FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” is a master class in extending a slight premise boundlessly outward. That series, based on Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s film, imagines a comic universe in which ancient vampires make their way through humdrum lives stripped of Transylvanian glamour in modern New York City. There’s real comic potential,
Month: July 2021
In “Medusa,” the latest film from Brazilian director Anita Rocha da Silveira, the main character and a gang of her female friends don creepy white masks to attack other women in the street whom they deem to be “promiscuous.” Silveira draws amply from both fictional and real tales of women-on-women violence to portray a snake
Haruki Murakami’s short story “Drive My Car” is a sleek, streamlined slip of a thing that nonetheless, in the author’s signature style, packs an awful lot into its lean sentences. It’s a grief-stricken marriage story enfolded in a corrupted friendship study, related in turn via a separate tale of odd-couple companionship, all told in fewer
Disney and Marvel’s superhero adventure “Black Widow” captured a massive $80 million in its first weekend, crushing the benchmark for the biggest opening weekend since the pandemic. In a first for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the film opened simultaneously in theaters and on Disney Plus as part of the streaming service’s Premier Access offering, where
Richard Branson has won the foot race among billionaires to blast off into space. Branson, 70, and a crew of three others briefly achieved weightlessness on Sunday after his Virgin Galactic Unity 22 craft took off from the Spaceport America facility in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. “Nothing could prepare you for the view of
On Sunday morning at the Cannes Film Festival, “Queen & Slim’s” Jodie Turner-Smith spoke out about the lack of opportunities and support afforded to women and people of color in the film industry, both above and below the line. “I want to make my life about not only working with incredible directors, but working with
Saudi Arabia’s Ithra Film Productions banner has teamed up with prominent Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy (“Clash”) who will serve as a creative consultant on two upcoming projects by Saudi directors backed by the company, one of which Hefzy will produce through his Film Clinic shingle. The two projects which were unveiled in Cannes by Ithra
Radar Films, the Mediawan-owned production banner, is reteaming with “The Deep House” filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo on “North Sentinel.” The well-established company, which is headed by Clement Miserez and Matthieu Warter, is developing several other English-language projects including a genre twist on “The Phantom of the Opera” directed by Xavier Gens (“The Divide”).
Didier Lupfer, the former CEO of Studiocanal, has launched the Paris-based production banner The Media Company with a lineup comprising high-concept films and series, including “The Quest of Fire” and “Front Row.” The outfit is also developing about 10 feature films, including Russian helmer Michael Idov’s “Aspiration,” which is co-produced with Artem Vassiliev at Métrafilms,
French actor Judith Chemla, the 37 year-old French star of “Mes freres et moi,” will not attend the world premiere of the film “Mes freres et moi” at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard on July 12 after an alleged incident involving the director of her film throwing a cell phone at her, Variety has learned. Chemla
It’s hard to imagine two more charming and personable filmmakers than the Bulgarian directing-producing-writing duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova of the production company Activist38. Although slightly punchy with fatigue, they took a short break from post-production in Paris to talk to Variety about “Women Do Cry,” their second fiction feature after the Locarno fest
In the midst of debuting a new movie at the first pandemic-era Cannes Film Festival, director Sean Penn had strong words about the Trump administration’s handling of the global health crisis. The longtime artist and activist — who donned a mask when not speaking at a Sunday press conference — discussed the past year he’s
International sales, distribution and production company Axxon Media have closed a pair of deals with WarnerMedia for Latin America and the Caribbean, one for a finished feature and the other a project, both announced at this year’s Cannes Marché du Film. WarnerMedia has picked up Mireia Gabilando’s Spanish comedy “The Hive” and will bring the
Michael Gentile’s Paris-based The Film, the banner behind Julie Delpy’s upcoming show “On the Verge,” is developing a string of projects with emerging filmmakers, notably Yaël Cojot-Goldberg’s “Farewell Caracas” and Mehdi Fikri’s drama “Et maintenant, le feu.” The company is also producing Danielle Arbid’s “Des châteaux qui brûlent,” based on Arno Bertina’ book, and Delpy’s
Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival has revealed to Variety the projects that the participants of its 2021 Emerging Producers program are working on. The producers were asked to deliver an Elevator Pitch for their projects. Every year since 2010, the festival has selected 18 up-and-coming producers of documentary films (17 European and one representing a
“My Brilliant Friend” star Margherita Mazzucco is set to play Saint Clare of Assisi in Susanna Nicchiarelli’s new feature film “Chiara” which will conclude the director’s trilogy of female biopics also comprising “Nico, 1988” and “Miss Marx.” Nicchiarelli’s portrait of the 13th century saint born into a wealthy family who at age 18 became a nun
Moroccan producer Khadija Alami and Nigerian producer and Africa Intl. Film Festival founder Chioma Ude have announced a 50-50 partnership in Morocco’s Oasis Studios, a thriving production hub that they aim to use as a launching pad for the next generation of African filmmakers. Sitting on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, the sprawling Oasis
Off the Fence (OTF), the co-producer of Oscar-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher,” has revealed a strategy overhaul and expansion of its senior management team. The move sees the U.K. and Netherlands-based factual specialist spin out its divisions into three separate business models with the aim of bringing distribution and production closer together, providing more streamer-friendly
Indian filmmaker Rahul Jain, whose new film “Invisible Demons” has its world premiere at Cannes in the cinema for the climate special section, is prepping “Falling Star,” a limited fiction series. Jain is developing the series, which is likely to consist of six or seven one-hour episodes, via his Jann Pictures. It will see him
Sometimes having good intentions and eye-witness testimony is not enough to make a topical, issues-driven movie connect with its anticipated audience. The movie “Dea,” recently boarded by Hong Kong sales company Good Move Media, is a case in point. It probes the put-upon lives of foreign domestic helpers, who number several hundred thousand in Hong
Filmmaker/producer Steven Soderbergh is on board to executive produce a feature-length adaptation of buzzy Directors’ Fortnight short film “The Vandal,” Variety can reveal. Directed by American helmer Eddie Alcazar, the Quinzaine-premiering film — which is presented by filmmaker/producer Darren Aronofsky — is being tipped as an early contender for the best animated short Oscar. It
Sales and production company Film Constellation has secured further pre-sales on upcoming English-language horror “The Twin,” starring Teresa Palmer and directed by Taneli Mustonen (“Lake Bodom”), with BF Distribution boarding the film in Latin America and Studio DHL in South Korea. Film Constellation has also revealed the art for the film’s poster (see below). Palmer
A Pyer Moss runway show always comes with a few guarantees: an extravagant display and celebration of Blackness, a soundtrack that’ll keep your Shazam app running over time, and a Black history lesson taught through every texture, fabric, and cut that waltz down the runway. But on Thursday, July 8, the day Pyer Moss designer
As a filmmaker, Sean Penn has always had a flinty integrity, but the movies he directs work so hard to channel the values of ’70s films — they’re moody and fatalistic, with furrowed brows, and move at a pace of drop-dead deliberation — that early on, in the days of “The Indian Runner” (1991) and
Not to be outdone by Matt Damon, Sean Penn looked like he was about to cry at the Saturday night premiere of “Flag Day.” The drama earned a four-minute standing ovation broken up by remarks from Penn, praising his daughter, Dylan Frances Penn, for her debut lead role in a movie. Penn takes on double
Last year saw the arrival of the mother of all Tom Petty boxed sets, “Wildflowers and All the Rest,” available in editions that extended to as much as five CDs and nine LPs of mostly unreleased music. If that collection was a six- or nine- or 10-course meal, depending on how far you want to
Zoe McLellan — an actress most famous from ‘NCIS’ — has up and vanished with her and her ex’s kid … so claims the father … who got a court involved, which has branded her as wanted. Court records obtained by TMZ show an arrest warrant out of L.A. County was issued for Zoe a
SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you have not seen “Black Widow,” currently in theaters and available on Premium Access on Disney Plus. For most of her interview with Variety, Cate Shortland was an open book: Candid and funny and thrilled to get to talk about her experience directing Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow.” That is, until she was asked about the film’s post-credits
Having been forced to cancel last year’s Cannes due to the pandemic, 2021 is proving to be a happy nude year for the festival with this edition’s most talked-about film, “Benedetta,” featuring a pair of romping nuns. Even the outwardly gentle period drama “Mothering Sunday” is unabashed about displaying the human body in all its
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson transported audiences back to the late 1960s with a special screening of his new documentary, “Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised),” at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday night. In its first two weeks in theaters, the musical movie about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival
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