News

SeriesFest, the annual television festival in Denver, has unveiled the winners of its independent pilot competition.

Lake Boga won best drama pilot, Settle Down won best comedy pilot, Vs. Goliath won best unscripted pilot and F*ckUps Anonymous picked up the award for best short series.

“We can think of no better way to close out another successful edition of the festival than to celebrate and give back to the independent storytellers who continue to push the boundaries of the medium,” said SeriesFest Co-Founders Randi Kleiner and Kaily Smith. “SeriesFest has a long history of being a discovery platform for the independent television community, and we are thrilled to be able to further this year’s creatives’ work through the opportunities these awards and resources provide.”

Lake Boga, which was directed by Ben Bryan and exec produced by Nick Farnell and Anthony Sharpe, follows Nathan, an experienced ex-military assassin, who...

Tubi has a new 2024 movie out with the release of The Marriage Pass, which brings an exciting new cast of actors playing thrilling new characters.

Based on a 2021 romantic novel of the same name by Briana Cole, The Marriage Pass tells the story of a newlywed couple as they try to spice up their love life after spending the first year of their marriage constantly fighting.

The film was directed by Sam Coyle as Briana Cole wrote the script for the film based on her own book, with the new 91-minute film officially hitting Tubi for public viewing on January 20.

Read full article on The Direct.

Directed by Sam Coyle, Meet the Killer Parents gives away the plot twist in the title itself. So, you can start to watch this flick with detached amusement, as you already know what’s coming. Cashing in on thrillers like Get Out, it feels like the writer Mike Rinaldi planned to do a weird spin on the Jordan Peele film and tried to keep the audience guessing as to why the characters are doing what they are doing. It doesn’t work, let me add, because the performances are so on the nose that we see the twists coming from a mile away.

The plot revolves around Grace, an orphaned young woman who thinks she has found her soulmate in Rob, who is the son of a magnate. She is going to meet his parents Stephen and Miriam Whitby, as a formal introduction. She doesn’t know that the Whitby...

Director Tanya Modini’s Seeing Scout has won a $25,000 grant thanks to advocacy organisation For Film’s Sake and Sydney Film Festival.

It was one of six Australian projects selected for For Film Sake’s Attagirl, the development lab for feature films by female and non-binary creative teams.

Co-written with producer, writer and editor Stephanie Dower, Seeing Scout is billed as ‘a coming-of-age drama on wheels’, and follows a young woman with physical disability who embarks on a sexual relationship with local footy hero.

Along with Canadian director Sam Coyle’s White River, it wins the production prize for the most ‘market ready’ project from the Attagirl initiative.

The prizes are designed to incentivise further investment from public, private and equity financiers with a hope that films and teams will reach production and release faster than they otherwise would.

“We began the lab with an outline of an idea and...

Film lab includes projects from the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Thirteen international projects have been selected for the inaugural development lab Attagirl, designed to support female and non-binary filmmakers.

It is an initiative of Australia’s For FIlm’s Sake and is supported by Screen Australia’s Enterprise Business and Ideas programme, advocacy organisation For Film’s Sake, and the Toronto and Sydney International Film Festivals.

The first of three workshops in a 10-month programme will take place this week. It will include projects spanning the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Sweden and New Zealand and will include creatives from Mexico and Trinidad.

In today’s Global Bulletin, U.K. film bodies respond to AMPAS’ new diversity requirements, ITV details its upcoming virtual TV festival, For Film’s Sake announces the 13 projects selected for its inaugural Attagirl lab, Mexico’s Pixelatl and Cartoon Network Latin America announce their third annual Girl Power winner, Switzerland’s Zurich Film Festival reveals its 2020 Hashtag sidebar, and full casting for Canadian comedy series “Lady Dicks” is confirmed.

Representation

The U.K.’s leading film bodies have weighed in on the Oscars’ recently announced diversity requirements. On Tuesday, following several years of a membership drive designed to increase diverse representation, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced new eligibility standards requiring enhanced diversity in both above and below the line talent.

“We welcome AMPAS’s announcement of representation and inclusion standards inspired by our own BFI Diversity Standards,” said British Film Institute chief executive Ben Roberts.