News

Ellen Kuras’ Kate Winslet-starrer “Lee” is set to open the inaugural Women and World International Film Festival in London, with the Oscar winner’s portrayal of war photographer Lee Miller anchoring the Nov. 21 premiere.

The screening, which comes on the heels of the film’s Nov. 1 Sky Cinema release, will be followed by a Q&a featuring Miller’s son Antony Penrose, producer Kate Solomon and screenwriter Marion Hume. Actor Victoria Emslie, founder of Primetime, will moderate.

Running Nov. 21-23, the fest spotlights women’s roles in global conflict zones, with Ukrainian producer-director Ksenia Bugrimova as co-founder and executive and creative director, and Mariia Vynogradova, co-founder, festival’s operational director, and director of partnerships and sponsorship, at the helm.

The opening night lineup also includes panel discussions with Brian Cox, Nicole Ansari Cox, Oscar-nominated director Waad al-Kaateb and Oscar-winning filmmaker Elena Andreicheva, Shabnam Nasimi, and Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.

Ellen Kuras thought she knew what Kate Winslet could do.

She’d been the cinematographer on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” But she was not prepared for the mature Winslet who, since 2013, has pushed the biopic of World War II Vogue photographer Lee Miller into production and offered Kuras the chance to helm her first film feature after directing television and documentaries (Oscar-nominated “The Betrayal”).

Independently financed, “Lee” had its world premiere at TIFF and is seeking a North American distributor. An Oscar campaign for Winslet would be in the sights of the buyers.

No question, Winslet was driving the train as actress and producer. “She was very involved in the film from A to Z,” said Kuras, “from all the research to us having extensive conversations about who we wanted to cast, talking about who could be in different roles.” Winslet reached out to ask actors to consider joining the independently financed production.

Exclusive: Here’s the striking first official image of Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in feature Lee.

The image, shot during filming on location in Croatia, shows Oscar winner Winslet as the pioneering American photographer who covered WWII in Europe for British Vogue.

Filming is ongoing on the directorial debut of respected cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind).

The film is not being called a biopic by Winslet and the producers, but it does explore the most significant decade of Lee Miller’s life. As a middle-aged woman, she refused to be remembered as a model and male artists’ muse and defied expectations by travelling to Europe to report from the frontline. There, in part as a reaction to her own well-hidden trauma, she used her Rolleiflex camera to give a voice to the voiceless. What Lee captured on film in Dachau and throughout Europe was shocking and horrific.

The Black List and Cassian Elwes have selected Aemilia Scott as the 2021 Cassian Elwes Independent Screenwriting Fellow. She will join them at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Splitting her time between Los Angeles and Chicago, Scott is a writer/director whose first short film, Best If Used By won a BAFTA LA award at Aspen Shortsfest. Her first feature script, Birthday Suit, was an official selection at IFP Film Week and Tribeca Film Week and was the winner of the Melissa Mathison Screenwriting Award at the Hamptons Screenwriters’ Lab. Her second feature script Three Hours was an official selection of Tribeca Film week and is a semi-finalist for the Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. Aemilia is currently a 2021 fellow of the Sony Pictures Diverse Directors’ program.

Now in its eighth year, the fellowship is annual program designed to encourage and identify new talent in the field of independent cinema. It...

With less than two months to go before Genius: Aretha finally hits the small screen, the Oscar nominee who is portraying the Queen of Soul is hitting this year’s Sundance Film Festival as one of the shindigs’ jurors.

Cynthia Ervio will be joining the likes of Sff alum Raúl Castillo as one of the 22 jurors at this year’s semi-virtual cinema gathering (see the full list of jurors below)

Watching films and conferring from home via the likes of Zoom, the jurors’ decisions in the six selection categories will be unveiled on February 2 at a now digital ceremony. Well, except for

the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize which has already been awarded to Son of Monarchs.

“Our jurors have reached a high level of achievement in their individual fields, and can bring their unique perspective to the process of analyzing and evaluating films,” Festival’s Director of Programming Kim Yutani said Friday.

Usually the annual American Cinematheque tribute puts a bunch of Hollywood folks in black tie in a hotel ballroom to ingest rubber chicken and champagne. This year’s Spike Lee award show was a streamlined virtual affair hosted by “Inside Man” star Jodie Foster, who conducted a charming interview with Lee over the course of an evening interspersed by films clips and memories from such collaborators as actors Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett, cinematographers Ernest Dickerson and Ellen Kuras, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and production designer Wynn Thomas.

Brooklyn-based Lee, who is 63, has directed 25 features and documentaries plus countless commercials, collecting Emmys, BAFTAs, Cannes and critics awards along the way, including last year’s Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “BlacKkKlansman.”

“If you love what you are doing you can delay father time,” Lee said. “I’ve got some more joints to make. This award is not just for me but...

Usually the annual American Cinematheque tribute puts a bunch of Hollywood folks in black tie in a hotel ballroom to ingest rubber chicken and champagne. This year’s Spike Lee award show was a streamlined virtual affair hosted by “Inside Man” star Jodie Foster, who conducted a charming interview with Lee over the course of an evening interspersed by films clips and memories from such collaborators as actors Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett, cinematographers Ernest Dickerson and Ellen Kuras, costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and production designer Wynn Thomas.

Brooklyn-based Lee, who is 63, has directed 25 features and documentaries plus countless commercials, collecting Emmys, BAFTAs, Cannes and critics awards along the way, including last year’s Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “BlacKkKlansman.”

“If you love what you are doing you can delay father time,” Lee said. “I’ve got some more joints to make. This award is not just for me but...

Viagra has had a strong place in pop culture since it made its debut in 1998. Former Senator Bob Dole and soccer star Pelé pitched the erectile disfunction drug in ads, while countless shows and movies have used it as fodder for jokes over the last two decades. Now, the little blue pill is inspiring the next Spike Lee Joint: Lee is set to direct a musical take on the origins of the medication. (Via Deadline).

Lee co-wrote the screenplay with Kwame Kwei-Armah, and based it on David Kushner’s Esquire article “All Rise: The Untold Story of The Guys Who Launched Viagra.”

Inspired by Pfizer’s discovery and launch of Viagra, originally intended as a heart-related drug, original songs will be written by Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald, creators of the Tony-winning musical “Passing Strange.” Lee directed a filmed version of that stage production that was released in 2009.

Lee’s...

His first major role in a feature film Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins was on the horizon, as well as the 2nd season of the Bruce Lee inspired Warrior where plays the lead. But then, Cinemax announced that they were no longer commissioning original shows to make way for the new streaming platform, HBO Max. The fate of Warrior remains unknown. And soon after that the pandemic hit, postponing Snake Eyes until 2021.

But then in September, Andrew got some great news. He was cast alongside Brad Pitt in a new David Leitch film called Bullet Train. Cinemax released Warrior Season 2 on schedule and new episodes will arrive through November when Bruce Lee would have been celebrating his 80th birthday. Koji spoke with Den of Geek about Warrior, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, and much more.

Den of Geek: What was your favorite Bruce Lee movie?

Andrew Koji: Enter The Dragon is an obvious one.

The Criterion Channel’s stellar offerings are continuing next month with a selection of new releases, retrospective, series, and more. Leading the pack is, of course, a horror lineup perfectly timed for Halloween, featuring ’70s classics and underseen gems, including Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (pictured above), Tobe Hopper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, early films by David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, and Brian De Palma, Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess, and more.

Also of note is a New Korean Cinema retrospective, featuring a new introduction by critic Grady Hendrix and a conversation between directors Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook, whose Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Mother, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance are part of the lineup, as well as Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere to Hide, and more titles to be announced. Bong’s short Influenza will also arrive, paired with Michael Haneke’s Caché.

Mollywood‘Bruce Lee’ is directed by Vysakh, who has made blockbuster movies like ‘Pulimurugan’ and ‘Madhura Raja’.Digital NativeMalayalam superstar Mohanlal unveiled the motion poster of the upcoming Unni Mukundan starrer Bruce Lee. The poster was released on Unni Mukundan’s birthday. Mohanlal tweeted: “Presenting the motion poster of #BruceLee, starring Unni Mukundan, directed by Vysakh, written by Udaykrishna, Dop by Shajikumar, produced by #Umf Pvt Ltd, Best wishes to the entire team & wishing @Iamunnimukundan a happy birthday (sic).” Watch: Motion poster Presenting the motion poster of #BruceLee, starring Unni Mukundan, directed by Vysakh, written by Udaykrishna, Dop by Shajikumar, produced by #Umf Pvt Ltd,Best wishes to the entire team & wishing @Iamunnimukundan a happy birthday Watch - https://t.co/xjXghSk6bz — Mohanlal (@Mohanlal) September 22, 2020 Bruce Lee is directed by Vysakh, well known for making smash-hit movies like Pulimurugan with Mohanlal in the lead and Madhura Raja with Mammootty playing the hero.

Batman: Black and White is an almost 25-year-old anthology series that gave titans of the industry, brilliant artists and writers, a chance to go wild and show off what they could do with the Dark Knight and his world. While the series has been around since 1996, Batman: Black and White has been on hiatus since 2014, but that’s about to change in December.

The anthology returns with a new volume on Dec. 8, as announced by DC Comics. The oversized book will run for six issues and each 48-page issue will feature new short stories from an incredible collection of creators. The first issue features covers from long-time Batman artist and Dark Nights: Death Metalhead Greg Capullo; a Talia cover from Peach Momoko; and one from “The Black Glove”‘s Jh Williams.

The list of writers is impressive — Paul Dini, Tim Seeley, Tom King, G. Willow Wilson, Chip Zdarsky, and current...

Exclusive: Luisa Leschin, who is currently co-exec producer of Netflix’s Mr. Iglesias, has signed with APA.

Leschin is an industry vet having worked on shows such as as George Lopez, Everybody Hates Chris and East Los High.

She began her career as a ballet dancer then turned to acting, having appeared in many iconic TV series including Beverly Hills 90210, Love Boat, ER, Quincy, Falcon Crest and Hill St. Blues. On the feature side, she has appeared in Saturday Night Fever and True Confessions.

Last year, she was the recipient of Norman Lear Writer’s Award at the 34th Annual Imagen Awards. She also co-founded theater group, Latins Anonymous, to give Latinx more opportunities.

Leschin (left) is the latest writer-producer to ink with APA since the agency signed the WGA’s franchise agreement earlier this year. Other recent signings include Spinning Out showrunner Lara Olsen, American Gods executive producer Anne Kenney,...

TV personality Regis Philbin, best known for hosting Live With Regis and Kathie Lee and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, has died at the age of 88.

“We are deeply saddened to share that our beloved Regis Philbin passed away last night of natural causes, one month shy of his 89th birthday,” his family shared in a statement with People Saturday. “His family and friends are forever grateful for the time we got to spend with him — for his warmth, his legendary sense of humor, and his singular ability to make every day into something worth talking about. We thank...

First Cow, Kelly Reichardt’s latest foray into the northwest past, is a period piece set in 1820s Oregon Territory, where a couple of outcasts (John Magaro’s Cookie and Orion Lee’s King-Lu) embark on a picaresque financial venture involving a cow, stolen milk, and delicious pastries. Co-written with Jonathan Raymond and based on his novel The Half Life, it’s a zero-sum struggle between haves and have-nots that harkens back to what A.A. Dowd at the A.V. Club sees as “a national creation myth”—a film that’s concerned with tracing “the roots of our ballyhooed entrepreneurial spirit, and the harsh reality of how it often collides with established wealth.” Such roots, Karen Han contends at Polygon, draw from the American Dream itself, of which Reichardt’s film offers a small-scale rendition:The conversations the two men have about what they’re doing — the balance between risk and reward,...