Month: February 2024

When the film biz jetset lands at O.R Tambo airport for this week’s 6th Joburg Film Festival they’d be amazed by a little-known story of how the airport’s namesake was the mastermind behind a plan to recruit ordinary British working-class volunteers to travel to South Africa and detonate pamphlet bombs in the 1970s during the

“La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that recently bowed in competition at the Berlinale, has been acquired for most international territories. HanWay Films has closed sales for France (Originals Factory), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Spain (Avalon), Italy (Teodora Film), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Scandinavia (Mis. Label), Poland (Monolith), Romania (Bad Unicorn), Baltics (Acme), Czech

“The Man With the Crooked Arm,” a Western drama series created by Perivi Katjavivi that was presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market, is the latest attempt by the Namibian filmmaker to wrestle with the legacy of German colonialism in his southern African nation. The eight-episode limited series follows a notorious Black cowboy who sets off

Horror film “The Voices of Our Mother,” headlined by Sheila McCarthy (“Women Talking”), has wrapped principal photography. The film is written and directed by Mark O’Brien, who is also an actor, with his most recent credit being Atom Egoyan’s Toronto and Berlinale selection “Seven Veils.” It  tells the story of a family who is brought

Following on the heels of a successful post-pandemic reboot one year ago, the Joburg Film Festival kicks off its sixth edition on Feb. 27, with the glitzy capital of South Africa’s media and entertainment industry showcasing a selection of top talents from the host country and across the African continent. The event opens with the

The nights were dark and stormy for many of the days on the five-week call sheet of “Death of a Whistleblower” but although South African director Ian Gabriel personally detests night shoots, he pushed through since his latest conspiracy thriller about cover-ups and a journalist’s dogged pursuit of the truth simply wouldn’t have felt the

The four strongest Chinese titles that launched over the Lunar New Year holidays continued to dominate the mainland China and global office charts for a third successive weekend, albeit with a change of order that put Zhang Yimou’s “Article 20” in top spot. Global box office tracking service ComScore showed “Article 20,” “Pegasus 2,” “YOLO”

The Producers Guild of America used the platform of its annual awards ceremony Sunday to launch a drive to help secure health insurance coverage for Hollywood’s working producers. The guild is asking studios, streamers and other large-scale content companies to help fund health insurance for “qualified producers” through line items in TV and film production

The 2024 Producers Guild Awards, one of the major precursors to the Oscars, are underway at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood Sunday night. Like most of this awards season, the major force this year is “Barbenheimer.” Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” are both up for the top PGA prize, and they’ll

Natalie Portman revealed on a recent episode of the “Smartless” podcast (via People) that Jodie Foster once reached out to her after she heard Portman giving a speech about being sexualized as a young actor. Foster famously skyrocketed at 12 years old when she was cast in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” as a child sex

This year’s Independent Spirit Awards faced a major broadcast hurdle as a Pro-Palestinian protestor with a speaker and a prerecorded message blared out many of the presenters and winners onstage. The protestor became obvious to at-home audiences when Jim Gaffigan presented “Jury Duty” the award for best ensemble cast in a new scripted series. The

The 2024 Independent Spirit Awards took place on Sunday at the traditional Santa Monica beach tent location, with Aidy Bryant hosting. “Past Lives” took home the coveted Best Feature award, with “Beef” being honored as Best New Scripted Series. Check out the full list of winners and nominees below. BEST FEATURE  “Past Lives”Producers: David Hinojosa,

With a title that itself feels like a soothing murmur, Hong Kong director Ray Yeung‘s “All Shall Be Well” returns to the social and lifestage milieu of his well-received 2019 later-life gay romance “Suk Suk,” and occupies a similarly melancholic, placatory register. But those hoping for a renewal, or maybe even an amping up of

Charles D. King has an impressive list of accomplishments, including an Oscar nomination for best picture for his 2021 feature “Judas and the Black Messiah.” But his proudest moment came when he told his young sons that he was quitting WME, where he was the first Black partner, to launch Macro, a multi-platform media company

Just 30 minutes after final voting for the Screen Actors Guild Awards wrapped up, I made a last-minute switch in my best actress prediction — from Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon” to Emma Stone in “Poor Things.” Let this be a lesson: Second-guessing yourself is seldom a good idea. Lily Gladstone made

Occult drama-thriller “Exhuma,” dominated the South Korea box office in its opening weekend with a scarily good debut approaching $17 million. The film, about two shaman, a feng shui master and a mortician who attempt to undo the mysterious events happening to a U.S.-based Korean family, grabbed $14.5 million between Friday and Sunday, representing a

Gail Berman’s four-decade-plus career has taken her from Broadway to the big screen and back again, with stints as a studio chief and a new media entrepreneur in between. “I’m your pivot girl,” says Berman, who last year received nominations for both a best picture Oscar (“Elvis”) and a comedy series Emmy (Netflix’s “Wednesday”). “Every

Over the course of his long career, Martin Scorsese has amassed scores of producing credits on projects ranging from “Uncut Gems” to “Once Were Brothers” and “Vinyl” in addition to his own work on films such as Oscar and PGA nominee “Killers of the Flower Moon.” His love of cinema and preservation of it is

Many awards ceremonies champion themselves as stepping stones to the Oscars, but the Producers Guild of America Awards — to be presented Feb. 25 at Ovation Hollywood’s Ray Dolby Ballroom — have an enviable track record to support the claim. The winner of the PGA’s top prize, the Darryl F. Zanuck Award, has matched the

Could “Anyone But You” co-stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney be the next Julia Roberts and George Clooney? The duo’s work on the past romantic comedy just brought in a record-breaking $200 million worldwide. Thus setting the twosome up as a bankable pair that audiences might be ready to watch fall in (and out) of