Category: Entertainment

Patents are often the bedrock of new innovation, and a suite of patents defining how AI-generated music can be created, licensed and monetized has hit the market — with multiple AI companies lined up to license them.

Music IP Holdings, a company formed last year out of a strategic partnership with Universal Music Group and the intellectual property management firm Liquidax, has licensed a portfolio of more than 24 patents to the AI music platforms Udio and GRAI. The collection of patents covers a wide swath of elements associated with the rise of AI music, including moderation, watermarking, licensed distribution and monetization.

For Daniel Drolet, the CEO of MIH, the patents are designed to create “new opportunities for responsible innovation while giving artists, songwriters and rightsholders stronger protections and the ability to share in the value their work creates.”

“The portfolio was developed to enable a standard that provides creators of all types the ability to generate, track and ensure new AI revenue streams while simultaneously providing strong options to manage unauthorized AI outputs,” Drolet said in a statement.

“ With MIH, we’re partnering to implement the infrastructure that protects artists and establish the guardrails that ensure AI amplifies human creativity,” Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez said in a statement. “That work — the technology, the licensing, the partnerships — is what makes the next chapter one artists can actually build on.”

“GRAI is building a social streaming service where music moves between people,” Ilya Liasun, GRAI’s CEO and co-founder, added. “And when someone puts something of their own into a song they love, the artist is asked, credited and paid, every time. These patents are what make that possible.”

The patents aren’t limited to just music, MIH’s chief operating officer Paul Ketchel told Variety. “It’s anything that’s an AI derivative,” he said. “What the portfolio covers is basically how AI learns, consumes, and produces derivative content, and that’s video content, voice content, music content.”

The patents reflect UMG’s engagement across different swaths of the changing music industry, such as its licensing partnership with Udio and the remixing app Hook to, with the patent framework, building the architecture that can help determine what an ethical approach to AI music generation could look like.

“These patents are an important way to reinforce the strategy we believe will play a critical role in the next era of music: embracing ethical innovation that puts artists and songwriters at the center, with greater agency, influence and value-chain participation for the creative community,“ said Chris Horton, UMG’s executive vice president, strategic technology, in a statement. “We are thrilled to join MIH, music companies, and responsible technology enterprises in building an AI music ecosystem that works for everyone, especially the creative forces that makes it all possible.”

Udio and GRAI represented the first companies to license the patents because of some of their preexisting relationships with UMG, such as Udio’s licensing deal, Ketchel said.

“They are looking to try to be ethical companies of the world of AI,” he said. “It’s really creating an ecosystem for creators you know the labels, the publishers, the movie studios, all those folks on the creative side, coupled with responsible AI companies, technology companies, streaming companies, publishing companies, all those together, to be able to operate inside this framework of AI and allow creators to be compensated properly, and these companies to be able to operate with freedom to operate ethically. Hopefully, our vision is this will help make a lot of these lawsuits and things that have had to be one-offs go away.”

Helsinki is to host a new awards ceremony, to be known as The Freyas, which will celebrate Nordic film and TV talent, bringing together the region’s leading filmmakers as well as international industry guests.

The first-ever edition of The Freyas – also known as the Nordic Film & TV Awards – will launch on Sept. 22 at the iconic Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. The ceremony will be held while Helsinki Intl. Film Festival’s industry event, the Finnish Film Affair, is in progress (the FFA runs Sept. 23-25).

The awards will honor outstanding achievements by directors, actors, producers, cinematographers, screenwriters and composers, among others, across the five Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

“The Nordic countries have an extraordinary tradition of storytelling, and right now the world is paying attention,” Kirpi Uimonen, one of the founders of The Freyas, said. “The Freyas is about celebrating that talent at home while also creating a stronger international platform for Nordic creators, stories and ideas. We want the world to know not only the films and series coming from the Nordics, but also the Nordic professionals who continue to enrich the global ecosystem with their talent and creativity.”

The Freyas is conceived as a travelling event, rotating between the Nordic countries. Following the Helsinki edition, the awards will travel to Copenhagen (2027), Stockholm (2028), Oslo (2029) and Reykjavík (2030).

The initiative was conceived by Kirpi Uimonen, Joonas Nurmi, Tina Jøhnk Christensen and Anke Hofmann, among other film, TV and awards professionals in the Nordic region and the U.S.

Among the international guests at the inaugural event will be members of the press, film and television executives, actors, directors, producers, distributors, agents, financiers and festival representatives, alongside the Nordic talent being celebrated.

Partners of the Helsinki event include The Icebreaking Company, Strawberry, Kämp Hotel, Finlandia Hall and the Finnish Film Affair.

Roosa Toivonen, The Freyas’ head of industry and talent, told Variety that presenters and jury members in attendance will include actors Alexander Karim (Sweden), Nanna Blondell (Sweden), Ville Virtanen (Finland), Pekka Strang (Finland), Sara Soulié (Finland), Emmi Parviainen (Finland) and Oona Airola (Finland); directors Zaida Bergroth (Finland), Selma Vilhunen (Finland), Dome Karukoski (Finland), Juha Wuolijoki (Finland) and AJ Annila (Finland); and producers Madeleine Ekman (Sweden), Gudny Hummelvoll (Norway), Sofie Wanting Hassing (Denmark), Andri Ómarsson (Iceland) and Jani Pösö (Finland).

Further jury members and presenters will be announced shortly.

“Forza,” a family sports drama from Riva Studios, will open theatrically in Indonesia in late 2026, with an international rollout to follow in early 2027.

The studio also released the film’s teaser.

“Forza” marks Riva Studios’ first live-action feature. The independent production company was co-founded by Balsamo and Tara Sibel Demren and has bases in the U.S., France and Italy. The project also serves as Balsamo’s directorial debut. Shot on location in both Indonesia and Italy, the production draws on several languages and cultural backdrops.

The story centers on Bima, an 11-year-old boy from a struggling Bali community who hopes soccer can help support his family. Newcomer Ghazi Alhabsyi plays the role. A chance encounter with Marco Cagliostro, a veteran player near retirement played by Balsamo, sets Bima on a path toward a tryout with AC Milan’s youth academy in Italy.

Adhya Pictures will distribute “Forza” in Indonesia. Additional international sales agents and territorial partners are expected to be named in the coming months as the film heads toward its wider release.

Riva Studios is betting on a market it sees as underused given its scale. Indonesia’s population tops 280 million, and the country logged about 126.2 million cinema admissions in 2024, with domestic films setting a new high of 80.2 million admissions, or 65% of the total. Screen count remains comparatively low at around 2,350 nationwide, which the studio views as headroom for growth.

Atiqah Hasiholan, Oka Antara, Tio Pakusadewo, Rifnu Wikana, Yoriko Angeline, Arie Kriting and Ruth Marini round out the Indonesian ensemble. Alhabsyi, Demren and Lodovico Costacurta all make their acting debuts in the film, joined by Alessandro Costacurta, a former AC Milan and Italian national team defender.

Music supervisor Nigil Mack put together the soundtrack, pulling in tracks from Coast Contra, Kamauu, Dev Lemons, Mayday and Indonesian artist Saykoji.

“This project has been a long time coming, and it is deeply personal to me. Forza is a testament to what independent filmmaking can achieve when people across countries and cultures unite behind a shared vision. We cannot wait for audiences around the world to experience Bima’s journey and, hopefully, see a part of themselves in it,” said Balsamo, writer and director of “Forza.”

Demren, producer and co-founder of Riva Studios, said soccer serves as “a shared language that transcends borders, cultures and generations,” adding, “at its heart, the story is about finding belonging through a passion that unites us, no matter where we come from.”

Balsamo and Demren launched Riva Studios in 2022. The company works in both live action and animation, developing original film and television with partners spanning Europe, Asia and the U.S. It expanded into animation in December 2024 by acquiring TeamTO, a French studio counted among the continent’s top players in the space.

Watch the teaser here:

“Le Faux Soir,” a Belgian-French WWII resistance drama from “Bullhead” director Michaël R. Roskam, has been set as the closing night film of this year’s San Sebastián Film Festival.

Playing in the festival’s Official Selection out of competition, the film will have its European premiere at San Sebastián after world premiering at Toronto, where it screens in Special Presentations. It will close the festival after the awards ceremony on Sept. 26 at the Kursaal.

“Le Faux Soir” is produced by Belgium’s Frakas Productions and Roskam’s Harbor Men Pictures with France’s Rectangle Productions. Goodfellas handles international sales, while Cinéart will release the film in Benelux.

Set in Nazi-occupied Belgium in 1943, the film follows a group of Resistance fighters after the occupying forces turn national daily Le Soir into a propaganda outlet.

With commemorations of the 1918 Armistice banned, they hatch a plan to produce a fake edition of the newspaper, reproducing its paper, nameplate and format but filling its pages with articles mocking the German occupiers. The operation has been described as “the world’s first media hack.”

Arieh Worthalter (“The Goldman Case”) leads the ensemble, alongside Mélanie Thierry (“Da 5 Bloods”), Karim Leklou (“Jim’s Story”), Mara Taquin (“Zero Fucks Given”), Bouli Lanners (“The Night of the 12th”), Julien Frison (“The Happening”) and François Damiens (“The Bélier Family”).

The closing berth brings Roskam back to San Sebastián 12 years after his U.S. crime drama “The Drop,” starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini, which won the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay in 2014.

Roskam, who previously worked as a journalist for Dutch-language newspaper De Morgen, broke through internationally with feature debut “Bullhead.” After premiering in Berlin’s Panorama section, the film earned an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film and landed Roskam on Variety’s Ten Directors to Watch list.

He later directed “Racer and the Jailbird,” starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos, which screened out of competition at Venice and was selected as Belgium’s Academy Awards entry. He also helmed the first three episodes of Apple TV+ miniseries “Black Bird.”

“Le Faux Soir” returns Roskam to the thriller territory that has marked much of his career. Roskam wrote the screenplay, with Bernard Falaise co-credited on dialogue, loosely adapting Marie Istas’ book Le “faux” Soir, 9 novembre 1943.

The 74th San Sebastián Film Festival runs Sept. 18-26.