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Exclusive: With just over two months to go before the kick-off of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris this July, South Africa’s Distant Horizon will be touching down in Cannes with two documentaries celebrating France’s historic links with the games.

The films Pierre de Coubertin: An Olympic Life and Paris 1924 are both in the final stages of post-production.

Pierre de Coubertin: An Olympic Life follows the life of the French educator and historian who resurrected the ancient Olympic Games in 1896 and is widely acknowledged as the founder of the Modern Olympics.

He was President of the International Olympic Committee (Ioc) until the end of the Paris 1924 Olympic Games. The film is told through the eyes of Lauren Rembi, the Olympic Fencing Champion who is likely to participate in Paris 2024.

Distant Horizon says the film will shed light on the story of de Courbertin which is relatively unknown around the world,...

France’s Urban Distribution has shut its doors, the latest independent distributor to fold due to struggling ticket sales following the closure of Rezo Films’ distribution arm in March.

Urban Group’s thriving international sales and production divisions Urban Sales and Urban Factory will continue to operate, but its distribution arm, founded in 2011 by Frédéric Corvez and Mathieu Piazza, was officially liquidated on March 21.

Corvez confirmed the closure to Screen, explaining, “Over the years, we’ve seen our work come up against more and more obstacles” and citing the pandemic as an event that “undoubtedly transformed the industry”.

He described...

Exclusive: Matt Brodlie and Jonathan Kier’s Upgrade Productions has boarded world sales rights to Shoah feature Shttl, which played at the London and Rome Film Festivals (where it won the audience award) this fall.

The film was previously with Bron Releasing but is no longer on the slate after Bron needed to streamline its film business.

Black and white drama Shttl follows the inhabitants of a Yiddish Ukrainian village on the eve of the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barberossa.

Shot in Ukraine last year (with an almost entirely Ukrainian crew), the production fully reconstructed a traditional shtetl (or village) outside of Kiev to recreate life prior to the Nazi onslaught (as few traces of that life now remain), but it was subsequently destroyed by the Russian invasion earlier this year. Following the filming in 2021, the set (which included a synagogue which had been blessed and consecrated) had been...

Growing up Jewish is a complicated thing, rife with joy, culture, fear, and confusion. There are so many beautiful family and cultural traditions that come with religion, but it's clear from an early age that you're different from everyone else, particularly at Christmastime. It's hard not feeling like the other when you're surrounded by kids looking forward to what Santa will put under the tree, when you know full well he's not coming to your house.

Another thing you learn growing up as a Jew is that since the beginning, people have tried to wipe us out. That's a very strange thing to grow up with -- knowing you're born into something that people have attempted to destroy time and time again. It's essential to learn about World War II, and specifically the Holocaust, a systematic, state-sponsored genocide of the Jewish people. Other minority groups were targeted too, but some...

It is the first edition under artistic director Paola Malanga.

Paola Malanga, the new artistic director of the Rome Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for the 2022 edition, taking place from October 13-23.

The international competition will showcase 16 titles including Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Mounia Meddour’s Houria and Firam Khoury’s Alam and Wang Xiaoshuai’s The Hotel.

Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Bérénice Bejo, Nanni Moretti and Laura Morante will open the festival out of competition, fresh from its world premiere at Toronto and just ahead of its Italian release on October...

Exclusive: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 10-20) has revealed its lineup of 2022 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the single shot drama Shttl and Three Minutes: A Lengthening, the WWII drama co-produced by Steve McQueen and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter.

Shttl will screen as the festival’s Centerpiece Gala. The film’s director Ady Walter and producer Jean-Charles Lévy will be in attendance. Shot in a village constructed for the production and filmed in one long shot, the film captures the lives of the inhabitants of a Yiddish-speaking village on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Soviet Ukraine.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening, the directorial debut from dutch writer Bianca Stigter, will have its UK premiere during the festival. The film is narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and is composed entirely of a three-minute fragment of 16mm film from 1938. Uncovered and tirelessly restored, the documentary...

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The 66th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its lineup of world premieres at this year’s edition, including Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix stop-motion animation film Pinocchio.

The fest will also mark the debut of Creature, a collaboration between choreographer Akram Khan and Oscar winner Asif Kapadia, as well as family animation My Father’s Dragon from Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner) and Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon (Wolfwalkers, The Song of the Sea).

The London festival’s series and episodic selection, now in its second year, has “a thrilling range of stories for audiences to see on the big screen,” organizers said. They unveiled a “series special presentation” as the world premiere of The English, starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer, a tale of romance and revenge from television auteur Hugo Blick (An Honourable Woman, Black Earth Rising). Also premiering in the section are comedy-drama Mammals,...

22 films will have their world premiere at the festival.

Stop-motion animation Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and Asif Kapadia’s Creature are among the 22 features having their world premiere at the 66th BFI London Film Festival.

Scroll down for full line-up

Pinocchio is directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson, and produced by del Toro, Lisa Henson (Jim Henson Company), Gary Ungar, Alex Bulkley, and Corey Campodonico (Shadow Machine).

The ensemble voice cast includes Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Waltz, Tilda Swinton, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, and newcomer Gregory Mann.

Creature,...

The 66th BFI London Film Festival is set to host the world premiere of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the Oscar-winning director’s dark take on the classic fairy tale about a wooden marionette brought to life to mend the heart of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto.

The film will debut in the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre during the festival, which takes place October 5-15, 2022.

The stop-motion film was directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson and is from a screenplay by the Mexican filmmaker and Patrick McHale. The film’s voice cast includes Ewan McGregor as Cricket, David Bradley as Geppetto and Gregory Mann as Pinocchio. Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman and Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton also star.

The film’s music will be provided by the Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat, who has also written the score.

Exclusive: Shttl, an ambitious under-the-radar drama which is the feature helming debut of writer/director Ady Walter, has wrapped in Ukraine. The film is eyeing the 2022 festival circuit and tells the story of the inhabitants of a Yiddish village at the border of Poland, 24 hours before the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany (aka the Barbarossa operation) which would take their lives.

A passion project for all involved, the film was made with an international cast of actors, including Saul Rubinek speaking Yiddish in a village built for the film which will now be transformed into an open-air museum. Eli Rosen, consultant on Netflix series Unorthodox, was on set throughout.

The project was developed and initiated by Forecast Pictures’ Jean-Charles Lévy (The Last Mercenary), who has been working for 15 years with Walter on documentaries and scripts for other directors.

Walter tells...