‘American Fiction,’ ‘Maestro,’ ‘The Bikeriders’ Light Up Mill Valley Film Festival’s 46th Edition

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor How does one create a film festival during an actors strike? Middleburg Film Festival executive director Susan Koch explains she’s approached programming the Virginia fest in the same manner as she has always done. “We looked for the strongest films and a wide range of films that represent diverse voices and ones we feel will expand our view of the world,” she tells Variety. Now in its 11th year, the festival continues to be a carefully curated weekend of films and conversations, including many of the year’s buzziest titles.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Bikeriders,” a drama starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy and directed by Jeff Nichols, has been delayed amid the ongoing actors’ strike. Disney and 20th Century were scheduled to open the film on Dec. 1 but it’s been taken off the calendar for now.

Ellise Shafer Daniel Kaluuya world premiered his feature directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday night, calling it “one of the best days of my life.” Kaluuya was on hand alongside his co-director Kibwe Tavares, producer Daniel Emmerson and several of the film’s actors, including “Top Boy” star Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman. Set in a dystopian London where all social housing has been banned, the film follows the residents of a community called the Kitchen who must fight to save their home. Speaking before the premiere, Kaluuya and Tavares explained that it’s taken nearly a decade to bring the Netflix film to the screen.

The Wrestler, directed by Bangladeshi-Canadian filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, and September 1923, from Japan’s Tatsuya Mori, picked up the New Currents Awards as Busan International Film Festival wrapped a busy 28th edition on October 13. 

The co-heads of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which was rescheduled at the eleventh hour this week due to the Israel-Gaza crisis, have vowed that the event will go ahead in some shape or form.

UPDATED with lineup additions, 11:01 AM: The American Film Institute today added some films to its 2023 lineup. The five films selected by Guest Artistic Director Greta Gerwig are All That Jazz, An American in Paris, Wings of Desire A Matter of Life and Death and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. She will introduce the latter two.

Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).

Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.  

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

Since NASA’s conception just over six decades ago, 600 astronauts have traveled to space, yet only 18 have been Black Americans. Hindered in equal parts by racial discrimination and the lack of educational and economic resources given to the Black community in the space administration’s formative years led to a significant racial disparity among those who aimed to reach for the stars.

Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.

K.J. Yossman Kristy Matheson had big shoes to fill when she took over from Tricia Tuttle as director of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) earlier this year. Over the course of a decade, Tuttle transformed LFF into a highlight of the fall festival calendar, drawing some of the biggest names in entertainment to the English capital each October including, memorably, Ted Sarandos and Beyoncé, who flew in to celebrate the world premiere of “The Harder They Fall” in 2021.

Director Steve McQueen said his unusual four-hour Holocaust documentary shot in Amsterdam is rooted in his strong sense that “the past is present” in physical manifestations all around us, as well as a reminder to stay vigilant.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia” has garnered the best documentary and best doc editing honors at the 24th annual Woodstock Film Festival. The documentary, which was recently acquired by Roadside Attractions, is vying for Academy Award attention.

The San Sebastian Film Festival awarded O Corno (The Rye Horn) with the Golden Shell for Best Film. San Sebastián native Jaione Camborda took the top prize of the night for the feature she directed.

International execs from Unifrance, MK2 and TrustNordisk kicked off the annual Zurich Summit on Saturday to discuss the importance of film festivals when promoting a title and if fests are drifting away from what works in cinemas. 

“A lot of very impressive people have led this festival and what connects them is a love for movies and culture and what that can achieve,” Kristy Matheson told Deadline of her new job as Director of the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival.

The American Film Institute on Thursday revealed the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 25-29. It joins the previously announced fest opener, Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, and closer in Bradley Cooper’s Maestro. Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story is the Centerpiece film.

Netherlands photographer and director Anton Corbijn has been named as president of the main feature film jury for the upcoming Zurich Film Festival.

Guy Lodge Film Critic As directorial head-to-heads go, Jack Huston versus Stanley Kubrick isn’t anyone’s idea of a fair fight. But that’s exactly the clash the actor and Hollywood scion sets up for himself in his directorial debut “Day of the Fight” — named for Kubrick’s famous 1951 documentary short of the same title, and likewise following an Irish-American boxer through his daily New York routine, in the hours leading up to a climactic evening match.