‘Feathers’ Director Omar El Zohairy to Helm English-Language Drama ‘Mammals’

Elliot Page claims he was “groomed” as a teenager. One week after the Juno actor’s tell-a

If you saw the end of “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” you know filmmaker Steven Caple, Jr. has some definite ideas about what’s to come in future films.

Naman Ramachandran BBC director general Tim Davie has called for a “transparent” hiring process for the next chair of the corporation. The previous BBC chair Richard Sharp resigned over his role in a 2020 loan to then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Elan Closs Stephens has been appointed temporary acting chair. Davie appeared before a U.K. Culture Media and Sport Committee parliamentary inquiry on the workings of the BBC on Tuesday and was asked what qualities and skills BBC needs for the new chair. “This is an incredibly precious institution, globally admired complex, right in the heart of the public eye. It needs a world class chair and we need an outstanding candidate to do that,” Davie told the committee.

“Imbalances of power are dangerous and we care about them,” BBC Director General Tim Davie said today, as he was questioned on the Phillip Schofield debate and accusations of toxicity on This Morning.

EXCLUSIVE: On the eve of Sheffield DocFest, Raul Niño Zambrano has been appointed creative director of the U.K.’s leading all-documentary festival, a position he held for the past year on an interim basis.

Naman Ramachandran International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has appointed former BFI London Film Festival director Clare Stewart to the position of managing director, taking over from Marjan van der Haar. Stewart was most recently interim CEO at Sheffield DocFest and commences in the role at IFFR on June 21. IFFR has a dual leadership structure where the managing director and festival director oversee the commercial and creative elements of the organization respectively, working in partnership. Stewart previously consulted with the IFFR board of directors in 2021 in its first phase of re-evaluation prior to her joining DocFest, with a focus on the IFFR program structure and content strategy.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the Tribeca Festival premiere of First Time Female Director, the Chelsea Peretti comedy in which he stars opposite Peretti, Megan Mullally, Blake Anderson and Megan Stalter, actor, comedian and writer Benito Skinner has signed with Range Media Partners for representation.

Roku has picked up the U.S. rights to the new comedy film “First Time Female Director,” which is written, directed and produced by Chelsea Peretti.

William Earl While Hollywood was on pause during the worst of the pandemic, Rob Savage’s quick thinking and creativity inspired him to make two movies on the fly. The British writer-director shot his independent film “Host” at the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions, with cast and crew using Zoom and self-taping to tell the spine-chilling tale of a socially distanced seance. The $100K film hit horror streamer Shudder to wide acclaim in July 2020 — fans were impressed by the creative scares and resourceful special effects produced with limited resources. Savage’s follow-up, 2021’s “Dashcam,” was largely filmed on the titular device and follows a COVID-skeptic, MAGA-loving YouTuber who drives around London trying to escape from evil. Although still microbudget fare, it got the attention of Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, was a producer on the project.

With the release of “The Little Mermaid” live-action remake over the last weekend, it’s clear that Disney is still pushing hard for live-action redos of the studio’s most popular animated films. And the latest one to pick up developmental steam is “Moana,” which is being spearheaded by Dwayne Johnson, who is already announced as a producer on the film, as well as reprising his role of Maui from the animated version.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Bikini Blue” director Jarek Marszewski will direct the 1920s-set euthanasia drama “Iron Ribbon,” for which Los Angeles-based Egyptian actor Mohamed Karim is attached and Tom Hughes (“The English”) is in advanced talks.  The English-language romantic thriller, which is being produced by London-based Daniella Gonella and Jay Michaelson’s DG Productions, is based on the true story of rising Polish stage star Stanislawa Uminska, who in 1924 killed her cancer-stricken fiancé (the dashing painter, critic and writer Jan Zynowski) in Paris upon his request as an act of euthanasia. She then stood trial, but was set free by the French court.

, the limited true-crime series about Candy Montgomery, Lesli Linka Glatter is returning to the world of spies and political thrillers with. The upcoming Netflix drama marks Robert De Niro's first-ever TV role, with the 79-year-old playing George Mullen, a former U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian auteur Marco Tullio Giordana, best known internationally for sweeping terrorism-themed epic “The Best of Youth” (2003) is set to soon return behind the camera on “La Vita Accanto” a psychological drama about a talented young woman contending with profound rejection due to her looks. Shooting is set to start on June 5 in Vicenza, Northern Italy, on “Vita Accanto,” (the title can be translated as “the life beside”) which is co-written and produced by Marco Bellocchio – the Italian master who is currently competing for a Cannes Palm d’Or with “Kidnapped.” Italy’s Intramovies has started launching pre-sales on “Vita Accanto” in Cannes.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Álvaro Morte, immortalized by his performance as the Professor in “Money Heist,” has inked a multi-year producing deal with Sony Pictures Television through his Madrid-based production company 300 Pistolas, which he founded alongside Blanca Clemente. The accord sees 300 Pistolas, a theater company, making the transition into producing scripted TV, with Morte developing English-language scripted series exclusively with SPT, which he and Clemente will serve on as producers via 300 Pistolas.  Morte and Clemente will have access to SPT’s development teams. SPT will serve as exclusive production and distribution partner to any projects produced under the deal, SPT confirmed Wednesday.

Love is in the air on Netflix, as two of the steamer’s most popular romance franchises dominated the English-language television charts for the week of May 15 to May 21.

Ben Croll When director Elene Naveriani first read the book upon which “Blackbird Blackbird Blueberry” is based, they immediately recognized a whole community. “It was the story of my mom, the story of my aunt, the story of my neighbor,” Naveriani tells Variety. “I could name so many women around me that they were really going through the same interior kind of struggle, and I found it very important to bring this character to life on screen.” Playing in Directors’ Fortnight, “Blackbird Blackbird Blueberry” follows 48-year-old Etero (Eka Chavleishvili – the filmmaker’s first and only choice for the character) as she discovers her sexuality and enters into her first relationship later in life. In the film’s startling opening sequence, shopkeeper Etero survives a brush with death, returns to her small corner store, and seduces the first man who walks in – having her initial sexual relation on a momentary whim.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Colombian-Mexican filmmaker Rodrigo García has wrapped his first Spanish-language feature, “Familia,” which was shot in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico for Netflix. García, who has directed such acclaimed films as “Mother and Child” and “Albert Nobbs,” and whose TV credits include “Six Feet Under,” “Big Love” and “In Treatment,” said: “Shooting ‘Familia’ has been a great experience.” He added: “Great producers, collaborators, several of my favorite Mexican actors and actresses and Netflix’s full support have made this project an unforgettable trip back home.” This is the first time García, who is the son of Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Marquez, has directed a film in Mexico. He’s an executive producer in Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of his father’s literary classic “100 Years of Solitude,” which will be shooting in Colombia.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Intramovies has acquired global rights outside of Israel and France on Israeli director Dani Rosenberg’s Gaza-Strip conflict drama “The Vanishing Soldier.”  “Vanishing Soldier” is Rosenberg’s second feature after “The Death of Cinema and My Father Too,” which was in the official selection in Cannes 202O and won the Jerusalem Film Festival’s top prize. The film is about an 18-year-old Israeli soldier who flees the Gaza battlefield and heads back to his girlfriend in Tel Aviv only to discover that the military elite is convinced he was kidnapped in the fog of war. What ensues is a tragicomic journey and takes place over a period of 24 hours on the streets of Tel Aviv.

Gregg Goldstein Weston Razooli is far more than just a writer, producer and director. He’s a world-builder, as evidenced by his feature debut, “Riddle of Fire.” The faux-’70s children’s fantasy adventure, which premieres May 20 in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight program, follows three tweens (Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters and Phoebe Ferro) on a quest for ingredients to bake a blueberry pie, all to coax the boys’ mother into letting them play a stolen video game. Danger arrives when they meet the “Enchanted Blade Gang” led by a witch (Lio Tipton). Its deadpan comedy and surreal feel — somewhere between “Escape to Witch Mountain,” “Scooby-Doo” and “Napoleon Dynamite” — make it equally appealing to kids, Gen Xers, stoners, Adult Swim watchers and fans of cult indie cinema.

Elizabeth Taylor’s middle-aged married woman after she has full-body plastic surgery. In Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) he was Glenda Jackson’s paramour, while in Tinto Brass’s X-rated “erotic-war-drama” Salon Kitty (1976), he played a Nazi SS commandant who recruits a group of female SS auxiliaries in order to plant them as prostitutes in a high-class brothel to collect intelligence on patrons of the establishment. After Visconti’s death, Berger’s acting career dwindled to mainly small roles.