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Exclusive:Robin Elliott-Knowles and Georgia Kumari Bradburn, the co-directors of Cph:Dox and BFI London Film Festival titleThe Stimming Poolare among the 13 recipients of the thirdIndependent Cinema Office (Ico) Miles Ketley Memorial Fund bursary for emerging UK filmmakers.

Alice Russell, director of Bifa-winning documentaryIf The Streets Were On Fire(2023), and Marley Morrison, director of Glasgow audience award winnerSweetheart(2021), have also received awards.

The Ico board has approved an extension of the fund, which had been scheduled to finish this year. The fund will now continue on for three more years (2026 to 2028). The new funding includes a 40% increase in value, meaning the...

Pixar’s ‘Soul’ and Chloe Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ are two of four cinema-only titles.

The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the full programme for its 2020 physical-virtual hybrid edition, with 58 features playing to audiences across the UK from October 7-18.

Pixar’s Soul and Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland starring Frances McDormand join Steve McQueen’s festival opener Mangrove and Francis Lee’s closer Ammonite as the four cinema-only titles, playing at select venues across the country.

Scroll down for the full lineup of features

A further 10 titles will play both in cinemas and via the festival’s online platform. These...

Industry registration closes on September 2.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) organisers on Tuesday (September 1) announced a selection of 30 global acquisition titles outside the Official Selection.

TIFF Industry Selects titles hail from 29 countries and have been hand-picked by TIFF’s industry and festival programming teams and will screen to accredited users on the festival’s dedicated press and industry platform, TIFF Digital Cinema Pro. Industry registration closes on September 2.

2020 TIFF Industry Selects Titles:

A Good Man (France) Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar

After Love (UK) Aleem Khan

And Tomorrow The Entire World (Germany/France) Julia Von Heinz

Apples (Greece) Christos Nikou

Baby Done (New...

French Argentine actor Bérénice Bejo discussed her early career, breaking into French cinema and starring in a silent film, as part of the 2020 Sarajevo Film Festival masterclass series, hosted by Variety Streaming Room.

The conversation and subsequent audience Q&a, moderated by film critic Peter Debruge, covered the actor’s performance in “After Love” and “The Artist,” as well as advice for aspiring filmmakers.

Bejo made her screen debut through a newspaper advertisement in 1998. She called director Abdelkrim Bahlo’s number in her local paper and auditioned over the phone for her role in “Les Soeurs Hamlet.” Since her early 20s, Bejo has starred in over 50 films and two theatrical productions.

“For me, it was always onscreen. Every Saturday, [my dad] would show us like critics and decide what we will see, so while my friends were watching TV or things like that, I was not allowed to watch. I was watching John Wayne,...

Director Michel Hazanavicius and actress Bérénice Bejo, Oscar winner and Oscar nominee respectively for “The Artist,” will present individual Masterclasses at the 26th Sarajevo Film Festival this year. Also delivering Masterclasses are directors Michel Franco and Rithy Panh.

The Masterclasses, which like the rest of the festival are running online via ondemand.sff.ban, are organized in cooperation with Variety, and will be available worldwide via the Variety Streaming Room.

Hazanavicius shot his first feature-length film, “Mes Amis,” in 1999. In 2006, he directed his second feature, “Oss 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” and then, three years later, “Oss 17: Lost in Rio.”

In 2011, he made “The Artist,” the silent, black-and-white film starring Bejo and Jean Dujardin, which won five Academy Awards in 2012, including best film, director and actor for Dujardin, while Bejo was an Oscar nominee for supporting actress.

The film premiered at Cannes, as did Hazanavicius’ “The Players” and “Redoubtable.

Three weeks after a spike in coronavirus cases forced the Telluride Film Festival team to cancel its 2020 event, organizers have announced the lineup that would have been.

“The Show,” as the festival refers to its annual feature program, planned to include “Ammonite,” a love story co-starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan; “The Rider” director Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland”; contemporary Western “Concrete Cowboy” with Idris Elba; and Roger Michell’s heist movie “The Duke,” with Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent — all four of which will make their premieres at Venice or Toronto instead.

But many of the films in the documentary-heavy lineup were not selected for either of those festivals, which explains why Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger felt it was important to share their selections. The Telluride team typically keeps their selections secret until the day before the festival, which takes place over Labor Day weekend in the small Colorado community.

It was announced last month that the Telluride Film Festival made the decision to cancel their event this year due to the ongoing pandemic and the more intimate nature of their festival. As Cannes did earlier this summer, they’ve now gone ahead and revealed what would’ve screened at this year’s edition.

Featuring tributes to Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, and Chloé Zhao, their new films were set to screen––Ammonite, The Father, and Nomadland, respectively––as well as new work by Werner Herzog, Liz Garbus, Gia Coppola, Gianfranco Rosi, and more. There was also a new documentary featuring interviews by Tarkovsky titled Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer.

“I know other festivals can do this and will pull it off great, and it’s very beneficial to their individual communities,” executive director Julie Huntsinger told THR. “But what we do is so about human intimacy. For us, it’s that alchemy.

Following in the footsteps of Cannes, which was forced to cancel its famous film festival in May but still went on to reveal what its schedule would have been anyway, the Telluride Film Festival on Monday released its own lineup. The films would have been presented over Labor Day weekend September 3-7, but the fest was canceled last month after trying to hang on for some version of its former self in light of the pandemic.

Similar to what other fests have programmed such as Kate Winslet-starrer Ammonite, Idris Elba in Concrete Cowboys and director Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland starring Frances McDormand, the list is similar to the eclectic, film-centric nature of Telluride minus some of the starrier Oscar campaign-driven films that have put the fest on the must-stop list for Academy Award hopefuls for much of this century.

Telluride will have a branded event on September 11, when it...

“We still want to… bring attention to these brilliant films.”

The Telluride Film Festival, which was supposed to run September 3-7 but was cancelled due to Covid-19, has revealed the films that would’ve been selected this year.

“Though we aren’t able to present our program in-person as planned, we still want to announce the lineup to bring attention to these brilliant films,” said Telluride executive director Julie Huntsinger. “We’ve listed everything we know about screening opportunities so that audiences may watch as many of these films as possible. The festival will continue to do everything in its...

Though the festival has been canceled, the Telluride Film Festival has announced its lineup for what would have been its 47th edition.

Among the films that would’ve premiered include Francis Lee’s “Ammonite,” Roger Michell’s “The Duke” and Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland.”

The festival was originally scheduled to run between September 3-7, but the festival has been working in partnership with the other fall fests, including Toronto, Venice and New York, and encourages audiences to support these films at those events.

Also Read: 2020 Telluride Film Festival Canceled

“Though we aren’t able to present our program in-person as planned, we still want to announce the lineup to bring attention to these brilliant films,” Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger said in a statement. “We’ve listed everything we know about screening opportunities so that audiences may watch as many of these films as possible. The Festival will...

There will be no Telluride Film Festival this Labor Day in Colorado, but the programmers have unveiled what this year’s selections would have been. Much like the Cannes Film Festival’s 2020 lineup, this year’s Telluride films can at least carry the imprimatur of the festival as we head into the fall circuit. The 47th edition of the Telluride Film Festival was scheduled for September 3-7. See the full lineup, as revealed on Monday, below.

The idea in presenting the Telluride selections is to recommend the best in film this year in hopes that audiences will seek out these movies at other fall festivals (or what remains of them) down the line. With the 2021 Academy Awards pushed way out to April 25, there’s at once less pressure on these films to perform for awards but also a crush of movies backlogged since quarantine hit, making for a competitive season.

The Critics’ Week, the parallel Cannes Film Festival strand dedicated to first and second films, has revealed the features and shorts that will get the 2020 Critics’ Week label.

Critics’ Week was canceled along with all other Cannes festival strands due to the coronavirus.

The lineup consists of only five features. Four of them are French.

The selected films are Anna Cazenave Cambet’s Gold For Dogs, Just Philippot’s The Swarm, Chloé Mazlo’s Skies Of Lebanon, Naël Marandin’s Beasts and Aleem Khan’s After Love.

The French films are expected to get world premieres at the upcoming Angouleme Film Festival at the end of August.

Skies Of Lebanon stars Alba Rohrwacher as a young Swiss woman who falls in love with a Lebanese man during the war in 1975. The film is sold by Charades.

Sold by Wild Bunch, The Swarm is a genre film following a single mother...

Parallel section unveils slimmed down, France-focused 2020 selection.

Cannes Critics’ Week has unveiled the five features and ten shorts selected for its special 2020 Semaine de la Critique label, created in response to the fact that its 59th edition could not take place this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Four of the five features hail from France with UK-Pakistani filmmaker Aleem Khan’s After Love the only non-French title in the selection.

Three of the French selections are first films: Anna Cazenave Cambet’s Gold For Dogs, Chloé Mazlo’s Skies Of Lebanon and Just Philippot’s The Swarm. They are...

While the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival was announced yesterday, Critics Week, the strand dedicated to first and second films which traditionally runs parallel to the fest, has unveiled the titles that will get the “2020 Semaine de la Critique” label.

Critics Week was canceled along with with Directors Fortnight and Acid in April due to the coronavirus crisis, but the strand’s artistic director Charles Tesson and his committee went ahead and selected five movies and 10 shorts that will receive a label.

As with Cannes’ Official Selection, the roster of this year’s Critics’ Week boasts a strong French presence with four local-language films out of the five. These are Anna Cazenave Cambet’s “Gold For Dogs,” Just Philippot’s “The Swarm,” Chloé Mazlo’s “Skies of Lebanon” and Naël Marandin’s “Beasts.” Aleem Khan’s U.K. film “After Love” rounds up the pack.

Tesson said the...

Ammonite, the period romance pic starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan from God’s Own Country filmmaker Francis Lee, received the highest individual production award from the British Film Institue’s Film Fund this year.

The pic from The King’s Speech outfit See-Saw Films was awarded $1.74m (£1.3m) in production finance. It tells the story of Mary Anning, an infamous fossil hunter who develops an intense relationship with a young woman after being sent to convalesce by the sea, and was shot on location in West Dorset in spring this year.

The pic was absent from the Sundance list, where Lee’s God’s Own Country debuted to acclaim, likely because it wasn’t ready in time, though it’s expected to pop up at a significant festival this year. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions, Lionsgate and Transmission have all boarded distribution in key markets.

Second on the list is Ali & Ava,...

Baltasar Kormakur is confirmed to direct.

David Puttnam has stepped down from his role of producer on Arctic 30, a drama about controversial oil exploration in Arctic waters, to chair a House of Lords special committee on ‘Democracy and Digital Technology’.

The committee will research opportunities offered and threats posed to democracy by the digital sector.

Iain Smith will take over from Puttnam as lead producer on Arctic 30 with production scheduled for February or March 2020 in Iceland, following the country’s winter. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur is confirmed to direct the feature, shooting at his Rvk Studios in Reykjavik.

Further location...

The project is being directed by rising UK filmmaker Will Sharpe.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy are set to star in Louis Wain, a drama about the real-life Victorian painter of cats, for rising UK writer-director Will Sharpe.

The project is being produced by UK outfit Shoebox Films with Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch and is backed by Studiocanal and Film4. Shooting is due to get underway in August at Ealing Studios. Producers are Guy Heeley and Ed Clarke for Shoebox, with Adam Ackland and Leah Clarke for SunnyMarch

Studiocanal controls worldwide rights and will release in its distribution territories - the UK,...

The project is being directed by rising UK filmmaker Will Sharpe.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy are set to star in The Nine Lives Of Louis Wain, a drama about the real-life Victorian painter of cats, for rising UK writer-director Will Sharpe.

The project is being produced by UK outfit Shoebox Films with Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch and is backed by Studiocanal and Film4. Shooting is due to get underway in August at Ealing Studios.

Studiocanal controls worldwide rights and will release in its distribution territories. Amazon Studios has pre-bought Us rights.

The long-gestating project has been in development with London-based...

The Bureau is producing the feature, with backing from BFI and BBC Films.

Joanna Scanlan has signed to star in After Love, the debut feature from writer-director Aleem Khan, a former Screen UK Star of Tomorrow, which is now in production in Kent, London and Calais.

It is produced by Matthieu de Braconier of London and Paris-based outfit The Bureau and is backed by BBC Films and the BFI.

Scanlan plays a woman who, having converted to Islam after meeting her future husband, suffers an identity crisis following his sudden death. When she uncovers details of his secret family in the French town of Calais,...

Charles Aznavour, the French singer and musical stylist sometimes referred to a France’s Sinatra, has died at age 94.

His death at one of his homes in France was confirmed by both his producer Gerard Drouout Productions and the French Culture Ministry.

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement: “Profoundly French, viscerally attached to his Armenian roots, famous in the entire world, Charles Aznavour accompanied the joys and sorrows of three generations. His masterpieces, his timbre, his unique influence will long survive him.”

Though he never achieved fame in the United States on the level of his European popularity, his dramatic gestures and story-telling style of singing and songwriting was a major influence on Liza Minnelli, David Bowie and even Bob Dylan. In a 1998 concert at Madison Square Garden featuring Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Dylan paid tribute to Aznavour with a performance of Aznavour’s “The Times We’ve Known.

Intelligently barbed, emotionally naked chamber dramas about families in crisis are what we’ve come to expect from Belgian writer-director Joachim Lafosse. So when his latest, “Keep Going,” opens on wide, mighty-skied vistas of far-flung badlands, the effect is disorienting — at least, until his characters open their mouths, and it becomes clear that Lafosse’s brand of domestic claustrophobia has merely taken a remote, outdoorsy vacation. An earthy, surly neo-western built surprisingly around the fractious, semi-estranged relationship between a struggling single mother and her temperamental teenage son, this is a two-hander as unadorned and straight-ahead as the bare Kyrgyzstan steppes on which it takes place, acted with doughty fixity of purpose by Virginie Efira and Kacey Mottet-Klein.

Commercially, the international prospects for “Keep Going” — adapted from French author Laurent Mauvignier’s well-regarded 2016 novel “Continuer” — may be narrower than those for Lafosse’s last feature, the thorny, Bérénice Bejo-starring breakup drama “After Love.

A chance for a mother and son to ride the high country and spend some quality time together turns into a more treacherous psychological trek in Keep Going (Continuer), the latest feature from prolific Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse (Our Children, After Love). Returning to the themes of his previous films but setting them against the wider canvas of a modern-day western, this tense and engrossingly performed two-hander feels a bit truncated in its final act but otherwise makes for a solid addition to Lafosse’s string of anxious, edgy and sometimes deadly family affairs. After premiering in Venice it could keep ...

A chance for a mother and son to ride the high country and spend some quality time together turns into a more treacherous psychological trek in Keep Going (Continuer), the latest feature from prolific Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse (Our Children, After Love). Returning to the themes of his previous films but setting them against the wider canvas of a modern-day western, this tense and engrossingly performed two-hander feels a bit truncated in its final act but otherwise makes for a solid addition to Lafosse’s string of anxious, edgy and sometimes deadly family affairs. After premiering in Venice it could keep ...

With the Venice Film Festival due to reveal its competition lineup tomorrow, parallel sections are getting a jump. Today’s roster unveiling is for the Venice Days section, or Giornate degli Autori — an independent section that resembles Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. In the mix are new films from Oscar nominee Rithy Panh, After Love‘s Joachim Lafosse, and Peter Medak with The Ghost Of Peter Sellers. The latter is billed as a Special Event and is a tragicomic documentary about the unraveling of 1973 pirate comedy Ghost In The Noonday Sun.

Panh will open the section with Graves Without A Name, the Cambodian helmer’s latest examination of the fallout of the Khmer Rouge. Lafosse is in competition with mother-son drama Keep Going starring Virginie Efira. Out of competition, the closing film is The Suicide Of Emma Peteers by Nicole Palo. In total, six of the official selection titles are directed by women.

The Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section, modeled on Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, has unveiled its lineup of 11 competition entries, all world premieres, marked by a particularly strong presence of female directors.

The section will open with “Graves Without a Name” (pictured), a new documentary on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era by revered Cambodian-born director Rithy Panh, producer of Angelina Jolie’s “First They Killed My Father.” The lineup mixes promising entries from both well-known auteurs and newcomers. The out-of competition closer is suicide-themed comedy “Emma Peeters” from young Belgian director Nicole Palo.

Venice Days artistic director Giorgio Gosetti noted that six out of 12 titles in the official selection are directed by women and said that “female characters play a crucial role in all the films.” But he also said his choice was unconstrained by gender considerations. “We sought the best that we could find and...

Keep Going

Belgian director Joachim Lafosse knows something about keep on keeping on, forging quickly ahead with his eighth feature Keep Going just as his 2016 title After Love (read review) settles into a DVD release stateside.

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