Movies

Strand Releasing has acquired North American distribution rights for “Africa,” Israeli director Oren Gerner’s personal story about an aging man learning to reinvent himself, Variety has learned. “Africa” is the story of 68-year-old Meir, a retiree who discovers that after 30 years of planning the annual village celebration, the job has been given to an

If you’re struggling to find a job right now, Patrick Schwarzenegger’s character in the upcoming movie “Echo Boomers” can relate. In the heist thriller — which also stars Alex Pettyfer and Michael Shannon — Schwarzenegger plays a recent college graduate who can’t find work in a particularly unforgiving job market. He’s deep in student debt and

Finnish cinematographer Rauno Ronkainen is continuing his collaboration with director Antti J. Jokinen with the action films “Omerta 6/12” and “Omerta 7/12,” based on Ilkka Remes’ popular novel “6/12,” and starring “BlacKkKlansman’s” Jasper Pääkkönen. The films are shooting in Estonia. Ronkainen and Jokinen previously worked together on three film: “Purge,” which brought Ronkainen the second

Variety published this week a digital Chile Documentary Spotlight, looking at one of Latin America’s fastest-evolving content production scenes, galvanized by changing narratives, historic socio-political upheaval and unprecedented opportunities in distribution presented by global platforms. Chilean documentaries and projects have and will feature at many of the year’s most high-profile documentary get-togethers including Switzerland’s Vision du Reel,

Winner of Andalusia Cinema Awards for best new director and new actress (Silvia Acosta), Guillermo Rojas’ debut feature “Once Again” (“Una vez más”) has been acquired for international by Javier’s Krause KAF Films. The news comes just before “Once Again” bows in the Market Premieres section of Spain’s Malaga Festival Spanish Screenings, which run Nov.

Boston-based international sales company 34T has picked up Enrique García’s Spanish thriller “Black Stain.” Set in an isolated Andalusian village in the early 1970s, the story revolves around a family mourning the death of the elderly matriarch and the deep tensions that are reignited with the return of her estranged son Eugenio, who left years

Gracia Querejeta’s “The Invisible,” toplining Emma Suárez, star of Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta,” and Toni Bestard’s “Pullman” have been acquired for international sales by Feel Content. They will be made available for online access to buyers as part of next week’s Malaga Festival’s Spanish Screenings Market Premieres showcase, one of the industry event’s main draws. A

Last year, and for more than four decades before that, if you’d said the words “Black Christmas movie,” a lot of people’s minds would have gone straight to Bob Clark’s sorority-house slasher flick “Black Christmas” — that’s how few holiday films Hollywood has made for and featuring African Americans. Writer-director David E. Talbert started to

Chile’s premier international documentary forum, Conecta, is seeing a sizable boost in attendance for its upcoming virtual edition.  It’s the proverbial silver lining in the global pandemic that has allowed more people to attend festivals and markets, albeit online, which time constraints and long distances may have thwarted in the past. Normally held in December, Conecta’s

Chile’s documentary film industry is making a major impact internationally with a raft of projects having recently featured at Germany’s Dok Leipzig festival and another batch headed to Amsterdam’s IDFA next week. While the Pinochet dictatorship proves as unavoidable as ever when compiling a list of Chilean productions, recent works promoted by Chiledoc have proved

Chile has experienced an historic cultural change over the past year, led by a mobilized and energetic generation of young and highly educated people demanding change. The world has looked on as many of the stains of Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship have been washed away, making room for new narratives to be explored by an enthusiastic

Six weeks before “Wonder Woman 1984” is scheduled to open in theaters on Christmas, Warner Bros. execs are considering whether to push the highly anticipated superhero sequel to the summer of 2021, or keep the movie on its Dec. 25 theatrical debut and then put it on the HBO Max streaming service in early January,

The movie’s name is perhaps its sole stroke of genius: Just hearing the words “Chick Fight” immediately body-slams expectations to the mat, after which Paul Leydon’s anodyne comedy manages to just about put them in a submission hold. Dude, one can almost anticipate saying, it’s called “Chick Fight,” what did you expect? On the other

Disney CEO Bob Chapek hinted to Wall Street analysts Thursday that the company is set to get more aggressive in offering some new theatrical titles via a Disney Plus paid download, as it did in September with “Mulan.” With many theaters still shuttered in the U.S. because of coronavirus, Disney opted to make “Mulan” available

“Music Got Me Here” is a new documentary from filmmaker Susan Koch and looks at the extraordinary power of music and how it helped save the life of snowboarder Forrest Allen. At the age of 18, Allen had a snowboarding accident and was trapped inside himself, and unable to speak or walk for almost two

Revenues plunged and profits evaporated at the Walt Disney Company during its most recent quarterly earnings, as family entertainment giant continued to grapple with a pandemic that has destabilized the pillars of its business. Disney’s revenues fell 23% to $14.7 billion, while the company reported a loss of $710 million instead of the $777 million

Saban Films has acquired rights to the U.S. and Canada on Jaume Balagueró’s “The Vault” (F.K.A. “Way Down”), starring Famke Janssen of “X-Men” franchise fame, Sam Riley (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” “Maleficent”), and Golden Globe nominee Freddie Highmore (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Bates Motel”). Also starring are Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (“King Arthur: Legend of

Lisa Schwartz, co-president of IFC Films, announced she will be stepping down from her role at the end of the year. Schwartz, who led the independent film studio’s business strategy, distribution and strategic partnership, most recently spearheaded IFC’s streaming channel called IFC Films Unlimited. The newly created subscription-based platform is home to IFC favorites like

Lena Waithe said embracing her identity has ultimately helped her navigate Hollywood. “People assume that because I’m Black, or because I’m queer or because I’m a woman, those are going to be the things that I’m bumping up against all the time,” the Emmy winner said Thursday during the Legacy Keynote Conversation at the Human

“Ane Is Missing,” the feature debut of Spain’s David Pérez Sanudo, begins with a fixed shot of a woman security guard sitting in a hut on a construction site. For a full 45 seconds absolutely nothing happens until a firebomb suddenly flares outside the hut. Lide, the security guard, grabs a fire extinguisher. Later, having

“It’s an honor just to be nominated” is the overused line that many Oscar nominees have said over the years, particularly after a loss. Though that’s true, winning a coveted statuette is the real prize. The highest-profile overdue veteran actor competing for an Oscar this season is Glenn Close, the wisecracking Mamaw in Ron Howard’s

Adam Kimmel is the cinematographer of such acclaimed films as “Beautiful Girls,” “Capote” and “Never Let Me Go.” He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the American Society of Cinematographers, two esteemed organizations. He’s shot short films directed by Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. He’s a prolific director

The 41st American Film Market was the first AFM to take place online, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the the world of independent film has kept its chin up amid daunting challenges. “I would say it’s a comfortable mixture of cautious but buoyant,” said David Garrett, CEO of Mister Smith Entertainment. AFM opened on

The Producers Guild of America has shifted some of its key dates for the upcoming 32nd annual Producers Guild of America Awards, which will remain on March 24 in a virtual format. The awards season has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the Academy Awards being pushed back to April 25 with an

Do married couples in the movies ever go on vacation just for the hell and fun of it? Or is it always to get away from something, to cover over an absence, to shorten a yawning distance between them? Alice and Niklas, the Viennese pair at the center of “What We Wanted,” aren’t about to

Spanish sales agent Agencia Freak has picked up the international rights to Malaga Film Festival featured documentary “Drowning Letters” (“Cartas Mojadas”), director Paula Palacios’ debut feature on Europe’s half decade-long refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. Produced by Madrid-based Morada Films, and one of 20 titles making their market bow at the Malaga Spanish Screenings,

The Kenya Film Commission has selected “The Letter” as the country’s official entry for the Oscars’ best international film category. “Filmed with a gentle pace and incredible closeness, ‘The Letter’ is an intimate family portrait that reveals an indestructible female power,” read promotional materials from the org. A Kenyan family drama of Shakespearean proportions, “The

Scott Eastwood and Mel Gibson have joined the action-thriller “Dangerous,” along with Tyrese Gibson, Famke Janssen and Kevin Durand. Eastwood will portray a reformed sociopath who, after the death of his brother, heads to a remote island which soon falls under the siege of a deadly gang of mercenaries. Forced to fend for himself, he

Elegant movie star Grace Kelly was not just a stunning beauty but a gifted performer, so some might be surprised to learn that her film career lasted just five years. During those years, the regal blonde won an Oscar and worked with Alfred Hitchcock three times, in “Dial M for Murder,” “To Catch a Thief”

The Energa Camerimage cinematography fest, although moved online at the last moment owing to Poland’s new listing on Europe’s red zone of high COVID-19 infection rates, remains committed to honoring the finest in lensing from around the world, says Kazik Suwala, the org’s festival office director. “From the program point of view, we actually are