Will.I.Am, Warren Littlefield and ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ Producer Andy Wilman Among Edinburgh TV Festival Lineup for 2024

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prince Albert II of Monaco opened the 63rd Monte-Carlo Television Festival Friday, accompanied by a panoply of stars led by Morgan Freeman, “SEAL Team’s” David Boreanaz and “Bridgerton’s” Simone Ashley. The opening ceremony took place under stormy skies at the Grimaldi Forum, where the world premiere of limited series “The Gray House” opened the event.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief All Rights Entertainment, the Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles-based international film agency has picked up international sales duties on animated children and family feature “Out of the Nest.” The film had its world premiere this week at the Annecy International Animation Festival. In the Kingdom of Castilia, days from the coronation of the new Emperor and Empress, their seven royal fledglings are taken and it’s up to one hero to return them safely; a teenage delivery boy, Arthur the Goat. His dreams of becoming a world-class barber are put on hold when he becomes the unwitting guardian of the royal heirs.

Grace Van Patten, star of the Hulu drama series Tell Me Lies, has been recruited to headline another project for the streamer, a limited series about Amanda Knox. Van Patten will play Knox, succeeding Margaret Qualley who had been originally cast in the role but pulled out for scheduling reasons.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language film debut “The Room Next Door” for key international territories, including the U.K., Spain, Italy, Germany and Latin America. Starring Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton and John Turturro, “The Room Next Door” will also be released by Warner Bros.

The waiting is almost over. Hundreds of thousands of Tartan Army have descended on Germany and millions more will watch around the globe as Scotland kick off Euro 2024 against the hosts in Munich's Allianz Arena.

Soccer Aid for UNICEF 2024 will take place on Sunday, June 9. The world’s biggest charity football match is at Stamford Bridge, London and will see England taking on the Soccer Aid World XI FC.

Addie Morfoot Contributor “La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that premiered at the 2024 Berlinale, is among four feature films that will screen at the inaugural Croatian International Film Festival beginning Aug. 8. The four-day event, set in the coastal city of Sibenik, will also feature 18 documentary and narrative shorts, giving the struggling independent film market an additional international venue to screen movies and launch careers.

EXCLUSIVE: Film Independent and the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday named the 20 filmmakers, from 12 different nations, selected to participate in the 2024 Global Media Makers LA Residency.

Cornerstone has closed worldwide distribution deals for Andrea Arnold’s latest feature film Bird, which debuted at last month’s Cannes Film Festival. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The imminently upcoming Sydney Film Festival has added eight titles that premiered at Cannes to its lineup. They are: Guan Hu’s “Black Dog”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project “Megalopolis”; Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson’s “Rumours,” starring Australia’s Cate Blanchett; documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; “The Girl with the Needle”; and revenge thriller “Ghost Trail.” Due to demand, the SFF organizers have also added additional screenings of “The Substance,” the Demi Moore-starring film already set as the festival’s closing night title. The festival runs June 5-16.

Naman Ramachandran Revered Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and ace Indian soccer player Bhaichung Bhutia are among the subjects of projects selected at the inaugural edition of India’s Doc Film Bazaar. The Bazaar has unveiled 15 projects that will participate in its Co-Production Market and the five films selected for its Work-in-Progress Lab. As revealed by Variety, the market is a documentary-focused sister edition of the Film Bazaar that takes place in Goa annually in November.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.S. actor and producer David Boreanaz, star of hit series “Bones,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “SEAL Team,” will serve as president of the fiction jury for the Golden Nymph Awards at the 63rd Monte-Carlo Television Festival, which takes place June 14-18.

Naman Ramachandran Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s “Dear Jassi” and Arati Kadav’s “Mrs” will open and close this year’s New York Indian Film Festival. Punjabi and English-language “Dear Jassi,” a tale of star-crossed lovers based on a true story, arrives in New York after a glittering festival run that began in 2023, at Toronto, where it won the Platform Prize.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The 32-strong official selection of the 58th edition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading cinema fete, will feature 15 directorial debuts as well as the latest works of established filmmakers such as Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, Noaz Deshe, Antonin Peretjatko, Beata Parkanova and Burak Cevik. Karel Och, artistic director of Karlovy Vary, said Tuesday that he’d identified a number of themes and genre in the selection, which included “a freshly revisionist take on the esthetical canons of a period film; a balanced, caring but also provocative look on the fate of a woman in the contemporary society in any moment of her life; and the immediate influence of political events on the life of an individual human being anywhere in the world.” The festival, which runs June 28-July 6 in the Czech Republic, has also revealed the juries of the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions.

Will.i.am, The Handmaid’s Tale producer Warren Littlefield and Clarkson’s Farm EP Andy Wilman will speak at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival.

Arts nonprofit Frameline announced the full program for the 48th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline48). Curated from over 1,600 submissions and invitations, the Frameline48 slate will screen from June 19–29 in theaters across the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Roxie Theater, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, the Herbst Theatre, the Vogue Theatre, and The New Parkway Theater in Oakland. The 11-day celebration of film and queerness will carry on—and amplify—the spirit of the 2023 Festival’s “Neighborhood Nights.”

The Splendour of Life” (“Une splendeur de vivre”) is set to start principal photography at locations across Canada and the Philippines, the producers revealed at the Cannes Film Festival. The ensemble cast includes Camille Rutherford (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Garance Marillier (“Raw”), Sue Prado (“Your Mother’s Son”), Kyrie Samodio (“Hito”) and Amaryllis Tremblay (“Genesis”). Set against a lush countryside backdrop, Marie (Rutherford) questions her relationship, while Noée (Marillier) grieves her father.

Manchester United attacker Marcus Rashford has been left out of England's provisional squad for the European Championship in Germany this summer.

Jamie Lang As part of this year’s Variety Global Conversations at the Cannes Film Festival, representatives from the Czech Republic engaged in a lively discussion about the industry’s state of affairs and celebrated 20 years of involvement at the Marché du Film. Markéta Šantrochová, head of the Czech Film Center at the Czech Film Fund; Pavlína Žipková, head of the Czech Film Commission at the Czech Film Fund; and Petr Tichý, CEO of Barrandov Studio, participated in the talk, moderated by Variety’s Leo Barraclough. According to Zipkova, the Czech delegation wanted to make one key point clear to everyone in attendance: “If there is only one thing you need to remember from this session, it is that the Czech Film Fund production incentives scheme is open.

EXCLUSIVE: One of the market’s biggest-budget projects, the Will Smith action-crime thriller Sugar Bandits, has sealed multi-million dollar deals across the world for AGC ahead of a planned September start date.