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British diver Tom Daley is the subject of 1.6 Seconds, a new feature documentary from Warner Bros. Discovery, the Olympic Channel and UK producers Western Edge Pictures.

Directed by Western Edge Pictures’ Vaughan Sivell, 1.6 Seconds will premiere on the discovery+ channel in the UK and Ireland in early June, and broadcast on Really and TNT Sports later that month.

Olympics.com will premiere the film in the US and territories outside of Europe; while it will broadcast on Max and discovery+ across mainland Europe in early June, then on June 23 on Eurosport.

The film has been produced for Warner Bros. Discovery...

Alice Lowe and Nick Frost in Timestalker. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment

Alice Lowe has garnered a couple of dozen awards and nominations for her work on both sides of the camera, including some for this fantasy dramedy, Timestalker, in which she wears the three main hats of writer, director and star. And wears them pretty well.

Lowe stars as Agnes, who lives a number of very different lives, from low-born in the 1600s, to rich and privileged in 1973, to middle class in more modern times. Her name and face remain the same, as do people playing a variety of roles in each of her incarnations. Nick Frost is a loutish husband in one and a stalker in another. Tanya Reynolds’ Meg may arise as a servant or friend in Agnes’ sequential rebirths; Jacob Anderson crops up in assorted supportive capacities. One constant is the emergence of a handsome guy...

Finding love can be difficult. Facing rejection can be even more difficult, no matter what time we live in. Alice Lowe’s “Timestalker” analyses these concerns through the eyes of a woman who yearns to be with the man of her dreams. However, no matter what time she lives in, she struggles to be with him. In this time-hopping tale of romance, she finds herself in different eras constantly trying to be with this exact person. However, she gets pulled back into her reality, which is rarely as flattering as she hopes it to be.

Alice Lowe leads this zany tragicomedy as Agnes, who finds herself seemingly reincarnated across four timelines. The first of them is in 17th-century Scotland, where she sacrifices her life for a charming man, whom she falls for at first sight. Almost a century later, she finds herself in England, married to Nick Frost’s George.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance took the award for Best Feature at the annual Girls On Film Awards while Emilia Pérez and Hard Truths star Marianne Jean-Baptiste took awards for Best Ensemble and Best Actress respectively.

The fourth edition of the awards, which were held at London’s Curzon Bloomsbury on Sunday, celebrated exceptional achievements by women and people of marginalized genders in the film space. Hosted by Girls On Film co-founders Anna Smith and Hedda Lornie Archbold, the awards put a spotlight on women-led filmmaking with a particular focus on diversity, inclusion and representation.

Fargeat, who is nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards this year, was in attendance to collect her award and she told the audience that The Substance “was meant for me to mirror what women have to face in their everyday life by society and it’s not nice, it’s not subtle and it’s not delicate.

Cinderella's lore gets a Norwegian body-horror update in The Ugly Stepsister. Emilie Blichfeldt's not-so-storybook debut adapts fairy tale royalty like The Great's absurdist satirization but far grimmer and gorier. Fantastic style, squeamish effects, and a standout performance by Lea Myren as the "ugly" Elvira headline this repulsive yet commanding fucked-up fable. Watch out for Blichfeldt, whose first dive into feature filmmaking makes a crimson and authoritative splash.

In The Ugly Stepsister, Elvira (Myren) takes center stage. We all know Disney's version of the story: Prince Charming, a glass slipper, and happily ever afters. Here, Elvira is presented as sweet, lovesick, and doe-eyed. Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) is our Cinderella fill-in, shunned by her evil stepmother, Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp). When Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) alerts the kingdom's virgins he's ready for marriage, Rebekka takes advantage of Elvira's fawning over Julian. Rebekka encourages her daughter through a grueling procession of body augmentations,...

Annually, Rotten Tomatoes hands out Golden Tomatoes to the best-reviewed movies and TV series from the past year.

Previous winners include Oppenheimer, The Last of Us, Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and House of the Dragon, but Dune: Part Two has reigned supreme this time.

Shōgun largely dominated the TV side, though there were noteworthy wins for both The Penguin and X-Men '97. Unfortunately, neither Deadpool & Wolverine nor Agatha All Along have received any love, even in the newly created "Fan Favorite Movies" category.

The winners and nominees are determined by an adjusted score formula, which is a weighted ranking that compensates for the variation in the number of reviews when comparing movies or TV shows within a specified time frame.

Critics have always had something of a complicated relationship with comic book adaptations, particularly in recent years. However, between this and other televised award shows, it's clear...

Here’s our annual rundown of the largest distribution awards handed out by the British Film Institute. This list covers cash handed out in 2024.

The BFI supports cinema releases through its audience fund, which hands cash to individual titles as well as organizations such as festivals and independent cinemas.

Matteo Garrone’s Venice-winning drama Io Capitano received the largest award for an individual title with £70,000. The cash went towards aiding the film release with “a broad marketing campaign targeting 18-30 and Senegalese/Black West African audiences across the UK.” The BFI states that “funded activity included “digital advertising, podcast sponsorship, social media campaign, grassroots outreach and creation of access materials.”

An award from the BFI National Lottery will support the release of Io Capitano with a broad marketing campaign targeting 18-30 and Senegalese/Black West African audiences across the UK. Funded activity included “digital advertising, podcast sponsorship, social media campaign,...

Best British Films of 2024: Is cinema dying? That’s the question on everybody’s lips in an age of plummeting box office figures and rising blockbuster budgets, hoping another spandex suit will be the silver bullet that fixes up enough ticket sales to fund another superhero flick. Martin Scorsese, Sam Mendes (The Franchise), Mathieu Kassovitz, and David Lynch are unanimous in their publicized belief that cinema is clutching its last breath on death’s door, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone completely. Film is a stubborn master, beloved by all and crowd surfing along the mighty few who still believe in storytelling for storytelling’s sake, rather than for profit.

Steve McQueen and Alice Lowe are just a couple of names on this list who still believe in the values of originality, creativity, authenticity, and artistry—in the power of real filmmaking. Let’s hope cinema can...

With an emphasis on the low-budget, the genre-based, daring and imaginative, here’s our pick of the 31 best movies of 2024.

Imagine, gentle reader, the sound of a mournful trumpet. That’s a fanfare for all the terrific films that came out in 2024 but were technically 2023 films, and so couldn’t qualify for a spot in our final list below. All Of Us Strangers was a singularly moving romantic drama; The Holdovers was a spiky, soul-warming delight; Lorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things was… well, it was a Yorgos Lanthimos movie.

Those all deserve honourable mentions, as do some of the other corking films that came out this year but didn’t quite make the final cut: the satisfyingly tense, low-budget horror stylings of Oddity; the scruffy allure of Jeff Nichols’ crime drama, The Bikeriders, to name but two.

So with those movies addressed, you’re probably wondering: what are Film Stories’ absolute...

The anxiety one feels getting into a cab has mostly been lost with the advent of rideshare apps. However, every once in a while, terrible stories break through with tragic results. Black Cab, a new thrilling horror film from director Bruce Goodison, reminds us of those anxious experiences. With Nick Frost returning to horror to play an antagonist to Syvonne Karlsen, Black Cab transitions between tones and subgenres with precise maneuvering. Thanks to its great performances, Black Cab rises above the seclusion of its actors.

Related “Peak coming soon”: Nick Frost Confirmed for How to Train Your Dragon Live-Action After Gerard Butler’s Return as Viking Dad Black Cab Plot

After a tension-filled dinner, Anne (Synnøve Karlsen) and Patrick (Luke Norris) prepare for a ride home in silence. However, their cab driver (Nick Frost) actively breaks up the dead air. In his jokes and stories, he accidentally reveals Anne’s secret,...

Anna Kendrick directs and stars in a true story about a woman meeting a serial killer on a dating show. Here’s our Woman Of The Hour review.

The story of Woman Of The Hour is almost too weird and unbelievable. A woman going on The Dating Game and choosing a bachelor who is actually a serial killer? Oh, please, that can’t be real.

Except it’s very real.

In 1978, Sheryl (played by Anna Kendrick) is an struggling actress, whose agent books her as a contestant on The Dating Game, a game show where one single gal gets to choose a man to go on a date with. For Sheryl, this is a last resort; she’s fed up with Hollywood and ready to accept acting just isn’t for her.

What Sheryl doesn’t know is that one of the bachelors is actually Rodney Alcala, a serial killer...

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (Oct 11-13) Total gross to date Week 1. Transformers One (Paramount) £1.6m £1.6m 1 2. Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros) £1.4m £8.7m 2 3. Terrifier 3 (Signature) £1m £1m 1 4. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros) £769,143 £23.9m 6 5. The Outrun (Studiocanal) £359,911 £359,911 1

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.31

Paramount animation Transformers One dethroned Joker: Folie À Deux at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, as the Warner Bros blockbuster suffered a significant 75% drop.

Transformers One opened to £1.6m in 583 sites at a £2,744 average – down on the stellar £8.7m of 2007’s Transformers and £8.3m of 2009’s Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, but still a decent opening for an animated feature.

Timestalker, Joker, and Baby Reindeer all deal with the nasty side of romantic entanglement – is this the year of the bad romance?

In Alice Lowe’s Timestalker, in cinemas today, our put-upon heroine isn’t the luckiest in love.

After chasing the same scoundrel across 400 years and taking multiple sharp instruments to the head, you’d have thought Lowe’s Agnes would have learnt her lesson. Alas, the more Aneurin Barnard’s rogue signals his disinterest (usually by running away immediately after her grisly demise), the more she’s convinced he’s the man for her. This is because, though Barnard’s character lives multiple lives as a heretic, a highwayman and a heartthrob, the greatest trick the film pulls is the reveal that Agnes herself isn’t very nice.

Aptly, Timestalker arrives a week after Joker: Folie à Deux told the story of a similar character at the other end of the budgetary spectrum.

Transformers One leads new releases at the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as the Paramount animation opens in 583 cinemas.

It is the third widest opening of the eight-title franchise, behind 2018’s Bumblebee in 587 locations and 2023’s Rise Of The Beasts in 595.

The franchise steps away from live-action for an animated origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron. A starry ensemble lends their voices with cast including Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Jon Hamm, Steve Buscemi and Keegan-Michael Key.

The Transformers films have a strong track record at the box office. Leading the pack is its third...

Alice Lowe’s second shot in the director’s chair is a brilliantly imaginative rom-com-thriller. Here’s our Timestalker review.

Agnes (Alice Lowe) has a lot of problems, and most of them are the same man. After falling in love with a dashing young heretic (Aneurin Barnard) in 1688 and getting a halberd in the head for her trouble, you’d think she’d have learnt her lesson.

But when another Agnes – a wig-toting aristocrat in 1793 – has her carriage held up by a familiar looking highwayman, she falls head over heels once more. She does the same as a Victorian schoolteacher in 1847, a popstar’s superfan in 1980, and a dystopian scavenger in the distant future.

It’s a killer premise, and an ambitious one. Eight years on from her brilliantly twisted directorial debut, Prevenge, Lowe proves that film’s brand of high-concept genre cinema goodness wasn’t a one off. When it works,...

Every autumn, a seaside resort in Brittany hosts a charming festival that celebrates only low-budget, independent British and Irish films. Is this a curious case for Poirot?

Cannes may be the home of France’s biggest and best-known film festival, but the one that’s held in Dinard in Brittany is, in its own way, just as remarkable. For five days at the start of every autumn, this beautifully spick-and-span seaside resort devotes itself to celebrating cinema, with one small but mind-boggling twist: the films it shows are all British and Irish. What’s more, they’re fairly low-budget independent productions – two of this year’s highest-profile entries were The Outrun with Saoirse Ronan and Alice Lowe’s Timestalker. And yet, if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume from the red-carpet premieres, the lavish gala dinners and the sold-out screenings that they were all potential blockbusters and Oscar winners.

The Dinard film festival (2-6 October), traditionally a celebration of all things British, brought its 35th iteration to the seaside city’s screens with a soft relaunch this year, after retitling itself to include Irish films and co-productions. The result was suitably eclectic, with just six films competing for the Hitchcock d’Or, which was voted on by an eight-strong jury of actors and directors. Including The Quiet Girl director Colm Bairéad and House of the Dragon star Phoebe Campbell, the judging panel was headed up by French actress-director-model-singer Arielle Dombasle, a favorite of Claude Lelouch, Éric Rohmer and Alain Robbe-Grillet but more recently seen this summer singing her song “Olympics” to herald the arrival of the Olympic torch in Paris, ahead of the recent games.

Opening with Alice Lowe’s horror-comedy Timestalker and ending with Matt Brown’s psychological drama Freud’s Last Session, the festival — curated by Dominique Green...

The actor-writer-director’s new film Timestalker sees her pursue an unsuspecting crush through the centuries. She discusses sexism in the film and TV industry, her dream of being a comedy-horror auteur - and why she’s scared of Kristen Stewart

‘I had killed a lot of people in other films,” says Alice Lowe, whose first feature, 2016’s Prevenge, saw her play a pregnant serial killer. “This time I just felt like I should kill myself.” Agnes, the hero of Lowe’s new film, Timestalker, meets many grisly endings. Played by Lowe, she’s pursuing her dream man through the centuries, from prehistoric forests to 80s New York. But in every era, before true love can blossom, her time is cut short. Then she’s reincarnated, ready to try again.

Timestalker is a romance. Or is it? It’s about reincarnation. Or is it? Just as in Prevenge, where a woman...

Netflix has released the official trailer for the upcoming season 3 of ‘Heartstopper.’

In season 3, Charlie would like to tell Nick that he loves him. Nick also has something important to say to Charlie. As the summer holiday ends and the months race on, the friends begin to realise that the school year will come with both its joys and its challenges. As they learn more about each other and their relationships, plan social events and parties and start thinking about university choices, everyone must learn to lean on those they love when life doesn’t go to plan.

Based on the book series by Alice Oseman, the eight-episode season stars Kit Connor, Joe Locke, William Gao, Yasmin Finney, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, Tobie Donovan, Jenny Walser, Rhea Norwood, Leila Khan.

Also in trailers – “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Trailer creeps in for Alice Lowe’s ‘Timestalker’

Season 3 premieres on October 3rd.

Netflix debuted a trailer for the upcoming romantic drama, ‘Lonely Planet,’ featuring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth.’

A reclusive novelist (Laura Dern) arrives at a prestigious writer’s retreat in Morocco, hoping the remote setting will unlock her writer’s block. While there, she meets a young man (Liam Hemsworth) — what starts as an acquaintanceship evolves into an intoxicating, life-altering love affair.

Directed by Susannah Grant and produced by Liza Chasin, Lonely Planet premieres October 11, only on Netflix.

Also in trailers – “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Trailer creeps in for Alice Lowe’s ‘Timestalker’

The post Laura Dern & Liam Hemsworth star in trailer for ‘Lonely Planet’ appeared first on HeyUGuys.

Alice Lowe’s second film as director is time travel comedy Timestalker, and the trailer for it has now landed.

Alice Lowe is not only a brilliant actor, but she’s also been behind the camera on some of the most esoteric, original British films of the last few years. From co-writing the screenplay of Sightseers with co-star Steve Oram, which was directed by Ben Wheatley and released in 2012, to her terrific 2016 directorial debut Prevenge, which she also wrote and starred as a pregnant woman who believes her unborn baby is telling her to murder all the men involved in her husband’s death.

Her next film is even more ambitious. Timestalker is a science fiction comedy romance, with a dash of time travel thrown into the mix. The synopsis reads as follows:

From the creative team behind Prevenge comes… Timestalker, a romantic comedy about the eternal humiliation that is the search for love,...

Vertigo Releasing has revealed the official UK trailer and poster for Timestalker, the latest romantic comedy from writer-director Alice Lowe. Known for her offbeat comedic style, Lowe’s new film is a genre-blending tale of love, reincarnation, and misadventure that promises an unforgettable cinematic experience. Timestalker will be released in UK and Irish cinemas from 11th October 2024, and fans can now catch a glimpse of the quirky time-travelling adventure by watching the newly released trailer.

The film follows Agnes, played by Lowe herself, as she stumbles through multiple lifetimes, always doomed to fall for the wrong man, die a grisly death, and be reincarnated to repeat the cycle all over again. As Agnes finds herself tangled in these romantic misadventures, spanning centuries, she begins to wonder if she can ever break free from this fatal loop and attain true enlightenment.

In each lifetime, Agnes encounters familiar faces—including her perpetual romantic interest,...

"You die so he doesn't have to... Maybe it's time to turn the tables?" Vertigo Releasing has unveiled the first official trailer for an acclaimed indie romantic comedy remix called Timestalker, made by filmmaker Alice Lowe (of the horror Prevenge before this). This film first premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, and it also played at Fantasia, Locarno, and Edinburgh this year. Follow hapless heroine Agnes through time as she repeatedly falls for the wrong guy, dies a grim death, gets reincarnated a century later, before meeting him again and starting the cycle anew. Agnes' only hope in avoiding this violent fate is by finally reaching spiritual enlightenment; but how can she ever wise up when she’s destined to be a fool for love forever and ever? Some lessons are just too hard to learn in one lifetime... Timestalker stars Alice Lowe as Agnes, Aneurin Barnard, Tanya Reynolds, Jacob Anderson,...

Vertigo Releasing has revealed the trailer for Alice Lowe’s romantic comedy ‘Timestalker.’

The movie follows hapless heroine Agnes (Alice Lowe) through time as she repeatedly falls for the wrong guy, dies a grim death, gets reincarnated a century later, before meeting him again and starting the cycle anew.

Agnes’ only hope in avoiding this violent fate is by finally reaching spiritual enlightenment; but how can she ever wise up when she’s destined to be a fool for love? Some lessons are just too hard to learn in one lifetime.

Written and directed by Alice Lowe, who also stars in the film alongside Jacob Anderson, Aneurin Barnard, Tanya Reynolds and Nick Frost.

Also in trailers – Damian Lewis & Kelly Macdonald star in trailer for comedy thriller ‘The Radleys’

The movie is out in UK and Irish cinemas from 11th October.

The post “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Trailer creeps in...

Festival favourites from throughout 2024 will screen at France’s Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film, including two films starring Barry Keoghan, Andrea Arnold’s Cannes premiere Bird and Chris Andrews’ Toronto title Bring Them Down.

Bring Them Down, a rural Ireland-set revenge story partly filmed in the Irish language and co-starring Christopher Abbott, will play in the main festival competition, alongside Ariane Labed’s Cannes premiere and directorial debut September Says.

Another Irish-language title in the 53-strong line-up is Rich Peppiatt’s Sundance breakout hip-hop biopic Kneecap. While Irish titles have previously been included in the festival’s programme, this...

France’s Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film has unveiled the line-up of its 34th edition, including two films starring Barry Keoghan, Andrea Arnold’s Cannes premiere Bird and Chris Andrews’ Toronto title Bring Them Down.

Bring Them Down, a rural Ireland-set revenge story that’s also partly in the Irish language and stars Poor Things’ Christopher Abbott, will play in the main festival competition, competing for the Golden Hitchcock award for best film award, alongside Ariane Labed’s Cannes premiere and directorial debut September Says.

Another Irish-language title in the 53-strong line-up is Rich Peppiatt’s Sundance breakout hip-hop biopic Kneecap.

Ready to go back to Rome? Ridley Scott is returning to the Colosseum for a fresh bout of gladiatorial combat in long-awaited sequel Gladiator II – ready to conjure up more breathtaking battles, and another gripping revenge story. The new issue of Empire is nearly here, set to transport you into the heart of the action – on newsstands from Thursday 29 August. Order a copy online here.

But before the magazine hits the shelves, here’s a sneak peek inside its pages.

Gladiator II

Ready to be entertained? Empire steps into the arena with Ridley Scott to talk the wild making of his historical epic sequel – speaking to new hero Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn, and the returning Connie Nielsen. Armour up!

Megalopolis

Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t do things by halves. In a major new interview, he tells Empire about the 40-year journey to bring his future-America-meets-Roman-Empire fable to the...

It’s been nearly 25 years since Maximus Decimus Meridius – father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, you know the rest – stepped into the Colosseum. And when he did, he left everyone entertained. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator stands as one of the filmmaker’s greatest works – taking audiences back to Ancient Rome with full-throttle scenes of bloodthirsty combat, an emotional revenge story, and thunderously epic battles to boot. Now, a quarter of a century later, Scott is thinking about the Roman Empire once again, conjuring a fresh batch of swords, sandals, and seriously huge setpieces for Gladiator II. This time, it’s Paul Mescal’s new underdog hero Lucius stepping up for history’s most brutal spectacle – get ready to enter the arena all over again.

The new issue of Empire takes a world-exclusive deep dive into Gladiator II – going toe-to-toe with some of the sharpest minds in...

They say "You'll find love when you stop looking for it." Well, I can tell you from experience that I stopped a long time ago and either I’m not looking very well or it’s complete bullshit. On the other hand you could be Agnes in Alice Lowe’s new film, Timestalker, and be doomed for eternity to repeat the same mistake, looking for and falling in love with the same, wrong man over and over again, from age to age, and die in some of the most comedic ways possible. In the time-traveling rom-com Agnes (played by Lowe) makes bad choices every time. It ends terribly and terribly funny, propelling Agnes into the next century to meet her ‘true love’ by chance (or intention...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Head Gear Film CEO Phil Hunt, Sigma Films producer Gillian Berrie, Coutts’ executive director in media banking Judith Chan and Tea Shop Productions’ Mark Lane are the latest high-profile speakers joining the line-up for Screen International’s ‘The Future of UK Film’ summit, to be held on September 24, 2024, at BFI Southbank, London.

Buy tickets here

Hunt’s leading film financier Head Gear has invested in recent titles including How To Have Sex, Talk To Me and Fisherman’s Friends: One And All while its upcoming slate features Alice Lowe’s Timestalker and Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk. Hunt also founded UK...

Pleasure Products

DocuBay, the Indian documentary streaming platform under IN10 Media Network, is set to release “Bad Toys Inc.,” a 45-minute original film exploring India’s burgeoning sex toy industry. The doc, slated for a July 26 debut, offers a peek into the country’s evolving attitudes towards pleasure products.

The film delves into regional preferences, consumer stories and industry insights, featuring interviews with sexologist Dr. Prakash Kothari and founders of emerging sex toy startups. It also touches on legal aspects and historical context of pleasure accessories in India.

Girish Dwibhashyam, COO of DocuBay, touted the film as a “novel viewing experience” that uncovers surprising facts about the Indian market. Producer Richa Sahai of Black Iris noted the challenges and excitement of creating content on this taboo topic.

With India’s sex toy market projected to reach $200 million in five years, “Bad Toys Inc.” aims to shed light on a rapidly...

Comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti makes her directorial debut with Sunlight, it will premiere in Edinburgh in August.

Nina Conti comes from a showbiz family, her father being noted actor Tom Conti. Nina trained with theatre director Ken Campbell, which is explored in the documentary Her Master’s Voice. Conti is best known for her ventriloquism, performing with a variety of characters, the best known of which is the sardonic Monkey.

Conti has now made her feature directorial debut with Sunlight.

The plot “follows two people on the edge of life who find purpose and romance through an unlikely connection, escaping the darkness in search of some sunlight. Disappearing into a monkey costume and creating a new persona, Jane strives to break free from a toxic relationship when she encounters a suicidal radio show host, Roy, who presents a path to freedom. After hitting the open road in Roy’s Airstream,...

The Melbourne International Film Festival has set ten features to play in its Bright Horizons competition section.

They include: India Donaldson’s “Good One”; Luna Carmoon’s “Hoard”; Annie Baker’s “Janet Planet”; Leonardo Van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet”; Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams”; Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language”; Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise”; Gints Zabalodis’ animated “Flow”; Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”; and Australian director Charles Williams’ debut feature “Inside.”

The non-competitive Headliners section, which showcases films that have premiered at other festivals, includes: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”; Mumbai-based director Payal Kapadia was recently the first Indian director for 30 years with a film in competition in Cannes presents “All We Imagine as Light”; Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring “The Substance”; Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Sebastian Stan in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”; Cannes best director-winning Asian odyssey,...

The 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has launched its entire program for the Aug. 15-21 event, where it will screen 37 new feature films and 18 world premieres.

Ten world premieres will compete for the new Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence as the fest showcases talent from filmmakers in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Mexico, Norway, China, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Iran and beyond. Screenings will take place in the heart of Scotland’s picturesque capital at some of the city’s most iconic venues including Cameo Cinema, Summerhall, and 50 George Square.

Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, starring Saoirse Ronan, was previously confirmed as the Fest’s opening night film, with the world premiere of Carla J. Easton and Blair Young’s documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands set to close. Its Midnight Madness strand will close with the body horror The Substance, starring Demi Moore.

The revamped Edinburgh Film Festival will screen 37 new feature films, 18 of which will be world premieres during its 2024 edition, running August 15 – 21.

The full Edinburgh lineup was revealed this afternoon in the Scottish capital by the festival’s new director Paul Ridd, former head of acquisitions at Picturehouse. The festival’s international feature competition, now dubbed the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, will screen 10 films, all world premieres.

The competition titles include All The Mountains Give by Arash Rakhsha, Jack King’s powerful Yorkshire-set drama The Ceremony, and Mary Jiménez and Bénédicte Liénard’s Fuga. Scroll down for the full list.

The festival will screen 18 titles out of competition. The screenings will include the world premiere of Euros Lyn’s The Radleys starring Damian Lewis and Kelly Macdonald and Alice Lowe’s latest Timestalker. Popular titles from across the festival circuit like Camera D’Or Winner Armand featuring Renate Reinsve...

Taking place August 7-17, the official selection for the 77th Locarno Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring a stellar-looking slate of highly anticipated films. Highlights include Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, By the Stream, starring Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee; Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), as well as new films by Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Courtney Stephens, Ben Rivers, Gürcan Keltek, Denis Côté, Kevin Jerome Everson, Fabrice Du Welz (featuring Abel Ferrara!), and many more. Also of particular note is the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored cut of The Fall, which features a slightly different edit as he recently noted.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival said, “We are very excited and happy with our selection for Locarno’s 77th edition, which we believe...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

Hangtime International Pictures is making its first major plays since launching at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

The transatlantic production company, which was founded by Frank Murray and Frida Torresblanco, has snapped up “She Will” producer Jessica Malik as its new head of development as well as inking a strategic partnership with Rebel Park Productions, the production company Malik founded in 2017 alongside Gemma Arterton and Jessica Parker.

Malik joins Hangtime effective immediately, reporting to Murray. She will be based out of the company’s London office where she’ll oversee development of high-end, specialist and mainstream content across film, television and documentaries.

The first projects co-produced by Hangtime and Rebel Park are in advanced development and set to be announced in the near future. The partnership spans film and television.

At Rebel Park, which was launched in 2017 with the aim of boosting female filmmakers and producing female-led stories, Malik...

Alice Lowe’s second film as director is time travel comedy Timestalker, which will be released in the UK on the 27th September.

Alice Lowe is not only a brilliant actor, she has been behind the camera on some of the most esoteric, original British films of the last few years, from co-writing the screenplay of Sightseers with co-star Steve Oram, which was directed by Ben Wheatley and released in 2012, to her terrific 2016 directorial debut Prevenge, which she also wrote and starred as a pregnant woman who believes her unborn baby is telling her to murder all the men involved in her husband’s death.

Her next film is even more ambitious. Timestalker is a science fiction comedy, the synopsis reads as follows:

From the creative team behind Prevenge comes… Timestalker, a romantic comedy about the eternal humiliation that is the search for love, spanning the most romantic epochs of history right into the future.

Vertigo Releasing has picked up UK-Ireland rights to Alice Lowe’s sophomore feature Timestalker from HanWay Films.

It will be released theatrically on September 27.

Lowe also stars in the feature, billed as an anti-romantic comedy, alongside Jacob Anderson, Aneurin Barnard, Tanya Reynolds and Nick Frost. A hapless heroine travels through time as she repeatedly falls for the wrong guy, dies a grim death, and is reincarnated a century later, before meeting him again and starting the cycle anew.

The SXSW premiere reunites Lowe with the producers of her directorial debut Prevenge, UK outfit Western Edge Pictures. Vaughan Sivell, Mark Hopkins,...

After she won the 2021 Palme d’Or for Titane, in a which a sociopathic stripper becomes a serial killer and has sex with muscle cars, Julia Ducournau was effusive in her gratitude to the Cannes Film Festival. “Thank you for calling for more diversity in our experiences of film and our lives,” she said. “Thank you for letting in the monsters.”

Titane was only her second movie; the first, Raw, made its humble debut in Critics’ Week, but it was recognizably the work of the same artist, being a tender coming of age story about a veterinary student who discovers that she comes from a long line of cannibals.

Although Cannes has a long way to go in terms of gender parity, the festival has been quick to tap into the new wave of female-directed horror that has sprung up in the wake of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook 10 years ago.

If 2024 is the year American voters will experience a sense of déjà vu at the ballot box, it’s also likely to go down as the year that fans of indie genre cinema will feel it at the box office. From Sundance to SXSW, a surprising number of films have had fun with the concept of time, whether in terms of history literally repeating itself or presenting new angles on the same set of events.

Exec-produced by filmmaker duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and written-directed by their longtime editor Michael Felker, Things Will Be Different — as its title suggests — has an even more rarefied take, using time as a hiding place, a surreal and ingenious conceit that adds a creepy air of mystery to its otherwise solidly sci-fi scenario.

As an actress, writer and director, Alice Lowe has never much cared if you like the characters she’s penned for herself. From the tourist who develops a taste for murder on her road trip with her boyfriend in Ben Wheatley’s “Sightseers” to a mother-to-be whose baby inspires far more violence than just kicking around in her belly in her own directorial debut, “Prevenge,” Lowe has sacrificed audience approval for the license to explore darker corners of the female experience. However, that might make Agnes the most deliciously miserable of her creations, as someone in desperate need of love, commencing a grimly amusing search for the perfect partner across centuries in “Timestalker.”

If comedy is tragedy plus time, there is plenty of it in Lowe’s latest film. Starting in Scotland in the late 1600s, Agnes can’t escape her attraction to the wrong guy (Aneurin Barnard) and is...

In Alice Lowe's sophomore feature Timestalker, love is life and death. Like, a lot of death. Also, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Those who've seen Lowe's fantastic prenatal slasher Prevenge already know the filmmaker has a knack for blending pitch-black humor with deeply personal emotions. Timestalker is no different. It's like if Past Lives was far bloodier, depicted reincarnation, and made 1700s dildo jokes. Lowe's obsessive romantic comedy is beautiful, batty, and brutal in equal parts, but most importantly, it's an effectively ambitious representation of volatile feelings no human can escape.

When dealing with an utterly preposterous premise, it’s best to dive straight into the outrageousness of it all and never let the audience have a second to question it. Writer/director Alice Lowe clearly understands the assignment with her clever new absurdist comedy, “Timestalker,” which doesn’t waste a second triggering its ridiculous but enjoyable idea. A period-set romance and time-travel/reincarnation looping comedy, Lowe stars as Agnes, a hapless heroine who falls in love through time, trying to follow the same man she fell head over heels for at first sight.

Continue reading ‘Timestalker’ Review: Alice Lowe Takes Obsessive Crushes To The Absurdist Next Level Through Time [SXSW] at The Playlist.

Love never dies, but a lot of people do in Alice Lowe’s gloriously bloody valentine to the romantic comedy. Spanning so much time that it practically goes back to the beginning of it, Timestalker is an ambitious project that not only works, it coheres in a way that cements Lowe as a genuine and quite visionary comedic talent. It recalls classic Monty Python — it’s often very, very stupid and the same time very, very clever — but most of all it’s an idea of what might have been if that all-male team had ever had a woman or two in its core lineup.

Lowe set out her stall in 2016 with Prevenge, a horror comedy in which a bereaved pregnant woman is driven to avenge her late husband, incited to murder by her unborn baby. Timestalker doesn’t fall far from that tree, being another satirical comment on how...

Even in 1688, there were fuckboys. Such is the first and best lesson of Alice Lowe’s “Timestalker,” even if it’s one our leading lady Agnes has to learn over and over and over and over. That’s the gimmick of Lowe’s second feature film — a winning follow-up to her bloody good 2016 feature directorial debut “Prevenge” — which is billed as a “reincarnation rom com.” Mostly, the feature serves as a stellar reminder of the elasticity of genre and Lowe’s ability to stretch any apparent limits however she sees fit.

Consider Lowe’s sophomore film a canny, slightly sweeter companion to Bertrand Bonello’s similarly plotted “The Beast”: Both films follow a pair of star-crossed lovers who continue to meet in different times, places, and stations, only to fuck it up each time. In Lowe’s version, however, her Agnes is the only one aware of what’s actually unspooling here.

World premiering at this year’s SXSW, writer-director-star Alice Lowe’s sophomore feature Timestalker certainly feels like it’s been a long time coming. Arriving eight years after Prevenge, her 2016 debut that she shot and starred in just weeks before giving birth to her eldest daughter, Lowe’s latest was stalled for a slew of reasons—motherhood, Covid, involvement in other projects—but Timestalker’s extended development served to sharpen Lowe’s filmic instinct while shooting, resulting in an ambitious, blood-spattered time loop rom-com more aesthetically and thematically assured than its 22-day shoot may have initially allowed for. Lowe stars as Agnes, an ordinary woman who we […]

The post “Any Independent Film Is a Miracle These Days”: Alice Lowe on SXSW 2024 Premiere Timestalker first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

World premiering at this year’s SXSW, writer-director-star Alice Lowe’s sophomore feature Timestalker certainly feels like it’s been a long time coming. Arriving eight years after Prevenge, her 2016 debut that she shot and starred in just weeks before giving birth to her eldest daughter, Lowe’s latest was stalled for a slew of reasons—motherhood, Covid, involvement in other projects—but Timestalker’s extended development served to sharpen Lowe’s filmic instinct while shooting, resulting in an ambitious, blood-spattered time loop rom-com more aesthetically and thematically assured than its 22-day shoot may have initially allowed for. Lowe stars as Agnes, an ordinary woman who we […]

The post “Any Independent Film Is a Miracle These Days”: Alice Lowe on SXSW 2024 Premiere Timestalker first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This article appears in the SXSW 2024 issue of Den of Geek magazine. Check out all of our SXSW coverage here.

Seven years in the making, spanning centuries in the telling, Alice Lowe’s latest feature, Timestalker, is a strange beast. A dark comedy, a romance through the ages, a violent sci-fi, and an existential musing on the self, it’s an ambitious romp dressed in spandex and crinoline.

“When you make an independent film, you know there’s a chance you may never make one again,” says Lowe. “Any time one happens, it’s like a miracle. And I really just thought, God, if this was the last film that I ever get to make, what would I want to put in it? It’s like my gravestone in a film.”

What she’s put in it are fabulous costumes, wigs, animals, an ensemble cast playing multiple roles, music, Easter eggs,...