Poland Opens More Screen Doors to Global Partners

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Publicist Jillian Roscoe has launched Birch Public Relations. Her clients include Donald Glover, Melissa Rauch, Gerard Butler, John Cho, Jeremy Allen White, James Marsden, Judy Greer, Jesse Garcia, Mandy Moore, Sharon Horgan, David Duchovny, Lake Bell, Jim Parsons, Fred Armisen, Ty Burrell, Ben Schwartz, Jesse Tyler Ferugson, Kemp Powers and Hannah Fidell, among others. Roscoe was previously a senior vice president at ID PR. She left that firm — run by Kelly Bush and Mara Buxbaum — after 20 years last month. Publicists Rachel Karten and Lindsay Krug recently announced the formation of their company, Origin Public Relations, after also leaving ID in early February after 16 years with the company.

Holly Jones France-U.K. sales-production-distribution house Alief (“Matadero”) has closed U.K. and Irish theatrical sales for on Tallinn Black Nights Grand Prix winner “Driving Mum, with Newcastle upon Tyne-based exhibition and distribution outfit Tull Stories (“A Clever Woman”) ahead of its bow in at the Glasgow Festival on Monday. Warsaw-based Aurora Films (“I Love My Dad”) has simultaneously snapped up Polish theatrical rights. “We could not be happier to have found the perfect match for ‘Driving Mum’ in the U.K and Ireland, key markets in our company’s DNA. What a joyful day, I’ll finally be able to take my mother to one of our movies in London,” Brett Walker, president of Alief, told Variety.

Opening up. Prince Harry sat down with Dr. Gabor Maté for a special livestream on Saturday, March 4, to promote his memoir, Spare.

Prince Harry had a lot to say in his new interview!

Charna Flam The Duke of Sussex has expanded on the difficulties he faced in confronting his mental health, saying that he thought therapy “would kill” him if he pursued it. Joining Hungarian-Canadian physician Dr. Gabor Maté Saturday morning for a recorded conversation, the pair examined the intricacies of trauma, mental health diagnoses, mental health awareness and Prince Harry’s personal experience with trauma growing up as a member of the Royal family.

released its "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list, but only now has Chaka Khan gotten wind of it, and she's not having it.While speaking to host Andrew Goldman on  magazine's podcast, the Queen of Funk didn't pull any punches when sharing her exact feelings about the list. On top of directing her wrath at editors for creating a list she says sows division, Khan also went off on those who landed ahead of her, like Mary J. Blige.For starters, when Khan hopped on the podcast, she said she hadn't heard of the list.

Nintendo has announced a release date for Wave 4 of Mario Kart 8‘s downloadable content (DLC) courses, revealing eight tracks and a returning racer that’s coming to the game.In a trailer published today (March 2), Nintendo confirmed that Wave 4 of the Booster Course Pass will be released on March 9.The trailer also confirmed that the following eight courses will be featured in the DLC, including seven maps that are returning from other Mario Kart games and one entirely new map.In the below trailer, you can watch all eight of the maps in action:Additionally, the trailer also reveals that Birdo – a character from the Super Mario Bros. series and a mainstay in many of Mario’s sporting spin-offs – will make her Mario Kart 8 debut in Wave 4.Mario Kart 8‘s wave-based DLC launches were announced in February 2022, and have been slowly released since then.

Bill Murray and star Jeannie Berlin set foot on the red carpet of the 2023 SAG Awards holding hands.Murray and Berlin appeared quite close when they arrived together for Sunday's soiree at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The star wore a black tuxedo with a colorful bow tie, while Berlin sported an all-black suit and shades.Berlin, who portrayed Hadassah Fabelman in the Steven Spielberg film, was there for the film's nomination in the Best Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture category.

Molly-Mae Hague has given her man Tommy Fury a hero's welcome after his victory in the ring against Jake Paul. The Manchester boxer defeated American YouTuber turned fighter Jake by a split decision following their much-anticipated grudge match after more than two years of trash talking on Sunday night.

Several members of the Duggar family have shared their heartbreaking experiences with pregnancy loss over the years.

Open’er Festival has announced its next batch of acts for 2023, including Metro Boomin, Caroline Polachek, Rina Sawayama and more.Also added to the bill are Paolo Nutini, Young Fathers, Alyona Alyona, Warhaus and Ken Carson, who join the previously announced headliners Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Nas X and Lizzo, with the likes of Christine and the Queens, Queens Of The Stone Age, Machine Gun Kelly and more also on the bill.The Polish festival will be held at Gdynia-Kosakowo Airport in Gdynia from June 28-July 1, 2023. Tickets are on sale now.Poland!! I'll be back in the summer to play @opener_festival https://t.co/7f8kUjgx5q pic.twitter.com/fnxjcVA65k— RINA SLAYWAYAMA (@rinasawayama) February 24, 20232022 saw Open’er return after a pandemic-enforced break, with headliners including Imagine Dragons, A$AP Rocky, Twenty One Pilots, Dua Lipa and The Killers.Reviewing the festival’s return, NME wrote: “Two decades after its humble beginnings as a one-day event in Warsaw, Poland’s Open’er Festival returned to Gdynia earlier this month, with some of the world’s biggest names filling out its four-day extravaganza.“Like many other festivals across the globe, it marked the first time in three years that the event had been able to go ahead, and the atmosphere at the Babie Doły Military Airport site was one of pure celebration.”Caroline Polachek! An exceptional artist and author of this year's crtically acclaimed album "Desire, I Want to Turn Into You" is coming to Open'er! June 30, Gdynia, Tent Stage.

Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles Sunday evening as the show kicked off.Bill Murray, Claire Foy and Rooney Mara were amongst the star-studded crowd left waiting for the green light to enter the venue after a fire marshal blocked the entrance. Videos posted to Twitter by Variety’s co-editor-in-chief, Ramin Setoodeh, showed the “madness,” writing, “Even Bill Murray has to wait.”Another clip showed Foy and Mara waiting in line for entry.“Total chaos at the #SAGAwards as Claire Foy and Rooney Mara are not being allowed inside the ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel — they’re told they need to wait for the Fire Marshal to let them (and hundreds of other guests) inside,” Setoodeh tweeted.The Fire Marshal is not letting movie stars inside the #SAGAwards.

Ilker Çatak’s ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ Wins Europa Cinemas Prize In BerlinIlker Çatak’s The Teachers‘ Lounge has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in the Berlinale’s Panorama section. The award was voted on by a jury of four exhibitors from the Europa Cinemas network consisting of Marius Bălănescu (Cinema Victoria, Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Will Fitzgerald (Pálás, Galway, Ireland), Tanja Helm (Cinematograph & Leokino, Innsbruck, Austria) and Ola Starmach (Kino Pod Baranami, Kraków, Poland). Members of the Europa Cinemas network will receive a financial incentive when they program the film, ensuring it a wider release. “The Teachers‘ Lounge is an intense and very well-made drama set in a German primary school. The film explores key subjects like the prevalence of bureaucracy in schools and issues of race and class, but above all, it is a compelling rollercoaster of a drama,” read the jury statement. The title is sold internationally by Brussels-based Be For Films and produced by Ingo Fliess for Munich-based if…Productions.

Kim Kardashian can’t get enough of Mariah Carey’s trending TikTok audio of her 2009 hit “It’s a Wrap”.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor If Don Lemon is being squeezed behind the scenes at CNN after making polarizing remarks last week, none of the pulp is showing up on camera. Lemon returned to “CNN This Morning” Wednesday after being absent from the new A.M. program for three consecutive broadcasts following pushback — both internal and external — to comments he made about when women are in their prime, dialogue that generated opposition not only from his co-anchors, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins but viewers and colleagues. None of the trio mentioned the incident on air Wednesday, focusing instead on delivering the news. Collins held forth from Poland; Harlow interviewed Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz; Lemon juggled multiple tasks and noted the historic moment President Biden was having this week.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Lie With Me,” a romance drama headlined by French stars Guillaume de Tonquebec and Victor Belmondo, has lured a raft of theatrical distributors at the Berlinale’s EFM. Represented in international markets by Be For Films and directed by Olivier Peyon, the movie is based on Philippe Besson’s book “Arrête avec tes mensonges.” The autobiographical novel was originally published in France by Editions Julliard in 2017 and won pair of awards including the Maison de la Presse prize in 2017. After selling several key territories earlier this year, Be For Films has now closed deals for the U.S. (Cinephobia Realising), Germany/Austria (24 Bilder), Brazil (Imovision), Poland (Tongariro), Greece (Cinobo) and Turkey (Bir Films).

Liza Foreman German production outfit MMC Studios (“Amelie”) is backing romanic drama “Dear Eszter,” from writer/director Alex Balassa. Bastian Griese and Lucas Hamacher will produce the film for MMC Studios in Cologne, alongside Balassa. The film’s co-producers include Peter Seres (“World War Z”) at Hungary’s Punk Films, as well as Ondrej Beranek (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) from the Czech Republic’s Blindspot Capital.  Two of Chile’s foremost TV producers, Maria Elena Wood (“Locas Mujeres”) and Patricio Pereira from Maria Wood Producciones (MEW), serve as executive producers. 

Israeli director Guy Nattiv has defended his casting of non-Jewish actress Helen Mirren as iconic Israeli Prime minister Golda Meir in his biopic Golda, which world premieres at the Berlin Film Festival on Monday.

Nick Holdsworth Breaking into the world of filmmaking is never an easy prospect.   And when you are a queer filmmaker who wants to focus on LGBTQ subjects, and lives in a traditional, Catholic, former Soviet Eastern European country, the bar to success is set pretty high.  Romas Zabarauskas’ career proves that with grit, determination — and, as he says, “no bitterness” — it is possible to create your own path on the international stage.  The 32-year-old producer and director — currently in production of his first English-language feature, “The Writer,” the second in a trilogy of films examining gay relationships — says being in the public spotlight as a queer filmmaker is a “complex issue.” 

Ed Meza @edmezavar German distributor and world sales company Kinostar has acquired Polish filmmaker Maria Sadowska’s erotic thriller “Temptation.” Based on the bestselling novel by Edyta Folwarska, “Temptation” tells the story of young journalist Inez, whose assignment to cover soccer star Maks Wygoda leads her onto a dangerous journey. “Temptation” was produced by Daniel Markowicz of Warsaw-based Lightcraft, who also produced and directed the recent hit Netflix actioner “Lesson Plan,” and executive producers Paulina Nowak and Anita Dabrowska. “Maria and Daniel are extremely talented, and we are very happy to start working with Lightcraft on this movie, with hopefully many more to follow,” said Kinostar head Michael Roesch.