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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.

Banel & Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy)

A directorial debut programmed into the main Cannes competition is typically viewed with suspicion, if not overlooked altogether. Very rare is that lightning-in-a-bottle moment like the arrival of Son of Saul some years back. Typically, the only conversation these debuts generate is the critical debate as to why they’ve been elevated to the top of the pile when there are far more striking debuts buried deeper within the festival. This often means that accomplished films are overlooked and underappreciated by those on the ground, who may be subconsciously comparing a striking feature to the work of more established names it’s competing against for the Palme d’Or, approaching each debut with a “show me” attitude it...

NewFest, the annual New York-based LGBTQ+ film festival, has officially unveiled its 2024 award winners.

The 36th annual festival hosted a Filmmaker & Awards Brunch at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn to announce the honorees selected by both the festival jury and 2024 audiences. The jury was composed of leading LGBTQ+ creatives, allies, filmmakers, artists, activists, journalists, and entertainment professionals.

The top honor of the Grand Jury Award for U.S. Narrative Feature was awarded to trans neo-noir thriller “Ponyboi,” which was written and produced by NewFest alum River Gallo, who also stars alongside Dylan O’Brien, Victoria Pedretti, Murray Bartlett, and Indya Moore. Gallo’s 2019 short film on which the feature is based won the New York Short jury grand prize at NewFest31. Esteban Arango directed the feature.

“This is a film that, we felt, bridged the space of humanistic storytelling at its highest level,” the U.S. Narrative Feature category jurors of creative executive Sarah Flores,...

Noomi Rapace, who is serving on the Sarajevo competition jury, visited the Variety Lounge presented by the Sarajevo Film Festival and Bh Telecom to share her history with the Balkan region.

Although it is her first time in Sarajevo, Rapace grew up with films from the Balkan region and praises their bravery and passion. She noted that the Sarajevo Film Festival, “might be one of the most important film festivals because the power of films and what art can do to people and how you can discover stories and characters and look into situations and hearts that you would never know of.”

She reminisced about her role in Macedonian-Australian helmer Goran Stolevski’s “You Are Never Alone,” describing how he made her feel safe despite the fact that she had scenes where she was completely nude. She noted that Goran “is a fascinating and very gentle director but with a very strong vision.

Alice Englert as Dylan and Jennifer Connelly as Lucy in Bad Behaviour Photo: Matt Henley

A sometimes mystical, sometimes ferocious mother/daughter comedy which includes one of the most satisfying scenes of violence you’re likely to see all year, questionable though that sentiment is in context, Alice Englert’s Bad Behaviour is a real treat. It’s the feature début, as writer and director, of Alice Englert, who also stars in it as young stunt performer Dylan, whose mother Lucy, played by Jennifer Connelly, is attending a retreat in an attempt to expand her mind, but struggles to deal with another attendee. There’s great support from a cast which includes Ben Whishaw and Beulah Koale.

If you’re already familiar with Alice, it’s probably because of her acting career. She utters a little gasp of excitement when I tell her that I loved her work in Goran Stolevski...

Goran Stolevski’s third feature is a deft and unsentimental family drama about an unlikely tribe of misfits trying to make a place for themselves

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Each of Goran Stolevski’s films thus far has marked a departure from the last: the bewitching horrors of his debut You Won’t Be Alone; the acidic heartburn of his queer romance Of An Age; and now Housekeeping for Beginners, an amorphous family drama that marks the North Macedonian-born, Australian-raised director’s return to his home country.

Set in contemporary Skopje, Stolevski’s third feature follows a menagerie of queer misfits living, loving and fighting in a household which threatens to burst at the seams. His band of outcasts are bound together by survival – beneath their raucous capers, there’s the constant spectre of danger, peering through the curtains.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads,...

Héléna Klotz’s “Spirit of Ecstasy” will open the 2024 Kashish LGBTQ+ film festival in Mumbai, while Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s “Mutt” will close it.

“Spirit of Ecstasy,” which debuted at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, follows a gender-questioning stock-market trader who is determined to make it in the world of finance; not for the glory or

wealth, but because it’s leading them on the path to freedom. Lead Pomme was nominated in the most promising actress category at France’s Lumiere awards.

“Mutt” follows a trans man who goes through an emotional roller-coaster over a 24-hour period in New York City, bumping into their ex-boyfriend, sister and father for the first time after having lost touch with them since his gender transitioning. It debuted at Sundance 2023, where it won the U.S. dramatic special jury award for actor Lio Mehiel. It went on to play at Berlin, where it earned...

April began with showers, plus a tiny regional earthquake on the East Coast, but that didn’t keep anyone away from theaters, even if it was a slower weekend than much of March. Read on for the weekend box office report.

There was little surprise that Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” would win its second weekend at #1. Despite dropping 60% from its fantastic opening weekend, it still was able to take first place with an estimated $31.7 million to bring its total to $135 million after crossing the $100 million mark in its first week. It also passed the $361 million mark globally, with another $59.3 million grossed overseas this weekend.

The weekend offered two new wide releases in Dev Patel‘s directorial debut, the action-thriller “Monkey Man,” and 20th Century’s horror prequel “The First Omen,” the former released into 3,029 theaters vs. “The First Omen’s” 3,375 theaters. “Monkey Man” came into the...

Sony Pictures Classics’ Wicked Little Letters grossed an estimated $1.5+ million in a big second week expansion for the R-rated British period comedy to 1,000 screens from five. The Thea Sharrock-directed film starring Olivia Colman (also a producer) and Jessie Buckley, no. 8 at the domestic weekend box office, has a $1.6+ million cume.

Colman and Buckley have been out actively promoting the film, based on an actual scandal, about a police investigation into the anonymous author of crude letters sent to the residents of a British seaside town.

The number is on the high end of SPC’s expectations, and the Sunday estimate may be conservative.

Audiences for Wicked Little Letters are 60% female, 40% male, with a range of women age 30-plus, unusual for a period film as they skew older. It’s playing especially well in major cities and college towns but also popping in smaller markets like Seattle. Word of mouths is terrific,...

Goran Stolevski is the rare rising filmmaker who is three-for-three with his movies “You Won’t Be Alone,” “Of an Age,” and “Housekeeping for Beginners,” all set up at Focus Features. For Venice premiere “Housekeeping for Beginners” (out April 5), a chaotic portrait of a patched-together found family, the Australian director returns to his birthplace, North Macedonia, using a rowdy household as a microcosm for the country’s politically fraught melting pot of Macedonians and Roma people.

For this true cinéma vérité tale — true in the sense that it shot on real locations, without rehearsals, and with many unknown actors — Stolevski had a lucky stroke of dream casting led by “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” star Anamaria Marinca, who worked with him on “You Won’t Be Alone.” She plays healthcare worker Dita, living in modern-day North Macedonia in its capital of Skopje with her Roma girlfriend Suada’s (Alina Serban) children and their friends.

Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker – which was pulled from TIFF in 2022 over “rights issues” — starts a theatrical debut today at the IFC Center, moving to LA’s Landmark’s Nuart next weekend and expanding thereafter with about 85 booking so far — a nice outcome for the mixed-media coming-of-age dark superhero parody that “had gone into into hibernation mode” until Outfest LA Film Festival, said Frank Jaffe, whose distribution company Altered Innocence acquired it then. It’s U.S premiere garnered a Special Mention in the North American Narrative Feature Competition.

Co-written by Drew and Bri LeRose, the film is a reimagining the origin story of iconic Batman villain The Joker, starring Drew as painfully unfunny aspiring clown and closeted trans girl grappling with her gender identity while unsuccessfully attempting to join the ranks of Gotham City’s sole comedy program, in a world where comedy has been outlawed. She...

“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” (The quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche, but don’t hold that against it.) When it comes to the group of folks living under the same North Macedonian roof in Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners, those same sentiments apply, though we’d amend that it’s a shared animosity toward the world supplies the lubrication and the bonding, while the music that’s bringing them harmony consists of...

Across You Won’t Be Alone, Of an Age, and, now, Housekeeping for Beginners, Macedonian Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s proclivity toward applying naturalism to the stories of characters on the margins of society, or who hover on those borders, is quite palatable. And yet, Stolevski makes it hard to shake that his work is defined by a refined mimicry of the visual signifiers of Serious Stories for Serious Viewers.

Housekeeping for Beginners is set in a house for queer outcasts in North Macedonia, where world-weary social worker Dita (Anamaria Marinca) and her gay best pal, Toni (Vladimir Tintor), play adoptive parents to a host of misfits. The dynamic of their lavender marriage deeps things running, if not smoothly, then without total breakdown. But when Dita’s girlfriend, Sauda (Alina Serban), is diagnosed with terminal cancer, the pressure from her looming death pushes this found family to its limits, especially...

Focus Features has firmed up release plans for Conclave, the papal thriller marking filmmaker Edward Berger’s follow-up to his 2022 Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front. An adaptation of Robert Harris’ same-name bestseller, penned by Peter Straughan, the film releases in theaters in New York and L.A. on November 1st, before expanding on the 8th.

Currently, the 1st is only occupied by an unknown title from Universal Pictures. Titles set to open on the 8th include Sony’s Venom 3 and 20th’s action thriller The Amateur starring Rami Malek.

Conclave follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events — selecting a new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds...

One year on from its Berlinale Special screening Australian horror Talk To Me has grossed nearly $100m at the global box office and sellers have heeded the call: EFM 2024 is packed with “elevated genre” titles.

Neon snapped up Steven Soderbergh’s Lucy Liu ghost story Presence in Sundance and the international division has kicked off talks in Berlin. Neon International also has Cuckoo, Tilman Singer’s horror that premieres in the Berlinale Special section and stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens.

A24 is selling I Saw The TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun’s take on gender dysphoria and teenage isolation...

Benjamin Ree’s gamer documentary Ibelin led the winners at Tromso International Film Festival (TIFF) on Saturday, January 20; after Norwegian feature Grandmonster took the Fiction Norway pitching prize last week.

Ibelin took the audience award, playing at Tromso the day after its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival. The Norwegian title follows the story of Mats Steen, a gamer who died of a degenerative muscular disease aged 25; after which his parents began to receive messages from online friends around the world. Netflix acquired US distribution and worldwide streaming rights on the title following its Sundance premiere.

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In a David Sedaris essay from Calypso, he mentions cussing across the globe, stating: “The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing.” Well, David, I wouldn’t be so sure. Australian-Macedonian director Goran Stolevski, whose thriller You Won’t Be Alone deservedly garnered much acclaim, has returned to his homeland of North Macedonia to make Housekeeping for Beginners, a swear-filled, raucous and deeply moving tale. In it, the director deals with the notions of family, institutional racism, LGBTQ rights and the meaning of love as viewed from the perspective of a dysfunctional ad-hoc household made up of potty-mouthed outcasts and misfits.

The story revolves around the matriarch Dita (the excellent Anamaria Marinca) who lives with her girlfriend Suada (Alina Serban), a Roma woman, and Suada’s daughters – the perennially angry teen Vanesa (Mia Mustafa) and the delightful six-year-old Mia (Dzada Selim). Also living in the house is...

If there’s one takeaway from the LGBTQ narrative films that came into the world and across our screens this year, it’s the sheer variety of the stories there are to tell.

From real-world historical biopics and inspirational sports dramas, to tender love stories and raunchy comedies, there really was something for everyone this year. Captivating characters, fearless performances and narrative tapestries that defy convention and troublesome tropes all reigned supreme. As such, here are some of the best we got.

All of Us Strangers “All of Us Strangers” (Credit: Searchlight Pictures)

A new movie from the director of “Weekend” starring the Hot Priest from “Fleabag” and everyone’s favorite internet boyfriend should be enough to catch the interest of anyone listening — and “All of Us Strangers” lives up to that potential and then some. This equal parts sexy and emotionally devastating romance stars Andrew Scott as an isolated writer who,...

"They weren't born a family. They became one." Focus Features has revealed the main official US trailer for an acclaimed indie LGBTQ drama from North Macedonia called Housekeeping for Beginners, from the Australian-Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski (of You Won't Be Alone and Of an Age). This premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and it's also being submitted as North Macedonia's official selection for Best International Feature at the next Academy Awards. Opening in January right after the nominations are out. A queer woman who doesn't want to be a mother is forced to help raise her partner's daughter. "A story exploring the universal truths of family, both the ones we're born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Dita never wanted to be a mother, but circumstances force her to raise her girlfriend's two daughters, tiny troublemaker Mia and rebellious teen Vanesa. A battle of wills ensues as the...

The official trailer for Housekeeping For Beginners has officially been released. The film will be in theaters on Friday, January 26, 2024!

Synopsis: Housekeeping For Beginners explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. The narrative revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.

About The Film

Genre: Comedy, Drama Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Alina Șerban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Džada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, Ajse Useini Director: Goran Stolevski Screenplay: Goran Stolevski Producer: Marija Dimitrova, Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Ankica Jurić Tilić, Beata Rzeźniczek, Milan Stojanović and Blerta Basholli

Housekeeping For Beginners is in select theaters on January 26, 2024!

For More Information, Please Visit:...

Exclusive: Focus Features we hear has set a July 12, 2024 limited theatrical release date for Baltasar Kormákur’s romantic-drama Touch.

Universal Pictures International is handling international distribution sans Iceland.

The movie is based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s bestselling Icelandic novel published by Ecco/Harper Collins in the U.S in August 2022. The movie follows one widower’s emotional journey to find his first love who disappeared 50 years ago before his time runs out. The story spans several decades and continents. Ólafsson and Kormákur co-wrote the movie.

Rvk Studios’ Kormákur and Agnes Johansen produced Touch alongside Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge.

Touch stars Egill Ólafsson, Kōki, Pálmi Kormákur, Masahiro Motoki, Yoko Narahashi, Meg Kubota, Tatsuya Tagawa, Charles Nishikawa, Sigurður Ingvarsson, Starkaður Pétursson, Benedikt Erlingsson, Kieran Buckeridge, Ruth Sheen, María Ellingsen and Masatoshi Nakamura.

Focus Features’ 2024 lineup includes Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-Away Dolls, the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black,...

Macedonian Australian film director and screenwriter Goran Stolevski is quickly becoming quite the name and a prodigious one. While he may not have been on a lot of radars before, given he was working in short films and TV, but he caught everyone’s eye with 2022’s witch/metamorphosis horror “You Won’t Be Alone” starring Noomi Rapace, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival to much acclaim, with critics noting its Terrence Malick-like approach.

Continue reading ‘Housekeeping For Beginners’ Trailer: ‘You Won’t Be Alone’ Director Goran Stolevski Returns With A Family Drama at The Playlist.

Goran Stolevski is the rare rising filmmaker with three strong features right out of the gate in the last few years. He made a splash at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival with his witchy, body-jumping folk horror parable “You Won’t Be Alone,” starring Noomi Rapace, and immediately followed it up with the decade-spanning gay romance “Of an Age” and, now, has North Macedonia’s entry for the 2024 Academy Award for Best International Feature, “Housekeeping for Beginners.”

All three films have been housed at Focus Features, which releases the Venice Film Festival premiere “Housekeeping for Beginners” in theaters in January. IndieWire shares the trailer for the film exclusively below ahead of the Oscar shortlist announcement next week on December 21. Stolevski returns to his Macedonian roots (he now lives in Australia) for “Housekeeping,” a raw cinéma vérité tale of unlikely found family led by what was certainly dream-casting for the director: “4 Months, 3...

The Australian drama premiered at Cannes and stars Cate Blanchett.

Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.

The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.

The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...

Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Emma Corrin among cast.

Focus Features will release Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu reimagining in the US on December 25, 2024.

Universal Pictures International handles distribution outside the US on the gothic horror starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney. and Willem Dafoe.

Eggers also serves as a producer alongside Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus (Maiden Voyage), Jeff Robinov, and John Graham.

The story of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her reunites Focus with Eggers following 2022 release The Northman. It also brings the...

Focus Features’ second movie with filmmaker Robert Eggers, Nosferatu, will be hitting cinemas on Wednesday, December 25, 2024.

That’s good news for the year-end holiday period, which is still scant of product. The only other wide entries on Dec. 20, 2024 are Disney’s live-action sequel Mufasa and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

“The audacious filmmaking of Robert Eggers is always a gift for fans, and we can promise that his Nosferatu is planning quite the Christmas feast,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski said.

Written and directed by Eggers, Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake. Pic stars Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe.

Eggers produced alongside Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus (Maiden Voyage), Jeff Robinov, and John Graham. Columbus was the EP...

Award

Zarrar Kahn‘s “In Flames,” Pakistan‘s submission to the Oscars‘ international feature category, has won the International Newcomer Award for the best film in competition at the 72nd International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, Germany. The award carries a cash prize of €30,000.

“In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies, premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and has had considerable festival play since, including at Toronto, Busan, Sitges, Sao Paulo and Pingyao.

The award’s jury members, Elisa Schlott, Denis Dercourt and Goran Stolevski, stated: “Our award goes to a filmmaker who manages to shift and play with genre while maintaining a connection both to his audience as well as his protagonist throughout the film. The main character is a young woman who is allowed to be both brave and fragile,...

That was fast. “The Bikeriders,” Jeff Nichols’ motorcycle gang drama starring Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, and Austin Butler, has sold to Focus Features after it was revealed on November 21 the film was shopping for a new home.

New Regency produced and financed the film that was meant to be released this year via its deal with 20th Century Studios, but Focus will now release it in North America theatrically in 2024, IndieWire has confirmed. Universal Pictures International has the remainder of the globe.

“We are delighted to add such a riveting project to next year’s strong slate of films. We look forward to once again working alongside New Regency and reuniting with the multi-talented Jeff Nichols on another one of his visionary projects,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski said in a statement. This film exemplifies our commitment to collaborate with the industry’s best filmmakers and production partners, and we...

Exclusive: New Regency’s Jeff Nichols directed crime drama The Bikeriders, which was at 20th Century Studios, is getting acquired by Focus Features. Focus is taking global rights to the pic, reteaming them with New Regency who they partnered with on 2022’s The Northman. A 2024 theatrical release is planned. Universal will distribute the movie overseas.

The movie was previously dated on Dec. 1 via 20th Century Studios/Disney. However, New Regency made the choice to pull the movie back, I hear, due to the ongoing actors strike and the cast unable to promote. The Bikeriders is currently 85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with critics.

The Bikeriders, from left: Austin Butler, Tom Hardy,

Focus Features Chairman Peter Kujawski tells Deadline, “We are delighted to add such a riveting project to next year’s strong slate of films. We look forward to once again working alongside New Regency and reuniting with the multi-talented Jeff...

Focus Features has set a Jan. 26, 2024 theatrical release date for Goran Stolevski’s latest, Housekeeping For Beginners.

It premiered in Venice as part of the official “Orizzonti” (Horizons) competitive section, securing the prestigious Queer Lion Award. See Deadline review. It was selected shortly after as North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission.

The film explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. The narrative revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.

Stars Anamaria Marinca, Alina Serban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Dzada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, and Ajse Useini.

This is Focus Features’ third collaboration with Stolevski, a rising original voice,...

Housekeeping for Beginners has set sights on North America. The Venice title will roll out on Jan. 26 in limited release, and expand in the following weeks.

The comedic drama from filmmaker Goran Stolevski won the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and is North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission title.

According to the logline, the film ” revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.”

Focus previously distributed filmmaker Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone and Of an Age. The studio is handling North American rights, with Universal handling the international rollout.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s review stated, “Housekeeping should find an audience easily thanks to its compelling,...

Focus Features’ upcoming title “Housekeeping for Beginners” is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on Jan. 26 and will expand to more theaters in subsequent weeks.

Per the film’s synopsis, Goran Stolevski’s latest feature “revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters — Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.”

“Housekeeping for Beginners” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the official “Orrizonti” (Horizons) section, taking home the Queer Lion Award. It has also been selected as North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission.

In Guy Lodge’s review for Variety, he wrote, “This study of domestic, romantic and generational conflicts in a crowded queer household (instead) embraces a spirit of antic chaos, both in subject matter and jagged,...

Kobi Libii makes feature directorial debut.

Focus Features will release Kobi Libii’s feature directorial debut The American Society Of Magical Negroes on March 22 2024.

Libii is an alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab, where he first developed the project. Universal Pictures International handles international distribution.

Focus describes The American Society Of Magical Negroes as a ”fresh, satirical comedy about a young man, Aren, who is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier”.

The film stars Justice Smith, David Alan Grier,...

When Roma actress-turned-director Alina Șerban reflects on her life, rising from an impoverished background in Bucharest to become an acclaimed and groundbreaking force on stage and screen, she describes it as “an urban Cinderella story.” A review from one of her first stage shows, she says, sums it up best: “Roma actress beats the odds.”

As a multi-faceted artist, Șerban has dedicated her life and career to reframing the narrative about her marginalized community. Now she’s developing her feature-length directorial debut, “I Matter,” a deeply personal story about a young Roma woman studying to be an actor who, faced with the threat of being kicked out of her orphanage, must suddenly confront the reality of making it through life on her own.

“I Matter” is among the projects being pitched this week at the Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which takes places Nov. 5 – 9 during the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Written and directed by Șerban,...

Iranian drama film “Empty Nets” was Monday named winner of the Aff Feature Fiction Award at the Adelaide Film Festival. Directed by Behrooz Karamizade, it collected an A$10,000 cash prize.

The festival’s competition section is one of the oldest in Australia and seeks to reward bold filmmaking. This year’s competition mostly comprised films by directors making their feature debuts. They included “Blaga’s Lessons,” from Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev; “Embryo Larva Butterfly,” by Greek-Cypriot writer-director Kyros Papavassiliou; “On The Go,” from directors Julia de Castro and Maria Gisele Royo; “Sahela,” directed by Australia’s Raghuvir Joshi; and “You’ll Never Find Me,” from Adelaide-based duo Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell.

“’Empty Nets’ is a searing portrait of the bleak socioeconomic reality for young people without family money in contemporary Iran, distinguished by atmospheric visuals, an evocative sense of place, stirring lead performances and a powerful grasp of the sea as...

The jury included ‘The Royal Hotel’ director Kitty Green.

Behrooz Karamizade’s Empty Nets and Ibrahim Nash’at’s documentary Hollywoodgate have scooped the top prizes at Adelaide Film Festival (Aff)

Empty Nets received the Aff Feature Fiction Award, with Iranian-born German filmmaker Karamizade winning a cash prize of $6,300.

The Germany-Iran co-production centres on a young couple fighting for the survival of their relationship in the forbidding world of contemporary Iran. The film previously won the special jury prize at Karlovy Vary and premiered at Filmfest München.

The five-strong jury, which included filmmakers Kitty Green and Goran Stolevski, described the film...

NewFest, the LGBTQ+ film festival, has announced the award winners for the festival’s 35th anniversary run.

The Grand Jury prizes included Erica Tremblay’s Fancy Dance for Narrative Feature, Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping For Beginners for International Feature, Daniel Goncalves’s Acsexybility for Documentary Feature, and Nyala Moon’s Dilating For Maximum Results for New York Short.

The announcement, which included a number of other grantees and award winners, was made today at the festival’s award ceremony in Brooklyn by NewFest Executive Director David Hatkoff, Director of Programming Nick McCarthy, and Programmer & Jury Coordinator Murtada Elfadl.

“This year’s 35th edition of The New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival has demonstrated that queer cinema is stronger than ever,” said Hatkoff and McCarthy. “The awards recipients prove the breadth of our community’s stories as well as the highest caliber of cinema. We are thankful to our esteemed juries and...

Chicago – The 59th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) announced its competitive award winners on October 20th 2023, and the recipient of The Gold Hugo in the International Feature Film Competition – the festival’s top honor – is ‘Explanation for Everything” (directed by Gábor Reisz), a coming-of age story.

Picking up the Festival’s Silver Hugo in the International Feature Film competition is “The Delinquents” (directed by Rodrigo Moreno). In the New Directors Competition, Amr Gamal’s “The Burdened” takes the Gold Hugo and Ena Sendijarevic’s “Sweet Dreams” takes the Silver Hugo. The complete list of honorees is below.

“This year’s winning selections truly reflect a global perspective, giving audiences a glimpse into lives and lived experiences they might not have had the opportunity to explore before,” said Chicago International Film Festival Artistic Director Mimi Plauché. “Hailing from every region on the planet from Hungary to Mexico, Argentina to Yemen, Sudan to the U.

Causeway Films, the Australian film production house behind recent breakout “Talk to Me,” has opened a U.K. operation.

The company has hired Daniel Negret, formerly of Head Gear Films, as its CEO.

Causeway Films was established by producers Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings in 2014, launching with Jennifer Kent’s Sundance hit “The Babadook.” It followed that by producing Kent’s follow up feature “The Nightingale,” which won the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.

Innovative horror film, “Talk to Me,” from filmmaking duo Danny and Michael Philippou screened in Sundance, Berlin and SXSW 2023 and was acquired by A24. It became A24’s top genre release in North America with a box office of $48.1 million to date, taking the film’s global box office to over $89 million.

In 2020-21 Causeway completed four other features. These included “You Won’t Be Alone,” by the Serbian Australian director Goran Stolevski...

Safehouses, where people come together out of necessity, are not known for being orderly places. Throw in a resentful teenager and a particularly exuberant five-year-old and you have a recipe for chaos. After the thoughtful, steady pacing of You Won’t Be Alone and Of An Age, this is quite a departure for Goran Stolevski, but despite the very different structure and tone of the film, there is no lapse in the quality which viewers will have come to expect from him. Like its predecessors, the film is immersive, emotionally intense and intellectually stimulating.

The aforementioned safehouse is run by Dita. She lives there with her partner Suada (Alina Serban) and Suada’s two children, Vanesa (Mia Mustafa) and Mia (Dzada Selim), as well as assorted other LGBTQ+ people who need a place of refuge in the frequently hostile environment of North Macedonia. We...

Five films have been nominated and will be shown in universities across Europe

Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border is one of five films nominated for the European University Film Award (Eufa) as announced by the European Film Academy at Filmfest Hamburg today (October 5).

Holland’s refugee drama has been the subject of political attacks from Poland’s right-wing government and recently topped the country’s box office for the second week in a row.

The film, along with the five other nominees, will be shown in 25 universities across 25 European countries including the University of Lodz in Poland.

The other nominees...

A total of 39 European companies, surpassing 2022, will promote and sell films from the continent at Busan International Film Festival’s accompanying Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm).

Of these, 32 will be onsite while seven more will participate online. The companies will operate under the Europe! Umbrella, a long-standing collaboration between Efp and Unifrance that has been an Acfm regular for years.

To help with the promotion of European cinema to East Asia at the market, Efp is awarding Film Sales Support (Fss) to 10 sales companies to enhance their digital and physical marketing campaigns. Alpha Violet, Fandango, Film Factory Entertainment, Films Boutique, Indie Sales, Kinology, Latido Films, LevelK, Pulsar Content and TrustNordisk will benefit from the support.

The European presence at the festival includes French-Canadian co-production “The Beast” by Bertrand Bonello (Kinology); Polish Oscar entry “The Peasants” by D.K. and Hugh Welchman; “An Endless Sunday” by Alain Parroni; Danish Oscar entry...

A pair of noteworthy Cannes titles in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest and Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot-au-Feu, some Locarno items such as Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World but with a major slew of Venice-preemed films are part of the 21 newly added titles to be considered for a whole bunch of prizes for the upcoming European Film Awards. The European Film Academy have now set their 4600 members with a batch of 40 films competing for various prizes at the ceremony that will be set for December 9th in Berlin. Here are the added films:

Animal – Sofia Exarchou (Greece/Austria/Bulgaria/Romania/Cyprus)

Blaga’s Lessons – Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria/Germany)

Club Zero – Jessica Hausner (Austria/UK/Germany/France/Denmark/Qatar)

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude (Romania/Luxembourg/France/Croatia)

Excursion – Una Gunjak (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia...

40 feature films now selected for Academy’s 2023 shortlist.

The European Film Academy has added a further 21 features to its shortlist for the 2023 European Film Awards, including Cannes premieres The Zone of Interest and Club Zero and Venice competition titles The Green Border and Io Capitano.

The shortlist for the European Film Awards now comprises 40 features. The first 19 titles titles in the running for the 2023 European Film Awards were unveiled in August and included Anatomy Of A Fall, How To Have Sex, The Old Oak and Firebrand.

The European Film Academy said that more than 40% of all selected films are directed by women.

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature is made difficult by the three-step process that begins after the October 2, 2023 deadline for countries to submit entries. To be part of the selection process for this category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film before 2020, requires a great deal of dedication. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscars Best International Feature predictions.)

In the days following the deadline for submissions, the academy determines each film’s eligibility. Then the several hundred academy members who serve on the International Feature screening committee are divided into groups and required to watch all their submissions over a six-week period that ends in early December. Their top 15 vote-getters will make it to the next round. That list of semi-finalists will be revealed on December 21, 2023.

These 15 films will be made available to the entire academy membership who can cast ballots for the final five...

Winner of the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered in the Horizons section, writer-director Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners (Domakinstvo za pocetnici) is a fizzy, huggable portrait of a self-made, roughly blended queer family.

Set in North Macedonia, where Stolevski was born and spent part of his childhood (he’s now mostly based in Australia), this naturalistic comedy-drama unfolds in a large house in the hills above the capital city Skopje, where social worker Dita (Anamaria Marinca, from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) lives with her partner Sauda (Alina Serban), Sauda’s kids, their gay male friend Toni (Vladimir Tintor) and assorted waifs and strays. But when tragedy strikes, this makeshift family has to pull together to protect one another, which doesn’t come naturally for some of them. Already acquired by Focus and Universal before its debut, Housekeeping should find an audience easily thanks to its compelling,...

Unorthodox family structures yield correspondingly unpredictable drama in “Housekeeping for Beginners,” a vital, febrile multi-character study that further confirms writer-director Goran Stolevski as a talent to be reckoned with. Departing radically from the poise of his folk-horror debut “You Won’t Be Alone” and the gentle intimacy of its swift follow-up “Of an Age,” this study of domestic, romantic and generational conflicts in a crowded queer household instead embraces a spirit of antic chaos, both in subject matter and jagged, hit-the-ground-running execution. Selected as North Macedonia’s international Oscar submission shortly after its premiere in Venice’s Horizons strand, the film has already been picked up by Focus Features for its Stateside release, which speaks to the crossover appeal of its offbeat but energizing storytelling.

Following the Melbourne-set “Of an Age,” “Housekeeping for Beginners” sees the Macedonian-born, Australia-based Stolevski returning to the motherland — not the historical back country of “You Won’t Be Alone,...

The South Australian festival iis now an annual event.

Films from Europe, the Middle East and Australia dominate the fiction and documentary competitions at the Adelaide Film Festival (Aff), the first since an injection of government funding enabled the event to step up from being biennial to annual.

The festival will take place in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, from October 18-29.

The opening film will be the Australian premiere of Kitty Green’s Toronto premiere and awards hopeful The Royal Hotel, produced by UK-Australian outfit See-Saw Films. The world premiere of Scott Hicks’ music documentary My Name’s Ben Folds – I Play Piano,...

Stars Acting Up At Busan

Oscar-winning Korean actor Youn Yuh-jung will headline the Actors’ House section of the upcoming Busan International Film Festival, it was announced on Thursday.

Introduced in 2021, Actors’ House is a special series that connects audiences and film enthusiasts with iconic actors from the current generation through its in-depth discussions. “There’s much anticipation to hear her words of wisdom, as she’s known for her insightful observations,” said the festival.

Others this year include: Han Hyo-joo, Song Joong-ki and Korean-American actor and author John Cho. Han is known for performances in 2015’s “The Beauty Inside,” “W” (2016), “Happiness (2021), and last year’s “The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure.” She will be in Busan with Netflix-backed “Believer 2” and recently appeared in the Disney+ original series, “Moving.”

Song, who hosted the 2021 Busan festival’s opening ceremony, was recently seen in “Hopeless,” one of the handful of Korean films in Cannes this year.

The fall festival circuit features a powerhouse lineup of Polish cinema that showcases an industry in full stride, with hard-hitting topical dramas, award-season hopefuls and potential box-office breakouts highlighting the strength and diversity of filmmaking in a country with a storied cinematic history.

Among the hotly anticipated premieres at this week’s Toronto Film Festival is “The Peasants,” a lavish, hand-painted animated feature from the filmmaking team behind Oscar nominee and box-office sensation “Loving Vincent.” Meanwhile, three-time Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland will be on hand for the North American premiere of “Green Border,” her searing portrayal of Europe’s refugee crisis that just bowed in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Also on the Lido, two-time Berlin Silver Bear winner Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert are vying for the Golden Lion with “Woman Of,” their decades-spanning portrait of a transgender Polish woman on a journey of self-discovery.

Producer Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska,...

Not so much beginners as people who never get a fair go, the mixed bag of gay men and women in Australian-Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners, showing in Venice’s Horizons section, lives on a knife’s edge. Dita (Anamaria Marinca) owns the house where they jostle along together. Her Roma partner Suada (Alina Serban) has a teenage daughter Vanesa and another daughter, Mia, who is only 5. Suada is volatile, belligerent and dying of cancer. Death is focusing her mind in alarming ways. Swear to look after the children, she shouts at Dita, holding a knife over her own arm.

Dita swears, then looks for support from Toni (Vladimir Tintor), her old friend and longest-standing housemate, who has told his spanking-new boyfriend, Ali, he can move in. Who is this kid?, Dita asks one night, knowing that won’t happen. Everything around her is chaotic, including Suada’s barely existent medical care.