Author: SD

Producers Guild of America (PGA) has postponed Sunday’s nominations announcement due to the LA wildfires tragedy. “Out of care and concern for those being affected by the fires, we will be holding the announcement of the PGA award nominees until next week,” a PGA spokesperson said on Sunday. The nominations had already been pushed back from their original date on Friday, and members were granted an extra two days to cast ballots through January 11. LA officials said the Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up and will remain a threat until Wednesday, further hampering efforts of firefighters and…

Disney is donating $15m to relief efforts stemming from the LA wildfires that are reported to have claimed 11 lives, destroyed more than 10,000 structures, and forced more than 130,000 evacuations across the metropolis. The media giant said the funds would be used for emergency response and rebuilding work in light of the crisis that has seen two of the worst fires in the area’s history – Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire – as well as several others that continued to burn into the night on Friday. Paramount has reportedly donated $1m to local organisations including Red Cross and Los…

Newen Connect has boarded Pascal Elbé’s Lucky Star, one of four new comedies the company will launch at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris later this month. Actor/filmmaker Elbé’s fourth feature as a director is set in 1940 France and stars Benoit Poelvoorde as an army deserter who hatches a plan to escape Nazi punishment and protect his wife and son by pretending his family is Jewish, but ends up being swept into the Resistance. Elbé also stars in the film with Audrey Lamy, Zabou Breitman and Hugo Becker. It is produced by Yze’s Yann Zanou and ADNP/QUAD’s Nicolas Adassovsky. Now in post-production, UGC…

New features from Tatiana Huezo, Kirsten Tan and Stephan Komandarev are among the 35 projects selected for the 2025  Berlinale Co-Production Market. The 35 projects hail from 27 countries, and will participate in the market to find financing and production partners. The Berlinale has also programmed its Forum Special and Forum Expanded strands. Scroll down for the full list of titles Salvadoran-Mexican filmmaker Huezo will participate with her new project Galerna, produced by Mexico’s Pimienta Films. Huezo’s first fiction feature Prayers For The Stolen won a special mention in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2021, and was Mexico’s entry for the international…

The European Film Awards has selected Athens as the host city for its 2027 ceremony. Athens will mark the first time the event has been held in Southeastern Europe. The 39th European Film Awards 2027 will take place in the city’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. The European Film Awards are held every second year in Berlin and travel throughout Europe in the other years. Last year it was held in Lucerne, Switzerland. The next European Film Awards is due to take place in Berlin in January 2026, moving forward from its traditional December slot. Media partner ERT, the Hellenic…

Bafta has announced the five actors nominated for the 2025 EE Rising Star award. They are: Marisa Abela, Jharrel Jerome, David Jonsson, Mikey Madison and Nabhaan Rizwan. The nominees were announced by actor and previous Rising Star winner Jack O’Connell at an event at London’s Savoy Hotel. Abela, Jonsson and Rizwan were in attendance, with Jerome and Madison sending video messages from the US. Nominees are not directly selected for a single performance, although they have typically received acclaim in the past year for one particular role. For Abela it is Back To Black; for Jerome it is Unstoppable; for…

Worldwide box office January 3-5 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1.  Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney)  $77.3m  $476.4m  $53.5m  $307.8m   53 2.   Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (Paramount)  $72.4m  $336.3m  $51.2m  $148.8m  62 3.   Nosferatu (Universal)  $40m  $100.4m  $26.8m  $31m  62 4.   Moana 2 (Disney)  $38.4m  $960.5m  $26m  $535.3m  53 5.   Wicked (Universal)  $21m  $681.3m  $10.8m  $230.5m  82 6.   Octopus With Broken Arms (various)  $15.7m  $74.2m  $15.7m  $74.2m  3 7.   Big World (various)  $11.1m  $77.4m  $11.1m  $77.4m  1 8.   Finist, The…

France was one of the few markets to see admissions increase year-on-year in 2024, driven by a powerhouse top 10, three of which were local blockbusters.  Admissions reached 181.3 million admissions, up a slight 0.5% on 2023, according to figures from Comscore and the CNC. Total box office for the year was an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.35bn) based on an average ticket price of €7.20, driven largely by French films that took a 44.4% market share, the highest since 2008. However this was still 12.8% down from the pre-pandemic yearly average of the 2017-2019 period. Scroll down for full top…

Premiere Entertainment Group’s body swap comedy The Ballad Of Hortensia has become the most successful local film ever released in El Salvador after its opening weekend. The film, produced and sold by Premiere, drew an audience of more than 25,000 admissions over its first four days, according to Premiere and local distributor Balun Films. Directed by Arturo Menendez and starring noted Salvadoran comedian Julio Yúdice, Francisco Gattorno, and Helena Haro, The Ballad Of Hortensia overtook the previous record-holder La Rebusqueda, the 2014 release that garnered 22,300 admissions over three months. The Ballad Of Hortensia opened in eight theatres on December 12…

Worldwide box office December 13-15 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l)Territories  1. Moana 2 (Disney) $83.8m  $717m $57.2m $379.5m  53  2. Wicked (Universal) $44m  $525m $21.5m $165.9m  82  3.  Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2 (various) $29.2m  $166.8m $27.6m $154m  37  4.  Kraven The Hunter (Sony) $26m  $26m $15m $15m  61  5.  Gladiator II (Paramount) $17.5m  $398.5m $9.7m $252.6m  66  6.  The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim (Warner Bros) $8.6m  $10.3m $4m $5.7m  73  7.  Her Story (various) $7.1m  $88.1m $7.1m $87.7m  8 …