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There are few Western productions with the sheer quality and commitment to history as Deadwood. The HBO Western giant was a masterclass in casting, craftsmanship, and production value – no question about it. But if you loved the gold-centric Deadwood, then there's one Western miniseries that you cannot ignore: Klondike. This Discovery Channel limited series centered on the gold mining town of Dawson City up in the Yukon, which was full of all the same sorts of colorful characters and personalities that you might see in your usual Western. Starring Game of Thrones' Richard Madden as Bill Haskell, a gold-seeking pioneer looking for his fortune, Klondike was a triumph of the genre that chronicled the final years of the 19th century, and those who fought like hell over the yellow rocks that might change their future.

Gold Rush star Tony Beets has been King Of The Klondike for years. Tony, his wife Minnie, and their children have created quite a family business gold mining. However, Tony turns 65-years-old next month.

Is the Discovery star considering retirement? Tony was recently asked that very question. What did he reveal?

Gold Rush Tony Beets – YouTube Is Tony Beets Retiring Soon?

Gold Rush Season 15 is underway with all three teams trying to achieve some very lofty gold totals. Although Tony Beets is still on top of his game, could the Discovery star be considering retirement? Could he enjoy being idle instead of grinding it out season after season?

Speaking to TV Insider, Tony was absolutely sure he is not done yet. He is still living the dream. “You want to enjoy your life. That is what I’ve been doing every day for the last 40 years that I’ve been mining.

The Klondike’s unforgiving landscape delivers another dose of hardship and high-stakes drama in the second episode of Gold Rush’s Fifteenth Season My Father’s Frenemy. This week’s installment finds Rick Ness grappling with a life-altering decision after receiving devastating news, the nature of which remains tantalizingly undisclosed. Will he persevere or pack it in? Meanwhile, mechanical […]

Gold Rush: My Father’s Frenemy...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Cat Person (Susanna Fogel)

The talk of the internet in late 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s New Yorker story about a date gone horribly awry lit a short-lived fire of discourse surrounding gender and power dynamics. About five years later does the big-screen adaptation arrive, and while it expands details of the original text in a few compelling ways, its new third-act addition calamitously renders the whole experience a pointless, heavy-handed, misjudged exercise that relies heavier on horror tropes than any sense of humanity. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)

This film, in the best possible way, is a time machine. Comfortable, bittersweet, and very funny, it captures a moment that is nostalgic without the syrup. Paul Hunham...

Festivals past are populating a busy specialty market this weekend with films from Sundance and Venice. Sony Pictures Classics is giving Randall Park’s Shortcomings a substantial 400+ screen release. See Deadline review. Mubi is out with Passages in New York and LA – both premiered to critical acclaim in Park City.

There’s been some drama around the latter after the MPA gave the Ira Sachs film an Nc-17 rating, which Mubi “officially rejected.” The distributor/streamer/producer said it “remains committed to releasing Passages nationwide in its original version as the filmmaker intended, with our full backing, unrated and uncut.” Rates a 94% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Deadline review here.

Casey Affleck and Noah Jupe-starring Dreamin’ Wild from Roadside Attractions on 400 screens follows the life of singer-musician brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson. Deadline review. Magnolia’s A Compassionate Spy, coming in the wake of blockbuster Oppenheimer, is an espionage...

The war in Ukraine has lasted for 18 months, with no signs of stopping. But for those living in parts of the country where the battles have been the fiercest, it’s been going on for much longer — more than 9 years, in fact, starting in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, with separatist forces taking over swaths of the Donbas region in the east.

Director Maryna Er Gorbach’s unsettling and aesthetically gripping fourth feature, Klondike, revisits that harrowing period in recent Ukrainian history from the viewpoint of an expectant couple, Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) and Tolik (the late Sergiy Shadrin), living in the rural enclave of Hrabove as the nascent war surrounds them on all sides.

If the name Hrabove rings a bell, that’s because the village made world news in July 2014 when a Malaysian airliner tragically crashed there after being shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missle. That disaster looms large over Klondike,...

If nothing else, Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach’s first solo-helmed feature Klondike can be credited with uncanny timing. A vivid look at an ordinary farming family in the occupied Donbas region of Ukraine, who just happen to have a full wall of their home destroyed by an errant missile, its European premiere at the 2022 Berlinale was followed only days later by Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, which of course continues unabated. It would be one of the last Ukrainian features to conclude production before the war broke out, a prophetic missive from a country that has stunned the world with its resilience in the face of crisis.

Er Gorbach, who’s based in Istanbul and previously co-directed several features with her spouse Mehmet Bahadir Er, reveals herself as a filmmaker able to conjure an imposing sense of scale, and creditably evoke with massive props (and some post-production...

Sometimes a single image can be strong enough to support the weight of an entire film, even a film as heavy as Maryna Er Gorbach’s horrifyingly domestic anti-war drama “Klondike,” which fixes its gaze upon a feisty pair of Ukrainian farmers who live along the Russian border. It does so by blowing a giant hole into the side of Tolik (Serhill Shadrin) and Irka’s (Okshana Cherkashyna) house in the opening scene, as an errant mortar shell — misfired by the Kremlin-friendly separatists next door in the middle of the night — obliterates the outer wall of the married couple’s living room as they argue over whether or not to flee Hrabove and raise their unborn child somewhere else.

The exasperated husband wants to avoid conflict at any cost, while his very pregnant wife refuses to abandon their home just because the impotent local men are determined to play war...

Joel McHale is reuniting with Klondike for a very special Hometown edition of the "What Would You Do" challenge. First rising to prominence with his Emmy-nominated work on the comedic talk show The Soup, McHale is a well-known actor with the likes of the fan-favorite NBC sitcom Community, Seth MacFarlane's Ted, The CW's now-concluded DC show Stargirl and Fox sitcom Animal Control, whose season 2 is slated for a January 2024 premiere.

In the midst of these projects, McHale previously partnered with Klondike for their "What Would You Do for A Klondike Bar? Challenge" in 2013, in which he and other celebrities from the '80s and '90s were challenged by fans to do certain acts in pursuit of the iconic ice cream bar, though the fans themselves had to do their challenge. Now, McHale is coming back for another installment of the challenge inviting plenty of creativity from fans and...

"Did you see who shot down the plane?" Goldwyn Films has revealed an official US trailer for an acclaimed Ukrainian film titled Klondike, from filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach. This premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival just weeks before Russia attacked Ukraine in the war that started last year. It's actually set in 2014 in another part of Ukraine, called the Donetsk Region, where the Donbas war was already underway. The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia & Ukraine during the start of the Donbas war. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after they will be at the center of the air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down by Russian forces. This film really stunned me, it's incredible, a powerful story told with such grace with outstanding cinematography. Starring Oksana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin,...

One of the most acclaimed titles from last year’s Sundance Fim Festival, where it picked up the top directing awards in its World Cinema Dramatic section, Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike premiered just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Set in 2014, Ukraine’s Oscar entry for International Feature follows a pair of expectant parents living in eastern Ukraine near the start of the Donbas war. After an international air-crash catastrophe elevates the tension enveloping them, pregnant Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) refuses to be evacuated and leave her home, even as their village is captured by armed forces. Ahead of an August 4 theatrical release from Samuel Goldwyn Films, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the U.S. trailer and poster.

Here’s the synopsis: “July 2014. Expectant parents Irka and Tolik live in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, disputed territory in the early days of the Donbas war.

Bali International Film Festival (Balinale) kicks off its 16th edition from Thursday, 1 June until Sunday, 4 June 2023 bringing together a diverse group of acclaimed filmmakers and prominent professionals from the film, entertainment, and creative industries to celebrate cinema.

Balinale showcases the finest Indonesian and International movies.

Over our 4-day event will present forty-five films from thirteen countries at Park23 Creative Hub Cinema Xxi, Tuban Kuta, Bali. Several of these films are world, Asian, and international premieres. Opening Balinale is A Guilty Conscience directed by Jack Ng. actor, Dee Ho, will be at the festival to present the film.

Notable films include Sisu from Finland, directed by Jalmari Helander; Klondike from Ukraine, directed by Maryna Er Gorbach; Where the Wind Blows from Hong Kong, directed by Philip Yung; and Women Talking from the United States, directed by Sarah Polley.

In competition 2023

In 2023, the festival's juried competition will present awards in several artistic and technical categories: Narrative Features,...

Distribution

Anthony Lapaglia‘s upcoming factual series “The Black Hand” is set to be distributed internationally by eOne.

The three-part series will explore Australia’s Italian community, looking at the difficulties they face, their politics, the threat of war and the mafia. According to the series synopsis, The Black Hand is the name for a gang of Italian criminals in Australia.

Alan Erson, Lapaglia, Michael Tear exec produce. Adam Grossetti and Kate Pappas produce. “The Black Hand” is directed by Kriv Stenders and written by Grossetti, Stenders and Anya Beyersdorf.

The series was produced by Wildbear Entertainment for ABC in Australia. The deal with eOne excludes Australia and Scandinavia.

“The Black Hand is truly the definition of premium factual,” said Kate Cundall, eOne’s VP for acquisitions. “We’re very excited about the opportunity to take to market a hugely popular genre like true crime with some amazing auspicious.”

***

Meanwhile,...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley and Richard Madden are set to headline Amazon Studios’ Killer Heat, from director Philippe Lacôte.

The film follows twin brothers who are caught in a violent love triangle on a remote Greek island. A damaged detective, known as “The Jealousy Man,” is called in to investigate.

Pic is based on Jo Nesbø’s short story The Jealousy Man, off a script written by Roberto Bentivegna (House of Gucci), with revisions by Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies; Treason). Makeready’s Brad Weston is producing the film, with Nesbø (bestselling Harry Hole book series), Niclas Salomonsson, Gordon-Levitt, Tom Karnowski and Makeready’s Collin Creighton executive producing. Makeready’s Oscar Montemayor will associate produce.

Cameras roll in May in Crete, with Faliro House serving as the local production entity.

Gordon-Levitt recently appeared in Rian Johnson’s Poker Face and will next be seen...

Exclusive: The Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews, held in northern Scotland, has set the lineup for its second edition, running April 14 – 16.

Over the course of three days, the festival will host a series of official screenings and industry talks from filmmakers and artists such as director Joe Russo, who returns to St Andrews after supporting the inaugural edition in 2022.

Russo will be bringing with him what the festival has described as an “early sneak peek of a hotly anticipated project” that he has executive produced under his Agbo production outfit. The title of the pic will not be unveiled until the screening begins.

The festival has also set Russo as the host of a public discussion on gaming and contemporary storytelling with Epic Games Chief Creative Officer Donald Mustard, who has worked as a creator and director on titles such as Fortnite.

Russo...

Drift Image: Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival As the 2023 iteration of the Sundance Film Festival winds down, with the remaining industry contingents heading for the exits, encore presentations of the last buzzworthy films have confirmed that this year’s event was a special one: recently Oscar-nominated documentary Navalny, international category shortlister Klondike,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach’s harrowing anti-war drama “Klondike,” a powerful and timely portrait of the horrors of warfare that the company will release in theaters and on digital platforms later this year.

Submitted as Ukraine’s official entry in the best international feature film race for the 95th Academy Awards, “Klondike” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where it was the first Ukrainian feature ever selected for the World Dramatic Competition and took home directing honors for Er Gorbach. The film is also playing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the Special Screenings section.

“Klondike” tells the story of a Ukrainian family living on a small farmstead on the Ukraine-Russia border around the 2014 outbreak of the Donbass war. Largely told from the viewpoint of the pregnant Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna), the film begins on the...

Click here to read the full article.

Safe Place, the feature debut of Croatian writer-director-star Juraj Lerotić was the big winner at the 2022 Sarajevo Film Festival, winning the Heart of Sarajevo prize for best feature film as well as best acting honors for Lerotić.

A critical favorite of the 28th Sarajevo festival, Safe Place is a devastating, and autobiographical, family drama featuring Lerotić as a man trying to save his younger, depressed brother from committing suicide.

“It’s hard to do a movie about the loss of a person close to you, but I processed it as much as possible before the shooting,” Lerotić told The Hollywood Reporter. “As an author, it fascinates me in some way that the horror that happened to me and my family is even possible. Until that event, I did not know that things could get out of control so quickly, so radically…I wrote it out of a reflex.

After its debut at Sundance in January, where it earned the World Cinema Dramatic Competition award for directing, Ukrainian wartime drama “Klondike” nabbed top honors for best international film at the Chile’s 18th Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic).

“Klondike,” written, directed and edited by Ukrainian filmmaker Marina Er Gorbach (“Omar and Us”), tells the story of expectant couple Irina and Anatoly who live in the village of Grabove, near the Russia-Ukraine border during the high conflict that coincides with downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The couple faces devastation up-close as Irina refuses to relocate, even as troops close in.

Best director went to Chile’s Roberto Baeza for his documentary effort “Punto de Encuentro,” a gripping portrait of filmmakers striving to recreate the story of their fathers, tortured and imprisoned under the dictatorship.

Tyler Taormina (“Ham On Rye”) feature “Happer’s Comet,” which examines alienation by focusing on characters from his Long Island hometown,...

Croatian writer-director Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” an emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt, took the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which wrapped a record-setting 2022 edition in the Bosnian capital on Friday night.

The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.

“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo.

Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by...

Eight films battled it out in competition at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, but Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s jury—including French director Lucile Hadžihalilović , Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Serbian actor Milan Marić and Israeli producer Katriel Schory—spread the love quite widely.

By far the critics’ darling, Juraj Lerotić’s powerful suicide drama Safe Place was a popular choice for the big winner, with plaudits for Berlin/Sundance title Klondike and Cannes favorite Corsage.

The winners were…

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film

Safe Place, dir: Juraj Lerotić (Croatia)

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Director

Maryina Er Gorbach, dir: Klondike (Ukraine/Turkey)

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actress

Vicky Krieps, Corsage (Austria/Luxembourg/Germany/France)

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actor

Juraj Lerotić, Safe Place (Croatia)

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary Film

Museum of the Revolution, Srđan Keča

Heart of Sarajevo for Best Short Documentary Film

We,...

The film has now won big at Sarajevo and Locarno.

Juraj Lerotic’s Croatian drama Safe Place was the big winner at Sarajevo Film Festival this evening (Friday 19), taking the prizes for best feature film and best actor for Lerotic.

The film continued its success from its debut at Locarno Film Festival earlier this month, where it won the best first feature award.

Scroll down for the full list of feature winners.

Safe Place stars Lerotic as a forty-something man who tries to save his depressed younger sibling from suicidal tendencies over the course of a single day.

Ukrainian filmmaker...

Projects from Greece and Ukraine lead co-production awards.

Ukrainian drama Cherry Blossoms from director Marysia Nikitiuk has picked up one of the top prizes at Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry platform CineLink, which handed out its awards last night (August 18).

See below for full list of winners

The project was among 12 presented at the CineLink Co-Production Market and won the Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award of €20,000.

Cherry Blossoms centres on a man and girl who escape territories in Ukraine occupied by Russia and meet a Bosnian woman who survived the Balkan wars as a child. Nikitiuk’s first feature, When The Trees Fall,...

Three men from the film team are fighting in Ukraine’s defence forces.

Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach is presenting her film Klondike at Sarajevo Film Festival alongside women who worked on the film, while several men from the production are fighting in the country’s defence forces against the Russian invasion.

Producer, cinematographer and Gorbach’s creative partner Svyatoslav Bulakovskiy - ‘Slava’ - has been fighting for his country since the early days of the invasion in February; as have actors Oleg Shcherbina and Oleg Shevchuk.

The trio are in different regiments of the Ukrainian forces, and have avoided physical injury.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its competition line-up for this year’s festival, with Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage and Ukrainian helmer Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s documentary ‘Liturgy Of Anti-Tank Obstacles’ selected in the feature film and documentary categories respectively.

A total of 51 films will compete for the fest’s coveted Heart Of Sarajevo awards across four competition sections: feature films, documentary, short and student film. The selection includes 20 world premieres, eight international premiers, one European premiere, 21 regional premiers and one Bosnia & Herzegovina premiere.

Additional titles featured in the main competition program this year include Aida Begić’s A Ballad, Dominik Mencej’s Riders and Ukrainian-Turkish production Klondike. In the documentary section, Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, whose film Pamfir played in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight earlier this year, will see his Liturgy Of Anti-Tank Obstacles doc have its world premiere in the section.

The program was open for films and filmmakers from Albania, Armenia, Austria,...

Eight international, one European, 21 regional and one national premiere.

Twenty films will have world premieres in the competitive sections of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, which runs from August 12-19 this year.

Those films are among a 51-strong programme of titles competing for the Heart of Sarajevo awards, across four competition sections: Feature Film, Documentary Film, Short Film and Student Film.

Scroll down for the full list of features

Eight of the films are international premieres, with one European debut, 21 regional premieres and one national launch.

The main Feature Film section consists of eight titles, of which four are world premieres,...

Several leading Ukrainian filmmakers have called out the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for including a Russian film in its 56th edition, which kicks off on Friday, insisting that it’s reneged on a promise not to welcome any movies with ties to the Russian government.

In a letter addressed to artistic director Karel Och and festival leadership that was shared with Variety, the filmmakers behind Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s “Pamfir,” Maksym Nakonechnyi’s “Butterfly Vision” and Valentyn Vasyanovych’s “Reflection,” criticized the long-running Czech festival for including “Captain Volkonogov Escaped,” by directors Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov, in its Horizons sidebar.

The film, which had its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival last year, received backing from the Russian culture ministry.

“Screening any film that was financially supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture in the midst of war will whitewash Putin’s regime and make it stronger,...

This review contains spoilers.

In light of the recent events in Ukraine, interest in “Klondike” seems to have spiked. The international Turkish-Ukrainian first premiered at Sundance this year, has been acquired by Mubi, and has since been making its rounds to other US film festivals. Most recently, Maryna Er Gorbach’s third feature met packed audiences at Sffilm last week. Little wonder, too – the film meditates upon the long-incoming tensions between Russia and Ukraine at the eastern borderlands in Donetsk.

“Klondike” takes place in July 2014 during the War in Donbas. Here, seven-months-pregnant Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) lives an isolated life with her husband, Tolik (Serhi Shadrin) in the disputed territory of Donetsk. Their peace is precarious, however. It seems like everyone beyond the farm expects them to take sides while destroying Irka and Tolik’s land. Separatist friends drop by between explosions, expecting Tolik to join the movement. Irka’s nationalist...

Klondike Review Video — Klondike (2021) Video Movie Review, a movie directed by Maryna Er Gorbach, written by Maryna Er Gorbach, and starring Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin, Oleg Shcherbina, Oleg Shevchuk, and Evgeniy Efremov. Crew Zviad Mgebry created the music for the film. Svyatoslav Bulakovskyi crafted the cinematography for the film. Plot Synopsis Klondike‘s plot synopsis: “Armed [...]

Continue reading: Video Movie Review: Klondike (2022): A Modern Tragedy told Beautifully Blunt that Elicits a Powerful Response...

“Samuel’s Travels,” directed by Latvian/Armenian filmmaker Aik Karapetian, has been acquired by HBO Central Europe. The deal was signed by the Copenhagen-based LevelK, who picked up international sales rights on the film in September, according to Film New Europe.

The acquisition by HBO Central Europe, with a license period set to start in the autumn, will cover Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

“Samuels Travels,” a darkly humorous story of a lone traveller’s journey gone terribly wrong, is Karapetian’s fourth feature film. The leading roles are played by Belgian actor Kevin Janssens and Latvian actress Laura Siliņa, among a largely Latvian cast.

The film was produced by Mistrus Media of Latvia in coproduction with Polar Bear of Belgium, and it was funded by the National Film Center of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia,...

The Seattle International Film Festival returned to its in-person format for the first time since 2019 this year, with many of the indie film world’s finest making their way to the Emerald City. The 11-day festival, which concluded this weekend, screened 263 films, including 28 world premieres, and ultimately honored a combination of domestic and foreign films with its awards.

The timely Ukrainian war drama “Klondike” from Maryna Er Gorbach won the Grand Jury Prize, with Zia Mohajerjasbi’s Seattle-set drama “Know Your Place” earning rave reviews from audiences and winning the festival’s New American Cinema Competition.

“As we celebrated our first in-person festival in three years, we were so thrilled to bring great films and new voices from across the globe,” said Beth Barrett, Siff Artistic Director. “Creating those experiences that bring audiences around film, both in cinema and hybrid, allowed us all to connect, to learn, and to make...

The Seattle International Film Festival closed its 48th edition on Sunday by announcing its top honors, presenting awards at a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Seattle.

“Klondike,” a film following a family that lives on the tumultuous border of Russia and Ukraine in 2014, was awarded the grand jury prize within the festival’s official competition.

“For a work both tragically prophetic and universal in its impact, a ferocious and formalist vision of war that fuses humanism, black comedy and horror into a searing and original vision, we award the Grand Jury Prize to Maryna Er Gorbach’s ‘Klondike,'” said the jury, composed of Angel An, senior director of acquisitions at Roadside Attraction; David Ansen, lead programmer at the Palm Spring International Film Festival; and Matthew Campbell, artistic director of the Denver Film Society and the Denver Film Festival.

“Know Your Place,” a drama following two teenage...

Distribution

PBS Distribution will be the North American distribution partner for West Road Pictures and All3Media International series “Ridley.” It stars Adrian Dunbar (“Line of Duty”) as Detective Inspector Alex Ridley, who has retired from the police after 20 years of dedicated service. Now working in a consultancy role, Ridley resumes his partnership with his former protégée, Di Carol Farman, when she turns to him for help on a complex murder investigation.

The series, which consists of four two-hour episodes, is currently filming across Northern England, and will premiere on ITV in the U.K. It has sold to Npo in the Netherlands, Vrt in Flemish Belgium, BritBox for exclusive Australia streaming, Pumpkin TV has China VOD rights, and Rlj Entertainment has secured DVD/Video rights for Australia and New Zealand.

“Ridley” is written and created by Paul Matthew Thompson (“Vera”) and co-created by Jonathan Fisher (“Blood”), MD of West Road Pictures,...

Sffilm announced the full lineup for the 65th annual San Francisco International Film Festival, the longest running film festival in the Americas. This year the Festival will make its return to theaters in person, featuring more than 130 films from 56 countries, including 16 World and 10 North American premieres, along with many Sffilm-supported titles. Of the films selected for the Festival, 56 are helmed by female or non-binary filmmakers and 52 are directed by Bipoc filmmakers. The Festival will also celebrate cinematic icon Michelle Yeoh with a special tribute to be presented by critically acclaimed actor Sandra Oh. The 2022 Festival will run April 21–May 1, with tickets on sale now at sffilm.org.

Michelle Yeoh was recently hailed by New York Times film critic A.O. Scott as “one of the great international movie stars of the past quarter-century.” Her tribute will be an intimate conversation with Emmy Award-nominated actress Sandra Oh, about her prestigious and extensive...

This year’s Sundance Film Festival featured 84 feature films, 59 short films, and 26 jury-awarded prizes — with at least 7 of them distributed to Asian productions. Unsurprisingly, most of the Asian award winners revolved around tales of precarity. Shaunak Sen’s Delhi-based ecology-conscious film “All That Breathes” won a Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary category. Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s on-the-ground documentary about Rohingya discrimination in the Rakhine State, “Midwives” won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Excellence in Verite Filmmaking. Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukraine-Turkey co-production about a family living along the precarious Ukraine-Russian border, “Klondike”, took home the Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic.

Several dramatic films took their pickings, too. Philippines-based Martika Ramirez Escobar’s love letter to cinema, “Leonor Will Never Die,” also was selected for the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award: Innovative Spirit. Shorts “Night Bus” (Joe Hsieh) and “Warsha” (Dania Bdeir) likewise swept the shorts fiction awards,...

Personal and political turmoil face a serene camera in “Klondike,” a vision of the ongoing war in Donbass war that brooks no compromise in depicting the severe impact of the conflict on the region’s civilians — in particular, the innocent women to whom the film is dedicated. Ukrainian writer-director Maryna Er Gorbach largely assumes the viewpoint of a heavily pregnant farmstead owner as her life and home quite literally fall apart on July 17, 2014, the day a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight was shot down over Donbass, killing nearly 300 people. Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna) is determined to stand her ground even as her fellow villagers flee oncoming armed forces. In Er Gorbach’s potent film, shot in unbroken, unblinking takes that observe obscene violence and destruction with cold candor, Irka’s resistance to warfare is at once fierce and futile.

Winning the directing award in Sundance’s World Dramatic competition — ahead of a...

Chicago – The 2022 Sundance Film Festival announced their Grand Jury Prizes on January 28th, and the top films were “Nanny” (U.S. Dramatic), “The Exiles” (U.S. Documentary), “Utama” (World Cinema Dramatic) and “All That Breathes” (World Cinema Documentary).

After nine days, 84 feature films and 59 Short Films, honors were also given for Audience Awards, Festival Favorite Award, Jury Awards for Directing, Screenwriting & Editing and Special Jury Awards.

The list of all award winners are below.

Grand Jury Prize

‘Nanny’

Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

U.S. Dramatic: “Nanny” directed by Nikyatu Jusu

U.S. Documentary: “The Exiles,” directed by Ben Klein & Violet Columbus

World Cinema Dramatic:: “Utama” (Bolivia/Uraguay/France) directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi

World Cinema Documentary: “All That Breathes” (India/UK) directed by Shaunak Sen

Audience Awards

Cha Cha Real Smooth

Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

U.S. Dramatic: “Cha Cha Real Smooth” directed by Cooper Raif

U.S.

“Nanny” was the big winner at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, picking up the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in a virtual awards ceremony Friday.

Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” was also a winner, nabbing the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category, while “Navalny,” a late addition to the festival, won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award. The Sundance jury also recognized “The Exiles” in the documentary category and “Utama” in the World Cinematic category.

This year’s Best of the Fest announcement caps off the second year in a row in which the festival was forced to go virtual amid the pandemic.

Although the awards were announced virtually, the emotion was palpable when juror Chelsea Bernard announced that “Nanny” director and screenwriter Nikyatu Jusu had won for her harrowing story of an undocumented nanny working for a privileged couple in New York...

The virtual Sundance Film Festival concluded with a virtual awards show — no host this year, just a series of statements and videos parceled out across two hours by Twitter. It was a strangely anti-climactic way of wrapping a low-key festival, while giving winners a chance to prep polite, crew-inclusive acceptance speeches.

Among the audience prizes, U.S. Dramatic winner “Cha Cha Real Smooth” represents the biggest sale of the festival so far, scooped up by Apple for $15 million — 1,000 times the budget of writer-director-star Cooper Raiff’s shoestring-budgeted debut, “Shithouse.”

The Festival Favorite award went to “Navalny.” This prize, selected by audiences from across all sections of the festival, recognizes a late addition to the lineup (“Navalny” was not announced until this past Monday), protected on account of its political sensitivity, as the documentary tracks Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny while he was recovering from an assassination attempt in Berlin. Accepting the honor,...

Klondike is a funny title for this harrowing, at times absurdist Ukrainian war drama, set as conflict with Russia began to spike in 2014. Referring as it does to the Klondike Gold Rush (the setting for Chaplin’s famous silent comedy), we could expect the resonance of two historical events to overlap, or at least sense a link between the actual subject and the analogy. But any gold in the grey expanse of the febrile Donbas region, where Klondike‘s set, is nary to be found: the landscape seems only dotted with cows and convoys of surface-to-air missiles. Perhaps it’s just a red herring designed to mock the idea of attributing meaning, which is what the shellshocked or aggressive characters in this film are also scrabbling to do, to no avail.

What’s also refreshing about Klondike is how it depicts war in a manner modern filmmakers seem more cautious about now.

PoetBerlinale have announced the first 62 titles selected for the 72nd edition of their festival, set to take place physically from February 10 — 20.FORUMAfterwater (Dane Komljen)Poet (Darezhan Omirbayev)The Middle AgesEurope (Philip Scheffner)A Flower in the Mouth (Éric Baudelaire)Memoryland (Kim Quy Bui)My Two Voices (Lina Rodriguez)Nuclear Family (Erin Wilkerson, Travis Wilkerson)Super Natural (Jorge Jácome)The United States of America (James Benning)Forum EXPANDEDDragon Tooth (Rafael Castanheira Parrode)Home When You Return (Carl Elsaesser)Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair (James Gregory Atkinson)Sol in the Dark (Mawena Yehouessi)vs (Lydia Nsiah)PANORAMATalking About the Weather (Annika Pinske)The Apartment with Two Women (Kim Se-in)Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (Nina Menkes)Swing Ride (Chiara Bellosi)Dreaming WallsKlondike (Maryna Er Gorbach)A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)Myanmar Diaries (The Myanmar Film Collective)Into My Name (Nicolò Bassetti)Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten)We, Students! (Rafiki Fariala)Until Tomorrow (Ali Asgari...

The 2022 Berlin International Film Festival has revealed its first titles, including seven films that have been invited to the Berlinale Special program. You can see the full list of confirmed films below.

Those seven include Peter Flinth’s Against The Ice, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Heida Reed and Charles Dance, and Laurent Larivière’s About Joan, starring Isabelle Huppert, which both play as Berlinale Special Galas.

The Panorama program has unveiled 13 titles, with Generation confirming eight features, and further films set for Forum and Forum Expanded.

The Panorama strand includes Myanmar Diaries, a doc/feature hybrid from the Myanmar Film Collective that highlights violence suffered by Burmese citizens.

“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic, reflecting on how it feels to be disconnected from others. It is with this first...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed several titles across various programs for the 2022 edition of the festival.

Women directors account for seven of the 13 titles revealed so far in the Panorama section, including U.S. filmmaker Nina Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power,” emerging German director Annika Pinske’s debut feature “Alle reden übers Wetter” (“Talking About the Weather”), and Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama “Klondike.”

“The films confirmed so far herald a contemporary, unsparing but also conciliatory cinema in the 2022 Panorama,” said section head Michael Stütz.

Seven films have been unveiled for the festival’s Berlinale Special gala strand, including Peter Flinth’s “Against the Ice,” starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Laurent Larivière’s “About Joan,” featuring Isabelle Huppert, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” with Alia Bhatt.

“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic,...

More than half of 82-strong feature roster directed by filmmakers who identify as women.

The hybrid 2022 Sundance Film Festival has announced a roster of 82 features that include world premieres for Sophie Hyde’s comedy drama Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, Michel Hazanavicius’s zombie comedy Final Cut, and Lena Dunham’s drama Sharp Stick as well as new work from John Boyega, Noomi Rapace and Julianne Moore.

Features, New Frontiers selections and shorts (the latter will be announced on Friday) will screen from January 20-30 2022 in person in the Utah hubs of Park City and Salt Lake City as...

Exclusive: A key character will be returning to Amazon Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Abbie Cornish, who portrayed Cathy Mueller in Season 1, will be back to reprise the role in the recently announced fourth season.

There has been a lingering mystery surrounding Cathy Mueller, Ryan’s love interest in the first season, as well as in the books. The character was never written out of the show, she just disappeared. There was not a single reference of her throughout Season 2, and the only clue given was Ryan (John Krasinski) sleeping with another woman early on in the season, and then later on saying he’s single.

There is no information how Cathy will be reintroduced on the show. Her return could be set up in the upcoming third season, production on which recently wrapped with a premiere date still Tbd.

Season 3 finds Jack Ryan (Krasinski) on the...

Discovery chief David Zaslav, whose sizable corner of the media business is getting a lot bigger, said he had previously looked at the idea of creating a “global HBO,” but all the best series were taken.

“We couldn’t have come together with the old Time Warner. … It’s a great brand but there is nothing in the suitcase. Now the suitcase is full,” he said during a call with Wall Street analysts to dissect the combination of his company with AT&T-owned WarnerMedia.

The landscape-altering deal comes as both companies are in the midst of major course-correction aimed at countering secular declines in linear viewership and advertising spending. As AT&T grapples with high debt ($169 billion as of March 31) and the massive cost of spectrum to roll out 5G, CEO John Stankey is divesting the Time Warner assets just three years after closing the purchase. The deal completion came...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

BBC to premiere Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Strasbourg 1518’

Sexy Beast director Jonathan Glazer’s latest film Strasbourg 1518 is to premiere on BBC Two on July 20. The film is part of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine initiative, and features performances from great dancers inspired by the so-called dancing plague that broke out in Strasbourg in 1518. It was co-commissioned by Artangel and Sadler’s Wells and is produced by Academy Films for BBC Films and BBC Arts.

Rotterdam film festival changes

International Film Festival Rotterdam has instigated significant changes under new director Vanja Kaludjercic ahead of its landmark 50th edition, scheduled to run January 27-February 7. The fest will introduce new strand ‘Harbour’, which will become its central program and also its largest, screening movies from around the world. Giona Nazzaro has joined the supervising programming team, alongside Bianca Taal and Gerwin Tamsma. Its flagship Tiger and Big Screen competitions will also be expanded,...

Maybe it’s a sign of times that Harrison Ford is sharing a screen with a digital dog. Why use a real canine when a computer can make certain that a pixelated pup performs according to SAG rules and not his actual nature? You can hear the voices of future filmmakers, echoing throughout the Hollywood Hills: “Get more feeling into the mutt’s eyes.” “Make him run faster than a real dog can!” That’s the case in The Call of the Wild, the umpteenth screen version of Jack London...

“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” has found its new showrunner.

“Prison Break” creator Paul Scheuring has been tapped to run season 3 of the Amazon show, after Carlton Cuse, who co-created and co-showran the series with Graham Roland, stepped away from the role in March.

“All The Money in the World” writer David Scarpa was originally in position to showrun season 3, according to sources, but reportedly exited the production soon after coming on board. The news comes less than two weeks out from the show’s season 2 premiere on Nov. 1.

“Jack Ryan” stars John Krasinski as the titular CIA agent who, in the second season, ventures into a Venezuelan jungle to investigate an illegal arms deal. Cuse originally partnered with fellow “Lost” writer Roland to bring the Tom Clancy adaptation to the small screen.

Scheuring took his first foray into TV with Fox’s “Prison Break,” which starred Wentworth Miller and...