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Joseph Conrad’s classic novella “Heart of Darkness” is being adapted into an animated feature, with Michael Sheen, James Norton and Bill Nighy having already lent their voices.

The project is being directed by Welsh-based BAFTA-winning filmmaker Gerald Conn using an animation technique he specializes in using sand on glass and will be the first feature-length sand animation. Described as a “close adaptation” of Conrad’s novella, first published as a three-part serial in 1899 and regarded as a scathing critique of Western imperialism in Africa, the film script was written by Mark Jenkins and Mary Kate O Flanagan.

The “Heart of Darkness” project was actually first announced in 2019, but after a period in limbo is now moving forward with BreakThru films, the Polish-based production company founded by Hugh Welchman on board as a co-producer. BreakThru was behind the Oscar-nominated 2017 animation “Loving Vincent,” directed by Welchman and Dorota Kobiela and the first fully-painted animated feature,...

The Film Development Council of the Philippines ( Fdcp) will hold I Animate: Animation Film Festival starting April 24 to May 7 in its regional Cinematheque Centres and select Sm cinemas

Photo from Fdcp

Revealed last April 15, 2025, the lineup is top billed by renowned world cinema titles led by Cinemalaya 2023 Best Film “Iti Mapukpukaw (The Missing)”, the Oscar 2025 Best Animated Feature Film “Flow,”and BFI London Film Festival Best Film “Memoir of a Snail.”

Other acclaimed full-length films to be screened are “Cleaners”by Glenn Barit, “Saving Sally” by Avid Liongoren, “Wolf Children” by Mamoru Hosoda, “Ghost Cat Anzu” by Yôko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita, “Loving Vincent” by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, “Le Petit Nicolas” by Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre,”Robot Dreams” by Pablo Berger, and “Weathering With You” by Makoto Shinkai.

The festival also includes short films under the following three sections: Animated Short Focus, From the Archives, and Student Shorts Showcase.

The Film Development Council of the Philippines ( Fdcp) will hold “I Animate: Animation Film Festival” starting April 24 to May 7 in its regional Cinematheque Centres and select Sm cinemas

Revealed last April 15, 2025, the lineup is led by Cinemalaya 2023 Best Film “Iti Mapukpukaw” (The Missing), the Oscar 2025 Best Animated Feature Film “Flow”, and BFI London Film Festival Best Film “Memoir of a Snail.”

Acclaimed Asian full-length features to be screened are “Cleaners” by Glenn Barit, “Saving Sally” by Avid Liongoren, “Wolf Children” by Mamoru Hosoda, “Ghost Cat Anzu” by Yôko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita, and “Weathering With You” by Makoto Shinkai. “Loving Vincent” by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, “Le Petit Nicolas” by Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre, and “Robot Dreams” by Pablo Berger are the other world cinema titles in the festival.

I Animate also includes Philippine short films under the following three sections: Animated Short Focus, From the Archives, and Student Shorts Showcase.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Drift (Anthony Chen)

Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s English-language debut follows a West African refugee, Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), who washes up on a Greek island homeless, cashless, and friendless. She doesn’t speak until ten minutes into Drift, taking in her surroundings, plagued by a fear that’s nestled deep within her. Understandably, she’s scared of everyone and everything, living in a cave, eating whatever she can find, making money by washing tourists’ feet on the beach. – Michael F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

A Drifting Up (Jacob Lee)

Coming off antidepressants for the first time, young London-based filmmaker Jacob Lee decided to dance his way through it and record the process. This BAFTA-nominated short documentary captures his joyful interactions...

In The Rearview, by Polish aid worker-turned-director Maciek Hamela, won the best film prize at the 29th Vilnius International Film Festival (Viff) on March 27.

The award comes with a €8,000 cash prize established by Vilnius City Municipality.

Hamela’s documentary portrays ordinary people fleeing Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion, in the back of a nondescript mini-van driven by Hamela. It is a co-production between Poland, France and Ukraine.

The international jury was comprised of Turkish actor Elit İşcan, Lithuanian film producer Klementina Remekaitė, Jenni Zylka, head of the Berlinale’s German Cinema Perspective department, Polish film journalist...

Agnieszka Holland’s refugee drama The Green Border has taken the top prize for best film at the Polish Film Awards. The black-and-white feature, which looks at the inhumane treatment of refugees trying to cross the natural border between Belarus and Poland, premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival last year but came under attack from Poland’s far-right government, which called the movie “Nazi propaganda” for its supposedly negative depiction of Polish police and border guards. The political attacks are thought to have influenced the Polish Oscar committee’s decision not to put Green Border forward as Poland’s best international film contender this year, instead selecting Dk and Hugh Welchman’s Hugh animated literary adaptation The Peasants (which did not get nominated).

But a lot has changed in Poland since. Parliamentary elections last October ousted the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had ruled for 8 years,...

As some former European Shooting Stars celebrate Oscar noms for their latest films, the Europe-wide initiative to draw attention to up-and-coming performers coordinated by European Film Promotion introduces another 10 talents during the Berlinale. From Feb. 16-19, the selected actors will participate in workshops, as well as meetings with producers and casting directors.

Asta Kamma August

Sweden

The older daughter of Danish helmer Bille and Swedish actor Pernilla, August is fluent in Swedish, Danish and English, and performs for theater, film and TV in Denmark and Sweden. Her latest credits include Mikael Marcimain’s “Blackwater” for Swedish TV and Thomas Vinterberg’s “Families Like Ours” for Danish TV.

Valentina Bellè

Italy

The actor’s upcoming film projects include Marco Tullio Giordana’s “The Life Apart” and Simone Godano’s “Sei Fratelli,” as well as the series “A.C.A.B.” on tap. The Verona-born star, who is fluent in English, participates...

As a follow-up to 2017's Academy Award-nominated movie Loving Vincent, the gorgeously animated The Peasants is very impressive on a technical level. The film is a labor of love, a visual beauty brought to life by hundreds of artists across the planet. The team spent over five years weathering an ever-changing world (including a global pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacting one of the animation studios) to produce a work that—at its best—is a genuine marvel to look at.

The Peasants' problem is that its central characters and story can't always match its stunning visual heights. The Peasants is a bittersweet and harsh tale that doesn't offer much new perspective on the classic narrative it tackles, ultimately failing to make an impression beyond the surface level. While it may be wonderfully produced and looks absolutely beautiful, The Peasants struggles to impress on its own merits as a story and film.

A handful of indies bow or expand this weekend as Oscar hopefuls from Poor Things to The Holdovers and American Fiction crowd theaters after nominations earlier this week. Anatomy Of A Fall is getting a big bump. Oppenheimer is back on Imax.

New specialty releases include Daisy Ridley-starring Sometimes I Think About Dying by Rachel Lambert, and Tótem by Lila Avilés. Separately, Sundance has just wrapped up announcing winners from a new crop of independent films.

What we have post Oscar-nomination Tuesday, is this: Searchlight Pictures’ Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos going wide on 2,226 screens, up from 1,400. The film starring Emma Stone had 11 nominations, second only to Oppenheimer. That Christopher Nolan blockbuster summer release from Universal is returning to 750 Imax screens worldwide, including iconic 70mm film theaters. Oppenheimer led all nominees for the 96th Oscars on Tuesday, with 13.

Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction from Amazon MGM Studios moves to 1,500 theaters from 850. Released Dec.

The Oscars shortlist voting period has closed as of 5:00 p.m. Pt.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the finalists in 10 categories — documentary feature (15), documentary short subject (15), international feature (15), makeup and hairstyling (10), sound (10), original score (15), original song (15), animated short film (15), live action short film (15), and visual effects (10) — on Thursday, Dec. 21.

We expect to see multiple best picture contenders in various races, including Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s historical biopic “Oppenheimer.” When it comes to “Barbie,” we are forecasting six mentions for the movie, including three of its songs — “Dance the Night,” “I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For,” which feels like it sealed the deal with Billie Eilish’s moving musical performance on this week’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

Varying mediums and genres could find representation throughout the lists.

We’re once again proud to be a partner in the European Film Promotion’s celebration of the very best of European talent with the announcement of the 2024 Efp European Shooting Stars.

It has been a pleasure to highlight and get to know some of the brightest new stars in the sky. As before, we will look to catch up with the entire cohort to get to know them better at the 74th Berlinale next year, so check back for those interviews.

Until then, here’s a closer look at the ten Shooting Stars for 2024.

© Wil Coban Éanna Hardwicke / Ireland

Éanna Hardwicke’s first professional credit was as a child actor in Conor McPherson’s 2009 horror film The Eclipse. Before graduating from The Lír Academy in 2018 he was cast in Vivarium, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week 2019. In 2023, a busy year for Hardwicke, he was named a Screen International Rising...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Venice Golden Lion Winner Poor Things is here with Searchlight Pictures sewing up nine theaters in four major markets for leg one of the Emma Stone-starring surreal-period-comedy-horror.

The film debuts in NYC and LA as well as San Francisco and Austin (Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar). Lanthimos, Stone and stars Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe join Q&As in New York and tickets have been selling out. Stone hosted SNL last Saturday, joining the exclusive “five-timers club”, and made stops in recent days at Good Morning America, Sunday Today and ABC News Live Prime to talk up the fantastical tale.

Stone plays Bella Baxter, a young Victorian woman mysteriously brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Godwin Baxter (Dafoe) who lives as the doctor’s ward.

How do you follow the Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent,” which introduced the landmark oil-painted animation technique for enveloping the Vincent Van Gogh biopic with his masterworks? One consideration was Goya.

Instead, the wife-and-husband directing team of D.K. Welchman and Hugh Welchman ambitiously applied their technique to the epic sweep of Nobel laureate Wladislaw Reymont’s 1,000-page novel of early 20th-century Polish rural life, “The Peasants”.

The result is a bolder and more expressive moving painting than “Loving Vincent,” which captures the style and energy of Reymont’s novel about the beautiful yet harsh agrarian existence and strict gender roles that resonate today. It’s no wonder that Poland submitted the film as its international Oscar entry.

“It was so liberating for us after ‘Loving Vincent,'” D.K. told IndieWire. “This is a great novel with many inspirations and then you find the appropriate visual language where we had to join up the painting,...

Interrupted by a serious accident and all manner of other unexpected inconveniences, Władysław Reymont’s celebrated novel, The Peasants, took seven years to write. Interrupted by a war, Hugh Welchman and Dk Welchman’s adaptation took five years to film, and it could easily have been more had the two directors (who are also a couple) not accepted the need for compromise. If you’re familiar with their names, that’s likely due to the success of 2018 Oscar nominee and European Film Award winner Loving Vincent, every one of whose 56,000 frames was hand-painted in oils. A similar number of frames were painted this time around, but in places digitally drawn images were used in between them. It doesn’t really show. The result is a feast for the eyes.

Just as Reymont’s book immersed itself in the metaphorical colour of Polish peasant life, so the Welchmans’ film delivers a flood of literal colour,...

Rotoscope-style animation gives this version of Władysław Reymont’s story an interesting look, but the performances and tone can’t live up to the visuals

Husband-and-wife film-makers Dk Welchman (née Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman made a real impression five years ago with their animation Loving Vincent, made in a pastiche style of Van Gogh’s own paintings using digital techniques to enhance hand-painted original work – a bit like the rotoscope approach of computer animation pioneer Bob Sabiston. A single-joke or single-idea movie, perhaps, but certainly interesting. Now, to some acclaim, they have done the same thing to the 1904-09 novel The Peasants by Nobel prizewinner Władysław Reymont (first adapted for Polish TV in the early 70s).

There’s the same digi-painted world derived from live action, the same visual effect of the forms and details on screen seeming always imperceptibly to throb or rustle, like a field of corn.

’The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes’ ,‘Wish’ and ’André Rieu’s White Christmas’ also secured top five spots.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross Total gross to date Week 1. Napoleon (Sony) £1.9m £9.3m 2 2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes (Lionsgate) £1.7m £13m 3 3. Wish (Disney) £1.4m £4.4m 2 4. Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce (Trafalgar Releasing) £1.1m £1.1m 1 5. André Rieu’s White Christmas (Piece Of Magic Entertainment) £1m £1m 1

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.27

Holdovers and concert films dominated the top of the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, led by Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, alongside strong debuts from...

The Peasants would already be a daunting project in the best of times. Like their previous film, Loving Vincent, directors Hugh and Dk Welchman oversaw a team of animators painting each frame of the film based on live-action reference material. Hugh, who came to Los Angeles from Poland just for his 12-minute Contenders panel, said The Peasants also had to work around Covid and the Ukraine War.

Between the pandemic and the war, The Peasants — which is Poland’s entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar — faced difficulty getting all of their painters in the same room.

“We can’t do stuff remotely,” Hugh said. “We have people sitting in front of easels with a whole lighting setup in each of the painting animation workstations.”

The Peasants recruited painters from Poland, Serbia, Lithuania and Ukraine and faced 20 percent inflation over the years of production. The Ukraine war cut much...

Variety has been given access to the international trailer for animated film “The Peasants,” which is Poland’s entry for the international feature category of the Academy Awards. The film had its world premiere in the Special Presentation section of Toronto Film Festival last month, and screens next week at the London Film Festival.

New Europe Film Sales has sold rights to “The Peasants” to more than 70 countries, including German-speaking Europe (Plaion), France (The Jokers), Benelux (Paradiso), South Korea (First Run), China (Jl Film), Scandinavia (Another World Entertainment) and Spain (Karma), as well as North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand (Sony Pictures Classics).

“The Peasants” is directed by D.K. Welchman (formerly known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman, the filmmakers behind “Loving Vincent.” The latter film was nominated for the animated feature film Oscar in 2018, and grossed more than $50 million at the global box office.

‘The Peasants’ comes from the same team that made ‘Loving Vincent’.

Vertigo Releasing has acquired UK rights to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s animated feature The Peasants from New Europe Film Sales.

The Polish animation debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, and will have its UK premiere on Wednesday, October 11 at the BFI London Film Festival (Lff).

It is Poland’s entry to the best international feature Oscar race.

Vertigo Releasing is aiming for a UK-Ireland release in mid-November, following the film’s Polish release on October 13 through Next Film.

New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to over 50 territories,...

‘The Peasants’ comes from the same team that made ‘Loving Vincent’.

Vertigo Releasing has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s animated feature The Peasants from New Europe Film Sales.

The Polish animation debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, and will have its UK premiere on Wednesday, October 11 at the BFI London Film Festival (Lff).

It is Poland’s entry to the best international film Oscar.

Vertigo Releasing is aiming for a UK-Ireland release in mid-November, following the film’s Polish release on October 13 through Next Film.

New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to over 50 territories,...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s “The Peasants,” the studio announced Friday.

Chosen by Poland as its official submission for the 2024 Oscars in the Best International Feature category, “The Peasants” will also enter the race for Best Animated Feature. No additional release plans were disclosed.

The animated film had its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations section.

The film was initially shot as a live-action feature film, followed by an extensive two-year process involving a team of over 100 painters to create the intricate painting animation. This identical painting animation technique had previously been utilized in the filmmakers’ Oscar-nominated work “Loving Vincent.”

“The Peasants” tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines...

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North American and other international rights to The Peasants, from Loving Vincent directors Hugh and D.K. Welchman and an oil-painted animated adaptation of the classic Polish novel of the same name.

SPC also picked up the rights in Latin America, the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand. The acquisition reunites the U.S. specialty distributor with The Peasants producer Breakthru Films, which is a co-producer on the animated-live action movie A Winter’s Journey, for which SPC earlier picked up the North American rights and much of the world.

“It’s an indescribable experience and achievement created by singular amazing artists,” Sony Pictures Classics said of The Peasants in a statement on Friday. The film is expected to be a contender in the Oscars’ best animation category after it bowed at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Peasants — about Jagna, a young woman battling...

The film uses the same painted animation technique as the directors’ Loving Vincent.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights to The Peasants, Poland’s submission for this year’s international film Oscar, for North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand.

Written and directed by Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman, The Peasants had its world premiere as a special presentation at this year’s Toronto festival. It uses the same painting animation technique that the filmmakers employed on their 2017 project Loving Vincent, which was nominated for the best animated feature Oscar.

Based on an early twentieth...

Sony Pictures has snapped up rights in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand to The Peasants, the latest animated feature from Loving Vincent helmers Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman, which world premiered in Special Presentations at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Further details on release plans have not yet been disclosed.

Recently selected by Poland as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars, and set to contend in the Best Animated Feature category, as well, The Peasants is based on the same-name, early 20th century novel by Polish author Władysław Reymont. The film tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village — a hotbed of gossip and ongoing feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colorful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy.

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...

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...

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature is made difficult by the three-step process that begins after the October 2, 2023 deadline for countries to submit entries. To be part of the selection process for this category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film before 2020, requires a great deal of dedication. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscars Best International Feature predictions.)

In the days following the deadline for submissions, the academy determines each film’s eligibility. Then the several hundred academy members who serve on the International Feature screening committee are divided into groups and required to watch all their submissions over a six-week period that ends in early December. Their top 15 vote-getters will make it to the next round. That list of semi-finalists will be revealed on December 21, 2023.

These 15 films will be made available to the entire academy membership who can cast ballots for the final five...

Animated feature world premiered at Toronto earlier this month.

Poland is submitting animated featureThe Peasants as its candidate for best International feature film for next year’s Academy Awards.

Co-directors Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman used the same painting animation technique as in their previous film Loving Vincent forThe Peasants.

The Peasants had its world premiere in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, with international sales being handled by New Europe Film Sales.

Last weekend saw The Peasants win its first ever audience prize in Poland when festival-goers at the Polish Film Festival...

Exclusive: Poland will submit animated feature drama The Peasants for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The picture is the latest work from Dk Welchman (previously known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman, the creative duo behind the groundbreaking, Oscar-nominated, hand-painted biopic Loving Vincent.

The pair co-wrote The Peasants screenplay adaptation from Nobel Prize-winning writer Władysław Reymont’s classic 1905 novel of the same name about a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village.

Poland’s Oscar entry choice was made Monday by a selection committee overseen by the Polish Film Institute. There was a strong offering of Polish films this year, with other potential contenders including Agnieszka Holland’s migrant drama Green Border and Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englerts’ transgender drama Woman Of.

Related: Agnieszka Holland’s Migrant Crisis Drama ‘Green Border’ Posts Record Opening Weekend...

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...

Closing ceremony of festival in Gdynia sees Polish film community speak up against “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks.

Pawel Maslona’s second feature Scarborn (Kos) won the Grand Prix - Golden Lion at the 48th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia whose closing ceremony saw the Polish film community express their solidarity with Agnieszka Holland in the light of the vociferous political campaign against her and her film The Green Border.

In his acceptance speech, Maslona spoke out against the “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks and noted that, despite Poland being a country with a strong Christian faith,...

It would have been natural for directors Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman to follow up their highly acclaimed, arthouse smash hit Loving Vincent, about Vincent Van Gogh, with another film exactly in the same vein: Pining for Picasso, Mooning Over Monet, Rhapsodizing About Rembrandt — the possibilities seem aimless. But this talented husband-and-wife filmmaking team has taken their distinctive style of painterly cinema in an even more ambitious direction with their new effort, which received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Adapted from Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning novel, released in four parts from 1904 to 1909, The Peasants is a ravishingly beautiful visual triumph.

The folklore-style tale, set in a 19th-century rural Polish village, revolves around star-crossed lovers. Jamila (Kamila Urzedowska, stunning in animated form) is a young woman whose striking blonde beauty has made her both the subject of intense gossip among the villagers and the...

The Peasants, directed by creators D.K. Welchman and Hugh Welchman, uses much of the same oil live action-painting-on-canvas techniques captured in their earlier Oscar-nominated animated film Loving Vincent.

But the artistic process of actors first shot in live action and then thousands of oil paintings created from the film footage was also far different, and unshackling, say the directors, as they were no longer restricted by the specific work of Vincent van Gogh, like the famous Starry Night, and his inner mind as he painted the world around him.

In The Peasants, which is receiving a world premiere in Toronto, the directors had the freedom of embracing an epic 19th century Poland and a far wider range of realist and pre-impressionist paintings for the animated film inspired by their source material, the Nobel prize-winning novel of the same name by Wladyslaw Reymont.

“This is the opposite approach. We had the...

It is an overused cliche to describe visually stunning films as “every frame of this movie could be a painting hanging on the wall.” It is now an actual fact for at least two films. “Loving Vincent” was the first animated feature-length film composed exclusively of hand-painted oil paintings as its individual frames. Polish-language, “The Peasants” is the second — by the same husband and wife directing duo Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman.

Continue reading ‘The Peasants’ Review: ‘Loving Vincent’ Filmmakers Return With Another Visually Stunning, Hand-Cell-Painted Animated Film [TIFF] at The Playlist.

Here’s the best kind of cinematic double down: One that doesn’t just repeat a past triumph, but goes deeper.

“Loving Vincent” was a dreamy plunge into the art of Vincent Van Gogh, which directors D.K. Welchman and Hugh Welchman created via tens of thousands of oil paintings, each frame of the animated film a full-size work on canvas you could hang on a wall. They’ve said that they’re always asked, “When are we getting ‘Loving Vincent II’?” As in, another animated film about another artist rendered in that artist’s style.

Instead, the wife-and-husband directorial team swerved and delivered something infinitely more ambitious, if commercially more challenging. Their long-awaited follow-up is “The Peasants,” a sensuous, richly immersive adaptation of Nobel laureate Wladislaw Reymont’s early 20th-century novel about life in a rural Polish village. D.K. Welchman is Polish (“Loving Vincent” is technically the highest-grossing Polish...

After 2017’s Loving Vincent and Toronto International Film Festival world premiere The Peasants, it is clear that Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman have developed a gorgeously distinct, personal, ludicrously involved style of filmmaking. Loving Vincent, a clever biography of Vincent Van Gogh, was sold as “the world’s first fully painted feature film,” and indeed it was. The painting process returns in The Peasants, an adaptation of Władysław Reymont’s early 1900s, Nobel Prize–winning novel. A staggering 40,000 frames of film were painted to bring The Peasants to life.

That is an incredible achievement, one that should give the filmmakers and all involved in the production a sense of pride. Unfortunately, watching the finished product inspires difficult questions. Was it worth it? Does the final product warrant the years of painstaking labor involved? Both questions must be answered with a firm no. The Peasants is a visually breathtaking, dramatically inert misfire.

When Hayao Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical fantasy “The Boy and the Heron” had its international premiere Sept. 7, it wasn’t just the first animated film to open TIFF, or the master director’s first in a decade. It is also part of an unexpected resurgence of animated work at major international festivals.

“When we started doing [2017’s] ‘Loving Vincent,’ only one adult animated film every five years got any kind of recognition,” says Hugh Welchman, who directed ”Vincent” and “The Peasants,” which premiered Sept. 8 at TIFF, with wife D.K. Welchman. “Now it seems that every year one kind of breaks out.”

Their Oscar-nominated Vincent van Gogh biopic helped inspire this trend, earning $42.2 million worldwide on a $5.5 million budget. “Heron” is already continuing arthouse animation’s successful run, taking in $50.6 million since July in Japan alone. And prominent fests are increasing their support: in 2019, Cannes launched an Animation Day in partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

With the long-awaited follow-up to their Oscar-nominated animated feature “Loving Vincent,” directors D.K. Welchman (formerly known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman revisit the striking, hand-painted animation technique that dramatically brought the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh to life in their groundbreaking debut, which grossed more than $50 million globally.

But “The Peasants,” which is based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Władysław Reymont and premieres Sept. 8 at the Toronto Film Festival, is a work of far greater scope and ambition. “The scale of the film is different,” says Hugh. “Whereas ‘Loving Vincent’ was very much talking heads…this is about a community with some huge set pieces. We have battles, lynchings, big dance numbers, big weddings. It involves many more people, much more dynamic action in a totally different approach to the use of camera than ‘Loving Vincent.’”

Set toward the end of the 19th century and lavishly...

Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi, 2023).The lineup is being unveiled for the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, starting with 60 selections from the Gala and Special Presentations programs. The festival takes place from September 7–17, 2023.Gala PRESENTATIONSConcrete Utopia (Um Tae-Hwa)Dumb Money (Craig Gillespie)Fair Play (Chloe Domont)Flora and Son (John Carney)Hate to Love: Nickelback (Leigh Brooks)Lee (Ellen Kuras)Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi)Nyad (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin)Punjab ’95 (Honey Trehan)Solo (Sophie Dupuis)The End We Start From (Mahalia Belo)The Movie Emperor (Ning Hao)The New Boy (Warwick Thornton) The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)The Holdovers.Special Presentationsa Difficult Year (Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache)A Normal Family (Hur Jin-ho)American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)Close to You (Dominic Savage)Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud)The Rescue (Daniela Goggi)Ezra (Tony Goldwyn)Fingernails (Christos Nikou)Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania...

Exclusive: Anonymous Content has partnered with New Europe Film Sales to handle North American rights for animated feature The Peasants, directed by Oscar-nominated Loving Vincent filmmakers D.K. Welchman and Hugh Welchman.

The project is adapted from Wladyslaw Reymont’s classic novel of the same name and is produced in the same oil painting format as Loving Vincent. The Peasants tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village – a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colorful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy. When she finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her.

Anonymous Content will...

Polish Days runs July 23-25.

New films by Jan P. Matuszyński, Jakub Piątek, Agnieszka Zwiefka and the makers of Loving Vincent are among 22 projects being presented at the 2023 edition of Polish Days, the industry event for Polish cinema running during New Horizons International Film Festival (July 20-30) in Wrocław.

Scroll down for full line-up

The event runs July 23-25 and is aimed at sales agents, distributors and festival programmers.

The line-up includes four completed Polish films, including Marcin Koszałka’s historical drama White Courage, produced by Warsaw-based Balapolis, and Amp Polska’s production of Edward Porembny’s docudrama The Life...

"Love comes and goes, but land stays." BreakThru Films has revealed another new teaser trailer for their highly anticipated new project called The Peasants, an entirely hand-painted by artists film from Poland directed by the filmmakers Dk Welchman & Hugh Welchman. This has been in the works for years already, we previously featured a promo trailer in 2020, stating it would be done by 2022, but with the pandemic everything slowed down. A story about an early 20th Polish peasant woman who creates havoc by marrying an older rich man. The epic novel of Wladyslaw Reymont has been brought to life using the popular realist and pre-impressionist paintings from the 19th Century, with an emphasis on the Young Poland Movement and the works of such artists as Józef Chełmoński, Ferdynand Ruszczyc and Julian Fałat. It's a follow-up to their hand-painted film Loving Vincent, about Vincent Van Gogh. Every single frame is painted by someone,...

The first fully oil-painted feature film, the Vincent Van Gogh biopic Loving Vincent was a work of epic proportions, taking 125 painters over six years to create, resulting in 65,000 painted frames. Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s feature ended up taking in $52 million worldwide on a $5.5 million budget, and now the team is back with their follow-up, The Peasants. Ahead of a premiere later this year, a new trailer has arrived for the project.

The adaptation of the Wladyslaw Reymont novel tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th-century Polish village––a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colorful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy. When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community,...

Animayo, Spain’s leading animation festival, is celebrating its 18th edition with the help of Disney legend Andreas Deja who will be presenting his independently-produced short, “Mushka.” “Having Deja choose Animayo to debut his film in Spain is the greatest honor,” said Damian Perea, founder-director of the festival, which unspools May 3-6 on the island of Gran Canaria.

A hand-drawn 2D animated story about an unlikely friendship between a young girl and a Siberian tiger in 1970s’ Soviet Union, “Mushka” is Deja’s directorial debut. His lauded Walt Disney Animation Studio credits include “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Other notable Spanish premieres at Animayo include that of Jan Bubenicek and Denisa Grimmova’s “Even Mice Belong in Heaven,” about two mortal enemies, a mouse and a fox, who after an accident, find themselves in animal heaven.

Animayo will also treat attendees to...

New Europe Film Sales has closed several further distribution deals for animated feature “The Peasants,” the followup to Oscar nominee “Loving Vincent,” which grossed more than 50 million at the global box office.

New sales include Benelux (Paradiso), the former Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Hungary (Vertigo), Portugal (Outsider Films), Turkey (Birfilm) and Scandinavia (Another World Entertainment). The company is in negotiations with buyers in Spain and the Baltics. U.K. and North America rights remain open.

Key European sales previously closed include to Plaion in Germany and Jokers in France.

“The Peasants,” which is directed by “Loving Vincent” filmmakers D.K. Welchman (formerly known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman, is being produced with the same painting technique as used in “Vincent.” The directors were inspired by a wide repertoire of realist and pre-impressionist paintings to depict the Nobel prize-winning novel of Wladyslaw Reymont on film. Set at the end of the 19th century,...

The Peasants

We thought there might be a genuine chance at catching this last year (we had it at the #80 slot) but the nature of the (animation) beast means it’s a painstakingly long process. Polish filmmaker Dorota Kobiela is best known for 2017’s Loving Vincent (which she co-directed with Hugh Welchman) and here she moved into her feature solo debut with The Peasants. Co-written/co-produced by Welchman and Sean Bobbitt, they’ve been working on the project since ’20. Set at the end of the 19th century, this tells a story of love and life in a small community, where rules and traditions dictate everyone’s role.…...

Loving Vincent is an animated film released in 2017 directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, starring Chris O'Dowd, Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, and Robert Gulaczyk. To describe the film like this feels emotionally dishonest, not giving the film enough credit to what an undertaking it truly is. About 125 artists from all over the world banded together to oil-paint the entire film, frame by frame, at times photo-realistically, or in the style of the famed post-impressionist painter who sits at the center of the film, the painter it honors in a beautiful tribute to his life and his work: Vincent van Gogh.