Latest in AFI

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit. This crazy season is starting to heat up. The National Board of Review, usually first up in a “normal” season, settled for bringing up the rear this time since the Oscars were moved so late to April 25, and same goes for the Indie Spirit Awards which…

The American Film Institute on Monday unveiled recipients of its annual AFI Awards for TV, its list for shows deemed culturally and artistically representative of 2020’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image. The organization also announced its film awards, and gave an AFI Special Award to the…

Netflix leads the list of for the American Film Institute’s AFI Movies of the Year with four films, a record haul for them or any streamer in this annual prestigious list that often mirrors the lion’s share of future Oscar Best Picture nominees. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, David Fincher’s Mank, George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey…

On Saturday, November 8, Joe Biden was announced as President-elect of the United States and Kamala Harris was announced as Vice President-elect, making history as the first Black, South Asian and female to take the position of VP. The American Film Institute commemorated the occasion by posting a video on their…

The AFI Conservatory has canceled the 2022 class of its Directing Workshop for Women due to the coronavirus pandemic. The program, which has trained more than 350 female filmmakers since 1974, will continue teaching its current class, though much of their training has been pushed back until next year. "What's…

The American Film Institute (AFI) has teamed with AMC Network to establish the Black Production Fund, which will provide grants for thesis productions by Black fellows in their second year at the AFI Conservatory. AFI made the announcement today in the midst of its 2020 virtual festive. The Black Production Fund, as…

The American Film Institute said Friday that it has established the Thomas P. Pollock Endowed Scholarship Fund in memory of Tom Pollock, the famed Hollywood attorney, Universal Pictures chairman and producer who died last month at age 77. The scholarship, which is being supported by a who’s who of Hollywood, will be…

The 34th annual AFI Fest said Monday that Showtime’s Errol Morris-directed documentary My Psychedelic Love Story will close the festival next month. The movie follows LSD high priest Timothy Leary and how he became a narc in 1974 and abandoned the millions he urged to turn on, tune in and drop out. Was his "perfect…

Another live festival bites the dust. The American Film Institute announced Tuesday that its annual AFI Fest will go virtual as COVID-19 continues to affect Los Angeles. AFI officials detailed the decision to the Los Angeles Times.  Instead of its September in-person premieres, AFI Fest will feature virtual events in…

The American Film Institute announced on Wednesday it has received a $3 million gift from AFI Trustee Emeritus Lawrence Herbert to establish the Lawrence Herbert Alumni Center on the AFI Campus in Los Angeles. The gift will also establish a digital portal, called AFI Backlot, to magnify the center's reach to AFI…

The American Film Institute is looking somewhere over the rainbow to put a little hope in our new daily routines in this age of the coronavirus. On Tuesday, AFI unveiled the launch of AFI Movie Club, designed to be “a daily virtual gathering to leverage our collective love of film on behalf of optimism in this time of…

Netflix’s Martin Scorsese mob drama The Irishman, which already has picked up Best Picture wins from critics groups, is one of the 10 films named to the American Film Institute’s AFI Motion Pictures of the Year list. The diverse group for 2019 includes ranges from indies like Lulu Wang’s A24 pic The Farewell to a…