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Exclusive: Prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke, who also produces and spearheaded the Pingyao International Film Festival, is adding another string to his bow.

The A Touch Of Sin and Ash Is The Purest White Cannes regular and founder of X Stream Pictures is partnering with veteran Chinese distributor Tian Qi, founder of Hero Films, to launch new acquisition and distribution company Unknown Pleasures Pictures.

It will focus on the acquisition and distribution of international films with the aim of expanding the diversity of films being shown in cinemas in China. Jia Zhangke will act as president, and co-founder Tian Qi will take the post of general manager.

The new company builds on the work of Pingyao, which was launched in part to showcase international arthouse cinema and encourage Chinese distribution, as well as support emerging filmmakers.

It launches into a difficult market for international arthouse films in China in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic,...

All good dreams must come to an end sooner or later, and so it goes that a very good Dream is about to come to an end imminently on Netflix. In news that will likely come as a surprise to precisely nobody, today the streaming giant has announced that its dark fantasy epic The Sandman will conclude with the release of its upcoming second season. Officially, the line is that the series is finishing because the story of Tom Sturridge's Morpheus — aka Dream — is coming to its natural end. And while that is doubtless a key factor, much like Prime Video's suddenly cut short Good Omens, it's hard not to assume that the serious and ongoing allegations of sexual misconduct that have been brought against creator Neil Gaiman in recent months have played their part in Netflix's decision to pull the plug. You can read a statement on the...

Los Angeles-based international sales company Cinema Management Group (Cmg) has filed for Chapter 7 voluntary bankruptcy in US bankruptcy court in California.

According to court documents, Cmg has liabilities of just over $10.2m. A creditors meeting has been set for January 15.

The fate of the company’s staff and of the films it is representing was unclear at press time. The company’s website lists a staff of eight executives, led by president and founder Edward Noeltner.

In a statement to Screen, Noeltner said: “My wife’s ongoing illness requires me to devote 100% of my time going forward to her and our family.

Within the context of film discourse, the quote ‘every frame a painting’ is a figurative saying that refers to the fact that a movie is stunningly photographed to the point that each still image in isolation could stand as an artwork in and of itself. However, in the breathtaking work of Polish directors, Dk and Hugh Welchman, this takes a more literal meaning, as every frame of their films is indeed an oil painting handcrafted by a crew of around a hundred artists.

The Welchmans first used this arduous but incredibly rewarding animation technique in their previous film, the Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent” (2017), which paid tribute to van Gogh by emulating his own brushwork, with the added difference of movement. Moreover, the color palette used for the film also resembled that found in the work of the late artist—different tonalities of blues, yellows, and greens. This time around, the filmmakers...

James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli was one of the guests at a gala dinner hosted by the Doha Film Institute (Dfi) and the Media City Qatar (McQ) on the fringes of the Venice Film Festival on Monday evening.

The veteran producer’s presence added fuel to recent reports that she is attempting to secure Qatari finance for ex-James Bond actor Daniel Craig’s big screen passion project Othello, with well-placed sources hinting on Monday night that talks were ongoing.

Related: ‘Russians At War’ Teaser: Anastasia Trofimova’s Doc Gives Rare Insight Into Life Of Russian Soldiers On The Frontline In Ukraine – Venice

Broccoli — who is co-head of James Bond producer Eon Productions with Michael G. Wilson — has reportedly been working with Craig for some time on the project, billed as a modern adaptation of the Shakespearean classic set in American army barracks in Iraq.

Related: ‘King Ivory’: Melissa Leo,...

The first season of Netflix's long-awaited Neil Gaiman adaptation The Sandman was, aptly, the stuff dreams are made of. Blurring the lines between serialised and episodic storytelling, and operating - aptly - in an almost dreamlike mode throughout its duration, the streamer's take on Gaiman's legendarily lore-filled 75-comic dark fantasy was the perfect introduction to the tale of Tom Sturridge's Lord of Dreams, Morpheus, and his Endless siblings. And with Season 2 already in production, today Netflix have announced a slew of exciting new additions to the cast for the upcoming series.

Playing characters from The Sandman collections Season Of Mists and Brief Lives, the cohort assembled to help usher in our return to the dream world includes *deep breath* Ruairi O'Connor (The Morning Show) as poet Orpheus, Game Of Thrones alumnus Clive Russell and Jack Gleeson as Odin and malevolent hobgoblin Puck respectively, Freddie Fox (Slow Horses) as God of Chaos Loki,...

Film, television and media financing firm BondIt Media Capital has closed a new credit facility of $60 million with the option to increase to $100 million, from Keystone National Group, a private credit fund and investment advisory firm.

The new facility is aimed at refinancing an existing credit facility, that has been a key factor in BondIt’s growth over the last six years.

Suman Mallick and Chris Gilker, Keystone managing directors, have previously worked with the BondIt team to make strategic moves regarding opportunities in film, TV and media following the 2023 SAG and WGA strikes.

“Despite having to navigate through a series of challenges in recent years including industry strikes and interest rate increases, not to mention the pandemic, the BondIt team has continued to build a high-quality portfolio of projects and a sterling reputation in the industry,” Mallick and Gilker wrote in a joint statement. “We are excited to invest...

Your browser does not support the video tag. The Boss Baby movie was a hit at the box office, grossing over $528 million, despite mixed reviews. The film's Oscar nomination raised eyebrows, as it faced better-reviewed competition in the animated feature category, including a few that were ultimately snubbed. DreamWorks expanded the franchise with two Netflix shows and a sequel, but the latter's underwhelming box office performance may have doomed the third movie's chances.

As the franchise continues to plan expansions, the latest episode of Screen Rant's own Pitch Meeting series is looking back on its previous The Boss Baby analysis. The 2017 movie served as an adaptation of the children's picture book of the same name, centering on the titular character Ted as he infiltrated a family as their newest addition in the hopes of stopping a secret war regarding adults' love between babies and puppies. Led by Alec Baldwin,...

As part of the 2025 Oscar rule changes for the 97th Academy Awards, animated movies can be simultaneously submitted for Best International Feature and Best Animated Feature. This will simplify the qualifying method for the latter and specifically help animated international films that may not have access to U.S. distribution.

“Previously, animated movies selected as a country’s international feature selection [which do not require U.S. theatrical distribution] were not qualified to enter for animated feature consideration unless they also met the qualifying standards for general entry [which require U.S. theatrical distribution],” an Academy insider told IndieWire.

“This consisted of separate submission forms. Submitters will still need to complete different forms, but now animated movies selected as a country’s international feature selection no longer need to meet general entry standards to be considered for the Animated Feature award. They would, however, still need to be ruled eligible under the Academy’s definition of ‘animation.'”

Two examples of animated international feature...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Drift (Anthony Chen)

Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s English-language debut follows a West African refugee, Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), who washes up on a Greek island homeless, cashless, and friendless. She doesn’t speak until ten minutes into Drift, taking in her surroundings, plagued by a fear that’s nestled deep within her. Understandably, she’s scared of everyone and everything, living in a cave, eating whatever she can find, making money by washing tourists’ feet on the beach. – Michael F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

A Drifting Up (Jacob Lee)

Coming off antidepressants for the first time, young London-based filmmaker Jacob Lee decided to dance his way through it and record the process. This BAFTA-nominated short documentary captures his joyful interactions...

Maciek Hamela’s In The Rearview, a documentary that follows the stories of Ukrainians forced to flee the war, has won best film at the 2024 Vilnius Film Festival.

The Vilnius jury picked the “touching documentary” for its top prize in a unanimous vote. Filmed in the first days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the film tells stories of trauma, loss and humanity as it follows a small van that crisscrosses the war-torn country, picking up Ukrainians as they are forced to abandon their homes at the front and shuttling them across the battered landscape into exile.

“In the backseat of the vehicle, the refugees talk about what they had to leave behind — their house, their animals, their family and their belief in a peaceful life — filling it with the fate of an entire nation,” the Vilnius said in its statement. “On its way out, it passes ruins, soldiers and tanks.

As a follow-up to 2017's Academy Award-nominated movie Loving Vincent, the gorgeously animated The Peasants is very impressive on a technical level. The film is a labor of love, a visual beauty brought to life by hundreds of artists across the planet. The team spent over five years weathering an ever-changing world (including a global pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacting one of the animation studios) to produce a work that—at its best—is a genuine marvel to look at.

The Peasants' problem is that its central characters and story can't always match its stunning visual heights. The Peasants is a bittersweet and harsh tale that doesn't offer much new perspective on the classic narrative it tackles, ultimately failing to make an impression beyond the surface level. While it may be wonderfully produced and looks absolutely beautiful, The Peasants struggles to impress on its own merits as a story and film.

The sales company is set to offer its slate at next month’s European Film Market.

Los Angeles-based sales company Access Entertainment has changed its name to DuBow Media Distribution (Dmd) and recruited Jonathan DuBow as vice president, global sales.

The company said that under its new name it will expand production activity while continuing to acquire new films for global sales.

Dmd is currently handling pre-sales on horror feature Red Light. Its sales slate, which will be offered at next month’s European Film Market in Berlin, includes family adventure Born To Be Great, comedy Thanksgiving Mascarade and comedy romance Bug Man.

With Loving Vincent, the directors Dk and Hugh Welchman attempted something that had never been done before: to create and edit together 65,000 oil paintings into a feature-length film. The result—which was the labor of 125 painters and numerous actors over the course of six years—was a unique amalgam of flesh, paint, and animation that earned the duo one of the top prizes at Berlinale as well as an Academy Award nomination. But that painstaking process, didn’t discourage the couple one bit. On the contrary, it inspired them to test the limits of filmmaking once again, as their latest film, The Peasants (which not only entailed the same artistic problems but was also interrupted in production by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), unquestionably proves. Ahead of the January 26 release, the new trailer for Poland’s Oscar entry has now arrived.

Adapted from Władysław Reymont’s beloved four-volume novel of the same name,...

Dk and Hugh Welchman are the directors of 2017’s Loving Vincent, a Vincent Van Gogh biopic created entirely from individually painted images. Now they return with the similarly ambitious The Peasants, for which you can watch the trailer above. As the filmmakers write in the press kit of the film’s making: While The Peasants incorporates the same painting animation technique made popular with our previous film Loving Vincent, our approach to the painting animation for The Peasants varied significantly from Vincent. […] The over 100 painting animators who worked on the film did so on specially designed Paws units (Painting Animation […]

The post Trailer Watch: The Peasants first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Dk and Hugh Welchman are the directors of 2017’s Loving Vincent, a Vincent Van Gogh biopic created entirely from individually painted images. Now they return with the similarly ambitious The Peasants, for which you can watch the trailer above. As the filmmakers write in the press kit of the film’s making: While The Peasants incorporates the same painting animation technique made popular with our previous film Loving Vincent, our approach to the painting animation for The Peasants varied significantly from Vincent. […] The over 100 painting animators who worked on the film did so on specially designed Paws units (Painting Animation […]

The post Trailer Watch: The Peasants first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

"God did not create you to be poor!" Sony Classics has revealed an official US trailer for the hand-painted film The Peasants, an animated story of jealous men and angry villagers. They have been working on this for years, painting every single frame by hand to get it looking perfect. The film tells a heartbreaking story about an early 20th Polish peasant woman who creates havoc when she is forced to marry an older rich man. The epic classic novel of Wladyslaw Reymont has been brought to life using the popular realist and pre-impressionist paintings from the 19th Century, with an emphasis on the Young Poland Movement and the works of such artists as Józef Chełmoński, Ferdynand Ruszczyc and Julian Fałat. It's a follow-up to the first hand-painted film Loving Vincent, which was about Vincent Van Gogh. Every last shot is painted by artists, resulting in thousands of paintings at the end of production.

Animation is branching out into diverse styles, with movies like Cryptozoo combining hand-drawn sketches, watercolor paintings, and collage for a visually rich experience. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem incorporate unique animation styles, painting a more ambitious and refreshing picture for the future of animation. Loving Vincent revolutionizes animation with thousands of oil paintings on canvas, creating a shimmering work of art that perfectly complements its story and subject.

Although most mainstream animation sticks to the well-established 3D style, there are plenty of creative movies which are pushing the boundaries of the medium. Since the advent of Pixar, big-budget animation has been ruled by computer-generated 3D animation techniques. Dreamworks, Disney and Illumination all mostly produce variants within the same framework. There have been a few alternative approaches which have cut through over the years, like Studio Ghibli's beautiful 2D style and Aardman's stop-motion mystery,...

Exclusive: Agnieszka Holland’s migrant drama Green Border will open the 22nd Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, running from March 6 to 28 in various locations across London.

The opening gala screening at the BFI Southbank will tie in with the film’s UK release by Modern Films, which kicks off on March 8. The picture previously made its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.

The timely drama explores the migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border from a variety of points of view, from the people stuck in the treacherous natural environment, to activists trying to help them and border guards charged with keeping them out.

The work hit the headlines earlier this year when Holland was attacked by Poland’s far-right government as the film world premiered to acclaim at the Venice Film Festival in September, where it won the Special Jury Prize.

Polish distributor Kino Świat pushed on with the...

Animated movies offer more creative freedom for exploring time travel concepts and expanding on them in unique ways. Animated movies, including those about time travel, are not just for kids. They contain valuable life lessons for both children and adults. Time travel movies in animation can touch on important themes like family and empathy, providing heartwarming and emotional experiences.

Many movies have taken advantage of animation to make some of the best time travel movies. As animation isn't hindered by what an actor is able to do on set, there is a lot more freedom when making an animated movie. It makes time travel an excellent plot device for animated movies to use, as they can really expand on the concept in unique ways.

A common belief is that animated movies are meant purely for kids. While there are a lot of kid-friendly animated movies, there are plenty of animated movies for adults,...

The husband-and-wife team behind 2019 feature animation Oscar nominee Loving Vincent, Dk and Hugh Welchman, is back in the awards race this season with The Peasants.

Adapted from Nobel Prize-winning writer Władysław Reymont’s classic turn-of-the-century novel of the same name, the production uses the same hand-painted technique as its predecessor but on a grander scale.

The drama revolves a free-spirited young woman, Jagna, determined to forge her own path in a late 19th century Polish village. She is knocked off course when she is married off to a wealthy widower, while being in love with his son.

Alongside being Poland’s International Feature Film Oscar entry, the work is also in the running for Animated Feature.

Related: Oscars Unveil Eligible Films List For International Feature, Feature Documentary And Animated Feature Categories

Hugh Welchman credits wife Dk with coming up with the idea of adapting the novel.

“It’s a classic...

How do you follow the Oscar-nominated “Loving Vincent,” which introduced the landmark oil-painted animation technique for enveloping the Vincent Van Gogh biopic with his masterworks? One consideration was Goya.

Instead, the wife-and-husband directing team of D.K. Welchman and Hugh Welchman ambitiously applied their technique to the epic sweep of Nobel laureate Wladislaw Reymont’s 1,000-page novel of early 20th-century Polish rural life, “The Peasants”.

The result is a bolder and more expressive moving painting than “Loving Vincent,” which captures the style and energy of Reymont’s novel about the beautiful yet harsh agrarian existence and strict gender roles that resonate today. It’s no wonder that Poland submitted the film as its international Oscar entry.

“It was so liberating for us after ‘Loving Vincent,'” D.K. told IndieWire. “This is a great novel with many inspirations and then you find the appropriate visual language where we had to join up the painting,...

Paul King’s festive musical, starring Timothee Chalamet, is one of the widest openings of the year

Warner Bros’ Wonka is hoping to tantalise UK and Ireland cinemagoers this weekend as Paul King’s festive musical opens in 701 locations.

It is one of the widest openings of the year, just behind Disney’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 which debuted in 705 locations and Warner Bros’ fellow title Barbie in 706. Disney’s Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny is still the 2023 record holder with its 746 venue opening, followed by The Little Mermaid (732), Super Mario Bros: The Movie (720) and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One...

Interrupted by a serious accident and all manner of other unexpected inconveniences, Władysław Reymont’s celebrated novel, The Peasants, took seven years to write. Interrupted by a war, Hugh Welchman and Dk Welchman’s adaptation took five years to film, and it could easily have been more had the two directors (who are also a couple) not accepted the need for compromise. If you’re familiar with their names, that’s likely due to the success of 2018 Oscar nominee and European Film Award winner Loving Vincent, every one of whose 56,000 frames was hand-painted in oils. A similar number of frames were painted this time around, but in places digitally drawn images were used in between them. It doesn’t really show. The result is a feast for the eyes.

Just as Reymont’s book immersed itself in the metaphorical colour of Polish peasant life, so the Welchmans’ film delivers a flood of literal colour,...

by Cláudio Alves

As Guillermo del Toro loves to remind us, animation is cinema. It's not a genre but a medium with its own particularities and styles, distinct idioms, and formal grammar. This year, some countries have taken these values to heart, selecting animated works to represent them at the Oscars. Curiously, two of them offer original ways to consider Rotoscoping as an animation practice, defying those who dismiss such films as lesser. They are Poland's The Peasants, from the same team behind Loving Vincent, and The Missing from the Philippines. Between painterly ravishment and digital befuddlement, these filmmakers take Rotoscope cinema to its limits and beyond…...

Rotoscope-style animation gives this version of Władysław Reymont’s story an interesting look, but the performances and tone can’t live up to the visuals

Husband-and-wife film-makers Dk Welchman (née Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman made a real impression five years ago with their animation Loving Vincent, made in a pastiche style of Van Gogh’s own paintings using digital techniques to enhance hand-painted original work – a bit like the rotoscope approach of computer animation pioneer Bob Sabiston. A single-joke or single-idea movie, perhaps, but certainly interesting. Now, to some acclaim, they have done the same thing to the 1904-09 novel The Peasants by Nobel prizewinner Władysław Reymont (first adapted for Polish TV in the early 70s).

There’s the same digi-painted world derived from live action, the same visual effect of the forms and details on screen seeming always imperceptibly to throb or rustle, like a field of corn.

Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce debuts in 568 cinemas while André Rieu’s White Christmas is the widest opener.

Concert films and anniversary screenings dominate the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce opens in 568 cinemas for Trafalgar Releasing.

It is not quite as many locations as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which debuted in 651 venues back in October. Swift’s film opened on £5.7m and broke the record for the highest-grossing concert film in the UK, currently standing at around £12m.

Renaissance is directed and produced by Beyonce, through her company Parkwood Entertainment, and...

Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce debuts in 568 cinemas while André Rieu’s White Christmas is the widest opener.

Concert films and anniversary screenings dominate the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce opens in 568 cinemas for Trafalgar Releasing.

It is not quite as many locations as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which debuted in 651 venues back in October. Swift’s film opened on £5.7m and broke the record for the highest-grossing concert film in the UK, currently standing at around £12m.

Renaissance is directed and produced by Beyonce, through her company Parkwood Entertainment, and...

Award recognises outstanding contribution by an actor to British film.

Stephen Graham will be awarded the honorary Richard Harris award at the 2023 British Independent Film Awards.

The actor will receive the award at the ceremony on Sunday, December 3. The award, which has been given since 2003 at the annual ceremony, is given in the name of UK actor Harris, recognising ‘an outstanding contribution by an actor to British film.

Liverpudlian Graham received a Bifa nomination in 2007 for his breakthrough role as neo-Nazi Andrew ‘Combo’ Gascoigne in Shane Meadows’ This Is England; Graham went on to reprise the role in three This Is England TV series.

Social media comments come after Jenna Ortega pulls out due to scheduling conflicts.

Melissa Barrera has responded to being fired from the upcoming Scream VII following social media posts about the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying: “I condemn hate and prejudice of any kind.”

Writing on Instagram Stories hours after it emerged that Jenna Ortega will not return as Barrera’s on-screen sister Tara due to scheduling conflicts, Barerra, who starred as Sam Carpenter in two Scream films, said: “First and foremost I condemn Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. I condemn hate and prejudice of any kind against any group of people.

“As a Latina,...

Lithuanian-based producer Uljana Kim’s credits include Mantas Kvedaravičius’ ‘Mairupolis’ documentaries

Lithuanian-based producer Uljana Kim, whose credits include the Mariupolis documentaries, will be honoured with the Eurimages Co-Production award at the European Film Awards, held in Berlin on December 9.

The producer, who was born in Korea, founded her production company Studio Uljana Kim in 1997 and was the first female producer in Lithuania at the time.

Her earlier credits include Valdas Navasaitis’ Courtyard, which premiered in Cannes Director’s Fortnight in 1999, as well as Kristijonas Vildžiūnas’ The Lease and You Am I in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

Kim went on to produce Mantas...

The Peasants would already be a daunting project in the best of times. Like their previous film, Loving Vincent, directors Hugh and Dk Welchman oversaw a team of animators painting each frame of the film based on live-action reference material. Hugh, who came to Los Angeles from Poland just for his 12-minute Contenders panel, said The Peasants also had to work around Covid and the Ukraine War.

Between the pandemic and the war, The Peasants — which is Poland’s entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar — faced difficulty getting all of their painters in the same room.

“We can’t do stuff remotely,” Hugh said. “We have people sitting in front of easels with a whole lighting setup in each of the painting animation workstations.”

The Peasants recruited painters from Poland, Serbia, Lithuania and Ukraine and faced 20 percent inflation over the years of production. The Ukraine war cut much...

The Peasants Sound and Screen performance stood out with a full line of Polish dancers in the aisles. Composer Lukas Rostkowski, aka L.U.C., said the animated film’s score also included a choir of refugee singers from Ukraine.

“These ladies came from Ukraine to dance and they were just amateurs,” Rostkowski said. “They were singing after the war because when they were singing, that was the only moment where they didn’t think about the war and their husbands’ death.”

Rostkowski added that many of the film’s painters also were based in Ukraine and had to be evacuated to complete the movie.

The Peasants is directors Dk and Hugh Welchman’s follow-up to Loving Vincent, using the same animation style of painting every frame over actors’ performances. The new film is based on Wladyslaw Reymont’s novel about a 19th century peasant who marries a wealthy husband.

“Woman Of…,” Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s pioneering trans drama, has been sold by Memento International across Europe.

Set against the landscape of the Polish transformation from communism to capitalism, “Woman Of” stars Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik as Aniela Wesoły. “Woman Of…” spans 45 years of Aniela’s life as she aspires to find personal liberty as a trans woman and faces hardships in marriage and parenthood, strained family relations and complicated attitudes in her environment.

The movie has been acquired for Italy (I Wonder), France (UFO), Germany (Salzgeber), Austria (Filmladen), Spain (Karma), Benelux and Israel (Cinemien), Switzerland (Xenix), Sweden (Lucky Dogs), Greece (Cinobo), Ukraine (Arthouse Traffic) and Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe).

Discussions are ongoing in other territories including the U.K. and Scandinavia. North American sales are handled by Anonymous Content and Memento International. The film will be released in Poland by Next Films and is set for March...

New-made furniture, scuffed to look vintage, rarely convinces as anything other than pastiche. Portraits painted as closely as possible to resemble the photographs on which they’re based are a similarly strange phenomenon: admiration for the painter’s skill is undercut by the sense of creative constraint. For the same reasons “The Peasants,” on which married directors Dk and Hugh Welchman apply the technique — of hand-painting over live-action frames — that brought them breakout success with Van Gogh biopic “Loving Vincent,” is a film that impresses in its painstaking, years-long construction, without ever really supplying a reason (beyond prettiness) for such a laborious aesthetic.

To fully handpaint 40,000 oil paintings (which translates to around six frames out of every second of resulting footage) at a rate of five hours per painting, on top of the standard writing, casting, costuming, shooting, editing etc of live-action, is a mission so impractical that Quixote himself would probably have quailed.

Recently, a Polish film was released that created a sensation in its home country. From the breathtaking visuals to the story behind its conception, The Peasants is as much of a work of art as any film before it. Sony Pictures Classics certainly thinks so, and they want you to see it. For many people, movies have become so similar and pedestrian that they beg for something new to come along and save cinema. The good thing is that this happens more often than we actually admit. The Peasants may be the latest to do so.

Let's take a look at the film, what it's doing differently, and why Sony is so excited for audiences to finally see The Peasants.

A Nobel Prize-Winning Novel Set in a Small Village

The Peasants is a film based on a four-part, Nobel Prize-winning novel by Wladyslaw Reymont. The book was written in the...

Variety has been given access to the international trailer for animated film “The Peasants,” which is Poland’s entry for the international feature category of the Academy Awards. The film had its world premiere in the Special Presentation section of Toronto Film Festival last month, and screens next week at the London Film Festival.

New Europe Film Sales has sold rights to “The Peasants” to more than 70 countries, including German-speaking Europe (Plaion), France (The Jokers), Benelux (Paradiso), South Korea (First Run), China (Jl Film), Scandinavia (Another World Entertainment) and Spain (Karma), as well as North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand (Sony Pictures Classics).

“The Peasants” is directed by D.K. Welchman (formerly known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman, the filmmakers behind “Loving Vincent.” The latter film was nominated for the animated feature film Oscar in 2018, and grossed more than $50 million at the global box office.

‘The Peasants’ comes from the same team that made ‘Loving Vincent’.

Vertigo Releasing has acquired UK rights to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s animated feature The Peasants from New Europe Film Sales.

The Polish animation debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, and will have its UK premiere on Wednesday, October 11 at the BFI London Film Festival (Lff).

It is Poland’s entry to the best international feature Oscar race.

Vertigo Releasing is aiming for a UK-Ireland release in mid-November, following the film’s Polish release on October 13 through Next Film.

New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to over 50 territories,...

‘The Peasants’ comes from the same team that made ‘Loving Vincent’.

Vertigo Releasing has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s animated feature The Peasants from New Europe Film Sales.

The Polish animation debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, and will have its UK premiere on Wednesday, October 11 at the BFI London Film Festival (Lff).

It is Poland’s entry to the best international film Oscar.

Vertigo Releasing is aiming for a UK-Ireland release in mid-November, following the film’s Polish release on October 13 through Next Film.

New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to over 50 territories,...

The animated highlights of 2023 thus far: Illumination/Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($1.36 billion globally, $574.9 million domestically) and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($689 million globally, $381 million domestically) were massive box office hits, proving that there is a hungry audience clamoring to see animation in theaters again.

However, Pixar/Disney’s “Elemental” and DreamWorks/Universal’s “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” were major box office flops: Pixar’s immigrant story about the elements trying to co-exist only mustered $154.4 million domestically (placing 20th on the studio’s list of features). However, it grabbed $490 million worldwide and subsequently became Disney+’s most-viewed movie premiere of the year. Meanwhile, DreamWorks’ coming-of-age Kraken comedy had the worst domestic showing in the studio’s history (with $15.7 million). This signaled that original animated content still has theatrical hurdles to overcome compared to franchises.

Fortunately, the animated reboot of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Nickelodeon/Paramount) was a hit,...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand to Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman’s “The Peasants,” the studio announced Friday.

Chosen by Poland as its official submission for the 2024 Oscars in the Best International Feature category, “The Peasants” will also enter the race for Best Animated Feature. No additional release plans were disclosed.

The animated film had its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations section.

The film was initially shot as a live-action feature film, followed by an extensive two-year process involving a team of over 100 painters to create the intricate painting animation. This identical painting animation technique had previously been utilized in the filmmakers’ Oscar-nominated work “Loving Vincent.”

“The Peasants” tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines...

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North American and other international rights to The Peasants, from Loving Vincent directors Hugh and D.K. Welchman and an oil-painted animated adaptation of the classic Polish novel of the same name.

SPC also picked up the rights in Latin America, the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand. The acquisition reunites the U.S. specialty distributor with The Peasants producer Breakthru Films, which is a co-producer on the animated-live action movie A Winter’s Journey, for which SPC earlier picked up the North American rights and much of the world.

“It’s an indescribable experience and achievement created by singular amazing artists,” Sony Pictures Classics said of The Peasants in a statement on Friday. The film is expected to be a contender in the Oscars’ best animation category after it bowed at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Peasants — about Jagna, a young woman battling...

The film uses the same painted animation technique as the directors’ Loving Vincent.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights to The Peasants, Poland’s submission for this year’s international film Oscar, for North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand.

Written and directed by Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman, The Peasants had its world premiere as a special presentation at this year’s Toronto festival. It uses the same painting animation technique that the filmmakers employed on their 2017 project Loving Vincent, which was nominated for the best animated feature Oscar.

Based on an early twentieth...

Sony Pictures has snapped up rights in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand to The Peasants, the latest animated feature from Loving Vincent helmers Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman, which world premiered in Special Presentations at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Further details on release plans have not yet been disclosed.

Recently selected by Poland as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Oscars, and set to contend in the Best Animated Feature category, as well, The Peasants is based on the same-name, early 20th century novel by Polish author Władysław Reymont. The film tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village — a hotbed of gossip and ongoing feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colorful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy.

In the 1930s, the Polish port city of Gdynia became a brief landing pad for immigrants from neighboring countries, including Jews who sought safety and prosperity before the rise of Nazi Germany. Though the Museum of Gdynia quietly explains this messy history, obvious markers of that past aren’t visible across the city. Its marina boasts a massive monument to 18th-century Polish military hero Tadeusz Kościuszko, whose actions became the stuff of legend both for the Poles and the Americans, but otherwise Gdynia stands anew, with sparkling metallic structures surrounding its stretch of the Puck Bay and the Polanka Redłowska forest.

By contrast, in the nearby town of Gdańsk, with its brightly colored and narrow buildings that hug a labyrinthine waterway, the markers of history are more immediately apparent to the naked eye. Much of the buildings have been reconstructed such that nearly every street teems with homages to the past.

by Nathaniel R

The Peasants

Do you remember that painted animation film Loving Vincent (2017)? It was billed as the world's first fully painted feature film and it went on to an Oscar nomination in the Best Animated Feature category (eventually losing to Pixar's Coco). The married filmmaking team behind that picture have done it again with The Peasants, which is an adaptation of a novel about a peasant girl who causes a scandal by marrying a rich older man. Only three animated films have ever been nominated for Best International Feature Film -- Waltz With Bashir, Flee, and The Missing Picture (sort of) -- and interestingly enough all three of them can be classified as documentaries in addition to being animated. The same isn't true of The Peasants but Poland is submitting this one for the Oscar race...

The in-person event takes place on October 7 at London’s Picturehouse Central.

Campbell X’s Low Rider and Alex Helfrecht’s A Winter’s Journey are among the five features taking part in the third edition of the BFI London Film Festival Works-in-Progress showcase.

The in-person event takes place on October 7 as part of the festival’s UK Talent Days focus, in partnership with the British Council, at London’s Picturehouse Central.

The event will screen extracts from each project, with an introduction from its filmmaker, to an invited audience of international buyers as well as UK sales agents and festival programmers,...

Poland’s Oscar committee has selected The Peasants, a sumptuous animated literary adaptation from Loving Vincent directors Dk and Hugh Welchman, as the country’s submission for the best international feature category at the 2024 Oscars, over The Green Border, a critically-acclaimed film from two-time Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, In Darkness).

The decision, announced by the committee in Warsaw Monday afternoon, comes after a concerted attack on The Green Border by Poland’s far-right government, with the justice minister and the country’s president condemning the film and comparing it to “Nazi propaganda” for its depiction of the refugee crisis on Poland’s border with Belarus.

The head of Poland’s Oscar committee, producer Ewa Puszczyńska, whose credits include the Oscar-winner Ida, the Oscar-nominated Quo vadis, Aida? and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, the U.K. entry for the 2024 best international feature race, said deliberations were “tough...

Animated feature world premiered at Toronto earlier this month.

Poland is submitting animated featureThe Peasants as its candidate for best International feature film for next year’s Academy Awards.

Co-directors Dk Welchman and Hugh Welchman used the same painting animation technique as in their previous film Loving Vincent forThe Peasants.

The Peasants had its world premiere in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, with international sales being handled by New Europe Film Sales.

Last weekend saw The Peasants win its first ever audience prize in Poland when festival-goers at the Polish Film Festival...

Exclusive: Poland will submit animated feature drama The Peasants for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The picture is the latest work from Dk Welchman (previously known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman, the creative duo behind the groundbreaking, Oscar-nominated, hand-painted biopic Loving Vincent.

The pair co-wrote The Peasants screenplay adaptation from Nobel Prize-winning writer Władysław Reymont’s classic 1905 novel of the same name about a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village.

Poland’s Oscar entry choice was made Monday by a selection committee overseen by the Polish Film Institute. There was a strong offering of Polish films this year, with other potential contenders including Agnieszka Holland’s migrant drama Green Border and Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englerts’ transgender drama Woman Of.

Related: Agnieszka Holland’s Migrant Crisis Drama ‘Green Border’ Posts Record Opening Weekend...