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Alan Sacks, a longtime television producer who co-created the popular 1970s sitcom “Welcome Back Kotter” and later had a long affiliation with The Disney Channel, died on Tuesday following a battle with lymphoma. He was 81.

In a statement provided to Deadline, Sacks’ talent agent Annette van Duren said his cancer “was treated for him to dance at our daughter’s June wedding and walk her down the aisle. After that, the chemotherapy stopped being effective. He started hospice last week. He died peacefully listening to Tibetan music for the final few days and nights at age 81.”

Born Dec. 9, 1942, Sacks was best known for helping to co-create “Welcome Back Kotter” with star Gabe Kaplan in 1975. The show ran from 1975 to 1979 and today is most remembered for launching John Travolta to stardom. During this period Sacks also worked on “Chico and the Man.”

Decades later he executive produced several Disney Channel projects,...

Alan Sacks, known for co-creating Welcome Back, Kotter and producing several Disney Channel projects, has died. He was 81.

The producer’s wife, talent agent Annette van Duren, tells Deadline that Sacks died Tuesday morning in New York City after his mantle cell lymphoma took an “aggressive” turn in recent weeks.

“It was treated for him to dance at our daughter’s June wedding and walk her down the aisle,” she said. “After that, the chemotherapy stopped being effective. He started hospice last week. He died peacefully listening to Tibetan music for the final few days and nights at age 81.”

Actor Robert Rusler, who starred alongside Josh Brolin in the 1986 Sacks-written skateboarding romance Thrashin’, remembered the “writer, producer, teacher and connector of people” in a statement on Instagram.

Listing some of his standout credits, Rusler noted, “Where I got to know him from was working with him on the movie #Thrashin.

Film and TV writer-producer Alan Sacks, who had an eclectic career that included co-creating the popular 1970s series “Welcome Back, Kotter” and working on projects set in the 1980s L.A. punk scene, died of complications from lymphoma on Tuesday in New York. He was 81.

Sacks was born in Brooklyn and started his career in the research department of ABC Television. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued working at ABC as a program executive. Along with Gabe Kaplan and Peter Meyerson, he helped develop and co-create “Welcome Back, Kotter,” basing the sitcom on his high school friends in Brooklyn and on Kaplan’s stand-up routine.

He also worked on “Chico and the Man,” created by “Welcome Back, Kotter” executive producer James Komack.

In 1991, Sacks created and produced a Saturday morning children’s show, “Riders in the Sky,” for CBS, which replaced the “Pee-Wee Herman Show.”

During the 1970s and ’80s,...

Asia Argento (“The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things”), Frances Barber (“A Bird Flew In”), Tamer Hassan (“The Football Factory”), Laura Whitmore (“Sadhbh”) and child actor Erin Ainsworth have joined the cast of “A Mother for an Hour.”

The film, which is being directed by Giga Agladze, follows the story of a woman who poses as the lost mother of a dying child and discovers through this act a world of deceit and violence.

Agladze’s most recent movie is surrealistic drama “The Other Me” (2022), starring Jim Sturgess and Andrea Pejic, executive produced by David Lynch.

“A Mother for an Hour” is being produced by Kirsty Bell, Goldfinch CEO and co-founder of The Number 44, and Ben Charles Edwards, also a co-founder of The Number 44. The executive producers are Phil McKenzie and David Kereselidze. It is shooting in the North of England, predominantly in Newcastle, Hartlepool and surrounding areas.

Production...

Exclusive: On the heels of success with her feature directorial debut, the SXSW prize-winning thriller It Is In Us All, Irish writer, director, and actress Antonia Campbell-Hughes has signed with Entertainment 360 for representation in all areas.

Cosmo Jarvis stars in the pic as a Londoner traveling to his ancestral homeland of County Donegal, Ireland, whose journey takes an unexpected twist when he gets into a near-fatal car accident with a teenager that will forever alter the course of their lives.

Slated for a November 17 launch on VOD via Wolfe Releasing, the film’s SXSW honors included a Special Jury Award for Narrative Feature and a Special Jury Recognition for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision. The pic also received nominations from the British Independent Film Awards and Irish Film and Television Awards.

Also previously helming the shorts Acre Fall Between and Q4L, the multi-hyphenate is currently at work on Diamond Shitter,...

We have some sad news to share today, as The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that writer/director Manny Coto – who is best known for directing the 1992 horror comedy slasher Dr. Giggles (watch it Here) – has passed away at the age of 62, following a thirteen month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Manuel Hector Coto was born in Havana, Cuba on June 10, 1961, then his family emigrated to the U.S. just a few months later. Coto and his siblings were raised in Orlando, Florida, and he was still a child when a fascination with Star Trek inspired him to start shooting short films with his father’s 8mm camera. After attending college in New Orleans, he moved out to Los Angeles in 1983 and started working in commercials. He eventually crossed paths with Tippi Hedren, who worked with Alfred Hitchcock on The Birds and Marnie, and was able to get her to agree to...

Bloody Disgusting has learned this evening that Emmy winning writer/producer/director Manny Coto has passed away at the age of 62 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

THR reports, “Coto, whose childhood love of Star Trek and Super-8 moviemaking led to a 40-year career in film and television, died Sunday at his home in Pasadena after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokesperson announced.”

Here in the horror world, Manny Coto is known for directing the 1992 slasher movie Dr. Giggles, which recently found new life thanks to a Blu-ray release from Scream Factory.

Manny Coto co-wrote the script and directed the 1990s horror movie, which starred the late Larry Drake as the title character, a night-prowling surgical psychopath.

Drew Dietsch shared his love for Dr. Giggles here on Bd a few years back, writing: “It’s easy to see why Dr. Giggles didn’t click with audiences at the time.

If you wanted to gauge how far the growing Greek TV industry has come in just a few short years, you’d have to look no further than last month in Lille, France, where Series Mania offered a splashy showcase for the Mediterranean nation’s sudden rise.

The prestigious French fest opened with Amazon Prime Video’s “Greek Salad,” director Cédric Klapisch’s follow-up to his beloved “Spanish Apartment” trilogy that chose Athens as the setting for its portrait of contemporary Europe at a crossroads. Meanwhile, a Greek series bowed in the festival’s international competition for the first time: Vasilis Kekatos’ “Milky Way.”

Directed by the short film Palme d’Or winner and inviting comparisons to “Euphoria” from festivalgoers, the envelope-pushing teen drama (pictured) is part of a bold new wave of Greek storytelling that reflects an industry striving to reach new heights. “We have amazing talents in Greece.

Bolstered by a 40% cash rebate and a growing number of creators prepared to take risks, the Greek TV industry is riding high. Here’s a selection of the top Greek series on offer during MipTV:

Cartes Postales From Greece

Director: Georgios Papavasileiou

Writer: Kallia Papadaki

Producer: NEEDaFIXER

Broadcaster: Ert

A series of 12 stand-alone stories based on Hislop’s bestselling book that follows an introverted, Greek-born English archaeologist who plans to propose to his girlfriend on a trip to his birthplace, Crete. When she doesn’t show up at the airport, however, he sets out on a solitary walkabout of the island.

Sales: Ert

The Fire Bracelet

Director: Yorgos Gkikapeppas

Writers: Nikos Apiranthitits, Sofia Sotiriou

Producer: Ert

Broadcaster: Ert

The unexpected discovery of a bracelet owned by an old Roma woman prompts a jeweler to delve into his family’s past in turn-of-the-century Thessaloniki, where people of different religions, customs and traditions coexist.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on January 27th, 2022, reviewing the new release of “The Other Me,” presented by David Lynch, in select theaters and through Video-On-Demand on February 4th.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Iraklee (Jim Sturgess) is a bartender working towards being an architect. He’s in a bad marriage with Nutsa (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) and has a degenerate eye disease that will eventually blind him. Instead of losing his sight, however, he seems to gain a “second sight,” into a fantasy world that contains a woman artist named Nino (Andreja Pejic).

“The Other Me” is in select theaters and through Video-On-Demand beginning February 4th. Featuring Jim Sturgess, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Orla Brady, Michael Socha and Andreja Pejic,. Written and directed by Giga Agladze. Not Rated Click here for Patrick McDonald’s full on-air review of “The Other Me”

The Other Me

Photo credit:...

Georgian writer-director-producer Giga Agladze has been a musician, a documentarian and Caucasus regional director of the Transcendental Meditation-focused David Lynch Foundation. Yet none of those things has any obvious bearing on, or makes much sense of, his debut directorial feature—apart from Lynch being on board as a prominently billed executive producer.

Shot in 2019 Tbilisi with a largely British cast, “The Other Me” has Jim Sturgess as a man whose sudden-onset blindness is sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical, sometimes both. That’s symptomatic of . Its cast struggling against material with little real-world or emotional logic, the attempted “surreal” elements uninspired both conceptually and aesthetically, this is a misfire whose intentions are as murky as its results are hapless. Gravitas Ventures is opening on 10 or more U.S. screens on Feb. 4, simultaneous with release to digital platforms.

Things start out unpromisingly with that hoary climactic chestnut, the scene in which a protagonist...

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to the public health documentary The End of Medicine, executive produced by two-time Oscar nominee Rooney Mara and Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital and VOD platforms this summer.

The film from BAFTA-winning director Alex Lockwood and writer-producer Keegan Kuhn explores the link between our treatment of animals and emerging health threats such as pandemics and antibiotic resistance. It specifically looks at zoonotic diseases—germs and viruses that spread between human and non-human animals—which threaten the health and lives of the entire human population.

The End of Medicine entered production in October 2019, shortly before Covid-19 began headlines around the world. It features interviews with some of the world’s leading scientists whose research and testimonies conclude that the public health emergency we are presently facing was inevitable and is far from over.

“We...

Exclusive: Actor Robert Lasardo is making his feature directorial debut with the crime thriller American Trash, starring in the pic currently in production in Los Angeles, alongside Costas Mandylor and Lorelei Linklater.

Set amidst a social crisis in the decaying world of Los Angeles, American Trash watches as the city freefalls into environmental ruin, chaos and a complete drug epidemic. Milles Carpis (Lasardo) leans on the support of some new age hippie friends as they guide him away from violence when the woman he loves (Linklater) is murdered, subsequently turning to Detective Anderson (Mandylor) for help in his search for her killer.

Diana Ramos-Santiago Carter, Josh Webber and Jerry G. Angelo are producing the film scripted by Lasardo.Lasardo is represented by Dtla Entertainment Group; Mandylor by Global Creatives Agency and Anthem Entertainment; and Linklater by Linda McAlister Talent and The Green Room.

Norman Lear and his producing partner Brent Miller of Act III Productions have partnered with Juan Pablo Di Pace of Momento Films to launch Di Pace’s LGBTQ+ romantic drama, “For Another Time,” which will shoot on location in Duino, Italy, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Lear and Miller previously exec-produced Mexican film “Te Llevo Conmigo” (I Carry You With Me) and documentary “Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided to Go For It.”

Di Pace, who also stars in the film, based “For Another Time” on events in his own life, and he will co-direct with editor, Andres Pepe Estrada. Di Pace has appeared in “Fuller House,” “Mamma Mia! The Movie” and the upcoming “The Mattachine Family.”

In addition to Lear and Miller, executive producers include Massimiliano Milic, CEO of Terroir Films; and Kent Gibbons. Producers are Juan Pablo Di Pace; Kristen Carroll, founder and CEO of SpoPro/Spotlight Productions...

Paul McCartney will tell the stories behind 154 songs he wrote throughout his career in his upcoming book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, due out November 2nd. The tunes (detailed below) include titles from his work with the Beatles, Wings, and his own solo recordings. It also includes the words to an unrecorded Beatles song, “Tell Me Who He Is,” from the early Sixties; McCartney discovered the handwritten lyrics in a notebook while researching the book.

The anthology features McCartney’s handwritten lyrics, previously unpublished photos, drafts, and drawings. He accompanies...

Telefilm Canada and Screen Ireland have boarded “Cry From the Sea,” a co-production between Canada’s Sepia Films and Ireland’s ShinAwil, which has been greenlit to shoot in the Fall.

To be directed by Vic Sarin, the romantic drama centers on Edith, an enigmatic American widow who visits an Irish island to be near the spot where her childhood boyfriend drowned during World War I. She meets Seamus, a solitary lighthouse keeper who is at loggerheads with the island locals because of a personal tragedy he blames on them. He bonds with Edith, much to the chagrin of his loyal housekeeper who has silently loved him for years. The resulting love triangle brings unexpected changes that impact all their lives.

Los Angeles and Paris-based Cinema Management Group (Cmg) handles worldwide sales rights. “‘Cry From the Sea’ has been well received in Cannes this year and we’re thrilled for...