News

Belgian star Matthias Schoenaerts has been cast as the villain in Supergirl for Warner Bros’ DC Studios label.

Milly Alcock from House Of The Dragon plays the lead as Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El in the adaptation based on the 2022 DC comic series Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow.

Craig Gillespie, whose credits include I, Tonya, Dumb Money and Cruella, is directing, and production is anticipated to begin in the UK in January 2025. Warner Bros has scheduled a release on June 26, 2026.

Supergirl marks the second feature for the recently relaunched DC Studios after Superman, which co-head James Gunn is directing. That film...

European pay-tv operator Canal+ has launched a branded streaming service in Hungary, the latest in a series of international launches that also includes Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and most recently the Netherlands.

The Hungarian launch is in partnership with local pay TV operator 4iG Group.

Jacques du Puy, CEO Canal+ International, said: “I am very pleased with the launch of our services in Hungary, which illustrates our strategy to digitalize our offerings, further strengthening our position in Europe. Hungary is a dynamic market for SVOD services, and Canal+ is willing to take a significant place on that market. 4iG is the relevant partner to support this launch.”

Canal+ content has been available in Hungary since 2021 through platform Direct One, which was previously branded as Upc Direct.

As part of the Canal+ agreement, 4iG will add Direct One’s 155,000 subscribers to its Digi service next year.

Péter Fekete, CEO of 4iG Group,...

European film executives Christian De Schutter and Barbara Van Lombeek have teamed up to launch The FYC Academy, an agency for global awards strategies.

FYC – which stands for For Your Campaign – will launch officially in Cannes next month. The company’s focus is to set up international campaigns and develop strategies aimed at achieving optimum visibility for films during awards season.

It will include, but is not limited to Academy Awards campaigns, and will work initially on around five titles per year, from any international territory.

The FYC Academy will operate separately from Van Lombeek’s The PR Factory and...

Former Flanders Image manager Christian De Schutter has joined Tine Klint’s Denmark-based Scandinavian sales and aggregation company LevelK as festival consultant.

De Schutter left Flanders Image suddenly in December last year, announced via a short email from Flanders Audiovisual Fund CEO Koen Van Bockstal. Over 150 leading international industry figures then signed an open letter in support of De Schutter.

De Schutter had worked at Flanders Image since 2003, with responsibility for promoting Flemish films and TV dramas internationally. The organisation boosted the careers of filmmakers including Lukas Dhont, Fien Troch and Felix Van Groeningen, and scored Oscar nominations for films including Bullhead,...

Our feature series Origins provides artists with a space to break down everything that went into their latest release. Today, Slow Hollows take us through their new single, “Tired.”

Los Angeles indie rockers Slow Hollows have dropped the latest single from their upcoming album, Bullhead. “Tired” is a dreamy track, dipping ever so slightly into shoegaze antics, and boasts a peaceful, ambient outro.

The song allows listeners to float away with the sound, soaking up its sonic wooziness and falling in love with its lackadaisical, heartfelt lyrics. “The main image that inspired this song is wasting time with someone you love,” says frontman Austin Feinstein.

Get Slow Hollows Tickets Here

This theme is echoed in the singular line that essentially functions as the song’s chorus. “I’m tired of everybody but you,” he sings, leaving the subtext up to interpretation.

There’s an obsessive, co-dependent read not just for the statement,...

Exclusive: Ahead of EFM 2024, XYZ Films has promoted James Emanuel Shapiro to President of Domestic Distribution, upping Alex Williams to Sr. Manager, Acquisitions and Development.

Shapiro, formerly the Executive Vice President of U.S. Distribution, reports to XYZ CEO Nick Spicer and Partner Nate Bolotin. The promotions come following XYZ’s recent hiring of Celine Lin for the role of Senior VP of International Sales.

XYZ launched its domestic distribution arm in 2021 and has since then released films from Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (Something in the Dirt), Nic Cassavetes (God Is a Bullet) and Michelle Garza (Huesera: The Bone Woman).

Said the Partners at XYZ in a joint statement, “These are well deserved promotions and we couldn’t be happier for James and Alex. James has done a terrific job launching the division, with strong support from Alex, and we’re excited about our upcoming slate.”

Prior to his time at XYZ Films,...

France’s Indie Sales has picked up Come Back, the directorial debut from Flemish brothers Jan and Raf Roosens starring Veerle Baetens and her real-life daughter Billie Vlegels.

The film is in post and Indie Sales is launching it at the European Film Market later this month. Kinepolis Film Distribution is handling the Belgian release.

Vlegels plays the teenage daughter of a once-successful techno DJ couple, living with her father after her parents’ divorce. When her mother (Baetens) sets off to make an international comeback, her daughter is thrust into the nocturnal club scene world and finds herself torn between...

They claim the Flemish cultural sector will now suffer without De Schutter’s expertise and international contacts.

Over 150 leading figures from the European and international industry have signed an open letter in support of Christian De Schutter, former managing director of Flanders Image, whose sudden removal from his role was announced in a short email sent by Koen Van Bockstal, CEO of Flanders Audiovisual Fund (Vaf), on December 20.

“We’re all flummoxed by the situation and as his longtime colleagues we think we deserve some sort of explanation. We know that many people in Belgium, including your leading filmmakers, are also confused and angered,...

Melvins drummer Dale Crover is set to undergo emergency spinal surgery and will sit out the band’s upcoming “Twins of Evil” tour with Boris.

The news was revealed Wednesday morning (August 23rd) via Melvins’ Facebook page. Filling in for Crover behind the kit will be Coady Willis, who played drums for the Melvins from 2006 to 2015.

The band’s social media statement read:

“We are sad to announce that literally days before leaving on tour, our drummer Dale Crover learned he needed immediate emergency spinal surgery which will take him out of commission for months. He’s doing as well as can be expected considering the severity of the situation.

The one stroke of luck in all this was that Coady Willis part of the Melvins’ family for 8+ years, who literally trained in sitting by Dale’s side on too many tours to count is able to step in and take over on drums.

Boris and Melvins are teaming up for the “Twins of Evil” 2023 US co-headlining tour.

Dates kick off August 24th in Los Angeles and run through October 14th in San Diego. Each band will perform one of its classic albums in its entirety each night: Heavy Rocks (2002) for Boris and Bullhead for Melvins. Support will be provided by Mr. Phylzzz.

A Live Nation pre-sale for select dates begins Thursday (June 8th) at 10 a.m. local time using the code Disco via Ticketmaster, while general sales start on Friday (June 9th). Fans can also look for deals or pick up tickets to sold-out gigs via StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

“Forty years as the Melvins!!! What better way to celebrate that unlikely milestone than by setting off on the ‘Twins of Evil Tour’ with our friends, Boris,” commented Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne in a press release.

This year’s Malaga Festival and its industry section’s Latin American Focus are celebrating Peruvian cinema and talent.

A number of Peruvian films are screening in the festival and industry section, including “El Caso Monroy,” by Josué Mendez, and Leonardo Barbuy’s debut feature “Diógenes,” which unspool in the fest’s main section and Zonazine sidebar.

As a meeting point for producers and directors from Latin American and investors from Spain and the rest of Europe, the Malaga Festival Industry Zone (Mafiz) serves as a key hub that promotes the co-production of Latin American projects aimed at the international market.

For Barbuy, the premiere of “Diógenes” in Malaga brings it full circle.

“The project passed through Mafiz in 2019, which opened up a series of opportunities for us,” the director tells Variety. “It was clearly an important showcase for the project. We were able to make contacts that bolstered the project.

Exclusive: Drafthouse Films has acquired North American rights to the documentary Chop & Steele, about the creators of the Found Footage Festival, announcing plans to release the film in April at Alamo Drafthouse theaters as part of a double bill with another newly-acquired doc, A Life on the Farm.

Chop & Steele premiered at Tribeca in 2022 and went on to a robust North American festival run that encompassed Calgary, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis, the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Ala., and the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.

In Chop & Steele, Found Footage Festival principals Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, “lifelong friends who tour the country with their popular VHS oddities festival, are slapped with a federal lawsuit after pranking a local news station as ‘strong men’ Chop and Steele. Many notables are featured in the doc, including David Cross, Bobcat Goldthwait, Reggie Watts, and Howie Mandel.

Following up her breakthrough in The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsve has steadily been adding new projects to her roster. The latest is Piero Messina’s sci-fi film Another End, in which she co-stars with Gael García Bernal and Bérénice Bejo. Variety reports the film is “set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of a dead person back into a living body, in an attempt to ease the grief of separation, providing a little extra time to say goodbye.” Bernal takes the role of the widower Sal and Reinsve is Zoe, whose body is where the memory and consciousness of Sal’s former wife have been temporarily implanted. With production already wrapped, see the first images above and below.

Next up, David Mackenzie has set his next film with the thriller Relay, starring Riz Ahmed and Lily James. Scripted by Justin Piasecki and Mackenzie,...

Duo previously collaborated on ’Bullhead’ and ’Racer And The Jailbird’.

Belgian filmmaker Michaël R. Roskam is reuniting with the team behind Bullhead and Racer And The Jailbird for wartime feature Le Faux Soir, set to star regular collaborator Matthias Schoenaerts.

Set in 1943, it tells the story of when the Belgian resistance secretly produced a spoof version of the country’s leading newspaper, Le Soir, which had become a propaganda tool of the occupying Nazi forces.

Schoenaerts, who starred in Roskam’s Oscar-nominated Bullhead and was more recently seen in David O Russell’s Amsterdam, is set to play the Belgian resistance hero.

Film won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Lukas Dhont’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Close has been selected as Belgium’s entry for the international feature film category at the 95th Academy Awards.

Close stars Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele as two boys whose tender friendship is tragically broken. After its Cannes premiere in Competition, it shared the festival’s Grand Prix with Claire Denis’ Stars At Noon.

Considered an early frontrunner to make the Oscar shortlist, Close was also selected as one of Screen critics’ top films from Cannes 2022.

Sales agent The Match Factory...

The late, wonderful Ray Liotta died last month at the age of 67, but he still has a number of projects coming out posthumously.

That includes the limited drama series “Black Bird,” a true-crime psychological thriller developed and executive-produced by “Gone Baby Gone,” “Mystic River,” and “Shutter Island” author Dennis Lehane. Apple TV+ premieres the first two episodes on Friday, July 8, with one following each week through August 5. Watch the official trailer below.

The series is adapted from the memoir “In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption” by James Keene and Hillel Levin. Ray Liotta is one of an ensemble that includes Taron Egerton as Jimmy Keene, a local high school football star and decorated policeman’s son who is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum-security prison. But he’s given a choice: enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and...

Derk-Jan Warrink, co-founder of Keplerfilm, will represent The Netherlands as Producer on the Move at the Cannes Film Festival, May 17–28. The coproduction ‘The Woodcutter Story’**, directed by Mikko Myllylahti is set to premiere in Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique. Keplerfilm will also celebrate the world premiere of Fleur van der Meulen’s debut feature ‘Pink Moon’** at Tribeca next month and Michiel ten Horn’s family film ‘Hotel Sinestra’** is currently in post-production.

Derk-Jan Warrink

www.see-nl.com

Besides Derk-Jan’s place in Cannes this year, Netherlands has secured a place in the Festivl Competition with Close directed by Lukas Dhont, a coproduction of Belgium, Netherlands, France. Internationl sales agent (Isa) The Match Factory is selling this story of Leo and Remi, two thirteen-year-old boys whose close friendship suddenly thrown into disarray as the prospect of adolescence looms. Trying to understand what has gone wrong, Leo seeks comfort and grows closer to Remi’s mother, Sophie, as the boys pursue forgiveness and reconciliation to try and get their friendship back together. Lukas Dhont directs from a screenplay by Dhont and Angelo Tijssens, reteaming after their first feature film Girl.

Directors’ Fortnight is screening A Male/ Un varón directed by Fabian Hernández, a coproduction of Colombia, France, Germany, and Netherlands. Critics’ Week Competition is premiering The Woodcutter Story / Metsurin tarina directed by Mikko Myllylahti, a copro of Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany.

In L’Atelier is Anna 1st directd by Rosanne Pel of Netherlands.

To return to Derk-Jan who founded Keplerfilm together with Koji Nelissen in 2016 after having worked on award-winning films such as The Lobster* (by Yorgos Lanthimos), Bullhead (Michaël R. Roskam), Blind* (Eskil Vogt) and Monos** (Alejandro Landes), Keplerfilm has established itself as a (co-)production company of high-quality independent international feature films such as Semaine de la Critique 2021 Grand Prize winner Feathers* (Omar El Zohairy), Netflix Original Captain Nova** (Maurice Trouwborst) and Buladó** (Eché Janga) which was awarded Best Film at the National Film Awards.

Keplerfilm strongly values building a creative breeding ground on which exceptional and talented writers and directors can grow to their full potential, with an eye for an equal number of female and male directors. They have founded a writer’s residency which offers filmmakers the opportunity to work on a film plan for a month. Keplerfilm focuses on feature film and has the ambition to tell stories about real people, with inescapable struggles and genuine desires, while at the same time always aiming to entertain the audience intellectually.

Derk-Jan Warrink is one of the in total 20 promising, up-and-coming European producers who have been selected for Producers on the Move, European Film Promotion’s high profile hybrid promotion and networking platform. The exclusive group of producers will be put in the spotlight before and during the Cannes Film Festival and take part in a tailor-made hybrid program in order to foster international co-productions, intensify the exchange of experiences and help create new professional networks. The Pre-Festival online program, which started May 3rd and runs until May 5th, includes 1:1 speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions. Producers will then meet personally during the Festival de Cannes from 19 to 23 May and take part in a five-day on-site program including case studies, social events and an extensive promotional campaign via the international trade magazines.

Previous Producers on the Move from the Netherlands include Iris Otten of Juliet — Pupkin(2021), Joram Willink of Bind Film (2019), Frank Hoeve of Baldr (2018), Julius Ponten of New Amsterdam Film Company (2017), Janneke Doolaard of Doxy Films (2016), Ellen Havenith of Prpl (2015), Harro van Staverden of Phanta Basta (2014), Marleen Slot of Viking Film (2013) and Trent of Oak Motion Pictures (2012).

*supported by the Netherlands Film Fund

**supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Production Incentive

Derk-Jan Warrink, Keplerfilm

Ph: +31 20 737 0608

[email protected]

www.keplerfilm.com

European Film Promotion

[email protected]

www.efp-online.com

See Nl, a collaboration between Eye Filmmuseum and the Netherlands Film Fund, is dedicated to the international promotion of Dutch films, film professionals and film culture.

www.see-nl.com / www.eyefilm.nl

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Digital distributor Giant Pictures has acquired Drafthouse Films, the genre movie label formed by Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League.

Giant Pictures general manager Nick Savva will serve as CEO of the company, which will continue to operate under the title Drafthouse Films. League will become the chairman of Drafthouse Films.

“Giant Pictures’ investment enables Drafthouse Films to continue releasing the provocative, visionary, and artfully unusual genre films from around the world that have always defined the Drafthouse brand,” Savva said. “At the same time, this acquisition gives Giant new theatrical releasing capabilities which complement our existing digital distribution and streaming technology businesses.”

Drafthouse Films was created as the distribution arm of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in 2010 before being spun off from the exhibitor. Past titles on Drafthouse Films’ slate were “Bullhead,” “The Act of Killing,” “Spring” and “Cheap Thrills.” Giant Pictures partners with studios and filmmakers to release movies and TV shows across major streaming platforms,...

Peter Kerekes’s “107 Mothers,” a Slovak drama about women living and working in a Ukrainian prison, won the Crystal Arrow Award at the 13th edition of Les Arcs European Film Festival.

The festival, which wrapped on Dec. 18, took place as an-person event with “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius presiding over the jury which also included actors Laetitia Dosch and Sidse Babett Knudsen, author Tania de Montaigne and actor-director Éric Judor. The selection was curated by Frederic Boyer, the artistic director of both Les Arcs and Tribeca.

Represented in international markets by Films Boutique, “107 Mothers” world premiered at Venice in the horizons section and revolves around the relationship between Leysa (Maryna Klimova), a new inmate who gives birth in prison, and Iryna (Iryna Kiryazeva), the prison’s ward.

The Grand Jury Price was awarded to “Kapitan Volkonogov,” a Russian historical thriller directed by Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov. The movie,...

Fabrice du Welz, whose latest film “Inexorable” (pictured) played at Toronto, is reteaming with his Belgian producer Jean-Yves Roubin at Frakas Production on his next project, “Maldoror.”

Inspired by a true story, “Maldoror” follows Paul Chartier, a young policeman who became obsessed with a case involving a notorious child abuser after coming close to catching him. Popular Belgian actor Benoit Poelvoorde, the star of “Inexorable,” is part of the cast of “Maldoror.”

Roubin, who is attending San Sebastian with Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s “Earwig,” as well as “Titane” (which he co-produced), described “Maldoror” as a mix of thriller and film noir in a similar vein to David Fincher’s “Zodiac.” He said the film, now in development, was inspired by a notorious crime case that shook Belgium in the 1990s, known as the Affaire Dutroux.

Marc Dutroux was a convicted Belgian serial killer, rapist, and child molester who was sentenced to...

An awaited English-language reimagining of Sergio Corbucci’s classic 1966 Western, a favorite of Quentin Tarantino, major European series “Django” has released first-look images as its six-month shoot continues in Romania.

Studiocanal, which has worldwide distribution rights, has also drilled down on key creative talent, announcing Friday that David Evans (“Downton Abbey”) and Enrico Maria Artale (“Romulus”) are joining Francesca Comencini (“Gomorrah The Series”) in the directors’ team, with Comencini helming first episodes.

First look images show Matthias Schoenaerts – who has sparked consistently strong notices for his performances in “The Danish Girl,” “The Mustang,” “Bullhead” and “Rust and Bone” – as the eponymous Django.

Famed for “Prometheus” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Noomi Rapace, seen mounted on a horse, plays Elizabeth who is described as a “powerful and merciless enemy” of John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), caught in a Wild West bar, who founds with fiancee Sarah New Babylon, a city of outcasts which welcomes everyone,...

Melvins will reinterpret their own catalog and showcase some new covers on the grunge giant’s massive new Five Legged Dog, a 36-track LP that doubles as the group’s first-ever acoustic album.

“I knew I wanted to do something ridiculously big. Thirty-six songs reimagined by us acoustically is certainly ridiculous but it works! The magic of the songs is still there regardless of it being acoustic,” Buzz Osbourne said in a statement of the pandemic-recorded album.

“Since we weren’t touring we had the time to do something of this size.

Inaugural release hails from Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead.

Capitalising on an opportunity to reach fans of its genre content in the US and coordinate worldwide releases, XYZ Films has launched a US distribution division and hired former Drafthouse Films and Neon executive James Emanuel Shapiro to run it.

The releasing arm’s first film will be Something In The Dirt, the fifth directorial effort from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and currently in post-production.

EVP of US distribution Shapiro will report to XYZ Films CEO Nick Spicer and XYZ Films partner Nate Bolotin. He will work closely with president of...

XYZ Films has opened a domestic distribution wing and has hired former Drafthouse Films and Neon COO James Emanuel Shapiro as EVP U.S. Distribution.

The new division will focus on releasing independent genre films from around the world, complimenting the company’s production, sales and financing operations. The debut release will be Something In the Dirt, the latest pic from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who are now filming Marvel’s Moon Knight.

Shapiro will report into XYZ Films CEO Nick Spicer and XYZ Films partner Nate Bolotin and will work alongside President of International Sales and Distribution Tatyana Joffe to orchestrate global releases. Shapiro’s credits to date include working on the campaigns for Bullhead, The Act of Killing and I, Tonya.

The distribution division will not release every XYZ title, the company confirmed.

“We specialize in a certain kind of film, and we know that audience inside out.

Dimitri “Vegas” Thivaios, one-half of hugely popular electronic dance music duo Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, has landed his first lead role in a feature film, “H4Z4RD.” Billed as an action comedy, “H4Z4RD” is the second film from Belgian director, Jonas Govaerts, whose debut feature, the horror flick “Cub,” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Thivaios temporarily broke Instagram when he filmed himself cutting off his signature locks for the role. The haircut, soundtracked by his first solo single, “Pull Me Closer,” has logged over half a million views.

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A post shared by Dimitri “Vegas” Thivaios (@dimitrivegas)

The Belgian/Greek Thivaios has made a few appearances on the big and small screen in recent years, including on “Jurassic World 3: Dominion” and “Rambo: Last Blood.” “H4Z4RD,” which takes place in Antwerp, in Thivaios’ home country of Belgium, takes...

While it took co-writer/director Darius Marder 12 years to bring his passion project, “Sound of Metal,” to the screen, star Riz Ahmed learned to play drums believably in just over seven months. For his role as Ruben, the punk-metal-noise drummer whose increased hearing loss leads him to a deaf community for addicts and wounded veterans, Ahmed threw himself into the task with Method-like abandon, according to his chief drumming guru Guy Licata.

“Riz is a drummer, he’s one of us,” says the touring and session pro who shared the task of tutoring the actor — Ahmed dubbed him “my Mr. Miyagi” — along with Sean Powell, a veteran stick man for hardcore acts including Austin’s Fuckemos, who seconded as the star’s “spirit animal” and inspired much of his tattoo design. London-based drum teacher Adam Betts, who handed the actor over to Licata to film stateside, gave fellow Brit Ahmed,...

The Danish Girl and Bullhead actor Matthias Schoenaerts has been cast in the title role of an ambitious Sky and Canal+ reimagining of classic Italian spaghetti western, Django.

The high-concept English-language series is loosely based on Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 feature, and is being made by Cattleya, the ITV Studios-backed company behind Gomorrah. France’s Atlantique Productions is also producing.

The story is set in the Wild West in the 1860s and 1870s. Sarah and John have founded New Babylon, a city of outcasts, full of men and women of all backgrounds, races and creeds, that welcomes everyone with open arms.

Haunted by the murder of his family eight years earlier, Django is still looking for his daughter, believing she may have survived the killing. He is shocked to find her in New Babylon, about to marry John.

But Sarah, now a grown woman, wants Django to leave, as she...

Small-time Irish crooks Peter and Michael Brooks are not siblings but cousins, although there’s no shame in feeling confused amid the somewhat convoluted Philadelphia-set crime drama “Brothers by Blood.” Other characters make the mistake all the time, pulling Peter aside and implying that the brewing trouble between Michael’s gang and the more-established Italian mobsters in town would calm if he would just do something about his brother — something like making the hotheaded union boss disappear. “He’s not my brother,” Peter explains, but his loyalty runs as deep as if he were.

“Brothers by Blood” represents writer-director Jérémie Guez’s oblique, atmospheric take on Pete Dexter’s taut and relatively uncomplicated 1991 novel “Brotherly Love.” Even the casting is unconventional — though Schoenaerts’ and Kinnaman’s gruff, mumbly performances are the best thing about it, a throwback to an earlier generation of Method actors.

Dexter’s book begins with a...

Drafthouse Films is stepping back into the world of distribution after a five-year hiatus with the North American co-release of India’s Oscar entry, “Jallikattu.”

The company — which is the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema — is partnering with XYZ Films, which picked up the phantasmagorical “Jallikattu” for North America back in December. The title, which is Drafthouse Films’ first new acquisition since 2016, marks a new directive by the distributor to support emerging filmmakers.

“[‘Jallikattu’] blew us away because it felt like it was beamed in from another dimension and left a permanent imprint on our brain,” said Drafthouse Films in a statement shared with Variety.

XYZ and Drafthouse are planning a spring release that will include theatrical support, as well as all digital platforms along with a Blu-Ray edition of the film. Drafthouse parent company Alamo Drafthouse launched curated VOD platform Alamo on Demand in May.

Directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery,...

“Buladó,” the second feature of director Eché Janga, who also penned the screenplay alongside Esther Duysker, has been selected to represent the Netherlands in the International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards. Picture Tree International will launch its international sales push at the virtual AFM.

“Buladó” opened the Netherlands Film Festival in September and was awarded best film, the Golden Calf, at the National Film Awards. It is on release in the Netherlands with Gusto Entertainment, and has generated more than 30,000 theatrical admissions despite the heavy cinema restrictions. The film will launch on Netflix early next year in the Benelux.

“Buladó” is an emotional family tale set in the countryside of Curaçao and rooted in the oral histories of local slaves.

The story, laced with magic realism, follows headstrong 11-year-old girl Kenza who is determined to find her own path into adulthood, as she mourns her mom. She is...

Jeroen Perceval reveals what happened when an actor tested positive for coronavirus.

Screen can reveal a first-look image of Veerle Baetens in Dealer, the feature directorial debut of Belgian actor Jeroen Perceval, which completed shooting in Antwerp during the coronavirus pandemic.

Perceval, best known for his performances in Bullhead, Borgman and The Ardennes, also wrote the feature, which centres on a 14-year-old drug dealer (Sverre Rous) who forms a bond with a successful actor (Ben Segers). Baetens plays the mother of the young dealer.

Perceval began shooting the drama in Antwerp earlier this year with an initial plan to release this month.

Collection of shorts was filmed with Covid-19 safety measures in place by directors including Michael R Roskam (‘Bullhead’).

A collection of films shot during lockdown with a cast that includes Matthias Schoenaerts is to be presented at Re>Connext (Oct 5-31), the annual film and TV showcase run by Flanders Image.

A first look at The Lockdown Shorts, which spans drama, comedy, thriller and horror, will be presented as a works in progress project at the virtual event by producer-directors Gilles Coulier and Maarten Moerkerke.

All 12 films were shot under coronavirus-safe conditions on the same studio set: a prison visiting...

Early in “The Shadow of Violence,” a beefy Irish thug named Douglas Armstrong (“Arm” to everybody) defends his day job of beating people up for local gangsters by saying, “They say violence is done by hateful men — but sometimes, it’s just the way a fella makes sense of this world.”

The film uses lines like that in an attempt to pull off a tricky feat. It wants us to feel sympathy for Arm as a guy just trying to make sense of the world, but it doesn’t do it the easy way; first we see him calmly beat an old man to a pulp for something the guy might not have even done, and then we learn he has a heart of gold.

First-time feature director Nick Rowland stacks the deck against his lead character by doing it that way, but he’s not interested in making a typical movie about gangsters.

The film will shoot on location in Africa.

Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts has signed to star in Wildlands, a bomb disposal thriller directed by Australia’s Kim Mordaunt and produced by Tom Hardy’s UK company Hardy Son & Baker.

Based on a screenplay by Mordaunt and John Collee, the film will follow a jaded and reckless bomb disposal specialist who is sent to a village in Angola. His efforts to make the village safe from land mines are confronted by spirited locals, bomb-sniffing African pouched rats, and increasingly perilous circumstances.

Wildlands was developed by Mordaunt and Sylvia Wilczynski’s Australian company Red Lamp Films,...

Alamo Drafthouse has partnered with ScreenPlus and Vista Cinema to serve another helping of cinematic goodness with their own VOD platform Alamo On Demand. The new “video store” is curated by Drafthouse programmers, with studio partners that include Lionsgate, Magnolia Pictures, Neon, among others.

Launching today, Alamo On Demand will include a library of entertainment for rental or purchase that is suitable for the discerning Drafthouse audience.

“I’ll describe the scenario that sold me on the ScreenPlus platform,” said Tim League, Alamo Drafthouse founder and Executive Chairman. “Alamo Drafthouse had been promoting Portrait of a Lady on Fire to our guests for months. We love people to see films in the cinema first and foremost, but the reality is not everyone can always make the time for every movie they want to see. This platform allows us to give folks who missed Portrait of a Lady on Fire in...

Cosmo Jarvis is haunting as a brutal enforcer torn between his duty to a crime clan and his son in Nick Rowland’s powerful debut feature

Inventively adapted from a story in Colin Barrett’s Young Skins collection, this striking directorial feature debut from Nick Rowland (who was Bafta-nominated for his 2014 short Slap) is an immersive tale of tortured masculinity and divided loyalties that pulls the viewer right into the raging bull mindset of its haunted protagonist. Set in rural Ireland, and boasting something of the “West Country western” flavour of Sam Peckinpah’s Cornish epic Straw Dogs, it’s a fable of failed fathers and false families, unflinching in its depiction of grim realities, but laced with a redemptive transcendence that reminded me of Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, or Chloé Zhao’s The Rider.

Cosmo Jarvis (unrecognisable from his magnetic turn in Lady Macbeth) delivers a performance...

La Casa de Antiguidades

Brazil’s João Paulo Miranda Maria seems primed for international success with his feature debut La Casa de Antiguidades (Memory House), produced by Didar Domehri and starring Antonio Pitanga, Ana Flavia Cavalcanti and Belgium’s Sam Louwyck. Sebastian Lelio Dp Benjamin Echazarreta (Gloria; A Fantastic Woman), who also worked on Flora Lua’s upcoming Luz, serves as cinematographer. Maria’s 2015 short Command Action premiered at Cannes and his 2016 short The Girl Who Danced with the Devil competed in the Cannes short program, winning a Special Mention.…...

Didar Domehri’s Paris-based company, Maneki Films, is on board to produce “Memory House,” the feature debut of young Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria, whose short films have played in Cannes and Venice.

The director started developing the script of “Memory House” in 2015 as part of the Next Step Program, a workshop created by Cannes’ Critics’ Week to help the directors of the 10 shorts playing in the sidebar to make their feature debut. Miranda Maria then took part in Cannes’ Cinéfondation program, and presented his project at the Paris Coproduction Village, an industry event organized by the team behind Les Arcs European Film Festival.

Miranda Maria has earned critical praise for his three shorts, “Command Action,” which played at Critics’ Week in 2015; “The Girl Who Danced With the Devil,” which won Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016; and “Meninas Fomicida,” which played at Venice in 2017.

Lensed by Benjamín Echazarreta,...

In today’s film news roundup, Andre Caraco and Paul Noble receive promotions at Sony, Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war drama “Paths of Glory” gets restored, Drafthouse Films gets launched and “The Chainsaw Artist” wraps.

Exec Promotions

Sony Pictures has promoted veteran executives Andre Caraco and Paul Noble to the posts of co-presidents of global marketing.

Sony Pictures President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution Josh Greenstein made the announcement Tuesday.

“As you all know, taking a more global approach to our marketing efforts has been a top priority for some time now, and we wanted Andre and Paul’s titles to more accurately reflect the increasingly collaborative and global scope of their work and oversight,” he said in a staff memo. “Andre and Paul will now partner on all marketing efforts to ensure our campaigns are aligned with our global moviegoing audience.”

Curaco led the studio’s national publicity team from 2006 to 2016. Since then,...

Beta Cinema has acquired the dark, offbeat comedy “Patrick,” the feature debut of Flemish director Tim Mielants (“Peaky Blinders”), which will world premiere in competition next month at the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival. Variety has the exclusive trailer.

Featuring Kevin Janssens, Jemaine Clement and Bouli Lanners (“Rust and Bone”), “Patrick” is the story of a handyman at his father’s naturist campsite who dedicates his spare time to designing and building furniture. When he loses his trusted hammer, his search to retrieve it takes him to the furthest corner of the campgrounds—a journey that takes on existential meaning when his father passes away. As the life he long took for granted suddenly shifts course, Patrick embarks on a tragicomic quest that might ultimately help him become a new man.

“Patrick” is produced by Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film. Beta Cinema will handle all international rights outside Benelux.

Melvins formed a few years before anyone used the word “grunge” as the name of a genre, but they embodied the term perfectly with their deep, sludgy riffs and left-of-center songwriting. Since 1984, they’ve released dozens of albums of uncompromising and sometimes experimental music, and constantly challenged rock norms. When we compiled our recent list of the 50 Greatest Grunge Albums, two of their standout LPs — 1991’s Bullhead and 1993’s Houdini — made the cut.

The band’s frontman, vocalist-guitarist Buzz Osborne, was surprised to hear the news, but not for the reason you may guess.

The era of the modern horse film gallops on, with no signs of slowing down. With Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider” recently named Film Comment’s top movie of the year and Andrew Haigh’s “Lean on Pete” landing on more than a few critics’ end-of-year lists, it seems the special bond between a man and his horse continues to captivate indie filmmakers.

The newest entry into this growing canon is “The Mustang,” a sensitive drama from executive producer Robert Redford that will premiere at next year’s Sundance Film Festival before a spring release from Focus Features.

Read More: Denis Villeneuve Adores ‘A Star Is Born’: ‘It Marks the Birth of a Great Director’

The official synopsis reads: “Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts), a convict in a rural Nevada prison who struggles to escape his violent past, is required to participate in an ‘outdoor maintenance’ program as part of his state-mandated social rehabilitation.

Although it is expensive and time-consuming to enter the Oscar race, the value of a foreign-language film nomination proves tangible to the director and, by extension, to the country’s entire cinematic output. Here are some case studies of procedure and strategy from countries that have been included in previous shortlists, and have a strong chance this year for the Oscar.

Belgium

Recent nominees

“Bullhead” (2011),

directed by Michaël R. Roskam

“The Broken Circle Breakdown” (2013), directed by Felix van Groeningen

Current submission

“Girl,” directed by Lukas Dhont

At one time, the group choosing the Belgian foreign-language candidate tried to alternate between productions from the country’s two official languages, Flemish and French, but a different system was put into place five years ago. “The principle is to take the best candidate and not to have a rotation between both communities each year,” says Eric Franssen, director of Wallonie Bruxelles Images (Wbi...

Now that Ryan Gosling has moved on from projects like “Only God Forgives” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” Matthias Schoenaerts has emerged as the cinematic ideal of fractured masculinity. Physically imposing but emotionally scarred, his characters — whether in “Bullhead,” “Rust and Bone,” or “Disorder” — bring depth and dimension to the strong, silent type. He continues that streak in David Oelhoffen’s “Close Enemies,” which calls on the actor to once again portray a hardened criminal at his most vulnerable — and not much else that you haven’t already seen him do.

This is one of those crime dramas you know won’t end well, especially after the early reveal that Manu’s (Schoenaerts) close friend Irmane (Adel Bencherif) is acting as an informant for narcotics officer Driss (Reda Kateb). Having grown up in the same rough-and-tumble neighborhood as the two of them, the detective’s loyalties are divided between...

Shady Matthias Schoenaerts falls for racing driver Adèle Exarchopoulos in a messy thriller from the director of Bullhead

Racer and the Jailbird is the rather plonking English title that’s been slapped on to a French- and Flemish-language movie that on its home turf is more pleasingly called Le Fidèle, or The Faithful One. It’s a tragic crime drama starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos – a handsomer couple can hardly be imagined – and directed by the Belgian film-maker Michaël R Roskam, who made the excellent thriller The Drop and gave Schoenaerts his first break with his debut Bullhead, in 2011. So my anticipation was high for this one, but initial involvement and excitement gave way to bafflement and dissatisfaction. Frankly, it is a bit of a mess.

Matthias Schoenaerts neuters his sex-god reputation, Kate Winslet gets maverick with potted plants, and Alan Rickman almost hijacks his own movie in a weedy horticultural romp through the court of the Sun King

The only chaos connected with this stultifyingly orderly and conventional period film must be the chaos now reigning in the offices of Matthias Schoenaerts’s agent. Perhaps even at this moment, the beefy Belgian star has angrily turned up there, pounding on the door, asking why he has been pushed into ridiculous, wussy, period-thespy English-speaking roles. And the agent is hiding under his desk, with the lights off, pretending to have gone home. Schoenaerts once rocked our world with pure sweaty sexiness in movies such as Bullhead (2011) and Rust and Bone (2012). Like Tom Jones in his pomp, it seemed as if, with the pure aura of virility, Schoenaerts could trigger a clutch of spontaneous pregnancies simply by entering the room.

★★★★☆ When critics talk of works of cinema where "testosterone oozes from the screen", they're usually describing some machismo-laden action flick. That same terminology feels perfectly apt for Michaël R. Roskam's Belgian crime yarn Bullhead (Rundskop, 2011), although it exists as a literal interpretation here, particularly in the case of its superlative lead turn from Matthias Schoenaerts. He plays cattle farmer Jacky Vanmarsenille, a rural mob enforcer who is employed by the local criminal network to ensure farmers around the region are using illegal hormone enhancements to fatten up their livestock which will drive profits.

A burly, mountain of a man (he's been given the titular moniker), Jacky appears more animal in nature than human. He's a simmering ball of suppressed rage which stems from a tragic childhood incident and the fact that he, too, is stock-piling steroids for his own use. The murder of a federal policeman working on the...

Writer-director Roskam's impressive debut Bullhead (aka Rundskop) is a bleak, dense, complex thriller set in rural Belgium where rival farmers and criminals from both the Walloon and Flemish communities are involved in the trafficking of illegal hormones for the enhancement of livestock. Matters come to a head when a cop investigating the trade is murdered, an undercover police unit penetrates this underworld, and suspicion spreads across the countryside. The unusual settings range from a small-town red-light district to a harness-racing stadium, and the clever plotting connects a terrible event 20 years earlier to the current crime. "There's no such thing as coincidences, they're for losers," a female cop comments, and the link provides a central metaphor of corruption through the steroids fed to the cattle and the ones taken by the eponymous "Bullhead". He's Jack Vanmarsenille (a frighteningly convincing performance by Matthias Schoenaerts), a vulnerable, uncontrollably violent Flemish peasant right out of Zola.

★★★☆☆ Belgium's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 2012 Academy Awards, Michaël Roskam's Bullhead (Rundskop, 2011) finally receives a UK theatrical release thanks primarily to its star Matthias Schoenaerts' critically acclaimed performance in Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone (2012). Schoenaerts plays Jacky Vanmarsenille, a young cattle farmer who finds himself involved with the notorious West-Flemish 'hormone mafia'. In an industry where meat is more valuable than gold, the illegal use of growth hormones on livestock has violently escalated, culminating in the death of a local federal policeman.

Read more »...

The 80s was the golden era of the comically pumped-up action hero. But this summer they are back on the screen, alongside a new generation of beefcakes. Why?

Well, he always promised. Confirmation that Arnold Schwarzenegger would indeed be making a return to cinemas came a few weeks ago with the announcement of a sequel to Twins – Triplets, with Eddie Murphy. And by the time that film reaches us, the man famous for littering his works with smoking bodies and eviscerated vowels will already have starred in action thriller The Last Stand, and done the slo-mo explosion walk in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables 2. The Governator's in the house.

The first Expendables, in 2010, hinted at it, but this summer will make things clear: the beefcake action star is back. There is a triple-beef sandwich in Marvel Avengers Assemble, starring Captain America, Thor and the Hulk. In July, meat...