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With over 250 screen adaptations featuring Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the most famous characters to have graced a screen. But few of those adaptations have come from non-English speaking countries.

In the new Russian TV series, “Sherlock: The Russian Chronicles,” which transfers Sherlock Holmes to Saint Petersburg in 1889 to hunt down notorious killer Jack the Ripper, international audiences will now get a chance to discover the revered detective through a completely new lens.

Zdf Enterprises has just secured global distribution rights for the original series, produced by the Russian streaming service Start and production company Sreda.

The character of Sherlock Holmes, which British author Doyle first brought to life in 1887 in the novel “A Study of Scarlet,” has gone on to have a life of his own since that time, adapted not only in film and TV, but also gaining huge success on stage,...

Kyrgyz and Russian director Nurbek Egen is best known for feature films “The Wedding Chest” and “The Empty Home,” and he more recently transitioned to TV with the 2017 series “Two Against Death.” He is now making a play for international audiences with high-end show “Sherlock: The Russian Chronicles,” produced by Russia’s Yellow, Black and White group, and penned by Oleg Malovichko (“Sputnik”). The show is being presented to international buyers at Roskino’s Key Buyers Event this week. Egen took questions from Variety about putting a new spin on the famous detective. Excerpts.

How did you frame the narrative to make it both Russian and fresh?

In our series Sherlock Holmes travels to Russia alone, without his close friend Watson, in order to catch Jack the Ripper, whom Sherlock has been chasing from the U.K. Watson can’t travel with Holmes, since the good doctor was wounded by...

Exclusive: Fedor Bondarchuk and Dmitry Rudovsky have revealed their production slate in Cannes.

Fedor Bondarchuk [pictured] and Dmitry Rudovsky’s Art Pictures Studios, the Russian outfit behind the epic war movie Stalingrad, has announced details of its new slate.

Art Pictures’ new flagship project is sci-fi epic Attraction, which is in production and due to be released in IMAX theatres next year. During the market, the film has been sold to China.

The company also has a host of other new projects: Pavel Lungin’s psychological thriller Queen Of Spades; 3D animation Kikoriki: Legend Of The Golden Dragon; and comedies Anyone But Them, When Your Dog Is Your Matchmaker and Love On The Roof.

Attraction, which Bomdarchuk is directing, centres aliens descending on Moscow and the impact on civilization. The cast includes Oleg Menshikov and Alexander Petrov.

Further news of the films will be given at a Roskino new projects showcase in Cannes, which runs through...

For the first time in Academy Award history, 71 countries are vying for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The submissions for 2012 include director Michael Haneke’s Amour, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival; France’s global box office sensation The Intouchables; and Nairobi Half Life, the first film ever submitted by Kenya. Check out the full list below:

Afghanistan: The Patience Stone, Atiq Rahimi, director

Albania: Pharmakon, Joni Shanaj, director

Algeria: Zabana!, Said Ould Khelifa, director

Argentina: Clandestine Childhood, Benjamín Ávila, director

Armenia: If Only Everyone, Natalia Belyauskene, director

Australia: Lore, Cate Shortland, director

Austria: Amour,...

The Oscar season is almost upon us, and the submissions list is in for the Best Foreign Language Film category, featuring a record 71 entries, including the first submission from Kenya.

Last year, Iran’s Asghar Farhadi came away with the top prize for his acclaimed film, A Separation, and the year before, it was Denmark’s Susanne Bier with her In a Better World.

This year, there are already a handful of strong contenders amongst the pack, most notably Michael Haneke’s Amour, for Austria, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; Olivier Nakache’s and Éric Toledano’s The Intouchables, for France, which has been breaking records at the global box office; Pablo Larráin’s No, for Chile, which also came away from Cannes with an award in hand; Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta, for South Korea, which took four awards at Venice, including (controversially) the Golden Lion; and...

The Intouchables

A record 71 countries, including first-time entrant Kenya, have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®. In May, Michael Haneke.s Amour (Love) won the Palme d.Or at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and was shown this past weekend at the 50th New York Film Festival. However the film I was happiest to see make the list below is from France – The Intouchables from directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. Check out our review Here.

In the Academy’s rules, only one picture will be accepted from each country. Plus the Academy Statuette (Oscar) will be awarded to the motion picture and accepted by the director on behalf of the picture.s creative talents. Ultimately five foreign language motion pictures are nominated for this award.

Director/writer Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation from Iran won the Oscar for the Best...

Update: The official list has been revealed and the total is a record 71 movies. I have updated the list directly below or you can check it out here. The original article follows. I have been tracking the Oscar Foreign Language submissions again this year, as I have for the past several years, and it looks like we finally have a full field as I expect we will be seeing an official press release from the Academy some time this week. This year we have five more submissions already over last year as the total has now reached 68 submissions compared to last year's 63. This, despite, Iran boycotting the Oscars this year due to the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims, which has sparked so much controversy as of late. To reach the total of 68 films I have just finished adding 16 more titles to the list from the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina,...

I can't remember a time I went to the Seattle International Film Festival (Siff) press launch and looked over the list of films and saw so many I was interested in seeing. The claim to fame for over the years is to call it the largest and most-highly attended festival in the United States. This is a fact I've often taken issue with as I don't equate quantity with quality. Granted, there has been a large number of quality features to play the fest over the years, including Golden Space Needle (Best Film) winners such as Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), My Life as a Dog (1987), Trainspotting (1996), Run Lola Run (1999), Whale Rider (2003) and even recent Best Director winner, Michel Hazanavicius's Oss 117: Nest of Spies in 2006. That said, looking over this year's crop of films I see a lot of films I will be doing my absolute best to see.

Cottbus, Germany -- Serbian director Oleg Novkovic scored a hat trick at the closing ceremony Saturday of the 16th Cottbus Festival of East European Cinema as his gritty social drama "Tomorrow Morning" (Sutra Ujutru) took the main $19,000 prize for best film, the Fipresci critics nod and a new distribution support prize worth $13,000.

The film -- Serbia's official foreign language nomination for the 79th Academy Awards -- tells the story of a Serbian man who returns to Belgrade after the civil wars of the 1990s from self-imposed exile in Canada to marry a local woman.

Novkovic said it was a case of third time lucky -- the film was his third feature and it was the third time he had been to the festival.

"I'm beginning to feel as if I am part of Cottbus," he said to laughter from guests at the city's Stadthalle.

Romanian director Radu Muntean's acclaimed story...