News

Rupert Everett will preside over the jury of the 36th Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film, where Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow has been selected to compete alongside Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers. The coastal festival in Brittany runs October 1–5 and spotlights new U.K. and Ireland productions with a handful of international partners.

Organizers say Everett leads a panel that includes performers and creatives from across television, film and documentary. Recent trade notices list Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax among jurors, alongside figures from France and the U.K., reflecting the event’s cross-Channel identity. The festival positions Dinard as a meeting point for British...

Rupert Everett has been named among the competition jury members at this year’s Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film.

Everett will be joined by Rachida Brakni, Claire Chazal, Reda Kateb, Molly Dineen, Jennifer Saunders, and Ruby Wax.

Titles playing in competition include My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies, Mr Burton by Marc Evans, The Damned by Thordur Palsson, The Thing with Feathers by Dylan Southern, and Dragonfly by Paul Andrew Williams.

The festival’s opening film will be Kristin Scott Thomas’s My Mother’s Wedding. The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, and Emily Beecham. The film follows three sisters who return to their childhood home for a momentous weekend: the third wedding of their twice-widowed mother, Diana Frost. The three daughters are from very different walks of life: Georgina is a hospice nurse; Victoria is a Hollywood star; and Katherine is a Captain in the Royal Navy.

UK actors, filmmakers and writersRupert Everett, Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax will be among the jury members of theDinard Festival of British & Irish Film, which will take place from October 1-5 in Brittany, France.

They will be joined by UK documentary filmmaker Molly Dineen,French actors Rachida Brakni and Reda Kateb, and French journalist Claire Chazal.

Akinola Davies’ My Father’s Shadow and Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers are among the five films playing in competition.

Davies’ My Father’s Shadow world premiered at Cannes in Un Certain Regard and marks his feature debut. The semi-autobiographical tale set over...

Akinola Davies’ My Father’s Shadow and Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers are among the five films playing in competition at the upcoming Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film, which runs from October 1-5 in Brittany, France.

Davies’ My Father’s Shadow world premiered at Cannes in Un Certain Regard and marks his feature debut. The semi-autobiographical tale set over the course of a single day in the Nigerian capital Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, with Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù in the leading role. Mubi will release in UK-Ireland, North America and Turkey, and Le Pacte will release in France.

Those still feeling the void of Succession may find solace in forthcoming Netflix series House of Guinness. The show, created and written by Steven Knight, centers on the legacy of the Guinness family in the 19th century.

A trailer for the series teases the battle for power amongst the four children of beer magnate Sir Benjamin Guinness after his death. It stars Disclaimer actor (and famed Olivia Rodrigo boyfriend) Louis Partridge as Edward Guinness, Anthony Boyle as Arthur Guinness, Emily Fairn as Anne Plunket (née Guinness), and Fionn O’Shea as Benjamin Guinness.

Cumberbatch Crowned

Benedict Cumberbatch will be honored with the Golden Eye Award at the Zurich Film Festival (Sept. 25-Oct. 5) for his multifaceted career and role in “The Thing With Feathers,” which he also produced through SunnyMarch and Lobo Films.

The actor will receive the award in person on Sept. 29, followed by a Zff Masters talk. Festival director Christian Jungen praised Cumberbatch as “one of the most versatile character actors of his generation,” noting his theater background and emotional depth across roles from Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game” to Doctor Strange in the Marvel universe.

In “The Thing With Feathers,” directed by Dylan Southern, Cumberbatch portrays a grieving father rebuilding his life after his wife’s death while being haunted by an eerie crow symbolizing loss.

Seven of Cumberbatch’s films have previously screened at Zff.

Board Boost

Following the Production Guild of Great Britain‘s (Pggb) Agm Wednesday, new...

Benedict Cumberbatch will be feted at this year’s Zurich Film Festival with the Golden Eye Award for career achievement.

Cumberbatch will receive the award in person on September 29. He will also give a masterclass for the audience in Zurich.

Cumberbatch’s credits include work with filmmakers such as Jane Campion, Joe Wright, Steve McQueen, and Wes Anderson. In his latest film, The Thing With Feathers, he is directed by Dylan Southern.

Cumberbatch takes on dual roles in the film, playing both the lead actor and producer through his company, SunnyMarch, in partnership with Lobo Films. He portrays a father of two, grappling with grief and the challenge of rebuilding his life after the death of his wife.

“Benedict Cumberbatch is one of the most versatile character actors of his generation,” Christian Jungen, Festival Director of the Zurich Film Festival, said in a statement.

“He comes from the theater, masters his craft in every role,...

Some of the industry’s top cinematographers are getting involved in the current Oasis craze.

With the reunited band’s sellout gigs continuing across the U.K. — currently in the Gallagher brothers’ hometown of Manchester ahead of concerts in London later this month — Variety has learned that several A-list directors of photography have been behind the camera for an upcoming film about the tour.

Announced this year, the as-yet-unnamed feature is being produced by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight and directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the duo behind the LCD Soundsystem doc/concert film “Shut Up and Play the Hits.” It’s being produced by Magna Studios, recently launched by former Pulse execs Marissa Clifford and Davud Karbassioun.

Very little else is known about the film, which is being kept under a veil of secrecy, but Variety hears that both Robbie Ryan and Haris Zambarloukos have been shooting segments of the tour.

La nueva edición tendrá como eje temático el cruce entre el humor y lo fantástico. © Sitges

Apuntad en vuestra agenda cinéfila: del 9 al 19 de octubre, la ciudad costera de Sitges volverá a metamorfosearse en la capital del cine fantástico. Hoy, durante la rueda de prensa celebrada en la Fàbrica Moritz Barcelona, Ángel Sala y Mònica Garcia i Massagué, Director Artístico del Festival y Directora de la Fundación, respectivamente, han ofrecido el primer gran anticipo de la programación del Festival de Sitges 2025, con el cruce entre el humor y el género fantástico como hilo conductor.

En su edición número 58, el Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya inaugurará con Alpha, el nuevo largometraje de la cineasta francesa Julia Ducournau, que se convierte en la tercera mujer en inaugurar Sitges después de que lo hicieran Mary Harron y Ana Lily Amirpour. Esta vez, su nueva película explora un mundo distópico que funciona...

Ahead of their highly-anticipated reunion tour, Oasis have announced a 30th anniversary deluxe edition of their seminal album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?. The release, out Oct. 3, will include five newly-recorded unplugged versions of classic tracks, including “Acquiesce,” which dropped today.

The 30th anniversary edition will be available across 2-cd, 3-lp, and digital formats. Alongside the 2014 remastered version of the album, fans will get stripped-back takes on “Cast No Shadow,” “Morning Glory,” “Wonderwall,” “Acquiesce,” and “Champagne Supernova,” which were produced and mixed by Noel Gallagher with Callum Marinho at...

Exclusive: Ben Coren, former Film4 and Misfits executive, has joined UK production company Jeva Films as head of development.

Coren will oversee an expansion for the London-based company, known for films such as The Lesson, Nina Forever and 7 Keys, following a £90,000investment from the BFI’s UK Global Screen Fund in support of a new growth strategy.

This strategy will include collaborating with more Scandinavian and Indian diaspora talent and working towards co-productions with these territories.

Coren worked for 11 years at Film4, and was head of development from 2019, before becoming head of scripted at UK McQueen producer Misfits in 2024.

He...

The 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) will feature key Cannes Film Festival winners in its Horizons section and a selection of action and horror movies, both new and older, for its revamped Midnight Screenings program under the new name “Afterhours.”

In a lineup update unveiled on Friday, Kviff said it will this year screen more than 130 feature films in the picturesque Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

The Horizons lineup, which traditionally features highlights from the festival circuit of the past year, includes the likes of Jay Duplass’ The Baltimorons, Tom Shoval’s A Letter to David, Michel Franco’s Dreams, My Father’s Shadow by Akinola Davies Jr., Mary Bronstein‘s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, and fellow Cannes...

Don’t expect Oasis to drop a new album around their reunion tour. The band’s manager, Alec McKinlay, said that the highly-anticipated concerts will be the musicians’ final stand in terms of both live shows and recorded music.

“This is very much the last time around, as Noel’s made clear in the press,” McKinlay told Music Week. “It’s a chance for fans who haven’t seen the band to see them, or at least for some of them to.” He added, “There’s no plan for any new music.

Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Peter Cattaneo’sThe Penguin Lessons and Dylan Southern’sThe Thing With Feathers are among the 14 titles to receive the latest round of UK Global Screen Fund award (Ukgsf) totalling £448,330 through its international distribution fund.

Administered by the British Film Institute (BFI), 111 awards totalling over £3.1m have now been given out by this strand, financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms).

Support for international distribution provides sales agents and producers with funding via two tracks – prints & advertising (P&a) and festival launch.

The Penguin Lessons,starring Steve Coogan, has received the...

Vue Lumière has picked up The Thing with Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch for the UK and Ireland.

Vue Lumière, the distribution arm of exhibition company Vue, acquired the film from mk2. The company has said it plans to release the film in cinemas across the UK and Ireland later this year.

The Thing with Feathers had its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year, then went on to play as a Special Gala at the 75th Berlinale. It is based on the bestselling book by Max Porter, published by Faber, and stars Cumberbatch as a grieving father of two young boys who loses his wife very suddenly.

Written and directed by Dylan Southern, best known for his music documentaries Meet Me in the Bathroom, Shut Up and Play the Hits and the upcoming untitled Oasis project, it is produced by Adam Ackland and Leah Clarke for SunnyMarch and Andrea Cornwell’s Lobo Films.

The film was developed with Film4, who co-financed alongside the BFI and Align, in association with Uncommon Creative Studio, mk2 Films, and Rank and File, in co-production with Film i Väst and Filmgate Film. mk2 Films is handling international sales.

“We feel that The Thing with Feathers fully embodies what we are doing with Vue Lumière and what we want to say to audiences around cinema, storytelling, performance, creativity, and impact,” Eve Gabereau, Director of Distribution at Vue Lumière, said in a statement.

“Also, we are committed to and energised by working with the filmmaking teams and UK partners Film4 and BFI in a joined-up way for the widest possible release.”

Fionnuala Jamison, Managing Director of mk2 Films, added: “We’re very pleased to be partnering with Vue Lumière on their first major dramatic feature. It’s a moving and distinctive film that we’re proud to see embraced by such an ambitious new player in the UK market.”...

Exclusive: Vue Lumière has acquired The Thing With Feathers for the UK & Ireland, marking the distributor’s first dramatic feature acquisition since its launch last year.

It plans to release the film in UK-Ireland cinemas later this year, having acquired it from sales agent mk2 Films.

The Thing With Feathers is the fiction feature directorial debut of Dylan Southern, based on Max Porter’s 2015 novells Grief Is The Thing With Feathers. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a father of two young boys, grieving after the sudden loss of his wife.

The film debuted at Sundance in January, going on to...

Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired grief metaphor creature drama The Thing with Feathers, Deadline reports today, and is currently eyeing a Halloween release.

A wide theatrical release is currently planned for October 31.

The Thing with Feathers centers on “a widower (Benedict Cumberbatch) who is left to raise two young sons after the unexpected death of his wife. The man’s life is unraveling because of the grief that takes the form of an unhinged and unwanted houseguest – a crow – which taunts him from the shadows.”

Director Dylan Southern’s melancholic dark fantasy feature debut is an adaptation of Max Porter‘s novella Grief Is the Thing With Feathers.

“Dylan Southern has crafted something truly unique—an emotional gut punch wrapped in a dark, fantastical nightmare,” said Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Briarcliff Entertainment. “With its bold visual storytelling and powerhouse performances, The Thing With Feathers is an unforgettable exploration of grief, madness,...

Exclusive: Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired U.S. distribution rights to The Thing With Feathers. A wide theatrical release is planned for October 31 for the debut narrative film by Dylan Southern. Pic was one of the high-profile world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival in January, with Benedict Cumberbatch starring alongside Richard Boxall and Henry Boxall. The film subsequently had its international premiere at Berlin.

While the acquisition marketplace was sluggish during the week or so that Sundance unfolded in Park City, deals for the most promising films with stars have been trickling in steadily. That might well be the new normal for Toronto, Sundance and Cannes. The Thing With Feathers becomes the latest example that validates Sundance as still a good launchpad for indie fare, though sellers and buyers have to be patient, and the numbers fall as time goes on.

An adaptation of the Max Porter novella Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,...

The legendary Oasis band is set for a reunion in 2025, which is good news for music and movie lovers because Steven Knight, the Peaky Blinders director, will produce it. But that’s not all. The reunion will be an anticipatory watch as it might feature the infamous fight between the Gallagher brothers, Noel and Liam, which eventually led to the band’s breakup in 2009.

Ubisoft compares the Gallagher brothers with Alexios and Kassandra. Image credit: Oasis Twitter

The fight and fallout of the Gallagher brothers were not a mere blip in the history of music. It made a whirlpool in the news industry as one of the most celebrated British bands was coming to an end. But with the recent announcement of the reunion tour, ‘Oasis Live’ 25,’ music fanatics are hopeful to see an electrifying performance worldwide.

Peaky Blinders‘ cinematic architect, Steven Knight, joins hands with Oasis Peaky Blinders creator...

Oasis have announced a new documentary film being made in conjunction with their massive 2025 reunion tour, “Oasis Live ’25.”

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight will produce the film, while music doc pros Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace will direct. Not much has been revealed yet about the film’s content or release date, but with the notoriously-embattled Gallagher brothers reuniting for their first shows in 14 years this year, there will be plenty of filming opportunities to come on their sprawling 2025 outing.

Get Oasis Reunion Tickets Here

Oasis kick off their reunion tour this year in Cardiff, Wales, on July 4th; the trek will continue in the UK and Ireland before heading over to North America on August 24th. They’ll also hit South America and Asia this year; get tickets to Oasis’ North American tour dates here, and their international tour dates on viagogo.

Revisit our list of 10 Oasis deep cuts...

Oasis have announced a new documentary film being made in conjunction with their massive 2025 reunion tour, “Oasis Live ’25.”

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight will produce the film, while music doc pros Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace will direct. Not much has been revealed yet about the film’s content or release date, but with the notoriously-embattled Gallagher brothers reuniting for their first shows in 14 years this year, there will be plenty of filming opportunities to come on their sprawling 2025 outing.

Get Oasis Reunion Tickets Here

Oasis kick off their reunion tour this year in Cardiff, Wales, on July 4th; the trek will continue in the UK and Ireland before heading over to North America on August 24th. They’ll also hit South America and Asia this year; get tickets to Oasis’ North American tour dates here, and their international tour dates on viagogo.

Revisit our list of 10 Oasis deep cuts...

Exciting news for Oasis fans! Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is set to produce a brand-new concert film following the legendary band’s highly anticipated reunion tour.

The film, titled Oasis Live ‘25, will be directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace. The duo is well-known for their work on music documentaries, including Shut Up and Play the Hits (about LCD Soundsystem) and Meet Me in the Bathroom, which explored the early 2000s New York music scene.

The project will be produced by Magna Studios, a company that has worked on major films like Beastie Boys Story, Gangs of London, 20,000 Days on Earth, and Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now. It will be distributed globally by Sony Music Vision, with Krista Wegener leading the sales efforts.

Related: Steven Knight Is Working on a Remake of Hitchcock’s Classic, ‘Vertigo,’ with Robert Downey Jr.

The reunion of Oasis is a huge moment for fans,...

An Oasis concert movie will be shot during the group’s upcoming reunion tour, and they’ve enlisted some serious filmmakers to immortalize their first concerts in 15 years. Steven Knight, the creator of “Peaky Blinders” and writer behind films like “Eastern Promises,” will serve as the creator and producer of the film, which will be directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the duo behind the LCD Soundsystem doc “Shut Up and Play the Hits.”

No further details or release date have been announced, and it’s unclear if this will be a full-on music documentary about how the reunion happened or just focus on the concerts.

After years of speculation, Noel and Liam Gallagher buried the hatchet and announced a tour last year, with dates spanning the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Chile and Brazil this summer. The tour kicks off in Cardiff on...

Oasis have confirmed a new film is being made in conjunction with their upcoming reunion tour. The film is being created and produced by Peaky Blinders scribe Steven Knight and directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who were responsible for LCD Soundsystem’s 2012 concert film Shut Up and Play the Hits.

The news comes in spite of Liam Gallagher rejecting rumors of a documentary about the long-awaited Oasis reunion last year. In October, the musician was asked by a fan on X, “How’s the new doco filming going?...

Oasis is set to release an accompanying film for their highly anticipated upcoming reunion tour, Sony Music announced Thursday.

Peaky Blinders director Steven Knight is producing the film, Sony said, and it will be directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace. The duo previously directed Meet Me in the Bathroom, the documentary on the 2000s rock scene in New York, as well as Shut Up and Play the Hits, a documentary film about LCD Soundsystem.

A release date hasn’t been set yet, Sony said. Sony Music Vision will distribute the movie. The film is being produced by Magna Studios. Producers are Sam Bridger and Guy Heeley, with executive producers Marisa Clifford and Kate Shepherd, whose credits have included Beastie Boys Story and Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now.

Liam and Noel Gallagher have had a notoriously fraught relationship for years, making Oasis’ tour one of the most hotly...

Steven Knight is creating and producing a film about the iconic British band Oasis in conjunction with their upcoming tour, Oasis Live ’25.

Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace will direct the feature, having previously directed the documentary and concert film Shut Up And Play The Hitsabout LCD Soundsystem and the 2022 music documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom.

Sony Music Vision is distributing the Oasis film and handling global sales.

The project is being “made in conjunction with the tour” but further details surrounding its content are currently under wraps.

It will be produced by Sam Bridger and Guy Heeley for Magna Studios...

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight will produce a film following Oasis on their summer reunion tour.

Oasis Live ‘25 will be directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace. The duo previously worked on the LCD Soundsystem concert film Shut Up And Play The Hits and Meet Me In The Bathroom, the documentary on the early 2000s NYC music scene.

The film will be a Magna Studios production. Producers are Sam Bridger & Guy Heeley, with executive producers Marisa Clifford and Kate Shepherd, whose previous credits include Beastie Boys Story, Gangs Of London, 20000 Days On Earth, and Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now.

The project will be distributed by Sony Music Vision. Krista Wegener of Sony Music Vision will lead global sales.

There had been reports in the UK tabloid papers that Oasis had set plans to document their reunion tour for cinema audiences. The band has not performed together since...

If you have never heard about the Luxembourg City Film Festival before, it may surprise you to know that the biggest annual film event in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which is surrounded by France, Germany and Belgium, is turning 15 this year.

Long considered a hidden gem on the global fest circuit, the event has steadily gained in stature, routinely attracting big industry names to a country with a population of only around 670,000. Just take last year as an example, when the fest set an attendance record with a 10 percent increase to 19,962. For its 2024, LuxFilmFest, it attracted the likes of Viggo Mortensen, Chinese director Wang Bing, Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, French director Gaspar Noé — who hosted a retrospective and a masterclass — and a jury that included Luxembourg star Vicky Krieps, German actor Sebastian Koch, and U.S. director Ira Sachs.

For this year’s 15th edition, which kicks off on Thursday,...

Depression is a notoriously difficult subject to capture in a film. Of course, anyone can point a camera at someone moping on their couch, but turning feelings of despair in to a dynamic, continually compelling narrative is another story. Which is likely why Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers attempts to manifest the grieving process via psychological horror.

The result is a sometimes compelling, often baffling work that doesn’t really solve the inherent problem of its subject matter, but swings for the fences trying. It also serves as a showcase for the talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays a dad grieving the loss of his wife while also stumbling his way through single-fatherhood in a haze of alcohol, hopelessness and feelings of impotence. Oh yeah, and a weird giant crow thing is haunting him.

The work is adapted from Max Porter’s novella Grief Is The ThIng With Feathers,...

Benedict Cumberbatch relished rejecting an “alpha male machismo” in 'The Thing With Feathers'.The 48-year-old actor plays a dad struggling to cope with his wife’s death in the new drama movie – which is an adaptation of the novel, 'Grief Is the Thing with Feathers', by Max Porter – and Benedict relished the challenge of shooting the film.Speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Benedict reflected: “I think part of my job and where I lean into difficult characters, is to explore what is their humanity - if there is any left.“Everyone starts out pretty innocent in my book but I feel we, as a society, owe a responsibility to those who need our help most, and the ones that fall through the cracks, either as victims or as perpetrators of ill doing, are the ones we need to help the most, and don’t. We have a very...

Benedict Cumberbatch is doing promo work at the 2025 Berlinale International Film Festival.

The 48-year-old actor spoke about his recent film, The Thing with Feathers, at a press conference in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday (February 18).

Keep reading to find out more…

Here’s the film’s synopsis: “A young father is devastated by the sudden and unexpected death of his wife. Left with two sons, his sense of reality gradually slips as he is haunted by a seemingly malign presence in the apartment he shares with his children.”

The movie also stars Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall, Sam Spruell and Vinette Robinson. Dylan Southern is the director, and he accompanied Benedict at the event.

“Uncertainty and emotional vulnerability are not top of the agenda of the alpha male or the strong man image of what masculinity is, so I’m very happy to be part of storytelling that goes in the opposite direction of that,...

Benedict Cumberbatch spoke about his relationship to masculinity in his films at the Berlin press conference for “The Thing With Feathers,” in which he stars as a father of two sons grieving the devastating death of his wife.

The actor, who also produced the film through his company SunnyMarch, attended the press conference alongside director Dylan Southern and Richard and Henry Boxall (picture above), who played his sons in the movie. “The Thing With Feathers,” based on Max Porter’s book, had its world premiere at Sundance and will have its European debut at Berlin on Tuesday night.

During the presser, Cumberbatch said he finds it rewarding to allow himself to be vulnerable on screen, and views it as a strength of “being open and able to learn from tragedy.”

“Uncertainty and emotional vulnerability are not top of the agenda of the alpha male or the strong man image of what masculinity is,...

Benedict Cumberbatch says he was happy to show the opposite of “alpha male machismo” with his portrayal of a grieving widower in Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers.

While speaking at the Berlinale press conference for the UK feature, which Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch label produces, the actor said the film did not specifically set out to reflect masculinity in today’s society but that that is a natural consequence of filmmaking.

“As an artist, I think you’re dead in the water if you tried to go out and proselytize or be didactic,” Cumberbatch said. “I think if you...

Benedict Cumberbatch is getting candid about grief, toxic masculinity and advocating for those in need upon the premiere of his latest film, The Thing With Feathers.

The British star spoke from Berlin at the press conference of his latest film on Tuesday. Written and directed by Dylan Southern and adapted from the book Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter, the new film follows a father (Cumberbatch) and his two sons (Richard and Henry Boxall) who are struggling to cope with the sudden loss of their wife and mother.

“I think part of my job and where I lean into difficult characters, is to explore what is their humanity — if there is any left,” he began. “Everyone starts out pretty innocent in my book but I feel we, as a society, owe a responsibility to those who need our help most, and the ones that fall through the cracks,...

Benedict Cumberbatch and writer-director Dylan Southern arrived in Berlin for the European bow of their family drama The Thing With Feathers, which recently had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Cumberbatch talked about how he sees grief and despair differently in his life, producing under his SunnyMarch label and also showered praise on the two young child actors that he worked with on The Thing With Feathers.

The Thing With Feathers follows a young father (played by Cumberbatch) who is devastated by the sudden and unexpected death of his wife. Left with two sons, his sense of reality gradually slips as he is haunted by a seemingly malign presence in the apartment he shares with his children.

“A lot of this film is about letting go, and grief is also about letting go. Something that was there is no longer there,” said Cumberbatch. “You can say that that...

Big names, high concepts, and crowd-pleasing thrills are the order of the day at this year’s European Film Market, where commercial fare is dominating over the usual arthouse prestige plays, reflecting an industry uncertain of the future of the theatrical business in the post-covid world. Action, horror, and comedy are leading the charge, with star-driven projects like Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog (Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike), Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, A$AP Rocky), and Ernest Dickerson’s untitled hitman thriller (Samuel L. Jackson, Daveed Diggs) among the titles generating early buzz.

Genre filmmakers are also stepping up in a big way, with The Raid’s Iko Uwais launching a new production/sales outfit in Berlin for his brand of martial-arts madness, and horror entries like Bad Boy — starring Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart — and the body-horror thriller...

In adapting Max Porter’s novel “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” noted documentary director Dylan Southern knew he’d be taking on some significant challenges in his first scripted narrative feature film. In the story about a grieving husband (Benedict Cumberbatch) thrust into unexpected single fatherhood, the film relies on performances from two young actors, Richard and Henry Boxall, to play his equally grieving sons. Southern and Cumberbatch talked about how being fathers in real life was key to the film’s success when they stopped by the IndieWire Studio, presented by Dropbox, ahead of the Sundance premiere of “The Thing with Feathers.”

“Neither of them had acted before and they had limited attention spans, and it was just about creating the situations that we needed them to be in,” said Southern of working with the young Boxall brothers. “When I first saw the boys, one of them was...

Plot: After the sudden death of his wife, a grieving father (Benedict Cumberbatch) starts to believe that a giant black crow is menacing him and his two sons.

Review: The Thing With Feathers offers star Benedict Cumberbatch yet another impressive showcase, with him riveting as a father collapsing under the weight of uncontrollable grief. It’s his first major film since The Power of the Dog. It’s a heavy watch but is an interesting counterpoint to recent mother-focused parental dramas such as Nightbitch and If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You (which I also saw at this year’s Sundance), as it tackles the weight of parenthood from the father’s perspective, and also uses a surreal twist. While Cumberbatch’s unnamed father never thinks he’s turning into a dog, like Amy Adams in Nightbitch, he does start to believe he’s being haunted by a giant,...

Director Dylan Southern’s melancholic dark fantasy drama, The Thing with Feathers, doesn’t exactly set out to scare, but it is cut from the same cloth as The Babadook and similar grief metaphor horror movies. The adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a newly widowed father so lost in his overwhelming grief that it manifests in the form of a monstrous, talking Crow voiced by David Thewlis. Despite the effectiveness of Crow’s acerbic nature and creature design, this grief metaphor languishes too long in its suffocating sorrow.

The story introduces Cumberbatch’s grief-stricken cartoonist, credited simply as “Dad,” just after he’s buried his wife, who died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her absence leaves an unfillable hole in the family’s life and disrupts their routine to a catastrophic degree. Adjusting to single fatherdom, raising two interchangeably rambunctious...

Horror films aren’t exactly known for their subtlety, but The Thing With Feathers has no subtlety in sight. On paper, The Thing With Feathers does seem like the type of film that could be an ambitious swing and a miss, but thanks to confident direction by Dylan Southern and a phenomenal leading turn by Benedict Cumberbatch, it’s easy to overlook some of the film’s narrative simplicities.

The Thing With Feathers Review

Based on the novel by Max Porter, The Thing With Feathers follows a grieving widower who is struggling to raise his two sons as a single father when his grief begins to manifest itself in physical ways. Tonally, the film offers a combination of family drama and psychological horror, and it manages to strike this balance in a way that is compelling and challenging.

Related Rabbit Trap Sundance Review — Even Dev Patel Can’t Save This...

Align, the Los Angeles-based financier and production company launched by Adrian Politowski and Nadia Khamlichi in 2019, has closed its second fund, Take Two, to pump $120m worth of financing into international feature film and TV drama over the next four years.

The company, which provides bridge loans, and cash flows presales and tax credits as well as offering gap financing, is involved in three features premiering in Sundance this week: Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa, starring Olivia Colman and John Lithgow; Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap starring Dev Patel; and Dylan Southern’s The Thing With Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which...

Sundance film festival: An unaffecting adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novella is perched awkwardly between fantasy and reality, failing to convince on either level

The messiness of grief, something most of us know too well, has been given a smoothing effect on screen, an experience so awful and unpleasant made easily, annoyingly palatable. The cliches that have come to define it have become so normalised that we often forget what it’s really like to see the horrible, frightening reality shown to us. On the page, and stage, Max Porter’s novella Grief is the Thing with Feathers was for many, a fantastical yet identifiable story of loss, the tale of a father losing his wife transformed into a dark, magical fable of transformative horror. Its central conceit – a giant crow haunting the aftermath of death – was such a compelling visual that, despite the pitfalls that come with adapting something so beloved,...

Benedict Cumberbatch was the toast of the town at Sundance during the Variety Cover Party presented by United Airlines. The actor, who graced the cover of Variety‘s 2025 Sundance issue, was honored at the event for his dramatic turn as a grieving father in “The Thing With the Feathers.” The party was held shortly before the movie’s world premiere screening at Sundance.

Variety’s co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh gave opening remarks and invited guests in attendance to donate to L.A. wildfire relief efforts, as Los Angeles is one of Variety and the film industry’s home bases. Cumberbatch said “We do have to stand tall as an industry and help those in need” and pointed to the Qr codes United and Variety provided to charities that are helping with the relief efforts and to those impacted by the wildfires.

“Variety‘s Sundance issue is one of our biggest issues of the year,...

Park City – Not all established documentary filmmakers make the jump to narrative features gracefully, but whatever your thoughts on “The Thing With Features,” you certainly won’t question whether Dylan Southern has a vision. “Feathers,” his first friction work, debuted at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival this weekend and gleefully pushes the envelope in both genre and tone. That being said, despite a committed performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, the end result truly doesn’t coalesce either from an artistic or cinematic perspective.

Continue reading ‘The Thing With Feathers’ Review: A Gigantic Black Crow Helps Benedict Cumberbatch Endure His Grief [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Crows rustle in Dylan Southern’s fiction feature debut, the haunting story of a middle-aged man coming to terms with the sudden and unexpected death of his wife, the mother of his two boys. In terms of genre, it’s hard to place, sitting somewhere between social drama and heightened horror; if Ken Loach dreamed up The Babadook, it might look something like this. Southern — previously known for such heady, experiential and you-are-there music docs as Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012) and Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) — brings the visceral immediacy of those films to a very raw and emotional subject matter. For all the artistry behind it, however, The Thing with Feathers will likely prove divisive; for survivors of trauma, it will likely be cathartic, but for others more fortunate, its pitch-perfect portrayal of loss might be a touch too uncomfortable.

This is one of those films where...

In “The Thing with Feathers,” Benedict Cumberbatch plays a London creator of graphic novels who, quite suddenly, finds himself a widower (his beloved wife collapsed on the kitchen floor and died). In an early scene, we see him try and sustain an atmosphere of everyday normality as he puts breakfast together for his two young sons. But it’s not happening. He feels like he’s juggling four tasks at once; he burns the toast and then frantically tries to scrape off the charred part (a mistake).

The character, who is never named (he’s referred to in the credits as “Dad”), has already shown the depths of his grief, sitting on the couch after the funeral, his tears slowly gushing forth. When Benedict Cumberbatch enacts a moment like this, you can bet that you’re not just seeing an actor cry; you’re seeing him act with every tear.

While many films have conjured terrifying physical manifestations of grief, one that set a notably high bar for hand-crafted horror exploring that fecund strand was Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. The specter of that brutally effective 2014 shocker proves inescapable for writer-director Dylan Southern in The Thing With Feathers, right down to a malevolent figure haunting the main characters that looks like something out of Edward Gorey. The main salvation is the staggering commitment of Benedict Cumberbatch, hurling himself into the role of a bereaved husband in a performance touched by madness that holds nothing back. His wounds are gashes continually being reopened.

The source material is Max Porter’s prize-winning 2015 novella Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, which yielded a solo stage piece three years later seen on both sides of the Atlantic, adapted and directed by Irish playwright Enda Walsh and starring a protean Cillian Murphy. The book is...

Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars are stopping by IMDb’s portrait studio at Acura House of Energy during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and we’ve got all the photos!

On Friday and Saturday (January 24 and 25), the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Dave Franco, Olivia Colman, Lili Reinhart, Jesse Williams and Callum Turner stopped by to post for celebrity photographer Mat Hayward with their castmates.

Keep reading to find out more…

Benedict was joined by Grief is a Thing With Feathers director Dylan Southern. Callum attended with Atropia costar Alia Shawkat and director Hailey Gates.

Dave was there with Bubble & Squeak costars Himesh Patel and Sarah Goldberg and director Evan Twohy.

Olivia was with Jimpa costars Eamon Farren, John Lithgow, Daniel Henshall and Aud Mason-Hyde and director Sophie Hyde.

Lili was joined by with Hal & Harper creator Cooper Raiff and costars Alyah Chanelle Scott, Addison Timlin, Havana Rose Liu and Christopher Meyer.

Benedict Cumberbatch touched down at the Variety Studio presented by Audible at Sundance ahead of the world premiere of his new drama film, “The Thing With the Feathers.” Written and directed by Dylan Southern from the book “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter, the movie casts Cumberbatch as a grieving father struggling to raise his two sons after the sudden loss of his wife.

During the interview with Variety’s Brent Lang, the “Doctor Strange” actor said the father he plays is perhaps the closest he’s come to seeing his real self on screen. He explained: “We’re really fucking weird creatures, us actors. We want to be in extreme situations sometimes to tell a real story. And it does tell something universal. This character is as near to me as any others I’ve played, to be honest. The middle class, the father, being in northwest London.

Day 3 of the Sundance Film Festival continues with premiering films today, from writer Hailey Gates’ directorial debut, Atropia, to James Griffiths’ The Ballad of Wallis Island.

Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, and Hailey Gates graced the red carpet at the Eccles Theatre on Jan 25 for the premiere of director Gates’ comedy, Atropia. Produced by Luca Guadagnino, the film follows an aspiring actress who falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent while training at a military role-playing facility. Their nonsimulated emotions threaten to derail the performance. The film also stars Tim Heidecker and Jane Levy.

Related: Sundance Film Festival 2025: All Of Deadline’s Movie Reviews

Later, Griffiths presented the premiere of his latest film, The Ballad of Wallis Island, starring Tom Basden and Tim Key, opposite Carey Mulligan, Sian Clifford, and Akemnji Ndifornyen. Basden and Key, longtime collaborators who previously brought their 2015 film Two Films About Loneliness to Sundance,...