Latest in Contenders Los Angeles

Deadline's Contenders Film: Los Angeles welcomed a record 29 of the year’s buzziest movies from 14 studios and streamers live on stage Saturday at the DGA Theater. A crowd of key Academy and key guild voters took in the all-day affair, hearing from the stars and creatives behind the movies that are making…

Decision to Leave has a murder, a search for the killer and a determined investigator. But co-writer and director Park Chan-wook says he was determined to tell a story that would set the film apart. “My challenge was how to tell a unique story from that basic premise,” Park said through a translator…

Long before Jennifer Lawrence became an Oscar winner, she was an aspiring actress beginning to lay the groundwork for a Hollywood career. At one point, Lawrence went to see an acting coach who ultimately returned her money because, he said, she already had it all and there really was nothing he could…

Husband-and-wife writing and producing partners Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska had the Deadline Contenders Film: Los Angeles crowd doubled over in laughter with their charming back and forth banter. The pair behid EO joined Saturday’s event via video and discussed their choice to create a film from…

Following up the enormous success of a box office-shattering, Academy Award-winning film with a sequel carries its own pressures and challenges, but for the team behind Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, they also had to navigate production and life after the loss of their beloved lead, their king, T'Challa…

When approaching features like those in his Avatar franchise and the fantastical worlds they depict, filmmaker James Cameron looks for "true, universal human experience" to ground the narrative.  In the case of the original sci-fi epic released by 20th Century Fox in 2009, he was looking at "a…

The story of the Falun Gong religious sect taking over Chinese state television for over an hour in 2002 isn’t well known in the Western world, but it had devastating consequences within the country. Jason Loftus explores this event and its aftermath in his Mandarin-language animated documentary Etern…

Ron Howard was as transfixed as the rest of the world in 2018 when a massive international rescue effort came together to save 12 Thai youth soccer players and their coach who were trapped in a flooded underground cave.  That's also why Howard and his crew became obsessed with not only telling their…

Nanny director Nikyatu Jusu joined Deadline's Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event to talk about her film's visual language, her mother's own immigrant experience, and casting new Black actors.   Nanny offers a unique twist on the American immigrant experience filtered through the lens of…

Luck was on director Peggy Holmes‘ side when the film Luck landed in her lap, a project about a young woman in the foster-care system looking for her happy ending. Holmes spoke about all the layers that went into creating the world in which protagonist Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) exists during a…

Sundance prize-winning filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu has unveiled new details about her forthcoming feature for Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw and Universal that we told you about first in January. While information on the horror film had been scarce, we now know that it will in some form adapt Jusu’s short film…

For Jennifer Lawrence, preparing to play a wounded veteran in Causeway took time and intense preparation. Part of that preparation included meeting with real veterans to form her character. “It was immensely helpful to meet incredible heroes who are in similar circumstances," the Oscar-winning…