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Gene Hackman, a two-time Oscar winner for “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven,” and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, were found dead Wednesday afternoon in their Santa Fe, N.M. home. The office of Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza confirmed their deaths to Variety after midnight Thursday. There is no immediate indication of foul play, per authorities, though the Sheriff’s office did not immediately provide a cause of death. Hackman was 95. Arakawa was 63.

On Wednesday, Sheriff’s deputies visited the home of Hackman and Arakawa, who married in 1991. The couple was found dead, alongside their dog.

“All I can say is that we’re in the middle of a preliminary death investigation, waiting on approval of a search warrant,” the sheriff told the Santa Fe New Mexican. The statement came before authorities had positively identified the pair, per the publication. “I want to assure the community and neighborhood...

This article was originally published on FearHQ.com; head there now for more updates on Nosferatu and more of your favourite horror franchises.

Nosferatu is now playing in theaters and, along with Count Orlok's unforgettable new look, the movie's ending is generating a great deal of discussion among horror fans. 

In the original 1922 classic, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, Ellen Hutter learns that only a pure-hearted woman can destroy a vampire. She must freely offer her blood to the monster and only then can it be killed. After she lures Count Orlok into her home, he feeds on Ellen in her bed and is so distracted that, when the sun rises, he's left with no time to hide and is destroyed in a puff of smoke. Ellen dies from her wounds.

In Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, armed with Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz's knowledge, Ellen once again decides to enact a...

Sarah Duve-Schmid, the deputy CEO of the German Federal Film Board (Ffa) will succeed Kirsten Niehuus as managing director of film funding for Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg from mid-2025.

Niehuus, who was also deputy CEO at the Ffa from 1999 to 2004, has been at the helm of the regional fund’s film funding operations since November 2004.

Like Niehuus, Duve-Schmid is a trained lawyer who has been head of film funding at the Ffa since 2019.

In line with Duve- Schmid’s arrival, film funding decisions will now be taking by committee rather than by the managing director alone for the first time in the Medienboard’s 30-year history.

This year’s Tonys will be held on June 16, so the American Theatre Wing will likely be announcing its lifetime achievement award recipient in the near future. Who do you think should take home this prestigious trophy? It has gone to veteran stage performers, directors, choreographers, playwrights, songwriters, producers and designers. In some years we get multiple recipients.

Last year these honors went to legendary actor Joel Grey and composer John Kander. The following living female Broadway vets have also received this award in the past and thus won’t be chosen again: Jane Greenwood, Rosemary Harris and Graciela Daniele. Here are 10 possible women the Tonys could award, all veterans over the age of 65. Vote to let us know who you’d like to see honored.

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Debbie Allen

Two-time Tony nominated actress for her performances in revivals of “West Side Story...

Josh Kramer, who worked as a film producer and financier and Amazon executive, died Nov. 27 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 67.

Kramer started his career in entertainment in foreign sales for the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. By pre-selling foreign movie rights, he became an integral member of the company, financing films such as “Manhunter” and “Blue Velvet.” He led the acquisition of the film rights for Madonna’s first concert film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” and later sold the film overseas.

Rachael Horovitz, who worked with him at De Laurentiis, remembered Kramer on his memorial site. “A concert pianist who helped right the Beastie Boys tourbus one night in Paris when rabid fans were tipping it over; a patient negotiator who cried reading J.D. Salinger. His contradictions made him.”

He joined forces with Thom Mount to form the Mount/Kramer Company in the early ’90s, producing Roman Polanski’s...

Josh Kramer, a veteran Hollywood executive who produced such films as Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden and Sidney Lumet’s Night Falls on Manhattan, has died following a stroke. He was 67.

Kramer died Nov. 27 surrounded by family and friends in Santa Monica, according to a representative. The producer, who was a graduate of the American School in London, earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University, where he is said to have made a mark creating conceptual art pieces. He then went on to earn his Mba from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

He began his entertainment industry career by working in foreign sales for legendary Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis, specializing in international presales of films by such directors as Sam Raimi, Michael Cimino, Bruce Beresford and David Cronenberg. One such title he shepherded was the iconic documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare.

Kramer went on...

Josh Kramer, who produced Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden and Sidney Lumet’s Night Falls on Manhattan and later led sales for Capitol Films before becoming Head of Motion Picture Business Operations at Amazon Studios, has died. He was 67.

Kramer died November 27 in Santa Monica.

Born on May 17, 1956, he began his showbiz career working for the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, pre-selling foreign movie rights that would help finance films including Manhunter, Blue Velvet and others. Kramer was instrumental in the success of the 1991 concert pic Madonna: Truth or Dare, leading the acquisition of the film rights and then selling the film overseas.

In the early 1990s, he teamed with Thom Mount to form the Mount/Kramer Company, which produced Death and the Maiden (1994) and Night Falls on Manhattan (1996).

He went on to become the head of sales for Capitol Films, later joining international acquisitions at MGM. In...

Jason George has been wanting to direct for years, but it’s with the May 5 episode of Station 19 that the former Grey’s Anatomy star (finally) stepped behind the camera. “There’s so many things going on this episode. I got served this great episode,” he tells TV Insider of “Death and the Maiden.” Remember, last we saw, Andy (Jaina Lee Ortiz) was arrested after the attacker she fought off died. Now, her fate remains unknown as a trial date is set. Plus, Vic (Barrett Doss) and Sullivan (Boris Kodjoe) are approached by an unexpected guest. George, who plays firefighter Ben Warren on the ABC show, tells us about stepping behind the camera and previews the rest of the season. Congratulations on your directorial debut! Jason George: Thank you. I appreciate it. It was an incredible time. I had so much fun and I just loved that the whole cast and crew was there for me.

Station 19’s Andy won’t only have her firehouse family in her corner as she enters a plea in the manslaughter case against her in Thursday’s episode (8/7c on ABC). As you’ll see in the exclusive sneak-peek video above, a certain someone else is eager to stand by her, too, in her hour of need.

As the clip begins, Herrera’s ex-husband Sullivan and their co-worker Vic try to give the bum’s rush to the reporter who’s shown up at the station. Only, as the stranger — to them, anyway — is quick to reveal, she’s not a reporter at all,...

Station 19 Death and the Maiden Plot Synopsis, Director, and Air Date — ABC‘s Station 19: Season 5, Episode 16: Death and the Maiden plot synopsis, director, and air date have been released. Cast and crew Station 19 stars Jaina Lee Ortiz, Jason George, Boris Kodjoe, Grey Damon, Barrett Doss, Jay Hayden, Okieriete Onaodowan, [...]

Continue reading: Station 19: Season 5, Episode 16: Death and the Maiden Plot Synopsis, Director, & Air Date [ABC]...

Rooted in noir tradition, the suspense thriller of the “your past is catching up with you” variety is well-worn. So how does one reframe it in a way that feels at once fresh while also familiar, so as not to alienate increasingly impatient audiences? Therein lies the challenge for any new entries into the space, and one that Netflix’s latest Harlan Coben collaboration, “Stay Close,” ultimately fails, despite a decorated cast led by Cush Jumbo and James Nesbitt, even if their performances are the best thing about the series.

In “Stay Close,” Jumbo stars as Megan, a suburban mother of three whose previous life as a stripper named Cassie, along with the lives of those she thought she’d left in the past, come back to haunt her, threatening to ruin the perfect present-day reality she’s created for herself. The history summarized: once a popular dancer, one of...

Leonard Soloway, whose six-decade career as a stage general manager and producer included 59 Broadway shows that won more than 40 Tony Awards, died Saturday in Palm Springs, California. He was 93.

His death was announced on Facebook by his nephew Jeffrey Lesser. “He was a huge presence in my life and so many others,” Lesser wrote. “With him goes an era of old Broadway that is dying out. He lived an amazing and full life and brought so many of us along for the ride.”

Soloway, whose life and career was chronicled in the 2019 documentary Leonard Soloway’s Broadway, had a hand in dozens of Broadway’s most notable productions since the 1960s, from his job as house or general manager for 1961’s How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 1967’s one-woman show Marlene Dietrich, the 1976 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara and...

Two decades ago Mary-Louise Parker won her first Tony Award for her enthralling performance in David Auburn’s “Proof.” Five Broadway appearances later, Parker is on the cusp of winning the second Tony of her career for her searing turn in Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” according to our exclusive Tony Awards predictions. “The Sound Inside” has six nominations, including Best Play.

Parker earned the best reviews of her stage career for “The Sound Inside,” topping even the rapturous notices she received for “Proof.” Back then, John Simon (New York Magazine) called Parker’s work in “Proof” “a performance of genius.” In his rave review of “The Sound Inside,” Jesse Green (New York Times) wrote, “Parker, never better in her 30-year stage career, has dug even deeper into Bella, treating each line as if it were an archaeological site; she builds her performance on artifacts, not theories.” Vinson Cunningham...

Female filmmakers need to make sure they can continue telling the kind of stories they want, said Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović during Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talk.

Kusijanović, who recently won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for her debut feature “Murina,” criticized the Oscars’ new diversity rules for encouraging a form of reverse engineering. “It makes the companies go: ‘We just need one lesbian woman, two Black women and we can still make the film we always wanted with our male director.’ I think those quotas don’t work,” she said, stressing they should be applied to financing instead.

“More women come out of film schools than men and yet they still get less funding. The answer I get, which is crazy, is that ‘women have families.’ I just worked with a woman who has five kids and shot 125 films,” she said, mentioning the achievements of her DoP Hélène Louvart.

(Warning: This post contains spoilers through the finale of Peacock’s “Dr. Death.”)

Hubris? Improper training? Malicious intent? Ignorance? Negligence? There are a lot of explanations proposed for why the real-life subject of Peacock’s “Dr. Death” limited series, neurosurgeon Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Joshua Jackson), maimed and killed so many patients who came in for complex but routine procedures. In the show’s finale, it falls to assistant district attorney Michelle Shughart (AnnaSophia Robb) to convince a jury that it wasn’t primarily Duntsch’s poor training, but his own nature that made him harm these people — just as the real Shughart did when she got Duntsch sentenced to life in prison in 2017 on an elder abuse charge against one of his patients.

But what do the actors who inhabited these roles think of the real Duntsch, who was accused of injuring 33 out of 38 patients in less than...

(Warning: This post, which was originally published July 15, contains mild spoilers for Peacock’s “Dr. Death.”)

As its title strongly suggests, “Dr. Death” isn’t a show about a good physician. And the Peacock limited series — which is based on Wondery’s hit podcast about the real-life Dallas neurosurgeon Dr. Christopher Duntsch (played by Joshua Jackson) — goes to great pains to depict just how terrible an operator this man was, with many graphic scenes showcasing the spinal surgeries that left many of his patients permanently maimed or dead.

There are surgical tools used in ways that are clearly improper to even those of us watching who have no medical training. There are cracking and crunching noises that will set viewers’ teeth on edge as they wonder if that’s a sound a bone should ever make. And there are an uncomfortable number of times that Duntsch’s surgical team looks...

(Warning: This post, which was first published July 15, contains spoilers through the finale of Peacock’s “Dr. Death.”)

The villain of “Dr. Death,” Joshua Jackson’s Dr. Christopher Duntsch, is in the spotlight for the better part of the based-on-true-events Peacock limited series, maiming and killing patients who go under his knife for routine spinal surgeries. And it’s because we spend so much time in the dark with Duntsch that when our heroine, Dallas assistant district attorney Michelle Shughart (played by AnnaSophia Robb), finally arrives more than halfway through the show, her ultimate courtroom victory against the neurosurgeon feels that much sweeter.

For viewers who have watched through the end of “Dr. Death” and are looking to dive a little deeper into the facts of the case it’s based on, Robb assured TheWrap of one point in particular: Shughart really does have that cheery disposition in court.

Of course,...

If you’ve already finished Peacock’s new limited series “Dr. Death” and are hungry for more content about the real-life Dr. Christopher Duntsch, boy, are you in luck.

Peacock has set a companion docuseries for “Dr. Death,” which launched Thursday, titled “Dr. Death: The Undoctored Story.” That unscripted show will debut on July 29.

Dr. Christopher Duntsch (portrayed by Joshua Jackson on the scripted show) was an infamous neurosurgeon who was sentenced to life imprisonment after maiming, harming or killing 33 patients who came in for complex but routine spinal surgeries in the Dallas, Texas, area in the early 2010s.

According to the streaming service, the four-part show “will offer audiences the chance to hear and see the whole story, told by the real people who survived it. In addition to interviews with the real-life Dr. Robert Henderson, Dr. Randall Kirby and Michelle Shughart, the docuseries will feature new conversations with...

Glenn Close is set to star in the upcoming film “Brothers.”

Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind the movie, has not divulged a single detail about “Brothers,” other than the fact that Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage will portray siblings. To that end, it’s unknown who Close will play.

However, sources say the project is in the vein of Ivan Reitman’s 1988 buddy comedy “Twins,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

“Palm Springs” filmmaker Max Barbakow is directing “Brothers” from a script by Macon Blair and Etan Cohen. Blair was initially set to direct the movie before duties were passed to Barbakow.

Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar will produce alongside Brolin via his company Brolin Productions and Dinklage through his shingle Estuary Films.

Close recently received Academy Award recognition for “Hillbilly Elegy,” director Ron Howard’s drama about a family in middle America. The celebrated actor has been nominated...

Based on Wondery’s hit podcast, Death is inspired by the terrifying true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson), a rising star in the Dallas medical community. Young, charismatic and ostensibly brilliant, Dr. Duntsch was building a flourishing neurosurgery practice when everything suddenly changed. Patients entered his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries and left […]

The post Peacock Releases Trailer For New Crime Drama ‘Dr Death’ Starring Joshua Jackson appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

The first trailer for Peacock’s “Dr. Death” is here, featuring Joshua Jackson as “either the most incompetent surgeon… or a sociopath.”

The limited series is based on Wondery’s hit podcast of the same name and tells the terrifying true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a charismatic Dallas surgeon with a flourishing neurosurgery practice — and a growing list of patients who come in for routine spinal surgeries and leave permanently maimed or dead.

As the bodies under Duntsch’s care pile up, fellow surgeons Robert Henderson (Alec Baldwin) and Randall Kirby (Christian Slater), as well as Dallas prosecutor Michelle Shughart (AnnaSophia Robb), set out to stop him. According to the series logline, “‘Dr. Death’ explores the twisted mind of Dr. Duntsch and the failures of the system designed to protect the most defenseless among us.”

“Duntsch is never going to stop on his own,” Baldwin’s Henderson says at one point in the trailer.

First production to receive backing is Netflix’s ‘1899’ by ‘Dark’ creators.

The German federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg are investing €13m annually to develop the region as an international hub for digital film and TV production.

Administered by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, its first investment has been made in Dark creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar 1899 for Netflix. The eight-part mystery series began shooting at a custom-built virtual production studio called Dark Bay on the Studio Babelsberg lot yesterday (May 3). The studio has been set up by Friese and bo Odar’s own company Dark Ways with Studio Babelsberg and backing from Netflix.

If There Be Scorn: Fennell’s Debut a Stellar Portrait of Rape Trauma’s Rippling Effects

Heretofore, the rape revenge thriller has been something of a problematic presentation in cinema. The cheaply constructed catharsis born from masculine perspectives and their attempts to navigate a woman’s emotional experiences in response to rape and sexual assault ranges from well intentioned exploitation such as I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) or any number of high-profile dramatic representations in morbid, if effective melodramas.

Writer and actor Emerald Fennell (“Killing Eve” scribe and “The Crown’s” Camilla Parker Bowles) balances an exceptionally fine line with her directorial debut Promising Young Woman, which commands the assertions of troubling communal ripple effects in the wake of rape by displacing the usual locus of a woman scorned upon a helpless bystander.…...

The Forgiveness of Blood: Rapace Shines in a Loose Regurgitation of Dorfman Play

The strangest aspect of The Secrets We Keep, the third feature from Yuval Adler, is how it fails to credit the source material it is clearly borrowing from, Argentine-Chilean-American Ariel Dorfman’s 1990 play Death and the Maiden, adapted for the screen in 1994 by Roman Polanski and starring Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley.

Adler, who co-wrote this version with Ryan Covington, changes the setting of post-Pinochet Chile to 1959 United States, wherein a Holocaust survivor stumbles upon the Nazi who raped her and had a hand in murdering her sister.…...

Distributors keep changing their minds right up until the day before their movies are supposed to open in one of the wildest release eras in memory, making it nearly impossible for moviegoers to keep track of what’s opening when, and where, and how.

This week’s biggest theatrical opening is a Jim Caviezel movie called “Infidel,” although the distribution company Cloudburst Entertainment never responded to requests for review, so we couldn’t do our jobs on that one without driving to the nearest city where theaters are open, so investigate at your own risk.

Audiences willing to brave cinemas will find some reliable options in more limited theatrical release, including “Martha Marcy May Marlene” director Sean Durkin’s latest, “The Nest,” which is the sort of slow-burn psychological drama that benefits from your undivided attention. Meanwhile, for those seeking from-the-nest streaming options, Durkin’s longtime partner in crime, fellow Borderline filmmaker Antonio Campos,...

The worst sin of “The Secrets We Keep” is not that it so blatantly and flagrantly rips off Ariel Dorfman’s play and subsequent movie “Death and the Maiden” — although if the Chilean author wanted to sue for a credit, he’s certainly got a case.

The history of art is the history of creators borrowing from each other, whether they call it homage or reference or appropriation. What grates about director Yuval Adler and his co-writer Ryan Covington pilfering so obviously from Dorfman’s work is that they haven’t done anything particularly interesting with it.

Is there potential in changing the setting of “Death and the Maiden” from an unnamed Latin American country to the USA of the 1950s, still reeling in various ways from World War II? Absolutely. Do Adler and Covington achieve that potential? Not in the slightest.

Noomi Rapace stars as Maja, trying her best...

It’s been a rueful joke for three-quarters of a century now that after World War 2, there were miraculously no Nazis (or even ex-Nazis) left in Germany. To start unblemished postwar lives, an entire generation invented cover stories to minimize or deny the political affiliations most of them had before Axis defeat. Some went further than others, adopting whole new identities in new lands to bury wartime deeds. The fictitious exhumation that is “The Secrets We Keep” has Noomi Rapace as a European refugee appalled to realize her former uniformed persecutor now lives in the same American small town as she does.

This “Death and the Maiden”-like suspense drama is neither fully convincing nor particularly original, its narrative running a course that feels somewhat predictable from the outset. But it’s still strong enough to be effective, particularly as a vehicle for the actors. mong other things, it provides...

ViacomCBS is doubling down on podcasts with new series based on hit shows including SpongeBob Squarepants, Paw Patrol and Catfish.

This comes a day after the company revealed that it was developing a new version of Yo! MTV Raps and more audio spin-offs of The Daily Show following a deal with iHeartMedia.

The new shows include from Nickelodeon, SpongeBob BingePants: The Rewatch, an Avatar / Korra Airbender Universe podcast and a Paw Patrol podcast. The Catfish podcast will come from MTV in partnership with podcast producer Wondery, the company behind Dirty John and Dr Death. CBS Sports Digital is also launching All Things Covered with Bryant McFadden.

“Powered by an expansive portfolio of leading brands and iconic IP, ViacomCBS is accelerating its fortified momentum in the podcasting space,” said Domenic Dimeglio, EVP, Head of Operations and Chief Marketing Officer for ViacomCBS Digital. “With a robust slate of new and returning series,...

The Transilvania Pitch Stop, a workshop and co-production forum that marks one of the industry highlights of the Transilvania International Film Festival, will present a host of new projects from the Black Sea and beyond during this year’s edition of the festival, which runs July 31-Aug. 9. Among the standouts is Romanian director Adina Pintilie’s follow-up to her Golden Bear-winning “Touch Me Not.”

Launched in 2014 as a workshop for first- and second-time directors from Romania and Moldova, the Pitch Stop expanded in 2017 to include a co-production market presenting new feature film projects from across Southeastern Europe and neighboring countries. Most are presented publicly for the first time, with one taking home the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, which comes with a €20,000 cash prize.

“Filmmakers from countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Greece, Turkey or Georgia, all share the same struggles of getting their film projects financed, produced and appreciated by general audiences,...

Julia Roberts is reuniting with Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail on another podcast adaptation as she is attached to star, alongside Sean Penn, Armie Hammer and Joel Edgerton, in a remake of Slate’s Watergate audio series Slow Burn.

Roberts, who worked with Esmail on Amazon’s Homecoming, will play Martha Mitchell, wife of Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell in Gaslit from Ucp.

The NBCUniversal Content Studios division is taking out the project to premium and streaming platforms with talent attached in a similar fashion to the way it did with Dr Death, featuring Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, Dirty John, with Connie Britton, who was in negotiations, and Homecoming with Roberts. All of the above projects are based on podcasts, an important source of IP to the studio.

Robbie Pickering, who has worked on Mr Robot and Search Party, will serve as showrunner and executive...

Berlin's co-production market, where producers look for partners to finance their new projects, will feature more than 50 percent female-directed films for the first time in its 17-year history.

Overall, 11 of the 21 feature film projects on offer at this year's Berlinale Co-Production Market, which runs Feb. 22-26, are from women filmmakers. These include the new feature from Romania’s Adina Pintilie, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear and best first feature with Touch Me Not in 2018. Pintilie returns to Berlin with the relationship drama Death and the Maiden, which will be produced by her Bucharest-based Manekino Film....

Berlin's co-production market, where producers look for partners to finance their new projects, will feature more than 50 percent female-directed films for the first time in its 17-year history.

Overall, 11 of the 21 feature film projects on offer at this year's Berlinale Co-Production Market, which runs Feb. 22-26, are from women filmmakers. These include the new feature from Romania’s Adina Pintilie, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear and best first feature with Touch Me Not in 2018. Pintilie returns to Berlin with the relationship drama Death and the Maiden, which will be produced by her Bucharest-based Manekino Film....

New films from Pepa San Martín and Golden Bear winner Adina Pintilie among the line up.

The films selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 22-26) have been revealed and top 50% by female directors in the official project selection for the first time.

Scroll down for full list of titles

A total of 36 features from 34 countries will be showcased by producers seeking co-production partners through one-to-one meetings with distributors, financiers and sales agents.

For the official project selection, 21 projects with budgets ranging from €750,000 to €5m were selected from more than 300 submissions. With 11 projects by female directors, the proportion here has exceeded 50% for the first time.

Glenda Jackson was looking to do what no one has ever done before at the Tony Awards: win Best Actress in a Play in back-to-back years. Alas, she won’t get a chance to, as the Triple Crown champ was snubbed for her performance in “King Lear” on Tuesday.

Jackson, who prevailed last year for “Three Tall Women,” had been in first place in our Tony odds, but she was Mia on the shortlist, which, adding insult to injury, has six nominees. They are Annette Bening (“All My Sons”), Olivier winner Laura Donnelly (“The Ferryman”), Elaine May (“The Waverly Gallery”), Janet McTeer (“Bernhardt/Hamlet”), Laurie Metcalf (“Hillary and Bill”) and Heidi Schreck (“What the Constitution Means to Me”).

In hindsight, maybe we should’ve seen her snub coming. While the soon-to-be 83-year-old received stellar notices for her turn as the title character, the production itself underwhelmed critics. “King Lear” wound up with only one bid,...

Last year, Glenda Jackson became the 24th performer to complete the Triple Crown of Acting when she won the Best Actress in a Play Tony Award for “Three Tall Women.” She can write another chapter in awards history this year by becoming the first person to win back-to-back Tonys in that category.

Jackson is the odds-on favorite to prevail for her performance as the titular character in “King Lear,” which opened Thursday on Broadway. She’d be the eighth person to win the category twice and the 11th to have multiple wins in the category. None of the previous multiple Best Actress in a Play champs triumphed in consecutive years.

See Tony winner Glenda Jackson on ignoring all of Edward Albee’s advice [Watch]

2 wins

Shirley Booth: “Come Back, Little Sheba” (1950); “The Time of the Cuckoo” (1953)

Helen Hayes: “Happy Birthday” (1947); “Time Remembered” (1958)

Margaret Leighton: “Separate Tables” (1957); “The Night of the Iguana...

Exclusive: Here’s an intriguing first trailer for Berlin Film Festival comedy-drama O Beautiful Night, which is produced by Toni Erdmann and Western outfit Komplizen Film and sold at the Efm by key European arthouse firm The Match Factory.

Xaver Böhm’s fun-looking feature debut, whose trailer has hints of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismäki, follows angsty character Juri. Although he’s young, Juri lives in constant fear of dying. Nightly panic attacks for him are routine, but one night he meets a dark figure who claims to be Death incarnate. So begins a bizarro Faustian trip together through the night, during which Juri meets Nina and falls in love with her. But come dawn, one of them must die. Böhm scripts the German-language pic with Ariana Berndl.

Starring are Noah Saavedra (Egon Schiele: Death and the Maiden), Marko Mandic and Vanessa Loibl. Producers are Toni Erdmann writer-director Maren Ade...

The BAFTA Awards are Feb. 10, with Oscars two weeks later. All the lead actress nominees are terrific, but Glenn Close creates something unique because it’s so subtle. What she does is harder than it looks.

In Sony Classics’ “The Wife,” Close has the least showy role of the contenders, which is usually an awards disadvantage. She doesn’t have any “big scenes,” there’s no hysteria, no scenery-chewing, no calculated “This’ll get ’em!” moments. Instead, she offers a lesson in film acting.

Close told Variety that the challenge and “thrill” were in creating a woman who has so much going on internally; the character, Joan Castleman, has spent her life trying to fade into the background of her writer-husband, but both hit a crisis when he’s awarded a Nobel Prize for literature.

“There were years of her reveling in the work, but slowly seeing her husband become delusional about his creative process,...

If Glenn Close wins at the Oscars as we are predicting for her leading role in “The Wife,” she’ll become the 25th performer to pull off the Triple Crown of acting awards. She already has three Emmys and three Tonys. With this elusive Oscar, she’ll vault into a tie for first place with Maggie Smith for the most number of these awards at seven apiece.

Smith reaped her first bid for one of these prizes (an Oscar nomination) in 1966 and won the last of these three (an Emmy) in 2003 to complete the Triple Crown. That is a time span of 37 years. As Close first contended at the Tonys in 1980, it will have taken her just shy of four decades to run the Triple Crown.

See What do the SAG Awards mean when predicting the Oscars?

Close lost that first Tony bid for her featured role in the musical...

For the fifth year in a row, the Triple Crown of Acting club might get a new member. Glenn Close (“The Wife”) would be the 25th performer to garner the most prestigious acting prizes for film, theater and TV if she does indeed win the Best Actress Oscar next month.

A six-time nominee, Close surged back to first place in our Oscar predictions after her Golden Globe upset on Sunday. Close had started the season in first place, but was overtaken by both Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) and Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) in recent months. Her poignant, tearful Globe speech not only contained a powerful, topical message, encouraging women to put themselves first, but underscored her longevity and legendary status in the business (45 years!), which might be enough to get her that overdue Oscar.

See Glenn Close just moved past Lady Gaga to claim first place in our...

Madrid — In the long run-up to February’s Berlin Festival, Picture Tree Intl. has rolled out multiple pre-sales on “100 Things,” which Warner Bros. Pictures bowed in Germany on Dec. 6 to a robust first eight-day €2.7 million ($3.07 million).

“100 Things” will receive a market screening at the Berlinale’s European Film Market.

The third feature from Florian David Fitz as a writer-director and actor, whose 2016 “The Most Beautiful Day” earned in Germany, “100 Things” was released in its original German language day-and-date with Germany in Belgium (Kino Scala) and Luxembourg (Utopia).

Of major territories, Picture Tree Intl. has also closed Cis and the Baltic States with Volgafilm, which has scheduled a theatrical release in Russia in the first quarter of next year, and with China’s Red Apollo Group, which aims to release “100 Things” in Chinese theaters third-quarter 2019.

Inspired by the Finnish documentary “My Stuff,” “100 Things” has also closed former Yugoslavia (2i Film D.

Picture Tree Intl. is on board as the sales agent for “The Ground Beneath My Feet” (Der Boden Unter Den Füssen), which the Berlin Film Festival revealed Thursday will be in its main competition section. The Austrian drama, directed by Marie Kreutzer, stars Valerie Pachner, Mavie Hörbiger and Pia Hierzegger.

The film centers on high-powered business consultant Lola, who “controls her personal life with the same ruthless efficiency she uses to optimize profits in her job,” according to a statement. “No one knows about her older sister Conny or her family’s history of mental illness. But when a tragic event forces Conny back into Lola’s life and her secrets begin to unravel, Lola’s grip on reality slips away.”

The film is Kreutzer’s second Berlinale entry following “The Fatherless” (Die Vaterlosen), which premiered in Panorama Special sidebar in 2011 and received a special mention as best first feature.

We are recognizing Glenn Close for her excellent performances. Our Hollywood Film Tributes recognize films and talent for their excellence in the art of filmmaking. A six-time Academy Award nominee, Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill’s The World According to Garp, earning her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction and Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee). Close stars in the title role of Jane Anderson’s film adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s bestselling novel, The Wife, with Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater for Swedish director Björn Runge, which opened earlier this year. Close also stars in the title role of Jane Anderson’s stage play, Mother of the Maid,...

Picture Tree International handling period project at Afm.

Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps has signed up to play Viennese-born composer Alma Mahler in Dieter Berner’s period feature Alma & Oskar.

The film will depict a tumultuous three-year relationship between Kriep’s Mahler and the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka in the early 1900s, by which point she had buried her first husband, fellow composer Gustav Mahler. Kokoschka used Alma as a model for his most famous work, and their relationship marked the most prodigious period of his artistic life.

Berlin-based Picture Tree International is handling sales on the project at Afm.

"I look at my watch every day thinking, 'Do I have enough time?'" So says Glenn Close, one of the most venerated stage and screen actresses of her generation, as we sit down at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to record an episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast. "There's so much to do. It's been an incredible ride so far."

The 71-year-old has won three Tonys (for the play The Real Thing in 1983, the play Death and the Maiden in 1992 and the musical Sunset Blvd. in 1994). She has won ...

"I look at my watch every day thinking, 'Do I have enough time?'" So says Glenn Close, one of the most venerated stage and screen actresses of her generation, as we sit down at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to record an episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast. "There's so much to do. It's been an incredible ride so far."

The 71-year-old has won three Tonys (for the play The Real Thing in 1983, the play Death and the Maiden in 1992 and the musical Sunset Blvd. in 1994). She has won ...

Historical romance, literary adaptations, arthouse drama, star-studded comedies, children’s pics, animated fare and a high-profile documentary are among the many German films and co-productions on offer at this year’s Cannes Film Market.

Unspooling as part of the festival are Wim Wenders’ “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word,” repped by Focus Features and bowing in Special Screenings; “In My Room,” Ulrich Koehler’s story of a man who suddenly realizes everyone around him has disappeared, which world premieres in Un Certain Regard; and, in Intl. Critics’ Week sidebar, Anja Kofmel’s Swiss co-production “Chris the Swiss,” a partially animated documentary from Urban Distribution that investigates the mysterious death of a young Swiss journalist during the Yugoslav wars.

On the market side, one historical niche that is proving particularly successful is that of the turn-of-the-century artist.

Picture Tree Intl. is following its 2016 hit “Egon Schiele — Death and the Maiden,...

Sneak Peek footage from "The Vampire Diaries" episode  "Death and the Maiden", the seventh episode of the Fifth Season and the ninety-sixth episode of the series, written by Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Leslie Libman, that aired November 14, 2013 on The CW:

"...while 'Elena' and 'Damon' try to explain the 'Amara' situation to 'Stefan', 'Dr. Wes' gives 'Katherine' some deeply disturbing news. 

"Then 'Nadia' shows up at the dorm room of 'Caroline', searching for Katherine.

"After a surprising conversation with Amara, 'Jeremy' and 'Bonnie' share a glimmer of hope.

"Finally 'Silas' fails to keep a promise, causing Damon to turn to 'Qetsiyah' for help with his new plan, while 'Stefan' makes a heartbreaking confession to Damon and Elena..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Vampire Diaries: Death And The Maiden"...

German Film in 2017 is alive and highly visible at film festivals such as Toronto, Venice, Cannes, Berlin and all the way to the Academy Awards. The best new German, Austrian, and Swiss Cinema will once again be celebrated at the American Cinematheque, during the 11th Annual German Currents Film FestivaL from Friday, October 13th — Monday, Oct 16th, 2017 at the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Over the past decade, German Currents has offered a unique insight into German speaking cinema, bringing diverse and thought-provoking narratives, and “must-watch” documentaries to Los Angeles. German Currents once again features an impressive line-up of new German cinema during the four day festival, including U.S. and L.A. premieres, documentaries and films for children and families.

German Currents 2017 begins with an opening night gala and red carpet with some of Germany’s brightest stars on Friday, Oct. 13th.

In addition to film screenings, German Currents...

Who got signed, promoted, hired or fired? The Hollywood Reporter’s Rep Sheet rounds up the week in representation news. To submit announcements for consideration, contact rebecca.sun@thr.com.

Scribe Signs

Novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias has signed with Verve. He most recently served as an executive producer on NBC’s Aquarius. In addition to penning 10 novels, Yglesias also wrote the screenplays for Peter Weir’s Fearless, Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, Billie August’s 1998 version of Les Miserables, Albert and Allen Hughes’ From Hell and Walter Salles’ Dark Water. He continues to be managed by Russell Hollander of Hollander Entertainment.

Posed...

Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman was his second film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film (following 2012’s A Separation), which began receiving accolades immediately after its premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it picked up awards for Best Actor and Best Screenplay. Purchased by The Cohen Media Group, the title racked up over two million at the domestic box office thanks to an awards and marketing campaign which received an additional relevancy from the political firestorm regarding a travel ban which inhibited Farhadi from attending the awards ceremony (a platform which ended up as the program’s only significant political acceptance speech from the director by proxy).

Notably, this is a return to Iran for Farhadi after his 2013 French language debut The Past, though this searing indictment on the bothersome realities of vengeance and unjustifiably gendered power ethics doesn’t reach the formidable and deliciously exacting dramatics of his 2012 Oscar and nominated Golden Berlin Bear winning A Separation. Still, Farhadi’s particular theatrics remain idiosyncratic to his interests in exploring culturally specific dynamics between men and women, and have successfully elevated the international awareness and platform of Iranian cinema, and his latest (which snagged a Best Screenplay and Best Actor win at Cannes 2016) is another strident chapter on human emotions shackled by social convention.

In the midst of rehearsing their soon to open stage production of the famous Arthur Miller play, in which they will be starring as Willy and Linda Loman, married couple Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana Etesami (Taraneh Alidoosti) find themselves displaced from their newly purchased apartment when the entire complex begins to collapse. Thankfully, Babak (Babak Karimi), their co-star in the stage production, knows of a vacant apartment where the couple can immediately relocate temporarily as they await a reimbursement for their damaged apartment. Their lives suddenly in disarray, Rana mistakenly buzzes an interloper into the apartment one evening thinking it is Emad returning home, only to be physically and sexually assaulted by a man who had come to visit the previous displaced tenant, a prostitute who was greatly disliked by her socially pure neighbors. The culprit flees the scene following the indiscretion and leaves his truck behind. While Emad and Rana attempt to pick up the pieces, their emotional disconnect causes Emad to go to great lengths to solicit an eye for an eye without the interference of the law.

The opening sequences of The Salesman provide the film with its overarching metaphor of an irreparable foundational disturbance, the unsecure building and subsequent evacuation resulting in a dramatic ripple effect. Just as the central couple in A Separation is (at least partially defined) by their parental roles, Rana and Emad’s predicament here is also born out of their childlessness. Devotees of the theater, (Miller’s tweaked text, including side jokes about the downplayed sexuality of the prostitute character Miss Francis is merely a backdrop and superficial subtext), it is inferred the Etesamis and their untraditional lives and interests are the potential cause for their current state of tragic duress. The power of suggestion is the significant thread connecting (and strangling) the major movements of The Salesman, which uses Miller not so much as a treatment of American vs. Iranian values, but as an experimental, doubling arena for the theatrical business of life.

The actress playing Miss Francis in the play assumes she is being demeaned by a male co-star because portraying a woman of easy virtue invites automatic disrespect; Babak becomes infuriated at Emad adlibbing incendiary lines during a performance; a woman in a taxi is convinced Emad aims to molest her because he sits with his legs open; and, ultimately, it is Rana’s fault she was raped because she didn’t bother to check who she opened the front door of her apartment to. Had Rana and Emad had children or more conventional professions, their own lackadaisically defined routines would have been in automatic check, or so the social circles around them in The Salesman seem to imply.

We sympathize more with Shahab Hosseini’s Emad, whose chronic frustration boils over into a Death and the Maiden style attempt at truth as vengeance. Because Farhadi, once again, only implies the trauma exacted upon Rana in her shower, it allows for us to be more estranged from her untoward behavior and subsequent victimhood and more celebratory of Emad’s impassioned attempt to rectify the situation by saving his pride (and, perhaps to a lesser degree, his wife’s reputation). Farhadi reunites with his About Elly (2008) cinematographer Hossein Jafarian to construct a careful examination of bodies in spaces, the suggested control and inherent power plays in blocking.

The final, intense third act returns us to the unsafe space of the crumbling façade, a touching metaphor for the grisly and unappealing outcome of Emad’s desperate ploy for closure and revenge. But as in previous works, Farhadi’s strength lies in his ability to cast adept performers able to convey the subtle complexities of his prose, and what Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini (both who have previously appeared in Farhadi’s films) achieve here is exciting as it is troubling for Farhadi forces us to ask why do we sympathize with Emad and not Rana? The audience, like the community and culture around Rana, become complicit in their inability to empathize with either females or victimhood. Until the magnificent finale, that is, when Emad and company (including a particularly arresting late staged supporting turn from Farid Sajjadhosseini) are taken to task, and satisfaction for anyone quickly dissipates into the realm of the impossible.

Disc Review:

For the film’s first availability on Blu-ray, this Sony release isn’t quite as persuasive as most of Cohen Media Group’s usual home entertainment releases. Presented in 1.85:1 with DTS-hd Master Audio, picture and sound quality are serviceably transferred in this high definition package. A lone extra feature begs for a more illustrious presentation for the lauded title, however.

A Conversation:

An interview with writer-director Asghar Farhadi on the origins and making of The Salesman is available as a bonus feature.

Final Thoughts:

In the same vein as Farhadi’s other tautly constructed social issue melodramas, The Salesman is another aggravating ripple effect of confounded displacement and fractured foundations.

Film Review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆

Disc Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆

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