Global Showbiz Briefs: Fandango Portobello; Shanghai Animation

Fandango Portobello Closes Up Shop In London
Sales and finance outfit Fandango Portobello has officially shuttered its London office, the company said on Twitter. Cineuropa reports that execs Janine Gold and Sarah Nuttall are exiting. Production operations will be shifted back to the company’s headquarters in Rome and sales will fall to the office in Denmark. On Fandango Portobello’s most recent slate was Matteo Garrone’s Reality. The Grand Prize winner in Cannes last year was released in the UK via Independent on March 22. It also handled Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam (We Have A Pope). Sundance Selects recently capitalized on the media frenzy surrouding the real new pope, Francis, to re-release the comedy in New York on March 20.

Chinese Animation Studio Sues Apple
Shanghai Animation Film Studio has sued Apple in a Beijing court alleging that Apple sold its movies without consent. The state-owned studio is seeking just over $500,000, saying Apple and its Chinese subsidiary sold more than a hundred of its films including Calabash Brothers and Black Cat Detective, according to The South China Morning Post. Apple’s taken a bit of a bite in China recently. In September, a Beijing court ordered the company to pay China Encyclopedia Publishing $84,000 in compensation for providing download services without approvals and earlier this week, it was in court in a patent infringement case involving its Siri voice-activated personal assistant. “We want to keep tight-lipped on this case because, as we see it, it’s just a litigation in which we want to get compensation,” an official from the Shanghai studio told the newspaper. “It’s a sensitive period now since Apple is a big multinational company and it is surrounded by controversies on its practices in China.”

Get more from Deadline.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter