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Since its launch in 2015, the Berlinale Series section has emerged as a kind of a boutique scripted TV fest set within a major film festival.

The Berlinale was famously the first A-list festival to embrace changing viewer habits and to officially incorporate television drama into its lineup — and this head-start is reflected in the growing stature of Berlinale Series.

Taking place over a concentrated three-day period (Feb. 14-16), Berlinale Series offers up seven world and international premieres from around 200 entries, giving each of them the red-carpet treatment at the Zoo Palast cinema.

Running parallel, the Berlinale Series Market — part of the European Film Market — offers up an online conference program, showcases and screenings. Its Berlinale Series Market Selects curates a selection of 14 series being traded on the market. Meanwhile, Co-Pro Series looks to pair 10 early-stage international series projects with co-producers and financiers through a series of pitches and meetings.

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Nordic production powerhouse Miso Film, which looks to make a splash at the Berlinale Series with its daring HBO Max show “Lust,” is developing high-end international dramas with Scandinavian creatives such as Pilou Asbæk (“Borgen”), Ole Bornedal (“Nightwatch”) and Fenar Ahmad (“Darkland”). The company is part of Fremantle.

Ahead of the Berlinale, Miso founders Peter Bose and Jonas Allen discussed with Variety their ambition to find new voices and original ways to tell stories.

The banner, which just started shooting the third season of “Those Who Kill” and is about to begin filming Season 3 of “Face to Face” with Lars Mikkelsen, recently shot Norwegian sci-fi comedy “Blasted,” for Netflix. “Streamers have opened up new possibilities for genre,” said Allen.

“‘Blasted’ is now in post and is a mix of science fiction and comedy with a lot of CGI,” added Allen. He and Bose said working with streaming series has also...

Endeavor Content is investing in new Scandinavian production start-up Nordic Drama Queens, an outfit launched by three Scandi TV veterans focused on developing and producing high-end series for the global market.

Josefine Tengblad, formerly Head of Drama at Swedish network TV4/CMore and a producer whose credits include Blinded, Top Dog, and Agatha Christie’s Hjerson, set up Nordic Drama Queens together with former Miso Films managing director Sandra Harms (438 Days, Lust) and Line Winther Skyum Funch a former executive producer at Sweden’s Yellow Bird, whose credits include the Millennium trilogy, Occupied and Thin Ice.

Financial details weren’t disclosed.

Endeavor’s Scandinavian move follows a similar equity ...

Endeavor Content is investing in new Scandinavian production start-up Nordic Drama Queens, an outfit launched by three Scandi TV veterans focused on developing and producing high-end series for the global market.

Josefine Tengblad, formerly Head of Drama at Swedish network TV4/CMore and a producer whose credits include Blinded, Top Dog, and Agatha Christie’s Hjerson, set up Nordic Drama Queens together with former Miso Films managing director Sandra Harms (438 Days, Lust) and Line Winther Skyum Funch a former executive producer at Sweden’s Yellow Bird, whose credits include the Millennium trilogy, Occupied and Thin Ice.

Financial details weren’t disclosed.

Endeavor’s Scandinavian move follows a similar equity ...

Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrova, who won Locarno Film Festival’s Golden Leopard in 2016 with “Godless,” is readying her second feature, “Lust,” which will be presented during Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Co-production Market over the coming week.

Produced by Poli Angelova and Petrova for Aporia Filmworks, in collaboration with Screening Emotions, the project has been backed by the Bulgarian National Film Center and Danish Film Institute, with Copenhagen-based Snowglobe on board as well, reuniting with the director following their collaboration on “Godless.”

The film will focus on fortysomething Lilian, forced to return to her native Bulgaria after becoming her estranged father’s heir. She wants nothing to do with his legacy, but a near-death experience delays her departure, forcing Lilian to address her life-long fear of commitment.

“All the characters interacting throughout the film are more or less incapable of receiving and reciprocating love. But there is a possibility for an awakening,...

What makes Ted Lasso stand out in the sea of television is its refusal to treat its characters like jokes.

Ted Lasso characters say and do funny things, but they aren't jokes.

Not even Jamie Tartt.

If he was treated like a joke, Jamie Tartt: reality TV star would've lasted for a few more episodes as a comic relief C-plot. A potentially funny but ultimately empty story.

Instead, the show ran a trick play on us.

Jamie joining Lust Conquers All initially seemed like character regression but surprisingly furthered his character development.

He didn't become a reality star to stroke his ego or to shove his growing fame down Ted and his former teammates' throats. Instead, he did it to remove the toxic influence of his father.

Pretty enlightening behavior for Jamie. Even better, when he hit rock bottom, he had the self-awareness to seek out Keeley's help and let...

HBO Max has greenlighted the Swedish original comedy Lust, starring The Bridge actress Sofia Helin and produced by Fremantle-backed Miso Film. It comes ahead of HBO Max’s launch in the Scandinavian country later this year.

Co-starring Anja Lundqvist, Julia Dufvenius and Elin Klinga, the eight-part series is billed as an outrageous and painfully honest comedy about four middle-aged women in Stockholm struggling to keep their libidos alive in a sexually frustrating world.

Anette (Helin), Nadia (Lundqvist), Ellen (Dufvenius) and Martina (Klinga) have all been friends since school. When they find out that Anette is conducting a government survey dubiously dubbed “Make Sweden Sexy Again,” they are intrigued. Is good sex — or the lack thereof — impacting the health of Swedish women over 40?

Lust is written by Frans Milisic Wiklund, based on an idea and in close collaboration with Åsa Kalmér, Dufvenius, Helin and Lundqvist. Ella Lemhagen directs, while the...

HBO Max has ordered a daring Swedish comedy series entitled “Lust” from Fremantle-owned banner Miso Film, ahead of its launch in Sweden.

The new Max Original half-hour series will be headlined by Sofia Helin (“The Bridge”), Anja Lundqvist, Julia Dufvenius and Elin Klinga as four middle-aged women in Stockholm who have been friends since school and are struggling to keep their libidos alive.

The series starts with one of them, Anette, getting commissioned to conduct a government survey dubiously dubbed ‘Make Sweden Sexy Again.’ She starts looking into the sex lives of Swedish women over 40 who have to juggle their careers, kids, marriages, divorces and physical shape.

Directed by Ella Lemhagen (“The Crown Jewels”), the series is written by Frans Milisic Wiklund, in close collaboration with Åsa Kalmér, Dufvenius, Helin and Lundqvist.

The show is produced by Sandra Harms and Karl Fredrik Ulfung at Miso Film, and executive produced by...

Bafta’s highest accolade will be presented to the director of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee is to be honoured with a Bafta Fellowship at the Bafta Film Awards on Sunday (April 11).

Lee is a four-time Bafta award-winner for Sense And Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain. He also won best director at the Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life Of Pi.

The Fellowship is Bafta’s highest accolade, awarded in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film, and has previously been given to Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick,...

Pre-sales also closed on crime feature ‘Dirty Money’.

South Korea’s Acemaker movieworks is launching sales ahead of the EFM on Remember, a Korean remake of Atom Egoyan’s 2015 Nazi-hunter film that starred the late Christopher Plummer.

The thriller, in post-production, is directed by Lee Il-hyung, whose 2016 crime film A Violent Prosecutor recorded 9.7 million admissions and took $69.5m at the local box office. Leading cast members include Lee Sung-min (The Man Standing Next) and Nam Joo-hyuk (The Great Battle).

The story is set in Korea where a retired octogenarian soldier with dementia goes in search of vengeance against pro-Japanese collaborators,...

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“The Weapon Of Sex”

By Raymond Benson

The great Taiwanese director Ang Lee has worked in Asia and in Hollywood, delivering an impressive array of motion pictures that have won awards, made money, and wowed audiences. A handful of his titles that includes Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012) place him on a top tier of filmmakers working today. He’s also won two Oscars for Best Director for the latter two titles.

Lee’s 2007 feature that came after the success of Brokeback Mountain was Lust, Caution, a Hong Kong/American co-production that won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, made some waves in Asia and other markets internationally, but was, sadly, little seen in the West. That said, Focus Features, which distributed the picture, has said that Lust, Caution...

Lifetime has set April premiere dates and announced the full cast for two movies in the Seven Deadly Sins anthology. The movies are based on the first two books in Victoria Christopher Murray’s series, Lust and Envy, executive produced by Bishop T.D. Jakes. The projects initially were announced in 2019.

Lust: A Deadly Sins Saga (wt) premieres on Saturday, April 17 at 8 pm Et/Pt and stars Keri Hilson (Love By The 10th Date), Tobias Truvillion (One Life to Live), and Durrell ‘Tank’ Babbs (The New Edition Story) with special appearances by Ms. Juicy and Letoya Luckett. Envy: A Deadly Sins Saga (wt) premieres on Saturday, April 24 at 8 pm Et/Pt and stars Serayah (Empire), Rose Rollins (The L Word), and Kandi Burruss (Real Housewives of Atlanta) with special appearances by Da Brat and DC Young Fly. Clifton Powell appears in both films.

Jakes and Derrick Williams serve as executive producers on the films,...

Exclusive Update, 10/14/20 02:00Am: Korean major Cj’s in-house sales arm, which previously handled international rights on Parasite, has boarded sales on Park Chan-Wook’s next movie Decision To Leave, Deadline has learned. As per our earlier story, the film, a mystery romance, begins shooting this month.

Previously, 10/13/20 10:30Am: South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook is set to roll cameras on mystery romance pic Decision To Leave this month.

Tang Wei and Park Hye-il (The Host) will star as the protagonists, with Lee Jung-hyun, Go Kyung-pyo and Park Yong-woo also in the cast, according to a report in The Korea Herald.

The movie centers on an honest police officer looking into a suspicious death that occurs on a mountain, and he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife.

The script was co-written with Jeong Seo-kyeong, who also wrote on Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden. Producers are Moho Film...

Veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, one of Venice’s two Career Golden Lion recipients this year alongside Tilda Swinton, brings prewar Hong Kong to exquisite if restrained life in her latest historical drama, Love After Love (Di Yu Lu Xiang). This is the veteran Hong Kong New Wave filmmaker’s third adaptation of a work by Chinese-born writer Eileen Chang, whose writings were also the basis for Hui’s Love In a Fallen City from 1984 and 1997’s Eighteen Springs, as well as another film from the Biennale’s storied history: Ang Lee’s Golden Lion winner Lust, Caution. Besides Hui at the helm, the involvement of star ...

Veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, one of Venice’s two Career Golden Lion recipients this year alongside Tilda Swinton, brings prewar Hong Kong to exquisite if restrained life in her latest historical drama, Love After Love (Di Yu Lu Xiang). This is the veteran Hong Kong New Wave filmmaker’s third adaptation of a work by Chinese-born writer Eileen Chang, whose writings were also the basis for Hui’s Love In a Fallen City from 1984 and 1997’s Eighteen Springs, as well as another film from the Biennale’s storied history: Ang Lee’s Golden Lion winner Lust, Caution. Besides Hui at the helm, the involvement of star ...

The company is selling titles including ‘Protector’, ‘Dirty Money’ and ‘New Year Blues’ at the online Marche.

South Korean financier, producer and distributor Acemaker movieworks is launching its own sales unit at the Cannes virtual market.

Headed by former M-Line Distribution executive Jamie Seo, the company’s international business team is selling films including the directorial debut of leading Korean actor Jung Woo-sung, Protector (working title). The kidnap revenge thriller, which stars Jung with Kim Nam-gil and Park Sung-woong, is currently in production.

Acemaker also has Kim Tae-yong’s sci-fi drama Wonderland (working title) in production. Set in a world...

Netflix has confirmed that 47 new original movies, series, documentaries and specials will be debuting on the streaming service in June. Leading off the lineup are the debut of “Da 5 Bloods,” a film by Oscar winner Spike Lee about four Vietnam vets revisiting their past, and the second season of Ryan Murphy‘s satire “The Politician.” And just in time for Pride is season 5 of “Queer Eye.”

The documentary slate is filled with such varied films as “Spelling the Dream” about the Scripps National Spelling Bee, “Lenox Hill” about the staff of the famed New York hospital, and “Athlete A” about the sexually abuse scandal that rocked the Us gymnastics team

And in these trying times, we can take comfort in the slew of stand-up specials, including new sets by George Lopez, Jo Koy and Eric Andre, as well as such lighter fare as the Will Ferrell comedy “Eurovision Song...

DVD Release Date: July 31, 2012

Price: DVD $19.98

Studio: Raro Video/Entertainment One

Elizabeth Turner turns up the heat in Waves of Lust.

Sex and violence flows freely in Italian genre filmmaker Ruggero Deodato’s 1975 thriller Waves of Lust.

The movie focuses on two carefree youngsters, Irem (Al Cliver) and Barbara (Silvia Dionisio), who are invited for a weekend cruise on a yacht owned by Giorgio (John Steiner), a ruthless and cynical industrialist, who is married to Silvia (Elizabeth Turner), a disturbed woman who allows herself to be physically and mentally abused by him. Silvia then forms a love triangle with Irem and Barbara who conspire against Giorgio, whose misogyny and paranoia pushes him over the edge into murder.

A minor cult film like many of Deodato’s imports (his most popular remains the 1980 gross-out Cannibal Holocaust), Waves of Lust is initially reminiscent of Roman Polanski’s (Carnage) 1962 thriller Knife in the Water.