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Creative Artists Agency announced on Tuesday that the sixth edition of their Moebius Film Festival will take place June 9-10.

The two-day virtual screening series, spotlighting diverse graduate filmmakers, will welcome talent from AFI, CalArts, UCLA, USC and Chapman University. 12 directors will be represented, from six countries.

Their live-action and animated programming will be livestreamed on the 9th and 10th beginning at 6:30 p.m. Pst. As has been the case in past years, CAA agents will be on hand for the event, to mentor the filmmakers. Professionals from various major agencies, management companies, production companies, studios, networks and streamers are expected to be in attendance, as well.

CAA Moebius was founded in 2015 by then-trainees and now CAA Motion Picture agents Christina Chou, Zach Kaplan, and Pete Stein, in concert with Lingie Park. The festival is produced through a collaboration of colleagues across CAA’s Motion Pictures department. Its notable...

For the inaugural season of Disney’s “Launchpad” shorts incubator, the studio centered on the theme, “Discover,” encouraging audiences broaden their worldview through their short films.

But another word that could describe this first group of films and the filmmakers who crafted them over the last 19 months is “Perseverance.”

When Aqsa Altaf, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Ann Marie Pace, Moxie Peng, Jessica Mendez Siqueiros and Hao Zheng got the call that they’d been selected to become the first class of filmmakers in Dec. 2019, no one expected they’d have to overcome a five-month production delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It has taken us almost three years to get to this point,” Mahin Ibrahim, director of Disney’s diversity & inclusion, market, who oversees the “Launchpad” program, tells Variety.

The drive to continue on came down to the simple fact that the mission — spotlighting underrepresented stories and storytellers in the marketplace...

Disney’s Launchpad, a new filmmaking program dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices, has unveiled the trailer for six original short films coming to Disney Plus.

All six short films, each centering on the theme of “discover,” will launch on Disney Plus on May 28. The program’s inaugural year features stories by Ann Marie Pace, Aqsa Altaf, Hao Zheng, Jessica Mendez Siqueiros, Moxie Peng and Stefanie Abel Horowitz.

“As a first-generation Muslim Bangladeshi woman, I know how important it is for communities to see themselves on screen, and to empower emerging filmmakers,” said Mahin Ibrahim, director of Disney’s diversity and inclusion, market, who oversees the Launchpad program. “Our goal with the Disney Launchpad Shorts Incubator is to tell six deeply meaningful personal stories straight from the filmmakers’ heart, amplified with the scale and reach that only Disney has.”

Disney plans to continue its Launchpad program, with the theme of “connection” to anchor the second season.

This ranking of the Top 50 film schools of 2020 first appeared in TheWrap’s fifth annual College Issue.

The American Film Institute Conservatory finished as the top film school in the U.S. in TheWrap’s fifth annual ranking of programs, just ahead of previous No. 1, USC. And while the Top 10 remained fairly consistent from past years, three schools — AFI, Chapman and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts — posted their highest-ever finishes. Meanwhile, Biola University returned to the list after dropping off last year, and Pepperdine made it into our rankings for the first time.

The Wrap’s annual ranking of film schools was determined by an anonymous poll of more than 2,000 entertainment industry insiders, educators, deans, filmmakers and film pundits, along with experts tasked with evaluating each school.

Yes, the list compares apples and oranges, mixing undergraduate and graduate programs and including schools with more than 1,000 students...

Exclusive: As diversity becomes more of a staple rather than a trend in Hollywood, Disney is stepping up to the plate to amplify underrepresented voices with the inaugural Disney Launchpad: Shorts Incubator program. Filmmakers Aqsa Altaf, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Jessica Mendez Siqueiros, Ann Marie Pace, Moxie Peng and Hao Zheng were revealed as this year’s participants.

Launchpad is an immersive program in where the aforementioned six directors, who represent diverse perspectives, will produce original, live-action short films. They will have the opportunity to be considered for an exhibition on Disney+ and possible further development. The program also includes professional and storytelling classes led primarily by the program’s educational partner, the American Film Institute.

“We are so excited to work with these six wonderful and talented directors who have so much to say to the world and have such beautiful ways of saying it,” said Mahin Ibrahim, Director, Diversity & Inclusion,...

In today’s TV news roundup, HBO released the teaser trailer for “Lovecraft Country,” and the documentary “Freestyle Love Supreme” announced that it will no longer be airing on Hulu on June 5 in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

First Looks

HBO has released a teaser for its adaptation of “Lovecraft Country,” coming this August. Based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, “Lovecraft Country” takes a road trip through America in the era of Jim Crow with Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), his friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) and Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) as they battle both racism and supernatural monsters. “Lovecraft Country” is executive produced by Misha Green, J.J. Abrams, Jordan Peele, Bill Carraro, Yann Demange, Daniel Sackheim and David Knoller.

Executive News

Kim Brunhuber has joined CNN International as an Atlanta-based anchor. He will anchor the Europe morning editions of “CNN Newsroom” in addition to weekday programming.

The Motion Picture & Television Fund has met its goal of $750,000 from its May 15 fundraiser event, thanks to matching contributions to double the $250,000 pledged by the John and Marilyn Wells Family Foundation.

The funds are being used to help reduce the cost of personal protective equipment and food for caregivers at its skilled nursing home in Woodland Hills, Calif., where six residents died of Covid-19 last month. John Wells, the writer-producer of “ER” and “The West Wing,” is a member of the MPTF Board of Governors.

The event was hosted by Yvette Nicole Brown and Tom Bergeron, which streamed live on MPTF ’s YouTube page. It include pre-recorded segments from stars like George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan,...

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) will launch the virtual edition of CAA Moebius, an annual two-day screening series showcasing diverse Los Angeles-based graduate student filmmakers from the American Film Institute (AFI) Conservatory, School of Film/Video at CalArts, UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, and USC School of Cinematic Arts. The event will be livestreamed May 20 and 21 from 6:30-8:30pm Pst and feature live-action and animated short films. As in past years, CAA agents will serve as mentors to the filmmakers.

Moebius’ notable alumni include Dubois Ashong who will make his feature directorial debut with Geechee starring Andrea Riseborough, with CAA Media Finance co-representing the film’s domestic rights with Agc Studios; Max Barbakow, who most recently directed Palm Springs, sold to Neon and Hulu at Sundance this year in a record-breaking deal; CAA client Hao Zheng, who won Silver at the 2019 Student Academy Awards and is currently a...

“I think storytelling is really our hope because there is such divisiveness right now in the world. And, I think that stories enable us to hear each other and see different sides of an experience,” documentarian Rory Kennedy told Variety at the 2019 Student Academy Awards on Thursday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

Kennedy was one of the five presenters for this year’s Student Academy Awards — along with Melina Matsoukas, Gregory Nava, Phil Lord and Chris Miller — which honored 16 student winners from colleges and universities around the world.

While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has existed since 1929, the student academy wasn’t founded until 1972 in an effort to encourage student filmmakers while acknowledging them for telling stories that do more than just entertain. Robert Zemeckis, Spike Lee and Patricia Riggen were past Student Academy Award recipients.

Kennedy praised this year’s “extraordinary winners,” saying,...

Updated with medals awarded: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Miller & Son from the American Film Institute’s Asher Jelinsky the gold medal in the Narrative domestic category at the 46th Student Academy Awards. It was won of seven golds handed out during the medalists ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The Academy last month selected 16 winners of the annual Student Academy Awards, chosen from 1,615 entries from 255 domestic and 105 international colleges and universities. The wins make them eligible to compete for this year’s Oscar competition in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Subject categories.

Past winners have garnered 62 Oscar nominations and won or shared 12 awards.

The medals were handed out Thursday by presenters Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Melina Matsoukas, Gregory Nava and Rory Kennedy.

First-timers on this year’s list included for Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne in Switzerland,...

Students at the American Film Institute lead the way for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s annual Student Academy Awards.

The Academy named 16 students as winners on Thursday, including three in the narrative category from AFI. The competition received 1,615 entrants from 255 domestic and 105 international colleges and universities, the Academy said.

AFI was the only school to take more than one award. AFI students Asher Jelinsky (“Miller & Son”), Hao Zheng (“The Chef”) and Omer Ben-Shachar took home awards in the narrative category. Last year, the University of Southern California was the only school to take home more than one award, with four.

Also Read: New Academy President on the Next Oscars: 'I Don't Think We Need to Be Changing the Show'

Winners of the Student Academy Awards are eligible to compete for Oscars in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Subject category. Past...