Banijay Nordic’s Yellow Bird to Produce ‘A Life’s Worth’ Set Against the Bosnian War in 1990’s (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prime Video has announced the full cast for action comedy show “Costiera” set on Italy’s iconic Amalfi Coast being directed by Emmy-winner Adam Bernstein (“30 Rock,” “Breaking Bad”) and featuring Jesse Williams (“Take Me Out”) as the lead. The ensemble cast for the English-language series being co-produced by Amazon Studios and Luca Bernabei for Lux Vide comprises British actor Jordan Alexandra (“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “The Winter King”) (pictured, center); Spain’s Alejandra Onieva (“Alta Mar”) (pictured, left); Italy’s Maria Chiara Giannetta (“Blanca”) (pictured, right); Antonio Gerardi; Tommaso Ragno (“Nostalgia”); Amanda Campana; Pierpaolo Spollon; Britain’s Sam Haygarth (“Jojo Rabbit”); and France’s Jean-Hugues Anglade (“Sink or Swim”).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Qatar-based powerhouse BeIN Media Group, a co-owner of U.S. indie studio Miramax, has taken distribution rights across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to live-action pre-school series “Saïd & Anna,” which has been nominated for this year’s Banff World Media Festival‘s Rockie Awards.

Annika Pham One of the Nordic region’s biggest providers of premium series, Copenhagen-based REinvent International Sales, will make a splash at this week’s Canneseries festival and MipTV market. For the second consecutive year, the sales, financing and packaging banner has two titles in competition: the Danish drama thriller “Dark Horse”, due to world premiere in the main competition, and the short form Swedish dramedy entry “Painkiller”, which initially bowed at the Göteborg Film Festival. “Last year we had the Norwegian political drama “Power Play” which won best series, and the Swedish romantic dramedy “Out of Touch” in the short form section.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Mediawan Rights has boarded “Kabul,” a highly anticipated thriller series produced by France’s 24 25 Films and Cinétévé. Shervin Alenabi (“Tehran”) and “Euphoria’s” Eric Dane (in a small role) have joined the international cast of the show, which already comprises Jonathan Zaccaï (“Le bureau des legendes”), Thibault Evrard (“The Night of the 12th”), Vassilis Kukalawi (“Kandahar”), Jeanne Goursaud (“Pax Massilia”), Gianmarco Saurino (“L’estate piu Calda”) and Valentina Cervi (“Medici: Masters of Florence”). The series, set against the backdrop of U.S.

Anna Marie de la Fuente While a number of films have been made about Panama’s Indigenous communities, few are by native filmmakers themselves. To date, perhaps only three Indigenous Panamanian filmmakers have ventured into filmmaking. Duiren Wagua, whose documentary feature debut “Bila Burba” plays at this year’s 12th Panama International Film Festival (IFF Panama), running April 4-7, is hoping to change the status quo.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Mario Van Peebles has been tapped to direct “That’ll Be the Day,” the story of how Buddy Holly and other musicians of the late 1950s helped give birth to rock ‘n’ roll and influence the wider societal and cultural landscape, including the civil rights movement. Music has been central to much of Van Peebles’ work, from his 1991 gangster movie “New Jack City” to his work on “Wu-Tang: An American Saga,” which he co-executive produced for Hulu.

Annika Pham On the eve of the global content market MipTV in Cannes, Viaplay Group’s Vanda Rapti, EVP Viaplay Select and Content Distribution, has offered a confident outlook on the Scandi streamer’s international activities and content sales. The sales executive, who joined the group in 2003, was able to announce exclusively to Variety a string of new deals on Viaplay’s premium Nordic scripted content.

The Goat Life (previously titled Goat Days) will release in theaters across the UK, India, Australia and France today.

Alex Ritman French TV giant Banijay is losing its second C-suite exec in just over a month. The company has confirmed to Variety that COO Peter Langenberg is departing, with his last day set to be March 31. Langenberg will remain with Banijay on a consultancy basis in the ESG (environment, social and governance) space.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian animation auteur Alessandro Rak – best known for European Film Award-winner “The Art of Happiness” and Neapolitan mob fable “Cinderella The Cat” – is at work on a new project titled “The Little Prince of Shangri-La” set in an imaginary Tibet and involving the search for the Dalai Lama. Rak’s new work, which follows “Yaya and Lenny — The Walking Liberty,” that launched in 2021 from Locarno, was unveiled earlier this month at the Cartoon Movie co-production and pitch forum in Bordeaux, France.

Sony Pictures Television‘s President of International Production, Wayne Garvie, has said the scripted TV landscape in the post-peak TV era is like “going back to the future” — especially with his Netflix hits The Crown and Sex Education coming to an end.

EXCLUSIVE: AGC Television is dropping a hot TV project into this week’s Series Mania market in Lille.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While at Series Mania Festival, Larry Tanz, Netflix‘s VP of EMEA Content, unveiled ambitious new shows commissioned from France and the Netherlands, including an untitled thriller series starring Isabelle Adjani, and “Amsterdam Empire,” a Dutch crime series starring and executive produced by Famke Janssen. The untitled French thriller series revolves around a young mother on the run finds an unexpected opportunity to bounce back by becoming a picker in a prestigious flower farm in Provence. But the mysterious death of the family patriarch of the company casts her under the spotlight as the prime suspect.

EXCLUSIVE: Artist International Group has signed Swedish actor, screenwriter and producer Alexander Karim for management.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Netflix has unveiled its roster of Nordic titles, including Jo Nesbø’s Norwegian series “Harry Hole” (working title), a series adaptation of Amanda Romare’s novel “Diary of a Ditched Girl” starring Carla Sehn (“Love & Anarchy”), the female-led “The New Force,” and a film adaptation of Alex Ahndoril’s “The Key Series.” “Harry Hole” is entirely penned by Nesbø, a bestselling crime novelist best known for “Occupied” and “The Snowman.” Based on Nesbø’s novel “The Devil’s Star,” the series is set in Oslo during the summer and follows police detective Harry Hole who’s just been abandoned by his girlfriend. On his last mission, Hole has to partner with a corrupt cop to investigate the murder of a woman.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent After creating a U.K. genre label with Jed Benedict, Studiocanal has forged a partnership with French production company WTFilms to focus on genre films.

Naman Ramachandran Four African screenwriters will pitch stories spanning genres at the 15th edition of Series Mania in Lille, France. Pitching this year are Kelly-Eve Koopman (South Africa) with urban fantasy “Facing the Mountain”; Moreetsi Gabang (Botswana) with crime drama “Outreach”; Tiah Beye (Senegal/Côte d’Ivoire) with comedy-drama “Brouteure” (“The Yahoo Girl”); and Wanjiru Kairu (Kenya) with political satire “Serikali Saidia!” The shows are under the aegis of the AuthenticA Series Lab, a training program for African episodic screenwriters from Realness Institute.

Series Mania will kick off its 15th edition on March 15 in Lille, Eastern France, reconfirming it status as the biggest dedicated TV festival in Europe. It does so with a bang, with the European premiere of one of the biggest series of the year, Netflix’s “3 Body Problem,” which “cements ‘Game of Thrones’ creators as masters of adapting the unadaptable,” Variety announced. Delegate accreditation at Series Mania’s Forum, its three-day industry event running March 19-21, is on track to pass 4,000 participants, an all time record, and a huge step-up, say, from 2016, when attendance was limited to around 300 executives.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French director Yann Gozlan is set to reunite with Pierre Niney, the French star of his two most successful movies “Un homme idéal” and “Black Box,” for his next film, “Gourou.” “Gourou” is being co-produced by Wassim Beji at WY Productions, the Paris-based company behind “Black Box and “Un Homme Ideal,” and Niney’s banner Ninety Films. While the plot is currently under wraps, the project is being teased as a deep dive into the world of coaching and follows the rise of a personal development guru who turns out to be toxic. One of France’s most bankable and busiest French actors, Niney won a Cesar Award for his performance as French fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent in Jalil Lespert’s biopic in 2015, and went on to work with Anne Fontaine (“Frantz”) and Michel Gondry (“The Book of Solutions”), among others.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Prime Video is diving into genre in the Nordics with a new slate of shows, including the Swedish mystery crime series “Blind Spot” starring Ida Engvoll (“Love & Anarchy”) and Pål Sverre Hagen (“Furia”), and Henrik Georgsson (“The Bridge“)’s dystopian thriller “VAKA,” starring Emmy-award nominated Jonas Karlsson and Aliette Opheim. Based on Anne Holt’s best-selling novel “1222” which revolves around the character of Hanne Wilhelmsen, a sharp and dark-minded police officer. The series, penned by celebrated author Sara Heldt (“Sandhamn Murders”) together with Erik Skjoldberg (“Occupied”), follows Hanne who finds herself sheltered in an isolated mountain hotel after a train crash and starts investigating on mysterious murders even though she’s been temporarily suspended from the police.