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Focus Features’ second highest-grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, will finally land on Peacock on February 21.

That’s a 58-day theatrical window to Focus’ sister streamer, one of the longer windows for a 2024 release from the Univeral specialty division. Focus Features titles with the longest theatrical-to-svod windows were Drive-Away Dolls (60 days) and Housekeeping for Beginners (63 days).

The period Dracula movie easily became Eggers’ highest-grossing out with $95.4 million stateside and $175.9M global. For Focus, Nosferatu ranks behind 2019’s Downton Abbey ($96.8M) as its second highest-grossing at the domestic B.O. Despite the heat on Nosferatu it will likely remain Focus’ second best, still $1.4M shy of the feature take of the PBS British series. Nosferatu is arguably the highest-grossing major studio release of a Dracula movie stateside since Columbia Pictures’ 1992 Francis Ford Coppola-directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula ($82.5M domestic).

Focus is so excited over Eggers...

The first time 15-year-old Ahmet (Arif Jakup) smiles broadly on-screen lives up to the cliché that someone’s infectious grin can light up a room. Amid the bright colors of an Edm festival happening in the middle of the forest, the teen with wistful eyes surrenders to an upbeat tune and to the crowd of young people around him. By that point, most viewers will already have been irremediably disarmed by “DJ Ahmet,” Georgi M. Unkovski’s music-soaked, delightfully humorous and unpretentiously stylish debut set in a remote North Macedonian village.

But that moment of enjoyment is only a brief, illusory respite from Ahmet’s laborious responsibilities herding sheep and caring for his kid brother Naim (Agush Agushev), the picture of innocence and adorableness, who hasn’t spoken since their mother died. From the onset, Unkovski introduces a rich soundtrack that mixes modern English-language songs with tracks specific to the region,...

The nominations have been revealed for the 2025 GLAAD Media Awards, and one critically acclaimed LGBTQ+ film is notably absent from the pack of nominees.

The annual awards ceremony will return for a 36th year in 2025. According to GLAAD, it’s goal is to “recognize and honor fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of the LGBTQ community in an ever-expanding and media landscape.”

On Wednesday (January 22), the organization revealed the crop of nominees that would be honored at the ceremony. While projects such as Wicked and Queer were notably featured, Netflix’s Emilia Perez was left off the list.

The snub comes after GLAAD declared that the movie, which stars Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and trans actress Karla Sofia Gascon, was “not good trans representation” in a November 2024 essay. The story included reviews from transgender film critics and noted that “inauthentic portrayals of trans people are offensive and even dangerous.”

Emilia Perez...

GLAAD has unveiled the nominees for its 36th annual GLAAD Media Awards, with Variety securing two noms for outstanding print article (senior entertainment writer Adam B. Vary’s piece on Joe Locke) and magazine overall coverage.

Other nominees include “Wicked,” “Queer,” “Love Lies Bleeding,” “My Old Ass,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Fancy Dance,” “Mother of the Bride,” “Baby Reindeer,” “Selling Sunset,” “Queer Eye” and “Real Housewives of New York City.” There are a total of 318 nominees across 33 categories at this year’s Awards.

The GLAAD Media Awards is a yearly event that honors outstanding, accurate and inclusive representations of LGBTQ+ people and issues in film, television, gaming, publishing, stage productions, music, journalism and more.

“The GLAAD Media Awards were created nearly four decades ago to champion LGBTQ stories amid a deeply hostile and unsafe time for our community,” said GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis.

“Wicked,” “Queer,” “Mean Girls” and “My Old Ass” are among the movies that have been nominated as Outstanding Film at the 36th annual GLAAD Media Awards, which announced its nominations on Wednesday. Other nominated projects included “Cuckoo,” “Drive-Away Dolls,” “Love Lies Bleeding” and “Problemista.”

GLAAD, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer media advocacy organization, leaned heavily toward smaller independent films in its nominations, with “Wicked” and “Mean Girls” the most high-profile films in the top category. It did not nominate “Emilia Pérez,” the Netflix film about a Mexican drug lord (played by transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón) who undergoes gender-affirming surgery.

Television nominees included “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks,” “Loot” and “Shrinking” in the comedy category, “9-1-1: Lone Star,” “Arcane” and “Interview With the Vampire” in drama and “Agatha All Along,” “Diarra From Detroit” and “Palm Royale” in the Outstanding New Series category.

GLAAD also nominated documentaries, reality programs, children’s programming,...

We have the nominees for the 36th annual GLAAD Media Awards, which honor fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community in film, TV, music, videogames, podcasts, journalism and more.

But the noms don’t include one of the most talked-about films of 2024 or its trans star. More on that below.

Vying for the Outstanding Wide-Release Film prize are Cuckoo, Drive-Away Dolls, Love Lies Bleeding, Mean Girls, My Old Ass, Problemista, Queer and Wicked. Up for the Limited-Release Film award are 20,000 Species of Bees, Backspot, Before I Change My Mind, Big Boys, Close to You, Crossing, Fitting In, High Tide, Housekeeping for Beginners and A Place of Our Own.

Noticeably absent from the GLAAD noms is Jacques Audiard’s Oscar contender Emilia Pérez, which won the Golden Globe this month, and its trans star Karla Sofía Gascón, who also won a Globe and is...

Exclusive: Films Boutique has picked up international sales rights to Georgi M. Unkovski’s feature debut DJ Ahmet, which has just been selected to world premiere in Sundance’s World Dramatic Competition.

The North Macedonian writer-director will return to Park City where his short film Sticker premiered in 2020.

The Turkish and Macedonian-language film follows Ahmet, a 15-year-old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, who finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.

Pic is a coproduction between North Macedonia, Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia. Starring are Arif Jakup, Agush Agushev, Dora Akan Zlatanova, Aksel Mehmet, Selpin Kerim, Atila Klince.

Producers are Ivan Unkovski, Ivana Shekutkoska. Co-producers are Michal Kracmer, Veronika Kuhrova, Igor Kecman, Jelena Mitrovic, Katarina Prpic, Vladimir Anastasov and Angela Nestorovska.

Films Boutique said today: “Love at first...

A chosen family is one of the most powerful things you can have. Surrounding yourself with a group of people youre just as close to those you share DNA with is extremely special. Its an experience that many in the LGBTQ+ community are particularly familiar with, with homophobia and disownment still unfortunately rampant in todays society. Goran Stolevskis Housekeeping for Beginners takes this beloved trope and complicates it, as those who make up this unconventional family unit didnt exactly choose to be part of it. Its more forced family than found family, and its all the better for it, stripping itself of any oversimplified saccharine sentimentality to embrace the chaos and tap into something real.

Warsaw-based sales agency New Europe Film Sales has teamed up with Spade, the production arm of the French genre label The Jokers, and leading German distribution company Plaion Pictures to create Cherry, a development fund for edgy films with crossover potential.

The partners declined to reveal any figures but emphasised Cherry was a development rather than production fund

The three companies previously worked together on Valdimar Jóhannsson’s folk horror hit Lamb, and will now tighten their collaboration and enter projects at an earlier stage.

Cherry will focus on finding edgy, auteur -driven projects with breakout possibilites. The fund will...

Danish actor Pilou Asbæk, star of Game Of Thrones, Aquaman and Borgen, has joined the cast of Ugla Hauksdóttir’s feature debut, Icelandic thriller The Fires, as Bankside locks in pre-sales in key territories.

Ingvar Sigurdsson and Borys Szyc also join the previously announced cast of Vigdís Hrefna Pálsdóttir, Guðmundur Ólafsson, Þór Tulinius, Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir and Jörundur Ragnarsson.

Sales have landed in Germany (Wild Bunch), Eastern Europe (HBO), Former Yugoslavia (McF), Middle East (Front Row) and Switzerland (Praesens).

The Fires is about a volcanologist, responsible for predicting the volcanic activity and ensuring public safety, who finds herself caught between...

Goran Stolevski’s third feature is a deft and unsentimental family drama about an unlikely tribe of misfits trying to make a place for themselves

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Each of Goran Stolevski’s films thus far has marked a departure from the last: the bewitching horrors of his debut You Won’t Be Alone; the acidic heartburn of his queer romance Of An Age; and now Housekeeping for Beginners, an amorphous family drama that marks the North Macedonian-born, Australian-raised director’s return to his home country.

Set in contemporary Skopje, Stolevski’s third feature follows a menagerie of queer misfits living, loving and fighting in a household which threatens to burst at the seams. His band of outcasts are bound together by survival – beneath their raucous capers, there’s the constant spectre of danger, peering through the curtains.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads,...

Héléna Klotz’s “Spirit of Ecstasy” will open the 2024 Kashish LGBTQ+ film festival in Mumbai, while Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s “Mutt” will close it.

“Spirit of Ecstasy,” which debuted at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, follows a gender-questioning stock-market trader who is determined to make it in the world of finance; not for the glory or

wealth, but because it’s leading them on the path to freedom. Lead Pomme was nominated in the most promising actress category at France’s Lumiere awards.

“Mutt” follows a trans man who goes through an emotional roller-coaster over a 24-hour period in New York City, bumping into their ex-boyfriend, sister and father for the first time after having lost touch with them since his gender transitioning. It debuted at Sundance 2023, where it won the U.S. dramatic special jury award for actor Lio Mehiel. It went on to play at Berlin, where it earned...

Goran Stolevski captured attention with Of an Age, a late-'90s drama about a 17-year-old Serbian-born Australian amateur ballroom dancer who experiences an emotional 24-hour romance with his friend's older brother. Stolevski continues exploring love, connection, and universal truths in his latest film, Housekeeping for Beginners, which offers a vibrant look at a group of queer individuals creating their own “family” in a world that rejects them. There are times when this powerful film makes your heart sing, and it's not a surprise it won the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival.

“It's a miracle it got made,” Stolevski told MovieWeb of the film, which was shot in Macedonia, the writer/director’s birthplace. “In most countries in the world, if you propose a story that involves children and homosexuals in the story, it's a tricky proposition. And Macedonia is sort of complicated in the way that the...

April began with showers, plus a tiny regional earthquake on the East Coast, but that didn’t keep anyone away from theaters, even if it was a slower weekend than much of March. Read on for the weekend box office report.

There was little surprise that Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” would win its second weekend at #1. Despite dropping 60% from its fantastic opening weekend, it still was able to take first place with an estimated $31.7 million to bring its total to $135 million after crossing the $100 million mark in its first week. It also passed the $361 million mark globally, with another $59.3 million grossed overseas this weekend.

The weekend offered two new wide releases in Dev Patel‘s directorial debut, the action-thriller “Monkey Man,” and 20th Century’s horror prequel “The First Omen,” the former released into 3,029 theaters vs. “The First Omen’s” 3,375 theaters. “Monkey Man” came into the...

Sony Pictures Classics’ Wicked Little Letters grossed an estimated $1.5+ million in a big second week expansion for the R-rated British period comedy to 1,000 screens from five. The Thea Sharrock-directed film starring Olivia Colman (also a producer) and Jessie Buckley, no. 8 at the domestic weekend box office, has a $1.6+ million cume.

Colman and Buckley have been out actively promoting the film, based on an actual scandal, about a police investigation into the anonymous author of crude letters sent to the residents of a British seaside town.

The number is on the high end of SPC’s expectations, and the Sunday estimate may be conservative.

Audiences for Wicked Little Letters are 60% female, 40% male, with a range of women age 30-plus, unusual for a period film as they skew older. It’s playing especially well in major cities and college towns but also popping in smaller markets like Seattle. Word of mouths is terrific,...

Exhibitor convention CinemaCon starts tomorrow in Las Vegas, and it would be great to kick off with happy box office news. That’s not the case with surprisingly weak results for two fresh titles, “Monkey Man” (Universal) and “The First Omen” (Disney). They brought the weekend total lower than expected and suggested an already-weak April could slide toward a worst-case scenario.

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” (Warner Bros.) repeated as #1 in its second week, more than tripling the take for #2, Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man.” The franchise’s 60 percent drop isn’t bad, given an opening weekend that included Good Friday and the Easter holidays. It’s grossed $135 million U.S./Canada in 10 days.

After March revitalized the concept of franchises and sequels as an essential part of the distribution ecosystem, the hope was April would demonstrate continued audience interest in lower-budgeted original titles — as evidenced earlier this year...

Goran Stolevski is the rare rising filmmaker who is three-for-three with his movies “You Won’t Be Alone,” “Of an Age,” and “Housekeeping for Beginners,” all set up at Focus Features. For Venice premiere “Housekeeping for Beginners” (out April 5), a chaotic portrait of a patched-together found family, the Australian director returns to his birthplace, North Macedonia, using a rowdy household as a microcosm for the country’s politically fraught melting pot of Macedonians and Roma people.

For this true cinéma vérité tale — true in the sense that it shot on real locations, without rehearsals, and with many unknown actors — Stolevski had a lucky stroke of dream casting led by “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” star Anamaria Marinca, who worked with him on “You Won’t Be Alone.” She plays healthcare worker Dita, living in modern-day North Macedonia in its capital of Skopje with her Roma girlfriend Suada’s (Alina Serban) children and their friends.

Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker – which was pulled from TIFF in 2022 over “rights issues” — starts a theatrical debut today at the IFC Center, moving to LA’s Landmark’s Nuart next weekend and expanding thereafter with about 85 booking so far — a nice outcome for the mixed-media coming-of-age dark superhero parody that “had gone into into hibernation mode” until Outfest LA Film Festival, said Frank Jaffe, whose distribution company Altered Innocence acquired it then. It’s U.S premiere garnered a Special Mention in the North American Narrative Feature Competition.

Co-written by Drew and Bri LeRose, the film is a reimagining the origin story of iconic Batman villain The Joker, starring Drew as painfully unfunny aspiring clown and closeted trans girl grappling with her gender identity while unsuccessfully attempting to join the ranks of Gotham City’s sole comedy program, in a world where comedy has been outlawed. She...

I can’t say it was difficult finding nine posters to talk about this month––most new April releases were given the bad Photoshop treatment. Some, like Cash Out, scream Dtv. Some, like Arcadian, try their best to at least make the lighting and coloring look real. Some go the collage route, e.g. The Long Game. And then there are those like Blood for Dust where the actors resemble flat cutouts and their heads bobbling balloons pasted on top.

I’ll never understand a studio’s desire to go that route when a simple film still with effective typography can garner attention for its beauty rather than its superficiality, but that mindset doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Thankfully there are still those who get it––those who commission posters as an art form and a marketing tool. You can have both.

Shadows

While not as provocative as the poster for Collective,...

“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” (The quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche, but don’t hold that against it.) When it comes to the group of folks living under the same North Macedonian roof in Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners, those same sentiments apply, though we’d amend that it’s a shared animosity toward the world supplies the lubrication and the bonding, while the music that’s bringing them harmony consists of...

Across You Won’t Be Alone, Of an Age, and, now, Housekeeping for Beginners, Macedonian Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s proclivity toward applying naturalism to the stories of characters on the margins of society, or who hover on those borders, is quite palatable. And yet, Stolevski makes it hard to shake that his work is defined by a refined mimicry of the visual signifiers of Serious Stories for Serious Viewers.

Housekeeping for Beginners is set in a house for queer outcasts in North Macedonia, where world-weary social worker Dita (Anamaria Marinca) and her gay best pal, Toni (Vladimir Tintor), play adoptive parents to a host of misfits. The dynamic of their lavender marriage deeps things running, if not smoothly, then without total breakdown. But when Dita’s girlfriend, Sauda (Alina Serban), is diagnosed with terminal cancer, the pressure from her looming death pushes this found family to its limits, especially...

Focus Features has firmed up release plans for Conclave, the papal thriller marking filmmaker Edward Berger’s follow-up to his 2022 Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front. An adaptation of Robert Harris’ same-name bestseller, penned by Peter Straughan, the film releases in theaters in New York and L.A. on November 1st, before expanding on the 8th.

Currently, the 1st is only occupied by an unknown title from Universal Pictures. Titles set to open on the 8th include Sony’s Venom 3 and 20th’s action thriller The Amateur starring Rami Malek.

Conclave follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events — selecting a new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds...

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 International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Benjamin Ree’s gamer documentary Ibelin led the winners at Tromso International Film Festival (TIFF) on Saturday, January 20; after Norwegian feature Grandmonster took the Fiction Norway pitching prize last week.

Ibelin took the audience award, playing at Tromso the day after its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival. The Norwegian title follows the story of Mats Steen, a gamer who died of a degenerative muscular disease aged 25; after which his parents began to receive messages from online friends around the world. Netflix acquired US distribution and worldwide streaming rights on the title following its Sundance premiere.

Scroll down for the...

In a David Sedaris essay from Calypso, he mentions cussing across the globe, stating: “The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing.” Well, David, I wouldn’t be so sure. Australian-Macedonian director Goran Stolevski, whose thriller You Won’t Be Alone deservedly garnered much acclaim, has returned to his homeland of North Macedonia to make Housekeeping for Beginners, a swear-filled, raucous and deeply moving tale. In it, the director deals with the notions of family, institutional racism, LGBTQ rights and the meaning of love as viewed from the perspective of a dysfunctional ad-hoc household made up of potty-mouthed outcasts and misfits.

The story revolves around the matriarch Dita (the excellent Anamaria Marinca) who lives with her girlfriend Suada (Alina Serban), a Roma woman, and Suada’s daughters – the perennially angry teen Vanesa (Mia Mustafa) and the delightful six-year-old Mia (Dzada Selim). Also living in the house is...

"They weren't born a family. They became one." Focus Features has revealed the main official US trailer for an acclaimed indie LGBTQ drama from North Macedonia called Housekeeping for Beginners, from the Australian-Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski (of You Won't Be Alone and Of an Age). This premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and it's also being submitted as North Macedonia's official selection for Best International Feature at the next Academy Awards. Opening in January right after the nominations are out. A queer woman who doesn't want to be a mother is forced to help raise her partner's daughter. "A story exploring the universal truths of family, both the ones we're born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Dita never wanted to be a mother, but circumstances force her to raise her girlfriend's two daughters, tiny troublemaker Mia and rebellious teen Vanesa. A battle of wills ensues as the...

The official trailer for Housekeeping For Beginners has officially been released. The film will be in theaters on Friday, January 26, 2024!

Synopsis: Housekeeping For Beginners explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. The narrative revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.

About The Film

Genre: Comedy, Drama Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Alina Șerban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Džada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, Ajse Useini Director: Goran Stolevski Screenplay: Goran Stolevski Producer: Marija Dimitrova, Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Ankica Jurić Tilić, Beata Rzeźniczek, Milan Stojanović and Blerta Basholli

Housekeeping For Beginners is in select theaters on January 26, 2024!

For More Information, Please Visit:...

Exclusive: Focus Features we hear has set a July 12, 2024 limited theatrical release date for Baltasar Kormákur’s romantic-drama Touch.

Universal Pictures International is handling international distribution sans Iceland.

The movie is based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s bestselling Icelandic novel published by Ecco/Harper Collins in the U.S in August 2022. The movie follows one widower’s emotional journey to find his first love who disappeared 50 years ago before his time runs out. The story spans several decades and continents. Ólafsson and Kormákur co-wrote the movie.

Rvk Studios’ Kormákur and Agnes Johansen produced Touch alongside Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge.

Touch stars Egill Ólafsson, Kōki, Pálmi Kormákur, Masahiro Motoki, Yoko Narahashi, Meg Kubota, Tatsuya Tagawa, Charles Nishikawa, Sigurður Ingvarsson, Starkaður Pétursson, Benedikt Erlingsson, Kieran Buckeridge, Ruth Sheen, María Ellingsen and Masatoshi Nakamura.

Focus Features’ 2024 lineup includes Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-Away Dolls, the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black,...

The first trailer for Housekeeping for Beginners has been released, giving audiences their first look at the upcoming drama about a young woman dealing with parenthood when she least expected it. Dita (Anamaria Marinca) never had any interest in raising children, but when she starts dating a woman who already is a mother, she has no option but to adapt to her new lifestyle. The drama directed by Goran Stolevski will take its protagonist through a complicated emotional journey, with her having to face responsibilities she wasn't prepared for while trying to build a new life with her partner.

Goran Stolevski is the rare rising filmmaker with three strong features right out of the gate in the last few years. He made a splash at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival with his witchy, body-jumping folk horror parable “You Won’t Be Alone,” starring Noomi Rapace, and immediately followed it up with the decade-spanning gay romance “Of an Age” and, now, has North Macedonia’s entry for the 2024 Academy Award for Best International Feature, “Housekeeping for Beginners.”

All three films have been housed at Focus Features, which releases the Venice Film Festival premiere “Housekeeping for Beginners” in theaters in January. IndieWire shares the trailer for the film exclusively below ahead of the Oscar shortlist announcement next week on December 21. Stolevski returns to his Macedonian roots (he now lives in Australia) for “Housekeeping,” a raw cinéma vérité tale of unlikely found family led by what was certainly dream-casting for the director: “4 Months, 3...

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...

Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Emma Corrin among cast.

Focus Features will release Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu reimagining in the US on December 25, 2024.

Universal Pictures International handles distribution outside the US on the gothic horror starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney. and Willem Dafoe.

Eggers also serves as a producer alongside Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus (Maiden Voyage), Jeff Robinov, and John Graham.

The story of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her reunites Focus with Eggers following 2022 release The Northman. It also brings the...

Focus Features’ second movie with filmmaker Robert Eggers, Nosferatu, will be hitting cinemas on Wednesday, December 25, 2024.

That’s good news for the year-end holiday period, which is still scant of product. The only other wide entries on Dec. 20, 2024 are Disney’s live-action sequel Mufasa and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

“The audacious filmmaking of Robert Eggers is always a gift for fans, and we can promise that his Nosferatu is planning quite the Christmas feast,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski said.

Written and directed by Eggers, Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake. Pic stars Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe.

Eggers produced alongside Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus (Maiden Voyage), Jeff Robinov, and John Graham. Columbus was the EP...

Animated feature will premiere in January in the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Bright Future section

Warsaw-based sales outfit New Europe Film Sales has taken on international sales for the upcoming English-language dystopian animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust by Ishan Shukla, with Anonymous Content will co-repping for North America.

Ishan Shukla’s debut will world premiere in January in the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Bright Future section, aimed at up-and-coming filmmakers with innovative, original and daring work.

The animated feature is based on the short film Schirkoa, which was also repped by New Europe and played at more than 120 international film festivals and won 33 awards,...

That was fast. “The Bikeriders,” Jeff Nichols’ motorcycle gang drama starring Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, and Austin Butler, has sold to Focus Features after it was revealed on November 21 the film was shopping for a new home.

New Regency produced and financed the film that was meant to be released this year via its deal with 20th Century Studios, but Focus will now release it in North America theatrically in 2024, IndieWire has confirmed. Universal Pictures International has the remainder of the globe.

“We are delighted to add such a riveting project to next year’s strong slate of films. We look forward to once again working alongside New Regency and reuniting with the multi-talented Jeff Nichols on another one of his visionary projects,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski said in a statement. This film exemplifies our commitment to collaborate with the industry’s best filmmakers and production partners, and we...

Exclusive: New Regency’s Jeff Nichols directed crime drama The Bikeriders, which was at 20th Century Studios, is getting acquired by Focus Features. Focus is taking global rights to the pic, reteaming them with New Regency who they partnered with on 2022’s The Northman. A 2024 theatrical release is planned. Universal will distribute the movie overseas.

The movie was previously dated on Dec. 1 via 20th Century Studios/Disney. However, New Regency made the choice to pull the movie back, I hear, due to the ongoing actors strike and the cast unable to promote. The Bikeriders is currently 85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with critics.

The Bikeriders, from left: Austin Butler, Tom Hardy,

Focus Features Chairman Peter Kujawski tells Deadline, “We are delighted to add such a riveting project to next year’s strong slate of films. We look forward to once again working alongside New Regency and reuniting with the multi-talented Jeff...

Focus Features has set a Jan. 26, 2024 theatrical release date for Goran Stolevski’s latest, Housekeeping For Beginners.

It premiered in Venice as part of the official “Orizzonti” (Horizons) competitive section, securing the prestigious Queer Lion Award. See Deadline review. It was selected shortly after as North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission.

The film explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. The narrative revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.

Stars Anamaria Marinca, Alina Serban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Dzada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, and Ajse Useini.

This is Focus Features’ third collaboration with Stolevski, a rising original voice,...

Housekeeping for Beginners has set sights on North America. The Venice title will roll out on Jan. 26 in limited release, and expand in the following weeks.

The comedic drama from filmmaker Goran Stolevski won the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and is North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission title.

According to the logline, the film ” revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.”

Focus previously distributed filmmaker Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone and Of an Age. The studio is handling North American rights, with Universal handling the international rollout.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s review stated, “Housekeeping should find an audience easily thanks to its compelling,...

Focus Features’ upcoming title “Housekeeping for Beginners” is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on Jan. 26 and will expand to more theaters in subsequent weeks.

Per the film’s synopsis, Goran Stolevski’s latest feature “revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters — Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.”

“Housekeeping for Beginners” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the official “Orrizonti” (Horizons) section, taking home the Queer Lion Award. It has also been selected as North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission.

In Guy Lodge’s review for Variety, he wrote, “This study of domestic, romantic and generational conflicts in a crowded queer household (instead) embraces a spirit of antic chaos, both in subject matter and jagged,...

Kobi Libii makes feature directorial debut.

Focus Features will release Kobi Libii’s feature directorial debut The American Society Of Magical Negroes on March 22 2024.

Libii is an alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab, where he first developed the project. Universal Pictures International handles international distribution.

Focus describes The American Society Of Magical Negroes as a ”fresh, satirical comedy about a young man, Aren, who is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier”.

The film stars Justice Smith, David Alan Grier,...

When Roma actress-turned-director Alina Șerban reflects on her life, rising from an impoverished background in Bucharest to become an acclaimed and groundbreaking force on stage and screen, she describes it as “an urban Cinderella story.” A review from one of her first stage shows, she says, sums it up best: “Roma actress beats the odds.”

As a multi-faceted artist, Șerban has dedicated her life and career to reframing the narrative about her marginalized community. Now she’s developing her feature-length directorial debut, “I Matter,” a deeply personal story about a young Roma woman studying to be an actor who, faced with the threat of being kicked out of her orphanage, must suddenly confront the reality of making it through life on her own.

“I Matter” is among the projects being pitched this week at the Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which takes places Nov. 5 – 9 during the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Written and directed by Șerban,...

Oscar voters in the Best International Feature Film category have received their group assignments for this year’s initial round of voting, with 89 films included on the seven lists that the Academy has sent to members.

The lists, which were obtained by TheWrap, include presumed favorites “The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom), “The Taste of Things” (France), “The Promised Land” (Denmark) and “Perfect Days” (Japan), along with a number of documentaries, among them Estonia’s “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Brazil’s “Pictures of Ghosts” and Ukraine’s “20 Days in Mariupol.”

The 89 films are four short of the record of 93 qualifying films in the category. The list of group assignments does not make up the Academy’s official list of eligible films; it’s possible that assigned films might still fail to qualify before first-round voting begins on Dec. 18. For the most part, though, films that are included in the group...

Iranian drama film “Empty Nets” was Monday named winner of the Aff Feature Fiction Award at the Adelaide Film Festival. Directed by Behrooz Karamizade, it collected an A$10,000 cash prize.

The festival’s competition section is one of the oldest in Australia and seeks to reward bold filmmaking. This year’s competition mostly comprised films by directors making their feature debuts. They included “Blaga’s Lessons,” from Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev; “Embryo Larva Butterfly,” by Greek-Cypriot writer-director Kyros Papavassiliou; “On The Go,” from directors Julia de Castro and Maria Gisele Royo; “Sahela,” directed by Australia’s Raghuvir Joshi; and “You’ll Never Find Me,” from Adelaide-based duo Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell.

“’Empty Nets’ is a searing portrait of the bleak socioeconomic reality for young people without family money in contemporary Iran, distinguished by atmospheric visuals, an evocative sense of place, stirring lead performances and a powerful grasp of the sea as...

NewFest, the LGBTQ+ film festival, has announced the award winners for the festival’s 35th anniversary run.

The Grand Jury prizes included Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance for Narrative Feature, Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping For Beginners for International Feature, Daniel Goncalves’s Acsexybility for Documentary Feature, and Nyala Moon’s Dilating For Maximum Results for New York Short.

The announcement, which included a number of other grantees and award winners, was made today at the festival’s award ceremony in Brooklyn by NewFest Executive Director David Hatkoff, Director of Programming Nick McCarthy, and Programmer & Jury Coordinator Murtada Elfadl.

“This year’s 35th edition of The New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival has demonstrated that queer cinema is stronger than ever,” said Hatkoff and McCarthy. “The awards recipients prove the breadth of our community’s stories as well as the highest caliber of cinema. We are thankful to our esteemed juries and...

Chicago – The 59th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) announced its competitive award winners on October 20th 2023, and the recipient of The Gold Hugo in the International Feature Film Competition – the festival’s top honor – is ‘Explanation for Everything” (directed by Gábor Reisz), a coming-of age story.

Picking up the Festival’s Silver Hugo in the International Feature Film competition is “The Delinquents” (directed by Rodrigo Moreno). In the New Directors Competition, Amr Gamal’s “The Burdened” takes the Gold Hugo and Ena Sendijarevic’s “Sweet Dreams” takes the Silver Hugo. The complete list of honorees is below.

“This year’s winning selections truly reflect a global perspective, giving audiences a glimpse into lives and lived experiences they might not have had the opportunity to explore before,” said Chicago International Film Festival Artistic Director Mimi Plauché. “Hailing from every region on the planet from Hungary to Mexico, Argentina to Yemen, Sudan to the U.

Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales has boarded international sales on Northern Irish director Aislinn Clarke’s second feature Fréwaka ahead of the AFM, where it will unveil first footage.

The Irish and English-language production follows Clarke’s 2018 found footage horror The Devil’s Doorway, which was acquired by IFC for the U.S.

Billed as the first ever Irish-language horror, Fréwaka revolves around care worker Shoo, who is haunted by a personal tragedy.

Shoo is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman, who fears both the neighbors and the Na Sídhe – sinister folkloric entities she believes abducted her decades before.

As the pair develop a deep connection, Shoo becomes consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.

The title originates from the Irish word “fréamhacha”, meaning roots that are entwined underground.

The cast features Clare Monnelly (Moone...

Exclusive: Coming off the breakout box office performance of horror hit Talk To Me, Australian production company Causeway Films has expanded internationally opening a London office and appointing Daniel Negret as its Chief Executive Officer.

Negret will take up the role on October 30th and be based in London, with frequent visits to Australia and LA.

Negret joins from prolific UK film financier Head Gear Films, where he served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer overseeing operations including production finance, strategy, business development, legal and business affairs and marketing.

During his time at Head Gear, the Colombian-born exec oversaw the financier’s involvement in more than 60 productions, including Talk To Me, How To Have Sex and Bandit. Negret also helped create the company’s financial packaging and executive-producing arm. He previously worked at Ingenious, Olsberg Spi and Merrill Lynch, and recently wrote and produced horror feature Shaman in Ecuador.

Five films have been nominated and will be shown in universities across Europe

Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border is one of five films nominated for the European University Film Award (Eufa) as announced by the European Film Academy at Filmfest Hamburg today (October 5).

Holland’s refugee drama has been the subject of political attacks from Poland’s right-wing government and recently topped the country’s box office for the second week in a row.

The film, along with the five other nominees, will be shown in 25 universities across 25 European countries including the University of Lodz in Poland.

The other nominees...

A total of 39 European companies, surpassing 2022, will promote and sell films from the continent at Busan International Film Festival’s accompanying Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm).

Of these, 32 will be onsite while seven more will participate online. The companies will operate under the Europe! Umbrella, a long-standing collaboration between Efp and Unifrance that has been an Acfm regular for years.

To help with the promotion of European cinema to East Asia at the market, Efp is awarding Film Sales Support (Fss) to 10 sales companies to enhance their digital and physical marketing campaigns. Alpha Violet, Fandango, Film Factory Entertainment, Films Boutique, Indie Sales, Kinology, Latido Films, LevelK, Pulsar Content and TrustNordisk will benefit from the support.

The European presence at the festival includes French-Canadian co-production “The Beast” by Bertrand Bonello (Kinology); Polish Oscar entry “The Peasants” by D.K. and Hugh Welchman; “An Endless Sunday” by Alain Parroni; Danish Oscar entry...

A pair of noteworthy Cannes titles in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot-au-Feu, some Locarno items such as Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World but with a major slew of Venice-preemed films are part of the 21 newly added titles to be considered for a whole bunch of prizes for the upcoming European Film Awards. The European Film Academy have now set their 4600 members with a batch of 40 films competing for various prizes at the ceremony that will be set for December 9th in Berlin. Here are the added films:

Animal – Sofia Exarchou (Greece/Austria/Bulgaria/Romania/Cyprus)

Blaga’s Lessons – Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria/Germany)

Club Zero – Jessica Hausner (Austria/UK/Germany/France/Denmark/Qatar)

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude (Romania/Luxembourg/France/Croatia)

Excursion – Una Gunjak (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia...