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The Quirino Awards, the prestigious trans-Atlantic ceremony recognizing excellence in Ibero-American animation, has officially unveiled its finalists for this year’s 8th edition.

With 26 nominated works across ten categories, this year’s competition highlights the creative strength of the Ibero-America’s animation industry. Spain, Brazil and Portugal have emerged as the frontrunners in nominations, setting the stage for a May 10th awards ceremony in the Spanish Canary Island co-capital of Tenerife.

Spain continues to dominate the competition, securing or sharing all nominations in the best feature film and best school short film categories. Meanwhile, Chile, Portugal and Argentina each boast two nominations in the best series, best short film, and best music video categories. Brazil leads in the technical categories, with five nominations across visual development, animation design, sound design and original music.

This year’s feature category includes “Buffalo Kids” – a high-grossing kids and family feature set in the...

Except perhaps Souleymane’s Story‘s Abou Sangare biking away with the European Actor award (beating out Conclave‘s Ralph Fiennes) there were no surprises at last night’s European Film Awards with Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Pérez winning four of the five prizes it was nominated for. Karla Sofía Gascón won Best Actress, Audiard won Best Screenwriter and Director while the film the top prize of the evening. Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal’s No Other Land continues to dominate the docu awards circuit which means here is a legit shot at a future Oscar. Here are the noms and winners:

European Director:

Winner: Jacques Audiard for Emilia PÉREZ

Andrea Arnold for Bird

Pedro Almodóvar for The Room Next Door

Mohammad Rasoulof for The Seed Of The Sacred Fig

Maura Delpero for Vermiglio

European Screenwriter:

Winner: Jacques Audiard for Emilia PÉREZ

Magnus von Horn & Line Langebek...

Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” won best film, director, screenwriter and actress at the 37th European Film Awards, which were held Saturday in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The best film nominees included narrative features “The Room Next Door,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” “The Substance” and “Vermiglio,” as well as documentaries “Bye Bye Tiberias,” “Dahomey,” “In Limbo,” “No Other Land” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” and animated films “Flow,” “Living Large,” “Savages,” “Sultana’s Dream” and “They Shot the Piano Player.”

The statuette for actress was won by Karla Sofía Gascón for “Emilia Pérez.” The other nominees were Renate Reinsve in “Armand,” Trine Dyrholm in “The Girl With the Needle,” Vic Carmen Sonne in “The Girl With the Needle” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door.”

The director award went to Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” who beat Andrea Arnold for “Bird,” Pedro Almodóvar for “The Room Next Door,” Mohammad Rasoulof...

The European Film Awards is taking place in the Swiss city of Lucerne tonight (December 7) and Screen is revealing the winners live from the ceremony, which kicked off at 20.00 Cet.

Scroll down for winners

To read the winners as they are announced, you can refresh the page and scroll down to the full list below.

The ceremony is also being live-streamed below.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door are the front-runners for this year’s awards with four nominations apiece.

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule...

Jacques Audiard‘s “Emilia Pérez” and Pedro Almodóvar‘s “The Room Next Door” topped Tuesday’s 37th European Film Awards nominations with four apiece.

Both are up for Best European Film, Best European Director, and Best European Screenwriter prizes, while their leads, Karla Sofía Gascón in “Emilia Pérez” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door,” will face off in Best European Actress.

Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” nabbed three nominations for film, director, and screenwriter. Coralie Fargeat‘s word-of-mouth hit “The Substance” scored two bids for film and screenwriter honors.

For the first time, films nominated for Best European Documentary and Best Animated Feature Film are eligible in the Best European Film category, leading to an expanded list of 15 nominees. Also making the cut for the top prize are Italy’s Oscar entry “Vermiglio,” Senegal’s entry “Dahomey,” and Latvia’s entry and animated film “Flow.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door have emerged as the front-runners for the European Film Awards 2024, with four nominations apiece.

The nominations for the main categories of this year’s awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne, were announced this morning by the European Film Academy.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule change which means that films shortlisted for the best documentary and animation categories can also compete in the section.

Emilia Pérez is nominated in the best European film category,...

The nominees for this year’s European Film Awards have been unveiled, with “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Room Next Door” all up for best European film.

Movies also in the running for the ceremony’s top award — which was expanded this year to documentaries and animated features — include Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias”; Mati Diop’s “Dahomey”; Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow”; Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Balla’s “No Other Land”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio.”

“Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance” lead the nominees overall, with each film scoring four respective nominations. The winners will be revealed during an awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

See all the nominees below.

European Film

“Bye Bye Tiberias” — documentary film, directed by Lina Soualem, produced by Jean-Marie Nizan, Guillaume Malandrin and Ossama Bawardi

“Dahomey” — documentary film, directed by Mati Diop,...

The Substance by Coralie Fargeat, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof are among the nominees for the 2024 European Film Awards (EFAs), organizers unveiled on Tuesday.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door earned four noms each, including for best European film and best director. Sacred Fig is up for the best film, best director, and best screenwriter prizes. The Substance is in the running for the best film and best screenwriter honors.

In the best actress race, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón faces Renate Reinsve, Tilda Swinton for her role in The Room Next Door, and The Girl With the Needle actresses Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne. For The Girl With the Needle, Magnus von Horn and Line Langebek are also nominated in the best screenwriter category.

Queer star Daniel Craig and...

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominations in the animated feature film category of the European Film Awards.

The nominated films are Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow,” Kristina Dufková’s “Living Large,” Claude Barras’

“Savages,” Isabel Herguera’s “Sultana’s Dream,” and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s “They Shot the Piano Player.”

“Flow” won the main jury and audience awards at Annecy, and the award for original music. It played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

“Sultana’s Dream” won Annecy’s Contrechamp Award, while “Living Large” won the Contrechamp Jury Award.

“Savages” played in competition at Annecy and also screened at Locarno. Barras was Oscar nominated for “My Life as a Courgette.”

Mariscal and Trueba were Oscar nominated for “Chico & Rita.” Trueba’s live-action drama “Belle Epoque” won an Oscar for best foreign-language film.

The committee that decided on the nominations was comprised of representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon,...

The European Film Academy on Wednesday unveiled the 5 nominees for best animated feature for this year’s European Film Awards.

The 2024 animated nominees include Gints Zilbalodis Flow, a dialog-free eco-fable about a cat that bands together with other animals to try and survive a cataclysmic flood; Living Large, a coming-of-age tale from Kristina Dufková about a heavy-set 12-year-boy with a talent in the kitchen; Savages, Claude Barras’ Boreno-set drama about deforestation and a lost baby orangutan; Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, about a Spanish artist who becomes obsessed with finding a female utopia where women can live in peace; and They Shot the Piano Player from directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, a portrait of Francisco Tenório Júnior, a leading light of the thriving Brazilian music scene of the 1960s and ’70s who went missing in 1976.

Sultana’s Dream They Shot the Piano Player

All 5 nominees will also be...

Five animated features are in the running for the European Film Awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne.

The nominees in the category European Animated Feature Film are: Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, Kristina Dufková’s Living Large, Claude Barras’ Savages, Isabel Herguera’s Sultana’s Dream, and Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s They Shot The Piano Player.

Gints Zilbalodis’s second feature Flow centres on an independent cat obliged to seek allies among the animal kingdom after a devastating flood. It premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and later won four prizes at Annecy including the Competition jury...

Quick Links Netflix's They Shot the Piano Player Honors the Genre They Shot the Piano Player Is a Study That Highlights the Artist

Streaming now on Netflix, They Shot the Piano Player is an unusual and captivating film that fuses history and fiction to explore the roots of Bossa Nova music while also serving as a beautiful tribute to a lost star. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum and directed by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba, They Shot the Piano Player uses a fragmented style of animation to piece together the past and the present to honor the birth of the Bossa Nova style and the contributions of piano player Francisco Tenorio Jr.

Goldblum stars as Jeff Harris, a music fan and journalist who travels to Latin America to write a book on the Bossa Nova movement of music. From Brazil to Buenos Aires, Harris interviews noted musicians and becomes intrigued when,...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “They Shot the Piano Player,” an animated epic written and co-directed by Fernando Trueba that combines the Bossa Nova sound, a music reporter and a mystery about a long lost pianist. Currently in select theaters. See local listings.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Jeff Goldblum voices the real-life Jeff Harris, a music journalist who goes to Argentina to research a book on the Bossa Nova sound, which was a worldwide sensation in the 1960s and ‘70s, only to be repressed by a dictatorship in Argentina that began in 1974. Swept up in that coup was the pianist Tenorio Jr., a major force both in Bossa Nova and his own unique approach to the instrument. In Harris’ research, Tenorio’s name comes up again and again, to the point where the journalist’s new mission is to solve the mystery of the piano player’s disappearance.

The 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TiDF) is underway in the historic Greek port city, after an opening night ceremony that honored Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba.

Trueba, the Oscar-winning director of Belle Époque, received the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander, recognizing his contributions to cinema and culture. The honor was presented to him by Katerina Sakellaropoulou, president of Hellenic Republic, the first time a Greek head of state has launched the international event.

“Great documentaries profoundly move us, broaden our understanding of the world, challenge our beliefs, prejudices, or our established assumptions,” President Sakellaropoulou said from the stage at the Olympion cinema. “An artistic portrayal of reality, or a creative handling of an otherwise unseen aspect of it, a poetic depiction of a documented truth, or a subjective documentation of some of its dimensions, documentary is a film genre requiring cultural sensitivity, journalistic integrity, moral rectitude, conceptual purity, and political discernment.

Taking place just weeks after the historic passage of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Greece, the 26th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival — which runs March 7 – 17 — pays tribute to that watershed moment in the long-running fight for equal rights for the country’s LGBTQ community, while also issuing a rallying cry for diversity, inclusion and empowerment across the globe.

“Our festival aspires to map out a detailed and thorough overview of our world’s complexity, welcoming films from the four corners of the world, which outline the radical changes, the challenges and the problems of our times,” says festival general director Elise Jalladeau. The program spotlights “the urgent call for diversity, stories of women’s empowerment [and] the visibility not only of the Lgbtqi+ community, but of all marginalized and oppressed groups of people who have suffered discrimination due to their identity,” she adds.

Following on the historic victory for...

Stunning animation highlights the vibrant world of samba jazz and the tragic disappearance of Francisco Tenório Júnior. Trueba and Mariscal misstep with the addition of a distracting fictional journalist, Jeff Harris, in an otherwise compelling narrative. The film sheds light on the political turmoil of Argentina's military junta and the atrocities committed during the "Dirty War" era.

They Shot the Piano Player is a fictional, animated docudrama about the tragic disappearance of Francisco Tenório Júnior. The virtuoso Brazilian pianist was instrumental in popularizing samba jazz, specifically bossa nova and its alternating beat structure, which became a late 50s and 60s global phenomenon. Tenório Jr. vanished the night of March 18, 1976, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after leaving his hotel to run an errand. Spanish filmmakers Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal chronicle his musical legacy and murder at the hands of complicit dictatorial regimes. Their methodology is undoubtedly creative despite a flawed approach.

With no new bust-out limited releases, repertory continues to do its part for the specialty box office, the latest a 4k restoration of Nostalghia. Kino Lorber said the Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film, which opened Wednesday, will gross an estimated $22.87k at Film Forum in NYC for the five days.

It’s currently the top performer at the theater and will take in more than all other films screening there combined over that period. Two additional shows at the Roxie in San Francisco and the Austin Film Society bring combined grosses to about $29.4k. Expands next week to Philadelphia and Montreal with additional markets coming later. The film about a Russian poet and his interpreter, who travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, stars Oleg Yankovskiy, Andrei Gorchakov, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano and Patrizia Terreno.

Kino Lorber had success with the restored 4k re-release of Bernardo Bertolucci’s...

Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they will release Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Bossa Nova-themed animated film They Shot The Piano Player in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on February 23, 2024, before expanding nationwide in the following weeks.

The film is produced by Cristina Huete of Trueba PC (Chico & Rita) in Spain, along with Serge Lalou for Les Films d’Ici (Josep) in France, Janneke van de Kerkhof for Submarine Sublime (BUÑUEL In The Labyrinth Of Turtles) in the Netherlands, and Humberto Santana in Portugal. It is executive produced by Nano Arrieta of Atlantika and Fabien Westerhoff of Film Constellation.

From the duo behind the 2012 Academy Award®-nominated Chico & Rita, They Shot The Piano Player is narrated by Jeff Goldblum and features a who’s who of the best of Brazilian music, including João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, Milton Nascimento and Paulo Moura.

Bossa Nova-themed animation from Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal received awards-qualifying run in November.

Sony Pictures Classics will release Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Bossa Nova-themed animated feature They Shot The Piano Player theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on February 23, 2024.

‘They Shot The Piano Player’: San Sebastian Review

The film received a one-week awards-qualifying run in November following its premiere at Telluride and Toronto International Film Festival. It will expand nationwide in the weeks following the release.

Jeff Goldblum narrates the story of a New York music journalist who sets out to uncover the truth behind...

Deadline on Tuesday launched the streaming site for Contenders Film: Documentary, its annual showcase of the year’s best nonfiction films that are in the running for the Documentary Feature Oscar.

Click here to launch the streaming site.

A total of nine buzzworthy films participated in panel discussions during Sunday’s virtual event, featuring movies from Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Original Films, HBO Documentary Films, National Geographic Documentary Films, Paramount+ and MTV Documentary Films, Sony Pictures Classics, and Telemark and Greenwich Entertainment.

Panelists who joined to discuss their projects included directors Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie), Peter Nicks (Stephen Curry: Underrated), Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain (The Mission), Christopher Sharp (Bobi Wine: The People’s President), Raoul Peck (Silver Dollar Road), Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (They Shot the Piano Player), Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), Jakub Piątek (Pianoforte) and...

They Shot the Piano Player is a documentary about Brazilian jazz artist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who went missing in 1976. Spoiler alert, the film uncovers why Tenório Júnior is no longer here. Directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal joined Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary to discuss how they used animation to articulate historical moments for which they had no archival footage.

“My first commitment was to be fair to Tenório Júnior,” Trueba said. “I think you must do something for him, not just for us. For him and also for the audience to discover him, but I wanted the audience to know him, to meet him and to listen to his music.”

Some animated portions depict Tenório creating music, for which the filmmakers had audio recordings. Mariscal said the music guided the visuals.

“Thanks to the animation, we can again give life to Tenório recording and re-creating this moment,” Mariscal said.

By the time December rolls around, a frontrunner has typically emerged in the Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature. Not this year. The contest remains wide open, more so than in any year in recent memory.

For that reason alone, it’s essential to hear from the leading filmmakers in the mix. And that’s where Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary event comes in. Out essential guide featuring an awards-worthy slate of outstanding nonfiction films kicks off Saturday at 9 a.m. Pt featuring panels from nine of the year’s most buzzy titles.

Click here to sign up for and launch the livestream.

Among the all-star talent on hand is Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim, director of Apple Original Films’ Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, about the beloved Hollywood icon. Guggenheim’s film recently won five prizes at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, including Best Feature and Best Director.

Also...

The Society Of The Snow has garnered 13 nominations, followed by Close Your Eyes and Jokes & Cigarettes with 11.

Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s 20,000 Species Of Bees leads the nominations for Spain’s prestigious Goya awards, which will be presented on February 10, 2024.

20,000 Species Of Bees premiered in competition at Berlin, going on to win the Silver Bear for best performance for Sofía Otero, playing an eight-year-old girl who spends a summer working in the Basque Country’s beehives while exploring her identity.

The film scored 15 nominations, including best film, best director and four nods in the acting categories.

Ja Bayona’s...

Emerald Fennell’s dark comedy Saltburn takes a massive jump from to over 1,500 screens today as Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Hayao Miyazaki’s latest The Boy and the Heron, animated They Shot The Piano Player and other festival favorites launch awards season runs this Thanksgiving specialty weekend.

Apple, opening Napoleon wide with Sony, is also planting a flag for evergreen status for last year’s holiday romp Spirited, a musical retelling of A Christmas Carol with singing, dancing Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.

Maestro, presented by Netflix, raises the baton in ten locations including New York and LA today and plans to add more theaters weekly. The anticipated Venice-premiering film – see Deadline review — was directed by and stars Bradley Cooper as the iconic conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, with Carey Mulligan as his wife of 25 years, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Cooper is also a co-writer and producer alongside Martin Scorsese,...

Taking a cue from the genre-melding impulse of the music at its heart, They Shot the Piano Player initially gives every appearance of being pure fiction. The plot of this animated film by Spanish directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba follows Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), a journalist from New York City who’s been commissioned to write a book on bossa nova. Immersing himself in the music in preparation for a trip to Rio de Janeiro, he hears a solo by Brazilian jazz pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. and gets sidetracked. The innovator of samba jazz, it turns out, disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Buenos Aires just before the 1976 military coup, and Jeff decides to fill in the blanks.

The setup, then, has all the trappings of a detective story, with an amateur sleuth in obsessive pursuit of an unsolved mystery. In Rio, Jeff’s friend João (Tony Ramos...

"His musical touch hasn't left my ear." Sony Pictures Classics has unveiled a full US trailer for a fascinating, jazzy Spanish documentary called They Shot the Piano Player, which first premiered at the Annecy Film Festival in France this summer. It's a doc made by filmmakers Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal (of Chico & Rita) telling the true story of a missing pianist. A New York music journalist goes on a quest to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the young Brazilian piano virtuoso Tenorio Jr. - in full Francisco Tenório Júnior. A celebratory origin story of the world-renowned Latino musical movement Bossa Nova, They Shot The Piano Player captures a fleeting time bursting with creative freedom at a turning point in Latin American history in the 60s and 70s, just before the continent was engulfed by totalitarian regimes. Starring Jeff Goldblum as the voice of Jeff Harris, with Caetano Veloso & Joao Gilberto.

“Chico and Rita” Oscar nominees Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal fuse docudrama, animation, and music once again with their latest film, “They Shot the Piano Player.” Centered around the 1976 disappearance and presumed murder of Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Jr., the Sony Pictures Classics release stars Jeff Goldblum as an American journalist looking for answers. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, for the film below.

It’s 2010, and New York journalist Jeff Harris (Goldblum) is working on a book on Bossa Nova after just publishing a piece on its 50th anniversary in The New Yorker. During his research, Harris stumbles upon a pianist previously unknown to him: Francisco Tenório Jr. Realizing Tenório Jr. hasn’t produced or recorded music for over 30 years, Harris travels to Rio de Janeiro to uncover why he vanished from the music scene. He discovers that Tenório Jr., who keeps haunting his Bossa Nova research project, disappeared...

Imagine Documentaries, the non-fiction branch of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, is looking to boost a new generation of documentary talent.

Speaking at a panel at Rome’s Mia Market, Imagine Documentaries president Sara Bernstein revealed that her company has signed a development deal with filmmakers Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill, whose teenagers-in-Texas portrait “Cusp” premiered to critical acclaim at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, while praising director Jackie Jesko, whose three-part, true-crime doc “Savior Complex” premiered on HBO last month.

“It’s important to champion and make room for the next generation,” said Bernstein, heralding Bethencourt and Hill’s film as “one of the best cinema verité style docs I’d seen in a long time.”

“I thought it was incredibly riveting,” Bernstein continued. “[And] we’re always looking at those filmmakers… [because] it’s exciting to think about the next generation, to ask who’s up and coming.

The animated highlights of 2023 thus far: Illumination/Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($1.36 billion globally, $574.9 million domestically) and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($689 million globally, $381 million domestically) were massive box office hits, proving that there is a hungry audience clamoring to see animation in theaters again.

However, Pixar/Disney’s “Elemental” and DreamWorks/Universal’s “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” were major box office flops: Pixar’s immigrant story about the elements trying to co-exist only mustered $154.4 million domestically (placing 20th on the studio’s list of features). However, it grabbed $490 million worldwide and subsequently became Disney+’s most-viewed movie premiere of the year. Meanwhile, DreamWorks’ coming-of-age Kraken comedy had the worst domestic showing in the studio’s history (with $15.7 million). This signaled that original animated content still has theatrical hurdles to overcome compared to franchises.

Fortunately, the animated reboot of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Nickelodeon/Paramount) was a hit,...

Films by Carolina Markowicz, Isabel Coixet, Jaione Camborda and Isabel Herguera all have international potential.

Highly anticipated features from Isabel Coixet, Lucía Puenzo and Jaione Camborda are among the buzziest Spanish and Latin American titles screening across all strands of this year’s San Sebastián film festival. Here is a flavour of what festival audiences can expect.

Blondi (Argentina)

Dir: Dolores Fonzi

The debut feature from Argentinian actress Dolores Fonzi plays in the Horizontes Latinos section, which screens premieres entirely or partially produced in Latin America and not yet released in Spain. Fonzi also stars in the film which is...

Neo Sora’s concert documentary “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” a standout at the Venice Film Festival, has sold for theatrical distribution in North America to Janus Films ahead of its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The theatrical release will be followed by a Blu-ray Disc release on the “Janus Contemporaries” label.

This is the latest deal inked by London and Paris-based production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation, following a slew of sales to Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Germany and Austria (Rapid Eye), Scandinavia (NjutaFilms), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), South Korea (Media Castle), China (Jl Vision Films), Hong Kong and Macau (Edko Films), Taiwan (Cai Chang) and Singapore (Anticipate Pictures). Bitters End will release the film in Japan in 2024.

On March 28, 2023, legendary composer Sakamoto Ryuichi died after his struggle against cancer. In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live. Single concerts,...

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal tackle a tricky balancing act in their new feature, celebrating the intoxicating lilt of the bossa nova and also investigating the devastating brutality of state terrorism. It’s a testament to their talent as filmmakers that, for the most part, they manage to pull it off.

They Shot the Piano Player centers on a kind of ghost: Francisco Tenório Júnior, a leading light of the thriving Brazilian music scene of the 1960s and ’70s who went missing in 1976, while on tour in Buenos Aires. How this keyboard virtuoso, by all accounts a gentle soul with no political ax to grind, became one of the desaparecidos targeted by Argentina’s oppressive regime is the puzzle that drives the movie.

Structured as a journalist’s search for answers, They Shot the Piano Player combines a fictional framing device with documentary material gathered by Trueba over a period of about 15 years,...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics releases the film in select theaters on Friday, November 24, with a nationwide rollout to follow in early 2024.

The one thing you can’t accuse “They Shot the Piano Player” of is talking down to its audience. Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s animated documentary about the 1976 disappearance of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. demands your absolute attention with its encyclopedic index of talking heads, and pretty much requires you to have substantial existing knowledge of bossa nova and the South American geopolitics of the 1960s and ’70s. Woe to those who do not. The result is an aggravating missed opportunity to tell a story that absolutely needs to be told to an audience that needs to hear it.

Trueba is a legendary director in Spain. Those who don’t know him for his 1992 Academy...

Using animation as the medium for feature-length documentaries is a fairly novel development, Waltz with Bashir and Flee being notable examples of international acclaim and incredible awards-season success. They Shot The Piano Player––Spanish duo Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal’s second animated offering after the fictional Chico and Rita––is the most recent addition to this burgeoning subgenre. Not without its fictional elements either, the film sets up an elaborate frame narrative for the story it really wants to tell: Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who disappeared in Argentina circa 1976 under mysterious circumstances.

To get to that point, the filmmakers invent an American writer, Jeff Harris (Jeff Goldblum), who is contracted to write a book about the Bossa Nova music movement that originated in the 1950s in Rio de Janeiro. Partway through his research, Harris switches the subject to focus exclusively on Tenório Jr., unanimously acknowledged as the most influential pianist of his generation,...

Jazz and animation make for strong bedfellows in “They Shot the Piano Player,” a film from Spanish directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal that represents an intriguing hybrid in all sorts of ways. It’s a love letter to the bossa nova movement that peaked in the 1960s, while at the same time it’s a sobering procedural that looks into the state murder of a musician that occurred as fascistic regimes rose to power in Latin America in the ’70s. It’s a documentary, or at least more nonfiction than not, although it has a wholly concocted framing device. And above and beyond the movie’s somewhat incongruous mixture of gritty political realism and giddy music appreciation, yes, it’s completely hand-drawn.

So if you like movies that draw outside the lines, so to speak, then “They Shot the Piano Player” will be for you, even if it offers...

When Hayao Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical fantasy “The Boy and the Heron” had its international premiere Sept. 7, it wasn’t just the first animated film to open TIFF, or the master director’s first in a decade. It is also part of an unexpected resurgence of animated work at major international festivals.

“When we started doing [2017’s] ‘Loving Vincent,’ only one adult animated film every five years got any kind of recognition,” says Hugh Welchman, who directed ”Vincent” and “The Peasants,” which premiered Sept. 8 at TIFF, with wife D.K. Welchman. “Now it seems that every year one kind of breaks out.”

Their Oscar-nominated Vincent van Gogh biopic helped inspire this trend, earning $42.2 million worldwide on a $5.5 million budget. “Heron” is already continuing arthouse animation’s successful run, taking in $50.6 million since July in Japan alone. And prominent fests are increasing their support: in 2019, Cannes launched an Animation Day in partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The concert film, directed by Neo Sora, premiered at Venice Film Festival on September 4.

Film Constellation has closed key distribution deals for Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, which captures the final performance of the late Japanese composer and received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday (September 4).

The London and Paris-based firm has sold the feature to Spain (Filmin), Germany and Austria (Rapid Eye), Scandinavia (NjutaFilms), South Korea (Media Castle), China (Jl Vision Films), Hong Kong and Macau (Edko Films), Taiwan (Cai Chang) and Singapore (Anticipate Pictures). Bitters End will handle the release of the film in Japan in...

Aussie filmmaker Kitty Green’s latest pic, The Royal Hotel, starring Julia Garner, and Fingernails, the latest film from Christos Nikou, with Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley, have been added to San Sebastian’s competition lineup.

Overall, six films have been announced as late additions to proceedings in San Seb. The other titles are Kalak (Isabella Eklöf), The Successor (Xavier Legrand), Great Absence (Kei Chika-Ura), and the debut from Tzu-Hui Peng and Ping-Wen Wang, A Journey in Spring. Additionally, the French pic A Real Job, directed by Thomas Lilti, will play the fest’s special screenings section.

The Royal Hotel is Kitty Green’s first feature since her 2019 breakout, The Assistant. The film tells the tale of two backpackers (Garner and Jessica Henwick) who take a job in a pub in the remote Australian Outback. Neon has acquired North American rights to the film. Following his debut Apples, which played Telluride,...

This concert film chronicles the final performance of the Oscar-winning Japanese composer of ‘The Last Emperor’ and ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’.

London and Paris-based outfit Film Constellation has boarded world sales on Neo Sora’s Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The concert film chronicles the final performance of Sakamoto, the Oscar-winning Japanese composer of The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, who died on March 28 aged 71. It will premiere out of competition at Venice on September 5. A first-look image from the film can be seen above.

Featuring just Sakamoto and his piano,...

Auteurs Agnieszka Holland, Wim Wenders, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Aki Kaurismaki are among the filmmakers featured in the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Centrepiece program.

The strand, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema, which honors and celebrates global cinematic achievements, features 47 titles from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

TIFF has also revealed the additional lineup of galas, special presentations and documentaries, which feature star wattage from around the world including Tommy Lee Jones and Anil Kapoor.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece program, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF chief programming officer. “The rebranding of the TIFF program, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.

Ahead of Toronto International Film Festival kicking off in less than a month, the festival announced more additions, including Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, Close Your Eyes by Víctor Erice, Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki, Green Border by Agnieszka Holland, Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and more.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece programme, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. “The rebranding of the TIFF programme, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the Festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.”

See the lineup below.

Centrepiece Programme 2023

100 Yards Xu Haofeng, Xu Junfeng | China

International Premiere

About...

The programme comprises 47 films from 45 countries.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the line-up for its Centrepiece programme, with 47 titles screening from filmmakers representing 45 countries.

Included in the programme (previously known as Contemporary World Cinema) are Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, getting its North American premiere; Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, receiving its Canadian premiere; and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a North American premiere.

Scroll down for the full list of Centrepiece titles

TIFF also announced additional titles for its Galas, Special Presentations and Documentaries programmes, among them the world premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Finestkind.

The Toronto International Film Festival has added 59 more films to the lineup of its 2023 festival, including 47 international films in the Centrepiece program, which in previous years was known as Contemporary World Cinema. New films were also added to the Galas, Special Presentations and Documentary sections.

World premieres among the new selections include “Finestkind,” a crime thriller from Brian Helgeland (screenwriter of “L.A. Confidential”) starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ben Foster; The Movie Teller,” a film set in Chile starring Berenice Bejo from “An Education” director Lone Scherfig; and Jessica Yu’s “Quiz Lady,” with Sandra Oh and Awkwafina.

The Centrepiece selections include a number of films from May’s Cannes Film Festival, among them Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” Aki Kaurismaki’s “Fallen Leaves,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel & Adama,” Amjad Al Rasheed’s “Inshallah a Boy,” Joanna Arnow’s “The Feeling That the...

The Toronto International Film Festival continues to expand its 2023 lineup with 47 films from 45 countries in the Centerpiece program, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema. The highlights include Cannes Film Festival winners “Fallen Leaves” from Aki Kaurismäki and “Perfect Days” from Wim Wenders as well as Agnieszka Holland’s Venice-bound “Green Border.” See the full lineup below.

“We are very excited to present the new Centrepiece program, a cinematic journey that transcends boundaries and embraces the art of human experience,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer, in an official statement. “The rebranding of the TIFF program, formerly Contemporary World Cinema, is a reflection of the festival’s vision to provide an elevated platform for international cinema, for acclaimed titles from festivals around the globe, highly anticipated premieres from Canadian and international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.”

Centerpiece Program 2023

About Dry Grasses (Kuru Otlar Üstüne) Nuri Bilge Ceylan...

14 Spanish productions selected for this year’s festival, which runs September 22-30.

Isabel Coixet’s romantic drama Un amor, Isabel Herguera’s animation Sultana’s Dream and JaioneCamborda’s drama The Rye Horn are among the 14 Spanish productions selected for the 2023 San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff), running from September 22-30.

Scroll down for full line-up

Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s official section with Un Amor, starring Laia Costa and Hovik Keuchkerian. Sold by Film Constellation, Un Amor is based on Sara Mesa’s novel that follows a woman struggling to start afresh in a countryside hamlet.

The San Sebastián Film Festival has revealed the lineup of Spanish titles that will screen as part of the Official Selection of its latest edition, which is due to unfold from September 22 — 30. Scroll down for the full list.

Selected titles include Un Amor from Isabel Coixet, who competes for the festival’s Golden Shell for the first time with the pic based on the book of the same name by Sara Mesa and starring Laia Costa at the head of a cast also featuring Hovik Keuchkerian, Hugo Silva, Luis Bermejo, Ingrid García-Jonsson and Francesco Carril.

Filmmaker Fernando Trueba, of the Oscar-nominated feature Chico & Rita (2012), will present his latest project, They Shot the Piano Player, directed alongside Javier Mariscal in the fest’s Special Screening sidebar. The film, narrated by the voice of Jeff Goldblum, follows the figure of Brazilian musician Tenorio Jr. during the early days of the musical movement known as bossa nova.

Oscar winner Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”), “The Secret Life of Words” director Isabel Coixet and “Veneno” writer-director-producers Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo feature among talent behind Spanish titles at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.

Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s main competition with “Un Amor,” a probing village-set tale of emotional dependence starring Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) and “Money Heist’s” Hovik Keuchkerian.

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will present as a special screening animated feature “They Shot the Piano Player,” a joyful and finally devastating portrait of the life and fate of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. narrated by Jeff Goldblum.

Ambrossi and Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – will world premiere “La Mesías,” the most awaited Spanish series of the year, a big-scale, period-hopping Movistar Plus+ original, chronicling the devastating effect of a childhood education,...

The unseasonably cold and rainy weather in Cannes this year didn’t put a damper on business, but the writers strike loomed like a storm cloud, threatening a deluge.

There were plenty of deals, big and small, in the Cannes Marché du Film, which drew more than 13,500 participants this year, an all-time record, exceeding pre-pandemic figures. As the market drew to a close, Netflix closed an eight-figure deal for North America for May December, the Todd Haynes-directed dramedy starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. The pickup, reportedly worth $11 million, is a domestic-only, non-global agreement, a setup that used to be rare but could become increasingly common as streamers tighten their focus on individual territories and local audiences. CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group are handling domestic rights for May December, with Rocket Science brokering international deals.

Sony did a major deal for Paddington in Peru, the third...

Spain’s Revelations showcase has focused on shorts, not features, unveiling the huge breadth of animation talent and techniques in Spain.

Some shorts directors are already stars, such as Alberto Mielgo with the Oscar-winner “The Windshield Wiper.” Diego Porral, director of “Leopoldo From the Bar,” served as animation lead on “Love, Death + Robots” episode “Kill Team Kill.”

Standouts among new projects in Revelations included “Latente,” a Next Lab Generation winner from Carlos Zaragoza and Aurora Jiménez, and Martín Romero’s “To Bird or Not to Bird,” from Uniko and Abano Producións, which is a 2D short made largely in black and white featuring an angst-ridden clock cuckoo and other birds beset by environmental destruction.

Revelations climaxes with a special screening, the first in a cinema, of “Sith,” Rodrigo Blaas’ episode in Disney+’s “Star Wars: Visions.”

As for features, here are 10 toon titles to track. Further international co-productions – Mr.

“Deadpool 3” just added two key returning cast members to its roster, according to sources close to the project. Brianna Hildebrand and Shioli Kutsuna will reprise as Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio, joining Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin (Deadpool’s love interest who was fridged and then un-fridged during “Deadpool 2”) in the Shawn Levy-directed sequel.

Hugh Jackman will return as Wolverine, joining franchise newbies Emma Corrin and Matthew Macfadyen. Also returning from earlier films will be Karan Soni (Wade Wilson’s preferred cab driver), Leslie Uggams (Wade’s blind roommate), Stefan Kapicic (Colossus) and Rob Delaney (as entirely human X-Force member Peter who was also un-killed at the end of “Deadpool 2”).

The picture, slated for release on November 8, 2024, will be the first in the franchise to be put out by Disney and be produced by Kevin Fiege’s Marvel Studios. While it is expected to keep the...