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Documentaries often seek to uncover a single truth, but Zackary Drucker’s Enigma presents something far more potent: a story about two truths, two lives, and two radically different strategies for survival. The film introduces us to a pair of women whose paths allegedly began at the same revolutionary Parisian cabaret, Le Carrousel, in the 1950s.

On one side stands April Ashley, the pioneering model who lived a life of radical transparency, becoming a celebrated activist for trans rights. On the other is Amanda Lear, the glamorous disco queen and artist’s muse, a woman who has spent a lifetime wrapping her origins in a thick cloak of mystery. Enigma does not just recount their histories; it places them in direct dialogue, exploring the profound power each woman found in controlling her own narrative in a world that sought to write it for them.

The Price of an Open Book...

The Hollywood Insider Enigma Documentary by HBO & Max

With stunning archival footage and intimate storytelling, ‘Enigma’ reclaims the legacy of April Ashley, Amanda Lear, and the underground icons of Le Carrousel. Zackary Drucker’s 2025 documentary 'Enigma', which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on Max, is a skillfully composed portrait of two pivotal figures in trans history: Amanda Lear and April Ashley. More than just a biographical recounting, 'Enigma' is a deep and emotional journey of identity, survival, and the definitions of truth in the public eye. Through these two icons, whose life trajectories both intersect and diverge dramatically, Drucker unearths the complex realities for these individuals who paved the way for future generations. Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision,...

Meet Amanda Lear. She’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma swathed in a designer ensemble and ready for her close-up. In HBO Max’s Enigma, she shares the spotlight with April Ashley, which focuses on the two pioneering women as it examines their unusual journeys to fame, as well as the complexities associated with gender identity. A singer, songwriter, artist, actress, model, muse, and the “European Queen of Disco,” Amanda Lear’s background remains something of a mystery, with many details either obscured or disputed. Yet despite the ambiguity, she continues to captivate pop culture enthusiasts and queer historians alike, celebrated as a trailblazer in contemporary culture. Here is everything we know about Lear, but sometimes, the lines between truth and fiction are a little blurry at best. Where is she from? According to AmandaLear.com, the official site of the icon, she was born in...

To help you anticipate and navigate all that television has to offer across broadcast, cable and streaming, TVLine offers daily, weekly and monthly What to Watch digests, as well as an overview of every new TV show premiering in 2025.

This week, you’ll find a six series premieres (including Jensen Ackles in Countdown and Marvel’s Ironheart), eight returning shows (including new seasons of The Bear and The Gilded Age) and 11 finales (including the very last episode of Squid Game).

More from TVLineEvery New Scripted Show Confirmed to Premiere in 2025 — Save the Dates!What to Watch in June: Your Guide to 110+ Premieres Across Broadcast,...

June is heating up on Max with a packed lineup of new shows, movies, and live events. From the return of hit series to powerful documentaries and exciting movie premieres, there’s something for everyone this month.

Highlights include the Season 3 debut of the HBO Original series The Gilded Age, two moving HBO documentaries, Enigma and My Mom Jayne, and the gripping docuseries The Mortician. Movie lovers can look forward to the much-anticipated Minecraft Movie, A24’s Parthenope, and The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.

In honor of Pride Month, Max will also spotlight a wide range of Lgbtqia+ stories. Plus, sports fans can catch all the action from Roland-Garros 2025, including the men’s and women’s championships. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new on Max this June.

1. The Gilded Age S3 – June 22

Season 3 of The Gilded Age returns with eight weekly episodes,...

The fifth annual NewFest Pride summer film series has a sizzling lineup. IndieWire can announce that NewFest Pride 2025 will feature the New York premiere of Sundance winner “Plainclothes” starring Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey, as well as the highly-anticipated opening night film “Jimpa,” which was previously announced.

Highlights also include an early screening of “And Just Like That…” and a free outdoor screening of Cristina Costantini’s “Sally” in partnership with the Meatpacking District Business Improvement District and Rooftop Films. NewFest Pride will take place May 29 to June 2 to kick-off LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

“In a moment when LGBTQ+ rights are under renewed attack, telling our stories boldly and unapologetically is an act of both defiance and hope,” NewFest Executive Director David Hatkoff said. “The films in this year’s NewFest Pride lineup reflect the depth, diversity, and power of queer experiences — from urgent political documentaries to joyful celebrations of identity.

With “Enigma,” director Zackary Drucker (“The Stroll”) makes another intriguing film about trans history. From the sidewalks of New York, this time she takes the audience to glamourous Parisian

nightclubs and the fringes of British aristocracy to tell the story of Amanda Lear and April Ashley. The film is a straightforward chronological documentary relying on archival footage and media interviews from that era. Most fascinating is Drucker’s interview with Lear, which gives “Enigma” much-needed tension and conflict to balance out the conventionality of the rest of the proceedings.

Dubbed the “white queen of disco,” Lear was a famous performer and celebrity in the 1970s, while Ashley started as a model and became a pioneer of trans rights advocacy in her native Britain. According to Ashley, on whose book and recollections most of the film is constructed, they met as showgirls in the late 1950s in the Parisian cabaret Le Carrousel.

The Sundance Film Festival is once again upon us! Set to happen from January 23rd to February 2nd in Park City, Utah (with an online component from January 30th to Feb 2nd), the official schedule was unveiled today, and once again it’s an eclectic mix of indie fare, award hopefuls, and horror flicks. Once again, I’ll be there for JoBlo, filing a ton of reviews. To note, in recent years, Sundance has become especially well known for genre fare, with Hereditary, Talk to Me, and I Saw the TV Glow all premiering in the midnight section of the fest. This year’s Midnight selection includes some very buzzy titles:

Dead Lover / Canada –– A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments,...

In 1971, just six years after Frank Herbert published his groundbreaking science-fiction novel "Dune," Arthur P. Jacobs' Apjac International obtained the rights to the story for a film adaptation. The producer behind "Planet of the Apes" was ready to craft another world set in a distant future, but with the sequel film "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" on its way, "Dune" was delayed.

Jacobs went through a handful of different directors and screenwriters in early development, but he tragically passed away in 1973. David Lynch would eventually bring "Dune" to the big screen in 1984, but there were multiple failed attempts that paved the way for his film and a remake in his wake that led to Denis Villeneuve's recent adaptations. The messy histories of failed "Dune" adaptations could justify their own feature-length documentaries but allow this to be a crash course on the bizarre "Dune" movies that never came to be.

So many celebrities have descended on Paris for the most fashionable time of the year – Fashion Week!

On Friday (January 19), a slew of stars stepped out to attend the Dior Homme Menswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show.

The guestlist included the likes of Rita Ora, Nicholas Hoult and Kate and Lila Moss. That’s still barely scratching the surface, too. We pulled together pics of everyone and arranged them for you to easily peruse inside.

Head inside to see all of the pics from the fashion show…

Keep scrolling to see photos of all of the celebrities at the Dior Homme Menswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show…

Lewis Hamilton

Rita Ora

Kate Moss

Lila Moss

Honey Dijon

Bryanboy

Baptiste Giabiconi

Amanda Lear

Nicholas Hoult

Miss Fame

Aron Piper

Alexander Roth

Bertrand Bonello

Edouard Philipponnat

Mohammed Al Turki

Chris Ivery

Saint Levant

Benito Skinner

Chase Hudson

Pusha T

Luther Ford

Younes Bendjima

Nic Kaufmann

Marc Forne

Yeonjun,...

The Rolling Stones have existed for six decades, yet the women who influenced the members and their music have been largely overlooked and under-appreciated. But with her new book Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Winder is attempting to change that. In an excerpt below, Winder details the moment Anita Pallenberg’s path crossed with the band — and how she transformed them from “schoolboys” to stars.

***

September 14, 1965, Munich, Circus Krone Bau. You could tell she was different from the other Stones groupies,...

This article contains mentions of domestic abuse and sexual content

In the movie Daliland, the indulgent, scandalous lifestyle of famed surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala is explored through the true story of the couple’s 1973 extended stay in New York City. The movie is told through the perspective of young gallery assistant James (Christopher Briney), who is tasked with ensuring that Dalí, played by Gandhi and MCU star Ben Kingsley, completes his latest work in time for an upcoming show. James is quickly sucked into the enticing whirlwind of the painter’s life at the St. Regis hotel, wherein drugs, sex, and excess belie a dysfunctional, waning Dalí.

The biopic explores Dalí’s relationships with numerous real-life characters but centers around his relationship with his wife and muse, Gala (Barbara Sukowa). Theirs is a passionate, twisted partnership further complicated by numerous affairs and the commercial aspect of Dalí’s art.

Steve Alten, author of Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror and Meg: The Trench, has optioned an original football movie, Mr. Irrelevant, to producer David Rubenstein (1917), and his partners Ken Atchity and Scott Becher of Win-Win Partnerships (formerly producer/director NFL Films).

Billed as an inspiring tale of perseverance and unexpected second chances, Mr. Irrelevant follows the story of a 21-year-old college quarterback after the loss of his father leads him to bomb the tryouts on Pro Scout Day. But when an NFL head coach accidentally sees his potential, the young man gets the opportunity of a lifetime to make his late father proud and go from Mr. Irrelevant to starting quarterback.

“I set out to write an original underdog story with characters audiences could relate to while tapping into my own personal experiences,” said Alten. “Whether writing fictional thrillers like The Meg, or an original script like Mr.

Of all the remarkable roles in Ben Kingsley’s career that could have inspired his performance as surrealist Salvador Dalí in “Dalíland,” from “Gandhi” to “Sexy Beast” to “House of Sand and Fog,” it was his role as “Trevor Slattery” — better known as “The Mandarin” — in “Iron Man 3” that made the director and writer realize he could pull it off.

Speaking with TheWrap at the Toronto International Film Festival on behalf of “Dalíland,” the festival’s closing night film, director Mary Harron (“American Psycho”) and writer John Walsh said that the real Dalí was something of a “tremendous coward.” And though Kingsley had always played strong, fearless roles, they were worried about whether or not Kingsley could flash a more eccentric, fearful side.

“And then we watched…’Iron Man 3,'” Harron and Walsh said. “He was brilliant. But we hadn’t seen that aspect of his range. And we said,...

Sir Ben Kingsley has added the famous surrealist artist Salvador Dalí to his list of iconic film roles, thanks to “Dalíland,” which closed out the 2022 Toronto Film Festival. Kingsley visited TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at the Toronto International Film Festival for a discussion about the filmmaking process.

“I love his work and also I love the opportunity — I welcome the opportunity to stretch my comprehension and intelligence,” he told Senior Film Reporter Brian Welk. “It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and I felt that having an opportunity to portray Dalí, and I say ‘portray’ because in a sense, I’m a portrait artist, but I don’t have any paints, so I don’t work with stone or clay. I work with my voice, my imagination and my body. That’s all I have.”

The film also stars Barbara Sukowa as Dalí’s wife Gala,...

As the Toronto Film Festival comes to its official closing night we say goodbye to the re-energized fest for another year, but not before we say “Hello Dali,” or actually the final world premiere of the festival, Daliland, which picks up the celebrated artist’s life in its later years focusing on the odd relationship between him and his controlling wife. If only this film stuck to that idea and didn’t take a detour into a misbegotten coming-of-age plotline about the young assistant both Dalis take a shine to in their own way.

So it is all set in the mid-1970s at the St. Regis Hotel in New York, where 70-year-old master Dali (Ben Kingsley doing his best impression) and his wife of 50 years, muse, business partner, the very protective and controlling Gala Dali stay for a few months out of the year,...

Click here to read the full article.

A portrait of art-world celebrity indulgence as seen by a youngster who still has some illusions to shatter, Mary Harron’s Dalíland revolves around the titular Surrealist, played with restraint and dignity by Ben Kingsley, while gently nudging the spotlight in the direction of his complicated wife/muse Gala, a role in which Barbara Sukowa more than earns the movie’s attention. Much talk around the premiere will concern scandal-plagued costar Ezra Miller, who briefly plays the artist as a young man; but that bit of casting proves very apt, and the movie deserves to be judged — as enjoyable and enlightening, if pretty familiar in its storytelling — apart from that particular tabloid saga.

Public life was nearly as inextricable from Salvador Dalí’s art as from Andy Warhol’s (an earlier subject of Harron’s, in 1996’s I Shot Andy Warhol), so it...

Twenty-six years after making “I Shot Andy Warhol,” filmmaker Mary Harron returns to the late ’60s/early ’70s New York art world with “Dalíland,” this time with greater mastery and style. Ben Kingsley stars as Salvador Dalí, the eccentric Spanish surrealist artist who paraded around sporting a handlebar mustache and dressed like a 16th-century conquistador in the glam-rock era.

Harron dabbles in her own take on surrealism by converging Dalí’s romantic headspace and the ever-present decadent party scene. Her invocation of surrealism isn’t at all in Dalí’s style, which would be one way to approach the subject. But this definitely feels like her most layered and fully realized vision.

Like “I Shot Andy Warhol,” “Dalíland,” which premiered as the closing-night attraction at the Toronto International Film Festival, centers not on the artist himself but rather on someone peripheral in his circle. The film opens in 1985, as James...

On paper, Mary Harron was the ideal director for “Dalíland.” Set in the bohemian underground of Manhattan circa 1974, the film takes the kinky, codependent marriage between Salvador Dalí (Ben Kingsley) and his wife/business manager/mother figure/financial dominatrix Gala (Barbara Sukowa) and uses it as a case study for a larger deconstruction of gender, fame, wealth, and power. (It all comes down to power in the end.) Harron has fearlessly explored similar territory in the past with films like “Charlie Says,” about the woman of Charles Manson’s “family,” and “I Shot Andy Warhol,” based on the life of “Scum Manifesto” author Valerie Solanas. So why does she pull her punches here?

Dalí is a more sympathetic character than either Manson or Andy Warhol, for starters — as low of a bar as that may be to clear. He’s self-indulgent and allergic to work, but what famous artist isn’t?...

Ahead of its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, Mary Harron’s Daliland has revealed the first look at Ben Kingsley and Ezra Miller as the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. The new images released by Vanity Fair see Kingsley as Dali in the 70s, standing hand in hand wife Gala, played by Barbara Sukowa. Other images see a portrait of Kingsley as Dali standing next to Andreja Pejic as Amanda Lear. On the other hand, Miller is seen alone in another image as a younger iteration of the renowned painter.

Exclusive: Oscar winner Ben Kinglsey is no stranger to inhabiting larger-than-life characters. From Gandhi to Schindler’s List and Sexy Beast, the actor’s career has spanned a wide variety of roles with presence and gravitas. Despite his comfort with such parts, Kingsley says that approaching the enigmatic and iconic Salvador Dalí in Mary Harron’s Daliland – the story of the artist’s strange and fascinating marriage to his tyrannical wife Gala (played by Barbara Sukowa) – was still a “daunting task”.

“He was exhausting and exhilarating to portray,” comments Kingsley in his first interview since wrapping the movie. “Dali’s cup overflows. I had to give myself the opportunity to take risks. Dali encouraged me to take risks. That could have been catastrophic, but it could also pay off. If I’m in Dali’s silhouette, then I must allow myself to take certain risks. His artwork, writing and public...

Exclusive: Here’s your first look at Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dali in Mary Harron’s (American Psycho) feature Dalíland, which has now wrapped filming in the UK.

The movie tells the story of the later years of the strange and fascinating marriage between the iconic Spanish painter and his domineering wife, Gala, as their seemingly unshakable bond begins to stress and fracture. Set in New York and Spain in 1973, the story is told through the eyes of James, a young assistant keen to make his name in the art world, who helps the eccen­tric and mercurial Dalí prepare for a big gallery show.

Starring with Schindler’s List actor Kingsley are Cannes and Venice Best Actress winner Barbara Sukowa (Two Of Us) as Dalí’s wife and muse, Gala; newcomer Christopher Briney as James, the young art enthusiast who finds himself thrust into the centre of Dalí’s...

Part of our on-going series Notebook Soundtrack Mixes.Forever on the edge of one's seat, giallo is the provider of all the glamorous and hallucinatory emotions. The film genre and its musical sister is somewhat a crown jewel when it comes to detailed niches, sub-genres, and die hard fans. Original LP records from the giallo genre can cost a hefty sum and the blossoming vinyl reissuing industry (an exciting addition over recent decades) proves how enduring the genre and its sub-genres are. This giallo bonanza comes in just shy of two hours and you will find both influential and cherished moments and secluded moments on the sidelines. That, for me, showcases its textures and ultimately what a fun, trippy genre it is. The work of the masters is in full swing, beloved composers such as Bruno Nicolai, Nora Orlandi, Riz Ortolani, and Goblin all have turns. And of course, the...

Music has always played an integral part in setting the mood for Nicolas Winding Refn’s films, so the director’s recent announcement that he would be compiling a collection of songs that inspired his 2016 fashion industry horror flick “The Neon Demon” only made sense.

Read More: Listen: ‘The Neon Demon’s’ Seductive Score by Cliff Martinez Will Blow Your Mind

The vinyl album, titled “The Wicked Die Young,” will feature tracks from Dionne Warwick, Giorgio Moroder, Suicide, and the film’s composer Cliff Martinez, as well as Refn’s nephew, Julian Winding, who also contributed to “The Neon Demon.”

Winding’s “When You Want To Hurt Someone” fits perfectly with the electric, bumping mood of the film.

Read More: ‘The Neon Demon’: Nicolas Winding Refn Anatomizes Elle Fanning’s Audition Scene for the New York Times

About the song, Refn commented, “Julian Winding is a super-charged, esoteric-sounding, unadulterated,...

Nicolas Winding Refn has announced the release of “The Wicked Die Young,” a vinyl compilation inspired by “The Neon Demon,” his recent horror thriller starring Elle Fanning and Christina Hendricks.

“The Wicked Die Young” will be released on April 14 via Milan Records, and it will provide an insight into the sounds that inspired the film.

Read More: James Franco Interviews Nicolas Winding Refn: His ‘Extreme’ Career, Cocaine and the ‘Ritualistic Witchcraft’ of ‘Neon Demon’

The compilation spans disco, punk and electro, and features tracks by Giorgio Moroder, Sparks, Suicide, Electric Youth, Dionne Warwick and others. It also includes music by Refn’s previous collaborator Cliff Martinez, who has scored the writer/director past three films, as well as his son Julian Winding, who contributed to “Only God Forgives” and “The Neon Demon.”

The 46-year-old Danish filmmaker has been releasing his “Refn Presents” series through Milan Records since 2015, including the scores to “Old Boy,...

With The Neon Demon now (almost completely) exorcised from Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn‘s system, he is already deep into preparing his next project. On the docket for the director is The Avenging Silence, which will apparently sate Refn’s desire to make a “big extravagant action film.” Refn also said over the summer it is loosely inspired by “Dr. No,” Ian Fleming‘s classic Bond novel, as well as William Burrough‘s “Nova Express.” An extended synopsis has now been released for the feature, which hopefully will make its way to screens by 2018.

While he has dipped into action in sections of Drive, Bronson and The Pusher Trilogy, The Avenging Silence sounds like a big step for Refn into pure spy/action genre fare. However, fans of Refn’s stylistic choices should rest assured as he has already stated his protagonist won’t say much. This time, that...

Resurrecting Sci-fi Legend: Pavich Taps Alejandro

Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune has been a sci-fi benchmark since it’s original release back in 1965, and since, there have been several attempts at a worthy film adaptation. No one guessed that psychedelic surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky, who rose to fame for his midnight oddities El Topo and The Holy Mountain, would be the man to stake his claim for the task. After a friend suggested he check out the book, Jodorowsky (without initially reading it first) decided it to be the follow up to his 1973 sleeper hit. His goal was to use the interstellar opera to expand the consciousness of youth the world over, reproducing the mind-bending effects of LCD without taking the drug itself. Fancying himself a movie-making martyr with a metaphysical mission, Jodorowsky remarkably amassed a past and future A-list cast and crew of ‘spiritual warriors’ (as he called...

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Directed by Frank Pavich

USA, 2013

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, Frank Herbert, Chris Foss, H.R. Giger, Moebius, Magma, Pink Floyd, Dan O’Bannon, David Carradine, Mick Jagger, Amanda Lear, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dali. Yes, that’s quite an array of figures, isn’t it? Frank Pavich’s historically illuminating and expertly constructed documentary on one of the greatest films never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival today. It’s no mean feat to win over a gaggle of cynical jaded hacks but that’s exactly what was achieved with this post-mortem on the omnipresent lack of originality among Hollywood executives, a impenetrable wall of financiers who crushed the dreams of one the industry’s most idiosyncratically original postwar shamans. After a whistle-stop tour of Jodorowsky’s phantasmagorical curriculum vitae—he’s a Mexican surrealist provocateur par excellence, the twisted psycho-nautical genius behind...

Whether you’re currently single or in a relationship, I hope you all had a good Valentine’s Day weekend, dear readers. Unfortunately, aside from The Lego Movie, it’s still slim pickings at our movie theaters right now if you’re looking for something good to watch. But as always, there are upcoming films to look forward to, and trailers for those films for me to examine. And this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ takes a look at the upcoming documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Premise: The story of cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ambitious but ultimately doomed film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal science fiction novel Dune.

My take: Speaking as a cinephile, one thing that has always fascinated me are the stories of famous lost projects – film productions that were supposed to happen, and in many cases had notable people attached, but ended up not...

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Directed by Frank Pavich

USA, 2013

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, Frank Herbert, Chris Foss, H.R. Giger, Moebius, Magma, Pink Floyd, Dan O’Bannon, David Carradine, Mick Jagger, Amanda Lear, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dali. Yes, that’s quite an array of figures, isn’t it? Frank Pavich’s historically illuminating and expertly constructed documentary on one of the greatest films never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival today. It’s no mean feat to win over a gaggle of cynical jaded hacks but that’s exactly what was achieved with this post-mortem on the omnipresent lack of originality among Hollywood executives, a impenetrable wall of financiers who crushed the dreams of one the industry’s most idiosyncratically original postwar shamans. After a whistle-stop tour of Jodorowsky’s phantasmagorical curriculum vitae—he’s a Mexican surrealist provocateur par excellence, the twisted psycho-nautical genius behind...

Stepping out for a little fashionable fun, Adriana Lima turned up for the Paris Fashion Week festivities on Sunday evening (March 7).

The sexy supermodel hit up the Ready to Wear Fall/Winter 2010 Givenchy show, joining guests including Beth Ditto, Lou Lesage, Joey Starr and Amanda Lear

Meanwhile, it sounds as if Miss Lima and her basketball star husband Marko Jaric are getting quite the high profile neighbor at their Florida residence.

Having purchased a place on the private island of Indian Creek, reports tell that Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez recently grabbed up a new place in the area.