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Sophie Okonedo is set to receive the Richard Harris Award at the 2024 British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs) on Sunday 8 December.

The prize is given for an outstanding contribution by an actor to British film. Previous recipients include Samantha Morton, Riz Ahmed, Kristin Scott Thomas, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Daniel Day-Lewis, Helena Bonham Carter, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julie Walters, John Hurt, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent and in 2023, Stephen Graham.

Stage and screen star Okonedo was Oscar-nominated for Hotel Rwanda in 2005 and won a Tony for A Raisin In The Sun in 2014. She has twice previously been nominated for a BIFA for roles in Skin and Dirty Pretty Things.

She made her way into acting at the Royal Court’s youth theatre in London, before going on to develop her craft at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada). She made her big-screen debut in Isaac Julien’s enduring 1991 East-end drama Young Soul Rebels.

Steve McQueen, Bass, 2024. Installation view, Dia Beacon, New York, May 12, 2024–April 14, 2025. © Steve McQueen. Photograph by Bill Jacobson Studio, New York.“The point now is that I found a home—or a hole in the ground, as you will.”1Upstate New York’s Dia Beacon is surrounded by bucolic scenery, but beneath the post-industrial campus of the art institution, there is a hole. A blank slate enveloped in cool darkness, a palatial underground expanse of concrete, the subterranean gallery has hosted a number of site-specific installations by artists such as Joan Jonas, Carl Craig, and now British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, whose Bass is on view through next spring.Bass is a beguiling, confrontational work: over the course of its approximately 40-minute runtime, there is no dialogue, no moving image, and no semblance of a traditional narrative—things one might expect from an artist whose film projects, including Hunger (2008), 12 Years A Slave...

The easy freedom of this medium allowed the artist to range over subjects as diverse as tarot, male nudes at Fire Island and a friend’s flat – and offer clues to his more public feature films

Thirty years after his death in February 1994, it is perhaps unexpected that Derek Jarman – multi-faceted artist, activist, film-maker, socialiser – is probably now most widely known as a gardener. The patch of beautifully arranged salt-resistant vegetation he built around a windswept clapboard cottage in Dungeness, in the shadow of the now non-functioning nuclear power station, is the subject of books, exhibitions, and many a magazine picture spread. A number of high-profile keepers of the flame regularly bang the drum – Tilda Swinton, Isaac Julien and Neil Bartlett among them – ensuring the Jarman legend is not likely to slip away any time soon.

The latest move in this perpetuation process takes place with a programme of Jarman...

Horace Ové’s masterpiece “Pressure” is getting the spotlight treatment courtesy of Janus Films and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Bam).

“Pressure” will screen for two weeks as part of the museum’s ode to Black British cinema. The program, titled “Uncharted Territories: Black Britain on Film, 1963-1986” will take place from May 3 through 7, leading up to the new 4K restoration of “Pressure,” widely regarded as the first Black British narrative feature film.

“Uncharted Territories” features rarely screened work from filmmakers of African and Caribbean heritage based in Britain. The series includes “Burning an Illusion,” directed by Menelik Shabazz (1981), John Akomfrah’s “Handsworth Songs” (1986), “Territories” directed by Isaac Julien (1984), and more. The festival is programmed by Ashley Clark.

Screenings of “Pressure” begin May 10 and will continue through May 23. Herbert Norville, Oscar James, and Frank Singuineau star in the feature that follows a London-born teen (Norville), who is the son of Trinidadian parents.

Exclusive: Wellington Love has started the w/Love production company, and already has an inaugural slate of projects lined up.

After more than three decades working in various film business capacities — including distribution, festival direction, and publicity — Love made the leap into producing as co-producer of Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), for which Andra Day was an Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe Award winner.

His latest producing project is Daniel Peddle’s feature documentary Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later. Peddle’s follow-up to his groundbreaking documentary The Aggressives will debut on Paramount+ with the Paramount+ with Showtime Plan on Saturday, March 30th. Beyond the Aggressives revisits principals from the previous feature, uniting two generations of queer Bipoc in conversation and in action. Beyond the Aggressives is nominated for Outstanding Documentary Feature at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards. View exclusive clip below.

Love reflects,...

Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.

A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.

Horace Ové, director of “Pressure” (1976), the first full-length Black British film, died on Sept. 16. He was 86.

Ové’s son Zak posted on Facebook: “Our loving father Horace, took his last breath at 4.30 this morning, while sleeping peacefully. I hope his spirit is free now after many years of suffering with Alzheimer’s. You are forever missed, and forever loved. Rest in Peace Pops, and thank you for everything.”

Born in Trinidad in 1936, Ové’s moved to London in 1960 to study interior design. A stint in Rome, during which he worked as a film extra including on Joseph Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra” (1963), he was exposed to the work of Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, who would become infuences. He returned to Britain in 1965 and covered social and political events in the country while being a student at the London Film School. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the...

New York-based LGBTQ+ film festival NewFest has debuted the lineup for its 35th festival, which is set to run from Oct. 12 to Oct. 24.

A slew of the festival’s centerpiece films include Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” which will tell the story of Diana Nyad, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes award-winner “Monster” will receive its New York City premiere while the world premiere of “The Aggressives’s” follow-up “Beyond The Aggressives: 25 Years Later” will be sported.

Emma Fidel’s documentary “Queen of New York” will spotlight Marti Cummings’ journey to become the first non-binary candidate elected to New York City Council, serving as the New York centerpiece, as narrated by Billy Porter.

As previously announced, George C. Wolfe’s “Rustin” will open the festival while Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” will close.

Additionally, the festival will hold advanced screenings of...

Leading New York City LGBTQ+ film festival NewFest has unveiled its 2023 lineup featuring a slew of highly anticipated fall releases for films and TV.

The festival, which runs October 12 to 22 in-person and virtually until October 24, boasts over 130 films from 26 countries. The New York premiere of Netflix’s historical film “Rustin” will open the 35th edition of the festival, with Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” closing out the lineup. The U.S. Centerpiece film is confirmed to be “Nyad,” featuring the true story of Diana Nyad who swam from Cuba to Florida. The festival’s International Centerpiece film is the New York City premiere of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster,” which won Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

“May December” director Todd Haynes will receive the 2023 NewFest Queer Visionary Award on October 19, followed by a special screening of the latest drama starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman,...

The work of pioneering Black British filmmaker Horace Ové will be celebrated this fall with a BFI Southbank retrospective season titled Power to the People: Horace Ové’s Radical Vision.

A 4K restored version of “Pressure” (1976), the first full-length Black British film, which is an exploration of the concerns faced by emerging second-generation West Indians in Britain, will receive a joint restoration world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival and the New York Film Festival on Oct. 11. This precedes the film’s U.K.-wide cinema release by BFI Distribution and on BFI Player on Nov. 3.

The restoration, funded by the BFI Production Board and conducted by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, was made possible with contributions from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and the BFI philanthropy Pioneers of Black British Filmmaking consortium. It was accomplished in collaboration with the Ové family and producer Robert Buckler,...

The Venice Film Festival revealed the lineup for its 80th edition Tuesday morning, and its Official Competition featured works by five women filmmakers, including Ava DuVernay, who makes history as the first African American woman in selection.

The selected films and filmmakers are Priscilla (Sofia Coppola), Origin (Ava DuVernay), The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland), Woman Of, and Holly (Fien Troch).

There are 23 films in Competition overall, meaning the fest falls far below any sort of gender parity mark. The festival said 32% of submissions this year were from women filmmakers against 66% from male filmmakers. 60 movies did not declare a gender. Nonetheless, DuVernay’s Origin will mark a significant landmark for Venice as the first film by an African American woman to play in Competition.

Related: Venice Lineup Will Generate Debate, Not Least For Inclusion Of Roman Polanski & Woody Allen; Latter Set To Attend Festival

The pic is...

Film includes interviews with John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Mary Harron.

BFI Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Scala!!!, a feature documentary about the legendary London cinema which ran from 1978 to 1993, from production company Fifty Foot Woman.

The film will make its world premiere in the ’Documents and Documentaries’ section of the 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna in Italy this Sunday, June 25.

The full title of the film is Scala!!! Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits. Directed by Jane Giles...

Film includes interviews with John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Mary Harron.

BFI Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Scala!!!, a feature documentary about the legendary London cinema which ran from 1978 to 1993.

The film has its world premiere in the Documents and Documentaries section of the 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy this Sunday, June 25. BFI Distribution acquired the film from production company Fifty Foot Woman.

The full title of the film is Scala!!! Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits. Directed...

(Welcome to Movies Are Gay, a Pride Month series where we explore the intentional [or accidental] ways Lgbtqia+ themes, characters, and creatives have shaped cinema.)

Isaac Julien might not be a household name to even the most vocally self-professed cinephiles, but he certainly should be. As an installation artist and one of the founders of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, Julien is a pillar of Black cinema history. His breakthrough feature is the docu-drama "Looking for Langston," which focused on Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. But it was in 1991 that Julien debuted the masterful, Semaine de la Critique prize for Best Film at the Cannes Film Festival-winning "Young Soul Rebels" which helped bring him to a wider audience.

Set during the 1977's Silver Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, "Young Soul Rebels" is a beautiful, poetic, at times devastating coming-of-age romantic dramedy, and also a thriller about a horrific homophobic hate crime.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.REMEMBRANCERyuichi Sakamoto: Coda.Ryuichi Sakamoto died last week at the age of 71. He was the keyboardist for Yellow Magic Orchestra, who revolutionized techno in the early ’80s, and later became a pioneering composer for film—notably Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987) and Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), in which he stars. It is impossible to sum up his impact in a bullet point, but we offer up a few finds: below, a clip from the 1985 film Tokyo Melody, in which Sakamoto shows us how to compose on the then-state-of-the-art Fairlight Cmi. Here, a 2018 New York Times piece about his quest to create the ideal background playlist for a beloved restaurant. “If I was an architect, I would be a bad one,...

Part thriller, part drama, part comedy, Isaac Julien’s urban pastoral set in the aftermath of a homophobic murder still feels fresh, buoyant and likable

Isaac Julien’s feature from 1991 is rereleased after more than 30 years and it still feels fresh, buoyant, likable and emotionally open. It is a paean to diversity and intersectionality set in east London during the 1977 Queen’s silver jubilee, with some cheeky jibes about middle-class outlaws and “St Martins” art-school types (St Martins being Julien’s own alma mater). Young Soul Rebels takes the form of an urban pastoral, but is also a kind of romantic comedy, a coming-of-age drama about friendship and a thriller about a brutal homophobic murder – and there’s actually a clever plot twist about the victim’s tape-deck which another type of film might have made much more of, maybe in the manner of Francis Ford Coppola.

A young black...

Inventive hybrid uses drama and archive video montage to examine the intersections of different liberation struggles

Here is a 1986 film co-directed by radical feminist film-maker Maureen Blackwood with artist-director Isaac Julien. Their sensibilities are a fruitful match here, creating a knotty, complex, self-questioning piece of work: drama, essay movie and video art crossover. Blackwood and Julien were drawing on the black power radicalism of the 60s and the feminism of the 80s in ways that could amount to a British new wave.

In a stylised wilderness, a male and female figure confront each other ill-temperedly: the woman accusing the man of not allowing women any agency or space within the liberation movement. In a parallel realist drama, a family deals with racist abuse (often from off-duty police) and their own ideological and generational splits on the subject of injustice and empowerment, and how gay people of colour find themselves marginalised...

He rose to fame in the Thatcher era with his lyrical films about race, sex and politics. As he stages a major retrospective, the artist talks about Aids, migration, and Black Tory MPs

Isaac Julien’s canalside London studio was designed by David Adjaye at the same time the architect was working on his National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC; its library space, where we talk, is warm, luxurious and boat-like. Adjaye’s team has also designed Julien’s imminent career retrospective at Tate Britain, which will display the artist and film-maker’s exploration of migration, history, sexuality and culture through composite multiscreen installations that can make you feel as if you’re actually inside the work.

“We’ve made a radical intervention into the museum,” Julien promises, and I understand immediately what he means. His most famous works, the 1989 short film Looking for Langston...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSMuch-loved genre filmmaker Albert Pyun (above) has died. Working mostly with low-budgets, and often making films for the direct-to-video market, Pyun’s career spanned five decades and included films such as The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), Cyborg (1989), and the popular cyberpunk film series Nemesis. Cynthia Curnan, Pyun's wife and producer, had recently requested messages from fans to pass onto the filmmaker, who had been ill for a number of years prior to his passing.It seems that Paul Thomas Anderson is planning to start shooting his next feature in July 2023. Little is yet known about the new project, but a casting call has been listed for a “15-to-16-year-old female of mixed ethnicity who is physically athletic and excels at Martial Arts.” Previous...

It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.

Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...

The BFI London Film Festival’s annual Works-in-Progress showcase, now in its third edition, will present nine new feature films and documentaries by U.K.-based filmmakers.

The showcase, which is part of the festival’s U.K. Talent Days focus, will be an in-person event on Oct. 8 screening extracts from each project introduced by their producer to an invited audience of international buyers and festival programmers. The projects are either in production or post-production. Clips will also be available online via a secure platform to a wider pool of invited international industry professionals.

The annual Buyers & Sellers event returns as an in-person fixture at which international sales agents can meet with U.K. buyers, and Network@Lff will host masterclasses and events for 12 U.K.-based writers, directors and producers to interact with international filmmakers and industry executives at the festival.

Festival director, Tricia Tuttle, said: “Connecting independent filmmakers...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSEl Conde (Pablo Larraín).Natalie Portman will star opposite Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes's next film, May December, which begins filming later this year. In the film, an actress (Portman) meets with the woman she is due to portray (Moore) in a film that dramatizes her tabloid scandal.After Spencer, Pablo Larraín's next project with Netflix will be El Conde, a pitch-black comedy that will portray Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire.Pedro Almodóvar has announced a new 30-minute Western, Strange Way of Life, which he will shoot in August. The short stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as two gunslingers, long separated, who must cross the Spanish desert to reunite. Almodóvar's next feature—an adaptation of Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women led by Cate Blanchett—begins filming early next year.

Key screen figures receive honours for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Actor Damian Lewis, actor-director Andrew Onwubolu, aka Rapman and Creative UK CEO Caroline Norbury are among the film and TV figures to receive honorary titles as part of the Queen’s birthday honours to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee.

Lewis, whose credits include Homeland, received a Cbe for his services to film and charity. He is also co-founder of the Feed NHS campaign, created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rapman created the YouTube series Shiro’s Story before directing his feature debut Blue Story in 2019. He has received an...

“Billions” actor Damian Lewis, actor-director Rapman (“Blue Story”), writer Salman Rushdie (“Midnight’s Children”) and All3Media CEO Jane Turton are among those in the arts and entertainment field recognized in the annual Queen’s birthday honors.

Lewis has been recognized as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Cbe) for services to drama and charity. Also accorded a Cbe is filmmaker Isaac Julien, Berlin winner for “Derek.”

Rushdie has been accorded the Member of the Order of the Companions of Honor accolade for services to literature alongside illustrator and writer Quentin Blake (“Jackanory”), for services to illustration.

Director Andrew Onwubolu, also known as Rapman, has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to drama and music. Veteran “Coronation Street” actor Helen Worth Dawson has also been accorded an MBE for services to drama.

Ian Rankin, whose crime novels, including the...

The series Edward Owens: Promise and Remembrance is showing on Mubi starting February 7, 2022.Remembrance: A Portrait StudyThe films of Edward Owens are visual recordings of haunted intimacies. Between ephemeral appearances and accumulative recurrences, his images conjure a tangle of frustrated desires and pensive longings. The uncanny expressivity of his cinema courts disintegration, offering up faces and bodies in pieces, and multiplied across the screen. Through an intricate interplay of photographic stillness and the mobilities of film, Owens charted out a unique visual grammar by claiming an inheritance of sources ranging between the experimental stylings of New American Cinema, fragments of Black sociality, 19th century European paintings, and 1960s pop songs.His four works—Autre fois j’ai aimé une femme (1966), Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1966), Tomorrow’s Promise (1967) and Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967)—were all made when the Black queer artist was only in his late teens. Owens was born...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Casting board Polaroids from Heat (1995). (Courtesy of Michael Mann)Michael Mann's debut novel is titled Heat 2, which is both a prequel and sequel to his 1995 classic crime thriller. Co-written with novelist Meg Gardiner, Heat 2 will be published on August 9 through the HarperCollins-based Michael Mann Books imprint. Jonas Mekas 100! is a program dedicated to honoring the influential critic, writer, and filmmaker Jonas Mekas. The events of the program are currently underway and are taking place worldwide, from Sweden to Taiwan, with a focus on "[expanding] global recognition of his work." Bong Joon-ho is moving forward with his next English-language film, an adaptation of Edward Ashton's upcoming science fiction novel Mickey7, with Robert Pattinson set to star. The book is about a "disposable employee" on a space colony base who refuses to be replaced by a clone.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) hosted its 10th annual Art+Film Gala on November 6, 2021, honoring artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

Leonardo DiCaprio and honoree Steven Spielberg, and Bob Iger attend the 10th Annual Lacma Art+Film Gala

Credit/Copyright: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Lacma

Co-chaired by Lacma trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, the event was attended by more than 650 prominent guests from the art, film, fashion, and entertainment industries, among others. This year’s event raised $5 million to support Lacma’s film initiatives, as well as future exhibitions, acquisitions, and programming. Returning once again as presenting sponsor of the Art+Film Gala, Gucci expanded its longstanding and generous partnership with the museum by supporting Lacma’s presentation of The Obama Portraits Tour and the companion exhibition Black American Portraits. Audi provided additional support for the gala for the third year.

It’s been a long journey for Barry Jenkins, from his humble debut “Medicine for Melancholy” in 2008 to eventual Oscar winner “Moonlight” eight years later and the sprawling miniseries adaptation “The Underground Railroad” earlier this year. All along, though, there has been one constant for him: The Telluride Film Festival. Jenkins first attended the festival as a film student almost 20 years ago and eventually became a volunteer, then rose through the programming ranks to oversee the shorts program, a gig he maintained even after his career took off.

Now, he’s leveled up again in Telluride stature by serving as the festival’s guest director.

Over the course of this year’s five-day event, Jenkins will introduce six screenings of films handpicked by a director best known for blending his passionate cinephilia with underrepresented voices. His program does that, too: While Jenkins’ favorite director Claire Denis is represented with her debut “Chocolat,...

Sheffield DocFest is spotlighting and celebrating Black British screen culture this month with a Retrospective titled “Films belong to those who need them – fragments from the history of Black British Cinema.” The Retrospective brings together a wide and diverse range of films that have been largely overlooked and undervalued in film history and criticism.

To give breadth to the selection, the films have been selected by guest curators. They are film exhibition company We Are Parable’s Anthony Andrews and Teanne Andrews; writer and director Campbell X; British-Nigerian historian, broadcaster and filmmaker David Olusoga; filmmaker George Amponsah; filmmaker Judah Attille; curator and cultural historian Mark Sealy; and a group of film studies/screenwriting and film students from Sheffield Hallam University as part of a partnership project led by principal lecturer in film studies Chi-Yun Shin.

For example, the We Are Parable program – titled “Remember / Re-evaluate / Review” – examines the portrayal of...

The Sheffield DocFest has unveiled its line-up for its 2021 programme that includes the World Premiere of the first instalment of Academy Award winner Steve McQueen’s new series for the BBC, ‘Uprising’.

For the first time, Sheffield DocFest goes nationwide with five premiere screenings showing in up to 16 partner cinemas in cities around the UK, and online, followed by pre-recorded Q&As. It also includes the previously announced Retrospective: Films belong to those who need them – fragments from the history of Black British Cinema.

The celebration of Black British screen culture – curated by guest curators including David Olusoga. Films of all lengths will all be presented as part of the retrospective including titles such as ‘Burning An Illusion’ by Menelik Shabazz, ‘It Ain’t Half Racist’, ‘Mum’ by Stuart Hall, ‘Looking for Langston’ by Isaac Julien, ‘Second Coming’ by Debbie Tucker Green, ‘The Black Safari’ by Colin Luke, ‘Baby Mother...

The mostly virtual 2021 Sundance Film Festival is coming to a close. The festival announced awards winners Tuesday night, trading an in-person ceremony for one broadcast live and hosted by Patton Oswalt. The biggest winner was Sian Heder’s coming of age drama “Coda,” which earned four U.S. Dramatic Competition awards, including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. Other Big winners were “Summer of Soul,” which took home the two top U.S. Documentary awards.

Blerta Basholli’s “Hive” won three awards in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition: the Directing and Audience awards and the Grand Jury Prize. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s “Writing with Fire” earned two World Cinema Documentary awards.

A total of 72 features screened over the last week, along with 50 shorts, four Indie Series, and 14 New Frontier VR/new media projects. Those projects were judged by a jury made up of Zeynep Atakan, Raúl Castillo,...

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival awards went off at a very fast clip tonight, in an hour’s time. Host Patton Oswalt — or as he billed himself, “Discount Giamatti” — kept the jokes flowing.

Siân Heder’s Coda, which we first told you was swooped up by Apple with a rich $25 million bid, came up big. It won both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and a Special Jury Ensemble Cast award too. Heder also won Best Director in the U.S. Dramatic section. The movie follows a girl named Ruby. As the only hearing person in an otherwise deaf family, she is divided about staying with them as their fishing business is threatened.

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer of Soul took the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for Documentary.

Blerta Basholli’s Hive, about a woman in Kosovo who fights against a patriarchal society and whose husband is missing,...

Park City, Ut — 22 celebrated voices across film, art and culture will bestow this year’s awards on feature-length and short films at the Sundance Film Festival, at a digital ceremony taking place February 2nd. This year’s Festival is fully available online at Festival.Sundance.org; Awards Night will be live-streamed. Award-winning films will be available for special extended-run viewing the day after the ceremony.

The awards, which recognize standout artistic and cinematic achievement, are decided on by 6 section juries. As in years past, Festival audiences have a role in deciding the 2021 Audience Awards, open to films in the U.S. Competition, World Competition and Next categories.

“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields, and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” said Kim Yutani, the Festival’s Director of Programming. “We’re pleased to bring this accomplished,...

“Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo and “Daughters of the Dust” director Julie Dash are among the 22 names selected to oversee the competition juries at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Erivo and Dash will lead the U.S. Dramatic Competition jury this year alongside Hanya Yanagihara, editor of the New York Times Style Magazine and author of the novels “The People in the Trees” and “A Little Life.”

Leading the U.S. Documentary jury are Ashley Clark, a curatorial director at Criterion Collection and formerly the director of film programming at Bam, “The Act of Killing” director Joshua Oppenheimer and Lana Wilson, whose Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana” premiered at Sundance last year.

“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” Kim Yutani, Sundance’s director of programming, said in a statement. “We’re pleased to bring this accomplished,...

The Sundance Film Festival announced 22 jurors that will bestow this year’s awards at the digital ceremony taking place Feb. 2. The judges include actor Cynthia Erivo, Chilean actor Daniela Vega and sibling designer-filmmakers Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

The awards, which recognize standout artistic and cinematic prowess, are decided on by six section juries. As in previous years, festival viewers will have a role in deciding the 2021 Audience Awards, which are open to films in the U.S. Competition, World Competition and Next categories.

The U.S. Dramatic Jury is comprised of filmmaker Julie Dash, Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-winning Erivo and author Hanya Yanagihara.

Curatorial director at the Criterion Collection Ashley Clark, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer and Emmy-winning director Lana Wilson will make up the U.S. Documentary Jury.

The World Cinema Dramatic Jury will feature Istanbul-based producer Zeynep Atakan, filmmaker Isaac Julien and Vega. British documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto, executive...

The 22 jury members for this year’s virtually unfolding Sundance Film Festival have been revealed. Jurors include actors Cynthia Erivo and Daniela Vega, filmmakers Julie Dash and Joshua Oppenheimer, author Hanya Yanagahira (“A Little Life”), and many more. They will bestow awards on features and short films at the festival’s digital closing ceremony on February 2. The event will be live-streamed, and winning films will be available for special extended-run viewing the next day.

The awards, which recognize standout artistic and cinematic achievement, are decided upon by six section juries. As in years past, festival audiences have a role in deciding the 2021 Audience Awards, open to films in the U.S. Competition, World Competition, and Next categories.

As previously announced, the juried Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize was awarded to “Son of Monarchs.” Below are all this year’s jury members, with bios courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival.

The British Film Institute, the UK’s lead organization for film, has posted the advert for one of its top jobs: the Director of BFI Film Fund. Scroll down for the full ad.

The role, which has been vacant for more than a year after Ben Roberts assumed the role of BFI CEO in late 2019, includes leading on strategic investment of Lottery funds and helping to increase diversity. The job spec also calls for more investment in episodic work and new media.

Many of the BFI’s leading roles to date have been considered ‘jobs for life’, a move opposed by those calling for more diversity of voices, but in this instance the role has a fixed term of 3 years “in order to maintain diversity of voice and approach in the leadership of the Film Fund”.

The BFI’s recent investments include The Souvenir, Saint Maud and The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Carl Reiner, Annie Reiner, and Mel Brooks, photographed together at Brooks's 94th birthday celebration.We're saddened by news that actor, comedian, screenwriter and director Carl Reiner has died. Mel Brooks remembers Reiner, his best friend, in a post reflecting upon their famous collaborations together. Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson has unveiled plans for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, which will take place "live in Utah and in at least 20 independent and community cinemas across the U.S. and beyond." Elsewhere, the Locarno International Film Festival announced its 20 selections for the Films After Tomorrow program, which aims to offer support to productions that were put on hold by the health crisis. These films include films by Lucrecia Martel, Wang Bing, Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Helena Wittmann, and Lisandro Alonso. Recommended VIEWINGArthur Jafa directed...

Normally, IndieWire’s Stream of the Day feature focuses on movies that you can watch at home. Today, we’re using this space to call out a few that should be available, but aren’t. At one time or another, we have all probably experienced this frustrating conundrum: You want to watch a movie or TV show that sneaks its way into your consciousness, or was recommended by a trusted source, and, like most people, you first try the streaming services — especially in the current environment — but none of them carry it, not even as a rental or purchase on Amazon or iTunes. That’s especially true for films from black filmmakers.

For example, none of the films from key L.A. Rebellion filmmaker, Haile Gerima are available to stream on any platform, nor is Ivan Dixon’s classic “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” (1973), or Jessie Maple’s 1981 film “Will,...

This piece is one part loving obituary and one part urgent call-to-action around the undeniable need for our independent film industry to put some sort of safety nets in place for our beloved and aging indie film leadership. Ironically, when I wrote this piece just two months ago, who could have imagined that the topic of safety nets would become so important to All Of Us given the ways in which our industry has been so dramatically halted and upended by the #Coronavirus public health pandemic?By Marc Smolowitz

30 March

For context, I am currently developing a new film as a director on these topics, and I hope to gather steam among key indie film organizations in the coming months, so we can all come together (either online or in-person when safe to do so) to create new programs and initiatives that help build safety nets for the most vulnerable in our industry.

The film premiered at the BFI Flare Film Festival in London in March.

Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Steve McLean’s Postcards From London, about a teenager who leaves his insular hometown for the bright lights of London where he falls in with a group of elite rent boys in the city’s legendary district of Soho.

The deal was brokered by Jon Gerrans at Strand Releasing and Rym Hachimi at Paris-based The Bureau Sales, which is handling world sales on the title.

Strand Releasing also released McLean’s previous film, Postcards From America which was...

Above: Japanese poster for In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 2000). It’s no secret that Mubi—the site you are on right now—owes its existence partly to Maggie Cheung. In an oft-told story, its founder Efe Çakarel was killing time in a cafe in Tokyo in 2007 when he sensed that he was in the mood for Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. Finding that there was no way to stream that movie right there and then, he resolved to start his own global arthouse movie streaming service, and thus Mubi, or The Auteurs as it was initially known, was born. Now I’m not saying that Maggie Cheung herself was the main reason Efe wanted to watch In the Mood for Love, but she is such a major part of the allure of that film that I am giving her the credit, especially on...

Colin MacCabe on shooting Berger: "John absolutely refused to plan things." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Author, artist, self-declared storyteller John Berger is the focus of the intricately woven strands that make up The Seasons In Quincy: Four Portraits Of John Berger. Produced by The Derek Jarman Lab as a quartet of individual film essays, directed by Tilda Swinton, Christopher Roth, Bartek Dziadosz and Colin MacCabe, the combination allows for fascinating interplay of concerns.

On the opening day in New York, Colin MacCabe and I had a conversation that led from Berger's kitchen to Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake, The Spectre Of Hope on Sebastião Salgado, Chris Marker, Neil Jordan collaborator Patrick McCabe, Isaac Julien, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, the editing by Christopher Roth and the cinematography of Bartek Dziadosz, apples, raspberries and cows, Brexit and Northern Ireland.

Tilda Swinton: "As soon as we finished the first one,...

“Todd Haynes‘ filmography is often overwhelming in its intellectual acumen and emotional devastation,” we noted upon the release of his latest film this past fall. “This is true of Carol, which is at once a return to the deconstruction of femininity, social mores, and mild anarchy of privilege, as well as an honest and heartbreaking story about falling in love and the trepidation therein.” Over 100 film experts, ranging from critics to writers to programmers, agree on the emotional power of the drama, as they’ve voted it the best Lgbt film of all-time.

Conducted by BFI ahead of the 30th BFI Flare: London Lgbt Film Festival, they note this is the “first major critical survey of Lgbt films.” Speaking about leading the poll, Haynes said, “I’m so proud to have Carol voted as the top Lgbt film of all time in this poll launched for the Fest’s 30th edition.

Films include Shepherds and Butchers with Steve Coogan; Don’t Call Me Son from Anna Muylaert; and a documentary about a director and actress who were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il.

The Berlinale (Feb 11-21) has completed the selection for this year’s Panorama strand, comprising 51 films from 33 countries. A total of 34 fiction features comprise the main programme and Panorama Special while a further 17 titles will screen in Panorama Dokumente.

A total of 33 films are world premieres, nine are international premieres and nine European premieres. The 30th Teddy Award is also being celebrated with an anniversary series of 17 films.

Notable titles include Shepherds and Butchers from South Africa, which is set toward the end of Apartheid and stars Steve Coogan as a hotshot lawyer who faces his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men. What ensues is a charge against the death penalty itself, in a case...

Films include Shepherds and Butchers, starring Steve Coogan; Don’t Call Me Son from Anna Muylaert; and a documentary about a director and actress who were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il and forced to make films.

The Berlinale (Feb 11-21) has completed the selection for this year’s Panorama strand, comprising 51 films from 33 countries. A total of 34 fiction features comprise the main programme and Panorama Special while a further 17 titles will screen in Panorama Dokumente.

A total of 33 films are world premieres, nine are international premieres and nine European premieres. The 30th Teddy Award is also being celebrated with an anniversary series of 17 films.

Notable titles include Shepherds and Butchers from South Africa, which is set toward the end of Apartheid and stars Steve Coogan as a hotshot lawyer faces his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men. What ensues is a charge against the death penalty itself...

Other titles include Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan, starring Greta Gerwig, and David Farr’s The Ones Below, starring David Morrissey.Scroll down for full lists

The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has announced the first titles in Panorama – its strand that comprises new independent and arthouse films that deal with controversial subjects or unconventional aesthetic styles.

The initial features include three from the UK, with John Michael McDonagh returning to Berlin for the world premiere of War On Everyone.

The film, a satire centred on two corrupt cops in New Mexico, stars Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Peña, Theo James and Tessa Thompson.

McDonagh was previously in Panorama in 2011 with The Guard and 2013 with Calvary.

Also from the UK is David Farr’s The Ones Below, which revolves around a couple expecting their first child who discover an unnerving difference between themselves and the couple living in the flat below. Receiving its European...

The Panorama program has not only announced a first round of titles for the 66th Berlinale, including Rebecca Miller's Maggie's Plan with Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, it's also unveiled revival screenings celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Award, the "only official Lgbtiq (in short, queer) film prize at an A-festival in the world." Among the highlights are Chantal Akerman's Je, tu, il, elle and Toute une nuit, Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol, Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston, Barbara Hammer's Nitrate Kisses, Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman and Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied. » - David Hudson...

The Panorama program has not only announced a first round of titles for the 66th Berlinale, including Rebecca Miller's Maggie's Plan with Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, it's also unveiled revival screenings celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Award, the "only official Lgbtiq (in short, queer) film prize at an A-festival in the world." Among the highlights are Chantal Akerman's Je, tu, il, elle and Toute une nuit, Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol, Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston, Barbara Hammer's Nitrate Kisses, Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman and Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied. » - David Hudson...

Film London announced Seamus Harahan as winner of the 2015 Jarman Award tonight. Harahan was presented with the £10,000 prize by celebrated filmmaker and Jarman contemporary Terence Davies. He was selected from a six-strong shortlist which also included Adam Chodzko, Gail Pickering, Alia Syed, Bedwyr Williams and Andrea Luka Zimmerman. For the first time in the history of the Award, all members of the shortlist will receive broadcast commissions for Channel 4’s Random Acts strand.

The Jury said of the winner: “Seamus Harahan was selected for this year’s Jarman Award thanks to his amazing eye and his intuitiveness, both of which come to the fore in his vignettes of urban life. Elegantly and effectively scored and crafted with a simplicity of means, he makes profoundly beautiful and deeply engaging films that push the boundaries of art and documentary. His work is moving and humorous, making him winner of this year’s Jarman Award.”

Cinematographer Noski Deville was also announced as winner of the inaugural Jules Wright Prize for Female Creative Technician, presented in partnership with The Wapping Project. Deville, who has worked with the likes of Steve McQueen, Isaac Julien and Jarman nominee Alia Syed, was praised for the impact she has made on the field of cinematography and the breadth of her work.

Seamus Harahan's video, installation, film and sound based practice engages directly with place. His starting point is not the making of art; instead his strategy is to forget and just film the social and cultural environment around him.

Harahan uses his video camera to take hand-held, seemingly amateur footage, the contents of this footage, locating himself and locating others, through found activity occurring around him. The main subject is often the urban environment, its incidental detail and fugitive nature.

Music is a vital element in all of Harahan's works, with songs used as soundtracks or informing the composition, title or duration of individual pieces. The artist takes songs from an eclectic range of sources, including reggae and hip hop as well as English and Irish traditional music.