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“Murder in a Small Town” is part romance, part crime procedural and all kinds of small-town cozy in between. Starring Kristin Kreuk (“Smallville”) and Rossif Sutherland (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), the new Fox drama transports viewers to the quiet coastal Canadian town of Gibsons and feels like the TV-ification of the “cozy mystery” trend that’s been so popular in online book communities in recent years.

Indeed, the series is inspired by the Karl Alberg book series by L.R. Wright, following the former big-city officer (Sutherland) to his new small-town home where he takes on the role of police chief in the idyllic town. But the would-be paradise has secrets, mysteries and murders of its own that challenge his skills as an investigator, and all the while, he’s sparking up a new romance with the local librarian, Cassandra Lee (Kreuk).

“Murder in a Small Town” also stars Mya Lowe (“Yellowjackets...

The third feature film from Bretten Hannam, writer/director of the 2015 crime thriller North Mountain and the 2021 teen drama Wildhood, is currently filming in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that the project is a supernatural thriller called Place of Ghosts. Forrest Goodluck, whose credits include The Revenant, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, and Lawmen: Bass Reeves has a lead role alongside Blake Alec Miranda (To and From), his Pet Sematary: Bloodlines co-star Glen Gould, and Brandon Oakes (Diggstown).

Place of Ghosts centers on siblings Mise’l and Antle, close confidants as children who have drifted apart as adults. When a malevolent, rotting spirit of teeth and bones begins tormenting them, the siblings are forced to reunite and journey into Skite’kmujuekati’k, or the Place of Ghosts primordial forest that exists outside of time, to face their violent upbringing.

Hannam, who is a Two-Spirit L’nu filmmaker,...

The Revenant star Forrest Goodluck, Blake Alec Miranda, Glen Gould and Brandon Oakes have nabbed lead roles in Bretten Hannam’s supernatural thriller Place of Ghosts, now shooting in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Goodluck played Hawk, the son of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hugh Glass in The Revenant. Hannam’s third feature film follows siblings Mise’l and Antle, close confidants as children who have drifted apart as adults.

When a malevolent, rotting spirit of teeth and bones begins tormenting them, the siblings are forced to reunite and journey into Skite’kmujuekati’k, or the Place of Ghosts primordial forest that exists outside of time, to face their violent upbringing.

“As Mise’l and Antle descend into the darkness of the forest, the emotions and the core of the story cut a visceral path through things left unsaid, leading to a different way of understanding each other, before doing battle with the...

Exclusive: Lionsgate has commenced production on The Long Walk, its adaptation of the 1979 novel from Stephen King, starring Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson, adding seven to the cast.

The newcomers are Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon), Tut Nyuot (The Witcher: Blood Origin), Charlie Plummer (National Anthem), Ben Wang (American Born Chinese), Jordan Gonzalez (Pretty Little Liars: Summer School), Joshua Odjick (Welcome to Derry), and Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit). Details as to their roles are under wraps.

Originally published under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk focuses on a dystopian America that is entertained by the Long Walk — a competition in which 50 teenage boys walk without rest. Each competitor must keep walking faster than three miles per hour — or risk being eliminated.

Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) is directing from a script by Jt Mollner. Lawrence is also producing the project through his company about:blank,...

Magnify has acquired global and U.S. sales rights (excluding Canada and Benelux) to “Wildhood” director Bretten Hannam’s supernatural thriller “Place of Ghosts,” which is set to go into production in August 2024.

Lorna Lee Torres, Magnify’s senior VP of sales, and Austin Kennedy, director of global sales, will be launching the project in Cannes.

In the film, estranged siblings Mise’l and Antle are forced to reunite after being visited by a vengeful spirit. They venture into the “Place of Ghosts,” a primeval forest of the Mi’kmaq people where time and memory blend together. As they journey deeper into the forest, the dark spirit continues to grow, manifesting in terrifying forms that the siblings must confront.

“Bretten Hannam has crafted an ambitious and thematically rich indigenous horror/fantasy that engages with political and social history and adds to the expanding world of original genre film,” Torres said.

Fox is rounding out the cast of its international drama series “Murder in a Small Town.”

James Cromwell, Stana Katic, Mya Lowe, Savonna Spracklin, Aaron Douglas, and Fritzy-Klevans Destine have all joined the series. Cromwell and Katic will appear in guest star roles, while the other four will be recurring guest stars.

Full character descriptions can be found below.

The new cast members joins previously announced series leads Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk in the show, which is based on the nine-book Karl Alberg novel series by L.R. Wright. The show, to which Fox has acquired the U.S. rights, is slated to premiere during the 2024-2025 broadcast season and will be shot in British Columbia. It marks Fox’s first scripted series co-produced with an international studio.

Per the official description, the show follows Karl Alberg (Sutherland), “who moves to a quiet Pacific Northwest coastal town to soothe a...

June is National Indigenous History Month, and there’s no better time to enjoy some Indigenous-made entertainment.

Check out these recommendations of some of the top movies from a new generation of Indigenous filmmakers and actors who tell their own stories — their way.

Read More: Et Canada Honours National Day Of Truth And Reconciliation With ‘Indigenous Artists & Icons’

“Atanarjuat the Fast Runner”

Directed by by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, this 2001 drama was the first feature film in history to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language.

According to Kunuk, this screen adaptation of an ancient Inuit legend “demystifies the exotic, otherwordly aboriginal stereotype by telling a universal story.”

“Before Tomorrow”

Adapted from a Danish novel, this 2008 feature from directors Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu is the first feature film to be made by Arnait Video Productions, a women’s Inuit film collective.

Set in a small Inuit...

A simple listing, duplicated from the dvd/blu/vod UK and Ireland page, of new releases and other stuff currently available, for the benefit of those playing along by RSS or keeping up via the Weekly Digest emails (sign up here).

The most up-to-date version of this listing is always here.

new from Aug 29–Sep 02

Benedetta (DVD/VOD/Mubi) Alice DC League of Super-Pets (premium VOD) Lightyear (DVD/premium VOD/Disney+)

I’m planning to watch…

Explorer Joy Ride (premium VOD) The Railway Children Return (premium VOD) Wildhood

(films on regular VOD and/or DVD unless otherwise noted)

Stop endlessly scrolling Netflix, Amazon, and other VOD services! Get the Weekend Watchlist newsletter in your in-box every Friday with the best new films and hidden gems to stream. Only for paid Patreon and Substack subscribers.

recent releases

Ali & Ava (Netflix/VOD) The Audition The Bad Guys The Batman Belfast The Burning Sea...

’The Forgiven’ and ‘Fall’ are also out this weekend.

After last weekend’s UK-Ireland box office results proved rather muted – no film reached the £1m mark for the first time since December 2020 – exhibitors and distributors will be anticipating a boost from this Saturday’s National Cinema Day (September 3), in which 560 venues across the UK will be offering tickets at just £3, for all screenings.

This weekend’s widest release comes from Entertainment Film Distributors’ Three Thousand Years Of Longing, playing in 545 cinemas. The Cannes 2022 premiere unites Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba and is George Miller’s first feature since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

A version of this review of “Clara Solo” first ran when the film premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

A quiet character study that somewhere along the line morphs into a Costa Rican version of “Carrie,” “Clara Sola” mixes religion, mysticism and sexuality in a way that feels simultaneously odd, disquieting and richly rewarding. It starts out beautifully restrained and ends up somewhere else entirely, but it’s all the more interesting for its split personality.

“Clara Solo” is the first feature from Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, and also the feature debut of film’s star, Wendy Chinchilla. She’s a Costa Rican dancer with no experience in film but a powerful presence that speaks volumes through stillness.

Chinchilla plays Clara, a 40-year-old woman with a spinal condition that keeps her in pain. She spends her life, it seems, communing with her horse, Yuca, and bowing to the demands of her mother,...

Stars: Tasiana Shirley, Alexis Vincent-Wolfe, Chelsea Prusky, Nalajoss Ellsworth, Frankie Vincent-Wolfe, Shaun Benson, Kristian Bruun | Written by Nyla Innuksuk, Ryan Cavan | Directed by Nyla Innuksuk

Shot in and around the remote fishing village of Pangnirtung near the arctic circle, Nyla Innuksuk’s debut feature Slash/Back opens with a researcher taking permafrost samples discovering a smoking hole in the tundra. His research into it is cut short when a tentacle reaches out and attacks him. Stuck in a town so small and remote that even Walmart won’t open a store there, the girls “borrow” a boat and cruise out to a remote cabin to hang out. But when a strange-looking polar bear attacks Aju things take a turn for the worse.

It might not be The Thing, but body-jumping aliens are back in the frozen north. And it’s up to a group of Indigenous girls, Maika (Tasiana Shirley...

June marks Pride Month, and the history and achievements of LGBTQ communities will be celebrated across the TV landscape with series and specials, including live streaming coverage of Pride parades in Los Angeles and New York.

In addition to a slew of new content tied to Pride month, older titles centered on queer people and characters will become newly available in June. For one, after being out of the streaming world for about six months, all six seasons of “Glee” will debut on Hulu and Disney+ on June 1. Also going to Hulu are Season 1 and 2 of the Starz drama “Vida” on June 7 and the coming-of-age romance film “Wildhood” on June 24. Along with Hulu’s new Pride Month content, these additions will be housed on the platform’s Pride Never Stops hub, first launched in 2019.

Hulu is also offering live streaming coverage of the Los Angeles Pride Parade on June 12 and...

Outfest has announced the lineup for its 2022 Outfest Fusion Qtbipoc Film Festival.

The Los Angeles-based festival will screen seven features, three episodic titles and 52 short films this year, which marks the 40th anniversary for Outfest and the 19th year of Outfest Fusion, founded in 2004 to spotlight queer and trans filmmakers of color. The seven feature titles are Micheal Rice’s “Black as U R,” Horacio Alcala’s “Finlandia,” William T. Horner and Stacey Woelfel’s “Keep the Cameras Rolling: The Pedro Zamora Way,” Marianne Amelinckx’s “Mustache Mondays (Artbound),” Émerson Maranhão’s “Transversals,” Quentin Lee’s “White Frog” and Bretten Hannam’s “Wildhood.”

“As we find ourselves back in a moment where our rights as Lgbtqia+ people are being taken away and our very existence silenced, we know these moves have a greater impact on Lgbtqia+ communities of color,” Outfest executive director Damien S. Navarro said in a statement. “We...

The inaugural season of CBC and HBO Max series “Sort Of” leads both the television and overall 2022 Canadian Screen Award nominations with 13 nods. CBC’s “Pretty Hard Cases” and CTV Sci-Fi Channel’s “Wynonna Earp” with 11 each, and CBC’s “Coroner” and “Kim’s Convenience” with 10 each are the other leading television nominees.

The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television revealed on Tuesday 145 nominations across television, film and digital media categories. In film, Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s “Scarborough” and Danis Goulet’s “Night Raiders” top the nominations with 11 each, while Michael McGowan’s “All My Puny Sorrows” has eight and Bretten Hannam’s “Wildhood” and Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” six each.

“21 Black Futures” and “For the Record” lead the digital media nominations with eight each, followed by “The Communist’s Daughter” with six.

Beth Janson, CEO, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, said: “We are so fortunate to...

Films Boutique (“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”) has acquired international sales rights to Vincent Kelner’s cinematic documentary feature “A Taste of Whale” ahead of the European Film Market.

“A Taste of Whale” is produced by Rémi Grellety, the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning producer of Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” and HBO’s “Exterminate All The Brutes.”

The film looks at the centuries-old tradition of whale hunting in the Faroe Islands. Every year, nearly 1,000 pilot whales are hunted, beached and killed by knife in the fjords. This local whaling tradition, which is known locally as “grind,” dates back to the eighth century and has been denounced by international activists. On the other end, Faroese people are calling out the hypocrisy of those who eat meat without looking at what is happening in slaughterhouses.

Kelner, an experienced journalist and cinematographer who has worked on several TV productions in France and abroad,...

Mexico’s Oscar-shortlisted Prayers For the Stolen directed by Tatiana Huezo won the Fipresci Prize for Best International Feature Film at the Palm Springs Film Festival, which revealed its juried winners Wednesday despite being forced to cancel its 2022 edition.

The festival, which had been scheduled to run January 6-17 before being scrapped amid the latest Covid surge, is considered a must-stop for International Feature Oscar contenders, with 36 of the 93 official submissions this year slated for the lineup.

The Fipresci jury also awarded Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian Oscar hopeful A Hero two prizes, for Farhadi’s screenplay and best actor for Amir Jadidi. It won three prizes overall, also taking a Mozaik Bridging the Borders Award.

Agathe Roussell, the star of France’s Palme d’Or winner Titane, was named best actress by Fipresci jurors.

Huezo’s Prayers for the Stolen, which was released by Netflix in theaters and on the streaming platform in November,...

In North Mountain, Bretten Hannam’s debut feature, the director shakily refashioned the thriller genre by casting two-spirit Indigenous people in roles traditionally reserved for white men. The exciting, and at times clumsy, attempt at subversion put Hannam on the radar. Now, with Wildhood, which is adapted from Hannam’s 2019 short Wildfire and premiered at TIFF, the director (who uses gender-neutral pronouns) proves themselves a promising voice.

Wildhood combines the foundation of heartrending coming-of-age narratives with the feel-good elements of road trip flicks to create a delicate, not to mention visually appealing, sophomore film. Link (Phillip Lewitski), a two-spirit Mi’kmaw teenager, lives with his abusive ...

In North Mountain, Bretten Hannam’s debut feature, the director shakily refashioned the thriller genre by casting two-spirit Indigenous people in roles traditionally reserved for white men. The exciting, and at times clumsy, attempt at subversion put Hannam on the radar. Now, with Wildhood, which is adapted from Hannam’s 2019 short Wildfire and premiered at TIFF, the director (who uses gender-neutral pronouns) proves themselves a promising voice.

Wildhood combines the foundation of heartrending coming-of-age narratives with the feel-good elements of road trip flicks to create a delicate, not to mention visually appealing, sophomore film. Link (Phillip Lewitski), a two-spirit Mi’kmaw teenager, lives with his abusive ...

Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has acquired Bretten Hannam’s drama “Wildhood,” which world premieres in the Discovery section of Toronto Film Festival. The Canadian film stars Philip Lewitski, Joshua Odjick and Avery Winters-Anthony.

Gabor Greiner, COO of Films Boutique, said: “ ‘Wildhood’ is an amazing film for many reasons — besides coming from a Mi’kmaw director it is a queer/Two-Spirited Indigenous film introducing two very talented young First Nations actors. The film strikes not only through its beautiful cinematography and wild locations but with its attaching and emotional story of friendship, love and belonging – and an incredible soundtrack and pow wow dance.”

In the film, when Link discovers his Mi’kmaw mother is still alive, he runs away from home with his younger brother Travis, in a desperate gamble to start a new life. They’re soon joined by Pasmay, a pow wow dancer drawn to Link’s story.