German Woman Used Instagram To Find & Murder Her Doppelgänger In Wild Plot To Fake Her Own Death

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).

Emiliano De Pablos Banijay’s Endemol Shine Israel and Munich-based producer Neuesuper (“8 Days”) have inked German adaptation rights to Israeli hit comedy series “Nevsu,” to air on public broadcaster ZDF.  Israel’s “Nevsu” won the International Emmy Award for best comedy series in 2018. Its German adaptation, “I Don’t Work Here,” sees three generations from two worlds come together to form one family. Revolving around Laura and Dawit, a young multi-racial couple, and their daughter, the pair are battling living with her parents and facing huge scrutiny from her mother-in-law. 

EXCLUSIVE: JoJo Siwa has signed on to star opposite Jade Pettyjohn (Little Fires Everywhere) in the horror-thriller All My Friends Are Dead from Saw 3D writer Marcus Dunstan.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Political assassinations, war, espionage, royal scandals, teen angst and magic: new German series are setting the bar ever higher in terms of challenging and risky subject matter. The Berlinale Series Market’s Up Next: Germany showcase on Monday presented four forthcoming series projects that look set to entice international buyers: Presenting “Herrhausen,” creator Christer von Lindequist and actor Oliver Masucci discussed the impact of the 1989 assassination, which continues to reverberate in Germany. It was also the subject of Andres Veiel’s acclaimed 2001 documentary “Black Box BRD.”

Ed Meza @edmezavar German cinema looks set for a major boom this year with a strong lineup of diverse works that span historical dramas, coming-of-age tales, high-octane nostalgia, animation and sci-fi fun. The Berlin Film Festival is bowing a muscular selection of local titles, among them “Afire,” by Berlinale mainstay Christian Petzold (“Undine”), screening in competition. The films centers on a group of young people staying at a holiday house near the Baltic Sea during a hot, dry summer, exploring volatile emotions that start to sizzle when a wildfire spreads through the surrounding forest. Likewise vying for the Golden Bear is Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic “Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey Into the Desert,” starring Vicky Krieps (“Corsage”) as the radical Austrian author. The film examines her relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch and her 1964 journey of self-discovery through the Egyptian desert.

“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. 

A ‘sweet’ German shepherd with a big heart is still searching for a forever family after a tough year. Kaiser was found as a stray and taken to Manchester Dogs Home almost a year ago, but simply hasn’t found ‘the one’ just yet.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Picture Tree Intl. has boarded Berlin Film Festival title “Measures of Men,” which focuses on the genocide committed by the German army against the Ovaherero and Nama tribes in Southwestern Africa. The trailer debuts (below). The film is written and directed by Lars Kraume, whose credits include Berlin’s “The Silent Revolution” and Toronto’s “The People vs. Fritz Bauer.” It stars Leonard Scheicher (“The Silent Revolution,” “Das Boot” TV series), Namibian actor Girley Charlene Jazama and “Toni Erdmann” star Peter Simonischek. The film has its world premiere on Feb. 22 in the Berlinale Special section, and will be released in Germany by Studiocanal in late March.

Ed Meza @edmezavar The Berlin Brandenburg Airport announced Thursday the cancellation of flights on Friday to and from Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart due to planned strikes at other German airports. Planned strikes on Friday have been announced at airports in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Hanover, Dortmund and Bremen. The move has the potential to impede industry travel to the Berlin Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday, as Munich and Frankfurt are the country’s main airline hubs, and serve thousands of transit passengers per day. The Berlin airport is advising passengers to check with their airlines. German news service Deutsche Welle reported that a number of airports, including Düsseldorf, Nüremberg, Erfurt-Weimar and Dortmund, suffered website disruptions due to a suspected hacker attack.

Ed Meza @edmezavar German culture commissioner Claudia Roth has called for a fundamental reform of Germany’s €600 million ($640 million) per year film funding system, saying that profound changes in filmmaking, a declining admissions and too much bureaucracy made far-reaching alterations necessary. Writing in a guest column in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Roth pointed to the success of Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which has garnered nine Oscar nominations, including best picture and international feature, to illustrate how film production has changed. Roth, who is expected to address the issue at the opening ceremony of the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday evening, noted that the “environment for creating, making and experiencing movies” was changing drastically as streaming and global internet providers make films ever less dependent on television broadcasters and theatrical releases.

The gag order may still firmly be in place in the Bryan Kohberger murder case, but slowly and surely we’re getting a more complete look at what happened the night four University of Idaho students were murdered in their off-campus home in Moscow.

The German-based distribution and production company Port au Prince Film And Kultur Produktion has hired Roshanak “Rosh” Khodabakhsh as a producer and executive board member.

EXCLUSIVE: OneGate Media has picked up worldwide distribution rights for German crime series Asbestos from Pantaleon Films.

Negative reviews can be tough, especially when you put your heart and soul into your art — but we can probably all agree this German ballet director took out his frustrations in a pretty s**tty way!

A 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl have been arrested on suspicion of murder in Cheshire, United Kingdom after allegedly stabbing a 16-year-old transgender girl to death in a popular small-town park. Brianna Ghey (picture

Universal Music’s German division has announced that it has cut its ties with metal act Weimar after it emerged that the band’s members have far right connections – including at least two members having previous links to neo-Nazi bands.The decision comes after German newspaper Der Speigel published an article on the band’s members and their apparent beliefs.“Based on the information we recently learned from a journalist’s inquiry, we terminated our relationship with Weimar, which consisted of distribution of one album”, said the major label in a statement. “That has been stopped with immediate effect”.”The information that has come to light made clear that any relationship with the band was absolutely unacceptable to us and inconsistent with our values”, it went on.

RTL is centralizing its German publishing arm, as the European networks and media group continues to reshape its assets. More than 500 roles will be cut as the company aims to focus on “core brands” and bringing its publishing, TV and streaming businesses closer together.

In 2020, a woman passed away in the bathtub, but investigators still haven’t confirmed whether it was an accident or not.

A freshman fraternity pledge has been found dead in his dorm under suspicious circumstances — at the very same college where accused Idaho killer Bryan Kohberger had been a PhD student in criminology.

A Pantera show due to take place in Vienna later this year has been cancelled. And while no reason has been given for the cancellation, it quickly follows the axing of the band from two German festivals taking place this summer over allegations of past racism on the part of vocalist Phil Anselmo.The surviving members of Pantera – Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown – announced last year that they were reforming to play a number of shows in the US and Europe this year, marking the 40th anniversary of their debut album ‘Metal Magic’.