Movies

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, has acquired all rights in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to “Impetigore,” the hit horror movie by Indonesian genre-meister Joko Anwar. After placing in the box office top five at home in 2019, the film had its international debut in Sundance this

English composer Rachel Portman today releases her first solo album. Titled “Ask the River,” it’s a collection of original pieces for piano, violin and cello that reflect her feelings about our fragile environment. That the release happens to come in the middle of a global pandemic is coincidental, but it also couldn’t be more timely.

The film landscape in Scandinavia is far from homogenous. In Sweden, where no drastic coronavirus restrictions were enforced, shoots were not suspended so long as no more than 50 people were assembled, while elsewhere in the Nordics, a lockdown was imposed and film productions were stopped. On April 14, film production resumed in Denmark —

With the introduction of a 30% cash rebate at the start of 2019, Poland has been wooing foreign productions to Eastern Europe. Production was steady before the coronavirus pandemic struck, and the industry is optimistic about an incentive scheme that in its first year has received more than €12 million ($13 million) from the Polish

Though production is on hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Italian industry is mostly holding up, thanks in part to a $145 million government aid package for exhibitors, distributors and producers. Netflix and Italy’s film commissions have launched a fund to provide short-term emergency support to crews that have been forced to stop working

With Italy gradually lifting some lockdown restrictions, local film and TV producers are busy drafting safety protocols to start shooting again, with June targeted as the start of the industry’s road map to recovery. With close to 30,000 deaths, Italy has the second deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe, behind the U.K., but is now flattening

Piera Detassis, who heads the Italian Film Academy that runs the David Awards, is no longer anxious about how the no-frills ceremony for the country’s top prizes will play out. Ever since the coronavirus outbreak, Detassis had been “tormented” about whether to go forward with the prizes, originally scheduled for April 3. But now that

VFX house Framestore has announced three senior hires in its London-based film division. Graham Page joins as VFX supervisor after 14 years with DNEG, where he supervised the company’s work on titles such as “Avengers: Endgame,” “Captain Marvel” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” His appointment brings Framestore’s tally of VFX supervisors to 24, with experience encompassing pre-production,

Cinema Italiano was thriving prior to the pandemic so Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes, will serve as a collective rebirth rite just when coronavirus lockdown restrictions slowly begin to lift. The ceremony marking the Davids’ 65th anniversary to be aired May 8 on pubcaster RAI in primetime obviously sans red

The David di Donatello Awards, which are modeled on the Oscars, were established in the 1950s as Italy’s film industry started thriving amid the country’s postwar reconstruction effort. Below are some milestones that provide a partial mini-history of postwar Italian cinema. 1956: The first David di Donatello awards ceremony takes place at Rome’s Cinema Fiamma.

Almost two months after Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in a New York State prison, the disgraced movie mogul is still facing a host of legal problems both at home and abroad. In the U.K., a previously unknown sexual assault complaint was revealed on Wednesday, when an appeals judge issued a public ruling

Writer-director Lara Jean Gallagher’s “Clementine” resides willfully (and more often than not, skillfully) in the spaces between loss and desire, anger and reckoning, trust and suspicion, often to unnerving effect. A viewer would be right to wonder, is this visually canny story of a young woman who heads to her ex-lover’s empty lake house a

Universal released the trailer for Pete Davidson’s summer comedy, “The King of Staten Island” on Thursday, starring the “SNL” comedian in his first lead feature role. The semi-autobiographical comedy, directed by Judd Apatow, incorporates elements of Davidson’s own life, including losing his firefighter father during the Sept. 11 attacks. The film centers around Scott (Davidson),

Duncan Millership has joined Anonymous Content as a manager. Millership is joining the company from WME where he was a partner and represented talent such as Hugh Jackman, Richard Madden, Matthew Rhys, Pedro Pascal, Nick Jonas, Helena Bonham Carter and Jonathan Pryce. The news comes as WME announced it would be cutting 20 percent of

In today’s film news roundup, the Animation Guild steps up with a $210,000 donation for IATSE members, Fathom Events hires a former AMC executive, the Vail Film Festival goes virtual and Breaking Glass comes on board Gabriel Sousa’s “Waking Up Dead.” GUILD DONATION The Animation Guild is donating $210,000 to support International Alliance of Theatrical

Variety’s Meredith Woerner sat down with Kyle Richards, star of reality series “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” to discuss filming without Lisa Vanderpump this season, how the cast is shooting their confessionals at home in quarantine and her new role in the upcoming film, “Halloween Kills.” The reality star couldn’t reveal any secrets about

On March 19, SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris notified the union’s 160,000 members that the national headquarters in Los Angeles was closed to members, with the staff working remotely to minimize risk of exposure to the coronavirus. Since then, about 60 SAG-AFTRA staff members of the performers union have continued to show up daily to the

Based on the title alone, one would assume director Francesco Amato’s “18 Presents,” a terminal-illness-themed melodrama about a self-destructive young woman coping with the death of her mother, would place its emphasis on the special gifts the protagonist receives each year until adulthood. Not exactly. While this Italian-language weepie blessedly sidesteps schmaltz and saccharine, it

Professional skater Tony Hawk’s documentary, “Pretending I’m a Superman,” has found a home, Variety has learned exclusively. Wood Entertainment has bought worldwide rights to “Pretending I’m a Superman – The Tony Hawk Video Game Story.” Hawk and Activision launched the initial “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” series in 1999, selling 9 million copies and spawning a

Variety’s new series, “Hollywood How-To,” will tackle all things writing, with broader conversations about everything from crafting characters to navigating the writer’s room. The second chapter — “Developing a Character” — targets creating or adapting a character for your script.  “Character, character, character!” “Watchmen” showrunner Damon Lindelof thinks if you repeat the word three times,

Movie theaters in Norway will be allowed to reopen on Friday after a near two-month shutdown, but drastic sanitary measures and a dearth of new films means many cinemas are staying closed. Approved last week, the government’s decision to jump-start theaters caught exhibitors by surprise, and many haven’t had enough time to get prepared, meaning

For a brief, terrible moment in “Sweetness in the Belly,” you fear that icky-cutesy title is about to be spoken out loud. Describing the lilting sensation of new love, a character alludes to “a feeling right here,” as he gently taps his stomach — only for the film to mercifully cut away before he says

Spike Lee’s next film, “Da 5 Bloods,” will debut on Netflix next month, the director announced Thursday on Twitter. The movie — starring Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors and Paul Walter Hauser — will launch on the streaming service on June 12. Lee co-wrote the film with Danny Bilson, Paul Demeo and Kevin Willmott. It follows

With cameras halted, theaters shuttered and no festivals in sight, the coronavirus pandemic has sent European film distribution into free-fall, creating a domino effect that has impacted the entire ecosystem across the continent, from sales agents to exhibitors. Although each market in Europe differs widely, most territorial distributors share the same concerns: where, how and when should

Cinemas in a number of German states are set to reopen in May after being shuttered since mid-March due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the decision has led to complications for theater owners. North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state with 17.5 million inhabitants, was first to announce that it would allow theaters to re-open

CJ Entertainment, the studio behind multi-Oscar-winner “Parasite,” is poised to remake Korean classic “Save The Green Planet” in English. It will produce with Square Peg, the Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen label behind recent breakout “Midsommar.” The story is an eccentric and particularly black comedy involving a disillusioned young man who captures and tortures a

Film and TV production in the Czech Republic, one of the world’s leading destinations for international shoots, is to resume immediately after the government lifted restrictions on public gatherings, imposed as part of the fight against COVID-19. Among the international productions that will be able to resume their shoots are season two of Legendary Entertainment/Amazon’s

If there ends up being a movie made about the coronavirus pandemic, Robert De Niro wants to portray New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” De Niro expressed his reverence for Cuomo and offered to take on the role in a hypothetical film about the current global

Film production incentives have been a success story for the Eastern European territories that have been late to embrace the rebates but are catching up fast. And, despite interruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis, industry officials and filmmakers remain upbeat. In Romania, where major player Castel Film Studio cancelled four international productions while under temporarily

The French film industry is at a standstill as all film and TV shoots have stopped since the country went into full lockdown mode March 17. Due to the coronavirus crisis, 23 film shoots and 58 films in pre-production were halted, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, the managing director of Ficam, syndicate of French technicians. The