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There are plenty of surprises waiting for those brave enough to take a closer look at Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development initiative – including a “feminist take on ‘Kamasutra’,” as promised by directors Maria Kaur Bedi and Satindar Singh Bedi.

Their film “3rd Eye of Shiva” will be “bold, sensual and ironic,” they said, talking about the story of a student deciding to rewrite the famous manual from a whole different perspective. “We challenge taboos around female sexuality through a visually rich Bollywood-style dramedy. This film is a personal and political journey for us: a cinematic act of love, rebellion, and reimagination.”

Mysteries will have to be solved too, starting with Valentin Merz’s “Dark Chocolate” where a young worker in a chocolate factory faces a mysterious disease threatening the cacao supply – while his own identity also begins to mutate. Meanwhile, eerie creatures lurk in the city streets, waiting.

“It’s shaped...

As if to quell any lingering gripes about an opening film that could be generously described as wafer-thin, organizers from this year’s Cannes Film Festival kicked off the Palme d’Or competition with a film of profuse (and maddening) complexity. Free-flowing and leaden, novelistic and allusive, dour and flowery, Mascha Schilinski’s “Sound of Falling” can take just about any adjective you want to dish, layering them all into a time-hopping mood board that follows four families, all living in the same German farmhouse over the course of a century.

Any attempt to diagram the kin links and plot turns that connect the four clans would give you a maze, which is just as well for a defiantly nonlinear uber-artfilm expressly designed as a labyrinth full of flourishes and dead-ends. Suffice it to say, “Sound of Falling” actively nurtures comparisons to “The Virgin Suicides” in tenor and tone – but only sometimes,...

The new German government has promised to back the local film and TV industry, pledging to boost production tax incentives and implement investment requirements for global streamers operating in the country.

The incoming government, headed by presumptive future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, outlined its plans on Wednesday making the film industry’s wish list part of the coalition agreement between Merz’s conservative Cdu party and partners the Csu and Spd. The coalition deal will include proposals by the German industry to boost the country’s production tax incentives and introduce a French-style “investment commitment” from global streamers.

Proposals put forward and supported by professional groups, including Germany’s Film Academy, the production alliance, which represents film and television producers, the directors’ association, the German screenwriters’ association, and the Guild of German Art Cinemas, would see a minimum 30 percent tax incentive for local shoots and an investment requirement from streamers...

As Germany’s politicians struggle to cobble together a new government, the problems of the country’s film industry aren’t at the top of their minds.

The conservative Christian Democrats (Cdu), winners of last month’s federal elections, under Chancellor designate Friedrich Merz are more focused on sorting out Berlin’s public finances, and sealing a coalition deal with their left-of-center rivals the Social Democrats (Spd), to worry about Germany’s production business. The local industry didn’t get a single shout out in Thursday’s parliamentary debate, which saw Merz, trying, ahead of forming a new government, to push through a change in Germany’s constitution that will give him some financial wiggle room when he does take over.

It’s a worrying sign for German producers, who have had a rough year. Theater admissions fell 5.8 percent to 90.1 million in 2024, a much sharper drop than in most Western European countries,...

Elon Musk has continued his public association with Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, sending a congratulatory post on X to the party’s co-chair Alice Weidel following the election results last night in Germany.

In the post, Musk quoted Hungarian president Viktor Orbán who sent his own message of support to the AfD.

“The people of Germany voted for change in immense numbers. I want to congratulate @Alice_Weidel on doubling @AfD ’s share of the votes. Good luck and God bless Germany!” Orbán wrote.

In response, Musk said: “Indeed, congratulations @Alice_Weidel! At this rate of growth, @AfD will be the majority party by the next election.”

Indeed, congratulations @Alice_Weidel!

At this rate of growth, @AfD will be the majority party by the next election. https://t.co/clXFDsKPn7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2025

Germany’s two conservative parties, the Christian Democrats (Cdu) and its sister...

Friedrich Merz is on track to become Germany’s next chancellor after his center-right Christian Democratic Union (Cdu) party took roughly 30% of the vote in landmark German elections on Sunday, according to two early exit polls.

In spite of Cdu’s lead the country’s political future looks far from certain due to a surge in support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which is set to come in second with a record 19.5-20% of the vote.

The center-left Social Democrats (Sdp) have taken 16% of the vote, in what is potentially its worst result ever; followed by the Greens with 13.3%, and then the Left party with 8.6%, the liberal Free Democratic Party (Fdp) with 4.9%, the left-wing populist Bsw party with 4.7% and others with 3.9%.

The elections were called following the collapse last year of the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is leader of the Sdp.

They...

Elon Musk has backed Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in a post on X.

As the X owner delves deeper into the world of politics by the day, he tweeted last night saying “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

Musk was quote tweeting a post and video from a young German YouTuber with 300,000 followers who had criticized Friedrich Merz, the man who could be the next chancellor of Germany with its parliament dissolved this week following a no confidence vote. Her post said Merz is “horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and [Argentina President] Javier Milei’s example,” adding: “He staunchly rejects a pro-freedom approach and refuses any discussion with the AfD.”

The AfD is a far-right and populist German party that has steadily been making electoral gains over the past few years, causing alarm both within Germany and internationally. The party is bound together...

Based on a series of novel by Jon F Merz, the titular undead Fixer comes to life in the first Lawson teaser trailer.

The age of vampires isn’t over yet, at least if you ask filmmakers. The big wigs at Marvel are (hopefully) working hard on a Blade adaptation which hasn’t been smooth sailing exactly, but there’s another eagerly anticipated, bloodsucking adaptation heading our way.

Lawson, based on Jon F Merz’s series of books, has just unveiled its first teaser trailer. According to the YouTube description, the film follows “a covert operative for a race of living vampires, as he battles a sinister conspiracy to resurrect an ancient god and an old enemy who resurfaces from his shadowy past in this supernatural espionage film”.

Take a look at the Lawson trailer below.

Interestingly, the production has cast Brandon S Stumpf as Lawson. If he looks familiar to you,...

One of the world’s greatest living playwrights has returned to Broadway. Over a decade since his last effort, Tom Stoppard has come back with epic play “Leopoldstadt,” a sprawling family drama based in part on his own family’s history during the early-twentieth century. The drama opened at the Longacre Theatre on Oct. 2.

Unspooling over five decades, the play follows the Jewish Merz family and their many relations as the antisemitism of the Holocaust penetrates their bourgeois home in Vienna. Directed by two-time Tony nominee Patrick Marber, “Leopoldstadt” boasts a cast of nearly three dozen, led by David Krumholtz, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz.

Stoppard’s latest received near-universal raves from critics. In his Critic’s Pick review, Jesse Green (New York Times) calls the play “harrowing” and says it features the dramatist’s “trademark bravura” and “kaleidoscopic technique.” Commending the entire ensemble, he writes, “The acting is excellent across the board,...

To the exuberant tones of Christophe’s “Aline,” lamenting the loss of his love, two shirtless men rejoice orgiastically as water tumbling down a rock face drenching their bodies. Meanwhile, at a country house, maids and a gardener, dressed in period costume, proudly pour what looks like a mixture of water and milk onto plants.

The scenes, it seems, are from a libertine costume drama, being shot in the wooded French countryside. Then suddenly Valentin, the director, disappears. Clodhopping local cops interview the crew; some time later, Robin, the film’s Dp and Valentin’s lover, travels to the Pacific-shore Mexico to fulfil a promise.

Sensual, sexual, playful, genre-blending and very meta, “De Noche los Gatos Son Pardos,” winner of Locarno’s 2021 First Look on Swiss Cinema, world premieres later this week in international competition at the Locarno Film Festival. Picked up for world sales by Italy’s Open Reel...

Energetic Italian sales agent Open Reel has closed world sales rights to Valentin Merz’s “De noche los gatos son pardos,” which will world premiere in this year’s Locarno Festival International Competition.

One of two first features in Locarno’s main competitive section, “De noche los gatos son pardos” (“At Night All Cats Are Black”) returns to Europe’s largest mid-Summer film event after winning the biggest prize last year at its First Look pix-in-post showcase focused on Swiss movies.

That prize went to the section’s boldest entry, a genre mashup of film shoot drama and comedic procedural which proves an ode to sexuality in its multiple manifestations, as well as to love and filmmaking.

Shot through with a meta conscience, “De noche…” turns on a highly disparate crew and cast shooting a sexually-souped costume drama in wooded hills. Suddenly, its director, Valentin disappears. Clodhopping local cops interview the crew,...