The Shanghai International Film Festival has postponed its 23rd edition due to continued coronavirus disruption. The event, one of China’s most significant film fests, had been due to take place June 13-22. Organizers said today that preparations had been “progressing steadily” but concerns over the pandemic meant it could not take place on its original dates – new dates will be announced “as soon as possible”.
Spanish actress Itziar Ituño, who plays Inspector Raquel Murillo in hit Netflix show Money Heist, will make her English-language debut with a role in UK short animation Salvation Has No Name. The sixteen-minute stop motion project comes from producers Delaval Film and is being part-funded by the British Film Institute. The film will also feature the voice of Yasmine Al Massri, who starred in ABC’s thriller series Quantico. Joseph Wallace is directing the project and the team includes animators from Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox and Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. It was shooting at Aardman Animations, the studio behind Wallace And Gromit, before the COVID-19 virus hit. The producers have now launched a kickstarter to help the project resume post-pandemic.
Steve Coogan’s UK production banner Baby Cow Productions has named Rupert Majendie as Head of Comedy Development. Majendie produced BAFTA nominated BBC series Pls Like and most recently BBC One sitcom King Gary. He also founded online comedy platform mr box, originating ideas that have gone on to be adapted for other mediums including Romesh Ranganathan’s Hip Hop Saved My Life. The exec brings Pls Like with him to Baby Cow and will executive produce a third series of the series for the company.
BAFTA is planning to review the full spectrum of its children’s activity this year, with a gap in the schedule provided by the cancelling of its 2020 Children’s Awards. The focus will be BAFTA’s charitable remit ‘to bring the transformative power of film, games and television to everyone’, the body said, with considerations including reviewing all categories, reaching a wider public audience, involving children’s voices, and working out how content from both 2019 and 2020 can be recognized at the 2021 awards.
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