Month: September 2020

Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, attending the Venice Film Festival with “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams,” a documentary about Ferragamo, and documentary short “Fiori, Fiori, Fiori!” (pictured), popped by the festival and Mastercard’s “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk earlier this week. But he didn’t want to talk about lenses at all. “That’s a very specific

Hong Kong-based sales agency Asian Shadow has picked up international rights to migrant drama film, “Along The Sea.” Directed by Fujimoto Akio, it will get its world premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian later this month. The film follows three young Vietnamese women who find menial work in Japan, but abscond, turning

While the pandemic has reduced film festivals’ capacity to showcase new work, an all-singing all-dancing Spanish-Italian number has been selected for two. Sold by Latido Films, “Explota Explota” (“My Heart Goes Boom!”), the assured debut feature of music promo and commercials director Nacho Álvarez, will receive an RTVE Gala Screening at the San Sebastian Festival next

Singapore’s 108 Media has picked up international sales duties on Indian drama film “Lorni – The Flaneur.” Directed by Wanphrang K, Diengdoh, the film had its premiere at the Black Nights festival in Tallinn in November last year. I twill be pitched by 108 Media on the side lines of the Toronto International Film Festival

Studiocanal will handle worldwide sales at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival on “The Jonsson Gang” from “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “Let The Right One In” director Tomas Alfredson. A reboot of a successful Swedish film series, “The Jonsson Gang” follows a gang gone legit who reunite for one last heist. It stars Henrik Dorsin

Director, Baz Luhrmann has confirmed that production will restart imminently on his untitled Elvis Presley movie. Tom Hanks, the film’s co-star has already returned to Australia, where he previously contracted COVID-19. Production in Queensland will start from Sept. 23, Luhrmann said in a statement. The Warner Bros.-backed film was in advanced stages of pre-production in

Lebanese director Ely Dagher’s “Harvest” (see interview here), a drama about a young woman contending with identity issues on returning to Beirut after a long stint abroad, is the standout title in this year’s Final Cut in Venice workshop – part of the Venice Film Festival – which provides post-production support and partnership opportunities to

Dennis Hopper meets Orson Welles: That sounds like an oil-and-water match-up of legendary filmmakers. Welles, for all his renegade gusto, was a defrocked classicist — maybe (or maybe not) the greatest film director who ever lived, and one who became the ultimate high-toned Hollywood dropout. Whereas Hopper, the scraggly counterculture bad boy, launched his career

“‘Forrest Gump’ with a mantra” — that’s the underlying premise, in a nutshell, of “Meeting the Beatles in India,” which has filmmaker Paul Saltzman recounting the week he spent hanging with the Beatles under the tutelage of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi during their famous sojourn to the ashram in 1968. Saltzman has a tale to

The Tokyo International Film Festival has set boxing picture “Underdog,” directed by Take Masaharu, as the opening title for its 33rd edition. The festival will run Oct. 31 to Nov. 9, when it will close with Hajime Hashimoto’s “Hokusai.” The festival plans to hold physical screenings in Tokyo theaters, but few overseas guests or filmmakers

Uncertainty is the new reality for productions on location: what was once a no-brainer (shoot in film-friendly locations with incentives) is now a complex puzzle to be solved. Some go-to production states and countries require a 14-day quarantine period for out-of-towners; others including Louisiana and Georgia do not. If COVID-19 cases decline or surge, then

Facing a barrage of criticism over eligibility cuts, the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan has announced it will be offering an 80% reduction in COBRA premiums for many participants who will no longer qualify for coverage starting Oct. 1 More than 17,000 people have asked trustees of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan to overturn recently announced changes that

The producers of the upcoming Ben Affleck film “Hypnotic” filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing their insurance company of refusing to extend their policy to account for the pandemic. The lawsuit is among the first, if not the first, to test whether film insurers will be forced to accommodate delays caused by COVID-19. The suit

Anne Hathaway is in final negotiations to star in Doug Liman’s “Lockdown,” a heist movie and romantic comedy taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Steven Knight wrote the script, and P.J. van Sandwijk is producing with Alison Winter. Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios is fully funding. CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and is co-representing the

Jamie Foxx and his producing partner, Datari Turner, have signed an overall deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment to develop and produce feature films. The first project in development that Foxx and Turner are producing for the studio under their new deal is an untitled action thriller written by Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, which Foxx

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, director Julia von Heinz’s “And Tomorrow the Entire World” tracks a first-year law student’s growing engagement in a Mannheim-based anti-fascist collective. Scion to a conservative and aristocratic family, the young Louisa (Mala Emde) seizes left-wing agitation with a convert’s zeal, pushing her fellow activists to take a

Ahead of its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Emma Seligman’s debut feature “Shiva Baby” has sold worldwide rights to Utopia Media. “Shiva Baby” follows a young bisexual Jewish woman at a shiva — a mourning tradition in the Jewish community — in which her older male paramour and female high school sweetheart are present.