Justin Hardy, the son of Director Robin Hardy (Dir: original The Wicker Man), dies at 61. His recently finished Wrath of the Gods, based on a concept his father wrote as the final installment of The Wicker Man trilogy, will premiere at Frightfest in London on Aug 28.

Saban Films (Prod Co: Vivarium) acquires US rights to UK Haunted House horror film The Caged, starring Tamzin Merchant (Salem). The film follows a family terrorized by a ghostly being after they move into a cottage in an isolated English coastal town. The Coven (Prod Co: Terrifier 3) handles international sales.

Danny Ramirez (actor: Top Gun: Maverick) and Demián Bichir (Academy-Award nominated actor: A Better Life) are now EPs on Desert Angel (trailer), a documentary that took over five years to film. The powerful doc chronicles the life and work of a volunteer rescuer, Rafael Larraenza, who has dedicated his life to finding missing migrants in the U.S.-Mexico border. Releasing mid-October.

From Goodfellas to Sesame Street, the historic Queens-based Kaufman Astoria Studios is under new management by Shadowbox Studios. Consisting of 11 soundstages, Kaufman will be added to Shadowbox’s network of studios, joining their Atlanta, UK, and Australia locations.

RTVE (state-owned media broadcaster of Spain) boards the feature Blanco, directed by Félix Viscarret (Dir: Una vida no tan simple). The film follows the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Basque politician Miguel Ángel Blanco. RTVE joins Netflix and Universal Pictures International Spain on this project.

Australian production company Forte Corp Pictures (Prod Co: Better Man) hires Brendan Campbell as head of production. Campbell was previously at Matchbox Pictures (Prod Co: NBC’s Young Rock) to provide production services.

Untold Stories (VFX: The Boys) hires Adrianna Cohen as the President of Film and Episodic.

La La Land is dancing its way back to Venice. In celebration of its 10th anniversary, La La Land in Concert will headline the 83rd Venice Film Festival’s Cartier Cinema Club program, honoring Damien Chazelle’s six-time Oscar-winning film in the very city where it made its world premiere a decade ago.

Paris-based Luxbox Films has acquired Life of Jorge Luis Borges, the five-and-a-half-hour documentary chronicling the life of the famed Argentine poet from the papers and books he left behind. Filmmaker Mariano Llinás’ epic will premiere in Venice’s Open-Non-Fiction section.

The Pool Films has taken world rights to The Color of the Sun, the directorial debut of photographer Xavier Tera. The coming-of-age drama sees a group of friends’ final summer before graduation interrupted by a new boy from one of the island’s U.S. military bases. The film will premiere in Venice’s Horizon section.

Zombie comedy Grandmonster cracked up the Fantasia Frontières market, winning the top Outpost Award this past weekend. The feature-length directorial debut of filmmaker Vegard Dahle, Grandmonster sees an American dropout unintentionally trigger a zombie outbreak in a Norwegian nursing home, and despite its dark premise, the film was welcomed with big laughs and multiple prizes boosting momentum for the feature ahead of production.

Ahead of the 2027 awards, the British Academy has announced a number of changes regarding eligibility and voting rules. One of the major changes is with the Outstanding British Film category expanding the longlist from 15 films to 20, while retaining its 10 nominations. The 80th BAFTA awards will take place Feb. 21, 2027; see the full list of changes here.

Japanese action star Tak Sakaguchi (Re: Born) will play opposite Iko Uwais (The Raid franchise) in martial arts film Pendekar: Warrior. Set on the dangerous streets of Jakarta, Uwais plays a feared traditional Silat master who is recently released from prison and is forced to fight again when his old neighborhood gets taken over by a crime organization.

France’s National Film Board (CNC) is putting its money where its mouth is. Beginning Jan. 1st, films that fail to meet diversity and representation requirements in key creative positions (at least 40% women) will now receive less public funding in an effort to meet gender targets.

Heather Phillips, who’d been working on a freelance basis for Black Bear (prod co: Train Dreams, Sing Sing), now takes a full-time role as the Head of Publicity. Bianca Parkes will join the company as head of marketing.

From Charlie’s Angels to Gilmore Girls, cinematographer Richard M. Rawlings Jr. has died at 82. A third-generation cinematographer, Rawlings got his start as a messenger at Warner Bros, years later scoring his first Emmy nomination for the CBS Western series Paradise (1988-91), going on to work another three decades in television.

Parallax Films boards worldwide sales for Singapore wuxia science-fiction feature The House on the Moon. The film will be a blend of science fiction and martial arts, drawing from the ancient Chinese myth of the moon goddess Chang’e and legendary warrior Hou Yi.

Idris Elba’s production company, 22Summers, is partnering with Nigeria’s Nile Media and the UK genre firm Action Xtreme. They will create a slate of action films set in West Africa, one of which Elba will EP and direct.

SkyShowtime (European Streamer for Paramount) reveals new Spanish series Death in Llanes. The show follows the murder investigation of a famous politician in the city of Llanes.

Alternativa launches a distribution arm focused on bringing international films to TV and streaming platforms. Their first batch of projects includes If Only I Could Hibernate and Poet, which screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.

Fandango Sales (Dist: Vittorio De Sica – Staging Life) acquires drama The Chilean, ahead of its Locarno premiere. The film follows a Chilean miner who flees to Turin in search of a new life, but his talent for bomb-making keeps dragging him into dangerous situations. It will have its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival next month.

Icelandic production company Glassriver has teamed up with Germany’s ZDF Studios’ Network Movie to adapt Áróra, the bestselling five-part crime series from author Lilja Sigurðardóttir. Set between Iceland and London, the thriller follows a fraud investigator whose search for her missing sister turns into a much wider criminal investigation.

Irish Production company Playhouse Studios buys assets of Halo Post (Post-Prod: Poor Things). Playhouse Studios will launch their own post house, Playhouse Post, based on Halo Post and another British post-production company, LipSync (Post Prod: 500 Miles starring Bill Nighy).

Australian streamer SBS On Demand buys Icelandic-Portuguese series, Cold Haven. The film follows a criminal investigation of the murder of a Portuguese woman who relocated to Iceland in search of a better life.

Czech-Indian zombie romcom Cold Feet adds international production partners. Poland’s Telemark, France’s Ici et Là Productions, and India’s LaSutra Pictures all board the film’s production team.

Remember Oscar-winning animated short Logorama? The Prod co behind the film, Autour de Minuit, just boarded a new animation, The March of the Sunflowers, which centers on a young girl’s search for her farm’s missing rooster, which thrusts her entire world into darkness. Still above.

Craig Kilborn (The Kilborn File) is making a directorial debut with The Life Golden, starring Lauren German (Lucifer) and Tom Byrne (Netflix’s The Crown). The film is a stylish murder mystery that follows an ex-TV personality as he gets pulled into a shocking crime that throws his perfect Hollywood Hills life into chaos.

A European–Latin near–future sci-fi series, Numana, is being packaged starring Itziar Ituño, who played the lead police investigator in Money Heist. The series follows two genetically identical women who swap identities in order to bring down an all-powerful Big Brother AI system. It seems like perhaps these women come from different social stratospheres, and they dig into this disparity to expose the true flaws of the system. Money Heist dug into similar notions of populus with Ituño’s character at one point in the series flipping from officer to be part of the bank robbing crew. The show is from Clara Films.

Netflix appoints Ana María Londoño (Wri: Telenovela Juegos Prohibidos) as head of content, Colombia

Writer-producer John Zaring is returning to narrative filmmaking with his newest screenplay, The Very Thought of You, a jazz-infused romance. After spending much of the last two decades producing celebrity-driven events and sports broadcasts with ESPN and FOX Sports, this will mark his first feature since the 2001 romantic comedy Pursuit of Happiness. Set in Los Angeles’ Eagle Rock neighborhood, the new film follows two wounded musicians finding connection through their shared love of music.

Sundance winner Who Killed Alex Odah? is acquired by Watermelon Pictures (Palestine 36, shortlisted for the Academy Awards). The feature doc won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the true story of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian American teacher who was killed by a tripwire bomb explosion in his office.

AF México acquires the remake rights to Follemente (2025, Trailer), one of the highest-grossing Italian films of 2025, with more than $21M. The Mexican adaptation will be titled Love and Mind, following two people as they try to impress each other on their first dates while the different personalities living in their brains fight for control. Imagine Inside Out (2015) for adults.

Warp Films (Prod Co: Netflix’s Adolescence) appointed Peter Balm as their Managing Director. Balm joined the company in 2012 and most recently was the commercial director. In his new role, he will be in charge of Warp Films’ commercial strategy and operations.

Australian sales exec Julie Dowding is retiring after a decade at All3Media (Prod Co: UK Shameless). She was most recently a Senior VP of the company’s Australia and New Zealand division. Micah Hewson, the former ITV Studios exec, will take over the Australian duties.

Global Constellation (sales rep: Jim Queen) picks up international sales on The Long Haul. The film will premiere at Tribeca and stars 3x Emmy winner Margo Martindale as a long-haul trucker who’s been running from a dark truth for decades.

With Randolph attached to the project, we would love to see him take a dark-comedy take on the Muppets that recounts how one of the most silly and popular children’s TV shows made its way into Russia. We would love to see how the production team of Sesame Street had to deal with bombings, political violence, assassinations, and a military takeover of the production office.

Mini Tidbits:

Kino Lorber has locked in North American distribution for The Story of Documentary Film, a 16-part film that looks at the history of nonfiction cinema around the globe. Mark Cousins’ groundbreaking film has been making the festival rounds, earlier this year premiering at Sundance, shortly after at Berlinale, with chapters 6 and 7 most recently playing at Cannes Classics. Dogwoof also sold the film to Madman in Australia, IWonder in Italy, and Filmin in Spain.

Wild Duck Productions (Barcelona-based Distributor) acquires rights to Indian folk horror Bokshi. The film follows a troubled teen who follows a history teacher on a trek to an ancient site called “The Navel”, where strange things start to happen. The film is aiming for a Halloween theatrical release.

French founder of tech company Mirakl, Adrien Nussenbaum, is launching Palatio Films, a new production company making its Cannes debut with WWII title When Night Falls. From actor turned director Daniel Auteuil, the film is the first in a series of history-centered projects a part of Palatio’s upcoming slate.

Hit BBC comedy Black Ops is coming to the US, with the show creator and star Akemnji Ndifornyen confirming a Hollywood remake was in the works. The timing isn’t coincidental with the BBC renewing the original series for a third season yesterday.

UK pay-TV titan Sky (SNL UK) has promoted Shirley Jones to Head of Entertainment Commissioning. First joining back in 2015, Jones most recently worked on Sky’s biggest entertainment launch in five years with reality comedy series The Dyers’ Caravan Park.

Eve Myles (Gone), Rory Kinnear (Black Mirror), Eleanor Tomlinson (One Day), and David Thewlis (Lupin in Harry Potter film franchise) star in Channel 4’s comedy-thriller Wrong Move. The series follows three couples caught in a property-buying chain that collapses overnight.

Dead Man’s Wire producer Robbie Kruithoff has launched Wrong Turn Productions, an indie studio focused on projects that appeal to a global audience. Wrong Turn is currently co-financing Queen of the Falls, starring Pamela Anderson and Guy Pearce, with Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo (Sirat).

London-based sales group Together Films (In Camera) has picked up the international rights to Lisa & Lilly, a Swedish romance drama from Fifth Season’s Nordic Drama Queens. The feature-length debut of Julia Lindström (Netflix’s Young Royals), the film is described as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

Kristen Stewart is EPing Sundance doc Barbara Forever. It is an exploration of the life, work, and cultural impact of filmmaker Barbara Hammer. Strand Releasing just acquired North American rights. Christine Vachon EPs. Wide release Sept 4.

Magenta Light Studios (California Schemin) picks up Lice starring Emile Hirsch, Justin Long, and Kevin Connolly, about a parasitic lice outbreak that sends a high school into military lockdown. First look: frying oil. Releasing Q1 2027.

Uri Singer’s Passage Pictures (White Noise) has secured the film rights to In the Blue with writing-directing duo Delilah Napier and Lucy Powers (Floating Carousel) attached. The film follows a struggling actress hired to tutor a wealthy student abroad on his family’s luxury yacht trip, yet the glamorous gig quickly turns into a dangerous nightmare.

Country singer Jana Kramer (One Tree Hill) is making her directorial debut with the music drama Love Song for My Texas Ranger, in which she will also star. The film will follow a struggling singer (Kramer) returning to her Texas hometown and falling in love with a Texas Ranger (Ryan Rottman).

Some of Europe’s biggest names are speaking out. Francis Ford Coppola, Joachim Trier (dir. Sentimental Value), Sandra Hüller (Project Hail Mary), and almost 5,000 more make up an open letter urging the EU to reconsider proposed funding changes that would consolidate all media spending into a single umbrella, which could have negative effects on the European indie film industry.

Variance Films (Distributed RRR) to oversee theatrical distribution of Orlando von Einsiedel’s (Netflix’s Evelyn) next film The Cycle of Love. EPed by Priyanka Chopra-Jonas (The Bluff), the film documents the romantic journey of PK Mahanandia, a Delhi street artist who trekked 6,000 miles by bicycle in 1977, to reunite with the woman he loved.

Disney+ makes a content alliance with Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca (Mexico’s second-largest mass media company). The upcoming season of TV Azteca’s Masterchef 24/7 will be available on Disney+.

Amazon MX Player (Indian AVOD and streamer service) is integrating into Prime Video in India, creating the country’s largest selection of titles. This merger puts Prime Video ahead of the current market leader, JioHotstar (Disney-run Streamer).

Singapore’s Mokster Films and Taiwanese D-Day Pictures team up for Taiwanese horror film Revive. The film follows a Taiwanese artist whose life is transformed by a mysterious presence that reignites her career, until a series of tragedies forces her to question if the spirit is evil.

WWII U-boat drama Das Boot is coming to streamer MHz Choice. All four seasons of this classic series were available previously on Hulu. The show follows the crew of a German U-boat during World War II as they navigate the psychological and physical horrors of war, both at sea and on land.

Mubi picks up worldwide rights to Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize Doc winner Nuisance Bear. This is interesting because A24 served as the production company. There’s nothing really offbeat about this film, other than it’s just very profound.

My full deep dive after watching:

Synopsis:

A polar bear’s traditional migration path leads it into populated areas, sparking conflict between human interests and wild nature as the animal struggles to survive in a changing world.

It is one of the best POVs I’ve ever seen in documentary filmmaking. We’re taken to Churchill, Manitoba, where we see how the town coexists with polar bears that increasingly encroach upon their habitat.

But this is not a story told from the town’s perspective, the mayor’s, the folks who trap the bears, or even the tourist trucks that bus people across the rock to see the animals. Nor is it told from the polar bear’s perspective.

It’s told from a third POV, that of the Inuit people who have coexisted with the bears. And this lens allows us to see more purely the effects that the bears have on the people and the people have on the bears.

It is a perspective removed and yet able to capture the entire situation with a beautiful balance.

Strand Releasing picks up North American rights for Diamond Diplomacy. This is Yuriko Gamo Romer’s baseball doc tracing U.S.-Japan relations from 1872 to Shohei Ohtani, with a fall theatrical rollout after festivals and awards attention in North America. Trailer here.

Paris Hilton’s production company 11:11 Media (Infinite Icon) is joining forces with Saw director Darren Lynn Bousman for Road To Reality. Set inside the world of a long-running reality television franchise, the horror film is set to start production this July.

StudioCanal (How To Make a Killing) and France’s biggest publisher, Hachette Livre, are launching On Screen, a joint venture set to develop film and TV based on Hachette’s extensive catalog. Jumping on the international book-to-screen adaptation bandwagon, StudioCanal now gets first look at thousands of titles ranging from the Astérix comic book series to James Patterson novels.

Pathé (Prod Co: Emilia Pérez) and Vendôme Pictures (Prod Co: Coda) launch Emotion Pictures – a production company that specializes in English-language films. Under this new banner, Emotion Pictures will develop, acquire, fully finance, and produce a slate of films that will be theatrically released in Europe.

N Lite (U.S. and Tokyo-based anime studio) is making a manga series based on their upcoming animated feature film Mfinda. The manga follows a 13-year-old Congolese girl who is transported to the Mfinda, a magical forest of spirits, gods, and ancestors.

Shudder acquires post-apocalyptic thriller Hallowarrior – the feature debut of writer-director Ben Sottak. The film follows Pumpkin, the sole survivor of a world-ending plague, as she scavenges the wasteland on the eve of Halloween.

Milly Shapiro (Hereditary) stars as the lead, with AJ Bowen (You’re Next) and Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight’s Tale). Hallowarrior will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 10.

It will be great to see Shapiro once again in a horror film, following her amazing Hereditary (2018) debut, where she showed how a clicking noise can be so terrifying.

Electric Entertainment (Prod. Comp: Geostorm starring Gerard Butler) acquires the worldwide distribution rights for the feature O Horizon. The film follows a young neuroscientist navigating through a new romance and a career discovery. Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) star in the film. Variance (film distribution company) will release the film in the U.S. on June 12.

QWGmire (Prod. Comp: The Life of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston) makes a development pact with Japanese horror producer Taka Ichise. Ichise played a crucial role in bringing J-horror to its global popularity in the 1990s with films like Ringu (1998) and The Grudge (2004). The new contract will have QWGmire and Ichise develop and finance a new slate of horror films in the U.S. market.

The Paris-based Banijay is bringing the BBC’s The Northumbria Mysteries to the international market. The detective drama is set up like a crime version of The Odd Couple, set in North East England, starring Grantchester actor Robson Green. Casting is still underway with production beginning shortly in the UK.

Kacie Fagan promoted to L.A. Director of Development for Constantin Film (Prod. Comp: The NeverEnding Story).

Zombie horror-comedy Shoot Around is getting a film adaptation. Based on a webtoon of the same name, the film will follow a high school basketball coach who must lead his team to survive a zombie apocalypse. Aiyana K. White (Wri: Netflix’s The Night Agent) will write the feature of the comic that has over 28M views.

Germany’s Beta Film (Hudson & Rex, Amrum) has inked a deal with Canal+ and HBO Max across its European slate. France’s leading broadcaster now owns both seasons of the widely popular crime series Bookish (S1 trailer) and the four-part German film series Death in Denmark, following a Danish police duo. HBO Max France will premiere the second season of Beta original Maxima as part of its multi-territory deal.

French producer Marco Cherqui (prod. A Prophet) is attached to a new four-part drama La Petite. Centered on a police detective investigating the murder of a young woman in Northern France, Cherqui will produce through his CPB Films (Canal+’s Savages), with filming beginning next month.

Actor and producer Will Jeffs (Channel 5’s Suspects) and producer John Hauber (Producer: The Cut starring Orlando Bloom) launch production company Red Imp Films. The outfit will focus on developing film and TV projects for the global market, based in Toronto and London.

First-time filmmaker Shubhangi Shekhar is making Hoop Like This, a doc on the world’s first professional Indian Basketball team. NBA Champion Jeremy Lin, ESPN reporter Shams Charania, and Indian rapper and actor Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts) will all appear in the new feature documentary.

The UK’s Royal Television Society (the UK’s premier forum for television) hires Sophie Jones as CEO. Jones previously worked for ITV (the UK's oldest commercial network) and ITN (a UK-based independent production company) before joining Channel 4 as Head of Corporate Relations for 12 years.

Signature Entertainment (Terrifier 3) has secured U.K. and Irish rights to its next project, Kraken. From TrustNordisk (Late Shift), this take on the mythical Norwegian creature follows a marine biologist who uncovers a deadly mystery, only to find the answer in a monstrous presence lurking in Norway’s deepest fjord.

The Canada-based Pink Parrot Media (SuperClaus) is feeling like a Winner after picking up sales rights to the animated feature, following a young girl determined to become one of the best tennis players in history. Pink Parrot is bringing Winner to the upcoming Cannes Market.