News

John Tilley, a longtime distribution exec and advocate for independent film at companies including United Artists Classics, Cinevista and Strand, who was instrumental in introducing the films of Pedro Almodovar to U.S. audiences, died Sunday in New York City. He was 75.

“John was always a consummate encyclopedia of knowledge of the industry, and his pool of friends and colleagues from around the globe always created a sense of family in Cannes, Berlin and more. His work at Strand Releasing was invaluable,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand Releasing.

Filmmaker Ira Sachs said, “John was one of the first people I met in the film business, and he remained one of the kindest. He was open, curious, passionate, opinionated, and wise, and he knew the history of American and queer independent cinema like few others. His loss represents the passing of a generation of pioneers that created the community and industry that we know today.

Russell Tovey, Simon Fisher Turner, Travis Alabanza and Neil Bartlett are teaming up to reimagine the director’s final film – a narrated meditation over a static blue screen – as a ‘thank you’ to the LGBTQ+ hero

Neil Bartlett vividly remembers his first glimpse of Derek Jarman’s work: covertly watching the film Sebastiane. “How I managed to do that without my mum and dad finding out,” he marvels. “I was captivated. That’s when Derek became public property – Mary Whitehouse and her cohorts were frothing at the mouth. And my young man’s cultural gaydar went: ‘Oh, what’s this?’”

As a painter, writer and film-maker, Jarman was a unique figure in British culture: an icon of the Thatcher years who defied all they stood for. He never hid his sexuality, and nor did he hide his Aids diagnosis, despite the snarling hatred shown towards people living with the disease.

February, marking both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, is the kind of stretch from which a programmer can mine plenty. Accordingly the Criterion Channel have oriented their next slate around both. The former is mostly noted in a series comprising numerous features and shorts: Shirley Clarke and William Greaves up to Ephraim Asili and Garrett Bradley, among them gems such as Varda’s Black Panthers and Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground; a six-film series on James Baldwin; and 10 works by Oscar Micheaux.

Meanwhile, the 23-film “All You Need Is Love” will cover the blinding romance of L’Atalante, the heartbreak of Happy Together, and youthful whimsy of Stolen Kisses; four Douglas Sirk rarities should leave their mark, but I’m perhaps most excited about three starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Perhaps more bracing are 12 movies by Derek Jarman and four by noir maestro Robert Siodmak. Also a major...

The new half-hour anthology series “Spotlights: A Showtime Short Film Series” features work from various emerging filmmakers, Showtime has announced. All five epidodes of the series will premiere Sunday, June 12 on streaming and on demand for Showtime subscribers.

Each episode of “Spotlights” will showcase two to three short films that vary in timely subject matter, tone and perspective. Offering a curated approach to support emerging filmmakers, the show also offers mentorship opportunities for each filmmaker to engage with creatives and executives across Paramount Global. The series is produced by Jax Media for Showtime.

“Showtime has long been a home for breakthrough voices, and we’re excited to share these inspired and revelatory shorts from the next generation of distinctive filmmakers,” Amy Israel, executive vice president of original programming and global scripted, said. “This collection of shorts in ‘Spotlights’ represents some of the very best emerging creators working today, and we...

Forum aims to match 2Slgbtq+ feature projects with backers and distributors.

Exclusive: Projects from Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Finland and the US have been set to participate in this year’s Inside Out Finance Forum, taking place June 2-4 in Toronto.

The forum is staged by Inside Out, the Canadian 2Slgbtq+ film festival and content distributor, and designed to provide queer-led creative teams with 2Slgbtq+ content an opportunity to pitch their projects directly to decision makers.

Among the eight feature projects to be presented at the sixth annual forum are Curses!, a US-produced satire set in Colonial America, with...

José Luis López Linares’ “Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” a portrait of French film great Jean-Claude Carrière, captured breaking down the paintings and personality of painter Francisco de Goya, has been acquired for international sales by Reservoir Docs.

In its earliest sales, the doc feature has closed the two biggest markets in Europe with reputed distributors, licensing France to Epicentre and Germany and Austria to Weltkino. Syldavia Cinema will distribute in Spain, Version Digital in Italy and Outsider Films in Portugal.

Launched in 2020 by Anais Clanet, Reservoir Docs will bring the documentary feature onto the market at next month’s Cannes Festival.

“Reservoir Docs has always been a key sales agent for theatrical art & culture docs and Jose Luis’ work fits perfectly,” said Clanet. “To me, Goya painted European conflicts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries but he didn’t only chronicle his times: Somehow, he was a visionary,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

IFC Center

A Gaspar Noé retrospective is underway; the new restorations of Inland Empire and Mississippi Masala continue; Eraserhead, The Crow, Re-Animator, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.

Roxy Cinema

Ugetsu and Altered States screen on 35mm this weekend.

Film Forum

A new Nights of Cabiria restoration has started, while the Sidney Poitier retrospective includes films by Ford, Kubrick, and Hitchcock.

Metrograph

A retrospective of nonfiction filmmaker Lionel Rogosin is underway, while novelist Gary Indiana has a selection running down.

Anthology Film Archives

Almost never screened, the films of Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller are given a series, while Laurel & Hardy plays alongside Sunrise in Essential Cinema.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Gaspar Noé, Ugetsu, Sergeant Rutledge & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Japan Society

Ghost in the Shell kicks off “Monthly Anime.”

Film at Lincoln Center

The thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features have their last weekend until May—highlights include Tale of Cinema on 35mm and a triple-feature on Sunday.

IFC Center

The new restoration of Inland Empire continues, while Mississippi Masala starts; Eraserhead, The Crow, Twilight, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.

Roxy Cinema

A Nick Zedd program screens Friday; Death in Venice, Traveling Light, and prints of Unstoppable and Lady Terminator play on Saturday; Death in Venice and Unstoppable also play on Sunday, alongside a Yale Film Archive program.

Museum of Modern Art

As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix winds down, Buñuel’s Nazarin screens in a new restoration.

Metrograph

The Robert Siodmak retrospective winds down, while three Dracula movies play in...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A series of thematically arranged Hong Sang-soo double features has begun.

IFC Center

The new restoration of Inland Empire is now playing, while Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Mamma Mia!, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane have late-night showings.

Roxy Cinema

A 35mm-heavy Alex Ross Perry retrospective is underway; a print of Lady Terminator plays on Saturday; prints of River’s Edge and The Seventh Seal play on Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

As retrospectives of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix and films by Larry Clark continue, The Birds has a screening.

Metrograph

The Robert Siodmak retrospective continues, as does “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen; Eden and After plays in Left Bank Cinema; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights.”

Anthology Film Archives

The Hong-Kong-a-Thon returns, while programs screen in “Essential Cinema.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of Modern Art

Peter Bogdanovich’s very funny, never-before-seen Squirrels to the Nuts has an exclusive run (about which more here), while a retrospective of Larry Fessenden’s genre house Glass Eye Pix is underway.

Metrograph

A Robert Siodmak retrospective has started, as has “Pop Plays Itself,” a collection of musicians onscreen, while Resnais, Demy, and Marker lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Powell-Pressburger and Ray; Perfect Blue and Son of the White Mare are in “Late Nights“; Charles Grodin is paid tribute with screenings of Midnight Run and Clifford.

Anthology Film Archives

A series on imageless films—featuring Hollis Frampton, Guy Debord, and Derek Jarman—is underway while some of Buster Keaton’s greatest works screen in “Essential Cinema.”

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog...

Following her breakout performance in James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" in 2021, fans have been clamoring to see what Portuguese actress Daniela Melchior would be doing next. While many were hoping for a "Peacemaker"-esque spinoff for Ratcatcher 2 and Sebastian, her next film will be "Assassin Club" featuring "Crazy Rich Asians" star Henry Golding. 

But with that film already in post-production and expected to drop at some point this year, Melchior's schedule looks to be open. And according to the latest reports, she'll be filling it with something more fast ... and furious.

After The Rock and Vin Diesel failed...

The post The Suicide Squad Star Daniela Melchior (Aka Ratcatcher 2) in Talks to Join Fast & Furious 10 appeared first on /Film.

Exclusive: The CW is expanding the cast for Season 2 of Kung Fu, its reboot of the classic series, adding Vanessa Yao, Annie Q. and Jb Tadena in heavily recurring roles.

Following the explosive Season 1 finale, Season 2 picks up with Nicky (Olivia Liang) and the Shens in a great place: Nicky’s been using her kung fu skills to keep Chinatown safe, she and Henry (Eddie Liu) are only deeper in love with each other, and unlike season one, the Shen family are all in the know about Nicky’s extracurricular activities. Jin and Mei-Li have righted the ship and Harmony Dumplings has seen an extraordinary recovery– the restaurant is doing better business than ever. Everything’s been great in Nicky’s life… that is, until the reemergence of Russell Tan, and the surprise appearance of Nicky’s cousin, Mia (Yao).

In addition to Liang and Liu, the series regular cast includes Tzi Ma,...

“I’m letting life hit me until it gets tired. Then I’ll hit back. It’s a classic rope-a-dope.”

The Hollywood hit, La La Land,arrives February 8 on 4K Ultra HD SteelBook from Lionsgate, exclusively at Best Buy.

The Hollywood hit, La La Land, arrives February 8 on 4K Ultra HD SteelBook from Lionsgate, exclusively at Best Buy. From Academy Award®-winning director Damien Chazelle, the critically acclaimed film features Academy Award® nominee Ryan Gosling, Academy Award® winner Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Academy Award® winner J.K. Simmons. Featuring all-new artwork from Jack Hughes, La La Land will be available on 4K Ultra HD SteelBook at Best Buy for the suggested retail price of $27.99.

Winner of 6 Academy Awards including Best Director for writer-director Damien Chazelle, and winner of a record-breaking 7 Golden Globe® Awards including Best Picture – Musical/Comedy, La La Land is a cinematic treasure for the ages that you...

Grants

The International Documentary Association (IDA) will award grants totalling $105,000 to five films through its Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund on the theme, “Challenging White Supremacy.”

The films are “Aanikoobijigan”; “Brigidy Bram: The Life and Mind of Kendal Hanna”; “Home Is Somewhere Else”; “The Quiet Part” (working title); and “Yintah”.

In addition, filmmakers Ilse Fernandez (“Exodus Stories”) and Sundance winner Rintu Thomas (“Writing with Fire”), will receive IDA’s Logan Elevate Grants of $25,000 each.

Highlighting IDA’s support for diversity, among the Pare Lorentz grants, one project is directed and/or produced by a non-binary filmmaker and four are directed and/or produced by a woman. Four have a Bipoc director and/or producer and four directors and/or producers identify as LGBTQ+.

Since 2011, IDA has provided over $5.9 million in grants through its documentary funds.

Festival

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan. 26 – Feb. 6) has revealed the first confirmed titles for its 51st edition,...

Exclusive: Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi is launching a U.S. in-theater offering this month letting members see one film a week that it selects at participating cinemas starting in New York City. It said Mubi Go will roll out nationwide in selected markets with LA next in early 2022.

Mubi Go (available in the U.K. and India) will launch Oct. 29 with Netflix’s Passing, directed by Rebecca Hall, that premiered at Sundance and screened at the New York Film Festival. Subscribers can get a free ticket during the film’s theatrical engagement at the Paris Theater and IFC Center ahead of its Nov. 10 streaming release on Netflix.

Adapted from the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, Passing is the story of two Black women, Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Ruth Negga), who can pass as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the color line during the height of the Harlem Renaissance.

Sadat was in conversation at the Zurich Film Summit.

Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat, well known internationally for her Cannes features Wolf & Sheep and The Orphanage, escaped Kabul one month ago with her family to come to Europe.

Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival’s Zurich Summit on Sept 25, she said she hopes to keep her passion for filmmaking going despite the turmoil in her homeland, wanting to show the many “colours” of Afghanistan.

With the help of many international friends including her Danish producer Katja Adomeit, Sadat was able to take a French flight out of Kabul.

In her final days living in Kabul,...

Fernando León de Aranoa’s Spanish-language dark comedy The Good Boss had its world premiere last night at the San Sebastian Film Festival in front of a raucous local crowd (albeit at half-capacity due to Covid measures).

The audience-friendly film sees Javier Bardem play Blanco, a charismatic but controlling factory boss who will go to extreme lengths to protect the world he has created for himself, and to stop his affairs with the interns being exposed to his wife.

The role is a demanding one for Bardem, but he carries the narrative by delivering a nuanced and engaging performance, filling virtually every frame with subtle charm – it’s a part that is already receiving rave write-ups following the premiere in San Sebastian.

This is the latest collaboration between Bardem and director Fernando León De Aranoa, following their movies Loving Pablo and Mondays In The Sun.

Deadline sat down with the...

Exclusive: Guido Rud’s Argentina and Spain-based sales outfit FilmSharks has scored a pair of deals on its slate with Korea buyers.

Ghosting Gloria, the spooky Spanish-language comedy that debuted at Fantasia last month, has been picked up by Bluelable Pictures, a new Korean indie distributor founded by leading PR and marketing agency Inno. The company acquires six-to-seven films for Korea annually, and last year made a deal for four Celine Sciamma movies after the success of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire in the territory.

Rud also told Deadline he is in talks for remake deals on the Uruguayan production for Korea, the U.S. and Mexico, while a Spanish remake agreement is set to be signed.

Separately, Korean buyer Laon-i Distribution has locked up rights for Mexican box office hit Come Play With Me. The supernatural horror, produced by Mexico’s largest TV and media group Televisa’s...

Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Entertainment has sold Icíar Bollaín’s San Sebastian Festival-bound Basque reconciliation drama “Maixabel” to Germany, striking a deal with Berlin-based distributor Piffl Medien.

The film is set to make its theatrical release in Spain on Sept. 24 via Buena Vista Intl.

World premiering in San Sebastian’s main competition this weekend, Bollaín’s film – which she co-wrote with screenwriter Isa Campo (“The Next Skin”) – stars “Volver’s” Blanca Portillo as the widow of murdered socialist leader Juan María Jáuregui who makes steps towards forgiving the Eta terrorist who killed her husband a decade earlier.

The feature is based around the experience of Maixabel Lasa, a key figure in the journey that the Basque Country is making towards peace and reconciliation following the violence of its recent past.

Co-starring Luis Tosar (“Retribution,” “Way Down”), the film was made by top Basque production company Kowalski Films (“Coven”) and Feelgood Films...

Last year, September’s San Sebastian worked a minor miracle, staging a safe on-site festival as second-wave Covid-19 built up in Spain. This year, on-site attendance will be up, though travel problems, caution and costs in Latin America, the U.S and Asia will prevent a full attendance.

That said, this year’s festival, running Sept. 17-25, will be firing on all cylinders — as a Spanish-language movie emporium, a new talent hub and launchpad for the local Basque industry. Following, seven takes on the most important film event in the Spanish-speaking world:

Star Power: Cruz, Banderas, Bardem, Depp, Cotillard, and Chastain?

Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas are expected for the Spanish premiere of “Official Competition” and Javier Bardem the world premiere of “The Good Boss.” Despite some opposition Johnny Depp will receive a career-achievement Donostia Award as, less controversially, will Marion Cotillard. Jessica Chastain, fest organizers hope, will attend for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,...

The Souvenir: Part II Photo: Courtesy of Director's Fortnight A total of 18 titles will compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award of this year's San Sebastian Festival’s all-encompassing competitive section, where any kind of style or length goes. This year 13 features, one medium-length film and four shorts will compete, including works by Joanna Hogg, Radu Jude and Gaspar Noé.

Several of the films selected come from festivals including Venice, Cannes and Berlin – including the Golden Bears for Best Feature Film and Best Short Film at the Berlinale. There are also works by filmmakers with connections to San Sebastian –Jean Gabriel Périot, Kiro Russo, Laura Wandel – for their participation in sections such as Nest and programmes like Ikusmira Berriak.

Among those that had a bow at Cannes, is Hogg's The Souvenir: Part II, Gaspar Noé's Vortex and Laura Wandel's Playground, which took home a Fipresci prize in the Un Certain Regard section.

With Oscar nominations for Best International Feature and Best Director, Another Round’s Thomas Vinterberg today joined an elite, yet growing, group of overseas filmmakers to score simultaneous mentions in those categories. Speaking to Deadline from his home in Denmark just minutes after the announcement — and with the Danish press camped out in front of his house — Vinterberg said, “I don’t anticipate anything, don’t count on anything. I was hoping for a nomination for International Feature, but Best Director comes as as a huge surprise for me and I’m very moved by both of them.”

In recent years, such filmmakers as Bong Joon-ho, Alfonso Cuaron and Pawel Pawlikowski have had the same experience and Vinterberg said some of those folks “have been sending me notes and praises and love over the last couple of months and it’s been fantastic. But the fact that they’ve also...

"This is not the first incident." Mubi has unveiled an official US trailer for an indie film titled Beginning, an award-winning debut feature from Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili. It premiered at the Toronto, New York, & San Sebastian Film Festivals last fall, and won tons of awards including Best Film in San Sebastian and the Fipresci Prize at TIFF. In a sleepy provincial town, a Jehovah Witness community is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. From Mubi: "One of the most striking debuts in recent memory, Dea Kulumbegashvili's feature marks the revelation of an exciting new voice in cinema. Shot in luminous 35mm long takes that boldly evoke isolation and longing, it tells a profound story of a woman's resilience facing communal hostility and violence." Starring Ia Sukhitashvili & Kakha Kintsurashvili. This is one...

Monday, Dec. 14 Greenwich Acquires North American Rights to ‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’

Greenwich Entertainment has bought North American distribution rights to “Days of the Bagnold Summer,” the directorial debut of Simon Bird (star of “The Inbetweeners”), for a Feb. 19 release in theaters and on demand.

Bird’s comedy, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, contains a soundtrack by Belle & Sebastian and is based on the graphic novel by Joff Winterhart with a screenplay written by Lisa Owens. Starring Earl Cave, Monica Dolan and Rob Brydon, the film explores the wobbly relationship between a well-intentioned single librarian and her black-clad teenage son, who’d rather listen to Metallica than his mother.

“Days of the Bagnold Summer” was produced by Matthew James Wilkinson and co-produced by Isabelle Georgeaux with executive producers James Appleton, James Atherton, Reinhard Besser, Will Clarke, Walter Mair, Andy Mayson, Jan Pace, Mike Runagall and Pat Wintersgill.

Berlin-based Picture Tree International has picked up global sales rights to Mexican director Raúl López Echeverría’s feature debut, the socially conscious soccer comedy “Domingo,” and will introduce the film, in final postproduction, to buyers at Latin American film market Ventana Sur this week.

The film tells the story of Domingo, a man of 55 living in a poor suburb of Guadalajara. When his wife abruptly leaves him, he decides to do everything in his power to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a professional soccer commentator. Every Sunday, he commentates on local amateur matches. Yet he could never imagine how much his impassioned commentaries are changing the life of his neighborhood.

According to the director, the screenplay of “Domingo” was inspired by observing certain working-class districts in the suburbs of Guadalajara, where soccer grounds are a central part of the community and dear to the inhabitants’ hearts.

“The way in...

Film Republic, a London-based specialist sales agent, has acquired the international rights to feature debutant Rezwan Shahriar Sumit’s “The Salt in Our Waters.”

The film had its world premiere at the British Film Institute London Film Festival earlier this month, followed by its Asian premiere at the Busan Film Festival.

“The Salt in Our Waters” tells the story of an artist who leaves the bustling Bangladesh capital Dhaka to relocate to a coastal village on the Bangladeshi delta for inspiration. Welcomed by the local fishermen, the artist’s modern ideas and sculptures enchant the local chairman and the children, but not all welcome his modern approach with such open arms. Against the backdrops of environment change and the rising tide, some villagers accuse him and his works of having provoked disastrous weather patterns.

The cast includes Fazlur Rahman Babu, Shatabdi Wadud, Titas Zia, Tasnova Tamanna and Ashok Bepari. The...

Film gets red-carpet treatment at the Cannes Film Festival’s three-day special event this week.

Wild Bunch International has unveiled first sales on Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s San Sebastian winner Beginning ahead of its gala screening on Wednesday as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s special three-day event in Cannes this week.

Global streaming platform and theatrical distributor Mubi has snapped up all rights in a multi-territory deal covering North America, Latin America, UK, Germany, Turkey and India. They are currently planning the film’s release and awards campaign.

The feature has also sold to Benelux (September), France...

Barcelona-based studio Filmax has acquired world sales rights to “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake,” an uplifting second chance in life drama from Spain’s Benito Zambrano, writer-director of critically admired features that have scored festival and Goya awards and broken out to sales abroad.

Also handling local distribution in Spain, Filmax will bring “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” onto the market at November’s online American Film Market.

Produced by Filmax and Luxembourg’s Deal Productions, whose credits include Berlin Festival’s 2019 Panorama opener “Flatland” and 2017’s “High Fantasy,” which screened at Berlin, Toronto and Rotterdam, “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” turns on two sisters, Anna and Marina.

Separated as teens, they re-meet to sell a bakery in Majorca that they’ve inherited from a mysterious benefactor. Neither are happy in life. Anna is locked in a loveless marriage; Marina travels the world as an Ngo doctor, a lonely existence.

Cinema numbers are shrinking again as Covid-19 cases rise across Europe.

France, opening Wednesday October 14

It has been a complicated few days for French distributors and exhibitors following the introduction of a night-time curfew from Saturday night in Paris and eight other major cities, as part of measures to slow the spread of Covid-19.

The measure, which obliges people to return home by 9pm, effectively wipes out key evening screening slots although exhibitors are lobbying the government for a special dispensation for cinemagoers. A final decision was expected late Friday or over the weekend, but if the answer is ‘no...

Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili among six members of the special jury.

The Cannes Film Festival has confirmed that a special three-day physical event due to take place from October 27 to 29, will go ahead as planned in spite of increased health restrictions across France to rein in a surge in Covid-19 cases.

On Wednesday, France announced the introduction of a 9pm to 6am curfew in Paris and eight other French cities, which will take effect from Saturday night (October 17) for at least four weeks, and last possibly until December 1.

“The Cannes event is still set to take place since Nice and...

Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili among six members of the special jury.

The Cannes Film Festival has confirmed that a special three-day physical event due to take place from October 27 to 29, will go ahead as planned in spite of increased health restrictions across France to rein in a surge in Covid-19 cases.

On Wednesday, France announced the introduction of a 9pm to 6am curfew in Paris and eight other French cities, which will take effect from Saturday night (October 17) for at least four weeks, and last possibly until December 1.

“The Cannes event is still set to take place since Nice and...

Early September’s Venice Festival celebrated the restart of cinema theater attendance. Opening six days after Venice ended, as second-wave Covid-19 forced parts of Madrid back into semi-lockdown, 2020’s on-site San Sebastian Festival, normally a convivial, festive event, was a more sober affair as Europe’s industry calibrated the cost of the pandemic.

More bullishly, industry leaders talked up the fundamentals of Spanish-language production, TV and film, which remain strong. Following, six takeaways from San Sebastian, which wraps with a prize gala tomorrow, Saturday night.

San Sebastian: A ‘Miracle’ It Happened At All

By Sept. 10, Covid-19 cases in Spain ran at 260 infections per 100,000 of population, twice the level in France, the next worst ravaged territory in Europe. It was a “miracle” that San Sebastian happened at all, screening all its festival sections in cinema theaters, Maialen Beloki, San Sebastian Festival deputy director, told Variety. Sanitary protocols were enforced with firm politeness,...

Seven drama series play at the 2020 San Sebastian Film Festival, a historic record. Three series, Movistar Plus’ “Riot Police” and HBO Europe’s “Patria” and “We Are Who We Are,” screen in their entirety in San Sebastián’s Official Selection, another first.

None of this seems a coincidence. Traditionally the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world, San Sebastian is fast becoming one of its most important drama series showcases as well.

This year the San Sebastián Film Festival’s TV cup runneth over. Why is another matter. Following, five suggestions:

San Sebastian Festival’s Backers

The Festival’s two major sponsors, Telefonica pay TV division Movistar Plus and public broadcaster Radio Televisión Española (Rtve), are TV companies. In Spain, local series have mesmerized local audiences for the last 25 years. Over 2011-16, only three U.S. shows – “The Pillars of the Earth,” “The Witch” and ABC’S “Resurrection” – made the...

Palme d’Or winning producer Luis Miñarro (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”) is set to direct his fifth feature, ”Impalpable” (a working title), produced by Miñarro’s label, Barcelona-based Eddie Saeta, one of Spain’s most prominent arthouse shingles.

Written by Miñarro, “Impalpable” follows a series of characters who take a bus to an unspecified destination. The situation becomes gradually

stranger as the bus make no stops. Nor can the passengers descend.

“Impalpable”‘s cast will include Naomi Kawase, Geraldine Chaplin and Spain’s Lola Dueñas (“The Sea Inside”) and Francesc Orella (“Julia’s Eyes”), among others.

By chance, though with foresight, ”I first thought of this project before the pandemic. It’s a homage to Luis Buñuel’s ‘The Exterminating Angel,’” Miñarro told Variety. Over three days and two nights, its characters get to know one another, as the audience enters the minds of main characters, unleashing...

Braving Covid-19, Spain’s 68th San Sebastián Film Festival bowed on-site on Sept. 18, launching a somewhat slimmed edition that maintains, however, all its main sections. Following, seven more takes on the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world as it finally kicks off:

Depp, Dillon, Gershon Confirm Attendance

Stars are rallying round this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Viggo Mortensen is already confirmed as the recipient of a Donostia Award. On Thursday, the festival announced that Johnny Depp, who takes a producer credit on Julien Temple’s “Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan,” will also be in town, as Matt Dillon, director of Cuban music doc “The Great Fellove,” and Gina Gershon, star of Woody Allen’s “Rifkin’s Festival.” “The Skin I Live In’s” Elena Anaya, Rifkin’s Festival’s” other female lead, also attends along with a strong Spanish star contingent attached to other titles.

Brian Eno has collected highlights from his soundtrack work over the past 40 years — some familiar, some hard-to-find — for the producer and ambient music pioneer’s new collection Film Music 1976-2020.

The compilation is a sequel of sorts to Eno’s 1978 EP Music for Films — as well as its follow-up installments in 1983 and 1988 — and bridges his film work from 1976’s Sebastiane (“Final Sunset”) through 2020’s Stewart Brand documentary We Are As Gods.

While some of the Film Music 1976-2020 selections are well-known (Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks’ “Deep Blue Day” and “An Ending...

Woody Allen’s career continues to plow ahead with the upcoming world premiere of his new romantic-comedy “Rifkin’s Festival” on the opening night of Spain’s 2020 San Sebastian Film Festival (September 18). The occasion makes sense for “Rifkin’s Festival” as the story centers around an American couple who attends the San Sebastian Film Festival. Allen shot the film on location in San Sebastian.

“Rifkin’s Festival” stars Gina Gershon and Wallace Shawn as the American couple who travel to the San Sebastian Film Festival and are pulled in opposite directions. The wife starts an affair with a famous French film director and the husband falls in love with a local Spanish woman. The cast also includes Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, and Christoph Waltz.

“Rifkin’s Festival” will mark Allen’s second San Sebastian opener after “Melinda and Melinda” at the 2004 festival, where he was also the recipient of the Donostia Award for career achievement.

British choreographer, mime and David Bowie mentor Lindsay Kemp died Saturday morning in Livorno, Italy. He was 80.

Director Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky, who was making a documentary about Kemp, told BBC News that he was “a force of nature” and still working until his death.

He was born near Liverpool in 1938 and “realized that I wanted to dance when I first realized anything at all,” he said. Kemp studied dance with Hilde Holger and mime with Marcel Marceau after being introduced to the art world through studying with painter David Hockney.

Kemp formed his own dance company in the 1960s, and found fame in 1974 when he brought his show “Flowers,” based on Jean Genet’s “Notre Dame des Fleurs,” to the Edinburgh festival.

He met Bowie in 1966 after one of Kemp’s shows at Covent Gardens, and Bowie went on to perform in his show “Pierrot in Turquoise.”

Bowie and Kemp had a brief relationship,...

Happy New Year! We're ushering in the first of January with the first films of some of our favorite filmmakers: a week of debut films!In the Us we're showing Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Todd Haynes' Poison, Stanley Kubrick's Fear and Desire, Alain Robbe-Grillet's L'immortelle, vulgar auteurism mascot Paul W.S. Anderson's Shopping, Wong Kar-wai's As Tears Go By, and Derek Jarman's Sebastiane. In the UK, the lineup features Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket, Wong's As Tears Go By, Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape, Michelangelo Antonioni's Story of a Love Affair, Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments, Maurice Pialat's L'enfance nue, and Pedro Costa's O Sangue.

Over three decades from the 70s to the 90s, Derek Jarman had carved out a reputation as Britain's leading experimental film-maker, an artist-poet of the screen who gave us films such as Sebastiane, Caravaggio and The Garden. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his death in 1994, and we are pleased to present an exclusive first showing of Andy Kimpton-Nye's new documentary about Jarman and his art, featuring Tilda Swinton, Peter Tatchell and Tariq Ali among others

Watch the trailer Continue reading...

Before his death in 1994, Derek Jarman had carved out a reputation as Britain's leading experimental film-maker, an artist-poet of the screen who gave us films such as Sebastiane, Caravaggio and Blue. On Friday theguardian.com/film launches an exclusive online premiere of Andy Kimpton-Nye's new documentary about Jarman and his art, featuring Tilda Swinton, Peter Tatchell and Tariq Ali among others Continue reading...

When Lgbt people leave the safety of the city in films, it usually spells bad news – and Stranger by the Lake and Tom at the Farm don't buck the trend

Gay people and the city have been a good match since Sodom and Gomorrah. From the molly houses of 18th-century London to 1970s San Francisco via prewar Berlin, the urban environment has always been the natural habitat of queer culture – a place where Lgbt people can set their own rules, form their own families, be anonymous when they want to and find company when they fancy it. The countryside, on the other hand, is the place they escape from – a realm of social conformity with limited opportunities for culture, sex or socialising, and perhaps even a site of danger.

That's the stereotype, anyway, both in reality and on screen. Innumerable movies with claims to gay-classic status are inseparable from their urban settings: London has Victim,...

BFI to show 78-minute film Will You Dance With Me? – shot by director in 1984 with video camera in gay club in east London

Almost exactly 20 years after his death, a previously unseen film by Derek Jarman has come to light, shot inside a gay nightclub in east London, and will be premiered next month.

At 78 minutes in length, the film is unedited, experimental footage that the avant garde director shot in 1984 at Benjy's, a former nightclub in Mile End to a soundtrack of, among other artists, Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Jarman, inspired at the time by his newly purchased video camera, was exploring ideas for his film-maker friend Ron Peck, experimenting in how to capture dancing for Peck's feature film Empire State, made around three years later.

Peck decided to release the tape, entitled Will You Dance with Me?, to coincide with other events this year celebrating Jarman – a retrospective...

To kick off year-long celebrations of the life and work of film director Derek Jarman on the 20th anniversary of his death, Neil Bartlett explains why he will be holding an all-night party-vigil in King's College London's chapel

Anniversaries are strange things. They are meant to fix time in its proper place, but sometimes they seem to do just the opposite, bending and distorting it instead. Although I know for a fact that it is now a full 20 years since Derek Jarman died, I'm still finding this particular anniversary hard to credit. Is it really possible that somebody so productive and disruptive, so loquaciously and outrageously alive, can now be that distant?

Jarman's films – and later, his activism – were crucial points of reference in my generation's struggles to endure and enjoy life. Even before I had the good fortune to meet him in person, I intuited that here was a true ally,...

Ron Howard's movie about 1970s British swashbucking F1 star James Hunt and his antler-clashing rivalry with the icy Niki Lauda is a fast and furious treat

No matter how obsessed we continue to be with the 1970s, there's always one more myth left to excavate, and this very entertaining and well-made motor racing movie from director Ron Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan brings us a meaty tale from 1976: a story of antler-clashing, engine-revving alpha-males. This was a year in which not everyone in fact was obsessed with the release of the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK. In the profoundly conservative world of Formula One, millions of TV viewers were increasingly preoccupied with an extraordinary duel developing between two drivers: the glamorous swashbuckler from Britain, James Hunt, and the icily correct Austrian Niki Lauda.

Hunt is played by the Australian star Chris Hemsworth, his shampooed mane swishing and shirt permanently open,...

With their snippets of poetry, drawings, film storyboards, thoughts, plans and photographs, Derek Jarman's sketchbooks offer a rare insight into an artist's mind at work. Sean O'Hagan takes a look

See our gallery of images from Derek Jarman's sketchbooks here

There are so many different Derek Jarmans that it feels strange to focus on just one aspect of the man," writes pop culture historian Jon Savage in one of the many essays-cum- recollections threaded though the beautifully produced Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks. And yet the ideas mapped out in the 31 private sketchbooks the controversial filmmaker, artist and gay activist produced throughout his working life are like blueprints for his many and varied projects, and show off a restless creative temperament that roamed far and wide for its inspiration.

Jarman, who died aged 52 in 1994, was one of the last of the great underground filmmakers, merging myth, queer politics and...

Valentine's Day, Nationwide

It's the date date-movies were made for – but your choice could be the difference between heart-make or heartbreak. The safest option, therefore, is an old classic in a new setting, and luckily, there are plenty of those around this year. Like Brief Encounter, as unimpeachably swooning yet hilariously stiff a romance as you could desire. The Secret Cinema team are mounting simultaneous showings of the film in various cities around the country on Tuesday to launch their pop-up Other Cinema initiative, spearheaded by four 1940s-themed nights at London's Troxy, with usherettes and a live organist (dress code: black tie, with a flower). In a similar vein, dead certainties such as Casablanca and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet play in Hackney's Round Chapel (Tue to Fri). Or for a cheap date, there's a free outdoor screening of It Happened One Night, outside the National Theatre; snuggle under a...

Akomfrah's Handsworth Songs attracted a huge audience when shown in the wake of last summer's riots. His new film, The Nine Muses, uses Homer to explore mass migration to Britain

John Akomfrah, widely recognised as one of Britain's most expansive and intellectually rewarding film-makers, has never been afraid of a battle. Back in the 1970s, when he was barely out of his teens, he tried to screen Derek Jarman's homoerotic Sebastiane at the film club of the Southwark further education college, where he was studying. "There were rows. Black kids were throwing chairs everywhere. They were saying 'you can't show this'. So we stopped the film and had a discussion: what do you mean, 'We can't show this film'? It was clear there were forms of propriety for black spectatorship. Rather than run back into the field, I thought: let's just accelerate it. Let's push these boundaries a little bit more.

Us film producer who became an innovative London cinema owner

David Stone, who has died aged 78, played significant roles both in radical Us film-making of the 1960s and in Britain's golden age of arthouse cinemas in the 1970s. In 1974, David and his wife, Barbara, acquired the former Classic cinema, at Notting Hill Gate, west London, which they transformed and renamed the Gate. They opened their own distribution company, Cinegate, whose first acquisition was three films by the young German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971); The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972); and Fear Eats the Soul (1974). The first Fassbinder films to be shown in Britain, these brought the Gate instant critical and box-office success at its opening in September that year.

The Gate often enjoyed success with films others had passed over, including La Cage Aux Folles (1978), and Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan...

A week or two before I read “August”, I watched Derek Jarman’s 1976 film Sebastiane, supposedly the first feature performed entirely in Latin. St. Sebastian, the subject of Jarman’s movie, lived two hundred years after Augustus Caesar, the subject of this issue of The Sandman, and I mention it only because both items reminded me of what a terrible student of Latin I had been in high school. I’d taken the language because I’d been told it was an excellent way to learn more about the English language, and to some extent I suppose this is true (when grammarians eventually decided to try to tame the wild English tongue, they applied the rules of Latin grammar, since Latin was respectable; this is the source of some of the most ridiculous crotchets of pedants, such as the command to never split an infinitive — infinitives in Latin are one word,...