Producers on the Move Participants Reveal Upcoming Projects (EXCLUSIVE)

K.J. Yossman Caroline Lagerfelt (“Sweet Magnolias”) has boarded Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway feature “Mothers’ Instinct,” Variety can exclusively reveal.Lagerfelt will play Chastain’s mother-in-law in the psychological thriller, which tells the story of two women living next door to each other in an idyllic neighborhood in the 1960s.

Emiliano De Pablos Montreal and Madrid-based Pink Parrot Media has picked up international distribution rights to 3D CGI animated feature project “Onca & The Protectors of the Amazon” (aka “Arara and the Guardians of the Amazon”).“Onca” is being brought by Pink Parrot onto Annecy Festival’s MIFA market, where the company will look for financial partners.Aimed at 8-12year-old children family audiences, the feature is written and directed by Colombia’s Vlamyr Vizcaya (“Out of Love”). Its story takes place in the Amazon rainforest and aims to raise environmental awareness.The film co-producers take in Belgium’s Walking The Dog (“Another Day of Life,”  “Where is Anne Frank?”), L.A.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentMotorTrend Group, a Warner Bros. Discovery company, has given a greenlight to “Super Turbo Story Time,” an all-new adult animated series telling larger than life, untold and (mostly) true stories from the automative world, it announced Thursday.The eight-episode series, the first adult animated title in the history of MotorTrend, will be produced with legendary American animation studio Titmouse (“Big Mouth,” “The Boys Presents: Diabolical,” “The Legend of Vox Machina”) and by MotorTrend Studio.“Super Turbo Story Time” will debut first quarter of 2023 on MotorTrend Plus,  the top motoring SVOD service.Every episode has two hosts who meet to trade their favorite car stories.

Manori Ravindran International EditorITV Studios is buying British natural history producer Plimsoll Productions, Variety can reveal.While the acquisition isn’t a done deal just yet, sources indicate that it’s expected to close in the next two days. The deal, which sees ITV Studios take a majority stake in Grant Mansfield’s company, is a major coup for the “Love Island” super-indie, which has long been missing a strong natural history player in its entertainment and drama-skewing portfolio. Founded by RDF Media and Zodiak USA veteran Mansfield, Plimsoll was founded in 2013 and specializes in wildlife and natural history programming across its outposts in Bristol, Cardiff and Los Angeles.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaHappyNest has closed an equity investment into GoKidGo, an audio company geared towards making content for kids. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The pact gives HappyNest proprietary development rights to adapt short-form and long-form animated series from GoKidGo original characters, including a new original R.L.

Emiliano De Pablos Celebrated Uruguayan producer Fernando Epstein, co-founder of Mutante Cine, one of Latin America’s key arthouse outfits, is entering into TV fiction creation with thriller drama series “La tinta invisible” (“The Invisible Link”).The show is a two-season series based on two novels by Uruguayan author Eduardo Mariani that go through part of the recent history of South America, linked to Europe through the exile of some of its characters.The project, at an early development stage, will be pitched at the Co-Pro Series session during the 6th edition of Conecta Fiction & Entertainment forum, which runs June 21-25 in Toledo, Spanish region Castilla-La Mancha’s capital city.Toledo will be “The Invisible Link’s” first participation in the international market. Epstein has been a film producer and editor since 2000, with more than 50 credits and several awards at A-class festivals, having produced and edited significant Latin American titles such as “Whisky” and “Gigante.”“After 20 years as a producer and editor of auteur films, I found in the series format the possibility of adapting the work of Eduardo Mariani, a Uruguayan author whose narrative force combines thriller with drama in a story that takes place over 40 years,” Epstein told Variety.Epstein has teamed with “Manny’s Garage Sale: A Hitchcock Knot” co-scribe Janine Zaruski to write “The Invisible Link.”Set up at Mutante Cine, the project tells the story of two opposite and complementary characters.

K.J. Yossman The adaptation of T.M. Logan’s novel “The Holiday” has an exclusive trailer and a U.S.

Jessica Kiang If the unmarked enemy aircraft, mirrored visors and carefully evasive language of Joseph Kosinksi’s “Top Gun: Maverick” tell us anything, it’s that Hollywood has learned to avoid political specifics in the delivery of grandstanding blockbuster entertainment. So one can be forgiven for coming to “Rebel” with hackles raised and offence-o-meters on red alert, as it milks Hollywoodish action-movie thrills (and even a few surreal musical numbers) from the highly charged scenario of one young Belgian’s recruitment into a Syrian ISIS cell.

after five seasons. With the Amazon Prime Video comedy taking its final bow, the cast of the award-winning series, led by leading lady Rachel Brosnahan, spoke with ET about being in the midst of their farewell tour as they reach the halfway point of production on the final season. For some of them, it's been an emotional ride already.«I’ve already cried once today!» Brosnahan admitted to ET's Rachel Smith at an Emmy FYC event in New York City on Thursday evening.

EXCLUSIVE: Coda producer Pathé has concluded a raft of sales on its Cannes slate including for starry French drama Masquerade, Directors’ Fortnight entry Paris Memories and Penelope Cruz title L’Immensita.

As a procedural drama centrally interested in the radicalization of a young Muslim boy in Belgium, Adil & Bilall’s “Rebel” pulsates with terrible inevitability. Falling behind at school, with an adored older brother already having made the trip to Syria and a trafficker whispering in his ear, it’s less a question of if Nassim (Amir El Arbi, another tremendous kid actor for Cannes ’22 to tick off) is going to find himself on the Jihadist frontline, but when.

Naman Ramachandran India’s Kamal Haasan is a true multi-hyphenate. Beginning as a child actor in 1960, he is one of the country’s most consummate actors with films like “Pathinaru Vayathinile” (1977) “Moondram Pirai” (1982) “Nayakan” (1987), “Thevar Magan” (1992) and “Vishwaroopam” (2013) behind him.He also produces via his Raajkamal Films International (RKFI), writes, directs, and runs the  Makkal Needhi Maiam political party.The upcoming “Vikram,” directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj (“Master”) and costarring Fahadh Fasil (“Maalik”) Vijay Sethupathi (“Kadaisi Vivasayi”), will be Haasan’s first release since 2018’s “Vishwaroopam 2.” It is produced by RKFI.Haasan was at the Cannes Market to launch NFTs based on “Vikram” from Fantico, a digital licensed platform of Singapore’s Vistas Media Capital.

Naman Ramachandran Indian actor Jackie Shroff (“Sooryavanshi”) will play the lead in Singapore-France-India co-production “Slow Joe,” it was revealed at the Cannes Film Market.Shroff will play the late Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, known as Slow Joe, a former heroin addict and drug dealer who was born in Mumbai, was disowned by his family, heartbroken at 50 and who moved to Goa and cleaned up. On a trip to Goa in 2007, Lyon-based French musician Cédric de la Chapelle met Joe, now a frail 64-year-old who was making ends meet as a hotel room broker. Joe, also a poet and musician, sang for de la Chapelle, who was captivated by his voice and recorded some of his a cappella songs.Back in France, de la Chapelle played Joe’s songs for music producer Olivier Boccon-Gibod of Horizon Musiques, who was also entranced.

K.J. Yossman “Rebel,” from Belgian directors Adil & Bilall, follows the story of a young Muslim boy called Nassim who longs to be reunited with his elder brother Kamal, who goes to Syria to help victims of the war before being forced to join a militia. Radical recruiters spot Nassim as an easy target, promising they can reunite him with Kamal.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLola Arabia and Dubai’s Charisma Group are readying Agustí Villaronga’s “Arabian Aroma” and Pau Miró’s “Lost Symphony,” the first two titles in a 12-pic production alliance unveiled during the Berlin. FestivalBoth movies are in pre-production, budgeted around $6 million and feature women “who passionately set themselves on a mission,” the partners announced.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentOscar-winning producer and activist Marion Cotillard is joining forces with filmmaker Cyril Dion and producer Magali Payen to launch Newtopia, a production company which will aim at delivering movies, series and shorts with socially relevant themes. The Paris-based company’s first slate of ambitious projects include Dion’s geopolitical thriller “Le grand vertige,” and “Francoise,” a prestige English-language mini-series about the flamboyant life of Françoise d’Eaubonne, a leading feminist writer and activist who created the concept of ecofeminism.

Emiliano De Pablos Vértice 360, one of Spain’s top indie production-distribution companies, is expanding operations to Latin America, Italy and Portugal, as fruit of its ambitious plan to become a reference on the international film distribution scene.Part of the Squirrel Media group, the Madrid-based distributor is backing a first stage of its international expansion with the investment of more than $100 million in film content for distribution in the 35 territories where it already operates. At the current Cannes Film Market, Vértice is looking for movie deals to expand its international line up.The distributor mainly looks for blockbusters going out to independent industry and prestige projects which are liable to win international awards, but also local productions in both Spanish and English. Vértice has already established business relationships with top independent content providers such as Millennium Media, FilmNation, A24, Studiocanal and Pathé. “We have with them a title-by-title relationship, with a maximum degree of collaboration.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAdil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Belgian directing duo behind “Bad Boys For Life” and Cannes’ Midnight Screening title “Rebel,” are developing “2000,” a film based on Dirk Bracke’s “Straks doet het geen pijn meer.” It will mark the pair’s return to Belgium after lining up “Ms. Marvel” for Disney+ and “Batgirl” for HBO Max.Bracke’s book, whose title translates into the phrase “soon it will be alright,” is being adapted by El Arbi, Fallah and Bulle Decarpentries (“Carnivores”).The project, which will be El Arbi and Fallah’s first film in Flemish, reteams the pair with Nabil Ben Yadir at 10.80 Films (“Les Barons”), with whom they made “Black,” their critically acclaimed sophomore outing that won a flurry of awards, including Toronto’s Discovery award.

Manori Ravindran International EditorLotfy Nathan, the director of Un Certain Regard title “Harka,” is set to make an elevated horror feature with the producers of “Armageddon Time.”Following the Cannes premiere of “Harka,” Nathan is moving forward with his sophomore film, which is tentatively titled “Son,” based on the apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas, about the childhood of Jesus.The film continues the relationship between the U.S. director, Spacemaker Prods.

K.J. Yossman “Game of Thrones” star Michelle Fairley is set to appear in Bouli Lanners feature film “Nobody Has To Know.” Lanners will write, direct and co-star in the project.Fairley, who has also appeared in “Suits” and “Gangs of London,” plays Millie MacPherson in the film. She takes care of Philippe Haubin, a middle-aged man suffering from memory loss following a stroke.