News

Exclusive: WTFilms has acquired international sales rights for Ukrainian director and producer Egor Olesov’s timely drama The Daughter set in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

News of the acquisition comes as Ukraine marks the one thousandth day of the resulting war, which has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and destroyed dozens of once flourishing towns and cities.

The Daughter blends family dynamics with the horrors of war through the story of a 17-year-old, hearing-impaired girl called Olga, who is staying with her father and his new family in the once sleepy town of Bucha outside Kyiv when the Russia invasion of Ukraine begins.

Before the family has time to flee, their home is occupied by Russian soldiers who subject them to a reign of terror including threats of death and rape. Previously at odds with her stepmother, Olga comes to understand she...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for Space Cadet.

The Space Cadet soundtrack plays a significant role in the movie, with various songs contributing to the overall mood and message of the film. Some of the standout tracks include "Selfish Soul" by Sudan Archives, a cover of "Born to Be Wild" by Alana D, and "What Girls Do" by Keys N Krates. These songs help to define Rex's character and showcase her journey towards self-discovery and women's empowerment. Unfortunately, there is no official Space Cadet soundtrack currently available on major music streaming platforms. However, most of the songs that play in the movie can be found on major music platforms.

Space Cadet features an interesting story, unique characters, and a soundtrack that helps capture the movies mood and the characters ups and downs. The Space Cadet cast includes Emma Roberts as Rex Simpson, a woman in her 30s who dreams of becoming an astronaut.

Green Border.Agnieszka Holland begs to differ with Claude Lanzmann. The director of Shoah (1985) had attacked the idea of depicting the Holocaust in a fiction film, claiming that its unfathomable horrors would inevitably be trivialized. In a 2013 National Gallery of Art lecture, “Viewing History through the Filmmaker’s Lens,” Holland made two counter-arguments: that feature films are a tool to educate as many people as possible about the Holocaust, and that “taking on issues that are impossible to explain or grasp rationally is one of the most important challenges of an artist.” Holland had made a number of provocative Holocaust dramas, including Angry Harvest (1985), Europa Europa (1990), and In Darkness (2011), all of which involve the plight of Jews who have improbably escaped capture and death. With these films, Holland looked back at events from decades in the past. In her latest film, she is dramatizing history while it is unfolding.Urgent without sacrificing artistry,...

Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland follows the harrowing ordeal of a refugee family trapped on the margins of the E.U. in “Green Border,” a gripping drama from the prolific Polish director that plays in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

The film is set in the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called “green border” between Belarus and Poland and focuses on the humanitarian catastrophe that unfolded when Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, opened the country’s doors to migrants in a cynical political gambit to flood the E.U. with refugees.

Told in chapters from alternating points of view, it tells the story of a family of Syrian refugees, an English teacher from Afghanistan, a young Polish border guard and a group of activists whose lives collide in the border zone, a bleak no-man’s land where Polish and Belarusian guards operate with brutal impunity.

The screenplay — written by Holland,...

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska‘s feature debut, the horror mermaid musical The Lure, dazzled upon release in 2017. While her English-language debut Silent Twins starring Letitia Wright is set to debut this Fall, the filmmaker’s current project, Hot Spot, has our attention.

The filmmaker spoke with Variety today about her work, teasing Hot Spot‘s premise “about a disillusioned private eye Djonny, investigating a murder at a refugee camp and confronting a cyber witch who takes control of his life.”

Smoczyńska had us at “cyber witch.”

“In Europe, it’s good to have co-productions. It’s better for arthouse films, especially nowadays. On this sci-fi film, based somewhere in the future, we will have Greece, France and Poland on board,” the filmmaker said of Hot Spot‘s production. In other words, don’t expect a fully English-language feature in Hot Spot.

Hot Spot will also reunite Smoczyńska with screenwriter Robert Bolesto,...

Banijay UK is investing in Happy Valley star James Norton’s Rabbit Track Pictures, we can reveal jointly with the Times Of London.

London based TV & film production company Rabbit Track was co-founded by film, TV and stage actor Norton and scripted executive Kitty Kaletsky. Deal terms were not disclosed.

The company launched in 2019 and has scripted projects green-lit for the BBC and Itvx and a growing development slate. Their first film, Rogue Agent, the Netflix thriller starring Norton, was released in 2022.

According to the companies, the investment, which comes via Banijay’s £50M UK Growth Fund, will allow Rabbit Track to “build its team and accelerate growth”, and it includes a first look with distributor Banijay Rights.

Great Point helped launch Rabbit Track, along with fellow founding partner The Development Partnership, by providing seed investment via its Great Point Ventures Eis fund. Both Great Point Media and The Development...

Rolling off a successful collaboration on “Charlatan,” Films Boutique has boarded Agnieszka Holland’s next film “The Green Border,” which just completed principal photography in Poland.

Now in post production, “The Green Border” tells the fateful story of a family of Syrian refugees, a solitary English teacher from Afghanistan and a young border guard, all of whom meet on the Polish-Belarusian border during the most recent humanitarian crisis triggered by President Lukaschenko opening doors to migrants in Belarus as a back door to enter the EU.

The screenplay, penned by Holland, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko and Maciej Pisuk, is inspired by real events. Research for the film included hundreds of hours of document analysis, interviews with refugees, border guards, borderland residents, activists and experts.

A co-production between Poland, France, Belgium and the Czech Republic, “The Green Border” is produced by Marcin Wierzchosławski (Metro Films), Fred Bernstein (Astute Films) and Holland. Co-producers are Maria Blicharska,...

Click here to read the full article.

The Toronto Film Festival will rally in solidarity with Ukrainian film producers amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war by holding two industry panels at the Canadian festival’s 47th edition.

The first Sept. 12 panel will feature six Ukrainian filmmakers behind recent festival circuit hits, including Butterfly Vision producer Darya Bassel, whose film was the only Ukrainian feature in Cannes’ official selection this year; Luxembourg, Luxembourg producer Volodymyr Yatsenko, whose film will screen in Toronto after bowing in Venice; and Ihor Savychenko, who produced the 2019 film The Painted Bird, Vaclav Marhoul’s grim Holocaust drama adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s novel.

Also in Toronto on the panel to discuss current and future film projects is Valeria Sochyvets, producer of the 2020 film Blindfold, and Egor Olesov, who produced the 2019 Ukrainian film Mr. Jones.

The second Sept. 13 panel will discuss possible co-production opportunities for Ukrainian productions and...

Exclusive: Griffin Dunne (This Is Us), Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction), Richard Benjamin (Michael Crichton’s Westworld), Miles Heizer (13 Reasons Why) and James Norton (Little Women) will lead the cast of an as-yet-untitled comedy from writer-director Noah Pritzker (Quitters).

Others joining the ensemble include Eisa Davis (Mare of Easttown), Marcia Jean Kurtz (If Beale Street Could Talk), John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos), Lou Taylor Pucci (You), Echo Kellum (Grand Crew), Ian Owens (Shrill), Pedro Fontaine (Spider), Simon Van Buyten (Chaussée d’Amour), Nate Mann (Licorice Pizza), Zora Casebere (On the Rocks) and Rachel Zeiger-Haag (Monsterland).

The film from Play Book Productions and Pimienta Films—marking Pritzker’s follow-up to the 2015 dramedy, Quitters—will center on Dunne’s character, Peter Pearce. Overwhelmed by his pending divorce from Maria (Arquette) and the declining health of his father (Benjamin), Peter plans a getaway to Tulum, insistent he knows nothing of his sons’ (Heizer and...

European Film Academy president Agnieszka Holland has criticized the Cannes Film Festival for welcoming a Russian movie to the main competition.

The Polish-born director – who fled to France in 1981 when Communist authorities imposed martial law – said now was the time to stand up to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

That demanded a total ban on Russian cultural products in Europe, she said in Cannes on Saturday.

The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker slammed the festival’s inclusion of Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife.”

“If it were up to me, I would not include Russian films in the official program of the festival – even if Kirill Serebrennikov is such a talented artist,” the 73 year old filmmaker said.

Speaking in Cannes at an industry roundtable on supporting the Ukrainian film industry at a time of war, Holland added: “Unfortunately my bad feelings were confirmed by his words. He used [the film’s festival press conference] to praise a Russian...

When she was a student at the prestigious Lodz Film School in Poland, Jagoda Szelc was offered the chance to shoot a feature film. It was an unexpected opportunity for the aspiring filmmaker, who was then in her third year. But after it was produced on a shoestring budget, “Tower. A Bright Day” would go on to play the Berlin Film Festival and win a host of awards in Poland, unexpectedly catapulting Szelc into the limelight.

It was not an easy place for a first-time filmmaker to be. “I was very lost,” Szelc admits. Critics compared “Tower” to the works of male directors and seemed flummoxed that a young woman could helm such an auspicious debut. In one TV segment that left a lasting mark, two male presenters argued that Szelc was too young to understand what she was doing behind the camera. “There was a lot of patronizing [behavior toward] me,...

Patton Oswalt is toplining and starring alongside writer-director James Morosini in I Love My Dad, a dramatic comedy that just wrapped principal photography in Syracuse, NY. Claudia Sulewski, Rachel Dratch, Ricky Velez also star along with Lil Rel Howery and Amy Landecker.

Inspired by Morosini’s real-life experiences, the pic follows Chuck (Oswalt), an estranged father who desperately wants to reconnect with his depressive son, Franklin (Morosini). Blocked on social media and concerned for his son’s life, Chuck impersonates a waitress (Sulewski) online and starts checking in with Franklin. But things begin to spiral when Franklin falls for this imaginary girl and wants nothing more than to meet her in person.

Bill Stertz and Sean King O’Grady produce for Atlas Industries alongside Dane Eckerle, Daniel Brandt and Burn Later Productions’ Phil Keefe and Sam Slater. Lauren Hantz and John Hantz are executive producers via their Hantz Motion Pictures, which fully financed.

A biopic chronicling the life of Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender Mma fighter, is getting the big-screen treatment from Mark Gordon Pictures and husband and wife writing team T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper.

Fox originally hid her transgender identity when she began competing professionally as a mixed martial arts fighter, fearful that transphobia would lead to her being rejected by the league. As she began to triumph in the ring and neared the pro semifinals, Fox received the phone call she had been dreading: a journalist threatening to out her to the world. Fox took the narrative into her own hands, revealing that she is a transgender woman in an Outsports and Sports Illustrated article in 2013. What followed was an onslaught of vitriolic, transphobic abuse from the world press and the Mma league, and an explosively controversial debate over whether a woman who was assigned male at birth should...

The number of films available to Oscar voters in a screening room devoted to the Best Picture category hit the 200 mark on Wednesday, which means that $2.5 million has entered the Academy coffers from films paying $12,500 each to be represented in the screening room.

The members-only Academy Screening Room hit the milestone with the addition of more than a dozen movies this week, including Fisher Stevens’ “Palmer,” Lee Daniels’ “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” John Lee Hancock’s “The Little Things,” the Russo brothers’ “Cherry,” Josh Trank’s “Capone,” the documentary “Coup 53,” the Studio Ghibli animated film “Earwig and the Witch,” the international films “Funny Boy” and “Bacarau” (neither eligible in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category) and some off-the-wall selections, including “Snake White – Love Endures” and “Soorarai Pottru.”

Other late additions to the screening room have included “Minari,” “Promising Young Woman,” “The White Tiger” and “Cherry,” which were not added until January.

A version of this story about “Charlatan” first appeared in the International Film Issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Agnieszka Holland is one of Europe’s busiest directors, and a constant presence in the Oscar race. Her film “Angry Harvest” was nominated as West Germany’s entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 1985; her 1990 drama “Europa Europa” landed her a screenwriting nomination; and her films “In Darkness” and “Spoor” represented Poland at the Oscars, with the former receiving a nomination in 2011.

In 2020, Holland released two features, both of them dealing with real-life figures in Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century. “Mr. Jones” tells the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who broke the news of a Soviet-engineered famine in the 1930s, and “Charlatan” deals with Czech healer Jan Mikolásek, who used plant-based remedies successfully for years but was accused of being a fraud and eventually jailed.

Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” the Czech Republic’s official entry in the International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards, has been acquired for distribution in the U.K. and Ireland by AX1 from international sales agency Films Boutique. Variety spoke to the Oscar nominated filmmaker – who was recently elected president of the European Film Academy – about the project, challenges facing independent cinema, and the fall of President Donald Trump.

“Charlatan,” which premiered in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival, and received a best director nomination at the European Film Awards, is based on the true story of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek, who dedicated his life to treating the sick using medicinal plants. Throughout the turmoil of the 20th century, he has to choose between his calling and his conscience.

Speaking to Variety, Holland noted that the same flaw that led to Mikolášek’s downfall...

It’s finally the weekend, and with most places around the world still experiencing lockdowns to some degree, not to mention cold weather beginning to take over in a lot of countries now that it’s winter, many people will no doubt be looking to remain indoors and flip on some quality content. And lucky for them, the various streaming services continue to deliver.

Be it Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu or HBO Max, there’s a ton of great stuff to dig into and each of the major platforms is constantly updated, with this weekend bringing several exciting titles that might be worth your time. And down below, you can see the complete list of what’s set to arrive across today, Saturday and Sunday.

Ready to dive in?

December 4

Netflix

Bhaag Beanie Bhaag — Netflix Original

Big Mouth: Season 4 — Netflix Original

Bombay Rose — Netflix Film

Captain...

As the year winds down, streaming services appear to be taking a step back, licking their wounds from this strange pandemic production season, and looking to a hopefully brighter future. This is all to say that Hulu‘s list of new releases for December 2020 isn’t quite its most inspiring batch yet…and that’s Ok.

Hulu’s biggest original title this month is undoubtedly The Hardy Boys. This adaptation of the classic boy detective novels is aimed at younger audiences and will premiere on Dec. 4. Then, near the end of the month, Hulu is bringing a new season of a show that is decidedly not for younger audiences. Season 9 of the very funny and very Canadian Letterkenny arrives on Dec. 26.

Hulu also has some recent movies of note coming in December including Amy Seimetz’s diabolical She Dies Tomorrow on Dec. 4 and children’s movie The Secret Garden on Dec.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as the various streaming services are stocking their libraries with some great new titles this December to keep us going through the festive period. When it comes to Hulu, the Disney-owned platform is adding a few holiday-related movies and TV shows, but is mostly taking the track of stuffing itself full of classic films that the whole family can enjoy.

This includes a bunch of the best James Bond pics ever made, like GoldenEye, The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger and, the one that kicked it all off, Dr. No. That would be a perfect watch to honor Sean Connery, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Other action movies you might want to check out this December, meanwhile, include The Hurt Locker, The Fifth Element, 2003’s Hulk and the two “Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon” flicks, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons.

Creepy isn’t the same as scary.

Of course horror movies can be scary simply by using loud noises and sudden movements to make their audiences jump, but creepy is harder to pull off. To be effectively creepy, a film needs to establish a certain atmosphere; it needs to draw you in and make you care. It needs to give you something to think about when you’re trying to drop off to sleep at night; to make you wonder whether that creaking noise down the hallway was just the house settling or something lurking in the shadows. Creepy stays with you. It gives you goosebumps.

Here are 85 of the best horror movies (in no particular order) to chill your bones. Enjoy the nightmares.

Us (2019)

Jordan Peele’s follow up to his award winner Get Out is another social horror. While it might not be quite as accomplished or coherent...

The Czech Film and Television Academy has selected Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan” to be its official entry in the International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards.

Its decision follows recent submissions by Singapore, Kosovo and Georgia. Other countries to have selected their entries include Bhutan, Taiwan, Ukraine, Bosnia, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Poland and Switzerland.

“Charlatan,” which premiered in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival, is based on the true story of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek, who dedicated his life to treating the sick using medicinal plants. Throughout the war and turmoil of the 20th century he has to choose between his calling and his conscience.

Holland told Variety: “‘Charlatan’ tells the story of Mikolášek’s rise and fall. Of his moral fall and of his constant fight with the darkness inside him. It is the story of the mystery of a man, of the mystery of his special gift,...

The BFI London Film Festival has added a new, annual works-in-progress showcase as part of its industry program, and has invited seven projects to participate, including two featuring “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker” and “The End of the F***ing World” actor Naomie Ackie and “ZeroZeroZero” actor Andrea Riseborough.

The showcase features works made for cinema, television and immersive platforms by U.K. emerging talent and will be presented to an invited audience of international buyers and festival programmers.

The projects include psychological thriller “Here Before” by Stacey Gregg (“Little Birds”), produced by Sophie Vickers (“Surge”) and Julia Godzinskaya (“The Other Lamb”), starring Riseborough, Martin McCann (“Wildfire”) and Jonjo O’Neill (“Pennyworth”); and heist film “The Score,” directed by Malachi Smyth (“Nocturne”), produced by Matthew James Wilkinson (“Yesterday”), Ben Pullen (“Light of the World), alongside co-producer Isabelle Georgeaux (“Calibre”), starring Johnny Flynn (“Stardust”), Ackie and Will Poulter (“Midsommar”).

Experimental filmmaker Baff Akoto,...

On a smoky Friday night at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, filmmaker Chloé Zhao and the Telluride Film Festival’s Julie Huntsinger introduced “Nomadland” (December 4) at an outdoor drive-in screening, hosted by Searchlight Pictures, which provided car-sniffing dogs, food-truck meal pickups, and checkerboard parking for 300 cars. At the end of the movie, instead of applause, attendees enthusiastically honked and blinked their lights. Afterward, Pasadena’s Kpcc host John Horn conducted a live panel with Zhao, star Frances McDormand, and several of the film’s nomads. For many in the crowd, it was the first screening they’d attended since the lockdown in mid-March. “The world was still light when we first met,” said McDormand of her film collaborators. “It got darker later on.”

Also on Friday night, Francis Lee’s “Ammonite” which had been selected by Cannes and Telluride, debuted at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. The next day,...

On a smoky Friday night at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, filmmaker Chloé Zhao and the Telluride Film Festival’s Julie Huntsinger introduced “Nomadland” (December 4) at an outdoor drive-in screening, hosted by Searchlight Pictures, which provided car-sniffing dogs, food-truck meal pickups, and checkerboard parking for 300 cars. At the end of the movie, instead of applause, attendees enthusiastically honked and blinked their lights. Afterward, Pasadena’s Kpcc host John Horn conducted a live panel with Zhao, star Frances McDormand, and several of the film’s nomads. For many in the crowd, it was the first screening they’d attended since the lockdown in mid-March. “The world was still light when we first met,” said McDormand of her film collaborators. “It got darker later on.”

Also on Friday night, Francis Lee’s “Ammonite” which had been selected by Cannes and Telluride, debuted at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. The next day,...

Ahead of its Venice world premiere, Beta Cinema has struck a number of pre-sales for James Norton starrer “Nowhere Special” from Uberto Pasolini.

The film, which will bow at the fest on Sept. 10, has sold to a slate of distributors, including Arp (France), A Contracorriente Films (Spain), Piffl Medien (Germany), Filmladen (Austria), Filmcoopi (Switzerland), Scanbox (Scandinavia), and Cineart (Benelux).

Other pre-sales include Pris Audiovisuais (Portugal), Russian World Vision (Cis), Mozinet (Hungary), Discovery Films (former Yugoslavia), Independenta (Romania), Lev Cinema (Israel), Great Movies (Brazil), Gussi (Mexico), MK2/Mile (Canada), Moviecloud (Taiwan), Kino Films (Japan), Icon Film Distribution (Australia/New Zealand), and Lucky Red (Italy).

Deals for the U.S. and U.K., among other remaining territories, will be concluded during the course of the festival.

“Nowhere Special” features “McMafia,” “Mr. Jones” and “Little Women” star Norton as John, a 35-year-old window cleaner, who has dedicated his life to bringing up his son,...

Independent distribution experts also reveal future festival plans.

The dangers of relying on US studio fare to support the international cinema business has been brought into sharp focus by the virus crisis, according to independent European distributors.

During the latest ScreenDaily Talk, distribution experts from the UK, France, Spain and Italy highlighted how delayed studio blockbusters including Warner Bros’ Tenet, Disney’s Mulan, and now Star Wars, Avatar and Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick have amplified the importance of producing strong independent films.

Watch the full session below

Enrique Gonzalez Kuhn, CEO of Spanish distributor Caramel Films, said: “Spain is...

The live discussion will take place on Thursday July 23 at 15.00 BST.

Alexis Mas, CEO of France’s Condor Distribution, has joined the panel for the latest in our ScreenDaily Talks webinar series, focusing on the challenges and opportunities for Europe’s independent distributors as cinemas begin to reopen.

The live discussion will take place on Thursday July 23 at 15.00 BST.

Click here to register

Mas is the CEO of Paris-based distributor Condor. The company runs two distinct slates: one focused on arthouse titles for theatrical release, the other on a mixture of family entertainment and genre fare for digital release.

Condor...

Speakers are from the UK’s Altitude Films, Italy’s Teodora Film, Spain’s Caramel Films and France’s Condor Films.

The latest in our ScreenDaily Talks webinar series is taking place on Thursday July 23 at 15.00 BST and will focus on the opportunities for and the challenges facing Europe’s independent distributors as cinemas slowly reopen around the world.

Click here to register

Distributors from four of Europe’s biggest markets will come together to compare notes and share best practice on what they are learning from the reopening phase in their territories.

They will discuss topics including how they...

From director Agnieszka Holland and screenwriter Andrea Chalupa, the dramatic thriller Mr. Jones follows ambitious young Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton), as he travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda that Hitler and Stalin are pushing on the eve of World War II. Willing to go to any lengths on his life-or-death journey, Jones sets out to uncover an international conspiracy that ultimately inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm. During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Peter Sarsgaard talked about …...

The VOD market has found itself becoming an increasingly important component of the movie business in recent months as the Coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on both the shooting and release schedules of virtually every major project that was in some stage of production. The studios have taken to releasing their theatrical efforts on home video a lot sooner than they would have originally anticipated, while plenty of titles have skipped theaters entirely and been sent straight to digital as a cost-cutting measure.

Up until the advent and unstoppable rise of streaming services, a movie being released straight to video was often seen as a mark of poor quality, but these days, there are some pretty big stars and filmmakers seeing their work bypass cinemas altogether, and this week is no different, with several projects featuring high-profile names making their way to VOD.

Mel Gibson may have recently found himself in...

Film is now playing on some 1,000 screens across France.

Paris-based Memento Distribution’s high-risk decision to reboot the stalled theatrical release of comedy-drama How To Be A Good Wife in unison with the reopening of French cinemas on June 22, after a 14-week Covid-19 closure, appears to have paid off.

Company chief Alexandre Mallet-Guy confirmed to Screen on Wednesday (July 1) that the film had drawn 209,000 spectators over nine days from June 22-30, for a gross of around $1.6m

Total spectators for the feature, which was in cinemas for just four days before French cinemas closed on March 14, now stands at 380,000. The running total stands at $2.9m.

Exclusive: Home entertainment specialist Signature Entertainment releases 90-120 movies every year, making it the UK’s most prolific independent distributor. Recent releases have included Synchronic, Mr. Jones, Persian Lessons, and The Peanut Butter Falcon. Upcoming on the slate are Liam Neeson actioner Honest Thief, Shailene Woodley drama Endings, Beginnings and Sundance horror Relic.

We spoke to company Cco Jon Bourdillon about taking the plunge on Woody Allen rom-com A Rainy Day In New York – which has generated as many column inches about the director’s past as the movie itself – growth areas, and how the firm is well-positioned to withstand the financial ravages of coronavirus.

Signature is increasing its global footprint and Allen’s movie marks the company’s most significant North American acquisition to date. Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Liev Schreiber, Jude Law, Rebecca Hall and Diego Luna star in the film about a young couple who...

Europe’s biggest nation of moviegoers, France, saw its theaters reopen with a bang on June 22 and managed to sell between 850,000 and 900,000 admissions through Sunday.

It’s roughly 50% less than an average week in June, but considering the dearth of fresh releases, the heat wave, which plagued most of the country last week, and fears of a second wave of Covid-19, it’s an “outstanding result that is beyond our most optimistic forecast,” said Eric Marti at Comscore France. Theaters had been shutdown for more than two months.

The admission tally is particularly strong since not all theaters were open during the first part of the week. Indeed, only about 60% of theaters had reopened on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday there were 85% of them, said Marti. Today, most of France’s 2,040 cinemas and 5,700 screens are active.

“As many as 660,000 admissions were sold between Wednesday and Sunday, when almost all the venues had reopened,...

The big international box office news this week isn’t actually from the weekend — which was again led by Korea and saw continued ups and downs versus last session as moviegoers await new product. Instead, after 100 days of closure, French cinemas re-opened beginning Monday this week, and with at least 40 films programmed for the post-coronavirus walk-up of the nation’s theaters.

Some eager moviegoers didn’t even wait for Monday morning, with about 120 people heading to the 5 Caumartin cinema in the 9th arrondissement of Paris from 12:01Am on June 22 to see a sneak preview of local comedy Les Parfums. The situation was similar in Rennes, where folks also turned up at midnight to see a re-release of the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski.

Then from just after 9Am Monday morning, Ugc’s flagship cinema in Paris, Ciné Cité Les Halles, welcomed guests for its first screenings with ticket sales reaching almost normal levels,...

Memento-distributed title is among 10 films put into cinemas for June 22 reopening.

Martin Provost’s comedy drama How To Be A Good Wife topped the box office chart in France on Monday (June 22), the first day of cinema theatres opening after a 14-week hiatus due to the country’s Covid-19 lockdown.

According to figures provided by distributor Memento Distribution, the film drew some 20,000 spectators across 600 screens, which is equivalent to a box office of around $154,000.

Biopic De Gaulle came in second for Snd with around 10,000 admissions, for a box office of close to $68,000.

Memento Distribution chief Alexandre Mallet-Guy told Screen...

Discussing the challenges and opportunities in a landscape radically altered by the Covid-19 lockdown, Richard Lorber of U.S. distrib Kino Lorber said Monday that his company was quickly transforming into a media and technology company due to the focus on its Kino Marquee virtual theatrical exhibition initiative.

Speaking at a Cannes Marché du Film Online conference focusing on how independent streamers are responding to the crisis, Lorber said Kino Marquee had in the past two and a half months generated nearly $700,000 in ticket sales from 13 films. Half of that revenue is going to its partner theaters, which currently include 400 screens, all independent and arthouse cinemas as well as small arthouse chains, he added.

Launched in March, Kino Marquee enables movie theaters shuttered by the outbreak to continue to offer films to their audiences and generate revenue while also allowing moviegoers to support their local theaters.

Kino Marquee’s first...

From director Agnieszka Holland and screenwriter Andrea Chalupa, the dramatic thriller Mr. Jones follows ambitious young Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton), as he travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda that Hitler and Stalin are pushing on the eve of World War II. Willing to go to any lengths on his life-or-death journey, Jones sets out to uncover an international conspiracy that ultimately inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm. During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, British actor James Norton talked about why he was so surprised by the story that’s …...

Upi France, Memento, Pyramide and Arizona reveals strategies after three-month hiatus.

France’s 2,000 cinemas will begin reopening their doors today (Monday June 22) after a 14-week closure which was enforced on March 14 as part of the country’s Covid-19 pandemic lockdown measures. The country’s theatres have never gone dark for such a prolonged period in the 120-year history of cinema, not even during World War Two,

“The large majority of cinemas will reopen, those remaining closed, are mainly those that tend to shut over the summer in any case, but it’s very marginal,” said Marc-Olivier Sebbag, managing director of...

I'll never say "No" to new details about The Batman. Peter Sarsgaard is the most recent supporting cast member of Matt Reeves' The Batman to share new details about the upcoming movie. Sarsgaard stars alongside Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, and John Turturro in the Warner Bros. feature, and will play District Attorney Gil Colson. Sarsgaard opened up about The Batman while discussing his new movie Mr. Jones with The Hollywood Reporter. While he couldn't reveal specifics about the story or his role, Sarsgaard did offer up some interesting teases about …...

A good idea for a biopic doesn’t always find its ideal reflection on screen. Look what happened to Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar (as in Hoover), Hilary Swank’s Amelia (as in Earhart) and Colin Farrell’s Alexander (as in the Great). To that list of stymied ambition, add Mr. Jones, as in Gareth Jones (James Norton), the Welsh journalist whose exposé of Soviet atrocities leading up to World War II pissed off so many higher-ups that he never lived to see the age of 30.

On the surface, director...

On June 19, 1865, slavery was abolished in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a benchmark in Black history and is more timely now than ever as it is a day to celebrate and champion Black voices. That said, it is a good day for the debut of Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, a film that spotlights the staple pageant associated with the day.

Directed and written by Texas native Peoples, Miss Juneteenth made its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The film stars Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze and Kendrick Sampson and follows Turquoise Jones (Beharie), a former beauty queen turned hard-working single mom that is preparing her rebellious teenage daughter Kai (Chikaeze) for the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she made.

“I grew up with Juneteenth so it was just second nature to me,” said Peoples told Deadline at Sundance.

British actor James Norton gives an affecting and haunting performance in Agnieszka Holland’s important new film Mr. Jones, which opens June 19th. Last year he played James Brooke (Meg’s love interest) in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. The discussion in this episode comes back often to those two directors, as Norton generously takes us on a deep dive into his stage and screen work, lets us peek under the hood of his process, and talks about why he’s not consumed by his expanding “leading man status.” Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google […]...

British actor James Norton gives an affecting and haunting performance in Agnieszka Holland’s important new film Mr. Jones, which opens June 19th. Last year he played James Brooke (Meg’s love interest) in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. The discussion in this episode comes back often to those two directors, as Norton generously takes us on a deep dive into his stage and screen work, lets us peek under the hood of his process, and talks about why he’s not consumed by his expanding “leading man status.” Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google […]...

Polish director Agnieszka Holland is best known for epic films that explore the inhumanity of World War II, the Oscar-nominated “Europa, Europa” and “In Darkness,” both set in German-controlled areas during the war, among them. In a way, her new film, “Mr. Jones,” begins in similar territory, as a young Welsh journalist tries to warn British diplomats of the dangers posed by an ascendant Adolf Hitler in 1933.

But it doesn’t take long for “Mr. Jones” to turn away from Hitler and Nazi Germany and move to a different totalitarian regime and a different atrocity of the era. The “Mr. Jones” of the title is Gareth Jones, a real-life journalist who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1933 and found evidence of the Holodomor, a man-made famine that killed millions in Ukraine.

It feels as if the story would be a ripe subject for Holland. The filmmaker has not only made monumental films about historical tragedies,...

Mr. Jones Samuel Goldwyn Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Agnieszka Holland Screenwriter: Andrea Chalupa Cast: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Kenneth Cranham, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Celyn Jones, Patricia Volny Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 3/7/20 Opens: June 19, “Mr. Jones” should be required viewing […]

The post Mr. Jones Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Sky Cinema has a big box of cinematic treats for you in June, with something for pretty much everyone on the agenda – horror fans, monocle-poppers and kids alike will find gems waiting for them in the month ahead. As usual, we’ve got a comprehensive list of everything you can expect to hit the service as summer rolls around in earnest, so close the curtains, get the fan on, shove a big bag of popcorn in the microwave, and get ready to clap your eyes on a movie or two.

Premieres

Daniel Isn’t Real – June 1st

The next generation of horror truly arrives with this surprisingly entertaining entry into the ‘imaginary friend’ genre, as Miles Robbins – son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins – and Patrick Schwarzenegger (you can probably guess who his dad is) battle it out to be the owner of a very real human body. Daniel isn’t...

The 2020 summer movie season is one like never before. With social distancing and shelter-in-place regulations shutting down theaters across the world, the film industry is in uncharted waters. What was set up to be a season for studios to unleash expensive and highly anticipated tentpoles has been truncated and diminished by frequent calendar adjustments and looming uncertainty.

Many of the films that were poised to be the biggest hits of the summer have been pushed back. Marvel’s “Black Widow,” Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and Warner Bros.’ “Wonder Woman 1984” have all staked out new release dates for later this year. Some movies, such as Universal’s “F9” and Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” have been delayed as far as 2021.

The shutdown has also led studios to experiment with digital and video-on-demand (VOD) releases for films that were originally scheduled to debut in theaters. “The King of Staten Island,” “Artemis Fowl...

Mubi also reveals ’Portrait Of A Lady On Fire’ has become its most-viewed film in the UK to date.

Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers topped UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema’s (Chc) most-watched films over the weekend, after bypassing a theatrical release due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The Romanian crime thriller, which debuted in competition at Cannes last year, was originally due to receive a UK day-and-date release on June 26 via Curzon. But ongoing cinema closures meant the film launched exclusively on Chc on May 8, seven weeks early, and performed strongly as audiences look to streaming platforms for new titles during lockdown.

Box office was performing strongly in Q1 2020 before nationwide cinema closures.

UK cinema admissions fell to a record low in the first three months of 2020, according to BFI official statistics published today, as cinemas closed nationwide due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Audiences had already begun to stay away from cinemas in the week leading up to March 20, when all venues were ordered to close their doors as the country went into lockdown.

But with all major exhibitors having already shuttered their businesses in the days prior, a total of 4.81 million cinema admissions were recorded in March – down 58% on the 11.43 million...

Harvey Weinstein-inspired drama received an early digital release in the UK due to cinema closures.

UK streaming platform Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) has recorded its biggest weekend to date following the early digital release of Harvey Weinstein-inspired drama The Assistant.

The film, starring Julia Garner (Ozark), helped the platform generate a 7.4% revenue boost on its previous best weekend and was 340% up on Chc’s equivalent weekend in 2019.

It marks an ongoing success story for the streaming platform, which has seen a consistent rise in figures following the closure of all cinemas in mid-March as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.