News

Halle Bailey just released her debut single “Angel,” a song she describes as near and dear to her heart. “With everything I’ve gone through the past 3-4 years, suddenly finding myself in this bubble of all these eyes and new opinions, it was easy for me to feel doubt in myself and who I was. This song for me was my climb out of those feelings, a mantra and promise to myself that the work I’m doing here on earth matters and that I matter,” explained Bailey.

Bailey added: “I wanted to be able to embrace and be proud of myself and who I am naturally through and through. I hope other brown and black girls and everyone in general feel embraced, respected, and inspired hearing the words of this song.”

Grammy winner Theron “NeffU” Feemster produced the song, and Wendy Morgan directed the track’s gorgeous music video.

Halle Bailey's solo era is finally here. After her praiseworthy leading role in Disney's "The Little Mermaid" live-action remake this past May, the younger half of Chloe x Halle released new music on her own on Aug. 4 with her debut solo single, "Angel."

The 23-year-old singer teased a short clip of the piano-backed track's music video on July 31, which shows nostalgic glimpses of herself from an infant to now. The full visual, directed by Wendy Morgan, shows the songstress in elegant scenes surrounded by water and dancers as she pours her heart out with lyrics like: "Black girl here, Black girl with the Black girl hair / Took a little sun kiss just to look like this / God-sent, you're an angel / Angel, angel, angel."

"Angel" marks the first track Bailey has ever released without her sister, Chlöe, and arrives more than three years after the sister duo released their sophomore album,...

The sheer joy of music videos is their ability to transport you right into the heart of the onscreen action regardless of where you are at the time, which is exactly the feeling I got when watching Scheme Engine Director Wendy Morgan’s Kisé. First showing up on our pages way back in 2012 with rousing old school tent revival video Happy (which has clocked up north of 23M views), her latest collaboration with Congolese-Rwandan-Belgian singer-songwriter Lous and the Yakuza is a raw, sensory film where the images playing out on screen are just as energetic as the music pulsing through your body. Lous and the Yakuza first garnered widespread attention with her 2019 tracks Dilemme and Toute est Gore, both of which were also directed by Morgan. It’s a long-standing, fruitful working relationship which has this time around brought to fruition a slick, glossy video that’s effectively punctuated with...

Distribution

Wendy Morgan‘s animal welfare docu-drama “Mercy” has been picked up by Los Angeles-based distributor All Channel Films, Inc. All Channel Films will represent the film, which premiered at the Awareness Film Festival in October, in the U.S. and Canada across pay and basic cable, video/DVD, VOD/SVOD, PPV and other distribution platforms.

With humans standing in for animals, “Mercy” lifts the lid on the more unpalatable side of the meat industry as told though the eyes of a pig named Mercy as she goes from a factory farm to a slaughterhouse. Maria Austin (“The Reverend and Mrs. Simpson”) plays Mercy alongside Annette Badland (“Ted Lasso”), Mark Wingett (“Quadrophenia”) and Morgan (“Mrs. Lowry and Son”), who wrote and directed the film.

“One of my goals was to bring ‘Mercy’ to North American audiences to raise awareness about the film’s disturbing but important subject matter,” said Morgan.

It’s Darren’s (Kelly McCormack) second foray into the “paid dating” scene and her experience is already drastically different than the first. That one had her going dress shopping with an older gentleman treating her to the clothes for her trouble. This one is at a fancy restaurant with a man (Colm Feore’s Gordon) who seems to know someone at every table on the way to hers. Where the first came with an inherent awkwardness from both parties, Gordon is nothing but confident in what this situation is and who else knows it. Is it enough for Darren to drop her guard? Not initially. The more he provokes her to take control of their date being that she’s the in-demand commodity, however, the more she willingly complies.

Director Wendy Morgan and McCormack (who wrote the screenplay) ensure we know the power dynamic at play as well as...

Exclusive: Kelly McCormack (Killjoys) and Priscilla Delgado (Julieta) have been cast in Amazon’s hourlong pilot A League of Their Own, an adaptation of Penny Marshall’s 1992 feature film, from writers/executive producers Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham and Sony Pictures TV.

They will co-star opposite D’Arcy Carden and Jacobson, who are finalizing their acting deals, and Gbemisola Ikumelo, who is set.

Like the movie, A League of Their Own the series is about a women’s professional baseball league during World War II.

McCormack plays Jess, a talented pitcher and a vocal leader who is not afraid to speak up. Delgado plays Izzy, an optimistic and fun girl who is probably the youngest player to try out for the Rockford Peaches. The brave teenager left Cuba and landed in the Midwest just to play the game.

McCormack has a recurring role on the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia.

"It's not a hobby, mother... I have to do it! I'm compelled to put down everything. I need to capture a way of life." Cleopatra Entertainment has debuted the first official trailer for an indie biopic titled Mrs. Lowry & Son, the latest from acclaimed British director Adrian Noble. The very talented Timothy Spall continues his famous painters series by starring as L.S. Lowry. The film is a portrait of Lowry and his relationship with his mother, Elizabeth, who tries to dissuade him from pursuing his passion. The cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, plus Stephen Lord, David Schaal, Michael Keogh, John Alan Roberts, & Wendy Morgan. Why do artists always live such tormented lives?! Always so much struggle and pain, but perhaps this is where great art comes from. I like the way this trailer shows his paintings after sharing the scenes they're inspired by. Check it out. Here's the ...

A bitter, proud Scottish widow decides to tick an important item off her bucket list before moving into a retirement home in “Edie,” an uneven dramedy from U.K. commercials helmer Simon Hunter, working from a screenplay by Elizabeth O’Halloran that has a big problem in tone and beaucoup clichéd contrivance. While there’s drama aplenty in the notion that octogenarian Edie Moore (the superb Sheila Hancock) yearns to climb Mount Suilven, in the Highlands, the filmmakers too often undermine the dignity of their appealing protagonist with crude slapstick. Hancock makes a determined heroine who deserves better than the knockabout and patronizing treatment her character suffers. The only thing that does not disappoint is the ravishing and varied landscape, even if it is shot a bit like a tourist board advertisement.

Edie has just lost her husband, who spent the last 30 years of his life in a wheelchair, unable to walk or speak,...

Edie Music Box Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Simon Hunter Screenwriter: Simon Hunter, Edward Lyden-Bell, Elizabeth O’Halloran Cast: Sheila Hancock, Kevin Guthrie, Paul Brannigan, Amy Manson, Wendy Morgan Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 8/10/19 Opens: September 6, 2019 The Pennsylvania Dutch have an expression, “Ve get […]

The post Edie Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"I've wasted so much time doing nothing..." Music Box Films has debuted the official trailer for an indie adventure drama titled Edie, from director Simon Hunter. The film originally premiered at the Edinburgh and Raindance Film Festivals in the UK in 2017, and is finally getting a theatrical release in the Us coming up next month. The film stars Sheila Hancock (from Take a Girl Like You and Carry On Cleo) as Edie, an 83-year-old woman who "believes that it is never too late". So she packs up an old camping bag, leaving her life behind, embarking upon an adventure she never got to have - climbing the imposing Mount Suilven in Scotland (here on Google Maps). The cast also includes Kevin Guthrie, Paul Brannigan, Amy Manson, Wendy Morgan, Rachael Keiller, and Donald Pelmear. This looks exactly like the uplifting, inspiring "you can do anything you want" story that it sounds like,...

Umbrella Academy star Colm Feore and Kelly McCormack (Killjoys) are set to star in an untitled sugar daddy drama from director Wendy Morgan.

McCormack will play Darren, an aspiring musician who works for a paid-dating website to find rich older men to fund her work.

The Canadian indie, previously titled Sugar Daddy, will see Feore play an older client as Darren, juggling wealthy men as she competes in a highly sexualized music industry, faces a growing inner personal conflict she must resolve to find her true self.

The female-driven project, which has a script written by McCormack, is being produced by Lauren ...

Umbrella Academy star Colm Feore and Kelly McCormack (Killjoys) are set to star in an untitled sugar daddy drama from director Wendy Morgan.

McCormack will play Darren, an aspiring musician who works for a paid-dating website to find rich older men to fund her work.

The Canadian indie, previously titled Sugar Daddy, will see Feore play an older client as Darren, juggling wealthy men as she competes in a highly sexualized music industry, faces a growing inner personal conflict she must resolve to find her true self.

The female-driven project, which has a script written by McCormack, is being produced by Lauren ...

A million American GIs are bivouacked in the English countryside, awaiting debarkation to France… and the green fields are loaded with young English women, whose own men have been off fighting for years. John Schlesinger puts together a good drama, with an excellent cast; he also avoids the expected ‘please wait for me!’ clichés attendant to this subgenre of war film.

Yanks

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1979 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 139 min. / Street Date , 2019 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Richard Gere, Lisa Eichhorn, Vanessa Redgrave, William Devane, Chick Vennera, Wendy Morgan, Rachel Roberts, Tony Melody, Derek Thompson.

Cinematography: Dick Bush

Film Editor: Jim Clark

Original Music: Richard Rodney Bennett

Written by Colin Welland, Walter Bernstein

Produced by Joseph Janni, Lester Persky

Directed by John Schlesinger

Director John Boorman got to tell his personal wartime home front story in his warm and funny Hope and Glory, and eight years earlier the...

MaryAnn’s quick take… This is no twee old-lady adventure. The magnificent Sheila Hancock crafts a portrait of elder womanhood as a tangy triumph of risk-taking over regret, and resolution over resignation. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for movies about women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto) women’s participation in this film

(learn more about this)

Stories about women taking enormous life-and-limb risks are not ones we tell often. Instead we tell stories about women fulfilling their responsibilities: to children and to husbands, mostly. Well, “I did my duty,” growls 85-year-old Londoner Edie (Sheila Hancock: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), who spent years caring for her difficult disabled husband, who was an asshole even before his stroke. But after he dies, she’s nowhere near ready for the depressing care home her daughter (Wendy Morgan) wants to put her in.

After premiering at the 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it was also nominated for the prestigious Michael Powell Award, we have a first look at the trailer and poster for Edie.

Also in trailers – Game of Thrones, Art Parkinson battles authorities in a bid to save an Elephant in trailer for Zoo

Featuring a moving performance from Sheila Hancock (Cabaret, Entertaining Mr Sloane) in an inspiring tale, the story is a tale of triumph over adversity as Edie embarks on the adventure of a lifetime, set against the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands.

The film is directed by Simon Hunter and stars Sheila Hancock, Kevin Guthrie, Paul Brannigan, Amy Manson and Wendy Morgan.

Edie, out in UK cinemas from 25th May

Edie Official Synopsis

Meet Edith Moore (Sheila Hancock) an elderly woman, who in the aftermath of the death of her controlling husband, decides to fulfil a life-long dream...

Against her daughters wishes, an 83-year old heads to Scotland to climb a mountain.

Edith Moore (Sheila Hancock) is an elderly woman who, in the aftermath of the death of her controlling husband, decides to fulfil a life-long dream and overcome a lifetime of bitterness and resentment. At the age of eighty-three, Edie sets out to try and capture a little of the magic she had as a young girl by climbing a Scottish mountain. Against her daughters wishes, she heads to Scotland and employs Jonny (Kevin Guthrie) to help her prepare for the gruelling climb ahead – which sparks an unusual friendship.

Edie is directed by Simon Hunter and stars Sheila Hancock, Kevin Guthrie, Paul Brannigan, Amy Manson and Wendy Morgan.

Thanks to TorontoFilm.Net here is the Toronto Film Production Update for August 2016, including "Taken", "Flatliners", "People Of Earth" and a whole lot more:

Click Here To List With A Toronto Agent

Alias Grace

Mini Series

Halfire Entertainment

Prod.: Sarah Polley, DJ Carson

Dir.: Mary Harron

Aug 15 - Nov 15/16

American Gods

TV Series

Fremantle / Starz Network

Exec. Prod.: Bryan Fuller,

Michael Green, Neil Gaiman

Dir.: David Slade & Various

Mar. 14 – Sep 30/16

Anon

Feature

Anon Film Prods. Canada Inc.

Prod.: Dan Bekerman

Dir.: Andrew Niccol

Backstage

Season 2

TV Series

Fresh TV

Prod.: Brian Campbell

Exec. Prod.: Brian Irving,

Lara Azzopardi

Dir.: Mario Azzopardi,

Wendy Morgan, Director X, Rt!,

Warren P. Sonoda, Lara Azzopardi

Jul 5 - Aug 19/16

Bruno & Boots II And III

TV Movie (2)

Aircraft Pictures

Prod.: Anthony Leo, Andrew Rosen

Dir.: Vivieno Caldinelli

Jul 22 - Sep 2

Buckout Road

Feature

Buckout Productions Ltd

Prod.

Exclusive: Producers Lauren Grant of Clique Pictures and Lori Lozinski of Violator Films announced on Thursday they had signed the music video director to helm their feature.

Morgan has directed top artists such as Janelle Monae, Gnarls Barkley, The Kills, and Laura Mvula. Her most recent dance film Etoiles, I See You was the opening film for The Paris Opera’s 3emé Scene.

Production is scheduled to begin this autumn on Sugar Daddy, which centres on a struggling musician who goes online to find a rich older man to fund her work.

Kelly McCormack will star and wrote the screenplay.

“Sugar Daddy is an honest, ruthless and sublime take on the female experience,” said Morgan. “Kelly McCormack can only be described as a fireball and her script is exactly the type of story I’m drawn too.

“The project felt so perfect for me with its balance of dramatic narrative and music. We are not...

5) Julian Lynch “Northline”

Directed by Richard Law

First this week is a video for all you dog lovers out there, think Houses’ “Beginnings” but with dogs.

4) Hodgy Beats “Alone”

Directed by Ian Flanagan & Hodgy Beats

Another Odd Future rapper releasing another Ep means another cool video. Once again, it’s very Odd Future-esque; weird and trippy making this performance-driven actually interesting. The shot where he’s buried up to his neck is especially cool.

3) Mount Kimbie “You Took Your Time”

Directed by Marcus Söderlund

The Swedish filmmaker most famous for The Xx’s “Vcr” video directs this dark affair. Shot in a beautiful black and white, “You Took Your Time” follows a number of characters through an urban landscape.

2) Janelle Monáe “Dance Apocalyptic”

Directed by Wendy Morgan

Monáe lets her hair down and ditches her usual black-and-white suit attire for new single “Dance Apocalyptic”. As she becomes another one...

Janelle Monae has unveiled a music video to promote "Cold War", the latest single from her debut album "The ArchAndroid". Making its way out via Pitchfork, the video directed by Wendy Morgan puts the focus on her close-up performance.

" 'Cold War' reveals what 'The ArchAndroid' looks like," she explained to Rap-Up. "[The video] deals with a psychosis - you're in my mind and you get a chance to understand Metropolis, where it all stemmed [from] and my thoughts. It's very psychedelic and trippy."

The video was filmed back to back with "Tightrope" clip which is nominated as Best Choreography at 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. She said, "I shot them in two days. I did 'Tightrope' first and 'Cold War' the next day."

"Both of them are very touching. I remember crying during 'Cold War' [on the] first take. I didn't know how that happened but it just did. I was very moved by that. It...

Janelle Monae has debuted a music video in companion to her Big Boi-featuring single "Tightrope". Dressed in a tux, the singer makes her way down an empty hall of an asylum and dances "Happy Feet" moves with her entourage.

" 'Tightrope' takes place at the Palace of the Dogs. A lot of the greats were admitted into this place, like Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, to name a couple," she previously told Rap-Up. "We wanted to keep it raw and funky - just having it in an insane asylum made it that much cooler to me."

The clip was filmed along with a video for her other song "Cold War". She commented on the other clip, "[It] deals with a psychosis - you're in my mind and you get a chance to understand Metropolis, where it all stemmed [from] and my thoughts. It's very psychedelic and trippy."

Both "Tightrope" and "Cold War...