News

“Asian Persuasion,” the film directing debut of three-time Tony Award- and Grammy-winning producer Jhett Tolentino, has set North American distribution and will have a sales launch at the imminent American Film Market.

Hawaii-based Scatena & Rosner Films has acquired the worldwide rights to the romantic comedy. The film tells the story of a lovable underachiever who hatches an outrageous scheme to avoid paying alimony to his fashion-executive ex-wife.

Scatena & Rosner Films will release the film itself in the North American or ‘domestic’ market and has earmarked a Spring 2025 date. The company will begin rights licensing in all other territories from next week’s AFM in Las Vegas (Nov. 5-10).

The film was written by Mike Ang. It stars an ensemble cast, including Dante Basco (“Hook”), Kc Concepcion (“Boy Golden: Shoot to Kill”), Kevin Kreider (“Bling Empire”), and Paolo Montalban (“Cinderella”).

“Asian Persuasion” is produced under the Jhett Tolentino Productions banner...

Ava DuVernay, Chloë Sevigny, Cailee Spaeny and Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch were among the luminaries who took part in the chic vernissage (preview) hosted by Miu Miu for its first ever Tales & Tellers spotlight during Art Basel Paris at the Palais d’Iéna on Tuesday.

Running Oct. 16 – 20 as part of Art Basel Paris, the exhibition showcases more than 20 short films from the Miu Miu Women’s Tales series, bringing the work to life with bespoke installations and live performances by actresses and models dressed as characters from each title.

The retrospective exhibition, designed and curated by Goshka Macuga and Elvira Dyangani Ose, features Miu Miu commissioned shorts from the likes of DuVernay, Sevigny, Zoe R. Cassavetes (“Broken English”), Lila Avilés (“Tótem”), Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Crystal Moselle (“Skate Kitchen”), Carla Simón (“Alcarràs”), Catherine Martin (“Elvis”), Haifaa Al-Mansour (“Wadjda”) and Isabel Sandoval (“Lingua Franca”) – all of whom were on...

Miuccia Prada’s fashion brand Miu Miu has unveiled the talent-packed program of its Tales & Tellers conversations lineup which will unfold at the Palais d’Iena during the Art Basel Paris. Miu Miu is an official partner of the public program.

Tales & Tellers was conceived by Polish artist Goshka Macuga and curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. An immersive, site-specific art project and series of short film screenings and conversations, Tales & Tellers was influenced by Miu Miu’s collaborations within the worlds of filmmaking and art.

Kicking off with a chic vernissage on Oct. 15 on the eve of opening of Art Basel Paris, this year’s inaugural Tales & Tellers program will bring together directors, talent and artists coming from different horizons who have participated in Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales and/or collaborated with the brand on the fashion shows.

Five panels hosted in two days,...

After 28 years together, Leah Remini and her husband, Angelo Pagan, have decided to call it quits. The King of Queens star took to Instagram this week to announce the end of her 21-year marriage. The update wasn’t what fans wanted to hear from the former Scientologist, but Remini and Pagan are happy with their decisions. Remini’s fans couldn’t help but notice that her divorce filing has something in common with Jennifer Lopez’s filing. Formerly best friends Lopez and Remini allegedly had a falling out over Ben Affleck. Still, Remini opted to follow Lopez’s divorce lead. She filed for divorce without using a lawyer, just like her jilted former pal.

Leah Remini proceeds with divorce without a lawyer

Leah Remini and Jennifer Lopez might not be as close as they once were, but Remini is taking a page out of Lopez’s book regarding divorce. The...

Our latest review of new and recent books about (or connected to) cinema includes an extraordinary look at transness in film; memoirs from Griffin Dunne, Jon Chu, and Susan Seidelman; and several new books on music, highlighted by the latest from the great Steven Hyden. Plus, we run down some noteworthy novels worth checking out before the summer’s end. Let’s hold on to the season a bit longer, shall we?

Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema by Willow Maclay and Caden Gardner (Repeater)

The world of cinema has been in dire need of a book like Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema. It is no exaggeration to say that this study of transness in film––from the silent era to more recent works like Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca and Jane Schoenbrum’s We’re All...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Anthology Film Archives

A Zoë Lund retrospective includes films by Abel Ferrara and Larry Cohen; Stan Brakhage plays in “Essential Cinema.”

Museum of the Moving Image

Films by Robert Altman, Isabel Sandoval, and Alain Berliner play in “From the Margins: The Trans Film Image“; “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” brings Pulp Fiction, Speed and Menace II Society on 35mm.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp on Saturday.

Japan Society

An imported 35mm print of August in the Water screens on Sunday.

Film Forum

Seven Samurai, Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room and Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine all screen.

Metrograph

Films by Akira and Kiyoshi Kurosawa play in In Pursuit of Shadows; films by Linklater and Otto Preminger play as part of Summer...

Experience

A “Friends”-themed exhibition and experience is setting up home permanently in London. Inspired by the iconic sitcom, The Friends Experience is set to open in a purpose-built location at London’s ExCel center this summer ahead of the show’s 30th anniversary this year.

The experience features full-scale recreations of the show’s sets, from Monica and Rachel’s apartment to the infamous “Pivot!” scene complete with couch, as well as costumes, backdrops, props and memorabilia. Guests can recreate some of their favorite on-screen moments and enjoy themed food and drinks as well as exclusive merch.

It has been created by Warner Bros. Discovery Global Themed Entertainment, Original X Productions and Warner Bros. Television Group and is operated by U.K.-based The Luna Entertainment Group. Tickets can be purchased at www.FriendsTheExperience.com/London.

Homecoming

Philippines-born filmmaker Isabel Sandoval (Venice title “Lingua Franca”) has wrapped principal photography on her new film “Moonglow.

At long last, Kathryn Bigelow is returning to filmmaking. After 2017’s Detroit, she was developing the David Koepp-scripted thriller Aurora for Netflix but has now moved on to another project for the company. The untitled thriller will unfold in real-time at the White House as a missile attack threatens the United States. THR reports former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, who also wrote Jackie, scripted the project based on Bigelow’s idea. No additional details were revealed but with Netflix now greenlighting the project, here’s hoping it kicks off before the end of the year.

Juliette Binoche will make her directorial and writing debut in a new anthology film Bike Me Up. Joining directors Sally El Hosaini, Isabel Coixet, Matthias Schweighöfer, Asger Leth, and Frédéric Auburtin, each section will be set in a different European city and explore the locales’ relationship with cycling. Binoche’s film will be...

In the five years since her breakout Lingua Franca, Isabel Sandoval has jumped into shorts and TV directing, but now she’s finally set her feature follow-up. Kicking off production next month in the Philippines, her fourth feature is the romantic noir Moonglow, which the director describes as “in the vein of In a Lonely Place and Casablanca” and combines “the gritty world of Philippine crime and politics” with “lush romanticism”.

Starring Arjo Atayde, the 1960s-set film takes place in Manila and follows “a jaded female police detective, who unbeknownst to her colleagues is the mastermind behind a successful heist, but who is paired up with an obsessively truth-seeking detective partner to crack the very crime that she orchestrated,” Deadline reports.

“In the midst of my involvement in various U.S. projects, my storytelling always finds its way back to the heart of my homeland,” said Sandoval. “The film is...

Exclusive: US-based Filipino filmmaker Isabel Sandoval is returning to the Philippines to shoot her fourth feature, Moonglow, starring Arjo Atayde.

Sandoval, who is known for her award-winning 2019 feature Lingua Franca and directing series in the U.S., is scheduled to start shooting the noir crime thriller on April 9.

Set in 1970s Manila, the film follows a jaded female police detective, who unbeknownst to her colleagues is the mastermind behind a successful heist, but who is paired up with an obsessively truth-seeking detective partner to crack the very crime that she orchestrated.

The film is produced by Alemberg Ang of the Philippines’ Daluyong Studios, with Tan Si En of Singapore’s Momo Film Co, Takahiro Yamashita of Japan’s Yaman Films and Ria Atayde of the Philippines’ Nathan Studios.

Arjo Atayde also stars in upcoming Abs-cbn crime series The Bagman and has recent credits including psychological series Cattleya Killer...

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

The Marrakech Film Festival’s sixth Atlas Workshops kicks off today under the fresh curation of former indie film sales agent and publicist Hédi Zardi.

Running November 27 to 30 in a rambling riad on the outskirts of Marrakech, the project and talent incubator is showcasing 25 projects hailing from Mena and Africa, 16 in development and another nine in production or post-production.

Zardi is best known on the market and festival circuit as the former co-founding head of Paris-based sales banner Luxbox, which he created in 2015 with Fiorella Moretti who continues to run the company.

Together, the pair launched a raft of buzzy festival titles on the market, brokering deals to Ava DuVernay‘s Array for Isabel Sandoval’s trans migrant drama Lingua Franca, Oscilloscope Laboratories for Costa Rican Oscar entry Clara Sola by Nathalie Alvarez Mesen, and KimStim for Suzanne Lindon’s coming-of-age debut feature Spring Blossom.

After eight years on the sales circuit,...

After being a high school literature teacher for ten years, Alemberg Ang shifted into a career of film producing. His filmmaking is shaped by his passion for socio-civic issues, and Philippine arts and literature. His films have traveled extensively to festivals in Busan, Cairo, Warsaw, Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, Torino and others, working with filmmakers like Loy Arcenas, Antoinette Jadaone, and Petersen Vargas. He was invited to the Unesco International Meeting of Independent Producers, Rotterdam Lab, Berlinale Talents, Talents Tokyo, and Seafic. His projects have participated at Cinemart, Locarno Open Doors, Tribeca Film Institute Network Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, and Busan's Asian Project Market.

On the occasion of his participation in Qcinema's film market, we talked with him about the role of the producer and the misconceptions involved, producing shorts, documentaries and features and their differences, post-productions, his work in “Plan 75”, “Divine Factory”, and “Liway”, the Filipino movie industry,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSCapital.The Palestinian Film Institute and several prominent filmmakers—including Sky Hopinka, Miko Revereza, Maryam Tafakory, Charlie Shackleton, and Basma al-Sharif—have withdrawn from the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in response to the festival’s messaging about the war in Gaza. On the festival’s opening night, a group of activists took to the stage holding a banner that read “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”; on November 10, IDFA published a statement apologizing to patrons who may have been offended by this “hurtful slogan.” On November 11, the Pfi and the advocacy group Workers for Palestine Netherlands announced their withdrawal from IDFA: “As the world’s largest documentary film festival, IDFA holds the responsibility to respond to the plight of journalists and documentarians on the ground in Gaza,...

Bhutan-set political satire ’The Monk And The Gun’ takes festival’s audience award

Sarvnik Kaur’s documentary Against The Tide has won the top prize, the Golden Gateway Award, at the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival.

The documentary, which world premiered at Sundance, follows two fishers and friends from Mumbai’s Koli community pursuing their livelihoods by different means.

Lockdown drama Bahadur - The Brave by Diwa Shah, which played in San Sebastian’s New Directors strand this year, won the Silver Gateway Award.

Kanu Behl’s drama Agra, which world premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this year, won the special jury award.

Sarvnik Kaur’s documentary Against The Tide won the Golden Gateway Award at this year’s Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival, while the Silver Gateway Award went to Bahadur – The Brave, directed by Diwa Shah. The Special Jury Award went to Kanu Behl’s Agra.

Against The Tide follows two fishermen struggling to provide for their families as the sea turns hostile due to climate change. Bahadur – The Brave revolves around Nepalese migrant laborers during the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic in India.

Agra, which had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes film festival, is the story of young Indian man attempting to navigate cramped living conditions, sexual repression and a dysfunctional family to create his own space in the world.

The South Asia Competition jury was headed by Mira Nair and also included Australian filmmaker David Michod, Filipino filmmaker and actor Isabel Sandoval...

Following four long years of pandemic shutdown, India’s Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival made a triumphant return Friday night with a glitzy opening ceremony packed with stars from the Hindi and South Indian film industries, including Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Kareena Kapoor, Jim Sarbh, Sonam Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar, along with Tamil cinema legends Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam, among many others. Held inside Mumbai’s shimmering new Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, which opened just in March, the ceremony featured two hours of impassioned speeches and the dolling out of awards, all of it presided over by Chopra Jonas, this year’s festival chairwoman.

In her opening remarks declaring the festival officially open, Chopra Jonas emphasized the role of women in the Indian industry, saying: “We’d like to acknowledge the pivotal role of women in front of the camera and behind – we have some of the most amazing women,...

Stars from both the Hindi and South Indian film industries turned out in force for the opening night of Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival, including Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sonam Kapoor and Bhumi Pednekar, along with Tamil star Kamal Haasan, who presented the Excellence in Cinema Award (South Asia) to director-producer Mani Ratnam.

The two leading figures of South Indian cinema also announced their first collaboration in 36 years – Kh 234 – to be produced by Haasan’s Raaj Kamal Films International and Ratman’s Madras Talkies.

“We’re producing the film together – he’s directing it and any job that’s going I’m willing to do, including lead man,” joked Haasan after presenting Ratman with the award. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Ratnam retorted.

Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman and cinematographer Ravi K Chandran are also attached to the film. Haasan and Ratnam last collaborated on gangster drama Nayakan in 1987. A teaser...

Some twenty aspiring film projects have been selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the Qcinema Project Market (Nov. 18-19) that this year represents and expansion of the QCinema Film Festival in The Philippines’ Quezon City.

The selected titles include development projects by several of East Asia’s better known independent and art-house directors and projects. Among them is “Filipinana,” which on Tuesday collected three prizes at Busan’s Asian Project Market. Another is “Fox King,” by well-established Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jing, which will also travel to the Tokyo Gap Financing Market. Also lining up is established Singapore filmmaker Boo Junfeng and producer partner Raymond Phathanavirangoon with “Trinity.”

The 20 selected projects are vying for over $400,000 in grants and prizes, including a $35,000 co-production grants for Southeast Asian projects and $50,000 for Filipino projects.

“From an impressive submission of sixty five projects from all over the region, these selected projects really...

South Asia Competition jury also includes David Michod, Isabel Sandoval and Marianne Khoury.

Acclaimed India-born filmmaker Mira Nair is to preside over the main South Asia Competition of the upcoming Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival (October 27-November 5).

She will be joined by Australian writer/director David Michod, Filipina filmmaker and actress Isabel Sandoval and Egyptian producer and director Marianne Khoury, who was named artistic director of the El Gouna Film Festival in June.

Jio Mami revealed its full lineup yesterday, confirming that it had dropped its international and India Gold competitive sections in favour of a South Asia Competition, to...

Cinephile Game Night has returned with Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series debuts new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the season finale of Cinephile Summer, we were thrilled to face off against our friends at Bright Wall/Dark Room: Chad Perman, Eli, Fran Hoepfner, and Veronica Fitzpatrick. Check out the episode below and stay tuned for updates as Cinephile Game Night will return live in person at the 61st New York Film Festival!

Each episode features teams facing off for rounds of Filmography, Movie-Actor and Six Degrees and the team with the most points is crowned the winner. Internet glory ensues.

Cinephile Game Night has returned with Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series debuts new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the fifth episode of Cinephile Summer, we were thrilled to face off against the epic team-up of Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz, Light the Fuse hosts Drew Taylor and Charles Hood, and filmmaker and video essayist Patrick Willems.

And for those of you in Los Angeles, the American Cinematheque is programming a really cool series called “Friend of the Fest” where Cory will be repping Cinephile Summer and introducing a screening of one of our favorite late summer movies,...

Critical Zone.International Competition(Jury: Lambert Wilson, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lesli Klainberg, Charlotte Wells, Matthijs Wouter Knol)Golden Leopard: Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Special Jury Prize: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude)Best Direction: Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Best Performance: Dimitra Vlagopoulou (Animal)Best Performance: Renée Soutendijk (Sweet Dreams)Special Mention: Nuit Obscure - Au Revoir Ici, N'importe Où (Sylvain George)Filmmakers Of The PresentGolden Leopard: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Best Emerging Director: Katharina Huber (A Good Place)Special Jury Prize: Camping Du Lac (Éléonore Saintagnan)Best Performance: Clara Schwinning (A Good Place)Best Performance: Isold Halldórudóttir and Stavros Zafeiris (Touched)Special Mentions: Excursions (Una Gunjak), Negu Hurbilak (Colective Negu)First Feature(Jury: Omar El Zohairy, Devika Girish, Isabel Sandoval)First Feature Award: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Ewa Puszczyńska, Matthew Rankin, Amos Sussigan)Best...

Cinephile Game Night has returned this year for Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series will debut new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the third episode of Cinephile Summer, we were thrilled to face off against our friends at 50 Mph––a brand new podcast that takes you behind-the-scenes of Jan de Bont’s Oscar-winning 1994 summer blockbuster, Speed––featuring Kris Tapley, Paul Hammond, and Jonathan Foster.

Each episode features teams facing off for rounds of Filmography, Movie-Actor and Six Degrees and the team with the most points is crowned the winner. Internet glory ensues. Throughout two seasons and nearly 50 episodes special guests...

Cinephile Game Night has returned this year for Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series will debut new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the third episode of Cinephile Summer, we were thrilled to face off against our friends at We Hate Movies, featuring Andrew Jupin, Chris Cabin, Eric Szyszka, and Stephen Sajdak.

Each episode features teams facing off for rounds of Filmography, Movie-Actor and Six Degrees and the team with the most points is crowned the winner. Internet glory ensues. Throughout two seasons and nearly 50 episodes special guests have included podcasts such as Action Boyz, Blank Check, The Big Picture,...

Cinephile Game Night has returned this year for Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series will debut new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the second episode of Cinephile Summer, we were thrilled to face off against our friends at One Heat Minute, featuring Blake Howard, Katie Walsh, Maria Lewis, and Alexei Toliopoulos. Joining the Tfs team as special guests are Gavin Mevius (co-host of The Mixed Reviews) and Veronica Fitzpatrick (co-host of The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast).

Each episode features teams facing off for rounds of Filmography, Movie-Actor and Six Degrees and the team with the most points is crowned the winner.

The pair join jury president French actor Lambert Wilson in the international competition strand

Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi are among the jurors for the 76th Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12).

The Scottish filmmaker and Iranian actor will sit on the international competition jury, led by French actor Lambert Wilson, alongside European Film Academy president Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, president of film at the Lincoln Centre.

Films competing at Locarno this year include Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths...

Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi have joined the jury of the 76th Locarno International Film Festival and will judge the 2023 competitors for the festival’s Golden Leopard award. Ebrahimi also stars in Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, which will be the closing film in Locarno this year.

French actor Lambert Wilson, known for his performances in the Matrix films, will head up this year’s Locarno international jury as president. Also in the 2023 jury are European Film Academy director and CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at New York’s Lincoln Center.

The films of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, featuring works from first and second-time directors will be assessed by a three-person jury of Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, the French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees...

Cinephile Game Night has returned this year for Cinephile Summer, a brand new season featuring your favorite podcasters and filmmakers going head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, and Dan Mecca along with Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett, the series will debut new episodes bi-weekly on The Film Stage Show podcast feed and The Film Stage YouTube channel.

For the first episode of Cinephile Summer, launching today, we were thrilled to face off against our friends at The Letterboxd Show, featuring Mitchell Beaupre, Matt “Slim” Kolowski, Mia Vicino, and special guest Chandler Levack, whose debut feature I Like Movies is now available digitally in Canada. Watch/listen below and stay tuned for episodes featuring One Heat Minute, We Hate Movies, and more!

Each episode features teams facing off for rounds of Filmography, Movie-Actor and Six Degrees...

Located betwixt Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation and kitsch Missouri family fun destination Branson, Northwest Arkansas’s Bentonville is one of the great cultural destinations of the SEC region. In addition to its thriving theaters, museums and local artist community, the city has announced itself as a burgeoning cinema hub, thanks to the emergence of the Bentonville Film Festival.

Founded in 2015 by activist and Oscar winner Geena Davis, in partnership with producer and businessman Trevor Drinkwater, the annual June festival is the centerpiece event for the year-round BFFoundation, providing a safe space and exhibition venue for emerging creators and visual storytellers hailing from underrepresented backgrounds—sounds familiar!

But don’t worry, we’re not being paid off by Big Arkanite to say nice things. Next week, Film Independent kicks off Festival Visions, a Film Independent Presents summer spotlight series featuring—online and for free—some of the best indie films programmed...

How did John Cameron Mitchell become the head of this year’s Queer Palm award jury in Cannes? “Sexual favors,” he quips.

While the director of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” (which played out of competition at Cannes) is joking, sexuality is at the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious LGBTQ+ film awards. And with more anti-queer legislation being enacted around the world than at any time in recent memory, the attention it brings to films that humanize this scapegoated population is arguably more important than ever.

“The Queer Palm, the festival and any awards help to dignify work, so that it often can be distributed and sometimes celebrated in its own queer-phobic country,” says Mitchell, who helped start a queer dance night at the American Pavilion in 2004 and DJs when he’s in town. “[The trans-themed] ‘Joyland’ was banned in...

Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth married over a decade ago and announced their divorce on March 24, 2023. Hollywood fans are sad to see the couple splitting up. So, do Witherspoon and Toth have a prenup? Here’s what we believe based on inside sources and Witherspoon’s past decisions.

Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth announced their divorce on Instagram Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon | Vincent Sandoval/FilmMagic

Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth announced their divorce via Instagram on March 24, 2023. The couple wrote a joint statement that was posted to Witherspoon’s page.

“We have some personal news to share,” she and Toth posted. “It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce. We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness, and mutual respect for everything we have created together.” They continued by stating...

It’s no secret that Abby Lee Miller is estranged from quite a few members of the Dance Moms cast. Plenty of her former students have severed ties with the choreographer because of the way she treated them on and off the show. However, Miller still seems to maintain a relationship with one of the most famous Dance Moms alums, JoJo Siwa. In fact, the former studio own recently dispelled any rumors of an alleged feud.

Mackenzie Ziegler, Jojo Siwa and Maddie Ziegler, Abby Lee Miller, Kalani Hilliker, Kendall Vertes and Nia Sioux | Vincent Sandoval/WireImage JoJo Siwa’s relationship with Abby Lee Miller began back in 2013

Dance Moms fans will recall that Siwa made her first appearance on the show in season 5. She was initially brought on as a guest, but over time, she managed to become a full team member until she exited the show in season 6. But...

Celebrity deaths have come fast and hit hard so far in the past few years. However, the death of actor Ray Liotta in 2022 hit movie fans especially hard, given the actor’s decades of prominence in Hollywood. Now Liotta’s final movie sits in an uncertain place. Here’s what we know so far about what might become of Dangerous Waters and Liotta’s role in the film.

Ray Liotta died in May 2022 at 67 Actor Ray Liotta attends SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Conversations with Ray Liotta at SAG-AFTRA Foundation Screening Room on June 5, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. | Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images

Liotta made his film debut in 1983’s The Lonely Lady. But it would only take a few years for the actor to start breaking into the mainstream. Following 1986’s Something Wild, the actor went on to appear in such hits as Field of Dreams, Goodfellas, Cop Land, and Hannibal over the next 15 years.

MTV’s The Challenge Season 38 reunion brought the cast back together after the finale ended. Amber Borzotra had two major announcements. Not only is she pregnant, but she was diagnosed with autism at 34 years old. Here’s what she said about her autism and what Tori Deal said about some cast members doubting her.

Amber Borzotra from ‘The Challenge’ Season 38 announced her autism diagnosis Amber Borzotra | Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images

The Challenge Season 38 reunion part 2 showed Amber Borzotra getting vulnerable with the cast and audience. Amber announced she received an autism diagnosis, which explained her difficulty in specific social settings.

“I was diagnosed as autistic,” she said during the reunion, according to People. “I struggle in social settings, and this pressure has been so much on me. And I’ve taken meds for depression and anxiety in this game, and I’ve told people I haven’t because it was embarrassing.

There seems to be no let-up for the Daniels’ rollicking sci-fi drama “Everything Everywhere All at Once” winning awards, as the A24 hit claimed many of the top film prizes at Galeca: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics 14th Annual Dorian Awards. In addition to the film winning Film of the Year, its Oscar-nominated stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu received acting citations as well, with the latter winning the Rising Star Award.

The Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) won both the writing and directing prizes, and some familiar Oscar nominees took home prizes as well, including Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” winning the documentary prizes, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” won the animation prize over the seasonally-favored “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” and in the funnest overall category, Ti West’s “Pearl” won the honor of Campiest Flick of the Year.

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To celebrate the release of My First Movie: Vol. 1, we’re bringing Cinephile Game Night back to the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn this month and you’re invited! The evening will feature multiple trivia rounds and other cinephile games, with chances to win the new books, as well as limited-edition prints, games and more. Cinephile Game Night co-hosts Cory Everett, Jordan Raup, and Conor O’Donnell will be joined by special guests Andrew Jupin and Chris Cabin from We Hate Movies who will be on hand to host a special guest round.

Some of you may recall the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn hosted the very first Cinephile Game Night way back in 2019, which was a total blast. The game night subsequently made stops at Fantastic Fest and New York Film Festival, as well as our online edition which featured special guests from Leonard Maltin to Alex Ross Perry to Isabel Sandoval. But after four long years,...

Another decade gone by, another Sight and Sound poll of the 100 best films ever made. Naturally, discourse has followed the release of the list, from the differences in the critics' and directors' polls to the dethroning of old champs "Citizen Kane" and "Vertigo" by Chantal Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles."

Some especially incendiary thoughts have come from the inclusion of four films released in the 2010s in the critics' poll. "Get Out" tied for 95th place, "Parasite" for 90th, and "Moonlight" for 60th. "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" came in at a whopping 30th place, just below "Taxi Driver" and over canonical classics like "Psycho," "Rashomon," and "Casablanca."

The question is, do such new films deserve spots on this list? Especially when the works of directors like Howard Hawks and Steven Spielberg are nowhere to be seen. For some, including Paul Schrader, the answer is a definite "no.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Newsrrr.First: Notebook is launching a weekly email newsletter in 2023! Sign up here to keep up with our latest writing in this precarious digital age.At a recent screening of Rrr in Chicago, S.S. Rajamouli mentioned that his father and screenwriting partner V. Vijayendra Prasad is beginning to draft a sequel. In the meantime, Rajamouli is preparing an untitled film starring Mahesh Bubu, set to begin filming in the spring.In this Willamette Week article about George Saunders’s new short story collection Liberation Day, there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention of a film project. Richard Ayoade will direct an adaptation of Saunders’s 2012 short story “The Semplica-Girl Diaries,” set to begin filming next year. Though Ayoade stole the show in both parts of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, this will be his...

Exclusive: Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing has acquired Ivan Herrera’s drama Bantú Mama for distribution in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. The company will be presenting the film — which has been named as the Dominican Republic’s 2023 entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar — on select screens and on Netflix beginning November 17.

Bantú Mama follows a French woman of African descent who manages to escape after being arrested in the Dominican Republic. She finds shelter in the most dangerous district of Santo Domingo, where she is taken in by a group of children. By becoming their protégée and maternal figure, she then experiences an unimaginable change in her destiny.

“We are honored to distribute the Dominican Republic’s official Oscar submission,” said Array President Tilane Jones. “This deeply moving and vividly drawn drama, beautifully directed by Ivan Herrera and co-written with producer Clarisse Albrecht,...

Click here to read the full article.

How do you prepare students for an entertainment industry in a constant state of flux? For some, the answer is LED walls. Schools ranging from Chapman to Cal State Northridge are doubling down on digital production in an effort to prepare their students for industry. And while rising tuition costs have would-be filmmakers worried, schools are increasing scholarships or offering fully funded MFAs.

These 25(ish) programs offer students the best chance at navigating Hollywood’s changing terrain.

1. American Film Institute

Los Angeles

The prestigious graduate program consistently churns out Oscar winners, including Coda director and 2022 Oscar winner Sian Heder, and blockbuster directors, and has made an effort to diversify its student body. Over half of the incoming students are women, and nearly half are filmmakers of color — all are eligible for new funds like the Halyna Hutchins Memorial Scholarship. This year, AFI’s...

Array Releasing, the distribution arm of Ava DuVernay’s Peabody Award-winning narrative change collective, has picked up rights to the feature drama Learn to Swim for the U.S., the UK, Australia and New Zealand, slating it for release on select screens and on Netflix on August 15.

The first feature from director Thyrone Tommy dives into the world of contemporary jazz with a musical meditation on love and loss, following the doggedly private and talented saxophone player Dezi (Thomas Antony Olajide) and a vivacious, but less experienced singer named Selma (Emma Ferreira). When the two meet, sparks fly, but their respective emotional baggage and temperaments make the road to romance bumpy at best.

An official selection of the 2021 Toronto Film Festival, Learn to Swim was written by Tommy and Marni Van Dyk, with Alona Metzer producing.

“With Array Releasing’s summer acquisition of Learn To Swim, we are thrilled to...

There are 136 submissions on the 2022 Emmys ballot for Best Limited or Anthology Series or Movie Directing, which will yield six nominations. As a reminder, last year’s winner was “The Queen’s Gambit” (Scott Frank), while the other nominees were “Hamilton” (Thomas Kail), “Mare of Easttown” (Craig Zobel), “Wandavision” (Matt Shakman), “The Underground Railroad” (Barry Jenkins) and two episodes of “I May Destroy You” (Sam Miller for “Eyes Eyes Eyes Eyes” and Miller and Michaela Coel for “Ego Death”).

For six of the last eight years, the Best Limited/Movie Directing category has rewarded directors who helmed the entirety of their limited series. That could work in favor of Mike White, who directed all six episodes of “The White Lotus,” which should have enough overall support to be competitive in the series category. Miniseries that also only submitted their sole director for the whole series, per the Emmy ruling, include “Gaslit” for Matt Ross,...

Moviegoing Memories is a series of short interviews with filmmakers about going to the movies. Isabel Sandoval, the writer-director-star of Lingua Franca, is the lead performer in Andrew Ondrejcak's The Actress, now showing exclusively on Mubi in the series Brief Encounters and Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema. Her upcoming Alamo Drafthouse series Sensual Cinema, co-presented by Mubi, explores five masterworks rooted in desire.

Director, actress, writer, producer, and editor Isabel Sandoval is a trans Filipina filmmaking Auteur who made history with her third feature film Lingua Franca at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori section. It is the first film directed by and starring a trans woman of color to screen in competition. Lingua Franca was nominated for the 2021 Film Independent John Cassavetes Spirit Award.

Sandoval made her directorial debut with the noir-styled Señorita, which world-premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival and earned her the Emerging Director Award at the Asian American International Film Festival. Her second feature as director was the Ferdinand Marcos-era nun drama Apparition, which won the Lotus Audience Award at the Deauville Asian Film Festival.

Now, her most recent endeavor is television. Sandoval recently directed the penultimate episode of the critically acclaimed FX limited series, Under the Banner of Heaven, based on Jon Krakauer...

Following up The Nest, director Sean Durkin has set his next feature. The Martha Marcy May Marlene helmer will write and direct Iron Claw for A24, Deadline reports. Set to star Zac Efron, the film will capture the wild true story of the Von Erichs, the wrestling dynasty family who made a mark in the 1960s up to the present day. It hasn’t been revealed yet who Efron will play or how many years the film will capture, but it sounds like compelling material for Durkin to capture.

Lingua Franca director Isabel Sandoval is moving forward with her next project. Deadline reports she will be writing, helming, and starring in Tropical Gothic, a 16th-century, Philippines-set tale that is an allegory on Western colonialism. The story follows a Native Priestess who convinces her Spanish master that she is possessed by the spirit of his dead bride, in order to manipulate...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Newsmmxx.Cristi Puiu's latest project, titled Mmxx, is currently in post-production. The film is one of the selections of FIDLab, FIDMarseille's program for works-in-progress, due to take place next month. The film will run 2 hours and 40 minutes, according to FIDMarseille's project page, and will follow “the wanderings of a bunch of errant souls stuck at the crossroads of history.”Aki Kaurismäki has formally announced what will be his 19th feature. Dead Leaves, which will be shot by Kaurismäki's regular cinematographer Timo Salminen and feature popular Finnish actors Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, will premiere sometime in 2023. Little has been revealed about the film, but when asked about it, Kaurismäki said that “tragicomedy seems to be my genre."Later this year, Isabel Sandoval will begin production on Tropical Gothic, the follow-up to her acclaimed 2019 feature Lingua Franca.

Exclusive: Big Beach has announced that it will produce the upcoming feature Tropical Gothic from Lingua Franca‘s Isabel Sandoval.

Set in the 16th-century Philippines, Tropical Gothic is an allegory on Western colonialism about a Native Priestess who convinces her Spanish master that she is possessed by the spirit of his dead bride, in order to manipulate him into returning the farmland that the Spaniards seized from the native community.

Sandoval and producer Carlo Velayo launched the project in 2020 at the Locarno Open Doors Hub—an international platform for feature projects within Latin America and the Caribbean looking for international collaborations. The pair received the Vff Talent Highlight Award at the Berlinale Talent Project Market in March, with the associated prize money going toward the film’s development. Sandoval will direct from her script and star, with Michael B. Clark and Alex Turtletaub producing for Big Beach, alongside Velayo. Production kicks off later this year.

Andrew Ondrejcak's The Actress is showing exclusively on Mubi starting June 8, 2022 in the series Brief Encounters, as well as in the series Pride Unprejudiced: LGBTQ+ Cinema.The Actress confronts old ideals of art and beauty, reimagining some of Hollywood’s most cherished performances. To do this, I recreated six iconic scenes from Hollywood films and made a simple but radical change: I replaced the leading lady with my own muse, Isabel Sandoval. The earliest film we recreated is Morocco (1930), the seminal film during which Marlene Dietrich dressed in a men’s tuxedo and kissed a woman (!). The most recent film we included is The Tree of Life (2011) because Isabel and I wanted her to play a mother, and Terrence Malick’s ethereal idealization of Jessica Chastain was our starting point. I particularly liked shooting the fur-lined spaceship set from Barbarella (1968) because I was able to offer Isabel (channeling Jane Fonda...

Days after my episode of “Under The Banner of Heaven” premiered, I received a private message on Twitter from a Mormon consultant on the show though we never managed to connect during the shoot. “I just wanted you to know how beautiful your episode turned out. The response here in Utah has been epic. Every day I’m receiving texts from ex-Mormons (and some current Lds) who absolutely loved it. So many people are resonating with how beautifully you and Andrew [Garfield] captured the pain of a faith crisis.”

The response feels both remarkable and especially rewarding to me, who is neither Mormon nor born and raised in Utah. I was born (and grew up) in the Philippines, the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia. I had a Catholic education from kindergarten to college. As a grade-schooler, I had a phase of being so devout that for years I was a...