‘The Flats,’ ‘Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other’ Pick Up Top Awards at CPH:DOX

AMC Networks International has installed Antonio Ruiz, Warner Bros. Discovery’s former UK and Ireland General Manager, as its boss in Spain and Portugal.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Snow in Midsummer,” which quietly probes the 1969 massacre of Malaysian Chinese during post-election turmoil, was named the winner of the best film for young cinema competition (Chinese-language) at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Liang Ming was named best director for “Carefree Days,” while the film’s female lead Lyu Xingchen collected the best actress award.

Annika Pham One of the Nordic region’s biggest providers of premium series, Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales, will make a splash at this week’s Canneseries festival and MipTV market. For the second consecutive year, the sales, financing and packaging banner has two titles in competition: the Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse”, due to world premiere in the main competition, and the short form Swedish dramedy entry “Painkiller”, which initially bowed at the Göteborg Film Festival. “Last year we had the Norwegian political drama “Power Play” which won best series, and the Swedish romantic dramedy “Out of Touch” in the short form section.

American superstar singer, Taylor Swift, has joined the billionaire club. The 34-year-old's earnings have surpassed $1.1 billion dollars (£875 million), thanks to her successful 'Eras Tour' and her well-regarded music assortment, Forbes magazine reports.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Long Live the Tyrant: Life and Times of Giancarlo DiTrapano,” a feature documentary about the independent book publisher, is being developed as an Italy-U.S. coproduction. DiTrapano is described by Ian Thornton, one of the film’s producers, as the “Basquiat of the New York literary scene.” The film is written by Guia Cortassa and directed by Cortassa and Vittorio Antonacci.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is set to celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures with a retrospective featuring classic titles spawned by the Hollywood studio between the dawn of sound and the late 1950s. The Locarno retro, titled “The Lady With the Torch –– The Centenary of Columbia Pictures,” is being curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, which is dedicated to cinematic treasures of the past and organized in partnership with Switzerland’s Cinémathèque Suisse.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Last May, after “Killers of the Flower Moon” premiered at Cannes Film Festival, Martin Scorsese traveled to Rome with his wife, Helen Morris, to attend a conference titled “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination.” There, the director announced that he had responded to an appeal by Pope Francis to artists “in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus.” The conference was organized by Jesuit publication “La Civiltà Cattolica.” It took place after the journal’s editor, Father Antonio Spadaro, held a series of one-on-one conversations with Scorsese that have just been published in Italy in book titled “Dialoghi sulla fede” (“Dialogues on Faith”). The final chapter of this book is titled, as translated from Italian, “Screenplay for a Possible Film on Jesus” by Scorsese.

What’s the biggest documentary festival in the world? The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. For now.

Steve Clarke won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater after a Dutch drubbing as he looks to earn a first win in seven games when Northern Ireland visit Hampden for a friendly.

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 had a rock ‘em sock ‘em weekend at the international box office, adding $55.3M from 69 markets for a $135M overseas running cume, and $268.2M global (there are several key markets still to release, including France, Australia, the UK and Korea). 

The Flats, a film about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, won the top award at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen at a Friday night, earning a €10,000 prize. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian animation auteur Alessandro Rak – best known for European Film Award-winner “The Art of Happiness” and Neapolitan mob fable “Cinderella The Cat” – is at work on a new project titled “The Little Prince of Shangri-La” set in an imaginary Tibet and involving the search for the Dalai Lama. Rak’s new work, which follows “Yaya and Lenny — The Walking Liberty,” that launched in 2021 from Locarno, was unveiled earlier this month at the Cartoon Movie co-production and pitch forum in Bordeaux, France.

Sony Pictures Television‘s President of International Production, Wayne Garvie, has said the scripted TV landscape in the post-peak TV era is like “going back to the future” — especially with his Netflix hits The Crown and Sex Education coming to an end.

The eagerly anticipated musical Come From Away is coming to The Lowry Theatre.

Coming out of the weekend, and with Sunday’s actuals and Monday’s numbers included, there are new global milestones to celebrate for the two major Hollywood titles currently in release.

Manchester United will have a new-found optimism for the season after their dramatic FA Cup victory over Liverpool.

EXCLUSIVE: Acorn TV, the streaming service aimed at Anglophiles, is getting a new look.

Murtada Elfadl A successful photographer celebrated around the world. A writer who resorts to publishing her own novels. Each had a long history of relationships, familial and otherwise, before they met in middle age.

The story shocked the world 10 years ago: the Copenhagen Zoo’s decision to euthanize a healthy two-year-old giraffe named Marius because they considered it a “surplus animal.” CNN reported on it. So did Le Monde in France, the U.K.’s Guardian and The Independent, and the Irish Times.

Alex Ritman Fresh from his Academy Award win for best actor, “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy now has a chance to claim the same honor at his local awards. The Irish Film and TV Academy (IFTA) has unveiled the nominees for its 2024 awards, with Murphy going up against “Saltburn’s'” Barry Keoghan and “All of Us Strangers” star Andrew Scott in the best actor category.