Author: SD

Telluride Film Festival has announced the line-up before the festival starts on Friday, with world premieres for Edward Berger’s Conclave, RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys, and Robbie Williams musical biopic Better Man. Also making the cut in the main programme are documentaries Leonardo Da Vinci from Ken Burns, Kevin Macdonald’s One To One: John & Yoko, and R. J. Cutler’s Martha Stewart film. Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 and Joshua Openheimer’s The End are in the main programme, alongside Cannes favourites Anora, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, All We Imagine Is Light, and Emilia Pérez. The 51st Telluride Film Festival running August 30-September 2 will screen close…

In a big move by new head of film Dan Lin that bolsters Netflix’s awards season roster, the streamer has snapped up US rights to Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie ahead of Thursday’s world premiere in Venice. Chilean auteur Larraín directed from a screenplay by Steven Knight in what is styled as a creative imagining and psychological portrait of the legendary soprano Maria Callas. The film is set in the 1970s near the end of Callas’s life. The cast includes Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Valeria Golino Maria will explore the period in life when Callas had lost…

Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language will fly the flag for Canada as the country’s international feature film submission for the 97th Academy Awards in March 2025. ‘Universal Language’: Cannes Review A pan-Canadian selection committee organised by non-voting chair Telefilm Canada met on Tuesday to select its top choice from 26 submissions. Produced by Metafilms, the absurdist Winnipeg-set caper premiered in Cannes and will receive its North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, before screening in New York Film Festival and Fantastic Fest. Universal Language transposes Iran to Winnipeg and weaves together several episodes: children discover money frozen in ice; a walking…

Ontario Creates’ International Financing Forum (IFF) will feature 40 projects from Canadian and international teams bringing new work from Malcolm McDowell, Clement Virgo, and Rafael Kapelinski, director of 2017 Berlin Crystal Bear winner Butterfly Kisses. The forum, now in its 19th year, runs September 8-9 in Toronto in association with Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It brings together jury-selected producers looking to find co-producers and secure financing for upcoming projects. Canadian projects include The Benefactor starring McDowell from A Clockwork Orange and Mozart In The Jungle in the story of a widower who believes his house is haunted. Ontario’s Byron A.…

The UK’s National Cinema Day is returning this Saturday, August 31, with participating cinemas across the UK offering tickets from £4. Now in its third year, the day will take place at over 630 venues, with all formats at participating venues, including 3D, Imax and 4DX, priced from £4. This is a 25% rise in price from the 2022 and 2023 editions, where tickets started at £3. Odeon, Cineworld, Vue, Picturehouse, Showcase and Curzon are among the operators set to take part.  National Cinema Day was developed by cross-industry body Cinema First, with the support of the Film Distributors’ Association…

Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometers To The End Of The World took the Best Feature Film prize at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival, which gave out its awards yesterday (Friday, August 23). The Romanian film, which debuted in Competition in Cannes earlier this year, received the €16,000 prize, co-funded by the Tourism Association of Canton Sarajevo. Scroll down for the full list of feature winners  Set in a conservative Danube Delta community, it follows a gay teenager’s journey of self-discovery, which clashes with the traditional values of his parents and neighbours. Yorgos Zois won Best Director for Greece-Bulgaria-US co-production Arcadia, which…

Rich Peppiatt’s comedy-drama Kneecap opens in 237 cinemas across England, Wales and Scotland through Curzon this weekend, following a strong two weeks in its native Ireland. The film opened in Ireland and Northern Ireland on August 8 through Wildcard Distribution and held a top five spot for its first two weekends amid summer box office competition, reaching £557,610 as of Sunday, August 18. Kneecap is a semi-fictionalised story of the eponymous Belfast-based hip-hop trio, and charts their rise from the Gaeltacht Quarter of West Belfast to becoming popular music artists. Group members Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ…

There was a palpable sense of relief surging through EIFF as it made its first fully-fledged return following a tough few years with the collapse of former parent charity the Centre for the Moving Image in 2022 threatening the future of one of the world’s longest-running festivals. At a BBC Film drinks reception on the festival’s second night, the film funder’s director Eva Yates recalled standing on the same stage the previous year during programmer Kate Taylor’s scaled-back edition, with no one quite sure what the future held. The consensus among the industry present in Edinburgh was festival director Paul…

Jack King’s The Ceremony has won the inaugural £50,000 Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence at the revamped Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), which drew to a close tonight (August 21). Yorkshire-born King’s feature debut follows two migrant workers who are forced to bury a colleague in the Yorkshire hills. When one demands to accord the dead man his rightful Islamic burial, nerves begin to fray, and a power struggle emerges. Cast includes Tudor Cucu Dumitrescu, Erdal Yildiz, Liam Thomas, Arnold Bakshi and Mo’min Swaitat. Producers are Hollie Bryan and Lucy Meer for the UK’s Cosmosquare Films and Strive…

Media veteran Edgar Bronfman Jr. has reportedly made an 11th-hour $4.3bn bid for Paramount Global, rivalling the previous offer from Skydance Media and RedBird Capital. With one day to go before the official August 21 close of the “go-shop” window allowing Paramount Global’s special committee to consider “superior” bids, Bronfman Jr. is understood to have offered $2.4bn for Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, owner of a controlling interest in Paramount Global. The proposal includes a $1.5bn balance sheet injection and a $400m payment to cover a termination fee Paramount Global would pay Skydance Media were it not to consummate the previously…