EXCLUSIVE: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 9 – 22) has revealed its lineup of 2023 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the Anthony Hopkins pic One Life and Mario Bellochi’s Cannes competition title Kidnapped.
19.09.2023 - 08:27 / deadline.com
‘The Madigan Chronicles’ Optioned By Particle6
Mystical book series The Madigan Chronicles is to be turned into a TV series by UK indie Particle6 Productions. Particle6 has acquired the rights to Marieke Lexmond’s six-book series, which includes the likes of The Dagger, The Magical Tarot Deck and The Wand. The books tell the story of three generations of headstrong witches and their struggle to work together to keep a centuries-old promise and stop a dark witch from claiming a powerful elemental object. While a pilot is being penned for The Dagger, Particle6 is taking a unique approach to the deal by seeking to drive further demand for the IP by creating viral TikTok videos and by developing Magical Spell necklaces, which will be promoted via social media. “Particle6 is big on testing and analytics, and we always work hard to identify the right audience for every project,” said Eline van der Velden, founder of Particle6. “Given what Marieke and [illustrator] Nicole [Rujgrok] have already established, we have a brilliant opportunity to build on that and test and grow the market.”
BFI Sets London Film Festival Juries
The BFI has set the jury for this year’s London Film Festival competition strands. Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante will lead the Official Competition jury. His latest feature, Lost in the Night, is also playing in the thrill strand at LFF. The First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award) jury will be headed by Rye Lane filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller. Rubika Shah will lead the jury documentary competition while Scrapper‘s Charlotte Regan will lead the jury selecting the best short film. “I’m honored to have such esteemed filmmakers, curators, and industry leaders join us in London this year, and look forward
EXCLUSIVE: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 9 – 22) has revealed its lineup of 2023 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the Anthony Hopkins pic One Life and Mario Bellochi’s Cannes competition title Kidnapped.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor European pay TV platform Sky has released the trailer for Sky Original film “Dance First,” ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 30. The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”).
Maja Hoffmann has been officially confirmed as President of the Locarno Film Festival following a vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly on Wednesday.
The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the full lineup for its revamped “Industry Forum,” which will feature keynote sessions with Jennifer Lee, chief creative officer of Disney Animation Studios, and Bill Kramer, CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts (AMPAS).
Naman Ramachandran The 67th BFI London Film Festival’s annual industry forum has assembled a lineup of heavyweights. The forum events, which take place through the festival, kick off with a conversation between Bill Kramer, CEO, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and Jane Millichip, CEO of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and Ben Roberts, BFI chief executive.
‘Vigil’ Season 2 Sells To Peacock & Others
There’s a misconception that the British are a stoic people who just might get quite cross in the event of a zombie apocalypse. But the truth is rather different, as was shown in 2005, when six people were hospitalized and a man stabbed when an Ikea store in North London put 500 leather sofas on sale for less than 60 bucks each and a riot ensued.
Martin Clunes & Louis Ashbourne Serkis Land ITV Drama
Ladbible Execs Launch Digital Studio
Day Of The Fight, the directorial debut of actor Jack Huston, has been set as the opening film of the 31st edition of the Raindance Film Festival, running October 25 — November 4.
Naman Ramachandran The 31st edition of London’s Raindance Film Festival will open with the U.K. premiere of British actor Jack Huston’s directorial debut “Day of the Fight.” The film comes to Raindance fresh off its Venice debut, where Huston was honored by Variety as a breakthrough director. The story of a once-renowned boxer who takes a redemptive journey through his past and present on the day of his first fight since he left prison stars Michael Pitt alongside a cast including Ron Perlman, Joe Pesci, and a cameo from Steve Buscemi.
In 2019, Australian documentary filmmaker Kitty Green made her first narrative movie, a piercing almost cinéma vérité-style movie focused on an office assistant in a Tribeca film company run by a not-so-thinly disguised Harvey Weinstein. The male culture there and the sexual acts of the boss made it almost a modern horror story at the height of the #MeToo movement. For Green’s second narrative film she has changed up the filmmaking style considerably, but with The Royal Hotel which premiered last week at Telluride and now premieres tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, she is taking an even deeper look at the dark side of men as seen through the female gaze in a broken down hotel bar in a desolate part of the Australian Outback.
Anna Marie de la Fuente Mexico’s Monterrey Film Festival (ficmonterrey) is chasing new ambitions in a bid to raise its international profile. Buttressed by generous state, local and private backing as well as some federal funding, the festival, running Sept. 28 – Oct.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director Tim Burton and Micheal Keaton’s “Beetlejuice 2” only had a day and a half left of filming when the SAG-AFTRA strike shut production down indefinitely. The Warner Bros.’-backed production started filming in May in London amid the WGA strike. “I feel grateful we got what we got,” Burton told The Independent in a recent interview.
Nicolas Cage, after more than 100 credits, finally has his dream role, at least as comedy fans are concerned. He knocks it out of the park as a schlubby balding college professor who suddenly starts appearing in people’s dreams, first his daughter’s, then an old girlfriend’s, and soon millions of people around the globe are seeing this ordinary looking, very plain guy walking throught their slumber in rather non-descript ways no matter what the situation. He becomes a phenomenon, until it reverses and the whole thing turns into a literal nightmare.
You’ve seen Women Talking, welcome to Women Swearing: Wicked Little Letters, Thea Sharrock’s fantastically funny feature puts Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman together in the filthiest pairing since Derek met Clive in the late 1970s. Set in 1920, it’s based on a story that, per the credits, is “more true than you’d think”, which, when you get to the end of it, is quite a claim. Think what a hip, modern and actually funny Carry On spoof of Call the Midwife might look like, scripted by the Coen brothers, shot with a little visual nod to Wes Anderson, and dictated by a screenwriter with Tourette Syndrome.
Federation Studios Taps TF1 Head Of Drama
Emma D’Arcy’s first-ever short film “The Talent”, which is still in post-production, has already been nominated for an award in the Best British category at next month’s Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Cardiff, Wales, where the winners will be announced.
Lily Allen has told a theatre critic to “get in the bin” over their comments about her West End show The Pillowman.The play, which recently came to the end of its run at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, saw Allen play Katurian, a writer who is questioned by the authorities about a spate of murders that bear similarities to her short stories.Written by The Banshees of Inisherin director Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman also starred Steve Pemberton and Paul Kaye.Following a string of mixed reviews for the show, Allen has found herself involved in an online spat with theatre critic Mark Shenton.It all started when Shenton took exception to a positive review quote from All That Dazzles, which read: “Undoubtedly one of the best plays of the year.”In a blog post, Shenton branded the review “utterly meaningless” as it came from a “blog that calls just about every show they see as ‘potentially’ or ‘undoubtedly’ one of the best of the year”.Shenton then took aim at the The Pillowman director Matthew Dunster on X (formerly Twitter), stating that he was “relieved” that he missed the show.In response, Allen fired back: “This is such a bizarre stance for a so called theatre enthusiast. 60000 people bought tickets to come and see this show and I’d say 90% of them were up on their feet at the curtain.“It’s insane that a quote on a poster is what stopped you from coming to see something that you profess to care so much about.
Prince Harry is to land in the UK later this week, four months on from his whirlwind visit to his father King Charles' coronation service which took place at Westminster Abbey in May.