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The daughter of musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet, Zoë Kravitz wears a shoe size 7 (US) and was born on December 1, 1988, in Venice, Los Angeles, California.

Her height is 5ft 1in (154.9 cm), significantly below the average American woman’s height, who is typically cited as about 5ft 4in (162.6 cm).

Zoë Kravitz exudes Parisian chic in a sleek black ensemble and sheer slingback heels while attending the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 show during Paris Fashion Week on September 27, 2022 (Credit: Jerome Domine / Abaca / INSTARimages / Cover Images)

Zoë Kravitz’s Signature Shoe Moments: A Blend of Elegance and Edge

Zoë Kravitz has consistently showcased her unique fashion sensibility by pairing designer footwear with standout looks, striking the perfect balance between modern elegance and rockstar edge:

Saint Laurent: At the 2017 Venice Film Festival, Zoë turned heads in a black velvet dress embroidered with multicolored florals. She finished the look with black ankle-strap sandals from Saint Laurent,...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Among the many problems with movie lists is the lack of a common starting point. No one can watch the hundreds of domestic and international titles released every year. We don’t even try.

I’m suspicious of writers who claim to screen 250+ films a year. Sure, stuff’s playing in the background while you’re cooking, checking email, God forbid writing reviews, but at some point all those films bleed together into an endless montage of repetitive imagery and plot points. Ultimately everything looks and feels the same. Nothing matters.

With access to screenings, festivals, links, etc., critics start from an apparent position of privilege. In reality, that means they see what studios and their publicists want them to see. Or will let them see. There...

In All We Imagine as Light, a nurse in a Mumbai hospital is confronted by the emptiness in her life when she helps a friend move to a seaside village. Set near an upscale Himalayan prep school, Girls Will Be Girls focuses on a mother who toys with her teenage daughter’s boyfriend.

These strikingly dissimilar roles are both played by Kani Kusruti, an award-winning stage and screen performer who’s been appearing onscreen for 20 years. Her work has unusual depth, a core integrity that makes her convincing no matter what class or type she plays.

Internationally, this has been a breakthrough year for Kusruti: Shuchi Talati’s feature-directing debut Girls Will Be Girls won Sundance’s Audience Award and was released this past September in U.S. theaters, while Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light screened at Cannes, where it earned the Grand Prix, and arrives next week in U.

1. New Currents Award

[Winner 1] The Land of Morning Calm | Park Ri-woong | Korea

Jury Comment: The Land of Morning Calm demonstrates Park Ri-woong’s impressive storytelling skills and ability for subtle emotional depth. The film explores the personal struggles of its characters while shedding light on the hardships of a rural coastal community. Through precise, deliberate pacing, Park navigates themes of economic uncertainty, loss, xenophobia, and societal prejudice, creating a narrative that never falters. The ensemble cast delivers terrific performances, portraying layered characters with nuance, while Park brings clarity to their inner turmoil and the broader social issues, resulting in a powerful, resonant drama.

[Winner 2] Ma – Cry of Silence | The Maw Naing | Myanmar/ Korea/ Singapore/ France/ Norway/ Qatar

Jury Comment: Ma – Cry of Silence is honored for its courageous portrayal of resistance

to historical and ongoing political challenges under Myanmar’s political junta. Poetic and contemplative, using precise language and a clear understanding of the economy of means,...

The London East Asia Film Festival (Leaff), the capital’s premier celebration of East Asian cinema and culture, proudly returns for its 9th edition, launching on 23rd October 2024 at the iconic Odeon Luxe Leicester Square with the UK premiere of Escape, a gripping drama by acclaimed director Lee Jong-Pil. The festival will run until 3rd November 2024, culminating in the highly anticipated world premiere of the Hong Kong feature, Little Red Sweet.

This year’s programme promises an extraordinary showcase of cinematic gems from Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and Philippines, all woven around the powerful theme of survival, resilience, and aspiration. Through the visionary lens of East Asia’s most talented filmmakers, Leaff invites audiences to experience profound and thought-provoking stories that offer unique insight into the region’s rich cultural tapestry.

With over 20 UK and world premieres, Leaff will captivate audiences at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square and the Cinema at Selfridges,...

The Busan International Film Festival has revealed its award winners and confirmed earlier dates for 2025.

Park Ri-woong’s “The Land of Morning Calm” (Korea) and The Maw Naing’s “Ma – Cry of Silence”(Myanmar/Korea/Singapore/France/Norway/Qatar) shared the New Currents Award.

Rima Das’ “Village Rockstars 2” (India/Singapore) and Tom Lin Shu-Yu’s “Yen and Ai-Lee” (Taiwan) jointly claimed the Kim Jiseok Award for more experienced filmmakers.

“The Land of Morning Calm” impressed the jury with its “storytelling skills and ability for subtle emotional depth,” exploring personal struggles within a rural coastal community. “Ma – Cry of Silence” was recognized for its “courageous portrayal of resistance” to Myanmar’s political challenges. “The Land of Morning Calm” additionally secured the Kb New Currents Audience Award. The film also won the Netpac Award, which announced previously as part of the Busan Vision Awards.

The New Currents Award jury was led by...

Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has described the gratitude he feels about having his film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig selected as Germany’s entry to the Oscars.

Speaking at the Busan International Film Festival as head of the New Currents jury, the director said that Germany’s decision to submit the feature “has great meaning. I felt they were opening their arms and understanding other cultures.”

Although set in Tehran, with a mix of German and Iranian cast and crew, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is produced by Rasoulof’s German outfit Run Way Pictures alongside France...

Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has described the gratitude he feels about having his film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig selected as Germany’s entry to the Oscars.

Speaking at the Busan International Film Festival as head of the New Currents jury, the director said that Germany’s decision to submit the feature “has great meaning. I felt they were opening their arms and understanding other cultures.”

Although set in Tehran, with a mix of German and Iranian cast and crew, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is produced by Rasoulof’s German outfit Run Way Pictures alongside France...

Mohammad Rasoulof, president of the New Currents jury at this year’s Busan International Film Festival, said that Germany’s selection of his latest work, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, as this year’s Oscars submission should offer hope to other filmmakers working under strict censorship conditions.

Rasoulof is currently living in exile in Germany after fleeing Iran on the eve of this year’s Cannes film festival – where The Seed Of The Sacred Fig screened in competition and won a Special Award – after Iranian authorities sentenced him to eights years imprisonment for making the film without a permit.

Germany subsequently selected the film as its submission for the Best International Feature category of the Oscars. There was zero chance that Iran’s government-influenced Oscars selection committee would have chosen the film.

“The investors of the film were German, and the producer was from Germany, so although the film is Iranian,...

Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has addressed the circumstances that led to his film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” being selected as Germany’s entry to the Oscars, rather than that of his native Iran.

Rasoulof was speaking at the Busan International Film Festival where he is serving as the president of the New Currents competition jury. In May, the filmmaker escaped to Europe after receiving sentence of jail and flogging from the Iranian authorities. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” – about an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran who grapples with mistrust and paranoia as anti-government protests intensify and his family life is devastated – won a prize at Cannes.

“It is a complicated situation. My film was withdrawn by the Iranian government and I was sentenced to eight years [in prison],” Rasoulof said at the New Currents jury press conference in Busan on Friday. The filmmaker proceeded to Germany,...

The Aca & G.Ott Awards 2024 has confirmed actors Kang Ki-young and Tiffany Young as the hosts for this year’s award ceremony. Kang Ki-young has shown a remarkable spectrum of acting in content including Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022), recipient of the Aca Best Content Award in 2022. Recently, he held the main role in Queen of Divorce (2024), which entered the Top 10 chart in six Asian countries in only two weeks. Tiffany Young is steadily solidifying her career as a multitalented actor across various content, including the series Reborn Rich (2022) and the musical Chicago‘s Korean run since 2023. She has been nominated for the Best Newcomer Actor (Female) category in the Aca & G.Ott Awards this year for her performance in Uncle Samsik.

[Left: Kang Ki-young; Right: Tiffany Young]

The main guest line-up includes eight talented actors who will be presenting awards this year. Actors Ryu Seung-ryong and Lee Jung Ha, whom each received the Best Lead Actor (Male...

Busan International Film Festival has announced a Special Program in Focus, ‘In Memory of Lee Sun-kyun’, honoring the Korean actor who died in December 2023.

The program will screen six of the actor’s works including Parasite, four other films and an episode of TV series My Mister, as well as feature Special Talk events.

The late actor has also been selected to receive this year’s Korea Cinema Award, given to filmmakers who have contributed to promoting Korean cinema globally.

“Through the program, the festival aims to reflect on and commemorate the achievements of the late actor, whose diversified and profound performances have represented the Korean film scene,” the festival said.

Lee died in December 2023 in an apparent suicide at the age of 48, after which industry figures, including Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.

Three of the films in the Busan...

Boys Will Be Boyz

Sky Documentaries has unveiled plans for “Boyzone,” a three-part documentary series that will examine the trials and tribulations of Irish boyband and 1990s pop sensation Boyzone.

“For the first time in 30 years, band members Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Michael Graham grant rare and exclusive interview access [..] revealing their personal experiences in a band that sold over 25 million records worldwide, the boys also talk candidly about how they grappled with the true cost of global fame,” Sky said. “They confront the strained relationships and tragic events that have had a lasting impact on all their lives, families and friendships.”

“The documentary examines the key events that shaped Boyzone, including the highs and lows of global stardom, the intense tabloid intrusion in 1990’s Britain forcing Stephen Gately to come out, and after a sensational comeback in 2007, a devastating tragedy struck the band, as Gately died.

Dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled his native Iran earlier this year, has been named president of the New Currents jury at the upcoming Busan International Film Festival (Biff).

The jury for the competitive New Currents section will also comprise Korean director Lee Myung Se, Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu, Indian actress Kani Kusruti and International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) festival director Vanya Kaludjercic.

The New Currents strand of Biff includes first or second films by emerging Asian filmmakers and the jurors will select two winning features, which will each receive a prize of $30,000.

Whether Rasoulof will make it to the...

Chinese sales agent Parallax Films is bringing a trio of titles to the Cannes market, including Filipino director Petersen Vargas’ latest LGBTQ+ film Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, Zhu Xin’s All Quiet At Sunrise and Zhang Guoli’s Strangers When We Meet, both from China.

Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, which took part in the Cannes Atelier in 2020, follows a band of street hustlers who brave the dark corners of the Manila night into the outskirts, only to bring their friend’s body home.

It is a co-production between the Philippines, Singapore and Italy, with Alemberg Ang...

Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou this week made his first-ever trip to the Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine, and appeared to fall in love with the theatrical and festival experience all over again.

At a masterclass on Thursday morning, Zhang spoke of his filmmaking techniques and priorities, his enduring quest for the human touch and why not all films need to be masterpieces.

“Nobody has pure talent. Success also comes from hard work and the kind of luck that pull together an optimal crew and a cast that gels. I don’t believe that all films can be masterpieces and I doubt that I’ve made my best possible film yet. I’m still on the way,” he told a packed audience at Udine’s Teatro Nuovo, most of which had moments earlier watched a screening of his sensational “Raise the Red Lantern,” which had been restored to 4K.

The changing landscape of the new media frontier is reckless, reactionary, and thrives on the manipulation of truth and the exploitation of unsuspecting individuals to maximize likes, shares, comments, and subscriptions. Discourses become fabricated, and the struggle to control the flow of information fragments an increasingly polarized world; here is a landscape where videos and photographs become spun to fit agendas, footage lifted out of context and prescribed a narrative designed for nefarious purposes. Now more than ever, society can no longer take what it sees at face value, and what is dispensed as fact can no longer exist outside the realm of scrutiny. This is nothing new of course, but within the opening twenty minutes of Xin Yukun's latest film ‘Trending Topic', a film he began crafting after realizing how long he was spending on social media apps, this world emerges from beyond the veil to expose the ugliness riddling inside this explosive industry.

After five long years, “Have a Nice Day” director Liu Jian returns to New York with his newest project, “Art College 1994.” This hotly-anticipated feature checks off all the boxes. It cements Liu Jian's stamp as a rising animation auteur in China; it marks the completed its world tour at Berlinale, Annecy, New York Asian Film Festival, and more; and, what's more, the film features a star-studded voice cast that spans intellectuals, musicians, and other movie directors, including Jia Zhangke and Bi Gan.

Here, we catch a glimpse of a group of students at the Chinese Southern Academy of the Arts. Like many students, they seem to be suspended in a daze of malaise, and of them, Zhang Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) is especially lost. His best friend, Rabbit (Shaoxing), encourages Xiaojun to expand his practice to conceptual art. His crush, the soft-spoken piano student Hao Lili (Zhou Dongyu), is swayed by...

College can be a time of great change in one's life: going it alone for the first time in training for the real world. The inclusion of the year in the title of Liu Jian's third feature “Art College 1994” is necessary in that it sets the scene for a changing time in China in terms of pop culture and, of course, art.

Art College 1994 is screening this Friday, April 26 in Metrograph, for an exclusive Week-Long NY Theatrical Run

Two roommates, Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) and Zhifei (Chizi) are art students who spend their days procrastinating, discussing the philosophy of art and the changing scene from classic to Western-influenced modern. Similarly, vocal student Hong (Papi) and piano student Lili (Zhou Dongyu) discuss their futures and possible marriages.

The two pairs mingle, with potential romantic liaisons hinted at, though their hypothetical, philosophical conversations play out in reality, as they come to...

"Who gets to decide what art is?" Dekanalog has revealed a new trailer for Art College 1994, an animated drama from Chinese filmmaker Jian Liu, also known for Have a Nice Day. This initially premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival more than a year ago, and it played on the festival circuit all of 2023. Beginning on April 26th, Art College 1994, Liu Jian's latest strikingly animated & affecting feature, opens for a week-long NYC exclusive theatrical run at Metrograph In Theater. Lao Wang works in a security department of a college in a big school town. Xiao Wang is a freshman. He has a conflict with his roommate and is taken to security by his counselor. In a room on this foggy winter day, Lao Wang and Xiao Li are tasting the life of their own, and something unexpected is about to happen... The town is waiting quietly for the next day as it always is.

There’s a beautiful scene in Jia Zhangke’s 2004 film The World in which the protagonist, Tao, crosses paths with an industrial worker nicknamed Little Sister on the rooftop of an unfinished building. They chat aimlessly beneath towering spires of exposed rebar until a massive plane soars overhead, drowning out their voices. “Tao, who flies on those planes?” he asks, to which she responds, “Who knows…I don’t know anybody who’s ever been on a plane.”

It’s this precise contrast of stasis and flux, of the sublime and the quotidian, of simple personal dreams swallowed up by massive national ambitions, that characterizes Liu Jian’s newest feature, Art College 1994. Jia also lends his voice to one of its characters: Gu Yongqing, a “roving artist abroad” who speaks of “the mysterious power of art” during a visiting lecture at the titular art college. This is Liu’s third animated feature film,...

So many stars watched Louis Vuitton‘s latest designs walk the runway on Thursday (April 18) in Shanghai, China.

The likes of Cate Blanchett, Chloe Grace Moretz, Regina King and Paul Bettany were all in the audience at the Long Museum, West Bund for the iconic fashion house’s pre-fall 2024 show.

With so many stars in attendance, we pulled together photos so that you could easily scroll and see who was there and what they wore.

Head inside to see all of the photos…

Keep scrolling to see photos of all of the stars at the event…

Cate Blanchett

Liu Yifei

Zhou Dongyu

Jennifer Connelly

Paul Bettany

Jackson Wang

Regina King

Chloe Grace Moretz

Amber Liu

Victoria Song

If you missed it, you can check out the advice that Cate had for a young Oscar nominee ahead of the awards show this year.

We also recently got a first look at...

Oscar winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s formalist arthouse drama Evil Does Not Exist won the best film prize Sunday night at the Asia Film Awards in Hong Kong.

The Japanese film industry had a big night overall at the 17th edition of the awards ceremony, which was hosted this year in Hong Kong’s gleaming new Xiqu Centre, part of the city’s $2.7 billion West Kowloon Cultural District development. Japanese festival favorite Hirokazu Kore-eda won best director for his mystery drama Monster, while the great Koji Yakusho took best actor for Wim Wender’s moving minimalist drama Perfect Days. Hamaguchi’s chief collaborator on Evil Does Not Exist, Eiko Ishibashi, won best music and the Kaiju critical and commercial sensation Godzilla Minus One claimed both best visual effects and best sound.

In many ways, it was Zhang Yimou’s night, however. The venerated Chinese director took the stage twice, once to...

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” was Sunday evening named as the best picture at the Asian Film Awards.

The 17th edition of the prizes was held at the Xiqu Centre, part of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong.

While “Evil Does Not Exist” and Korean blockbuster “12.12: The Day” had dominated the nominations with six each, including those in the best film category, the prizes on Sunday were much more evenly distributed. No title collected more than two prizes.

Outside, crowds failed to be muted by the March drizzle, though VIP guests were given escorts with purple umbrellas.

Filmmaker and industry attendance was also robust. Those spotted on the red carpet and pre-event cocktails included: Lee Yong Kwan (former chair of the Busan film festival), Tom Yoda, Udine festival heads Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche, Anthony Chen, Stanley Kwan, Rina Damayanti, Hong Kong distributor Winnie Tsang,...

Neon is opening Origin on 130 screens and plans to expand the Ava DuVernay film, which premiered in Venice and had a excellent qualifying run in December.

Neon took global rights on Origin before its Venice premiere where it received an eight-minute standing ovation and DuVernay became the first Black American woman to have a selection there. Deadline reported the film tested well with audiences, landing a 91 total positive in the top two boxes, with an 81 definite recommend, the highest for both Neon and DuVernay. With the theatrical release, the distributor is looking to pull in the arthouse and “smarthouse” (mainstream crossover) audiences and Black audiences with targeted bookings including theaters in regional markets like Atlanta, Chicago and Baltimore. It’s a hard film to comp but it is everywhere that recent films The Color Purple and American Fiction have done well.

Origin is based on New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning...

The clue to unlocking the delicate dynamics of Singaporean writer-director Anthony Chen’s The Breaking Ice is in its very title. Certainly, the film is too eager to underline how its characters’ sexual and emotional entanglements are symbolic of water in its various forms. But, in the end, Chen’s portrayal of three repressed twentysomethings whose lives converge in the sleepy Chinese northern border town of Yanji is unpredictable for being less focused on the freedom of catharsis than on the messiness of self-actualization.

The Breaking Ice is fixated on intense in-between states that work to separate people from each other and from themselves, as if to say self-acceptance and love aren’t destinations so much as journeys, at once formidable and worthwhile. But the film is also about how some of the barriers that hold us back are unnatural, political, and classed. As Yanji is a working-class city near...

A total of 35 films from 24 countries and regions have been shortlisted to compete for 16 awards at this year's Asian Film Awards.

Renowned Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi will serve as the Jury President for this year's Awards. As the first Japanese director to hold this position, Kurosawa Kiyoshi is deeply honored. He will lead the Jury and over 200 Voting Members in selecting the winners for this year's Asian Film Awards.

The winners of other Afa awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Excellence in Asian Cinema Award, Afa Next Generation Award, and Rising Star Award, will be announced later.

The 17th Asian Film Awards Nomination List

Best Film

12.12: The Day (South Korea)

Evil Does Not Exist (Japan)

Paradise

Perfect Days (Japan)

Snow Leopard (Mainland China)

Best Director

Kim Sung-soo | 12.12: The Day (South Korea)

Gu Xiaogang | Dwelling by the West Lake (Mainland China)

Hamaguchi Ryusuke | Evil Does Not Exist (Japan)

Kore-eda Hirokazu...

‘Snow Leopard’, ‘Paradise’, ‘The Goldfinger’ and ‘Godzilla Minus One’ also land multiple nods.

South Korean box office hit 12.12: The Day and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist lead the nominations for the 17th Asian Film Awards, with six nods each including best film.

Also up for best film is Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise from Sri Lanka-India, Wim Wenders Perfect Days from Japan and Chinese feature Snow Leopard by the late Pema Tseden.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Hong Kong on March 10 and will be decided by a...

Ridley Scott’s historical epic “Napoleon” was cruelly defeated at the mainland Chinese box office, where it opened in only fifth place on its opening weekend.

Chinese crime thriller “Across the Furious Sea” headed the mainland China charts for a second weekend, earning $20.0 million (RMB142 million), according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

“Napoleon” earned just $2.8 million ($19.6 million) in China, according to the firm whose figures are generally considered as final, not estimates.

The film earned generally mixed to positive reviews, but only a middling score of 6.6 out of 10 from users of the Douban movie fan site. But it appears that Chinese audiences found the travails of an ancient French emperor to be too much of a specialist topic. Ticketing firm and data provider, Maoyan showed that “Napoleon’s” viewers in China were two thirds male. It also forecasts that the film will end up with final revenues short of $5 million.

Through this partnership, ’Trending Topic’ will hit cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia on December 7, immediately after opening in mainland China.

China’s streaming platform iQiyi is collaborating with Malaysia’s Gsc Movies and Singapore’s Clover Films to expand the distribution networks for its Chinese-language films and expedite their theatrical release.

Through this partnership, Trending Topic, directed by Xin Yukun and starring Zhou Dongyu, Yuan Hong and Song Yang, will hit cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia on December 7, immediately after its opening on December 1 in mainland China.

Further iQiyi titles set for release in both Singapore and Malaysia are Chen Zhuo’s The Invisible Guest,...

Chinese films “Trending Topic” and “The Invisible Guest” will be given theatrical releases in Malaysia and Singapore in the coming month.

This step follows agreements between Chinese streamer iQiyi and Malaysian cinema chain Gsc and Singaporean distributor Clover Films. Terms, structures and value of the deals were not disclosed.

“By partnering with Gsc Movies and Clover Films for theatrical distribution, we can seamlessly bring Chinese-language films to audiences in Singapore and Malaysia through effective resource integration. This collaboration not only enables us to cater to the local audience’s appetite for Chinese-language films but also ensures timely access to new releases,” said Yang Xianghua, iQiyi’s president of movie & overseas business group.

“China movie productions have made significant advancements, setting new standards in terms of production scale and storytelling. Gsc Movies is thrilled to collaborate with iQIYI in bringing high-quality content onto the silver screens for moviegoers in Malaysia,” said Esther Hau,...

Chinese streamer and producer iQiyi is joining forces with Malaysia’s Gsc Movies and Singapore-based Clover Films to handle theatrical distribution of its Chinese-language films in their respective territories.

As part of this partnership, the iQiyi-backed film Trending Topic, directed by Xin Yukun and starring Zhou Dongyu, Yuan Hong, and Song Yang, will be theatrically released in Singapore and Malaysia, following its release in mainland China on December 1.

Similarly, iQiyi’s The Invisible Guest, directed by Chen Zhuo and starring actors Greg Hsu, Janine Chang, Kara Wai and Zheng Yin, will also be in theatres in Singapore and Malaysia after it debuts in Chinese cinemas on December 8.

Yang Xianghua, iQiyi’s President of Movie & Overseas Business, said: “We have witnessed a growing demand since we started distributing Chinese-language content to overseas markets in 2017.

“By partnering with Gsc Movies and Clover Films for theatrical distribution, we can seamlessly bring Chinese-language...

The second of the two movies Anthony Chen directed in 2023, “The Breaking Ice” has very little to do with the aesthetics of the ‘French' “Drift”, although elements of European cinema can also be found here. Also of note is the presence of Zhou Dongyu, probably the biggest star ever to appear in the director's filmography, while the film is the Singaporean entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

“The Breaking Ice“ is screening at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The story takes place in the frozen Yanji, a small Chinese town close to the North Korean border, where a large Korean community is also inhabiting. Nana, alienated from her family and scarred mentally and physically from an accident in the past, is currently working as a bus-tour guide, seemingly cheerful around her customers. One of the regular stops of her tour is at a local restaurant run by Xiao's family,...

Japan heads the nominations, followed by China.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist heads the nominations for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, with nods in four categories including best film, best director, best screenplay and best cinematography.

The Japanese feature premiered at Venice where it picked up both the jury and Fipresci prize, and centres on a father and daughter in a rural village, whose peaceful lives are disrupted by proposals to build a camping site in their area.

Hamaguchi’s latest film, following Oscar-winner Drive My Car, was just ahead of China’s Snow Leopard by the late Tibetan director Pema Tseden,...

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest feature, Evil Does Not Exist, leads this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa) with four nods, including the gong for Best Film.

Hamaguchi’s nominations haul includes Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography for Yoshio Kitagawa. The film is Hamaguchi’s first film since his Oscar-winning Drive My Car and debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The pic follows Takumi and his daughter Hana, who live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. A plan to construct a glamping site near Takumi’s house, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature, threatens to endanger the ecological balance of the area and the local people’s way of life.

Also nominated in the Best Film category are Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden,...

A clutch of Chinese movies released for the end of September holiday season dominated the global box office over the latest weekend. Mainland Chinese-produced films took first, third and fifth places across the planet, according to U.S.-based data service Comscore.

Comscore shows “Under the Light,” which released only in mainland China, grossing an estimated $54 million between Friday and Sunday. That put it ahead of Paramount’s “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” which earned an estimated $23.0 million in the North America (aka ‘domestic’) market and a further $23.1 million in the rest of the world, for a weekend total of $46.1 million.

In third place globally was another Chinese film “The Ex-Files 4: The Marriage Plan,” which released in China and five other territories for a weekend total of $41.4 million. “The Creator” earned $32.3 million across the planet, comprising an $18.3 million international score and $14 million from North America. Fifth, planetwide, was Chinese...

Singapore has picked Ilker Anthony Chen’s coming-of-age Chinese drama The Breaking Ice as its submission to the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category. The film made its world premiere in May in Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s critics later selecting it as one of the 20 best films screened at the prestigious French festival this year.

Made with a mostly Chinese cast and crew, The Breaking Ice tells the story of an unlikely, fleeting friendship formed between three restless young people in China’s far northeastern border city of Yanji. It is headlined by a star-studded ensemble of young Chinese talent, including Zhou Dongyu (Oscar-nominated Better Days), Liu Haoran (Detective Chinatown franchise) and Qu Chuxiao (The Wandering Earth). Described as a Generation Z drama, the film’s story follows the blossoming friendship of its three main characters as they discover warmth...

‘Expendables 4’ narrowly took top place at the mainland China box office on a quiet weekend preceding the National Day holiday season at the end of the month. “A Haunting in Venice” opened outside the top five.

Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway shows “Expendables 4” earning $10.9 million (RMB78.6 million) over its debut weekend. The latest instalment in the “Expendables” franchise lacks an above-the title Chinese star, but includes Jason Statham, who is also to be seen in China-u.S. co-production “Meg 2: The Trench.”

The new release title was fractionally ahead of Chinese crime thriller “Dust to Dust,” which picked up $10.6 million (RMB76.2 million) in its second week of release. “Dust” breathed in a 52% week-on-week decline, but advanced its total to $44.2 million after ten days on release.

“Oppenheimer” played on in third place with $4.3 million in its third week in China. After 17 days on release, it has accumulated $54.3 million in the Middle Kingdom.

The much delayed “Under the Light” by Zhang Yimou, which has previously been described has previously as an “urban crime thriller”, first saw a trailer release all the way back in 2020, but kept getting pushed back for one unknown reason or the other. In the meantime, three more films by the prolific Mainland auteur saw release but it seems that now “Under the Light” may finally be greeting the audience with a new trailer that confirms a Mainland release date.

Synopsis

An urban crime drama film which will cover topics from anti-corruption to anti-crime. The story revolves around Su Jian Ming and Li Hui Lin jointly investigating an undercurrent criminal case involving a huge interest group. In order to investigate the case, Su Jian Ming ignores the persuasion of his powerful father Zheng Gang, and rushes to the “Hongmen Banquet”, hosted by rich businessman Li Zhi Tian. More and more clues gradually surface.

College can be a time of great change in one's life: going it alone for the first time in training for the real world. The inclusion of the year in the title of Liu Jian's third feature “Art College 1994” is necessary in that it sets the scene for a changing time in China in terms of pop culture and, of course, art.

Back Home is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Two roommates, Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) and Zhifei (Chizi) are art students who spend their days procrastinating, discussing the philosophy of art and the changing scene from classic to Western-influenced modern. Similarly, vocal student Hong (Papi) and piano student Lili (Zhou Dongyu) discuss their futures and possible marriages.

The two pairs mingle, with potential romantic liaisons hinted at, though their hypothetical, philosophical conversations play out in reality, as they come to terms with their relationship to art and each other.

Strand Releasing has snatched up North American distribution rights to Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen’s recent Cannes favorite The Breaking Ice. The film made its world premiere in May in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, with The Hollywood Reporter‘s critics later selecting it as one of the 20 best films screened at the festival this year.

The Breaking Ice tells the story of an unlikely, fleeting friendship formed between three restless young people in China’s far northeastern border city of Yanji. It is headlined by a star-studded ensemble of young Chinese talent, including Zhou Dongyu (Oscar-nominated Better Days), Liu Haoran (the Detective Chinatown franchise) and Qu Chuxiao (The Wandering Earth).

Chen previously won Cannes’ Caméra d’Or award with his debut feature Ilo Ilo (2013), which was later submitted by Singapore as its entry to the Oscars’ best international film race. His second feature Wet Season premiered in Toronto and his English-language debut,...

Over the course of his first three features — “Ilo Ilo,” “Wet Season” and this year’s “Drift” — Singaporean director Anthony Chen has developed a signature style. It is a graceful, lucid classicism, a mode that in its straightforward sincerity is not fashionable in our abrasive moment, but can yield significant satisfactions. That is certainly true of his second film of 2023, “The Breaking Ice,” which describes, in a trio of perfectly judged performances, the burgeoning, momentous and yet fleeting connection between three differently lonely people — a love triangle with rounded, snowdrift corners.

Yu Jing-Pin’s lovely photography contrasts wintry wides and warm close-ups, as writer-director Chen carves out three characters against the frozen landscapes of Yanji, a small Chinese town in shouting distance of the North Korean border. This is the current home of Nana an unfulfilled bus-tour guide who switches on her ready smile for her passengers — and switches it...

This year’s Cannes Film Festival was hardly a letdown from a U.S. distribution standpoint. From Netflix’s surprise acquisition of Todd Haynes’ “May December” to Neon nabbing the Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” and Mubi picking up Aki Kaurismaki’s “Fallen Leaves,” there was no shortage of indications that several Cannes highlights will make their way to American audiences in the months ahead.

Nevertheless, this remains a tricky time for anyone in the acquisitions business, and some of the gems from this year’s lineup still need homes. Here are a few key ones for buyers to consider.

Ryan Lattanzio contributed to this story.

“The Breaking Ice” “The Breaking Ice”

A sweet and shimmeringly beautiful sad hot people film about how life can flow and then freeze and then thaw into something entirely new if you let it, Anthony Chen’s “The Breaking Ice” finds...

Anatomy of a Fall

Competition

Starring a sensational Sandra Hüller as a German novelist on trial for the murder of her husband, French director Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner is gripping and gratifyingly rich: part legal procedural, part portrait of a complicated woman, part snapshot of a marriage on the brink and part coming-of-age narrative. Above all, Anatomy of a Fall is about the essential unknowability of a person, of a relationship, and the perilous impossibility of trying to understand — whether it’s a child puzzling over his parents or a courtroom straining to make sense of an inscrutable suspect. — Jon Frosch

Anselm

Special Screenings

Wim Wenders’ latest 3D documentary offers a mesmerizing cinematic catalog of German painter-sculptor Anselm Kiefer’s deeply tactile, maximalist oeuvre. As in Pina, Wenders’ luminous 2011 tribute to the late dancer-choreographer Pina Bausch, the director makes the best possible case for art house theaters...

By Khushi Jain

Anthony Chen's “The Breaking Ice” is a story of icy personal histories and hearts waiting to be melted. The film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

Three people, Nana (Zhou Dongyu), Xiao (Qu Chuxiao) and Haofeng (Liu Haoran) come together in the frozen landscapes of Yanji, a small town on China's North Korean border, and form such emotional, psychological, physical and existential bonds that their lives are completely changed forever. Khushi Jain met Anthony and Dongyu on Monday, May 22, a day after the premiere, to talk about the film.

The Breaking Ice is screening at Cannes Official poster – 76th edition © Photo © Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Scoop – Création graphique © Hartland Villa

The film opens with a very beautiful and sombre sequence of cutting ice, and there is ice skating and chewing ice, and the title itself is quite icy. Where does...

Anthony Chen’s well-regarded Mainland China-set “The Breaking Ice” has found favor with multiple European and Asian buyers in the few days since its Sunday premiere as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.

The film narrates a love triangle story among China’s lost youth generation and is set in the middle of winter in Yanji, a town that is heavily populated by ethnic Koreans. It is headlined by a star-studded Chinese cast of Zhou Dongyu (“Better Days”), Liu Haoran (“Detective Chinatown” franchise) and Qu Chuxiao (“The Wandering Earth”).

“The Breaking Ice” has been newly licensed to Challan for release in South Korea, Trigon-Film for Switzerland, One From the Heart for Greece, Tucker Film for Italy and Edko Films for Hong Kong.

Rights sales are handled by Rediance, Mainland China’s leading indie sales company, which reports that addition territory deals are currently being negotiated.

Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu, who is in Cannes with Anthony Chen’s Un Certain Regard title The Breaking Ice, has had a fairytale career trajectory.

Although she had no desire to act, she was plucked from obscurity by Zhang Yimou when still a high school student in 2010, and became one of China’s most respected young actresses, with a string of award-winning films.

She agreed to star in The Breaking Ice as soon as Chen called her and before he’d even written the script. She’d worked with him before on short film The Break Away, part of Neon-produced anthology The Year Of The Everlasting Storm, which Chen had directed remotely during the pandemic.

“He called and said he wanted to shoot a film in China, quite quickly over the winter, because he had a month free when another project was postponed,” Zhou tells Deadline. “I agreed immediately...

You’d expect a movie called “The Breaking Ice” to be cold and Anthony Chen’s gentle drama about three isolated young people finding moments of connection definitely stays away from passionate and heated statements. But it’d be a mistake to think that Chen’s restraint comes at the expense of feeling, because “The Breaking Ice” is one of the most beautifully evocative films to screen during the first few days of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A luminous “Jules and Jim” riff with a stunning visual design and a real purpose to its apparent aimlessness, “The Breaking Ice” screened on Sunday in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, bringing the Singaporean director back to the festival where he won the Camera d’Or for “Ilo Ilo” in 2013, and also appeared as part of the Covid-era anthology film “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” in 2021.

“The Breaking Ice...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Strand Releasing releases the film in New York City theaters on Friday, January 19 and in Los Angeles theaters on Friday, January 26.

A sweet and shimmeringly beautiful film about how life can flow and then freeze and then thaw into something entirely new if you let it, Anthony Chen’s “The Breaking Ice” finds hope in the most frigid of places. In this case, that place is the small Chinese border city of Yanji during the depths of its endless winter, when people’s breath is as thick as the gray fumes that spew out of the factory smokestacks, and the snowy peak of Changbai Mountain looks closer to heaven than it does to Pyongyang. More than half a million people live there (many of them ethnic Koreans), but few of them seem to think of it as home.

In June of 2021, Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, acclaimed for his intimate, realist dramas Ilo Ilo (2013) and Wet Season (2019), was invited to serve on the jury of the Shanghai International Film Festival. As part of his participation in the event, he was asked to give a round of interviews to local Chinese journalists and critics. During one of these sessions, a Chinese writer began by praising the director’s family dramas by describing them as uncommonly “mature and precise” for a filmmaker of his age — Chen is 39 today, but was just 29 when he became the first Singaporean to win Cannes’ Camera d’Or prize with Ilo Ilo in 2013 — but he also challenged Chen by asking, “What do you think your films would be like if you let go of control and worked with a freer spirit?”

As the filmmaker wrapped up his time in Shanghai and flew back to London, where...