Jason Cassidy, Disney’s Keleigh Thomas Morgan, the Sundance Institute’s Eugene Hernandez and more — donned their best beach chic attire (with sunglasses) to mix, mingle and sip rosé.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Zach Galifianakis and Tom Sturridge team up in Olivier Assayas’ political thriller “The Wizard of the Kremlin”, based on Giuliano da Empoli’s bestseller by the same name. Produced by Olivier Delbosc’s banner Curiosa Films and Gaumont – who last partnered on Cannes prizewinning “The Taste of Things” — “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is one of the hottest packages launching at the Cannes Film Market where Alexis Cassanet, Gaumont’s EVP international sales and distribution, is kicking off pre-sales.

Christopher Vourlias Logical Pictures is launching a new Africa venture that will see the production, financing and distribution outfit expand its global footprint into the fast-growing African market. According to the group’s head, Frédéric Fiore, the move will help position Logical Pictures as the preferred financing partner on the continent for the international industry and the leading production company of African content with global ambitions.

Annika Pham The Swiss/French “Dog on Trial” is set to disrupt, move and entertain the Croisette from what is revealed in a first clip from sales outfit MK2 Films, exclusively shared with Variety. The film world premieres at Cannes Un Certain Regard May 19. Writer/actor-turned-director Laetitia Dosch, who delivered what Variety reviewer Peter Debruge called a ‘blazing-wildfire performance’ in the 2017 Camera d’or winner “Jeune Femme”, is herself taking a chance this year on the coveted award. Meanwhile Cosmos the Dog (aka Kodi in the film) will battle for the leather dog collar Palme Dog win.

Alex Ritman Andrea Arnold’s initial inspiration for her Cannes competition entry “Bird” was perhaps not what many people might have been expecting. “A very long time ago, I had the image a tall, thin man with a long penis, standing on a roof,” she explained at the press conference for the film on Friday when asked about her initial visual prompt. “But I didn’t know if he was good or bad or what he was.” From this bizarre starting point, Arnold crafted a social realist drama about a family on the fringes of society living by British seaside and an unexpected visitor who becomes close to a young girl entering puberty.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch is in Cannes for the third time with “Everybody Loves Touda,” launching out of competition. The film tells the story of a young poet and singer steeped in an ancient Moroccan form of folk song called aita, but forced to perform trashy pop songs in bars filled with abusive men. Below, Ayouch speaks with Variety about what “Touda” says about Morocco today.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hit crime thriller “The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon” received 13 nominations for the upcoming Taipei Film Festival’s Taipei Film Awards. These include nominations for best feature, best director, best screenplay, best actor, best supporting actress, and best supporting actor.

Martin Dale Contributor Paulo Carneiro‘s third feature, “Savanna and the Mountain,” is world premiering at this year’s Cannes in the Director’s Fortnight section. The film depicts a David-and-Goliath struggle between rural folk from Covas de Barroso in the North of Portugal and London-based Savannah Resources, which plans to build Europe’s biggest open-air lithium mine.

Naman Ramachandran Los Angeles-based Flourishing Films has boarded Singapore- and India-based Mumba Devi Motion Pictures‘ “Grand Sugar Daddy” and “Not Today” at the Cannes Film Festival‘s market. Flourishing is focused on expanding access to Black, diverse and female-driven filmed content originating from the U.S., Africa, the U.K. and worldwide.

Ben Croll After nearly two years of planning, the digital platform “The Gleaners and I: Revisiting Agnès Varda’s Edit” is about to go live. Supported by Martin Scorsese, the pedagogical platform will open the treasure trove of Agnès Varda’s archives, making never-before-seen footage and hours of unused rushes available to nascent filmmakers across the globe.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “La Mesías” star Carmen Machi, Almodóvar muse Rossy de Palma and Blanca Portillo, a Cannes best actress co-winner for Almodóvar’s “Volver,” are set to star in “The Prey” (“Dia de Caza”), billed as a contemporary revision of Carlos Saura’s 1965 pic “The Hunt,” quite possibly his crowing achievement. The film is set to shoot in July in Spain’s Extremadura, with theatrical release scheduled for summer 2025. Brutal, kinetic at times and taking no prisoners, Saura’s original won a Berlin Silver Bear.

Jamie Lang Chilean actor Alfredo Castro (“The Club,” “Tony Manero”) will make his directorial debut with the psychological thriller “Los Trabajadores de la Muerte,” which translates to “the workers of death.” Based on Diamela Eltit’s novel of the same title, the film is penned by Castro and Pablo Valledor. Chile’s Storyboard Media and Les Films de l’Âge d’Or in France co-produce.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The persistent vibrancy of Italian cinema, despite increasing financing difficulties, is undisputable if you look at the range of the country’s current output and what’s percolating in the pipeline. It spans from highly sophisticated new works by maestros such as Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino to crassly commercial global megahits like Netflix Italy original “The Tearsmith” and promising fresh fare from Cinema Italiano’s next generation.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia leads this year’s Arab cinema contingent at Cannes with pioneering director Tawfik Alzaidi’s “Norah” launching internationally from Un Certain Regard plus a clutch of films in other sections by directors from Egypt, Palestine and Morocco. They collectively reflect both the vibrancy and the many hurdles that filmmakers face in the region.

Jessica Kiang If the best revenge is living well, it is a truism that has not yet taken root for Hamid (a riveting Adam Bessa), the dark, scarred heart of Jonathan Millet‘s brooding, gripping “Ghost Trail.” Outside his soon-to-be-revealed mission, Hamid barely has a life at all, placing him firmly in the genre tradition of the taciturn, traumatized hero whose obsessive pursuit of his quarry leaves little room for anything beyond the constant, careful stoking of his rage, grief and survivor’s guilt. Millet’s expertly tooled movie is far from the first to derive its moral stakes from the desire to find some measure of redress for the victims and survivors of political violence, but it is among the best to also crossbreed this familiar archetype with the urgency and topicality of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Christopher Vourlias It’s been 20 years since the Czech Republic hosted its first pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film, with a Czech delegation arriving at the prestigious French fest just days after their country had joined the European Union. The timing was both propitious and symbolic: In the two decades since, the Czech industry has grown more international in its outlook, spurred on by a growing number of co-productions and a wave of industry professionals who have come of age since the country joined the E.U.

Christopher Vourlias When the creative team behind Prime Video’s splashy fantasy series “The Wheel of Time” began scouring the globe for locations five years ago, it ran into a problem not uncharacteristic of that period of peak TV: It was all but impossible to find a production hub that could both accommodate the show’s sprawling footprint and meet its exacting technical requirements, with studios from Atlanta to London to Budapest booked year-round. The producers ultimately chose the Czech Republic, a country with a rich cinematic history, a competitive 20% cash rebate, skilled crews and a reputation for servicing foreign blockbusters at a fraction of Hollywood or U.K.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sola Media has closed sales for multiple territories for “The Sloth Lane,” which will world premiere at the Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Arab cinema continues to break new ground with a fresh crop of social dramas, several of which depict female empowerment in different forms. These range from the tale of a young woman who fakes being dead so she can leave everything behind, to a rape-revenge thriller titled “Beretta,” just like the semi-automatic pistol used by Suad, its mute protagonist. Below is a compendium of promising upcoming Arabic-language films in various stages that will be surfacing either at festivals or on streamers.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s film industry is fighting to stay vibrant amid disruption caused both by politics and market forces.After reaping the rewards of a protracted growth spurt, local producers are facing a forced slowdown as the country’s right-wing government dithers with modifications they plan to make to several key regulations, most significantly to the country’s currently stalled tax incentives for film and TV production. At a packed protest event held in early April at Rome’s Cinema Adriano multiplex, industry figures from all sectors – including producers, writers, actors and big-name directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Marco Bellocchio – lashed out against having to wait endlessly for the culture ministry to approve new guidelines so production companies can apply for the 40% tax credits that basically drive the business.

Alex Ritman Pinocchio is entering the Poohniverse. The frequently adapted children’s story is set to become the latest standalone film introduced into the extremely bloody and gory world of “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey,” the IP-bludgeoning microbudget slasher that that sparked headlines for turning A. A.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Hong Kong actor Tony Leung has been set as the president of the jury that will decide the main competition prizes at the Tokyo International Film Festival later this year. “Japan is close to my heart in more ways than one. And to be involved in celebrating film in this way, is a big deal for me.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic What a great season for music this is, if you’re someone who has an old-fashioned thing for albums that really feel like albums. And it’s not because of any wave of old-timers ganging up with each other to show off their concept-record chops.

Aramide Tinubu While much attention is paid to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party hasn’t been as closely examined in popular culture. Apple TV+‘s “The Big Cigar” is adapted from Joshuah Bearman’s 2012 article of the same name. (Bearman also penned the 2007 article that Ben Affleck’s 2012 film, “Argo” was based on.) The series revolves around Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P.

Jim Halterman Spoiler Alert: The following interview discusses events from the series finale of “Young Sheldon” — the episodes “Funeral” and “Memoir” — streaming on Paramount+ as of May 17. Bazinga! That’s a wrap on CBS’ “Young Sheldon,” as the hit comedy prequel to “The Big Bang Theory” bid adieu with its final two installments after seven seasons and 141 episodes on Thursday. Though a lot of details were known going into the series finale – that Sheldon’s (Iain Armitage) father George (Lance Barber) had died off-screen in last week’s episode, that “Big Bang” alums Jim Parsons (as adult Sheldon) and Mayim Bialik (as his wife Amy) would appear and that 14-year old Sheldon would be heading to Caltech – the episodes still delivered surprises and a slew of Easter eggs.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The publishing industry’s offensive against Spotify continues as the Mechanical Licensing Collective has filed legal action against the streaming giant’s U.S. division over its recent subscription offers that bundle music and audiobooks, resulting in a lower royalty.