EXCLUSIVE: International TV industry veteran Noel Hedges has found his next gig.

We can reveal Hedges has joined Canada’s Boat Rocker Studios as Senior VP, Global Acquisitions and Content Strategy. The role will be based in Boat Rocker’s London, UK office.

This comes after Deadline was first with the news Hedges had exited Lionsgate earlier this year. A well known face at international markets, he has more than 25 years’ experience with senior roles at the likes of DRG, ITV Studios, Cineflix and eOne, prior to its acquisition by Lionsgate.

In his newly created role, Hedges will seek to increase the long-term value of Boat Rocker’s content portfolio through IP acquisitions, rights ownership deals and co-production partnerships. He will report directly to Jon Rutherford, Boat Rocker’s President, Global Content & Rights. Hedges will start with the company in early October and be at MIPCOM with the Boat Rocker team.

“In addition to his wealth of experience, Noel is extremely well-regarded throughout the industry, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to the Boat Rocker Studios team,” said Rutherford. “This is an exciting time for our company as we continue to execute on our strategic priorities, with a clear focus on investing in great IP and maximizing its value across our business.”

Boat Rocker’s projects include Netflix’s Bet and Geek Girl; BBC, Binge and RTÉ co-production Mix Tape; BBC Scotland and Sky New Zealand series The Ridge, Apple TV’s Invasion and Palm Royale, BBC America and CTV drama Orphan Black and kids series The Next Step.

“I’m excited to join Boat Rocker at a time when the company is investing so deliberately in distinctive, high-quality IP,” said Hedges. “I look forward to working with the team to source ambitious projects and strengthen and expand Boat Rocker’s already impressive content portfolio.”

Earlier this week, we reported that Boat Rocker had landed rights to Doula: A True Crime, an upcoming CBC doc series launching in Cannes at MIPCOM.

Following Blue Ant Media’s takeover of Boat Rocker Media last year, Ivan Schneeberg, David Fortier and John Young formed a new business to take over Boat Rocker Studios and effectively relaunched the business. It has Toronto, London, L.A., New York and Hong Kong.

EXCLUSIVE: Percy Hynes White (My Old Ass), Jeff Wahlberg (Euphoria), Zlatko Burić (Triangle of Sadness), Bobby Soto (The Tax Collector) and Ava del Cielo (House of Cards) have been cast in writer-director Omar de Soto’s feature directorial debut, Crime Novella, which was shot on 35mm film.

Written, directed and produced by de Soto, the romance crime-thriller “tells the story of two lovers on the run to save their relationship, discovering how far they’ll have to go to stay together.” Below is a first look image.

Production wrapped this summer with filming taking place on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico. In addition to de Soto, the movie is produced by Paul Bennett IV of Replica and Marco Shepherd (Midway) of Centropolis Entertainment, which financed the feature. Roland Emmerich is executive producer. Jessica Olthof and Helena Martel Seward are co-producers.

Producers describe the film as “a modern descendant of Badlands and Wild at Heart with a transgressive spirit”.

Omar de Soto, husband of master of disaster Emmerich, said: “I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting cast. Cash and Valentine have always been the heart of this film, and Percy and Jeff understood the world I was trying to build from the beginning. Percy and Jeff are intoxicating onscreen. You simply cannot take your eyes off them. Zlatko, Bobby and Ava each brought their own special sauce and made our whimsical world feel lived in. I’m incredibly proud of this cast and deeply grateful to my producers and crew who believed in the film and helped us make it on our own terms. This is their moment.”

Hynes White is best know for his role in Netflix’s hit Wednesday, where he portrayed Xavier Thorpe in season 1. He also starred in the coming-of-age Sundance comedy-drama My Old Ass. Wahlberg most recently appeared in season 3 of HBO’s smash, Euphoria.

Burić won Best Actor at the 35th European Film Awards for his role in Ruben Östlund’s satirical black comedy Triangle of Sadness, which won the Palme d’Or at the 75th Cannes Film Festival in 2022. He has previously worked with Emmerich and Centropolis Entertainment on the disaster epic 2012. Soto had a leading role with Shia LaBeouf in David Ayer’s The Tax Collector. Del Cielo’s notable credits include Netflix’s House of Cards, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series and Get Shorty, streaming on MGM+.

Hynes White is repped by Innovative Artists and Oscars Abrams Zimel & Associates (OAZ), and Sloane, Offer; Wahlberg is repped by Innovative Artists, Leverage Management, Sloane Offer; Burić is repped by Art Management; Soto is repped by Innovative Artists, Anonymous Content and Goodman, Genow; and Del Cielo is repped by Mitchell & Associates Talent. CAA reps Emmerich and Centropolis Entertainment.

Crime Novella, credit: Centropolis

France’s Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, also known as Cinemed, and Beirut-based Arab cinema platform Aflamuna have unveiled the selection for their fifth project incubator event, which will take place within the framework of the festival in October.

The initiative, bannered the Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters and supporting Arab filmmakers from across the Middle East and Africa, will showcase seven projects.

They include the documentary Disappeared following five Syrian women as they come to terms with the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands under the Bashar Al-Asaad regime, without ever giving up the search for their fate.

The work taps into a raw subject in Syria where at least 177,000 people remain missing having been forcibly disappeared by the regime from 2011 onwards.

It is the latest film from Palestinian, Syria-raised director Anas Zawahri, who made waves this year with My Memory Is Full of Ghosts, revisiting the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs in 2023, prior to the overthrowing of Al-Assad in December 2024.

Further projects in the selection include Palestinian Wisam Al Jafari’s The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness, about a mental patient who is granted a brief leave from the institution where he is being cared for to attend a family wedding.

It is Al Jafari’s debut feature after award-winning shorts Ambience (2019), By The Sea (2021), Cinema, Mon Amour (2026.)

Hanna Attallah is producing under his Route 243 banner after credits including Thank You for Banking with Us by Laila Abbas, which played multiple festivals including the BFI London Film Festival.

Cinemed and Aflamuna launched their joint project incubator in 2021, with the support of France’s National Cinema Center (CNC), to support filmmakers in 22 Arab territories in the Middle East and Africa,

Under the initiative the participants attend Cinemed’s professional days, running from October 20 to 22 this year, where they French and international professionals and decision-makers for potential partnerships.

“After five years, the Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters, in the continuity of the Aflamuna connection program, are now a well-established part of the Cinemed Meetings, attracting a vast network of producers, French and European institutions interested in discovering new projects from the Arab world,” said Cinemed director Christophe LeParc.

“We are proud to present the seven projects selected this year, and to help expanding their reach and visibility in European markets.”

Cinemed runs from October 16 to 24.

The 2026 Aflamuna x Cinemed Encounters Selection

A Tale of a Feather and a Fish
(Egypt)
Dir. Ahmed El Hawarey
Prods. Hala Lotfy (Hassala Films), Jeanne Deny (MAD Solutions)
Amidst the shadow of a devastating genetic disease, three broken family members struggle to find salvation; they are guided toward healing by the very loved ones they must care for.

Accept My Plea For Burial
(Somalia/Djibouti)
Dir. Mohammed Sheikh
Prod. Kadir Harbi, producer (Aleel Films)
In a remote Somali pastoral village, two twelve-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing. Their rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a dry riverbed during a game. With no clear witness and conflicting testimonies, suspicion grows. As grief turns to accusation, Warmooge’s mother refuses burial without justice, and the village fractures under the weight of uncertainty and pressure to resolve the truth.

Disappeared (doc)
France-Syria-Lebanon-Iraq
Dir. Anas Zawahri
Prod. Ahmad Al Haj (Wind Cinéma)
Five Syrian women confront the forced disappearance of their sons and husbands. Through their daily lives and an ongoing search for truth, they resist political erasure, preserve memory, and reclaim meaning within their cities in the Syrian marginalized countryside.

I Have Other Friends (doc)
Egypt
Dir. Yomna Khattab
Prod. Muhammad Taymour (Chaos Films)
Yomna, the director, on the verge of turning forty, takes us on a personal, intimate journey to portray her female best friends. By navigating the difficult postponed conversations with them, Yomna wonders: ‘Who are my friends when I hit forties?’

The Hearse to the Final House of Happiness
Palestine
Dir. Wisam Al Jafari
Prod. Hanna Attallah (Route 243)
When a Palestinian mental patient in his fifties is granted a brief leave to attend a family wedding, the event descends into chaotic absurdity as his political obsession, a restless family, and street protests clash.

The Space I Carry (doc)
Lebanon-France
Dir. Élise Pouchelet,
Codirector and producer. Josef Khallouf (The FilmMonk)
Born in Lebanon in 1975, at the beginning of the Civil War, Elise was abandoned, then adopted, and carried away to France. Fifty years later, she traces the two lineages that run through her, feeling her way through the fragments and silences that have quietly shaped her. It is in the solitude of the mountains, in the company of wild things, that she finally learns to inhabit the space she carries.

Twelve Fig Leaves (doc)
Lebanon
Dir. Joëlle Abou Chabké
Prod. Lara Abou Saïfan (Placeless films)
When filmmaker-turned-farmer Joëlle discovers the Bawāhīr, an ancestral Lebanese method of weather prediction, she embarks on a year-long journey to test its accuracy while building a permaculture project with her husband in his native Bekaa village. As climate uncertainty and political instability mount, their quest becomes a search for resilience, ancestral wisdom, and survival.