Month: September 2020

If the action-fueled, hit genre films “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1967 and “Easy Rider” in 1969 were the shotgun blasts whose breakout success opened the filmmaking doors for what became known as “The New Hollywood,” 1970’s “Five Easy Pieces” actually better represented the kind of film that the era’s aspiring young directors, producers, writers and

Naomi Watts and director Phillip Noyce are joining forces for the thriller “Lakewood,” set to begin filming Sept. 16 in Ontario under strict COVID-19 protocols. The film, written by Chris Sparling (“Buried,” “Greenland”) and produced by Boies/Schiller’s Zack Schiller and David Boies, Limelight’s Dylan Sellers and Chris Parker, Untapped’s Andrew Corkin, star Watts for Jam

Even the coronavirus pandemic couldn’t stop Saul Williams. Williams is riding a film career surge: directing his first feature “Neptune Frost” and debuting his dream project “Akilla’s Escape” at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. The upcoming thriller, helmed by Charles Officer, stars the multi-hyphenate Williams as the titular Akilla, a Toronto-based drug dealer retiring from

Tracey Deer’s Toronto Film Festival entry “Beans” tells the story of a 12-year-old Mohawk girl and her family thrust by incidents of racial injustice into the forefront of 1990’s Oka Crisis, in which the Quebec government clashed in a political standoff with two Mohawk communities, the Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawá:ke. Beans is a happy, middle-class girl

Presiding over Venice Film Festival’s Horizons jury, French filmmaker Claire Denis stopped by the festival and Mastercard’s “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk on Thursday. The “Beau Travail” helmer addressed the female directors issue head on. “I am not a pioneer. There weren’t many women when I started, I knew there wasn’t going

Merawi Gerima grew up in northeast Washington D.C., an area that plays prominently in his first feature “Residue,” about a film student named Jay who returns home after a stint at USC film school to find his neighborhood gentrified and his family and friends contending with racist hostility from new white neighbors. Just like Jay,

Spartan and wind-whipped and 25 miles from the already far-flung mainland of northern Scotland, the Uist Islands would be a disorienting place for most outsiders to find themselves stranded for an indefinite amount of time — and that’s without the additional, time-stretching uncertainty of a pending application for political asylum. For the Syrian protagonist of

By its very composition, the amalgam word hacktivism houses a peculiar dichotomy. On one hand, it alludes to promoting justice through necessary online disobedience. On the other, the ethics of whatever those rule-breaking actions or their consequences might be remain open to debate. Such ambiguity lies at the core of “Enemies of the State,” Sonia

One of the pleasures of anticipating an Ali Suliman performance is knowing he’ll bring depth and complexity to every role. His character in “200 Meters,” a father of three taking huge risks to get to his son in the hospital, doesn’t expand his repertoire, but it gives the movie its heart. The film may not

We all know that knee-jerk racism and willful ignorance are the handmaidens of evil: Without these all-too-common traits, heinous acts are difficult to perpetrate on a large scale. Documentary maker Luke Holland’s “Final Account” is the first product of an ambitious undertaking to interview the now elderly helpers and handmaidens whose tacit acceptance of the

Indie distributor Neon has shown the power of storytelling in three short, but very successful years. Starting in 2017 with “I, Tonya,” which earned an Oscar for Allison Janney in the supporting actress category, it continued its hot streak in 2019, when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” made history by winning best picture. The movie took

No matter the culture, no matter the century, one of the great obstacles facing LGBT people through time has been the virtual invisibility of those who have come before. If you don’t see anyone like you in a seemingly heterogeneous — and heteronormative — society, it’s hard to feel anything other than deviant, out of

Indian studio Yash Raj Films’ “Bunty Aur Babli 2,” starring Saif Ali Khan (“Sacred Games”) and Rani Mukerji (“Hichki”) has wrapped production with the shooting of a song and dance routine. The shoot, at Mumbai’s Yash Raj Films studios, adhered to the Indian government’s recently announced safety protocols that allow movies to restart production in

Producer Mike Jackson is ready and waiting for Hollywood to get the greenlight so Get Lifted Film Co. can get out there and resume production. The company, co-founded in 2012 with John Legend and Ty Stiklorius, focuses its storytelling on multi-cultural content. Its credits include: “Jesus Christ Superstar Live!,” WGN’s “Underground” and “La La Land.”

Forget a one-horse town: “Concrete Cowboy” premiered in front of a more than 50-car audience at a special screening in Downtown Los Angeles on Thursday night in the Hotel Figueroa parking lot. Ahead of the screening, the film’s producer Lee Daniels and writer-director Ricky Staub took the stage to celebrate launching the movie in this

Rosalind Chao can tell a lot about people based on which of her roles they want to talk about. “If it’s ‘Star Trek,’ I know it will be an intelligent conversation. If they bring up ‘Joy Luck Club,’ I say something like, ‘You must love your mom!’ I get a lot of ‘What Dreams May

Hopkins told Variety during a panel discussion about his new movie, “The Father,” that his message to his followers is simple. “Let’s not take ourselves too damn seriously,” he said. “So I’ll wake up have a bit of fun, because everyone is so grim.” “The Father,” Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his acclaimed play of the

Directors Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer joined Variety’s virtual studio presented by Canada Goose to discuss their documentary film “Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds” premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The co-directors shared how they divided their responsibilities for the project. With casting, Herzog said they trusted each other’s expertise and experience in choosing

Audiences will have to wait until 2021 to summon “Candyman.” The supernatural slasher film, directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld and DaCosta, has pushed back its theatrical release and will now debut on the big screen sometime next year. “Candyman” was supposed to hit theaters on Oct. 16. Universal and

Joining the press conference of “Nomadland” via Zoom on Friday, presented in Venice in the main competition before its Toronto bow, director Chloé Zhao and Frances McDormand – “It’s McDormand, not McDonald. M-C-D-O-R-M-A-N-D. It’s difficult, but you will get used to it,” she said, correcting a journalist as she started from the very beginning. “A friend