Movies

The Creatives – the Fremantle-backed alliance of 10 leading production companies – have shared the results of the first edition of “The Creative Connection” at the Venice Film Festival. The companies – which include Lemming Film (Locarno premiere “Sweet Dreams”), Versus Production (Venice’s “Through the Night”), Maipo Film (“Elling”), Razor Film (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”), Komplizen

Denzel Washington’s bloody assassin-thriller “The Equalizer 3” debuted at the top of box office charts with $34.5 million over the weekend and an estimated $41 million through Monday’s Labor Day holiday. It’s the second-biggest Labor Day opening weekend in modern times, though the holiday isn’t known for bringing people to the movies. After the record-holder

To find her voice as a filmmaker, Paris-based documentarian Lina Soualem had to first look to the past. The daughter of French actor Zinedine Soualem and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass — seen recently as the Machiavellian Marcia Roy in HBO’s “Succession” — Soualem used her directorial debut, “Their Algeria,” to tell the story of her

It does rather feel as if the universe — or at least the French film industry — is trying to tell us something when 2023 has turned up not one but two loose Gallic adaptations of Henry James’s “The Beast in the Jungle.” That 1903 novella was about a man, John Marcher, who fails to

“Sex is back,” said Julie Hintsinger, executive director of the Telluride Film Festival, to a packed house of festival-goers as they took in the newest effort from Yorgos Lanthimos at this year’s 50th anniversary. One of the festivals tributes this year, a pre-screening convo was moderated by director Karyn Kusama, as the two discussed his

British Hollywood director Simon West (“Con Air,” “Lara Croft:Tomb Raider”) is set to direct Saudi Arabia-set epic “Antara” that will be shot in Neom, the sprawling production hub in Saudi Arabia’s northwestern corner. The English-language blockbuster based on Arab history is the tale of Antara ibn Shaddad, a slave warrior who was propelled to mythical status

British actor Faraz Ayub is in virtually every frame of Moin Hussain’s “Sky Peals,” world premiering at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week. Ayub plays Adam, who works night shifts at a motorway service station and lives a lonely life. Upon hearing that his estranged father has died, he finds himself in search of answers.

Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy Irvine are set to star in Italian comedy “Leopardi & Co.,” directed by Federica Biondi and produced by Franco-Tunisian film and TV entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar’s Eagle Pictures. Shooting on the film is currently underway in the town of Recanati, which is known to many Italians as the birthplace of one

Vicky Krieps, best performance prize winner in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard for “Corsage,” will star as Sophie Toscan du Plantier in six time-Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s “Re-creation,” which is being presented in the Venice Gap-Financing Market. The docu-drama, which centers on the brutal murder in 1996 in Ireland of French film and

Andrew Scott sees dead people, but he could also see an Oscar nomination come his way with his heartbreaking and tenderly emotional turn as a gay screenwriter in Andrew Haigh’s drama “All of Us Strangers.” Loosely based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel “Strangers,” the film follows screenwriter Adam (Scott), who, after an encounter with his

Harmony Korine’s “Aggro Dr1ft” received a 10-minute standing ovation after its premiere at Venice Film Festival, despite a flurry of walkouts. Though some audience members left as soon as the 80-minute experimental action film finished (and at least 25 departed before that), Korine’s hardcore fans stuck around for a rousing 10-minute ovation at the midnight

Roman Polanski’s black comedy “The Palace” was given a tepid three-minutes of applause when it world premiered in the Palazzo del Cinema’s Sala Grande on Saturday night. Producer Luca Barbareschi, French star Fanny Ardant and other key cast members including German actor Oliver Masucci (“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”), Portugal’s Joaquim de Almeida and Italy’s

I have seen the future of cinema, and it is “Aggro Dr1ft,” a neon-hued outlaw eyegasm from the director of ”Spring Breakers.” There will likely never be another film like it. Even so, it’s clear that Harmony Korine’s immersive iridescent plunge into the world and psyche of a serial killer points the way down fresh

Actor Jack Huston makes his directorial debut with the drama “The Day of the Fight,” starring Michael Pitt, in Venice’s Horizons Extra. The black and white film, set in the early 1980s, follows Mikey (Pitt) through his day as he prepares for a comeback fight at Madison Square Garden that night. But Mikey is preparing

As any critic will tell you, when you’re watching a comedy with an audience, it doesn’t matter how bad the movie is — even the jokes that are making you groan are going to provoke laughter. (That’s why comedies are always screened in advance; the studios want the audience giggles to rub off on you.)

Five years after “A Star is Born” debuted on the Lido, on its way to seven Oscar nominations, “Maestro” — Bradley Cooper’s long-awaited second film as director — screened at the Venice Film Festival to rapturous applause. The drama about the life of legendary stage composer Leonard Bernstein landed a seven-minute standing ovation at its

The writers strike reached the four-month mark on Saturday, and as Hot Labor Summer moves to autumn, there is still no sign that it will be over any time soon. The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have not talked in two weeks. Both maintain that the ball

In “Maestro,” playing the legendary American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, Bradley Cooper has a light in his eye — a glow of merriment and mischief, of gleeful cosmopolitan desire. His Lenny is a prodigy, a prankster, a seducer, a monk of creative devotion and, through it all, a man of epic contradiction. In public,

Don’t let the word “bike” fool you. In Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders,” the wheels in question are choppers — good, all-American motorcycles, built from the ground up by tough guys in leather jackets — and the “club” they’re a part of is really more of a gang. Nichols hails from the Heartland (from Little Rock,

Venice Film Festival’s red carpet swapped glamour for politics on Saturday, hosting a flash mob in solidarity with the Iranian people, fighting against repression, as well as filmmakers who are being oppressed – and arrested – because of their work. Such as “Leila’s Brothers” director Saeed Roustaee, recently sentenced to six months in prison for

 Lily Gladstone is condemning Hollywood’s glorification of the American West in film and television, particularly the Kevin Costner-led series “Yellowstone.” “Delusional! Deplorable!” Gladstone told Vulture of Taylor Sheridan’s Western drama. “Yellowstone” and its spinoff series “1883” and “1923” follow different generations of the Dutton family and their cattle ranch in Montana. Creator Sheridan has defended

Barcelona-based indie studio Filmax has nabbed international sales rights to Joaquín Mazón’s “The Night My Dad Saved Christmas,” starring Spain’s king of comedy Santiago Segura (”Father There Is Only One”) and Ernesto Sevilla (“I Can Quit Whenever I Want”). A Spain-Mexico co-production, the film teams Spain’s tax incentive structure La Navidad en Sus Manos AIE

John Galliano loomed large over the world of fashion throughout the 1990s and early aughts. As the  creative director of Givenchy and Dior, Galliano was widely admired for his bold, barrier-pushing style and his sensual, elegant designs. But Galliano’s career imploded after videos emerged of him in 2010 and 2011 speaking admiringly of Adolf Hitler

Night time in Rome. Wildfires rage on the horizon of the vast city. A blackout strikes, and block by block, the urban landscape is plunged suddenly into darkness, illuminated only by traffic and the roaring blaze in the distance. When a city’s infrastructure fails, it feels like the visible, outward sign of dysfunction or rot.

Denzel Washington’s “The Equalizer 3” is showing some box office virtuosity, taking flight in its domestic debut after grossing $13.1 million on opening day from 3,241 venues. That includes $3.8 million in Thursday previews, boosted by showtimes in premium large format auditoriums. The third and ostensibly final entry in Sony’s action series is gunning for

“Barbie” has conquered North America, and now, the world. Greta Gerwig’s fantasy-comedy has generated $1.36 billion at the global box office, overtaking Universal and Illumination’s animated adventure “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($1.35 billion globally) as the highest-grossing worldwide movie of the year. “Barbie” has accumulated $600 million in North America and, earlier in August,

“Maestro” makeup designer Kazu Hiro has responded to backlash over Bradley Cooper’s nose prosthetic in the upcoming film, in which he portrays iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein. “I wasn’t expecting that to happen… I feel sorry that I hurt some people’s feelings,” Hiro said during a press conference at Venice Film Festival on Saturday. “My goal

Roman Polanski’s Italian producer Luca Barbareschi got emotional at the press conference for “The Palace,” a black comedy that is the director’s new work and premieres at the Venice Film Festival today. “It’s been very difficult to make this film,” said Barbareschi, a multi-hyphenate who also stars in “The Palace.” “Polanski is not easy [to

“Holy Spider” breakout Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Guy Nattiv are set to make history with “Tatami,” the first feature co-directed by an Iranian and an Israeli filmmaker. Premiering in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, “Tatami” shows Iranian female judo fighter Leila (played by “The L Word: Generation Q” star Arienne Mandi) heading to the world

The question of whether Hollywood stars will light up the Lido this week has roiled the film industry in the run-up to the Venice Film Festival. “Poor Things” lead actress Emma Stone was among the marquee names that were holding out for a SAG-AFTRA exemption allowing her to promote the Frankenstein-inspired period film from Oscar