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Sf Studios has acquired Nordic distribution rights to Ruben Ostlund’s upcoming new film The Entertainment System Is Down, ahead of filming beginning in Paris in January.

Sf is planning for a Nordic theatrical release in autumn 2026.

“One of the highlights of Triangle of Sadness was the cinema tour around the country that we did together with Sf Studios,” said Ostlund. “Even before the new film is shot, we have already started discussions on how to make the tour even stronger. Among other things, I believe in offering the audience electric shocks when they get bored and hope to get...

Gemeinsam mit einer Reihe weiterer Kollegen stößt Daniel Brühl zum Cast von Cathy Yans „The Gallerists“, für den bereits Natalie Portman und Jenna Ortega in Hauptrollen festgestanden hatten.

Daniel Brühl (Credit: Pablo Arroyo)

Daniel Brühl ist international gegenwärtig unverändert der wohl gefragteste deutsche Schauspieler: Gerade feierte er mit Ron Howards „Eden“ auf den großen Herbstfestivals große Premiere, und man sieht ihn neben Himesh Patel, Aya Cash und Billy Magnussen in der von Sam Mendes inszenierten HBO-Satireserie „The Franchise“. Zudem ist er in einer Hauptrolle in dem neuen Film des zweifachen Cannes-Gewinners Ruben Östlund, „The Entertainment System Is Down“, bestätigt.

Nun stößt er mit einer Reihe von Kolleg:innen zum Cast des neuen Films von „Birds of Prey“-Regisseurin Cathy Yan, „The Gallerists“, für den bereits Natalie Portman und Jenna Ortega in Hauptrollen festgestanden hatten. Die anderen neuen Ensemble-Mitglieder sind Oscargewinnerin Da’vine Joy Randolph, Sterling K. Brown, Zach Galifianakis und Catherine Zeta-Jones.

European Film Promotion, which gives a boost to films and talent from Europe, has revealed the jury for the 28th edition of European Shooting Stars, which showcases actors from the continent.

The jury is comprised of five film professionals who will select 10 actors. They will then take part in a program at the Berlin Film Festival, which runs Feb. 13 – 23. The jury will select the actors from candidates who have been nominated by their national film promotion institutes and film centers.

The jury includes former European Shooting Star Ludivine Sagnier, an actor best known for her roles in films by François Ozon. She starred in, among others, “Water Drops on Burning Rocks” (2000), “8 Women” (2002) and “Swimming Pool” (2003), and she will also appear in Ozon’s latest film, “Quand vient l’automne” (2024). Sagnier has also worked with directors such as P.J. Hogan, Lee Tamahori, Paolo Sorrentino, Hirokazu Koreeda and Ridley Scott.

Also on...

Fortress Investment Group has bought British arthouse exhibitor and distributor Curzon in a deal that it claims will secure the company’s future across exhibition, distribution and streaming.

The acquisition, announced Tuesday, saw Fortress acquire the company from Charles Cohen’s Cohen Media Group in a foreclosure auction involving multiple Cohen assets, including the Landmark cinema chain. Fortress had lent Cohen $534 million but sued him earlier this year for default. Cohen acquired Curzon in late 2019 amid a buying spree by the U.S. real estate developer.

Financial details of the successful Fortress bid weren’t disclosed, but encompass Curzon’s 16-location theatrical footprint with 46 screens across the U.K., alongside its distribution arm Curzon Film and the Curzon Home Cinema streaming platform. The company said that the move secures positions for Curzon’s 350-plus workforce.

The venerable British outfit, which dates back to 1934, has been expanding its theatrical presence in recent years,...

Greek officials sought to reassure local and foreign producers this week at the Thessaloniki Film Festival that the country’s 40% cash rebate is still on track, after the announcement last month that the Mediterranean nation was delaying plans to reopen its popular incentive scheme.

That decision came after Greece pressed pause on its cash-back program in May to clear more than €100 million ($107 million) in outstanding debts. Greek officials now insist the program is set to resume in January, with Leonidas Christopoulos, CEO of state audiovisual body Creative Greece, insisting the further delay was necessary for the government to square its accounts.

“You cannot be credible — especially abroad — if you have a huge backlog and reopen the platform,” Christopoulos told Variety. “It wouldn’t be credible.”

Since launching in 2019, Greece’s rebate scheme has helped the Mediterranean nation land high-profile productions including Rian Johnson’s Netflix blockbuster “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery...

Exclusive: Neon and Topic Studios have wrapped on their comedy Splitsville, directed by and starring The Climb‘s Michael Angelo Covino, adding Nicholas Braun (Succession), David Castañeda (The Umbrella Academy), and O-t Fagbenle (The Handmaid’s Tale) to the cast.

Details as to the trio’s roles are being kept under wraps. As previously announced, Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, and Covino’s The Climb collaborator Kyle Marvin will also star.

In Splitsville, Ashley (Arjona) asks for a divorce, leading good-natured Carey (Marvin) to run to his friends, Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino), for support. He’s shocked to discover that the secret to their happiness is an open marriage — that is, until Carey crosses the line and throws all of their relationships into chaos.

Reteaming following their work together on Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, Topic Studios and Neon produced alongside Covino, Marvin and Emily Korteweg under the team’s Watch This Ready banner,...

Sovereign Films has acquired U.K. and Ireland distribution rights to “Red Path,” the latest feature from Tunisian director Lotfi Achour, which competed for the Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

The film, set for theatrical release in the second or third quarter of 2025, centers on 13-year-old Achraf, who is forced into a gruesome and unimaginable act after his cousin Nizar is murdered by a group of men. Carrying the severed head of his cousin as a brutal message to his family, Achraf finds himself haunted by Nizar’s ghost. As his elders fail him, Achraf is torn between holding on to Nizar’s spirit and fulfilling his duty to recover his cousin’s body, while grappling with the overwhelming burden of grief and survival.

Achour, whose 2016 short “Law of Lamb” vied for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, drew inspiration from actual events. “This film is...

Ruben Ostlund’s next movie is titled “The Entertainment System Is Down.” It’ll concern itself with a long-haul flight where the passengers suddenly lose access to the TV and film options they could otherwise watch. Chaos, and madness, ensues.

Australian airline Qantas offered a little preview of that descent into the aeronautical abyss. According to a riveting Reddit thread (and confirmed by USA Today), a nine-and-a-half hour Qantas flight from Sydney to Tokyo in early October had a problem with its entertainment system whereby every single seatback screen had to show the same movie. Based on requests made by several passengers, the movie selected for the entire flight to watch in unison was “Daddio,” Christy Hall’s R-rated taxicab drama starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. The film is sexually explicit and features profanity as well as graphic nudity. Exactly what’s usually shown to an entire flight’s passenger manifest,...

What a difference a year makes. In the weeks after last year’s edition of the Polish Film Festival, the country batted away a far-right insurgency. Where last year’s festival was conspicuous for its inclusion of films that seemed to exist above all else to express nationalistic pride, the 49th edition was a showcase of more liberal sentiments and artistic styles.

Amid a sea of rising fascism in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland’s relative holding down the fort of nominal liberalism has been surprising. It seemed to translate into a sunnier festival this year, which extended to the vibrant festival logo. Last year’s frequent rain and rippling winds were supplanted by weather more befitting the “Cannes of Poland,” as locals affectionately call the Gdynia-based festival. The festive mood was infectious, with staff frequently and excitedly discussing next year’s 50th jubilee, and the promise of a more progressive country.

The Greek government has further delayed reopening the country’s popular 40% tax rebate for international film and TV productions until January 2025 as it strives to clear a funding backlog and receive a fresh budget.

The rebate has been closed for new applications since May 1. It was expected to formally reopen on October 1, administered by the newly-created Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre - Creative Greece (Hfac-Creative Greece).

However, Screen understands international film and TV productions hoping to shoot in Greece this year have been assured by Leonidas Christopoulos, CEO of Hfac-Creative Greece, they will be still able to access the rebate.

Martin Scorsese is set to be honored with a life achievement award by Italy’s National Cinema Museum in the northern city of Turin.

The director will receive the museum’s Stella della Mole Award on October 7 in a gala ceremony in the 85-meter-high atrium of its home, the Mole Antonelliana, which was originally conceived as a synagogue.

The following day, Scorsese will give a masterclass and also attend an introduction to a retrospective devoted to his work, including early films such as What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? and Who’s That Knocking At My Door? as well as award winners Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

“Few of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, if any, continue to dazzle audiences around the world as Martin Scorsese does more than 60 years after making his debut,” the museum said in a statement.

“The...

Palme d’Or winning director Ruben Östlund’s next film The Entertainment System Is Down has been awarded €500,000 in production support from Berlin-Brandenburg’s regional film fund.

It is one of 30 feature films and series projects, from directors such as David Wnendt and Ulrike Ottinger, to share more than €7.2m in Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb)’s latest funding round.

Phlippe Bober’s Berlin-based Essential Filmproduktion received the €500,000 for Östlund’s second English-language production The Entertainment System Is Down, starring Daniel Brühl, Kirsten Dunst and Keanu Reeves. The long gestating project is set on a long-haul flight whose inflight entertainment system breaks down.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all worldwide rights to Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight, the directing debut of Embeth Davidtz that screened at the recent Telluride and Toronto festivals.

Davitz also stars and wrote the screenplay, based on the memoir by Alexandra Fuller. Set and shot in South Africa – where US-born Davitz was raised – with a local cast and crew, the film centres on an eight-year-old girl living on her family farm in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) at the end of the country’s late-seventies war of independence.

The cast also includes Lexi Venter, Zikhona Bali, Fumani N Shilubana,...

Das Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg vergibt aktuell 8,2 Millionen Euro Förderung. David Wnendt erhält mit seinem Filmprojekt die größte Einzelsumme. Es sind aber auch die neuen Serienprojekte der HaRiBos und der Neuesuper dabei.

David Wnendt inszeniert „Athos 2643“ nach eigenem Drehbuch (Credit: Andreas Höfer)

Das Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg unterstützt in seiner aktuellen Förderrunde 42 neue Film- und Serienprojekte mit insgesamt 8,2 Millionen Euro. Darunter befinden sich neue Projekte von internationalen Stars wie Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst, Ruben Östlund oder Isabelle Huppert. Ebenso die neuen Projekte von Sandra Hüller, David Wnendt oder Laura Lackmann sind dabei.

Die größte Einzelsumme geht mit 1,4 Millionen Euro an David Wnendts neues Filmprojekt „Athos 2643“ (Produktionsfirma Seven Elephants). Die zweithöchste Einzelsumme geht an das Serienprojekt „Consultants“ von Regisseur Lars Kraume und den HaRiBos. Violet Pictures produziert. Drehbuchautor Richard Kropf ist auch an der neuen Serie „Westend Girl“ beteiligt, bei der Pola Beck und Stefan Schaller Regie führen.

Komplizen Film arbeitet mit Regisseur Simon Verhoeven an „Ach,...

The stars are descending on Tuscany. Ethan Hawke, Paul Schrader, Matthew Modine and Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund will walk the red carpet at the Lucca Film Festival, the annual event held in the picturesque Tuscan town, home to old-fashioned merchants, tailors, jewelers and some of the best olive oil on the planet.

The Hollywood Reporter Roma will become the official International Media Partner of Lff this year, providing daily coverage throughout.

The Llff, which kicks off on Saturday and concludes on Sunday, Sept. 29, is the vision of fest director Nicola Borrelli, who places an emphasis on uncompromising, unconventional cinema.

Also attending is Italian cinema legend Pupi Avati, fresh from premiering his gothic horror film The American Backyard in Venice. Francesco Costabile, the writer of of Familia, will also be in Lucca, along with the film’s lead actor, Francesco Gheghi, who recently won best actor in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Fest.

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

If there is one major Oscar race that has changed the most due to the Academy’s push to become more globally-minded, it is the Best Director race. Recent surprise nominees, from “Anatomy of a Fall” filmmaker Justine Triet last year to “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Östlund and “Drive My Car” director Ryusuke Hamaguchi the years prior, have often been directors that appealed more to the tastes of international voters.

Fast forward to now, and that sort of Cannes crowd really is leading the conversation...

Sweden has selected The Last Journey as its candidate for the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

The documentary by popular Swedish TV hosts and journalists Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson, known at home as Filip och Fredrik, sees the duo take Hammar’s father Lars on a road trip to France.

Lars has recently retired after 40 years as a French teacher but instead of a “third age” of travel, wine and experiences with his wife, he becomes passive and tired. By making the same road trip that the family used to make when Filip was a child, and staging some of life’s most beautiful moments, they hope to rekindle Lars’ spark.

The doc is produced by Nexiko in co-production with Nordisk Film Distribution, Rmv Film and collaboration with Svt.

The work has proven a hit at the Swedish box office this year, drawing more...

Esther Acebo, best known for playing Stockholm in Netflix’s global smash hit “Money Heist,” has signed on to star in Nestor Ruiz Medina’s upcoming feature “In the End, Everything Will Be Fine” (“Al Finald Toda va a Estar Bien”).

Described as a “critique on today’s society in the vein of Ruben Östlund,” the film will tell five interweaving stories that touch on the “essence of the stupidity of humanity.”

Acebo’s credits include “Money Heist,” Prime Video’s “Operación Marea Negra” and “Antes de Perder” on Playz. Her feature film resume includes roles in Ignacio Tatay’s “Jaula” and Joaquín Mazón’s “De Perdidos al Río.” She is currently filming “La Increíble Historia de Julia Pastrana” for Disney+ and the feature “Normas para una Página de Sucesos” by director José Ortuño.

Of her reaction to seeing the screenplay for “In the End, Everything Will Be Fine,” Acebo...

“Why is there snow if it’s a volcano?” Fedir (Fedir Pugachov) throws out a seemingly innocent question to his family while wandering around Mount Teide in Spain. But it’s one of many that has become far more difficult to answer for his father Roman (Roman Lutskyi) and stepmother Nastya as the Ukrainian family’s holiday in the Canary Islands becomes a permanent trips amid the Russian invasion of their home country. Telling their six-year-old what’s falling upon them is burnt ash, and not snow, would be piercing an illusion they’d rather he hold onto — one of many in Damian Kocur’s cleverly conceived drama “Under the Volcano.”

At first, the greatest concern Roman and Nastya have is whether they’ll find a spot for their car near the beach on the last day of their vacation, having no idea that they’re about to be parked there indefinitely.

You probably remember one thing about the Swiss folk hero William Tell: He used a bow and arrow to shoot an apple off the head of his son. But did you know that he did so on the orders of a cruel Austrian leader who wanted to quell any resistance to that country’s onerous occupation of Switzerland? Or that he became a leader of the Swiss resistance?

If you don’t remember the backstory to the bow, the boy and the apple, Irish director Nick Hamm’s “William Tell” is here to remind you, and to add a few of its own embellishments to the centuries-old folk tale. The film is big, brutal and beautiful — over the top at times and stirring at others. It finds modern resonance in a 14th century European legend, and for better and worse it also turns that legend into a slam-bang bit of muscular Hollywood-style entertainment.

A monument of independent filmmaking is coming to a cinema near you. Brady Corbet’s 3.5-hour-long, seven-years-in-the-making historical epic The Brutalist finally secured a U.S. distribution deal over the weekend. The movie, which won Corbet the Venice Film Festival’s best director prize Saturday, will be released by indie tastemaker A24 sometime later this year with a major awards season campaign expected to follow.

The buzz around The Brutalist has been building into a roar ever since its first press screening in Italy a little over a week ago. First came the curious talk surrounding the 10-minute intermission that bisects the movie — a commercially challenging choice that nonetheless feels integral to its construction. Then there were excited comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, or favorable references to the works of László Nemes and Jonathan Glazer. Awards season pundits, meanwhile, have already projected the film’s star,...

The Toronto International Film Festival will be placing an ever larger emphasis on the international in its name.

Outlined to Variety by Toronto chief programming officer Anita Lee, the move comes in response to the emergence of younger audiences driving the post-pandemic box office rebound, reshaping audience tastes in both U.S. independent cinemagoing and at film festivals.

“Our festival audiences have become younger, and younger audiences are coming out for the non-English international arthouse films,” Lee told Variety, adding it was Toronto’s “biggest growth and shift” in audience attendance.

Drivers for this evolution abound, Lee said, such as the fact that audiences are consuming more international content. In the last few years, a new breed of “crossover or slightly more accessible international arthouse films” has emerged, she added, citing Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness.” “That’s on the rise. There’s more industry attention to films which could work in this way,...

Considerate, cultured, polite, patient, a good listener, easy on the eye: Matthias is the kind of man almost anyone would be glad to have as company. In turn, he’s glad to be company to almost anyone: a middle-aged singleton seeking a date to a classical concert, an elderly married woman who can’t talk to her husband, a man his age who needs a fake boyfriend to secure an apartment lease. Just because he’s getting paid for his companionship in all these situations doesn’t mean he treats them with less care than he would any of his own, uncommissioned relationships — which might be a problem, he realizes, by the time his girlfriend walks out on him, exasperatedly saying that he “doesn’t seem real anymore.” That pithy remark sends Matthias into a tailspin, a crisis of selfhood, that gives Bernhard Wenger’s superb black comedy “Peacock” its unpredictable arc.

There’s never been a “normal” year in the independent film market, but this will be the first time in five years that Toronto and Venice don’t have to deal with active catastrophe. No massive labor strikes, pandemics, virtual screenings, or even overwhelming panic about the box office: Just movies seeking buyers.

Now, only one question remains: With this newfound sense of calm, will they show up? As one sales agent put it to IndieWire: If this year turns out to be slow for indie film sales, there are “no more excuses.”

A lot happened while everyone was busy fending off disaster. It’s unclear if theatrical viewing habits will ever return to the levels of 2019 and nowhere is that more apparent than the indie sector. Back in the day, Netflix and Amazon were major buyers; today, all streamers have scaled way, way back on their acquisitions. They...

With over 200 films screening at the Venice, Telluride, Toronto film festivals this year, a majority of them without distributors, there’s a lot of product to go around, with everything from star-studded genre films to under-the-radar indie dramas waiting to be discovered.

We couldn’t touch on everything that sounds exciting, but here are 20 films that we believe could find homes in the coming weeks.

“The Assessment”

Director: Fleur Fortune

Section: TIFF Special Presentations

Domestic Sales: UTA

Fleur Fortune is a first-time feature director coming from the world of music videos, and her debut is a sci-fi parable about a world wreaked by climate change in which couples must pass an exam before they’re allowed to have a child. Alicia Vikander stars as the assessor, and Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel play the hopeful couple.

“The Cut”

Director: Sean Ellis

Section: TIFF Special Presentations

Domestic Sales: UTA and WME...

UTA has signed Hong Kong writer-director Tiger Ji for representation in all areas.

Ji first gained recognition at age 19 with his award-winning 2020 short, “Wuhan Driver,” executive produced by Jonathan Sanger. It follows a Chinese Uber driver in New York as he struggles to make ends meet at the onset of the pandemic. For the project, Ji was awarded the filmmaker of the future award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

His subsequent 2023 project, “Death & Ramen,” starred Bobby Lee and Matt Jones (“Breaking Bad”). The short premiered at the Palm Springs Shortfest, where it was nominated for best comedy. It follows a ramen chef as he goes on an unintended late night odyssey with the Grim Reaper, sharing a bowl of noodles and discovering what it means to be human.

“Death & Ramen” was picked up by Canal+ for distribution worldwide and racked up more than 1 million views on YouTube in just over a month.

The Next Nordic Generation competition strand of the Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund is where some of the most gifted talents from the Nordics such as Gustav Møller (“The Guilty”) or Katrine Brocks (“The Great Silence”) pitched their graduation films in recent years, before making their international breakthroughs.

This year’s curated program of 10 graduation films from Nordic film schools will be showcased Aug. 21 in Haugesund, Norway.

The 10 short films were selected by a jury consisting of producer Elisa Fernanda Pirir of Stær Film, filmmakers Gunnbjörg Gunnarsdóttir (“Victoria Must Go”) and Fredrik S. Hana (“Code Name: Nagasaki”), in association with program coordinator Christian Høkaas.

“Fear, confusion, dark humor, power, anxiety and love. Anger, love, power. This year’s slate offers a lot of strong emotions, in-keeping with the Scandinavian tradition of dark humour and relationship drama,” said Pirir who’s enjoyed the “playful and daring selection.”

Norway is out in force with five fiction films,...

“I keep slipping into Valerie Cherish, don’t I?” Meredith Hagner has done plenty of press in her career, particularly for her breakout role in Search Party and the Vacation Friends franchise, but this is the first time she’s sat down for a meal and really rehashed her full biography with a recorder running. She’s concerned she’s trafficking in the same acting cliches as Lisa Kudrow’s famously deluded character in The Comeback.

But the cliches along the 37-year-old’s career path sound novel. They’re almost from another time. She moved to New York from North Carolina after graduating high school on the promise of an unpaid job in a Fringe Fest play. She slept on a hand-me-down hospice bed (with rollers!) that her grandmother had just died in. And, to pay rent on the railroad apartment she shared with a server at cringe tourist trap Jekyll & Hyde Club,...

Memories can be slippery things. Take what happens around the halfway point of Laurynas Bareiša’s beguiling second feature: two women––more specifically Ernesta (Gelminė Glemžaitė) and Juste (Agnė Kaktaitė), sisters on holiday with their respective families––start dancing to Donna Lewis with what looks like an old routine, part half-remembered movements, part muscle memory. This entrancing sequence is cut short when their kids ask to go swimming, where one of the children appears to drown. The film then jumps forward in time, where Ernesta is visiting a man whose life was saved by one of her late husband’s organs. Before finding out how he died, we jump back again: same holiday, same sisters, same dance, only this time it’s Lighthouse Family. “When you’re close to tears, remember,“ Tunde Baiyewu sings, “someday it’ll all be over.“

The Lithuanian film’s title is Drowning Dry, a term...

Richard Hunter’s feature “Foul Evil Deeds” is one of the more European of British first features, taking its inspiration from continental art house names rather than the more usual luminaries of U.K. social realism such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.

It consists of interwoven stories of everyday wickedness, from the careless to the horrific: “The influences are people like Ulrich Seidel and Michael Haneke being a huge one, Roy Andersson being a big one, and peripherally looking at all of those,” Hunter told Variety.

“The early Ruben Östlund as well. The Britishness, inherently, obviously comes out through me.”

Hunter arrived at filmmaking from advertising. “I did documentary at university, and that led into music videos, and from there into commercials. And there I found my wet place in that world. I looked to the people that had done that transition like Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze,...

Danish star Claes Bang, best known for playing the leading role of Christian in Ruben Östlund’s 2017 film “The Square,” has been cast opposite Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa as the villain in “The Wrecking Crew” for Amazon MGM Studios.

The project began with a tweet from Bautista back in 2021, which quickly snowballed into an actual movie (see tweet below).

Just going to throw this out into the atmosphere and see what happens. Here we go… Me and Momoa in a Lethal Weapon type buddy cop movie directed by David Leitch. Ok! There it is. Now we wait.

— Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) August 19, 2021

After the project was assembled, it landed at MGM. The only thing different from the tweet was that instead of landing “The Fall Guy” director David Leitch, the directorial duties would be handed to Ángel Manuel Soto, who directed “Blue Beetle” for Warner Bros. and DC.

The script...

Meg Ryan is not just America’s sweetheart anymore — now she’s an international “heart” icon.

The writer/director/actress is being feted with the Heart Award at the 2024 Sarajevo Film Festival, where her classic rom-com “You’ve Got Mail” screened 25 years ago in 1999.

This year, Ryan will present a special screening of the 1998 hit film and also host a masterclass about writing and directing her sophomore 2023 film “What Happens Later,” which will additionally be screened at the Festival. The masterclass will be moderated by “No Man’s Land” director Danis Tanović.

Ryan made her directorial debut with 2015’s WWII drama “Ithaca,” which marked a reunion for Ryan and frequent collaborator Tom Hanks.

“Meg Ryan had our hearts at hello! Not only has she charmed us all with her unforgettable performances, but she has also proven her prowess behind the camera as a director and screenwriter. It is our honor to present...

Warner Bros. Discovery Strikes Film Deal With Former Staffer; ‘The Intern’ To Be Remade

Warner Bros. Discovery is getting into business with one of its longest-serving execs in Asia and will remake The Intern as part of the agreement. The entertainment powerhouse has struck a first-look film deal with Jack Nguyen and his Joat Films. Under terms of the deal, Nguyen will present Asia-focused films to the studio with an emphasis on local-language remakes of Wbd’s English-language films. First off of the line will be a Korean remake of 2015 comedy-drama The Intern, which starred Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway and Rene Russo. “Jack is an industry veteran with a second to none understanding of the film production business across Asia,” said Kurt Rieder, SVP, Head of Theatrical Distribution, Apac, Wbd. “There is a strong appetite for remakes of universally popular Hollywood stories across the region, and we look forward...

“All Quiet on the Western Front” took the 2023 Oscars by storm, racking up nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The German film won Best International Feature, Best Score, Best Cinematography and Best Production Design, but its BAFTA-nominated director, Edward Berger, was snubbed despite the Best Adapted Screenplay bid he shared with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell. Now Berger seeks redemption with his 2024 thriller “Conclave,” which looks like an early Oscar favorite according to our current Gold Derby odds.

“Conclave” is a psychological thriller based on Robert Harris‘ 2016 novel of the same name. In the film, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with leading one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, selecting a new Pope, where he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the very foundation of The Church. It was scripted by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Straughan (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”).

See...

Germany’s Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Names New Boss

Influential German funding body Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg is getting a new Managing Director. Sarah Duve-Scmid will succeed Kirsten Niehuus in the middle of next year. Duve-Scmid was previously a deputy board member and head of funding at the Leiterin der Förderabteilung bei der Filmförderanstalt (Federal Funding Agency). She was also Managing Director of Vision Kino. Niehuus is retiring in 2025, and a supervisory board picked her successor, who will work alongside Helge Jürgens, who is to remain Managing Director of Games and New Media until mid-2028. “With the Supervisory Board’s decision, the Medienboard is moving towards a continued successful future,” said Florian Graf, Head of the Berlin Senate Chancellery and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Medienboard. “Building on the great 20 years of work by Kirsten Niehuus, who made the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region the center of German film, Sarah Duve-Schmid stands for...

US filmmaker Paul Schrader will be president of the jury for the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival (August 16-23).

Schrader will preside over a five-person jury, consisting of Swedish actress and producer Noomi Rapace, Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen, Bosnian filmmaker Una Gunjak and Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza.

The jury will award the Heart of Sarajevo awards in the Competition Programme – Feature Film, with the winners announced on Friday, August 23. Prizes include best feature film, director, actress and actor.

Previous Sarajevo jury presidents have included Mike Leigh, Jasmila Zbanic, Asghar Farhadi, Ruben Ostlund and last year’s president Mia Wasikowska.

Schrader’s...

Ruben Ostlund admits that winning awards piles the "pressure" on filmmakers.The 50-year-old director has won two Palme d'Or awards at the Cannes Film Festival for his films 'The Square' and 'Triangle of Sadness' but saw the recognition as a curse rather than a blessing.Speaking in conversation with writer-director Niclas Larsson for Interview magazine, Ruben said: "It makes you more insecure, I would say. For me it was a hundred per cent like this. Winning one Golden Palm put more pressure on me, but winning two Golden Palms took away a lot of pressure because that means I wasn't a one-hit wonder. But then I also need pressure in order to perform."The Swedish filmmaker has set himself the target of becoming the first person to win the Palme d'Or award for three consecutive movies.Ruben said: "So that's why the goal with the next film is to win another Golden Palm.

Ruben Östlund knows it sounds “absurd” to complain about winning awards, however, he admits that they add another level of “pressure” for filmmakers.

During a recent conversation with Mother Couch writer-director Niclas Larsson for Interview magazine, the Triangle of Sadness director was asked if “awards create self-confidence or make you more insecure?”

“It makes you more insecure, I would say,” Östlund responded. “For me it was a hundred percent like this. Winning one Golden Palm put more pressure on me, but winning two Golden Palms took away a lot of pressure because that means I wasn’t a one hit wonder. But then also I need pressure in order to perform.”

He continued, “So that’s why the goal with the next film is to win another Golden Palm. It’s going to be the first time in the history of filmmaking that a director wins three Golden Palms in a row.

Hello, and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen Podcast!

I am Valerie Complex, an associate editor and film writer at Deadline. Today, I am chatting with actress Dolly De Leon, veteran stage and screen actress from the Philippines whose star is on the rise in Hollywood.

She received her long-overdue international breakout role in Ruben Östlund’s 2022 critically-acclaimed feature Triangle of Sadness, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was released in theaters by Neon.

De Leon was awarded the Best Supporting Actor prize by the LA Film Critics Association and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role—the first Filipino to be nominated in an acting category at either association.

More recently, De Leon starred in the Filipino box office sensation A Very Good Girl co-starring Kathryn Bernardo, the drama...

Mother, Couch filmmaker Niclas Larsson isn’t afraid to take big swings both personally and professionally.

As a teenager in Sweden, Larsson embarked on a five-hour train ride to a Stockholm hotel just so he could have a chance to meet one of his all-time favorite filmmakers, Gus Van Sant. After waiting around all night at a hotel bar, he eventually approached the Good Will Hunting director to praise his Palme d’Or-winning film, Elephant. Their subsequent exchange altered his perspective on filmmaking a great deal, but it also paved the way for Van Sant to eventually serve in a mentor-like capacity during post-production on Larsson’s feature directorial debut, Mother, Couch.

Larsson initially paid his dues as a child actor until a Ruben Östlund-involved short film whet his appetite for filmmaking. He then proceeded to make a series of acclaimed short films, music videos and commercials, including two shorts for Vogue,...

Ruben Östlund knows it’s “absurd” to complain about winning awards, but to a certain extent, the auteur resents how buzzy plaques affect the filmmaking process.

The “Triangle of Sadness” director told Interview magazine that he believes winning the Palme d’Or puts more “pressure” on directors for their follow-up projects. When asked by “Mother Couch” writer/director Niclas Larsson if receiving awards “create[s] self-confidence or make you more insecure,” Östlund admitted that he became “more insecure” after winning his first Palme for “The Square” in 2017. He later won the prize again for “Triangle of Sadness” in 2022.

Now, he strives to make history with a third Palme.

“It makes you more insecure, I would say,” Östlund said. “For me it was a hundred percent like this. Winning one Golden Palm put more pressure on me, but winning two Golden Palms took away a lot of pressure because that means I...

Daniel Brühl went to “Eden” and survived to tell the tale.

“I can’t compare it to any of my films. I’ve never done anything like it,” he says, teasing Ron Howard’s upcoming thriller. “Two days ago, I was doing the dubbing and saw Jude Law giving me a hard time on screen. We are both giving each other a hard time in this film.”

Shot in Australia – “We shot in nature, in the wilderness. All of it!” – it also features Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney as a group of people heading to the Galápagos Islands. Hans Zimmer composed the score.

“Tonally, it’s very eerie and very influenced by its setting. Ron and I, we have been talking a lot about Peter Weir’s films and the wonderful ‘Walkabout’ by Nicolas Roeg. There is this connection to nature, which is similar to [Howard’s previous film] ‘Thirteen Lives.

“Trans Memoria” director Victoria Verseau is ready for “Trans Love.”

The second part of the planned trilogy about her transition, it will be a fictionalized take on the life-changing trip she took in her twenties.

“I decided to go on a road trip in the U.S. and hitchhike for three months. By myself! I’ve never heard of hitchhiking trans girls and it was an extremely dangerous adventure, but I was young and naïve. I am glad I was, because I have experienced the most wonderful things. And the most terrible things,” she says.

“Back then, I just started taking hormones. I didn’t know how I would be perceived by others: as a gay boy, trans person or as a woman? But I longed for love, and sex. My friends were losing their virginities and my life was on hold. This trip turned into my own sexual revolution.

L-r: Julia Louis-Dreyfus in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Downhill, and You Hurt My Feelings Screenshot: Warner Bros. Entertainment/YouTube Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the most successful television performers of all time. That’s not a personal opinion—it’s a statistic. She holds not one but two records...

L-r: Julia Louis-Dreyfus in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Downhill, and You Hurt My FeelingsScreenshot: Warner Bros. Entertainment/YouTube, Searchlight Pictures/YouTube, Photo: A24

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the most successful television performers of all time. That’s not a personal opinion—it’s a statistic. She holds not...

Dolly De Leon in Ghostlight Photo: Courtesy of Luke Dyra Fresh off her Golden Globe-nominated performance in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle Of Sadness, Dolly De Leon is leading her own troupe of actors in Ghostlight. The new movie from co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson (Saint Frances) was acquired by...

Dolly De Leon in GhostlightPhoto: Courtesy of Luke Dyra

Fresh off her Golden Globe-nominated performance in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle Of Sadness, Dolly De Leon is leading her own troupe of actors in Ghostlight. The new movie from co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson (Saint Frances) was acquired by IFC Films...

In my awards-wrap piece for last year’s Cannes, I complimented jury president Ruben Östlund and his deliberators on a deliberation well done. They chose to award mostly the films Vadim Rizov and I had already covered in prior dispatches, granting me the freedom to go longer on my thoughts about The State of the Festival, as well as highlights from the Quinzaine des cinéastes sidebar (a.k.a. The Directors’ Fortnight), which had just finished unveiling new artistic director Julien Rejl’s inaugural edition. No such luck this year—not because Greta Gerwig gave ungreat prizes (au contraire, her jury’s picks were about as […]

The post Cannes 2024: Awards, Anora, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, The Seed of the Sacred Fig first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In my awards-wrap piece for last year’s Cannes, I complimented jury president Ruben Östlund and his deliberators on a deliberation well done. They chose to award mostly the films Vadim Rizov and I had already covered in prior dispatches, granting me the freedom to go longer on my thoughts about The State of the Festival, as well as highlights from the Quinzaine des cinéastes sidebar (a.k.a. The Directors’ Fortnight), which had just finished unveiling new artistic director Julien Rejl’s inaugural edition. No such luck this year—not because Greta Gerwig gave ungreat prizes (au contraire, her jury’s picks were about as […]

The post Cannes 2024: Awards, Anora, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, The Seed of the Sacred Fig first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Cannes Film Festival is nearing its conclusion, with plenty of films making a splash on the starry Croisette on the French Riviera. However, one studio executive tells Variety, “There aren’t many Oscar-buzzy titles to be excited about, not even in the international feature space.”

This year’s main competition jury, led by president Greta Gerwig and including J.A. Bayona, Ebru Ceylan, Pierfrancesco Favino, Lily Gladstone, Eva Green, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nadine Labaki and Omar Sy, will name its winners on Saturday.

It was looking like a foregone conclusion that the Palme d’Or win would be bestowed upon Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical “Emilia Pérez,” starring Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón, which was picked up by Netflix. However, on Friday, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” garnered the most enthusiastic reactions on social media from attendees and the longest-standing ovation at 12 minutes. One awards publicist says,...