ZDF Studios to Distribute Second Season Reboot of Legendary Spanish Horror Series ‘Stories to Stay Awake’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian sales company True Colours has closed a raft of sales following Berlin’s European Film Market. Italy’s box office hit “La Stranezza” (“Strangeness”) got picked up for a dozen territories and queer romantic drama “Norwegian Dream” also sold widely, including to North America. Directed by Roberto Andò, “Strangeness” (pictured) toplines Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) as Nobel-prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. This tragicomic period piece about how Pirandello found inspiration to write his masterpiece “Six Characters in Search of an Author” has been a sleeper hit at the Italian box office, coming from nowhere to pull more than €5.5 million ($5.8 million) and becoming the local 2022 box office champ.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mk2 films has enlisted leading distributors around the world for “Reality,” Tina Satter’s feature debut starring Sydney Sweeney, on the heels of its buzzy world premiere at the Berlinale. The movie, which bowed in the Panorama section, stars Sweeney (“White Lotus,” “Euphoria”) as Reality Winner, a 25 year-old whistleblower who spent five years in prison during the Trump administration. A former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator, Winner was convicted for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media. The film is based on Satter’s 2019 stage play “Is This a Room” and contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of a FBI audio recording. “Reality” captures the tense and surreal 90 minutes of FBI’s interrogation with Winner at her home in 2017.

Andi Peters admitted he was 'trying his hardest' as he made his latest appearance on Good Morning Britain. The TV star was back on the ITV news programme on Wednesday (March 8) to bring viewers the latest competition details.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sideshow and Janus Films have bought North American rights for “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Paul B. Preciado’s film which won four awards at the Berlinale. In “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Preciado sheds light on Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando,” the first novel in which the main character changes sex in the middle of the story.  A century later, Preciado, who is a trans writer and activist, decides to send a film letter to Woolf, telling her that Orlando has come out of her fiction and is living a life she could have never imagined. Preciado organizes a casting and gathers 26 contemporary trans and non-binary people, from 8 to 70 years old, who embody Orlando.

A complicated history. Teresa Giudice‘s daughters were once close to their uncle Joe Gorga and his wife, Melissa Gorga, but the siblings’ ongoing feud has seemingly caused tension among the younger generation.

Love Island 2022 winner Davide Sanclimenti has delivered a sly dig at this year's winter edition as he admitted he hasn't been "entertained" by the drama in the South African villa so far.The 27 year old star, who won the show with his now-girlfriend Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, 28, swiftly became one of the show's most popular contestants ever to grace screens.The Italian stallion and his Turkish delight had an almighty journey on the show, with many convinced their fiery personalities couldn't make it in the long haul. But nearly seven months after the final last summer, the couple are still going strong.

In this new teaser for Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction series, Lizzy Caplan’s Alex Forrest shares an elevator with Joshua Jackson’s Dan Gallagher and asks “Do you ever push that red button?” We can be pretty sure she’s not merely talking about an emergency stop.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor If only Theo James were not joking. I asked “The White Lotus” star what he thinks about all the fan chatter hoping that he and Will Sharpe’s characters were going to hook up during Season 2 of Mike White’s hit HBO show. “They cut the sex scene,” James deadpanned on the red carpet at the SAG Awards, eliciting a big laugh from his TV wife Meghann Fahy. “It began in a kind of romantic way but then it gets very carnal, but Mike decided to cut it. No, I’m joking! There was no sex scene.” James and Fahy also revealed that they didn’t have to do a chemistry read together before they were cast. “We didn’t do any table reads either, which I loved,” Fahy said.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After securing major distribution deals at the EFM, Luc Besson’s next film “Dogman” starring Caleb Landry Jones, is now eyeing a launch in the festival circuit this fall, Variety has learned. The movie’s French release, initially planned for April 19, has been pushed to the fall to allow distributors to prepare a coordinated global release after a launch at an A-category festival. It would mark the first Besson-directed movie to open at a festival in decades. His wild space opera movie “The Fifth Element” was the opening night movie of the 50th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. Besson’s first film since his 2019 actioner “Anna,” “Dogman” is rumored to mark a return to form for the French director. Based on the trailer which we saw before the Berlinale, the film will be closer to some of his early work, notably “Subway,” “Nikita” and “The Professional” which were character-driven movies with a darker edge.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Celebrated actor Nigel Havers and French journalist Sophie Davant will join Warner Bros. International Television Production (WBITVP) and ZDF Studios to celebrate 10 years and a now 10 territory roll-out of antique auction show “Cash or Trash.”  The property is produced by WBITVP and distributed internationally by ZDF Studios. Celebrations will take place as part of WBITVP’s Formats Showcase, held March 2 at BAFTA during this year’s London TV Screenings.  Havers (“Chariots of Fire,” “Finding Alice”) and Davant host the adaptations of “Cash or Trash,” on BBC One (“The Bidding Room”) and French public TV channel France 2 (“Affair Conclue”).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Global indie streamer distributor and producer MUBI has acquired all rights in several key European territories to “Passages,” the erotic drama by Ira Sachs that bowed with a splash at Sundance and just had its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Following the world premiere of “Passages” at Sundance MUBI last month snapped up all rights for the U.S., U.K., Ireland and Latin America to the U.S. indie darling director’s first film shot in France. Now MUBI has acquired additional European territories on “Passages” including for Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey and Benelux. The Benelux pickup is in partnership with Belgium’s Imagine Film Distribution.

The White Lotus is almost certainly checking into an Asian hotel for its third season — and it’s been revealed Netflix’s Dahmer star Evan Peters nearly starred in the second run.

Liza Foreman Spanish SVOD service Atresplayer Premium has announced at the Berlinale Series Market a raft of new cast members joining the continuation of its award-winning trans series “Veneno,” which played on HBO Max in the U.S. to large acclaim. Joining the cast of the seven-episode series “Vestidas De Azul” are supporting cast members Susana Abaitua (“Crazy about Her”), Elena Irureta (“Patria”), Luis Callejo (“Jefe”), drag artist Estrella Xtravaganza, Mercedes Sampietro (“Gary  Cooper, Who Art in Heaven”) and Anabel Alonso (“7 Vidas”), among others. The announcement was made at a Q&A on Monday focused on the continuation of the series. It forms part of a Next from Spain event focusing on first looks at four new series.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Food Network is adding more than a dash of Italian flare to its next big primetime cooking competition, shooting the eight-episode series on-location in a Tuscan villa where 10 competitors live together while striving to prove their mastery of Italian culinary techniques. Aptly titled “Ciao House,” the “Big Brother”-meets-“Under the Tuscan Sun” competition, hosted and judged by network vet Alex Guarnaschelli and Tuscan-born chef Gabriele Bertaccini, premieres Sunday, April 16 at 9 p.m. on the linear Food Network channel and streams the same day on Discovery+. Per Food Network’s description for “Ciao House”: “From real-life nonnas showcasing how they make pasta from scratch to a lesson with the head butcher of a three centuries-old family butcher business, each challenge is accompanied by a local experience steeped in tradition. The competitors must also navigate alliances and rivalries as they pick their own teams and each week, the losing team must vote off one of their own. In the end, only the last chef standing wins the life-changing grand prize: an immersive culinary education across Italy, training with renowned Italian master chefs.”

Marta Balaga Crime shows look for a new angle, argued Berlinale Series participants on Monday.  There is no shortage of new offerings, from Berlinale Market Selects’ “Two Sides of the Abyss,” Serbia’s “The Fall” or South Africa’s “Donkerbos,” created by Nico Scheepers, to China’s melancholic, decades-spanning “Why Try to Change Me Now,” with Golden Bear winner Yinan Diao attached as executive producer. But while there is still an appetite for traditional detective stories, producers and broadcasters are venturing out of the “damaged, middle-aged white detective slot on a Sunday night,” suggested All3Media International’s Rachel Glaister. They are also thinking about their younger audience.

“Most people hosting a travel show want to do it. They have a sense of adventure.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Coming of age thriller “The Gymnasts,” one of the most recent titles from Europe’s public broadcaster partnership The Alliance, has been licensed to over 30 territories, London-based super indie All3Media International confirmed on Monday at the Berlinale Series Market.     Based on Ilaria Bernardini’s bestselling novel “Corpo Libero” (“The Girls Are Good”), the six-part series is produced by the Oscar-winning team at Indigo Film, behind “The Great Beauty,” in co-production with ZDF Neo’s German company Network Movie.  The series has been made in collaboration with Rai Fiction and Paramount+, and in association with All3Media International.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Luc Besson’s ”Dogman,” starring Caleb Landry Jones, wowed buyers at the Berlin’s European Film Market, where it was screened for select buyers. “We hosted only one private screening of the completed film and buyers were stunned, they all came out saying that it was Luc Besson’s best film to date, his most mature movie and some even called it a masterpiece,” said Gregoire Melin, founder of Kinology, which is handling sales on the film. On the heels of the screening, Kinology closed deals with some of the biggest distributors in key international territories, including Italy (Lucky Red), Germany and Austria (Capelight Pictures), Spain and Latin America (Sun Distribution Group), Scandinavia (Svensk Filmindustri), Benelux (Belga Films), Switzerland (Elite Film), Middle East (Front Row), Poland (Monolith), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais), Czech Republic and Slovakia (AQS) and former Yugoslavia (Blitz).

Martin Dale Contributor Portuguese director Susana Nobre’s first scripted fiction film, “Cidade Rabat,” is about a producer who grew up in the Cidade Rabat neighborhood in Lisbon, and who suddenly has to come to terms with the death of her mother. The title is partly inspired by her own life, since she grew up in the “Cidade Rabat” district of Benfica in Lisbon. Much of the action takes place in the nearby mixed-race neighborhood, Reboleira. Nobre describes the film as a “melancholic comedy about a woman who is about to turn 40, whose life enters a period of chaos when she loses her mother and suddenly lives a second adolescence.” There is a nostalgic feel to the film, of a district that was once brimming with energy but is now crumbling. This nostalgia is mixed with hope for a new life, embodied by the main character Helena’s 12-year old daughter, for which Nobre cast her own daughter.  

Vulture on Friday about the cancellation of his sitcom “Reboot,” Knoxville said, “Mike White is a very close friend of mine. He and I had been in Tokyo together.