Ahead of the release of his animated Lego biopic “Piece by Piece” with Focus Features, Pharrell Williams was the star guest at a special event held by Lego in Paris, where the multi-hyphenate took to the stage to discuss his growing collaboration with the company. Alongside the film, which is directed by Morgan Neville and […]

Marketing and communications agency DDA has hired live broadcasting and content production veterans Richard Adamson and Louis Kemsley as it launches a live content division in its London office. Previously at Sassy+, Adamson and Kemsley join DDA as director and content director, respectively, and have been brought on board to spearhead the fast-growing company into […]

The 2024 BFI London Film Festival has unveiled a bustling lineup of speakers and events for its industry forum. Set to take place between Oct. 10-16 at the Picturehouse Central cinema in central London, the festival’s industry arm is headlined by a trio of “LFF Spotlight” conversations with Working Title Films co-chairs Tim Bevan and […]

“This really is my first everything,” admits Arthur Conti. “Everything is so new to me.” The young British actor isn’t exaggerating. When we meet at Soho House in London, he’s sporting the sort of wide-eyed expression of someone trying to come to terms with a couple of life-changing weeks that might be difficult to put […]

“Young Stalin,” Simon Sebag Montefiore’s biography chronicling the life of Joseph Stalin as a bank-robbing gangster in pre-revolutionary Russia, is being adapted for film. The feature is being produced by Archil Gelovani and Sergey Yahontov’s Georgia-based banner Independent Film Project (IFP), producers of recent Venice special jury prize winner “April,” alongside Sam Taylor at Film […]

“Star Wars” alum Daisy Ridley is set to narrate “We Were There,” a newly-announced doc series set to explore what are described as the “remarkable human stories” from the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The series — which was announced by both FIFA and Qatar’s supreme committee, the government body that was set up to […]

“The Ritual,” the upcoming exorcism horror in which Al Pacino and Dan Stevens play troubled priests, has sold out for most international territories by XYZ Films. From director David Midell, the film was written by Midell and Enrico Natale, and produced by Andrew Stevens, Mitchell Welch and Natale. Ashley Greene and Abigail Cowen round out […]

The first edition of the U.K. Next Wave Genre Lab, the initiative founded by Film Constellation, Mason Fantastic Film Festival and Tatino Films, has found its first projects. Following an open call led by Myriam Sassine, Evrim Ersoy, and Edward Parodi that saw hundreds of filmmakers apply to be a part of the development lab, 12 […]

Artists4Ceasefire, the industry collective that has been pushing for an end to the current war in Gaza (and whose pin badges were worn by various attendees at this year’s Oscars ceremony), is spearheading a new initiative calling for a halt to illegal arms sales to Israel.   Through a partnership with artist Shepard Fairey and several […]

The first trailer for Mike Leigh’s latest feature “Hard Truths” had been unveiled, showing its lead star Marianne Jean-Baptiste embarking on an angry rampage against supermarket check out clerks, unsuspecting members of the public and her family. “People, can’t stand ’em,” she exclaims in the trailer, released ahead of the film’s world premiere in Toronto […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]