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John Turturro is to receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia, which runs from Aug. 16 to 23. The award is in recognition of his contribution to the film industry and his talent as an actor, director and screenwriter.

Jovan Marjanović, director of Sarajevo Film Festival, said: “With a career spanning over four decades, he has delivered unforgettable performances in a diverse range of roles. His dedication to his craft, versatility, and ability to bring depth and authenticity to every character he embodies have made him a joy to look at every time he enters the scene.”

Turturro studied at Suny New Paltz and the Yale School of Drama. He has worked with a number of acclaimed filmmakers, appearing in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of Money,” Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show,” Francesco Rosi’s “La Tregua,...

Paris-based sales and production company Totem has boarded “Quasi a Casa,” directed by Carolina Pavone.

The film is produced by Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa for Vivo Film, and by Palme d’Or winner Nanni Moretti for Sacher Film. Fandango – behind festival favorites “Orlando, My Political Biography” and “The Survival of Kindness” – will handle Italian distribution.

Described as a “pop drama,” it follows Caterina. Now in her 20s, she wants to be a musician, but she’s paralyzed by fear and insecurity. One summer, she meets her idol, the French singer Mia and gets to know her. It’s the beginning of a complex relationship that will accompany Caterina over the years and finally allow her to find home. Almost.

The logline states: “There comes a time in everyone’s life, when we need to start figuring out what our place in the world is.”

Newcomer Maria Chiara Arrighini plays Caterina.

Francesca Archibugi on Paolo Virzì: “We actually were students together. We studied with Furio Scarpelli, who was a great screenwriter. I think we both loved him very much.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

As a screenwriter, Francesca Archibugi has worked with director/screenwriter Paolo Virzì on his films Magical Nights (Notti Magiche) and The Leisure Seeker (starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland) with Francesco Piccolo. Dry (Siccità) starring Monica Bellucci, Silvio Orlando, Valerio Mastandrea, Vinicio Marchioni, Claudia Pandolfi, Sara Serraiocco, and Tommaso Ragno is Archibugi’s third collaboration with Paolo Virzì, this time also with screenwriters Paolo Giordano and Francesco Piccolo.

Dry star Tommaso Ragno inside the Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Piccolo is also the co-writer with Laura Paolucci on Archibugi’s The Hummingbird which was the opening night selection of Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s...

For Italian writer-filmmaker and national cinema mainstay Nanni Moretti — a veteran whose first film dates back to 1976 and whose 2001 drama, “A Son’s Room,” took the Palme D’Or at Cannes — the familiarity of his themes and fascinations may be a balm to some, but is also possibly verging on the tiresome. In “A Brighter Tomorrow,” Moretti once again stars as a version of himself — playing a character called Giovanni, his own full name — as an aging, curmudgeonly film director in contemporary Italy attempting to make a new film and scuppered at every turn by an untrustworthy financier (Mathieu Almaric), an unhappy wife of forty years and a combative cast.

The film-within-a-film that Giovanni is making is a parable about the Italian Communist Party circa 1956, and the fraught decision of a couple of L’Unita newspaper journalists to either remain loyal to their Soviet masters or to break with them for...

In competition at Cannes, the Italian director’s comedy-drama about a failing film-maker is full of non-comedy and anti-drama – a complete waste of time

Nanni Moretti is the Italian director who will always have a place in our hearts, not least for his masterly The Son’s Room (2001), in my view the greatest Cannes Palme d’Or winner of the century so far. And more recently his cinephile comedy Mia Madre (2015) was tremendous.

But his new film in competition is bafflingly awful: muddled, mediocre and metatextual – a complete waste of time, at once strident and listless. Everything about it is heavy-handed and dull: the non-comedy, the ersatz-pathos, the anti-drama.

It is effectively a film within a film, both as dull as each other. Moretti himself plays Giovanni, a high-minded film director with a failing marriage who is struggling to shoot his passion project about the Italian Communist party standing up to...

It’s been exactly 20 years since Nanni Moretti won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “The Son’s Room,” a graceful, humane and often surprisingly witty drama about a family regathering itself in the wake of shattering tragedy. That’s a long time ago, and it feels longer by the minute as you watch the Italian writer-director’s latest, “Three Floors,” a film clearly conceived to hit the same bittersweet notes as his 2001 triumph, but scarcely recognizable as the work of the same filmmaker.

Dramatically stilted, cinematically drab and morally dubious at multiple turns, this soapy lather of assorted crises concerning the residents of a single Roman apartment block may come as a crashing disappointment to fans who have been waiting six years for a new Moretti feature. Pedigree alone has secured this misfire a Cannes competition slot and healthy international sales, though we certainly won’t be thinking about it in two decades’ time.

Next month’s Mubi lineup has been unveiled and if you can’t make it to Cannes Film Festival, they are spotlighting recent favorites from the event. As part of a Cannes Takeover series, they will show Lisandro Alonso’s Viggo Mortensen-led Jauja, the Zambian drama I Am Not a Witch, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After the Storm, plus two films from directors who have new films in this year’s lineup, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II and Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre, plus more.

Also in the lineup will be the Mubi debut of Magnus van Horn’s Sweat, which opens in theaters today, plus series on Jean-Claude Carriére and Luis Buñuel’s collaboration and a trio of films by the prolific Chilean master Raúl Ruiz. There will also be some recent festival favorites, including Arab Blues starring Golshifteh Farahani...

The Cannes Film Festival has delayed its highly anticipated press conference by one week, to June 3, Variety has learned.

The reason for the date change is an abundance of movies that have been submitted to the festival, according to an industry source. The Official Selection, in particular the competition, is expected to be larger than usual.

In a normal year, when the festival takes place in May, the lineup is unveiled one month before its start.

Cannes is still on track to open on July 6 with the world premiere of Leos Carax’s musical romance “Annette” with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. The 2021 edition should be in no shortage of major auteurs and stars. So far, two titles have been confirmed for the competition by Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux — “Annette” and Paul Verhoeven’s subversive period thriller “Benedetta.”

Some of the movies being considered for this edition include Sean Penn...

Tre piani

Italy’s Nanni Moretti breaks a five-year hiatus (from feature films) with his thirteenth narrative, Tre piani, which is also the director’s first adaptation. Moretti assembles a high profile cast including Riccardo Scamarcio, Margherita Buy, Alba Rohrwacher, Adriano Giannini, Elena Lietti, Denise Tantucci, Alessandro Sperduti, Anna Bonaiuto, Paolo Graziosi, Tommaso Ragno, Stefano Dionisi and himself. Cinematographer Michele D’Attanasio lensed the feature, produced through Sacher Film, Fandando, Rai Cinema and Le Pacte. Moretti has competed seven times in Cannes, with 1978’s Ecco Bombo, 1994’s Dear Diary (winning Best Director), 1998’s Aprile, 2001’s The Son’s Room (which won the Palme d’Or), 2006’s The Caiman, 2011’s We Have a Pope and 2015’s Mia Madre (winning the Ecumenical Jury Prize).…...

Federation Entertainment has acquired worldwide rights to “Made in Italy,” a drama series chronicling the birth of the Italian fashion industry in the 1970s.

Co-produced by Taodue Film and The Family for Mediaset, “Made in Italy” stars up-and-coming model Greta Ferro as Irene, a daughter of Southern Italian immigrants, who takes a job at the fashion magazine Appeal to finance her college studies and quickly moves her way up. The series follows Irene’s private and professional life, while reflecting on the evolution of Milan’s fashion industry, the birth of new pret-a-porter designers, as well as the social and political upheavals of the 1970s.

“Made is Italy” marks the screen debut of Ferro who stars opposite Margherita Buy, the renowned Italian actress of “Mia Madre,” “Habemus Papam” and “White Space.” The series also toplines Valentina Carnelutti, Sergio Albelli, Giuseppe Cederna. It’s directed by Luca Lucini (“The Comedians”) and...

When “Indivisible” screened for a crowd at Lincoln Center as the opening night selection of its annual “Open Roads: New Italian Cinema” series, it had no U.S. distribution plan. In late 2016, it had screened in higher-profile slots in Venice and Toronto, where buyers paid no heed. But at Lincoln Center, the movie — a seriocomic story about 18-year-old conjoined twins pursuing a music career (real-life twins Angela and Marianna Fontana) — played through the roof.

That was when Ira Deutchman saw its potential.

“I just fell in love with it,” the veteran distribution executive said. “It’s got everything in it. The movie is not a depressing, severe art film that requires people to look at it like work. Maybe distributors didn’t see the commerciality in a story about conjoined twins, but the women are beautiful and the movie is surprisingly entertaining.”

Read More:Ira Deutchman Receives First Annual Spotlight Lifetime Achievement Award

Now,...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Italian-American actor-director John Turturro, who stars in Richard Price and Steve Zaillian’s widely hailed limited series “The Night Of” (HBO).

Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”

Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Italian-American actor-director John Turturro, who stars in Richard Price and Steve Zaillian’s widely hailed limited series “The Night Of” (HBO).

Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”

Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...

Marthe Keller stars in Barbet Schroeder's Amnesia

Barbet Schroeder's Amnesia, starring Marthe Keller and Max Riemelt with Bruno Ganz, Corinna Kirchhoff, Fermí Reixach, Marie Leuenberger, and Joel Basman is a supremely personal chamber piece by the filmmaker who brought us Hollywood films such as Reversal Of Fortune (which won Jeremy Irons an Oscar), Barfly (Faye Dunaway, Mickey Rourke) or Single White Female (Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Jason Leigh), who worked with Jacques Rivette and Jean-Luc Godard and directed an episode of Mad Men.

Barbet Schroeder with Anne-Katrin Titze on Nelly Quettier: "She's a great editor." Photo: Steven Beeman

In New York before the opening, Barbet spoke with me about his editing on a "huge white wall" with Nelly Quettier (Terror's Advocate, Claire Denis' Beau Travail, Ursula Meier's Home, Léos Carax's Holy Motors), a Nanni Moretti-like Mia Madre idea, Walter Benjamin and Raoul Hausmann, the mood of Georgia O'Keeffe's house,...

The 19th edition of the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (Bafici) on Thursday announced its full program at a press conference in Buenos Aires, led by the city’s Minister of Culture Angel Mahler, fest director Javier Porta Fouz and Argentine Film Institute president Alejandro Cacetta.

An art house beacon and one of Latin America's main film events, Bafici will screen more than 400 films and welcome international guests Nanni Moretti (Mia Madre), Claude Barras (Oscar-nominated My Life as a Zucchini) and Alex Ross Perry (Sundance entry Golden Exits) to present retrospectives of their work. Other guests include Lucrecia...

December is almost here, which means top ten lists are going to start coming hard, but few of the them will be as eclectic as the one from Cahiers du Cinema. The cinephile publication always goes its own way (Nanni Moretti‘s “Mia Madre” was their best film of 2015, for example), but this year, few will disagree or question their top pick.

Maren Ade‘s critically acclaimed “Toni Erdmann” came out victorious, and hopefully that will put the movie on a few more radars as it gears up to open in limited release next month.

Continue reading Cahiers Du Cinema’s Top 10 Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner)

An ecstatically original work of film-history-philosophy with a digital-cinema palette of acutely crafted compositions. Amour Fou seamlessly blends together the paintings of Vermeer, the acting of Bresson, and the psychological undercurrents of a Dostoevsky novel. It is an intensely thrilling and often slyly comic work that manages to combine a passionately dispassionate love story of the highest order with a larger socio-historical examination of a new era of freedom,...

As the specialized film industry concentrates on the Toronto International Film Festival, new movies do continue to open around the country.

The leading opener this weekend, Gravitas Ventures’ “For the Love of Spock,” had a strong initial take via Video on Demand home-viewing venues.

Opening

“For the Love of Spock” (Gravitas Ventures) – Metacritic: 74; Festivals include: Tribeca 2016; also available on Video on Demand

$42,000 in 34 theaters; PTA: $1,235

The key number isn’t the slight theatrical take. It’s the reported $400,000 initial take on streaming platforms, where it is ranked best among independent and documentary releases. “Star Trek” and Leonard Nimoy fans found the vehicle to connect with for the 50th anniversary of the original TV show’s debut.

What comes next: Expect ongoing interest for this, mostly in home viewing.

“Author: The Jt Leroy Story” (Magnolia) – Metacritic: 74; Festivals include: Sundance, San Francisco, Seattle 2016

$25,000 in 5 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $5,000

A disappointing...

Labor Day weekend has never been the home for prime specialized releases, but it is a spot where well-positioned films going broader can thrive. That was the case for “Hell or High Water” (Lionsgate), which gained momentum and looks to be a dominant film for weeks ahead — perhaps even into the awards season. Don’t be surprised if it outgrosses many of the highly touted premieres at Telluride and Toronto.

However, the weekend was unkind to veteran comedy creators; both Kevin Smith’s “Yoga Hosers” (Invincible) and “Max Rose” (Paladin) starring Jerry Lewis received mostly negative reviews and little interest in their initial regular theatrical dates.

Opening

“No Manches Frida” (Lionsgate)

$3,650,000 in 362 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $10,083; Cumulative: $3,650,000

Lionsgate’s most recent release of a Spanish-language film from production partner Pantelion looks to be their best opener yet. A typical Mexican comedy involving a complicated scheme to recover stolen loot,...

Mia Madre (My Mother) Music Box Films Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya Grade: A- Director: Nanni Moretti Written by: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Valia Santella Cast: Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti, Beatrice Mancini Screened at: Review, NYC, 8/9/16 Opens: August 19, 2016 “Mia Madre” is the kind of film to which many in the audience can relate, particularly those of a certain age who have lived through the death of a parent, or, if younger, through the demise of a grandparent. Some of us may have even been entertained at a eulogy in which a speaker, instead of simply moaning and crying, describes some of the funny [ Read More ]

The post Mia Madre Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

This weekend brings a rare event as three very different specialty films face off nationally on between 800-900 theaters. Debuting “Southside With You” (Roadside Attractions) and “Hands of Stone” (Weinstein) go up against “Hell or High Water” (Lionsgate) in its third week.

The winner is “Hell or High Water,” which after this weekend’s success could wind up the year’s highest-grossing specialized release. “Southside With You” also scored high numbers, with “Hands of Stone” not up to its level.

Five Sundance releases are among this week’s new films, ranging from relatively wide opener “Southside” to Video on Demand entry “The Intervention.” As the Toronto Film Festival looms, the Park City event, despite offering half as many films, remains the biggest festival for acquisition titles.

Opening

“Southside With You” (Roadside Attractions) – Metacritic: 75; Festivals include: Sundance, San Francisco, Seattle 2016

$3,065,000 in 813 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $3,762

A strong initial result...

Led by a fantastic opening for Screen Gems' new thriller Don't Breathe, this weekend over performed expectations with the top twelve delivering a 43.5% improvement over the same weekend last year, just barely coming up shy of a combined $100 million. Along with the stellar opening for Don't Breathe, Mechanic: Resurrection had a solid opening for Lionsgate & Co., the moderate release of Southside with You performed well, the expansion of Hell or High Water continues to impress and Bad Moms has another great hold as the R-rated comedy approaches $100 million domestically. At the top, Don't Breathe delivered an estimated $26.1 million besting Mojo's projections, which were nearly double the studio's conservative expectations, by $5.6 million. The film, which was made for just under $10 million, delivered 2.6 times its budget domestically and received a "B+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences. The opening compares favorably to last year's The Visit, which opened with $25.4 million and a...

This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Only a handful of filmmakers have ever won the Palme D’Or twice (among them: the Dardennes, Michael Haneke, and Francis Ford Coppola), and it looks like this year won’t be the one that another pulls off the achievement. “Uncle Boonmee” helmer Apichatpong […]

The post ‘Mia Madre’ Is A Moving, Sensitive Return To Form For Director Nanni Moretti [Review] appeared first on The Playlist.

It’s the dog days of summer. This last weekend in August’s box office will top last year’s meagre $63 million. But if it squeaks past February’s Superbowl Weekend take ($74 million)—the worst weekend of the year so far—it won’t be new openers driving the numbers.

At best, only one film, $10-million Sony horror entry “Don’t Breathe,” about a break-in gone awry, will exceed $10 million. It looks to battle “Suicide Squad” (Warner Bros.) for the top spot. “Don’t Breathe” is the latest in a string of lower-budget horror films that have propped up the box office, including “Lights Out” and “Conjuring 2.” “Breathe” comes from rising Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, whose 2013 “Evil Dead” managed $54 million, nearly $100 million worldwide, on a $17 million budget.

Should “Suicide” repeat, it would be the first four-week #1 since “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” achieved the same in January. But it would...

Nanni Moretti's latest film, Mia Madre, is elegant, understated, and discreetly moving. A personal, if not autobiographical film, Mia Madre chronicles the slow death of a filmmaker's mother as the director struggles to complete her movie. Moretti experienced the hospitalization and death of his own mother while he shot 2011's We Have a Pope, which may be why this film's rhythms and emotions feel so genuine. Margherita (Margherita Buy) is the aforementioned director, a control freak who tends to be oblivious to the needs of those around her. Once she learns of her mother's condition, she is deeply shaken, while her brother Giovanni (played by Moretti) remains practical and accepting of the situation. Though cinematically portraying a filmmaker as self-involved and insensitive is hardly knew,...

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

Movies have a long, storied history of self-fascination, and one can’t help but wonder whether part of it has to do with the fact that film sets look interesting—funny, cinematic, equipped with their own frames within frames where the difference between what’s real and what isn’t is hard to suss out. Film begs to lampoon or fetishize itself: the phoniness of props and effects, the background activity of a crew, the graceful glide of a camera dolly. Even Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre—a minor effort in which the movie-within-the-movie never seems like a real project—can’t help but be riveted by the fake production it’s mounted within itself.

It’s a shame that Moretti can’t sustain the same level of interest in the family drama that makes up half of his latest film. With an offbeat back-and-forth structure that recalls the Italian...

Most expected Warner Bros.' Suicide Squad to dominate at the box office throughout the month of August before it hit theaters three weeks ago. However, after suffering a huge second weekend drop of 67.4% last weekend, many believed that its reign would come to an end this weekend, with three new releases hitting theaters, the epic remake Ben-Hur, the animated adventure Kubo and the Two Strings and the true story adaptation War Dogs. As it turns out, all three of those newcomers underperformed leading to Suicide Squad winning for the third week in a row with $20.7 million.

Suicide Squad's $133.6 million made it the fourth-highest opening of the year. The debut falls below Marvel's Captain America: Civil War ($179.1 million), Warner Bros./DC's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million) and Disney Pixar's Finding Dory ($135 million). Disney Pixar's Finding Dory is still the highest-grossing domestic release this year so far, with $473.8 million,...

Strangely, it seems like this month and the next is when various distributors decided it was finally time to release their Cannes 2015 competition dramas. Aside from The Sea of Trees, Mia Madre, and My King, Michel Franco‘s drama Chronic, which picked up Best Screenplay at Cannes, will also get a release shortly.

Led by Tim Roth, he stars as a dedicated home care nurse, haunted by the burden of his past, who isolates himself within the intensely personal relationships he forms with his terminally ill patients. Monument Releasing has now debuted the first U.S. trailer, which can be seen below, along with the poster, for the film also starring Sarah Sutherland and Claire van der Boom.

Chronic opens on September 23.

Last weekend, Warner Bros.' Suicide Squad managed to win the top slot at the box office for a second time in a row with $43.5 million, despite a massive second-weekend drop of 67.4%. This Friday, it goes up against three wildly different movies, the epic remake Ben-Hur, the animated adventure Kubo and the Two Strings and the true story adaptation War Dogs. Regardless of who actually comes out on top, it's shaping up to be a rather close run, but we think Ben-Hur will win this round with $19.6 million, proof that the summer season is indeed coming to a close.

Suicide Squad's $133.6 million made it the fourth-highest opening of the year. The debut falls below Marvel's Captain America: Civil War ($179.1 million), Warner Bros./DC's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million) and Disney Pixar's Finding Dory ($135 million). Disney Pixar's Finding Dory is still the highest-grossing domestic release this year so far,...

Last weekend, Warner Bros. Suicide Squad still managed to break box office records, despite David Ayer's controversial remarks and a spate of negative reviews. This DC Comics adaptation took in $133.6 million in its opening weekend, the biggest August debut in history, shattering the previous record set by Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy ($94.3 million) two years ago. Still, many wondered how much the movie would drop in its second weekend, going up against a diverse trio of new releases, Disney's family adventure Pete's Dragon, Sony's R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party and Paramount's inspiring drama Florence Foster Jenkins. While it came in far below expectations, Suicide Squad still managed to win with $43.7 million.

Suicide Squad's $133.6 million made it the fourth-highest opening of the year. The debut falls below Marvel's Captain America: Civil War ($179.1 million), Warner Bros./DC's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million) and Disney Pixar's Finding Dory ($135 million...

After a week that started with director David Ayer's controversial remarks and a spate of negative reviews, Warner Bros. Suicide Squad still managed to break box office records anyway. This DC Comics adaptation took in $133.6 million in its opening weekend, slightly down from Sunday's estimates of $135.1 million, but still good enough to shatter Guardians of the Galaxy's August opening weekend record of $94.3 million. This weekend, DC's supervillains take on three very different movies, Disney's family adventure Pete's Dragon, Sony's R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party and Paramount's inspiring drama Florence Foster Jenkins. Even with a massive second weekend drop, Suicide Squad should still repeat atop the box office with $59.3 million.

When the estimates came out on Sunday, Suicide Squad just barely secured the third-highest opening weekend this year, beating Finding Dory's $135 million, but the actual figure of $133.6 million made it the fourth-highest opening of the year. The debut...

Five years ago this month, Daniel Radcliffe bid farewell to the Harry Potter franchise with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2. Since then, the young actor has been taking on vastly different indie projects, such as Horns, Kill Your Darlings, What If and his current films Now You See Me 2 and Swiss Army Man. The beloved actor will next be seen in an intense role as an undercover FBI agent in the new thriller Imperium, which is set for release on August 19. To get fans ready for Imperium, Lionsgate has debuted the first trailer.

Nate Foster (Daniel Radcliffe), a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical right-wing terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white supremacy. Inspired by real events,...

The fifteenth entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room (2001) May 21 - June 20 in the United States.A water polo celebrity who freezes inexplicably before firing between the goal posts (Palombella rossa, 1989). A newly elected Pope who finds himself unable to address the faithful masses from the Vatican balcony, and instead furtively flees into the streets (Habemus Papam, 2011). A film director who can no longer hold it together on set, as her mother lays dying in hospital (Mia madre, 2015). Nanni’s Moretti’s films often address urgent issues of personal blockage, panic, fear, grief, and especially life-sapping depression—always within the ever-widening, intersubjective circles of family, work, community, and society. His wisdom recalls that of the militant psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, who commented in the 1970s that genuine political change will only occur “from...

Fabien Westerhoff launches London-based outfit with Films Distribution backing.

Former HanWay Films and WestEnd Films executive Fabien Westerhoff has launched London-based sales and finance outfit Film Constellation ahead of Cannes.

Based in London, the company will offer bespoke international licensing and executive production services to producers and financiers, and Westerhoff has negotiated a credit facility of up to €10 million with Paris-based indie sales force Films Distribution, sellers of films including Oscar-winner Son Of Saul, Nanni Moretti’s Cannes 2015 drama Mia Madre and Brillante Mendoza’s upcoming Cannes competition entry Ma’ Rosa.

Film Constellation will reveal the first films on its slate around Cannes with those expected to encompass “youth oriented commercial fare and talent-driven films for mature audiences”.

Speaking to Screen, Westerhoff confirmed that additional staff would likely be added after Cannes.

Westerhoff said of the new company: “This is a destination of expression for trusted filmmakers and emerging new talent, embracing new distribution...

Another feature title is saved in the wake of Alchemy’s financial woes. Music Box Films has acquired U.S. rights to Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre, the Italian comedy from last year’s Cannes Film Festival that Alchemy snapped up. Mia Madre will now be released during the third quarter. The pic stars John Turturro as divo thespian Barry Higgins, the headache for his female director (Margherita Buy), who’s trying to balance the movie she’s making with the chaos in her life. Mia M…...

The distributor has taken Nanni Moretti’s winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at last year’s Cannes Film Festival off the hands of embattled Alchemy.

Music Box plans a Q3 release after president William Schopf brokered the Us deal with Films Distribution co-head Nicolas Brigaud-Robert.

Mia Madre stars Margherita Buy as a beleaguered director juggling a chaotic personal life and a bombastic star, played by John Turturro.

The deal marks the latest film to be extracted from Alchemy, which has become beset by financial troubles. A24 recently took over Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire and another Cannes 2015 selection, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster.

“We’re delighted to have the opportunity to work with a filmmaker of Moretti’s stature, and to bring his latest to American audiences,” said Music Box managing director Ed Arentz.

“Mia Madre is quintessential Moretti: his wry humour, moral questioning and emotional honesty – with the added bonus of two wonderful actors...

Georgia Poivre joins international sales team at Paris-based firm.

Sales agent Films Distribution has hired Georgia Poivre to join its international sales team ahead of Cannes.

Poivre joins from Wide Management, where she had been head of international sales since Oct 2014.

She previously worked at Wild Bunch Distribution, from Jan-July 2013, as marketing and acquisitions assistant for theatrical distribution and joined Studiocanal as marketing manager of the home entertainment division in Dec 2013.

Films Distribution co-founder and CEO Nicolas Brigaud-Robert said: “Georgia is a welcome addition to our sales team as we have significantly increased our investments in international titles these past months.”

Its titles over the past year have include Oscar-winner Son Of Saul, Austrian genre hit Goodnight Mommy and Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre.

In addition to its Paris office, Films Distribution has Berlin-based subsidiary Films Boutique, which handles special-interest movies and discoveries and, Be For Films, a sales agency set up in 2014 and based in Brussels...

Nanni Moretti on John Turturro: "… there is always a component of craziness that I appreciate." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Nanni Moretti's stingingly beautiful examination of the hazards of movie making during a point in time of private pain, Mia Madre (My Mother) stars Margherita Buy, Giulia Lazzarini, John Turturro, Beatrice Mancini, Enrico Ianniello and Moretti himself.

Things turn from complicated to ridiculous with the arrival of American actor Barry Huggins (Turturro) to be cast in Margherita's (Buy) new workers strike film. Creepy as hell and needy, he mimics phone calls from Stanley Kubrick and jokes about having a Kevin Spacey dream. "I'll kill you," is one of the first sentences we hear him mutter, three-quarters asleep on the backseat of her car after she picks him up at the airport herself. Putting up with Huggins' diva behavior is an extra burden, because she is worried about Ada (Lazzarini), her mother,...

Early box office projections put Warner Bros. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at $120 million and $140 million for its opening weekend. This report came shortly after 20th Century Fox's R-rated superhero adventure Deadpool broke records with a $132.4 million opening weekend last month. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ended up surpassing expectations, with Box Office Mojo reporting that it took in an estimated $170 million, the largest pre-summer opening weekend in history.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has now become the highest-grossing movie to ever debut in March, breaking The Hunger Games' record of $152.5 million set in 2012. We reported last week that advanced ticket sales for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are out-pacing Deadpool, which took in a record-breaking $132.4 million over its opening weekend, the highest debut ever for an R-rated movie. The movie has gone on to earn $340.9 million domestically and $390 million internationally for a worldwide haul of $731 million,...

Cover art and release details have been revealed for John La Tier’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tale of a man haunted by his heinous crime, The Tell-Tale Heart will be released on DVD and VOD on April 5th.

Press Release: Los Angeles, CA (March 23, 2016) — Alchemy is proud to announce the home entertainment release of the haunting, The Tell-tale Heart, directed by John La Tier. Starring Rose McGowan (Charmed, Scream, Grindhouse, Jawbreaker, The Blac), Patrick John Flueger (The 4400, The Princess Diaries, NBC’s Chicago P.D.), Academy Award® nominee Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, HBO’s The Sopranos), Jacob Vargas (Next Friday, Selena, Traffic, Jarhead), and Damon Whitake. The Tell-tale Heart has a running time of 82 minutes and is not rated. The Tell-tale Heart is available on DVD and VOD April 5th, 2016.

A haunting account of a tormented man, haunted by the heart of a man he murdered,...

While we normally have to wait for summer before movies put up truly huge box office numbers, fans have been coming out in droves for Deadpool and Zootopia over the past two months. That trend will continue this weekend with Warner Bros.' highly-anticipated Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which has been tracking quite well over the past few weeks. With just three days left until it hits theaters, the analysts at Pro.BoxOffice.com are projecting that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will easily take the top spot with a whopping $159 million. If it does manage to hit this projection, it will be the highest-grossing movie to ever debut in March, breaking The Hunger Games' record of $152.5 million set in 2012.

We reported last week that advanced ticket sales for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are out-pacing Deadpool, which took in a record-breaking $132.4 million over its opening weekend,...

Young at Heart,.Australia.s only film festival programmed for film lovers aged 60 and up,.will roll out in April to Palace Cinemas across Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and, for the first time in 2016, Brisbane..

For its eleventh incarnation, the Young at Heart program will include ten new feature films, new Australian short films starring seniors, filmmaker Q&As and a digital print of 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire.

.This year.s program takes a particular look at the modern family, celebrating the unconventional, complex and ever-changing relationships that bind us together., Festival Director Mathieu Ravier said..

The program features Louder than Bombs, starring Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg and Gabriel Byrne; Fathers and Daughters with Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried and Jane Fonda; Mia Madre, from Italian director Nanni Moretti and starring Margherita Buy and John Turturro; Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin; and Madman's A Month of Sundays, starring Anthony Lapaglia, Justine Clarke,...

Exclusive: The conversation tonight in Berlin, New York and Los Angeles is that distributor Alchemy is facing some serious financial turmoil. On top of today’s news that the company’s Cannes acquisition The Lobster was segueing to A24, Deadline has learned that Alchemy reduced its workforce by as much as 40%-50% during the past week. In addition, a big question mark hangs over its forthcoming feature film slate, which includes Cannes pickup Mia Madre from Nanni Moretti…...

The more “international” body of tastemaker critics have anointed Todd Haynes’ Carol, Hou Hsaio-Hsien’s The Assassin, George Miller’s Mad Max, Sean Baker’s Tangerine and Bruno Dumont’s Li’l Quinquin as the better film items for 2015 and top vote getters with the most noms for 2016 Ics Awards. Winners of the 13th Ics Awards will be announced on February 21, 2016. Here are the noms and all the categories.

Picture

• 45 Years

• Arabian Nights

• The Assassin

• Carol

• Clouds of Sils Maria

• The Duke of Burgundy

• Inside Out

• Li’l Quinquin

• Mad Max: Fury Road

• A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

• Tangerine

Director

• Sean Baker – Tangerine

• Bruno Dumont – Li’l Quinquin

• Todd Haynes – Carol

• Hou Hsaio-Hsien – The Assassin

• George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road

Film Not In The English Language

• Amour Fou

• Arabian Nights

• The Assassin

• Hard to Be a God

• Jauja

• La Sapienza

• Li’l Quinquin

• Phoenix

• A...

Deniz Gamze Erguven’s Oscar-nominated Mustang also among nominated titles.Scroll down for list of nominations

Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days (Trois Souvenirs De Ma Jeunesse) and Xavier Giannoli’s Marguerite topped the nominations list for France’s annual César Awards, announced this morning (Jan 27).

France’s Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences unveiled the nominations for the 41st edition of the awards at its annual news conference at Le Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs Elysées.

Desplechin’s romantic drama My Golden Days clocked 11 nominations as did Giannoli’s Marguerite, starring Catherine Frot as a society singer with a terrible voice.

Other features picking up multiple nominations included Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan and Deniz Gamze Erguven’s Mustang, which both secured nine nods.

There was widespread consternation last year in some quarters of the French film industry when five times Palme d’Or nominee Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Years was not given a Competition...

For as often as Nanni Moretti is lumped into a certain “tradition of quality” pile reserved solely for easily digestible foreign-language filmmakers, we found things to admire in his latest picture, Mia Madre. While not a title that stands out among its Cannes, Tiff, any Nyff brethren, “the formal modesty of My Mother is not without its charms, such as when Margherita [Buy]’s daughter driving slowly on her scooter to Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Baby’s Coming Back to Me’ (used multiple times in the film) capturing a small, everyday joy.” If you ask Cahiers du cinéma, we were actually being faint in our praise.

With the picture arriving in U.S. theaters soon, Alchemy have assembled a domestic trailer that sells the mixture of meta-textual and purely emotional drama — and a lot of John Turturro‘s antics are thrown in for good measure, too. However indicative of the final result it is — and I think,...

Nanni Moretti's seriocomic Italian film "Mia Madre" made the festival rounds last year, earning the Ecunemical Prize at Cannes and positive notices at Tiff, AFI Fest and the New York Film Festival. With a trailer and a release date set, this Italian production stars Italian actress Margherita Buy and John Turturro, exercising his Italian-language chops. "Mia Madre" is about film director Margherita (Buy), who must deal with onset woes and American actor Barry Huggins (Turturro), in addition to balancing a tumultuous home life. As the mother of a teenage daughter and the daughter of a dying mother, Margherita must face life's punches while focusing on her career and completing her film. Huggins only adds fuel to her production fire, as he can't seem to remember his lines and comes off as a bit of a diva on set.  Check out the trailer for "Mia Madre," which looks to be...

★★★★★ Italian auteur Nanni Moretti is well-known for his bittersweet explorations of love, loss and mortality. Mia Madre (2015), his beautiful, humane portrait of bereavement is his best yet. Film director Margherita (Margherita Buy) finds it hard to accept that her mother Ada (Giulia Lazzarini) is dying. Ada has been hospitalised with an enlarged heart and yearns to go home. Margherita and her brother Giovanni (Moretti) can't bear to tell her that there's nothing more that can be done.

Best Picture

Brooklyn

Carol

Ex Machina

Inside Out

Mad Max: Fury Road -- Winner

The Martian

The Revenant

Room

Sicario

Spotlight

Best Animated Feature

Anamolisa

The Good Dinosaur

Inside Out -- Winner

The Peanuts Movie

Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Film Not in the English Language

The Assassin . Taiwan -- Winner

Goodnight Mommy . Austria

Mustang . France

Phoenix . Germany

Son of Saul . Hungary

Best Documentary

Amy

Best of Enemies

Cartel Land

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

The Look of Silence -- Winner

Best Director

Todd Haynes . Carol

Tom McCarthy . Spotlight

George Miller . Mad Max: Fury Road -- Winner

Ridley Scott . The Martian

Denis Villeneuve . Sicario

Best Actor

Matt Damon . The Martian

Leonardo DiCaprio . The Revenant

Michael Fassbender . Steve Jobs -- Winner

Michael B. Jordan . Creed

Ian McKellen . Mr. Holmes

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett . Carol -- Winner

Brie Larson . Room

Charlotte Rampling . 45 Years

Saoirse Ronan . Brooklyn

Charlize Theron . Mad Max: Fury Road...

The popular, the obscure, and everything in between: the top ten lists of 2015 gathered here, from directors, critics, and publications, run the gamut. Read More: "How to Make a Ten Best List in Five Easy Steps" No surprise that John Waters included "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" on his—he was on the jury that awarded Best Actress at the Gothams to breakout star Bel Powley. Also no surprise, perhaps, is Cahiers du Cinema dismissing consensus (as usual) to select Nanni Moretti's "Mia Madre" as the best film of the year. Love the choices? Hate them? Let us know in the comments. Read More: "IMDb's Annual Top 10 Movies and Top TV Shows (Exclusive)" Read our continually updating list of lists below: Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 1. "Carol" 2. "About Elly" 3. "Phoenix" 4. "Spotlight" 5. "Chi-Raq" & "99 Homes" 6. "Stray Dog" 7. "Anomalisa" 8....