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Good afternoon International Insiders. We end another week as Venice wraps and with plenty else going on. Max Goldbart here penning the newsletter. Do read on. |
Hind Rajab finds a voice: This year's Venice Film Festival ends on Saturday. Comparative with previous years, it has felt a little quieter. There haven’t really been any slam-dunk breakouts from the Lido like festivals past – there’s been a bit too much ‘mid’, as the kids might say. A seriously headline title, however, has been Kaouther Ben Hania’s latest, The Voice of Hind Rajab. At its premiere on Wednesday, the film received a festival record
23-minute and 50-second ovation, during which members of the audience chanted “Free Palestine” and waved Palestinian flags. The film reconstructs the events surrounding the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab, her four cousins, her aunt and uncle, and the two paramedics who came to her rescue after their car came under fire by Israeli forces as they tried to flee Gaza City in January 2024. In his review
, Deadline’s Damon Wise called the movie “extraordinary,” saying it “could be the lightning rod that supporters of the Gazan cause are waiting for, an urgent procedural that uses cinematic means – close, hand-held takes and a camera that paces around like an expectant father – to make its point.” As noted last week, the Gaza conflict has been hyper-present in Venice, with two separate demonstrations on the Lido. This could set the tone for the rest of the fall festival period. For The Voice of Hind Rajab,
the film has been selected as Tunisia’s entry at next year’s Oscars, so buzz will no doubt keep building. Mad Distribution has taken Arab theatrical rights on the flick. A U.S. or UK release is still to be announced. Check out all our Venice coverage here, after a week in which the fest was introduced to Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's The Smashing Machine, Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite and The Testament of Ann Lee, amongst others.
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'Call My Agent!' Coming To Cinema |
Meeting at the Rendez-Vous: The biggest market focused on French TV took place in a wet and windy Le Havre this week. Unifrance organizes affairs and alongside screenings and buyer-seller meetings, attendees move en-masse from one event to the next. It means you spend a lot of time with people and leave with a phone full of new contacts. The vibe couldn’t be more different to the frenetic MIPCOM in Cannes, Stewart writes, which is just around the corner. There was also some serious talk. Gaëtan Bruel, President of the France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC), said European film and TV is under attack
from the U.S. administration. Strong words. He also hinted Germany is about to introduce investment quotas for streamers. Fanny Herrero, meanwhile, accepted Deadline’s French TV Disruptor Award and told us about her work… and the Call My Agent! movie, which, finally, is happening. Fans of the hit show can seriously begin to get excited after Herrero exclusively told us
: "I can just say the writing is done. So now, yes, it’s on its way.” While getting the ensemble back together presented a logistical puzzle with the actors in such demand following the success of the original, diaries have now been cleared. The expectation is there will be some big-name guest talent. Stars who appeared in the original French version include Monica Bellucci, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sigourney Weaver.
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Biggest Free-to-Air Broadcaster In Europe |
Silvio smiling down: The Berlusconi family's MediaForEurope (MFE) is about to claim the title of Europe's largest free-to-air broadcast operator after finally taking control of Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 Media, which follows a drawn out process that has been in the making since 2019. Key shareholder PPF IM revealed it will sell its 15.7% stake to MFE yesterday
, finally handing MFE control of the German broadcasting giant and creating a European behemoth. MFE CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi, the son of the late Silvio, believes only a business of this scale can compete with digital rivals such as Netflix and YouTube and so it will be intriguing to see what comes next. Its new scale has led MFE to now "claim the title of biggest free-to-air broadcasting operator in Europe," according to an analyst note from Enders Analysis' François Godard. The combined entity turned over around €6.7B ($7.8B) last year and Godard points out that the new group could take on the might of YouTube and may well seek to strike aggregation deals with streamers in a similar vein to European rivals like TF1 and ITV. For Pier Silvio, Godard ponders
whether the "successful conclusion of a full merger could be an elegant moment for him to take a step back." If we remember anything about his late father, this prediction could be rather unlikely.
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Landmark union claim dismissed: On Wednesday, London's High Court dismissed a claim
from actors union Equity after weeks of examination. Were it to have been rubberstamped, the decision would have altered the landscape for casting in the UK forever. Equity's claim called for casting director Spotlight to be officially classed as an "employment agency" under UK law, thereby giving it a ceiling over how much it can charge budding actors and forcing it to abide by certain regulations. The decision in the end felt pretty damning for Equity, with the judge throwing out all claims. It was a victory that Spotlight boss Matt Hood said, "validates our commitment to providing equitable access for performers to this entertainment industry." In the aftermath, Hood, who was a senior Equity employee for 17 years, sent a letter to Equity General Secretary Paul
Fleming, in which he called for a restoration of the pair's relationship. However, he also slammed Equity for "continually misleading its members about the nature" of what he termed a "cynical, performative and expensive" two-years-in-the-making claim. Equity is, meanwhile, considering an appeal and said the ruling has “worrying implications for working people across the UK." Hard to imagine that "restoration" is coming anytime soon. |
Colin loves a curse word: Those with a spare half hour this week could do worse than checking out Baz's always fun coverage from the Telluride Film Festival, where he has been stationed up in the Colorado mountains checking out the movies and chatting to, amongst others, Mr Colin Farrell. Baz's interview with the Irish actor is a hoot (I counted at least half a dozen curse words littered throughout) and allows the reader to swot up on Farrell's role in upcoming Edward Berger movie The Ballad of a Small Player. Farrell is the movie, as Baz succinctly puts it. In The Ballad..., the Oscar-nominated star plays a British aristocrat whose world is coming crashing down around him.
Dive deeper to discover how the Irishman got into acting, what he thought of the Ballad source material and whether a man who has previously struggled with an alcohol addiction found it difficult playing a character in a crisis of addiction problematic. All our Telluride coverage can be found here.
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🌶️ Hot One: Landmark African drama series, Shaka iLembe, has been renewed for a third and final season.
🌶️ Another One: Jason Segel joined Angelina Jolie and Aimee Lou Wood in Anxious People, the first movie to use the Pinewood Indie Film Hub.
🌶️ Another: K-Pop star Jeon Somi will make her acting debut in horror-thriller Perfect Girl.
📖 Analysis #1: Nellie Andreeva dove deep into how a Netflix international rollout is preventing The Hunting Wives Season 2 from being signed off.
📖 Analysis #2: One year on from the RedBird IMI deal, we examined the teething problems hurting The Traitors super-indie All3Media.
🐔 'Chicken Shop Date': Creator and YouTube star Amelia Dimoldenberg is launching an event in London and told Diana all about it.
🏆 Awards latest: Korea selected Park Chan-Wook's Venice hit No Other Choice as its Oscar submission.
🏕️ Festival latest: Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, and Kate Moss biopic Moss & Freud, are down for the London Film Festival.
🚓 Arrested: Father Ted creator Graham Linehan was taken into custody after anti-trans X posts, leading to a free speech-related furore in the UK.
🖼️ Slate: From Netflix Korea, which unveiled a new generation of unscripted shows and recommissions.
🏪 Setting up shop: A European arm of Brad Pitt's Adolescence producer Plan B is launching, with Baby Reindeer exec Ed Macdonald taking charge.
🚪 Exiting: Caroline Hollick, who leaves North Road after just a year.
🎥 Trail: For Portobello, HBO Max's Italian rags-to-riches series that premiered at Venice.
International Insider was written by Max Goldbart. Zac Ntim and Stewart Clarke contributed, and Jesse Whittock edited.
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