News

Distributor plans virtual theatrical release in spring followed by VoD rollout later in year.

Icarus Films has acquired all North American rights to Dieudo Hamadi’s Congolese documentary Downstream To Kinshasa, the Cannes Label selection that recently won top prize at Dok Leipzig.

Icarus plans a virtual theatrical release in spring followed by a VoD rollout later in the year.

The film follows a group of disabled civilians who travel down the Congo River to the capital to demand compensation for injuries suffered during the Six Day War between Ugandan and Rwandan forces in 2000.

‘Downstream To Kinshasa’: Dok Leipzig...

It’s almost a certainty that you’ve never seen a Christmas movie like Fatman. You know how they wanted to make all superhero films in that “gritty, realistic” style that Christopher Nolan turned into billions of dollars with the Dark Knight trilogy? In Fatman, writers/directors Ian and Eshom Nelms (Small Town Crime) take the greatest superhero of them all, Santa Claus, and transform him into a struggling, borderline alcoholic curmudgeon who may lose his business, and has a killer after him to boot.

That’s right: As played by a more grizzled than usual Mel Gibson, whose voice emanates from somewhere deep within the considerable beard he’s sporting, Chris Kringle is bitter and depressed over the state of the world. More and more kids are making bad choices, leaving him no option but to deliver them hunks of coal instead of toys. But that also creates a...

Oliver Sacks lived a lot of life, putting primacy on the brain throughout his career as a neurologist as the most incredible thing in the universe. But during that life, which ended in 2015, he also battled drug addiction, cancer, homophobia, and a medical establishment that wouldn’t take him seriously for decades. His towering achievements and personal struggles are chronicled in the new documentary “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life,” directed by Ric Burns and coming later this summer. IndieWire shares the exclusive first trailer below.

Sacks, perhaps best known for his literary works “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” was an intrepid explorer of cognitive worlds who helped us redefine how the brain and mind work. The film features exclusive interviews conducted with Sacks just weeks after his terminal diagnosis, leading up to his death, along with nearly two dozen testimonials from family, colleagues, patients,...

Wynn Handman, co-founder of American Place Theatre, the Off Broadway non-profit company that championed a young playwright named Sam Shepard and cast such actors as Dustin Hoffman, Rául Juliá, Faye Dunaway, John Leguizamo and Robert de Niro early in their careers, died of complications from the coronavirus Saturday, April 11, at his home in New York. He was 97.

His death was announced by daughter Laura Handman.

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Handman co-founded Apt in 1963 with Michael Tolan and Sidney Lanier, and the theater would quickly become a vital player on the New York theater scene. In 1964, the theater staged its first full production: the Obie-winning The Old Glory by Robert Lowell, directed by Jonathan Miller (Beyond the Fringe) and starring Frank Langella,...

Jonathan Miller, a distinguished British theatre and opera director, writer and TV producer, has died at the age of 85 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

Miller’s family confirmed his death and said he passed away “peacefully at home” following a multi-hyphenated career in arts and entertainment, on which he embarked after originally training as a doctor at Cambridge University.

Miller moved into the arts world through stage revue Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s, starring alongside Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in the seminal comedy stage show that took the West End and Broadway by storm.

He went on to work for the BBC, editing and presenting arts show Monitor, as well as directing and producing six of the BBC’s Television Shakespeare Collection. This included the 1980 adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, starring John Cleese as Petruchio, and the 1981 version of Othello, featuring Anthony Hopkins.

Jonathan Miller, the writer, director and member of iconic British stage revue Beyond the Fringe, has died at 85.

The multi-talented Miller worked across stage and screen as well as in other fields of the arts. His family said Wednesday that he died peacefully at home after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

After first studying medicine and qualifying as a doctor, the London-born Miller broke into the arts with Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. Miller appeared alongside Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett in the revue, which played in the West End and on Broadway.

He was a well-known face on TV in the U.K. and worked in front of and behind the camera, with numerous programs to his credit. These include six of the BBC’s Shakespeare productions, and several documentaries that he wrote and presented for the pubcaster. His later-career TV work included “Atheism: A...

Icarus Films has acquired North American distribution rights to Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s new arthouse feature “Jinpa.” Following “Old Dog,” The Search” and “Tharlo,” it is the fourth of Tseden’s titles to be added to the firm’s dGenerate Collection, the largest grouping of independent Chinese films available in the U.S., founded and curated by Karin Chien.

Jacky Pang, CEO of Block 2 Distribution, and Jonathan Miller, president of Icarus Films, signed the deal. Pema Tseden is one of the most prominent Tibetan filmmakers, whose black-and-white film “Tharlo” won a Golden Horse for best adapted screenplay in 2015.

An atmospheric depiction of Tibetan life, “Jinpa” was released theatrically nationwide in China but made just $1.46 million (RMB10.3 million) in theaters. It tells the tale of a truck driver who accidentally runs over a sheep on his way across the barren Tibetan steppe, and then tries to stop a hitchhiker whom...

Film named best international competition feature at Nyon Visions du Réel this year.

New York-based documentary specialist Icarus Films has acquired North American rights to 2019 Berlin Forum winner of the Caligari Prize Heimat Is A Space In Time.

Thomas Heise directed the chronicle of three generations of the filmmaker’s family, set against the backdrop of dramatic events in German and global history dating back more than a century.

Germany’s Ma.ja.de. Filmproduktion produced Heimat Is A Space In Time in association with Navigator Film from Austria and Germany’s Zdf/3sat.

It was named best feature in...

Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos are never too far apart.

The 49-year-old news anchor was photographed outside of a New York City apartment building where her boyfriend, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, reportedly just bought three apartments for about $80 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sanchez wore a navy blue blouse, white slacks and navy heels while she wore her hair in a bun.

The sighting comes after Bezos, 55, bought a penthouse and two units directly underneath it near Madison Square Park in New York City, according to the Journal.

The deal is the most expensive ever closed in that area,...

Ken Hughes was an interesting character. The closest thing I have to a personal anecdote came from an old friend who was an assistant director: "Ken Hughes was the dirtiest man I ever met." I don't really know what he meant by that, and it may be unfair. But you can see little hints in his work.Hughes is best-remembered today for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and he did some of the better work in the astonishing sixties farrago Casino Royale (1967), but none of that really typifies him. His best film may be The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), which he wrote as well as directed, and which brought to a kind of climax his early thriller period.Hughes' first film, in 1952, was Wide Boy, about a lowlife blackmailer, not a distinguished work but an unusual one for its frankness about the anti-hero's Jewishness. Sammy Lee is a much more...

New York-based Distrib Films Us has acquired three films from Studiocanal, including “One Nation, One King,” Pierre Schoeller’s sprawling movie about the French Revolution, which world premiered out of competition at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

“One Nation, One King” is headlined by a strong French cast, including Gaspard Ulliel, Adele Haenel, Olivier Gourmet, Louis Garrel, Niels Schneider and Denis Lavant. The big-budget film unfolds in 1789 Paris and is told from the perspectives of revolutionaries.

Produced by Denis Freyd at Archipel 35 (“The Kid With a Bike”), “One Nation, One King” follows Françoise, a young washerwoman, and Basile, a drifter, who begin to fulfill a dream of emancipation in the newly formed assembly where they witness the creation of a new political system along with the working-class people of Paris.

Distrib Films Us will release “One Nation, One King” in the U.S., along with two more Studiocanal films,...

In today’s film news roundup, “Spider-Man: Far From Home” sets a studio record, Chris Meledandri and Glenn Close are honored, an art-house streaming service is unveiled, and “Cliffs of Freedom” gets a release.

Trailer Stats

The first “Spider-Man: Far From Home” trailer has set a record as the biggest digital launch in Sony Pictures history after 24 hours.

The teaser trailer was unveiled Jan. 15 and generated 130 million views, topping the 116 million views for the first “Spider-Man: Homecoming” trailer. Sony said Friday the trailer was shared at twice the frequency of the first trailer for “Homecoming” and social conversation volume was also the highest in the studio’s history, topping 1.1 million posts in the first day. The studio reported that audiences were particularly excited to see Tom Holland’s return as Spider-Man and Jake Gyllenhaal’s debut as Mysterio.

The trailer began with Holland embarking on a European adventure that’s...

With FilmStruck gone and Fandor recently sold to a new entity, cinephiles would appear to be running out of streaming services catered toward them. Here to fill that void is Ovid.TV, a new venture from six different independent film distributors — Bullfrog Films, Distrib Films Us, First Run Features, Grasshopper Film, Icarus Films, and KimStim — set to launch in March. In a statement announcing the new Svod platform, Ovid is is said to be “designed to provide North American viewers with access to thousands of mostly un-streamable documentaries, independent films, and notable works of international cinema.”

Jonathan Miller of Icarus Films, who will serve as director of Ovid, said, “the time for this kind of partnership is now, as the streaming giants focus on generating fast-turnaround new content, this coalition will offer new access to high-quality catalogs found nowhere else, featuring some of the most celebrated filmmakers and films in the canon.

Exclusive: Ryan Seacrest, Tyler Perry and interim CBS chairman Strauss Zelnick are among seven new members of The Paley Center for Media’s Board of Trustees, with top execs from Hulu, Amazon and Turner joining the organization’s Los Angeles Board of Governors.

The nonprofit organization has unveiled seven new trustees and five new governors, chosen from the realms of television, music and technology.

Joining the Paley Board of Trustees will be Adam Bird, Senior Partner, McKinsey and Company; Steve Cooper, CEO, Warner Music Group; Jennifer Mullin, CEO, Fremantle; Tyler Perry, Founder & Owner, Tyler Perry Studios; Jimmy Pitaro, Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks & President, ESPN; Ryan Seacrest, Creative Entrepreneur, TV Radio Host and Producer; and Zelnick, who is chairman and CEO, Take-Two Interactive Software as well as his CBS role.

New members of the Los Angeles Board of Governors will include Randy Freer, CEO, Hulu; Tina Perry, General Manager, Own: Oprah Winfrey Network; Kevin Reilly,...

Above: French poster for A Grin Without a Cat.Starting today, the Metrograph in New York will be launching an extensive series celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of the most dedicated, unsung heroes of U.S. film distribution: Icarus Films. Founded in 1978 by filmmaker Ilan Ziv and sold two years later (in exchange for a video camera) to Jonathan Miller who has run the company ever since, Icarus has become one of the leading repositories for aesthetically challenging, politically engaged documentary cinema. The two-week long series contains 56 films by some of the most important names in documentary film: Chantal Akerman, Jean Rouch, Peter Watkins, Chris Marker, Marcel Ophuls and Wang Bing, to name just a few.Finding posters for a lot of these films was not easy. Many of the titles were never really theatrical material (they range in length from 44 minutes to 345) and so a theatrical poster would...

Shari Redstone was under a ton of pressure when she arrived in Sun Valley, Idaho, earlier this month for the annual Allen & Co. conference of media moguls and tech titans. But she didn’t show it.

Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS and Viacom, was upbeat and cheery throughout the week of the high-powered gathering in the mountain resort. At one point she joked with the ever-present photographers and did a spontaneous happy dance to demonstrate her enthusiasm for the enlightening speakers and programming at the conference.

At the same time, Redstone politely but firmly refused to talk to reporters about the turmoil in her professional life, particularly the pending lawsuit from CBS that aims to dilute her voting power in the company.

Now that the Leslie Moonves sexual misconduct scandal could change the dynamic at CBS, Redstone’s next moves will be closely watched in many quarters. Her...

Wang Bing’s marathon Chinese documentary set for release later this year.

Icarus Films and Grasshopper Film have jointly acquired North American distribution rights to Dead Souls, the eight-hour documentary from Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing that had its premiere in a special screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film, handed by Doc & Film International, will have a limited North American release later this year. It will also be part of Icarus’ dGenerate Films Collection of films from mainland China.

Dead Souls focuses on the last survivors of the ‘re-education’ camps where political prisoners were held during the...

It’s a Brit sex comedy that addresses the basic facts about boy-girl petting — and not much else. A noted ‘adult’ role for Hayley Mills, it pairs her with an unlikable Oliver Reed, trying his damnedest to affect natural charm. Was Reed the reason Hayley chose as her next picture a story about a lady studying penguins?

Take a Girl Like You

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1970 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Hayley Mills, Oliver Reed, Noel Harrison, John Bird, Sheila Hancock, Ronald Lacey, Penelope Keith, Imogen Hassall, Pippa Steel, George Woodbridge.

Cinematography: Dick Bush

Film Editor: Jack Harris, Rex Pyke

Original Music: Stanley Myers

Written by George Melly

Produced by Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jonathan Miller

Wait a minute — when exactly did they finally stop calling young women, ‘birds?’

When the Hollywood studios all but collapsed at the end of the 1960s,...

Gravitas Ventures has acquired all U.S. rights to Tye Sheridan’s coming-of -age film “All Summers End” for a June 1 release.

Written and directed by Kyle Wilamowski (“Snow Angels”), the film also stars Kaitlyn Dever, Pablo Schreiber, Austin Abrams, Annabeth Gish, Ryan Lee, Paula Malcomson and Bill Sage.

Sheridan, the lead in Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One,” portrays a teenage boy who falls in love while grappling with his guilty conscience over a prank that’s gone awry. The film, formerly titled “Grass Stains,” premiered last year at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

“Powerful performances from leads Tye Sheridan and Kaitlyn Dever tell the story of first love and first loss that will resonate with all audiences,” Laura Florence, VP of sales and marketing for Gravitas, said. “It’s a very relatable tale of those emotional awakenings that can be razor sharp and unforgettable.”

Producers are Steven Olivera of Deckplate Films,...

More than 100 prominent people from literature, the arts, science, academia, human rights and the law have signed a declaration urging newspaper and magazine publishers to embrace the royal charter system of press regulation.

They join people who have been victims of press misbehaviour in arguing that charter will give "vital protection to the vulnerable" from abuse of power by the press.

The signatories include broadcasters Stephen Fry, Clare Balding, Gary Lineker and Rory Bremner. Actor Emma Thompson has signed, as have Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir Jonathan Miller.

Several film directors are on the list, such as Stephen Frears, Alan Parker, Mike Leigh, Beeban Kidron, Guy Ritchie, Stephen Daldry, Bill Forsyth, Peter Kosminsky, Terry Gilliam and Michael Apted.

Among the writers and playwrights are Alan Bennett, William Boyd, Alan Ayckbourn, Tom Stoppard, Monica Ali, Helen Fielding, Michael Frayn, Ian McEwan, A C Grayling, David Hare, Alan Hollinghurst, Jk Rowling, Salman Rushdie,...

British theatre director Sir Jonathan Miller has slammed West End producers for hiring celebrities instead of talented unknown actors. In an interview with The Times, Miller expressed his disappointment at not being able to move his production of Hamlet to the London stage. He said: "Producers might have been swayed if I'd been prepared to put in for more luminous names. But I wanted my original cast, who were absolutely first class." (more)...