News

Israeli filmmaker Renen Schorr, founder of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, died Wednesday at 72.

The school, which opened in 1989, was a gamechanger for Israeli cinema with alumni over the past 35 years including Nir Bergman (Broken Wings), Nadav Lapid (Synonymes), Tom Shoval (Youth), Talya Lavie (Zero Motivation) and Rama Burshtein (Fill The Void).

Schorr, who was born in Jerusalem in 1952, built his career alongside the fledgeling Israeli film industry to become a seminal figure in its development later on.

A filmmaker in his own right, his best-known work is the 1987 drama Late Summer Blues.

Set in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, it follows a group of seven high school graduates in their final summer together before being conscripted into the Israeli army.

The screenplay was inspired by Schorr’s involvement in the 1970 Senior’s Letter to Prime Minister Golda Meir – in which a group of high school students questioned...

Renen Schorr Heller, founder of Israel’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, has died at the age of 72.

A statement from the School shared “the heartbreaking news of the sudden passing” of Schorr.

“His passing marks the end of an era, leaving an immeasurable legacy not only in Israeli cinema but also in the hearts of all those who had the privilege to learn from, work alongside, and be inspired by him,” read the statement.

Israeli filmmaker Schorr produced his first feature, drama Lo L’Shidur, in 1981. He made his feature directorial debut with romance Late Summer...

László Nemes’ post-World War II Hungarian family drama Orphan has sold to Portugal’s Midas Filmes, Italy’s Movies Inspired, Greece’s Spentzos Film Sa, Baltic’s Kino Pavasaris and ex-Yugoslavia’s McF MegaCom Film for Charades and New Europe Film Sales.

The film has already sold to Mubi for a multi-territory deal in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey. Le Pacte will release the film in France.

Set in 1957 Budapest after the uprising against the Communistregime, Orphanis about a young boy’s journey when a man appears from his mother’s past and...

Happy New Year! As the Deadline team gears up for another busy and discovery-filled 12 months on the global film festival circuit, here is our annual (non-exhaustive) list of U.S. and international movies we expect to see on the way. While we scored better than an 80% strike rate for 2024, this year’s list features a few returnees we still hope to see at a festival soon. As in our previous prediction lists, we’ve focused on titles that have already started filming or are in post-production and which haven’t yet been announced for a festival.

A few notes on some big and exciting projects not listed below. Apple’s Brad Pitt Formula One pic F1 has a June release date leading to some question marks over a potential Cannes pit stop, but we get the impression a Croisette launch is unlikely for this one. Meanwhile, A24 and Timothée Chalamet...

Jomo Fray can pinpoint the day when the bold idea of “first-person perspective” truly clicked.

The Brooklyn-based cinematographer and his director, RaMell Ross, had spent months discussing, studying, and experimenting for the filming of “Nickel Boys.” Based on Colson Whitehead’s novel, the movie is shot almost entirely through the eyes of its main characters, Elwood and Turner (played by Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson), two young Black men at an inhumane reform school in Florida.

The eureka moment came during a scene when Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) visits the school to deliver bad news to her grandson. “I was the camera operator for that scene,” said Fray. “And as she was building up the courage to tell Elwood something devastating, I looked away. I find it very difficult to look a person in the eyes when I know they’re telling me something that’s difficult for them.

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.

Banel & Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy)

A directorial debut programmed into the main Cannes competition is typically viewed with suspicion, if not overlooked altogether. Very rare is that lightning-in-a-bottle moment like the arrival of Son of Saul some years back. Typically, the only conversation these debuts generate is the critical debate as to why they’ve been elevated to the top of the pile when there are far more striking debuts buried deeper within the festival. This often means that accomplished films are overlooked and underappreciated by those on the ground, who may be subconsciously comparing a striking feature to the work of more established names it’s competing against for the Palme d’Or, approaching each debut with a “show me” attitude it...

Géza Röhrig in Richard Kroehling’s After: Poetry Destroys Silence: “It was really quite a magic tree there on the shore.”

I first met Géza Röhrig when László Nemes introduced us at the Universal Pictures brunch in The Vault of the St. Regis for Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender as Jobs with Jeff Daniels as Steve Wozniak and Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld.

Géza Röhrig played Saul Ausländer in László Nemes’s Oscar-winning Son Of Saul. He played Georges, the cousin of Marcel Marceau (Jesse Eisenberg) in Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Resistance, and Shmuel opposite Matthew Broderick in Shawn Snyder’s To Dust (co-written with Jason Begue and co-produced by Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer).

Géza Röhrig with Anne-Katrin Titze on The Way Of The Wind: “Obviously it has been edited forever, and we all know that Terrence Malick is a maestro.”

He will be seen as...

The Les Arcs Film Festival has announced the 18 in development film projects selected for its 16th Les Arcs Coproduction Village, aimed at connecting the upcoming features with coproducers, sales agents, distributors and other financing partners.

The copro meeting will take place within the context of Alpine festival’s industry program running December 14 to 17.

Sixteen of the 18 projects are directed by female filmmakers, with 38% of the features submitted directed by women. Ten are first fiction feature projects, seven are second features and one is by a more established filmmaker.

They include Ukrainian director Anastasiia Solonevych’s debut feature 30 Days Of Summer, about two sisters who reconnect against the backdrop of a military training camp. Solonevych won the Cannes Palme d’Or for Best Short Film in 2023 for As It Was.

German director Sophie Linnenbaum, whose 2022 fantasy drama The Ordinaries enjoyed a buzzy awards and festival run, will participate with second fiction feature The Nose.

Cannes has announced the six first and second-time filmmakers selected for its annual Résidence programme, whose 48th session kicked off on October 1 in Paris and will run through February 15, 2025.

This year’s crop of rising talents includes four female filmmakers, among them: French-Moroccan director Sofia Alaoui, a 2022 Screen Arab Star of Tomorrow and 2023 Unifrance 10 to Watch talent, whose debut feature Animalia won the 2023 Sundance special jury prize; Lithuanian director Eglé Razumaite whose latest short Ootidé competed at Cannes 2024; India’s director Diwa Shah, whose Bahadur: The Brave screened at San Sebastián; and Germany’s Anastasia Veber whose short Trap won...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Oscar-winning Hungarian director László Nemes has wrapped filming on his long-awaited feature Orphan after a 10-week shoot in Budapest.

The production has released a first look image of 12 year-old newcomer Bojtorján Barabas in the lead role of Andor, the 12-year-old protagonist who learns about his own genesis in the ruins of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the communist dictatorship.

The film follows the boy’s painful journey when a man appears from his mother’s past and he discovers the true story of her survival during World War II. Andor has to come to terms with this man as a usurping father he only has hatred for.

Orphan is Nemes’ third film after Sunset, which world premiered in Venice in 2018, and his Oscar-winning breakthrough Son of Saul, which won Cannes Grand Prize of the Jury in 2015, before clinching Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year.

Balagasz is...

Hungary has picked Lajos Koltai’s biopic Semmelweis as its contender for the 2025 Oscars in the best international feature category.

The feature traces the life of Hungarian doctor Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures who became known as “the savior of mothers” for his efforts in fighting deadly infections following childbirth. Set in 19th-century Vienna, it shows Semmelweis, played by Miklós H. Vecsei as a passionate, if short-tempered, doctor determined to find the cause of puerperal fever, a mysterious epidemic decimating patients after childbirth. Even after he discovers the cause of the infection and a means to prevent it, his peers and superiors work to discredit him.

Semmelweis was a commercial hit back home, selling more than 350,000 tickets and grossing more than $2 million on its theatrical release, becoming the most successful Hungarian movie of the past five years. Nfi World Sales is handling world sales on the title.

“Rise of the Raven,” the anticipated European event series from Beta Film, behind “Babylon Berlin” and “The Swarm,” and producer Robert Lantos, will world premiere at Cannes content trade fair Mipcom on Oct. 22.

Beta Film has shared in exclusivity with Variety a first teaser to the series, which is a bracing introduction to the scale and ambition of “Rise of the Raven’s” production values, as well as the brutality of its battles scenes as it tells in an 10-part epic the extraordinary real-life feat of Hungarian army commander Janos Hunyadi, played by discovery Gellért L. Kádár, who turned back the tide of the Ottoman Empire’s seemingly unstoppable advance into Europe.

This looks set to climax in the series as in history in 1456 when Hunyadi won a bloody Battle of Belgrade against a vast Ottoman force twice the size of his troops who were sometimes armed with just slings and patriotic fervor.

Viktória Sovák, the new head of post-production house Nfi Filmlab in Hungary, whose credits include Venice competition titles “The Brutalist” and “Maria” and upcoming films by Ildiko Enyedi, the director of Oscar nominee “On Body and Soul,” and Laszlo Nemes, the director of Oscar winner “Son of Saul,” has spoken to Variety about its work, which stretches back more than 60 years.

Sovák, who became managing director of Nfi Filmlab in February, has worked at leading European film laboratories such as Laboratoires Éclair in France, L’immagine Ritrovata in Italy, and Hiventy/Transperfect in France.

“From the full analog era until the appearance of born-digital movies, I took it as my responsibility to know all workflows, machines and software,” she says. “I have solid experience in almost every area of film post-production from film processing and negative editing, through analog color grading to digitization and digital deliveries.”

Viktoria Sovak

Sovák has also...

Closing out an epilogue that, in turn, caps the 3.5-hour experience that is “The Brutalist,” a certain character looks straight to the camera to deliver a kind of valediction. “It is the destination, not the journey,” they say, though the sentiment doesn’t wholly ring true. Far from it, for the journey is every bit as enthralling in this American epic of assimilation, immigration and industry, while the peculiar rhythms and idiosyncrasies of director Brady Corbet’s storytelling make the film a real standout of this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Split between two chapters, bookended by overture and epilogue and divided by an intermission, “The Brutalist” could be described as novelistic in both form and function. Following a digressive approach more common to the page, Corbet and co-screenwriter Mona Fastvold (who directed the 2020 Venice standout “The World to Come”) embroider a sprawling narrative with quirks and asides, using a...

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much common cause between Pablo Larraín’s anticipated Maria Callas biopic, “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the titular opera singer, and Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” a 215-minute epic about a Holocaust survivor forging a new life in America. Though both films will premiere on the Lido at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where they’re competing for the Golden Lion, they are in most ways worlds apart.

Yet both owe a good deal to the contributions of Hungarian talent, joining a roster of recent awards bait and blockbusters to film in the Central European country that includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ multi-Oscar winner “Poor Things” and both chapters of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi tentpole “Dune.” While an attractive 30% cash rebate is undoubtedly part of the draw, it’s also a testament to a long history of artistry and technical craftsmanship in...

One of the world's most horrifying events in human history, the Holocaust, has inspired some of cinema's most hauntingly powerful narratives. Steven Spielberg's harrowing Schindler's List gave us the gripping story of rescue and survival, one that shifts its view between the unexpected German rescuer and the persecuted Jews. The Oscar-winning film The Pianist immerses us in the resilience of Adrien Brody's real-life-inspired portrayal of Jewish Holocaust survivor Wadysaw Szpilman. In the horrifying 2015 Hungarian historical drama film, Son of Saul, however, co-writer and director Lszl Nemes, in his Oscar-winning feature directorial debut, takes an entirely different route. He walks us through the grim reality of Nazi-occupied Poland's Auschwitz concentration camp, placing an imprisoned Jew forced to assist the Nazis in their brutality at the film's center.

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.

Banel & Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy)

A directorial debut programmed into the main Cannes competition is typically viewed with suspicion, if not overlooked altogether. Very rare is that lightning-in-a-bottle moment like the arrival of Son of Saul some years back. Typically, the only conversation these debuts generate is the critical debate as to why they’ve been elevated to the top of the pile when there are far more striking debuts buried deeper within the festival. This often means that accomplished films are overlooked and underappreciated by those on the ground, who may be subconsciously comparing a striking feature to the work of more established names it’s competing against for the Palme d’Or, approaching each debut with a “show me” attitude it...

Boris Lojkine’s The Story Of Souleymane and Sandhya Suri’s Santosh were among the winners of the 41st edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival this week.

The Story Of Souleymane won the best international film award in the International Competition. The jury praised “a film full of humanity, masterfully crafted, that never hits a false note.” Lojkine’s film, about a Paris food delivery cyclist preparing for his legal residency interview, debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May.

Scroll down for the full list of feature awards

Emanuel Parvu received the best director prize for Three Kilometers...

Israeli director Hillel Rate’s drama The Good Fence, set against the backdrop of a right-wing religious settlement, has won the $50,000 Grand Prize for the 12th edition of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.

The feature revolves around the antagonistic relationship between a right-wing religious settler father and his son, who rejects his religious upbringing and joins an extreme left-wing group.

Rate, who describes himself as a no-longer-practicing Jew raised in a religious home, has taken inspiration from events in his own life, and the tension he experienced with his late father after he chose a different life from that of his parents.

“The Good Fence portrays the conflicted relationship between a father and son in the settlements, in the wake of a family tragedy. It avoids simple answers while looking unblinkingly at the most complex issues of our time,” said Austrian Film Institute CEO Roland Teichmann, who headed the international jury.

In the last decade, the Maltese film industry has undergone radical development, with a strong focus on seeing the island country evolve from a service provider to Hollywood productions to telling their own stories on screen.

Speaking with Variety ahead of the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival, Maltese filmmakers have highlighted the importance of fostering local talent, rerouting foreign investment into native productions and strengthening bonds with neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

“Things have changed drastically in recent years,” said veteran filmmaker Mario Philip Azzopardi, whose 1971 “Il-Gaġġa” is widely presumed to be the first full-length feature filmed entirely in Maltese. “The building of shooting facilities, especially the water tanks, attracted a lot of movies and now there’s the attraction of 40% tax rebate. The problem is we have become primarily a service country, and creating Maltese movies is extremely difficult. We can’t afford the budgets of foreign films.

A directorial debut programmed into the main Cannes competition is typically viewed with suspicion, if not overlooked altogether. Very rare is that lightning-in-a-bottle moment like the arrival of Son of Saul some years back. Typically, the only conversation these debuts generate is the critical debate as to why they’ve been elevated to the top of the pile when there are far more striking debuts buried deeper within the festival. This often means that accomplished films are overlooked and underappreciated by those on the ground, who may be subconsciously comparing a striking feature to the work of more established names it’s competing against for the Palme d’Or, approaching each debut with a “show me” attitude it wouldn’t be treated with if selected for placement in, say, Un Certain Regard.

Banel & Adama, the feature debut of Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, is an assured work that has been plagued...

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival concluded on Saturday, May 25 following two weeks packed with screenings, stars, press and parties. With the prizes having been handed out for the festival’s 77th anniversary, we can now start looking at what contenders might be in the best spot to get into the upcoming Oscar race. Let’s examine the winners from this year’s festival and see the history that each category has when it comes to the Oscars.

In recent years, we’ve seen the festival serve as a huge springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. Three of the last four winners of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, have nabbed Best Picture nominations: “Parasite” (2019), “Triangle of Sadness” (2022) and “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023). Other big winners at recent festivals that became big Oscar players include “Drive My Car,” “The Zone of Interest” and “BlacKkKlansman.” This year’s...

When it comes to the wild success of the film industry in Hungary, which is the largest production hub in continental Europe and second in Europe only to the U.K., film commissioner Csaba Káel is quick to credit a rich cinematic legacy dating back more than 100 years. “There is a huge tradition,” he said. “We have a special film DNA in Hungary.”

The industry’s ongoing success, however, as well as its hopes for the future, is just as reliant on sound policy and investment from the country’s National Film Institute, along with a deep pool of world-class talent that is the envy of industries twice its size.

Those were among the takeaways of a panel during the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film that included Káel, Hungarian producer Ildikó Kemény (“Poor Things”), Hungarian-born and Canadian-based producer Robert Lantos (“Crimes of the Future”), and the U.K.

Filming in Hungary offers everything from a massive amount of production space and a 20-year strong tax rebate to eight symphony orchestras and thermal baths.

On a panel during the Cannes Film Festival at the Marche du Film, film commissioner Csaba Kael, as well as producers Ildikó Kemeny, Robert Lantos and Mike Goodridge, spoke about the experiences of filming in Hungary.

Kael noted that commercial film production began in the country in the early 1900s. “It is built into our DNA,” he said of filmmaking. Only the U.K. has more film production than Hungary, Kael added. This year, Hungary is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its tax rebate program, which offers films produced in Hungary a 30 percent rebate based on their expenditure.

Lantos, who has been filming in the country since the 1990s prior to the tax credits, said, “Whenever I have a project that needs a European-looking city,...

Exclusive: Mike Goodridge has been on a rare journey. Not many in the industry can boast a CV that includes running a trade publication, an international sales company, a film festival and being the producer of multiple Cannes Film Festival movies.

Goodridge, the former editor of Screen International, CEO of Protagonist, and artistic director of the Macao Film Festival, is on the Croisette this year with Un Certain Regard thriller Santosh. In the UK-Germany-France co-production by filmmaker Sandhya Suri, a government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh (Shahana Goswami) inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.

Filming begins this summer in Asia on Good Chaos/Nine Hours production for Netflix The Ballad Of A Small Player, Ed Berger’s...

Mubi has taken László Nemes’ Orphan on board in a multi-territory deal on the post- World War II Hungarian family drama; Le Pacte will release the film in France.

Charades and New Europe Film Sales are handling sales on the film.

Mubi has acquired all rights in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey.

The Hungarian-language film is the third film by Nemes following Son Of Saul and Sunset. Set in Budapest in 1957 after the uprising against the Communist regime, Orphan follows a young Jewish boy raised by his mother whose world turns upside down...

Following Raw and Titane, Julia Ducournau has set her third feature with Alpha. Though no plot details have been unveiled this far, Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) will lead the film, Deadline reports. “Alpha is Julia’s most personal, profound work yet, and we are looking forward to a global audience discovering the story with as much excitement as we did,” said Filmnation and Charades, while the producers added, “Alpha is a new page in Julia Ducournau’s corpus that is both very consistent with the previous ones and entirely new in its tone.”

Following All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh is stepping up to a major studio project with a Leonardo da Vinci film set up at Universal Pictures. The film is based on Walter Isaacson‘s 2017 biography, which showed “how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity,...

Exclusive: Charades and New Europe Films are joining forces to co-sell Oscar-winning Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes’ long-awaited new feature Orphan, as the production gears up to commence shooting in and around Budapest this June.

Orphan will be Nemes’ third film after Sunset, which world premiered in Venice in 2018, and his Oscar-winning breakthrough Son of Saul, which debuted in Cannes in 2015, winning the Grand Prize of the Jury before clinching Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year.

The new film is set in Budapest in 1957, twelve years after the end of WWII and one year after the uprising against the Communist regime.

The story follows a young Jewish boy whose mother has raised him in the hope that his father will return from the camps. These hopes are shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the doorstep to take his family back.

Nemes co-wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer,...

While Martin Scorsese aims to kick off production on his Jesus film this year, Terrence Malick is going on year five of editing his, marking one of the only films to wrap production pre-pandemic that still has yet to be released. As so happens every year before the Cannes Film Festival announces its lineup, rumors have swirled that the director’s Biblical epic The Way of the Wind (formerly known as The Last Planet) may see a premiere in 2024. We will, unfortunately, have to wait another year, but in the meantime we have exclusive new details on the highly anticipated project.

Actor Géza Röhrig, who stars as Jesus in the film, recently stopped by a university in the Northeast for a conversation on his career. During the chat he confirmed the film is targeting a 2025 Cannes debut. Wind will not exactly focus on Jesus and Peter (as played by Matthias Schoenaerts...

“Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech was a mistake, “Son of Saul” director László Nemes said. Though he praised Glazer’s film as “an important movie,” Nemes told The Guardian in a statement that Glazer “should have stayed silent.”

In Glazer’s speech, he said that he and producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”

Nemes explained in full, “‘The Zone of Interest’ is an important movie. It is not made in a usual way. It questions the grammar of cinema. Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilization, before or after the Holocaust.”

“Had he embraced the responsibility that...

László Nemes, the director of acclaimed Holocaust film Son of Saul, has spoken out against the speech made by the The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, when he accepted his Oscar last weekend.

Glazer has ignited support but also a huge backlash with his speech, in which he said he and his producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”

Now Nemes, who won the foreign language award in 2015 for his film about the Holocaust, Son of Saul, writes in The Guardian newspaper:

“The Zone of Interest is an important movie… Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust.

In a statement shared with the Guardian, László Nemes says The Zone of Interest director’s speech ‘resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate all Jewish presence’

László Nemes, the director of acclaimed film Son of Saul, has criticised The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech.

Speaking at the ceremony on Sunday, Glazer said he and his producer, James Wilson, “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”...

Steven Spielberg hails The Zone of Interest as the most impactful Holocaust film since his own movie, Schindler's List, released in 1993.

Since the release of Schindler's List 31 years ago, numerous films have explored the Holocaust, including Life Is Beautiful, The Pianist, Son of Saul, and 2024 Best Picture nominee, Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. Director Steven Spielberg singled out The Zone of Interest as the most powerful film about the Holocaust in the past three decades, which is clearly some very high praise for the A24 film.

Related The History Behind the Steven Spielberg and Julia Roberts Feud Hollywood has too many feuds to count, but what made critically acclaimed director Steven Spielberg not want to work with Julia Roberts again? Close

Spielberg stated, "The Zone of Interest is the best Holocaust movie I’ve witnessed since my own. It’s doing a lot of good work in raising awareness,...

Steven Spielberg praises The Zone of Interest as the best Holocaust movie since his own, highlighting its impact on raising awareness. The film's focus on SS soldier Rudolf Hoss and his wife challenges the banality of evil during the Holocaust, earning critical acclaim. The Zone of Interest competes with Schindler's List in terms of Oscar nominations, particularly excelling in sound design for a haunting atmosphere.

Although A24's The Zone of Interest has received major compliments from the likes of legendary director, Steven Spielberg, a 2015 Hungarian film challenges the director's comments in a major way. The Zone of Interest centers around a German SS soldier, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig's desire to pursue a better quality of life all while living next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The film's uncompromising depiction of the film's subjects has contributed to the film's positive reception among critics and audiences, with the most...

The Academy’s tendency to award trophies to Holocaust movies has long been whispered about — and even occasionally joked about by cheeky comedians.

In 2009, shortly after Kate Winslet won a Golden Globe for her performance as a former Auschwitz guard in “The Reader,” presenter Ricky Gervais pointed to her in the audience and deadpanned, “I told ya, do a Holocaust movie; the awards come.”

Winslet, who would go on to receive an Academy Award for her part in Stephen Daldry’s film, had several years earlier appeared on Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s HBO comedy “Extras” as an actor who stars in a film about the Holocaust in the hopes that it will earn her an Oscar.

The night of the Globes, Winslet laughed at Gervais’ ribbing, as did many in the crowd. It was a much a jab at the industry as much as it was at her.

“The spoof wasn’t entirely wrong,...

It’s an old canard in the movie business: Never underestimate a Holocaust movie when it comes to Oscar attention. From Hungary’s Best Foreign Language winner “Son of Saul” (2016) and Oscar-winners “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), “Cabaret” (1973), “Sophie’s Choice” (1983), and “The Pianist” (2004) to Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture winner “Schindler’s List” (1994), many Holocaust subjects, especially shorts and documentary features, have won Oscars. Documentaries like “Anne Frank Remembered” won for 1995, “The Long Way Home” for 1997, “The Last Days” for 1998, and “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport” for 2000, and more recently, the nonfiction short “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” won for 2014 — just one week after its subject, Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, passed away.

This season’s most decorated Holocaust film, “The Zone of Interest” (Metascore: 91) has multiple Oscar advantages. First, the film, which British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer adapted from the Martin Amis novel of the same name,...

As we languor in the doldrums of a wet, grey and dispiriting February, the motivation to get out of bed and take our place in society, whatever that may be, can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Set in a dystopian, bleak and indiscernible time, filmmaker Gabriel Caste’s psychological thriller Are You Awake? envisages a world where a service is available to help you rise, if not shine, each morning. Opening with an insight into the typical monotony of the wake-up caller’s door-to-door role, it’s not long before Caste injects the sharp thriller backbone into his short as our detached protagonist sees her own terrifying dread reflected in of one her clients. Are you Awake? takes a haunting approach to its analysis of the pressures of living and the weight of suffering with depression and is a film we were eager to speak to Caste about, digging into...

Arthouse streamer Mubi has unveiled a deal to take a majority stake in Benelux indie distributor Cineart.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement will see the management team at Cineart remain intact, while co-CEOs and longtime execs Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter will retain “significant” stakes in the company.

“I’ve known and worked with Marc and Stephan for over 15 years, and admire what they’ve done with Cinéart. They are two of the most sophisticated and visionary operators in the business. We are delighted to be partnering with them and the whole team at Cineart, and can’t wait to bring more great films to audiences in Benelux together,” Efe Cakarel, founder and CEO of Mubi, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Cineart was part of a multi-territory deal for Sofia Coppola’s feature Priscilla ahead of a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Mubi has acquired a majority stake in Amsterstam and Brussels-based distributor Cineart.

Led by Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, Cineart focuses on releasing independent films across Benelux. Over the years, it has handled titles such as Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, Son Of Saul, The Worst Person In The World, The Whale and The Zone Of Interest.

Cineart is the latest European company acquisition by streamer and distributor Mubi. Two years ago, Mubi acquired sales agent and production company The Match Factory and Match Factory Productions.

In a statement, Mubi said that Cineart’s management team will continue to lead...

Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has acquired a majority stake in leading Benelux indie distributor Cinéart, further bolstering its global firepower as it continues to expand outside of its core streaming business.

Financial details of the deal were not revealed, but the acquisition will see Cinéart’s management team continue to lead the company as an independent European distributor, with no changes in operations. Cinéart will maintain its current team structure and slate of films, and will carry on working closely with its long time partners. Co-CEOs of Cinéart, Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, will remain significant shareholders of the company.

Founded in 1975 by the late Eliane Dubois, Cinéart has offices in Amsterdam and Brussels and has released numerous prestige independent films, including “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Artist,” “Amour,” “I Daniel Blake,” “Deux Jours Une Nuit,” “Son of Saul,” “The Worst Person in the World,” “The Whale” and current awards contender “The Zone of Interest.

There is beauty in capturing the human face in close-up. The face becomes the stage for the drama to unfold on the screen. Will, directed by Tim Mielants, is a film that is interested in capturing moments in the close-up first and foremost. The spatial dynamics of the scenes are secondary. That being said, Will has a brilliant screenplay, and the characters are so grounded in the story, which we are told has something to do with history (with an H).

I hadn’t ever heard any stories about the Belgian occupation by Germany during World War 2. There might have been some good films made, and Will has just piqued my interest to look for them. World War II dramas are a somewhat dubious category of cinema for me. The dramatization of events and circumstances of the characters neatly tied into a story often becomes entertaining, and this entertainment is...

Playtime (“Son of Saul”) is reteaming with celebrated French directors François Ozon (“By the Grace of God”) and sister duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin (“17 Girls”) on their respective upcoming films, “When Fall Is Coming” and “The Quiet Son.”

“When Fall is Coming” marks Ozon’s follow up to “The Crime Is Mine.” The film stars Hélène Vincent (“The Specials”), Josiane Balasko (“Back to Mom’s”), Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin”) and Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”).

The film tells the story of Michelle, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a charming Burgundy village near her longtime friend Marie-Claude. She eagerly anticipates her grandson Lucas spending the school vacation with her, but things don’t go as planned. Feeling lonely, Michelle loses her sense of purpose, until Marie-Claude’s son gets out of prison.

The film is self-produced by Ozon through his vehicle Foz. Diaphana Distribution will release it in France.

A slow-cinema spin on well-burnished tropes, In a Violent Nature largely strips the artifice of the slasher formula, which dictates a deformed man must hunt down attractive teens or young adults in either the woods or suburbia. A film built around a mythology that comes to life, as our killer rises from a grave, Chris Nash’s picture could almost be the kind of film Kelly Reichardt might make if her current patron A24 asked her to make a slasher flick.

The result is a deconstruction of all of the clichés that never quite comes into its own, suffering from the same shortcomings as David Gordon Green’s more traditional slasher character study Halloween Ends. The story is told largely from the perspective of a masked killer who may or may not be the son of a rural logging town figure who was executed due to a vendetta. Like László...

How, given the weight of history, and the history of all the other films on the subject, can you make a new film about the Holocaust?

That was the central challenge facing British writer-director Jonathan Glazer and the creative team behind A24’s The Zone of Interest.

“When Jon and I started, back in 2014, to talk about this, about making a film on this subject, we of course knew Schindler’s List and Son of Saul and everything in between,” says Zone producer James Wilson. “And our conversations were all about, ‘What new is there to say about the Holocaust?’ Except that it was evil, which everyone knows and which felt like a straw target.”

Glazer had been “circling around” the idea of doing a Holocaust film for years. “But because the subject is so vast and because of the sensitivities involved, I felt I first needed to educate myself in a deeper way,...

Plot: Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is named the commandant of Auschwitz. His wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) builds a dream life for the family in the camp’s bucolic outskirts while unimaginable suffering occurs just moments from their doorstep.

Review: Director Jonathan Glazer doesn’t make many films, but when he does, you can bet it’ll pack a wallop. This is certainly true of The Zone of Interest, which takes inspiration from Martin Amis’ novel of the same name and is a Holocaust movie unlike any other you’ve seen. While Schindler’s List and the more recent Son of Saul did a great job depicting the horror, The Zone of Interest perhaps does an even better job portraying the inhumanity of Nazi Germany. That Glazer does this without ever taking us inside the walls of the concentration camp itself or even showing a single scene of violence is the point.

“The most beautiful gestures from my film came to mind at the kitchen in the Résidence when I was pressing oranges in the juice machine,” said Nadiv Lapid.

Six first or second-time international filmmakers are taking part in the Cannes Film Festival’s annual Résidence programme that kicked off on October 1 in Paris and will run through February 2024.

Belgian director Meltse Van Coillie, Czech-Vietnamese filmmaker Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Chinese director Zhao Hao, Haitian director Gessica Généus, Croatian filmmaker Andréa Slaviček, and Moroccan director Asmae El Moudi will all work on their upcoming features with advice from industry experts in writing and producing their films.

Foe’s potential is immense. The new sci-fi drama from director Garth Davis, who garnered acclaim after 2016’s Lion, stars beloved under-30 actors in Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan. It’s adapted from a book by Iain Reid (I’m Thinking of Ending Things). The two Irish stars play an American couple, Henrietta and Junior, living in the Midwest later this century, existing in a world ravaged by a climate crisis that’s caused an unending drought. An unknown man named Terrance (Aaron Pierre) visits their farm, claiming that Junior must go to space to help save the human species while Henrietta stays behind with a clone of her husband. Foe has a solid director, a great cast, and a good-enough premise. The movie, considered against its potential, borders on laughable and cements itself as inane.

The movie thrives when the mystery hasn’t been unraveled and Reid’s script remains amorphous.

The Oscars Best International Feature Film race landed two major frontrunners on the same day on Thursday, with the United Kingdom submitting Jonathan Glazer’s chilling World War II drama “The Zone of Interest” and France following with Tran Anh Hung’s rapturous “The Taste of Things” in the one-film-per-country competition.

“The Zone of Interest,” set among German families who live on the outskirts of Auschwitz, won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won raves as one of the most original and unnerving films to deal with the Holocaust since “Son of Saul,” which won the Oscar in this category eight years ago. It was considered the obvious choice for the U.K. to submit.

France, on the other hand, had an extremely difficult choice between Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” starring Sandra Huller as a woman on trial for murdering her husband,...