News

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights worldwide to Sundance prize-winner East Of Wall.

Written and directed by Kate Beecroft, the drama about female resilience in the American West premiered at this year’s festival and won the Audience Award in the Next category.

Tabatha Zimiga and Porshia Zimiga star as themselves alongside Scoot McNairy and Jennifer Ehle in the story, inspired by the Zimigas’ real lives, of a rebellious young horse trainer who provides refuge for a group of wayward teens on her run-down ranch.

Lila Yacoub, Beecroft, Melanie Ramsayer and Shannon Moss produced, with Scott Frank, Al Engemann,...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights worldwide to “East of Wall,” following its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award in the Next category, the company announced on Friday.

Written and directed by Kate Beecroft, “East of Wall” is about female resilience in a marginalized, neglected corner of the American West.

“I am incredibly grateful to have our film championed by, and to be partnered with, Sony Pictures Classics,” Beecroft said in a statement to TheWrap. “This project is deeply personal to everyone involved, and I’m so proud of the bravery my cast showed in sharing their voices — voices that are too often overlooked or pushed aside. I can’t wait for audiences to experience their lives on the big screen.”

The film stars Tabatha Zimiga and Porshia Zimiga playing themselves, as well as Scoot McNairy and Jennifer Ehle.

“East of Wall...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired “East of Wall,” a critically acclaimed look at a marginalized, neglected corner of the American West that marks the feature debut of writer and director Kate Beecroft. The film was inspired by real people, with Beecroft convincing Tabatha and Porshia Zimiga, ranchers from the Badlands, to play versions of themselves. “East of Wall” won the Audience Award at Sundance in the Next category.

Variety‘s Peter Debruge praised the film as an “artful debut” and compared it to Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” which Sony Pictures Classics also distributed. Other critics agreed with The Austin Chronicle writing, “As a first-time feature filmmaker, Beecroft’s storytelling technique could stand greater development, but her sense of place and mood is spot-on. Her film will definitely make you want to scrape the mud off your boots before you leave the theatre.”

Tabatha Zimiga stars as a horse trainer who,...

Updated with more signatories: Reaction continues to The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech after his film won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film this month.

Some 1,215 Jewish show business professionals now have signed a letter denouncing the filmmaker’s speech, in which he decried the “dehumanization” of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. See the updated full list below.

“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter states (read it in full in full below).

This list includes among its signatories Eli Roth and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Amy Pascal, Debra Messing, Gail Berman, Hawk Koch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Barber, Lawrence Bender, Tovah Feldshuh and Rod Lurie.

You can watch Glazer’s speech here,...

Sundance audience award winner received one-week awards-qualifying run earlier this month.

Sony Pictures Classics has set a March 1, 2024, release date for Noora Niasari’s Australian Oscar submission Shayda.

The film will open in New York and Los Angeles and expand nationwide in the following weeks. It received a one-week awards-qualifying run earlier this month.

Shayda premiered in Sundance where it won the audience award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

The Origma 45 production centres on the titular Iranian woman living in Australia, who finds refuge in a women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter, Mona, when she learns a court...

The 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will close with a screening of the Sundance Competiton pic Shayda attended by the film’s star Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) and Exec Producer Cate Blanchett.

Directed by Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari, Shayda, which won the Audience Award at Sundance 2023, will close out the final evening of the Festival alongside a free second screening of a surprise title that touches on the history of cinema and the Locarno Film Festival, chosen by Marco Solari, President of the Locarno Film Festival. This year will be Solari’s final year at the helm.

Blanchett is an exec producer on the pic through Dirty Films, the production company she runs with her husband, Andrew Upton, and Coco Francini. On August 12, the two-time Oscar winner will moderate a discussion between Niasari and Ebrahimi at the festival on the theme of Iranian women and Iranian cinema...

The FBI has it out for Sydney Sweeney in the trailer for “Reality,” Tina Satter’s gripping biopic-docudrama about the America intelligence whistleblower Reality Winner.

The upcoming HBO film stars Sweeney as Winner, who was imprisoned for releasing classified information about Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The film also stars Marchánt Davis and Josh Hamilton.

“Reality” is based on Satter’s play, “Is This a Room,” and the FBI’s transcript of their 2017 interrogation of Winner, which took place in her home just days prior to her arrest.

“Truly, when I first stumbled upon the transcript for the interrogation just through reading it I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is like a movie thriller.’ I really felt that,” Satter told Variety.

Sweeney, on the other hand, didn’t fall as easily into the role. She felt differently playing Winner than she has about previous characters. “Reality,...

Sydney Sweeney is being stalked by the FBI.

The “Euphoria” Emmy nominee leads HBO film “Reality,” based on writer-director Tina Satter’s 2019 play “Is This A Room.”

On June 3, 2017, 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner (Sweeney) is confronted by FBI agents, played by Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, arriving at her home to question her suspected role in the mishandling of classified information. Reality Winner is an ex-Air Force member and Nsa translator who later received the harshest sentence, five years and three months in prison, for the unauthorized release of government information to the media leading to FBI director James Comey being fired for the investigation into how Russian interference affected the 2016 election.

Based on true events, the film’s dialogue, as with the acclaimed Off-Broadway play, comes directly from the transcript of their tense and transfixing conversation.

“Reality” debuted at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, marking Satter...

Mk2 films has enlisted leading distributors around the world for “Reality,” Tina Satter’s feature debut starring Sydney Sweeney, on the heels of its buzzy world premiere at the Berlinale.

The movie, which bowed in the Panorama section, stars Sweeney as Reality Winner, a 25 year-old whistleblower who spent five years in prison during the Trump administration. A former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator, Winner was convicted for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media.

The film is based on Satter’s 2019 stage play “Is This a Room” and contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of a FBI audio recording. “Reality” captures the tense and surreal 90 minutes of FBI’s interrogation with Winner at her home in 2017.

The Paris-based company has closed a flurry of major deals, selling the film to France (Metropolitan), UK (Vertigo), Italy (Lucky Red), Germany, Austria and German-speaking...

Following a buzzy world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, HBO Films has acquired the U.S. rights to the docudrama “Reality,” starring Sydney Sweeney.

In the film, directed by Tina Satter, Sweeney portrays Reality Winner, a woman convicted of leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media. The film contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of a FBI audio recording, capturing a tense 90 minutes as the FBI interrogates Winner at her home in 2017. The whistleblower — a former U.S. Air Force member and National Security Agency translator — was sentenced to five years in prison.

Satter makes her feature directorial debut with the film, based on her 2019 stage play “Is This a Room.” She also executive produced the project and co-wrote the screenplay with James Paul Dallas.

While HBO hasn’t set a release date yet, Sweeney has a dedicated fanbase among the network’s audience after...

Exclusive: HBO Films has closed a deal for U.S. rights to the Berlin Film Festival buzz competition title Reality. Directed by Tina Satter, the docudrama is a breakout turn for Sydney Sweeney as convicted classified document leaker Reality Winner. Sweeney stars in the hit HBO series Euphoria.

Pic hasn’t been dated yet to premiere on HBO, but it will happen in the near future, certainly in time to qualify for Emmy consideration and to capitalize on the momentum from the rave reviews the film just received in Berlin. Sweeney’s performance was singled out for praise in most every review.

Reality Winner (her actual given name) grew up in Texas and went through the Air Force on her way to becoming a translator for the Nsa. She was employed by the military contractor Pluribus International Corporation when she was arrested at 25, and eventually convicted of leaking an intelligence...

Exclusive: Paris-based mk2 films has boarded international sales on Tina Satter’s debut feature Reality about real-life U.S. whistleblower Reality Winner ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival later this month.

Euphoria and White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney plays Winner.

The former intelligence officer was given the longest prison sentence ever for the unauthorized release of classified material to the media in 2018 (five years and three months) after she leaked a report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Opening with the Saturday afternoon in June 2017 when 25-year-old Winner was confronted at her Georgia home by the FBI, the film follows the cryptic conversation that took place as the young woman’s life begins to unravel.

Satter’s dialogue, taken directly from the FBI’s transcript of the interrogation, alternates between nail-biting and banal, darkly funny and surreal.

The film tracks one woman’s experience of the State at work.

Holy Spider actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi will star.

UK outfit Hanway Films has acquired international rights to Australia-based Iranian writer-director Noora Niasari’s feature Shayda.

Holy Spider actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi will star in the film as a young Iranian mother who finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowrooz). As they seek their freedom in this new world they come up against the violence they tried so hard to escape.

Niasari is best known for her award-winning short film Waterfall, which screened at the 66th Melbourne International Film...

Days after a topless protester stormed the Cannes red carpet donned in body paint to disrupt the “Three Thousand Years of Longing” premiere, a new protest erupted at the start of the red carpet for competition title “Holy Spider,” in which a group of women held smoke bombs and a massive poster — though this time the demonstration appears to have been pre-planned.

The group involved in the demonstration is Les Colleuses, a guerilla feminist movement in France. Roughly a dozen women from the group dressed in formal wear unfurled a large banner that contained the names of 129 women who died in France as a result of domestic violence. They then held smoke bombs that cast off dark plumes of smoke into the air while others thrust their fists into the air. Security did not intervene.

Though the demonstration took place on the steps of the Grand Palais ahead of the “Holy Spider” premiere,...

Updated: Showtime Documentary Films has unveiled the first official trailer for Cusp, a feature debut doc from directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt, which will premiere on Showtime on November 26 at 9 p.m. Et/Pt.

Set in a small military town in Texas and filmed in vérité style, Cusp follows three wild-spirited teenager girls as they live out a fever-dream summer, watching as the strictures of adolescence clash with their growing desire for personal agency. The coming-of-age pic captures authentic moments of female friendship, while also addressing what it means to grow up in a culture of toxic masculinity.

The film premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, with Hill and Bethencourt winning the Emerging Filmmaker Special Jury Award.

More information on the project can be found below.

Previously, April 14: Showtime Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to the documentary Cusp, from first-time feature directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt.

Beloved American ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her popular sock puppet Lamb Chop will be the subject of a new documentary feature from White Horse Pictures and MoJo Global Arts.

“Shari & Lamb Chop” will be directed by Emmy-nominated Lisa D’Apolito, director of “Love, Gilda,” the documentary about the late Saturday Night Live comedian Gilda Radner.

As a young female ventriloquist with big aspirations, Shari Lewis was searching for a voice who could say things that a young woman in the 1950s could not, and found it in a sock puppet named Lamb Chop. The duo debuted on CBS children’s television series “Captain Kangaroo” in 1956 and went on to attain cultural icon status in the U.S. by the end of the 20th century.

Lewis died in 1998. The documentary will examine her journey, which included winning 13 Emmys and a Peabody and authoring 60 children’s books, and her impact on children’s...

Showtime Documentary Films has acquired the worldwide rights to “Cusp,” a film that was a prize winner at this year’s Sundance and follows a trio of teenage girls in a small, military town in Texas.

Directors Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt won the Emerging Filmmaker Special Jury Award for “Cusp” at Sundance. Showtime plans to give it a theatrical release ahead of a network premiere later this year.

Set in a small military town in Texas, “Cusp” chases three wild-spirited teenage girls as they live out a fever-dream summer, when the strict nature of adolescence clashes with the growing desire for personal agency. The film is shot in a cinema vérité style and captures authentic moments of female friendship while examining what it means to grow up in a culture of toxic masculinity. Though the girls’ experiences are completely unique to their upbringing, “Cusp” is also a universal coming-of-age...

MTV announced “Catfish: The TV Show” will return May 4 at 9 p.m.

Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford are back to track down online impersonators who have been taking advantage of people just looking for someone to cuff up with. All over the world, people have been searching or connections online with all the extra free time and lack on in-person social interaction. The new episodes include a Florida adult film star, an Atlanta rapper and a Turkish role-playing Romeo. Watch a first look below.

Also in today’s TV news roundup:

Casting

Common has joined “Never Have I Ever” as a recurring guest star in the second season, which will debut this summer on Netflix. The multihyphenate will play Dr. Chris Jackson, described as a “suave and debonair dermatologist” who works in the same building as fellow dermatologist Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar (Poorna Jagannathan). Based in the suburbs of Los Angeles,...

Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus of Maiden Voyage Pictures among EP roster.

Showtime Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to 2021 Sundance entry Cusp, winner of the festival’s Emerging Filmmaker Special Jury Award.

Showtime is planning a theatrical release ahead of a network premiere later this year. Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt directed the film about three free-spirited teenage girls as they live out a fever-dream summer in a small military town in Texas.

Cusp is produced by Zachary Luke Kislevitz (Port Authority) for Kislevitz Films, along with Hill and Bethencourt.

Executive producers are Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus for Maiden Voyage Pictures,...

1091 has secured worldwide rights Inez & Doug & Kira, the directorial debut feature from Julia Kots. Starring Michael Chernus, Tawny Cypress, and Talia Thiesfield, the film will be released across all digital platforms this fall. The indie, which premiered at the 2019 Woodstock Film Festival, centers around the unexpected suicide of Inez, who leaves behind no clues as to why she takes her own life. Her twin sister, Kira, and Kira’s fiancé, Doug—both of whom shared their own complicated relationship with Inez—embark on a quest to solve the mystery behind their loved one’s death. The rights deal was handled by producers Caitlin Gold of Tanbark Pictures and Márcia Mayer of Tenacious Productions, with Carly Reicho on behalf of 1091.

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Cleopatra Entertainment has picked up U.S. rights to the Marc Collin’-directed electronic music drama, Le...

Don't you just love the films that  are "based on actual events"? Well, Jared Cohn's upcoming film The Underground Lizard People is one of them. The docu-style film stars Caitlin Gold, Clint Byrne, Colin Walker, Lauren Klemp, Hugo Dillon and Courtney Hammond.

Plot:

The story of a group of passionate filmmakers who venture deep into the mysterious underground Banning Tunnels to unearth the truth regarding a series of disappearances.

The group soon finds the answer to the mystery, a forgotten civilization of half human, half lizards!

They must fight for their lives in order to escape the vicious savages.

                                     

Visit and "Like" the official Underground Lizard People Facebook page...

Move over, Cannabalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Here come the Underground Lizard People. Ulp? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Chud.

Director Jared Cohn co-wrote the screenplay with Ed Erdalac for this allegedly true story of five young documentary filmmakers that venture into the Banning tunnels of downtown Los Angeles to investigate the urban legend of cannabilistic lizard people and suffer the grave misfortune of finding precisely what they went looking for. Caitlin Gold, Clint Byrne, Colin Walker, Lauren Klemp, Hugo Dillon and Courtney Hammond star.

The ever vigilant Avery Guerra brings word of the film and its trailer. From what I'm seeing, Underground Lizard People looks like a feature-length episode of Animal Planet's "Lost Tapes". Probably a bigger budget than the average "Lost Tapes" episode, too.

- The Foywonder

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Find your way underground in the comments section below!

Nayan Padrai has an Indian story to tell, American-style.

Padrai is directing the indie romantic comedy "When Harry Tries to Marry," which he co-wrote with Ralph Stein. The story involves a rich, 22-year-old Indian-American college student who shocks his assimilated Indian family with his desire to skip the whole "love marriage" thing and opt for a traditional arranged one with an Indian girl instead. The situation becomes more complicated when his feelings for a longtime American friend deepen.

"Harry is a very contemporary American guy until it comes to the subject of love and marriage," Padrai said. "His fear of making the wrong choice inspires him to resort to something that baffles his friends and family, and their reactions as they try to 'help' him are pretty funny. Although the events revolve around a family whose roots are in India, the story is really universal."

Rahul Rai, Stefanie Estes, Freishia Bomanbehram,...