Prime Video has inked an overall creative deal with Italian writer-director Antonio Dikele Distefano, who is the originator of groundbreaking Netflix original series “Zero” that in 2021 marked Italy’s first show centered around the present-day lives of black Italian youth. Dikele, who was born in Italy to Angolan parents, is now making his feature film
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Rebecca (Margaret Qualley), a mysterious, mercurial careerist, enters Zachary Wigon’s “Sanctuary” with a determined knock on the door of an expensive hotel suite. The room — make that the entire 40-plus story hotel, and the 111 other hotels in the luxe Porterfield chain — belongs to Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott), the founder’s son, a self-loathing
During a career of 16 years that spanned numerous East Coast hospitals since the late ‘80s, real-life nurse Charles Cullen confessed to murdering at least 29 patients with a fatal cocktail of drugs he dripped into his victims’ bloodstream. That figure was only his confirmed body count, however. As a title card suggests at the
“Causeway,” starring Jennifer Lawrence as a U.S. Army soldier recovering from injuries that are physical, mental, and spiritual, is the furthest thing from a genre film. Yet it belongs to what I’ve come to think of as a genre: the slow-burn non-verbal indie gloomfest. In saying that, I don’t mean to make light of the
Harry Styles has finally debuted his dramatic chops, charming the Toronto International Film Festival at the world premiere of “My Policeman.” An emotional, decade-spanning drama about a 1950s cop juggling an idealistic wife and a secret male lover, Styles turned up with his costars Emma Corrin and David Dobson to unveil the long-awaited project. The
Three movies into his film career, Harry Styles’ ability as an actor continues to improve with each of his outings. Beginning as a young soldier in Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” (2017), he returns to the silver screen with two films this year. In the first, he’s the charming husband to Florence Pugh in “Don’t Worry Darling,”
English novelist E.M. Forster never married, and why would he? The author of “Maurice” and “Howards End” was gay, reportedly maintaining relations with a much-younger police officer over the span of four decades. That man did marry, and history has it that his wife knew their secret. In “My Policeman,” this unconventional arrangement lends itself
On the stage at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Harry Styles is a bonafide rock star, brimming with swagger and self confidence. But Styles, the actor, was more soft spoken while accepting an acting award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Styles was a man of few words as he, along with the cast
A visibly emotional Brendan Fraser fought back tears as “The Whale” received a passionate standing ovation at its Toronto International Film Festival premiere on Sunday. The crowd stood for roughly five minutes until festival organizers quieted the applause to begin a question and answer session with Fraser, director Darren Aronofsky, writer Samuel D. Hunter and
“Fragments of the Last Will,” a post-WWII prisoner of war drama, has been set as the opening title of next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival. It is directed by Zeze Takahisa. The festival, which runs Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022, will close with “Living,” directed by Oliver Hermanus and starring Bill Nighy. The film is a
God’s thumbs! Leave it to “Girls” creator Lena Dunham to deliver what’s been missing from the field of princess movies all these years: namely, permission for young women to be themselves, regardless of what their parents or the patriarchy might think. In many ways, movies — and YA movies in particular — double as a
Another red-hot star arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, as Harry Styles stopped by for the world premiere of his new drama, “My Policeman.” At a press conference early in the day, Styles said spoke about how he was able to get in the headspace of his character, the closeted policeman Tom.
Starting soon, Marvel fans will be able to take a ride through the Multiverse. A new Avengers Campus attraction is heading to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., allowing parkgoers to journey through the MCU’s many, many universes. The news was announced on Sunday at the D23 Expo’s Parks panel, which featured parks chairman Josh D’Amaro and
In addition to her mega-successful career as an Oscar-winning actor and producer, Jennifer Lawrence is also famous as a “Housewives” franchise superfan. The actor has proclaimed her love for the Bravo series several times and has appeared on “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.” While at the Toronto International Film Festival for her film
Almost 30 years after “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993), Henry Selick returns with “Wendell & Wild,” another stop-motion animated sensation that’s sure to generate acclaim throughout the industry. Co-written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Jordan Peele, the Netflix feature film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and may have asserted itself as the new frontrunner for best
The stars descended on Soho House in downtown Toronto on Saturday for Variety and Chanel’s Female Filmmakers’ Dinner during the Toronto International Film Festival. Guests in attendance included Tilda Swinton, star of Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter”; Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of “The Woman King”; Darren Aronofsky, director of “The Whale”; and Anna Kendrick, who’s in
Five years after founding Capstone, Christian Mercuri arrives in Toronto with a restructured company, a Gala world premiere and a promising slate of upcoming features. “As we’ve grown, we’ve separated our operations and rebranded, ” he says. “The worldwide sales side is Capstone Global, and the production and financing side is Capstone Studios.” One
Magnolia Pictures has acquired the North American rights to Venice Film Festival sensation “Blue Jean.” The directorial debut of Georgia Oakley, which just world-premiered in the Venice Days section of the Italian festival, is set in England in 1988, where Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government is about to pass a law stigmatizing gays and lesbians. The
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ben Kingsley plays the role of Trevor Slattery, a washed-up actor recruited to pose as menacing villains like The Mandarin in “Iron Man 3.” And soon after making a cameo appearance in “Shang-Chi,” Kingsley is set to return to the bumbling character in a new Disney+ series “Wonder Man,” about
Steven Spielberg has said that mining his family history to make “The Fabelmans” was a “very daunting experience” that was at times “very, very hard to get through.” The iconic filmmaker’s latest project world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night to raves from critics and largely favorable reviews. The semi-autobiographical movie,
“Allelujah,” Richard Eyre’s latest film, unfolds in a Yorkshire geriatric hospital, following a group of patients as they make peace with or rage against the indignities of old age. It’s a story that resonates with Eyre, a legendary stage and screen director. “I’m about to be 80,” he says. “So old age isn’t my consuming
Independent Entertainment, the finance, sales and production company behind films including “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and the upcoming “My Policeman,” which is set to have its world premiere at TIFF, celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year. Since its founding by CEO Luc Roeg in 2007, the film landscape has undergone unimaginable change, from
Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales has closed a raft of deals on the animated feature film “Yuku and the Himalayan Flower,” from directors Rémi Durin and Arnaud Demuynck. The children’s animated feature, with graphics by Paul Jadoul, tells the story of Yuku, a little mouse who lives with her family in the basement of a
Movies, at least the ones Hollywood has produced for over a century, frequently leave a lot of people out of the frame. But with the industry under pressure to tell more diverse stories, several of the movies that are premiering and screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival are highlighting protagonists who are Black,
Few nations in the world have developed such a spread of film commissions as Spain, a country forged out of its regions, whose governments have energetically bought in to the benefits of foreign and local shoots. As the country moves ever more onto the big-shoot locations industry radar, the Spain Film Commission is experiencing rapid
In a bid to further extend its Shooting in Spain brand around the world, the Spain Film Commission (SFC) began in 2018 to name prominent figures in the international entertainment biz as honorary ambassadors. Among them are former HBO executive and U.S. ambassador to Spain James Costos; director Terry Gilliam; actors Emily Blunt and Aitana
No director has done more to deconstruct the myth of the suburban American family than Steven Spielberg. Dissertations have been written and documentaries made on the subject. And now, at the spry young age of 75, Spielberg himself weighs in on where his preoccupations come from in “The Fabelmans,” a personal account of his upbringing
Steven Spielberg brought his semi-autobiographical film, “The Fabelmans,” to the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 10, his first feature ever to debut at TIFF. To say that Spielberg is performing at the top of his game is no hyperbole. This dramatic opus, which pulls at the heartstrings, could bring Spielberg his third directing statuette
One of the biggest crowdpleasers of the Toronto International Film Festival has arrived. “,” a high-class horror comedy written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy and directed by Mark Mylod, held its rollicking world premiere at the Royal Alexandra Theatre on Saturday. Mylod, the in-demand TV director who has helmed key episodes of “Game of
It’s in the nature of cinema that when a hugely popular and beloved movie is grand enough, the sequel to it almost has to try to top it in a go-big-or-go-home way. For a long time, each new James Bond adventure was more lavishly scaled, baroque, and stunt-tastic than the last. “The Godfather Part II”