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Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are making their new movie a family affair. They’re set to direct and star in the horror-comedy “Family Movie,” joined by their kids, Travis and Sosie Bacon.

The family will produce the movie through Mixed Breed Films, along with Norman Golightly from Dark Castle Entertainment. Neon International will handle foreign rights and present the project at AFM this week, while CAA Media Finance will manage U.S. rights.

Written by Dan Beers (“Premature”), the story follows a quirky but close family of filmmakers who find themselves in a real-life horror show when a body is discovered on the set of their latest low-budget slasher. As the chaos builds, they decide the only way to keep filming is to hide the murder, no matter what.

“There may not be a more interesting Hollywood family than the Bacons,” says Dark Castle’s co-ceo Norman Golightly. “We...

Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are taking the title of their next film to heart. They’re set to direct the horror-comedy project “Family Movie” and star alongside their children, Travis and Sosie Bacon.

The foursome will produce for Mixed Breed Films alongside Norman Golightly at Dark Castle Entertainment. Neon International will represent the foreign rights and introduce it at AFM this week while CAA Media Finance will represent the U.S. rights.

The film, based on a screenplay by Dan Beers (“Premature”), follows an eclectic but tight-knit family of filmmakers who suddenly find themselves in a real-life horror movie when a body turns up on the set of their latest low-budget slasher. As the production spirals comically out of control, they realize the only solution to keep filming is to cover up the murder, by any means necessary.

“There may not be a more compelling Hollywood family than the Bacons,...

Kevin Bacon has been in a good number of horror films over the decades, and he has admitted that he’s drawn to working in the genre because he’s a horror fan himself. Now it has been revealed that he and his wife Kyra Sedgwick are such big fans of the genre that they’re planning to co-direct and star in a horror film – and they’ve cast their daughter Sosie Bacon, who starred in the horror hit Smile, as a co-star!

Variety caught up with Sedgwick to interview her about her role in the Off Broadway play All of Me, and along the way they mentioned that she’s currently developing “a horror film she would star in with Bacon and their adult daughter, Sosie. The couple wants to co-direct the film, though the Directors Guild has other ideas.“

Sedgwick told them, “It’s very hard to get dual directing credit.

“Don’t worry,” Kyra Sedgwick assures me as she assembles a salad. “I washed my hands.”

We’re in her Manhattan apartment with its commanding view of Central Park, and Sedgwick, a self-described “putterer,” is in perpetual motion — microwaving black beans, fetching a serving spoon for the chicken mole, liberating a bottle of Tabasco from the cupboard. The feast she’s pulling together is leftovers from a dinner Sedgwick and her husband, Kevin Bacon, hosted for her castmates from “All of Me,” an Off Broadway play about two disabled 20-somethings who meet cute in Schenectady. In the romantic comedy, Sedgwick plays an emotionally callused woman juggling two jobs to pay the rent. She’s also struggling to accept her daughter’s worsening condition due to muscular dystrophy, as well as her desire to have her own life.

“It’s so fresh and funny,” she says as we take our seats at the dining room table.

Kyra Sedgwick has been acting since she was 16, stealing scenes from Julia Roberts in “Something to Talk About” and interrogating hardened criminals to Emmy-winning effect on “The Closer.” But she thinks she’s found her true calling as a director.

“I’m madly in love with it,” Sedgwick tells Variety as she prepares for “Space Oddity,” her latest directorial effort, to premiere at the Tribeca Festival. “I feel like this is what I was meant to do all along. All my years watching directors and being on set and knowing what it is like to have this giant piece of machinery in front of you and have to splay yourself open and be incredibly vulnerable, have made me able to do this in a certain kind of way.”

In “Space Oddity,” Sedgwick’s decades in front of the camera have helped her achieve a delicate balancing act between humor and...

Exclusive: Primetime Emmy winner Kyra Sedgwick is set to direct Rebecca Banner’s 2016 Black List screenplay Space Oddity with Kyle Allen, Alexandra Shipp and Madeline Brewer starring. The pic reps Sedgwick’s second feature directorial after Story of a Girl for which she received a DGA nomination. Space Oddity is set to begin production this month in Rhode Island.

Space Oddity tells the story of Alex (Allen) who, after giving up on Earth and deciding to leave it all behind for a one-way mission to Mars, develops an unexpected romance with Daisy (Shipp), the enigmatic town newcomer, which forces him to choose between an uncertain journey to the stars and an even more uncertain journey of the heart.

Brewer will play Liz, Alex’s sister, who has reluctantly returned to the farm where she grew up.

The feature is the first movie Sedgwick and Valerie Stadler will be producing under their banner Big Swing Productions.

Kyra Sedgwick, Kim Raver, Ashley Williams, Elisabeth Röhm, and Robin Givens all have something in common: they are actors who recently hopped into the director’s chair.

The five female filmmakers looked back on their journey to director at TheWrap’s annual Power Women Summit, speaking on a panel titled “Broader Focus: View from the Director’s Chair,” moderated by Tanya Lopez. Executive Vice President, Movies, Limited Series & Original Movie Acquisitions, Lifetime & Lifetime Movie. The panel was presented by Lifetime.

“I was the person who never had that voice — my voice was, ‘you will never direct,'” Sedgwick said. “I’ve been working professionally as an actor from the time I was 16 and I’d worked with a lot of legendary directors, all of whom were men… my loving husband kept saying to me, ‘you have such big opinions about the way things are directed… what about the concept of you directing one day?...

Exclusive: Outfest has launched its annual Outfest Screenwriting Lab and selected eight scripts that advance the visibility of Lgbtqia+ storytelling. This year’s fellows include Johnny Alvarez, Courtney & Hillary Andujar, Carlton Daniel Jr., Gary Jaffe, Raul Martin, Damon Royster, Cody Stickels & Kea Trevett, and Leandro Tadashi.

The Outfest Screenwriting Lab was established as a screenwriting contest in 1997 and has since become the cornerstone of Outfest’s education and mentoring program, Outfest Forward. Because this year’s Lab will take place virtually, it provided Outfest the ability to accept their largest cohort to date and extended the time frame of the Lab to five days. Fellows will meet with top industry showrunners, executives, and writers who will offer professional development and discuss trends within the industry.

The Lab roster of Lgbtqia+ industry leaders include showrunners Latoya Morgan, Derek Simonds (The Sinner), and M Dickson, alongside...

Exclusive: Two-time Oscar nominee Ross Katz has launched Los Angeles-based Sui Generis Pictures, which will initially focus on feature films but eventually expand into short- and long-form documentaries, unscripted, narrative and limited series.

“The company will engage in both long-term and fast-track development, as well as diving into projects that are nearly ready to shoot,” said Katz, who previously was at Sk Global. “I’m using this rare, surreal time to get material on the runway. So, when it’s deemed safe to shoot, I will find myself back on set.”

He continued, “After spending a valuable year at Sk Global, where I was inspired by the vision, ambition, and ingenuity of the company, I felt it was the right time to pay homage to the mythical New York company that launched my career, Good Machine. I intend to render material under the same...

ViacomCBS’ Entertainment & Youth Group is starting a new original movies and limited series unit to serve its portfolio of brands. The company has brought in A+E Networks’ Meghan Hooper White to run the unit as Evp and Head of Original Movies and Limited Series. She starts May 18 and will be reporting to Nina L. Diaz, President of Content and Chief Creative Officer.

The unit’s goal will be to mine the ViacomCBS library of IP for new original movies and limited series for networks in the portfolio as well as other outlets across the company, including CBS, Channel 5, Network 10 and the revamped streaming service that will succeed CBS All Access. The target is to do 100 movies annually.

They will be developed specifically for each brand. The ones for MTV will be primarily coming-of-age stories featuring top musicians and young Hollywood talent. Those for Comedy Central: will...

ViacomCBS has tapped A+E Networks veteran Megan Hooper White to lead its entertainment and youth group’s newly launched original movies and limited series division as executive vice president, where she is tasked with producing 100 films annually for the conglomerate’s various network brands, including MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, VH1, Cmt and the Smithsonian Channel.

The move comes as ViacomCBS continues to integrate its many parts in the wake of the merger between Viacom and CBS, engaging in several rounds of layoffs. Last week, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish announced that streaming service CBS All Access would be rebranded to include more cable brands and library programming. The company is now looking to create more programming in house instead of licensing IP.

Hooper White will start May 18 and report to ViacomCBS president of content and chief creative officer Nina L. Diaz.

“As we expand our scripted content with original movies and limited series,...

After lengthy negotiations, Emmy winner Kyra Sedgwick has signed on to play the lead in My Village, ABC’s multi-camera comedy pilot from The New Adventures of Old Christine creator Kari Lizer, Sony Pictures TV and ABC Studios.

Written and executive produced by Lizer, My Village revolves around an empty-nester mom, Jean Raines (Sedgwick), who wonders how she ended up alone while her children live their best lives thousands of miles away. She decides her place is with her family and as she reinserts herself into their lives, her kids realize they might actually need her more than they thought.

Sedgwick’s Jean Raines is earthy, unfiltered, emotional. Born and raised in Iowa, she is practical and can’t be bothered with sugar coating. Very comfortable in her own skin, Jean is not a natural fit in the Los Angeles culture of anti-aging remedies and butt implants. She is a person that people confide in,...

Dan Berk and Robert Olsen’s “Villains” takes place in a universe where criminals, from bargain-basement gas-station stickup artists to terrifyingly violent serial killers, are all utterly delightful. Four such ne’er-do-wells finds themselves in the same house in “Villains.” Violence breaks out, mind games are played, and it’s all so adorably eccentric that you don’t ever want it to stop.

Bill Skarsgård (“It Chapter Two”) and Maika Monroe (“It Follows”) co-star as Mickey and Jules, two young thieves who can barely rob a liquor store. Opening the cash register is, to these kids, a task on par with the Riddle of the Sphinx. And yet, thanks to the power of teamwork, they succeed in their Herculean task of opening that drawer. There is nothing they can’t accomplish when they work together. Maybe. If it’s easy enough.

Mickey and Jules are celebrating their extreme cleverness when,...

Ross Katz has been hired as Head of Production and Development at Sk Global’s Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, the latest exec to join the company that falls under the banner of Sk Global. Katz, a producer on the Oscar-nominated Lost in Translation and In the Bedroom who started his career as a grip on Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, will help the indie film financier-producer unit in Sk Global’s goal to boost production output across both movies and TV.

Earlier this month, Sk Global hired veteran TV executive Charlie Corwin as co-ceo to serve alongside alongside current CEO and president John Penotti, a move aimed at bolstering the company’s small-screen auspices.

Katz will report to Sk Global CEO and president John Penotti and Corwin, and aid in the workload of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment’s Evp Mark O’Connor.

His producing credits include Marie Antoinette, Story of a Girl and The Laramie Project,...

Oscar-nominated producer Ross Katz is joining Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, a division of Sk Global, as head of production and development.

Sk Global Co-Chairman Sidney Kimmel and co-ceo John Penotti made the announcement Friday. The move comes a month after former Imagine Entertainment chief executive officer Charlie Corwin joined “Crazy Rich Asians” producer Sk Global as co-ceo.

Sk Global said the move further expands upon Sk Global’s mission to increase production output across all platforms. Katz will report to Penotti and Corwin.

Katz received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture for “Lost in Translation” and “In the Bedroom.” His producing credits include “Marie Antoinette,” “Story of a Girl,” “The Laramie Project” and “Taking Chance,” for which he won both a WGA and a DGA award. Most recently, Katz served as executive producer on the HBO drama “My Dinner with Herve,” starring Peter Dinklage and Jamie Dornan.

Katz began his career...

Emmy and Golden Globe winner Kyra Sedgwick has partnered with Meredith Bagby and Valerie Stadler to launch Big Swing Productions, which has a number of film and television projects in the works. According to the trio, Big Swing is “committed to celebrating new heroes and amplifying bold voices, focusing on inclusive stories with heart and purpose.” according to the trio.

One of the company’s first projects, the independently developed and produced TV series Girls Weekend, is set to premiere in the indie-episodic category at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. Written by and starring Ali Liebegott and directed by Sedgwick, the series tells the story of queer-daughter Erica who returns home to Las Vegas for a “girls weekend” with her estranged homophobic sister, people-pleasing mother, and gun-toting dad. When Dad lets it slip that Mom’s cancer is back with a vengeance, it forces Erica to decide whether or not...

ReFrame and IMDbPro have awarded 62 television and streaming series their first-ever ReFrame Stamp for Television, Variety has learned exclusively.

The ReFrame Stamp was created by ReFrame, a coalition of industry professionals founded by Women in Film and the Sundance Institute, to recognize projects that have demonstrated success in gender-balanced hiring. Productions that receive the stamp are those that hire female-identifying people in four out of eight critical areas of production, including writing, directing, showrunning, producing, lead acting roles, season regular acting roles, department heads and crew members. Those series must reflect diversity across all of the season, not just specific episodes. The data was collected with IMDbPro.

The inaugural round of recipients include all five of Shonda Rhimes’ shows, Frankie Shaw’s “Smilf,” Issa Rae’s “Insecure,” Tanya Saracho’s “Vida,” “Broad City” from Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” among others. Over...

Kyra Sedgwick will direct the independent supernatural love story “The Way Between” from a script by Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lee.

Tooley Entertainment is financing. Casting will begin shortly. “The Way Between” is being produced by Tucker Tooley, Lee, Rich Freeman, Colleen Camp, Kane Lee, Hector Solis Flores, and Roberto Jurado Rebora. Greg Renker, Jason Barhydt, and Jose Alberto Lopez will executive produce.

“The Way Between” centers on a man who loses his girlfriend in a tragic car accident but finds a way to reconnect with his beloved by bending the laws of reality. His unwillingness to let her go soon blurs his waking life and his intersecting world of dreams.

“From the moment I read ‘The Way Between,’ I was captivated by this deeply romantic and universal story of love, sacrifice, empathy and ‘finding your way,’” Sedgwick said.

“Jennifer Lee’s extraordinary and very personal screenplay, partially rooted in her own experiences,...

Exclusive: Writer/producer/director Gary Lennon, who was recently named co-showrunner on Season 6 of Starz’s high-rated series, Power, has sold his script, A Family Film, to Liz Levine and Adrian Salpeter, co-founders of the production company, Random Bench.

The film is described as a brutal, darkly humorous and heartbreaking new spin on the family film genre. It revolves around three orphaned brothers who reunite to settle unfinished business and in doing so change their lives forever.

Lennon will executive produce through his Street Kid Productions banner. His promotion to co-showrunner on Power is part of his overall deal with Starz, in which he will develop additional projects for the premium cabler. Lennon also served as a producer on FX’s Justified, which earned him a Peabody Award, WGA Award and an AFI Award Honoree for Television Program of the Year.

Liz Levine and Adrian Salpeter served as producer on...

First-time director Kyra Sedgwick — who scored four Emmy nods and one win for playing Brenda Leigh Johnson on “The Closer” — saw something in “Story of a Girl” others didn’t. “The experience of being in a very complicated family … and feeling a lot of self-doubt and shame and searching for myself, that’s something that is a lifelong process,” she says of her Lifetime film. She’s also navigated the style world: “When I first started out in this business, no one thought about fashion, but I have to say that dressing up … is fun.”

2006

The year of her first lead drama actress nod, Sedgwick donned this voluminous Giorgio Armani Prive gown. “It was really special,” says Sedgwick, who’d been told by media she would win. “And then I lost, and I remember I was really upset,” she says. “Jane Kaczmarek came up to me, and she knelt down right in front of me.

This story about Kyra Sedgwick first appeared in the Miniseries/Movies issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.

It took Kyra Sedgwick nearly a decade to get “Story of a Girl” made into a movie, because people just didn’t get it. An intimate portrait of a family woefully unequipped to deal with their teenage daughter’s fitful transition into womanhood, Sara Zarr’s 2007 young-adult novel lacked the kind of flash necessary to attract the attention of Hollywood producers looking for the next “Twilight.”

But to Sedgwick, that’s exactly why the movie needed to be made.

“I thought, ‘Where are the stories about what real teenagers are going through?’ I didn’t feel like I saw it anywhere,” said Sedgwick, who made her directorial debut with the Lifetime film. “I know for me growing up, I always processed my feelings through art. We need to see ourselves reflected back from...

She’s won an Oscar. She’s won a Tony. Can she now win an Emmy? Catherine Zeta-Jones is on the 2018 Emmy ballot for Lifetime’s telefilm “Cocaine Godmother: The Griselda Blanco Story,” in which she portrays a real-life drug dealer in the trafficking industry. A year ago the idea of Zeta-Jones coming to television seemed far-fetched, but then she took on the iconic role of Olivia de Havilland in Ryan Murphy‘s “Feud: Bette and Joan.” Zeta-Jones didn’t earn any Emmy love for that project, but might she receive a nomination for “Cocaine Godmother”?

Zeta-Jones prevailed at the Oscars for Best Supporting Actress for “Chicago” (2002), while her Tony came for Best Actress in a Musical for “A Little Night Music” (2010). Should she win an Emmy, she’d join the esteemed triple crown of acting club that includes such legends as Maggie Smith, Jessica Lange and Al Pacino. It...

There’s no recipe for success in Tinseltown, but a thick skin and a bit of luck seems to be a winning ticket — and sometimes it’s just in your DNA. Generations of actors have descended from Hollywood royalty for years — from Angelina Jolie and Melanie Griffith, to Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland. Billie Lourd is carrying the torch handed down from mom Carrie Fisher and grandmother Debbie Reynolds, while Emma Roberts is transcending the family moniker, too. Lately, there’s a whole new generation of celebrity offspring who are carving out a name for themselves on television, due in part to the increasingly vast landscape provided by seemingly infinite networks, cablers and Ott platforms.

Although sharing a last name with a famous parent may beget instant recognition, stepping out from under their long shadow can sometimes be an even harder feat than cracking the Hollywood code as a newcomer.

Peak TV has led to a new golden age for movies on the small screen. This year alone some of those boldfaced names included Al Pacino in “Paterno,” Michael B. Jordan in “Fahrenheit 451” and Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Cocaine Godmother.”

“I don’t think there’s ever been a better time for television. The amount of creativity, diversity, talent — it’s contagious,” says Zeta-Jones.

The Academy Award-winning actress should know. After trying to get a film about ruthless Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco off the ground for years, she finally found a home for it on Lifetime, which, to her surprise, offered her everything she wanted as the project’s headliner.

“I think the joy as an actor is having the ability to work with great people, be passionate about something and to have people see it, which I had in Lifetime,” she says. After that, “good work is good work wherever it is.

Media company A+E Networks has delivered its 2018 Emmy Fyc mega-mailer to the TV academy membership highlighting many of its original programs across a trio of networks: A&E, Lifetime and History. Among the 25 total shows included on DVDs are A&E’s reigning Emmy champ “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,” Lifetime’s WGA-winning TV movie “Flint” and History’s drama series “Knightfall.” A link is also provided for Emmy voters to view more submissions at its online screening room. Get the full details below, including which specific episodes have been included on DVD.

SEELeah Remini talks backstage about sharing her Creative Arts Emmy win with ‘brave’ Scientology victims [Full Transcript]

A&E Disc One

Structured reality program “Live Pd” — episode “Live Pd-87”

Informational series “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” — episode “The ‘Perfect’ Scientology Family”

A&E Disc Two

Documentary/nonfiction series “Marcia Clark Investigates The First 48” — episode “Drew Peterson...

Kyra Sedgwick has joined Villains, a dark comedy-thriller from The Realm and Star Thrower Entertainment, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who wrote the script that was on the 2016 Black List, will direct, with Bill Skarsgard and Maika Monroe also starring. Sedgwick, who recently earned a DGA directing nomination for Lifetime's Story of a Girl, also starred in the ABC series Ten Days In the Valley.

Villains centers on a pair of amateur criminals who, after breaking into a suburban home, stumble upon a young girl chained in the basement and two sadistic homeowners who...

Winners of the 70th Directors Guild of America Awards were announced Saturday, February 3 beginning at 7:30 p.m. Pt in a non-televised ceremony hosted by Judd Apatow. Prizes were handed out for both film and television by A-list presenters and former DGA winners at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. These awards are voted on annually by members of the Directors Guild of America who work in film or television. Below, see the full list of 2018 DGA Awards winners, which are marked in gold.

As per tradition, all five of this year’s nominees for Best Film Director — Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Martin McDonagh (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) — received special medallions and gave speeches at the podium. Four of these five nominees also contend at the Oscars for Best Director, where McDonagh was...

The 2018 Directors Guild of America Awards will be handed out on Saturday night, February 3, across a number of film and television categories. We’re forecasting seven of those races in our predictions center, where over 1,200 users have entered their picks. that includes Expert journalists we’ve polled from top media outlets, Editors who cover awards year-round at Gold Derby, and the top users who have gotten the highest scores predicting past DGA Awards. So who are we betting on? Scroll down for our complete predictions listed in order of their racetrack odds with the projected winners highlighted in gold.

As it stands Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) is the overwhelming favorite to win Best Director for motion pictures. That’s good news for the filmmaker leading into the Oscars since 13 out of the last 14 DGA winners went on to claim Best Director from the motion picture academy. The...

Winners of the 70th annual Directors Guild of America Awards will be revealed on Feb. 3 in a ceremony hosted by Judd Apatow at the Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Prizes will be doled out in three film and eight television categories as listed below.

Unlike other show biz awards ceremonies, the DGA fetes each of the five nominees for Best Feature Film Director, bringing them onstage for a presentation and acceptance speech. This year’s contenders for this important precursor to the Oscar are Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Martin McDonagh (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Christopher Nolan (“Dunkirk”) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out”). All but McDonagh vie at the Academy Awards as well; he was snubbed in favor of Paul Thomas Anderson (“Phantom Thread”).

Peele also vies in the competitive First-Time Feature category, along with Geremy Jasper (“Patti Cake$”), WIlliam Oldroyd (“Lady...

“Big Little Lies” will score one final big win for departing director Jean-Marc Vallee: The Emmy champ is the runaway favorite to take home the miniseries or TV film honor at Saturday’s Directors Guild Awards, according to our latest combined odds.

Vallee has unanimous support from all 10 of our participating Experts, six Editors and our Top 24 Users, who aced last year’s predictions, giving him 1/10 odds. Scott Frank, who just received an Oscar nomination for co-writing “Logan,” is second with 28/1 odds for “Godless.” “The Wizard of Lies”’s Barry Levinson (50/1 odds), “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”’ George C. Wolfe (66/1 odds) and “Story of a Girl”’s Kyra Sedgwick (100/1 odds) round out the field.

See 2018 DGA nominations: ‘Game of Thrones’ leads with 3, ‘Master of None’ has 2

Vallee did not face any of them when he won the Emmy in September — one of “Big Little Lies”’ eight wins — but his moody,...

The Directors Guild of America has announced its 2017 television nominations, with “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Crown,” “Big Little Lies” and “Veep” among the shows singled out for their directing. “Game of Thrones” led among television series, landing three of the five nominations in the Dramatic Series category. Nominated performers who have moved into directing Aziz Ansari for “Master of None,” Kyra Sedgwick for “Story of a Girl” and Amy Schumer for “Amy Schumer: The Leather Special.” The DGA also announced nominees in the documentary feature and commercial directing categories. In the documentary category, the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick miniseries “The Vietnam War” and...

Crossing borders and platforms, Wff’s Summit to connect filmmakers and dealmakers.

Whistler Film Festival is celebrated its 16th edition in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada with juried competitive sections, the Borsos Awards, and the Pandora Audience Award. A conference for the Canadian film industry, known as the Whistler Summit, is organized in connection with the film festival.

Structured around bringing films to market and designed to provide filmmakers with tools to succeed both within and beyond borders, delegates gain insights from key power brokers and some of the great creative minds of our time including:

Bill Bromiley — President, Saban FilmsBruce Cowley — Senior Director, CBC Documentary ChannelChristina Davila — Creative Executive, Stage 13/Warner Bros Digital NetworkHoward Barish — Founder and President / Executive Producer, Kandoo FilmsJeff Sackman — Executive Producer, Someone Else’s WeddingKim Fox — Partner, MadRiverKirk D’Amico — President and CEO, Myriad PicturesKristen Konvitz — Agent, International and Independent Film, ICMNate Bolotin — Co-Founder, Xyz filmsOlivia Thomas Steier — Original Programming Executive,...

Host: Jim Gordon — Film Critic, CTV

A new series on filmmakers speaking about their work, the process and reflections on their lives, careers, family, the biz.

The honoree, Kyra Sedgwick — Director/Producer, Story of a Girl starring Kevin Bacon and Sarah Grey, spoke about her career and her new film.

Jim Gordon interviews Kyra Sedgwick

The film, showing here, Story of a Girl, is a difficult tale of a 16 year old suburban girl whose early sexual experience is recorded, posted and results in her brutal treatment by school peers. Then the family, mainly father, come into the picture misunderstanding everything, making it harder for her.

It is absorbing, painful and demonstrates effectively the painful social standards which females (especially young ones) are subjected to.

Kyra spoke rather elegantly for over an hour about her life and career which has taken her, for many years now, up the acting chain in Hollywood,...

Winners of the 2017 Whistler Film Festival were announced at the Awards Celebration this morning on the final day of the 17th annual Festival. Ian Lagarde’s first feature All You Can Eat Buddha and Jason and Carlos Sanchez’s A Worthy Companion tied for the $15,000 cash prize presented by the Directors Guild of Canada, British Columbia and the $15,000 post-production prize sponsored by Encore Vancouver in the 14th edition of the coveted Borsos Competition for Best Canadian Feature Film. The jury states “each in their own way convey unique visions and creative storytelling the jury believes have made and will make powerful contributions to the world of cinema.”A Worthy Companion

A Worthy Companion takes a fresh and new perspective that explores the complexity and humanity within the predator, victim relationship. This film questions how we perpetuate manipulative power dynamics between adult and child through the inner struggle of our female protagonists.

Savannah – Kyra Sedgwick knows what she wants. The longtime actor best known for her roles on TNT’s “The Closer,” “Something To Talk About,” “Phenomenon” and, most recently, “The Edge of Seventeen” had revelation while making her directorial debut on “Story of a Girl” which aired in Lifetime in July. Sitting down to record an episode of the 4 Quadrant podcast (which you can listen to below or on iTunes) at the 2017 Savannah Film Festival, Sedgwick made it clear if she had the choice she’d just direct.

Continue reading Kyra Sedgwick Wants To Direct Full Time And Isn’t Happy With ABC [Podcast] at The Playlist.

Actress Kyra Sedgwick credits both turning 50 and husband Kevin Bacon for inspiring her to direct films, which she hopes to do more of now that she completed her debut feature.

“I have to say, Kevin was a really big inspiration for me because he was like, ‘Not only can you do it, but you’ll do it well and you’ll love it,'” Sedgwick told People in Savannah, Georgia on Tuesday, where she was presented with the Spotlight Award from the Savannah Film Festival for directing the Lifetime movie Story of a Girl.

“He was absolutely right.”

The actress-turned-director...

After more than three decades as an actress and producer in Hollywood, Kyra Sedgwick is finally taking the leap behind the camera, making her directorial debut in Lifetime's coming-of-age TV movie, Story of a Girl.

Based on the 2007 Ya novel by Sara Zarr, the two-hour movie centers on a young teenage girl named Deanna (played by Banshee's Ryann Shane), whose sex tape goes viral in the sleepy town she's called home all her life, fracturing her relationship with her family and exiling her among her peers.

For Sedgwick, Story of a Girl hits close to home -- "So many things about the story rang true to me," she shared with Et -- and part of the reason why she was less hesitant about putting on the director's hat for the first time. For it to have been made into a movie is itself a feat, as Sedgwick optioned the book when it was first published and attempted...

Online indiscretions can represent defining moments for ordinary people just as much as for politicians and celebrities brought down by their own hubris, as sympathetically demonstrated in Story of a Girl. A cautionary coming-of-age drama with an emphasis on the healing power of self-reflection, Kyra Sedgwick's first feature as director should capture the attention of a broad audience when it airs on Lifetime next month. 

Three years after a compromising cell-phone video made the rounds among her junior-high frenemies, 16-year-old Deanna (Ryann Shane) skulks through high school, trailing the reputation of class slut for her inadvisable hookup with upper-classman Tommy...

Hello and welcome back to our roundup of news stories from theatre, film, and television. Film Glastonbury has barely begun but already the bands have been overshadowed by Johnny Depp’s mention of an assassination attempt on U.S. President Donald Trump. The actor was introducing a screening of his film “The Libertine” when he asked, “Can you bring Trump here?” After boos from the crowd, he said, “You misunderstand completely. When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?” Alluding to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by the actor John Wilkes Booth in 1865, Depp acknowledged at the time that this might get him in hot water with the press, especially back home. We’ll have to see what the media fallout is but, after the reputational damage of his recent marriage breakdown, chances are that news outlets won’t give him an easy ride. From one festival to another now,...

Kevin Bacon has revealed that the Tremors reboot which he is developing with Oscar-nominated Whiplash producer Jason Blum is set to be made with broadcaster SyFy (formerly the Sci-Fi Channel).

“We are going to do a pilot for Syfy,” the Footloose and Diner star told Screen while at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where he was attending a screening of Story Of A Girl, in which he co-stars.

Bacon originally approached Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum, whose horror credits include Paranormal Activity and Insidious, with the idea of reviving cult comedy-horror Tremors as a feature film, but the project is now being developed as an eight-episode TV series, which Bacon will star in and produce.

He will again be playing Valentine McKee, the Nevada handyman who tussles with gigantic man-eating sandworms.

Lifetime has slotted summer premiere dates for returning series Dance Moms and Project Runway; movie Story of a Girl, which marks Kyra Sedgwick’s directorial debut; along with new docuseries So Sharp, Growing Up Supermodel and Little Women La: Couples Retreat. Dance Moms returns at 9 Pm August 1 with new Season 7 episodes. These are the final episodes featuring choreographer Abby Lee Miller that were shot before she began a yearlong prison sentence for fraud. The show…...

Kyra Sedgwick's Story Of A Girl, which features her husband Kevin Bacon Photo: Courtesy of Eiff

Edinburgh International Film Festival launched its full programme this morning for its 71st edition, which will run from June 21 to July 2.

Among the star names attending the festival are Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who will be bringing her directorial debut Story Of A Girl, with The Woodsman also screening in their honour. Stanley Tucci will attend with his film Final Portrait. The trio will also take part in In Person events at the festival, as will actor Richard E Grant, composer David Arnold and writer/director Lizzie Borden.

This year’s Festival will showcase a total of 151 features from 46 countries including: 17 world premieres, 12 international premieres, nine European Premieres and 69 UK Premieres.

Centre for the Moving Image CEO nm5904922 autoKen HayKen Hay[/link][/link] was keen to stress the festival's international credentials.

He said: "Film is special,...

Highlights include the UK premiere of Cars 3 and 17 world premieres.Scroll Down For Competition Titles

The line-up for the 71st Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has been unveiled this morning by artistic director Mark Adams.

This year’s Eiff (June 21-2 July) will comprise a total 151 features from 46 countries including 17 world premieres, 12 international premieres, 9 European premieres and 69 UK premieres.

Highlights include the UK Premiere of Disney-Pixar’s animation Cars 3, appearances from Stanley Tucci, Oliver Stone and Kevin Bacon and the Opening and Closing Gala premieres of the previously announced God’s Own Country and England Is Mine.

There will also be a special screening of Raiders Of The Lost Ark accompanied by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra performing the score live.

Best of British

The Best of British strand includes Bryn Higgins’ Access All Areas featuring Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan Stephens; Simon Hunter’s Edie starring Sheila Hancock; the Donmar Warehouse’s all-female adaptation of [link...