Movies

There are still so many unanswered questions as to what led to the devastating death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” — the most salient being how live ammunition got into the gun that killed her and wounded director Joel Souza. Last week came the shocking revelation from an Oct. 27 search warrant

Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, has acquired worldwide rights (excluding Africa and Japan) to “Indemnity,” an action-thriller written and directed by South African filmmaker Travis Taute that had its world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival. Magnet is targeting an early 2022 release. “Indemnity” follows Theo Abrams, an ex-Cape Town fireman whose

Bleecker Street has landed U.S. rights to “Montana Story,” a Western drama starring Haley Lu Richardson. The movie had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews. IndieWire praised “Montana Story” as “a patient, captivating portrait of the past that stays with us long after the wind stops blowing.” Bleecker Street

Back in July, when film sales company MPX cut a distribution pact with 1091 Pictures for “Electric Jesus,” a comedy about a never-famous ‘80s teen Christian hair metal band co-starring Brian Baumgartner (NBC’s “The Office”), it negotiated NFT (non-fungible token) and digital collectible rights as part of the deal. Given that NFTs — unique data

The Ruderman Family Foundation selected five more recipients of its Seal of Authentic Representation: Fox’s “9-1-1,” Apple TV Plus’s “CODA,” Freeform’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Okay” and Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever” and “The One.” Marlee Matlin, who is one of the stars of “CODA,” has also received the Ruderman Family Foundation’s Morton E. Ruderman Award

Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, the attorneys for “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, spoke on “Today” to paint a clearer timeline about how a live round got on set. Bowles also brought up the new defense that, “We’re assuming somebody put the live round in that box, which, if you think about that, the person who

Athens-based boutique production and sales outfit Heretic has boarded “Magnetic Fields,” the feature directorial debut of Yorgos Goussis, as executive producers. The film has its world premiere in the Film Forward section of the Thessaloniki Film Festival. “Magnetic Fields” follows solo traveler Elena, who after deciding to change course on a whim finds herself on

When Lauren Ridloff saw Marvel Studios’ “Eternals” for the first time at a special screening on the Disney lot in October, the actor began to cry before the movie had even started. The COVID pandemic had delayed the Chloé Zhao film for a full year, but for Ridloff — the first deaf actor ever to

Mubi has acquired rights to climate change documentary “Invisible Demons” and plans to release the film in select U.S. theaters and on the company’s streaming platform in 2022. Directed by Rahul Jain, “Invisible Demons” premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and later played at the Zurich Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.

In the original version of this story, I was one of the characters who suffered a terrible loss and who, alongside the main characters, had to learn to live again. It was a tale of darkness, the reverberations of which are still felt. It took 28 years to make the sequel, entitled “Rust,” and here

GRANTS The International Documentary Association (IDA) will award grants totalling $105,000 to five films through its Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund on the theme, “Challenging White Supremacy.” The films are “Aanikoobijigan” (Adam Khalil, director; Zack Khalil, director; Steve Holmgren, producer; Francesca Alfano, producer; Tiffany Sia, co-producer; Grace Remington, co-producer); “Brigidy Bram: The Life and Mind of

Warner Bros. Discovery is projected to shoulder less debt that expected after the merger is completed — good news that Discovery chief David Zaslav trumpeted to investors on Wednesday as he offered a glimpse of the planning under way as the companies strive to close the transaction by the middle of next year. During Discovery’s

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose film oeuvre is gentle, perplexing and slightly trippy, immersed himself in things foreign for “Memoria,” only to find that many elements were decidedly familiar. The movie, which screens this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival, was Weerasethakul’s first shot outside his native Thailand. The picture was also the first time that

Veteran Australian director Rolf De Heer (“Ten Canoes”) is shooting a new film with an Aboriginal theme set in South Australia and Tasmania titled “The Mountain,” for which Italy’s Fandango Sales is launching sales at the online AFM. “The Mountain” (pictured above in a first-look image) tells the story of a central character named BlackWoman,

In a presentation delivered to buyers this week during the virtual American Film Market, the stars of biopic “McCarthy,” Michael Shannon and Emilia Clarke, as well as its director Václav Marhoul and screenwriter Tom O’Connor, explained why the story of the venomous demagogue Joseph McCarthy had to be told now. The film, now in development,

Taiwan has come up with ambitious plans for the American Film Market this year by presenting a virtual pavilion headlined by award-winning titles and recent film festival favorites, in the hope of boosting the self-governed island’s visibility internationally as a production hub as well as a choice of location shootings. The growing appeal of Asian

Blue Fox Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Studiocanal’s adventure family film “The Wolf and the Lion” from French director Gilles de Maistre (“Mia and the White Lion”). Released from 2018 in over 50 countries around the world, “Mia and the White Lion” earned north of $40 million at the worldwide box office, an outstanding

Paulina García, who won the Berlinale’s 2013 best actress Silver Bear for her role in Sebastián Lelio’s Chilean drama “Gloria,” is starring in and executive producing Matías Rojas Valencia’s “Our Memory” (“Nuestra Memoria”). The documentary-hybrid is based on Rojas’ research into a powerful enclave in southern Chile and the influence it continues to have on

Amazon Prime Video is getting back into the in-person awards FYC activation game, launching a new pop-up at the Bank of America Winter Village in New York’s Bryant Park starting today. The experience, which will continue through the end of November, will tout movies including “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” “Being the Ricardos,” “VAL”

Brian Kelly, the man behind the travel website the Points Guy, has signed with WME for representation. Considered the leading voice in loyalty programs, points, miles, credit cards and travel, Kelly has been a quiet but formidable voice in the sector since founding his website in 2010. He currently reaches more than 11 million unique

Audiences taking in cinematographer Emiliano Villanueva’s images in Mexican documentary hybrid “A Cop Movie” are not likely to appreciate that he and the director, Alonso Ruizpalacios, risked life and limb, shooting on some of the toughest street locations they could find to create the Berlin film fest sensation focused on the emotional lives of two

Up-and-coming Argentine production house Sewati Audiovisual has boarded “Portraits,” one of the most frightening titles pitching at this year’s Morbido Lab for genre projects within the framework of a rescheduled and in-person Sanfic Industria. Sewati joins original Buenos Aires-based producers Latitud Audiovisual, co-founded in 2017 by “Portraits” director Gabriel Musco and Ezequiel de San Pio

Leading Spanish indie sales outfit Filmax has scooped the international rights to “Seve: One Man Army,” a new feature-length documentary about legendary Spanish golfer Severiano Ballesteros, arguably the top golfer of his era and a Spanish icon on and off the course. Filmax will be shopping the title at this year’s American Film Market. Currently

Wind whipped and dressed in vibrant wool ponchos with feathered fedoras, the subjects of Joe Houlberg’s Sanfic WIP documentary “Ozogoche” seem possible only in a Miyazaki storyboard, yet they persist: Don Feliciano and his family belong to the indigenous Kichwa community of Ecuador. The doc observes the lead-up to their annual combing of the Ozogoche

Argentine writer-director Andrew Sala (“Pantanal”) brings his new film “The Barbaric” to the highly competitive Works in Progress section of Sanfic Industria, and brings with it a heavy contender filled with violence, secrets and the echoes of power. In “The Barbaric,” Nacho leaves an abusive mother in the city to live and work with his

Regina King never expected to be in a Western – in fact, the Oscar winner didn’t even like the genre before taking the pitch from first-time feature filmmaker Jeymes Samuel. “I sat down and had a FaceTime with him, and by the time we got off that FaceTime, I was like, ‘Man could probably have

Rachel Morrison (“Mudbound”), Ed Lachman (“Carol”), Alice Brooks (“In the Heights”) and Stephen Lighthill, president of the American Society of Cinematographers, are among the cinematographers calling for a ban of functional firearms on set. The open letter for support to ban guns on film sets comes following the death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after

SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses every post-credits scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In other words: It’s all spoilers! Ever since Samuel L. Jackson emerged at the end of the “Iron Man” credits in 2008 speaking ominously of “the Avenger initiative,” audiences are now conditioned to sit through the end credits of all kinds of

Production for “Midas Man” is set to continue next week despite director Jonas Akerlund (pictured above left) potentially departing the film, Variety can confirm. The film, a biopic of legendary music manager Brian Epstein, started shooting two weeks ago, with first look images revealed of Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (“The Queen’s Gambit”) and “Outlander” star Rosie Day

New films from Oscar laureate Vanessa Ragone (“The Secret in Their Eyes”) and Camera d’Or winners Edher Campos (“Leap Year”) and Juan Pablo Miller (“Las Acacias”) are among attractions at this year’s Ventana Sur’s Primer Corte and Copia Final, the pix-in-post  industry centerpieces at Latin America’s biggest film-TV market. Ragone co-produces “The Face of the