Wild Bunch TV Acquires ‘The Rope,’ World Premiering at Series Mania

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentNewen Group, the TF1-owned French production and distribution outfit, has acquired a 51% stake in the German production company Flare Film, whose slate includes the upcoming Sky Original show “Paradiso” and Ildikó Enyedi’s “Balaton Brigade.”Launched in 2008 by Martin Heisler, the Berlin-based company has been focusing on director-driven documentaries and films that have been showcased on the international festival circuit.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMelanie Laurent, one of France’s most acclaimed actors-turned-filmmakers, has been having a banner 2021, headlining Alexandre Aja’s hit Netflix movie “Oxygene,” sitting on Spike Lee’s Cannes jury, and world premiering her sixth directorial effort “The Mad Women’s Ball” at Toronto.

Work eats our lives. For nine, 10 hours a day — often more — we are either at work, traveling to work or catching up on work at home. Yet, for whatever reason, the process and patina of working life is rarely the subject of cinema. Except in the films of Stéphane Brizé, the French director who has made the workplace his stomping ground.

Matt Damon has his wife Luciana by his side for his latest movie premiere!

Stéphane Brizé’s “Another World” could make for a worthy conclusion to an unofficial trilogy on contemporary economic relations, following the French filmmaker’s recent efforts “The Measure of a Man” and “At War.” Each work deploys the empathy machine of cinema to demonstrate the brokenness of a system powered by a dehumanizing focus on profits over all else, albeit leveling that critique from a different vantage point at each step along the way.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based distributor The Jokers has landed French rights on Aga Woszczyńska’s debut feature Silent Land ahead of the film’s premiere in Toronto.

EXCLUSIVE: French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé reteams with frequent collaborator Vincent Lindon for Another World (Un Autre Monde), a Venice Film Festival competition entry that debuts today. Above is a clip from the drama that focuses on an executive, his wife and their family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Wild Bunch has international sales with CAA on North America.

Series Mania 2022

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFollowing a delayed, yet successful 2021 edition held last week, Series Mania will switch back to its usual Spring slot in 2022. The next edition will take place March 18-25 in Lille, France.

Angelique Jackson WarnerMedia OneFifty and HBO Max have partnered to acquire the independent feature “This Is Not a War Story” from director Talia Lugacy and executive producer Rosario Dawson.Lunacy wrote, directed, edited, produced and starred in the film, which also features Sam Adegoke, Danny Ramirez, Brian Delate and Frances Fisher.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent“Ennio,” the hotly anticipated Ennio Morricone doc by Oscar-winning Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore has sold to a slew of territories ahead of its world premiere Friday at the Venice Film FestivalBlock 2 Distribution, which is the sales arm of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai’s Jet Tone films, has announced sales of the doc to Germany and Austria (Koch Media), Benelux (Periscope), France (Le Pacte), Scandinavia and Baltics (Non Stop Entertainment),

Filming is underway on Marie Antoinette, an eight-part drama created and written by Deborah Davis (The Favourite).

Zendaya brought the drama with her look to the photocall and premiere of Dune at Le Grand Rex on Monday (September 6) in Paris, France.

Julia,” the documentary we directed about Julia Child, was the piece de resistance of our filming experience. On the sidewalks of Paris’ 7th arrondissement, where Julia and her husband Paul spent their early years together, cafes pulsed with voracious patrons.

Ben Croll Thanks in part to his work with auteurs Benoit Jacquot, Claire Denis and Stéphane Brizé, Vincent Lindon had long become something of a festival-world habitué, a sturdy and reliable fixture on the international circuit.

French TV event Series Mania came to a close yesterday with the handing out of its awards. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCharles Gillibert, the thriving French producer behind Leos Carax’s Cannes prizewinning “Annette,” spoke to Variety about his recent acquisition of Les Films du Losange, one of France’s oldest and most revered auteur-driven production and distribution companies.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Ivan Fund’s “Dusk Stone” (“Piedra Noche”) is bowing its trailer in Variety on the eve of its world premiere at the Venice Lido where it participates in the Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori ) sidebar.The Elle Driver international sales pick-up will also participate in the San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizontes Latinos and at Biarritz where it opens the French festival.“Dusk Stone” turns on the mysterious disappearance of a young boy near his family’s beach house.