News

Netflix’s Seine-set shark thriller Under Paris could be taken off the platform within days of its release on June 5 due to legal proceedings brought by a writer-director who claims it was developed without his knowledge from an original idea he registered with France’s rights management body Sacd in 2011.

An initial hearing on June 14 will pass judgement on a legal request by the complainant’s lawyer for the film’s release to be suspended while a second lawsuit around accusations of parasitism makes its way through the courts.

Taking its cue from article 1240 of France’s Civil Code, parasitism is defined as one party following in the footsteps of another party’s efforts and know-how to benefit from their enterprise without seeking permission or making payment.

Set against the backdrop of the upcoming Paris Olympics and plans to hold the swimming leg of the triathlon contest in the Seine,...

Maxime Govare and Romain Choay’s dark comedy Lucky Winners as won over buyers around the world for Charades.

The film has been bought by Axia for Canada, Limelight Distribution for Australia and New Zealand, Ascot Elite in Switzerland, Mt Trading in Germany, Twelve Oaks Pictures in Spain, Ads Service in Hungary, Feelgood Entertainment in Greece, Ozen Film in Turkey and SVOEkino, LLC in Ukraine.

Lucky Winners is about a group of friends who win a hefty sum of money from the French lottery but whose dreams turns into a nightmares. The ensemble cast includes local stars Fabrice Eboué, Audrey Lamy,...

Paris-base sales house boards literary adaptation ’And Their Children After Them’ and dark comedy ’Lucky Winners’

Paris-based sales house Charades will represent international sales rights to French star-powered adaptation And Their Children After Them and dark comedy Lucky Winners. Both titles will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in France and Benelux.

And Their Children After Them (Leurs Enfants Après Eux) is directed by French twin brother writing-directing duo Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma and adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s Prix Goncourt-winning book of the same name. The Boukhermas made their debut in Cannes’ Acid with Willy the 1st then followed with 2020 Official Selection Teddy.

Paris-base sales house boards literary adaptation ’And Their Children After Them’ and dark comedy ’Lucky Winners’

Paris-based sales house Charades will represent international sales rights to French star-powered adaptation And Their Children After Them and dark comedy Lucky Winners. Both titles will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in France and Benelux.

And Their Children After Them (Leurs Enfants Après Eux) is directed by French twin brother writing-directing duo Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma and adapted from Nicolas Mathieu’s Prix Goncourt-winning book of the same name. The Boukhermas made their debut in Cannes’ Acid with Willy the 1st then followed with 2020 Official Selection Teddy.

The Shiny Shrimps Strike Back A new gay-themed film The Shiny Shrimps Strike Back - which takes aim at Russian homophobia - will receive its Scottish premiere with special preview screenings at Summerhall Cinema on 8 May with other shows to follow.

The comedy under the Screen Horizons banner follows a similar formula to The Shiny Shrimps, which told the true story of a gay water polo team based in Paris. The 2019 film attracted audiences of nearly 600,000. The follow-up, though set in Russia, was shot mainly in neighbouring Ukraine before the current conflict.

Directors Maxime Govare and Cédric Le Gallo say their aim was to lift the taboo of homosexuality in sport and now they’re turning to even more political topics of state-sponsored homophobia and hate crimes. Little did they imagine the turn of events which has badly affected their cast and crew, a reported 80 of which were Ukrainian.

Cédric Le Gallo,...

Further new titles include ‘The Sopranos’ prequel ‘The Many Saints Of Newark’.

Fourteen new titles are looking to make the most of the last session at the UK-Ireland box office before James Bond film No Time To Die dominates cinemas.

Independent titles such as The Green Knight, Sweetheart, Gagarine and The Man Who Sold His Skin are going up against Warner Bros’ The Many Saints Of Newark, in a truncated week for new titles.

No Time To Die opens on Thursday, September 30, with many cinemas screening the film from 00.01 BST. With projections from Gower Street Analytics that the film will...

Rossy de Palma (“Parallel Mothers”), the Spanish star who is known as Pedro Almodovar’s muse, is set to headline “Liberty’s,” a music-filled period drama set at an eccentric cabaret in occupied Paris.

The eight-part series was created and written by Cédric Le Gallo, the co-director of “The Shiny Shrimps,” which world premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2019. The series marks the TV drama debut of Le Gallo, who’s currently wrapped the sequel of “The Shiny Shrimps.”

“Liberty’s” will be presented at Series Mania’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions with Joëy Faré, who is producing at Mediawan-owned Scarlett Production.

Set in the picturesque Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre in 1942, the show unfolds at a drag artist cabaret which is a popular spot for Parisians and Nazis alike. The show follows Henri, the venue’s flamboyant owner, as he joins the resistance and begins a dangerous balancing act.

The...

Chicago - Reeling: The Chicago Lgbtq+ International Film Festival is not only one of the longest-running film festivals of its kind, but also one of the longest-running film festival in Chicago. The quality of films here shouldn’t be missed. Every year, Reeling is brimming with diverse stories from a variety of cultures around the world, alongside more than a few projects from Chicago locals like Lilly Wachowski.

There is always something for everyone here, whether you like a feature-length film, prefer your queer content delivered to you in a series of shorts, or feel the need to have your pragmatic side fed by hard-hitting and timely documentaries. Check out the full Reeling schedule and buy your tickets online since many features will sell out. From past experience, the best option is to get a festival pass so that you can catch as many films as you want!

The film...

Warner Bros sequel likely to dominate, but will it match its record-breaking predecessor?

It: Chapter Two, Warner Bros’ sequel to its 2017 remake adaptation of the classic Stephen King horror novel, is the main story at the UK box office this weekend.

The previous film was a smash in the UK, setting the biggest all-time opening in the UK for a horror film with £10m from 605 sites in September 2017. Eventually, it reached £32.3m, which also makes it the biggest overall horror release of all time in the country. Its $700m worldwide gross also makes it the genre’s all-time global box office champion.

"Hot guys crossing Europe by bus... Things are definitely gonna happen." Peccadillo Pictures has debuted an official UK trailer for an amusing French gay comedy titled The Shiny Shrimps, also Les Crevettes Pailletées originally in French. Matthias Le Goff, an Olympic champion at the end of his career, makes a homophobic statement on TV. His punishment: coach "The Shiny Shrimps", a flamboyant and amateur gay water-polo team. They have only one goal in mind: to qualify for the Gay Games in Croatia where the hottest international Lgbtq athletes compete. But the guys are more interested in partying than practicing, unless Le Goff can get them in line. Nicolas Gob stars as Le Goff, with a cast including Alban Lenoir, Michaël Abiteboul, David Baïot, Romain Lancry, Roland Menou, Geoffrey Couët, Romain Brau, Félix Martinez, Maïa Quesemand, and Pierre Samuel. This reminds me of Sink or Swim, another French water sports all-male-team comedy from last year.

A homophobic swimming champion is forced to coach an amateur gay water polo team in the queer comedy The Shiny Shrimps (Les crevettes pailletees), directed by Frenchmen Maxime Govare (Daddy Cool) and newcomer Cedric Le Gallo, who played for a gay water polo team actually called The Shiny Shrimps. 

Though the plot is fictional, the film benefits from Le Gallo's inside-track experience, with the depicted team mostly feeling like a band of actual human beings rather than a box-ticking collection of queer clichés. Though it doesn't feature any major stars and was dumped in theaters just ...

A homophobic swimming champion is forced to coach an amateur gay water polo team in the queer comedy The Shiny Shrimps (Les crevettes pailletees), directed by Frenchmen Maxime Govare (Daddy Cool) and newcomer Cedric Le Gallo, who played for a gay water polo team actually called The Shiny Shrimps. 

Though the plot is fictional, the film benefits from Le Gallo's inside-track experience, with the depicted team mostly feeling like a band of actual human beings rather than a box-ticking collection of queer clichés. Though it doesn't feature any major stars and was dumped in theaters just ...

Former TF1 Studio boss Tristan du Laz and French industry veterans Gaspard de Chavagnac, the former boss of Zodiak France, and Edouard Duprey, the popular producer-creative, are joining forces to launch Originals Factory, a co-production and distribution company dedicated to delivering movies to platforms.

During his tenure at TF1 Studio, du Laz started distributing some of the movies he acquired across diverse platforms in France and saw the large potential of some high-concept films, either such genre titles as Nicolas Boukhrief’s terrorism-themed “Made in France,” thrillers including “Kidnap” with Hally Berry, romantic comedies like “Adaline” with Blake Lively, and other niche movies that performed much better on pay VOD services than they would in theaters.

The idea behind Originals Factory is to co-produce or acquire eight to 12 films per year and give them an exclusive premium rollout on transactional VOD services, first in France and eventually across Europe for six to eight weeks,...