Movies

A Netflix documentary about Britney Spears is one step closer to reaching the screen, as a trailer teaser for the film “Britney Vs. Spears” confirms. In the 18-second clip, Spears is heard leaving a message for an attorney in 2009. A trailer is expected to drop on Wednesday, Sept. 22. The documentary is being directed

David Kushner, a bestselling author and journalist whose stories are often developed for film and television, will publish his next book at Substack. Kushner’s magazine articles have inspired films like A24’s “Zola” and upcoming projects involving Christian Bale and Spike Lee. Substack, a subscription newsletter service, will now be home to his new work “Masters

Holding forth at a masterclass she delivered at the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Tabakalera venue on Tuesday Sept. 21, Shahrbanoo Sadat, the Afghan filmmaker whose body of work includes 2019 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight film “The Orphanage” and Cannes 2016 film “Wolf And Sheep,” dispelled some misconceptions about Afghan cinema and her country. Fearing persecution like many fellow Afghan artists,

Bill Morrison makes movies out of fragments of other movies, giving new life to ghostly scraps of an earlier time. Whereas most film conservationists aspire to restoring lost and degraded films to their original glory, Morrison sees beauty in the decay — the underlying premise of his mesmerizing avant-garde super-cut “Decasia,” released in 2002, and

Saban Films is getting in the Nicolas Cage business. The studio has acquired “Butcher’s Crossing,” a frontier epic that stars the off-beat, Oscar winner as a buffalo hunter. The deal covers rights in North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavia. Gabe Polsky, who directed the documentary “Red Penguins,” slides

Plastics, meet Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne. Paramount has hired the filmmakers, who are married, to direct the movie adaptation of “Mean Girls: The Musical.” The upcoming version isn’t a remake of Tina Fey’s 2004 modern cult classic — about cliquey high schoolers for whom the limit does not exist — but rather a

Veteran entertainment executive Samie Kim Falvey has been named president of Picturestart. Falvey joins the upstart production company where she will oversee all scripted and unscripted efforts in content across all film, television, audio and print media. She will report directly to Erik Feig, the former co-president of the Lionsgate motion picture group and founder

“Hold Your Fire,” Stefan Forbes’ gripping new documentary, details a tense standoff between police and four young African American men at a sporting goods store in Brooklyn, N.Y. Though set in 1973, the issues that Forbes’ film probes, ones of racism, police brutality and gun violence, remain fiercely urgent. Though Forbes conceived of the documentary

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened its doors for a preview on Tuesday ahead of its Sept. 30 public opening, allowing media to take a tour of all of its exhibitions for the first time. Located on the LACMA campus on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, the museum occupies the moderne-style former May Co.

Deon and Roxanne Avent Taylor’s Hidden Empire Film Group is set to produce and finance “The Daryl Davis Project” alongside Misha Collins, Trish Hofmann, Victoria Vantoch, Philip Schneider and two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank. The new project tells the true story of Daryl Davis (pictured above), a Black pianist who uses music to forge

Documentary studio XTR is in production on “Lakota Nation vs. the United States,” the first film to chronicle the Lakota Indians’ fight to reclaim control of the Black Hills. Oglala Sioux Jesse Short Bull directs the feature documentary, with “MLK/FBI” editor Laura Tomaselli co-directing and Benjamin Hedin producing. “Lakota Nation vs. the United States” will

From the Venice Film Festival to the Met Gala, the Emmys to training for a half marathon, Cynthia Erivo manages to find moments of pause in her jam-packed schedule. While blurs of kinetic energy roil around her, the London-born multi-hyphenate sits serene at the center. “Sometimes I’ll get a nice couple of hours of sleep

A24 has released a trailer for “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” Joel Coen’s new adaptation of the classic play by William Shakespeare premiering at the New York Film Festival in September. Shot in black-and-white, Coen’s take on the Scottish Play stars Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. As in the source

Hasbro’s My Little Pony has gone through quite a few different overhauls since the popular plaything’s initial creation in the 1980s. Not only have the toys themselves changed, morphing from a traditional cutesy cartoon style to a pushed anime-inspired appearance, but so have each of the films and televised series, progressively modernizing their aesthetics and

This year’s Tokyo International Film Festival will give gala positions to two American movies. Clint Eastwood’s “Cry Macho” has been set as the opening night title and will play on Oct. 30. Stephen Chbosky’s “Dear Evan Hansen” has been announced as the title for the feelgood closer on Nov. 8, 2021. “TIFF plans to hold

Nathalie Trafford’s Paraiso Production Diffusion and Jérôme Vidal’s Noodles from France and Roberto Rodríguez’s Elamedia and Luis Miñarro’s Eddie Saeta from Spain have teamed to co-produce Javier Rebollo’s “Dans la chambre du Sultan.” A multi-prized Spanish film director, Rebollo ­­won San Sebastian’s best director with “La mujer sin piano” (The Woman Without a Piano) and

International documentary film festival IDFA has revealed the first films selected for its 34th edition, which runs Nov. 17-28 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. These are the program curated by the event’s guest of honor, the German filmmaker, media artist and writer Hito Steyerl, and a selection of four films directed by Armenia’s Artavazd Pelechian, who

In “Blue Moon,” young Irina dreams of University in Bucharest while her chaotic, rural family serves to undermine her future. Alina Grigore’s directorial debut premiers in competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and follows Irina’s psychological take on ‘blood for blood.’ Grigore – who wrote and starred in Berlinale prize-winning film “Illegitimate” – moves

A fast-changing audiovisual ecosystem in Europe has spawned new initiatives in a bid to level the playing field among established media companies and streaming platforms. The European Union has adopted the new Creative Europe 2021-2017 program with a hefty budget increase that is now being implemented with a Media and Audiovisual Action Plan introduced last

Narrowing down the best Basque projects on the horizon has become increasingly difficult in recent years, as the region is experiencing a boom in both the quality and quantity of local production that has made prognostication more difficult than ever. Below, Variety has picked 20 projects from that crowded field which we will be tracking

Syrian director and producer Diana El Jeiroudi spent 12 years making “Republic of Silence,” her decidedly non-conventional documentary, perhaps better described as a personal video diary, depicting the turmoil of Syria’s civil war seen from the outside. This sprawling non-linear work that jumps between Syria and her present home in Berlin and comprises the plight

Fresh off another win at Finland’s Jussi Awards, this time for his short film “The Bouncer,” Aleksi Salmenperä is already in post-production with his upcoming feature “Bubble,” about to be presented at Helsinki International Film Festival’s industry event Finnish Film Affair in its Fiction in Progress section. “I was sort of embarrassed by this win,”

Some 68% of teens say that seeing positive portrayals of mental health conditions on-screen breaks down stigma, a survey commissioned by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has found. The research, conducted by YouGov, also reveals that 48% said that seeing these positive depictions helps them understand issues around mental health, can act as

Undeterred by the pandemic, the Zurich Film Festival kicks off this month with an impressive lineup that includes its biggest ever film, James Bond pic “No Time to Die,” which is set to screen just minutes after its Sept. 28 world premiere in London. Zurich was one of the few major fests to have a

Following a string of celebrity scandals, Chinese officials have told young filmmakers entering China’s top film school that their foremost task is to develop the “moral cultivation” necessary to further China’s rise in the world. The Beijing Film Academy, cradle of the country’s top filmmaking talent, last week opened a major new campus in the

At Sunday’s Emmy Awards ceremony, the mood may have been #EmmysSoWhite, but the dearth of non-white winners this year is not the only critical issue the Television Academy needs to address. All award shows are at a crossroads. Viewership is declining, the wants and needs of consumers are not being heard nor understood by the

IATSE on Monday called for a strike authorization vote, after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to respond to the union’s latest contract offer. The union’s 13 West Coast locals have been bargaining for several months on a new three-year agreement. The union is seeking to address long hours, with contract provisions

As she slowly awakens from the “dream” of working with director Steven Spielberg on “West Side Story,” Maddie Ziegler is teasing some of the upcoming musical’s standout scenes, including the iconic “Dance at the Gym” number.  The “Dance Moms” alum stars as Velma in Spielberg’s film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical, about two teenagers (played

Immediately following premieres of their latest documentaries at major awards-circuit festivals, veteran filmmakers Liz Garbus, Robert Greene and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi headed to a small, remote village on the coast of Maine – two hours from a major airport. The trio made the trek so they could attend the 17th edition of the Camden Intl.

Marcia Lucas, the Oscar-winning editor of the original “Star Wars,” wasn’t very happy with Disney’s sequel trilogy. She said producer Kathleen Kennedy and director J.J. Abrams “don’t get it” and “the storylines are terrible” in an interview for J.W. Rinzler’s book “Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life,” which examines the prolific producer’s life, including his time