A second group of filmmakers have petitioned WarnerMedia to reconsider its decision to shutter FilmStruck at month’s end. Here is . the second letter To whom it may concern at Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks: Roger Ebert once said "the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a…

Monsoon Wedding and Queen Of Katwe filmmaker Mira Nair is on the verge of completing a deal to direct the BBC and Lookout Point TV adaptation of Vikram Seth's bestselling novel A Suitable Boy, I can confirm. The series is being adapted by Emmy-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies, known for his work on the Bridget Jones…

Women In Film has announced honorees for this year’s Crystal + Lucy Awards, its annual fundraising dinner that supports the Los Angeles organization’s educational and philanthropic programs and its advocacy for gender parity in the industry. At the June 13 gala at the Beverly Hilton, actor-director-producer Elizabeth B…

When Mira Nair's Queen Of Katwe, about the Ugandan child chess phenom Phiona Mutesi, has its gala world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 10, some viewers in the spacious Roy Thomson Hall might be in for a surprise: As it turns out, they will be watching a movie about a girl for whom love of chess was…

Disney has just put Mira Nair’s next picture Queen Of Katwe onto its release schedule, with a limited debut on September 23 and an expansion a week later. The film, which stars David Oyelowo (Selma), Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years A Slave) and newcomer Madina Nalwanga, is based on a true story. The film, adapted from the…

Athena Film Festival, a public film confab spotlighting works by and about women, will launch this year’s edition with the New York premiere of Dawn Porter’s Trapped, a documentary about Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, like those recently passed in Texas and Alabama, that threaten American…

EXCLUSIVE– Rosamund Pike is in talks to board David Oyelowo’s passion project A United Kingdom, Deadline has learned. No deal has been done yet and there are still details to iron out but there is strong interest from both sides to make this work. A United Kingdom, which Pathe is financing, tells the true story of…

EXCLUSIVE: David Oyelowo and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o are in negotiations to star in Queen Of Katwe, a pic based on the true story about the rise of a young African chess prodigy. Mira Nair is directing the pic in a reteam with her Reluctant Fundamentalist scribe William Wheeler, who penned the script. Disney is…

UPDATE, 12:19 PM: This is the time of a big movie festival when IFC starts taking off the table the titles that didn’t turn into big theatrical release auctions. The company made a big play Tuesday for the Neil Jordan-directed vampire tale Byzantium, and now the distributor is this close to closing a deal on the Noah…

Mira Nair‘s The Reluctant Fundamentalist will open the 69th edition of the Venice International Film Festival in the movie’s world premiere. Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, Martin Donovan, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi star in the out-of-competition adaptation of the bestselling novel about a…

EXCLUSIVE: Doha Tribeca Film Festival and Doha Film Institute executive director Amanda Palmer is setting out on her own to represent and promote Arab talent in front of and behind the camera. The Qatar-based executive has yet to reveal the name of the new agency but tells me she and her Qatari and Dubai partners are…

Political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist is based on Mohsin Hamid’s novel and stars Kate Hudson, Riz Ahmed, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, Martin Donovan and Om Puri. Nair is directing from a script by Hamid, Ami Boghani and William Wheeler. The story follows a young Pakistani man chasing corporate success…