Noticias

“The Musician and The Whale,” a cinematic documentary revolving around the encounter between renowned electro musician Rone and a whale, has been boarded by Paris-sales company Pulsar Content ahead of the EFM in Berlin.

Valentin Paoli’s feature debut, “The Musician and The Whale” hails from the producers of “Ailo’s Journey.” It follows Rone, who’s best known for scoring Jacques Audiard’s “Paris, 13th District” and (La)Horde’s “Room With a View,” as he embarks on a journey to meet a whale and create music for it. In the middle of the ocean, they engage in a unique conversation that will deeply change Rone’s life.

Shot between the Reunion Island, France’s Brittany and Paris, “The Musician and The Whale” came about after some sailors noticed that Rone’s music attracted cetaceans to come play close to their boats. While participating in the doc, Rone is...

Exclusive: Blue Fox Entertainment has acquired North American rights from StudioCanal to Wake Up, a horror thriller from the filmmaking trio Rkss (Turbo Kid), which it will release across the U.S. and in Canada later this year.

Recently premiering at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, the film watches as a group of young activists set out to make an environmental statement by vandalizing a home superstore as it closes. But their plan goes terribly wrong when they become trapped inside and must face a deranged security guard with a gruesome passion for primitive hunting. As the night fills with violence and terror, the teenagers find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Alberto Marini (Retribution) wrote the script, with Laurent Baudens (We Are Zombies) and Gaël Nouaille (Spoiled Brats) producing for Borsalino Productions. Pic’s cast includes Turlough Convery (Black Mirror), Benny O. Arthur (Django), Jacqueline Moré (The Anarchist...

L.A. French cinema lovers were deprived of their annual fall fix of Gallic film culture this year with the cancellation of the American French Film Festival due to the Hollywood strikes.

A handful of the titles originally slated to play at that event will now screen at the third edition of the French Comedy Club, running this weekend at the Lumière Cinema in Beverly Hills.

The two-day showcase opens with The Midwife (Sage-homme) which grossed $4.6 million at the box office in France for Warner Bros. France earlier this year.

Newcomer Melvin Boomer stars opposite Karin Viard as a young man who decides to try out midwifery after he fails his medicine exams.

The program also features A Difficult Year, the latest film from Untouchable directorial duo Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache. Pio Marmaï, and Jonathan Cohen co-star as two swindlers opposite Noémie Merlant as an eco-activist.

The film, which...

The second edition of the French Comedy Club unfolds at the Lumière Cinéma in Beverly Hills this weekend.

The event, which is open to cinema industry professionals and the public, aims to generate business and raise awareness about French comedy.

Olivier Albou and Laurence Schonberg at Paris-based sales and production company Other Angle Pictures have spearheaded the initiative, with the support of French export body Unifrance and artists residencies body Villa Albertine.

Over the past decade, their company has brought a raft of French comedies to the international market including Netflix hits Spoiled Brats and The Last Mercenary.

This year’s line-up includes the Other Angle title Sweet Little Things as well as Alibi.com 2, which is sold by Newen Connect, and How To Survive Without Mum and Stay With Us, which are both handled internationally by Studiocanal.

The showcase opens Saturday with Ludovic Bernard’s How To Survive Without Mum,...

Exclusive: As international delegates touch down on the Croisette for what feels like the first “real” Cannes market since the pandemic struck, Olivier Albou is getting ready to hit the ground running. The veteran exec, who heads up sales and production house Other Angle with his wife Laurence Schonberg, has four new films on his slate this year that he’s offering up to international buyers.

The company will be showing footage for Mélanie Auffret’s Sweet Little Things (Les Petites Victoires), starring Julia Piaton and Michel Blanc, about a busy young teacher who’s faced with the challenge of a new student in her class – an explosive 60-year-old man who has finally decided to learn to read and write. Then there’s Jennifer Devoldère’s male midwife feature The Midwife (Sage Homme) starring Karin Viard and Melvin Boomer as well as Jonathan Barré’s Serial Driver (Bonne Conduit) starring...

The up-and-coming Canadian filmmaking trio behind the Sundance movies “Turbo Kid” and “Summer of 84,” are directing “We Are Zombies,” a comedy based on Jerry Frissen and Guy Davis’ cult comic book series “The Zombies That Ate the World.”

Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell and François Simard started shooting the movie on March 29 across various locations around Montreal, Canada, with a young cast led by Alexander Nachi (“Clash”), Megan Peta Hill (“Riverdale”) and Derek Johns (“Moonfall”). Kinology, the Paris-based banner whose credits include Leos Carax’s film “Annette,” has secured international sales to the movie and will unveil a promo teaser at Cannes.

Published by Humanoids, “The Zombies That Ate the World” ran in the legendary magazine Métal Hurlant in 2003 and earned praises from horror legends such as George A. Romero, Joe Dante and Tobe Hooper.

The high-concept movie is set in a city breeding non-cannibal zombies who are considered “living-impaired.

Exclusive: French sales agent and producer Other Angle is leading a showcase of French comedies at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills.

The idea behind the initiative called The French Comedy Club is to generate business for French comedies, including via remakes and acquisitions, and to increase awareness of French genre titles for industry and general public.

Each movie has been recently released in France but will be debuting in the U.S. TF1, Gaumont and Pathé have also offered up movies for the initiative, which has buy-in from French cinema promotion agency UniFrance.

The initial program of French-language comedies comprises Retirement Home, Les Tuches 4, Super Who? and The Wannabes.

Gerard Depardieu and Kev Adams pic Retirement Home, about a convict sentenced to do community service in a retirement home, scored $12M in France last month. Comedy Super Who?, which took $13M last month, follows a struggling actor who...

Other Angle is launching sales on Melissa Drigeard’s “Hawaii” with Berenice Bejo and Jeremy Guez’s “Kanun” at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris which is happening this week as an in-person event in the French capital.

“Hawaii”is headlined by an ensemble cast including The Artist” actor Bérénice Béjo. The movie follows nine friends who gather every year in their friend Thomas’ hotel in Hawaii. Following a nuclear attack alert, they believe that their last moments are upon them and their friendly annual meeting turns into shouting match. But after finding out the nuclear threat was a false alert, they have to spend the remaining eight days of vacation together. The movie is produced by Romain Legrand and Vivien Aslanian at Marvelous Productions. Warner Bros. will release it in France.

“Kanun” is a thriller directed by Jérémie Guez whose credits include “Brothers by Blood” and “A Bluebird in My Heart.

Sandra Bullock is back on Netflix, and this time, it isn’t blindfolded in a post-apocalyptic horror (a la 2018’s “Bird Box”). Her latest feature flick on the streamer, “The Unforgivable,” directed by Nora Fingscheidt, debuted at No. 1 globally on Dec. 10 and generated 85.86 million hours of subscriber viewership. In the film, Bullock stars as Ruth Slater, a woman recently released from prison who re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past or the murder she committed.

Fingscheidt joins a cohort of female directors and showrunners that dominated Netflix’s Top 10 lists for the week of Dec. 6-12, including Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Halle Berry (“Bruised”), Mary Lambert (“A Castle for Christmas”), Clare Knight (“Back to the Outback”), Maria Torres (“Anonymously Yours”), Mar Targarona (“Two”), Molly Smith Metzler (“Maid”) and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (“The Witcher”). Campion’s Western-drama — starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee — took the No.

As the awards-season buzz builds for Netflix’s The Power of the Dog, the western starring Benedict Cumberbatch led all films on the streamer this past week.

Also starring Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Kirsten Dunst, the film from writer-director Jane Campion was streamed for 27.2 million hours during the week of November 29-December 5. The Power of the Dog hit the platform Friday.

Holdovers snagged the next four slots on the chart, led by recent chart-topper Red Notice. They’re followed by the first-week films Single All the Way, 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, The Christmas Chronicles and The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two.

Over on the TV side, Season 3 of Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot topped the weekly TV by a mile, with nearly 47.4 million hours streamed during the week. The new episodes arrived December 1. The series’ first season ranked No. 4 with 20.9 million hours. Also notable is the limited series Maid,...

For nearly 190 million total viewing hours last week, Netflix audiences were screaming the rallying cry “Bella Ciao” after the fifth and final installment of the Spanish drama series “La Casa de Papel” (“Money Heist”) dropped Dec. 3 on the streamer.

Within two days, “Money Heist” stole the thunder of Netflix’s English language shows, rising to No. 1 on Netflix’s Global top 10 list with far more total viewing hours than the week’s top English-language show, “Lost in Space,” which logged 47.38 million hours for Season 3 during the week of Nov. 29. “Money Heist,” the twisty story of a bank robbery, features standout performances from Úrsula Corberó, Álvaro Morte, Itziar Ituño, Pedro Alonso and Najwa Nimri, among other international talent.

Other non-English shows that have proven their staying power in Netflix’s Global Top 10 include Korean dramas “Squid Game” (21.2 million hours) and “Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha” (11.56 million) which have held their ground on non-English language...

“Red Notice” may not have been favored highly by film critics, but Netflix subscribers seemingly can’t get enough of the comedy-action movie or its A-lister cast including Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. The Rawson Marshall Thurber feature was, for the third week in a row, at the top of Netflix’s weekly global streaming lists for English-language movies in all 94 countries.

As of Nov. 28, the film has registered 328.8 million hours viewed since its Nov. 12 release, Netflix said. The film, which has a Metacritic score of 37, has officially surpassed Netflix’s former No. 1 film, Sandra Bullock’s “Bird Box,” which scared up 282 million hours viewed in its first 28 days, by the streamer’s accounting. “Red Notice” was produced by Hiram Garcia, Johnson and Dany Garcia of Seven Bucks Prods., Beau Flynn’s Flynn Picture Co. and Thurber’s Bad Version.

The success of “Red Notice” and the popularity...