News

Vital support from local film commissions for distribution and sales, bolstering co-production opportunities and the fragile state of geoblocking were among the issues highlighted at the inaugural industry programme at the French Nordic Film Days in Paris.

More than 300 French and Nordic film industry professionals gathered in the French capital from March 5-7 for the event organised by France’s Cnc with the Five Nordics.

The industry programme, which ran alongside a series of screenings and filmmaker Q&As designed to spark interest in Nordic titles among French audiences, was held at Paris’ Swedish Institute and Cnc headquarters.Top of...

Coming after a major 2024 with the U.S. release of his blistering satire Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (which nabbed a spot in our top 10) and the premiere of a pair of smaller-scale, experimental films, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude is gearing up for quite a 2025. His forthcoming Dracula film will arrive before year’s end, but first Kontinental ’25 will make its world premiere in competition at the 2025 Berlinale. The film, debuting next Wednesday, starts with a sheriff’s bailey making a disastrous attempt to evict an old man from an abandoned building and follows her through an exploration of what it means to be both a Romanian and a European in 2025. Ahead of the premiere, we’re delighted to exclusively premiere the first poster.

Radu Jude tells us of the poster design, “We consider the poster to be a part of the mise-en-scene of the film,...

After the hopeful signs of recovery over the last two years, attendance in all five markets dropped again in 2024, by a small margin of 3% in Denmark to nearly 13% in Norway. Post Covid effects and Hollywood strikes that led to a lack of U.S. tentpoles were blamed for the decline, however mitigated in some territories by the strong performance of domestic fare.

In Finland, local titles secured a record 31.6% market share, with the local epic love story “Stormskerry Maja” leading the charge. In Sweden, the local champion was the heart-warming documentary “The Last Journey” in which the TV personalities Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson (aka Filip & Fredrik) travel to France to rekindle the zest for life of Filip’s aging dad. The Swedish Oscar entry largely contributed to the country’s 22% market-share and biggest ticket sales in seven years.

In Iceland, it was Hollywood-Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur who delivered the...

Cinema is a profound language of emotion and storytelling; few understand this as deeply as Denis Villeneuve. His curated selections for the Criterion Collection reveal a director’s intimate connection with transformative filmmaking. These choices span decades and continents, showcasing films that challenge narrative conventions, explore human complexity, and push artistic boundaries. Villeneuve’s picks are not mere recommendations but a masterclass in cinematic appreciation—each film is a testament to storytelling’s power to illuminate the human experience.

1. Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski)

Kieślowski’s masterpiece represents cinematic poetry in motion. Denis Villeneuve is captivated by its meticulous artistic synthesis—the delicate interplay between visual composition, emotional narrative, and musical score. The film explores grief through a devastatingly intimate lens, tracking a woman’s journey of loss and eventual emotional reconstruction. Its visual language transcends traditional storytelling, creating a symphonic experience that moves viewers at a profound, almost cellular level.

Hollywood is in the early stages of an artificial intelligence overhaul that will change the entire moviemaking process. In 2025, that wave could begin to sweep through a sector that is vital to the blockbusters that keep the film industry going: visual effects.

Experts and AI developers tell TheWrap that generative AI programs could be just months away from advancing to a level that would enable studios to apply them throughout their visual effects production systems. And that could have stark implications for the VFX labor pool, both in Los Angeles and around the world.

Runway, the New York-based company that has become one of the early top names in developing AI software for film/TV production and struck a partnership with Lionsgate, can currently produce key frames at a resolution of 720p, far lower than the 4K resolution of modern cinemas and TVs, Erik Weaver, director of virtual and adaptive...

The moon Europa shimmers with mystery, drawing you into its lush alien world. As Zee, you set off across the moon’s sweeping vistas to uncover clues left by your father, all while taking in the dreamlike atmosphere.

Europa artfully transports players through a gently-paced adventure inspired by Studio Ghibli films. Developed by Novadust Entertainment over several years, the game embraces visual storytelling to craft an impactful tale on Jupiter’s frozen moon.

You play as Zee, an android child exploring the terraformed moon once home to thriving human colonies. Now largely alone, Zee journeys through Europa’s changing biomes, collecting journal pages left behind, each offering insight into the moon’s past and secrets. Towering ruins emerge from dense forests and crystalline caverns, hints at a civilization now faded into memory. Strange lifeforms also inhabit Europa, from mechanical guardians to creatures emerging from the landscape itself.

A jetpack called the Zephyr allows navigation,...

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles announced their NewNarratives award winners for 2024. The program was started in 2021 with the goal of sporting independent filmmakers throughout a wide range of projects at any stage of production including short, feature, episodic series, documentaries, experimental works, and animation works.

The Rhulen Family Foundation provided a $20,000 cash grant in honor of the independent film producer Anthony Rhulen who worked on films like “The Butterfly Effect” among others. From this, each of the selected group of creators received a $5,000 grant.

The initiative received a diverse range of applications upwards of 250 from over 30 countries, including Australia, Bolivia, China, Cuba, India, Italy, South Africa, Venezuela and more. “It was incredible to witness such a strong commitment to the vision we and our previous recipients have crafted for this program. The overwhelming number of outstanding projects is a testament to the insightful and impactful portraits of the human experience that the...

‘Alpha’ Wins Europa Cinema Prize At Giornate Degli Autori

Dutch director Jan-Willem van Ewijk’s Alps-set father and son survival drama Alpha has won the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in parallel Venice section Giornate degli Autori. The award comes with promotional and exhibition support from the Europa Cinemas network. The jury consisted of Europa Cinema members Daira Āboliņa (Splendid Palace, Riga, Latvia); António Costa Valente (Teatro Aveirense, Aveiro, Portugal): Andrea Porta (Cinema Teatro Nuovo, Varese, Italy) and Jana Trnková (Head of PR & Marketing, Kino Světozor, Prague, Czech Republic). The film stars Reinout Scholten van Aschat and Gijs Scholten van Aschat as a son and father with a difficult relationship who find themselves battling for survival when the weather turns sour during a testing walk in the mountains. Previous winners of the prize have included Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík’s Photophobia, Wissam Charaf’s Dirty Difficult and Dangerous,...

So far, 2024 hasn’t comparatively been a fantastic year for gaming in general, with very few truly notable releases. There were no standout titles in the first few months of the year, and the most intriguing releases came in the second half. Fortunately, indie games have come to dominate what’s left of the year with several exciting surprises.

Titles like Europa or The Plucky Squire have made their mark, offering completely original gameplay experiences that transport players to other worlds. These nine indie games are most anticipated for the rest of the year.

9 – Die by the Blade Die by the Blade is a new 3D fighting title. Image via Grindstone.

Grindstone developed this game, offering a unique scenario where players must kill their opponent with a single blow. The idea is to create a duel-style setting where players can choose their preferred weapon to try to land the decisive strike.

Unfolding in two very different locations, “Moon,” the elliptical second feature from Iraq-born Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub (“Sun”) follows a mixed martial arts fighter who has reached the end of her competitive career. Faced with a lack of opportunity in her small Austrian town, she accepts a temporary gig training the daughters of an ultra-rich, but shady Jordanian family. While the multiple ellipses may annoy the more narratively-driven viewer, others will thrill to the mood Ayub creates and the way she plays with audience expectations. The film nabbed a special jury prize in Locarno competition as well as the independent film critics kudos, and should be in demand at further fests.

After her last go-round in the Mma cage leaves her sorely beaten and defeated, Sarah (Florentina Holzinger) falls into a depression. Previously, she lived to train and compete, but now she has a hard time figuring out her next step.

Turkish-Italian filmmaker Seyhmus Altun, Georgia’s Nino Akhvlediani, Lithuanian Jurgis Matulevicius and Germany’s Sarah Miro Fischer are the four filmmakers who have been selected for San Sebastian’s Wip Europa line-up.

Wip Europa showcases films that are majority European, at post-production stage. The four films will screen to industry figures including producers, distributors, sales agents and programmers. They compete for the Wip Europa Industry Award, which assists with post-production, and the Wip Europa Award, worth €10,000 for the main production company of the film winning the Wip Europa Industry Award.

Altun present his debut Memento Non Mori, in which a...

El Seff 2024 se celebrará del 8 al 16 de noviembre.

Después de una edición accidentada el año pasado, el Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla (Seff) se prepara para su 21ª edición, que se celebrará del 8 al 16 de noviembre de 2024, con muchas novedades, entre ellas, cuatro nuevas secciones y un nuevo premio.

Esta nueva edición, bajo la dirección de Manuel Cristóbal, el que fue el director de la muestra de la pasada edición, incorpora cuatro nuevas secciones al festival. Dos de estas secciones son competitivas: Rampa, para cineastas noveles emergentes, y Alumbramiento, para películas sin distribución en España. Las otras dos secciones son no competitivas: Puerta Europa, para obras cuya participación europea es minoritaria pero fundamental, y Esenciales Europa, para mostrar aquellos clásicos europeos que merecen la pena verse o volverse a ver en una sala de cine.

Una 21 edición que, además, recupera la relación con la Academia Europea de Cine y...

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) wrapped up on Saturday with a celebration of international cinema and notable industry figures. The festival’s top honor, the Grand Prix – Crystal Globe, was awarded to Mark Cousins’ documentary “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things,” narrated by Tilda Swinton, exploring the life of Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

Norwegian director Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s marital drama “Loveable” emerged as a major winner, securing five awards including the Special Jury Prize, the Europa Cinemas Label, and the Fipresci Award. The film’s lead actress, Helga Guren, also took home the Best Actress award.

Other significant winners included:

Best Director: Nelicia Low for “Pierce” Best Actors: Ton Kas and Guido Pollemans for “Three Days of Fish” Audience Award: “Waves” by Jirí Mádl Proxima Grand Prix: “Stranger” by Zhengfan Yang

The closing ceremony was highlighted by the presentation of the Kviff President’s Award to British actor Clive Owen,...

Famously press shy, but often going an extra mile in order to shock, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has been a mischievous and frustrating spirit who tormented arthouse audiences as much as he teased them. But the provocateur-in-chief is now too established to still be considered an enfant terrible.

Von Trier’s 40 years in the film business are now to be celebrated by South Korea’s leading cinema chain Cj-cgv in a two-week retrospective that kicks off on July 10.

The multiplex giant is dedicating 15 of its art-house screens nationwide to playing 12 von Trier titles, including his debut feature, 1984-release “The Elements of Crime.” The film was part of his so-called “trauma trilogy” and was followed by “Epidemic” and “Europa.”

The showcase will continue with his 1996 Cannes Grand Jury prize-winner “Breaking the Waves” and “Idiots,” an emblem of his Dogma 95 back-to-basics filmmaking manifesto, and “Dancer in the Dark,” which won von...

Green Border.Agnieszka Holland begs to differ with Claude Lanzmann. The director of Shoah (1985) had attacked the idea of depicting the Holocaust in a fiction film, claiming that its unfathomable horrors would inevitably be trivialized. In a 2013 National Gallery of Art lecture, “Viewing History through the Filmmaker’s Lens,” Holland made two counter-arguments: that feature films are a tool to educate as many people as possible about the Holocaust, and that “taking on issues that are impossible to explain or grasp rationally is one of the most important challenges of an artist.” Holland had made a number of provocative Holocaust dramas, including Angry Harvest (1985), Europa Europa (1990), and In Darkness (2011), all of which involve the plight of Jews who have improbably escaped capture and death. With these films, Holland looked back at events from decades in the past. In her latest film, she is dramatizing history while it is unfolding.Urgent without sacrificing artistry,...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, are among the films that will screen in CineMasters, the main competition of this month’s Munich International Film Festival (Miff), taking place from June 28 to July in Germany.

Fourteen films are in the running for CineMasters’ €50,000 Arri Award which is presented to the producers of the best international film. Further titles include Jia Zhang-ke’s Caught By The Tides, Rúnar Rúnarsson’s When The Light Breaks, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section last month, as well as Jaione Camborda...

This is the story of Souleymane. This is a story we need to hear. This is a story we need to understand. By now there's an entire subgenre of modern day refugee films - important, real stories about immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers struggling to make it safely into Europe and survive under the crushing weight of anti-immigration people and policy (also see: Green Border or Europa or Io Capitano). One of the latest entries in this subgenre is the film Souleymane's Story, also known as L'histoire de Souleymane in French (or The Story of Souleymane). This premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section and won two awards: Best Actor and a Jury Prize. It deserves both - the lead performance is exceptional and the storytelling in this is especially powerful. It's one of these films that might change your life - you'll never...

Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Persian and French-language drama Universal Language has won the inaugural Audience Award of Directors’ Fortnight.

This is the first official prize launched by Directors’ Fortnight which does not have a jury. The €7,500 cash award, is also the first audience award to be launched in Cannes, across the Official Selection and the parallel sections.

It is being sponsored by the Chantal Akerman Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the director who retained strong ties with Directors’ Fortnight throughout her career, after screening breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussel in the section in 1975.

Described as taking place “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, Universal Language intertwines multiple characters.

Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it, while Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg and Matthew quits...

Jonas Trueba’s The Other Way Around has received the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

The comedy-drama – which has the Spanish title Volveréis – was selected by a jury of four exhibitors from the Europa Cinemas network.

An eighth feature for Spanish filmmaker Trueba, The Other Way Around follows a couple who decide to throw a party to celebrate their separation after 15 years as a couple.

The jury said, “Humorous and cleverly written, the film’s circular structure manifests generosity of spirit in its inspiring look at human relationships. It is a pleasing beacon of positivity,...

Rome-based sales outfit Intramovies has picked up international rights to “My Uncle Jens,” the directorial debut of Norwegian helmer of Kurdish origin Brwa Vahabpour, credited for the hit series “Countrymen.”

Renée Hansen Mlodyszewski, associate producer on “The Worst Person in the World,” is producing for True Content Production, the Oslo branch of Scandi group True Content Entertainment, headed by Yellow Bird founder Ole Søndberg.

Anda Ionescu of Bucharest-based Tangaj Production serves as co-producer.

Crew members include cinematographer Jørgen Klüver (“Nudes”) production designer Kristian Lahn Vestby (“Nach”) and seasoned Romanian editor Cătălin Cristuțiu (“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”) who collaborated with the Norwegian Brynjar Lien Aune.

Vahabpour first caught festival attention with his 2020 short film “Silence”, selected for the Palm Spring International ShortFest. He went on to direct two episodes of the Norwegian award-winning series “Countrymen”.

Known earlier as “Europa”, the feature about family ties and cultural identity stars Peiman Azizpour...

Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal has closed several new deals for Berlinale title “Sex,” directed by Dag Johan Haugerud, and two further deals for Venice’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” directed by Oscar-winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

The new “Sex” buyers include U.K. and Ireland (Modern Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Pilot Film), Portugal (Films4You), Switzerland (Xenix Film), Ex-Yugoslavian territories (McF Megacom) and Hungary (Vertigo Média).

The film, which premiered in the Panorama section of Berlinale, follows two men – both working as chimney sweeps – living in monogamous, heterosexual marriages as they both end up in situations that challenge their views on sexuality and gender roles.

The title received three awards at the festival: the Europa Cinemas Label – Best European Film (Panorama), the Cicae Art Cinema Award, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.

Previously, the film secured distribution deals in North America (Strand Releasing), France (Pyramide Distribution), South Korea (JinJin Pictures...

French actress Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) will be the next president of the European Film Academy Board, succeeding Polish director Agnieszka Holland (“Europa”) in the honorary role. Holland was the first female president of the board.

Binoche was unanimously proposed by the board members after Holland decided to step down. Following a formal approval process, which historically has been a mere formality, Binoche’s appointment will officially begin on May 1, 2024. The presidential role is primarily symbolic.

Holland, who served as chairwoman of the board until 2019, became president in 2021, succeeding German director Wim Wenders. Holland plans to fully dedicate her time to making films.

Holland’s “Europa” won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her 2023 film “Green Border” won the Special Jury Prize at Venice International Film Festival.

Mike Downey, the current chair of the board, and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol said...

The independent juries of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival early Saturday unveiled their picks of the best movies at the 2024 Berlinale.

Matthias Glasner’s German family epic Sterben (Dying), and the Iranian feature My Favourite Cake from directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, both of which are considered frontrunners for the top prize at the official festival ceremony on Saturday night, received multiple awards for the indie juries, as did Dag Johan Haugerud’s Norwegian drama Sex, a critical favorite from this year’s Panorama sidebar.

Sterben, which follows a classical conductor (played by Lars Eidinger) and his very dysfunctional family, won the best film honor from the guild of German arthouse cinemas and the top prize awarded by the jury of Berliner Morgenpost readers representing the Berlin newspaper.

My Favourite Cake, a quiet drama about a 70-year-old widow who takes a chance on new love, won the Fipresci...

Don’t get too hot and bothered over the title of the new Norwegian film Sex. The act itself in this first entry in a new trilogy from writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud is really only just talked about in this intriguing movie mostly dependent on leaning into its main characters’ words and descriptions, not a whole lot of visual information. Winner of the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European Film in the Panorama section of the current Berlin Film Festival, where it had its world premiere this week, Haugerud has announced this as this first of three films — Sex, Dreams, and then Love — featuring the same cast and dealing overall with themes of desire, identity and freedom, not to mention sexuality and the place of gender in our lives and society. This first stand-alone film also leans heavily into masculinity in ways it is not normally discussed by guys, but...

Sex, a provocative and candid look at constricting gender roles by Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud, has won the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film in the Panorama section of the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.

Jan Gunnar Roise and Thorbjorn Harr star in Sex as two married and ostensibly heterosexual chimney sweeps whose experiences lead them to question their supposedly fixed sexual and gender identities. The film was a critical hit in Berlin, with The Hollywood Reporter comparing its “gentle subversiveness” of the male character study to Joachim Trier’s twist on the traditional rom-com in the Oscar-nominated The Worst Person in the World. [Coincidentally, Worst Person in the World breakout Renate Reinsve was one of the big stars of the Berlinale this year, with two films in competition.]

The Europa Cinemas jury praised Sex as “fresh, original, and, above all, great fun,” adding: “Yes, it is a talky film, but we feel strongly that the open...

Any day is a good day for “Feeling Good,” but today is especially the best since Raye covered Nina Simone’s iconic declaration of grace. Unlike the original, which came out in 1965, Raye’s version is sparse and features only piano, no swinging brass, allowing her to plumb the depths of her happiness to evoke the song’s joy — you know how she feels.

She performed the tune on the latest episode of Aussie radio station Triple J’s Like a Version series. “I think it comments so beautifully on...

The nominations for this year’s Brit Awards have been unveiled, with Raye making history as the most nominated artist in the same year. The singer, who released her acclaimed album My 21st Century Blues last year, scored nods for Best British Album, Song Of The Year (twice), British Artist of the Year, Best Pop Act, Best R&b Act, and Best New Artist.

It’s a huge achievement for the singer, who openly told Rolling Stone UK last year how she shook off the shackles of a record label...

Over the last seven years, Catalonia has built a thriving film industry which has been the envy of other regions across Europe, boasting a thriving co-production scene, a burgeoning animation industry, a 2022 Berlin Golden Bear with Clara Simon’s “Alcarrás,” and a bevy of prizes at 2023’s Berlinale, thanks to “20,000 Species of Bees.”

Catalonia even brought down the flag with Simon’s “Summer 1993,” a 2017 Berlin Best First Feature Film winner, on what could be hailed as a first film movement in Spain in decades: Fiction films grounded in a large sense upon a specific place, but talking about big social or gender issues.

Now Catalonia is attempting to achieve the same impact with its TV industry. Its early results led by “This Is Not Sweden,” will play out at Content Americas and most especially Sweden Göteborg Festival’s TV strand, TV Drama Vision.

Bowing November in Spain on...

It’s been a year since Bad Bunny has been on tour, but now, fans won’t have to wait much longer.

In February next year, Bad Bunny will kick off his Most Wanted Tour, where he will perform 47 shows across 31 North American cities. Major cities like Chicago, New York City and Miami will have the “Un Verano Sin Ti” singer performing for three nights each.

The Puerto Rican’s upcoming Most Wanted Tour was announced in October, shortly after the release of his fifth studio album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana.

The announcement on social media came in the form of a short video with Bad Bunny in a mask riding a horse and stopping in front of a building covered with “Most Wanted” posters all over the exterior wall. He then gets off the horse to take one of the posters down, looks at it,...

The best in global television was honored in New York on Monday night at the 2023 International Emmy Awards. The 56 nominees for this year’s awards, handed out by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, came from 20 countries across six continents.

In a sign of how important streaming companies have become to the international TV industry, Amazon and Netflix dominated the best drama category this year, with Netflix’s German-Austrian period drama The Empress, about the legendary love story between Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and Elisabeth von Wittelsbach, aka “Sissi,” winning the award. The streamer’s South Korean legal drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, featuring Park Eun-bin as an autistic rookie female lawyer with a genius Iq, was also nominated for best drama. And two nominees came from Amazon: the Argentine historical thriller Yosi, the Regretful Spy from director Daniel Burman, about the real-life intelligence scandal that led to two of...

Jupiter has been a significant reference point and destination in the Star Trek universe, being featured in various iterations and serving as a location for key events and missions. In Star Trek Into Darkness, a secret Section 31 base orbits Io, one of Jupiter's moons, and plays a crucial role in Admiral Marcus' plan to militarize Starfleet. Jupiter and its moons continue to be of importance in Star Trek: Picard, with a mission to Europa shaping history and a Borg Cube hiding in Jupiter's Eye becoming a major threat to the galaxy.

Throughout its nearly 60-year history, the various starships and crews of Star Trek have explored countless planets across the galaxy, but Jupiter remains a fascination despite its proximity to Earth. In the earliest days of Starfleet and the Federation, Jupiter often served as a reference point for test flights and starship missions. The first test vehicle to travel at Warp 2, the Nx-Alpha,...

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.

It was only a few days ago that the Criterion Collection had a surprise flash sale. The home video company’s entire catalog was slashed down to 50% off list prices. While that sale only lasted for 24 hours, there are a number of titles that are still on sale for half-off at Amazon.

We rounded up the best deals on Criterion Collection releases, including Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing,” Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider,” Whit Stillman’s “The Last Days of Disco” and much more. In fact, even a few boxed sets are half off, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “The Dekalog” and Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology.

Ahead, check out the best Criterion Blu-ray discs currently on sale for 50% off at Amazon:

‘Do the Right Thing...

Not to be confused with Haider Rashid’s 2021 thriller of the same name, drama Europa (2023) from Iranian-Austrian writer-director Sudabeh Mortezai was nominated for Best Film in Official Competition at Lff 2023. A slow-burn thriller of corporate defiance and corruption set in rural Albania, it stars German actor Lilith Stangenberg in the lead role of Beate Winter, an ambitious executive of a mysterious corporation called ‘Europa’ that must persuade locals to part with land and livelihoods for unclear, nefarious reasons – all for the euro and not the environment.

The term ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ aptly fits here, as a compelling, stoic and quite ambiguous Stangenberg as Beate ‘hunts’ around stunning countryside, targeting her prey, befriending them and then spinning stories of woe or enlightenment to make the kill and get the contracts signed. With her male assistant Lasse (Tobias Winter) in tow, there is a sense that both are ‘stuck’ in...

Bad Bunny has released his new album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana. Stream the album below.

The follow-up to last year’s Un Verano Sin Ti, the album arrives ahead of Bad Bunny’s October 21st appearance on Saturday Night Live, during which he will pull double duty as both host and musical guest. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the global superstar teased that he had been experimenting with new sounds while recording it in Puerto Rico and Los Angeles.

“I am playing around and enjoying myself, letting go. I’m being inspired a lot by the music of the ’70s [across genres, in both Spanish and English],” Bad Bunny said, “but I’m not sure if this is going to shape my music, generally or just one song.” He also hinted at opening up about his personal life: “Now more than ever, I feel more confident in talking about what I think,...

Bad Bunny stans, which song are you claiming? On Thursday, hours before he’s set to release his new album, Bad Bunny revealed the tracklist for his new album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana.

Among the 22 songs included on the album are “Monaco,” “Mr. October,” Cybertruck,” “Teléfono Nuevo,” “Acho PR,” and “Thunder y Lightning.” The LP opens with “Nadie Sabe” and ends with “Un Preview.” Also on the album is “No Me Quiero Casar,” which translates to “I don’t want to get married.”

It’s unclear...

The medium is the message in Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a piece of political cinema so freshly ripped from the headlines that you can still feel the jagged edges. Holland shot the film, which chronicles the wide ripple effects of a 2021 surge of asylum seekers along the Polish-Belarusian border, in just 23 days in March of this year and had it ready for fall festivals mere months later. In the end, her sense of propulsive, incandescent outrage is both the project’s reason for existence and its strongest attribute.

Holland, directing in collaboration with Kamila Tarabura and Katarzyna Warzecha, resists the impulse for urgency to trump all aesthetic considerations. Green Border moves beyond documentary-style realism as a shorthand for authenticity, and it’s at its most gut-wrenching when Tomek Naumiuk’s agile camerawork captures bodies in frequent, frightening motion, as well as the illusory sense of security that those bodies feel in moments of rest.

Poland’s right-wing government has upped its attacks on The Green Border, the new film from acclaimed, Oscar-nominated Polish director Agnieszka Holland, requiring theaters in Poland to run a government-approved warning video ahead of the movie.

The move, unprecedented in democratic Poland, comes ahead of The Green Border‘s national release on Friday, where it will go out wide on 250 screens across the country via distributor Kino Swiat.

The Green Border premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month where it won a special jury prize. Critics lauded the movie, with The Hollywood Reporter review calling it a “devastating dramatic triumph” and naming The Green Border one of the top 15 movies of the fall festival season.

The film is a dramatization of the plight of refugees stranded on the natural border between Poland and Belarus. The migrants, most of them from North Africa and the Middle East,...

With the 67th BFI London Film Festival gearing up to start on Oct. 4, the juries for the various competitions have been named.

Leading the official competition jury is acclaimed Mexican director, producer and screenwriter Amat Escalante, who won the best director honor at the 2013 edition of the Cannes Film Festival for Heli and the Silver Lion for the best director in Venice in 2016 for The Untamed. Escalante’s latest feature, Lost in the Night, is playing in the London Film Festival’s Thrill Strand.

Joining Escalante on the main jury are Kate Taylor, program director of the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Niven Govinden, the English novelist and author of Diary of a Film.

The films in the official competition that the trio will be judging include:

Baltimore, Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

Dear Jassi, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar)

Europa, Sudabeh Mortezai

Evil Does Not Exist, Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Fingernails, Christos Nikou

Gasoline Rainbow,...

Director Agnieszka Holland has demanded Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro apologize for comments he made online comparing Holland’s new film, The Green Border, to “Nazi propaganda.”

Ziobro, a leading member of Poland’s right-wing conservative government, has sharply criticized the film, which explores the humanitarian disaster affecting migrants along the Poland-Belarus border.

“In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers. Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that,” Ziobro wrote Monday on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.

Holland said Wednesday, via AP, that she planned to bring defamation charges against Ziobro unless she receives an apology within seven days. She also demanded that he make a charitable donation of 50,000 Polish zlotys ($11,600) to an association that helps Holocaust survivors.

Polish directors and the European Film Association have defended Holland following the political attack.

In an open letter, seen by The Hollywood Reporter,...

Have you heard of a movie about a brilliant quantum physicist who travels to a remote location so he can test a groundbreaking theory that could change the world forever? It’s shot in breathtaking black-and-white, and features Nazis and a doomed romance.

If you’re thinking of Oppenheimer, you’re wrong by a good two decades (in terms of the time setting), as well as a good hundred million dollars (in terms of budget). And yet, like a smaller, distant cousin to the Christopher Nolan blockbuster, German director Timm Kröger’s The Theory of Everything (Die Theorie Von Allem) is also an artfully made, ambitious period piece where reality sometimes bends to the laws of modern physics.

However, the similarities end there. Nolan’s movie was science-fact, remaining as close to historic events as technically possible. Kröger’s second feature is more of a genre-jumping experiment, combining Hollywood sci-fi...

The film is about a woman accused of the brutal murder of her mother.

Memento International has boarded Edoardo Gabbriellini’s third feature Holiday, a suspense thriller set on the Italian Riviera that is premiering in Toronto in September.

Produced by Olivia Musini for Cinemaundici in association with Lorenzo Mieli’s The Apartment and Luca Guadagnino’s Frenesy Film Company, Holiday is about a woman who returns to her family-owned hotel after being released from prison. But even after being acquitted of the brutal murder of her mother and her mother’s lover and maintaining her innocence, she finds herself...

The 67th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the titles that will compete in its official, first feature, documentary and short film competitions.

Festival director Kristy Matheson said: “The films represented in each of these competitive strands offer audiences an exciting array of U.K. and global filmmaking voices and cinematic forms. We’re so proud to be showcasing each of these films and thank all the filmmaking teams in competition for sharing their films with us.”

Official Competition

“Baltimore”

“Dear Jassi”

“Europa”

“Evil Does Not Exist”

“Fingernails”

“Gasoline Rainbow”

“I Am Sirat”

“The Royal Hotel”

“Self Portrait: 47 Km 2020”

“Starve Acre”

“Together 99”

First Feature Competition

“Black Dog”

“Earth Mama” (U.S. Dir-scr. Savanah Leaf)

“Hoard”

“In Camera”

“Mambar Pierrette”

“Paradise is Burning”

“Penal Cordillera”

“The Queen of My Dreams”

“Sky Peals”

“Tiger Stripes”

“Tuesday”

Documentary Competition

“Bye Bye Tiberias”

“Celluloid Underground”

“Chasing Chasing Amy”

“A Common Sequence”

“Dancing On...

"Albanian tradition. She should show respect." Memento Films has revealed a festival promo trailer for a film titled Europa, the latest from an Austrian-Iranian filmmaker named Sudabeh Mortezai. This recently premiered at the 2023 Sarajevo Film Festival, with extra stops at more European fests in the fall. Not to be confused with the harrowing refugees in Europe thriller also titled Europa from just last year. This Austrian production is about a woman named Beate, played by Lilith Stangenberg, an ambitious executive working at "Europa", a mysterious multi-national corporation looking to expand into the Balkans region. Seemingly promoting philanthropy, Europa actually needs to buy off lands from locals in a remote valley in Albania. She encounters pushback from a local farmer who refuses to leave the land of his ancestors and refuses any deal. The cast includes Jetnor Gorezi, Steljona Kadillari, Mirando Sylari, and Tobias Winter. This reminds me of Toni Erdmann,...

Memento International and Anonymous Content have boarded “Woman Of,” a bold Venice competition entry written and directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert. The film is a pioneering trans drama set in against the landscape of the Polish transformation from communism to capitalism.

“Woman Of” stars Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik as Aniela Wesoły, who lived more than half of her adult life in a provincial Polish town as a man. “Woman Of…” spans 45 years of the life of Aniela as she aspires to find personal liberty as a trans woman and faces hardships in marriage and parenthood, strained family relations and complicated attitudes in her environment.

“‘Woman Of’ is the result of many years of work, a film that tells a story of a mature trans woman living in Poland, who does not fit the social norms of a traditional family,” said Szumowska and Englert, who have been working on movies together for over 20 years.

Memento International has acquired international sales rights to Nora El Hourch’s debut feature “Sisterhood” (“Hlm Pussy”) ahead of its world premiere at Toronto. The timely film will play in the competitive Platform section.

“Sisterhood” follows three inseparable teenagers who face a public outcry after posting a video that exposes someone who attacked them. Faced with threats, they must choose between deleting the video or continuing to fight.

“Sisterhood” boasts a cast of newcomers, including Léah Aubert, Médina Diarra and Salma Takaline, as well as Bérénice Bejo, the Cannes and Cesar award-winning of “The Past” and “The Artist.” Philippe Gompel is producing for Manny Films and La Prod in Morocco is co-producing. Paname Distribution will be handling French distribution.

“Nora El Hourch’s energetic debut feature boldly puts the spotlight on the way sexual harassment is dealt with in the French projects,” said Memento Intl. The company said “Sisterhood” deftly addresses social discrepancies.

The selection includes world premieres from Michael Noer, Kilian Riedhof and Hans Steinbichler.

The Zurich Film Festival has unveiled the first Gala titles for its 19th edition including three world premieres.

They are Danish director Michael Noer’s Birthday Girl about a mother and daughter on a cruise which takes a dark turn; Stella. A Life. by German director Kilian Riedhof that stars Paula Beer as a young Jewish woman who joins the Gestapo in order to save herself and her boyfriends; and Hans Steinbichler’s Swiss feature A Whole Life about a man experiencing love for the first time after a difficult childhood.

In Sudabeh Mortezai’s provocative fifth feature, “Europa,” the Vienna-based director follows ambitious executive Beate from Europa, a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkans by seemingly promoting philanthropy and investment in underdeveloped areas. What Europa actually needs is to buy land from the locals in a remote Albanian valley. The film plays in Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Mortezai can’t exactly pinpoint the genesis of “Europa” to a specific idea or moment, but says it’s rather an amalgamation of observations she’s made over time and her own interest in the general state of our world. “I’ve been observing or experiencing a disconnect between the ideals we have. And Europe is not just a continent. It’s a promise of human rights, of specific values,” she says. “And when you see a disconnect between that and many aspects like income, social inequality, economic inequality,...

When the Sarajevo Film Festival returned to full strength last year after successive, slimmed-down pandemic editions, a robust turn-out was to be expected. For nearly three decades, the audience-facing event has been the cultural lifeblood of the lively, cosmopolitan city it calls home.

The 2022 edition broke attendance records set in 2019, and just days after its online ticketing system launched this month, the fest appears on pace to surpass that mark again. It is a testament to the enduring love affair between a city and a festival that was founded in impossible circumstances in 1995, at the tail end of a brutal, four-year siege — proof that even in times of war and scarcity, cinema could endure.

The festival returns Aug. 11 – 18, with organizers insisting the event’s 29th edition will stay true to its roots. “We wanted to keep the festival focused on its main goals: presenting the best of cinema today to...

Recipients also include ‘Made In EU’ the new film by Bulgaria’s Stephan Komanderev.

Made In EU, the new film by award-winning Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komanderev, has received €220,000 from the Leipzig-based regional German fund Mdm in its latest round of awards.

Produced by Halle-based 42Film, which also produced Karlovy Vary winner Blaga’s Lessons, the film is based on real events that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria. A seamstress working in a clothing factory in a small town is at the centre of an online drama when she is labelled “patient zero” and accused of infecting her...

The film’s backers include Film4 and Mike Goodridge’s Good Chaos.

Paris-based Memento International has snapped up international rights for Sudabeh Mortezai’s third fiction feature Europa that is set to world premiere in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August.

The film, shot mostly in English, follows an ambitious executive working at the titular Europa, a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkan region, ostensibly with philanthropic development ambitions. Things don’t go as planned when the executive is challenged by a stubborn and spiritual farmer who refuses to budge from his ancestors’ land.

Europa is...