Month: September 2019

Opening on Sept. 20 with Roger Michell’s “Blackbird,” starring Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon, and set at a stunning Basque resort, the San Sebastián Film Festival marks the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world. Here are 10 early takes on 2019’s edition. A Festival of Discoveries “Every festival has its own personality. Venice is

Veteran actor, David Wenham (“Lion,” “The Lord of the Rings”) and rising star Ahmed Malek are set to star in “The Furnace.” The adventure drama is by first time feature director Roderick MacKay, with production by Timothy White (“I Am Mother”) and Tenille Kennedy (“H Is For Happiness”). Set in Western Australia’s 1890s gold rush, “The Furnace”

Hong Kong’s Emperor Motion Pictures has picked up international sales rights to “Only Cloud Knows,” the new romantic film by Feng Xiaogang. Now in post-production, the film is a New Zealand- and China-set romance starring Huang Xuan (“Legend of the Demon Cat”) and Yang Caiyu (from Feng’s hit “Youth”). Production is handled by Feng’s Dongyang

Jan Komasa’s “Corpus Christi,” which screened this week at the Toronto Film Festival, has been selected by Poland to be its official entry in the Best International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards. The film, which world premiered as part of Venice Days earlier this month, follows 20-year-old Daniel, who experiences a spiritual transformation

NBC’s behind-the-scenes glimpse of “Downton Abbey” is coming to the international market after Drive landed the distribution rights to the upcoming special. Focus Features and Carnival Films’ “Downton Abbey” movie premiered in London earlier this week and hits theaters Friday. NBC has scheduled a Sept. 19 air date in the U.S. for its one-hour behind-the-scenes

There’s a scene in the middle of Hal Hartley’s 1992 indie “Simple Men” where a cryptic brunette played by gamin actress Elina Löwensohn — ice-pale, with blunt black bangs — interrupts the plot with a choreographed dance number to a fuzzy track by Sonic Youth. Hartley wanted to break the fourth wall, and here comes

Director Thomas Heise was born and raised in East Berlin, and he’s been working long enough in documentaries that his earliest films were suppressed by GDR censors. His understanding of the German national character is rooted in the belief in its potential for curbing freedoms at a minimum and tipping into violent nationalism and fascism

September 12, 2019 7:47PM PT Taiwan has chosen the 2018 film “Dear Ex” as its submission to this year’s Best International Film Oscars race. Directed by newcomers Mag Hsu and Hsu Chih-yen and starring Roy Chiu, Hsieh Ying-hsuan and Chen Ru-shan, it was nominated for eight Golden Horse Awards last year and won three, including best

September 11, 2001, was the day that changed our world — but really, the day that changed our world was April 24, 1980. That was when the United States, under the leadership of President Jimmy Carter, launched Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta Force mission (it was the very first Delta Force mission) that was designed

Rootbeer Films has completed “2nd Unit: Invisible Action Stars” with James Cameron, Keanu Reeves, Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry, Variety has learned exclusively. The film explores relationships between actors and stunt performers — a topic at the heart of Quentin Tarantino’s recent “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Joe Mantegna narrates “2nd Unit: Invisible Action

The conversation about gender disparity in film—which tends to crescendo around big festivals and awards season—got some fresh intel last year when a University of Southern California study, looking at the 100 top films of each year from 2007 to 2017 (1,100 titles), revealed that only 16 women worked as composers in those films (43

In today’s film news roundup, Patty Jenkins is honored, “Waves” will close the Hamptons Film Festival, Ellen Burstyn and Emma Thompson are cast, and “The Cotton Club” has been expanded. JENKINS HONORED The International Cinematographers Guild will honor “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins with its inaugural Distinguished Filmmaker Award. The award will be presented at

Amazon Studios has acquired worldwide rights to “The Vast of Night,” an alien contact tale, Variety has learned. The pact comes ahead of the film’s Thursday premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it is featured in the Midnight Madness section. The film is said to have a distinct “Twilight Zone” vibe. It is

Gwyneth Paltrow and art dealer Larry Gagosian are set to be honored at the 2019 amfAR Gala Los Angeles. The American Foundation for AIDS Research announced that the two honorees will receive the Award of Courage for their commitment in the fight against HIV and AIDS as well as for their other humanitarian efforts. Christina

After a busy FilMart in March, at which Hong Kong’s film industry leaders promised to lobby for greater access to mainland audiences, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam was able, only a month later, to announce that the lobbying had succeeded. But the past months of political protests in Hong Kong have increasingly impacted the

China has had a roller-coaster year so far at festivals worldwide, with high-profile wins and accolades but also more instances of highly disruptive censorship than ever before. In 2019, five international film festivals around have so far ended up tangling with China’s content overlords, who are on unusually high alert ahead of a particularly sensitive

September 12, 2019 3:11PM PT While it was never explicitly stated that Richie Tozier is gay in Stephen King’s novel “It,” the movie “It: Chapter Two” heavily implies that he is. “That was something that we talked about when I arrived,” Bill Hader, who plays the adult Richie in director Andy Muschietti’s second and final

Paul Feig has signed on to write, direct, and produce the monster movie “Dark Army” for Universal. The studio released no plot details about the project other than comparing it to the upcoming Blumhouse-Leigh Whannell remake of “Invisible Man,” which is set to be released Feb. 28 and stars Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. “Instead

Lupita Nyong’o is a zombie-attacking schoolteacher in the newest trailer for Hulu’s upcoming “Little Monsters.” The slasher-comedy follows washed-up musician Dave (Alexander England), who volunteers to chaperone his nephew’s elementary school field trip after developing a crush on his fearless kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline (Nyong’o). However, when Dave attempts to win over Caroline from another