Watching Capernaum, Lebanon’s entry in 2018 for Best Foreign Language Film, one point becomes immediately clear: Only a truly dedicated, humanistic director could make such a film, experiencing first-hand so many sorrows so that others around the world might understand. In the case of the Cannes title, which won the fest’s Jury Prize, that director is Nadine Labaki, an esteemed Lebanese filmmaker who had already made her way down the Croisette a number of times before… Read
The commoditization of film continues apace. By the counts on Boxofficemojo.com, theatrical feature releases have reached 648 for the year. That's about two films per day, a rate that promises another 98 movies by December 31, even if we don't get a year-end rush. The 2018 total, if current patterns hold, would be about one-tenth of a movie short of 746, up slightly from 740 in 2017, a record for modern Hollywood.
Counts from the MPAA put the numbers even higher. By the… Read
AFI Fest closes this week, marking the end of the Fall Festival season that began with a bang with the August/September triple-feature that is Venice, Telluride and Toronto, at which the vast majority of major Oscar hopefuls were unveiled. Which is not to say there weren't a few films from the first eight months of the year still in the mix; like the box office and critical smashes Black Panther and A Quiet Place, or at Cannes, where Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman looked… Read
AFI Fest has added a special screening of the long-delayed Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace to its lineup, organizers the American Film Institute said Tuesday.
The screening is set for Thursday at 8 PM PT at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood and will be the West Coast premiere of the mostly concert film, which was shot in 1972 at the New Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles when Franklin was 29. Warner Bros captured the footage for a companion… Read
Austin’s ATX Television Festival, set for June 6-9, 2019, has announced its first round of panels, including a Blumhouse Television event, a “Cancelled-Too-Soon” retrospective of Men in Trees and a conversation with the presidents of various industry guilds.
Panels announced today for the eighth annual festival include:
A "Presidents of the Guilds" panel, featuring a discussion with Gabrielle Carteris, president, SAG-AFTRA; David A. Goodman, president, WGAW; and Thomas… Read
(UPDATED with Blum speech tweets)EXCLUSIVE: The midterm elections and Donald Trump helped turn a standard Hollywood award ceremony for Halloween producer Jason Blum into an on-stage battle of wills and ideology tonight that saw security being called.
Set to be honored at the 32nd Israel Film Festival on Tuesday, Blum found himself booed and threatened with being tossed off stage after he took a verbal swing at the former Celebrity Apprentice host. Or as Blum himself has… Read
EXCLUSIVE: From veteran filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, family drama Shoplifters is Japan’s submission for the Foreign Language Oscar race this year. Ahead of Magnolia Pictures' release of the Palme d'Or winner in U.S. theaters on November 23, we've got an exclusive clip — check it out above.
The story of a family of small-time crooks has been a box office winner at home, becoming the acclaimed director's biggest title at local turnstiles with about $38M. In China over the… Read
The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has announced the award winners for its 21st celebration of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
The honors were revealed during an awards brunch held at local restaurant The Olde Pink House. A key stop on the Oscar festival circuit, this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival screened a total of 164 films, including 33 narrative films, 16 documentary films and 115 shorts, more than any year before.
Twenty-seven awards were announced… Read
Johnny Lin’s Filmula and Allen Liu‘s E Stars are teaming to finance U.S. and international movies for distribution in China, the parties said at AFM today. Filmula will produce and co-finance with E Stars films ranging from commercial tentpoles to Oscar-driven material for E Stars to distribute.
The deal also will incorporate Indian financing., they said.
Lin was an executive producer of the Tom Cruise crime thriller American Made and, through his relationship with Brian… Read
EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Giant Little Ones, the coming-of-age drama from Canadian director Keith Behrman that had its world premiere earlier this fall as a Toronto Film Festival special presentation. The plan is for a March 2019 platform theatrical release.
Josh Wiggins, Darren Mann, Taylor Hickson, Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan star in the pic, which centers on Franky Winter (Wiggins) and Ballas Kohl (Mann) who have… Read
The Los Angeles Film Festival just moved to a fall slot this year, and now Film Independent says it is ending the fest after 18 years and will replace it with “year-round events aimed at building community and broadening its support of visual storytellers.”
The nonprofit arts organization also will eliminate three full-time staff positions, but it didn’t give specifics.
"We took a hard look at the healthy growth of Film Independent's year-round programs and events over… Read
EXCLUSIVE: Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow is boosting the next generation of filmmakers, sponsoring two Scout Film Festival Emerging Storyteller grants at the upcoming third annual event, set for early next year.
Trevorrow is funding a $10,000 grant split between the 18 and under and 19 to 24 categories, and will join the panel of judges to review and select the winner. The Emerging Storyteller grant is an opportunity for emerging filmmakers worldwide to receive… Read
