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Exclusive: A trio of key creative forces on Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters say their Flemish comedy-drama Dead End is primed for an English-language remake.

Malin-Sarah Gozin, who created the Belgian series on which Bad Sisters was made and co-created the Apple show, is attending Canneseries with fellow producers Brett Baer and Dave Finkel with quirky drama Dead End, which is playing in competition. Gozin has directed Dead End with Hans Vercauter.

The show is a six-part drama out of Belgium starring Peter Van den Begin and Elise Schaap about a man with a peculiar eating disorder that makes him a potentially tasty aid to police – he can see the final moments of whatever he puts in his mouth.

Federation Studios recently picked up international sales rights to the finished tape, but Gozin, Baer and Finkel are eyeing an English-language remake, akin to Bad Sisters.

“Whether it’s an...

Looking for an original crime series? In “Dead End,” a potential standout at this week’s Canneseries, sleuth Ed Bex is able to glimpse a dead person’s final moments by licking or even better eating a little part of their corpse. He spends much of Ep. 2 trying to steal a toe from murder victim 2 from out of the mortuary and store it at his family home for a moment when he can get a little nibble.

Highly palatable for crime drama connoisseurs from a director championed by Walter Presents, which bought her “Tabula Rasa” for the U.K., “Dead End,” produced by Lompvis and Caviar, has just been acquired by Federation for international distribution.

It could not be described as comfy crime. Playing in Canneseries main competition on April 27,“Dead End” is likely to build yet more the reputation of creator Malin-Sarah Gozin whose “Clan” (2012) was adapted into Apple...

Miriam Margolyes & Stephen Fry Set For LGBTQ+ Short

Exclusive: Miriam Margolyes (Harry Potter franchise) will lead upcoming British short film A Friend of Dorothy, with Stephen Fry (Wilde), Alistair Nwachukwu and Oscar Lloyd (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) also starring. The film, which shot at The Charterhouse in London and a private home in Kensington & Chelsea, follows the titular Dorothy (Margolyes), an elderly woman living alone who unexpectedly strikes up a friendship with young neighbor JJ (Nwachukwu) when his football lands in her garden. It explores themes of loneliness in old age, intergenerational friendship and LGBTQ+ issues. Pic is the writing and directorial debut of actor Lee Knight, who also serves as executive producer. He is best known for appearing opposite to Ian McKellen in Prime Video’s Hamlet and for roles in two Harry Potter films. His Filthy Gorgeous Productions is making the short, in association with A Marlow’s Production,...

Here in the UK, around half of all men experience some noticeable hair loss by the time they reach middle age. For a third, it sets in by the age of 30. Generally speaking, there’s a good bit of public sympathy for women facing the same problem, yet men are expected to toughen up and deal with it, and may even find themselves mocked for it, though they too struggle with the idea that they’re losing their attractiveness, and with loss of confidence. Nicolas Keppens’ Oscar-nominated short animation tells the story of three Belgian brothers who have decided to do something about it by travelling to Istanbul to get hair transplants.

The trip does not go as planned, with Bart (Peter Van den Begin), Koen (Peter De Graf) and Steven (Tom Dewispelaere) forced to share a hotel room after it emerges that there was a problem with their booking.

Christine’s dead and the family is planning her funeral, but nothing goes according to plan. That would be the premise of Dimitri Verhulst’s directorial debut The Weeping Walk, which has just had its international première in Tallinn Black Nights; First Features competition. Unlike real life where a funeral going haywire usually results in stress, tensions and general unpleasantness, in the movies that cliché is usually a promise of great fun.

Part of the reason why we should expect the unexpected with Christine’s funeral is her life in the first place. Verhulst reveals the details and the quirks of it slowly and patiently through the characters’ conversations. She was married to Bas (Peter Van Den Begin), they loved and respected each other, but with some distance and a lack of affection between them. Nevertheless, they had two daughters and an adoptive son and a seemingly stable family life.

Germany-based Atlas International Film has acquired international sales rights to Dimitri Verhulst’s The Weeping Walk, ahead of its world premiere tomorrow at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff).

Verhulst’s feature debut will play in the Poff First Feature Competition. Atlas acquired the film from producers Eurydice Gysel and Koen Mortier of Belgium’s Czar Film & TV.

The Weeping Walk is a surreal road movie in which a mother’s unexpected last will turns a funeral into a procession of several days across the countryside.

Peter Van den Begin, Tom Vermeir, Dominique Van Malder, Marijke Pinoy, Tine Roggeman...

Germany-based Atlas International Film has acquired international sales rights to Dimitri Verhulst’s The Weeping Walk, ahead of its world premiere tomorrow at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff).

Verhulst’s feature debut will play in the Poff First Feature Competition. Atlas acquired the film from producers Eurydice Gysel and Koen Mortier of Belgium’s Czar Film & TV.

The Weeping Walk is a surreal road movie in which a mother’s unexpected last will turns a funeral into a procession of several days across the countryside.

Peter Van den Begin, Tom Vermeir, Dominique Van Malder, Marijke Pinoy, Tine Roggeman...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Air (Ben Affleck)

Sonny Vaccaro knows his basketball. As played with reliable conviction by Matt Damon, the head scout in Nike’s dwindling hoops division has a keen eye for the next great players, attending high school all-star tournaments around the country and scanning for potential endorsements. But Sonny is also a gambler, and on the tail end of his trips he jets over to Las Vegas to lock in a couple parlays, betting on NBA money lines and spreads before throwing all his winnings away at the craps table a minute later. You get the sense this has become his beleaguered ritual. At some point those basketball instincts and his penchant to go for broke will align and finally pay off.

Exclusive: The second season of Belgian crime drama series Fair Trade is set to launch.

Producer Independent Productions has delivered the six-part, second run, which is titled Fair Trade: The Road Back, to distributor Silver Mountain Distribution.

The first season was a hit on Vtm, Vrt and Telenet’s Belgian SVoD service Streamz, with Ireland-based Silver Mountain claiming it beat U.S. series such as Mare of Easttown and The Undoing to top spot in local streaming charts.

Deadline revealed news of the second season back in July 2021.

Prime Video, which had the first season in the Netherlands, has snapped up season two, and is planning to launch it in December. Streamz will debut it in Belgium in February 2023. Amazon’s Freevee service and Brazil’s Globoplay have also picked up season one for Germany and Austria

The show is set three years aftere the first and follows outcast cop...

Exclusive: Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Belgian filmmaker Véronique Jadin’s first narrative feature, Employee of the Month, from the Paris-based international sales agent Reel Suspects. The dark comedy will roll out in theaters early next year, with a wide release across home entertainment and digital platforms to follow.

Employee of the Month follows the middle-aged Inès (Jasmina Douieb), who has long been a diligent employee of the small wholesale household products company, EcoCleanPro. Tasked with mentoring a young trainee, the sarcastic Melody (Laetitia Mampaka), Inès embraces her role. However, while she treats her work seriously, her male counterparts and her boss consistently belittle her, ordering her to do menial tasks.

With her patience running out and under Melody’s blasé gaze, Inès meets with Patrick (Peter Van den Begin) to ask for a raise. Surprisingly, the situation quickly spins out of control and an accidental crime is committed,...

The 22nd Screamfest Horror Film Festival’s just released its first wave of feature films screening this year. The 2022 festival will take place October 11-20 and will be held at the Tcl Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

“We are excited to return to the Tcl Chinese Theaters since the theatrical experience is unlike anything else,” stated festival founder Rachel Belofsky. “We look forward to seeing the LA horror community in person this year and can’t wait to see these premieres on the big screen where they belong.”

The festival’s set Prime Video and Blumhouse’s Run Sweetheart Run with Shohreh Aghdashloo and Pilou Asbæk as its closing night film. Screamfest will also host the West Coast premiere of Living with Chucky, a documentary about the creepy serial killer doll written and directed by Kyra Gardner. Slayers starring Thomas Jane, Abigail Breslin, and Malin Akerman will have its world premiere...

It’s review day and everyone is laughing about what raises and bonuses they’re going to request this year. Nico (Alex Vizorek) jokes about asking for an SUV and money. Why not? It worked for someone else in the past. EcoClean Pro’s manager Patrick (Peter Van den Begin) decided to give his latest intern (Laetitia Mampaka’s Melody) a stack of papers to shred on her first day, so it’s not much of a leap to assume the books have been cooked to allow for such extravagant perks to be passed around. Except, of course, when it comes to the team’s legal expert Inès (Jasmina Douieb). She’s worked here for seventeen years, does the equivalent of five jobs, and still makes the same abysmal salary as day one.

Will this be the year she refuses to leave Patrick’s office without compensation? Director Véronique Jadin...

Earwig Trailer — Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Earwig (2021) movie trailer has been released by Juno Films. The Earwig trailer stars Paul Hilton, Romola Garai, Alex Lawther, Romane Hemelaers, Peter Van den Begin, Michael Pas, Marie Bos, and Anastasia Robin. Crew Geoff Cox and Lucile Hadzihalilovic wrote the screenplay for Earwig. Nicolas Becker, Warren Ellis, and Augustin [...]

Continue reading: Earwig (2021) Movie Trailer: A Caretaker Looks After a Girl with Ice Teeth in Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Thriller Film...

Belgian dark comedy will premiere in Tribeca’s online “at home” section in June.

Paris-based sales company Reel Suspects has boarded sales on Belgian director Véronique Jadin dark comedy Employee Of The Month, ahead of its world premiere in the online “at home’ section of the Tribeca Film Festival (June 8-19).

Jasmina Douieb stars as a disgruntled, hard-working employee at a cleaning company who accidentally and messily kills her boss while asking for a pay rise. She enlists the help of a young trainee to help cover her tracks. Other cast members include Laetitia Mampaka and Peter Van Den Begin.

English-language debut is based on novel by UK sculptor and writer Brian Catling.

French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is back at the San Sebastian International Film Festival this weekend for the European premiere of her third feature and English-language debut Earwig in Official Selection.

She has a long relationship with the festival where she won best new director in 2004 for debut feature Innocence and the special jury prize for Evolution in 2015.

Set “somewhere in Europe, mid-20th century”, Earwig stars Paul Hilton as a man called Albert, who is employed to look after a young girl, living in near solitary confinement in a labyrinthine,...

Exclusive: Carey Fitzgerald’s Silver Mountain Productions has boarded world sales, excluding Benelux, on Fair Trade, the crime series from Marc Punt’s Independent Productions.

This is the second time the two companies have teamed up, following the people trafficking drama series Matrioshki, which sold worldwide.

Fair Trade stars Kevin Janssens (Missing Persons Unit), and Ella-June Herard (Torpedo) as corrupt cops Robin De Rover and Walter Wilson. They are supported by Peter Van den Begin (Matrioshki) and Jeroen Perceval (The Ardennes) as the drug barons and gang leaders and the Ukraine’s Kseniya Mishina (Naked Truth).

The 8×60 series is produced for Vtm/Streamz and has already been commissioned for a second series, which will air in 2022.

Collection of shorts was filmed with Covid-19 safety measures in place by directors including Michael R Roskam (‘Bullhead’).

A collection of films shot during lockdown with a cast that includes Matthias Schoenaerts is to be presented at Re>Connext (Oct 5-31), the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image.

A first look at The Lockdown Shorts, which spans drama, comedy, thriller and horror, will be presented as a works in progress project at the virtual event by producer-directors Gilles Coulier and Maarten Moerkerke.

All 12 films were shot under coronavirus-safe conditions on the same studio set: a prison visiting...

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for political satire “The Barefoot Emperor,” which has been selected for the Contemporary World Cinema section at the Toronto Film Festival.

Directed, written and produced by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, the film is a sequel of “King of the Belgians,” which had its world premiere in Venice. Pamela Leu at Be for Films is handling international sales on the film.

The film follows the King of the Belgians, who is on his way home from a state visit to Istanbul, when he suffers a gunshot wound to the ear during an unfortunate incident in Sarajevo.

When he wakes up in a sanatorium on a Croatian island, once Tito’s renowned summer residence, the confused King learns that the recent collapse of his kingdom has led to the implosion of the European Union.

An envoy arrives from Vienna and Mama Wakolux,...

The line-up includes new TV projects from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Gurinder Chadha and Gregg Araki.

Canneseries, the annual TV festival running alongside the Miptv content market in Cannes, has unveiled the competition line-up for its second edition (April 5-10).

The first two epsidoes from 10 new international series will screen in the main competition.

Titles include Channing Powell’s London-set psychological thriller The Feed for Amazon and Liberty Global. David Thewlis stars in the dystopian tale as the inventor of a brain implant that allows people to share thoughts and emotions alongside Guy Burnet, Michelle Fairley and Nina Toussaint-White as his family members.

Netflix movies may still be question mark in terms of being allowed in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival in May, but the streaming giant will be present at Cannes Series. The Cannes television festival will mark its second year next month with Netflix going up against rival Amazon in the competition section. The full lineup includes series from Israel, Norway, Spain, and Belgium.

Netflix’s competition entry is the German series “How to Sell Drugs Online Fast,” from writers Philipp Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann. Amazon is heading to Cannes Series with “The Feed,” a London-set drama created by Channing Powell and based on the novel Nick Clark Windo. “The Feed” stars “Game of Thrones” favorite Michelle Fairley opposite David Thewlis in a story about a piece of technology that allows people to instantly share thoughts and emotions. The tech falls into the wrong hands and becomes a murderous weapon.

Cannes Series has revealed the lineup, jury and masterclasses for its second edition, which takes place alongside the Mip TV market on the French Riviera.

Among ten series in competition at the TV festival are Netflix’s German show How To Sell Drugs Online and Amazon’s UK series The Feed with Michelle Fairley and David Thewlis. Out of competition shows include Starz’ Now Apocalypse and Russel T Davies’ Years And Years. Scroll down for the lineup in full.

The competition jury will be presided over by Dark show-runner Baran bo Odar with members comprising actor, director and author Stephen Fry (Gosford Park), actors Miriam Leone (Non Uccidere) and Emma Mackey (Sex Education), actor and director Katheryn Winnick (Vikings) and composer Rob (The Bureau). David Cross and Jude Law are among those with projects in the short form competition.

Among those set to give masterclasses will be Game Of Thrones...

Adoration

Belgian provocateur Fabrice du Welz returns with Adoration, the third chapter of his celebrated Ardennes trilogy, which follows his 2004 debut Calvaire and 2014’s delicious Alleluia (our interview)—both titles which the director is perhaps best known for in the Us. Having taken recent trips abroad, including the troubled French production of 2014’s Colt 45 and du Welz’s English language debut Message from the King (available on Netflix), du Welz at last returns to the isolated hysteria which has marked his past Ardennes installment by reuniting with his Vinyan (2008) star Emmanuelle Beart. Also included in the fantastic cast are French icon Beatrice Dalle, Belgian actors Benoit Poelvoorde and Peter van den Begin, Haneke discovery Fantine Harduin (the troubled child of 2017’s Happy End), Xavier Legrand’s Custody breakout Thomas Gioria, and excitingly, the return of Laurent Lucas, who headlined the two previous Ardennes titles.…

Continue reading.

Road trip comedy drama stars Peter Van den Begin as the Belgian head of state.

Brussels and Paris based sales company Be For Films has taken international rights to Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth’s comedy-drama King Of The Belgians, which was announced in yesterday’s Venice line-up in the Orizzonti competition.

The film follows the titular Belgian king as he embarks on a state visit to Istanbul. When his home country begins to fall apart he must return to save his kingdom. However, a solar storm causes all airspace and communications to shut down, meaning he must begin a long journey across the Balkans to return home.

Peter Van den Begin (Allez, Eddy!) stars, with Lucie Debay, Titus De Voogdt, Bruno Georis, Pieter van der Houwen, Goran Radacovic, Valentin Galev and Nina Nikolina all amongst the cast.

Directing duo Brosens and Woodworth also penned the screenplay and produce for Bo Films. Co-producers are [link...

Kebab Royal

Directors: Peter Brosens & Jessica Woodsworth

Writers: Peter Brosens & Jessica Woodsworth

Another Belgian directing duo we’re committed to championing is Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodsworth (who we also included prematurely on our 2015 list). Starting out as documentarians, they segued into narrative film with 2006’s Khadak, eventually spinning a loosely related trilogy with 2009’s Altiplano and 2012’s The Fifth Season (2012). While it’s possible to obtain copies of the first two, for some confounding reason, their last feature never received distribution in the Us even though it’s a fascinating, transfixing film. They filmed their latest, Kebab Royal, past March, which is now in post-production. Their films are often characterized by offbeat, surreal flourishes, and their latest concerns Nicolas II, the onerous Belgian King. Stuck on an economic mission in Istanbul, he learns of Flanders’ declaration for dependence while he’s away, and a simultaneous solar storm knocks out communication and airplanes.

[caption id="attachment_14903" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Dirty Mind"]/caption] Dirty Mind Directed by Peter Van Hees Left Bank director Peter Van Hees tries his hand at offbeat comedy in Dirty Mind, which centers around a conceit that seems promising on paper but winds up as the delivery system for a disappointingly familiar experience. Wim Helsem, impressive in his feature debut, stars as meek stuntman's assistant Diego, who seems to limp from job to job without leaving much of an impression while his more sociable brother Cisse (Robbie Cleiren) gets all the attention. When Cisse's arrogance laeds to injury, Diego steps in on a particularly dangerous stunt and winds up in the hospital. When he awakes, he only wants to be referred to as Tony T (aka TNT), and suddenly acts with an otherworldly sense of confidence and cocksureness. That's meant in the most literal sense possible, as he immediately sets his sights on one of his doctors, Janna (Kristine Van Pellicom...