Movies

Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to “Joyride,” a road-trip comedy starring Oscar-winner Olivia Colman and Charlie Reid. The indie studio will release the film in theaters and on demand on Dec. 23. The picture was directed by Emer Reynolds (“Songs for While I’m Away”) and written by Ailbhe Keogan (“Bad Sisters). The cast also

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are good friends who have shared the screen in films such as “The Expendables” and “Escape Plan,” but that wasn’t always the case for the action icons. The two were box office rivals throughout the 1980s and 1990s, which Stallone recently admitted to Forbes was the reason behind the two

For decades, Steven Spielberg has been synonymous with the movie business. The filmmaker has created some of the big screen’s most enduring moments, delighting audiences by spinning fantasies involving lovable aliens, menacing dinosaurs and one very hungry shark. And he’s even done the unimaginable and made movies about brutal subjects like the Holocaust and the

MARRAKECH  — Lebanese producer Pierre Sarraf from Né à Beyrouth Films and Sahar Yousefi (“Play, Rewind, Play”) at Canada’s Nava Projects have boarded one of the most buzzed about titles at the Atlas Workshops industry and mentoring platform at the Marrakech Film Festival. The Atlas Workshops opens its doors today. “Pigeon Wars” marks the first feature

Shinkai Makoto’s new anime feature “Suzume” has earned $13.5 million (JPY1.88 billion) in just three days since its Nov. 11 opening at the Japanese box office, a personal best for the proven hitmaker. The opening surpasses his previous smashes “Your Name” from 2016 and “Weathering With You” from 2019.    Meanwhile, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which

Stockholm-based Njuta Films has boarded Hannes Þór Halldórsson’s “Cop Secret,” snagging theatrical rights to Scandinavia after a bidding war at the American Film Market.   The film, produced by Iceland’s Pegasus Pictures, was recently nominated for the European Film Award as best comedy alongside Fernando León De Aranoa’s “The Good Boss” and Catherine Corsini’s “The Divide.”  This

Toy giant MGA Entertainment is the latest big player from outside Hollywood to take aim at the content business. The privately held firm, based in Chatsworth and home to popular retail brands such as L.O.L. Surprise!, Rainbow High, Bratz and Little Tikes, has launched MGA Studios, a content division backed with $500 million in capital

For several years, Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams (“Life, Animated”) hosted an intimate IDFA paella party at his apartment in Amsterdam for attending directors, producers, and editors. But in 2018, Williams and his co-host, documentary producer, and the founder of Motto Pictures, Julie Goldman (“The Velvet Underground”), realized that the annual event had transformed into

Pyramide Films has boarded Meryem Benm’Barek’s “Behind the Palm Trees,” a Morocco-set romance thriller which will be pitched at the Atlas Workshops, the industry sidebar running place alongside the Marrakech Film Festival. The film marks the sophomore outing of Benm’Barek, an promising helmer who made her feature debut with “Sofia” which won best screenplay at

“The Marriage,” the feature-length fiction debut from Brazilian documentary filmmaker Maíra Bühler (“Let It Burn”), and a pair of intimate and revelatory queer films “The Way You See Me,” and buzz-title “Diamond,” backed by Argentina’s Maravilla Cine (“That Weekend”), are among the selections set for Ventana Sur’s 2022 Punto Genero Pitching Sessions. They’re joined by

MARRAKECH — Filmmaker teams from as far afield as Burkina Faso, Qatar and Palestine headed to Morocco this weekend for the Production and Post Production section of industry and talent mentoring program the Atlas Workshops, which runs Nov. 14-17  at the Marrakech Film Festival. “There has been a big interest in Arab cinema for a few

Prolific Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek has started shooting “Nuovo Olimpo,” a Rome-set gay romance that marks his first collaboration with Netflix. Ozpetek’s first Netflix Italian original film is the fourteenth feature from the popular helmer known for commercially successful pics such as “Ignorant Fairies” and “Loose Cannons.” He was celebrated during an AmfAR gala at

Valentina Maurel’s “I Have Electric Dreams” continued its winning streak this week at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, where the Costa Rican director’s coming-of-age drama took home the Golden Alexander for best feature film. Maurel’s debut follows a restless 16-year-old girl experiencing her sexual awakening. Desperate to leave the house she shares with her mother and

The 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will open with Austrian film “Alma & Oskar,” directed by Dieter Berner. The film details the tumultuous relationship between Viennese society grand dame Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). IFFI has also revealed the 15 films that will be competing for its top prize,

A seventh edition of the Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop India is to be held Dec. 4-10, 2022, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay museum in Mumbai. The seven-day workshop designed by David Walsh, training and outreach coordinator at the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), will include theory and practical group sessions in

Chinese-made crime thriller “The Tipping Point” leaped to the top of the mainland China box office over the weekend with an $8.8 million three-day haul. The film, directed by Hong Kong’s David Lam (“Z Storm”), is adapted from real events and sees a newly-appointed detective called on to investigate the death of a female school

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” star Simu Liu is best known as a Marvel superhero, but the actor recently showed off his real-life superpowers by donating $100,000 to the hunger-fighting nonprofit Feeding America. The Chinese-Canadian actor made the surprise donation Wednesday night during the first-ever BoxLunch Holiday Gala benefitting Feeding America, held

MARRAKECH  — Having written the script over the last five years, Julie will act in and direct feature film “The Barbarians,” she confirmed at the Marrakech Film Festival. “‘It is about Syrian refugees in France. It has a unique flavor. It is funny and dark. A lot of people have tackled this subject but I think

If the new Belvedere Vodka commercial, starring Daniel Craig and directed by Taika Waititi, were a scene out of Craig’s latest film, it would be the best scene in the movie, or at least the one that everyone’s talking about. Then again, no one would mistake it for a movie scene. The commercial has a

Imanol Rayo’s “Dog Days” promises to be an ambitious look at family, the challenges of adolescence, the impact of climate change and irreversible transformation. The project, which won this year’s main prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, is the Basque filmmaker’s first original script. His previous films, including “Two Brothers” and “Death

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” not only gives the on-screen women central roles, director Ryan Coogler had women playing major roles behind the camera too. “Black Panther s” costume designer Ruth E. Carter and production designer Hannah Beachler both returned for the sequel. And for the film’s cinematography, Coogler called in Autumn Arkapaw — who is

Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” dominated the domestic box office in its debut, earning $180 million over the weekend and providing a much-needed lift to beleaguered cinemas. The sequel demolished the record for a November opening in North America, soaring past the previous high-water mark of $158 million set by 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

Egyptian filmmaker Amir Ramses is no stranger to the Cairo Intl. Film Festival. The director’s feature debut, “End of the World,” bowed at the prestigious Arab fest in 2005, and he returned 15 years later with “The Curfew,” bookending a chapter of his career in which the prolific filmmaker garnered worldwide acclaim. But for the

Strengthening its credentials in this year’s international feature film Oscar race where it represents France, Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” edged Belgian’s Oscar entry “Close” for top honors, the Giraldillo de Oro, at a busy Seville European Film Festival. A celebration of European arthouse which could not be more timely – the fall-off in arthouse attendance proved

Valentina Maurel’s coming-of-age drama “I Have Electric Dreams” has proved a major winner on the international festival circuit and a daring work that further highlights Costa Rica’s burgeoning film scene. The film won the prizes for director, actress and actor at the Locarno Film Festival, and San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizons Award. The film follows

“Agra” by Kanu Behl (Cannes selection “Titli,” Clermont-Ferrand winner “Binnu Ka Sapna”), “Joram” by Devashish Makhija (Rotterdam selection “Ajji,” Busan selection “Bhonsle”) and “Sultana’s Dream” by Isabel Herguera (San Sebastian selection “Kalebegiak”) are among the selections at India’s Film Bazaar Recommends (FBR) strand. The strand is a part of Film Bazaar, the South Asia film

Two big ticket films starring some of India’s biggest stars could possibly end the long dry spell that Bollywood is currently enduring at the box office, trade analysts predict. In recent years, the cinema of South India, comprising the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam language industries, has stolen a march over its hitherto more glamorous

The government of Pakistan has banned Saim Sadiq’s Oscar contender “Joyland” for containing “highly objectionable” material. An order dated Nov. 11 from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting says that the country’s censor board had granted a censor certificate to the film on Aug. 17. But it has since reversed the decision. “Written complaints were

The Milan premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s cannibal romance “Bones and All” suspended its red carpet activities on Saturday evening to account for a massive crowd of Timothée Chalamet fans that had attended in hopes of catching a glimpse of the film’s star. Local police shut down the red carpet outside the Space Cinema Odeon after

Things got heady during a Saturday IDFA Dialogue talk featuring the fest’s artistic director, Orwa Nyrabia, and IDFA Queer Day guest curator, philosopher-writer Simon(e) van Saarloos. Titled “What Gender Are Film Festivals,” the one hour discussion touched on topics including the moral force that drives and funds documentary film festivals, the people who have the