Month: September 2020

Paris-based company Indie Sales has sealed a flurry of deals on Jasmila Žbanić’s drama “Quo Vadis, Aida” which world premiered in competition at Venice and is part of Toronto’s official selection. The film is based on real events and is set in the Bosnian summer of 1995 during the Serbian occupation of Srebrenica, declared to

Director Adam Benzine, Oscar-nominated in the best documentary short subject category in 2016 for “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah,” is launching COVID-19 documentary “The Curve” to buyers at the Toronto International Film Festival market. Structured as an investigative thriller and made in secret over the last six months, the documentary — also produced by

Argentina’s Benjamín Naishtat, writer-director of “Rojo,” is preparing “Pobres Pibes,” a contemporary noir thriller adapting novelist Robert Arlt’s 1929 “The Seven Madmen.” Also working off “The Flamethrowers,” Arlt’s 1931 sequel to “The Seven Madmen,” Naishtat’s fourth feature marks his first adaptation. Following up “Rojo,” a big prize winner at the 2018 San Sebastian Festival, “Pobres

Paris Hilton is known as a business mogul, a reality TV star and has been dubbed the “original influencer.” But how much of the persona is the “real Paris?” And where did this filtered, curated and celebutante image come from? Those are the questions her YouTube Originals documentary “This Is Paris” hopes to answer, peeling

Toni Servillo (“The Great Beauty”) is set to star in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” which started shooting last week in Naples, the Oscar-winning director’s hometown. Production of Sorrentino’s new pic, which is produced by Fremantle-backed The Apartment for Netflix, has since moved to the Sicilian island of Stromboli, according to a well-placed source

British perfume company Jo Malone has apologized to “Star Wars” actor John Boyega after editing him out of the Chinese version of an award-winning commercial that he originally conceived, directed and starred in. The recast and reshot Chinese version replaced Boyega with local actor Liu Haoran (The “Detective Chinatown” franchise). The original commercial, titled “London

Picture Tree International has picked up the global sales rights to Prithvi Konanur’s social thriller “Where Is Pinki?”. The film has its world premiere next month at the Busan International Film Festival, in its World Cinema section. Written and directed by Prithvi Konanur, “Pinki?” (aka “Pinki Elli?”) is a hard-hitting social commentary on contemporary Indian

AMC Networks-owned RLJE Films has swooped for U.S. rights to “Shoplifters of the World.” Inspired by true events, “Shoplifters of the World” is set over the course of one night in the life of four friends who are reeling from the sudden dissolution of British band The Smiths. The same evening, a local radio station

The 25th edition of the Busan International Film Festival will shrink by a third and be presented in a hybrid in-person and offline format, due to the challenges posed by the coronavirus. Running with newly announced dates of Oct. 21-30, the festival will present foreign titles as both opening and closing films. It will open

Doves flutter, girls chatter, life sputters on — and sometimes gutters out — in Emma Dante’s tempestuous and touching sophomore feature “The Macaluso Sisters.” To imagine the decades-long catch-and-release sweep of a single lifespan and condense it into one sub-90-minute film is a feat; to do so about multiple interconnected lives without losing definition is

Netflix has released the first trailer for Aaron Sorkin’s awards contender ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7.’ Based on the true story, the film follows the trials of seven people following peaceful protests that turned violent at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Abbie Hoffman, alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt as

Kicked out of school for fighting, again, 15-year-old Cole (Caleb McLaughlin of “Stranger Things”) doesn’t know what to expect when his exasperated mom drives him to Philadelphia and drops the hotheaded teen on his estranged father’s doorstep for the summer, but the last thing he expects to find in the living room is a horse.

Rick Riordan, author of the popular “Percy Jackson” novels, is developing his Egyptian mythology series “The Kane Chronicles” into feature films at Netflix, Variety has confirmed. The author made the announcement on his social media accounts and website on Saturday. “Hey everybody, want some more exciting news? We’re developing ‘The Kane Chronicles’ as feature films for

You know something terrible is going to happen when the early moments of a film greets you with an obvious reference to “The Shining” — in the case of the time-and-memory-twisting psychological horror “Violation,” the bird’s-eye view of a lone car, creeping ahead on a narrow road through dense trees, accompanied by a screechy score.