Mike Downey, European Film Academy Chair, Unveils Slate of Projects Under Downey Ink Banner (EXCLUSIVE)
'My taste for a diverse range of world cinema projects remains,' Downey said. 'It is the company's goal to connect with the best in writing from European masters, as well as engage with projects that demonstrate a social conscience and also have an engaged political agenda. I'm with Mayakovsky when he said, 'Art is not a mirror to hold up to reality, it is a hammer to beat it into shape.''
More from Variety
Arte/ZDF, Port au Prince Board 'Ivan & Hadoum' (EXCLUSIVE)
Alejandro Amenábar's Historical Epic 'The Captive' Captures Pre-Sales as Disney Dates Spanish Release (EXCLUSIVE)
'Sex' Review: Masculinity Loosens Up in the First Chapter of Dag Johan Haugerud's Arthouse Trilogy
Downey is developing two feature projects with Prague-based producer Sarka Cimbalova at Marlene Films: an adaptation of Kateřina Tučková's hit novel 'The White Water,' and 'Razor Man,' written by Marek Epstein, whose credits include Agnieszka Holland's 'Charlatan.' As previously announced, Downey is executive producer on Holland's 'Franz,' which is also produced by Marlene Films.
Downey and Albania's Fatmir Koçi are adapting 1936 Albanian novel 'If I Were a Boy' by Haki Stërmilli. The film, which will shoot in the third quarter of 2025, explores the inner world of a girl living in Tirana, and her thoughts on women's emancipation and empowerment in Albania's patriarchal society.
Downey and Koçi are in post-production on a film written by the two of them, 'Lady Di.' Shot in Tirana, the film is a drama about three homeless teenagers who find refuge with a kindly prostitute.
Downey has two projects in Turkey: 'The Sun, the Moon and the Stars,' to be directed by Emir Kuelal Haznevi, is in pre-production; and 'LO-FI,' directed by Alican Durbaş and produced by Vayka Film's Ipek Erden, is in post-production.
Downey is working with Jamilla van der Hulst and Conrad Alleblas of the Netherland's JaJa Film Prods. on documentary 'Cricket Dreams,' which has just completed post-production. It is the story of nine former street-connected children from Delhi who compete in the Street Child Cricket World Cup in Chennai, India. The film will premiere this month at the New Delhi Film Festival.
'Girls on Wire,' written and directed by Vivian Qu, is set against the backdrop of today's rapidly evolving China, with the film following the plight of two young women and their struggle for self-determination. The film is a genre mix of family drama, thriller and homage to martial arts movies.
It is produced by Sean Chen and co-produced by Downey via L'Avvantura Films and J.Q.Spring Pictures. Films Boutique is handling international sales.
Qu was the director of Venice 2017 competition entry 'Angels Wear White' and producer of 2014 Golden and Silver Bear winner 'Black Coal, Thin Ice.'
Best of Variety
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
Grammy Predictions, From Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar: Who Will Win? Who Should Win?
What's Coming to Netflix in February 2025
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
☕️🥐 FC Breakfast: Balotelli meets Rami 🤣, a stadium in ruins in Corsica 😱
The crazy story between Rami and Balotelli 😂 We know it, Adil Rami doesn't mince his words. Interviewed by L'Équipe, he dropped another gem about his former teammate Mario Balotelli. Together under the colors of OM, the duo made headlines by... cracking nuts with their heads! Another anecdote in the "Super Mario" collection, which is already well-stocked. RC Strasbourg's crazy record 👶 This doesn't make us younger… Against Metz, RCSA made history by becoming the first club in the top five European championships to line up 11 starters all born in 2000 or later. An incredibly young composition, but already terribly effective, which offered the Strasbourg team a mature victory on the first day. This Corsican stadium is falling apart 😳 Formerly a Ligue 1 resident, Gazélec Ajaccio is now far from its glory days. Relegated to National 3, the club now plays in a particularly dilapidated stadium. A sad situation for the supporters... but which still offers lunar images! The must-haves of the day 🍿 - Monaco stripped, two huge departures in the coming days? - Arsenal already hits hard at Manchester United on the first day! - LOSC - Olivier Giroud signs his return to Ligue 1 with a goal after 10 minutes of play! This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. 📸 Marco Luzzani - 2024 Getty Images
New York Times
7 hours ago
- New York Times
Tijjani Reijnders: The story behind one of the best Premier League debuts
C'est la vie is the motto Tijjani Reijnders lives by, the one that inspired his trademark shoulder-shrug celebration he performed on his debut for Manchester City. That's life and, yes, this — running football matches — is what I do. Deal with it. The Premier League certainly got the message. He played a key role in all of City's goals in their 4-0 away win against Wolves: orchestrating the first, scoring the second, assisting the third and doing the leg work for the fourth to rank among the best debuts the division has ever seen. Advertisement Yet, amidst a rowdy Molineux atmosphere and a team who were ultra-aggressive in their pressing, the Dutchman delivered this stunning efficiency in such a nonchalant, unassuming fashion that it felt like he never left third gear. Sergio Aguero was the only other City debutant to score and assist on his debut, but that was in 2011 against Swansea City when freakish talents like the Argentinian looked like they belonged on a different planet from the mere mortals in the bottom half of the league. The Premier League has been utterly transformed since then. It is not supposed to be this easy anymore. Every player needs time to adjust to the relentless pace and supreme physicality of these 20 squads of iron men. It is why more teams have become hesitant about signing players from other leagues, particularly in midfield, where the demands are extreme. So, how is a 27-year-old Dutchman — who has only spent two years in the top five leagues of Europe and made his Netherlands debut less than two years ago — running the show like this in his first game? And how, in a market where the new benchmark for a top-six rotation player seems to have shot up to £55million ($74.5m), did City only pay about £45m for Reijnders this summer? It is a question the Milan bean counters will have been ruminating over as their heads hit the pillow on Saturday evening. C'est la vie? Not so much. When Reijnders set up the third goal of the game, had the San Siro been put on lockdown, it would have been entirely understandable: surely we extracted more cash than this from a club as wealthy as City, who desperately needed to replace Kevin De Bruyne? Alas, for Milan, when they emptied their pockets and raided the drawers, they will have realised that they did indeed leave tens of millions on the table. Market forces have played their part in a summer that has seen Milan recoup €150m (£130m) from player sales. Finishing eighth, outside of the European places, was financially damaging and created a hole that needed to be plugged. Another saleable asset in goalkeeper Mike Maignan attracted only a low-ball offer from Chelsea, while Theo Hernandez dropped off so badly that the fee Al Hilal paid was lower than hoped. Advertisement The other factor was Reijnders himself. They respected that a player of his calibre — he scored 15 goals and was named Serie A midfielder of the season despite a very poor team campaign — had to be playing Champions League football every year, so they accepted that they would sell if the price was right. City director of football Hugo Viana joined the club from Sporting CP in April and was intent on making Reijnders a key part of the squad refreshment that got underway in January. When Reijnders was at AZ, Viana was the first sporting director of a major club to inquire about signing him. He had bigger clubs interested come 2023, with Barcelona keen but unable to follow through financially. City had also been tracking Reijnders for some time. Ex-Sheffield United midfielder John Gannon was the European scout who sent in months of glowing reports from his dispatches in Italy. Ilkay Gundogan was the first signing of Pep Guardiola's Manchester City tenure. He is one of the players who understands his vision of football on a granular level, so much so that there have been talks over him joining the staff as a coach when he retires. Whether the German noticed it from the bench on Saturday is unknown, but he appears to have a clone of his younger self playing in what was once his rightful position in midfield. Despite his return from a year at Barcelona, he is a different player now and the lack of legs in midfield last season was evident. Reijnders has instantly rectified that, but the opening goal was not about his engine and off-the-ball running, it was about disguise and his ability to wait for the right picture to emerge before releasing the ball. As he collected it on the halfway line, he subtly feigned to pass the ball to four players: a short pass to Bernardo Silva through the lines, a through ball to Erling Haaland, a diagonal pass to Rico Lewis in the channel, and then a ball out wide to John Stones. Advertisement In the first three moments, he forced at least two players to drop back, which created space for him to drive into and unsettled Wolves' shape. In the final fake pass, he opened his body as if to play wide before performing la croqueta — a skill his idol Andreas Iniesta made famous by zig-zagging the ball with one foot followed by the other — to weave past two players. The final part saw him delicately scoop the ball over the top of the defence for Lewis to square to Haaland. Every action is so in control, and it was the same four minutes later when he made it 2-0. Oscar Bobb seized on a slack pass and led a counter-attack with Haaland and Reijnders on either side. The space opened up for the ball to be laid into Reijnders' path, but he was wide of the goal and 20 yards out. Yet, he showed the composure to simply guide the ball into the far corner. 'The first season at Milan, I wasn't calm in my head when I had opportunities and it was something I was thinking about in the summer after,' Reijnders told The Athletic last season. 'I watched clips back of myself when I got into those situations and tried to adapt to those kind of things in the second season, to be calmer in front of goal.' Reijnders' two actions completely took the wind out of Wolves, who had been competing well and were unfortunate not to be in front. Come the second half, a 45 minutes in which Guardiola was not overly happy with the lack of control, it was Reijnders who produced the moments that brought his team up the pitch. Below, James Trafford waited for an option to open up and Reijnders saw the space to run into for a clipped pass. He cushioned the ball down from the sky, drove forward another 10 yards, and played a one-two with Bobb before playing a blind pass behind him to Haaland, who curled into the far corner. Reijnders showed great awareness to spot the Norwegian and it is that game intelligence which shone throughout against Wolves. He repeatedly made runs down the right flank, spotting when they had created an overload and running in behind. For Rayan Cherki's goal, he combined in small spaces out wide and continued his run behind the Wolves defence. His cross ran through to a City player at the back post and, in the next phase, Cherki scored. C'est la vie. Try as they may, Wolves will not be the only Premier League team to be on the wrong end of Reijnders' brilliance this season. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Social media hit Ilona Maher takes women's rugby onto new plane
Ilona Maher transcends women's rugby, giving it a profile outside of the sport in the way that Mia Hamm did for women's football. Now the stage is set at the women's World Cup in England for the American to spark even more interest. The 29-year-old phenomenon has attracted over eight million followers on social media, not only through her sporting exploits but also for her promotion of body positivity. She played a pivotal role in the USA women's team winning a first ever Olympic medal, beating Australia in the third-place playoff in Paris last year. On the back of that achievement, Maher featured in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition and appeared in the US version of hit TV show "Dancing with the Stars", finishing runner-up. The Maher-fuelled improvement of the USA team attracted the attention of American investor Michele Kang who donated $4 million to help develop the USA Women's Rugby Sevens Team over four years. In another sport, Kang owns the Lyon women's football team, the eight-time European champions. Maher's days in Paris were not just spent playing rugby but also attracting even more followers with her pithy social media posts. She compared life in the Athletes' Village to a reality TV show, in one humorous posting saying she was there "looking for love", to which her friend replies: "No you are here to play rugby." In more reflective mode in Paris, she told the Bleacher Report one of her goals was trying to reassure "girls" that playing sport did not take away their "girliness". "What we're trying to show is the beauty that in sports you can be a badass on the field, you can be a beast on the field, but also be a beauty," she said. "It's really important for me because I want girls to see what their body is capable of. "It's not just to be looked at, objectified, but it's strong and it's fast, and it's brilliant." Maher, who through her body positivity push has become a brand ambassador for a deodorant and a skincare product she co-founded, revels in her global popularity and being "America's sweetheart." "I love when people call me that because I feel like I'm maybe not the image you would have of a sweetheart in some sense of the word,' Maher told CNN in January this year. "I'm honoured." - 'Tone down' - Maher, who hails from Vermont, may be extrovert and cheerful but she keeps her ego in check by showing appreciation to those women sports stars who paved the way for her. Hamm, her fellow American and a groundbreaking football superstar of the 1990s and early noughties, a two-time Olympic and World Cup winner, features high on the list. "I remember in our gym we always had a poster of Mia Hamm, and that was always cool to look up to her," Maher told the Bleacher Report. Closer to home, though, she is part of a tight-knit family unit, with her father Michael, a keen rugby player who introduced her to the sport, Netherlands-born mum Mieneke and sisters Olivia and Adrianna. Elder sister Olivia has a considerable social media presence herself. From her father Ilona not only learned about rugby but also a crucial life lesson when he defended her at a softball event. One of the other dads complained that Maher's pitches were unhittable but he was put in his place by Maher senior. "I think that was the first moment of being told to never tone it down," she told CNN. "Because that dad over there … wanted me to tone myself down so that it could be easier for (his daughter). "But that's not the world, is it? The world isn't going to tone down for you." Instead Maher has upped the ante and the fruits for women's rugby have been plentiful as New Zealand legend Portia Woodman-Wickliffe told AFP. "Having someone from America with that American market who is very confident, loves rugby, loves supporting women's bodies, someone as vocal as that is amazing for us," Woodman-Wickliffe said. "We need to capitalise and follow her as much as we can." pi/gj
