Month: June 2020

Belgian-French drama “Matriochkas,” the documentary “The Heart Still Hums” and the animated film “The Fabric of You” have won the top prizes at the Palm Springs International ShortFest. The festival unveiled the juried award winners Sunday from the 332 short films that were part of the official selection. Some of the winners are now qualified

More than 3,500 members of the U.K.’s film and TV industry have signed an open letter calling on gatekeepers to make a number of “strategic commitments” to reshape the landscape and improve representation. Organizers of the letter — which comes just one week after the U.S. Black Film Collective issued a similar open letter to

The blockbuster age, it’s usually said, began with the release of “Jaws” and “Star Wars.” But you could argue that the blockbuster mentality didn’t fully kick in until ordinary moviegoers began to fixate on the question of what was doing well (or not) at the box office. It’s hard to hang that development on any

Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” has passed $100 million at the international box office after more theaters around the globe have started to reopen. The Sony film took in $475,000 from 12 markets, bringing its foreign haul to $101 million. After opening strong in Japan last weekend, the film added $300,000 this weekend, marking a 24%

Comcast-backed U.K. pay-TV broadcaster Sky has added “outdated attitude” disclaimers to a batch of films, including the original animated “The Jungle Book,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “The Last Samurai.” Upon searching for Disney’s “The Jungle Book” on movie service Sky Cinema, a description now reads, “This film has outdated attitudes, language and cultural depictions which

Ansel Elgort has responded to a Twitter post published on Friday morning, in which a woman accused the actor of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. “I cannot claim to understand Gabby’s feelings but her description of events is simply not what happened,” he wrote in an Instagram response on Saturday evening. After giving

In the words of ABBA, “Mamma mia, here I go again.” Judy Craymer, a producer behind the original stage production of “Mamma Mia!” as well as the 2008 and 2018 film adaptations, said in an interview with Daily Mail that a third installment could be coming. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Craymer had been planning the

The infamous bus in which Christopher McCandless, the subject of John Krakauer’s 1996 book “Into The Wild,” found shelter and ultimately died of starvation, was removed from the Alaskan wilderness via helicopter on Thursday. Fans of the book and its subsequent 2007 film adaptation directed by Sean Penn have sought out the bus for years,

Mifa’s TV series & specials pitches went live on Thursday with an epic eight-parter from the U.K.’s Mosaic Films, focusing on the life of a young family growing up in North Korea. Directed by award-winning director Andy Glynne, “38th Parallel: Hidden Voices from North Korea” takes the collected stories of defectors from the secretive regime and

Hugh Jackman is in talks to star in Michael Mann’s racing drama “Ferrari,” about Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari. STX will be handling international sales at the Cannes virtual market, with CAA Media Finance representing U.S. rights. Mann will give a presentation for buyers on Tuesday. STX will distribute the film in the U.K. and Ireland,

June 20 was always meant to be the day the 2020 Annecy International Animation Film Festival would hand out awards at an energetic, paper airplane-filled gala, making it one of the most important dates on the global animation calendar. While other aspects of the festival were changed dramatically by the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, festival

Paris-based arthouse outfit Autour de Minuit, producer of Oscar-winning toon short “Logorama,” will produce toon feature “Spitsbergen” and medium-length “Return to Nix,” both to be directed by Suzie Templeton, who won as Academy Award and Annecy Cristal  for”Peter & the Wolf”). “Spitsbergen”marks Templeton’s much-awaited feature debut, currently in development. The news comes as Annecy awarded a

Netflix is negotiating a deal to acquire domestic rights to Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” from Paramount Pictures and Cross Creek Pictures, Variety has learned. The film follows the Chicago Seven, a group of seven activists who were charged by the federal government with conspiracy, inciting to riot and other charges stemming

France Televisions has confirmed its commitment to animation spanning all ages with the Paris-based public broadcaster announcing a raft of series and putting a call out for more animated education and edutainment content. Speaking during an online press conference on the third day of this year’s Virtual Annecy animation festival, the broadcaster’s CEO Delphine Ernotte

Prized at Locarno, El Gouna and Valladolid, ”Carne” celebrates and explores femininity through successive stages of life, as well as presenting a fresh examination on the perennial taboos that weigh on conceptions of the female body. The short weaves highly disparate techniques – paint, watercolor, stop motion, 35mm film and virtual image decomposition via glitches and

A selection of short format pitches from around the world kicked off the last day in the first week of presentations at Annecy’s virtual animation market. It was led by “The Wasp and the Hummingbird” (“Avispa y Colibrí”) a Peruvian tale of subtle female emancipation from French-Peruvian director Aida del Solar and Lima-based Apus Studios. Inspired

In the last two years, a series of scalding and essential documentaries — “Leaving Neverland,” “Surviving R. Kelly,” “Untouchable,” “On the Record,” “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” — have shined a light on the contours of sexual abuse and the supreme, if not obscene, concentration of power that too often allows it to be concealed and