Evan Rachel Wood — the actor, singer and activist — has alleged that Marilyn Manson is the person to whom she has referred over the years when she has talked about being a survivor of domestic violence. Wood and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when she was 19 and he was 38. They became
admin
The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the International Jury for its 71st edition. All the jury members are winners of Berlin’s Golden Bear for best film. The jury will comprise Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, Israeli director Nadav Lapid, Romania director Adina Pintilie, Hungary director Ildikó Enyedi, Italian director Gianfranco Rosi and Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić.
“Sorya,” “Starseed,” and “Caramel’s Words” are among 55 projects from 16 countries set to be pitched at this year’s Cartoon Movie, Europe’s leading animated feature co-production event. The 23rd edition will move totally online, running March 9-11. Part of an In Development showcase, “Sorya” is directed by Denis Do, an Annecy Fest best feature film
The most fascinating element of Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s strong feature debut “Gritt” is the way the director presents a problematic character who polarizes viewers. For some, Gritt (Birgitte Larsen) will be seen as a passionately creative woman whose inability to break into the alternative performance community leads her to make some very bad choices —
Shot partly in Navarre, Northern Spain, TV drama “3 Caminos” bowed Jan. 22 on Amazon Prime Video, as the region, a burgeoning film-TV hub and shoot locale, has just hiked its already substantial incentives for the audiovisual industry. A six-episode TV drama, “3 Caminos” turns on five people of different nationalities that forge their friendship
Few producers in Spain have earned more festival prizes than Barcelona-based Luis Miñarro, whose credits range from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cannes Palme d’Or laureate “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” to Karlovy Vary top prize winner “The Mosquito Net” and Rotterdam Tiger Award winner “Finisterrae.” So Miñarro’s support for Spaniard Ainhoa Rodríguez’s debut feature,
“Lovecraft Country” and “His House” lead Wunmi Mosaku, a BAFTA award winner, has been cast in Gabe Klinger’s fact-based drama “Dreyana Grooms.” The film focuses on 16-year-old Dreyana Grooms, who as a young teenager was implicated in a fatal shooting in Chicago during her summer break from school. The event radically altered the course of
The Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam is celebrating its 50th anniversary under a new artistic director this year, and while the event has been forced online due to the ongoing pandemic, organizers are hopeful that an extended edition in June could see festgoers returning to cinemas this summer. Moving the festival and its IFFR Pro Days
The Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam had to forego a physical event for its 50th anniversary edition, but it’s aiming to reach a wider audience with expanded competition sections and showcases that include promising new voices and established filmmakers alike. Under new festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, IFFR has reduced the overall number of films from the
At some point in the distant future, long after nuclear holocaust or airborne plague has wiped out the human race, some film critic (we’re like cockroaches, sure to survive such an apocalypse) will no doubt uncover a list of the projects Nicolas Cage has turned down, and it will finally become clear how the actor
Hope is in the DNA of competitive sports. Comes with it a shot at victory, a rush of optimism for what might follow. The sensation only multiplies through unity — not just with one’s team, but also fans cheering on. Through his profoundly humanistic nonfiction feature debut “Captains of Zaatari,” a moving tale of two
Chart positions for the top five films remained largely unchanged over the weekend in China, as the Middle Kingdom’s box office returned to a familiar early-year torpor. Data from Artisan Gateway shows that aggregate revenues amounted to $32.8 million over the Friday to Sunday period, down from $37.5 million the previous weekend. But considering the
Pixar’s “Soul” was joined by Japanese hit sensation “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” at the top of the box office rankings in South Korea over the weekend to Jan. 31. Together they lifted nationwide theatrical revenues by 30% compared with the previous, dismal session. “Soul” held up very strongly in its second weekend of
Robin Wright spends most of “Land” alone, but that’s not how her character Edee sees it. Newly widowed and raw with sorrow for reasons left (mostly) unsaid, Edee abandons nearly everything about her old life and buys a cabin on the side of a mountain in Wyoming — barely a shack, really, with no running
Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar’s civilian government, has been taken into custody in a raid early on Monday morning. The army said that it had taken control of the country and declared a state of emergency that will last a year. Other members of the ruling National League for Democracy have also
With “Summer of Soul (…Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson had a pretty monumental task to tackle. Not only was the first-time director telling the story of an all-but-forgotten festival that featured some of music’s biggest names, but he did so mid-pandemic — finding a way to streamline 45 hours
NEON strikes again. The indie label has picked up its second film out of this year’s Sundance, nabbing rights to Jamila Wignot’s “Ailey,” a documentary about dancing icon Alvin Ailey. The film debuted on Saturday and offers rare archival footage of performances by the Ailey Company, along with never-before-heard audio interviews recorded in the last
John Frey, an actor, screenwriter, director and teacher known for the 2018 film “Cabaret Maxime,” died on Jan. 23 of heart failure. He was 62. Born in the Bronx, Frey graduated from the prestigious William Esper Studio for actors and had a 25-year international career in film, theater and television. Frey’s early theater acting and
Ever since “Man on Wire,” in 2008, more and more documentaries have been using visualizations, staged scenes, and other illustrative methods that are meant to bring a true story to life but, to my mind, often end up getting in the way of it. I tend to prefer my documentaries without a speck of cereal,
Allan Burns, the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter and producer who co-wrote and co-created “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died on Jan. 30, his son, Matt Burns, confirmed to Variety. He was 85. His “Mary Tyler Moore Show” co-creator and longtime creative partner, James L. Brooks, announced Burns’ death on Twitter Sunday. “Alan Burns, my writing partner
Movies about the end of the world share a similar DNA: chaos, fire, looting, revelations. But in “How It Ends,” from filmmakers Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein, the apocalypse is as serene and lush as a Southern California spa day. Though spilling over with catharsis and a full manifestation of the lead character’s inner child,
Cinema loves an identical twin, or preferably, two. More specifically, cinema — and daytime TV — loves to instill in the 99.7% of the population who are not identical twins, the idea that they are untrustworthy types, prone to switcheroo deceptions and uncanny telepathy. These are not myths that Erin Vassilopoulos cares to dispel with
For most childless women of a certain age, regardless of whether parenthood is within their desired ambitions, the world is full of silent, often judgmental reminders about one’s diminishing chances at pregnancy. Perhaps the universe doesn’t throw its hands in the air and stomp its feet on the ground like Marisa Tomei does in “My
After a prize-winning short of the same name, Swedish director-writer Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure,” a drama unfolding within the shadowy world of the adult film industry, premieres in Sundance and moves on to Goteborg and the Dragon competition for best Nordic film. What inspired the storyline of “Pleasure?” I’ve been working on the topic for a
Radiation exposure was at the forefront of cinematographer Simon Niblett’s mind as he spent time filming Otto Bell’s “The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima.” Bell, who was trying for a baby at the time, was also concerned – they carried radiation monitors. Bell’s documentary Oscar contender, “The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima,” follows a group of local
The creative team behind “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street,” a documentary on the origins of the eponymous beloved children’s show “Sesame Street,” discussed the challenges of bringing the series’ rich history to life. Director Marilyn Agrelo and producers Ellen Scherer Crafts and Trevor Crafts spoke to the Variety Studio presented by AT&T
It starts in sweltering heat; it ends in freezing weather. And in between, as the temperature gradually drops, Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, calmly brings the diffuse racial landscape of prohibition-era New York City into crystalline, gorgeously shot focus. This radically intimate exploration of the desperately fraught concept of “passing” —
“Active Shooter at 12! Hostage negotiation at 1:30! Drug raid at 2:30,” hollers an authoritative voice in a sun-baked concrete yard. The retired police officer who announces this schedule at the start of “At the Ready,” Maisie Crow’s sobering documentary about a community of kids growing up on the Mexican border, isn’t at a professional
On Saturday night or Sunday morning — depending on the time zone — Blackpink fans finally got to experience the closest thing to an in-person concert from the group with “The Show.” While the K-pop titans — Lisa, Jennie, Rosé, Jisoo — had intended to be on tour supporting their debut full length, “The Album,” which
Would audiences pay to see a new movie on the big screen if they could watch the same title at home from the comfort of their couch? Prior to the pandemic, the response from theater operators and cinema purists would have been a resounding “no.” Yet Hollywood is finding that, at least while a plague