Cannes Film Market Unveils Full Ukraine in Focus Program with Selected Filmmakers, Producers (EXCLUSIVE)

Marvel's Harry Styles and Florence Pugh are in the middle of a conspiracy in the first trailer for Don't Worry Darling. The duo, who are in the MCU in Eternals and Black Widow respectively, star in the science fiction thriller as a couple whose idyllic 1950s marriage is a facade for a dark reality.

Jennie Punter Hot Docs’ market events remain online in 2022 to maximize interactions between feature-doc teams, financiers, and other decision-makers, but its three-day, in-person industry conference is mingling hot topics (Ukraine, equity), first looks (works-in-progress screenings), and networking ops (lounges and lunches) to facilitate what the festival’s industry program director Elizabeth Radshaw calls “moments of serendipity.”Hot Docs Industry LIVE unfolds April 30 to May 2 in the TIFF Bell Lightbox and nearby Art Gallery of Ontario, repositioning the industry hub in Toronto’s downtown business and entertainment district—familiar ground to many international industry reps—and allowing for deeper integration between Hot Docs’ public screening and industry components. 2022’s transitional, hybrid edition continues the market format of the past two years, online-only editions of the Forum—the festival’s marquee pitch event—and the one-on-one Dealmaker and Distribution Rendezvous meeting programs, which proved successful.“We were able to bring in buyers that were too busy with Cannes to attend, but they could take a ton of meetings online,” Radshaw told Variety last week.

Italian actor and director Valeria Golino has been set as jury president for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival this year.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentKino Lorber has acquired all North American distribution rights to Elie Grappe’s Ukrainian gymnast drama “Olga,” which world premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week last year and won a prize. Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release on June 24, with 10% of proceeds to be donated to Direct Relief in Ukraine.Grappe’s debut feature, “Olga” stars former Ukrainian National Team gymnast Anastasia Budiashkina in her first film role.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorThe Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, whose 56th edition runs July 1-July 9, has expanded its activities aimed at supporting filmmakers, it announced Tuesday. The festival is launching KVIFF Talents, a year-round program that aims to identify talented filmmakers and support the creation of projects with international potential and a high level of originality.

The 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced that it will host the films in the Works-in-Progress section of the Odessa International Film Festival, which cannot be held this year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.    “Broad solidarity with war-afflicted Ukraine must also include support for the country’s cultural life, which at this moment has come almost to a halt,” Hugo Rosák, head of KVIFF’s Industry Department, said in a statement.

The Cannes Film Festival said Monday that it backs the decision by French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius to change the name of his film, which originally carried the title Z (Comme Z) and will open the 75th edition of the festival next month.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentParis-based company Indie Sales has acquired Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s debut feature “Pamfir” which will world premiere at Directors’ Fortnight. The banner is handling international sales on the movie. Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk previously directed the short film “Weighlifter,” a European Film Award contender and winner of the Best Short Film Award in Angers.“Pamfir” takes place in Western Ukraine, on the eve of a traditional carnival.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMichel Hazanavicius’s zombie comedy “Z (Comme Z),” which is set to open the Cannes Film Festival next month, has been renamed “Coupé” in France.The decision to change the movie’s French title follows a letter from the Ukrainian Institute to the director and the Cannes Film Festival, as revealed by Variety, pointing out that “Z” is a pro-war symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and had been used in pro-Russian demonstrations across Europe.The letter from the Ukrainian org, which was signed by its managing director Volodymyr Sheiko, said that changing the film’s title would be a “gesture against the barbarity, violence and terror of the Russian army.”In a statement on Monday, Hazanavicius said he will rename the movie “due to the symbolic charge that the letter Z has gained … and following the plea by Ukrainian filmmakers. “The title was perhaps funny when [I] completed the film several months ago but it isn’t at all today and I can’t bear it,” he added.“My film is meant to bring joy and I wouldn’t want it to be associated in any shape or form to this war.

J. Kim Murphy The Seattle International Film Festival closed its 48th edition on Sunday by announcing its top honors, presenting awards at a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Seattle.“Klondike,” a film following a family that lives on the tumultuous border of Russia and Ukraine in 2014, was awarded the grand jury prize within the festival’s official competition.“For a work both tragically prophetic and universal in its impact, a ferocious and formalist vision of war that fuses humanism, black comedy and horror into a searing and original vision, we award the Grand Jury Prize to Maryna Er Gorbach’s ‘Klondike,'” said the jury, composed of Angel An, senior director of acquisitions at Roadside Attraction; David Ansen, lead programmer at the Palm Spring International Film Festival; and Matthew Campbell, artistic director of the Denver Film Society and the Denver Film Festival.

Marta Balaga The Ukrainian Institute has issued an official letter to the Cannes Film Festival and French director Michel Hazanavicius asking them to rename his opening night movie “Z,” which the org claims is a pro-war symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.In Russia, “Z” is considered a pro-war symbol that has also been used in pro-Russian demonstrations across Europe. The symbol has recently been adopted by some Russian figures taking part in world events, such as gymnast Ivan Kuliak who, while in Qatar for a World Cup event, sported a “Z” on his chest while standing on a podium next to Ukrainian athlete Illia Kovtun.

The WGA West will host a panel discussion on April 30 with film and TV writers from Ukraine, whose lives and careers have been upended by the Russian invasion.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentA few hours after unveiling Cannes Film Festival’s 2022 Official Selection on the Champs Elysees, artistic director Thierry Fremaux sat down with Variety to discuss the festival’s drive to not give in to calls for a cultural boycott of Russian films and filmmakers, efforts to have more female directors in competition, discussions to bring back streamers in a near future and what those rumors about David Lynch in the lineup were about. The all-star competition lineup of this upcoming 75th edition boasts no less than four Palme d’Or winning directors, including Japanese master Kore-eda Hirokazu (Japan) and Swedish helmer Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”), as well new films by David Cronenberg (“Crimes of the Future”), Kelly Reichardt (”Showing Up”), James Gray (“Armageddon Time”) and dissident Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov (“Tchaïkovski’s Wife”).

The 75th Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 17-28, was already due to be a starry affair with the likes of Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis screening out of competition. Today it got even hotter with a strong Official Selection that should make for glamorous red carpets, but one that will likewise treat serious subject matter.

Ukraine as a backdrop, the Cannes Film Festival plans a special honor for Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” comeback and to host some 35,000 people as the movie industry looks to reclaim its pre-pandemic allure.On Thursday, organizers of this year's festival unveiled the 18 films that will compete for the coveted Palme d’Or prize at the May 17-28 event. They include “The Natural History of Destruction” by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, “All that Breathes” by Indian director Shaunak Sen, and Ethan Cohen’s “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.”Organizers will announce the jury at a later date.After a pandemic-related production delay, “Top Gun: Maverick,” in which Cruise reprises his 1986 role as a U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: The Cannes Film Festival and Marché will host a ‘Ukraine Day’ on Saturday 21 May to support the country’s beleaguered film industry.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentReims Polar, a new international festival set in Northern France and dedicated to police thrillers, has awarded Wen Shipei’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” Adikhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution.” The selection of Reims Polar is curated by Bruno Barde, who is also the artistic director of the Deauville American Film Festival. “Assault,” a dead-pan thriller set fictional village in rural Kazakhstan and revolving around a school hostage situation, won the festival’s Grand Prize Award.

for example, a white, male film critic said he disliked “Turning Red,” a film about a Chinese teenage girl, because he found it “limiting in its scope,” I would say that that man was experiencing a personal problem, not a cinematic one. “The Goldfinch” and “Dear Evan Hansen” both bombed in large part because, unless viewers were already fans of the texts on which they were based — an 800-page novel and an unhinged Broadway musical, respectively — they were unlikely to see past both films’ inherent messiness.

Manori Ravindran International EditorStaff at Ukraine’s top studio, Film.UA, didn’t think much of the abandoned bomb shelter on site. A vestige from past conflicts, the sealed shelter remained unused next to the company’s extensive wardrobe department for years. But at the outbreak of war, the space was hurriedly reopened to host at least 90 Ukrainians taking cover from Russian air raids.Located on the outskirts of Kyiv, Film.UA — one of the largest production players in Eastern Europe — had been celebrating the premiere of one of its major film projects, “The Big Picnic,” the night before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb.