Provident Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Indonesia‘s Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF) will unveil its inaugural JAFF Market in December. The initiative was announced at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. This new three-day event aims to reshape the Indonesian film industry by fostering networking, innovation and collaboration among various sectors.

Naman Ramachandran Dimpy Agrawal‘s Gubbara Entertainment has unveiled a $1 million script development fund aimed at empowering Indian feature filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival‘s market. Agrawal previously served as a producer at Netflix India and her credits include some of the streamer’s top titles from the territory such as Zoya Akhtar’s “The Archies,” Vishal Bharwaj’s “Khufiya,” Vasan Bala’s “Monica, O My Darling” and Ajay Singh’s “Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga.” She has had prior stints at Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Phantom Productions. Gubbara was launched in early 2023.

EXCLUSIVE: The Banff World Media Festival has set panels on the “mass exodus of Black women executives in Hollywood” and LGBTQ+ representation, featuring the likes of Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire and a Disney Development Director.

EXCLUSIVE: AMP International has taken world sales rights on the sci-fi film Touchdown from Bandit Country.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has learned that Regal Cinemas has hired Rob Westerling as its SVP of US Content.

Rungano Nyoni made her name in 2017 with her Directors’ Fortnight entry I am Not a Witch, a surreal comedy of sorts in which a young Zambian girl named Shula is forced to choose between being turned into a goat or confessing that she is a witch. Opting for the latter, Shula is sent to a witch camp and put to work in the service of the community, the source of some uncomfortable satire, creating a space for Nyoni to explore the points of conflict between superstition and civilization in modern African society.

RedBird IMI has completed its £1.15B ($1.45B) takeover of The Traitors maker All3Media.

Paramount+ announced on Thursday that We Will Dance Again, a documentary on the shocking Hamas terror attack on the Nova Music Festival that left more than 400 dead and dozens kidnapped, will premiere exclusively on the platform in the U.S. this fall.

EXCLUSIVE: Colombian actress Diana Hoyos (Sniper: Ultimate Kill, Oye Bonita, Nurses) has joined the cast of the action pic Diablo, which Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired for North America. 

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cera caught Tyler Taormina’s feature directing debut Ham on Rye after a friend suggested he check it out. He was so impressed that he signed himself up as a sort of producing “cheerleader” on the filmmaker’s latest picture Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.

As Deadline first told you first, Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis was always destined for an Imax release. Heck, the first screening was shown at Universal Citywalk Imax theater. So, there’s no news in the fact that the $120M dystopian future epic is getting a global Imax release.

For two years in a row, Deepika Padukone has kickstarted India’s box office with a bang: In 2023, the acclaimed actor and producer reunited with her Om Shanti Om co-star Shah Rukh Khan for espionage actioner Pathaan, which went on to take $76 million in India and crossed the $100 million global box office milestone without a China release. This year Padukone starred in Viacom/Marflix’s Hindi aviation actioner Fighter (from Pathaan director Siddharth Anand), which grossed $43 million globally in just 30 days.

Jesse Martin is joining the Motion Picture Association as senior vice president and associate general counsel, content protection and legal affairs, focused on outreach to third party intermediaries in anti-piracy efforts.

EXCLUSIVE: Baby Reindeer‘s real-life Martha appears to be making good on her promise to sue Netflix, but has yet to hear from the streamer despite being identified against her wishes and claiming to have received death threats and unwanted attention.

EXCLUSIVE: Signature Entertainment has picked up UK and Irish rights to Unit 234, a thriller starring Don Johnson (Knives Out), Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan: First Kill) and Jack Huston (Kill Your Darlings) from sales agent Radiant Films. 

EXCLUSIVE: A third season of Acorn TV and Channel 5 detective drama Dalgliesh has begun filming in Northern Ireland.

The CW‘s transformation under new owners Nexstar is almost complete, with only two pre-merger series, the final season of Superman & Lois and veteran improv comedy Whose Line It Is Anyway?, on the network’s fall schedule. What’s more, there is an unprecedented scheduling turnover, with only three shows from the current 2023-24 season making it to next fall, Whose Line, Sullivan’s Crossing and Inside the NFL.

Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner will serve as jury president at the upcoming Locarno Film Festival, running August 7-17. 

EXCLUSIVE: Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Chris Jenkins‘ animated family comedy 10 Lives, in partnership with GFM Animation. World premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film featuring the voices of singer-songwriter Zayn Malik, Bill Nighy (Living) and more will be released wide in theaters on October 11.

EXCLUSIVE: IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Memoir of a Snail, a stop-motion drama from Adam Elliot — the writer-director behind the Academy Award-winning 2004 short Harvie Krumpet.

EXCLUSIVE: Duke Nicholson (Us), William H. Macy (Fargo), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Stephen Dorff (Blade), Jake Weary (Oh, Canada) and Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) are set to star in action-Thriller The Deputy, which Highland Film Group is launching for the Cannes market.

Sky has greenlit a high-stakes thriller about a nuclear bomb from Pulse Films starring Game of Thrones‘Alfie Allen.

The Toronto International Film Fest will launch an official market, kicking off in 2026 and boosted by a generous C$23 million (US$16.9 million) of funding from Canada’s Federal Government. TIFF organizers said the new market will be a “game-changer” for the Canadian and wider international business. Festival CEO, Cameron Bailey, told Deadline he wants to see industry attendance more than double.

Tesco has issued a recall for one of its sandwich spreads.

Seven reality TV stars are set to appear before Westminster Magistrates after being charged with the unauthorised communication of financial information, in a trial over an alleged 'finfluencer' scheme.

A murder investigation has been launched after a woman was found dead in a home in East Belfast.

Plans have been submitted to convert a pub that closed at the beginning of the first Covid pandemic lockdown in 2020 never to reopen into shop units with living accommodation above. Trafford council’s planning portal has published the scheme to transform the former Garvey’s pub on Cross Street, Sale, into offices and retail spaces complete with a new shop frontage.

Alex Ritman “SAS: Red Notice,” the action thriller from director Laurence Malkin that became a hit for U.K. platform Sky Cinema in 2021, is getting a sequel. Creative details are currently under wraps, but development funding for the sequel was provided by Sky Original Films and the film will be executive produced by Sky’s director of original film, Julia Stuart.

SonyLIV is getting the gang back together for another Scam.

Uma Thurman has been to Cannes more times than she can remember, either to pledge support for the glamorous annual charity event amfAR or with films as diverse as the genteel Merchant-Ivory period film The Golden Bowl (2000) and Quentin Tarantino’s ultraviolent Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), in which she reprised her badass role as The Bride. The film that propelled her to stardom, Pulp Fiction, won the Palme d’Or there, and Thurman hasn’t forgotten what it did for her. This year, she’s back with Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada, the kind of smart, character-based indie on which she earned her spurs.

EXCLUSIVE: Global communications agency DDA is bolstering its awards offering with the hire of Carola Ash, former AMPAS Vice President of Member Relations and Global Outreach. She joins DDA as Director of International Awards Outreach and will be based in London. 

Studiocanal has acquired UK and Ireland rights for Ali Abbasi’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Apprentice.

More than 59,500 people have signed an online petition calling for a ‘universal’ weekly State Pension payment of nearly £550 to bring into line with the National Living Wage. Petition creator Michael Thompson also suggests making the option to claim State Pension available to everyone from the age of 60 - six years lower than the current official age of retirement of 66.

EXCLUSIVE: Mike Goodridge has been on a rare journey. Not many in the industry can boast a CV that includes running a trade publication, an international sales company, a film festival and being the producer of multiple Cannes Film Festival movies.

A staggering 7,000 homeless people are living in temporary accommodation in Glasgow amid a housing and homelessness emergency, the Record can reveal.

Erik ten Hag said Manchester United players are competing for FA Cup final places after their morale-boosting 3-2 victory over Newcastle.