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Update: Twenty-five filmmakers linked with Mubi have added their names to a letter strongly criticizing the arthouse distributor for its relationship with investor Sequoia Capital over its ties to the Israeli military. The additional names include Israeli directors Ari Folman (“Waltz with Bashir”) and Nadav Lapid, plus Amalia Ulman, whose film “Magic Farm” Mubi released earlier this year, and Alex Russell, whose directorial debut “Lurker” was acquired by Mubi in Sundance and is set for release later this month.

The number of signatories now stands at 63, having almost doubled since Variety first published the July 30 letter, which urges Mubi to not just reconsider its relationship with Sequoia Capital but publicly condemn the company over what it describes as “genocide profiteering.” Radu Jude, Aki Kaurismäki, Miguel Gomes, Sarah Friedland, Joshua Oppenheimer and Cherien Dabis were among the first to sign.

Shortly after it was announced that Mubi had secured a $100 million...

As someone who’s always admired the look of the Czech embassy in Berlin––an array of nicotine-hued trapezoids that sits on the corner of Wilhelm Strasse––I was pleased to discover that the Spa Hotel Thermal in Karlovy Vary was designed up by the same architectural duo. Walking into town from the train station, it’s always the first thing you see: a reliable slab of brutalist concrete that towers over the town’s otherwise candy-colored skyline––one of which, The Grand Hotel Pupp, was even grand enough to inspire Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel.

The Thermal was constructed in the late 1960s and ’70s by Věra and Vladimír Machonin as a multi-screen theatre and central meeting point of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which at the time operated biannually, trading the spotlight each year with Moscow as the place for socialist cinema. That all changed after the Velvet Revolution and,...

Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and US producer and writer Joslyn Barnes of Louveture Films are among the among the jurors for the 2025 Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16).

Reygadas’ films include Cannes competition titles Silent Life and Battle In Heaven, while Barnes’ work as a producer includes Oscar-nominated documentaries Strong Island and Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, and she also co-wrote 2024 awards contender Nickel Boys.

Joining them on the festival’s international competition jury are Swiss actor Ursina Lardi, best known for Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon; and the Netherlands’ Renée Soutendijk, who won Locarno...

New York-based indie producer Joslyn Barnes (“Nickel Boys”), Mexican multi-hyphenate Carlos Reygadas (“Our Time”) and Swiss stage-and-screen actor Ursina Lardi (“The White Ribbon”) have been set as members of the upcoming Locarno Film Festival’s main jury.

As previously announced, Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh will preside over the Swiss indie festival’s competition panel. The jury also includes Dutch actor Renée Soutendijk, winner of the event’s female actor prize in 2023 for her role in Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams.”

Locarno titles in the Cineasti del Presente competition, dedicated to emerging directors at their first or second feature, will be judged by Indonesian actor Asmara Abigail, known to Locarno audiences for her performance in Malaysian director Ming Jin Woo’s “Stone Turtle” (2022); La Frances Hui, who is the curator of film at New York’s MoMA and co-chair of the museum’s New Directors/New Films festival; and Indian actor Kani Kusruti,...

What are the 100 best movies of the 2000s? It’s kind of a loaded question. The critics team here FandomWire set out to answer that question. There have been some fantastic entries from some incredible filmmakers, but we aimed to build a more comprehensive list with some hidden gems, some cult classics, and some undeniable masterpieces. The goal is to update the list each year as new releases earn their way into the ranking. But for now, check out the list and let us know what you think. Have you seen everything on the list, or do you have some blind spots? Let us know!

The 100 Best Movies of the 2000s Related: The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time 100. In the Loop (2009) In the Loop – The 100 Best Movies of the 2000s Directed by Armando Iannucci

Arguably one of the greatest adaptations of a television show to the big screen, In the Loop...

French distributor and exhibitor Sophie Dulac has announced the end of the Champs-Élysées Film Festival championing independent American and French cinema, following a tumultuous 14th edition in June in the wake of accusations of deteriorating staff conditions at her cinema group.

In a statement, Dulac said she had taken the “difficult decision” to stop the festival, thanking past cinema professionals, partners and members of the public who had supported the event.

She cited press reports and attacks, with “heavy consequences”, in the lead up to the festival as well as the progressive closure of cinemas on the Champs-Élysées, and a lack of financial support as the reasons.

Dulac’s decision follows a rocky edition for the festival in the wake of the firing in early June of Jean-Marc Zekri as the long-time director of the Reflet Médicis Cinema in Paris’ Latin Quarter, one of five theaters in the Dulac Cinémas network.

The Jerusalem Film Festival has issued a statement as it pushes on with its 42nd edition against the backdrop of a deepening Palestinian humanitarian crisis and Israeli hostage situation in Gaza, and less than a month after the 12-day Israel-Iran war.

The festival – running July 17 to 26 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque – will kick-off with a gala screening of Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prize winner Sentimental Value in the traditional opening ceremony at the Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre.

Other Gala screenings across the festival will include Ido Fluk’s Koln 75, Michel Franco’s Dreams and Wendy Sachs’s documentary October 8. Honorary guests will include Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and Oscar nominated producer Lawrence Bender, who will both receive career achievement awards.

Jerusalem Cinematheque and festival CEO Roni Mahadav-Levin and artistic director Orr Sigoli acknowledged the gravity of the period in which the festival is set to unfold.

If Nadav Lapid’s fifth film Yes! didn’t exist, it would be almost impossible to think of anything like it. A provocative, intensely sensory and dryly witty study of modern-day life in Tel Aviv, it is likely the first film by an Israeli to confront the elephant in the room: the ongoing war in Gaza. At the center of the story is a jazz musician called Y, a bohemian, artsy type who is fed up with his hand-to-mouth existence and so agrees to a lucrative commission, writing an upbeat song to inspire national pride in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks that took place on October 7, 2023. But what begins as a simple matter of selling out soon becomes much darker, and Y finds himself under pressure to write a war song.

Lapid has lived in Paris for the last three and a half years, and, as an outsider now,...

Things are changing in the Czech Republic, says Karlovy Vary Film Festival artistic director Karel Och. Also when it comes to the #MeToo movement.

“What we need is a conversation – and films like ‘Broken Voices,’” he says.

Ondřej Provazní’s drama, selected for the Crystal Globe Competition, was inspired by the Bambini di Praga case: a famous children’s choir which saw its choirmaster arrested and charged with sexual abuse of minors that went on for years.

“It’s a strong, intimate piece of cinema which ultimately succeeds in communicating strong political ideas. When I had lunch with the director and the producer, I realized that maybe our last year’s Audience Award winner ‘Waves’ – which reached almost 1 million spectators in Czech cinemas – opened up a new chapter in our cinema. The audience is now perceiving a film through its subject matter as well. There’s already a conversation about...

A few days after Cannes wrapped up last month, my IndieWire colleague Ryan Lattanzio published an interview with filmmaker Nadav Lapid, whose furious new satire of modern Israel quietly premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the very end of the festival. That was a curious and pronounced demotion for a rising auteur whose similarly blistering previous feature (2021’s “Ahed’s Knee”) had been selected for the main Competition, where it emerged from a stacked field to win the Jury Prize. But the world has changed over the last four years, and — according to French outlet Le Nouvel Obs — Cannes president Iris Knobloch is no longer comfortable with shining her festival’s brightest spotlight on a movie so hostile towards Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide.

Ryan’s headline, “You May Never Get to See Cannes’ Most Provocative and ‘Dangerous’ Movie,” epitomizes the sensationalism that ad-supported websites like ours sometimes lean on...

The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

Films by Richard Linklater, Oliver Laxe and Joachim Trier are among 53 titles selected by the Munich International Film Festival for its four main competition strands CineMasters, CineVision, CineRebels and CineCoPro.Munich runs from June 27 to July 6.

CineMasters

Oliver Laxe’s Sirat will be joined by another two Cannes 2025 Official Competition titles - Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Mascha Schilinski’s award-winning Sound Of Falling - to screen in the CineMasters competition for the €15,000 CineMasters Award. The prize is being sponsored for the first time this year by Dorint Hotels & Resorts and is presented to the director of the best international film.

Tel Aviv native, defector, and auteur Nadav Lapid opens his fifth feature in a catastrophic state of carouse. A filmmaker known for his employment of trademark dance sequences, Lapid is back with an equally visceral but uncharacteristically clubby groove in Yes!, a work whose sarcastically enthusiastic title points to the relentless ridicule and hometown mockery that defines it.

Raging through the night at a private house-club overflowing with Israeli elite so drunk they can’t communicate, we meet partymeister Y (Ariel Bronz). A life of the party, to put it lightly, the shitfaced thirty-something is quite literally bouncing off the walls. He’s so unhinged that no one can stop him from nearly drowning himself––not even his wife Yasmin (Efrat Dor), whose late-night effervescence holds a candle to Y’s, stopping just short of incidental suicide.

The mood gets grave as Yasmin performs post-pool-coma CPR. Then, suddenly, Y bursts back into action,...

“I truly don’t understand when the word ‘safe’ became positive in cinema and the word ‘dangerous’ became negative,” Nadav Lapid told IndieWire about his bold new film “Yes” at Cannes.

The most volatile, potentially conversation-stirring movie of the festival was one most attendees probably didn’t see. Not “Eddington,” not “Die, My Love,” but a late-breaker in the lineup whose director rushed to finish it before any red carpets rolled out on the Croisette.

Israeli filmmaker Lapid has been in the Cannes competition before, with 2021’s Jury Prize winner “Ahed’s Knee,” which centers on a director facing artistic censorship over his latest movie about a Palestinian activist. But there was no competition bow this year for Lapid’s in-your-face musical satire about a pair of Israeli artists who sign their souls over to a Russian oligarch to craft a post-October 7 nationalist anthem in support of their state. Instead, “Yes...

The general consensus surrounding the 2025 Cannes Film Festival was that the lineup this year proved to be surprisingly muted; with no shortage of exciting names both in front of and behind the camera, the pervading disappointment that began with the premiere of the bloated and repetitive “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” echoed throughout an edition that never quite caught fire, despite the caliber of talent consistently making its way along the Croisette. In any case, no year in Cannes is ever outright bad, and 2025 still saw its share of exciting features that will no doubt come to dominate movie discourse for the rest of the year and beyond.

In compiling a list of 10 movies from the Cannes festival 2025 to keep your eye on, there are a few titles that just barely miss out on the proceedings. Honorable mentions should therefore go to films like Joachim Trier’s competition standout “Sentimental Value,...

You’d have to look far and wide to find a film as aggressively confrontational as “Yes.”

Director Nadav Lapid wouldn’t have it any other way – staging his latest feature as a wail against his audience, his country, and above all, himself. Premiering at the tail end of Cannes’ independent and more outré Director’s Fortnight sidebar, if only because a film this incendiary might have burned up the whole Palais, “Yes” takes aim at post-Oct. 7 Israel, relaying civic dissent through primal screams.

Now living in France, the filmmaker has made national identity his chief artistic concern, wrestling with similar questions in his Berlin winner “Synonyms” and his Cannes acclaimed “Ahed’s Knee,” though never with the same ferocity he brings out here. One need hardly ask what changed in the years since Lapid last picked up a camera – a shift the filmmaker emphasizes by giving his lead character a child born on Oct.

No one was expecting Nadav Lapid to hold back in his first feature since the events of October 7, 2023: The Israeli filmmaker has long been cinema’s most vigorously expressive and outspoken critic of government policy in his birth country, with films like 2019’s “Synonyms” and 2021’s “Ahed’s Knee” bristling with fury and shame over Israel’s national military culture and artistic censorship. Even with those expectations firmly in place, however, Lapid’s new film “Yes” startles with the sheer, spitting intensity of its rage against the state, projected onto its amoral blank-slate protagonist: a self-abasing musician commissioned to compose a rousing new national anthem, explicitly celebrating the demolition of Palestine. A whirling, maximalist satire at once despairing and exuberant, subtle as a cannonball in its evisceration of the ruling classes and those who obey them, it’s both absurdist comedy and serious-as-cancer polemic: as grave as any film...

Nadav Lapid’s latest film, “Yes!”, arrives not as a gentle inquiry but as a sustained cinematic shout, a biting piece of political satire aimed directly at the heart of the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian situation. It constructs its narrative around an artistic couple, Y and Yasmine, who find their pathway through a society in turmoil is paved with continuous acts of acquiescence, particularly resonant in the period following the October 7 attacks.

The film’s confrontational spirit and aggressive visual language are immediately apparent, promising a journey through a landscape of bitter humor and raw, unapologetic energy. This is storytelling that doesn’t just present a scenario; it hurls it at the audience.

An Anthem for Abasement

The narrative centres on Y, a jazz musician played by Ariel Bronz, and Yasmine, a dancer portrayed by Efrat Dor. Their early scenes establish a life of performative survival: they engage in outlandish cabaret routines...

Horrified by the country of his birth and heavy with the weight of its sins, Nadav Lapid has created modern cinema’s most splenetic filmography by fighting his Israeliness as if it were an incurable virus infecting his body of work. 2019’s eruptive “Synonyms” was a semi-autobiographical identity crisis about a man who flees to Paris because he’s convinced that he was born in the Middle East by mistake, while 2021’s “Ahed’s Knee” was a similarly personal scream into the wind — this one rooted in the blue-balled impotence of artistic resistance amid an exultantly genocidal ethnostate.

Spasming with anger where Lapid’s previous features (“Policeman” and “The Kindergarten Teacher”) searched for hope, both of these movies were fringed with a sense of resignation that they fought tooth-and-nail to shake off. As a result, I naturally assumed that his follow-up feature — written in Europe before the events of October...

Break My Soul: Lapid Explores Compromised Artistry During Wartime

Essentially, Yes, the latest film from Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid, is a portrait of an artist as a compromised man. Its innocuous title is essentially a rebuke of a contemporary reality relating to submission as the only real truth of the world. Collectively and individually, we no longer have the luxury of saying ‘no.’ Resistance is futile, we must comply. Destined for instant controversy and an eventual time capsule documenting Israel’s normalizing of barbarism, Lapid’s latest is an admonition of almost shocking import, an increasingly rare example of modern art speaking truth to power.…...

Cannes film festival

Nadav Lapid’s brilliant, showy set-pieces present a caricature of decadence and heartlessness in a society haunted by 7 October

Nadav Lapid’s Yes is a fierce, stylised, confrontational caricature-satire that invites a comparison with George Grosz, dialled up to 11 in its sexualised choreography and almost radioactive with political pain. With icy provocation, Israel’s ruling classes are presented as decadent and indifferent to the slaughter and suffering of Gaza. But the film is also in some ways a sympathetic study of a people haunted by the antisemitic butchery of 7 October.

It is inspired by the activist group Civic Front, which after 7 October released a new version of Haim Gouri’s classic song Hareut, or Fellowship, with jarring new lyrics calling for wholesale extermination in Gaza. A fictional version of this song features here, with lyrics about attacking the bearers of the swastika (as in the original) but...

Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid has never shied away from the violence of his homeland, directing a handful of dramas — Policeman, The Kindergarten Teacher, Synonyms and Ahed’s Knee — where characters face explosive situations both externally and within, pursued by a relentless camera targeting their every move. His movies are deeply political, but also poetic and personal, eschewing traditional storytelling for an expressionistic approach marked by bravura stylistics, inner turmoil and the occasional musical number.

If Ahed’s Knee, which came out in 2021, was already a furious cri de coeur against the powers-that-be in Israel, the director’s latest feature, Yes (Ken), takes that premise to the next level. Focusing on a young couple, Y. (Ariel Bronz) and Yasmin (Erfat Dor), who sell their bodies and souls to the highest bidders, the film is deliberately in-your-face and outrageously decadent, assaulting the senses as it blatantly depicts acts of physical and psychological self-destruction.

Kirsten Niehuus, the CEO of the influential film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, Medienboard, welcomed guests to its traditional cocktail reception at the Cannes Film Festival for the last time on Saturday. But it’s unlikely international film folk have seen the last of Niehuus, who has a reputation for backing high-quality international films. Niehuus, who steps down at the end of June, is understood to be a frontrunner for another high-profile role within the Germany film business.

Niehuus is well-placed to become the new president of the German Federal Film Board, known as the Ffa, when Bernd Neumann steps down later this year. The Ffa is a powerful body within the German film landscape. It distributed 20 million euros ($22.5 million) to 50 projects for production and script funding last year, including cash for Cannes films like Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” and Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No. 3,” likely box-office hits...

Riley Keough has joined the cast of “Out of This World” directed by Albert Serra, the Spanish director whose 2022 film “Pacifiction” competed at Cannes and won a pair of Cesar Awards. Keough will star opposite F. Murray Abraham and Liza Yankovskaia (“Frau”).

Serra’s English-language film debut, “Out of This World” follows an American delegation traveling to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute. The project explores the decades-long rivalry between Russia and the U.S. While it will mainly shoot in English, it will also include some Russian dialogue. Kristen Stewart was previously attached to star in the movie.

“Out of This World” is being represented internationally by Alice Lesort’s sales team at Losange Films, Charles Gillibert’s auteur-driven sales and production boutique which is a sister label to CG Cinema. The feature, which marks Serra’s eighth film,...

More than 350 film world figures, including Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Javier Bardem, have published an open letter on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival condemning “silence” over the deadly impact of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

The letter, published on the website of France’s Libération newspaper on Monday evening, was headed “In Cannes, the horror Gaza must not be silenced”. It was addressed “For Fatem”, in memory of 25-year-old Gaza artist and photojournalist Fatima Hassouna.

The young woman was killed in an Israeli airstrike in mid-April just 24 hours after it was announced a documentary exploring her life in the Gaza Strip would world premiere in the Cannes. Ten of her relatives, including her pregnant sister, were killed in same strike.

“She was a Palestinian freelance photojournalist. She was targeted by the Israeli army on 16 April, 2025, the day after it was announced that Sepideh Farsi’s...

A few days before the start of the Cannes Film Festival, Variety gathered top French producers, distributors and talent, including Dominik Moll, Elodie Bouchez, Justine Triet and Coralie Fargeat at an intimate dinner hosted at the glamorous landmark restaurant Laperouse.

Bouchez, who recently starred in “Beating Hearts,” will be presenting two films at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, “Enzo,” directed by Robin Campillo and late filmmaker Laurent Cantet, as well as “Classe Moyenne” by Anthony Cordier. The actor was sitting besides Oscar-nominated producer Marie Ange Luciani (“Anatomy of a Fall”) who produced “Enzo” as well as Laura Wandel’s “Adam’s Sake” which will open Critics’ Week; and Alexandra Henochsberg, president of Ad Vitam, which will distribute seven films from the Official Selection in France, including “The Secret Agent” by Kleber Mendonça Filho; “Romeria” by Carla Simón; “La Petite Dernière” by Hafsia Herzi; “Vie Privée,” starring Jodie Foster and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski; and “Enzo,...

Finally, they would have been 22. Thierry Frémaux reportedly received Bi Gan‘s third feature film at the last possible moment and the reason it wasn’t announced during the second wave is because the ever-unpredictable Chinese censors ensured an eleventh-hour type of inclusion. “Resurrection,” is part of 2025 Palme d’Or competition line-up – a first time for the Chinese filmmaker. Les Films du Losange (who repped other eleventh hour inclusions in Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water and Nadav Lapid’s Yes) are the sales company backing this project.

Filmed in parts (beginning back in March of last year) the sci-fi detective tale starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi (she was the muse of and had the honor of working on Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s very last feature The Assassin).…...

Exclusive:French powerhouse studio Gaumont has taken on international sales rights to prolific French filmmaker François Ozon’s adaptation of Albert Camus’ literary masterpiece The Stranger.

Ozon reteams with hisSummer Of ’85 breakout star Benjamin Voisin who plays main character Meursault, a Frenchman living in 1930s Algeria whose apathy and indifference to the surrounding world culminate in cold-blooded murder and a trial that explores both the crime and his character.

The Swimming Pool, Under The Sand and 8 Women director also reteams with Rebecca Marder, who starred in Ozon’s 2023 courtroom comedy The Crime Is Mine, and Pierre Lottin, who starred in...

Focus Features has scheduled a US limited release on November 27 prior to wide expansion on December 12 for Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn.

Zhao, who won best picture and directing Oscars for Nomadland in 2021, directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Maggie O’Farrell, based on O’Farrell’s 2020 bestseller of the same name.

Hamnet is set against the backdrop of the creation of William Shakespeare’s celebrated play Hamlet, as his wife Agnes struggles to come to terms with the death of her only son.

Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nic Gonda, Sam Mendes,...

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent sidebar section of the Cannes film festival, run by the French Directors’ Guild, has added one more title to its 2025 selection: Yes! from Israeli director Nadav Lapid.

The drama, set in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, follows Y., a struggling jazz musician who is given the task of setting a new national anthem to music. Ariel Bronz stars, together with Efrat Dor, Naama Preis, and Alexey Serebryakov.

Lapid was last in Cannes in 2021 in the official competition with his bold auto-fiction drama Ahed’s Knee, which won the Jury Prize, ex aequo alongside Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria. His third feature, Synonyms, won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2019.

Les Films du Losange is handling world sales on the project and will be shopping Yes! to buyers at the Cannes market.

Directors’ Fortnight unveiled its official selection last week. Other highlights of the 2025 lineup include Miroirs No.

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has added Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s “Yes” to its 2025 lineup.

“Y., a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite, and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon, Y. is given a mission of the highest importance: setting to music a new national anthem,” reads the synopsis provided by Directors’ Fortnight.

The cast includes Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is a France-Israel-Cyprus-Germany co-production. Producers are Les Films du Bal (Judith Lou Lévy) et Chi-Fou-Mi Productions (Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon) and co-producers include Bustan Films (Thomas Alfandari – Israeel), Amp Filmworks, Komplizen Film GmbH and Arte France Cinéma with the participation of Zdf/Arte. French distribution and global sales are being handled by

Les Films du Losange.

Lapid’s...

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid was tipped as a last minute entry for the Palme d’Or competition but that didn’t pan out and Directors’ Fortnight selection committee were all to happy to make room for “Yes” – the filmmaker’s fifth feature film. Having visited the Croisette with 2014’s “The Kindergarten Teacher,” in the Critics’ Week section and with 2021’s “Ahed’s Knee” (the post pandemic edition saw him prize), this sees him move over the Jw Marriott screening lieu. Word on the street is the run time is north of three hours. Shot in Tel-Aviv, this is produced by of Les Films du Bal’s Judith Lou Lévy, Chi-Fou-Mi Productions’ Hugo Sélignac and Antoine Lafon.…...

Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight has added Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s Yes! (Ken!) to its 2025 selection.

Set in the aftermath of the October 7, Hamas attacks on Israel, the film revolves around a struggling jazz musician, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, who give their art, souls, and bodies to the highest bidder, bringing pleasure and consolation to their bleeding country.

This endeavor sees the jazz musician entrusted with a mission of the utmost importance: to set a new national anthem to music.

The cast features Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is produced by Judith Lou Lévy at Les Films du Bal, and Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon at Chi-Fou-Mi Productions.

Co-Producers are Thomas Alfandari at Bustan Films (Israel); Janine Teerling and Marios Piperides at Amp Filmworks (Cyprus), as well as Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dombach and Maren Ade at Komplizen Film (Germany) as well Arte France Cinéma,...

Exclusive: Les Films du Losange has taken on international sales for Nadav Lapid’s Yes, which has just been added to the57th edition of Directors’ Fortnight, running in Cannes from May 14-24.

Les Films du Losange will launch sales on Lapid’s fifth feature at the Cannes market. Directors’ Fortnight confirmed the film had been added on Thursday (April 24), bringing the final selection to 19 feature films following the auteur-driven parallel section’s initial announcement on April 15.

Lapid’s fifth feature – titled Ken in Hebrew – is set in Israel in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks. It centres on Y.

Flóra Anna Buda, Andrea Gatopoulos, Xiwen Cong, Simon Maria Kubiena, Constance Tsang and Rodrigo Ribeyro have been named as the latest cohort of emerging directors to participate in the Cannes Film Festival’s La Résidence initiative, which is now in its 49th edition.

The six filmmakers are being hosted in the program’s residency in the Pigalle neighborhood of Paris, from March 15 to July 31, where they are benefiting from personalized screenwriting support and a collective program of meetings with film professionals.

Hungary’s Buda made waves in 2023 with her animated short film 27, which won the Cannes Palme d’or for best short, and then the Cristal Award at the Annecy Festival in 2023.

Italian and Greek director, producer and distributor Gatopoulos’s most recent work, the short film The Eggregores’ Theory, opened the 39th Venice Film Critics’ Week and made history as one of the first AI films to show in the sidebar.

Israeli filmmaker Renen Schorr, founder of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, died Wednesday at 72.

The school, which opened in 1989, was a gamechanger for Israeli cinema with alumni over the past 35 years including Nir Bergman (Broken Wings), Nadav Lapid (Synonymes), Tom Shoval (Youth), Talya Lavie (Zero Motivation) and Rama Burshtein (Fill The Void).

Schorr, who was born in Jerusalem in 1952, built his career alongside the fledgeling Israeli film industry to become a seminal figure in its development later on.

A filmmaker in his own right, his best-known work is the 1987 drama Late Summer Blues.

Set in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, it follows a group of seven high school graduates in their final summer together before being conscripted into the Israeli army.

The screenplay was inspired by Schorr’s involvement in the 1970 Senior’s Letter to Prime Minister Golda Meir – in which a group of high school students questioned...

Renen Schorr Heller, founder of Israel’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, has died at the age of 72.

A statement from the School shared “the heartbreaking news of the sudden passing” of Schorr.

“His passing marks the end of an era, leaving an immeasurable legacy not only in Israeli cinema but also in the hearts of all those who had the privilege to learn from, work alongside, and be inspired by him,” read the statement.

Israeli filmmaker Schorr produced his first feature, drama Lo L’Shidur, in 1981. He made his feature directorial debut with romance Late Summer...

Reading Lolita in Tehran (2024) is a film based on the memoir of an Iranian-American author and Professor Azar Nafisi. The memoir was released in 2003. Eran Riklis, the director of this film is well known for his earlier films, “Lemon Tree,” “The Syrian Bride,” and “Dancing Arabs” among others. He stands opposed to the Israeli establishment’s views/policies/ treatment of Palestinians. Nadav Lapid is another Israeli film director who has similar views regarding Palestinians.

Be that as it may, the screen adaptation of the memoir has four parts. The narrative starts in a linear mode but digresses in the mid-part of the film. As this writer has not read the memoir, he is unable to gauge its actual adaptation. In other words, the intertextuality of this film, hence, also the cinematic liberties taken by the director. Any close observer of the developments in Iran over the last 4-5 decades will...

While the official lineup of films at the Cannes Film Festival taking place in May won’t be made public until mid-April, there are already some early rumblings of what projects we should expect to see on that list and there are plenty of reasons to get excited.

That group of potential entries as compiled by Deadline includes directorial debuts with Kristen Stewart‘s “The Chronology Of Water” (still a chance it might not be completed in time), and Scarlett Johansson‘s “Eleanor The Great.”

Read More: Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Potentially Eyeing Cannes Film Festival Screening

Notable and high-profile films that are expected to screen at Cannes, pending official confirmation: Jim Jarmusch‘s latest effort “Father, Mother, Sister, Brother,” Spike Lee‘s “Highest 2 Lowest” (a remake of the Akira Kurosawa kidnap drama that stars Lee’s longtime muse Denzel Washington), Wes Anderson‘s...

Exclusive: With one of Europe’s three flagship film festivals approaching half way stage, minds are already beginning to focus on the shape of the next two: Cannes and Venice. The former will be upon us before we know it.

As ever, there is no shortage of anticipated movies in contention. Indeed, one leading producer we spoke to remarked that 2025 is looking like “a particularly tough year, a much stronger year than 2024”. The surprise to us during our research for this piece is just how many big movies look like they will push to fall rather than launch on the Croisette. That’s not to say that Cannes won’t be box office. It remains the gold standard. The importance of both Cannes and Venice as launchpads is at an all-time high. Just look at how many Oscar nominees now start out at those two festivals — five of this year...

Actor-director Daniel Auteuil and key “Emilia Perez” collaborator Jean-Baptiste Pouilloux have set up their next features with Les Films Velvet, the auteur-focused production outfit behind this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris opener “The Musicians” as well as Rebecca Zlotowski’s upcoming, Jodie Foster-led thriller “Vie Privée.”

After last year’s Cannes-launched legal thriller “An Ordinary Case,” Auteuil will step back behind the camera for the World War II drama “Une Nuit” (“One Night”). Co-written by Auteuil and filmmaker Camille Lugan (“The Book of Joy”), the film follows the incredible true story of a 1942 effort to rescue more then one hundred Jewish children from a deportation camp just outside of Lyon. Les Films Velvet’s Frederic Jouve will produce alongside Adrien Nussenbaum.

An in-demand assistant director who has worked closely with Jacques Audiard, Zlotowski and Nadav Lapid, Pouilloux most recently led second unit on “Emilia Perez” before directing the Canal Plus series “Iris.

UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg is to be president of Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori, running from August 28-September 7.

The jury consists of 10 former participants of the European young cinephile 27 Times Cinema programme. Jury heads in recent years have included João Pedro Rodrigues, Céline Sciamma, Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova and Nadav Lapid.

The jury decides the winner of a cash prize of €20,000, to be split equally between the filmmaker and the film’s international distributor.

Once again, the jury sessions will be coordinated by Karel Och, artistic director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass,...

Veteran filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has been appointed as the new director of the International Film Festival of India (Iffi).

Kapur will head the festival, held annually in Goa, for the 55th and 56th editions, India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry announced with a statement this morning.

“With the approval of the Competent Authority, it has been decided to appoint Shri Shekhar Kapur as the Festival Director for the 55th and 56th editions of the International Film Festival of India, Goa,” the statement read.

Kapur welcomed the news with a post on social media.

“It’s an Honour. It’s a commitment. It’s a responsibility. Thank you for considering me worthy of your trust,” he wrote.

It’s an Honour. It’s a commitment. It’s a responsibility. Thank you for considering me worthy of your trust @MIB_India https://t.co/bVEmIjBu9p

— Shekhar Kapur (@shekharkapur) July 25, 2024

Kapur is...

Sarah Duve-Schmid, the deputy CEO of the German Federal Film Board (Ffa) will succeed Kirsten Niehuus as managing director of film funding for Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg from mid-2025.

Niehuus, who was also deputy CEO at the Ffa from 1999 to 2004, has been at the helm of the regional fund’s film funding operations since November 2004.

Like Niehuus, Duve-Schmid is a trained lawyer who has been head of film funding at the Ffa since 2019.

In line with Duve- Schmid’s arrival, film funding decisions will now be taking by committee rather than by the managing director alone for the first time in the Medienboard’s 30-year history.

Feature film projects from Godland filmmaker Hlynur Palmason and Small Body director Laura Samani are among 31 titles that have received a combined €8.8m in the latest session of Council of Europe co-production fund Eurimages.

Iceland’s Palmason received €500,000 for On Land And Sea. Produced by France’s Maneki Films, Denmark’s Snowglobe and Iceland’s Still Vivid, it will shoot this autumn. Set at the turn of the 19th century, the film will follow a family which transforms its house into a raft and goes looking for a new place to live.

Scroll down for the full list or projects...

Israeli film professionals are “open to dialogue” at Cannes despite a reported reluctance to engage with them by some in the the international industry due to the ongoing war in Gaza, according to Osnat Bukofzer, director of the Israeli Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Pavilion has programmed just two panel events on its seven-day market programme, down from 14 events with participants from 15 countries last year.

Security is at the same level as previous years with two security guards.

Contrary to some reports, there are no events addressing October 7 nor are family members of Israeli hostages in Gaza planning to attend.

Mexican-us filmmaker Carlos López Estrada will deliver Sundance Film Festival: London’s keynote address at the festival’s third annual industry programme, with further speakers confirmed from Studiocanal, BFI, BBC Film, Film4, Bafta and Sky.

The festival runs at London’s Picturehouse Central from June 6-9.

López Estrada’s director credits include his feature debut Blindpostting which opened Sundance in 2018, and animation Raya And The Last Dragon, which he co-directed with Don Hall.

As a producer, he is founder of Antigravity Academy, a production company specialising in creating opportunities for emerging talent. Antigravity’s first produced project, Dìdi (弟弟), written and directed by Sean Wang,...

Sffilm has announced the winners of the juried Golden Gate Awards competition and the Audience Awards at the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival (Sffilm Festival). The awards serve as a launching pad for internationally renowned filmmakers who are early in their careers, and they qualify films under 40 minutes for the Oscars. Past Golden Gate Award winners include Panah Panahi, Reid Davenport, Nadav Lapid, Marlon Riggs, Céline Sciamma, Jia Zhang-ke, Stanley Nelson, and Tasha Van Zandt.

This year, the 2024 Sffilm Festival ran five days from April 24 – 28 rather than its usual sprawling two weeks. The Sffilm board opted to pull back conservatively where others would have gone bigger to keep a more expansive footprint. Altogether they brought in 130 filmmakers this year, an excellent global selection of films despite the calendar disadvantage of being caught between Sundance and Cannes.

The big talk at this year’s Sffilm was the news that San...

A24 is reuniting with Talk To Me co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou on the horror title Bring Her Back to star Sally Hawkins.

Plot details remain under wraps on the project, which is being produced by Causeway Films’ Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton. The compnay’s credits include The Babadook, The Nightingale, and this year’s Sundance selection The Moogai.

Production is scheduled to commence this summer and at time of writing it was unclear whether A24 will introduce Bring Her Back to international buyers in Cannes.

Hawkins earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for The Weight Of Water in...

The new projects from two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund (The Triangle of Sadness, The Square); Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium and upcoming Nicolas Cage thriller The Surfer); and Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska, director of Letitia Wright/Tamara Lawrance-starrer The Silent Twins, will be pitching to potential backers at this year’s Cannes Investors Circle, an event organized by the Cannes film market that aims to bring together top art-house talent with producers and financiers.

The 2024 Cannes Investors Circle event, held on May 19 at the Plage des Palmes, will showcase 10 never-before-seen films in various stages of development to an exclusive group of investors and film financing experts. The projects range in budget from €1 million ($1.07 million) to more than €20 million ($21.4 million) and have been specifically curated by the market.

“The aim of the Marché du Film with the Cannes Investors Circle is to support artistically and financially

ambitious film projects,...