News

As Ventana Sur settles into its stride in its first edition in Montevideo, Uruguay, Screen highlights 10 projects expected to make a splash at the leading Ibero-American audiovisual market.

The titles are at various stages in the production cycle and the filmmakers are in Montevideo looking to establish meaningful partnerships.

Selections include stories of vampires grappling with transformation, quests, coming-of-age stories, coastal erosion, and a project from the inaugural Latam Series Market.

Ventana Sur runs through December 6.

The Condor Daughter (Bol-Per-Uru)

Section: Copia Final

Director: Álvaro Olmos

The Condor Daughter marks the second fiction feature from Olmos, who has directed documentary and television,...

The highly anticipated Outlander prequel, Blood of My Blood, is yet to have an arrival date, but fans have been keeping busy with not only the currently running Outlander series but also updates about the upcoming spin-off. Speaking of which, Diana Gabaldon, the best-selling author of the novel series that serves as the show's source material, has exciting news about Blood of My Blood. The series is also set to run for ten episodes and will follow the parents of the lead characters from the original series.

The latest episode of Outlander, "Brotherly Love," featured the death of a long-running character: Old Ian, played by Steven Cree, so named because he's the father of Young Ian (John Bell). As the show marches toward its ending, fans would do well to remember that any character could die at any moment. All bets are off!

The episode opened with a flashback of Old Ian teaching Young Ian and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) how to fight as a team. Years later, his death is hitting everyone hard. "They were trained and brought up together and they fought side by side and they've got this long history together and there's some beautiful scenes, I think, they're beautifully written and wonderful to play with Steven [Cree], we've got a great relationship with him," Heughan told Radio Times. "He's a fun character in real life. It was just nice to play with these...

The clock may be ticking for Outlander on TV, but the story is everlasting for bestselling author Diana Gabaldon, who writes the historical fantasy books (nine and counting!) upon which the show is based. Debuting in 1991, the first Outlander novel has spawned several sequels, spinoff novellas, and ultimately the intense Starz drama that viewers have come to love. With the final episodes on the horizon and new prequel series Blood of My Blood forthcoming, Gabaldon reflects on the show’s end and offers a peek inside her notebook. What have you been happy to see so far in Season 7? Diana Gabaldon: One of the things the Outlander production as a whole does really well is battle scenes. We’ve had a certain amount of the [American Revolution’s] Battle of Ticonderoga, the first Battle of Saratoga, and a lot of the second Battle of Saratoga. And I absolutely loved the actor playing Benedict Arnold,...

The second half of the seventh season of Outlander is off and running, and surprises abound. While Jamie and Claire Fraser (Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe) return to Jamie's native Scotland, their son-in-law Roger (Richard Rankin) has a time-traveling kidnapping to solve: his son Jemmy (Blake Johnston-Miller) has been taken into the past, so Roger and ancestor Buck (Diarmaid Murtagh) use the standing stones at Craigh Na Dun to travel back in time in pursuit...but they somehow overshoot their mark, ending up about 20 years earlier than they planned. Jamie's father Brian Fraser (Andrew Whipp) is still running Lallybroch, with a younger version of Jamie's sister Jenny (Kristin Atherton) helping keep the household.

“I think it’s just shock after shock after shock, and I think all of these things helped to develop a very sort of interesting and refreshing plot line for Buck and Roger,” Rankin told TV Insider.

Outlander has returned for the second half of its seventh season, which began with several blasts from the past as Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) returned to Jamie's native Scotland. We see lots of faces from Jamie's past, including Laoghaire (Nell Hudson), his ex-wife.

Jamie and Laoghaire have had a tense relationship over the years, with lots of painful ups and downs, but Jamie feels the need to reach out to her and set things right. "He's an honourable man. He feels a sense of duty," Heughan told Radio Times. "And I also feel like there's still... despite their rather tumultuous, kind of crazy history that they've had together, there's still a part of him that remembers the young Jamie and the young Laoghaire."

He knows deep down that she's hurting. He wants to help her, he wants to make sure that she's Ok, but also Joni...

The Fraser family continues to get bigger in Outlander. Since the series began, more characters have married or been born into this Scottish clan, while others have been explored through flashbacks and further time travel. This has allowed for a rather broad look at Jamie Fraser's family, extending the lore of this fantasy time-travel TV series. It's because of this that, with Outlander's ending drawing near, a spinoff like Outlander: Blood of My Blood has become possible.

Outlander season 7, part 2, sees Roger MacKenzie travel further back in time than Claire or Brianna ever have, and he has begun to run into some of the older members of Jamie Fraser's family. Of course, he has also come face to face with a handful of his own ancestors, and these MacKenzie interactions are key in Roger's own Outlander story in the show's final seasons. Still, the appearance of people like...

This past Friday, Starz kicked off the second half of the seventh season of Outlander, catching fans up with that Jamie and Claire Fraser (Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe) have been doing over the past year. They're back in Scotland, but it doesn't look like that will last long.

After this half-season wraps up, there's only one more season of Outlander left before the show is done forever...or is there? Heughan and Balfe appeared on The One Show where they were asked whether they might return for an Outlander movie down the line. “Yeah, I mean never say never, right?" Balfe said. "I think if that was wanted we would always want to…”

Heughan chimed in as well: “If that’s what the fans want, how can we deny them? But yeah, we’ll see.”

Part of the reason there may be a demand for an Outlander movie is because the show,...

Sony Pictures Television president Katherine Pope is still bullish on the future of TV, saying that some of the recent disruptions rattling the global business will be good for the industry in the long haul and insisting that this sink-or-swim moment is the time for visionary creatives to shine.

“I think some of this constriction is going to be good, because I think it was very, very hard to break out when there were 750 shows premiering at any given time,” Pope said during a keynote address at Rome’s Mia Market on Wednesday. “I think this will actually be a good time.”

In a wide-ranging conversation with Mia’s head of drama Paolo Ciccarelli, Pope acknowledged that pessimism persists in many quarters — something she partly attributed to “the hangover of the boom times” — but suggested the leaner business model of a previous TV era, when she was cutting her teeth at NBC and NBCUniversal,...

The first episode of Outlander, the time-traveling drama based on the book series by Diana Gabaldon, aired back in August of 2014, just over 10 years ago. The cast and crew have been making the series for even longer. And the other day, they reached a milestone that few series can boast of: they filmed their 100th episode!

Cast members Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser), Caitriona Balfe (Claire Fraser), David Berry (Lord John Grey) and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts marked the occasion by cutting into a cake labeled "Outlander 100 episodes." The honors went to Heughan, who cut the thing with a sword, because of course:

David Berry, Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan et le producteur executif Matthew B. Roberts ont célébré le tournage du 100ème épisode de #Outlander ! Et c'est Sam Heughan qui a coupé le gâteau avec une épée ! pic.twitter.com/Gs2AnpG2wi

— Sofandeseries (@Sofandeseries) September 24, 2024

"This is amazing. This...

Jamie Fraser’s (Sam Heughan) onscreen family is expanding as Mary & George‘s Tony Curran joins Outlander: Blood of My Blood as Lord Lovat, Jamie’s grandfather. According to Deadline, Curran joins the Outlander spinoff as a series regular alongside previously announced cast members Harriet Slater, Jamie Roy, Hermione Corfield, and Jeremy Irvine who are set to play Jamie’s parents Ellen and Brian as well as Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) parents, Julia and Henry. Curran in Mary & George (Credit: Starz) Production for the series recently began in Scotland where the flagship series based on Diana Gabaldon‘s novels is also filmed. Lord Lovat has been mentioned previously in the original show as having had Brian Fraser out of wedlock with a maid at Castle Downie. While Curran will play a role as the character in the series, Blood of My Blood‘s story primarily revolves around the...

Brittany Snow will make one killer transplant in the thriller The Hunting Wives.

The actress will star opposite Malin Åkerman in the upcoming Starz drama, TVLine has learned. She will portray Sophie O’Neil, whose family relocates from the East Coast to East Texas, where she falls under socialite Margo Bank’s (Åkerman) charms and sees her life consumed by obsession, seduction and murder.

More from TVLineApples Never Fall Trailer: Annette Bening, Alison Brie and Jake Lacy Star in Latest Liane Moriarty AdaptationTVLine Items: Rhoa Return, Bargain Block Renewed and MoreTVLine Items: World on Fire Over, Ken Burns' Da Vinci Docu...

Exclusive: Clan Fraser continues to grow in numbers as Tony Curran has joined the Starz prequel series Outlander: Blood of My Blood as Lord Lovat, Jamie Fraser’s grandfather, in a series regular role.

Production recently kicked off on the new series, a prequel of the Starz hit period drama Outlander, in Scotland. The original series stars Caitríona Balfe as Claire Fraser and Sam Heughan as her husband, Jamie Fraser. The franchise is inspired by the work of Diana Gabaldon, who serves as a consulting producer on both shows.

Blood of My Blood will explore the lives and relationships of Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine). The 10-episode series will center on the two parallel love stories set in two different time periods, with Jamie’s parents in...

Plans have been in development for a prequel series to the Starz hit, Outlander, and as the show got the season eight renewal, the network would almost simultaneously greenlight the prequel show. Now, Blood of My Blood is announcing its new cast of actors. The premium movie network has confirmed that the prequel will follow the parents of both Jamie and Claire. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blood of My Blood has started filming in Scotland.

The main cast that have been announced include Harriet Slater, seen in Pennyworth, and Jamie Roy, known for Lifetime’s Your Boyfriend Is Mine), who will play Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser, and will eventually become Jamie’s parents in 18th century Scotland. Additionally, Hermione Corfield, whose credits include We Hunt Together, and Jeremy Irvine who was featured in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, are on board to play Julia Moriston and Henry Beauchamp,...

The “Outlander” prequel series at Starz has cast its four lead roles.

In addition, Starz has announced that production is now underway in Scotland on the 10-episode series, which is officially titled “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.”

Harriet Slater, Jamie Roy, Hermione Corfield, and Jeremy Irvine have all been cast in the series.

The series will examine the lives of Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Slater) and Brian Fraser (Roy), as well as the origin story of Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Irvine). Per the official description, “The series will center on these two parallel love stories set in two different time periods, with Jamie’s parents in the early 18th century Scottish Highlands and Claire’s parents in WWI England.”

“We’re thrilled to be telling the stories of these two couples,” said Matthew B. Roberts, showrunner, executive producer and writer on both “Outlander” and “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

The Traitor director Marco Bellocchio on Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese: “Unlike the great tradition of American Mafia movies and their use of imagery, here all characters are true characters and events that actually happened that we then manipulated or re-elaborated.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor (Il Traditore), co-written with Valia Santella, Ludovica Rampoldi, Francesco Piccolo, and Francesco La Licata, produced by Simone Gattoni and Giuseppe Caschetto, and starring Pierfrancesco Favino as Tommaso Buscetta, received four European Film Award nominations. Best Film, Best Director (won by Yorgos Lanthimos), Best Screenwriter (won by Céline Sciamma for Portrait Of A Lady On Fire), and Best Actor (won by Antonio Banderas in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain And Glory).

Alba Rohrwacher (in Dormant Beauty) on Marco Bellocchio: “I can say he is one of my masters. He taught me a lot.”

Before The Wonders: Alice and Alba Rohrwacher retrospective...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I know I'm in the minority, but even after the atrocities that occurred on Outlander Season 4 Episode 8, Brianna and Roger win my heart over Jamie and Claire in the love department. They're a more traditional romance couple, and much more exciting than Bree's parents.

Jamie and Claire's love is so ridiculously even-keeled, I can't connect with it. I've never had a love with as few inside challenges. I can get on board with all the obstacles Brianna and Roger toss into their own way.

It didn't take long for the two to reconnect once they were both in Wilmington, and the majority of the episode proved why they could be featured a lot more often and viewers wouldn't lose interest.

Roger: You'll marry me?

Brianna: How can I say no to a man who followed me for 200 years?...

I guess the odds are pretty good that two people traveling through the stones at different times will wind up with two of the worst characters we know.

Outlander Season 4 Episode 7 detoured a bit from the novel from what I gather after watching and doing a quick bit of research. 

To be honest, the coincidences felt like too much.

There are a lot of things that seemed highly unlikely when it came to "Down the Rabbit Hole," but maybe that's why it was named after a fairy tale.

Why was Brianna wandering through the middle of a snowy mountaintop when we caught our first glance of her? Was a map going to help her in that particular location, or should she have maybe stuck to the nearby road that she walked to a bit later?

That was odd. 

Related: Outlander Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Blood of My Blood

Tumbling down a ravine,...

During the Dec. 9 episode of Outlander, appropriately titled "Blood of My Blood," Jamie (Sam Heughan) welcomes a couple of unexpected visitors at Fraser's Ridge, which leads to a number of poignant, emotional scenes - scenes that Heughan told Popsugar that he was particularly excited to film in season four. Read on to find out exactly what went down and Heughan's interpretation of the events, but be warned: spoilers ahead for episode six and light spoilers from the books.

Related: Outlander's Caitriona Balfe on That Conversation With Lord John Grey: "It's Heartbreaking"

In "Blood of My Blood," Lord John Grey (David Berry) makes a stop at Jamie and Claire's homestead on his way to Lynchburg, Va, bringing his adopted son, William (Oliver Finnegan) with him. Of course, John, Claire, Jamie, and the viewers all know that William's biological father is Jamie himself, from when young Geneva Dunsany (Hannah James) blackmailed...

Outlander Blood of My Blood Review Starz’s Outlander: Season 4, Episode 6: Blood of My Blood is an episode of reunion, one of many for this season of Outlander. James “Jamie” MacKenzie Fraser (Sam Heughan) has had many suitors since Outlander began, both men and women. Through [...]

Continue reading: TV Review: Outlander: Season 4, Episode 6: Blood of My Blood [Starz]...

Warning: spoilers ahead for the latest episode of Outlander!

Unexpected house guests have a tendency to make things awkward, especially when they carry so many secrets. Sunday's episode of Outlander, which is (fittingly) titled "Blood of My Blood," welcomes Lord John Grey (David Berry) - aka the guy who is so in love with Sam Heughan's Jamie that he'll cross an ocean for him - to the wilds of Fraser's Ridge, along with his petulant ward, William (Oliver Finnegan), who is actually Jamie's son.

While this does solve the mystery of whether Jamie would ever see Willie again, the episode also offers a chance for the kind of good, old-fashioned dirty laundry airing that happens when mortality may be approaching. When Lord John is suddenly taken ill with measles, Claire (Caitriona Balfe) sends Jamie and Willie off for some unexpected, secret father-son bonding. Then, she and John have a...

Need to catch up? Check out the previous Outlander recap here.

Welcome to North Carolina, Lord John Grey! Glad to have you here. Make sure to take in the vista from the ridge. Watch out for snakes in the privy. And before you head home, may we suggest stopping by the gift shop? There’s a buy-one-get-one deal on the “I Went to the New World and All I Got Was the Measles and an Emotionally Bareknuckled Brawl With the Vindictive Wife of My True Love” T-shirt.

This week’s Outlander marks the return of the second son of Viscount Melton,...

At the Primetime Emmys telecast on September 17 we weren’t expecting “Game of Thrones” to win any of its five categories, but it surprised us twice, and they were pretty big surprises: it claimed Best Drama Series for the third time and also Best Drama Supporting Actor for Peter Dinklage for the third time. That brings the show’s total awards for the year to 9 and its all-time total to 47, which is by far the most awards for a primetime drama or comedy in a single year.

It’s hard to imagine a behemoth like “Game of Thrones” being considered an underdog anywhere, especially at the Emmys where it earned the most nominations of any program this year (22), but most of our users thought last year’s winner, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” would carry its momentum for another year. However, “Handmaid’s” ended up shut out entirely at the telecast,...

Vivo Film, Italian indie known for recent standout titles such as “Nico, 1988” and “Daughter of Mine,” has boarded Abel Ferrara’s long-gestating “Siberia” as its main producer.

The Rome-based shingle headed by Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa also has several pics by emerging Italian directors in the pipeline including “Dafne,” a drama centered around a young woman who suffers from Down syndrome which will start shooting in Tuscany in June.

Ferrara announced “Siberia” in Cannes three years ago calling it an exploration of the language of dreams and a vehicle for Willem Dafoe. It’s about the introspective voyage of a man who lives in an isolated cabin on a snow-capped mountain. Since then “Siberia” long languished, but Vivo Film has teamed up with German producer Philipp Kreuzer’s Maze Pictures to co-produce the pic and The Match Factory has taken world sales. They are also in talks with Sundance...

The American Film Institute announced today the films that will screen in the World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight, Shorts and Cinema’s Legacy programs at AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi.

AFI Fest will take place November 5 – 12, 2015, in the heart of Hollywood. Screenings, Galas and events will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, Dolby Theatre, the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, the El Capitan Theatre and The Hollywood Roosevelt.

World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year; Breakthrough highlights true discoveries of the programming process; Midnight selections will grip audiences with terror; and Cinema’s Legacy highlights classic movies and films about cinema. World Cinema and Breakthrough selections are among the films eligible for Audience Awards. Shorts selections are eligible for the Grand Jury Prize, which qualifies the winner for Academy Award®consideration. This year’s Shorts jury features filmmaker Janicza Bravo,...

Earlier today Italy's National Association of Cinematographic and Audiovisual Industries (Anica) announced a shortlist of nine films that are being considered to become the country's official Oscar entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards. A selection committee made of industry professional including directors, journalist, and even composers, will meet on Monday September 28th to make their final decision. 

Here are the 9 shortlisted films:

"Anna" (Per amor vostro)

Dir. Giuseppe M. Gaudino

PC: Minerva Pictures Group 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"Blood of My Blood" (Sangue del mio sangue)

Dir. Marco Bellocchio

PC: Kavac Film 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"Don't Be Bad" (Non essere cattivo) 

Dir. Claudio Caligari

Isa: Kimerafilm 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"Latin Lover"

Dir. Cristina Comencini

Isa: Rai Com 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"Leopardi" (Il giovane favoloso)

Dir. Mario Martone

Isa: Rai Com 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"My Mother" (Mia Madre) 

Dir. Nanni Moretti

Isa: Films Distribution 

U.S. Distributor: Alchemy 

"Sworn Virgin" (Vergine giurata)

Dir. Laura Bispuri

Isa: The Match Factory 

U.S. Distributor: Strand Releasing 

"The Wait" (L'attesa)

Dir. Piero Messina

Isa: Pathe International 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

"You Can't Save Yourself Alone" (Nessuno si salva da solo)

Dir. Sergio Castellitto

Isa: Beta Cinema 

U.S. Distributor: None Yet 

The shortlisted films include the apparent frontrunner, "My Mother," which premiered at Cannes, and well as several titles that just premiered at the Venice Film Festival: "Blood of My Blood" by revered auteur Marco Bellocchio; "Anna," which won the Best Actress award; "The Wait," starring Juliette Binoche, and "Don'd Be Bad." The list also features older festival favorites like "Sworn Virgin," set in Albani, and biopic "Leopardi." While Moretti seems like a safe bet, this is such a strong group of titles, there is still room for an unexpected surprise. 

Italy has the distinction of being the country with the most awards in the category, the country's most recent win came in 2014 with Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty." ...

Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl wins Queer Lion

Veteran director Marco Bellocchio’s Blood Of My Blood (Sangue Del Mio Sangue) has won the Fipresci Award at the 72nd Venice Film Festival (Sept 2-12).

The film is a vampire-themed period drama starring Alba Rohrwacher, who won last year’s Volpi prize for best actress with her performance in Hungry Hearts, as a 17th-century noblewoman who becomes a nun and seduces a young army officer and his twin brother. The film is sold by The Match Factory.

Venice’s ‘Collateral Awards’ - prizes assigned independently by film critics and cultural associations - also saw the Queer Lion Award go to Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as Danish artist Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sexual reassignment surgery.

The film, which receives its North American premiere at Toronto tonight (Sept 12), is a hot contender for the upcoming awards season.

Fipresci AwardBest...

La Monaca (La Prigione di Bobbio)

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Writer: Marco Bellocchio

Producer: Simone Gattoni

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Ambra Angiolini, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Lidiya Liberman, Alberto Bellocchio

Bellocchio-ian themes of the church, the state and politics appear will likely all be sewn into a project that the Italian helmer has been trying to get off the ground for some time now and the reasoning for this is that after a glossed biopic-truth story of Bella addormentata, Marco Bellocchio is, according to Variety, working in “the free-flowing spirit” of Sorelle Mai (a rare experimental film in his filmography) and uses a mix of both professional and non-pro actors. In terms of incarcerated or held against their will female figures, look for La Monaca to be definitely be less-polished than Vincere.

Gist: Based on the true tale of a 17th century noblewoman forced to become a nun, but whose...