News

Beta Film has taken world sales rights to drama series “Other People’s Money,” which will make its world premiere next month in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

The series centers on Europe’s biggest tax fraud ever. It tells the story of how a criminal network of megarich investors, bankers and lawyers stole €146 billion from European taxpayers.

The showrunner and creator is Jan Schomburg. The producers are Michael Polle at X Filme Creative Pool (“Babylon Berlin”), Ole Søndberg (“Millennium” trilogy) at True Content Entertainment, and Epo-Film. The show is backed by broadcasters Zdf, Dr and New8, which is a group of public broadcasters from northern and western Europe.

“Other People’s Money” is the latest addition to Beta’s Berlinale lineup, headed by the Berlinale’s opening film “The Light” by Tom Tykwer, starring Lars Eidinger and the Panorama world premiere “Cicadas” by Ina Weisse (“The Audition”), starring Nina Hoss.

“Other People’s Money...

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Andreas Dresen’s Berlinale competition film From Hilde, With Love from Beta Cinema.

The biopic stars Babylon Berlin’s Liv Lisa Fries as real-life German resistance fighter Hilde Coppi. The film depicts her relationship with Communist activist Hans Coppi, who brought her into the anti-Nazi resistance, and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment by the Gestapo while pregnant.

From Hilde With Love is written by Laila Stieler and produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel.

Johannes Hegemann, Lisa Wagner and Alexander Scheer also star.

From Hilde, With Love is produced by Pandora Film Produktion,...

Exclusive: Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American rights to Double Play, the latest feature from award-winning filmmaker Ernest Dickerson. The digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios will release the film, based on Curaçaoan author Frank Martinus Arion’s internationally acclaimed Dutch-language novel Dubbelspel, on digital and VOD platforms on February 22.

Double Play is a drama set against the beauty and bittersweet complexity of Curacao, where poverty and wealth are two sides of the same coin. It follows Ostrik (Dani Dare), who is now a grown man working as a doctor in the Netherlands, as he returns to his childhood home to confront ghosts of his past revealed to him in a mysterious letter. Through his memories, we witness the sometimes-dangerous moves that adults made for the sake of survival in a time of turmoil and colonial unrest during the 1970s.

The Cannes Marché du Film, along with a sales initiative led by Hollywood agencies, is hosting the first major virtual market since the start of pandemic, starting on June 23. Distributors and sales agents are looking forward to it: the turn-up for the online Cannes Marché du Film is significant with more than 7,000 accredited participants as of mid-June.

“As nobody can leave their house, a virtual market is the next best thing. It’s a valid and worthwhile effort … people need something to initiate interactions. If this virtual market can help in some way to stimulate business that’s a great thing,” says Dylan Leiner at Sony Pictures Classics.

Here’s a look at some key titles for sale:

“Balestra”

Director: Nicole Dorsey

Producers: Pierre Even

A disgraced competitive fencer (Tessa Thompson) is aiming for her Olympic comeback. She receives a prototype device allowing her to extend her training into her...