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Three prominent members of the filmmaking community are joining the board of directors of the nonprofit International Documentary Association.

The trio includes Bob Berney, CEO of Picturehouse, the marketing and distribution company founded in 2005; Paula Ossandón Cabrera, director of Chiledoc, an organization that “promotes Chilean talents, their films and series worldwide”; and Oscar-shortlisted producer Toni Kamau, founder of Kenya-based production company We Are Not the Machine.

They join an IDA board led by co-presidents Ina Fichman and Michael A. Turner, treasurer Chris Albert, treasurer Maria Agui Carter, and members Orwa Nyrabia, Alfred Clinton Perry, Amir Shahkhalili, Chris Pérez, Grace Lee, and Marcia Smith.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bob, Paula, and Toni to the IDA Board of Directors,” Fichman said in a statement. “Bob’s expertise in marketing and distribution, Paula’s work and understanding of the documentary ecosystem in Chile and South America, and Toni’s expertise in production...

Who are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer? A great film or TV score is most potent as an artform when it reinforces the emotion on screen, but it also knows when music is not needed. What strategies do you employ to get this balance right? These were some of the topics discussed by four top TV composers when they joined Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2024 awards contenders: Julia Newman (“Feud: Capote vs. the Swans”), Sherri Chung (“Based on a True Story”), David Fleming (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”) and Nami Melumad (“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”). Watch our fascinating full group roundtable panel above, and click on each name above to view each nominee’s individual interview.

See Watch our lively chats with over 300 of 2024 Emmy contenders

“I used to go to sleep when I was a...

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

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Picture

Weekly Commentary: Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer,” narrating the saga of the father of the atomic bomb, is poised to sweep the Oscars. Having clinched every major guild and industry accolade – BAFTA, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, DGA, PGA, and SAG – it’s the first...

321 films are in contention for this year’s Academy Awards, while 265 features are eligible in the best picture category, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday as it released its annual “reminder list” for members.

To be eligible in the general categories, films (meaning a runtime of more than 40 minutes) must open in a commercial theater in at least one of the following areas: Los Angeles County; the city of New York; the Bay Area; Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; and Atlanta, Georgia, between Jan. 1, 2023 and Dec. 31, 2023. Additionally, it must complete a minimum qualifying run of seven consecutive days in the same venue.

To be eligible for the best picture category specifically, the movies must be eligible for the general entry and have “submitted a confidential Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards entry form.” Additionally, the film must meet two of the four standards required, in addition to the theatrical component.

Fresh off its maiden voyage, Lamb of God’s Headbangers Boat will set sail again in 2024. The band has officially announced that a second edition of the metal cruise will feature Dethklok, Chimaira, Poison the Well, At the Gates, and several more notable acts.

The cruise will depart from Miami on October 28th and make a stop at Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, before returning to Miami on November 1st. Early signups are available now via the Headbangers Boat website, while the public onsale starts on Tuesday (November 21st) at 2 p.m. Et.

Lamb of God will once again headline the cruise, playing two sets. Additional acts include Soulfly, Exodus, Napalm Death, Corrosion of Conformity, After the Burial, Currents, Bleeding Through, Unearth, Eyehategod, Frozen Soul, UnityTX, and a solo set from Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton. Comedians Shayne Smith and Mike Abrusci will also be on board to perform standup sets.

Sadie Stanley was drawn to the script of At The Gates because of its genre-bending nature, combining psychological thriller and drama elements. Stanley's character, Lauren, experiences a significant arc throughout the movie as her perspective is expanded when she gets to know Nico and Ana. The director, Augustus Meleo Bernstein, encouraged a collaborative and free environment on set, allowing the actors to play and improvise.

At The Gates follows Ana, a housekeeper from El Salvador, and her son Nico. While cleaning the house of a wealthy Los Angeles family, Immigration Enforcement officers come to their employer's front gate searching for them. The family decides to hide Nico and Ana in the basement in the hopes that the agents will not return or be unable to find them if they do. However, as the days pass, tensions rise, and Nico begins to suspect the family has more nefarious motives.

Augustus Meleo...

At The Gates is a suspenseful movie that draws inspiration from immigration raids and the story of Anne Frank, creating a tense and mysterious atmosphere. The director, Augustus Meleo Bernstein, wanted to incorporate horror film elements to capture the real fear experienced by the characters, making the story even scarier. The protagonist, Nico, is quick to distrust the family hiding them due to his past experiences, always prioritizing the safety of himself and his mother.

Ana and Nico are at the center of a terrifying conspiracy in At The Gates. When Immigration Enforcement agents come to the house of their employers, an affluent Los Angeles family, they are offered a place to hide in their basement. As days pass and tensions rise, Nico begins to wonder about this family's motivation and what the true danger to him and his mother may be.

At The Gates is the directorial debut of Augustus Meleo Bernstein,...

A24’s Priscilla by Sofia Coppola catapults from four screens to 1,300, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers from Focus Features expands to 60 from six and two new indies have wide debuts — What Happens Later from Bleecker Street, directed by and starring Meg Ryan, opens at 1,400 locations and Daisy Ridley-starring The Marsh King’s Daughter from Roadside Attractions at over 1,000.

What Happens Later moved here from its original Oct. 16 perch, avoiding The Eras Tour opening crush. The rom-com debut of Meg Ryan after a long hiatus co-stars David Duchovny. Based on the play Shooting Star by Steven Dietz, the pic follows a chance encounter between two ex-lovers, Willa and Bill, who are snowed in at a regional airport and indefinitely delayed. See Deadline review.

The Marsh King’s Daughter stars Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn in an adaptation of a bestselling 2017 thriller by Karen Dionne,...

A fitfully taut but fatally underwritten thriller about an affluent white family and the undocumented El Salvadorian housekeepers they decide to shelter — or imprison? — in their dungeon-like basement for days on end as Ice raids sweep through Los Angeles, Augustus Meleo Bernstein’s “At the Gates” seems determined to offer a claustrophobic American twist on “Parasite.” Absent the opulent style and satirical fury that made Bong Joon Ho’s film such a cross-cultural watershed, however, this similarly genre-inflected caricature of socioeconomic inequality turns instead to the looming specter of deportation — and the Holocaust allusions built into its premise — to embellish a story that unfolds across our country on a regular basis.

While that trade-off proves understandable given the stakes at play here, it’s not a trade-off this half-baked exercise in single-location suspense can afford to make. “At the Gates” convincingly argues that self-involved U.S. citizens are blind or...

In the movie At The Gates, Ana and her son are forced to hide from Immigration Enforcement, and a wealthy couple offers to hide them in their basement. The tension between the two families builds as they grow suspicious of each other's motivations. Actors Noah Wyle and Ezekiel Pacheco discuss their connection to the script and the director's collaborative directing style in an interview with Screen Rant.

In At The Gates, Ana and her son Nico are forced to hide from Immigration Enforcement. When the officers come to the house of their employer, a wealthy family in Los Angeles, they are terrified and unsure of what to do. However, the affluent couple, Miranda and Peter, offer to hide them in their basement in the hopes that they won't be found. As the days go by, these two families begin to grow suspicious of one another, questioning each other's motivation.

At The Gates...

At the Gates is a thriller that is out now – that is enriched by its social commentary. It also marks the breakthrough role for Ezekiel Pacheco, who we interviewed, alongside his co-star, the more experienced actress Sadie Stanley.

Stanley speaks about having Miranda Otto as her on-screen mother, while Pacheco speaks incredibly highly of filmmaker Augustus Meleo Bernstein, who he feels is heading right from the top – a place he also believes he’ll get to himself. After this performance, you wouldn’t exactly bet against it. Be sure to watch both interviews below, in their entirety.

Sadie Stanley

Ezekiel Pacheco

Synopsis

Ana (Vanessa Benavente), a housekeeper from El Salvador, brings her teenage son Nico (Ezekiel Pacheco) to help her clean an affluent family’s Los Angeles home. But after being told by her employers, Marianne (Miranda Otto) and Peter Barris (Noah Wyle), that immigration officers are searching for her,...

Writer/director Augustus Meleo Bernstein delivers a slow-burn psychological thriller with At the Gates. The film explores the human side of today’s hot social issues, such as immigration enforcement, and the role of undocumented workers in America’s economy. The story finds a Salvadoran housekeeper and her teenage son suddenly questioning whether they are being protected or imprisoned after a wealthy couple allows them to hide from persistent immigration officers in their basement.

The film offers a solid cast, featuring Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle (ER), Sadie Stanley (Cruel Summer), and exceptional turns by Vanessa Benavente and Ezekiel Pacheco. In advance of the film’s opening, filmmaker Bernstein and stars Otto, Stanley, and Benavente shared more with MovieWeb about the film, its deeper themes, and the timeliness of the tale. Dive in.

The Genesis of the Film

What begins as an average workday for Salvadoran housekeeper Ana (Vanessa Benavente), turns into a mind-bending odyssey.

At The Gates is an entertaining and timely thriller that blends the hot button topic of illegal immigration and undocumented workers into a universal story of fear, paranoia, and the perilous state of our own humanity. That it succeeds to the degree it does is the fact that first time feature writer/director Augustus Meleo Bernstein keeps us guessing as to the intentions and the ultimate fate of its tight circle of main characters. Essentially this is a chamber piece all set in one attractive Los Angeles area suburb’s home and the class drama taking place inside that seems ripped from headlines of individual tragic stories of illegal immigrants who have to worry at any given moment when Ice is going to show up at their doorstep, or in the case of At The Gates, at the doorstep of their employers.

Ana (Vanessa Benavente) is a Salvadoran undocumented immigrant...

Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn and Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction took home the top prizes in the inaugural Audience Awards at the 2023 Scad Savannah Film Festival.

The Savannah College of Art and Design (Scad) announced Tuesday the audience winners, which were selected by festival attendees, alongside the juried winners of the festival’s 26th annual iteration.

Oscar-winning Fennell’s Saltburn was the top pick, with the filmmaker appearing in-person to receive the Spotlight Director Award in front of a sold-out screening. American Fiction, the directorial debut of writer and producer Cord Jefferson, was the year’s runner-up and also appeared during the nearly two-week-long event, where he was honored with the Breakthrough Director Award.

A total of 19 awards were announced last Thursday from the 99 films chosen to compete as part of the 2023 festival. There were over 2,100 submissions across competition categories, including Narrative Features, Documentary Features, Professional Shorts, Animated Shorts, Documentary Shorts,...

The life of many an undocumented domestic worker is marked by fear. The threat of deportation may feel remote at times, but it hovers over them nonetheless — and structures their experience in ways both big and small. Exploiting such paranoia, Augustus Meleo Bernstein’s provocative if listless “At the Gates” creates a scenario where a housekeeper and her teenage son must trust her employers when Ice agents (or so they’re told) arrive in search of them both. Aiming to be a tense drama about trust, the film struggles to balance the personal and cultural stakes at the heart of its neat conceit.

When Ana arrives at her employer’s lavish home with her son Nico (Ezekiel Pacheco) in tow, she expects that day to be like many before. She’s worked for Marianne (Miranda Otto) and Peter Barris (Noah Wyle) for months now and takes pride in what she does.

Gkids has released the new English language trailer for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.” Both the original Japanese and English language versions premiere in nationwide theaters on Dec. 8, following special preview engagements in New York and Los Angeles beginning on Nov. 22.

The trailer features a first look at vocal performances from Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh. The English-language dub was made in alignment with the SAG-AFTRA Foreign Dubbing Agreement.

The animated feature from Studio Ghibli was written and directed by Miyazaki, produced by Toshio Suzuki and features a musical score from Joe Hisaishi, a longtime collaborator of Miyazaki. Kenshi Yonezu wrote and performed the film’s theme song “Spinning Globe.” Miyazaki and Suzuki were co-founders of Studio Ghibli.

“The Boy and the Heron” first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7.

See the full trailer below.

"I've given a lot to this country but sometimes I feel like I've failed." Picturehouse has revealed an official trailer for an indie immigrants thriller from the US titled At the Gates, marking the feature directorial debut of up-and-coming filmmaker Augustus Meleo Bernstein. This first premiered last year at the 2022 Deauville Film Festival in France, and is opening in US cinemas this fall if anyone is interested in watching. At The Gates is a movie about A Salvadoran housekeeper and her teenage son begin to question whether they’re being protected or imprisoned after an affluent couple offers to hide them from immigration officers in their basement. As days go by under the same roof in this sprawling home, each family begins to question the other’s true intentions in this riveting and emotional thriller. Starring Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle, Ezekiel Pacheco, Vanessa Benavente, and Sadie Stanley. Reviews say it's...

As scary as the violent thrills of Halloween season can be, the harrowing reality of man-made horrors are on another dimension. It is one such horror — specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or Ice) — that haunts the characters in At the Gates, a new thriller starring Noah Wyle hitting theaters this November. Ahead of the release, Collider is excited to share today an exclusive sneak peek at the film, which shows the cast facing their terrifying new reality.

At the Gates is a thrilling debut film by Augustus Meleo Bernstein, starring Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle, and Ezekiel Pacheco. The movie follows a housekeeper and her son hiding in their employers' home after immigration officers show up unannounced. With tension and suspicions rising, the film explores the dark secrets hidden within the affluent family's house.

At the Gates is a new thriller from Augustus Meleo Bernstein. It is Bernstein’s feature film directorial debut, and stars Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle (Falling Skies), Ezekiel Pacheco (On My Block), Vanessa Benavente (The Chosen), and Sadie Stanley. The movie is making its way to theaters after an impressive run on the festival circuit; it won Best U.S. Narrative at the New York Latino Film Festival.

The film tells the story of a housekeeper and her son who go into hiding at the house of her affluent employers after immigration officers arrive unannounced.

"At the Gates" is a new live-action thriller feature, written and directed by Augustus Meleo Bernstein, following a Salvadoran housekeeper and her teenage son who wonder whether they’re being protected or imprisoned after an affluent couple offers to hide them from immigration officers, releasing November 3, 2023 in theaters:

"...'Ana' (Vanessa Benavente), a housekeeper from El Salvador, brings her teenage son 'Nico' (Ezekiel Pacheco) to help her clean an affluent family’s Los Angeles home. But after someone rings the front gate, her employers, 'Marianne' (Miranda Otto) and 'Peter Barris' (Noah Wyle), inform them that immigration officers are searching for them and convince the pair to hide in a basement closet, demanding they hand over their cell phones as a safety precaution. As days go by under the same roof, each family begins to question the other’s true intentions..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Augustus Meleo Bernstein’s new movie At the Gates is getting a November 3 theatrical release date in New York and Los Angeles from Picturehouse.

The Beacon Pictures and Five Towers production stars Miranda Otto, Noah Wyle, Ezekiel Pacheco, Vanessa Benavente and Sadie Anne Stanley. Bernstein wrote and directed in his feature debut.

In the movie, Ana (Benavente), a housekeeper from El Salvador, brings her teenage son Nico (Pacheco) to help her clean an affluent family’s Los Angeles home. But after being told by her employers Marianne (Otto) and Peter Barris (Wyle) that immigration officers are searching for her, she accepts the invitation to shelter in their house until the crisis blows over. As days go by and the interactions between the two families become increasingly tense, Nico begins to question their hosts’ true intentions.

The pic’s theatrical rollout follows several festival stops including New York Latino Film Festival,...