Modern Heroes Tread the World Stage From Srebrenica to Tbilisi, India, Palermo and a Wondrous Greenland Ice Sheet in Latest Swiss Docs

Zoya Akhtar (The Archies), Fawzia Mirza (Queen of My Dreams), and Roshan Sethi (A Nice Indian Boy) are set to join the 1497 Features Lab as Mentors.

Sundance Institute announced today the fellows selected for the 2024 Directors, Screenwriters, and Native Labs. The Native Lab in New Mexico will support four fellows and two artists in residence, and the Directors Lab in Colorado will support the development of eight projects with nine fellows, with an additional three fellows also joining for the online Screenwriters Lab held immediately after.  

Every week it seems there are large numbers of indie and specialty releases vying for attention, impossible to do them all, so when the option of reviewing Nowhere Special was placed in front of me I resisted at first after discovering it actually premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. That’s right, four years ago. I had to wonder what could possibly be good about a film delayed for that long in terms of getting a U.S. release date? Finally caving in to the persistent requests by the distributor and its passionate PR team, I decided to check it out. What I discovered was not that this was some sort of troubled film, not even close. Instead I found a spare but moving drama, powered by a remarkable lead performance, that is all about life and death and all things inbetween. At its heart it is also an inspiring story of dedicated parent and child, how we face the uncertain future, and what we leave behind. Nowhere Special is something special indeed. If you aren’t shedding well-earned tears by the end of this film you simply are not human.

Naman Ramachandran Billionaire Mukesh Ambani‘s streamer JioCinema is making a play to become India’s top streaming service by introducing cheap premium tier plans. From April 25, the service’s existing INR999 ($12) annual plan for international premium content is being replaced by a monthly plan of INR29 (35 cents) for a single device or INR89 ($1.05) monthly for a family plan that covers four devices. The new plans are branded JioCinema Premium and will be up to 4K streaming quality.

Eurovision Song Contest 2024.According to Eurovision World, the favourites to win the competition have been revealed. Coming in first place is Switzerland’s NEMO, who currently has a 25 per cent chance at snagging the crown this year with their song ‘The Code’.Behind Switzerland in second place is Croatia, whose entry Baby Lasagna is predicted to have a 17 per cent chance of winning with his song ‘Rim Tim Tagi Dim’.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) South Asia has a sizzling summer slate lined up in the kids space including a mix of anime and homegrown IP. Launching on the Indian animation-focused Pogo channel in May is new Indian IP “Jay Jagannath.” The series portrays the friendship between the Hindu God Lord Jagannath, who has taken the form of a child, Jagan, and his devout follower Balaram.

Can Yaman has lined up his next role. The Turkish hearthrob will be playing the fictional pirate Sandokan in a reboot series that hopes to reintroduce the legendary character a new generation of viewers. The series will be adapted by the European production company Lux Vide and is based on the stories written by Emilio Salgari.

EXCLUSIVE: June Zero, the latest from writer-director Jake Paltrow (Young Ones, The Good Night, De Palma) and producers Oren Moverman (The Messenger, Bad Education), Miranda Bailey (Swiss Army Man, The Diary of a Teenage Girl) and David Silber (Incitement, Junction 48), is set for theatrical release in New York on June 28, Los Angeles July 5 and nationwide July 12 by Cohen Media Group.

Foxtel/Binge Topper Amanda Laing Exiting

Naman Ramachandran Studiocanal’s Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black” debuted atop the U.K and Ireland box office with £2.77 million ($3.4 million), according to numbers from Comscore. It was neck-and-neck for the second spot. Entertainment Film Distributors’ “Civil War,” directed by Alex Garland and starring Kirsten Dunst, debuted with £1.82 million, including previews.

Annika Pham Talent-driven doc sales outfit Rise & Shine has boarded “Fire Fire Fire” (“Feu Feu Feu”), the feature debut of Swiss rising voice Pauline Jeanbourquin (“Dusk”), due to world premiere in the national competition strand of Nyon’s Visions du Réel docu festival. Variety has had exclusively access to the international trailer. The poetic and captivating coming-of-age story of a young girl with healing talents, is produced by high-profile Geneva-based Close Up Films, credited for the 2023 Swiss Oscar entry “Thunder” and as co-producer of the Oscar-nominated “I Am Not Your Negro.” “I enjoy working on first features, meeting a new voice, exploring and questioning what it means to direct, figuring things out together.

Alex Ritman Rwandan actress Eliane Umuhire (“Augure by Baloji,” “My New Friends”), French producer Sylvie Pialat (“Timbuktu,” “Staying Vertical”), Belgian cinematographer Virginie Surdej (“The Blue Caftan,” “Our Mothers,” “Casablanca Beats”) and Canadian film critic, journalist and frequent Variety contributor Ben Croll have been named on the jury for the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival. The four will now join Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, who last week was named Critics’ Week jury president, with the group set to choose the sidebar competition’s award winners, including the Grand Prize for best feature film, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star award for best actor or actress and the Leitz Ciné Discovery Prize for best short film.

Don’t expect to see Sandra Oh back on Grey’s Anatomy anytime soon.

Lexi Carson ‘80s nostalgia is heading back to Netflix’s theaters with Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection – 1984. The Milestone Movies collection will screen across three theaters: New York’s Paris Theater, The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and The Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Selected films turning 40 this year will play in Netflix’s theaters and the 1984 collection is also available to stream.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent New York-based group FilmRise has dropped a gripping first trailer for “Missing From Fire Trail Road,” Sabrina Van Tassel (“The State of Texas vs. Melissa“)’s documentary film about the crimes against indigenous women.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled a spectacular trailer for Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s series “Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar.” The series is set in Heeramandi, Lahore, British India, where Mallikajaan (Manisha Koirala) rules over an elite house of courtesans. She schemes, fearing no one — until the return of her late nemesis’ daughter, Fareedan (Sonakshi Sinha), brings tensions in the house to a boil. Outside, the city is also roiling, with revolutionaries demanding India’s freedom from British rule, with Bibbojaan (Aditi Rao Hydari), one of Mallikajaan’s daughters, joining the fight for freedom.

Naman Ramachandran Indian cinema A-list actor-producer-director Prithviraj Sukumaran is extremely busy, with a hit film in theaters, another due this week and several more in the works. Malayalam-language “Aadujeevitham” (“The Goat Life“), directed by Blessy (“Thanmatra”) is based on Benyamin’s bestselling 2008 novel of the same name and tells the true story of Najeeb, an immigrant laborer from Kerala forced into slavery on a remote goat farm in a Middle Eastern country. Sukumaran plays Najeeb.

Annika Pham On the heels of its successful world launch at IDFA, the critically-acclaimed anti-colonial pic “Our Land, Our Freedom,” sold by First Hand Films, has landed a deal with BBC Africa Eye. “Our Land, Our Freedom,” a Kenyan/U.S./Portuguese co-production, and the upcoming India-set “Kalari,” to be pitched in Visions du Réel docu festival’s Swiss Preview showcase, epitomize what First Hand Films stands for.

Netflix fans appear to be divided over the streamer's latest crime drama Ripley. Moreover, they can't seem to agree on Andrew Scott's performance of titular character, deadly con artist Tom Ripley.

Naman Ramachandran For veteran Bollywood filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra, his latest film “12th Fail” is the gift that keeps on giving. Based on the 2019 book of the same name by Anurag Pathak, the film tells the true story of Manoj Kumar Sharma who conquered extreme familial poverty to pass one of the world’s toughest examination processes and become an Indian Police Service officer. Distributed by Zee Studios, the modestly budgeted “12th Fail” released theatrically in October 2023 in a Bollywood market where only big-budget action spectacles were working and many smaller films were taking the easier route to bowing directly on a streamer.