Movies

The organizers of this year’s Oscars don’t plan on trimming any of the speeches that will air on the telecast on Feb. 24. In an interview with Variety, Academy Awards producer Donna Gigliotti pushed back against the notion that the show would be condensing some of the remarks made onstage at the Dolby Theatre. “If

February 14, 2019 12:19PM PT Steven Poster, national president of the International Cinematographers Guild, blasted the academy’s decision to shorten four awards from the live Oscar broadcast, including the cinematography prize. Poster, whose union represents more than 8,000 members, said the decision is “humiliating” for the winners. He joins a growing chorus of opposition, including high-profile

February 14, 2019 11:59AM PT Marius Olteanu’s debut amounts to a powerful, minutely observed three-part study of a loving marriage threatened by socially taboo and mutually painful revelations. “The trick is to keep breathing,” says Dana (Judith State) as she takes a drag off the first cigarette she’s had in years, grinding it out after

February 14, 2019 11:44AM PT “Roma” actor Jorge Antonio Guerrero has finally received an American visa in time to attend the Oscars on Feb. 24. Guerrero made the happy announcement on his Instagram on Wednesday, thanking the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles, the U.S. embassy, his Talent on the Road management, Netflix and his

February 14, 2019 11:35AM PT An aspiring musician chases his Hollywood dreams under the tutelage of composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in Adam Cushman’s modest drama. The expert in question in “The Maestro” is famed composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Xander Berkeley), who over the course of his career contributed to more than 200 movies, many as a “ghost

Gilles Lellouche’s “Sink or Swim,” Mikhaël Hers’s “Amanda,” Louis-Julien Petit’s “Invisibles” and Eva Husson’s “Girls of the Sun” are set to screen at the 24th edition of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema showcase which is co-organized by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance. After world-premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival,

The airplane runs into turbulence, the seatbelt announcement sounds, and Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) and his wife Liyun (Yong Mei) automatically clutch hands. The rough air passes, the craft steadies and their hands unclasp. “Isn’t it funny,” says Liyun, whose hair is finally graying at the temples, but whose unlined face has been made somehow more

It’s called the Dream Factory for a reason. Hollywood has been churning out movies about dreamers for decades, and this year’s best picture contenders follow that cinematic tradition: Dreamers abound on screen and behind the camera. Cleo, the indefatigable domestic at the center of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” seems to yearn for her own family while

February 14, 2019 11:07AM PT Netflix has acquired the worldwide rights to the short documentary “Ghosts of Sugar Land,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Bassam Tariq directed the pic, which he also co-wrote with Thomas Niles. The doc is set in Sugar Land, Texas, and follows a group of young Muslim American

Finding the identity, the heart of a character can be an enormous task for an actor, whether depicting a real person or creating an individual out of whole cloth. The obstacles actors face can often be intellectual or emotional, forcing them to find ways of getting inside that character’s headspace and perspective to make their

In its continued bid to invest in Spanish film production, Sony Pictures International Productions has pacted with Enrique López Lavigne’s Apache Films to co-produce “Adios” by Spanish writer-director Paco Cabezas, who marks his return to Spain with the crime drama. Cabezas has been building a notable international portfolio that includes “American Gods,” “Penny Dreadful,” “The

Grammy- and Golden Globe-nominated composer Clint Mansell has signed a long-term, worldwide music publishing deal with Decca Publishing. Mansell is best-known as the composer of such acclaimed Darren Aronofsky films as “Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan” and “The Fountain,” but rose to prominence as frontman of Pop Will Eat Itself, which scored 11 top-40

Bright-eyed Australian director Damon Gameau set out in his previous movie, “That Sugar Film” to challenge everyday thoughtlessness about the dangers of our modern lifestyle — and became profoundly sick while doing so. In his new film “2040,” which plays in Berlin’s Generation Kplus section and which he styles as a “hybrid feature documentary,” Gameau

Netflix is closing in on a deal for Antonin Baudry’s “The Wolf’s Call” (“Le Chant du Loup”), an anticipated big-budget French submarine thriller, for multiple territories. The streaming service is in advanced negotiations to pre-buy “The Wolf’s Call” from Pathé International for North America, Latin America, Spain and Scandinavia, as well as for France, where

February 14, 2019 4:27AM PT Most web series and online films in China must register with the government and report their budgets and actor salaries starting from this Friday, the country’s media watchdog has decreed, in a further tightening of official oversight of the entertainment sector amid an uproar over talent pay. All live-action and

The Chinese city that is home to the world’s largest film studio has released lists of its top registered taxpayers in 2018, revealing the payments by major production companies and movie stars at a time when new tax regulations have upended the industry. In years past, the small city of Dongyang in coastal Zhejiang province

“A First Farewell,” which debuted this week at the Berlin Film Festival, has secured its first sale and looks set to have a promising festival career. The movie is the first in nearly 30 years at the Berlinale to have been shot in Uighur, the language spoken in the vast western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

February 14, 2019 3:15AM PT BAFTA-nominated director Stephen Fingleton has been cleared of sexual assault. The case came to a close in a London court on Wednesday, with the jury finding the Northern Irish director not guilty. He had been accused of sexually assaulting an actress – who was in her 20s and cannot be

BARCELONA – “Saba,” the new project of Alexis Ducord (“Zombillenium”) and Benjamin Massoubre, the editor at “Zombillenium,” and “Big Bad Fox & Other Tales,” will be offered up to potential partners and buyers at Europe’s upcoming Cartoon Movie, which kicks off March 5 in Bordeaux. A 3D CGI animated feature project, “Saba” is produced by

February 14, 2019 12:09AM PT Berlin-based international sales company Films Boutique has picked up the world rights of “37 Seconds,” the debut film by female Japanese filmmaker Hikari following its Berlin Film Festival premiere in the Panorama section. The film centers on a wheelchair-bound 23-year-old woman, Yuma, who works in a manga studio. Yuma starts

The Premio Maguey, the Guadalajara Intl. Film Festival’s LGBTQ sidebar, will pay tribute to late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Plans include the screening of “Mapplethorpe,” Ondi Timoner’s drama starring Matt Smith, on its March 9 opening night gala, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the death of the iconic artist. Mexican photographers have also been

February 13, 2019 10:45PM PT Georges Schoucair’s Beirut-based Abbout Productions has teamed up at the EFM with 4 European producers on “Costa Brava Lebanon,” a first feature set amid Lebanon’s never-ending garbage crisis to be directed by Mounia Akl who studied film at Columbia University. Abbout has finalized its coproduction pacts on this pic with

Despite a cold and rainy night, Hollywood writers have given a strong endorsement of the leadership of the Writers Guild of America in the current battle over talent agency regulations. About 1,000 members attended a spirited meeting at the Sheraton Universal Hotel on Wednesday night, a week after the first formal negotiating sessions between agencies

“A Star Is Born” took home multiple wins at the 9th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, held tonight at the theater at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The event celebrates the highest achievements in music supervision, recognizing exemplary work in 18 categories across movies, television, games, advertising, and trailers (read Variety‘s GMS Awards preview

London-based Matchbox Films has snapped up U.K. rights to Venezuelan supernatural thriller “The Whistler” from London and Tbilisi-based film production-distribution company, Alief. Closed at the EFM, deal comes in the wake of the drama’s Best Ibero-American Feature Award at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre Fantastic Film Festival in December and best cinematography, original score and

BERLIN — Jamila Wenske and Sol Bondy’s Berlin-based One Two Films, co-producer of this year’s EFM buzz title “Persian Lessons,” has scored another early winner with comedy-drama “Franky Five Star.” The project, from writer-director Birgit Möller, won the Junior Entertainment Talent Slate (JETS) pitching competition at the Berlin Film Festival on Tuesday, securing it industry

The officers of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors has sent a letter to is membership attempting to assuage concerns about the decision to hold four Oscar presentations off the live air telecast on Feb. 24. “As the Academy’s officers, we’d like to assure you that no award category at

More than 40 high-profile cinematographers and directors including Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, and Roger Deakins have blasted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s decision to not televise four of the awards — including best cinematography, best editing, best hair & makeup, and best live action short — in an open letter to AMPAS president

In today’s film news roundup, Adam McKay is honored by Kodak, tax credit lender Forest Road forms an alliance, and Cohen Media Group makes a deal for “Shooting the Mafia.” KODAK HONOR Adam McKay will be the first recipient of the Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award, to be presented at the third annual Kodak Film Awards in

No U.S.-China venture could have had a more auspicious start than Oriental DreamWorks. On a state visit to the U.S. in February 2012, then-Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping had lunch and watched a Los Angeles Lakers game with Jeffrey Katzenberg. That same day, Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation announced the launch of Oriental DreamWorks, a $330 million