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Cliff Curtis.

After appearing in more than 50 films and TV series Cliff Curtis will make his directing debut on a family film based on the true story of a boy whose dog is lost overboard, feared dead.

Produced by William McKegg and Belle Avery, Herbert is one of three films funded by the New Zealand Film Commission.

The others are Mothers of the Revolution, which will chronicle the lasting impact of the Women’s Peace Camp at the UK’s Greenham Common, and Cousins, a drama about three disconnected cousins who spend a lifetime in search of each other.

Amanda Beatson and McKegg wrote the screenplay for Herbert, adapted from the book Herbert the Brave Sea Dog by Robyn Belton.

The book recounts the day 10-year-old Tim Snadden’s dog Herbert fell off a boat into the treacherous waters of French Pass in the Marlborough Sounds. Those on the boat...

Fonda joins Tilda Swinton as a narrator on the project.

Two-time Oscar-winning American actress Jane Fonda has signed up to be the second narrator of epic documentary Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema, the first part of which plays at Venice Film Festival this week.

Tilda Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which premieres in the Venice Classics strand on Saturday (Sept 1) and will then travel to Toronto.

Mark Cousins directs the episodic project, which will be 16 hours long when completed in spring 2019. Producers are John Archer for Hopscotch Films with Swinton as exec producer.

Over 200 projects announced, including 37 world and 70 UK premieres.

UK documentary festival Sheffield Doc/Fest has unveiled the programme for its 25th edition, which runs from June 7-12 this summer.

Amongst the titles are a screening of McQueen, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s film about the late British fashion designer Alexander McQueen composed of archival footage and personal testimonials.

Last month Sean McAllister’s A Northern Soul was announced as the opening night film.

Scroll down for the full list of films in competition

The 2018 official competition jury includes documentarian Mark Cousins, director Sophie Fiennes and artists Liv Wynter and Samson Kambalu.

In the early '80s, Sean Young's big-screen career rise was meteoric, jumping from a bit role opposite Bill Murray in the army comedy Stripes to starring with Harrison Ford in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner -- and then raising pulses with a steamy back-seat sex scene with Kevin Costner in a limo in No Way Out. But after a career lull in the '90s and various off-screen antics that turned her into a tabloid target, Young is back on the big screen and ready to show that she's here to stay in the haunting backwoods supernatural drama Jug Face.

Exclusive Trailer: Scary Thrills in 'Jug Face'

The story of a pregnant teen (Lauren Ashley Carter) looking to escape her small town because she fears she'll be sacrificed to a mysterious pit that kills in exchange for keeping the community safe, Jug Face casts Young as Loriss, the girl's...

Governors Ball 2012 The Governors Ball, the official post-Academy Awards party, was held at the Hollywood & Highland Center on February 26, 2012. Oscar winners and losers, presenters and performers showed up at the ball for drinks, food, and some groovy lighting and ambiance, as can be attested above. But the big news at the 2012 Governors Ball wasn't the mauve illumination, or Meryl Streep's third Oscar, or Christopher Plummer's first, or Jean Dujardin's one-for-the-books Best Actor victory, or even Angelina Jolie's bare right leg — but that Sean Young was arrested just outside the Ball. (Photo: Darren Decker / ©A.M.P.A.S.) "I was just standing by the little line [outside the Ball]," Young told People magazine. "I wasn't bothering anybody." She explained she was taking pictures with the likes of Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Sandra Bullock (right, with Young) to post them on her Facebook page when a security guard told her to leave.

Sean Young Actress Sean Young attends the 2011 Governors Awards in the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Hollywood, on Saturday, November 12. [Photo: Matt Petit / ©A.M.P.A.S.] James Earl Jones was a long-distance Honorary Oscar honoree, as he's co-starring with Vanessa Redgrave in Driving Miss Daisy on the London stage; veteran makeup artist Dick Smith (Ghost Story, The Fan, The Hunger), however, was present at the ceremony to receive his Honorary Oscar. TV talk show personality Oprah Winfrey, a 1985 Best Supporting Actress nominee for Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, was the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Among Young's credits are James Ivory's Jane Austen in Manhattan, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, David Lynch's Dune, Oliver Stone's Wall Street, Roger Donaldson's Now Way Out, and Joel Schumacher's Cousins. Also, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Boost, Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, Motel Blue, and Poor White Trash. Her leading men included Harrison Ford,...

There are a couple of reasons for revisiting the Toronto International Film Festival's lineup for its documentary program, Real to Reel. One of them is Aj Schnack's interview with Thom Powers, Tiff's Documentary and Mavericks Programmer, posted just hours after the Mavericks lineup was announced on Tuesday. Discussing the highlights of both programs, they touch on another reason: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is making all sorts of headlines. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's third film chronicling the odyssey of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr, aka the West Memphis Three, through the labyrinth of the Us legal system, follows Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000). All three films deal with what Powers calls in his Programmer's Note "an 18-year-old murder case that has become an iconic example of a legal witch hunt." In 1993, when all three men were still teens,...

Trio vaunted as creative spearhead of festival have ended their involvement amid fears that the event has lost its way

Tilda Swinton, Mark Cousins and Lynda Myles, who were at the forefront of the relaunch of the Edinburgh film festival, appear to have ended their involvement in this year's event.

Big plans to change the shape and organisation of the festival were outlined in December, with actor Swinton and former directors Cousins and Myles announced as the "dreamy outsiders" who were to transform it following the departure of artistic director Hannah McGill.

Festival organisers were thought to have decided against carrying on with one person at the helm, instead relying on the trio to take charge of the artistic and creative vision. Awards ceremonies and big premieres would make way for guest curators and surprising one-off events in what Cousins described as "probably the most radical shakeup the film festival...

Actor Jeff Bridges has enjoyed an impressive big-screen career playing a broad range of characters from the President of the United States to an alien, and yet he is often called one of the most underrated actors of his time. For his acclaimed role as Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit," Bridges is nominated for an Oscar for the sixth time -- he won Best Actor last year for "Crazy Heart."

Get to know one of America's favorite stars!

New-look festival to have creative input from film and music talent including Gus van Sant, Jim Jarmusch and the Streets

It may have no official artistic director to oversee affairs this year, but the 2011 Edinburgh international film festival will not want for creative input. Organisers yesterday announced a glittering lineup of guest curators who will help shape the new-look event in June.

The actor and director Isabella Rossellini will join film-makers Gus van Sant and Jim Jarmusch in the hotseat, with support from pop star turned composer Clint Mansell and rapper Mike Skinner, formerly of the Streets. Writers Alan Warner and Greil Marcus will also be on hand, as will Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of the Cannes favourite Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

James Mullighan, the festival's producer, told the Glasgow Herald: "These are some of the people. Each will suggest a tone, series of films, dawn walk or theme.

It's time for the big reveal, my friends. As promised, embedded below is Jen and Sylvia Soska's new PSA for the Massive Blood Drive. And embedded within this video is the actress they've chosen to star in American Mary, their sure-to-be-shocking follow-up to last year's absolutely-was-shocking Dead Hooker in a Trunk.

After a grueling search that took them from the hills of Hollywood to the canyons of Manhattan, the Twisted Twins finally found their Mary in their very own backyard. I'm excited to announce that talented Canadian actress Katharine Isabelle is the woman who will bring American Mary to life.

While I'm sure you all remember Isabelle from the 2000 film Ginger Snaps, you probably don't realize that she's more than a scream queen. In the years since that classic slice of Canadian horror was released, Isabelle has established a solid career as a well-rounded, hard-working character actress. But this...

In the final part of Carley’s Joel Schumacher retrospective, she looks at his most recent film, the period horror Blood Creek. But is it a return to form after the disastrous The Number 23...?

"Those who came before rule the blood. And when you rule the blood, death is no longer the end." - Richard Wirth

The Recap

After the disaster that was The Number 23, director Joel Schumacher's next film would again be another huge step away from anything else in his back catalogue and he went about making a proper honest to goodness horror movie.

At the start of World War II, a German family, the Wollners, who are based in rural Maryland, agree to take in Professor Richard Wirth (Michael Fassbender), a Nazi scientist who is described to the family as a visiting scholar. Desperate for money, they agree to host him, unaware that the...

Following his middling take on The Phantom Of The Opera, Joel Schumacher turned to the suspense thriller genre with The Number 23. Carley looks back in anger...

"Twenty-fucking-three." - Suicide Blonde

The Recap

After staking a claim in the world of musical films, Schumacher's next movie would see him dipping his toes into the widely popular suspense thriller with a twist genre. Unfortunately for Schumacher, what he would produce can only be described as one of the most awful examples of the genre I have seen to date.

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is an animal enforcement officer who is celebrating his birthday with wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) and son Robin (Logan Lerman). He receives a call about a stray dog that has been caught in the basement of a restaurant. When he arrives to catch it, he is temporarily blinded by the dog's tag, which allows the dog to bite him and run away.

Was bringing Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom Of The Opera to the big screen a good career move for director Joel Schumacher? Er...

"Can you even dare to look or bear to think of me?" - The Phantom

The Recap

After failing to impress audiences with his biopic of the life of Irish journalist, Veronica Guerin, Joel Schumacher decided to go back to what he knew best, which is beautiful, over the top cinema. And what better subject to take on than The Phantom Of The Opera, one of the most famous and over the top musicals of all time?

The movie begins in Paris in 1919, where the old Paris Opera House is selling off final items in an auction. An old man, Raoul (Patrick Wilson) awaits an old music box with a monkey on top to come up for sale. After he buys the item, his attention is caught by a huge chandelier,...

Versatile director Joel Schumacher followed up his thriller Phone Booth with the gritty biopic Veronica Guerin. But was it a creative stretch too far?

"You'd do the same. If you saw those kids on the street, you would do the same."- Veronica

The Recap

Riding high on the wave of success of Phone Booth, Joel Schumacher's next film would see him taking on the tricky biopic genre. While not the obvious choice for such a project, he steamed ahead regardless, enlisting the help of über producer Jerry Bruckheimer (known mostly for action films). The finished piece probably wasn't what either of them were expecting.

Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett) was a crime reporter for the Irish Sunday Independent. Aware of how badly the illegal drugs trade in Dublin was effecting the lives of everyday people, especially the city's youth, she decided to investigate the problem further and expose those responsible.

After the misfire of Bad Company, director Joel Schumacher went back to basics with the real-time thriller, Phone Booth...

"Stu, if you hang up, I will kill you." - The Caller

The Recap

After the horror show that was Bad Company, Joel Schumacher again had to try to find a way of surviving a flop, and much like the fallout after Batman & Robin, he decided to take a turn in a different direction, making his next movie on a small budget and an even smaller cast.

New York City publicist Stu Shepherd (Colin Farrell) thinks he has it all and knows it all. About to embark on an affair with an actress called Pam (Katie Holmes), he calls her from a phone booth to keep his contact untraceable by his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell).

While in the phone booth, a pizza delivery guy attempts to give him a pizza. Stu dismisses him rudely.

After the critically praised Tigerland, Joel Schumacher returned with the action misfire Bad Company. Carley looks back with a shudder...

"You got the wrong guy. I don't even have a brother. That's just a picture of me in a suit. You could've got that off the internet. I saw a picture of Bill Gates with three titties on the net." - Jake

The Recap

After gaining back some credibility with the war-driven Tigerland, Joel Schumacher then decided it was time to return to the action genre, and surely you can't go wrong with a movie that had a huge comedy star and an Oscar winner as its leads?

After a mission to retrieve a suitcase with a deadly bomb inside goes horribly wrong, CIA agent Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) is killed. Not wanting to blow his cover and wanting to complete the mission, the CIA recruits Kevin's twin brother, Jake Hayes (also Chris Rock.

Joel Schumacher followed up his oddball 1999 movie Flawless with an equally uncharacteristic disection of the Vietnam war. We take a look back at 2000's Tigerland…

"‘Well, the fellas say that if you don't wanna go to Nam, you better pray to Jesus or talk to Roland Bozz." - Soldier

The Recap

After failing to light up the box office with the more indie feeling Flawless, Joel Schumacher's next movie would hark back to the days of his work on Falling Down more than anything he made during the latter part of the 90s, looking at the darker side of life and how it affects the people in it.

In 1971 it had become clear to the majority of the American public that the Vietnam War, for all intents and purposes, had been lost. This, however, did not stop the Us government from enlisting more of its young men and training them to fight.

Joel Schumacher recruited Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman for his lower-key 1999 movie Flawless. We continue our look back at the man's career right there...

"Well life's a bitch, so I became one honey!" - Rusty

The Recap

As the 90s drew to a close, Joel Schumacher could look back to a mixed bag of success and failure. Having managed to hit the nail on the head with projects such as Falling Down and A Time To Kill, he also hit some huge bum notes in the shape of the Batman franchise.

Having gone back to a more dramatic style of filmmaking with 8Mm, he continued the trend with his last film of the decade, which looks at the unlikely relationship between a homophobic cop and a transsexual.

Walt ‘The Wall' Koontz (Robert De Niro) is a retired security guard who left his job being well liked and respected.

We continue our look back at the work of Joel Schumacher, with his Batman & Robin follow-up, 8Mm...

"He's a producer-slash-director-slash weirdo. He's like the Jim Jarmusch of S&M." - Max

The Recap

After the horror that was Batman & Robin, you couldn't blame Joel Schumacher from stepping away from that genre of filmmaking completely and going down a road of drama/thriller. After all, he had success with it in the past. Nothing could go too wrong, right?

Following the death of her husband, wealthy widow Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) comes across an 8mm film in his safe, depicting the murder of a teenage girl by a man in amask. Unsure as to the origin of the tape or if it is, in fact, real, she instructs her lawyer, Daniel Longdale (Anthony Heald), to hire the services of private investigator, Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage), to find out the truth.

After searching through missing persons files,...

Our look back at the work of Joel Schumacher arrives at easily his most infamous film. Carley braves the horrors of Batman & Robin...

"Ice to see you!"- Mr. Freeze

The Recap

By 1997, Joel Schumacher must have felt on the top of the world. With two hugely successful John Grisham adaptations under his belt and capping that off with successfully taking over the Batman franchise, he must have felt invincible as he started up work on the next Batman sequel.

Little did he know that this revisit would not only kill the franchise dead in the water for many years, but would lead to his reputation being left with a huge stain that, to this day, he has been unable to shake off.

Set directly after the events in Batman Forever, the audience is thrown directly back into the action with Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell) trying to...

Joel Schumacher followed up Batman Forever with a march back into the world of John Grisham. We look back at A Time To Kill...

"Until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be even-handed. It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own prejudices." - Jake

The Recap

After having huge box office, if not critical success with Batman Forever, Joel Schumacher's next film would see him going back to his more dramatic roots, adapting another of John Grisham's bestsellers for the big screen.

Set in rural Mississippi, two white supremacists come across Tonya Hailey (RaeVen Larrymore Kelly), a 10-year-old black girl making her way home. The two brutally attack and rape her before trying to hang her from a tree. After the hanging fails, the two dump her body in a nearby river hoping that the elements will take their toll and kill her.

Our Joel Schumacher retrospective arrives at one of his commercial highs and critical lows - it's the pretty woeful Batman Forever...

"Riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big, black bat?" - The Riddler

The Recap

After back-to-back successes with the gritty Falling Down and the tense thriller The Client, Joel Schumacher's next project was slightly off the bat (sorry, we'll get our own taxi). Taking over the reins from Tim Burton, he was about to change the direction and tone of the series, as well as start a downward spiral that would lead to the end of the franchise and almost-certain death knell to any future Batman movies.

Following on directly from Batman Returns, the audience is flung straight into the action as soon as the movie starts with Batman (Val Kilmer) facing Harvey ‘Two-Face' Dent (Tommy Lee Jones), Gotham City's ex-city District Attorney, who,...

The film that put the late Brad Renfro on the map, Carley's look back at the films of Joel Schumacher takes on his adaptation of John Grisham's The Client...

"Keep the dollar, you're fired!" - Mark

The Recap

After tackling the mean streets of La in Falling Down, Schumacher's next project would be another thriller, but this time based on a book by another big name in Hollywood, John Grisham. Grisham was fast becoming a studio favourite with back to back adaptations of his books coming to the big screen at a startling rate.

After their father leaves, 11-year-old Mark Sway (Brad Renfro) and his young brother Ricky (David Speck) spend their days hanging around the trailer park and local surrounding wooded area where they now live while their mother Dianne (Mary-Louise Parker) works at a sweatshop lamp factory.

After catching Mark with a packet of cigarettes, Ricky promises...

Has our look back at the work of Joel Schumacher arrived at his finest film? Carley revisits Falling Down...

"You think I'm a thief? Oh, you see, I'm not the thief. I'm not the one charging 85 cents for a *stinking* soda! You're the thief. I'm just standing up for my rights as a consumer." - William

The Recap

After tackling the weepy genre with the angst filled Dying Young, Schumacher took a very sharp turn in his next project which crafted together anger, violence and unhappiness on a very hot day in Los Angeles.

William Foster (Michael Douglas) is not having the best of times. Going through a messy divorce, his wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) has a restraining order against him, making him unable to see her or his daughter Adele (Joey Hope Singer). He has also just lost his job.

Sitting in a traffic jam on the Los Angeles...

Has our look back at the work of Joel Schumacher arrived at his finest film? Carley revisits Falling Down...

"You think I'm a thief? Oh, you see, I'm not the thief. I'm not the one charging 85 cents for a *stinking* soda! You're the thief. I'm just standing up for my rights as a consumer." - William

The Recap

After tackling the weepy genre with the angst filled Dying Young, Schumacher took a very sharp turn in his next project which crafted together anger, violence and unhappiness on a very hot day in Los Angeles.

William Foster (Michael Douglas) is not having the best of times. Going through a messy divorce, his wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) has a restraining order against him, making him unable to see her or his daughter Adele (Joey Hope Singer). He has also just lost his job.

Sitting in a traffic jam on the Los Angeles...

Our look back at the work of Mr Joel Schumacher hits a rocky patch. It's the Julia Roberts vehicle Dying Young...

"I told Estelle you have a terminal disease - Assholeitis." - Hilary

The Recap

After hitting the ground running with the widely successful Flatliners, Joel Schumacher's next project would again focus on the balance between life and death, but this time from the point of view of a couple facing death square on.

Hilary O'Neil (Julia Roberts) has been unlucky in love for as long as she can remember. After finding out her latest boyfriend has been cheating on her, she leaves him and moves back home with her mother (Ellen Burstyn).

Determined to get her life back on track, Hilary applies for a job as a nurse for a well off family in a posh suburb in San Francisco. Although having no experience and totally out of her element,...

Dancing On Ice judge Robin Cousins has landed a role in the West End production of Grease. Cousins, who is a former Olympic champion, will guest star as Teen Angel from March 29 at London's Piccadilly Theatre. The British skater, who retired from the rink in 2000, has previously appeared in productions of Cats, The Rocky Horror Show and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. He will take over from DJ Toby Anstis, who is (more)...

Though 15 years have passed since "L.A. Law" (1986–94) went off the air, Corbin Bernsen says he continues to be typecast as the vacant, philandering Arnie Becker. "In fact, it's assumed that's who I am," insists the 55-year-old Los Angeles–born actor. Until fairly recently, he adds, he was viewed as such a lightweight he couldn't even get a decent agent. "I finally said 'Screw it, I'll do my own thing,' " he says.Bernsen has now turned his talents to helming and starring in his own films. Among these are the horror thriller "Dead Air" and "Donna on Demand," which he also wrote and which pokes fun at his own 1980s celebrity image. Each is a kind of morality tale, he says. More recently, he wrapped "Rust," a faith-based flick he wrote, directed, and stars in; he's looking for distribution."A part of me looks at life from a dismal perspective,...

The Deadbolt has an absolutely fantastic article about the effects that Twilight and New Moon are having on todays youth.nbspIts no secret that the Stephenie Meyer based Twilight Saga and the upcoming second book sequel New Moon are the most popular movie topics on the internet along with Twilight stars Robert Pattinson Kristen Stewart Taylor Lautner Nikki Reed and Peter Facinelli. There are two sides to every debate and at some point Ill explore the other side but since so many fans love Twilight its bound to have an impact on a new generation of curious romantic geeks and starcrossed lovers. As the demand for Twilight and New Moon has been soaring to new levels of popularity by the day gaining more and more momentum by the week as the Twilight locomotive speeds along the cinematic track toward the November 20 release of New Moon its clear that something unique...