Noticias

Nabbing a third place Panorama Audience Award prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, it might not have been enough to put Oliver Schmitz‘s “Shepherds and Butchers” on the lips of cinephiles, but it’s definitely enough to warrant some attention. And while the movie is still making its way through the festival circuit, a […]

The post Steve Coogan Defends A Killer In New Trailer For ‘Shepherds And Butchers’ With Andrea Riseborough appeared first on The Playlist.

Full programme revealed for this year’s East End Film Festival.

Hellboy star Ron Perlman and Suffragette director Sarah Gavron have joined the jury of the 15th East End Film Festival (June 23 – July 3).

It marks a return to the East End for Us star Perlman, who attended Eeff in 2014 when Dermaphoria - in which he starred - opened the festival.

Ivy director Tolga Karaçelik, who won best feature at last year’s festival, returns as the 2016 director in residence and jury chair alongside Perlman and Gavron.

Also awarding the Best Feature prize will be film writer and producer Kaleem Aftab and Bangladeshi film-maker Mostofa Sarwar (Television).

This year’s country focus will be Turkey, with screenings including the UK premiere of Emin Alper’s Turkey-France-Qatar co-pro Frenzy.

Opening film

The festival will open with the world premiere of Ian Bonhote’s Alleycats, with a cast that includes Screen Stars of Tomorrow Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark) and Sam Keeley ([link...

Fabien Westerhoff launches London-based outfit with Films Distribution backing.

Former HanWay Films and WestEnd Films executive Fabien Westerhoff has launched London-based sales and finance outfit Film Constellation ahead of Cannes.

Based in London, the company will offer bespoke international licensing and executive production services to producers and financiers, and Westerhoff has negotiated a credit facility of up to €10 million with Paris-based indie sales force Films Distribution, sellers of films including Oscar-winner Son Of Saul, Nanni Moretti’s Cannes 2015 drama Mia Madre and Brillante Mendoza’s upcoming Cannes competition entry Ma’ Rosa.

Film Constellation will reveal the first films on its slate around Cannes with those expected to encompass “youth oriented commercial fare and talent-driven films for mature audiences”.

Speaking to Screen, Westerhoff confirmed that additional staff would likely be added after Cannes.

Westerhoff said of the new company: “This is a destination of expression for trusted filmmakers and emerging new talent, embracing new distribution...

After airing the second season of Alan Partridge's Mid Morning Matters last year, Sky Atlantic is cutting to new documentary, Alan Partridge’s Scissored Isle. The one-off will air May 30 in the UK with Steve Coogan reprising his long-running role as the socially awkward North Norfolk digital radio DJ. Coogan, whose Shepherds And Butchers premiered in Berlin, is next up in the voice cast of Universal/Illumination’s The Secret Life Of Pets and is filming Oren Moverman’s…...

Israeli directors win both top awards; runners-up include Steve Coogan’s Shepherds And Butchers and Madonna dancer documentary Strike A Pose.Scroll down for full list of winners

At the Berlinale, the 18th Panorama Audience Awards are to be presented to Junction 48 by Udi Aloni for best fiction film and Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? by Tomer and Barak Heymann for best documentary. Both films were made by Israeli directors.

Aloni has presented all of his films at the festival since 2003 and Junction 48 marked his sixth production to premiere in the Panorama section.

It is his first feature since Art/Violence, which premiered at the festival in 2013 and won the Cinema Fairbindet Prize.

Junction 48 follows two young hip-hop artists who use their music to battle the oppression they encounter in Israeli society. Israeli-American director Oren Moverman (Rampart, The Messenger) co-wrote the screenplay with Tamer Nafar. Sales are handled by The Match Factory.

Documentary...

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd will play a bickering couple in the drama-comedy that Fortitude International has introduced to Efm buyers.

Coogan’s Hamlet 2 director Andrew Fleming will helm the story about a celebrity and his more reserved partner who are hosting a dinner party when a youngster turns up claiming to be the grandson the celebrity never knew he had.

UTA Independent Film Group and Wme Global jointly represent Us rights.

Remstar Studios and National Bank Of Canada are co- financing the film, which Gabriella Tana, Maria Theresa Arida, Maxime Remillard, and Aaron Ryder are producing.

Clark Peterson and Lisa Wolofsky serve as executive producers.

Coogan stars in Panorama selection Shepherds And Butchers. Rudd will next be seen in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War that opens worldwide around the May 6 Us release date.

Exclusive: Nordic co-production readies spring shoot.

WestEnd Films has acquired worldwide rights to drugs thriller Mules, produced by Everest and Contraband director Baltasar Kormakur [pictured].

Commercials director Börkur Sigthorsson, who collaborated with Kormakur and Johansen on hit Icelandic TV series Trapped, will take the reins on the Icelandic, Danish and Swedish co-production, which is due to shoot in all three countries in the spring.

In Mules, two antagonistic brothers decide to smuggle drugs into their native Iceland using a young Polish girl as their mule. When everything goes off the rails, the brothers’ fate spirals out of control in a life-or-death race against time.

Kormakur will produce the Icelandic-language thriller with fellow Rvk Studios producer Agnes Johansen (Virgin Mountains).

Co-producers are Anni Faurbye Fernandez (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Headhunters) and Stinna Lassen (The Team) for Good Company Films in Denmark and Mimmi Spång (Call Girl) and Rebecka Lefrenz (Call Girl) for Garage Film in Sweden.

The...

Neves will join in time for the European Film Market at the Berlinale (Feb 11-19).

Sofia Neves has joined international sales and film financing outfit WestEnd Films as its new director of sales.

Neves previously worked with WestEnd’s managing directors Schoukroun and Maya Amsellem during her time at Capitol Films.

She began her career with producer Paulo Branco before joining Capitol, run by Jane Barclay and Sharon Harel, in 2005.

Neves then moved to HanWay Films, run by Jeremy Thomas and Tim Haslam, in 2008 as the company’s director of sales and distribution.

Throughout her career she has handled titles including Nick Cassavettes’ Alpha Dog, Sidney Lumet’s Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, John Maybury’s The Edge Of Love, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Nowhere Boy, and Steve McQueen’s Shame

WestEnd’s managing director Maya Amsellem said of the appointment: “We’re delighted to welcome Sofia to the...

Berenice Fugard to join UK sales outfit from January.

UK sales outfit WestEnd Films has hired Berenice Fugard to spearhead acquisitions and development, starting in January 2016.

Most recently svp of Fortissimo Films, Fugard spent nine years at Pathé Distribution in London, rising to head of acquisitions in 2006.

During her tenure at Pathé, she handled films including The Blair Witch Project, Crash and Memento.

Fugard then became vp, acquisitions and co-productions for Paramount Vantage before joining Studiocanal where she worked on titles including Searching For Sugarman, The Place Beyond The Pines and Potiche.

“We are very excited to have Berenice joining an ever-changing WestEnd. We need to reinvent ourselves in a challenging marketplace, and Berenice will be the driving force behind that change: her great taste, expertise and relationships will make WestEnd the ambitious player that finances and sells but also develops and produces quality commercial projects,” said managing directors Eve Schoukroun and Maya Amsellem.

“WestEnd has inspiring...

Exclusive: Andrea Riseborough joins Shepherds and Butchers ahead of June shoot.

Birdman star Andrea Riseborough is to star opposite Steve Coogan (Philomena) in apartheid drama Shepherds and Butchers.

WestEnd Films has launched Cannes sales on the project from Oliver Schmitz, director of 2012 Un Certain Regard entry Life, Above All, with shoot due to get underway in South Africa on June 15.

Cox’s script, adapted from the novel of the same name, sees a hotshot lawyer (Coogan) face his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men.

Anant Singh (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) and Brian Cox (Kite) produce the drama for Distant Horizon and Videovision Entertainment. Sudhir Pragjee, Sanjeev Singh and Basil Ford are executive producers.

Production design and costume design come from District 9 duo Mike Berg and Diana Cilliers, respectively.

“The film deals with the death penalty, which is a controversial issue globally and we believe...