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The 32nd edition of the UK’s Raindance Film Festival is to open with horror-thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, as the festival shifts away from autumn to a midsummer slot, running June 19-28.

This year, 90% of the international films screening in competition are debut features. The jury includes actors Alice Englert, Claes Bang, Jared Harris and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and producers Ivana MacKinnon and Paul Sng.

Cuckoo is a German-us co-production that has played at Berlin and SXSW. Schafer plays a 17- year-old who is forced to leave her American home to live with her father and his new family as...

The 32nd edition of the UK’s Raindance Film Festival is to open with Tilman Singer’s horror-thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, as the festival shifts away from autumn to a midsummer slot, running June 19-28.

This year, 90% of the international films screening in competition are debut features.

The jury includes actors Alice Englert, Claes Bang, Jared Harris and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and producers Ivana MacKinnon and Paul Sng.

Opening night film Cuckoo is a German-us co-production, that has played at Berlin and SXSW. Schafer plays a 17- year-old who is forced to leave her American home to live with her...

Italy’s True Colours has unveiled a raft of sales on its slate including a US deal for Laura Luchetti’s The Beautiful Summer and a UK and Ireland acquisition of Edoardo de Angelis’ Venice opener Comandante.

Film Movement has taken North American rights to 1938-set romance drama The Beautiful Summer, which world premiered last year in the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival. The film has also sold to Scene and Sound for South Korea and Zeta Film for Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, adding to previously announced international deals last year.

Meanwhile, Bulldog Film Distribution has taken...

Italy’s True Colours has taken on international sales for German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s upcoming noir thriller Death Will Come (La Mort Viendra).

Currently in post-production, Death Will Come centres on a female assassin who is hired by a leading gangster to avenge the murder of one of his couriers – but soon finds herself the prey. The French-language film stars Franco-Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing.

Hochhausler’s previous film Till The End Of The Night premiered in competition at Berlin in 2023.

Death Will Come is a German-Luxembourg-Belgium co-production. The co-producers are leading German...

Britney Spears wrote extensively about her relationships with Justin Timberlake and Colin Farrell in her memoir The Woman in Me. She also wrote a song that was seemingly inspired by both of them.

The 41-year-old pop star broke up with the Nsync singer in 2002 and was briefly linked to Colin the following year. Her album In the Zone, out in late 2003, had a B-side on it that finds her seemingly singing about both men.

In a resurfaced podcast interview, Britney‘s collaborator, Joshua Schwartz, opened up about the steamy song and recalled conversations with the pop star while they were working on it and other tracks together.

Head inside to read more about Britney Spears’ “Don’t Hang Up” and how it was inspired by Justin and Colin…

The song in question is called “Don’t Hang Up.” Joshua is credited as a co-writer and co-producer on the song. He also worked...

The 2023 NAACP Image Awards continued their week–long celebration Friday with a non-televised dinner where winners in a number of categories were honored.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Abbott Elementary were among the top winners from night five, with each project winning three awards. The Best Man: The Final Chapters and P-Valley each won two awards.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever leads this year’s NAACP Image Awards nominees with 12 nods, with Abbott Elementary landing nine nominations. P-Valley was nominated for six awards.

During the dinner at the L.A. Live Event Deck hosted by actress Bresha Webb, the Activist of the Year Award was presented to civil rights advocate Dr. Derrick Lee Foward, president of the NAACP’s Dayton, Ohio unit and vice president of the Ohio NAACP. The dinner also recognized the Youth Activist of the Year: Bloomington-Normal NAACP Youth Council president Bradley Ross Jackson, who helped organize a...

Film shot entirely in UK last autumn.

AGC Studios has released the exclusive first-look image from its supernatural thriller Consecration ahead of the launch of sales in Cannes.

Stuart Ford and the AGC International sales team will show footage at an invitation-only buyer event from the latest genre title by Christopher Smith, the director of The Banishing, Detour and Severance who co-wrote Consecration with Laurie Cook.

The film stars Jena Malone, Danny Huston and Janet Suzman and takes place in Scotland, where Grace goes to the Mount Saviour Convent to learn more about the suspicious death of her priest brother.

Digital multicast channel Bounce has enlisted “The Wire” star Wendell Pierce and Lauren Holly to lead the original thriller “Don’t Hang Up,” which is set to premiere in the spring. The movie is in production in Toronto.

David Hudson, who oversees Bounce as head of original programming for Scripps National Networks, called the project “the next step in our plan to take Bounce original productions to the next level.” Pierce was a regular on the acclaimed HBO drama “The Wire” from 2002 to 2008. He’s been steadily in demand as an actor in TV, movies and stage

The thriller, directed by J.B. Sugar and written by Byl Caruthers, follows Chris Daniels (Pierce), a man who receives a call that his daughter (Eden Cupid) has been kidnapped and taken hostage. The kidnappers demand that he completes a series of different missions to get her back, including one crucial direction to not hang up the phone.

Rod Stewart will reissue four of his mid-Seventies albums as part of a vinyl box set that also includes an extra LP filled with rare and unreleased studio outtakes from the era.

Due out June 4th via Rhino, the five-lp 1975-1978 includes the first four albums Stewart recorded during the Warner Records tenure that led to his solo commercial breakthrough: 1975’s Atlantic Crossing, 1976’s A Night on the Town, 1977’s Foot Loose & Fancy Free and 1978’s Blondes Have More Fun, Stewart’s first Number One album.

“It’s extraordinary for...

Chicago Fire Don’t Hang Up Plot Synopsis and Air Date — NBC‘s Chicago Fire: Season 9, Episode 13: Don’t Hang Up plot synopsis and air date have been released. Cast Chicago Fire stars Jesse Spencer, Taylor Kinney, Monica Raymund, Eamonn Walker, David Eigenberg, Joe Minoso, Yuri Sardarov, Christian Stolte, Kara Killmer, and Miranda Rae Mayo. Press [...]

Continue reading: Chicago Fire: Season 9, Episode 13: Don’t Hang Up Plot Synopsis & Air Date [NBC]...

Before The Hunger Games set box office records in March 2012, that month wasn't normally considered one to launch a franchise. Lately, February has been a go-to month to launch some unconventional blockbusters, following the success of Warner Bros.' The Lego Movie ($69 million opening, $469.1 million worldwide). Fifty Shades of Grey ($85.1 million opening weekend, $571 million worldwide), Kingsman: The Secret Service ($36.2 million opening weekend, $414.3 million worldwide) and the R-rated Deadpool ($132.4 million debut, $783.1 million worldwide). This year, three highly-anticipated movies square off, with The Lego Movie spin-off The Lego Batman movie facing a pair of R-rated sequels, Universal's sexually-charged erotic drama Fifty Shades Darker and Lionsgate's action-packed John Wick: Chapter 2. As expected, all three newcomers fared quite well, but The Lego Batman Movie came out on top with $55.6 million.

Box Office Mojo reports that The Lego Batman Movie debuted in 4,088 theaters, with this animated spin-off earning an impressive $13,609. Fifty Shades Darker opened in second place with $46.7 million,...

While February hasn't traditionally been a hotbed for box office blockbusters, that started to change three years ago. Warner Bros.' The Lego Movie became an instant hit in February 2014, opening with $69 million en route to $469.1 million worldwide. In 2015, Fifty Shades of Grey ($85.1 million opening weekend, $571 million worldwide) and Kingsman: The Secret Service ($36.2 million opening weekend, $414.3 million worldwide) went toe-to-toe, and last year, the R-rated Deadpool ($132.4 million debut, $783.1 million worldwide) set box office records. This year, three highly-anticipated movies square off, with The Lego Movie spin-off The Lego Batman movie facing a pair of R-rated sequels, Universal's sexually-charged erotic drama Fifty Shades Darker and Lionsgate's action-packed John Wick: Chapter 2. While all three should have no trouble drumming up business this weekend, we're predicting that The Lego Batman Movie will come away with the easy win, debuting with $58.7 million.

While that tally is a bit less than The Lego Movie...

Don't Hang Up is a new horror film from directors Alexis Wajsbrot and Damien Macé. Slated to have its World Premiere at the La Film Festival, this indie title involves two teenage boys and the prank calls they play. Those calls come back to haunt them. The film stars: Gregg Sulkin (Anti-social), Garrett Clayton, Bella Dayne and Sienna Gulillory. And, a couple of a stills from the film have been released, before the premiere. A longer synopsis talks about how the two teenage boys have become internet sensations. They post their prank calls online. But then, the tables are turned. Now, one humiliated victim has a bloody prank of his own to play. The first stills from the film show the boys and character Peyton (Dayne). Sam (Sulkin) and Brady (Clayton) appear worried, while Peyton stares into a recording device. A trailer is coming soon. For now, fans of horror...

Im Global and producers Robert Teitel, Tika Sumpter and Richard Tanne announced that they have cast Parker Sawyers as the young Barack Obama in Southside with You. The romantic dramedy was inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama's first date. Parker Sawyers joins Tika Sumpter who will play Michelle.

The film covers the eventful date in 1989 when a young associate named Barack Obama was trying to woo lawyer Michelle Robinson on a summer afternoon and evening, that took them from the Art Institute of Chicago to a screening of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing to the site of their first kiss outside of an ice cream parlor.

Parker Sawyers, an American actor based in the UK, recently completed Oliver Stone's Snowden with Joseph Gordon Levitt and is about to shoot a supporting role in the feature The Autopsy of Jane Doe, opposite Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch.

Pacific Standard Time

Alex Russell ("Chronicle"), Willa Holand ("Arrow") and Miguel Gomez ("The Strain") are set to join Benjamin and Orson Cummings' "Pacific Standard Time".

The story is described as a dark and sexy thriller involving 20-somethings trying to live above their means and getting involved in a love triangle that goes terribly wrong. [Source: THR]

The Canterville Ghost

Freddie Highmore ("Bates Motel"), Imelda Staunton ("Maleficent") and Toby Jones ("The Hunger Games") have joined the voice cast of Kim Burdon's animated adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost".

Old comedy chums Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, along with Miranda Hart, are also part of the comedy which follows a ghost who has been haunting his ancestral home in rural England for three centuries. He's successfully scared off every previous tenant, until the Otis family from America moves in. [Source: THR]

The Great Gilly Hopkins

Julia Stiles ("The Bourne Ultimatum") and Bill Cobbs...