Fans of the Tumblr comic series “Nimona” can finally take a peek at Netflix’s upcoming animated feature film adaptation. “Nimona,” set in a techno-medieval landscape where magic and technology combine, follows shape-shifting teenager Nimona (Moretz) as she tries to prove the innocence of wrongly convicted Knight Ballister Boldheart (Ahmed). Joining Moretz and Ahmed in the
Katie Holmes has come on board as a filmmaking mentor to work with Saudi Arabia’s Film AlUla, the entity located in a sprawling area of desert, giant boulders and ancient artifacts that is becoming a local filmmaking hub and starting to attract international productions and talents. The program, announced during the Cannes Film Festival, is
Jeremy O. Harris is best known as the playwright of “Slave Play,” which picked up a record-setting 12 Tony Award nominations in 2021, but he’s also a producer on HBO’s Emmy-winning “Euphoria.” During an interview as part of the Kering Women in Motion talks at Cannes, Harris called on Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav
Alibaba, China’s e-commerce and entertainment giant, announced net profits of $10.6 billion for its financial year to the end of March, a year-on-year increase of 39%. The rebound was achieved on revenues of $126 billion that were up by just 2%. Using the group’s preferred non-GAAP measure to exclude extraordinary items, net income rose by
Catherine Corsini, whose Cannes competition entry “Homecoming” has been at the center of a firestorm due to a sexually suggestive scene between two minors, admitted during the press conference that she will work an intimacy coach and “will be more careful to make actresses more at ease” on future films. The scandal over the inclusion
Film and TV finance company FilmHedge has joined forces with Riveting Entertainment Group in a $25 million first-look financing production partnership to significantly expand Riveting Films. The companies will collaborate on a broad slate of feature length films with the first one planned to begin production within the year. The deal was revealed at the
Returning as an in-person event after cancelation last year, the Shanghai International Film Festival has set out an agenda with a clear focus on China. The festival (June 9-16) will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s economic outreach and development program. With a series of press conferences and film culture
Ukraine’s cinema union issued an open letter on Thursday calling on participants of the Cannes Film Market to halt all business with Russia. The statement asserted that releasing films in Putin’s pariah state is akin to “support for terrorism” amid its ongoing war of aggression in the Eastern European nation. The letter, which was written
Prime Video U.K. managing director Chris Bird said “there’s never been a better time to be an audience” when asked about the saturation of streaming services available to consumers. “The breadth and selection of content available has never been more pronounced,” he said. “Everything is available all the time. I think the future is about range
Christiane Amanpour has spoken out against Donald Trump’s recent CNN town hall, where he described moderator Kaitlan Collins as a “nasty person.” “We know Trump and his tendencies, everyone does, he just seizes the stage and dominates. No matter how much flack the moderator tries to aim at the incoming, it doesn’t often work. I
El Estudio and Morbido are launching The Latin House of Horror, a hugely ambitious feature film slate channelling the voices of a powerful new generation of genre directors – and indeed writers – emerging in Spain and, most especially, Latin America. The slate is designed to supercharge genre production in Latin America, in ambition, profile
The Sitges–International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia has revealed the opening film for its 56th edition at Cannes’ Fantastic Pavilion: “Hermana Muerte” by Paco Plaza. Produced by El Estudio for Netflix, it was written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría. Shot almost entirely in the Valencian monastery of San Jerónimo de Cotalba, Plaza’s seventh feature is “a horror tale
Culture secretary Lucy Frazer set out her vision for the U.K.’s creative industries on Thursday morning, which included a plan to boost the creative sector’s gross added vale by £50 billion and create a million more jobs by 2030. “Our creative industries are world class,” Frazer said. “We are in the golden age of the
PARTNERSHIP Entertainment One (eOne) has solidified its collaboration with U.K. independent production company Hardcash Productions through an exclusive first-look agreement. Under the deal, brokered by Kate Cundall, eOne’s VP of acquisitions, and Robin Barty-King, Hardcash’s business affairs consultant, the partnership aims to develop and produce investigative factual content for the global market. eOne will handle
Revered musician Sting is unimpressed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is predicting an upcoming battle against the technology. “The building blocks of music belong to us, to human beings,” the 17-time Grammy winner told the BBC. “That’s going to be a battle we all have to fight in the next couple of years – defending
MUBI has acquired all rights for Kevin Macdonald’s John Galliano documentary from Newen Connect. The film “High & Low — John Galliano” has sold to MUBI for North America, U.K. and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Latin America, Benelux, Turkey and India. The streamer and distributor will reveal its theatrical release plans and streaming dates in the
Palestinian-British filmmaker Farah Nabulsi’s upcoming drama “The Teacher,” which is shot and set in Palestine’s Left Bank, has been acquired by top Italian indie distributor Eagle Pictures just as Vincent Maraval’s Goodfellas launches sales on the timely title in Cannes. Goodfellas, formerly known as Wild Bunch, on Thursday will be presenting to buyers the almost
It’s already been a good year for the English cinematographer turned writer-director Molly Manning Walker. A film that she shot, “Scrapper,” won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, as well as praise for her vibrant lensing. Now, her first feature, the intimate, near-anthropological “How to Have Sex,” premieres as part of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.
Australian helmer-screenwriter-cinematographer Warwick Thornton won Cannes’ Camera d’Or with “Samson and Delilah” in 2009. Now he’s back with his third feature, “The New Boy,” competing in Un Certain Regard. The film turns on the story of an Aboriginal child, who arrives at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. The new boy’s presence disturbs
After 15 years running the Zurich Film Festival, directors Viviana Vezzani and Karl Spoerri stepped down in late 2019 to take their expertise to the next level and launch a film financing outfit. And then the pandemic struck. The Los Angeles- and Zurich-based SPG3 Entertainment was formed in 2020 by Spoerri and Urs Wietlisbach and
Brazil is back. Brazilian President’s Lula Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government, which took office on Jan. 1, looks set to invest just under $1 billion in 2023 into the country’s audiovisual sector. It’s one of the biggest upticks in government film and TV aid in history, and comes after Lula predecessor Jair Bolsonoro slowed
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the momentous burst of rebellion against the Iranian regime prompted by the death of Mahsa Amini are reverberating profoundly at the Cannes Film Festival. At the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday night, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve paid tribute to the war’s victims by reciting a poem from Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka,
Here’s a rundown of some of the top Hungarian projects in the pipeline or selling at the Cannes Market: SemmelweisDirector: Lajos KoltaiProducer: Tamas Lajos (Film Positive)Sales: N/ASet in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic rages in a maternity clinic in Vienna, this period drama from the Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Koltai (“Malena”) stars promising young thesp
Two years ago, Hungarian producer Mónika Mécs had a banner year, bowing Bence Fliegauf’s “Forest — I See You Everywhere” in competition at the Berlin Film Festival before walking the red carpet in Cannes, where Oscar nominee Ildikó Enyedi’s “The Story of My Wife” competed for the Palme d’Or. The world — and the global
Oscar-winning Irish director Terry George (“In the Name of The Father,” “Hotel Rwanda”) is set for Afghanistan-set actioner “Riverman” which will be shot in Saudi Arabia’s NEOM regional production hub. Inspired by true events that unfolded between 2001-2008 during the war in Afghanistan, “Riverman” revolves around a highly decorated Royal Marine named Max who after
More than two million people turned out on Wednesday to watch “Fast X” in Chinese movie theaters, spending a combined $15.3 million on the film on its first day of release. That made the 10th film in the “Fast & Furious” franchise a clear winner at the Chinese box office in an unusual midweek release.
Montana has become the first state in the U.S. to ban TikTok. If the bill holds up against expected legal challenges, it will be put into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. State Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill on Wednesday, writing in a statement: “Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead if you have not watched the Season 9, episode 14 season finale of “The Masked Singer,” which aired May 17 on Fox. Like a river, Bishop Briggs kept a steady flow throughout Season 9 of Fox’s “The Masked Singer” — and her perseverance was rewarded with the championship. Briggs,
SAG-AFTRA announced Wednesday that it will hold a strike authorization vote as it seeks to get its “ducks in a row” ahead of June 7 negotiations with the major studios. The vote does not mean that the performers’ union will necessarily join the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines after its contract expires
Peter Chernin’s North Road Co. has taken a minority stake in Omaha Prods., the busy production banner headed by NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. The deal brings an influx of capital to Omaha and it allows the company to tap into the production and distribution infrastructure that Chernin is building through North Road,