Month: November 2022

MARRAKECH  — Having written the script over the last five years, Julie will act in and direct feature film “The Barbarians,” she confirmed at the Marrakech Film Festival. “‘It is about Syrian refugees in France. It has a unique flavor. It is funny and dark. A lot of people have tackled this subject but I think

If the new Belvedere Vodka commercial, starring Daniel Craig and directed by Taika Waititi, were a scene out of Craig’s latest film, it would be the best scene in the movie, or at least the one that everyone’s talking about. Then again, no one would mistake it for a movie scene. The commercial has a

Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” dominated the domestic box office in its debut, earning $180 million over the weekend and providing a much-needed lift to beleaguered cinemas. The sequel demolished the record for a November opening in North America, soaring past the previous high-water mark of $158 million set by 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” not only gives the on-screen women central roles, director Ryan Coogler had women playing major roles behind the camera too. “Black Panther s” costume designer Ruth E. Carter and production designer Hannah Beachler both returned for the sequel. And for the film’s cinematography, Coogler called in Autumn Arkapaw — who is

Imanol Rayo’s “Dog Days” promises to be an ambitious look at family, the challenges of adolescence, the impact of climate change and irreversible transformation. The project, which won this year’s main prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, is the Basque filmmaker’s first original script. His previous films, including “Two Brothers” and “Death

Egyptian filmmaker Amir Ramses is no stranger to the Cairo Intl. Film Festival. The director’s feature debut, “End of the World,” bowed at the prestigious Arab fest in 2005, and he returned 15 years later with “The Curfew,” bookending a chapter of his career in which the prolific filmmaker garnered worldwide acclaim. But for the

Strengthening its credentials in this year’s international feature film Oscar race where it represents France, Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” edged Belgian’s Oscar entry “Close” for top honors, the Giraldillo de Oro, at a busy Seville European Film Festival. A celebration of European arthouse which could not be more timely – the fall-off in arthouse attendance proved

Valentina Maurel’s coming-of-age drama “I Have Electric Dreams” has proved a major winner on the international festival circuit and a daring work that further highlights Costa Rica’s burgeoning film scene. The film won the prizes for director, actress and actor at the Locarno Film Festival, and San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizons Award. The film follows

“Agra” by Kanu Behl (Cannes selection “Titli,” Clermont-Ferrand winner “Binnu Ka Sapna”), “Joram” by Devashish Makhija (Rotterdam selection “Ajji,” Busan selection “Bhonsle”) and “Sultana’s Dream” by Isabel Herguera (San Sebastian selection “Kalebegiak”) are among the selections at India’s Film Bazaar Recommends (FBR) strand. The strand is a part of Film Bazaar, the South Asia film

Two big ticket films starring some of India’s biggest stars could possibly end the long dry spell that Bollywood is currently enduring at the box office, trade analysts predict. In recent years, the cinema of South India, comprising the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam language industries, has stolen a march over its hitherto more glamorous

The government of Pakistan has banned Saim Sadiq’s Oscar contender “Joyland” for containing “highly objectionable” material. An order dated Nov. 11 from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting says that the country’s censor board had granted a censor certificate to the film on Aug. 17. But it has since reversed the decision. “Written complaints were

The Milan premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s cannibal romance “Bones and All” suspended its red carpet activities on Saturday evening to account for a massive crowd of Timothée Chalamet fans that had attended in hopes of catching a glimpse of the film’s star. Local police shut down the red carpet outside the Space Cinema Odeon after

Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian man whose time living in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport inspired the Steven Spielberg film “The Terminal,” died of a heart attack Saturday in the airport’s Terminal 2F. His death was confirmed by the Associated Press, which wrote that police and medical professionals were ultimately unable to save Nasseri. The

Things got heady during a Saturday IDFA Dialogue talk featuring the fest’s artistic director, Orwa Nyrabia, and IDFA Queer Day guest curator, philosopher-writer Simon(e) van Saarloos. Titled “What Gender Are Film Festivals,” the one hour discussion touched on topics including the moral force that drives and funds documentary film festivals, the people who have the

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for the ending and mid-credits scene in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” currently playing in theaters. At San Diego Comic-Con in July, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige took to the Hall H stage and for the first time delineated the grand plan for the Multiverse Saga — including that “Black

In May 2015, 19-year-old Kurdish aspiring singer Mutlu Kaya was shot in the head by a man whose marriage proposal she refused. The femicide attempt came after dozens of death threats related to the young woman’s successful participation in Turkey’s equivalent to “Got Talent,” which granted her country-wide notoriety. Co-directed by BAFTA and Emmy-nominated Nick

Michael Kurinsky was supposed to make his directorial debut alongside co-director Bill Haller with “Scoob! Holiday Haunt.” That is, until the film — starring Iain Armitage, Mark Hamill, Cristo Fernández, Ming Na-Wen and Frank Welker — was abruptly pulled from release by Warner Bros. Discovery on Aug. 2, terminating Kurinsky’s two years of work on

From starring in mega hit movies to playing a destructive drug addict to a cowgirl whose husband is hiding a secret love affair, Anne Hathaway has been a high-profile Hollywood princess for more than two decades. To celebrate her 40th birthday, Variety took a look back to rank the Oscar-winner’s 12 best film performances to

Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is reigning over the box office. The superhero sequel earned $84 million from 4,396 locations on its opening day. That figures includes $28 million in Thursday previews, which marked the 15th-highest preview gross in history and bested the first “Black Panther’s” figure by $3 million. It’s also the second biggest

MARRAKECH – Saving cinema, the joy of sitting in darkened rooms and a lack of female role models in Arab cinema, were just some of the topics addressed by this year’s star-studded jury at the Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday.  Slightly different to October’s announcement, this year’s jury consists of  Vanessa Kirby (“The Son”), French-Algerian