Movies

Uplifting refugee drama “Peace by Chocolate,” which marks the last film starring late great Syrian actor and director Hatem Ali, is set to world premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. UTA Independent Film Group will be handling world sales on the English-language pic, which is directed by Canadian first-timer Jonathan Keijser and will bow

The Changing Face of Europe program, which is presented by European Film Promotion (EFP) in collaboration with the Hot Docs Canadian Intl. Documentary Festival, reflects a continent in flux, as displacement, immigration, cultural shifts, and the coronavirus pandemic have all played separate roles in pushing millions to rethink and reimagine what it means to live

Syndicado Film Sales has acquired world rights to “BLIX,” director Greta Stocklassa’s documentary about former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, which is being pitched during Hot Docs Forum, the Toronto fest’s co-production and financing event. The Toronto-based sales agent is also boarding the project as executive producers. “BLIX” follows the former head of the U.N.

Romantic drama “Waiting For Rain” became the fourth local film in as many weeks to head the Korean box office. It held off new release U.S. movie “The Courier.” “Rain” scored $1.05 million from 122,000 admissions over the weekend, giving a five-day total of $1.41 million. Chasing, “The Courier” delivered $756,000 from 88,000 admissions, for

Los Angeles’ New Beverly Cinema is set to reopen on June 1 after being closed for over a year due to COVID-19. The theater’s official Twitter account posted a photo on May 1 of their marquee, which reads: “Re-opening June 1, 2021 because we love showing movies.” No other information was given on the reopening.

After narrowly losing first place in its opening weekend, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” has surged ahead of “Mortal Kombat” on U.S. box office charts. The anime action adventure “Demon Slayer” is expected to end the weekend with $6.4 million in ticket sales, while “Mortal Kombat” trails closely behind with $6.2 million between Friday and Sunday.

Promising ideas turn out to be mostly empty thought bubbles in “Rising Wolf,” a confusing and derivative Aussie combo of hostage thriller and sci-fi fantasy. Centered on a terrified young woman trapped in a Shanghai skyscraper elevator by a nasty Russian villain, this muddled attempt at an elevated genre film involving time travel, psychic powers

India is celebrating the birth centenary of one of her greatest sons, Satyajit Ray, in a variety of ways. Sunday (May 2, 2021), marks the centenary of Ray, the Indian master who won an honorary Oscar in 1992, shortly before his death, and remains the country’s best known filmmaker internationally. Ray debuted with “Pather Panchali”

“I love you more than my luggage,” Olympia Dukakis’ Clairee Belcher says to Shirley MacLaine’s Ouiser Boudreaux in the beloved 1989 movie “Steel Magnolias.” With the news of Dukakis’ death, Hollywood flocked to social media to express similar sentiments and pay their respects to the character actors’ illustrious legacy. Dukakis died on Saturday at age

Olympia Dukakis, a character actress best known for her Oscar-winning supporting turn in Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck” and for her role as the wealthy widow in “Steel Magnolias,” has died. She was 89. Dukakis’ brother, Apollo Dukakis, announced her death in a Facebook post, writing: “My beloved sister, Olympia Dukakis, passed away this morning in New

Marc Bauder, whose documentary “Who We Were,” a visually stunning cinematic search for solutions to the increasingly dire problems facing Planet Earth, unspools at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, is going in a very different direction on his next project — a narrative feature film about a cross-dressing flamenco dancer and Jewish resistance fighter who killed Nazis in

As a feminist filmmaker, Antonia Kilian was inspired to travel to northern Syria after forces of the Kurdish autonomous region known as Rojava liberated the city of Minbij from ISIS militants. It was in Minbij that Kilian met Hala, a young Arab woman who had fled her conservative family and the prospects of a forced marriage

“A.rtificial I.mmortality” provides a diverting if superficial survey of how fast-evolving technology might be able to extend our lives — or at least some of our memories and characteristics. Featured as Hot Docs’ opening night selection, this Canadian documentary from director Ann Shin presents once-fantastical ideas now edging toward reality in a form palatable to

“I think you have to go back to therapy. It wasn’t enough,” says Isabella Rossellini, drily and only somewhat jokingly, to her nephew Alessandro, as he interviews her on some hard family truths. The documentary he’s making is that therapy, he tells her, earning a fixed stare of equal parts affection and skepticism. “Good luck,”

Whenever we see them, the seven contested children at the heart of Gorki Glaser-Müller’s taut, highly emotive “Children of the Enemy” have their eyes blurred over, to help protect their identities. It’s a strangely reassuring element in a film that at certain moments may be watched through nail-bitten fingers: If the seven grandkids of Patricio

Caritas Migrant House sits where the semi-arid Sahel region gives way to the Sahara Desert, on the edge of the urban sprawl of Gao, a town of more than 85,000 inhabitants in the landlocked West African nation of Mali. But as the location of Ousmane Samassékou’s unobtrusively observant “The Last Shelter,” the refuge can feel

The owner of the Santa Monica Place mall has filed a lawsuit seeking to evict the ArcLight Theatre for non-payment of rent. Macerich, the real estate investment trust that owns the mall, served an eviction notice on April 13, the day after Pacific Theatres announced that it would permanently close all 17 of its ArcLight

Easterseals Southern California has announced finalists for the 2021 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge: Home Edition 2.0. Created in 2013 by Nic Novicki, the challenge gives filmmakers the opportunity to create short films that showcase disabilities in its many forms. The week-long filmmaking contest received a record number of submissions, with 93 from across the globe.

It’s the cardigan that’s the giveaway. For the duration of “The Outside Story,” Brooklyn filmmaker Charles (Brian Tyree Henry) wears the kind of roomy, shapeless, porridge-colored knitwear item that is established movie code for a hero in dire need of a full life reset. Thirtysomething and recently separated from his more glamorous girlfriend, Charles has

Scrap Paper Pictures, founded by Rachel Brosnahan, has promoted Russell Kahn to creative executive. In his new role, Kahn will work alongside Paige Simpson, Scrap Paper Pictures’ head of development. “Russell is a fiercely intelligent, passionate and generous collaborator who has his finger on the pulse of a new generation of talented artists,” Brosnahan tells

Director Paul Haggis asked a judge on Friday to speed up his civil trial on a rape allegation, saying he has nearly been bankrupted by legal fees and needs to clear his name in order to work. Haggis said he cannot continue to pay his legal bills, and asked the New York judge to set

This week, British actor, writer and director Noel Clarke has made headlines after being accused of groping, harassment and bullying by 20 women. Clarke played Mickey Smith in “Doctor Who” from 2005 to 2010 and starred as Sam in the films “Kidulthood,” “Adulthood” and “Brotherhood,” which he wrote and directed, intent on bringing more representations

Malian filmmaker Ousmane Samassekou’s “The Last Shelter” won the top prize in Danish doc fest CPH:DOX’s main international competition on Friday, picking up the Dox:Award. A total of 11 films garnered prizes in the festival’s six international competitions, including five special mentions. “The Last Shelter” centers on the House of Migrants, located in the Malian

Jon M. Chu’s “In the Heights” will screen at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival with a special preview on June 4 at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre. The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway musical will screen five days before the Tribeca Film Festival. “We cannot wait to share this incredible film with

Oslo-based private non-profit Foundation Fritt Ord, which is behind ten doc features that bowed at CPH:DOX, has upped its overall annual budget allocation from a pre-pandemic $12 million to $19 million in 2020, a level that will be sustained in 2021. The Fritt Ord Foundation supports journalism, literature, training, documentary photography, and documentary filmmaking. As

A filmed version of the popular Broadway musical “Come From Away” will debut on Apple TV Plus. Apple Original Films landed rights to the live stage recording, which is being produced and financed by Entertainment One. eOne previously announced plans to unveil the film in September, though Apple has not set an exact release date. Broadway

Much of the action in science-fiction thriller “Stowaway” takes place inside an overcrowded spaceship. The challenge for production designer Marco Bittner Rosser: making the set seem as small as possible yet functional for the shooting crew. The film, which debuted April 22 on Netflix, stars Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette and Daniel Dae Kim as astronauts

The National Assoc. of Latino Independent Producers announced the launch of the Latino Lens: Narrative Short Film Incubator for Women of Color. Sponsored by Netflix, the program provides support for four Latinx or women of color writers and/or directors to aid in the creation of an original short film. “With both NALIP and Netflix being

The extension of an popular immersive exhibition that retraces the memories of one of Hong Kong’s most iconic cinema buildings, and the past glory of the local film and entertainment industries, has set high expectations for one of the city’s largest privately-run heritage conservation projects. A new life will be given to dilapidated cinema, the

“Behind the Headlines,” Daniel Andreas Sager’s thrilling look at how German investigative journalists triggered a political earthquake in Austria that toppled the country’s government, is having its world premiere at Danish doc fest CPH:DOX, where it’s competing for the Fact Award, before unspooling at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival and opening next month’s DOK.fest München. Sager