No company has a more powerful spread of productions at this year’s San Sebastian Festival than Telefónica’s domestic platform and super-producer Movistar Plus+. The group brings a festival competition movie, “I’m Nevenka,” a premium drama series, “Querer,” a broad audience thriller series, “Celeste” and “Mugaritz,” a documentary feature about Spain’s most cerebral restaurant. The diverse […]

Opening up this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” marks an unexpected follow-up to her Golden Lion winner “Happening” – at least on paper, anyway. If anything, the filmmaker followed a similar line, using a literary adaptation to emphasize sensorial experience, in this case the evasive quest for physical pleasure. “The project was […]

SAN SEBASTIAN — Is this the San Sebastián Catalan Film Festival?  Always boasting a sterling presence at San Sebastián, Catalonia has a massive 27 titles this year, counting five projects in doc forum Lau Haizetara and including four of the five Spanish movies in main Competition and 10 in Made in Spain. Following a break-down of major […]

Ahead of its European bow in San Sebastian as part of the fest’s New Directors Competition, Turkish writer-director Belkis Bayrak reveals the first look trailer for her riveting debut feature, “Gülizar,” shared exclusively with Variety. “It is, of course, an honor to be in competition at San Sebastian with my debut feature,” Bayrak relayed. “I can’t […]

A teenage girl’s search for belonging brings her under the spell of a far-right eco-fascist group in Sunniva Eir Tangvik Kveum’s timely debut feature “Nipster,” which will be presented during a showcase of upcoming Nordic projects at Helsinki’s Finnish Film Affair. Taking its name from a slang term for Nazi hipsters, “Nipster” follows Chris (Saga […]

In terms of stars — Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton, Pamela Anderson — and auteur power — Pedro Almodóvar, Sean Baker, Costa Gavras, Edward Berger, Mike Leigh, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Joshua Oppenheimer, François Ozon, Lupita Nyong’o, Mohammad Rasoulof, Walter Salles, Maite Alberdi — this year’s San Sebastián Festival promises one of its biggest […]

As the newly minted head of Finnish Film Affair, Alisha Hasan brings fresh energy and a globally minded perspective to the annual industry event, which runs parallel to the Helsinki International Film Festival. Hasan, who assumed the post in April, joined FFA from Finnish animation house Gutsy Animations, where she was head of marketing. She […]

New York-based indie sales outfit Visit Films has acquired international distribution rights to Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato’s pensive second feature “Surfacing” (“La Llegada Del Hijo”) ahead of its global debut on Sunday as part of the San Sebastián Film Festival’s prestigious New Director’s Competition. “We have had the privilege of helping launch films in San […]

Beginning in 2025, the Sun Valley Film Festival will shift from March to December. The move seeks to place the festival as a prominent “must-stop” on the awards circuit. To mark the shift in dates, the festival will produce a special two-day SVFF Winter Screening Series on Dec. 6-7. Executive director Teddy Grennan said, “When […]

A big city and its inhabitants are the focus of filmmaker Afolabi Olalekan’s engaging feature debut. Shot on location in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, the film has a palpable understanding of this big metropolis. Its pace is fast like the city, and it follows many characters whose stories continue to converge, as if Lagos were […]

Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s coming-of-age saga “In the Summers” took top honors at this year’s 50th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, claiming both the Grand Prize and the Fondation Louis Roeder Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury. At once intimate and expansive, the film traces a Latin-American family portrait, using four vignettes to […]

“September 5,” a historical thriller about the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis, will be released by Paramount Pictures. The film, which was a buzzy sales title on the festival circuit, is set to open in select theaters on Nov. 27 ahead of a nationwide release in December. After playing to rapturous crowds at Venice and […]

“The Life of Chuck,” a feel-good apocalyptic story starring Tom Hiddleston and directed by Mike Flanagan, took home the Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award. This prize has historically been a reliable predictors of eventual Oscar success. In past years, winners such as “Green Book” and “Nomadland” went on to capture the best picture […]

The Venice Film Festival continued its ascent this year, rivaling Cannes — long the undisputed king of all film festivals — in its capacity to draw stars, spark debate and drive sales of first-rate art films. While some of the bigger titles fizzled (Todd Phillips’ gonzo musical sequel to 2019 Golden Lion winner “Joker” disappointed, and Kevin […]

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Jason Reitman and his longtime collaborator cinematographer Eric Steelberg will receive the third annual Variety Creative Collaborators award at Virginia’s Middleburg Film Festival in October. The award will honor their collaborations on films such as “Juno,” “Up in the Air,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and the upcoming release “Saturday Night.” Middleburg Film Festival executive […]

NewFest has announced the full lineup for the 36th edition of the New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival. The largest queer film festival in the U.S., it will include more than 140 new features, shorts and episodic projects from 31 countries in addition to legacy screenings. The festival runs Oct. 10 to Oct. 20 in theaters […]

“Thou Shalt Not Steal,” an upcoming Australian series that premiered three of its eight episodes at the Toronto International Film Festival, is an entertaining road trip that cleverly tells an Aboriginal tale through use of humor and dozens of instantly recognizable Australia stereotypes. It is packaged as eight half-hour episodes that will upload to Australian […]

The Sundance Institute has narrowed down the search for a new Sundance Film Festival location to three areas: Cincinnati, Ohio, Boulder, Colo., and Salt Lake City/Park City, Utah. The three cities will now move forward into the concluding review process to determine the long-term location for the festival starting in 2027. The decision will be […]

In a cinematic collision of high-profile talent and grassroots grit, powerhouse duo Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar are bringing the DIY spirit of India’s small-town filmmakers to the global stage with “Superboys of Malegaon” at the Toronto Film Festival. Director Kagti and producer Akhtar’s latest film explores the world of low-budget filmmaking in Malegaon, a […]