Author: SD

Vue CEO Tim Richards has shared insights into an artificial intelligence model the company has used for close to a decade and said there may be licensing opportunities in light of interest from other exhibitors. Speaking on a panel about AI at the Financial Times’s Business of Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday, Richards said its AI model has helped the company punch above its weight in the marketplace and target audiences for whom English is not their first language. Close to 10 years ago Richards and his executive team engaged a group in San Francisco that builds AI models…

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) CEO Cameron Bailey has said his staff received hundreds of abusive emails and calls including threats of sexual violence from parties opposed to the controversial documentary Russians At War. Speaking on Tuesday to an audience at TIFF Lightbox, which hosted two postponed, post-festival presentations of Anastasia Trofimova’s film, Bailey spoke of the reaction by members of the public against the film, which snowballed after last week’s press and industry screening. On that occasion dozens of protestors bearing Ukrainian flags and placards assembled outside Scotiabank and branded the film Russian propaganda. Filmmaker Trofimova embedded with Russian…

Iranian filmmakers Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, whose My Favourite Cake premiered in Competition in Berlin, say they have been placed under a new travel ban by Iranian authorities, preventing Moghaddam from attending the film’s premiere in Sweden. The Iranian government had previously banned the co-directors from attending the world premiere in Germany in February. The government recently returned their passports, however Moghaddam posted on Instagram that she was stopped by authorities at Tehran’s airport on the way to Sweden and informed that both filmmmakers were prohibited from leaving the country. Sanaeeha told Screen that he was not traveling, but was with Moghaddam at…

Sheila Fraser Milne, founder and CEO of leading UK completion guarantor company Paterson James, Maria Tanjala, co-founder of digital collections agency FilmChain, and Lee Stone, partner at London-based law-firm and film specialist Lee & Thompson, have joined Screen International’s ’The Future of UK Film’ Summit as speakers. The Summit is taking place at BFI Southbank on September 24, 2024. They will participate in a session called Ask The Experts: Optimising The Value Of Your Production to which delegates will be asked to submit questions in advance. Fraser Milne is one of the UK film and TV industry’s most experienced completion…

Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston is this year’s surprise winner of Toronto International Film Festival’s 2024 TIFF People’s Choice Award, a historically reliable bellwether of an Oscar nomination. Over a sample pool of the last 15 years, all but one People’s Choice winner has gone on to garner a best picture Oscar nomination, and several – like 12 Years A Slave, Green Book and The King’s Speech – have won the top prize at the Academy Awards. Yet The Life Of Chuck presents an anomaly – it currently lacks a US distributor. Buyers had been circling since the world premiere in Toronto and…

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (August 30-Sep 1) Total gross to date Week  1. Despicable Me 4 (Universal) £1.24m £44.6m 8  2. Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney) £1.22m £54.7m 6  3. It Ends With Us (Sony) £1.1m £18.6m 4  4. Alien: Romulus (Disney) £1.08m £10.8m 3  5. Andre Rieu’s 2024 Maastricht Concert: Power Of Love (Piece Of Magic) £700,000 £700,000 1 GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.31 Universal animation Despicable Me 4 rose back to the top of the UK-Ireland box office chart on its eighth weekend in cinemas, boosted by…

A busy weekend at the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Prima Facie, Lee, Speak No Evil and The Critic all launch in 550+ cinemas. National Theatre Live’s re-release of Prima Facie is in 679 locations. The theatre production starring Jodie Comer first played in cinemas in July 2022 in 662 venues, making £1.5m in a single day.  It became the highest-grossing event cinema release at the time, ending just shy of £5m and overtaken only by Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which made £12m on its run. Prima Facie opened in cinemas Thursday (September 12). The one-woman play surrounds…

Sundance Institute has selected the three finalists in its search for the festival’s long-term host starting in 2027 and expects to announce the winner in the first quarter of next year, after the 2025 edition in January. Salt Lake City/Park City in Utah, Boulder in Colorado, and Cincinnati in Ohio are the three final contenders after the Institute also considered Atlanta, Louisville, and Santa Fe. The search committee reviewed the three finalists’ ethos and equity values, infrastructure, and capabilities to host the festival. It is also looking to see how each location will continue to nurture the diverse Sundance community…

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is defending its selection of the Canada-France documentary Russians At War heading into Friday’s North American premiere, after Ukrainian-Canadian protesters branded the film Russian propaganda. “TIFF acknowledges and respects the concerns expressed and discussion taking place about the Canadian documentary Russians At War,” the TIFF statement read. “The film will make its North American premiere later this week, as scheduled.” The statement came on the same day that the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) said it was “profoundly alarmed” over the decision by TVOntario to withdraw its support for the film. Raja Pictures and CAPA Presse (Films…

Anthony Maras’ World War Two drama Pressure starring Andrew Scott has begun filming in the UK for Working Title and Studiocanal. The film is set during World War Two in the build-up to D-Day and the Allied landings in Normandy. Scott plays the chief meteorological officer responsible for monitoring the weather conditions that dictated when the operation could go ahead. Brendan Fraser plays President Dwight Eisenhower and Kerry Condon stars as a key aide to Eisenhower.  Locations include Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire.  Maras, best known for Hotel Mumbai, also co-wrote the screenplay with David Haig who wrote the stage play on…