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Werner Herzog’s The Twilight World, the German director’s first feature animation and new projects from leading animation directors including Anca Damian,Alain Ughetto, Filip Pošivač, Vincent Paronnaud and Alexis Ducord, will be among the projects presented at European co-production and pitching event Cartoon Movie, taking place in Bordeaux, France, from March 4-6.

Additionally, Chloé Nicolay’sBrume, based on a script written by Celine Sciamma and produced by French animation powerhouseFolivari, is being showcaed as a film in development.It is a 2D coming-of-age film for children about a feisty seven-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a powerful witch.

Some of the biggest names in the European film industry have joined a call for more regulation of global tech platforms in wake of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration and vocal support of his new government by tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

An online petition titled “Defend Our Democracies Against Tech Giants” launched on Jan. 24 has gathered more than 1,000 signatures from European industry professionals, including such bold-faced names as Oscar winners Juliette Binoche and Volker Schlöndorff, two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, and arthouse directors Marjane Satrapi, Rebecca Złotowski and Jessica Hausner.

Other prominent film and cultural figures in Europe, including Venice film festival director Alberto Barbera and Nobel Prize-winning Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, are among the names on the Change.org petition.

“How much longer will we tolerate that digital giants from the USA, Russia and China openly defy European laws and challenge our democracies?...

She died on the 16th of September. The day before fiberoptic cabling started carrying calls between two telephone exchanges in Turin. A week later, Sony and Philips would publicly demonstrate 'laser sound'. The first is one of the building blocks of internet as we know it, the second the core technology of CDs. Each would profoundly change the way we consume music, but that wouldn't be visible for years, even decades. What mattered that day was that La Divina was gone.

Anchored in a strong central performance, using the contrasts between monochrome and colour to identify different time periods, and with a deliberate unreliability that finds something expressionistic beyond the mechanisms of film, there's an obvious parallel with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. There are deeper similarities with Marjane Satrapi's Radioactive however, in particular that its subject is at once of Paris and somewhere else.

Angelina Jolie has more than.

It’s hard to say The Boy and the Heron isn’t Hayao Miyazaki’s magnum opus. The 2024 drama film captivated audiences worldwide and earned its storied director his second Academy Award. Aside from its gorgeous visuals, Ghibli’s latest masterpiece drew in audiences with a multilayered story of human resilience and transformation. Its brightly colored fantasy settings often mask the semi-autobiographical narrative, but its jarring visions of war-torn Japan infrequently return audiences to the film’s roots. Now, it’s not an exaggeration to say The Boy and the Heron is hard to beat. It has Studio Ghibli’s outstanding visual appeal supporting the work of a master storyteller.

In a world where traditional animation is a sadly fading art, Miyazaki’s genre-blending epic stands high above many of its competitors. However, its themes and ideas are far from new. While there are few films capable of delivering them...

The best Anna Kendrick movies feature a strong mix of romantic dramas and comedies and some fantasy and thriller films along the way. Kendrick first rose to prominence with a supporting part in The Twilight Saga and, since then, has grown into one of the most prominent actors in Hollywood. She has led a franchise, been nominated for an Academy Award, and lent her voice to some beloved animated characters.

Kendrick has such a versatile filmography that her movies vary pretty heavily in quality, with some being honored during the awards season and others mostly remaining in comfort food guilty pleasure cinema. However, one of the key things about her film releases is that she is often one of the best things in them, delivering great performances every time she appears on the big or small screen, elevating anything she appears in.

The Voices (2014) Lisa

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2024 saw DC Comics yet again trot out "Watchmen," this time as a two-part animated film. First debuting in 1986, "Watchmen" is the beloved superhero murder mystery comic created by writer Alan Moore (who infamously has no interest in any "Watchmen" adaptations) and artist Dave Gibbons. It's also the one superhero comic that it's broadly acceptable for literary critics to enjoy -- so much so it spawned a new term for the comic medium: "graphic novel."

The term goes back a bit further, such as the Marvel Graphic Novel line (begun in 1982). These longer (and more expensive) than usual comic issues told a standalone story. They also tended to be darker than contemporary Marvel comics. Take the "X2" inspiration "X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills" (by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson) where the X-Men battled a televangelist and religious bigotry, and "The Death of Captain Marvel" (by Jim Starlin), where the cosmic hero succumbed to cancer.

Kathleen Kennedy is set to be honored by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) with the 2025 ASC Board of Governors Award, the organization announced Wednesday.

The ceremony will take place Feb. 23 at the 39th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards Gala at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The ceremony will be streamed live worldwide.

In a statement, ASC President Shelly John said that “Kathleen Kennedy’s extraordinary career has left an enduring mark on the world of cinema. Her keen eye for storytelling is unparalleled. She consistently brings forth projects that elevate and confirm her trust in the director and cinematographer relationship. Recognizing it as the backbone of great filmmaking, her movies consistently showcase this belief. Her dedication to visual excellence has made her a true trailblazer in the film industry.”

Kennedy was previously a recipient of the 2018 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which was bestowed upon her by The...

Italian actress Isabella Rossellini will receive the European Achievement in World Cinema award, a lifetime achievement honor, at this year’s European Film Awards.

The Italian-American star, daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, was a successful fashion model — famously for French cosmetics brand Lancôme — before shifting into acting. Her first leading role came in the Taviani brothers’ drama The Meadow (1979), but her international breakout was David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) in which she played the mysterious and tortured nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens. The performance, in which Rossellini also sang the film’s titular tune, won her the Independent Spirit Award for best female lead.

Over the next four decades, Rossellini carved out a unique career in cinema, moving between big-budget features — Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her (1992), Peter Weir’s Fearless (1993) — and independent auteur films, working with Peter Greenaway (2003’s The Tulse Luper Suitcases), Guy...

The European Film Academy (Efa) is to honour actress and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini with the European Achievement In World Cinema award.

Rossellini will be an honorary guest at Efa’s European Film Awards ceremony in Lucerne on December 7.

Rossellini made her cinematic debut as an actress in 1979 in the Taviani brother’s film Die Wiese and has appeared in numerous other films since, including Blue Velvet, White Nights, Rodger Dodger, Cousins, Death Becomes Her, Fearless, Big Night, and Joy.

She has worked with directors such as Robert Zemeckis, David O. Russell, David Lynch, Robert Wilson, Taylor Hackford, Marjane Satrapi and Guy Maddin.

Gena Rowlands, the two-time Oscar-nominated star of Gloria and A Woman Under The Influence as well as The Notebook, has died. She was 94.

Rowlands earned widespread renown for her performance as a mother wrestling with mental illness in husband John Cassavetes’ 1974 drama A Woman Under The Influence, for which she won a Golden Globe.

She received her second lead actress Academy Award nomination in 1981 as a tough woman who protects her neighbour from The Mob in Cassavetes’ Gloria.

Rowlands had met Cassavetes in her early television days. They were married in 1954 and went on to make 10 films together.

In 2004 Rowlands...

Gena Rowlands, the two-time Oscar-nominated star of Gloria and A Woman Under The Influence, has died. She was 94.

Rowlands earned widespread renown for her performance as a mother wrestling with mental illness in husband John Cassavetes’ 1974 drama A Woman Under The Influence, for which she won a Golden Globe.

She received her second lead actress Academy Award nomination in 1981 as a tough woman who protects her neighbour from The Mob in Cassavetes’ Gloria.

Rowlands had met Cassavetes in her early television days. They were married in 1954 and went on to make 10 films together.

In 2004 Rowlands starred in her son Nick...

"Even my death doesn't interest them!" Is any of this funny? Studiocanal has revealed an official trailer for a film titled Dear Paris, also called Paradis Paris (Paradise Paris), another Paris anthology film creation featuring an interconnected set of stories. Not related to 2006's Paris, I Love You anthology, but it reminds me of it anyway. A new film from the award-winning director Marjane Satrapi, witness a darkly hilarious love letter to the city of light - with a stunning ensemble cast including Monica Bellucci, Rossy de Palma, Alex Lutz, Martina García, Eduardo Noriega , and Ben Aldridge. A comedy with a dark sense of humor, where a flurry of charming characters confront death only to embrace life once again. This opens in France soon this month, but no international dates are set yet – expected later this year. This looks charming & amusing, with plenty of awkward humor. // Continue Reading ›...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Is This What I Told Myself It Would Be?

Directed by Marjane Satrapi and written by Michael R. Perry, “The Voices” has a phenomenal trailer — snappy, stunning, and with a hunky Chinese Elvis impersonator! I would know; I’ve seen it dozens of times in the decade since Lionsgate made the movie: a feature that, up until now, I haven’t watched and will be using this week’s IndieWire After Dark to recommend to myself. Let me (us?) explain.

This buzzy Sundance breakout from 2014 — starring a sweetie pie Ryan Reynolds...

France’s Urban Distribution has shut its doors, the latest independent distributor to fold due to struggling ticket sales following the closure of Rezo Films’ distribution arm in March.

Urban Group’s thriving international sales and production divisions Urban Sales and Urban Factory will continue to operate, but its distribution arm, founded in 2011 by Frédéric Corvez and Mathieu Piazza, was officially liquidated on March 21.

Corvez confirmed the closure to Screen, explaining, “Over the years, we’ve seen our work come up against more and more obstacles” and citing the pandemic as an event that “undoubtedly transformed the industry”.

He described...

My Rep and Me is a recurring Culture Shift feature in which reps and clients from the same historically marginalized background sit down to discuss the chemistry and business advantages of their special connection, in order to underscore the importance and benefits of diverse representation.

UTA partner Keya Khayatian and actress-filmmaker Zar Amir Ebrahimi are both from Iran but left the country under somewhat traumatic circumstances: Khayatian as a child with his parents fleeing the Islamic Revolution and Ebrahimi in 2008 when she ran afoul of the conservative regime and faced blacklisting and imprisonment. Now based in France, the latter has rebuilt her career and in 2022 became the first Iranian performer to win best actress at Cannes with her role as a journalist investigating a serial killer targeting sex workers in Holy Spider.

It was at the 2023 Sundance premiere of Ebrahimi’s latest film, Shayda, in which she plays an immigrant...

Studiocanal rolled out the red carpet at the Unifrance Paris Rendez-vous this week for actor Gilles Lellouche’s upcoming feature film Beating Hearts (L’Amour Ouf).

First images for the unconventional romance played on the big screen to two packed-out screenings at the swanky Royal Monceau hotel off the Champs-Elysées on Thursday evening.

The modern Romeo and Juliet tale co-stars François Civil, who is currently riding high on the back of his D’Artagnan role in Pathé’s Three Musketeers reboot, and Adèle Exarchopoulos as former childhood sweethearts from different sides of the tracks.

Having gone their separate ways when the boy gets caught up in gang violence and lands in jail on trumped-up murder charges, the pair reconnect against the odds years later.

The picture is adapted from Irish writer Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel Jackie Loves Johnser Ok? unfolding against the backdrop of Dublin’s tough suburb of Ballyfermot in the...

Studiocanal is launching sales on Marjane Satrapi’s dark comedy Dear Paris headlined by Monica Bellucci and Rossy De Palma, Pablo Agüero’s Saint-Exupéry starring Louis Garrel, Diane Kruger and Vincent Cassel, Herve Mimran’s buddy comedy The Scammers and Gilles Lellouche’s anticipated epic love story Beating Hearts at the Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

Satrapi’s Dear Paris is a love letter to Paris and intertwines the story of Bellucci’s narcissistic Italian opera singer, De Palma’s eccentric elderly Colombian woman, and Ben Aldridge;s British stuntman. Eduardo Noriega, André Dussollier, Alex Lutz and Roschdy Zem co-star...

Ben Aldridge (“Knock at the Cabin”) and Martina Garcia (“The Hidden Face”) have joined the cast of “Dear Paris,” Marjane Satrapi’s (“Persepolis”) ensemble drama which is one Studiocanal’s highlights at this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous showcase, along with Gilles Lellouche’s sprawling romance thriller “Beating Hearts.”

“Dear Paris” (“Paris Paradis”), produced by Vito Films, is a dark comedy set in the French capital where a flurry of charming characters confront death only to embrace life once again. The film also stars Monica Bellucci as a narcissistic Italian opera singer and Rossy De Palma as an eccentric elderly Colombian woman, as well as Eduardo Noriega, André Dussollier, Alex Lutz, Roschdy Zem and singer-turned-actor Gwendal Marimoutou (“Sam”).

The biggest title on Studiocanal’s roster is “Beating Hearts” (“L’amour ouf”), the highly anticipated epic love story starring François Civil, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah. The unconventional movie, now in post production,...

The pioneering French-Iranian producer and sales agent leaves behind a long-lasting legacy

Pioneering producer and celebrated Celluloid Dreams founder Hengameh Panahi died on November 5 following a long illness, sending shockwaves of sadness throughout the international film community and leaving a long-lasting legacy of both championing auteur cinema and shaking up the status quo in her wake.

The revered French-Iranian industry executive was known for finding and following emerging directors and accompanying their films to festival glory and international acclaim. Her career spanned four decades and more than 800 films.

She worked alongside iconic directors from across the globe including Jacques Audiard,...

News of the death of Celluloid Dreams CEO Hengameh Panahi has sparked an outpouring of admiration and tributes from the independent film community.

Panahi, a pivotal figure in the global art house scene, died Nov. 5, aged 67. In her decades in the business — as a producer, co-financier and sales agent — Panahi introduced the world to international auteurs from Iran (Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi), Europe (Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Marco Bellocchio, Aleksandr Sokurov, the Dardenne brothers) and across Asia (Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Jia Zanghke, Hirokazu Kore-eda).

“She took films that were challenging, that were difficult to make, to sell, to promote, and she fought for them,” says Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who knew and worked with Panahi for more than 30 years. “She was a unique part of the film ecosystem. She was really inspirational, with the films that she enabled to be made, and seen.”

Celluloid Dreams,...

Hengameh Panahi, the French-Iranian producer and sales agent who founded Celluloid Dreams and was a pivotal figure in bringing works from such auteurs as Jacques Audiard, Jafar Panahi (no relation), François Ozon, Marjane Satrapi and Todd Haynes to the world, has died. She was 67.

Viviana Andriani, a press attaché who had worked with Panahi for many years, confirmed Thursday that Panahi died on November 5 after battling a long illness.

Celluloid Dreams, which Panahi launched in 1985, was a groundbreaking sales and production company that helped build the global market for international arthouse films. Over the course of three decades, Paris-based Celluloid helped package and sell more than 800 films, including the first works from François Ozon (See The Sea), Gaspar Noé (I Stand Alone), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) and Bruno Dumont (The Life of Jesus), among many others.

Alongside many European talents, Panahi, who was born in Iran but moved to Europe aged...

Hengameh Panahi, the celebrated French-Iranian producer who founded Celluloid Dreams and forged long-standing bonds with auteurs around the world, has died. She was 67.

Panahi, who worked with the likes of Jafar Panahi, Jacques Audiard, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Jia Zhangke, died on Nov. 5 after battling a long illness, according to a statement sent by a film publicist who worked with Panahi for many years.

Panahi was born in Iran and lived in Belgium from the age of 12 before moving to France in 1993. That’s where she founded the sales company Celluloid Dreams and played a major role in co-producing, co-financing and selling international rights to a number of politically minded films, such as Panahi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winning “Taxi Tehran”; Audiard’s “A Prophet” and his Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan”; Ramin Mohseni’s ”From Afar”; Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and “Chicken With Plums”; and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where...

Groundbreaking French-Iranian sales agent and producer Hengameh Panahi, who represented a myriad of renowned Cannes and Venice prize-winning auteur directors, has died at the age of 67.

Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.

She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.

Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.

Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.

She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.

In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...

Walt Disney has been synonymous with high-quality animation for nearly a century. Since the groundbreaking release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated movie, Disney's animated features have been the gold standard. However, Disney is far from the only one producing high-quality, beautifully designed animated films.

From Disney's main competitors to independent studios, the movie industry has seen the release of many feature films that employ incredible visuals to tell engaging stories. Whether they innovate on previously used animation techniques or create breathtaking landscapes that could belong in a museum, these films delight viewers with their artistry.

Related: 10 Great Animated Movies That Could Never Be Live-Action

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

In Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, the young owl Soren seeks the titular Guardians of Ga'Hoole to defend owlkind from the evil of the Pure Ones. Directed by Zack Snyder,...

The majority of the movie industry is male-dominated, and animation is no exception. Studio heads that found success in early films were continuously given the opportunity to keep writing more stories, often leaving women out of equal opportunities. However, when given the chance, women writers have contributed to creating some of the best animated films to date.

With so many animated movies featuring women leads, it makes sense that having a woman writer only helps to bring a more authentic story to life. From tall tales of heroines to coming-of-age stories and fantasy, women writers are capable of building incredible worlds and writing even better stories.

Related: 10 Best R-Rated Animated Films

Persepolis

Adapted from Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis centers around the life of a young girl growing up amid the Iranian Revolution. Satrapi's graphic novel is an incredibly touching story. Her ability to...

Due to historical reasons, and some economic reasons preceding and following the historical ones, we should know by now that Iranian diaspora in the so-called Western World is large. Also, it is often well-educated and active in arts and culture, sometimes even on the both sides, in both homelands, old and new. Cinema is not an exception, but this list is not about, for instance, Asghar Farhadi working in the context of the French or Spanish cinema, nor is touching some well-established common places of greatness, such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. We bring you five relatively recent films made by the filmmakers coming from the Iranian diaspora that might have flown under the radar somehow, in order of quality.

5. At Any Price

Ramin Bahrani reached greater success both with critics and audiences both before and after this film, either by touching the subjects from the (immigrants') margin, like in...

The winds of change are sweeping Iran as the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ protests, provoked by the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last September, continue. Here, four Iranian disruptors talk about their struggles, their acts of solidarity for the pro-democracy movement, and their hopes for the future of their country.

Marjane Satrapi Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi, who was 9 years old when Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, recalls taking to the streets with her politically active parents to protest against the imposition of the hijab. “My mum went to demonstrate, and I went too, and so did my dad,” recalls the graphic novelist and filmmaker. “He was one of the very few men; they didn’t understand at the time that women’s rights are society’s rights.”

Satrapi’s parents sent her to Europe to study as a teenager and encouraged her to make her permanent home there. Satrapi captured...

A dozen 12 projects have been selected as part of the second 2023 session of the Cnc’s advance on receipts committee and floating at the top of the list we find the next works for Leyla Bouzid, Marjane Satrapi and a sophomore feature for Noémie Merlant, who co-wrote with Céline Sciamma. Merlant’s Les femmes au balcon focuses on three women in a Marseille apartment during a heatwave. Facing them is their mysterious neighbour, the object of all their fantasies. But the women soon find themselves stuck in a terrifying and wild scenario, with freedom their only goal. Merlant cast herself alongside Souheila Yacoub and Sandra Codreanu.…...

Using clean lines, a controlled color palette and a flattened 2D drawing style, Sepidah Farsi’s engrossing Berlin Panorama opener “The Siren” paradoxically creates a story rich with dimensional detail and riven with the tragedy of war. Much like Marjane Satrapi did with 2007’s “Persepolis,” Farsi uses animation as a way to set the acutely painful civilian experience of the Iran-Iraq conflict at enough of a remove to make it bearable: From a distance, like a floating overhead angle or a wide cityscape vista, even smoke clouds and flying rubble can acquire a sort of beauty.

Unlike Satrapi’s film, however, “The Siren” leans into the form’s fictionalizing possibilities until it becomes less an illustrated snapshot of life in post-revolution Iran than a kind of wish-fulfilment fantasy, such as might have been dreamed up by a teenager, in which resourcefulness, resilience and fellowship eventually win out over forces of oppression and violence.

While it might be surprising, the top earning movie at the box office in 2022 (so far) is also rated PG-13 with Top Gun: Maverick bringing in over 716 million in gross profits. Funny enough, the second and third-biggest movies of the year, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, are also rated PG-13.

The PG-13 rating generally means the movies are sensitive to a younger audience but could contain some more mature themes not suitable for younger children. Not always scandalous, there have been quite a few great films to hold this rating and Redditors have spoken out about the best PG-13 movies to ever hit the screen.

Persepolis (2007) Rent On Prime Video

"Persepolis is an amazing film that is PG-13" says Reddit user LostInTheDothrakiSea. An animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel series of the same title, the 2007 Academy Award nominee chronicles Satrapi's life...

(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: "Persepolis.")

I was a sophomore in college taking my first Women's Literature class when I was first introduced to Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel, "Persepolis." My professor was an adventurous woman who was clearly tired of rehashing Emily Brontë and Jane Austen year after year and wanted to try something new with our class. In addition to the so-called classics, she gave us the graphic novel "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel (of The Bechdel Test fame) and "Persepolis." I distinctly remember one of my classmates scoffing at the book, dismissing graphic novels as "glorified picture books" and refusing to read the material. My professor had zero patience for someone disparaging the good word of graphic novels and held up "Persepolis" in her hand like a televangelist with a bible.

Following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran, more than 50 French female artists have banded together to show their support of the ongoing protests in Iran.

Amini died in police custody on September 16 after being arrested for not properly wearing her hijab to fully cover her hair. Iranian police said she died of a heart attack, but eyewitnesses claim she was beaten to death. Women around the world have since cut a lock of their hair with #HairForFreedom to show their support for Amini and in solidarity with Iranian women living under the Islamic Republic’s strict theocratic rule.

Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, and Charlotte Gainsbourg were among the French actresses to cut their hair in a viral Instagram video. Binoche says “for freedom” when blindly cutting her hair atop her head. A Persian version of Italian anti-fascist resistance ballad “Bella Ciao” is performed by...

More than 1,000 industry professionals also sign letter in solidarity with Iranian women.

The French film industry has rallied together in support of women in Iran who are protesting the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody.

More than 50 of France’s most famous stars, including Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Adjani, Berenice Bejo, Julie Gayet, Isabelle Huppert and Charlotte Gainsbourg, have cut off locks of their hair in a video captioned #Hairforfreedom.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 French film industry professionals and organisations have signed a strongly-worded letter in solidarity with Iranian women.

The #Hairforfreedom video begins with an image of...

More than 50 French female artists from the worlds of cinema and music have symbolically cut their hair in a video campaign showing support for the ongoing protests in Iran calling for more freedom for women following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, reports ‘Deadline’.

French actresses Isabelle Adjani, Berenice Bejo, Juliette Binoche, Laure Calamy, Marion Cotillard, Julie Gayet, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Isabelle Huppert and Alexandra Lamy were among those sharing images of themselves cutting off their hair.

According to ‘Deadline’, Amini died in police custody on September 16 after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in accordance with the country’s strict religious laws and allowing some locks of hair to escape.

Police say she died of a heart attack but eyewitnesses and people who were detained with the young woman said she was severely beaten. ‘Deadline’ further states that women around the world have been cutting a lock of...

Update: French actors Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Melanie Laurent, Isabelle Huppert and Charlotte Gainsbourg are among those who have cut off locks of their hair in support of the Iranian protests against the death of Mahsa Amini.

In a video posted to Instagram, the actors are among a number of French industry members who are seen trimming locks of their hair. In Binoche’s case, the “Both Sides of the Blade” actor defiantly lobs off entire inches of her dark hair, while declaring “For freedom!”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Soutien Femmes Iran (@soutienfemmesiran)

The video campaign, which uses the hashtag #HairForFreedom, was organized by Richard Sedillot, with Julie Couturier and Christiane Feral Schuhl.

“It is impossible not to denounce again and again this terrible repression,” reads a statement posted with the video. “There are already dozens of dead men and women, including children. The arrests only swell,...

More than 50 French female artists from the worlds of cinema and music have symbolically cut their hair in a video campaign showing support for the ongoing protests in Iran calling for more freedom for women following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

French actresses Isabelle Adjani, Berenice Bejo, Juliette Binoche, Laure Calamy, Marion Cotillard, Julie Gayet, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Isabelle Huppert and Alexandra Lamy were among those sharing images of themselves cutting off their hair.

Amini died in police custody on September 16 after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in accordance with the country’s strict religious laws and allowing some locks of hair to escape.

Police say she died of a heart attack but eyewitnesses and people who were detained with the young woman said she was severely beaten.

Women around the world have been cutting a lock of hair and posting the act on social networks around...

The psychological thriller is the feature debut of UK writer-director Virginia Gilbert, a Screen Star of Tomorrow.

WestEnd Films has acquired international rights to UK writer-director Virginia Gilbert’s feature debut Reawakening, about a couple whose daughter reappears after going missing a decade earlier aged just 14.

It will introduce the film to buyers at next month’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Jared Harris, Juliet Stephenson and Erin Doherty star in the film which has just wrapped following a UK shoot. It is produced by Gilbert and Barry Castagnola’s Rustle Up Productions, with Jared Harris and Lucette Walters’ Little Light Films as executive producers.

It’s not unusual for a film to be nominated in multiple categories at the Oscars — a big movie like, say, Dune is up for 10 awards this year, ranging from Best Picture to a slew of technical categories (how many or how much of those likely wins we’ll actually get to watch during the broadcast, however, remains to be seen). It’s a hell of a lot rarer for something to get nominated in a trio of disparate major categories like Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary and Best International Feature.

‘Sex Education’ creator Laurie Nunn and ‘Babyteeth’ director Shannon Murphy are also mentors.

Anne Mensah, the vice president of original series at Netflix, and See-Saw’s head of development, film and limited series, Katherine Bridle are among the senior executives taking part in the 2021 BFI Network x Bafta Crew mentoring programme.

This is the third edition of the mentoring scheme, which aims to provide support to 20 filmmakers from across the UK who are from regions and communities underrepresented in the screen industries and are currently working towards debut projects in film and television.

As well as being paired a mentor,...

Eminent Russian media industry executive Nadezda Motina has launched Arna Media, a Moscow-based independent distribution company that will distribute local language and international feature films for the Russian market.

Arna, which plans to release 12 films a year from 2022, already has a strong line-up as part of its inaugural distribution slate. These include Lionsgate’s “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” starring Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack, BAFTA winning director Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” Marjane Satrapi’s “Enter the Dragons” with Gemma Arterton, Oliver Stone’s documentary “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass,” narrated by Donald Sutherland and Whoopi Goldberg and StudioCanal’s “Not Bloody Likely,” starring Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter.

Arna also has plans to expand its operations into co-productions and Motina is in advanced talks with partners on a number of co-productions ahead of formal announcements to come.

“Arna Media will serve as a window...

France has been a supreme force in the Oscars’ international feature race for decades. This year, three acclaimed films from women directors — Céline Sciamma, Audrey Diwan and Julia Ducournau — are believed to be at the top of the list to represent the country for the upcoming 94th ceremony, set to take place on March 27. Though France is the most-nominated country in the history of the category, it hasn’t walked away with the prize in nearly 30 years. Can that change this year?

The French submission is decided annually by the National Cinema Center. The committee will hold its first meeting on Thursday to pre-select a shortlist of films, with the producers being “auditioned” by the committee on Oct. 12, before the final choice is made. Sciamma’s “Petite Maman,” Ducournau’s “Titane” and Diwan’s “Happening” are believed to be the favorites for consideration. “Happening” was just acquired by IFC Films...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "The Voices"

Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max

The Pitch: Acclaimed director Marjane Satrapi followed up her Oscar-nominated "Persepolis," a black and white animated feature about a rebellious young Iranian girl navigating life during the Islamic Revolution, with a pitch-black comedy about a happy-go-lucky guy named Jerry romancing a co-worker. The only problem is he's a schizophrenic serial murderer.

"The Voices" is a criminally underseen...

The post The Daily Stream: The Voices Stars a Pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds in a Hilariously Disturbing Rom-Com/Serial Killer Story appeared first on /Film.

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

Rosamund Pike has assumed guardianship of the Best Actress Golden Globe for Motion Picture, Comedy or Drama, for the ruthlessly hilarious I Care A Lot.

“I bet I look like I care a lot. And I do, I care a lot,” said a clearly thrilled Pike.

It was tough field that included newcomer Maria Bakalova who was a breakout hit in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. In her acceptance speech, Pike gave a shoutout to fellow nominees, especially Bakalova. “In my film I had to swim up from a sinking car. I think I would have rather had to do that than be in a room alone with Rudy Guiliani.” (We have Bakalova’s Tutar from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm to thank for forcing Rudy Giuliani to publicly defend some awkward hand motions as tucking in his shirt.)

Pike plays Marla, a con artist with a lucrative gig tricking not very bright judges...

Exclusive: Gemma Arterton (Their Finest) and Jason Tobin (Warrior) will lead the cast of comedy Enter The Dragons for Oscar-nominated director Marjane Satrapi, with the film shooting this summer in the UK.

Set in the small English town of Coalshaw in 1979, the film follows Gloria Grimshaw (Gemma Arterton). The most she can hope for from life is selling cosmetics and having a baby, but when the close-knit community of women come under threat, Gloria is forced to defend herself – by learning martial arts from Hao (Tobin) at the Chinese takeaway.

As Gloria begins to take control of her life, her friends notice this transformation and want to join in. Soon women of all ages are learning to fight together with Gloria and Hao, becoming the ‘Coalshaw Dragons’ and using their new skills to stand up to the men in their lives.

The screenplay has been penned by Joy Wilkinson...

⊗ Film is supposed to be inclusive. But if you can’t see yourself on-screen, do you feel as if you even exist? One-third of our lives is spent at work, and the artists who express their creativity through cinema deserve to have their work seen, and not just because of the color of their skin or their gender but because when you are exposed to an experience different from your own, your creativity grows. Take a moment to review this list of eligible films, putting a check mark on the ones you have seen from this year. Ideally, that will leave you with a clearer picture of how you are contributing to cinema’s evolution with your votes.

Your goal should be to watch all of these films, but let’s be realistic. Try seeing at least 60% of them. All meet the Academy’s diversity requirements — in front of or...

After recording in a sound booth today for six hours on a “secret project,” actress Rosamund Pike was excited to learn that she’d notched her third Golden Globe nomination, for her turn in the darkly comedic Netflix thriller, I Care a Lot.

“It was unbelievable. Because I’d been so head-down in this project, I was blindsided by it, to be honest,” Pike tells Deadline, “which made it all the more magical, really. “

In the film from writer/director J Blakeson, the actress plays Marla, a con artist who steals from the elderly, by tricking judges into naming her their legal guardian—only to have her scheme disrupted, when she trifles with the wrong individual.

Pike says the character of Marla was immediately compelling, given her “grit and her balls, and her sort of self-proclaimed lioness status.”

“It was her appetite, her shamelessness, her ambition, her ruthlessness, all these traits that historically,...

Once Upon a Time in Belgium: Paronnaud Goes into the Woods for Violent Retro-Fairytale

The notion of the wolf in sheep’s clothing busts into blurred territory with Hunted, the latest offering from director Vincent Paronnaud, an effort which attempts to shake-up the familiar woman-in-peril through the lens of fairytale tropes. Revered for his co-directed efforts with Marjane Satrapi, including 2007’s animated Persepolis and their hybrid follow-up Chicken with Plums (2011), the noted French comic book writer and artist makes his first solo effort since 2009’s Villemolle 81 (under his pseudonym Winshluss).

Co-written by Lea Pernollet and rooted in unspecified Euro climes (though it was shot in Belgium), a hodge-podge of Belgian and Irish actors speaking accented English instills a sense of timelessness and disorientation, like a parallel universe where violence against women, of course, continues to be a given.…...

Rosamund Pike returns to her icy-cool “Gone Girl” character Amy Dunne in “I Care a Lot,” where she plays a high-falutin con artist who swindles elders while disguised as a care person. Directed and written by J Blakeson, the dark comedy premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, where it was acquired by Netflix. The film releases on the platform February 19 and also stars Dianne Wiest, Chris Messina, Peter Dinklage, Eiza González, Macon Blair, Alicia Witt, Damian Young, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. Watch the official trailer below.

In “I Care a Lot,” Marla Grayson (Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike) is a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards whose assets she seizes and bilks through dubious but somehow legal means. It’s a well-oiled racket that Marla and her business-partner and lover Fran (Eiza González) use with brutal efficiency on their latest “cherry,” Jennifer Peterson (two-time Academy...

On Radioactive, production designer Michael Carlin created a sense of enormous scope with a relatively modest budget, recreating period environments from five countries, for a story spanning more than a century.

Based on a graphic novel by Lauren Redniss, the drama tells the story of Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike), the pioneering scientist who changed the world with her discovery of radioactivity. Intercut with episodes from Curie’s life were scenes that spoke to the consequences of her work, staged at Hiroshima, Chernobyl and other destinations.

To carry the viewer through time and space, Carlin would transform sections of Budapest and Spain, to achieve a diverse assortment of looks.

But for the production designer, Radioactive is one of two dramas in the awards conversation this year, the other being The Mauritanian. Directed by Kevin Macdonald, the STX title tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (Tahar Rahim), a man held...