German-Based Port Au Prince Film Hires Former DCM Producer

Because a list is never done and because we were inspired to dig that bit further, we have a few more updates on potential Cannes contenders this year.

Ellise Shafer Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg stopped by “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Thursday night to discuss his best picture-nominated film “The Fabelmans,” but also to deliver a message against antisemitism. In “The Fabelmans,” a semi-autobiographical movie based on Spielberg’s childhood, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) is the subject of antisemitic abuse by his school bullies. After discussing the film, Colbert asked Spielberg if he has found the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world surprising. “I find it very, very surprising,” Spielberg responded. “Antisemitism has always been there, it’s either been just around the corner and slightly out of sight but always lurking, or it has been much more overt like in Germany in the ’30s. But not since Germany in the ’30s have I witnessed antisemitism no longer lurking, but standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler and Mussolini, kind of daring us to defy it. I’ve never experienced this in my entire life, especially in this country.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sony Pictures Classics has bought “The Teachers’ Lounge,” Ilker Çatak’s drama which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, for North America, Latin America and Eastern Europe (excluding Hungary). “The Teachers’ Lounge” marks the fourth feature from Çatak, who co-wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker. The movie played in the Panorama section and won the Europa Cinemas Label award for Best European film, as well as the CICAE Arthouse Cinema Award. Produced by Ingo Fliess and shot by award-winning cinematographer Judith Kaufmann (“Corsage”), “The Teachers’ Lounge” stars Leonine Benesch (“The Crown”), Michael Klammer, Rafael Stachowiak, and Eva Löbau.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “Tár.” Todd Field’s “Tár” ends with disgraced conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) conducting the score of “Monster Hunter,” a fantasy video game series, for a group of cosplayers in Southeast Asia. It’s a huge fall from grace from her previous post as head of the Berlin Philharmonic. Countless theories exist on the internet about the character’s ending. Is she hallucinating? Is Tár herself a monster who has been hunted, as her downfall comes as a result of allegations of misconduct and abuse of power. Or is it something else?

EXCLUSIVE: With The Mandalorian season 3 dropping this Wednesday, and our hero Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) headed to the Mandalorian home planet of Mandalore with dark saber in hand, how will the show deal with the departure of Gina Carano’s fan fave bounty hunter character Cara Dune?

Kristen Stewart has served one look after another while acting as the jury president at the Berlinale International Film Festival, and her latest look is perhaps her most daring yet.

can be found here.MAIN COMPETITIONGolden Bear for Best Film: “On the Adamant” (“Sur l’Adamant”), Nicolas PhilibertSilver Bear Grand Jury Prize: “Afire” (“Roter Himmel”), Christian PetzoldSilver Bear Jury Prize: “Bad Living” (“Mal Viver”), Joao CanijoSilver Bear for Best Director: Philippe Garrel, “The Plough”Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: Sofia Otero, “20,000 Species of Bees”Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: Thea Ehre, “Till the End of the Night”Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Angela Schanelec, “Music”Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution: Hélène Louvart for the cinematography of “Disco Boy”ENCOUNTERSBest Film: “Here,” Bas DevosBest Director: “The Echo,” Tatiana HuezoSpecial Jury Award: “Samsara,” Lois PatiñoSpecial Jury Award: “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Paul B. PreciadoGWFF Best First Feature Award: “The Klezmer Project,” Leandro Koch, Paloma SchachmannSpecial Mention: “The Bride,” Myriam U.

Jon Burlingame It’s anybody’s game: this is a rare year when any of the five original-score nominees could win the Oscar. Two of the nominees are previous winners, two more are past nominees; only one is a newcomer, and it’s a three-man ensemble. Four films are period pieces: an admired German-language war film, a character study set against the Irish civil war, an epic of late 1920s Hollywood, and a coming-of-age story for a young filmmaker in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the fifth is a wild, anarchic tale of a Chinese American family that saves the universe. And the nominees are:

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Despite representing Germany at this year’s Academy Awards for best international feature, “All Quiet on the Western Front” writer-director Edward Berger doesn’t feel national pride for the country. “I don’t feel that because of the history,” Berger tells Variety. “I could never say I’m proud to be German. Those words don’t fit into our mouths, and rightly so. I would have a hard time thinking I would represent the country because I can’t speak for the entire country.” On this episode of Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast, Berger discusses “All Quiet on the Western Front’s” nine Oscar noms — the second most of the year — and employing the most artisans of any non-English movie in history. Finally, he shares why he feels a responsibility to accurately portray Germany’s role in some of humanity’s most devastating wars. Listen to the full podcast below.

One of Stanley Kubrick’s lost projects, a large-scale biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, has been in the works for HBO for the last seven years.

Deadline has launched the streaming site for its Contenders Film: The Nominees awards-season event, which took place on Saturday and highlighted the cast and creatives behind 12 films that have been Oscar-nominated this year.

American distribution following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its North American festival premiere later this year. The film tells the story of a a pair of wayward young people who abandon theirnewborn child on a stormy night in the mountains of Greece. Taken in by a family of farmers, Jon grows up without knowing his father or mother. Years later, after a tragic accident, he is sent to prison, where he meets Iro. The two form a connection, expressed through music, that will, by turns, haunt them and uphold them the rest of their days. Freely inspired by the story of Oedipus, Schanelec’s latest is as terrifying as myth and as gentle as a folk song.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Anke Engelke and Bastian Pastewka will star in a new German original series for Prime Video to be produced by Bldundtonfabrik (btf). The series is due to appear on the platform next year. Further details on the show have yet to be announced. “Anke Engelke and Bastian Pastewka are a real dream team in front of the camera. Viewers can look forward to their first series project together on Prime Video,” said Philip Pratt, head of German originals for Prime Video. The series joins a lineup of German originals that includes “We Children from Bahnhof Zoo,” “Deutschland 89” and “LOL: Last One Laughing.” Engelke, who is best known for her comedy roles but also appears in dramas, has recently been seen in “Kurzschluss,” “Der Onkel” and “Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft.” Among her shows that took German Television Awards were best comedy for “Ladykracher” (2002) and best entertainment show for “Wer stiehlt mir die Show” (2021).

Ed Meza @edmezavar “Snow,” an Austrian-German co-production and one of 16 titles presented in the Berlinale Series Market Selects showcase, weaves the timely issue of climate change and local folklore into a suspenseful mystery drama set in the picturesque Austrian Alps. Brigitte Hobmeier stars as Lucia, a physician who with her husband and children moves to the village, where she is replacing the local doctor, who is retiring. Things take a troubling turn when her daughter is visited by a strange woman at night. The series presentation at the EFM event brings the title back to Berlin, where it came together in 2020 at the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s Co-Pro Series event.

Christopher Vourlias First-time writer-director Malika Musaeva is set to make history at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, where her female-centered coming-of-age drama “The Cage Is Looking for a Bird” is the first Chechen-language film ever selected by the venerable German fest. Musaeva’s debut, which world premieres Feb. 22 in the festival’s competitive Encounters section and is being repped internationally by Totem Films, focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village, where they must defend their freedom and the right to live their own lives. At the film’s heart is a friendship between two teenage girls, played by first-time actors Khadizha Bataeva and Madina Akkieva. On the precipice of adulthood, the duo seeks refuge in each other as they navigate difficult decisions about their futures.

Willem Dafoe gets a dream role with Inside, a combo of art film in more ways than one, psychological thriller, heist movie, and survival tale all rolled into one in which Dafoe’s Nemo is center stage, alone, the entire time.

From “Rosa Luxemburg” in 1986 to 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” the films of Margarethe Von Trotta, an icon of the New German cinema, have put strong female protagonists center-stage in renditions of German history. For her latest, Von Trotta paints a portrait of German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, author of essays, radio dramas, and opera libretti.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Coming of age thriller “The Gymnasts,” one of the most recent titles from Europe’s public broadcaster partnership The Alliance, has been licensed to over 30 territories, London-based super indie All3Media International confirmed on Monday at the Berlinale Series Market.     Based on Ilaria Bernardini’s bestselling novel “Corpo Libero” (“The Girls Are Good”), the six-part series is produced by the Oscar-winning team at Indigo Film, behind “The Great Beauty,” in co-production with ZDF Neo’s German company Network Movie.  The series has been made in collaboration with Rai Fiction and Paramount+, and in association with All3Media International.

Israeli film producer Yoav Roeh spoke passionately at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday about the threat to freedom of speech in Israel under a proposed overhaul of the country’s judiciary by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government.

“I was always a big fan of the original movie, but I did feel while watching subsequent American or British war films that is a question of perspective that I can’t tell,” All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger said of his motivation in finally bringing a German version of the iconic World War I tale to the big screen.