News

Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and US producer and writer Joslyn Barnes of Louveture Films are among the among the jurors for the 2025 Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16).

Reygadas’ films include Cannes competition titles Silent Life and Battle In Heaven, while Barnes’ work as a producer includes Oscar-nominated documentaries Strong Island and Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Lucrecia Martel’s Zama, and she also co-wrote 2024 awards contender Nickel Boys.

Joining them on the festival’s international competition jury are Swiss actor Ursina Lardi, best known for Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon; and the Netherlands’ Renée Soutendijk, who won Locarno...

New York-based indie producer Joslyn Barnes (“Nickel Boys”), Mexican multi-hyphenate Carlos Reygadas (“Our Time”) and Swiss stage-and-screen actor Ursina Lardi (“The White Ribbon”) have been set as members of the upcoming Locarno Film Festival’s main jury.

As previously announced, Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh will preside over the Swiss indie festival’s competition panel. The jury also includes Dutch actor Renée Soutendijk, winner of the event’s female actor prize in 2023 for her role in Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams.”

Locarno titles in the Cineasti del Presente competition, dedicated to emerging directors at their first or second feature, will be judged by Indonesian actor Asmara Abigail, known to Locarno audiences for her performance in Malaysian director Ming Jin Woo’s “Stone Turtle” (2022); La Frances Hui, who is the curator of film at New York’s MoMA and co-chair of the museum’s New Directors/New Films festival; and Indian actor Kani Kusruti,...

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has added Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s “Yes” to its 2025 lineup.

“Y., a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite, and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon, Y. is given a mission of the highest importance: setting to music a new national anthem,” reads the synopsis provided by Directors’ Fortnight.

The cast includes Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is a France-Israel-Cyprus-Germany co-production. Producers are Les Films du Bal (Judith Lou Lévy) et Chi-Fou-Mi Productions (Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon) and co-producers include Bustan Films (Thomas Alfandari – Israeel), Amp Filmworks, Komplizen Film GmbH and Arte France Cinéma with the participation of Zdf/Arte. French distribution and global sales are being handled by

Les Films du Losange.

Lapid’s...

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid was tipped as a last minute entry for the Palme d’Or competition but that didn’t pan out and Directors’ Fortnight selection committee were all to happy to make room for “Yes” – the filmmaker’s fifth feature film. Having visited the Croisette with 2014’s “The Kindergarten Teacher,” in the Critics’ Week section and with 2021’s “Ahed’s Knee” (the post pandemic edition saw him prize), this sees him move over the Jw Marriott screening lieu. Word on the street is the run time is north of three hours. Shot in Tel-Aviv, this is produced by of Les Films du Bal’s Judith Lou Lévy, Chi-Fou-Mi Productions’ Hugo Sélignac and Antoine Lafon.…...

Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight has added Israeli director Nadav Lapid’s Yes! (Ken!) to its 2025 selection.

Set in the aftermath of the October 7, Hamas attacks on Israel, the film revolves around a struggling jazz musician, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, who give their art, souls, and bodies to the highest bidder, bringing pleasure and consolation to their bleeding country.

This endeavor sees the jazz musician entrusted with a mission of the utmost importance: to set a new national anthem to music.

The cast features Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is produced by Judith Lou Lévy at Les Films du Bal, and Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon at Chi-Fou-Mi Productions.

Co-Producers are Thomas Alfandari at Bustan Films (Israel); Janine Teerling and Marios Piperides at Amp Filmworks (Cyprus), as well as Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dombach and Maren Ade at Komplizen Film (Germany) as well Arte France Cinéma,...

Exclusive: Les Films du Losange has taken on international sales for Nadav Lapid’s Yes, which has just been added to the57th edition of Directors’ Fortnight, running in Cannes from May 14-24.

Les Films du Losange will launch sales on Lapid’s fifth feature at the Cannes market. Directors’ Fortnight confirmed the film had been added on Thursday (April 24), bringing the final selection to 19 feature films following the auteur-driven parallel section’s initial announcement on April 15.

Lapid’s fifth feature – titled Ken in Hebrew – is set in Israel in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks. It centres on Y.

Except perhaps Souleymane’s Story‘s Abou Sangare biking away with the European Actor award (beating out Conclave‘s Ralph Fiennes) there were no surprises at last night’s European Film Awards with Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Pérez winning four of the five prizes it was nominated for. Karla Sofía Gascón won Best Actress, Audiard won Best Screenwriter and Director while the film the top prize of the evening. Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal’s No Other Land continues to dominate the docu awards circuit which means here is a legit shot at a future Oscar. Here are the noms and winners:

European Director:

Winner: Jacques Audiard for Emilia PÉREZ

Andrea Arnold for Bird

Pedro Almodóvar for The Room Next Door

Mohammad Rasoulof for The Seed Of The Sacred Fig

Maura Delpero for Vermiglio

European Screenwriter:

Winner: Jacques Audiard for Emilia PÉREZ

Magnus von Horn & Line Langebek...

For the 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony, the International Documentary Association returned to a live event held December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The show was also livestreamed on IDA’s YouTube channel. (The nominees and winners are here.)

The ceremony, this year hosted by Adam Conover, has long served as an annual celebration for the documentary community.

The IDA received more than 700 entries from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. IDA Documentary Awards entries were reviewed by jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from more than 40 countries. IDA members had access to stream nominees and winners in the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories until December 31, 2024.

At this year’s ceremony, American documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter received the Career Achievement Award; Shiori Ito (“Black Box Diaries”) received the Emerging Filmmaker Award; and the four...

It’s been an extraordinary week for No Other Land, the timely documentary directed by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.

The film set in the occupied West Bank won Best Feature Documentary at the 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday and it also won the Best Director prize for the work of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham. The quartet of filmmakers also received the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, a previously announced honor recognizing the difficult and dangerous conditions in which the film was made.

No Other Land swept most of the awards announced this week: on Monday, it won Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards, and on Tuesday, the New York Film Critics Circle named it the best documentary of the year. It won the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award on Wednesday, although Sugarcane won the...

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards took place Dec. 5, 2024 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Adam Conover, and celebrated the best nonfiction films and programs of the year. See the full list of 2024 IDA Awards winners below.

Heading into the evening, “Sugarcane” led all nominees with five, including Best Feature Documentary, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four. The ceremony takes place from 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Pt and we will continue to update winners throughout the night. You can live stream the ceremony on documentary.org and on the IDA’s YouTube channel.

The ceremony started with presenting “No Other Land” with two special honors: The Pare Lorentz Award and the Courage Under Fire Award. The Emerging Filmmaker Award went to “Black Box Diaries” director Shiori Itô. The ABC News Video Source Award went to “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

When the 34th annual Gotham Awards took place in Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Monday, December 2, the Oscar race officially began. The Gothams traditionally occupy a spot on the awards calendar as the first major film-centric ceremony of the season, giving fans their first opportunity to see the year’s biggest stars on the red carpet. The event also marks awards watchers’ first chance to gauge the state of the race.

The night’s top prize went to “A Different Man,” Aaron Schimberg’s A24 body transformation comedy that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Sebastian Stan as a facially disfigured actor who undergoes an experimental surgery to boost his career, beat out Oscar frontrunners such as Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.” The win could boost the award chances of both Schimberg and his stars Stan and Adam Pearson.

The Gotham Awards, honoring the best in American independent films, held their 34th annual event on Monday night, Dec. 2, launching the fall and winter awards season. So who were the big winners? Scroll down for the complete list of 2024 Gotham Awards champs in all categories, updating live throughout the night.

Nominees were decided by panels of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. The winners were then selected by juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors, and others directly involved in filmmaking. Those small juries change from year to year and from category to category, so these awards can produce surprising results.

Telling the story of a young sex worker from Brooklyn who meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, “Anora” led the nominations with four bids including Best Feature, as well Sean Baker for Best Director, actress Mikey Madison for Best Lead Performance and actor...

“Sugarcane” earned a leading five nominations, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four for the 40th annual International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. These Oscar precursors will be celebrated in a ceremony on Dec. 5 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. See the full list of nominees below.

Among this year’s IDA nominees for Best Feature, only “Sugarcane” was also nominated for the top prize by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Nominees in Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories have been selected from the shortlists previously announced. IDA members will have access to view each of the nominated films and can begin voting on November 19, 2024.

IDA has been an inconsistent, but important precursor for the Oscars. Last year, only one of the IDA top 10 went on to contend for Best Documentary Feature: “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” lost that Oscar race to “20 Days in Mariupol.

“Sugarcane,” the documentary about the mistreatment of Indigenous children in Canada, has received the most nominations at yet another awards show for nonfiction features, picking up five noms to lead the field at the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards.

In nominations announced on Tuesday, the film by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie was nominated in the Best Feature Documentary category, as well as for its directing, cinematography, editing and musical score. It had previously led in nominations at the Cinema Eye Honors and Critics Choice Documentary Awards as well.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” received four nominations, while “Black Box Diaries” and “Queendom” each received three.

In the Best Feature Documentary category, those four films were nominated alongside “Agent of Happiness,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.”

Additional nominations were made in the episodic series,...

Sugarcane earned a leading five nominations as the IDA Documentary Awards announced its nominees today, followed closely by Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat with four.

Black Box Diaries, My Sweet Land, and Queendom earned three nominations apiece. Also earning multiple nominations were Agent of Happiness, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon, and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin – each with two nominations.

Sugarcane’s nods came for Best Documentary Feature and Best Director, recognizing the work of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, as well as nominations for cinematography, editing, and score. The National Geographic documentary investigates the systematic abuse of Indigenous children who attended a so-called “Indian Residential School” in British Columbia.

‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’s recognition came in the Best Documentary Feature category, as well as Best Director for Johan Grimonprez, Best Editing, and Best Writing. The film from Kino Lorber looks at how the U.

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards has officially unveiled its list of nominees, including this year’s most beloved and buzziest documentary features. The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the nominations in 14 categories for the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be streamed live on documentary.org and on the IDA YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. The awards show will be hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Adam Conover.

This year, IDA received more than 700 entries in all categories from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. All IDA Documentary Awards entries were selected by jurors from over 40 countries; the shortlists for the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories were previously announced on October 24.

The IDA will honor prolific documentarian Dawn Porter with the Career Achievement Award.

Sugarcane leads the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards nominees.

The film about the abusive legacy of Catholic-run Native American missionary schools racked up five nods, including for best feature.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat scored four nods and three titles — Queendom, Black Box Diaries and My Sweet Land — landed three nominations apiece.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom and Black Box Diaries are up for best feature alongside Dahomey and double nominees Agent of Happiness, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.

And the directors of Sugarcane, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom, Black Box Diaries and No Other Land are all up for best director.

This year’s IDA Documentary Awards nominees were selected from more than 700 entries from 77 countries, both up from last year, and, in the feature and shortlist categories, were chosen from shortlists announced on Oct.

National Geographic’s “Sugarcane,” a film about abuse and missing children at an Indigenous boarding school in Canada, leads this year’s nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors awards with six. Cinema Eye recognizes excellence in the artistry and craft of nonfiction filmmaking. “Sugarcane” will face off against “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Daughters,” “Look Into My Eyes,” “No Other Land,” and “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” for Best Feature. See the full list of nominees below.

In 2023, four of the five eventual Academy Award nominated Documentary Feature films were nominated by Ceh earlier in the season, including the Oscar winner “20 Days in Mariupol.” Last year’s Ceh winner “32 Sounds” failed to earn a nomination from the Academy. The last two films to win the Oscar without first being recognized with a nomination by Ceh were “My Octopus Teacher” in 2020 and “Free Solo” in 2018.

Cinema Eye will return to...

Sugarcane, the story of sexual abuse and disappearances at a school for Indigenous children in British Columbia, leads the nominations for the prestigious documentary-focused Cinema Eye Honors awards with six. Four films are next with five noms each: Dahomey, Eno, Frida and No Other Land. See the full list below.

Sugarcane, Dahomey and No Other Land will vie for the marquee Nonfiction Feature prize along with Black Box Diaries, Daughters, Look Into My Eyes and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. This is the first year that the named nominees in the Nonfiction Feature category will include the entire creative team: directors, producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, sound designers, visual designers and significant on-screen participants.

The producers of Sugarcane, No Other Land, Hollywoodgate, Mistress Dispeller, Porcelain War and Union are up for the Production prize. The Cinema Eye winner in that category has gone on to take the Documentary Feature Academy...

Sugarcane, the Nat Geo documentary feature about abuse and forced separations in a Canadian Indigenous community, landed a field-leading six nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors, the organization, which celebrates nonfiction work made for big and small screens, announced on Thursday.

Among the noms for Sugarcane is one for best nonfiction feature, a category in which it will compete alongside Mubi’s Dahomey and the U.S.-distributor-less No Other Land, which both garnered five noms, and MTV Docs’ Black Box Diaries, Netflix’s Daughters, A24’s Look Into My Eyes and Kino Lorber’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

This is the first year in which the nominees for best nonfiction feature will include the entire creative team behind each doc — the directors, producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, sound designers, visual designers and significant on-screen participants.

The audience choice award, nominees for which were determined by more than 30,000 votes from nonfiction lovers around the world,...

The Canadian film “Sugarcane” continued its impressive awards-season streak on Thursday, leading all films in nominations for the 18th annual Cinema Eye Honors.

The film from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, which looks into cases of abuse and forced separation in an Indigenous community, received six nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature. Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor’s “No Other Land” received five nominations.

“Sugarcane” is now the only film of 2024 to be nominated in the top nonfiction category at the Cinema Eye Honors, Critics Choice Documentary Awards and Gotham Awards, and also to be included on the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards long list and Doc NYC’s short list of likely awards contenders.

Nominees in the Outstanding Nonfiction Feature category were “Sugarcane,” “Dahomey,” “No Other Land,” “Black Box Diaries,” “Daughters,” “Look Into My Eyes” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

The Cinema Eye Honors, an Oscar bellwether that often predicts the Best Documentary Feature race, has unveiled its 2025 nominations.

Leading the pack is “Sugarcane,” Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s documentary about abuse in an Indian residential school in Canada. The film earned rave reviews out of Sundance, and here earned six nominations. It’s followed by two hits from the 2024 Berlin Film Festival: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop’s exploration of the artifacts of colonial Africa, and Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor’s Israel-Palestine conflict documentary “No Other Land,” which each received five nominations. Two portraits of major 20th-century artists, Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida” and Gary Hustwit’s “Eno,” also received five nominations a piece.

The 18th annual Cinema Eye Honors will take place on Thursday, January 9 at the New York Academy of Medicine in East Harlem. Keep reading for a complete list of nominees.

Nonfiction...

The 37th European Film Awards, which take place annually in the lakeside Swiss city of Lucerne, have unveiled their nominations for 2024. Unsurprisingly, the list is led by French director Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language cartel musical “Emilia Pérez” with four nominations including European Film and Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascón. Surprisingly, Audiard, previously a five-time Efa nominee, has never won a prize from the European Film Academy, which boasts more than 5,000 members across the continent. Getting a boost is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian family thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” with three nominations including European Film. It’s Germany’s submission for the International Feature Oscar this year due to its dominantly European production despite filming in secret in banished director Rasoulof’s home country.

European Film Award staple Pedro Almodóvar’s Venice Golden Lion winner “The Room Next Door” notched four noms including European Film, Director, Actress for Tilda Swinton,...

Jacques Audiard‘s “Emilia Pérez” and Pedro Almodóvar‘s “The Room Next Door” topped Tuesday’s 37th European Film Awards nominations with four apiece.

Both are up for Best European Film, Best European Director, and Best European Screenwriter prizes, while their leads, Karla Sofía Gascón in “Emilia Pérez” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door,” will face off in Best European Actress.

Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” nabbed three nominations for film, director, and screenwriter. Coralie Fargeat‘s word-of-mouth hit “The Substance” scored two bids for film and screenwriter honors.

For the first time, films nominated for Best European Documentary and Best Animated Feature Film are eligible in the Best European Film category, leading to an expanded list of 15 nominees. Also making the cut for the top prize are Italy’s Oscar entry “Vermiglio,” Senegal’s entry “Dahomey,” and Latvia’s entry and animated film “Flow.

The nominees for this year’s European Film Awards have been unveiled, with “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Room Next Door” all up for best European film.

Movies also in the running for the ceremony’s top award — which was expanded this year to documentaries and animated features — include Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias”; Mati Diop’s “Dahomey”; Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow”; Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Balla’s “No Other Land”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio.”

“Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance” lead the nominees overall, with each film scoring four respective nominations. The winners will be revealed during an awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

See all the nominees below.

European Film

“Bye Bye Tiberias” — documentary film, directed by Lina Soualem, produced by Jean-Marie Nizan, Guillaume Malandrin and Ossama Bawardi

“Dahomey” — documentary film, directed by Mati Diop,...

The Substance by Coralie Fargeat, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof are among the nominees for the 2024 European Film Awards (EFAs), organizers unveiled on Tuesday.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door earned four noms each, including for best European film and best director. Sacred Fig is up for the best film, best director, and best screenwriter prizes. The Substance is in the running for the best film and best screenwriter honors.

In the best actress race, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón faces Renate Reinsve, Tilda Swinton for her role in The Room Next Door, and The Girl With the Needle actresses Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne. For The Girl With the Needle, Magnus von Horn and Line Langebek are also nominated in the best screenwriter category.

Queer star Daniel Craig and...

The European Film Academy has announced the nominees in key categories of the 37th European Film Awards ahead of the ceremony in the Swiss lakeside city of Lucerne on December 7.

French Oscar entry Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard and The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodovar lead the nominations making it into four categories each. Both films were nominated for best European film, director and screenplay as well as actress, for Karla Sofia Gascón in Emilia Pérez and Tilda Swinton in The Room Next Door.

Other frontrunners included Germany’s Oscar entry The Seed of the Sacred Fig by exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, which was nominated for best film, director and screenplay.

A slew of films clinched two nominations including Maura Delpero’s Italian Oscar entry Vermiglio, Halfdan Ullmann Tondel’s Norwegian Oscar entry Armand as well as Andrea Arnold’s Bird and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance.

For the first time this year,...

Awards season is officially underway, according to the Gotham Film & Media Institute, and “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” are among the films in competition at this year’s Gotham Awards.

On Tuesday, the membership-based, non-profit independent film group announced its nominees for the 2024 Gotham Awards, the “start of the annual awards season” according to press materials. “Anora” led with four nominations, including Best Feature, Best Lead Performance for Mikey Madison, Best Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov, and Best Director for Sean Baker.

The other Best Feature nominees included “Babygirl” (which landed Nicole Kidman a nomination for Best Lead Performance), “Challengers,” “A Different Man” (which also received recognition for Adam Pearson in Best Supporting Performance), and “Nickel Boys” (which had two other nominations – Best Director for RaMell Ross and Breakthrough Performance for Brandon Wilson).

Other highlights among the nominees include Demi Moore and Pamela Anderson in the Best Lead Performance category,...

The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced today the nominations for the 34th edition of The Gothams, including 39 feature films and 25 performances in nine award categories. Leading the Best Feature nominees are Anora, Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Sharp.

The 2024 Gothams will be held live and in person at 7 pm on Monday, December 2nd at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Best Feature

Anora

Sean Baker, director; Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, producers (Neon)

Babygirl

Halina Reijn, director; David Hinojosa, Julia Oh, Halina Reijn, producers (A24)

Challengers

Luca Guadagnino,...

Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Anora from Neon has nabbed four Gotham Award nominations today including Best Feature, Best Director, Outstanding Lead Performance for Mikey Madison and Outstanding Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov.

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers from Orion/Amazon MGM was nominated for Best Feature. The studio’s Nickel Boys by RaMell Ross had noms for Best Feature and Best Director.

The indie-centric awards last year removed a longstanding budget cap on eligibility, an opening for bigger budget studio and streamer fare to submit for consideration.

A24 films were everywhere with multiple nominations for Babygirl, I Saw The TV Glow, Sing Sing and A Different Man. The Brutalist, Janet Planet and Love Lies Bleeding had noms as well.

The October noms and early December ceremony are industry bellwethers, coming at the start of awards season in the crush of fall festival buzz.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams,...

“Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man” and “Nickel Boys” have been nominated as the best films of 2024 by the 2024 Gotham Awards, the Gotham Film & Media Institute announced on Tuesday.

Sean Baker’s “Anora” led all films with four nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director and Outstanding Lead and Supporting Performances for Mikey Madison and Yuri Borisov.

In the gender-neutral Gotham acting categories, other nominees included Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl,” Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths,” Demi Moore for “The Substance” and Saoirse Ronan for “The Outrun.”

Eligibility for the Gotham Awards used to be restricted to films that came in under a $35 million budget cap, but the awards did away with that rule last year. Currently, the definition of a film eligible for the Gothams is “filmmaking with a point of view … where the vision of an individual director,...

The Gotham Film and Media Institute announced Tuesday the nominations for the 34th annual Gothams, honoring 39 features and 25 performances across nine award categories. Nominees were chosen by a group of journalist- and programmer-led committees. This is the first major awards body to share nominations for the year in film, and here, the Gothams are led by “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” in the Best Feature category.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Gotham Film and Media Institute executive director Jeffrey Sharp.

Per the Institute, nominees are chosen by committees of film critics, journalists,...

The International Documentary Association today released its shortlist of contenders for Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary, a possible harbinger of Oscar success.

Among the features making the list is No Other Land, a documentary by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that has yet to secure U.S. distribution. It has won awards at festivals from Berlin and Busan to Belfast and beyond.

Queendom, a film about the extraordinary Russian drag performance artist Jenna Marvin continues its surge, making the IDA shortlist after securing a place on the Doc NYC shortlist of the year’s best documentaries.

National Geographic’s Sugarcane, about atrocities at a so-called Indian residential school in Canada, continued its strong pre-Oscar awards run by making the IDA list of contenders. Netflix made the list with The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a strong Oscar contender. And MTV Documentary Films earned a spot with Black Box Diaries,...

The International Documentary Association (IDA) has revealed which 20 feature-length and 20 short documentaries have made it onto the shortlists for the 40th IDA Documentary Awards.

Among the films that have a shot at becoming a nominee at the upcoming awards ceremony set to take place on December 5, 2024 at The Orpheum Theater in Downtown Los Angeles are major Best Documentary Feature contenders like “Sugarcane” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” as well as titles that have been harder to come by, like “Brisa” and “Kamay.”

As part of the announcement, Dominic Asmall Willsdon, IDA’s Executive Director, said via statement, “The 40th IDA Documentary Awards continues the tradition of celebrating the best of international nonfiction media of the year. We are grateful to all filmmakers who shared their work for consideration this year, representing a record amount of countries in the award’s history. The impressive shortlist for Best Features and Best...

The 15th annual Doc NYC festival unveiled the titles in its Short List sections, an early precursor lineup in advance of the Oscar nominations next January in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short.

America’s largest documentary festival, based in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of New York City, launches on Nov. 13 with the opening night premiere of “Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.”

The titles in the Short Lists include Benjamin Ree’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida,” Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and “No Other Land,” directed by a four-person collective of Israeli and Palestinian artists.

Additional films, nearly all screening with filmmakers in person for Q&As, include “Will and Harper,” about the friendship between Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, “The Last of the Sea Women,” produced by Nobel Peace Prize winner...

Alexis Bloom’s “The Bibi Files,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” and Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” are among the 15 documentary films that have received a coveted spot on Doc NYC’s feature shortlist.

Launched in 2012, the Doc NYC feature shortlist, which this year includes several streamer-backed docs as well as films with minimal or no distribution, has become known for being an award season bellwether. The last three feature docus that garnered an Oscar — “20 Days in Mariupol”, “Navalny” and “Summer of Soul” — made the Doc NYC shortlist.

In all the Doc NYC film festival has screened 53 of the last 60 Oscar-nominated documentary features. The feature shortlist election process is overseen by fest’s artistic director Jaie Laplante and director of special projects Thom Powers, who also serves as the lead documentary programmer at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

“We start thinking about the...

French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s Dahomey documentary, which earned the Golden Bear prize at the Berlin Film Festival, has been chosen to represent Senegal in the best international feature category at the Academy Awards.

The film tracks the return of 26 royal African treasures looted in the 19th century by France from the Kingdom of Dahomey and are due to return to the present-day Republic of Benin as part of reparations. The Kingdom of Dahomey was seen in Viola Davis’ historical epic The Woman King.

“The director’s own path as a cultural revenant continues to be inextricably woven through her work, alongside a contemplative consideration of repatriation and reparations, in her multifaceted medium-length docu-fictional essay Dahomey,” The Hollywood Reporter said in its review of Dahomey from Berlin.

Diop, who wrote and directed Dahomey, asks what the cultural significance of a restitution of works of art can be when handed back by France to Benin.

Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale, has been selected as Senegal’s entry to the 2025 Academy Awards.

It marks the second time French-Senegalese director Diop has been chosen for the Oscars after her debut feature Atlantics, which made it as far as the shortlist in 2019 after winning the grand prix at Cannes.

‘Dahomey’: Review

Dahomey tells the story of 26 royal artefacts stolen by French colonial troops in 1892, which were sent from Paris back to what is now the Republic of Benin in 2021. Using multiple perspectives Diop questions how these artefacts...

Senegal has selected French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s Golden Bear-winning contemporary doc Dahomey as its submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

Dahomey had its North American premiere at TIFF this week. The film will have its U.S. bow this weekend at the Camden International Film Festival before screening at the New York Film Festival in October.

Diop’s second feature film, Dahomey borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).

Diop’s doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures...

Mati Diop is an early Oscar frontrunner with documentary “Dahomey” about the return of Benin-based artwork from French colonizers.

Set in November 2021, the Golden Bear-winning film charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey as they leave Paris and return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin.

Per the official logline, the feature uses multiple perspectives to question “how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence.” The artwork was plundered by French troops in 1892, and the pieces’ return to Benin more almost 150 years later caused an outrage among University of Abomey-Calavi students.

“Atlantics” director Diop writes and directs the documentary, which features cinematography from Josephine Drouin Viallard. Diop produced “Dahomey” along with Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy; Christiane Chabi Kao and Cotonou executive produced the documentary, which was co-produced by Arte France Cinéma, Paris.

“Dahomey” debuted at Berlinale...

Exclusive: After clinching the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 with her debut fiction feature Atlantics, French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop had one burning desire.

“My dream was to set up a film school in Dakar,” she tells Deadline.

Diop made history that year in Cannes as the first Black woman to compete in the festival’s official competition. She clocked a similar milestone in February when she became the first Black filmmaker to win Berlin’s Golden Bear with the inventive documentary Dahomey.

Borrowing its name from the ancient West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin, the doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, the artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892.

Dahomey is Diop’s second feature project and the first from Fanta Sy,...

“Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange.

Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.

“Dahomey” was previously acquired by Mubi for North America, Latin America, U.K., Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and Turkey. Les Films du Losange is currently negotiating more international sales deals and will distribute the film in theaters in France.

Weaving fantasy and documentary, “Dahomey” explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious...

Mubi has acquired Mati Diop’s Berlin Competition entry Dahomey for North America, UK & Ireland, Latin America, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India.

‘Dahomey’: Berlin Review

Mubi plans a late 2024 release for Diop’s second feature and follow-up to her breakout 2019 Cannes Grand Prix winner Atlantics, which became Senegal’s Oscar submission and made the shortlist.

Dahomey takes place in November 2021 and chronicles the repatriation of 26 plundered royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey to moder-day Benin more than 130 years after they were plundered by French colonial forces.

Eve Robin and Judith Lou Levy of France’s Les Films Du Bal produced,...

Mubi has bought “Dahomey,” a highlight of this year’s Berlinale competition and directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantics”), for North America, Latin America, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India.

The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her feature debut, “Atlantics,” won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2019, and went to win the Nation Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Critics Choice Award and Director’s Guild Award.

In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin after being plundered, along with thousands of others,...

“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey.

The doc — which screens in the Berlinale competition this afternoon — borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).

Diop’s film opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered...

Memento International has boarded “Arenas,” Camille Perton’s feature debut set in the world of professional soccer, starring Édgar Ramírez (“Carlos”), Iliès Kadri (“Nobody’s Hero”), Sofian Khammes (“November”) and Lorenzo Zurzolo (“Eo”).

Now in post-production, the film shot across Lyon, Monaco, Nice and Baku in Azerbaijan. Memento International will kick off sales at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous showcase in Paris next week.

The film follows Brahim, a rising soccer star who is about to sign his first contract at his prestigious hometown club. But when a mysterious and powerful agent disrupts the negotiations, Brahim discovers the shady side of the business. Torn between loyalty and money, he will engage in a race against time to claim his destiny.

“Arenas” is produced by Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy for Les Films du Bal, the ambitious independent company behind Mati Diop’s Cannes prizewinner “Atlantics,” “Ahed’s Knee” by Nadav Lapid and the...

An edgy new voice within the world of French genre, Adrien Beau worked as a designer and scenographer for the likes of Dior, John Galliano and Agnes B before making his feature debut with the offbeat vampire movie “Vourdalak.”

Produced by Judith-Lou Levy at Les Films du Bal, “Vourdalak” will world premiere at Venice Critics’ Week and will likely be one of its boldest entries. At a time when horror has become a mainstream genre overloaded with special effects, “Vourdalak” couldn’t be more radical. Lensed in Super 16, the film’s central character is a vampire patriarch named Gorcha, played by a marionette that Beau operates and lends his voice to.

In an interview with Variety ahead of the festival, Beau says he got the idea for the film after he and Levy came across “La Famille du Vourdalak,” a strange vampire novella penned by Alexeï Konstantinovitch Tolstoï, published in...

French cinema professionals from across the country’s independent production, distribution and exhibition chain flocked to an emergency general convention in Paris this week to raise the alarm over the future of their industry.

France has long prided itself on being the most cinephile country on the planet, but there is a growing sense among its indie cinema sector that the population has fallen out of love with the seventh art in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Figures released by the National Cinema Centre (Cnc) last week revealed the worst September box office for the country in 42 years, with 7.38 million entries, for a rough box office of 47m, representing a 20.7 drop on September 2021, and a 34.3 fall on the same month in 2019.

Admissions for the first nine months of 2022 are currently trailing 30 below the average for the same period from 2017-2019. September’s drop was due in part to a lack of big U.

Grappling with free-falling theatrical admissions and misplaced blame by exhibitors on so-called “auteur” movies, the leading lights of the French film industry sounded the alarm about the state of the country’s cinema sector during a dramatic and emotional conference.

The jam-packed event on Thursday, called Appel aux Etats Generaux (Call for General Assemblies), was organized by some of France’s most established producers including Saïd Ben Saïd, Judith Lou Levy and Philippe Carcassone, who work frequently with directors Paul Verhoeven, Mati Diop and Florian Zeller, respectively.

The conference was held at the Institut du Monde Arabe, a cultural venue headed by Jack Lang, who served as minister of culture throughout the 1980s. Nearly 800 people attended the event, including members of the independent distributors guild (Dire) and the directors guild Srf, the governing body of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

Filmmakers, producers, distributors, arthouse exhibitors and crew members took the stage to...

The 20 producers will take part in a five-day programme on the 19-23 May at the festival

The producers of Cannes competition title Ahed’s Knee and César-nominated animation Even Mice Belong In Heaven are among those selected for European Film Production’s (Efp) networking platform Producers On The Move.

The 20 producers will take part in an in-person five-day programme running May 19-23 at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an online pre-festival programme of speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions.

Among this year’s selection is Judith Lou Lévy, who produced Nadav Lapid’s Ahed’s Knee, which won the jury...