Entertainment News Boom

Cate Blanchett debuted her latest acting role in “The New Boy” at the Cannes Film Festival this week, but the Oscar-winner wouldn’t mind staying behind the camera a bit more. “I’m always trying to get out of acting,” Blanchett said. “I’ve been trying to stop acting my entire professional life.” Speaking at her Kering Women

The interlinked names of the lovers have an unusual power in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s haunting, halting  “Banel & Adama.” They play over and over as a whispery lullaby on the soundtrack. They cover the sheets of paper on which Banel (Khady Mane) compulsively writes their names, like a schoolgirl practicing cursive on the name of her

Lily Gladstone’s career is about to forever change at the Cannes Film Festival thanks to the world premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which she stars opposite the director’s longtime muses Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. During an interview as part of the Kering Women in Motion talks at Cannes,

Stuart Ford may have been named Variety’s Billion Dollar Producer, but the AGC Studios founder is already looking ahead to his next big milestone. “We’ve raised more than $1.5 billion in production financing and, the way our cinema business is evolving, who knows, in three or four years from now, I might be standing in

London- and Paris-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation is launching sales on the remake rights of Spanish thriller “Fatum.” Directed by Juan Gualinanes and produced by Vaca Films, the outfit behind box office successes “Sky High” and “Cell 211,” “Fatum” was released in Spain by Universal Studios on April 28. Film Constellation has

A familiar face is back on the Croisette. Well, kind of… Tom Cruise may not be attending this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where “Top Gun: Maverick” premiered in 2022 to massive fanfare, but the star’s presence is enduring in the South of France. For festival attendees, it’s impossible to miss the giant LED screen outside

Anyone seeking to describe “How to Have Sex” for potential American viewers is liable to land on the term “spring break” in the process: It is, after all, a story about hard-partying teenagers heading to a sunny coastal resort for several nights of boozy, horny, wholly unsupervised antics. Yet the teens here are British, the

Variety has been given a sneak peek of the trailer (below) for Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” which world premieres in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a deeply moving and poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us. It follows Hirayama, who seems utterly content with his simple life

Pape Boye’s Black Mic Mac, a recently launched banner championing African and Middle Eastern talent, is kicking off a strong first roster of projects including “Let the Earth Burn” from Sundance-prizewinning Sofia Alaoui and “The Bridge” creator Måns Mårlind. “Let the Earth Burn” is a six-part series following Kenza, a recent graduate of the police

“The Zone of Interest,” writer-director Jonathan Glazer’s searing Nazi drama about the banality of evil, became the talk of Cannes Film Festival after its debut on Friday night. But the director admits he didn’t know the story he wanted to tell before the cameras were rolling. “You never really know why you tackle and subject.

It is unlikely that this Cannes will yield many characters as strikingly well-drawn as Cléo (Louise Mauroy-Panzani), the star of Marie Amachoukeli’s small but acutely affecting Critics’ Week opener “Ama Gloria.” Over the course of an efficient 84 minutes, Cléo changes and resists change, she learns and rejects life lessons, she befriends and betrays. She

Cate Blanchett kicked off her stilettos on Friday night as she took the stage a Cannes Film Festival party hosted by Variety and the Golden Globes. Because this is Cannes, where women are mandated to wear heels on the red carpet, shoes have become a political symbol on the French Riviera. And indeed, in this

If there’s anything to be learned from the massive, industry-shaping disruptions of recent years — from the unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic to the lingering fallout from the war in Ukraine — it’s that “the role of the big festivals in the industry ecosystem is crucial,” according to Tiina Lokk, director of the

A Jewish thirtysomething, Ann (Joanna Arnow) has never been in a conventional relationship. She engages in submissive sexual relationships with “sexfriends” and seems dimly uneasy that the most longstanding of these, with Allen (Scott Cohen), is now clocking in at around a decade, with neither one of them knowing very much about the other. She

When you think of Rupert Friend, chances are you remember his five seasons as CIA operative Peter Quinn on “Homeland” or his turn as the Grand Inquisitor on “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” But recently he’s become the latest member of Wes Anderson’s acting troupe, following up his role in 2021’s “The French Dispatch” with the Cannes Palme

Wilfredo Manalang, who was one of the producers of last year’s Cannes’ Japanese hit “Plan 75,” has come on board Vietnamese film project “Don’t Cry, Butterfly.” Manalang (aka Will Fredo) and partners in his Philippines-based Fusee consortium will join as an executive producer. Written and to be directed by Duong Dieu Linh, “Don’t Cry, Butterfly”

Irish screen legend and BAFTA-award winner Patrick Bergin (“Sleeping With the Enemy,” “Patriot Games”) and Francis Magee (“Kin”) have joined true-crime thriller, “Kiss of the Con Queen,” being directed by Tom Waller (“The Last Executioner,” “The Cave”). The pair join real-life victim Eoin O’Brien (“The Last Full Measure”) who plays an actor duped by an

The anticipation surrounding Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” was building long before it was tapped to compete at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Details about the Auschwitz-set film, which is loosely based on the novel by Martin Amis, have been kept under wraps, although no less a Cannes personage than festival director

With Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz-set Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” competing for the Palme d’Or and a host of Polish producers bringing buzzy upcoming projects to the Marché du Film, the Polish industry should again have Cannes talking. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights: The Zone of Interest(Competition)Director: Jonathan GlazerProducers: James Wilson, Ewa

Former Netflix exec Juan Mayne has hung his own shingle, Madrid-based N&L Films, which is bulwarked by strong talent relationships, a strategic alliance with Exile Content and a sure sense of market opportunities for Spain-based independent producers. Exile Content and N&L Films have struck a first-look development deal. Jeff Glaser, who oversaw Netflix production finance

German producer Silvana Santamaria has come on board as a lead producer on “The Witness,” the new Tehran-set project reuniting Jafar Panahi and Nader Saeivar that Arthood entertainment is selling in Cannes. Saeivar will direct “The Witness.” Saeivar wrote “3 Faces,” the Panahi-directed drama that premiered in 2018 in Cannes where it won the award

Debutante director Ramata-Toulaye Sy will join one of world cinema’s most select clubs when she climbs the stairs of the Grand Theatre Lumière on May 20 for the premiere of “Banel & Adama,” which unspools in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It marks just the second time in the French fest’s 76-year

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers are ahead for “Fast X,” which is now playing in theaters. “You believe in ghosts?” Agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) asks at the end of 2011’s “Fast Five.” She’s just presented agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) with a surveillance photo of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who was believed dead after a horrific crash