Arthouse distributor, production banner and streamer Mubi has partnered with luxury fashion house Chanel to present a selection of films by winners of the Chanel Next Prize. The biennial award, launched in 2021, honors 10 artists working across art, film, performance and music, with each given €100,000 ($111,000) to help further their practice and realize […]

The documentary “Elton John: Never Too Late” — charting the half-century career of one of music’s most legendary figures — is getting its European Premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. The American Express gala will be held on Oct. 10 at the Royal Festival Hall, with John in attendance. Directed by R.J. Cutler (“Billie Eilish: […]

Cristiano Ronaldo, the most followed person on social media (917 million followers across various platforms and counting) and considered by many to be one of the greatest soccer players of all time, is launching his own YouTube channel. The channel — called “UR” and launching Wednesday — will see the 39-year-old, who currently captains both Al Nassr […]

Johnny Flynn (“Ripley,” “One Life”) is set to lead the cast of survival thriller “A Prayer for the Dying,” with John C. Reilly also joining the film, now in production outside Bratislava, Slovakia. Anton and New Europe Films are co-repping worldwide rights, and will continue sales at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.  Written and […]

The first clip from “Peacock,” led by “All Quiet on the Western Front” star Albrecht Schuch, has been revealed by MK2 ahead of the film’s world premiere in the Venice Critic’s Week competition. The directorial debut of rising Austrian filmmaking Bernhard Wenger, the quirky tragicomedy revolves around the “Rent a Friend” concept prevalent in Japan […]

Sigourney Weaver took center stage on the opening night of the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Ahead of the world premiere of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the iconic star of films such as “Alien,” “Avatar” and “Gorillas in the Mist” was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in honor of her work spanning 45 years. “I’m sure […]

The 2024 Venice Film Festival has gotten off to a green-haired, gothic bang with Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which opened the festival with a 3-minute standing ovation. The clapping would have most likely gone on much longer but the Venice programmers quickly dimmed the lights as Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’ Hara […]

A year on from having two films premiere in Venice and winning the Volpi Cup for best actor (for Michel Franco’s “Memory,” playing a man with early onset dementia), Peter Sarsgaard has another thought-provoking feature at the festival. This time, although he says he’d “love to come and do a little victory lap,” work and […]

“Angelina! Angelina! Angelina!” The Venice Film Festival loves its movie stars, and Angelina Jolie was the toast of Italy on Thursday night. The actress wept during an eight-minute standing ovation at the Sala Grande Theatre during the premiere of “Maria,” Pablo Larraín’s biographical drama about the Greek opera singer Maria Callas. The outpouring of love and emotion […]

Esther McGregor was sure she’d screwed up her audition to Pedro Almodovar’s hotly-anticipated English-language debut “The Room Next Door.” Shooting a short film at the time (as a favor) and not feeling too hot about it, the hyper-creative and delightfully energetic actress, model, musician and tattoo artist (and unashamed “Nepo Baby” — more on that […]

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson brought sexy back to Venice Friday night at the premiere of Halina Reijn’s kinky, sex-filled “Babygirl.” In the A24 movie, Kidman plays a high-powered CEO who starts a secret affair with her new intern (Dickinson). While not a conventional art house movie, “Babygirl” stimulated the Venice audience. As the end […]

It’s no coincidence that “Families Like Ours,” the climate-change disaster miniseries in which Denmark literally closes due to flooding, is premiering in Venice, a city famously battling its own crisis over rising sea levels.  “All the water here made it the obvious choice,” says Thomas Vinterberg, the series’ Danish director. “Families Like Ours” marks his […]

Israeli director Amos Gitai has pushed back against efforts for his Venice-bowing film “Why War” to be boycotted from the festival. Premiering out of the competition over the weekend, the film takes its cue from correspondence in the early 1930s between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud as they attempted to answer questions relating to the […]

Jude Law lit up the Lido with his powerful performance as an FBI agent fighting neo-Nazi terrorists in Justin Kurzel’s timely crime thriller “The Order” that elicited a seven-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere. Prior to the screening Jude Law, looking dashing in a black shirtless suit, took selfies with screaming fans […]

Midnight screenings rarely come more fitting than “Baby Invasion,” Harmony Korine’s latest experimental, unconventional and video game-like assault on the senses, which had its world premiere on Saturday night in Venice to an 8.5-minute standing ovation. The film served up a provocative array of unique visuals: We saw our heavily armed, baby-faced criminals torturing people, […]

If anyone had a particularly surreal Venice in 2023, it was Caleb Landry Jones.  Not only was the actor on the Lido for barely 24 hours — for the world premiere of Luc Besson’s “DogMan” in which he played a cross-dressing vigilante-thief with a pack of canines at his command — but the 34-year-old had effectively been […]

Asif Kapadia sees a future vision of the world where “chairwoman” Ivanka Trump is celebrating her 30th year as leader of a nightmarish fascist police state that was once America, a land mostly reduced to rubble following an unknown “catastrophe” that occurred in 2036.  “It’s kind of a joke, but it’s also not a joke,” says […]

“Oh my God, it’s so hot, I’m so hot!” exclaimed Nicole Kidman as she entered the Sala Grande, the central Venice Film Festival cinema, for the world premiere of her erotic thriller “Babygirl,” fanning her face and airing her neck under the very welcome (but not quite powerful enough) air conditioning. “It’s so much cooler […]

Renowned showrunner Shane Byrne and Emmy-winning producer Jamie D’Alton, two of Ireland’s leading TV execs, have teamed up to launch Diffusion Media, a new production company aimed at attracting international unscripted productions to Ireland and taking advantage of mooted Irish tax incentives for the unscripted sector. D’Alton, who played a pivotal role in developing projects […]