News

Exclusive: Vmi Worldwide has boarded worldwide sales rights on Unwinding, a crime thriller starring Peter Facinelli, Ross McCall, and Yellowstone actor Q’orianka Kilcher.

The film’s supporting cast includes James Paxton, Darren Petite, Sarah Wynter, Avi Angel, Timothy V. Murphy, and Amanda Plummer. The film’s script was penned by Reza Ghassemi (In Full Bloom), who also directs. The film was edited by Elika Rezaee (Shayda). Scor was composed by Andrew Kawczynski (Dune).

Unwinding is described as a “neo-noir crime thriller about two private investigators (Facinelli and Kilcher) drawn into the high-stakes kidnapping of a senator’s son. As the case spirals into a labyrinth, they uncover the shadowy presence of a secret society operating behind a veil of political power. The deeper they go, the more dangerous the truth becomes.

Reza Ghassemi, Adam VillaSeñor, Peter Facinelli, Q’orianka Kilcher, and Rocco Bovo served as producers. The deal was negotiated...

Barbie director Greta Gerwig was notably snubbed in the best director category during the Oscar nominations on Tuesday. But following last year’s omission of any female filmmaker in the category, Anatomy of a Fall’s Justine Triet received a nomination.

Triet, Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things), Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) and Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) were nominated in the coveted category Tuesday morning.

Gerwig is a notable snub, as the Barbie director, throughout the awards season, received various best director nominations (the Directors Guild of America, the Golden Globes, Critics Choice) and wins (Palm Springs International Film Fest). She was also on various pundits’ prediction lists for best director, including from The Hollywood Reporter. Frontrunner Alexander Payne (The Holdovers) was also omitted.

Last year, no woman was nominated for best director. The nominees were Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), Todd Field...

Judd Apatow will return to host the 2024 Directors Guild of America Awards, the organization announced on Friday.

This will be Apatow’s fifth time hosting the annual awards show, which will take place this year on Feb. 10 at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, California. The filmmaker hosted in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023.

“It’s an honor to be hosting the DGA Awards for the 5th time,” said Apatow. “Just three more times and I’ll be eligible for health insurance.”

It was also announced that Beth McCarthy-Miller will return as awards chair this year.

“I’m honored to return as awards chair and to be a part of such a stellar night that highlights the amazing work my colleagues have done this year,” McCarthy-Miller said in a statement. “I’m thrilled that Judd will return as our host, keeping our ceremony grounded in connection, camaraderie, and, comedy.”

Apatow has directed, produced...

Winners to be announced at 76th Annual DGA Awards on February 10.

‘Barbenheimer’ filmmakers Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig are among the Directors Guild of America’s (DGA) Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film nominees for 2023.

Gerwig is the sole female nominee in the main category for Barbie (Warner Bros) alongside last weekend’s Golden Globe winner Nolan for Oppenheimer (Universal), Martin Scorsese for Killers Of The Flower Moon (Apple Original Films/Paramount), Alexander Payne for The Holdovers (Focus Features), and Yorgos Lanthimos for Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures).

The DGA nominations are a reliable guide to best director Oscar nominees,...

In the wake of the Golden Globes and the guild noms, only “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” are ticking every pre-Oscar box: Major Globes awards, making the DGA list, and receiving the SAG Ensemble nod.

While “The Holdovers” director Alexander Payne can cheer his inclusion as a DGA nominee, the comedy three-hander did not land a SAG Ensemble slot, even if Globe winners Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph got SAG nominations. For the DGA, popular hit “The Holdovers” was a predictable choice; voters include assistant directors and production managers who often lean more mainstream than the Oscars. Last year, Joseph Kosinski landed a DGA nod for “Top Gun: Maverick,” while the Oscar nomination went to “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Ostlund. Yorgos Lanthimos made this year’s DGA list, along with Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Greta Gerwig.

In addition to his SAG nomination, “Oppenheimer” star...

The Directors Guild of America has nominated Barbie’s Greta Gerwig, Oppenheimer’s Christopher Nolan, Poor Things’ Yorgos Lanthimos, Killers of the Flower Moon’s Martin Scorsese and The Holdovers’ Alexander Payne for the top feature film prize at its 76th annual DGA Awards. See the full list below.

After nominating no women for its marquee prize last year, the guild only went 1-for-5 this time, after Gerwig’s Barbie became the No. 1 movie of 2023.

Also following its 2023 script, the guild’s nominees for its First-Time Feature Film Prize include four women and one man: Manuella Martelli (Chile ’76), Noora Niasari (Shayda), A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One) and Celine Song (Past Lives), along with Cord Jefferson (American Fiction).

The DGA is a strong predictor of Oscar success historically, missing the eventual Best Director winner only eight times in 75 years. The group handed its top trophy to the Daniels for Everything...

The Directors Guild of America has officially unveiled the film nominees for the 2024 DGA Awards.

After announcing the TV nominations January 9, the Guild shared the film directors now in the running for the top prizes. The ceremony takes place on Saturday, February 10. Guild members can vote online starting today through Friday, February 9.

Greta Gerwig for “Barbie,” Christopher Nolan for “Oppenheimer,” Yorgos Lanthimos for “Poor Things,” Alexander Payne with “The Holdovers,” and Martin Scorsese with “Killers of the Flower Moon” are this year’s DGA nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film. Payne took a surprise best director spot from the likes of Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”), Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), or Celine Song (“Past Lives”), featured in the next category instead.

For Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Theatrical Feature Film, Nominated are: Cord Jefferson for “American Fiction,” Manuella Martelli for “Chile ’76,” Noora Niasari for “Shayda,” A.V. Rockwell...

Ali Abbasi brought her on as a casting director and as fate would have it Zar Amir Ebrahimi would go onto land the role that was originally not meant for her and win the Best Actress award (see here) at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. Holy Spider would catapult the actress to international recognition but as we learned, Ebrahimi was already making inroads onto significant contributions that premiered in 2023 with Shayda (a Sundance selection and Audience Award winner) and Venice preemed Tatami (a film that allowed her to cut her teeth as a director alongside Guy Nattiv).…...

Danger is never very far away in Noora Niasari’s confident debut, a deeply personal tribute to a generation torn between tradition and modernity. Focusing on the title character, Shayda hangs on a vulnerable but powerful performance from Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi as an Iranian divorcée hiding out from her abusive ex, who may or may not be planning to smuggle their daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) back to Iran.

This fear is played out in the jittery opening sequence, set in 1995, when Shayda and Joyce (Leah Purcell), a social worker of sorts, scope out an airport with Mona in tow. Both women impress upon Mona what to do if she should ever end up there against her will, noting repeatedly that blue uniforms equate with safety. Back at the women’s shelter, a shared hostel in a fiercely secret suburban location, Shayda wonders how she got to this...

The punk horror of Talk to Me, the beauty of Shayda and the heartbreak of Man on Earth – it has been a cracker year

The best Australian children’s books of 2023: Alice Pung, Davina Bell, Sean Avery and more

In these lists of the best Australian films of the year, I keep my eyes out for any patterns or trends. For example, three of 2022’s best titles were about rivers; half of 2021’s were documentaries; 2019 saw a sharp disconnect between the best versus the most popular Aussie films; and 2018 brought a batch of particularly bold and uncompromising works.

Perhaps this year, you, dear reader, can have a crack at discerning a pattern for yourselves. The 10 films below are a rather eclectic batch, spanning a wide range of genres – from dystopian drama to heartbreaking documentary, romance, outback noir, horror and more. To qualify for this list, films needed to have...

A 5-year-old Iranian child and her mother find refuge in an Australian women’s shelter while on the run from an abusive ex in Noora Niasari’s Shayda. It’s a very personal story for Niasari because she was that little girl, played in the film by new discovery Selina Zahednia, with Zar Amir Ebrahimi starring as her mom, Shayda. Niasari knew it was a risk to make her debut with a project so close to her heart. “There’s a really deep challenge when making work about one’s trauma,” she says. Produced by Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films, the film is Australia’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film.

Deadline: What made you want to tell this deeply personal story based on your own childhood? The whole experience must have been very emotional and difficult.

Noora Niasari: Yeah, absolutely. I lived in the women’s shelter...

Deadline on Monday launched the streaming site for its Contenders Film: International, featuring the full panel videos from Saturday’s award-season showcase of 12 movies submitted by their countries to this year’s Oscar International Feature race.

Click here to launch the streaming site.

Actors who took part in the discussions included South Korean entry Concrete Utopia‘s Lee Byung-hun, Renée Soutendijk from Netherlands’ Sweet Dreams, Eli Skorcheva from Bulgaria’s Blaga’s Lessons and Eliane Umuhire from Belgium’s Omen.

They were joined among others by directors including J.A. Bayona from Netflix’s Society of the Snow, Hugh Welchman from Poland’s The Peasants, Noora Niasari from Australia’s Shayda, llker Çatak from Germany’s The Teachers’ Lounge, Concrete Utopia‘s Um Tae-hwa, Ena Sendijarević from Sweet Dreams, Stephan Komandarev from Blaga’s Lessons, Omar Hilal from Egypt’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, Jude Anthany Joseph from India’s 2018 – Everyone Is a Hero,...

The Australian drama premiered at Cannes and stars Cate Blanchett.

Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.

The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.

The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...

For Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari, her debut feature Shayda has served as an authentic and honest exploration into her own personal childhood trauma. The film, which is being released by Sony Pictures Classics and won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition Audience Award in Sundance earlier this year, is Australia’s Oscar submission for the Best International Feature Oscar.

The film follows Shayda, a brave Iranian mother who finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter. Over Persian New Year, they take solace in Nowruz rituals and new beginnings, but when her estranged husband re-enters their lives, Shayda’s path to freedom is jeopardized.

It’s anchored by a heart-rendering performance by Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who won the best actress award in Cannes last year for her role in Holy Spider. Niasari writes, directs and produces with Dirty Films’ Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Coco Francini.

Related:...

Deadline’s Contenders Film: International award-season event launches Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. Pt, the latest in our series of showcases that this time turns the focus toward global cinema via discussions with the casts and creatives of 12 movies submitted by their countries for the 2024 Academy Awards’ International Feature race.

Click to sign up for and watch today’s livestream.

The 2023 Oscar ceremony was a triumph for international film. Going into the ceremony, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front was a winner already, having earned a spectacular seven nominations. If that wasn’t enough, it came away with four statuettes: one for International Feature, and three for Cinematography, Music and Production Design. Clearly this can’t happen every year, but, like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite before it, Berger’s World War I epic proved that boundaries are being broken down, and international film, once synonymous with arthouse,...

by Cláudio Alves

Immigrant stories manifest across multiple Oscar submissions this year. There's Sweden's Opponent and Australia's Shayda, with their focus on Iranian expats trying to rebuild in another nation, as well as a vital narrative thread in Germany's Teachers' Lounge. The films from Italy and Belgium turn their gazes to Sub-Saharan Africa, though their perspectives are inverted. Io Capitano considers an odyssey from Senegal to the Italian shore, while Omen starts with a Congolese immigrant looking back to his origins. One is a journey in search of a new life, the other a reflection on an old life left behind.

Each proposes a cinema hinged on the tension of modern realism and folkloric tradition, dictating wild tonal swerves and keeping in line with many of the most interesting African films in recent memory…...

Director Noora Niasari’s debut Shayda––and Australia’s submission for Best International Feature at next year’s Oscars––is quite literally a lifetime in the making. Largely inspired by traumatic events from her own childhood as an Iranian immigrant in Australia, Niasari has repeatedly expressed that she still has a difficult time speaking about her film, the events depicted continuing to touch a raw nerve even as she’s separated from them by decades. And while the resulting work is too narrative-focused to ever be described as a pure “memory piece,” it’s littered with highly specific, lived-in details that appear to be directly lifted from her own experiences.

The prominence of a Simba Happy Meal toy as a recurring factor in the plot, for example, feels like an inclusion only afforded relevance because the director was a child when first bearing witness to similar events. Of course a...

Spa Selections

“Carmen,” “Foe,” “Limbo,” Australia’s Oscar contender “Shayda,” “Streets of Colour” and “The Royal Hotel” have received the six nominations for best feature film at this year’s Screen Producers Australia Awards. The Spa Awards will be held on Thursday, March 21, 2024, the final evening of the Screen Forever conference.

In the documentary feature section, the nominations are “Flyaways,” “Harley & Katya,” “Living With Devils,” “Onefour: Against All Odds,” “The Cape,” “The Giants,” “The Jewish Nazi?” and “The Platypus Garden.” Nominations for best telemovie or miniseries production are “While the Men Are Away,” “The Claremont Murders,” “Wellmania,” “The Messenger,” “Bad Behaviour” and “The Clearing.”

“2023 was a year filled with a number of challenges for our industry, but the Australian screen sector continued to delight audiences globally with stories that share our unique culture and creativity,” said Spa CEO Matthew Deaner.

Storm Brewing

Hong Kong-made crime action film “The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell...

Bookmark this page for the latest updates in the territory.

Screen is listing the 2024 release dates for films in the UK and Ireland in the calendar below.

For distributors who wish to add/amend a date on the calendar, please get in touch with Screen here. Screen is also running a calendar for festival and market dates throughout 2024 here.

January

January 5

Priscilla (Mubi), One Life (Warner Bros), Scala! (BFI), Night Swim (Universal), Blank (Sparky)

January 6

Nabucco - Met Opera 23/24 (Trafalgar)

January 12

Poor Things (Disney), The Boys In The Boat (Warner Bros), Freaks Vs The Reich (Miracle/Dazzler), The Beekeeper (Studiocanal...

The submissions for this year’s Oscar for best international feature include some of the best of world cinema. Below is a rundown of the entries for the 96th Academy Awards. The 15-title shortlist is slated to arrive on Dec. 21, prior to the nominations announcement on Jan. 23 and the ceremony itself, which is dated for March 10.

Albania

Alexander

Director: Ardit Sadiku

Logline: A documentary about an engineer who, after being fired by the navy for dissidence, hijacked a warship to get himself an dhis family to freedom.

Prodco: Ardit Sadiku Film

Argentina

The Delinquents

Director: Rodrigo Moreno

Logline: A ticklish, gently surreal saga following two colleagues who collude in robbing the bank where they work.

U.S. distribution: Mubi

Armenia

Amerikatsi

Director: Michael A. Goorjian

Logline: An Armenian-American relocates to Armenia after WWII and ends up in a Soviet prison for the crime of wearing a tie.

U.S.

"Shayda" is a harrowing yet gentle exploration of an Iranian woman's life after escaping an abusive husband in Australia. The film sensitively addresses the trauma of domestic abuse while showcasing love for Iranian culture. The performances and cinematography contribute to a powerful portrayal of Shayda's emotional journey, offering both heart-wrenching and tender moments.

The directorial debut of Noora Niasari, Shayda is a harrowing but gentle exploration of an Iranian woman’s life after escaping an abusive husband in Australia. From the film’s opening scene to its final moments, Niasari exhibits empathy while sensitively handling a delicate topic. Shayda is sorrowful, distressing, and intense; the film, which was also written by Niasari, is equally full of love for Iranian culture as it is a story about trauma. Bolstered by an emotionally sensitive and heartbreaking performance by Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Shayda explores the unnerving, arduous journey of...

Tatami, the groundbreaking Iranian drama co-directed by Oscar-winner Guy Nattiv (Golda, Skin) and Cannes best actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Shayda, Holy Spider), has landed a number of major international territory deals following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

WestEnd Films has closed sales on the feature — the first to be co-directed by an Iranian and an Israeli filmmaker — for Italy (Bim Distribuzione), France (Metropolitan), Portugal (Nos), Benelux (Cineart), Greece (Cinobo), Scandinavia (Mislabel), Spain (Vertigo), Germany and Switzerland (Wild Bunch), and Israel (United King). Discussions are undergoing for North America, the U.K. and all remaining territories. Range are co-repping North America with Westend.

Based on real-life stories, Tatami follows Iranian female judokas Leila (Arienne Mandi) and her coach Maryam (Ebrahimi), who travel to the Judo World Championship intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the competition, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic...

"I am not afraid." Sony Pictures Classics has debuted a new US trailer for the outstanding film Shayda, marking the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Noora Niasari. It first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, winning the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic section. I saw it at Sundance and it's fantastic - one of the best feature debuts of this year. A young Iranian mother named Shayda and her six-year-old daughter find refuge in an Australian women's shelter during the two weeks of the Iranian New Year. When the girl's father shows up, it takes all of her courage to fight back and stop him from taking over. The extremely talented Zahra Amir Ebrahimi (also from last year's Holy Spider) stars, with Osamah Sami, Leah Purcell, Jillian Nguyen, Mojean Aria, Selina Zahednia, Rina Mousavi. Australia has submitted Shayda as their entry for the Academy Awards...

The Oscars Best International Feature Film race landed two major frontrunners on the same day on Thursday, with the United Kingdom submitting Jonathan Glazer’s chilling World War II drama “The Zone of Interest” and France following with Tran Anh Hung’s rapturous “The Taste of Things” in the one-film-per-country competition.

“The Zone of Interest,” set among German families who live on the outskirts of Auschwitz, won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won raves as one of the most original and unnerving films to deal with the Holocaust since “Son of Saul,” which won the Oscar in this category eight years ago. It was considered the obvious choice for the U.K. to submit.

France, on the other hand, had an extremely difficult choice between Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” starring Sandra Huller as a woman on trial for murdering her husband,...

Dissident Iranian film professionals are calling on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to consider an alternative film to represent Iran in 2024 Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category rather than the one submitted this week as the country’s official entry.

Iran’s government-controlled Farabi Cinema Foundation said Tuesday that it had selected Reza Mirkarimi’s The Night Guardian as the country’s submission to the 96th Academy Awards.

The announcement comes just days after the first anniversary of the beginning of the Woman Life Freedom protests, provoked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, after her police detention for not wearing her veil correctly.

More than 500 protestors have been killed by Iranian security forces over the past year and thousands have been injured. A number of directors including Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and most recently Saeed Roustayi have wound up in jail in a related...

by Cláudio Alves

"Shayda" is coming to US theaters on December 1st from Sony Pictures Classics.

Though I've hardly been running after Oscar contenders while at TIFF – apologies if that's what you wanted out of this coverage – the Best International Film race remains at the forefront of my mind. With new daily announcements, the festival's an excellent opportunity to catch some titles that could be hard to track down later in the season. So, a lot of my scheduling has been built around productions that might end up in that race or have already been confirmed for the 96th Academy Awards. Not all of the experiences are positive, but a few of them are revelatory.

Such is the case of Noora Niasari's feature debut, Shayda, representing Australia. If you thought Zar Amir Ebrahimi was remarkable in last year's Holy Spider, wait to see what she does here…...

Shayda

Section: Centerpiece

Director: Noora Niasari

Screenwriter: Noora Niasari

Logline: Noora Niasari’s fiction debut stars Zar Amir Ebrahimi as a survivor of domestic violence who wants to make a fresh start for herself and her daughter in Australia.

Panelists: Noora Niasari (director)

First Screening: September 13, 2:30 p.m. Est, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Key Quote: ““Shayda is a love letter to mothers and daughters. It’s about an Iranian mother and daughter who are starting a new life in an Australian women’s refuge, and it’s really a story of finding freedom, independence, and writing your own destiny. It’s actually inspired by personal experience. I was five years old when I lived in a women’s shelter with my mom, so this story has really lived inside me since then.” – Noora Niasari.

Click above to watch the panel video.

Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari has spent the entire year taking Shayda around the world. Earlier this year, the movie made its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival. From there, it screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia and closed Switzerland's Locarno Film Festival before making its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is where Niasari spoke with us about her film. Next month, it will head to the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea before returning home to Australia for its theatrical release.

"I've been able to find a distance from it in sharing it with audiences," Niasari said of her global tour of Shayda. We were on the 19th floor of the historic Fairmont Royal York hotel in a salon that overlooked the downtown core below and the horizon peeking beyond the skyscrapers. It wasn't hard to feel on top of the world in that room,...

The German festival will take place from September 28 to October 7.

Inshallah A Boy by Jordan’s Amjad Al Rasheed, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, and Paradise Is Burning by the Swedish director Mika Gustafson, a Venice Horirzons debut earlier this month, will bookend this year’s Filmfest Hamburg, taking place from September 28 to October 7) as the opening and closing films.

The programme of 132 feature films includes the German premieres of Venice titles including Yorgos Lanthimos’ Golden Lion winner Poor Things, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, and Sofia Coppola’s biopic Priscilla, and festival favourites from throughout the...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites.

“The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival chief Nam Dong-chul, speaking at an online press conference.

International guests expected to attend the festival include Luc Besson, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Japanese directors Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Korean Americans Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”).

Hong Kong-based superstar Chow Yun-fat has been named as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and will be in person to receive the award. The Korean Cinema Award will presented to the late Yun Jung-hee, the actress who starred in “The General’s Mustache” and Lee Chang-dong’s 2010 drama “Poetry.

by Nathaniel R

"Shayda" will be Australia's Oscar submission

We've already shared some news in our favourite non-acting Oscar category. The most exciting thing at the moment is the Danish finalists which include a film called either Promised Land or Bastard (depending on where its playing). Elisa tells us that its going to be a major contender and could even bag Mads Mikkelsen the Best Actor win in Venice. Other recent Oscar updates for this category involved submissions from Estonia, South Korea and Uruguay and a finalist list from Netherlands, and news from Switzerland, Chile, and Tajikstan. We now have 13 submissions. The charts have been updated. The latest exciting news is the finalist lists from two important countries who historically perform well in this category, Mexico and Sweden... ...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 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 December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Australia has selected Shayda, from Iranian-Australian debut writer and director Noora Niasari, as its submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar race.

The drama, which counts Cate Blanchett among its executive producers and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for North America among other markets, world premiered at Sundance in January where it won the World Cinema Audience Award.

It went on to open the Melbourne International Film Festival and was the closing-night screening at Locarno. It is next set for TIFF and will be released in Oz on October 5 via Madman.

The story follows a young Iranian mother and her 6-year-old daughter who find refuge in an Australian women’s shelter during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowruz), which is celebrated as a time of renewal and rebirth. Aided by the strong community of women at the shelter, they seek their freedom in this new world of possibilities,...

Iranian filmmaker Ali Ahmadzadeh clinched the Golden Leopard in the main international competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival with his latest feature Critical Zone (Mantagheye Bohrani).

Ahmadzadeh was not in attendance to receive the award as he is currently banned from leaving his native Iran. Last month, the country’s authorities summoned Ahmadzadeh to the Ministry of Security, where he was pressured to pull Critical Zone from Locarno’s official competition. The film’s international sales agent Luxbox Paris and the producer, Sina Ataeian Dena, also said they had received threatening emails and messages demanding the film be pulled from the fest.

The pic, described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran,” was shot without permission from authorities before recent protests started. The plot follows a man who drives through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs and healing troubled souls. Born in Tehran in 1986, Critical Zone...

The programme comprises 47 films from 45 countries.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the line-up for its Centrepiece programme, with 47 titles screening from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

Included in the programme (previously known as Contemporary World Cinema) are Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, getting its North American premiere; Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, receiving its Canadian premiere; and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a North American premiere.

Scroll down for the full list of Centrepiece titles

TIFF also announced additional titles for its Galas, Special Presentations and Documentaries programmes, among them the world premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Finestkind.

The Toronto International Film Festival has added 59 more films to the lineup of its 2023 festival, including 47 international films in the Centrepiece program, which in previous years was known as Contemporary World Cinema. New films were also added to the Galas, Special Presentations and Documentary sections.

World premieres among the new selections include “Finestkind,” a crime thriller from Brian Helgeland (screenwriter of “L.A. Confidential”) starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Foster; The Movie Teller,” a film set in Chile starring Berenice Bejo from “An Education” director Lone Scherfig; and Jessica Yu’s “Quiz Lady,” with Sandra Oh and Awkwafina.

The Centrepiece selections include a number of films from May’s Cannes Film Festival, among them Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” Aki Kaurismaki’s “Fallen Leaves,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel & Adama,” Amjad Al Rasheed’s “Inshallah a Boy,” Joanna Arnow’s “The Feeling That the...

Three projects win places at London’s Production Finance Market.

New Zealand producer Morgan Leigh Stewart has won the best pitch award at Melbourne International Film Festival’s industry market, which closed with confirmation that Miff Industry director Mark Woods is to step down after 16 years.

Stewart secured the prize for her efforts pitching relationship horror So Lonely I Could Die at 37ºSouth Market, Miff’s film co-financing event, which ran from August 3-6.

The film, written and directed by Andrew Todd and Johnny Hall (Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws), is produced by Auckland-based The Hot House and was seeking...

Howdy, Insider crew. It’s the traditionally quiet summer season in TV and film land but European festivals, big-ticket M&a and Middle Eastern politics have ensured it’s stayed noisy. Jesse Whittock guiding you through. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

Lionsgate Buys eOne

First out of the Gate: Sometimes, you’ve just gotta sell up and move on. Hasbro confirmed its week the news Nellie Andreeva and Mike Fleming Jr told you about in July — Lionsgate is the company buying the toy giant’s entertainment subsidiary eOne. Lionsgate had been competing with the likes of Fremantle and Cvc Capital Partners but has won out with a $500M deal for eOne TV and film divisions, whose key titles include Yellowjackets and The Woman King. Hasbro bought indie giant eOne for $4B back in 2019, prompting sarcastic remarks about the financial loss in our comments section and from market watchers.

As the first major international film festival mounted following SAG-aftrta’s decision to join the WGA in strike action against the studios, there was much speculation about how the Locarno Film Festival would adapt its lineup.

The fest lost its opening-night centerpiece at short notice, with UK actor-producer Riz Ahmed pulling out of an appearance during which he was set to receive Locarno’s Davide Campari lifetime achievement award. Fellow lifetime award recipient Stellan Skarsgård also pulled out of his festival engagements.

Instead, the fest pulled into motion Wednesday evening with a subdued opening-night ceremony. Proceedings began with the festival’s outgoing president, Marco Solari, opening the event for the last time following a 23-year tenure. He was followed onstage by artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who, despite Ahmed’s absence, pushed on with the Davide Campari lifetime achievement award presentation, handing the gong to director Yann Mounir Demange. The...

Exclusive: Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, who is an executive producer on Noora Niasari’s debut film Shayda, will not be attending the pic’s August 12 closing-night screening at the Locarno Film Festival out of support for the SAG-AFTRA strike. Niasari and star Zar Amir Ebrahimi will attend the movie’s play at the Swiss fest.

“As executive producer I couldn’t be more proud of Shayda, the remarkable debut feature from Iranian-Australian Noora Niasari, starring the extraordinary Zar Amir Ebrahimi,” Blanchett said in a statement to Deadline. “I celebrate the work of the whole filmmaking team and am thrilled that the film can be seen at the closing night of the glorious Locarno Festival next week.”

She added: “As a dedicated member of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Actors’ Council, I have made the difficult but necessary decision not to attend at this crucial time. Dirty Films wholeheartedly supports Noora Niasari’s resonant,...

Blanchett is executive producer of Noora Niasari’s ‘Shayda’.

Actors Riz Ahmed and Stellan Skarsgard will both miss next month’s Locarno Film Festival as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike, while negotiations are ongoing for the participation of Cate Blanchett.

Ahmed was due to receive the Davide Campari Excellence award, but will no longer attend the festival. Locarno will still play the world premiere of Yann Demange’s short Dammi starring Ahmed on its opening night, and Bassam Tariq’s 2020 title Mogul Mowgli, starring and co-written by Ahmed.

Skarsgard has chosen to forgo his honorary Leopard Club award in solidarity with the strike.

The Melbourne International Film Festival has confirmed that it will provide $202,000 will go to the winner of its Bright Horizons competition for features by first- and second-time directors. Bragging rights to being the richest film competition in the country previously belonged to the smaller CinefestOZ festival in West Australia, which follows later in August.

The Melbourne festival (in cinemas Aug. 3-20) has this year added two significant prizes: the inaugural First Nations Film Creative Award in collaboration with Kearney Group, and the return of the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award, worth $47,500 recognizing an outstanding Australian creative within a film playing in the Melbourne 2023 program.

Winners across long-form awards categories will be announced at Melbourne’s closing night gala on Aug. 19, These will include the juried prizes and the Miff Audience Award.

The First Nations Film Creative Award supports First Nations talent and storytelling with the recipient awarded a $13,500 cash prize and $16,900 worth of financial services.

"How do you plan on surviving there all alone?" Madman Films in Australia has revealed an official trailer for a wonderful film titled Shayda, marking the feature directorial debut of a talented filmmaker named Noora Niasari. This is screening soon at the 2023 Melbourne Film Festival before it opens in Australia this September. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, winning the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic section. I saw it during Sundance and it's fantastic - one of the best feature debuts of the entire year. A young Iranian mother named Shayda and her six-year-old daughter find refuge in an Australian women's shelter during the two weeks of the Iranian New Year. When the girl's father shows up, it takes all of her courage to fight back and stop him from taking over. The extremely talented Zahra Amir Ebrahimi (also from last year's Holy Spider) stars,...

Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi have joined the jury of the 76th Locarno International Film Festival and will judge the 2023 competitors for the festival’s Golden Leopard award. Ebrahimi also stars in Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, which will be the closing film in Locarno this year.

French actor Lambert Wilson, known for his performances in the Matrix films, will head up this year’s Locarno international jury as president. Also in the 2023 jury are European Film Academy director and CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at New York’s Lincoln Center.

The films of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, featuring works from first and second-time directors will be assessed by a three-person jury of Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, the French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees...

Cannes titles and debut features make strong appearances throughout the programme.

Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) has revealed the 11 titles in the running for its $93,400 competition prize, and will open with Shayda by Australian-Iranian director Noora Niasari.

The festival, which runs August 3-20, unveiled the titles at a programme launch this evening (July 11). Debut and second features are eligible for the Bright Horizons competition, which was introduced last year for the 70th edition, but debuts undoubtedly dominate this year.

Scroll down for full list of competition titles

In fact, the only undeniably second film is Mexican director Lila Avilés’ Tótem.