Author: rb809rb

Epic Pictures Group has taken international sales right for upcoming feature “The Marshall,” starring Oscar nominee Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist”), and will launch the film at this year’s Marche du Film in Cannes.

From director Andrew Baird (“Zone 414,” “One Way,” “Sunrise”) and written by Jay Thames, “The Marshal” — which recently wrapped production — is described as a “taut, modern conspiracy thriller rooted in moral ambiguity and high-stakes action.” It also marks the third collaboration between Pearce and director Baird, following “Zone 414” (2021) and “Sunrise” (2024).

The film follows Iraq War veteran Clay Mercer (Pearce), an elite marksman for the U.S. Marshals whose life unravels after a single shot at a presidential rally destroys his career. Years later, drawn into a covert network of operatives and manipulated through a web of corruption, Clay must decide whether to become the weapon he was shaped to be or dismantle the system from within.

Alongside Pearce, an ensemble cast includes Bruce Greenwood (“Star Trek,” “Dark Winds”), Kaniehtiio Horn (“Possessor,” “Mohawk”), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (“Vikings: Valhalla”), Navid Negahban (“Homeland”), Jaylen Moore (“Six”), Joel Thomas Hynes (“Orphan Black”), Gina La Piana (“The Night Driver”) and Anthony Del Negro (“Ladybug,” “Edge of Everything”).

“I’m thrilled to be working with my friend Andrew Baird once again, especially on this gripping piece by Jay Thames,” said Pearce. “Since L.A. Confidential, I’ve been drawn to stories that explore the fragile and often contradictory nature of truth, and the opportunity to navigate the layered intrigue of ‘The Marshal’ has been genuinely electrifying.”

Added Baird: “What drew me to ‘The Marshal’ was how timely it is in today’s current political climate, while still delivering a tightly wound, pressure-cooker conspiracy thriller. Guy is one of cinema’s great actors, and it’s a privilege to collaborate with him again.”

The international sales agreement was negotiated by Alan B. Bursteen, president of Milestone Studios, with Patrick Ewald, CEO of Epic Pictures.

“The Marshal represents exactly the kind of bold, high-concept storytelling that resonates with global audiences,” said Ewald, who also exec produces. “With Guy Pearce and Andrew Baird reuniting, we’re excited to bring this gripping thriller to buyers at Cannes.”

‘The Marshal’ is produced by Kevin Matusow for Traveling Picture Show Company, Jay Thames for 77 Films and Rob and Peter Blackie for Elemental Pictures. The film is co-produced by Michael Solomon with Patrick Ewald, and Katie Page serving as executive producers. Additional EP’s include Kate Bacon, Mark S. Batzel, Lee Broda, Carissa Buffel, Alan B. Bursteen and Dawn Bursteen of Milestone Studios, Bryan Coyne, James Cullen Bressack, Bruce Cummings, Mark Holder, Christine Holder, Michael J. Moss, Jr., and Jeffrey M. Silverman.

Epic’s recently appointed president of sales and content Caroline Couret-Delègue will represent ‘The Marshal’ as part of the company’s Cannes sales slate at its space at the Grand Hotel Residences.

Tribeny Rai’s debut feature “Shape of Momo” claimed the Grand Jury Prize for best feature at the 24th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

“We are honored to award the Grand Jury Prize to a debut film that deftly creates a protagonist who inhabits the gray area between righteousness and humility, and delicately charts her journey through the complexities of class and gender in a place steeped in tradition,” the feature jury stated.

The feature jury – composed of cinematographer Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi, filmmaker Juan Pablo González and film curator Caroline Libresco – also awarded honorable mentions to Sarmad Sultan Khoosat’s “Lali” and Seemab Gul’s “Ghost School.” Of “Lali,” jurors said: “Moving between genres with ease and exuberance, this film envelopes the audience in a vibrant symphony of music and color.” On “Ghost School,” the jury called it “a beautifully restrained, artistically precise debut feature that works both as a powerful political allegory and as piercing social realism.”

The Grand Jury Prize for best short went to “Room at the Farm,” directed by Jasmine Kaur Roy and Avinash Roy. “A delicate and nuanced allegory of the fragility of human relationships when faced with the impact of modernization. This film represents rural Punjab with a gaze rarely seen, one that centralizes humanity and desire. Over the course of 23 succinct minutes, it allows us to negotiate a devastating reality alongside its characters,” the shorts jury said.

Shorts honorable mentions went to Ananth Subramaniam’s “Bleat!” and Sana Zahra Jafri’s “Permanent Guest.” The shorts jury – film curator Malin Kan and filmmaker Alisha Tejpal – described “Bleat!” as “an absurdist commentary that throws into question our understanding of religion, gender and cultural identity with a profoundly original vision and a strikingly unexpected approach.” Of “Permanent Guest,” jurors noted the film “has crafted immense tension and finds both power and pain in what is left unsaid.”

Voted on by festival attendees, the Audience Choice Award for best feature went to Ben Rekhi and Swetlana’s “Breaking the Code” – which also opened the festival – while Suraj Paudel’s “Rihanna” won the Audience Choice Award for best short.

At IFFLA Industry Days, Amarik Singh Khosa’s project “Blind Tiger” won the Launchpad: Pitch Competition and received a $10,000 development grant. A prestige crime series set in suburban New Jersey, it centers on a highly skilled outsider whose story draws on the overlooked history of a minority community, grounding a classically structured genre drama in a perspective rarely seen on screen. An honorable mention went to Priyanka Krishnan and Raman Nimmala’s “Thottal Poo Malarum” (Flowers Bloom When Touched), a dark comedy about a woman whose carefully constructed path to an elite arranged marriage begins to unravel around questions of virtue and social performance.

The 24th IFFLA – a leading U.S. platform for South Asian cinema – featured 27 films across seven narrative features, two documentary features and 18 shorts, with entries from countries including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, the U.K. and the U.S. The festival closed with Anusha Rizvi’s social satire “The Great Shamsuddin Family.”

As widely rumored earlier this year, BMG and Concord have officially announced “a definitive agreement to combine their businesses,” creating what is basically the fourth major music company, although they’re terming it “the leading independent music company in the world.”

The deal, which sources place between $6.6 billion and $7 billion, would form a company that is considerably smaller than the two dominant major music groups, Universal and Sony — but not far from the third, Warner, at least by some metrics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The combined company will operate under the BMG name and will span music publishing, recorded music, theatrical rights, and digital distribution. Collectively, the companies’ rosters include works from Jelly Roll, Paul Simon, Lainey Wilson, will.i.am, Jason Aldean, Tina Turner, Diane Warren, and Jean-Michel Jarre, to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Daddy Yankee, Denzel Curry, Hamilton, Phil Collins, R.E.M., and “The Sound of Music.”

The combined company will be owned approximately 67% by Bertelsmann and approximately 33% by affiliates of Great Mountain Partners. Affiliates of Great Mountain Partners will also receive a one-time cash payment of $1.16 billion, according to the announcement. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

Concord CEO Bob Valentine will serve as CEO, and BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld as chairman of the combined company, with global headquarters in Nashville and European Headquarters in Berlin. It will be named BMG with divisions “BMG Publishing” and “Concord Records.”

The deal “includes a mid-term ambition to achieve $1.2 billion in EBITDA, building from a pro forma EBITDA base of more than $730 million in 2026, driven through organic growth, M&A, and synergies, according to the announcement.

While the company would certainly qualify as a “fourth major” in terms of scale, with few exceptions, the two companies don’t really invest in current superstars: The recorded-music divisions of both BMG and Concord don’t have anyone in the same galaxy as a Taylor Swift or Bruno Mars or Harry Styles, although BMG’s country division’s roster of recorded music does boast Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll.

Instead, the companies share similar publishing-and-catalog-heavy business models. Since 2021, BMG has invested more than $1.5 billion in music rights acquisitions and an equal amount in signings, licenses, and technology, the announcement states. Concord has invested more than $3 billion since 2020 across publishing, recorded music, theatrical rights, and distribution, and with more than 125,000 artists and songwriters around the world.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is serving as legal counsel to BMG. J.P. Morgan is serving as financial advisor to Concord and Latham and Watkins LLP and Reed Smith LLP are serving as legal counsel. Alston & Bird LLP is advising Great Mountain Partners.

“We believe this is a truly one-of-a-kind opportunity to bring together two world-class teams and rosters at the right moment, as scale in rights ownership becomes increasingly critical to long-term growth,” said Thomas Coesfeld, Chief Executive Officer of BMG and designated Chairman of the combined company. “This transaction accelerates our successful BMG Next strategy by enabling a more ambitious and sustained approach to investing in artists and songwriters, as well as in rights, technology, AI tools, and the talent shaping the industry. As one unified business, we will further deepen our position as a preferred global partner to artists, songwriters, and platforms, combining scale with the agility and independence they value. We look forward to this next chapter and to the opportunities it creates for artists, songwriters, and partners.”

“We are excited to begin working together to build something truly exceptional,” said Bob Valentine, Chief Executive Officer of Concord and designated CEO of the combined company. “Both companies were founded to support great artistry and with a deep sense of responsibility to the performers, songwriters, and playwrights we serve. We share a philosophy grounded in artist development, strategic long-term management of IP, and operational discipline. Our greater scale will allow us to invest more in creative talent, global reach, accretive acquisition opportunities, and technology, while preserving the nimble, entrepreneurial spirit that artists and songwriters value most. This is not about replicating the major label model; it’s about using scale to strengthen independence. Together, we will build a company that gives artists more reach and more flexibility – all designed to support their distinct visions.”

A real-life story about a supposedly cursed painting has inspired an upcoming U.K. feature that has recently wrapped filming in the British seaside town of Hastings.

“Curse in a Frame” — from New State Pictures and the feature debut of writer-director Maria Pawlikowska — is being led by Susan Wokoma, best known for “Enola Holmes” and soon starring in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming “Narnia,” Jessie Cave, who famously played Lavender Brown in the “Harry Potter” franchise (and marking her return to film for the first time in almost a decade), and newcomer Velvet Brown (“Troubleshooting”). Kaja Chan (“Split Fiction”) Michael Kinsey (“Three Day Millionaire”) and Michael Brandon (“Dempsey and Makepeace”) also star.

Blending comedy, horror and satire, the film takes its cue from a story that went viral in 2023 about a portrait of a young girl discovered in a Hasting charity shop and was “bought twice and returned twice after having ruined the lives of its owners.” One of the owners told U.K. TV that she believed it was “haunted,” with strange events happening to her — and her mother — soon after she bought it.

Set against the local folklore and eerie coastal atmosphere of Hastings, “Curse in a Frame” takes the story and adapts it into what the filmmakers describe as a “sharp contemporary feature about belief, ambition, friendship — and the chaos that unfolds when a local story becomes an international obsession.”

“What drew us to ‘Curse in a Frame’ was its originality and the fact that the story already arrived in the culture with its own mythology,” said producer Ana Emdin. “It was funny, unsettling, and very contagious. Working with Maria Pawlikowska, whose voice as a filmmaker is so prodigious, we were able to build that initial spark into something bolder, stranger and far more expansive. And it was mind-blowing to see our exceptional cast elevate the story even further.”

Added producer Yan Fisher: “What makes ‘Curse in a Frame’ so exciting is that it feels both specific and highly exportable. It is rooted in a very British world, but the premise is instantly accessible and the tone is bold, fresh and entertaining. It is exactly the kind of original genre film that can cut through internationally.”

Directed by Pawlikowska from a script she co-wrote with Tom Woffenden, “Curse in a Frame” is being produced by U.K. production company New State Pictures, led by Emdin and Fisher, alongside Invisible String Pictures.

“I was interested in the ‘crazy but true’ premise of Curse in a Frame for its potential to mix tones, genre, formats — in a way that feels very much of the moment,” said Pawlikowska. “We journey with these lovable, contemporary characters (played by our extraordinary ensemble cast) in this mysterious, mythological setting, and it was this clash of the modern and the ancient that got me excited, that seemed to allow for a morality tale to unfold – of friendship, ambition, belief, karma.”

“Curse in a Frame” is now in post-production.