Movies

At Thursday night’s 20th anniversary celebration of Eric Eisner’s scholarship program YES for disadvantaged and underserved youth, David Geffen made a surprise $1 million donation, as did Mellody Hobson. Christina Aguilera performed in a sparkly pink dress and former “Bachelorette” star Rachel Lindsay passed out red roses (natch!) to guests gifting $10,000 donations. The event

Jessica Chastain knew she wanted to make a movie about Tammy Faye Bakker’s life when she was watching the documentary “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and saw the late televangelist’s 1985 interview on “The PTL Club” with Steve Pieters, a gay minister who was diagnosed with HIV. “I was just like, whoa, we were in

There has been no better time than now for TV leaders and content creators to establish new trends. After the pandemic, many consumers were looking for entertainment that catered to them to take over their ample free time. At Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit, entertainment executives, leaders and public figures spoke about the new wave

The major entertainment unions issued a joint statement of solidarity with the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees on Friday, as the craft union looks towards a strike authorization vote next week. The statement was signed by the heads of SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, East, and the Teamsters.

Filmmakers have been puncturing the myths — and celebrating the legacies — of Hollywood’s Dream Factory for decades. Documentarians have chronicled the history of the studio system, the stories of industry trailblazers, and reflections on the art of creating with shadows and light. Thanks to the growth of streaming, many obscure and rarely seen titles

Blessed by largely clement weather, San Sebastian fairly hummed, as hundreds of industry execs sat down to talk face to face  – some, especially from Latin America, for the first time since February 2020. As at Venice, Latin American producers could talk on-site and with some degree of confidence about putting movies long in development

“Notting Hill” director Roger Michell’s last film — a documentary about Queen Elizabeth II — was completed before he died on Wednesday. “Roger’s feature documentary about The Queen — ‘Elizabeth’ — will be out in the first half of 2022,” the film’s producer, Kevin Loader, told Variety. “We have a few technical processes to complete,

Colcoa, the L.A.-based French film and series festival, has unveiled the television section of its upcoming 25th anniversary edition. “In Treatment,” Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache’s French adaptation of the original Israeli series “BeTipul”; Julie Delpy’s series debut “On The Verge”; and “Germinal,” the 19th century-set ambitious period series adapted from Emile Zola’s masterpiece created

The someone’s coming from inside the house in Netflix’s latest horror offering, a masked-killer slasher with a clever enough twist: said killer’s masks are crafted to resemble each victim’s face. Based on Stephanie Perkins’ novel of the same name and counting Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things”) and James Wan (“The Conjuring,” “Malignant”) among its producers, “There’s

​Daniela Leyva at La Mitad del Continente (“The Howls”), Andrea Toca at Mexico’s Un Beso Cine (“Human Animals”) and Diana Bustamante at Burning SAS (“Buy Me a Gun”) have teamed to co-produce the vampire drama “The Day is Long and Dark,” the eighth feature from one of Mexico’s most important directors, Julio Hernández Cordón. “Working

In the 18 feature films he has made with his brother Ethan, Joel Coen has proved himself, over and over again, to be as fetishistically visual a director as anyone from the independent film world of the last four decades. Wes Anderson might be a more extreme example, but even there it would be hard

Robert Redford and Bruce Springsteen are teaming up for the documentary, “The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses,” Variety has learned. “The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses” tells the story about America’s wild horses from their turbulent history to their uncertain future. The feature-length documentary takes audiences on an odyssey throughout America to places that few people have seen,

For multi-hyphenate Caleb Landry Jones, making music isn’t just another form of self-expression — it’s the medium through which he digests life’s never-ending twists and turns. “I learned very quickly, within the first six months that I came to L.A., that if I’m not writing music continuously, stuff gets a little weird,” Landry Jones tells

Bella Thorne is set to star opposite Aaron Eckhart in the action thriller, “Rumble Through the Dark.” “Rumble Through the Dark” is based on Michael Farris Smith’s novel, “The Fighter.” Smith adapted his novel into a screenplay, which will directed by Graham Phillips and Parker Phillips. Production wrapped this week in the Mississippi and Delta

Organized by the Cannes Festival and Market and Argentina’s INCAA film agency, this year’s Ventana Sur, the biggest film-TV event in Latin America, is rapidly gaining in critical mass. In one crucial development, INCAA president Luis Puenzo confirmed to Variety that Ventana Sur will coincide with the latest meetings of CAACI, the body of governmental audiovisual authorities

“Shambala,” written and directed by Kyrgyz filmmaker Artykpai Suyundukov, has been selected as Kyrgyzstan’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 94th Academy Awards. The film is a portrait of a boy living with his family in a protected mountain forest, whose childhood world of myths and legends begins to clash with

Paco Plaza, director of the Spanish horror film “La Abuela” (“The Grandmother”), remembers distinctly how Coco Chanel’s favorite model, Vera Valdez, who co-stars in his latest film, responded before boarding a plane to Paris to sit out the pandemic when their production shut down early last year: “I will stay alive.” Although they did not

The next generation of filmmakers converged at the Tabakalera – International Center for Contemporary Culture in San Sebastian for the three-day Nest Film Student program (Sept. 20-22). Three students/graduates represented Switzerland, more than any other nation, reflecting what program head, Maialen Franco, tells Variety is a surge in talent from the European country. “In the

The Finnish Film Affair industry event awarded the upcoming feature “Bubble” with top honors for its fiction in progress pitch on Thursday, capping a competition in which six projects presented a wide range of stories, settings and styles. Mainly Finnish productions pitched their films, some seeking international partners, with most hoping for sales, festival and

Say you’re hitching a ride at the side of a lonely highway, and two cars slow down at once. One is driven by Anton Chigurh, the taciturn, helmet-haired serial killer played to Oscar-winning effect by Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men.” At the wheel of the other is Blanco, the grayly respectable factory

French software company Kinetix took home the €10,000 ($11,800) Startup Challenge prize from this year’s San Sebastian Zinemaldia & Technology sidebar, held at and in partnership with the Tabakalera, an international center of contemporary culture and technology based in the Spanish city. In addition to the cash prize, the company is offered space in an

Jenny Slate and Charlie Day are a couple of scheming exes invading Valentine’s Day 2022. Amazon Studios has set a global digital release for “I Want You Back,” the new romantic comedy starring Slate (“Obvious Child,” “Venom”) and Day (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). It hits Prime Video this Feb. 11, just in time for

After delaying its initial release, Paramount Pictures announced that the live-action “Clifford the Big Red Dog” will open both in theaters and on Paramount Plus on Nov. 10. Based on the children’s book series written by Norman Bridwell, the film will follow middle-schooler Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp) who meets a magical animal rescuer (John Cleese)

When composer and musician Jean-Michele Jarre received a call to craft a score for a photo exhibit, he said yes. As challenging as the task would be, the brief was to create music for the sounds of the Amazon for famed photographer Sebastião Salgado. Salgado’s latest work. “Amazonia” (currently on show at the Peter Fetterman

Talk about a level up — the new animated feature film based on the world of Super Mario Bros. has bagged an A-list voice cast. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day have been tapped to play the titular video game siblings Mario and Luigi, respectively, two Italian plumbers plunged into a world of foes and fantasy

“I’m not coming back to ‘The Sopranos,’” Aida Turtorro, the two-time Emmy nominee for her role as Janice Soprano in the iconic HBO series, said Wednesday on the red carpet for the show’s long-awaited prequel movie, “The Many Saints of Newark.” “The truth is,” she said, “I’m not sure I ever left.” Inside the film’s

Hank Azaria has joined the cast of writer and director Neil LaBute’s upcoming feature “Out of the Blue.” The dramatic thriller, which also stars Diane Kruger and Ray Nicholson, will wrap principal photography this week in Rhode Island. Here’s the official description: “Out of the Blue” is a contemporary tale of passion, deceit, and violence.

In the latest episode of the Disney’s “For Scores” podcast, EGOT-certified composer Alan Menken looks back at his history with the studio, for whom he composed songs and scores for “The Little Mermaid,”  “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.” He also reveals there will be at least four new songs composed and written for the

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s next movie, newly titled “Bardo (Or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths),” has completed filming in Mexico City. The project, described as a “nostalgic comedy” set against an “epic journey,” centers on a renowned Mexican journalist and a documentary filmmaker who returns to his native country at an existential crossroads, one

Animation is Film announced the competition lineup and other special events for the fourth edition of the festival, which will take place from Oct. 22-24 at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. The lineup includes 12 feature films in competition as well as 20 programs overall including shorts. The festival will open with the North