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Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Peter Cattaneo’sThe Penguin Lessons and Dylan Southern’sThe Thing With Feathers are among the 14 titles to receive the latest round of UK Global Screen Fund award (Ukgsf) totalling £448,330 through its international distribution fund.

Administered by the British Film Institute (BFI), 111 awards totalling over £3.1m have now been given out by this strand, financed through the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms).

Support for international distribution provides sales agents and producers with funding via two tracks – prints & advertising (P&a) and festival launch.

The Penguin Lessons,starring Steve Coogan, has received the...

It is a mixed bag for UK and Irish films at this year’s Cannes – there’s a strong showing in Un Certain Regard, but it is a weak year overall for UK-Ireland female representation.

In Competition, as it stands, there are no films from UK or Irish directors.

However inUn Certain Regard, there are three UK-Irish debut features in selection.UK-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr’sMy Father’s Shadowstars UK actor Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù. The semi-autobiographical tale is set over the course of a single day in the Nigerian capital Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis.

UK-Ireland outfit Element Pictures produces,...

It is a mixed bag for UK and Irish films at this year’s Cannes – there’s a strong showing in Un Certain Regard, but it is a weak year overall for UK-Ireland female representation.

In Competition, as it stands, there are no films from UK or Irish directors.

However inUn Certain Regard, there are three UK-Irish debut features in selection.UK-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr’sMy Father’s Shadowstars UK actor Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù. The semi-autobiographical tale is set over the course of a single day in the Nigerian capital Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis.

UK-Ireland outfit Element Pictures produces,...

Exclusive: House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy has joined Tom Cruise in Oscar-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s untitled feature movie that’s shooting at Pinewood Studios in the UK.

D’Arcy confirmed the news in a comment they released exclusively to Deadline. “I’m delighted to be working with such extraordinary and exacting artists as Alejandro and Tom,” they told us. “They are the masters of their craft, and witnessing them in combination has been a privilege.”

Back in December, Warner Bros and Legendary Entertainment announced that González Iñárritu’s film will premiere on October 2, 2026. Per the synopsis, the movie concerns “the most powerful man in the world [who] embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.”

González Iñárritu is once again collaborating with his Birdman co-writers Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolas Giacobone, with Sabina Bierman also sharing a screenwriting credit.

The sci-fi thriller The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision), and Himesh Patel (Station Eleven), had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and is now heading for a March 21st theatrical release, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. With that date just a week away, a poster for the film has been unveiled and can be seen at the bottom of this article.

The feature directorial debut of music video director Fleur Fortuné, who was working from a screenplay by John Donnelly and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, The Assessment centers on Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Patel), a successful couple who hope to become parents in a near future where resources are extremely limited and the government keeps firm control over reproduction. In looking to do so, the pair are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Vikander), who moves into their home for seven days to...

The sci-fi thriller The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision), and Himesh Patel (Station Eleven), had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and now Deadline reports that Magnolia Pictures has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to the film. Their plan is to get it into theatres on March 21st. You can check out the trailer above!

The feature directorial debut of music video director Fleur Fortuné, who was working from a screenplay by John Donnelly and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, The Assessment centers on Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Patel), a successful couple who hope to become parents in a near future where resources are extremely limited and the government keeps firm control over reproduction. In looking to do so, the pair are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Vikander), who moves into their home for seven days to evaluate whether they...

Elizabeth Olsen doesn’t appreciate Alicia Vikander meddling in her plan to start a family in the trailer for the sci-fi feature The Assessment.

Director Fleur Fortuné’s movie hits theaters March 21 from Magnolia Pictures after premiering at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Rounding out the cast are Himesh Patel, Minnie Driver, Indira Varma, Charlotte Ritchie, Nicholas Pinnock, Leah Harvey and Anaya Thorley.

Set in the near future where parenthood is heavily controlled, The Assessment centers on a couple played by Olsen and Patel, whose relationship is examined over a seven-day period by an assessor (Vikander) ahead of their pregnancy plan.

“Over the next seven days, you’ll undergo close observation and formal testing to ascertain suitability for parenting,” Vikander tells the couple in the trailer. “I want to get to know the real you.”

Later, a frustrated Olsen exclaims to Patel, “I want a real child — not this.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired US rights to TIFF 2024 selection The Assessment starring Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, and Himesh Patel and has set a March 21 theatrical release.

Music video director Fleur Fortuné’s feature film feature directorial debut follows a couple’s unfolding nightmare when they apply to have children in a near-future state where reproduction is strictly regulated.

The Assessment is a Number 9 Films, augenschein Filmproduktion, ShivHans Pictures and Project Infinity feature production in association with Tiki Tāne Pictures.

Thomas and John Donnelly co-wrote the screenplay and the producers are Stephen Woolley, Elizabeth Karlsen, Jonas Katzenstein, Maximilian Leo, Shivani Rawat,...

Exclusive: Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to The Assessment, a sci-fi thriller starring Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), Elizabeth Olsen (His Three Daughters) and Himesh Patel (Station Eleven), which will be released in theaters on March 21, after world premiering at last year’s Toronto Film Festival.

Marking the feature directorial debut of veteran music video helmer Fleur Fortuné, the film follows Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Patel), a successful couple who hope to become parents in a near future where resources are extremely limited and the government keeps firm control over reproduction. In looking to do so, the pair are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Vikander), who moves into their home for seven days to evaluate whether they deserve to move forward in their parenting journey. What Mia and Aaryan are hoping is a routine test quickly unravels into a psychological nightmare, forcing them to question the very foundations of...

MediCinema, the hospital charity providing cinema to patients, will receive the Bafta outstanding British contribution to cinema award at the 2025 Bafta Film Awards.

MediCinema CEO Colin Lawrence will be presented with the award during the ceremony at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, on Sunday, February 16.

The honorary award is presented to an individual or organisation that has made ‘a significant and inspiring contribution to film through a particular project or work’ according to Bafta, with a focus on recognising efforts that might not otherwise be eligible in the competitive categories.

Founded in 1999, MediCinema builds and operates cinemas inside hospitals and places of care,...

It’s been nine years since the great Alan Rickman died and Hollywood continues to miss him dearly. The actor, known for his languid voice, first made a name for himself when he played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The role earned him a Tony nomination and, from there, he never looked back. Rickman found greater glory after portraying the German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard. For the next three decades, the calls kept coming, asking him whether he’d be interested in this and that,

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Michael CollinsRWarDramaThrillerHistoryRelease DateOctober 25, 1996Runtime132 minutesDirectorNeil JordanCastSee All

Aidan Quinn Harry Roland

Liam Neeson Michael Collins

Stephen Rea Ned Broy

Alan Rickman Eamon de Valera

Where to watchCloseWHERE To WATCHStreaming

Producers Stephen Woolley Powered by

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Liam...

An upcoming film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View Of Hills is to be co-produced by Lava Films, the Polish production company whose credits include Oscar-nominated The Girl With The Needle.

Lava Films will handle post-production on the mystery drama, which is directed by Japanese filmmaker Kei Ishikawa and was shot in Japan and the UK.

It has also been confirmed that Japan’s Gaga Corporation will handle international sales and is set to introduce the title to buyers at the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin next month.

Also joining the production team is Pawel Mykietyn, the...

The UK Global Screen Fund’s (Ukgsf) next round of awardees from its distribution strand of support includes The Penguin Lessons, Bring Them Down, The Salt Path and Kneecap.

The Ukgsf has issued 18 new awards, administered by the BFI, to support international opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector. Ukgsf is financed through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), and the awards see a further £413,995 allocated through the £7m per year fund’s international distribution strand.

The international distribution strand is now managed by Jordan Allwood, who joined the team in October from UK sales agent Independent Entertainment and replacesFrancesca Walker.

Bafta’s talent programme, Bafta Elevate, has launched an initiative for creatives in documentary and specialist factual from underrepresented backgrounds.

Bafta has partnered with men’s fashion brand dunhill to deliver the two-year programme aimed at mid-senior development producers, producers, directors and producer-directors.

The 20 participants selected – 50% of which will be women - will have access to networking and industry exposure alongside a host of wider knowledge-building and focused professional development over two years.

Documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia and presenter, actor and director Reggie Yates are among the creatives to endorse the programme.

The programme comes as a result of extensive...

Barbie, Wonka and Paddington producer David Heyman was among the winners at the biennial Production Guild of Great Britain (Pggb) 2024 awards, which took place in London on September 14.

Heyman received the contribution to the industry award. “This has been a challenging period for the film and television industries in the UK – we’ve had Covid, we’ve had the strikes and the economy in general has been struggling, to put it mildly. But I feel we’re turning the corner,” said Heyman on receiving the accolade.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

“In the next year, I think more productions will start up,...

It is a deceptively simple premise for a two-hour feature film. A married couple who had planned their retirement in a B&b are, due to dire financial circumstances and bum luck, forced out of their home at a point that is, on the surface at least, completely devastating. With their kids now off at school, they make the decision to pack up what they can in their backpacks and take off on the Salt Path, a 630-mile stretch from Dorset to Somerset on the Southwestern English Coast. To make matters worse, the husband has just been diagnosed with a terminal neurodegenerative disease, but they are bound and determined to complete this adventure, perhaps the last of their lives because they have no other choice.

Oh, and it is a 100% true story.

Exquisitely directed by four-time Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott with a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (She Said) based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, The Salt Path is an inspiring story of love and resilience in a situation that might otherwise break most people, especially a couple entering their later years with little hope against an unforgiving system. This is certainly not the first film based on someone setting out on an ambitious walk for various personal reasons. Martin Sheen starred as a man tackling El Camino de Santiago trail in 2010’s spiritual The Way; Reese Witherspoon played the depressed Cheryl Strayed in Wild, the 2014 true story of her 1100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail; and Mark Wahlberg starred in another true story, 2020’s Joe Bell, about a father who walks across America in protest of the bullying of his son.

All of these films, and other similar stories of determination against all odds, were admirable attempts but not always successful movies as sometimes dramatizing the journey can be a little repetitive. Where Elliott succeeds with a fine Lenkiewicz template, is getting us instantly engaged in the travails of Ray (Gillian Anderson) and Moth (Jason Isaacs), a couple who could be you or me as life hits them hard in the gut and the Salt Path becomes somehow a cure, a spiritual redemption however temporary, to set them on a new path (literally and figuratively) in life. Is it an adventure? Is it insanity or an existential mid-life crisis? In some ways, it is reminiscent of the premise of John Cheever’s The Swimmer and its film adaptation, in which Burt Lancaster swam from one neighbor’s pool to another, encountering various people along the way. But moreover, it is the tale of these two born to come together to experience life together, no matter how hard that gets.

After unreasonably being evicted from their B&b, having their bank account dried up due to legal expenses and losing their farm, this likable couple decides to fullfil a dream and live off the land as it were by embarking with just chump change on an ambitious walk covering 630 breathtaking miles, even as Moth has had a pretty devastating diagnosis. This might stop most people in their tracks, but in this case only sets this couple off in theirs.

The story from this point on becomes episodic as they make their way, stopping at various points and towns, interacting with the locals and relatives, bleeding an Atm dry just for enough to get food, and even for Ray getting a job shearing sheep. Nothing hugely life-threatening happens along the way, no sudden tidal wave or earthquakes, none of the usual movie tropes, but rather a love story of two people making the most of where life has brought them to this point. Of course to make this work, you need actors of the extraordinary grace and talent of Anderson and Isaacs who are entirely believable as this pair staring down nature as an antidote to the cards life has dealt. Both are excellent in essentially a two-hander, although they get support along the way from various people they meet or stay with.

With Helene Louvart’s excellent cinematography a real plus, The Salt Path is a cinematic journey worth taking. It had its world premiere Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival. Producers are Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Lloyd Levin and Beatriz Levin.

Title: The Salt Path

Festival: Toronto

Director: Marianne Elliott

Screenwriter: Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Cast: Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, James Lance, Hermione Norris, Megan Placito

Sales agents: Rocket Science, Black Bear

Running time: 1 hr 55 min...

The press have been digging up old interviews with GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance in which he suggests there should be a dividing line in society between those who have children, perhaps even giving those parents more than one vote, and those who don’t by suggesting they should be lesser in society. That sounded like political absurdity to me, and then I saw The Assessment.

Supposedly in the near future this “sci-fi” premise creates a world in which prospective parents must pass an initial test in order to prove their basic worth for having a child, and then endure a seven-day live-in visit from a facilitator known as the assessor who will put them through the ringer in all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable situations where at the end they will either get a passing grade — or not. Sounds like the ideal job for Vance should he decide to switch careers.

Filmmaker Fleur Fortuné says it was necessary to take Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Olsen, the cast of her thrilling debut feature The Assessment, into “a danger zone” for them to fully comprehend the implications involved in making a movie set in a dystopian future where couples have to grovel for permission to have a child.

The film is an emotional minefield where people are harshly appraised by assessors to judge whether or not they would make suitable parents.

Fortuné says that she knew it was vital for her and the two actors to meet together before the shoot. “I wanted to put them at ease,” she says.

The Paris-based director had already conversed with Vikander. “When I met with Alicia, she was like, ‘This scares me a lot, but I really want to do it.’ That’s good, because I felt if she tells me that, it means that she...

Exclusive: Movie producers in Hollywood and London would court three-time Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott and ask her what she wanted to do. She’d reply that what she really wanted to do was to film a story about an older woman who’s a protagonist. “They’d smile at me, and then I’d never hear from them again,” she says with a mischievous grin.

Let’s mark, then, The Salt Path — her film directorial debut, which was screened to press today at the Toronto Film Festival and will have its world premiere September 12 — as a win and a sock to those who rebuffed her efforts to tell stories about women who no longer are ingenues but something much more interesting: They’ve experienced and lived life.

The Salt Path stars Gillian Anderson, at the height of her powers, as Raynor “Ray” Winn, who learns two things in quick succession...

Prime Video has acquired international rights excluding Germany to TIFF sci-fi drama The Assessment starring Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Olsen.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Paris-based commercials, shorts and music video director Fleur Fortuné and will receive its world premiere in Special Presentations on Sunday.

The Assessment follows a couple as their seven-day assessment for the right to have a child turns into a nightmare. Himesh Patel also stars, and John Donnelly and writing duo Nell Garfath Cox and David Thomas co-wrote the screenplay.

Number 9’s Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen developed and produced the film, and Germany’s Augenschein Filmproduktion,...

Exclusive: In what we understand to be a high seven-figure deal, Prime Video has scooped up all international rights (excluding Germany) to Toronto Film Festival sci-fi movie The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider), Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision), and Himesh Patel (Station Eleven).

Set in a near future where parenthood is strictly controlled, the film charts a couple’s seven-day assessment for the right to have a child. The ordeal unravels into a psychological nightmare, forcing them to question the foundations of their society and what it means to be human.

Also starring are Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting), Indira Varma (Game of Thrones), Nicholas Pinnock (Captain America: The First Avenger), Charlotte Ritchie (Wonka), and Leah Harvey (Foundation).

We’ve heard good things about the movie, which marks Fleur Fortuné’s feature debut. Fortuné has previously directed music videos for 83, Skrillex and Drake, and ads for brands such as Chanel, Apple,...

A feature adaptation of A Pale View of Hills, the debut novel of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, has begun filming in Japan.

The mystery drama is adapted and directed by Japanese filmmaker Kei Ishikawa, whose previous feature A Man scooped eight awards including best film at the Japanese Academy Awards following its premiere at Venice in 2022.

The upcoming film is presented by U-Next, Japan’s leading local streaming company, and produced by Bunbuku, the Japanese production company founded by Hirokazu Kore-eda, in association with the UK’s Number 9 Films, led by producers Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen.

Ishiguro serves...

“A Pale View of Hills,” the debut novel of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, is being adapted as a feature film. The picture is now in production and being directed by Japan’s Ishikawa Kei.

The film is presented by U-Next, Japan’s leading local streaming company. Production is by Bunbuku in association with Number 9 Films, the U.K. company headed by Stephen Woolley (“The Crying Game”) and Elizabeth Karlsen.

Gaga Corporation will handle distribution in Japan after the film’s anticipated completion in summer 2025. No sales agent or international distributor has been attached.

Number Nine Films previously produced “Living,” the Ishiguro-scripted, Bill Nighy-starring adaptation of Kurosawa Akira’s classic film “Ikiru,” and earned two Oscar nominations.

Gaga describes the film as: “a mystery drama that unravels the secrets of a Japanese widow’s memories that cross over between post-war Nagasaki, Japan in 1950s and England in 1980s,...

Over the next five years, £9.5bn of investment in London is expected to be generated as a result of Film London’s support for film, TV and animation production, according to figures released by the organisation this morning.

This investment would add an additional £1bn Gva (gross value added) for London over the same five-year period, leading to 2028-2029.

The release of the figures coincided with Film London’s 20th anniversary, celebrated with an event at London’s The Standard Hotel.

The event was attended by UK industry representatives including Barbara Broccoli, Andy Harries, Daniel Battsek, producer Stephen Woolley, filmmaker...

In the pages of her 1976 debut novel Interview with the Vampire, author Anne Rice introduced readers to a blonde-haired vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who was given the nickname The Brat Prince. He’s a character Rice loved writing about and her fans loved reading about, and he appeared in several more stories that make up the series known as The Vampire Chronicles. These days, Sam Reid is playing Lestat on AMC’s Interview with the Vampire TV show – but the first actor to bring the character to life on the screen was Tom Cruise, who was cast to play Lestat in director Neil Jordan’s 1994 film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire – a bit of casting that was quite controversial at the time, with even Rice herself speaking out against it.

Jordan has written about the casting of Cruise in his memoir Amnesiac: A Memoir by Neil Jordan, which...

Exclusive: Here’s a big one in the European M&a world. Beta Film has taken a stake in Number 9 TV, a new small screen subsidiary of Carol and Living producer Number 9 Films.

Number 9 TV will be helmed by Kate Laffey, who has left her role running Paramount TV International Studios in the UK. She becomes Head of TV as the London indie expands its business to series.

Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed. Beta said the partnership will combine Number 9’s creative expertise with The Swarm seller’s experience in developing, financing and distributing TV and film. Beta has around 30 labels including Sweden’s Unlimited Stories, X Filme Creative Pool and Italy’s Cross Productions. Beta already has several ties to the UK TV market, for instance distributing series such as Professor T and Sam Heughan-starrer The Couple Next Door. This new partnership with Number 9 joins one...

The UK industry gathered at the Cannes UK pavilion yesterday (May 16) to celebrate the work of the eight projects taking part in this year’s Cannes Great 8 showcase.

Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott, Sean Dunn’s The Fall Of Sir Douglas Weatherford and Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path were among the eight titles taking part, with filmmakers taking to the stage to discuss their projects.

Scroll down to see the full line-up

The only documentary in this year’s line-up is Witches, from Elizabeth Sankey, in which the filmmaker explores the unexpected connections...

Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott, Sean Dunn’s The Fall Of Sir Douglas Weatherford and Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path, featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, are among the eight films taking part in the Great 8 showcase, which presents new UK feature films from first-and second-time UK filmmakers to international distributors and festival programmers.

Now in its seventh year, the 2024 Great 8 showcase is funded and produced by the BFI and the British Council, with support from the Great Britain & Northern Ireland campaign, BBC Film and Film4.

In preparation for Cannes, unseen footage from...

Neil Jordan’s horror-comedy features Cruise in scene-chewing form in a film that outrageously explores the vampire’s actually rather complex lived experience

‘You have no idea how few vampires have the stamina for immortality!” Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt bring the staying power in Neil Jordan’s entirely outrageous horror-comedy bromance, produced by Stephen Woolley and adapted for the screen by Anne Rice from her own bestseller, now rereleased for its 30-year anniversary. The histrionic energy and ambition, operatic pathos and dapper, jaunty offensiveness are undimmed. Succeeding decades have only increased the film’s fanbase. I remember a dinner at the Edinburgh film festival with Catherine Breillat, director of Romance and Anatomy of Hell, as she discoursed with passion on how she adored it.

It is now almost mandatory with people of a certain age to claim that a certain masterpiece of their salad days “couldn’t be made...

Julian Senior, the veteran Warner Bros. marketing and publicity executive in Europe who enjoyed close relationships with filmmakers including Oscar winners Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, David Puttnam and Neil Jordan, has died. He was 85.

Senior died Jan. 1 of pneumonia and heart failure in a hospital near his home in Borehamwood, England, Conor Nolan, his friend and onetime Warner Bros. colleague, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of South Africa, Senior joined Warner Bros. in 1970 after an eight-year run at MGM, where he was an advertising and publicity consultant in its European Regional Office, and he stuck with the studio through 2000.

At the start, Senior helped mastermind the advertising and publicity campaign for the landmark Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange (1971), and he also worked with the famed director on The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

“He taught me how publicity, advertising and marketing operates,” Senior once said of Kubrick.

Film curator June Givanni will be honoured with Bafta’s outstanding British contribution to cinema award at the Bafta film awards on February 18.

Givanni receives the award for her work with the June Givanni PanAfrican Archive (Jgpaca) which has been preserving the history of pan-African and Black British cinema and culture for over 40 years. With over 10,000 artefacts, it is one of the largest independent archives in the UK.

Givanni has also programmed for international festivals, organisations and TV channels including Toronto International Film Festival’s Planet Africa and the African Caribbean Film Unit at the British Film Institute. At the...

Universal has Blumhouse horror ‘Night Swim’; BFI has ‘Scala!!!’.

James Hawes’ Nicholas Winton biopic One Life and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley story Priscilla lead the new films on the first weekend of 2024 at the UK-Ireland box office.

Distributed by Warner Bros and opening in a sizeable 699 sites, One Life tells the story of Nicholas Winton, a London broker who rescued 669 children – predominantly Jewish – from the Nazis leading up to the Second World War. The film has £1.6m already, having opened for previews on Monday, January 1.

Johnny Flynn, a 2005 Screen Star of Tomorrow, plays the younger Winton; with Anthony Hopkins playing him in the 1980s,...

Timothée Chalamet is back for Dune’s epic conclusion, Joaquin Phoenix returns as the Joker and Paddington heads to Peru – there’s a host of great cinema coming in the new year

• More from the 2024 culture preview

A documentary about the extraordinary history of London’s Scala cinema, a repertory movie theatre in the dark heart of 1980s King’s Cross, transformed by manager (and now film producer) Stephen Woolley into an alt-cinephile paradise crossed with a grindhouse den, with groundbreaking selections of LGBTQ+ movies, martial arts, pulp classics, auteur gems and fabulously scuzzy all-nighters.

• 5 January...

Voting will close on November 1.

Voting is now open for the Big Screen Award’s Best British Film of the Year 2023.

The vote closes on November 1 and the winner will be announced at the Big Screen Awards ceremony on November 23 at The Brewery in London.

The Big Screen Awards 2023: Best British Film Of The Year

Last year’s best British film was awarded to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast with Mark Jenkin’s Bait winning in 2019 and 2018’s inaugural prize going to Daniel Kokotajlo’s Apostasy.

The full list of nominees for this year’s Big Screen Awards can be found here.

The well-liked film critic is fondly remembered as a passionate supporter of arthouse films.

Figures from the UK and international industry have been paying tribute to the beloved former Guardian, Screen International and Evening Standard film critic Derek Malcolm, who died aged 91 at the weekend.

“Derek Malcolm was a great critic and a true friend of the Venice Film Festival. Even at the Lido he exercised his great curiosity and sensitivity towards global cinema. It’s a big loss for film culture,” Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Vernice Film Festival, told Screen.

Legendary US documentary maker Fred Wiseman reminisced...

The former film critic of the Guardian, who has died aged 91, was a friend to many of those whose work he admired – and criticised. Here, Stephen Frears, Asif Kapadia, Jeremy Thomas and Stephen Woolley pay tribute

Peter Bradshaw: my predecessor was a film-world darling and heir to scandal

‘He always looked as though he was up to mischief’

Stephen Frears, director

He’d come up to you at solemn occasions with some wonderful, deflating phrase. With his wickedly impish face, he always looked as though he was up to mischief.

Exclusive: Ted Lasso star James Lance and Hermione Norris have joined Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in the feature adaptation of Raynor Winn’s inspirational bestselling memoir The Salt Path.

The film marks the screen directing debut of Marianne Elliott, the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning director of stage hits War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Company and Death of a Salesman, as Deadline revealed in May.

The Salt Path follows married couple Raynor and Moth Winn, portrayed by Anderson and Isaacs, who, after being evicted from their farm, embark on a long and winding trek along the South West Coast path in UK’s picturesque Devon and Cornwall.

Lance has been cast as Grant, one of a handful of the disparate characters who cross paths with Raynor and Moth during their year long journey.

Norris has signed on as Polly,...

13 titles have received funding in the latest round from the £7m per year UK Global Screen Fund.

A raft of UK Cannes titles are among the 13 features to receive awards given out by the British Film Institute (BFI) in the latest round of funding from the £7m per year UK Global Screen Fund (Ukgsf), supporting international opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector.

These include Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero, on which Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge is the UK producer and will receive the award; Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex, with the funding going to Emily Leo...

Alicia Vikander, the Swedish actor who won an Oscar for her role in “The Danish Girl” in 2015, has taken on a remarkable range of characters in recent years – but is still stretching her boundaries, she says.

Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where she presented the historical drama “Firebrand” on opening night, Vikander says she’s now prepping for films that offer distinctly different challenges than her turn as Catherine Parr, the only one of Henry VIII’s six wives to outlive the marriage.

One character she admits she’s still deciphering is the central figure in the upcoming sci-fi feature “The Assessment,” a feature project with Paris-based writer/director Fleur Fortuné.

“I got the script sent to me,” says Vikander, adding that something about the story instantly intrigued her. Details are still under wraps, she says, but the film is set in a world of the near future...

A-list actresses Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Olsen will be teaming on the feature film debut by a filmmaker who (it was only a matter of time) you’ve likely seen her work via her commercials and music video work. Screen Daily got the scoop that Fleur Fortuné will direct The Assessment — which will be produced by Number 9 Films’ Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen and Germany’s augenschein Filmproduktion. Production will take place this summer in Cologne, Germany. We expect this to be a full year in post — so only ready for the fall festival circuit of 2024. We’ll be able sort out who is who shortly once further casting announcements have been made.…...

’The Light’ is one of a slate of features to receive backing from German regional fund Film-und Medienstiftung Nrw.

The Light, Tom Tykwer’s first film for the cinema since his 2016 German-us comedy A Hologram For The King is one of 10 feature film projects allocated almost €6m in production support by the Düsseldorf-based regional fund Film-und Medienstiftung Nrw.

Tykwer’s original screenplay for The Light (Das Licht) centres on a troubled family who take on a Syrian immigrant as a housekeeper. When she successfully shakes up the lives of the family she then confronts them with the dark fate of her own.

The UK-Germany co-production is set to shoot in Cologne this year.

Alicia VIkander and Elizabeth Olsen have signed to star in The Assessment, the debut feature from French filmmaker Fleur Fortuné, which is gearing up for a shoot in Cologne this summer at Mmc Studios.

The futuristic drama is a co-production between Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen’s UK-based Number 9 Films and Germany’s augenschein Filmproduktion, and has received €1m from Cologne regional film fund Filmstiftung Nrw. German distributor Capleight is already in place to release the film.

Fortuné has made a name for herself with a series of visually stunning shorts,...

Film includes interviews with John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Mary Harron.

BFI Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Scala!!!, a feature documentary about the legendary London cinema which ran from 1978 to 1993, from production company Fifty Foot Woman.

The film will make its world premiere in the ’Documents and Documentaries’ section of the 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna in Italy this Sunday, June 25.

The full title of the film is Scala!!! Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits. Directed by Jane Giles...

Film includes interviews with John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Mary Harron.

BFI Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Scala!!!, a feature documentary about the legendary London cinema which ran from 1978 to 1993.

The film has its world premiere in the Documents and Documentaries section of the 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy this Sunday, June 25. BFI Distribution acquired the film from production company Fifty Foot Woman.

The full title of the film is Scala!!! Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits. Directed...

Rocket Science is launching world sales on the title at Cannes.

Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs have signed on to star in UK drama The Salt Path, the feature debut of acclaimed theatre director Marianne Elliott. Rocket Science is launching world sales on the title at Cannes.

The story is based on Raynor Winn’s memoir about trekking 630 miles of UK coastline with her husband after they were forcibly removed from their home. Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who wrote the screenplay for She Said, wrote the film adaptation.

Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley of Number 9 Films produce with Shadowplay Features.

The film...

Gillian Anderson and multi-award-winning actor Jason Isaacs have joined the cast on ‘The Salt Path.’ An adaptation of Raynor Winn’s global bestselling memoir.

The movie is the profound true story of husband and wife, Raynor and Moth Winn’s 630-mile trek along the beautiful but rugged Cornish, Devon and Dorset coastline. After being forcibly removed from their home, they make the desperate decision to keep walking in the hope that, in nature, they will find solace and a sense of acceptance. With depleted resources and only a tent and the bare essentials between them, every step along the path is a testament to their growing strength and determination. The story is a journey that is exhilarating, challenging, and liberating in equal measure. A portrayal of home and how it can be lost and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

Also in news – Ana De Armas, Jude Law & more join...

Dunn was a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2017

Loran Dunn, UK producer and 2017 Screen Star of Tomorrow, has been awarded the 2023 Simon Relph memorial bursary fund of £15,000 by Creative UK.

Dunn is based in Manchester and founder of production company Delaval Film, through which she produced Jason Barker’s documentary A Deal With The Universe which world premiered at BFI’s Flare Festival in 2018.

The producer currently has two features in the works - Hoard from 2022 Screen Star of Tomorrow Luna Carmoon, which is aiming to launch at a festival this year; and Jack Benjamin Gill’s Beef which...

Best Actor Oscar nominee Bill Nighy (“Living”) recently chatted with Gold Derby’s Rob Licuria on how his involvement in the Lionsgate film was a “marvelous development” and “completely unexpected.” “Living” is an adaptation of “Ikiru,” the Japanese drama film from 1952. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro wanted to “reimagine the Kurosawa movie” with an English twist, and Nighy explains in detail how he was blown away by the “completely brilliant” script.

After working in the industry for decades, this marks Nighy’s first career Oscar nomination. He was also recognized at the BAFTAs, Critics Choice, Golden Globe and SAG Awards for his role as Rodney Williams, a bureaucrat who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. “I don’t read anything about myself, and I don’t get out much, and I don’t watch the movies,” the actor tells us. “But I know that I am associated with a kind of Englishness.

There are great films in the canon that cinema purists consider to be hands-off when it comes to remakes — especially anything in the filmography of the great Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. But when you have a script written by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day, an English-language adaptation of the filmmaker’s 1952 drama, Ikiru, immediately becomes a prestige project rather than a regurgitation of art house IP.

Members of the Academy clearly think so too, as Sony Pictures Classics’ Living earned first-time Oscar nominations for both Ishiguro and the film’s star, Bill Nighy, for whom Ishiguro wrote his gentlemanly protagonist Mr. Williams. Set a year after Kurosawa’s original film was released, Living follows the humdrum life of a stoic London bureaucrat and widower whose life is upended when he receives a fatal diagnosis. With his time running out, Mr. Williams begins to...

Stanislaus Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), and Tjaden Stackfleet (Edin Hasanovic) in Netflix’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’

All Quiet on the Western Front went into the 2023 Ee BAFTA Film Awards with 14 nominations, the most of any film, and emerged the year’s big winner. The brilliant adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel took home Best Film, Best Director (Edward Berger), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Score, Sound, and Film Not in the English Language.

The Banshees of Inisherin scored four wins out of its 10 nominations, collecting acting wins for Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon as well as Outstanding British Film and Original Screenplay honors. Elvis also took home four wins including Leading Actor (Austin Butler), Casting, Costume Design, and Make Up & Hair.

Austin Butler, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, and Edward Berger earned their first BAFTA wins while Cate Blanchett picked up her fourth with...