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Oxford grad Hugh Grant has outgrown most of his romantic comedy ticks from his early years – flopsy-mopsy hair, fluttery eyelashes and charming stutter – and has matured into an exceptional and versatile actor. Not that he has lost his sense of humor. Anyone who chuckled over his villainous turn in this year’s “Paddington 2” as a pompous, cravat-wrapped actor who frames his cuddly ursine co-star for a crime he didn’t commit can testify to that Then there was his finely tuned scoundrel turn in the BBC miniseries, “A Very English Scandal,“ in which his Parliament member Jeremy Thorpe plots the botched murder of his male lover.

Grant began his acting career in the ‘80s as secondary player in both British period pieces — some good (“Maurice”) and others faintly ridiculous (“The Lair of the White Moon”) – and Hollywood comedies (the gangster farce “Mickey Blue Eyes”). But any hopes that he...

For over four decades, James Ivory and Ismail Merchant collaborated to produce some of the most acclaimed period films of all time. Working under their banner, Merchant Ivory Productions, the American director and Indian producer created lavish literary adaptations and costume dramas that brought 19th-century worlds to life. Their films like A Room with a View and Howards End not only enthralled audiences but earned widespread critical acclaim.

In 2019, filmmaker Stephen Soucy paid tribute to Ivory and Merchant’s remarkable partnership with the documentary Merchant Ivory. Through interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses, Soucy celebrated these cinema greats and their incredible bodies of work. However, the documentary also left some wanting more analysis of exactly what made Merchant Ivory’s films so special. This review will examine what the documentary did well in honoring Ivory and Merchant’s legacies, as well as areas that could have provided deeper insight into their enduring artistry.

James Ivory has made so many films. And of the forty-plus he’s made––nearly everything under the Merchant Ivory Productions banner––many are masterpieces. Truly, you could count on one hand the number of living filmmakers as accomplished as James Ivory. So what an honor, then, to speak with him and filmmaker Stephen Soucy about the new documentary Merchant Ivory (directed by Soucy) and the many films of Merchant Ivory. There’s talk of those famous Ismail Merchant crew meals, the film Ivory thinks is their best, the one unrealized project that Ivory wishes they had made, and giving performance notes to Paul Newman on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.

The Film Stage: Stephen, with the documentary, it’s fascinating to rewatch it and think about the breadth of work as a documentarian. What is the “in,” initially, for you? What is the movie or the question...

One of cinema’s greatest partnerships is getting its due with Stephen Soucy’s forthcoming documentary Merchant Ivory, set for a release on August 30. Ahead of the release from Cohen Media Group, it’s prime time to revisit the work of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, and now those in NYC will get a chance. “Merchant Ivory: An Extraordinary Partnership,” taking place August 23-29 at Quad Cinema, features restorations of seven masterpieces from the Cohen Film Collection and we’re pleased to debut the exclusive series trailer.

Titles include Merchant Ivory classics Howards End, Maurice, The Bostonians, Heat and Dust, and Quartet, plus brand-new restorations of James Ivory’s 1977 ballroom drama Roseland starring Teresa Wright, Geraldine Chaplin, and Christopher Walken and Ismail Merchant’s 1993 directorial debut In Custody starring frequent Merchant Ivory collaborator Shashi Kapoor. James Ivory will be in person for post-screening Q&As on August 27 & 28 for select screenings of In Custody,...

One of the greatest filmmaking partnerships to grace the industry is getting its deserved due in a new documentary. Directed by Stephen Soucy and featuring Dame Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Hugh Grant, Vanessa Redgrave, Rupert Graves, and James Wilby, Merchant Ivory explores the collaboration of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and their primary associates, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. For those not familiar, Merchant Ivory Productions was responsible for the likes of A Room with a View, Howards End, The Remains of the Day, Maurice, and The Bostonians. Following a festival tour, the first trailer has now arrived from Cohen Media Group ahead of an August 30 release.

Here’s the synopsis: “Merchant Ivory (2023) is the first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and their primary associates, writer Ruth...

The film collaborations of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory were so successful that “Merchant Ivory” became synonymous not just with the name of their production company but an entire style, if not genre, of filmmaking: Well-mounted period dramas of sophistication, taste, and erudition that come across today as light-years more refined than “Downton Abbey” or other costume dramas created in the wake of their popularity.

Stephen Soucy pays tribute to this remarkable collaboration and what made the films of Merchant Ivory so distinctive and unreplicatable in his new documentary of the same name, “Merchant Ivory,” the trailer for which IndieWire is exclusively debuting below. The documentary appeared at Doc NYC 2023 and was an official selection of the Palm Springs International Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival earlier this year. It features commentary from Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, and others, including Ivory himself, now 96 years old, and the oldest Oscar winner ever,...

Cohen Media Group will give “Merchant Ivory,” a documentary about the professional and personal partnership of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant and their production company — Merchant Ivory Productions — a theatrical release on Aug. 30 in select markets, including New York and Los Angeles, before expanding to theaters nationwide in September. The film will will debut at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan at at various theaters in Los Angeles, including Laemmle’s Royal.

Directed by Stephen Soucy, “Merchant Ivory” chronicles the pair’s road to success and how their company became synonymous with nuanced literary adaptations in the 1980s and 1990s, making an indelible impact on film culture. The company’s output of more than 40 productions over nearly 50 years includes Academy Award-winning films “A Room With a View” and “Howards End,” as well “The Remains of the Day,” “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge” and “Maurice.”

The doc is split into chapters with sections devoted to Merchant,...

General Hospital star Bryan Craig is making his return to the daytime soap opera this summer as Morgan Corinthos. This comes after executive producer Frank Valentini said, “A former cast member is coming back. And I think that the audience will go crazy for Him.”

That turned out to reference Bryan Craig, and here is what you need to know.

Bryan Craig Returning To General Hospital

The news of Bryan Craig’s General Hospital return has been leaked. He will be back on the show this summer as Morgan Corinthos. This comes as a slight surprise since he appeared to die on the daytime soap in a car bombing.

YouTube/State of Mind With Maurice Benard

However, with the good news comes the bad. It appears that while Valentini teased that this return would make fans go “crazy,” it is only for one episode at this time. Bryan returns to...

On Saturday June 15 2024, OWN broadcasts Love & Marriage: Huntsville!

Love and Lockup Season 8 Episode 7 Episode Summary

In this episode of “Love & Marriage: Huntsville” airing on OWN, viewers are invited to delve into the intricacies of love, business, and real estate as three high-powered couples embark on a joint venture in Huntsville, Alabama. Titled “Love and Lockup,” the episode follows the journey of these dynamic couples as they navigate the complexities of their relationships while pursuing their entrepreneurial ambitions.

At the center of the episode is the Comeback Group, a real estate venture formed by the three couples. As they collaborate on business decisions and investments, tensions and conflicts inevitably arise, putting both their professional and personal relationships to the test. From negotiating deals to managing finances, the couples must confront challenges head-on while striving to achieve success in their endeavors.

Against the backdrop of Huntsville’s vibrant real estate market,...

The King of the Monsters is standing taller than ever since he became a surprise Oscar-winner earlier this month, but filmdom’s most famous kaiju isn’t about to let his newfound prestige get the better of him. Anyone worried that Godzilla might pull an Adam McKay and make a sudden pivot towards self-importance will be delighted to find that “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” eagerly strips both of its namesakes of whatever seriousness they might have accrued over the years, even if that means stripping them of their souls along with it.

Don’t be confused by the multiplication suggested by the silent “x” in its title: This goofy-ass, clumsily assembled Saturday morning cartoon of a movie might as well be called “Godzilla Minus Everything,” if only because the more accurate “Godzilla Minus Everything Plus Dan Stevens in a Hawaiian Shirt” wouldn’t fit on a marquee.

Then again,...

Palm Springs International Film Festival programmers have set this year’s lineup.

The desert festival, which runs Jan. 4 to 15, will open with the U.S. premiere of Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters on Jan. 5. Based on a 1920s English scandal, the film follows neighbors Edith Swan and Rose Gooding in the seaside town of Littlehampton. One day, a series of obscene letters begin to target Edith and others as suspicions fall on Rose. As the situation escalates, Rose risks losing her freedom and custody of her daughter. Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Malachi Kirby, Eileen Atkins and Timothy Spall star in the film.

Though the opening screening happens on Jan. 5, the festival really kicks off the night before with the Film Awards, a starry ceremony that will shine a spotlight on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things star Emma Stone, Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy,...

The best moments of Merchant Ivory––a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy concerning the legendary production company––feel like their most-successful pictures: restrained and revealing at the same time. Mostly told chronologically and split into chapters with talking heads to drive the narrative, the film dutifully recounts the agony and ecstasy of Merchant Ivory Productions. Sections are devoted to producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. Dedicated crew members and stars sing their praises while softly criticizing their methods of madness, most of the latter directed at Merchant. Highlights include recollections of Merchant’s culling together funds for each production, often starting a film before all the money was put together. Or Jhabvala’s brutal judgment: Ivory recalls her dislike of Maurice from pre-production onward, all because the novel wasn’t, in her opinion, up to snuff. Somewhat ironically, Maurice is perhaps the...

Independents are out in force with high-profile fall festival fare from Pricilla to The Holdovers, a big Viva Pictures push with Inspector Sun (voiced by Ronny Chieng), Cannes documentary winner Four Daughters and Waikiki, the debut feature by Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Kahunahana. the first homegrown feature to be shown there.

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla from A24 is playing New York and Los Angeles this weekend including sold out Q&a’s with the director and star Cailee Spaeny, Best Actress winner at the Venice Film Festival where Priscilla premiered, see Deadline review. Jacob Elordi stars as Elvis.

The story of the singer’s romantic partner and only wife told from her perspective is based on the book Elvis And Me by Priscilla Presley following her early years as a teenage army brat stationed in West Germany to her surreal arrival at Graceland. Rolls out nationwide next week.

Red, White & Royal Blue is a romantic comedy film directed by Matthew Lopez from a screenplay by Lopez and Ted Malawer. The Prime Video original film is based on a book of the same name by Casey McQuiston and it follows the love story of Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the first female President of the United States Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman) and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), a British Prince. The romantic comedy film sees our protagonists pulled between love and duty while having some carefree fun. So, if you loved Red, White & Royal Blue here are some similar movies you could watch next.

Maurice (Prime Video Add-On) Credit – Enterprise Pictures Limited

Synopsis: Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster’s Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one’s sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding.

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous creator and X-Men: First Class and Thor screenwriter Zack Stentz is aboard for animated movie The White Tower, inspired by Robert Jordan’s hit graphic novel series The Wheel of Time.

iwot productions is developing the feature-length animated film in collaboration with Quebec’s Squeeze Studios (The Amazing Maurice), we can reveal.

The feature will be set in a time before the events chronicled in The Wheel of Time TV series from Amazon and Sony . This is being described as an action-adventure about a young girl with a special gift whose life is forever changed when evil visits her remote mountain village. Finding herself alone in a dangerous world, she must go to The White Tower to learn how to use her magical powers in order to save her family and friends.

The film will be based on an original story set within Jordan’s universe...

Director James Ivory became an art house favorite thanks to a series of lofty literary adaptations produced by his partner Ismail Merchant. He shows no signs of slowing down in his twilight years. In fact, he recently become the oldest Oscar winner in history for penning the script to “Call Me by Your Name” (2017).

Although the majority of his work takes place overseas, Ivory was born in Berkeley, CA, in 1928. After cutting his teeth as a documentarian, he kicked off a professional and romantic relationship with Merchant, and together they formed the production company Merchant Ivory. Together, with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala serving as the third member of their team, they produced a series of acclaimed films based on the works of E. M. Forster, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro and other seemingly unadaptable sources.

They struck Oscar gold with a trio of films that earned nominations for Best Picture, Best Director,...

Clockwise from top left: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert (MGM), Tangerine (Magnolia Pictures), The Birdcage (MGM), Moonlight (Lionsgate)Graphic: AVClub

June means Pride Month, and Pride Month means celebrating queer art—which we could all use more of given the current state of things. In the spirit of 2023 Pride,...

The films in contention for the 2023 Best Costume Design Oscar are “Babylon,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” Our current odds show “Elvis” (10/3) to be the frontrunner, followed in order by “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (37/10), “Babylon” (9/2), “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (9/2), and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” (9/2).

Jenny Beavan’s nomination for “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is her 12th and could result in her fourth win, as she previously bagged trophies for “A Room with a View” (1987), “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2016), and “Cruella” (2022). She would be only the fifth costumer to achieve as many victories, after Edith Head, Irene Sharaff, Milena Canonero, and Colleen Atwood. Her other eight bids came for “The Bostonians” (1985), “Maurice” (1988), “Howards End” (1993), “The Remains of the Day” (1994), “Sense and Sensibility” (1996), “Anna and the King” (2000), “Gosford Park” (2002), and “The King’s Speech” (2011).

Catherine Martin (“Elvis”) is seeking...

Kit Hesketh-Harvey, the musician, composer and screenwriter, died of natural causes, a coroner has ruled.

The artist died suddenly at the age of 65 from heart disease, the family told The Independent.

He was in the bath, listening to Radio 3 and preparing for one of his Kit & McConnel comedy cabaret shows at the time of his death on 1 February.

Hesketh-Harvey, who performed for King Charles, enjoyed a prolific career that included writing the screenplay for director James Ivory’s 1987 film Maurice. The film starred a young Hugh Grant in one of his first onscreen roles.

He was the brother of Sarah Sands, journalist and former editor of the Evening Standard. Sands – who is also coping with the loss of her actor ex-husband Julian Sands who went missing last month during a mountain hike in California – spoke of her shock at her brother’s death at the time, telling The Independent: “Kit was dazzling – clever,...

Kit Hesketh-Harvey was one of those surprisingly rare performers whose personality was the same on stage as off. When I saw him in the many revues he would write and perform, the audience basked in his humour and genuine warmth.

You could say that Hesketh-Harvey was the last of the old-style Vaudevillians, keeping alive the spirit of Noël Coward, while unafraid to surprise his audience by stepping into the caustic territory of Barry Humphries. He always revelled in that quintessentially English humour, self-deprecating but biting, drawing on a world of shared references from British culture, while at the same time carving out its own originality.

His version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One” turned the jolly jape of a song into a critique of modern-day policing. “They want evidence that can’t be circumvented. So, invent it.” Delivered with such a smile,...

“I really, really am completely thrilled that we have been noticed,” remarks Jenny Beavan about her Oscar nomination for the costume design for “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” The film, a delightful tale in which a working-class London widow (Leslie Manville) pursues her dream of owning a House of Dior haute couture dress, proved a unique challenge for the costumer, who had to furnish the designer gowns “on a modest budget, in covid, in a city I didn’t know with a crew I never met before, in Hungarian.” As a result, she expresses how she feels “incredibly proud” of the work and is thrilled to share this acknowledgement with her crew. Watch our exclusive video interview above.

“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is based on the 1958 novel by Paul Gallico. Beavan is no stranger to literary adaptations, having previously worked on a host of Merchant Ivory films based on novels,...

Kit Hesketh-Harvey, the musician, composer and screenwriter, has died suddenly aged 65.

The multi-talented entertainer, who performed for King Charles, enjoyed a prolific career that included writing the screenplay for director James Ivory’s 1987 film Maurice, starring a young Hugh Grant in one of his first onscreen roles.

His agent told The Independent he died unexpectedly but peacefully, while listening to Radio 3 and preparing for a Kit & McConnel show.

He was the brother of Sarah Sands, journalist and former editor of the Evening Standard. His death comes as a double blow to the family during an ongoing search for Ms Sands’s former husband, British actor Julian Sands, who went missing two weeks ago while hiking in southern California.

Ms Sands spoke of the shock over her brother’s death. She told The Independent: “Kit was dazzling – clever, original, funny, kind. The last time I saw him he was busy mapping...

Kit Hesketh-Harvey, the musician, composer and screenwriter, has died suddenly aged 65.

The multi-talented entertainer, who performed for King Charles, enjoyed a prolific career that included writing the screenplay for director James Ivory’s 1987 film Maurice, starring a young Hugh Grant in one of his first onscreen roles.

His agent told The Independent he died unexpectedly but peacefully, while listening to Radio 3 and preparing for a Kit & McConnel show.

He was the brother of Sarah Sands, journalist and former editor of the Evening Standard. His death comes as a double blow to the family during an ongoing search for Ms Sands’s former husband, British actor Julian Sands, who went missing two weeks ago while hiking in southern California.

Ms Sands spoke of the shock over her brother’s death. She told The Independent: “Kit was dazzling – clever, original, funny, kind. The last time I saw him he was busy mapping...

In the 20-plus years since “Shrek” burned up the box office, the fairytale with a postmodern twist has become such a standardized genre, one wonders whether kids might be slightly thrown by one that plays out completely in earnest. They aren’t about to be tested in that regard by “The Amazing Maurice,” a loose, goofy riff on The Pied Piper of Hamelin that takes every available opportunity to draw viewers’ attention to the traditions being broken, or at least irreverently lampshaded. But courtesy of source material by offbeat fantasy maestro Terry Pratchett, it’s genuinely eccentric enough — with its sly talking cat, intrepid band of gold-hearted rats and chronic aversion to keeping the fourth wall intact — to come off as charming rather than smarmy.

Pratchett’s sensibility fuses comfortably with that of veteran screenwriter Terry Rossio — the man behind “Shrek,” among other blockbusters — in a film that tilts slightly...

Based on Terry Pratchett's first children's novel, "The Amazing Maurice" follows a talking cat named — you guessed it — Maurice (Hugh Laurie). Maurice leads his merry band of rats, who also talk, to various towns. They have a successful money-making scheme, as the rats take over the town like a plague, and their friend, the Pied Piper (Himesh Patel) lures them away with his music, which spurns the townsfolk to shower him with riches. They're all in on the scheme, and they share the money, unbeknownst to those ponying up the cash.

There's something mysterious afoot in the next town the gang plans to scheme. All the food seems to have gone missing. It's here that Piper and Maurice meet Malicia (Emilia Clarke), who sets up the story as our narrator. Malicia breaks the fourth wall and informs the audience that the narrator can be part of the story too.

"The Amazing Maurice" is the new CG animated fantasy comedy feature, directed by Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann, based on the book "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" by Sir Terry Pratchett, starring Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Hugh Bonneville and David Tennant, opening in theaters February 3, 2023:

"...'Maurice' is a goofy streetwise cat, who has the perfect money-making scam. 

"That's when he finds someone who plays a pipe...

"...and has his very own horde of rats, who are strangely literate..."

Click the images to enlarge...

The 17th annual Rome Film Festival will fete James Ivory with a career honor, a mini retrospective and the Italian launch of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s personal new documentary “A Cooler Climate.”

Ivory is expected in Rome to receive the award and present the doc about his life as a traveler that takes its cue from boxes of film the director shot during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan in 1960. The film premieres beforehand at the New York Film Festival.

Rome’s Ivory mini-retrospective will comprise his films “Maurice”; “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; “The Remains of the Day”; and “A Room With a View.”

The Rome fest – which has undergone a management change and is now headed by former Rai Cinema executive Paola Malanga as artistic director and Gian Luca Farinelli as president – on Thursday unveiled a mixed bag lineup comprising a competitive section largely made up of first works,...

English novelist E.M. Forster never married, and why would he? The author of “Maurice” and “Howards End” was gay, reportedly maintaining relations with a much-younger police officer over the span of four decades. That man did marry, and history has it that his wife knew their secret. In “My Policeman,” this unconventional arrangement lends itself quite nicely to one of those slightly stuffy yet respectable period pieces of the kind that Ismail Merchant and James Ivory have made of Forster’s novels, jumping back and forth in time between the sexy stuff and the maudlin way it resolves itself so many years later.

It all starts with a special delivery to a dreary seaside cottage: An invalid arrives at the house of retired policeman Tom (Linus Roache) and his schoolteacher wife Marion (Gina McKee). It was her idea to take in the unpleasant and largely uncooperative Patrick Hazelwood, whose presence clearly annoys her husband.

My Policeman, which had its world premiere today at the Toronto Film Festival, has its roots in a novel by Bethan Roberts which was actually based on a complicated love relationship between famed novelist E.M. Forster; his male lover of 40 years, a policeman named Bob Buckingham; and Buckingham’s wife May Hockey, who slowly came to realize her husband had a long-standing affair with Forster, but even after he had suffered a series of strokes took care of the author in his later life so deep was their friendship. Roberts changed the names and fictionalized it all for her book, which is now the basis of Ron Nyswaner’s (Philadelphia) screenplay that explores the love triangle of three freewheeling friends in 1957 who each was hobbled by the mores of the time, repressing rather than expressing their own sexuality, even as the...

40 years ago, Hugh Grant made his film debut in 1982’s “Privileged,” a little-seen effort about undergraduates at Oxford (where Grant studied English lit), which was funded by the Oxford University Film Foundation. In its July 14, 1982, review, Variety said the film — which also marked the bows of producer Andy Paterson, director Michael Hoffman, actors Imogen Stubbs and James Wilby and composer Rachel Portman — would have “limited interest” for most audiences but that the actor, billed as Hughie Grant, gives a convincing performance as an “aristocratic dropout.”

For the next five years, Grant did sketch comedy, played the classics onstage and worked in TV; his first mention in Variety was for the 1985 miniseries “Jenny’s War,” playing the Raf pilot son of Dyan Cannon.

He boosted his profile with the 1987 Merchant-Ivory film “Maurice,” adapted from E.M. Forster. The film also featuring his “Privileged” costar Wilby and the two shared the best-actor prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Charles S. Cohen’s Cohen Media Group, which owns the Landmark Theatres chain of art-houses, has acquired HanWay Films, the U.K.-based international film sales giant founded by Jeremy Thomas and long run by his partner Peter Watson.

Terms of the deal, which the company announced Thursday, were not disclosed.

HanWay will continued to be function as an independent unit selling a broad range of theatrical titles to international distributors. Peter Watson will continue to serve as president, along with Gabrielle Stewart as CEO.

Thomas’ Recorded Picture Company will maintain its close relationship to HanWay, which will continue to represent films from his upcoming slate; Watson will also keep his role as CEO of Recorded Picture Company.

Also Read:

Ted Mundorff Steps Down as Head of Landmark Theatres

Since its founding in 1998, HanWay Films has been one of the most prolific forces in indie cinema worldwide — accumulating a library...

Cohen Media Group has acquired producer Jeremy Thomas’ prestigious international sales company HanWay Films in a major deal.

Cohen Media Group owns Landmark Theatres in the U.S. and British distributor-exhibitor Curzon. HanWay Films was founded by “The Last Emperor” producer Thomas and is co-owned with his partner Peter Watson.

Under the deal, HanWay Films will continue to be branded as an independent label selling theatrical titles to its distribution partners worldwide. It’s still unclear how much an exclusive tie-in there will be to parent company-owned Curzon.

Peter Watson will continue to serve as president, with Gabrielle Stewart as CEO.

Philip Knatchbull, CEO of Curzon, negotiated the transaction on behalf of Cohen Media Group.

Based in London, HanWay Films’ current slate of upcoming movies comprises a dozen titles, with eight films in production or scheduled to go into production this year. Recent projects include the Cannes-winning “Eo” as well...

Acquisition

Factual content specialist Zinc Media Group has fundraised £5 million (6.1 million) and is using £2.1 million of it towards acquiring award-winning production company The Edge Picture Company, which operates from its bases in London, Doha, Vancouver and Paris. The rest of the cash will be invested in talent, potential IP, and in future acquisitions and collaborations. The Edge’s clients include Amazon, BT Group and FIFA.

The Edge joins Zinc Media Group at the end of August, subject to approval by Zinc shareholders. The Edge will continue to operate in line with other companies wholly owned by Zinc Media Group and it will continue to be run by the same management team, but benefit from the opportunities presented by being part of an enlarged organisation.

Zinc’s TV business includes the labels current affairs, contemporary history and investigations focused Brook Lapping, which was recently commissioned for “Tom Daley: Illegal To Be Me,...

Some of the films have never been seen by Scandinavian audiences.

Nordic distributor NonStop Entertainment’s classics label NonStop Timeless has acquired Scandinavian rights to a huge batch of 111 classic films from a variety of international sellers.

The films span Fernando Meirelles’s City of God (pictured) through to James Ivory’s Maurice. Some of the notable filmmakers included in the deals are David Lynch, Catherine Breillat and Nina Menkes.

The acquisitions also include George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park from Yellow Veil; Taika Waititi’s Boy and Eagle vs. Shark from HanWay; Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable...

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

Film at Lincoln Center

The 4K Lost Highway restoration begins its run as a 20-film Dario Argento retrospective continues.

Roxy Cinema

Scanners plays on 35mm Friday night; on Saturday, a print of Marie Antoinette screens, Steve Gunn plays live music over some of the greatest films ever made—Ken Jacobs, Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren—and Nick Pinkerton and Sean Price Williams’ secret-screening series “City Dudes” returns; Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice plays Saturday and Sunday, while on the latter day a mixture of digital and 16mm shorts shows for Pride.

Anthology Film Archives

Essential Cinema has a Warhol double on Friday, while “Imageless Films” returns.

Museum of Modern Art

One of the year’s great retrospectives looks at deep cuts of Shochiku Studios, while a slashers retrospective is underway.

Film Forum

A 35mm print of Diva continues, while The Discreet Charm of...

The documentary festival will include 38 world premieres.

The UK’s Sheffield DocFest (June 23-28) has unveiled its 2022 line-up, including the world premiere of Werner Herzog’s The Fire Within: Requiem For Katia And Maurice Krafft.

The documentary festival will host 38 world premieres, 22 international premieres and 11 European premieres.

The Fire Within, which is written, narrated and directed by Herzog, will feature in DocFest’s Memories strand. It chronicles the French volcanologists who died in a volcanic eruption on Japan’s Mount Uzen in 1991, leaving an archive of more than 200 hours of footage that makes up the film.

Herzog previously explored the...

The announcement of winners for the ASCAP Screen Music Awards, being held virtually again for 2022 and announced Monday morning, included revealing the top vote-getters for several Composers’ Choice Awards, including the scores for “Encanto” and “The White Lotus.”

Germaine Franco prevailed for film score of the year for “Encanto.” Cristobal Tapia de Veer won two of these peer-voted awards, for television score of the year and television theme as well, for “The White Lotus. The video game score of the year honor went to Wataru Hokoyama for “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.” Triumphing in the documentary score of the year category was Amanda Jones for “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street.”

Those five Composers’ Choice Awards come on top of ASCAP’s traditional Screen Music Awards, which collect date to honor the most-consumed music of the year in the fields of TV, film and video games, with dozens of winners cited.

Studiocanal is collaborating with Sixteen Films’ Rebecca O’Brien and Morena Film’s Juan Gordon to develop a series created by longtime Ken Loach scribe Paul Laverty and to be directed by Spain’s Iciar Bollaín.

The drama series will be the first for both Laverty and Bollaín after writing and directing respectively 19 and nine feature films, including collaborations on Bollaín’s multi-prized “Yuli,” “The Olive Tree” and “Even the Rain,” movies that established her as one of Spain’s top film directors.

Over the last few years, Cannes’ MipTV trade fair, once a strict TV silo, is now ever more MipFilm. Signs of an ever-building crossover between the two sectors look indeed to make up one of the hallmarks of this year’s event.

In multiple different moves, iconic film talent is plunging ever more into series.

Conceived for TV, content can sell to film distributors, such as has been...

The films in contention for the 2022 Best Costume Design Oscar are “Cruella,” “Cyrano,” “Dune,” “Nightmare Alley,” and “West Side Story.” Our current odds show “Cruella” (16/5) to be the frontrunner, followed in order by “Dune” (39/10), “West Side Story” (4/1), “Nightmare Alley” (9/2), and “Cyrano” (9/2).

Jenny Beavan’s nomination for “Cruella” is her 11th and could result in her third win, as she previously bagged trophies for “A Room with a View” (1987) and “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2016). She would be the 11th costumer to achieve as many victories and already ranks as the eighth most-nominated one. Her other eight bids came for “The Bostonians” (1985), “Maurice” (1988), “Howards End” (1993), “The Remains of the Day” (1994), “Sense and Sensibility” (1996), “Anna and the King” (2000), “Gosford Park” (2002), and “The King’s Speech” (2011). The first five films for which she was nominated were all directed by James Ivory.

Jacqueline Durran (“Cyrano”) has also won twice for her work in “Anna Karenina” (2013) and...

The fund has previously backed titles including ‘Censor’ and ‘The Colour Room’.

The UK’s Ffilm Cymru Wales has invested £280,183 of National Lottery funding in the development of 12 feature films, throughout the past year, the Welsh film agency has revealed.

The agency offers writers, directors and producers support through the development process, and up to £25,000 of funding.

Titles to receive backing from this funding round include A Womanly Way: The Story Of Olivia Records, from director Hannah Berryman and producer Catryn Ramasut/ They previously worked together on Rockfield: The Studio On The Farm, and have received £24,980 for their documentary about...

Exclusive: Rupert Graves has joined Hulu’s anticipated limited series Washington Black as a series regular, with Shaunette Renée Wilson signing on to a recurring role.

Graves and Wilson join a previously announced series regular ensemble led by Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Sterling K. Brown, which also includes Eddie Karanja, Tom Ellis, Iola Evans, Edward Bluemel and Sharon Duncan-Brewster.

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is adapting the nine-episode drama series based on Esi Edugyan’s international bestselling novel of the same name. It will follow the extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington (“Wash”) Black (Kingsley Jr.)—an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life. As previously announced, Brown is playing the gregarious, larger-than-life Medwin Harris, who traveled the world after a traumatic childhood as a Black refugee in Nova...

At 93, the Merchant Ivory director – and oldest ever Oscar winner – reflects on enduring love, delighting in his sexuality and defying film-making expectations

James Ivory’s movies revel in the elegance of the swan and simultaneously show how frantically its feet are paddling beneath the water. In the films for which he is best known – 1985’s A Room With a View, 1987’s Maurice, 1992’s Howards End and 1993’s The Remains of the Day, a fraction of his output – we see the effort put into making those rooms look so beautiful; the human cost of controlling your emotions. Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis) pretending to clean his spectacles after Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter) breaks their engagement in A Room With a View; Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) looking at Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) as she takes the book out of his hand: Ivory knows that an ocean of emotions can be contained in the smallest gesture.

Cohen Film Collection is gearing up for a number of newly restored releases, among them Simon Callow’s 1991 drama “The Ballad of the Sad Café” and a number of Buster Keaton works.

Part of New York-based Cohen Media Group, Cohen Film Collection restores classic films and re-releases them theatrically. It’s vast catalogue includes the Merchant Ivory collection, of which “The Ballad of the Sad Café” is a part.

Based on the 1951 novella by Carson McCullers, the film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine and Rod Steiger.

The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is currently finishing the restoration of the film, which Cohen Film Group plans to release next year.

“There’s still a number of features to go, so we’re working our way through those, including some of the films set in India, which I’m personally really interested in,” says Tim Lanza, Cohen Film Collection vice president and archivist.

Paris Theater

To mark their return, a frighteningly stacked weekend: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman on Friday; Buñuel double Viridiana and Belle de Jour, plus Emmanuelle on Saturday; then Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End on Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Wojciech Has’ amazing The Hourglass Sanatorium screens Saturday and Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Naturally, Persona and Jackass both play this weekend.

Anthology Film Archives

A retrospective of Mark Rappaport is underway.

Museum of the Moving Image

2001 and Spartacus have 70mm showings.

Film Forum

Three films by Wayne Wang are screening while La Piscine continues.

IFC Center

World of Wong Kar-wai and Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd have kept going.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Buñuel Double, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Persona & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: Bungee Jumping of Their Own (2001) Jooran Lee’s seminal 2000 essay “Remembered Branches: Towards a Future of Korean Homosexual Film” begins with the assertion that “discussing Korean gay and lesbian films is like drifting in a space without sunlight or oxygen. One searches, blindly, gaspingly—and mostly in vain—simply trying to discover the existence of such films.” The gathering of these films into a holistic canon is almost as difficult an endeavor as the unearthing. Without theatrical releases or international festival runs, queer Korean films are still relatively obscure and elusive, especially for those who do not live in Korea. A copy of Han Hyung-mo's film Jealousy (1960), considered one of the earliest Korean films to display homoerotic behavior between women, remains missing.1 Other films, like Park Jae-ho’s Broken Branches...

Fox Corp. streaming service Tubi has made a deal with Cohen Media Group to put 80 of its film titles on the free, ad-supported platform.

Tubi will have exclusive free streaming rights to classics like Howards End and Daughters Of The Dust. More recent films that are heading to the platform include Agnès Varda and Jr’s documentary collaboration, Faces Places and Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang.

Cohen titles already on Tubi include Maurice with Hugh Grant; Farewell My Queen, starring Diane Kruger and Léa Seydoux; and François Ozon’s Double Lover and The New Girlfriend. The full slate will roll out throughout the month of June.

Fox closed its $440 million acquisition of Tubi last year and has steadily increased its programming offering. It now has 30,000 film and TV titles from more than 250 suppliers.

Tubi reported having 33 million monthly active users as of last fall. It has also said that streaming...

Exclusive: Warren Kole (Shades of Blue) is set as a series regular and Peter Gadiot (Queen of the South), Keeya King (Van Helsing) and Alex Wyndham (Rome) have been tapped for recurring roles in Showtime’s drama series Yellowjackets. Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci and Tawny Cypress star in the drama series from writers Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, Entertainment One and studio-based producer Drew Comins. Production has begun in Vancouver, Canada for a 2021 debut on the network.

Equal parts survival epic, psychological horror story and coming-of-age drama, Yellowjackets is the saga of a team of wildly talented high school girls soccer players who become the (un)lucky survivors of a plane crash deep in the remote northern wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to savage clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later, proving...

We never learn the name of the main character in Samuel Van Grinsven’s fearless queer debut, “Sequin in a Blue Room.” Anonymous is just the way he likes it. Using a gay cruising app, he goes by the handle “Sequin,” seeking casual, no-strings sex from strangers. Once the hookup’s complete, he blocks the other party, so they can’t contact him again. And then he goes searching for his next thrill.

A redheaded twink who meets his trysts in a sparkling silver club top, Sequin is just 16, but he knows what he wants — or at least he thinks he does. Such confidence can be disarming, since most kids haven’t figured themselves out yet at that age, which makes them easy prey for more experienced partners. But Sequin seems to intuit the power that youth and beauty confer upon someone in his position, and this single-minded young man...

We’ve got a big week of home media releases ahead of us, so I hope that your wallets are ready to suffer a whole lot of abuse this Tuesday, because there are a ton of must-own titles headed home that genre fans are definitely going to want to add to their collections. We have two new Vestron Video Collector’s Series releases to look forward to—David Cronenberg’s Shivers and Little Monsters (1989)—and for the first time ever, Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn is being released on Blu-ray.

If you’re a Stephen King fan, Paramount has assembled a 5-Movie Collection on Blu that includes both iterations of Pet Sematary, Silver Bullet, The Stand, and The Dead Zone. Kl Studio Classics is showing some love this Tuesday to the horror comedy The Ghost Breakers featuring Bob Hope, and Dark Sky Films is set to release Luz: The Flower of Evil this week,...

And the next prime minister of Great Britain will be… Hugh Grant!

Okay, maybe not.

However, Grant says he has entertained the idea of running for office. “I have thought about it a bit to be honest,” Grant says in this week’s episode of “The Big Ticket,” Variety and iHeart’s movie podcast.

The 58-year-old actor knows his way around politics after being on the forefront of the battle against British tabloids that regularly bugged his and other celebrities’ phones. His anti-hacking campaign uncovered cozy relationships that elected officials had with press barons, including Rupert Murdoch.

He even has an campaign slogan. “My main slogan would be, ‘I Don’t Want to Be Reelected.’ It seems to me that the desire to be reelected or be a career politician poisons everything,” Grant said.

While Grant says he “gets incandescently angry” watching today’s political news, the chances of him actually running are pretty slim.