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Will Tizard Contributor Spontaneous flames, dysfunctional warning alerts and a sense of impending catastrophe feature in Hungarian-Romanian director Cristina Grosan’s sophomore feature “Ordinary Failures,” premiering in Venice Days, a sidebar to the Venice Film Festival. Variety is launching the trailer for the film (below), which is being sold by Totem Films. The Czech-Hungarian-Italian-Slovak co-production, filmed entirely in the Czech Republic, mainly in Prague but also featuring Pilsen, is based on a screenplay by Klára Vlasáková, which Grosan says evolved for three years and continued morphing right up through the shoot. The ominous tale revolves around the lives of three strangers: a teenager, a young mother, and a woman in her early sixties, who cross paths during one day in which their city is rocked by mysterious explosions.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paris-based company Indie Sales has boarded Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s feature debut “A Tale of Shemroon” which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian. Set in the north of Tehran, “A Tale of Shemroon” follows Iman and his younger brother Payar who live with their father. After the death of their mother, Iman starts a business thanks to his connections with the city’s affluent youth, but these new opportunities bring him on a dangerous path affecting his family’s destiny. “We are proud to be a part of San Sebastian’s New Directors competition with this new voice from Iranian cinema,” said Nicolas Eschbach at Indie Sales. “Emad (Aleebrahim Dehkordi) depicts the reality of the Iranian youth living in parts of Tehran that have seldom been seen before,” Eschbach continued.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Austrian director David Wagner’s feature debut “Eismayer,” which has its world premiere in Venice Critics’ Week on Sunday, has been picked up for international sales by Paris-based Loco Films. The trailer for the film debuts here (below). In a statement, Loco’s chiefs Laurent Danielou and Arnaud Godart said: “From this true and extraordinary story, [Wagner] managed to make a very subtle and cinematic film.” The film centers on Sergeant Major Eismayer, who is known and feared as the toughest training officer in the Austrian armed forces, ruthless with recruits and unwavering in his discipline, order and macho toughness. But when he starts to fall in love with Falak, a new recruit who unashamedly embraces his homosexuality, Eismayer’s closeted existence is shaken to the core. To a man like Eismayer, loving another man cannot be reconciled with the understanding of what a model soldier should be. Will he choose to protect his badass, tough guy image over all else, or can he follow his heart and his true desire? The film is inspired by a true story.

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John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Seasoned Finnish producer Ilkka Matila (“The Eternal Road”, “All the Sins”) of MRP Matila Röhr has signed with Estonia’s Taska Film and locked early support from the Finnish Film Institute and local commercial channel MTV3 for the $2.7m film “Between the Hammer and the Sickle.” Nordisk Film holds Scandinavian rights. To be pitched on Aug. 24 at the Nordic Co-Production Market in Haugesund, Norway, the title will be one of Matila’s most defining projects, a feature which he believes will stay, along the lines of the multi-awarded “Mother of Mine” or “The Eternal Road.” “Between the Hammer and the Sickle” will be one of the first features ever to portray Finland’s illustrious former president Urho Kekkonen. Head of state for nearly 26 years, Kekkonen served as the longest-serving Finnish president from 1956 until 1981 and masterminded his country’s policy of neutrality, keeping at bay the threatening Soviet Union with which Finland shares 800 miles of border.

With Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom Exodus due to world premiere at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, Zentropa has dropped a look at the kinetic opening sequence as well as a set of new posters (check out the video above and see photos below).

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentBrussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired Laura Baumeister’s feature debut “Daughter of Rage” ahead of its world premiere at Toronto and San Sebastian film festivals. Baumeister previously directed the shorts “Isabel im Winter” which played at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2014 and “Ombligo De Agua” which screened in Rotterdam and Clermont-Ferrand in 2018.

Naman Ramachandran Altitude is handling international sales and U.K. and Irish distribution for Laura Poitras’ documentary about artist and activist Nan Goldin, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”The film is scheduled to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it will compete for the Golden Lion, an opportunity rarely accorded to non-fiction titles.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorSyndicado Film Sales has acquired international sales rights to Davit Pirtskhalava’s “A Long Break,” which world premieres in the Discovery Section of Toronto Film Festival. In the Georgian drama, a seemingly harmless gathering turns into a trial for a former classmate, who used to be a bully.In the film, Tsitsi initiates a reunion of his former classmates 13 years after they left school.

EXCLUSIVE: Playwright Theresa Rebeck, who created the stage musical-themed NBC series Smash, has joined the real-life Broadway-bound musical adaptation of the 1988 film comedy Working Girl, producers announced today.

Steven Oxman Taking an overly respectful and frankly miscalculated approach to its source materials — the 2003 roman à clef novel and the 2006 Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway-starring film — the new musical version of “The Devil Wears Prada,” now trying out in Chicago ahead of a projected Broadway run, provides some serviceable entertainment but needs a hefty dose of guilty, edgy fun to boost its mild pleasures.At this stage in its development — having persevered mightily to reach its opening after enduring over 20 cases of COVID during rehearsals and previews — the show boasts an Elton John score that operates in too limited a register and a production from director Anna D. Shapiro (“August: Osage County”) that never quite decides between authentic glamor or a more theatricalized kind, resting right now in a merely semi-satisfying middle.

Christopher Vourlias Heretic, the Athens-based boutique production company and sales agent, has acquired world sales rights for “Runner,” by director Marian Mathias, which will have its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival.Already sparking upbeat word of mouth, “Runner” follows Haas (Hannah Schiller), an 18-year-old girl who was raised by her father in the rural Midwest. When her father suddenly dies, she must carry out his wish to be buried in the town where he was born.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Rome-based indie distributor Intramovies has snapped up international sales rights to Locarno contender “Nightsiren” (“Svetlonoc”) by Tereza Nvotovà.The Slovakia-Czech Republic production turns on a young woman who returns to her remote mountain home to seek answers about her traumatized childhood. The deeply superstitious villagers turn on her, accusing her of witchcraft and murder.As Nvotová, who co-wrote the screenplay with Barbara Namerová, explains in her statement, “Nightsiren” “seeks to dispel outdated myths surrounding womanhood, drawing a line between ancient misogynist superstitions and their resurgence in the modern world.”“Even though women are no longer being burned at the stake, they’re still targeted for their sexuality, emotionality and reproductive choices.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentSebastian Lelio’s “Wonder,” starring “Black Widow’s” Florence Pugh, “Winter Boy” with Juliette Binoche and directors Hong Sang-soo and Ulrich Seidl will compete in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world.In “Wonder,” the latest from Academy Award winning director Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman”),Pugh plays an English nurse brought in to the Irish Midlands in 1862 to observe the alleged miracle of girls going months without food.Binoche co-stars in “Winter Boy,” from resilient French auteur Christophe Honoré who won at Cannes Un Certain Regard with 2019’s “On a Magical Night.” Hong Sang-soo, the prolific South Korean director, will present “Walk Up,” a film which is billed as taking a gently delightful new perspective on themes dear to his poetics. Seidl’s “Sparta” forms part of a diptych with 2022 Berlin competition contender “Rimini,” both movies turning on men who cannot escape their past.The 12 competition titles announced on Tuesday by San Sebastian join its four Spanish contenders, unveiled last month.A brief breakdown on the new competition entries:San Sebastian Main Competition: Newly Announced Titles“Il Boemo,” (Petr Václav, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia)The passions and ambitions, breakthrough and tragic fall from grace of Czech opera composer, Josef Mysliveček,a mentor to Mozart.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMichele Vannucci’s “Delta” has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. True Colours is handling world sales.The Po Delta in Italy is the setting of the clash between fishermen and poachers. Osso wants to save the river from overfishing at the hands of the Florians, a family on the run from the Danube.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor“Bread and Salt,” which has been selected for Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, has debuted its trailer. The film has been picked up by IKH Pictures Promotion for world sales.The film, the feature debut by director Damian Kocur, follows talented pianist Tymek, a student of the Warsaw Academy of Music, who returns to his home town for a vacation, a place where time has stood still. The central meeting point for local youth is the newly created kebab bar.

An easyJet flight leaving Portugal for Glasgow was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after take-off - after the pilots were reportedly told an engine had caught fire.

A British Airways flight was forced to issue a mid-air alert after a sick passenger required urgent medical assistance. The 7.15am BA1472 service from London Heathrow to Glasgow Airport requested a priority landing on Monday, July 18, due to the on-board emergency.

Eden Espinosa is currently leading the Broadway-bound production of Lempicka: A New Musical at the La Jolla Playhouse and you can listen to some of the songs here!

Thania Garcia Kid Cudi will shadow the moon in its orbit around the globe with his newly announced “To the Moon 2022 World Tour.” The 27-city trek will take Cudi from North America to Asia and Europe, kicking off in Vancouver on Aug. 16 and closing with a show at the Fabrique in Milan on Nov. 22.“To the Moon” will first travel through North America, with stops at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, Barclays Center in Brooklyn, American Airlines Center in Dallas and the United Center in Chicago.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCate Blanchett (“Carol”) and Terrence Malick (“The Tree of Life”) have reteamed on “Evolver,” a VR free-roaming, music-filled interactive and transcendental experience which is world premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival. Produced by the artist collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (“We Live in an Ocean of Air”) in the U.K., Atlas V (“Spheres”) in France and Pressman Film (“The Crow”) in the U.S., “Evolver” is a pioneering experience taking audiences inside the landscape of the body, following the flow of oxygen through a branching ecosystem, to a single ‘breathing’ cell.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has secured North American rights to the romantic drama Alone Together, written, directed by and starring Katie Holmes, which will make its world premiere in the Spotlight Narrative section of the Tribeca Film Festival on June 14. Vertical plans to release the film exclusively in theaters in July 22, with a VOD bow to follow on July 29.

EXCLUSIVE: Utkarsh Ambudkar, who stars as Jay on CBS’ breakout comedy Ghosts, has boarded the Tribeca-bound indie Four Samosas as an executive producer, with Verve Ventures coming aboard to handle sales.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the political satire Land of Dreams, directed by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, which is making its North American premiere in the Spotlight Narrative section of the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The global indie distributor has slated the film for a day-and-date theatrical release in 10 of the top 20 markets—including in Los Angeles and New York—this fall. (Watch a new trailer unveiled today by the company above.)

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“January,” Viesturs Kairiss’s autobiographical film set in the former Soviet Union, has been acquired for world sales by The Yellow Affair. The movie will have its world premiere at Tribeca in the international narrative competition. The coming-of-age film sheds light on the political upheaval in the early 1990’s.

Incoming Manchester City superstar Erling Haaland has been tipped to win next season’s Premier League Golden Boot. Liverpool’s Mo Salah and Tottenham’s Son Heung-min shared the award this time around with 23 goals each.

JD Linville XYZ Films has acquired writer-director Michelle Garza Cervera’s hotly anticipated breakout feature “Huesera” for theatrical release in North America and has released the first teaser and poster for the film.“Huesera” is one of the first slate of titles under its new distribution arm and an early pick-up ahead of the Tribeca Film Festival, where the film will world premiere.The film follows Valeria, whose joy with becoming pregnant dissolves as she is cursed by a dark power. As danger surrounds her, she’s forced deeper into the occult, and a pact with a coven of witches may be her only hope.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFive years after winning Cannes’ Camera d’Or prize with her debut feature, “Jeune Femme,” French writer-filmmaker Leonor Serraille graduated to a competition slot with “Mother and Son,” a timely family drama spanning three decades. Serraille is one of the five female directors competing for this year’s Palme d’Or.“Mother and Son” charts the lives of a young African woman, Rose, and two of her four children, Jean and Ernest, who come to France from the Ivory Coast in the 1980s with high ideals.

Danniella Westbrook has sparked concern after taking to social media to reveal that she’s suffering with a blood infection. Announcing the news on Twitter yesterday, Friday 13 May, the former EastEnders star penned: “Another beautiful day missed in bed sick with this blood infection”. Danniella, 48, who recently got engaged to her toyboy boyfriend, has since been inundated with well wishes by her followers.

EXCLUSIVE: Rocket Science has boarded worldwide sales on The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez, a film lifting the veil on one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes, which will be introduced to potential buyers at the 2022 Cannes Market.

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has acquired North American rights to Concourse Media’s drama On Sacred Ground, starring William Mapother (Lost), David Arquette (Scream franchise) and Amy Smart (Stargirl), with plans for a strategic launch of the pic across all major entertainment platforms, beginning with a theatrical day-and-date debut in the first quarter of 2023. The multi-platform entertainment distribution and production arm of Shout! Factory will also screen the film on over 1,000 college campuses, as a means of promoting its underlying message of equality and the importance of upholding indigenous rights.

Bolton Wanderers fresh opponents for next season in the form of Forest Green Rovers have said they are 'disappointed' over the impending loss of boss Rob Edwards to Watford and claim that negotiations have taken place 'behind our backs'.

EXCLUSIVE: Dubai-based sales agent Cercamon Docs has come aboard to handle worldwide sales on Ben Chace’s Music Pictures: New Orleans, which is set to bow at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The company will introduce the film to buyers during the Cannes Market.

Holly Jones World premiering in Cannes’ Premiere section, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s thriller “The Beasts”(“As Bestas”) has shared with Variety its poster, crafted by James Verdesoto at New York’s Indika Entertainment Advertising, who as creative director at Miramax was responsible for the original award-winning film poster of “Pulp Fiction,” as well as those for “The Piano” and “The Crying Game,” among 200 posters.In advance of its Cannes bow, “The Beasts’” sales agent Latido Films has granted Variety an exclusive first look at its key art campaign, which may well drive to the heart of the film.The poster depicts three men entangled, close up. Two men grasp a third whose mouth opens in agony, consumed by a raw, animalistic rage, in a vertical tangle.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilms Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom”) has acquired four films set to world premiere at Cannes, including Albert Serra (“The Death of Louis XIV”)’s “Pacifiction” which will compete in the 75th edition’s Official Selection. The Berlin-based international sales banner has also acquired rising Morrocan helmer Maryam Touzani (“Adam”)’s “The Blue Caftan” and Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante Meza’s “Domingo and the Mist” which will both play in Un Certain Regard; as well as Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues (“The Ornithologist”)’s “Will-O’-The-Wisp,” set for Directors’ Fortnight.“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.

A plane bound for Scotland from Spain was diverted this afternoon after an emergency in the sky led to the Jet2 carrier being diverted to France.