Movies

Roberto Olla, executive director of Eurimages, has revealed that the Strasbourg-based public funder has hired diversity consultants to help facilitate fairer funding for under-represented filmmakers. Speaking at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week on a panel titled “Reality Check: Funding Our Inclusive Futures,” Olla said that the co-production funding body, which comprises 41 member

The sunbaked, drought-stricken terrain of southeast India is a major determinant of the action in P S Vinothraj’s beautifully crafted, precisely plotted debut, “Pebbles.” Taking a simple premise with all the focus and penetration of a perfectly constructed short story, the writer-director transforms the drama of a young boy dragged between villages by his abusive

NENT Group’s Swedish label Brain Academy is plotting two major films from A-list writing-directing teams. The first, “The World Council of Magic,” is helmed by “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World”’s Kristian Petri, based on a screenplay by genre-bending author John Ajvide Lindqvist(”Border,” “Let the Right One In”). ”The World Council of Magic” is

Accepting the Robby Muller award online this week, ahead of a talk at the International Film Festival Rotterdam to celebrate her work, Kelly Reichardt appeared delighted with its form. In its second year, the award has taken the guise of an enlarged Polaroid print featuring a solitary tree, which was taken by Muller on a

“Mayday,” which took its first European bow at the Rotterdam Film Festival this week after premiering at Sundance, is the debut feature of U.S. writer/director Karen Cinorre. The film tells the tale of oppressed young waitress Ana (Grace Van Patten, “The Meyerowitz Stories”) working at a wedding, who falls through an oven into a female-dominated

As The Netherlands, under lockdown, celebrated the first half of 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam’s online, the physical half – set to take place in June with real audiences, panels and talks without Zoom links attached – still feels like a long way off. Meanwhile, the industry is hopeful that the swift and pragmatic measures

After a world premiere in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival, Swedish director Frida Kempff will present her suspenseful feature debut “Knocking” to domestic audiences as the closing night of the virtual Göteborg Festival. Variety caught up with her in the run-up to her Göteborg bow: How was the virtual presentation of the

The explanatory text that opens “The Wanting Mare,” Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s ambitious, epoch-spanning directing debut, informs us that in the city of Whithren, citizens are desperate to escape by booking passage on the once-a-year transport ship that carries wild horses to the wintry promised land of Levithen. These words, a fantasist’s delight, only barely set

“We’re dealing with slavery and slave content. How are we approaching this material and what’s the unique way of doing that?” “Augustus” filmmaker Jon Alston asked when making his documentary short feature which is gaining awards chatter and hoping to make the shortlist. Alston’s short tracks a slave’s fight as he stands up for his

It’s some kind of paradox — he probably thought of it as a joke played on him by the gods — that Christopher Plummer, the impishly irascible, velvet-voiced star of stage and screen who died Friday at 91, was one of the great Shakespearean actors of the 20th century, as well as a notorious rapscallion

Armie Hammer has been dropped by WME, Variety has learned. According to a knowledgable source, Hammer’s personal publicist is also stepping away. WME parted ways with the actor following continuous allegations against the actor that have surfaced on social media over the past month. In messages blasted across social media, which Hammer has not verified,

When director Constantine Venetopoulos was working on psychological drama “The Man in the Attic” with Jennifer Lopez’s sister, Leslie Lopez, starring as an opera singer, a room in Leslie’s house filled with drawings caught his attention. That was when he met Jennifer Lopez’s nibling (a non-gendered term used in place of niece or nephew) Brendon Scholl

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an internet rumor run amok! Despite multiple online reports suggesting otherwise, Henry Cavill will not appear as Superman in the upcoming DC Films project “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” two sources with direct knowledge of the production and Cavill’s schedule confirmed to Variety. It’s easy to understand why

Priyanka Chopra Jonas has announced that her latest film “The White Tiger’ is on track for 27 million viewers in its first month on Netflix. Chopra Jonas stars in and executive produced Ramin Bahrani’s “The White Tiger,” which debuted on the streamer Jan. 22. Since then, according to Chopra Jonas’ social media post, the film

In a normal year, it’s easy to gauge the buzz at Sundance simply by eavesdropping on filmgoers waiting in line or riding the shuttles around Park City. Festival organizers tried to shift the energy online this year, packing nearly 20 world premieres a day into a tightened schedule, and while a record-breaking acquisition ($25 million

“One Night in Miami” director Regina King carries a jump rope to set, keeping it in her backpack until those particularly tense moments when everything goes haywire behind the scenes — like when an actor needs a pep talk, the crew has a tech issue or the weather shuts down production. In these instances, the

Mahershala Ali’s turn as “Blade” is one step closer to the big screen. “Watchmen” writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour has been tapped to write the upcoming Marvel Studios film, Variety has confirmed. Marvel Studios announced that Ali, a two-time Oscar-winner, would portray the vampire hunter at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019. Ali first stepped into the Marvel fold

Studio Ghibli has been making animated features for over four decades since being co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki, director of “My Neighbor Totoro” and the Academy Award-winning “Spirited Away.” The studio’s latest release is “Earwig and the Witch” now streaming on HBO Max, and an awards contender for animated feature. The story is based on the

February is shaping up to be something special. In response to a pandemic-extended awards season, the sort of films that used to crowd the release calendar just before New Year’s in an effort to Oscar-qualify while also still maintaining some measure of last-minute/latest-thing freshness are now arranging to come out over the coming weeks. Think

“Sweat,” which is screening at the Rotterdam Film Festival and the Göteborg Film Festival this week, has attracted additional sales, New Europe Film Sales has reported. The film, which was selected by Cannes last year, had been previously been sold widely. Magnus Von Horn’s “poised, impressive drama,” as it was called in its review in

Cathy Yan, fresh off her success with “Birds of Prey,” will write and direct “The Freshening,” an adaptation of Rachel Khong’s short story. FilmNation, the company behind “Promising Young Woman” and “Arrival,” acquired rights to the story and will back the feature. Here’s the official description: “Khong’s short story is set in a near future

Ben Stiller is set to direct “Bag Man,” a big-screen adaptation of Rachel Maddow’s hit podcast. The film is being developed at Focus Features. In addition to directing duties, Stiller is also co-writing the script with Adam Perlman and Mike Yarvitz. The latter executive produced the podcast, which debuted in 2018, and later penned the

Nominations for BIPOC performers were up year to year at both the 2021 Golden Globes and SAG Awards, but nowhere near parity. Twenty-eight percent of the 2021 SAG television and film nominees announced Thursday are BIPOC, nearly double the amount of BIPOC individuals recognized in 2020 (16%). On the film side of race, BIPOC performers

Christopher Plummer, the Canadian-born Shakespearean actor, died peacefully at his home in Connecticut Friday morning. The Oscar winner was best known for his roles in “The Sound of Music,” “Beginners” and Rian Johnson’s recent film “Knives Out.” He was 91. Following the news of Plummer’s death, the actor’s co-stars and other prominent entertainment figures shared

Composer Alexandre Desplat has made seven films with George Clooney, either as producer or director — including the Oscar-winning “Argo” and the Oscar-nominated “Syriana” — but creating music for “The Midnight Sky” may have been the their biggest challenge to date. “Music is a character in this film because a good portion of it is

For a brief moment, Aiden and his friends believed that they were investing gods. Aiden is a 20-year-old business student at San Diego State University. In recent months he and his friends have been drawn to the Reddit group WallStreetBets, where users trade stock tips and brag about their “diamond hands.” They bought GameStop and

“Minari” director Lee Isaac Chung’s own experiences inspired costume designer Susanna Song in creating the wardrobe for the semi-autobiographical A24 film, named for the green vegetable that plays a central role in the story. Song says she had just two weeks for costume prep and only one short day for fittings. Here, she breaks down

First Look Media has appointed Ian Stratford as its new chief legal officer and head of business affairs. Prior to joining First Look Media, Stratford served as SVP, associate general counsel at Endeavor where he helped found Endeavor Content, the agency’s production, financing and sales arm. In this role, he built and led Endeavor Content’s

Mads Mikkelsen took time from shooting “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3” in London to call into the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on Wednesday to chat about his eclectic career, including his latest work, Anders Thomas Jensen’s “Riders of Justice,” which opened this year’s fest. The Danish thesp, who in November replaced

In some months’ time, cub reporter Shyamkali will solo pilot a story that brings an accused rapist to justice. But right now she is sitting in the shade of a tree with her boss Meera, who has spiked a story of hers because she didn’t like “the angle.” When Meera explains her reasons, Shyamkali is