Movies

Nicolas Cage, accompanied by Australian actress and producer Nikki Whelan, trod the red carpet on Saturday night as part of the opening festivities at the third edition of the International Film Festival and Awards. Set as a talent ambassador, Cage held small group seminars earlier on Saturday. On Sunday he will hold a masterclass. His

Imagine, if you can, a “Transformers” movie in which the plot is coherent, the robots feel like characters (as opposed to gleaming CG creations), and the action is staged and edited clearly enough to follow. After five rock ’em, sock ’em blockbuster features, it has become clear that audiences would never get such a film

LILLE, France – “The Breadwinner” director Nora Twomey and “The Heroic Quest of the Valiant Prince Ivandoe” directors Christian Bøving-Andersen and Eva Lee Wallberg took top honors at Saturday night’s second edition of the European Animation Awards (EAA) in Lille, France, scooping best feature and best TV/broadcast production respectively. It was an evening of beautiful

December 8, 2018 2:00PM PT Cambodian master director Rithy Panh’s is not optimistic about the chances of his latest film “Graves Without A Name” doing well at the Oscars. It is Cambodia’s contender in the foreign language category. “There is very little possibility. We have had screenings here and there, but the Oscar campaign costs

Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” Annapurna’s “Sorry to Bother You” and “The Sisters Brothers” and A24’s “Hereditary” are among the films that will not be competing for the upcoming Writers Guild Awards nominations, Variety has learned. They and a slew of other titles are not eligible due to the guild’s strictures stipulating conformity to the its

Glenn Close and Sam Elliott sat down for a conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors. For more, click here.  Sam Elliott may be a cinematic icon thanks to his craggy voice and résumé of cowboy roles, but he has yet to be recognized with an Oscar nomination. That will probably change with “A Star Is Born,” which

With his 1999 feature debut “Human Resources,” director Laurent Cantet – who later won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “The Class” – traced the economic and cultural fissures between France’s blue-collar, non-urban set, and the country’s managerial elite. That conflict has played out writ large across the streets of Paris in recent weeks, as

During the gala closing ceremony of the 17th edition of the Marrakech Intl. Film Festival, the Golden Star for best film was awarded to Sudabeh Mortezai for her second feature, “Joy,” about a young Nigerian woman forced into prostitution, which recently won best film at the BFI London Film Festival. Accepting the prize from actress

Building on the attention and opportunities that arrived following his 2007 Palme d’Or for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Cristian Mungiu has transformed himself into a quiet force in the European film industry. A ubiquitous presence on the festival circuit, the Romanian director has won prizes for his follow-up films “Beyond the Hills”

December 8, 2018 11:02AM PT With the Marvel fandom’s anticipation leading up to “Avengers: Endgame,” it’s no surprise that the trailer drop set a new record for most views in its first 24 hours. The “Avengers: Endgame” trailer was viewed 289 million times in its first 24 hours, after it was released around 5 a.m.

In today’s film news roundup, environmental documentary “The Human Element” and romancer “Frank and Ava” get release dates and NBA player Dwight Howard backs Christopher Walken’s “Percy.” RELEASE DATES The Orchard has set a Jan. 29 digital release date for James Balog’s environmental documentary “The Human Element,” Variety has learned exclusively. Balog uses his camera

Peter Jackson remains a bit astounded at his transition four years ago from the Shire of Middle Earth to the French battlefields of World War I. Jackson introduced his documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old” Friday night at the Linwood Dunn Theatre in Hollywood, four weeks after it aired on Armistice Day on the BBC.

Actor-director Faouzi Bensaidi is one of Morocco’s most critically acclaimed directors, whose previous pics include Berlin player “Death for Sale” (2011) and Venice entry “Volubilis” (2017). He recently starred in Elia Suleiman’s “It Must Be Heaven,” and is now planning to direct his next project, “Deserts,” to be shot in the Sahara desert in 2019.

Animated family flicks are proving their worth ahead of the upcoming holiday rush, with “Ralph Breaks the Internet” and “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” both making claims on the top spot with an estimated $15 million each. Current estimates show Disney’s “Ralph” ahead by roughly $600,000. If estimates hold, it will mark the film’s third consecutive

Morocco is becoming a popular destination for international film and TV shoots, while Moroccan talent is producing cinema and TV content that is traveling widely abroad. Earlier this year Morocco implemented a new 20% cash rebate scheme that has helped generate a foreign production spend of $60 million up until last month, up on the

Hulu Japan and HBO Asia’s “Miss Sherlock” won best drama series at the inaugural Asian Academy Creative Awards. The awards were spread over two evenings at Singapore’s Capitol Theatre on Friday and Saturday. India’s Anurag Kashyap won best direction (fiction) for season one of Netflix original series “Sacred Games.” The series also won best editing

During his Variety Actors on Actors conversation with Glenn Close, Sam Elliott dished on the first table read of “A Star Is Born” with Lady Gaga. “I’ve loved her from afar,” Elliott said. “She was just kind of this regular girl on some level, this Stefanie,” he said. “She was stunning to work with.” Elliott described

“The Wife” features a tumultuous relationship between a married couple (Jonathan Pryce and Glenn Close), and one scene in particular shook Close to her core, so much she almost refused to do it. “The one where he’s dying and he says, ‘Do you love me?’ It was so upsetting to me that I stopped and

Young Egyptian actor Ahmed Magdy (“Microphone,” “Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim”) is making his directorial debut with surreal drama “The Giraffe,” in which a nocturnal search on Cairo’s streets for money to pay for a young woman’s emergency abortion intersects with a mystery involving the breeding of giraffes in the Giza zoo. “Giraffe,” which is

Three projects from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore with potential as theatrical feature films were this week named as winners of the inaugural ATF Chinese Pitch. The event was co-organized by Reed Exhibitions and G.H.Y Culture & Media. From Singapore, came “Mulan, The Robot Girl,” from The Big Shots, about a who woke up as

December 7, 2018 11:03PM PT Filipino-American filmmaker Mel Allego’s “Filipino” won the Cre8 co-production award at the Southeast Asian Film Financing project market awards on Friday. Set in Cebu, The Philippines, the film is a political thriller written and co-produced by Mel Allego. A director has not been finalized yet. “We are looking for someone

Let’s pretend for a moment that Disney didn’t just release a “live-action” remake of its 1967 “The Jungle Book” two years ago (technically, the new version was computer animated, but photoreal enough not to be classified among the cartoons). In a world without such competition, “Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle” might have seemed like a

A 1976 film might not be expected to translate seamlessly to Broadway in 2018, but for the cast and creative team behind “Network,” which premiered Thursday night with Hillary Clinton in the audience, the story still feels uncomfortably close to home. “It was a satire then, and now it’s documentary realism,” said Lee Hall, who

Netflix will expand Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” to more than 100 theaters in the United States and will open the awards contender in more than 500 theaters internationally in over 40 countries. Netflix will start streaming the awards contender on Dec. 14. Its announcement of the specifics of the expansion Friday indicates that the company wants

Neon has acquired the North American rights to the Aretha Franklin documentary “Amazing Grace,” a month after the movie premiered at DOC NYC. Neon said it’s planning an early 2019 theatrical release. The film, shot in 1972 by Sydney Pollack at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, was originally planned by Warner

Less than two days after announcing Kevin Hart as its Oscar host, the Academy is already on the look-out for a replacement, following widespread protests about Hart’s homophobic past tweets. Many are turning to “Saturday Night Live” actresses Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig as possible solutions, while others are looking to proven veterans like Ellen

December 7, 2018 2:01PM PT At the Macao festival’s popular Director’s Choice strand, contemporary filmmakers are asked to choose one genre film that has had an impact on them. Three Asian filmmakers were asked to choose non-Asian films, while non-Asian filmmakers were asked to select Asian films. The Philippines’ Erik Matti chose Sergio Leone’s “Once

December 7, 2018 2:00PM PT Macau’s architectural heritage is showcased in a new photographic exhibition, Experience Macao Cinematic Style. It is timed to coincide with the opening today of the 3rd edition of the International Film Festival and Awards Macao. Organized by the Macao Government Tourism Office, the exhibition includes pictures taken by a 15-strong

Laos director Mattie Do and Swiss producer Annick Mahnert are working together on “The Long Walk,” a project that was at the first edition of the IFFAM Project market in 2016 and is showing as a work in progress at the Macao Industry Hub. The pair previously teamed up on “Dearest Sister.” The film was

This is the festival’s third year of existence, and Mike Goodridge’s second edition as artistic director. So things should be approaching a degree of maturity now. Goodridge calls it an evolution. What are the major programming lines of the 3rd edition of IFFAM? We are launching the New Chinese Cinema section. The idea is simple,