News

Films Boutique has sold Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake,” which had its world premiere in Cannes sidebar Directors’ Fortnight, to multiple territories.

The film was picked up by Lucky Red for Italy, Atalante for Spain, Rialto Distribution for Australia/New Zealand, Filmcoopi for Switzerland, Cinobo for Greece and Nitrato Filmes for Portugal.

Negotiations are underway for the U.K., Turkey, Scandinavia, Latin America, Austria and the Middle-East.

As previously announced, Tandem has the film in France, and September Film has it in Benelux. North American rights are handled by UTA/WME.

“The President’s Cake” takes place in 1990s Iraq when people across the country are struggling to survive food shortages. It is at this time that Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday.

Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen from among her classmates. The girl...

In a fiery and unexpected statement, President Donald J. Trump has ignited an industry-wide firestorm by declaring that “The Movie Industry in America is Dying a very fast death.” Citing international incentives as a threat to Hollywood’s global dominance, Trump announced a sweeping proposal: a 100% tariff on any and all movies produced outside the United States. The move, framed as a national security issue, is already being compared to historical protectionist policies — but this time, it targets art, culture, and cinematic expression on a global scale.

President Trump’s statement regarding the movie industry

The Movie Industry in America is Dying a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.

Sales agency Films Boutique has closed two key territories on Iraqi writer/director Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake” ahead of its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight during the Cannes Film Festival.

The film has been acquired in France by Tandem and Benelux by September Film.

“The President’s Cake” takes place in 1990s Iraq when people across the country are struggling to survive food shortages. It is at this time that Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday.

Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The girl must now use her wits and imagination to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake or face the consequences.

“The President’s Cake” was filmed entirely in Iraq with a cast of local non-actors, who included Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat and Rahim AlHaj.

Hadi...

Actress Lily McInerny knows it sounds a little weird coming from a rising actress of her caliber, but it’s true, she “wasn’t a very outgoing kid.” But even her early inclination to work behind the scenes couldn’t quite kick what was always stirring in her: she wanted to tell stories. Acting? That fit the bill.

As the Indie Spirit nominee told IndieWire during a recent interview, she always loved fantasy tales, and that love for magical escapism naturally led to an interest in the theater and beyond. Also of assistance: An overall McInerny clan affection for “The Simpsons” (the gateway for her sense of humor), plus her dad’s love of sci-fi and horror.

She even made her own little films as a youngster, and by age eight, she was acting in elementary school productions. At age 13, she got into New York City’s “Fame” high school,...

Exclusive: Black Bear’s management arm has signed the Swedish actor and model Simon Lööf for representation.

Lööf is currently on set in the lead role of Netflix’s Swedish thriller An Honest Life, directed by Mikael Marcimain, which is due to be released globally 2024.

Based on a thriller by Joakim Zander of the same name, the buzzed about production revolves around a disillusioned law school student who finds himself on the wrong side of the law, when he falls under the thrall of an anarchic, young woman he meets a political demonstration.

Simon Lööf made his acting debut in 2020 in teen ice hockey drama Eagles, which he followed with a co-starring role in the critically acclaimed Swedish series Threesome opposite Matilda Källström.

Aside from An Honest Life, Lööf’s will soon be seen in the series So Long, Marianne about the relationship between...

Black Bear’s management arm has signed award-winning Quebec director Sophie Dupuis for representation. Most recently, Dupuis’ third picture, “Solo,” premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the award for best Canadian film. The film, which was written and directed by Dupuis, stars fellow Black Bear client Théodore Pellerin. It is set in Montreal’s drag queen scene.

Critics embraced the film with SlashFilm calling it “a vibrant portrait of queer nightlife” and the Toronto Star praising the work as a “dexterous film that combines bold images with the quiet beat of a heart torn asunder two ways.”

Dupuis’ previous work, which also showcases her impactful storytelling and her focus on human complexity, has been widely lauded. Her feature film debut, the crime drama “Family First,” earned four Canadian Screen Awards. It was selected as Canada’s submission for best foreign language film at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Exclusive: Black Bear, the production, management and financing company founded by Teddy Schwarzman, on Thursday announced its signing of Simona Tabasco, one of the breakout Italian stars of The White Lotus‘ second season.

The news follows the firm’s introduction to Tabasco as the producer of Immaculate, a forthcoming psychological horror film in which she stars opposite fellow White Lotus alum Sydney Sweeney.

In the Sicily-set second installment of Mike White’s HBO satire The White Lotus, examining the dynamics between employees and guests at luxury hotels around the world, Tabasco starred alongside Adam Dimarco, Michael Imperioli, Beatrice Grannò, Theo James and more. The 10x Emmy-winning series had her playing the role of Lucia Greco, a prostitute enjoying the high life alongside aspiring chanteuse Mia (Grannò), as she builds her business on the grounds of The White Lotus Sicily. For her performance, the actress was recognized with an Emmy nom...

Exclusive: Black Bear’s management arm has signed Danish-American actor Elliott Crosset Hove for representation.

Hove is best known for the well-received Danish/Icelandic feature Godland, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

His lauded performance in the picture earned him Best Male Actor at Denmark’s 2023 Bodil Awards, as well as a Best Actor nomination at the European Film Awards.

Hove’s previous feature roles include Rasmus Heisterberg’s 2016 feature film In the Blood, for which Hove was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Bodil Awards, and Hlynur Pálmason’s Winter Brothers, which won him a Danish Robert Award and Best Actor at the Locarno Film Festival. He has also appeared in Journal 64, Before the Frost, Parents and Wildland.

Most recently, Hove starred in Katrine Brocks’ The Great Silence and Simon Jaquemet’s Electric Child, which is currently in post-production, alongside Rila Fukushima.

After Love

A transcendent chamber piece, Aleem Khan’s feature-length directorial debut is graced with an exceptional lead performance from Joanna Scanlan as an English woman who converted to Islam for marriage years ago — only to discover, when her husband dies, that he was living a shocking double life. It’s a miraculous study of grief, jealousy and ultimately compassion, all executed with very little dialogue.­­ — Leslie Felperin

Are You There God? It’S Me, Margaret

Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of the classic Judy Blume novel about a girl on the cusp of puberty is charming, heartwarming, and beautifully acted and scored. But its magic comes from its respectful reanimation of the source material: The film stays close to Margaret and her emotions, using them to honor an already sturdy narrative while also expanding our understanding of the world around her. — Lovia Gyarkye

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

Véréna Paravel...

Exclusive: The Gotham Film & Media Institute has today named the fellows set for the 2023 edition of its Festival de Cannes Producers Network Program, scheduled to take place in person at Cannes from May 17-22. The list includes independent filmmakers Maria Altamirano, Liz Cardenas, Leah Chen Baker, Yoni Golijov, Emma Hannaway Nikkia Moulterie and Carlos Zozaya.

Running concurrently with the Cannes Film Festival and the Marche du Film, the program is specifically designed for experienced producers to build up their international networks and learn more about international production, financing, legal and packaging. As its sole U.S. partner organization, The Gotham annually selects U.S. fiction and nonfiction producers to participate.

“The 2023 Gotham/Cannes Producers Network Fellows are an extraordinary group of talented producers, who have demonstrated so early in their careers both the taste and acumen to bring excellent new projects to life,” said The Gotham’s Executive Director,...

Exclusive: Paradigm has signed actor, filmmaker and artist Lío Mehiel for representation in all areas on the heels of their breakout performance in Mutt, which led them to become the first trans actor to nab Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award at this year’s festival.

Related Story CAA Signs Sundance Prize-Winning ‘Palm Trees And Power Lines’ Filmmaker Jamie Dack Related Story Paradigm Hires Varun Monga, Ups Sanam Sarani & Sheridan March To Agents; Paradigm Media's Two Twelve Adds Olivia Annacone Related Story Savanah Leaf's 'Earth Mama', Sundance Prize Winner 'Mutt' To Bookend New Directors/New Films

Mehiel’s first-ever feature, from writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, has them starring as Feña, a young, NYC-based trans man navigating the extremes of human emotion with the most important people in his life. Deadline’s Damon Wise, in his review of the film out of Sundance, called Mehiel’s performance “soul-baring” and “pitch-perfect,...

Exclusive: CAA has signed filmmaker Jamie Dack, whose debut feature Palm Trees and Power Lines earned her the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

Related Story Whitney Peak Of ‘Gossip Girl’ Signs With CAA Related Story Michael C. Hall Signs With CAA Related Story CAA TV Lit Agent Christopher Licata Joins 42 As Manager

The coming-of-age drama, based on Dack’s 2018 short film of the same name, tells the story of Lea (Lily McInerny), a disconnected teenage girl who enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees Tom (Jonathan Tucker) as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.

Dack co-wrote, directed and produced the pic, which was most recently nominated for Best First Screenplay and Best First Feature at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards, also respectively landing McInerny and Tucker noms for Best Breakthrough Performance and Supporting Performance.

“Palm Trees and Power Lines,” the story of a teenage girl who is groomed by a man twice her age, received nearly universal acclaim when it debuted at Sundance in 2022, going on to win an award for Jamie Dack’s direction.

And yet, despite all the good reviews and honors, it took months for the film to find a distributor. The reason, Dack says, is many film companies didn’t want to touch a movie that tackles such a controversial subject.

“People were scared,” says Dack. “There were many companies that wanted to take meetings with me and that told me they wanted to work with me on my next project. They were blunt. They said, ‘we love this film, but we just can’t distribute it.'”

One company even made Dack an offer, but suggested that she should cut a pivotal scene involving her central character’s fateful...

Palm Trees and Power Lines is as well-made as it is terrifying. Jamie Dack (Horizon Diner) is in full control of her 2018 short and adapts it with an unassuming velocity that will keep one on the edge of their seat. The acting is universally great, but newcomer Lily Mclnerny is astounding and her sparring with veteran character actor Johnathan Tucker (The Virgin Suicides) brings the film to life. Palm Trees and Power Lines is quiet in terms of music, but every moment jumps off the screen. The script seems slow, but it’s actually moving at the speed of light. The juxtaposition of these aspects meld together with the opposing lead performances, and it makes for extraordinary interior conflict in every part of the story. In Palm Trees and Power Lines, everyone is a hypocrite and no one trusts anyone else. The beauty of the film lies in how each...

Lea feels lost. It is the summer before her senior year of high school, and the 17-year-old’s days are spent watching online makeup tutorials and reality TV, playing games on her phone, and lounging under the Southern California sun. Her father walked out years ago, and her boozy mother (Gretchen Mol) is needy when she’s single and distant when she’s not. She can’t relate to her teenage friends, who seem in thrall to emotionally stunted neighborhood boys their own age, laughing at their puerile jokes and observations,...

The 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards, hosted by Hasan Minhaj, took place on Saturday, live from the beach in Santa Monica, California. The annual awards ceremony was live-streamed on IMDb’s YouTube page, plus additional social platforms, including Film Independent’s YouTube channel.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” led this year’s nominations with a total of eight and swept up seven awards. Following close behind was Cate Blanchett’s “Tár” with seven nods and “Aftersun” with five. Meanwhile, “The Bear” topped the television categories.

Read More: Before Oscars, ‘Everything Everywhere’ Sweeps Spirit Awards

The 2023 Spirit Awards marks the show’s first time highlighting gender-neutral categories. In other words, Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh were up against Paul Mescal for lead performance. This year’s recipient of the Robert Altman award went to “Women Talking”, in which the award was given to the film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast.

‘Aftersun’ wins Best First Feature, ‘Joyland’ Best International Film.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once has dominated the 2023 Spirit Awards, claiming seven of the eight awards it was nominated for including film, director for the Daniels, and lead and supporting performance for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, respectively.

As awards season nears its climax, the madcap multiverse adventure heads into next weekend’s Oscars as the clear frontrunner for major honours after a triumphant Saturday evening under the traditional Film Independent tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

This follows major wins at three of the four US...

Everything Everywhere All at Once cleaned up at the 38th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning seven awards, including best feature.

Stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan each collected another award to add to their hauls, taking home best lead performance and best supporting performance, respectively, while Stephanie Hsu won best breakthrough performance. The film’s writer-directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, won the Spirit Award for best director and best screenplay, and Paul Rogers won for his editing work.

Heading into the show, Everything Everywhere All at Once led the film nominations with eight nods, winning every category in which it was nominated. Jamie Lee Curtis also was nominated but lost to her Eeao co-star Quan for best supporting performance.

On the TV side, The Bear was named best new scripted series, with Ayo Edebiri taking home the award for best supporting performance in a new scripted series.

The 2023 Independent Spirit Awards were dominated by the Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which led all films this year with eight nominations and a won a total of seven prizes, including best feature. Close behind were Todd Field’s “Tár” with seven noms (it won for best cinematography) and Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” with five (it won for best first feature). All three movies picked up Oscar nominations this year, with “Everything Everywhere” also leading the Academy Awards pack with a total of 11 nominations.

While last year’s Spirit Award winner for best feature, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” did not go on to land an Oscar nomination in the same category, the 2021 winner, Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” repeated at the Oscars and took home the best picture prize.

This year’s Spirit Award nominees were highlighted by gender neutral categories, meaning Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh faced off...

Indie Spirit Award nomination leader “Everything Everywhere All At Once” has solidified its Oscar frontrunner status, winning seven awards on Saturday afternoon in Santa Monica, including Best Feature, Best Lead Performance (Michelle Yeah), Best Supporting Performance (Ke Huy Quan), Best Director, Best Screenplay (each awarded to the directorial duo The Daniels), Best Film Editing, and Best Breakthrough Performance for Stephanie Hsu.

The film won in every single category it was nominated. Quan was competing alongside his costar Jamie Lee Curtis in the Best Supporting Performance race, giving the film a ceiling of seven wins despite its eight nominations. And seven mark the most wins ever for a single film at the Indie Spirit Awards. Barry Jenkins’s 2016 “Moonlight” was the previous record holder, with five competitive award wins, in addition to the honorary Robert Atman Award, recognizing a film’s ensemble cast.

This year, the Robert Altman Award went to “Women Talking,...

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards are being handed out Saturday, March 4, from Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA in a show hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj. Much as it paced the Oscar nominations, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leads the way among all film nominees with eight Independent Spirit noms, including Best Feature and honors for director (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), lead performance (Michelle Yeoh), supporting performance (Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan) and breakthrough performance (Stephanie Hsu). Todd Field’s “TÁR” earned seven nominations, including director and screenplay (Field), lead performance (Cate Blanchett) and supporting (Nina Hoss). “Aftersun” scored five bids.

Scroll down to see the Indie Spirit Awards winners list live as it happens today. We’ve also included the complete roster of nominees in every category.

Besides “Everything Everywhere” and “TÁR,” the film competing for top feature are “Our Father, the Devil,” “”Bones and All” and “Women Talking.

There are no current Oscar nominees hitting streaming services this weekend. Everything that will be released on streaming before final voting closes on March 7 has already been released. So our list of awards contenders available to stream this week is light on certified contenders. All five of our picks last week were Oscar nominees; this week features a Cannes nominee from 2014. But they’re all still worth watching, especially our top pick, which is up for four Independent Spirit Awards.

The contender to watch this weekend: “Palm Trees and Power Lines”

Writer-director Jamie Dack’s searing coming-of-age drama comes to on-demand platforms just in time for the Independent Spirit Awards, where it’s nominated for Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Breakthrough Performance for star Lily McInerny, and Best Supporting Performance for Jonathan Tucker. The film follows Lea (McInerny), a directionless 17-year-old girl who gets romantically involved with Tom...

Since starting his career in the mid-1990s, Jonathan Tucker has racked up some 60 film and TV credits. But with his newest, the indie drama Palm Trees and Power Lines, the 40-year-old faced one of his toughest challenges.

The film, which marks the feature debut of Jamie Dack (who won a directing prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival), Tucker stars as a mysterious stranger who seduces a disconnected teenage girl. “I didn’t appreciate how challenging the whole experience would be of building the performance,” explains Tucker, who was quick to credit his director, co-star Lily McInerny and producer Leah Chen Baker for their work, adding that he felt it was his job to act while also supporting them during production. “But watching the movie as a father and as a husband is brutal. Watching somebody manipulate another vulnerable human being, particularly a young woman, is a hard watch.”

Even still,...

In Palm Trees and Power Lines, director Jamie Dack carefully sets up the factors that lead teenager Lea (newcomer Lily McInerny) into a relationship with Tom (Jonathan Tucker), a man twice her age. Her father is absent and her mother seems to only notice her when she’s in between boyfriends. There’s a disconnect between Lily and her friends at times. Then there’s old-fashioned boredom––idle hands are the devil’s playthings after all. Summer nights may consist of the drinking and hooking up one expects of teenagers, but suburban malaise casts a long shadow over the proceedings, creating the antithesis of a Linklater night out.

So like St. Augustine and his pears, Lea and her friends dine and dash one evening, not for seeming lack of funds but just because. It’s here that Tom first makes contact with her, via a quick wink as he walks past her booth.

They’re back. Rlje Films presents the Stephen King reboot Children of the Corn by Kurt Wimmer on 500+ screens. It’s a redo of the classic 1984 slasher-horror film about kids possessed by a demonic spirit in a dying cornfield, with bloody, rampaging results.

King’s iconic short story features a 12-year-old Nebraska girl who recruits the kids in her small town for a killing spree of all the adults, and anyone else who opposes her. A bright high schooler who won’t go along with the plan is the town’s only hope of survival. There are some new twists, in Wimmer’s version, the corn is genetically modified. Starring Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer, Callan Mulvey and Bruce Spence.

The story is great, spawning numerous spinoffs beginning with Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice in 1992 followed by Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest in 1995. Most went direct to video.

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

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

It is a fascinating thing to watch someone’s history of protest and addiction collide and conspire to hold a pharmaceutical company accountable and expose its parent family as reprehensible. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles the renowned photographer and activist Nan Goldin and her fight through the AIDS and opioid crisis, but this is bigger than a biographical documentary. Through slideshows, interviews, and family videos, Poitras weaves a riveting, heartbreaking interconnected story of generational pain, its influence over the blurry boundaries between life and art. – Jake K-s.

Where to Stream: VOD

Close (Lukas Dhont)

Dhont’s sophomore feature offers no narrative or stylistic fireworks, but it captures feelings so fine and true they...

Jamie Dack’s Palm Trees and Power Lines is about losing a person. By the end, its 17-year-old heroine, Lea (played by a great Lily McInerny) seems lost to herself, unsure of who to be. It’s the summer before her senior year. Trouble starts with a chance encounter with an older man, Tom (Jonathan Tucker), who is twice Lea’s age but nevertheless takes an interest. This is merely how it starts. Palm Trees is a film about a young woman groomed, unsuspectingly, into sex work by a charming 34-year-old man.

As a genre, the coming-of-age film can be a malleable one. This is true both in how each generation will encounter its own challenges and also face down difficulties that transcend time. There are works that look at the way anger can become part of our realities from a young age and others that explore how society’s repression can maintain their hold over our futures. There are aspects of each of these elements that are woven through writer-director Jamie Dack’s debut feature Palm Trees and Power Lines. First premiering back at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, it delicately yet decisively looks at the life of the 17-year-old Lea (Lily McInerny) as she tries to find her way in the world. Taking place over summer break in the Southwest, it begins with her feeling disconnected from her peers and frustrated with her troubled mother. When out one night at a diner,...

While at least half of the month’s film-related discussion will, unfortunately, be consumed by the endless Oscar race chatter, we’re here to cut through the noise and highlight gems worth seeking out in March. From a superhero film actually worth a watch to a fascinating archival documentary to highlights from not only this year’s Sundance but the 2022 edition as well, check out my picks to see.

15. Rodeo (Lola Quivoron; March 17)

One of the breakouts of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section and picked up a jury prize, was Lola Quivoron’s feature debut Rodeo. Starring Julie Ledru Kaïs, Yannis Lafki Ophélie, Antonia Buresi, Cody Schroeder, Louis Sotton, and Junior Correia, it follows a young woman who enters the underground world of dirt biking. Set for a NYC premiere at First Look, it’ll arrive later this month from Music Box Films.

While there aren’t many palm trees in sight, the stretch of endless power lines in Lea’s (Lily McInerny) surroundings mirror the nature of her repetitive existence. Her single mom (Gretchen Mol) entertains a string of terrible boyfriends in the pursuit of ever-evaporating companionship. Her immature friends spend their time ranking the hotness of people in their class when they aren’t lifelessly scrolling their Instagram feeds. As a 17-year-old, Lea’s sexual awakenings are either taken as a joke, as her friend fingers a cream-filled donut poking fun at urges, or rather un-involving. In one scene, she starts to gaze out the window while having unsatisfying sex in the backseat of a car with a fellow classmate. It’s a summer defined by boredom, waiting out the days until she can escape the life she was born into.

When a man twice her age, Tom (Jonathan Tucker), takes...

First-time feature filmmaker Jamie Dack is about to have a very big weekend. First up: Her “Palm Trees and Power Lines” hits theaters and VOD on Friday. By Saturday, the filmmaker and her cast and crew will reunite to celebrate four Indie Spirit nominations — including Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Breakthrough Performance (for star Lily McInerny), and Best Supporting Performance (for star Jonathan Tucker) — during the annual beachside awards ceremony.

It was worth the wait.

Inspired by her short film of the same name, Dack’s film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival (which went virtual after the plan to return to in-person festivities had to be scrapped at the last minute), where it competed for the top prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and Dack won the directing prize in the category.

But despite that Sundance win, strong critical buzz, and a robust continuing festival run,...

The director and star of Palm Trees and Power Lines talk about their unsettling drama that tells of the relationship between a teen and a man in his thirties

There were two things that hooked me when I first saw Palm Trees and Power Lines, an unnerving portrait of the grooming of a teenage girl, at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. First, that the film, which is finally getting limited and on-demand release this week in the US, was one of most evocative depictions of suburban adolescence that I’d seen – a languid summer of couch hangs and knobby knees, afternoon ice cream and sex jokes, a whole lot of lying around and talking about nothing. And second, that the portrayal of the relationship between 17-year-old Lea, played by the 22-year-old yet younger-looking Lily McInerny, and 34-year-old Tom, played by a convincingly thirtysomething Jonathan Tucker, was a remarkably tricky balancing act,...

Exclusive: Momentum Pictures has picked up domestic rights to the starry ensemble dramedy Wildflower, marking the directorial debut of Matt Smukler. The film starring Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men), Emmy and Golden Globe winner Jean Smart (Hacks), Emmy nominee Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus) and many more is slated for release on March 17th.

Coming on the heels of an acclaimed 2020 documentary of the same name directed and produced by Smukler, Wildflower is a coming-of-age film inspired by a true story. Pic follows Bea Johnson from birth to graduation, as she navigates life with two neurodivergent parents and an extended family who can’t quite agree on the best way to help. Also starring in the title, which world premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival, are Academy Award nominee Jacki Weaver (Yellowstone), Dash Mihok (Ray Donovan), Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete), 3x Emmy winner Brad Garrett (Everyone Loves Raymond), Reid Scott...

Palm Trees and Power Lines Trailer — Jamie Dack‘s Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) movie trailer has been released by Momentum Pictures. The Palm Trees and Power Lines trailer stars Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, Gretchen Mol, and Armani Jackson. Crew Jamie Dack and Audrey Findlay wrote the screenplay for Palm Trees and Power Lines. Poster Palm [...]

Continue reading: Palm Trees And Power Lines (2022) Movie Trailer: Lily McInerny swims in Dangerous Waters with Jonathan Tucker...

While this year’s Sundance Film Festival recently concluded, one of the most acclaimed films out of last year’s edition will now be arriving in just under a month. Jamie Dack’s feature debut Palm Trees and Power Lines, which picked up four Independent Spirit Award nominations, follows a teenager’s experience beginning a relationship with a man twice her age. Starring Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker and Gretchen Mol, the first trailer has now arrived ahead of a March 3 release from Momentum Pictures.

Here’s the full synopsis “Seventeen-year-old Lea (Lily McInerny) spends her summer break aimlessly tanning in her backyard with her best friend, tiptoeing around her needy mother, and getting stoned with a group of boys from school. This monotony is interrupted by a chance encounter with Tom (Jonathan Tucker), an older man who promises an alternative to Lea’s unsatisfying adolescent life. But as things progress between them,...

It’s crazy to think that boyish-looking Jonathan Tucker, known for roles in “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), “Hostage” (2005), “In the Valley of Elah” (2007), and “The Ruins” (2008), is now 40 years old. And beyond roles like “Charlie’s Angels” (2019), the perennially youthful-looking actor generally plays nice guys, introverts, and the like. But in “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” an acclaimed 2022 Sundance Film Festival title that’s finally coming out now, Tucker plays something much more chilling and disturbing.

Continue reading ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ Trailer: Jonathan Tucker Stars As A Predator In Jamie Dack’s Acclaimed Sundance Film at The Playlist.

Southern Californian director Jamie Dack’s coming-of-age drama “Palm Trees and Power Lines” was crowned best film as the 40th edition of the Torino Film Festival wrapped Saturday. The award is worth €18,000.

Dack, winner of the Sundance Film Festival directing award in the U.S. Dramatic section, also received Torino’s prize for best script, shared with her co-writer Audrey Findlay.

Based on the 2018 short movie of the same name, Dack’s film stars Gretchen Mol, Jonathan Tucker and Lily McInerny, who plays a 17-year-old who has a life changing encounter with a man twice her age.

“Palm Trees” was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards, including first feature for Dack and Leah Chen Baker; first screenplay for Dack and Audrey Findlay; supporting performance for Tucker; and breakthrough performance for McInerny.

The jury awarded “Rodeo,” the debut feature from French photojournalist-turned-filmmaker Lola Quivoron, with the special jury award, and the...

Harry Shum Jr. and Michelle Yeoh in A24’s ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (Photo credit: Allyson Riggs)

Everything Everywhere All At Once tops the list of 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards nominees, earning eight nominations including Best Feature, Best Director (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert), Best Lead Performance (Michelle Yeo), Best Breakthrough Performance (Stephanie Hsu), and two in the Best Supporting Performance category. Director Todd Field’s Tár, starring Cate Blanchett as a world-renowned composer whose life is falling apart, followed with seven nominations including ones for Field and Blanchett.

The 2023 awards will mark the first time Film Independent has switched the performance categories to gender-neutral. The 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards also introduces a new category: Best Breakthrough Performance.

“We couldn’t be more honored to celebrate this year’s exciting film nominees,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “As the Film Independent Spirit Awards evolve with our changing industry,...

Celebrating its 38th edition, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have unveiled their 2023 nominations, with the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once leading the pack with eight nominations while Todd Field’s TÁR secured seven. Along with those two, rounding out the Best Feature nominations were Bones and All, Our Father, the Devil, and Women Talking. Elsewhere, some of our favorites of the year––including Aftersun, Murina, The African Desperate, The Cathedral, After Yang, All That Breathes, Saint Omer, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed––were recognized.

Check out the nominations below ahead of the March 4 ceremony.

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

Bones and All

Producers: Timothée Chalamet, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Lorenzo Mieli, Marco Morabito, Gabriele Moratti, Theresa Park, Peter Spears

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Producers: Daniel Kwan, Mike Larocca, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang

Our Father, the Devil

Producers: Ellie Foumbi,...

This year's Film Independent Spirit Awards – the 38th — announced their nominations. And it's shaping up to potentially be a very good ceremony for Everything Everywhere All At Once, TÁR, Women Talking and more.

The awards will be handed out on 4 March, though other details are in flux: broadcast for the last few years on us cable channel IFC, the ceremony's organisers are currently looking for a new TV home. Still, the celebration of indie movies will go ahead as planned.

And while the Indie Spirits don't tend to be a huge Oscar indicator, we'd expect at least a few of the nominees to also show up on the Academy Awards nominations list, to be announced on 24 January.

Check out the full Indie Spirit nomination list below…

Best Feature

Bones And All

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Our Father, The Devil

TÁR

Women Talking

Best First Feature

Aftersun

Emily The Criminal...

The film has eight nominations, followed by Todd Field’s ’Tár’ with seven

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once leads the 38th Independent Spirit Awards nominations with eight nods, followed closely by Todd Field’s Tár which has seven nominations.

Both films are up for best feature alongside Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil, and Sarah Polley’s Women Talking.

Everything Everywhere’s nominations include best director and screenplay. The film’s star Michelle Yeoh is also nominated for best lead performance in the awards’ first year using gender-neutral acting categories.

The Independent Spirit Awards, the industry’s indie answer to the Academy Awards, have just released their 2023 nominations. They were announced via live stream on YouTube by Taylour Paige and Raúl Castillo on the Film Independent channel.

The Spirit Awards recently increased their budget cap for eligible films to 30 million or less, with the John Cassavetes Award going to features that cost 1 million or less. The 38th Annual Independent Spirit Awards is scheduled to air on March 4, 2023, and will take place at the beach by the Santa Monica Pier. The announcements for the television categories are scheduled to be revealed on December 13.

The complete comprehensive list of nominations can be viewed over at the The Hollywood Reporter:

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

Bones and All

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Our Father, the Devil

Tár

Women Talking

Best First Feature (Award given to director and producer)

Aftersun...

Click here to read the full article.

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations in film categories were revealed Tuesday morning.

Taylour Paige and Raúl Castillo announced this year’s movie nominees in a livestream on Film Independent’s YouTube channel.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once leads the nominations with eight nods including best feature, directing and screenplay (for filmmaking duo Daniels). Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu were also honored for their performances. Other leading Oscar contenders landing Spirit Awards nods include Focus Features’ Tàr (which earned seven nominations, among them for Todd Field’s direction and writing, as well as performances from Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss), United Artists’ Bones and All (recognized with three nods including for its performances from Taylor Russell and Mark Rylance) and A24’s The Inspection (earning nods for actors Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, in addition...

“Bones and All,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Our Father, the Devil,” “Tár” and “Women Talking” have have been nominated as the best independent films of 2022 at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which announced its nominations on Tuesday morning by Taylour Paige and Raúl Castillo.

Acting nominees in the gender-neutral categories include Brian Tyree Henry for “Causeway,” Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss for “Tár,” Regina King for “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul” and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Those three acting nominations for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” along with a Breakthrough Performance nom for Stephanie Hsu, pushed that film to eight nominations, the most of any film. “Tár” finished second with seven nominations, followed by “Aftersun” with five and “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” “Women Talking” and “Emily the Criminal” with four each.

Also Read:

‘Everything Everywhere All at Once...

The year’s best independent films – or at least those defined by Film Independent as American productions with budgets of less than 30 million – will compete at the Spirit Awards on March 4, 2023. On Tuesday, Film Independent announced the 2023 Spirit Award nominees in all film categories (a separate announcement for the ceremony’s television nominees will take place in December), with beloved indie faves and Oscar favorites “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “Tar,” and “Women Talking” scoring major nominations.

“Everything Everywhere” paced all films with eight nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Lead Performance for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Performance for Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan, and Best Breakthrough Performance for Stephanie Hsu.

“Tar” scored seven nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director for Todd Field, Best Lead Performance for Cate Blanchett, and Best Supporting Performance for Nina Hoss.

“Women Talking” was selected as...

The Torino Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th edition this year, will open with a special musical and visual event focusing on two of the most iconic British bands – the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – and their love for cinema, which led them to work with the likes of Richard Lester, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese.

The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”

Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...

Momentum Pictures, the distrib behind Soft & Quiet, To Leslie, Dashcam and All My Puny Sorrows, have nabbed the sobering predatory drama that landed the U.S Dramatic Comp Best Director award and jury prize at Deauville debut title by Jamie Dack. Screen Daily slipped the news that Palm Trees And Power Lines will receive a limited theatrical and VoD launch in March 2023 via Momentum. This is about a disconnected teenage girl on summer break who falls into a relationship with a man more than twice her age. While she sees him as the solution to all her problems, his intentions are not what they seem.…...

Film Constellation handles international sales.

Momentum Pictures has acquired US and UK rights to Sundance winner and BFI London Film festival selection Palm Trees And Power Lines.

Jamie Dack directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Audrey Findlay about a disconnected teenage girl on summer break who falls into a relationship with a man more than twice her age. While she sees him as the solution to all her problems, his intentions are not what they seem.

Lily McInerny, Jonathan Tucker, and Gretchen Mol star. The producers are Leah Chen Baker and Jamie Dack.

Momentum plans a limited theatrical and...

A humdrum thriller that clumsily digs into themes of sexual and emotional trauma, Amy Redford’s sophomore feature “What Comes Around” follows Anna (Grace Van Dien), an archetypal perceptive teenage girl on the cusp of maturity. Because she’s the observant kind who yearns for big ideas and possibilities outside of her small suburban world, it’s no surprise that it isn’t a square teenage boy from her school that romantically sweeps Anna off her feet, but a man of nearly 30 years of age she’s met online.

He’s the creepily mysterious Eric, someone who ignites Anna’s all-consuming emotions, shares her love of Emily Dickinson and notices (at least on the surface) the complexities of this young girl who wants to cross over to adulthood fast. But when he shows up at Anna’s doorstep uninvited all too abruptly after traveling hundreds of miles, he rattles the disturbed Anna,...

Production, finance and sales company Film Constellation has boarded sales on the upcoming romantic thriller “Haunted Heart” by Academy Award winning director Fernando Trueba.

The film stars Academy Award nominee Matt Dillon (“The House That Jack Built”), Goya-nominated Aida Folch (“The Artist and the Model”), and Juan Pablo Urrego (“Memoria”). The English-language film is set to start shooting in Greece in September.

The film is set on a beautiful remote island in Greece, where young and spirited Alex joins the team of a boutique seaside restaurant as their new waitress. Despite her femme-fatale charm quickly winning the heart of the charismatic Enrico, she instead falls for the enigmatic restaurant manager Max, a reclusive American, who settled on the island decades ago.

As the seasons pass, sexual tensions rise, and tourists come and go, Enrico begins to unearth disturbing clues about Max’s dark and mysterious past. Blinded by her feelings,...