Warner Bros To Rep ‘The Wheel’; Amazon Orders Italian ‘LOL’; Sony Hires Fremantle’s Jo Porter To Run Playmaker; eOne Acquires ‘The Newsreader’ — Global TV Briefs

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian prosecutors have indicted Vivendi’s former chairman Vincent Bolloré and current CEO Arnaud De Puyfontaine in a probe over alleged market manipulation stemming from legal wrangling prompted by Vivendi and Mediaset‘s botched 2016 pay-TV deal.Bollore and De Puyfontaine had been placed under investigation in Milan in 2017 after Mediaset filed a suit claiming they plotted to drive down the company’s share price by premeditating to dishonor their 2016

Also Read: 'Notturno' Film Review: Middle East Doc Finds Poetry in 'Rubble and Darkness'Rosi’s “Notturno” was filmed along the rattled borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon.

ViacomCBS Networks International president and CEO David Lynn is stepping down after 24 years with the company, while Raffaele Annecchino has been hired in his place.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian director Maura Delpero is the winner of this year’s annual Women in Motion Young Talent Award, being bestowed by the Kering Group and the Cannes Film Festival despite the cancellation of the 2020 festival due to the pandemic.Delpero, who studied playwriting in Buenos Aires, after two documentaries made her feature film debut in 2019 with “Maternal,” a drama inspired by her spending four years in an Argentinian refuge for adolescent single

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s storied Titanus studio, producers of myriad golden era works from Cinema Italiano, has inked a global distribution deal with pubcaster RAI’s sales unit RAI Com for its entire library of roughly 400 titles.The landmark agreement, besides distribution, entails a collaboration to restore and preserve the Titanus library, which is a treasure trove comprising early works by Italo masters such as Federico Fellini and Francesco Rosi, and Luchino

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian cinemas are set to stay closed over the holidays after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended Italy’s soft lockdown until early January. The widely expected move comes as the country contends with a flare up of the pandemic.

Jamie Lang Javier Krause, co-founder of Argentina’s Rispo Films and long one of the country’s key sales agents, has crossed the Atlantic and started Kafilms, a new Swiss production company where he is taking the reins to create new content for international audiences, including two new Italian co-productions which Krause has announced in exclusivity with Variety.Joined by Maurizio and Manuel Tedesco of Italy’s Baires Produzioni, backers of Filmax-sold “Tomorrow’s a New Day” from Simone Spada

Dave Prowse, the Bristolian former bodybuilder best known for playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged 85. Prowse was cast as Vader for his imposing physique, even though the role was voiced by James Earl Jones.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentIn 1968, idealistic Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa founded an independent micro nation on a tiny island he built on a platform supported by steel pylons off the coast of Rimini, Italy, outside Italian territorial waters.

There's been a ton of buzz surrounding Fantastic Beasts 3 owing to Johnny Depp, who fans saw as Gellert Grindelwald in the popular franchise. After losing his libel suit against a British publication, who called him a "wife beater" in regards to his troubled marriage with Amber Heard, Depp revealed that he was asked by Warner Bros.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterValentina Pedicini, the Italian director whose credits include the 2019 award-winning documentary Faith, has died at the age of 42.Italian media is widely reporting that she had been ill for some time and her condition worsened in recent days.