Author: Hollyood rep

Charges of beastly parents take on a literal meaning in Spellbound, a moving if somewhat familiar animated fantasy musical from Skydance Animation. When protagonist Ellian (Rachel Zegler) describes her parents as monsters, she’s not echoing the clichéd allegation lodged by teens everywhere. She’s being dead serious. Nearly a year ago, while ambling through the forest, her parents were turned into unruly behemoths.  Few people in their kingdom of Lumbria are aware of this transformation, since, with the help of royal advisors Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Nazara (Jenifer Lewis), the princess has managed to keep her parents hidden away for the…

Spike Lee will serve as the president of the main competition jury at the fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The fest will see 16 movies compete in the main competition lineup of its latest edition running Dec. 5-14. The titles include Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, and Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon, which debuted at the Locarno Film Festival where it won the special jury prize. “Having been lucky enough to experience first-hand the incredible filmmaking, atmosphere, and creativity at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2022, it’s a…

Macedonian producer and actress Labina Mitevska has been selected as the recipient of this year’s Eurimages International Co-production Award, honoring producers for their contribution in fostering international film collaboration. Mitevska, who co-founded Sisters and Brother Mitevski Production in Skopje, North Macedonia, will receive the award from European film subsidy group Eurimages and the European Film Academy. Mitevska began her acting career in Milčo Mančevski‘s 1994 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Before the Rain, which was also Oscar-nominated. Together with siblings Teona and Vuk she set up her own production company, Sisters and Brother Mitevski Production, in 2001. Labina produces,…

Three years after the tragic on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, Alec Baldwin’s indie Western Rust will finally be revealed to the public on Wednesday. The movie has been selected to make its world premiere at Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival, a respected specialty event focusing on achievements in cinematography. And the first screening in the town of Toruń would seem to be off to a strong start. Tickets to the premiere became available to festival attendees to claim via the event’s private ticketing system early Tuesday morning — and the website promptly crashed, because of an overwhelming surge in demand.  “The Camerimage portal is…

The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has revealed the four movies for this year’s Treasures strand, showcasing “timeless classics,” including crime thriller Heat by director Michael Mann, starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, and Val Kilmer. The film will be screened alongside “three meticulously restored works in collaboration with Egyptian Media Production City,” fest organizers said on Monday. Heat “redefined the genre with its intricate narrative and electrifying performances by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino,” organizers said.  “With Hussein Fawzi’s Bread and Salt, Smile the Photo Comes Out Better, starring the RSIFF honoree and Egyptian…

Over the past couple of years, Netflix has been encroaching on the Hallmark Channel’s holiday season chokehold. Writer Russell Hainline is no stranger to the Christmas movie, having penned several titles for Hallmark, including The Santa Summit and In Merry Measure. This week he debuted his first Netflix entry, the delightfully named, Hot Frosty. The movie stars Hallmark company player Lacey Chabert as Kathy, a widow and beloved local who wraps a magical scarf around a sculpted snowman with an eight-pack who becomes a real — and very naked — man named Jack. Hijinks ensue with naive and preternaturally good-natured…

Poland’s Energa Camerimage film festival has long been considered a cineaste’s dream. Established 31 years ago as a specialty event focused on cinematography, the Toruń fest has expanded significantly in recent years but has retained its essence as a pure celebration of the art of filmmaking, prioritizing craftsmanship behind the camera — DPs, directors and production designers — over celebrities and industry functions.  “The reason people keep coming back here to Poland is that they get to talk about art; it’s not another trade show or a festival with red carpets every night,” says Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwała, who estimates…

Werner Herzog travels to Getunkirchenburg to investigate the death after a local factory worker named Dorem Clery dies under mysterious circumstances in Piotr Winiewicz’s feature film debut About a Hero. Vicky Krieps also stars, and Stephen Fry appears. “But Herzog, our narrator, is not who he seems, and the film is not what we expect…,” a synopsis cautions. After all, “About a Hero is an adaptation of a script written by an AI trained on Herzog’s body of work. The fictional narrative it produced, ironically self-reflective, is intertwined with a series of interviews with artists, philosophers, and scientists reflecting on…

The Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has unveiled 38 feature film projects and, for the first time, TV series projects that will be featured at this year’s Red Sea Souk Project Market, with organizers touting that they showcase “a continued commitment to championing bold storytelling and exciting new voices in cinema.” This year’s selection highlights “a diverse range of narratives and talent from across the globe,” including seven series, they said. The selected projects represent the culmination of the Red Sea Labs annual development program within the Lodge, which is run in partnership with TorinoFilmLab and…

It’s Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans to the rescue. That’s the hope in any case as their new Christmas movie, Red One, opens across North America this weekend after a tough fall. Tracking suggests the action-adventure movie will unpack a domestic debut in the $30 million to $35 million range for Amazon MGM Studios before enjoying a long run through the year-end holidays (fingers crossed). However, there will be plenty of chatter about the movie’s box office performance considering it cost $250 million to make. A major legacy studio in the same situation would come under intense scrutiny if a…