Movies

As Unifrance’s Daniela Elstner sees it, the wealth of talent in this year’s Venice slate imparts a good bill of health for the French industry writ large. “Today, festival directors look to France in a slightly different way,” Elstner says. “We can find eminences like Frederick Wiseman alongside [emerging talents] like Alice Diop. That’s the

Justin H. Min has joined the cast of Searchlight Pictures’ “The Greatest Hits,” Variety has learned exclusively.  Star of Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy” and breakout in the Sundance player “After Yang,” Min joins the previously announced Lucy Boynton in the emotional movie musical from writer-director Ned Benson (“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby”).  While character details are

As a filmmaker, Noah Baumbach has always been a dyed-in-the-wool dramatic realist, talky coastal neurotic division. He hasn’t always been as good at it as he is today; “The Squid and The Whale” (2005), the divorce drama that established his reputation and is held in supremely high regard by many cinephiles, isn’t half the movie

“The Flash” is not the only upcoming movie starring Ezra Miller that is being forced to contend with the actor’s recent controversies. The upcoming Toronto International Film Festival will close with the premiere of Mary Harron’s “Dalíland,” which features Miller in a small supporting role as a young Salvador Dalí. Ben Kingsley stars in the

Carolina Markowicz’s dark satire “Charcoal,” which world premieres on Sept. 11 at Toronto Film Festival, has debuted its teaser trailer with Variety (below). World sales are being handled by Urban Sales. The film, which plays in the festival’s Platform section, centers on a poor family living in a remote area in Brazil, who earn a

A24 is backing the new movie “Earth Mama,” a coming-of-age story from Olympian-turned-director Savanah Leaf. Written and directed by Leaf, “Earth Mama” follows a pregnant single mother who embraces her Bay Area community as she determines the fate of her family. The cast includes Bay Area musician Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander (“Living Single,” “Run the World”),

About six weeks ago, locals and visitors to the famed intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street saw one of the bare walls in the area begin to show some shapes and colors. Over on Instagram, posing at the same spot, Los Angeles urban pop artist Tristan Eaton wrote on July 17, “My dream wall

A24 stunned moviegoers in late July when it debuted the first look at Brendan Fraser in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale.” The drama, adapted from Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same name, features Fraser under up to 300 pounds of prosthetics in order to play a man struggling with severe obesity. A new report on

Russell Crowe will play a former homicide detective tasked with re-examining a brutal murder case from his past in “Sleeping Dogs.” The Nickel City Pictures film marks the directorial debut of Adam Cooper, who wrote the script with Bill Collage. The film is an adaptation of E.O. Chirovici’s acclaimed novel, “The Book of Mirrors.” Cooper and Collage previously

Hanif Harji runs Figo, an Italian joint a block away from the heart of the Toronto International Film Festival. Over the years, he’s had a chance to see a lot of A-listers in their element. There was that time Bill Murray started a conga line, or the evening when Joaquin Phoenix stepped outside to take

Directing Penélope Cruz in Venice competition title “L’immensità,” Italy’s Emanuele Crialese is teaming with Argentina’s Nicolás Gil Lavedra to produce “Rona,” the second feature by Emiliano Torres, writer-director of San Sebastian Special Jury Prize winner “The Winter.” Produced by Crialese’s Italy-based Now and Buenos Aires Gamán Cine, set up by Lavedra and Torres, “Rona” is

Swedish director Ruben Ostlund has reacted to the sudden death of Charlbi Dean, the star of his Palme d’Or winning film “Triangle of Sadness.” Ostlund posted an emotional tribute on social media, saying her death was “a shock and a tragedy.” “It is an honor to have gotten to know and work with her. Charlbi

Sandro Fiorin’s Figa Films has snapped up international sales rights to Pavel Giroud’s “El Caso Padilla,” which, selected for the San Sebastian highly competitive Horizontes Latinos, bids fair to become one of the most notable Latin American doc features of 2022. Variety has also shared in exclusivity a first trailer to the film. The follow-up to

Julianne Moore, who is presiding over the Venice Film Festival jury, spoke at a press conference on Tuesday morning that kicked off the 79th edition of the movie gathering that kicks off awards season for Hollywood on the Lido. She reminisced about how she first came to Venice as an actress on the American soap

The Zurich Film Festival has selected some of the year’s most anticipated auteur films and high-brow Hollywood movies in its Gala Premieres section. Among other films, the fest screens the European premieres of “The Woman King,” with Viola Davis, and “Bros” by Nicholas Stoller. It also plays “The Son” by Florian Zeller. “Of the 145

The star studded Variety and Hotel Danieli pre-festival cocktail party on Aug. 30 was a taster of the riches in store at the Venice Film Festival that kicks off the following day. Head of the jury Julianne Moore and fellow jurors, “A Separation” actor Leila Hatami and filmmakers Audrey Diwan, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo Di Costanzo

The Busan International Film Festival will further honor its co-founder and former programmer Kim Jiseok, who died suddenly in 2017, by expanding the existing prize in his name into a fully-fledged competitive section. Previously, the Kim Jiseok Award was given to one of ten films selected from the ‘A Window on Asian Cinema’ sidebar which

MPM Premium has picked up Firas Khoury’s coming-of-age drama “Alam,” ahead of its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The film centers on Tamer, a Palestinian teenager living in Israel. He and his friends lead a typical high-school student’s life until the arrival of the beautiful Maysaa’. To impress her, Tamer agrees to take

Among the world premieres set for the BFI London Film Festival are Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” and Emily Blunt series “The English.” Others include “Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical,” Asif Kapadia’s ballet-infused “Creature,” family animation “My Father’s Dragon” from Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon and Nora Twomey, Jez Butterworth’s “Mammals,” which stars James Corden and

The delayed 46th edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival wrapped Wednesday with the award of 13 prizes for its young filmmaker, documentary and shorts competitions. Hailed by the jury as “one of this year’s most distinguished films both creatively and artistically,” Qiu Jiongjiong’s “A New Old Play” was named best film for the Young Cinema Competition

Visual effects and animation company Cinesite has acquired a majority stake in Balkans-based visual effects studio FX3X. FX3X, which works on both feature film and episodic television projects, has offices in Skopje and Belgrade. It was founded by Milivoje Gjorgjevikj and Kristijan Danilovski in 1997 and is one of Eastern Europe’s largest VFX houses. It

“Ivy and Bean” director Elissa Down gushed over working with “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, describing him as her “spirit animal,” at the film’s premiere in Los Angeles on Monday. “We were shooting [during] a heat wave in Canada. The set was hot, but [Jesse] wasn’t waiting in his trailer — he came straight

Hot on the heels from making out with himself in this spring’s ludicrous “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Nicolas Cage is now taking on another comedy role. The iconic actor is set to star in “Dream Scenario,” an upcoming A24 comedy produced by “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” director Ari Aster, Variety has confirmed. Beyond the

When “Trees of Peace,” a drama set during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, surged into the top 10 English-language films on Netflix in June, some may have been amazed that a low-budget, albeit critically acclaimed indie was among the most-watched movies of the week. But executive producer Nicole Avant (“The Black Godfather”) wasn’t among them. “It

Randall Park has cast Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola and Ally Maki to star in his directorial debut “Shortcomings.” The film, a comedic drama, will also feature Tavi Gevinson (“Gossip Girl”), Debby Ryan (“The Suite Life on Deck,” “Insatiable”), Sonoya Mizuno (“House of The Dragon”), Timothy Simons (“Veep”) and Jacob Batalon (“Spider-Man: No Way Home”).

In “The March on Rome,” which world premieres in the Venice Days sidebar of Venice Film Festival Wednesday, Northern Irish-Scottish filmmaker Mark Cousins tracks the ascent of fascism in Italy in the 1920s, and its fall-out across 1930s Europe. He also draws a dotted line from those events to the storming of the Capitol in

Will Spider-Man be able to save the box office … again? Yes, you’re reading this in August of 2022. And yes, there’s actually a chance that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” will return to the No. 1 spot on domestic box office charts … roughly eight months after the superhero adventure swooped into cinemas and revived

USC School of Cinematic Arts, African American Cinema Society and Visions & Voices announce “John Singleton: A Celebration” screening series The USC School of Cinematic Arts, African American Cinema Society and Visions & Voices will present “John Singleton: A Celebration,” a year-long tribute to the beloved filmmaker and SCA alumnus, Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean of the

After two years of exclusively virtual screenings, the Sundance Film Festival says it will be back in-person in 2023. The celebration of the best of indie filmmaking, which unfolds from Jan. 19-Jan. 29, isn’t abandoning its digital component. It will maintain a hybrid presence, allowing film fans who are unable to make the trek up

Katie Sinclair has been named the new head of development at Riff Raff Entertainment, the development and production company co-founded by Oscar-nominated actor Jude Law and creative partner Ben Jackson.   She joins from Blueprint Pictures, where her credits as a development executive include Martin McDonagh’s upcoming “Banshees of Inisherin,” which is seen as a major awards season player