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The death of a parent or the need to move them from the family home has been ripe fodder for filmmakers. From the vitriolic August: Osage County to the gentler One Fine Morning, we see characters wrestling with their past, contending with their present and getting a glimpse of their future. With Everything Must Go, screenwriter and film director Arild Østin Ommundsen has created something more reminiscent of The Meyerowitz Stories: both films focus on three grown-up siblings – two men and a woman – and both use humour to counteract the sadness of the family situation as memories are re-evoked and distant childhood events are gazed on and re-evaluated by adult eyes.

The film opens with the sound of piano playing and a thud as the patriarch plays his final notes. When the family gathers for the funeral, sister Ellen wastes no time dealing with the next stage: cleaning out...

Mubi, which recently planted a flag in the U.S. with the wide release of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” has welcomed Zhang Xin to its board of directors, as part of a new chapter for the rapidly expanding company which will also see Zhang’s New York-based film production and financing group Closer Media become an investor in Mubi.

A billionaire entrepreneur, Zhang co-founded Closer Media and previously co-founded Soho China, a construction giant in Beijing and Shanghai known for its iconic projects designed by leading architects from around the world. She left the company in 2022 and partnered with William Horberg, a veteran producer whose credits include “The Queen’s Gambit” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” to break into the media world.

A patron of the arts, Zhang also serves as a Trustee of MoMA, and is a member of both the Harvard Global Advisory Council and Asia Business Council.

Europe’s Ace Producers network has selected 18 international producers for Ace Series Special, its workshop for understanding the series production landscape.

Selected producers include Razor Film producer Roman Paul, with Ian Iqbal Rashid’s project Afterlives, based on the 2020 historical fiction work by Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Scroll down for the full list of selected producers

Paul is a co-producer on Cannes 2024 title Santosh, 2021’s Petrov’s Flu and 2020’s Oscar-nominated Quo Vadis, Aida?, and produced Mia Hansen-Love’s 2022 One Fine Morning.

Also selected from Germany is Harry Floter of Germany’s 2Pilots Filmproduction, with Julia Klier’s project Semis Trail.

Renowned French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve (One Fine Morning) has revealed her next film to be If Love Should Die, a biopic of 18th century English writer, philosopher, and women’s rights advocate, Mary Wollstonecraft.

Slated to film in the United Kingdom, France, Scandinavia and Portugal in 2025, the project’s logline is as follows: On the eve of the French Revolution, an impoverished young Englishwoman makes the bold decision to leave her life according to the ideals of the enlightenment.

Wollstonecraft is best known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792, where she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men, even if they appeared so in her time because they lacked equal access to education. Wollstonecraft believed that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagined a social order founded on reason. Her ideas and writings laid the groundwork for the feminist movement,...

French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s If Love Should Die, a biopic of UK writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, will shoot next year in the UK, France, Scandinavia and Portugal.

It is being produced by Mubi, Caspian Films, Les Films Pelléas, Mer Film, Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films, and Arte France Cinéma.

Mubi and Arte France Cinéma are financing production. The Match Factory is handling worldwide sales.

Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers and is best known for her 1792 book A Vindication Of The Rights of Woman.

Hansen-Løve’s recent credits include One Fine Morning and Bergman Island.

The next film from French director Mia Hansen-Love (Things to Come, One Fine Morning) will be a period drama on the life of ground-breaking English writer and activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Hansen-Love is writing and directing If Love Should Die on the visionary 18th-century writer, considered one of the founder philosophers of feminism. Filming is planned to take place in the U.K., France, Scandinavia and Portugal, starting in 2025.

“My ambition is to capture with as much acuity and truth as possible this pivotal era and the life of a woman that cinema has never before looked at,” Hansen-Love said in a statement. “Iconic in England, Mary Wollstonecraft is not known in France. That suits me: making a film about a figure who is too predictable, or too famous, has never interested me. I am attracted to characters engaged in a quest, devoid of certainties. The souls of artists, no doubt,...

Mia Hansen-Løve, one of France’s leading filmmakers whose movies have played at Cannes, Berlin and Toronto, will next direct “If Love Should Die,” an ambitious feature film about the life of visionary English writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mubi, the auteur-driven global distribution and streaming powerhouse, is producing “If Love Should Die” with Georgina Paget and Thembisa Cochrane at U.K. banner Caspian Films (“The Colour Room”); “Anatomy of a Fall” producer David Thion and Philippe Martin at Paris-set Les Films Pelléas; Norway’s Mer Film, Lorenzo Mieli for Our Films and Arte France Cinema. Mubi and Arte France Cinema are financing the production. The Match Factory is handling worldwide sales.

Written and directed by Hansen-Løve, the film will for the first time tell the journey of Wollstonecraft, a 18th-century feminist pioneer whose ideas resonate with our times.

“On the eve of the French Revolution, an impoverished young Englishwoman...

Spanish director Jonás Trueba’s The Other Way Around (Volveréis) has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

The prize is judged by four members of the Europa Cinema network representing independent exhibitors operating 3,121 screens across Europe. Under the prize, the film will receive the support of these cinemas as it goes on release.

This year’s jury omprised Louise Casey Conneally; Maarja Krass; Rémi Labé and Tamara Visković.

“Jonás Trueba’s well-crafted and nuanced film has an unusual premise – it tells the story of a couple who embrace a novel ritual. Prior to their separation, they elect to celebrate their 15-year relationship with a party,” read their statement.

“Humorous and cleverly written, the film’s circular structure manifests generosity of spirit in its inspiring look at human relationships.

Exclusive: Léa Seydoux (Dune: Part Two) is attached to star opposite Josh O’Connor (Challengers) in Separate Rooms, an upcoming film from Luca Guadagnino, multiple sources tell Deadline.

An adaptation of the 1989 novel by the late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli, the film is a non-chronological examination of the romance between the Italian iconoclast writer, Leo (O’Connor), and his translator, Thomas. Details as to the role Seydoux is playing haven’t been disclosed.

The script comes from Francesca Manieri, who collaborated with Guadagnino on his Sky/HBO series We Are Who We Are. Lorenzo Mieli will produce for Fremantle, following his work with Guadagnino on his cannibal romance Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet, which won Guadagnino the prize for Best Director at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Best known for starring in the Bond films Spectre and No Time to Die, as well as Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color,...

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.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)

A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: VOD...

Melvil Poupaud, an actor in Francois Ozon’s “By the Grace of God” and Maiwenn’s “Jeanne du Barry,” will receive the French Cinema Award from Unifrance, the French promotion organization.

The ceremony will be held on Jan. 18 at the Culture Ministry during the Rendez-Vous With French Cinema market. The French Cinema Award was created in 2016 to honor actors, filmmakers and producers who have contributed to making French cinema shine abroad. Past recipients include actor Juliette Binoche, director Olivier Assayas and producers Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassam, among others.

Poupaud started his career as a child actor in the 1980 and has worked with auteurs such as Raoul Ruiz, Eric Rohmer, James Ivory and Ozon, with whom he has made four movies. His latest film directed by Ozon, “By the Grace of God,” won the Silver Bear in Berlin and earned him a Cesar nomination for best actor. He also worked with several well-established female directors,...

Zorro and Expats are the big shows coming to Prime Video in January. The former is what Amazon are calling a “bold reinterpretation” of the classic hero El Zorro for 2024. Starring Miguel Bernardeau as Diego de la Vega and Renata Notni as Lolita Marquez, it’s definitely an intriguing-sounding action-adventure series, with a ten-episode first season based on the iconic character originally created by Johnston McCulley all the way back in 1919.

Meanwhile, upcoming drama series Expats is based on the bestselling 2016 novel The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee, and follows “the vibrant lives of a close-knit expatriate community” in Hong Kong. Nicole Kidman has been known for picking the right kind of shows to lead in the past, so let’s hope this is another banger for the actress, who is also on board as an executive producer here.

Here’s everything coming to Amazon Prime Video and Freevee this month.

It is meaningful to me to be back here, compiling a list of ten for Dn, following a year off last year. Coming back I feel my list is different to what it may have been without the break, where my film watching, cinema-going and general cinephilia took new forms that are still revealing themselves. Some notes:

There is no inclusion of Enys Men or One Fine Morning, which for me are 2022 films and though released cinematically this year I wish to leave that year well and truly behind me. I’ve only included films where there is a trailer link so there’s no room for Nariman Massoumi’s poetic short doc Pouring Water on Troubled Oil, currently screening at festivals though criminally getting overlooked at many that should show it, John Akomfrah’s stunning installation Arcadia, at The Box in Plymouth until June 2024, or finally, Mark Jenkin’s...

The German culture ministry has unveiled the new head of the Berlin International Film Festival, who will take over from co-directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek, who are stepping down after next year’s Berlinale. Tricia Tuttle, formerly director of the BFI London Film Festival, will take over as the sole director of the Berlinale from after next year’s event.

The Berlinale announced the replacement on Tuesday, following months of speculation and media chatter surrounding Germany’s number-one film festival. Chatrian and Rissenbeek have announced they will be leaving when their contracts expire next year. The German Ministry for Culture and Media, the main financier of the Berlinale, had previously said it would scrap the dual director set-up and revert to a single festival director from 2025 on.

Tuttle, who was BFI festivals director from October 2018 to April of this year, is currently Head of Directing Fiction at the UK...

Ketchup Entertainment announced today that they have acquired North American rights to the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Memory, written and directed by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Michel Franco. The film stars Academy Award ® winner Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Brooke Timber, Merritt Wever, Elsie Fisher, Jessica Harper and Josh Charles. It premiered in Competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival earning an eight-minute standing ovation, with Sarsgaard going on to receive the Volpi Cup for Best Actor from the Jury. It also screened to great acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is screening at AFI this Saturday, October 28th with Franco and Sarsgaard in attendance and will open theatrically this December.

Memory follows Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) a social worker who leads a simple and structured life until Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they...

SAG-AFTRA may still be on strike, but studios are, nevertheless, pushing their Oscar contenders to garner the adequate (and allowed) attention they need to land nominations.

One of the main methods is getting industry voters out to screenings and making films available on the Academy Screening Room and BAFTA screening platforms. With the two significant organizations banning physical DVD screeners, voting members rely on the respective digital viewing portals to catch up on some of this year’s contenders vying for awards consideration.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

The Academy performs a heavy vetting process for each film that chooses to submit for consideration. Historically, over 300 movies are in the running for best picture consideration, with more films joining the fray over the next several months. Distributors are the ultimate decision-makers of when a movie is placed in the Academy Screening Room for viewing.

On the website for Mubi, the international cinema platform describes itself in several ways: “A streaming service? A curator? A publisher? A distributor? A cinema lover? Yes.”

Yet in a recent online conversation hosted by Sundance Collab, the Sundance Institute’s educational service, Mubi Chief Content Officer Jason Ropell added another facet to Mubi’s motives: Netflix alternative.

Ropell, the former head of Amazon Studio’s film division, said in a revealing conversation with Sundance programmer John Nein that, while Mubi takes SVOD rights for both films it buys and produces in-house, it takes a more expansive approach to other revenue streams, from theatrical to PVOD.

“In contrast, Netflix will create or buy a film and it will only be on Netflix,” Ropell said. “It’s the exclusive access to the platform that’s their value proposition. Our job is to support films through every facet of the distribution chain.

Mia Hansen-Løve's One Fine Morning is now showing exclusively on Mubi from June 16, 2023, in many countries—including the United Kingdom, India, and Turkey—in the series Luminaries.One Fine Morning.Legend has it that the art of memory was born from death—when the ceiling of a Thessalian nobleman’s dining hall collapsed and killed all but Simonides of Ceos. He was able to identify his fellow guests, smooshed beyond recognition, by remembering their seat at the table, thus associating each person with a locality. The pre-Socratic poet soon began to experiment with localizing abstract ideas to objects in an imaginary house, which he could pick up one by one—each a symbol of fragmented thought that formed a full memory in aggregate. In the 16th century, King Francis I of France commissioned the construction of an elaborate physical version of Simonide’s phantom house, coined a Theatre of Memory.

Among those selected, Laura Poitras won the Golden Lion at the festival last year.

Jane Campion, Mia Hansen-Løve, Laura Poitras and Martin McDonagh have joined the main Competition jury of the 80th Venice Film Festival (August 30-September 9).

The filmmakers will be joined by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (Wajib); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was in Competition at the festival in 2021 with Freaks Out; Argentinian writer/director Santiago Mitre, whose Argentina, 1985 premiered in Competition at Venice last year; and Chinese actress Shu Qi, known for her performances in Hou Hsiao-Hsien films Millennium Mambo, Three Times and The Assassin.

US director Poitras...

Roughly a month before Venice Film Festival’s 2023 lineup announcement, the buzz around the competition is heating up with several star-studded films by heavyweight directors in the mix, including Pablo Larrain (“El Conde”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari“), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla“), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Michel Franco (“Memory”).

These titles are believed to have been officially invited to the Lido in competition, according to sources.

Larraín’s follow-up to “Spencer,” “El Conde” depicts dictator Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire with a cast led by Chilean star Alfredo Castro.

Another film with a genre element, Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” is a surrealist science-fiction romance based on an adaptation of Alasdair Grey’s novel of the same name, and starring Emma Stone as Belle Baxter, a Frankenstein-like woman who is brought back to life after her brain is replaced with that of her unborn child. Stone stars opposite Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley.

Mia Hansen-Løve’s bittersweet 2022 release, starring Léa Seydoux as a woman coping with the failing mind of her father, joins a select group of films exploring this most tender of ​life ​role reversals, from The Savages to Eat Drink Man Woman

French director Mia Hansen-Løve has a knack for making unimpeachably delicate films about emotionally clobbering rites of passage. She has navigated death, divorce and traumatic adolescence with a softness that never quite turns to mush. Her most recent film, One Fine Morning – now available to stream on Mubi – takes the same approach to that strangest and most tender of life reversals, when children become their parents’ carers. Following a Parisian single mother (a never-better Léa Seydoux) as she reckons with the complications of steering her elderly, partially sighted father through the national care home system, from grappling with his dementia to redistributing his book collection, it’s quietly devastating,...

As we approach 2023’s halfway point it’s time to take a temperature of the finest cinema thus far: we’ve rounded up our favorites from the first six months of this year, many of which have flown under the radar. Kindly note that this is based solely on U.S. theatrical and digital releases from 2023.

We should also note a number of stellar films that premiered on the festival circuit last year also had an awards-qualifying run, thus making them 2022 films by our standards––including One Fine Morning, Saint Omer, and Return to Seoul. Check out our picks below, as organized alphabetically, followed by honorable mentions.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig)

Like Judy Blume’s treasured young adult classic, Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret begins in 1970 with 11-year-old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) getting the worst news any...

David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” is reteaming with Guillaume Senez for “Une part manquante,” a Tokyo-set drama which Be For Films is representing in international markets.

“Une part manquante” will also reunite Senez with popular French actor Romain Duris, who starred in his 2018 film “Our Struggles” and earned a Cesar nomination for it. Brussels-based Be For Films had sold Senez’s feature debut “Keeper” and “Our Struggles” in most major territories and presented at a flurry of international festivals.

Duris will play Jay, who hasn’t seen his daughter for nine years since getting separated from his Japanese wife. As a foreigner residing in Japan, Jay was denied custody of his daughter. Hoping to find her somewhere in the city, he abandons his career as a renown chef and becomes a taxi driver. After all these years searching in vain,...

Spanish drama follows a woman who goes on a journey of self-exploration to unveil her loss of desire.

Elena Martín Gimeno’s Creatura has won the Europa Cinemas’ award for best European film in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Europa Cinemas Network will now support the film with promotion and incentivise exhibitors to extend the film’s run in theatres.

Martín Gimeno also stars in the Spanish drama as a woman who goes on a journey of self-exploration to unravel her loss of desire.

It is produced by Spain’s Vilaüt Films, Avalon, Elastica Films and Lastor Media.

“Creatura,” the feature debut of Elena Martín, exploring female sexual desire and repression, has won this year’s 20th Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for best European Film at the 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Announced Thursday by Europa Cinemas, ahead of the closing ceremony this afternoon, the prize is one of two at Directors’ Fortnight, and awarded by one of the sidebar’s partners, given the section is non-competitive.

A second partner plaudit, the Sacd Prize, handed out by France’s Writers’ Guild, will be announced simultaneously to the Europa Cinemas Label.

“Creature” hit Cannes will multiple tailwinds. Like last year’s Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” it’s made by an emerging woman director associated by the so-called Catalan New Wave of helmers and producers making films twinning a strong sense of place and universal issues.

The second feature from 2021 Málaga best director Martín (“Júlia ist”) and a “Veneno” writer and “Perfect Life” director,...

Updated with Sacd prize details: Spanish director Elena Martín Gimeno’s Creatura won the Europa Cinemas prize as Best European Film, while Pierre Caton’s Le Prince scooped the Sacd for best French film at Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday.

The prizes were announced ahead of the evening closing ceremony for the non-competitive parallel Directors Fortnight section.

The Europa Cinema label and Sacd prizes are the key collateral prizes awarded to films world premiering in the section.

Under the Europa Cinema prize, the release of Creatura will receive the support of cinemas belonging to the independent exhibitor network representing 3,060 screens in 38 countries. The jury consists of four exhibitor members of the network.

Creatura revolves around a seemingly perfect couple who no longer manage to have sex, prompting one partner to probe her past and her sexual sexual awakening, from adolescence back to early childhood.

French writers guild Sacd’s prize is...

Maxime Rappaz’s debut film “Let Me Go,” which plays in the Cannes Acid sidebar, has been sold to Brazil and Taiwan. The film stars Cannes regular Jeanne Balibar in the lead role as a fiftysomething woman torn between her family commitments and pursuing her own desires.

Every Tuesday, a neighbor takes care of Claudine’s son while she goes to a mountain hotel to meet men passing through. When one of them decides to extend his stay for her, Claudine is confused and finds herself dreaming of another life.

Imovision has acquired all rights for Brazil, and will release the film in cinemas after a Brazilian festival premiere. “The mise en scène is excellent and Jeanne Balibar is extraordinary,” Jean-Thomas Bernardini, president of Imovision, commented.

Andrews Film has acquired all rights for Taiwan, where the film joins a distribution slate including “Aftersun,” “One Fine Morning’ and “Drive My Car.

Exclusive: The International Booker Prize, the world’s biggest award for fiction translated into English, is teaming with Mubi, bookseller Foyles and London’s The Garden Cinema on an initiative tied to the six titles nominated for its 2023 edition.

Streaming service, production company and film distributor Mubi has curated a selection of six films to complement each of the works on the 2023 book shortlist, ahead of the winner announcement on May 23. (scroll down for list)

The Garden Cinema will host a special Q&a event featuring the 2023 winners followed by a screening of the film that Mubi had paired with the winning book.

International Booker Prize administrator Fiammetta Rocco said the initiative had been inspired by the changing perception of foreign-language films in the UK, tied in with the fact that the readership for translated fiction is getting younger.

“This is part of a far wider cultural trend in which more and more films,...

Disney’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” ruled the U.K. and Ireland box office with a £12 million ($15.2 million) opening, according to numbers released by Comscore.

The latest Marvel Studios release debuted at Number 1 with an 72% market share, according to Disney, and had the biggest three-day opening weekend of 2023.

In its fifth weekend, Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” collected £1.3 million in second place for a total of £49 million. In third position, in its third weekend, Studiocanal’s “Evil Dead Rise” earned £493,732 for a total of £4.4 million.

In fourth place, in its second weekend, eOne’s “The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry” collected £336,519 for a total of £2 million. Rounding off the top five was Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4,” which took in £195,298 in its seventh weekend and now has a total of £17 million.

There were two debuts in the top 10. Rbe’s Punjabi-language film “Jodi,” headlined by...

Film has £15.8m including the Bank Holiday Monday.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (May 5-May 7) Total gross to date Week 1. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (Disney) £12.1m £15.8m 1 2. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal) £1.3m £50m 5 3. Evil Dead Rise (Studiocanal) £493,732 £4.6m 3 4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry (eOne) £336,000 £2.2m 2 5. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate) £195,057 £17.1m 7

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.26

Disney’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 opened top of the UK-Ireland box office chart this weekend with a powerful £12.1m start – the highest opening of the year to date, and just behind the £13.1m of the second Guardians film.

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.

Both Sides of the Blade (Claire Denis)

In Both Sides of the Blade a romance breaks down and threatens to break up in a stylish apartment overlooking the sweet Parisian skyline. The director is of course Claire Denis, a filmmaker whose last work began in a place that looked like Eden and ended in a spaceship plummeting toward no less than a black hole. A baroque melodrama that might just maybe be a trolling farce, Both Sides of the Blade‘s concerns are of a more earthbound variety–though if the insistent strings of Tindersticks’ score are something to go by, they are of no less importance. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

Demonlover (Olivier Assayas)

Like so many Olivier Assayas films,...

Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ruled the U.K. and Ireland box office collecting £3.06 million ($3.8 million) in its fourth weekend for a total of £45.7 million, per numbers from Comscore.

In its second weekend, Studiocanal’s “Evil Dead Rise” earned £1.05 million in second place for a total of £3.3 million.

There were a couple of strong debuts in the top five. eOne’s “The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry” bowed in third place with £784,698, while Dg Tech’s Tamil-language magnum opus “Ponniyin Selvan: 2,” also released in the Telugu and Hindi languages, debuted in fourth position with £618,244. Rounding off the top five, in its fifth weekend, was eOne’s “Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” with £575,796.

The other debut in the top 10 was Universal’s “Polite Society,” which bowed in ninth place with £220,278.

Mubi’s “One Fine Morning” added £21,671 and now has a total of £239,856.

Among the upcoming releases, the biggest...

‘Evil Dead Rise’ started with £1.5m – a healthy result for an 18-rated title.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (Apr 21-23) Total gross to date Week 1. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal) £4.3m £41.6m 3 2. Evil Dead Rise (Studiocanal) £1.5m £1.5m 1 3. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (eOne) £769,000 £11.9m 4 4. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate) £589,676 £15.8m 5 5. Air (Warner Bros) £516,000 £3.7m 3

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.24

Studiocanal’s Evil Dead Rise slashed into the top five of the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, as The Super Mario Bros. Movie stayed in pole position for a third session.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie comfortably held top spot,...

New drama One Fine Morning, starring the wonderful Lea Seydoux, is yet another fine film to come from French auteur Mia Hansen Love, and to mark the film’s release we had the pleasure of speaking to the director in Paris earlier this year, taking part in a roundtable with fellow European journalists. She discusses her approach to her craft in fascinating detail, while also commenting on the optimistic nature of her work.

The film looks at time and memory, and how everything is passing, the life we live keeps evolving. Is this something that you are aware of, as a theme in your movies?

I think I should be after making all these films that all deal with that! I think I was inspired by this passing of time and what remains and what doesn’t, what is destroyed by time and what survives time, that has been more...

Easter holidays boost takings of ’Mummies’, ‘Puss In Boots’; ‘Rye Lane’ tops £1m.

RankFilm (distributor)Three-day gross (Apr 14-16)Total gross to date Week 1. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal) £7.6m £35.9m 2 2. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (eOne) £1.2m £10.8m 3 3. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate) £823,064 £14.9m 4 4. Air (Warner Bros) £722,822 £2.8m 2 5. Renfield (Universal) £680,661 £680,661 1

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.24

Audiences shelled out a further £7.6m on Universal animation The Super Mario Bros. Movie, as the blockbuster dropped just 14% on its opening session to comfortably hold the UK-Ireland box office lead.

Mario increased its Sunday takings by 9% compared to its opening session...

It’s hard to think of a film industry profession that has attracted more attention in the past year than intimacy coordinators. As Hollywood continues to take gradual steps to make sets more inclusive, hiring experts to choreograph sex scenes and ensure that all performers agree to what they’ll be doing has become a popular trend. The prevalence of voices calling for more sex scenes only adds to the demand for the job.

But for every artist who praises the experience of working with an intimacy coordinator, there seems to be another one who criticizes the practice. Debates over the delicate balancing act between performer safety and artistic spontaneity don’t appear to be going away any time soon, and it’s hard to find a Hollywood figure who doesn’t have a strong opinion about it.

In a new interview with The Guardian, Mia Hansen-Løve offered her take on the controversial issue.

The French director on making the closest thing to an autobiography, stripping Léa Seydoux of her glamour and dating fellow film-makers

French screenwriter and director Mia Hansen-Løve, 42, was born in Paris to parents who were both philosophy professors. She studied German at university, then had stints as an actor and film critic before making her directorial debut in 2007 with All Is Forgiven. Her subsequent films include Father of My Children, Goodbye First Love, Eden and Bergman Island. Her new film, One Fine Morning, is about a single mother caring for her ailing father while embarking upon a new romance. She lives near Paris with her partner, film-maker Laurent Perreau, and their children.

How closely was your new film, One Fine Morning, inspired by your own late father’s illness?

All my films, in one way or another, use autobiographical elements. Or I should say biographical, because the majority are not...

On some basic level, Mia Hansen-Løve makes movies because she has a “very, very bad” memory. “It’s a way to hold on to events that I want to remember, to really make sure the things that matter to me will still exist even if I forget them,” says the French filmmaker. She scrunches up the already rumpled tissue in her lap and releases it again. “I’m always worried that I will forget everything.” That fear goes a long way in explaining the many parallels that exist between Hansen-Løve’s real life and the lives explored on screen in her emotionally intense, often award-winning films.

Hansen-Løve was only 23 when she wrote her debut All Is Forgiven; 25 when she directed it. The film, nominated for Best First Feature at the 2008 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars), was loosely inspired by her uncle and cousin. Goodbye First Love (2011) told...

It's an all-British affair on the Empire Podcast this week, as we finally get a chance to bring you the interview Chris Hewitt did with Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre director/star combo, Guy Ritchie and The 'Jason Statham' Stath over a year ago, before the film's release was delayed. Now it's out on Prime Video, here's the perfect chance to hear the duo talk about working together over the years, and Ritchie's unique approach to choreographing action sequences. Then, in an interview that hasn't been locked away in a vault for over a year, Chris sits down with Nicholas Hoult, returning to the pod after a four year break to talk about playing the title role in Renfield, fizzy water, his approach to choosing roles, and whether or not he has a Draclier in him. Ooer missus and no mistake.

Then, in an epic pod either side of those,...

Also out this weekend: Sony has anime fantasy ’Suzume’ and Paramount action thriller ‘Assassin Club’.

After a lively weekend for new releases at the UK-Ireland box office over the Easter bank holiday, this session is looking a little calmer, with Universal’s Super Mario Bros: The Movie likely to keep its spot at the top.

The widest new release to take the plunge this weekend is Universal’s Renfield, playing at 605 sites. Chris McKay’s action-comedy take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula is set in modern day New Orleans, with Nicolas Cage as the famous bloodsucker, and Nicholas Hault as his long-suffering familiar,...

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.

Country Gold (Mickey Reece)

The cost of fame sits in the living room wondering aloud whether dad will be home for Christmas. Why these two young boys’ voices have been deepened to sound like they’re 40-year-old drunks slurring through a bender is beyond me (an assumption of it being a dream or game is squashed once mom enters without the effect being called out), but their words have meaning. Troyal’s (Mickey Reece channeling Garth Brooks) star has risen to unimaginable heights and he’s embraced it to the point where his “good ol’ boy” demeanor can’t quite hide the growing ego beneath a cowboy hat. While Jamie (Leah N.H. Philpott) tries toeing the line of admiring his accomplishments and...

Nicolas Cage has never been better than he is in the pitch-black horror-comedy Vampire’s Kiss (1988), playing the role of a Manhattan yuppie convinced he’s been turned into an immortal bloodsucker. Cage acts in the film with feral sincerity, burrowing deep enough into the madness to find some childlike desire to be seen and loved. He also found the most unthinkable ways of delivering straightforward lines. “Am I getting through to you, Alva?”; “I never misfiled anything! Not once. Not one time!”. They’re inconsequential on paper, but by the sheer, weird force of how he said them, they’ve been immortalised in meme form.

Cage was born to play a vampire. Renfield, then, feels like the long-withheld fulfilment of a promise – the actor finally gets to play the biggest vampire of them all, Dracula. His performance is faultless. There’s an elegance in the Old World elongation of his...

The woman at the centre of the subtle but cathartic One Fine Morning is cursed by her consciousness. Try as she might, she can’t escape the fact that she’s ultimately alone, trapped in her own head, and tied through her actions to each and every person around her. It’s a torturous existence. Sandra (Léa Seydoux), a young widow, cares for her eight-year-old daughter. She also cares for her father Georg (veteran actor Pascal Greggory), whose sight is mostly gone and whose memory is crumbling away due to a neurodegenerative disease. At work, as a translator, she patiently reinterprets the words of strangers, or guides American World War Two veterans back down the paths of their old traumas.

She has carved up and rationed out every last part of her heart. There’s no more left for her own use, as she’s forced to admit: “I just...

Woody Allen’s “Coup de Chance,” the controversial filmmaker’s 50th movie, has found a French distributor. Metropolitan FilmExport, one of country’s biggest independent distributors, has come on board to release the movie in France.

The release date has not yet been set, but sources close to the film say it could world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Metropolitan FilmExport has never handled a movie directed by Allen before as it typically focuses on commercial U.S. movies such as the “Hunger Games” franchise and “Evil Dead Rises.”

While Allen’s movies have also always been widely popular in France, his previous film “Rifkin’s Festival” sold under 100,000 tickets for Apollo Films after world premiering at the San Sebastian Festival. It was the director’s worst B.O. performance in France. Budgeted in the $20-million range, “Coup de Chance” was a pricey acquisition that not many French distributors could afford to gamble on.

It’s been an interesting year for cinema thus far, and that won’t be slowing down in April.

There’s Leonor Will Never Die (7 April) – a meta love letter to Filipino cinema, led by the marvellous Sheila Francisco – and also Lola (7 April), a Second World War time travel drama whose low budget shows that you can do impressive things with very little. Albert Serra’s Pacifiction (21 April) is an intoxicating descent into danger and, as with the Spanish filmmaker’s previous films, it may be divisive, but demands to be seen – even if just to form your own opinion.

Ben Affleck directs and stars in Air (7 April), which follows Nike’s revolutionary partnership with a young Michael Jordan. Affleck’s receiving some of the best reviews of his career for the film. Meanwhile, grisly horror Evil Dead Rise (21 April) has generated word-of-mouth hype since its premiere at South by Southwest.

Dominik Moll’s brooding procedural thriller “The Night of the 12th” won big at the 48th Cesar Awards Friday night in Paris.

Out of 10 nominations, “The Night of the 12th” picked up best film, director, male newcomer for Bastien Bouillon, supporting actor for Bouli Lanners, adapted screenplay and sound. Bouillon and Lanners star as two cops trying to solve the gruesome murder of a young woman. The film opened at Cannes in the Premieres section.

Caroline Benjo, who produced “The Night of the 12th” with Carole Scotta and Simon Arnal at Haut et Court, made a searing speech denouncing the violence against women. “When Dominic and Gilles came to us to make this film it was obvious that we (needed to address this issue) and that the perspective of men on this matter was crucial, and that filmmakers had to tell this story,” said Benjo. “A few days ago, Dominic...

First look at the feature, directed by Chris Andrews, revealed.

Bafta-winner Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott have been revealed as the stars of Bring Them Down, which is in the final stages of filming in Ireland for Mubi Production.

Paul Mescal and Tom Burke were previously attached to the project, which marks the feature debut of writer/director Chris Andrews, a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2019. A first look at the film can be seen above.

The film also stars Colm Meaney, Nora-Jane Noone, Paul Ready and Susan Lynch.

Abbott plays Michael, the last son of a shepherding family who lives with his ailing father,...

Mubi has revealed the first look of “Bring Them Down,” starring Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (“Catch-22”) and BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).

The casting of Abbott and Keoghan replaces the previously announced cast of Tom Burke and Paul Mescal.

Principal photography is in its final stages in Ireland on the production, which is the feature directorial debut of Chris Andrews, following his award-winning short films “Stalker” (2019) and “Fire” (2015).

The film also stars Colm Meaney (“Gangs of London”), Nora-Jane Noone (“Wildfire”) Paul Ready (“Motherland”), and Susan Lynch (“Happy Valley”).

It follows Michael (Abbott), the last son of a shepherding family who lives with his ailing father, Ray (Meaney). Burdened by a terrible secret, Michael has isolated himself from the world. When a conflict with rival farmer Gary (Ready) and his son Jack (Keoghan) escalates, Michael is drawn into a devastating chain of events, forcing...

Léa Seydoux and Melvil Poupaud in One Fine Morning: 'I found myself blushing in our first love scene. I suppose it was my natural shyness coming through.' Photo: Mubi Who would have thought that Léa Seydoux whom some directors have regarded as an object of desire and representing a certain kind of sex appeal, would have baulked at getting intimate with her leading men.

Yet over a collective chinwag in Paris the current star of Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning (Un beau matin) and normally a glamorously assured model for luxury brand Louis Vuitton, confessed she blushed so profusely during a read-through with James Bond Daniel Craig for No Time To Die she had to take a break. “I had to say, ‘I love you’ and became red in the face. He gave me a strange look and I had to call a halt because I was...

Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard in Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur) screening in Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Photo: Shanna Besson/Why Not Productions

In the first instalment with Melvil Poupaud (who is being honoured at the French Institute in New York next month) we discuss the dark side of Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother And Sister (Frère Et Sœur), Mathieu Amalric in A Christmas Tale and Kings And Queens, Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, a touch of François Ozon’s By The Grace Of God, James Joyce’s The Dead, Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale, and Woody Allen’s Coup De Chance with Lou de Laâge, Niels Schneider and Valérie Lemercier.

Melvil Poupaud with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I always understood that the most gratifying thing when you’re an actor is when a great director such as Eric Rohmer...