‘F*cking Bornholm,’ a Tart Comedy of Social Discomfort, Racks Up Sales (EXCLUSIVE)

Kane Brown can do it all! The 29-year-old country music star is making his acting debut jumping off a train on CBS' hit procedural drama, . «It's really cool,» Brown told ET on the Vancouver set during filming. «I get, like, a superhero moment.» In Friday's episode of the series, Brown plays freight-hopping drifter who leaps into action when the train he's riding on crashes into a party bus.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Ted Lasso” breakout Phil Dunster’s role in the second season of “Surface” has been revealed. Dunster joining the second season of the Gugu Mbatha-Raw-led Apple series was reported in early March, but character details were being kept under wraps at the time. Variety can now exclusively report that Dunster will star as Quinn, the older brother of Eliza (Millie Brady). Quinn is described as “the privileged scion of a troubled, old-money family who’s attempting to blaze a new trail for the younger generation – all the while struggling against his own darker tendencies.”

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor World sales agency Impronta Films has boarded “La Ricerca” (“The Quest”) ahead of its world premiere on April 24 at Visions du Reel, a documentary film festival in Switzerland. The film was written, directed, edited and produced by Giuseppe Petruzzellis. Nicolás Jaar composed the original score. The film focuses on the Italian artist Luigi Lineri, who has been working continuously on “The Quest” over the last 60 years. It’s a one-of-a-kind installation made of thousands of stones. Pebbles resembling primitive flint tools and symbolic sculptures illustrate the turning points in humanity’s evolution. Petruzzellis said in a statement: “Luigi’s masterpiece is a formidable tool to investigate universal themes. He has materialized a vast field of anthropological, philosophical and even political topics. Many of these contents are extremely actual and urgent, as, for example, our conflicting relationship with the ecosystem.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Neopol Film, a production company based in Frankfurt, and Munich-based sales agency The Playmaker have teamed for a second time with writer and director Lukas Rinker, following their collaboration on his debut feature, black comedy “Holy Shit!,” which was sold by The Playmaker to multiple territories last year. Producers Tonio Kellner, Andrea Simml and Jakob Zapf will be pitching Rinker’s latest feature film project, eco-horror “Paws,” at Frontières, a market and networking platform focused on genre film financing and co-production between Europe and North America. Frontières is organized by the Fantasia Intl. Film Festival, in partnership with the Cannes Film Market, and takes place on May 20 and 21 in Cannes.

Bill Maher turned up the volume on his “disbelief that God exists” on Friday night’s “Real Time” on HBO by poking fun at the religions that do and calling for a yearly 3-day weekend for atheists “to observable reality.”As we head into a holy week for Christians and Passover for Jews, Maher said in his “New Rules” segment that the country needs to stop talking about diversity, equity and inclusion unless it also includes atheists.“Atheists: we’re approaching a third of the population now, [and] I shouldn’t have to beg for this, for God’s sake! It’s outrageous that there are this many of us and there is still zero representation in government. Congress has 535 members and only a handful will even sheepishly admit their ‘religiously unaffiliated,” he joked.

Awkwafina has a big 2023 ahead of her, with “Renfield” and “The Little Mermaid” hitting theaters this year. But don’t let that overshadow the return of her Comedy Central sitcom “Awkwafina Is Noria From Queens” for its third season next month.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Hope there’s enough Milky Ways and “dry-ass Cinnamon Toast Crunch” to go around next time. Danny McBride isn’t ruling out a sequel to 2013’s This Is the End if co-creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg write a script.

Naman Ramachandran British Asian actor and writer Ambreen Razia has secured a development deal with Expectation Entertainment (BAFTA-winning series “Alma’s Not Normal”) to write an original comedy drama series about addiction and postpartum depression between a South Asian mother and daughter. The series, which has the working title “Wasted,” will follow the story of a junior doctor and the ancestral legacy which looms over today’s generation of Muslim immigrants. As an actor Razia most recently played Shandy Fine in hit Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso.” Razia’s previous writing credits include “Hounslow Diaries” for BBC Three, which was adapted from the stage play “Diary of a Hounslow Girl,” a project that looked at the lives of modern Muslim girls in London. Recent stage plays include “POT” and “Favour.” She has also been part of the writers’ room for Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning series “We Are Lady Parts,” directed by Nida Manzoor, and Disney+ show “Extraordinary.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cohen Media Group has dropped the trailer for Francois Ozon’s drama “Everything Went Fine” ahead of its theatrical release in New York on April 14 and Los Angeles on April 21, followed by a national expansion. “Everything Went Fine” is based on the autobiographical novel by author Emmanuèle Bernheim who previously collaborated on Ozon’s screenplays for “Under The Sand,” “Swimming Pool” and “Ricky.” The movie follows 85-year-old art collector André Bernheim (André Dussolier) who, after a debilitating stroke, demands that his daughter Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau), help him end life on his own terms. Faced with a painful decision, Emmanuèle, with the grudging support of her younger sister Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas), begins sorting through the processes and bureaucratic hurdles necessary to fulfill her father’s final wish, as she is forced to reconcile her past with a complicated, stubborn, yet charismatic man.

In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast, host Mike DeAngelo laughs and cries all over again for Apple TV+’s new dramedy, “Shrinking.” Created by Bill Lawrence (“Scrubs,” “Ted Lasso”), Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso,” “Thor: Love and Thunder”), and Jason Segel (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “How I Met Your Mother”), the show follows Jimmy (Segel), a therapist who has gone off the deep end after the death of his wife.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Documentary specialist Autlook Filmsales closed a raft of sales at a vibrant market during the Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX. “Subject,” directed by Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera, got picked up by Sweden’s SVT, Denmark’s DR, Norway’s NRK, Norway’s VGTV, The Netherlands’ VPRO, Israel’s Yes Doc, and Madman for Australia and New Zealand. Dogwoof released the film early this month in the U.K. “Subject” is an examination of the relationship between nonfiction filmmakers and their subjects. It raises important ethical questions during a golden of age for documentaries, when docs are screened by millions of viewers. The film re-visits protagonists of some of the most viewed documentaries of today – “The Staircase,” “The Square,” “Hoop Dreams,” “The Wolfpack” and “Capturing the Friedmans.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Swiss sales agency Lightdox has acquired the international rights to feature documentary “On the Edge” by Nicolas Peduzzi, which just had its world premiere at Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX in the DOX:AWARD competition, and received a Special Mention from the jury, who said the film “gripped us, and took us on a journey through the labyrinth of a human mind.” The film centers on Jamal Abdel Kader, who is the only psychiatrist in a 400-bed state hospital on the outskirts of Paris. Dedicated to his patients, he does his utmost to soothe their pain, listen to their words, and protect them from their own demons. However, the public health service is doing badly. There isn’t enough time, the caregivers are under severe strain as the institution is understaffed and underfunded. Yet Jamal and his colleagues keep striving to fulfil their mission: to heal bodies and souls.

Oh boy, oh boy, Jimmy’s closet has caught the attention of Shrinking audiences — and are contacting costume designer Allyson Fanger for details.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor GlobeScreen Auditoriums has taken French rights to “Blix Not Bombs,” a documentary about former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who was given the task of looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in the period running up to the U.S.-led invasion of the country 20 years ago. The deal was closed by Toronto-based sales agent Syndicado Film Sales, which is also an executive producer on the film. The film had its world premiere at Copenhagen documentary festival CPH:DOX on Monday, the anniversary of the invasion. In the film, Czech-Swedish filmmaker Greta Stocklassa interviews the Swedish diplomatic, now 94 years old, about what happened in the months leading up to war. He describes his meetings with George W. Bush and Tony Blair, his frustration when Colin Powell gave his pivotal speech in the UN Security Council, and his feeling of emptiness when the U.S. started the invasion, despite his reports that his team had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Lise Pedersen Paris-based CAT&Docs has come onboard as sales agent for Italian-Swedish director Erik Gandini’s “After Work,” which had its world premiere in the main competition at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival. Variety speaks to the director at the festival. In this stunningly cinematic doc, lensed by Ruben Östlund’s long-time DOP Fredrik Wenzel and shot in the U.S., Italy, South Korea and Kuwait, Gandini explores the notion of work in the 21st century, as automation and technology free up time, and asks what the future could be like in a work-free society. One of the inspirations for the film, Gandini says, was Swedish sociologist Roland Paulsen’s writings on the ideology of work, which is rooted in the notion of a work ethic developed some 350 years ago.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Yes Studios, the Israeli producer and distributor behind “Fauda” and “Shtisel,” has boarded “Unsilenced,” a six-part series about sexual violence which is inspired by Odelia Carmon’s novel “The Confidante.” The multi-layered series stars Yaakov Zada Daniel (“Fauda”), Avraham Shalom Levi (“Shtisel”), Nelly Mira Rubin (“Fire Dance”), Dana Meinrath and Irit Nathan Benedek. Loosely inspired by actual events, “Unsilenced” is set pre-#MeToo, in the early 2000’s, when powerful men could readily mask and perpetuate abhorrent behaviors with the help of people they installed around themselves.

Ready to roll with the homies again. Stacey Dash would totally be down for a Clueless sequel — as long as director Amy Heckerling was involved.

EXCLUSIVE: As The Goldbergs is wrapping its 10-season run on ABC, series star Wendi McLendon-Covey has been tapped to lead another single-camera broadcast comedy, NBC pilot St. Denis Medical.