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Exclusive: Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international rights for Egghead Republic, the latest feature from Swedish directorial duo Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja who made waves with sci-fi epic Aniara.

The English-speaking picture is currently in post-production and positioning for a fall launch, with NonStop Entertainment handling its Scandinavia release. Best Friend Forever will unveil an exclusive promo-reel in Cannes.

It is set in an alternative reality in which the Cold War didn’t end, and an atomic bomb has struck Soviet Kazakhstan. Sonja, a 22-year-old Swedish club-kid, working at one of the hippest magazines in the world, is mysteriously invited to report from inside the radio-active zone, to find or debunk the rumors of mutated centaurs living there.

“Never have we been this proud, this elated. With Egghead Republic we want to bring the viewer on a feverish descent into a contaminated zone — questioning what it means...

A few months back, I saw the unrelentingly bleak yet still oddly beautiful 2018 science fiction film Aniara for the first time. An adaptation of an epic poem, it journeys through space with a large group of passengers fleeing an Earth decimated by climate change to find a new home that will be more habitable, only to encounter an almost banal yet still all-consuming catastrophe that threatens the ship as well as their very future. The reason it has stuck with me, beyond the strong performances and thoughtful way it was all constructed, was the unrelentingly grim core of the experience. While cinema has often had a romantic idea of space as the final frontier that can provide our salvation, here was a work that took things down a darker path more than any other I had ever seen. Its a film that I was frequently thinking about while watching Mikael Hfstrms psychological thriller Slingshot.

Welcome to July at Hulu! In addition to a large collection of films joining the streamer’s library on the first of the month, including Jordan Peele’s horror hit Get Out, 1986’s better-than-the-first-film “Aliens,” and more, Hulu will load up the rest of the month with various film streaming premieres, animated series returns, and documentary drops.

This July, check out a wide range of titles from the much-talked-about revenge thriller “Femme” to the new Hulu Original fashion competition series “Dress My Tour,” hosted by Kate Upton.

Last but not least, wrap up the month with the Season 12 (or Season 2 of the Hulu revival) premiere of “Futurama,” which celebrates a quarter-century this year.

Check out The Streamable’s top picks for what’s coming to Hulu this month, and find out everything coming to the streamer in July!

30-Day Free Trial $7.99+ / month hulu.com “Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer” | Thursday,...

New month, new titles! With January underway, Max has released dozens of library titles, including “The Breakfast Club,” “Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” and much, much more.

But the streamer is preparing for a big month from all of its brands, including the Bleacher Report, the platform will carry multiple big match-ups, including the NBA Rivals Week games on Jan. 23 (New York Knicks at Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers at LA Clippers) and Jan. 25 (Boston Celtics at Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings at Golden State Warriors).

There’s plenty more still to come throughout the month, including the highly anticipated return of “True Detective” with its latest installment, entitled “Night Country” and starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.

Check out The Streamable’s top picks for what’s coming to the streamer and find out everything coming to Max this month!

One of HBO’s former hot properties returns in a big way this January, as True Detective season four finally arrives on the service. Will this be a return to form for the gritty show? Well, that remains unclear, but this time around the anthology series will follow detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) as the long winter darkness in Alaska. When eight people at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace, these detectives need to get on the case quickly.

Also hitting Max this month is the final season of Sort Of. Season three finds Sabi (Bilal Baig) dealing with the unexpected death of their father, and making some big life choices as a result.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) HBO and Max this month…

HBO and Max New Releases – January 2024

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC) 90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk...

Max’s January 2024 lineup includes season four of True Detective, led by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, as well as the third and final season of Sort Of with Bilal Baig. Max is also kicking off the new year with the debut of On The Roam, an eight-part documentary series featuring Aquaman star Jason Momoa.

The streaming service’s January 2024 roster includes the return of Real Time with Bill Maher for season 22, along with the seventh season of Rick and Morty. The critically acclaimed documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project arrives on January 8.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In January 2024:

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC)

90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk: Single All The Way (TLC)

The A-Team (2010)

After Earth (2013)

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

Aniara (2019)

Austenland (2013)

Bachelorette (2012)

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)

Body at Brighton Rock (2019)

Booty Call (1997)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Brothers (2001)

Cabin Fever (2003)

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever...

Exclusive: Tyler Labine (New Amsterdam), Ella Rae Rappaport (Alone In Space), and Arvin Kananian (Triangle of Sadness) have signed on to star in Egghead Republic, the latest feature from Swedish directing duo Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja (Aniara).

Labine and Rappaport will play the two leads in the pic, which is currently shooting on the island of Gotland in Sweden. The main cast is rounded out by Arvin Kananian (Triangle of Sadness), Andrew Lowery, and Emma Creed.

Other main cast includes Gina Diwari, Andrew Lowery, Milan Dragisic (Äta Sova Dö), and producer Emma Creed in her first acting role.

Based in part on Kågerman’s experience working for Vice Magazine and the novel Die Gelehrtenrepublik by Arno Schmidt, the pic takes place in an alternative reality where the cold war did not end, and an atomic bomb has struck Soviet Kazakstan. A young...

Exclusive: Aniara filmmakers Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja have found their next project.

The directing duo will return to feature filmmaking with Egghead Republic, a satirical coming-of-age tale in part based on Kågerman’s experience working for Vice Magazine and the novel Die Gelehrtenrepublik, by Arno Schmidt

The story will take place in an alternative reality where the cold war did not end, and Soviet Kazakstan has been struck by an atomic bomb. A young Swedish club kid — working at one of the hippest magazines in the world — is handed the assignment of reporting from the restricted zone.

The film will start shooting in Gotland and Stockholm this spring. Kågerman and Lilja also wrote the pic. Nina Lund is producing for You Saved Me Ab. Co-producers are Film Stockholm, Gotland Film Fund, and Film i Dalarna.

NonStop Entertainment will co-produce and distribute Egghead Republic in the Nordics.

“To jump up...

Exclusive: Magnet Releasing has acquired worldwide rights to Ultrasound, the first narrative feature from director Rob Schroeder, with plans to release it in theaters next year.

The sci-fi thriller follows Glen (Vincent Kartheiser), who is stranded by two flat tires on a rainy night and must seek help at a nearby house. There, he’s welcomed in by Art (Bob Stephenson), who cajoles him into sleeping with his younger wife Cyndi (Chelsea Lopez). Glen’s unease only escalates when, a short time later, the consequences of this strange night begin to spiral out of control. Glen and Cyndi soon find themselves at the center of a web of deception and manipulation that tests the foundations of reality.

Ultrasound made its world premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and recently went on to screen at Fantasia Fest, where it won the Silver Audience Award.

Conor Stechschulte penned the film, which is based on his graphic novel,...

Writer-director Neil Burger has dipped into science fiction both for adults and the YA audience a couple of times throughout his career. First with his 2011 film Limitless, in which Bradley Cooper becomes a mental powerhouse thanks to a mysterious drug; in 2014, he helmed Divergent, one of the last gasps of the dystopian young adult subgenre; and with the new film Voyagers —which features the filmmaker’s first original screenplay since 2008’s The Lucky Ones—Burger plunges full-on into sci-fi with a space-based thriller that takes some familiar material, and… doesn’t do much with it.

There are two familiar—perhaps overly familiar—plot threads happening in Voyagers. On one hand, the story is set on a generation ship, a well-worn genre device in which a group of people board a spacecraft for a vast interstellar journey, knowing that they won’t reach their destination but that their descendants will. In this case,...

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival, beginning Thursday, will look quite different. Forging ahead during the pandemic, they’ve to continue offering some of the year’s finest independent discoveries, with a new online platform, drive-ins, screenings at independent arthouses around the country, and more.

We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re counting down our most-anticipated films. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.

15. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun)

Year after year, Sundance’s Next section offers independent cinema’s most compelling new voices; one that’s caught our eye is Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Shot by Daniel Patrick Carbone and scored by Alex G, it follows a teenager (Anna Cobb) whose reality begins blurring when she plays an online horror role-playing game.

Magnet Releasing, the genre film arm of Magnolia Pictures, has acquired the North American rights to “Amulet,” a horror film that premiered in the Midnight section at Sundance this past year, the distributor announced Tuesday.

“Amulet” is the feature directorial debut of Romola Garai, an actress turned filmmaker, and it stars Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu, Imelda Staunton and Angeliki Papoulia. Magnet will release the film in theaters and on demand on July 24.

“Amulet” follows Tomaz (Secareanu), a former soldier who is left homeless after an accident and takes refuge in the decaying home of Magda (Juri), a lonely young woman in desperate need of help as she cares for her ailing mother. At first hesitant, Magda soon welcomes Tomaz into their lives. But as he gets closer to and begins to fall for Magda, Tomaz notices strange and unexplainable phenomena. Something seems very wrong with the mysterious old woman who never leaves the top floor,...

‘Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’ leads Mubi chart.

Safy Nebbou’s Who You Think I Am has topped UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema’s (Chc) most-watched films for a second week as audiences continue to seek home entertainment during the lockdown.

A month after all cinemas closed across the UK, in a bid to stem the spread of Covid-19, Curzon’s streaming platform reported a 211% revenue increase on the equivalent weekend in 2019.

However, income from April 17-19 was down 31% on the previous weekend, highlighting the importance of launching strong, new titles on a weekly basis.

Romantic drama Who You Think I Am,...

‘Bait’ and ‘Knives Out’ lead BFI Player charts.

UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) has reported a record digital opening for Safy Nebbou’s Who You Think I Am.

The romantic drama, starring Juliette Binoche, delivered the platform’s biggest three-day opening for a premium VoD title to date.

It benefitted from Curzon bringing forward the release of the film from May 8, implemented as part of a larger reshuffle to bolster its online offering while cinemas remain closed, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The performance helped Chc record a 630% increase on the equivalent weekend in 2019 and revenue generated from...

Curzon has reshuffled its releases to strengthen its streaming schedule.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth has retained its lead as the most-watched title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) as the UK streaming platform prepares to strengthen its schedule of new releases.

The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, held the top spot on the platform for the third consecutive weekend. It is on track to overtake Chc’s most successful title to date, Celine Sciamma’s Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, as audiences continue to seek out new releases at home due to the closure of cinemas in...

More than 5,000 people watched Curzon’s first in a new series of live-streamed Q&As.

Curzon has revealed that Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is now it’s most successful title to date on its streaming platform as UK audiences flock online in the wake of cinema closures.

Celine Sciamma’s romantic drama had been performing strongly in theatres for Curzon, grossing £557,000 at the UK box office, before theatres closed their doors amid the coronavirus crisis.

It has now become the most purchased title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc), which overall recorded a 27% increase on premium VOD week-on-week from...

‘The Truth’ was the most-viewed title on Curzon Home Cinema from March 20-22.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s English and French-language drama The Truth was the most-streamed title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) last weekend (March 20-22) according to a top 10 of the most-viewed titles revealed by by the UK platform.

The Truth was set for theatrical release on March 20 via Curzon’s distribution arm but pivoted to an early digital release in the wake of cinema closures. Its release beat the previous best three-day figure on the platform by 66%. No further details of the numbers involved were given.

Celine Sciamma’s...

The two-film deal was negotiated between Njutafilms CEO Nicolas Debot and Arrow Films head of international sales Cameron Waaler.

British outfit Arrow Films has sold two of its genre titles to Swedish distributor Njutafilms

The features comprise Us horror The Dead Center, directed by Billy Senese, and UK genre comedy A Serial Killer’s Guide To Life, directed by Staten Cousins Roe.

The two-film deal was negotiated between Njutafilms CEO Nicolas Debot and Arrow Films head of international sales Cameron Waaler. Arrow is at the Efm as part of a move to increase its activity in the international sales market.

Recent...

The sci-fi epic Aniara has scooped four gongs, with a low yield for main contenders Roy Andersson and Mikael Håfström. In what has been called a lacklustre Swedish film year, the clearest beacon of light in 2019 was surely provided by Levan Akin in his heartfelt tale of a forbidden romance between two male dancers in the conservative Georgian dance community, And Then We Danced. It opened in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, became Sweden’s submission for the 92nd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film and has now been sold to nearly 40 territories. The co-production between Sweden’s Mathilde Dedye and Georgia’s Ketie Danelia, with additional co-production by Julien Féret, picked up the Guldbagge Awards for Best Film, Best Lead Actor (for Levan Gelbakhiani), Best Script (Akin) and Best Cinematography (Lisabi Fridell). Last week, it was awarded the Greta, the annual award handed out by the...

50% of its programme will be comprised of films directed by women.

The world premiere of Maria Bäck’s Swedish drama Psychosis in Stockholm wil open the Goteborg Film Festival on January 24 as part of the festival’s Nordic Competition. Goteborg has promised that 50% of its programme will be comprised of films directed by women.

The film is inspired by an experience writer-director Bäck had when she was 15 and her mother developed a psychosis while they were on a trip to Stockholm. The filmmaker describes the project as a “surreal fiction drama”; Garagefilm produces what is Bäck’s second feature following I Remember When I Die.

Following our top 50 films of 2019, we’re sharing personal top 10 lists from our contributors. Check out the latest below and see our complete year-end coverage here.

I’m not sure if it says more about the quality of international productions above domestic titles in 2019 or my own evolving tastes, but I’ve never had this many foreign language films in a Top Ten before. And it’s not just European countries like France and Germany. The Middle East, Asia, and Scandinavia are represented too. The consistent output of stellar dramatic work that resonated beyond borders was a truly stunning thing to behold and I hope it continues into the next decade.

Another common through-line here is the success of quiet, contemplative dramas that look to mine below the surface to find political, social, and cultural truth. So many titles on this list are dialogue-heavy confrontations in search of identity, strength,...

Now in their 32nd year, the European Film Awards unfold Saturday in Berlin, and here’s where you can live-stream the ceremony. With some titles controversial (Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy”) and others at least a year old for those of us stateside (“The Favourite”), this year’s ceremony is sure to be a fun romp.

Leading the pack is director “An Officer and a Spy,” the Dreyfus affair drama that picked up a top prize at Venice back in September, tied for four nominations alongside Pedro Almodóvar’s self-reflective “Pain and Glory,” Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor,” and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Favourite.” While released in the fall of 2018 in the United States, the latter film’s international release window made it eligible for the European Film Awards this year. “The Favourite” won star Olivia Colman, who plays a gout-stricken Queen Anne, a Best Actress Academy Award earlier...

What is it about the awe-inspiring infinity of space that makes movie characters feel so sad? Seriously, there sure are a lot of films about moping-around-the-stars. Take for instance the space exploration drama “Ad Astra,” where Brad Pitt searches the solar system for his missing father while having an existential crisis. More like “Sad Astra.” Get it? “Sad” instead of “Ad”? You get it. Anyway, enjoy this breakdown of films that use the stars as a backdrop for stories about depression and grief.

“Ad Astra” (2019)

The astronaut Brad Pitt plays in James Gray’s “Ad Astra” has to get a psychological exam each morning from a robotic prompter. He’s famous for never having a heart rate that rises above 90 beats per minute. He scoffs when he sees that there’s now a Subway on the moon. Who doesn’t like low-g sandwiches? Even a trip to Neptune of all...

New releases include ‘The Souvenir’, ’Mrs Lowry & Son’, and ‘Bait’.

There is a flurry of intriguing indie title releases in the UK this weekend, while the top end of the chart looks like to be largely dominated by holdovers Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and Angel Has Fallen.

In the indie space, Curzon is handling the release of Joanna Hogg’s fourth feature, The Souvenir, which stars Honor Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke in the story of a young film student who becomes romantically involved with a complicated man in 1980s London. Martin Scorsese was an executive producer...

Looking for to learn more about the real-life creepy clown phenomenon that has swept the nation in recent years? Ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, the documentary Wrinkles the Clown has been acquired by Magnet Releasing, with an October 4th theatrical release planned.

Press Release: New York, NY – Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, announced today that they have acquired worldwide rights to Wrinkles The Clown, an unnerving new documentary that seeks to uncover the mystery behind chilling accounts of a nightmarish clown seen terrorizing disobedient children throughout Florida. Directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Michael Beach Nichols (Welcome To Leith) and financed and produced by Topic Studios, Wrinkles The Clown will world-premiere at Fantastic Fest, followed by an October 4th theatrical release.

It started with a silent black and white surveillance video uploaded to YouTube that depicted a child sleeping peacefully. Until a disheveled old man disguised...

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s directorial debut also won best actor for Damson Idris.

Farming, the directorial debut of UK filmmaker Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, has won the top prize at the 73rd Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff).

The film, which had its UK premiere at the festival, won the Michael Powell award for best British feature film. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018 and is set for release in the UK in September via Lionsgate.

Writer-director Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s autobiographical story centres on a Nigerian boy Enitan (Damson Idris), who is ‘farmed out’ by his parents to a white British family...

Welcome, one and all, to the latest installment of The Film Stage Show! Today, Michael Snydel and I discuss Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja’s existential sci-fi drama Aniara, which is now available on VOD.

Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or stream below. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.

The Film Stage is supported by Mubi, a curated online cinema streaming a selection of exceptional independent, classic, and award-winning films from around the world. Each day, Mubi hand-picks a new gem and you have one month to watch it. Try it for free at mubi.com/filmstage.

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Each year brings an example or three of purported “thinking person’s science-fiction” films, a category that pretty much embraces anything not centered on monsters or lightsaber battles. These efforts are often more admirable in theory than result, but “Aniara” — the first film drawn from Nobel Prize-winning Swedish poet Harry Martinson’s 1956 cycle of 103 cantos — provides a narrative as satisfying as its conception is ambitious. This tale of a spaceship stuck wandering the cosmos after being forced off course is both impressive in its scope and intimate in its portrait of human nature under long-term duress.

Though inevitably destined to frustrate genre fans who think they want something different but still require conventional action thrills, Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja’s first feature should intrigue and reward those inclined toward adult drama who wouldn’t normally expect such tropes from a sci-fi movie.

There’s also the lure of topicality:...

When’s the last time you saw a sci-fi movie about space travel that was pleasant? I’m having a hard time thinking up one at the moment, because the majority are usually about all the terrible things that await us foolish humans if we dare break through the stratosphere, and beyond. The Swedish sci-fi film Aniara is […]

The post ‘Aniara’ Trailer: A Journey From Earth to Mars Becomes an Existential Nightmare appeared first on /Film.

In the near future, the end of the Earth leads the remnants of society to make an escape from Earth to Mars on luxury transport ships which make the trip in three weeks. The Aniara is one of those ships except that partway through the flight, the ship gets knocked off course and the crew is left with one option: find a celestial body and leverage its gravity to get back on course. Trouble is, they don't know when they're going to encounter the necessary celestial body.

Adapted from Nobel Prize winner Harry Martinson's poem, Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja's feature film debut Aniara (teaser) follows the survivors aboard the Aniara and observes how this insular society...

Swedish writer Harry Martinson made the cosmos poetic with his piece “Aniara.” Aniara, meaning sad or depressing, encompassed the existential turn of the unknown space and humanity’s wavering place in it as the earth begins to crumble. Martinson’s poem is deep and reflexive and makes for an eerie adaptation to film.

Read More: ‘Midsommar’ Trailer: ‘Hereditary’ Filmmaker Ari Aster Teams With Florence Pugh For His New Nightmare

The work of Martinson provides the narrative for the film, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

Continue reading ‘Aniara’ Trailer: Traveling From Earth To Mars Goes Awry In This Ambitious Sci-Fi Thriller at The Playlist.

Goteborg, Sweden — There’s an impending sense of doom in the current zeitgeist, particularly with feelings about climate change, that the Göteborg Film Festival taps into this year with Focus: Apocalypse. Fest artistic director Jonas Holmberg notes, “We are exploring how today’s filmmakers work with the existential, ethical and political aspects of this crisis. Perhaps more than any other art form, film has preoccupied itself with envisioning the apocalypse and post-apocalyptic situations, and perhaps it is precisely through such artistic imaginings that we can deal with civilization’s presently critical state.”

Comprising a thoughtfully-curated program of films, special events and seminars, the focus poses the question “What can humans do, alone or collectively, to save the earth?”

One answer comes via the Icelandic title “Woman At War,” directed by Benedikt Erlingsson, which takes on pressing environmental concerns with humor and aplomb. The eponymous woman is a much beloved, middle-aged Reykjavik choir conductor,...

For anyone who has ever wanted to sleep like Dracula, now’s their chance.

The Goteborg Film Festival in Sweden is offering moviegoers the opportunity to experience the sci-fi film Aniara inside of a coffin when it premieres on Jan. 27.

Eight volunteers will be sealed inside custom made caskets equipped with screens, speakers and air vents.

The coffins have been made to magnify the solitary theme of the movie, which centers around a spaceship carrying settlers to Mars when it’s knocked off course. The incident then forces its passengers to consider their place in the universe.

“This is going...

The $34,000 prize is aimed at promoting gender equality.

The Goteborg Film Festival will open with Miia Tervo’s Aurora from Finland, about a party animal Finnish woman in Lapland who meets an Iranian asylum seeker, on January 26.

The festival will close with the world premiere of Swedish directors’ Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein’s Swoon on February 4. The period romance is about two young lovers from families who own rival amusement parks.

The festival will screen 376 films from 83 countries.

Full lists of the films in the festival’s five competitions below.

The festival will host Eurimages’ Audentia Award competition for...

London-based sales and financing house Film Constellation has sold North American rights for Annabel Jankel’s “Tell It to the Bees,” which stars Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger, to Good Deed Entertainment.

Good Deed, which is aiming for a spring theatrical release, has partnered with FilmRise on streaming and linear rights for the film.

The period drama, which received its world premiere as a special presentation at the Toronto Film Festival, is based on Fiona Shaw’s novel of the same name. It follows Dr. Jean Markham (Paquin) as she returns to the town she left as a teenager. A school-yard scuffle lands Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) in her medical practice, and this brings his mother Lydia (Grainger) into the doctor’s world. The two women are drawn to one another but in 1950s small-town Britain, their secret can’t stay hidden forever.

Other movies on Film Constellation’s Afm slate...

Modern Films boards Berlin premiere.

John McEnroe: In The Realm Of Perfection, the feature documentary that premiered in Berlin and also played the BFI London Film Festival, has been picked up for UK distribution.

Sales agent Film Constellation has struck a deal with Eve Gabereau’s Modern Films – the latter is planning to release the film around the Wimbledon tennis tournament in 2019.

Director Julien Faraut’s experimental film documents tennis legend John McEnroe’s performance at the 1984 French Open, when he was no.1 in the world, and is narrated by Mathieu Amalric. It premiered in Berlin’s Forum strand...

Space. The final frontier. This is the story of the starship Aniara. If you know me, you know I'm a huge sci-fi geek. Especially when it comes to space travel, and anything involving space and planets and spaceships. I discovered a film at the Toronto Film Festival this year titled Aniara, a Swedish sci-fi film adapted from Harry Martinson's epic poem of the same name. This astounding sci-fi film is set in the near future and is about a big spaceship taking colonists from Earth to Mars, usually a three week journey for batches of lazy humans. But it gets irreversibly knocked off course, causing the passengers to descend into madness once they begin to accept their fate: drifting into the void of space. This film is Amazingly good, perhaps the best indie sci-fi I've seen since Arrival, perfectly executed and invigorating in its rigorous sci-fi storytelling. The overall...

Well Go USA pounces on ’Freaks’, Magnolia takes ‘Aniara’.

The Toronto deal flow continued to trickle in after the busy first weekend as Well Go USA picked up multiple territories on Freaks and Magnolia pounced on Aniara.

Well Go USA closed a deal in the early hours of Monday (10) for North America, the UK, Australia/New Zealand, and Latin America on Tiff selection Freaks in a seven-figure deal.

Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky’s sci-fi thriller premiered in the Discovery section on Saturday and Well Go plans a theatrical release in 2019. It screens to the public on Monday night.

Emile Hirsch,...

Indie distributor Neon has landed domestic rights to “Wild Rose,” arguably the hottest sales title at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Tim League’s company landed the finished film in a competitive situation, for roughly $4 million. The movie follows an aspiring country singer who wants to leave her humdrum life in Scotland for a Southern-fried adventure in Nashville.

Tom Harper directs from a script by writer Nicole Taylor. Jessie Buckley, Sophie Okonedo and Julie Walters star. The film premiered at Tiff on Saturday.

Also Read: Magnolia Pictures Acquires Epic Foreign Sci-Fi 'Aniara'

Last year, Neon bought the highly-coveted “I, Tonya” for roughly the same price tag. Of course, “I, Tonya” went on to have an awards run with Margot Robbie and Allison Janney.

The distributor also had a strong presence at January’s Sundance Film Festival, acquiring tech thriller “Assassination Nation” for a whopping $10 million, as...

Magnolia Pictures said on Monday it has acquired rights to distribute Swedish science fiction thriller “Aniara” after the film’s world premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

“Aniara” was adapted by directors Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja from an epic poem by Swedish Nobel Prize winner Harry Martinson.

“Aniara,” according to the Tiff description of the film, charts the fate of the human race after they have destroyed the planet. As one of several ships launched into space to start anew on Mars, Aniara is designed to meet the needs of a species that has just consumed its birthplace: it’s a giant shopping mall. When an accident knocks the ship off course and disables its steering, the likelihood that these once-sanguine colonizers will ever reach their destination gradually begins to shrink.

Also Read: Focus Features Lands Thriller 'Greta,' Starring Isabelle Huppert

The protagonist, Mr (Emelie Jonsson...

Inspired by real-life stories of New Zealand’s fearsome street gangs of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, shooting has started on “Savage,” and the sales effort is getting underway in Toronto. Jake Ryan (“The Great Gatsby”), John Tui (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”), and Chelsie Preston Crayford (“What We Do in the Shadows”) are starring in the movie, which is helmed by Sam Kelly.

It tells the story of Danny at three different ages and critical moments in his life, which push and pull him towards and away from gang life. Each of the chapters is set at a defining moment in New Zealand’s gang culture, from their emergence to them becoming more organized and focused on crime. It is being shot on location in New Zealand.

“I want to depict flawed but real characters, to find what I call the ‘sharp edge’: where it feels raw, charged and bold,...

So much of our desire to exist is based in control. We have the ability to move our homes, restart careers, and work towards a future of our choosing. No matter how difficult things become, there’s always a hope for better or an avenue towards change. It’s only when we’re cornered without an exit that we start to let our fears rule us rather than the infinite possibilities in our grasp. We search for meaning and answers, struggling to reconcile that happiness may have always been an illusion to mask the pain. And it can disappear in an instant — one hiccup along a path of tenuous certainty throwing perfect plans into chaotic turmoil. Suddenly we can no longer take the reins of our circumstances. They begin governing us.

There’s no bigger example of this truth than our premonitions of apocalypse. Beyond religious scripture lies the science...

The scheme is now open to Swedish majority productions.

The Swedish Film Institute is launching a new support scheme, International Distribution Support, to allocate P&A funding to international distributors working on releases of Swedish features.

The scheme is now open, with details available later today here, and the first application deadline will be in mid-October, ensuring that some deals negotiated during or after Toronto can take advantage.

The scheme is open to Swedish majority productions over 60 minutes of length, both documentaries and fiction films.

Petter Mattsson of the Swedish Film Institute’s International Department told Screen that “all platforms are eligible.