Japanese Advertising Giant Hakuhodo Launches Production House Trigger Happy Studios in India (EXCLUSIVE)

Netflix’s has unveiled a slate of female-led African projects to coincide with International Women’s Month.

EXCLUSIVE: Actor-producer Esha Bargate is launching a production company that aims to challenge how Hollywood views and portrays Indian culture and society.

Good afternoon Insiders, Jesse Whittock with you in London, where the TV world has decamped this week for a series of screenings. Read on, and sign up for the newsletter here.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery and Room to Read have partnered on “She Creates Change,” an animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world. Room to Read is a global education nonprofit aiming to creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality.

$10 billion Sony-ZEE merger plans and late February’s confirmation that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (which incorporates Viacom18 and streamer JioCinema) is to tie up most of Disney’s streaming and pay-TV businesses in an $8.5 billion deal, Indian media is set to gain a new market leader. For local and international operators in the world’s most populous nation, the consequences of those tectonic shifts extend across streaming, pay-TV, channels, advertising, sports and content.

Naman Ramachandran Bollywood aspirants the world over wanting to feature alongside top Indian stars can now cut out the middleman. Leading Indian studio Yash Raj Films (YRF), the outfit behind Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone starrer “Pathaan,” and “Tiger 3,” led by Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, has launched its YRF Casting app. Acting aspirants from across the world can get information about casting calls and submit their auditions via the app.

Former HBO Europe execs Johnathan Young and Ioanina Pavel have resurfaced with their own indie.

Drishyam,” a hit Indian thriller in which an ordinary man confounds the police in order to protect his family, is to be re-made in English. Production is by India’s Panorama Studios with U.S. companies Gulfstream Pictures and JOAT Films.

Emiliano De Pablos U.K.-based distributor DCD Rights has pre-sold the fourth season of New Zealand’s mystery drama “My Life Is Murder” to a raft of territories ahead of its Feb. 27 official launch at the London Screenings. Starring Lucy Lawless (“Top of the Lake,” “Spartacus,” “Xena: Warrior Princess”), the series’ brand new season rights have been secured by YLE Finland, TV2 Denmark, Quebecor Content Canada and Yes DBS Israel.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Underscoring the enduring popularity of crime drama, Abacus Media Rights (AMR), an Amcomri Entertainment company, has announced a slew of sales on two titles, led by Showmax Original “Catch Me a Killer,” a true crime drama with “Game of Thrones’” Charlotte Hope playing South Africa’s first and most famous serial killer profiler. Hope also headed “The Spanish Princess,” as Catherine of Aragon. AMR has moreover closed further deals on fiction drama “Scrublands,” a scripted drama about the real reasons for a country town massacre.

Naman Ramachandran MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Paramount Global and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered on “In Bloom,” a short film anthology focusing on gender equity. Directed by emerging female filmmakers from Nigeria, Kenya, India, the U.S. and Brazil, the anthology addresses a range of issues including period poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, HIV self- stigma, family planning and women’s economic empowerment.

Alex Ritman “La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that recently bowed in competition at the Berlinale, has been acquired for most international territories. HanWay Films has closed sales for France (Originals Factory), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Spain (Avalon), Italy (Teodora Film), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Scandinavia (Mis.

EXCLUSIVE: The news when Deadline speaks to Lisa Kramer is the launch of a Paramount+ branded hub with African pay-TV giant MultiChoice. But a conversation with the President, International TV Licensing at Paramount Global Content Distribution (PGCD), offers a much wider insight into the world of TV in 2024.

Naman Ramachandran Kumar Shahani, one of the pioneers of India’s arthouse parallel cinema movement, died at a hospital in Kolkata on Feb. 24 after a period of illness. He was 83.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Netflix has acquired the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “To Kill a Tiger.” The film, about a father’s pursuit of justice in rural India, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and was awarded best documentary at the 2023 Palm Springs International Film Festival. “To Kill a Tiger” was, up until now, the only film this year to be nominated for the best feature doc Oscar without distribution.

Dahomey,” a highlight of this year’s Berlinale competition and directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantics”), for North America, Latin America, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India. The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema.

Lunar New Year is a key box office period in several Asian territories, but nowhere was it more hotly contested this year than in Vietnam, where several local, Japanese and Hollywood movies were slugging it over the week-long holidays (February 9-15).

Holly Jones Yasuo Nakajima and Mariona Carrera’s Barcelona and Tokyo-based b-mount have boarded “Maybe It’s True What They Say About Us,’ (“Quizás Es Cierto Lo Que Dicen De Nosotras”) from Chilean filmmaking duo Camilo Becerra (“El último sacramento”) and Sofía Paloma Gómez (“Quiero morirme dentro de un tiburón”), seen at San Sebastian’s San Sebastián WIP Latam competition. b-mount join a co-production between Carlos Núñez and Gabriela Sandoval at Chile’s Storyboard Media (“The Sky Is Red”), Cecilia Salim at Argentina’s Murillo Cine (“Chaco”) and Lucía van Gelderen at Argentina’s Morocha Films (“El Cinco”) alongside Becerra’s production venture La Jauría Comunicaciones.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Spanish indie film studio Filmax has sold sleeper hit “The Teacher who Promised the Sea” to Italy’s Officine Ubu following sales to Nachshon Films in Israel, Angel Films Scandinavia, India’s BookMyShow and airline rights to Encore Inflight. “The Teacher…” is based on the real story of Antoni Benaiges, an instructor from Catalonia who, back in 1935, was assigned to teach at a little village school in the province of Burgos.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has had a busy EFM, where it’s locked a raft of major deals on “The Devil’s Bath,” a period psychological thriller in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. “The Devil’s Bath” is directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian filmmaking duo behind “Goodnight Mommy.” Set in rural Austria in 1750, “The Devil’s Bath” stars Anja Plaschg, the up-and-coming singer and composer known as Soap & Skin. Plaschg plays Agnes, a young married woman who feels oppressed in her husband’s world, which is devoid of emotions and limited to chores and expectations.