The Match Factory Appoints New Acquisition and Development Team (EXCLUSIVE)

Two women are dead and several others are injured after being trampled Sunday night following GloRilla’s concert at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, New York.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the market for foreign-language cinema has shrank, the packed opening of the Rendez-Vous with French cinema in New York hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and Unifrance on March 1 underscored American audiences’ enduring love for Gallic fare. At least when it comes to New Yorkers. Some of France’s brightest writers/filmmakers, including Alice Winocour (“Paris Memories”), Rebecca Zlotowski (“Other People’s Children”), Sebastien Marnier (“The Origin of Evil”) and Cesar-winning star Virginie Efira and famous actor Melvil Poupaud traveled to New York with Unifrance, the French film promotion org. On top of presenting their movies, some talents on the ground took part in masterclasses at Film at Lincoln Center, Columbia University and Brooklyn College, as well as a creative workshop with emerging filmmakers participating in the Gotham Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film.

Binki has returned with a new single, ‘Hotel Window’ and teased the release of more new music soon – check out the new track below.The track serves as the first taste of new material from the New York-based artist since his debut EP, ‘Motor Function’, released in August 2021. It is set to be part of Binki’s second EP released through the FADER Label this spring, with more details to be announced soon.Explaining the meaning behind ‘Hotel Window’, Binki said: “I think this song started with looking at a hotel window as a good metaphor for feeling trapped. You know you can look out of hotel windows but most of the time you can’t open them.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for season 1 of Perfect Match.

Travis Scott is being accused of causing $12,000 worth of damage at Manhattan, New York City nightclub Nebula early Wednesday morning.

The Masked Singer is back for season nine!

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Nick Panella has been named the leader of a new podcast and audio group at Agency for the Performing Arts, Variety can report exclusively.  Panella joins the company from Workhouse Media, where he worked extensively with names like Shonda Rhimes, Ellen DeGeneres, “Modern Family” co-creator Chris Lloyd and Oprah Winfrey.  Announced by APA’s head of content development Kyle Loftus, the hire is yet another strategic move from the agency to pick up slack lost in CAA’s acquisition of ICM Partners, the hulking-up of Endeavor, and other dramatic shifts in the representation landscape. Panella has produced over 2,000 podcast episodes and led Workhouse clients to over 1 billion downloads, the agency said.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for German director Christian Petzold’s new film Afire, following its award-winning world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: The Match Factory has unveiled a slew of deals for German director Christian Petzold’s Berlin Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner Afire.

EXCLUSIVE: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, John Berendt’s 1994 bestselling book and Pulitzer Prize finalist is being developed into a new musical by playwright Taylor Mac, with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, choreography by Tanya Birl and Sarah O’Gleby and direction by Rob Ashford.

Angelique Jackson Launch Releasing, the independent film distribution and production company, has announced its 2023 development slate following last year’s releases, Lionsgate’s “The Black String,” starring Frankie Muniz, and “The Translator,” which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Highlights include the action-comedy “Andy Somebody” and two sequels to the animated franchise “Riki Rhino,” which the company will executive produce. “At Launch Releasing, our passion and mandate is really simple – we want to find movies that we love and share them with audiences. When we saw ‘Andy Somebody,’ we instantly fell in love with its underdog story and its quirky comedic characters and we’re looking forward to audiences joining us on this really fun ride,” stated Sheldon Brigman, the company’s CEO. “Whether it’s genre titles such as ‘Mr. Sleep’ or captivating human interest films such as ‘The Translator’ where complex characters make life and death decisions in war torn Syria, Launch Releasing is proud to have curated a diverse and distinct slate.”

The competition winners of the 73rd Berlinale are about to start rolling in as the festival draws to a close Saturday evening.

EXCLUSIVE: Slash Agency founder Erica Plotkin and partner Olivia Peeke are expanding their purview beyond public relations. The longtime publicists have teamed to launch Intention, a new full-service management, production and brand development firm. Plotkin, who founded Slash in 2014, is based in New York City and Peeke, who joined Slash as a partner in 2016, remains bi-coastal.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The producers of “Rust” have agreed to pay a reduced penalty of $100,000 to resolve the OSHA case that arose from the shooting death of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin. The New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau issued a $136,793 penalty last April, the highest allowed by law. Rust Movie Productions was scheduled to challenge the citation at a state commission hearing in June. Under the settlement, the state agency agreed to the reduced penalty and dropped its claim that the production committed a “willful” violation of safety rules. A “willful” citation is the most severe under OSHA’s enforcement system.

Two days after about a dozen neo-Nazis harrassed ticketholders and ticketbuyers outside the Broadway venue where Parade had begun previews, New York Mayor Eric Adams addressed an audience at the musical last night, saying, “When we fill a theater, we send a message out there that this is not a place where hate lives.”

European Film Market which at one and the same time has underscored the challenges still facing the international independent film business.  Following by way of an industry wrap, a dozen takeaways on the 2023 Berlin market, including its Berlinale Series Market, an ever more building proposition at the Festival.  The Verdict If the European Film Market is anything to go by, broadly, the international movie market is in some ways making a international comeback, despite still vastly challenging circumstances. On Thursday, the EFM reported “record results” of a total of over 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. “It was a rather busy market, with no single must-have, but much mid-sized product,” recognizesConstantin’s Martin Moszkowicz of this year’s Berlin European Film Market, noting that Constantin received about 90 project submissions prior to market, “which is a lot.” “There’s been more deals happening at the EFM than at Sundance and we sense a new vibrancy in the international markets,” says Nick Shumaker, at Anonymous Content’s AC Independent.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Investigators spent more than a year sorting out blame for the death of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed on the set of “Rust.” In the end, two agencies came to two sharply different conclusions about Alec Baldwin’s level of responsibility as a producer of the film. Prosecutors charged Baldwin for firing the gun that killed Hutchins, but also for management failures that created a hazardous set. “We believe Baldwin, as a producer, knows everything that goes on, on the set,” prosecutor Andrea Reeb said on Fox News’ “The Five” last month. “There were a lot of safety concerns that were brought to the attention of management, and he did nothing about it.” 

Guy Lodge Film Critic If any writer has ever retreated to a remote, idyllic rural pad with the intention of getting some work done, and proceeded to have a productive and creatively fulfilling time, it has certainly never happened in the movies. Leon, the callow young novelist at the center of Christian Petzold’s canny, many-layered new film “Afire,” is the latest in a long line of onscreen scribes to learn that lesson. But over the course of a hot, rainless summer by the Baltic coastline, the elusiveness of his imagined masterwork turns out to be far from his greatest problem: Writer’s block spills over into bitter social paralysis, exposing every facet of life he doesn’t yet know how to live, let alone write about. All the while, the surrounding woodsy landscape wilts and scorches, the threat of natural disaster lending an urgent pull to this dry, elegant comedy of manners — so dry, in fact, it’s just a breath of wind away from tragedy.

Anthony Mackie picked up Steve Rodger’s iconic shield and became Captain America in the final episodes of his Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. However, is his character Sam Wilson going to follow in Chris Evans‘ footsteps and lead the rest of the Avengers?

Ben Croll Zurich-based Tellfilm, the Swiss outfit behind this year’s Golden Bear contender “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert,” has lined up a robust co-production slate, teaming with European partners on the psychological thriller “Motherhood” and the period drama “Gloria!,” while developing their first scripted series “How to Be Sad – The Right Way” with an eye towards global streamers. Co-produced by Austria’s Freibeuter Film (“The Great Freedom”) and with Germany’s The Match Factory handling international sales, the Johanna Moder directed “Motherhood” will tackle maternal anxieties and regrets through the lens of a tense psychological thriller. Production is slated for later this year, with actors Marie Leuenberger and Hans Löw signed as leads. “The Square” star Claes Bang is attached as well.