And yet another new project to look forward to. According to Deadline, Kelsey Asbille (Yellowstone), Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story), Ben Platt (Theater Camp), Emma Roberts (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), Laura Harrier (BlacKkKlansman) and Noomi Rapace will star in psychological thriller The Technique. The film is the feature directorial debut of Brian McGreevy, who wrote an original script. Plot details are being kept under wraps. Miles Skinner of Hypothesis and Andrea Bucko of Raised By Wolves are producing alongside Jordan Drake, David Duque-Estrada, Chadd Harbold, and Russ Posternak. Zak Williams of Hypothesis, Jordan Claire Robbins, and Nini Le Huynh of Raised By Wolves are Executive Producing alongside John Kalafatis, Joanna Kalafatis, and Daniel Cypress of York Films, as well as Chris K. Daniels of Cinelaunch. Pete McClellan is serving as co-producer. Raised By Wolves is financing the film. This marks the first feature film primarily packaged and produced by Miles Skinner and Zak Williams’ development and production company, Hypothesis. Their growing slate includes the Zach Kuperstien-helmed horror film “The Stairs,” set to begin production in late spring, alongside Matt Creed and India Donaldson’s fugitive road-trip epic “Down To Zero” and Roi Cydulkin’s hard-boiled crime thriller, “Ultra Beige,” among others. Raised By Wolves is a development fund, finance company, and production banner founded by Andrea Bucko of Sugar Rush Pictures and Jordan Claire Robbins. The company has invested in “Alpha Gang,” written and directed by the Zellner Brothers; “Captivated,” written and directed by Dito Montiel; and Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire.” Along with investing through Raised By Wolves, Bucko has produced these films under her Sugar Rush Pictures.

Another new project announcement, this time according to Variety: Noomi Rapace is set to star in female-led action thriller “Traction,” which WestEnd Films is bringing to the EFM. Directed by Lorraine Darrow (“Pas Sages”), production is set to begin in August. The high-stake thriller follows Kate (Rapace), a former U.S. soldier leading a humanitarian mission through war-torn Chechnya with her Chechen ally Magomed. But their mission turns deadly as they unwittingly harbor a young rebel, who’s transporting a mysterious package. Darrow said Rapace “brings so much to Kate’s character: strength, vulnerability and subtlety. I’m so impatient to work with her.” WestEnd Films’ Maya Amsellem said: “Following the success of our previous collaboration on ‘Close,’ and with our shared commitment to telling powerful female stories, WestEnd is thrilled to be working again with Lorraine and Noomi on this exciting, action-packed film” Davidson at Elizabeth Bay Prods. said, “I am delighted that the first film from our collaboration with WestEnd and FilmHedge is Traction. We all fell in love with Lorraine’s work and having Noomi playing Kate will do the story justice.” FilmHedge’s Gosier said: “We are excited to have Traction as the first film from our pact with Elizabeth Bay, and we are looking forward to backing the rest of Dennis’ slate.”

Deadline recently reported on talent agent Bonnie Bernstein moving from agency CAA to Gersh, and a couple of her famous clients moving with her, among them Noomi Rapace. This wouldn’t be front page news for the site, but the Deadline article features the following paragraph on Bernstein’s clients: Most recently seen on Apple TV+’s Constellation, Noomi Rapace is about to start shooting on two independent films back to back, “The Technique” and “The End of Us”. This comes as a surprise since neither “The Technique” nor “The End of Us” are known titles that have been previously announced or discussed. The article does not give any further information – and there is nothing online about either project. So, either there will be two additional surprise projects for this year, or someone falsley copied two projects from another talent into Rapace’s mention. We will see. In other film news, according to Film News Europe, Teona Strugar Mitevska is currently in postproduction with her seventh feature film “Mother”. The film, focusing on a pivotal moment in the life of Mother Teresa, is set in 1948 Calcutta. The narrative unfolds over seven days as Mother Teresa prepares to leave St. Mary’s convent to establish her own religious order. She appoints Sister Agnieszka as her successor, who soon confides that she is pregnant and seeks an abortion, placing Mother Teresa in a profound moral dilemma. Besides Rapace in the titular role, Sylvia Hoeks is Sister Agnieszka, and Nikola Ristanovski plays Father Friedrich, Mother Teresa’s confidant.

We’ve been reporting on “Hearts of Stone” for a while now. The short film, shot in 2021, made the festival rounds earlier this year and is qualified for Oscar consideration by winning Best International at the L.A. Shorts International Film Festival and the Grand Prize for Best Live Action Short at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film’s director Tom Van Avermaet has now released a first trailer for the film. Screencaptures have been added to the photo gallery. The official synopsis is below.

In a sculpture park in the heart of a bustling metropolis, Paula, a lonely street artist, entertains people as a living statue. She longs with an impossible love for Agatha, a stone sculpture next to her regular spot. When a festival for living statues arrives in the park, Paula is dismayed to find that Agatha has been replaced by a new, modern sculpture. After a frantic search, she finds Agatha in a group of discarded statues, ready to be taken away. Almost as a farewell, she kisses the object of her affection. Later, at the festival’s closing party, Paula meets Agatha in the flesh.

Focus Features has picked up the sci-fi thriller Hot Spot from director Agnieszka Smoczyńska. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film, which stars Noomi Rapace, Andrzej Konopka and Reika Kirishima, wrapped production last week in Greece. Focus is reuniting with Smoczyńska after releasing her first English-language feature Silent Twins, which starred Black Panther breakout Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance. “Agnieszka is a singular visionary whose work — be it about vampire mermaids, silent twins or a tech-ruled society — is both visually astounding and thematically prophetic, and we can’t wait to share her latest with the world,” Kiska Higgs, president of production and acquisitions at Focus, said in a statement. The U.S. studio picked up all territories worldwide, except for Poland, Greece and France, for Hot Spot, which is based on script by Robert Bolesto. The indie is set in a near future society ruled by sentient artificial intelligence and has a private eye investigate a murder case only to discover a rebel group capable of undermining the digital overlord. “I’m honored to work with Focus Features. Their remarkable achievements in film are matched only by their unwavering respect and support for directors. With Hot Spot, my goal is to create an immersive cinematic experience that captures the essence of today’s world, where advanced technology feels like magic, and love is intricately tied to fear,” Smoczyńska added in her own statement.

Last week, both director Teona Mitevska and Noomi Rapace shared a group shot from the filming of “Mother”, announcing the film has wrapped. Rapace wrote: “We just wrapped the shoot of “Mother Teresa” in Kolkata, India. Thank you all in the team for all the hard work and dedication! It’s been a brutal and beautiful. I’m deeply grateful to have been part of this. Thank you to my director Teona Mitevska, @mitevskateona . I love you”. According to an article by Variety, “Mother” – which chronicles a week in the life of 38-year-old Mother Teresa – started filming in September this year. Here’s the Hollywood Reporter’s press release from Cannes earlier this year:

Rapace will play the legendary Catholic saint in the biopic Mother, which will follow seven consecutive days at a pivotal moment in Mother Teresa’s life, the period where she decides to leave the Loreto Entally convent in Calcutta and launch her own order. Mother will be Mitevska’s English-language debut. She called Rapace, the star of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, ‘” a perfect fit” for her depiction of Mother Teresa, which will be imagined as a rebellious, almost punk figure fighting against the structures of the Catholic church. Mother is structured as a five-country co-production between Macedonia’s Sisters and Brother Mitevski, Belgium’s Entre Chien et Loup, Denmark’s Frau Film, the Netherlands’ Baldar Film, Sweden’s Spark Film & TV and Film i Väst. Kinology is handling global sales.

Noomi Rapace is on board to narrate and executive produce Embankment Films’ feature documentary Garbo: Where Did You Go?, about the life of Hollywood actress Greta Garbo. Rapace will narrate the film in Garbo’s own words, taken from archive sources about her life. Garbo: Where Did You Go? is being made by Embankment Films in partnership with Sky in the U.K. and NonStop Entertainment and is co-produced by Mylla Films. Fremantle is handling worldwide sales. The feature documentary will air on Sky Arts in the U.K. in 2025, following a winter 2024 theatrical release. Jack Oliver, head of co-productions at Sky, commented: “Sky is excited by the opportunity of working again with Embankment Films; we share the same ethos and ambition in cinematic feature documentaries of iconic figures and getting the story behind the story.” Nick Taussig of Embankment, who is producing, commented: “We’re honored to have Noomi on board, who really captures Garbo’s spirit in her narration, and are excited both to partner with Sky Arts once more, who are supporting some of the highest caliber documentary and to work with Lorna Tucker, who’s become a strong, distinctive voice in documentary filmmaking, telling the stories of important, progressive women who have risen up and challenged the status quo.”

There are a couple of updates on the short film “Hearts of Stone”, directed by Tom Van Avermaet, which Noomi filmed back in 2020/2021. It been making the festival rounds since earlier this year, having had its world-premiere at the Belgian Film Festival Oostende. It was also shown at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and HollyShorts Film Festival and won the prize for Best International Film at the LA Shorts. Later this year, it will be shown at the Sapporo International Short Film Festival. A couple of new production stills and an on-set picture have been added to the photo gallery.

In a sculpture park in the heart of a bustling metropolis, Paula, a lonely street artist, entertains people as a living statue. She longs with an impossible love for Agatha, a stone sculpture next to her regular spot. When a festival for living statues arrives in the park, Paula is dismayed to find that Agatha has been replaced by a new, modern sculpture. After a frantic search, she finds Agatha in a group of discarded statues, ready to be taken away. Almost as a farewell, she kisses the object of her affection. Later, at the festival’s closing party, Paula meets Agatha in the flesh.

Another summary of the Sarajevo Film Festival Q&A, this time from Deadline. Noomi Rapace teased elements of her upcoming project Mother, in which she will play the revered and “complex” Catholic saint. The Swedish star, who is currently serving as a jury member at the Sarajevo Film Festival, has been prepping for the indie project with director Teona Strugar Mitevska (God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya) and remarked that in between watching films at the festival, she’s also “reading a lot about” Mother Teresa. “I’ve been reading her letters, listening to her and doing research,” Rapace told Deadline. “There’s also a lot of negativity written about her so I’m filling myself with everything I can and trying to find who she is for me and, in conversations with Teona, we’re finding our Mother Teresa.” Rapace stressed the film, which is the English language debut from Strugar Mitevska, will not be a biopic, but will rather examine seven crucial days during the saint’s life when she decides to leave the Loreto Entally convent in Calcutta to launch her own Missionaries of Charity. The complete article can be read over at Deadline.She also talked about the cancellation of “Constellation” after one season.

I loved that character. It was a beautiful journey and Peter Harness is a brilliant writer and became a dear friend of mine. I loved working with Apple and the creative team and I was disappointed at first when it was canceled. It was a long journey though. I was prepping for three months and shooting for eight months so when you take on something of that level, it’s a big commitment. But I believe things happen for different reasons and I wouldn’t be able to do the films I’m doing now had they called for a second season. I’m very much in love with European arthouse directors at the moment and it feels refreshing and liberating for me to go back a bit to where it all started – small and more rock and roll. (Noomi Rapace, Deadline, August 22, 2024)

Noomi Rapace is teasing her portrayal of Mother Teresa in the upcoming film “Mother,” in which the multi-faceted Swedish talent tackles the role of the Catholic saint when she was just an ordinary woman, Variety reports. Speaking at the Sarajevo Film Festival this week, where she’s part of a competition jury headed by Paul Schrader, Rapace said she was drawn to the offbeat portrait of Teresa because she wasn’t interested in doing a conventional biopic. “She was no saint,” Rapace said. “She’s a quite complex character.” “Mother,” which marks the English-language debut of North Macedonian filmmaker Teona Strugar Mitevska, will follow seven days during a pivotal moment in the life of the revered saint, when she decides to leave the Loreto Entally convent in Calcutta and launch her own order. The complete article can be read over at Variety.

She’s waiting for permission from the Vatican to go out on her calling, her mission, to leave the convent and start her mission outside. No one has done what she’s asking permission to do. It hasn’t been done before. She’s a woman in a man’s world. I’ve felt like I’m against all odds many times and finding my voice and myself in different foreign situations, so I think I can relate to her stubbornness and her conviction that she needed to do this, even if it was going to be painful. She talks a lot about darkness and her doubts. She once said, ‘If I will ever become a saint, it will surely be one of darkness,’ which is very powerful. Both me and Teona somehow have some connecting tissue to Mother Teresa’s determined stubbornness, and how she takes on something and how she doesn’t back away and just pushes through. I can relate to that, that you keep fighting for something you believe in, even if everyone is telling you it’s not going to happen. Or no one else can see it. (Noomi Rapace, Variety, August 21, 2024)