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Ridham Janve, an already acclaimed director attending the Film Bazaar with his second film “Hunter’s Moon” (aka “Kaatti Ri Raatti”), likens the editing process to a game of long-distance chess that he played with editor Amit Dutta.

Dutta, himself an accomplished filmmaker and Janve’s mentor, prepared a first cut. Then the games began. “I would send him bursts of files, notes and elements of the mood, but not the narrative. That meant he had some surprises, such as the introduction of an important character midway through the story,” Janve told Variety. “But it was fascinating to have him discover my film from a different angle.”

The largely remote editing process was not a Covid-era necessity, but rather reflected the fact that both Janve and Dutta are men close to nature and who live in mountainous regions.

Mountains were key to Janve’s previous film “The Gold-Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain,...

Across “Lemon Tree,” “The Syrian Bride” and “Shelter,” Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis has built a sturdy body of work, telling defiant stories of Middle Eastern women from different walks of life. With “Reading Lolita in Tehran” — a moving adaptation of Iranian-American author and professor Azar Nafisi’s memoir — he adds an understated, yet generally absorbing and similarly minded entry to his oeuvre, warmly transposing Nafisi’s experience in the post-revolution Iran onto the screen with sensitivity.

Unfolding in episodic segments and significant jumps in time that sometimes feel too abrupt, the screenplay by Marjorie David follows Nafisi (an expressive Golshifteh Farahani) across a 24-year period, after the young academic holding a fresh American degree settles in Tehran with her husband Bijan (Arash Marandi) in 1979, on the heels of the country’s Islamic Revolution. A title card at the start contextualizes the couple’s return to their homeland. Historically, it was...

In Charlie McDowell’s last feature, Windfall, the ambitious (though largely unsuccessful) idea was to put the audience in a stressful situation (à la Hitchcock) and then quickly vent the pressure with a few violent set pieces (à la Tarantino). By contrast, his latest feature, The Summer Book, is based entirely on what we might call “scenic exhalation”: those moments of repose in which a character stares at a landscape while the cogs of reflection work away, revealing at last the bittersweet unity of all things. When used sparingly, the exhalation can be a highly effective tool capable of immense lyricism (as in Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice) and of subtle characterization (as in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island). When used excessively, however, as it is in The Summer Book, the world of the movie starts to look suspiciously neat and Edenic, and the director’s benevolent hand becomes visible for all to see.

Those who know their Bible may find elements of this South African tale - highly Old Testament in nature, even if it does deal with more modern issues - familiar. A scrutiny of the patriarchy, it employs elements of the tale of Isaac and his sons, although the outcome is somewhat different.

London-based writer/director Nakhane has made a name for himself as a musician but many may be familiar with from his acting days when, under the name Nakhane Touré, he took on one of the lead roles in The Wound). With B(l)ind The Sacrifice, he creates an immersive atmosphere from the start, as a family gathers round a fire at night. The mother (Nandi Nyembe) and father (Treasure Nkosi) are speaking about God and the need to obey him, even as their son (Sihle Mnqwazana) is sneaking off to drink alcohol in one of the tents.

Exactly ten years after the genre-mixing, canine-driven Hungarian thriller “White God” landed the Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, this year’s ceremony culminated in the same prize going to a somewhat corresponding title: Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” a fusion of western, film noir and offbeat comedy with a highly lovable mutt at its center. The film, about a damaged loner returning to his desert hometown after a spell in prison and finding a kindred spirit in an equally world-weary greyhound, beat 17 other titles to take the top prize in the festival’s second-most prestigious competitive section. (The festival’s Official Competition awards will be handed out tomorrow night.)

Jury president Xavier Dolan, the actor-auteur behind such films as “Mommy” and “Laurence Anyways,” commended Guan’s film for “its breathtaking poetry, its imagination, its precision [and] its masterful direction.” He echoed the enthusiasm of Variety critic Jessica Kiang,...

You might not get the dog you want, but you always get the dog you need. That old dog lover’s adage applies peculiarly well to Chinese director Guan Hu’s “Black Dog.” A far smaller-scale project than his recent blockbusters “The Eight Hundred” and “The Sacrifice,” Guan’s latest — an Un Certain Regard standout at Cannes this year — nonetheless has the grandly cinematic vision to lend an intimate tale a gloriously epic, allegorical edge.

Set in a dying town on the fringes of the Gobi desert, “Black Dog” has elements of the genre Western, like taciturn loner antihero Lang (a fantastic Eddie Peng), who returns to his eroded hometown himself hollowed out by repressed guilt for the incident that caused his recent imprisonment. But, dipped in the caustic soda of social commentary and steeped in the fatalistic mood of a place barely chugging by on borrowed time, the film...

Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming footprint. The boutique art-house distributor just launched its own SVOD platform, the Kino Film Collection.

The new app is available now as a standalone service on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku, and it will feature hundreds of movies from Kino Lorber’s film library of more than 4,000 titles. Subscriptions will begin at $5.99 per month.

In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched an Amazon Prime Video channel; you can still access its titles there. But having its own service puts the company in the race alongside other niche streaming options in the space, like the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month) or Mubi ($14.99/month).

As part of the launch, Kino Film Collection curated a selection of titles that showcase auteurs who have played at Cannes; the 2024 film festival is currently ongoing. The collection includes early movies from Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach, as well as...

When it comes to the indie movie business, you don’t get more old-school than Kino Lorber. The New York outfit, founded as Kino International in 1977, has been the first source of independent cinema for U.S. audiences. It was the first to distribute films from Yorgos Lanthimos, Aki Kaurismäki, Wong Kar-wai, Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni in U.S. theaters and the first to restore and rerelease silent classics like Metropolis, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and the films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

In 2009, when Richard Lorber’s home entertainment company Lorber Ht Digital acquired and merged with Kino International, physical media got added to the mix, and the newly minted Kino Lorber became known for its home entertainment releases, ranging from classic (Nosferatu, The Sacrifice) to cult (Mad Max, Emmanuelle). The Kino Lorber library now counts more than 4,000 titles and the company is continually adding to the list,...

Andrei Tarkovsky’s penultimate film, 1983’s gorgeously haunting Nostalghia, also marked new territory for the director. His first film made outside the Ussr, the Cannes Best Director winner (a prize he shared with Robert Bresson for L’Argent), was also a unique collaboration with writer Tonino Guerra, frequent collaborator of Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and Francesco Rosi. Now restored in 4K in 2022 by Csc – Cinetecanazionale in collaboration with Rai Cinema at Augustus Color laboratory, from the original negatives and the original soundtrack preserved at Rai Cinema, the restoration will begin rolling out on February 21 at NYC’s Film Forum via Kino Lorber and we’re pleased to exclusively unveil the trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Andrei Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word ‘nostalghia’ conveys ‘the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away.’ This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei,...

“Jaw-droppingly epic” Digital Spy

“The mother of all blockbusters” Filmhounds Magazine

“A stunning sci-fi epic” Eastern Film Fans

“Hugely entertaining” Invincible Asia

“A nail-biting and thrilling ride” Morning Star

Boasting incredible and epic visuals, this stunning interstellar blockbuster is a fresh prequel to one of the highest grossing films of all time, a $700m box office success, and Netflix global smash hit. Based on the popular novella by science fiction author Liu Cixin, The Wandering Earth II is a true sci-fi blockbuster, directed by Frant Gwo (The Sacrifice) and starring Andy Lau and Wu Jing.

In the near future, the sun is rapidly expanding and will engulf the earth within 100 years. To ensure the survival of humankind, nations join hands to form an unprecedented, ambitious global project to build powerful engines on the earth’s surface and propel the planet away from impending doom. Meanwhile, protests have broken out to...

Film geeks, rejoice. Leading indie label Kino Lorber is entering the world of streaming. The company has launched Kino Film Collection, a new subscription video service available in the U.S. via’s Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, many now streaming for the first time. It will cost users $5.99 per month.

Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).

Joining them are entries...

Dolly Parton is one of the biggest names in country music. Her big personality and even bigger hair are iconic, and there’s not a single person who wouldn’t recognize Parton for her style. In October 2023, she spoke about developing her personal style through the years, and she even mentioned that her preacher grandfather would physically hurt her for the way she dressed. Here’s what Parton said about idolizing the “town tramp.”

Dolly Parton said her grandfather would physically hurt her for dressing like the ‘town tramp’

Dolly Parton is known for her music and philanthropy just as much as her iconic style. From an early age, she modeled her look off of the “town tramp” — someone she looked up to from a distance.

“She was flamboyant,” Parton told The Guardian of the woman whom she’d look for when heading into town. She had bright red lipstick,...

Trinity CineAsia has picked up U.K. and Ireland rights to Chinese hit film “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan.” The film ranked third worldwide at the box office over the latest weekend.

Trinity CineAsia will give it an official release from Oct. 6, but began a campaign of limited previews timed to coincide with the mid-Autumn festival that is celebrated by Chinese communities worldwide.

Presented in China by Huayi Brothers, The Ex-Files showcases contemporary urban love in China with in-depth and subtle observation. Its predecessor film, The Ex-Files 3: The Return of The Exes released in 2017 and grossed more than $300 million worldwide, making it one of the top-grossing romances in the history of Chinese cinema. The new film has earned $53.4 million after four days, according to Comscore.

“The Ex-Files 4” shifts the focus from love affairs to marriage. Best buddies Meng Yun (Han Geng) and Yu Fei (Zheng Kai) discover and stumble their way through marriage.

Whether or not you agree with Quentin Tarantino’s unsparing assertion that “’80s cinema is, along with the ’50s, the worst era in Hollywood history,” there’s a curiously undeniable truth to his follow-up statement: “Matched only by now! Matched only by the current era.” Revisiting the defining movies of the ’80s from our current perspective at the height of Barbenheimer summer, two things become abundantly clear.

The first is that modern Hollywood would probably need a Barbenheimer every month in order to equal the creative output of a studio system that used to be capable of releasing “Blade Runner” and “The Thing” on the same night as if it were just another Friday. The second is that, in a wide variety of different ways both negative and not, the ’80s provide a perfect match for the movies of our current moment — if not the current moment itself.

Perhaps that...

The war in Ukraine has lasted for 18 months, with no signs of stopping. But for those living in parts of the country where the battles have been the fiercest, it’s been going on for much longer — more than 9 years, in fact, starting in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, with separatist forces taking over swaths of the Donbas region in the east.

Director Maryna Er Gorbach’s unsettling and aesthetically gripping fourth feature, Klondike, revisits that harrowing period in recent Ukrainian history from the viewpoint of an expectant couple, Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) and Tolik (the late Sergiy Shadrin), living in the rural enclave of Hrabove as the nascent war surrounds them on all sides.

If the name Hrabove rings a bell, that’s because the village made world news in July 2014 when a Malaysian airliner tragically crashed there after being shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missle. That disaster looms large over Klondike,...

The UK’s biggest horror and genre festival returns to London this August, with another gloriously gory programme. Kicking off with the European premiere of much anticipated new body horror Suitable Flesh from genre legend Joe Lynch, FrightFest’s 2023 summer event boasts a whopping seventy films across four screens, and this year will return to being entirely under one roof, at the Cineworld Leicester Square.

Among the heavy-hitters in the festivals line-up are Farang, the latest “French blockbuster” from fantasy favourite Xavier Gens, Hitman); Where the Devil Roams, the newest chiller from family filmmaking team John, Zelda, Toby and Lulu Adams; Paris Zarcilla’s SXSW breakout hit Raging Grace and transgender director Alice Maio Mackay’s game changing Australian thriller T Blockers, shot by a predominantly queer, non-binary and trans cast and crew.

Documentary fans will be spoiled for choice, too, with new films on the legacy of J-horror, Brian Yuzna...

"I used to tell her, don't go to the river, but she used to go anyways." Black Mandala has revealed a new English dub trailer for an indie horror film from Panama called The Sacrifice, made by filmmaker Alberto Serra. The folk horror movie originally premiered at genre festivals back in 2018, and it already opened in a few Latin American countries last year. The horror film was officially selected at Curtas Film Fest (Spain); Cinefantasy (Brazil); and Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre (Argentina). Two sisters have to fight for survival after arriving to a farm owned by their grandmother, an elderly woman stuck in a curse that has been consuming her for years. A horror story based on legends from all over Latin America, though it's made in Panama. Starring Ana Grethel Solís, Freddy D'Elia, Stella Lauri, Nick Romano, and Isabella Sierra. This dub doesn't seem that good, but at least...

An Tae-jin's The Night Owl Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival

The first wave of films has been announced for this year's Fantasia International Film Festival, providing a taste of what attendees at the Montreal-based festival can look forward to. In celebration of 60 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and the Republic of Korea, this year's festival will have a special focus on South Korean cinema, including the North American première of Jung Bum-shik's horror anthology New Normal, An Tae-jin's period thriller The Night Owl, and hotly anticipated The Roundup sequel The Roundup: No Way Out. There will also be a selection of the country's most impressive genre hits from the past two decades.

Lovely, Dark And Deep Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival

Alongside this, there will be a screening of the latest work by the Adams family, Where The Devil Roams, which follows a group of sideshow performers in pursuit of immortality,...

Twenty-one films will vie for the top spot at the 76th Cannes film festival, which starts next week, hoping to join the roll call of past classics, from Taxi Driver and M*A*S*H to Parasite

We’re a week away from this year’s Cannes film festival, and I’m among those tensing with excitement. With new works from Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Glazer, Alice Rohrwacher and Todd Haynes, among others, it’s a tasty lineup. Twenty-one films – seven by female directors, a record for the fest – are jostling for the Palme d’Or, with reigning champion Ruben Östlund leading the jury to determine his successor.

Arguably the most prestigious prize in world cinema, the Palme d’Or nonetheless has a curious legacy. It is subject first to the biases of a festival selection committee that picks the annual handful of contenders, and second to the whims of nine celebrity jurors,...

The Weeknd has cleaned up at the Junos, Canada’s music awards.

On Monday night, the Canadian superstar won for best album of the year for Dawn FM. That followed the Toronto-raised pop superstar, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, in pre-telecast award-giving picking up trophies for best artist, best single for “Sacrifice” and songwriter of the year.

The Weeknd, who penned “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” for Avatar: The Way of Water, came into the Junos with a field-leading six nominations. He earlier won for best artist at the Junos in 2015, 2016 and 2021, and this year, beat out competition from Avril Lavigne, Lauren Spencer-Smith, Michael Bublé and Shawn Mendes in that high-profile category.

The Weeknd’s participation in the Junos, with Dawn FM put into contention, came as he continues to snub the Grammy Awards stateside. At the same time, the Rogers Place arena in Edmonton rang with...

The best in Canadian music have been revealed.

On Monday night, the 2023 Juno Awards, hosted by Simu Liu, are taking place live from Edmonton’s Rogers Place with performances by Jessie Reyez, Tate McRae, Tenille Townes and more, plus an epic performance that will spotlight 50 years of Hip Hop.

From the Opening Night Awards, which took place on Saturday March 11, to the annual big awards ceremony, broadcasted live on TV, artists including The Weeknd, Arkells and more have already taken home some of the night’s biggest awards, and some even broke records.

Read More: The Weeknd Sweeps Junos Opening Night, Ties Bryan Adams For Second Most Wins Of All Time

Check out all of this year’s winners, indicated in bold, below:

TikTok Juno fan choice Avril Lavigne Lauren Spencer-Smith MacKenzie Porter Preston Pablo Rêve Shawn Mendes Tate McRae The Reklaws The Weeknd Tyler Shaw Single of the year “Bite Me,...

The Weeknd took the Junos by storm last night.

The annual Canadian music awards show’s opening night took place on Saturday, hosted by “Run The Burbs” star and co-creator Andrew Phung and CBC Music radio host Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe.

Fourty awards were handed out to artists including The Weeknd, who led the pack with artist of the year; songwriter of the year and pop album of the year for Dawn FM; and single of the year for “Sacrifice”. He didn’t attend the ceremony in-person to receive the awards.

Read More: The Junos Are Going East To Halifax For 2024 Awards Show

The artist also led nominations at last’s years show, where he was nominated in six categories. With his wins in 2015, 2016 and 2021, The Weeknd now ties Bryan Adams for the second-most Juno wins of all time with 21 awards.

Anne Murray still holds the record at 25 wins.

View this post...

Bebe Rexha transforms into a Seventies pop star in her newest visual. On Friday, the pop star released “Heart What It Wants,” the first single of her upcoming album, alongside a retro-themed music video where Rexha channels the stars of the past.

“‘Heart Wants What It Wants’ is about the time in relationships where you fall out of love with your partner,” Rexha said in a release about the track produced by Ido Zmishlany and co-written with Bonnie McKee. “It’s an anthem about wanting what you want and not being apologetic for it.

California’s So-Fi stadium was one of the Weeknd’s most highly-anticipated stops on last year’s After Hours til Dawn world tour. He had made appearances in stadiums from New Jersey to his hometown of Toronto, but the three sold-out shows in Los Angeles were something of a homecoming for the singer. Marking the final concerts of the North American leg, after he had to cancel the original second night when he lost his voice mid-set, the Weeknd made sure all of the cameras were rolling to capture his...

Canadian artists across the country have been patiently waiting to see if they’ve been nominated for the country’s biggest music prize — and today the Juno Award nominations have finally been revealed!

Scarborough-born superstar The Weeknd leads with six nomination awards this year being nominated for TikTok Juno Fan Choice, Single of the Year for “Sacrifice”, Album of the Year for Dawn FM, Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Pop Album of the Year.

Read More: Avril Lavigne Teases Musician Cameos In Her ‘Sk8ter Boi’ Movie: ‘I’m Really Excited’

Following close behind is Avril Lavigne and Tate McRae with five nominations — they are both up for Single of the Year, for “Bite Me” and “she’s all i wanna be”, and album of the year for Love Sux and i use to think i could fly.

Read More: Tate McRae Talks Touring With Shawn Mendes...

The Weeknd and his album Dawn FM have emerged with a field-leading six nominations for the 2023 Juno music awards, Canada’s version of the Grammys.

The Canadian pop star who penned “Nothing is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” for Avatar: The Way of Water, will compete for best artist, best pop album, Juno Fan Choice award, best single for “Sacrifice,” best album and best songwriter. The Weeknd’s participation in the Junos, with Dawn FM put into contention, also comes as he continues to snub the Grammys stateside.

Avril Lavigne and fellow Canadian songstress Tate McRae each nabbed five nods, while Preston Pablo and The Reklaws came away with three nominations each.

Nominations for the Junos were unveiled during a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday. The Juno Fan Choice competition will see Lavigne, Lauren Spencer-Smith, Pablo, Reve and Shawn Mendes compete against McRae, The Reklaws, Tyler Shaw and The Weeknd.

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.

Breaking (Abi Damaris Corbin)

Following on the heels of his impressive turn in Steve McQueen’s Red, White and Blue, John Boyega does noble work in Breaking, directed by Abi Damaris Corbin. Boyega stars as Brian Brown-Easley, the 33-year-old Marine veteran who held a bank hostage in order to get a disability check from the Department of Veterans Affairs he was owed. The amount was eight-hundred and ninety-two dollars. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Destello Bravío (Ainhoa Rodríguez)

In the arid, lunar landscape of Ainhoa Rodríguez’s Destello Bravío, a whole village waits for things to fall apart. We’re in the rural outskirts of Spain’s Extremadura region, a few miles from the border with Portugal, but the...

“Rebellion,” from José Luis Rugeles whose “Alias María” competed at Cannes Un Certain Regard and was Colombia’s Oscar entry, has been acquired for international sales by Latido Films.

Latido will be bringing the title onto the market at Toronto.

In the film, Rugeles takes a non-linear approach to the narrative drifting through moments in Arroyo’s life and psyche from childhood through to the end of his life. “Rebellion” explores memory, addiction and Arroyo’s deep connection to the composition of song.

It shows the birth of legendary melodies being recorded obsessively by Arroyo into multiple tape recorders as he layers ideas upon each other. These fragments infiltrate the soundtrack throughout, at times bursting into full band performances of Arroyo’s famous songs. The authenticity of the music is aided by some of the musicians involved having played with Arroyo.

Lead producer Federico Durán of Rhayuela said: “When we...

Aw. This is cute. Jenn Wexler is set to work on her next film, The Sacrifice Game, follow up to her debut feature film, The Ranger. How is that cute? Well, she's written it with her beau, Sean Redlitz. You know what they say, couples that make horror films together, stay together.   Do they really say that?    Production is all set to begin next Monday, May 9th. Already, Shudder has picked up all the rights for The Sacrifice Game and will stream it in all their territories. Wexler is producing along with another friend of the site and the horror community on a whole, Heather Buckley, among others.   One of Wexler's stars from The Ranger, Chloë Levine, will star in The Sacrifice...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Colombian director Jaime Osorio Márquez, who served as creator and director on HBO Max’s first Colombian series, “A Thousand Fangs” (“Mil Colmillos”), chose to die by assisted suicide on Thursday in Colombia, where euthanasia is legal. He was 46.

He had beaten back an aggressive kidney cancer in 2009 and again in 2012, when it had returned and metastasized. But increasing pain and his growing intolerance of pain medications compelled him to end his life before his health deteriorated further and he became a burden to his family, said his producing partner Federico Duran of Rhayuela Films, who served as showrunner on “A Thousand Fangs.”

“My soul brother left this earthly plane last Thursday,” said a devastated Duran. “He was my great friend, that’s why all the memories of the nearly 15 years of working with him I reserve for myself, at least while I process the pain of his departure. Everyone...

Longtime colleagues and college friends Gabriel Govela (“Dark Rain”), Irma Deschamps (“Champs”) and Juan Carlos Montes have reunited to launch TresTresTres Films, a young, fresh independent production house based out of Mexico City.

The trio are currently participating in the Sanfic Industria Morbido Lab for feature genre projects with Govela’s hardcore horror project “Zarzal.” It’s one of six projects pitching to prospective investors, co-producers, sales agents and festival and market representatives with a chance to score budgetary backing and production support from Grupo Morbido founder and CEO Pablo Guisa.

In “Zarzal,” three childhood friends – Damián, Rocío and Elia – camp out for the night in the desert. During the night, Damien steps away from the camp to go to relieve himself, but in the darkness of the night is attacked and bitten by an unknown animal. His injury is severe enough that the trio decide to head to the nearest town,...

“The Forgotten History,” by celebrated Afghanistan filmmaker Roya Sadat (“A Letter to the President”), is one of 20 projects from 11 countries chosen for India’s Film Bazaar virtual co-production market.

Being produced by Sadat’s women-centric collective Roya Film House and Spain’s Alba Sotorra Cinema Productions, the project previously participated at the Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum and the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market.

The market line-up of stories will be told in the Assamese, Bengali, Dari, English, German, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Portuguese, Sinhala, Tamil, and Telugu. The selected projects will be pitched virtually to international and Indian producers, distributors, festival programmers, financiers and sales agents.

Projects include “Ashwamedh” (The Sacrifice) (India-u.K.) by Ridham Janve, whose debut feature film, “The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain,” won the Young Cinema Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the Silver Gateway Award at the Jio Mami International Film Festival.

This mix is a focus on moments of Johann Sebastian Bach’s neverending filmography that have stuck to memory. The opener belongs in my mind to Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2000). “Air on D String” has over 30,000 titles featured on an IMDb search and I find myself thinking of Scorsese's After Hours (1985). Bach’s sound is sacred, a fact that two of cinema’s beloved philosophers, Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky responded to throughout their careers. This mix includes Bach in Persona (1966) and The Sacrifice (1986). The earliest use in horror, in Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with the “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Bwv 565” is now synonymous with the macabre. A piece which fans of Fantasia (1940) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) will recognize too. And an audience may feel differently about “The Goldberg Variations” upon watching Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of The Lambs (1991). The sounds of Bach...

Despite an unprecedentedly difficult year, the Chinese film industry has come roaring back. In August 2020, China became the first country in the world to achieve “full box office recovery,” according to the U.K.-based industry analytics firm Gower Street.

Remarkably, Chinese box office data as of mid-June 2021 is tracking 1% ahead of the same point in time in 2020, and is running just 1% below the average box office of the three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019), Gower Street notes. China achieved this despite cinemas operating at 75% capacity and a dearth of Hollywood content. No other market has even come close to reaching its pre-covid scale. The U.S. is still 85% behind its pre-pandemic numbers.

In 2020, the Chinese market was bolstered by militantly patriotic films like “My People, My Homeland,” “The Sacrifice” and “The Eight Hundred” — which became the highest-grossing film in the world last year thanks to its $460 million local box office.

So...

“Oslo,” the new HBO film about the back-channel negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization that led to the milestone Oslo Peace Accords, arrives as tensions are at a high in the Middle East.

It’s a moment where the hard work of peacemaking that the film dramatizes is in noticeably short supply, but Bartlett Sher, who makes his feature directing debut with “Oslo,” believes that the message of the movie is even more resonant. Religious, cultural, and political differences will never be bridged if adversaries can’t find a way to have a constructive dialogue, he argues.

Making “Oslo” required a new set of skills for Sher, an acclaimed Broadway director who has guided the stage version of the play to critical acclaim during its New York and London runs and has also overseen Tony-winning productions of “South Pacific,” “The King & I,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.

MadGic, a collaboration between Logic and the producer Madlib, have released their second single “Raddest Dad.”

The new track follows “Mars Only Pt. 3,” a surprise release in April given the Logic’s “retirement.” The artwork for “Raddest Dad” features Logic and his son on the cover, with the rapper proclaiming at the song’s end, “When you grow up in the hood without a male role model / And your momma turn to the bottle / Give a damn about status, who the baddest / I just wanna be the raddest dad as I can be.

Exclusive: Sacrifice star Juan Antonio has signed with Untitled Entertainment for management.

Antonio is currently filming the first season of BET+’s upcoming series Sacrifice, adapted from the 2019 BET+ film in which he starred. Antonio reprises his role of Dom Mayfield, opposite Paula Patton, in the series.

On the film side, Antonio most recently appeared in Good Joe Bell, starring Mark Wahlberg and Connie Britton. He also recently recurred as Marcus on Freeform’s Good Trouble and played Phillip on the third season of Fox’s Empire.

In addition to the film and TV projects he has in the works, Antonio’s upcoming focus will be in the production arena. His Umbrella Z production company is currently creating and pitching content, as well as continuing to curate original music for special projects, including for the BET+ series Sacrifice.

Antonio continues to be repped by The Kohner Agency.

Zhang Yimou’s “Cliff Walkers” is kicking off a multi-territory release this weekend, with day and date outings in North America, New Zealand, and Singapore coordinating with the espionage thriller’s official launch in mainland Chinese theaters on Friday.

That makes it one of the first major Chinese pictures to take advantage of the improving theatrical conditions in the U.S. since the coronavirus sent movie distribution and exhibition industries into near lockdown. That has been a contrast with Chinese cinemas which have been operating largely normally since October, and which enjoyed a record box office at Lunar New Year in February.

The film is a showcase for Zhang’s ability to deliver spectacle with vast numbers of moving parts in different settings. He’s put on live theater performances with several hundred horse-riding extras at an altitude of over 3,000 meters, staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games,...

Bebe Rexha appeared on The Late Show to showcase her recent single “Sacrifice,” performing virtually in a stylized black and white clip.

The singer, clad in a black latex suit and gloves, performed alongside her band and two dancers. The sleek look of the video evoked vintage Madonna.

Rexha dropped “Sacrifice” in March with a vampire-themed music video. The single followed her collaboration with Doja Cat, “Baby, I’m Jealous,” which arrived last October. It will appear on her new album Better Mistakes, out May 7th.

“My sophomore album is...

Barbara Crampton is the queen of indie horror. Gracious and humble as she is, it’s a title she would most likely reject. These are precisely among the qualities that make her an icon: she’s a leader in the industry who makes it a point to bring others up, a gigantic star too nice to ever act like one. She’s the absolute best and deserves to be celebrated not just during #IndieHorrorMonth, but all year long.

From her earliest genre performances in movies like Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, and From Beyond, there was something special about Crampton. She could lend gravity and empathy to even the most outrageous scenario, from the notorious decapitated head scene in Re-Animator to the giant robot battles of Full Moon’s Robot Wars, to which she brings energy and spunk worthy of Marion Ravenswood. She could be a Bdsm-clad mad scientist in From Beyond...

Every cinema in China must schedule and actively promote at least two screenings of propaganda films per week beginning this week until the end of the year, Chinese authorities have declared, announcing the first batch of eligible titles Friday.

Theaters that are part of the National Alliance of Arthouse Cinemas or the “People’s Cinema” circuit — a group of more than 5,000 venues with special halls dedicated to propaganda films or that employ specific strategies like subsidies to promote such content — must screen propaganda films at least five times a week.

The directive is just one of a number of stipulations issued last week by China’s National Film Administration and powerful Propaganda Department about how the country’s film and entertainment industries should participate in efforts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party’s founding, which hits this July 1.

In an official statement, National Film Administration called...

Welcome to this week’s Impact Wrestling review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and Gloria Gimpsey is here to aid us in our discussion of Impact’s show this week. Gloria Gimpsey: My husband is dead! Me: Ummmmm… Gg: A bear ate him! Me: A bear? Gg: (sobbing) It ripped his ass out of his eyes! Me: Ummmm… Gg: The last thing he ever saw was s—t! Why has God done this to me?! Me: Well, they say God might not even be real… Gg: What?! God’s not real?! Then this s—t happened for no reason?! That’s even worse! I prayed to no one! Me: Ummmm… Gg: I’ve wasted my life! Me: Maybe God is real… Gg: Hail Satan! Me: Uh oh. Gg: I call upon the master! Bring me the powers of Hell! I shall destroy the world of Man! Me: Uh oh.

Beijing-based sales agency is also handling war epic Sacrifice and Vincent Zhao’s Counter Attack.

Beijing-based sales agency Blossoms Entertainment is launches sales on three new productions from leading Chinese studio Huayi Brothers at Filmart Online, headed by historical war epic Railway Heroes.

Starring Zhang Hanyu (Operation Red Sea) and Fan Wei (One Second), the film follows a group of Chinese railway workers during the Sino-Japanese War, who attempt to sabotage the enemy’s vital transport links whilst evading arrest. The film, directed by Yang Feng, is currently in production for release over China’s National Day Holidays in October.

Chinese indie sales agency Blossoms Entertainment returns to FilMart with a slate of large-scale commercial pictures sourced from a clutch of China’s biggest film studios.

The agency, operated by former Im Global staffers Vicky Ding and Leslie Chen, is pre-selling “Railway Heroes,” a tale of heroism and wartime sabotage which is targeting a National Day release in October. The film is directed by Yang Feng with a cast headed by Zhang Hanyu and Fan Wei.

“Never Stop,” a sports drama about the careers of two sprinters, is poised to release in China around the time of the Tokyo Olympics this summer. The cast is headed by “Shadow” star Zheng Kai (aka Ryan Zheng), with direction by Han Bowen.

Leste Chen’s “Upcoming” (aka “Sheng Xia Wei Lai”) marks the “Eternal Summer” director’s return to the romantic coming of age genre after more recent efforts in other directions including...

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Sophie Stevens, Ludovic Hughes, Lukas Loughran | Written and Directed by Andy Collier, Toor Mian

[Note: With the film out digitally in the UK from Monday, March 15th, here’s a reposting of our review of Sacrifice from its screening last year at Frightfest]

Inspired not only by a short story called Men of the Cloth, Sacrifice is Very heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft; a writer whose influence has always been felt on the genre but whom, it seems, looks to have a resurgence amongst independent filmmakers – with Sacrifice the second film in as many film festivals to have a direct link to the stories, and more specifically the mythos of Lovecraft’s work.

Sacrifice tells the story of New York-based Isaac who, after the death of his mother, returns, along with his pregnant wife Emma, to the Norwegian village on a remote island of his birth to deal with an unexpected inheritance. There they find themselves caught in a waking nightmare as an ancient frightening...

At the start of “The Inheritance” — an experimental film about the formation of a Black collective, set in the early ’90s — Julian (Eric Lockley) rummages through a wooden crate of books he found in the West Philadelphia row house his grandmother left him. In it is a trove of poetic and political thought circa the late ’60s and beyond: There’s Malcolm X and Alice Walker, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, as well as Charles Mingus and a stack of Ebony magazines.

In the next scene, Julian’s friend, maybe girlfriend, Gwen (Nozipho Mclean) helps him tug and shove the crate across the floor of the near empty abode. He asks her to move in. She reminds him that the last time they saw each other was at least a month ago. They’d gone to see Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice”;” he cried and grew quiet. No wonder they...

Despite nearly six months of cinema closures due to Covid-19, China actually built nearly 6,000 more new screens in 2020, according to a new report from the country’s film authorities.

The data contradicts the disastrous predictions made over the summer about the extent to which the pandemic would devastate the Chinese exhibition sector.

China now boasts 75,581 screens nationwide at some 12,700 complexes, having built 5,794 more screens last year, said the National Office for Special Film Funds, a committee under the direct management of the powerful Central Propaganda Department made up of cadres from that body and the Ministry of Finance. Growth did slow, however: to compare, China built around 9,700 new screens in both 2019 and 2018. It began 2020 with around 69,800 screens at some 12,400 complexes.

Things were looking much bleaker in June, by which time Chinese movie theaters had been closed for five months. Conducted by local film industry associations, a mid-2020 survey of nearly...

Parallel worlds commingle with initially intriguing but progressively less invigorating results in “A Writer’s Odyssey,” a handsomely produced action-fantasy directed by Chinese hitmaker Lu Yang. Centered on a desperate father whose search for his missing daughter draws him into a plot to assassinate the author of an online fantasy novel, “Odyssey” is packed with stunning sights including a 50-ft., four-armed CGI villain but is let down by a script that fails to fashion promising story elements into a consistently compelling whole. One of seven major films releasing locally on Feb. 12 for the lucrative Chinese New Year season, this hotly anticipated item opens on the same day in 109 U.S. theaters.

Based on a short story by Shuang Xuetao, “Odyssey” gets off to a strong start with action on radically different fronts. In the real world, middle-aged man Guan Ning (Lei Jiayin) thinks he’s finally found the low-life human traffickers who kidnapped his daughter,...

Veteran genre filmmakers Andy Collier and Toor Mian are once again proving that the most constraining situations can ultimately lead to the most emotionally revealing conclusions with their latest horror movie, ‘Sacrifice.’ The British filmmakers, who previously collaborated together on the 2017 horror crime drama, ‘Charismata,’ reunited to create a new character-driven, Lovecraft-inspired supernatural movie. […]

The post Interview: Andy Collier and Toor Mian Talk Sacrifice (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.

While it enjoyed its debut this past Friday in select theaters, Sacrifice from filmmakers Andy Collier and Toor Man is set to arrive on digital platforms today for genre fans to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes. Loosely based on a short story by Paul Kane, Sacrifice stars Barbara Crampton, Sophie Stevens, and Ludovic Hughes and is centered around a young couple who arrive in an isolated Norwegian village to claim an inheritance, but get more than they bargained for when they realize the villagers are part of a cult that worship a sea-dwelling entity.

During the recent press day for Sacrifice, Daily Dead had the pleasure of speaking with both Mian and Collier about their latest collaboration, and they discussed what they initially saw in Kane’s story that felt ripe for adaptation, their thoughts on collaborating with Stevens for Sacrifice, and more.

Great to speak with you both today,...