Month: October 2018

October 10, 2018 4:28AM PT Christoffer Boe’s thriller “The Purity of Vengeance,” the fourth and final opus of the hit “Department Q” franchise, has scored the best opening for a local film at the Danish box office. Produced by Zentropa, “The Purity of Vengeance” has sold more than 215,052 admissions since opening on Oct.4, underscoring

Some of the biggest names in U.K. film and TV have launched the London Screen Academy. The free school for 16-to-19 year-olds in the English capital will train a new generation of industry professionals. The launch comes as U.K. film and TV boom, but the British Film Institute has warned of a skills shortage. Barbara

Yórgos Lánthimos’s “The Favourite,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” Claire Denis’s “High Life” and Ethan Hawke’s “Blaze” are among the many well-received films from Venice and Toronto set to be having their French premiere at La Roche-sur-Yon Festival which is headed by Paolo Moretti, the new topper of Cannes’s Directors Fortnight. The international competition lineup of this

“Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys,” goes an old Chinese proverb about making an example of an individual to rattle the many. Embattled Chinese actress and global celebrity Fan Bingbing, who last week admitted to running afoul of her government and evading millions of dollars in taxes, is “absolutely” being made an example of,

October 10, 2018 12:54AM PT Oral storytelling and innovative animation fuse to illustrate the plight of Swazi AIDS orphans in this audience-pleasing hybrid doc. It is through oral storytelling that most key folk tales, myths and histories across African culture have been passed and preserved through the generations. It is by tapping into this rich

Future scholars of the Cultural Appropriation Wars of the late 2010s are going to find a lot to talk about with Don McKellar’s “Through Black Spruce,” a film produced by a Cree woman (Tina Keeper) and directed by a white Canadian man that deals explicitly with sexism and Indigenous issues, and is based on a

October 9, 2018 11:25PM PT Milcho Manchevski’s helter-skelter meta-drama focuses on the exploitation of a homeless woman’s dire circumstances by a documentary filmmaker. In her confident, crafty eyes and free-flowing cadences, Condola Rashad — daughter of Phylicia and Ahmad Rashad — more than slightly recalls the style of Denzel Washington in her commanding performance in “Bikini

With his cast and crew in tow in front of a rapturous audience Tuesday night, Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins brought his latest film, an adaptation of author James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk,” to the New York Film Festival for its U.S. premiere at the world-famous Apollo Theater. The setting was all too appropriate.

October 9, 2018 11:05PM PT South Korean writer-director Kwon Man-ki debuts impressively with a tightly controlled psychodrama about the chance reunion of the victim and perpetrator of a terrible crime. The impressive graduation project of Korean Academy of Film Arts student Kwon Man-ki, slow-burn psychological drama “Clean Up” potently examines feelings of grief, guilt, and redemption.

October 9, 2018 9:52PM PT Japanese director Kôji Fukada ventures to Indonesia to welcome a magical castaway who may have something to do with the 2004 tsunami but is too enigmatic to say. The story of a nude dude who washes ashore and into the lives of four young documentary filmmakers, Kôji Fukada’s “The Man

October 9, 2018 9:22PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv, Universal Pictures claims the top spot in spending for the second week in a row with “First Man.” Ads placed for the drama had an estimated media value of $8.55 million

October 9, 2018 9:02PM PT A tortured young woman covets her neighbor’s soul in this routine yet serviceably effective chiller from Canadian director Rob Heydon. When men talk fondly about “the girl next door,” they never mean someone like Isabelle, who turns that all-American fantasy into a real nightmare for the sweet middle-class couple who

Shell companies. Off-shore accounts. Hidden tax shelters. All in shady countries with lots of palm trees but not much in the way of legal inspection or surveyance. Over the years, many of us have become familiar, at least in theory, with the nuts and bolts of how wealthy corporations and individuals avoid paying taxes by

In today’s film news roundup, Gale Anne Hurd will be honored with a lifetime achievement award, Nicole Kidman’s “Destroyer” gets an AFI Fest screening, and the holiday romance “Mr. 365” starts production. FILM FESTIVALS The Heartland International Film Festival has selected “The Terminator” and “The Walking Dead” producer Gale Anne Hurd for its lifetime achievement