News

Exclusive: Walter Presents has stocked up on premium international drama and bought a trio of titles from Zdf Studios. The on-demand service is operated by Global Series Network and its lineup is curated by Walter Iuzzolino. It majors in the best of foreign-language drama from around the world and Iuzzolino has duly snapped up The Shadow, Suplex and more Sløborn.

The Shadow follows a female journalist embarking on a new life in Vienna. Once there, she meets a beggar who tells her she is going to kill a man, setting a dark prophecy in motion. The six-parter was for German streamer ZDFneo and scooped the Audience Choice Award at the German Seriencamp festival in 2023. It will be on Walter Presents services in the U.S. and the UK.

Danish series Suplex will also be on the U.S. service. The show is a whodunnit following events after a competitor is murdered at a wrestling tournament.

Sam Spade is back on the case.

The iconic private detective famously played by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon is coming to AMC in Monsieur Spade (premiering this Sunday at 9/8c), with Clive Owen taking on the role. It’s a responsibility that Owen doesn’t take lightly, he tells TVLine: “I’m actually a huge fan of the genre. I’m a huge fan of Bogart, and I know The Maltese Falcon really well… In some way, Spade is the sort of quintessential Bogart character.” So when executive producers Scott Frank and Tom Fontana called Owen to see if he was interested,...

Renewing a frequent relationship between one of Europe’s highest-profile distributor-curators of foreign language drama series and one of their biggest suppliers, VOD service Walter Presents has swooped on a six-title drama series package from Germany’s Zdf Enterprises.

Deal plays off a just-announced exclusive strategic alliance between Walter Presents and Australia’s Stan, owned by Nine Digital, which charges Walter Presents with securing international drama for the fast-building Australian SVOD service. All the shows are scheduled to air on Stan as first-runs and are exclusive to Stan in Australia.

Made in the run-up to early March’s Berlin Film Festival, the deal takes in two titles — “Grow” and “Standing Tall” — both bound for the event’s new curated TV showcase, Berlinale Series Market Selects.

Created by Milad Avaz, one of Variety’s 2018 10 Europeans to Watch, “Grow” is described as a fast-moving thriller about two brothers — one a cop, the...

by Cláudio Alves

Few cineastes can count their last film among their greatest works. Fewer still finish a career, a life, with their best cinematic effort. As much as I admire such gems as Ophüls' carnivalesque Lola Montès, the amorous musings of Dreyer's Gertrud, the bittersweet self-reflections of Akerman's No Home Movie and Varda's Varda by Agnès, I wouldn't classify any of those pictures as their director's crown jewels. John Huston's a whole different matter.

The American filmmaker, whose career spanned six decades, finished his last picture in 1987. Faithfully adapted from a short story by James Joyce, The Dead may not be as influential as The Maltese Falcon, as exciting as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, nor as tragic as The Misfits, but, as far as I'm concerned, it's Huston's most ravishing creation…...