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The planets aligned for self-declared fanboy French Burkinabé director Cédric Ido, to will his long-gestating sci-fi caper – the futuristic and gritty Parisian-set thriller “The Gravity” into being, despite reluctance from the French film biz to dig into funding for genre movies.

The actor-director deftly mixes up Japanese mythology and a mysterious solar system alignment for a surrealistic take in his second feature that upends the status quo of a Parisian suburb slowly getting engulfed in cosmic chaos.

“The Gravity” played last week as part of the lineup of the 5th Joburg Film Festival in South Africa, with Ido telling Variety the biggest challenge was getting buy-in for the colorful project.

” ‘Gravity’s’ a script that I had in mind for such a long time. At the same time, it’s very personal, like many aspects of the relationship between the characters and also the background – being from the suburbs, the banlieue.

What started as a joint venture into streaming by the corporations that own the largest broadcast television networks in the U.S., Hulu's list of content has never been lacking. From reality TV shows to indie cinema, Hulu has it all despite the increasing fragmentation of the streaming market. All three of the major companies — News Corp, NBC Universal, and Disney — who helped start Hulu have now launched streaming services of their own, but there is still a commitment to keeping Hulu's offerings top shelf. Opening any category on the service will release a deluge of titles of varied fame and quality. Titles are often tenuously filed under as many genres as possible to increase their chance of being viewed. While this is helpful in keeping specific sections beefed up, it can obfuscate the true gems in each genre.

Jukebox musicals have quickly become quite popular in the last few years. Whether they are stage musicals on Broadway or feature films, creating a story with songs by some of the world’s most famous music artists. The business model sells well—why not craft an ultra-fun plotline that can incorporate the top hits of the past few decades into the characterization and storyline?

The actor is known for roles in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘Still Walking’ and ‘After the Storm’ among others.

Japanese actor Hiroshi Abe is to be honoured with the Excellence in Asian Cinema Award at the 16th Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong next month.

The actor is known internationally for roles in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking and After The Storm, and Hideki Takeuchi’s Thermæ Romæ, for which he won his first Japan Academy Film Prize in 2013.

Abe will accept the award at the awards ceremony, which is set to be held in Hong Kong on March 12. The nominations were announced last month.

Watching the newest film from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, "Knock at the Cabin," it's hard not to think of the weight carried by his past work. Though "Knock at the Cabin" is an adaptation of a well-regarded novel, it reflects a number of recognizable hallmarks that are easy to spot in Shyamalan's films. There is a precocious child whose presence grounds the thought processes of the adults surrounding them. There are stoic grown-ups who are sometimes prone to extremely dry humor and only at the most unexpected times. There is a touch of the supernatural. There's a surprise or two. And for some of us, by the time the end credits roll, "Knock at the Cabin" ends up feeling moderately hollow and empty. It is yet another Shyamalan film with a disturbing and effective setup that does not have a similar payoff.

"Knock at the Cabin" wastes no time

For Brazilian director Vladimir Seixas the sun is rising anew for filmmakers in his country after the end of years of Jair Bolsonaro rule.

The helmer known for his searing investigative work on Brazil’s urban, social and cultural transformations, says that now is the time for documentary makers in his country to step forward and make the films about “the lots of stories” waiting to be told.

After four years without a culture ministry – a government department that president Bolsonaro gutted and dissolved in 2019, and which was only reinstated this year by the new Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration – Seixas says a new day is finally dawning for filmmaking in Brazil.

Seixas’ searing documentary expose “Rolê: Histórias dos Rolezinhos” provides an insider look at Brazil’s widespread and growing shopping mall protests and movement. Known as “rolezinhos” the movement crystalized between 2000 and 2020 – the social revolt a result of ongoing,

Fans of teen fantasy films can rejoice, knowing that there are quite a few selections to choose from to watch this Valentine's Day. From Tuck Everlasting to the more recent The In Between, teen fantasy movies have been going strong for decades, keeping lovers of the genre satiated with a steady stream of films. Whether it's a book adaptation or the inventive creation of a screenwriter, there's a young adult fantasy film for everyone.

"The Last of Us," both the game and the show, has always been slightly more realistic than most zombie apocalypse stories. Okay, admittedly that's not saying much — everything about the outbreak in "The Walking Dead" makes zero sense, for one thing — but every once in a while, you do have to give the show props for some attention to detail.

Not only is the show's premise of fungus taking over living creatures' brains based on a terrifyingly real thing (don't click that link), but the latest episode is also pretty spot-on about gasoline. We get to see Joel (Pedro Pascal) siphoning gas for their truck and explaining that it's "basically water" due to how much time has passed. Most post-apocalyptic stories treat gasoline like it lasts forever, but it actually only has a shelf life of about three months to three years (depending on the type of fuel and its

International attendees point to IFFR’s sense of community, inclusivity - and wide sweep of films.

“The one word that keeps springing back to mind is: finally,” says International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) director Vanja Kaludjercic, with the first in-person festival since the pandemic drawing to a close yesterday (Feburary 5) after 97 feature films world premiered, 2,195 film professionals attended from 92 countires and 11 days of sold-out screenings.

“Finally, we’re back in person after a forced three-year hiatus. Finally, we get to see audiences welcoming us again with such warmth and roaring enthusiasm,” Kaludjercic says. ”And finally, we can welcome the filmmakers

When South African director John Barker was seven years old, the Johannesburg native experienced Cape Town’s Minstrel Carnival for the first time. The annual celebration, which is rooted in the traditions of slaves dating back to the early years of colonial rule, is a colorful, raucous pageant unique to the Mother City — an event that Barker would later spend 14 years bringing to the big screen.

“The Umbrella Men” finally premiered last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, 16 years after Barker’s 2006 debut, “Bunny Chow,” debuted at the prestigious North American fest. Barker’s fifth feature was the closing film this week at the Joburg Film Festival, which wrapped Feb. 5 in the South African city.

“The Umbrella Men” is set in the Bo-Kaap, a formerly segregated Cape Town neighborhood that’s home to the city’s Cape Malay community, where the hip-hop producer Jerome Adams (Jaques de Silva) has returned

Director Han Shuai previously won the Generation KPlus Grand Prix for ‘Summer Blur’.

Dubai-based sales firm Cercamon has boarded world rights on Han Shuai’s Chinese title Green Night, which will have its world premiere in Panorama at this month’s Berlin Film Festival (February 16-26).

Green Night centres on a Chinese woman trapped in a life of oppression by her Korean husband. An adventure with a mysterious green-haired girl offers her the chance to break free and claim her independence.

Chinese star Fan Bingbing and South Korean actress Lee Joo Young lead the cast of the film, which is

The fifth Joburg Film Festival wrapped Sunday night with the caper comedy “The Umbrella Men,” from homegrown director John Barker, a local premiere that cast and crew celebrated by promenading through Nelson Mandela Square with brightly colored parasols. Earlier in the week, the first edition of the Jbx Content Market — a two-day industry confab running parallel to the fest — concluded after offering a short but wide-ranging overview of the state of play for Africa’s screen industries in 2023.

There’s no clear-cut portrait that can emerge from an industry gathering on a continent as rich and diverse as Africa, where film and TV production and consumer trends — as with everything else — vary widely from one country to the next. The major markets of South Africa and Nigeria still dominate the conversation at such events; global players like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video see those territories as key to their expansion

Tereza Nvotova’s second feature won Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition.

Intramovies has sold North American rights for Slovak director Tereza Nvotova’s folk horror Nightsiren to Breaking Glass Pictures.

The Italian outfit has also sold UK and Irish rights to Pecadillo Pictures, while Busch Media has purchased rights for German-speaking European territories.

Nightsiren, Tereza Nvotova’s second feature, was awarded a Golden Leopard for best film in the Filmmakers of the Present competition section at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival, and has also played at multiple festivals.

The Czech-Slovakian production tells the story of a young woman who

Oscar winning filmmakers Asif Kapadia (“Amy”) and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”), Oscar nominees Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”) and Jessica Kingdon (“Ascension”), and Emmy nominee Jialing Zhang (“One Child Nation”) are among the lineup of speakers at Cph:conference, which runs during Cph:dox, Copenhagen’s documentary film festival.

The discussion program, which runs under the banner “Future at Our Fingertips,” also features Veronika Châtelain from Open Society Foundation and Anadil Hossain from Unhcr.

Cph:conference, which is curated in partnership with the training initiative Documentary Campus, has unveiled the full lineup of events (see here). The conference organizers said this year’s edition is aiming to “gather the international non-fiction community to collectively envision the future of the industry, discover and unlock the currently available resources, possible solutions, and transformative potential of the industry of tomorrow.”

The mornings are dedicated to the art of filmmaking and the creative challenges it brings.

2023 conference has the theme ‘Future At Our Fingertips’.

Diego Maradona director Asif Kapadia and The Mole Agent filmmaker Maite Alberdi are among the speakers for Cph:Conference, the industry talks programme of Cph:dox film festival in Copenhagen (March 15-26).

Running from March 20-24, this year’s Conference programme has the theme ‘Future At Our Fingertips’, taking the changed post-pandemic distribution and financing landscape as its launching point. It will centre on questions of inclusivity, freedom and sustainability of documentary as an art form.

UK director Kapadia, who won the Oscar for best documentary in 2016 for Amy, will participate in one of three ‘Mornings With Filmmakers’ sessions,

The award comes with 38,000, making it one of the world’s largest film prizes.

Goteborg’s lucrative Dragon Award for best Nordic film has gone to Danish director Malou Reymann’s second feature Unruly.

The drama premiered at Toronto and had its Swedish premiere at Goteborg. TrustNordisk handles sales and the Danish cinema release is planned for spring 2023.

Reymann previously directed Rotterdam Big Screen winner A Perfectly Normal Family.

Unruly is about the Sprogø Women’s Institution in the 1930s, when “morally feeble” girls and women were sent to the island to become more compliant. The story focuses on Maren,

M Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller knocked ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ off the number one spot in North America.

World box office February 3-5 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world) Cume (world)3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. The Wandering Earth 2 (various) 57.2m 501.5m 57.2m 498m 6 2. Full River Red (various) 50.2m 586.6m 50.2m 586.6m 2 3. Avatar: The Way Of Water (Disney) 38.7m 2.17bn 27.9m 1.54bn 61 4. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Universal) 25.1m 368.6m 17.1m 217.3m 81 5. Knock At The Cabin (Universal) 21.2m 21.2m 7m 17m 61 6. Boonie Bears: The Guardian Code (various) 21.1m 185.3m 21.1m 185.3m 1 7. BTS: Yet To Come In Cinemas

“Silver Haze,” directed by Sacha Polak, has debuted its trailer (below) ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. Polak’s last film, “Dirty God,” was in Sundance’s World Dramatic Competition, and was the opening film of Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam in 2019.

“Silver Haze,” starring Vicky Knight and Esme Creed Miles, is being sold by New Europe Film Sales. French distribution is being handled by The Jokers, and Cinéart is looking after Benelux distribution.

The film centers on 23-year-old Franky, a nurse who lives with her large family in an East London borough. Obsessed with a thirst for revenge and a need to assign guilt for a traumatic event that happened 15 years before, she is unable to build any meaningful relationship until she falls in love with one of her patients – Florence.

They escape to the coast where Florence lives with her more open-minded patchwork family.

Peter Jackson is one of the most important and influential filmmakers of the last 30 years, so it's a little bizarre for fans when they first hear about his video nasty roots. This term was coined by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in the United Kingdom, used to pinpoint the violent and explicit exploitation films that audiences might come across on home video, a field that this filmmaker has a great deal of experience in.

Cinemas in mainland China remained busy over the latest weekend even a week after the end of the Lunar New Year holiday season and with few significant new release titles.

Aggregate nationwide box office hit 162 million according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. And “The Wandering Earth 2” reclaimed the top spot that it lost on the second day of the holiday period, which officially ran Jan. 21-27.

“The Wandering Earth 2” earned 56.4 million between Friday and Saturday. That gives the sci-fi prequel a running total of 502 million since release on Jan. 22.

“Full River Red” a historical drama directed by the veteran Zhang Yimou, earned 50.1 million over the weekend for a cumulative of 595 million, also since Jan. 22. That is the highest box office performance by one of Zhang’s movies.

In third place, “Boonie Bears: Guardian Code” earned 21 million for a running total of 188 million. That is the highest total