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In a career that spanned from the 1950s to the aughts, Richard Harris was the noble Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, a fiery rugby player in his 1963 Oscar-nominated role in This Sporting Life and a Grammy-nominated singer for the offbeat hit single “MacArthur Park.” He had a well-earned reputation as a hell-raiser but, as demonstrated by the revealing new documentary The Ghost of Richard Harris (available May 9 on BritBox), the accomplished Irish actor had many sides to him. That’s why his three sons, Damian, Jamie and Jared Harris, got involved in the film, sharing stories with director Adrian Sibley, who had first approached Richard about the project more than two decades ago. (The actor passed away in 2002 at age 72 before anything was done.) “We just felt we needed to do something,” says Jared, the Emmy-nominated actor best known for his roles on such series as Mad Men and The Crown.

Irish producer and film industry activist Mike Downey has received the inaugural lifetime achievement award of the Stockfish Film Festival in Iceland for his contributions to the international film industry.

The award, presented at a private ceremony Wednesday night, recognizes achievement from professionals in the “academe, production, distribution, film festival and market scenes.”

Downey, founder of Film and Music Entertainment (F&me), has production credits on more than 100 feature films, including Dome Karukoski’s Tom of Finland, Volker Schlöndorff’s Return to Montauk, Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan and Adrian Sibley’s documentary The Ghost of Richard Harris. He is currently working on Holland’s highly-anticipated upcoming Franz Kafka biopic Kafka. He’s a member of the BAFTA Council, the Asia Pacific Screen Academy and the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But Downey is arguably better known within the film industry for his tireless activism on behalf of filmmakers in crisis.

Exclusive: Brian Cox is back as Logan Roy on Sunday, and the Succession star is next getting a special on BritBox International.

The streaming service has ordered An Interview with Brian Cox for its U.S. and Canada services, an hour-long sit-down with the actor delving into his life and career.

The special, from QuigleyFilm, is an extended version of a BBC interview that aired last year. That marked the first time Cox had gone into such detail about his family and lengthy career in showbiz.

“From his early years in Scotland and Shakespearean beginnings to his contemporary roles across film and television, no stone is unturned in this heartfelt interview with the iconic actor,” according to BritBox International.

The doc will launch on the service, which has been expanding globally, in North America on April 11. Stephen Nye is the executive producer.

Cox will return as megalomaniacal media owner Logan...

In his bold 1990 interpretation of Luigi Pirandello’s “Henry IV,” the late and legendary Irish stage, screen and music star Richard Harris utters the immortal lines, “Woe to him who doesn’t know how to wear his mask.”

Even before his breathtaking big-screen triumph 60 years ago as the rugby ruffian Frank Machin in Lindsay Anderson’s film directing debut, “This Sporting Life,” Harris proved adept at juggling personal and professional personas. He swaggered with macho gusto and great thesping chops through the London stage scene and quickly found key roles in action epics such as “Guns of Navarone” and “Mutiny on the Bounty.”

Then his stunning 1963 breakthrough in “Life” made the showbiz side of the equation easy.

A Cannes lead actor award, an Oscar nomination and reams of reviews such as Variety’s quickly put Harris at the top tier of international leading men. Variety’s London critic at the...

Long-time Academy Museum of Motion Pictures executive Amy Homma was promoted to Chief Audience Officer Nov. 28, Director and President of the Academy Museum Jacqueline Stewart announced.

“Amy has proven herself to be a skillful, forward-thinking, and inspiring leader since she began at the museum in 2019, and I look forward to seeing her and her teams thrive in this new capacity,” Stewart said. “As a seasoned programmer, educator, and administrator who brings a deep knowledge of audience engagement and museology, Amy is the ideal person to steer our museum’s next chapter of external relations.”

Prior to her new appointment, Homma worked as vice president of Education and Public Engagement at the Academy Museum. Under her leadership, the museum developed K-12 programming and public programs rooted in accessibility and activism.

Homma’s introduction to the Academy Museum was as the inaugural director — a position she acquired following the conclusion of her...

Exclusive: BritBox International has tapped Sanjeev Bhaskar as the lead for its latest original drama series, Inspector Singh Investigates, and has picked up docs about legendary acting mavericks Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole.

Inspector Singh Investigates is a three-part drama that BritBox International has co-commissioned alongside UK distributor Dcd Rights and 108 Media. BritBox International, which operates outside the UK, takes North American and Australian rights, we’ve learned.

108 Media London, the UK production wing of international content firm 108 Media is producing the series, which will be shot in Malaysia. Dcd Rights is selling it internationally (excluding North America and Australia).

The crime drama is based on the novel of the same name from author Shamini Flint, following Bhaskar as the titular Inspector Singh as he investigates complex murders rooted in the cultural DNA of exotic Asian countries.

Diederick Santer and Jonathan Karas are executive producers for BritBox International, the...

Documentary portrait of the great actor has been recut and benefits from a fuller account of the vices and passions that drove him

Adrian Sibley’s documentary now gets a touring theatrical release in the UK and the Republic of Ireland: a revised and recut version differing from the original version shown at the Venice film festival, about which I had some reservations.

Revisiting this film is in fact no great hardship for me: it was a pleasure to be reminded of Harris’s great performances in movies such as This Sporting Life and The Field, and his extraordinary (and extraordinarily successful) detour into chanson-style pop singing in the late 60s. But it is interesting that this new cut of the film gives a much fuller account of Harris’s ferocious consumption of cocaine, which I thought the film originally glossed over in favour of a more sentimentally traditional booze...

Most giant film festivals are all about the present — and future — of cinema by their very nature. Audiences assemble to see premieres of the latest films that will come to define the upcoming months and discover new talent who will make their mark on the form. But given the collective cinephilia of the crowd, smart festivals also devote some of their programming to pay tribute to the rich archives of the medium that deserves recognition or rediscovery.

After two years dormant during the pandemic, the Venice Film Festival's classics sidebar came roaring back. The fest presented a plethora of new restorations that will no doubt trickle out through repertory cinemas and onto specialized physical media. But this section also included a handful of documentaries about cinema itself that took a critical lens to exploring the history and legacy of performers and projects alike. Here's what we took away after watching four informative,...

The word “legendary” gets tossed around pretty easily when discussing important actors, but there’s a huge difference between starring in a lot of important movies, and starring in a lot of movies while leaving everyone you ever met with an epic, semi-fantastical tale about how incredibly drunk you got.

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Adrian Sibley’s documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris” tells the story of — you guessed it — Richard Harris, but also his ghost. The Irish actor, musician and poet who starred in films like “This Sporting Life,” “The Field,” “Gladiator” and two “Harry Potter” entries led an extraordinary existence that’s well worth recording for posterity. And in his wake, he left behind three sons who barely knew their real father, and who seek in his absence a little bit of understanding and maybe some closure.

“The Ghost of Richard Harris” follows actors Jared Harris...

Though it sets out on a ghost hunt, Adrian Sibley’s fitfully fascinating documentary works better as an exploration of its subject’s public and private personas, charting Richard Harris’ rise from local sports star to screen legend via an unexpected heyday as a chart-topping pop star in 1968.

Rather than start with a séance, however, The Ghost of Richard Harris, screening in the Classics section of the Venice Film Festival, opens with the more prosaic sight of the actor’s three sons — Damien, Jared and Jamie — going through their late mother’s lock-up, where they find journals full of poetry, King Arthur’s crown (a prop from 1967’s Camelot) and trinkets from the Harry Potter franchise, in which their father played Dumbledore until his death in 2002, aged 72.

This set-up proves to be somewhat self-defeating, as the three middle-aged men, while reminiscing, then admit that they were packed away to boarding...

Venice film festival: There are some memorable moments in this documentary about the great Irish actor, but too many inconvenient truths are dismissed for it to be definitive

Adrian Sibley’s documentary is a genial, if sometimes incurious film about the legendary Irish actor and singer, who began his screen career as a pressure-cooker of rage on the rugby field in Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life and finally became the beatific face of snowy-haired wisdom as Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies.

This watchable film goes easy on Harris’s boozing and brawling: in fact, it takes an almost a counter-revolutionary approach to the whole subject. In recent years, talk of Ollie and Peter and Richard’s hell-raising has usually been countered with a frowning diagnosis of alcoholism, and this film simply quotes Harris’s own roistering dismissal of all that: (“I drank because I loved it!

Feature documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris,” which premieres Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, looks to answer the question: “Who was Richard Harris?” The film also contains the revelation that Harris was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, but chose to take the part of Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” franchise instead.

Variety spoke to director Adrian Sibley and Richard Harris’ son Jared Harris – a distinguished actor himself, and one of the originators of the project – about how the documentary came to be made.

Sibley first broached the subject of making a film about Richard Harris some 20 years ago with the man himself, who responded: “I’ll do it, but only if I can tell the truth half the time,” Jared Harris recalls.

“This Sporting Life”

Sibley liked this idea but the BBC – who he pitched it to – were less keen.

Taking a break from shooting a movie in the late Sixties, Richard Harris chartered a private plane. The actor and his entourage travelled to Hamburg to visit the brothels, and then went on a day trip to Ireland, spending an afternoon at one of Harris’s favourite pubs. They weren’t sober for a moment of the jaunt, which was chronicled by a photographer sent along for the ride.

The story of their antics is told in Adrian Sibley’s new feature documentary The Ghost of Richard Harris, a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week. What is most extraordinary about this particular episode is that it was nothing out of the ordinary for the Limerick-born star. Zigzagging across Europe in search of adventure, sex and alcohol was simply what Harris – at that stage of his life, at least – did.

His various paramours could likely attest to that.

He topped the charts, dated a princess and was a screen star from the kitchen sink 60s to Harry Potter. Yet his achievements were eclipsed by his hell-raising image. As a new film searches for the real Richard Harris, his son Jared looks back

It was in the late 1990s that Adrian Sibley first conceived of making a Richard Harris documentary. Back then, the brilliant Irish actor was in his early 70s, and best known for his defiant, broad-shouldered roles in such films as the 1963 kitchen-sink drama This Sporting Life and the violent 1970 western A Man Called Horse. But he also found himself beloved by a new generation of fans, thanks to his gentle, timeworn performance as Professor Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Wary of hagiography, yet a keen storyteller, Harris agreed to do Sibley’s film under one condition.

“He said, ‘I’ll do it...

Abacus Media Rights has acquired the Sky Original feature documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris,” about the Hollywood star and notorious hell-raiser, for worldwide distribution. The release of the film, directed by Adrian Sibley, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Irish actor’s death.

The film, produced by Bright Yellow Films, Samson Films and Groove Intl., tracks Harris’ career, which was overshadowed by a reputation for drinking and riotous behavior. Exploring this complex, flawed individual, the documentary features Harris’ three sons, BAFTA Award-winning actor Jared Harris, actor Jamie Harris and director Damian Harris.

The film will air in the U.K. on Sky Arts and streaming service Now later this year.

Sibley said: “I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Harris through his son Damian at the Savoy to talk about making a documentary about his life and times. He’d seen my film with Anthony Hopkins where he...

Republic Film Distribution has acquired the title.

Republic Film Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Sam Hobkinson’s Sundance 2021 documentary Misha And The Wolves.

The distributor has set an exclusive theatrical release for September 3 across the territory; the film will then be broadcast by BBC Storyville later in the year. Netflix previously acquired US rights on the film.

Misha And The Wolves follows a woman whose Holocaust memoir took the world by storm, before a fallout with her publisher – who turned detective – revealed a deception created to hide a darker truth.

The film is produced by Arts Alliance and MetFilm from the UK,...

Netflix will be the North American streaming home for the Sundance documentary “Misha and the Wolves,” MetFilm Sales was announced on Monday.

In addition, Netflix will debut the film exclusively in North America and several other markets — a licensing deal that was brokered before the Sundance Film Festival.

Also on board to stream the film overseas are BBC Storyville (UK), Zdf Arte (Germany & France), Vpro (the Netherlands), Vrt (Belgium), Svt (Sweden), Dr (Denmark), Nrk (Norway), Yle (Finland), Ruv (Iceland), Movistar+ (Spain), Yes Docu (Israel), Rts (Switzerland), Rtvs (Slovenia), Ert (Greece), and TG4 (Ireland).

“The number of deals attests to the buyers’ appetite for great stories and sophisticated filmmaking that has the power to reach large global audience. We are excited for what lies ahead for this film,” Vesna Cudic, MetFilm Sales said in a statement.

The story follows a woman whose holocaust memoir took the world by storm but who...

MetFilms has announced a series of distribution deals for the Holocaust documentary Misha and the Wolves which made its world premiere in the Sundance World Documentary competition on Sunday.

The film, directed by Sam Hobkinson, follows a woman whose Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm. However, a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.

Netflix picked up the global SVOD window prior to the festival, and will carry the film exclusively in North America and other markets. The pic will not be one of the streamer’s branded documentaries. In addition, on board are BBC Storyville (UK), Zdf Arte (Germany & France), Vpro (the Netherlands), Vrt (Belgium), Svt (Sweden), Dr (Denmark), Nrk (Norway), Yle (Finland), Ruv (Iceland), Movistar+ (Spain), Yes Docu (Israel), Rts (Switzerland), Rtvs (Slovenia), Ert (Greece), and TG4 (Ireland).

Said Vesna Cudic of MetFilm Sales, “The number of...