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I’ve seen documentaries reveal fascinating dimensions of John Lennon — films like “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” (2006), which chronicled his political activism and the Nixon administration’s attempts to deport him, or “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story” (2022), a portrait of Lennon’s relationship with May Pang. But “One to One: John & Yoko,” despite its rather nondescript title, may be the most accomplished and arresting of these tightly angled Lennon profiles. “The Lost Weekend” showed us a side of Lennon that had been somewhat under the radar. “One to One” deals with the period just before the Lost Weekend, starting in August 1971, when John and Yoko moved from their country estate outside London to New York City, where they spent 18 months living in a small apartment in the West Village. (It was after that that they moved into the Dakota.)

Lennon was out and about, digging the city,...

Exclusive: Sffilm’s prestigious Doc Stories is set to welcome a slew of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmakers to its 10th anniversary event next month, along with industry heavyweights Keri Putnam, Laura Kim, Carrie Lozano, and Justine Nagan.

The documentary festival, which runs from October 17-20 in San Francisco, unveiled its full lineup this morning, highlighted by new work from Kevin Macdonald, Ben Proudfoot, Raoul Peck, Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, and Pedro Kos, as well as a classic from Amy Berg about a singer who stunned San Francisco with her talent more than 50 years ago. [Scroll for the full program]

Macdonald opens the festival with One to One: John and Yoko, co-directed by Sam Rice-Edwards, “which chronicles John and Yoko’s musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world set against the backdrop of a turbulent era in American history.”

The closing night film belongs to Suburban Fury,...

Fans wanting to see the Oprah Winfrey documentary being made for Apple TV have gotten some bad news. The documentary, which was created based on her life, will not be released at all. Oprah ended up paying to buy back her rights to the documentary and will not release it.

Here is what you need to know about the Oprah documentary.

Oprah Winfrey Blocks Release Of Documentary

Oprah Winfrey has blocked the release of a documentary about her life. In 2021, Apple TV announced that acclaimed Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald would direct the film about Oprah’s life story. This was a big deal at the time and Macdonald worked on the film over the last few years.

[Source: YouTube]However, problems reportedly arose when Winfrey and Macdonald clashed over what was in the documentary. Since their disagreement, the documentary has been on hold. Kevin finished the movie, but when Oprah didn’t like it,...

Actor James McAvoy is known for his time as Charles Xavier / Professor X in the X-Men films. The actor has also appeared in several other critically acclaimed films, including the 2006 historical drama The Last King of Scotland. Aside from his strong acting performances, McAvoy is also known for his extensive philanthropic work.

James McAvoy is known for his philanthropic work (Credit: X-Men: Dark Phoenix | Fox).

However, McAvoy once went to the scary lengths of jumping from a building to support his charity work. The actor later recounted the experience in an interview, walking fans through how it felt to dive from one of the tallest buildings in the world. Here is what McAvoy had to say and why it proves we don’t deserve him.

James McAvoy Took Part in a Base Jump For a Noble Cause

James McAvoy played the role of Dr. Nicholas Garrigan in the...

Adam Driver protagoniza el proyecto más personal de Coppola. © Lionsgate

Ya está aquí el nuevo tráiler y póster de la película Megalopolis, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (El Padrino), que se proyectará en el Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián dentro de la sección Perlak.

Megalopolis es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con...

Our favorite Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, happens to be a major geek, but not in a way to compete with his Victor Frankenstein (2015) co-star James McAvoy. Awaiting his panel for the horror thriller, the duo appeared in an MTV After Hours from Josh Horowitz, to answer pop culture trivia, wherein McAvoy beat Radcliffe’s a*s at his own game.

Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy in Victor Frankenstein (2015) | image: Tsg Entertainment, 20th Century Fox

Appearing in Josh Horowitz’s team, Daniel Radcliffe was asked to compete with James McAvoy and his four Horsemen of Apocalypse (what a reference to his 2016 Marvel flick X-Men: Apocalypse). During the segment, although Radcliffe was expected to know the most basic questions about Harry Potter, the actor surprisingly lost to McAvoy. It now seems quite obvious why Radcliffe was initially intimidated by the X-Men star while filming their movie.

James McAvoy Beat Daniel Radcliffe...

After a busy August with the Season 2 premiere of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” which continues throughout September with new episodes through Oct. 3, “Batman: Caped Crusader,” and more, Amazon streaming services Prime Video and Freevee will have a comparably quiet September.

Most of the action for the month will come from Prime Video’s sports options. After the Sept. 5 Kickoff Game at Arrowhead Stadium with the defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs going up against the Baltimore Ravens, Prime Video’s third season of Thursday Night Football begins with AFC East champs Buffalo Bills taking on the Miami Dolphins in Miami. The WNBA and Nwsl also continue their seasons on Prime Video, with matches all month long from New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury, Angel City Fc, and more top teams.

But Prime Video will welcome a few new series this month, including the highly publicized...

If a cross-section of documentary filmmakers were offered access to live performances, behind-the-scenes footage and even private phone calls during a couple of years in the life and career of John Lennon, it’s unlikely that many of them would choose the period of 1971-1972. That was when Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, got heavily into political causes and made “Some Time in New York City,” an unwieldy and hamfisted slice of rock ‘n’ roll agitprop that long ago secured its reputation as the worst album of Lennon’s career.

But that’s the period that director Kevin Macdonald and co-director Sam Rice-Edwards had to work with to make “One to One: John & Yoko,” which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Friday and will also play in Telluride this weekend. The filmmakers have managed to make a bracing, scattered and somewhat revelatory look at...

The bond between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, mutually inspired artists from very different worlds, is only one of the love stories at the core of director Kevin Macdonald’s vibrant and stirring new documentary. Tracing an eventful year, One to One: John & Yoko is, first and foremost, a portrait of the couple’s love affair with New York City, their newly adopted home. In its mix of remarkable archival material, the film is both tender and galvanizing, summoning up what New York felt like in 1972 (yes, I would know) and offering a fresh slant on a country’s upheaval and a generation’s countercultural awakening.

For Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland), One to One is not only a return to form after his mixed-bag profile of John Galliano, but one of his finest pieces of work. He and co-director/editor Sam Rice-Edwards have conjured...

Cinetic Media has signed Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin MacDonald for management.

Macdonald won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for “One Day in September,” a look at the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics In Munich. MacDonald’s narrative feature, “The Last King of Scotland,” earned the best actor Oscar for Forest Whitaker for his chilling performance as Idi Amin.

MacDonald will be attending the Venice Film Festival, where he will premiere a “One to One: John & Yoko,” a documentary about the music legends’ relationship from Mercury Studios. His recent documentary “Klitschko: More Than a Fight,” a look at Vitali Klitschko, a boxing champ turned the mayor of Kyiv, opened the 2024 Sheffield DocFest. Previous work in the non-fiction space include “Marley,” a portrait of reggae great Bob Marley; “Whitney,” an examination of pop sensation Whitney Houston; and “High & Low — John Galliano,” which charts the controversial fashion designer’s fall.

El tráiler comenzaba con citas inventadas de críticos famosos. © Lionsgate

Lionsgate ha retirado el tráiler de Megalópolis, la nueva película de Francis Ford Coppola, debido a una controversia.

El tráiler de la película comenzaba con una serie de citas atribuidas a conocidos críticos, que criticaban duramente algunas de las obras más emblemáticas de Coppola, como El Padrino, Apocalypse Now o Drácula. Estas citas incluían frases como «no sabe lo que quiere ser» sobre El Padrino, «una basura épica» sobre Apocalypse Now, y «un triunfo de estilo sobre sustancia» sobre Drácula. Con estas citas negativas sobre películas muy aclamadas del director, el estudio quería restarle importancia a la dura y fría acogida de Megalopolis en su estreno mundial en Cannes. ¿El problema? Todas estas citas son inventadas y falsamente atribuidas a críticos famosos como Pauline Kael, Rex Reed y Roger Ebert.

En una declaración facilitada a Vulture, un portavoz de Lionsgate...

Adam Driver protagoniza el proyecto más personal de Coppola. © Lionsgate

Ya está aquí el nuevo tráiler y póster de la película Megalopolis, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (El Padrino), que se proyectará en el Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián dentro de la sección Perlak.

Megalopolis es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con...

It’s an episode Prince Andrew would no doubt wish to be forgotten, but his car-crash “Newsnight” interview is set to enthral viewers yet again in Prime Video’s upcoming dramatization.

“A Very Royal Scandal,” which stars Michael Sheen as the disgraced prince and Ruth Wilson as arch interviewer Emily Maitlis, has been set for release on the streaming platform on Sept. 19, Variety can confirm.

Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis in ‘A Very Royal Scandal’ (Courtesy of Prime Video)

The streamer has also debuted a series of first-look images from the series, showing “Good Omens” star Sheen’s transformation into the British royal, who was widely criticized for his defense of his friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his failure to mention Epstein’s victims during the 2019 interview.

Wilson suits up as BBC anchor Maitlis, whose cool performance and professionalism during the interview was highly praised.

“One night. One hour.

Peter Morgan is a playwright, screenwriter and TV series creator and showrunner who has been described by The Guardian as “Britain’s leading contemporary screen dramatist,” and about whom the publication wrote, “There is no one who works quite like him. Actually, there might be nobody who has worked quite like him in British drama since Shakespeare. He specializes in taking the lives of public figures, mingling the events and words of their lives with his own imaginings, and recasting it as drama that is as close to documentary as possible without actually being a docudrama.”

Morgan wrote the theatrical productions Frost/Nixon, which was on the West End in 2006 and Broadway in 2007; The Audience, which was on the West End in 2013 and Broadway in 2015; and Patriots, which was on the West End in 2023 and Broadway in 2024. He was also the screenwriter of TV films including 2003’s The Deal, 2006’s Longford...

Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker has had a long and celebrated acting career though initially he aspired to be an opera singer. He enrolled at the University of Southern California to study opera but then changed his major to acting and graduated from the school with a Bfa in Drama.

While still enrolled in college, Whitaker began acting professionally. His first film role came in a movie called “Tag: The Assassination Game,” which starred Robert Carradine and Linda Hamilton. That same year he would get a small role in a movie about high school students that would become a classic. He joined a cast of unknown actors including Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” The film was a bit of a sleeper hit in 1982 but became a classic through repeated showings on cable TV.

Six years later Whitaker would gain his...

In a few words, not much. Well, that’s not entirely true, but this movie from The Raid’s Gareth Evans finished shooting way back in the fall of 2021. Havoc seems to have just disappeared once filming wrapped. It looks like the film will finally hit Netflix screens later this year. What took so long?

What’s It About?

The film looks to continue Evans’ run in the crime/action/thriller genre. This time around, a detective gets pulled into a drug deal gone wrong. When he starts investigating, he finds that a politician’s son is involved. While trying to figure out how the whole thing fits together, the detective finds a city-wide corruption scheme. He has to wade through it to ensure the kid gets out okay but keep himself safe from the politicians pulling the strings.

It’s not as straightforward as The Raid films, where we...

Few actors have reached the level of fame Will Smith has in his astonishing career. From his early days in sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to blockbuster hits like Men in Black, Smith has come a long way. However, it took a long time for him to get his efforts recognized, as he won his only Oscar in 2022 in his decades-long career.

Will Smith as the Genie in Aladdin [Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures]Will Smith won his first Academy Award for King Richard in 2022 for Best Actor in a Leading Role. However, both Smith and his fans believe that he should’ve won an Oscar long ago, in a film Smith declared as the best movie he had ever been in.

Will Smith reveals The Pursuit of Happyness is his best film ever

Will Smith‘s repertoire consists of all the genres you can think of – action,...

June 4, 2024 – Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley, beloved James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and Star Wars universe luminary Mark Hamill form the ultimate vocal rogues’ gallery in Mofac Animation’s upcoming The King of Kings, an animated family film inspired by a little-known short story by Charles Dickens depicting the life and times of Jesus Christ.

Kingsley voices High Priest Caiaphas, who presided over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. Hamill takes on the role of King Herod, who, according to the Gospel of Matthew, ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus as an infant. And Brosnan gives animated life to Pontius Pilate, who ultimately ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. The triumvirate of villainous voices further enhances the A-list cast behind the faith-based animated film, which also includes Academy Award & Emmy Award winners Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Golden Globe...

Courtesy of Studiocanal

by James Cameron-wilson

Hard to believe today, but Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1949 drama was a flop. A glum, perhaps cynical, claustrophobic piece of film noir shot in black-and-white, The Small Back Room was released just four years after the end of the Second World War – and it was not what postwar audiences wanted to see. Indeed, it is hardly one of the most celebrated titles in the Powell/Pressburger catalogue and I, for one, had never seen it before. Even so, having just watched this consummately photographed and magically restored work, I would say without hesitation it is one of my very favourite Powell and Pressburger films.

With the psychological complexity of a good play and replete with telling touches, it blends both the disciplines of Hollywood film noir with the Expressionism of the Weimar cinema of Germany, but with its own ineffable, stiff upper lip Englishness.

Mofac Animation has found Jesus.

Oscar Isaac has signed on to portray Jesus Christ in The King of Kings, the animated family film being made by the South Korean-based animation house. At the same time, Forest Whitaker has been tapped to give voice to the apostle Peter.

The duo join a growing A-list voice cast that includes Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, and Jojo Rabbit actor Roman Griffin Davis.

Seong-ho “Jay” Jang, known as a visual effects pioneer in Korea, is directing King of Kings while Anfernee Kim (Last Knights, John Woo’s The Crossing 2) is producing.

The faith-based feature is very loosely inspired by The Life of Our Lord, a little-known Charles Dickens short story that was published posthumously and that depicted the life and times of Jesus.

The script, by Jang and Rob Edwards (Disney’s The Princess and the Frog), sees Charles and Walter Dickens, voiced by Branagh and Davis,...

Adam Driver protagoniza el proyecto más personal de Coppola.

Se ha publicado el primer tráiler de la esperadísima película “Megalopolis”, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (“El Padrino”).

“Megalopolis” es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con un reparto coral que incluye Adam Driver (“Historia de un Matrimonio”), Forest Whitaker (“El Último Rey de Escocia”), Nathalie Emmanuel...

Adam Driver protagoniza la película que tendrá su estreno mundial en Cannes.

Ya tenemos el primer avance de la esperadísima película “Megalopolis”, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (“El Padrino”).

“Megalopolis” es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con un reparto coral que incluye Adam Driver (“Historia de un Matrimonio”), Forest Whitaker (“El Último Rey de Escocia...

Exclusive: James McAvoy’s directorial debut, which we revealed last fall, has set lead cast and is heading to the Cannes market with Bankside and UTA Independent Film Group.

BAFTA winner McAvoy will take on a supporting role in the movie, which will be led by BAFTA-nominated How To Have Sex breakout Samuel Bottomley and newcomer Séamus McLean Ross, who is currently filming on Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

Currently titled California Schemin’ (working title), the film will chart the true story of two Scottish lads from Dundee who conned the international music industry by adopting American accents and pretending to be established Californian rap duo, Silibil N’ Brains.

In the late 90’s, Gavin Bain (McLean Ross) and Billy Boyd (Bottomley) had their musical ambitions consistently ridiculed for having the ‘wrong’ accents so they went for broke and reinvented themselves as Californian rappers. McAvoy’s movie will show how the...

Olivia Cooke and Jamie Bell are set to appear in Nathalie Biancheri’s unconventional romance Takes One To Know One, with Cornerstone handling international sales and CAA Media Finance co-repping the US.

When Eleanor (Cooke) and Lucas (Bell) meet in Rome, the chemistry is electric, and looks like the start of something life-changing, apart from a key stumbling block: they are both in relationships with other people.

Producers are Gail Egan, Claude Dal Farra and Brian Keady and Cooke. Production companies are Potboiler Productions, the UK outfit behind The Last King of Scotland and The Constant Gardener; Bcdf Pictures, the...

“Sound of Metal” star Olivia Cooke, soon to be returning to “House of the Dragon” for its second season, and BAFTA winner Jamie Bell, recently seen in “All of Us Strangers,” are set to star in “Takes One to Know One.” The film is billed as an “unconventional and contemporary take on romance.”

The feature comes from Italian director Nathalie Biancheri, working from a 2022 Black List screenplay by WGA-nominated writer Brooke Baker. Production is due to commence in Italy later this year, with Cornerstone handling international sales and distribution and and launching sales at Cannes and co-repping the U.S. with CAA Media Finance.

“Takes One to Know One” follows Eleanor (Cooke) and Lucas (Bell). When the two meet in Rome, their chemistry is electric. With a shared passion for art, Italy and each other, it looks like the start of something life-changing. The biggest stumbling block: they are both in relationships with other people.

Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) and BAFTA Award winner Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers) have signed on to lead Italian filmmaker Nathalie Biancheri’s latest pic Takes One To Know One.

Cornerstone has international rights to the pic and will co-rep the US with CAA Media Finance. The pair will launch sales at Cannes.

Billed as an “unconventional and contemporary take on romance,” the film was penned by writer Brooke Baker. The screenplay was featured on the 2022 Black List. Cameras are set to roll in Italy in late 2024.

The film’s synopsis reads: When Eleanor (Cooke) and Lucas (Bell) meet in Rome, the chemistry is electric. With a shared passion for art, Italy, and each other, it looks like the start of something life-changing. The biggest stumbling block: They are both in relationships with other people.

Takes One To Know One is a Potboiler, Bcdf Pictures,...

The Sheffield DocFest will open its 2024 edition with the world premiere of Kevin Macdonald’s Klitschko: More Than a Fight on June 12 at Sheffield City Hall. The annual documentary festival in England also unveiled Roger Ross Williams, the first African American director to win an Academy Award for his 2010 doc short Music by Prudence, as the guest of honor.

The Sky original Klitschko: More Than a Fight promises to offer audiences “unprecedented access to former heavyweight boxing world champion Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir, who together

dominated the sport for more than a decade,” according to a description of the doc. “Now the longest-serving mayor of Kyiv, this feature-length documentary charts Vitali’s journey from the ring to political office, leading the defense of the capital when it was attacked by Russian forces in February 2022 to the present day. While Wladimir uses his celebrity status and popularity to help...

Two of spring’s starriest releases arrive on digital platforms this week. Neither was a commercial sensation, but each attracted enough buzz to signal long shelf lives ahead. Watch one when you get home from seeing “Challengers.”

The contender to watch this week: “Love Lies Bleeding“

For her sophomore feature, Rose Glass, one of the coolest directors working today, made an erotic lesbian crime thriller starring Kristen Stewart as an ’80s gym manager who falls hard for a bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian), not realizing her new lady has ties to her estranged gangster father (a long-haired Ed Harris). It’s an electric movie oozing with noirish grime, but it wasn’t quite the runaway hit A24 was probably hoping for, collecting a modest $8.7 million at the worldwide box office despite Stewart’s star power. Still, “Love Lies Bleeding” seems destined for cult-favorite status, and Glass has gained a lifetime’s worth of clout.

Kevin Macdonald's High & Low – John Galliano is now showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries.High & Low – John Galliano.What are the limits of forgiveness? Is making a documentary about a disgraced public figure, in which that remorseful person is allowed to try to explain their actions, inherently an act of damage-control propaganda? Or can it be a way of letting them tighten their own noose? Since its premiere at Telluride last September, Kevin Macdonald’s High & Low – John Galliano (2023) has fueled such heated conversations. Leaving many of its inquiries open-ended, this documentary is about neither complete condemnation nor exoneration. Instead, Macdonald tries to make sense of the enigma at his film’s center: a man who does not deny committing a hate crime over a decade ago, but who still claims to have no memory of the events or how he got there.Widely admired for his audacious style and designs,...

James McAvoy is rare among this new young breed of actors, as he has the ability to shift between offering heartbreaking sensitivity (“Atonement”) to displaying some serious action chops (“Atomic Blonde” and “Wanted”). The ability to toggle between these two attributes in such films as “The Last King of Scotland,” “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and as the young Professor X in several films in the “X-Men” series that has made him internationally one of the most in-demand actors in the world.

Not only is McAvoy versatile in the kind of projects he selects, but he delivers, having earned two BAFTA nominations for his performances in “The Last King of Scotland” and “Atonement,” and a Golden Globe nom for “Atonement” as well.

Let’s raise up a glass to that great Scot with our photo gallery, which ranks his 10 greatest film performances from worst to best.

Series projects by filmmakers Kevin Macdonald, Barbera Albert and Erik Matti have won key prizes at the second edition of Seriesmakers, Series Mania’s development lab for film directors moving into series.

Macdonald and producer Femke Wolting won one of two Beta Development Awards worth €50,000 for their series project George Blake which tells the story of the prolific British double agent.

Macdonald has won the Oscar best documentary feature prize for One Day In September, while The Last King of Scotland won an Oscar for lead actor for Forest Whitaker. He was unable to collect the prize which was picked up by Wolting.

Projects from Oscar-winning Scottish director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), Philippine filmmaker Erik Matti (On the Job) and Austrian auteur Barbara Albert (Nordrand) have been picked as the most promising new TV pitches at this year’s Series Mania festival.

Macdonald’s George Blake, a real-life spy thriller about the famed double agent, and Matti’s The Squatter, an East-meets-West crime story about a secretive Filipino maid and a tenacious Ukrainian detective who team up, won this year’s Beta Development Awards and will receive $54,000 (€ 50,000) each in development cash from European production and sales company Beta Group.

In addition to his feature work, which includes The Mauritanian with Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster, and State of Play starring Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe, Macdonald has helmed several acclaimed documentaries, including the Oscar-winning One Day in September (2000), 2004’s Touching The Void and 2013’s Marley.

Matti’s crime thriller On the Job 2: The Missing 8...

After the conclusion of each Academy Awards ceremony, I always go back and rewatch the telecast from start to finish. I want to pick up on all of the things that I might have missed during my initial viewing. I especially like to study the nominees’ reactions each time an envelope is opened — particularly for the major categories when the famous five-camera shot is strategically displayed on the TV screen. I always rewind the moment that each winner is announced, so that I can carefully study the look on each individual’s face both before and after the big reveal.

As we all know, this year’s Best Actress race was the only above-the-line race with any real suspense. That it made it all the more fascinating when reigning Best Actress Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) announced that the torch would be passed on to Emma Stone in “Poor Things.

James McAvoy has been in the entertainment industry since he was a teenager. When he made his debut as an actor in The Near Room in 1995, he was not much interested in becoming an actor. However, that changed soon and he ended up going to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He graduated from the academy in 2000.

James McAvoy in X-Men: Apocalypse

Since then, he has worked with numerous great directors such as Steven Spielberg and Matthew Vaughn. Long before he gained recognition with his roles in the X-Men film series and The Chronicles of Narnia, McAvoy appeared in the miniseries Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune. However, he refused to give any advice to Timothee Chalamet when his movie Dune was about to be released in 2021.

James McAvoy Refused to Give Advice to Timothee Chalamet

James McAvoy in Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune

One has to...

Since the Academy Awards were first handed out in 1929, only 23 Oscars have been awarded to performances given by Black actresses and actors. Hattie McDaniel made history for Black performers by winning for “Gone With the Wind” (supporting in 1939), while Sidney Poitier was the first male actor to prevail for “Lilies of the Field” (lead in 1963). Denzel Washington became the first two-time Black acting champion when he claimed victory for “Glory” (supporting in 1989) and “Training Day” (lead in 2001), with Mahershala Ali joining him years later for “Moonlight” (supporting in 2016) and “Green Book” (supporting in 2018). Halle Berry was the first, and so far only, Black Best Actress thanks to “Monster’s Ball” (2001). The acting category with the most Black winners is Best Supporting Actress, with 10 including recent champ Da’Vine Joy Randolph for “The Holdovers” (2023). Tour our photo gallery above of every Black actress and actor who won Academy Awards.

Let’s take a...

The 2024 Oscar nominees for Best Actor are Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”). Murphy (16/5) is favored to win by our odds, followed in order by Giamatti (18/5), Cooper (9/2), Wright (9/2), and Domingo (9/2).

Whereas last year’s lead male lineup was the first in almost nine decades to consist entirely of Oscars newcomers, this one includes three rookies and two general veterans. Standing alone in having already competed for this specific award is Cooper, who was previously recognized for “Silver Linings Playbook” (2013), “American Sniper” (2015), and “A Star Is Born” (2019). Since he personally helmed both “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro,” he is now the fourth person to direct himself to multiple acting nominations, following Laurence Olivier, Warren Beatty, and Clint Eastwood.

Cooper is concurrently nominated for co-writing the original screenplay for “Maestro” with past winner Josh Singer and is directly involved...

Zendaya, Michelle Pfeiffer and Oscar winners Nicolas Cage and Al Pacino are among the first group of presenters for this year’s 96th Oscars ceremony.

Also presenting are last year’s four acting winners — Brendan Fraser from “The Whale” and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis from the best picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Oscar winners Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight” and “Green Book”), Jessica Lange (“Tootsie” and “Blue Sky”), Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”), Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) and Sam Rockwell also are set to take the stage.

Additional presenters include Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Keaton, Regina King, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate McKinnon, Rita Moreno, John Mulaney, Catherine O’Hara, Octavia Spencer and Ramy Youssef.

Rounding out the list of presenters are Ariana Grande, Issa Rae, Anya Taylor-Joy, Oscar nominees Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”), Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), America Ferrera, Ryan Gosling (“Barbie”), Melissa McCarthy...

Seriesmakers, a joint initiative of Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival, and European film-tv powerhouse Beta Group, has revealed the 10 top-notch project lineup of the second edition of its novel and high-powered mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut.

This year’s Seriesmakers features in development drama series from Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“George Blake”), behind “The Last King Of Scotland,” and from Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti, who burst onto the scene co-writing with Juho Kuosmanen the latter’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki,” a 2016 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner.

Also in the mix is the highly courted Kaouther Ben Hania, a double Oscar nominee for the “compelling, ambitious hybrid” “Four Daughters,” said Variety, in the doc category and the “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (2020), Tunisia’s entry in international feature.

In all, however, nine of the ten directors winning berths this...

Glasgow Film Festival’s (Gff) Industry Focus (March 3-7) returns with a line-up that includes a celebration of the new wave of UK filmmaking and brings together filmmakers for an in conversation event with the BFI’s head of the Filmmaking Fund Mia Bays and BBC Film director Eva Yates.

NextGen will unite executives with Girl director Adura Onashile, Scrapper filmmaker Charlotte Regan and Lucy Cohen, whose feature Edge Of Summer will world premiere at this year’s Gff.

Further highlights include the Animatic Live Pitch - Gff’s new animation talent development scheme, which culminates in a live pitch...

Since the establishment of the Academy Awards in 1929, exactly 60 films have achieved lone lead male acting nominations, meaning they were each recognized in the Best Actor category and nowhere else. The last such instance occurred in 2023 and involved “Aftersun” star Paul Mescal, who, at 26, stood out as the youngest member of a lineup consisting only of first-time Oscar contenders. Although his low-budget movie had a strong shot at an original screenplay bid and was viewed as a serious Best Picture candidate, it ended up getting no love outside the acting branch.

Before Mescal was recognized, his category hadn’t seen a lone nominee since Willem Dafoe earned his first lead bid for “At Eternity’s Gate” in 2019. This was the ninth time that four or more years separated consecutive Best Actor loners, with the single largest gap having spread between Cary Grant and Clifton Webb. Such nominations appear to be becoming less common in this category,...

“The Girl on the Train,” “A Quiet Place,” “Mary Poppins Returns,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Sicario,” “Looper,” “The Young Victoria.” Those are just a select few of the many acclaimed performances delivered by Emily Blunt in her first two decades as a star. She has been nominated for seven Golden Globes, seven Critics’ Choice Awards, four SAG Awards and three BAFTAs. She’s won at the Globes (“Gideon’s Daughter”), Critics’ Choice (“Edge of Tomorrow”) and SAG (“A Quiet Place.”) So how has this widely beloved actress not had her time in the sun with the academy?

She has never been part of a Best Picture nominee. None of those aforementioned films of hers made the cut with the academy in the top category. This will undoubtedly change with “Oppenheimer.” Indeed this 3-hour pressure-cooker of an epic is widely predicted to win the top prize.

With the immense good will and...

Last Song From Kabul Photo: Doc NYC

A tribute to the courage of a group of girls who made a daring escape as Afghan civic society collapsed, and an ode to the musical traditions that the Taliban are trying to destroy, Kevin Macdonald and Ruhi Hamid’s short documentary Last Song From Kabul is one of the strongest contenders on this year’s Oscar shortlist. It’s thrilling to watch as it pieces together events using footage recorded at the time, and one hopes that it will serve to remind people that for all their silence on the world stage, Afghan women – and many others there too – remain in desperate need of help.

Kevin and I met up a few days after he got the news about the Oscars. He was understandably excited, especially because, though he’s known for accomplished features like The Last King Of Scotland and The Mauritanian...

Ryan Gosling is one of the biggest contenders for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year for his role as Ken in Greta Gerwig‘s smash hit “Barbie.” The Warner Bros. movie follows Margot Robbie‘s titular Barbie as she leaves Barbie Land for the real world in search of answers after suffering an existential crisis. Gosling’s performance as Ken has brought him plenty of plaudits, leading to a strong case for Best Supporting Actor in this year’s Oscars race.

However, this isn’t the first Oscars race Gosling has been in as he’s received two Academy Award nominations before. Let’s take a look back at them.

Gosling was first nominated in 2007 when he received a Best Actor notice for “Half Nelson,” which follows Gosling as a junior high school teacher with a drug habit. Gosling’s teacher forms a friendship with one of his students...

Exactly 20 years after he made history as the first Black performer to win a Golden Globe for a multi-part limited series, Jeffrey Wright is widely expected to triumph on his second general notice from the same organization. According to Gold Derby’s odds, he is the frontrunner in the 2024 Best Film Comedy/Musical Actor race based on his work in “American Fiction,” which is also set to compete for Best Comedy/Musical Film and Best Screenplay. If Wright at least prevails and thereby maintains his perfect Golden Globes record, he will become the third Black winner in his category’s seven-decade existence.

Adapted from the no-holds-barred 2001 novel “Erasure,” “American Fiction” was written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Cord Jefferson, who has collected numerous accolades (including a Primetime Emmy) for his script work on such TV programs as “Watchmen” and “Succession.” Wright leads a primarily Black cast as fictional author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison,...

Another Scandal is heading to Prime Video: Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson will star in the streamer’s A Very Royal Scandal which will chronicle Emily Maitlis’ revealing interview with Prince Andrew. The news was first reported by our sister site Variety Monday.

According to the official description, the three-part limited series will follow “Emily Maitlis’ (Wilson) professional and personal journey as a Newsnight journalist, leading up to her acclaimed interview with Prince Andrew (Sheen).”

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The Last King of Scotland.In 2007, Forest Whitaker won the Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator and army general Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland (2006), becoming only the fourth Black man to win Best Actor. Lauded as the role of his career, critics praised his “full-throated, technically accomplished” performance, and his ability to “seize the space and show us how he can rage”.“Full-throated” the performance was indeed, but it was a throat filled with an accent that neither sounded like Amin’s nor any person from Koboko, northern Uganda, where the general was born. “Technically accomplished,” but the accent, directed by dialect coach Robert Easton, was neither technical, nor accomplished. Linguistically speaking, Whitaker’s accent is riddled with instances of the US English rhotic R pronunciation (which is pronounced at the back of the throat without a trill), and a combination of vowel pronunciations from across East Africa,...

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” the latest acclaimed epic drama from Martin Scorsese, is now in theaters, and the film’s star Leonardo DiCaprio is already an early favorite to receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance. In honor of the new movie from Apple Original Films, let’s look back at his seven Oscar nominations and talk about why DiCaprio finally won his first gold trophy at the 2016 Academy Awards for “The Revenant” (2015).

His first Oscar nomination came in the Best Supporting Actor category for “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” (1993). DiCaprio’s only Academy Award nom of the 1990s put him up against older acting titans — Ralph Fiennes for “Schindler’s List,” John Malkovich for “In the Line of Fire,” Pete Postlethwaite for “In the Name of the Father” and Tommy Lee Jones, who won for his performance in “The Fugitive.” DiCaprio’s biggest hurtle that first time around...

Exclusive: James McAvoy (X-Men franchise), Lucas Bravo (Emily In Paris), Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale) and Almudena Amor (The Good Boss) have been set for thriller Turn Up The Sun! which has begun production in the UK under an Equity Pact agreement.

Sales outfit The Syndicate is handling worldwide sales and will introduce the project at AFM.

Written and directed by Welsh filmmaker Jamie Adams (Black Mountain Poets), BAFTA-winner McAvoy leads cast in the ensemble about two couples that accidentally book the same countryside mansion for a weekend of work and pleasure but discover things may not be as they seem.

Shaun Sanghani is financing through his credit facility Sss Film Capital and will be producing through Sss Entertainment alongside Cara Shine Ballarini and Rebecca Miller and their Good Pals production shingle. The trio produced the 2021 SXSW Grand Jury winner The Fallout starring Jenna Ortega, which was acquired by Warner Bros....

Exclusive: Plan B Entertainment has set a joint venture with Oscar-winning documentarian and filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, known for movies including Touching The Void, One Day In September, Whitney, The Last King Of Scotland and State Of Play.

Per the Jv, the two parties will co-develop and co-produce unscripted films and series with both established and emerging directors.

Among Plan B’s current unscripted work is the ongoing Lego Masters series for Fox and the recent Wayne Shorter documentary Zero Gravity for Amazon. French media company Mediawan took a majority stake in the company late last year.

Macdonald’s previous work in documentary also includes Life In A Day, Marley and High & Low — John Galliano. He won a Best Documentary Oscar for One Day in September about the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics In Munich, Germany. His most recent narrative feature was The Mauritanian, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Jodie Foster,...

James McAvoy, the star of X-Men and The Last King of Scotland, is set to make his feature directorial debut on a film about the true story of two Scottish men who conned the international music industry by adopting American accents and pretending to be Californian rap duo, Silibil N’ Brains1

The film, which is currently untitled, will follow the exploits of Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who in the late 1990s were working as rappers in Scotland but found that their accents were not taken seriously in London. After being dismissed as “rapping Proclaimers” during auditions, they decided to reinvent themselves as Silibil (Boyd) and Brains McLoud (Bain), two childhood friends from San Jacinto, California who were also close with Eminem2

Under their new identity, they moved to London and quickly attracted attention from the music industry. They secured a record deal with Sony Music UK, received a large sum in advances,...