Paris-based TeamTO – one of Europe’s leading kids’ entertainment companies – is investing in new IP projects to broaden its global reach, while pioneering green production techniques that have set the standard for the French animation sector. The company, with a capacity of up to 700 staff, has developed a high-end production pipeline, primarily catering
Already one of France’s most beloved and bankable actors (“The Stronghold”), Gilles Lellouche is about to graduate as a big-shot filmmaker five years after delivering his sophomore outing, “Sink or Swim,” a B.O. hit which lured more than four million moviegoers (over $35 million) in theaters. His next movie, “Beating Hearts” (“L’amour Ouf”), budgeted in
Recently honored as one of Unifrance’s 10 to Watch, Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui will build on the rugged eeriness of her 2023 Sundance jury prize winner “Animalia” with “Tarfaya” – a slow-burn thriller that mines Morocco’s sweeping landscapes for ambient unease. Named for (and inspired by) a remote, coastal town on the country’s Saharan border,
Actor and filmmaker Valérie Donzelli will reteam with her “Just the Two of Us” co-writer Audrey Diwan – a Golden Lion winner with “Happening” – to pen “The Infinite Present Ends,” a literary adaption that Donzelli is slated to direct. Based on a fictionalized 2015 memoir from psychiatric nurse Mary Dorsan, the text embeds within
“Presence,” a ghost story directed by Steven Soderbergh, is set entirely inside a lovely, renovated, 100-year-old suburban home, and before the characters even have a chance to move in, the place is already occupied. The camera literally seems to be peering at things, staring out the second-floor windows, then coming down the stairs to witness
By reputation, the Kingdom of Bhutan is the happiest country on Earth, but the “Agent of Happiness” seeks to explore that assertion. The documentary by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó follows the routine of 40-year-old Amber, one of 75 government workers hired to survey people’s happiness on a mathematical scale, and it details not only
A robotic bust with a face modeled on a middle-aged woman who responds to questions using ChatGPT technology, Bina48 is a rather strange concoction. She sounds passably smart but definitely machine-like, looks nothing like a human being and yet the people behind her claim that she is the early prototype for how people could conquer
Austin-based indie directors David and Nathan Zellner have spent more time thinking about Sasquatch than most filmmakers do musing about human beings. In 2011, they brought “Sasquatch Birth Journal 2” to the Sundance Film Festival, a four-minute faux nature documentary in which a hirsute creature can be seen giving birth to an equally furry infant.
First-time mainland Chinese director Lin Jianjie (aka JJ Lin) makes a splash this weekend with the premiere of his “Brief History of a Family.” Asking questions about family in the era since the end of China’s ‘One Child Policy,’ while also borrowing genre tropes such as the idea of the intruder and blood, it is
“Divisive” has become the fallback term for just about any political personality or issue in recent years, so bitter have differences between the two parties and many of their adherents become. The more fanatical beliefs to be found in an era of increasingly alarmist rhetoric have already provided inspiration for some horror movies, primarily smaller
Between fascist propaganda, harassment campaigns, AI-generated Google results, and the collapse of digital publishing, it’s hard not to think of the internet as a wasteland. “Ibelin,” however, is a defining film about the positive side of the modern web experience, and connections forged online. Directed by “The Painter and the Thief” helmer Benjamin Ree, the
Justin Timberlake season is upon us. During his hometown performance at Memphis, Tenn.’s Orpheum Theater on January 19, the pop star gave fans what they’ve been waiting for: the debut of his new single “Selfish,” reportedly off his anticipated sixth album, as well as a disco-inflected snippet of another song from the project. Just an
“Sasquatch Sunset” is the kind of movie you need to see to believe. Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough star in the absurdist comedy, which premiered on Friday at the Sundance Film Festival and follows a family of Yetis over the course of a year. The film, with zero dialogue or narration but plenty of grunts,
Writer-director Sean Wang is tough on himself in “Dìdi,” a fresh and funny summer-before-freshman-year flashback that provides an Asian American angle on that Sundanciest of indie-film genres: the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie. In what feels like a cross between Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap” and Jonah Hill’s “mid90s” — courtesy of the young director’s teenage desire
Mary Weiss, the lead singer and focal point of the Shangri-Las — one of the truly legendary girl groups of the early 1960s, with hits like “Leader of the Pack,” “Great Big Kiss,” “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” and “Heaven Only Knows” — has died. Her death was confirmed to Variety by Miriam Linna of
There’s a very young, very online contingent of Generation Z that propagates repeated cycles of so-called “age gap discourse”: heated, often condemnatory debate over the rights or wrongs of people dating, or merely socializing, outside their immediate age group. The discussion often takes quaintly prudish forms, permitting no adult age at which such differences cease
“KCET” is infinitely no more. Well, sort of. The Los Angeles-based public broadcaster still exists, and “KCET” remains its legal call letters. But effective Tuesday, Feb. 6, the station will start branding itself on air as “PBS SoCal Plus.” That brings it further in line with its sister station PBS SoCal (KOCE-TV), with which it
Kenya Barris joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible at the Sundance Film Festival and provided some new updates on three of his most high-profile new projects. It was announced back in 2020 that Barris was set to direct a biopic on Richard Pryor, one of the most influential comedians of all time. The project remains
Pro-Palestinian supporters will march through the center of the Sundance Film Festival this weekend. While details have not been widely publicized, organizers behind the “Let Gaza Live” protest have asked participants to gather for a demonstration on Sunday regarding the Israel-Hamas war on Main Street in Park City, Utah. Protesters will arrive via bus and march
Kid Cudi‘s latest interview might have cemented his reunion with Kanye West — but it also opened up a new can of worms with Lupe Fiasco, who’s spiraling with thoughts of beating up Cudi!!! Cudi recently poked the Lupe bear while talking to Apple’s Zane Lowe — he was revisiting his pre-fame days when he
The second season finale of “Reacher” just dropped on Prime Video, but fans are already looking ahead to more adventures from the giant hobo with a heart of gold. The good news: “Reacher” has already been renewed for a third season, although the creative team has been mum about which of Lee Child’s novels will
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the first four episodes of “The Traitors,” now streaming on Peacock. Ever since both the BBC and Peacock adapted the Dutch series “De Verraders” into “The Traitors,” it’s been a hit. Both produced by Studio Lambert, the U.K. version premiered on the BBC in November 2022, with the U.S.
“The Last of Us Part II Remastered” is finally here, complete with a host of new features to draw in new fans and entice existing players. Chief among them is No Return, a roguelike experience which allows users to complete a series of randomized encounters before facing off with a fearsome boss. It also gives
On the most literal level, Sam and Andy Zuchero’s “Love Me” is about the relationship between a buoy adrift at sea and a satellite circling the earth. The eccentric rom-com takes place in a time after humans have gone extinct, when the surviving machines’ only references are a massive hard drive’s worth of data combed
“Sound of Freedom,” the indie action-drama film that earned some $184 million at the North American box office, has set a significant theatrical release in South Korea. Angel Studios, the crowd-funded Utah-based production and distribution firm behind the film, initially set up direct-to-theater releases for the film’s first international outings in the U.K., Australia and
Dominic Fike appeared at the Variety Studio presented by Audible while attending the Sundance Film Festival and compared his experiences playing a character struggling with drug addiction on HBO’s “Euphoria” and his new Sundance premiere, “Little Death.” The latter title marks the feature directorial debut of music video helmer Jack Begert, who happens to be
“The Flight Attendant” is not getting another season at Max, Variety has confirmed. The series, which starred Kaley Cuoco, aired two seasons at the streamer. It originally debuted on Max in 2020, with the second season airing in 2022. “What started out as an attention-grabbing book cover quickly evolved into an extraordinary flight of a
The “Rust” case has been a bumpy ride for prosecutors, as they have faced repeated setbacks over a series of blunders. As a special prosecutor revived charges against Alec Baldwin on Friday, obtaining a grand jury indictment in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, yet another problem emerged in a related case. Baldwin’s co-defendant,
It took a lot of time — and hair — to transform Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough into Bigfoot. They spent several hours in the makeup chair to don the elaborate prosthetics needed to play two of the eponymous creatures in “Sasquatch Sunset,” a surreal comedic drama that premieres on Friday at the Sundance Film
On Aug. 5, Green Day will play for more than 40,000 people at New York’s Citi Field. But before that, the alt-rock trio treated 1,200 fans in the city to an intimate gig at Irving Plaza, where they previewed songs off their new record, “Saviors,” and celebrated milestone anniversaries of their most famous albums: 2004’s