News

Keep track of when films are coming out in the territory.

Cinemas in the UK and Ireland are set to reopen this spring, following months of closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Screen is listing the release dates for films in the territory in the calendar below. For distributors who wish to add/amend a date on the calendar, please get in touch with Screen here.

Indoor cinemas in England and Scotland will be allowed to reopen from May 17; with dates yet to be confirmed for Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Screen is also tracking reopening dates of cinemas in...

In a striking debut, Zofia Stafiej sets about repatriating her late father’s body from Dublin, and finding herself along the way

Right from the first few minutes, it is hard to not to feel immediately taken with Ola (Zofia Stafiej), the 17-year-old protagonist of Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry. In the middle of her third driving test, Ola makes a sudden swerve as she tries to avoid a dangerous turn from another driver, much to the displeasure of her examiner. She gets out of her vehicle and proceeds to stop the other car, kicking off its front numberplate. This might sound bratty and annoying, but Stafiej, in her acting debut, portrays a kind of endearingly headstrong spirit that makes the scene play out like a very contemporary type of farce.

As the film progresses, it becomes clear Ola is simply not someone who follows instructions. After receiving the news that her estranged father,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended invitations for 395 artists and executives working in film to join the ranks of a growing membership of more than 9,000 film industry figures. Per AMPAS, “membership selection decisions are based on professional qualifications, with representation, inclusion and equity remaining a priority of Academy Aperture 2025.”

Statistically, the 2021 class is comprised of 46 percent women, 39 percent underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 53 international members from 49 countries outside of the United States. Among the new class are 89 Oscar nominees and 25 winners, including “Minari” Best Supporting Actress winner Yuh-jung Youn, Best Actor nominee Steven Yeun, multi-nominated director/writer Lee Isaac Chung, and co-star Ye-ri Han, plus “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” Best Actress nominee Andra Day, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” Supporting Actress nominee Maria Bakalova, “Pieces of a Woman” Best Actress nominee Vanessa Kirby, and Supporting Actor nominees Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) and Paul Raci...

Poland’s entry for the 2021 Academy Awards, “Never Gonna Snow Again,” didn’t land a nomination after falling on the shortlist, but it still casts a powerful spell. Director Małgorzata Szumowska teams with her longtime cinematographer and co-writer Michał Englert for this mysterious drama that balances beguiling whimsy with droll laughs in weaving a kind of fairytale spin on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Teorema.”

In this film, like Pasolini’s, a beautiful man drops seemingly out of the sky and into an affluent community, invigorates their dreary lives for a minute, and then is gone in a flash. Alec Utgoff of “Stranger Things” plays a masseur who — part cherub, part beefcake — brings hypnotic powers with him from Pripyat, the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, to a gated Polish neighborhood of the rich and bored.

Szumowska and her cinematographer Englert co-direct this visually spellbinding tale that packs a quirky ensemble...

Anders Refn’s WWII saga “Into the Darkness” (Denmark) and Ko Chen-Nien’s abuse drama “The Silent Forest” (Taiwan) won the major prizes at the 51st International Film Festival of India in Goa.

“Into The Darkness” won the Golden Peacock for best film. The award carries a cash prize of Inr 4 million. The Silver Peacock for best director went to Ko, for “The Silent Forest.” The award comes with a cash prize of Inr 1.5 million.

Liu Tzu-Chuan won best actor, male, for “The Silent Forest,” while Zofia Stafiej won best actor, female, for her role in Piotr Domalewski’s comedy-drama “I Never Cry” (Poland).

Kamin Kalev won the special jury award for drama “February” (Bulgaria/France). Cassio Pereira dos Santos won best debut for trans coming-of-age film “Valentina” (Brazil). Indian director Kripal Kalita was given a special mention for for Assamese-language film “Bridge.”

The International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication Unesco Gandhi Award,...

The 30th anniversary edition of the German festival ran online.

Russian filmmaker Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s Conference won the main prize for best film at Germany’s FilmFestival Cottbus on Sunday December 13.

It is the story that incorporates the tragedy of the Dubrovka Theatre attack in Moscow in 2002 with the fate of one woman and her family. The film, which is handled internationally by Reason8 Films, had been pitched at project stage at the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus during the FilmFestival Cottbus in 2019. It made its world premiere earlier this year at Venice’s Giornate degli Autori.

It is...

Piotr Domalewski's drama I Never Cry and Ivan Ikić's Oasis were also noticed during the 30th-anniversary edition of the German festival, this year unspooling online. Prizes worth €72,000 were handed out at the 30th edition of the FilmFestival Cottbus on 12 December during an awards ceremony broadcast online, with Ivan I Tverdovskiy's Conference named Best Film. Interestingly enough, it marked the third victory for the Russian filmmaker after Corrections Class and Zoology. “It serves as proof of the successful work of our co-production market, the international standing of both events and, last but not least, the excellent interaction between the market and the festival,” observed CEO Andreas Stein, noting that Conference was previously pitched in its connecting cottbus industry sidebar. The jury, consisting of Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Axel Ranisch, Bodo Kox, Maria Trigo Teixeira and Yang Ge, called the film “a masterpiece composed in minute detail”, noting that its “whirlwind-like power...

Spearheaded by Cannes Film Market and Argentina’s Incaa agency, Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest movie market, will put through an out-of-the-box reset of market dynamics. Running Nov. 30 to Dec. 4, it will also register the energetic and exciting build up of women on the Latin American film scene, as directors, producers and market playmakers.

Following is a down-to-the-wire appreciation of 2020’s edition:

A Multi-City Movie Market Revolution?

Movie markets traditionally take place in one physical setting. No more. In an unprecedented move, the brainchild of Cannes Film Market head Jerome Paillard, Ventana Sur looks set for a game changing five city on-site roll-out to run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 in Madrid, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile and Colombia’s Bogotá. In some ways, Ventana Sur was unlucky. France’s lockdown lift does not kick in until Dec. 15, nixing planned screenings in Paris, the world’s art film capital.

The presitgious German event was held entirely online.

Vacuum, the feature debut by Ukrainian filmmaker Yelizaveta Smith has won the €1,500 best pitch award at Germany’s Connecting Cottbus (coco) East-West coproduction market today (November 6), which was held online due to the coronavirus pandemic

The film’s producer Aleksandra Kostine of Bosonfilm, also received the Producers Network Award which grants free accreditation to the Producers Network at the Marché du Film in Cannes 2021.

The script has previously been developed through Torino Film Lab Extended and Midpoint Feature Launch and is now at late development stage.

A graduate of Kyiv’s National University of Cinema and Theatre,...

Polish director Piotr Domalewski, whose film “I Never Cry” screens this week in El Gouna Film Festival’s Out of Competition section, is facing a growing controversy surrounding his next project. It centers on the Nangar Khel incident, when Polish soldiers fired mortar shells into a wedding party in an Afghan village in 2007, killing six civilians. It became known as “the event that changed the Polish army.” “Some monstrous online discussion has already started,” Domalewski says.

The film is an adaptation of the book “Betrayed” by journalist Edyta Żemła, which investigated where the blame lay for the incident, and itself had an explosive effect, mostly because of Żemła’s claim that “in Nangar Khel, it wasn’t the soldiers who tarnished the honor of the Polish army, but the politicians.” Żemła will act as a consultant on the film, which has the working title “Nangar Khel – Zdradzeni” (“Nangar Khel – Betrayed...

Projects in development include new films by Roman Bondarchuk and Robert Budina.

New films by Russia’s Roman Bondarchuk and Robert Budina, whose credits include Waterdrop, are among 13 projects in development to be presented at this year’s east-west co-production market connecting cottbus (coco).

The event is normally held as part of FilmFestival Cottbus in Germany (November 3-8), but will run online this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Bondarchuk’s previous feature was Karlovy Vary 2018 East of the West title Volcano, whilst Budina’s last film A Shelter Among The Clouds premiered in competition at Tallinn, also in...

Projects in development include new films by Roman Bondarchuk and Robert Budina.

New films by Roman Bondarchuk (The Editorial Office) and Robert Budina (Waterdrop) are among 13 projects in development to be presented at this year’s east-west co-production market connecting cottbus.

The event is normally held as part of FilmFestival Cottbus in Germany (November 3-8), but will run online this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Bondarchuk’s previous feature was Karlovy Vary 2018 East of the West title Volcano, whilst Budina’s last film A Shelter Among The Clouds premiered in competition at Tallinn, also in 2018.

Among the other...