The Venice Film Festival is about to reveal its award winners, including the prestigious Golden Lion for best film. Last year, Jim Jarmusch took home the top prize for his family triptych “Father Mother Sister Brother,” while Benny Safdie won the Silver Lion for best director for his Dwayne Johnson-led “The Smashing Machine” and Kaouther […]
Variety•Ellise Shafer12 Sept
Tributes have begun flowing from across the film world for Jeremy Thomas, the legendary British producer who passed away on Friday at the age of 77. “He made great movies and was a loyal, dear friend,” said producer and publisher Charles Finch. “His father, Ralph, made a film with my father, Peter, called ‘No Love […]
Variety•Alex Ritman12 Sept
Kling AI hit the opening morning of the inaugural TIFF: The Market with a lively, well attended panel, “A New Creative Paradigm: Consistent, Cinematic AI Video Powered by Kling AI,” geared towards a Canadian industry audience of animation and live-action film creators eager for up-to-date insight into their roles and human skills in rapidly evolving […]
Variety•Jennie Punter12 Sept
On a box office voyage for less than two months, Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has become the highest-grossing film in the history of Universal Pictures. The 114-year-old film company announced the milestone on Saturday, when the Matt Damon-led epic’s weekend haul will bring its domestic earnings to $601.2 million, with an international tally of $1.083 […]
Variety•Varietymattdonnelly12 Sept
Courteney Cox feels as if she was meant to be a director. “I notice everything,” she says. “I love actors, I love people, I love human stories.” Cox is best known for acting — including marquee roles in “Friends” and in the “Scream” franchise. But she’s long had a hand in directing, from episodes of […]
Variety•Daniel D’Addario12 Sept
“Brace Your Heart” director Amanda Kernell is ready to talk about forgiveness. “What can be forgiven? And what if you live in a place where everything has to be, because it can be a matter of survival?,” she wonders. In Kernell’s new film — unspooling at TIFF and the San Sebastián Film Festival — young […]
Variety•Marta Balaga12 Sept
Kamila Andini’s “Four Seasons in Java” is her fifth feature film, but this marks her third time at the Toronto Film Festival after “The Seen and the Unseen” (2017) and “Yuni” (2021) that won the Platform Prize and became Indonesia’s official Oscar entry. It follows Pertiwi, starring Putri Marino (“Cigarette Girl”), who comes back to […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran12 Sept
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will finally be dethroned after a six-week streak at No. 1, falling to Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman’s mystical sequel, “Practical Magic 2.” “Practical Magic 2” landed at No. 1 on Friday, making $13 million at 4,146 North American screens. By Sunday, the Warner Bros. dramedy should pull in around $30 […]
Variety•Jack Dunn12 Sept
Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has closed deals announced at the Toronto Film Festival for Spanish romantic drama “All That We Never Were” (“Todo lo que nunca fuimos”). Based on the best-selling novel by Alice Kellen, the film sold to Swift for France and French-speaking territories and to MVP for India and the Indian subcontinent. A further […]
Variety•Emeza80512 Sept
There are few things as calmingly enjoyable as the modest, closeup spectacle of an expert craftsman at work. Whether the trade is cooking or carpentry, watching them ply their trade with equal parts ease and intense concentration is both gratifyingly instructional and escapist: a hands-off education in something you’ll never be able to do as […]
Variety•Guy Lodge12 Sept
Filmax is launching Mar Olid’s romantic comedy “The Wedding Hustlers” (“Si te he visto no me acuerdo”) internationally with a first promo for buyers at TIFF, ahead of its Spanish theatrical release in 2027. The film is produced by Filmax, Bixagu Entertainment and Pompón AIE, with the participation of paybox Movistar Plus, pubcaster RTVE and […]
Variety•Emiliano de Pablos12 Sept
“Sisters” (“Hermanas”) will have its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival, running September 10-20. Written and directed by Ione Hernández Sáenz (“1% Schizophrenia”) and starring Elena Anaya (“The Skin I Live In,” “Room in Rome”) and Emma Suárez (“Julieta,” “The Next Skin”), the Spanish film is an intergenerational family […]
Variety•Roberto Prieto12 Sept
Fashion designer Todd Snyder remembers the first time he learned a celebrity was a fan of his work. It was 2013, just two years after he launched his eponymous menswear brand following career-making turns at Ralph Lauren, Gap Inc. and J. Crew. “We were all sitting there together because it was maybe only five of […]
Variety•Marcmalkin12 Sept
When it comes to “Up Against It,” a TIFF title premiering Sept. 12, director Trudie Styler says, “I know this story like the back of my hand.” She means that doubly. Not merely had she been mulling whether or not to take on the screenplay for years, and participated in workshopping it (including changing its […]
Variety•Daniel D’Addario12 Sept
Searchlight has officially announced “The Family Stone 2,” a sequel to the 2005 holiday classic from returning writer and director Tom Bezucha. The follow-up is officially titled “The Families Stones” and will feature the returns of many of the original’s main cast members, including Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone and Sarah Jessica Parker as Meredith […]
Variety•Jack Dunn12 Sept
It didn’t make sense. For her spellbinding portrait of Marcia Clark in “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” Sarah Paulson had won every major award —the first actor in history to do so — but the film offers never came. To add insult to injury, she watched her scene partners, Courtney B. Vance […]
Variety•Marlow Stern12 Sept
A strong lineup from Taiwan hits the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, with two world premieres in the special presentations strand, a Taiwan-Japan genre title in Midnight Madness, virtual reality, market projects and an international Oscar contender. Feng-I Fiona Roan’s “Happily Ever After” will make its world premiere in special presentations. The film is Roan’s sophomore […]
Variety•Carolehorst12 Sept
In the rubble left by the firebombing of Tokyo in WWII, a 12-year-old girl who once dreamed of a life in music learns to shine shoes, fall in with a band of orphaned boys sheltering under a local yakuza clan and, eventually, erase every trace of the person she used to be. That girl, Kotoko, […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran12 Sept
“Kri8 Universe,” a five-world science-fiction IP ecosystem from production designer and filmmaker Uzair Merchant, will launch at TIFF: The Market, looking for global licensing, studio and strategic partnerships following 14 years of independent development. The universe consists of five interconnected worlds — Elixir of Life, Black Rose, the 8th Sin, Skye and Vault X — […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran12 Sept
The TIFF-bound documentary “Cheyenne” follows a quartet of fearless cowgirls who compete at riding wild broncos on the rodeo circuit after nearly a century of being excluded because of their gender. Variety has a first look at the film, in which director Taimi Arvidson profiles four cowgirls when the American rodeo circuit opens up a […]
Variety•Angelique Jackson12 Sept