News

Exclusive: Dreamers, the first feature directed by producer Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor (Blue Story), has been acquired for UK and Irish distribution by We Are Parable.

We Are Parable acquired Dreamers from The Yellow Affair and will release the film in cinemas at the end of the year. Separate deals have been struck on the film with J&j Films (Benelux) and Salzgeber (Gas).

Directed by Gharoro-Akpojotor from a screenplay she also wrote, Dreamers was produced by Emily Morgan for her Quiddity Films outfit and debuted in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlinale.

The film stars Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo as Isio, a Nigerian migrant who has been detained after living undocumented in the UK for two years. Isio is convinced that the only way out is to play by the rules, even when her charismatic new roommate, Farah (Ann Akinjirin), warns her otherwise. As the friendship between Isio and Faith evolves into something deeper,...

The indie box office offers a half dozen strong debuts from Magic Farm buy El Planeta’s Amalia Ulman to Venice Special Jury Prize winner April to Cannes Critics Week award- winner Blue Sun Palace. Sony Pictures Classics leads moderate releases with On Swift Horses with a remastered rerelease of Pink Floyd at Pompeii – McMlxxii and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The Legend Of Ochi takes a big leap to 1,700 screens.

Limited release indies: Mubi debuts Ulman’s comedy comedy Magic Farm starring Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Joe Apolloino, and Simon Rex at the Angelika Film Center in New York. World premiered at Sundance, screened at the Berlin Film Festival and was the opening night film of the Los Angeles Festival of Movies earlier this month. When a misguided American documentary crew in search of their next viral segment ends up in the wrong town in rural Argentina, chaos ensues.

Earth Mama filmmaker Savanah Leaf, X+Y and 500 Miles helmer Morgan Matthews and Spilt Milk screenwriter Cara Loftus all touched down at Dublin’s second annual screenwriting festival Storyhouse this week where they revealed their different paths of entry into the film business.

“Someone once told me that you’re not a director until you tell people you are,” said Leaf, whose debut feature Earth Mama earned her a BAFTA award. “So, for me, it became about owning that title. I would then tell everyone I was an aspiring director and so I just started to reframe that in my own headspace.”

Leaf, a former athlete who had played volleyball for Team Gb at the 2012 Olympics, said she took the money she had made from her sports career and put it into making her first short film The F Word.

“It was basically about me trying to understand why my father wasn’t parenting me,...

Exclusive: Aisling Bea, the BAFTA-winning writer behind This Way Up, Savanah Leaf, the BAFTA-winning filmmaker of Earth Mama, and Censor writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond are among the latest speakers added to Element Pictures’ upcoming Storyhouse, its Dublin-based screenwriting festival that celebrates storytellers and storytelling.

Writer-director Aislinn Clarke (Fréwaka), writer Cara Loftus (Spilt Milk), writer Courttia Newland, director Morgan Matthews, writer Richie Conroy and writer-director Tom Sullivan (Arracht) have also been added to the lineup for this year’s event, which will be held at the Irish capital’s Light House Cinema on April 3rd and 4th.

They’ll join previously announced speakers Peter Straughan, who is fresh off of his Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay for Conclave, as well as Kenneth Lonergan, Laurie Nunn and Nia DaCosta.

The festival has also announced the hosts...

Words don’t feel like enough when trying to capture the profundity of the heartrending documentary Daughters — but music does. The film’s enchanting score, composed by vocalist and musician Kelsey Lu, brings the same level of thoughtfulness as the musician does to their own projects and collaborations with artists like Solange and Blood Orange. Lu first tried their hand at scoring with 2023’s Earth Mama, a compelling feature about a young single mother navigating the foster care systemdirected by Savanah Leaf. The artist’s deep classical training has given them the intellect and ear to expand sound through textured instrumentation in a way that accentuates filmic subjects. “It came really naturally for me because I make music that feels very cinematic,” Lu says. “It has a lot of layers.”

Directed by filmmaker Natalie Rae and activist and activator Angela Patton, Daughters follows a group of girls taking part in Patton’s Washington,...

The 2024 Sffilm Rainin grant recipients have officially been unveiled.

IndieWire can announce that 17 feature films were awarded $425,000 in cash grants, benefitting 22 filmmakers. Two projects have especially buzzy producers: Joie Estrella Horwitz’s “Dreamland” is produced by recent “The Fire Inside” screenwriter and “Mufasa” director Barry Jenkins, while Lucy Liu is producing “Rosemead.”

The Sffilm Rainin grant is the largest granting body for the development and production of independent narrative feature films in the U.S. The flagship partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation specifically supports films that address social justice issues — the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges — in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme, or setting.

Awards are made to multiple projects once a year, for screenwriting, development, and post-production. Recipients receive an unrestricted cash grant of up to $25,000 for screenwriting, development, or post-production, and a two-month residency at FilmHouse, Sffilm’s artist residency space.

Hoard director Luna Carmoon, Grand Theft Hamlet co-director Pinny Grylls and In Camera filmmaker Naqqash Khalid have been named the winners at the third BFI and Chanel filmmaker awards, held this evening (October 1) at London’s Roundhouse.

Each filmmaker received a £20,000 prize, and were selected by a jury of actor Tilda Swinton, Vogue global creative and cultural advisor Edward Enninful, Marie-Louise Khondji, producer and founder of Le Cinéma Club and BFI chief executive Ben Roberts.

Screen Star of Tomorrow 2022 Carmoon’s debut, Hoard, world premiered at Venice in 2023 and won several Critics’ Week prizes, including the audience award. It follows...

“The Sporting Image” is the summer 2024 edition of the Notebook Insert, a seasonal supplement on moving-image culture. Published over the course of a week, this issue will include five thematic features accompanied by original illustrations by Ivy Johnson. This summer, we consider athletics on screen, from the World Cup to the Olympics, from the post-game interview to wraparound commentary, from esport tournaments to marathon foot races.In this issue:“Translation | The Sin of Not Liking Soccer” by Park Chan-wook, translated by Jawni HanThe auteur’s thoughts on Korean World Cup mania, in English for the first time.“Cutting a Diamond: In the Truck with the Sny Crew” by Caroline GolumA visit to the New York Mets broadcast control room yields reflections on the twin spectacles of baseball and cinema.“Multiplex | The Sporting Image” with contributions by Savanah Leaf, Sergio de la Pava, Carson Lund, Rebecca Liu, Cassie da Costa, and Sanoja Bhaumik.

Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’ (Photo Credit: Jon Pack / Courtesy of A24)

Past Lives took home top film honors at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, held on February 25th in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The film also earned Celine Song the Best Director award, with American Fiction‘s Cord Jefferson and May December‘s Samy Burch earning screenplay honors.

On the television side, The Last of Us collected two awards: Nick Offerman for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series and Keivonn Montreal Woodard for Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series. Beef also netted two wins, with Ali Wong awarded Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series and the show earning the Best New Scripted Series award.

2024 Film Independent Spirit Award Nominations

Best Feature (Award given to the producer.)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin,...

Past Lives was named best feature at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which were handed out Sunday afternoon in Santa Monica.

In addition, Celine Song was named best director for her work on the film.

Elsewhere, Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Spirit Award for best supporting performance, for her role in The Holdovers, repeating her win from Saturday night’s SAG Awards and other shows this awards season. Her co-star, Dominic Sessa, won the Spirit Award for best breakthrough performance.

American Fiction also collected two trophies: Cord Jefferson won the award for best screenplay, while Jeffrey Wright won for best lead performance.

May December won the award for best first screenplay for Samy Burch (story by Burch and Alex Mechanik). Four Daughters was named best documentary.

On the TV side, Beef was named best new scripted series, while Ali Wong won best lead performance for her role in the show,...

The best in independent film and television were honored at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards!

Plenty of A-List stars were in attendance at the event on Sunday afternoon (February 25) at the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, Calif.

Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated.

American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.

Make sure to check out our post with photos of Every celeb who attended the event! Also check out our best dressed list.

Head inside to see the full list of winners…

Keep scrolling to see the full list of winners…

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

American Fiction

Producers: Cord Jefferson,...

The 2024 Independent Spirit Awards took place on Sunday at the traditional Santa Monica beach tent location, with Aidy Bryant hosting. “Past Lives” took home the coveted Best Feature award, with “Beef” being honored as Best New Scripted Series. Check out the full list of winners and nominees below.

Best Feature

“Past Lives”

Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon

“All of Us Strangers”

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

“American Fiction”

Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair

“May December”

Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon

“Passages”

Producers: Michel Merkt, Saïd Ben Saïd

“We Grown Now”

Producers: Minhal Baig, Joe Pirro

Best Lead Performance

Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

Jessica Chastain, “Memory”

Greta Lee, “Past Lives”

Trace Lysette, “Monica”

Natalie Portman, “May December”

Judy Reyes, “Birth/Rebirth”

Franz Rogowski, “Passages”

Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”

Teyana Taylor,...

Featured prominently among the coverage from our media outlet, eight filmmakers in Raven Jackson (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama), Sing J. Lee (The Accidental Getaway Driver), Laura Moss (birth/rebirth), A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One), D. Smith (Kokomo City), Aitch Alberto (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe), and Erica Tremblay (Fancy Dance) have been selected for the 2024 Momentum Fellowship – the Sundance Institute’s incubator of sorts that helps mostly filmmakers who’ve previously delivered their feature debuts at the fest and are now gunning for the critical support for their next feature.…...

“Oppenheimer” domina los BAFTA y “Poor Things” avanza firme.

Ayer tuvo lugar la ceremonia de entrega de premios de los BAFTA 2024. Oppenheimer ha sido la película que más premios se ha llevado con un total de 7 premios, Poor Things le sigue de cerca con 5 galardones, mientras que The Zone of Interest obtuvo 3 y The Holdovers se llevó 2.

Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los ganadores de la 77ª edición de los BAFTA:

Mejor PELÍCULA

Oppenheimer

Mejor PELÍCULA BRITÁNICA

The Zone of Interest

Mejor PELÍCULA Animada

The Boy and the Heron

Mejor PELÍCULA De Habla No Inglesa

The Zone of Interest

Mejor DIRECCIÓN

Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Mejor Actriz

Emma Stone, Poor Things

Mejor Actor

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Mejor Actriz De Reparto

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Mejor Actor De Reparto

Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer

Mejor Guion Original

Justine Triet & Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall

Mejor Guion Adaptado

Cord Jefferson,...

Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss in ‘Oppenheimer’ (Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon © Universal Pictures)

Oppenheimer went into the 2024 Ee BAFTA Film Awards with the most nominations with 13, and earned the most wins overall with seven. Christopher Nolan took home his first BAFTA Best Director win, and the film also earned Best Film, Leading Actor (Cillian Murphy), Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr), Editing, Cinematography, and Original Score awards.

Poor Things followed with five wins in the Leading Actress (Emma Stone), Costume, Make Up & Hair, Production Design and Special Visual Effects categories. The Zone of Interest collected three wins: Outstanding British Film, Film Not in the English Language, and Sound. And The Holdovers was recognized with Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and Casting honors.

David Tennant (Good Omens) hosted the 2024 Ee BAFTA Film Awards which took place on February 18th at The Royal Festival Hall in London.

Oppenheimer was the major winner at the 2024 Bafta Film Awards, winning seven awards including best film.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The event was held tonight (February 18) at London’s Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank, with David Tennant on hosting duties for the first time.

Samantha Morton received the Bafta Fellowship, whilst film curator June Givanni was honoured with Bafta’s outstanding British contribution to cinema award.

More to follow

Full list of winners

Winners in bold

Best Film

Anatomy Of A Fall - Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion The Holdovers - Mark Johnson Killers Of The Flower Moon - Dan Friedkin,...

The 2024 BAFTAs are here!

The 77th British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, were held on Sunday (February 18) at the Royal Festival Hall in Southbank Centre in London, England.

The ceremony honored the best national and foreign films of 2023, presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, with awards being handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality that were screened at British cinemas in 2023.

Keep reading to find out who won at the 2024 BAFTAs..

Best film

Anatomy of a Fall

The Holdovers

Killers of the Flower Moon

Oppenheimer - Winner

Poor Things

Outstanding British film

All of Us Strangers

How to Have Sex

Napoleon

The Old Oak

Poor Things

Rye Lane

Saltburn

Scrapper

Wonka

The Zone of Interest - Winner

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer

Blue Bag Life – Lisa Selby (director), Rebecca Lloyd-Evans, Alex Fry (producer...

The stars and artists behind the biggest films of 2023 descended on London this weekend for the BAFTA Film Awards. British film’s biggest night is often seen as the best predictor of Oscar momentum before the Academy Awards and the results often mirror each other.

If that’s the case this year, it will be all “Oppenheimer” all the time. Universal’s Christopher Nolan epic took home many of the night’s biggest categories, winning the top prize of Best Film along with Best Director for Nolan, Leading Actor for Cillian Murphy, and Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. The film also picked up major craft wins for Cinematography, Editing, and Original Score.

While the dominant showing makes an “Oppenheimer” Oscar sweep seem even more likely, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” won for Costume Design, Makeup & Hair, Production Design, and Visual Effects, and star Emma Stone won Leading Actress for her...

The BAFTA Awards were presented on February 18 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). So who prevailed? Scroll down for the complete 2024 BAFTA Awards winners list in all categories.

BAFTA is an independent arts charity that comprises thousands of industry insiders, much like the American motion picture academy. The BAFTAs could well give us a preview of what the Oscars might do in three weeks time on March 10. And with voting for the Oscars kicking off on February 22, this precursor could have an outsized influence.

Until 2013, the entire BAFTA membership decided the nominees in a complicated two-part process that involved a lot of longlists with the general membership deciding the semi-finalists and the branches making the final determination of the nominees. This was replaced in 2013 by a system more akin to the Oscars where nominations were determined by each branch (except for Best Picture). Two years ago,...

Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig and Caitriona Balfe are celebrating with Chanel!

The stars attended the Chanel and Charles Finch Pre-bafta Party on Saturday night (February 17) in London, England.

Chanel and Charles Finch held their 24th annual pre-bafta party at the Georgian townhouse 5 Hertford Street, a private members club in London’s Mayfair.

Keep reading to find out more…

Throughout the evening, a host of international guests from the worlds of film, fashion, design, art and music like Carey Mulligan, Emma Mackey, Sandra Huller, Justine Triet, Lucy Boynton and Bel Powley gathered for dinner to celebrate the 2024 BAFTAs, which is happening on Sunday (February 18).

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ellie Bamber, Nico Parker, Teo Yoo, Savanah Leaf, Lily Allen, Antonia Desplat, Gala Gordon, Alexa Chung, Vivian Oparah, George Mackay, Poppy Delevingne, Marisa Abela, Gwendoline Christie, Greta Bellamacina and Laura Bailey were all among the star-studded attendees.

Find out who is nominated for the 2024 BAFTAs!

Following a turbulent year marked by dueling industry strikes and the violent contraction–if not yet full pop–of the streaming bubble, 2024 has thus far been pretty good to Hollywood. It certainly helps that we’re in the middle of awards season, which for cineastes amounts to a three-month holiday largely characterized by voluminous binge-watching. And not just binge-watching of the year’s top films. For the curious, the season also offers up a smuggler’s bounty full of talking special post-screening Q&As, roundtables, filmmaker panels, celebratory cocktail receptions and more.

Traditionally Film Independent’s Directors Close-Up series has been a little bit of all of the above, presenting behind-the-scenes insight into the year’s most important works of cinema, straight from the mouths and brains of filmmakers themselves. As the virtual portion of this year’s programming winds down (see below), we’re looking ahead now to our...

Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss in ‘Oppenheimer’ (Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon © Universal Pictures)

Oppenheimer continues with its awards season domination, picking up 13 2024 Ee BAFTA Film Awards nominations. BAFTA also found a lot to admire in Poor Things, nominating it 11 times in categories including Best Film and Leading Actress (Emma Stone).

Killers of the Flower Moon and The Zone of Interest received nine nominations, followed by Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, and Maestro with seven. All of Us Strangers was nominated in six categories, and Barbie and Saltburn received five nominations.

“The 38 films nominated by BAFTA voters today span an extraordinary range of genres and stories. The field this year is incredibly strong. More films were entered, making the selection process particularly tough for our voting members. The films and talented people nominated represent some of the most talked about films of the year,...

“Oppenheimer” la película más nominada, “Barbie” se queda atrás y Lily Gladstone se pierde la nominación.

Hoy se han anunciado los nominados a los BAFTA 2024, los premios Británicos y los últimos grandes premios antes de conocer las nominaciones a los Oscars la semana que viene. Oppenheimer sigue en cabeza, Barbie con menos nominaciones que en otros premios y The Holdovers se posiciona como segunda favorita para Mejor Película. Entre las sorpresas se encuentran Dominic Sessa nominado, que puede dar la sorpresa en los Oscars, y la no nominación de Lily Gladstone.

Ya puedes hacer tus predicciones d elos ganadores con nuestra quiniela (abajo).

La ceremonia de los BAFTA tendrá lugar el 18 de febrero en Londres. Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los nominados de la 77ª edición de los BAFTA:

Mejor PELÍCULA

Oppenheimer

Killers of the Flower Moon

Anatomy of a Fall

The Holdovers

Poor Things

Mejor PELÍCULA BRITÁNICA...

The 2024 BAFTA film awards nominations are in, and Universal’s historical epic Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, leads the way with 13 nods, followed by Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures’ Poor Things from director Yorgos Lanthimos with 11.

Overall, Disney and Searchlight lead the way with 22 total nominations, according to statistics provided by BAFTA. The haul is driven by the strong outing by Poor Things, as well as six nods for Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. Also boosting the Disney tally are single noms for Pixar’s Elemental, which is up for best animated film, and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is up for a special visual effects BAFTA.

Meanwhile, Universal earned 14 nominations on Thursday, including one for Earth Mama which got Savanah Leaf (writer, director, producer), Shirley O’Connor (producer) and Medb Riordan (producer) a nod in the Outstanding Debut by a British writer, director or producer category.

Bafta has announced the nominations for the Ee British Academy Film Awards in 2024, celebrating the very best in film of the past year. Former Ee Rising Star nominees Naomi Ackie and Kingsley Ben-Adir hosted the announcement via global livestream from the arts charity’s headquarters at 195 Piccadilly, London. The Ee Bafta Film Awards, hosted by David Tennant, will be broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer from London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 18 February. In addition, the Ee Bafta Film Awards will be available across BritBox International in USA, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, South Africa and Australia, with more international broadcasters to be confirmed. Viewers at home will also have front row seats to the red-carpet arrivals, which will be streamed live on Bafta’s YouTube, featuring interviews with nominees and other special guests. Voting for the Ee Rising Star Award is now open at ee.co.uk/BAFTA.

The 2024 BAFTA Award nominees have been unveiled, with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” leading with 13 total nominations.

The epic period piece is up for Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Leading Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Supporting Actress for Emily Blunt, and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr., as well as a slew of crafts categories.

The 77th BAFTA Awards will take place Sunday, February 18 at London’s Royal Festival Hall. David Tennant is hosting the ceremony.

Behind “Oppenheimer,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” landed 11 nominations including Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Leading Actress for Emma Stone. Lanthimos, however, was shut out of the Best Director category.

The BAFTA Award snubs don’t stop there: Despite “Killers of the Flower Moon” earning nine nominations including Best Film, director Martin Scorsese and Golden Globe-winning actress Lily Gladstone are not recognized in their respective categories. “Barbie...

This afternoon the full list of nominations for the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards were announced in London, with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things leading the nominees.

Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest received nine nominations, the same as Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Other notable films we’ll be looking out for on the night include Andrew Haigh’s brilliant and touching film All of Us Strangers, and the enthralling Anatomy of a Fall.

British films are well represented with Rye Lane, Scrapper and How to Have Sex among the nominees.

The 77th annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards will be held on Sunday, the 18th of February. We’ll see you there.

Full List of 2024 BAFTA Nominations

Best Film

Anatomy Of A Fall Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion

The Holdovers Mark Johnson

Killers Of The Flower Moon Dan Friedkin,...

Nominations for the 2024 BAFTAs have been revealed!

This year, Oppenheimer scored the most nominations with a total of 13. Poor Things received the second-most nominations this year with a total of 11.

There are some big surprises within the nominations including no nomination for Lily Gladstone and her director Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon. In addition, Barbie’s Greta Gerwig and Poor Things‘ Yorgos Lanthimos were not nominated in the Best Director category.

The British Academy announced the nominees for their annual awards on Thursday (January 10).

This year’s ceremony is set to take place on February 18 live from London, England with David Tennant hosting.

Keep reading to see the full list of nominees…

Outstanding British Film

“All of Us Strangers” — Andrew Haigh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

“How to Have Sex” — Molly Manning Walker, Emily Leo, Ivana MacKinnon, Konstantinos Kontovrakis

“Napoleon” — Ridley Scott, Mark Huffam, Kevin J. Walsh,...

Kingsley Ben-Adir and Naomi Ackie have revealed the nominees for the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards in a London ceremony. Check out the full nominees list below.

It’s BAFTA time! The full list of nominees for the biggest day in the British film industry calendar have just been revealed.

A few surprise additions and snubs in this year’s list. Lily Gladstone was crowded out of a packed Lead Actress category in favour of Rye Lane's Vivian Oparah, despite winning the Best Drama Performance at the Golden Globes last week. Martin Scorsese has also missed out on a Best Director nod for Killers Of The Flower Moon, while Emerald Fennel’s Saltburn surprisingly dominated the acting categories, with tips for Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike.

It’s good news, though, for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, with 13 and 11 nominations apiece. Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon follows on nine,...

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” appears to be the film to beat going into the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards, having landed 13 nominations, with the director’s most successful film in the U.K. in terms of box office now becoming its most-nominated on home soil.

Announced Thursday from London, the atomic bomb biopic is nominated for best film, director (which could earn Nolan his shocking first-ever BAFTA), leading actor for Cillian Murphy and supporting nods for both Emily Blunt and Robert Downey Jr.

Close behind sits Yorgos Lanthimos’ steampunk black comedy “Poor Things” with 11 nominations, including for best film and actress for Emma Stone.

But for all the achievements of “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” the biggest talking point is likely to be the snubbing of Greta Gerwig’s box office destroying cultural phenomenon “Barbie” across so many categories.

The film went into the nominations tied with both “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” with 15 Longlist slots.

Channel4 Chief Executive Alex Mahon this morning announced the departure of Film4 Chairman Daniel Battsek who is set to return to the U.S. from March. Read the internal statement below.

Battsek, former President of Miramax and National Geographic Films, is leaving after an eight-year stint and is expected to continue working in the U.S.

Film4 Director Ollie Madden will step up to lead the UK broadcaster’s film division from March. He will also take on Battsek’s position on the Channel4 board.

Channel4 told us this morning the move has nothing to do with impending cuts at the organization and that Daniel’s departure is a “personal decision” and part of a long transition between himself and Madden. The company said there wouldn’t be any other immediate structural changes as a result of the move.

Cornerstone UK financier Film4 is currently riding high off the success...

The Film4 chair joined the UK funder in 2016.

Film4 chair Daniel Battsek will step down in March after eight years with the UK organisation.

Battsek joined as director of Film4 in 2016, taking over from David Kosse. He became chair in May 2022 and sat on the Channel 4 board, with Ollie Madden, then head of creative, being promoted to director.

Madden will now lead Film4 and will join Channel 4’s executive management board.

Film4’s current slate features a raft of strong awards contenders, including Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest, Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex...

2023, the year of the Barbenheimer double bill, spoiler: neither of them feature in my top ten, but what a year for getting people excited about the cinema again. Films have always been such a huge, influential and guiding part of my life and I hope this epic mastermind of filmmaking and marketing will ensure more future film lovers. As always, I wish I had watched more films and deciding on my top ten always brings me a certain level of angst as I have long relied on the medium to take me away from real life, yet simultaneously allow me to reflect on the themes within and their relatability to my own existence and the world I live in. The films that have made my list are those that have sat with me in both my waking and sleeping moments. They come back to me when I am least expecting...

From a struggling mother to a monstrous maestro, the year was notable for superb performances by veterans and newcomers

Read the Observer critics’ review of 2023 in full

1. Tár

Released in the UK in January

It’s been a banner year for fans of films about mercurial conductors/composers, with Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s mosaic portrait of Leonard Bernstein, a 2023 highlight. But Todd Field’s creation of the magnificent, monstrous fictional conductor Lydia Tár, inhabited down to the last shred of cruelty and ambition by the remarkable Cate Blanchett, is exceptional: a savage, slippery account of rampant narcissism brought down to earth.

2. How to Have Sex

November

A wealth of outstanding British first features has included Rye Lane (directed by Raine Allen-Miller), Scrapper (Charlotte Regan) and Earth Mama (Savanah Leaf) – and there are more to come in 2024. But Molly Manning Walker’s phenomenal How to Have Sex is the standout, for its visual flair,...

Exclusive: Management and production company 2Am is bolstering its finance and sales division with the hire of former Sundance Catalyst executive Julia Nelson.

Nelson will report to former WME & Endeavor Content exec Christine D’Souza Gelb who oversees the sales arm of 2Am.

2Am will be launching sales on two titles at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, and produced by 2Am, ShivHans, and AgX; and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry, produced by Dweck and Flies Collective. 2Am is co-repping worldwide rights on both projects with WME, where the filmmakers are also represented.

The company, which is a producer on Celine Song’s Golden Globe nominee Past Lives, has previously repped Sing J. Lee’s Accidental Getaway Driver, Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man.

Nelson joins the company after six years at...

Any year in which an unlikely summer double bill became a global moviegoing event — with one film soaring toward $1.5 billion in worldwide grosses and the other closing in on $1 billion — can’t be considered bad news for Hollywood. But the Barbenheimer phenomenon aside, bad news plagued the film industry for much of 2023.

The strikes of the writers and actors guilds shut down production for five long months, causing major titles like Dune 2 to push back to 2024, leaving fall festival red carpets sparsely populated and disrupting a release pipeline in ways that are sure to have a ripple effect for the next year or two.

Theatrical grosses remained inconsistent, struggling to regain pre-pandemic momentum for most genres except horror (all hail, new scream queen M3GAN; a big hand for Talk to Me), and even the once-reliable cash cow of the superhero blockbuster sputtered more often than not.

The Marvels...

As the arthouse cinema market continues to regain its footing, the list of what may be considered an overlooked film could be quite vast, depending on one’s metrics. For our yearly feature highlighting the 50 best films you might have missed––arriving before our overall top 50 films––we’ve sought to dig deep to find the gems that deserved more attention upon their initial release and have mostly been left out of year-end conversations. Hopefully, with many widely available on a variety of streaming platforms, they will begin to find an expanded audience.

While many documentaries would qualify for this list, we stuck strictly to narrative efforts; one can instead read our rundown of the top docs here. Check out the list below, as presented in alphabetical order.

The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa)

The rare case of a Movie About Nothing whose languorous attitudes collect a world of concern: desire against reality,...

Paul King’s festive musical, starring Timothee Chalamet, is one of the widest openings of the year

Warner Bros’ Wonka is hoping to tantalise UK and Ireland cinemagoers this weekend as Paul King’s festive musical opens in 701 locations.

It is one of the widest openings of the year, just behind Disney’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 which debuted in 705 locations and Warner Bros’ fellow title Barbie in 706. Disney’s Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny is still the 2023 record holder with its 746 venue opening, followed by The Little Mermaid (732), Super Mario Bros: The Movie (720) and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One...

There are not many who can claim to have been both an Olympian, and a filmmaker. But Savanah Leaf has had one such trajectory, having represented Great Britain at the 2012 games, to now presenting this striking and beautifully rendered debut feature, Earth Mama.

The filmmaker spoke to us during the London Film Festival, where her film played, as she talks about her past and how her sporting background has helped her as a director. She talks about the themes of Earth Mama, and the casting Tia Nomore, who is wonderful in the leading role.

Watch the full interview with Savanah Leaf here:

Synopsis

With two children in foster care, Gia, a pregnant single mother pitted against the system, fights to reclaim her family. In her close-knit Bay Area community, she works to make a life for herself and her kids.

Earth Mama is released on December 8th 

The post Savanah...

Director Savanah Leaf’s debut feature presents an honest picture of an intelligent and decent mum in recovery struggling to regain her life, played with natural flair by rapper Tia Nomore

Here is a deeply felt social-realist movie performed with integrity and calm by west coast rapper and musician Tia Nomore making her acting debut. Writer-director Savanah Leaf is herself making her feature directing debut, having developed this project from a short film made with Taylor Russell. Leaf is a former music video director and, London-born, competed in the 2012 London Olympics as a volleyball player and so, remarkably, becomes the first Team Gb graduate to make a film for the ultra-hip studio A24.

Nomore plays Gia, a young African American woman from the Bay Area who has two children in foster care; she is in recovery from drug abuse and is repeatedly late for supervised contact sessions with the children...

While the likes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Killers of the Moon will likely battle it out at the Oscars, Film Independent Spirit Awards is putting the spotlight on the indie productions of the year, with budget ranges from $10,000 to $28 million. May December, Past Lives, and American Fiction lead the nominations for the 39th ceremony, each taking five nods.

Other highlights include All of Us Strangers and Passages for Best Feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and Earth Mama for Best First Feature, Kokomo City and The Mother of All Lies for Best Documentary, Glenn Howerton for BlackBerry, Marin Ireland and Anne Hathaway for Eileen, Marshawn Lynch for Bottoms, How to Blow Up a Pipeline for Best Editing, Godland and Tótem for Best International Film, and more.

See the nominations below ahead of the ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024 (a full two weeks before the Oscars), hosted by Aidy Bryant.

Best...

Erika Alexander stars as Coraline and Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in ‘American Fiction’ (Photo credit: Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC)

American Fiction, Past Lives, and May December lead the list of the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Each of the three films picked up five nominations and will be going head-to-head in the Best Film and Best Supporting Performance categories. Films and TV shows earning four nominations included The Holdovers, I’m a Virgo, The Last of Us, and Passages.

The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on February 25 on the beach in Santa Monica. Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live) is on board to host.

“This year’s exciting group of Spirit Award nominees reflect the undeniable strength and vitality of independent storytelling – this is the beating heart of film culture today,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “It’s especially thrilling to see so many nominees...

The full list of nominations for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards has been announced!

Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Maestro and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated here.

Aidy Bryant is set to host the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place on February 25. The event will no longer air on television and will instead stream on YouTube.

American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.

Head inside to check out the full list of nominations…

Keep scrolling to see the full list of nominations…

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

American Fiction

Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair

May December

Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell,...

American Fiction, May December and Past Lives lead the nominations for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which were were announced Tuesday morning.

Each film garnered five noms, including best feature. Also nominated in that category are All of Us Strangers, Passages and We Grown Now.

The Robert Altman Award, which is given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast, will be presented to Showing Up, directed by Kelly Reichardt. The casting director is Gayle Keller, and the ensemble cast includes André Benjamin, Hong Chau, Judd Hirsch, Heather Lawless, James Le Gros, John Magaro, Matt Malloy, Amanda Plummer, Maryann Plunkett, Denzel Rodriguez and Michelle Williams.

On the TV side, Jury Duty was tapped for the award of best ensemble in a new scripted series, an honor bestowed on one show (there are no nominees). The cast includes Alan Barinholtz, Susan Berger, Cassandra Blair, David Brown, Kirk Fox, Ross Kimball,...

The final month of the year has arrived, and with it an early Festivus bounty of news (very exciting!) about the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which are happening once again on February 25, back on the beach in Santa Monica. Last week brought tell of our incomparable new Spirit Awards host: SNL funnywoman and Emmy-nominated streaming series auteur Aidy Bryant. Now, the nondenominational secular-humanist Holiday Gnomes have brought us something potentially even more exciting… the nominees!

For the third consecutive year, the Spirit Awards will recognize outstanding achievement in uniqueness of vision, innovation and boldness in TV and streaming in addition to feature film. And for the second year, all acting categories are gender-neutral.

Noms were revealed in a livestream earlier today on Film Independent’s YouTube channel (like and subscribe!) by special guest presenters Joel Kim Booster and Natalie Morales:

Spirit Awards winners are voted on exclusively by Film Independent Members.

“American Fiction,” “May December” and “Past Lives” dominated the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards nominations on Tuesday, picking up five nods apiece. The three movies are all up for best feature, where they will battle it out against “All of Us Strangers,” “Passages” and “We Grown Now.”

The annual honors recognize the best of television, as well as film. “The Last of Us,” a sci-fi epic that was a ratings hit for HBO, and “I’m a Virgo,” an absurdist miniseries from Boots Riley that was produced by Amazon, led the small screen crop, with four nominations each. Only new TV shows that have run for one season and were released between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of this year are eligible for awards. That’s why some big-budgeted fare was deemed eligible or, in the parlance of the show, independent.

That’s not the case on the feature front, where films have to be...

The winners of the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) were announced at the annual ceremony at Old Billingsgate with BIFA patron Ray Winstone kicking off the celebration of independent film.

The award for Best British Independent Film, presented by Fiona Shaw, went to Andrew Haigh’s ‘All of Us Strangers’, a beautifully unsettling tale of a writer revisiting his past, starring Andrew Scott. Haigh, who was previously BIFA nominated for 2015’s 45 Years and 2018’s Lean on Pete, also came away with the coveted awards for Best Director sponsored by Sky Cinema and Best Screenplay sponsored by Apple Original Films.

There were two winners announced for Best Supporting Performance from a field of ten nominees and Paul Mescal took one of those trophies for his role in the film. All of Us Strangers won four awards on the night.

Best Lead Performance went to Mia McKenna-Bruce in Molly Manning Walker...

Andrew Haigh’s touching new drama All Of Us Strangers was the big winner at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFA).

As the calendar year draws to a close, we’re also inching close toward the season that will see multiple prestigious awards bodies, in theory, hand the best films of the year a golden statuette. The season kicked off with the British Independent Film Awards, also known as BIFA 2023, which were held in London on the 3rd of December.

Lolly Adefope and Kiell Smith-Bynoe hosted the event which celebrated British cinema, especially the slightly lesser-seen films with budgets far smaller than that of Oppenheimer. There were some terrific films nominated this year, and the roster of winners was as surprising as it was satisfying.

Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers was the biggest winner of the night, taking home a total of four awards plus three previously announced ones.

“All of Us Strangers”, del director Andrew Haigh, la gran ganadora de la noche.

Ayer tuvo lugar la ceremonia de los premios BIFA (British Independent Film Awards). Estos premios son galardones cinematográficos que se otorgan en el Reino Unido para destacar y honrar las películas independientes británicas. Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los ganadores de esta edición:

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente BRITÁNICA

All Of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente Internacional

Anatomy Of A Fall, Justine Triet

Mejor DIRECCIÓN

Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers

Mejor Guion

Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers

Mejor ACTUACIÓN

Mia McKenna-Bruce, How to Have Sex

Mejor ACTUACIÓN De Reparto

Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers

Shaun Thomas, How to Have Sex

Mejor ACTUACIÓN Conjunta

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett & George MacKay, Femme

Premio Douglas Hickox (Debut De DIRECCIÓN)

Savanah Leaf, Earth Mama

Mejor PRODUCCIÓN REVELACIÓN

Theo Barrowclough, Scrapper

Mejor ACTUACIÓN REVELACIÓN

Vivian Oparah, Rye Lane

Mejor Guion Debut

Nida Manzoor,...

Andrew Haigh‘s Oscar hopeful had a wonderful night at the British Independent Film Awards on Sunday as it took home seven gongs including Best Picture, the most of any film. Haigh won two awards — Best Director and Best Screenplay. Paul Mescal won Best Supporting Performance alongside “How to Have Sex” actor Shaun Thomas while it also won Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Music Supervision.

“Rye Lane” won a trio of prizes: Raine Allen Miller was Best Debut Director while Vivian Oparah was awarded Best Breakthrough Performance. It also won Best Original Music.

Mia McKenna-Bruce won Best Lead Performance for “How to Have Sex” in a stacked gender-neutral category that also included Jodie Comer (“The End We Start From”), Tia Nomore (“Earth Mama”), Nabhaan Rizwan (“In Camera”), Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), and Tilda Swinton (“The Eternal Daughter”). And Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay shared in Best Joint Lead Performance for “Femme.