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Exclusive: This year’s Manchester Film Festival is set to run from March 14 – 23 and will open with a screening of The Penguin Lessons, directed by British filmmaker Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan.

Based on the best-selling memoir, the film tells the story of an Englishman’s personal and political awakening during a cataclysmic period in Argentine history, brought about by his unlikely adoption of a penguin.

Manchester will screen 37 features, including 15 UK premieres and 4 world premieres. All films will be screening in Manchester for the first time. This includes the Manchester premiere of the UK’s Oscar selection Santosh from Sandhya Suri, Sundance, and Cannes hit Good One directed by India Donaldson, and South by Southwest Audience Award Winner My Dead Friend Zoe from Kyle Hausmann-Stokes.

Other highlights include the UK premieres of Y2K, A24’s latest horror comedy starring Fred Durst and directed by Kyle Mooney, the...

The UK Global Screen Fund’s (Ukgsf) next round of awardees from its distribution strand of support includes The Penguin Lessons, Bring Them Down, The Salt Path and Kneecap.

The Ukgsf has issued 18 new awards, administered by the BFI, to support international opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector. Ukgsf is financed through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), and the awards see a further £413,995 allocated through the £7m per year fund’s international distribution strand.

The international distribution strand is now managed by Jordan Allwood, who joined the team in October from UK sales agent Independent Entertainment and replacesFrancesca Walker.

Edmonton’s premiere genre film festival, NorthwestFEARFest, is pulling out all the stops this October with six spine-tingling days and nights of new and classic genre cinema haunting Metro Cinema. Running from October 16 to 22, the lineup is peppered with myriad highlights, including the local premiere of Parker Finn’s Smile 2 and a 50th anniversary screening of Brian De Palma‘s Phantom of the Paradise with special guest Paul Williams!

Festival Director & Programmer Guy Lavallee says audiences are in for Edmonton’s biggest celebration of horror, thriller, dark comedy, and retro genre favourites. “With so much local support for our first 2, I’m pretty stoked to finally be able to announce the full 2024 lineup,” Lavallee announced. “Starting with our phenomenal Opening Night Film, Smile 2, our whole team is excited about this year’s movies, and I hope local genre enthusiasts will be as pumped as we are.

Lavallee continues,...

As summer wanes and autumn sets upon us, it seems the perfect time to get in some folk horror before we feast our eyes upon the darker, supernatural fare that we tend to embrace during the Halloween season. And I found just the film at Fantastic Fest this year. Dean Puckett’s The Severed Sun is a modern folk horror tale that is full of metaphor and meaning, as well as unsettling imagery and a measure of brutality. It incorporates religion, toxic masculinity, female power, and a strange creature lurking in the woods.

The film wastes no time and opens strong with a woman killing her abusive husband. This woman is Magpie (Emma Appleton). When we join her story, she has had enough. She isn’t coming to a realization, or making a plan. She is Done. She refuses to live with his abuse toward her and her children any longer,...

Evil comes in many forms. In horror films, it’s often in the form of an inhuman creature or supernatural entity. With folk horror films, however, evil is often personified in people and their actions, seeing the sub-genre interrogate the dark nature of mankind. In The Severed Sun, writer/director Dean Puckett‘s feature debut, a creature may go on a killing spree, but it’s far from the film’s true evil.

In an isolated British community led by a strict pastor, religion rules the land. When his daughter Magpie (Emma Appleton) gruesomely murders her abusive husband, she inadvertently (or deliberately?) conjures a woodland creature that begins targeting the evil men in the village. As the bodies start to fall, suspicions start to rise, with particular attention being paid to Magpie. The rebellious woman, along with her sons Daniel and Sam (Zachary Tanner), must battle the village’s conservative...

Indian streamer SonyLIV has unveiled a slate of more than 20 new and returning shows for 2024 and is expanding its content focus.

2023 saw several hits bow on the service including “Scam 2003,” “Chamak,” Agatha Christie adaptation “Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley” and “Fauda” remake “Tanaav,” which has been renewed for a second season, besides Season 2 of Emmy-nominated series “Rocket Boys.”

2024 will see shows in the Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi and Marathi languages, in addition to Hindi. “We wanted to go with a very robust multi-language content lineup,” Danish Khan, executive VP and business head, SonyLIV and StudioNext at Sony Pictures Networks India, told Variety.

The Hindi-language lineup includes renowned filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya (“Uunchai”) making his streaming debut with “Badaa Naam Karenge,” a family drama that is due to premiere during the Diwali holiday frame in November. “That’s a big one for us,” Khan says. Sudhir Mishra directs...

Welcome to your Friday rundown, Insiders. Max Goldbart here to take you through the top international film and TV stories filling your inbox over the past seven days. And don’t forget to sign up to the newsletter here.

Wbd & Paramount Forge International Path

End of the exodus?: It doesn’t feel five minutes ago that Gerhard Zeiler was setting his first post-wbd merger international unit, and yet he was at it again on Thursday. This was following a spate of exits that has seen Emea boss Priya Dogra, international distribution head Robert Blair, Germany lead Hannes Heyelmann and, most recently, France chief Pierre Branco announce departures over the past weeks. This mini-exodus has been the talk of international confabs of late but Zeiler appeared to stem the flow with an all-staff email yesterday announcing another rejig, in which he acknowledged that “change can be unsettling and we have...

The Israeli show ‘Magpie’, which is a crime drama, is set to be adapted into Hindi. The working title for the same is ‘Kan Khajura’, which means centipede. The original show tells the story of Asa Katz, a man serving 17 years in prison for murder who gets released early on the condition that he cooperates with the police as their informant — a role (known as a magpie) that he also had in jail. Asa returns to his old neighbourhood and his older brother, David, who has little regard for his younger sibling.

Asa constantly tries to resolve this, but numerous conflicting interests put him in precarious situations, and he finds himself torn between his life of crime and his work with the police, while skilfully navigating both worlds to his advantage.

The second season of ‘Magpie’ recently released to rave reviews, was produced by yes TV and Donna & Shula Productions...

Mumbai, Oct 4 (Ians) The Israeli show ‘Magpie’, which is a crime drama, is set to be adapted into Hindi. The working title for the same is ‘Kan Khajura’, which means centipede.

The original show tells the story of Asa Katz, a man serving 17 years in prison for murder who gets released early on the condition that he cooperates with the police as their informant — a role (known as a magpie) that he also had in jail. Asa returns to his old neighbourhood and his older brother, David, who has little regard for his younger sibling.

Asa constantly tries to resolve this, but numerous conflicting interests put him in precarious situations, and he finds himself torn between his life of crime and his work with the police, while skilfully navigating both worlds to his advantage.

The second season of ‘Magpie’ recently released to rave reviews, was produced by yes TV and...

Exclusive: SonyLIV has already found success adapting Israeli scripted hits Your Honor and Fauda and the Indian streamer is now remaking a third title from the firm the network behind them, Yes TV.

The streamer is adapting Magpie as a Hindi-language crime drama with the working title Kan Khajura, which means centipede. This follows a deal with distributor Yes Studios.

In Israel, Magpie has run to an 11-part first season and eight-part second on Yes TV. The second recently completed its run to strong reviews and was produced by the network and Tehran‘s Donna & Shula Productions.

The show tells the story of Asa Katz, a man in prison for murder who is released early on the condition that he cooperates with the police as their informant – a role known as a magpie that he also had in jail. He returns to his old neighbourhood and his older brother,...

The Magpie Murders ending is filled with reveals and twists, leading viewers to seek answers on Reddit for a clearer understanding. Susan uncovers the truth behind Alan Conway's death, Charles Clover as the killer, and the accidental death of Mary, while Robert is found guilty of killing Sir Magnus Pye.

The Magpie Murders ending explained is filled with so many reveals, twists, and turns that some viewers have taken to Reddit for clear-cut answers. A faithful adaptation of the 2016 mystery novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz, the 2022 Magpie Murder TV show follows an editor named Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) who is assigned a manuscript of the latest Atticus Pünd (Tim McMullan) novel from wealthy novelist Alan Conway (Conleth Hill). As she immerses herself in the world of Atticus Pünd, she soon realizes that the intrigue and murder that permeate the book start affecting her real life when Conway mysteriously dies.

“The Marsh King’s Daughter” is finally headed to the big screen. The adaptation of the bestselling 2017 novel by Karen Dionne, starring Daisy Ridley, Ben Mendelsohn and Garrett Hedlund, is due in theaters on Oct. 6, and the trailer has just arrived, still wet from the swamp. Watch it above.

Ridley plays a woman who, when she was a child (Brooklynn Prince plays her as a child), was abducted by her violent father (Mendelsohn). When he escapes from prison, she is forced to confront her past, open up to her husband (Hedlund) and brace herself for her father’s return. Will she make it out alive? Or will her father, nicknamed the Marsh King, take her down, once and for all?

The project was initially developed back in 2018, with “The Revenant” writer Mark L. Smith penning a screenplay for “The Imitation Game” director Morten Tyldum and Alicia Vikander in the role now played by Ridley.

Variety has selected its annual list of 10 Brits to Watch, an honor the publication has been bestowing since 2013. Honorees, which will be profiled in the Nov. 24 issue of Variety, include writers, actors, singers and other creatives working in all forms of media. Previous honorees include Sam Claflin, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jodie Turner-Smith.

Said Steven Gaydos, Senior VP Global Content/Executive Editor of Variety: “Never far from the center of global film and television creativity and accolades, in 2021 U.K. talent has reasserted its power and primacy with dynamic results. The recent Emmy awards were dominated by British wins across comedies and dramas and this year’s Fall Awards Season is packed with Brit contenders. It’s a perfect time for Variety’s annual 10 Brits to Watch, the must-read showcase for up-and-coming talents who are at the heart of the U.K.’s constant renewal and the replenishment of creativity behind the headlines.