Cannes veteran Marco Bellocchio’s vast body of work spans from “Fists in the Pocket” (1965) to “Sweet Dreams,” which launched at Director’s Fortnight in 2016. The auteur known for psychodramas and for bringing the complexities of Italian history, and hypocrisy, to the big screen is back, this time in competition, with “The Traitor,” a biopic
Movies
Five years after fashion powerhouse Kering launched its initiative to highlight the role of women before and behind the camera, the mission of Women in Motion is as pressing as ever. While the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have put a spotlight on the struggles of women in the film industry, the battle for gender
Italy’s Minerva Pictures is ramping up its sales side, having acquired international distribution rights to veteran auteur Gianni Amelio’s anticipated “Hammamet,” a biopic of disgraced late Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi. It’s also taken rights to period drama “Aspromonte,” starring Marcello Fonte, winner of last year’s Cannes best actor award for “Dogman.” “Hammamet,” which portrays
May 14, 2019 10:01PM PT Vertical Entertainment has picked up domestic rights to “See You Soon,” the story of a U.S. soccer star who embarks on a romance with a single mother, Variety has learned. The film’s characters’ lives intersect after the soccer player suffers a career-ending injury in the lead-up to the World Cup.
The Adam Driver-starrer “Annette,” Leos Carax’s long-gestating English-language romantic musical, is being revived. Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema, whose credits include Kristen Stewart-starrer “Personal Shopper,” has come on board to help revive the on-again-off-again project, which will start shooting in mid-August. Amazon will release the film in the U.S. Tracing the rise and fall of two
CANNES — Illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti is no stranger to film festivals. The artist – a long-time New Yorker cover artist and onetime Lou Reed and Michelangelo Antonioni collaborator – has designed posters for past editions of Venice and Cannes, and has contributed to films that played in Toronto and Rome. This year, however, he will
In today’s film news roundup, “After the Wedding,” “Premature” and “Encounter” get distribution, Jacqueline Lyanga gets a new gig, Quiver Distribution launches and “The Aeronauts” sets an Imax release. ACQUISITIONS Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, France, India and several other Asian countries to “After the Wedding,” starring Julianne Moore and
Though “Avengers: Endgame” continues to steamroll across the globe, Lionsgate’s “John Wick 3” is taking a shot at the domestic box office crown. “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum,” the third installment of the gun-toting action franchise, is heading for an opening weekend between $30 million and $35 million from 3,700 North American theaters. Some
May 14, 2019 2:53PM PT Emma Thompson is in early talks to star opposite Emma Stone in the Disney’s “Cruella,” a live-action origin story based on the classic “101 Dalmatians” villain Cruella de Vil. “I, Tonya” director Craig Gillespie is helming the film with Marc Platt, Kristin Burr and Andrew Gunn producing. De Vil, who
May 14, 2019 2:30PM PT Horror movie “The Sonata,” starring Rutger Hauer and “Hemlock Grove” actress Freya Tingley, has been sold to genre-film distributors in South Korea, Japan and the Middle East. Sales agent ARRI Media inked deals with Company L for South Korea, The Klockworx in Japan and Salim Ramia in the Middle East.
Middle East distributor and producer Front Row Filmed Entertainment and production, finance and sales company Rocket Science have entered into a joint venture to form Yalla Yalla, a Dubai-based film and television company focused on Arabic-language entertainment. Yalla Yalla will develop, package, produce and finance television and feature film projects for the fast expanding Middle
As tension escalates over a controversial abortion bill in Georgia, the state film office has called off a Los Angeles celebration touting its industry ties, numerous individuals familiar with the event set for next week told Variety. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is pushing that event, dated for May 22 at West Hollywood’s Sunset Tower hotel,
German production company Weydemann Bros. has unveiled two projects in the works, including an English-language drama written and directed by one of Germany’s most prolific young actresses. Aylin Tezel is making her directorial debut with “Falling Into Place,” a love story set in Scotland and London that follows a romance between Kira and Ian, two
Director Ladj Ly never expected his first narrative feature, “Les Misérables,” to be selected for official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but the filmmaker, whose mission is to capture the reality of the Paris suburbs, is understandably thrilled about the surprise. “I thought maybe there was a small, small chance of getting into the
Moez Masoud will helm “Hello Brother,” a movie about the deadly terror attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The film will follow a family facing death and destruction in Afghanistan who escape with their lives. Their story meshes with that of the recent attacks by a 28-year-old white supremacist on the Al Noor
WTFilms, the sales company behind Quentin Dupieux’s Jean Dujardin-starrer “Deerskin,” which is opening Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, has boarded “Escobar by Escobar,” a documentary series about drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Pascal Richter will direct the four-part series, which is based on “Pablo Escobar: My Father” by Juan Pablo Escobar, who reflects on his father’s legacy. He
Germany’s dynamic film industry is luring international directors who are finding a wealth of opportunities while contributing to the sector’s increasing diversity. A number of filmmakers from around the globe have managed to launch or boost their careers in Germany, in some cases far easier than they could have in their native countries. Well-established in
May 14, 2019 10:01AM PT “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are working on the “Star Wars” movie that’s due out in 2022, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed. Iger made the announcement Tuesday during the MoffettNathanson Media and Communications Summit, a week after Disney revealed there will be a trio of untitled
Paradigm Talent Agency has hired Ashley Hanley as a talent agent, and promoted three New York-based trainees to agent: Valerie Champeau (talent), Katelyn Dougherty (book publishing) and Rachel Ellicott (theatre, lit and content). Hanley will be based in the company’s Los Angeles headquarters. Clients include Sinqua Walls, Parisa Fitz-Henley, Yvette Monreal, Tracy Ifeachor and Darren
Tim Conway, the agile comedian who was a core member of the “The Carol Burnett Show” troupe and starred in a string of Disney film comedies in the 1970s, died Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. He was 85. A rep for Conway tells Variety he died from water on the brain. In later years, Conway
Pixomondo, the award-winning visual effects company whose credits include “Game of Thrones,” has appointed Jonny Slow as its new global CEO, the company announced Tuesday. Slow, who takes up his new role with immediate effect, joined Pixomondo in 2018 to help set up the effects house’s next growth steps following investment from the London-based Mayfair
May 14, 2019 7:00AM PT After looking for a white knight in vain for more than a year, Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp has been granted a six-month debt waiver from a French commercial court, which gives the financially struggling banner a brief reprieve. “The board and the management of EuropaCorp considered that the safeguard proceeding would
When it launched in 2014, STX Entertainment was supposed to be a smarter and nimbler entertainment company, one that could open compelling movies and launch quality television shows while keeping a lid on costs. Five years later, the upstart studio has little to show for its efforts, and following the box office failure of “UglyDolls,”
Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the president of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival jury, expressed his opposition to Donald Trump’s calls for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. “I’m not a politician,” Inarritu said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in the South of France when asked about Trump’s policies. “As an artist, I
The difficult road to production on the latest James Bond film has hit another hurdle after shooting was reportedly suspended following an injury to star Daniel Craig. According to British newspaper The Sun, the actor fell while sprinting on the set in Jamaica last week and has been flown to the U.S. for X-rays, resulting
May 14, 2019 5:00AM PT Sebastian Stan, whose credits include “Avengers: Endgame” and “I Tonya,” and Edgar Ramirez, who has featured in “Gold,” “Assassination of Gianni Versace” and “Joy,” have joined the cast of Jessica Chastain’s spy thriller “355.” Stan and Ramirez join the previously announced cast of Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz and Fan
May 14, 2019 3:51AM PT TrustNordisk and UTA have unveiled the exclusive first still of the highly anticipated horror film “The Other Lamb,” the English-language debut of Małgorzata Szumowska who previously directed the Berlin Silver Bear winning film “Body” and “Mug” which won Berlin’s Grand Jury Prize. “The Other Lamb” stars Raffey Cassidy (“Vox Lux”),
May 14, 2019 3:43AM PT Netflix has taken worldwide rights on romantic comedy “Love. Wedding. Repeat,” the streaming giant announced Tuesday. The film, which stars Sam Claflin (pictured), Olivia Munn and Eleanor Tomlinson is a remake of 2012 French romantic comedy “Plan de Table.” The U.K.-Italy co-production, which is currently in production in Rome, sees
When Paramount was getting ready to release the first images from “Rocketman,” Elton John was shown one photo of Taron Egerton in character sitting on a plane. “It’s a picture of Taron sitting on the Starship, the private jet Elton had in the ‘70s, a big Boeing 707,” says David Furnish, “Rocketman” producer and John’s
Anne Fontaine’s present-day female-sexual-empowerment fable “White as Snow” is not a Snow White story per se, although it’s fun to think of Isabelle Huppert’s character — an aging health-spa diva who becomes diabolically envious of her stepdaughter — as the wicked queen. This, one might argue, was a campy role the icy French star was