International Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Leading documentary specialist Autlook Filmsales has secured international sales rights to “Us, Our Pets and the War,” which looks at the impact of the war in Ukraine on animals, and how the conflict led to the biggest pet evacuation in history. The film, which became the highest-grossing theatrically released documentary in Ukraine of all time, is directed by investigative journalist and YouTube vlogger Anton Ptushkin.

Erik ten Hag said Manchester United players are competing for FA Cup final places after their morale-boosting 3-2 victory over Newcastle.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Independent filmmaking is no easy task — even if you’re Steven Spielberg’s daughter. Destry Allyn Spielberg is set to make her feature directorial debut with “Please Don’t Feed the Children,” a low-budget thriller, which was filmed last year in Santa Fe, N.M. But the film has endured significant financing problems, shutting down just before production was to begin.

Interpol has issued a global 'Red Notice' for an escaped fugitive known as 'The Fly' after a brutal prison van attack in France killed two police officers.

International crime-fighting organisation Interpol has issued a global 'Red Notice' for an escaped criminal known as 'The Fly'. The move is part of a manhunt to capture Mohamed Amra, 30, who managed to escape a prison van following an incident that left two guards dead at a toll booth on a motorway in northwest France.

Peter Leven has told Aberdeen they should be doing all they can to keep Junior Hoilett at Pittodrie next season.

Gerhard Zeiler, president of Warner Bros. Discovery international, said an HBO output deal with Sky overseas will likely not look the same if it’s renewed. Sky has licensed content through the end of 2025 but it comes as no surprise that WBD will look to tweak that as Max expands globally. The streaming service wants a beachhead in the UK, Germany, Italy (and other markets) and needs HBO and Warner Bros. programming.

Midori Francis is the latest star who will be exiting Grey’s Anatomy.

Megan Thee Stallion has officially launched her Hot Girl Summer Tour and the set list is now available!

Jamie Lang International sales and distribution outfit Pink Parrot Media has closed several key deals for Doce Entertainment and Mr. Miyagi Films’ animated kids and family feature “Hanna and the Monsters.” Agreements have been made with World Visions for CIS, Boxoo for South Korea, Front Row for the Middle East, GPI for the Baltics, Cinetel for Hungary, Wediacorp for Turkey and Movie Company for Benelux.

By This week, a Kansas City Chiefs player named Harrison Butker has made the news not for shooting and embarking on a whirlwind international romance. Instead, he decided to open his mouth and reveal himself to be a misogynistic homophobe during a college commencement speech.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent France’s Les Films du Losange, the iconic distribution company owned by producer Charles Gillibert (“Annette”), has acquired Palmeraie et Desert,” the production company founded by celebrated filmmaker Raymond Depardon. Les Films du Losange, which was bought by Gillibert from longtime manager Margaret Menegoz in 2021, has been dedicated to preserving and promoting cinematic heritage since its inception.

Rebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter “IF,” a fantasy-comedy from director John Krasinski and star Ryan Reynolds, looks to collect a promising $40 million in its box office debut. Based on projections, “IF” — short for imaginary friends — is tracking to land at least $35 million and as much as $45 million from 4,000 North American theaters. At the higher end of estimates, those ticket sales would mark a solid start for a live-action PG family film that’s not based on an existing property.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Los Angeles-based Scatena & Rosner Films has acquired worldwide rights to horror film “The Hermit,” starring Lou Ferrigno as a cannibalistic pig farmer in his first role playing a creature since CBS TV series “The Incredible Hulk.” They will be launching sales on the chiller, which is now in post, at the Cannes Marché du Film. “The Hermit” is directed by U.S.-based Italian helmer Salvatore Sclafani and produced by Los Angeles- and New York-based Gerry Pass via his Chrome Entertainment shingle in tandem with Sclafani’s First Child Prods.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian-born and Texas-based director Roberto Minervini is known for making hard-hitting documentaries that dissect the backwaters of American society, such as his so-called Texas trilogy comprising “The Passage,” “Low Tide” and “Stop the Pounding Heart.” His most recent doc, “What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?,” about a community of Black people in New Orleans during the summer of 2017 – when a string of brutal killings of Black men sent shockwaves throughout the country – launched from the Venice competition section in 2018. “The Damned,” which premieres on Thursday in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is Minervini’s first fiction feature, is set during the American Civil War in the winter of 1862.

Callum McLennan Spanish sales agents are on some kind of roll. The European Film Market during the Berlinale proved robust, and Malaga Film Festival better still. “Malaga was great for our movies,” Latido Films’ Antonio Saura reported at its conclusion.

Emiliano De Pablos Spanish cinema is expanding, opening up attractive film avenues to reach the worldwide market, driven by upscale commercial projects, blending of genres and a new generation of emerging female directors. The country’s filmmakers landed three Oscar nominations: Juan A. Bayona with “Society of the Snow” (inter- national feature and makeup and hair styling); and Pablo Berger with “Robot Dreams” (animated feature).

Naman Ramachandran Indian filmmaker Dr. Bijukumar Damodaran‘s next film “Papa Buka” will commence principal photography in Papua New Guinea in July. The film will follow Indian historians Romila and Anand who go to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, to write a book about the Indian soldiers who fought with the British and Australian armies against the Japanese during WWII in the country.

K.J. Yossman U.K. distributor Other Parties has launched a new production arm headed by former Amazon Studios U.K.

Five years after Meghan Markle bravely confessed to international audiences that she wasn't okay, the duchess has recently shared a bright and hopeful overview of her life.

Pietro Marcello – whose 2019 film “Martin Eden” made a splash on the international art-house scene – is shooting “Duse,” a movie about legendary Italian stage diva Eleonora Duse. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi stars as Duse and Noémie Merlant (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) plays her daughter. The Match Factory has acquired international rights to “Duse” and is kicking off sales on this buzzy biopic in Cannes.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Bob Yari’s startup mini-major Magenta Light Studios has found its first in-house film production in “Summerhouse,” a period drama set against the anxiety of the Vietnam War. “Bombshell” and “Halloween” star Malcolm McDowell will lead the project with Jacob Ward, an up-and-comer who made his debut in Ray Romano’s 2022 film “Somewhere in Queens.” Ed Kaplan (“2 Graves in the Desert”) will write the script and direct, with Shelly Jonson (“Greyhound,” “Captain America: The First Avenger”) as director of photography. Production will begin in Connecticut this month.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Principal photography has begun on “The Captive,” a historical epic from “The Others’” Alejandro Amenábar, starring Julio Peña (“Berlin”) as “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes, a prisoner of Ottoman corsairs, seen in a very first still from the film, alongside Alessandro Borghi (“Suburra”), playing his captor, which has been shared in exclusivity with Variety. Paris and London-based production, finance and sales house Film Constellation handles worldwide sales.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Female stunt performer Wiriya Caesar will step up into the lead performer role in upcoming Thai action film “The 24.” The film project is being launched this week in the Cannes Market by new international sales firm Boz Pictures. Wiriya (aka Porntip Wiriya, aka “Fan”) has previously been a stunt double for Mary-Elizabeth Winstead in “Kate” and Golshifteh Farahani in “Extraction,” and has other credits on “Thirteen Lives” and “Hidden Strike.” In “The 24” she will star as an assassin who wakes up with a time bomb strapped to her body. She has clear instructions to kill a hit list of 24 members of the Bangkok underground, with each successful hit buying her more time alive. Caesar is joined in the cast by Japan’s Sakaguchi Tak (“Re:Born,” “One Percenter,” “Versus”), Dan Chupong (“Ong Bak 1 &2,” “Born to Fight”), Sunny Pang (“The Night Comes for Us,” “Headshot” and Gareth Evans’ upcoming “Havoc”) and Simon Kook (“Ip Man 3,” “Mayhem”). The film, which will shoot in the fourth quarter of this year, is written and directed by Lee Thongkham (“The Maid,” “The Lake,” “Kitty the Killer”).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Four-time Academy Award-nominated Ethan Hawke is attached to star in “The Last of the Tribe,” a jungle thriller set in Brazil’s Amazon. Written by Mark Bailey (“Downfall,” “The Volcano”), “The Last of the Tribe” is produced by Brazil’s Academy Award-nominated Fernando Meirelles (“The Two Popes,” “City of God”) and Academy Award-winning producer Ed Saxon (“Silence of the Lambs,” “Adaptation”). Hawke is set to play William Phelan — a washed-out Chicago cop turned corporate gun-for-hire — who finds himself in a wildly unfamiliar landscape, his assignment the murder of the last surviving member of an uncontacted Indigenous tribe.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor After four Oscar wins for “All Quiet on the Western Front” last year and the Oscar nomination for “The Teachers’ Lounge” this year, Germany’s film sector seemed to be on the up, but while a government plan to revamp the country’s film funding system is broadly welcomed, its painfully slow progress is also causing some anxiety. The fact that Cannes’ various sections contain not one feature by a German filmmaker may be seen as a cause for concern, but 13 German productions and co-productions have been selected.

Naman Ramachandran The film adaptation of popular comic strip “Natacha (Almost) Air Hostess” boasts an all-star cast. The cast includes Camille Lou (“Anthracite”), Vincent Dedienne (“We Can Be Heroes”), Fabrice Luchini (“The Empire”), Didier Bourdon (“Cocorico), Elsa Zylberstein (“Coup de Chance”), Isabelle Adjani (“Wingwomen”) and Baptiste Lecaplain (“Meet the Leroys”). The film is loosely based on the comic strip of the same name created by screenwriter François Walthéry, which was published by Editions Dupuy, and which comprises 23 albums and has sold more than five million copies.

Christopher Vourlias A delegation of Greek officials arrived in Cannes this week to announce the launch of a new government body, Creative Greece, that will oversee all audiovisual production in the Mediterranean nation. They’ll also look to reassure foreign producers and investors that the country’s wildly successful cash-back program remains on track, after the Greek government announced last week it was pressing pause on new rebate applications until the fall.

Good Morning Football is returning for one day on NFL Network to announce the full 2024 NFL International Games schedule.