Author: SD

Yorgos Lanthimos has issued a warning for the independent film sector, saying “it is getting more and more difficult” for independent films with “different themes” to get made.  “It has been a trend for a long time,” said Lanthimos, speaking at the press conference for his Venice Competition title Bugonia. “The weird and complicated thing about cinema is that it’s both art and entertainment. Because of the cost to make films, it becomes very challenging to choose which films are going to be made.” “There are films that are both [art and entertainment], so it’s a very complicated landscape. I…

Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera says guests will not be disinvited from the festival because of their political views, as the topic of the ongoing war in Gaza takes hold on the festival’s first day.  “The position of the Biennale is at one hand we are an Italian cultural institution, a place of openness and debate that does not censor anybody,” said Barbera at the press conference for the heads of the official competition juries. “We’ve been asked to turn down invitations to artists – we will not do that, if they want to be here, they will be here.”…

UK-Ireland top five, August 22-24 Rank  Film (origin)Distributor  August 22-24Total  Week 1  Weapons (US)  Warner Bros  £1.1m   £8.9m  3 2   Freakier Friday (US)  Disney   £740,432  £6m  3  3   Materialists (US)  Sony   £554,097  £2.7m  2  4   The Bad Guys 2 (US)  Universal   £510,810  £10.4m  5  5   The Fantastic Four: First Steps (US)  Disney   £507,819  £22.2m  5  GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.35 Warner Bros’ Weapons topped the UK-Ireland box office for a third successive weekend, as the top five titles remained the same as last weekend and dropped to a lowest cumulative total since 2022.…

Sony Pictures Classics has taken over North American distribution from Sony Pictures of Mamoru Hosoda’s anime adventure Scarlet, days ahead its world premiere out of competition at Venice Film Festival (August 27-September 6). Scarlet will also screen at TIFF next month and play New York Film Festival, before an awards-qualifying run and early 2026 release. Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute throughout the rest of the world for Columbia Pictures, and Toho will distribute theatrically in Japan. While Sony Pictures Classics did not elaborate, Monday’s development means the Sony fold now has two robust animation awards contenders for the upcoming season. Sony…

Studiocanal’s The Life Of Chuck leads new releases in UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend as Ari Aster’s Eddington also launches. Mike Flanagan directs his latest Stephen King adaptation with The Life Of Chuck, which hits 622 venues after previewing from Wednesday (August 20). Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan and Mark Hamill are among the cast of this life-affirming tale split into three genre-bending chapters. The film won the people’s choice award at Toronto Film Festival in 2024 and closed SXSW London earlier this summer. Flanagan is best known for Netflix miniseries The Haunting Of Hill and The Haunting…

Stefan Dordevic’s Wind, Talk To Me won the Heart of Sarajevo for best feature film at the 2025 Sarajevo Film Festival, on an evening when several winners expressed solidarity with the student protestors in Serbia. Serbian director Dordevic’s film – a Serbia-Slovenia-Croatia co-production – is inspired by the director’s real-life experience, and follows a man whose first homecoming since his mother died coincides with his grandmother’s birthday, and his attempts to rescue a stray dog. Scroll down for the full list of winners Dragana Jovovic, Ognjen Glavonic and Stefan Ivancic produce for Serbia’s Non-Aligned Films. Dordevic dedicated the award to…

Warner Bros cemented another milestone in a notable summer as Zach Cregger’s critically lauded horror Weapons crossed $100m at the North American box office. The threshold has traditionally brought automatic cachet without too much scrutiny of costs. However in this case it is meaningful and represents a profit for Warner Bros/New Line on $172.6m and counting at the worldwide box office. The original horror reportedly carried a $38m production budget, in addition to several tens of millions in marketing spend, and the split with exhibition. Weapons added $2.4m on Thursday to reach $100.3m. It stars Juia Garner and Josh Brolin…

The second edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival under the aegis of festival director and CEO Paul Ridd and producer Emma Boa closed this week, with attendees welcoming a decent selection of world premieres and improved screening venues, including the return of the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Abdolreza Kahani’s Canada-set Mortician won the main £50,000 Sean Connery Prize for feature filmmaking excellence, and further competition titles generating interest on the ground included UK filmmaker Helen Walsh’s sophomore feature On The Sea and Elliot Tuttle’s camboy drama Blue Film. The general feeling, as a source told Screen, was the competition line-up was…

Iranian filmmaker Abdolreza Kahani’s Canada-set Mortician has scooped the £50,000 Sean Connery prize for feature filmmaking excellence at the second edition of the revamped Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Kahani serves as writer, director, producer, director of photography, and editor on the feature, which made its world premiere at the festival. It follows a reclusive specialist who washes corpses before burial, in accordance with Islamic tradition, and receives an unusual request from a dissident Iranian singer in hiding. Nima Sadr and Mehdi Salar star. Mortician marks a return to EIFF for Kahani after his film A Shrine, also starring Sadr, premiered…

Paramount confirmed on Tuesday that it has struck a multi-year exclusive deal with Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers to create film, television, and streaming projects. The arrangement calls for Matt and Ross Duffer to “fulfill an ambition to write, produce, and direct large-scale theatrical films”, and will commence after the brothers’ Netflix deal ends in April 2026. The siblings will develop through their Upside Down Pictures alongside company president Hilary Leavitt. Projects will receive the full weight of Paramount’s support including franchise development and marketing. They will continue to work on Stranger Things and other projects at Netflix, and…