After 15 years running the Zurich Film Festival, directors Viviana Vezzani and Karl Spoerri stepped down in late 2019 to take their expertise to the next level and launch a film financing outfit. And then the pandemic struck. The Los Angeles- and Zurich-based SPG3 Entertainment was formed in 2020 by Spoerri and Urs Wietlisbach and…

Revered musician Sting is unimpressed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is predicting an upcoming battle against the technology. “The building blocks of music belong to us, to human beings,” the 17-time Grammy winner told the BBC. “That’s going to be a battle we all have to fight in the next couple of years – defending…

Brazil is back.  Brazilian President’s Lula Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government, which took office on Jan. 1,  looks set to invest just under $1 billion in 2023 into the country’s audiovisual sector. It’s one of the biggest upticks in government film and TV aid in history, and comes after Lula predecessor Jair Bolsonoro slowed…

Circle, the training program for female-identifying filmmakers, is taking a significant step forward after five successful years of its Women Doc Accelerator initiative. The organization is now venturing into the realm of fiction films with the launch of its inaugural program, Circle Fiction Orbit. This intensive one-week workshop aims to support directors who are developing…

As Europe’s multitude of film agencies prepare to plant their flags atop Cannes’ pavilions, a host of public servants are mindful that they face an existential crisis in the bruising battle for cinema’s hearts, minds and future political support. Under attack from Ministers of Culture (Germany), losing top box office status in their home markets…

Global sales agencies and distributors are ready to dance in Cannes. The festival announced this week that over 13,500 participants will attend the Marche du Film, bellying up for completed films and packages — but the waters may be as unpredictable as the ones that border the Côte d’Azur.  The ongoing Writers Guild of America…

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the momentous burst of rebellion against the Iranian regime prompted by the death of Mahsa Amini are reverberating profoundly at the Cannes Film Festival. At the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday night, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve paid tribute to the war’s victims by reciting a poem from Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka,…

Two years ago, Hungarian producer Mónika Mécs had a banner year, bowing Bence Fliegauf’s “Forest — I See You Everywhere” in competition at the Berlin Film Festival before walking the red carpet in Cannes, where Oscar nominee Ildikó Enyedi’s “The Story of My Wife” competed for the Palme d’Or. The world — and the global…

Here’s a rundown of some of the top Hungarian projects in the pipeline or selling at the Cannes Market: SemmelweisDirector: Lajos KoltaiProducer: Tamas Lajos (Film Positive)Sales: N/ASet in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic rages in a maternity clinic in Vienna, this period drama from the Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Koltai (“Malena”) stars promising young thesp…

Oscar-winning Irish director Terry George (“In the Name of The Father,” “Hotel Rwanda”) is set for Afghanistan-set actioner “Riverman” which will be shot in Saudi Arabia’s NEOM regional production hub. Inspired by true events that unfolded between 2001-2008 during the war in Afghanistan, “Riverman” revolves around a highly decorated Royal Marine named Max who after…