Month: October 2023

Ali Kalthami’s satirical drama “Mandoob” (“Night Courier”) examines the class divide in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, telling the story of a hapless delivery man and the desperate avenues he takes to make money. Comedic actor Mohammed Aldokhei plays Fahad, who finds himself in a precarious situation after he is fired from his day job

The Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) has added a 5% cultural bonus incentive to the existing 20% cash rebate that is part of the Film Location Incentive Program (FLIP), it was revealed at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. The cultural bonus will apply if the project showcases Philippines

Director Karan Tejpal’s feature film debut “Stolen” is a nail-biting thriller about two privileged, big-city boys who unwittingly embark on a harrowing adventure as they help an impoverished young woman find her kidnapped baby in rural India. The film, which is produced by Gaurav Dhingra’s Jungle Book Studio, is also a commentary on the alarming

Bradley Liew of Epicmedia Productions (Philippines), Stefano Centini of Volos Films (Taiwan/Italy) and Singapore’s Huang Junxiang have reunited to launch two genre projects at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. The trio previously teamed on Sundance Midnight hit, “In My Mother’s Skin” by Kenneth Dagatan, which was recently ranked number six

After his fiction feature debut, the absurdist satire “Eeb Allay Ooo!,” Indian filmmaker Prateek Vats is readying political comedy “Chronicles of a Confession.” The film is a selection at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market. “Eeb Allay Ooo!” won big at the Mumbai Film Festival and went on to play at the Berlinale,

India’s Crawling Angel Films and Singapore’s Akanga Film Asia are teaming on Busan Asian Film School (AFiS) alumnus Aakash Chhabra’s feature directorial debut “I′ll Smile in September.” The film is selected at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market. Akanga’s credits include Cannes winner “Tiger Stripes,” Locarno winner “A Land Imagined” and its “Oasis

Korean sales agency Finecut has struck a raft of rights sales on upcoming fantasy-romance “Secret: Untold Melody.” The film, which will premiere at the upcoming Hawaii International Film Festival, tells the tale of a man whose promising piano career is cut short by a wrist injury. He returns to Korea and falls in love with

Vietnam-based sales agent Skyline Media has unveiled five new titles for sales and distribution at the ACFN market that accompanies the Busan International Film Festival. They range from horror films to gay rom com series. “The Soul Reaper” is adapted from director-producer Thao Trang’s best-selling horror novel “Lunar New Year in Hell Village” (Tet O

The renaissance in Indonesian cinema is being celebrated at the Busan International Film Festival this year with 15 films, shorts and series being showcased. Hilmar Farid, Director General of Culture at Indonesia‘s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, is leading a 50-strong delegation of filmmakers, committee members and media to the festival. Variety spoke

Berlin-based sales agent ArtHood Entertainment has picked up world rights, outside of much of East Asia, to “Salli,” a film which has its world premiere this week in the Busan International Film Festival’s A Window on Asian Cinema program. The Mandarin-, Taiwanese-, English- and French-language film follows a lonely middle-aged chicken farmer Hui-Chun, who doesn’t

Celebrated Indian filmmaker Rima Das is at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market with “Malati, My Love.” Like all of Das’ previous films, “Malati, My Love” is set in Assam, eastern India. It will follow Apurva and Malati who are happily married and madly in love, unabashed by what people in their small

“Where the Rivers Run South,” the Nepalese project at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market, has received support from the Asian Cinema Fund’s script development pool. The film, which aims to tackle head on two timely issues in Nepal today – migrant labor and patriarchy – marks the feature directorial debut of Suraj

When it comes to how big a movie experience can get, Sphere has answered that question once and for all: The sky is the limit. The first film to play in the enormous, immersive new space in Las Vegas, Darren Aronofsky‘s “Postcard From Earth,” has plenty of blue-screen, so to speak — that is, vast

At the memorial gathering for her husband Adnan, 30-year-old Nawal (a riveting Mouna Hawa) is offered many empty words of support and so-called comfort by friends and family. “When a woman loses her husband, she loses her lover, her partner, everything in her life,” clucks a commiserating neighbor. What she fails to mention is how

“Hesitation Wound” and “Hollywoodgate” were named winners at the Zurich Film Festival, as the 19th edition of the Swiss festival came to a close. Selman Nacar’s drama “Hesitation Wound” impressed the Feature Film Competition jury. “Moral issues are a frequent underlying theme in many films, but the dilemma facing the main character in this film

Barbra Streisand has revealed in her upcoming memoir “My Name is Barbra” the lengths she went to in order to cast Robert Redford in Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama “The Way We Were,” even after he initially refused the part. “The Way We Were” stars Streisand and Redford as Katie and Hubbell, an unlikely couple

Like countless moviegoers around the world, I’m a major fan of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” But like many of those who saw it, I wasn’t alone in having qualifications about the last part of the movie. For me, the first two hours of “Oppenheimer” were electrifying. I felt the kind of full-scale mind/soul immersion that’s the

What would a monk want with a gun? Bringing wisdom and a streak of wry humor to his Bhutan-set sophomore feature, “The Monk and the Gun,” director Pawo Choyning Dorji teases any number of possible answers to that question over the course of a droll, shrewdly satirical fable, in which Western values crash against a

Terence Davies, the British filmmaker known for “Distant Voices, Still Lives,” “The Deep Blue Sea” and “The Long Day Closes,” has died. He was 77. The news of Davies’ death was shared on his official Instagram page: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Terence Davies, who died peacefully at home

One of the tiniest lived-in details in Bangladeshi writer-director Biplob Sarkar‘s debut feature — which is really a cluster of tiny, lived-in details — is the sheet of adhesive bindis that Kajal (a delightfully natural Ehan Rashid) snaffles from his mother’s dressing table. The bindis, or as they’re known in these parts, teeps, are worn

Martin Scorsese said the entertainment industry is in a “period of reinventing” cinema during his Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday, urging young people to use new technology for good as opposed to making “content.” When asked by director Edgar Wright about becoming somewhat of a spokesperson for the current state

Nearly 50 years after William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” landed in theaters to leg out a run as the highest-grossing feature of 1973, a new sequel to it is opening on top of the box office. Universal’s “The Exorcist: Believer” compelled audiences to the tune of an $11.9 million opening day from 3,663 locations, a number

Korean powerhouse CJ ENM is set to continue its already extensive investment in Indonesia. The company will announce a slate of Indonesian films imminently. It is also planning to produce films and series that can be remade in other international territories, said Justin Kim, head of international productions at CJ ENM, which has production and

Don’t trust Mads Mikkelsen with your script. “‘Casino Royale’ was the first screenplay with my name on every single page. Which also means that if you lose it, it’s on you. I got on a plane, started to read it and I fell asleep. Then I got out and just left it there,” he told