News

Finn Wittrock is the main reason to watch writer-director Christian Nilsson’s Westhampton, a fairly stock character study about a man coming home to reckon with past mistakes.

Wittrock has enlivened several earlier films and television dramas, earning an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of one of serial killer Andrew Cunanan’s victims in the Ryan Murphy miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, and another nomination for a season of Murphy’s American Horror Story. This charismatic actor holds the camera effortlessly, and it’s good to see him again in a leading role onscreen, even if the film turns out to be disappointingly thin.

Wittrock plays Tom Bell, a film director who returns to his hometown on Long Island to showcase his new movie, which is based on events from his youth, when he was responsible for an auto accident that impacted his community. It may...

For the second time in the Tribeca Festival program, a film starts with a Q&a session that doesn’t go overly well. At least, the filmmaker protagonist of The Travel Companion mostly has to just stand there awkwardly, digesting the fact that no one cares that much about his film. In Westhampton, directed by Christian Nilsson, the hero, Tom Bell (Finn Wittrock), has to grapple with the viewers and the moderator who care perhaps too much and come on too strong in asking to explain the autobiographical connection he has to his latest film. In the black and white movie also called Westhampton, a screen version of the younger Tom causes an accident that forever changes the lives of his friends and his own. As fate...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Tribeca Festival will launch its 24th edition Wednesday night with a brighter spotlight on shorts and more music documentaries then ever dotting its characteristically eclectic slate, and amid growing financial challenges for arts and entertainment.

World premieres like Tow by Stephanie Laing with Rose Byrne, Octavia Spencer and Demi Lovato, Everything’s Going To Be Great by Jon S. Baird starring Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston, Paul Andrew Williams’ Dragonfly with Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn, Michael Weithorn’s The Best You Can with Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, and Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s Re-Creation with Vickey Krieps join animated psychedelic horror Dog of God from Latvia — the land of Flow. The lineup is heavy on directorial debuts with Kites from Brazil’s Walter-Thompson Hernández set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, The Scout by Paula Andrea González-Nasser about a location scout in NYC, Westhhampton by Christian Nilsson...

Exclusive: Andrew Herwitz’s Film Sales Company has come on to represent worldwide sales on two documentaries and two narrative features that are about to receive their world premieres at Tribeca Festival (June 4-15).

Jeffrey McHale’s documentaryIt’s Dorothy!explores the cultural relevance of Dorothy Gale, the heroine of L. Frank Baum’s 125-year-old classicThe Wizard Of Oz. The Spotlight Documentary entry uses archival footage and interviews with the women who portrayed Dorothy from Judy Garland to Diana Ross to examine the character’s enduring appeal.

She Runs The World focuses on the story of American athlete Allyson Felix,...

Paparazzo — a script by Christian Nilsson that landed on the 2024 Black List of the year’s best unproduced screenplays — has landed at White Noise producer Passage Pictures, run by Uri Singer.

Set in the world of tabloid journalism, the Paparazzo follows an opportunistic outcast who needs fast cash to help his ailing mother and decides to partner with a wily paparazzo. But the pursuit for photos entangles the two in a homicide involving young celebutantes.

Nilsson, who recently completed the feature film Westhampton, said “I’ve always been fascinated by outsiders—people who hover on the edge of society, who do the things most of us don’t want to admit we need. This film is a love letter to that contradiction. It’s as much about the chase for truth as it is about the damage left in its wake. Uri immediately understood what this story could be, and...

For the first time ever in the 20 year history of The Black List, a screenwriter has topped the survey of the most liked unproduced screenplays two years in a row, that being Travis Braun. This year Braun’s screenplay One Night Only scored 60 mentions, while on Black List 2023 he had Bad Boy at 49 mentions.

One Night Only follows two strangers who scramble to find someone to sleep with on the one night of the year when premarital sex is legal. The UTA and Echo Lake Entertainment repped Braun’s Bad Boy follows a rescue dog who suspects that his loving new owner is a serial killer.

The 20th edition of the Black List spanned 83 screenplays from 91 writers, up from last year’s count of 76 feature screenplays by 80 writers.

On this year’s list, there were several other repeat Black Lister-ers from 2023:

–Scribe Jack Waz who has Decoys with 18 mentions...

The 20th installment of the Black List, the annual compilation of the “most liked” unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, arrived on Tuesday featuring 83 screenplays by 91 writers.

The Black List, first published in 2005, celebrates the best screenplays that have yet to be produced. It was selected by more than 500 film executives, a record number of voters for a Black List survey.

The list-topping script, “One Night Only,” follows “two strangers scrambling to find someone to sleep with on the one night of the year when premarital sex is legal.” Its author, Travis Braun, also wrote, “Bad Boy,” the #1 script on the 2023 Black List.

As always, the subjects of the selected scripts range widely: Artificial Intelliegence, Retreat-like settings and social gatherings turned hostile, relationship dynamics tested by external forces, creatures not of this world, panic-stricken physical and economic survival situations, and dangerous climbs to power. There’s highly competitive pool sharks, celebrity werewolves,...

The 2024 Black List has been announced with scripts tackling everything from Tickle Me Elmo to Wicked Witch actress Maggie Hamilton’s experience filming The Wizard of Oz.

The annual list of the town’s best-unproduced feature screenplays voted on by a group of 500 film executives features 83 scripts from writers, known and unknown, repped and unrepped.

Topping this year’s list is One Night Only by Travis Braun, which takes place in a world where premarital sex is illegal save for one night and follows two strangers as they attempt to find someone to spend that night with. Other scripts tackle the 1990s lawsuit that brought to light the health dangers of silicone breast implants (Bust by Matt Ackels), the early life of Anthony Bourdain (Tony by Lou Howe and Todd Bartels, already set up at A24), and the rise and fall of Abercrombie & Fitch (King of the Freshman by Matt Bailey...

The Black List has unveiled its annual well, list, of the top unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, just in time for its 20th anniversary.

The yearly compilation of the “most liked” unproduced screenplays include 83 scripts by 91 writers. The list was selected by more than 500 film executives, a record number of voters ever for a Black List survey.

“Twenty years can feel like a long time or a blink of an eye depending on the moment,” Black List founder Franklin Leonard said in a statement. “Throughout that time, this is always the best part: Finding and sharing great stories well told with the rest of the community of folks who care about them. I look forward to these scripts finding the success and audience that previous annual Black List scripts have found and to watching these movies in theaters as soon as they’re available.”

Since 2005, the annual Black List has recognized...

Stars: Christine Nyland, Stephanie Hains, Terence Krey, Donna Maria Wood, Jonathon Strauss, Christian Nilsson | Written and Directed by Terence Krey, Christine Nyland

Debuting at this year’s Popcorn Frights, Distress Signals is the writing and directing team of Terence Krey and Christine Nyland’s follow-up to the unsettling slow-burn horror film An Unquiet Grave. This time around they’ve chosen a more realistic, but no less unnerving, topic to explore, wilderness survival.

While out camping with friends Caroline (Christine Nyland) goes off for a hike by herself and takes a fall off an embankment dislocating her shoulder. Ably to briefly talk to her friend Lauren (Stephanie Hains) before she loses signal, Caroline is assured the guys are out looking for her. But when nobody shows up she’s forced to try to find her own way out of the woods.

Krey and Nyland get Distress Signals off to a conventional enough start,...

"I think this is a cover-up." Gravitas Ventures + Kamikaze Dogfight have revealed the official trailer for an indie psychological thriller film titled Dashcam, the feature directorial debut of a producer / filmmaker named Christian Nilsson. Not to be confused with the new found footage horror feature also titled Dashcam from filmmaker Rob Savage, which recently premiered at TIFF. Two different films. Inspired by Antonioni's Blow-Up, Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, this film is about a small time video editor at a local news channel who is inadvertently given dashcam footage from a routine stop that results in multiple deaths. But everything is not as it seems. Is there a conspiracy or is something else going on? This stars Eric Tabach, with Zachary Booth, Scott Aiello, Noa Fisher, and Giullian Yao Gioiello. Doesn't look like there is anything to see here, just playing on the usual thrills of conspiracy.

MediaPro CEO

Spain’s Mediapro Group has upped Laura Fernández Espeso to the role of Chief Executive Officer at its Mediapro Studio, which produces and distributes content. She has been with the company for a decade and was previously Corporate and Television Director. In the new role she will direct the management and strategy of all the productions and production companies integrated under the Mediapro Studio umbrella. Recent films out of Mediapro include Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival and Official Competition with Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.

Dascham Thriller

Exclusive: Filmmaker Christian Nilsson and YouTuber Eric Tabach have partnered with production co Kamikaze Dogfight to finance Nilsson’s feature-length directorial debut Dashcam. Nilsson previously directed short film Unsubscribe, shot over Zoom, which gained prominence for topping the U.S. box office chart in June during lockdown despite only playing in one theater, grossing $25,000. The feature will star Tabach with Giorgia Whigham,...

Theaters around the world have been shuttered for close to five months now, with the majority of takings coming from limited runs of classic movies, drive-ins or the fantastic story of Unsubscribe, the short film that became the number one movie in America after creator Christian Nilsson took advantage of the chaos to rent an entire cinema and buy every ticket himself so that his Zoom-shot thriller could genuinely be called the #1 box office hit in the country.

The domino effect caused by the Coronavirus pandemic has reduced the 2020 release schedule to bare bones, and as the uncertainty continues, more and more movies are packing up and heading to 2021 instead. On the plus side, it means next year is looking to be the most stacked ever for fans, but the drawback will be a dearth of new content over the next few months.

Disney sent shockwaves through the industry yesterday...

Oh, Inverted World is the newest web series from MovieFilm Productions and created by Amityville, New York-based Terence Krey. I first became aware of Krey when he introduced another series he was involved with, the Norse Mythology-based high-school comedy Rainbow Bridge, to the lonelygirl15 community of which I was a part of in 2008. I became an instant fan, enjoying Krey and his production team’s (including the extremely talented Christian Nilsson, who has been producing web content in conjunction with Krey along with his own works) exploration of the web medium. Episodes of Rainbow Bridge ranged from 2 1/2 minutes to almost 20 minutes, showing they weren’t afraid to experiment with format. Krey and Nilsson wrote Moon together, showing an affinity for creating characters that while based on an on-the-surface silly premise, were multi-faceted and engaged in complex relationships with one another. Even though one character was constantly in very fake-looking beard...