Ed Meza Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Ed Meza @edmezavarUndeterred by the pandemic, the Zurich Film Festival kicks off this month with an impressive lineup that includes its biggest ever film, James Bond pic “No Time to Die,” which is set to screen just minutes after its Sept. 28 world premiere in London.Zurich was one of the few major fests to have a full physical event last year during the COVID crisis.

Ed Meza @edmezavarIcelandic film production company Sagafilm and Sweden’s LittleBig Productions are developing a historical series about 17th-century Icelanders abducted by Barbary corsairs and sold into slavery in North Africa.Tentatively titled “Salé” — a city on the North African coast that was also a haven for pirates — the series is inspired by true events.

Ed Meza @edmezavarFollowing its acclaimed 2020 drama “To the Unknown God,” Italy’s Kineofilm is developing a feature about an aging countess who sets up a new type of school with a group of disenfranchised yet gifted children in her spacious 16th-century villa.Kineofilm’s Rodolfo Bisatti, who co-wrote and helmed “To the Unknown God,” will direct the new film from a screenplay he his writing with actress-producer Laura Pellicciari.The film follows Olimpia, a woman in her sixties who lives alone

Ed Meza @edmezavarEuropean arms industry corruption, forbidden love in 1920s Berlin and the impact of public outrage on the justice system are some of the themes explored by upcoming Germans TV productions showcased on Aug.

Ed Meza @edmezavarGermany’s Rise Visual Effects Studios has established its own animation studio for high-end film and series productions in Munich, where the company has appointed animation expert and VFX producer Sinje Gebauer to head its Munich office as well as the new division.The new animation unit will act as an independent, creative arm within the Rise group, mainly handling animation projects from the production slate of Rise Pictures with a strong focus on visual development and

Ed Meza @edmezavarSeven young social media stars with a combined reach of some 8.3 million fans worldwide have teamed up to make a movie and an independent leap to bigger screens.Written and produced by British filmmaker Max Marlow and directed by Madison De La Garza (“Desperate Housewives”), “Surprise” is a mystery thriller about a surprise Zoom party that turns tense when the birthday girl’s friends appear to know something she doesn’t.The film will feature five hugely popular international

Ed Meza @edmezavarGerman-language productions on offer at the Cannes Film Market present an eclectic mix of adult drama, biting social commentary, history, comedy, kids’ pics and animation from such high-profile helmers as Stefan Ruzowitzky, Marcus H.

Ed Meza @edmezavarGerman co-productions are making a strong showing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, among them Leos Carax’s opening film, “Annette,” Wes Anderson’s star-studded “The French Dispatch” and Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s “The Story of My Wife.”Fabian Gasmia’s Berlin-based Detailfilm is among the producers on “Annette,” which stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.

Ed Meza @edmezavarFor Berlin-based Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, traveling to Algeria in 2019 to visit his father’s homeland became an emotional journey that not only resulted in his latest work, the Cannes title “Mariner of the Mountains,” but also the documentary “Nardjes A.,” which premiered last year in Berlin.“Mariner of the Mountains,” which unspools in Special Screenings Friday, is Aïnouz’s most personal film since one of his earliest works, the 1993 short “Seams,” about his

Ed Meza @edmezavarGerman distributor Der Filmverleih in Stuttgart has boarded Berlin-based Films in Motion’s World War II trilogy penned by American writer J. Frank James.The films, in various stages of development, include “The Face,” produced with Leipzig-based Departures Film and starring Ludwig Trepte (“Deutschland 86”).

Ed Meza @edmezavarU.S.

Ed Meza @edmezavarJulian Radlmaier, who made a splash this year with his Marxist vampire satire “Blutsauger” (“Bloodsuckers”), is developing a romantic river barge road movie as his next project.“Binnenschifffahrerin Birte” is an East-West love story that centers on an old housekeeper working in a western German hotel who fondly recalls her youth in 1980s East Germany, when, as a river barge captain, she experienced the one big adventure in her life: delivering an East German-made river barge

Ed Meza @edmezavarIn her impressive narrative feature debut, Mexican actor-filmmaker Ángeles Cruz examines the impact of migration and the difficulties women face in a small village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.Set in the fictional village of San Mateo (in reality Cruz’s hometown of Villa Guadalupe Victoria), “Nudo Mixteco” (or “Mixtecan Knot”) weaves together the stories of three indigenous women dealing with love, sex, the struggle for empowerment and the legacy of child abuse in a

Ed Meza @edmezavarVienna-based sales company Square Eyes has acquired Tomasz Wolski’s Polish animated documentary “1970,” which picked up the Special Jury Award at this year’s Swiss doc fest Visions du Réel.The stop-motion animated pic, which is screening at the Krakow Film Festival, chronicles the increasingly violent efforts by Poland’s communist leaders to end widespread demonstrations over rising prices of food and other everyday items.Square Eyes also recently added Chloé Galibert-Laîné

Ed Meza @edmezavarFresh off their debut feature documentary “Davos,” Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann have lined up a number of new projects, among them an upcoming series for HBO Max and ZDF.Produced by Berlin-based Komplizen Film (“Tony Erdmann“), “Fck My Heritage” (working title) is set in an elite boarding school and follows a group of students who decide to reject their inheritances and trigger a global social revolution.Christian Schwochow (“Munich,” “Bad Banks”) is serving as showrunner on

Ed Meza @edmezavarThe closing part of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) kicks off Wednesday with a vast program of films and events that includes an all-new section and a showcase of works from up-and-coming filmmakers.The first part of IFFR’s 50th edition, which ran Feb. 1-7, focused on the main Tiger, Big Screen and Ammodo Tiger Short competitions as well as the Limelight sidebar, a preview of upcoming arthouse releases.

Ed Meza @edmezavarBerlin-based Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari revisits familiar themes in “An Unusual Summer,” a personal work that captures the invisible lives of people in a Palestinian neighborhood in the Israeli city of Ramla.Composed of recordings from a surveillance camera installed by Aljafari’s late father at their family home in 2006 in the hope of catching a vandal who kept damaging his car, “An Unusual Summer” is a video diary populated by local residents, shoppers, pedestrians

Ed Meza @edmezavarAlexis von Wittgenstein’s Munich-based production shingle Violet Pictures is expanding its TV series pipeline with a slew of new projects, among them a historical drama about the role of women in the creation of modern Europe, the story of a mother of three who became one of the Soviet Union’s most successful spies, and a 1970s-set anti-nuclear activist romance.The company, whose credits include “Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood,” which premiered last year on ARD and currently

Ed Meza @edmezavarMarc Bauder, whose documentary “Who We Were,” a visually stunning cinematic search for solutions to the increasingly dire problems facing Planet Earth, unspools at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, is going in a very different direction on his next project — a narrative feature film about a cross-dressing flamenco dancer and Jewish resistance fighter who killed Nazis in occupied Poland.“Dolores” will tell the true story of Sylvin Rubinstein, whose Russian mother was forced to moved with

Ed Meza @edmezavarAs a feminist filmmaker, Antonia Kilian was inspired to travel to northern Syria after forces of the Kurdish autonomous region known as Rojava liberated the city of Minbij from ISIS militants.It was in Minbij that Kilian met Hala, a young Arab woman who had fled her conservative family and the prospects of a forced marriage and found safety and emancipation at a Rojavan military academy, where she trained to become a soldier in the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) — part of the

Ed Meza @edmezavarMalian filmmaker Ousmane Samassekou’s “The Last Shelter” won the top prize in Danish doc fest CPH:DOX’s main international competition on Friday, picking up the Dox:Award.A total of 11 films garnered prizes in the festival’s six international competitions, including five special mentions.“The Last Shelter” centers on the House of Migrants, located in the Malian city of Gao, on the edge of the Sahel desert, where the director meets travelers and migrants who find a temporary

Ed Meza @edmezavar“Behind the Headlines,” Daniel Andreas Sager’s thrilling look at how German investigative journalists triggered a political earthquake in Austria that toppled the country’s government, is having its world premiere at Danish doc fest CPH:DOX, where it’s competing for the Fact Award, before unspooling at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival and opening next month’s DOK.fest München.Sager is now at work on his next documentary project, a film that will accompany international peace

Ed Meza @edmezavarCaptivated by the seemingly many personas of late actor Omar Sharif, Egyptian filmmaker Mark Lotfy and Swedish director Axel Petersén delved into the legendary star’s eventful career, tracing how the politics of 1950s Egypt formed the international star’s complex character.Their new documentary, “The Life and Times of Omar Sharif,” shows in particular how the policies of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the political climate of the time led him to change his name and convert

Ed Meza @edmezavarTed Hope, producer and former co-head of movies at Amazon Studios, offered a glimpse of hope for the documentary film industry while discussing streaming opportunities at Danish doc fest CPH:DOX on Tuesday.The discussion was part of the festival’s CHP:Conference program and its series of talks entitled “Redistribution:Economy,” which seeks to explore new economic models in the wake of the COVID pandemic that has laid bare the unequal nature of the global economy.Documentaries

Ed Meza @edmezavarPalestinian director Amer Shomali is set to explore the allegedly illegal excavation of Palestinian antiquities by Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan — who remains a divisive figure around the world — in a hybrid film project that examines the loss of cultural history by way of an action-packed, partly animated heist thriller.“Theft of Fire” is a co-production between Rashid Abdelhamid of Made in Palestine Project and Ina Fichman of Montreal-based Intuitive

Ed Meza @edmezavarNatalia Almada, who won best director at Sundance this year for her mesmerizing film “Users,” is eager to continue the cinematic journey she began in that work with plans to next explore the boundaries of human endurance and the desire to discover the unknown.“Users,” which is screening at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) and Visions du Réel in Switzerland, is a visual essay about technology and progress, their often disastrous impact on the world, the

Ed Meza @edmezavarBelgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, who examined the ties between the international arms industry and Western political establishments in his recent documentaries, the award-winning “Shadow World” and “Blue Orchids,” is set to explore its impact in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in his new project, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.”Grimonprez and producer Daan Milius are presenting the project at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival’s CPH:Forum financing and

Ed Meza @edmezavarAs it continues to produce highend films and TV programs that examine the wonders of the natural world, science and history, Terra Mater Factual Studios is also seeking to broaden its audience and educate viewers about the precarious state of life on Earth.Whether it’s the poaching of endangered African elephants for China’s illicit ivory trade or the planned plunder of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by America’s oil industry oligarchs, the planet’s precious wildlife

Ed Meza @edmezavarCelebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Terra Mater Factual Studios looks back on an eventful decade that made its name synonymous with high-end nature and wildlife productions, while also embracing the ever-expanding opportunities offered by the growth of streaming platforms.The Austrian company’s productions include Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani’s acclaimed “The Ivory Game,” which exposes the dark world of ivory trafficking; Ladkani’s “Sea of Shadows,” about the

Ed Meza @edmezavarDanish director Phie Ambo, who opens this year’s Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) with “70/30,” an up-close look at the creation of Denmark’s landmark climate law, is already at work on her next project, “Organized Wilderness,” a film about the rewilding of a forest in northern Jutland.The project is in line with some of Ambo’s recent documentary works that also deal with people and nature, including 2019’s “Rediscovery,” about a group of children discovering the