Ben Stiller & David O. Russell Exchange On-Set “‘Raging Bull’-Level” & “De Niro-ism” Stories At Tribeca Film Festival

Brent Simon As festivals have increasingly endeavored to showcase more diverse talent, benchmarks of inclusivity occasionally run the risk of feeling like a dutiful checklist. The Bentonville Film Festival, though, has celebrated — and elevated — underrepresented voices since its inception.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Locarno Film Festival will honor multiple Oscar winner Ben Burtt — the sound designer, editor and voice actor behind the ‘Star Wars‘ and ‘Indiana Jones’ franchises — with its lifetime achievement award dedicated to creative pioneers. The prominent Swiss fest celebrating international indie cinema will be feting Burtt, best known for voicing Wall-E and creating Darth Vader’s mechanical breathing, with its Vision Award Ticinomoda. 1977’s “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was one of the first films he worked on.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Ken Burns attended the 29th annual Nantucket Film Festival, which concludes Sunday, to give audiences a glimpse of his latest PBS documentary “Leonardo da Vinci.” The two-part, four-hour doc — directed by Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns and his son-in-law David McMahon — explores the life and work of the 15th-century polymath. “Leonardo da Vinci,” which begins airing in November, marks the first project Burns has directed that unfolds entirely outside the continental United States.

The Munich International Film Festival will screen 152 films from 53 countries during its 41st edition, which runs from June 28 to July 6. 

Saint Clare starring Bella Thorne and Ryan Phillippe will open Italy’s Taormina Film Festival. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent U.S.-based Italian director Mitzi Peirone’s comic horror thriller “Saint Clare” has been set as the opening night film of Italy’s upcoming Taormina Film Festival with protagonist Bella Thorne in attendance. “Saint Clare” follows Peirone’s debut, the horror film “Braid,” which launched from Tribeca in 2018. Based on U.S.

Katcy Stephan The Bentonville Film Foundation, in collaboration with founding partner Walmart and presenting sponsor Coca-Cola, have announced the winners of their narrative, documentary, short film and episodic categories from this year’s competition program. The festival, which ran from June 10-16 in Bentonville, Ark., aims to amplify female, non-binary, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC and people with disabilities’ voices in entertainment.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Parallax China, one of China’s leading independent film sales companies, has picked up rights to a pair of titles that debut this week at the Shanghai International Film Festival. It is handling world sales on “Qian Tang River,” directed by Wan Bo, and “Another Day of Hope,” by Liu Taifeng. Both are directorial debuts and both appear in the non-competitive Refreshing Chinese Cinema section.

This four-part, so-far-untitled documentary series about the rise and rise of Hollywood’s least likely marquee-name director starts out with a tribute from Christopher Walken that will be very hard for the next three instalments to match. In that inimitable… sta-cc-a-to… WAY… of his, the Sleepy Hollow star recalls his former dance teacher saying to him: “Chris, show me something I never saw before. And that’s what Tim does. Every time.”

2024 Tribeca Film Festival is in full swing and celebrities and A-List stars are stepping out for special events, including screenings, premieres, and press conferences. Apart from attending the festival, celebs are showing off their best looks on the red carpet, bringing casual sophistication and chic ensembles.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The Mediterrane Film Festival announced its complete program ahead of its second edition, taking place in Malta’s capital of Valetta from June 22-30. New titles selected include recent Cannes highlights in Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-led body horror “The Substance” and Roberto Minvervini’s “The Damned,” which join previously announced films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow.” Further program additions include Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight standout “To a Land Unknown,” which Variety labeled “a confident, angry, fully-realized drama,” and Truong Minh Quy’s Un Certain Regard breakout “Viet and Nam.” An extended version of the Malta-shot “Jurassic World: Dominion” will play as part of the Malta Expanded strand, while on the retrospective end of the program, the festival will honor David Bowie with screenings of Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and Lisa Azuelos’s “My Way,” plus a masterclass on the musician’s enduring legacy helmed by British Film Commissioner Adrian Wootton titled “David Bowie: Celebrating 60 Years of Genius.” Artistic Director Teresa Cavina said she is “very happy” with the selection, calling it “a chorus of strong and harmonious voices that, through extraordinary films, gives shape to a complex and varied universe, a mirror of the reality that surrounds us, often difficult to decipher, sometimes painful, but also full of hope and capacity for renewal.” Cavina also emphasised the strong female presence at this year’s festival, with 16 films — almost half of the festival’s official selection — comprised of works directed by women.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance – one of the breakout films of this year’s Cannes Film Festival – will close the new Midnight Madness strand at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival [EIFF]. 

Kerry Washington‘s husband Nnamadi Asomugha just made his directorial debut with his movie The Knife at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival!

Elmore Leonard — cinematically, perhaps the most influential writer of the 20th-century whose name never gave rise to an adjective — casts a long shadow over Jeffrey Reiner’s film, a satisfying LA noir that follows his legacy almost to the letter. There’s no chiaroscuro here, nothing bad happens even remotely in darkness, but there’s a moral shading that Leonard would most likely enjoy. For some reason, though, these sunshine-crime stories never seem to stick like their shadowy counterparts do, which means that Lake George might have to wait a while before it finds out where it sits in the whole noir canon.

Dakota Johnson is hitting the red carpet at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Geena Davis hesitates to call herself a leader. The Oscar-winning actor and activist will accept Variety’s Creative Impact in Leadership Award at the Bentonville Film Festival June 10 recognizing her work advocating for marginalized voices. But she admits the title of the honor gives her pause.

“We have to do something,” says one of the many shadowy extremists who populate the fringes of Mike Ott’s tense drama McVeigh, a condensed account of the events that led Timothy McVeigh, an Iraq war veteran, to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma on 19 April 1995, killing 168 people and injuring 680 more. His close ties to white supremacist Richard Snell, a convicted murderer put to death by lethal injection that same day, might — reasonably — lead one, and especially people of color, to wonder why this man needs the oxygen of publicity, nearly 23 years after his own execution. But Mike Ott’s film is a rare study of the radicalization of white working-class Americans, a phenomenon that went overground in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.

Elizabeth Banks has one of her best roles to date in A Mistake, the New Zealand-set medical drama that had its world premiere Friday night at the Tribeca Festival.

Joey King and AnnaSophia Robb became BFFs while playing friends in the Hulu limited series The Act and they just reunited at an event!

Lee Isaac Chung‘s Twisters sequel will receive its Italian premiere at this year’s Taormina Film Festival, which takes place July 12 to July 19 in southern Italy.