News

Banijay U.K. has signed a development deal with Ellie Wood, producer of Netflix‘s The Dig and ITV’s Stonehouse, and her company Clearwood Films.

The deal follows on from a first-look agreement between Banijay Rights, Banijay Entertainment’s distribution arm, and Clearwood Films, which ran from 2019. Banijay Rights will continue to distribute Clearwood projects.

The first development project is the acquisition of the rights to Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, generally considered the author’s most successful book, with the option to develop further Pym novels.

Clearwood Films will have access to funding in order to develop ideas and treatments as well as support from central Banijay U.K. resources including finance, legal and business affairs. Once greenlit, Clearwood has the option to partner with Banijay U.K. companies to co-produce.

Patrick Holland, CEO of Banijay U.K., said: “Ellie is a brilliant producer with an established reputation for creating standout,...

Banijay U.K. has signed a development deal with award-winning producer Ellie Wood and her company Clearwood Films and, as the first project, acquired rights to Barbara Pym’s classic 1953 novel “Excellent Women” with an option to develop further Pym books.

Under the terms of the deal, Clearwood will have access to funding to develop ideas and treatments as well as support from central Banijay U.K. resources including finance, legal and business affairs. Once greenlit, Clearwood has the option to partner with Banijay U.K. companies to co-produce. It follows on from a first look deal between Banijay Rights, Banijay’s distribution arm, and Clearwood Films, which ran from 2019. Banijay Rights will continue to distribute Clearwood projects.

“Ellie is a brilliant producer with an established reputation for creating standout, high quality drama,” said Banijay U.K. CEO Patrick Holland. “Banijay Rights have had a successful first look deal in place with Clearwood,...

Ellie Wood, the producer behind Netflix film The Dig, has struck a development deal with Banijay UK and is working an adaptation of Barbara Pym’s ‘Excellent Women’ novels.

Under terms of the agreement with Banijay Entertainment’s British arm, Wood’s Clearwood Films will get access to funding to develop ideas and treatments and support from centralized resources including finance, legal and business affairs.

First up from the partnership is the ‘Excellent Women’ adaptation, based on the novel from much-loved author Pym, whose novels are compared to those of Jane Austen. The book follows the story of a self-depreciating young women living in post-World War II London.

Should Clearwood land greenlights for the likes of ‘Excellent Women’, the producer will have the option to partner with Banijay UK production companies to co-produce.

Clearwood’s upcoming projects include an as-yet unannounced single scripted project for a linear broadcaster and 49 Days,...

Exclusive: Walden Media and Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures are making the Cold War thriller Billion Dollar Spy, with Oscar winner Russell Crowe and Industry’s Harry Lawtey set to headline.

Oscar-winning writer Stephen Gaghan wrote the most recent draft, revising a script penned by Ben August. The screenplay is adapted from the bestselling book by David E. Hoffman.

Amma Asante

BAFTA Award winner Amma Asante will direct. The project is in pre-production.

Set against the high-stakes backdrop of the late Cold War, Billion Dollar Spy follows Adolf Tolkachev (Crowe), an ordinary man who risks everything to pass thousands of pages of top-secret Soviet intelligence to the U.S. Despite repeated rejections by a wary CIA, Tolkachev persisted, embodying the courage to stand against a regime that betrayed its own people. Finally finding an ally in CIA agent Tom Lenihan...

Rebecca Lenkiewitz’s debut feature Hot Milk, based on Deborah Levy’s novel, will now arrive in cinemas in July. More on the film below.

Update: Mubi has announced that writer-director Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s debut feature Hot Milk will now be released on 4th July instead of its original May release date. The drama recently had its world premiere at Berlin International Film Festival and is due to screen at BFI Flare later this month.

Our original story follows…

10th February 2025: Rebecca Lenkiewicz is best known as a writer, having penned the scripts for films like Ida and She Said, but she’s now moving behind the camera.

Her first feature is Hot Milk, a story of a mother and daughter under the hot Spanish sun. The film has quite the cast too; Fiona Shaw, Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps, alongside Vincent Perez star in Lenkiewitz’s debut.

Lenkiewicz...

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong will be among the headline speakers at this year’s inaugural cinema programme at the Hay Literary Festival.

Running from May 22nd to June 1st, the longtime literary festival announced its plans earlier this month to expand with a new sidebar dedicated to cinema in collaboration with Mubi.

The full festival programme was announced this morning and Armstrong will feature in the cinema talks programme alongside Normal People and I May Destroy You intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien, director Marc Evans, producer Ed Talfan and screenwriters Tom Bullough and Josh Hyams (Mr Burton).

Rebecca Lenkiewicz will also pass through Hay to discuss her adaptation of Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk while novelist Robert Harris discusses the adaptation of his novel Conclave.

The festival’s screening programme, taking place at the newly erected Mubi Cinema, will screen titles from the Mubi catalog including Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island,...

Andrew Ahn’s latest feature The Wedding Banquet opens this year’s BFI Flare Film Festival, which runs from March 19 – 30 at the BFI Southbank in London.

It’s a big-ticket title, arriving in London following a debut bow at Sundance with a red-hot cast including Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and serves as a sign of the festival’s continued relevance and mainstream appeal.

Currently the UK’s largest queer film event, Flare is also one of the world’s longest-running queer film festivals. It turns 40 next year. The BFI is already planning a series of celebrations to mark the milestone. Highlights from this year’s lineup, however, include screenings of Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlinale title Hot Milk starring Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps, Lamin Leroy Gibba’s buzzy German series Black Fruit, and Truong Minh Quy’s beloved Cannes title Viet and Nam. The festival will close...

Mubi and Hay Festival have inked a partnership to launch a cinema screening series at this year’s edition of the literary event.

The screening series will run daily at Hay and take place at The Mubi Cinema, a new venue that will launch this year at the festival.

Some of the films set for the fest include Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days and Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. The festival will also hold an onstage in-conversation session on Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk, which Rebecca Lenkiewicz has adapted for the screen for Mubi. The film debuted at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

“We are excited to bring some of our very best Mubi Releases to Hay Festival, as we believe that great cinema transcends traditional spaces,” Tsari Paxton, Director of UK Marketing at Mubi said in a statement. “We hope the thought-provoking films we champion inspire audiences...

Oscar-winning filmmaker Charlie Kaufman is making dreams come true with exciting news about his next feature. According to Deadline, Eddie Redmayne, Tessa Thompson, and Patsy Ferran will help lead Charlie Kaufman’s next film, Later the War, which he will write and direct, based on the short story Debby’s Dream House by Iddo Gefen.

Taken from Gefen’s literary collection Jerusalem Beach, the author’s short story follows a man who manufactures dreams for people but ultimately begins creating nightmares for them. Whether Kaufman’s version will adapt the story to its original form is unknown. Additionally, since it’s a short story, he’s bound to add new details. Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum will produce via Waypoint Entertainment, with Sarah Green of Brace Productions and Steven Demmler.

Eddie Redmayne is coming off his Peacock Original series, The Day of the Jackal, focusing on an elusive assassin who...

The Berlin Film Festival kicked off its 75th anniversary edition February 13 with the opening-night world premiere screening of The Light, Tom Tykwer’s politically charged film that takes stock of German society in the first quarter of the 21st century. It starts 11 days of debuts including for movies starring Jessica Chastain, Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Rupert Friend, Marion Cotillard, Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Emma Mackey and more.

The 2025 Berlinale runs through February 23.

Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.

Blue Moon

Section: Competition

Director: Richard Linklater

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott

Deadline’s takeaway: Richard Linklater’s Broadway chamber piece looks back to a lost time and mourns a lost soul in Lorenz Hart as the booze is about to consume him. In a bravura theatrical performance, Ethan Hawke...

Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud’s latest Dreams (Sex Love) has won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

The film is the third entry in a trilogy from Haugerud. The other films in the trology are Sex and Love, both released in 2024.

Other stand out winners included Andrew Scott and Rose Byrne, who took acting honors during the closing ceremony. Scott picked up Best Supporting Performance for his role in Richard Linklater’s competition title Blue Moon while Byrne won Best Leading Performance for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng won Best Director for Living The Land and Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude won Best Screenplay for Kontinental ’25.

This year’s festival was Tricia Tuttle’s first at the helm. Events began on February 13 with a screening of Tom Tykwer’s latest The Light.

This year’s Berlin Film Festival, under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, moves closer toward popular tastes than arguably under the stead of Carlo Chatrian. He departed the festival last year while leaving behind a legacy of programming a more arthouse-minded slate. Italian cineaste Chatrian came from Locarno as well as more niche festivals throughout Europe; Tuttle is an American with a history of film journalism and programming in the States and at the BFI London.

Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” and the Berlin premiere of “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures) brought stars like Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet (along with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner) to the festival for viral moments that have put an energizing, social-media-friendly spotlight on the European showcase here in the U.S. “Mickey 17” needs all the help it can get, as the sci-fi comedy has been re-dated several times and, in the David Zaslav...

Producers and film professionals from the Arab region discussed their perception of a “quota system” at festivals as well as distribution challenges, during a panel held by the World Cinema Fund in conjunction with Berlinale Talents.

Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Arab film distribution outfit Mad Solutions, suggested that festivals had a “quota” for different regions outside of Europe, including the Arab region.

“While there’s improved space for Arab films at festivals like Cannes and Venice, I always feel like there’s a kind of quota,” said Karkouti. “Like here, media have asked me, ‘how do you feel with Yunan in the main competition?’ This question is asked with good intentions but you’ll never ask that of a European film.”

Comprised of five subsidiaries, Karkouti’s Cairo-headquartered Mad Solutions is involved with film sales, management and marketing for Arab films and runs operations in the UAE, Jordan and Lebanon,...

Spanish seaside entanglements, a combustive mother-daughter relationship, mysterious, painful malaise, the veiled threat of healing and new currents of love trail Ingrid (Vicky Krieps). Nearby, watching her life pass by is Sofia (Emma Mackey), a doctoral student in anthropology and caregiver since she was a young girl to her defiant mother Rose (Fiona Shaw), mostly restricted to a wheelchair. A story of self discovery, queer kindling and medical melancholy among these three fascinating women in a sun-baked setting, Hot Milk, premiering at the 75th Berlinale, is one of the most buzzed new titles in the Competition section. The directorial debut […]

The post You Can Never (Maybe?) Break the Chain: Rebecca Lenkiewicz on Berlinale 2025 Premiere Hot Milk first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Spanish seaside entanglements, a combustive mother-daughter relationship, mysterious, painful malaise, the veiled threat of healing and new currents of love trail Ingrid (Vicky Krieps). Nearby, watching her life pass by is Sofia (Emma Mackey), a doctoral student in anthropology and caregiver since she was a young girl to her defiant mother Rose (Fiona Shaw), mostly restricted to a wheelchair. A story of self discovery, queer kindling and medical melancholy among these three fascinating women in a sun-baked setting, Hot Milk, premiering at the 75th Berlinale, is one of the most buzzed new titles in the Competition section. The directorial debut […]

The post You Can Never (Maybe?) Break the Chain: Rebecca Lenkiewicz on Berlinale 2025 Premiere Hot Milk first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival (March 19-30) has unveiled its full line-up, with 56 features across three strands, exploring subjects such as Kenya’s ballroom scene and the appeal of dating apps.

The programme has films and shorts from 41 countries, with six world premiere features. These include Kenyan filmmaker Njoroge Muthoni’s documentaryHow To Live, which explores Nairobi’s vibrant ballroom scene and celebrates queer African joy.

In Yu-jin Lee’s Manok, the owner of a South Korean lesbian bar must return to her small hometown after clashing with the city’s younger queer community.

Buenos Aires-set comedy drama Few...

British musician and DJ Matthew Herbert has pretty much done it all. After making a name for himself in electronic music (his 2003 manifesto “Personal Contract for the Composition of Music” famously emphasizes “no drum machines”) and launching his label Accidental Records, he ended up remixing such iconic artists as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, and classical composer Gustav Mahler.

His production work has seen him work with the likes of The Zone of Interest composer Mica Levi, Róisín Murphy (one half of the pop duo Moloko), and frequent collaborator and Icelandic songstress Björk. Best known for turning ordinary or so-called found sound into electronic music, he has also become a go-to partner for film and TV creators looking for a score. Cases in point are such films as A Fantastic Woman and Starve Acre, as well as such TV series as The Responder and Noughts and Crosses.

Most recently,...

The use of AI to enhance film sales is a talking point at the EFM, with at least 20 sales agents tellingScreenthe technologywas not for them.

Instead, they continue to use tried-and-true databases, human vendors – and old-fashioned instincts.

“Why would I use AI to generate comps when I know these numbers like the back of my hand?” asked one.

One outlier is Los Angeles-based MonteCristo International, at the EFM with martial arts adventure The Princess, horror Apartment 1303,and romantic comedy Promised.

CEO Michael Taverna said his team has been using Elon Musk’s AI assistant Grok to generate sales projections and to create marketing materials,...

by Elisa Giudici

Hot Milk, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Hot Milk is a hot mess, a disappointing misfire for all involved.

Expectations were high for Rebecca Lenkiewicz's directorial debut. As an acclaimed screenwriter behind the brilliant Polish drama Ida and the emotionally charged Disobedience, she seemed poised to deliver a sensual and compelling contender for the Golden Bear. The film also featured a strong trio of actresses: Sex Education's breakout star Emma Mackey, the ever-impressive Fiona Shaw, and Vicky Krieps—renowned for her sophisticated choices in European cinema. Yet, despite this promising lineup, Hot Milk struggles to find its rhythm and tone, failing to engage its audience from the very beginning...

Day 3 at the Berlin Film Festival was chilly and very pretty in pink.

Timothée Chalamet fired up the Berlinale on Friday by donning a cotton candy-colored hoodie and matching tank top. The “A Complete Unknown” star thoroughly charmed festival attendees. Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeth writes about the Chalamet effect and what it means as film awards season heads into the final stretch. Where Chalamet goes, “the entire scene is electric, and it caps off one of the most gonzo best actor campaigns in Oscar history,” Setoodeh observes.

Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli writes about the poignant moment that the festival represents for Israeli director Tom Shoval. His documentary “A Letter to David” is his way of processing the fact that his friend David Cunio –- who starred in his first feature “Youth” –- is one of the more than 250 hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. As for why the...

Perhaps no one is more excited about the Berlinale than Fiona Shaw.

The Irish actress is no stranger to the German capital — she’s directed a performance at the city’s opera house, Deutsche Oper Berlin — but it is a first appearance at the film festival.

“I’m just going to see everything I can see in any moment I’m not needed by the press,” Shaw, famed for roles in Harry Potter, Jane Eyre and Killing Eve, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m excited that a festival exists in which a lot of people are going to turn up in order to see films. I just admire that that is still what we do.”

This year, attendees will be turning up to see Shaw as the wheelchair-bound Rose in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut, Hot Milk. Based on the bestselling novel by Deborah Levy, (though, as Shaw points out,...

There are numerous first time directors at this year’s Berlinale, but few come with the sort of indie film credits on Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s resume.

The British playwright and screenwriter had worked on the script for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida” alongside the director, on “Disobedience” with Sebastián Lelio and on “Colette” with Wash Westmoreland, before going it alone to turn Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book about their industry-shaking Harvey Weinstein expose into the script that would become Maria Schrader’s “She Said” in 2022.

But with “Hot Milk,” which bowed at the Palaste on Friday, she moved closer to the camera and made it her directorial debut. Adapted (by Lenkiewicz) from Deborah Levy’s book and shot in Greece, the story is set under the hot Spanish summer and follows Sofia, a young woman (Emma Mackey) in a co-dependent relationship with her wheelchair-bound mother Rose (Fiona Shaw...

Fabien Gorgeart’s Rome-set family comedy What Is Love?, starring Laure Calamy and Vincent Macaigne, has sold to key European territories for Ginger and Fed at the EFM.

Distribution deals have been signed with Movies Inspired (Italy), Agora Films (Switzerland), Vertigo Films (Belgium and the Netherlands), Filmladen (Austria), Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais (Portugal), New Cinemas ( Israel) and Prorom Mediatrade.

What Is Love? “a comedy of re-divorce” as Ginger and Fed’s head of sales Sabine Chamely put it, is about a long-divorced couple attempting to annul their Catholic marriage at the Vatican who bring their new families along for a wild...

Paris and London-based Film Constellation has launched sales at the EFM on Ish and revealed a first look at the film from artist Imran Perretta.

London-based filmmaker, composer and visual artist Perretta recieved the Turner Prize bursary in 2020 for his work. His feature debut, shot in black and white, follows two 12-year-old best friends who wrestle to hold onto their friendship in the wake of a police stop and search.

The film stars young newcomers Farhan Hasnat and Yahya Kitana in the leads. Producers of the UK feature are Primal Pictures’ Dhiraj Mahey and Bennett McGhee in association with Good...

UK seller Canoe has locked in a series of theatrical deals for Ukrainian war film, Bucha Unbroken, directed by Stanislav Tiunov and written and produced by Oleksandr Shchur.

It has sold to Cinemundo (Portugal), 9th Plan (Poland), Film Hive (Canada) andLighthouse Home Entertainment (German-speaking Europe). It was released nationwide in Ukraine on November 7.

The film is based on the true story of Konstantin Gudauskas, a Lithuanian Jew, citizen of Kazakhstan, and resident of Ukraine who used his foreign passport to save 203 civilians following the 2022 Russian invasion. Poland’s Cezary Lukaszewicz and Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Dovzhenko star.

“This is a film...

A cantankerous Shaw undercuts her daughter’s summer sexual awakening in this interestingly elusive adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel

Dramatist and film-maker Rebecca Lenkiewicz presents Berlin with a complicated, interestingly elusive Valentine’s Day present: her adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel Hot Milk, which appears to anaesthetise emotional pain with the sensual languour of a summer sexual awakening, that title perhaps alluding to the overheated, unwholesome quality of the mother’s milk metaphorically involved in a parent-child relationship. Or perhaps it ironically inverts the idea of a placidly bedtime drink of northern climes, which is of no earthly interest in the film’s passionately sunny, southern European settings.

Fiona Shaw gives an excellent performance as Rose – querulous, cantankerous, witty – an Irish woman in her 60s using a wheelchair due to some mysterious ailment or psychosomatic condition. If it is the second, what is the cause? She has brought...

The Eternal Daughter: Lenkiewicz Ladles the Milk of Sorrows

Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz makes her directorial debut with Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s comically menacing 2016 novel about a daughter tethered to a mysteriously ailing mother. Or, rather, it’s narrative about the point of un-tethering, fashioned a bit like the reverse situation of the Joseph Conrad novella The End of Tether (1902), wherein an aging sea captain lives solely for the happiness of his child. Having penned a number of high profile femme centered scripts, such as Disobedience (2017) for Sebastian Lelio and She Said (2022) for Maria Schrader, Lenkiewicz returns to a distilled, sinister sense of uneasiness which she mined so eloquently in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (2013), where a relationship between women remains weighted down by a past they’ve been unable to articulate.…...

Sofia takes a picture of Ingrid, her summer friend, at her sewing table. “Your August in Almeria…” murmurs Ingrid (a wonderfully feline Vicky Krieps) as she takes pliant Sofia (Emma Mackey) in her arms. But Almeria doesn’t look much of a romantic idyll here, at least wherever Sofia chooses to go: it’s all industrial sites, mean little lean-to cafes, rocky breakwaters and concrete boxes of holiday shacks, besieged by mosquitoes.

Even the sea, her cool blue refuge, teems with poisonous tentacles. “We should have rented somewhere else,” sniffs her mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) from her wheelchair. “I like it here,” says Sofia mutinously. It’s a very low-level mutiny. Fetching and carrying for her mother is Sofia’s life.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s adaptation of Deborah Levy’s award-winning 2016 novel hums with tension from the first moment we see tourists on a strip of beach in front of bald,...

A mother-daughter relationship is rarely a love story, at least not in any of the ways art has dramatized it thus far. Sure, a mother loves her daughter deeply (and vice-versa), but it is a sentiment defined by ambivalence and often laced with resentment. British writer Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel Hot Milk speaks to the very core of that ambivalence; seasoned screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz has now adapted the acclaimed book into her first foray as a director. Set during a hot and heavy summer in Almería on the southeastern coast of Spain, the blistering Hot Milk follows 25-year-old Sofia (Emma Mackey) and her partially paralyzed mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) as they navigate everyday ailing and maternal traumas, always together and somehow always apart.

“My mom stopped walking when I was four,” Sofia tells the unconventional healer Dr. Gómez (Vincent Perez), who is the reason for their Spanish trip. Rose suffers...

“I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you it was wonderful,” reads the epigraph of Hot Milk. That quote is almost too easy to turn back against the film, but sometimes the simplest way to dismiss something is also the easiest. Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut feels like hell to endure, and none of its mother-daughter drama is wonderful, not least because the screenplay is too self-conscious in its avoidance of verbalization to propel the narrative forward. Lenkiewicz counts on her collaborators to sell the deliberate ambiguities of the story, but nothing sticks to the nebulously designed framework of the film.

Adapted by Lenkiewicz from Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel of the same name, the film never gains momentum within its cascading rhythm of staccato sequences that establish just how out of sync its central mother-daughter pair is. The ailing Rose (Fiona Shaw) suffers from an illness that feels too conveniently metaphoric.

When Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) glides up to Sofia (Emma Mackey) on horseback like a manic-pixie mirage, Sofia immediately allured, or when Ingrid tells Sofia, “Do you have cigarettes? Ok, let’s go,” even though they’ve just met, you want to believe they’re riding on some hidden code of desire, psychically linked strangers sun-baking on the Iberian peninsula of Spain. Ingrid, a German expat styled in a flowy headscarf like a breezy lesbian pirate or swashbuckling bar wench, is such a void of a woman in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut “Hot Milk” that this study of sapphic malaise along the Mediterranean becomes oddly sizzle-less.

Adapting Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel, whose title unsubtly conjures images of breastfeeding among other bodily activities related to reproduction, the “She Said” and “Disobedience” screenwriter casts Mackey and Krieps as lovers among the ruins of Fiona Shaw’s distress. The great Irish actress plays Rose,...

Tilda Swinton brought the heat on a snowy night as the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival opened with a gala that included a career achievement honor presented to the Scottish Oscar winner known for her versatility and adventure.

https://twitter.com/raminsetoodeh/status/1890187574960091425?s=46

As reported by Variety‘s Ellise Shafer in Berlin, Swinton took square aim at the surge of far-right governments that promise to reshape the U.S. and Europe in the coming years.

“The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognize the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet-wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from,” Swinton said during the event held at the Berlinale Palast, about a mile away from the Brandenburg Gate.

This year’s...

The discussion with the cast and crew of Hot Milk quickly got personal on Friday.

British director Rebecca Lenkiewicz debuts her first feature at the Berlin Film Festival this week with stars Fiona Shaw, Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps on her arm.

The movie follows Rose (Shaw) and her daughter Sofia (Mackey) who travel to the Spanish seaside town of Almería to consult with the shamanic Dr. Gomez, a physician who could possibly hold the cure to Rose’s mystery illness.

But in the sultry atmosphere of this sun-bleached town, Sofia, after being trapped by her mother’s illness all her life, finally starts to shed her inhibitions, enticed by the persuasive charms of enigmatic traveler Ingrid (Krieps).

“It’s a big question, and there’s a lot of talk about assisted dying in Britain at the moment,” said Lenkiewicz when asked about the film’s themes of dying with...

Sex Education star Emma Mackey has described starring in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk as a “baptism of fire.”

The movie premiered at the Berlin Film Festival today and is the debut directing project for She Said scribe Lenkiewicz.

Mackey said filming was tough but she heaped praise on Lenkiewicz. “We had to come in on a baptism of fire – it was hot and we didn’t have much time – but [Lenkiewicz] created that environment and surrounded yourself with the right amount of people.”

Based on the novel by Deborah Levy, Hot Milk sees Mackey play Sofia, who embarks on a journey to a Spanish clinic in a search of a medical cure for her mother Rose’s paralysis. Rose is played by Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps stars as Ingrid in the movie, which is distributed by Mubi.

Mackey said there was a “huge amount of trust” on set, which “helped me feel freer.

When Emma Mackey met Vicky Krieps, she couldn’t help but blush.

The two actors play love interests Sofia and Ingrid in “Hot Milk,” Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s feature directorial debut that premieres at Berlin Film Festival on Friday, and the first scene they shot together also marked the first time they’d truly interacted.

“I didn’t get to meet her before we started shooting, and I remember the first scene we shot was on the beach. It’s the first time Sofia sees Ingrid, and Vicky looked at me and I blushed,” Mackey tells Variety. “And that just tells you — I was like, ‘Wow, how did she do that?'”

Based on Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel of the same name, “Hot Milk” follows a daughter and mother — played by Mackey and Fiona Shaw, respectively — who “wrestle with co-dependency and desire by the Spanish seaside,” according to the synopsis. “Yearning for freedom,...

Cinema took over a snowy German capital on Thursday evening as the 2025 Berlin Film Festival officially kicked off with a breezy opening ceremony at the Berlinale Palast Theater.

The ceremony was much shorter than previous editions, with the bulk of the evening serving as the presentation of this year’s Honorary Bear for career achievement, which was handed to veteran actor Tilda Swinton. German filmmaker Edward Berger presented Swinton the award and she gave an impassioned, political speech to the audience inside the Palast.

“The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch,” Swinton began her speech. “I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind, and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognize the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.”

Swinton did not name politicians or specific conflicts but appeared to criticize U.

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...

Andrei Kamarowsky has joined UK sales outfit HanWay Films as director of international sales, replacing Agathe Valentin, who is now sales director at The Match Factory.

He is based in Paris, and reports into Nicole Mackey, HanWay’s director of sales.

Kamarowsky has previously held positions at Europacorp, Orange Studios, Gulf Film and, most recently, distributor About Premium Content.

Kamarowsky will focus on selling to France, Japan, Scandinavia, Benelux, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Portugal, Turkey and South Africa.

His first market for the company will be the upcoming EFM, where HanWay’s slate includes Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut Hot Milk,...

Chinese star Fan Bingbing (I Am Not Madame Bovary, The 355) and German actor/director Maria Schrader (I’m Your Man, She Said) will join jury president Todd Haynes to judge the competition films at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale announced Thursday.

Berlin unveiled its international jury for the 2025 event, which runs Feb. 13-23, which will see the Far from Heaven and Carol director heading up the four-woman, three-man jury that will pick this year’s Gold and Silver Bear winners.

Alongside Fan and Schrader, the 2025 Berlinale jury includes Moroccan-French director Nabil Ayouch (Much Loved, Horses of God), German costume designer Bina Daigeler (TÁR, Mulan), Argentine director Rodrigo Moreno (The Delinquents), and American critic and podcast host Amy Nicholson.

Haynes has a long history with the Berlinale. His debut feature Poison won the Teddy Award, for LGBTQ+ cinema, at Berlin in 1991.

The 75th Berlinale kicks off with...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the competition jury of its 75th edition, including Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (“Everybody Loves Touda”), German costume designer Bina Daigeler (Tár), Argentinian director Rodrigo Moreno (“The Delinquents”), film critic Amy Nicholson and actress-director Maria Schrader (“She Said”).

As previously announced, the jury will be presided over by “May December” filmmaker Todd Haynes.

Earlier this month, the festival announced an exciting lineup, including Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley, and Michel Franco’s “Dreams” with Jessica Chastain. Other notable titles on the competition roster include “Hot Milk,” the feature debut of acclaimed screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (“She Said”) starring Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps; and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Mary Bronstein’s film starring Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brien.

A pair of Chinese movies, “Girls on Wire” (“Xiang fei...

The drama series Miss Austen, which explores why Jane Austen letters were burned after her death by her sister Cassandra, is ready for its debut on the BBC this coming Sunday, and it features some big British names. The cast of the show, launching in the year marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, includes Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard, Line of Duty, It’s a Sin) as Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra or Cassy, Synnøve Karlsen (Last Night in Soho, Clique) as young Cassy, Patsy Ferran (Living, Hot Milk) as young Jane, Liv Hill (The Serpent Queen, Elizabeth Is Missing) as young Mary Austen, Madeleine Walker as young Eliza Fowle, Jessica Hynes (Life After Life, Years and Years) as Mary Austen, Rose Leslie as Isabella Fowle (The Good Fight, Downton Abbey, Death on the Nile, Vigil), Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey, Shetland) as Mrs. Austen, Max Irons (Condor, The Wife) as...

Good afternoon Insiders, welcome back, Max Goldbart here with your weekly dose of news as the Oscars gets a step closer. Scroll on. And sign up here.

‘Emilia’ Marches On

Records tumbling: As was widely expected, French musical crime drama Emilia Pérez could be in for a record-breaking Oscar night in a few weeks after landing a whopping 13 Academy Award noms. Jacques Audiard’s movie is already smashing ceilings, garnering the most noms for a film not in English and seeing star Karla Sofia Gascón become the first openly trans person ever to be nominated in an acting category. If Emilia Pérez wins the international prize, it will be the first French pic to do so in more than 30 years. That category, which we of course keep a close eye on, is dominated by Europeans, featuring Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Latvia’s Flow and Denmark’s The Girl With The Needle.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a documentary filmed undercover showing Russian propaganda, that will have its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 25.

The film has sold to broadcasters in Sweden (Svt), Norway (Nrk), Vrpo (the Netherlands) and Rts (French-speaking Switzerland) ahead of its launch. Denmark-based sales firm Dr Sales will be conducting further sales including for theatrical releases following the world premiere, with Cinetic handling the North America rights.

It was the first title in the World Documentary programme at this year’s Sundance to sell out all its screenings, with...

Emma Mackey y Vicky Krieps protagonizan la película. © Caramel Films

Ya se han dado a conocer las películas que competirán por el Oso de Oro en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Berlín –más conocido como Berlinale– en su 75 edición, que se celebrará del 13 al 23 de febrero.

Entre las películas a concurso está Agua salada, el debut como directora de Rebecca Lenkiewicz, la guionista detrás de títulos como Ida, Al descubierto y Colette.

Esta ópera prima, basada en la aclamada novela Leche caliente de Deborah Levy, se traslada –o más o menos, porque la grabación fue en Grecia– al abrasador paisaje almeriense. Almería se convierte en un lienzo épico para una íntima exploración del sexo, el amor y los lazos que nos unen a todos.

El filme sigue a Sofía y su madre, Rose, en su viaje desde Gran Bretaña hasta la costa de Almería. Lejos de la rutina y el control de su madre,...

Athens-based sales agent Heretic has added Slovenian director Urška Djukić’s “Little Trouble Girls,” which has its world premiere in Berlin Film Festival’s Perspectives section – dedicated to fiction feature debuts – to its slate. The trailer debuts below.

The film focuses on introverted 16-year-old Lucia, who joins her Catholic school’s all-girl choir, where she befriends Ana-Maria, a popular and flirty third-year student. But when the choir travels to a countryside convent for a weekend of intensive rehearsals, Lucia’s interest in a dark-eyed restoration worker tests her friendship with Ana-Maria and the other girls. As she navigates unfamiliar surroundings and her budding sexuality, Lucia begins to question her beliefs and values, disrupting the harmony within the choir.

In a statement, Djukić said: “I began by exploring the female voice, which has been silenced so often throughout history. This led me to the awkward relationship with sexuality, sin, and feelings of guilt.

The Berlin International Film Festival has revealed an impressive selection of films for its upcoming 75th edition, blending Hollywood star power with global cinema. The event, known as the Berlinale, will run for 11 days starting February 13.

The festival will open with “The Light,” a refugee drama by German director Tom Tykwer. Nineteen films will compete for the coveted Golden and Silver Bear awards, with new festival director Tricia Tuttle steering the program toward films that balance artistic merit with audience appeal.

Hollywood heavyweight Richard Linklater leads the high-profile entries with “Blue Moon,” starring Ethan Hawke. The film tells the story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart and features a strong supporting cast including Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott.

Jessica Chastain headlines Michel Franco’s new drama “Dreams,” playing a socialite who falls for an immigrant ballet dancer. This marks the second partnership between Chastain and Franco, following their work on “Memory.

Gold Derby’s top news stories for Jan. 21, 2025. Berlin International Film Festival lineup revealed

The Berlin International Film Festival unveiled its full 2025 lineup Tuesday, which includes new films from Richard Linklater and Michael Franco in competition. Linklater’s Blue Moon, starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott, follows the final days of Lorenz Hart, half of the Rodgers & Hart songwriting team.

Franco’s Dreams, about a Mexican ballet dancer pursuing his dream in San Francisco, reunites him with Jessica Chastain and also stars Isaac Hernández, Rupert Friend, and Marshall Bell. Other competition highlights include What Does That Nature Say to You from four-time Silver Bear winner Hong Sang-soo, screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut Hot Milk, and Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which stars Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, and Ivy Wolk.

See the full lineup here. The...

Tricia Tuttle, the new head of the Berlin International Film Festival, could have hoped for an easier start.

Tuttle, who was head of the BFI London Film Festival from 2018 to 2023, takes over the Berlinale (the world’s largest public film festival) after an Annus horribilis.

Last year’s event ended in chaos, with a furious political debate about the war in Gaza overshadowing any discussion of the movies. To make matters worse, Berlin saw its budget slashed, with cuts in government funding and a loss of major corporate sponsors coming up against rising costs due to inflation. At the same time, the expectations have only grown, with film fans and market attendees eager to see the Berlinale return to its past glory when it was counted alongside Cannes and Venice as one of the world’s top three film festivals.

Asked to do more with less, Tuttle has, impressively, pulled it off.

The lineup for the 75th Berlin International Film Festival has been unveiled, with 19 films competing for the coveted Golden Bear. Outside of those, the festival will also host the world premiere of Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, have a screening of James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown and offer up Tom Tykwer’s latest, The Light, which will be opening the festival.

Here is the full competition lineup for this year’s Berlin International Film Festival:

Ari – Léonor Serraille

Blue Moon – Richard Linklater

La cache (The Safe House) – Lionel Baier

Dreams – Michel Franco

Drømmer (Dreams (Sex Love)) – Dag Johan Haugerud

Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What Does That Nature Say to You) – Hong Sangsoo

Hot Milk – Rebecca Lenkiewicz

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – Mary Bronstein

Kontinental ’25 – Radu Jude

El mensaje (The Message) – Iván Fund

Mother’s Baby – Johanna Moder

O último azul (The Blue Trail) – Gabriel Mascaro

Reflet...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for the 2025 edition, running February 13-23. It’s the first official lineup overseen by new artistic director and former BFI London Film Festival leader Tricia Tuttle, who succeeds Carlo Chatrian and brings her background as an American journalist and curator to the annual German showcase. She’s also working with co-directors of programming, Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz, to help reposition the Berlinale’s profile among the great global film festivals and lure bigger-name filmmakers in the process.

This year’s lineup, announced Tuesday, January 21, features new films from Richard Linklater, Michel Franco, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Hong Sangsoo (“What Does That Nature Say to You”), Radu Jude (“Kontinental ’25”), and Lucile Hadžihalilović (“The Ice Tower”). Already confirmed in the mix are “Mickey 17” from Bong Joon Ho and Ira Sachs’ Sundance premiere “Peter Hujar’s Day,” plus Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” opening the festival.