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May 9 - May 15

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“The Studio,” Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s hit satire that has captured Hollywood’s attention for its scarily on-the-nose depiction of the film industry, has been renewed for a second season by Apple TV+. In “The Studio,” Rogen stars as Matt Remick, who leads the fictional and embattled film studio Continental Studios and always has to wrestle with his insecurities, craven corporate overlords, narcissistic artists and stars, and the egos of his fellow executives, all while trying to just make good art...

Actor Jon Voight met with President Donald Trump over the weekend in Mar-a-Lago to formally pitch his plans on how to bring production back stateside, and tariffs are only a small part of that plan. Voight along with his manager and producer Steven Paul and SP Media Group and Atlas Comics President Scott Karol submitted a comprehensive plan to President Trump after several months of meeting with several dozen film and TV organizations and leaders across Hollywood about how to increase domestic film production. Per a release, the proposal includes “federal tax incentives, significant changes to several tax codes, the establishment of co-production treaties with foreign countries, and infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, film and television production companies, and post-production companies.” But in addition to saying Voight’s proposal has a focus on job training, it also only suggests “tariffs in certain limited circumstances.” Voight was named a special ambassador alongside Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone back in January, but Monday’s announcement is the first time any plans or policy suggestions have been proposed, and Stallone and Gibson have yet to comment on the matter and have not appeared to take meetings across town...

Pan-African financial institution African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has launched a US$1bn Africa Film Fund to support film production and distribution across the continent. In a statement, the bank said the equity fund will play a “pivotal role in promoting the production and global distribution of high-quality films and TV series, further amplifying Global Africa’s cultural influence across the world.” The fund is designed to act as a catalyst to attract further equity capital into the African film industry. Afreximbank was established in 1993 by African governments, private and institutional investors with a mandate to finance, promote and expand African trade. It is headquartered in Cairo. ccording to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the African film and audiovisual industry generates an estimated US$5bn in annual revenues and employs over five million people across the continent...

Mark Cousins will deliver an “anti-masterclass” at MDAG Industry, the industry strand of Polish fest Millennium Docs Against Gravity. He’ll also lead a retrospective of his work.  “As filmmakers, our job is always to surprise and excite. We need to play with the form. Film festivals should play with their form, too. Many of them have masterclasses, so I’ll do an anti-masterclass, to plant a bomb under the idea of what a master is, and what a class is,” “In Finland, I was asked to do a 90-minute masterclass. I thought: ‘You can cook something in 90 minutes.’ We put an oven on stage and cooked as we talked about cinema. In Cannes, I said to the host: ‘Choose images, don’t tell me what they are, show them to me on the day and we’ll talk about them.’  The idea was to be vulnerable, improvised and, hopefully, fun.” In Sweden, instead of doing a press conference, he hired a bus and went on “a mystery tour.”..

Exterritorial has just become a major Netflix global hit, beating some major titles. Directed by Christian Zübert, the action thriller film stars Jeanne Goursaud as Sara Wulf, a former Special Forces soldier who illegally searches a U.S. consulate after her son goes missing, finding herself wrapped up in a dangerous conspiracy. Goursaud is joined in the Exterritorial cast by Dougray Scott, Lera Abova, Kayode Akinyemi, Annabelle Mandeng, and Samia Hofmann, among others, with the action playing out in both English and German. New data from Netflix now reveals that Exterritorial is the most popular non-English movie on Netflix for the week of April 28 – May 4. The bilingual movie racked up an impressive 38.3 million views and 69.6 million hours viewed. Exterritorial is the number one movie in 74 countries this week, including the U.S., Canada, Portugal, Spain, Lebanon, Singapore, and South Africa...

In an effort to continue to confound subscribers in a way that doesn't involve price hikes, Netflix is planning to roll out a whole new user interface for its streaming platform. This new design is seemingly set to be more reminiscent of popular social media apps on your phone than it is a streaming platform, if the first look at the new mobile homepage is anything to go by. As Netflix continues to dominate the streaming landscape, this latest change speaks to the company's continuing mission to be as innovative as possible with its entertainment services. Aside from the new homepage menu for television sets, which is intended to provide better recommendations and more diverse types of content, Netflix is also renovating its mobile app. This updated look for the platform is meant to evoke the feeling of scrolling a feed like TikTok or Instagram. However, instead of seeing social media posts from users, brief clips from different Netflix titles will be played to gauge user interest in the series, at which point they can choose to watch the rest...