Yahoo Lifestyle International Insider: ‘Emilia’s Awards Chances…; EFM Deals; German Diversity Debate
Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here penning the newsletter after another busy week. Read on. And sign up here.
‘Emilia’s Awards Chances…
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A week is a long time: Last time I penned this very newsletter we led with the headline ‘Emilia’s Oscar March’. Not the same story this week. An unprecedented situation has played out over the past seven days during which the initial frontrunner for multiple (and possibly record-breaking) Oscar wins has been seeing its chances go up in smoke. This is due to Emilia Pérez lead Karla Sofía Gascón’s highly offensive and frankly vile tweets unearthed from several years back, which first emerged late last week. You’ve likely all seen the tweets, but what has happened since is the film’s maker, co-stars and crew trying to tout the film in spite of, not because of, its lead. At the same time, Gascón’s erratic drive to have her name cleared continues… With a stress on ‘erratic’. She appeared on CNN en Español without the permission of anyone involved — Netflix included — and her take that “I have been crucified and stoned without a trial” impressed few. Netflix’s silence at the same time has been rather deafening. Jake’s analysis — which noted Netflix’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement (it wrote “To be silent is to be complicit” across social media accounts just days after the death of George Floyd) amongst other causes — questioned why. But Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard did break his silence, and where Gascón was concerned it was brutal. Speaking exclusively to Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr, the French auteur totally disavowed the Spanish actress, describing her tweets as “hateful and worthy of being hated.” “She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing,” he went on about her recent activity. “Why is she harming herself?” Audiard had time to touch on other areas of the Emilia Pérez story, including controversies, and the whole piece is well worth a read. As of today, Gascón, who was absent from a string of American awards dos earlier this week, is reported to be no longer attending Spain’s Goya Awards over the weekend. Her appearance at next month’s Oscars feels very much in doubt.
BFI Figures
“Service industry to Hollywood”?: A mixed picture was painted yesterday by the BFI’s annual figures revealing how much money was spent on film and high-end TV in Britain last year. Stress on the fact it was “spent on film and high-end TV in Britain” as opposed to “spent on British film and high-end TV” because the whopping £5.6B ($7B) spend, up 31% from the strike-ravaged 2023, was mostly delivered on big-budget projects from abroad that lens in the UK. Spend on domestic TV shows slid quite dramatically by 22% to £598M during the year, for example. The same figure for movies was up, but represents just 9% of overall film spend. Furthermore, co-productions plummeted, tumbling by 50% for both movies and TV shows and representing less than 1% of overall spend on the latter. This confirms anecdotal evidence from chats we’ve been having with drama sources over the past few weeks and comes after Jane Featherstone’s shock revelation, confirmed by the BBC, that the Beeb has greenlit shows on its slate it can’t fund due to a lack of American co-pro money. The notion of the UK being a “service industry to Hollywood” has been hanging around for years, but the concern at present, which is reflected in these figures, is that services for non-UK (mostly American) projects are replacing domestic fare, rather than running concurrent with it. Watch this space.
EFM Deals
Dog days: Much of the industry has been on pause since the devastating LA fires. However, things got moving again this week with some intriguing packages being unveiled before the upcoming European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin. Some highlights include The Rage, a “peasant revolt” flick with director Paul Greengrass and Matthew McConaughey signed on. FilmNation will be shopping the film in the German capital. Elsewhere, Black Bear is selling a horror flick titled Bad Boy, which boasts Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart as leads. The film is from Longlegs producer Dave Caplan and follows a young woman’s fight to escape a deadly serial killer, but with a twist – it comes through the eyes of man’s best friend, his faithful dog. Previously known titles heading to the market include the curious Jonathan Majors bodybuilding drama Magazine Dreams, which is looking for international buyers, while legendary DoP Ernest Dickerson (Do The Right Thing) is getting back into the director’s chair for a hitman thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson and Daveed Diggs. This year is a revamped EFM with a new director, and there are a lot of interesting projects buzzing around amid a general vibe of positivity. Melanie sat down with EFM chief Tanja Meissner and talked shop, which you can read here. In the end, all the pre-festival chatter is pretty irrelevant, mind. With an event like the EFM, it really comes down to the deals. Are people buying? Are films being made? Follow our EFM/Berlin coverage here to find out. The market runs from February 13 to 19 and we’ll be on the ground.
German Diversity Debate
‘Unorthodox’ take: Diversification and inclusion in film productions remains one of the hottest topics in Germany at present, particularly since the country passed its new film funding law in December, which removed a clause that would require all German film productions to meet specific diversity, gender equality and inclusion standards. This caused quite the debate. At Deadline we love to dive deeper into these issues and so Diana assembled German talents from some of its biggest projects down the years to discuss. Talent from Unorthodox, Light and Familiar Places came together to talk about the progress that can be made in telling all kinds of story coming out of Germany. “I grew up not really seeing people like me on TV,” said documentary director Mala Reinhardt, whose films include The Second Attack and Familiar Places. “I feel like stories have diversified [in Germany]. You have more perspectives being represented on screen, but I still feel that up to this date a lot of people were feeling like it was just tokenism.” Much to mull over. Catch the vid here.
UK’s Battle Against Bullying
One step forward, two steps back: The British TV industry’s long-running battle to rid the sector of endemic bullying issues frequently has a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ feel to it. It certainly did this week. We revealed Wednesday that the UK government is considering forcing broadcasters to regularly fund anti-bullying reporting body CIISA, which was first unveiled several years back but has been struggling to secure a sustainable funding model. UK Culture Sec Lisa Nandy is a huge fan of CIISA and is understood to want to get it operational as quickly as possible. Just 24 hours later, we demonstrated the need for the anonymous whistleblowing service when we reported that the woman hired to clean up bullying and poor working conditions in the industry has had her role scaled back after she herself was the subject of multiple misconduct complaints. Sarah Swingler’s new position with the nascent Action for Freelancers (AFF) group has been reduced to one day a week after the new org received complaints over her conduct. The debacle fails to inspire confidence. Issues with bullying often stem from those on screen and problems with TV personalities have been rife over recent years. Setting things back further were allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior against popular TV personality Gino D’Acampo, which published Thursday night on ITV News. D’Acampo “firmly denies” the allegations and says he does “not recognise the version of events being put to me.” British TV has a long way to go.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: Deva Cassel, Julien De Saint Jean and Romain Duris are set to co-star in a contemporary, French-language version of The Phantom of the Opera.
🌶️ More spice: A BBC documentary will spotlight the personal stories of victims of the Lockerbie attack, coming after high-profile dramas for Sky, the BBC and Netflix.
✈️ Screenings: Sellers are gearing up for London and Keshet is launching sales on its “most ambitious drama” to date, while Banijay has sold Bergerac in Europe.
🖼️ Slate: Netflix kept on dishing ’em out with projects revealed in India, Korea, Indonesia and Thailand.
📈 Deep dive: Streamer spend will top commercial broadcasters for the first time this year, Ampere predicted.
🏪 Setting up shop: Anthony Kimble’s Arrested Industries now has a management arm, kicking off with a roster of South African and UK talent.
📺 Ratings: France’s Ad Vitam has entered Netflix’s all-time top ten for most popular non-English movies on its platform one week after Culpa Tuya smashed records for Amazon.
🍿 Box office: Ushering in the year of the snake, Chinese box office records tumbled over the holiday period.
🏕️ Festivals latest: French superstar Juliette Binoche was named President of the Jury for the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
🏕️ More festivals: Edinburgh TV has appointed Doctor Who EP Jane Tranter as Chair for 2025 and scrapped its advisory board.
⚽ Soccerball: Stewart sat down with legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel — subject of a new SkyShowtime doc — and the former Man United star did not hold back.
🚪 Exiting: Richard McKerrow, UK producing titan who has run Bake Off outfit Love Productions for 20 years.
This week’s International Insider was written by Max Goldbart and edited by Jesse Whittock. Zac Ntim contributed.
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