Movies

One highlight at Switzerland’s doc film festival Visions du Réel (VdR) is the Pitching section on its Industry platform. 29 projects have been invited to participate. One of them, an exciting new documentary project on the Siege of Sarajevo by award-winning French filmmaker Jean-Gabriel Périot (“A German Youth”), promises to attract many potential collaborators. The

Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon (“Heroin(e)“) and producer Shane Boris (“The Edge of Democracy”), two multi-award winning U.S. filmmakers, are joining forces on hybrid documentary “King Coal,” focused on post-coal Appalachia. Co-produced by Boris’ outfit Cottage M and Requisite Media, the Tennessee-based company directed by Sheldon, “King Coal” is in an early production stage, scheduled to

“The Vanishing” is, as its name would suggest, a documentary film about a disappearance. Not just anyone’s disappearance, this project pitched at Visions du Réel (VdR)’s Industry platform is about the disappearance of the filmmaker’s own mother. Senegalese director Rama Thiaw won the Fipresci Critics Prize at the 2016 Berlinale for her documentary “The Revolution

Copenhagen-based DR Sales has picked up world rights to the Faroe Islands-set coming-of-age documentary “Skál,” produced by established production outfit Made in Copenhagen (“Motley’s Law,” “Putin’s Kiss”). Variety has been given exclusive access to the international trailer. [embedded content] Co-helmed by Danish-born Cecilie Debell (“My Mother Is Pink”) and Faroese debutant Marie Tórgarð, “Skál” marks

Top Bollywood star Ajay Devgn and former Disney India head Siddharth Roy Kapur are joining forces to produce comedy-drama film “Gobar!” Set in the agrarian area of Northern India known as the “cow belt,” during the 1990s, “Gobar!” (literally cow dung or bullshit) is a satire inspired by real events that transpire when an idiosyncratic

The Gucci family is not happy with Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” film. Patrizia Gucci, who is the great-grandchild of Guccio Gucci, told the Associated Press that she is worried the film “goes beyond the headline-grabbing true-crime story and pries into the private lives of the Guccio Gucci heirs.” “We are truly disappointed,” Gucci told

It’s the summer of 2013 and spray cans rattle as Reefa (Tyler Dean Flores), an ambitious, 18-year-old graffiti artist, paints his signature symbol — an eye surrounded by flower petals — illegally on a wall in his suburban Miami neighborhood. Later his father (José Zúñiga) a Colombian immigrant nervously awaiting the arrival of the family’s

Lori throwing up at his feet wasn’t quite the answer Doug expected when he popped the question at the start of “We Broke Up.” Then again, Doug calling it quits on the heels of that reaction wasn’t exactly what Lori imagined either. After all, the pair have been together for 10 good years. Luckily, audiences

Frank Price is stepping down from his role as chair of the USC School of Cinematic Arts Board of Councilors at the end of the spring semester. Price, who serves as chairman and CEO of Price Entertainment Inc., has served as the board’s chair since its inception in 1992. His role will be filled by

UTA has signed award-winning filmmakers Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz for representation in all areas. Known for making character-driven projects that touch on taboo subjects under their Yulari Films banner, Barash and Shatz created, produced and directed the Netflix docuseries “Lenox Hill,” which takes an intimate look at the lives of four doctors working at

After collaborating on a number of hit songs over the years, Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx are now teaming up for vampire-hunter film “Day Shift.” Also joining the ensemble cast are Meagan Good and Karla Souza. Foxx stars in the new Netflix movie as a hard working, blue collar dad who wants to provide a good

Universal Pictures has named Ashley Momtaheni and Kendel White as vice presidents of global communications. Momtaheni and White are based in Los Angeles and report to Evan Langweiler, head of global communications. The pair start their new roles this week. Their hiring comes as the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group restructures its communications department. Longtime executive

Lame humor and incoherent plotting are among the shortcomings of “The Rookies,” an initially engaging but increasingly tedious Chinese action-comedy-thriller that not even kick-ass movie queen Milla Jovovich can breathe much life into. Undemanding genre fans might go for this Budapest-set hodge-podge about rookie secret agents tackling a deranged billionaire, but there’s not much here

Pete Davidson is gearing up to portray punk rock pioneer Joey Ramone in the upcoming biopic “I Slept With Joey Ramone” for Netflix and STXfilms. The announcement comes on the 20th anniversary of Ramone’s death. The biopic will chronicle the life and times of the legendary musician — born Jeffrey Ross Hyman in 1951 —

Academy Award-nominated documentary “Hunger Ward” paints an intimate portrait of the children in Yemen suffering from starvation and malnourishment as a result of war-induced famine. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates about 400,000 could die this year without urgent intervention, which is what director Skye Fitzerald hopes to catalyze with the film. Overcoming a

Sarah and Emily Kunstler have spent their lives immersed in the civil rights movement, first as the daughters of “The Trial of the Chicago 7” attorney William Kunstler, and then forging their own careers crafting documentaries on criminal justice. But when filmmaker and lawyer Sarah Kunstler heard a speech by ACLU attorney Jeffery Robinson at

It’s finally (almost) here! After an unusually long season, voting for the 93rd Annual Academy Awards opens April 15, closing on April 20. The winners will then be announced at a unique ceremony held across the globe on April 25. All the speculation about how the length of the season and pandemic viewing may have

Editor Barry Alexander Brown had completed his film “The War at Home” and had returned to Atlanta to research a project when he was first introduced to Spike Lee through a mutual friend. At the time, Lee was at New York University working on a cable TV project. The year was 1981, and later, Brown

The 48th annual Annie Awards, celebrating the best in animation, are taking place on Friday, April 16 at 7 p.m. PST. The ceremony — often a predictor for which film will win the best animated feature category at the Oscars — honors winners in 36 different animation-related categories, including independent feature, production design, effects animation,

Franco-Egyptian filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh (“The Virgin, the Copts and Me”) has teamed with Paris-based production outfit Les Films d’Ici for his next feature, the autobiographical hybrid-doc “Life After Siham.” Building on themes he developed in his award-winning 2011 doc “The Virgin, the Copts and Me,” a self-reflexive exploration of family and identity that played

Early on in “Vanquish,” Ruby Rose as Morgan Freeman’s improbable housekeeper is very awkwardly chopping some vegetable — the awkwardness providing a rare plausible moment, as Rose seems an even less likely maker-of-dinner than she does slayer-of-many-criminal-goons. If she’d kept slicing that carrot or whatever for the remaining 90 minutes here, the results would have

At one of its increasingly regular presentations on Thursday, Netflix Spain unveiled seven new projects including “If Only,” a Spanish adaptation of the Turkish original canceled before shooting by Turkish authorities. Where once Netflix would host its presentations early in the year and announce its ambitions for the next twelve months, the platform’s original Spanish

The Venice Film Festival will honor Oscar-winning Italian actor/director Roberto Benigni with its 2021 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Benigni, whose “Life Is Beautiful” – which he co-wrote, directed and starred in – won three Oscars in 1999, including best actor, recently returned to the big screen playing Geppetto in Matteo Garrone’s live-action adaptation of

Some movies can bring out the life coach in you, the one who wants to get the characters to straighten up and fly right. Is that just because they’re behaving badly? Not exactly. Bad behavior is half of what movies are. No, when a film nudges your inner life coach, it’s because someone onscreen is

Chinese fans breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday after Warner Bros. at last announced finalized China re-release dates for the first two “Lord of the Rings” films — a scant two days before the first is now scheduled to appear. Official Chinese film media had initially stated in late March that re-runs of “The Fellowship

In the spirit of “Thelma and Louise,” a lesbian fugitive and the woman she’d kill for hit the road with three stilettos and a blood-red BMW in “Ride or Die.” A glammed up, erotically-charged cocktail of amour fou and true romance directed by Ryuichi Hiroki and written by Nami Kikkawa, the Netflix production gives agency

Angelenos are still processing their grief about the closure of the ArcLight theaters. Pacific Theatres announced on Monday that it would close all of its locations, which include the ArcLight Hollywood and the historic Cinerama Dome. Not as well known is that the theater chain also owns the Cinerama technology. The three-camera filming technique was

STXfilms has nabbed rights to “Universe’s Most Wanted,” a sci-fi fantasy adventure starring Dave Bautista. It will release the film in the United States, the United Kingdom and India. STX acquired “Universe’s Most Wanted” from AGC Studios and CAA Media Finance. “Universe’s Most Wanted” is currently in pre-production and is scheduled to begin shooting in

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julianne Moore, Chloë Sevigny and “Pose” actor Indya Moore star in Jim Jarmusch’s “French Water,” a new fashion film for Saint Laurent. The nine-minute movie presents a look at the French fashion house’s Women’s Summer ’21 collection. Julianne Moore and Sevigny are seen looking for Gainsbourg at the end of a party before

Even after a year of indoor theaters being shuttered in Los Angeles, it’s hard to imagine a future without the ArcLight Hollywood, the tony 15-screen megaplex that countless Angelenos considered their go-to spot to watch movies. The ArcLight was the place that many moviegoers, myself included, imagined celebrating their return to cinemas, especially now that