Movies

It’s been a tumultuous few years at the New York Film Festival. In 2018, after an early-2010s mandate for exclusive gala premieres swept in by increasing competition for top titles, the fest chose tentpoles that all debuted elsewhere: “The Favourite,” “Roma” and “At Eternity’s Gate.” Yet all three films ended up scoring Oscar nominations in

SAN SEBASTIAN  —  Fasten Films will produce “El Nieto” (‘The Grandson’), Nely Reguera’s sophomore outing. Greece’s Homemade Films and Spain’s producer-distributor Bteam will co-produce. A Barcelona-based company founded by Adrián Monés, formerly a producer at Filmax), Fasten Films is the company that has co-produced Emmy winner Justin Webster’s non-fiction series “The Prosecutor, the President and

“Buoyancy,” a dark thriller that highlights human trafficking in Thailand’s commercial fishing industry, has been selected as Australia’s submission for the best international feature film at the Oscars. The film is presented in the Khmer and Thai languages. “Buoyancy” had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February and will enjoy its commercial debut Thursday

SAN SEBASTIAN  —  Paris-based MK2 has boarded “Alcarràs,” the second feature film of Catalan auteur Carla Simón (“Summer 1993”), a leading member of a bright new generation of lauded and laurelled Catalan women directors including Neus Ballús, Belén Funes, Meritxell Colell, among others. Currently in development, “Alcarràs” will be produced by Madrid-based production-distribution outfit Avalon–

The German regional funder HessenFilm und Medien has fired its managing director, Hans Joachim Mendig, following an industry backlash over a meeting he had with a leader of the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). Mendig met with Joerg Meuthen, AfD leader and member of the European Parliament, and PR consultant Moritz Hunzinger in

Liam Cunningham and Sasha Luss have signed on for “The Last Front,” a Belgian-produced World War I movie. Cunningham is best-known to legions of “Game of Thrones” fans as Davos Seaworth, but the Irish actor will swap the blood-stained battle for the Iron Throne for wartime Belgium. Luss, who took the titular role in Luc

Spain’s 3D Wire Animation, Video Games and New Media Festival and market is preparing to kick off on Sept 30 beneath the Roman aqueducts of Segovia in the shadows of the Alcázar de Segovia, a castle referenced by animators when designing Walt Disney’s own. The festival runs until Oct 6, with Oct. 3-5 dedicated to

September 25, 2019 5:11AM PT Dutch Features has secured international distribution rights to three films aimed at pre-teen audiences: “Contained,” “Lilith & the Ghastly Brothers” and “Sihja” ahead of the Warsaw Kids Film Forum, which opens Wednesday. Directed by Marja Pyykkö, “Sihja” is an adventure film about a cheeky fairy and an eccentric boy who

SAN SEBASTIAN — From the Basque filmmaking trio of Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga – 2014 San Sebastian competition player “Flowers” and 2017’s Special Jury Prize winner “Handia” – “The Endless Trench” is the region’s, and among Spain’s most buzzed-up title at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. It doesn’t take a

SAN SEBASTIAN — In one of the big deals to go down at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, prestigious French production-distribution house Haut et Court has secured French distribution rights to Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War.” Buena Vista Intl. (BVI) releases the film, Amenabar’s first in Spanish since the Oscar-winning “The Sea Inside,” in

Reverberations from the 2018 Women’s March in Cannes echoed all the way to the Bell Lightbox this year as the Toronto Intl. Film Festival played host to a social-minded pack of filmmakers transforming the French industry. Alongside projects from women’s march leaders Céline Sciamma (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”), Rebecca Zlotowski (“Savages”) and the

Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill are returning to the world of the dinosaurs in the upcoming “Jurassic World 3.” The trio, who all appeared in the original “Jurassic Park” in 1993, will reprise their roles in the third chapter in Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment’s “Jurassic World” franchise. Dern will play Dr. Ellie Sattler,

September 24, 2019 8:54PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, DreamWorks Animation claims the top spot in spending with “Abominable.” Ads placed for the animated film had an estimated media value of $5.97 million through Sunday for 1,543 national

You never see the color blue in “Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies,” an unassuming slice-of-life family drama in brittle black and white. But Edward Burns still dares you to imagine the soothing shade stretching over the nearly identical middle-class homes of a commuter town outside of New York, symmetrically assembled with unexceptional yards rubbing shoulders

In today’s film news roundup, Paul Feig is honored by exhibitors, the American Film Market unveils its conference schedule, Luke Goss gets cast and “Philophobia: or the Fear of Falling in Love” finds a home. AWARDS The National Association of Theatre Owners has honored filmmaker Paul Feig with its second annual spirit of the industry

September 24, 2019 4:00PM PT Kirby Howell-Baptiste has signed on to join Emma Stone in Disney’s live-action “Cruella,” an origin story based on the classic “101 Dalmatians” villain Cruella de Vil. Stone will portray de Vil, the villain who is obsessed with capturing the titular puppies in the 1961 animated classic. Emma Thompson, Paul Walter

September 24, 2019 1:11PM PT Camerimage, the film festival centered on the art of cinematography, will bestow its Lifetime Achievement Directing Award on helmer Peter Greenaway during its 27th edition, which will take place in Torun, Poland, on Nov. 9-16. Known for his scenic composition and depictions of pleasure and pain, Greenaway has told visually

September 24, 2019 1:10PM PT A24 has tapped up-and-coming filmmaker Chloe Okuno to direct the horror movie “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” The project was originally written by “Cat Person” author Kristen Roupenian, in the company’s first purchase of a spec script. Okuno is the director of the award-winning AFI short film “Slut,” centered on a naive

Warner Bros. has weighed in on the mounting controversy surrounding “Joker,” an R-rated comic book adaptation that is being criticized for offering an in-depth portrait of a mass killer. In a statement on Tuesday, the studio hit back at suggestions that it is glamorizing a mass murderer. “Make no mistake: neither the fictional character Joker,

SAN SEBASTIAN  —  “Talent without hard work is nothing,” Cristiano Ronaldo once said. In film, equally, talent without industry support doesn’t go far either. New Talent – its attractions, pitfalls – was addressed Tuesday at lively San Sebastian Industry Club panel, entitled Emerging Talents, co-organized by Variety. Speakers certainly have new talent curriculum: Latido Films’ Antonio

The Advanced Imaging Society has announced winners of the 2019 Entertainment Technology Lumiere Awards. These include tools used in the production of major motion pictures, including Magnopus’ Tycoon Virtual Production System, which helped create Disney’s “The Lion King,” and Skydance/Paramount Pictures’ multi-format production technology, which was used on Ang Lee’s upcoming “Gemini Man,” starring Will

September 24, 2019 10:00AM PT Will Smith will star as crime boss Nicky Barnes in the Netflix drama “The Council.” The thriller centers on a crime syndicate consisting of seven African-American men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early 80s with the goal of establishing a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by

France-based media-technology network Webedia has formed The Boxoffice Company to serve the publishing, technology and data needs of the global film industry, Variety has learned exclusively. Webedia said on Tuesday that the move is a re-branding and reorganization of its offerings, including Boost (which provides tech products for movie theaters), Pulse (a provider of business

The dedicated entertainment junkie now has more options than ever before. So if you’re wondering which logy, derivative, visually pedestrian piece of made-for-Netflix pulp you should avoid at all costs this week, it would be hard to top “In the Shadow of the Moon,” a police thriller powered by a “head-spinning” sci-fi twist that’s revealed

May el-Toukhy’s Sundance prize-winning “Queen of Hearts” has been selected as Denmark’s Oscar entry in the international feature film race. “Queen of Hearts” beat out Michael Noer’s “Before the Frost” and “Daniel” by Niels Arden Oplev and Anders W. Berthelsen which had been shortlisted. The Danish Oscar committee is made up of representatives from the

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to “The Painted Bird,” the critically acclaimed and controversial adaptation of the Jerzy Kosinski novel. The film will be the Czech Republic’s Oscar entry for the foreign language category at the upcoming Academy Awards. Directed, written and produced by Václav Marhoul (“Smart Philip”), the film is an unsparing look

SAN SEBASTIAN —   ECAM’s Incubator program is open to feature films of all genres and form. Eligible producers need only a finished script and emerging director already attached to the project, but otherwise the program is open to diverse filmmakers from all over Spain. It just so happens that one of the projects selected

Family members and friends of the victims of a 2012 mass shooting at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo., are expressing concerns about the upcoming release of “Joker,” a comic book adaptation that’s provoked controversy for its violent subject matter. In a letter to Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, the families

SAN SEBASTIAN  —  In San Sebastian with two high-profile films, Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s “Disco” and Mariko Bobrik’s “The Taste of Pho,” Polish sales agent New Europe Film Sales has announced the acquisition of world sales rights on upcoming Chile-Poland co-production “Blanquita,” from director Fernando Guzzoni (“Jesus”). It’s the first time that Chile and Poland have

Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry “The Traitor,” which follows the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian Mafia’s oath of silence, is Italy’s candidate for the Oscar for international feature film. The drama, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in the U.S., was selected out of a roster of five titles by