Movies

A beloved ceramic sugar bowl drops from the mantelpiece in “The Souvenir Part II,” and for a few seconds, it’s as if the world itself has shattered and split open. All the air is sucked from the room, replaced with a thick, still silence of devastation, apology and irrational fury. It doesn’t last: It’s just

Nadav Lapid was used to mining the past. With 2014’s “The Kindergarten Teacher,” he worked childhood poems into the script, while basing his Berlinale winning follow-up, “Synonyms,” on his early days in France after leaving Israel. But with “Ahed’s Knee,” which premieres on July 7 in competition at Cannes, the filmmaker confronted uncharted terrain: his

Chilean horror maestro Jorge Olguin and his producers will be at Cannes’ Marché du Film and Producers Network to seek international co-producers and distributors for his upcoming sci-fi horror film “The Shape of Fear” (“La Forma del Miedo”), described as a cross between “The Andromeda Strain” and “The Thing.” Its teaser trailer, unveiled exclusively in Variety, opens with a

“Mothering Sunday’s” Odessa Young has been tapped for award-winning director Thordur Palsson’s upcoming psychological horror “The Damned.” The film will see Young star as Eva, a 19th-century widow tasked with making an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a ship sinks off the coast of her impoverished Icelandic fishing village. Any attempt to

Muriel Sauzay, Pathe Intl.’s former head, and Agnès Mentré, Wild Bunch’s former acquisition topper, have launched Maremako, a Paris-based banner banner with a special interest in adaptations and remakes. The company’s first slate includes an English-language remake of “Stalk” with Endeavor Content, in association with Drake’s DreamCrew and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Prods.; and “French

French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch grew up in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, which he says is “quite violent,” during the late ’70s and early ’80s when hip-hop was emerging in France. In the mid-’90s he moved to Casablanca, where he is now based, and became involved with the sprawling shantytown of Sidi Moumen on that city’s outskirts, a wasteland where extreme poverty

When she was growing up in Croatia, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović would often spend summers on her grandparents’ island in the Adriatic Sea, an experience “that really informed my childhood,” she says. Years later, as she was pursuing a Master’s degree in film at Columbia University, a simple image came to her: the deep blue of

London-based production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation has inked the key first deals on psychological thriller “John and the Hole,” directed by Pascual Sisto, on the back of the film’s virtual market premiere at Cannes. The film was written by Nicolás Giacobone, an Oscar-winner with “Birdman,” who adapted his short story “El Pozo.” “John

Egyptian director and producer Ali El Arabi, who made a splash at virtual Sundance with doc “Captains of Zaatari,” about the soccer dreams of young Syrian refugees, is shooting another soccer-related project, this one centered on fan fever in the leadup to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. “Ashish’s Journey” (working title), El Arabi’s new

Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, a regular at Cannes, is currently in post-production on his next feature “Dobaaraa,” a Hindi-language adaptation of Oriol Paulo’s 2018 Spanish-language film “Mirage.” Kashyap had read the script of “Mirage” before the film was made and was taken by it. This is the first time Kashyap has done a remake. “It

The position of Saudi women as second-class citizens receives a potent metaphoric visualization in Saudi helmer-writer Shahad Ameen’s parable-like debut drama, “Scales.” Revealing more through imagery than dialogue, the tale unfolds on a barren island where tradition dictates that each family sacrifice a daughter to the sea maidens to ensure the local fishermen a good

On Thursday, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will highlight the work of Black VFX artists through an interactive online panel discussion. Lyndon Barrois, Andrew Roberts, Audrea Topps Harjo, Lauren F. Ellis, Corey Turner, and Greg Anderson are those who will be sharing their work, obstacles and discussing their career path. Jacqueline Stewart, chief artistic

I don’t know about you, but expectations have a way of interfering with my enjoyment of a film, so I try my best to set them aside and approach each new movie with an open mind. Still, I must confess that as soon as the 2021 Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced, one selection set

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told a judge on Wednesday that it is ready to bring Harvey Weinstein to trial within four months on charges of rape and sexual assault. Weinstein is still in prison in upstate New York, where he has been fighting his extradition since April. A judge in Buffalo, N.Y.,

When it comes to moviegoers, there are few that assemble as forcefully as the ones who pledge allegiance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet for the past two years, superhero enthusiasts have been deprived of Spandex-filled theatrical offerings as the pandemic forced studios to postpone “Black Widow,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Shang Chi and the

MPI Media Group has acquired U.S. and international sales rights, outside the U.K. and Latin America, to award-winning sci-fi thriller “Minor Premise,” making its market debut at this year’s Cannes Marché du Film. MPI has already closed sales in three key territories: France to Koba Films, the Middle East to Phoenicia Pictures Intl. and in

With the Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard film “Annette” premiering in Cannes, brothers Russell and Ron Mael, better known as Sparks, may have an early original song contender on hand with “So May We Start.” Directed by Leos Carax, the film centers around Henry (Driver), a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor, who

Paul Verhoeven has made a career out of pushing cinematic boundaries, particularly when it comes to depicting sex or violence on screen. In films like “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls,” he battled the ratings boards, while blockbusters like “Total Recall” and “Robocop” popularized R-rated action. All that changed in the aughts, as Hollywood abandoned those projects,

Director Joshua Zeman never forgot the first time he saw a whale. He was a teen then, humbled by the majestic sight, reminded of the earth’s awe-inspiring power. With “The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52,” he harnesses the cavernous passion he formed for the ocean and marine life at an impressionable age and pours

European film-TV powerhouse Studiocanal and The Picture Company are developing “Bedroom Window,” adapting the novel that inspired Curtis Hanson’s 1987 movie, with scribe Abby Ajayi set to write the script, the latest project from one of the most productive of Europe-U.S. film production alliances. Hanson’s original movie forms part of the nearly 6,000-title film library

Alcon Entertainment Taps Striker Entertainment for Consumer Product Licensing Alcon Entertainment has tapped Striker Entertainment to handle consumer product licensing for the “Blade Runner” franchise with an emphasis on “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” and “The Expanse,” the sci-fi series based on the novels of the same name by James S.A. Corey. “Alcon has showcased the

Top Russian producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who was Oscar nominated for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s films “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” is reteaming with Zvyagintsev for his first English-language film, and with Kantemir Balagov, who directed “Beanpole,” best director winner in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2019. Rodnyansky will also co-produce a documentary by Godfrey Reggio alongside Steven Soderbergh. Rodnyansky

Bill Condon, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “Chicago,” “Dreamgirls” and Disney’s remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” is taking on another famed movie musical. Condon has signed on to direct “Guys and Dolls,” an adaptation of Frank Loesser’s Broadway smash. TriStar Pictures, which operates under Sony, acquired rights in 2019 to Damon Runyon’s original short stories

Robert Downey Sr., director of the countercultural satire “Putney Swope” and the father of actor Robert Downey Jr., died Wednesday in New York. He was 85. Downey Jr. posted about his father on Instagram, writing “Last night, dad passed peacefully in his sleep after years of enduring the ravages of Parkinson’s…he was a true maverick

Zack Snyder would like to formally introduce the Army of Thieves. The director shared first-look photos from the upcoming comedic heist film, a prequel to Snyder’s 2020 zombie thriller “Army of the Dead.” In the new film stills, Matthias Schweighöfer, returning as German safecracker Ludwig Dieter, appears alongside a squad of would-be bandits, a mismatched

Jodie Foster opened up – in French – about her risk-taking, achievements and perceived failures during an intimate Q&A during the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. And to the audience’s delight, the American-born, bilingual actress conducted the entire hour-long interview in the festival’s native language. The publicity-shy star, who got her first acting job at

“Many people changed their minds at the last minute and decided to come to Cannes,” said Jerome Paillard, executive manager of the Cannes Market, the business wing of the Cannes Film Festival. Those that did will have access to a large volume of new films making their market premieres. Paillard explained that the pre-Cannes online

Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.” Get ready for more LGBTQ+ representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So says Marvel Studio’s executive vice president of film production Victoria Alonso. Just days after it was revealed that Loki is fluid on his Disney Plus spinoff series, I asked Alonso if that was a sign of

Leading arthouse sales company The Match Factory has pre-sold Austrian director and screenwriter Sebastian Meise’s second feature “Great Freedom,” which plays in Un Certain Regard at Cannes on Thursday, to Paname Distribution in France. The Match Factory has debuted the teaser and the poster for the film, which was created by Vasilis Marmatakis, the designer

A trio of hot young stars have been set for director Roxanne Benjamin’s “Fall Into Darkness,” an English-language reboot of the 2014 Spanish thriller “La Cueva.” “Servant” star Nell Tiger Free, “Gossip Girl” reboot breakout Thomas Doherty and “One Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Lorenza Izzo have joined the cast. This re-imagined version was