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In one of the first major deals unveiled at the European Film Market, Sony Pictures Classics (“I’m Still Here”) has bought “Vie Privée,” a highly anticipated, humor-laced murder mystery movie starring Jodie Foster and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (“Other People’s Children”), for North America and Latin America territories.

The Oscar winner stars in the film as renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner who mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered. Foster last starred in a French-language film 20 years ago in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Oscar-nominated “A Very Long Engagement.”

Foster, who recently won an Emmy and a Golden Globe her turn in HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country,” stars in “Vie Privée” alongside a flurry of international stars, including Daniel Auteuil and Efira (“Other People’s Children”), Mathieu Almaric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), Vincent Lacoste (“Lost Illusions”) and Luana Bajrami...

Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, the wife-and-husband producers who have 13 Oscar nominations and an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award between them, will be honored at the Oscar Wilde Awards next month.

The 19th annual event is scheduled for Feb. 27, three days before the Academy Awards, at the historic Ebell theater in Los Angeles. Actors John C. Reilly and Éanna Hardwicke will be saluted as well.

Also new to the lineup is Will Ferrell, who will introduce Reilly and hand him his trophy. The pair, of course, have co-starred in such films as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008) and Holmes & Watson (2018).

Created by the US-Ireland Alliance, the Oscar Wilde Awards celebrate the work of those from Ireland — and some who are not — who contribute to film, television and music. (Kennedy, with eight Oscar noms, and Marshall, with five, are Californians born in Berkeley and Glendale, respectively.

Obsessed With Light directors Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum with Anne-Katrin Titze at the Quad Bar while composer Paul Cantelon watches their inspiring Loïe Fuller documentary Photo: Ed Bahlman

At the Quad Cinema in New York, on the evening of SantaCon, Obsessed With Light and Letters From Baghdad composer Paul Cantelon joined directors Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl for a post-screening conversation on the significant and wide-ranging influence of Loïe Fuller from Auguste Rodin, Jean Cocteau, and Isadora Duncan to John Zorn (in his Femina Part 4) and Taylor Swift.

Zeva Oelbaum, Anne-Katrin Titze, Paul Cantelon and Sabine Krayenbühl at the Quad Cinema Photo: Ed Bahlman

The visually illuminating Obsessed With Light (a highlight of the 15th edition of Doc NYC) has Cherry Jones as the voice of Fuller and an impressive list of on-camera interviews, which include Robert Wilson on what came first for...

The American Society of Cinematographers will honor Oscar-nominated producer and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy with its 2025 Board of Governors Award at the ASC’s Feb. 23 awards gala in Beverly Hills.

“Kathleen Kennedy’s extraordinary career has left an enduring mark on the world of cinema,” said ASC President Shelly Johnson. “Her keen eye for storytelling is unparalleled. She consistently brings forth projects that elevate and confirm her trust in the director and cinematographer relationship. Recognizing it as the backbone of great filmmaking, her movies consistently showcase this belief. Her dedication to visual excellence has made her a true trailblazer in the film industry.”

The ASC Board of Governors Award recognizes individuals in the industry whose body of work has made significant and indelible contributions to cinema. It is reserved for filmmakers who are champions for directors of photography and the visual art form.

Kennedy is an eight-time Oscar nominee and...

The third annual Dances With Films NY festival announced their wins on Dec. 11, celebrating new talent in the world of independent film.

The audience choice winners were Kristen Hansen’s “Sonny Boy” for best narrative feature and Mikaela Shwer’s “The Kids Are Not Alright” for best documentary feature.

This year, the newly established Midnight category spotlighted genre films. The winners in this section were Andrew Bell’s “Bleeding” for best midnight feature and Benedict Chiu’s “Boy Band” for best midnight short. Dances With Films also provides a platform for pilots and proof of concept projects, with the audience winner being Ruthie Marantz’s “Raging Doll.”

For the industry awards, Chris Beier’s “The Ego Death of Queen Cecilia” won in the “Over 40 Minutes” category while Matthew Perkins’ “Fortune” won in the “Under 40 Minutes” category.

Over the course of four days, the festival screened 146 films, including 92 short films, 22 narrative and midnight features,...

Netflix’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez has become one of a only a handful of predominantly non-English-language films ever to make the top 10 films list released by the American Film Institute annually since 2001 as part of the AFI Awards. It follows 2004’s Spanish-language Maria Full of Grace and 2007’s French-language The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

AFI’s eligibility rules declare, “Stories need not be presented in the English language if incontrovertibly American,” meaning that they include “significant creative and/or production elements from the United States,” which, in this case, presumably means American-born actresses Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez.

Partially non-English titles that have made the list in years past include 2006’s Letters from Iwo Jima, 2019’s The Farewell, 2020’s Minari and 2023’s Past Lives. Fully non-English titles have occasionally been given special awards, as was the case for 2011’s The Artist, 2018’s Roma and 2019’s Parasite.

Joining Emilia Pérez...

Niels Arestrup, the French-Danish actor and muse to Emilia Pérez director Jacques Audiard who appeared in international features including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, has died. He was 75.

Arestrup’s wife, Isabelle Le Nouvel, confirmed his death to Agence France-Presse on Sunday, saying he died “at the end of a courageous fight against illness.”

Arestrup will forever be linked to Audiard and his performances in the filmmaker’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) — playing the criminal father to Romain Duris’ would-be concert pianist — and A Prophet (2009), in which he embodies a terrifying Corsican mob boss who runs his operation from within prison.

Arestrup won best supporting acting César awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscar, for both roles, and the performances solidified his image as an onscreen villain with a piercing blue gaze who is barely holding back the violence within.

All October long, Cracked is catching up with some of the greatest writers in Simpsons history to discuss the most beloved segments from the “Treehouse of Horror” series. From the cursed monkey’s paw to Krusto the Clown, we’re digging into the making of some real fan-favorites.

Al Jean and Mike Reiss are Simpsons legends — and stalwarts. In fact, they’re such stalwart legends that they were tasked with a feat even more difficult than writing the original “Treehouse of Horror”: writing “Treehouse of Horror II,” something that seemed impossible at the time given just how good (and beloved) the first one is/was.

And yet, they didn’t just outdo themselves; they kind of outdid the show, too, pulling off three segments that are considered classics in their own right. The first is about Homer wishing upon a cursed monkey’s paw. The second is a Twilight...

Arnaud Desplechin’s hybrid documentary “Spectateurs!” (“Filmlovers”) debuted a first trailer ahead of the film’s world premiere at Cannes on May 22.

The 88-minute docu is a love letter to cinema, inspired by Desplechin’s own discovery and passion for cinema.

Per the official Cannes description of the film, Desplechin wrote: “What does it mean, to go to the movies? Why have people been going for over one hundred years? I set out to celebrate movie theaters and their manifold magic. So, I walked in the footsteps of young Paul Dédalus, as if in a filmgoer’s coming-of-age story. Memories, fiction and discoveries come together in an irrepressible torrent of pictures.”

“Spectateurs!” weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun...

Films from Oliver Stone, Michel Hazanavicius and Arnaud Desplechin have been added to the Official Selection of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. They join previously announced titles from David Cronenberg, Yorgos Lanthimos, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader. Greta Gerwig is the president of this year’s jury.

Stone’s film, “Lula” is a documentary about Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and will have its world premiere as part of the Special Screenings section, which also features “Spectators,” from Arnaud Desplechin. His latest stars “Anatomy of a Fall” child actor Milo Machado Graner as well as Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”).

Hazanavicius, a Best Director Oscar winner for “The Artist,” joins the Competition lineup with “La Plus Précieuse des Marchandises” (“The Most Precious of Cargoes”), an animated film about a Jewish child during World War II whose father, in a desperate attempt to save his son’s life,...

Heatseeking filmmaker Olmo Schnabel has signed for representation with WME, and with Black Bear for management.

Schnabel’s breakout directorial effort “Pet Shop Days” played both the Venice International Film Festival and SXSW this cycle, scoring distribution from Utopia for a 2024 theatrical release. Starring Jack Irv, Darío Yazbek Bernal, Willem Dafoe and Peter Sarsgaard, the film tells of a drug lord scion on the run from his powerful family. Slumming it in New York in a haze of sex and drugs, he seduces an equally lost young man and pulls him into the city’s underbelly.

The provocative debut also hit festivals in Chicago, Montclair, Morelia, Santa Barbara and Sarasota. Schnabel was also awarded the Leffest Lisboa Film Festival’s Tap Revelation Award.

Schnabel just wrapped “In the Hand of Dante” for production shop Twin, which stars Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot. The film is a...

Renowned French auteur Arnaud Desplechin, whose latest film “Brother and Sister” competed at Cannes Film Festival in 2022, is currently wrapping his next directorial effort, “Spectateurs!”

Les Films du Losange, which handles French distribution and international sales rights to the title, has unveiled a first still (above) in the run-up to the Unifrance Rendez-Vous With French Cinema market, where it will introduce the film to buyers.

The hybrid project weaves documentary and fiction with a cast including Milo Machado Graner, the young breakthrough actor of Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” and well-known French actors Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) and Françoise Lebrun (“The Book of Solutions”).

Now in post, the docufiction is described by Les Films du Losange as “a love letter to cinema, freely inspired by the director’s own discovery and passion for cinema.”

A Croisette regular, Desplechin previously directed “Deception,” an adaptation of...

Daryl McCormack as Colman and Ruth Wilson as Lorna in ‘The Woman in the Wall’ (Photo Credit: Chris Barr / BBC / Showtime)

Paramount+’s January 2024 lineup includes the series premiere of Sexy Beast, a prequel to the critically acclaimed, award-winning drama released in 2000 and starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone. The streaming service’s also kicking off the new year with the debut of The Woman in the Wall, a six-episode series starring Ruth Wilson (His Dark Materials) and Daryl McCormack (Bad Sisters).

June Carter Cash is the focus of June, a feature-length documentary directed by Emmy Award-winner Kristen Vaurio (Going Clear: Scientology & The Prison of Belief) arriving on January 16. January 2024 also sees the return of SkyMed, a medical drama set in the world of medics and pilots who fly air ambulances in Canada, for its second season.

Coming to Paramount+ on January 1

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5 Card Stud

A Promise*

A Single Man*

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Indie and art film producer Jon Kilik, unlike many, remains hopeful for the personal, mid-budget movie for grown-ups. “Those are the films directors love to make and audiences still love,” says Kilik, being feted this week at Poland’s Camerimage cinematography festival for work of special visual sensitivity.

Having flown in from a shoot in Rome, Kilik confesses he still loves being on set after a career spanning four decades, including work with Spike Lee, Julian Schnabel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Jim Jarmusch and Oliver Stone.

His latest project filming in Europe, “In the Hand of Dante,” starring Gal Gadot and Oscar Isaac in a metaphorical journey through hell to paradise, is characteristic of Kilik’s lifelong passion for bringing challenging works of literature and art to the screen.

And he’s proven time and again that such films have an audience and are economically viable, he points out, if handled...

Chicago – The director debut is the flourishing element of any film festival, and the Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) has always been a nurturing place for the latest cinema talent. “Pet Shop Days” is the debut of director and co-writer Olmo Schnabel, and screened at the 59th Ciff. The film continues on the fest circuit, as its currently at the Montclair (New Jersey) Film Festival.

When Alejandro (Dario Yazbek Bernal) flees Mexico after an impulsive act of violence, he lands in New York City on a mission to live life on his own terms. After befriending Jack (Jack Irv), who spends his days and nights getting high and sleeping with whomever he wants, the pair embark down a rabbit hole of vice, coming together and breaking apart … with a magnetic and obsessive attraction that will change their lives forever. Like an impulsive Butch and Sundance, the journey of the duo leads to an inevitable destination.

Moon Knight, Aquaman and Mike Banning all in the same place at the same time? According to :a[Deadline]{href='https://deadline.com/2023/10/julian-schnabels-in-the-hand-of-dante-oscar-isaac-jason-momoa-gerard-butler-1235574374/' target='_blank' rel='noreferrer noopener'}, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, and Gerard Butler have joined the cast of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Schnabel's upcoming crime thriller In The Hands Of Dante.

Executive produced by none other than Martin Scorsese, Schnabel's film – currently shooting in Venice as a beneficiary of a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement – is an adaptation of Nick Tosches' same-named novel. The plot, split across two timelines, revolves around Dante Alghieri's The Divine Comedy. In the present day, we follow scholar Nick (Isaac) as he is called upon by a black market smuggling gang to authenticate what they believe to be the original manuscript of Dante's opus, only to find himself impelled to steal the manuscript for himself and carve a bloody path...

Julian Schnabel crime thriller “The Hand of Dante” has secured an interim agreement to resume production with stars Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa and Gerard Butler attached, TheWrap has learned.

Helmed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind “At Eternity’s Gate,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “Before Night Falls,” the picture is based on Nick Tosches’ novel of the same name.

Currently in production in Italy, the picture concerns the original manuscript of “The Divine Comedy” just as it mysteriously pops up on the black market. Isaac plays Nick, a weary scholar brought in by New York City’s organized crime elements for the purpose of authentication.

It’s when Nick decides to deal the manuscript, however, that he’s put on a dark and violent path from a metaphorical Hell into Paradise with his love Giulietta. A parallel tale unfolds: the odyssey of Dante (Isaac) himself, a man who — trapped...

A star-studded crime thriller from Oscar-nominated director Julian Schnabel is coming our way, with Orcasr Isaac, Jason Momoa, and Gerard Butler leading the cast. Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante film is in production in Italy, with an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA to allow filming during the ongoing strike. Based on the novel of the same name by Nick Tosches, In the Hand of Dante finds a piece of history in the clutches of criminals.

According to Deadline’s exclusive report, In the Hand of Dante “revolves around when the original manuscript of the Divine Comedy emerges in the clutches of a black-market smuggling ring in the dangerous underbelly of New York City, weary scholar Nick is called by the mob to authenticate it.”

“Overwhelmed by temptation, Nick defies the mafia and steals the manuscript in a frenzied bid to have it all. He follows a dark and violent...

The International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600) will honor two of its own during its 25th annual Emerging Cinematographer Awards.

Cinematographer and director Janusz Kamiński — who won Oscars for lensing his longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg’s films Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan — will be honored with the Panavision-presented Distinguished Filmmaker Award; and cinematographer Stephen Lighthill, a past president of the American Society of Cinematographers, will accept the ASC Mentor Award.

Lighthill is currently Head of Discipline: Cinematography at the AFI Conservatory. He began his career shooting network news and documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated documentary Berkeley, Gimme Shelter and CBS 60 Minutes. His credits include HBO’s Vietnam War Story and CBS’ Nash Bridges.

In addition to his work on Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, Kaminski earned additional Academy Award nominations for lensing Spielberg’s West Side Story, Lincoln, War Horse, Amistad and for Julian Schnabel...

The technology of cinematography has undergone some of the most seismic shifts in film history this century, with what began in the 2000s as an almost entirely photochemical process transforming into the digitally captured, manipulated, and projected images of today. The art of cinematography, however — using light, color, and texture to express ideas and elicit emotional reactions from the audience — remains intact.

In 2017, IndieWire made a list of the best shot feature films of the century thus far; the list was updated in 2020, and what follows is the third and most extensive version of the list. It’s also the first to be spearheaded by the IndieWire Craft team, which has grown considerably since this list was first published. Ranking cinematography is, in some ways, a fool’s errand given the broad variety of genres, resources, and intentions encompassed by the films below, but these are 60 titles that IndieWire believes...

Over 15 years after previously working together, Denzel Washington and Ridley Scott are reportedly eyeing a reunion in Gladiator 2. Scott is finally getting back at the helm for the follow-up to his Best Picture-winning historical epic, something he has been developing for the better part of 20 years, largely struggling to find a story to bring back Russell Crowe's Maximus to life following his death in the original. Crowe will not be returning for Gladiator 2, with Normal People's Paul Mescal leading the cast.

Deadline has brought word that Washington is reportedly in final negotiations to reunite with Scott for Gladiator 2. The Oscar winner's role is being kept under wraps, though it would mark the first pairing of the director and star since 2007's American Gangster, which also starred original Gladiator actor Russell Crowe. However, it's currently expected that Crowe won't be returning for the historical epic sequel.

Related:...

Now that Mandy Walker (“Elvis”) has upset Claudio Miranda (“Top Gun: Maverick”) at the 37th American Society of Cinematographers Awards, all eyes are on next week’s Oscar ceremony, where she is well-positioned to take out another frontrunner, James Friend (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), and become the first female Dp to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

The academy and ASC have awarded the same film only 17 times (47%), but eight of those have occurred between 2011 and 2022, giving the organizations a 66% correlation over the past 12 years. Put in perspective, that means the years since 2010 have posted practically the same amount of identical winners as the 24 preceding (nine).

See ASC Awards: Mandy Walker breaks glass ceiling for women with ‘Elvis’ win

While the odds had “Top Gun: Maverick” ahead at the ASC Awards, Walker’s win isn’t nearly as shocking as some have characterized it to be. For...

Filmmaker Olmo Schnabel has assembled a cast of heavyweights for his directorial debut – a romantic thriller about two young men exploring the underbelly of New York and one other.

“Pet Shop Boys” will mark the first time behind the camera for Schnabel, son of Oscar-nommed director Julian Schnabel. Already wrapped, the project is led by newcomers Dario Yazebek Bernal (“The House of the Flowers”) and Jack Irv (“Giants Being Lonely”).

The film follows the impulsive black sheep Alejandro (Bernal) and college-age pet store employee Jack (Irv) who engage in a whirlwind affair that sends them down a rabbit hole of vice.

The men will have pedigreed costars in four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe and the prolific Peter Sarsgaard. Also on board is Emmanuelle Seigner (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), Jordi Mollà (“Riddick”), Louis Cancelmi (“The Looming Tower”), Camille Rowe (“The Deep House”), Maribel Verdu (“Blancanieves”) and Angela Sarafyan.

“Someone...

Steven Spielberg brought his semi-autobiographical film, “The Fabelmans,” to the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 10, his first feature ever to debut at TIFF. To say that Spielberg is performing at the top of his game is no hyperbole. This dramatic opus, which pulls at the heartstrings, could bring Spielberg his third directing statuette (after “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan”), and maybe his second for best picture (after “Schindler’s List”).

“The Fabelmans” is the story of Sam Fabelman, a young boy who falls in love with cinema, but finds himself fighting family turmoil to keep his dream alive.

Spielberg’s direction is the glue that holds “The Fabelmans” together, and the film touches on many of his landmark styles, nodding to “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Saving Private Ryan” and more.

The script, by Tony Kushner and Spielberg, brilliantly illustrates the birth of a filmmaker,...

Is there an American filmmaker working today who is more in tune with the blockbusters of the past, the movies he is building on, than Jordan Peele? I’m not sure there is. I’m even more confident that no one is doing anything like what Peele has been up to with the three films he’s given us so far: he’s actively reexamining genre tropes, reframing the cultural contexts in which they exist, refocusing their perspective — reconsidering, well, everything about the kinds of stories they’re telling.

Peele keeps giving us more of the stuff we’ve loved for the past 50-plus years without simply xeroxing what has come before. He put a racially aware spin on paranoid science fiction and body horror with 2017’s Get Out. With 2019’s Us, he consciously called up 80s Spielbergian wonders, then interrogated and replied to those fantasies. Now, with Nope, he...

In 1966, Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara broke new ground as the first Asian Best Director Oscar contender with his bid for “Woman in the Dunes.” He was also the 10th Japanese male nominee in any category, the first of whom was production designer Eddie Imazu. Twenty years later, his countryman Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” brought him his first and only directing notice after four decades in the business. Now, Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”) has been added to this all too short list of Japanese directing nominees and could become the first one to pull off a win.

See 2022 Oscar nominations: Full list of nominees in all 23 categories

Hamaguchi is the only first-timer in this year’s directing lineup, which also includes Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) and Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”). Spielberg has already competed here seven times and...

The films in contention for the 2022 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar are “Coda,” “Drive My Car,” “Dune,” “The Lost Daughter,” and “The Power of the Dog.” Our odds currently indicate that “The Power of the Dog” (17/5) will win the award, followed in order of likelihood by “Coda” (39/10), “The Lost Daughter” (4/1), “Drive My Car” (9/2), and “Dune” (9/2).

Seven of the eight individuals included in this year’s lineup are category newcomers, with Eric Roth (“Dune”) standing alone as the only veteran. He succeeded on his first outing as the writer of “Forrest Gump” (1995) and has since picked up bids for “The Insider” (2000), “Munich” (2006), “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2009), and “A Star Is Born” (2019). He shares this bid with first-time writing nominees Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve.

Roth’s half dozen nominations make him one of the three most-recognized adaptive writers alongside John Huston and only one step behind Billy Wilder. He may...

The films in contention for the 2022 Best Cinematography Oscar are “Dune,” “Nightmare Alley,” “The Power of the Dog,” “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” and “West Side Story.” Our odds currently favor “Dune” (10/3) taking the prize, followed in order by “The Power of the Dog” (18/5), “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (4/1), “West Side Story” (9/2), and “Nightmare Alley” (9/2).

This is the seventh time that Janusz Kaminski (“West Side Story”) has vied for this award, making him one of the 26 most-nominated lensers ever. With the exception of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2008), all of the films for which he has been recognized were directed by Steven Spielberg, with the preceding five being “Schindler’s List” (1994), “Amistad” (1998), “Saving Private Ryan” (1999), “War Horse” (2012), and “Lincoln” (2013). He finished first in the 1994 and 1999 races and could now become the 11th person to achieve a third cinematography win.

Bruno Delbonnel (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”) has five past bids to his name...

The SXSW Film Festival has officially announced its full 2022 feature film lineup, in addition to a variety of TV premieres and special events. The year, SXSW will occur in-person with select films available online. Every film will have an in-person SXSW 2022 premiere as the festival readies for its first in-person edition since the pandemic forced its cancellation in 2020. Most films will also be available online to badgeholders for 48 hours after their physical premieres.

“Our focus is very much on being in person,” SXSW Film head Janet Pierson told IndieWire. “People really do miss gathering together.”

The festival, in its 29th edition, will run from March 11 – 20. As previously announced, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s film, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” will open the festival. The series three premiere for FX’s “Atlanta,” starring Donald Glover, Lakeith Stanfield, and Brian Tyree Henry, will screen on Closing Night.

Pierson said that the...

Presenting two films at Rotterdam Film Festival this year, his sixth feature as a director “Hold Me Tight” and musical comedy “Tralala” by his regular collaborators Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu, Mathieu Amalric admitted he found it hard to shake off the role of a singer-songwriter in search of the Virgin Mary.

“It might have been the first time I didn’t want to leave my character. I didn’t cut my hair for a long time, I kept my beard. I was like [a cross between] Jesus and Jim Morrison. I have never felt that gorgeous before!,” he said during an online conversation with festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.

But the film also marked a turning point in his life, as he decided to take a longer break from acting following the shoot.

“After ‘Tralala,’ I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Everything was dark. There was this extraordinary project with Noémie Lvovsky,...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” has been a critical darling, after garnering stellar reviews and winning the top prize from the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics. The last films to win those three prestigious groups were Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” (2009) and David Fincher’s “The Social Network” (2010), with the former winning the Oscar for best picture. Interestingly, those two films’ years were among the last time the Academy nominated 10 picture nominees, which will happen again this year.

Co-distributed by Janus Films, which had Oscar success with “Revanche” (2009) and “Sideshow,” Hamaguchi’s feature is representing Japan and on the Oscars shortlist for best international feature. With this added success on the circuit, the film aims to contend outside of its traditional space, notably in best picture, director, actor (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and adapted screenplay (Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe). But can the three-hour, non-English language...

The race for best cinematography is among the most competitive races this year at the Oscars. Black-and-white dramas, sci-fi dazzlers and Hollywood blockbusters are among the contenders, and it’s not entirely sure where it all might land. The American Society of Cinematographers, which announces its nominees tomorrow, will set a tone leading up to the opening of Oscar nomination voting, which begins on Thursday.

From ASC’s theatrical releases category to the Oscars, the track record averages about four out of five matches every year. Past ASC selections like “First Man” (Linus Sandgren), “Ford v Ferrari” (Phedon Papamichael), and last year’s “Cherry” (Newton Thomas Sigel) failed to transition to the Academy in favor of “Never Look Away” (Caleb Deschanel), “The Lighthouse” (Jarin Blaschke) and “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Sean Bobbitt). The last time they perfectly aligned was in 2017.

Over 93 years of the Academy Awards, Rachel Morrison is...

Filippo Scotti is the 21-year newcomer starring in Italy’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, “The Hand of God.” The film is written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, whose film “The Great Beauty” won the Oscar in this category eight years ago. The Netflix movie is Scotti’s breakout feature film and his newfound fame is still something he’s coming to terms with. Watch the exclusive interview above.

“One thing that I love the most about this job is definitely to meet new people,” Scotti says. “This movie now, with all the travel for the promotion, I’m meeting new people and I’m sharing a lot. That’s what has changed the most.” “The Hand of God” competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Scotti received the Marcello Mastroianni Award,...

After going virtual last year and not handing out any prizes due to the Covid pandemic, the 2021 Cannes Film Festival returned to form by announcing its winners on July 17. How many of these will figure in the upcoming Oscar race? We recap the results from the 74th edition of this foremost of film festivals and review its history as a forecaster of the Academy Awards.

The top award at Cannes is the Palme d’Or. Over the years, 40 winners of this prize have amassed 135 Academy Award nominations. Seventeen of these have claimed a combined 32 Oscars. This year, the Palme d’Or went to French filmmaker Julia Ducournau‘s “Titane.” Her dramatic thriller centers on a father reunited with his son who was missing for a decade during which several unexplained crimes were committed. Ducournau is the second woman to take this top prize following Jane Campion‘s breakthrough in 1993 with “The Piano.

It shouldn’t be a shocker that an international feature from Asghar Farhadi has entered the awards conversation with the vivacious and flavorful “A Hero.” How the Iranian filmmaker chooses to frame his stories has always been compelling, and it’s a quality that has been overlooked by the Academy in his tenure. Perhaps, this could be his ticket to an overdue directing nomination.

The film tells the story of Rahim (Amir Jadidi), who is in prison for a debt that he was unable to pay. During a two-day leave, an act of kindness provides Rahim with an opportunity to convince his creditor to withdraw the complaint so he can go free, but not everything goes as planned.

Farhadi, who serves as the writer, director and producer of “A Hero,” is one of the most assured filmmakers working in our industry. He knows exactly what type of films he wants to create,...

Wes Anderson selects David Hand’s Bambi

Wes Anderson has selected four films that inspired him: David Hand’s Bambi, Martin Rosen’s The Plague Dogs (1982), and two shorts, Garry Trudeau’s A Doonesbury Special (1977), and Suzie Templeton’s Peter & The Wolf (2006) to screen during the French Institute Alliance Française Animation First Festival in New York, co-curated by Delphine Selles-Alvarez and Catherine Lamairesse.

Mathieu Amalric: Renaissance Man poster featuring Fantastic Mr. Fox and Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell And The Butterfly Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Michaël Dudok de Wit (The Red Turtle) was the honoured guest of the inaugural Animation First Festival in 2018, Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress) and Jean-François Laguionie were the guests of honour in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

Fi:af President Marie-Monique Steckel: “This year's Animation First promises to be the richest in the Festival's history. We are delighted to have so many exciting new films, cult classics,...

The best actress race is full of veterans this year, with the likes of Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer and Ellen Burstyn all vying for Oscar attention. Joining the list is Sophia Loren, one of the most prolific actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age, in Edoardo Ponti’s “The Life Ahead.”

The Oscar-winning Italian actor landed her gold statuette for “Two Women” (“La ciociara”) in 1962, which made her the first actor to win an Academy Award for a foreign-language film. She put up one more nomination in 1965 for “Marriage Italian Style” (“Matrimonio all’italiana”) and if she manages a nomination for “The Life Ahead,” a new record could emerge. In 2021, it will mark 56 years since her last nomination, and if nominated, she will break the record currently held by Henry Fonda as the longest gap between acting nominations. Fonda was nominated in 1941 for “The Grapes of Wrath” and he won the Oscar in 1982 for “On Golden Pond,...

Ronald Harwood's Adaptations Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright Sir Ronald Harwood has died, of natural causes, at the age of 85.

Tributes were paid last night to Harwood, who won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for Roman Polanski's The Pianist in 2003. He had previously received two other Oscar nominations in the same category - for The Dresser in 1983 and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in 2007, for which he won a BAFTA. His filmography also included screenplays for Being Julia, Cry, The Beloved Country and Love In The Time Of Cholera . In addition to his screenplays and stage work, including Taking Tea With Stalin, he also wrote the book Adaptations, about the art of writing for cinema.

Among those paying tribute on Twitter was documentarian David Nicholas Wilkinson, who distributed Harwood's film adaptation of his play Taking Sides.

He wrote on Twitter: "When Ronald Harwood won the Oscar for The.

Sir Ronald Harwood, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the 2002 film “The Pianist,” has died. He was 85.

He died Tuesday of natural causes, his agent Judy Daish said in a statement to BBC. “His wife Natasha died in 2013 and Sir Ronald is survived by their children Antony, Deborah and Alexandra,” Daish said.

Harwood was born in South Africa and went on to become one of Britain’s greatest playwrights. He is perhaps best known for his play “The Dresser,” which follows the assistant of an aging actor and is based on Harwood’s own time as a dresser. The play debuted on West End in 1980 and then on Broadway in 1981.

“The Dresser” was then adapted into a 1983 film, for which Harwood wrote the screenplay. Star Tom Courtenay, who portrayed the dresser, won the Golden Globe for best actor in a drama. The story was also adapted for TV and radio.

Harwood wrote...

Sir Ronald Harwood, an Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright, died on Tuesday of natural causes, his agent told BBC on Wednesday. He was 85.

The British writer won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” in 2003. Harwood was nominated in the same category for Peter Yates’ “The Dresser” in 1983 and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” in 2007.

Harwood was highly regarded as one of Britain’s most successful post-war dramatic scribes. Two of his plays, “The Dresser” and “Quartet,” were adapted from stage plays to the big screen. His other screenwriting credits include Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia,” starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Polanski’s 2005 adaptation of “Oliver Twist,” “Being Julia” starring Annette Bening, “Love in the Time of Cholera” and more.

Some of this written stage plays include “Taking Tea With Stalin,” “Taking Sides,” “Ivanov,” “The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold” and many others.

The writer...

Ronald Harwood, a South African screenwriter most known for The Pianist has died. The Oscar-winning writer was 85.

Harwood, who also wrote The Dresser and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, died Tuesday of natural causes in his Sussex home.

The writer was born in South Africa in 1934. His first credit was for 1961’s Playdate. Throughout the sixties he went on to write a number for a number of titles including TV series ITV Television Playhouse, Knock on Any Door and ITV Play of the Week.

As his career progressed he went on write films, ranging from the 1966 film Arrivederci, Baby! to the 1981 picture Evita Peron. In 1983 Harwood wrote the screenplay for The Dresser, which follows a personal assistant’s struggle to help a veteran actor get through a difficult performance of King Lear. The film, which starred Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, received five nominations in 1984 included a nod for best Harwood’s screenplay.

Sir Ronald Harwood, the Oscar-winning British screenwriter of The Pianist and films such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Dresser and Quartet, has died. He was 85.

His agent, Judy Daish, told the BBC that Harwood died of natural causes on Tuesday.

Harwood wrote the script for Roman Polanski’s World War II drama The Pianist, which won him the 2003 Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay. He was nominated for a best-adapted screenplay Oscar on two other occasions for 1983’s The Dresser and 2007’s The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

Highly regarded in Hollywood for his film work, in his native Britain, Harwood ...

Sir Ronald Harwood, the Oscar-winning British screenwriter of The Pianist and films such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Dresser and Quartet, has died. He was 85.

His agent, Judy Daish, told the BBC that Harwood died of natural causes on Tuesday.

Harwood wrote the script for Roman Polanski’s World War II drama The Pianist, which won him the 2003 Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay. He was nominated for a best-adapted screenplay Oscar on two other occasions for 1983’s The Dresser and 2007’s The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

Highly regarded in Hollywood for his film work, in his native Britain, Harwood ...

The director of Sergio and many docs talks about docs and movies taken from true stories.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Sergio (2009)

Sergio (2020)

Reds (1981)

The Two Popes (2019)

Rules Don’t Apply (2016)

Bulworth (1998)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Innerspace (1987)

Ishtar (1987)

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Man On Wire (2008)

The Fog of War (2003)

American Dharma (2018)

Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (2016)

The Killing Fields (1984)

The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)

Under Fire (1983)

Salvador (1986)

The Quiet American (2002)

The Quiet American (1958)

A Private War (2018)

The War Room (1993)

The Final Year (2017)

Independence Day (1996)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Bloodsport (1988)

Bloodsport II: The Next Kumite (1996)

When We Were Kings (1996)

Soul Power (2008)

High School (1968)

Hospital (1970)

Titicut Follies (1967)

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007)

Before Night Falls (2000)

At Eternity’s Gate (2018)

American Factory (2019)

Dina (2017)

Honeyland (2019)

The Act of Killing (2012)

The English Patient (1996)

Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Purple Noon (1960)

Other Notable Items

Sergio Aragonés

Wagner Moura

Narcos TV...

When Paul Cantelon was tapped by first-time feature director Harry Mavromichalis to score “Olympia,” the documentary on Academy Award-winning actress, Olympia Dukakis, he was more than prepared to craft music that underscored her Greek heritage.

When Cantelon’s preacher father met his first-chair trumpeter mother, their family life becomes one of traveling evangelical tent meetings with Cantelon growing up on couches in different people’s homes. A number of these homes belonged to Greek families where he heard Greek music that became part of his musical lexicon. Over 30 years ago, when Cantelon met his wife, vocalist Angela McCluskey, she had a great love for Greece and took him to that country, where Cantelon was immersed in the music.

“[Mavromichalis] has a lyrical sense for picture,” says Cantelon from his Nichols Canyon home studio in Los Angeles. “He was a dancer and he has a musical, rhythmic sense to the way he shoots and edits.

Titles include Pathé’s entire Pedro Almodóvar library.

Streaming service Mubi has secured a deal with Pathé that will see more than 20 titles added to its platform in the UK and Ireland.

The agreement covers Pathé’s entire Pedro Almodóvar library including Pain And Glory, which was nominated for two Oscars and saw Antonia Banderas win the best actor prize at Cannes last year.

Other notable directors with films in the deal include Steve McQueen, François Ozon, Jane Campion and Ava DuVernay. Mubi will make Pain And Glory available exclusively on its platform from Friday (June 19).

The move bolsters Mubi...

Though it postponed its annual in-person gathering, the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday handed out awards for the 2020 juried competition. Top narrative and nonfiction honors went to two queer films, Alice Wu’s coming-of-age tale “The Half of It” and Bo McGuire’s hybrid documentary “Socks on Fire,” while Jan Komasa’s “The Hater” won Best International Narrative Feature. Other winners include “Cowboys,” “Materna,” “Kokoloko,” and “Asia.”

In mid-March, festival organizers postponed the festival just weeks before it was set to bow in New York City. In the interim, some programming for the 19th annual festival was made available online, while its brass still hopes to hold a traditional festival in the coming months.

“We are fortunate that technology allowed for our jury to come together this year to honor our filmmakers,” said Tribeca co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal in an official statement. “Despite not being able to be together physically,...

The director of Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies, Pearl Jam’s Jeremy and many more reflects on his career and some of the movies that made him.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Arlington Road (1999)

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Firewall (2006)

The Orphanage (2007)

Nostalgia (2018)

Avatar (2009)

Titanic (1997)

Chef (2014)

The Laundromat (2019)

Honeymoon In Vegas (1992)

Demonlover (2003)

Under The Sand (2000)

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Under The Skin (2013)

The Great Beauty (2013)

Slap Shot (1977)

Network (1976)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Pawnbroker (1964)

Star Wars (1977)

The Exorcist (1973)

Jaws (1975)

The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

All The President’s Men (1976)

Liquid Sky (1982)

The Brother From Another Planet (1984)

City Of Hope (1991)

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Snowpiercer (2013)

The Flintstones (1994)

Matinee (1993)

Batman (1989)

Transformers (2007)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Psycho (1960)

Psycho (1998)

Mandy (2018)

Phantom Thread (2017)

Magnolia (1999)

Boogie Nights (1997)

The Master (2012)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

The Mustang (2019)

Inherent Vice (2014)

The New World (2005)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

The Last Word (2017)

Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

The Burglar (1957)

What Lies Beneath...

He brought classical elegance to Conan the Barbarian, operatic grandeur to Flash Gordon and regained the trust of Star Wars fans, preempting the surge of highbrow stars in sci-fi

When remembering the great Max von Sydow, it’s hard not to recall those iconic images of the medieval knight peering over the chess board into the sinister countenance of the grim reaper in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, or receiving a tender shave from Mathieu Amalric in Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But there was another side to the twice Oscar-nominated Swede.

These days, it’s far from unusual to see an Oscar-winning doyen of the art house turning up as a villain in a superhero movie, or donning the mo-cap suit to play a four-limbed alien in some outrageous space fantasy. But back in the 80s, Von Sydow’s turns in the likes of Flash Gordon,...

“God, they don’t make them like me anymore,” Max von Sydow tells Mathieu Amalric, playing his son, in Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and there’s not a truer line in the film.

It takes some kind of actor to be able to play both Jesus and Satan (with Ming the Merciless thrown in for good measure), but von Sydow was such a man. Imposingly tall, entirely credible as royalty and peasant, at ease in several languages and a walking definition of gravitas, the Swedish actor, who died over the weekend at 90, provided ...