Romania’s Culture Minister Confident That Government Can ‘Repair’ Beleaguered Cash Rebate System (EXCLUSIVE)

It can be difficult not to give your dog a nibble of whatever it is you're eating, as their big eyes and pleading faces are often hard to resist.

Country star Carly Pearce is sending an important message through her latest song. During an interview with Fox News Digital, the 33-year-old singer detailed her next big single, "We Don’t Fight Anymore" and shared the "worst place" a person can get in a relationship. "I think it's just about that place of indifference.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cohen Media Group has scooped rights to “Kidnapped,” the latest movie by revered Italian master Marco Bellocchio, which world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The drama reconstructs the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th-century Italy. Described by Variety as a “handsomely mounted period drama,” “Kidnapped” opens in 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, where the Pope’s soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By order of the cardinal, they have come to take Edgardo, their seven-year-old son. The child had been secretly baptized by his nurse as a baby, and the papal law is unquestionable: he must receive a Catholic education.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent “The Rookie: Feds” remains on the bubble, as one of two shows at ABC awaiting news regarding a renewal — and its star, Niecy Nash-Betts, is crossing her fingers for a second season. Nash-Betts has had an in-demand year, starring in Netflix’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and hosting Fox’s gameshow “Don’t Forget the Lyrics,” in addition to headlining “The Rookie: Feds.” And she’s hoping to keep her busy schedule going, continuing to play her character, Simone Clark, on the ABC police procedural. “I love my job so much, I love the people that I work with, and I love the fact that I get to work with my better half over there,” Nash-Betts says of her wife, musician Jessica Betts, who plays her love interest on “The Rookie: Feds.”

Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever” is all set for a final lap.

has changed its rating system for the newly-released live-action “Little Mermaid” amid “unusual voting activity.”The Halle Bailey-led film has a 7/10 rating on the site. But a few crabby users — also known as review bombers — are allegedly giving the Disney flick negative scores for no good reason.“Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title.

And just like that, the Sex and the City foursome will share the screen once more when Kim Cattrall makes a surprise visit to And Just Like That.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Family animated movie “Pirate Mo and the Legend of the Red Ruby” proved to be a smash hit with international distributors during the Cannes Film Market, with sales agency The Playmaker Munich delivering the film to multiple buyers. During the market, The Playmaker announced first presales to Benelux (Just4Kids), Turkey (Filmarti), Baltics (GPI), Greece (Rosebud) and Bulgaria (Pro Films). The company has now revealed further sales to Poland (M2 Films), Scandinavia (Njuta Films), Hungary and Romania (ADS), Portugal (Outsider Pictures), and Yugoslavia (Blitz Film).

Finkelstein told Vanity Fair. “The Hill made about $18 million [in profit]. We had 120 million visits on average a month, with about 70 reporters and 90 people in the editorial department.

Darby Allin is the resident daredevil of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), but the self-belief required to take such dangerous risks didn’t apply to all aspects of his career evenly. It does now.

EXCLUSIVE: The biggest deal thrashed out so far at this year’s Cannes market is nearing completion with Amazon Prime Video set to pre-buy international rights — excluding Germany — to Liam Neeson action sequel Ice Road 2: Road To The Sky in a pact pegged around $17M.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful drama “Four Daughters” which mixes documentary and fiction to tell the story of Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined ISIS is scoring a slew of sales following its well-received Cannes competition premiere. French company The Party Films Sales has sealed deals on “Four Daughters” for: Benelux (Cineart); Spain (Caramel Films); Italy (I Wonder); Switzerland (Trigon); Sweden (Triart); Denmark (Camera Film); Norway (Arthaus); Finland (Cinemanse); Poland (New Horizons); Greece (Ama Films); former Yougoslavia (Discovery) and Turkey (Bir Film). Rights to the film for multiple other territories are under negotiations, the company said.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Alice Rohrwacher is in the Cannes competition for the third time with “La Chimera,” in which “The Crown” star Josh O’Connor plays a young British archeologist named Arthur who gets involved in an international network of stolen Etruscan artifacts during the 1980s. For Rohrwacher, the film is connected to growing up in Umbria, once the center of the Etruscan civilization. But it’s also the final piece of a triptych on a territory that she started with her previous Cannes entries: “The Wonders” and “Happy as Lazzaro.” Three works that, as she has put it, pose a central question: “What to do with the past?”  

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the lineup of Cannes Film Market’s newly launched initiative Cannes Investors Circle has remained under wraps, Variety has learned about four of the nine projects which were pitched during the invitation-only event. The initiative was created by the film market’s new executive director Guillaume Esmiol to connect VIP private investors with select filmmakers and producers boasting a stellar track records. Curated by experts such as Medici’s Tamara Tatishvili, Arte Cinema’s Rémi Burah and financier Serge Hayat, the nine projects are budgeted between €2 million and €12 million. Among these are “Dracula. The Second Coming” directed by Radu Jude, the Romanian helmer of Berlinale prizewinning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” directed by Ada Solomon at microFILM; “Rivo Alto,” directed by Clément Cogitore (“The Wakhan Front”) and produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Kazak Productions (“Titane”); “The Girl” directed by Marina Ziolkowski (“But You Look So Good”) and produced by Philippe Gompel (“Cherry”) at Manny Films, and “The Birthday Party” directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez (“Chaika”) and produced by Giorgos Karnavas (“Triangle of Sadness”) at Heretic.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rio de Janeiro city authorities are looking to increase Rio’s cash rebate for international shoots launched last October by city org RioFilme with a 35% deduction rate on expenditure and R$15 million ($3.0 million) in total funding.  “We have on the table a proposal to double that,” Marcelo Calero, Rio de Janeiro city secretary of culture told Variety at Cannes. That 100% hike would be subject to the “approval chain that we have to follow at the city hall,” he added. A decision may be made by June when RioFilme is set to issue the call for applications for a second year of the cash rebate. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent France’s culture minister Rima Abdul-Malak gave her first interview with the international press at the Cannes Film Festival where she unveiled a plan to invest €350 million ($378 million) in the film and TV industry. Abdul-Malak also addressed some hot topics that are currently being debated within the industry, such as the windowing rules for streamers, the protests over the pension reform, the rise of the far right and criticism of France’s #MeToo movement. The government-investment initiative, called the Grande Fabrique de l’Image, is meant to bolster France’s position as a leader in film, TV and video games production, studio facilities, post-production, as well as film and TV training. The funding will go to 68 projects that were selected from 175 applicants by two committees, one of which is headed by filmmaker Cedric Jimenez (“November,” “The Stronghold”). Among the selected projects are 11 studio facilities, 12 animation studios, six video games studios, five visual effects and post production houses, and 34 training programs.

France’s controversial 15- to 17-month streaming window for feature films needs to be shortened but this is not likely to happen in the immediate future, French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak told an international press briefing Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.

Louis Theroux is not comfortable with the disruptor moniker. He almost recoils at the notion, sitting back in his chair, chewing over the word and its literal, historical and symbolic connotations. “It has become a cliché; it’s definitely a cliché,” he eventually says.

Christopher Vourlias Actor Sebastian Stan has come on board to produce “Blue Banks,” the feature debut of Romanian director Andreea Cristina Borțun, whose 2021 short film “When Night Meets Dawn” premiered in Directors’ Fortnight. Pic follows Lavinia, a single mother trying to make a better life on her own terms for herself and her 13-year-old son, who live in a poor Romanian village. She is impulsive, prone to misreading situations, and not sure how to love. But her son, on the threshold between childhood and adolescence, needs his mother more than ever, and over the course of four seasons their relationship is put to the test. Stan, who was born in Romania, will produce the film alongside Romanian producer Gabi Suciu, French co-producers Jean-Laurent Csinidis and Jerome Nunes and Slovenian co-producer Ales Pavlin. Shooting will take place in Romania throughout the year and is set to wrap in October.

Making herself clear. Khloé Kardashian has no plans to rekindle her romance with Tristan Thompson — but appreciates the support Kim Kardashian has shown her ex.