Notizie

The 71st edition of Australia’s Sydney Film Festival (Sff) closed on Sunday June 16 amid a wave of optimisim with a wealth of prizes, a likely rise in ticket sales, and an influx of young cinemagoers.

Ticket sales were estimated to be more than 10% up on last year, making 2024 the second biggest year on record after 2019.

“It’s been quite phenomenal and we feel very optimistic about the future,” said festival director Nashen Moodley. “We can’t tell with precision, but judging by which films sold, the younger demographic is increasing.”

Paola Cortellesi’s post-Second World War Italian melodrama There’s Still Tomorrow,...

Sony Cine published an educational video showcasing the Venice to Rialto transformation made in Top Gun: Maverick. The demonstration is shown by Tgm’s 1st AC Dan Ming. Dan tips us on some Rialto tricks on how to utilize the system for cars and jets (the ‘Top Gun Mode’). Check it out below.

From Venice to Rialto – The ’ Top Gun Mode’. Source: Sony Tgm: The perfect reference for Rialto utilization

It’s not a secret that one of the most bonanzas in Top Gun: Maverick is the cockpit shots. Although the film has a decent amount of VFX shots, these ‘true’ cockpit shots injected a huge amount of realism which Tom Cruise is so proud about. That helped the movie to take IMAX to new heights as the six Venice cameras implemented inside the fighter jet cockpit are IMAX Approved/Certified. Furthermore, Tom Cruise taught the actors how to operate...

UK and Ireland, Germany, Italy, the Middle East and Central Eastern Europe have all sold.

UK and LA-based sales outfit Cornerstone has closed multiple deals for Scott Walker’s The Tank, including Shudder for the UK and Ireland, and a multi-territory deal with Spi International.

Spi International has taken Central Eastern Europe, Benelux and Israel.

Additional deals include Square One (Germany), Blue Swan (Italy), Arna Media, Front Row (Middle East), Nos Lusomundo (Portugal), Sf Studios (Scandinavia), Praesens (Switzerland), Falcon (Indonesia), Zazie (Japan), M Pictures (Thailand), Filmfinity (South Africa) and Terry Steiner (airlines).

The film is currently on release in the US.

“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” (Warner Bros. Discovery) is #1 on the historically weak Super Bowl weekend. With distributors shying away from top new releases, and avoiding next week’s debut of “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania” (Disney), the 51 million total for all films should be the low point for 2023.

It’s the first weekend this year to fall below the same date in 2022 (54 million). The year has been much improved so far, and momentum should return next weekend with the new Marvel film on a holiday.

The third time out for the male stripper franchise, again with Channing Tatum in the title role and with the return of original director Steven Soderbergh, grossed 8.2 million. Like last month’s “House Party,” this was a theatrical debut of a title initially anticipated for HBO Max. It opened in 1,500 theaters in top locations — smaller than a wide release, but enough to capture 80 percent-90 percent of its potential.

Welcome to the weird world of theatrical movies, the weekly scramble to find a formula that fills seats. “Knock at the Cabin” returned Universal to #1 for the first time since October, despite several big hits including “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “M3GAN.”

“80 for Brady” closely followed, with most theaters (with Paramount’s encouragement) capping prices all day to matinee cost. It grossed 12.5 million, significantly above expectations, to take second place. After seven weeks at the top, “Avatar: The Way of Water” dropped to #3.

That meant three films over 10 million and its the first time that’s happened on this weekend since 2017. (This February weekend usually faces Super Bowl competition, which we’ll see next week.) In 2017, the #1 film was another M. Night Shylamalan title, “Split.” It also opened to 14 million; with today’s higher ticket prices, it would be around 17 million.

The industry hoped for a bigger...

October promises to be the best month for box office since theaters reopened. After this weekend, it can’t come quickly enough. The disappointment of “Dear Evan Hansen,” and the absence of any other new wide releases, contributed to a $39 million weekend, the lowest domestic take in four months and 41 percent of the same weekend in 2019. (For context: That particular weekend was the weakest for September-December.)

With the opening days of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” still included in our four-week rolling average of 2021, it falls to 61 percent compared to 2019. October should be better — or to be more precise, it needs to be considerably better. The lack of prime new films since the latest Marvel release is the main alibi for the overall weakness of September, but that changes next week.

“Shang-Chi” remains #1 in its fourth week, the first title to hold that claim since “Tenet.” It...

Despite school holidays, last weekend proved relatively quiet at the movies, with cinemas still shut in Sydney and other parts of the country.

Theatres will remain closed in Australia’s largest city and its surrounds, including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour, until at least July 9.

Capacity restrictions remain in place and masks are compulsory in cinemas in the rest of Nsw, as well as several other states.

Cinemas in Western Australia’s Perth and Peel, as well as Darwin and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, were also closed for part of the weekend, reopening on Saturday. Lockdown restrictions in parts of regional Queensland ended on Friday, followed by Brisbane on Saturday evening.

As such, the top 20 titles tallied just $6.8 million, down 25 per cent on the previous, according to Numero.

However, exhibitors outside of Sydney have high hopes for this weekend, with the latest instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,...

First things first. At $70 million for its first weekend, “F9” (Universal) showed a terrific start. Not only is it the best opening for any film in 18 months, it beat “A Quiet Place Part II” (Paramount) by almost 50 percent for the top gross since the pandemic. And John Krasinski’s very impressive performer opened on a holiday weekend.

The total was ahead of the usually conservative projections. Though it did fall short of the previous two main series entries, even under normal conditions this might not have been seen as a horrific drop.

This is all part of a bigger picture. But two issues remain. First, is this total part of a steady improvement or is $70 million the new $100 million? Second, even if this established sequel release pulled this off, will all of them?

And that doesn’t include two other critical concerns. Is it possible for original titles to accomplish this,...

Cinemas should have scored a significant boost last weekend, with two major releases in the way of Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon and Roadshow’s Chaos Walking. Yet exhibitors report softer starts for both titles than they hoped for.

Directed by Carlos López Estrada and Don Hall, Raya topped the box office earning $1.5 million from 379 screens.

That’s a reasonable result for the Covid-era, but an animated Disney title would typically expect to open on much more. By way of comparison, Universal’s Croods: A New Age opened on $6.5 million across the Boxing Day weekend – that’s during Covid.

In the US, where New York’s cinemas recently reopened, Raya debuted theatrically on a similarly disappointing $US8.6 million.

It’s hard to know how much Raya‘s box office was impacted by the film’s simultaneously global release on Disney+; in Australia it’s priced at $34.99.

Set in a fantasy world of Kumandra,...

Japan’s highest grossing feature film of all time, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train, is also proving a hit with Australian audiences.

Released via Madman Entertainment, the anime topped the box office with a $1.9 million opening from 201 screens over the weekend; a whopping average of $9,270.

A follow-up to the 2019 TV series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, based on Koyoharu Gotoge’s comic, the story follows Tanjiro Kamado’s journey as a demon slayer after his family is brutally murdered and his sister is turned into a demon.

Released in Japan in October last year, the film grossed more than ¥37.8 billion, or $USD362 million.

The Australian release includes screenings in IMAX and 4Dx formats. In Japan, the film smashed IMAX records, and its international success has helped boost numbers locally.

“The movie’s many fight sequences look fantastic on the giant screen and we’re very pleased with numbers we’re seeing.

Kerry-born Jessie Buckey won two awards, for Wild Rose and Chernobyl.

Martin Scorsese presented the top awards at the Irish Film and Television Academy awards, which were held virtually for the first time in two years last night (October 18).

Ordinary Love, directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn and starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, won the best film 2020 award. Lance Daly’s period thriller Black ’47 won the 2019 version.

The virtual awards were broadcast on national TV channel Virgin Media One, with Scorsese telling the audience: “It appears to me that we are all having to reinvent cinema now,...

Director Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto takes the stage play Trade by Mark O’ Halloran (who writes the screenplay here too) and reworks it into a feature, with equally insightful and emotive results. The title translates in english as ‘exchange’, and in this case that definition takes on multiple meanings.

Rialto picks up with 46-year-old dockyard worker Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), who is married with kids and living comfortably but he is secretly gay, and the shame he feels, not to mention the increasingly changing direction of his life, all begin to consume him. However, in teenage sex worker Jay (Tom Glynn Carney) he finds some kind of connection but with potentially further devastating consequences.

Colm’s self-destructive decisions, spiralling addictions to alcohol, desperate clinging to his paid sex with Jay, increasing frictions at home and tough upbringing, all amount to a compelling but shattering, and sometimes harrowing, portrait of a troubled soul.

The restrictions come at a deeply unfortunate time for cinema owners and distributors.

All of Ireland’s cinemas have closed for at least three weeks as new government Covid-19 regulations came into force today (October 7).

The country moved into phase three of its five-phase Living With Covid-19 plan at midnight. This remains in place for the next three weeks and means no organised indoor events are permitted to take place, while museums, galleries and other cultural attractions must close.

Dublin and the northern county of Donegal have already been subject to local phase three restrictions for the past fortnight.

Cinemas in Northern Ireland,...

We were big fans of Peter Mackie Burns’ preceding feature Daphne, and so were naturally excited to see his follow-up in Rialto, and we were not disappointed, as an intense drama that brings out two fantastic performances from lead actors Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Tom Glynn-Carney. To celebrate the film’s release we spoke to the director himself, and Glynn-Carney, via Zoom.

The pair discuss working with the the other Tom, and Burns goes on to talk about his happiness for Emily Beecham, who played the title role in his previous film, after her success at Cannes last year. The director also tells us what attracts him to character studies of this nature, while Glynn-Carney talks about his method getting into the character’s head, and also comments on his experience shooting with Christopher Nolan when the pair collaborated on Dunkirk.

Watch the full interview with both Peter Mackie Burns and Tom Glynn-Carney here:

Synopsis

Colm,...

Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” ruled the U.K. and Ireland box office for the fifth consecutive weekend, collecting £648,517 from 569 locations, according to final figures from Comscore.

The Warner Bros. release has a running total of £14,995,041 from the territory.

Shear Entertainment’s young adult romance “After We Collided” continued its robust performance, declining a marginal 14% to record £514,020 from 489 sites, for a total of £2,563,372.

Warner Bros.’ “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” starring Keanu Reeves, took £216,790 from 559 sites for a total of £834,981.

A pair of animation titles displayed resilience with a surge in numbers. Disney’s “Onward” registered a 48% increase to collect £126,355 from 426 locations. The title now has £7,308,920 from the territory. Meanwhile, Vertigo U.K.’s “100% Wolf” surged 51% to collect £89,634 from 433 sites, and now has a total of £1,281,535.

New entrant, Munro Film’s “Schemers,” debuted in tenth position with £34,474 from 208 locations.

The upcoming Thursday will see the release of Chinese fantasy...

"You judge me, and you don't even know me!" Break Out Pictures has released an official trailer for an indie Irish drama titled Rialto, which originally premiered at last year's Venice Film Festival. It also played at the Göteborg Festival and Galway Film Fleadh this year. After the death of his father, a destructive figure, Colm's emotional life cracks open, and his downward spiral continues when he is made redundant. Drinking heavily and unable to confide in his wife, Colm finds himself drawn to Jay, a 19 year-old who dabbles in prostitution. Their sexual encounters and tentative friendship become Colm's only solace from the pressures he feels -- but this recklessness puts his family-life at risk. Starring Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Glynn-Carney, & Sophie Jo Wasson. This looks like a very emotional, and heartbreaking story about our struggles with intimacy in life. This is a really beautiful trailer, quite alluring with the music.

Best film nominees separated into 2019 and 2020 categories.

Tom Sullivan’s Great Famine drama Arracht and Paddy Breathnach’s homelessness story Rosie lead the film nominations at the 2020 Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) awards.

Arracht picked up 11 nominations from 15 feature film categories; with Rosie scoring nine.

Full IFTA 2020 nominations below

IFTA is finalising plans for a virtual 2020 awards ceremony in September; there will be no physical IFTA awards ceremony until April 2021. This year’s best film nominees have been split into two categories: five titles are nominated for best film 2019 and a further five have been nominated for best film...

The webinar was called ’What We Do Today Will Create Our Tomorrow: What is Your Development Strategy?’

“Build your production company into a brand”, was one of the key messages to emerge from an online conversation between key figures in the UK and Irish film and TV industries as part of this year’s Fleadh Forum series at the Galway Film Fleadh this week.

“We’re looking for strong films from an eclectic, diverse range of filmmakers,” said Ben Coren, head of development at the UK’s Film 4, in the webinar called ‘What We Do Today Will Create Our...

Sales agent Le Bureau Films has added to its lineup British writer and director Aleem Khan’s “Afterlove,” which is one of only five films selected to receive the Cannes Critics’ Week Label. Variety has been given an exclusive image to the film.

“Afterlove,” set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, centers on Mary Hussain, who suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just 21 miles across the English Channel in Calais.

The cast includes Joanna Scanlan, Nathalie Richard, Talid Ariss and Nasser Memarzia. The director of photography is Alexander Dynan, whose credits include Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed.” Matthieu de Braconier is producing, and Gabrielle Dumon and Gerardine O’Flynn are co-producing. The film was supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.

Khan, who was a BAFTA nominee for the short film “Three Brothers,...

European Film Promotion’s networking program Producers on the Move will take place as a digital edition on its original dates – from May 11 to 15 – and independently of the Cannes Film Festival, which has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Twenty up-and-coming European producers will meet online and present their projects in speed meetings and roundtable sessions. A case study as well as talks with experts will round out the program.

Efp, a network of 37 European film promotion institutions, has selected the following producers from 20 different European countries: Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria), Danijel Pek (Croatia), Mikuláš Novotny (Czech Republic), Monica Hellström (Denmark), Elina Litvinova (Estonia), Aleksi Hyvärinen (Finland), Andrea Queralt (France), Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer (Germany), John Wallace (Ireland), Giovanni Pompili (Italy), Yll Uka (Kosovo), Marija Razgutė (Lithuania), Alan R. Milligan (Norway), Marta Habior (Poland), Mário Patrocínio (Portugal), Marina Gumzi (Slovenia), Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo (Spain), Marie Kjellson (Sweden), Flavia Zanon (Switzerland) and Rupert Lloyd (U.

Julia Garner in ‘The Assistant.’

In a further sign of consolidation among independent distributors, Rialto Distribution has closed its Sydney office while continuing to book films into Australian cinemas via its Auckland headquarters.

However the end of the company’s presence in Oz after more than 20 years does not signal any reduction in acquisitions for multiple-platform release.

“We have gained much-needed economies of scale with Kevin Gordon, our Australia/New Zealand sales and distribution manager, selling in directly,” CEO Kelly Rogers tells If.

“This is going very well and Australian exhibitors are receptive to our strong line-up. We expect to release approximately 30 titles in 2020, mainly digital titles and select strong theatrical films.”

Former Myriad Pictures and Icon Film Distribution marketing executive Lisa Garner, who joined Rialto as Sydney-based head of film in February 2018, expects to soon announce her next venture.

Currently Rialto has a hit with Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson...

In today’s film news roundup, Liev Schreiber and retired pro footballer Vernon Davis score roles, Jason Blum will speak at his alma mater, Irish drama “Rialto” finds a U.S. distributor and “1917” hits a box office milestone.

Castings

Liev Schreiber will portray tennis coach Paul Cohen in Warner Bros.’ “King Richard” opposite Will Smith.

Reinaldo Marcus Green is directing the drama, written by Zach Baylin, about Richard Williams helping daughters Venus and Serena Williams to become tennis stars. Smith plays Richard Williams and his daughters will be portrayed by Saniyya Sidney as Venus and Demi Singleton as Serena. Cohen also worked with Pete Sampras and John McEnroe.

Jon Bernthal and Aunjanue Ellis also star in “King Richard,” produced by Smith via his Westbrook Studios banner along with Tim White and Trevor White through Starthrower Entertainment. Warner Bros. has set the film for a Nov. 25 release.

Schreiber recently completed...

Under the new partnership, the duo has already acquired 15 titles for release in Anz this year.

Vertigo Releasing and Rialto Distribution have joined forces on a new distribution venture for Australia and New Zealand.

The partnership has been forged to give the two independent companies more clout in the international market and will see London-based Vertigo co-acquire and co-release films in Anz with Australasia’s Rialto. Vertigo’s UK releasing strategy will remain separate.

Under the new partnership, the duo has already acquired 15 titles for release in Anz this year including Harvey Weinstein-inspired drama The Assistant from Us director Kitty Green,...

‘Midway.’

Roland Emmerich’s last highly profitable blockbuster – 2012 in 2009 – must seem like a distant memory for the German-born director as his latest effort, Midway, had an inglorious debut in Australian cinemas last weekend.

By contrast, Terrence Malick has only ever had one break-out hit, The Thin Red Line in 1998, and his new film A Hidden Life is another dud, following Song to Song and Knight of Cups.

The weekend’s other new wide release, Sony Pictures’ second reboot of Japanese horror franchise The Grudge, flopped, mirroring its Us fate. Among the specialised titles, Rialto’s The Peanut Butter Falcon and Icon’s Seberg had minimal impact.

The top 20 titles clocked $13.5 million, 26 per cent down on the previous frame, according to Numero.

Sony’s juggernaut Bad Boys for Life reigned again, nabbing $2.1 million in its third outing, hoisting the total to $14.6 million. The cop caper starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence,...

Goteborg Film Festival, the biggest showcase of local and international movies in the Nordics, will kick off its 43rd edition with Maria Bäck’s “”Psychosis,” and will close with actor-turned-director Mårten Klingberg’s “My Father Mary Anne.”

Both timely Swedish dramas dealing with trauma post-sexual abuse, and the experience of a transgender priest, respectively, “Psychosis” and “My Father Mary Anne” will have their world premiere at Goteborg.

Stellan Skarsgård, who just won a Golden Globe for his performance in the hit HBO series “Tchernobyl,” will receive the prestigious Nordic Honorary Dragon Award and will be honored with a retrospective of some of the greatest films of his career. As part of the tribute, the estival will also host the Nordic premiere of “The Painted Bird” which was recently shortlisted for the international feature film category at the Oscars. During the festival, Skarsgård will also having a masterclass.

In addition to opening the festival,...

The disttributor was launched by former Element Pictures executives.

Irish distributor Break Out Pictures, launched earlier this year by former Element Pictures execs Nell Roddy and Robert McCann Finn, has acquired a hat trick of titles for release in 2020.

It has bought UK and Irish rights to Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto from The Bureau Sales. The Ireland-uk co-production premiered at Venice Horizons and marks Burns’ second feature, following Daphne in 2017.

It stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as a husband and father who becomes infatuated with a younger man (2017 Screen Star of Tomorrow Tom Glynn-Carney) at a time of personal crisis.

Break Out...

Deep into Rialto, Peter Mackie Burns’ sophomore feature, shy Dubliner Colm (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor) tosses something of a tagline: “We all hate our dads, it’s just natural.” Only a month has passed since Colm lost his abusive and alcoholic father, less than a week since he was fired from a low-level managerial job in Dublin’s docks that has essentially defined him for the past thirty years. It’s a statement the 46-year-old husband and father of two utters in a drunken haze, and it also singlehandedly crystallizes the whole film’s gestalt. A devastating, constrained chronicle of a middle-life crisis, Rialto homes in on a man burrowed in self-hatred and guilt, and follows him after a chance encounter forces those feelings to come to the surface with earth-shattering force.

Following up on his 2017 debut feature Daphne, Mackie Burns teams up with Irish playwright and screenwriter Mark O’Halloran–already...

‘Promised.’

Most of the new releases in Australian cinemas last weekend had bombed or under-performed in the Us weeks or months ago, so their fates were probably sealed.

Splatter comedy Ready or Not, Ron Howard’s homage to the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti, English musical dramedy Blinded by the Light and indie Us drama After the Wedding were among the Halloween strugglers.

The top-grossing title at the Lavazza Italian Film Festival, writer-director Nick Conidi’s Promised opened on 45 screens via Umbrella Entertainment. The weekend take for the 1950s-set drama starring Tina Arena, Paul Mercurio, Antoniette Iesue, Daniel Berini and Mirko Grillini was a modest $57,000 but the total including festival screenings is a decent $198,000.

The top 20 titles generated $11.3 million, down 21 per cent on the prior frame according to Numero, getting some uplift from Indian imports Bigil and, to a lesser extent, Housefull 4.

Facing minimal competition, Todd Phillips’ Joker led the field for the fourth consecutive weekend,...

AMC’s Acorn Media Enterprises and Irish pubcaster Rte have teamed up on “The South Westerlies,” an Irish-produced original comedy-drama featuring an ensemble cast led by Orla Brady (“Mistresses”). Zdf Enterprises and Norway’s TV2 are also on board the series, which has backing from Screen Ireland.

Dublin-based Deadpan Pictures is producing. It will bow on Rte in 2020. In the U.S. it will premiere on the Acorn TV streaming service, which recently surpassed the 1-million subscriber mark in North America.

Eileen Walsh (“Catastrophe”), Ger Ryan (“Rialto”), Sam Barrett, Lily Nichol (“Handymen”), Steve Wall (“Vikings”) and Patrick Bergin (“Patriot Games”) will also star in “The South Westerlies.”

Brady will play Kate, an environmental consultant for a Norwegian energy firm. Before landing a lucrative promotion, she has to go undercover among protesters and quash objections to a wind farm project near their small coastal town.

Filming is underway. The shoot will...

In “Rialto,” the sensitive if constrained sophomore feature from Peter Mackie Burns (“Daphne”), diffident Dubliner Colm (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor) apologizes a lot. When he bumps into someone. When someone bumps into him. When he answers the phone or forgets a household task or mishears his wife. All those little excuses are partly the accurate observation of an authentically Irish verbal tic, as detailed in Mark O’Halloran’s cleverly colloquial screenplay, based on his own stage play. But there is also the sense that Colm’s frequent exhalations of apology are flak cannon fire, sent up into the ether to disguise and distract from an enormous, deeply repressed guilt that there’s no “sorry” large enough to cover. “Rialto” pivots claustrophobically around a crisis moment that drives Colm to act on the very desires he has perhaps been apologizing for all along.

It is a comfortably-off family man, working in a...

Not even three weeks after losing his domineering father, a married Dubliner with two kids also loses his job. This story of real-life misery could play out in many different ways, but few would go in the specific direction of Peter Mackie Burns' Rialto, or would tell the story quite as delicately. The protagonist, who grew up in the eponymous Dublin neighborhood, fills the void caused by these unforeseen losses with a desire to explore his repressed sexual proclivities.

The feature is based on the play Trade, from Irish playwright and screenwriter Mark O'Halloran, which won the 2011 ...

Not even three weeks after losing his domineering father, a married Dubliner with two kids also loses his job. This story of real-life misery could play out in many different ways, but few would go in the specific direction of Peter Mackie Burns' Rialto, or would tell the story quite as delicately. The protagonist, who grew up in the eponymous Dublin neighborhood, fills the void caused by these unforeseen losses with a desire to explore his repressed sexual proclivities.

The feature is based on the play Trade, from Irish playwright and screenwriter Mark O'Halloran, which won the 2011 ...

Cowtown’s debut completed film is Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto, which premiered at Venice’s Horizons.

New projects directed by Rebecca Daly and Malgorzata Szumwoska head the development slate of Alan Maher and John Wallace’s Dublin-based Cowtown Pictures.

Daly will direct A High Place, a drama about a family in upstate New York for which Cowtown is looking for Us partners, while Szumwoska’s A Kind Of Longing has secured backing from Screen Ireland. It is a co-production with Mariusz Wlodarski from Poland’s Lava Films.

Additionally Bankside has acquired sales rights to Cowtown’s L.O.L.A,...

In what is normally down time among specialized films, a few bright spots show that even off weeks can have their highlights. With three limited openings this week, the best came from the three-city debut of “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” (Greenwich), another documentary with a musician tie that tapped into the same audience that appreciated “Echo in the Canyon.” Meanwhile, “Ms. Purple” (Oscilloscope) had a strong single theater in Los Angeles to start. And a revival, the Alain Delon-starring 1970s “Mr. Klein” (Rialto) has one of the best classic reissue results of the year.

Meantime “The Peanut Butter Falcon” (Roadside Attractions) and “Brittany Runs a Marathon” (Amazon) both continue to find interest, rare this year among narrative features. With so many similar showing at festivals right now, this is a positive sign in a troubled market.

Opening

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich) – Metacritic: 76; Festivals include: Tribeca,...

The film follows award-winning French nature photographer and explorer Vincent Munier.

The Bureau Sales has acquired international rights to documentary The Velvet Queen following award-winning French nature photographer and explorer Vincent Munier as he attempts to track down the elusive snow leopard in Asia.

Paris-based Paprika Films is producing with Munier’s publishing and production house Kobalann in co-production with Le Bureau – the French production arm of Bertrand Faivre’s Paris and London-based film company. Haut et Court has pre-bought French rights.

French-Swiss biologist and filmmaker Marie Amiguet, whose credits include The Valley Of The Wolves, has signed to direct.

I enjoy a good horror anthology series and we’ve got a trailer for a new one coming called Nightmare Cinema, which looks like it will be filled with a lot of creepy fun! This is something that I know I’ll enjoy watching!

The five segments featured in Nightmare Cinema were directed by Mick Garris, Joe Dante, David Slade (30 Days of Night), Ryuhei Kitamura and Alejandro Brugues (Juan of the Dead).

Here’s the synopsis that was shared for it:

A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings. By the time our patrons realize the truth, escape is no longer an option. For once the ticket is torn, their fate is sealed at Nightmare Cinema.

Project comes from The Breaker Upperers producers Ainsley Gardiner and Georgina Conder.

Howards End and Legends Of The Fall actress Julia Ormond is leading the cast of Jake Mahaffy’s upcoming thriller Reunion.

The project has begun principal photography in New Zealand’s capital Wellington. Ormond will star with Emma Draper, Cohen Holloway and John Bach.

The film tells the story of a mother and daughter packing up the old family home for sale, when tensions become supernatural the daughter must confront the trauma of her lineage.

Producers are Ainsley Gardiner and Georgina Conder, whose credits include The Breaker Upperers,...

Hugot replaces the outgoing Rym Hachimi.

Clementine Hugot has been appointed as head of sales at The Bureau Sales, the sales arm of Paris and London-based production outfit The Bureau, handling all of its productions.

She replaces Rym Hachimi, who is leaving after 10 years at the company to forge a career in production. Both Hugot and Hachimi will attend the Efm.

Hugot has worked at a wide variety of sales companies, beginning her career at Wide Management, before moving to Bac Films, and then most recently Indie Sales. She was named as one of Screen International’s Future Leaders for...

Madrid-based Latido Films has closed high-profile deals on two flagship titles, licensing Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Toronto-San Sebastian player “The Realm” to China’s Heyday, Rialto for Australia and the U.K.’s Signature Entertainment, as well as selling Spain’s Oscar submission “Champions” to Japan’s Synca Creations.

The sales mark part of a score or more new territory deals confirmed or near to fruition as Latido hits this week’s American Film Market, having already announced near 3o territory sales off Cannes, Venice, Toronto and San Sebastian.

The Synca Creations accord also takes in “Ni Distintos, ni diferentes: Campeones,” Alvaro Longoria’s docu-feature profile of the special needs actors starring in “Champions.”

In further sales deals, playing off a strong line in first features from standout women directors, Latido has licensed Colombian Laura Mora’s revenge thriller “Killing Jesus” to France’s Bobine Films and Germany’s Waystone Film.

October 2018 is still running at a record pace. As of October 24, the month was pacing +49% higher than last year, not to mention +7.8% ahead of 2014, the largest October on record, though that's about to change by the end of this weekend. That said, it won't be the weekend's new releases doing the heavy lifting, but the weekend's holdovers, starting with last weekend's chart-topping horror hit Halloween. The weekend's new wide releases will mostly debut in the low-to-mid single digit millions with Lionsgate's Hunter Killer expected to top the week's crop of new releases. Looking to repeat at #1 is Universal's release of Blumhouse and Miramax's Halloween, which delivered a smashing $76.2 million opening last weekend, the second largest October opening ever. When it comes to its sophomore session we looked at other R-rated horror hits such as It, The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity 3 and The Nun, which dropped, on average, -57.45% in their second weekends.