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Nicola Coughlan's star is rising, and we're here for it. The British actress is gearing up to lead the next chapter of Channel 4’s I Am..., the BAFTA-winning, female-led anthology series. Popular for her roles as Penelope Featherington (now Bridgerton) in Netflix's Bridgerton and Clare Devlin in the sitcom Derry Girls, Coughlan will front I Am Helen, a compilation of stand-alone dramas centered around the stories of different women and their perspectives on life. Fresh off her performance in Big Mood, Coughlan will be joined by Joe Cole, best known for his work in Gangs of London, A Small Light, and Peaky Blinders.

I Am’s fourth season continues the series’ unique approach, where each episode is collaboratively built with its lead actress to reflect personal themes. Dominic Savage, who writes, directs, and co-produces every installment, remains at the helm of the anthology, which has previously featured powerhouse performances from Kate Winslet,...

Nicola Coughlan has landed her next role!

It has been announced that the 38-year-old Bridgerton actress will be leading the upcoming fourth season of UK’s BAFTA-winning Channel 4 series I Am…

The latest installment, titled “I Am Helen,” will also star Joe Cole, who is best known for having roles in Skins, Peaky Blinders, and Gangs of London.

Keep reading to find out more…“I Am Helen follows the standout success of three previous I Am… series, authentically exploring the personal experiences of women through what is described as “provocative, emotionally raw storytelling,” according to Variety.

The series first premiered in 2019 and has been created, written, produced and directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Dominic Savage.

Previous leads of I Am… include Kate Winslet, Letitia Wright, Gemma Chan, and Lesley Manville.

“It’s an absolute honour to be part of telling the next I Am… story alongside Dominic Savage — a singular...

Derry Girls and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan will lead the latest season of Channel 4’s I Am.

The BAFTA-winning, female-led anthology series has been recommissioned for a fourth season, the British broadcaster unveiled Monday, with Coughlan set to star in the two-episode story I Am Helen opposite Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole.

Dominic Savage (Close to You) will direct, produce and write the show. The Emmy-winning Me+You Productions is producing the series. Savage has developed the stories in collaboration with previous stars Kate Winslet, Lesley Manville and Letitia Wright, and has done so again with Irishwoman Coughlan.

“It’s an absolute honor to be part of telling the next I Am…story alongside Dominic Savage — a singular talent and a storyteller deeply committed to exploring the breadth of the female experience,” Coughlan said. “To follow in the footsteps of the brilliant women who’ve collaborated with him on this series feels truly surreal,...

Nicola Coughlan Leading Next ‘I Am’ Anthology Series For Channel 4

Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan is leading the next series of Channel 4’s I Am, which won Kate Winslet a BAFTA two years ago. Coughlan will front I Am Helen alongside Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole. Coughlan developed her I Am with creator Dominic Savage and Channel 4 gave no more details about the subject matter or revealed any of the other stars for the fourth season. The critically-acclaimed anthology deals with issues facing women in society and has also featured Letitia Wright and Vicky McClure down the years. The Winslet episode, I Am Ruth, won its lead a BAFTA in 2023 for Leading Actress. Coughlan said: “It’s an absolute honour to be part of telling the next I Am… story alongside Dominic Savage — a singular talent and a storyteller deeply committed to exploring the breadth of the female experience. To...

“I Am,” the BAFTA-winning female-led drama anthology series that has starred the likes of Kate Winslet, Letitia Wright, Lesley Manville and Samantha Morton, has been recommissioned by the U.K.’s Channel 4 for a fourth season.

The two-part “I Am Helen” will this time be led by Nicola Coughlan, who will star opposite Joe Cole.

“I Am” has been created. written, produced and directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Dominic Savage and produced by Emmy-winning Me+You Productions since the first series that debuted in 2019. Savage has always developed the stories in creative collaboration with its leading actors, with the story of “I Am Helen” developed alongside Coughlan.

“It’s an absolute honour to be part of telling the next ‘I Am…’ story alongside Dominic Savage — a singular talent and a storyteller deeply committed to exploring the breadth of the female experience,” said Coughlan. “To follow in the footsteps of the brilliant...

Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor and filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane are among 16 jury members set to judge 12 competition categories at the 16th edition of India’s Kashish Pride Film Festival.

Joining Monga Kapoor and Motwane are director-producer Abhishek Chaubey and producer Neeraj Churi as jury members for the Kashish QDrishti Film Grant, which awards $3000 to an LGBTQ+ identifying filmmaker to make a short film. Actor Renuka Shahane will support two runners-up.

The narrative jury features actor Shishir Sharma, actor and TV host Shruti Seth and filmmaker Tanuja Chandra, who will adjudge best narrative feature and shorts, best screenplay and best performance awards. These categories receive backing from Taiwanese streaming platform GagaOoLala, production house Samruddhi Studios and actor Abhay Kulkarni.

Documentary filmmakers Bishaka Dutta, Prateek Vats and Shubhra Chatterjee comprise the documentary jury, selecting winners of the unity in diversity documentary feature and short awards, supported by K.F. Patil Charitable Trust.

Exclusive: Lily Collias (Good One), Joe Anders (upcoming East of Eden), and Malia Pyles (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin) have come aboard to round out the cast of Apple TV+’s Cape Fear TV series.

No word on roles to be played by the trio. They join an ensemble that will also include Javier Bardem, Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, Cch Pounder, Anna Baryshnikov, Jamie Hector, and Clara Wong.

In Cape Fear — created, written, and showrun by Nick Antosca — a storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna (Adams) and Tom Bowden (Wilson) when Max Cady (Bardem), a notorious killer from their past, gets out of prison. The 10-episode series is billed as a tense, Hitchcockian thriller and an examination of America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century.

Hailing from UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and Amblin Television, the show is based on both the novel The Executioners,...

Exclusive: Producer Daniel Bekerman and his Scythia Films have signed with WME for representation.

Bekerman served as the EP on The Wedding Banquet, which premiered at Sundance this year, directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang.

Bekerman’s recent projects include Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, which received three BAFTA and two Golden Globe nominations along with Oscar nominations for Stan and Strong. He also had Endless Cookie, which premiered at this year’s Sundance; I Object, directed by Oscar-nominee Andrew Niccol, starring Anna Faris and Karl Urban, and Close to You, directed by Dominic Savage starring Elliot Page. Bekerman also produced Sundance-winner The Witch, Cold Copy featuring Tracee Ellis-Ross and Bel Powley, and Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut Falling.

He also executive produced three films that premiered at Sundance 2024; including Love Me, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, My Old Ass,...

Something’s only universal when it’s personal to a lot of people. So I guess it’s a fair assumption that bits and chunks of Elliot Page’s personal story as a trans man have been woven into the screenplay he co-wrote with Dominic Savage for Close to You. Pathos and hope permeate Sam’s experience being back at home after four years, which marks his first time entering that space as his real self. In one overwhelming weekend, Sam gets closure about a lot of things that’ve been on his mind ever since he left.

Spoiler Alert

What happens in the film?

On the day of his dad’s birthday, doubt’s written all over Sam’s face as he wakes up in the room that he rents from his friend. He’s long cut the ties of expectations with his family and the small town he came from.

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Netflix is ready with an entertainment-packed November this year. The upcoming month will see the premiere of many of Netflix’s Christmas romantic comedy films including Hot Frosty and also new brilliant movies like Spellbound and The Piano Lesson. Just like every month, Netflix is ready to overload you with great content. So, we’re here to tell you about the 10 movies coming to Netflix in November 2024.

Rob Peace (November 11)

Rob Peace is a biographical drama film written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Based on the 2014 biography The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs, the 2024 film follows Rob Peace, a Yale University graduate who begins to deal drugs while maintaining his lifestyle after his father was arrested for crimes he may not have committed. Rob Peace stars Jay Will, Ejiofor, Mary J. Blige, Camila Cabello,...

After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and a limited run in U.S. theaters, Netflix has announced that the Elliot Page-led drama Close to You will be available for streaming starting November 15, 2024. Whether you’re a fan of Elliot Page’s powerful performances or heartfelt dramas about identity and family, here’s everything you need to know about how and where to watch Close to You from the comfort of your home.

In Close to You, Page stars as a trans man returning to his hometown for the first time in years. Confronting unresolved family issues and rekindling a connection with a past love, the journey becomes one of self-discovery and acceptance. Directed by Dominic Savage, the film also features Hillary Baack, Peter Outerbridge, and Wendy Crewson in supporting roles.

With a script co-written by Savage and Page, Close to You promises an emotional and intimate portrayal...

When Elliot Page talks, you listen. And even when he doesn’t, you can’t help but watch, waiting for him to figure out what he needs to say next — such is the power of the actor, here at his best in the largely improvised and deeply personal Close To You, which hinges almost entirely on Page’s soulful performance.

The actor shared with the world in 2020 that he identified as a transgender man and had changed his name to Elliot Page. His character in Close To You, Sam, is ostensibly a work of fiction, but grapples with a reality you can imagine Page understands all too well. The film isn’t about Sam’s struggle to accept his identity — rather, it concerns his relationships with, and more undiscerning prejudice from, those around him: his family and an old friend-slash-flame.

Page has no trouble switching from animosity to empathy without flinching.

From facial wars to a penguin friend, wandering surfers and Haitian immigrants in Miami, the independent film market is fun, thoughtful, varied and contending with a faster cadence of high performing studio wide releases. That’s exhilarating on one hand but, indie distribution executives say, is making it increasingly difficult to date their films after having a pretty clear field for the first half of 2024.

New this weekend: IFC Films’ Elizabeth Banks-starring Skincare on 768 screens. Banks is Hope Goldman, a legendary Hollywood facialist to the stars preparing to enter the next phase of her career with a new line of skincare products in this dark comedy. Sensing that someone is trying to sabotage her business and destroy her life, she starts investigating to save what she’s built by any means necessary.

Loosely inspired by a real case involving aesthetician Dawn DaLuise, who did some prison time for putting...

Elliot Page delivers an outstanding, nuanced performance as Sam, showcasing wit, vulnerability, and authenticity. The film highlights Sam's relationship with his supportive father, emphasizing his acceptance and support. Close to You struggles with blending two separate narratives, particularly in the lack of believable chemistry with Katherine.

Directed by Dominic Savage, Close to You marks Elliot Pages return to the big screen after a seven-year hiatus and its an incredibly welcome return. Theres simply no understating that fact. A family drama-meets-unrequited-love-story, Close to You offers its star a chance to remind us why Elliot Page is an Oscar-nominated actor, as it allows him to embody all things tough and tender. Theres wit, vulnerability, strength, and a searing authenticity to Pages portrayal of Sam, a trans man who ventures to his hometown for the first time in years.

Close To You (2024)

Director Dominic SavageRelease Date August 16, 2024Studio(s) PageBoy Productions, Rolling Dice,...

Page stars in new film Close to You as a trans man navigating his relationship with his family. He and director Dominic Savage explain how it all came together

The last time Elliot Page appeared in a film, it was literally a car crash. Page, who was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 20 for the teen-pregnancy comedy Juno, was starring in a remake of the Julia Roberts thriller Flatliners, playing one of a group of medical students who engineer near-death experiences to get a peek at the afterlife. His co-stars included James Norton, Diego Luna and Kiersey Clemons, but during a hazardous driving scene it was only Page and Clemons who were not given seatbelts. Stunt coordinators told them: “You’ll be fine.”

Instead, they were traumatised. In his 2023 memoir Pageboy, the Canadian actor describes the shoot as “a shitshow”. It wasn’t merely the cavalier regard for his safety.

Is family the most important thing in the world? Will your family members really be there for you, no matter what? Should you put family unity first, regardless of the cost to your own mental health? Dominic Savage’s low key but incisive indie drama follows a young trans man, but the story is one that people from many different backgrounds will relate to.

Following the slew of coming out stories and related tragedies around the start of this decade, cinema’s interest in trans people has thankfully diversified and, more importantly, trans people themselves have started to have serious creative input beyond guerilla filmmaking. Eliot Page stars here as Sam, a young man who has built a life for himself in the city with people who understand him but feels obliged to return to his hometown to help his dad celebrate an important birthday. Page is also a producer,...

On Friday, August 16, CBS Mornings welcomes actors Elliot Page and Hillary Baack to the show. They will discuss their roles in the film Close to You, directed by Dominic Savage. Page, an Oscar-nominee for Juno and star of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, leads the independent drama as Sam, a trans man who has an […]

CBS Mornings: Elliot Page, Hillary Baack...

Returning to a festival he knows well, Elliot Page’s latest film Close to You premiered at Toronto International Film Festival last fall and will now arrive this August. A drama about love, family, and identity that looks at the challenges of returning home when you have changed and feel like an outsider, Elliot Page co-authored the story with director Dominic Savage. Ahead of an August 16 theatrical release, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Sam (Elliot Page) hasn’t been home since his transition. After four years in Toronto, he takes a long-dreaded trip back to his hometown for his father’s birthday. Once there, he confronts unresolved wounds and reconnects with an old flame.”

“This was absolutely thrilling every single day. Because of the process, I’ve never done anything like this before. The script has a description and just that. There’s zero dialogue.

The official trailer has been released for Elliot Page's new film, Close to You. It marks a return to the big screen for Page shortly after the end of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix.

Close to You held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, and it's now set to have its wide release on Aug. 16. In the film, Page plays Sam, a trans man who returns home for a family reunion and bumps into an old friend. Page crafted the story with writer-director Dominic Savage, and the two produced with Krishnendu Majumdar, Richard Yee, Daniel Bekerman, and Chris Yurkovich. The trailer can be watched below.

Related 10 Things You Probably Forgot About The Umbrella Academy During the Long Wait for Season 4

With two years having passed since Season 3 was released, here's everything The Umbrella Academy fans will want to remember before Season 4 drops.

Elliot Page Returns...

Elliot Page is heading back home amid tense family dynamics in the trailer for the drama feature Close to You.

Greenwich Entertainment releases writer-director Dominic Savage’s movie in theaters Aug. 16 following its premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Page stars as Sam, a trans man who returns home for a family reunion and reconnects with an old friend.

“I’m going home for my dad’s birthday,” Page says in the trailer. “I haven’t gone back in close to four years.” Later, Page laments, “I know I’m nothing but a disappointment to them.”

At one point in the footage, Sam’s mom (played by Wendy Crewson) admits, “I just still think of you as my little girl.”

Savage wrote and directed the film, with Page credited for his work on the story. Savage, Page, Daniel Bekerman, Krishnendu Majumdar, Richard Yee and Chris Yurkovich serve as producers.

Elliot Page is making a big comeback on the big screen later this year. He’s starring in a new movie called “Close to You” where he plays a character named Sam. Sam is a guy who moved away from his hometown four years ago and is now returning to visit his dad for his birthday.

The movie looks like it will explore some important topics. It seems to be about how relationships with family can be complicated, especially when someone goes through big changes in their life. Sam left as a girl but is now living as a man. The trailer shows him dealing with awkward moments like seeing old photos and remeeting people from his past.

One scene really stood out to me. Sam is talking to a relative and says “I’m just a person, just talk to me.” That line sums up how the film is about seeking understanding from others,...

Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy) is making a bold move in the trailer for Close to You. The drama, which was penned by Page and the movies director, Dominic Savage, follows a young trans man as he makes his way back to his hometown for the first time in four years to celebrate his fathers birthday. Also featuring leading performances from Hillary Baack (The East), Wendy Crewson (Air Force One), Peter Outerbridge (Orphan Black), Alex Paxton-Beesley (The Strain), Sook-Yin Lee (Shortbus), and Daniel Maslany (Murdoch Mysteries), Close to You is a movie about the difficult dynamics families can sometimes find themselves in and the struggle of staying true to your identity.

Anita Gou is no stranger to the festival circuit. Her L.A.-based Kindred Spirit banner saw a raft of its first projects debut at Sundance but, more recently, her co-production Silent Twins was selected in Un Certain Regard in 2022, while Dominic Savage’s Close To You premiered in Toronto last year. The company’s Mubi-acquired doc The Last Year of Darkness, which explores the lives of alternative Chinese youth, was awarded a Special Mention prize in the Next:Wave section at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival last year.

This year, the producer, who has roots in Taiwan, was back in Cannes with Locust, the debut feature from Taiwanese-American filmmaker Keff, which played in Cannes Critics’ Week. The project is set during the 2019 Hong Kong protests and follows Zhong-Han,...

NewFest, a New York LGBTQ+ film and media organization, revealed the full lineup for their fourth annual NewFest Pride summer film series. NewFest’s five-day festival kicks off LGBTQ+ Pride Month from May 30 – June 3, 2024, in-person in New York and streaming throughout the United States, and will feature a mix of premieres and conversations, virtual screenings, and social events. The announcement came today from NewFest’s Executive Director David Hatkoff and Director of Programming Nick McCarthy.

“It’s no accident that this year’s NewFest Pride starts on May 30; it’s part of our not-so-secret mission to celebrate Pride 365 days a year,” said NewFest Executive Director David Hatkoff. “We can’t wait to provide a space for the community to come together for bold new films and series, thought-provoking conversations, and joyful social gatherings. This moment calls for celebration and resistance, and we intend to offer opportunities for both in equal measure.

Kate Winslet stars in biopic Lee, about celebrated war photographer Lee Miller, arriving this autumn. Here’s the first trailer:

Kate Winslet has announced her next project – Lee, a biopic of war photographer Lee Miller.

The cast also includes Andy Samberg as Life Magazine photographer David E Scherman, Alexander Skarsgård as English Surrealist painter, Roland Penrose, Marion Cotillard as Solange D’Ayen, the fashion director of French Vogue and close friend of Miller’s, Josh O’Connor as Tony, a young journalist and Andrea Riseborough as British Vogue editor Audrey Withers.

It is the feature directorial debut of cinematographer Ellen Kuras. The screenplay was written by Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee, from a story by Hume, Collee and Lem Dobbs. It is adapted from the biography The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose.

The synopsis reads as follows:

Lee portrays a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer,...

“Close to You” marks a reintroduction for Elliot Page, a screen presence at once warmly familiar and sharply redefined, finally established on his own terms. In his first film role since coming out as a trans man, the actor has evidently brought much of his own identity and experience to this sensitively observed story of a trans man cagily reunited with his family after a five-year period of estrangement. But Page’s performance isn’t moving merely for whatever parallels it might hold to his life: Rather, it’s a reminder of what a deft and perceptive actor he can be, capable of both naked emotional candor and acidic wit — both assets to a script that sometimes errs on the side of caution.

British director Savage is known for his improvisatory collaborations with actors, which recently drew career-best work from Gemma Arterton in the 2017 feature “The Escape,” and extended to the TV project “I Am…...

Elliot Page stepped out for the 2024 BFI Flare film festival premiere of his new movie Close to You held at BFI Southbank on Thursday (March 14) in London.

The 37-year-old actor co-wrote, produced and stars in the film, which is his first movie since 2017!

He was joined at the European premiere of the movie by co-writer and director Dominic Savage, as well as co-star Hillary Baack. The next day, Elliot went solo at a conversation for the film.

During a recent interview ahead of the film fest, Elliot opened up about making the new movie, and shared why he wouldn’t have been able to make it before transitioning.

Keep reading to find out more…

“It was [cathartic] for me, absolutely. There was a very specific certain love that I felt for acting a long time ago I felt so deeply doing this, and that itself was so healing and beautiful. To...

Elliot Page has taken aim at the notion that queer films only have a small audience.

Speaking at the BFI Flare, London’s LGBTQ film festival, the actor claimed that “30% of young people identify as LGBTQ,” referring to a survey released earlier this year about Gen Z adults in the U.S. “So I’m sorry, but this is not niche.”

Page was in London with his latest feature “Close to You,” which had its European premiere at the BFI Flare festival on Thursday. The film — from writer-director Dominic Savage — sees Page play a man who meets an old school friend with whom he once had deep feelings for while traveling to see to see his family in small-town Canada, a trip that also marks his first time returning home since his transition.

The feature — Page’s first since 2017 — was also the actor’s first time using an intimacy coordinator on set,...

On Thursday, Elliot Page brought the European premiere of Close to You to BFI Flare, the London Lgbtqia+ film festival, in a special presentation. On Friday, the star spoke at the British capital’s Southbank Centre about the movie, written and directed by Dominic Savage (I Am…), Hollywood and how it can be “pretty toxic,” his career, his coming out, and why the label “niche” doesn’t apply to the LGBTQ+ community.

“Thirty percent of young people identify as LGBTQ+, so I’m sorry, this is not niche,” Page said to much applause. “That really, really irks me. If you told really specific stories about cis-het people, I’m not calling that plot niche.”

Asked about Hollywood and its challenges, Page said: “Obviously, there are great people in Hollywood. It’s more the model. It’s a system, and it’s pretty toxic. Those were just a lot of my experiences.

Elliot Page heads to the U.K on Thursday to open the BFI Flare, London’s Lgbtqia+ film festival, for the European premiere of “Close to You.”

Written and directed by Dominic Savage (behind the recent acclaimed “I Am…” anthology series that has starred the likes of Kate Winslet and Letitia Wright), the film — which bowed in Toronto — marks Page’s first feature since 2017. It’s a return to the big screen he says “felt amazing,” allowing him to experience the “joy of what it means to get to create and being creative.”

It was also an acting experience unlike anything Page had undertaken before, with much of “Close to You” improvised. Savage claims that the lack of scripted dialogue made the on-screen interactions appear “as natural as possible,” although Page admits it was, at least initially, “terrifying.”

In the film Page plays Sam, a trans man returning to see...

“Close to You,” the Elliot Page-starring drama directed by BAFTA winner Dominic Savage, will be introduced to international buyers at the European Film Market by former Charades exec Jean-Félix Dealberto.

The film, which was written by Savage and Page, and also stars Hillary Baack (“Sound of Metal”), had its world premiere in Toronto, where Greenwich Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights.

“Close to You” follows Sam (Page), who moved to Toronto from his small town on Lake Ontario, Canada, and finally decides to return home to visit his family for his dad’s birthday. On his journey, he has a chance encounter with a friend from high school (Baack) that sparks old feelings. It is on this trip where Sam can finally confront long-buried feelings, a first love that was never properly resolved, his relationship with his family and a newfound love and confidence in himself.

The film was...

The BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival has revealed the line-up for its 38th edition which takes place March 13-24.

The programme comprises 57 features across the Hearts, Bodies and Mind strands, four of which are world premieres.

Scroll down for full line-up

World premiering is Karen Knox’s sophomore feature We Forgot To Break Up about a trans musician caught in a love triangle with his bandmates. The Canadian actress and filmmaker’s debut Adult Adoption premiered at Glasgow Film Festival in 2022.

Other world premieres are Kat Rohrer’s Austrian romantic comedy What A Feeling about two women who meet...

Samantha Morton, the British actor (She Said, The Whale, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Walking Dead), writer (I Am…Kirsty) and director (The Unloved), will receive the BAFTA Fellowship, the British Academy’s highest honor.

She will be given the honor at the BAFTA Film Awards ceremony, hosted by David Tennant (Doctor Who, Inside Man), in London on Feb. 18.

“As a proud BAFTA member I am honored, profoundly humbled and grateful to BAFTA for giving me this award,” Morton said.

Anna Higgs, chair of BAFTA’s film committee, lauded her as “a mesmerizing storyteller with incredible range,” adding: “She has made an extraordinary impact on the British film industry – consistently shining a light on complex characters and championing underrepresented stories. On-and-off screen, she always works to break down societal barriers and change the make-up of the screen industries for the better – often against great odds.” She concluded:...

Film Festival

Zelda Adams, John Adams and Toby Poser’s Fantasia and FrightFest-winning horror film “Where the Devil Roams” will open the fourth edition of India’s Wench Film Festival (Feb. 9-March 3). The festival was founded in 2020 by filmmaker Sapna Moti Bhavnani (“Sindhustan”) to “bridge the gender gap in India by driving opportunities and conversations through the gaze of a woman inclusive of Biwoc, LGBTQ+ women and non-binary in art, fashion, and film powered by tech,” per the organizers. It specializes in the horror, sci-fi and fantasy genres.

The team, which also includes artistic director Uma da Cunha, programmers Heidi Honeycutt who is the co-founder of the women-focused Etheria Film festival, Shelagh Rowan-Legg, director of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, “The Lunchbox” producer Vivek Rangachari, have curated a lineup of 29 films, including 14 India premieres and 10 Asia premieres.

Highlights include Ariane Louis-Seize’s “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” Jenn Wexler’s “The Sacrifice Game,...

Fremantle has struck a first-look and development deal with I Am Ruth and Alice & Jack producer Me+You Productions, which is run by former BAFTA chair Krishnendu Majumdar and Richard Yee.

The three-year non-exclusive deal will see Fremantle become the primary home of all Me+You’s TV projects, working closely with both Fremantle’s global drama division and distribution team.

Founded by Majumdar and Richard Yee, the London-based indie is best known for Dominic Savage’s Channel 4 BAFTA-winning anthology series I Am Ruth, which has starred the likes of Kate Winslet, Suranne Jones and Letitia Wright. Winslet won a BAFTA for her portrayal of a mother witnessing her teenage daughter retreating into herself, played alongside her real-life daughter Mia Threapleton.

Other Me + You productions include Channel 4’s upcoming Andrea Riseborough-starrer Alice & Jack, which has sold to PBS Masterpiece in the U.S., and Elliot Page movie Close to You.

Me+You Productions, the company behind Kate Winslet drama “I Am Ruth,” has inked a first-look and development deal with Fremantle.

The three-year deal will mean Fremantle is the primary home for Me+You’s television slate, both in terms of development and distribution. The production company, founded by Richard Yee and former BAFTA chair Krishnendu Majumdar, will work closely with Fremantle’s global drama division and distribution team, in particular Fremantle scripted content SVP Rebecca Dundon and global drama’s head of creative Hilary Martin, who will lead on creative and commercial for Fremantle.

De Maio Entertainment’s will act as a strategic advisor for both Me+You and Fremantle, optimizing strategy and maximimizing impact on each project.

The companies recently collaborated on drama “Alice & Jack,” starring Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson, with Fremantle co-producing and handling global sales.

Me+You also recently produced “I Am Ruth,” starring Kate...

Exclusive: Close to You, the indie drama produced by and starring Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy), which world premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, has been acquired for a summer 2024 release in U.S. theaters by Greenwich Entertainment.

Written and directed by 3x BAFTA winner Dominic Savage, the film co-starring Hillary Baack (Sound of Metal) follows Sam (Page), who moved to Toronto from his small town on Lake Ontario, Canada and finally decides to return home to visit his family for his dad’s birthday. On his journey, he has a chance encounter with a friend from high school (Baack) that sparks old feelings. It is on this trip that Sam can finally confront long-buried feelings, a first love that was never properly resolved, his relationship with his family, and a newfound love and confidence in himself.

Close to You was produced by Krishnendu Majumdar and Richard Yee,...

At this year's Toronto International Film Festival, director Dominic Savage's latest feature, Close to You, made its world premiere. Starring Elliot Page and Hillary Baack, the film brings a rather personal story to the screen. However, one aspect in particular makes it stand out from the crowd: it is fully improvised. To promote the film, Savage, Page, and Baack stopped by the Collider media studio at Marbl to discuss the film. During the interview, Page and Baack shared their thoughts on how Savage pulled off the film.

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here with your weekly dose of the biggest headlines, analysis and deep-dives of the week. Read on, and sign up here.

Boom Then Bust (Then “Shaky”)

Records don’t last long: There was a bittersweet feeling after UK producer trade body Pact’s Census 2022 press briefing on Tuesday. Spotlighting full-year 2022, the briefing showed how the UK TV production sector hit record highs of nearly £4B ($5B) last year, driven by the streamers, who upped spend by a whopping 133% to £700M. Big hits to land included Heartstopper and The Crown Season 5. Multiple records were broken in a year in which the UK TV industry was virtually at full employment, but, during the briefing, most questions to Pact CEO John McVay focused on the here and now, as things feel very different today for many producers. McVay was honest in his assessment of 2023 and years to come,...

The 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival concluded with the People’s Choice prize awarded to Cord Jeffersons’, American Fiction, an adaption of the Percival Everett novel Ersaure, starring Jeffrey Wright as a disillusioned academic who resents the literary industry.

Closing out TIFF 2023 was Sylvester Stallone’s documentary, “Sly,” which had its world premiere on Saturday, September 16th, at Roy Thomson Hall. Directed by Thom Zimny, Sly is an intimate and unexpected look at the action star’s early life and a reflection on his career that spans nearly 50 years.

Related: Toronto Film Festival 2023: All Of Deadline’s Movie Reviews

The ongoing strikes by SAG-AFTRA and WGA created uncertainty at the 2023 Venice Film Festival regarding the participation of celebrities attending the premieres. Guild members engaged in or promoting these premieres can only participate if they have SAG-AFTRA interim agreements, allowing...

The problems with Close to You aren’t immediately apparent. It’s a quiet film about Sam (Elliot Page), a trans man, living in Toronto. He’s trying to decide whether or not to return home for his father’s birthday party. Sam comes from a family whose uneasiness with his transition sometimes manifests as an aggressive insistence on their progressive values. He considers whether he can endure their performance.

Written and directed by Dominic Savage, Close to You focuses on the drama of Sam’s homecoming. Returning to his small town near Lake Ontario forces him to confront long-buried feelings about his family and an old friend (Hillary Baack). The film yearns to capture the stages of this emotional exhumation, but a clunky screenplay makes for a less affecting watch.

The film’s visual grammar is built on intimate close-ups that try to capture the imperceptible awkwardness of the past and present colliding.

Elliot Page describes his shirtless scene in Close to You as "clumsy" yet "natural" and "liberating." Playing the character of Sam allowed Page to feel more embodied and present in their acting, something they had never experienced before. Page reflects on feeling uncomfortable in the past during filming and notes that this film allowed them to be more loose and go with the flow in the present moment.

While chatting with Entertainment Weekly, at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of the indie drama Close to You, the film's star Elliot Page opened up about his "liberating" shirtless scene in his first theatrical film since making his transition.

In a joint interview, along with the film's director Dominic Savage and costar Hillary Baack, Page spoke about working on the indie drama and the impact of one specific scene.

Close to You is a heavily improvised independent film...

Elliot Page felt free when performing a shirtless scene in Close to You.

Per Entertainment Weekly, Page appeared at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of his first theatrical movie in the years since making his transition. Speaking to the outlet alongside British director Dominic Savage and co-star Hillary Baack, Page opened up about a mundane but poignant scene in Close to You where his character wakes up shirtless in the morning. "Shooting on the day, I was getting out of bed and getting dressed, it was sort of clumsy, like, 'Oh, it would be great, he sleeps shirtless.' In the moment when you're making this, you're making it from this instinctual place that I don't know how to describe," Page said.

Related: Netflix's Umbrella Academy Photos Reveal Nick Offerman's Eccentric Costume

He continued, "It just sort of happens, but at the same time,...

Elliot Page opens up about the "liberating" feeling of his shirtless scene in Close to You, expressing that it felt natural and signifies a positive representation of a trans person's body. Close to You is a significant film for Page as it is his first movie appearance since coming out as transgender, allowing him to play a trans man on screen. The casting of a transgender actor in the role of a transgender character in Close to You provides critical representation and celebrates the body of a trans person, which is a win for trans representation in film.

Actor Elliot Page details the “liberating” feeling of his shirtless scene in upcoming film Close to You. In the film Page, who came out as transgender in 2020, plays trans man Sam who confronts memories from long ago after a chance encounter with an old friend. Close to You is directed by Dominic Savage...

The actor makes a convincing big screen comeback as a man visiting his family for the first time since transitioning, but effective moments are offset by clunkiness

Dominic Savage’s work tends to focus on people, usually women, facing some form of disruptive challenge to their everyday life, specific and stressful and never anything but utterly believable. He drew out Gemma Arterton’s greatest performance in 2017’s Toronto premiere The Escape as a deeply unsettled woman wanting out of her responsibilities as wife and mother. His Channel 4 anthology series I Am… has introduced a range of characters at an intersection, from a devastating Vicky McClure grappling with her partner’s emotional abuse to recent Bafta winner Kate Winslet as a mother struggling with a daughter crippled by social media addiction. His preference for often mundane naturalism, with dialogue usually improvised, has teased out grounded, unshowy performances and unusual, instinctive...

Sam (Elliot Page) has been dreading this day for weeks, maybe entire years: The young trans man is heading home for a long-delayed family visit, back to the sleepy Canadian suburb he fled years earlier, this time more fully himself than ever, even if his own flesh and blood are — at least, he suspects — loathe to fully accept him as he is. And who is he?

In “Close to You,” we eventually learn that Sam is on a delayed calendar, stunted by the years he spent struggling before his somewhat recent transition, though crisper details are harder to come by. At one point, he mentions off-handedly that he graduated high school nearly twenty years ago (Page turned 36 a few weeks after production on the film wrapped), but he’s living a life closer to that of someone who just graduated. He lives in a friend’s house, he’s finding...

Elliot Page conquered a new challenge for his first movie role in six years. In “Close to You,” an observant drama that premieres on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival, there’s basically no written dialogue in the script, so everything that you hear in the movie was improvised by the actors on the day of shooting.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Page told Variety in a recent Zoom interview prior to the film’s premiere. “I found it incredibly intimidating.”

In “Close to You,” Page’s character Sam hasn’t visited his family since his transition four years ago. It’s not that he thinks his family isn’t supportive, but Sam doesn’t want to be treated like a different person — or have to bear the burden of their ignorance or discomfort. On an eventual trip home for his father’s birthday, Sam has a...

Here comes the fall festival circuit during the history-making double union strike. In these still uncharted waters, there remain quite a few unknowns. For instance, it’s unclear how interim agreements — either signed or not — will affect a project’s potential for pickup. Then, there is the question of whether AMPTP studios — supposedly sitting on stockpiles of cash — will be looking to buy given a lack of new content, or if they will abstain with an uncertain negotiating road ahead.

In the weeks leading up to the festival, there was chatter about how studios, including Netflix, had been messaging that they would not be buying projects that had signed interim agreements. (Netflix had no comment.) If a streamer did sign on to these agreements, they would indeed be signing on to SAG-AFTRA’s requirement that actors for streaming projects receive 2 percent of subscription revenue produced by those projects, as defined by metrics from Parrot Analytics.

What does it mean to be one of the “hottest” or “buzziest” titles in a film festival sales market if there’s no stars drum up that excitement? Or if there’s little likelihood of an all-night bidding war by a streamer spending in the 7-figures to land their next Oscar contender?

As we reported earlier today, those are all ways in which the strike threatens to weigh on the film markets at Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. A handful of those films are directorial debuts by famous actors-turned-filmmakers, and some even have interim agreements from SAG-AFTRA that will let them promote. But all these films should stand on their own merits and could catch the eyes of the many non-amptp distributors that need creative ways to fill out their slates.

In part because of the strikes, the Venice and TIFF slates are loaded with independent movies without U.S. distribution,...

Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi, 2023).The lineup is being unveiled for the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, starting with 60 selections from the Gala and Special Presentations programs. The festival takes place from September 7–17, 2023.Gala PRESENTATIONSConcrete Utopia (Um Tae-Hwa)Dumb Money (Craig Gillespie)Fair Play (Chloe Domont)Flora and Son (John Carney)Hate to Love: Nickelback (Leigh Brooks)Lee (Ellen Kuras)Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi)Nyad (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin)Punjab ’95 (Honey Trehan)Solo (Sophie Dupuis)The End We Start From (Mahalia Belo)The Movie Emperor (Ning Hao)The New Boy (Warwick Thornton) The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)The Holdovers.Special Presentationsa Difficult Year (Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache)A Normal Family (Hur Jin-ho)American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)Close to You (Dominic Savage)Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud)The Rescue (Daniela Goggi)Ezra (Tony Goldwyn)Fingernails (Christos Nikou)Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania...