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Proof of Concept, an accelerator program supporting women, trans and nonbinary filmmakers founded by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, producer Coco Francini and noted researcher Dr. Stacy L. Smith, debuted the work of its inaugural class at a showcase on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

“The showcase is a celebration of a cornucopia of new, wonderful points of view, and importantly, it’s a celebration of this vital step for these filmmakers,” said Blanchett. “From here, we know that these helmers can start shaping and remaking the industry.”

Blanchett appeared virtually, delivering her remarks from London, while Dr. Smith, Francini and Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria were on hand at Netflix’s Tudum Theater in Hollywood to celebrate with the filmmakers and some of their cast.

“Proof of Concept has done exactly what we hoped – yielded bold, inspiring filmmaking that proves these filmmakers are ready to take the next step with their projects,...

The Gotham Film & Media Institute (The Gotham) has announced the winners of the inaugural Gotham Week Honors.

Gina Duncan, President of Bam (Brooklyn Academy of Music), was awarded with the first-ever Gotham Week Cultural Impact Honor. Filmmakers RaMell Ross and Sean Wang each received an inaugural Gotham Week Alumni Honor of Distinction Award.

The romantic comedy “Here for the Weekend,” written and directed by Jane Casey Modderno, won the U.S. Features in Development honor. “Thirstygirl,” written and directed by Alexandra Qin, took home the the U.S. Shorts to Features honor. “Matininó” won the Spotlight on Documentaries award.

Sophie Luo, producer of “Valley of the Tall Grass,” was recognized as the Global Producer of The Year. “Valley of the Tall Grass” is centered around “a trashed TV/Vcr combo set that survives and circulates through the lives of various Indigenous characters in an Oregon town.”

The Gotham Week...

Short films generated by artificial intelligence are popping up at more and more film festivals, and the largest event yet is dedicating an entire section to AI-generated movies.

The 2024 Tribeca Festival announced Friday it will host Sora Shorts, a new program featuring five original short films all made using OpenAI’s text-to-video AI model Sora. It’s not the first time AI films have made their way to a major film festival, but it is the first time movies made with Sora have.

Sora still hasn’t been released to the public and is new even for the most seasoned AI filmmakers, but OpenAI gave the cohort of five directors early access to the program — so long as they each agreed to the filmmaking terms surrounding AI as negotiated last year with the DGA, WGA, and SAG-AFTRA guilds.

Nikyatu Jusu, the director of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Nanny,...

Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett, Emmy-nominated producer Coco Francini of Dirty Films, and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, announced the 11 recipients of their Proof of Concept Accelerator program, supported by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity.

“We have been astonished by the artistry of all 1,200 filmmakers who applied to Proof of Concept, which proves that there are so many voices out there who deserve to find their audience. Our final selection represents filmmakers who we felt had the experience and vision to take their careers to the next level and make creative and compelling film and television that may transform the landscape of storytelling. We are grateful to the applicants, our incredible selection committee, and the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity for their unwavering support and guidance as we take another step towards creating an ecosystem that supports inclusion of gender marginalized directors at the highest levels of the entertainment business,...

Proof of Concept, an accelerator program supporting women, trans and nonbinary filmmakers founded by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, producer Coco Francini and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, has set its inaugural class of filmmakers.

Proof of Concept was created after Dirty Films partners Blanchett and Francini met Smith at a Kering Women in Motion talk during last year’s Cannes Film Festival. On Monday, the trio reunited to discuss the progress they’ve made in building the new program, which was announced in December 2023 with the mission to support an inaugural class of 8 emerging filmmakers.

Among the updates shared was that the trio and their all-star selection committee — Chloé Zhao, Emma Corrin, Eva Longoria, Greta Gerwig, Jane Campion, Janicza Bravo, Lily Gladstone and Lilly Wachowski — had made their final selections out of more than 1,200 applications. They also announced that with the support of the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, the program...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Anyone But You (Will Gluck)

If anything, Anyone But You‘s spirit is encapsulated in having a running joke about “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield (gags involving that artist’s back catalog seeming to be the Will Gluck auteurist touch) as if the movie’s wholly bland pop soundtrack puts it above that at-least-memorable 2000s ditty. Slight self-awareness with no effort to actually do anything new is the definition of unearned arrogance. This is why it fails as a romcom: too much smarm and not enough charm. – Ethan V. (full review)

Where to Stream: Netflix

Garrett Bradley: Devotion

If you’ve only seen Garrett Bradley’s staggering, Oscar-nominated documentary Time, it’s prime time to catch up on a pair of her earlier work.

Exterior. Establishing: Film Independent HQ. Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. Prelap the sounds of passionate conversation and laughter. Cut To: Interior, Conference Room, Film Independent HQ. Seven new screenwriting Fellows are arrayed around a table, the Hollywood Sign visible on the distant hills outside the window. They’re here to develop six deeply personal and wholly original feature film projects under the steady guiding hand of Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab. A fun, creative, safe space.

The End.

(Roll credits)

Sorry–we wish our story could’ve been longer but there wasn’t really any dramatic conflict at the Screenwriting Lab this year, just a lot of productive discussion and writing workshops with lead creative advisors Javier Fuentes-León, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Jessica Sharzer, Jeff Stockwell and Christopher Makoto Yogi. Additional guest speakers and advisors include Ruth Atkinson, Danielle Renfrew Behrens, Bridget Savage Cole, Lauren Craniotes, Ellie Foumbi, Priyanka Kapoor, Danielle Krudy,...

Exclusive: Film Independent has named Omer Ben Shachar, Mary Dauterman, Mg Evangelista, Naomi Iwamoto, Thomas Kivney, Juan Paulo Laserna and Jhanvi Motla as the screenwriters selected for the 26th edition of its Screenwriting Lab, an intensive program designed to provide individualized story and career development for screenwriters with fiction feature scripts.

Over the course of the program, Fellows will workshop their projects under the guidance of creative advisors Javier Fuentes-León, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Jessica Sharzer, Jeff Stockwell and Christopher Makoto Yogi. Additional guest speakers and advisors will include Ruth Atkinson, Danielle Renfrew Behrens, Bridget Savage Cole, Lauren Craniotes, Ellie Foumbi, Priyanka Kapoor, Danielle Krudy, Amanda Marshall, Josh Peters, Jon Schumacher, Ellen Shanman, Lauren Shelton and Caddy Vanasirikul.

“We are honored to provide the tools and support necessary for these exceptional filmmakers to propel their projects and careers forward,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs for Film Independent.

Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.

A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.

by Cláudio Alves

For those following the awards season as a celebration of cinema rather than just a long trail to the Oscar stage, the Film Independent Spirit Awards can represent a treasure trove of delightful surprises. Last year, no choice caused more shock than one lone nomination for Our Father, the Devil in Best Feature. For most, this directorial debut by Cameroonian filmmaker Ellie Foumbi came out of nowhere. At the time, it was an oft-forgotten title with scant hopes of a commercial release that had been making the festival rounds since 2021, winning some juried prizes along the way. In retrospect, the Spirit nomination did its magic, and now, Our Father, The Devil is enjoying a limited release in American theaters.

There's reason to rejoice, for Foumbi's film is nothing short of an acting showcase. It contains two of the year's most fascinating performances, a pair of galvanizing turns...

This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.Some of the most flooring moments in cinema can come in what otherwise seems like a simple moment of discovery. Though often smaller in scale than the massive spectacle of many films, such moments can be made more explosive than anything out there because of how they take the minute details of a life and methodically mold it into something completely shattering. In writer-director Ellie Foumbi’s feature debut thriller Our Father, the Devil, previously the winner of the Audience Award Winner for Best Narrative at the Tribeca Film Festival and nominee for Best Picture at the 2023 Spirit Awards, discovery comes when a sermon is overheard at a retirement home in the tranquility of small-town France. The one doing the discovering is Head Chef Marie,...

Pay attention to Marie’s hands in Ellie Foumbi’s spiky directorial debut Our Father, the Devil. They often reveal more about the steely protagonist than her facial expressions. There’s a method to the way she grips a carrot with one hand and cradles a stainless-steel knife in the other. Her movements are swift, precise and rhythmic. She brings a similar energy to cutting a loaf of bread, brandishing a switchblade and cleaving into flesh.

“The human body doesn’t bother me,” Marie, played by an excellent Babetida Sadjo, says to her favorite nursing home resident, Jeanne (Martine Amisse), at the start of the film. Her lips curl into a rare and generous smile. Why does her benign response to a throwaway sentiment about old age spook like a damning confession?

Our Father, the Devil is a cannily constructed study of trauma and a seductive character study. After its...

If there’s one sin in criticism that many writers––myself included––fall victim to at one point or another, it’s assessing a film’s narrative by comparing it to the one they wish they saw. Our Father, The Devil, the directorial debut of Cameroonian filmmaker Ellie Foumbi, is the kind of intriguing but flawed effort that may leave some viewers wishing to sand down its rougher edges, especially as its initial slow-burning character study transforms into a moodier, altogether more conventional kidnapping thriller. A surprise nominee for Best Feature at last year’s Indie Spirit Awards, not least because it remained almost entirely under the radar within the festival circuit, it is an effective calling card for Foumbi, showcasing a talented new filmmaker equally at home making a restrained drama as she is a splashy, violent genre effort.

That these starkly different tones don’t cohere into an...

Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil is an exceptionally haunting, masterful film. A highlight from both Venice (a Biennale College Cinema selection) and this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, this tour-de-force is destined for indie awards recognition.

Part psychological thriller, part spiritual journey, part cathartic experience, Our Father defies characterization. Foumbi’s script follows the entanglement of two African refugees, Marie (mesmerizing Babetida Sadjo) and Father Patrick (otherworldly Souleymane Sy Savane); despite an unspoken connection to a bloody past, they’ve built new lives in a tranquil French mountain town. A study in contrasts, the film poses profound questions: Where to draw the line between past and present, fear and faith, guilt and forgiveness, the Devil and God?…...

There are no atheists in foxholes and — generally speaking — there are no grifters in gimp bondage. Critics of contemporary Christianity are quick to point out that sects of the faith are filled with so-called “priests” who lie, scam, embezzle, and abuse their followers in the name of enriching themselves. But tie one of them up and threaten to kill him and you’ll see his true nature revealed. Anyone who keeps preaching their Biblical virtues when their physical safety is on the line is probably sincere about it.

That uncomfortable fact becomes apparent to Marie (Babetida Sadjo) when she kidnaps the man who haunts her dreams in “Our Father, the Devil.” Despite a brutal childhood in war-torn Africa, Marie has built a respectable life for herself as the head chef at an upscale French nursing home. But when the seemingly perfect Father Patrick (Souléymane Sy Savané) arrives and starts preaching to her affluent residents,...

The non-Member deadline for the 2023 Film Independent Screenwriting Lab is coming up fast: August 28, just ten short days from today! Of course, Members of Film Independent still have until September 11. So maybe you might wanna consider joining? Just a thought. In the meantime, we reached out to 2018 Screenwriting Lab Fellow Miguel Nuñez to help learn what the experience was like for him, and how the Lab directly contributed to the production of his second feature, Hombrecito.

Miguel Nuñez (far right) and the rest of the 2018 Film Independent Screenwriting Lab cohort

There are formative moments that shape us as filmmakers. In my case, attending Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School was fundamental to developing my vision and philosophy. After that, I was able to take the leap into writing and directing my first feature film. By the time I wrote my second feature, I applied to Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab.

A new trailer lands today for Our Father, the Devil, writer-director Ellie Foumbi’s feature debut that earned her a spot on our 25 New Faces of Film list last year. Selected for funding through the Venice Biennale College Cinema in December 2019, the film first screened as a “work in progress” at Venice in 2021 before premiering a final cut at Tribeca in 2022, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. Here’s the plot of the film, per an official synopsis: Nominated for the 2023 Best Feature Independent Spirit Award, Ellie Foumbi’s elegant moral thriller and debut feature […]

The post Trailer Watch: Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A new trailer lands today for Our Father, the Devil, writer-director Ellie Foumbi’s feature debut that earned her a spot on our 25 New Faces of Film list last year. Selected for funding through the Venice Biennale College Cinema in December 2019, the film first screened as a “work in progress” at Venice in 2021 before premiering a final cut at Tribeca in 2022, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. Here’s the plot of the film, per an official synopsis: Nominated for the 2023 Best Feature Independent Spirit Award, Ellie Foumbi’s elegant moral thriller and debut feature […]

The post Trailer Watch: Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Among this year’s Film Independent Spirt Award nominations for Best Feature were “Bones and All,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “TÁR,” “Women Talking,” and an under-the-radar, France-set thriller about an African refugee facing her past.

The film didn’t win given the stiff competition, but it was a worthy inclusion for its powerful portrait of a woman (Babetida Sadjo) grappling with terrifying events from her homeland that still haunt her now — and the introduction of a priest into her life who reactivates her trauma.

Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, “Our Father, the Devil” will be released by Fandor and Cineverse in select theaters, including the Quad Cinema in New York City on August 25, and the Laemmle Royal in West Los Angeles on September 1. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Per a synopsis, the film stars a riveting Sadjo as Marie, the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France.

Exclusive: Film Independent has set 26 filmmakers from 15 nations to participate in the 2023 edition of their Global Media Makers LA Residency, which is being held in person this month.

A mentoring initiative and cultural exchange program that connects American filmmakers and industry pros with filmmakers spread across the globe, Gmm sees Fellows participate in filmmaking tracks focused on screenwriting, directing, creative development and documentary filmmaking, where they develop their current projects alongside a team of U.S. mentors.

The program, presented by Film Independent and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, further bolsters up-and-comers by providing access to master classes, industry sessions and field trips, as well as cultural engagement and networking opportunities.

This edition of Gmm is the eighth put on since 2016, and as always, the selection process was highly competitive, attracting a diverse pool of media makers, with the countries of Angola, Libya,...

La Biennale di Venezia, Netflix and The Gotham (Filmmaker‘s publisher) have partnered on “Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation,” a screening series hosted at the Paris Theater in New York City. Comprised of six films from the past decade that are products of the Venice Biennale College Cinema program, which develops and produces bold features budgeted at €200,000 or less, the series will include moderated Q&As alongside one-time screenings of each title. “Next Generation” opens tonight with a 7pm screening of Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, featuring a Q&a moderated by Nanny writer-director Nikyatu Jusu. The series concludes on […]

The post Catch the Paris Theater Screening Series “Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation” in NYC This Week first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

La Biennale di Venezia, Netflix and The Gotham (Filmmaker‘s publisher) have partnered on “Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation,” a screening series hosted at the Paris Theater in New York City. Comprised of six films from the past decade that are products of the Venice Biennale College Cinema program, which develops and produces bold features budgeted at €200,000 or less, the series will include moderated Q&As alongside one-time screenings of each title. “Next Generation” opens tonight with a 7pm screening of Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, featuring a Q&a moderated by Nanny writer-director Nikyatu Jusu. The series concludes on […]

The post Catch the Paris Theater Screening Series “Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation” in NYC This Week first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Exclusive: Venice Film Festival, Netflix and The Gotham Film & Media Institute are teaming up on a program of movies at iconic New York venue, the Paris Theater. Scroll down for program lineup in full.

Titled Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation, the four day event (April 20-23) will showcase films from the first ten years of La Biennale di Venezia’s Biennale College Cinema.

Screenings will be accompanied by in-depth discussions pairing new filmmakers with established directors, producers, and writers. The opening night will feature a screening of mystery-thriller Our Father, The Devil with remarks from Venice Director Alberto Barbera and Head of Programme Savina Neirotti. Indie Spirit winner Nikyatu Jusu, whose Sundance film Nanny was picked up by Amazon and Blumhouse, will serve as moderator for the opening night discussion with director Ellie Foumbi.

Biennale College Cinema is an incubator program for low-budget films by emerging filmmakers. Among...

A new crop of winners will soon find out how owning an Oscar can change one’s life and career, which is why The Hollywood Reporter asked Siân Heder at the recent Spirit Awards how having one has impacted hers.

Heder, a winner for best adapted screenplay last year for her work on the best picture winner Coda, didn’t miss a beat before coming up with an amusing response. “I wish my house had changed a little bit more. I wish I didn’t drive my crappy Subaru and have to park it with my eyes down in an ashamed way,” she said with a laugh. “But other things have really changed, because as an independent filmmaker, your life is largely built on struggle and fighting to get your projects made. There’s an incredible relief that comes when those doors open and you’re supported in what you...

‘Aftersun’ wins Best First Feature, ‘Joyland’ Best International Film.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once has dominated the 2023 Spirit Awards, claiming seven of the eight awards it was nominated for including film, director for the Daniels, and lead and supporting performance for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, respectively.

As awards season nears its climax, the madcap multiverse adventure heads into next weekend’s Oscars as the clear frontrunner for major honours after a triumphant Saturday evening under the traditional Film Independent tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

This follows major wins at three of the four US...

Everything Everywhere All at Once cleaned up at the 38th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning seven awards, including best feature.

Stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan each collected another award to add to their hauls, taking home best lead performance and best supporting performance, respectively, while Stephanie Hsu won best breakthrough performance. The film’s writer-directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, won the Spirit Award for best director and best screenplay, and Paul Rogers won for his editing work.

Heading into the show, Everything Everywhere All at Once led the film nominations with eight nods, winning every category in which it was nominated. Jamie Lee Curtis also was nominated but lost to her Eeao co-star Quan for best supporting performance.

On the TV side, The Bear was named best new scripted series, with Ayo Edebiri taking home the award for best supporting performance in a new scripted series.

It’s conquered the top prizes at the PGAs, DGAs and SAG Awards and two at the Golden Globes, and on Saturday afternoon, A24’s highest-grossing movie of all time and 11-time Oscar nominated Everything Everywhere All at Once took seven out of its eight Film Independent Spirit Award noms as wins, including Best Picture.

The only nom the movie didn’t get as an award was Jamie Lee Curtis, who was competing against Key Huy Quan in Best Supporting Performance.

Everything Everywhere All at Once today beat out Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Todd Field’s Tár, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil in the Best Feature category.

Michelle Yeoh

An emotional Michelle Yeoh continued her Best Actress win streak this season with a win for Best Lead Performance. The win came after...

Babetida Sadjo in Our Father, The Devil

Featuring one of the most powerful central performances of the past year, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil, which is screening at the 2023 Glasgow Film Festival, is the story of a refugee whose quiet life working in a care home in France is thrown into chaos by the unexpected arrival of a man who may have ties to her past. Babetida Sadjo shines as Marie, a woman struggling under the weight of awful secrets, while Souleymane Sy Savane plays Father Patrick, the priest who, one way or another, holds the key to her future.

Having fallen in love with the film when I first saw it, I was delighted to have the chance to chat to Ellie. I told her that I always find it strange the way that people expect refugees who have been through awful things to just be magically okay.

With Independent Spirit festivities only days away, the Cinedigm folks have landed the North American rights to the surprise film nominated in the Best Feature category of the awards show. A 2021 Venice Film Festival selection in the Biennale College Cinema sidebar and a Tribeca Film Fest favorite, Ellie Foumbi‘s Our Father, the Devil will receive a theatrical push later this year.

Starring Babetida Sadjo as Marie, the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France. Her easy day-to-day life spent caring for residents, hanging out with her co-worker and best friend Nadia (Jennifer Tchiakpe), and teasing a potential new romance is disrupted by the arrival of Father Patrick (Souleìymane Sy Savané – from Ramin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo fame), an African priest whom she recognizes from a terrifying episode in her homeland.…...

Exclusive: Cinedigm has picked up North American rights to the acclaimed French thriller Our Father, the Devil, marking the narrative feature debut of writer-director Ellie Foumbi, which this Saturday will contend for Best Feature as the Independent Spirit Awards. The indie will be released in theaters later this year, with an exclusive streaming release on the company’s indie discovery platform Fandor to follow.

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Our Father, the Devil stars Babetida Sadjo as Marie, the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France. Her easy day-to-day life spent caring for residents, hanging out with her co-worker and best friend Nadia (Jennifer Tchiakpe), and teasing a potential new...

If the title “Our Father, the Devil” rings a bell, that’s probably because the previously under-the-radar Franco-American co-production received a Spirit Award nomination for best feature in late 2022. Ellie Foumbi’s debut feature premiered a few months earlier at the Venice Film Festival and is still seeking U.S. distribution. While calling it one of the best films of the year seems a bit much, there’s no denying it’s worthy of attention. A cutting, at times unwieldy exploration of trauma and forgiveness, the enigmatic drama goes places you almost certainly won’t expect — and, once there, makes you wonder how you ever thought it could have gone anywhere else.

Marie (an excellent Babetida Sadjo) is the head chef at an upscale retirement home in the south of France, a swankier gig than it might sound like — after serving duck confit to a discerning resident one day, she...

Like many refugees who have made their home in Europe, Marie (Babetida Sadjo) works in a care home. She provides some direct support for the residents – notably Jeanne (Martine Amisse), her former tutor, who remains a friend – but her primary role is as a chef. It’s a function around which her whole life revolves, a way of being useful and of setting aside the personal. In the opening scene of Ellie Foumbi’s film, before the credits appear, we see her in a montage of shots: her back, her hair, her body below the neck. Only later do we see her face, the person – the survivor – ill at ease in this frame.

There’s a belief which much of society still persists in holding onto, that when a person has survived trauma and no longer faces that threat, they are able to live just like anyone else. Marie is.

The Gotham Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film has unveiled the names of filmmakers who will participate in the upcoming 14th edition.

The selected fellows are Ahnmin Lee, Anndi Liggett, Jingjing Tian, Joecar Hanna and Maryam Mir. All five New York-based filmmakers will take part in a year-long mentorship. As part of the program, participants will meet regularly with industry guests and leaders of the fellowship.

Created in 2009, the Fellowship has played a key role in helping promising new filmmakers connect with their peers within the community and develop their feature debuts. Alumni include Sarna Lapine, who directed Jake Gyllenhaal in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” on Broadway, Silka Luisa, creator of the Apple TV+ series “Shining Girls” starring Elizabeth Moss, Wagner Moura and Jamie Bell.

Most recently, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic was awarded Cannes’ Camera d’Or for best first film with “Murina” (pictured...

The Black Reel Awards has revealed its nominations for their 23rd Annual ceremony.

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King, about the warrior women of the country of Dahomey, and Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, about a superhero from the fictional African nation of Wakanda and a memorial to Chadwick Boseman, are tied at 14 nominations.

Two other films joined the ranks of double-digit nominations: MGM’s Till and A24’s The Inspection.

Independent studio A24 garnered 11 nominations across all categories. However, Amazon Studios landed a record three nominations in the Outstanding Independent Film category for Master, Nanny, and Emergency. Perennial powerhouse, Disney Studios nabbed the most nominations for a studio with 15.

Viola Davis landed her sixth Outstanding Actress nomination for her work in The Woman King, becoming the most recognized individual in the Actress category in Black Reel Award (Bolts) history. At the same time, director Elegance Bratton received...

Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field star in ’80 For Brady’ from Paramount Pictures.

The world premiere of 80 for Brady starring Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Rita Moreno, and Lily Tomlin will open the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Festival on Friday, January 6, 2023, and The Lost King from director Stephen Frears will close the festival on Sunday, January 15th. In between, Psiff will screen 132 films including the world premiere of the documentary Shot in the Arm.

“We are beyond excited to welcome back our beloved audience and filmmakers in Palm Springs. We’re especially thrilled to be joined by all four leads of 80 For Brady. The film is brimming with joy and heart, and it’s a perfect film to kick off our 34th edition,” said Artistic Director Lili Rodriguez. “Our programmers have dedicated almost a year to scouting the world for the films that make up this edition.

Celebrating its 38th edition, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have unveiled their 2023 nominations, with the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once leading the pack with eight nominations while Todd Field’s TÁR secured seven. Along with those two, rounding out the Best Feature nominations were Bones and All, Our Father, the Devil, and Women Talking. Elsewhere, some of our favorites of the year––including Aftersun, Murina, The African Desperate, The Cathedral, After Yang, All That Breathes, Saint Omer, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed––were recognized.

Check out the nominations below ahead of the March 4 ceremony.

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

Bones and All

Producers: Timothée Chalamet, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Lorenzo Mieli, Marco Morabito, Gabriele Moratti, Theresa Park, Peter Spears

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Producers: Daniel Kwan, Mike Larocca, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang

Our Father, the Devil

Producers: Ellie Foumbi,...

The film has eight nominations, followed by Todd Field’s ’Tár’ with seven

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once leads the 38th Independent Spirit Awards nominations with eight nods, followed closely by Todd Field’s Tár which has seven nominations.

Both films are up for best feature alongside Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil, and Sarah Polley’s Women Talking.

Everything Everywhere’s nominations include best director and screenplay. The film’s star Michelle Yeoh is also nominated for best lead performance in the awards’ first year using gender-neutral acting categories.

Click here to read the full article.

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations in film categories were revealed Tuesday morning.

Taylour Paige and Raúl Castillo announced this year’s movie nominees in a livestream on Film Independent’s YouTube channel.

A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once leads the nominations with eight nods including best feature, directing and screenplay (for filmmaking duo Daniels). Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu were also honored for their performances. Other leading Oscar contenders landing Spirit Awards nods include Focus Features’ Tàr (which earned seven nominations, among them for Todd Field’s direction and writing, as well as performances from Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss), United Artists’ Bones and All (recognized with three nods including for its performances from Taylor Russell and Mark Rylance) and A24’s The Inspection (earning nods for actors Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, in addition...

“Bones and All,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Our Father, the Devil,” “Tár” and “Women Talking” have have been nominated as the best independent films of 2022 at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which announced its nominations on Tuesday morning by Taylour Paige and Raúl Castillo.

Acting nominees in the gender-neutral categories include Brian Tyree Henry for “Causeway,” Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss for “Tár,” Regina King for “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul” and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Those three acting nominations for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” along with a Breakthrough Performance nom for Stephanie Hsu, pushed that film to eight nominations, the most of any film. “Tár” finished second with seven nominations, followed by “Aftersun” with five and “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” “Women Talking” and “Emily the Criminal” with four each.

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‘Everything Everywhere All at Once...

Representation in the arts matters, and for young, up and coming stars representing a minority, it’s important and powerful to be recognised, and vitally, to be seen. BAFTA seemingly agree – and are spotlighting talent from in-front of and behind the lens from across the UK & US, in their annual initiative titled BAFTA Breakthrough, with alumni consisting of the likes of Tom Holland, Florence Pugh, Letitia Wright & Jessie Buckley.

This year we had the pleasure to speak to two of the breakthroughs, in British actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, as well as American actor Brandon Perea, who made his name with a role in Jordan Peele’s Nope. We spoke about their thoughts on being named a Breakthrough star, and what it means for them personally and for their respective careers. We also look back on projects been, such as Eastenders for Ayling-Ellis, and Nope for Perea, and look ahead to the future,...

BAFTA has unveiled the 33 creatives across two continents who have been selected for the organization’s talent initiative BAFTA Breakthrough 2022.

Selected from the worlds of film, games and TV by an experienced jury, participants are set to receive professional development support including coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities with BAFTA’s vast range of members from the creative industries.

The 2022 UK jury was chaired by Ade Rawcliffe (group director of diversity and inclusion at ITV), and included Fiona Lamptey (director of features at Netflix), performer Marianne Jean-Baptiste, BBC Comedy commissioning editor Emma Lawson, casting director Lauren Evans, and Breakthrough alumnae Ruth Madeley and Charu Desodt. The U.S. jury was chaired by actor Nyasha Hatendi, and included the actors Jodi Balfour and Bianca Lawson, cinematographer Ava Berkofsky, TV executive producer and showrunner Ari Katcher, director, writer and producer Stephanie Laing and Netflix Studio exec Racheline Benveniste.

The Breakthroughs include creatives from...

Chloe Fairweather, who directed documentary ‘Dying To Divorce’ has also been selected

UK actors Ambika Mod and Nell Barlow are among the 33 talents across film, TV and game selected for the 2022 edition of Bafta Breakthrough.

Mod was also chosen as a 2022 Screen Star of Tomorrow. She appeared alongside Ben Whishaw in the BBC series This Is Going To Hurt and is starring in the upcoming Netflix series One Day.

Barlow starred in the coming-of-age comedy Sweetheart which was written and directed by Marley Morrison who has also been selected as a Bafta Breakthrough. The film was nominated for five British...

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The British Academy has unveiled the latest crop of participants the U.S. and U.K. that will take part in its annual Breakthrough program, aimed at supporting emerging talent across film, TV and video games.

The 32-strong list of names — 20 from the U.K. and 12 from the U.S. — includes an impressive ensemble of creatives, such as Nope breakout Brandon Perea and Sex Education director Runyararo Mapfumo, who were selected by an international jury that included Oscar-winning actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Ramy co-creator Ari Katcher and Swan Song and Alex Rider actor Nyasha Hatendi.

Backed by Netflix for the last two years (the streamer’s head of U.K. features Fiona Lamptey is also on the jury), the BAFTA Breakthrough program first launched in the U.K. in 2013 before expanding to China in 2019 and the U.S. and India in 2020. It sees each...

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The Black Guelph, a powerful, if bleak, look at the plight of the Irish Travellers, Ireland’s indigenous ethnic population, and the legacy of generations of neglect and abuse by the Irish state and Catholic Church, has won the German Independence Award for best film at the 2022 Oldenburg International Film Festival, Germany’s leading indie film fest.

The film’s star, Graham Earley, also won Oldenburg’s best actor honor, the Seymour Cassel Award. Earley stars as Kanto, a small-time drug dealer trying to get off the streets of Dublin and reconnect with his mother of his young daughter, who is caught short by a visit from his long-absent father Cormac (Barry John Kinsella), an abuse survivor who returns home looking for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Best actress honors went to Cyndie Lundy for her starring performance as a pregnant woman who tries to...

The past haunts Marie, a chef in a retirement home in the small French village of Luchon. An exile from violence in Africa, she has closed herself off to all but a handful of friends. Then, a new arrival forces Marie to confront a world she has tried to forget. Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, Our Father, The Devil was shot on a 20-day schedule. It was developed in part through Venice’s Biennale College Cinema. The film screened at the Venice Film Festival and recently at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award. […]

The post “There Are Only So Many Ways to Light a Kitchen with a Low Ceiling”: Ellie Foumbi and Dp Tinx Chan on Our Father, The Devil first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The past haunts Marie, a chef in a retirement home in the small French village of Luchon. An exile from violence in Africa, she has closed herself off to all but a handful of friends. Then, a new arrival forces Marie to confront a world she has tried to forget. Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, Our Father, The Devil was shot on a 20-day schedule. It was developed in part through Venice’s Biennale College Cinema. The film screened at the Venice Film Festival and recently at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award. […]

The post “There Are Only So Many Ways to Light a Kitchen with a Low Ceiling”: Ellie Foumbi and Dp Tinx Chan on Our Father, The Devil first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Click here to read the full article.

The summer box office season is typically filled with milestones of the blockbuster variety but this July, Columbia University’s film program is toasting one of its own. Four international female filmmakers (and Mfa grads) have their first features hitting theaters this month.

The roster includes Nathalie Alvarez Mesen’s Clara Sola, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic’s Murina, Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava, Lebanon, and Anna Gutto’s Paradise Highway. The latter film, about a truck driver who reluctantly agrees to smuggle illicit cargo (a little girl), is the most star-studded, with Juliette Binoche, Morgan Freeman, Cameron Monaghan and Frank Grillo. Also of note: Columbia grad Ellie Foumbi’s debut feature Our Father, the Devil, picked up an audience award last month during the Tribeca Festival in New York.

Jack Lechner, chair of film at Columbia University School of the Arts, says that every...

The 2022 American Black Film Festival (ABFF) today announced the Best of the ABFF Award winners.

The presentation hosted by three-time Emmy-nominated actor and author Dondré Whitfield was an on-point wrap to the five-day festival with producer/director/actress Issa Rae acting as the Festival Ambassador.

The 26th annual festival returned live to Miami, June 15-19 and continues virtually through June 30 with independent films, the Best of the ABFF Awards and more programming on its custom-designed online platform ABFF Play.

The Best of ABFF Awards include winners in the official film selection categories — narrative and documentary features, web series and the 25th HBO Short Film Award Showcase, as well as its talent pipeline program comprised of national casting and writing competitions.

The Jury Award winners are:

Best Narrative Feature

Our Father, the Devil

Directed by Ellie Foumbi, produced by Ellie Foumbi, Joseph Mastantuono;

Prize: 2,500, presented by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Best Director,...

The American Black Film Festival has announced this year’s Best of ABFF award winners, with “Our Father, the Devil” and “Feel Like Ghosts” among the top honorees.

After two years of virtual programing, ABFF returned to Miami Beach for its 26th edition, with live events held June 15-19. The 2022 winners were announced by Emmy nominee Dondré Whitfield, who hosted the ceremony on the final day of ABFF’s in-person program, with a virtual presentation of the event now available to view on its custom-designed online platform, ABFF Play, where the festival continues until June 30.

The Best of ABFF Awards includes winners in the official film selection categories — narrative and documentary features, web series and the 25th HBO Short Film Award Showcase, decided by a jury led by Michael Quigley, Warner Bros. Discovery’s exec VP of content acquisitions for TNT, TBS, truTV, HBO and HBO Max — as well as...

Enacted during Prohibition—and the Harlem Renaissance—the New York City Cabaret Law made it so any public establishment that served food and/or drink needed a license to allow musical entertainment and dancing. Like so many similar laws (see pushes for voter ID), proponents championed the initiative as a means of “keeping the peace.” Critics conversely saw how the extra cost and sheer absurdity of its enforcement targeted businesses that were owned and frequented by marginalized groups. And since that law stayed on the books for almost a full century from 1926 to 2017, you can imagine the atmosphere of celebration born from its rescission. It was surely enough to earn a cinematic tribute, and writer/director Christina Kallas complies with Paris is in Harlem.

More than a fictionalized account of that moment, however, Kallas’ film looks to piggyback on the scene that was affected most: jazz clubs. She channels the...