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Benny and Josh Safdie delivered critical darlings like Uncut Gems and Good Time before ending their partnership as co-directors to pursue solo careers. During a 2024 interview with Variety, Benny Safdie confirmed that he and Josh had parted ways and were instead focusing on solo careers.

It’s a natural progression of what we each want to explore.

Benny made the above statement, adding that his split with Josh was amicable. In December 2023, reporter Jeff Sneider revealed on the Hot Mic podcast that the brothers allegedly had a falling out, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason for their split.

The duo last collaborated on the 2022 comedy Funny Pages, serving as co-producers. The timeline of their split makes it difficult to discern whether their split was amicable or not. Nonetheless, the brothers seem to have found a solo footing in Hollywood as Benny is teaming up with Dwayne Johnson and Josh is...

Exclusive: Buffalo 8 has set a July 25 digital release for Emil Nava’s coming-of-age drama, Snorkeling, whose producers include filmmaker David Ayer and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones. You can see a first trailer above.

The film marks the feature debut of Nava, one of the world’s most well-known music video directors and a five MTV VMA winner, who has worked with stars including Rihanna, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris, Post Malone and more.

Starring in the film are Kristine Froseth (The Buccaneers), Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages), and Tim Johnson Jr. (Pacific Rim: Uprising).

The movie follows teenagers Michael and Jameson. As their romance blossoms, a new hallucinogenic street drug called Snorkeling concocts a fantasy where the user feels invincible: they can interact with the world without fear or inhibition, a true out-of-body experience, but the drug also comes with danger.

Snorkeling debuted at the Manchester Film Festival two years ago,...

Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a bum. Call him a lush, a louse, a putz, a schmuck, a sad-sack, and a dumb-sob and all would apply. He can take them, and then some. He is, after all, a man of words — poor Oscar’s a poet, and woe unto all those who know him.

But good news for all those that take in “A Poet” (“Un Poeta”), director Simón Mesa Soto’s immensely appealing and often caustic character study-turned-social-satire premiering out of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar. Put together with impressive efficiency — the film only started shooting in January — this art-world send-up explores the many fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt in the decade since making the 2014 short film Palme d’Or winner “Leidi,” channeling them into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse while playing like a Dan Clowes comic brought to manic life.

Oscar’s a poet,...

Tubi, Fox’s free streaming service, has announced its list of May titles. The Tubi May 2025 slate features new Tubi Originals, TV series, and numerous action, art house, Black cinema, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, kids and family, reality, sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, and Western titles.

As a leading ad-supported video-on-demand service, the company engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library of over 250,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of exclusive Originals, and nearly 250 live channels.

You can watch the Tubi May 2025 lineup for free on Android and iOS mobile devices, Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub Max, Comcast Xfinity X1, and Cox Contour.

You can also watch the service on connected television devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and on the Tubi site.

Tubi Originals...

The Studio, the satirical comedy series on AppleTV+ that has been rightfully gaining quite a bit of popularity, presents a slightly different episode this week, storywise, at least. Unlike any trouble with external directors or actors, like in the previous episodes, the contention this time is between two internal employees at Continental Studios, Sal Saperstein and Quinn Hackett. Because of the race, and eventually the war (as suggested by the episode’s title) between the two characters taking over, Matt Remick takes the backseat in episode 5.

Spoiler Alert

What makes Sal and Quinn rivals in episode 5?

The Studio episode 5, begins with Matt Remick arriving at the Continental Studios on a relatively busy day at the office, not because of the studio’s own schedule, but because they have been renting out their sets to other production companies. Continental has been struggling financially recently, and so they have rented out their...

A24 and Kyle Mooney‘s dial-up disaster comedy Y2K wants you to party like it’s 1999 next month when it heads to streaming.

Y2K makes its streaming debut exclusively on Max on Friday, April 4. The film will debut on HBO linear on Saturday, April 5 at 8:00 p.m. Et.

The disaster comedy explores what if the millenium bug really happened. In the film, “Two high school juniors crash a New Year’s Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy.”

Jaeden Martell (It, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone) and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) star as the high school friends. Y2K also stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lachlan Watson (“Chucky,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), Mason Gooding (Scream 2022, Scream VI), The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (Us), Eduardo Franco (“Stranger Things”), Miles Robbins (Daniel Isn’t Real, Halloween 2018), Alicia Silverstone (The Killing of a Sacred Deer,...

Seth Rogen celebrated the world premiere of his Apple TV+ series “The Studio” at SXSW on Friday, March 7. He writes, directs, and executive produces the show, which parodies the inner workings of Hollywood. Rogen portrays fictional studio executive Matt Remick, who is the newly appointed head of the embattled Continental Studios.

“It was directly inspired by all the people we work with and all the years and years we’ve spent making studio films,” he told IndieWire. “We’ve primarily worked within the studio system and so we’ve become close friends with a lot of these people and we’ve seen how hard it is for them. A lot of them genuinely like movies and are real movie people.”

“The fact that they have a job where they’re constantly put in a position where they have to disappoint their idols and ruin things that maybe could be great — it’s very comedic,...

Hollywood satirizing itself always brings with it a strangely ouroboric connotation—an excruciating, try-hard attempt to make themselves cooler by lampooning themselves in front of their audience. To a certain extent, the lampooning could work if the media exploring said sentiment has a discerning point. The Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-created show The Studio (Season 1) seems to be vacillating between two entirely conflicting points.

As the show begins, we are introduced to Matt Remmick (Bryan Cranston), who is appointed the head of flailing Continental Studios by its new owner Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston), who also gives him his first mission statement—to revive the IP of Kool-Aid by producing a movie akin to the success of “Barbie,” which would put Continental Studios on the map. But that is a hard pivot from what the cinephilic perspective of Remnick wants Continental Studios to be making—serious, art-house movies, which Mill...

Get ready to party like it’s 1999 this New Year’s Eve: A24 and Kyle Mooney‘s dial-up disaster comedy Y2K heads home just in time for the holidays.

Y2K will be available to watch at home on Digital on December 24, and you can preorder now.

The film takes place on the last night of 1999. “Two high school juniors crash a New Year’s Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy.”

Jaeden Martell (It, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone) and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) star as the high school friends. Y2K also stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lachlan Watson (“Chucky,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), Mason Gooding (Scream 2022, Scream VI), The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (Us), Eduardo Franco (“Stranger Things”), Miles Robbins (Daniel Isn’t Real, Halloween 2018), Alicia Silverstone (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lodge), Fred Hechinger (Fear Street...

One day after Krampusnacht, it is now officially The Feast of St. Nicholas (aka Saint Nicholas Day), and the horror genre is delivering big time with Eleven brand new movies today!

Here’s all the new horror released on Friday, December 6, 2024!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Hold onto your butthole, there’s a new killer dino flick in town. Well Go USA has released their horror-comedy The Invisible Raptor in select theaters and on Digital outlets today.

In the film, “After a top-secret experiment goes wrong, a hyper-intelligent invisible raptor escapes the lab and begins wreaking havoc in the surrounding neighborhood. When the creature’s identity is uncovered, it soon becomes clear that a disgraced paleontologist—alongside his ex-girlfriend, an unhinged amusement park security guard, and a local celebrity chicken farmer—is the town’s only hope for surviving the raptor’s ravenous rampage.

For a few years in the '80s, it felt like Phoebe Cates was everywhere in Hollywood. The child of an entertainment-focused family (her dad was a prolific producer of stage and screen), Cates made her on-screen debut in 1982's "Paradise," a controversial film that's best-remembered as a sort of off-brand "Blue Lagoon" story that featured Cates' underage character nude (the actress was 17 at the time of filming). According to Cates' costar Willie Aames, the nudity in question was filmed by body doubles, but the discourse surrounding the movie would inform Cates' place in pop culture before she even came of age.

Cates' most famous roles would come soon after, and by 1994, she would largely be retired from acting entirely. So why did Phoebe Cates leave Hollywood? The answer is hers to share, and interviews she and her family have given both during her on-screen career and after it ended have been pretty enlightening.

Remember when everyone thought the world was going to end on January 1, 2000? Well, what if it actually did? That’s the premise behind A24’s dial-up disaster comedy Y2K, headed to theaters on December 6. Preview the apocalyptic mayhem with the brand new trailer below.

The film takes place on the last night of 1999. “Two high school juniors crash a New Year’s Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy.”

Jaeden Martell (It, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone) and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) star as the high school friends. Y2K also stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lachlan Watson (“Chucky,” “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), Mason Gooding (Scream 2022, Scream VI), The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (Us), Eduardo Franco (“Stranger Things”), Miles Robbins (Daniel Isn’t Real, Halloween 2018), Alicia Silverstone (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lodge), Fred Hechinger (Fear Street), Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages) and Fred Durst.

Actor Daniel Zolghadri, star of upcoming disaster comedy Y2K and American Horror Stories guest star, is currently negotiating for the lead role in sci-fi horror movie The Temple, Deadline reports today.

Temple hails from the Canadian writing and directing duo Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

The sci-fi horror film follows “an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.”

There’s not much to go on here, but what little there is intrigues. A ghost-seeking millionaire? A radiation scientist? It sets up the potential for an interesting cross between science and the supernatural.

Zolghadri also recently appeared in Prime Video’s Tales from the Loop and A24’s Funny Pages.

Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott will produce for their Babe Nation Films, alongside the writer-director duo’s Lisa Pictures. Production is gearing up to begin soon,...

Exclusive: Daniel Zolghadri, star of A24’s Funny Pages and upcoming Y2K, is negotiating for the lead role in The Temple, a sci-fi horror film from the Canadian writing and directing duo of Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

In the indie gearing up for a shoot up north, an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.

Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott will produce for their Babe Nation Films, alongside the writer-director duo’s Lisa Pictures.

An in-demand talent on the indie scene, Zolghadri garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance for his work in Funny Pages, A24’s 2022 coming-of-age comedy written and directed by Owen Kline and produced by the Safdie brothers, which was named one of the Top 10 Independent Films of 2022 by the National Board of Review.

What if the Millennium bug was real? It might’ve looked something like A24’s dial-up disaster comedy Y2K, from comedian Kyle Mooney. A24 has unleashed the first trailer for the bloody teen comedy, teasing technology run amok and…Fred Durst.

Y2K gets an appropriate theatrical release date: December 6, 2024.

The film takes place “On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy.”

Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) star as the high school friends. Y2K also stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lachlan Watson, Mason Gooding, The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (Us), Eduardo Franco (“Stranger Things”), Miles Robbins, Alicia Silverstone, Fred Hechinger (Fear Street), Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages) and Fred Durst star.

Y2K hails from actor/comedian/writer and former “Saturday Night Live “cast member Kyle Mooney,...

Satranic Panic: "Dark Star Pictures is releasing renowned director Alice Maio Mackay’s Trans slasher/horror Satranic Panic On Digital and On Demand August 13, 2024.

A bloody, demon-infested road movie about the power of claiming one’s identity and the importance of chosen family, Satranic Panic exposes the hypocrisy of the status quo with biting wit, killer drag, and incredible tits.

Satranic Panic made its world premiere at SXSW’s inaugural edition in Sydney before heading to Panic Fest, Salem Horror Fest and more. Dread Central raved that the film is Maio Mackay’s “most ambitious story and style yet.”

At only twenty years old, Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay has already directed five feature films, including So Vam (2021), Bad Girl Boogey (2022), T Blockers (2023), Satranic Panic, and the upcoming Carnage for Christmas. As a transgender filmmaker, Maio Mackay uses camp and comedy to boldly queer the horror genre, crafting vibrant,...

Muppeteer Jim Henson’s rarities, late quilt artist Faith Ringgold’s earliest interview, and an ad for Jacuzzi rival Vibrabath saw the light of day at the 14th Orphan Film Symposium.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary earlier this week, the NYU-produced Orphans (first founded by University of South Carolina turned NYU professor Dan Streible in 1999) gathered scholars, archivists, and preservationists for a range of media obscurities: including home videos, newsreels, and medical films abandoned by their copyright holders at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI). Blame low commercial value, the deterioration of VHS/celluloid copies in the Dcp era, or the shrouding of sociopolitical messages from the masses for their loss.

This year’s theme was the broadly named “Work and Play.” According to the convening’s open call, “Work” alludes to labor, occupations, and machines. Conversely, “Play” implies joy, games, entertainment, and sex. Yet, the two realms intersect...

Exclusive: Emmy and Academy Award nominated producer David Permut and filmmaker Oscar Boyson are teaming up with author/filmmaker Mathew Klickstein to bring the San Diego Comic-Con origin story to life for the first time on screen in a new documentary based on the latter’s book See You at San Diego: An Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Culture.

The See You at San Diego documentary will follow how a scrappy group of teenage fans, zinesters, illustrators, stoners, hippies, weirdoes, bookworms, and science buffs in the late 1960s joined forces with an unemployed thirtysomething comic fan to create what has now become one of the most influential pop culture events ever. San Diego Comic-Con has twice been recognized as the largest pop culture gathering worldwide by the Guinness Book of World Records in recent years.

Boyson and Oh Boy Productions will produce alongside Permut who...

“Pet Shop Days,” the directorial debut from Hollywood scion Olmo Schnabel, has been acquired by Utopia for theatrical distribution in North America.

A Venice Film Festival premiere that just lit up SXSW, the provocative coming-of-age film stars stars Jack Irv, Dario Yazbek Bernal, Willem Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard and Emmanuelle Seigner. Martin Scorsese, Jeremy O. Harris and Michel Franco (“New Order”) all serve as executive producers.

Bernal (Netflix’s “House of Flowers”) stars as Alejandro, the son of a Mexican crime lord on the run from his past in New York City. There he meets Jack (Irv), a 20-something living with his wealthy parents Francis (Dafoe) and Diana (Seigner) while working in a pet shop. In a haze of drugs and sex, Alejandro seduces Jack and drags him into the city’s criminal underbelly.

Shot on 35mm film by Hunter Zimny, the film generated buzz out of Venice for its daring lead performances.

Unfortunately, Robert Pattinson’s Good Time co-star Buddy Duress passed away last year at the age of 38. After gaining worldwide recognition with his role as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga, Pattinson switched to independent films which also gained him critical acclaim. One of these films was the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time.

Buddy Duress was a frequent collaborator of the Safdie Brothers and was best known for his roles in movies like 2017’s Good Time, Heaven Knows What, and Person to Person. He had gotten into quite some legal troubles before his unfortunate demise.

Buddy Duress

Buddy Duress’ Younger Brother Revealed How the Actor Passed Away

Buddy Duress, born Michael C. Stathis, did not make his film debut until 2014 when he starred in Heaven Knows What. He was on the run from law when he was discovered by Josh Safdie.

Buddy Duress, the actor who appeared in two Safdie Brothers films including 2017’s Good Time starring Robert Pattinson, died last November of what his brother said this week was “cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail.” Duress was 38.

Duress’ death was announced on social media last week by director Jay Karales, whose upcoming film Mass State Lottery features Duress. The cause of death was announced yesterday to People by the actor’s brother Christopher Stathis (Duress was born Michael C. Stathis).

“This man was an absolute treasure,” Karales, known professionally as LowRes Wünderbred, wrote. “Without a doubt, Buddy Duress was one of the most entertaining people I’ve ever met and his stories were unrivaled. I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, ‘That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy.’ He brought a certain authenticity and charisma to the screen that you just don’t see anymore.

Buddy Duress, an actor best known for starring opposite Robert Pattinson in the Safdie brothers 2017 film Good Time, has died. He was 38. The actor’s brother, Christopher Stathis, confirmed the passing with People on Tuesday, February 27, revealing Duress died of “cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail” in November 2023. Born in May 1985 in Queens, New York, Duress landed his first big-screen acting gig in Benny and Josh Safdie‘s 2014 psychological drama film Heaven Knows What, where he played low-level drug dealer Mike. He would collaborate with the Safdie brothers again in their 2017 feature Good Time, which stars Pattinson as a small-time criminal who tries to free his developmentally disabled brother (Benny Safdie) from police custody while attempting to avoid his own arrest. Duress played Ray, a criminal recently released on parole. Duress’ other credits include Person to Person (2017), The Mountain (2018), The Great Darkened Days (2018), Pvt Chat (2021), Flinch (2021), and the 2022 black comedy Funny Pages,...

Buddy Duress has sadly passed away.

The actor, who was best known for his roles in Good Time and Heavens Knows What, died of “cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail” in November 2023, his brother Christopher Stathis shared with People on Tuesday (February 27).

Keep reading to find out more…Buddy was born Michael C. Stathis in Queens, New York in May 1985. He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2014 film Heaven Knows What.

He then teamed up with the Safdie brothers again for the 2017 movie Good Time where he played a drug dealer who partners with Robert Pattinson‘s character as the attempt to retrieve a Sprite bottle containing acid.

Buddy also appeared in several other movies including Person to Person, Beware of Dog, and Funny Pages. He has two more projects – Skull and Mass State Lottery – scheduled to be released later this year.

Buddy is survived by...

Buddy Duress (né Michael C. Stathis), who starred alongside Robert Pattinson in the Safdie brothers’ 2017 crime thriller “Good Time,” has died. He was 38.

Duress’ brother Christopher Stathis revealed to People on Tuesday that the actor died in November 2023 of “cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail.”

Duress was born in Queens, New York, in May 1985. He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2014 film “Heaven Knows What,” which also stars Caleb Landry Jones and Arielle Holmes. In “Good Time,” Duress portrayed Ray, a drug dealer who becomes Connie Nikas’ (Pattinson) partner in crime as the two attempt to retrieve a Sprite bottle containing liquid LSD.

Along with “Heaven Knows What” and “Good Time,” Duress worked on such films as “Person to Person” (2017), “The Great Darkened Days” (2018), “Beware of Dog” (2020), “Pvt Chat” (2020), “Flinch” (2021) and “Funny Pages” (2022). Duress has two more unreleased projects: a short film titled “Skull” and Jay...

It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the final image of Sean Price Williams’s solo feature directorial debut, The Sweet East, is that of Talia Ryder’s Lillian nonchalantly strolling toward and past the camera, a smirk on her face. That’s effectively the whole vibe of the film, an odyssey that traipses through the world of white supremacist academics, PizzaGate conspiracy theorists, self-satisfied filmmakers, mixed-media artists of questionable talent, and religious zealots. And as these various figure heads of a post-whatever world aspire to approximate, at once, political and social fragmentation, reactionaryism, delusion, provocation, and apathy, there Lilian is, eyes like butterfly knives being toyed with by a bored teenager.

As a cinematographer, Price Williams made a name for himself working with filmmakers like Alex Ross Perry and Josh and Benny Safdie, lending their films an earthy sense of immediacy. On 16mm, his images burn...

The Safdies may be (temporarily) breaking up as directors, but the brothers are still a showbiz team. Josh and Benny Safdie have executive produced a new documentary limited series “Telemarketers” for HBO, it was announced Wednesday. The channel has set an August 13 premiere date for the series, in addition to releasing the official trailer.

“Telemarketers” focuses on two former telemarketing employees Pat Pespas and Sam Lipman-Stern, the latter of whom is credited as co-director of the series with Adam Bhala Lough. The series chronicles, with the assistance of footage shot by Limpman-Stern, the duo’s time working in the telemarketing industry during the early 2000s, when Limpman-Stern was a 14 year-old high school dropout and Pespas was a top salesman dealing with addiction issues. The two worked for a company that advertised itself as raising money for police and firefighter charities, but in reality pocketed most of the money.

After a...

Exclusive: Filmmaker Tyler Taormina (Ham on Rye) has wrapped production on Long Island on Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point, a Christmas comedy to star Michael Cera (Life & Beth), Elsie Fisher (Barry), Maria Dizzia (The Good Nurse), Francesca Scorsese (We Are Who We Are), Ben Shenkman (Billions), Gregg Turkington (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Sawyer Spielberg (Masters of the Air) and newcomer Matilda Fleming.

Written by Taormina, Eric Berger and Kevin Anton, the film watches as four generations of the Balsano family gather for what may be the last Christmas in the family home. As they lose themselves in rowdy celebration, cousins Emily and Michelle sneak away to a winter wonderland, where suburban teenagers find their rebellious paradise.

The project hails from Omnes Films and was produced in association with Crypto Castle Productions and Puente Films. Producers included Cera, Krista Minto, Taormina, David Croley Broyles and Duncan Sullivan. The executive producers are Jeremy Gardner,...

Exclusive: Daniel Zolghadri (Y2K), Shane Paul McGhie (Poker Face), Jessica Barden (The End of the F***ing World) and Michael Imperioli (The White Lotus) are attached to star in Last Days of Basic Cable, a new film from renowned, rising director Max Winkler (Flower).

Written by Adam Wilson and Justin Taylor, the indie set toward the end of the 1990s watches as four twenty-somethings navigate romance and life in a small New England college town. Zolghadri will play aspiring writer Aaron, with McGhie as his roommate Jason, Barden as Jason’s girlfriend Jessica, and Imperioli as Bob, a drugged out taxi driver who befriends Aaron.

Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger will produce the film via their Bona Fide Productions banner. No word yet on when production might kick off.

Best known for his starring role in the A24 coming-of-age film Funny Pages, produced by Josh and Benny Safdie,...

Exclusive: Arthouse distro Circle Collective has acquired worldwide rights to Luca Balser’s (Uncut Gems) NYC anthology film What Doesn’t Float, starring and produced by Pauline Chalamet (Sex Lives of College Girls), and shot by DPs Sean Price Williams (Good Time) and Hunter Zimny (Good Time).

The film is set to make its world premiere at the Lighthouse Film Festival this month and will be released theatrically in the U.S. from September with an international fest tour planned in the fall/winter.

What Doesn’t Float stars Chalamet, genre filmmaker and actor Larry Fessenden (Depraved), and Keith Poulson (Pvt Chat) as New Yorkers at their wit’s end. Script comes from Shauna Fitzgerald and Rachel Walden (Funny Pages) also produces.

The project is the first from NYC-based production company Gummy Films, headed by Chalamet, Balser and Walden who last month attended the Cannes Film Festival with their short film Lemon Tree...

In recent movies like Air and Funny Pages, television series like Our Flag Means Death, and plays like Annie Baker’s The Flick, Matthew Maher has made a name for himself as someone who can bring an oddball or weirdo to full life with enough charm, charisma, and genuine gusto to make us love him unconditionally. On this episode, he talks about his acting foundations, the tools formative teachers have given him, and some theories he has developed as a teacher himself. He explains the allure of experimental theater in ’90s New York City, makes a case for embracing contradictions and obstructions in a character and […]

The post “I Do Not Have an Adult Profession, and So You Need To Maintain Access to Your Childlike Self”: Matthew Maher first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In recent movies like Air and Funny Pages, television series like Our Flag Means Death, and plays like Annie Baker’s The Flick, Matthew Maher has made a name for himself as someone who can bring an oddball or weirdo to full life with enough charm, charisma, and genuine gusto to make us love him unconditionally. On this episode, he talks about his acting foundations, the tools formative teachers have given him, and some theories he has developed as a teacher himself. He explains the allure of experimental theater in ’90s New York City, makes a case for embracing contradictions and obstructions in a character and […]

The post “I Do Not Have an Adult Profession, and So You Need To Maintain Access to Your Childlike Self”: Matthew Maher first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Impulsive, young, naïve — it’s common to speak of America in such terms. Even with almost 250 years under its belt, the country can’t compete with the centuries-long histories of other empires. Descriptions focus on flaws, unrealized visions and the broken promises of the oft-cited American Dream. Sean Price Williams is keenly aware of America’s reputation, and uses his beautiful but tedious directorial debut The Sweet East to find pride in it. Both satire and patriotic statement, the picaresque adventure of Lillian (Never Rarely Sometimes Always star Talia Ryder) paints a sardonic but ultimately uninteresting portrait of America and its cultish factions.

Like most protagonists of stories like this one, Lillian is listless and a bit unmoored. The film opens with an audio of the Pledge of Allegiance before cutting to a scene of post-coital bliss between Lillian and Troy (Jack Irv). Her character is one of few words.

If anyone is complaining that Hollywood has "run out of ideas" and that everything is a remake or sequel, they'd do well to research a small but burgeoning new crop of post-digital indie films that tap into the dread, anxieties, and sometimes comical surreality of our present age. These movies are often a little creepy, boldly ambiguous, a bit hazy, and a potent antidote to mainstream cinema. Embracing 16mm film, unique aspect ratios like 1.2:1, shorter runtimes, and small stories, these independent films couldn't be more different than the bloated three-hour-long CGI spectacles in theaters.

In the past two years, Enys Men, Funny Pages, Falcon Lake, Tahara, Skinamarink, and We're All Going to the World's Fair have exemplified this new post-digital style, and one of the producers of that latter title, the surprisingly successful World's Fair film, has now added to the movement with his own film. Theodore Schaefer's debut feature film,...

The Match Factory has acquired international sales rights on U.S. cinematographer and filmmaker Sean Price Williams’s feature directorial debut The Sweet East ahead of its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in May.

Written by the film critic and programmer Nick Pinkerton, the movie is described as a picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the United States undertaken by Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina who gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, D.C.

Separated from her schoolmates, she embarks on a fractured fairy tale travelogue into America, where she is granted access to a variety of the strange factions that proliferate the present-day unreality of contemporary life.

Williams’s credits as a cinematographer include Owen Kline’s Funny Pages (2022), Abel Ferrara’s Zeros and Ones (2021), Michael Almereyda’s Tesla (2020), Alex Ross Perry...

Film is directorial debut of prolific cinematographer Sean Price Williams.

The Match Factory has boarded Sean Price Williams’ The Sweet East which world premieres next month in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.

Written by the film critic and programmer Nick Pinkerton, it is the first feature film directed by cinematographer Price Williams, whose credits Owen Kline’s Funny Pages (2022), Abel Ferrara’s Zeros and Ones (2021), Michael Almereyda’s Tesla (2020), Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell (2018) and the Safdie brothers Good Time (2017).

The Sweet East is billed as picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the US undertaken by Lillian,...

The Match Factory has boarded Sean Price Williams’s “The Sweet East,” which has its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival in May.

It is the first feature film directed by Price Williams, the cinematographer of Owen Kline’s “Funny Pages” (2022), Abel Ferrara’s “Zeros and Ones” (2021), Michael Almereyda’s “Tesla” (2020), Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell” (2018) and the Safdies’ “Good Time” (2017).

The screenplay is by film critic and programmer Nick Pinkerton.

“The Sweet East” is a picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. undertaken by Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina, who gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, D.C.

“Separated from her schoolmates, she embarks on a fractured fairy-tale travelogue into America, where she is granted access to a variety of the strange factions...

Hot on the heels of Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s Oscar wins, A24 may be dipping back into the genre-bender well once more with disaster comedy Y2K.

Y2K hails from actor/comedian/writer and former “Saturday Night Live “cast member Kyle Mooney, who will direct from a screenplay co-written with producer Evan Winter.

In the film, “It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Two high school nobodies decide to crash the last big party before the new millennium. When the clock strikes midnight, the night gets more insane than they ever could have imagined.”

It’s that intriguing premise and Wētā Workshop handling Y2K’s design and practical effects that hints toward a wilder genre-bender than expected for this disaster comedy. How insane will this high school comedy get?

Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) star as the high school friends. Y2K also stars Rachel Zegler...

Fresh off its Best Picture Oscar win, A24 has announced a new disaster comedy called “Y2K” from “SNL” alum Kyle Mooney, who co-wrote the screenplay with Evan Winter and will direct.

Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, the story follows two high school “nobodies” who decide to crash the last big party before the new millennium. When the clock strikes midnight, the night gets more insane than they ever could have imagined.

For those born after 2000, there was widespread anxiety as the year 2000 approached owing to fears that a complete cyber meltdown might take the world back to the dark ages.

The ensemble cast for “Y2K” includes Jaeden Martell (“It”), Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”), Julian Dennison (“Deadpool 2”), Lachlan Watson (“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), Mason Gooding (“Scream”), The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (“Us”), Eduardo Franco (“Stranger Things”), Miles Robbins (“Blockers”), Alicia Silverstone (“Clueless”), Fred Hechinger (“Fear Street”) and Daniel Zolghadri...

Exclusive: Hot on the heels of their historic Oscars sweep with Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Whale, A24 has set the cast for Y2K, a dial-up disaster comedy to be directed for the studio by SNL alum Kyle Mooney.

Jaeden Martell (It), West Side Story breakout Rachel Zegler and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) lead a stacked ensemble that also includes Lachlan Watson (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Mason Gooding (Scream VI), 5x Billboard Music Award-winner The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker (Us), Eduardo Franco (Stranger Things), Miles Robbins (Blockers), Alicia Silverstone (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Fred Hechinger (Fear Street Trilogy) and Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages).

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Everything Everywhere All at Once won big at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, taking home seven awards out of eight nominations. The only award it didn’t win was, interestingly enough, one it did win, as Ke Huy Quan beat Jamie Lee Curtis in the Best Supporting Performance category.

Here are the winners of winners of the 38th Independent Spirit Awards:

Movies:

Best Feature:

Bones and All

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Our Father, The Devil

Tár

Women Talking

Best Director:

Todd Field, Tár

Kogonada, After Yang

Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Sarah Polley, Women Talking

Halina Reijn, Bodies Bodies Bodies

Best First Feature:

Aftersun

Emily the Criminal

The Inspection

Murina

Palm Trees and Power Lines

Best Lead Performance:

Cate Blanchett, Tár

Dale Dickey, A Love Song

Mia Goth, Pearl

Regina Hall, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Paul Mescal, Aftersun

Aubrey Plaza, Emily the Criminal

Jeremy Pope,...

The 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards, hosted by Hasan Minhaj, took place on Saturday, live from the beach in Santa Monica, California. The annual awards ceremony was live-streamed on IMDb’s YouTube page, plus additional social platforms, including Film Independent’s YouTube channel.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” led this year’s nominations with a total of eight and swept up seven awards. Following close behind was Cate Blanchett’s “Tár” with seven nods and “Aftersun” with five. Meanwhile, “The Bear” topped the television categories.

Read More: Before Oscars, ‘Everything Everywhere’ Sweeps Spirit Awards

The 2023 Spirit Awards marks the show’s first time highlighting gender-neutral categories. In other words, Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh were up against Paul Mescal for lead performance. This year’s recipient of the Robert Altman award went to “Women Talking”, in which the award was given to the film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast.

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

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

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

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

The blue carpet has been rolled up, and now we know who are the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards winners. The list of nominees recognized the best among films made for under $30 million in 2023 — that’s an increase from the previous budget cap, in recognition of ever-increasing production costs.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” earned pretty much a clean sweep: winning all seven of the categories in which it was nominated, including Best Feature, and seven of its eight nominees winning overall — Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis were competing against each other in one category, Supporting Performance, with the former winning.

Yes, the 38th edition of the awards put on by Film Independent have made a change previously adopted by the Gotham Awards: to have gender-neutral performance categories. That means Cate Blanchett was not just competing against Michelle Yeoh for Best Lead Performance (who ultimately won), but also Paul Mescal...

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

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

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

Michelle Yeoh

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

The 2023 Independent Spirit Awards were dominated by the Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which led all films this year with eight nominations and a won a total of seven prizes, including best feature. Close behind were Todd Field’s “Tár” with seven noms (it won for best cinematography) and Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” with five (it won for best first feature). All three movies picked up Oscar nominations this year, with “Everything Everywhere” also leading the Academy Awards pack with a total of 11 nominations.

While last year’s Spirit Award winner for best feature, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” did not go on to land an Oscar nomination in the same category, the 2021 winner, Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” repeated at the Oscars and took home the best picture prize.

This year’s Spirit Award nominees were highlighted by gender neutral categories, meaning Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh faced off...

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards are being handed out Saturday, March 4, from Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA in a show hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj. Much as it paced the Oscar nominations, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leads the way among all film nominees with eight Independent Spirit noms, including Best Feature and honors for director (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), lead performance (Michelle Yeoh), supporting performance (Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan) and breakthrough performance (Stephanie Hsu). Todd Field’s “TÁR” earned seven nominations, including director and screenplay (Field), lead performance (Cate Blanchett) and supporting (Nina Hoss). “Aftersun” scored five bids.

Scroll down to see the Indie Spirit Awards winners list live as it happens today. We’ve also included the complete roster of nominees in every category.

Besides “Everything Everywhere” and “TÁR,” the film competing for top feature are “Our Father, the Devil,” “”Bones and All” and “Women Talking.

The 2023 Independent Spirit Awards are being held on Saturday afternoon, March 4, streamed live on IMDb’s YouTube channel, as well as Film Independent’s YouTube and Twitter accounts. The event will be hosted by comedian Hasan Minhaj, but who will win when prizes are handed out? Thousands of Gold Derby users have placed their bets here in our predictions center. Those predictions were combined to generate our official racetrack odds. Scroll down to see the odds below, with our projected winners highlighted in gold.

SEE2023 Gold Derby Film Awards ceremony: Watch 20 exciting acceptance speeches by Michelle Yeoh, Colin Farrell, Austin Butler …

The nominees for the Spirit Awards are chosen by committees of film industry insiders, including critics, programmers, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors, and actors, past Spirit Award nominees and winners, and members of Film Independent’s board of directors. But winners are decided by Film Independent members at large.

The 65th Grammy Awards were on February 5, and days later people are still talking about some of the winners. In particular, there’s been a mixed reaction to the Album of the Year prize. While many bet on Beyoncé’s Black and queer liberation record, “Renaissance,” to nab the songstress her first Album of the Year prize, others expected it to go to Grammy darling Adele (“30”), the genre-bending Americana favorite Brandi Carlile (“In These Silent Days”), or record-breaking Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny (“Un Verano Sin Ti”). What actually won, though, was Harry Styles’s third studio album, “Harry’s House,” which took home two additional trophies for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Best Pop Vocal Album. Albeit controversial, Styles’s win let’s us know a lot about how the Grammys operate, what constitutes a likely Grammy-winning album, and why “Harry’s House” shouldn’t feel like the shocker it was to many.

Exclusive: Hercules Film Fund and Rhea Films have closed a deal to finance and produce a feature-length version of Power Signal — the sci-fi short from Oscar Boyson that had its world premiere in Sundance’s Midnight Shorts section last Friday.

The short stars Babs Olusanmokun (Dune) as a NYC delivery worker who has a close encounter with an otherworldly life form after accepting a degenerate customer’s bizarre proposition. Boyson directed the pic, also starring Angela Sarafyan, Tennessee King and Will Brill, from his and Erin DeWitt’s script, also producing with Jordan Drake, Alex Coco, and production companies Object & Animal and Hayden 5.

Like the short, the feature adaptation is described as a NYC-set sci-fi Western in which e-biking delivery workers are the cowboys. Further plot details are under wraps.

Boyson will direct from his script written with DeWitt and Ricky Camilleri. The project reunites him with producers Paris Kassidokostas-Latsis...

Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center have unveiled the lineup for the 28th edition of Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, an annual celebration of contemporary French filmmaking. The event will take place March 2–12.

It kicks off with a screening of Alice Winocour’s “Revoir Paris,” which stars Virginie Efira as a translator named Mia, who survived a mass shooting in a Paris restaurant and is unable to resume life as usual. In an effort to regain a sense of normalcy, Mia returns repeatedly to the site of the shooting, forming bonds with her fellow survivors. Efira is best known for her star turn in Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta.”

“It is a such a pleasure to open this year’s edition with the French critical and box-office hit ‘Revoir Paris’ in the presence of director Alice Winocour and actress Virginie Efira, who just received our French Cinema Award in Paris,” said Daniela Elstner,...