Riz Ahmed Inks First-Look Deal With Amazon (Exclusive)

The Berlin Film Festival has announced the first group of films for its 71st edition, unveiling the official lineups for its Retrospective and Generation sections on Monday.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentPicture Tree International has acquired international rights to “Mission Ulja Funk,” which has been selected for Berlin Film Festival’s youth-centric Generation KPlus competition.The film, which is the debut feature of German writer/director Barbara Kronenberg, is about the 12 year old girl Ulja, who sets out on a road trip in a stolen hearse to Eastern Europe to witness the impact of an asteroid she discovered.Kronenberg studied at the Academy

Annika Pham After the BBC’s “Deep Blue,” “Earth” and Terence Malick’s “Voyage of Time,” Berlin-based Sophisticated Films is partnering Finland’s MRP Matila Röhr Productions on their mythological natural history feature “Tale of the Sleeping Giants.” Sophisticated Films’ managing director Sophokles Tasioulis will serve as associate producer, in charge of marketing and sales outside Finland.“Tale of the Sleeping Giant” is the third standalone nature movie produced by MPR Matila Röhr Productions

Joseph Sikora, best known as Tommy Egan on Starz'sPower franchise, has signed a first-look deal for his Black Fox Productions banner with Lionsgate TV. The deal follows Sikora's character being pegged as the focus of the upcoming new installment of the franchise, Power Book IV: Force.

Impact, the talent accelerator founded by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard in 2018 for up-and-coming writers, has partnered with Skydance Television in a first-look deal to source content using its proprietary application and review system.

Anne Feeney, a key part of the folk music movement and a committed political and labor activist, died Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pa. from complications of Covid-19. She was 69 and her daughter, Amy Sue Berlin, announced her passing on Facebook.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla Skydance Television, the diversified media company behind “Grace and Frankie,” “Altered Carbon” and “Jack Ryan,” has inked a first-look deal with global talent network and development accelerator program Impact. The contract will enable Skydance to source television content from writers around the world through Impact’s proprietary open application and evaluation system.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentClint Bentley’s feature debut “Jockey,” set to world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in Sundance, has been acquired by Berlin-based Films Boutique for international sales.Written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar (“Transpecos”), “Jockey” stars Clifton Collins Jr.

Synchronicity Films, the company behind BBC One’s Jenna Coleman series The Cry, has signed a first-look deal with All3Media International for all upcoming scripted television projects.

Sony Pictures TV has signed 88rising, the emergent company that spotlights modern global Asian culture, to a first-look deal. The two will partner to develop scripted series centering Asian and Asian American culture, across all platforms, and 88rising has hired former Imagine and NBC exec Alex Lin to serve as its first development executive for film and television.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer“Minyan,” an acclaimed tale of sexual and spiritual identity directed by Eric Steel, has sold to Strand Releasing in North America.The film, starring stage breakout Samuel H. Levine of Broadway and the West End’s “The Inheritance,” played in the official selection at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and went on to win Outfest’s grand jury prize for U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Blumhouse has made a first-look deal for television with writer/producer Michael Seitzman (Code Black, Quantico) and his Maniac Productions company.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television has signed a first-look deal with 88rising to develop scripted television series angled around Asian and Asian-American culture.

Naman Ramachandran Asia Argento (“Agony”), Golshifteh Farahani (“Extraction”) and Jim Sarbh (“Made in Heaven”) star in the voice cast of Ishan Shukla’s animated feature “Schirkoa,” production on which begins in the spring.The voice cast also includes Soko (“Little Fish”) and Arish Ahmad Khan aka King Khan, front man of Berlin-based garage rock and psychedelic soul band King Khan and the Shrines, with filmmaker Gaspar Noe (“Climax”) and actor-musician Piyush Mishra (“Sanju”) appearing as VO

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAaron Ryder, the Oscar-nominated producer of “Arrival,” is launching a new production company, Ryder Picture Company. In addition, the Ryder Picture Company has entered into a first-look feature film deal with MGM.In an interview with Variety, Ryder said the deal with MGM came about because of his friendship with the film group’s chairman, Michael De Luca.

Naman Ramachandran Sovereign Film Distribution has acquired U.K.

Emilio Mayorga Catalan auteur Carla Simón, a 2017 Berlinale Generation Kplus winner with “Summer 1993,” is preparing her third feature, “Romería,” which has been selected among 17 new feature projects to be offered at Rotterdam Film Festival’s CineMart co-production market, to be held Feb.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“Bad Tales,” a drama written and directed by Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo, has been acquired by Strand Releasing for North American distribution. Sold by The Match Factory, the movie world premiered in competition at Berlin in 2019 and won the Silver Bear for best screenplay.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentEuropean Film Promotion has revealed the 10 actors who will take part in the 24th edition of European Shooting Stars.

EXCLUSIVE: Acclaimed Miss Juneteenth writer-director Channing Godfrey Peoples has signed a first-look deal with UCP to write, produce and direct projects for the studio. As part of the deal, Godfrey Peoples is developing a TV adaptation of her critically praised film Miss Juneteenth.