Movies

In his early 20s, Norwegian director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel held a variety of roles at a primary school, including substitute teaching, leading afterschool programs and working with children with disabilities. The experience was “very profound” and led him to meet “great people,” Tøndel said. It also allowed him to observe parents’ behavior. Tøndel’s time working

For a perpetually frustrated single woman, Bridget Jones always had good taste in men. On the big screen 24 years ago, “Bridget Jones’s Diary” cemented Colin Firth’s sex appeal as human rights lawyer Mark Darcy and made us swoon for Hugh Grant all over again as roguish book publisher Daniel Cleaver. So it’s no surprise

Ben Whishaw isn’t averse to juggling multiple and very different projects, but even he admits there was a point last year when things reached near farcical levels. Around the same time he was shooting Netflix’s pulpy spy thriller series “Black Doves,” playing a contract killer with a conscience alongside Keira Knightley, he was recording the

For all the screenwriting manuals and maxims that insist on character goals and motivations and missions and all those things we’re supposed to have in real life too, there can be something riveting about a character with no plan at all. We never know quite where Ari, the eponymous protagonist of writer-director Léonor Serraille’s excellent

Day 3 at the Berlin Film Festival was chilly and very pretty in pink. Timothée Chalamet fired up the Berlinale on Friday by donning a cotton candy-colored hoodie and matching tank top. The “A Complete Unknown” star thoroughly charmed festival attendees. Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeth writes about the Chalamet effect and what it means as film

Robert Pattinson had a revelation during the Berlin Film Festival press conference for Bong Joon Ho‘s “Mickey 17“: He based one of his wacky accents in the movie off of Steve Buscemi’s “Fargo” character. In the sci-fi comedy, Pattinson plays the down-on-his-luck Mickey Barnes, who signs up to be an “expendable” on a new human

The Berlinale is just the start of a big 2025 for Catalan films, filmmakers and companies. Several high-profile Catalan buzz titles are currently shooting or in post-production and are slated to debut later in the year, while others are presently kicking off promising festival runs.  Former Berlin Golden Bear winner Carla Simon (“Alcarràs”) will debut

Brazil’s RT Features, producer of Walter Salles’ Oscar-nominated “I’m Still Here,” is backing “Porto” director Gabe Klinger‘s São Paulo-set wine world dramedy “Isabel,” which is currently in post-production. “Porto,” the director’s previous film, executive produced by Jim Jarmusch, was acquired for theatrical distribution in over forty markets after its San Sebastián premiere in 2016. “Isabel”

Like water taking the shape of any container in which it’s kept, Catalan cinema tends to work its way into every corner of a festival or marketplace in which it is present. This year’s European Film Market is no exception. Here’s a look at 10 Catalan titles set to make an impression at this year’s

When Isaac Hernández was cast in Michel Franco‘s upcoming drama “Dreams” alongside Jessica Chastain, he immediately felt the weight of the story on his shoulders. Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday, “Dreams” follows Fernando, a young Mexican ballet dancer who crosses the border into the U.S. — leaving everything he knows behind and

Israeli director Tom Shoval is back in Berlin with “A Letter to David,” which is his way of processing the fact that his friend David Cunio – who starred in his first feature “Youth” – is one of the more than 250 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nir Oz kibbutz.

In 1975, Vera Brandes, then an 18-year-old student and part-time promoter, organized a concert for Keith Jarrett in Cologne, a recording of which became “The Köln Concert,” the best-selling solo jazz album ever. Half a century later, director Ido Fluk is in Berlin premiering “Köln 75” about the woman behind this monumental moment in jazz history.

There are numerous first time directors at this year’s Berlinale, but few come with the sort of indie film credits on Rebecca Lenkiewicz‘s resume. The British playwright and screenwriter had worked on the script for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida” alongside the director, on “Disobedience” with Sebastián Lelio and on “Colette” with Wash Westmoreland, before going

Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at

The latest from an animation powerhouse, an anticipated biopic from a three-time Oscar nominee and a buzzy Sundance premiere headline the slate of new and upcoming Czech titles on offer at this year’s EFM. DJ AhmetDirector: Georgi M. UnkovskiProducers: Ivan Unkovski, Ivana ShekutkoskaA Czech minority co-production arriving off a buzzy Sundance premiere, this auspicious debut

One year ago, production in Prague had hit a worrying lull, with an uncharacteristic slowdown apparent on the usually booked soundstages and bustling streets of the Czech capital. Normally one of Europe’s busiest production hubs, the Czech Republic was feeling the impact of both the Hollywood strikes and the turmoil at its rebate system, which

The sophomore film from “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” director Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and the feature debut of rising Senegalese filmmaker Awa Moctar Gueye are among the projects that pan-African production outfit Yetu (Un)Limited will be pitching to prospective partners at the European Film Market. A collective of five creative producers looking to unlock the growing

On a recent winter morning in Fót, on the outskirts of Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán presided over a parade of officials and film industry luminaries at the ribbon-cutting of the new-look NFI Studios, the historic state-run complex that celebrated its official relaunch after a years-long push to expand and modernize a facility built at the tail end

It was welcome — perhaps even surprising — news for Hungarian moviegoers to discover that two home-grown productions were sitting at the top of the box office at the start of the year: “Gone Running,” Gábor Herendi’s local remake of the Czech romantic comedy “Women on the Run,” and the ’90s-set musical rom-com “How Could I Live

Sundance prizewinner Lemohang Mosese returns to the Berlin Film Festival with his third feature, “Ancestral Visions of the Future,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Berlinale Special strand. A deeply autobiographical work, the film is an artful meditation on dislocation and belonging that blurs the lines between reality and reconstruction. Through fragmented narratives involving a young

FilmSharks has scored several new distribution deals, including in North America, for David Bisbano’s Argentine animated pic “Dalia and the Red Book” ahead of the film’s global rollout. Vision Films has acquired all North American rights, with plans for a 2025 release in the second quarter. In Turkey, TME will distribute the film in the

Alex Kahuam, director of the one-take thriller “Failure!,” starring Ted Raimi, has officially launched a new Los Angeles-based shingle, Kahuam Films. Kahuam, who premiered “Failure!” at the Cannes Film Market’s Fantastic Pavilion Gala Screenings in 2023, is currently finishing up work on his fifth feature film, the psychological horror pic “The Remedy,” starring Timothy Granaderos

One of France’s foremost doc feature producers, Paris-based Les Films d’ici, has boarded “Who We Are” (“Qui som”). A buzz title at Berlin’s Spain in Focus showcase, “Who We Are” is being presented by its Spanish producers Materia Cinema, which co-financed Ira Sachs’ Sundance/Berlin player “Peter Hujar’s Day,” and Avalon, behind Berlin 2022 Golden Bear

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for the ending of “Captain America: Brave New World,” now playing in theaters. Captain America has saved the world once again but he still has one more mission ahead of time: reassembling the Avengers. Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson took over from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers and led his

Justin Baldoni asked a judge on Friday to prevent Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds from accessing years of his phone and text records, which he said could reveal location data and his web browser history. In a letter to the court, Baldoni’s lawyer Mitchell Schuster argued that Lively’s subpoenas are “flagrantly overbroad.” “It is hard to

The best and brightest of the U.K. and Ireland were celebrated last night in a star-studded bash at the Newport Beach Film Festival UK & IE Honours event in London. Those receiving honors included Icon Award honoree Stephen Fry, “Nosferatu” and Artist of Distinction honorees Emma Corrin, Sharon Horgan and Felicity Jones. Before receiving her

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for the ending of “Captain America: Brave New World,” now playing in theaters. Captain America is back — and so are several characters from “The Incredible Hulk,” “Eternals” and more corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Anthony Mackie is the new Captain America after taking up the mantle

“The Last Showgirl” director Gia Coppola is set to be honored with the Auteur Award at the 7th annual Kodak Awards. “Maria” cinematographer Ed Lachman will receive Kodak’s Career Achievement Award for his contributions to film. Lachman has collaborated with directors such as Todd Haynes, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Ulrich Seidl, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders,

In the sultry and slightly stir-crazy mind game that is “Hot Milk,” something’s the matter with Rose’s legs. The elderly single mom, played with an irritable, bone-deep bitterness by Irish actor Fiona Shaw, has spent the past few years paralyzed by an illness no one can diagnose. She’s seen multiple doctors, whose best guess is

Wallace and Gromit’s latest adventure, the delightfully whimsical “Vengeance Most Fowl,” celebrates the joys of doing things the old-fashioned way in a world increasingly focused on automation. The film personifies the push and pull between the old-fashioned and new-fangled through a new character for the beloved franchise: Norbot. Invented by Wallace to help his canine