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“Mufasa: The Lion King”, the 2024 ‘photorealistic’ musical drama feature, directed by Barry Jenkins as a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake of the 1994 film “The Lion King”, stars Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, John Kani, Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Tiffany Boone, Lennie James, and Blue Ivy Carter, streaming March 26, 2025 on Disney+:

“…in the ‘Pride Lands’ of Tanzania after the events of ‘The Lion King’ (2019), ‘Rafiki’ the mandrill…

“…tells the origin story of two lions, ‘Mufasa’ and ‘Taka’, to ‘Kiara’…

“…the granddaughter of Mufasa and daughter of ‘Simba’ and ‘Nala’.

“The story follows the orphan Mufasa…

“…who is befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted by Taka's family…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is almost here, and in the lead-up to the annual event, we now know who will be responsible for picking the various jury prizes at the festival. The 2025 Sundance jury members spans 16 filmmakers, with the vaunted U.S. Dramatic Competition jury being especially star-studded. “King Richard” director Reinaldo Marcus Green and “Succession” alum Arian Moayed serve on that jury with “Past Lives” director Celine Song; her feature debut premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival before receiving Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

The 2025 festival will begin Thursday, January 23, with premieres in Park City every day through the end of Tuesday, January 28. Additional showings will take place in Park City and Salt Lake City throughout the Festival until Sunday, February 2. The jury members will select the winners to be announced during the Awards Ceremony, held at The Ray Theatre on Friday, January 31.

“We are...

“Mufasa: The Lion King” is the new ‘photorealistic’ musical drama feature, directed by Barry Jenkins as a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake of the 1994 film “The Lion King”, starring Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, John Kani, Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Tiffany Boone, Lennie James, and Blue Ivy Carter, releasing December 20, 2024 in theaters:

“…in the ‘Pride Lands’ of Tanzania after the events of ‘The Lion King’ (2019), ‘Rafiki’ the mandrill…

“…tells the origin story of two lions, ‘Mufasa’ and ‘Taka’, to ‘Kiara’…

“…the granddaughter of Mufasa and daughter of ‘Simba’ and ‘Nala’.

“The story follows the orphan Mufasa…

“…who is befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted by Taka's family…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has announced its full industry programme. Running from December 7th to 11th, 2024, in Jeddah’s vibrant Al Balad district, this year’s expanded five-day program offers an exceptional line-up of activities bringing together new talent, emerging filmmakers and established regional and international industry leaders for a series of events, talks and networking opportunities. The Red Sea Souk activities will take place alongside the growing marketplace which features 142 exhibitors from 32 countries this year.

Shivani Pandya Malhotra, Rsiff’s Managing Director, said: “The Souk is a vital part of the Rsiff experience, serving as a hub for collaboration, innovation, and opportunity. This year, we are more committed than ever to creating an environment where filmmakers, producers, and industry professionals can come together to share knowledge, forge meaningful connections, and shape the future of cinema. We are excited to present this year’s events and thankful...

“Mufasa: The Lion King” is a new ‘photorealistic’ musical drama feature, directed by Barry Jenkins as a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake of the 1994 film “The Lion King”, starring Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, John Kani, Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Tiffany Boone, Lennie James, and Blue Ivy Carter, releasing December 20, 2024 in theaters:

“…in the ‘Pride Lands’ of Tanzania after the events of ‘The Lion King’ (2019), ‘Rafiki’ the mandrill…

“…tells the origin story of two lions, ‘Mufasa’ and ‘Taka’, to ‘Kiara’…

“…the granddaughter of Mufasa and daughter of ‘Simba’ and ‘Nala’.

“The story follows the orphan Mufasa…

“…who is befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted by Taka's family…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

“Mufasa: The Lion King” is the new ‘photorealistic’ musical drama feature, directed by Barry Jenkins as a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake of the 1994 film “The Lion King”, starring Donald Glover, Billy Eichner, John Kani, Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Tiffany Boone, Lennie James, and Blue Ivy Carter, releasing December 20, 2024 in theaters:

“…in the ‘Pride Lands’ of Tanzania after the events of ‘The Lion King’ (2019), ‘Rafiki’ the mandrill…

“…tells the origin story of two lions, ‘Mufasa’ and ‘Taka’, to ‘Kiara’…

“…the granddaughter of Mufasa and daughter of ‘Simba’ and ‘Nala’.

“The story follows the orphan Mufasa…

“…who is befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted by Taka's family…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

To celebrate the Fourth of July, Classic Vinyl (Ch. 26) is counting down the mega-titles from the First Generation of Classic Rock — according to you, our listeners!

Classic Vinyl4th of July 400 CountdownListen on the App

Listen on the App

Your votes have been tallied, and now it’s time to listen to the results. Stream the full countdown on the SiriusXM app, or hear it on-air throughout the long Fourth of July weekend.

Directions: Since freedom to cast your vote is an integral part of Independence Day, that’s what we need! Select your 25 favorite songs from the list below. It’s a randomized list so every voter will see it differently. You may vote once between now and June 30 at 11:59pm Et.

Can’t see the poll? Click here to vote.

Biggest and best titles from the First Generation of Classic Rock

These are the possible song choices...

Kanopy – the no-fee, ad-free film and TV show streaming service that’s available to some 45 million people in the United States with a library card and through more than 85% of large American colleges and universities – is featuring movies selected by GLAAD in celebration of Pride Month in June. The GLAAD Pride Month Picks include films that feature “fair, accurate and inclusive LGBTQ+ representation” as part of the service’s full Pride Month collection of 107 movies and documentaries.

GLAAD is the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer media advocacy organization. Its Pride Month choices (including the 2023 Oscar Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) are below:

“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” (1994) “The Aggressives: The World of Lesbian Subculture” (2005) “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” (2022) “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (2022) “The Blue Caftan” (2022) “But I’m a Cheerleader” (1999) “Call Her Ganda” (2018) “Changing the Game” (2019) “Everything Everywhere All at Once...

It’s the circle of life: The Lion King is back. Once again, Disney is returning to the Pride Lands with an ambitious origin story for Simba’s ill-fated father Mufasa, rendered with the same technologically-advanced photorealism of Jon Favreau’s 2019 remake. Much like its predecessor, Mufasa: The Lion King looks to be emulating that same grand majesty of the animal kingdom, albeit with the surprise enlistment of Moonlight director Barry Jenkins at the helm.

To make the leap from a Best Picture winner to an animated mega-franchise is certainly a major step, but Jenkins has his reasons. “I read the script written by Jeff Nathanson and got about 40 pages into it and realised that my scepticism and cynicism had been obliterated,” the filmmaker explains. Pair that with the impact that The Lion King has had on generations of audiences – from teaching kids Shakespeare to experiencing the weight of grief...

A theatrical release is plotted for spring 2024.

Aya Films has picked up Cannes title Omen (Augure), the directorial debut from Belgium-Congolese rapper, Baloji, from Paris-based Memento International.

A theatrical release is plotted in the UK and Ireland for spring 2024.

The magic realist film will premiere in the UK at BFI London Film Festival this October, following Baloji’s win of the Un Certain Regard – new voice prize at this year’s Cannes.

It centres on a young Congolese man who travels back to his hometown in Kinshasa to reunite with his family and culture, alongside his European fiancée. Complexities abound...

A record number of African films are premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — including two titles in the main competition and four more in Un Certain Regard — promising a robust turnout on the Croisette from a continent that doesn’t often find itself being feted on world cinema’s grandest stage.

Perhaps a more noticeable shift, however, has been taking place in and around the Palais des Festivals, where participants at the Cannes Market are opening their arms — and their checkbooks — to an industry just beginning to realize its potential.

Witness the delegation of international film financiers, including Creative Wealth Media’s Jason Cloth and Convergent Media Capital’s Michael Cleaver, gathered on a recent, rainy morning to talk shop at a full house at the Pavillon Afriques. Or check the scene at the Palais des Festivals nearby, where three representatives of the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank...

Captivate, a leading podcast hosting and analytics platform owned by Global, the Media & Entertainment Group, proudly announces the launch of two industry-leading monetisation features designed to empower podcast creators: a subscription-based model and a tipping function.

These powerful features will allow podcasters to better engage with audiences and foster a supportive, profitable community.They will also unlock new revenue potential.

In response to the growing demand for more flexible, diverse and sustainable monetisation options, Captivate has developed these tools to provide podcasters with a seamless way to earn income directly from listeners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAOB2t0bA7Q

The brand-new membership subscription model offers the most advanced functionality of any hosting platform and gives creators total control to create effective monetisation strategies. Podcast publishers now have an option to make exclusive content available for premium subscribers and they can give early access to content for paying listeners.

Country’s second-ever Oscar entry.

Tanzania has made its second-ever entry to the best international feature award at the Oscars, and first for 21 years, with Amil Shivji’s romantic drama Tug Of War.

Tug Of War had its world premiere in the Discovery section of last year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), becoming the first Tanzanian film ever selected for the festival.

It now follows Maangamizi: The Ancient One, Tanzania’s entry to the 2002 awards, in representing the East African nation.

After TIFF, Tug Of War went on to play Seattle International Film Festival, where it won a special...

There’s a first for everything… and “This Place” marks the first film I’ve seen that weaves Indigenous and Asian heritage into a single production. A diverse, mostly Bipoc crew seem to be responsible for the magic. First-time feature director V.T. Nayani teams up here with Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (“Reservation Dogs”) and newcomer Golshan Admoulaie, who each identify as Tamil, Mohawk and Iranian, respectively. Over the course of the last nine years, the trio have come together to come up with a cultural saladbowl of a movie. In “This Place,” ethnic differences transcend the feeling of displacement, where lonely souls are left seeking each other out on the streets.

This Place is screening at Toronto International Film Festival

“This Place” witnesses the increasingly intertwined lives of two women. Jacobs herself plays Kawenniióhstha, a half-Iranian, half-Mohawk aspiring poet who moves to Toronto alone. The city is rife with opportunity for her.

While the fall festivals continue to launch several high-profile Oscar hopefuls from the U.S., many international contenders are at the mercy of their countries. The Academy requires films to be submitted for the Best International Feature Film category by October 3, but outside of requiring a theatrical release and that the language is at least 50 non-English, the countries can make their own decisions. For some countries known for censoring artists, such as Russia and Iran, that means films critical of their governments or societies don’t stand a chance at making the cut.

Yet this year, several films about sexuality and queerness from the Middle East are on the cusp of overcoming legal and cultural barriers to become their country’s submissions, and they’re all traveling to the Toronto International Film Festival this week. In the past, films with LGBTQ characters in countries that outlaw homosexuality have faced a tough road in Oscar season,...

MPM Premium has picked up Cláudia Varejão’s queer coming-of-age drama “Wolf and Dog” (Lobo e cão), which has its world premiere in Venice Days, a sidebar to the Venice Film Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer.

The film centers on Ana, who was born in São Miguel, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, ruled by religion and traditions. She is the middle child of a family of three, growing up with her mother and grandmother. As she grew up, Ana realized that girls and boys were given different tasks.

Through her friendship with Luis, her queer best friend who loves dresses as much as pants, Ana questions the world that is promised to her. When her friend Cloé arrives from Canada, Ana embarks on a journey that will take her beyond her limited horizons.

Varejão commented: “What drives me is the struggle for personal freedom,...

Indonesia’s 2021 Oscar pick, “Yuni,” played as the Centerpiece Screening at the 45th Asian American Film Festival this year. Kamila Andini’s latest also reaped its own fair share of awards back during its competitive circuit run. With 5 wins and 20 nominations, Andini – and newcomer actress Arawinda Kirana – gathered acclaim from Toronto all the way back to their home country. It’s little wonder why: the film illustrates a compelling portrayal of a high school girl harshly greeted by the world of adulthood.

Here, Andini weaves together a coming-of-age story of a bright high school student, Yuni (played by Kirana). Like most girls her age, Yuni is relatively clueless about the realities of womanhood. She does know two things, however: she wants to pursue a university scholarship, and she loves the color purple. In order to execute the former, however, she must stay single – and brush up on her Indonesian Literature grade,...

When Wanuri Kahiu first received the script for Netflix’s “Look Both Ways,” the Kenyan director felt like she was, in a certain sense, reading her own story.

The dramedy focuses on Natalie (Lili Reinhart), who takes a pregnancy test on the eve of her college graduation. Her life then diverges into two parallel worlds: one where she stays in Texas and becomes a young mother, and the other in which she isn’t pregnant and moves to L.A. to pursue a career in animation.

“I felt it was partially my life, in the sense that I remember the exact moment I realized I was pregnant and how I literally saw my life take a parallel route,” Kahiu, now a mother of two, tells Variety. “I believe in parallel lives and multiple existences, and it really appealed to me.”

“Look Both Ways,” debuting Aug. 17, marks Kahiu’s first Hollywood project,...

The Kenyan Film Classification Board has done it again — and by “it,” we mean “banned a movie for depicting same-sex relationships in a positive way.”

The film in question is “I Am Samuel,” a documentary from director Peter Murimi, in which “Samuel, a gay Kenyan man, balances duty to his family with his love for his partner, Alex, in a country where their love is criminalised,” according to the film’s logline.

In a statement made public Thursday, the Kfcb denounced the film as “a clear and deliberate attempt by the producer, to promote same-sex marriage as an acceptable way of life.” The board also complained that this is a violation of the country’s laws outlawing homosexuality.

In addition, the board seems to have been particularly offended that the film attempted to show that Kenyans are becoming tolerant of sexual minorities. “I am Samuel,” the statement said, “tries to...

Actor Nia Long has joined the cast of Netflix’s upcoming romantic comedy “Plus/ Minus.”

Long, whose recent onscreen credits include the thriller “Fatal Affair,” 1960s-set drama “The Banker” and “Roxanne Roxanne,” will appear alongside “Riverdale” star Lili Reinhart and Luke Wilson.

The previously announced ensemble also includes “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” actor Danny Ramirez, David Corenswet (“House of Cards”), Aisha Dee (“The Bold Type) and Andrea Savage (“I’m Sorry”).

Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the filmmaker of the romance drama “Rafiki,” “Plus/ Minus” centers on Natalie (Reinhart), whose life diverges into two parallel realities on the eve of her college graduation. One version sees her become pregnant and navigate motherhood as a young adult in her Texas hometown, and the other journey takes place as she moves to Los Angeles to pursue her career. Per the logline of the movie, the contrary paths lead the 20something Natalie to experience life-changing love,...

Patton Oswalt is toplining and starring alongside writer-director James Morosini in I Love My Dad, a dramatic comedy that just wrapped principal photography in Syracuse, NY. Claudia Sulewski, Rachel Dratch, Ricky Velez also star along with Lil Rel Howery and Amy Landecker.

Inspired by Morosini’s real-life experiences, the pic follows Chuck (Oswalt), an estranged father who desperately wants to reconnect with his depressive son, Franklin (Morosini). Blocked on social media and concerned for his son’s life, Chuck impersonates a waitress (Sulewski) online and starts checking in with Franklin. But things begin to spiral when Franklin falls for this imaginary girl and wants nothing more than to meet her in person.

Bill Stertz and Sean King O’Grady produce for Atlas Industries alongside Dane Eckerle, Daniel Brandt and Burn Later Productions’ Phil Keefe and Sam Slater. Lauren Hantz and John Hantz are executive producers via their Hantz Motion Pictures, which fully financed.

Pride Month is observed every June in the U.S. to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, a flashpoint for the Gay Liberation Movement. Here’s a sampling of programming from TV networks and other media platforms, organizations and communities. We’ll update the list when new Pride Month programming is announced.

Showtime

The premium cable network will feature more than 50 hours of LGBTQ+ programming including Xy Chelsea, Same Sex America, Beyond Opposite Sex, L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin and Semper Fi; select episodes of Desus & Mero; and the first seasons of The L Word, The L Word: Generation Q, Queer as Folk, Work in Progress and Couples Therapy.

HBO Max

WarnerMedia’s streamer is launching its Shine On spotlight page, which honors and recognizes its library of Lgbtqia+ stories, characters and creators. A list of curations that will be included on the page is here.

Paramount+

Discovery...

Lili Reinhart has set her next feature film project with Netflix.

Reinhart will star in dual-timeline drama Plus/Minus with Wanuri Kahiu, who was behind the popular Kenyan romance Rafiki, set to direct.

Reinhart will star as Natalie, whose life, on the eve of her college graduation, diverges into two parallel realities: one in which she becomes pregnant and must navigate motherhood as a young adult in her Texas hometown, the other in which she moves to L.A. to pursue her career. In both journeys throughout her 20s, Natalie experiences life-changing love, devastating heartbreak, and rediscovers herself.

April Prosser is behind the screenplay. Screen ...

Even before coronavirus arrived in South Africa, which ranks among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, Durban FilmMart head Toni Monty had already begun to envision how sub-Saharan Africa’s leading industry confab would have to adapt to an unprecedented global crisis.

“Not one of us on the team have actually seen each other physically since Berlin,” she said. “It’s like you’re organizing a wedding in the middle of a global crisis.” Still, Monty never had any doubt that the Dfm would take place in some form this year, calling it “the right thing to do.” “We have to keep the conversations going. We have to keep the networking going.”

Already this promised to be a transitional period for the Dfm, which takes places Sept. 4-13. After a decade-long partnership with the Durban Intl. Film Festival, the market this year was spun off into an independent event.

Don’t let the name fool you: Turner Classic Movies is redefining the parameters for “classic” films. The Ted Turner-created network, known for bringing the world of Old Hollywood filmmaking into viewers’ homes for over 25 years, has long been the perfect place to catch a 1940s film noir or see an Oscar-winning feature from 1933. But now it’s becoming a launchpad for showcasing diverse cinema — in what’s it’s always been and what it can be.

After diving into the world of African American cinema and directors, as well as devoting time to showcasing disability in movies, TCM is casting an eye toward female directors. Their series “Women Make Film” is their most ambitious project yet: a three-month event aimed at promoting the work of women directors. Programming won’t just highlight directors from America and Europe, but worldwide filmmakers, as well.

The series will include a lengthy...

GLAAD held their very first virtual edition of its GLAAD Media Awards and it was just as spirited and entertaining as if we were in person kiki’ing and honoring media for fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of LGBTQ people and issues. If you weren’t able to watch the virtual ceremony the 31st Annual GLAAD Media Awards will air on Logo on August 3.

Hosted by poolside and outdoors by comedians Fortune Feimster and Gina Yashere, the virtual ceremony featured performances by Tony Award-winner and The Politician star Ben Platt as well as singer and activist Shea Diamond. The talented Chloe x Halle closed the show with a performance of “Do It” featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race alums Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, Mayhem Miller and Naomi Smalls.

Winners in select categories were revealed throughout the day via Twitter and featured acceptance speeches from each of the award recipients. The groundbreaking Pose slayed the ceremony,...

It’s no surprise that politics took center stage at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards.

While Rachel Maddow accepted her award for outstanding TV journalism segment for her interview with Pete Buttigeig on “The Rachel Maddow Show,“ she said, “We are at a point where an openly gay TV host can accept an award for an interview with an openly gay major presidential candidate. Progress in this country is very rarely linear, and it barely happens on its own. If you are at all inspired by the progress you see, please vote, organize, run for office, and if you’re enraged by the regression that you see, please vote, organize and run for office.”

Since 1990, GLAAD Media Awards has celebrated the visibility of LGBTQ experiences in media and honored accurate and inclusive representations of queer people or color. In lieu of its usual glamorous setup in New York City,...

If you’re looking to dive into the best of independent and foreign filmmaking, The Criterion Channel has announced their August 2020 lineup. The impressive slate includes retrospectives dedicated to Mia Hansen-Løve, Bill Gunn, Stephen Cone, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Alain Delon, Bill Plympton, Les Blank, and more.

In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.

See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.

25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...

Forty eight projects have been chosen for the online edition,

Projects on climate change movement Extinction Rebellion and the Saudi Arabia women’s football team are among those selected for Sheffield Doc/Fest’s 2020 online marketplace MeetMarket.

The documentary market will take place via virtual video-conferencing from June 8-10 June, with the Alternate Realities Talent Market running on the same dates.

Among the 48 projects from 500 applications selected for the MeetMarket is Xr Beyond The Emergency from the UK. Directed by Maia Kenworthy and Elena Sánchez Bellot and produced by Katrina Mansoor, it centres on the ordinary people who are devoting...

The dearth of African contenders in the main competition at this year’s Berlinale might come as no surprise to the continent’s perennially disappointed filmmakers. One could argue — not unfairly — that Africa is still underrepresented at the world’s top film festivals.

But you wouldn’t have to look hard to find emerging African voices in festival strands like Berlin’s Panorama, Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema, or Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. That many of these films are from first- and second-time directors bodes well for a continent still grappling to reclaim its own narrative.

Three years after Senegal’s Alain Gomis won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for his Kinshasa-set drama “Félicité,” other kudos for African filmmakers have followed. The past 12 months alone have seen Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari’s documentary “Talking About Trees” scoop a pair of prizes in last year’s Berlinale; Sudan’s Amjad Abu Alala...

Fresh sales acquisitions include Karim Aïnouz’s Algerian revolution documentary Nardjes A.

Paris-based arthouse sales outfit Mpm Premium is widening the scope of its slate with the arrival of a new sales team and the launch of a specialist auteur label, bannered New Visions.

The move follows the recent appointment of Quentin Worthington as head of sales and acquisitions and Natsuki Lambert as head of festivals.

Mpm Premium was co-founded in 2018 by Marie-Pierre Macia and Claire Gadéa at production company Mpm Film and Jean-Charles Mille at shorts-focused agency Premium Films to pool their international sales efforts around feature films.

Up...

Exclusive: The Gotham Group, which most recently produced Disney+’s Stargirl based on the bestselling novel, has made its latest book deal. It has optioned Christina Hammonds Reed’s upcoming debut Ya novel The Black Kids, setting Rafiki helmer Wanuri Kahiu to direct and Allison Davis to adapt it.

The novel, to be published September 1 via Simon & Schuster, is a coming-of-age story of a wealthy African-American teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Kahiu’s previous film Rafiki was banned in her native Kenya for a time ahead of its world premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it made history as the first Kenyan film selected. It explored Lgbtq issues in a country that criminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults.

The film’s success helped Kahiu land gigs in the U.S. Now managed by Gotham Group, she is also set to...

Second edition of project platform will showcase 28 feature projects.

Upcoming feature films by Egyptian director Tamer el Said and Moroccan Bafta nominee Ismaël Ferroukhi are among the 28 projects to be showcased at the second edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, running December 3 to 6.

“We got off to a good start in the first edition,” says Remi Bonhomme, who has spearheaded the meeting.

He notes the winner of the last year’s main post-production prize– Hassen Ferhani’s documentary 143 Sahara Street – went on to enjoy a successful festival career, clinching the best emerging director prize in...

With the international feature film race heating up, Algeria’s official entry “Papicha” has already beaten the odds of becoming the most successful African film directed by a woman at the French box office.

Mounia Meddour’s debut feature, “Papicha” has grossed an estimated 1.6 million euros from about 250,000 tickets since its Oct. 9 release in France and it’s still playing in 60 screens. In comparison with Mati Diop’s “Atlantique,” which represents Senegal in this year’s Oscar race, “Papicha” grossed almost four times more. Another African film directed by a woman, Wanuri Kahiu’s “Rafiki” which bowed at Cannes in 2018, sold just 40,000 tickets in France.

Since world premiering in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, “Papicha” has also won 24 prizes, including best Arab film at El Gouna festival; and it recently received two Revelations nominations from the Cesar Awards (France’s equivalent to the Oscars) for its leading...

Netherlands production outfit Rinkel Film (“Rafiki”) has reteamed with India’s Stray Factory (“Nirvana Inn”) for Tamil language Western “The Tempest” (aka “Aasaimugam”). It is to be directed by emerging Indian filmmaker Arun Karthick.

The two companies previously co-produced Karthick’s communal bigotry tale, “Nasir,” which benefited from a grant of €50,000 under the Netherlands Film Fund and Hubert Bals Fund co-production scheme, and is currently in post.

Set against the backdrop of the Western Ghats mountains in South India, “Aasaimugam” is the tale of two brothers who are pitted against each other for possession of their ancestral land. Reinier Selen and Ibo Karatay will produce for Rinkel, and Mathivanan Rajendran for Stray Factory. The project is budgeted at $500,000. Rinkel and Stray Factory are seeking partners at India’s ongoing Film Bazaar.

“We are happy to extend this relationship with Stray Factory on “Aasaimugam” and support the uncompromising vision of this...

An ultra-conservative group in Georgia is threatening attendees and planning to protest screenings of the country’s first Lgbtq film. Tickets sold out within minutes for the Tblisi premiere of “And Then We Danced,” a tender coming-of-age tale about a traditional Georgian dancer discovering his sexuality. Written and directed by Levan Akin, a Swedish filmmaker with family ties to Georgia, the film was recently chosen as Sweden’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film. The visually sumptuous and emotionally wrought film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and has been a hit with audiences in its native Sweden. But the queer coming-of-age tale faces a very different reception in its other home country.

“And Then We Danced” is set to premiere in Tblisi, where it was filmed, on November 8. While a representative for the film reports that all 5,000 tickets sold out in 13 minutes, even crashing movie theater websites, the...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld (Mads Brügger)

In 1961, Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in Africa under mysterious circumstances. Beginning as an investigation into his still-unsolved death, the trail that Mads Brügger follows in Cold Case Hammarskjöld is one that expands to implicate some of the world’s most powerful governments in unfathomably heinous crimes. Without revealing the specifics of the jaw-dropping revelations in this thoroughly engrossing documentary, if there’s any justice, what is brought to light will cause global attention and a demand for some kind of retribution. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google

The...

Durban–When Ros and Teddy Sarkin raised the curtain on the first Durban Intl. Film Festival 40 years ago, the odds were long that their scrappy fest would survive its inaugural edition.

The apartheid government and its draconian censorship board had a stranglehold on the films that reached South African theaters, banning the sorts of subversive movies the Sarkins hoped to screen. Cinemas across the country were forced to segregate audiences. For the festival’s first edition, just seven films unspooled at Durban’s historic, independent Avalon Cinema, whose mixed-race audience had no way of knowing if the police would bust down the door at any moment.

Four decades on, South Africa has grown into a vibrant democracy and the economic engine of the continent, and the Durban film fest – whose 40th edition runs from July 18-28 – is no longer a window onto the world for South Africans living under the shadow of apartheid.

The 10th edition of the Durban FilmMart, which unspools parallel to the 40th Durban Intl. Film Festival, will feature 10 fiction and 10 documentary works-in-progress taking part in its annual Finance Forum. The leading co-production market on the continent, the Forum brings together producers, distributors, sales agents, broadcasters, funding bodies, and other industry players from across the globe for four days of pitching sessions and networking opportunities from July 19-22.

“The Dfm Finance Forum was always intended as a springboard platform for African filmmakers to access global markets,” says Durban Film Office and Dfm head Toni Monty. “When we began 10 years ago, only a handful of the filmmakers submitting to Dfm really understood how to prepare for the international market. Ten years on the applications have become much more sophisticated and competitive.”

Recent editions of the Finance Forum have helped launch the festival careers of films like Un Certain Regard selection “Rafiki,...

On one level, the failure of “Fast Color” is a simple story: After its world premiere at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival, Julia Hart’s sci-fi drama received strong reviews but struggled to find distribution. In September 2018, Codeblack Films, the African American-focused arm of Lionsgate Entertainment, acquired the title — but in January, Lionsgate ended its Codeblack partnership. That meant cutting the film’s marketing budget, and “Fast Color” made just $76,916 in its April 19 limited release on 25 screens.

There’s also a deeper and more complex tale about why this film’s earnings potential went virtually untapped. As the movie quietly hit various digital platforms and DVD last week, this missed opportunity is worth a closer look.

The movie stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a woman named Ruth, who’s forced to go on the run when her superpowers are discovered. Years after she abandons her family, the only place she returns home.

Cross-city transport unties people from different faiths, backgrounds.

Film Movement has picked up North American rights to Amos Gitai’s Venice 2018 award winner A Tramway In Jerusalem, featuring an ensemble that includes Mathieu Amalric.

The Israeli filmmaker’s latest feature is a multi-cultural drama exploring the cultural divides that separate the inhabitants of one of the world’s most iconic cities, as different religions mingle on the Light Rail Red Line of Jerusalem’s tramway that connects the city from East to West, from the Palestinian neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina to Mount Herzl, site of Israel’s national cemetery.

Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s feature debut, the award winning “Atlantics,” which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix.

The film’s Cannes premiere earned Diop, niece of the late, great Senegalese cinema pioneer Djibril Diop Mambéty, a spot in the history books: she became the first woman of African descent with a film in the 72-year-old festival’s Competition section, and has proven to be one of the biggest breakouts at Cannes this year.

Previously titled “Fire Next Time” (although not based on James Baldwin’s famous essay collection of the same name), the film was in rare company. Diop and French-Malian Ladj Ly were the only filmmakers of African descent represented in Competition at the world’s most prestigious film festival this year.

The acquisition represents Netflix’s ongoing aggressive push into the African continent — a...

Dubai-based Cercamon handles worldwide sales on Bronx-set tale.

Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Goldie, Sam de Jong’s coming-of-age story that premiered in Generation 14 Plus in Berlin and is being sold in Cannes by Dubai-based Cercamon.

‘Instagirl’ supermodel Slick Woods makes her acting debut as the titular character in the Bronx-set tale about a streetwise teen who discovers her true strength when her dream of becoming a dancer collides with harsh reality.

The drama, Dutch filmmaker de Jong’s follow-up to his 2015 feature debut Prince, screened at Tribeca Film Festival last month and hails from Twentieth Century Fox and Vice Films.

This is the latest installment of “Breaking Black,” a weekly column focused on emerging black talent.

Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu is determined to combat long-standing depictions of the African continent in defeat. With her second feature film, the lesbian love story “Rafiki,” Kahiu is spearheading a burgeoning artistic movement she co-founded called “Afrobubblegum,” with the intention of promoting “a fun, fierce, and fantastical representation” of Africa. The ethos reflects a growing frustration with the way Africa is perceived around the world, and it has taken her on a journey from festival breakout to rising Hollywood talent.

The Cannes-acclaimed “Rafiki” came from a place of personal frustration, as Kahiu has experienced misperceptions about Africa up close. In a recent interview, the filmmaker recalled traveling to foreign countries to showcase her award-winning 2009 short film “Pumzi,” and being questioned by custom agents at airports about the nature of her visits. “From experience, I...

There are a lot of reasons why “Rafiki,” which played in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival last spring, is a significant movie. It’s the first Kenyan film ever to make Cannes’ main selection, for one thing. It is a rare same-sex romance to come out of Africa, where intolerance for homosexuality runs strong (and has been encouraged by religious-right westerners). And it was banned in its home country in the weeks before Cannes, making its international exposure even more important.

None of this has anything to do with the quality of the film — but it gives Cannes viewers reasons to give “Rafiki” the benefit of the doubt, which its premiere audience at the Salle Debussy did. Second-time director Wanuri Kahiu, one of a larger-than-usual contingent of female directors in the main selection, has crafted a modest, at times striking drama that is perhaps more...

She’s celebrated abroad – but at home in Kenya, the director’s film Rafiki has been banned for ‘promoting lesbianism’

“I’m going to start crying,” says Wanuri Kahiu, waggling her hands and smiling. She’s telling me about a Twitter thread in which a bunch of people responded to the question “What was the happiest day of your life?” A young Kenyan woman replied: “Watching Rafiki with my mother and coming out.”

Rafiki is Kahiu’s new film – a gorgeous romance about two teenage girls falling in love in Nairobi. It’s a sweet movie, with a sex scene so tame you could watch it with an elderly relative. But in Kenya, a conservative society where 534 people were arrested for same-sex relationships between 2013 and 2017, Rafiki has been banned.

Considering how packed the fall slate can be, distributors often hold their stranger, bolder films for a spring release when they have the opportunity to better thrive. That’s certainly the case this April, when some of the most daring releases will hit theaters, along with some promising studio fare, must-see documentaries, and more.

Matinees to See: The Wind (4/5), Suburban Birds (4/5), Pet Sematary (4/5), Sauvage/Wild (4/10), Dogman (4/12), Teen Spirit (4/12), Girls of the Sun (4/12), Wild Nights with Emily (4/12), Rafiki (4/19), Little Woods (4/19), Carmine Street Guitars (4/24), Jt LeRoy (4/26), and The White Crow (4/26)

15. Mary Magadalene (Garth Davis; April 12)

Chalk this one up to mere curiosity more than anything else. The downfall of The Weinstein Company meant that a number of films were left by the wayside, waiting to be picked up by other distributors. One that has taken awhile is Mary Magdalene, a Biblical drama from Garth Davis (Lion). After getting an Easter-timed released elsewhere last year,...

This year is the 33rd edition of the event.

The BFI Flare: London Lgbtq+ Film Festival (March 21 – 31) has unveiled the full programme for its 33rd edition, including over 50 features.

Titles will include the European premiere of Justin Kelly’s Jt Leroy starring Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart, which will close the event. The film, adapted from Savannah Knoop’s memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became Jt LeRoy, premiered at Toronto last year.

The Flare centrepiece screening will be the UK premiere of Tomer Heymann’s documentary Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life, a portrait of one of the world’s most successful gay porn stars.

A grand, desolate expanse of hessian-rough desert, subject to unforgiving seasonal extremes of heat and ice, and whose scattered residents have mostly learned to live hard and die harder, South Africa’s Great Karoo is a region that really ought to have housed a thousand horse operas by now. It hasn’t, but an ambitious new generation of filmmakers is catching up to its possibilities. That atmospheric backdrop was the best thing last year’s overworked, Oscar-submitted period adventure “Sew the Winter to My Skin” had going for it; leaner, meaner and altogether more exciting is “Flatland,” an exhilarating fusion of contemporary western, policier and girls-gone-wild road movie that kicked off this year’s Berlinale Panorama program with a wallop.

The third feature from distinctively voiced writer-director Jenna Bass — who also co-wrote last year’s Kenyan Cannes headline-grabber “Rafiki” — “Flatland” represents something of a feminist milestone for a national cinema...

With each new revelation to make headlines since the #MeToo movement first rocked Hollywood in 2017, film and TV industries around the globe have faced their own reckoning about sexual harassment, gender parity and equal opportunities for women both on and off screen.

That debate has had ripple effects across sub-Saharan Africa as well, where women in entertainment have long been underrepresented. Though the continent has not had its Harvey Weinstein moment, and few high-profile cases of men in the creative industries accused of sexual misconduct have made headlines, local bizzers say a shift is nevertheless under way.

“It’s a bit slower, and it’s perhaps having to take a lot more push to make it happen, but there is … a reckoning,” says Lara Preston of the Ladima Foundation, a Cape Town-based non-profit supporting African women working in film. “Across countries, it’s … inspired women to be more proactive and say,...