Author: SD

EXCLUSIVE: Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has closed German, Spanish and Dutch theatrical deals on Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s Israeli-Palestinian drama The Sea, a year after the film won the best picture prize at Israel’s Ophir Awards. Busch Media Group has acquired the film for Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, Cinemaran for Spain and Echoes on the Map for the Netherlands. Further TV deals are under negotiation. The deals mark a turnaround for a film that initially encountered considerable difficulties in the international marketplace despite its success at home. The Arabic-Hebrew language feature is an Israeli production led by Palestinian-Israeli producer Baher Agbariya. Set…

The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) kicks off on September 24 with the European premiere of Jennifer Peedom’s Everest drama Tenzing, starring Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe. The festival is a major launchpad for films into the German-speaking market, and an increasingly important staging post in the international awards race. This year’s lineup, for example, includes Ink, Wild Horse Nine, Fatherland, Club Kid and Minotaur. Meanwhile, Zurich’s fiction and documentary competitions are home to world and European premieres. Its industry activities include the Zurich Summit, which gathers leading industry execs. ZFF CEO Christian Jungen and festival director Reta Guetg talk to Screen about how they…

David Ellison’s Paramount has issued a statement confirming the company has settled the antitrust lawsuit with the 12 US state attorneys general, paving the way for Paramount’s $111bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). In a statement on Monday morning, Ellison said his goal had always been “to build a stronger Hollywood” and thanked the attorneys general and Writers Guild Of America, which also sued, as well as California Governor Gavin Newsom ”for his support throughout this process”. An excerpt read: “Our shared aim was an outcome that best serves consumers, workers and — most importantly — the creative community so vital to…

La Bola Negra directed by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo has won the 2026 TIFF People’s Choice Award, boosting its prospects of earning a best picture Oscar nomination. Over the previous 15 years, all but two winners have earned a best picture Oscar nomination, and three – Nomadland, 12 Years A Slave, and Green Book – have gone on to claim the Academy Award for best picture. The win caps a rousing week for La Bola Negra (Sp-Fr) after it was selected as Spain’s official Oscar submission. Netflix holds US rights and is giving the multi-generational saga a 37-day exclusive theatrical release on October…

The dust has barely settled on the inaugural TIFF: The Market (September 10-16) yet buyers and sellers from the UK and US who travelled to Toronto have weighed in with mixed initial impressions. More than a dozen participants who spoke to Screen expressed a range of opinions, reflecting the nuance of a super-charged offering where attendees targeted specific goals and focused either on the TIFF festival (September 10-20), TIFF’s new market, or a combination of the two. There were sales executives who reported robust trade on available festival selections and in some cases market sales titles, although these were relatively thin on…

Studiocanal and Sky Cinema’s feature animation Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom and Sony’s horror title Resident Evil are the key new releases in UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend. The Beast Of Mossy Bottom is opening in 647 locations via Studiocanal after previews last weekend brought in £452,154. The Aardman animation is the third Shaun The Sheep feature, which was originally a TV series, and the widest opening in the film franchise. Shaun The Sheep Movie debuted with £2.1m from 509 sites back in 2015, followed by Farmageddon in 2018, which grossed £1.1m from 588 sites. Steve Cox and Matthew Walker direct The Beast…

EXCLUSIVE: AGC International has reported out of Toronto a wave of major international territory deals on Lauren Miller Rogen’s comedy Babies starring Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen, which received its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Deals have closed with Entertainment Film for UK & Ireland, Sun for Latin America, Spain and Portugal, Capelight for Germany, Transmission for Australia & New Zealand, and Scanbox for Scandinavia. Co-heads of worldwide sales and distribution Diane Ferrandez and Nat McCormick and their team additionally licensed rights in: Canada (Amazon), Middle East (Front Row), Israel (United King), Turkey (Mars), India (Lionsgate), former…

France has selected Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur to represent the country in the best international feature film Oscar category. The film was selected by an 11-member committee and was one of five shortlisted finalists alongside Arthur Harari’s The Unknown, Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva, Louis Clichy’s animated Iron Boy, and Antonin Baudry’s De Gaulle: Résistance. Members of the committee, appointed by France’s culture minister on the recommendation of national film body CNC, met at the CNC’s Paris headquarters on Wednesday (September 16) to hear from the producers, international sales agents and US distributors of each shortlisted film before…

EXCLUSIVE: TorinoFilmLab (TFL) has awarded its TFL Co-Production Fund 2026 to three projects: Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Daughters Of The Sea, Samir Karahoda’s Lost Frames and Sein Lyan Tun’s The Beer Girl In Yangon. The fund comes with a €50,000 grant for each project, consultancy sessions by international experts and is backed by Creative Europe’s Media programme. It is aimed at international co-productions between countries that are part of the Media programme and those countries not participating in the strand. Each of the selected teams will also participate in the 19th TFL Meeting Event that takes place from November 26-28 in…

UK-Ireland top five, Sep 11-13 Rank  Film (origin)  Distributor Sep 4-6 Total Week 1 Practical Magic 2 (US) Warner Bros £2.8m £2.8m 1 2  Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger (US) Disney £1.6m £2.7m 1 3  Pressure (UK) Studiocanal £1.5m £2m 1 4  The Odyssey (US) Universal £890,000 £84.6m 9 5  Spider-Man: Brand New Day (US) Sony £840,000 £98.1m 7 GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.35 Warner Bros’ Practical Magic 2 topped the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as fellow new releases Oasis: Don’t Look Back In…