Lukas Nathrath’s One Last EveningWins Locarno Pro’s First Look Prize
German filmmaker Lukas Nathrath’s debut feature One Last Evening, about a young couple who host a doomed farewell dinner for friends before moving to a new city, has won Locarno Pro’s First Look Award. The prize comes with €50,000 in post-production services from Swiss and Germany-based production house Cinegrell. This year’s First Look line-up showcased six upcoming movies from Germany. In further prizes, Le Film Français Award, offering advertising services worth €5,600, went to Arthur & Dianaby Sara Summa. And the Kaiju Cinema Diffusion Prize, an award of €5,000 for the design of an international poster, went toElahaMilena Aboyan. The awards jury included Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival director, Vanja Kaludjercic artistic director, and HUH moonyung, director of Busan International Film Festival festival.
UKTV Seeks Comedy Scripts By Women, For Women & Greenlights ‘Annika’Season 2
The BBC Studios-owned UKTV network UKTV has partnered with the Female Pilot Club to create a program that seeks the next generation TV comedy scripts by women for women. It also has commissioned a second season featuring Nicola Walker. Annika With PBS Masterpiece. For submissions featuring over-45 female leads, applications are open today and close September 11. UKTV will select the best scripts and Female Pilot Club will then read them to an industry audience. The Female Pilot Club was started by Shaun the SheepKay Stonham is a comedian who uses comedy to amplify the voices of women. She has read new comedy scripts by other writers likeIt’s a SinTracy-Ann Oberman stars as Tracy-Ann Oberman. Arabella Weir is a comedian. Research consistently shows that women writers are far behind men in sitcom and TV comedy. UKTV has now approved a second season.Annika with PBS Masterpiece, the Nicola Walker-starring drama that is drama channel Alibi’s best-performing of all time. The show, which is based on a BBC Radio 4 drama about DI Annika Strandhed (Walker), follows her as she leads the Marine Homicide Unit which investigates murders in Scottish waters. Black Camel Pictures and All3Media International are the distributors.
CJ ENM Signs Major Spanish Language Deal
The footprint of Korean drama has expanded once again with the nation’s powerhouse CJ ENM striking a deal with Spanish language streamer ViX. TelevisaUnivision’s SVoD has added seven of CJ’s Korean dramas, all dubbed in Spanish, includingHotel Del Luna,Another Miss Oh,Because this is my first ever lifeRighteous Love.Sebastian Kim, Director of International Content Sales at theParasitedistributor, said CJ’s passion “lies in reaching out to global fans.” The company has struck a multitude of major deals over the past few months, including the acquisition of 80% of Endeavor Content’s scripted business and a tie-up with Paramount Global to add Paramount+ to the TVing streamer.
Andy Serkis’s Imaginarium, Newen Connect Productions Team on ‘Madame!’
Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Productions and France’s Newen Connect are teaming on the period drama “Madame!” about the life of Marie Tussaud, founder of London’s world-famous waxworks museum. Serkis will host the series. The series will focus on the life of Marie Tussaud from rags-to riches. It covers the period of enlightenment through the Reign of Terror to the age of the French Revolution. Serkis will be the showrunner and director of the series. Newen Connect will distribute and co-develop the series.