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Updated with the latest: Saturday Night Live has announced the its host and musical guest duos for the December lineup. Gladiator II star Paul Mescal will take on the monologue and more Dec. 7 with musical guest Shaboozey. The following two shows will include pairings with hosts who are SNL alums. Chris Rock will host Dec. 14 with musical guest Gracie Abrams, and Martin Short will host Dec. 21 with musical guest Hozier.

With Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night arriving in October, the show’s beginnings became memorialized in another way. New cast members have been added ahead of SNL Season 50, and some have been updated to regulars.

Read on for everything we know about SNL Season 50.

When does SNL Season 50 start?

Season 50 premieres Sept. 28.

Who hosted the first episode of SNL Season 50?

Fresh off of her Emmy win for Hacks, Jean Smart will host the first episode of the landmark season on Sept.

With new films added daily and a handpicked collection, Mubi is perfect for viewers who want a deeper connection to cinema.

About a month ago I stumbled on a movie store (remember those) just down the street from my house that rents Blu-rays and DVDs. It was like walking into the past in the best possible way. The walls are littered with thousands of carefully curated indie film titles categorized first by genre or country, and then by director or actor. I spent half an hour just bouncing from wall to wall, checking out the titles. The store was even complete with a knowledgeable film buff behind the counter to help me out. If you miss that experience, I have a streamer for you: Mubi – the best streamer for independent film and arthouse movie enthusiasts. Here’s why…

7-Day Free Trial $14.99+ / month via amazon.com Everything you need to know about Mubi

What is Mubi?...

Paul Schrader is the latest “Joker: Folie à Deux” critic.

The auteur seemingly couldn’t find any semblance of his “Taxi Driver” or Martin Scorsese’s “King of Comedy” in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” despite director Todd Phillips saying both inspired the Oscar-winning first film, 2019’s “Joker.” Frequent Schrader collaborator Scorsese also executive produced “Joker” but did not return for the sequel.

Schrader told Interview magazine, while in discussion with Jeremy O. Harris, that he couldn’t even sit in the theater for “Folie à Deux” past a (non-consecutive) 25 minutes.

“I see who’s coming up. I go to the multiplex,” Schrader said of his pastimes when not writing and directing. “I saw ‘Joker: Folie à Deux.’ I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it. I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough.”

He added that “Folie à Deux” is a “really bad musical.”

In fact, Schrader...

My First Film is now showing exclusively on Mubi. For more on Anger's film, go behind the scenes with an exclusive featurette. My First Film.Between 2010 and 2012, Zia Anger directed a feature film titled Always All Ways, Anne Marie in her hometown of Ithaca, New York. She cast her friend Deana LeBlanc as a surrogate for herself, and her actual father as the father. The semi-fantastical, semi-autobiographical film had a beleaguered production—rife with Adderall, an unwanted pregnancy, near-fatal accidents, and imploding friendships. It was never screened or distributed, but Anger has long bore its scars. Anger’s work has always been sharply self-critical and self-reflexive, and you can see commentary on the industry-perceived “failure” of making Always All Ways seep into her subsequent films, such as her polemical 2015 short My Last Film, which envisions a career-suicide note delivered via the film festival submission website Withoutabox. In 2018, frustrated by...

Exclusive: This is quite the break for up-and-coming comedy performers Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline who will get to join NBC’s venerable late-night sketch program Saturday Night Live for its milestone 50th season that will be marked by celebrations, reunions and high profile guests.

The trio will be the three featured players on the show next season. Chloe Troast who was brought in as a featured player last season, is leaving. Meanwhile, after two years as featured players, Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker are being promoted to the main cast.

The majority of SNL performers, including all longtime veterans, will be back for Season 50, which premieres Sept 28, with alumna Maya Rudolph returning to reprise her Kamala Harris impersonation through the Presidential election. In addition to Troast, departing the show are Punkie Johnson after four seasons and Molly Kearney after two.

(L-r): Marcello Hernandez, Michael...

If you’ve already dived into our massive fall movie preview, then you have a strong sense of what to have on your radar over the next four months. Now let’s examine September a little closer, already including a few new additions since our fall preview went up. Of course, from Venice to TIFF to NYFF, much of the month will be dedicated to our festival coverage, which you can follow here.

12. The Featherweight (Robert Kolodny; Sept. 20)

With the never-ending glut of biopics, particularly those centered in the world of sports, it can often feel like there’s not much new territory to cover. While Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw recently showed how a singular vision can elevate the genre, another film taking place partially inside the ring breathes new life. Robert Kolodny, who worked on the cinematography team of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Procession,...

Filmmaker Zia Anger takes an innovative approach to exploring her artistic journey in the new movie “My First Film.” Rather than telling a straightforward narrative, the film blends behind-the-scenes footage, fictional scenes, and commentary to examine Anger’s experience making her debut feature over a decade ago. Starring Odessa Young as a character named Vita who represents Anger, the movie follows Vita’s struggles completing her movie amid personal and work challenges.

At its core, the film focuses on Anger’s unsuccessful first movie from long ago. That project never found success on the festival circuit. Now, Anger looks back on that time and her emotions through “My First Film.” She combines memories with new material to chronicle the messy process of creation. Young immerses herself in the role of Vita, blurring the line between acting and channeling real feelings.

Anger wanted to create a unique tapestry showing the experience of art-making.

On a Zoom with writer/director Zia Anger and actor Odessa Young to chat their new film, “My First Film,” the lovefest that exists between the two is immediately clear.

The amount of respect and admiration between the filmmaking and star is palpable as they talk about undertaking Anger’s “My First Film,” based on her 2019 multimedia art project of the same name, which was itself about her lost film “Always All Ways, Annie Marie.” Young plays Vita, a filmmaker who looks back at making her movie — about a woman played by her friend Dina (Devon Ross) — who gets pregnant and decides to leave home. It also looks at Vita’s own history with her queer parents and extraordinary conception story, as she was raised by two mothers and a gay father, who brought over his sperm during a blizzard for Anger’s mothers to use to conceive her. “My First Film,...

Zia Anger’s name has not broken into the mainstream; it’s instead been a kind of totem for underground film artistry, to whatever extent that even exists anymore. Her presentation-based My First Film earned traction as the ultimate vision / confession of artistic failure and regret, making somewhat peculiar the existence of My First Film, a feature debut-of-sorts that details her younger self’s failure to launch a filmmaking career. Or someone like her: the lead character is Vita, a shortsighted and temperamental young director failing to control cast, crew, ideas, or impulses; but present in the film, too, is Zia, who reflects on this difficult time in the character’s (her?) life.

Fear not any risk of complication. Conceptually fluid and nimbly assembled, My First Film makes legible––dare I say universal?––thwarted dreams and personal embarrassment vis-à-vis its interplay of Anger’s actual work and Vita’s staged endeavors.

A self-reflexive origin story about creation, growth, and the myth of the lone artist, “My First Film” announces a bold, disruptive new talent in American cinema. But if the film’s release is anything like Zia Anger’s experience in the film world thus far, it will elicit a maddening whimper where it should have made a bang.

That’s because Anger, who writes and directs with fierce emotion and sincerity, has had terrible luck (if you want to call it that) on the film scene. Despite directing evocative music videos for artists like Mitski and Angel Olsen, Anger has been consistently overlooked by Hollywood, and has struggled to secure financing. Her first feature, shot on a shoestring budget with support from family and friends, was rejected from every film festival.

A caveat: even Anger looks back on that first film as “bad.” At least she implies as much in “My First Film,...

What’s the worst that could happen making a movie for the first time? In “My First Film,” Zia Anger‘s directorial debut, it’s any number of “firsts” and the fears that come with them. Oh, and an unexpected pregnancy; that’s an easy way for things to spiral out of control.

Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

Fresh off its world premiere at Cph:dox earlier this year, Anger’s debut stars Odessa Young as Vita, who sets out to make her first movie with a crew of friends, funded by crowdsourcing.

Continue reading ‘My First Film’ Trailer: Zia Anger’s Feature Debut Hits Theaters On August 30, Streams On Mubi On September 6 at The Playlist.

Zia Anger is haunted by a long-abandoned film project in her feature directorial debut “My First Film.” A filmmaker, performance artist, and celebrated director of music videos for the likes of Beach House, Angel Olsen, Mitski, and Zola Jesus, Anger fuses ideas from that unrealized project with echoes of a touring stage piece she started in 2018 for this Mubi release, out at the end of August. Odessa Young stands in for Anger as the young filmmaker Vita, who 15 years before started making a film about a young woman adrift after becoming pregnant. IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for the film below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Vita (Odessa Young) revisits her first chaotic attempt at filmmaking — a semi-autobiographical feature made 15 years prior about a young woman who decides to leave home after becoming pregnant. Blending past with present, reality with fiction, Zia Anger’s ‘debut’ film navigates the tumultuous intersection...

For the first time, every film fan’s favorite streamer and arthouse distributor Mubi is throwing a party in Chicago. Embodying Mubi’s ethos of culture, curation, and the love of cinema, Mubi Fest Chicago 2024 is set to bring a series of music-focused flicks, insightful live conversations, and happy hours to the Windy City on August 17th and 18th. The best part? You can win tickets!

Day one boasts a series of screenings that each explore the vital role music has played throughout film history. At both the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box Theatre, attendees can catch The Last Days of Disco, Nashville (4K Restoration), and the Chicago premiere of My First Film, among many other pictures. The day also features a live taping of the Mubi Podcast with special guests Thrill Jockey, the legendary Chicago-based record label, as well as a free (!!) happy hour. (Note: Each showing is ticked individually.

Now in its seventh year at the beachy southern edge of Queens, the Rockaway Film Festival has revealed its 2024 lineup, which IndieWire shares exclusively. The festival runs August 17-25, 2024 and features outdoor screenings and conversations at the Rff’s regular yearlong venue, the Arverne Cinema.

This year’s highlights include Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood’s looping, multi-screen installation “Waking Up (For the First Time),” a tribute to experimental animator Faith Hubley, with live music performances and DJ sets featuring members of indie bands Animal Collective and Mgmt.

Special events include bio-art and stop-motion animated workshops, children’s cinema, the U.S. premiere of “The Future Perfect” director Nele Wohlatz’s comedy of misunderstandings “Sleep with Your Eyes Open,” the New York premiere of Juan Palacios and Sofie Husum Johannesen’s “As the Tide Comes In,” plus the world premieres of Corey Hughes’ “Your Final Meditation” and Sam Fleischner’s “Jetty.

Art house distributor and streamer Mubi and the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland are partnering to offer a new prize at the film festival given to first-time filmmakers.

The Mubi Award — Debut Feature will be awarded to an outstanding debut feature playing in Locarno’s official program, and the award intends to celebrate “boldly distinctive visions for storytelling and the aesthetic possibilities of the medium, spotlighting the new films that will shape the future of cinema,” according to a statement from the festival.

The Locarno Film Festival is now in its 77th year and this year runs between August 7-17. The festival’s First Feature jury will award the prize, and this year the jury includes Moroccan director-producer Khalil Benkirane (Doha Film Institute), Finnish actor Alma Pöysti, who starred in Aki Kaurismäki’s film “Fallen Leaves” that Mubi released last year, and make-up designer Esmé Sciaroni, who worked on Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera.

The Hudson Film Festival, now in its second year in the quaint upstate New York town, has revealed the lineup for its 2024 edition.

IndieWire exclusively announces Hudson’s program for its second year, running August 9-11, with all-access passes now on sale. Programming includes opening night feature “The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” (Searchlight Pictures on Hulu), Sundance award-winning documentary “Daughters” (Netflix), “My First Film” (Mubi) from Zia Anger, Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary “A New Kind of Wilderness,” a 15th-anniversary free screening of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and Cannes award-winner “The Taste of Things” as an international spotlight feature.

Based on the 2013 New York Times bestselling novel, writer/director Tina Mabry’s “The Supremes At Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” stars Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan, and Emmy winner Uzo Aduba as three women whose friendship withstands the test of time through the decades dating back to the 1960s.

Cph:dox, one Europe’s leading documentary film festivals, has announced its full program, which includes no fewer than 84 world premieres out of more than 200 films being screened in the Danish capital and nationwide from March 13 through March 24.

This 21st edition, which aims to make documentary film accessible not only to a select industry few but to the public at large, will take off with a new nationwide approach, with mini festivals running simultaneously in nearly half of Denmark’s municipalities. In addition, alongside the six main awards, a new Audience Award is being revived by popular request, which comes with a €5,000 prize.

Running alongside the festival’s overarching theme of “Body Politics,” which explores questions about the body and our understanding of it, organizers have announced the other main theme of this edition: “Conflicted.”

Born from the war in Gaza, which has hit the headlines again since Oct. 7 last year,...

Mubi has revealed the first look of “Bring Them Down,” starring Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (“Catch-22”) and BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).

The casting of Abbott and Keoghan replaces the previously announced cast of Tom Burke and Paul Mescal.

Principal photography is in its final stages in Ireland on the production, which is the feature directorial debut of Chris Andrews, following his award-winning short films “Stalker” (2019) and “Fire” (2015).

The film also stars Colm Meaney (“Gangs of London”), Nora-Jane Noone (“Wildfire”) Paul Ready (“Motherland”), and Susan Lynch (“Happy Valley”).

It follows Michael (Abbott), the last son of a shepherding family who lives with his ailing father, Ray (Meaney). Burdened by a terrible secret, Michael has isolated himself from the world. When a conflict with rival farmer Gary (Ready) and his son Jack (Keoghan) escalates, Michael is drawn into a devastating chain of events, forcing...