Starz Picks Up ‘Death & Nightingales’; Sky Italia Chiefs Exit; ‘Romulus’ Renewed — Global Briefs

Monte-Carlo TV Festival Unveils Competition Lineup The Monte-Carlo Television Festival has signaled its intention to host an in-person event on June 18-22 by announcing its competition lineup. Some 27 programs from 14 countries have been officially selected to compete, with winners announced at the Golden Nymph Awards Ceremony on June 22 at the Grimaldi Forum Monaco.

Fox has picked up to series Pivoting, its half-hour single-camera comedy pilot headlined by Eliza Coupe, Ginnifer Goodwin and Maggie Q. The project, written and executive produced by Liz Astrof, hails from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Warner Bros TV and Fox Entertainment.

David Tennant Joins Sky’s ‘The Amazing Maurice’

Warner Bros International Television Production has appointed Bruno Henriquet to lead its operations in France. Henriquet will be based in Paris, joining the company on June 1 and will report into Ronald Goes, EVP and Head of WBITVP.

Sundance London Dates, OpenerSundance Film Festival: London will return to Picturehouse Central, London, for its sixth year from 29 July to 1 August 2021, as an in-person event. The program of at least 12 features will open with the UK premiere of Edgar Wright’s debut documentary The Sparks Brothers, about the U.S.

Leave No Trace actor Thomasin McKenzie has been cast to play gymnast Kerri Strug in Olivia Wilde's Perfect biopic for Searchlight, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Strug was hailed as an American hero when she completed her final vault at the Atlanta Olympics on a badly injured ankle to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

theatrically by Universal for this August, but Apple has now picked it up and will release the film on Apple TV+ later this year. In “Finch,” a man, a robot and a dog form an unlikely family, with Tom Hanks starring as a robotics engineer who has survived a cataclysmic solar event and global apocalypse inside an underground bunker and is now on a quest to ensure that his dog will be cared for after he’s gone.

NENT Orders Icelandic Crime Drama

ITV Studios Sets Up Shop In Spain With Netflix Exec Cattleya, the ITV Studios-backed Italian producer behind Gomorrah, is launching Spanish subsidiary Cattleya Producciones and has hired Netflix’s Arturo Díaz as managing director. The company will be ITV Studios’ first scripted producer in Spain.

Swedish Film Institute Chief Leaving Anna Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, is leaving her position after a decade in the role. The long-standing exec has overseen a pivotal period for the org, with the industry undergoing seismic changes during her 10 years at the helm, including the #MeToo movement.

Naman Ramachandran In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky commissions supernatural thriller “The Rising” and Channel 4 and Peacock wage “The Undeclared War”; The Garden, BBC Studios Productions and Constantin Film Development reveal senior appointments; Rakuten TV expands AVOD offering; and Disney India picks up kids series “Dr Tenali Rama HMKD” from Cosmos-Maya.COMMISSIONSSky original series, supernatural crime thriller “The Rising,” is the first series produced entirely in-house from Sky Studios,

UK Screen Industries Survey Highlights Socio-Economic ImbalanceA new survey has found that the majority of people working in the UK’s screen industries are from a background that is classified as ‘privileged’. The survey, conducted by the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre and backed by ScreenSkills, analyzed data from the latest edition of the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey in 2019.

EXCLUSIVE: British-born Eurasian actor Mayling Ng (Wonder Woman) has joined the cast of UK-set boxing drama The Journeyman and will star opposite retired UFC Middleweight Champion Michael Bisping.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentMaximo Ibarra and Nicola Maccanico, respectively managing director and programming chief at Comcast-owned Sky Italia, are exiting the pay-TV operation following its failure to secure a rights deal for Italy’s Serie A soccer league.Ibarra, a Colombian-Italian executive with extensive telecoms experience, had been leading Sky Italia since October 2019.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSky Italia executive Nicola Maccanico is stepping down from his post at the Comcast-owned pay-TV to become managing director of Italy’s Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, the state film entity that operates Rome’s expanding Cinecittà Studios.Maccanico’s sudden career move comes as Italy’s Culture Minister Enrico Franceschini is implementing an ambitious relaunch of the iconic studios.

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is launching a new industry event focusing on Africa. The Southern Africa-Locarno Industry Academy, hosted in collaboration with the Realness Institute of Africa, will take place online from 26 September to 2 October 2021 and will welcome 10-12 participants from all over the African continent.

How far would you go to escape your current life? A young woman faces daunting prospects for leaving her own world behind in “Death and Nightingales.” It’s a story that resonates on several levels, with rebellion, fighting to find your place, and even the burdens of family playing into the drama. The limited series is an adaptation of Eugene McCabe’s 1992 novel.

Jamie Dornan runs into Ann Skelly in the Irish countryside in the dramatic trailer for their new mini-series, Death and Nightingales.

Disney Hires Netflix EMEA Exec Emma Smart Disney has recruited Emma Smart, Netflix’s London-based director of business affairs for original series, as its VP for business affairs, originals. Smart will report to Diego Londono, Disney’s EVP, media networks and content, negotiating UK-based original productions, as well as having oversight of European production deals.