EXCLUSIVE: Close to You, the indie drama produced by and starring Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy), which world premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, has been acquired for a summer 2024 release in U.S. theaters by Greenwich Entertainment.
28.12.2023 - 16:57 / variety.com
Siddhant Adlakha Three decades after the 1915 Armenian Genocide, an optimistic American Armenian returns to his Sovietized homeland, only be thrown in prison under flimsy circumstances. From his squalid jail cell, he peers daily into the home and inner life of one of his Armenian prison guards, and inadvertently finds the cultural connection he’d been searching for.
This broad premise informs the sentimental comedy-drama of “Amerikatsi” (or “The American”), Armenia’s shortlisted international Oscar submission. Written and directed by Michael A.
Goorjian, who also stars in the leading role, it’s a moving work about diasporic yearning, coming to us as history repeats itself, after more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians were forced to flee Nagorno-Karabakh earlier this year. The movie’s dreamlike prologue follows a young Armenian boy escaping the brutality of the Ottoman Army during World War I, peering out of a tiny hole in an ornate luggage trunk.
The interior of this box is embossed with the serene image of Mount Ararat which, while located in modern Turkey, holds deep significance as a national symbol for the Armenian people. Decades later, this boy — now a middle-aged Poughkeepsie local, “Charlie” Bakhchinyan (Goorjian) — takes advantage of Joseph Stalin’s program to repatriate displaced Armenians, but stumbles headfirst into a Soviet family comedy of sorts, though he’s none the wiser.
After assisting the disgruntled Armenian wife of a high-ranking Soviet official, brewing jealousies and crossed wires lead to Charlie — who’s fluent in English, speaks scattered Armenian and knows not a lick of Russian — being locked up for the crime of wearing a polka dotted tie. Before long, his daily routine involves stale bread, hard
.EXCLUSIVE: Close to You, the indie drama produced by and starring Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy), which world premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, has been acquired for a summer 2024 release in U.S. theaters by Greenwich Entertainment.
FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street will partner on the worldwide release of Treasure (fka Iron Box), a road trip pic starring Lena Dunham (Girls) and Stephen Fry (The Sandman) that’s set to world premiere as a special gala presentation at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
An Outlander boss has been opening up on the “challenges” faced by show makers that are different to other productions.
The ITV drama Mr Bates vs. the Post Office has become the British broadcaster’s biggest new drama in over a decade, beating even the launch of Downton Abbey back in 2010.
Selena Gomez and Emily Blunt weren’t taking any risks when they stepped out for the 2023 American Film Institute Awards in Los Angeles on Friday!
Jay-Z and D’Angelo have teamed up on a collaborative new single called ‘I Want You Forever’ – you can listen to it below.The epic, nine-and-a-half-minute song was created in partnership with filmmaker and musician Jeymes Samuel for his new film The Book Of Clarence, which hit US cinemas today (January 12).Samuel previously described the track as “nine minutes and 32 seconds of absolute soulful, biblical bliss”.In Jay-Z’s verse, he raps: “Life don’t taste the same without you/ Tears in my champagne ’bout you/ Quit playin’ girl, you know I’m crazy ’bout you/ You know that week you ran back to your momma house/ Ask my friends, the can vouch (Ooh).”Tune in here:The Book Of Clarence was written and directed by Samuel, and he also served as a producer alongside Jay-Z and others. The pair previously worked together on Samuel’s 2021 film The Harder They Fall.In a press release, the filmmaker explained: “The Book Of Clarence is a film that I wanted to make for many years.
Good Morning Britain presenter Richard Madeley seems to have taken a dig at Giovanni Pernice amid the ongoing Strictly Come Dancing drama.
Sam Fender has shared his soulful new song ‘Iris’, taken from the soundtrack to the new film Jackdaw.The track was debuted on Edith Bowman’s BBC Radio 2 Culture Club show yesterday (Tuesday January 9), and can be heard here from around the 38 minute mark, or below. The first new material from Fender following on his 2021 second album ‘Seventeen Going Under‘ – named as NME‘s Album Of The Year – was described by Bowman as “absolute perfection” in how it accompanies a touching scene in Jackdaw, which is set in Fender’s native North East of the UK.“He’s been away doing what he does and writing new things, and what’s absolutely wonderful is that he’s been incredibly supportive of fellow creatives – in the form of Jamie Childs the filmmaker, who’s about to release his first feature film,” said Bowman introducing the film.”She continued: “Jamie has worked across some brilliant programmes, directing things like Dr Who, The Sandman, His Dark Materials, and now he’s about to release his first feature film Jackdaw – which is set in the North East of England, which is where Sam is from.“They got in touch with Sam and said, ‘Do you fancy seeing if you’ve got anything around?’ and, lo and behold, Sam gifts them this track exclusively for the film – and it could not be more fitting.”The song leans on Fender’s soulful side, set to a stripped-back guitar backing as the North Shields artist tenderly sings of a woman navigating her way through hard times in the North East.Jackdaw is released in cinemas January 26 following a Stockton-On-Tees premiere on January 24.
EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is developing a drama series about Bible John, one of Britain’s most notorious unidentified serial killers.
Actors and staff behind an ITV drama about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal have been left “proud and overwhelmed by the power our drama has had”.
Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Succession,” “Lessons in Chemistry,” “The Bear,” “Ted Lasso” and “American Born Chinese” are among the frontrunners as the Directors Guild of America has announced the 2024 nominees in television categories, including Dramatic Series; Comedy Series; Movies for Television and Limited Series; Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regularly Scheduled Programming; Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials; Reality Program, as well as for children’s programs, commercials and documentary. “Succession” led all series with four nominations, dominating the drama category with all but one entry.
Ansel Elgort is back on the beat: Toyko Vice, which is loosely inspired by American journalist Jake Adelstein’s first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, will return February 8 to Max.
Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer‘s historical drama that was inspired loosely by Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name set outside the walls of Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
EXCLUSIVE: With the almost impossible-to-believe Post Office scandal bedecking the front of most UK national newspapers this week, the writer of the ITV smash drama about the saga has said it “tapped into” frustrations with the “politics of the moment.”
The current landscape is making it “increasingly hard” to fund British stories such as the Post Office drama that is currently dominating the news agenda, according to ITV‘s drama boss.
Rylan Clark has been left freaked out and was quick to share his latest home drama with his fans. Those who follow the BBC Radio 2 star may know that he doesn't always have much luck when it comes to animals and his usually animal-free home.
Naman Ramachandran Bruce Dern will star alongside Nepali cinema stalwarts Dayahang Rai and Hari Bansha Acharya in Binod Paudel’s “The World’s Happiest Man.” The story delves into the plight of Bhutanese-Nepali refugees who settled in the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and fought alienation and displacement. Paudel’s “Bulbul” was chosen as Nepal’s entry in the Oscars’ international category in 2019. He won best director at Nepal‘s National Film Awards, where he had previously won the screenplay award for “Saanghuro” (2013).
The Golden Globes kicked off the 2024 awards season with a bang, honoring the best in film and television. One of the most anticipated categories was Best Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama, which featured several powerhouse performances over the past year. In the end, the Golden Globes awarded the honor to Lily Gladstone makes history as the first Indigenous woman to receive the award in the show’s 81 year history for her transformative portrayal in Martin Scorsese drama Killers of the Flower Moon.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) of the UK has issued a statement, following the huge public reaction to the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which aired last week.
Throughout the first week of January, ITV viewers at home have been gripped by fresh new drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which followed the real life journey of several sub-postmasters who were wrongfully accused (and in some cases even charged) with stealing from the Post Office, thanks to a Horizon computer error.The show, which spanned across four nights in total, saw a star studded cast including Toby Jones, Will Mellor and Julie Hesmondhalgh bring the story to life, including their ongoing fight for justice and compensation for the hundreds of people that were still affected by the error. In emotional scenes, fans saw the toll of the scandal with their own eyes, with several of the accused having lost their jobs, their homes and in some cases even having taken their own lives after struggling to cope with the mental toll of being wrongfully blamed for the error.