News

Paris-based About Premium Content (Apc) has acquired international rights to the Norwegian drama “Requiem for Selina,” due to bow at Lille’s Series Mania International Panorama competition program March 24.

A hot property on the pre-sales market, the youth-oriented TV show from “Skam” commissioner Nrk has already secured major distribution deals with AMC Networks International Southern Europe for Spain and Portugal, Dr for Denmark, Yle for Finland and RÚV for Iceland, while the domestic premiere on the Norwegian pubcaster is set for March 15.

Oslo-based creative studio Anti’s head of production Ingunn Rensel and head of development Emmeline Berglund are serving as producer and creator/co-writer respectively. Joining them are helmers Sebastian Kåss (credited for Anti’s earlier hit YA show “Heartbeat”) and Rikke Gregersen (“Ida Takes Charge”).

Toplining the cast are Elli Müller Osborne, Veslemøy Mørkrid Pål Sverre Hagen, Jon Øigarden as well as newcomer Oliver Sletvold Andersen.

Inspired by...

Sales agency Sola Media has closed multiple pre-sales deals for the CGI animated film “A Mouse Hunt for Christmas.” It will present new footage at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Sola has sold the film to more than 40 territories including Poland (Best Film), Hungary (Ads), Baltics (Acme), Former Yugoslavia (Karantanija Cinemas), Greece (Tanweer), Switzerland (Elite), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Foxx Media). The film will be released in Scandinavia by Nordisk Film on Nov. 7, and it will be released by Capelight Pictures in Germany on Nov. 13. Sola will sell remaining territories at the EFM.

The film centers around a family of mice who are busy with holiday preparations in their cozy countryside home — until a human city family arrives, looking for a peaceful escape from their daily life. An epic power struggle between mice and humans begins.

“With its humor and clever plot, the film evokes the charm of holiday...

The list of artists who will be saluting Patti Smith at an upcoming tribute show in New York just grew longer.

The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, director Jim Jarmusch, former Bangles frontperson Susanna Hoffs, Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, and New York rocker Jesse Malin have been added to an already eclectic lineup of singers and musicians partaking in “People Have the Power: Celebrating the Music of Patti Smith” at Carnegie Hall on March 26.

The concert, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Smith’s classic Horses album, was first announced last November.

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service has bought “The Ugly Stepsister,” a sinister twist on the classic Cinderella story, ahead of the film’s world premiere at Sundance.

The movie, which is slated to open the Midnight Section in Park City, was picked up by Shudder for North American, U.K., and Anz rights. Memento International represents the film.

“The Ugly Stepsister” marks the feature debut from Norwegian writer and director Emilie Blichfeldt. It stars newcomer Lea Myren, along with Thea Sofie Loch Næss (“The Last Kingdom”) and Ane Dahl Torp (“The Wave”). Shudder will release the film in 2025.

“The Ugly Stepsister” follows Elvira as she prepares to earn the prince’s affection at any cost. In a kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira will compete with the beautiful and enchanting Agnes to become the belle of the ball.

“I am beyond thrilled to bring ‘The Ugly Stepsister...

Virginia Carter, the feminist activist who was hired by Norman Lear to advise him on social issues and marginalized groups, providing insight the famed TV producer would use for plotlines and characterizations in his provocative shows, has died. She was 87.

Carter died Oct. 17 of natural causes at her home in Redondo Beach, documentary filmmaker Martha Wheelock, a longtime friend, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Carter had spent 11 years as a research physicist for the Los Angeles-based Aerospace Corp., a think tank for the U.S. government, and was president of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women when she was hired by Lear’s Embassy Television as director of creative affairs in 1973. (Lear’s then-wife, Frances, had met Carter at Now and brought her to his attention.)

Even though Lear had big hits at the time with CBS’ All in the Family and Maude, the Canadian-born Carter had never heard of him.

Beta Cinema has taken international sales rights for “Let It Rain,” the new film by Oscar-nominated director Hannes Holm (“A Man Called Ove”), starring Robert Gustafsson, star of the box office hit “The 100-Year-Old Man.”

Shooting wrapped at the end of September and Beta Cinema will present first materials at next month’s American Film Market.

The story is set in a small town in Southern Sweden, where grumpy widower Ingmar lives a regimented life. Ever since his wife passed away a few years ago, his relationship with his daughter Erika has deteriorated. Apart from his daughter, the only other things left in his life are his annoying, divorced neighbor Burman and his late wife’s roses.

As the hottest and driest summer in living memory stretches on, everyone waits for rain that never seems to come. But through what might be a miracle or sheer coincidence, Ingmar finds himself...

Exclusive: Troian Bellisario (Pretty Little Liars) and Thomas Lennon (Unfrosted) have joined Weekend at the End of the World, an indie horror comedy co-written and directed by Gille Klabin.

The pair stars alongside the previously announced Cameron Fife and Clay Elliott. Details as to their roles are under wraps.

Recently wrapping production in Los Angeles, Weekend follows best friends Karl (Elliott) and Miles (Fife), who find themselves in a secluded cabin in the woods with what they think is an opportunity to get rich, with the only thing standing in their way being the end of the world.

The project marks the second outing for Gille Kalbin as director following the release of sci-fi thriller The Wave, starring Justin Long. Klabin, Elliott, and Spencer McCurnin wrote the script, with Hero Moves and June Street Productions producing.

Best known for starring on teen drama Pretty Little Liars, Bellisario’s feature credits...

Marking 20 years since one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, National Geographic will premiere Tsunami: Race Against Time, a four-part documentary series providing a 360-degree view into the heart-stopping events of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that took over 225,000 lives.

From executive producers Tanya Winston and Danny Horan of multiple award-winning Blast Films and directed by Daniel Bogado, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker of Nat Geo’s 9/11: One Day In America, the series weaves newly discovered footage with never-before-heard personal accounts from survivors, scientists, journalists and fearless rescuers who were all witnesses to the tragic event.

Tsunami: Race Against Time premieres across two nights, beginning Nov. 24 at 9/8c on National Geographic with two back-to-back episodes. All episodes will stream Nov. 25 on Disney+ and Hulu.

Three years in the making, producers unearthed approximately 300 hours of archival footage, including many never-before-seen moments, from around the world. They conducted interviews with over 100 individuals, some...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for Bel-Air season 3.

The reimagined version of the 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Bel-Air, has a notable, diverse soundtrack that adds to the story, characters, and atmosphere. Bel-Air takes the characters viewers know and love from the Will Smith original series and gives them a twist in a darker, grittier, more dramatic version of Fresh Prince. Both shows have the same basic premise, but Bel-Air made multiple changes to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Bel-Air season 3 follows Will, Carlton, the rest of the Banks family, and their friends as they go on their first summer vacation since Will moved to Bel Air. This provides new energy, as the characters have a fun summer away from school, but that doesnt mean Bel-Air season 3 is without drama. Bel-Air season 2 ended with the DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith song, Summertime, setting the stage for...

TrustNordisk has boarded international sales on Eirik Svensson’s Africa-set drama Safe House, starring Sick Of Myself and Ninjababy star Kristine Kujath Thorp.

Based on real events, the film depicts 15 hours at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Bangui, Central African Republic on Christmas Eve 2013, when a Muslim man being persecuted by a mob entered the hospital.

Filming wrapped in South Africa in March, with dialogue on the film predominantly in English with elements of Norwegian, French and Sango, the national language of the Central African Republic. TrustNordisk will present the title and a promo to buyers at this month’s Cannes market.

Exclusive: The English-language adaptation of Momo, one of the best-loved fantasy books by The Neverending Story writer Michael Ende, has set a buzzy cast, with Alexa Goodall (A Gentleman In Moscow) taking the lead role of the young orphan girl Momo.

The main cast is completed by Araloyin Oshunremi, Kim Bodnia, Claes Bang (The Square), Laura Haddock, Jennifer Amaka Peterson (The Sandhamn Murders), David Schütter (Charlie’s Angels) and Martin Freeman.

Deadline can also reveal an exclusive first look of Goodall in Momo, which is currently filming in Croatia and Slovenia.

The film is produced by prolific German producer Christian Becker and written and directed by bilingual writer-director Christian Ditter (How To Be Single), who both snagged rights to the popular novel a few years ago and an under-the-radar deal.

The fairy tale-inspired horror film Cinderella’s Revenge just reached theatres a few days ago and another Cinderella horror film called Cinderella’s Curse is right around the corner. Now we can add a third project to the list of movies that put a horror twist on the classic fairy tale: director Emilie Blichfeldt’s feature debut The Ugly Stepsister.

Variety reports that Memento International will be presenting this horror comedy to potential distributors at the upcoming Cannes Film Market. The film is said to be a gory, daring, and unexpected take on the world-famous tale, seen through the eyes of the Cinderella’s stepsister, Elvira. The story follows Elvira as she battles to compete with her insanely beautiful stepsister in a kingdom where beauty is a brutal business. She will go to any lengths to catch the prince’s eye.

Blichfeldt told Variety that she “immediately identified (with Elvira) after rediscovering...

Memento International has boarded “The Ugly Stepsister,” the ambitious feature debut of Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt. The company will kick off sales at this year’s Cannes.

Combining comedy and horror, the film is a daring and unexpected take on the world-famous tale, seen through the eyes of the Cinderella’s stepsister, Elvira.

The gory film follows Elvira as she battles to compete with her insanely beautiful stepsister in a kingdom where beauty is a brutal business. She will go to any lengths to catch the prince’s eye.

“The Ugly Stepsister” is produced by Maria Ekerhovd in Norway for Mer Film, and is co-produced by Lizette Jonjic for Zentropa Sweden (“Another Round”), Mariusz Włodarski for Poland’s Lava Films (“The Girl With The Needle”), Theis Nørgaard for Denmark’s Motor (“The Dead Don’t Hurt”), Zefyr and Film i Väst. With support from the Norwegian Film Institute, the Polish Cash...

Picture Tree Intl. has boarded international sales for Constantin Film’s comedy fantasy blockbuster “Chantal and the Magic Kingdom,” which will receive its market premiere in Cannes.

The film has been No. 1 on Germany’s box office charts for four consecutive weeks since its release on March 28, and reached more than 2 million admissions, with a gross of $22.5 million.

“Chantal” is the latest German-language hit from writer-director Bora Dagtekin and producer Lena Schömann. The duo previously delivered “Turkish for Beginners,” the “Fuck You Goehte” franchise and the German remake of “Perfect Strangers,” which have collectively grossed more than $300 million worldwide.

In “Chantal,” the beloved “Fuck You Goehte” character Chantal and her best friend Zeynep are sent on a fantasy adventure into the world of fairytales with a comedic and contemporary twist.

Chantal, an influencer without followers, and Zeynep stumble into the fairytale world through an ancient magic mirror, which they mistake for a social media gimmick.

Fremantle and Fabula have renewed their first-look partnership with an agreement they say will result in them working even more closely to develop a fresh slate of original dramas and films.

Under the accord, Fremantle’s international sales wing, Fmi, will distribute the drama projects worldwide.

Global production and distribution company Fremantle and Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Santiago, Chile-based banner Fabula struck their original first-look deal in 2019.

Under the accord, Fabula has produced prize-winning series La Jauría and Señorita 89 as well as the upcoming Midnight Family for Apple TV+, a 10-episode medical drama inspired by the award-winning documentary of the same name.

On the feature film front, Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebastián Lelio’s film musical The Wave, in partnership with Participant Media.

The drama tells the story of the mass university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “Feminist May” in...

Fremantle has renewed its first-look deal with Fabula, the production company set up by Pablo Larraín and his producer brother Juan de Dios Larraín. According to the companies, the new partnership will see the two work more closely together, developing a slate of original dramas and films, which Fremantle’s international sales wing Fmi will distribute worldwide.

Under the original first-look partnership, signed in 2019, Fabula produced the award-winning series “La Jauría” and “Señorita 89” and the upcoming “Midnight Family” for Apple TV+, a 10-episode medical drama inspired by the award-winning documentary of the same name.

Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebabstián Lelio’s film musical “The Wave,” in partnership with Participant Media. “The Wave” tells the story of the mass protests that took place during the so-called “feminist May” in 2018, which created an iconic moment in the Chilean consciousness and reverberated across the region.

Later this year,...

Fremantle has renewed its first-look deal with Fabula, the Chilean production company run by acclaimed director Pablo Larrain and brother Juan de Dios Larrain.

Fabula’s filmography includes Larrain’s Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman and the Oscar-nominated Jackie as well as Spencer and El Conde.

The agreement will see Fremantle and Fabula continue to work together with Fremantle’s CEO, global drama, Christian Vesper and Seb Shorr, COO, global drama, to develop a slate of original films and TV dramas. Fremantle’s international sales wing, Fmi, will handle distribution on all the small-screen projects.

Upcoming features produced under the Fabula-Fremantle deal, first inked in 2019, include Larrain’s Maria, a biopic of opera star Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, produced together with Fremantle and Komplizen Film; and Sebabstián Lelio’s feminist protest musical The Wave, made in partnership with Participant Media.

On the TV side, Fabula has produced the Spanish-language thriller...

Fremantle has renewed its first-look partnership with Chilean production company Fabula in a deal that will see the companies develop a slate of original dramas and films. Fremantle’s international sales wing, Fmi, will distribute the drama projects worldwide.

Fabula and Fremantle have just wrapped production on Sebabstián Lelio’s film musical The Wave, in partnership with Participant Media, which tells the story of the mass protests and university rallies that took place during Chile’s so-called “feminist May” in 2018.

Later this year they will launch Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, produced alongside Fremantle and Germany’s Komplizen Film.

In late January, Teni, the Nigerian Afrobeats star, told me the meaning of “Bourdillon,” a standout track I had received on a draft of her latest album, Tears of the Sun. “Bourdillon is a wealthy place in Ikoyi, where wealthy people stay,” she said of the Lagos neighborhood. We were dining at a local Caribbean restaurant in another relatively wealthy neighborhood: Midtown Atlanta. “So, I’m just saying on this song that from the strip club to Bourdillon — from Bourdillon to the strip club,” she explained.

When Tears of the Sun was released on Nov.

Jiyeong Hong came to Tallinn to present her latest feature film “The Waves, The Sound, and Two Lovers In The Middle Of…” in the competition programme Rebels With a Cause. Unique in style and technique, the film stood out as one of the artistically most accomplished titles in this year's selection.

Asian Movie Pulse met the director shortly after the world premiere in Tallinn, to discuss her love of distorted images, dance as a form of protest and ‘otherness'

Could you tell us something about your background?

I have a degree in fine arts and philosophy, but I am not sure if that affected my film style. At the same time, I love to make experimental films which are all queer-themed. I am not trying to re-invent the wheel in terms of experimental style or creating something so far unseen but I use my ideas to speak about queer themes...

BBC Acquires Aussie Spin-Off Of ‘Death In Paradise’

The BBC will air Return to Paradise, an Australia-set spin-off of the long-running series Death in Paradise. Filming next year, the six-part series will be produced by BBC Studios Productions Australia alongside Death in Pardise maker Red Planet Pictures for the ABC, in association with the BBC. Set in the idyllic, beachside hamlet of Dolphin Cove,the series will be a “gripping, twisting and fiendishly clever murder mysteries – all against the spectacular backdrop of the Australian coastal landscape.” The plot follows Australian ex-pat Mackenzie Clarke, the seemingly golden girl of the London Metropolitan police force, who is suddenly forced to up sticks and move back to her childhood home of Dolphin Cove. When a murder takes place in Dolphin Cove, Mack can’t help but put her inspired detective brilliance to good use. The series is created and executive produced by Peter Mattessi,...

Los Angeles, CA – Ronnie Gene Blevins has teamed up with Brendan Reynolds to launch “Love That Guy!” a new podcast show that celebrates the journeymen actors. The ones that are seen on film and television that make us say, “Hey… Love That Guy!”

The series launched with episode 1 in February of 2023, with Ronnie and Brendan sitting down to talk with star Steven Ogg. In March, episode 2 aired with star Timothy V. Murphy, Episode 3 aired with star Pat Healy, and Episode 4 aired with star Theo Rossi.

The “Love That Guy” podcast series will air every other Friday at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Upcoming guests in the next two weeks include Nick Stahl and C. Thomas Howell. Airing on Apple Podcasts and most other podcast platforms: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/love-that-guy/id1672554618

Ronnie Gene Blevins starred in “Death in Texas” with Bruce Dern, “The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It,...

Tom Verlaine, the frontman of the band Television, which heavily influenced the New York punk rock scene in the 1970s, has died. He was 73.

The Hollywood Reporter learned on Saturday that the guitarist and songwriter died following a short illness in New York City, surrounded by close friends.

Born in New Jersey on Dec. 13, 1949, by the name of Thomas Miller, Verlaine grew up during most of his childhood in Wilmington, Delaware. Around five years after he moved to New York City in 1968, the musician founded the band Television in 1973 with Richard Hell, Billy Ficca and Richard Lloyd. Fred Smith was brought in after Hell departed the band two years later.

After eventually signing with Elektra Records, the band released its debut album, Marquee Moon, in early 1977. While the album got the attention of critics, it didn’t bode well for American audiences, but it did reach the charts in the U.

The Norwegian creature feature Troll will be released through the Netflix streaming service tomorrow, December 1st, and Netflix has decided to remind us of Troll‘s imminent arrival by unveiling a new poster for the movie! You can check it out at the bottom of this article.

Directed by Roar Uthaug – whose previous credits include Cold Prey, The Wave, and the Alicia Vikander version of Tomb Raider – Troll has the following synopsis:

Deep inside the mountain of Dovre, something gigantic awakens after being trapped for a thousand years. Destroying everything in its path, the creature is fast approaching the capital of Norway. But how do you stop something you thought only existed in Norwegian folklore?

When Troll was first announced, Uthaug said the film is “an idea that has been developing in the back of my mind for over 20 years. To finally be able to realize it with the enthusiastic...

Mountains will move in Netflix‘s Troll, a Norwegian monster movie from Roar Uthaug (The Wave, Tomb Raider) that’s coming exclusively to Netflix tomorrow, December 1, 2022.

While you wait, get a good look at the film’s Troll with a new poster below.

In Troll, “When an ancient troll is awakened in a Norwegian mountain, a rag-tag group of heroes must come together to try and stop it from wreaking deadly havoc.”

Here’s a longer plot synopsis from Netflix…

“Deep inside the mountain of Dovre, something gigantic awakens after being trapped for a thousand years. Destroying everything in its path, the creature is fast approaching the capital of Norway. But how do you stop something you thought only existed in Norwegian folklore?”

Espen Aukan wrote the screenplay for Troll.

Marie Wilmann, Kim Falck, Mads Sjøgård Pettersen, and Gard Eidsvold star. Producers include Espen Horn and Kristian Strand Sinkerud at Motion Blur.

The winter holidays are rapidly bearing down upon us, so what better way to get into the festive spirit than by streaming, er, Denis Villeneuve's dramatic thriller "Prisoners"? Luckily, for those who are not in the mood to watch Hugh Jackman brutalize Paul Dano for two-and-a-half hours, there are plenty of alternate options to choose from on Netflix this December.

In keeping with tradition, the final month of 2022 will see an eclectic mix of genre films and TV series make their way onto the streamer, along with more than a few awards season hopefuls. The latter group's ranks include a new screen take on D.H. Lawrence's classic erotic novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and a movie adaptation of "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical." Then there are the latest films from multi-hyphenates Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Noah Baumbach ("White Noise"), on top of a pair of much-buzzed-about director-driven features that we will get to later.

Stars: Kristine Kujath Thorp, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Anders Baasmo, Bjørn Floberg, Anneke von der Lippe, Ane Skumsvoll, Cengiz Al, Nils Elias Olsen | Written by Harald Rosenløw-Eeg Lars Gudmestad | Directed by John Andreas Andersen

The Burning Sea is a Norwegian film with an interesting, albeit depressing conceit…

In 1969, the Norwegian government announces their discovery of one of the world’s largest oil fields in the neighbouring North Sea, launching a prosperous period of offshore drilling. Fifty years later, the environmental consequences begin to manifest – a crack has opened on the ocean floor, causing a rig to collapse. A team of researchers, including submarine operator Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp), rushes in to search for the missing and assess the cause of the damage. But what they discover is that this is just the start of a possible apocalyptic catastrophe. As rigs are evacuated, Sofia’s partner Stian (Henrik Bjelland) becomes trapped in the depths of the sea,...

Mildly eco-catastrophising offering, in which pasty boiler-suited characters try to cope with liquid disaster

The Norwegian production company that made contemporary disaster films The Wave, from 2015 and, three years later, The Quake, is back with another commercial blend of visual effects, melodrama and mildly didactic but not-too-preachy eco-catastrophising. This time it’s a story about oil rigs going wrong in the North Sea and creating a massive spill – but more importantly, for the purposes of the drama, endangering the life of scientist-protagonist Sofia’s boyfriend Stian (Henrik Bjelland), and thus threatening to leave a little boy named Odin (Nils Elias Olsen) fatherless. The poor kid spends most of the film sitting around a waiting room being starred at furtively by worried adults, seemingly more anxious about having to deal with telling him his dad is dead than with the fact that they’re causing a massive environmental disaster that will affect millions.

Norwegian disaster movies The Wave and The Quake marked out an interesting middle ground in the genre. They eschewed the tiny, insular, approach of something like Right At Your Door, but didn’t quite have the budget to compete with the vast scale of the likes of Roland Emmerich’s CGI choked productions, but they turned their limitations very much to their advantage. Where Emmerich and others in Hollywood tend to favour spectacle over emotion, these films leaned in to character, and deployed their limited but high quality effects to make us feel the peril and therefore identify with the well drawn characters.

The Burning Sea, to my slight disappointment, doesn’t follow Kristoffer Joner’s character into yet another disaster, as if he were John McClane but it was nature, rather than terrorists, repeatedly trying to kill him. Instead, the film focuses on Sofia (Kristine Kujath Thorp), a robot...

Legacy artists need exit strategies. These days, with pandemic disruptions closing off lucrative live-performance opportunities, a lot of the biggest names in rock and pop history have taken headline-grabbing catalog buyouts of their sizable discographies for eight- to nine-figure sums. But departing the entertainment industry isn’t solely about cashing out; it’s also about leaving one’s fans on the best possible terms, ensuring that those who supported you all those years aren’t left unsatisfied. So over this past weekend, when Daddy Yankee formally announced his retirement from music,...

The “Encanto” song “Dos Oruguitas” and the music supervision of “Zola,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and “tick, tick…Boom!” have been honored at the 12th annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, which took place in a virtual ceremony on Saturday evening.

The music supervisors of “Zola,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and “tick, tick…Boom!” won for the best supervision of a film at four different budget levels. Songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto” won in the Best Song Written and/or Recorded for a Film category, the only GMA category that corresponds to an Oscar music category.

Over the six years in which the guild has been giving out that award, the winner has gone on to take the Oscar only twice, with “City of Stars” from “La La Land” and “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born.

Two of the five Oscar nominees for Best Sound won at the Golden Reel Awards bestowed by the Motion Picture Sound Editors (Mpse) on March 13 . The Oscar frontrunner, “Dune,” picked up the prize for sound effects and foley while “West Side Story” danced off with the music award. The dialogue/Adr award went to “Nightmare Alley,” which had been snubbed by the sound branch of the academy.

Two of the other Oscar nominees — “Belfast” and “No Time to Die” — vied in sound effects/foley while the fifth contender, “The Power of the Dog,” was vying in dialogue/Adr.

The upcoming Oscars mark the second year for the new Best Sound category, which combines Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. There can be up to six nominees from a film: one production sound mixer, two supervising sound editors and three re-recording mixers. Last year, “Sound of Metal” won this award...

The Oscar frontrunner for Best Sound, “Dune,” contends in three of the six film categories at Sunday’s Golden Reel Awards bestowed by the Motion Picture Sound Editors (Mpse). It is tipped to prevail in two of these races: dialogue/Adr and sound effects/foley. “Dune” is expected to lost its other bid, for music, to one of its Oscar rivals: “West Side Story” is predicted to win that race, which marks its only nomination here.

Two of the other Oscar nominees — “Belfast” and “No Time to Die” — vie in sound effects/foley while the fifth contender, “The Power of the Dog,” is vying in dialogue/adr.

The upcoming Oscars mark the second year for the new Best Sound category, which combines Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. There can be up to six nominees from a film: one production sound mixer, two supervising sound editors and three re-recording mixers.

Exclusive: Leonine Studios will handle world sales for Odeon Fiction’s new high-end German-language spy series Bonn.

The six-part political-thriller, which follows Odeon’s AMC+ series Spy City with Dominic Cooper, recounts the rise of Germany’s Federal Republic after the terror of World War II. It focuses on a young woman who struggles to find her own place in a male-dominated society in the 1950s and the political tug-of-war between German’s two rival intelligence services.

The acting ensemble comprises Mercedes Müller (Goodbye Berlin) in the lead role of Toni, Max Riemelt (Matrix 4), Sebastian Blomberg (The People Vs. Fritz Bauer), Juergen Maurer (Perfume), Katharina Marie Schubert (A Gift From The Gods), Inga Busch (I’m Your Man), Luise von Finckh (Deutschland 89), Julius Feldmeier (Babylon Berlin) and Johanna Gastdorf (The Wave).

Based on an idea by Gerrit Hermans, the series heralds from director and head writer Claudia Garde (The Window...

Exclusive: German actor August Diehl, whose credits include The Young Karl Marx, Inglourious Basterds and A Hidden Life, has signed on to play the lead role in big-budget Russian drama Woland.

The $15M project is a loose adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic novel The Master and Margarita, one of the most read books in Russia’s history. Michael Lockshin (Silver Skates) is directing from a screenplay by Roman Kantor and Michael Lockshinbased.

Starring alongside Diehl are Yulia Snigir and Evgeniy Tsyganov. Set in Moscow in the 1930s, the film will weave together the novel’s narrative with Bulgakov’s own history in Russia. It will follow a promising young writer who at the height of his career finds himself in the middle of a scandal of both literary and political nature – his new novel is being crushed by harsh idealistic critics, who say that his vivid depiction of Christ...

"I've wanted to tell a story about acting for a very long time... About the place where you end, and the character begins. About truth... and illusion." How do you put together an entire life into one film? How do you tell that story and make it meaningful? Val is a documentary about the actor Val Kilmer, made by Val and his son Jack Kilmer, and co-directed by Ting Poo & Leo Scott. After an extensive acting career, Val went quiet. Now we know that has spent the last few years fighting and then recovering from throat cancer, but is now left with a hole in his throat and a completely different voice due to the chemotherapy. So, as he says in the film, "now that it's more difficult to speak, I want to tell my story more than ever. A story about my life." And that's exactly what we get.

Judging by the roles which made him one of America’s most famous movie stars, you’d be forgiven for not knowing Val Kilmer was also the youngest actor ever accepted into prestige New York drama school Juilliard. A budding playwright and Shakespearean actor when young, Kilmer’s loftier ideas about the world never quite became clear in the generally schlocky parts he became famous for. He knows this.

Val is in large part an attempt by Kilmer to correct the record, even if he’s now too frail to fully explore the side of acting which first enticed him. He handed over hundreds of hours of home movie footage to directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo, insisting the finished product play at the Cannes Film Festival.

Well, he got that wish. Val has been met with a positive reception and has become an unlikely hot ticket, a bit like...

Better late than never. After the traditional Cannes Film Festival was cancelled last year due to Covid, the glitzy event is back with Covid protocols in order. Instead of taking place in May, the 74th annual gala opened on July 6 and will continue through July 17th at the glamorous French resort town.

Spike Lee, who was supposed to be jury head last year, was asked to take up the reigns of this edition. And he appeared on the legendary red carpet decked out in a striking pink ensemble. The festival opened with the Leos Carax’ offbeat musical “Annette” featuring music by the Sparks Brother and Val Kilmer’s self-titled documentary “Val,” which earned kudos and a long-standing ovation. Other films premiering at the festival including Sean Penn’s “Flag Day,” Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Asghar Farhadi’s “The Hero” and Francois Ozon’s “Everything Went Fine.”

Besides screening and selling movies,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Bertrand Mandico's After Blue (Paradis sale).The lineup for the 2021 Locarno International Film Festival includes Piazza Grande screenings of Michael Mann's Heat and Gaspar Noé's Vortex, and the latest by by Bertrand Mandico, Axelle Ropert, Abel Ferrara, Salomé Lamas and more.The great filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr. has passed on at age 85. His incredible filmography includes Babo 73 (1964), Sweet Smell of Sex (1965), Chafed Elbows (1966), No More Excuses (1968), Putney Swope (1969), Pound (1970), and Greaser's Palace (1972).In an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast, Quentin Tarantino announced that he has purchased Los Angeles' Vista Theatre, emphasizing that though the theatre will screen both new and old movies, it will be "only film [...] the best prints." Screenwriter and filmmaker Clare Peploe has died. Though best known for her screenplays for Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged and La Luna,...

While Leos Carax’s “Annette” set the tone for the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, it was Jodie Foster who stole the show early on Wednesday.

Foster was presented with an honorary Palme D’Or at the opening night ceremony, in which Pedro Almodóvar, Foster, “Parasite” director Bong Joon-Ho and jury president Spike Lee each declared (in their own languages) the Cannes Film Festival “open.” But if you needed more of a reminder that Foster can really do it all, she conducted her press conference interview on Wednesday almost entirely in French.

In an interview with Bfmtv, Foster explained that being at Cannes as a young girl for “Taxi Driver” in 1976 brought back some memories of how she used her ability to speak French as a way of making a connection.

“They were afraid because everyone said that the film was too violent, there were criticisms, so they...

It is the actor’s great struggle to take their work seriously without taking themselves seriously. To selectively activate the mechanisms of emotion in order to embody credible human behavior or an aestheticized alternative is no small task, requiring study, training, and respect. Nonetheless, the person forging through this intimate, complex process must bear in mind the underlying absurdity that they are an adult being paid, on some charmed occasions in staggering sums, to play make-believe.

Continue reading ‘Val’: Val Kilmer’s Life As A Misunderstood Artist Is Showcased In This Wholly Conventional Bio-Doc [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

In “Val,” the actor Val Kilmer, now in his early 60s, appears before us as a broken-down relic of himself. His face, once beaming and chiseled, with that smile that resembled a bite, now looks soggy and morose, with dark eyebrows that give him an oddly Nixonian cast. More dramatically, he speaks in a thin robotic rasp, the result of a procedure performed on his trachea to heal the throat cancer that was diagnosed in 2015. Kilmer beat the cancer but was left with that scratchy voice-box drone, which takes a bit of getting used to. Yet once you do get used to it, you realize he’s very much the same fellow — or, at least, the older, wiser, more melancholy version. Kilmer used to talk quite fast; that was part of his comic sauvity in films like “Real Genius” — that this dude who looked like a sun god spoke like a geek in overdrive.

Amazon Studios and A24’s documentary Val, about the life and career of actor Val Kilmer, just released its official trailer. The documentary boasts to have been “more than 40 years in the making” and features tons of unseen footage from Kilmer’s personal recordings. The actor brought his camera almost everywhere he went, and the trailer shows […]

The post ‘Val’ Trailer: Val Kilmer Gets a Documentary Decades in the Making appeared first on /Film.

As its title suggests, Val is a first-person chronicle, and one that doesn’t stand on ceremony. That’s not merely because directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo capture the musings of their subject, Val Kilmer, with a sense of unguarded intimacy, but because much of the material they’ve gathered was shot by Kilmer himself. The documentary embraces his many facets: movie star, character actor, cancer survivor, visual artist, writer, spiritual warrior, jokester, proud parent. To that list it adds another crucial accomplishment, the very reason the film exists: cinematographer.

A devoted early adopter in an era of fast-changing technology, Kilmer has been chronicling ...

Lineup and Pre-Festival Announcements and News

Cannes Film Festival 2021 Lineup: Gaspar Noé, Sean Baker, Wes Anderson, and More

Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2021 Lineup Includes Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir Part II’ and More

Cannes Critics’ Week Unveils 2021 Lineup: 13 World Premieres, No U.S. Directors

Spike Lee’s Cannes 2021 Jury: Song Kang-Ho, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, and More

Spike Lee Makes History as Cannes Film Festival 2021 Jury President

Cannes Film Festival Pushed to July 2021

Pre-Festival Analysis

Cannes 2021 Lineup: 10 Surprises and Snubs, from Sean Penn to Park Chan-wook

Cannes Remains Male-Dominated, Don’t Let the Record Number of 2021 Female Filmmakers Fool You

Cannes 2021: 12 Most Anticipated Films Playing at This Year’s Festival

10 Films That Might Sell Big at the Cannes Market, from Natalie Portman to Zoe Kravitz’s ‘Pussy Island’

Reviews

‘Annette’ Review: Adam Driver Is a Deranged Force of Nature in Carax’s Mind-Blowing Musical Fantasia

‘Ahed’s Knee’ Review: An Israeli...

For over 40 years Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers, to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.

Amazon Studios will release Val in theaters July 23rd, 2021 and on Prime Video August 6th, 2021.

Directed by Leo Scott & Ting Poo, watch the brand new trailer.

While the actor has been in Top Gun, Wonderland and gave audiences the amazing performance of Doc Holliday in Tombstone, one of my favorite roles of Kilmer’s will forever be in Martha Coolidge’s 1985 comedy,...

"Val" is the new Amazon Studios original documentary feature directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo, following the life and career of actor Val Kilmer, screening in a limited release July 23, 2021, followed by streaming on Prime Video, August 6, 2021:

"...the new film includes footage of Kilmer...

"...shot by himself throughout his career, childhood and home movies..."

Click the images to enlarge...

The day before its Cannes Film Festival premiere, Amazon Studios released the trailer for “Val,” a documentary about the life and career of actor Val Kilmer.

“My name is Val Kilmer; I’m an actor,” a narrator says in the trailer. “I’ve lived a magical life and captured quite a bit of it. I was the first guy I knew to own a video camera.”

Through Kilmer’s own documentation, audiences will get a first-hand account of the actor’s journey from making 16 mm home movies with his brother to performing in iconic roles for blockbusters like “Top Gun,” “Batman Forever,” “Tombstone” and “The Doors.” Perhaps more revelatory will be a behind-the-scenes look at Kilmer’s life between films, as seen in moments in the trailer when he’s paling around with Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon. Pulling from thousands of hours of footage, the film spans four decades.

In the trailer for his feature documentary “Val,” “Top Gun” and “Batman” actor Val Kilmer talks candidly about his slow recovery from treatment for throat cancer. But with his ability to speak hindered, he uses hundreds of hours of home movie footage that he’s shot across decades in order to tell his full story.

“I’m still recovering and it is difficult to talk and to be understood,” Kilmer says in the trailer, including at one point speaking through a voice box. “But I want to tell my story more than ever.”

“Val” is a feature documentary from A24 that will be released by Amazon, and the film shows how throughout his career he turned his home movie camera on at all times and catalogued all his material across years, saying that he was one of the first people he knew to own a home video camera. He even...

If, initially, I am not quite sure what to do with the knowledge that Val Kilmer has “amassed thousands of hours of footage” shot over 40 years, my being nonplussed is part and parcel of his oddball status—this is a guy whose latter-day passion project is a self-penned one-man show on Mark Twain. Though we mix and match iconic roles with a sad awareness of his time in the VOD trenches, Kilmer remains all the more sui generis for that combination.

Needless to say a documentary has emerged from it: Val, which premieres at the new, auteur-focused Cannes Premiere sidebar. Kilmer is, I suppose, the auteur in question, though said documentary is finally credited to Leo Scott and Ting Poo, whose work editing the decades of material with Tyler Pharo is on display in a first trailer. All looks fascinating and a worthwhile summation of this inscrutable career; better yet...