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Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the new animated film release “Hola Frida,” created by André Kadi and Karine Vézina, about the early 20th Century childhood life of influential artist Frida Kahlo. In select theaters on August 8th, see local listings.

This is based on a popular book and looks through the prism of Kahlo’s challenges as a child. Her family is shown to be stable and loving, with a mother who desires that her two daughters will have all opportunities, despite the early 20th Century attitude of women as second class. Frida is a precocious child until polio forces her to a bedridden state, which is symbolically rendered as her survival instinct, embodied by another healthier “imaginary friend” Frida who advises her polio-ridden self to use the soul of creativity to heal her life. The child as artist creates the artist in waiting.

”Hola Frida...

Daniel Bekerman, producer of the Donald Trump film The Apprentice, has a different take to much of the global entertainment industry left reeling by the U.S. president threatening a 100 percent tariff on foreign-made movies.

Bekerman sees the film tariff as less of an economic tool to bring jobs and moviemaking back to Hollywood, and more of a storytelling tool by Trump to keep alive his own image as an infallible deal-maker ever on the attack and counter-attack. “When it comes to Trump talking about film tariffs in the film industry, now he’s actually come home, because this industry is where his skill set resides,” Bekerman tells The Hollywood Reporter about a Hollywood filled with stars, moguls and directors equally adept at master storytelling.

“Tariffs … are a narrative tool that supports his story that he’s been telling for 50 years, since he met Roy Cohn. And the story is...

Canada’s actors’ union has reached a tentative deal with indie film and TV producers.

Actra, representing around 22,000 performers, announced the new Independent Production Agreement with the Canadian Media Producers Association, representing indie producers, the Association Québécoise de la Production Médiatique, the Quebec counterpart, and representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which reps the the major Hollywood studios.

“This agreement reflects the collective strength and determination of our membership which we could not have achieved without your continued support and unity,” Actra National president Eleanor Noble and Marie Kelly, Actra national executive director and chief negotiator, said in a statement.

Terms of the tentative three-year deal, which was reached after two months of bargaining in Montreal and Toronto, were not disclosed. But the new labor contract is understood to include artificial intelligence protections, a revised residuals model for an increasingly digital industry and overall wage increases.

Canada’s actors are set for a new deal with the country’s producers.

Over the holiday period, actors union Actra reached a tentative agreement for a new Independent Production Agreement (Ipa) with the Canadian Media Producers Association (Cmpa) and the Association Québécoise de la Production Médiatique (Aqpm), which respectively handle English- and French-language content in the country.

Actra is asking its members to review and ratify the new agreement when the details become public. This will begin on Tuesday. January 14 at 12 p.m. Et / 9 a.m. Pt, and close a week later on January 21. A townhall webinar is being held on January 13 to discuss terms.

This comes after a period of bargaining and negotiations between the parties, with Actra saying in a short statement that talks have been “especially critical” given there are “so many major challenges facing our industry.” The Writers Guild of Canada struck a new agreement with the Cmpa last year,...

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists is “relieved” over the tentative deal reached by its sister SAG-AFTRA union with the AMPTP, representing major Hollywood studios and streamers.

“We’ve been following SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations closely. Their issues are the same as our issues. Their fight is our fight,” Eleanor Noble, Actra national president, said in a statement. The Hollywood actors strike officially ended at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. On Friday, the deal will go to the union’s national board for approval, ahead of a union ratification vote.

“We look forward to learning the details of the tentative agreement with the AMPTP,” Noble added as the U.S. deal, reached after a 118-day strike, could set the pattern for future Canadian writer-producer contract renewal talks.

Actra called its members out on strike in early 2007 after talks with North American producers on a new Canadian labor deal stumbled...

Around 300 Canadian union members held a rally Friday outside the Toronto offices of Amazon and Apple to support the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes stateside.

“The challenges we’re facing are the same ones Actra is facing now. It’s a battle against corporate greed and an economic system that rewards corporate leaders for cutting costs, wreaking havoc on our communities and destroying the livelihoods of countless hard-working individuals,” Law and Order: Svu alum and SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles vp Michelle Hurd told the Toronto rally organized by Actra, the Canadian actors union representing around 28,000 performers countrywide, except in British Columbia.

SAG-AFTRA has been on strike since July 14, and the Writers Guild of America began its labor action May 2. Also attending the Toronto rally was NCIS actor Lauren Holly, who is both an Actra and SAG-AFTRA card holder and who touted the need for unity among North American unions.

Screen Producers Australia, an Australian guild, moved quickly on Friday to explain that wholly local film and TV productions, even if they involve Screen Actors Guild members, can continue to roll despite the SAG-AFTRA strike notice and order, which has been in place since midnight Pacific time.

The English-speaking country has an oversize production and post-production sector, with much of it set up to service inbound foreign productions, sometimes known as “runaway productions.”

Strike orders “will apply to some scripted TV and feature films produced in Australia. Spa anticipates that a limited number of scripted ‘offshore’ (i.e. non-Australian) productions will be affected by the strike, with cast and crew stood down while the strike continues,” the Spa notice says.

The “Mortal Kombat 2” movie and the “Apples Never Fall” series appear to be the highest profile productions where work in Australia is halted.

Australian media reported that production...

Moments after SAG-AFTRA leaders declared that the union was going on strike, fellow entertainment unions began issuing statements of solidarity.

The Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May 2, pledged support to the actors, while noting that members of both unions have already been supporting each other on the picket lines.

Additionally, the WGA highlighted the benefit of the two unions working together. During the last “double strike” in 1960, the guild noted that both parties won gains in residuals, pension and health funds.

This time, both unions have shared interests at the negotiating table involving residuals, the use of artificial intelligence and more.

“The AMPTP has proven unwilling to meet the justifiable demands of actors and writers at the bargaining table in 2023. We stand solidly behind our union siblings in SAG-AFTRA as they begin their work stoppage. The last time both of our unions struck at the same time,...

Canadian actors have settled an arbitration case to get makeup artists and hairstylists on predominantly white film sets trained in how to style hair or do makeup for performers of color, including those who are Black and Indigenous.

Actra, the country’s actors union, last year filed a grievance against the Canadian Media Producers Association, representing English-language indie producers, and the Association Québécoise de la Production Médiatique, their French-language counterparts.

With mainly white casts, Actra argued Bipoc performers were long denied hair and makeup people who know what they’re doing when it comes to working with natural hair textures and darker skin tones. The case was heard over two days by arbitrator William Kaplan before a settlement was reached.

The settlement calls for recommended products and equipment so hair and makeup artists on film sets can make Bipoc castmembers look and feel the way they want before the cameras roll on their characters,...