Movies

Christine Vachon, the legendary U.S. indie film producer behind “Far from Heaven,” “Boys Don’t Cry” and HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce,” will deliver a masterclass at Locarno Pro, the expansive industry program of the Locarno Film Festival. Further masterclasses will be given by Katriel Schory, an architect of the modern build in Israel cinema as executive

Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish director of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “Let the Right One In,” is set to direct a TV series adapted from “Faithless,” a 2000 film written by Ingmar Bergman and directed by Liv Ullman. Miso Film, a Fremantle company, is producing with Swedish broadcaster SVT. Sara Johnsen (“July 22”) is writing

Buenos Aires’ Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest film-TV market, has set dates for its 2022 edition, which promises to be the first full-on reunion of its burgeoning regional industry in three long years. Running Monday, Nov. 28 to Friday, Dec. 2, Ventana Sur has also launched a call for applications for Proyecta, its film co-production

Netflix will produce the new Japanese film “In Love and Deep Water,” a suspenseful romantic comedy written by acclaimed creator Sakamoto Yuji. The story is set on a massive luxury cruise ship. While at sea, the loyal butler Suguru, and a mysterious woman named Chizuru cross paths as they try to uncover a murder-mystery that

Following the success of Ofir Raul Graizer’s debut feature “The Cakemaker,” acquired by Netflix in the U.S. and already optioned for a Hollywood remake, securing financing for his second film “America” was much easier. But then the pandemic came. “This made things extremely complicated,” he tells Variety. “We shot in 2020. There were still no

Alex Law, one of Hong Kong’s most accomplished filmmakers died on Saturday. He was 69. Law (aka Law Kai-yui) died in hospital with his life partner and long-time filmmaking partner Mabel Cheung by his side. The cause of death was not disclosed. The pair often swapped roles in order to support each other’s efforts. A

Ni Kuang, one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished screenwriters and novelists, has died. He was 87. He died on Sunday in Hong Kong, with local media reporting skin cancer as the cause of death. Ni wrote some 300 screenplays, many in the martial arts genre and many for the Shaw Brothers studio with co-writer Chang

Amber Heard’s legal team filed a motion Friday requesting that the verdict of the defamation trial against her ex-husband Johnny Depp be tossed, including the $10.35 million in damages awarded to Depp by the jury. In addition to Heard’s attorneys arguing that the verdict is not supported by evidence, the 43-page document submitted to the

The market for international shoots in the Czech Republic is “on the edge of a precipice,” says Vratislav Slajer, the head of the country’s main industry group, the Assn. of Audiovisual Producers. Speaking to industry colleagues on Sunday at the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, Czech producers warned that they are witnessing the impending loss

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” may be filled with familiar, uh, faces of the lovable yellow creatures, but it transports them back to the 1970s, when Gru (still voiced by Steve Carell) was a supervillian in training and the Minions were looking to fit into his burgeoning world. The latest installment of the popular franchise

With six decades around the sun, Tom Cruise still feels the need for speed and has crafted himself into one of the most successful and undeniably talented movie stars of his generation. Variety is ranking his 15 best film performances to celebrate the actor’s 60th birthday. With a breakthrough that started in the coming-of-age film

Even upon its release 52 years ago, Lionel Jeffries’ adaptation of “The Railway Children” was something of a throwback: a kindly, low-conflict family entertainment, faithfully drawn from E. Nesbit’s 1905 children’s novel, that hearkened back to an Edwardian-era England of steam trains, rolling green fields and close-knit village communities. At the time, it caught a

Georgian-German drama “A Room of My Own,” about a young woman looking for a female roommate in Tbilisi after her personal life implodes, has its team thinking about future reactions in the Republic of Georgia. But director Ioseb “Soso” Bliadze and actress/co-writer Taki Mumladze are “ready” to address subjects considered controversial in their home country,

Czech screenwriter and director Beata Parkanova says she had a rich mine of real-life characters and scenes to draw on in crafting her second feature, the retro drama “The Word,” competing in the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival’s main event, the Crystal Globe race. The filmmaker behind “Moments,” a drama that competed in KVIFF’s East

Tommy Morgan, a harmonica soloist who contributed to hundreds of movie and TV shows including “Roots” and “Dances With Wolves,” died June 23. He was 89. Morgan played on film soundtracks and record dates going back to the early 1950s. His estimated 7,000 recording sessions, according to statistics on his website, suggest that more people

Should the apocalypse strike and any of us happen to survive it, you can’t accuse the movies of leaving us unprepared. Dystopian futures are a dime a dozen in science-fiction cinema these days, with a generally shared aesthetic that leads us to expect, for better or (probably) worse, a lot of damp, ashy slurry and

Although “Nope” is only three weeks away from hitting theaters, Universal has been keeping a lid on plenty of the details of the film, beyond distributing some intriguing images of unidentified flying objects and ranch living in the movie’s trailers. Now, director Jordan Peele is offering a deeper look at the world of the film,

In recreating Elvis Presley’s famous ’68 Comeback Special, “Elvis” cinematographer Mandy Walker spent hours watching and examining old footage to faithfully reproduce certain shots and lighting changes for Baz Luhrmann’s biopic. Walker’s set replicating the Vegas showroom at the International Hilton, where Presley had his residency, is her proudest accomplishment from the film. “That set

“The Good Night” helmer Jake Paltrow returns to Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival with “June Zero,” his first foreign-language production. In the film – picked up for sales by ICM Partners and Films Boutique – he takes a closer look at the trial and execution of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, hanged in Israel in 1962.

When Liev Schreiber first encountered how ordinary Ukrainians on the ground are handling the vast and urgent crises brought on by the Russian war, he says, one thing was clear to him immediately: “They were doing all the work.” Speaking about his non-profit BlueCheck Ukraine at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Saturday, the actor/writer/producer

Milan Kundera’s first novel, “The Joke,” won him critical praise and set the tone for a robust career in the spring of 1967, debuting just in time to catch the rising tide of freedom of expression that would reach its peak with the Prague Spring movement just a year later. Jaromil Jires crafted a screen

Xavier Henry-Rashid’s sales agency Film Republic has acquired Anna Kazejak’s “Fucking Bornholm,” ahead of its international premiere Saturday in the Crystal Globe competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The Polish comedy drama potrays the generation of today’s 40-year-olds from the perspective of a woman who is in need of profound changes in her life.

Sci-fi and fantasy fans can soon rejoice in another intrepid YA heroine as “Vesper,” the Lithuania-France-Belgium co-production from directors-writers Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper, makes its world premiere in competition at Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Saturday. The Czech debut marks a busy start to the month for the filmmakers. They will also present the

“Mr. Malcolm’s List” has a scrumptious light charm. It’s a Regency romance set in London in 1818, where someone in the film is being fooled at every moment. The deceptions and symmetries are standard, but this is the kind of movie that rises or falls on whether the actors can carry the duplicity — and

With the death this week of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, national president of famed motorcycle club the Hells Angels, a piece of vibrant American pop culture history recedes farther into the past. It’s hard to appreciate today, but when Barger founded the Oakland chapter in 1957, the mythology of the outlaw biker had already been emblazoned

Future Frames is a next generation showcase comprised of short works by students and recent graduates of European film schools, curated by the Karlovy Vary Fest in cooperation with European Film Promotion. The selected directors and their films will be introduced on-site to Karlovy Vary audiences. American indie director Tim Sutton (whose new film “Taurus”

Do you ever think about the narrative that governs your everyday life? You certainly will after watching the idiosyncratic German tragicomedy “The Ordinaries,” which fizzes with remake potential. For her debut feature, premiering in the main competition at Karlovy Vary, German director-writer Sophie Linnenbaum and her co-scripter Michael Fetter Nathansky create a high-concept, meta-cinema world

As its 56th edition – running July 1-9 – kicks off, Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival is ready to party like it’s 2019. “We can’t predict how many people will come, as some still don’t want to travel, but it’s supposed to be as close to [pre-pandemic] 2019 as possible,” says artistic director Karel Och,

“RWBY” is crossing over with the heroes of DC Comics. A new film spinoff of the popular animated web series has been announced, which will feature characters from the Justice League. The announcement was made on Friday during RTX Austin, a convention hosted by digital media company Rooster Teeth. During a panel for “RWBY,” the

The Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival roared back to life Friday following the disruption of the pandemic years. And the opening ceremony kicked off with a bit of digital disruption: the audience was invited to pull out their mobile phones and follow festival dancers online before they burst onto the stage with a real-life fire