City Babylon Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Mitski is bringing a string of intimate acoustic shows across North America this September.The shows, dubbed ‘Amateur Mistake’, will see Mitski put on a small, intimate and acoustic performance during which she will preview her upcoming album ‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’.On September 11, Mitski will perform at the Teatro De La Ciudad in Mexico City before performing at Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on September 20. On November 26, she will perform at New York’s Town Hall before ending the North American ‘Amateur Mistake’ show series at the Trinity Church in Toronto, Canada.A post shared by @mitskileaksTickets to the Mexico City show are already sold out.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Beta Film has dropped the trailer for “Estonia,” a Scandinavian limited series about Europe’s deadliest civil maritime disaster. The eight-part cinematic show, which is represented in international markets by Jan Mojto’s Beta Film (“Babylon Berlin”), charts the sinking of the Ms Estonia on Sept.

Mitski has released two new songs, ‘Star’ and ‘Heaven’, and announced a run of intimate UK and European shows.The two new tracks are taken from her upcoming album ‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’, which will come out on September 15 via Dead Oceans. Last month, the artist released the album’s lead single, ‘Bug Like An Angel’.Per a press release, ‘Star’ and ‘Heaven’ were originally conceived years ago, and were repeatedly altered before the release of their final iterations.Check out the lyric videos for the two tracks below:Mitski has also announced that she will be giving the songs from ‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’ the acoustic treatment at a series of intimate shows across the UK and Europe in October.The pre-sale for the tour begins on September 7 before general sale commences the following day.

Naman Ramachandran The work of pioneering Black British filmmaker Horace Ové will be celebrated this fall with a BFI Southbank retrospective season titled Power to the People: Horace Ové’s Radical Vision. A 4K restored version of “Pressure” (1976), the first full-length Black British film, which is an exploration of the concerns faced by emerging second-generation West Indians in Britain, will receive a joint restoration world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival and the New York Film Festival on Oct. 11.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Film has sold more than 100 hours of drama series to PBS Distribution-backed Walter Presents for the U.S., and Channel 4-backed Walter Presents for the U.K. Five seasons of Italy’s gritty crime series “Rocco Schiavone” as well as Canadian mystery dramas “The Wall – The Chateau Murder” and “The Wall – The Orchard” will be available in both territories.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Berlinale Series Head Julia Fidel has been snapped up by Frank Doelger’s The Swarm and Concordia producer Intaglio Films.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iraqi film director and writer Amer Alwan, whose moving drama “Zaman, the Man From the Reeds” was shot right before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and had its North-American premiere at Tribeca in 2004, has died at 66. Alwan, who had long been living in France, died surrounded by family at the Simone Veil Hospital in the French town of Eaubonne on July 4 after battling an unspecified form of cancer for a year, his daughter, Camille Alwan, said by email. He was buried at Saint-Ouen Cemetery in Paris. Born in Babylon-Hills, Iraq, in 1957, Alwan graduated from Iraq’s National School of Drama and Arts and continued his studies at the Audio Visual School of Baghdad, which led to him doing TV work in Iraq. Then in 1980, he left Iraq to earn an advanced degree in philosophy of art and society from Paris’ prestigious Sorbonne university.

The producers of Babylon Berlin have confirmed the drama will get a fifth season, despite partner Sky Deutschland pulling out of commissioning in the country.

Sky Deutschland will no longer make scripted shows from next year and is closing its scripted arm.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Sky Deutschland, the German arm of Comcast-owned pay-TV operator Sky, is pulling out of scripted originals from 2024, Variety can reveal. Staff were notified of the surprise move by Sky Deutschland boss Devesh Raj on Thursday morning, local time. Variety understands that the entire scripted originals team will eventually be disbanded, though shows that have already been commissioned and are in production, such as post-apocalypse drama “Helgoland 513″ and “Das Boot” Season 4, will finish filming. Any projects in development will be “put into turnaround,” as per another internal note from Sky Studios CEO Cécile Frot-Coutaz, also seen by Variety.

Gogglebox star Ellie Warner has welcomed her first child with boyfriend Nat Eddlestone and their son's name has a very sweet meaning behind it. On Friday night's episode of Gogglebox fans were delighted when Ellie, 32 introduced her newborn on the Channel 4 show, holding her son in the opening moments of the episode. Just a few minutes before the show aired, the new mum had revealed her son's name for the first time on Instagram.

EXCLUSIVE: Australia’s Foxtel is the latest to take on The Swarm.

Gay filmmaker and author Kenneth Anger, known for his experimental and homoerotic movies and his wildly gossipy “Hollywood Babylon” books, has died at age 96.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Most artists, if they’re lucky, invent one thing. But Kenneth Anger, who was a filmmaker, an author, a debauched aristocratic scenester and, to the day of his death at 96 (he reportedly died May 11, though it wasn’t made public until May 24), a figure of puckish mystery, invented several things, each of them epic. In “Fireworks,” his transcendent 14-minute avant-garde film of 1947, Anger invented the very consciousness and imagery of gay liberation — not the desire to be liberated (which was buried in the hearts of gay people everywhere), but the rapturous visual reverie of what that liberation might look like, what it would feel like, why it seemed so forbidden, and why it needed to be. In “Scorpio Rising,” his homoerotic demon-biker/Top-40-orgy blast from the underground, Anger invented MTV, invented what Martin Scorsese did in “Mean Streets” and David Lynch did in “Blue Velvet,” invented a way to express how music and reality talk to each other.

Barbie is taking on the real world!

EXCLUSIVE: Berlinale Series Head Julia Fidel is exiting after four years in post.

Kenneth Anger, the experimental filmmaker and author whose work was groundbreaking in its exploration of gay themes and erotica, has died. He was 96.

Ethan Shanfeld Experimental filmmaker, artist and author Kenneth Anger has died. He was 96. His gallery, operated by Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, confirmed the news on their website, writing, “Kenneth was a trailblazer. His cinematic genius and influence will live on and continue to transform all those who encounter his films, words and vision.” Anger produced over 30 short films from 1937 to 2013, having made his first movie at 10 years old. Known as “one of America’s first openly gay filmmakers,” he gained a reputation for exploring themes of erotica and homosexuality decades before gay sex was legalized in America. Anger received recognition for his homoerotic 1947 film “Fireworks,” which landed him in court on obscenity charges. Filmed in his childhood home in Beverly Hills, Calif., while his parents were away for the weekend, “Fireworks” is known as the first gay narrative film produced in the U.S.

The CW has landed the U.S. rights to eco-thriller drama The Swarm, which comes from Game of Thrones exec producer Frank Doelger.

EXCLUSIVE: Child actor Vivien Lyra Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bird Box) has joined the upcoming comedy Goodrich, starring Mila Kunis and Michael Keaton.

EXCLUSIVE: Poorna Jagannathan (Never Have I Ever, Defending Jacob) has signed on to join the cast of the comedy Goodrich, starring Mila Kunis and Michael Keaton.

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Urie (Shrinking), Laura Benanti (Gossip Girl) and Danny Deferrari (Oppenheimer) will round out the cast of the comedy Goodrich toplined by Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis, which is currently in production in Los Angeles. No details on their roles have been disclosed.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Austrian television is awash with crime, mystery and historical drama, and the country’s biggest hits and new productions are heading to MipTV. Among this year’s most anticipated titles is the upcoming “Kafka,” starring Swiss actor Joel Basman (“KaDeWe,” “The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch”) as the famed Bohemian writer. The six-part series is currently shooting in Vienna and Salzburg and is set to premiere on Austrian pubcaster ORF and Germany’s ARD early next year, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death. “Kafka” is produced by ARD, ORF and John Lueftner and David Schalko’s Vienna-based Superfilm. Schalko is directing and co-writing the series with bestselling author and screenplay writer Daniel Kehlmann (“Measuring the World”), based on the Kafka biography by Reiner Stach, who is alsoadvising the production.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International “Freud’s Last Session,” which stars Anthony Hopkins as Sigmund Freud and Matthew Goode as author C. S. Lewis, is in its final stages of filming in Ireland. “Freud’s Last Session” is set on the eve of the Second World War, when at the end of his life, Freud (Hopkins) invites “The Chronicles of Narnia” author C.S. Lewis (Goode) to debate the existence of God. Interweaving past, present and fantasy, the film explores Freud’s unique relationship with his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), and Lewis’ unconventional relationship with his best friend’s mother. Sony Pictures Classics last year snapped up all rights for North America, the Middle East, Turkey, India, Eastern Europe (excluding CIS), Asia (excluding China, Korea and Japan) and Latin America and worldwide airlines. WestEnd Films, which is selling the film, has also struck deals across Australia (Sharmill Films), Scandinavia (Scanbox), Italy (Adler), Benelux (Just Entertainment), Portugal (NOS), Israel (United King) and Greece (Spentzos).

Westend Films has released the first image of Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode in Freud’s Last Session, as the legendary psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and writer and academic C.S. Lewis, prior to his Chronicles Of Narnia fame.

EXCLUSIVE: Andie MacDowell (Groundhog Day), Carmen Ejogo (True Detective) and Kevin Pollak (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) have joined Michael Keaton and Mila Kunis in comedy Goodrich, which began filming in LA this week.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LILLE, France — Germany’s Beta Group is a company for our challenged times, Moritz von Kruedener, Beta Group managing director told an audience at Series Mania’s Lille Dialogues on Thursday.  He also broke down Beta’s business model which takes elements which hark back to the past – a powerful, ultra connected territory-by-territory international sales apparatus  combined with Beta’s biggest pivot in recent years: a move from picking up and selling finished shows into far larger production involvement, be its financial support or early upstream input on maximising a project’s international potential. Beta Group and Series Mania has also scored heavily at this year’s festival with the first edition go Seriesmakers, a mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut.

“We all have to become a bit more Scandinavian,” Beta Film MD Moritz von Kruedener told a Series Mania audience this morning.

EXCLUSIVE: Mila Kunis has been set to star opposite Michael Keaton in comedy Goodrich, we can reveal.

Surprise – Margot Robbie is at the Oscars!