Latvia Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Laura Bileskalne is continuing to defend Luke Jones after his sexual incident on Below Deck Down Under — even though her previous comments got her fired!

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 2024 edition, running from June 9 to 15. (scroll down for full list of titles and events)

Foxtel/Binge Topper Amanda Laing Exiting

EXCLUSIVE: Maxima, the Crown-esque royal drama from Beta Film, has been renewed for a second season in the days leading up to its premiere.

Ellise Shafer TikTok is returning as the official entertainment partner for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. This marks the social media platform’s third year teaming up with Eurovision, the world’s largest music event.

EXCLUSIVE: Beta Film has picked up distribution rights to French thriller Homejacking, which is co-created by Lupin writer Tigran Rosine, and will launch sales at Series Mania.

EXCLUSIVE: Beta Film‘s Crown-esque high-end drama series Maxima has sold to networks in Lat Am, Israel and across Europe.

Emiliano De Pablos “Professor T,” the crime series produced by Eagle Eye Drama, and starring Ben Miller (“Bridgerton”), has been greenlit for a fourth season by ITV and PBS Distribution. Attracting audiences of over four million viewers on ITV and making a successful debut on France 3, the highly acclaimed drama has been sold to almost 120 territories worldwide. Most recently, Telekom acquired rights in Germany, TV3 bought the series for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova 1 for Moldova, and BBC and TVP for Poland.

Robert Pattinson is spending the day on set!

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Black Tea,” Abderrahmane Sissako‘s lushly lensed romance drama set in China, has been bought by major distributors in key territories ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Gaumont, which co-produced the film, has sold it to Caramel (Spain), Academy two (Italy), Pandora Films (Germany, Austria), Cineart (Benelux), Films4you (Portugal), Provzglyad (CIS), Mozinet (Hungary), Another World Entertainment (Norway), Film Bazar (Denmark), MCF Megacom (Former Yugoslavia, Albania), Filmstop (Latvia, Estonia), MB Taip Toliau (Lithuania), Imovision (Brazil), AV Jet (Taiwan), Falcon (Indonesia), Pathé BC (Sub-Saharan Africa, Maghreb) and New Cinema (Israel).

Marta Balaga Beta Film has picked up international distribution rights to Latvia’s “Soviet Jeans.” Presented at Berlinale Series Market Selects, the show will premiere at Series Mania in March. Set in Riga in the late 1970s and based on multiple true stories, it zooms in onto young rock fan Renars (Karlis Arnolds Avots), sent to a mental asylum for political reasons. Undeterred, he starts illegal production of counterfeit U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taipei and Los Angeles-based Organic Media Group has picked up rights to U.S.-produced classical music documentary title “Crescendo” and will be launching it at the European Film Market, which accompanies the Berlin Film Festival. The picture had its first commercial release in South Korea in December and became the highest grossing foreign documentary in the last three years.

Christopher Vourlias One year after sharing the stage at the European Film Market as joint Countries in Focus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia continue to shine. Despite the downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, the lingering fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the growing economic uncertainty worldwide, production across the region has been at or near record highs in recent years.

Christopher Vourlias To get a sense of the state of cinema in the Baltic countries today, you could look instead to Park City, Utah, where two of the region’s filmmakers — Estonia’s Anna Hints and Lithuania’s Marija Kavtaradze — took home directing prizes at last year’s Sundance Film Festival: Hints for her debut documentary “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Kavtaradze for her sophomore feature “Slow.” Those wins felt somehow emblematic for the tiny Baltic nations, which — with a combined population of roughly six million — have nevertheless shown a knack for punching above their weight. Last year, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia shared the stage at the European Film Market as joint Countries in Focus, a spotlight that underscored a period of steady — even surprising — growth.

Marta Balaga Beta Film has sold Starlight Media and Gaumont Ukrainian war drama “In Her Car” to NHK Japan, Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovakia. Further negotiations are underway. Created by Eugen Tunick – who directs alongside Arkadii Nepytaliuk – and backed by ZDF, France Télévisions and all Nordic public broadcasters, and “In Her Car” sees therapist Lydia (Anastasia Karpenko) trying to divorce her husband.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba will be coming to the big screen, along with a sneak peek at the new season.Described as an extra-sized blockbuster experience, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training- will allow fans to revisit the finale of the Swordsmith Village Arc while also getting a glimpse at the highly anticipated Hashira Training Arc (season four).The upcoming event marks the first time the finale of the Swordsmith Village Arc has ever been shown in cinemas, and also the first-ever showing of the Hashira Training Arc‘s beginning.Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training- will screen in UK cinemas from February 23.

The European Film Academy has unveiled its new board which has been voted in under updated guidelines aimed at ensuring a more balanced geographical representation of its members.

War, continued anti-LGBTQ crackdowns and the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations are among the issues that made headlines around the world over the past year. Here are the top international stories of 2023.

Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague shared a special moment with their daughter Bambi, as she met Santa for the first time. The Love Island stars posted adorable photos of the occasion on Instagram, with Tommy captioning it: "BamBam's first Christmas." Boxer Tommy, 24, is a doting dad in the snaps as he holds their eleven-month-old daughter on his lap as she looks curiously at Santa.

Vended have announced a massive UK and European tour set to kick off in the spring of next year.The band, which includes Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor‘s son Griffin and Slipknot percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan’s son Simon among its bandmembers, will play the first show of their tour on April 25, 2024 at Turock in Essen, Germany.From there, they will make stops in cities including Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Zurich, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Antwerp, Birmingham, Liverpool, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Nottingham, Brighton and Swansea. The tour will wrap up on June 2, 2024 at Sub 89 in Reading.Bands Profiler and The Gloom In The Corner are set to serve as opening support for the shows.

Things are starting to ease-up on the injury front for Manchester City ahead of the Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday (4.30pm).

Anna Marie de la Fuente Spain’s 7th Ibero-American Quirino Animation Awards has found its jury for next year, to be held over May 9-11. The jury is led by animation directors José Miguel Ribeiro from Portugal, Colombian Marcela Rincón and Wesley Louis (U.K.) alongside Zane Valeniece, director of acquisitions at Latvian public television (LTV) and Emmanuèle Petry, head of international sales at Dandelooo, France.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor At the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, the Baltic Film sidebar has showcased an impressive range of work from the Baltic states – Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – including the post-Soviet documentary “The Last Relic” and the 3D fable “Twittering Soul,” the hand-painted animation “The Peasants” and the Estonian oddity of “Spit in My Face.” A palpable urgency can be felt as these former Soviet countries find themselves once more quite literally on the frontline between Europe and Russia and seek to affirm more keenly their own identity. Leading the way this year has been “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” an intimate documentary of women ridding themselves of their demons in the smoke sauna of the title. Having picked up prizes in Sundance and now Tallinn, the film is heading into the Oscar race as Estonia’s nominee and is in the running in the documentary category also.

Europol claimed that in an “action week” between October 16 and October 20 led by the French National Gendarmerie, officers arrested one of the main actors in the group in Paris. His home in Czechia was searched and five separate suspects were interviewed in Spain and Latvia.The “key target” who had been located in Paris was presented to the examining magistrates of the Paris Judicial Court and the Ragnar Locker ransomware infrastructure was seized in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.Also, its associated data leak website on Tor was taken down in Sweden.

Studiocanal, part of Vivendi’s Canal+ Group, has rolled out robust sales on Xavier Dolan’s Sundance-selected psychological thriller “The Night Logan Woke Up,” Spanish period drama “The Vow” and a bevy of first documentaries. The deals underscore the continuing upside for Studiocanal of illustrious cinema talent exploring premium TV direction, as well as the company’s beneficial diversification into documentary sales and daily series.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has joined international journalism organisations in sounding the alarm over Latvia’s plans to remove the Russian language from public sector broadcasting, even though it is the mother tongue of one third of its 1.8 million population.

A Ukrainian refugee is desperately trying to help his parents escape intense bombing attacks in his home country.

Kintija Ziedone is a hard worker. She’s a waitress and housekeeper at The Alan hotel, on Princess Street.

There’s a crisis at the border: migrants stranded in desperate conditions, steel and barbed wire barriers thrown in their path. 

interview with Radio and Television of Andorra earlier this week.The announcement makes the 43-year-old the first openly LGBTQ premier of the small country of about 79,000 citizens.He is one of five sitting heads of state or government who identify as LGBTQ. The other out world leaders are Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, reports People magazine.

Pep Guardiola could be without three key players for Manchester City's Premier League trip to West Ham on Saturday.