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Rachel Weisz is the Oscar winner who has been very selective of her screen appearances of late, and it has certainly paid off. In 2018 alone, she co-starred in two highly-regarded films -- "Disobedience" from Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio as the daughter of a late Orthodox rabbi who is romantically drawn to a female childhood friend, and Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Favourite," in which she plays Lady Sarah Churchill, a noblewoman whose position in the court of Queen Anne is threatened by her upstart cousin. Her performance as Lady Sarah earned Weitz her first BAFTA Award.

In fact, in the course of her 30 year-long career in films, Weisz has amassed quite a collection of awards. She won an Academy Award for her performance in 2005's "The Constant Gardener" and was Oscar-nominated again for "The Favourite." She has garnered three Golden Globe noms, winning again for "Gardener," and her "Favourite" win at the...

British musician and DJ Matthew Herbert has pretty much done it all. After making a name for himself in electronic music (his 2003 manifesto “Personal Contract for the Composition of Music” famously emphasizes “no drum machines”) and launching his label Accidental Records, he ended up remixing such iconic artists as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, and classical composer Gustav Mahler.

His production work has seen him work with the likes of The Zone of Interest composer Mica Levi, Róisín Murphy (one half of the pop duo Moloko), and frequent collaborator and Icelandic songstress Björk. Best known for turning ordinary or so-called found sound into electronic music, he has also become a go-to partner for film and TV creators looking for a score. Cases in point are such films as A Fantastic Woman and Starve Acre, as well as such TV series as The Responder and Noughts and Crosses.

Most recently,...

There are numerous first time directors at this year’s Berlinale, but few come with the sort of indie film credits on Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s resume.

The British playwright and screenwriter had worked on the script for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida” alongside the director, on “Disobedience” with Sebastián Lelio and on “Colette” with Wash Westmoreland, before going it alone to turn Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book about their industry-shaking Harvey Weinstein expose into the script that would become Maria Schrader’s “She Said” in 2022.

But with “Hot Milk,” which bowed at the Palaste on Friday, she moved closer to the camera and made it her directorial debut. Adapted (by Lenkiewicz) from Deborah Levy’s book and shot in Greece, the story is set under the hot Spanish summer and follows Sofia, a young woman (Emma Mackey) in a co-dependent relationship with her wheelchair-bound mother Rose (Fiona Shaw...

The Eternal Daughter: Lenkiewicz Ladles the Milk of Sorrows

Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz makes her directorial debut with Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s comically menacing 2016 novel about a daughter tethered to a mysteriously ailing mother. Or, rather, it’s narrative about the point of un-tethering, fashioned a bit like the reverse situation of the Joseph Conrad novella The End of Tether (1902), wherein an aging sea captain lives solely for the happiness of his child. Having penned a number of high profile femme centered scripts, such as Disobedience (2017) for Sebastian Lelio and She Said (2022) for Maria Schrader, Lenkiewicz returns to a distilled, sinister sense of uneasiness which she mined so eloquently in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (2013), where a relationship between women remains weighted down by a past they’ve been unable to articulate.…...

Robert Harris’ novel “Conclave,” a political papal thriller set in the Vatican as cardinals jostle and conspire to elect a new Pope, was released in September 2016, coincidentally just weeks after House Productions, which would produce the film adaptation, had been officially launched by Tessa Ross and Juliette Howell.

Some eight years later, and “Conclave” — directed by Edward Berger and with Ralph Fiennes in the lead role — is now one of the titles to beat in awards season, going into the Oscars with eight nominations (including best film) and the BAFTAs with leading haul of 12, and with a box office already approaching $90 million.

For House, which worked on several noted film and TV projects in the meantime, producing the Zac Efron-fronted wrestling drama “The Iron Claw,” exec producing last year’s Oscar winner “The Zone of Interest” (considered by many to be one of the top films of 2023) and being...

Miami-based FiGa Films has sold “Beloved Tropic” (“Querido Tropico”), the debut fiction feature of Panamanian documentary filmmaker Ana Endara, to Costa Rica-based Pacifica Grey ahead of its market debut at Ventana Sur.

Starring Chile’s Paulina Garcia, who clinched a Berlinale Best Actress Silver Bear for her turn in Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria,” the drama was pounced on by Spain’s Vitrine prior to its debut at the San Sebastian Film Festival in September.

Said FiGa founder-ceo Sandro Fiorin: “I’m honored to be collaborating with Ana Endara, who I’ve admired for years. She’s a real talent, with a precise director’s touch. Ana is definitely going places, we’re lucky to have her as part of our family.”

For Pacifica Grey founder Marcelo Quesada, whose company acquired the rights to the drama for Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize and the Dominican Republic, “Beloved...

Exclusive: Department M, the independent studio founded by Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer, has acquired the film rights to the acclaimed nonfiction book Send Me: The True Story of a Mother at War, by Marty Skovlund Jr. and Joe Kent and tapped Jessica Goldberg to adapt the script. Department M will produce the feature adaptation alongside Patrick Newall.

The book follows Shannon Kent’s story, who served as an “operator” in the U.S. Military, which of the 1.3 million active-duty service members in the U.S. military, only a tiny fraction are selected in the role. Kent was one of the first women to serve at this level and was widely recognized as one of the best. She was assigned to a unit so secretive that its name can’t even be printed here, where she worked clandestinely to hunt the most wanted terrorists in the world, and in the end,...

In this episode, we dive into the relationship between writing and editing. Soledad Salfate is a Chilean editor with a 25-year career and over thirty edited films. She began her career working with Alicia Scherson and Rodrigo Sepúlveda and later became a frequent collaborator of Sebastián Lelio, for whom she edited Navidad, Gloria and Una mujer fantástica, winner of the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.In addition to working with renowned Chilean directors like Fernando Guzzoni, Cristián Jiménez and Alejandro Fernández Almendras, her experience also includes projects from edited films from other Latam countries including Plaza Catedral, by Abner Benaim; Delirio, by Alexandra Latishev; Pedro Páramo, by Rodrigo Prieto, and Horizonte, by César Augusto Acevedo,—both of which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. On the other hand, Alejandra Márquez Abella is a Mexican director with fifteen years of experience in film and television. In 2015 she presented in...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

U.K.-French film company Alief has boarded supernatural drama “Horizonte” by Colombia’s César Augusto Acevedo, winner of the 2015 Cannes Camera d’ Or for his debut feature “Land and Shade” (“La tierra y la sombra”). “Horizonte” is Acevedo’s sophomore feature, which had its world premiere at the 49th Toronto Film Festival in early September.

“We have been fans of Cesar Augusto since his first film, ‘Land and Shade,’” said Alief’s Miguel Angel Govea who described “Horizonte” as a “solid story of regret and redemption.”

“We were drawn by Acevedo’s lyrical screenplay, mesmerizing visuals and the standout performances by Chile’s grande dame, Paulina Garcia (Sebastian Lelio’s ‘Gloria’) and Colombian leading man Claudio Cataño, who stars in Netflix’s upcoming ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’” said Govea who said that Alief first eyed the drama at the 2024 Toulouse Cinélatino Films in Progress 43 where it won the...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Aiming to optimize and streamline the development and production of films and series in the international marketplace, Maquina, a new production entity comprising three companies, has launched at the 72nd San Sebastian Festival.

Formed by three firms led by seasoned Chilean producers – Augusto Matte’s London-based Deptford Film, Úrsula Budnik’s Horamágica in Valdivia and Fernando Bascuñán’s Santiago-based Planta – Maquina has been established to leverage the combined strengths of its founding partners, all of whom are attending the prominent Spanish festival.

“We’ve always wanted to work together, Maquina provides us with a more flexible structure that allows us to be more agile and practical,” Matte told Variety, explaining: “It is conceptually inspired by the idea of machinic assemblages, which refers to a fluid and dynamic system where different elements come together to create a functional whole without a fixed center.”

Added Budnik: “This means that the structure operates...

For more than 70 years the San Sebastian International Film Festival has been considered the premiere hub for connecting Europe’s film industry to Latin American cinema and filmmaking talent. The festival has long supported the early works of famed Latin American filmmakers ranging from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles to Argentina’s Daniel Burman whose respective early works Foreign Land and A Chrysanthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas both screened at the festival.

In more recent years, Spain’s most prominent festival has made strides in strengthening the special relationship between Europe and Latin America through the creation of sections such as Works in Progress Latam (established in 2002) and its Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum (established in 2012). It was in the former that esteemed Chilean director Sebastián Lelio was given the Wip Latam Award in 2012 for his project Gloria.

“We have a very special relationship with the Latin American market,” says San Sebastian festival director José Luis Rebordinos.

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Veteran producer-distributor David Kosse has set up a development deal with Prime Video for the UK under his new production outfit Rockwood Pictures.

Kosse was most recently the London-based head of international film at Netflix.

The company’s development deal sits with the streamer’s UK licensing team under Chris Bird, managing director of Prime Video UK. It will cover the development and production of films, Prime Video confirmed to Screen.

The London-based Kosse set up Rockwood in 2023 and has kept a tight lid on his strategy so far, but is known to be quietly developing a slate of film...

Veteran producer-diistrbutor David Kosse has set up a first-look development deal with Prime Video for the UK under his new production outfit Rockwood Pictures.

Kosse was most recently the London-based head of international film at Netflix.

The company’s development deal sits with the streamer’s UK licensing team under Chris Bird, managing director of Prime Video UK. It will cover the development and production of films, Prime Video confirmed to Screen.

The London-based Kosse set up Rockwood in 2023 with former Netflix colleague Claire Willats, who led the Nordics team at the US streamer and produced films such as Troll,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Gloria Gloria, now streaming on Mubi

The camera barely leaves star Paulina Garcia's Gloria as she puts in a magnetic performance at the heart of Sebastián Lelio's drama. With divorce a decade behind her, at 58, she's looking for a fresh start in romance and wonders if the more recently single Rodolfo (Sergio Hernandez) might provide it. Though this might sound like a familiar tale, the Chilean writer/director avoids sentimentality and cliche to serve up a slice of feminist drama that acknowledges the challenges faced by its protagonist and celebrates her strengths, without resorting to cheap gimmicks or easy resolutions.

Hustlers, Film4, 11.30pm, Thursday, September 19

Although she did receive a Golden Globe nomination, Jennifer Lopez should easily have snagged an Oscar nod for her role in Lorene Scafaria's well-written adaptation of a New Yorker story charting a complex scam orchestrated by a group of strippers. Lopez plays the brassy Ramona,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Making good on a recent slew of awards at Venice for Chilean films, Chile will be the Venice Production Bridge’s Focus Country in 2025.

The announcement will be made Thursday from the Venice Film Festival by Carolina Arredondo, Chile’s Minister of Culture, Arts, and Heritage as Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s “María,” starring Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, world premieres on Venice’s Lido.

“This is a significant achievement for our creators, who have found in Venice a crucial platform to internationalize their projects,” Arredondo underscored. “Being the Focus Country will allow us to strengthen Chile’s audiovisual industry and attract new opportunities for co-production and global promotion.”

The honor comes after a decade or more, broadly dating back to Larraín’s 2012 “No,” starring Gael García Bernal, when Chile has punched way above its weight as an international film force. Chilean films’ Academy Award tally...

Santiago, Chile — Climaxing Saturday night with an awards, ceremony, where Santiago Maza and Diego Luna passion project “State of Siege” took top honors, Santiago de Chile’s Sanfic and industry arm Sanfic Industria delivered a vibrant edition, confirming the joint event as one of the three key festival-markets in South America.

This year’s double event also reflects larger change at work coursing through industries in Latin America and much of international. Following, seven takeaways and highlights from the 2024 event, which runs Aug. 18-25 in Santiago de Chile.

Sanfic Still Grows

Other key festivals around Latin America have seen their budgets slashed by governments, though the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival this October and Mexico’s Guadalajara Festival next June could be staging a comeback. Meanwhile, Sanfic and Sanfic Industria have held and indeed grown, recuperating pre-pandemic levels of 40,000 ticket sales by 2023.

Submissions for Sanfic Industria’s key sections, for example,...

A trio of Chilean filmmakers who have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards are attending the Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic) together for the first time.

Sebastián Lelio, who clinched a Best International Oscar for his 2017 drama “A Fantastic Woman,” Maite Alberdi, twice nominated for her last two docs “The Mole Agent” and “The Eternal Memory” and Pablo Larrain, whose “No” was shortlisted for Best International Film in 2013, “El Conde” for its cinematography this year and a Best Actress nom for Kristen Stewart in 2021’s “Spencer,” will be honored at the festival’s inauguration August 18 for their extraordinary contributions to Chilean cinema, and indeed, the world’s.

All three have been recognized by some of the most important film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian and together have amassed accolades from a slew of critics and awards events.

“They represent the Big Three of Chilean cinema, not...

Daisy Edgar-Jones has twisted out of the upcoming Carole King biopic.

After previously being announced as cast in the lead role in 2022, “Twisters” star Edgar-Jones told Variety that she is “no longer” set to portray singer/songwriter King onscreen.

“That’s no longer happening,” Edgar-Jones said. “I love Carole and I love that story, but it was a year ago that they decided [to no longer pursue it].”

“I did learn a lot of piano. I think it’s a gorgeous story, and the script probably needs a little more time in the oven. But I did meet Carole King on Zoom, and I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing ever,'” she added. “She really enjoyed ‘Normal People,’ so she was a fan of that and I was a fan of hers. I get so starstruck by musicians, much more than actors, and Carole was one where it was quite hard to keep my cool.

Launched last year by Wes Anderson’s producing partners at Indian Paintbrush, Galerie has emerged as a well-curated film club publishing unique selections of films from artists with their personal annotations. With past lists from the likes of James Gray, Ed Lachman, Mike Mills, Karyn Kusama, Ethan Hawke, and more, today we’re pleased to exclusively share a sneak peek from the lists of two celebrated Chilean filmmakers, Pablo Larraín and Sebastián Lelio, which have recently landed on the site.

Both filmmakers are currently working on their latest projects: Larraín is helming the Angelina Jolie-led Maria Callas drama, while Lelio is handling the musical The Wave, inspired by Chile’s “feminist May” movement in 2018. While in post-production on the projects, they’ve shared their curated collections.

The Spencer and El Conde director features Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendor and Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing on his list,...

Exclusive: Activist Artists Management has signed Chilean actress Renata González Spralja (The Wave) for representation, with Bernie Cahill and Justin Deanda to run point for the new client.

Most recently, Spralja wrapped production on The Wave (La Ola), a musical feature directed by Oscar and Goya winner Sebastián Lelio (A Fantastic Woman). Produced by Pablo Larraín’s Fabula, the film inspired by a true story from 2018 tells the story of a Chilean student who gets involved in a feminist movement on her university. Suddenly, she finds herself becoming a central figure in the movement.

Previously, Spralja worked with Larraín and Fabula on Llévame al Cielo (Take Me to Heaven), the first Chilean Disney+ series, which is slated for release worldwide this year. She made her screen debut opposite Giancarlo Esposito in Blackbird, a four-episode English-language marketing miniseries produced by Fabula for Nissan, and continues to be represented by Constanza Arena...

Richard Gere

Photo: Darren Goldstein and Courtesy of Lionsgate

We have good news and bad news for Richard Gere, star of the upcoming drama Longing. The good news: Gere’s character, Daniel Bloch, just found out that he’s a father. The bad: His new son is dead. With his English-language remake of Longing,...

“The Hyperboreans,” the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry from Chile, defines the inventive works that have emerged from this small nation. Many of its films touch on traumatic national events of the past but play with rarely explored genres in the region. Case in point: the country’s recent Oscar submission, “The Settlers,” about Chile’s bloody colonial 1901 battle in its south, is a neo-Western.

Helmed by animation mavens Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, “The Hyperboreans” (“Los Hiperbóreos”) combines live action and stop-motion animation in a story that also stands out for its singularity. In it, Chilean actress and psychologist Antonia Giesen films a script from her patient’s mind, leading to a reality-bending spiral when she discovers it originates from Nazi poet Miguel Serrano.

“We planned this as an exhibition of the filming process at an art gallery in Chile, so we filmed this in a single space and with only one actress,...

Industry veterans and producers Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Frank Murray (First Reformed), have launched Hangtime, a transatlantic production company headquartered in both London and New York.

Unveiled Tuesday as the duo works from the Cannes Film Festival and market, Hangtime will develop and produce U.S. and regional content with global appeal.

The partnership will focus on specialist and mainstream content across film, television, and documentaries in both English and Spanish language. The team is backed by an eight-figure investment out of New York and are in the late stages of securing an additional development fund.

Their lineup across film and television will span all genres including drama, crime, thrillers, action/adventure, horror, and sci-fi.

Whilst remaining true to “unwavering creative integrity, the company is built as an agile development-to-delivery operation with a focus on the fundamentals of production efficiency.” Hangtime will also work with partners to be...

Exclusive: Veteran producers Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Frank Murray (First Reformed) have teamed up to launch Hangtime International Pictures, a new transatlantic production company headquartered in London and New York.

Backed by an eight-figure investment out of New York, the company will focus on developing and producing what London-based Murray and NYC-based Torresblanco described to us as “U.S. and regional content with global appeal.”

The partners told us they will work on high-end, specialist, and mainstream content across film, television, and documentaries in both English and Spanish. In addition to the US and Spain, Torresblanco and Murray told us they will prioritize producing content in other key markets, including the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and Latam. The company is currently in the process of securing cash for an additional development fund.

“We are so very thankful to our backers for believing in our vision for Hangtime,” Murray told us.

Exclusive: Element Pictures is coming off the back of yet another buzzy awards season with its absurdist comedy Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, notching 11 Oscar nominations and coming home with four wins, including Best Actress for Emma Stone. But just when it feels like the company’s trajectory can’t get higher, the Irish-Anglo production, distribution and exhibition banner is hitting the Croisette this year with no less than three films in the Cannes official selection. Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness, which reunites him with his long-term writing partner Efthimis Fillipou and Poor Things stars Stone and Willem Dafoe, will compete for the Palme d’Or, while French actor Ariane Labed’s directorial debut September Says and I Am Not a Witch director Rungano Nyoni’s sophomore feature On Becoming A Guinea Fowl are both screening in the Un Certain Regard section.

It’s especially significant to Element co-founders...

Fremantle and Fabula have renewed their first-look partnership with an agreement they say will result in them working even more closely to develop a fresh slate of original dramas and films.

Under the accord, Fremantle’s international sales wing, Fmi, will distribute the drama projects worldwide.

Global production and distribution company Fremantle and Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Santiago, Chile-based banner Fabula struck their original first-look deal in 2019.

Under the accord, Fabula has produced prize-winning series La Jauría and Señorita 89 as well as the upcoming Midnight Family for Apple TV+, a 10-episode medical drama inspired by the award-winning documentary of the same name.

On the feature film front, Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebastián Lelio’s film musical The Wave, in partnership with Participant Media.

The drama tells the story of the mass university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “Feminist May” in...

Some cool international film news dropping before Cannes unveils their line-up, Variety gets the exclusive scoop on a new Sebastián Lelio project flying off our radar. Production is now complete on The Wave — a musical inspired by the mass protests and university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “feminist May” movement in 2018. Production took place over the past two months back in Chile. After 2022’s The Wonder, we were thinking that he’d move towards previous studio type projects in sci-fi pitched Apple/A24 Bride (last mentioned in 2020) or Voyagers but Lelio focused on a local uprising with the curious choice of utilizing the musical genre for a hard-hitting moment in Chile’s recent history.…...

Oscar-winning Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has wrapped production on the newly announced musical film “The Wave,” inspired by the mass protests and university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “feminist May” movement in 2018.

The film — starring newcomers Daniela López, Avril Aurora, Lola Bravo and Paulina Cortés — centers on Julia, a dedicated music student who gets involved in the growing feminist movement on her university campus — a group effort where women step up to bring attention to the widespread harassment and abuse suffered by many of their peers. Amid the excitement of protest marches, she joins her friends in dancing and singing, revisiting her own experiences of mistreatment. But as she gathers the courage to share her story, she unexpectedly becomes a central figure in the movement. It’s a role she didn’t foresee, but one which forces her to address her identity as a survivor in a...

Oscar-winning director Sebastián Lelio has wrapped production and released first images on his new musical film The Wave (La Ola), inspired by the protests and university rallies that took place in Chile during the so-called “feminist May” in 2018.

The film, which stars newcomers Daniela López, Avril Aurora, Lola Bravo and Paulina Cortés, shot on location in Chile for nine weeks.

It centres on Julia, a dedicated music student, who gets involved in the growing feminist movement on her university campus to protest widespread harassment and abuse suffered by many of their peers. Julia joins her friends in dancing and singing,...

Oscar-winning filmmaker Sebastián Lelio has wrapped production on musical film The Wave (La Ola) inspired by the wave of feminist civil disobedience that swept Chile in the spring of 2018.

The mass protests and university rallies, sparked by a collective desire to bring attention to widespread harassment and abuse against women in Chile, came to be known as the “Feminist May”.

The movement was seen as a turning point for Chilean consciousness around women’s rights, reverberated across the world.

The movie’s original musical compositions have been created collaboratively by 17 female Chilean musicians including Ana Tijoux, Camila Moreno and Javiera Parra, as well as the film’s award-winning composer Matthew Herbert, whose credits include Lelio’s The Wonder, A Fantastic Woman, Gloria Bell and Disobedience.

The choreographer is award-winning Ryan Heffington who has worked with recording artists including Sia, Florence and the Machine and Christine and the Queens as well...

Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has revealed details of his new film, The Wave, a Spanish-language production the director of The Wonder and A Fantastic Woman has shot under the radar in Chile over the past nine weeks.

A musical, The Wave was inspired by the mass demonstrations protesting violence against women that swept Chile in 2018, galvanizing the feminist movement in the country and leading to constitutional reform on the rights of women.

The film follows Julia (newcomer Daniela López), a Chilean music student who gets involved in the growing feminist movement on her university campus. While joining her friends in dancing and singing as part of the protests against gender-based violence, Julia revisits her own experiences of mistreatment. She unexpectedly becomes a central figure in the movement that is pushing for change in a society that is resistant to it. Produced by Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Rocío Jadue and Lelio,...

Sebastián Lelio is setting the soundtrack of a feminist revolution with musical film “The Wave (La Ola)” — it just wrapped production.

The Academy Award-winning director helms the film that follows music student Julia (Daniela López) who gets involved in the growing feminist #MeToo movement on her university campus. Amid the excitement of protest marches, per the official synopsis, Julia joins her friends in dancing and singing, revisiting her own experiences of mistreatment. As she gathers the courage to share her own abuse story, she unexpectedly becomes a central figure in the movement — a role she didn’t foresee, which forces her to address her identity as a survivor in a society that promises change but remains resistant to it.

Avril Aurora, Lola Bravo, and Paulina Cortés also star. See below for first-look images.

Lelio co-wrote the screenplay with Manuela Infante, Josefina Fernández, and Paloma Salas. The writer/director/producer was...

UK director Molly Manning Walker is among the six filmmakers who have been selected for Cannes Film Festival’s annual La Résidence programme for first- or second-time directors, running March 15-July 31.

Walker won the Un Certain Regard award last year for her debut feature How To Have Sex, which also picked up the European film award for discovery and four Bafta nominations.

She is joined by Oscar-nominated director Daria Kashcheeva from the Czech Republic. Her 2020 film Daughter was nominated in the best animated short film category while her next project Electra won best short film at Toronto last year.

The...

UK director, writer and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker, who won the Cannes Un Certain Regard prize last year for How To Have Sex, has been selected for the festival’s four-and-a-half month La Résidence program in Paris.

She will be joined by Aditya Ahmad (Indonesia), Daria Kashcheeva (Tajikistan), Danech San (Cambodia), Ernst De Geer (Sweden) and Anastasiia Solonevych (Ukraine).

They follow in the wake of Meltse Van Coillie (Belgium), Diana Cam Van Nguyen (Vietnam/Czech Republic), Hao Zhao (China), Gessica Généus (Haiti), Andrea Slaviček (Croatia), Asmae El Moudir (Morocco) who are currently coming to the end of their residency.

Both intakes will be brought together at the Cannes Film Festival’s 77th edition, running May 14 to 25.

Since its launch in 2000, La Résidence has welcomed 250 directors from around 60 countries including Lucrecia Martel, Kornél Mundruczó, Sebastián Lelio, Antonio Campos, Karim Aïnouz and Jonas Carpignano.

Based in a large flat in Paris’ ninth arrondissement,...

Superman fan art brings together all six confirmed metahumans sporting their full Dcu looks. Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Metamorpho could be the first members of a Dcu Justice League team. Superman's villain and supporting superheroes could also be the first members of their own teams: The Authority, the Green Lantern Corps, and the Terrifics.

All six confirmed metahumans in James Gunn's Superman sport their Dcu looks in beautiful piece of fan art inspired by DC Comics. With Superman's production underway, the imminent reveal of Superman's Dcu cast in full costume is approaching. Superman's logo has been confirmed to draw inspiration from Alex Ross' Kingdom Come design, inspiring many artists to offer their own take on what Superman's Dcu suit will look like. Other than that, all information about James Gunn's Superman movie and its multiple metahumans may only be revealed once the first official Superman trailer arrives.

Guillermo del Toro is currently working on his gothic horror adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is a property that suits the director’s storytelling style. Fresh off of Netlfix’s Pinocchio, Frankenstein will count as the second outing for the director with the streaming giant. The director is also set to do other projects with the streaming giant as well.

Guillermo del Toro

As a part of the production process, Guillermo del Toro has scouted some brilliant locations for his film, such that fans are now clamoring for a behind-the-scenes travel logue with the director, going through the locations that the director has made public via social media.

Suggested“What you’re making is already a movie”: Hideo Kojima Would’ve Left Gaming If Not for Guillermo del Toro

Fans want to go on the adventure with Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro

Frankenstein as a story calls for powerful,...

Chilean film and TV shows scored 309 awards around the world in 2023, CinemaChile announced in January. One month later, CinemaChile, the national promotion board, is turning 15 at Berlin. The consequence of longterm uninterrupted promotion of an industry must not be underestimated.

Over the last 15 years, film and TV have seen two seismic revolutions: Streamers’ Dtc distribution; the explosive rise of production levels across the globe.

The latter has left huge hostages to fortune, suddenly underscoring the significance of national support orgs such as CinemaChile. Below, 10 points on CinemaChile by way of introduction to the often ignored missing link in the latest evolution of the international independent industry: National film agencies.

Why National Film Agencies Are So Useful These Days

In 2005, Argentina released 74 features, Brazil 73, Mexico 33 and Chile 11. Cut to 2022, and those figures had skyrocketed respectively to 230, 173, 88 and 38, a 176% increase in collective levels from 191 films to 529. As slews of films challenge for sales and theatrical release abroad,...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. Strand Releasing opens “All Shall We Bell” on Friday, September 20.

Partway into “All Shall Be Well,” the main character meets a lawyer friend in a bar one night. “Why did you wait so long to see me?,” the lawyer asks the other woman sitting across from her, regarding an ongoing dispute over an inheritance. “I thought we were all family,” replies the lead. After a light chuckle, the friend says, “Even mother and son fall out when money’s involved.” Set in Hong Kong, this deeply moving fourth feature from writer-director Ray Yeung tenderly explores the aftermath of unexpected loss, where the uncertainty and chaos of the immediate grieving period is compounded by delicate negotiations that need addressing amid a very specific set of circumstances.

Both in their late sixties, Angie (Patra Au Ga Man) and Pat...

A quick Google search will reveal a whole lot of articles talking about the death of the "Movie Star" in the 21st century. Brands and IPs have replaced A-listers as the biggest selling points for films over the last 25 years, there's no denying that. Still, things may not be quite as dire as they appear. For one, audiences seem to be growing a little tired of the franchise model lately. For another, there's a small group of 20-something actors who are steadily making a bigger name for themselves and carving out a career much like the mega-stars of old did.

Their ranks include Timothée Chalamet and Florence Pugh, both of whom have been noticeably careful about the films they make and, just as importantly, the directors they work with. Between them, the pair have collaborated with the likes of Christopher Nolan, Luca Guadagnino, Paul King, Ari Aster, Wes Anderson, and...