Prolific Andalusian production company La Claqueta has tapped award-winning screenwriter-producer Alberto Marini (“La Unidad,” “Apagón”) to direct rural thriller “Últimos días de caza” (“Last Days of Hunting.”) Penned by José Cabeza, co-scribe on 2016’s “7 Years,” Netflix first Spanish original movie, “Last Days of Hunting” has a completed screenplay and has initiated financing.  The aim…

Paris-based Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese says making the Berlin Film Festival competition cut with his first feature, “Disco Boy,” which toplines German star Franz Rogowski (“Passages,” ”Undine”), is “certainly a dream come true.” But he also points out that his remarkable debut was a long time coming.  A graduate of several film schools, including France’s…

“Los pequeños amores,” the latest film from Celia Rico who made a splash at the 2018 San Sebastian Festival with “Journey to a Mother’s Room,” has been acquired for international sales by Spain-based Latido Films. Produced by Barcelona-based Arcadia Motion Pictures, which co-produced Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s 2023 Goya winner and box office breakout “The Beasts, and France’s…

The war in Ukraine has taken center stage this week at the Berlin Film Festival, which is taking place for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy appeared via satellite to encourage festival-goers “not to remain silent” over Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression. Sean Penn,…

The 27th Annual Art Director’s Guild Awards returned to an in-person ceremony at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown on Saturday evening, with “Babylon” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” among the top honors. “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” took home the award for animated feature. “Pachinko,” “The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power” and…

The life of Turkey’s most famous photographer, Ara Guler, known globally for his portraits of scores of 20th century icons ranging from Pablo Picasso to Winston Churchill, is set to become a biopic directed by writer-director duo Aren Perdeci and Ela Almayanac (“Lost Birds”). Guler worked for many years for the photo agency Magnum, after its…

Skin is a subject Israeli-American director Guy Nattiv touches on frequently in his work. He has directed no fewer than two (unrelated) films titled “Skin,” one feature-length, one short. The former, which premiered in Toronto in 2018, saw Jamie Bell win rave reviews as a white supremacist who tortuously has his tattoos lasered off after…

A month after Jerrod Carmichael used the Golden Globes stage to mock Tom Cruise for his involvement in the Church of Scientology, Judd Apatow got in a few similar jabs while emceeing the Directors Guild of America Awards. The jokes began with the topic of the “Top Gun” star’s height: “The special effects in ‘Maverick’…

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett is ready for his close-up. After making a mark with TV’s “Misfits” and “Utopia” and in the film “Candyman,” the British actor is set to explode upon the world stage with “Femme,” world premiering at the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand. Stewart-Jarrett plays Jules, whose alter-ego is Aphrodite, a celebrated drag queen in…

Hot on the tail of a recent slew of pickups and sales, Paris-based sales-producer-distributor Alief has snapped up international rights to the West African folktale “Mami Wata.”   North America rights to the film are represented by Marissa Frobes at CAA Media Finance. Alief is presenting the film to buyers and festival programmers at this week’s…