Author: SD

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian Oscar nominee The Secret Agent won seven awards at the 13th Platino Awards in Mexico on Saturday (May 9) led by Best Ibero-American fiction film. The slow-burn thriller about an engineer in 1977 who tries to reunite with his son while evading the dictatorship’s agents also earned awards for director, actor, screenplay, art direction, original score, and editing. Saturday’s event at Riviera Maya – named the Premios Platinos Xcaret in honour of the host hotel – brought further recognition to a formidable awards run that has seen The Secret Agent garner four Oscar nominations, and four prizes in Cannes…

EXCLUSIVE: Korea’s K-Movie Entertainment is to launch sales at the Cannes market on Amara, a supernatural horror from Troll and Tomb Raider director Roar Uthaug. The English-language feature is based on an original idea by Uthaug and screenwriter Espen Aukan, the Norwegian creative duo behind Netflix global franchise Troll. Set in Thailand, the story follows a group of international backpackers who become entangled in a curse connected to an unsolved death. Blending supernatural mythology with mounting paranoia, the film is inspired by the folklore of Southeast Asia. Now in development, it will mark the next feature from Uthaug, the director…

Amazon MGM’s The Sheep Detectives is the widest new release in UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend, as Mortal Kombat II and Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour also launch. Sony is distributing Amazon’s The Sheep Detectives in 654 locations. Hugh Jackman leads an ensemble cast in this offbeat murder mystery about a herd of sheep who endeavour to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd. It is written by Craig Mazin, whose credits include TV series Chernobyl and The Last Of Us. Further cast includes Nicholas Galitzine, Hong Chau, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Emma Thompson, Brian Cranston, Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall,…

Leading international filmmakers Joachim Trier, Ruben Östlund, Yorgos Lanthimos and Francis Ford Coppola and actors Juliette Binoche, Sandra Huller and Stellan Skarsgård are among thousands to sign an open letter calling on the European Union to continue supporting cinema. The open letter, titled ‘Cinema needs Europe, Europe needs cinema’ has so far collected over 4,500 signatures. It highlights the success of the EU’s Creative Europe Media programme, launched in 1991 to reinforce European cultural diversity and to help films travel beyond their national borders. “Without Media, we would all be a little less European,” says the letter. Scroll down to…

EXCLUSIVE: Upgrade will commence talks in Cannes next week on Iain Softley’s Ireland-set dark comedy thriller Killing Kelly starring Jason Isaacs and Thomasin McKenzie. Production is scheduled to begin this autumn in Dublin, with Fisher Stevens’ Highly Flammable newly on board the creative team alongside producers Zak Kilberg, Michael Garland of Grand Pictures, and Sarah Curtis and Softley for Forthcoming Films. Screen Ireland is supporting the project and J. Todd Harris’s Branded Pictures is co-financing. Killing Kelly centres on Murphy, a shy young taxidermist who toils endlessly for his abusive boss, the titular Kelly played by Isaacs. Provoked by yet another…

Guillermo del Toro will jet into Cannes to attend the 20th anniversary screening of Pan’s Labyrinth, which has been announced as part of this year’s Cannes Classics line-up. A 4K restored print of del Toro’s fantasy fable set during the Franco regime in 1940s Spain, regarded by many as the Mexican filmmaker’s masterpiece, will be presented in a pre-opening screening on May 12. The film remains part of Cannes folklore for the record 22-minute standing ovation and went on to garner Oscars for cinematography, art direction, and make-up. Cineverse holds North American rights. The Cannes Classics line-up announced on Tuesday…

Longtime Lionsgate senior executive and strategist Amanda Kozlowski has been promoted to president of worldwide marketing at the studio’s motion picture group after serving as interim head of marketing. The 18-year veteran will continue to report to Lionsgate motion picture group chair Adam Fogelson and will work closely with the group’s president Erin Westerman shepherding films from development to release. As interim head of marketing, Kozlowski worked on Michael and The Housemaid – two of the studio’s current and recent smashes that have earned $430m (factoring in the international release through Universal), and close to $400m worldwide, respectively. Lionsgate International…

Twenty years after the original, 20th Century Studios’ female-led The Devil Wears Prada 2 glided back onto the scene in an estimated $77m North American debut that delivered the fourth-highest opening weekend of the year to date. Buoyed by a returning lead cast of Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci alongside returning director David Frankel and co-writers Aline Brosh McKenna and Lauren Weisberger – a world-class package that will have been essential to the opening weekend – the launch through Disney far outstripped that of the original’s $27.5m debut in June 2026 (even beating the $44.8m inflation-adjusted number)…

Netflix is pushing Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew from November of this year to February 2027 in a move that honours an exclusive Imax slot but crucially will make the fantasy feature available to exhibitors for a 49-day exclusive theatrical window before it debuts on the streamer. The C. S. Lewis adaptation will now open for one day exclusively on Imax on February 10 2027 before opening globally in participating cinemas on February 12 and debuting on the platform on April 2. AMC and Cinema United were aming the first to respond positively to Friday’s news.  Netflix said in a statement,…

The Academy board has ruled that starting this season, films not in the English language that win top awards at qualifying international festivals including Cannes, Venice, and Sundance will qualify for the international feature film Oscar. The rule tweak for the upcoming 99th Academy Awards on March 14 2027 appear to be an acknowledgement by the board that geopolitics has in prior years made it difficult for certain filmmakers to get the official sanction of their country in the form of a submission. Screen understands the Academy is keen to support filmmakers around the world and ensure global cinema is…