Movies

Netflix has acquired exclusive rights for Latin America to Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,” which won Penélope Cruz the best actress award at September’s 78th Venice Film Festival. Struck by Netflix and El Deseo, Pedro and brother Agustín Almodóvar’s Madrid-based production company, the deal marks the first time that Netflix has taken all and exclusive rights

Warner Records will issue the soundtrack for actress Halle Berry’s directorial debut film “Bruised” on Nov. 19. The Netflix feature — which Berry also stars in as a disgraced M.M.A. fighter — debuts on the streamer on Nov. 24, after a limited one-week run in theaters. Warner Records “I can’t wait to show it,” Berry

Sony and Marvel have released a second trailer for “Morbius,” giving viewers a look into Jared Leto’s transformation as the vampire anti-hero. Based on Roy Thomas and Gil Kane’s 1917 comic books, the latest superhero film in Sony’s Spider-Man universe follows Michael Morbius (Leto), a biochemist in search of a cure for his rare blood

In 1997, Jeff Friday, founder and CEO of Jeff Friday Media, was working as the film division president of UniWorld Group, a prominent multicultural advertising agency headquartered in New York and founded by legendary ad world maven Byron E. Lewis. In January of that year, in search of new clientele within the entertainment industry, Friday

Jason Sudeikis will star in a table read of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The “Ted Lasso” Emmy winner will play George Bailey in the holiday classic and his real-life uncle, George Wendt, will appear as Uncle Billy. The cast also includes Jean Smart, Rosario Dawson, Mark Hamill, Martin Sheen, Mandy Patinkin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Phil

Chile’s Zapik Films, co-producer of “My Tender Matador” starring Alfredo Castro, has boarded the Bolivian political thriller “Family” (“Familia”) by Marcelo Landaeta, which participates in Sanfic Industria’s Santiago Fiction Lab. Landaeta describes his debut feature as a thriller set in the late ‘70s when Bolivia is in the grip of a military dictatorship. “It is

Germany’s 8-Film has picked the U.S. and German rights to the sequel of Chilean Patricio Valladares’ genre film “Hidden in the Woods.” The company has also boarded the low-budget survival thriller as a co-producer and distributor. Valladares, who premiered his short “Snowdevil” at the Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic) in August this year and bowed

Megaton Entertainment, an indie distribution and film sales firm, has picked up a pair of titles from Hong Kong production entities AMM Entertainment and Phoenix Waters. It is launching them at the American Film Market (AFM) this week. Megaton is pre-selling “Chungking Mansions,” which it bills as the biggest zombie film in Hong Kong cinema

One way to help the film industry prepare for the post-COVID future would be to look at lessons from the past, a Monday seminar at TIFFCOM, the market component of the Tokyo International Film Festival, heard. Shiina Yasushi, head of TIFFCOM, said that Japanese film studios faced a similar dilemma with the growth of home

Not long ago, director Yoshida Keisuke was little known both in Japan and abroad, though he scored the occasional festival invitation with films like the 2008 quirky comedy “Café Isobe” and the 2016 thriller “Himeanole.” A former lighting director to cult favorite Tsukamoto Shinya, Yoshida was one of many Japanese filmmakers laboring in the middle

Stellan Skarsgard (“Dune,” “Chernobyl”), Andrea Riseborough (“Birdman,” “ZeroZeroZero”) and Gustaf Skarsgard (“Vikings,” “Westworld”) have joined the cast of psychological crime drama “What Remains.” The English-language film, which begins shooting next month in Finland, is the feature directorial debut of Huang Ran, a mainland Chinese artist-turned-filmmaker. His previous “The Administration of Glory” debuted in the short

James Bond movies’ title sequences are some of the most iconic in film. Bold visuals hint at the film’s plot while a lush Bond theme song plays over elements like a gun, playing cards, a martini glass and even a bullet. The creative direction for the “No Time to Die” title sequence included an homage

Jason Wald has joined indie film studio Neon as vice president of acquisitions and production. Wald joins the Oscar-winning shop from Searchlight Pictures. He will report to Jeff Deutchman, executive vice president of acquisitions and production. The company, behind hits like “Parasite” and “I, Tonya,” is seeking to ramp up original production in addition to

Finally, a Monday that Garfield can feel good about. On the lasagna-loving cat’s least favorite day of the week, Chris Pratt has been set to voice the famous feline in a new animated feature film. Alcon Entertainment is producing the movie, with Sony Pictures on board to release Garfield’s latest adventure in theaters globally (excluding

Travel restrictions are being eased in parts of Asia, bringing the prospects of tourist arrivals, restarts for local economies and easier logistics for filmmakers and executives. But Hong Kong, once the hub of East Asian filmmaking, tightened its border controls on Monday, a day in which the territory recorded just one new (imported) coronavirus infection.

David Halls, the assistant director on the film “Rust,” is speaking out regarding the shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. In a statement to the New York Post on Monday, Halls — who handed producer and star Alec Baldwin the gun that discharged on Oct. 21 — said he hopes

Toni Collette, the underappreciated but overtly talented Australian actress, has showcased her range for over 25 years. In honor of her birthday and her brilliance in the acting craft, Variety is ranking her ten best performances in movies. Over the years, Collette has played many fascinating interpretations of mothers, taking on each new role with

To the uninitiated, Princess Diana biopic “Spencer” might appear like the quintessential British film, albeit with a Chilean director and an American star. But it is, in fact, German, Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films, says. It’s a German-U.K. co-production to be exact, but shot in Germany, with a German producer, Komplizen Film, on

Spain’s top independent sales agents are prepped and ready for this year’s online American Film Market; however, most are eagerly awaiting the return of in-person events, seen as a more productive platform for selling independent cinema abroad. The optimism is cautious, though, with theatrical prospects for international independent films in a post-COVID world still hard

Miami-based sales and distribution company FiGa Films, led by Sandro Fiorin, has picked up worldwide sales rights to Brazilian AIDS inception drama “The First Fallen” (“Los Primeiros Soldados”) by Rodrigo de Oliveira. Set to world premiere at the Mannheim-Heidelberg Int’l Film Festival, where it will also vie for the top prize, “The First Fallen” traces

Russia’s Wizart Animation has closed pre-sales in multiple territories ahead of AFM for its animated feature “The Snow Queen and the Princess,” and has inked a package deal across Scandinavia for the first four titles in the successful “Snow Queen” franchise. The fifth movie in the series, which will be released in 2022, has been

In a flagship deal for the Spanish-speaking world’s ever more global industry, Gonzalo Maza, co-writer of Sebastián Lelio’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” has been tapped by production powerhouse El Estudio to adapt “Macario,” a novella written by the legendary B. Traven. Traven’s 1927 novel, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” was given a big

The Sundance Institute, the nonprofit arm of the organization that puts on the annual Sundance Film Festival, has announced the recipients of its 2021 Women at Sundance Adobe Fellowship. The annual program will spotlight eight artists working across disciplines, and was designed to support women doing bold work in film and media. The fellowship prioritizes

Bestselling Italian writer-turned-director Donato Carrisi (“The Girl in the Fog,” “Into the Labyrinth”) has started shooting near Lake Como on his third feature film “I Am the Abyss.” Vision Distribution is launching international sales at the online American Film Market on the pic, which based on his new thriller by the same title. Carrisi, who

Louis Hothothot’s feature debut “Four Journeys” will open the 34th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), which also revealed the lineup of the International Competition program, as well as other sections. “Four Journeys” is a personal film about the destructive influence on a Chinese family of the one-child policy. Hothothot was born

Studiocanal has begun worldwide sales on writer-director Cédric Klapisch’s “Rise” (En corps) at the virtual American Film Market this week. A story of resilience set in Paris and Brittany, “Rise” traverses the the worlds of classical and contemporary dance with a young woman’s journey from success to rock bottom, and back again. The cast includes

Indian helmer Pan Nalin’s “Last Film Show” walked off on Saturday with the top prize, the Golden Spike, at the 66th Valladolid Intl. Film Festival, one of Spain’s biggest and oldest film events and a bastion of festival-prized art film titles. The French-Indian co-production marks Nalin’s homage to celluloid and is told through the eyes

Arguably the highlight of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival – certainly among the industry folk – is the Emerging Producers presentations, a glimpse of things to come as bizzers new to the nonfiction film field present their work and upcoming projects. Selected for their initiative and dedication, then coached by more experienced leaders in

Returning to an on-site edition, Cartoon Springboard, an animation pitching get-together for on-the-rise European animators, ran Oct. 26-28 in Valencia, with 174 participants taking part. Buzz projects included an LGBT roller derby story, “Riot5,” as well as a film, “The Mission,” imagining all of the world’s money being destroyed, and “Exit Tales,” an animated short

FAMU graduate Francesco Montagner is following his win at Locarno with another trophy: the title of the best film in Ji.hlava’s Czech Joy section. “Brotherhood” was also noticed for its cinematography courtesy of Prokop Souček, called “one of the best cinematographers of his generation” by the jury.  A Nutprodukce production, it was made in co-production