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Alison Goldfrapp has returned with the announcement of her second solo album, Flux, and the release of its lead single, “Find Xanadu.”

Spanning 10 tracks and co-produced by Goldfrapp herself, Flux will arrive on August 15th via her newly-launched A.G. Records, in partnership with Absolute Label Services. Speaking about the decision to release the album on her own label, she explained that the sense of ownership that comes with working independently had a positive impact on its creation.

“If you’re lucky enough to have the option, owning your own masters feels like a no-brainer these days,” she said in a statement. “While being a solo independent artist comes with its own set of challenges, it truly suits me and has given myself and the people I work with a sense of empowerment and invigoration for this album.”

The single, “Find Xanadu,” boasts a driving electronic beat, built around a pulsating bassline.

The San Francisco International Film Festival’s Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative will present a $20,000 prize to Lee Isaac Chung’s film “Twisters,” along with a $5,000 award to Cyprien Vial’s movie “Magma.”

Chung will attend Sffilm Festival April 20 to receive the top Sloan Science in Cinema Prize and to participate in a panel about film and extreme weather. The panel will include Kevin Kelleher, director of Global Systems Laboratory and a consultant for the original 1996 film “Twister” as well as “Twisters,” Tapio Schneider, an environmental science and engineering professor at Caltech Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Al Nelson, supervising sound editor and sound designer for “Twisters” and Florian Witzel, Industrial Light and Magic visual effects supervisor.

Vial is set to receive the Sloan Science on Screen Award on April 21 for “Magma,” which has its international premiere at the festival. Vial will discuss the film with Michael Manga, a professor at the University California,...

The Sffilm Festival — or San Francisco International Film Festival — gets underway this Thursday, April 17. While the full lineup has already been unveiled, on Wednesday, the festival shared its program slate of the Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative, an annual tradition at the event.

Presented in partnership between the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Sffilm, the programming includes Cyprien Vial’s volcano thriller “Magma,” recipient of the Sloan Science on Screen Award with a cash prize of $5,000, and Cristina Costantini’s documentary “Sally,” which is the Sloan Science on Screen selection. “Sally” previously premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

A free-to-the-public festival talk will feature director Lee Isaac Chung accepting the Sloan Science in Cinema Prize for last year’s “Twisters,” followed by an onstage conversation on the integration of science and cinematic tools to depict extreme weather. There was a smidge of controversy in July 2024 over how “Twisters” never actually mentions climate change in dialogue.

The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s industry arm, Agora, which runs parallel to the fest’s 27th edition from March 7 – 15, returns with a renewed sense of purpose for filmmakers devoted to a medium that feels more vital than ever.

Taking place at a time when the very notion of truth is under threat, the event will gather documentary filmmakers, commissioners, funding bodies and other industry representatives to reckon not only with the existential crises facing the doc community, but the practical concerns for filmmakers faced with ongoing financing and distribution challenges.

In such turbulent times, industry events like Agora are all the more essential to the health of the documentary ecosystem, according to Thessaloniki industry head Angeliki Vergou.

“Markets are the core of the audiovisual industry. People attend them because they want to meet each other, they want to exchange [ideas],” Vergou tells Variety. “This is the main purpose why we...