Welcome. It’s another week, another Insider. Jesse Whittock at the wheel this week, speeding along the highway of international film and TV news. Let’s get going. Sign up to the newsletter here for the full Insider experience.

Canada’s Streaming Stress

“Preserve the principle”: Canada’s film and TV industry thought they had fought and won their war with the global streamers when the Online Streaming Act was introduced after much debate and hard graft back in 2023. That put into law the obligation for foreign streaming services to pay 5% of revenues back into original production. However, a move by the country’s media regulator to increase that to 15% in May this year appeared to have badly backfired when Mark Carney’s ruling Liberal Party responded by saying the obligations should be reviewed as costs would be passed on to subscribers. It was a gut shot for the industry. This week, a coalition of 50 major Canadian screen bodies, unions and festivals issued an open letter to Carney and culture minister Marc Miller, urging them to “preserve the principle” that foreign streamers should make “meaningful, predictable and enforceable” contributions. There is a sense in Canada that the change in policy direction is related to the fractious trade relationship with Donald Trump’s administration, though Carney insists it’s about consumers. The open letter also broadly rejected an alternative to invest an annual C$600M ($430M) into production. “Instead of building and sharing our own stories with the world, we would be left watching from the sidelines as foreign content increasingly defines what Canadians see on their screens,” the signatories argued. Netflix, Prime Video and co. have been fighting to scrap levies and obligations around the world, with their position being they already invest tons without the need for regulation. Home to television’s biggest recent hit, Heated Rivalry, Canada has once again become a key front in their global battle.

Love For Lucy Davis

Outpouring of love for original ‘Office’ star: For Brits like me of a certain vintage, there’s no beating the wonderful will-they-won’t-they love story of Dawn and Tim in Ricky Gervais’ seminal BBC mockumentary The Office. Back in 2001, we all sat glued to the TV, teeth clenched, as the two quietly tried (and usually failed) to become one in the beige surroundings of their paper merchant workplace Wernham Hogg. When they finally made it happen in the finale (sorry for the spoiler), it felt like the entire country rejoiced, so I’m sorry Ross and Rachel, you’ll always be second in my mind. Perhaps that’s why it hit so hard this week when Lucy Davis, who played receptionist Dawn so beautifully two decades ago, bravely revealed she had been diagnosed with incurable cancer. What followed was a huge outpouring of emotion and support for Davis, with her U.S. counterpart Pam among those sending love. Gervais, who played Dawn’s cringe-inducing office manager David Brent, sent a love heart emoji and Edgar Wright, who directed Davis in zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, replied, “Love you Lucy. Always.” Everyone at Deadline echoes all the sentiment.

The Deadline Interview: Mark Turtletaub

It has been a minute since veteran producer-director Marc Turtletaub got behind the camera to make a movie, but he’s back with Scottish road movie Borges and Me, which is naturally screening this weekend at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Zac tracked him down for a chat about the pic, which is about a St Andrews student (Fionn Whitehead) who embarks on a trip across the Scottish Highlands in the company of legendary poet Jorge Luis Borges (Luis Gnecco). Among highlights of the interview is news of Turtletaub’s next film: An adaptation of Ben Reeves’ novel Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt. >>>Read The Interview

Global Breakout: ‘Small Town Scandal‘

If you’re a fan of What We Do in the Shadows or Flight of the Conchords (and why wouldn’t you be?), you should try out the latest comedy breakout from New Zealand, Small Town Scandal. Billed as an Oceania version of Only Murders in the Building, the show stars Tom Sainsbury, Rose Matafeo, Morgana O’Reilly and British sitcom royalty Felicity Kendal. The story is about disgraced journalist turned podcaster Toby (Sainsbury), who returns home to investigate the bizarre death of his millionaire uncle, who has apparently perished in an automatic lawnmower accident. Ouch. Sainsbury, who wrote and acted in What We Do in the Shadows and spin-off Wellington Paranormal, initially created Small Town Scandal as a podcast, and its journey to TV provides another example of how the medium is becoming a breeding ground for scripted TV and film. >>>Read The Breakout

Secrets Of Sarajevo

Balkan up: Diana spoke to leaders at the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) ahead of the southeastern European event, which kicks off today in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Festival director Jovan Marjanović was keen to talk up Paweł Pawlikowski’s opening film, Fatherland, and to pay tribute to a jury comprising the likes of president Emily Watson, Woody Harrelson and Diego Luna. As Marjanović says, there will be “a lot of good, big filmmaking names in Sarajevo.” Sounds tasty. In a separate interview, Marjanović and SFF industry head Masa Marković called their CineLink Industry Days strand a “really well-oiled machine that creates a platform for talent at each stage of their careers.” Guess you have to get down there to see if they’re right. More on Sarajevo here.

The Essentials

🌶️ Hot One: Netflix has greenlit a feature documentary out of Mexico about Keiko, the orca who became world famous after appearing in the 1993 movie Free Willy, which Warner Bros. and the Russo brothers are planning to reimagine.

🌶️ Another One: Camille Delamarre will direct Andrea Iervolino’s sports car movie Bugatti: The Final Race, with Iervolino himself penning the script alongside Albert Ferrari.

🔥 A third for luck: Anson Boon, Ellie Bamber and Eddie Marsan will star in Halftime Hero, which is based on the remarkable true story of when soccer manager Harry Redknapp pulled a mouthy fan out of the stands to play in a professional match.

🔎 Investigation: ITN is facing questions over workplace culture after an external review concluded that journalist suffered disability discrimination when raising concerns about his working environment.

💼 New job: Matt Creasey has landed a big role at the enlarged Banijay Rights, overseeing outposts including L.A., Miami, Sydney and Mumbai. All3Media International’s Singapore and New York bases will shutter and be folded into the newly combined entity.

⚽ Disney+ has struck a deal with Gary Neville for podcasts from his Global Studios-owned company, The Overlap.

📅 Diary date: Saturday Night Live UK‘s expanded second season will debut on September 12.

🎥 Trailer: For MobLand Season 2 shows the Harrigan clan spiraling out of control.

Photo Of The Week

Doors Opening – The winners of the Locarno Film Festival’s project and incubator initiatives First Look, Alliance 4 Development and Open Doors gather to celebrate.

International Insider was written by Jesse Whittock and edited by Stewart Clarke. Send any tips, comments or ideas for international coverage to jwhittock@deadline.com and mgoldbart@deadline.com

The psychological crime thriller Come With Me, starring Theo Rossi and Ron Perlman, has sold to Vertical Entertainment for North America. The film also has a trailer now, which THR can exclusively premiere below.

The movie will be released in select theaters on Sept. 4, Firebook Entertainment has unveiled alongside the sales news and the release of the first trailer.

Directed by Aaron Harvey from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Jonathan Croom, Come With Me follows Simon Ward (Rossi), a working-class man whose life unravels after a traumatic home invasion, mounting problems at work and the loss of his best friend.

“Falling under the influence of a rhetoric-spewing radio host, Simon spirals into a violent attempt to correct the injustice he believes surrounds him,” warns a synopsis. Perlman co-stars as Dalton Kirby, with Kate French, Chris Mullinax, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Jay Huguley, Marion Kerr, Michael Sirow and Barron Boedecker rounding out the cast.

Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American distribution rights. The deal was brokered by John Moss, CEO and owner of Firebook, which is handling worldwide sales on the film, produced by Demetrius Stear of A Mind’s Eye, Colin Bates of Dream Syndicate and Aaron Harvey of Michael Bruce Pictures.

“Vertical is the perfect home for this film,” said Moss. “Theo Rossi delivers a performance audiences are going to remember, and we can’t wait for them to experience it. This is a great win for Aaron, producer Demetrius Stear and everyone who poured themselves into making this movie.”

And Harvey explained: “Come With Me is a film about perception and paranoia, and it couldn’t be more relevant than in our current, content-laden landscape, where what we ingest creates and molds the person we become, for good or bad. To see Theo Rossi portray this struggle in such an incredible and intense way was a pleasure to have created with him, and we wanted to make a genuine reflection of how damaging rhetoric can be when fed into a susceptible mind.”

Firebook, based in Tulsa, focuses on “psychologically charged, high-tension thrillers.”

Rossi is currently on a roll. His crime drama biopic Bruton, directed by Vincent Grashaw, just world-premiered at the 79^th edition of the Locarno Film Festival. He also stars in Kevin Hamedani’s The Saviors, opposite Adam Scott, which is set to hit theaters on March 26, 2027. 

But let’s give you an exclusive taste of Come With Me. Its first trailer has Rossi, Perlman – and a lot of tension. Watch the exclusive Come With Me trailer right here.

Megan Park grew up without a television in her family home. It is an unlikely origin story for the actor-turned-filmmaker behind Sundance sensation My Old Ass and current YA Prime Video hit Sterling Point, but Park admits that while growing up in Lindsay, Ontario, the prospect of a career in Hollywood wasn’t on her bingo card.  

“I come from a small town in Canada,” Park says. “Nobody in my family was in any way connected to the industry. We are lovers of the arts, and we would see theater shows, but we didn’t have a TV in my house, so I really had no idea this world existed.”

Park now counts herself as one the few contemporary filmmakers who have been able to successfully navigate the transition from acting to filmmaking. After years of establishing herself in front of the camera with a starring role in ABC’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, in which she starred alongside Shailene Woodley, she has now emerged as one of Hollywood’s most exciting writer-directors. 

Park has two films under her belt – The Fallout, a drama about the aftermath of a school shooting starring Jenna Ortega, and Aubrey Plaza comedy My Old Ass about a teenager who meets her 39-year-old self while on a mushroom trip – and now Sterling Point marks her first foray into the series world. She created and directed all eight episodes and also exec-produced and was co-showrunner on the series alongside Fake Empire’s Josh Schwarz and Stephanie Savage, the pair behind hit teen dramas The O.C. and Gossip Girl. 

Park also now counts LuckyChap Entertainment as a frequent collaborator. Margot Robbie’s company produced My Old Ass, Sterling Point and is behind Park’s upcoming third feature, romantic comedy Die Alive, starring Zoë Kravitz. That film, which Park wrote and direct from an original concept for Apple, is set to shoot later this year in New York and sees Park pivot from the YA genre, a space she admits she didn’t initially mean to dominate so well but has “been a bit of a happy accident.” 

“The Fallout was obviously going to be centered around young people and the aftermath of this school shooting,” Park says. “But My Old Ass, I was really writing it and thinking about it from ‘the old ass’ perspective.”

She continues: “It’s been a really fun and cool challenge to create really authentic and elevated content for young people because I feel like there should be more of it and it’s been a really exciting and fun challenge to try and give them something that feels like you’re not talking down to them.”

With Sterling Point, Park takes that sensibility to a larger scale. The eight-part YA series hit number 1 on Amazon Prime following its launch on the streamer on August 5. Set against the backdrop of a summer in Canada, the story centers on 17-year-old Annie Jacobson, played by Ella Rubin. Raised in New York City alongside her twin brother, Connor, and their loving adoptive father, Annie’s life changes when she inherits a mysterious grandfather’s island in Canada. There, she discovers new friendships, budding romances and long-buried family secrets, including the existence of a sister, Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), who is her late adoptive mother’s biological daughter. 

Park’s own mother was adopted, which inspired Park to write the series. “Her parents had one biological child and couldn’t have any more,” she says. “She always felt very loved and never felt any desire to seek out her biological family.” 

Park’s father also had one biological sibling and one adopted sibling so the premise of a family with a mix of adoptive and biological children was “all very close within my family.”  

“My mom didn’t want to find out about her biological roots so I would never disrespect that, but I truly feel the same way she does – I don’t feel that desire,” Park says. “I thought there hadn’t been a story centered on family and adoption that showed adoption in that point of view, which is so valid.”

Park says she wanted to explore what happens when two young women who share a mother in different ways are forced to define their relationship for themselves.

“I really wanted the core of the story to be about family and sisterhood,” she says. “They both have the same mom in a different way, and they are sisters but how are they going to find their version of family and their version of sisterhood?”

Schwartz and Savage were the only team Park and LuckyChap sent the script to. Their response was immediate, and their expertise became an accelerated education for Park, who had never worked in a writers’ room.

“They really taught me everything about structure and what those things are that you need and then they helped me figure out what the tone was and how to tell these stories,” she says. “They were so pivotal to writing these episodes and building out this amazing group of people and they were so wonderful at giving me the creative space so that I could focus on what I needed to do to direct the episodes.”

First steps

Growing up in a small town some 80 miles north of Toronto, Park became interested in acting in high school and found opportunities on productions shooting locally. “I felt like I found my people with acting and I got some success with it,” she says. “They film a lot of movies in Toronto and they’re always looking to cast local people for smaller parts so I kind of got my feet wet doing that. When I graduated high school, I begged my parents to let me defer university for a year so I could try acting.” 

Her first major audition was for The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which premiered on ABC in 2008 and ran for five seasons. She ended up getting the role of Grace Bowman, a conservative Christian cheerleader navigating romance and faith. 

“That show changed my life and opened up so many doors for me,” Park says. “It was a nonstop job and I was loving it. I met some of my best friends doing that show – it felt like college to me.”

However, something was missing for Park. “I didn’t find myself,” she admits. “I would watch Shailene and she was so passionate about scripts that she would get and these roles and I could see something in her that I didn’t feel about acting myself.”

Park continued acting, appearing in projects including Young Sheldon, Jane the Virgin and Entourage. But it was her experience making The F Word with Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver and Mackenzie Davis that changed the direction of her career. When she spoke to Kazan, who was also writing and directing at the point, about an idea she had for a show, Kazan encouraged Park to try putting one of her own ideas on paper.

“To me, she had just, like, hung the moon,” Park says. “I thought, ‘Wait, she thinks I could write? That’s so insane to me.’”

Park opened her laptop and started writing. “When I started writing it down, it was like love at first sight,” she says. “It was instantaneous and I just realized that this was what I had wanted to do.”

The first script became a dark comedy pilot that was bought by CBS but ultimately did not make it to series. Park nonetheless considers the experience a masterclass. She soon began directing campaigns and music videos, including work for Billie Eilish, Gucci Mane, Alina Baraz and Blackbear. In 2017, Park directed Lucy in My Eyes, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short. Soon afterward, she wrote The Fallout in just two weeks.

LuckyChap and Indian Paintbursh boarded her second feature, My Old Ass, which stars Plaza and Maisy Stella. The film opened to rave reviews in Sundance and was quickly scooped up by Amazon in a competitive bidding situation. 

Directing style & beyond YA

Park says her greatest strength on set is her ability to communicate with actors, and her time in front of the camera means she can “quickly figure out what actors need from me and what they don’t need from me.” 

“I was so scared to direct because I thought you had to be such a cinephile,” she says. “Growing up without a TV, I’m like decades behind on the classics. I don’t know camera lenses and although I feel very comfortable on set, I did think you had to go to film school to be a director. But now my whole philosophy with the set is that ‘I don’t know everything and I don’t need to know everything. That’s why you hire incredible DoPs and you hire people who are great at what they do.”

Park is now gearing up to direct Die Alive in New York with Kravitz, which is shooting in New York later this year.  “We’re comping it – which seems really crazy – as Stepmom meets Big Daddy. Zoë gets to be really funny in it.”

Park says it’s another “personal” story for her that explores parenthood, ageing parents, love and loss – themes that have become increasingly relevant to her own life. “It’s really a story that feels closest to where I am in my life so far,” she says. “It feels more personal in a way that I’m excited but also nervous about. Hopefully it’s something that makes people laugh really hard, and also cry, if we can get it right.”

She adds: “I keep joking that ‘heartfelt’ is not a cool Hollywood word to use in meetings. But I think when you try to weave it in amongst humor, or heavy subject matter, that’s where the magic happens.”