Month: August 2023

With ruminating obscurity, the ambitious Negu Film Collective – which includes filmmakers Ekain Albite, Mikel Ibarguren, Nicolau Mallofré and Adrià Roca – works to explore the contradictions of a Basque conflict that weighs heavy on all that lived through it. Stakes, set in slow succession, portray reverberations of the era’s traumas. With international sales and distribution
0 Comments
Will Smith told Kevin Hart on a new episode of Peacock’s “Hart to Heart” talk show that he “went too far” as an actor while portraying a slave in the Apple drama “Emancipation.” The film, Smith’s first release after the notorious Oscars slap, centered on the true story of a runaway slave named Peter, a
0 Comments
The lineup for Docu Talents From the East – a showcase of standout documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe that are in post-production – has been unveiled. Eight documentary projects will be presented on Aug. 13 at Sarajevo Film Festival. The event is part of CineLink Industry Day, the festival’s program for film and
0 Comments
Director William Friedkin, best known for his Oscar-winning “The French Connection” and blockbuster “The Exorcist,” died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 87. His death was confirmed by Chapman University dean Stephen Galloway, a friend of Friedkin’s wife Sherry Lansing.  His final film, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” starring Kiefer Sutherland, is set to premiere at the
0 Comments
Noah Schnapp was stuck in his drafts. The 18-year-old actor, who’d become a household name on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” kept putting off posting a video he’d shot on his phone — an announcement he’d been contemplating making for a few months. His closest friends kept texting him: When are you going to post it? I
0 Comments
The biggest YouTube star in the world — Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast — is being sued by Virtual Dining Concepts, the ghost kitchen company that operates his virtual restaurant chain, MrBeast Burger. Virtual Dining Concepts and Celebrity Virtual Dining (VDC) are suing the YouTuber and his Beast Investments for failing to honor his contractual obligations,
0 Comments
FilmSharks has picked up world sales rights to Finnish children’s film “Snot & Splash: The Mystery of Disappearing Holes.” “It was a bidding war. They got offers from everybody,” said FilmSharks CEO Guido Rud. “Snot & Splash” (“Räkä ja Roiskis”) is produced by It’s Alive Films – founded by director Teemu Nikki and Jani Pösö
0 Comments
Alisa Finkelstein is a vice president and Clayton Durant is director of emerging media & platforms at MikeWorldWide. As you’ve probably read many times in recent months, Artificial Intelligence is creating a Napster-like moment in the recorded music business. Perspectives on it span the spectrum – record executives like Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music
0 Comments
Greta Gerwig celebrated her 40th birthday just as “Barbie” was getting ready to cross the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. The feat has made “Barbie” the first movie solo directed by a female filmmaker to cross the box office milestone. The director’s “Barbie” star Ryan Gosling marked the occasion by sending her
0 Comments
“Avoidance,” featuring BAFTA-winning British comedian Romesh Ranganathan, will premiere on BritBox International in North America and South Africa in September. Created and written by Ranganathan and Benjamin Green (“Romantic Getaway”) and starring Ranganathan (BBC’s “The Ranganation,” Netflix special “The Cynic”), the series follows anti-hero Jonathan who is struggling to get back on his feet after
0 Comments
Now on its fourth year, the Santiago Film Festival’s Morbido-Sanfic Lab features an ever more diverse selection from Ibero-America.  As Morbido founder-CEO Pablo Guisa said of this year’s edition: “It has projects from multiple countries, several produced or directed by women as well as one LGBTQ-themed project and, for the first time, a documentary.” Vampire creatures
0 Comments
Argentine director Paula Hernández’s “The Ravaging Wind,” toplined by Latin American star Alfredo Castro (“Karnawal,” “El Club”), will be the opening night film of Horizontes Latinos sidebar at the 71st edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which runs Sept. 22-30. Carolina Markowicz’s “Toll,” whose producers include Brazilian giant Globo Filmes, will close the section,
0 Comments
“Saltburn,” Emerald Fennell’s hotly anticipated sophomore feature after the Oscar and BAFTA-winning “Promising Young Woman,” will open the 67th BFI London Film Festival. The film is produced by Fennell and Margot Robbie, whose “Barbie” has grossed more than $1 billion, as well as Josey McNamara (“Promising Young Woman,” “Barbie”). “Saltburn” reunites Fennell with her “Promising
0 Comments
Nobody can be both the magnifying glass and the ant burning up under its glare. Nobody, that is, except shaggy Romanian shaman Radu Jude who, with his Locarno competition entry “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” follows up 2021’s Berlinale-winning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” with a dizzying, dazzling
0 Comments
Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino,” which began filming last week, has eroticism, a recurring element in his films, as the backdrop. The Match Factory is selling the international rights. His eighth fiction feature marks a return to the director’s Brazilian roots after having shot his first English-language production, “Firebrand,” starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, which
0 Comments
Swiss Films previewed four films to industry guests at a special event hosted by Locarno Pro, the industry section of Locarno Film Festival, showcasing generational range and genre diversity. The selection included the new film by Carmen Jaquier, the director of “Thunder,” which was announced this week as the Swiss entry in the international feature
0 Comments