Movies

Barcelona-based production-distribution outfit Filmax has picked up international rights to Spanish holiday comedy “Our (Perfect) Xmas Retreat” (“El refugio”) following the film’s successful domestic theatrical release. Premiering in Spain on Nov. 26, the film went up against firm opposition and came away as the weekend’s top domestic release. Filmax is introducing the film to buyers

By his own admission, Lin-Manuel Miranda went back to school this year. The Latino actor, director, writer, songwriter and composer had so many projects and commitments to juggle at once this year that the only way he made it through was to pretend he was back in college. The multi-hyphenate behind “Hamilton” saw the release

This year, a who’s who of Grammy-nominated artists and household names lead the original song Oscar race. But it’s still early days so anything can happen. Original song reigning queen H.E.R. has “Automatic Woman,” from “Bruised,” while “Right Where I Belong” by Brian Wilson and Jim James that plays in the doc “Brian Wilson: Long

Mahershala Ali’s latest film, “Swan Song,” is the first feature film to be produced by his production company, Know Wonder, and it marks his first leading role in a movie. On this week’s Variety Awards Circuit podcast, Ali discusses what drew him as both actor and producer to the emotional sci-fi tale in which he

Andrew Garfield will receive the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Desert Palm achievement award, actor for his performance in Netflix’s “Tick, Tick … Boom!” from director Lin-Manuel Miranda. “From his numerous film roles and theatrical performances, Andrew Garfield is an outstanding actor, who puts his heart and soul into bringing the character he’s portraying to

The weapons expert who supplied guns and ammo for the production of “Rust” told “Good Morning America” on Thursday that the live rounds found on set did not come from him. Seth Kenney, of PDQ Arm & Prop, gave his first public comments shortly after investigators searched his business in Albuquerque, N.M., for clues that

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has taken international distribution rights to Demian Rugna’s “When Evil Lurks,” the fifth feature of from the Argentine genre director behind 2018 Austin Fantastic Fest winning “Terrified.” Fernando Díaz’s Machaco Films and Roxana Ramos’s Aramos Cine in Argentina and Agustina Chiarino and Fernando

Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” has a brash effervescence. You can feel the joy he got out of making it, and the kick is infectious. Directing his first musical, Spielberg moves into the big roomy space of a Broadway-meets-Hollywood classic, rearranges the furniture (the film’s screenwriter, Tony Kushner, has spiced up the dialogue and tossed

Ally Pankiw will make her feature directing debut with “Brooke & Sam,” an upcoming dramedy featuring “Shiva Baby” breakout Rachel Sennott. The film, which quietly wrapped production, follows Sam, a young stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, who is weighing whether or not to join the search for Brooke, a missing girl she

Filmax has acquired international rights to “Amazing Elisa,” the newest title from Spanish director and fantastic festival name-stay Sadrac González-Perellón. The Barcelona-based boutique studio will screen a promo of “Amazing Elisa” during this week’s 2021 Ventana Sur market. The pick-up sees Filmax returning, this time as just as a sales agent, to the auteur genre

Rome-based 102 Distribution is bringing onto the market the Mexico-Italo co-production “500 Millions of Red Shoes,” directed by first time director Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser and co-produced by Mexico’s BHD Film. Gabriela Maldonado and Alexandro de Icaza are producing for BHD. “500 Million” was financed by Mexico’s Imcine film agency with the Eficine tax incentive instrument

ViacomCBS International Studios (VIS) has boarded Rob Schneider’s “Love is Love,” a new Paramount Plus Original film which marks the multihyphenate’s Spanish-language directorial debut. Schneider also stars in the movie, which VIS is producing in association with transatlantic film and TV production companies El Estudio and Infinity Hill. “Love is Love” will shoot in Mexico

Growing up is never easy. Especially if you’re a parent. Winner of Ventana Sur’s $10,000 Paradiso WIP Award, one of the biggest prizes at the event, and one of the buzzed up titles this year in its Copia Final pix-in-post section, “Mars One” ‘Mars One’ portrays a lower middle-class Black family keeping its dreams alive

The world is one big carnival, and we’re all just suckers — or “marks,” in the parlance of the traveling grifters so effective at fleecing those poor rubes who are not with it — in Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.” A perfect match of material to auteur, William Lindsay Gresham’s pulpy 1946 novel and the

The first reactions to Searchlight Pictures’ “Nightmare Alley” are thundering in following the film’s global premiere in New York City on Wednesday evening. Film critics and entertainment writers who attended the high-profile screening took to social media, praising Guillermo del Toro’s follow-up to his 2017 best picture winner “The Shape of Water.” Based on William

There are two movies within Searchlight Pictures’ “Nightmare Alley.” One makes eight-time nominee Bradley Cooper a long overdue Oscar winner. The other would add another statue to the shelf of visionary director Guillermo del Toro. Depending on which one entices an Academy voter, they could fall for one, both or neither of the options. The

Acclaimed Germany based Indonesian filmmaker Monica Vanesa Tedja is preparing for her feature directorial project “Dear Family,” selected at the Southeast Asia Film Lab, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival. Tedja got hooked on the medium watching her father film family vacations with his handycam when she was seven. She studied filmmaking for

Diverse aspects of the human condition are key drivers of the projects from Vietnam selected at the Southeast Asia Film Lab, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival. Linh Dan Nguyen Phan went to film school in New York and then went to Vietnam and worked as a cinematographer and also directed a few

Tyler Perry has shared his mourning over the death of Jacqueline Avant, stating that “every available resource will be used” to help find the philanthropist’s killer. Avant, the 81-year-old wife of music industry legend Clarence Avant and mother of Nicole Avant, was fatally shot early Wednesday morning by a home intruder at her Beverly Hills

Movie theaters across the globe have been experiencing a kind of pent-up demand that hasn’t been seen in… a while. At the center of stratospheric anticipation is everyone’s friendly neighborhood web-slinger, who takes the spotlight in Sony’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” The comic book epic, which serves as a culmination to the Tom Holland-led trilogy

The Berlin Film Festival is forging ahead with plans for an in-person celebration this February, though the new Omicron COVID-19 variant is forcing conversations about contingency plans, multiple individuals familiar with the matter told Variety. While festival insiders described the group as “determined” to gather in-person, there have been talks about pushing the event as

After a six-year hiatus, Korean cinema is set to return to the Chinese big screen in wide release at last. This Friday, Dec. 3, Chinese cinemas will run the 2020 comedy “Oh! My Gran (Oh! Moon-Hee),” official posters said Wednesday. Directed by Jeong Se-Gyo and written by Kim Soo-jin, the title stars Na Moon-hee as

Sequels, by their nature, are a remix of what’s come before: a new iteration of characters we’ve already met and a story we already know. In the latest trailer for “The Matrix Resurrections” — the sequel to the first “Matrix” trilogy that concluded 18 years ago with “The Matrix Revolutions” — it’s clear that director

A new documentary will tell the story about the fight against HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles. APLA Health announced on Wednesday, World AIDS Day, that production has begun on “Commitment to Life,” a feature-length doc about how AIDS activists, doctors, celebrities and studio executives changed the course of the epidemic. The film will feature stories about

Before director Rashid Masharawi, whose latest film “Diary of Rue Gabrielle” makes its world premiere at the Cairo Film Festival this week, started making films, there wasn’t much of a film industry in Palestine, beyond propaganda films by the PLO, he says. “I was the first,” he says. “In the early days, festivals that were

No more pencils, no more books… it’s time for the critics’ awards’ dirty looks. The first of the two most vital precursors of the awards season will be handed out – National Board of Review on Thursday followed by New York Film Critics on Friday. After a pandemic year that brought unclear frontrunners and differing

“The Green Knight” star Dev Patel has launched his own production company, Minor Realm, which has a mission to “explore and develop the creative landscape of voices and talent that too often are unrecognized, bringing these stories to life in a larger way.” Patel has already made two hires for the new banner: Sony Pictures’

Co-producers on the recently finished dystopian thriller “Tomorrow Before After,” Apollo Pictures and Sivela Pictures are teaming on an entire slate of genre feature films with top Colombian producers 64-A Films, starting with a Spanish-language remake of Apollo founder Chad Barager’s most recent directorial feature “The Inheritance.” The new joint venture was established with long-form,

To come up with the closing theme of the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” a dream team was assembled but had to work independently during the pandemic from L.A., Chicago, Nashville and even Idaho. “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” is an end-credits capper that has Jennifer Hudson, who plays Franklin, singing a gospel-influenced original

Just months prior to its world premiere, young “Plaza Catedral” actor Fernando Xavier de Casta was shot to death. The prescient portrayal of a society fractured by violence is Panama’s submission for this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. As a co-production between Panama, Mexico and Colombia, it is Benaim’s second fiction feature film after