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HollyShorts Film Festival is returning for its 20th edition with a star-studded lineup.

400 films have been selected from over 6,000 entries with films from Zoe Saldana, Bella Thorne and Jamie Lee Curtis making the final cut.

HollyShorts includes four Oscar-qualifying categories, including documentary short film, best short film grand prize, best short animation and best short live-action.

The live-action short film entries include “How Can I Help You” directed by Eliza Scanlen and starring Thomasin McKenzie, Marco Perego’s “Dovecote” with Zoe Saldana, “Dammi” starring Riz Ahmed and Isabelle Adjani, Ken Cheng’s “Summons” starring Jimmy O. Yang and Alexandra Shipp, “Midnight” from legendary Japanese director Takashi Miike, Louisa Connolly-Burnham’s “Sister Wives” featuring Mia McKenna-Bruce, “Hearts of Stone” with Noomi Rapace and Jessica Barden, “French” directed by Dylan Joseph, produced by Shira Nagan and exec produced by Kobi Mizrahi, “Vlog” starring and directed by Yvonne Strahovski, “Edge of Space” directed by Jean de Meuron,...

Paris-based company 2425 Films, recently acquired by Mediawan, is working with a pool of rising filmmakers on timely movies, including Charly Delwart’s “1,5 degré,” Ilan Duran Cohen’s “Le coup d’apres” and Thomas Kruithof’s “Les Braises.”

2425 Films, founded by Thibault Gast and Matthias Weber, has been thriving with smart, high-concept commercial movies, such as Yann Gozlan’s “La boite noire” and “An Ideal Man,” as well as the thriller “Burn Out.” The company also presented Gozlan’s latest film, “Visions,” a thriller starring Diane Kruger (co-produced by Eagle Team Entetainment) at this year’s Angouleme Film Festival.

Duran Cohen’s “Le coup d’apres” is a film set in the world of French politics, with a duo of French stars, Marina Fois and Laurent Laffite, who previously co-starred in “Papa ou Maman,” a French hit comedy franchise. Laffite, who also stars in Netflix’s limited series “Tapie,” plays...

Green Day are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Dookie with a massive new box set. Out now, the reissue contains unreleased demos, outtakes, live recordings, and more.

Available as a 6xLP and 4xCD box set, as well as digitally, the Dookie 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition contains one disc of demos and another disc of outtakes. What’s more, the tracklist contains live recordings of the band’s performances at Woodstock ’94 and in Barcelona — both from 1994.

The physical release also includes a bevy of collector’s items, including a roll of Dookie dog poop bags, buttons, an air freshener, a postcard, a bumper sticker, a kiss-cut large magnet sheet, a paper airplane, a black-and-white “Coloring Page” cover litho insert, and a poster of the alternate cover art, among other items. Pre-orders are now ongoing, and you can stream it via Apple Music and Spotify below.

Next month, Green Day are set...

Green Day will mark the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough LP Dookie, one of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with a massive deluxe reissue complete with unreleased demos, outtakes, live recordings, and more.

The massive Dookie 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, out September 29, will feature the original 15-track 1994 album (yes, 15 tracks — they’ve given the secret song “All by Myself” its own placement) plus a collection of four-track demos, cassette demos and outtakes from the era.

In addition to rough versions of Dookie hits like “Longview,” “Basket Case,...

There is a scene in Midland: The Sonic Ranch, a new documentary about the unexpected formation and success of the country music trio Midland, in which future bandmates Mark Wystrach and Cameron Duddy argue about the proper emphasis of the word “although” in a song lyric.

“Make ‘although’ two words,” Duddy, from the control room, instructs Wystrach in the vocal booth. “Put a beat in between.”

Wystrach, out of sight, doesn’t quite follow. “Dude, slow down,” he says. “What are the two words?”

“‘All’ and ‘though,'” Duddy replies,...

Netflix and Federation Spain, the Spanish division of Paris and L.A.-based Federation Entertainment, are teaming to produce “Las niñas de cristal,” a psychological drama set against the world of classical ballet that toplines “Money Heist” and “Elite” star Maria Pedraza.

The movie is one highlight in Netflix’s first announcement of a production-distribution slate focused entirely on Spanish original movies. The eight titles it profiles that are moving into production or set for release in 2021 and 2022 are a sign of Netflix ramping up its production of Spanish movies as part of its bet on Spanish scripted TV and movies, with Spain punching above its weight in the number of Netflix originals compared to Spanish subscribers. The Netflix slate highlights:

“Las niñas de cristal”

Alison Parker in “Money Heist” and Guzmán’s fated sister Marina in “Elite,” in “Las niñas de cristal” Pedraza plays Irene, a classical ballet dancer...

The director’s feature debut stars Ana Girardot, among others; the Gloria Films and 2.4.7 Films production is being sold abroad by Playtime. After kicking off on 2 March, and then grinding to a halt on 16 March because of the health crisis, the shoot for Arnaud Malherbe’s feature debut, the fantasy tale Ogre, resumed on 15 June in the Morvan, where it is slated to wrap on 18 July. The cast includes Ana Girardot, young actor Giovanni Pucci and Samuel Jouy.Malherbe has short films such as Macadam Peau-rouge (in the national competition at Clermont-Ferrand in 2009) and Dans...

Midland took their name from a Dwight Yoakam song (“Fair to Midland”), and they nod to the neo-traditionalist once again in the title of a new acoustic Ep. Guitars, Couches, Etc., Etc., an allusion to Yoakam’s 1986 album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc, features bare-bones renditions of some of the country trio’s songs.

Hits like “Drinkin’ Problem,” “Burn Out,” and “Cheatin’ Songs” get the stripped-down treatment, along with the early fan favorite “Fourteen Gears” and the Let It Roll standout “Fast Hearts and Slow Towns.” Band members Mark Wystrach, Cameron Duddy,...

When Midland announced that they would be playing a one-off show at the Palomino in October 2019, the North Hollywood venue hadn’t been operational for nearly 25 years. Though the original structure is still standing, the former country-music hot spot on Lankershim Boulevard now serves as a rentable banquet space for birthday parties and quinceañeras.

“They essentially moved a honky-tonk into that building, which is as un-honky-tonk as you get,” says Midland guitarist-vocalist Jess Carson, joined by singer Mark Wystrach and bassist-vocalist Cameron Duddy a few months later at their label’s Nashville offices.

The cast also includes Lou de Laâge, André Dussollier and Olivier Rabourdin. The film is being produced by 2425 Films and Wy Productions, and sold by StudioCanal. Since 9 September, in the Paris region, Yann Gozlan has been filming Black Box (French title: La Boîte noire), his fourth feature after Caged (2010), A Perfect Man (667 000 tickets sold in France in 2015) and Burn Out (2018). The film reunites the director with Pierre Niney, who was already the lead in A Perfect Man.The film also stars Lou de Laâge (designated Shooting Star 2016 by the European Film Promotion, nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 2014 and in 2015 for Jappeloup and...

Carrie Underwood had a big night at the 2019 Cmt Music Awards on Wednesday, extending her all-time leading win total by claiming Female Video of the Year for “Love Wins” and the night’s top prize, Video of the Year, for “Cry Pretty.”

“I’m so glad to be a part of this family,” she said in her acceptance speech from Nashville’s Parthenon, where earlier in the show she performed “Southbound.”

Elsewhere among the fan-voted show’s winners were Kane Brown, whose “Lose It” was named Male Video of the Year,...

Netflix is famously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing how many people are tuning in to its endless supply of movies and TV series, though the streaming giant does occasionally toot its own horn when one of its titles does especially well. Now the company is experimenting with a weekly list of its most-watched offerings in the UK, with nature docuseries “Our Planet” topping the first edition.

In a Twitter thread, the company announced that it will be releasing such lists on a weekly basis from here on out. To compile them, “we look at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched). ‘Watched’ means members finished at least 70% of one episode.”

“It’s a test as we want to make sure this information is useful for you,” Netflix added. “So we may tweak it in the weeks ahead. eg. we’re not including kids right now.

The Cmt Awards announced their 2019 nominations on May 7, and four artists came out on top with a leading three nominations apiece: Brothers Osborne, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and Zac Brown Band. Scroll down for the complete list of contenders.

Brothers Osborne are nominated for Video of the Year and Collaborative Video of the Year for “Burning Man” with Dierks Bentley. Their third bid is Duo Video of the Year for “I Don’t Remember Me (Before You”).

Maren Morris is nominated twice for “Girl”: Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year. She’s also in the running for Cmt Performance of the Year for teaming up with recent Grammy winner Brandi Carlile on “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” from the 2018 Cmt Artists of the Year Show.

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Miranda Lambert competes twice as a featured...

The 2019 Cmt Music Awards nominations are out, and many of the biggest acts in country music will vie for the hardware. Brothers Osborne, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and Zac Brown Band lead the field with three noms each, and such top acts as Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, EFlorida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town and Sugarland scored multiple noms.

Filed under “one of these things is not like the other” is the Cmt nom for Boyz II Men, the veteran R&B act who teamed with Brett Young for a new take on “Motownphilly” from Cmt Crossroads. Soul singer Leon Bridges also is vying in the Cmt Performance of the Year category for a Crossroads version of “Beautiful Crazy” with Luke Combs.

Little Big Town will return to host the Cmt Music Awards, which airs live on the cable channel at 8 p.

It’s a four-way tie for most nominations at the 2019 Cmt Music Awards, as Miranda Lambert, Brothers Osborne, Maren Morris and Zac Brown Band each garnered three nods. The nominations were announced by “Closer to You” singer Carly Pearce this morning on NBC’s Today.

Morris’ uplifting 2019 single “Girl” earned the singer-songwriter nominations for Video of the Year as well as Female Video of the Year. Additionally, her friendship with Brandi Carlile earned a third nomination for their performance of Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural...

Brothers Osborne, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and the Zac Brown Band are tied for the most nominations each, three, for this year’s Cmt Music Awards, set to air live on the country music network June 5.

The list of artists with two nods in the network’s eight categories is an exceptionally long one: Brandi Carlile, Carrie Underwood, Cole Swindell, Dan + Shay, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean, Julia Michaels, Kacey Musgraves, Kane Brown, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Sugarland and Taylor Swift.

The number of non-country artists up for CMTs is plentiful — starting with Swift, who self-deported from the genre some years back, but is up for collaborative video of the year and duo of the year for appearing with Sugarland in “Babe,” which she wrote and gave to the Nashville duo to record before making her video cameo.

Midland held court at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Sunday night, delivering a headlining set full of hits like “Drinkin’ Problem” and “Burn Out,” new songs off their upcoming second album and a slew of bar-band covers. That the gig also fell on Cinco de Mayo only made it that much more of a party. Here are five reasons you should have been there.

1. Midland’s New Material

If the new songs that Midland debuted on Sunday night are any indication, the trio is doubling down on making Eagles country-rock cool again.

Who won big at the 2019 Academy of Country Music Awards, which took place on Sunday night, April 7? Scroll down to see our complete list of winners as they’re announced.

These 54th annual kudos were hosted for the 16th time by Reba McEntire, who also performed during the telecast in addition to a long list of other artists who took the stage including Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Brandi Carlile and many more.

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Dan and Shay and Chris Stapleton entered the ACMs tied for the most nominations with six apiece. Stapleton was up for Entertainer of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Album of the Year (“From A Room: Volume 2” as both artist and producer) and Song of the Year (“Broken Halos” as both artist and songwriter).

Dan and Shay weren’t up for the top prize, but they nevertheless...

Keith Urban was named Entertainer of the Year at the 2019 Acm Awards. This marked the first time the singer-guitarist, who performed a new song titled “My Burden” during the telecast, won the Academy of Country Music’s top prize.

Elsewhere, Kacey Musgraves was named Female Artist of the Year, while her Grammy-winning LP Golden Hour won Album of the Year. “Thank you to everyone out there still supporting and buying albums,” she said during her speech. Thomas Rhett, who performed his new single “Look What God Gave Her,” was named Male Artist of the Year.

Chicago – Dillon Schneider is the quintessential local man made good. A graduate of Chicagoland’s Barrington High School and the city’s Columbia College, Schneider was the cinematographer for the music video “Burn Out” by Midland, which is nominated for Best Video at the 54th American Country Music (Acm) Awards, coming up on April 7th, 2019.

Schneider’s talent was apparent back at Barrington High, as he won numerous “Crystal Pillars” from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Besides Midland and their Best Video nomination, Schneider’s diverse and extensive resume includes work with Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, The Chainsmokers, G-Eazy, Whiz Khalifa and Drake.

Cinematographer Dillon Schneider for Acm Best Video Nominee ‘Burn Out’

Photo credit: Jeff Doles for HollywoodChicago.com

Jeff Doles of HollywoodChicago.com – who also instructed Dillon Schneider in high school as his video production teacher – interviewed his former student a few days before the Acm Awards,...

Kacey Musgraves will win all five of her Academy of Country Music Awards nominations when prizes are handed out on Sunday night, April 7. That’s according to the combined predictions of hundreds of Gold Derby users. But Musgraves was locked out of the top category, Entertainer of the Year, which is dominated entirely by men for the second year in a row. We think that award will go to Jason Aldean for the fourth time. Scroll down for our full list of predictions by category, with the nominees listed in order of their racetrack odds. Projected winners are highlighted in gold.

Musgraves recently achieved a clean sweep at the Grammys, going four-for-four including Album of the Year for “Golden Hour,” which was only the fifth country album ever to take that prize. Now we think she’ll win Album of the Year from the ACMs, which would bring her two...

The 2019 Academy of Country Music Awards are right around the corner, and CBS has announced the presenters who will hand out awards and introduce performances during the April 7 telecast: Lauren Alaina, Beth Behrs (“The Neighborhood”), Clint Black, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”), Jessie James Decker, Hunter Hayes, Jay Hernandez (“Magnum P.I.”), Lady Antebellum, Midland, Nancy O’Dell (“Entertainment Tonight”), auto racer Danica Patrick, Carly Pearce, Dennis Quaid (“The Day After Tomorrow”), Michael Ray, Cole Swindell and Wilmer Valderrama (“NCIS”).

A few of those presenters could also take the stage as winners before the night is over. Lady Antebellum has won Group of the Year three times (2010-2012), and they’re gunning for a fourth this year. In that category they’re up against Midland, who have an additional nomination for Video of the Year for “Burn Out.” Swindell contends as an artist for Song of the Year for “Break Up in the End,...

Netflix has confirmed that 59 new original series, movies and specials will be debuting on the streaming service in March, including Jc Chandor‘s thriller “Triple Frontier,” which he co-wrote with Oscar winner Mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker”). Ben Affleck and Oscar Issac star as ex-Army officers who reunite with their unit to pull off a heist. Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor pulls triple duty as writer, director and star of “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” which tells the true story of a student who saved his Malawi village from a famine.

On the TV side, the long-awaited second half of season 5 of the Emmy-winning comedy series “Arrested Development” starts to stream as does season 3 of the Drew Barrymore/Timothy Olyphant laffer “Santa Clarita Diet.” And among a slew of comedy specials are ones featuring Amy Schumer and British funnyman Jimmy Carr.

Below is the full schedule of everything that is...

By March 1, the Oscars will be over, and we can finally stop pulling our hair over the fact that Rami Malek’s dentures beat out Ethan Hawke’s bottle of drain cleaner. When that day comes, Netflix will be able to offer an eclectic mix of reliably quality fare to cleanse our palates of what will surely go down in history as one of the oddest Oscar seasons ever. The streaming giant could also very well have earned its first Best Picture statue by then, but its users won’t be able to hear the champagne bottles popping over the hum of their preferred watching device.

Damien Chazelle’s finely crafted Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man” may have been snubbed in almost every major category, but audiences looking to revisit the original space tearjerker can countdown with “Apollo 13,” which hits Netflix at the beginning of the month. ’90s babies...

Dan Smyers reaped a leading 10 nominations for the 54th annual Acm Awards, with an even half dozen of those as part of the duo Dan + Shay; the other four came as a producer and songwriter. Also earning six nominations was Chris Stapleton. He contends for the marquee award, Entertainer of the Year, against three-time reigning champ Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban.

No woman made the cut in that category. Kacey Musgrave, who was queen of the Grammy Awards, was snubbed despite five nominations overall. She could add the Acm Album of the Year trophy to the top Grammy she picked up for “Golden Hour.”

Stapleton and Dan + Shay also number among the nominees for Album of the Year with the former up for “From A Room: Volume 2” and the latter represented by their self-titled disc. The duo also contends for Single of the Year with “Tequila,...

Dan + Shay, the power-country duo who won their first Grammy Award this year for their hit song “Tequila,” and perennial favorite Chris Stapleton were the top nominees when nominations for the 54th annual Acm Awards were announced Wednesday morning. Both Stapleton and Dan + Shay each received six nominations, including nods for Album of the Year, with Dan + Shay’s Dan Smyers receiving four additional nominations for his work as producer and songwriter.

Smyers and Shay Mooney are also up for Duo, Single, Song, Video and Music Event of the Year.

Snd, the commercial arm of French TV network M6, is joining forces with French production banners Wy Prods. and Esprits Frappeurs to launch a collection of upscale genre movies.

Under the pact, the three companies will develop, produce and distribute a collection of genre films with the goal of delivering two to three projects per year. Two projects, an exorcism film and a medieval survival movie, are in pre-production.

Charlotte Boucon, head of international sales at Snd, said the idea was to explore many different kinds of high-concept genre films, not just horror movies, but thrillers, science fiction and action movies as well, and work with well-known directors.

“Genre has always been part of our editorial line; and today the perspective of creating a real collection is an exciting challenge,” said Boucon, who cited “What Happened to Monday,” “Source Code” and “Looper” as successful genre movies that were sold by Snd and traveled well.

With their outsized stoned-cowboy vibe and colorful aesthetic, Midland don’t often blend into a crowd, especially on the concert stage. But the trio toned it down for an understated performance of their latest single “Burn Out” on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday night, favoring subtle harmonies over honky-tonk rowdiness.

The group — singer Mark Wystrach, guitartist Jess Carson and bassist Cameron Duddy — is currently headlining their Electric Rodeo Tour, which brought them to the famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, this past weekend. The band, who have been...

Moroccan-born Belgian helmers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (“Gangsta”) are teaming up with French filmmaker Jeremie Guez (“A Blueberry in My Heart”) on their next French-language project, “Calypso.”

Th helmers are currently prepping to shoot “Bad Boys for Life” with Will Smith.

Guez, who will will soon start shooting “The Sound of Philadelphia” with Matthias Schoenaerts and Garrett Hedlund, has written the script of “Calypso,” based on an original idea by El Arbi and Fallah.

“Calypso” revolves around a marriage between a corrupt night club owner and a woman who has been feeling lonely and neglected for too long. While on the verge of a divorce, the couple’s bond is tested when a murder is committed at the night club, and the husband appears to have been framed for it.

All the action will take place in the night club. Guez said the film will be a mix...

Each June tens of thousands of the country faithful travel from around the world to Nashville for the massive Cma Music Festival – and for good reason. Hundreds of stars gather in country music’s capital for four days of mostly-free music, capped off by nightly stadium concerts headlined by the genre’s biggest names. For fans who can’t make the pilgrimage – or just can’t score tickets to the in-demand Nissan Stadium shows – there’s the annual ABC special. Cma Fest (airing Wednesday, August 8th, at 8:00 p.m.