Eddie Redmayne Honored By Zurich; Applause Unveils Indian PM Assassination Thriller; Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA Boards ‘Toad & Friends’; James Gray Gets Lumière Retrospective; Utopia Nabs Autograph Hunter Doc ‘Hollywood Signs’ – Global Briefs

Eddie Redmayne To Be Honored With Zurich’s Golden Eye

British actor Eddie Redmayne will be feted with the Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Eye Award for his career achievements at its upcoming edition running from September 22 to October 2. The actor will receive the honor ahead of the European premiere of Tobias Lindholm’s serial killer thriller The Good Nurse on September 25.

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Citing Oscar-winning Redmayne’s diverse credits including Fantastic Beasts, Trial Of The Chicago 7 and Theory Of Everything, ZFF artistic director Christian Jungen described the actor as one of “contemporary cinema’s most versatile actors” adding, “he furnishes his characters with a rare human depth and captivates us with his extraordinary powers of expression.”

Redmayne was previously at Zurich in 2007 in the that’s opening film Savage Grace, in which he co-starred opposite Julianne Moore. He will also participate in a Zurich Masters session during this trip to the Swiss festival.

Applause Entertainment Lines Up Crime Drama On Indian Prime Minister Assassination

India’s Applause Entertainment has greenlit a crime procedural drama about the murder of one of the country’s prime ministers. The project is based on Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassin, a book from writer and former journalist Anirudhya Mitra recently published by HarperCollins Publishers India. Rajiv Gandhi, India’s sixth Prime Minister, was killed in 1991. Mitra’s book recounts the massive manhunt that followed the assassination, including a blow-by-blow account of how a Special Investigation Team uncovered the plot and traced the mastermind to his final hideout. Applause has acquired rights to the book and film director Nagesh Kukunoor, whose previous collaboration with Applause was City of Dreams, is helming the project. “Most are aware of this incident through the medium of news and will now get a dramatized insider view of the largest manhunt in Indian history,” said Applause CEO Sameer Nair.

Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA Boards ‘Toad & Friends’

Warner Bros. Discovery has taken EMEA rights to Hoho Entertainment’s Toad & Friends, a CG-animated series based on the children’s classic The Wind in the Willows. The 52-part kids series will go on out Cartoonito channels and on HBO Max across EMEA in 2023. Directed by Tim Searle (Danger Mouse, Dennis and Gnasher) and animated by Scotland’s Wild Child Animation, Toad & Friends refreshes the characters and storylines from Kenneth Grahame’s novel for a modern audience. Zia Sands, Acquisitions, Partnerships & Coproductions Lead, Kids & Family EMEA for Warner Bros. Discovery said: “Toad & Friends is a beautiful series packed full of adventure and wrapped in the nostalgia of the original The Wind in the Willows stories that many parents will remember with such fondness.”

James Gray Feted To Be Feted With Retrospective At Thierry Frémaux’s Lumière Festival

U.S. director James Gray will be a guest of honor at the 14th edition of France’s classic film-focused Lumière Festival, running October 15-23. The festival, which was launched in 2009 by twin-hatted Cannes Film Festival Delegate General Thierry Frémaux, will run a retrospective of Gray’s work, including screenings of Little Odessa (1994), We Own The Night (2007), Two Lovers (2008) and The Lost City Of Z (2016). The honorary program will kick off with a French preview screening of his latest feature Armageddon Time, which debuted in Cannes, and a meeting with the audience event on October 16. Other guests of honor this year included Korean filmmaker South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, director of Peppermint Candy, Poetry and Burning, while Tim Burton will receive the festival’s prestigious Lumière Award.

Utopia Acquires ‘Hollywood Signs’ Doc And Sets Digital Release

Indie sales and distribution company Utopia has acquired worldwide rights to the feature documentary Hollywood Signs and will release the film digitally in the US on September 27th. The doc is directed by Bill Fishman and follows the relationship between Hollywood celebrities and their fans through the lens of the autograph-collecting subculture. Bruce Campbell (Ash Williams in the Evil Dead franchise), Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts, The Offer), Rachel True (The Craft), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Eliza Roberts (Animal House), Tom Wopat(The Dukes of Hazzard), and Karan Ashley (Power Rangers) all feature. Prior to the digital release, the film will have a one-night-only theatrical event at the Lumiere Cinema in Los Angeles.

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