News

Facing public backlash over a history of abusive behavior toward girlfriends, filmmaker Matthew Newton has exited his upcoming film “Eve,” in which Jessica Chastain was set to star and produce.

Read More: Jessica Chastain: ‘I Have Felt So Bad’ That Some Women ‘Feel Excluded’ From Time’s Up

Newton, whose credits include “From Nowhere” and “Who We Are Now,” has a history of multiple arrests. The filmmaker was charged in 2007 with stalking and causing bodily harm to his then-girlfriend, reportedly punching her in the head and attempting to gouge her eyes. Newton pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, common assault, but it was overturned after his psychiatrist sent a letter detailing his battle with mental illness. The director reportedly punched another girlfriend in August 2010 in the lobby of a Rome hotel room, causing her to suffer a concussion and a sprained jaw.

In a statement made to IndieWire earlier this year,...

Petitioners are calling on actress Jessica Chastain to drop Matthew Newton, who has a history of physical assault accusations, as the director of her upcoming movie “Eve.”

The Care2 petition, titled “#TimesUp Activist Jessica Chastain Hires Domestic Abuser to Direct New Film,” has garnered more than 6,100 signatures as of this writing. The petition points to Chastain’s record as one of Hollywood’s most vocal advocates of gender equity, and then asks, “Despite all of this, Jessica Chastain wants to give Matthew Newton a pass? We don’t think so. #TimesUp for rich and powerful men being absolved of horrific abuse against women.”

Last week, Chastain was announced as the star of “Eve,” with Newton directing based on a script he wrote. Chastain is also producing. Newton’s other recent credits include “From Nowhere” and “The Sideways Light.”

Also Read: Fans Ask Jessica Chastain to Drop Director Matthew Newton Over...

In 2018, the first year to begin with an understanding of #Metoo and Time’s Up, any filmmakers accepted into the lineup of a prestigious film festival must know that honor also will spur widespread consideration of their personal and professional pasts. This is the scenario that now confronts Australian writer-director Matthew Newton, who is scheduled to screen “Who We Are Now” at SXSW next month in its U.S. premiere, and who has a history of multiple arrests and charges for stalking, battery, assault, and domestic assault.

Read More:sxsw Film and TV 2018 Lineup: Jordan Peele, Female Directors, and More Lead Latest Announcement

When reached for comment, SXSW Film head Janet Pierson said in a statement: “We believe that Matthew Newton’s new film is a reflection of changes that he’s made in his life. ‘Who We Are Now’ contemplates the path to redemption and how one learns from their mistakes and makes amends.

The wait is over. The wait for not only the first mainline Star Wars movie since “The Force Awakens,” but also the wait for the first great Star Wars movie since “The Empire Strikes Back.” Mileage will vary, and the series’ diehard fans are only just starting to see Rian Johnson’s space opus and process their feelings on the most eventful Episode in a very long time.

Nevertheless, it’s already safe to say that “The Last Jedi” has been very well received by critics who wanted the story to break free from the past and challenge the fundamental nature of the galaxy’s biggest franchise. As IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote in his A- review of the film: “‘The Last Jedi’ turns the commercial restrictions of this behemoth into a Trojan horse for rapid-fire filmmaking trickery and narrative finesse. The result is the most satisfying entry in this...

The Toronto International Film Festival may be known more as a platform for fall season movies than a market, but there are plenty of strong films in each year’s lineup looking for U.S. distribution. While films ranging from the Margot Robbie vehicle “I, Tonya” to Louis C.K.’s “I Love You, Daddy” landed sturdy deals during Tiff, many other highlights remain homeless. Here’s a look at a few of them, presented in the hopes that distributors will take note.

“Bodied”

If Eminem got a PhD in English without sacrificing his hip-hop talent, he might have turned out something like Adam (Calum Worthy), the scrawny white hero of Joseph Kahn’s “Bodied.” Kahn’s long-awaited follow-up to his snarky teen slasher comedy “Detention” is a hyper-stylized rap satire that plays out like Scott Pilgrim stumbling into “8 Mile” and stealing the spotlight. Set in an assaultive world of underground...

If there were any justice in this sick, sad world, history would remember 2017 as the year that people woke the hell up and stopped taking Julianne Nicholson for granted. There isn’t, and it won’t, but that shouldn’t stop us from giving America’s most under-appreciated screen actress the credit she’s been owed since the last century. Raw and intractably real in a number of small indies that you’ve probably never seen (“Tully,” “Flannel Pajamas”), just as good in a handful of larger films that you probably have (“Kinsey,” “August: Osage County”), and even better in three new movies that you’ll be able to see in the next few months (including “I, Tonya” and “Novitiate”), the elfin Massachusetts native may spend the brunt of her time working “Law & Order” gigs on TV, but she has an authenticity that bigger stars can’t buy and a...

Working with Julianne Nicholson last year on indie drama From Nowhere, Australian writer-director Matthew Newton seems to have found a kind of muse in the actress, casting her as the lead in his Toronto Film Festival-premiering Who We Are Now. Like Outside In—another Tiff title—the film focuses on an individual getting out of prison after a long period away, but in this case, the protagonist is, of course, female. Out of jail after 10 years, Beth seeks the help of young…...

Several new documentaries at the traveling Ambulante Documentary Film Festival capture the drama of Mexico’s immigration crisis, but during its first weekend in Mexico City, one story expanded beyond the screen.

A family of undocumented immigrants from Central America, whose experiences are chronicled in Pau Ortiz’s “The Other Side of the Wall,” were detained by authorities on their way to the festival, and released only after frantic late-night efforts on behalf of the festival and film’s producers.

Ortiz follows a family of undocumented Honduran immigrants struggling to make ends meet in a remote area of Mexico. The emotional real-life drama finds grown siblings Ale and Rocío Morales Rico caring for their younger brother and sister after their mother (also named Rocío) is imprisoned on trumped-up charges. The movie follows their uneven attempts to maintain a stable household and find work, while their mother tries to reopen her...

Exclusive: Julianne Nicholson, Emma Roberts and Zachary Quinto have been set to star in Who We Are Now, the follow-up movie for writer-director Matthew Newton after his SXSW-winning pic From Nowhere. The new pic, which reunites Newton with his From Nowhere star Nicholson, has just started shooting in New York. The drama centers on convicted felon Beth (Nicholson), who forms an unlikely alliance with a young public defense lawyer Jess (Roberts), who does everything she can…...

Exclusive: Ryan Kampe and his team have closed multiple territories on a raft of recent festival picks.

Shanghai Jushi Films has acquired Chinese rights to Sundance and Rotterdam selection Columbus, Sundance and Berlinale selection Dayveon, SXSW and Rotterdam documentary Rat Film, Rotterdam and Toronto selection X500, and Tribeca award winner Kicks.

Kogonda’s comedy Columbus starring John Cho, Parker Posey, and Haley Lu Richardson, has also gone to Front Row for the Middle East, while FilmRise has picked up North American rights to Amman Abbasi’s Arkansas-set rites-of-passage drama Dayveon.

Binci / Lemon Tree Media has acquired Chinese rights to a slew of titles, including Sundance and Rotterdam selection Family Life directed by Alicia Scherson and Cristián Jiménez, and SXSW and Champs-Élysées award winner From Nowhere by Matthew Newton.

The distributor has also picked up two titles in post-production: Ira prison escape drama Maze starring Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Barry Ward, and Martin McCann, and thriller...

A successful Oscar season is wrapping up, as multiple contenders from the specialty world continuing their long runs. Last out of the gate is Documentary Feature contender “I Am Not Your Negro” (Magnolia) which is rapidly expanding far beyond most similar nominees in an era when most documentaries do not play outside their Oscar-qualifying theatrical runs.

Among limited films, the new releases are mainly niche items without high expectations, and will add little in upcoming weeks. However, strong new Los Angeles dates on the second week of cat documentary “Kedi” (Oscilloscope) showed that its big New York opening was no fluke.

Opening

Everybody Loves Somebody (Lionsgate) – Metacritic: 74; Festivals include: Palm Springs 2017

$1,000,000 in 333 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $3,003,000

The second 2017 release from Lionsgate’s Mexico producing partner Pantelion is a rom-com with a rare female director for this commercial general (mostly Latino) audience. Bilingual, it centers on an Los Angeles-based...

A day after Thursday’s A Day Without Immigrants nationwide observance, Pantelion/Lionsgate's new release Everybody Loves Somebody puts a spotlight on the bi-cultural Latino experience via romantic comedy, while FilmRise's From Nowhere even more directly tackles the current experience of immigration by focusing on undocumented Bronx teens. Also this weekend: Peyton Kennedy stars in IFC Films' American Fable, opening day and date today, while Riley Keough and Jena Malone…...

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out.

This Past Weekend:

The Lego Batman Movie won the weekend as expected, but not with nearly as much money as I had predicted, not besting the opening of The Lego Movie as expected, but instead ending up with a reasonable and not so bad $53 million. Fifty Shades Darker proved that the audience for movies based on the popular books was still great enough for it to win Friday with $21 million (to Lego Batman’s $15 million) and end up second for the weekend with a strong $46.6 million. That was still almost $40 million less than the opening of the previous movie Fifty Shades of Grey, but the sequel also didn’t have the benefits of Valentine’s Day and a four-day holiday. Coming in...

With so much media attention being paid to the court battles involving President Trump’s travel ban, his administration’s aggressive actions toward undocumented immigrants already in the country threaten to fly under the radar. It’s not that enforcement has been stepped up—Obama actually deported people in record numbers over the past eight years—but that the emphasis on potentially dangerous individuals has been considerably relaxed, leading to high-profile, heartbreaking cases like that of Guadalupe García De Rayos. No doubt we’ll soon see outraged documentaries on the subject. In the meantime, however, From Nowhere, a measured but fundamentally sorrowful drama about three undocumented teens applying for asylum, receives an ideally timed release this week, almost a year after its SXSW premiere. Back then, with Clinton an apparent shoo-in, the film was merely perceived as excellent. Today it also seems urgent.

While the three kids in question have...

On Wednesday, February 8, Oscar nominee Isabelle Huppert was honored with the Montecito Award for her work in Paul Verhoeven’s acclaimed film “Elle” at the 2017 Santa Barbara International Film Festival held at the Arlington Theatre.

The French actress has received international praise for her role in the psycho-thriller, earning a Critics Choice, César, European Film Award and Indie Spirit Award nominations and winning the New York and National Film Critics Best Actress Award, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama.

IndieWire’s Editor at Large Anne Thompson had the pleasure of introducing and speaking with Huppert during the film festival, where they revisited many of her films, discussed her early life and career, as well as her relationship with the directors she’s worked with.

Read More: The Oscar Race for Best Actress is Down To Emma Stone vs. Isabelle Huppert

Talking about her...

After it bowed at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, director Matthew Newton’s (“Three Blind Mice”) latest feature “From Nowhere” took home the Audience Award in the Narrative Spotlight section, and now the festival winner is due for its theatrical release.

The film will arrive in theaters on February 17 in both New York City (at the Village East) and in Los Angeles (at the Laemmle Music Hall). Its timing couldn’t be more appropriate, as the film reflects the fear of deportation that many people now have regarding the stance our current administration has on immigration.

Read More: Jose Antonio Vargas on Using His Own Immigration Story For ‘Documented’

Set in The Bronx, the film centers around 3 undocumented teenagers on the brink of their high school graduation. Desperately wanting to live a life similar to their American classmates, Moussa (J. Mallory McCree), an African Muslim; Sophie (Octavia Chavez-Richmond), a troubled teen...

Project was participating in Busan’s Book to Film pitching event.

At this week’s Busan International Film Festival, Korea’s Pollux Pictures (producers of Coinlocker Girl (2014) and 7 Years Of Night (2015)) has struck a deal for film rights to Park Yeon-sun’s novel Summer, A Corpse From Nowhere, which is participating in the Asian Film Market’s Book to Film pitching selection.

The deal came on the first day of the event yesterday (Oct 8), with market organisers stating, “This broke the record set at the first E-ip Market last year (when Beijing Alpha Transmedia acquired the IP rights to Kirin Productions’ web drama The Cravings on the second day of the market) by one day.”

In its inaugural edition last year, the E-ip Pitching event saw more than 50% of its projects successfully sign contracts, according to the Asian Film Market.

Running parallel to the E-ip Market, the Book to Film event is in its fifth year now...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– L.A.-based outfit Strand Releasing has acquired U.S. rights to Michael O’Shea’s Cannes premiere “The Transfiguration.” The film was sold by Protagonist Pictures at Toronto, and it marks the feature debut of writer-director Michael O’Shea. The atmospheric feature puts a new spin on the vampire movie.

“Mr. O’Shea’s film is a unique hybrid that audiences and critics will be compelled by,” said Strand Releasing’s partner Jon Gerrans, who discovered the film at Cannes. No word yet on release plans.

– Oscilloscope Laboratories has announced that Joel Potrykus’s latest dark comedy, “The Alchemist Cookbook,” will be available worldwide for pay-what-you-wish via BitTorrent Now on October 7, before it screens in select theaters across the country.

Lineup and Pre-Festival Announcements and News

2016 Toronto International Film Festival: The Lineup

Tiff 2016 Announces Discovery Lineup, ‘In Conversation With…’ Guests, Vr Offerings and Much More

Tiff Platform Jury Revealed: Brian De Palma, Zhang Ziyi and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun to Judge Selections

Tiff Adds ‘I, Daniel Blake,’ ‘Julieta,’ ‘Personal Shopper,’ ‘The Unknown Girl,’ ‘Voyage of Time’ And Many More

Tiff’s Second-Ever TV Lineup Includes ‘Black Mirror’ and ‘Transparent’

Tiff Announces Platform Titles, Including ‘Jackie,’ ‘Moonlight,’ ‘Daguerrotype’ and More

Film Festival Roundup: BFI London To Premiere ‘Queen Of Katwe,’ Michael Fassbender Honored By Tiff And More

Attention, Filmmakers: Your Instagram Short Film Could Be Judged By Ava DuVernay and Xavier Dolan

Tiff Adds New Round of Titles, Including ‘It’s Only the End of the World,’ ‘Mean Dreams’ and More

Tiffbot: Meet The Robot Film Critic That Will Help You Decide What to Watch at the Toronto Film Festival

Pre-Festival Analysis...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired U.S. rights to acclaimed filmmakers Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon’s charming and romantic fourth feature film, “Lost in Paris.” The film will have its premiere this fall and have a theatrical release in 2017.

Filmed in their signature whimsical style, the feature “stars the filmmakers as a small-town Canadian librarian and a strangely seductive, oddly egotistical vagabond. When Fiona’s (Gordon) orderly life is disrupted by a letter of distress from her 93-year-old Aunt Martha (delightfully portrayed by Academy Award nominee Emmanuelle Riva) who is living in Paris, Fiona hops on the first plane she can and arrives only to discover that Martha has disappeared. In an avalanche of spectacular disasters, she encounters Dom (Abel), the affable,...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Rlj Entertainment has acquired all North American rights to Paul Schrader’s action thriller “Dog Eat Dog.” Based on the novel by Edward Bunker, the film was written by Matthew Wilder and stars Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe and Christopher Matthew Cook. The film first premiered at the 69th Cannes Film Festival and will have its North American premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival in September.

The film “tells the story of three ex-cons who botch a kidnapping. They not only lose a rich payoff, but they get on the wrong side of the mob and become the city’s most wanted fugitives. Vowing to stay out of prison at all costs, things get completely out of...

In Matthew Newton’s award-winning SXSW Narrative Spotlight audience award-winner, “From Nowhere,” 3 undocumented teenagers – a Dominican girl, an African boy and a Peruvian girl – are about to graduate high school in the Bronx, while working with a teacher… Continue Reading →...

FilmRise has nabbed North American rights to From Nowhere, a drama about undocumented teenagers in NYC that won the Narrative Spotlight prize at SXSW. It follows a Dominican girl, an African boy and a Peruvian girl who are about to graduate high school in the Bronx. Like most teens, all they want to do is hang out with their friends, fall in love, and figure out where to go to college, but unlike their American classmates, these three live with the threat of being…...

The distributor has picked up Matthew Newton’s award-winning SXSW Narrative Spotlight audience award-winner.

Newton directed From Nowhere from a screenplay he wrote with Kate Ballen about three undocumented high school students in the Bronx who dig into their past when a teacher connects them with a lawyer to help them achieve legal status.

FilmRise struck the deal with Ryan Kampe of Visit Films and plans a winter 2017 theatrical release.

India Eisley and Jason Isaacs have joined psychological thriller Behind The Glass for Ace In The Hole Productions, Primary Wave Entertainment and Dana Lustig Productions. Making his English-language feature debut is Assaf Bernstein, whose Mossad spy thriller The Debt was adapted by Miramax into a Us version starring Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren.The Vancouver International Film Festival will honour X-Files creator Chris Carter with the Viff Impact Builder Award. As part of the Impact stream, the Builder Award is presented to a key contributor to British...

Exclusive: Following the film’s successful South By Southwest Film Festival debut, From Nowhere director Matthew Newton has signed with Varun Monga, Martin To and Paul Alan Smith’s Equitable Stewardship For Artists (Esa) for representation in all areas. Co-written by Newton and Kate Ballen, From Nowhere follows three undocumented teenagers in the Bronx approaching their high school graduation. While they otherwise live like most teenagers, navigating romance and thinking…...

From Nowhere.

Matthew Newton's latest film as a director, his first since Three Blind Mice in 2008, has won an audience award at Austin's annual SXSW festival.

Three Blind Mice starred Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz and Newton himself as buddies on a night out in Sydney..

By contrast From Nowhere.takes place in a Bronx high school and stars relatively unknown actors..

Julianne Nicholson, J. Mallory McCree and Octavia Chavez-Richmond play students about to graduate who are also undocumented immigrants.

A clip from the film can be watched here.

The hot-button feature was praised by Variety's Joe Leydon as a "compelling indie drama".

"Arriving in the middle of an election season when debates over U.S. immigration policy have devolved into sloganeering and shouting matches, .From Nowhere. feels all the more urgent and relevant as it applies human faces to abstract statistics and arguments", Leydon said.

"Writer-director Matthew Newton neatly...

From Nowhere.

Matthew Newton's latest film as a director, his first since Three Blind Mice in 2008, has won an audience award at Austin's annual SXSW festival.

Three Blind Mice starred Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz and Newton himself as buddies on a night out in Sydney..

By contrast From Nowhere.takes place in a Bronx high school and stars relatively unknown actors..

Julianne Nicholson, J. Mallory McCree and Octavia Chavez-Richmond play students about to graduate who are also undocumented immigrants.

A clip from the film can be watched here.

The hot-button feature was praised by Variety's Joe Leydon as a "compelling indie drama".

"Arriving in the middle of an election season when debates over U.S. immigration policy have devolved into sloganeering and shouting matches, .From Nowhere. feels all the more urgent and relevant as it applies human faces to abstract statistics and arguments", Leydon said.

"Writer-director Matthew Newton neatly...

Greg Kwedar’s Transpecos won the Narrative feature competition audience award and Keith Maitland’s Tower the documentary prize on Saturday night.

In the Headliners programme, Jean-Marc Vallée won for Demolition and Matthew Newton claimed the Narrative Spotlight award for From Nowhere.

The Documentary Spotlight audience award went to Mr. Gaga by Tomer Heymann, while the Visions and Midnighters categories were won by Caito Ortiz for Jules And Dolores and Shinsuke Sato for I Am a Hero, respectively.

The Episodic audience winner was Vice Principals by Jody Hill, David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and the 24 Beats Per Second prize went to Honky Tonk Heaven: Legend Of The Broken Spokeby Brenda Greene Mitchell and Sam Wainwright Douglas.

Ghostland by Simon Stadler prevailed in the Sxglobal category and the festival Favorites award went to Gleason by Clay Tweel.

SXSW ran from March 11-20 and screened 143 features. For the full list of juried winners click here.

The U.S./Mexican border drama “Transpecos,” from director Greg Kwedar, has won the audience award as the best narrative feature at the 2016 South by Southwest Film Festival, SXSW organizers announced on Saturday. The film deals with three border patrol agents who decide that a car trying to cross the border is suspicious. It is Austin-based Kwedar’s directorial debut. Other SXSW audience awards went to Jean-Marc Vallee‘s “Demolition,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who careens out of control after the death of his wife; and Matthew Newton’s “From Nowhere,” which deals with immigration. Also Read: 'The Arbalest,...

Exclusive: Ryan Kampe’s New York-based sales agency is in Austin, Texas, with three new titles for buyers.

Visit Films holds worldwide rights to SXSW premieres Claire In Motion and From Nowhere in addition to global rights excluding Greece and Cyprus to its previously announced title and Rotterdam premiere title Suntan.

From Nowhere is styled as a revealing, intimate drama that follows three teenagers as they prepare to graduate from high school in the Bronx and must confront their past.

Matthew Newton directed the film and Julianne Nicholson stars with Denis O’Hare, J. Mallory McCree, Octavia Chavez-Richmond, and Raquel Castro.

Claire In Motion (pictured) stars Betsy Brandt as the eponymous character who questions all around her as she learns a secret about her missing husband’s past.

Lisa Robinson and Annie J. Howell co-wrote and co-directed the drama and the key cast includes Anna Margaret Hollyman, Zev Haworth, Sakina Jaffrey, and [link=nm...

Director Jennifer Kent exerts masterly control over this tense supernatural tale about a children’s book that one single mother should never have opened

• Jennifer Kent: ‘I wanted to talk about the need to face darkness in ourselves’

• Why The Babadook is the film you should watch this week – video review

• Haunted heroines: women are taking the lead in horror films

Jennifer Kent’s clever, nasty, clammily claustrophobic chiller about a mother and child brought back a strange episode in my own parenting career. I was reading aloud to my son from a book that I didn’t know anything about, and neither did he. As the pages turned, the prose got weirdly darker, more disconcerting and more age-inappropriate. My son had reposed an unhesitating, childlike trust in the story, and I – the supposed adult – had reposed precisely the same childlike trust in a book about which I knew nothing.