Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s travel ban has suddenly been lifted after 14 years, allowing the acclaimed auteur and his wife Tahereh Saeedi to reportedly leave Iran for an undisclosed location. Saeedi on Tuesday night posted a picture on Instagram showing her arriving with her husband at an undisclosed airport. It is captioned: “After 14…

Berlin sales agency M-Appeal has come on board to handle world sales for “Let Me Go” (“Laissez-Moi”), the debut feature by Swiss director Maxime Rappaz, which will world premiere as the opening film of the Cannes ACID sidebar. Set in a Swiss mountain village, “Let Me Go” follows Claudine, a dedicated mother whose life revolves…

The U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority has blocked Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion deal to buy video games giant Activision. The Competition and Markets Authority published its final decision on Wednesday. It explained that it had “prevented Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision over concerns the deal would alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market,…

A galaxy of senior Indian content creators shared their insights on burning topics dominating the local landscape. They were speaking at at Indiantelevision.com’s annual industry event, The Content Hub, in Mumbai on Tuesday. At the Content Creation: No More Formulas panel, Shobha Sant, head of content alliances at Jio Studios, broke down the process behind the selection…

Deciding when is the right time to conceive a child is a huge decision for anyone, let alone the career-minded woman at the center of “Clock.” Writer-director Alexis Jacknow amps up the anxiety by blending science and religion into paranoia-soaked mayhem, conjuring resonant emotion and haunting menace in this psychological horror film about an unconventional…

Toho, Japan’s most powerful movie studio, is launching a production services offshoot intended to assist and grow foreign film and TV shoots in the country. Toho Tombo Pictures is a joint venture with Japan-based producer Georgina Pope, who has worked with the top entertainment companies around the globe for more than 30 years. The new…

In a significant play for audience growth at Telefonica’s Movistar+, Domingo Corral has been promoted to the position of director of fiction and entertainment at the company, the biggest Spanish pay TV/SVOD service.  The move, which in some ways echoes the larger oversight of ITV Studios’ Ruth Berry, marks further recognition for the former director…

Pedro Almodóvar’s queer Western short film “Strange Way of Life” has released its first trailer. The short, which stars Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, is somewhat akin to a “Brokeback Mountain” revamp, or moreso, a chance for Almodóvar to do finally do it his way. Almost two decades ago, the Spanish filmmaker was offered the…

Cinedigm has acquired the North American rights to horror-comedy film “Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls,” which will be released in theaters this fall, Variety has learned exclusively. The film is based on writer, director and star Andrew Bowser’s viral character, Onyx, which has accumulated over 300 million views online with over 1…