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Exclusive: Hot on the heels of its world premiere last night (August 7) in Locarno’s Piazza Grande, The Birthday Party, directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez and starring Willem Dafoe, has secured distribution across a wide range of international territories.

The film, which started pre-sales at this year’s European Film Market, is represented by Heretic and Bankside Films. Both companies said the Locarno premiere has added momentum to the global sales push.

Paradiso has acquired rights for Benelux, with Praesens on board for Switzerland. Warner Bros Discovery has purchased the broadcast rights to the film, set to be launched after...

Bankside Films and Heretic are co-repping worldwide sales on Miguel Ángel Jimenéz’s “The Birthday Party,” featuring a star-studded cast led by four-time Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe. The companies will be introducing the film to buyers and showing a promo during the European Film Market.

Written and directed by Jimenéz, with additional writing credits going to Giorgos Karnavas and Nikos Panayotopoulos, “The Birthday Party” is based on the novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. Variety has been given exclusive access to a first look image from the film, which is currently in post-production.

Set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean, “The Birthday Party” stars Dafoe as Marcos Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon who’s throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday celebration for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island.

Used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him whatever the cost, Marcos is...

Sky Germany’s “Pagan Peak,” Movistar +’s “Giants” and ITV’s “Cleaning Up” will be sneak-peaked at the inaugural MipDrama Buyers’ Summit, a series-in-production showcase which also highlights Russia’s “Trigger.”

The country with the biggest presence at the Summit is, however, Finland, sporting “Arctic Circle” and “Bullets,” both co-financed by Elisa Vilhde.

This is a sign of how Scandinavia still punches way above its geographic weight in drama series production. It also flags the building drive into high-end drama investment by European telecoms which account, between Telefonica’s Movistar + and Elisa, for half the titles at the MipDrama Buyers’ Summit.

That’s one trend at the Summit which, running on the Sunday April 8, the day before the official launch of MipTV, reworks MipTV’s successful MipDrama Screenings, offering longer excerpts – 15 minutes – of less series – six rather than 12. It also adds one conference session, Fast Forward: Drama, the Viewer’s Story,...