News

Exclusive: The inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary has named its 15 semifinalists, with the winner set to receive $100,000.

The new prize, created by the Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, recognizes “nonfiction films that advance public understanding of the critical issues of our time while demonstrating outstanding cinematic achievement,” according to a release. “Guided by the hallmarks of ethical practice, rigorous investigation, and courageous storytelling, the Henry Awards are intended to honor and encourage a documentary filmmaking practice grounded in its essential role to a thriving society and focused on the public good.”

‘Four Daughters’

Among the 15 semifinalists announced Tuesday are the Oscar nominated documentary Four Daughters, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and the Oscar-shortlisted documentaries Queendom, directed by Agniia Galdanova, and Hollywoodgate, directed by Ibrahim Nash’at. Scroll for the full list of semifinalists.

At the heart of the film and production behind this year’s London Film Festival Audience Award winning feature documentary Holloway, from co-directors Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson, lies a non-negotiable ethos of co-creation and trauma-informed working practices which comes through in the film’s raw, authentic and emotive storytelling. Once Europe’s largest female prison, Holloway has recently been razed to the ground but before this imperious and sociologically significant London landmark was demolished, Compton and Hudson brought together a group of six brave, strong and inspiring women who all spent time behind the intuition’s bars, and created a circle of sisterhood, power and pain to share their lived experiences with each other and through Holloway, us as an audience. Alongside the stories these women share, often with great difficulty, Compton and Hudson take us through the tormented and decaying vestiges of a space which meant so many...

The next in our series of director interviews from London Film Festival 2024, Sarah caught up with Holloway co-creators Sophie Compton & Daisy-May Hudson who picked up the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at Lff and was one of Sarah’s festival favourites. As you’ll hear in their chat, Holloway sees six incredibly brave, former prisoners re-enter the decaying space they were once incarcerated in to reclaim their narratives and give voice to the voiceless women still behind bars, while also prompting us as viewers to examine the purpose of our broken penal system.

Head to Directors Notes for more filmmaker interviews and to watch our daily selection of new films. If you’d like to see your film featured on Dn then submit it here.

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Festival Fever

The 68th BFI London Film Festival had the event’s highest in-person attendance in 10 years, it was revealed on Monday.

Across 12 days of screenings in London, the festival welcomed 230,342 guests, an 18% increase from last year’s edition. For 49% of those who booked tickets to events, it marked their first time at London Film Festival. In addition, the occupancy across in-person events and screenings increased to 92% from last year’s 90%. Over 815 filmmakers, Xr artists and creatives from around the world presented work at the festival, and its industry forum had 3,000 delegates.

“Our biggest thanks go to the artists and industry colleagues from the U.K. and across the globe who fueled our collective curiosity this year,” festival director Kristy Matheson said in a statement. “It was a delight to see audiences engage with each other and this program — proving once again the joy and comfort we all find in screen culture.

The 68th BFI London Film Festival (Lff) recorded the highest in-person attendance for 10 years as Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers wins the audience award.

This year’s edition reached an audience of 230,342. This is up by 18% from 2023 and breaks the record previously held from 2018 of 205,630 attendees.

The figure includes the 12 days of screenings in London and across the UK, and encompasses features, series, shorts, immersive art and extended reality works via Lff Expanded, Lff For Free events, and the Lff Industry Forum.

Occupancy across paid-for and free screenings increased to 92% with 49% of tickets coming from first-time attendees.

Audience awards

Taking...

Across 12 days of screenings at the BFI London Film Festival, the event saw its highest in-person audience attendance in 10 years, organizers said on Monday.

The festival took place this year from Oct. 9-20 with a host of talent premiering or screening some of the year’s biggest movies, with Steve McQueen‘s Blitz, Sean Baker‘s Anora, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice and John Crowley’s We Live in Time all getting air time at Royal Festival Hall.

Universal’s The Wild Robot and Lego Pharrell biopic Piece by Piece were among the animated highlights of the fest, which racked up an impressive audience of 230,342 people across the U.K. capital and beyond with features, series, shorts, immersive art and extended reality works through various Lff initiatives — an increase of 18 percent from 2023.

Screen Talks events included appearances from McQueen, Mike Leigh, Denis Villeneuve, Daniel Kaluuya, Zoe Saldana, and Lupita Nyong’o,...

The British Film Institute today said that its annual London Film Festival clocked its largest in-person attendance for a decade during this year’s edition, which ran from October 9 – 20.

Figures published by the BFI said attendance across both free and paid-for in-person screenings and events at London venues increased by 92%, with 49% of tickets being booked by first-time Lff attendees. Overall, 230,342 attended the festival in person, an increase of 18% from 2023’s 194,960.

“Our biggest thanks go to the artists and industry colleagues from the UK and across the globe who fueled our collective curiosity this year,” BFI London Film Festival Director Kristy Matheson said in a statement this afternoon. “It was a delight to see audiences engage with each other and this programme – proving once again the joy and comfort we all find in screen culture.”

The BFI today also announced the winners of the festival’s audience awards. Darren Thornton’s comedy-drama Four Mothers,...

The relaunch of the Directors Notes Podcast is a multi-faceted episode with a variety of voices where we bring you a roundup of our activity from the 2024 BFI London Film Festival. I dove into the proverbial trenches of the festival, immersing myself in as many films as possible and catching up with filmmakers both old and new to the site as I trod the well trodden paths between Picturehouse Central, BFI Southbank and other festival venues.

Featured below is my chat with Dr. Dario Llinares from The Cinematologists, longtime friends of Dn and a much loved stronghold in the film discussion podcast landscape – you should definitely sign up to their Patreon. We follow that with an interview with directing duo Daisy-May Hudson and Sophie Compton about their Lff feature documentary Holloway which premiered at the festival this year and provides a canvas for six women to return to Holloway Prison...

The 68 th BFI London Film Festival has announced the full programme line-up, which will be presented in cinemas and online, across the UK.

The Lff will present a vibrant and diverse programme of 253 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 79 countries, featuring 63 languages playing across the 12 days of the festival. This includes 112 works made by female and non-binary filmmakers – 44% of the programme.

World Premieres

From filmmakers and artists include: Steve McQueen’s Blitz which opens the festival, Ben Taylor’s Cunard Gala Joy starring Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy, the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation’s restoration Silent Sherlock, Darren Thornton’s Irish comedy film Four Mothers, spellbinding performance film from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard The Extraordinary Miss Flower, thriller series A Thousand Blows from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the latest documentary from Oscar®-winning directing duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin Endurance,...

Fifteen features will world premiere at the 68th BFI London Film Festival (Lff), including Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s documentary Endurance, and previously announced opening title Steve McQueen’s Blitz.

The festival takes place from October 9-20.

Free Solo and Nyad directing duo Vasarhelyi and Chin direct Endurance alongside Natalie Hewit, which examines the lost ship of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. Further world premieres include Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson’s documentary Holloway, about one of the largest women’s prisons in Europe.

Steven Knight’s Victorian boxing series A Thousand Blows, starring Stephen Graham, will receive its world premiere.

The BFI London Film Festival (Lff) 2024 will screen documentaries about “witches,” and zoos and animal rescue centers in Argentina, first features from directors of varied backgrounds, and Ali Abbas’ Donald Trump film The Apprentice in its gala lineup organizers said on Wednesday as they unveiled the full program for this year’s event.

Overall, Lff will screen 253 titles, including features films, shorts, series, and immersive works, that hail from 79 countries and feature 64 languages. Of the total, 112 works are made by female and non-binary filmmakers, or 44 percent of the program, the fest said.

The London doc lineup includes the likes of Elizabeth Sankey’s 90-minute goth-y Witches, which posits a connection between historical witchery and post-partum psychological suffering and debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Meanwhile, the first feature program at Lff includes Denise Fernandes’ Hanami, which recently world-premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, and Neo Sora’s Happyend, which debuted...

During a Distribution Advocates podcast recording at Hot Docs, producer/director Amy Hobby announced a new documentary $200,000 grant called The Marketing Innovations Fund, which will go to independent distributors.

Hobby co-founded Distribution Advocates in 2020 alongside Abby Sun, Avril Speaks, Carlos Gutierrez and Karin Chien. The organization “works to collectively reclaim power for independent storytellers in the current systems of distribution and exhibition.”

The Marketing Innovations Fund launches in August and will provide grants between $5,000 and $50,000. That money will go to independent distributors working with film teams to supercharge audience growth for a wide range of docus. The grants are aimed at encouraging experimentation and innovation in reaching ticket buyers. The number of releases supported each year will vary and depend on applications. This year Fund money will help between four and 15 releases.

“Our goal is to inject much needed capital and resources into an anemic marketplace and ultimately to inspire...

Sophia Bush and Nia Batts have signed on as executive producers to Another Body, a documentary that dives into the world of deepfake pornography.

The doc, which premiered at last year’s SXSW film festival, follows a college student who discovers deepfake pornography of herself circulating online and searches for answers and justice. The doc uses deepfake tech to help tell Taylor’s story and the larger narrative of how the tech can be weaponized.

Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn directed Another Body, which was produced by Elizabeth Woodward at Willa.

“As new technologies emerge, they have the capacity to change the world for the better. They also have the potential to do immense harm to already at-risk groups. It is our hope that as investors, advisors, political advocates for equality, and lifelong storytellers, we can lend our voices to the good and apply pressure to lawmakers to help protect our communities from the rest,...

Andrew Haigh’s touching new drama All Of Us Strangers was the big winner at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFA).

As the calendar year draws to a close, we’re also inching close toward the season that will see multiple prestigious awards bodies, in theory, hand the best films of the year a golden statuette. The season kicked off with the British Independent Film Awards, also known as BIFA 2023, which were held in London on the 3rd of December.

Lolly Adefope and Kiell Smith-Bynoe hosted the event which celebrated British cinema, especially the slightly lesser-seen films with budgets far smaller than that of Oppenheimer. There were some terrific films nominated this year, and the roster of winners was as surprising as it was satisfying.

Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers was the biggest winner of the night, taking home a total of four awards plus three previously announced ones.

Andrew Haigh‘s Oscar hopeful had a wonderful night at the British Independent Film Awards on Sunday as it took home seven gongs including Best Picture, the most of any film. Haigh won two awards — Best Director and Best Screenplay. Paul Mescal won Best Supporting Performance alongside “How to Have Sex” actor Shaun Thomas while it also won Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Music Supervision.

“Rye Lane” won a trio of prizes: Raine Allen Miller was Best Debut Director while Vivian Oparah was awarded Best Breakthrough Performance. It also won Best Original Music.

Mia McKenna-Bruce won Best Lead Performance for “How to Have Sex” in a stacked gender-neutral category that also included Jodie Comer (“The End We Start From”), Tia Nomore (“Earth Mama”), Nabhaan Rizwan (“In Camera”), Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), and Tilda Swinton (“The Eternal Daughter”). And Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay shared in Best Joint Lead Performance for “Femme.

Once more we celebrate another remarkable year for British talent, as the 2023 British Independent Film Awards rolled out their red carpet this evening. We were there once again on the carpet to talk with the nominees and presenters, all to champion a fierce and fulsome chorus of new cinematic voices.

A full list of winners follows the interviews. Colin Hart and Ethan Hart were on the red carpet, here are their interviews.

The 2023 BIFAs Red Carpet Interviews

The full list of winners is below.

Best British Independent Film All Of Us Strangers – Andrew Haigh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey Femme – Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping, Myles Payne, Sam Ritzenberg How To Have Sex – Molly Manning Walker, Ivana MacKinnon, Emily Leo, Konstantinos Kontovrakis Rye Lane – Raine Allen-Miller, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo, Damian Jones Scrapper – Charlotte Regan, Theo Barrowclough Best Joint Lead Performance David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah – Rye Lane Nathan Stewart-Jarrett,...

The British Independent Film Awards took place on Sunday, December 3 in London, honoring the best independent films from around the world. “Rye Lane” led the pack with 16 nominations, followed by “All of Us Strangers” and “Scrapper,” which both earned 13 nominations a piece. But it was Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” that walked away with most of the night’s top prizes. In addition to the coveted Best British Independent Film, Haigh won Best Screenplay and Best Director while Paul Mescal shared the Best Supporting Performance award with Shaun Thomas from “How to Have Sex.”

The ceremony also honored the best independent films from outside of the United Kingdom, with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” winning Best International Independent Film.

Keep reading for a complete list of nominees at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards, with winners listed in bold.

Best British Independent Film

Winner “All Of Us Strangers” – Andrew Haigh,...

The ceremony commences at 20:00 GMT, with ’Rye Lane’, ‘Scrapper’, ‘All Of Us Strangers’ and ‘How To Have Sex’ among the hot contenders.

The British Independent Film Awards (Bifas) will be unveiling the 2023 winners today (December 3) from a ceremony at London’s Old Billingsgate, kicking off at 20:00 GMT.

Screen will be updating this page live from the ceremony as the winners are announced, so refresh this page for the latest winners.

Scroll down for the winners - live

Raine Allen-Miller’s south London-set romantic comedy Rye Lane leads the nominations, followed closely by Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper and Andrew Haigh...

Disney opens animation ‘Wish’; indie titles include ‘The Eternal Daughter’, ‘Girl’.

Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon becomes the widest release ever in the UK and Ireland for Sony, starting in 716 cinemas this weekend.

The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the early 19th century French leader, tops the 690-location opening of Whitney Houston biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody from December 2022.

Written by David Scarpa – who previously collaborated with Scott on All The Money In The World – Napoleon tells the story of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power, and his relationship with Empress Josephine, played in the film...

“Rye Lane”, “Scrapper”, “All of Us Strangers”, “How to Have Sex” y “Femme” encabezan las nominaciones a los premios BIFA.

El jueves se anunciaron los nominados a los premios BIFA (British Independent Film Awards). Estos premios son galardones cinematográficos que se otorgan en el Reino Unido para destacar y honrar las películas independientes británicas. Los ganadores de los premios BIFA 2023 se darán a conocer el 3 de diciembre. Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los nominados de esta edición:

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente BRITÁNICA

All Of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh

Femme, Sam H Freeman & Ng Choon Ping

How To Have Sex, Molly Manning Walker

Rye Lane, Raine Allen-Miller

Scrapper, Charlotte Regan

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente Internacional

Anatomy Of A Fall, Justine Triet

Fallen Leaves, Aki Kauriskmäki

Fremont, Babak Jalali

Monster, Hirokazu Kore-eda

Past Lives, Celine Song

Mejor DIRECCIÓN

Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane

Sam H Freeman & Ng Choon Ping, Femme

Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers...

Raine Allen-Miller’s debut feature Rye Lane leads this year’s British Independent Film Award nominations with 16 nods, including Best Director and Best British Independent Film.

Allen-Miller’s Peckham-set feature also has nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Debut Screenwriter for writing duo Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, as well as a nod for Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo for Breakthrough Producer. The film’s leads Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson scored a Best Joint Lead Performance nomination. Oparah is also nominated in Breakthrough Performance.

Rye Lane is trailed by Scrapper and All Of Us Strangers, which both clocked 14 nominations. Scrapper received four nominations for debut feature filmmaker Charlotte Regan, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. All Of Us Strangers clocked Best Director. In the performance categories, Andrew Scott picked up a Best Lead Performance nomination, and Jamie Bell, Claire Foy, and Paul Mescal grabbed a Best Supporting Performance nod each. Seven...

Feature debutant Raine Allen-Miller’s “Rye Lane” led the nominations at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) with 16 nods.

“Scrapper” by debutant Charlotte Regan and veteran Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” scored 14 nominations each while Molly Manning Walker’s “How to Have Sex” had 13, Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s “Femme” 11 and Mahalia Belo’s “The End We Start From” nine. The nominations were revealed by actors Susan Wokoma (“Enola Holmes”) and Morfydd Clark (“Saint Maud”) at an announcement event at One Hundred Shoreditch, London.

From 2022, the awards went permanently gender neutral for acting categories with the traditional best and supporting actress and actor awards being replaced by best lead performance, best supporting performance, best joint lead performance — for performances that are the joint focus of the film — and best ensemble.

The winners will be announced at the BIFA ceremony on Dec. 3.

BIFA Nominations 2023

The Richard...

In too many thrillers to count, the key scene, and the most suspenseful one, arrives when the hero or heroine, investigating a chemical spill or a murder or what have you, sits down at the computer and deep dives into a web search, the information-age detective work culminating in that inevitable “Aha!” moment of discovery. So here’s where the darkness leads.

There’s a sequence like that in “Another Body,” a groundbreaking, creepy, fascinating, and important documentary about a phenomenon that’s only going to grow in significance: the deepfaking of pornography. That means: the lifting of images of real people off the web, whose faces are then digitally grafted onto pornographic footage to create a fraudulent porn file that looks as real as reality. Boogie nights? Try steal-your-body-and-soul nights.

In “Another Body,” the central figure is Taylor Klein, a 22-year-old graduate student in engineering who this happened to.

A trio of Indian films led by Leo: Bloody Sweet, at no. 8, and two Fathom events bulked up the specialty box office this weekend as The Persian Version debuted, Anatomy Of A Fall entered week two and Dicks: The Musical expanded nationwide.

Prathyangira Cinemas opened Tamil-language thriller Leo: Bloody Sweet in 720 locations to a hefty weekend debut of $2.14 million and a domestic cume through Sunday of $4.68 million, according to Comscore. Directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, the film, with prints in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, did huge numbers this week in Toronto, Seattle, Dallas, Austin, San Francisco, New York and Montreal. It’s the latest Indian film since Jawan last month to leap Stateside. Jawan, by Atlee Kumar and starring Shah Rukh Kahn (Srk) opened Sept. 8 on 800 screens to a $6.2 million weekend and $7.56 total.

Fans have been looking forward to the pairing of Kanagaraj and star Thalapathy Vijay in a film that...

Final five nominations to be announced on November 2.

Steve McQueen’s Occupied City, Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall and Todd Haynes’ May December are among the titles on the latest British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) longlists, for Best Feature Documentary and Best International Independent Film.

15 films are on the documentary longlist, with five of them by first-time directors; with 17 films on the international list.

Scroll down for the longlists

Alongside McQueen’s film combining analysis of Amsterdam during the Second World War with the present day, documentary titles include Kevin MacDonald’s High & Low: John Galliano about the...

“The Kitchen” co-director and co-writer Daniel Kaluuya and “Polite Society” writer-director Nida Manzoor are among the emerging talents recognized at the British Independent Film Awards’ (BIFA) New Talent categories.

Both have been longlisted twice, in the debut director and debut screenwriter categories. In all, 20 fiction and 15 documentary features have been longlisted in the four debut filmmaking categories. Nineteen first-time fiction feature directors, 17 first-time feature documentary directors, 17 first-time writers and 24 breakthrough producers have been recognized by BIFA voters this year.

BIFA Springboard, an annual program supporting second-time feature filmmakers will launch in early 2024. BIFA will reveal the Netflix-sponsored 2023 breakthrough performance longlist, which highlights British acting talent in their first significant role in a British feature film, on Oct. 24. The final five nominations in each category will be unveiled on Nov. 2. Winners will be revealed at the 26th BIFA ceremony on Dec. 3.

The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) Sponsored By...

Eight films listed in three of the four categories.

Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper, Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane and Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex are among the 35 features on the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) Filmmaker New Talent longlists for 2023.

The ceremony has released longlists for four awards: the Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director), Best Debut Screenwriter, Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary (a new award for this year) and Breakthrough Producer.

Scroll down for the full New Talent longlists

Eight films have been longlisted in three of the four categories: Earth Mama, Femme, In Camera, Pretty Red Dress,...

Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival has unveiled the program for its 27th edition, which will take place in the Czech city of Jihlava between Oct. 24-29. The festival will showcase 357 films in both competitive and non-competitive sections, with 115 world premieres, 22 international premieres and 17 European premieres.

This year’s program touches on themes of artificial intelligence and new technologies, the changing planetary climate, migration, transformation of the democratic system and society, as well as the search for new paths to freedom and happiness.

Festival director Marek Hovorka says of the concept of this year’s edition: “The world in which we live is rapidly changing, and this year’s Ji.hlava brings images of these transformations. The films in the program are thematically and formally very diverse, allowing us to recognize and contemplate the world’s transformation.”

Works related to the theme of this year’s Ji.hlava include Sophie Compton...

The film won the special jury award at this year’s SXSW film festival.

Another Body, a documentary about a student’s search for justice after she discovers deepfake pornography of herself online, has secured UK-Ireland and Canada theatrical release deals.

Modern Films and Willa will release the film in the UK and Ireland this autumn, day and date with a digital release; with levelFilm handling the Canadian release.

Another Body had its world premiere at SXSW in the US in March, where it won a special jury prize. Subsequent festival play has included Canada’s Hot Docs and Germany...

Documentary producer Lauren Haber has joined Amplify Pictures as its head of documentary, a newly created role at the studio.

Amplify is an independent television studio founded back in 2018 by “Fleabag” producer Joe Lewis. The studio recently released Season 2 of HBO’s docuseries “100 Foot Wave” which follows surf legend Garrett McNamara, who broke the record for the largest wave ever surfed. The series earned six Emmy nods this season including a nomination for outstanding documentary or nonfiction series.

“I was immediately struck by the ambition, integrity and collaborative spirit that Joe, Rachel and Colin radiate and bring into everything they do at Amplify Pictures,” Haber said in a statement. “The company’s fresh perspective and focus on innovation in the documentary space is absolutely thrilling for me to step into. I’m honored and excited to build Amplify Pictures’ global documentary slate, working with visionary filmmakers to tell stories that surprise and entertain,...

Veteran documentary producer Lauren Haber has been appointed to the newly created role of Head of Documentary at Amplify Pictures, the award-winning studio announced on Wednesday.

In her new position, Haber will be responsible for overseeing the company’s current slate of documentary projects and expanding its doc portfolio of globally commercial, filmmaker-driven projects with an emphasis on ongoing series and IP creation. The hiring comes at a dynamic time for Amplify, which has continued to build out its team and slate of global content following an infusion of private equity capital.

Haber comes to the company after serving as VP of Production at Impact Partners, where she curated and supported their slate of independent documentary projects including 32 Sounds directed by Sam Green, Another Body directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, Peabody winner Aftershock directed by Paula Eiselt & Tonya Lewis Lee, Paper & Glue directed by Jr, and the three-part HBO series Nuclear Family,...

The 31st edition of London’s Raindance Film Festival will open with the U.K. premiere of British actor Jack Huston’s directorial debut “Day of the Fight.”

The film comes to Raindance fresh off its Venice debut, where Huston was honored by Variety as a breakthrough director.

The story of a once-renowned boxer who takes a redemptive journey through his past and present on the day of his first fight since he left prison stars Michael Pitt alongside a cast including Ron Perlman, Joe Pesci, and a cameo from Steve Buscemi.

The U.K. premiere of Isabel Coixet’s “Un Amor” will close the festival after it bows at San Sebastian. Based on Sara Mesa’s bestselling novel, Laia Costa plays a young woman who escapes her stressful life in the city and relocates to rural Spain. When she accepts a disturbing sexual proposal, it gives rise to an all-consuming and obsessive passion.

Utopia has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Another Body,” the SXSW Special Jury Award-winning documentary exploring the growing threat of online deepfake pornography.

“Another Body,” which is presented by the Oscar-winning Impact Partners, tells the story of a college student’s search for answers and justice after she discovers deepfake pornography of herself circulating online. The film marks the feature debut of Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, who also produced alongside Elizabeth Woodward at U.S.-based banner Willa. The doc will also be released by Willa via its newly launched distribution division focusing on impact content.

Utopia and Willa are planning a theatrical run this fall in New York, Los Angeles and across key markets in the U.S., with a day-and-date roll out on digital streaming platforms. The release will include events with special guests and Q&As, and a network of audience engagement partners. Woodward previously...

Another Body

Imagine you found out that there were pornographic videos of you online. If you had never made any, your first reaction might be confusion. Welcome to the world of deepfakes, where your face could be attached to somebody else’s body – a phenomenon mostly talked about in relation to the political risks it poses, but which is most often used to harass women. Where it goes hand in hand with doxxing, it can put people at risk of both psychological and physical harm. That’s what happened to Taylor (not her real name), an engineering student who tells her story in documentary Another Body, reflecting on the distress it caused her and revealing, step by step, how she went about tracking down the person responsible.

The film was made by Reuben Hamlyn and Sophie Compton, and screened at SXSW 2023. Just after the festival I met up with...

Can a festival have swagger? Because it felt like SXSW was swaggering in 2023. This should not be a total surprise for a weeklong conference that’s an intersection between film, television, music, gaming, technology, and arguably innovation itself. As per one industry insider, SXSW has long been perceived as “the cool kids festival.” Nonetheless, one year and a day after Everything Everywhere All at Once premiered on SXSW’s opening night, that film went on to win a staggering seven Oscars on the same weekend as the 2023 festival.

And after last Sunday, excitement and a sense of vindication floated in the air around every movie theater in Austin. Somehow this fest was coming even more into its own with its first Best Picture win, and that truth appears reflected in the eclectic mix of films and television series that showed up the year Everything Everywhere came to town. From oddball...

Audience Awards voting concludes on March 19.

Raging Grace has taken the 2023 SXSW Narrative Feature Competition award and Angel Applicant has taken top prize in the Documentary Feature Competition.

15 acquisition titles to tempt buyers at SXSW 2023

Raging Grace director Paris Zarcilla’s film about an undocumented Filipina house cleaner and her daughter who find work for a wealthy British man was praised by the jury for “cleverly employing genre tropes to explore vast socio-political matters”.

Courtney Eaton won the special jury award for performance for her role in Parachute, Brittany Snow’s feature directorial debut about a young woman freshly out...

As SXSW basks in the Oscars afterglow of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which premiered out of competition at the event last year, jury and special awards winners for the 30th edition of the film and TV festival have been announced.

Related Story SXSW Film Festival Narrative Feature Competition Winners Through The Years – Photo Gallery Related Story 'The New Americans: Gaming A Revolution' Review: Ondi Timoner's Provocative Doc Previews The World That Awaits Us – SXSW Related Story UTA Signs Cecillia Aldarondo, Filmmaker Behind SXSW-Premiering Documentary 'You Were My First Boyfriend'

Top honors in the Narrative Feature Competition went to Paris Zarcilla’s horror pic Raging Grace. The film follows Joy, an undocumented Filipino immigrant who is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter Grace when she secures the perfect job: taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new...

Two days after ”Everything Everywhere All at Once“ won seven Oscars, including best picture, the SXSW Film Festival, where Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s movie launched last year, has announced its own awards. To be clear, “Eeaao” was a studio-backed opening night premiere (not one of the smaller movies launched in competition at the indie-focused fest), but you can still feel the excitement in Austin around the landmark Oscar win. After all, SXSW was the first festival to take Daniels seriously, awarding them top prize for their Battles music video (“My Machines”) in 2012.

Will any of the movies or directors screening here this year go on to change film history?

With five days still to go at SXSW, the juries convened to present the winners.

Narrative feature honors went to writer-director Paris Zarcilla’s “Raging Grace.” On the surface, the tense story of an undocumented Filipina house cleaner and...

Deepfake images, made by motion graphic software that seamlessly morphs faces until the average viewer can’t tell who’s real or fake in a video, have the power to change the social and political landscape forever. (In an era when electoral enemies lob “fake news” at each other all day long, this technology will actually be able to manipulate millions soon enough.)

However, deepfakes are rampant now — in pornography. Free porn sites are flooded with videos of adult performers with the faces of celebs, unsurprisingly, but regular people, too. And they did not consent for their visages to be used in sexual scenarios.

Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s intriguing but ultimately slight documentary Another Body follows an outraged college student and her search for justice when she learns her likeness has been stolen for use in deepfake porn. Through interviews, animations and videos the subject shot of herself...

The legal principle of “another body” is cited by local and state law enforcement to not pursue charges against the creators of deepfake pornography, content easily generated by online communities that mostly focuses on celebrities and political leaders. The issue is just starting to gain traction as the technology becomes cheaper and easier, and as troubled, vindictive men (both young and old) experiment and take requests on message boards.

While targets of deepfake porn include every actress in Hollywood along with frequent targets of misogyny (e.g. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg), they do enjoy one advantage that an anonymous college student does not: it would never be assumed to be real nor disqualifying for future prospects.

Another Body is a real story told, like David France’s Welcome to Chechnya, with the assistance of digital facial replacement allowing its subjects to speak anonymously rather than mask faces and voices...

Taylor Klein will remind you of someone you know. A math-whiz engineer from an engineering family, her Facebook feed is littered with photos of her eating ice cream, studying, and enjoying the great outdoors — the most innocent of pastimes. We are introduced to her via video diary, where she compliments her mother’s strong work ethic and extols the virtues of school. “I never once broke the rules, because I was too scared of what would happen if I did,” she explains. “I think my teachers were concerned because I...

SXSW’s documentary program has fast become one of the Film & TV Festival’s most exciting strands, and this year is no exception. Once again boasting an eclectic lineup that showcases a bevy of fascinating true-life tales from around the world, the docs class of 2023 is definitely one to keep an eye on.

This year’s roster sees a number of bold new voices and celebrated documentarians tackling a broad range of topics: from the perilous rise to fame of an Afghan sporting superstar to the daring performance art of a Russian queer icon; from the legendary creator of the first Black Barbie to Captain James T. Kirk himself.

We’ve picked out a handful of documentary highlights from SXSW 2023 that are sure to get festivalgoers talking and that, hopefully, will be popping up in theatres and on streaming platforms later this year…

Credit: Blackbeard Media Riders on the Storm...

Festival runs March 10-18. Further selections to be announced in early February.

The world premiere of Paramount and eOne’s spring tentpole Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will open the 30th edition of SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 10.

The action fantasy quest story stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, and Regé-Jean Page and is directed and co-written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. It opens in the US on March 31.

SXSW runs March 10-18 as an in-person event only. In addition organisers announced feature and short Competition entries, the Headliners and Midnighters line-ups, and select titles...