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Canadian actor William Shatner began his professional career in the early 1950s, appearing in an obscure film called "The Butler's Night Off." He worked in theaters, both as a manager and as an actor, in Montreal and Ottawa, and acted in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the mid-1950s. He moved to the United States shortly thereafter to pursue a Broadway career, and made ends meet by appearing on an episode of the Canadian version of "The Howdy Doody Show." Shatner racked up dozens of credits in film and on TV throughout the '50s and '60s, appearing in adaptations of "The Brother Karamazov" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" and on notable programs like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone." In 1965, Shatner starred in "Incubus," the only feature film ever made in Esperanto. 

Then, in 1966, Shatner landed the lead role in a new science fiction series called "Star Trek.

While last year’s strikes created a somewhat subdued energy on the Lido with very few talent able to be present, this year’s 2024 Venice Film Festival proved to hot and steamy. And we’re not just talking about the excessive heat movie stars and fan alike were subjected to. Films like Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” and Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burrough’s short novel “Queer” aroused audience interest with career-best performances from Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and highly revealing sexual interplay. However it was Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” that took home the coveted Golden Lion, marking the first time the filmmaker has won a top prize at any major festival throughout his career.

Brady Corbet returned to the Palazzo del Cinema with his four-hour post-wwii epic “The Brutalist,” which screened to rave reception and earned the director the Silver Lion,...

Meta has acquired Impulse: Playing With Reality, an interactive mixed-reality documentary exploring Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd) voiced by Tilda Swinton. The project, from co-directors May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy, will premiere at the 2024 Venice Immersive program of the 81st Venice International Film Festival.

The project draws from more than 100 hours of interviews with individuals on the severe end of the Adhd spectrum, using the mixed reality format to give viewers a sense of what it feels like to live with the condition.

Impulse is the second installment in the “Playing With Reality” series from U.K. producer Anagram, co-produced by Floréal & France Télévisions, which aims to shed light on mental health conditions through immersive storytelling.

Swinton also narrated the first project in the series, Abdalla and Murphy’s 2021 VR work Goliath, an exploration of one man’s experience of schizophrenia, which went on to win the Grand Jury...

Tilda Swinton is returning to the Venice Immersive program for the next installment of festival award-winning “Playing With Reality” VR documentaries.

The Academy Award winner will narrate “Impulse,” part of producer Anagram’s “Playing With Reality” collection. Swinton previously narrated 2021’s “Playing With Reality” VR film “Goliath,” which explored one man’s experience of psychosis. The VR experience went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work and was later nominated for the News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovation category.

“Impulse: Playing with Reality” is an interactive mixed reality documentary co-directed by May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy. The project explores Adhd through the stories of four people coming to terms with the decisions that have chartered their lives.

“We are so excited to welcome Tilda Swinton back to our ‘Playing with Reality’ collection for ‘Impulse,'” May Abdalla co-director said. “Tilda...

Recasting happens all the time. Tragedy sometimes strikes, like in the case of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the "Harry Potter" series, where Michael Gambon assumed the role following the passing of the original performer, Richard Harris. Oftentimes, recasting is a result of scheduling conflicts, like when "May December" breakout star Charles Melton took over the role of Reggie Mantle on "Riverdale" due to original actor Ross Butler's scheduling conflicts with "13 Reasons Why." And sometimes a character is recast simply because they weren't right for the role, as was famously the case with Eric Stoltz, who was replaced by Michael J. Fox after six weeks of shooting "Back to the Future."

In all of these instances, fans were well aware of the recastings as they happened, but once a person has been playing a role long enough, audiences sometimes forget they were ever recast in the first place. This...

Albert S. Ruddy, who earned two Best Picture Oscars for producing The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby and co-created TV shows including Walker, Texas Ranger and Hogan’s Heroes, died May 25 at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center after a brief illness, a family spokesman said. He was 94.

Ruddy is one of nine producers ever to earn two or more Best Picture Oscars, and has the distinction of winning them with the largest interval in between — 32 years.

He recently was portrayed by Miles Teller in the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer, which chronicles Ruddy’s experience making the 1972 film that Coppola directed and adapted with Mario Puzo from the latter’s bestselling novel.

Related: Peter Bart: ‘The Offer’ Spins A Mafia Tale About ‘The Godfather’ That’s Really More Fiction Than Fact

“Al was truly one of the great Hollywood mavericks,” The Offer director Dexter Fletcher said in a statement. “One of...

European Film Promotion has revealed the 10 emerging actors who will take part in the 27th edition of European Shooting Stars program, which promotes European acting talent. Past Shooting Stars have included Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Maisie Williams and Riz Ahmed.

From Feb. 16-19, the actors will be presented to the international press and industry, and the German public at the Berlin Film Festival. One of the highlights will be the Shooting Stars Awards Ceremony on Feb. 19 at the Berlinale Palast.

The Shooting Stars for 2024 are Belgium’s Thibaud Dooms, Bulgaria’s Margarita Stoykova, France’s Suzy Bemba, Georgia’s Salome Demuria, Germany’s Katharina Stark, Ireland’s Éanna Hardwicke, Italy’s Valentina Bellè, Lithuania’s Džiugas Grinys, Poland’s Kamila Urzędowska and Sweden’s Asta Kamma August.

The jury that selected the actors comprised of Austrian director, screenwriter and producer Barbara Albert, Lithuanian producer Živilė Gallego, Irish actor Moe Dunford,...

We’re once again proud to be a partner in the European Film Promotion’s celebration of the very best of European talent with the announcement of the 2024 Efp European Shooting Stars.

It has been a pleasure to highlight and get to know some of the brightest new stars in the sky. As before, we will look to catch up with the entire cohort to get to know them better at the 74th Berlinale next year, so check back for those interviews.

Until then, here’s a closer look at the ten Shooting Stars for 2024.

© Wil Coban Éanna Hardwicke / Ireland

Éanna Hardwicke’s first professional credit was as a child actor in Conor McPherson’s 2009 horror film The Eclipse. Before graduating from The Lír Academy in 2018 he was cast in Vivarium, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week 2019. In 2023, a busy year for Hardwicke, he was named a Screen International Rising...

European Film Promotion has announced the 10 up-and-coming European acting talents for its 2024 European Shooting Stars list.

The actors, which include performers from this year’s award-season contenders Poor Things, Ferrari, and The Peasants, among others, will be lauded at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, next year.

The Shooting Stars class of 2024 includes:

Suzy Bemba (France) Suzy Bemba in ‘Homecoming’

French actress Suzy Bemba, who plays a Parisian sex worker who befriends Emma Stone’s character in Poor Things, and whose credits include standout roles in Anthony Chen’s Sundance film Drift and Catherine Corsini’s Homecoming.

Valentina Bellè (Italy) Valentina Bellè in ‘The Good Mothers’

Valentina Bellè from Italy, who plays Cecilia Manzini in Michael Mann’s Ferarri, won Italy’s Nastro D’Argento award for best supporting actress for her turn in Disney+ mafia drama The Good Mothers and has appeared in Disney+ series Genius: Picasso with...

Ahead of its 39th edition, Poland’s Warsaw Film Festival is betting on timely topics.

“The role of filmmakers, and artists in general, is to react,” says festival director Stefan Laudyn.

“For years, we have been showing films that criticize the situation in various countries, not just in Poland. We try to avoid puff pieces.”

While there is space for “lighter topics” as well, supporting Ukraine – and Ukrainian filmmakers – remains one of the priorities.

“We initiated the first solidarity action with Ukraine back in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, we also supported Oleg Sentsov. Last year, we featured the entire Ukrainian competition from Odesa International Film Festival, which couldn’t take place due to the war.”

This year, eight Ukrainian productions and co-productions will be shown at the fest. Including “Diagnosis: Dissent” by Denys Tarasov, about punitive psychiatry used by the Kgb, and Taras Dron’s “The Glass House,” where...