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Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” a cinematic love letter to the French New Wave which bowed at Cannes, will aptly kick off the third edition of the Biarritz Film Festival, also called Nouvelles Vagues, on June 24.

On the following day, Sofia Coppola, the festival’s guest of honor, will attend a screening of “Virgin Suicides” to celebrate its 25-year anniversary and take part in a masterclass before an audience filled with film students.

Coppola’s presence at the festival reflects the involvement of Chanel, a partner of the festival whose mantra is to shine a spotlight on young talent in front and behind the camera. Chanel hosted a glamorous dinner at the Grand Café du Grand Palais in Paris in honor of the festival on June 3.

Along with Nouvelles Vagues founder and president Jérôme Pulis, general delegate Sandrine Brauer and programming director Lili Hinstin, and Chanel president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky,...

For its starriest edition to date, the Marrakech Film Festival did more than rolling out the red carpet: it opened the doors to Palace Badi, a 16th-century iconic landmark, for an epic dinner offered by Hm Mohammed VI and hosted by Hrh Prince Moulay Rachid, accompanied by his wife, Princess Lalla Oum Keltoum.

The gala evening kicked off with salutations as Marrakech Festival jury president Luca Guadagnino and fellow jurors, Jacob Elordi, Andrew Garfield and Virginie Efira, as well as honorary guests such as Tim Burton, Monica Bellucci, Sean Penn, David Cronenberg, Justine Triet, Justin Kurzel, Francois Ozon, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu and Marie-Ange Luciani were introduced to Hrh Moulay Rachid and Princess Lalla OumKeltoum one by one.

The festival’s director, Melita Toscan du Plantier, was standing by the Prince and introduced each person to him, although he seemed to know them all. Though Mohammed VI created the festival 21 years ago,...

The recent election results have stirred up a lot of emotions and discussions, especially among celebrities. Days after Sharon Stone aired her frustrations about Donald Trump’s re-election, filmmaker Ava DuVernay has also spoken out with pointed criticism.

Ava DuVernay on the sets of Selma | Credits:Cloud Eight Films

However, instead of rallying unanimous support, DuVernay is facing backlash from some fans, who are seizing the moment to troll her over her recent projects that have struggled both critically and commercially.

Ava DuVernay Takes Aim at Donald Trump and Elon Musk! Donald Trump at Aston, Pennsylvania [Photo by Michael Vadon, licensed under Cc By-sa 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons]

During a recent on-stage chat with Rosalie Varda at the Marrakech Film Festival, Ava DuVernay, the director of films like A Wrinkle in Time, Selma, and Origin, didn’t hold back.

Related “I mean, anything’s possible”: Ava DuVernay’s Canceled New Gods Movie Might Be Reinstated Under James Gunn, Reveals...

Ava DuVernay said the United States is “run by criminals” while reflecting on the timely resonance of her Oscar-nominated documentary “13th” during an on-stage conversation with Rosalie Varda at the Marrakech Film Festival.

The politically-engaged filmmaker and activist denounced a double standard in the U.S. judicial system, saying “that criminality is seen as completely different than a Black kid on the corner who might sell marijuana. And so, you know, the Black kid is in prison for years and the criminals get reelected and make millions of dollars and sell electric cars.”

She said “13th” was meant to address “that idea of who is criminal and what and who is deciding who is right and who’s wrong.”

DuVernay said she thought the documentary “would sit on the back pages of Netflix and no one would see it. When it first debuted and it shot to number one in multiple countries,...

Ava DuVernay has slammed Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. president, in spite of a criminal charges against him, saying that black people arrested on smaller crimes land years of jail time.

She was speaking in a conversation event at the Marrakech film festival, moderated by Rosalie Varda, daughter of late iconic filmmaker Agnès Varda, who is friend of the Selma, 13th and A Wrinkle in Time director and producer.

The subject of Trump’s re-election arose in a discussion on DuVernay’s Netflix-backed 2016 documentary 13th, exploring racial injustice in the U.S. penal system, and the fact its prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.

“The idea of mass incarceration of criminality, and how black and brown people in certain parts of the world are considered inherently criminal, that’s what it is about. It’s more about the idea of why do we believe some people have...

A heavy influence on major recent Hollywood musicals such as La La Land, Barbie, and even, perhaps most blatantly, Joker: Folie à Deux, Jacques Demy’s musical masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has been restored in 4K for its 60th anniversary. Starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo with music by Michel Legrand, the restoration will now roll out at NYC’s Film Forum starting on December 6 and at LA’s Laemmle Royal a week later, followed by a larger release.

Here’s the synopsis: “An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through...

If the race for Best International Feature Film feels rushed this year, it is: the Academy pushed up country submission deadlines by a month. Films still have until November 15 to play in theaters in their respective countries. The Academy has also laid down more rigorous rules for who serves on the Oscar selection committees: 50 percent must be filmmakers (including artists and craftspeople). France, for example, beefed up its committee from seven members to 11.

As a country with a robust film industry, France has often been criticized for picking the “wrong” Oscar submission, from Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Titane” (Neon), which was not nominated, to “The Taste of Things” (IFC Films) over Neon’s eventual Best Picture contender, “Anatomy of a Fall.”

In fact, Audrey Diwan, director of “Happening” — a film many thought should have been submitted instead of “Titane” — is now on the French selection committee, along with veteran...

France has picked Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set musical Emilia Perez to represent the country in the best international feature category at the 2025 Academy Awards as it attempts to sing its way to a victory in the category for the first time in more than 30 years.

The primarily Spanish-language song-filled film is about cartel leader Emilia, who enlists an unappreciated lawyer to help fake her death so Emilia can live authentically as her true self.

It won both the Cannes Jury prize for director Audiard and a shared best actress award for its female cast Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana...

France has selected Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez to represent it in the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

The drama stars Karla Sofía Gascón as cartel leader Emilia who enlists the help of unappreciated lawyer Rita (Saldana) to help her fake her death so she can live authentically as her true self.

It premiered at Cannes, where it earned its four actresses – Gascón, Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz – a collective Best Actress award, and also clinched the jury prize.

The film was selected from a short list of four films which also included swashbuckler The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte; French-produced Indian drama All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia and Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie.

This year’s revamped selection committee featured sales agent Carole Baraton, producer Nadim Cheikhroua (Four Daughters), Venice Golden Lion...

France’s revamped Oscar committee has selected Jacques Audiard’s exhilarating redemption thriller “Emilia Perez” for the international feature film race. The movie won two major awards at the Cannes Film Festival and earned rave reviews.

“Emilia Perez” stars Karla Sofía Gascón as a fearsome drug lord who embraces her true self as a woman. The Spanish-language film earned one of Cannes’s longest standing ovations and went on to win the Jury Prize (in a jury presided over by Greta Gerwig), on top of a best actress prize for the ensemble cast, including Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. The movie was bought by Netflix for the U.S. and the U.K. following its Cannes premiere.

Audiard is a revered French auteur who won a Palme d’Or with “Dheepan,” and was previously nominated for a foreign-language Oscar with “A Prophet” starring Tahar Rahim.

Although “Emilia Perez...

Cannes-premiering quartet Emilia Pérez, French box office hit The Count Of Monte Cristo, Misericordia and All We Imagine as Light have made the shortlist for France’s international feature film Oscar submission.

The four films were selected by a recently revamped 11-member selection committee appointed by France’s cultural minister Rachida Dati per a recommendation from national film body Cnc, which announced the selection on Wednesday evening.

Former head of Cannes’ Critics’ Week Charles Tesson presides over the selectors, who include producers Patrick Wachsberger, David Thion and Nadim Cheikhroua, sales agents Carole Baraton of Charades and Kinology’s Gregoire Melin,...

Cannes-premiering quartet Emilia Pérez, French box office hit The Count Of Monte Cristo, Misericordia and All We Imagine as Light have made the shortlist for France’s international feature film Oscar submission.

The four films were selected by a recently revamped 11-member selection committee appointed by France’s cultural minister Rachida Dati per a recommendation from national film body Cnc, which announced the selection on Wednesday evening.

Former head of Cannes’ Critics’ Week Charles Tesson presides over the selectors, who include producers Patrick Wachsberger, David Thion and Nadim Cheikhroua, sales agents Carole Baraton of Charades and Kinology’s Gregoire Melin,...

Cannes-premiering quartet Emilia Pérez, French box office hit The Count Of Monte Cristo, Misericordia and All We Imagine as Light have made the shortlist for France’s international feature film Oscar submission.

The four films were selected by a recently revamped 11-member selection committee appointed by France’s cultural minister Rachida Dati per a recommendation from national film body Cnc, which announced the selection on Wednesday evening.

Former head of Cannes’ Critics’ Week Charles Tesson presides over the selectors, who include producers Patrick Wachsberger, David Thion and Nadim Cheikhroua, sales agents Carole Baraton of Charades and Kinology’s Gregoire Melin,...

France’s Oscar committee has shortlisted four movies, including Jacques Audiard’s redemption thriller “Emilia Perez” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” an epic adventure film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic, as well as Payal Kapadia‘s “All We Imagine as Light” and Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia.”

All four movies word premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. “Emilia Perez” won two major awards, the Jury Prize and a best actress nod for its ensemble female cast, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Adriana Paz; while “All We Imagine as Light,” a tale of two Mumbai nurses bonding, won the Grand Prize, becoming the first Indian film in 30 years to win the award. Kapadia was also the first Indian female director to compete at Cannes. Guiraudie’s darkly comic and provocative “Misericordia” played at Cannes Premiere and recently screened at Telluride and Toronto, while “The Count of Monte Cristo,...

France has unveiled the four titles in the running to represent it in the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

They are:

All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie

This year’s candidate is being decided by a restructured selection committee – featuring Venice Golden Lion winner Audrey Diwan and Oscar winners, writer, director and producer Florian Zeller and producer Patrick Wachsberger – as...

France has revealed the 11 members of its newly revamped Oscars selection committee as the country attempts to win its first award in the best international feature category in more than 30 years.

Former head of Cannes’ Critics’ Week Charles Tesson will preside over the group of leading industry figures who include Oscar-winning producer Patrick Wachsberger, Charades co-founder Carole Baraton, Kinology founder Gregoire Melin, filmmakers Audrey Diwan and Florian Zeller, producer and distributor Rosalie Varda, actress Clémence Poesy, Anatomy Of A Fall producer David Thion, distributor, producer and author Michèle Halberstadt of Arp Selection, and Four Daughters producer Nadim Cheikhroua.

France’s...

France’s National Film Board has unveiled its revamped and expanded Oscar committee which is presided over by Charles Tesson, the former artistic director of Cannes’ Critics Week.

Along with Tesson, the committee includes “Emmanuelle” director Audrey Diwan who won Venice’s Golden Lion with “Happening” in 2021; critically acclaimed French playwright, director and producer Florian Zeller (“The Father”); former Lionsgate boss Patrick Wachsberger; international sales veterans Carole Baraton from Charades, and Gregoire Melin from Kinology; powerful French distributor Michèle Halberstadt from Arp Selection; producers Rosalie Varda (“Faces Places”) from Ciné-Tamaris, Nadim Cheikhroua (“Olfa’s Daughters”) and David Thion (“Anatomy of a Fall”) at Les Films Pelléas; and actor Clemence Poesy.

Appointed by France’s culture minister, Rachida Dati, the committee is facing the difficult task of picking the French film that is best suited to give the country its first Oscar win for best international feature in over three decades.

Nestled on a quiet street a stone’s throw away from the bustle of Paris’ fifth arrondissement, La Clef cinema, one of the city’s most enduring rep houses, has been saved from closure following a five-year battle involving lawyers, developers, and government officials.

Cinéma Revival, the activist group behind the campaign to save the venue, has purchased the cinema building, which had been put on the market by its previous owner, Caisse d’Epargne banking group. The group bought the building with €2 million raised through an online fundraising campaign. €400,000 was raised from 5000 individual donations with contributors including filmmakers and actors such as David Lynch, Wang Bing, Leos Carax, Céline Sciamma, Sophie Fillières, Agnès Jaoui, and Irène Jacob.

The remaining cash was raised through a series of what the group described to us as “major” cash donations from Pulp Fiction filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and two other anonymous patrons who have asked to remain anonymous.

It has been a big week for beloved musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the 1964 Palme d’Or and went on to international acclaim and five Oscar nominations and served as one of the key inspirations for Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.

The film got a special 60th anniversary Cannes Classics screening Thursday of the exquisitely new restoration at the Agnes Varda Theatre, which is named after the late director and is also wife of late Cherbourg writer-director Jacques Demy. This week also has seen the world premieres of two documentaries related to the film here. On Saturday night at the Buñuel Theatre in the Palais came the premiere of Once Upon a Time: Michel Legrand, an extensive two-hour documentary on the late great composer of Cherbourg and so much more.

Then on Wednesday night, also at the Buñuel, was the unveiling...

After nearly two years of planning, the digital platform “The Gleaners and I: Revisiting Agnès Varda’s Edit” is about to go live.

Supported by Martin Scorsese, the pedagogical platform will open the treasure trove of Agnès Varda’s archives, making never-before-seen footage and hours of unused rushes available to nascent filmmakers across the globe. Through “The Gleaners and I,” students at participating universities will be able to re-edit and completely rethink Varda’s 2000 documentary of the same name — pooling from 62 hours of rushes, all subtitled in English – under the proviso that each new clip edit be uploaded back on to the platform.

“Agnès would have surely loved the idea of having her work live on in this way,” says daughter and project leader Rosalie Varda. “She would want to give the students full freedom – and that’s what we’ve done. Participants can really reconceive the work however they see fit.

As Cannes Film Festival kicks off, the Paris-based international sales company MK2 Films has revealed it has acquired three films and made substantial investments in new restorations, set against the backdrop of a strong presence at Cannes Classics.

MK2 Films has entered into a collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation on the global rights (excluding the U.S.) for two films directed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle: “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” (1976) and “Daddy” (1973). “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” has been restored in 4K by L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) under the supervision of Arielle de Saint Phalle and with funding from Dior. It was presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, New York Film Festival and the new Los Angeles Festival of Movies. “Daddy” will soon be available in a restored version. MK2 Films described it as a “unique feminist work by one of...

Kohn’s Corner is a weekly column about the challenges and opportunities of sustaining American film culture.

When you’re living in the bubble of daily cinema life during the Cannes Film Festival, it’s hard to know if the rest of the world cares about any of the movies you’ve seen over the past two weeks. The obvious marketing hooks for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” will take care of them. For everything else, who knows?

The last three Palme d’Or winner winners — “Triangle of Sadness,” “Titane,” and “Parasite” — leveraged their Cannes success into genuine cultural impact. The challenges in getting movies made and seen is higher than ever, but Cannes 2023 came ready for battle. Here are some of the most promising signs I found.

The French New Wave Isn’t Finished

For a generation of cinephiles, the death...

Varda’s seminal documentary can now be used a pioneering educational tool by film students around the world.

More than 60 hours of rushes of Agnes Varda’s 2000 documentary feature The Gleaners and I will now be available for the next generation of international filmmakers thanks to a new educational initiative from France’s National Audiovisual Institute (Ina) and Ciné-Tamaris.

The project was unveiled in Cannes at the beachside hub of the Cnc by Rosalie Varda, the filmmaker’s daughter and CEO of Ciné-Tamaris and Ina’s deputy general director Agnès Chauveau, complete with a surprise visit from Martin Scorsese, who...

Netflix made headlines at Cannes for buying Todd Haynes’ “May December” for $11 million, but it’s also spending money on film history. The streamer is one of several entities getting into the Agnes Varda business this year by investing in a new project to reignite interest in the late French New Wave filmmaker’s work.

Varda’s daughter, producer Rosalie Varda, announced at Cannes this week that she had secured financing for “Education in Images: ‘The Gleaners and I,'” an ambitious heritage project for film students built out of restored dailies from Varda’s seminal 1999 documentary. The digital platform will be made available to film schools around the world and cull from 60 hours of rushes from Varda’s poetic 2000 documentary “The Gleaners and I,” which explores the unique lives and challenges of gleaners throughout French society. Students will be able to use the platform to create their own versions...

On the eve of King Charles III’s coronation, Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge was awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his long devotion to supporting French cinema. The French government bestows the honor, which means Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters, to creative and literary figures who have contributed to French culture over the years. Past recipients range from Dennis Lim to Wes Anderson.

The event took place Friday at the Beverly Hills residence of French consul general Julie Duhaut-Bedos, who hosted the ceremony along with Rosalie Varda, daughter of director Agnès Varda. “We are gathered today to celebrate the remarkable career of Peter Debruge and his strong relationship with France,” said Duhaut-Bedos. “French cinema could not have asked for a better long-distance lover,” she continued.

Presenting Debruge with the medal, Rosalie Varda talked about his deep connection with her mother,...

Filmmakers and executives, creatives of music, theater and art remembered Tom Luddy as friend and mentor, tastemaker and cultural force who deployed an astonishingly vast network to nurture talent and bring people and projects together over decades.

The co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival passed away in February.

“I am thinking of getting a tattoo of you on my arm,” said Irish director Mark Cousins at tribute event at the Paris Theatre over the weekend. “Here is Hitchcock on my arm, and here is and Kira Muratova. Maybe you would fit between the two?” He added, “For the rest of my life, I will see partly through your eyes. I miss you and I love you.”

“Tom Luddy was a constant presence. The sun around which so many of us have revolved,” said Ken Burns. The two met when Burns screened Huey Long at Telluride in 1985. “For the next 35-plus years,...

Tom Luddy wasn’t famous exactly. But he had a huge impact on film culture via Uc Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive in the ’60s and the Telluride Film Festival in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and up to his death in February at age 79. And while he was based in the Bay Area, a theater full of Luddy-philes from both coasts turned up for his tribute at New York’s packed Paris Theater on April 15. They represented the cross-cultural network that Luddy created over decades of introducing people, sharing his favorite film gems, and luring folks to Telluride by inviting their films or bringing them in as guest directors (like Stephen Sondheim or Salman Rushdie) or tributees (like Athol Fugard or Michael Powell). Once they came, they usually came back.

Five of the stalwarts in the Luddy family, who have supported the festival on the Telluride board of directors and in other ways,...

While Agnès Varda explored her own work throughout her career, including in The Beaches of Agnès, her TV series From Here to There, and her final film Varda by Agnès, a new documentary has been announced that will take a look at the late, legendary Belgian-born French director’s massive contributions to the art of cinema.

Variety reports Mk2 Films, Cinétévé Sales, and Varda’s own Ciné-Tamaris have backed Viva Varda!, which will feature never-before-seen archival footage along with interviews from directors, including Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Helmed by Pierre-Henri Gibert, the film features interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy, and Jonathan Romney. With a French Cinémathèque retrospctive also taking place the fall, here’s hoping the documentary will debut for the occasion.

“With the upcoming homage at the French Cinémathèque, I felt like...

Agnès Varda, the late New Wave cinema legend, is the subject of “Viva Varda!,” a documentary boasting exclusive archive footage and interviews by filmmakers such as Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Mk2 Films is co-representing the documentary feature with Cinétévé Sales.

“Viva Varda!” will be first portrait of the Honorary Oscar recipient that’s not directed by Varda herself. The last film she directed was “Varda par Agnes,” a documentary shedding light on her own experiences as a filmmaker. Her sprawling career and legacy will be celebrated this fall at the French Cinémathèque.

Pierre-Henri Gibert, a film buff who’s made several documentaries about filmmakers, including Jacques Audiard, explored different aspects of Varda’s life and body of work and conducted insightful interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy and Jonathan Romney, among others.

“Viva Varda!

Rosalie Varda and Audrey Diwan have boarded Adrian Moyse Dullin’s live action short “The Right Words” as executive producers.

The film, which was selected for Cannes’ Palme d’Or competition last year, tells the story of a brother and sister who get a kick out of embarrassing each other on social media. One day, on a crowded bus home from school, the sister convinces her younger brother to approach his crush.

“When naive and romantic Mahdi is peer-pressured into confessing his love to Jada, a girl who doesn’t know he exists, his declaration becomes a public spectacle,” reads the logline.

“The Right Words” is written and directed by Moyse Dullin and represents his fiction debut. He is currently working on a feature film about love. The short is produced by Punchline Cinéma co-founder Lucas Tothe with cinematography by Augustin Barbaroux.

The film has been shortlisted for the 2023 Césars and is an Oscar qualifier.

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed In Competition(Jury: Julianne Moore, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rodrigo Sorogoyen)Golden Lion – All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)Silver Lion (Grand Jury Prize) – Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Silver Lion (Best Director) – Luca Guadagnino (Bones & All)Coppa Volpi for Best Actress – Cate Blanchett (Tár)Coppa Volpi for Best Actor – Colin Farrell (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Best Screenplay – Martin McDonagh (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Special Jury Prize – No Bears (Jafar Panahi)Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Taylor Russell (Bones & All)Orizzonti(Jury: Isabel Coixet, Laura Bispuri, Antonio Campos, Sofia Djama, Edourad Waintrop)Orizzonti Award for Best Film – World War III (Houman Seyedi)Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Vera (Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel)Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – Bread And Salt (Damian Kocur)Orizzonti Award for Best Actress – Vera Gemma (Vera)Orizzonti Award for...

The 2022 Venice Film Festival has awarded Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” the Golden Lion for Best Film, with Colin Farrell and Cate Blanchett landing the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor and Best Actress.

The Silver Lion for Best Director went to Luca Guadagnino for “Bones and All.” The cannibal love story also saw co-star Taylor Russell win the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.

In addition to Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin” won the award for Best Screenplay for writer-director Martin McDonagh. The film, which follows an abrupt fallout between two best friends (“In Bruges” co-stars Farrell and Brendan Gleeson), received a 13-minute standing ovation at its Tuesday premiere. Meanwhile, Blanchett won her second Volpi Cup (following her performance as Bob Dylan in 2007’s “I’m Not There”) for playing the world-renowned composer at the center of Todd Field’s “Tár.”

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Brendan Fraser...

The star studded Variety and Hotel Danieli pre-festival cocktail party on Aug. 30 was a taster of the riches in store at the Venice Film Festival that kicks off the following day.

Head of the jury Julianne Moore and fellow jurors, “A Separation” actor Leila Hatami and filmmakers Audrey Diwan, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo Di Costanzo and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, were present as was “Thor: Love and Thunder” actor Tessa Thompson, who is serving on the festival’s Horizons strand jury.

The evening, titled “Cinema Danieli – An Unforgettable Story,” on the terrace of the plush Hotel Danieli, which turns 200 this year, has become a festival tradition dating back 13 years. It was introduced by Claudio Staderini, director of the Danieli, who described the hotel as a shooting and residential choice of many of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera said that the Variety and Danieli pre-festival cocktail as...

Michelangelo Frammartino was also named president of the Luigi de Laurentiis award.

Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet has been named president of the Horizons jury for the Venice Film Festival (August 31 - September 10).

Coixet’s credentials include My Life Without Me, The Secret Life Of Words and The Bookshop. Most recently her documentary The Yellow Ceiling was introduced at Cannes Marché 2022 slate.

Joining her on the jury is Italian director Laura Bispuri; US filmmaker Antonio Campos; Algerian filmmaker Sofia Djama and former Cannes’ Directors Fortnight director Edouard Waintrop.

The Horizons section awards seven prizes in total in all major categories including a special jury prize.

Spanish director Isabel Coixet will preside over the international jury of the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti competition at the upcoming edition running from August 31 to September 10.

The director knows Orizzonti well having world premiered her 2005 drama The Secret Life Of Words in the section, ahead of it winning four Spanish Goya awards the following year.

More recent credits include The Bookshop, which also swept the Goyas in 2017, winning best director, film and adapted screenplay, and Spanish and English-language romantic drama It Snows In Benidorm, starring Timothy Spall.

She will be by Italian filmmaker Laura Bispuri, whose third film The Peacock’s Paradise played in Orizzonti last year, and US director Antonio Campus, whose recent credits include HBO show The Staircase.

Further members include Sofia Djama, the Algerian director of The Blessed, for which lead Lyna Khoudri won the Orizzonti Best Actress Award in 2017 and former Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Delegate General Edouard Waintrop.

Click here to read the full article.

Spanish director Isabel Coixet (The Bookshop, My Life Without Me) will head up the competition jury for the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section of this year’s Venice International Film festival, organizers unveiled on Wednesday.

The Secret Life of Words helmer will be joined by Italian director Laura Bispuri (Sworn Virgin, Daughter of Mine); American filmmaker Antonio Campos (The Staircase, The Devil All the Time); Algerian director Sofia Djama, whose feature debut, The Blessed, screened in Oizzonti last year, winning the best actress honor for star Lyna Khoudri; and French journalist and critic Edouard Waintrop, who most recently was artistic director at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight section.

The Orizzonti jury will present awards for best film, best director, a jury prize, best actor and actress, best screenplay and a best short film honor, picking from the titles selected for the Venice sidebar this year.

Venice...

Spanish director Isabel Coixet, known for prizewinning works such as “The Secret Life of Words” and “The Bookshop,” will preside over the jury of the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons (Orizonti) section dedicated to more cutting-edge works.

Coixet will be joined on the Horizons jury by Italian director Laura Bispuri; U.S. director and producer Antonio Campos, who most recently created, wrote and directed HBO Max series “The Staircase,” starring Colin Firth, Toni Collette and Juliette Binoche; Algerian director Sofia Djama, whose first feature “The Blessed” won the 2017 Horizons best actress award for Lyna Khoudri; and former Cannes Director’s Fortnight chief Edouard Waintrop.

Additionally, Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino, who was in Venice last year with “Il Buco,” will preside over the jury for the “Luigi de Laurentiis” award for best first work across all Venice sections, which is worth 100,000.

Joining Frammartino on the Venice jury for best first work...

MK2 Films is shooting “Curiosity Room,” a remake of Wim Wenders’s cult 1982 documentary “Room 666,” during the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by Mk Prods. in collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, “Curiosity Room” will be directed Lubna Playoust, an actor (“The French Dispatch”) and filmmaker who notably helmed “Le Cormoran.”

Following the same set up as the original film, “Curiosity Room” is filming every day of the festival in a room at the Marriott Hotel on the Croisette, where 30 filmmakers, many of whom are either on juries or have movies and projects presented at this year’s Cannes, will answer questions about filmmaking and the future of cinema. Playoust is asking fellow directors if “cinema is a language about to get lost, an art about to die?,” said Nathanael Karmitz, MK2 Films’s CEO.

The remake is particularly relevant at this point since the film industry is going through a...

Cannes slates includes new restorations of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Claire Denis’s Chocolat, and Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep.

France’s mk2 films is ramping up its heritage film operation with the appointment of Frédérique Rouault as head of collections and the acquisition of a raft of catalogues by directors who have marked cinema history.

In one of its most significant heritage deals to date, the company has acquired the rights to the entire collection of films by the late writer and director Marcel Pagnol.

Until now, the catalogue has been managed by grandson Nicolas Pagnol under the...

An A-list panel of key actors in the film heritage industry gathered around a table at the Lumière Festival’s Classic Film Market (Mifc) with this year’s special guest Margaret Bodde to discuss how they relay the actions of the Film Foundation she heads.

“Obviously there’s a commercial imperative, but we work with partners that have a great track record and who share our vision that it’s important to handle these films like the works of art that they are,” said Bodde, The Film Foundation executive director.

“People who have the ability to get the film out broadly like Vincent [Paul-Boncour] and Carlotta with ‘Chess of the Wind,’” she went on, referring to the French distributor of one of the Film Foundation’s latest restorations, a rediscovered Iranian movie from 1976 by Mohammad Reza Aslani.

“As a partner of the Film Foundation, we were able to seek the rights for the film,...

The Lumière Festival’s International Classic Film Market (Mifc) in Lyon, France, bows Tuesday, again bringing together distributors, exhibitors, streamers, TV programmers, film restorers and festival reps for one of the world’s leading heritage cinema events.

This year’s market looks set for a much more upbeat atmosphere compared to the 2020 edition, which took place right before the pandemic’s second wave that led to months-long cinema closures.

“It’s more about getting back on track,” says Mifc programming coordinator Gérald Duchaussoy. “The impression that we have when we talk to the distributors and rights owners is that they are very motivated to make it happen, to make it move once again. I’m not saying it’s easy, but frankly we feel a lot of very positive energy when we talk to them.”

It’s a very different vibe compared to last year, when the market took place under very difficult conditions,...

Organised by UniFrance, the online festival’s Filmmakers’ Jury crowned Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary its champion, while the audience and international press voted in favour of Aurel’s Josep. At the close of a record 11th edition which saw MyFrenchFilmFestival, the online festival organised by UniFrance (read our news), amass 13 million views in upwards of 200 territories, the Filmmakers’ Jury, the International Press Jury and the audience delivered their verdicts. Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary Adolescentes found favour with the Filmmakers’ Jury composed of Gianfranco Rosi, Mounia Meddour, Monia Chokri, Franco Lolli and Rosalie Varda. Unveiled during Critics’ Week at the 2019 Locarno Film Festival, this Agat Film & Ex Nihilo production (co-produced with Arte France Cinéma and Arte France’s Society and Culture division) has been racking up awards since its release in French cinemas back in September via Ad Vitam, not only earning itself six nominations at this year’s Césars (notably in the.

MyFrenchFilmFestival, an online film festival dedicated to French movies launched by the promotion org UniFrance, will showcase 33 titles, including a competitive lineup of 10 feature films and 10 shorts.

Set to run Jan. 15 to Feb. 15, the 11th edition of the festival will collaborate with more than 60 platforms around the world to allow movies to be watched across more than 200 territories.

The roster of films selected to compete as part of this year’s MyFrenchFilmFestival includes Sébastien Lifshitz’s “Adolescents,” a documentary exploring the evolving friendship of two young women through the years; Hafsia Herzi’s “You Deserve a Lover,” a drama about a young woman struggling to overcome a breakup; and Frédéric Fonteyne’s “Filles de joie,” a social drama about family women leading double lives to make ends meet.

The rest of the lineup comprises Bruno Merle’s “Felicita,” a family dramedy about an eccentric couple raising a child; Stéphane Batut...

Berlin’s Carlo Chatrian and Venice’s Alberto Barbera have also been invited.

Cannes Film Festival delegate general Thierry Frémaux, French actress and gender equality activist Adèle Haenel, and a number of the key cast and crew of Oscar-winning picture Parasite are among the some 400 international film industry professionals invited to join the Us’ Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) on Tuesday June 30.

With 49% of the 819 invitees hailing from 68 countries outside of the Us, the latest round of invitees was one of the most international selections ever.

Frémaux is among a number of festival chiefs to be invited...

While recent shutdowns and work stoppages engendered by this year’s pandemic have led to a halt in France’s normally robust exhibition landscape, streaming platforms — both international and local — have emerged from the crisis all the stronger.

The effects of this shift have been felt across the French industry. On the local front, distributors including Le Pacte, StudioCanal and Pyramide have taken advantage of temporary exemptions issued by the Cnc in order to release current titles directly onto paid-vod platforms, while SVOD hybrid services such as the Wild Bunch-backed Filmo TV have seen an exponential increase in traffic and subscriptions.

On the international front, however, the recent upheavals in the market have reinforced existing trends.

“The existence of platforms, both local and transnational, creates more opportunities in general,” says sales agent Carole Baraton. “That was already the case before, and I think Covid just pushed that even further.

After getting a tease and the announcement of a theatrical touring retrospective, The Criterion Collection have now announced their Agnès Varda boxset, aptly titled The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. A gorgeous, epic undertaking, this treasure trove of cinematic beauty is split into different aspects of the Belgian-born French director’s life and career.

Arriving on a fifteen-disc Blu-ray release on August 11, the set features digital restorations of thirty-nine films, including the first home-video presentations of Les créatures, Jacquot de Nantes, and the television series Agnès de ci de là Varda. There’s also over seven hours of archival programs from Varda, a 200-page book, video introductions by the late filmmaker herself, and much, much more. Check out the details below.

The Films

Agnès Forever – Varda by Agnès (2019), Les 3 boutons (2015)

Early Varda – La Pointe Courte (1955), Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1958), Du côté de la côte (1958)

Around Paris – Cléo from 5 to 7...

Exclusive: Nathanaël Karmitz, CEO at Paris-based Mk2, which operates the biggest art-house cinema network in France, is preaching patience for the re-opening of theaters.

Speaking to Deadline, Karmitz said that a mid-July opening, which has been bandied around Europe in the last two weeks, initially as a provisional timeline by the International Union of Cinemas (Unic), was unlikely.

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“Right now to have a projection in July, I think it’s not realistic,” the Mk2 boss commented. “We can say ‘we want to open’, ‘we want people to...

Rosalie Varda, a seasoned French film producer who is the daughter of late New Wave filmmaking icons Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, has been appointed senior advisor at MK2 Films.

MK2 Films is part of the arthouse production, sales and exhibition group headed by Nathanael and Elisha Karmitz which had five movies in competition at Cannes last year and in 2018.

Under this newly-created position, Varda will be advising Nathanael Karmitz at MK2 Films on the acquisition and distribution strategy, in France and abroad, with regards to the company’s prestigious library which boasts more than 800 movies, including many classics by François Truffaut, Charlie Chaplin, Alain Resnais, as well as Varda and Demy, among others.

Activities linked to its library are a significant part of MK2 Films’ business. MK2 Films recently signed a non-exclusive deal with Netflix in France giving the streaming service access to 50 movies from MK2’s library, notably pics by Truffaut,...

French group MK2 has appointed veteran French producer Rosalie Varda as a senior advisor shortly after signing a major library deal with Netflix.

Varda, the daughter of late French cinema icons Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, will advise MK2 CEO Nathanaël Karmitz on the company's national and international acquisition and distribution strategy with regards to its sizable film library.

MK2 has an impressive back catalog of more than 800 titles, including many classics from Varda and Demy, as well as from François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Charlie Chaplin and others.

The group recently signed a non-exclusive deal with ...

French group MK2 has appointed veteran French producer Rosalie Varda as a senior advisor shortly after signing a major library deal with Netflix.

Varda, the daughter of late French cinema icons Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, will advise MK2 CEO Nathanaël Karmitz on the company's national and international acquisition and distribution strategy with regards to its sizable film library.

MK2 has an impressive back catalog of more than 800 titles, including many classics from Varda and Demy, as well as from François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Charlie Chaplin and others.

The group recently signed a non-exclusive deal with ...