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With the epic sweep and palace intrigue of “Game of Thrones,” new 10-part Hungarian miniseries “Rise of the Raven” had its Italian premiere at the Italian Global Series Festival in Rimini this week. It tells the story of János Hunyadi (played by Gellért L. Kádár), the military leader who leads his forces against the Ottoman invasion in the 15th century. Variety sat down with veteran Hungarian-Canadian producer Robert Lantos, behind Oscar nominated films “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Being Julia,” “Eastern Promises” and “Barney’s Version,” to talk about his passion project.

You were born in Budapest, and this is a foundational Hungarian story. Is that what drew you to the show?

The central motivation was the story, which reverberates through the entire Western world. The reason the church bells ring at noon every day today is because when our hero beat the Ottomans in the Battle of Belgrade the Pope decreed in...

Oscar-nominated director Atom Egoyan and writer-director Eric Nazarian engaged in an inspiring conversation on the eve of the theatrical release of Nazarian’s latest feature Die Like a Man, which had a theatrical engagement in Los Angeles last month prior to its digital release.

Egoyan is an Armenian-Canadian filmmaker and one of the most preeminent directors of the Toronto New Wave, emerging during the ’80s and making his career breakthrough with Exotica. Egoyan followed this with the critically acclaimed film The Sweet Hereafter, for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Nazarian is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and recipient of the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for his screenplay Giants. His first film as writer-director, The Blue Hour, premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and the Torino Film Festival, winning...

National Canadian Film Day, a local and global celebration of homegrown movies set for April 16, has received a burst of support from an unlikely source: Donald Trump. The U.S. president’s escalating tariff war and talk of turning Canada into the “51st state” is driving a surge in grassroots support for the annual celebration of Canuck cinema.

The event began in 2014 and now finds itself part of the defiant “Elbows Up, Canada!” campaign. The movement, which takes its name from a defiant ice hockey gesture made famous by Canadian NHL legend Gordie Howe, has seen its slogan become a rallying cry nationwide against the U.S. President’s trade war and threats of annexation.

“Suddenly, we’re in a place where we can say, we have our elbows up. Come join us. Stand up for Canada by sitting down to a great Canadian film,” says Jack Blum, co-founder of Canadian Film Day,...

There’s a wave of new and intelligent life at the indie box office this weekend post-Academy Awards after the traditionally slow, slow period for new openings. There have been a smattering of interesting films (Universal Language for one) but things have absolutely picked up with a George R.R. Martin short story on screen, a nursing home creep-out starring John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, the latest Atom Egoyan film, a duo that landed really well at Cannes, a Bruno Dumont sci-fi, a Bruce Labruce sex romp, an Italian box office hit and more.

Moderate-wide: Vertical opens action fantasy In The Lost Lands on 1,365 screens as the distributor continues a push to dot its schedule with more moderate-wide releases. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and based on a George R.R. Martin short story of the same name, the pic stars Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista and Arly Jover. Log line: A...

While we wait for that Jennifer’s Body sequel that seems to be taking shape, Amanda Seyfried returns to the screen in director Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils this coming weekend.

Seven Veils will be released in select theaters nationwide on March 7, 2025.

Amanda Seyfried stars in the upcoming film alongside Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Mark O’Brien, Vinessa Antoine, Ambur Braid, and Michael Kupfer-Radecky.

In Seven Veils, “After years away, theater director Jeanine (Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried) re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel.”

XYZ Films previews, “Renowned director Atom Egoyan reunites with Seyfried in this visually stunning, propulsive work, filmed on location during the staging of Egoyan’s acclaimed production of Salome. Egoyan directed the opera,...

Few films possess the haunting emotional depth of “The Sweet Hereafter.” It is a film that doesn’t merely present a tragedy but rather immerses its audience in the reverberations of grief, guilt, and loss. Unlike conventional dramas that hinge on courtroom climaxes or clear resolutions, Atom Egoyan’s adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel refuses to deliver any straightforward answers. Instead, it unfolds like a fractured memory, where time bends and emotions blur, forcing us to navigate a labyrinth of suffering without the comfort of closure.

Egoyan’s screenplay plays out like a puzzle, a structure that immediately places the audience in a position of active engagement. There is no linear progression that neatly traces cause and effect, no clear antagonist or protagonist. What makes the film uniquely challenging is its demand for shifting allegiances—we are asked to build empathy for one character, only to have it redirected elsewhere...

The Academy Awards have their detractors and defenders, but even the biggest fans of the ceremony may grow tired of seeing the same names on the nominees list year after year. Some Hollywood creatives just seem to have the blessing of the Academy no matter what, earning a nomination practically any time they decide to make another movie. But while the voting body has often been accused of stodginess and a lack of diversity, efforts to correct things on those fronts have yielded some exciting results.

Recent ceremonies have seen a more diverse and interesting array of movies take home a statuette or two, like Parasite's surprise clean-up at the 2020 awards, or Everything Everywhere All At Once's big wins for weirdo sci-fi fans everywhere in 2023. The 2025 nominations were recently announced, and while there aren't too many big surprises with what movies are being recognized, one race in particular...

All five Academy Award nominees for Best Director on Thursday — Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, Sean Baker for Anora, Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez, James Mangold for A Complete Unknown, and Coralie Fargeat for The Substance — are first-timers in the category.

The last time the Best Directors list was all first-timers was 1998, when James Cameron (Titanic), Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty), Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting), Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line), and Peter Weir (The Truman Show) were honored. That was the year that Cameron went on to personally win three Oscars, for Best Picture and Best Editing in addition to directing as part of Titanic’s massive 11-victory haul.

Too, Fargeat joined an exclusive club on Thursday, becoming just the ninth woman to be nominated in the Best Director category. The other eight were Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties,...

More than a decade after working together on the erotic thriller Chloe, Amanda Seyfried and director Atom Egoyan have reteamed for an “opera drama” / “meditative thriller” called Seven Veils, which XYZ Films and Variance will be bringing to theatres in the United States on March 7th. Along with the release date announcement comes the unveiling of a trailer, which can be viewed in the embed above.

Seven Veils sees Seyfried taking on the role of Jeanine, “a theatre director who is dealing with repressed trauma as she prepares to mount a production of the opera Salome.” Here’s the synopsis: Jeanine re-enters the opera world after several years away to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel. Deadline notes that the movie...

In the year without a frontrunner, the doors are still wide open. I’m predicting three films will tie for the most nominations with 10 each: “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez” and “Wicked.”

Jacques Audiard’s crime musical “Emilia Pérez” is poised to dominate, and if it can tack on a tech nom or two, the Netflix film could become the most nominated non-English-language film in history, surpassing “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) and “Roma” (2018). The streamer’s primary awards pony could potentially go even further. On an ideal nomination day, if it lands nods in all of its “on the bubble” categories — such as cinematography, sound, and two extra bids for supporting actress (Selena Gomez) and original song — it could secure 14 nominations, tying with “All About Eve” (1950), “Titanic” (1997), and “La La Land” (2016) as the most-nominated films of all time. Notably, “La La Land,” also a musical, is the only one to lose the best picture.

Following its premiere back at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Atom Egoyan’s latest film Seven Veils is finally getting a U.S. release. The Amanda Seyfried-led thriller set behind the scenes of the opera world will open on March 7 via XYZ Films and Variance and now the new trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “After years away, theater director Jeanine (Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried) re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel. Renowned director Atom Egoyan reunites with Seyfried in this visually stunning, propulsive work, filmed on location during the staging of Egoyan’s acclaimed production of ‘Salome.'”

Ethan Vestby said in his TIFF review, “You have to hand it to Atom Egoyan:...

Andras Hamori, the Hungarian film and television producer whose credits included Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, István Szabó’s Sunshine and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, has died. He was 71.

Hamori died Sept. 2 in Budapest after a long illness that prevented him from working in recent years, his friend Mia Taylor announced.

Hamori, who worked out of Toronto early in his career and was a partner in Alliance Entertainment, also guided the cult horror classic The Gate (1987), starring Stephen Dorff in his first major role; Stephen Frears’ Chéri (2009), starring Michelle Pfeiffer; and the 2014 History Channel miniseries Houdini, starring Adrien Brody.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which earned Egoyan Oscar nominations for best director and adapted screenplay, revolved around a school bus accident in a Canadian town that killed 14 children.

Sunshine (1999) told the story of several generations of a Jewish family set against the backdrop of Hungarian history. It starred Ralph Fiennes, was...

Hungarian film and television producer Andras Hamori, who produced films like “Crash” and “Sunshine” and shows such as “The Gate,” died Sept. 2. He was 71.

Some of Hamori’s other credits through the late ’90s and early 2000s include films like “The Sweet Hereafter,” “eXistenZ,” “Max,” “Owning Mahowny” and “Formula 51.” From 1991-1993 he served as producer for all 66 episodes of “Tropical Heat” and in 2014 he produced the History Channel miniseries “Houdini” starring Adrien Brody.

Starting as a film critic and short filmmaker in 1970s Budapest, Hamori was first encouraged to move to North America and chase his film-producing dreams by Hungarian-Canadian theater director John Hirsch. In 1981, armed with a print of one of his shorts, Hamori moved to Toronto, temporarily shacking up in Hirsch’s basement.

Hamori got his break working with fellow Hungarian native Robert Lantos before becoming a partner at Alliance Entertainment, a leading Canadian film and television...

Beta Film has released a swashbuckling, pulse-pounding trailer for “Rise of the Raven,” its epic 10-part drama series based on the bloody 15th-century battle that changed the course of Europe. The show will world premiere at Mipcom in the Grand Auditorium of Cannes’ Palais des Festivals on Oct. 22.

Adapted from author Bán Mór’s bestselling novels, the series tells the story of the Hungarian warrior Janos Hunyadi, who defeated the Ottoman army in 1456 at the Battle of Belgrade, halting its march across Europe and marking a turning point in the history of the continent.

The series is produced by veteran Canadian producer Robert Lantos’ Serendipity Point Films and Beta Film, the production and distribution powerhouse behind series including “Gomorrah” and “Babylon Berlin.” The Munich-based company is also repping the show internationally as part of a packed Mipcom slate.

In a trailer shared exclusively with Variety, Hunyadi (Kádár L. Gellért) delivers...

Beta Film, one of Europe’s biggest and most ambitious independents, has unveiled its Mipcom sales slate, led by 10-part epic “Rise of the Raven,” plus a new pick-up, “Last to Brake,” based on the true story of Finnish motorcycle racing great Jarno Saarinen, and now 288 episodes of Greek daily series smash hit “The Beach.”

Also brought to market are two Eagle Eye Drama shows: singular PBS and Channel 4 procedural “Patience,” starring Laura Fraser (“Breaking Bad”); and “Bookish,” created and starring Emmy Award winner Mark Gatiss, as well as Internet troll redemption’s tale “A Better Man,” from public broadcast powerhouses Nrk and Zdf.

Promising one of Mipcom’s biggest world premieres and billed by Beta Film as one of the most epic European TV productions of all time – which is something coming from Beta, the producers of “Babylon Berlin” and “Swarm” – “Rise of the Raven,” produced by the...

Exclusive: A new Canadian film distributor is launching in the shape of New Mountain Films.

Canadian film and TV producer Khaled Sabbour is spearheading the indie outfit and is growing the team now with marketing being overseen by Frank Mendicino, former Head of Marketing at Alliance Atlantis and Entertainment One.

The company says it is “committed to building a diverse slate of films for both the Canadian and U.S. markets, and has a mandate of distributing world-class content that not only drives corporate growth but also inspires positive social change”.

The new venture has said it is both privately and institutionally financed but didn’t disclose its backers. Initial titles are set to be revealed in coming weeks. Company execs are currently at the TIFF market.

“New Mountain Films is dedicated to cultivating strong relationships with creatives and talent,” said Sabbour. “We believe in nurturing the next wave of...

The second poster for Piero Messina's Another End features two lovers sleeping towards each other, almost touching hands, on an 'endless' bed of beige. For me, it evokes the key art for Atom Egoyan's 1997 Canadian masterpiece, The Sweet Hereafter.  The image is a compelling one, but what drew me to the poster was the typesetting of the title. By simply bolding select letters, Italian designer Federico Mauro subtly indicates the story of the film, or the central relationship between Gael García Bernal's and Renate Reinsve's characters with "The End" Pretty much everything else, the festival logos, the credit block, and other funding sources, is designed to stay out of the way of the central image and the title. Even the colours are muted to help emphasize...

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

Riverdale's unique storyline and iconic moments keep viewers hooked, from Jason Blossom's murder to Dark Betty's appearance. Archie's brief romance with Cheryl lacked depth and felt out of place, while his relationship with Valerie was more genuine and compelling. Riverdale's deviation from the Archie Comics, especially with Jughead's involvement in the love triangle, led to mixed reactions from fans.

The CW's Riverdale is a cultural staple of the late 2010s. This show has proved its uniqueness with its ever-changing storylines, questionable dynamics, and iconic moments. No one can forget Archie's "epic highs and lows of high school football" or the River Vixens' Jailhouse Rock dance from Riverdale season 3, episode 2, "Chapter Thirty-Seven: Fortune and Men's Eyes." The show has countless memories, including Riverdale's many alternate universes, epic twists and turns, and the widely debated Riverdale series ending. The show ran for six years, and so much has occurred that Riverdale season...

International auteurs Miguel Gomes, Wang Bing and Roberto Minervini will be part of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival’s Wavelengths program, TIFF organizers announced on Thursday.

The festival will present the North American premieres of “Grand Tour,” a period piece for which Gomes won the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; Minervini’s “The Damned,” a Civil War-era drama that screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section; and two films by Chinese documentarian Wang Bing, “Youth (Hard Times)” and “Youth (Homecoming).”

The Wavelengths section, which is devoted to daring cinema and contemporary art, will also include “exergue – on documenta 14,” a 14-hour documentary by Greek director Dimitris Athiridis that will be presented over three separate screenings.

Wavelengths is divided into different sections – one consisting of 11 feature films, another with a special presentation of Egyptian director Wael Shawky’s “Drama 1882” and another showcasing 13 different short and medium-length films grouped into thematic programs.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced its Wavelengths programme highlighting visionary work including Dimitris Athiridis’s 14-hour documentary exergue - on documenta 14, and a Classics line-up featuring work from Atom Egoyan and Frederick Wiseman.

The Wavelengths programme comprises 11 features, three shorts programmes, and an in-cinema looped presentation of Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s Drama 1882.

The features selections includes Cannes entries Viêt And Nam by Trương Minh Quý, Grand Tour by Miguel Gomes and The Damned by Roberto Minervini, and Berlin selection Pepe by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias.

exergue - on documenta 14 receives its North American premiere after...

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths program for artist-driven experimental work that includes films by avant garde directors Wang Bing, Roberto Minervini and Miguel Gomes.

With 11 features on offer, the Wavelengths section includes a 14-hour documentary, exergue – on documenta 14, from director Dimitris Athiridi set to be presented over three screenings.

The section will also feature North American premieres for the remaining chapters of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy: Youth (Hard Times) and Youth (Homecoming); Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour, which won best director at Cannes; The Damned by Roberto Minervini, an American Civil War drama that won best director in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes; and Pepe, by director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, about the life and death reflections of a hippo with connections to Pablo Escobar.

Wavelengths last year in Toronto screened Wang’s Youth (Spring), the Cannes competition title about Chinese garment workers.

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival continues to update its robust programming lineup. This year’s Wavelengths and Classics programs boast various hits, now including the North-American premiere of buzzy Cannes title “Viêt and Nam,” directed by Trương Minh Quý.

The Wavelengths lineup tallies 11 features, three shorts programs, and a special in-cinema looped presentation. Wavelengths alums Miguel Gomes (“Grand Tour”), Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”), and Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias (“Pepe”) return with their respective North-American premieres. Jessica Sarah Rinland is also back to the program with “Collective Monologue.”

There is also the 14-hour documentary “exergue – on documenta 14” from Greek filmmaker Dimitris Athiridi, which will be presented over the course of three screenings.

The program is curated by Senior Curator Andréa Picard and Associate Curator Jesse Cumming, with contributions by Giovanna Fulvi, Nataleah Hunter-Young, and June Kim.

For the shorts selections, the late auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s final film “Scénarios...

The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled the 10 films that will comprise its Platform lineup, a section that is intended to highlight emerging filmmakers from around the globe.

The selection includes “Pedro Páramo,” the feature directing debut of acclaimed cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto; “Viktor,” a documentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine told by war photographer Olivier Sarbil; and “The Wolves Always Come at Night,” Gabrielle Brady’s look at the impact of climate change on Mongolian herders. There’s also Tallulah H. Schwab’s Kafkaesque “Mr. K” featuring the mercurial Crispin Glover as a traveling magician, as well as Goya-winner Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s contemporary dance-musical and ensemble drama “They Will Be Dust.”

Nacho Vigalondo’s “Daniela Forever,” which stars Henry Golding and “The White Lotus” breakout Beatrice Grannò, will be the section’s opening film. The films represent 17 countries including Spain, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Mexico and Ukraine.

This...

Seven Veils.Following the critical and commercial success of Exotica (1994)—Atom Egoyan’s erotic thriller about a tax auditor who frequents a Toronto strip club for a particular dancer—the Canadian Opera Company approached the director to adapt Richard Strauss’s Salome, first performed in 1905,for their upcoming season. There were notable similarities between the structures of sexual pleasure in John the Baptist’s decapitation and the nocturnal sleaze of nightclub culture: intemperate gawking by paternal figures, the aesthetics of high-risk environments, and a figurative and literal unclothing. The production emerged at an especially vulnerable time for Toronto sex workers, who were experiencing high rates of violence and targeted homicide. Egoyan’s production was a suitably macabre, postmodern spin on both the Bible story and Oscar Wilde’s one-act tragedy, which inspired Strauss’s opera. The Judean palace was swapped for a viridescent sanatorium on a steeply angled stage, with...

“Twisters” has something big to compete against — and no, I don’t just mean “Twister,” Jan de Bont’s 1996 tornado thriller, which grossed $242 million in the United States and is a movie I adored (I was one of the rare critics who had it on his 10 Best of the Year list). “Twisters,” a stand-alone sequel coming out close to three decades later, will certainly be compared to the original film (to cut to the storm chase: It’s not nearly as good). But it will also, inevitably, be viewed through the scrim of all the real-life tornado footage that’s now readily available to those of us who are couch-potato storm chasers, happy to sit at home watching other people’s close encounters with tornadoes.

This kind of thing was certainly around when “Twister” came out. But there wasn’t nearly as much of it, and it wasn’t as omnipresent.

European giant Beta Film, known for ambitious titles such as “Babylon Berlin” and “The Swarm,” has shared with Variety in exclusivity a first-look picture of 1o-part series “Rise of the Raven,” which it hails as “one of the most epic European TV productions of all time.”

“Rise of the Raven” weighs in as a passion project of Hungarian-born and Canada-based producer Robert Lantos, behind “Sunshine,” “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Barney’s Version,” “Eastern Promises” and “Crimes of the Future.”

A highlight at Beta Film’s showcase this Tuesday at the London TV Screenings, “Rise of the Raven” turns on the extraordinary feat of Hungarian army commander Janos Hunyadi, played by discovery Gellért L. Kádár, who in 1456 won a bloody, brutal Battle of Belgrade against a vast Ottoman force twice the size of his troops who were often farm labourers armed with just slings and patriotic fervor.

Hunyadi largely halted a full Ottoman...

Claire Denis, Leox Carax, Jim Sheridan, Atom Egoyan and Martin Hernandez will be the Masters for the 10th edition of Qumra, the Doha Film Institute’s annual incubator event.

The four directors plus sound designer and editor Hernandez will discuss their careers in individual talks with the Qumra delegates.

This year’s Qumra will run from March 1-6, with the 10th edition a key milestone for a Middle Eastern film event.

“As the Arab world’s first-of-its-kind talent incubator, Qumra has served as the preeminent platform for emerging talents to give their projects a distinct advantage through invaluable networking sessions with leading industry professionals,...

Maple Syrup Massacre is an editorial series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…

It would be disingenuous to suggest that Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster is a horror film.

Psychological thriller is more apt descriptor, though audiences seeking scary set pieces will walk away unsatisfied. Despite this, The Adjuster has a narrative of thriller tropes, including a large number of psychosexual relationships, characters adopting dual roles (or simply role playing) and an ending that encourages audiences to re-evaluate what they have seen.

Egoyan is one of Canada’s most significant contemporary directors, though internationally his work is known principally in art cinema and film festival circles. In the 90s, Egoyan was a symbol of national pride; he, along with David Cronenberg, was essentially the face of English-language Canadian film. His most famous film is the Sarah Polley-starring The Sweet Hereafter,...

Atom Egoyan is a Cairo-born Canadian filmmaker of Armenian descent who broke through in the early '90s with a string of sharp and experimental dramas, including Exotica and his magnum opus, The Sweet Hereafter. He began directing features in the early 1980s as part of the loose movement known as the Toronto New Wave. Some of his strongest early works include the familial dramas Next of Kin and Family Viewing. Egoyan's 21st-century output ranges from the polarizing erotic thriller Chloe to the Holocaust revenge drama Remember. His latest project is the upcoming Seven Veils, a drama starring Amanda Seyfried.

Filmmaker Michael Goorjian set out to create a different kind of film about Armenian nationality when developing “Amerikatsi,” the country’s submission in the international feature category for this year’s Academy Awards. Along with directing, Goorjian also stars as Charlie, an American who repatriates to Armenia after World War II — but ends up in a Soviet prison for simply wearing a tie. The circumstances are absurd and bleak, but Goorjian was intent on finding a light, affirming tone for the story.

“There had been a lot of Armenian films usually focused on the genocide. I just wanted to make something that would be hopeful. But also I wanted to make a film that Armenians could be proud of, but wouldn’t be hard to share — that was enjoyable to watch,” Goorjian shared in a conversation with fellow director Atom Egoyan. “Today there’s so much crazy stuff going on.

Near the climax of Richard Strauss’ opera “Salome,” the title character performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for her stepfather, King Herod. The dance is done as a barter: In exchange, Herod will behead the man Salome loves so that she may kiss his lips. The Dance of the Seven Veils finds Salome swaying and whirling erotically with a set of scarves, landing somewhere between an object of sexual fascination for her onlookers and a lovestruck woman reaching for agency through movement.

“Seven Veils,” written and directed by Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”), follows an opera director who is staging a production of “Salome” and, like the tragic heroine, clashes with a series of men in her quest to recover a sense of control. This slippage between art and life, sincerity and trickery, is key to deriving some sense of meaning from this strange and sultry but ultimately exasperating film,...

Atom Egoyan’s “Seven Veils,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week is built around this year’s Canadian Opera Company production of Richard Strauss’s “Salome,” which Egoyan also directed.

The film repurposes the stage production’s performers, props and sets, but this is far from one of those Fathom Events concert films. It continues Egoyan’s exploration of familiar themes such as semiotics, authorship, trauma, video vs. memory, and the personal vs. the communal.

Egoyan doesn’t play the director here. Rather, Amanda Seyfried stars as theater director Jeanine, who has spent an extended time away from opera and is tasked to remount the Coc production of “Salome” and recreate the vision of her mentor, Charles, who died last year. She has to deal with a difficult primo donno, Johann. Meanwhile, Clea (Rebecca Diddiard), who works in the props department, must create...

Here's the story — in the year 32, John the Baptist was imprisoned for maligning the king's wife; her daughter Salome falls obsessively in love with John, but he refuses to even look at her. One drunken night, the king begs Salome to dance for him. He's supposed to be her father, but he'll give her anything for a lithe, entrancing dance for he and his lecherous friends. Salome's mother makes the request. She will dance for the head of John on a silver platter. This isn't just Biblical; this is art, and it's been represented in essentially every artistic medium throughout the past two millennia. Salome and her dance.

No, here's the story — in 1996, famed filmmaker Atom Egoyan staged a bold adaptation of Richard Strauss' famous opera, Salome, written by Oscar Wilde. Egoyan modernized it with stylish effects and captured the exploitation of a young woman. Meanwhile, the director's masterful film...

Art and life are inextricably entangled in Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils, a wildly ambitious, visually intoxicating reinterpretation of the Richard Strauss opera, Salome, that proves to possess almost as many layers as the Biblical princess’ famous dance routine.

After spending the past two and a half decades struggling to get his groove back following the 1997 success of The Sweet Hereafter, the filmmaker reconnects with his pet themes of alienation and family trauma, taking inspiration from his own revisionist staging of the opera, which he remounted for the Canadian Opera Company earlier this year. Using that production as a leap-off point, Egoyan interweaves a behind-the-scenes narrative involving a young director (Amanda Seyfried) who is challenged to put her own stamp on the oft-interpreted material while exorcising a number of personal demons in the process.

Handed its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival at the very same venue that...

Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s 40-year relationship with the Toronto International Film Festival helped put his movies on the map in Hollywood.

But that impressive trajectory out of Toronto of iconic Egoyan dramas like Next of Kin, Family Viewing, The Adjuster, Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Guest of Honor — often psychodramas about families shattered by death, loss and betrayal, as parents and children grow apart — got off to an inauspicious start in 1982 with an early short film that screened from a sidewalk outside the Uptown Theatre on Yonge Street.

“It was the ultimate act of chutzpah,” Egoyan recalls of joining fellow rag-tag filmmaker Bruce McDonald, both of whom had shorts rejected by Toronto fest programmers that year, when a feature by a close friend did get an invite.

Feeling a prized Toronto fest berth just beyond their fingertips, years before becoming inescapable fixtures on the TIFF red carpet, Egoyan and...

Riverdale's series finale introduces a quad relationship between Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, defying traditional endgame pairings. The finale provides closure by allowing an older Betty to relive her last day of high school and learn about her friends' futures. The quad relationship is a clever choice that avoids disappointing fans and challenges traditional ideas about endings.

In its series finale, Riverdale finds a brilliant way to avoid any endgame criticisms by having the core four characters enter into a quad relationship. Since the inception of Archie Comics, the titular all-American red-head (Kj Apa) finds himself pulled between girl-next-door Betty (Lili Reinhart) and new-to-town Veronica (Camilia Mendes). Given the unending nature of comic books, the series can carry on with this conceit and pair its characters in different configurations with each run. However, The CW's Riverdale has a more definitive end. Even so, the series deftly navigates the Barchie vs.

Atom Egoyan’s “Seven Veils” will have its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday. The Canadian filmmaker of “Exotica,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Chloe” will present his film at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in a special Sept. 8 “Avant-premiere” screening held in partnership with the Canadian Opera Company.

“Seven Veils” stars Amanda Seyfried and was inspired by Egoyan’s recent experience with a revival of his 1996 version of the opera “Salome,” which he directed for the first time in 1996 for the Canadian Opera Company. In the film, Seyfried plays a theater director who is haunted by the past while mounting a version of that opera, the most famous work of her mentor.

Ambur Braid and Michael Kupfer-Radecky, who appeared Egoyan’s recent staging of the opera, will reprise their roles of Salome and John the Baptist in the film. After the Avant-premiere screening on Sept.

TheLifetimeAchievement Award of the twentiethSoundTrack_Cologne 2023goes to Mychael Danna.

Danna is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning film composer who has composed over 80 film scores and is recognized for his blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. He composed the transculturally inspired, 2013 Oscar and Golden Globe winning film score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Danna also composed the scores for Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Ride With the Devil.

Other well-known films Danna has composed music for include Academy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated films such as The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica and Ararat from his longtime collaboration with director Atom Egoyan; also Moneyball and Capote with director Bennett Miller, Monsoon Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Being Julia, Stillwater, The Addams Family 1 and 2, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur and The Song of the Crayfish.

Danna won an Emmy Award for outstanding music composition for the mini-series World Without End.

Exclusive: Douglas Smith (Big Little Lies), Mark O’Brien (Arrival), Rebecca Liddiard (Alias Grace) and Vinessa Antoine have been cast opposite Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout) in Seven Veils, the new feature from filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter).

The project wrapped principal photography in Toronto last week.

Seven Veils follows Jeanine (Seyfried), an earnest theatre director, who has been given the daunting task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away.

Smith and Seyfried previously worked together on HBO series Big Love, playing siblings Ben and Sarah Henrickson.

Pic is written and directed by Egoyan, who also produces alongside Niv Fichman (Enemy), Simone Urdl (The Captive), Fraser Ash (BlackBerry) and Kevin Krikst (BlackBerry).

The project is a...

A blockbuster film tied big records, a legendary actor set a new record, a viewership record was achieved and the Academy celebrated its platinum anniversary in a big way. Billy Crystal hosted the 70th Academy Awards on March 23, 1998, where one film made a “titanic” splash, and the ceremony saw its highest viewership of all time, with more than 55 million people tuning in — a record that stands today not only for the Oscars, but all live awards programs.

It’s a film that people either love or hate (or at least wonder what all the fuss is about), but either way, the huge impact that James Cameron‘s “Titanic” made on the film industry cannot be denied. The most expensive movie ever produced up to that time, many doubted that the romantic tragedy would result in box office gold. However, “Titanic” went on to become the highest grossing movie of all...

Production scheduled to start in Toronto next week.

Atom Egoyan will direct Amanda Seyfried in Seven Veils, which the project’s co-financier XYZ Films will introduce to worldwide buyers at the EFM next week.

Production is scheduled to start in Toronto next week on the feature that sees Seyfried star as an earnest theatre director tasked with remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome, as she struggles with repressed trauma.

Seven Veils reunites XYZ Films with Ipr.Vc and Rhombus Media after their collaboration on the upcoming Berlin world premiere BlackBerry.

The project announcement also dovetails with...

Production scheduled to start in Toronto next week.

Atom Egoyan will direct Amanda Seyfried in Seven Veils, which the project’s co-financier XYZ Films will introduce to worldwide buyers at the EFM next week.

Production is scheduled to start in Toronto next week on the feature that sees Seyfried star as an earnest theatre director tasked with remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome, as she struggles with repressed trauma.

Seven Veils reunites XYZ Films with Ipr.Vc and Rhombus Media after their collaboration on the upcoming Berlin world premiere BlackBerry.

The project announcement also dovetails with...

Amanda Seyfried is reteaming with her Chole director Atom Egoyan on Seven Veils, an opera-themed drama that will begin shooting in Toronto next week.

The Mank and The Dropout star will play Jeanine, an earnest theatre director tasked with remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, an adaptation of the opera Salome from composer Richard Strauss, based on the play by Oscar Wilde. As she reenters the opera world after so many years away, Jeanine is haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past and allows her repressed trauma to color the present.

Rhombus Media (Possessor, Enemy) will produce Seven Veils together with Ego Film Arts in association with Cinetic Media, Ipr.Vc, XYZ Films and the Canadian Opera Company. XYZ Films is selling worldwide rights to the film, introducing the project to buyer at Berlin’s European Film Market February 16. Elevation Pictures will release Seven Veils in Canada.

This review originally ran Sept. 3, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

Filmmaker Sarah Polley has always been a tireless miner of the female headspace, excavating gold out of thoroughly earned feminine wisdom. Relentlessly challenging the rules of a man’s world and putting their own stamp on societal conventions are acts that we came to expect from her women. After all, those were some of the defining traits of Polley’s very own mother, as we intimately got to learn in her masterpiece, “Stories We Tell.”

In that regard, the quietly powerful “Women Talking” — opulently adapted by Polley from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel and world-premiering at the Telluride Film Festival this year — feels like a culmination of Polley’s curiosities as a storyteller.

It also has echoes of some of her secretive, silently aching on-screen parts as an actor in the likes of “The Sweet Hereafter...

Could Sarah Polley join the ranks of Jane Campion, Chloe Zhao and Kathryn Bigelow by becoming only the fourth female filmmaker to win an Oscar for directing? Based on the rapturous reception that “Women Talking” received at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday, it certainly seems possible.

Even if that doesn’t happen, the ambitious film, a drama about a group of women in a tight-knit religious community grappling with a legacy of abuse, has put a stake in the ground as the festival’s first slam dunk best picture candidate. In fact, I think it’s going to be a contender across the board.

In a Telluride lineup that is heavy on documentaries and Cannes titles, Polley’s film is one of only four World Premieres for narrative features. But what a launching pad Telluride is shaping up to be for the film and its director, a critical favorite...

Sarah Polley, at the Telluride Film Festival for the world premiere of Women Talking, her latest film as a director, acknowledged how lucky she was as an actress to have worked with so many female filmmakers. They told her to be “fierce” when they saw that she wanted to work behind the camera.

Women Talking, based on Miriam Toew’s celebrated novel about a group of Mennonite women having to confront sexual assaults committed by men feeding their desires, is a powerhouse exploration of the female imagination.

“This film began with three women talking a lot,” Polley said. She was referring to Dede Gardner as producer through Plan B Entertainment, and Frances McDormand as a cast member and producer via her Hear/Say Productions, and Polley herself.

Polley cited three female directors she’d worked with who helped pave the way for her as a director: Audrey Wells on her 1999 feature Guinevere; Kathryn Bigelow,...

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When Sarah Polley was in her 20s, just starting to direct short films, she got lots of advice from female directors she worked with as an actor, like Kathryn Bigelow, Audrey Wells and Isabel Coixet. “These women grabbed onto me and said, ‘You’re doing it, and here’s how fierce you’re going to have to be,'” Polley said, speaking at her Telluride Film Festival silver medallion tribute Friday night, ahead of the first public screening of her new film, Women Talking. “Kathryn Bigelow said, ‘You have to be like a dog with a bone, and everyone’s going to try to take it away from you.'”

Women Talking, a United Artists film which will also screen at the Toronto International Film Festival next week ahead of opening in theaters Dec. 2, is potent evidence Polley took that message to heart.

Principal photography is underway near Budapest on “Rise of the Raven,” an epic drama series produced by veteran Canadian producer Robert Lantos’ Serendipity Point Films (“Crimes of the Future”) and Beta Film (“Gomorrah”) that marks the most lavish TV production in Hungary’s history.

Adapted from author Bán Mór’s bestselling novels, the 10-episode series tells the story of the Hungarian warrior Janos Hunyadi, who defeated the Ottoman army in 1456 at the Battle of Belgrade, halting its march across Europe.

Lantos, whose producing credits include “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Eastern Promises,” spoke exclusively with Variety about a passion project more than a decade in the making. He was joined by Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director Robert Dornhelm and Hungarian directors Attila Szász and Orsi Nagypal, who joined the conversation fresh off shooting an epic battle sequence outside Budapest.

The Hungarian-born Lantos, who was in Cannes this year with David Cronenberg...

The route that took Oscar-winning “Life of Pi” composer Mychael Danna from the basement of a Toronto church to an office on Hollywood and Vine and all the way to the stage of Zurich Film Festival, where he will receive a career achievement tribute on Sept. 30, kicked off – as such things often do – with an offhand comment.

It was the mid-1980s and Danna was a student of electronic music at the University of Toronto, paying his way through college by playing organ in local churches and by composing ambient pieces for the nearby planetarium. He’d also score plays on campus, mostly for kicks. Sitting in the sound booth one afternoon, and idly chatting with the neighboring lighting technician, Danna stumbled onto a new path. “My friend told me about another guy from campus who wanted to make a film and was looking for a composer,” Danna says. “That is literally how it happened.

The Zurich Film Festival will honor Oscar-winning composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi) with its 2021 Career Achievement Award.

The Canada-born Danna has worked with such directors as Terry Gilliam (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), Joel Schumacher (8Mm), James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted), and Denzel Washington (Antwone Fisher), but is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Ang Lee, for whom he composed scores for The Ice Storm (1997), Ride With the Devil (1999), Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016) and Life of Pi. The latter won him the Oscar for best original score in 2013.

Other notable works from the ...