Author: Hollyood rep

Sony Pictures has unveiled that the anime feature Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom, produced by the company’s specialty streamer Crunchyroll, will get a theatrical release in North America on Nov. 8. The film is a continuation of the popular anime series Overlord, which adapts the novels of Japanese author Kugane Maruyama.  The Sacred Kingdom picks up where season 4 of the Overlord series left off. The saga famously tells the story of Momonga, a regular salary man who finds himself transported into his favorite video game. The film was animated by Japanese studio Madhouse and covers the arc also known as “Holy…

The revamped Berlin International Film Festival continues to take shape, with new festival director Tricia Tuttle on Thursday unveiling a new four-member selection committee and expanding the festival’s network of advisors and delegates. The new selection committee consists of industry veterans, including festival programmer and producer Mathilde Henrot; film critic and programmer Jessica Kiang; festival and cultural consultant Jacqueline Nsiah; and Elad Samorzik, the former artistic director of the Jerusalem Film Festival. They join Michael Stütz and Jacqueline Lyanga, appointed in June as the new co-directors of film programming ahead of the 75th anniversary Berlinale next year. This committee will…

The European Film Academy has unveiled its shortlist of 12 documentaries in the running for this year’s European Film Awards. The 12 feature docs include recent winners in Sundance, Berlin, and Locarno and represent a cross-section of European filmmakers. Among the more high-profile titles on the list are Mati Diop’s Dahomey, which looks at the return of plundered African treasures to Benin as a way of examining the enduring impact of colonialism; Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, a world cinema jury award winner in Sundance, which sets the struggle for Congolese independence to a jazz soundtrack, examining how…

Johnny Depp‘s second directorial feature Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness will premiere out of competition at the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival. The film fest released the updates to its program on Tuesday. Depp’s movie is a biopic on Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The actor, widely considered a controversial figure in Hollywood following the legal frenzy around his split from actress Amber Heard, first made his debut behind the camera with The Brave in 1997. He received the prestigious Donostia Award at the 2021 San Sebastian Film Festival for his lifetime achievement. Modi – Three Days on…

As the Sarajevo Film Festival prepares to launch its 30th edition, which runs August 16-23, the event stands as a testament to the resilience and creativity of Southeast European cinema in the face of social and political upheaval. Few cities bear the scars and burden of history as does Sarajevo. The festival itself was born out of conflict, launched during the nearly four-year siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces in the early 90s. While the fest has never avoided this history — it runs a “Dealing with the Past” section of films that look at “the many and unresolved…

Alain Delon, the dark and dashing leading man from France who starred in some of the greatest European films of the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 88. “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father. He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family,” a statement from the family released to AFP news agency said. Delon had been suffering from poor health in recent years and had a stroke in 2019. With a filmography boasting such titles as…

The process of selecting and then screening movies for the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) is a deeply personal experience for programmer Rada Šešić. “I will reveal to you one secret,” Šešić confides. “After I introduce the film and the maker, I stay in the cinema and listen to how the audience ‘breathes,’ how it reacts; I shudder every time someone opens the door with a bang or leaves in the middle of the film, it hurts me to see a restless, fidgeting audience.” Šešić will be holding her breath every time for the screenings of the 21 films (including 19…

Korean film maestro Park Chan-wook is keeping in motion. The internationally acclaimed auteur, 60, will begin production on Saturday on his 12th feature, an adaptation of American novelist Donald Westlake’s 1996 novel The Ax. The movie, which is currently going by the working title I Can’t Help It, will star Korean screen royalty Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin, with financing and distribution coming from local studio heavyweight CJ ENM.  Westlake’s novel was previously adapted into French by Costa Gavras as the 2005 film Le Couperet (The Axe). Like its predecessor, Park’s adaptation follows a man — named Man-soo this time…

Turkish writer-director Gürcan Keltek (Meteors, Gulyabani) has so far focused on shorter films and documentaries. On Thursday, he brought the world premiere of his fiction feature debut New Dawn Fades (Yeni șafak solarken), a contemplation on sanity, to the competition program of the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival. The film’s cinematographer is Peter Zeitlinger (Encounters at the End of the World), known for his collaborations with the likes of Abel Ferrara, Ulrich Seidl, and especially Werner Herzog. The movie’s cast includes Cem Yiğit Üzümoğlu, Ayla Algan, Erol Babaoğlu, Suzan Kardeş, Dilan Düzgüner, and Gürkan Gedikli. “New Dawn Fades reflects on…

Oscar, Emmy and Tony-award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn will be honored at this year’s Venice Film Festival with the Liberatum Pioneer Award for her lifetime contribution to cinema. The 91-year-old acting legend will be honored at a “Women in Creativity” event and gala dinner in Venice on Sept. 4 at the Blue Pavilion in the Palazzina Grassi Hotel on the Grand Canal. Burstyn will also take part in an on-stage discussion of her decades-long career. Burstyn made her acting debut on Broadway in Fair Game in 1957 and was a TV regular throughout the 1960s but her breakthrough came on screen…