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Exclusive: Kat Cunning (Rap Sh!t), McCabe Slye (Fear Street), Connor Paolo (The Last Stop in Yuma County) and Eddie Martinez (Night Swim) are set to topline Star People, an independently financed sci-fi drama marking the first narrative feature from writer-director Adam Finberg (The Business of Recovery), which has wrapped production in and around the Phoenix area.

Also in the cast are Martinez’s daughter Adriana Aluna Martinez (Max’s Duster), who here makes her feature debut, and Bradley Fisher (Beau Is Afraid).

Inspired by The Phoenix Lights of 1997, the largest mass UFO sighting in U.S. history, which saw assorted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern U.S., Star People tells the story of a photographer who receives a tip that could finally shed light on her childhood UFO sighting, though a deadly heatwave and unexpected guests threaten to derail her obsessive search for answers.

A Ukrainian expatriate group disseminated to press an open letter addressed to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, questioning whether Top Gun: Maverick should be allowed to remain in this year’s Oscar race following reports the film was partly funded by a Russian oligarch who put money in the film as a silent investor in LA-based New Republic Pictures.

The mega-hit – in which Tom Cruise reprised his role as US Navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell – is nominated for best picture, adapted screenplay, editing, original song, sound and visual effects in this year’s Academy Awards taking place this Sunday.

The Toronto-based Ukrainian World Congress (Uwc) asked AMPAS to review the film’s Oscar eligibility, following media reports in January that Russian billionaire Dimitry Rybolovlev indirectly helped finance the film. Rybolovlev is on a list of Russian businessmen sanctioned by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The purpose of the...

Stories centering on a cult are an interesting horror subgenre. It’s always fascinating to be introduced to a new group of strange characters, led by an even stranger character, who basks in the glow of their worship. Sometimes there is a supernatural element at play, other times, it’s just the evils of humanity that drive the story forward. But it’s always interesting to see this level of arrogance and charisma gather a group of followers and watch the dastardly things they will get up to in the name of “a higher purpose.” Waking Karma, directed by Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner (who also penned the screenplay) is an interesting addition to this corner of horror storytelling.

At a glance, Karma (Hannah Christine Shetler) is a pretty normal teenager. She lives with her single mother, she texts obsessively with her friends, she is excited to go away...

Between a creepy ritual murder and a montage of newspaper headlines about cults, Waking Karma shows promise in its first few minutes. The story then shifts to its young main character, Karma (Hannah Christine Shetler), who is struggling to tell her mother Sunny (Kimberly Alexander) about her acceptance to Harvard. What should be good news becomes the start of an uncomfortable and long overdue conversation. Karma doesn’t know how Sunny will react; the two have been inseparable since they escaped a cult.

Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner’s movie loses its mystique as soon as Karma asks her mother about her estranged father, Paul, and Sunny does what she always does; she acts shifty and stays quiet. Regardless of her weirdness, Karma doesn’t suspect anything. Not even when the two receive a foreboding letter from Paul, saying he’s coming for his daughter. The timing of the letter,...

Liz Fania Werner and Carlos Montaner's Waking Karma will be heading to VOD in North Ameica on January 26th from XYZ Films. Starring, Michael Madsen and Hannah Christine Shetler, we have a look at the first trailer!

Filmmakers Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner's thrilling new feature expertly combines paranoia and suspense into a psychologically destructive journey through the unknown. Coupled with dynamite performances from Michael Madsen and Hannah Christine Shetler, Waking Karma is primed to explode when it arrives on January 26th.

Karma and her mother have spent their lives evading Paul, her cult leader father (Michael Madsen). With Paul closing in as Karma reaches adulthood, she and her mother flee to a friend’s remote compound.

Paul tracks them there and traps them within its walls, putting Karma through a series of escalating tests designed to break her spirit and awaken an unholy inheritance that lives within her.

XYZ Films has let Bloody Disgusting know they will be releasing Liz Fania Werner and Carlos Montaner‘s dark thriller Waking Karma on North American VOD on January 26th.

A tale of buried family secrets and unbridled religious fanaticism, the psychological thriller stars award-winning actor Michael Madsen.

“Filmmakers Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner’s thrilling new feature expertly combines paranoia and suspense into a psychologically destructive journey through the unknown. Coupled with dynamite performances from Michael Madsen and Hannah Christine Shetler, Waking Karma is primed to explode when it arrives on January 26th.”

Exclusively watch the Waking Karma trailer below.

In the film, “Karma and her mother have spent their lives evading Paul, her cult leader father (Michael Madsen). With Paul closing in as Karma reaches adulthood, she and her mother flee to a friend’s remote compound.

“Paul tracks them there and traps them within its walls, putting...

Replacement directed yet to be announced.

A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish directorr withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.

Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.

A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.

The feature is also being...

Replacement directed yet to be announced.

A Manual For Cleaning Women will no longer be Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language feature directorial debut after the Spanish master withdrew, citing “a very painful decision”.

Cate Blanchett will star and produce through Dirty Films, however Almodóvar said he was not ready to tackle a project of such magnitude. No replacement director has been announced yet.

A Manual For Cleaning Women is an adaptation of Lucia Berlin’s short story collection of the same name comprising 43 tales of women in challenging jobs. Almodóvar and Berlín co-wrote the screenplay adaptation.

The feature is also being...

Exclusive: Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar will not be making his first English-language feature directorial debut with A Manual for Cleaning Women, which has Cate Blanchett set to star and produce under her Dirty Films, Deadline has learned.

The filmmaker finally had all the elements to realize the magnitude of this future production. However, he came to the decision that he’s not ready to tackle such a monumental project in English. A search for another director is underway.

The feature project was first announced back in January based on Lucia Berlin’s 43-part collection of short stories, examining the lives of women working a wide variety of demanding jobs.

“It has been a very painful decision for me,” Almodóvar tells Deadline. “I have dreamt of working with Cate for such a long time. Dirty Films has been so generous with me this whole time and I was blinded by excitement,...

Click here to read the full article.

Jude Law’s banner Riff Raff Entertainment has hired former media attorney and film and TV investor Stephen Fuss as CEO, while also receiving a multi-million dollar capital injection from private equity firm Calculus Capital.

The new investment will allow Riff Raff to do more new hires, acquire premium IP and attach top screenwriters for projects, the company said on Wednesday. The deal follows Brian Oliver and Bradley Fischer’s New Republic Pictures signing a first-look deal for film and TV with the Jude Law- and Ben Jackson-run banner.

In 2018, Fuss set up StargrovePictures as a new venture capital fund for the UK creative industries. As a media attorney, Fuss advised Warner Bros., HBO and Sony Pictures, among others. And he oversaw over 750 million invested in film and TV projects, including major studio pics like Rise of the Planet of the Apes,...