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Eight international filmmakers whose short films have been previously selected for Cannes’ Critics’ Week are participating in the 11th Critics’ Week’s Next Step programme (December 8 – 13) to help them prep their first features.

Two French directors are attending with comedies: Mathilde Chavanne’s A La Recherche Du Miraculeux, produced by Haut et Court, is about a theatre director working with secondary school students; while Guil Sela’s “anti-romantic” comedy Life Is A Beach about a shy lifeguard trying to fit in.

Polish writer-director David Bodzak is attending with his coming-of-age horror drama Episode about a VHS-obsessed skateboarding high schooler who...

The Melbourne International Film Festival has set ten features to play in its Bright Horizons competition section.

They include: India Donaldson’s “Good One”; Luna Carmoon’s “Hoard”; Annie Baker’s “Janet Planet”; Leonardo Van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet”; Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams”; Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language”; Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise”; Gints Zabalodis’ animated “Flow”; Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”; and Australian director Charles Williams’ debut feature “Inside.”

The non-competitive Headliners section, which showcases films that have premiered at other festivals, includes: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”; Mumbai-based director Payal Kapadia was recently the first Indian director for 30 years with a film in competition in Cannes presents “All We Imagine as Light”; Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring “The Substance”; Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Sebastian Stan in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”; Cannes best director-winning Asian odyssey,...

Griffin in Summer won the Founders Award for best U.S. narrative feature as well as two additional awards: special jury mention for new narrative director for Nicholas Colia and best screenplay in a U.S. narrative feature, which also went to Colia.

Meanwhile, Bikechess won Best International Narrative Feature, and Hacking Hate won Best Documentary Feature. Don’t You Let Me Go won the 12th annual Nora Ephron Award, and Come Closer and Witches topped the first Viewpoints Competition.

Additionally, Nnamdi Asomugha‘s The Knife won two awards: best cinematography in a U.S. narrative feature (Alejandro Mejia) and the best new narrative director award for Asomugha.

Some Rain Must Fall also won two awards.

A full list of this year’s winners follows.

More to come.

U.S. Narrative Competition

Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature: Griffin in Summer, director Nicholas Colia

Best Performance in a U.

Nicholas Colia’s Griffin in Summer swept the narrative features award categories at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, nabbing honors for best U.S. film and screenplay, as well as a special jury mention for new narrative director.

Colia’s feature debut stars Everett Blunck as an aspiring 14-year-old playwright who falls hard for his mother’s handyman and struggling performance artist, played by Owen Teague. The jury mentioned in its notes Thursday that the film “straddled the very thin line between heartwarming, tragic, hilarious and awkward” and that it “fills a void in the marketplace for films that touch on sophisticated themes while remaining family friendly. Never pandering, always fresh, full of relatable universal experiences while being incredibly specific and nuanced.”

Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux won for Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature for Jazzy, by Morrisa Maltz, a follow-up to her 2023 The Unknown Country starring Lily Gladstone. The Killers...

As the 2024 Tribeca Festival comes to a close, the top film prizes have just been announced at an awards ceremony at Racket NYC. This year, the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature went to “Griffin in Summer,” while “Bikechess” scored the prize of Best International Narrative Feature, and “Hacking Hate,” Best Documentary Feature. The competition categories include Feature Film, Short Film, Audio Storytelling, Immersive, Games, Viewpoints, Human/Nature, and Tribeca X.

“After a banner year of Tribeca programming, I do not envy our jurors’ task of selecting this year’s winners,” said Tribeca Festival Director and SVP of Programming Cara Cusumano. “I’m delighted to see they’ve chosen to honor a diverse, international, adventurous group of films that truly reflect the Tribeca spirit. We can’t wait to continue to follow and support all these films’ journeys into the world.”

The Audience Award winners will be announced at a later date,...

Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Jonathan Pryce, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and David Tennant have joined the cast of Netflix and Amblin Entertainment’s “The Thursday Murder Club,” based on Richard Osman’s novel of the same name.

According to an official logline, the series follows, “a group of friends in a retirement home who gather to solve murders for fun, but find themselves caught in a real case. The four members of the club are played by Helen Mirren (ex-spy Elizabeth), Sir Ben Kingsley (ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim) Pierce Brosnan (former union activist Ron) and Celia Imrie (ex-nurse Joyce).”

Chris Columbus serves as writer, director and producer with Jennifer Todd. Holly Bario, Jeb Brody, Eleanor Columbus and Jo Burn executive produce.

Tribeca Festival 2024 Competition Winners Include ‘Griffin in Summer,’ ‘Bikechess,’ ‘Hacking Hate’

Tribeca Festival has announced the 2024 winners of its competition categories at an awards ceremony at Racket NYC. Top awards went to “Griffin in Summer,...

Chinese filmmaker Zou Jing has won the €2,500 Next Step Hildegarde award from Cannes’ Critics’ Week for her upcoming debut feature A Girl Unknown. Didar Domehri of France’s Maneki Films has come on to co-produce the film with Yan Wang of China-France production house Memoria Films.

The film is a coming-of-age tale about identity that follows the journey of a young Chinese girl from age six through her thirties who lives with three different families.

It explores how China’s one-child policy affected generations of abandoned girls in the country from the 1980s to the 2000s.

The writer-director previously won...

Chinese writer and director Jing Zou’s feature film project A Girl Unknown has won the top prize at the Next Step initiative of Cannes Critics’ Week, aimed at supporting filmmakers as they make the move from short films to their first feature.

Inspired by the true phenomenon of generations of girls who were abandoned in China as a result of the country’s one-child policy, A Girl Unknown depicts a young Chinese woman from the age of six through to her thirties, living in three different families.

It is billed as an intimate coming-of-age story that explores existential pain, self-discovery, and how one learns to love. The film is produced by Wang Yang at Paris-based Memoria Films, which works between France and China.

Born in 1984, Zou is a Chinese director and writer based out of Shanghai and Los Angeles. She comes from a literature background, but she found her...

Exclusive: Mike Goodridge’s growing UK production company Good Chaos, which is in Cannes with Un Certain Regard title Santosh, has had a minority equity investment from Cameron Lamb’s Paris-based audio platform Alexander.

The investment will give Alexander an opportunity to develop its growing non-fiction IP library, across film and TV formats, while Good Chaos has been able to grow its headcount, operations and production reach.

The companies’ first joint film project is Wife, Witch, Poisoner, Whore, a period thriller based on the Alexander audiobook by Katherine Rundell, and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter.

The official synopsis reads: “Beautiful, rich, clever, and determined English noblewoman Frances Howard was a dazzling celebrity at the court of James I. But when the unhappy teenage bride rebelled against the patriarchy of her day, she was put on trial for witchcraft, infidelity and murder – very nearly at the expense of her life.”

Good Chaos is on a roll.

This month’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will showcase over 190 films from 62 countries and regions, including five world premieres, and 64 Asian premieres.

Running 12 days (March 28 – April 8), the festival will open with the Asian premiere of local director Ray Yeung’s “All Shall Be Well,” which won the Teddy Award at the recent Berlin festival.

The closing film is the Asian premiere of “All the Long Nights,” directed by Miyake Sho and starring Matsumura Hokuto and Kamishiraishi Mone, which also premiered in Berlin. Variety’s review of “Nights” called it “gently luminous.”

Chinese-language films selected for the Firebird competition include: “Borrowed Time,” “Brief History of a Family,” “Carefree Days,” Fresh off Markham,” “A Journey in Spring,” “Snow in Midsummer,” “Some Rain Must Fall” and “A Song Sung Blue.”

Foreign films for the Firebird competition’s other section include: “Arcadia,” “Arni,” “Ivo,” “Pepe,” “Sons,” “Sujo,” “The Tenants” and “Who Do I Belong to.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will open with the Asian premiere of All Shall Be Well, directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Ray Yeung, which recently won the Teddy Award at Berlin film festival.

Starring Patra Au and Maggie Li, the film tells the story of an older lesbian couple and how the surviving partner struggles to retain her home and her dignity when one of them passes away. The film premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlinale.

Japanese filmmaker Miyake Sho’s All The Long Nights, starring Matsumura Hokuto and Kamishiraishi Mone, which premiered in the Forum section of Berlin, will close the festival on April 8.

Gala screenings also include the world premiere of Hong Kong filmmaker Ho Miu-ki’s Love Lies, starring Sandra Ng, Cheung Tin-fu and Stephy Tang; Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Gift, a collaboration with composer Eiko Ishibashi, which will be...

Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well has been set as the opening film of the 48th Hong Kong International Film Festival, which has unveiled its full lineup today.

It will mark the Asian premiere of the Hong Kong feature, which debuted in the Panorama strand of the Berlinale last month and won the Teddy Award. Starring Patra Au and Maggie Li, it centres on a lesbian couple in their twilight years. After one of them dies, the other struggles to retain both her dignity and the home they shared for more than 30 years.

Miyake Sho’s All The Long Nights,...

Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey, about artefacts being returned from Paris to present-day Benin, was awarded the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival tonight (February 24).

The film, handled internationally by Les Film du Losange, is the second from the African continent to take the Berlinale’s top prize after Mark Dornford-May’s musical U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2005. It is also the second year in a row that a documentary has clinched the Golden Bear, following Nicolas Philibert’s On The Adamant last year.

In her speech, Diop said: “To restitute is to do justice. We can...

After two weeks of new cinema, the Berlin Film Festival comes to a close this Sunday, February 25, with its annual awards ceremony. This year’s event marks one of change, as festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian, at his post since 2018, steps down to make way for Tricia Tuttle, who will take over for next year’s outing.

This year’s Berlinale has already stirred plenty of buzz for films like Alonso Ruizpalacios’s “La Cocina,” a drama set in a New York City kitchen and starring Rooney Mara, and Tim Mielants’ opener “Small Things Like These,” starring likely Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. Both films are eligible for awards, along with “Timbuktu” director Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Black Tea,” “Goodnight Mommy” filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s “The Devil’s Bath,” “The Guilty” director Gustav Möller’s “Sons,” Olivier Assayas’ “Suspended Time,” plus Aaron Schimberg’s Sundance hit “A Different Man,” and many more.

Mistress of Misery: Yang Explores the Turmoil of Transformation

Here comes the rain again, falling on her head like a tragedy. Or so is the somewhat gloomy sentiment of Qiu Yang’s debut Some Rain Must Fall, which finds Cai, 45-year-old housewife being raked over the coals when a perfect storm of past and present events coincide over a hellish few days. While a dramatic, unintentionally violent moment triggers a cascade of deepening miseries, the actual dramatic catalyst has been long coming, longer actually than the current discord with her husband. Each of them having a somewhat fractured relationship with their teenage daughter, and contending with both their elderly parents, the film is a condensed laundry list of intergenerational domestic strife, but led quite exceptionally by Yu Aier, whose troubled countenance gives way to cathartic fury and eventual reclamation of her dogged durability.…...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Emilio Estevez’s The Way: Chapter 2, reuniting the actor-director with the cast members of his original 2010 hit, father Martin Sheen, Yorick Van Wageningen and James Nesbitt.

The sequel revisits protagonist Tom (Sheen) a decade after his first pilgrimage on Spain’s El Camino de Santiago in the footsteps of his deceased son Daniel (Estevez), as he reconnects with his walking companions Joost (van Wageningen) and Jack (Nisbitt).

Now embedded with Doctors Without Borders in northern Nigeria, performing surgery in a war zone, Tom is sent a copy of Jack’s bestselling book based on their shared experience, in which a disturbing secret is revealed.

Enraged, he leaves to search for Jack and find answers to questions that have haunted him for a decade. His journey reunites him with Joost and leads them through Amsterdam, Dublin, Brussels and France before returning to Spain and the Camino.