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Regardless of how many times directors like Guillermo del Toro, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller try to kill the stereotype that the medium of animation isn’t just for kids but for adults as well, and establish that “animation is cinema,” the evidence points to the fact that most animated properties are primarily aimed towards children. Just as an experiment, if I look at some of my favorite animated projects from the 2020s, I’ll come across stuff like Wolfwalkers, Cryptozoo, Luca, Mad God, Turning Red, Apollo 10 ½, The Bad Guys, My Love Affair with Marriage, The Sea Beast, Entergalactic, Oni: Thunder God’s Tale, Gdt’s Pinocchio, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, Carol & the End of the World, The Peasants, Orion and the Dark, and Ultraman Rising. And maybe only 7 of them can be considered unsuitable for children. The rest are uncomplicated and digestible enough for little kids.

Exclusive: Actor-producer Matthew Modine and Adam Rackoff’s Cinco Dedos Peliculas production company have signed on as executive producers of I Hope This Helps!, a documentary that explores the promise and peril of artificial intelligence.

Writer-director Daniel Freed enlisted Google’s AI chatbot Bard to help create the documentary, described as a “humorous, genre-bending hybrid film” that invites viewers to ponder “the evolving relationship between humanity and technology.”

Responding to prompts from the filmmaker, Google’s Bard fashioned a furry blue creature with big eyes to (one imagines) lessen the menacing specter of AI.

‘Stranger Things’ star Matthew Modine attends an event in London for ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ on December 14, 2023.

“Artificial intelligence is the most important, life-altering technological advancement in modern human history. Full stop,” Modine said in a statement. As a SAG-AFTRA board member, Modine was deeply engaged in the contentious contract talks last year between the...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Original Score Killers of the Flower Moon Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone Credit: AppleTV+

Weekly Commentary: It’s Ludwig Göransson taking home another Oscar for “Oppenheimer,” following his first win for “Black Panther.”

Next.

Will Win: “Oppenheimer” (Ludwig Göransson)

Could Win: “Killers of the Flower Moon...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Original Song Barbie

Weekly Commentary: With an original song win, Billie Eilish, 22, and Finneas, 26, would become the youngest artists ever to win two Oscars before the age of 30. The pair won for James Bond theme “No Time to Die” in 2022, and are nominated this year for “What Was I Made For,...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2023 Oscars Predictions:

Best Animated Feature

Weekly Commentary: Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” has garnered both the Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards, solidifying its status as a strong contender in the animated feature category. However, what’s intriguing is the absence of Miyazaki and his producer Toshio Suzuki at the award ceremonies,...

With “My Love Affair with Marriage,” animator Signe Baumane creates another dense personal narrative that expresses complicated concepts and ideas in images. Stuffed with irony, humor, Soviet history and musical numbers, her ambitious second feature (following 2014’s festival hit “Rocks In My Pockets”) boasts 30 singing and speaking characters (including a talking neuron that explains the biochemical processes of the brain) and about 200 non-speaking ones. Using hand-drawn characters animated against 3D hand-made sets and papier-mâché sculptures, it merges the origin story of an independent, artistic Soviet girl with an account of her biochemical processes at crucial moments in her life. A paean to gender equality and being yourself, the overall message is that we all want to love and be loved, but need to be accepted for the way we are.

Although inspired by Baumane’s life, the narrative unfolds as a roman à clef with invented names for real persons,...

Our Pmc sister website Variety is reporting that the motion picture academy has named 149 movies as eligible for Best Original Score at the 2024 Oscars. See the complete list below of every score currently on the ballot for the music branch. A total of 15 will be announced this Thursday, December 21, on the Oscar short list. A final five will be revealed on January 23 as the the actual nominees.

SEEOscars 2024: Which 94 tunes are eligible for Best Original Song?

Gold Derby has been offering you the opportunity to predict the Best Original Score category for the past few weeks. Among some of the surprise omissions: “Asteroid City,” “Flora and Son,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Wonka.” Each film used too much non-original music to remain qualified.

According to our most current Gold Derby odds with over 6,800 people predicting, here are the scores ranked in the top 10:

1. “Oppenheimer” – 71/20 odds

2. “Killers of the Flower Moon...

Our Pmc sister website Variety is reporting that the motion picture academy has named 94 tunes as eligible for Best Original Song at the 2024 Oscars. See the complete list below of every song currently on the ballot for the music branch. A total of 15 will be announced this Thursday, December 21, on the Oscar short list. A final five will be revealed on January 23 as the the actual nominees.

SEEDiane Warren interview: ‘The Fire Inside’ from ‘Flamin’ Hot’

Gold Derby has been offering you the opportunity to predict the Best Original Song category for the past few weeks. Among some of the surprise omissions:

“Barbie” producers have chosen not to submit “Barbie World,” “Speed Drive” and “Pink.” That film’s three official submissions are “I’m Just Ken,” “Dance the Night” and “What Was I Made For?”

“Trolls Band Together” producers have not entered “Family,” “Watch Me Work” and “Let’s Get Married.

The Academy has revealed the list of eligible films for consideration in best animated, documentary and international feature of the year, encompassing a broad range of blockbusters and critically acclaimed titles.

GKids’ “The Boy and the Heron,” Pixar’s “Elemental,” Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” are among the 33 animated films in the running. This is up from 27 in 2023, when “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” took home the prize.

The eventual five nominees are determined by members of the shorts and animation branch, and any Academy members outside the branch who wish to participate. The number of outside members who opt in is unknown. All films submitted for animated feature also qualify for the Academy Awards in other categories, including best picture.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

There are 88 films representing their countries for the international feature Oscar,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday unveiled the films eligible for consideration for the 2024 Oscars in the categories of Documentary Feature Film and International Feature Film and Animated Feature Film.

A total of 167 documentaries have made the cut for the 96th Academy Awards, while 88 countries are eligible for the International Feature. Shortlists of 15 films in both categories will be revealed December 21.

In the Animated Feature race, 33 films are eligible for the 2024 race.

Final Oscar nominations will be revealed January 23, 2024, with the 96th Oscars to air Sunday, March 10 on ABC hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

Here are the film lists revealed today, with AMPAS noting that not all have had their qualifying release yet, a requirement to advance in the voting process.

Animated Feature

The Amazing Maurice

Blue Giant

The Boy and the Heron

Chang’an

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Deep Sea

Elemental

Ernest & Celestine: A...

Exclusive: Kumoshika announced today that actor/producer Matthew Modine and producer Adam Rackoff’s Cinco Dedos Peliculas production company (My Love Affair With Marriage and Downwind) have joined The Fuse short film as Executive Producers.

Cinco Dedos Peliculas (Cdp) is an acclaimed film and new media production company co-founded by actor/filmmaker Matthew Modine with producer and former Apple marketing executive Adam Rackoff. The duo have executive produced several award-winning films, environmental documentaries, and animated features, most recently Against The Current (2021) and Accidental Truth: UFO Revelations (2023)

Written and directed by Kevin Haefelin, and starring Jorge Gabino, The Fuse follows a worn-down garbage man who fights to make a living in the concrete arena of the Bronx. One night, he is unexpectedly laid off and fears becoming a homeless pariah. Amid his final farewell, a blown fuse sends him wandering through the night in search of his destiny.

“The art and precision of short film,...

HO_00837_R (l-r.) Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film The Holdovers, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 Focus Features LLC

Cinema St. Louis (Csl) is thrilled to unveil the 32nd Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff), set to captivate audiences from November 9th to 19th at the historic Hi-Pointe Theatre, Csl’s new forever home, as well as at multiple venues across the city including the Alamo Drafthouse, Webster University, Washington University and more.

Highlights of this year’s fest include:

Sliff’s Opening Night Party on 11/9 at the Hi-Pointe, where the fest will celebrate 50 Years of Hip-Hop in St. Louis, as explored through both film and music Signe Baumane on hand to accept this year’s Women in Film Award at a showing of her newest film, “My Love Affair with Marriage” on 11/11 La Passion de Dodin Bouffant...

During the Cannes Film Festival, 20 emerging producers from across Europe took part in European Film Promotion’s promotion and networking platform Producers on the Move. They had been selected by the 37 national film institutes that are members of Efp. Variety invited them to pitch their projects to our readers, which we present below.

Gentian Koçi, Albania

Project: “Cold Sun” (in development)

Director: Gentian Koçi

As he attempts to rebuild his life in his hometown after being freed from jail after serving a 25-year sentence for killing his wife, a man in his fifties falls in love with a woman in her forties and gradually realizes that this love is going to be his true prison.

Julie Esparbes, Belgium

Project: “The Dance of the Foxes”

Director: Valéry Carnoy

A coming-of-age story, about a 17-year-old boxer who, following an accident, will have to reinvent himself in a more sensitive way. Valéry Carnoy...

The Miami Film Festival will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. The festival, which runs from March 3 to March 12, includes 12 world premieres. The event will open with Ray Romano’s “Somewhere in Queens” and close with Stephen Frears’ “The Lost King.” The festival will screen a total of 140 films from more than 30 countries.

Director of programming Lauren Cohen said, “In our fourth decade of programming, we’re proud to continue bringing a diversity of top-quality films to increasingly sophisticated audiences.”

Four centerpiece presentations will take place during the festival, spotlighting key films with directors in attendance for post-screening Q&As. Included in that slate are Stephen Williams’ “Chevalier,” starring Kelvin Harrison, Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton and Minnie Driver; Benjamin Millepied’s “Carmen,” starring Melissa Barrera, Paul Mescal and Rossy De Palma; Dani de la Orden and Àlex Murull’s “The Final Game (42 Segundo)”; and Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s “Judy Blume Forever.

Polish-born Dagmara Domińczyk, who stars in “Succession” as Karolina Novotney, the head of PR for Waystar Royco, embraces her Eastern European heritage in the upcoming animation “My Love Affair With Marriage.” Directed by Signe Baumane, also behind 2014’s “Rocks in My Pockets,” the film – inspired by Baumane’s turbulent past relationships – will premiere at Tribeca and Annecy.

New Europe Film Sales is handling sales at the Cannes Market, alongside Un Certain Regard title “Godland,” Berlinale premieres “Beautiful Beings” and “A Piece of Sky,” as well as two other animations, “The Peasants” and “Yuku and the Himalayan Flower.”

The actor, who voices main character Zelma, torn between traditional views on marriage, a women’s role and her own happiness, felt “an instant connection” with the Latvian animator.

“We understood each other. We both come from the Eastern Bloc – it’s something we have in our genes, in our DNA. For Signe,...

Twenty titles have been selected for its main feature competitions.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled its main feature competition line-up for the upcoming 2022 edition (June 13-18).

Ten titles have been selected for official competition, including Eric Warin and Tahir Rana’s Charlotte which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021. Based on the true story of the young Judeo-German artist Charlotte Salomon, the voice cast includes Kiera Knightley, Marion Cotillard, Sam Claflin and Helen McCrory.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

Other titles include Japanese filmmaker Shinya Kawastura’s The House Of The Lost...