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Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales has unveiled a fresh raft of deals for Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s family drama The Love That Remains, which world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

The Warsaw-based company has sold the movie to Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Germany (Plaion), Japan (Gaga), Turkey (Filmarti), Czech Republic (Aerofilms), Ex-Yugoslavia (Megacom), Portugal (Alambique), Indonesia (Falcon) and Ukraine (Kyiv Music Film).

These sales follow previously announced deals to the UK (Curzon), North America (Janus) and France (Jour2Fête).

The Love That Remains follows a family as it navigates the parents’ separation, amid conflicted emotions around life-long bonds, faded love and shared life memories.

The drama is Pálmason’s fourth feature after Winter Brothers (2017), A White, White Day (2019) and Denmark-set missionary drama Godland (2022), which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and went on to be Oscar nominated.

The film world premiered in the non-competitive Cannes Premiere section, but clinched...

Over three features set in his native Iceland, Hlynur Pálmason has established a distinctive feel for the power of landscapes and elemental forces to shape human relationships, positioning them in stark relief. A feeling as intimate as isolation can take on epic dimensions under the writer-director’s gaze, notably in his 2022 head-turner Godland, an austerely beautiful study of man vs. nature whose spirituality is pierced by shards of wily humor and Lynchian strangeness. Similar qualities are evident in The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er), albeit on a smaller canvas of domestic breakdown.

Serving as his own Dp — and shooting on 35mm in Academy ratio — Pálmason’s expansive sense of composition remains striking in this drama of a ruptured marriage, which is never less than compelling even at its most frustrating. His untethered imagination generates images that can function as visual metaphors or abstract enigmas. But as the film...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to The Love That Remains, the drama from Iceland’s Hlynur Pálmason that made its debut in the Premieres section of this month’s Cannes festival.

The deal follows Janus’ acquisition two-and-a-half years ago of Palmason’s Godland, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2022.

The Love That Remains stars Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Gudnason as parents navigating their separation over a year in the life of their family. Also appearing is Pálmason’s Icelandic sheepdog Panda, which won the Palm Dog award at Cannes.

The film was produced...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to The Love That Remains, the drama from Iceland’s Hlynur Pálmason that made its debut in the Premieres section of this month’s Cannes festival.

The deal follows Janus’ acquisition two-and-a-half years ago of Palmason’s Godland, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2022.

The Love That Remains stars Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Gudnason as parents navigating their separation over a year in the life of their family. Also appearing is Pálmason’s Icelandic sheepdog Panda, which won the Palm Dog award at Cannes.

The film was produced...

Janus Films has acquired all North American rights to “The Love That Remains,” the new film from “Godland” director Hlynur Pálmason, which world premiered in Cannes Premieres at this month’s Cannes Film Festival. The deal was negotiated by Janus Films and New Europe Film Sales.

The acquisition marks the second collaboration between Janus Films and Pálmason, following “Godland, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and was shortlisted for best international feature film at the 2024 Academy Awards.

“The Love That Remains” centers around a year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. “Through both playful and heartfelt moments, the film portrays the bittersweet essence of faded love and shared memories amidst the changing seasons,” according to a statement.

The film stars Saga Garðarsdóttir (“Woman at War”), Sverrir Gudnason (“Borg Vs. McEnroe”), Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir (“Godland”), Þorgils Hlynsson (“Nest”) and Grímur Hlynsson (“Nest”).

Janus Films commented,...

The general consensus surrounding the 2025 Cannes Film Festival was that the lineup this year proved to be surprisingly muted; with no shortage of exciting names both in front of and behind the camera, the pervading disappointment that began with the premiere of the bloated and repetitive “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” echoed throughout an edition that never quite caught fire, despite the caliber of talent consistently making its way along the Croisette. In any case, no year in Cannes is ever outright bad, and 2025 still saw its share of exciting features that will no doubt come to dominate movie discourse for the rest of the year and beyond.

In compiling a list of 10 movies from the Cannes festival 2025 to keep your eye on, there are a few titles that just barely miss out on the proceedings. Honorable mentions should therefore go to films like Joachim Trier’s competition standout “Sentimental Value,...

“Separated” is a fraught, transitional term in human relationships, prone to conflicting definitions by partners who have long been inclined towards conflict: a prelude to a permanent end for one, a conciliatory pause for the other. In Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s striking, emotionally febrile marital drama ”The Love That Remains,” artist Anna (Saga Gardarsdottir) is ready to be be separate rather than separated from her seafaring husband Magnus (Sverrir Gudnason), while he doggedly maintains a presence in the house she shares with their three children, and occasionally her bed as well. It’s a semblance of domestic stability that she finds ever less stabilizing.

Spiraling into surrealism as ordered lives and minds unravel, Pálmason’s fourth feature is an album of achingly felt, morbidly funny and increasingly haywire scenes from a marriage. Though very different in form and focus from the director’s 2022 stunner “Godland,” the new film shares with its predecessor an airy,...

Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason’s epic 2022 film Godland mapped the crisis of faith experienced by a 19th-century Danish priest on a mission to Iceland. A majestic tapestried shot of a horse skeleton lifts viewers from the difficult physical and emotional terrain of the film’s narrative world into a realm that is more formal, ethereal, and symbolic. Similarly, Pálmason’s fourth feature, The Love That Remains, which premiered at Cannes last weekend, is only in some layers a dark comedy about the varied pains experienced by a rural Icelandic family undergoing a separation of parents Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) and Magnús (Sverrir Guðnason). Horses […]

The post “It’s Not Enough to Only Have Narrative”: Hlynur Pálmason on Cannes 2025 Premiere The Love That Remains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason’s epic 2022 film Godland mapped the crisis of faith experienced by a 19th-century Danish priest on a mission to Iceland. A majestic tapestried shot of a horse skeleton lifts viewers from the difficult physical and emotional terrain of the film’s narrative world into a realm that is more formal, ethereal, and symbolic. Similarly, Pálmason’s fourth feature, The Love That Remains, which premiered at Cannes last weekend, is only in some layers a dark comedy about the varied pains experienced by a rural Icelandic family undergoing a separation of parents Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) and Magnús (Sverrir Guðnason). Horses […]

The post “It’s Not Enough to Only Have Narrative”: Hlynur Pálmason on Cannes 2025 Premiere The Love That Remains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

"Af góðu upphafi vonast góður endir." "A good beginning makes a good ending." –An Icelandic proverb. Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason was quickly become one of my favorite filmmakers working today. Ever since falling hard for Godland as one of the best films of 2022 (my review), I've enjoyed rediscovering his previous films and anticipating his new work. His latest feature film is titled The Love That Remains, premiering at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Premiere section. Much like with Godland, I believe that both of these films deserved to instead be screening in the prestigious Main Competition at the festival. One day he'll win the Palme d'Or, I am certain of this. Pálmason is an extraordinary filmmaker who not only has an exceptional eye for perfectly framing and capturing dramatic scenes on Iceland, but also a master storyteller. His sense of visual storytelling is distinct, and refined, and he...

Before we even see a face, Hlynur Pálmason’s “The Love That Remains” immediately establishes the film’s gentle poetry. A crane plucks the roof off a building with the ease of a child dismantling a doll house, the roof swinging as it exposes the sky. It’s an apt metaphor for the collapse of a home in the wake of the separation that plagues one family, and the possibilities that could be in reach.

Continue reading ‘The Love That Remains’ Review: ‘Godland’ Director Hlynur Pálmason’s Latest Is Intimate, Poetic & A Little Distancing [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Exclusive: REinvent International Sales has made Cannes sales on Jeanette Nordahl’s family drama Beginnings.

The film has sold to Spain (Avalon), Australia (Palace Films), Poland (Nc+), Greece (Weirdwave Videorama Ltd), Baltics (Estin Film), Hungary (Cirko) and Bulgaria (Multivision).

Beginnings stars Trine Dyrholm and David Dencik as Ane and Thomas, a couple on the verge of divorce, when Ane suffers a stroke that forces them to stay together and hide their split from their children.

It debuted in Panorama at Berlin in February. Producers are Eva Jakobsen, Mikkel Jersin and Katrin Pors for Denmark’s Snowglobe Films in co-production with Hobab & Lemming Film Belgium,...

Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason returns to Cannes with his fourth feature, “The Love That Remains.” Following his Oscar-shortlisted “Godland,” many expected Pálmason to go bigger. Instead, he went personal.

“People tend to think you always need to go ‘bigger,’ but I’m not stimulated by that. It would make sense to maybe work in English; there are only 350,000 people in Iceland, which makes this language almost extinct. But I wanted to dive into the moment,” he explains.

“I needed to capture it all before it goes away, before the kids grow up and it’s too late. Life passes you by in the blink of an eye. It goes by so fast.”

Starring Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Guðnason, and Pálmason’s own children, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Þorgils Hlynsson and Grímur Hlynsson, “The Love That Remains” takes a peek at a family that, despite the parents’ split, still cares for each other very much.

Exclusive: Curzon has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Hlynur Palmason’s The Love That Remains.

The film will launch in Cannes Premiere on Sunday, May 18.

The Love That Remains captures the year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Gudnason lead the cast, alongside Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Þorgils Hlynsson, Grímur Hlynsson, Anders Mossling and Ingvar Sigurðsson.

Anton Mani Svansson of Iceland’s Still Vivid and Katrin Pors of Denmark’s Snowglobe produced the film. Co-producers are are Mikkel Jersin and Eva Jakobsen at Snowglobe, Nima Yousefi at Sweden’s Hobab, Didar Domehri...

An award-winning lineup of international auteurs, including Oscar-winner Sebastián Lelio (A Fantastic Woman) and Oscar nominees Lukas Dhont (Close) and Jasmila Zbanić (Quo Vadis, Aida?), will take part in the third Investors Circle at the Cannes film market next month, pitching their next projects to a small group of VIP investors.

The Investors Circle lineup, announced today, also includes art house favorites Kornél Mundruczó (Pieces of a Woman), Marie Kreutzer (Corsage), Jessica Hausner (Little Joe), Hlynur Pálmason (Godland), Marcela Said (Los Perros), Giacomo Abbruzzese (Disco Boy) and Eliza Hittman (Never Rarely Sometimes Always).

The 10 filmmakers will present their upcoming projects to a small group of private investors at the Cannes market, the Marché du Film, on Sunday, May 18.

The Investors Circle will feature 10 curated, never-before-seen feature film projects, presented by their directors and filmmakers in a private, invitation-only event for a select group of VIP investors. The projects, spanning various cinematic styles and languages,...

The Cannes Film Festival has added a fresh round of titles to its 78th edition, including Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love and Saeed Roustaee’s Woman And Child which will play in the main competition. (scroll down for full list)

Ramsay’s dark comedy thriller Die, My Love transposes Ariana Harwicz’s novel about a woman living in the French countryside who develops severe postpartum depression, to Montana and stars Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.

Roustaee’s Woman and Child, is the first film from the Iranian director since his 2022 Cannes Palme d’Or contender Leila’s Brothers.

The contemporary family drama of revenge and forgiveness stars Parinaz Izadyar (Law of Tehran) as a widowed nurse struggling with her rebellious son. Tensions reach a peak during the betrothal ceremony with her new boyfriend, but when a tragic accident occurs, she finds herself confronting feelings of betrayal as she seeks justice.

“Unspoken,” “Genealogy of Violence,” and “Aferrado” have won a trio of top honors at this year’s Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, with each title winning a grand prize in the respective international, national and lab competitions.

Best known for his acting work on Australian film and television, “Unspoken” director Damian Walshe-Howling can now burnish his behind-the-camera bona fides with Clermont-Ferrand’s top international trophy. Set in late-70s Sydney, the film follows a young, Croatian born woman whose life spins out into chaos as Croatian independence protests overtake her adopted hometown.

Led by Quebecois star Marc-André Grondin (“C.R.A.Z.Y.”) and directed by Pier-Philippe Chevigny, the slaughterhouse-set slow-boil “Mercenary” won a special jury prize, while Maha Haj’s Locarno-winner “Upshot” can now add a Clermont-Ferrand audience prize to a long list of honors.

U.K.-based duo Zhang & Knight claimed two prizes for their film “A Bear Remembers,” taking home...

‘You know there’s got to be something better,” sang the iconic Marianne Faithfull. Similarly Göteborg market’s head of TV Drama Vision Cia Edström and Josef Kullengård, head of industry and Nordic Film Market, were determined to bring “good energy and hope” to their 2,000-plus guests – and not only as DJs of the closing Nordic Film Market gig.

Below are takeaways from the 2025 Nordic Film Market and TV Drama Vision, that took place under the motto “Collaborate, Create and Captivate.”

Farewell – Until Next Year

A new record attendance was set this year, according to preliminary figures released by Kullengård. A total 2,368 on-site delegates from 54 countries were accredited, including 780 for TV Drama Vision and 586 for the Nordic Film Market.

In terms of projects, Nordic Film Market showcased 68 feature-length projects and TV Drama Vision 61 series at various stages of production.

Edström said she is very happy with the numbers for the...

One of the finest and most visually sumptuous dramas of recent times is Godland, a movie by Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason that opened in 2022 to rave reviews. It tells the story of Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), a Danish priest who, in the late nineteenth century, is tasked with building a parish church in a remote Icelandic settlement. However, when Lucas' translator drowns in an accident caused by Lucas’ insistence on crossing a swollen river, the priest is left without friends or a way to communicate with the rest of the party. As the church is built, Lucas forms a friendship with Anna (played by Azrael star Vic Carmen Sonne), the daughter of Carl (played by A Royal Affair's star Jacob Lohmann), his host; but it turns out the priest is not quite as moral a man as he seems. The leisurely pace is largely set by Pálmason’s magisterial...

Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason, known for the Oscar-shortlisted film Godland, has finished filming his fourth feature, The Love That Remains. This personal drama set in Eastern Iceland examines a year in the life of a family dealing with parental separation. The film skillfully mixes fun and touching scenes, showing the beauty of Iceland’s changing seasons.

New Europe Film Sales, based in Warsaw, has gained the international sales rights to the film, continuing its successful relationship with Pálmason. The company has handled all of his feature film sales, including “Winter Brothers,” “A White, White Day,” and “Godland.”

“The Love That Remains” has a great Nordic cast, including Saga Garðarsdóttir from “Woman at War” and Sverrir Gudnason from “Borg vs. McEnroe.” They are joined by Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Þorgils Hlynsson, and Grímur Hlynsson, who all acted in Pálmason’s earlier short film “Nest.”

Pálmason serves as both director and photographer, showcasing his artistic vision.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Last year I used this space to speak about the ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza and this year, that genocide is still going on. I spoke about how the filmmakers who were most important were the ones depicting the genocide. Many of those filmmakers have passed away and the reason we’re seeing less and less news from Gaza is because the documentarians disseminating the truth through their cameras have been made as legitimate targets by Israel and the United States. Palestinian filmmakers are still making films however, and many of them are vital to watch and save for the memory they preserve. You can search the phrase “Palestinian Film Archive” on Twitter to find threads and documentation listing all of these.

10. Cuckoo (Tilman Singer)

Tilman Singer...

Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales has boarded Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s upcoming feature The Love That Remains, his latest work after Oscar-shortlisted work Godland.

The sales acquisition sees the Warsaw-based company team once again with Icelandic production company Still Vivid and Denmark’s Snowglobe.

The new feature that was shot in Eastern Iceland under-the-radar and is due to be completed in 2025. According to the official description, the drama “tenderly captures a year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. Through both playful and heartfelt moments, the film portrays the bittersweet essence of faded love and shared memories amidst the changing seasons.

New Europe will commence sales on the movie at the Berlinale’s European Film Market in February. Prior to that, the team behind the film will present first clips to attendees of Göteborg Nordic Film Market at the end of this month.

The...

Göteborg’s prime Nordic Film Market where last year’s Cannes sensations “The Girl with the Needle,” “Armand” and “When the Light Breaks” were first showcased as works in progress, has announced exclusively to Variety its full 2025 program.

Over Jan. 29-31, more than 60 completed films, titles in development and post-production will be showcased to 500-plus industry delegates from 38 countries.

As always, several acclaimed-directors will share the spotlight with promising newcomers, as reflected in the centre-piece 15-title Works in Progress lineup.

Five years after his Cannes selection with “Godland,” Iceland’s festival darling Hlynur Pálmason makes a comeback with “The Love that Remains,” a vignette-driven family drama toplining Sverrir Guðnason and Saga Garðarsdóttir (“Balls”).

A Cannes Directors’ Fortnight habitué, Afghan-born Shahrbanoo Sadat (“The Orphanage”) will bring “No Good Men,” her first romcom, set inside a Kabul newsroom in 2021 pre-Taliban ruled-Afghanistan.

Sweden’s Lisa Langseth (“Pure”) returns to feature length after her...

Naysayers be damned. The mainstream film industry may be on its last legs but the cinematic art form is alive and well. I enjoyed so many films this year I actually have two top-ten lists that are largely interchangeable. If you want to hear my other ten, feel free to check out the end of year review on my podcast The Cinematologists. Following on from last year’s approach, here are my ten for Dn. All ten were released in UK cinemas (or debuted on streaming) in 2024 and are listed here alphabetically.

Honourable mentions: The Delinquents, Sky Peals, The Holdovers, The Settlers, Sometimes I Think About Dying

10. Adam Sandler: Love You | Josh Safdie

The last two Sandler specials for Netflix have been wonderful. I admire his commitment to being silly, and sentimental. In a world as messy as this, there needs to be places for silliness, and there are...

Writer/director Maura Delpero is capturing love in the time of World War II.

Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” which is the official Italian entry for Best International Feature at the 2025 Oscars, is set in 1944 Italy in the eponymous mountain village high up in the Italian Alps. As war looms as a distant but constant threat, the arrival of deserted soldier Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico) disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s (Tommaso Ragno) family forever.

Per the official synopsis, as the “four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the teacher, are instantly drawn to each other leading to an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from tragedy, the family will face its own.”

Roberta Rovelli, Anna Thaler, and Rachele Potrich also star.

“Vermiglio” premiered at 2024 Venice, and was recently nominated in the Best Motion Picture, Non-English Language category at the Golden Globes.

The Chicago International Film Festival is wrapping up its 60th edition by handing out its prizes. In fact, though the New York Film Festival has been around longer (it just wrapped its 62nd festival), Chicago is the longest running fest in North America to give out awards. And as you’d expect from this festival that’s especially focused on international film, its winners have also been standouts at Cannes and Venice.

The Best Film winner, or Gold Hugo, at the Chicago International Film Festival is Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” a World War II drama centered in the Alps that drew praise out of Venice, though received a mixed reception from IndieWire. Italy has named the film its entry for next year’s Best International Feature competition at the Academy Awards. The previous three winners of the Gold Hugo at Chicago are Gabor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Isabella Torre is at Venice with her first feature “Basileia.” The film follows an archaeologist who, while exploring a tomb containing an ancient treasure in Southern Italy’s rugged Aspromonte mountains, unleashes mythical nymphs.

The dark fairytale – which is closing the fest’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, also known as Venice Days – was developed at the Sundance Lab. It is produced by Torre’s partner, director Jonas Carpignano (“A Chiara”) and sold by Luxbox. “Basileia” is an expansion of Torre’s short “Nymphs,” which premiered at Venice Horizons in 2018. The film’s cast comprises Angela Fontana (“Indivisibili”) and Danish-American actor Elliott Crosset Hove (“Godland”).

Below, Torre and Carpignano speak to Variety about venturing into the non-conventional genre space with a tale that mixes mythology and present-day reality.

How did the story of “Basilea” germinate?

Torre: It’s all because of Aspromonte, which is not just a location — it became...

Screen can unveil the first trailer for Isabella Torre’s debut feature Basileia, set to world premiere out of competition as Venice Days’ closing film on September 6.

The Italian fantasy drama follows an archaeologist and his assistants searching for an ancient treasure whose digging unleashes mythological creatures that shake up the lives of the inhabitants of a remote village forever.

Cast includes Godland star Elliott Crosset Hove, Angela Fontana, and Koudous Seihon.

Shot on location in Calabria, Basileia is an adaptation of Torre’s short Nymphs which premiered in Venice Horizons 2018.

The film is produced by Jonas and Paolo Carpignano...

Films directed by women dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori, which has unveiled a lineup full of first works and special events including “Peaches Goes Bananas,” French filmmaker Marie Losier’s tribute to iconic Canadian electropop provocateur Peaches.

Shot over the course of 17 years, “Peaches Goes Bananas” provides an intimate portrait of the former schoolteacher, who during the 1980s moved from Canada to Berlin and became a queer feminist icon, breaking taboos and “transforming her body into art,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.

The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, six of which are first works, within a selection that artistic director Gaia Furrer described in her notes as “rigorous” and “stylistically eclectic.”

Furer underlined that 16 out of the section’s 25 titles are directed by women, a fact she called significant “because many of them...

Feature film projects from Godland filmmaker Hlynur Palmason and Small Body director Laura Samani are among 31 titles that have received a combined €8.8m in the latest session of Council of Europe co-production fund Eurimages.

Iceland’s Palmason received €500,000 for On Land And Sea. Produced by France’s Maneki Films, Denmark’s Snowglobe and Iceland’s Still Vivid, it will shoot this autumn. Set at the turn of the 19th century, the film will follow a family which transforms its house into a raft and goes looking for a new place to live.

Scroll down for the full list or projects...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The slot belonging to the second film of the competition belonged to Magnus von Horn‘s The Girl with the Needle (aka Pigen med nålen) – a Danish-Polish-Swedish co-production in glorious b&w photography. Three feature films in and three Cannes Film Festival showings in a row (2015’s The Here After was a Directors’ Fornight selection and Sweat was selected for the Cannes Label 2020 pandemic edition), thi don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater beauty played well with the late evening showings. Clocking in at the two hour mark, Vic Carmen Sonne toplines here — he was in featured in the Un Certain Regard selected Godland in 2022.…...

Like one of those fiendish knots that tighten the more you squirm, director Magnus von Horn’s Cannes competitor The Girl With the Needle builds to a devastating climax, taut as piano wire.

Danish actress Vic Carmen Sonne (Holiday, Godland) offers an understated but multi-layered performance as Karoline, a vulnerable but resilient seamstress living in post-World War I/early-1920s Copenhagen, who is left high and dry when her wealthy lover (Joachim Fjelstrup) gets her knocked up but won’t marry her. That leaves Karoline with only two options: give herself a bathtub abortion with a knitting needle or have the baby and hand it over to Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a sinister candy-store owner who runs a backstreet adoption agency.

Shot digitally, in black and white and using a claustrophobic 3:2 ratio by rising cinematographer Michal Dymek (A Real Pain, Eo), the film has the haunted, eerily still poise of antique photographs,...

In a pre-feminist age, Karoline is what entirely too many people would call a “fallen woman.” Alone, unemployed and pregnant by a man not her husband, she is acknowledged only to be punished, and invisible for all remaining purposes. Women like Karoline don’t fall of their own accord. They’re dropped, often from a great height, by a ruling patriarchy that doesn’t even care to watch them splatter. That involuntary descent, to not just a grimy gutter but a near-Hadean underworld of human cruelty, is the chief horror in “The Girl With the Needle,” Magnus von Horn’s extraordinary and upsetting film — an adult fairytale abundantly populated with witches and wretches, but where society is revealed as the true monster.

Von Horn’s previous feature “Sweat,” a selection for the scrapped 2020 edition of the Cannes Film Festival, offered a very different study of femininity bending over backwards to meet societal standards.

In the past decade, Swedish-Polish filmmaker Magnus von Horn has become something of a fixture on the French Riviera, with his latest film, “The Girl With the Needle,” the director’s third feature to debut at the Cannes Film Festival and his first to compete for the Palme d’Or.

But the dark historical drama, which is set in post-wwi Copenhagen, marks a departure for the 40-year-old. Von Horn’s previous features — the 2015 Directors’ Fortnight breakout “The Here After” and his 2020 Cannes selection “Sweat” — are stories of loneliness and isolation spun from the fabric of contemporary life. The director’s first foray into period drama, “The Girl With the Needle” uses the past to tell a very modern story that centers on class, choice and the politics of women’s bodies.

Written by von Horn and Line Langebek (“I’ll Come Running”), the film is loosely based on the real-life...

Swedish-Polish director Magnus von Horn’s dark period drama “The Girl With the Needle” will compete for the Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access to a first-look clip from the film.

Written by von Horn and Line Langebek (“I’ll Come Running”), “The Girl With the Needle” is loosely based on the true story of Dagmar Overbye, a Danish woman who established an underground adoption agency in post-World War I Copenhagen to help poor women dealing with unwanted pregnancies.

Starring Trine Dyrholm, Vic Carmen Sonne and Besir Zeciri (“Wildland”), the film follows Karoline (Sonne), a young factory worker who is struggling to survive on the fringes of society. When she finds herself unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she meets Dagmar (Dyrholm), a charismatic shopkeeper who helps poor mothers to find foster homes for their unwanted children.

With nowhere else to turn, Karoline...

Paris-based sales outfit Luxbox has boarded international sales for Isabella Torre’s debut feature Basileia, produced by Jonas Carpignano.

The Italian fantasy drama is set in southern Italy and follows an archaeologist team whose latest dig accidentally unleashes mythical creatures. It is an adaptation of Torre’s debut feature Nymphs which premiered in Venice Horizons 2018.

Godland star Elliott Crosset Hove leads the cast with Angela Fontana, Koudous Seihon, Marco Raco, Ilaria Caffio and Ylenia Romano.

Carpignano produces Basileia through his outfit Stayback Productions while co-producers are Film I Väst, Snowglobe and Rai Cinema.

Torre’s second short Full Moon...

Boutique world sales outfit The Yellow Affair has boarded the Portuguese crime thriller “Irreversible,” produced by prestige outfit Caracol Studios for pubcaster Rtp.

The upcoming six-part TV show was showcased among 10 exclusive titles at this week’s MipDrama at MipTV in Cannes.

Created and helmed by the multi-awarded Bruno Gascon, the thought-provoking series tackles pressing issues such as mental health, illegal adoptions, bullying, homophobia and motherhood. In the title roles are Margarida Vila-Nova, Rafael Morais, and Laura Dutra.

We follow the tormented psychologist Júlia Mendes and inspector Pedro Sousa as they team up to solve a brutal homicide involving a young girl in a coastal town. As they unravel the crime, they battle their own personal demons and strive to keep their lives intact.

In a town where everyone hides something and is willing to do anything to protect their loved ones, the quest for truth may be a costly exercise for Júlia.

Katrin Pors of Denmark’s Snowglobe and Jussi Rantamaki of Finland’s Aamu Film Company are among the 12 producers selected for Ace Leadership Special, the business workshop hosted by the Ace Producers network.

The 2024 edition will take place in Bergen in the Netherlands in June and Mallorca in Spain in September, with online elements over the summer.

Scroll down for the full Ace Leadership 2024 selection

Danish producer Pors produced Hlynur Palmason’s Cannes 2022 title Godland, which became Iceland’s entry for the best international feature award at the 2024 Oscars. Her other credits include Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara, Dagur Kari...

With Winter Brothers, A White, White Day, and last year’s Oscar-shortlisted Godland, Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason has emerged as one of the most interesting, singular filmmakers working today. He’s now announced his fourth feature with On Land and Sea, which will begin production this fall. Cineuropa reports the film will “follow the life of a family which, at the turn of the 19th century, transforms its house into a raft and goes looking for a new place to live.”

Pálmason told us last year, “I really love making things, whether it is a film or a video installation or building a table—just creating things. It works for me to work parallel on a couple of projects, because I found that I like having time with each project, not starting it up and then finishing it. I love thinking about it and writing something and then rewriting it and working on something else,...

Eight independent female-led production companies have come together in France to launch Athena, a collective designed to foster parity in the country’s film and audiovisual industries.

The initiative, fuelled by an investment of €6.3m from French insurance companies Maif and Aréas Assurances, aims to help the producers take on more large-scale projects and expand their companies.

The investment, which is repayable, will be divided among the companies based on their individual business plans and agreed upon with the investors.

The producers are: Didar Domehri of Maneki Stories, Carole Lambert of Windy Productions, Caroline Bonmarchand of Avenue B Productions, Albane de Jourdan...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Tom Scioli is fulfilling a lifelong dream by working on a Godzilla comic series after overcoming initial rejection from Toho. His imaginative art style and inspiration from Jack Kirby make Scioli the ideal artist to tackle the iconic green lizard. Despite his original pitch being rejected for being too weird, Scioli's revamped concept was approved by Toho, making this his biggest project yet.

Godzilla has had a host of comics published by Idw Publishing, and now the big green lizard is getting a new series from acclaimed cartoonist Tom Scioli. The Transformers vs. G.I. Joe artist describes Godzilla as his dream project, a comic that the famed cartoonist has wanted to make his entire life.

Appearing on the Cartoonist Kayfabe YouTube channel co-hosted by Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg, Tom Scioli dropped the bomb that he’s currently hard at work on a Godzilla series for Idw. “I’ve...

[Editor’s note: this story was originally published in January 2024. We updated and recirculated it in advance of the 96th Academy Awards on March 10.]

The Oscars are a cruel, selective beast. With only 10 movies recognized in the Best Picture race, and five entries in every other category, it’s an unfortunate reality that many high quality, deserving films each year will end up with nothing on nomination day.

The 2024 Oscar class is no different, with plenty of cries of snubbery coming out after their January 23 announcement. Most of the discussion has been taken up by the shocking blanks for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig, who missed out on Best Actress and Best Director respectively for their work on “Barbie,” the indisputable film juggernaut of the year. Other major surprises included Charles Melton missing out for his breakout turn in “May December,” and Leonardo DiCaprio getting left out of the Best Actor race for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Other surprises proved of the more pleasant sort, with on-the-bubble contenders making it in like Robbie...

Another big award show took place this weekend (in addition to the SAG Awards), the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which celebrates indie film and TV. One thing about this awards show is that their idea of independent sometimes makes me scratch my head a bit, with HBO’s big-budget The Last of Us nominated a whole bunch in the TV category, along with Netflix’s Beef and several other streaming shows, which I’m not sure one could call independent. For films, there’s a $30 million budget cap. For TV, I’m honestly not sure what the benchmark is because Last of Us was notoriously an expensive show to shoot, costing at least $100 million.

Indeed, The Last of Us won some key awards on the TV side, winning Best Supporting Performance (for Nick Offerman) and Best Breakthrough Performance (for Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Over on the film side, American Fiction and...

Gold Derby is backstage at the 39th Annual Indie Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica, CA on Sunday, February 25, hosted by comedian, actress and “SNL” alumnus Aidy Bryant. We’ll bring you all of the up-to-date details on the presenters, nominees and winners. (See the complete winners list here.) Read on for the 2024 Spirits live blog.

The kudofest is streaming live on IMDb’s YouTube Channel as well as Film Independent’s YouTube and Twitter accounts starting at 2 p.m. Pst/5 p.m. Est.

On the film side, the nominations were dominated by “American Fiction,” “Past Lives” and “May December,” which picked up five nods apiece. Those three films are up for Best Feature along with “All of Us Strangers,” “Passages” and “We Grown Now.” Since 2012, Film Independent and the Spirits have forecast 7 of 12 Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards, including “The Artist” (2012), “12 Years a Slave...

The 39th Independent Spirit Awards will stream live on Film Independent and IMDb’s YouTube channels on Sunday, February 25. Scroll down to see our official odds in all 12 film categories (with our predicted winners highlighted in gold) and be sure to make or update your own predictions while there’s still time.

Heading into the ceremony, which will be hosted by comic actress Aidy Bryant, “American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” stand as the year’s nominations leaders with five apiece. They will all face off in the top category of Best Picture, along with “Passages” (four total bids), “All of Us Strangers” (three), and “We Grown Now” (three).

Last year’s Spirit Awards previewed the Oscars success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which left both ceremonies with seven wins including Best Picture. Over the years, only eight recipients of the academy’s highest honor have first clinched the corresponding Spirit Award,...