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Exclusive: The Sonoma International Film Festival announced the lineup for the 28th annual edition of the event, running March 19-23 in California’s bucolic wine country. Kicking off the festival will be the world premiere of Sweet Störy, a documentary that follows “a heartfelt journey to save a charming café” on a remote Swedish island.

Siff also will feature the world premieres of Roush Niaghi and Greg Morris’s Ali Eats America; Fernando Guillermo Barreda Luna’s Cafe Chairel, and Fatal Watch, directed by Mark Benjamin and Katie Carpenter. The festival will host the North American premiere of Dreams, the film directed by Dag Johan Haugerud that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival last month.

Daisy Edgar-Jones in ‘On Swift Horses’

The Siff Centerpiece Film will be the California premiere of On Swift Horses, the drama starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi that’s based on the Shannon Pufahi novel.

If film is, as Roger Ebert famously put it, a machine that generates empathy, then there's perhaps no other artistic medium out there so perfectly suited to communicating and eliciting sadness. By the same token, movies are maybe the best medium at laying out a persuasive case for the value of sadness as an aesthetic experience. A good cry at a movie can be cathartic, therapeutic, restorative, sobering and educational, or merely painful and gut-wrenching and still have value for its sheer depth of experience.

To compile this ranking of the 15 saddest movies ever, we've tried to go beyond the territory of efficient tear-jerking, and look instead for those films that are positively drenched in gloom, pain, misery, and despair from beginning to end — the movies that articulate sadness as an existential constant as opposed to a momentary state. Get the tissues ready, take a deep breath, and happy (or not) viewing.

For Joan Chen playing a doting but slightly disregarded Taiwanese immigrant mother in Sean Wang’s Dìdi was a healing experience. Not only could she connect with the struggles that her character Chungsing goes through while raising her college-aged daughter and rebellious teenage son, the onscreen rift also helped her make amends with her daughters offscreen. “It was so cathartic to play Chungsing in this film and redemptive in a way because I think it gave me another chance almost to be a better mother,” Chen says. “And to do it better this time with my own younger daughter on set watching me, I felt like, ‘Ok, Audrey. I’m talking to you. I’m trying to say, I’m sorry, and I love you.'”

Throughout her nearly five-decade career, Chen has embodied more than the all-encompassing role of a supportive mommy dearest. From garnering China’s most prestigious...

The Chinese actress Joan Chen, who is this week’s guest on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, has had a career unlike any other.

Nearly 50 years ago, as a teen in Shanghai, Chen was plucked out a classroom and thrown into the movies. Against all odds, she became an award-winning mega-star — but then, in 1981, she turned her back on fame and moved to the U.S. She arrived at a time when virtually no Asians were getting parts of substance in American films. And yet, after essentially starting from scratch, she helped to shatter that glass ceiling, landing leads in big-budget productions, most notably one that took her back to China: Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 epic The Last Emperor, which ended up being nominated for and winning nine Oscars, including best picture.

Over the ensuing 37 years, Chen has experienced tremendous professional ups and downs. She has acted in notable projects of all sorts,...

Married To Hit Reality Show

Australia’s 9Network has acquired every season of every English-language version of hit reality show “Married at First Sight.” At the same time, it has launched a Married at First Sight Fast channel on its 9Now streaming platform.

The deal with Seven.One Studios includes productions from the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and South Africa. The broadcaster has also committed to acquiring all further English-speaking seasons produced.

“Married at First Sight” follows singles who have failed to find love as they put their hearts in the hands of a team of experts, who select their perfect partner. The couples then meet for the first time at the altar. After the wedding and honeymoon, the married couples move in together and start their new lives. From the first kiss to the first tears, cameras document their every moment as experts analyze the relationships. Six weeks of marriage later,...

The Critics Choice Association has announced dates and initial honorees for its upcoming diversity Celebrations series of awards shows.

The 4th Annual Celebration of Latino Cinema & Television will honor actress and producer Zoe Saldaña with the Groundbreaker Award at the awards ceremony, taking place on October 22, 2024 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Saldaña will be recognized for her starring role in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, which won the Best Actress Prize for the ensemble cast at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Saldaña’s career spans over 20 years and she is the only actor in history to have starred in four films that grossed over 2 billion dollars. Co-Programmer is Cca Board member Clayton Davis.

The 3rd Celebration of Aapi Cinema & Television will award veteran actress Joan Chen with the Career Achievement Award at the annual event, set for November 12, 2024 , also at the Egyptian Theatre. Chen will be celebrated for her storied career,...

The Critics Choice Association announced on Thursday that Joan Chen, Zoe Saldaña and Tyler Perry will be among the honorees for the organization’s 2024 Diversity Celebrations.

Chinese-American actress and filmmaker Chen will be honored at the 3rd Celebration of Aapi Cinema & Television, taking place November 12 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Chen will receive the Career Achievement Award at the annual event, recognizing her career as the star “Twin Peaks,” “The Last Emperor” and Sean Wang’s “Didi,” which was released this summer. Chen has also directed several features, including the acclaimed “Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.”

The 4th annual Celebration of Latino Cinema & Television will celebrate actress and producer Zoe Saldaña with its Groundbreaker Award on October

22, also at the Egyptian.

Winner of the Best Actress award (along with her three costars) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her work in “Emilia Pérez,” Saldaña has been...

Sean Wang’s “Dìdi” hits where it hurts for any millennial who came of age in middle school in 2008 — on MySpace and AOL Instant Messenger and in the throes of puberty. But it’s especially hard-hitting for Taiwanese-Americans raised in the California Bay Area at the time, as Fremont-hailing writer/director Wang’s big Sundance winner (including an Audience Award) is based on his own youth — one where he was often recalcitrant toward his single mom.

In this frank and affecting dramedy, young actor Izaac Wang plays Chris, a 13-year-old spending the summer before his freshman year of high school surfing the web and making YouTube videos with his pals. Until he falls in with an older crowd he seeks to impress. In the seemingly endless summer between eighth and ninth grade, there’s a crush, too, he’s trying to woo — with embarrassingly dismal results. Back at home, the...

'80s actresses like Jami Lee Curtis and Kathleen Turner were pivotal in shaping the decade's cinematic landscape with iconic performances. Trailblazing stars like Oprah Winfrey and Carrie Fisher left a lasting impact, breaking barriers and redefining female roles in film. Actresses like Michelle Pfeiffer and Glenn Close showcased their versatile talents, earning critical acclaim and multiple Oscar nominations.

The most iconic '80s actresses helped define the decade and ensured 1980s movies had a lasting legacy. The '80s were a pivotal turning point in Hollywood. Equity feminism began to take force, and the basis for what became third-wave feminism in the '90s slowly took root. Hollywood saw the return of studio-driven films and blockbuster tent-poles after the auteur-focused New Hollywood era of the 1970s. Teen movies achieved their peak, and some of the most enduring and beloved franchises made their big-screen debuts. This opened the door for...

The annual SFFIlM Festival has officially unveiled its 2024 lineup, with two first-time feature filmmakers bookending the fest.

Sean Wang’s semi-autobiographical feature “Dìdi (弟弟)” opens the festival April 24 after premiering at Sundance 2024. Wang was also recently Oscar-nominated for his short film “Nai Nai & Wài Pó” which had been supported by Sffilm grants.

The 67th annual festival closes out with Josh Margolin’s “Thelma” starring June Squibb, Parker Posey, Malcolm McDowell, and late actor Richard Roundtree in his final role. The feature screens April 28.

Programming highlights include “The Idea of You,” “Sing Sing,” “Janet Planet,” and Sundance award-winning documentary “Porcelain War.” A private screening of opening night film “Dìdi (弟弟)” in Dolby Vision + Dolby Atmos will be held at the Dolby Cinema @ 1275 Market exclusively for cast and crew, Sffilm Festival filmmakers, and Sffilm fellows and grantees. A Sffilm members’ screening of “Mother, Couch” will also take place after the film debuted...

Chinese-American actress Joan Chen has spent the last week watching China’s “brave” and “refreshing” independent cinema, but she cautioned young filmmakers against what she sees as a current wave of “correctness” that she believes is stifling the art of filmmaking.

Describing the movement as “the enemy of art,” Chen said she believed conformity to what society currently believes is “correct” has resulted in the scope of creativity and subject matter becoming “narrower and narrower.”

“It’s happening in the U.S.,” said Chen. “But I want [young filmmakers] to forget about what is correct and just tell us what they want to tell us.”

Chen was speaking on the sidelines of the 17th First International Film Festival, hosted by the central highland city of Xining, where she has taken on the role of jury head.

The festival — which ends on August 1 — is the leading event of its kind for independent Chinese cinema.

by Iain Mitchell

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Joan Chen's directorial debut, “Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl”. It's a film that despite the star power of its director and visible cultural impact (its title is now likely more associated with the American experimental rock band who took their name from it) feels curiously under-seen these days.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

Given the still ubiquitous debate about Asian representation in Hollywood, there's a sad irony that Chen, probably best known for her turn as Josie Packard in the original series of “Twin Peaks”, came to direct “Xiu Xiu” in part due to lack of opportunities afforded to her that weren't tired ‘Dragon lady' stereotypes. Even in Chen's highly positive experience of making Bernardo Bertolucci's “The Last Emperor” she noted in an interview with NPR that the film's producers were...

In a normal year, the biggest film event in May would be the Cannes Film Festival. Now, summer has started with all of its prominent film events canceled or transformed, but Tribeca Enterprises and YouTube have found one way to keep programmers busy. We Are One: A Global Film Festival starts May 29 at YouTube.com/WeAreOne, and continues for 10 days with a slew of films and pre-recorded conversations from 21 festivals. The selections will stream for free on YouTube during their scheduled times.

Of course, it’s easy enough to get lost on YouTube, but the We Are One programming has enough reliable perspectives to make the exploration worthwhile: Participating festivals include Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Sundance, Toronto, New York, BFI London, Karlovy Vary, and Locarno. While only 13 of the 100 films are world premieres, the lineup provides a diverse window into different curatorial sensibilities, festival events, and filmmaker perspectives.

It may not...

China’s foremost screenwriter, Yan Geling, has teamed with Italian director and producer Cristiano Bortone to adapt Yan’s novella “The Secret Talker.”

Set during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the film is a romantic thriller centering on a Chinese woman, married to an American college professor, who thought she had found freedom and peace of mind until she suddenly starts receiving emails from a mysterious stalker. The obsessive relationship begins to reveal dark secrets of her past life in China.

“The Secret Talker” is expected to go into production in 2019 with a major Chinese actress as female lead and an American star as male lead.

Yan, who is both an author and screenwriter, was recently responsible for the novel “Youth,” a bittersweet, nostalgic tale of a military entertainment troupe. The book sold close to 1 million copies, and director Feng Xiaogang’s film adaptation was the biggest hit of the Christmas period,...

Mao’s Last Dancer is a personal journey of self discovery inspired by the real life story of Li Cunxin who came from an impoverished childhood in China and went on to become an internationally acclaimed ballet dancer. Directed by Bruce Beresford and shot on location in China, Australia and the U.S., the film stars Bruce Greenwood, Kyle Maclachlan, Joan Chen, Amanda Schull and newcomer Chi Cao in his feature debut.

We sat down with Joan and Amanda at a roundtable interview to talk about their new film. Joan explained what inspired her character and how Li Cunxin’s experiences mirrored in many ways her own when she immigrated to the United States. Amanda told us about the sacrifice that comes with being a dancer and how she transitioned from ballet to pursue a career in acting. Both shared their thoughts on the fiercely competitive worlds of acting and...

Want to know the status of a particular movie, TV show, or band? Wondering what a certain actress is up to these days? Send your entertainment-related questions to askafterellen@gmail.com — with your first name, city and country — and we'll try to answer as many as we can.

Question: I loved But I'm a Cheerleader, and I have watched Itty Bitty Titty Committee ten times now. Enough already! When is Jamie Babbit's next movie coming out?

― Tina, Columbia, MD

Jamie Babbit

Answer: Did you check out Babbit's 2005 feature, The Quiet, starring Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle and Edie Falco? If not, the cast alone should be enough to send you to the video store.

I passed your question along to Babbitt, who told me:

I'm currently casting for my new film called Breaking The Girl. It's tonally in the vein of Body Heat, with lots of bi beauties and femme fatales.