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The Quirino Awards, the prestigious trans-Atlantic ceremony recognizing excellence in Ibero-American animation, has officially unveiled its finalists for this year’s 8th edition.

With 26 nominated works across ten categories, this year’s competition highlights the creative strength of the Ibero-America’s animation industry. Spain, Brazil and Portugal have emerged as the frontrunners in nominations, setting the stage for a May 10th awards ceremony in the Spanish Canary Island co-capital of Tenerife.

Spain continues to dominate the competition, securing or sharing all nominations in the best feature film and best school short film categories. Meanwhile, Chile, Portugal and Argentina each boast two nominations in the best series, best short film, and best music video categories. Brazil leads in the technical categories, with five nominations across visual development, animation design, sound design and original music.

This year’s feature category includes “Buffalo Kids” – a high-grossing kids and family feature set in the...

Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” won best film, director, screenwriter and actress at the 37th European Film Awards, which were held Saturday in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The best film nominees included narrative features “The Room Next Door,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” “The Substance” and “Vermiglio,” as well as documentaries “Bye Bye Tiberias,” “Dahomey,” “In Limbo,” “No Other Land” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” and animated films “Flow,” “Living Large,” “Savages,” “Sultana’s Dream” and “They Shot the Piano Player.”

The statuette for actress was won by Karla Sofía Gascón for “Emilia Pérez.” The other nominees were Renate Reinsve in “Armand,” Trine Dyrholm in “The Girl With the Needle,” Vic Carmen Sonne in “The Girl With the Needle” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door.”

The director award went to Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” who beat Andrea Arnold for “Bird,” Pedro Almodóvar for “The Room Next Door,” Mohammad Rasoulof...

‘La Habitación de al Lado’ encabeza las nominaciones y Karla Sofía Gascón opta al premio a la Mejor Actriz. © Warner Bros| Elástica Films | DeAPlaneta

Ya se conocen las nominaciones a la 37ª edición de los Premios del Cine Europeo (Efa), y España está de enhorabuena: La habitación de al lado, de Pedro Almodóvar encabeza las nominaciones (junto a Emilia Pérez) y la española Karla Sofía Gascón se encuentra nominada a la Mejor Actriz. Además, las películas animadas españolas El sueño de la sultana y Dispararon al pianista se llevan dos nominaciones cada una. Los ganadores de los premios se anunciarán el 7 de diciembre de 2024. Aquí está la lista de nominados:

Mejor PELÍCULA Europea

Bye Bye Tiberias

Dahomey

Emilia Pérez

Flow

In Limbo

Living Large

No Other Land

Savages

Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

El sueño de la sultana

La habitación de al lado

The Seed of the Sacred Fig...

The 37th European Film Awards, which take place annually in the lakeside Swiss city of Lucerne, have unveiled their nominations for 2024. Unsurprisingly, the list is led by French director Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language cartel musical “Emilia Pérez” with four nominations including European Film and Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascón. Surprisingly, Audiard, previously a five-time Efa nominee, has never won a prize from the European Film Academy, which boasts more than 5,000 members across the continent. Getting a boost is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian family thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” with three nominations including European Film. It’s Germany’s submission for the International Feature Oscar this year due to its dominantly European production despite filming in secret in banished director Rasoulof’s home country.

European Film Award staple Pedro Almodóvar’s Venice Golden Lion winner “The Room Next Door” notched four noms including European Film, Director, Actress for Tilda Swinton,...

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door have emerged as the front-runners for the European Film Awards 2024, with four nominations apiece.

The nominations for the main categories of this year’s awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne, were announced this morning by the European Film Academy.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule change which means that films shortlisted for the best documentary and animation categories can also compete in the section.

Emilia Pérez is nominated in the best European film category,...

The nominees for this year’s European Film Awards have been unveiled, with “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Room Next Door” all up for best European film.

Movies also in the running for the ceremony’s top award — which was expanded this year to documentaries and animated features — include Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias”; Mati Diop’s “Dahomey”; Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow”; Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Balla’s “No Other Land”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio.”

“Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance” lead the nominees overall, with each film scoring four respective nominations. The winners will be revealed during an awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

See all the nominees below.

European Film

“Bye Bye Tiberias” — documentary film, directed by Lina Soualem, produced by Jean-Marie Nizan, Guillaume Malandrin and Ossama Bawardi

“Dahomey” — documentary film, directed by Mati Diop,...

The Substance by Coralie Fargeat, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof are among the nominees for the 2024 European Film Awards (EFAs), organizers unveiled on Tuesday.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door earned four noms each, including for best European film and best director. Sacred Fig is up for the best film, best director, and best screenwriter prizes. The Substance is in the running for the best film and best screenwriter honors.

In the best actress race, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón faces Renate Reinsve, Tilda Swinton for her role in The Room Next Door, and The Girl With the Needle actresses Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne. For The Girl With the Needle, Magnus von Horn and Line Langebek are also nominated in the best screenwriter category.

Queer star Daniel Craig and...

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominations in the animated feature film category of the European Film Awards.

The nominated films are Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” Kristina Dufková’s “Living Large,” Claude Barras’

“Savages,” Isabel Herguera’s “Sultana’s Dream,” and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s “They Shot the Piano Player.”

“Flow” won the main jury and audience awards at Annecy, and the award for original music. It played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

“Sultana’s Dream” won Annecy’s Contrechamp Award, while “Living Large” won the Contrechamp Jury Award.

“Savages” played in competition at Annecy and also screened at Locarno. Barras was Oscar nominated for “My Life as a Courgette.”

Mariscal and Trueba were Oscar nominated for “Chico & Rita.” Trueba’s live-action drama “Belle Epoque” won an Oscar for best foreign-language film.

The committee that decided on the nominations was comprised of representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon,...

The European Film Academy has nominated five animated movies for its prestigious Best European Film award. This marks the first time an animated film will be able to win the grand prize.

The nominees showcase a variety of animation techniques and stories. “Flow” from Latvia uses computer graphics to tell an eco-fable with no dialogue. It follows animals teaming up after a flood. “Living Large” from the Czech Republic focuses on a boy dealing with his weight through cooking. Claymation brings the characters to life.

A Swiss film, “Savages,” also uses claymation. It depicts deforestation and an orphaned baby orangutan in Borneo. “Sultana’s Dream” from Spain follows an artist’s search for a female utopia. The hand-drawn style matches the exploration of women’s empowerment themes.

The fifth nominee is “They Shot the Piano Player.” A collaboration between Spanish and American filmmakers, it depicts a famous 1960s and 70s Brazilian musician who later vanished.

The European Film Academy on Wednesday unveiled the 5 nominees for best animated feature for this year’s European Film Awards.

The 2024 animated nominees include Gints Zilbalodis Flow, a dialog-free eco-fable about a cat that bands together with other animals to try and survive a cataclysmic flood; Living Large, a coming-of-age tale from Kristina Dufková about a heavy-set 12-year-boy with a talent in the kitchen; Savages, Claude Barras’ Boreno-set drama about deforestation and a lost baby orangutan; Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, about a Spanish artist who becomes obsessed with finding a female utopia where women can live in peace; and They Shot the Piano Player from directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, a portrait of Francisco Tenório Júnior, a leading light of the thriving Brazilian music scene of the 1960s and ’70s who went missing in 1976.

Sultana’s Dream They Shot the Piano Player

All 5 nominees will also be...

Five animated features are in the running for the European Film Awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne.

The nominees in the category European Animated Feature Film are: Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, Kristina Dufková’s Living Large, Claude Barras’ Savages, Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s They Shot The Piano Player.

Gints Zilbalodis’s second feature Flow centres on an independent cat obliged to seek allies among the animal kingdom after a devastating flood. It premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and later won four prizes at Annecy including the Competition jury...

Quick Links Netflix's They Shot the Piano Player Honors the Genre They Shot the Piano Player Is a Study That Highlights the Artist

Streaming now on Netflix, They Shot the Piano Player is an unusual and captivating film that fuses history and fiction to explore the roots of Bossa Nova music while also serving as a beautiful tribute to a lost star. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum and directed by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba, They Shot the Piano Player uses a fragmented style of animation to piece together the past and the present to honor the birth of the Bossa Nova style and the contributions of piano player Francisco Tenorio Jr.

Goldblum stars as Jeff Harris, a music fan and journalist who travels to Latin America to write a book on the Bossa Nova movement of music. From Brazil to Buenos Aires, Harris interviews noted musicians and becomes intrigued when,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “They Shot the Piano Player,” an animated epic written and co-directed by Fernando Trueba that combines the Bossa Nova sound, a music reporter and a mystery about a long lost pianist. Currently in select theaters. See local listings.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Jeff Goldblum voices the real-life Jeff Harris, a music journalist who goes to Argentina to research a book on the Bossa Nova sound, which was a worldwide sensation in the 1960s and ‘70s, only to be repressed by a dictatorship in Argentina that began in 1974. Swept up in that coup was the pianist Tenorio Jr., a major force both in Bossa Nova and his own unique approach to the instrument. In Harris’ research, Tenorio’s name comes up again and again, to the point where the journalist’s new mission is to solve the mystery of the piano player’s disappearance.

My Stolen Planet by Farahnaz Sharifi won the €12,000 Golden Alexander prize of the international competition of the 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (Tidf), which closed on March 17.

The intimate family portrait is a Germany-Iran co-production and made its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama programme last month.

At Tidf, it also won the Fipresci award and a place in the pre-selection shortlist for the best documentary Osar. France’s Cat&Docs is handling international sales.

Lidia Duda’s Forest, won the €5,000 international competition special jury prize, the Silver Alexander. The Poland-Czech Republic co-production, also about a family, this...

The 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TiDF) is underway in the historic Greek port city, after an opening night ceremony that honored Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba.

Trueba, the Oscar-winning director of Belle Époque, received the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander, recognizing his contributions to cinema and culture. The honor was presented to him by Katerina Sakellaropoulou, president of Hellenic Republic, the first time a Greek head of state has launched the international event.

“Great documentaries profoundly move us, broaden our understanding of the world, challenge our beliefs, prejudices, or our established assumptions,” President Sakellaropoulou said from the stage at the Olympion cinema. “An artistic portrayal of reality, or a creative handling of an otherwise unseen aspect of it, a poetic depiction of a documented truth, or a subjective documentation of some of its dimensions, documentary is a film genre requiring cultural sensitivity, journalistic integrity, moral rectitude, conceptual purity, and political discernment.

Taking place just weeks after the historic passage of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Greece, the 26th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival — which runs March 7 – 17 — pays tribute to that watershed moment in the long-running fight for equal rights for the country’s LGBTQ community, while also issuing a rallying cry for diversity, inclusion and empowerment across the globe.

“Our festival aspires to map out a detailed and thorough overview of our world’s complexity, welcoming films from the four corners of the world, which outline the radical changes, the challenges and the problems of our times,” says festival general director Elise Jalladeau. The program spotlights “the urgent call for diversity, stories of women’s empowerment [and] the visibility not only of the Lgbtqi+ community, but of all marginalized and oppressed groups of people who have suffered discrimination due to their identity,” she adds.

Following on the historic victory for...

The 26th edition of the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TiDF) kicks off today (March 7) with 12 features screening in international competition.

Several titles are making their world premiere at the festival including Johatsu - Into Thin Air from Andreas Hartmann and Arata Mori about the thousands of people who disappear in Japan each year.

Also playing is Sundance award-winner A New Kind Of Wilderness from Silje Evensmo Jacobsen. The Norweigan film, which won the grand jury prize in documentary, follows a family living in the wild who are forced to confront contemporary society after a tragic event.

Fellow Sundance-award winner Nocturnes...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2023 Oscars Predictions:

Best Animated Feature

Weekly Commentary: Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” has garnered both the Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards, solidifying its status as a strong contender in the animated feature category. However, what’s intriguing is the absence of Miyazaki and his producer Toshio Suzuki at the award ceremonies,...

Jeff Goldblum made the most of his time in the spotlight during the Super Bowl, waving and dancing when the cameras put him on the Jumbotron. The actor’s enthusiastic reaction has gone viral on social media, with many comparing his upbeat response to Leonardo DiCaprio’s more sullen one.

Last night, Goldblum explained his big moment on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I didn’t know they were going to come upon me, as that seems,” the actor told host Jimmy Kimmel. “And I was just thrilled to be there. I was eating it up.

This marks the seventh year that the entire membership of the academy can take part in the nomination stage of the Animated Feature Oscar race. Previously, only select members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch and invited members from the other branches could serve on the committee that decided the nominees. Collectively, the committee tended to favor traditional and stop-motion films over CG fare. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 predictions for Oscars Best Animated Feature.)

Mandatory attendance at screenings has been dropped and voters who want to be on the nominations committee need only attest to having seen all the contenders at theaters or screenings or by way of the the academy’s streaming site.

The method of determining the nominees has also changed. Gone is the system where voters scored a film from 6 (poor) to 10 (excellent) with only those movies meriting an average mark of at least 7.5 eligible for a nomination.

Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they will release Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Bossa Nova-themed animated film They Shot The Piano Player in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on February 23, 2024, before expanding nationwide in the following weeks.

The film is produced by Cristina Huete of Trueba PC (Chico & Rita) in Spain, along with Serge Lalou for Les Films d’Ici (Josep) in France, Janneke van de Kerkhof for Submarine Sublime (BUÑUEL In The Labyrinth Of Turtles) in the Netherlands, and Humberto Santana in Portugal. It is executive produced by Nano Arrieta of Atlantika and Fabien Westerhoff of Film Constellation.

From the duo behind the 2012 Academy Award®-nominated Chico & Rita, They Shot The Piano Player is narrated by Jeff Goldblum and features a who’s who of the best of Brazilian music, including João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, Milton Nascimento and Paulo Moura.

Bossa Nova-themed animation from Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal received awards-qualifying run in November.

Sony Pictures Classics will release Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Bossa Nova-themed animated feature They Shot The Piano Player theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on February 23, 2024.

‘They Shot The Piano Player’: San Sebastian Review

The film received a one-week awards-qualifying run in November following its premiere at Telluride and Toronto International Film Festival. It will expand nationwide in the weeks following the release.

Jeff Goldblum narrates the story of a New York music journalist who sets out to uncover the truth behind...

Deadline on Tuesday launched the streaming site for Contenders Film: Documentary, its annual showcase of the year’s best nonfiction films that are in the running for the Documentary Feature Oscar.

Click here to launch the streaming site.

A total of nine buzzworthy films participated in panel discussions during Sunday’s virtual event, featuring movies from Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Original Films, HBO Documentary Films, National Geographic Documentary Films, Paramount+ and MTV Documentary Films, Sony Pictures Classics, and Telemark and Greenwich Entertainment.

Panelists who joined to discuss their projects included directors Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie), Peter Nicks (Stephen Curry: Underrated), Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain (The Mission), Christopher Sharp (Bobi Wine: The People’s President), Raoul Peck (Silver Dollar Road), Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (They Shot the Piano Player), Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), Jakub Piątek (Pianoforte) and...

They Shot the Piano Player is a documentary about Brazilian jazz artist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who went missing in 1976. Spoiler alert, the film uncovers why Tenório Júnior is no longer here. Directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal joined Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary to discuss how they used animation to articulate historical moments for which they had no archival footage.

“My first commitment was to be fair to Tenório Júnior,” Trueba said. “I think you must do something for him, not just for us. For him and also for the audience to discover him, but I wanted the audience to know him, to meet him and to listen to his music.”

Some animated portions depict Tenório creating music, for which the filmmakers had audio recordings. Mariscal said the music guided the visuals.

“Thanks to the animation, we can again give life to Tenório recording and re-creating this moment,” Mariscal said.

Shortlist of 15 films to be announced December 21, nominations out on January 23, 2024.

The Academy has announced eligible features in the categories of international feature film, animation, and documentary for the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, 2024.

The shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 21, and the nominations announcement is January 23, 2024.

International

Eighty-eight countries or regions have submitted films eligible for consideration in the international feature film category. An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes long) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Namibia is a first-time entrant.

Academy members...

The third episode of this season of Encuentros features:Víctor Gaviria (Colombia), director and poet internationally recognized for the feature films Rodrigo D: No Future (Rodrigo D: No Futuro) and The Rose Seller (La vendedora de rosas), the first films in the history of his country to compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in the 1990s. His work has been characterized by his casting of nonprofessional actors and his persistence in portraying, without prejudice or concessions, the most violent realities of life on the margins of Medellín. This has made him an influential and ubiquitous figure in Latin American cinema and a great influence on the newest generations of Colombian filmmakers.Fernando Trueba (Spain), a director and screenwriter, as well as the winner of multiple Goya Awards, an Oscar Award and Spain's National Film Award. His filmography of almost 20 titles has explored subjects as diverse as music, theater, and...

Taking a cue from the genre-melding impulse of the music at its heart, They Shot the Piano Player initially gives every appearance of being pure fiction. The plot of this animated film by Spanish directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba follows Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), a journalist from New York City who’s been commissioned to write a book on bossa nova. Immersing himself in the music in preparation for a trip to Rio de Janeiro, he hears a solo by Brazilian jazz pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. and gets sidetracked. The innovator of samba jazz, it turns out, disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Buenos Aires just before the 1976 military coup, and Jeff decides to fill in the blanks.

The setup, then, has all the trappings of a detective story, with an amateur sleuth in obsessive pursuit of an unsolved mystery. In Rio, Jeff’s friend João (Tony Ramos...

Periscoop is run by San Fu Maltha and Bruno Felix.

Dutch distributor Periscoop has snapped up five titles in this year’s official IDFA selection including In-Soo Radstake’s competition title Selling A Colonial War, which is being sold by Rise And Shine World Sales.

Selling A Colonial War, produced through Nadadja Kemper at Holland Harbour, lifts the lid on war crimes on both sides , political skulduggery and sinister propaganda manoeuvring by the Dutch, US and Indonesia during the Indonesian war of independence from 1945 until 1949.

“Of course, there are going to be people [in the Netherlands] who will be totally upset about the film before seeing it,...

"His musical touch hasn't left my ear." Sony Pictures Classics has unveiled a full US trailer for a fascinating, jazzy Spanish documentary called They Shot the Piano Player, which first premiered at the Annecy Film Festival in France this summer. It's a doc made by filmmakers Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal (of Chico & Rita) telling the true story of a missing pianist. A New York music journalist goes on a quest to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the young Brazilian piano virtuoso Tenorio Jr. - in full Francisco Tenório Júnior. A celebratory origin story of the world-renowned Latino musical movement Bossa Nova, They Shot The Piano Player captures a fleeting time bursting with creative freedom at a turning point in Latin American history in the 60s and 70s, just before the continent was engulfed by totalitarian regimes. Starring Jeff Goldblum as the voice of Jeff Harris, with Caetano Veloso & Joao Gilberto.

“Chico and Rita” Oscar nominees Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal fuse docudrama, animation, and music once again with their latest film, “They Shot the Piano Player.” Centered around the 1976 disappearance and presumed murder of Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Jr., the Sony Pictures Classics release stars Jeff Goldblum as an American journalist looking for answers. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, for the film below.

It’s 2010, and New York journalist Jeff Harris (Goldblum) is working on a book on Bossa Nova after just publishing a piece on its 50th anniversary in The New Yorker. During his research, Harris stumbles upon a pianist previously unknown to him: Francisco Tenório Jr. Realizing Tenório Jr. hasn’t produced or recorded music for over 30 years, Harris travels to Rio de Janeiro to uncover why he vanished from the music scene. He discovers that Tenório Jr., who keeps haunting his Bossa Nova research project, disappeared...

SAG-AFTRA may still be on strike, but studios are, nevertheless, pushing their Oscar contenders to garner the adequate (and allowed) attention they need to land nominations.

One of the main methods is getting industry voters out to screenings and making films available on the Academy Screening Room and BAFTA screening platforms. With the two significant organizations banning physical DVD screeners, voting members rely on the respective digital viewing portals to catch up on some of this year’s contenders vying for awards consideration.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

The Academy performs a heavy vetting process for each film that chooses to submit for consideration. Historically, over 300 movies are in the running for best picture consideration, with more films joining the fray over the next several months. Distributors are the ultimate decision-makers of when a movie is placed in the Academy Screening Room for viewing.

Imagine Documentaries, the non-fiction branch of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, is looking to boost a new generation of documentary talent.

Speaking at a panel at Rome’s Mia Market, Imagine Documentaries president Sara Bernstein revealed that her company has signed a development deal with filmmakers Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill, whose teenagers-in-Texas portrait “Cusp” premiered to critical acclaim at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, while praising director Jackie Jesko, whose three-part, true-crime doc “Savior Complex” premiered on HBO last month.

“It’s important to champion and make room for the next generation,” said Bernstein, heralding Bethencourt and Hill’s film as “one of the best cinema verité style docs I’d seen in a long time.”

“I thought it was incredibly riveting,” Bernstein continued. “[And] we’re always looking at those filmmakers… [because] it’s exciting to think about the next generation, to ask who’s up and coming.

The animated highlights of 2023 thus far: Illumination/Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($1.36 billion globally, $574.9 million domestically) and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($689 million globally, $381 million domestically) were massive box office hits, proving that there is a hungry audience clamoring to see animation in theaters again.

However, Pixar/Disney’s “Elemental” and DreamWorks/Universal’s “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” were major box office flops: Pixar’s immigrant story about the elements trying to co-exist only mustered $154.4 million domestically (placing 20th on the studio’s list of features). However, it grabbed $490 million worldwide and subsequently became Disney+’s most-viewed movie premiere of the year. Meanwhile, DreamWorks’ coming-of-age Kraken comedy had the worst domestic showing in the studio’s history (with $15.7 million). This signaled that original animated content still has theatrical hurdles to overcome compared to franchises.

Fortunately, the animated reboot of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Nickelodeon/Paramount) was a hit,...

Neo Sora’s concert documentary “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” a standout at the Venice Film Festival, has sold for theatrical distribution in North America to Janus Films ahead of its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The theatrical release will be followed by a Blu-ray Disc release on the “Janus Contemporaries” label.

This is the latest deal inked by London and Paris-based production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation, following a slew of sales to Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Germany and Austria (Rapid Eye), Scandinavia (NjutaFilms), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), South Korea (Media Castle), China (Jl Vision Films), Hong Kong and Macau (Edko Films), Taiwan (Cai Chang) and Singapore (Anticipate Pictures). Bitters End will release the film in Japan in 2024.

On March 28, 2023, legendary composer Sakamoto Ryuichi died after his struggle against cancer. In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live. Single concerts,...

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal tackle a tricky balancing act in their new feature, celebrating the intoxicating lilt of the bossa nova and also investigating the devastating brutality of state terrorism. It’s a testament to their talent as filmmakers that, for the most part, they manage to pull it off.

They Shot the Piano Player centers on a kind of ghost: Francisco Tenório Júnior, a leading light of the thriving Brazilian music scene of the 1960s and ’70s who went missing in 1976, while on tour in Buenos Aires. How this keyboard virtuoso, by all accounts a gentle soul with no political ax to grind, became one of the desaparecidos targeted by Argentina’s oppressive regime is the puzzle that drives the movie.

Structured as a journalist’s search for answers, They Shot the Piano Player combines a fictional framing device with documentary material gathered by Trueba over a period of about 15 years,...

The 48th Toronto International Film Festival, from which I just returned, technically runs through Sunday, but by this point, virtually every film in the lineup has screened at least once. So, I thought I’d seize this opportunity to share some impressions of this year’s fest and the awards hopefuls that played there and also offer some informed speculation about which film could pick up some wind behind its award season sails on Sunday when the fest announces the winner of its TIFF Audience Award.

What was the vibe at this year’s fest?

Given the ongoing strikes of actors and writers, red carpets and pre-screening introductions were far less star-studded than in other years. My concern was that this — and the fact that very few of the award season’s most highly anticipated films had elected to premiere at TIFF — could really depress attendance. That, in turn, might...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics releases the film in select theaters on Friday, November 24, with a nationwide rollout to follow in early 2024.

The one thing you can’t accuse “They Shot the Piano Player” of is talking down to its audience. Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s animated documentary about the 1976 disappearance of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. demands your absolute attention with its encyclopedic index of talking heads, and pretty much requires you to have substantial existing knowledge of bossa nova and the South American geopolitics of the 1960s and ’70s. Woe to those who do not. The result is an aggravating missed opportunity to tell a story that absolutely needs to be told to an audience that needs to hear it.

Trueba is a legendary director in Spain. Those who don’t know him for his 1992 Academy...

Using animation as the medium for feature-length documentaries is a fairly novel development, Waltz with Bashir and Flee being notable examples of international acclaim and incredible awards-season success. They Shot The Piano Player––Spanish duo Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal’s second animated offering after the fictional Chico and Rita––is the most recent addition to this burgeoning subgenre. Not without its fictional elements either, the film sets up an elaborate frame narrative for the story it really wants to tell: Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who disappeared in Argentina circa 1976 under mysterious circumstances.

To get to that point, the filmmakers invent an American writer, Jeff Harris (Jeff Goldblum), who is contracted to write a book about the Bossa Nova music movement that originated in the 1950s in Rio de Janeiro. Partway through his research, Harris switches the subject to focus exclusively on Tenório Jr., unanimously acknowledged as the most influential pianist of his generation,...

Jazz and animation make for strong bedfellows in “They Shot the Piano Player,” a film from Spanish directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal that represents an intriguing hybrid in all sorts of ways. It’s a love letter to the bossa nova movement that peaked in the 1960s, while at the same time it’s a sobering procedural that looks into the state murder of a musician that occurred as fascistic regimes rose to power in Latin America in the ’70s. It’s a documentary, or at least more nonfiction than not, although it has a wholly concocted framing device. And above and beyond the movie’s somewhat incongruous mixture of gritty political realism and giddy music appreciation, yes, it’s completely hand-drawn.

So if you like movies that draw outside the lines, so to speak, then “They Shot the Piano Player” will be for you, even if it offers...

When Hayao Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical fantasy “The Boy and the Heron” had its international premiere Sept. 7, it wasn’t just the first animated film to open TIFF, or the master director’s first in a decade. It is also part of an unexpected resurgence of animated work at major international festivals.

“When we started doing [2017’s] ‘Loving Vincent,’ only one adult animated film every five years got any kind of recognition,” says Hugh Welchman, who directed ”Vincent” and “The Peasants,” which premiered Sept. 8 at TIFF, with wife D.K. Welchman. “Now it seems that every year one kind of breaks out.”

Their Oscar-nominated Vincent van Gogh biopic helped inspire this trend, earning $42.2 million worldwide on a $5.5 million budget. “Heron” is already continuing arthouse animation’s successful run, taking in $50.6 million since July in Japan alone. And prominent fests are increasing their support: in 2019, Cannes launched an Animation Day in partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Indie studios IFC Films and Neon are facing off with the hopes of one of their films being selected as France’s official submission to the Oscars for the international feature film prize.

Neon aims to position Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” as the best option for the country. IFC is making its case for “The Taste of Things” from French-Vietnamese filmmaker Trần Anh Hùn, who won the director prize at Cannes. Both films have eerily similar credentials as they seek to represent the Gallic state at the 95th annual Academy Awards.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

The courtroom drama “Anatomy” was announced as part of the Telluride program, where all four of its screenings were sold out, with dozens of patrons being turned away. “Taste” was not part of the festival’s initial slate announcement. It was one...

UK music artist Peter Doherty will be a special guest of the 19th Zurich Film Festival in September, accompanying the world premiere of bio-doc Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin.

The film will play in Zff’s Sounds section celebrating relationship between film and music.

“The film Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin is a twofold minor sensation. Firstly, the Zff gets to present it to the public as a world premiere,” said Zff Artistic Director Christian Jungen. “Secondly, the protagonist Peter Doherty will present the film in person.”

The bio-doc chronicles the English rock star who, after reaching the pinnacle of his career, sinks into the depths of a serious drug addiction.

The intimate portrait was shot by director and musician Katia deVidas, who followed the wild life of The Libertines frontman at close quarters for over the course of a decade and is now the artist’s wife.

A documentary about musician Pete Doherty will have its world premiere at this year’s Zurich Film Festival in the Sounds section.

Described as “an intimate film portrait of his scandalous rockstar life,” “Peter Doherty — Stranger in My Own Skin” is helmed by Doherty’s wife, Katia deVidas. Doherty will present the film in-person, and also perform live following the documentary’s screening.

“The biopic chronicles the British rockstar who, after reaching the pinnacle of his career, sinks into the depths of a serious drug addiction,” Zff artistic director Christian Jungen said in a statement. “His wife, director and musician Katia deVidas, followed the wild life of the Libertines frontman at close quarters for over 10 years. We’re looking forward to welcoming them both to Zurich.”

The Sounds section of Zff, which launched last year, showcases feature or documentary films centered on musical themes or that feature exceptional soundtracks. This...

Move over “Barbenheimer”: Spain has a new box office phenom: Javier Fesser’s “Championext” (“Campeonex”), his sequel to “Champions,” Spain’s biggest hometurf box office hit of the last seven years which sparked a Woody Harrelson U.S. remake directed by Bobby Farrelly.

Produced by Luis Mansó for Películas Pendleton and Alvaro Longoria for Morena Films, “Championext” is released in Spain by Universal Pictures Intl (Upi), and sold internationally by Latido Films.

It opened Aug. 18 for a first weekend €1.72 million ($1.89 million) which bested both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” as well as “Meg 2: The Trench,” Spain’s No. 1 for the last two weeks.

“Championext’s” first weekend frame is the biggest among Spanish films since Santiago Segura’s “Father There is Only One 3” in July 2022.

Scoring a muscular €823,399 on Wednesday, spectators’ day in Spain when ticket prices drop at cinema theaters, “Championext” grossed a robust €3.94 million ($4.31 million) through and including Friday,...

Aussie filmmaker Kitty Green’s latest pic, The Royal Hotel, starring Julia Garner, and Fingernails, the latest film from Christos Nikou, with Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley, have been added to San Sebastian’s competition lineup.

Overall, six films have been announced as late additions to proceedings in San Seb. The other titles are Kalak (Isabella Eklöf), The Successor (Xavier Legrand), Great Absence (Kei Chika-Ura), and the debut from Tzu-Hui Peng and Ping-Wen Wang, A Journey in Spring. Additionally, the French pic A Real Job, directed by Thomas Lilti, will play the fest’s special screenings section.

The Royal Hotel is Kitty Green’s first feature since her 2019 breakout, The Assistant. The film tells the tale of two backpackers (Garner and Jessica Henwick) who take a job in a pub in the remote Australian Outback. Neon has acquired North American rights to the film. Following his debut Apples, which played Telluride,...

“Dance First,” a portrait of Irish writer Samuel Beckett starring Gabriel Byrne and directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, will close this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, playing out of competition.

The closing film screening, on Sept. 30, will mark the film’s world premiere.

Byrne, a memorable lead in “The Usual Suspects” and “Miller’s Crossing” who also won a Golden Globe for his performance in “In Treatment,” plays Beckett. The Nobel Prize-winning playwright was a Parisian bon vivant and WWII resistance fighter who became a recluse, living the last years of his life in a single room in a nursing home, ashamed of past actions and convinced that for much of his life he had been a failure.

U.K. director Marsh won an Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2009 with “Man on Wire.” He also directed the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything,” which earned five nominations at the 2015 Oscars,...

Living legend Hayao Miyazaki’s animated fantasy epic “The Boy and the Heron,” the latest from Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli, will open the 71st San Sebastian Festival, screening on Sept. 22.

Bowing San Sebastian, Miyazaki’s film, which he has declared to be his last, will score an extraordinary double of opening both the Toronto and San Sebastian festivals in the space of a couple of weeks.

The San Sebastian screening will mark the film’s European premiere. The Toronto-San Sebastian double is a mark of the huge regard in which Miyazaki is held and an upgrade in the importance of animation at San Sebastian.

This is the fourth time that a film by the Japanese moviemaker will screen at the San Sebastian Festival, but it is the first time he will participate in its Official Selection, the festival noted on Thursday.

Miyazaki was previously at San Sebastian’s...

Auteurs Agnieszka Holland, Wim Wenders, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Aki Kaurismaki are among the filmmakers featured in the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Centrepiece program.

The strand, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema, which honors and celebrates global cinematic achievements, features 47 titles from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

TIFF has also revealed the additional lineup of galas, special presentations and documentaries, which feature star wattage from around the world including Tommy Lee Jones and Anil Kapoor.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece program, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF chief programming officer. “The rebranding of the TIFF program, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.

The programme comprises 47 films from 45 countries.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the line-up for its Centrepiece programme, with 47 titles screening from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

Included in the programme (previously known as Contemporary World Cinema) are Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, getting its North American premiere; Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, receiving its Canadian premiere; and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a North American premiere.

Scroll down for the full list of Centrepiece titles

TIFF also announced additional titles for its Galas, Special Presentations and Documentaries programmes, among them the world premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Finestkind.

Oscar winner Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”), “The Secret Life of Words” director Isabel Coixet and “Veneno” writer-director-producers Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo feature among talent behind Spanish titles at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.

Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s main competition with “Un Amor,” a probing village-set tale of emotional dependence starring Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) and “Money Heist’s” Hovik Keuchkerian.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will present as a special screening animated feature “They Shot the Piano Player,” a joyful and finally devastating portrait of the life and fate of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. narrated by Jeff Goldblum.

Ambrossi and Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – will world premiere “La Mesías,” the most awaited Spanish series of the year, a big-scale, period-hopping Movistar Plus+ original, chronicling the devastating effect of a childhood education,...