News

Sales

Collective Media Group and Entourage Sports and Entertainment‘s soccer documentary feature “Brazil 2002: The Real Story,” recounting the story of the 2002 World Cup on its 20th anniversary, has sold a raft of territories worldwide. The film uses six hours of unseen archive material shot by Brazilian soccer player Juliano Belletti during the tournament, and also features interviews with Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Cafu and Gilberto Silva from the World Cup winning Brazil team; and, from the opposing teams across the tournament, David Beckham, Michael Owen, Oliver Kahn, Hasan Şaş and Marc Wilmots as well as referee Pierluigi Collina.

FIFA has taken the film for its own streamer FIFA+, for territories including Asia (excluding Japan), Turkey and New Zealand. This is complemented by deals confirmed by distribution partner Abacus Media Rights including: Canal+ Group for Canal+ Foot and myCanal (France); Sky Deutschland; Sky Italia; Dbs Satellite Services (Israel and West Bank...

Sequel

Sf Studios has announced that the 2021 Berlin Generation Kplus player “Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent” is getting a sequel. The original was a hit among kids and parents alike in its native Sweden and won a pair of Swedish Guldbagge Awards. Based on Martin Widmark’s popular children’s books of the same name, the film features rising star Matilda Gross as the titular Nelly, a young girl who, along with her dog London, are dragged into a world of ghosts, vampires and werewolves.

Johan Rosell will direct with Jon Nohrstedt and Niklas Larsson producing for Sf Studios. Filming will kick off in Gothenburg on Feb. 21, with the film scheduled to premiere in Swedish theaters in 2023 and an international launch shortly thereafter.

“The ambition with the new film is to bring the whole family to an exciting new world where Nelly Rapp embarks on a new adventure,” said Nohrstedt and Larsson.

Disney+’s ‘Nautilus’ Rounds Off Cast; Cameras Roll In Australia

Casting is complete and filming has kicked off in Australia on Disney+’s Nautilus, the live action re-telling of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Joining the previously announced Shazad Latif (The Pursuit of Love) in the lead role of Captain Nemo are Georgia Flood (Anzac Girls), who plays Humility Lucas, a privileged daughter of the British Empire who is taken hostage on board the Nautilus, and Thierry Frémont (Allied) as Gustave Benoit, a French engineer and architect of the submarine. The series, which started filming this week at Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland and is produced by Xavier Marchand’s Moonriver Studios and Anand Tucker’s Seven Stories, is one of the streamer’s most high profile to be made outside of the U.S., as it targets 60 international originals over the next two years. Other new cast members include Pacharo Mzembe,...

Vigil breaks UK ratings record

BBC1 drama Vigil from Line of Duty indie World Productions has become the UK’s top-rated show for more than three years. The submarine thriller, which stars Suranne Jones, drew in the best rating since World Productions’ Bodyguard to reach 13.4 million viewers for its first episode, according to 30-day consolidated data from the BBC. BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore said the six-parter “kept viewers hooked like no other and is testament to the power of the writing and brilliant cast and crew”. The series was commissioned by Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, and Charlotte Moore, Chief Content Officer. It was written and created by writer Tom Edge, with episodes by Ed Macdonald and Chandni Lakhani, and based on an original idea by George Aza-Selinger.

Collective Media Group pushes into Latin America

Collective Media Group, the indie recently set up by former ViaccomCBS international...

Sahraa Karimi To Head Stockholm Jury

Sahraa Karimi, the Afghan filmmaker who hit the headlines last month as she staged a dramatic escape from the Taliban as they took over her home city of Kabul, will head the jury at this year’s Stockholm International Film Festival. She will also participate in a panel that aims to raise awareness about the threat towards artists and women in Afghanistan today. Karimi and her jury will oversee the awarding of prizes including the Bronze Horse for Best Film. “Cinema is a window to the identity and at the same time the stories of the people of a nation. I’m happy that Stockholm International Film Festival – with its long history of supporting director’s in countries where basic human rights are not respected – makes this statement public and is willing to support Afghan filmmakers in the fight of not being forgotten in the history of cinema,...

Norway Out: Wnendt Paints a Blank Slate in Slight Romantic Drama

Expectations seemed reasonably high for The Sunlit Night, the English language debut from provocative German director David Wnendt pairing him with the carefree Jenny Slate, a comic virtuoso who works best when digging out the melancholic marrow of life’s funny bone. But perhaps it was a project cursed by a fish out-of-water trifecta, its director and star both strangers in a strange land, whilst scribe Rebecca Knight Dinerstein makes her screenwriting debut adapting from her original source novel.

Whatever the case, the unassuming narrative relies on familiar tropes of an artist finding their voice amidst quaint and quirky scenarios with Slate relying upon the familiar aspect of the socially awkward persona who succeeds because of and not despite her authenticity.…...