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From social media to the big screen, Meg Stalter is peeling back her many layers as she marks her first starring role in Cora Bora.

The Ohio-born actress recently opened up about her “sweet and rewarding” part in writer Rhianon Jones and director Hannah Pearl Utt‘s new comedy-drama, which premiered at SXSW last year, as well as her journey from social media phenom to Hacks breakout and beyond.

“I think my comedy translates well to this movie because it’s a character who’s kind of losing their mind but trying to pretend like they’re not,” Stalter tells Deadline. “And that’s like a lot of the people I like to play outside of the movie. So, it kind of works.”

She stars as the titular Cora, a struggling musician who puts her career on hold to return home and win back her girlfriend Justine (Jojo T. Gibbs...

How’s this for meta? Chelsea Peretti is a first-time female director with the new movie “First Time Female Director” in which she plays a first-time female director. The “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star wrote and directed the new film which premieres on [The Roku Channel] on Friday, March 8. In the movie, she plays an aspiring writer who is thrust into directing a play for a local theatre but finds that it is much more difficult than she anticipated. You can watch with a free sign-up to Roku Channel.

How to Watch 'First Time Female Director' When: Friday, March 8, 2024 Where: Roku Channel Stream: Watch with a free sign-up to Roku Channel. Watch NowFree roku.com About 'First Time Female Director'

In the film, Peretti’s character Sam is hand-picked by the Regis Theatre’s artistic director (played by Andy Richter) to take over when their resident director is fired. Eager to please,...

Set to open on Feb. 7, the Santa Barbara Intl. Film Festival enters its 39th year with high stakes. Organizers must re-create past successes while forging new paths to keep proceedings fresh, keeping their eye on a mission to education while celebrating the power of film.

This year’s edition of the coastal festival will open with the world premiere of Matt Ogens and Joel Kachi Benson’s “Madu,” a Disney documentary about a young Nigerian whose ballet performance went viral online. It concludes with the world premiere of “Chosen Family,” directed by and starring Heather Graham, who also plans to attend with the cast.

In between, Sbiff will host many noteworthy film screenings and events. There are more than 200 films in this year’s lineup and, per programming director Claudia Puig, 70% of them will celebrate their U.S. or world premieres at the festival. That amounts to more than 75 feature films and over 45 shorts,...

Chelsea Peretti is a comedic actor who often lights up any project she’s in. Just ask those devotees of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” So, you have to be excited by the prospect of “First Time Female Director,” a feature she wrote, directed, and stars in.

Read More: ‘First Time Female Director’ Review: A Dire ‘Waiting For Guffman’-Esque Disappointment From Writer/Director/Star Chelsea Peretti [Tribeca]

As seen in the trailer, “First Time Female Director” follows the story of a woman who takes on the role of director at a local theater.

Continue reading ‘First Time Female Director’ Trailer: Chelsea Peretti Enlists An All-Star Comedic Ensemble For Her Directorial Debut at The Playlist.

Written and directed by Chelsea Peretti, First Time Female Director lives in the self-deprecating world of meta storytelling. Debuting at the Tribeca Festival in the Spotlight Narrative section, Peretti put so much of herself into this narrative, it could work as a documentary. It’s also such a comically honest portrayal of what women must endure if they want to get ahead in any career, let alone the theater business. Having to constantly prove to yourself and others that you are capable is so exhausting, but can also be rewarding if you are set up for success. Many are often left to fend for themselves, and the film shows one way of how that can happen.

In addition to Peretti, First Time Female Director boast a hefty cast including Amy Poehler, Andy Richter, Benito Skinner, Blake Anderson, Megan Stalter, Megan Mullally, Jak Knight, and Xosha Roquemore, Kate Berlant and many more.

A great movie comedy is something of a miracle, a combination of circumstances, personnel, and timing that would seem impossible to replicate, even under the most ideal circumstances. So first and foremost, the baffling thing about Chelsea Peretti’s “First Time Female Director” is that, once you set its title-embedded topicality aside, it’s basically a beat-for-beat remake of Christopher Guest’s “Waiting For Guffman.” Why risk the comparison—especially when you’ll come out looking so dire?

Continue reading ‘First Time Female Director’ Review: A Dire ‘Waiting For Guffman’-Esque Disappointment From Writer/Director/Star Chelsea Peretti [Tribeca] at The Playlist.

Roku has picked up the U.S. rights to the new comedy film “First Time Female Director,” which is written, directed and produced by Chelsea Peretti. The “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” alum also stars in the film, which follows a woman named Sam (Peretti) who takes over as director at a local theater in Glendale and struggles to fill her male predecessor’s shoes.

Per the synopsis, Sam experiences real-life drama as she struggles to wrangle her unimpressed cast of local actors. With no one to lean on but her deeply troubled therapist, Meg (Amy Poehler) and a desperate usher (Max Greenfield), Sam grasps for guidance from the theatre’s sadistic artistic director, Sheldon (Andy Richter). All the while the company’s ticket-taker Star (Xosha Roquemore) is secretly rising up the ranks behind the scenes.

The film will stream for free exclusively on The Roku Channel in 2024. It will have its world...

The Tribeca Festival brings its unusual brand of film, music, TV, games, reunions and talks, audio and immersive storytelling to New York City this week, a festival for the city and the latest stop for the film community after a short post-Cannes break. Today’s opening may face unexpected headwinds as New York suffers a sudden, sharp deterioration of air quality due to wildfires in Canada.

The fest, which runs June 7-18, kicks off Wednesday with Kiss the Future, a documentary by Nenad Cicin-Sain produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Sarah Anthony. It closes with a 30th anniversary screening of A Bronx Tale, produced by and starring, respectively, Tribeca co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro. Just before the fest kickoff, NYC Mayor Eric Adams — who is attending opening night — will make an arts- and culture-related announcement with the actor.

The festival yanked the word “Film” from its title...

Robert De Niro is going from Cannes to Tribeca, as the world-renowned actor prepares to kick off the 22nd edition of the film festival he co-founded in 2001 with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff. It runs from June 7 to 18 across New York City.

De Niro recently appeared at Cannes Film Festival for the world premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which he stars opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. The Oscar-winning actor said there were conversations about premiering the Western crime epic at Tribeca, but that idea never materialized.

“We did talk about it a little bit, but it was always Cannes,” De Niro told Variety. “There was talk about whether it should go in competition or out of competition. And we decided out of competition. It made more sense.”

De Niro also addressed whether he would be interested in starring in Scorsese’s next film after the director...

The 2023 Tribeca Festival feature film lineup has been unveiled.

This year’s festival takes place June 7 — 18 and includes a range of feature narrative, documentary, and animated films. The 2023 Tribeca Festival launches 109 feature films from 127 filmmakers across 36 countries, with 93 world premieres, one international premiere, eight North American premieres, one U.S. premiere, and six New York premieres.

There are 43 first-time directors and 29 directors returning to Tribeca with their latest projects. A total of 41 percent of all feature films are directed by women and, for the first time, more than half of competition feature films are directed by women at 68 percent. Additionally, 36 percent of feature films are directed by Bipoc filmmakers, including two Indigenous filmmakers.

This season, it’s all about the actor-director, with films from a slew of A-list stars behind the camera. Highlights include the world premieres of Chelsea Peretti’s meta-comedy “First Time Female Director” and John Slattery’s...

Amy Poehler kids because she loves.

The actor, writer and producer will spoof podcast tropes in a new three-season scripted comedy podcast franchise for Cadence13. Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions together with writer-producer Liz Cackowski inked a 30-episode deal with Audacy’s Cadence13 for the series, featuring stories that parody — and pay homage to — popular themes in the podcast space.

“We are huge fans of podcasts and we can’t wait to poke fun at all the things we love about them, and to do so with Cadence13,” Poehler and Cackowski said in a joint statement.

The franchise will run over three seasons of 10 episodes each. Each season will focus on a central character and distinct theme, although characters will make crossover appearances across stories and seasons.

The first season under the partnership is “Say More With Dr? Sheila,” slated to launch later in 2023. Poehler stars as Dr? Sheila, a...

Taylor Jenkins Reid is currently taking Hollywood by storm and honestly, it was only a matter of time. Bookworms have become very familiar with the buzzy author over the years, as her most recent novels debut to fanfare and continue to top bestsellers lists. But lately, Jenkins Reid has also been making waves in the world of streaming TV.

The series adaptation of her novel "Daisy Jones & The Six" is currently airing on Amazon's Prime Video, with two more of her novels slated for adaptation at Hulu ("Malibu Rising") and Netflix ("The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo"). She also has a romcom on the way, with the book-to-movie adaptation of "One True Loves" expected to arrive in theaters this April. All the while, Jenkins has been hard at work penning yet another project: "My Ex-Friend's Wedding."

Set to begin filming later this year, the feature film already has four stars attached,...