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Liam O'Brien talks about creating Orym before Critical Role Campaign Two and teases more family members to potentially visit in the future. O'Brien's Campaign 3 character, Orym, has interesting ties to Vox Machina and Campaign One as an Air Ashari and former bodyguard of Keyleth's like his father-in-law, Derrig. He has been sent on a mission by Keyleth, which seems to be coming to a head in Campaign Three episodes 50 and 51, which bring together characters from Campaigns One, Two, and Three.

During an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, O'Brien shares some insight into the creation of Derrig and his connection to Orym. He reveals how long ago he created Orym and breaks down how Derrig set up Orym's introduction. O'Brien also teases other family members of Orym's for Bells Hells to potentially visit in the future.

Screen Rant: Orym is connected to a character that you played in the Vex and Percy wedding one-shot.

Exclusive: Fledgling Federation Entertainment-backed German label Glisk has struck its first major talent deal, signing German author Ivar Leon Menger and setting its first three projects, Deadline can reveal.

Glisk will create TV versions of two of Menger’s audiobooks – Ghostbox and Monster 1983 – along with a film adaptation of debut novel When The Strangers Came, which recently sold as a six-figure two-book deal in a 10-way auction and will be published later this year in multiple languages.

The novel is set in the deep forests of Northland in a lakeside cabin on a small island, where 15-year-old Juno has lived in complete isolation with her family since early childhood, living in constant fear of ‘Strangers’ who want to take revenge on her father for testifying against one of them many years ago.

Meanwhile, Ghostbox is a mystery trilogy that tells the story of Lena Gruenwald, a young Berlin journalist who...

Federation Entertainment is joining forces with Philipp Steffens and Julie Link’s German production and talent management company, Glisk.

Glisk, based in Cologne, is specialized in scripted, unscripted and formats, as well as acts as a talent management company for established and rising stars including actors, writers and directors.

Steffens and Link have a track record in both fiction and non-fiction in Germany and internationally. Steffens created and produced the critically acclaimed mini-series, “The Valley”, for TNT Germany, as well as the hit German TV series, “The Last Cop.” Steffens also produced the film “Flying Home” with Jamie Dornan. In 2014, he became head of fiction at Rtl Television and oversaw the hit series “Deutschland ‘83,” among others.

Link was most recently managing director at Splendid Studios, where she notably produced “Misfit.” She previously worked at Relativity Television where she developed “Catfish: The TV Show” and the Emmy-winning format “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition...

Federation Entertainment has further expanded its European footprint by setting up in Germany with veteran execs Philipp Steffens and Julie Link.

Glisk, a creatively-led production and talent management company, will focus on the creation, production, financing and distribution of high quality originals via a stable of independent studios.

Both scripted and non-scripted shows will be targeted at the German domestic marketplace and the outfit will also look to produce international co-productions.

The new company sees Federation Entertainment link up with an experienced husband-and-wife team in Steffens, who most recently created and produced TNT Germany’s The Valley, and Link, who has held senior positions at Critical Content, Relativity Television and Splendid Studios.

Around The World In 80 Days producer Federation has expanded at a rapid pace over the past year, having partnered with U.S. studio Anonymous Content to launch a joint venture in France, opened in the U.S. via...

It's almost time to sweep the leg at the All Valley Karate Tournament! Season 4 of the Netflix series "Cobra Kai" is on the way and I'm absolutely here for it! It's a battle between the pair-ups of John Kreese (Martin Kove) and Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio)! Today, both Macchio and Zabka tweeted out the official poster for season 4 and it's setting up the battle lines for us. 

This season, we're seeing the return of the previously-mentioned Terry Silver, the Vietnam vet, evil toxic waste disposal owner, and creator of...

The post New Cobra Kai Season 4 Art Demands A Fight For The Soul Of The Valley appeared first on /Film.

Three documentary projects that participated in 2020’s New Perspectives Pitch Lab, hosted by Aftrs, Doc Society, Aidc and Screen Nsw, will receive philanthropic development and production grants via the MaiTri Foundation’s Story Program.

They include films Norita and The Valley and podcast Gay Graves, each to receive a $10,000 grant via the UK-based foundation. The story program aims to help the projects build support and further their development ready for the Australian and international marketplace.

Doc Society’s global director of Good Pitch, Malinda Wink said: “Doc Society is proud to be working in partnership with MaiTri Foundation’s Story Program to support new voices in Australian documentary and podcast storytelling. We are grateful for their generosity, and extend our congratulations to each of the recipients.”

Jayson McNamara’s Norita, which won the 2020 pitch, is set in Argentina, and tracks the transformation of Nora Cortiñas, following the kidnapping of her...

Lebanon’s leading avant-garde filmmaker Ghassan Salhab has always been unapologetically art house, scraping away at traditional forms of narrative to create elliptical works reliant on unfussy compositions and layered sound design. His films explore liminal emotional states connected with Lebanon’s troubled history, capturing a sense of disturbance that practically quivers with unexpressed tension. His latest, “The River,” concludes a trilogy consisting of “The Mountain” and “The Valley,” and while it’s his most objectively beautiful feature yet, it also gives nothing away, demanding a heightened engagement with both his artful mise-en-scène and his nation’s psychological state. As such, “The River” will meander through the more experimental waters of festivals and showcases where Salhab may even pick up new acolytes thanks to the film’s striking aesthetic.

Of the three films, “The Valley” had the most of what could vaguely be called a plot, though its concerns went...

More than 1,000 coal miners at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood, Alabama have been on strike since April 1st. Their venture capital-backed employers seem determined to starve them out, so local supporters have organized a benefit concert to boost the miners’ strike fund and support their ongoing fight against the bosses.

The Alabama Strike Fest will kick off at noon on Saturday, May 22nd in the parking lot of the United Mine Workers of America Local 2397 union hall in Brookwood. The event has a $20 suggested donation but is free for Umwa members and their families,...

In our current climate, it’s quite an achievement for any film to safely wrap production––and such an update brings even greater excitement when it’s our most-anticipated film in the works. Paul Thomas Anderson, cast, and crew can now have a socially distanced celebration as the $40 million production has wrapped on his 1970s-set film going under the working title Soggy Bottom.

As revealed by Oscar-winning costume designer Mark Bridges in a now-deleted Instagram post, production on the film has wrapped after about a three-month shoot. Led by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son, Cooper Hoffman, as well as Bradley Cooper, Alana Haim, and Benny Safdie, the film shot in and around the San Fernando Valley.

Following the story of a high school student and successful child actor (Hoffman), as well an old-school producer/director (Cooper) and a politician running for office (Safdie), hopefully we’ll see the film surface...

Aftrs, Doc Society, Aidc and Screen Nsw have announced the social impact projects selected for the inaugural New Perspectives Pitch Lab.

The program consists of five coaching and development sessions and an online pitch event with mentors, including Malinda Wink, global director of Doc Society’s Good Pitch and Screen Nsw investment manager Andrea Ulbrick. The sessions begin this week.

The focus on the pitch training is to support participants to develop strategies and pathways for non-traditional access to audience and finance for projects that have potential for an impact campaign.

The initiative was open to projects from across the non-fiction landscape, and encouraged “projects that offered a rare insight into the under-represented and overlooked; stories from those who see more than what’s shown in the common zeitgeist; stories that break barriers and explore nuance over polarity.”

One team will go on to be selected for pitching opportunities at...

Los Angeles-based U.S. actor and producer Waleed Zuaiter, who plays the lead in Iraq war drama series “Baghdad Central,” is launching a TV and film production company called FlipNarrative that aims to become a bridge between Hollywood and the Middle East and South Asia.

Zuaiter — who is of Palestinian heritage, was born in California and raised in Kuwait — has long been involved in various types of production, including bringing to the stage the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and also shepherding Hany Abu-Assad’s “Omar,” the Oscar-nominated love story set on the Palestinian border in which he plays a coercive Israeli agent.

“The feeling behind producing is something that, for me as an actor, has always been very complementary (to his acting work),” Zuaiter tells Variety, adding that throughout the years he’s established key industry relationships.

With FlipNarrative, the idea is “to extend this network and this collective of really talented,...

Waleed Zuaiter, who has starred in Netflix’s The Spy and Hulu and Channel 4 drama Baghdad Central, has launched his own production company to tackle diversity in TV and film.

Zuaiter, who produced Omar, the Palestinian feature that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, has established FlipNarrative, which will be based in LA, London and Beirut. He wants to amplify underrepresented and historically misrepresented voices around the world and to be a bridge between the U.S. and the Middle East and North Africa.

He has unveiled a slew of projects already in various stages of development. These include The Valley, a fictionalized take on the illicit drug trade in Lebanon, a romantic comedy feature set in Palestine/Israel, an epic female centric family drama feature set in Morocco, and Perception, a documentary currently in post-production about world-renowned artist, El Seed, who ventures into the...

Upcoming titles include ‘The River’, directed by Ghassan Salhab.

Producer Tania El Khoury, who runs Beirut-based Khamsin Films, has revealed the ambitions for her new French production company, Les films de l’Altaï, during Sarajevo’s CineLink platform.

The company, founded earlier this year, has been established partly in response to the dire economic situation in Lebanon.

“All the producers and filmmakers in Lebanon are confronting the economic crisis,” said El Khoury. “The banks are not giving people money. I am lucky that I am based in France. For example [on Lebanese film] The River, I can pay for things from France to people working on the film.

Bradley Cooper is in talks to star in Paul Thomas Anderson's next movie, which recently moved from Focus Features to MGM, which has become rejuvenated under the leadership of Michael De Luca. The untitled coming-of-age drama finds Anderson returning to the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s -- the same setting as the first half of Boogie Nights. The director's next two films, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love, also took place in the Valley. Anderson's latest film follows a child actor attending high school in the Valley. Cooper is likely playing an old-school producer or …...

Charley Crockett evokes the loneliness and isolation of the present moment in the new video for “Welcome to Hard Times.” Released on Wednesday, the song serves as the title track of the country troubadour’s new album, due out July 31st via Thirty Tigers.

Filmed in the Sierra Nevadas (and observing social distancing guidelines), the video was co-directed by Crockett and Bobby Cochran. It’s both beautiful and desolate, depicting a lone Crockett strolling through wide open vistas of desert against a snow-capped mountain backdrop. In the song, Crockett bemoans...

When the original Valley Girl was released in 1983, most of you weren't even a thought in your parents' imaginations.

Meanwhile, like the Valley Girls themselves, I was a high school senior navigating the chilly waters of teenage acceptance.

Because of that film and its place in history, most of you probably have a better idea of girls from the valley than I did at that time. All we knew of such places came from entertainment, and until the Frank and Moon Zappa song arrived (which very loosely inspired the film), everything from The Valley was as distant as Arabia to a girl from Pittsburgh.

Fast forward an incredible 37 years, and the movie that fascinated a generation and launched the career of Nicolas Cage gets a reboot.

Given my very soft feelings for the original film, the thought of replacing it worried me. And it's a musical, which is not, by any stretch,...

Hey kids, do you remember Valley Girl? It was a teen rom-com from 1983, starring Deborah Foreman as a rich girl from the Valley, and Nicolas Cage as the punk from Hollywood she falls in love with. It was a big hit on its meager budget, and even scored positive reviews – although I’m not sure how […]

The post ‘Valley Girl’ Trailer: The ’80s Teen Comedy Becomes a Jukebox Musical appeared first on /Film.

An all-Broadway cast will present new musical The Valley in concert starring Desi Oakley Waitress, Chicago, Les Misrables, Wicked, Kara Lindsay Wicked, Newsies, Beautiful, Tiffany Mann Be More Chill, Waitress, Kevin Massey Tarzan, Memphis, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Brittney Johnson Wicked, Les Misrables, Jelani Remy Ain't Too Proud, The Lion King, and Devin Ilaw Miss Saigon, Les Misrables.

Agneeta Thacker, Leah Kreitz (Awol), and Ianne Fields Stewartare set for recurring roles in Dash & Lily, Netflix’s 2020 romantic comedy series from Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and Nick Jonas’ Image 32.

Based on the Ya book series Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the eight-episode holiday comedy revolves around cynical Dash (Austin Abrams) and optimistic Lily (Midori Francis). Trading dares, dreams and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City, they find they have more in common with each other than either expected.

Thacker will play Priya. An Upper East Side party girl and frenemy to Dash. Kreitz will portray Aryn. A vegan riot grrl who’s an older friend to Lily. Stewart will play Roberta. The Den mother of a group of East Village Christmas carolers.

Twice Academy Award-nominated writer-director Hany Abu-Assad is teaming with Abbout Productions, Lebanon’s top indie shingle, on TV series project “The King’s Wives.”

The six-episode fiction, pitched Feb. 25 at the 2020 Berlinale Co-Pro Series, is set to be the first TV drama produced by Abbout, a Beirut-set production house run by Georges Schoucair, best known to date for films with a distinctly Arab voice.

Scheduled to shoot from fall 2021 in Morocco or Turkey, “The King’s Wives” is conceived as a multicultural project, with Palestinian-Dutch Abu-Assad as co-creator and showrunner, production by a Lebanese team, with a cast coming from all over the Arab world and international heads of departments.

A TV drama with humorous elements, set in a modern unnamed Arab monarchy, “The King’s Wives” follows Zein, a revolutionary princess who wants to challenge the monarchy and improve women’s rights.

She aligns with her progressive husband, Prince Malik,...

It’s another big-star MGM romantic comedy, and not exactly a classic. Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford pick their way through a travelogue story that seems made of leftovers from I Love Lucy, inventing flat-farce gimmicks to sex things up without offending the Production Code. What’s the movie most remembered for? It features the exotic concept car that became TV’s Batmobile.

It Started with a Kiss

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1959 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Eva Gabor, Gustavo Rojo, Fred Clark, Edgar Buchanan, Harry Morgan, Robert Warwick, Frances Bavier, Alice Backes, Carmen Phillips, Richard Deacon, Martin Garralaga, Robert Hutton, Morgan Jones, Joi Lansing, Marion Ross, Ralph Taeger, Carleton Young.

Cinematography: Robert J. Bronner

Film Editor: John McSweeney Jr.

Original Music: Jeff Alexander

Written by Charles Lederer story by Valentine Davies

Produced by Aaron Rosenberg

Directed by George...