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Looking for bold new work from first- and second-time feature filmmakers? Look no further than New Directors/New Films, the New York City festival that annually highlights them. Now in its 54th year, New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) returns to New York April 2 through 13, hailing from the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center.

Sarah Friedland’s debut feature, “Familiar Touch,” will open the festival with its New York premiere. The drama centers on a dementia-suffering octogenarian Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), who has a surreal experience after relocating to an assisted-living facility. The film nearly swept the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition, winning Lion of the Future, Best Director, and Best Actress for Chalfant.

The festival closes with the post-Sundance New York debut of the stylish “Lurker,” directed by Emmy-winning “Beef” and “The Bear” writer and producer Alex Russell. Théodore Pellerin stars as a retail worker who becomes...

The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center has announced the full lineup for the 54th edition of New Directors/New Films, unspooling at MoMA on April 2–13.

The event, presenting 24 features and nine short films — including 20 North American or U.S. premieres — will open with Sarah Friedland’s Venice award-winner Familiar Touch and close with Alex Russell’s Lurker from Sundance and Berlin. Both are New York premieres.

Familiar Touch, Friedland’s debut, won three top prizes in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition and showcases an astonishing performance by Kathleen Chalfant.

Russell’s feature debut Lurker, is a tense thriller about the darker side of pop-star worship.

Films in the Nd/Nf program probe a diverse array of themes, including community and co-existence, family histories, the lives of artists, global political issues, and the complexities of youth and coming of age. A number of works experiment with hybrid forms,...

Sarah Friedland’s Venice Film Festival prize-winning grand slam debut Familiar Touch is set to open the 54th edition of New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) and Alex Russell‘s Lurker – a 2025 Sundance and Berlinale selection will be bookending the fest which takes place between April 2nd through April 13th. A true mixed bag of most first time efforts, we have films going back to last year’s Cannes in Blue Sun Palace by Constance Tsang and the Un Certain Regard film The Village Next to Paradise by Mo Harawe. Here is the line-up.…...

After showcasing work from the likes of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Souleymane Cissé, Jia Zhangke, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai, Agnieszka Holland, Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, and more, New Directors/New Films is back for their 54th edition, taking place from April 2-13 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. The 2025 lineup has now been unveiled, including Sarah Friedland’s Opening Night selection Familiar Touch, Alex Russell’s Closing Night selection Lurker, as well as more acclaimed features such as Invention, Drowning Dry, Fiume o morte!, No Sleep Till, Two Times João Liberada, Timestamp, and more.

Dan Sullivan, 2025 Nd/Nf Co-Chair and Flc Programmer, says, “The lineup for this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films inevitably reflects the uncertainties and tragedies of our global situation in 2025, yet it also evinces the sheer resilience of cinema and the...

The 54th annual New Directors/New Films festival is almost here. IndieWire can unveil this year’s lineup of the beloved program from theMuseum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center. The 2025 New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) will take place April 2 – April 13.

Sarah Friedland’s debut feature “Familiar Touch” will open the festival with its New York premiere. The drama centers on octogenarian Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) who has a surreal experience after relocating to an assisted-living facility. The feature earned three awards in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition, including the Lion of the Future, Best Director, and Best Actress for Chalfant.

Nd/Nf will close with the New York premiere of buzzy Sundance 2025 film “Lurker,” directed by “Beef” and “The Bear” writer and supervising producer Alex Russell. Théodore Pellerin stars as a retail worker who becomes obsessed with an up-and-coming musician (Archie Madekwe). “Lurker” is Russell’s feature directorial debut.

For a film literally called “Lurker,” Archie Madekwe’s casting in Alex Russell’s chilling directorial debut about fame and fandom came about through a spot of, well, lurking.

The fast-rising British star — one of the few survivors from Emerald Fennell’s aristocratic “Saltburn” murders — had actually submitted a tape for the role of Matthew, the shop assistant/fawning superfan who manages, through near excruciating-to-watch persistence, to insinuate himself into the entourage of music star Oliver.

“I honestly thought I crushed the tape,” he tells Variety. Naturally, the actor then heard nothing back, and in the years that followed, as the project went through various iterations, simply figured it wasn’t to be. As it turned out Russell — best known as a writer on “Beef” and “The Bear” — hadn’t even seen his recording.

But he had spied Madekwe in a Los Angeles coffee shop.

“When we met, he said to me,...

Focus Features has bought international rights to “Lurker,” Alex Russell’s directorial debut about clout-chasing and the dark side of fame that became one of the standouts hits from this year’s Sundance, Variety has learned.

Arthouse distributor Mubi had already picked up the film for the U.S. out of the festival in a rumored mid-seven-figure deal, as Variety reported.

A tense feature about an ambitious hipster and the rising pop star he exploits, “Lurker” stars Théodore Pellerin as Matty, a lowly clerk at a high-end sneaker and apparel store in Los Angeles. When his favorite singer (“Saltburn” star Archie Madekwe) saunters in, Matty starts cozying up to the social media star. Before long, he’s installed himself in a world of hedonism and opportunity — and he can stay, as long as he manages the pecking order of the entourage and the fickle demands of celebrity. Everything that can go wrong does,...

Following the film’s Sundance premiere and sale to Sideshow and Janus Films, “Peter Hujar’s Day” has released a first look.

Based on the book of the same name by Linda Rosenkrantz, “Peter Hujar’s Day” is director Ira Sachs’ follow-up to “Passages” (Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski). His latest film once again features Whishaw, now paired on-screen with Rebecca Hall. The two play friends, Peter Hujar (Whishaw) and Rosenkrantz (Hall), who connect over a 24-hour period in December 1974 and record an intimate discussion. Sachs took inspiration from a transcript of their real-life conversation.

The clip features a conversation between Hujar and Rosenkrantz as they discuss their differing views on stardom and artists. Hujar proclaims that he wants his work to stand on its own without stars, while Rosenkrantz doesn’t see the appeal in stars even as big as Joan Crawford. By the end, Hujar rests his head on Rosenkrantz...

The democratization of celebrity in the 21st century has accelerated the process of audience capture: Tell fans what they want to hear and reap the rewards. Lurker portrays an even more contemporary permutation of this feedback loop by dismantling the presumed hierarchy of its participants. The artist and audience member are coequal—and codependent—in this perceptive drama about a parasocial relationship that enters the realm of reality.

The value exchange is clear from the moment in Alex Russell’s film where Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) steals an Av jack at the clothing store where he works to blast a song meant to resonate with rising music star Oliver (Archie Madekwe). Instead of professing his deep knowledge of Oliver’s work, Matthew plays dumb and lies that his selection of the song, which inspired the artist, was just pure coincidence. Mistaking the artificial meet-cute for an authentically serendipitous connection, Oliver invites...

Move over Eve Harrington and Rupert Pupkin, we have a new fame-obsessed sociopath for the age of social media clout. Played with squirmy panache by Théodore Pellerin, Matthew – the anti-hero of Alex Russell’s Lurker – seems destined to worm his way into cineaste consciousness with a needy smile and a series of awkward proposals. The fame-hungry, cringe-inspiring young man enters the film’s narrative running, and rarely takes a break as he manipulates and sabotages those around him – as well as himself – in increasingly unpredictable fashion.

In Matthew’s mind, “fan” is a dirty word. He wants to be part of rising musician Oliver’s (Archie Madekwe) entourage – a friend, certainly, and the more he thinks about it, a collaborator. Matthew becomes part of the world at breakneck pace, and soon finds himself doing anything he can to remain within it.

At a time when streaming services ask screenwriters...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired “East of Wall,” a critically acclaimed look at a marginalized, neglected corner of the American West that marks the feature debut of writer and director Kate Beecroft. The film was inspired by real people, with Beecroft convincing Tabatha and Porshia Zimiga, ranchers from the Badlands, to play versions of themselves. “East of Wall” won the Audience Award at Sundance in the Next category.

Variety‘s Peter Debruge praised the film as an “artful debut” and compared it to Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” which Sony Pictures Classics also distributed. Other critics agreed with The Austin Chronicle writing, “As a first-time feature filmmaker, Beecroft’s storytelling technique could stand greater development, but her sense of place and mood is spot-on. Her film will definitely make you want to scrape the mud off your boots before you leave the theatre.”

Tabatha Zimiga stars as a horse trainer who,...

Debut writer-director Alex Russell has produced some of the most popular and acclaimed television series in recent years, Beefand The Bear, but now, at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, he is showing his chops as a singular visionary with his film Lurker. The thriller, starring Théodore Pellerinof Beau is Afraid fame and Saltburn's Archie Madekwe, examines the darker side of celebrity obsession.

Independent films – especially ones made and acquired for movie theaters – need all the wins they can get these days, and “slow and steady” is the mantra emerging after a sleepy Sundance Film Festival.

While opening weekend of the January event is typically filled with buzzy stars and late-night bidding wars, this year was marked by unusual silence and reflection as the 41-year-old festival prepares to leave its longtime home in Park City, Utah. But the deals have been coming, the price tags make sense for respective buyers and there’s hope brimming up inside art house circles.

The first and biggest splash was the $17 million check Neon wrote for “Together,” a wild body horror romp about a codependent couple played by real life spouses Alison Brie and Dave Franco. This was powered by stellar audience reception on the ground, and the box office and awards reception currently surrounding “The Substance” didn’t hurt,...

“The Substance” distributor Mubi has acquired Sundance favorite “Lurker” following a highly competitive bidding war and will release the movie in theaters later this year. The film will receive its international premiere at the 2025 Berlinale.

The film, which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year, tells the story of a retail employee who infiltrates the inner circle of a music artist on the verge of stardom. But, “as he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.”

Writer and director Alex Russell has been part of major shows like “Dave” and “The Bear,” but “Lurker” marks his feature directorial debut.

“It was already such a privilege to show our movie at Sundance last week. I’m honestly still reeling and recovering from that experience” said director Russell in an official statement. “To have found such an ideal...

Riding momentum from its five Academy Award nominations for “The Substance,” boutique movie distributor Mubi has picked up another buzzy indie film for the U.S. market.

“Lurker,” a tense feature about an ambitious hipster and the rising pop star he exploits for fame and community, has been snapped up by Mubi following this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Screening in the fest’s premiere section, Mubi took “Lurker,” written and directed by Alex Russell, in a competitive situation for a mid-seven-figure price tag.

Exact numbers weren’t disclosed but one person with knowledge of the deal told Variety that the sale represents a significant domestic theatrical release commitment from Mubi. The indie distributor previously released “The Substance” and “Decision to Leave.”

Rising star Théodore Pellerin plays Matty, a lowly clerk at a high-end sneaker and apparel store in Los Angeles. When his favorite singer (Archie Madekwe of “Saltburn”) saunters in,...

Sundance is a place for discovery, where new stars are minted because of the fresh, invigorating images they bring to the screen. It was where Steven Soderbergh helped kick off the indie film revolution in 1989 with “sex, lies, and videotape” and Quentin Tarantino launched “Reservoir Dogs” in 1992. They showed that, at Sundance, if you have something to say, you can have a seat at the table.

This year, that daring new voice belongs to Eva Victor, whose comedic character study “Sorry, Baby,” about a young professor reeling from a trauma, sold to A24 for $8 million. “Sorry, Baby” also has the distinction of placing first in many of the categories in IndieWire’s 2025 Sundance Critics Survey, including Best Performance (for Victor herself), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best First Film, and Best Film itself.

Though “Sorry, Baby” was the undeniable favorite across the board at Sundance 2025, our critics survey shared the love...

It was just a few years ago that Sundance was still famous for its feeding frenzy-like atmosphere as a sales market, with movies like “The Farewell” and “Blindspotting” triggering the sort of all-night bidding wars that have become as much a part of festival legend as the films themselves. While “A Real Pain” commanded similar attention last year, and titles like “Together” (Neon) and “Sorry, Baby” (A24) leveraged buzzy premieres into healthy price tags over just the last few days, the overwhelming majority of the best titles from Sundance 2025 are still looking for a proper home.

We suspect that will change at some point in the immediate future — distributors might not go to Park City with the same “buy now!” mentality they once had, but they still need product. And the product is compelling: From starry indies like “Rebuilding” (Josh O’Connor as a sad cowboy!) to movies of the moment like “Lurker,...

This year’s edition of the Sundance Film Festival felt a touch bittersweet to me. You see, Sundance is on the verge of relocating, with it increasingly unlikely that it will continue in Park City past the 2026 festival edition. Having been going to Sundance since 2010 (where does the time go), I must admit I felt a little sad sitting in some of the classic Sundance spots this year, like the Holiday Village Cinemas (where all the press screenings are) and the classic Eccles theatre, as after next year that might be the end of their run as premium Sundance spots. I’ve seen so many classics in these theatres, and it will be a shame to bid adieu to Park City.

Oh well, at least we have the 2026 edition to look forward to. As it is, the 2025 edition turned out to be the best edition of the festival since it was rocked by the pandemic.

On January 23, 2025, the center of our genre-film loving world moved to Park City, Utah, US, where the Sundance Film Festival unveiled a broad and diverse selection of films. Our own Mel Valentin and Martin Tsai attended the festival in person, while Daniel Egan and Martin Kudlac provided supplemental review coverage from their respective homes. Our Festivals Editor, Ryland Aldrich, also attended in person, coordinated coverage, and wrote the festival preview. Here's a recap of our Sundance 2025 coverage. We will update this page as reviews are added, so please bookmark! Reviews by Mel Valentin: Twinless Andre Is an Idiot Rabbit Trap Brides If I Had Legs I'd Kick You Atropia Together Opus Dead Lover Lurker Kiss of the Spider Woman Plainclothes Sorry, Baby...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Using the lens of fame, L.A.-based writer/director Alex Russell explores why the need to belong brings out the worst behavior in some men in his debut feature film “Lurker.” Life for Matthew, a retail worker, gets an unexpected boost when rising music artist Oliver comes into his store and ends up inviting him to come hang with him and his crew. Matthew’s initial encounters with them are understandably awkward since Oliver and his boys, not to mention Shai, the one woman in their crew who serves as gatekeeper and fixer, are a tight-knit group who were around him pre-fame. As Matthew eases into a role as Oliver’s videographer, they get into a rhythm. But when Oliver begins to pull away from Matthew, the thought of no longer being in their circle is something Matthew cannot bear — and goes to great lengths to avoid.

“Lurker” doesn...

At the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, there were movies that provoked their share of buzz and chatter and official breathless enthusiasm. But it’s fair to say that no movie this year generated half the conversation that Sundance did about itself. The buzz was all about the festival — which city it would move to in 2027 (Cincinnati or Boulder? The smart money is now on Cincinnati), as well as the question that’s been the backdrop of that move: Can Sundance, a festival that in the ’90s altered the very landscape of cinema, find a way to sustain its relevance into the 21st century?

The jury is very much out on that. Sundance still generates excitement and headlines, as well as a small handful of films that will have a chance to make an impact. But as much as I remain a Sundance believer, the festival’s mojo is increasingly shrouded in...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has two more days of in-person and online screenings, but the world premieres have been over since Tuesday. This morning, the festival revealed its juried and audience awards. The big winners were “Atropia,” “Seeds,” “Twinless,” “East of Wall,” and “André is an Idiot.”

Read More: ‘Lurker’ Review: Alex Russell masterfully dissects the fanatic in pop star fandom [Sundance]

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize Dramatic went to Hailey Gates’ “Atropia.” Set during the Iraq War, Alia Shawkat plays a struggling actress who pretends to play an Iraqi in a fake Iraqi city set up to train soldiers in the California desert.

Continue reading ‘Atropia’ Wins Grand Jury Prize At 2025 Sundance Film Festival at The Playlist.

“I’m not a fan,” snaps Matthew, the master manipulator in the guise of a harmless nobody eager to soak up some of the refracted rays of celebrity in Lurker. Once he has penetrated the inner circle of emerging pop star Oliver, a fan is the most insulting thing you could call him. Proximity gives Matthew — played by Théodore Pellerin with an evil innocence from which you can’t look away — the illusion of being a best friend, a bro, a creative collaborator to the mononymous singer. Everyone in his entourage wants to bask in Oliver’s glow, but nobody wants it as badly as Matt.

Alex Russell, a writer on The Bear, Beef and Dave making an assured feature directing debut, clearly knows the Los Angeles music scene, with its aspirational strivers and anointed supernovas, its hangers-on, its calculating opportunists and, yes, its lowly fans for whom an all-access...

Alex Russell is already an Emmy-winning writer and producer, but with “Lurker,” he steps into the director’s chair — and he got some advice from Baz Luhrmann before he did it.

The film, which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year, tells the story of a retail employee who infiltrates the inner circle of a music artist on the verge of stardom. But, “as he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.”

Russell has been part of major shows like “Dave” and “The Bear,” but “Lurkers” marks his feature directorial debut. Sitting down at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by World of Hyatt, he revealed that Luhrmann actually gave him some lasting writing advice that he put to work in the project.

“He wrote it in my notebook, and it said something like, when you’re...

Almost Famous. A Star is Born. The Idea of You; films about fictional musicians aren’t hard to come by, and it makes sense why. There’s an endless fascination with fame and what it does to people, as well as what it does to the people around them — so much so that this year’s Sundance Film Festival has two movies that explore this idea: Opus and Lurker. Lurker attempts to say something new about these topics, and while it undoubtedly plants interesting seeds, it unfortunately never quite blooms.

Plot: A retail employee (Théodore Pellerin) worms his way into the inner circle of a rising pop star, Oliver (Archie Madekwe) and will do whatever he needs to in order to stay there.

Review: Lurker is exactly the kind of movie I want to see when I hit Sundance. I went in knowing next to nothing about it other than the fact that some folks involved with The Bear had a hand in it. Days before its premiere, it screened for many of the Sundance volunteers, which is usually something they do when they know they have a real winner on their hands.

Sure enough, Lurker is a terrific blend of black comedy and psychological thriller, with it playing out as almost an evil, demented version of Almost Famous. Like that Cameron Crowe classic, this follows the entree of a young man into the inner circle of pop stars, although...

A transfixing morality tale cleverly turned on its head, “Lurker” opens with an overture: its protagonist, Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), goofing around for a camcorder wielded by a friend. When the person holding the camera jokingly asks Matthew where he sees himself in five years, Matthew replies sincerely. “I already have everything I want,” he says, stealing a glance into the lens.

Rewind to the before times, when Matthew is living with his grandma and working as a retail employee at a hip clothing store in Los Angeles. In walks Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a pop music artist famous enough to cause a murmur among the store patrons. Matthew, abuzz with anticipation, pops on a track that impresses the VIP, and the next thing he knows he’s being folded into the small, sycophantic entourage of not-quite friends and not-quite collaborators fortunate enough to accompany Oliver on his excursions.

So begins a...

Park City – Oh, this movie is gonna be a thing. The directorial debut of writer Alex Russell, “Lurker” is the sort of film that lingers with you for days. Especially if you’ve spent even a week working tangentially in the entertainment industry. Although that reference suggests this tale has limited appeal which isn’t the case whatsoever.

Read More: “Rabbit Trap” Review: Dev Patel records spirits in a sound design masterwork [Sundance]

A world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, “Lurker” starts off innocently enough.

Continue reading ‘Lurker’ Review: Alex Russell Masterfully Dissects The Fanatic In Pop Star Fandom [Sundance] at The Playlist.

“Lurker” is a tight, nifty, and unsettling little parable of the pathology of fame in our time. It tells the story of Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), a nobody who works in one of those bare-bones L.A. clothing boutiques, and how he insinuates himself into the inner circle of Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a budding pop star who has legions of screaming fans but is trying to leap to the next level. (He still rides around in a tour bus.) Matthew becomes Oliver’s bro, his hanger-on, his social-media camera buddy. And Matthew is grateful for the attention — so grateful, in fact, that he’ll do anything, and stop at nothing, to keep it coming.

Thirty years ago, a premise like this one might have been the fuel for a conventional Hollywood thriller. But Alex Russell, the writer-director of “Lurker,” works with a highly accomplished jittery cell-phone-camera aesthetic that makes the entire...

Théodore Pellerin plays a parasocial obsessive who craves proximity to fame in writer/director Alex Russell’s impressive, uneasy debut feature “Lurker,” premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Set in a present-day Los Angeles where everyone is defined not by who they are but by what they do, “Lurker” follows Matthew (the rising and wonderful Canadian actor Pellerin), who becomes obsessed with pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) after a chance encounter. Oliver ropes Matthew into his social orbit in ways that start to feel exploitative, potentially to use him as a videographer to document his rising success (a level of fame Oliver himself is becoming uncomfortable with).

But their relationship becomes much more parasitic and toxic — and even homoerotic — in Russell’s tense and absorbing film, one of the most buzzed-about debuts playing Sundance.

“The characters in this movie are archetypes,” Russell, known for his writing and supervising producing work...

Jessica Chastain, Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton and Marion Cotillard were among a first wave of star guests confirmed for the 75th edition of the Berlinale at its line-up press conference on Tuesday.

Chastain will hit the festival as the co-star of Michel Franco’s Golden Bear Contender Dreams, while Whishaw and Hall will attend with Ira Sach’s Peter Hujar’s Day, which plays in the competitive Panorama sidebar. Sevigny is the star of another Panorama title, Magic Farm by Amalia Ulman.

Cotillard tops the cast of Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Golden Lion Contender The Ice Tower in the role of the enigmatic star of a production of The Snow Queen, who bewitches a young runaway.

Other confirmed guests include Archie Madekwe, who co-stars in Berlinale Special Gala title Lurker; Rose Byrne, who tops the cast of Golden Bear contender If I Had Links I’d Kick You and Lars Eidinger,...

Following last week’s lineup announcement, the Berlinale 2025 has now fleshed out its slate with the Competition, Special, and Perspectives sections. Highlights include the world premieres of Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott; Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25; Hong Sangsoo’s What Does that Nature Say to You; Michel Franco’s Dreams starring Jessica Chastain; Lucile Hadžihalilović’s The Ice Tower starring Marion Cotillard; and Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk with Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw, and Vicky Krieps.

The festival will also include international premieres from Julia Loktev, Mary Bronstein, Kahlil Joseph, and more. In terms of omissions for films that potentially could have been a strong fit: there’s no Steven Soderberg’s Black Bag, Wes Anderson’s German production The Phoenician Scheme, nor Berlinale regular Christian Petzold, who wrapped Miroirs No. 3 only a few months ago.

Check out the lineup...

Exclusive: Daniel Zolghadri, star of A24’s Funny Pages and upcoming Y2K, is negotiating for the lead role in The Temple, a sci-fi horror film from the Canadian writing and directing duo of Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

In the indie gearing up for a shoot up north, an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.

Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott will produce for their Babe Nation Films, alongside the writer-director duo’s Lisa Pictures.

An in-demand talent on the indie scene, Zolghadri garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance for his work in Funny Pages, A24’s 2022 coming-of-age comedy written and directed by Owen Kline and produced by the Safdie brothers, which was named one of the Top 10 Independent Films of 2022 by the National Board of Review.

Filming in Los Angeles has been slow to bounce back after production in the region was decimated by Hollywood’s historic season of strikes.

The main reason for the sluggish rebound: A double-digit drop in television shoots compared to the same period last year. Present levels look even worse over a five year period, with filming in the category — long a mainstay and anchor of production in the region — trailing its five-year average by more than 32 percent.

The report from FilmLA reflects the first full quarter after the resolutions of the strikes. The film office said that the three-month period from January to March saw 6,823 shoot days, representing a roughly 9 percent decline year-over-year and more than a 20 percent decline from the five-year average. That quarter to start 2023 also saw a significant slowdown across most categories of on-location production as decisions about future content direction were put on hold as the...

Heatseeking filmmaker Olmo Schnabel has signed for representation with WME, and with Black Bear for management.

Schnabel’s breakout directorial effort “Pet Shop Days” played both the Venice International Film Festival and SXSW this cycle, scoring distribution from Utopia for a 2024 theatrical release. Starring Jack Irv, Darío Yazbek Bernal, Willem Dafoe and Peter Sarsgaard, the film tells of a drug lord scion on the run from his powerful family. Slumming it in New York in a haze of sex and drugs, he seduces an equally lost young man and pulls him into the city’s underbelly.

The provocative debut also hit festivals in Chicago, Montclair, Morelia, Santa Barbara and Sarasota. Schnabel was also awarded the Leffest Lisboa Film Festival’s Tap Revelation Award.

Schnabel just wrapped “In the Hand of Dante” for production shop Twin, which stars Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler and Gal Gadot. The film is a...

Alex Russell, whose writing credits include FX’s “Dave” and “The Bear” and Netflix’s “Beef,” is making his directorial debut with the upcoming thriller “Lurker,” starring and Théodore Pellerin (“Never Rarely Sometimes Always”) and Archie Madekwe (“Saltburn”).

Havana Rose Liu, Sunny Suljic, Daniel Zolghadri and Zack Fox round out the cast of “Lurker,” which follows a retail employee (Pellerin) who infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom (Madekwe). As he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.

WME Independent will represent worldwide sales for the film, which begins shooting this spring.

Pellerin’s credits include Philippe Lesage’s “Genesis,” Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” and Joel Edgerton’s “Boy Erased.”

Last year Madekwe starred as Farleigh Start in Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” and as Jann Mardenborough in Sony’s “Gran Turismo.” His...

The Critics Choice Award for chutzpah goes to … the lady swathed in gold lamé, sporting a Mohawk fade hairstyle who, without so much as a by-your-leave, crashed past me and scooped up a bottle of Milagro Silver tequila that was part of the centerpiece on tables at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.

“Can I,” she asks, grabbing the booze.

Wasn’t my liquor.

The thing that made me jump up in my seat was that Mohawk Lady already had bottles under her arm.

Quick as a flash, she repeated the same move at neighboring tables.

By now she had a haul of five or six bottles. Crash! One of them fell to the ground, so she swiped a replacement.

Stirred the former crime reporter in me. Who was Mohawk Lady?

She’s an online critic, someone at another table tells me.

Later on I ask her directly but she mumbles,...