Utopia Buys Participant Documentary ‘Unseen Skies’ on Evolution of Corporate Surveillance (EXCLUSIVE)

HBO Documentary Films has acquired U.S. television and streaming rights to Oscar winner Laura Poitras’s film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, fresh from its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and sneak preview at Telluride.

EXCLUSIVE: Madeleine George, playwright and writer on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, has been newly selected as the 2021 recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award, a national jury-selected prize that offers one of the largest non-profit theater commissions in the country.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max has released the trailer for The Hype Season 2 and it features the return of co-signers Offset, Bephie Birkett, and Marni Senofonte. The streetwear competition will drop on Thursday, September 22 with three episodes followed by three additional episodes on September 29 and concluding with the final two episodes on October 6.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Saudi Film Commission (SFC) has announced that four feature film project that are winners of its Daw Film Competition to discover new local talent and champion the next generation of filmmakers have finished principal photography. These works, which are likely to surface on the festival circuit, are a tangible sign that Saudi Arabia’s nascent local industry is fostering local films with potential to travel as well as to play for local audiences. The films are: “Within Sand,” a first work by Moe Alatawi inspired by the true story of a 23-year-old tobacco merchant ambushed by thieves in the desert who leave him to fend for himself with only a dagger. The film, produced by Reem Alatawi and Riyadh-based Alsarid Films, features an all-Saudi cast, while 70% of its film crew hails from Saudi Arabia. This is the first homegrown production to shoot in the unique landscapes of NEOM, the futuristic megacity in-the-making where the $100 million U.S./Saudi actioner “Desert Warrior” was shot. NEOM is situated along the kingdom’s Red Sea coast in Tabuk, in the northwest of the kingdom.

Peter Jackson's highly acclaimed documentary The Beatles: Get Back was a big winner at the 2022 Creative Arts Emmys held in Downtown Los Angeles.The eight-hour, three-part Disney+ series ended up taking home four awards out of five nominations, including the coveted Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series, according to Emmys.com.Jackson shared the big win with fellow producers, and former members of The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as Yoko Ono Lennon, Olivia Harrison, Clare Olssen, and Jonathan Clyde, along with Disney +, Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited. Big winner: Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back won four Emmys out of five nominations during the Creative Arts Emmys in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday'I'd just like to thank everyone who worked on this film, especially our family back home and our second family in London at Apple Corps,' Jackson, 60, said when he accepted the award during the ceremony, as reported by Deadline.'This could not have been made without the unfailing support of Paul, Ringo, Olivia, Julian [Lennon], Yoko and Sean [Lennon] who were all always there with their support and love.  He ended with a nod of respect to the Fab Four: 'Finally, a big shout out to The Beatles.

Like father, like daughter.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent PBS International has unveiled the trailer for “Casa Susanna,” Sébastien Lifshitz’s follow up to “Little Girl,” which is having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Giornate degli Autori section. Produced by Agat Films, ARTE France and American Experience Films, in association with BBC Storyville, the documentary film will have its North American premiere at Toronto on Sept. 9. “Susanna” delivers a look at the underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men who found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place for them to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed—dressed as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for their self-expression.

Neon in association with National Geographic Documentary Films said director Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love will cross $1 million at the box office this weekend, becoming the biggest documentary release of the year for combined domestic and international gross. The film opened this summer and is entering its ninth week in theaters nationally. It will stream on Disney+ later this year.

A 16th century castle with its own helicopter pad and maze is on the market for £3.5million - and sellers said potential buyers should not worrying about heating it.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Walls Can Talk,” the latest film by Spain Carlos Saura, director of “Raise Ravens,” “Deprisa, Deprisa” and “Carmen,” has been acquired for intentional sales by Madrid-based Latido.   Produced by María del Puy Alvarado at Malvalanda (“Madre,” “The Mole Agent”) and distributed in Spain by José Maria nd Miguel Morales’ Wanda Vision, “Walls Can Talk” will world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival as an RTVE Gala.  The doc feature sees Saura conduct his own inquest into the origins of art, directing and for once starring in a film. In it, he visits masterpieces of paleolithic art– in Spain’s Altamira and El Castillo caves, for instance – and asks modern (Miquel Barceló) and graffiti artists and urban creators (Suso 33, Zeta, Musa71) about what drives them to paint. 

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Sandbox Films and Gamechanger Films will develop “Under the Dream,” a new documentary feature that will be co-directed and co-produced by Saelyx Finna, Mia Imani and Laurie Polisky. The film is a creative documentary about the uncharted realm of dream technology and the Black-led movement to protect our minds at night. Gamechanger CEO Effie Brown, and Sandbox Film’s Jessica Harrop, head of production and development, and founding director Greg Boustead will be acting as executive producers on the project.   Sandbox is a documentary studio behind “Fire of Love,” a look at married volcanologists that debuted at Sundance before selling to National Geographic Documentary Films, and Gamechanger Films is a production company behind the upcoming A24 release “The Inspection.”

EXCLUSIVE: A documentary about President Barack and Mrs. Michelle Obama’s portraits commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery is being drawn up by Smithsonian Channel.

EXCLUSIVE: Participant’s Chloé Zhao-exec produced limited scripted series about Vincent Chin had found its writers and director.

EXCLUSIVE: Skydance Media has named industry veteran Carin Sage to the newly created role of Executive Vice President of Feature Film for the company. With more than 30 years of agency experience, Sage will be responsible for bringing in new feature projects and overseeing films through all phases from inception to production.

Meredith Woerner Deputy Editor, Variety.com If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. “Star Wars” super couple Han Solo and Leia Organa survived the rebellion and each other long enough to start a family and have a son, Ben Solo, who would (SPOILER ALERT) eventually betray them both and kill his dad with a lightsaber.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Austrian director David Wagner’s feature debut “Eismayer,” which has its world premiere in Venice Critics’ Week on Sunday, has been picked up for international sales by Paris-based Loco Films. The trailer for the film debuts here (below). In a statement, Loco’s chiefs Laurent Danielou and Arnaud Godart said: “From this true and extraordinary story, [Wagner] managed to make a very subtle and cinematic film.” The film centers on Sergeant Major Eismayer, who is known and feared as the toughest training officer in the Austrian armed forces, ruthless with recruits and unwavering in his discipline, order and macho toughness. But when he starts to fall in love with Falak, a new recruit who unashamedly embraces his homosexuality, Eismayer’s closeted existence is shaken to the core. To a man like Eismayer, loving another man cannot be reconciled with the understanding of what a model soldier should be. Will he choose to protect his badass, tough guy image over all else, or can he follow his heart and his true desire? The film is inspired by a true story.

Michaela Zee editor DCTV’s new documentary-dedicated theater, “Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film,” will open its doors Sept. 23. Located in DCTV’s historic Chinatown firehouse building in New York, the nonprofit theater will begin its opening week with an exclusive screening of Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.” “I’m so excited that my new documentary, ‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,’ will kick off the opening of DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema,” Disney said in a statement. “I can’t wait to meet the first audiences who will be enjoying and shaping this vital new addition to New York City’s arthouse film scene.”

EXCLUSIVE: Dita Von Teese has signed with A3 Artists Agency for representation.

Naman Ramachandran “Me, My Mom & Sharmila,” the feature directorial debut of queer Muslim writer-director Fawzia Mirza, has set its cast. The film will feature Amrit Kaur, the breakout star of Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s HBO Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls”; Hamza Haq, who won best actor in 2021 and 2022 at the Canadian Screen Awards for CTV medical drama “Transplant”; and Nimra Bucha (“Ms. Marvel,” “Churails”). Set in 1999, the film follows Azra (Kaur) over 48 hours as she travels from her home in Canada to her parents’ homeland of Pakistan to bury her father (Haq). Azra struggles to connect with her conservative mother Mariam (Bucha), but her return to Pakistan launches her into memories both real and imagined that reveal their unexpected similarities.