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International production banner Studio Galazio has wrapped principal photography on its first project, heist comedy Mykonos, with an ensemble cast of Klelia Andriolatou (Maestro in Blue), Andrew Georgiades, Riccardo Scamarcio (Modi, John Wick 2), Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) and Vito Schnabel (The Trainer), The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal.

Set on the glamorous European island, the film follows a rag-tag band of noble thieves who steal from the boorish elite tourists that destroy their home each summer.

Rounding out the cast are Panos Koronis (The Lost Daughter), Makis Papadimitriou (Suntan), Yorgos Pirpassopoulos (Crimes of the Future) Maria Kavoyianni (Maestro in Blue), Alan Asaad (Black Mirror) and Christos Passalis (Dogtooth).

Director-writer Christopher André Marks on the set of Studio Galazio’s ‘Mykonos’.

Galazio CEO Christopher André Marks (King Otto) makes his feature directorial debut based on his original screenplay. The writer and director said: “It is a privilege to collaborate with such...

Italy’s Minerva Tvco has acquired international sales rights to Greek drama Utopolis, directed by Vladimir Subotic, which world premeries tomorrow (November 1) at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

It’s the story of a fight between Greek natives and refugees, which leads to two of them falling into a deep hole on a construction site, where they reveal their pasts and secrets. They start to help each other to get out, but prejudice prevails as they make their final attempt.

Utopolis is produced by Greece’s Avaton Films and Luxembourg’s Deal Productions. The film stars Goran Bogdan, Makis Papadimitriou,...

You might have to wait a whole hour for Kristin Scott Thomas to appear in the guise of carefree and broke aristocrat Bijou in this breezy mid-life crisis drama set in Greece, but once she arrives everything suddenly falls into place.

Two tickets to Greece, the French title from director Marc Fitoussi (Call My Agent) follows two former school best friends Magalie (Laure Calamy) and Blandine (Olivia Côte) as they reconcile decades after falling out and losing touch with one another. Despite the years, Magalie hasn’t changed one bit and is still the life and soul of any party that will have her. On the other hand, stuck up upper middle class Blandine has forgotten how to have fun.

Newly divorced and still pining for her old married life, Blandine is spurred on by her well-adjusted grown-up son, Benjamin (Alexandre Desrousseaux), to take a trip with Magalie to the...

Sun! Sea! Men! Margaritas! The siren song of this holy quartet is all that is required to tempt free-spirited hot mess Magalie (“Call My Agent” star Laure Calamy) to pack her bags and join her estranged former schoolfriend Blandine (Olivia Côte) on the holiday of a lifetime. The invitation has come courtesy of Blandine’s teenaged son Benjamin (Alexandre Desrousseaux), who believes, with good reason, that his recently divorced mother is in danger of becoming a recluse — and she wasn’t exactly the life and soul of the party to begin with. The stage is set for a pleasant if meandering comedy-drama powered by the personality clash at its core.

“Two Tickets to Greece” opens with a prologue establishing the contrast between these two women as teenagers, and it’s perhaps not strictly required, since this dynamic is telegraphed loud and clear in every glance, line and scene in the movie.

In Marc Fitoussi’s Two Tickets to Greece, former besties Blandine (Olivia Cotê) and Magalie (Laure Calamy) cross paths after 30 years and decide take a trip to Greece together. Blandine, as if in homage to her name, has become timid and conservative over the years, while Magalie has an active sex life, likes to shake her tailfeather in nightclubs, and tries to ingratiate herself with just about anyone. Cue the drug-related hijinks and misunderstandings between the women and the Greek locals, threatening to jeopardize their trip.

This by-the-numbers travel comedy is nothing if not corny in its repeated attempts to wring humor from Blandine’s prudishness. In one scene, Magalie gets fully nude in their hotel room, with Blandine, trying to look away, repeatedly peeking to see if her friend has finally put some clothes on. While there’s an obvious queer dimension to that and other scenes, including one...

The Lost Daughter Review — The Lost Daughter (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Abe Cohen, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jack Farthing, Ed Harris, Ellie James, Panos Koronis, Vassilis Koukalani and Nikos Poursanidis. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an ambitious directorial debut [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: The Lost Daughter (2021): Olivia Colman Is Remarkable in Director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Dramatic Film...

The return of fall festivals means it’s harder than ever to keep up with the deluge of buzzy new titles, from Venice to Telluride and the upcoming Toronto and New York film festivals. Among the many toasts of two of these (specifically Venice and NYFF) is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut, “The Lost Daughter.” It’s based on a novel by elusive Italian author Elena Ferrante about a woman thrown down a rabbit hole of memory after encountering another young woman while on summer holiday.

While Gyllenhaal contributed a short film to the quarantine omnibus “Homemade,” this marks her first time in the director’s chair. Previously, though, she portrayed someone working behind the camera as her character Candy Merrell in HBO’s beloved cult series “The Deuce.” Candy is a sex worker turned entrepreneur turned porn film director. And it was playing that role, as Gyllenhaal explained...

Netflix has announced a December theatrical and streaming release for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut “The Lost Daughter,” adapted from the Elena Ferrante novel of the same name. The movie will be having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it will debut in competition alongside the likes of Pablo Larrain’s “Spencer,” Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God.” The latter two titles are also Netflix releases.

The official synopsis for “The Lost Daughter” from Netflix reads: “Alone on a seaside vacation, Leda (Olivia Colman) becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. Unnerved by their compelling relationship, (and their raucous and menacing extended family), Leda is overwhelmed by her own memories of the terror, confusion and intensity of early motherhood. An impulsive act shocks Leda into the strange and...

John David Washington shot “Beckett” before last summer’s “Tenet” put the actor on a short list of potential action figures. But when it comes to this considerably more modest, Greece-set manhunt movie — which kicks off the Locarno Film Festival before releasing via Netflix on Aug. 13 — it helps to look at Washington (son of Oscar winner Denzel) as a different kind of character: not your conventional Hollywood hero so much as an average guy caught up in a deadly conspiracy.

Washington plays the eponymous American tourist, who’s roughly the kind of out-of-his-league everyman that Alfred Hitchcock gravitated toward in classics such as “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “North by Northwest.” But director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino isn’t operating by that playbook as much as audiences might think, which might disappoint those who find the movie on Netflix and expect a straightforward thriller. The suspense is much subtler,...

Beckett Trailer — Ferdinando Cito Filomarino‘s Beckett (2021) movie trailer has been released by Netflix. The Beckett trailer stars John David Washington, Alicia Vikander, Boyd Holbrook, Vicky Krieps, Daphne Alexander, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Olga Spyraki, Panos Koronis, Isabella Margara, Lena Kitsopoulou, Marc Marder, Leonardo Thimo, and Andreas Marianos. Crew Kevin A. Rice wrote [...]

Continue reading: Beckett (2021) Movie Trailer: John David Washington is on the Run in a Political Conspiracy Film...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film festival has unveiled its line-up ahead of a physical 2021 edition running August 4-14. Scroll down for a list of titles.

As previously announced, Ferdinando Cito Filomarino’s Beckett, starring John David Washington and Alicia Vikander, will open the festival with its world premiere on August 4.

Joining the movie for a screening at the fest’s main venue, the Piazza Grande, will be titles including John Swab’s Ida Red starring Frank Grillo, which will world premiere, Shawn Levy’s Free Guy starring Ryan Reynolds, and several U.S. classics including Michael Mann’s Heat and James Cameron’s The Terminator.

Back in November last year, Deadline interviewed new artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who told us about his love for popular cinema and American movies. This will mark his debut edition at the helm.

Screening in the Concorso Internazionale strand, which features international works from around the world,...

The Institute has joined forces with Greece’s Faliro House on an event for emerging screenwriters from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus.

Sundance Institute has joined forces with Christos V Konstantakopoulos’ Greek production company Faliro House on the Faliro House Sundance Institute Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop. The inaugural workshop ran June 27-30 in Costa Navarino, Greece.

Designed to support emerging filmmakers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus, the four-day workshop gave 11 filmmakers the chance to work on their scripts with advisors. Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari served as creative advisor and established filmmakers Erin Cressida Wilson (pictured), Bill Wheeler and Ritesh Batra also worked with attendees.

Screenwriting fellows and projects selected for the workshop were, from Greece, Yianna Dellatolla with Grassland, Yianna Dellatolla with Slip/Glistra and Panos Koronis with Tunes; from Italy, Laura Bispuri and Francesca Manieri with My Daughter and Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini with Rite of Spring; from Spain, Clara Roquet with Libertad...

A few weeks after Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Lobster finally lands in the United States, it’s only fitting we get the next feature from Dogtooth and Alps producer Athina Rachel Tsangari. Following up Attenberg, her latest film is Chevalier, which follows a group of men at sea who attempt to one-up each other in various, increasingly dangerous games.

We said in our review, “From one of the earliest images of them — in a line, flaunting their catch from the sea — the film finds the group conducting virtually every variation on the dick-measuring contest. Unfortunately, this is why Chevalier is the kind of one-note, overly conceptual art film that says all it has to say within its first five minutes, but attempts to bury it with broad jabs at easy targets.”

Starring Yorgos Kentros, Panos Koronis, Vangelis Mourikis, Makis Papadimitriou, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Sakis Rouvas, Yiannis Drakopoulos, Nikos Orfanos, and Kostas Philippoglou,...

There are few narrative tropes seemingly less interesting in today’s film world than the “men behaving like children” subset of film comedy. Be it the Apatow suspended adolescence comedies or the vulgar auteurism (using the actual definition of both of those words and not the confoundingly ridiculous critical term) of Todd Phillips, cinema has become flooded with tales of men at their worst seeking some sort of redemption while never quite maturing in the process. That is, until director Athina Rachel Tsangari jumped into the fray.

While fellow Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has garnered the majority of headlines out of the seemingly still young New Wave of Greek cinema, it has been Tsangari (who helped produce Lanthimos’ masterpiece, Dogtooth) who has brought to the screen some of the most exciting films out of Greece in ages. Debuting with the impossible-to-see The Slow Business Of Going, it took her roughly...

Simply put, the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive Festival is one of the biggest, most prestigious events in the media calendar. Taking place annually in Austin, Texas, it is beloved by film fans and filmmakers from all over the world, and has reached such heights by building a reputation for showcasing excellent content. This results in a high level of competition, with the Narrative Feature category alone having received 1442 submissions this year, and the documentary feature category having received 1,013.

The 2016 event looks to be particularly exciting, with many world premieres and feature debuts already announced. The Narrative Feature category will include Julia Hart’s Miss Stevens, Debra Eisenstadt’s Before The Sun Explodes, Joey Klein’s The Other Half, and Musa Syeed’s A Stray, among others, while the Headliner category will feature Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some.

The Narrative Spotlight category includes 9 Rides by Matthew A. Cherry; The Waiting...

Hollywood may be in the thick of what many refer to as its annual purple patch, with some of the year’s finest releases coming to the fore just in time for awards season, though we’ll soon be switching gears once again to focus on the film festivals and, by effect, highlighting the more low-key and experimental releases headed our way in 2016.

One of the more prominent dates on the calendar is occupied by South by Southwest, the film festival that takes place in Austin, Texas during mid-March. It’s primed to return this year, kicking off nine days of screenings on Friday, March 11 through March 16 with a string of intriguing releases. We’re a little less than a month out from SXSW 2016, and organizers have rolled out the initial lineup of films to be screened for critics, with Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, the comic book adaptation of Preacher...

The American Film Institute announced today the films that will screen in the World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight, Shorts and Cinema’s Legacy programs at AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi.

AFI Fest will take place November 5 – 12, 2015, in the heart of Hollywood. Screenings, Galas and events will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, Dolby Theatre, the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, the El Capitan Theatre and The Hollywood Roosevelt.

World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year; Breakthrough highlights true discoveries of the programming process; Midnight selections will grip audiences with terror; and Cinema’s Legacy highlights classic movies and films about cinema. World Cinema and Breakthrough selections are among the films eligible for Audience Awards. Shorts selections are eligible for the Grand Jury Prize, which qualifies the winner for Academy Award®consideration. This year’s Shorts jury features filmmaker Janicza Bravo,...

In Chevalier, Athina Rachel Tsangari, "working with Yorgos Lanthimos’s regular co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, assembles a circle of friends who are both furiously competitive and secretly insecure, and then watches as they nudge each other from plausible levels of macho bluster to something approaching sociopathy," writes Noel Murray at the Playlist. At Film International, Gary M. Kramer notes that "each actor gets a distinctive, indelible moment on screen," from "a Doctor (Yorgos Kendros)," through to "his colleague Christos (Sakis Rouvas), an insurance salesman, Yannis (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos) and his brother Dimitris (Makis Papadimitriou), as well as Josef (Vangelis Mourikis) and Yorgos (Panos Koronis)." We've got reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...

In Chevalier, Athina Rachel Tsangari, "working with Yorgos Lanthimos’s regular co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, assembles a circle of friends who are both furiously competitive and secretly insecure, and then watches as they nudge each other from plausible levels of macho bluster to something approaching sociopathy," writes Noel Murray at the Playlist. At Film International, Gary M. Kramer notes that "each actor gets a distinctive, indelible moment on screen," from "a Doctor (Yorgos Kendros)," through to "his colleague Christos (Sakis Rouvas), an insurance salesman, Yannis (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos) and his brother Dimitris (Makis Papadimitriou), as well as Josef (Vangelis Mourikis) and Yorgos (Panos Koronis)." We've got reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...

While all eyes are on Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and London as the places where the new wave of big, anticipated movies are scheduled hit during the fall festival run, cinephiles will want to keep their eye on Locarno. That's where "Attenberg" director Athina Rachel Tsangari will unveil her new film, "Chevalier," and it looks terrifically bonkers. Yorgos Kentros, Panos Koronis, Vangelis Mourikis, Makis Papadimitriou, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Sakis Rouvas, Yiannis Drakopoulos, Nikos Orfanos, and Kostas Philippoglou star in the movie about six men who take a fishing trip on a luxury yacht and start playing a game, with the winner being granted the titular ring. As the first trailer reveals, there is a points system, but i'll be damned if I know how it works. Read More: 'Attenberg' Director Athina Rachel Tsangari Lines Up 'Chevalier' No U.S. date has been set for this yet, but hopefully it surfaces...

Chevalier

Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari // Writers: Efthymis Filippou, Athina Rachel Tsangari

Director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s arresting sophomore film Attenberg made a powerful impression when it screen at the Venice Film Festival in 2010, cementing her importance as part of the new Greek Weird Wave movement. She’s dabbled here and there since as an executive producer, popped up in Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight (2013), and directed a haunting short in 2012, “The Capsule.” She’s back with her third feature, Chevalier, and pairs with one of the behind-the-scenes names of the cinematic movement, Efthymis Filippou, who wrote three features for Yorgos Lanthimos (including the up and coming The Lobster). The film is about a group of men is returning from a winter fishing trip on a yacht. When a mechanical problem leaves them trapped on their boat, somewhere in the gulf of Saronikos, they will kill their time playing a game they devise called Chevalier.

Despite the lottery-esque sounding odds, the U.S Dramatic Competition section which produces the finest American indie specimens such as Frozen River, Winter’s Bone, Blue Valentine, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station and Whiplash is fairly consistent in terms of quality. Last year’s crop of sixteen have almost all had their theatrical releases with Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter being the last one out of the gates (pegged with an early 2015 release). Last week we individually looked at our top 80 Sundance Film Fest Predictions (you’ll find 30 other titles worth considering in our intro) and below, we’ve split the list into narrative and non-fiction film items and have both identified and color-coded our picks in an AtoZ cheat sheet. You’ll find 2015′s answer to Whiplash located somewhere in the stack below. Click on the individual titles below, for the film’s profile.

Blu-ray Review

Before Midnight

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins

Rating: R

Due Out: October 22, 2013

Plot: We meet Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) nine years later in Greece. It’s been almost 20 years since the two met on a train bound for Vienna, and many things have changed in their lives.

Who’S It For? Anyone who craves authenticity in their characters. Obviously fans of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset should seek this film out, but should realize this is a little less fairy tale, and at times a little more uncomfortable.

Movie:

I’ve decided to make this film review almost completely Spoiler Free. Even though we learn key details about Jesse and Celine about seven minutes into the film, I am not going to reveal them here. I’d rather you discover them on your own when watching this movie. I...

Before Midnight

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins

Rating: R

Release Date: June 14, 2013

Plot: We meet Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) nine years later in Greece. It’s been almost 20 years since the two met on a train bound for Vienna, and many things have changed in their lives.

Who’S It For? Anyone who craves authenticity in their characters. Obviously fans of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset should seek this film out, but should realize this is a little less fairy tale, and at times a little more uncomfortable.

Overall

I’ve decided to make this film review almost completely Spoiler Free. Even though we learn key details about Jesse and Celine about seven minutes into the film, I am not going to reveal them here. I’d rather you discover them on your own when watching this movie. I hope you still enjoy this review.

Title: Before Midnight Sony Pictures Classics Director: Richard Linklater Screenwriter: Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke Cast: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Xenia Kalogeropoulou, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Yannis Papadopoulos, Ariane Labed, Panos Koronis, Athina Rachel Tsangari Screened at: Sony, NYC, 5/14/13 Opens: May 24, 2013 It’s too bad that Socrates could not be alive today to see “Before Midnight.” Aside from marveling at the Greek textures of the southern Pelponnesian peninsula that photographer Cristos Voudouris captures on celluloid, he’d be proud to note that two and one-half millennia after his natural life, people still gathered around the table to discuss the meaning of love, of relationships, the differences between men and women [ Read More ]

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