Author: SD

Lionsgate will implement further redundancies and reduce its company-wide headcount by 5% or approximately 50 people. The move is expected to happen soon and marks further cost-cutting after staff lay-offs amounting to roughly 8% earlier this year.  Across Hollywood, companies have been cutting costs to meet the challenges of industry shifts. Speaking in July after the Skydance-Paramount merger closed, CEO David Ellison said the transaction would involve $2bn in cost cuts.  In a memo to staff obtained by Screen, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer wrote: ”Though we may continue to fine-tune the organisational structure of individual departments from time to time, today’s headcount reduction will…

France has selected Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident to represent the country in the best international feature film Oscars category. The film was selected by an 11-member committee and was one of five shortlisted finalists that included Richard Linklater’s homage to the French new wave Nouvelle Vague, Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life starring Jodie Foster, Hafsia Herzi’s Cannes best actress-winning The Little Sister, and Ugo Bienvenu’s 2D animation Arco. Members of the committee, appointed by France’s cultural minister Rachida Dati based on a recommendation by national film body CNC, met on Wednesday (September 17) with the producers, international…

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice Of Hind Rajab will open the inaugural Doha Film Festival in November 2025. The film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize on its debut at Venice Film Festival earlier this month. It drew emotional reactions at both its first press screening and subsequent world premiere, where Ben Hania and cast received an extended standing ovation. A retelling of a real-life event from January 2024, The Voice Of Hind Rajab depicts the efforts of the Palestinian Red Crescent aid workers to save Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza who was killed…

UK-Ireland top five, September 12-14 Rank  Film (origin) Distributor Sept 12-14 Total  Week 1 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (UK)  Universal £4.4m £4.4m  1 2  Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (Japan) Sony £3.5m £3.5m 1 3  The Conjuring: Last Rites (US) Warner Bros £2.8m £12.3m 2 4  The Long Walk (US) Lionsgate  £1.2m £1.2m 1 5  The Roses (UK-US) Disney £939,197 £7.3m 3 GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.36 Universal’s Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale topped the box office in the UK and Ireland with a £4.4m opening as new titles dominated the…

Paramount Pictures issued a statement on Friday condemning a pledge by thousands including leading industry figures to boycott Israeli film institutions. “At Paramount, we believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” the statement read. “This is our creative mission.” It continued: “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace. “The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to…

  Top UK producers Sarah Brocklehurst of Brock Media, Andy Paterson of Virtual Circle, and Helen Simmons of Erebus Pictures, are the latest speakers to join the Screen Summit, taking place at BFI Southbank on September 30. They will take part in a conversation called ’The Disrupters’ that will explore the radical ideas and ambitious interventions that could help transform the stark financial reality of making a living as an independent producer in the UK. The panel will emphasise why the role of producer – and why an industry-wide understanding of what it entails – is of vital importance to the…

EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway in Ireland on Irish filmmaker Frank Berry’s The Lost Children Of Tuam, produced by Element Pictures and Liam Neeson’s El Paso Films. France’s mk2 is handling world sales. Monica Dolan, whose credits include the award-winning ITV series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, stars as real-life history enthusiast Catherine Corless. While researching the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, for a local historical society, she uncovered a devastating possibility that as many as 796 children had been buried in unmarked graves on the property. The discovery rallied a campaign for justice for both victims and survivors…

Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning It Was Just An Accident, Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life, Hafsia Herzi’s Cannes best actress-winning The Little Sister, and Ugo Bienvenu’s 2D animation Arco have made the shortlist for France’s international feature film Oscar submission at the 98th Academy Awards in 2026. The films were selected by a recently revamped 11-member selection committee appointed by France’s culture minister Rachida Dati per a recommendation from national film body CNC, which announced the selection on Wednesday evening after a day of deliberations (Sept. 10). The committee – which this year remains anonymous – will reconvene…

Fledging North American distributor Row K Entertainment has made its first acquisition, taking US and Canadian rights at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire. The true story of the 1977 kidnapping that turned an aspiring Indianapolis entrepreneur into a folk hero will open before the end of the year and will get an awards push. Sources pegged the deal in the mid-seven figures and it is understood Row K concluded negotiations on Monday night with WME Independent and Elevated Films on behalf of the filmmakers. WME Independent also handles international sales. This is the…

Cate Blanchett is set to star in fantasy drama Sweetsick, written and directed by Alice Birch, for Searchlight Pictures. Production will begin this autumn in the UK and Greece. Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Theo Barrowclough from House Productions are producing Sweetsick alongside Blanchett via her outfit Dirty Films. Film4 is executive producing and co-financing. In the film, Blanchett plays a woman with a special gift for seeing what others most intimately need and often at great personal cost. Further casting is to be announced. Sweetsick is Birch’s directorial debut. The UK filmmaker is already a prolific screenwriter with credits including Succession, Normal…