News

Exclusive: Denmark-based sales company LevelK has signed a partnership with audience research firm Publikum, that will see the companies invest in five to 10 film projects across a three-year period.

Through the partnership, the companies will collaborate on projects from conception, through the film’s launch, and to its release to audiences.

The aim is to improve sales and marketing tools, and support producers and local distributors by optimising the audience for each film.

The first collaboration under the partnership will be Anke Blonde’s contemporary suspense film Dust, which LevelK boarded earlier this year and is selling in Cannes.

Publikum...

Agata Kulesza (“Ida”) and Bartosz Bielenia (“Corpus Christi”) will brace for “The Time That Never Came.”

The dystopian melodrama, set to premiere in 2026, will focus on a couple in a world obsessed with youth. Sara (Kulesza) chose to age naturally while Oskar, her partner, took an anti-aging treatment. Years later, when they reunite — divided by time but bound by the past — Sara begins a journey to reclaim lost love, confront buried emotions and find freedom.

Ed (Bielenia) is a calm and resourceful driver who helps Sara escape the Refuge. As they travel together to the City of Youth, unexpected events begin to shift her plans.

Kulesza, also known for “Green Border,” told Variety: “I truly hope we can create a universal story, one that invites reflection on where older people stand in today’s world and whether we’re placing far too much value on youth, which is, from the outset,...

Exclusive: Paris-based The Party Film Sales has acquired international sales rights for Dutch director Sven Bresser’s first feature Reedland ahead of its premiere in competition in Cannes Critics’ Week in May.

The film tells the story of reed cutter Johan who discovers the lifeless body of a girl on his land and is overcome by an ambiguous sense of guilt. While he takes care of his granddaughter, he sets out on a quest to track down evil. But darkness can thrive in unexpected places.

Non-professional actor Gerrit Knobbe makes his big screen debut as Johan, alongside young newcomer Loïs Reinders.

The drama is among 11 first and second feature films, seven in competition, selected out of 1,000 submitted films for the upcoming edition of Cannes Critics’ Week, running from May 14 to 22.

Reedland is the first feature by a Dutch director to premiere in Critics’ Week since Karim Traïdia’s The Polish...

Exclusive: Bankside has inked a slew of sales on Ido Fluk’s Köln 75 following its Special Gala premiere at the Berlinale this month.

The largely well-received film has sold to Bulgaria (Beta), Canada (Level Film), Czech/Slovak (Aqs), Eastern Europe excluding Poland (HBO), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery), France (Metopolitan), Hungary (Budapest Film), Israel (Naschon/Red Cape), Italy (Lucky Red), Middle East (Front Row), Scandinavia (Sf Studios), South Korea (The Coup) and Spain (Selecta Vision).

Alamode Film holds distribution rights for German-speaking Europe and will be releasing the film in March on more than 200 screens, September Film for Benelux and Madness for Poland. Discussions are ongoing for distribution in both UK and U.S.

The English and German-language pic tells the story behind one of the best-selling jazz records of all time, Keith Jarrett’s 1975 Köln Concert, how it almost didn’t happen, and how one formidable German teenager, Vera Brandes,...

Production began this week in Belgium on Anke Blonde’s Dust, which LevelK has boarded for international sales.

Taking place in the span of one day, the suspense film follows two tech visionaries coming to terms with the fall of their empire due to an imminent exposé about their fake companies. Dries Phlypo produces for Belgium’s A Private View, with a script by Angelo Tijssens, co-writer of Lukas Dhont’s Girl and Close.

Girl and The Goldman Case star Arieh Worthalter and Mr. Nobody’s Jan Hammenecker lead the cast, alongside Anthony Welsh, Fania Sorel, 2024 European Film Promotion Shooting Star Thibaud Dooms,...

Bankside Films and Heretic are co-repping worldwide sales on Miguel Ángel Jimenéz’s “The Birthday Party,” featuring a star-studded cast led by four-time Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe. The companies will be introducing the film to buyers and showing a promo during the European Film Market.

Written and directed by Jimenéz, with additional writing credits going to Giorgos Karnavas and Nikos Panayotopoulos, “The Birthday Party” is based on the novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. Variety has been given exclusive access to a first look image from the film, which is currently in post-production.

Set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean, “The Birthday Party” stars Dafoe as Marcos Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon who’s throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday celebration for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island.

Used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him whatever the cost, Marcos is...

Filming has begun in Scotland on Big Beach’s adaptation of Borges And Me starring Fionn Whitehead, Luis Gnecco, and Alan Cumming.

Marc Turtletaub directs from a screenplay by Oren Moverman in which the memoir’s author Jay Parini finds himself stuck in a Morris Minor chauffeuring the brilliant, blind Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges through Scotland in 1970.

As a young student, Parini harbours dreams of becoming a writer and struggles to make sense of the 70-year-old, irrepressible Borges, until events take a surreal turn, leading the men to a place where they find common ground. The cast includes Peter Mullan and Harriet Sansom Harris.

Mikko Makela and James Watson’s UK production company Bêtes Sauvages is expanding into Finland, where the firm will work on both Finnish and international projects.

Bêtes Sauvages Finland was launched at last week’s Finnish Film Affair, the industry strand of Helsinki International Film Festival – Love and Anarchy (Hiff).

The company’s inaugural slate includes a TV adaptation of Finnish novelist Pajtim Statovci’s 2019 novel Bolla, a love story about a man fleeing the Kosovan war of the 1990s.

Through its UK base, Bêtes Sauvages produced Makela’s second feature Sebastian, which premiered at Sundance in January, in co-production with Finland’s Helsinki-film,...

International sales outfit LevelK has secured deals for “Mr. K,” Tallullah H. Schwab’s surreal drama which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the competitive Platform section.

The film stars Crispin Glover as a traveling magician who finds himself trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare and is unable to leave the hotel where he’s staying.

“Mr. K” has been picked up in several territories, including Germany, Austria (Neue Visionen), Poland (Hagi Film), Benelux (Paradiso) and Cis (Silver Box Ltd). LevelK is negotiating more deals.

The film has also just been selected to compete at the Busan International Film Festival in the Flash Forward section.

Glover, who has a large following on social media, has already garnered early buzz around the movie on Reddit and TikTok, among other platforms. Schwab is an Oslo-born Dutch filmmaker who previously directed the short “The First Cut,” the TV series “Pie” and feature film “Confetti Harvest.

The British Film Institute (BFI) has issued a further 11 awards through the UK Global Screen Fund (Ukgsf), including Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebushpruning, Irish football story Saipan, starring Steve Coogan, and The Bureau-produced Moroccan co-production Behind The Palm Trees.

Rosebushpruning is the next feature from Brazilian director Aïnouz. It is a contemporary adaptation of Marco Bellocchio’s Fists In The Pocket, with Elle Fanning attached to star.

Producers are Kavac Film, The Match Factory and Surfilm, with CryBaby the minority UK producer on the project. Fremantle’s Italy-based The Apartment is on board as a co-producer, and Mubi is one of the backers.

Heretic has acquired world sales rights to Dutch director Peter Hoogendoorn’s drama Three Days Of Fish, which is set to world premiere in the main competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for the film.

It follows on from Hoogendoorn’s debut feature Between 10 And 12 which played in Venice Days in 2014.

Three Days of Fish centres on 65-year-old Gerrie who lives abroad with his second wife and returns to Rotterdam for his annual health check-ups. There, he meets with his son, 45-year-old Dick, who yearns for quality time that his father stubbornly avoids.

The Sundance queer drama “Sebastian,” directed by up-and-coming Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä, has been bought by Kino Lorber for U.S. distribution, along with a string of international buyers.

Represented in international markets by LevelK, the film made its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“Sebastian” follows Max (Ruaridh Mollica), a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories, and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write finally seems within reach. But Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of his double-life, leading him to reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a...

UK sales outfit Bankside Films has unveiled a first look image of Mala Emde in the role of Vera Brandes in Ido Fluk’s The Girl From Köln, as well as a slew of key deals on the film as the company heads into the European Film Market (EFM).

The feature, currently in post-production, tells the little-known story of one of the best-selling jazz records of all time, US pianist Keith Jarrett’s 1975 Köln Concert, and how one formidable German teenager, Vera Brandes, was instrumental in its creation. Bankside will be showing a sales promo to buyers at the EFM.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for The Great Phuket, ahead of its world premiere at the Berlinale.

The first footage follows 14-year-old Li Xing, whose life is falling apart like his neighbourhood, the Great Phuket in south China, which is a setting of ruins and reconstruction. In a bid to escape his teenage life, he discovers an underground shelter where strange things begin to happen. The trailer reveals a mixture of live-action and animated sequences.

The Chinese-language film marks the feature debut of writer/director Liu Yaonan and has been selected for the festival’s Generation 14plus sidebar, where...

China’s Parallax Films has boarded Liu Yaonan’s first feature The Great Phuket, which is set to premiere at the Berlinale in the Generation 14plus sidebar.

The Beijing-based company will handle sales for Asia, excluding China, with Paris-based sales firm MPM Premium managing the rest of the world.

The drama follows a 14-year-old boy who lives in the Great Phuket district in South China, which is a setting of ruins and reconstruction. He clashes with his mother, who refuses to leave the family home despite plans for its demolition and finds nothing but trouble at school. In a bid to escape his teenage life,...

Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä isn’t shying away from sexual content in “Sebastian,” which has its world premiere on Sunday at Sundance Film Festival.

“As was already the case with ‘A Moment in the Reeds,’ I wanted to provide a very frank and honest portrayal of queer sexuality,” he tells Variety, referencing his 2017 debut.

“For so long, queer sexuality has been shied away from and censored. It has been such a balancing act for queer filmmakers and a very unfair one, because we want to provide representation for ourselves, but we also don’t want to alienate audiences and people who finance our films. Luckily, things have improved a great deal.”

In Mäkelä’s sophomore film – competing in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition – aspiring writer Max (Ruaridh Mollica) leads a double life as sex worker Sebastian, hoping to use his experiences in a novel. But while Max tries to...

The queer drama is directed by UK-Finnish director Mikko Makela.

LevelK has boarded international sales rights to UK feature Sebastian ahead of its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival this month.

The film is the second feature from UK-Finnish director Mikko Makela. It follows a freelance writer rising through London’s cultural world who finds exhilaration at night as a sex worker under the pseudonym Sebastian.

Ruaridh Mollica leads the cast, alongside Screen Rising Stars Scotland talent Hiftu Quasem and Jonathan Hyde.

September Films will distribute the film in the Netherlands, with Aurora handling distribution for Finland.

Crispin Glover, Sunnyi Melles, Fionnula Flanagan star in the film.

LevelK has boarded world sales on Dutch drama Mr. K starring Crispin Glover, which has wrapped filming and is now in post-production.

Back To The Future star Glover plays the eponymous character, a travelling magician who finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of the hotel he just slept in. His attempts to get out only entangle him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

LevelK has released a first look at the film, above. Paradiso will release the title in Belgium.

Written and directed by Tallulah Schwab,...

Willem Dafoe gets a dream role with Inside, a combo of art film in more ways than one, psychological thriller, heist movie, and survival tale all rolled into one in which Dafoe’s Nemo is center stage, alone, the entire time.

The Focus Features release is World Premiering today at the Berlin Film Festival and is the brainchild and narrative feature debut for Greek director Vasilis Katsoupis whose only previous feature was a documentary called My Friend Larry Gus. Here with the help of screenwriter Ben Hopkins, he takes a challenging leap forward creating a wrenching drama about an art thief who becomes trapped in a glass cage, in this case a New York City luxury apartment that if we didn’t know better could pass itself off as an art gallery, its walls and floors full of distinctive works of arts from paintings to sculptures, video to installations, and more.

To set a 100-minute drama entirely inside the confines of a single apartment — and to have just a solitary character performing for the camera — might not seem like the most obvious template for an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

But when that character is played by a versatile actor with the range of multi-Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe, there’s no telling what will emerge. That’s the case with “Inside,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. Focus Features is releasing the film theatrically in the U.S. on March 17.

Dafoe stars as an art thief who enters a collector’s high-tech penthouse hunting for valuable works of art, only to be trapped inside when the security system locks the apartment down. When help fails to arrive, the thief — surrounded by so many of the art works he covets and admires — must use all of his cunning and invention to survive,...

Since the launch of its cash rebate in 2018, which covers up to 40 of qualifying expenditures along with 30 in tax relief, Greece has become one of Europe’s hottest filming destinations. But domestic production is surging as well, and the industry reached new heights in 2022, with the rebate scheme supporting 132 international and domestic projects.

Here’s a round-up of some of the top Greek feature films currently in the pipeline:

Buzzheart

Director: Dennis Iliadis

Producers: Amanda Livanou, Dennis Iliadis

The veteran director, who helmed the 2007 remake of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left,” returns with a film that asks: If you had to make sure that someone could truly love without any moral limitations, how far would you go?

Sales: N/A

My Soul Startled

Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas

Producers: Maria Drandaki, Nadia Trevisan, Julie Paratian

The acclaimed director returns with 18 interwoven love stories of gods, titans, nuns, madmen,...

This is van Vugt’s feature fiction debut after several award-winning documentaries.

Amsterdam-based sales outfit Fortissimo Films has snapped up international sales rights to Dutch director Jacqueline van Vugt’s Dutch feature Crossing, now in post-production.

This is van Vugt’s feature fiction debut after several award-winning documentaries, among them Borders (2014) and Up To G-cup (2022). It will be introduced to buyers at the European Film Market (EFM).

Crossing is an ensemble drama set in real time on a ferry crossing from Morocco to Spain as.a couple and their two sons travel home from their holiday, the ferry captain smuggles...

The official poster for the upcoming Focus Features release Inside starring Willem Dafoe has been released, and you can check it out right here on CinemaNerdz, along with the film’s official trailer!

Inside tells the story of Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.

About The Film Genre: Cast: Willem Dafoe Director: Vasilis Katsoupis Screenplay: Ben Hopkins Producer: Giorgos Karnavas, Marcos Kantis, Dries Phlypo

Focus Features with release Inside in theaters on Friday, March 10th, 2023!

For More Information, Please Visit:

Official Site / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / #Inside

The post “Inside” with Willem Dafoe Gets Poster first appeared on CinemaNerdz.

Back in November, Focus Features released three odd teaser posters for their upcoming psychological thriller Inside, posters that showed things like canned food, moldy fruit, and a pigeon instead of the film’s star Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man: No Way Home). Now the company has unveiled a new poster for Inside, and this one actually has Dafoe on it! You can check it out at the bottom of this article.

Focus Features will be giving Inside a theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada on March 10, 2023.

Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis, who previously made the 2016 documentary My Friend Larry Gus (about an engineering student who ditches his studies to record a music album), from a screenplay by Ben Hopkins (The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz), Inside tells the story of Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with...

The debut film from Belgian director Domien Huyghe deals with the grief of a teenage girl.

LevelK has boarded international rights to Domien Huyghe’s Belgian family feature Sea Sparkle, which will have its world premiere in Berlinale Generation.

The film is about a North Sea fisherman who dies at sea under mysterious circumstances and his teenage daughter who wants to investigate if a sea creature is to blame.

Dries Phlypo and Stephen Vandingenen produce for A Private View, in co-production with Viking Film in The Netherlands. Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem and Wendy Huyghe wrote the script from a story by siblings Wendy and Domien Huyghe.

Inside Trailer — Vasilis Katsoupis‘ Inside (2022) movie trailer has been released by Focus Features. The Inside trailer stars Willem Dafoe. Crew Ben Hopkins wrote the screenplay for Inside. “It’s produced by Marcos Kantis, Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis, and Dries Phlypo.” Plot Synopsis Inside‘s plot synopsis: “Inside tells the story of Nemo, an art thief trapped in a [...]

Continue reading: Inside (2022) Movie Trailer: Art Thief Willem Dafoe is Trapped in a Penthouse...

Yesterday, Focus Features unveiled a trio of strange teaser posters for their upcoming psychological thriller Inside, posters that showed things like canned food, moldy fruit, and a pigeon instead of the film’s star Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man: No Way Home). Those posters seemed to imply that Inside is going to be an odd, quirky film – but now that a trailer for Inside has arrived online, it doesn’t appear to be as off-the-wall as the posters were. Instead, it looks like this thriller is going to be quite intense, carried by another terrific performance from Dafoe. You can watch the trailer in the embed above.

Focus Feature will be giving Inside a theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada on March 10, 2023.

Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis, who previously made the 2016 documentary My Friend Larry Gus, from a screenplay by Ben Hopkins (The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz), Inside tells the story of Nemo,...

No one does crazed isolation like Willem Dafoe.

The “Lighthouse” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star leads upcoming Focus Features film “Inside,” directed by Vasilis Katsoupis (“My Friend Larry Gus”).

“Inside” tells the story of Nemo (Dafoe), an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.

Gene Bervoets, Eliza Stuyck, and Josia Krug also star, but “Inside” is billed as mostly a standalone Dafoe-led feature.

The film is written by Ben Hopkins, and produced by Giorgos Karnavas, Marcos Kantis, and Dries Phlypo. Karnavas’ Heretic production company most recently funded Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness.”

“It’s a dream to have made this film, the way we wanted to, having the privilege to work with Willem and all these amazing filmmakers that supported us,...

Focus Features will be giving the psychological thriller Inside a theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada on March 10, 2023, and today they have unveiled a trio of very strange teaser posters for the film. You can check those out at the bottom of this article.

Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis, who previously made the 2016 documentary My Friend Larry Gus, from a screenplay by Ben Hopkins (The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz), Inside tells the story of Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.

The film stars Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man: No Way Home), Gene Bervoets (The Vanishing), Josia Krug (Commitment Phobia), and Eliza Stuyck (Vincent).

Giorgos Karnavas, Marcos Kantis, and Dries Phlypo produced Inside, with Katsoupis serving as executive producer alongside Jim Stark,...

A title that we thought might break into Cannes or Venice will probably instead be considered for the upcoming Sundance or Berlinale line-ups as the Focus Features folks have landed Vasilis Katsoupis‘ Inside and are planning a March 10th theatrical drop.

Katsoupis’ debut feature film (in the fiction form) is a groovy-sounding psychological thriller and pretty much solo acting piece for Willem Dafoe. Production took place in Germany last summer and has a lot of Greek producers on board including Heretic’s Giorgos Karnavas – who produced the project alongside Marcos Kantis, and Dries Phlypo. Ben Hopkins (who might also has Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie coming out in 2023) wrote the screenplay based on an original idea by Katsoupis.…...

Focus Features has picked up the Willem Dafoe psychological thriller Inside and set a theatrical release of March 10, 2023. Focus is handling Inside in the U.S. and Canada while Universal International will distribute overseas.

The movie, which reps the feature directorial debut of Vasilis Katsoupis, tells the story of Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive. Ben Hopkins wrote the screenplay based on an original idea by Katsoupis.

The film is produced by Giorgos Karnavas of Greek production and sales outfit Heretic, which is behind this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness and Critics Week winner Feathers. Also producing are Marcos Kantis, and Dries Phlypo and executive produced by Katsoupis, Jim Stark, Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Charles E. Breitkreuz,...

Bankside represented filmmakers in the deal.

Focus Features has acquired worldwide rights from Bankside to the psychological thriller Inside starring Willem Dafoe and has set a March 10 2023 US release date.

Vasilis Katsoupis makes his feature directorial debut from a screenplay by Ben Hopkins based on an original idea by Katsoupis. Focus will distribute in the US and Universal Pictures International will release across the rest of the world.

Inside follows Nemo, an art thief who gets trapped in a New York penthouse after the heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, Nemo...

Collaboration with directors Sacha Polak and animator Mascha Halberstad were crucial to Viking’s growth.

Need to know: Amsterdam-based Viking Film was set up by Marleen Slot in 2011 after she had worked as a producer at Lemming Film for many years. The company name refers to Slot’s background as the daughter of a fisherman from a community in the north of Holland, which had once been under the sway of the Vikings. Slot cites her collaboration with directors Sacha Polak and animator Mascha Halberstad as crucial to Viking’s growth. The company’s latest feature with Halberstad is animated film Oink,...

Keshet International and A Private View’s Flemish thriller “Storm Lara” answers the question: What happens when a suicidal caller interrupts a live late-night radio show? As it turns out, a lot. The 4×30’ series moves quickly, putting acerbic radio DJ Lara to the test when her suicidal caller’s identity is revealed, and her son’s life becomes endangered. Wouter Hendrickx (“De Infiltrant”) co-stars as Lara’s radio producer Rafik in the Daan Gielis (“La Holandesa”) written and Kadir Ferati Balci (“Turquaze”) directed drama.

The series launches at Berlinale 2022 in the Series Market Selects selection, noting increased market potential. Filmed during the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, “Storm Lara” uses its tight format and production restrictions as a tool to crank the tension to eleven, and the music of the station serves up a heightened pulse with electronica and modern fuzz.

Variety spoke with producer Dries Phlypo and writer Daan Gielis...

Keshet International (Ki) has picked up the anticipated Flemish drama “Storm Lara” which is set to world premiere at the Berlinale Series Market Selects.

The four-part thriller series marks the first scripted project to be commissioned by Belgian streamer Streamz. Produced by the Belgian banner A Private View, “Storm Lara” takes place in real-time during a two-hour radio call-in show. When late-night radio DJ Lara receives a call from suicidal Suzy, she feels in control. But as events unfold, a grueling game of cat and mouse reveals that Suzy has been holding all the cards all along. Confronted, Lara realizes that it’s time to stop living a lie.

“Storm Lara” stars Ella Leyers (“Hidden Assets”) as DJ Lara, Wouter Hendrickx (“Blackout”) as her producer and lover Rafik, and Anemone Valcke (“Generation B”) as Suzy (“Aka Liv”). Created and written by Daan Gielis (“La Holandesa”), this intimate and sensory drama...

The presentation will take place during Mia on October 14.

Projects from the UK, Germany and Belgium are among the nine chosen for SeriesLab, a training programme for international TV series projects run by TorinoFilmLab (Tfl).

The nine projects, selected from 120 entries, will be presented to attendees at the Mia market in Rome on October 14, moderated by Tfl pitching trainer Luigi Ventriglia.

The series include UK drama Coalville, about five teenagers in a working-class village near Nottingham, who have six weeks of freedom after finishing high school. The project is written and directed by Margo Roe, and produced by Lucy Meer for Strive Films.

Dutch outfit Lemming Film embarks on joint venture with Belgium’s A Private View.

Leading Dutch production outfit Lemming Film has teamed with Belgium’s A Private View to launch a new joint venture and has lined-up its first three projects.

Lemming Film Belgium will aim to attract international co-productions and broaden the offer of high-quality series and films made in Belgium. The company, based in Ghent, will be run by Lemming CEO Leontine Petit and producer Erik Glijnis alongside Flemish producer Dries Phlypo of A Private View.

It marks a collaboration between two of the region’s leading production...

Vasilis Katsoupis’ fiction feature directorial debut is Heretic’s first English-language production.

Greek producers Heretic have just wrapped their first English-language production, Inside, starring Willem Dafoe.

Vasilis Katsoupis makes his fiction feature directorial debut, from a script written by Ben Hopkins based on an original idea by Katsoupis.

Bankside has boarded international sales and Square One Entertainment will distribute in German-speaking territories.

The under-the-radar project wrapped principal photography on June 1 after a Covid-safe seven-week shoot at Cologne’s Mmc TV & Film Studios. The film will be delivered in spring 2022.

The high-concept psychological suspense drama is about a high-end art thief,...

Drama series from the UK, Belgium and Austria among development line-up.

Italy’s TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has unveiled the nine projects selected for its upcoming TV development platform SeriesLab, including a new period thriller from the Riahi brothers.

The industry programme, which mentors European scriptwriters, directors and producers, selected this year’s cohort from 125 projects. A total of 10 European countries are represented across the nine projects, which are brought by 12 female participants and eight men.

The titles include 30 Bullets by Iranian-born, Austrian-based filmmakers Arash T. Riahi and Arman T.Riahi. Set in the 1990s, the drama series is described as “the...

Sweden’s Plattform Produktion is teaming up with Dutch production group Lemming Film on director Ena Sendijarević’s colonial drama “Sweet Dreams.”

The film, which is set to shoot on location in Southeast Asia next year, follows tumultuous events triggered by the death of a Dutch sugar plantation owner who ends up leaving his Indian Ocean island estate to his young illegitimate son – the child of his Indonesian housemaid – upending not only his Dutch family’s plans but also established hierarchies in a single stroke.

Plattform, whose credits include “The Square” and “Force Majeure,” joins fellow co-producers A Private View from Belgium and Dutch pubcaster Vpro.

For Sendijarević, the film represents her contribution to the movement that is critically examining the past and the relationship between the West and the rest of the world and its continuing impact.

Following the death of the plantation owner and family patriarch, “everyone’s...

The Nfts scheme has chosen 20 participants representing 13 territories.

Executives from UK producers Warp Films and Fulwell 73, and Ireland’s Element Cinemas, are among the 20 selected for the 2020 edition of the National Film and TV School’s 2020 Inside Pictures business training and leadership skills development programme.

The scheme has chosen 20 participants representing 13 territories, from sectors including acquisitions, development, production, sales, distribution, finance, marketing, publicity, exhibition, legal and business affairs.

Scroll down for the full list of participants

This year’s industry mentor is BBC Films director Rose Garnett, who was previously head of creative at Film4.

The participants have all...

Belgian family comedy/drama is the feature debut of Anouk Fortunier. Screen can reveal the first image.

Studio Hamburg has boarded international sales for Anouk Fortunier’s debut feature My Dad Is A Sausage.

The Belgian feature is being presented as a work in progress today at Flanders Image’s CONNeXT event in Ghent.

Dries Phlypo produces for A Private View, which has recent credits including 2019 festival hit The Best Of Dorien B and 2017 Kurdish-Belgian drama Zagros.

The comedy/drama is a co-production between Belgium, the Netherlands (The Film Kitchen) and Germany (Leitwolf Filmproduktion).

Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem wrote the story,...

The Ace Series Special is running Nov 4-9 in Brussels.

European producers organisation Ace Producers has unveiled the selection of sixteen producers who will participate in its inaugural TV drama-focused initiative, the Ace Series Special, running Nov 4-9 in Brussels.

The programme is aimed at experienced producers who want to create a series division within their film companies and, or deepen their knowledge of developing and producing TV drama series for an international audience. Each participant will attend with a series project in the early stages of development

They include Belgium’s Bart Van Langendonck at Savage Film, who will...

Dirty God, the latest feature by Dutch auteur Sacha Polak, celebrated its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It is the first time a feature film from the Netherlands was selected for the prestigious World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It was also the opeing night film at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam.

The film is one of several recent or upcoming features on which UK and Dutch producers have partnered. A cross between Ken Loach and Mike Leigh softened by a woman’s touch this is the story of a single working class British mother whose ex has thrown acid in her face thus disfiguring her beauty and changing her life forever.

Her friends seek to divert her attention; she seeks surgery, but in the end, when all fails, she finds a strength within herself to rebuild her life into what we hope will be a positive way.

Polak...

The first season of ‘Beau Sejour’ was shown on Netflix and set in a hotel.

A host of new Flemish TV series, at script stage and in production, were pitched today at Connext, the Flanders Image industry event in Ghent.

Flemish TV is having a moment thanks to the international success of shows like Tabula Rasa and 13 Commandments. International companies attending Connext to scout new series this year included Netflix, Attraction Distribution, Dynamic Television, Global Screen, Global Series Network, Just Film, Serie Series, Series Mania, Wild Bunch TV and Zdf.

Some of the top pitches were A Good Year,...

Hottest presentations of upcoming Flemish films also include multicultural family film Binti; Patrice Toye’s Tench; and Gust van den Berghe’s Rain Anyway.

The word on everyone’s lips at this year’s Connext, the industry event organised by Flanders Image, was, “What will be the next Girl?”

Last year, Lukas Dhont’s transgender story was presented as a Work In Progress at Connext and is now one of the most lauded films of 2018, winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes and now representing Belgium in the foreign-language Oscar race.

It’s wildly different than Girl, but the buzziest...

Hottest presentations of upcoming Flemish films also include multicultural family film Binti; Patrice Toye’s Tench; and Gust van den Berghe’s Rain Anyway.

The word on everyone’s lips at this year’s Connext, the industry event organized by Flanders Image, was, “What will be the next Girl?”

Last year, Lukas Dhont’s transgender story was presented as a Work In Progress at Connext and is now one of the most lauded films of 2018, winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes and now representing Belgium in the foreign Oscar race.

It’s wildly different than Girl, but the buzziest...

Connext pitches for new Flemish films also include cycling drama and plastic surgery-themed horror.

Johan Heldenbergh, best known from Belgian hit The Broken Circle Breakdown, will lead the cast of My Dad Is A Sausage, a family drama pitched today at Flanders Image’s Connext event in Ghent.

Anouk Fortunier will direct what she calls a “buddy movie with a father and daughter”; Heldenbergh plays a father who is depressed in his job as a banker and decides to leave that career to become an actor. His wife, a CEO, is concerned about his plans, but his 11-year-old-daughter Zoe realises...

New Europe Film Sales is representing the Bel-Swe-Nor-nl co-production.

Cloudboy has won the Works In Progress award - which comes with an $11,000 (€10,000) prize - at Flanders Image’s inaugural NeXT event. The story is about a Belgian boy who connects to his Swedish mother’s Sami roots during a summer trip to Lapland.

An international industry jury said, “We really want to see the special world that director Meikeminne Clinckspoor has created. We thought producer Katleen Goossens was very well prepared with her presentation, and both she and Meikeminne also told us about the heart of the story not just the plot. The story is both original and universal and we think it will appeal to wide audiences.”

Flanders Image had invited invited 13 projects in post-production – all backed by the Flanders Audiovisual fund — to pitch to the international industry in attendance.

The 13 projects in detail:

Blue Silence, wr/dir Bülent Öztürk, prod [link=nm...

If there’s a trio of categories that aren’t given the respect that they deserve (or frankly, any respect at all), it’s the short film categories. Be it Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Short, or Best Live Action Short, they all are mostly ignored by the masses, especially when the first two have feature length cousins in Best Animated Feature and Best Documentary Feature to compete with as well. Still, they deserve to be noticed, so I wanted to quickly list what’s in contention this year. I’ve included the categories in my most recent Oscar prediction update, so there’s that as well. The Academy Awards are the sum total of all the categories, so these have their place, no doubt about that. It’s just a shame that more folks don’t recognize this. Here are the three short subject categories and the remaining contenders...