How much healing can a good massage provide? A fast-fading hour or so of relaxation, or a more sustained sense of general well-being and peace with the world, so long as it’s topped up with repeat appointments? In “Never Gonna Snow Again,” a searching, cryptic satire of bourgeois insularity in modern Poland, the magic hands
Movies
French distributor Damned Films has closed a deal with sales outfit Dreamlab films for “Invasion,” director Shahram Mokri’s Iranian film “Careless Crime” that will have its world premiere Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section. Damned will distribute in France, overseas territories administered by France, Monaco and Andorra. [embedded content] Set 40 years ago,
Taiwan’s ambition to strengthen its global presence by exporting its cultural content abroad and boosting its production hub status is made apparent with the establishment of the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), which has launched various funding initiatives to back local projects’ international ventures. Backed by a solid foundation of state-of-art technology, TAICCA’s collaboration with
Taiwan brings virtual reality (VR) projects featured at this year’s Venice Film Festival to the island as one of the world’s 15 local hosts of the event’s competition section as it gains a greater international foothold in the discipline that blends cinema and technology. Forty-four VR films from 24 countries — including three from Taiwan
Liev Schreiber will star in a movie adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel “Across the River and Into the Trees.” Tribune Pictures and The Exchange announced the project Monday and said production is planned to start in Venice, Italy, and the Veneto region under COVID-19 guidelines next month. “Across the River and Into the Trees” has
Paolo Taviani, of revered filmmaking duo the Taviani brothers, is back behind the camera — this time without his brother Vittorio, who died in 2018. Taviani is shooting “Leonora Addio,” a surreal drama that takes its cue from a short story by great Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello. It’s a long-gestating project that Paolo
Regina King has said the response to her feature directorial debut can either “open doors or close doors for more Black female directors,” throwing into sharp relief the double standards in place for creators of color. “Unfortunately, across the world, that’s how things seem to work. One woman gets a shot and if she does
Before he co-founded Netflix, Reed Hastings ran a debugging-tool company, Pure Software. And he’s convinced the morass of red tape he put in place at Pure led to the company’s eventual irrelevance and sale to a rival. With Netflix, Hastings has focused on building a culture of employee empowerment — which he documents in a
In today’s Global Bulletin the U.K. Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport asks for an extension to the current furlough scheme, San Sebastian will close with Fernando Trueba’s “Forgotten We’ll Be,” ITV looks to invest, MediaWorks sells its TV business to Discovery, ZDF commissions a new WWII factual series and “The Eight Hundred” gets
Sophia Chang’s career is nothing, if not colorful. The Korean Canadian storyteller, screenwriter and author has a pilot in the works at FX for her original dramedy, tentatively titled “The Baddest Bitch in the Room,” Variety has learned exclusively. The show is named after her memoir, which hits bookshelves on Tuesday and chronicles her life
A young pickpocket is locked up amongst hardened criminals in the notorious MACA prison on the outskirts of Abidjan. As a red moon rises, he’s chosen by the prison boss to be the new “Roman” who, in keeping with tradition, must tell a story to the other inmates. Uncertain what grim fate awaits if he
Dennis Ruh will take charge director of the European Film Market (EFM) at the Berlinale from Nov. 1. The EFM is set to go hybrid for its 2021 edition that will take place Feb. 11-18. The 2021 edition will see online screenings in addition to the regular booth areas, while screenings will continue to take
An enigmatic man from the East arrives in a drab, anonymous Eastern European city one foggy morning, bearing little more than a massage bed. As he earns the confidence of the residents of an exclusive gated community, he becomes equal parts confessor and healer, his Russian accent carrying hints of a longed-for past, his therapy
It is generally not good critical form to lift a film’s publicity materials when writing about it, but the official logline for Quentin Dupieux’s “Mandibles” is such a masterpiece of the form that it merits quoting, and admiring, in full: “When simple-minded friends Jean-Gab and Manu find a giant fly trapped in the boot of
Paris-based Kinology has acquired world rights for Finnish director Aino Suni’s psychological thriller “A Girl’s Room.” Cannes-based Adastra Films is teaming on the project with Hamburg shingle and “System Crasher” producer Oma Inge Film and Helsinki-based Made. Suni’s feature debut follows Elina, a 17-year-old aspiring Finnish rapper forced to leave her home for the south
“We are all sick of COVID-19, but it had a significant impact on the industry,” Guy Bisson, one of the founders of Ampere Analysis, said Friday during a discussion on VOD at the Venice Production Bridge, the industry section of the Venice Film Festival. “For VOD and streaming, that impact has been positive,” he added.
The puzzles in “Enola Holmes” are not especially difficult, but they’re enough to stump the great Sherlock Holmes (played here by “Man of Steel” star Henry Cavill). To solve this particular mystery — which involves the disappearance of the detective’s mother, Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) — will require an even sharper intellect than Sherlock’s, which
NENT Group, the Nordic region’s leading streaming company, has ordered “Furia,” an original drama series created by Gjermund Stenberg Eriksen (“Mammon”) exploring the underworld of right-wing extremism in Europe. A co-production between Norway’s Monster Scripted and Germany’s X Filme Creative Pool Series and ZDF, “Furia” will premiere exclusively across the Nordics on NENT Group’s Viaplay
Thriller film, “Kidnapped” is close to wrapping up one of the latest movies into production in Australia, following the disruption caused by the coronavirus and stay-at-home restrictions. Production is now under way in and around Port Douglas in the far North of Australia’s Queensland state, with a shoot that runs Aug. 17 to Sept. 9.
Production has been suspended on AGC Studios’ film “Geechee” in the Dominican Republic after police officers injured a crew member on the night of Sept. 2. Agents from the Dominican Drug Control Forces injured a crew member who was scouting locations for the film, according to a statement obtained by Variety from the Dominican production
An international body supporting global filmmakers facing severe risks in the field has officially launched at the Venice Film Festival. The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) was formed by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, International Film Festival Rotterdam and the European Film Academy. First announced in late 2019, the org held an
Oscar-winning Czech director, writer and actor Jiri Menzel died Saturday following a long illness. Menzel’s death was confirmed by his wife, Olga, who posted the news on Instagram and Facebook late Sunday. Menzel was 82. Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film for the 1966 bittersweet Nazi occupation story “Closely Watched Trains,” Menzel
Back at the Venice Film Festival with Andrew Garfield starrer “Mainstream,” presented in the Horizons section, Gia Coppola took part in the “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk on Friday – following in the (virtual) footsteps of Demi Moore and Nadine Labaki. During the chat, hosted by the festival and Mastercard, she looked
British moviegoers will be able to feel like royalty thanks to a drive-in film series hosted at Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham Estate. Starting on Sept. 25, the 20,000-acre private home of Queen Elizabeth and several previous monarchs will screen award-winning movies, like “1917,” “A Star Is Born,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and more. Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning war
You know him from “The Farewell,” “Rush Hour,” “Arrival,” “Tigertail” and recently as”Mulan’s” father in the Disney live action adaptation. Actor and activist Tzi M’s goes deep into his journey into acting on Variety’s “#Represent: Legends” revealing that he used acting and martial arts training as a way to ward off racist bullies. Today, the
Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” has been hailed by the Western film industry as a savior of the in-person theatrical experience around the world, but this weekend in China it lost out repeatedly to the local savior of Chinese cinema, Huayi Brothers’ war film “The Eight Hundred.” The Chinese title bested “Tenet” each day of its three-day
After months of delays, Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic “Tenet” finally arrived in U.S. theaters and generated $20.2 million over Labor Day weekend. Ticket sales, though difficult to dissect given the uncharted waters of the coronavirus era, are roughly in line with expectations for a new release during a pandemic. The espionage thriller is already nearing
A shy, introverted farmer’s wife in Schoharie County, New York, Abigail has stopped going to church since the death of her young daughter Nellie. “I no longer derive comfort from the thought of a better world to come,” she says, in one of the many narrated diary entries that give Mona Fastvold’s period drama its
Los Angeles-based Menemsha Films has acquired North American rights from Italy’s Intramovies to Venice Critics’ Week title “Thou Shalt Not Hate,” ahead of the racial hatred-themed drama’s premiere Sunday on the Lido. The film has also been picked up for Australia and New Zealand by Moving Story Entertainment. Directed by Italian first-timer Mauro Mancini, “Thou
Feltrinelli Editore, which is behind Roberto Saviano’s bestselling novel “ZeroZeroZero,” which was adapted into a TV series for Sky Atlantic, Canal Plus and Amazon Prime, is one of 18 prestigious publishers from across Europe attending Venice Film Festival’s Book Adaptation Rights Market (BARM). The first two episodes of the “ZeroZeroZero” series, which offers a gritty