Movies

Jasmina Kuhnke, a German-born writer, actor, author and activist, has signed with CAA for representation, Variety has learned exclusively. Kuhnke’s debut novel, “Black Heart,” is a bestseller. The semi-autobiographical book recounts her experience growing up on the outskirts of the Ruhr region in Germany in the ’90s, and how she grappled with racism. Through a

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival has announced a new batch of mostly international titles set to launch in its Festival Favorites and Treasures strands, including the international premiere of U.S. actor-turned-director Jennifer Esposito’s New York City mob drama “Fresh Kills.” Inspired by Esposito’s upbringing in Staten Island, “Fresh Kills” – in which Esposito co-stars

When asked how she felt about this year’s opening film at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) having been supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund (IBF), the fund’s executive director and IDFA deputy director Isabel Arrate Fernandez beamed with pride, stating it is “amazing, most of all because it’s a beautiful film.” The film

Deckert Distribution CEO Liselot Verbrugge is to launch a new company as the German sales agency prepares to wind down its operations in 2024, with founder Heino Deckert moving fully to production. Verbrugge is attending IDFA documentary festival this week, where the Sundance awarded film “Against the Tide,” one of the agency’s bestsellers this year,

Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o is stepping into an executive producer role to support Sudan’s second-ever Academy Award international feature film submission, “Goodbye Julia.” The timely film, directed by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani, takes place just before the 2011 secession of South Sudan and won the Un Certain Regard section’s Prix de Liberté (Freedom Prize) at

Hengameh Panahi, the celebrated French-Iranian producer who founded Celluloid Dreams and forged long-standing bonds with auteurs around the world, has died. She was 67. Panahi, who worked with the likes of Jafar Panahi, Jacques Audiard, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Jia Zhangke, died on Nov. 5 after battling a long illness, according to a statement sent by

An entertainment-industry crowd turned out on Wednesday for the Los Angeles premiere of “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” a controversial 47-minute documentary assembled by the Israeli Defense Forces.  “Witness” features extremely graphic footage from the atrocities committed last month that claimed the lives of 1,400 Israelis and resulted in terrorist group Hamas taking

France and Taiwan on Thursday signed a wide-ranging agreement to enable their film and TV industries co-operate on a higher level. At a signing ceremony in Taipei at the Taiwan Creative Culture Fest (TCCF) convention, government representatives of both territories stressed shared values at the political level and in the audiovisual sphere. “We have the

Tom Hardy‘s Eddie Brock/Venom is no longer crashing the summer movie season, as Sony Pictures has pushed back the third “Venom” movie to Nov. 8, 2024. The announcement came the same day that SAG-AFTRA approved a tentative deal to end the 118-day actors strike. The third installment of the “Venom” series, which is untitled at this

Let the unpacking begin. After a work stoppage of record duration, SAG-AFTRA and its largest employers have made peace. Hollywood’s TV and film production machinery is about to be dusted off after a more than six-month furlough that has taxed every sector of the entertainment economy, from union members to local businesses to the largest

Things got political on Wednesday at DOC NYC‘s 10th annual Visionaries Tribute Honorees, when honoree Michael Moore asked the crowd to take a pledge “to let our Jewish brothers and sisters know that we will never, ever allow what happened in the 20th century” to happen again. The Gotham Hall gala marks the opening day

SAG-AFTRA negotiators have approved a tentative agreement that will end the longest actors strike against the film and TV studios in Hollywood history. In an announcement Wednesday, the union said the 118-day strike would officially end at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday. The union’s negotiating committee approved the deal on a unanimous vote. The agreement next

“The Incredible Hulk” director Louis Leterrier was the first guest on the new “Happy Sad Confused” spinoff series “Watchalong” and he got frank while discussing his 2008 comic book movie. The film, which starred Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and the Hulk, was the second movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but its critical and

Edward Enninful has signed with WME for representation, Variety has learned exclusively. He continues to be repped for Business Affairs by Tahir Basheer and Chris Paget at Sheridans. The British Vogue chief made history in 2017 as Vogue’s first Black editor-in-chief, where he continued to champion diversity and inclusion, helming innovative issues including the magazine’s

How does it feel to have your feature debut open one of the largest documentary festivals in the world? To director Olga Chernykh, whose “A Picture to Remember” opens the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), it feels like a “gift from the universe.” “A Picture to Remember” is an essay-style account of the war

A few days after AFM wrapped in Santa Monica, the dearth of substantial deals trickling in is pointing to a weakened film sales market which is grappling with structural changes and the reverberations of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Global industry players came into the AFM with reasonable hopes of dealmaking after a quiet Toronto festival, even

Sharon Stone famously laughed during a 2018 “CBS Sunday Morning” interview when asked if she ever faced sexual harassment or assault in Hollywood. “I been in this business for 40 years,” the Oscar nominee told the reporter at the time. “Can you imagine the business I stepped into 40 years ago, looking like I look?

“The Marvels,” the 33rd installment in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, is barreling toward an unfortunate box office distinction. The big-budget superhero sequel is expected to generate just $60 million to $65 million from 4,000 North American theaters in its opening weekend, which would be one of the lowest debuts in MCU history. That ignominious badge currently

MTV Documentary Films’ “The Eternal Memory,” directed by Maite Alberdi, will exclusively debut on Paramount+ in the U.S. on Nov. 7. “The Eternal Memory” tells the story of Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia, a Chilean couple whose lives are irrevocably impacted by Augusto’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The film’s description reads, “As one of Chile’s most prominent

Two years in, the Academy Film Museum is rolling full steam ahead with a new programming director and a packed slate of upcoming films for the winter season. On Dec. 10, Christopher Nolan will present the classic Western “Shane” on its 70th anniversary and speak about the film for the George Stevens Lecture. Other spotlight

Sony Pictures will conduct a live orchestra at the Academy Museum featuring the bombastic music from its animated feature (and best picture) contender “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” At a special invitation-only event at the David Geffen Theater, the studio will feature an exhilarating arrangement of electronics, turntables and a live orchestra performing the original score

In “The Marvels,” Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a snarky but beaming-eyed Pakistani-American teenage mutant ninja fangirl, is seated in her bedroom in Jersey City, sketching comic-book panels in which she imagines herself part of a team with her idol, Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). She will soon get her wish. Suddenly, Kamala is

Cue the theme song, the Ghostbusters are back!  Sony has dropped the trailer for “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” the sequel to 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.” “Afterlife” took the ghostbusting to rural Oklahoma, but the franchise’s upcoming fifth film returns to its roots in New York City. In the trailer for “Frozen Empire,” an idyllic NYC summer turns

The USC Norman Lear Center and the non-profit organization Gold House have collaborated to produce a new study on Asian representation across film and TV streaming platforms in the year 2022, entitled “A Balancing Act for Asian Representation: More Visible But Not Yet Specific.” Citing a significant increase of Asian characters from 3% to 16%

WME has signed writer-director Meshal Al Jaser for representation. Meshal recently made his feature film debut with “Naga,” a madcap satirical thriller about a young woman stranded in the Arabian desert as she races to get home before her strict father punishes her for missing curfew. It premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival midnight section, the

Outside of recent voice roles on “American Horror Stories” and “She Said,” Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow has not acted on camera in a few years. Her last film was in 2019 courtesy of “Avengers: Endgame,” in which she reprised her fan favorite Marvel role of Pepper Potts, while she also appeared in the Netflix series

Speciality distributor and exhibitor Curzon has tapped Edward Fletcher as its new CEO. Fletcher will take over the role from Philip Knatchbull, who departs the company next week. Fletcher co-founded distributor Soda Pictures in 2002, which handled more than 300 titles and in 2014 was acquired by Thunderbird Entertainment before rebranding as Thunderbird Releasing. Fletcher

Will 2024 finally be the year that fetch catches on? Paramount has released the first trailer for “Mean Girls,” adapted from the 2018 Tony-nominated musical based on the 2004 comedy. Reneé Rapp (“The Sex Lives of College Girls”) will play the infamous Regina George, reprising her role on Broadway. Joining the cast are Auli’i Cravalho

In the quarter that included the marriage of UFC and WWE under the TKO Group umbrella, Endeavor saw its Q3 revenue rise despite headwinds from Hollywood strikes and other market conditions, but operating expenses climbed even more. Endeavor’s conference call with analysts today is expected to give Wall Streeters a chance to grill company executives,

“The White Lotus,” “Wednesday” and “Gladiator 2” are among the TV shows and movies expected to fuel travel and tourism trends in the coming year, according to the annual forecast from travel giant Expedia Group. Another emerging trend in travel is dubbed “Tour Tourism,” in which fans of top artists trek far from home to