Month: March 2024

David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet‘s best picture contender “Anatomy of a Fall,” is preparing a raft of projects helmed by daring female directors including Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet (“Anais in Love”) and Emily Atef (“More Than Ever”). Speaking to Variety ahead of the Oscars, Thion said he and Marie-Ange Luciani, who also produced “Anatomy of
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Paris-based Eurozoom – the independent outfit that has recently backed “Suzume,” “Four Souls of Coyote,” and “Fox and Hare Save the Forest,” among others – was named distributor of the year at the recently wrapped Cartoon Movie, which ran from March 5 – 7 in Bordeaux. “Mars Express” director Jérémie Périn and “Mavka, The Forest
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While the perils of higher education are becoming a wider part of the conversation, namely its lack of guarantee and exorbitant cost (particularly in America), solid academic preparation for the future is still often a ticket to a more expansive life. In Tubi‘s “Boarders,” created by BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Daniel Lawrence Taylor, five Black teens from
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TikTok, the massively popular video app owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, apparently has an ally in Donald Trump. The former U.S. president expressed opposition to a national ban of TikTok not for, say, First Amendment reasons but because such a move would likely boost the fortunes of Meta’s Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Trump,
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Paris-based sales outfit Cat&Docs has acquired “Unclickable,” Greek director Babis Makridis’ investigation into the murky world of digital ad fraud, ahead of its world premiere March 10 at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer (see below). “Unclickable” follows a former tech executive who gathers a team of
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Many of cinema’s hard men are notorious softies in real life. Ray Winstone may well be one of those, even if he admits to not looking particularly approachable. “My wife always says to me, ‘Why do you look like you’re going to kill someone when you walk into a room?’” he tells Variety. “But I
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Simmering inner turmoil, regret and a relationship on the mend feature as themes in “Little Loves” (“Los Pequeños Amores”), Spanish filmmaker Celia Rico‘s anticipated second feature, which premiered in competition this week at the Málaga Film Festival. Rico’s 2018 feature debut, “Journey to a Mother’s Room,” won the Youth Jury Award at San Sebastian Film
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When Hollywood accurately depicts work-family and gender-equity scenarios on screen, it’s good for business by driving up viewership and engagement, according to a new research study. The vast majority of engaged streaming viewers in the U.S. want to see their lives — working, managing family life and providing care — represented on screen more often
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MAKING MUSIC Indian filmmaker and composer Sanjay Leela Bhansali has launched music label Bhansali Music with the soundtrack of Netflix series “Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar.” The first song from the album, traditional composition “Sakal Ban,” with lyrics by Amir Khusro and sung by Raja Hasan, will be released on Saturday. Via the label, the filmmaker
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It’s been a very quiet three-and-a-half years for Ariana Grande — quiet for one of music’s biggest stars, anyway — and a bit of an adjustment for fans. She’d been almost ubiquitous, catapulting into her musical career at a superhuman velocity in 2013 and releasing six albums in just over seven years — a fierce clip
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Akira Toriyama, the highly influential Japanese manga artist who created the medium-defining franchise “Dragon Ball” in the 1980’s and shepherded its growth as it became a global phenomenon, died March 1 due to an acute subdural hematoma. He was 68. Toriyama’s death was confirmed by the official “Dragon Ball” website, which posted a statement honoring
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The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and Hollywood’s major studios have concluded their first week of talks Thursday evening, with both parties planning to resume negotiations for a new union contract on March 18. The IATSE Basic Agreement Negotiating Committee, which represents IATSE, Teamsters 399 and the Hollywood Basic Crafts, proposed the new
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The next time you hear someone complain that they sure don’t make them like they used to, point them in the direction of “Accidental Texan,” an unapologetically old-fashioned feel-good dramedy that, with a few minor tweaks, could pass as a newly rediscovered family-friendly feature from the mid-1970s. Back then, the lead roles probably would have
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When discussing the industry-wide changes needed for television to more authentically capture the lived experiences of disabled people, actor Eileen Grubba passionately implored the industry to end what she described as the tokenization of the community. “The industry has got to stop saying, ‘OK, let me go find some kid that’s cute that’s in a
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Before Charli XCX began her performance for Billboard’s Women in Music Awards on March 6, the Grammy-nominated singer prefaced that her heart was beating “really, really fast.” Singing an unreleased song called “So I,” presumably a track for her new album “Brat,” Charli said: “This song is about someone really, really special to me who
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A medieval word with a highly specific (but often misused) meaning, “damsel” describes a young, unmarried lady-in-waiting. It’s also the broad title given many a helpless heroine in Hollywood movies — the proverbial “damsel in distress,” trussed to the train tracks or otherwise waiting to be saved. Elodie is neither of those in Netflix’s pleasantly
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Zack Snyder said in a recent interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that he doesn’t understand when fans’ hatred of his work becomes personal. Amid poor reviews for his latest directorial effort, Netflix’s “Rebel Moon,” Snyder read one article that referred to him as a “love him or hate him” filmmaker. “I have no issue
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