News

Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, who was Oscar-nominated for “I Am Not Your Negro,” will be the Guest of Honor at the 56th edition of documentary festival Visions du Réel, which runs April 4-13.

During the festival, Peck will deliver a masterclass and present a retrospective of his work, as well as a screening of his latest feature film, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found.”

Emilie Bujès, the festival’s artistic director, said Peck’s work was of “exceptional political impact and cinematographic force.” She added, his films are “inextricably linked to an alternative and engaged way of thinking about the world and its history, embodied by key figures which he has invariably made part of inspiring, precisely articulated and highly literary forms.”

In a statement, the festival noted that his films “examine denials from official Western history, shining a light on aspects ignored by this account, often sketching a portrait of...

When two British-born powerhouses get together — Idris Elba, an actor-director-producer of Sierra Leone, Creole and Ghanaian descent, and Nigerian-rooted Mo Abudu, largely considered the go-between for African content to the rest of the world — they have a powerful chemistry. Remarkably, though, they’ve never made anything together.

This is about to change. In March, the two quietly announced they would join forces to empower and uplift talent from Africa through their respective companies: Elba’s Green Door Pictures and Abudu’s EbonyLife TV. It’s a subject of shared passion for both. Throughout Elba’s prolific career, he’s continued to be involved in stories that are related to the African diaspora, from his early work on TV drama Sometimes in April, or The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, to his upcoming untitled Ghana project, which he will direct and star in. He’s long championed under-heard voices, and in...

Neon has acquired the North American rights to Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning director, Raoul Peck’s (I Am Not Your Negro) documentary Orwell, the definitive feature-length documentary on visionary author George Orwell, with the exclusive cooperation of the Orwell Estate.

Producers include Alex Gibney for Jigsaw Productions, Raoul Peck for Velvet Films, and Nick Shumaker for Anonymous Content. Stacey Offman and Richard Perello will executive produce for Jigsaw. Zhang Xin, Joey Marra, and William Horberg will executive produce for Closer Media, alongside Jessica Grimshaw, Dawn Olmstead, and David Levine of Anonymous, and Jeff Skoll and Courtney Sexton of Participant. Johnny Fewings of Universal Pictures Content Group will serve as executive producer on the film, which is currently in production.

“’Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past…,’ wrote Orwell in his novel, 1984. Today, the “newspeak” of authoritarian rule is alive and well and in unexpected places,...

Idris Elba, who starred as Russell "Stringer" Bell on The Wire for three seasons reveals that, in some ways, the role hurt his career. First airing on HBO in 2002, The Wire ultimately ran for five seasons until its conclusion in 2008. The series chronicles the lives of the drug dealers, law enforcement officers, and innocent bystanders who get caught up in the Baltimore drug scene, with Elba's Bell serving as the right-hand man to drug kingpin Avon Barksdale.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Elba reveals that, although his role on The Wire was really his big break in many ways, it also hurt his career in others. After convincingly playing an American for three seasons, the actor explains that his British heritage actually resulted in less interesting roles coming his way. Check out Elba's full comment below:

“Most people thought I was American during The Wire and then when they realised I was not,...

Exclusive: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck has signed with Anonymous Content. The move comes after the I Am Not Your Negro director most recently wrote, directed and executive produced the four-part series Exterminate All the Brutes. The docuseries, which premiered in April on HBO and HBO Max, pushes the boundaries of traditional documentary filmmaking, offering an expansive exploration of the exploitative and genocidal aspects of European colonialism.

Peck is also the founder of production company Velvet Film through which he has produced or co-produced all his films in the U.S. and Europe. He now join the ranks of Anonymous Content’s film and television division which boasts sevearl commercially successful and critically acclaimed works and has up next the Apple TV+ film Swan Song.

The signing also comes as Peck tonight will receive the 2021 Doc NYC Visionaries Tribute Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Peck’s 2016 I Am Not Your Negro was...

Five acclaimed film composers will reveal details behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Btl Experts” Q&a event with key 2021 guild and Oscar contenders this month. Each person will participate in two video discussions to be published on Thursday, January 21, at 5:00 p.m. Pt; 8:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Joyce Eng and a group chat with Joyce and all of them together.

RSVP today to this specific event by clicking here to book your reservation. Or click here to RSVP for our entire ongoing panel series. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2021 guild and Oscar contenders:

“Da 5 Bloods” (Netflix): Terence Blanchard

Blanchard was an Oscar nominee for “BlacKkKlansman.” Other projects have included “One Night in Miami,...

HBO is re-teaming with Raoul Peck on a four-part docuseries “Exterminate All the Brutes,” which explores European colonialism.

The series is based on three works by authors and scholars: Sven Lindqvist’s “Exterminate All the Brutes,'; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s “Silencing the Past.” “Exterminate All the Brutes” weaves together documentary footage and archival material, as well as animation and interpretive scripted scenes. The series aims to tell a sweeping story in which history, contemporary life and fiction are wholly intertwined.

Josh Hartnett will star in the scripted portions of the series.

Also Read: HBO's 'Plot Against America' Trailer: Alternate Timeline Sees Charles Lindbergh and 'Jew-Haters' Take Over U.S. (Video)

“This project has been my biggest challenge so far,” Peck said. “It forced me to question not only our common knowledge but also my own experience as a filmmaker.

Former AMC Networks and Hulu top programming executive Joel Stillerman has launched Content Superba, a Los Angeles-based TV production company backed by Endeavor Content.

Stillerman, who has more than 20 years of experience developing, producing and writing for film and television, has brought in AMC Networks executive Owen Shiflett, most recently VP Development for Shudder & Sundance Now, as Svp Development and Production of the new company.

“We believe the changes in how we access our content are just the tip of the iceberg. The real change that’s upon us is a reimagining of storytelling itself as these new platforms emerge and evolve,” Stillerman said. “There has never been a better time to be the new kids, and along with our partners at Endeavor Content, we’re formally inviting the dreamers, rule breakers, innovators, and inventors to come and play with us.”

The move, which marks Stillerman’s return to and producing and entrepreneurship,...

Hulu’s ready to go beast mode, and has recruited AMC’s programming chief to help it grow its footprint as one of TV’s key streaming services.

Joel Stillerman, who spent nearly 10 years at AMC Networks – most recently as president of original programming and development for AMC and Sundance TV – has been named Hulu’s first-ever chief content officer.

Stillerman’s mandate? Come up with a content strategy that will grow Hulu’s advertising revenue (don’t forget, unlike Netflix, a good chunk of Hulu’s users see ads) and subscriber growth.

Hulu’s subscriber base was around 12 million last year, and at its upfront presentation last week, the company reported 47 million total unique viewers. But it still has a way to go to catch up to competitors Netflix and Amazon: According to eMarketer, Netflix boasts around 128 million individual users this year, while Amazon has around 85.3 million viewers.

Read...

After Sundance Film Festival concludes in late January, the next big cinematic event on the globe is the Berlin International Film Festival. With Paul Verhoeven serving as jury president for the 67th edition of the festival, they’ve now announced their first line-up of titles, including Aki Kaurismäki‘s The Other Side of Hope (pictured above), Oren Moverman‘s Richard Gere-led The Dinner, Sally Potter‘s The Party (pictured below), and Agnieszka Holland‘s Spoor, as well as a restoration of a Rainer Werner Fassbinder TV show.

Check out the first titles below, and return for our coverage from the festival.

Competition

A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul)

Hungary

By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)

With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider

World premiere

Ana, mon amour

Romania/Germany/France

By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)

With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti,...

Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Sally Potter among competition lineup.

The first 14 films have been announced for the Competition and Berlinale Special sections of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.

Among directors with movies in competition are Aki Kaurismäki, Oren Moverman, Agnieszka Holland, Andres Veiel, Sebastián Lelio and Sally Potter.

Moverman’s (The Messenger) mystery-drama The Dinner stars Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Steve Coogan, Rebecca Hall and Chloë Sevigny.

Fernando Trueba’s comedy-drama The Queen of Spain, starring Penelope Cruz, will get its international premiere in the Berlinale Special strand.

More to follow…

Competition

A teströl és a lélekröl (On Body and Soul) (Hungary)

By Ildiko Enyedi (My 20th Century, Simon the Magician)

With Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider

World premiere

Ana, mon amour (Romania / Germany / France)

By Călin Peter Netzer (Child‘s Pose, Maria)

With Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti, Carmen Tănase, Adrian Titieni, Vlad Ivanov

World premiere

Beuys - Documentary (Germany)

By Andres Veiel ([link...

Raoul Peck has been called many things: "political", "postcolonial public intellectual", and a provocateur. But he is, of course, best known as a filmmaker and one of the most incisive and powerful ones working today. Born in Haiti, because of his father's profession working at the U.N., he and his family traveled constantly from the Congo, to the U.S. and to France, which might explain why he makes films like "Sometimes in April" and "Moloch Tropical" which explore universal concerns, and how the powerful forces of politics, nature and personalities, mold and shape his characters and their actions, no matter in what country they're in. Since his...

For many Americans, it's impossible to imagine what life in the African nation of Rwanda is like. Maybe you know of its war-torn past and the Rwandan Genocide that killed nearly a million people as depicted in dramas like the Don Cheadle-fronted Hotel Rwanda, Shake Hands With the Devil, Sometimes in April with Idris Elba or Hugh Dancy's Beyond the Gates. But nearly 20 years have passed since this atrocity ripped the country's sense of community apart, and now is the time for a new story to emerge from Rwanda, one full of hope, joy, and inspiration. All of the above can be found above in the trailer for the documentary Sweet Dreams. This doc centers on a remarkable group of women who wished to drum in a new era in Rwanda, so they started a drum circle, defying conventions that only men may play the instrument. But literally...

‘Finding Hillywood’: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present documentary about Rwanda’s budding film industry The 2013 documentary Finding Hillywood, which offers a glimpse into the budding film industry in Rwanda, will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Bpeace, the Business Council for Peace, at a special screening on Monday, October 21, at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The Finding Hillywood screening will be followed by an onstage discussion with Leah Warshawski, who directed and produced the documentary with Christopher Towey, and production designer Wynn Thomas (Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, Spike Lee’s Inside Man), who was a member of the Academy’s International Outreach delegation to Rwanda and Kenya in 2011. According to the Academy’s website, Wynn Thomas and several other Academy delegates, among them actress Alfre Woodard (Cross Creek), writer-director Phil Robinson (Field of Dreams...

We have no right to speak in the name of others without legitimacy. Africa, for example, often serves as a backdrop in movies. Yet we see nothing of Africa, we don’t understand its problems. I think that we must get accustomed, and accustom our audiences, to other viewpoints. To adopt this stance, we must understand their problems, put ourselves in their shoes and, with certain humility, give them a voice. The cinema should be conceived in that way. Otherwise it remains a power trip. It is just a question of being ethically and politically sound. Words from Raoul Peck, the Haitian filmmaker (Lumumba, Moloch Tropical, Sometimes In April) in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival...

$10,000 In Financing Goes To Five

New Moviemakers For Their Short Films

New York, October 6th, 2011 . For a fourth consecutive year, Focus Features. Africa First program for short films, the worldwide film company.s initiative earmarked exclusively for emerging filmmakers of African nationality and residence, has awarded five filmmakers $10,000 apiece, Focus CEO James Schamus announced today.

The uniquely conceived initiative offers eligible and participating filmmakers the chance to be awarded the $10,000 in financing for pre-production, production, and/or post-production on their narrative short film made in continental Africa and tapping into the resources of the film industry there. Of equal importance, the program brings the filmmakers together with each other and with a renowned group of advisors, major figures in the African film world, for support and mentorship. The short films coming out of the program have been showcased at the Sundance, Toronto, and Berlin Film Festivals; the Film Society of...

2011 Entry Period For Focus Features.

Africa First Program To Commence May 16th;

$10,000 In Financing Apiece Earmarked For New Filmmakers

Focus Features will accept entries for its Africa First Program . entering its fourth year . beginning Monday, May 16th and continuing through Monday, August 22nd. Focus CEO James Schamus made the announcement today.

The uniquely conceived initiative, with funds earmarked exclusively for emerging filmmakers of African nationality and residence, is for the fourth consecutive year offering eligible and participating filmmakers the chance to be awarded $10,000 in financing for pre-production, production, and/or post-production on their narrative short film made in continental Africa and tapping into the resources of the film industry there. The program also brings the filmmakers together with each other and with a renowned group of advisors, major figures in the African film world, for support and mentorship. Complete details on Africa First . including application information . can be accessed year-round through www.

Here’s a program we’ve given a lot of ink to on this website, so I won’t rehash. Just read the press release received today, for all the relevant info…

For Immediate Release: 2011 Entry Period For Focus Features’ Africa First Program To Commence May 16th

2011 Entry Period For Focus Features’

Africa First Program To Commence May 16th;

$10,000 In Financing Apiece Earmarked For New Filmmakers

New York , March 2nd, 2011 – Focus Features will accept entries for its Africa First Program – entering its fourth year – beginning Monday, May 16th and continuing through Monday, August 22nd. Focus CEO James Schamus made the announcement today.

The uniquely conceived initiative, with funds earmarked exclusively for emerging filmmakers of African nationality and residence, is for the fourth consecutive year offering eligible and participating filmmakers the chance to be awarded $10,000 in financing for pre-production, production, and/or post-production on their narrative short film made in continental...

Vogue Italia profiles award-winning Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu in the video below; We’ve profiled and mentioned Wanuri on this website a number of times; she directed the Africa First Focus Features sci-fi short film, Pumzi, and she’s working on an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s novel, Who Fears Death. Kisha Cameron-Dingle, who previously served as associate producer on Raoul Peck’s Sometimes in April and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, is producing.

Check out the new brand new UK trailer for French actioner Black with a hilarious voiceover from sixty smokes-a-day man. We’ve also got a rather thorough synopsis for you to read, too.

Black comes from the same producer as last year’s superb A Prophet. This one looks a bit more action-orientated… check it out.

Synopsis:

The spirit of Blaxploitation classics such as ‘Super Fly’, ‘Shaft’ and ‘Truck Turner’ is given a modern day makeover in the action-thriller, Black, the directorial debut feature from Pierre Laffargue.

Produced by Marco Cherqui (A Prophet) and starring French hip-hop artist Mc Jean Gab’1 (the District 13 movies), Carole Karemera (Sometimes In April), Francois Levantal (A Very Long Engagement; D’Artagnan’s Daughter) and Anton Yakovlev (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), Black is “a slick, fun, French heist flick” (Eye Weekly) with a supernatural sting in the tail that sees its eponymous...

Idris Elba is a man in demand, and if you haven’t yet figured out why, watch BBC America’s Luther (Sundays, 10 p.m. Et), the six-part British export in which Elba stars as a brilliant, physical, loose cannon detective with his own secret to hide (he sort of dropped a dangling serial killer in last week’s U.S. premiere who’s in a coma), an unusual and ongoing platonic relationship with a female psychopath who got away with murder, and a wife who wants to divorce him. We recently caught up with Elba to talk about the page-turner...

Mega props to professor/author Nnedi Okorafor, whom I’ve known since MySpace was The online social networking space to be, and where I was first introduced to her and her work… Nnedi’s third novel, Who Fears Death, a novel of the fantasy genre, set in an alternate, post-apocalyptic Saharan Africa, published just this year, has been optioned by producer Kisha Cameron-Dingle, the program director for Focus Features’ Africa First Film Program – a program we’ve covered a bit on this blog.

Cameron-Dingle also previously served as associate producer on Raoul Peck’s Sometimes in April and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled.

A team is already being assembled for the potential production, with the all-important director’s slot going to award-winning Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, writer and director of the short sci-fi film Pumzi, which received mucho coverage on this blog as well.

Now, obviously, an option doesn’t automatically mean an adaptation will happen.

Variety is reporting that Idris Elba has been cast on the hit NBC TV show, "The Office" as a new rival to the show's star (and regional manager) Steve Carrell. Just like his new co-star, Melora Hardin who's currently on Broadway starring in Chicago, Idris Elba has also worked on the stage, including leading roles in "Coming Home," an original play written by Oscar Watson and performed at London's Red Lion Pub Theater, and Sir Peter Hall's off-Broadway production of "Troilus and Cressida," receiving rave reviews for his portrayal of Achilles. Idris Elba is perhaps best known for his role as the calculating de facto leader of a Baltimore drug empire in HBO's critically acclaimed original series "The Wire." In 2005, he received an Image Award nomination for his work on the series. Also for HBO, Elba starred in the movie "Sometimes In April," from director Raoul Peck. Set during...

Kisha Imani Cameron and her Completion Films banner have picked up Razorwire by newcomer Rob Davis, and attached music video director Little X to helm the urban horror movie. The script centers on a group of small-time drug dealers who discover that vampires, who also happen to be cops, have been feeding on the disadvantaged people in the ghetto. When the vampire cops start framing them for the murders, the dealers go to war with their new immortal enemies. "I'm not normally a big horror fan, but I know a great genre movie when I read one," said Cameron, who was an exec at New Line and Walden Media before striking out on her own. Cameron acted as associate producer on the 2000 Spike Lee movie Bamboozled and on the 2005 HBO telefilm Sometimes in April, about the Rwandan genocide.

BERLIN -- Sometimes in April takes on the Rwandan genocide of 1994 with a story that incorporates both the big picture and a drama about a specific family. Writer-director Raoul Peck, who told the story of the rise to power and assassination of a Congolese leader in Lumumba, has the disadvantage of coming late to the subject. Along with several books about the horrifying events that left upward of 1 million people dead, several documentaries and the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda already have brought Rwanda to the screen. Undoubtedly, there are many, many stories arising from these atrocities yet to be told. But Peck's generic approach, in which one fictional tale tries to encompass the entire tragedy, falls considerably short of the mark.

In the United States, the film will air on HBO, where many people who successfully have avoided any book or movie will get exposed to the story perhaps for the first time, so this might do much good. In territories where April will get released theatrically, the film might have less impact.

The story is split between two Aprils, in 2004 and 1994, and tells the experiences of Augustin Muganza (Idris Elba). Peck contrives the makeup of his family in such a way that he can include as many horror stories as possible. Thus, Augustin is a Hutu army officer, but his wife (Carole Karemera) is Tutsi. His brother Honore (Oris Erhuero) works at a radio station known as "hate radio" that broadcasts a call to arms for Hutus to slaughter Tutsis during the three-month carnage. And Augustin's girlfriend in 2004, Martine (Pamela Nomvete), teaches at a Catholic girls school in 1994, which one of his daughters attends.

In April 2004, during the national Day of Remembrance, Augustin receives a letter from Honore, asking Augustin to visit him in prison in Tanzania, where he is about to plead guilty at the International Criminal Tribunal. Martine urges him to go. Augustin reluctantly does so, and the movie moves back and forth between the two Aprils to fill us in on what happened to the family -- and the nation.

A third sequence takes place behind closed doors in Washington, where U.S. officials debate and temporize but do nothing to stop the massacre. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Prudence Bushnell (Debra Winger) argues for action but gets nowhere. The impression left by these scenes -- that blame for nonintervention lies solely with the U.S. government and not other U.N. member states, including European powers with genuine stakes in the region -- is simplistic and misleading.

The film captures the tensions and fears as chaos rages in the streets and includes more than enough sequences of mass murder to get across the point that madness gripped the entire nation. However, none of its characters is sufficiently developed so that an audience really can identify with him, which is what makes Hotel Rwanda so much more powerful. Dialogue often deteriorates into speeches, and characters habitually make geopolitical points.

This Berlinale has its share of movies about ethnic carnage, such as Amu, about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, and Massacre, about the Christian militia's murder of Palestinian civilians in refugee camps in 1982. Such films need to be made and seen. But they usually hit home strongest when filmmakers are willing to put as much effort into drama and character as into political posturing.

SOMETIMES IN APRIL

HBO Films

Credits: Director-screenwriter: Raoul Peck; Producer: Daniel Delume; Executive producers: Raoul Peck, Joel Stillerman; Director of photography: Eric Guichard; Production designer: Benoit Barouh; Music: Bruno Coulais; Costume designer: Paule Mangenot; Editor: Jacques Comets. Cast: Augustin: Idris Elba; Prudence Bushnell: Debra Winger; Jeanne: Carole Karemera; Martine: Pamela Nomvete; Honore: Oris Erhuero; Xavier: Fraser James; Lionel: Noah Emmerich.

No MPAA rating, running time 140 minutes.

MUNICH -- Paul Weitz's In Good Company and Mike Mills' feature debut, Thumbsucker, are among the 21 films in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, organizers said Thursday. The lineup also boasts 16 world premieres, five international debuts and several works by debutante film directors. Competition titles in the festival main section include the world premiere of Raoul Peck's ... Sometimes in April, starring Debra Winger; and Kakushi Ken-Oni no Tsume (The Hidden Blade), from Japanese director Yoji Yamada; Chinese director Tsai Ming-Liang's Tian bian yi duo yun (The Wayward Cloud), which mixes musical scenes with explicit sex; and Aleksandr Sokurov's Sonltse (The Sun), the third part of his trilogy on power.

Some of what HBO giveth, PBS will taketh away. As a result of new, more stringent federal guidelines on indecency, the public television service will need to make a few small edits before it distributes the HBO film Dirty War to affiliates, PBS president and CEO Pat Mitchell told TV critics Saturday. Under an agreement announced last week, Dirty War, about a fictional radiological attack on London, will air Jan. 24 on HBO and then Feb. 23 on PBS stations. The agreement also includes two other films: Sometimes in April, about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and Yesterday, a drama about AIDS in South Africa. One scene in Dirty War shows brief glimpses of frontal nudity as people exposed to radiation are hosed down. That scene will be edited, Mitchell told reporters during PBS' portion of the Television Critics Assn. press tour at the Universal City Hilton. In addition, there will be "a couple of word changes here and there," PBS senior programming executive Jacoba Atlas said. She said the changes already had been made for an international version of the film.