Category: Entertainment

Marvel and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” involved nearly 2,000 VFX shots and just 24 weeks of post-production, with 445 shots delivered in a single week, overall VFX supervisor Jerome Chen revealed at View Conference in Turin on Wednesday.

“In one week, we did about 445 shots,” Chen said, comparing the feat with his first film as a supervisor in 1999, which contained 450 shots in total and took two years to complete.

About three-quarters of “Brand New Day’s” VFX work was delivered during the final six weeks, he added, making an already demanding schedule even more intense.

Next, Chen recalled that preparations began with a scouting trip to New York in December 2024, before he had received a finished script. Director Destin Daniel Cretton wanted a more grounded, street-level Spider-Man, with the city itself integral to the story. But most filming would take place in the U.K., where Pinewood Studios, London and Glasgow doubled for New York. Production designer Charles Wood’s concept art helped establish a relatively restrained palette, punctuated by saturated colors at key emotional moments.

The team preserved usable street-level photography and digitally replaced or extended much of what lay above it. “We just found basically a recipe of a half dozen or so things that tell you that it’s New York,” Chen said. Those included hanging traffic signals, scaffolding, water towers and the correct power lines. Even the yellow markings along British curbs had to disappear.

Small pieces of script could produce enormous technical assignments. An introduction involving Spider-Man and a tank expanded from a handful of words into 11 shots and roughly 52 seconds of footage. Physical tabletop models helped the crew determine how a vehicle should crash through a building when there was no time for elaborate previws. In another sequence, a compact camera rig mounted on a helmet captured Tom Holland’s performance from near his face, with a blurry red shape added in compositing to suggest the inside of his mask. “Sometimes the easiest tricks are the most effective,” Chen said.

The movie also gave Chen his first opportunity to work on Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk. Because the character appears in a more savage, telepathically controlled state, the team explored a different physique from earlier Marvel outings, adjusting his proportions, muscular definition, hair color and the relative size of his hands and feet. Chen consulted Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about how Hulk’s appearance had evolved across the franchise.

“I realized that nobody had ever looked closely at Hulk’s toenails before,” Chen joked. “That was something that we had to do.” Earlier versions looked unnaturally green, while the team also considered how the character’s skin would react to different lighting. They lengthened his arms, reduced his body fat and gave him grayer hair. A subtle shift in eye color, from green to brown, signals a moment when Hulk regains his humanity. Full-scale, 10-foot Hulk standins helped actors and camera crews judge his dimensions on set, and even his pants required careful attention.

A climactic energy wave involving Jean Grey proved harder to solve creatively. Chen initially resisted the rainbow-like chromatic aberration familiar from other screen depictions of superpowers. But with five weeks remaining, he reversed course, deciding the established visual vocabulary served the film better than something overly electronic. “I thought it was the weakest part of the film,” he admitted. “I wish we had come up with something better.”

Time, he argued, often determines the quality of VFX more than the artists’ abilities. “If you go to a movie and you see that there’s a visual effects shot that doesn’t look that good, it’s not because there are bad artists on it,” he said. “You can tell they just ran out of time.” Chen advised supervisors facing decision fatigue to review shots within their sequences rather than obsess over individual frames.

Finishing so rapidly could also have consequences for the industry: “We may have done ourselves a disfavor by actually finishing this movie in 24 weeks because once again we’ve proven that it can be done on time.”

The final challenge was unexpectedly modest. With the vendors already finished, a last-minute review revealed a sweat stain under Spider-Man’s arm. “You can’t have superheroes sweating into their suit,” Chen recalled. A small team at Marvel’s Burbank offices removed it in about 47 minutes, delivered the corrected shot and sent Chen home from a nearly empty parking garage beneath the studio.

Christy Carlson Romano is claiming she was paid half of Shia LaBeouf‘s salary on the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens,” despite the two being “co-leads” with “the same screen time.”

Romano opens up about her time on the show, which ran from 2000 to 2003 and followed the antics between a brother and sister with clashing personalities, in her new memoir “Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star.” In an Instagram post about the book, which is out now, Romano revealed the alleged pay disparity.

“I was a kid and the female lead on ‘Even Stevens.’ I was paid half of what Shia was paid; we were co-leads and had the same screen time,” Romano said, adding that while penning her memoir, she found a handwritten letter her mother wrote her agent in 2000 “asking for equal pay and admitting we were deep in debt.”

A photo of the letter is included in the post. It reads: “Shia receives $12,000 per episode and Christy $6,000. With 30% going into trust, we can’t make it here financially. This show also holds her up from other work that pays more. Christy wants what Shia is getting.”

In her post, Romano continued: “By then, my paycheck was keeping us afloat. My mom was fighting for me, and she was also fighting for a household that depended on a teenage girl. It took me years to understand I could love her for advocating for me and still wish I had gotten to just be a kid.”

She added that “Shia earned every dollar, and this book is not about him or any other famous name you might recognize.” Rather, she said her memoir is about “a girl who grew up too fast, and a business that decided she was worth half.”

Representatives for Disney and LaBeouf did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

Romano has previously spoken about her relationship with LaBeouf while filming the show, saying they were “like oil and water” on the “Not Skinny but Not Fat” podcast last month.

“I was being raised and brought up to be this type A, I mean exactly like Ren Stevens. Like, you know your lines, you hit your marks, you don’t mess up,” she said. “You’re a New York kid, like that comes with a certain echelon… I was trying to go to pre-college Juilliard… everything we were doing, my mom called it cross-training, came with a certain dollar amount of training.”

In contrast, LaBeouf had a tumultuous childhood and has spoken about living with his recovering addict father, which was the inspiration for his 2019 film “Honey Boy.”

“He was a Venice Beach kind of bum kid,” Romano said. “It’s like that kind of vagrant fun, but also very chaotic and very scary lifestyle, and he was very young to be having that.”

The harrowing but ultimately hopeful story of the FlyDubai airline hijacking incident last month is being developed as a narrative film by Dori Media Group and India’s Sphereorigin.

The Sept. 30 incident is believed to have been a terror plot by the co-pilot of the FlyDubai plane that was bound for Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. The flight was primarily full of Israeli citizens traveling home after visiting in Dubai. The co-pilot is alleged to have stabbed the plane’s captain and taken over the flight controls with the intention of crashing it into Ben-Gurion airport. The flight is reported to have plummeted more than 14,000 feet for about 30 seconds until valiant efforts by the injured pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, allowed passengers to overpower the suspected pilot in the cockpit.

The extraordinary circumstances have turned Machchhar into a national hero in his native India as well as in Israel. Dori Media, which produces film and TV out of Tel Aviv, Zurich and Buenos Aires, was approached by representatives for Sphereorigin about working together on a film. The project came together in record time in old-school fashion at the Mipcom content market and conference in Cannes.

“We were approached by streaming platforms and broadcasters in India expressing interest to tell the heroic story of the Indian pilot and the courageous Israeli passengers on that recent flight,” said Sunjoy Waddhwa, managing director at Mumbai-based Sphereorigins. “We are privileged to collaborate with Dori Media on this premium project as we have known and worked with them for a long time and together with Subh (Subhadarshi Tripathy) felt they’d be the ideal partner to produce a film of this caliber.”

Tripathy brokered the deal on behalf of Dori Media and Sphereorigin.

Dori Media chief Nadav Palti was surprised and energized to get a phone call from the parties on Oct. 11, on the eve of Mipcom opening. The sides met in the Dori Media booth at the Palais and hammered out the terms of the development pact by the afternoon of Oct. 14. Palti told Variety the speed of the deal coming together indicated the desire by the companies to tell the story of the incident that could have been a devastating tragedy but instead became a triumph that demonstrated the skill and the courage of Machchhar, who is recovering from his injuries. The co-pilot accused of carrying out the attack is under arrest and facing prosecution by UAE authorities.

“We are honored to jointly produce this special film with the team at Sphereorigins,” said Palti. “What happened on that flight was nothing short of a miracle and we will approach this film by looking to tell the heroic story of the pilot and those brave passengers who helped save the lives of many aboard that historic flight.”

In the narrative to has unfolded from authorities and passenger accounts, Machchhar had the presence of mind to open the locked door of the cockpit after he was stabbed. That allowed passengers to hear the commotion and discover what was happening. Machchhar tried to fight to retain control of the plane and amid that noise, a group of passengers were able to subdue the suspected assailant. Two other pilots who happened to be traveling on the flight then took over and were able to safely land the plane at the airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The ability to do so marked a gesture of kindness from the Saudi kingdom that does not otherwise allow Israel-affiliated aircraft to land in its borders.

“I was lying on the floor injured but I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside,” Machchhar said recently in a highly publicized video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I was of course fighting for my own life but at the same time I knew I was not going to let others die.”

Waddhwa moved to strike a film development deal around the incident after getting unsolicited inquiries from Indian media firms. The sides are still looking for a writer and director. The hope is to release it on an accelerated timetable next year.

“We were approached by streaming platforms and broadcasters in India expressing interest to tell the heroic story of the Indian pilot and the courageous Israeli passengers on that recent flight,” Waddhwa said. “We are privileged to collaborate with Dori Media on this premium project as we have known and worked with them for a long time and together with Subh (Subhadarshi Tripathy) felt they’d be the ideal partner to produce a film of this caliber.”

Sphereorigin was founded by Waddhwa and others in 2002. Dori Media Group has grown to rank among Israel’s largest independent producers since its launch in 1996. The company had its largest slate of offerings — from documentary features and docuseries to game and competition series to scripted dramas — at Mipcom. It produces a wide slate of Spanish-language content for Argentina and other Latin American markets.

(Pictured: A tribute to Capt. Smit Machchhar is crafted out of sand on India’s Puri beach)

Karla Sofía Gascón, Oscar-nominated for “Emila Perez,” and Itziar Ituño of “Money Heist” have committed to star in the good vs. evil Spanish TV show “When Devils Rule” (“Los demones mandan”), to be pitched at Tallinn’s TV Beats Co-Financing Market running Nov. 16-17.

The six-parter, currently in development, will reunite Ituño with helmer Rodrigo Susarte (“Hidden Island,” “Gen Mishina”) and production banner Atlantika Films, behind the anticipated Movistar Plus Original “Patagonia,” set to premiere in January 2027.

Created and produced by Atlantika founder Nano Arrieta — long-time collaborator of Oscar-winner Fernando Trueba — and Claudia Ruíz, it’s a contemporary thriller spiced with supernatural, fantasy, folklore and satire, in which “demons hide in plain sight, manipulating the powerful and pulling the strings of a world sliding into chaos,” states the logline.

Arrieta — who’s currently drafting the pilot script with Basque screenwriter Ibai Ariztegi — said the storyline is loosely based on prominent Argentine author Manuel Mujica Lainez’s novel “The Journey of the Seven Demons.”

“In the book, the demons are basically settled in Hell because they have already done their job, and the Devil sends them back out into the world to collect souls. But looking at the world we live in today, our feeling was: the demons are already here. You only have to look at genocide, the rise of fascism, political extremism and everything that is happening around us,” he told Variety.

Rather than doing a literal adaptation, the creators kept the book’s DNA and tweaked the ideas of evil, temptation and power with a contemporary twist.

However, as Arrieta stressed, the series is fundamentally built around four heroines. “Those women come from a very ordinary, working-class environment, but whose jobs actually represent some of the pillars that keep society functioning. One works in care, another in education, another in healthcare and another in journalism,” Arrieta explained.

Gascón will play Manuela, a teacher in an elite school, and Ituño the the role of Evita, the personal secretary to the prime minister of the series’ fictional country.

Connected through a community center, the women are helping neighbors and migrants, stepping in where institutions fail. They will try to unmask and chase away the demons in human disguise, embedded within society.

Commenting on the casting of Gascón, Arrieta said: “I have known Karla for some time, and she has always been extremely generous with us. We had been looking for the right project to work on together because it needed to be something ambitious, something with real quality and something that genuinely made sense for her. And it feels like this may be that project.”

About Ituño, with whom he just collaborated on the forthcoming eco-thriller “Patagonia,” Arrieta said, “Working with her is genuinely a joy. She is incredibly intelligent, generous and instinctive as an actress, and on a personal level she has also become a very good friend.”

“Having both of them together is obviously incredibly exciting because they are two very powerful actresses, but they also have very strong personalities and voices beyond the screen, which feels completely aligned with what the series wants to talk about,” he argued.

The remaining key cast is in negotiation.

Financially, Arrieta said around 60% of the Spanish production costs would be covered by Spain’s Basque region tax incentive. He is now actively looking for “platforms, broadcasters, financiers, creative or production partners who want to come on board at the development stage and help us build the strongest, highest quality version of the series possible.”

At Tallinn’s TV Beats, the series strand of the Black Nights Film Festival’s Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event sidebar, “When Devils Rule” will vie for the €50,000) ($56,000) Council of Europe Series Co-Production Development Award.

Atlantika Films’ “Patagonia” is repped at Mipcom by ZDF Studios.

A new virtuous circle is emerging for media and entertainment giants that promises to harness the advantages of disparate platforms, digital and linear, powered by the connective tissue of YouTube.

This was one of the dominant themes that emerged in four whirlwind days of panel sessions, closed door meetings, networking and schmoozing events up and down the Croisette as top industry players from Europe and beyond gathered in Cannes for the annual Mipcom content market and conference.

The growing muscle that YouTube flexes as the video crossroads of the world was a near-constant subject of conversation. Google’s streaming behemoth is becoming ever more integral to media development, distribution and marketing plans for most contenders in media, from the biggest Hollywood studios to indie startups.

Evan Shapiro, the respected industry analyst who is often billed as a “media cartographer,” gave a well-attended presentation on Wednesday morning that drew together threads probed in various tracks of the conference. Shapiro’s session offered sobering stats about the changing nature of viewing audiences. The older contingent of media and entertainment leaders have to come to grips with the fact that the world’s population is getting younger. That means they need to cater to consumers who have come of age with technology in their pockets and a very different worldview on how, when and why they consume media in across different mediums and platforms.

At the same time, Shapiro pointed to hope on the horizon for legacy media outlets.

“We believed television would be replaced by streaming 1 for 1 — that didn’t happen,” he said. Streaming and social video have augmented viewing time and even more important, they help deepen fan connection to their favorite shows. Shapiro emphasized more than once that media giants courting audiences need to think in terms of generations and affinity groups, not the age and gender demos of yore.

“Now consumers have an infinite number of channels. Every human with a phone is a channel,” Shapiro said. It’s the age of “personalized television through a combination of your phone and your television set.”

Matt Schnaars, president of platform distribution and partnerships for NBCUniversal, reinforced Shapiro’s observations in a separate session.

“The embracing of social media platforms, starting with YouTube, to drive people back to live viewing, we see that in results. We see that in audiences,” Schnaars said. “When we look at YouTube … [they] are an example of somebody who’s in really every business that we’re in, but not in a way that’s competitive. It’s accretive and incremental. And so we get excited.”

NBCUniversal is windowing some of its most prized, fan-favorite content – college football – on YouTube. The Peacock streaming platform shares its weekly exclusive games on YouTube. In the old days, that would have been unheard of. Today, it’s about reaching fans where they live. Peacock earlier this year struck an innovative distribution pact to be bundled as part of a YouTube TV premium tier.

“It can build habituation, and then ultimately, hopefully, a purchase of Peacock or going to YouTube TV even to go experience the full slate,” Schnaars said.

Like NBCU, the BBC sees enormous potential in the Beeb’s experiments to date with the FAST channels that are fast becoming a new form of syndication.

“YouTube for me is exciting because it’s where a lot of the audience are now,” said Kate Phillips, chief content officer at BBC Studios. She noted that the Beeb now has 34channels on YouTube, increasing to 50 by the end of 2028.

Leaders from Germany’s RTL Deutschland unpacked their partnership with YouTube at a Mipcom session. Executives said the free streaming platform has given new life to its long-running action series “Cobra 11.” After uploading more than 200 episodes, RTL generated 30 million views on YouTube, helping drive a 123% increase in first video views for the series on RTL+ and a 26% rise in subscriptions linked to the show. ITV has also partnered with YouTube, while France’s TF1, M6 and France Télévisions have struck distribution deals with global streaming giants, including Netflix and Amazon.

Justin Connolly, YouTube’s global head of media and sports, stressed that YouTube is prospering as it becomes more intertwined in the pay-TV eco system through YouTube TV. And YouTube (as well as TikTok) is essential to most of the creator-led content ventures that are proliferating.

“We only win when our partners win,” Connolly said.

In addition to exploring the new nexus of streaming and linear, Mipcom delivered some classic moments. Christie Brinkley, the 1980s supermodel, was here to pitch her docu-series “Uptown Girl: The Christie Brinkley Story” for Fox Global Distribution. The revival of “Baywatch” made a splash on the Cote d’Azur with the photo call featuring Stephen Amell and his shapely costar Brooks Nader.

Here are other trends and themes that emerged from this year’s conference:

Consolidation

As Hollywood grapples with consolidation, cost-cutting and a slowdown in production, French entertainment giants are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint in the U.S., either through acquisitions or by exploring new investments.

Fresh off its merger with British powerhouse All3Media, Banijay Entertainment is eyeing an expansion into the U.S. scripted market. Speaking at Mipcom, CEO Marco Bassetti and chairman Jeff Zucker said the newly enlarged group had the financial firepower to pursue opportunities in Hollywood, where it has yet to establish a major scripted production business.

Mediawan, meanwhile, is already making moves. After acquiring Peter Chernin’s North Road Company earlier this year, the Paris-based group has teamed with Reese Witherspoon to buy Hello Sunshine from Blackstone-backed Candle Media at a steep discount to its $900 million valuation in 2021. The deal further expands Mediawan’s Hollywood portfolio, which also includes Brad Pitt’s Plan B.

Latin America’s Growth Spurt

Beyond microdramas, where on earth can growth come from in the current TV landscape? With a swing to far-right populism, local production is being put through a political grinder, first in Javier Milei’s Argentina who decimated public-sector subsidies. Now Brazilian cinema is at risk. As a market, however, Latin America paints a different picture. The region is forecast to grow by 15.4% to $62 billion in revenues, exceeding the U.S. growth rate of 10.2%, Omdia’s María Rua Aguete, announced at Mipcom, presenting research and calling Latin America “one of the most exciting growth opportunities in global media and entertainment.” The driver?: online video, led by Netflix. The challenge? Connectivity.

Global Political Peril

For all the talk of consolidation and streaming at Mipcom, another major concern was looming over the television industry: the changing political landscape and the rise of far-right parties that are challenging public broadcasters across Europe.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is leading presidential polls ahead of the 2027 election and has called for a sweeping overhaul of public broadcasting, including privatization. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is also gaining ground and wants to abolish the license fee that finances public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. Meanwhile, Brazil is heading into a fiercely contested presidential runoff between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro.

Against this backdrop, public broadcasters are stepping up efforts to defend their relevance, reach younger audiences and strengthen their presence on digital platforms, where a growing share of voters get their news.

France Télévisions has forged a major partnership with YouTube, where its franceinfo news channel generated 110 million views in September, eight times its audience a year earlier. In Germany, ARD’s Tagesschau and ZDF’s ZDFheute are also distributing news on YouTube and developing formats aimed at younger viewers.

The stakes go well beyond audience figures. At a time of growing political polarization and disinformation, public broadcasters are seeking to reinforce their role as trusted, independent sources of news — while ensuring they remain relevant to the next generation.

Creators Gonna Create

Prolific creator Dhar Mann – who has more than 170 million followers across all social platforms – spoke about his vision for Creator City in Los Angeles, which will open in February when L.A. hosts the NFL’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. The four-acre campus will house nine sound stages. “We’re going to have about 175 sets. It’s going to be able to have about 15 concurrent productions happening at the same time,” he explained. “All the sets are actual brands. So, when you see content being created, it’s not just a random coffee shop – it could be a Starbucks. It’s not just a random retail store – it could be a Target.”

True Crime is Killing it

In “Killing a Bear,” a true-facts based murder mystery at Mipcom, the victim is a Pyrenean brown bear whose death sparks the first criminal investigation in Spain for an animal’s suspected slaughter. Crime repped 27% of scripted TV orders globally, first half 2026 – the single most commissioned TV genre, estimates Ampere Analysis, and a whopping 61% of the No 1 series at Mipcom from many of the world’s biggest players. Whether “Cupertino’s” “whip-smart tour of AI insanity” or John Hannah as a crimebuster in sunny but shady Benidorm, some shows at least aim to stand out from the crowd.

What’s trending in Spanish drama series and how the sector fares abroad and at home were some of the points briefly outlined by Gloria Saló from Spanish consultancy firm GECA on Tuesday during a Mipcom presentation sponsored by Audiovisual from Spain.

The report “Spanish Fiction 2026, Between New Stories and New Seasons,” which covers data from Jan. 1 through June 2026, confirms the strong position of Spanish fiction worldwide — seventh among top 10 global fiction premieres — plus the Spanish appetite for dramas, comedies, trending genre crossovers and the consolidation of platforms that are sustaining the fiction series boom.

“At a time when Spanish fiction is thriving both creatively and structurally, and reaching out to the rest of the world, it’s hugely important for us to investigate new trends,” Saló told Variety at the Mip Creative Hub.

The data analyst pointed out three factors behind the success of Spanish drama which saw Spanish fiction premieres jump 83% between 2021-2025: risk-taking creators, a willing to challenge genre boundaries and themes, the creative use of strong IPs “reinvented to the upmost efficiency and performing extremely well at home” and scripted shows with returning potential. “All this contributes to a highly dynamic drama sector, crucial for the entire audiovisual ecosystem,” she said.

Four takeaways from the GECA research:

Spain No. 7 in a Top 10 of Global Premieres
In a highly concentrated market where three countries — the U.S., Japan and South Korea accounted for 55% of the 857 fiction premieres during the first semester 2026; Spain ranked seventh with a 5.2% share from 30 new titles released domestically. The U.S. took the top spot with a 31.8% share from 177 titles.

Sustained Spanish Boom
Spanish premieres at home jumped a record 83% between 2021-2025, from 40 to 73 local fiction premieres. The output for H1 2026 remained relatively stable with 30 new titles versus 33 the same period 2025. Another 24 new releases are lined up for the rest of the year; most of them originals (20) followed by new seasons (3) and a saga.

Hottest genres in Spain
As in the rest of the world, dramas – across a wide spectrum of crime, suspense and fantasy to family drama – proved the hottest genre, weighing in as half the premieres during that period (15 titles). Titles ranged from Atresplayer’s “33 Days” created by renowned true-crime investigative journalist Carles Porta and Netflix’ mystery thriller “Oasis” to SkyShowtime’s thriller “The Tribute” (“El homenaje”) and Prime Video thriller “Day One,” about new technology threats.

Next up were comedies and dramedies with eight and four new releases (26.7% and 13.3% of premieres respectively), followed by mini-series (two or 6.7%) and animation with one title. Reflecting the breath and variety of narratives, attractive premieres took in Prime Video’s “Naughty Business” (“Cochinas”), a comedy in which a woman starts a porn business after her husband’s death. Disney + offered comedy through the thriller lens with “If It’s Tuesday, It’s Murder” (“Si es martes, es asesinato”), Prime Video the sketch comedy “Vida Perra” created by Rafel Barceló and Enric Pardo, and Movistar Plus+ the comedy drama “I Always Sometimes” (“Yo sempre a veces”) which bagged best screenplay at Canneseries.

Worth highlighting says the report is the value of returnable potential to maintain the production output. As many as nine renewals were released in Spain in the first half of 2026, such as Seasons 4-5 of Netflix’s “Alfa Males” (“Machos Alfa”). Several new seasons posted new storylines for familiar characters, such as the latest instalment of “Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine” (“Berlin y la dama de armiño”) from Netflix, Movistar Plus+’s mob thriller “El Inmortal,” and “Marbella: Expediente judicial.”

Drama for Streaming
Proof of streamers’ leading position for drama content in Spain, 27 out of 30 premieres launched digitally (90%) and only three on linear TV. SVOD players accounted for two-third of the titles and a mix of U.S. and leading Spanish streamers released most shows, with four each: Atresmedia’s Atresplayer, Movistar Plus+, Netflix and Prime Video.

The free VOD service Primeran from Basque pubcaster EITB launched three shows, Telecinco 2, and 10 local and global players, including Disney +HBO Max premiered only one new title. “The absence of a clear market leader and the limited weight of linear television reflect a market geared towards on-demand consumption,” said the GECA study.

Kirti Kulhari’s first feature as a producer, “Kinaare” (“Shores”), will premiere at the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), which will open with Rima Das’ Berlin-awarded “Not a Hero.”

The festival will run Oct. 29–Nov. 1 at the Tibetan Children’s Village in Upper Dharamshala, with an online edition to follow Nov. 2–9.

Written and directed by brothers Akbar Quadri and Azam Quadri, “Kinaare” stars Kulhari as Amina, a single woman in a village near Delhi who spends her days looking after her elderly parents and the family home. Her cousin, played by Azam Quadri, turns up without warning after 15 years away, and his visit brings back the events that once split the family. By the time he leaves, Amina has made her peace with the past. Rajeev Siddhartha, Alka Amin and Ravi Taneja complete the cast.

Kulhari produced the film through her banner Kintsukuroi Films, with Abhishek Koka and Maansi Guptey as co-producers.

“It’s a script that really resonated with me. It’s a simple, heartwarming, and subtle film. I find all these adjectives in Iranian films – which I’ve always really loved – so when something like this came to me, I knew I had to make it,” Kulhari said. “This is exactly how I wanted to make this film: independently, make it the way I see it, the way we all see it collectively.”

Siddhartha said every actor hopes for a script that values the written word and also pushes them to explore the spaces between the words. “And with ‘Kinaare,’ I got to do that as an actor. I feel ‘Kinaare’ has such a universal theme that everybody who sees it will definitely be touched, be moved and be slightly changed from within after the experience,” he said.

The film’s crew includes cinematographer Arjun Sundaram, composer Mohan Kannan, editor Bakul Matiyani and sound designer Sanjay Chaturvedi.

“Not a Hero,” an India-Singapore co-production, will have its South Asia premiere as the festival’s opening night film. It debuted at the Berlinale earlier this year, where it took a Crystal Bear Special Mention in the Generation Kplus strand, and later won best indie film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. It has also played Zlín, Zurich and Busan.

The film centers on a boy packed off from the city to his family’s ancestral village. There he meets a distant aunt, makes friends with a horse and falls in with a pack of local children, finding both a life away from screens and a courage he did not know he had.

Das is known for “Village Rockstars,” “Bulbul Can Sing,” “Tora’s Husband” and “Village Rockstars 2.” Her films have screened at more than 150 festivals and collected over 75 awards.

The latest additions to the DIFF lineup also include Don Palathara’s “The Uncertainty Principle,” set among young people in Kochi chasing careers in cinema, and “Cool Ladies Club,” a documentary co-directed by Shilpi Gulati and 10 women from Mumbai’s eastern suburbs who made the film together over 18 months.

Also on the slate are Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Kolkata-set Berlin-debuting family drama “Shadowbox,” Rafael Kapelinski’s Poland-Hungary title “Budapest Diaries” and Eimi Imanishi’s Western Sahara-set “Nomad Shadow.”

They join titles from the festival’s initial lineup, among them Gurvinder Singh’s Locarno title, India-France co-production “Rehmat,” which weaves together three stories set in present-day Punjab; “Termite,” a short set in 1990s Old Delhi that marks the first fiction film from Oscar-nominated documentarian Shaunak Sen; and Oliver Laxe’s Cannes-winning “Sirāt.”

The first wave also includes Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s Cannes-debuting Thai family pilgrimage drama “9 Temples to Heaven,” Sara Dosa’s Iceland-set “Time and Water,” R. Gowtham’s Berlin-bowing grief drama “Members of the Problematic Family” and Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén’s Irish folk music documentary “Celtic Utopia.” Samreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia’s documentary “The Ordinary Star” follows Nawazuddin Siddiqui as he studies the real-life occupant of the room he would use while shooting “Star,” Dibakar Banerjee’s segment in the 2013 anthology “Bombay Talkies.”

DIFF was founded by filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. This year’s edition will also run its fellowship program, with seven fellows mentored by Bhutanese director Dechen Roder and Indian independent filmmakers Umesh Kulkarni and Dominic Sangma.