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After wrapping October with Robert Zemeckis’ hilarious dark comedy Death Becomes Her (listen), we kicked off November with a look back at Wes Craven’s classic slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street (listen), followed by Albert Ray’s pre-Code 1932 “classic” The Thirteenth Guest (listen).

In honor of Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass re-teaming for Shudder’s The Creep Tapes (review), we’ve decided to revisit the better-than-the-original sequel Creep 2.

In the film, after dispatching new “friend” Dave (Karan Soni), Aaron (Duplass) sets his sights on flailing YouTube personality Sara (Desiree Akhavan). After trying all of the same tricks as the first film, however, Aaron finds that Sara is unflappable: she’s not bothered by his pranks and jump scares and seems more than willing to match his freak in every conceivable way

As the battle of wills escalates, it soon becomes clear that these two may just be made for each other.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Creep franchise.

Nothing in the world of film and TV excites horror academics like the meta-slasher. This curious subgenre emerged in the ’90s as a response to the slasher boom of the previous decade and involves skewering standard tropes with characters and scripts well aware of the films that have come before. Wes Craven’s 1996 masterpiece Scream opens with the killer quizzing his victim about classic slasher franchises and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods concludes with a Director entering the scene to explain the archetypes each doomed character fulfills. Meta-slashers play with our expectations by blatantly giving characters the tools to survive then daring them to follow through with the knowledge they’ve accrued. They are ingenious twists on a beloved cinematic formula and a way to build upon the lore we’ve come to expect.

Nearly thirty years after the subgenre’s peak,...

The red carpet premiere for Hulu’s “How to Die Alone” was held on Wednesday, September 4 at nya Studios West in Los Angeles. Gold Derby associate editor Latasha Ford was there to chat with the stars, creators and guests as they arrived to the celebratory event. Watch each red carpet interview by clicking the person’s name below.

Natasha Rothwell

Conrad Ricamora (stars as Rory)

Jaylee Hamidi (stars as Allie)

Jocko Sims (stars as Alex)

KeiLyn Durrell Jones (stars as Terrance)

Michelle McLeod (stars as Patty)

Vera Santamaria (co-showrunner and executive producer)

Yvette Nicole Brown (guest)

“How to Die Alone” follows Mel (Natasha Rothwell), a broke, fat, Black JFK airport employee who’s never been in love and forgotten how to dream, until an accidental brush with death catapults her on a journey to finally take flight and start living by any means necessary.

Created by Natasha Rothwell, “How to Die Alone...

Mark Duplass announced today he has completed production on The Creep Tapes, a half-hour horror TV series based on the Netflix original films Creep and Creep 2, in which he starred.

Duplass revealed the series on social media in a cryptic post with no audio and only the words “Coming Soon” at the end.

The series was independently produced by Duplass Brothers Productions. The company is presenting the series to buyers, with CAA handling world sales.

The Creep Tapes stars Duplass and is written and created by Duplass and the director of the original films, Patrick Brice, who also directed all episodes of the series. Chris Donlon is both editor and EP on the project.

Per Duplass, “the series is based on a collection of video tapes in the secret vault of the world’s deadliest and most socially uncomfortable serial killer, who hires his victims to film him for the day under false pretenses.

[Update: Variety has confirmed that "Creep 3" is actually "The Creep Tapes," a new series! This article has been updated with additional information.]

Babe, wake up! New "Creep" sequel news just dropped! 10 years ago, Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice unleashed the found footage film "Creep," in which an aspiring filmmaker named Aaron (Brice) answers an ad posted on Craiglist by an allegedly terminally ill man named Josef (Duplass) looking to make videos for his unborn child to watch after he's passed. Aaron arrives to record Josef's "day in the life" videos believing he's doing something noble, but quickly realizes that there's something seriously wrong with the man who hired him for the job.

The film arrived seven years after the success of "Paranormal Activity" inspired an explosion of found footage horror, which at this point had jumped the shark in terms of practical believability. "Creep" dropped on Netflix and became a huge hit through word of mouth,...

The 2024 Tribeca Festival jury has been announced with a star-studded filmmaker lineup.

This year, David O. Russell, Selma Blair, Asghar Farhadi, Kim Cattrall, Francesca Scorsese, and more will select the winning projects in the film, games, and audio storytelling sections across the 17 competition categories. In addition to the awards in competition categories, the Nora Ephron Award, created to honor the spirit and vision of the legendary filmmaker and writer, will be presented.

The festival, presented by Okx, will take place from June 5 through 16.

“We are thrilled to once again welcome a diverse group of remarkable filmmakers, creatives and industry players as jurors for the 2024 Tribeca Festival,” executive vice president at Tribeca Enterprises Nancy Lefkowitz said. “We look forward to their wide-ranging perspectives across storytelling genres and mediums coming together to honor the extraordinary group of submissions this year.”

The winning films, projects, filmmakers, storytellers, and actors in each category will...

New York University has revealed its 2024 picks for its Black List-inspired Purple List of the best production-ready screenplays from Tisch School of the Arts graduate film students and recent alumni.

The four screenplays, selected via a blind reading process by industry insiders, are Blue Comedy by Vincent Lee Accettola, Little Phnom Penh by Chheangkea, Rubber Hut by Hanna Gray Organschi and Satoshi by Sara Crow and David Rafailedes.

Blue Comedy follows a celebrity comedian who recently came out of the closet who returns to the Boston stand-up scene to mentor a straight comedian for whom he’s developed feelings. Little Phnom Penh explores a Cambodian woman’s personal desires and changing family roles over two decades in a story that spans across the U.S. and Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Rubber Hut centers around a former ex-Pam Am stewardess who opens a drive-thru condom shop...

Created by Empire for M&m’S Chocolate.

Time to lace up those footy boots, and get yourself out on the pitch – there’s potentially a brand new female footy film in town, and you could be part of making it a reality.

Introducing the M&m’S Short Film Festival, an exciting new way to find the filmmakers of tomorrow. Bringing together diverse voices from across the UK and shining a light on the next generation of talent, the M&m’S Short Film Festival is a competition which gives up and coming directors the chance to receive £25,000 in funding to bring their short film idea to life. The best part? You get to be involved too, and vote for who takes the top prize.

The challenge for these budding movie-makers was to come up with a compelling cinematic concept that fits the theme of ‘belonging’. After receiving many incredible applications,...

The Sundance Film Festival is regarded as one of the most prestigious independent film festivals, where filmmakers have been premiering their movies and documentaries since 1984.

The festival was founded in 1978 by Sterling Van Wagenen, the head of Robert Redford’s company Wildwood, and John Earle of the Utah Film Commission under the name Utah/US Film Festival to attract more filmmakers to Utah.

Redford founded the Sundance Institute in 1981 to foster independence, risk-taking, and new voices in American film. That year, 10 emerging filmmakers were invited to the Sundance Resort in the mountains of Utah, where they worked with leading writers, directors and actors to develop their original independent projects.

By 1984, the festival had established itself and was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival after Redford’s character in his 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That year, the Grand Jury Prize in Dramatics was awarded to Old Enough, an...

Actual People.Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers KaramazovHumiliation is one of humanity’s cruelest jokes, one of its most repugnant punishments. The Latin root of the word, “humus,” translates to “earth,” or “dirt,” the idea that a person loses dignity and returns to something inhuman, crude and trampled on. The fear of being humiliated is a specter persuasive enough to shrink whole personalities, curtail ambitions, end life as someone knew it. Many mainstream filmmakers avoid its narrative possibilities because, maybe, to degrade a character would mean to degrade the film itself. I don’t think that’s the case. To see humiliation depicted onscreen can be like witnessing a corpse flower blooming: compelling, strange,...

The list of directors who put their trust in Robby Müller could constitute a nice history of post-war cinema. A retrospective of films on which he served as Dp reflects accordingly––so’s the case with Metrograph’s “Robby Müller: Remain in Light,” which starts on Friday, September 29, and for which we’re glad to debut the trailer.

Contained therein are bits and pieces of what Metrograph attendees can anticipate. The series will offer a chance to see (among others) 24 Hour Party People, Alice in the Cities, The American Friend, Barfly, Breaking the Waves, Dead Man, Down by Law, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Kings of the Road, Korczak, Living the Light – Robby Müller, Mystery Train, Repo Man, Saint Jack, To Live and Die in L.A., When Pigs Fly, The Wrong Move, and Paris, Texas. The opening night will be anchored by “a panel on Müller’s continued influence on filmmaking,...

This article contains spoilers for Heartstopper season 2.

Netflix’s second season of Heartstopper is breaking viewership records for LGBTQ+ programming, transcending the typical queer audience it would be expected to garner. Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) and Charlie Spring’s (Joe Locke) deeply romantic teenage fling started to blossom into a real relationship in season 2, and with that development came discussions around coming out, eating disorders, communication, and sexual consent. The series has a unique way of painting every scenario gold that could possibly trouble its characters.

Heartstopper’s eternal queer ecstasy is an absolute Godsend for the LGBTQ+ community, allowing young viewers to see a bright light of possibility and potential for their adolescent romantic prospects and on into adulthood. In a world with so much darkness and depression, having this type of upbeat version of living queer is undeniably vital. This positivity has an odd way of making LGBTQ...

New York University has revealed its 2023 picks for its Black List-inspired Purple List of the best production-ready screenplays from Tisch School of the Arts graduate film students and recent alumni.

The four screenplays, selected via a blind reading process by industry leaders, are Burnout by Swetha Regunathan, Fate Moreland’s Widow by Joshua Foster, Haazer by Pepi Ginsberg and May You Outlive Us by Isabelle Mecattaf.

Burnout is a family drama set on an illegal cannibis farm. Fate Moreland’s Widow is based on a 2015 novel of the same name and explores a drama set in a Blue Ridge Mountain mill town. Haazer is a campus psychological thriller involving a student athlete and a fraternity. And May You Outlive Us follows four women as they recover from the 2020 Beirut explosion.

Prominent filmmakers whose work was included on past editions of the Purple List, now in its 12th year, include Chloé Zhao (Nomadland,...

This April, the temperature isn’t the only thing rising; TV shows are heating up too! It’s time for another exciting wave of premieres to kick off. The titles spread across all platforms, from traditional network and cable outlets to streaming services that bring even more original content than ever before.

Check our lists from previous months: December | January | February | March

10 New TV Shows to Watch in April 2023 (Ranked by Popularity)

No matter how you prefer your entertainment served up – with plenty of adaptations or new programming – there is something this month sure to please all tastes. We’ve got romantic multiverses tugging at our heartstrings. At the same time, negotiations occur amongst high-ranking government officials in boardrooms everywhere, psychological thrillers exploring dark socio-political topics on a global scale, and one woman’s ability to impart sage advice drawing lines between comedy and drama.

And don’t forget two...

We've all seen stories where fictional art falls short: films where supposedly world-famous pop stars actually sound just okay, or TV shows where fictional acclaimed poets aren't nearly as talented as they're clearly meant to be. It's a tricky business to write art within art, and more often than not, the end results fall short. Hulu's new series "Tiny Beautiful Things," based on an essay collection by Cheryl Strayed, doesn't have that problem. Rather, the show about a woman who takes on a self-help column writing gig despite the fact that her own life is falling apart features some of the most beautiful, aching, soulful writing I've ever heard, delivered with assured emotion by star Kathryn Hahn.

Hahn delivers a powerful performance here, one that feels as if it continues a conversation started by her dynamic, sexually and emotionally complex turn in the underrated series "Mrs. Fletcher." The two shows aren't related,...

Exclusive: Conrad Ricamora (How To Get Away With Murder), KeiLyn Durrel Jones (The Other Two) and Jocko Sims (New Amsterdam) are set as series regulars opposite Natasha Rothwell in How To Die Alone, an original comedy from Onyx Collective for Hulu. Additionally, Bashir Salahuddin (South Side) will recur in the eight-episode series, which is written, starring and co-showrun by Rothwell via her overall deal with ABC Signature and Onyx Collective.

How to Die Alone follows Melissa (Rothwell), a fat, Black neurotic who’s never been in love. After a comical brush with death, she refuses to settle for anything less than the life she wants, catapulting her on a journey to becoming “100% that bitch” in real life by any means necessary.

Ricamora will play Rory. Self-involved, boy-crazy, love-starved Rory is Mel’s well-meaning best friend. Rory loves to have a good time at all costs and is blind to his...

Maryam Keshavarz’s semi-autobiographical feature The Persian Version is an energetic family comedy chronicling three generations of Iranian women in the US. An often hilarious and spirited film with a deceptively complicated plot structure, it unpacks family secrets that ultimately inform the present. The only sister in her large family of successful brothers, Leila (Layla Mohammadi) has never quite fit in, opting to take the creative route. Living in Brooklyn, she’s just broken up with her girlfriend and, at a costume party, randomly hooks up with Max (Tom Byrne), who is playing Hedwig on Broadway. The hook-up leads to motherhood, setting Leila down a path of discovery when a family secret is hinted at by her grandma Mamanjoon (Bella Warda).

Spending time in both New Jersey and Iran, Leila has never found a sense of identity, which naturally forces her to become a writer and filmmaker. She’s Western and independent,...

Natasha Rothwell will write, star in, executive produce and co-showrun a Hulu Original comedy for Onyx Collective called “How to Die Alone,” which just received an eight-episode order from the Disney General Entertainment content brand.

The “Insecure” alumna will serve as co-showrunner and EP along with Emmy nominee Vera Santamaria. “How to Die Alone,” which is a product of her deal with ABC Signature and Onyx Collective, will be produced under her banner, Big Hattie Productions. Desiree Akhavan (“The Bisexual”) also serves as executive producer.

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‘Bel-Air’ Season 2 Teaser: Will Sets Out to Make His Own Decisions (Video)

Per the series’ logline, “‘How to Die Alone’ follows Melissa (Rothwell), a fat, black, neurotic who’s never been in love. After a comical brush with death, she refuses to settle for anything less than the life she wants, catapulting her on a journey to becoming ‘100 that bitch’ in real life by any means necessary.

Onyx Collective has greenlit “How to Die Alone,” a half-hour Hulu comedy series written by and starring Natasha Rothwell.

The eight-episode series follows Melissa (Rothwell), a fat, Black neurotic who’s never been in love. After a comical brush with death, she refuses to settle for anything less than the life she wants, catapulting her on a journey to becoming “100 that bitch” in real life by any means necessary.

Vera Santamaria co-showruns “How to Die Alone” with Rothwell, and both serve as executive producers along with Desiree Akhavan. The project comes from Rothwell’s overall deal with ABC Signature and Onyx Collective via her Big Hattie Productions banner.

Rothwell is best known for starring as Issa’s (Issa Rae) close friend Kelli in HBO’s “Insecure,” on which she also served as a writer and made her directorial debut. Recently, she played Belinda in Season 1 of HBO’s “The White Lotus,...

Natasha Rothwell has landed her first major series after striking a rich pact with Disney.

Her comedy How to Die Alone, which she will write, star in and co-showrun, has scored a series order from Onyx Collective and will air on Hulu.

Related: 2022 Hulu Pilots & Series Orders

It comes after The White Lotus star signed an overall deal last year under her banner Big Hattie Productions with ABC Signature, which produces the series for Onyx.

Related Story Hulu Orders Eight-Episode Limited Series 'Under The Bridge' Related Story 'La Máquina': Lucía Méndez and Jorge Perugorría Join Hulu Limited Series; Karina Gidi, Raul Briones, and Luis Gnecco To Recur Related Story 'We Were The Lucky Ones': Robin Weigert, Lior Ashkenazi Join Hulu Limited Series

The eight-part, half-hour series follows Melissa (Rothwell), a fat, Black neurotic who’s never been in love. After a comical brush with death, she refuses to settle for...

Click here to read the full article.

Natasha Rothwell is striking out on her own.

The Insecure and White Lotus alum will star in, write and co-showrun How to Die Alone, a comedy that has been ordered straight to series at Hulu. The project hails from Onyx Collective, the Tara Duncan-led studio focused on underrepresented voices, and ABC Signature and stems from an overall deal with both that Rothwell signed earlier this year.

Hulu and Onyx say How to Die Alone will follow Melissa (Rothwell), “a fat, black, neurotic woman who has never been in love. After a comical brush with death, she refuses to settle for anything less than the life she wants, catapulting her on a journey to becoming ‘100 percent that bitch’ in real life by any means necessary.”

Rothwell and Vera Santamaria (Hulu’s Pen15) serve as co-showrunners on How to Die Alone. Both will exec...

As Halloween approaches, people are looking to Netflix to provide the scares.

Luckily, the streaming giant has plenty to choose from when it comes to horror – although, as with anything, not all scary movies are created equal.

Trust in the guidance of your fellow horror lovers and find seven of the best-reviewed horror films on Netflix below… just in time for Halloween this weekend.

1. Creep 2 (100 per cent)

While the gruesome horror film was released in 2017, many viewers are just now discovering it thanks to its place on Netflix.

The sequel follows on from the 2004 cult favourite Creep, a found-footage psychological horror film (also on Netflix) directed by Patrick Brice, who co-wrote the story with Mark Duplass.

In the original, Duplass plays a stranger who hires a videographer (Brice) to film him for a day, explaining that the idea behind the video is to pass it down to his unborn son.

Click here to read the full article.

Respect, Renew, Rejoice. These are the three words that greet visitors entering Whilster Camp, the fictional conversion therapy program at the center of John Logan’s sinister directorial debut They/Them. From a distance, the camp and its surrounding acreage resemble any other: Log cabins dot the premise, the waters of the serene lake glisten in the sun, the sky is a clear blue. The counselors beam and recite banal motivations. But the camp is a menacing place — a site where Owen Whilster (a brilliant Kevin Bacon), its director, runs a week-long program to turn gay young adults straight.

Conversion therapy — a delusional concept — dates back to at least the 19th century, when Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, a German psychiatrist, convinced a crowd that he had turned a gay man straight through hypnosis. His experiment set an alarming precedent and birthed an entire field — now...

More than 400 prominent female writers and showrunners sent a letter today to the heads of the major studios expressing their “grave concerns” about the companies’ “lack of specific production protocols” to protect their workers in anti-abortion states.

The letters, which state that “it is unacceptable to ask any person to choose between their human rights and their employment,” also demanded that the companies “pledge to discontinue all political donations to anti-abortion candidates and political action committees immediately.”

Deadline has obtained a copy of the letter to Netflix, which organizers say was sent to top executives at Amazon Studios, AMC Networks, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Global, , and Warner Bros. Discovery.

The letters, whose signers include Ava DuVernay, Shonda Rhimes, Amy Schumer, Marta Kauffman, Callie Khouri, WGA West vice president Michele Mulroney and WGA West secretary-treasurer Betsy Thomas, said that “this situation raises basic matters of equality, health, and safety in the workplace.

Click here to read the full article.

In June 2019, the gender-parity industry coalition ReFrame unveiled Rise, its two-year program to support the continuation of mid-level female directors’ careers. After a slight pandemic-affected delay, ReFrame Rise has now returned with its second cohort, which expands to include cinematographers.

Each woman will be matched with a career coach and a team of industry professionals to sponsor them (a relationship that involves a more committed level of participation than mentorship).

“We have learned firsthand the value of the sponsorship opportunity for women artists and look forward to supporting this next group as they level up and find sustainability in their careers,” Sundance Institute founding senior director of Artist Programs and ReFrame Leadership Council member Michelle Satter said in a statement. (ReFrame is a collaboration between the institute and Women in Film.)

“The numbers of women cinematographers hired on our industry’s largest projects...

Pride is only one month, but queer film lives on all year. And as long as there are obstacles to funding, production, and distribution for queer films, shorts remain the easiest way for filmmakers to get noticed and get a foot in the door of the industry. That’s doubly and sometimes triply important when you’re a marginalized voice, especially if your work deals openly with themes of queerness, sexuality, race, and/or gender.

While the U.S. has fewer avenues for short films to gain attention than say Europe or Asia, there will always be cinephiles who enjoy the unique pleasures of a well-made short. The best short films don’t use the form as a mere stepping stone to a feature, but as a unique and valuable medium unto itself.

Recognizing that barriers to entry remain higher for all marginalized filmmakers of all stripes, it’s vitally...

“The Alienist’s” Rosy McEwen has boarded Georgia Oakley’s upcoming feature “Blue Jean” in the lead role.

McEwen, who was named one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch 2020, will play the eponymous Jean, a teacher who finds herself grappling with her identity during the tail-end of the 1980s.

Oakley, whose debut short film “Little Bird” was nominated for best narrative short film at Tribeca Film Festival, is directing the film from her original screenplay.

“Jean is a woman forced to wear multiple masks in the different areas of her life, and as such she has this sort of taut, cloistered energy that Rosy has absolutely mastered,” Oakley said in a statement. “I think it takes an actor such as Rosy, with such intelligence and poise to communicate these kinds of complex emotions; I can’t wait to work with her to bring Jean to life.”

McEwen said of the...

With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

If 2021 has been a calvacade of bad decisions, dashed hopes, and warning signs for cinema’s strength, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming has at least buttressed our hopes for something like a better tomorrow. Anyway. The Channel will let us ride out distended (holi)days in the family home with an extensive Alfred Hitchcock series to bring the family together—from the established Rear Window and Vertigo to the (let’s just guess) lesser-seen Downhill and Young and Innocent—Johnnie To’s Throw Down and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons in their Criterion editions, and some streaming premieres: Ste. Anne, Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.

Special notice to Yvonne Rainer’s brain-expanding Film About a Woman Who . . .—debuting in “Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers,” a series that does as it says on the tin—and a Joseph Cotten retro boasting Ambersons,...

Exclusive: Amazon Studios has passed on Hot Pink, its YA pilot headlined by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Annapurna Pictures, which produced the pilot with Amazon Studios, might shop it to other platforms, I hear.

Loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of, Hot Pink is a biting coming-of-age comedy created by Elisabeth Holm.

The pilot also stars Nina Bloomgarden, David Iacono, Mimi Davila, Dana Donnelly and Myra Molloy.

Holm is executive producing with director Desiree Akhavan and fellow executive producers Rebecca Green and Sue Naegle and Ali Krug for Annapurna.

2020-21 Amazon Prime Video Pilots & Series Orders...

Exclusive: Emma Roberts, John Gallagher Jr. and two-time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon will topline Spencer Squire’s first feature, Abandoned, which is also the first to be fully financed through the partnership between Vertical Entertainment and Three Point Capital.

The recently wrapped thriller written by Squire, Jessica Scott, and Erik Patterson follows a mother, father, and infant son as they move into a remote farmhouse, which harbors a dark, tragic history. As their home’s past is revealed, the mother’s fragility escalates to a state of psychosis that jeopardizes her own safety and that of her newborn son.

Roberts is producing with Robert Ogden Barnum, Eric Binns, and Byron Wetzel, with Neal Dodson, Andrew Gans, David Gendron, Neil Gobioff, Rich Goldberg, Peter Jarowey, Ali Jazayeri, Shawn Paonessa, Oliver Ridge, Zachary Quinto, Viviana Zarragoitia, Michael Reiser, Delos Chang,...

Mark Cousins joins iconic producer on annual road trip to Cannes.

Visit Films has boarded worldwide rights on Mark Cousins’ Cannes Classics documentary The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas.

Cousins joins Thomas on the producer’s annual road trip from London to the Cannes Film Festival as he recalls some of his most iconic films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s multiple Oscar winner The Last Emperor, David Cronenberg’s Crash, and Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing.

Thomas discusses Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, and David Bowie, and the journey is interspersed with commentary from Tilda Swinton and Debra Winger, and features a range of film clips.

Exclusive: Sundance Institute has announced the 21 fellows and 18 projects they have selected for their first-ever, multi-track Episodic Lab, which is being held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fellows chosen include Justin Calen-Chenn (The Cavi), Lauren Glover (A Dignified Death), Andrew Lopez (Emotional), Jessie Barr and Lena Hudson (Fantasia for You), Elissa Blount Moorhead and Ericka Blount Danois (fiftyTWO), Stacy F. McDonald (Gone But Not Forgotten), Zach Gonzalez-Landis (The Great Impasta), Mansoor Adayfi and Antonio Aiello, Yvonne Hana Yi (Hannah with the Dogs), Carly Woodworth (Lasting), Jackie Katzman (Loons), Terrance Daye (Mandingo), Jess dela Merced (On Soul), Shirin Najafi (Regulars), Johnny Alvarez (Somewhere Else), Rom Lotan (Tehran Disco), Melody Cooper (Those Who Kill) and Nicole Saad (Tinderbox).

The 2021 Lab, hosted on Sundance Collab, has been designed as an immersive two-part experience. Fellows were divided into either the “Idea to Pilot Track,” in which they developed an...

If pop culture insists on telling stories about tortured comics with deep-rooted personal issues veiled by their stage personae, at least do viewers the courtesy of democratizing that outline and producing good examples with something to say, like “Hacks.” Created and showrun by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, “Hacks” has something to say. Leads Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the series’ aforementioned, creators, the writers, ranging from Downs and Aniello to Joanna Calo, and the directors, chiefly Aniello but with room for guests like Desiree Akhavan, all have something to say.

Continue reading ‘Hacks’ With Jean Smart Sharply Unpacks How Comedians Are Fundamentally Flawed [Review] at The Playlist.

Kym Whitley and Danny Garcia have been cast in recurring roles in the Amazon YA pilot “Hot Pink,” Variety has learned exclusively.

The pair joins previously announced stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nina Bloomgarden, David Iacono, Mimi Davila, Dana Donnelly, and Myra Molloy, as well as fellow recurring star David Arquette.

The show is loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s book “What Girls Are Made Of.” In the book, Nina Faye was raised to believe that there is no such thing as unconditional love, meaning she will do anything for her boyfriend to prove her worthiness. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost and sets out to find out what the conditions of love really are.

Whitley is a comedian and actress. She is known for her roles in films like “Next Friday,” “Deliver Us from Eva,” “Black Dynamite,” and “Along Came Polly” as well as shows such as “The Boondocks,...

Exclusive: David Arquette has been cast in Amazon Studios’ coming-of-age pilot Hot Pink, created by Elisabeth Holm.

The You Cannot Kill David Arquette subject joins in a recurring role, alongside lead Sarah Michelle Gellar and series regulars Nina Bloomgarden, David Iacono, Mimi Davila, Dana Donnelly and Myra Molloy. No character details have been revealed.

Hot Pink, from Amazon Studios in association with Annapurna Pictures, is loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of. Series creator Holm is executive producing with director Desiree Akhavan and executive producers Rebecca Green and Sue Naegle and Ali Krug for Annapurna.

Arnold’s 2017 novel What Girls Are Made Of is described as exploring “the real, knotted, messy, thriving heartbeat of young womanhood” through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl.

If ordered to series, Hot Pink would join Amazon Studios’ growing YA series slate, which includes The Wilds and the upcoming show,...

Amazon’s YA pilot “Hot Pink” has added five new cast members.

Nina Bloomgarden, David Iacono, Mimi Davila, Dana Donnelly, and Myra Molloy will star in the pilot, joining previously announced star Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The show is loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s book “What Girls Are Made Of.” In the book, Nina Faye was raised to believe that there is no such thing as unconditional love, meaning she will do anything for her boyfriend to prove her worthiness. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost and sets out to find out what the conditions of love really are.

Bloomgarden recently wrapped on the Netflix/Sony film “Fatherhood” starring Kevin Hart. She previously had a supporting role in the indie feature “Good Girl Jane.” She is repped by Innovative Artists and Grandview.

Iacono’s past credits include “Grand Army” at Netflix, “The Flight Attendant” at HBO Max,...

Nina Bloomgarden (Fatherhood), David Iacono (Grand Army), Mimi Davila (The Chonga Diaries), Dana Donnelly (The Sex Life of College Girls) and Myra Molloy (He’s All That) are set as leads opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in Hot Pink, a biting coming-of-age comedy pilot for Amazon created by Elisabeth Holm (Obvious Child).

Character details are being kept under wraps.

Hot Pink, from Amazon Studios in association with Annapurna Pictures, was loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of.

Series creator Holm is executive producing with director Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) and executive producers Rebecca Green (It Follows) and Sue Naegle and Ali Krug for Annapurna.

If ordered to series, Hot Pink would join Amazon Studios’ growing YA series slate, which includes The Wilds, already renewed for a second season, and the upcoming Panic.

Published in 2017, Arnold’s What Girls Are Made...

Sarah Michelle Gellar is set to star in the YA comedy pilot “Hot Pink” at Amazon, the streamer announced Wednesday.

Described as a “biting coming-of-age comedy,” the pilot from “Obvious Child” writer Elisabeth Holm is loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s book “What Girls Are Made Of.” The book centers on Nina Faye, a brokenhearted 16-year-old who tries to figure out what the conditions of love are in the wake of a bad breakup.

The pilot is produced by Amazon Studios in association with Annapurna Pictures. Holm is creator and executive producer, alongside director Desiree Akhavan (“The Miseducation of Cameron Post”), executive producer Rebecca Green (“It Follows”) and Annapurna’s Sue Naegle and Ali Krug.

The pilot joins a growing slate of young adult series at Amazon, including the survival drama “The Wilds,” which has been renewed for a second season, and the upcoming “Panic” from author Lauren Oliver.

Sarah Michelle Gellar has been tapped to headline Hot Pink, a biting coming-of-age comedy for Amazon created by Elisabeth Holm (Obvious Child). With Gellar on board, the YA project has been officially ordered to pilot.

Hot Pink, from Amazon Studios in association with Annapurna Pictures, was loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of.

Series creator Holm is executive producing with director Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation of Cameron Post) and executive producers Rebecca Green (It Follows), and Sue Naegle and Ali Krug for Annapurna.

If ordered to series, Hot Pink would join Amazon Studios’ growing YA series slate, which includes The Wilds, already renewed for a second season, and the upcoming Panic.

2020-21 Amazon Prime Video Pilots & Series Orders

Published in 2017, Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of is described as exploring “the real, knotted, messy, thriving heartbeat of young womanhood” through...

Sarah Michelle Gellar is set to star in the YA comedy “Hot Pink,” which has been ordered to pilot at Amazon, Variety has learned.

The show is loosely inspired by Elana K. Arnold’s book “What Girls Are Made Of.” In the book, Nina Faye was raised to believe that there is no such thing as unconditional love, meaning she will do anything for her boyfriend to prove her worthiness. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost and sets out to find out what the conditions of love really are.

Elisabeth Holm created “Hot Pink,” with Holm also executive producing. Desiree Akhavan will direct and executive produce the pilot. Rebecca Green will also executive produce along with Sue Naegle and Ali Krug for Annapurna. Amazon Studios will produce in association with Annapurna.

Gellar is perhaps best known for her iconic leading role in the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series.

Hulu’s new anthology horror series “Monsterland” isn’t about the things that go bump in the night. It’s about the things that go bump within us, what makes us tick, what makes us monsters. It’s a vision of horror that showrunner Mary Laws was drawn to — in spite of her attempts to move outside the genre. Laws burst onto the scene in 2016, writing the script for the Nicolas Winding Refn feature “The Neon Demon.”

“The Neon Demon” set up Laws as a horror director, but she didn’t want to thermatically repeat herself. “I wasn’t really interested in anything that was like the slasher, blood and guts kind of horror,” she told IndieWire. Laws wanted to investigate character, and that’s when she discovered Nathan Ballingrud’s book “North American Lake Monsters: Stories.” Found within Ballingrud’s book were elements that spoke not just to Laws...

The horror genre is a fun one in that it can go in many directions, but it is often dominated by men in front of and behind the camera. Hulu’s new anthology series Monsterland, which debuts Friday, subverts that expectation with a female showrunner and a cast and crew dominated by women.

Monsterland creator and showrunner Mary Laws was joined by actress Kelly Marie Tran and director of photography Anka Malatynska and director Desiree Akhavan at the virtual PaleyFest Fall TV Previews event to talk about the new series and how it champions female narratives.

“I think that its safe to say that as forward-moving as Hollywood is, I don’t think there are opportunities for women’s stories on screen, for women in leadership roles and for women protagonist roles,” said Laws. “I think so often I found myself in a room with a lot of men making...

The Paley Center for Media’s annual fall television event has moved beyond “previews.” This year, the robust slate will include some sneak peeks at upcoming series, such as Hulu’s “Monsterland” and Netflix’s “Emily in Paris,” but it is also celebrating shows that already launched — and weeks earlier — such as Netflix’s “Away,” Fox’s “Filthy Rich” and HBO’s “We Are Who We Are.”

Still dubbed the 14th annual PaleyFest Fall TV Previews, the festival is going virtual this year, in accordance with ongoing health and safety concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. All panels will be viewable on official sponsor Verizon’s Yahoo Entertainment Channel. Citi returns as the official card of the festival and its members can preview panels first, as of today, Sept. 29 at 10 a.m. Et. The panels will then be live for the public starting on Friday, Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. Et, with...

Speakers discussed creating structural change in the film and TV industries.

International writers, directors, producers, academic researchers and industry experts came together at the Carla 2020 conference held online from August 21-23 to debate how to create structural change in the film and TV industries post-Covid-19.

Speakers discussed themes including intersectionality, decolonisation, the queer gaze and activist movements through keynotes, panels and roundtables,

Transparent creator Joey Soloway spoke about how they believed it is time for white people, particularly white men, in positions of power to step aside: “It takes a really amazing person to just step aside, who is going...

Exclusive: Creep franchise filmmaker and HBO Room 104 director Patrick Brice has boarded The Wild at HBO Max and Warner Max, a project he’ll direct and adapt from the Owen Laukkanen young female suspense novel.

The Wild, from Underlined Paperbacks, centers around Dawn. She’s not a bad person – she’s just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn’t expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to ‘Out of the Wild’, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important “life lessons.” Dawn and the other cubs wind up learning a lot, but not what they expect, for what happens in the woods isn’t what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she’s ever been in her life.

Much has been made in recent years of the need to support, uplift, and, for the love of God — finance —more women filmmakers, but how many lesbian films have shaken out from all that hand-wringing? It’s heartening to see a woman at the helm of a comic book movie, but when was the last great lesbian rom-com? (Even more pressing: Where is the next one?) As in the struggle for queer liberation, lesbians —and lesbian films — are often an afterthought. That’s one of the many salient points covered in the peppy new documentary, “Dykes, Camera, Action!,” which while offering yet more proof that no one does catchy titles like the queers.

At a breezy 60 minutes, the film has much in common with that other lesbian tradition, the potluck, in terms of the topics it covers. There’s a little o’ this, a little o’ that, plus plenty of vegan and gluten-free options.

Exclusive: As film festivals postpone and cancel across the country due to the coronavirus pandemic, independent films have taken a hit — but Seed&Spark has stepped into action to help by launching a platform specifically built for online festivals. On top of that, they will partner with an all-star roster of actors, filmmakers and celebrities have signed on to support the initiative.

Seed&Spark has shed light on improving equity and inclusion in entertainment for the last 8 years. The new online screening platform is an effort to help save 2020 film festivals as the indie films try to figure out what to do with their projects as a result of the numerous cancellation

More from DeadlineSet To Open L.A.'s Jewish Film Festival, The Documentary 'Carl Laemmle' Recalls Some Grand Humanity'Cemetery Tales: A Tale of Two Sisters' Found Life Thanks To George A. RomeroFarewell To Arms At A Changing Toronto...

Mae is an addict. It doesn’t matter that she’s been in recovery for “a long time,” as she vaguely assures her new girlfriend, she will always be an addict. That’s what the eccentric folks at her wildly unhinged Narcotics Anonymous meetings tell her, anyway. Her erratic behavior, which includes burning all her possessions in a trash can and saran-wrapping her phone inside a suitcase so she won’t text her girlfriend too much, makes a pretty strong case for the argument.

Anyone in recovery will tell you that addiction is about so much more than substance abuse. Even once sober, addicts substitute obsession with the high found with another obsession. That’s the savvy central tenet of “Feel Good,” a wildly entertaining breath of fresh air of a series arriving on Netflix just in the nick of time. Hilariously crafted, thrillingly paced, and brimming with the kind...

Desiree Akhavan.

Desiree Akhavan, a Us writer, director and actor best known for her queer cult classic Appropriate Behaviour and the TV series The Bisexual, is coming to Australia.

At two In Conversation sessions she will address such topics as working in film and episodic TV, acting in one’s own own work vs directing without acting, choosing projects and how diversity issues have affected her career.

The daughter of Iranian parents, she played Shirin, who is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her breakout feature Appropriate Behaviour, which premiered at Sundance.

Her second feature The Miseducation of Cameron Post, a drama starring Chloë Grace Moretz as a teenager who is forced into a gay conversion therapy centre by her conservative guardians, won the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic at Sundance.

The Bisexual, which she created, wrote, directed and starred in,...