Chas Newby, former bassist for The Beatles, dead at 81

Film and television writers from around the world will be picketing and rallying Wednesday in support of the Writers Guild strike, which is now in its 39th day.

Editor’s note: These interview was done outside of the FYC event as there was no cast or creatives panel as a part of the event.

The Pride Atlas by Maartje Hensen takes you on a written and visual journey through 500 of these queer spots, so you can add them to the bucket list of your next trip. Design The Pride Atlas is designed and organized beautifully.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Roman Polanski’s “The Palace” has been set for release in Italian theatres in September, prompting speculation that the controversial director’s black comedy set in a posh hotel in the Swiss Alps resort of Gstaad on the eve of the new millennium could be launching from the Venice Film Festival. Italy’s RAI Cinema, which is a main backer of Polanski’s new film, has slated a September 28 local release date via its 01 Distribuzione unit for “The Palace” which has an ensemble cast including Mickey Rourke, John Cleese and Fanny Ardant. Other key cast members include German actor Oliver Masucci (“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”); Portugal’s Joaquin De Almeida; the U.K.’s Bronwyn James (“The Dig”) and Italy’s Fortunato Cerlino (”Gomorrah”).

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s latest pic La Chimera has inked a series of international deals for The Match Factory following its well-received debut at last month’s Cannes Film Festival.

Tenacious D have released a recorded version of their viral cover of Chris Isaak‘s ‘Wicked Game’ – check out the video below.The fan-favourite cover, which was originally performed in December for SiriusXM, comes weeks after the duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass released their first new track in five years titled ‘Video Games’.Directed by longtime collaborator Taylor Stephens, the video for the track features both Black and Gass frolicking by the sea while wearing their undergarments. It’s a homage to the original video of the 1989 hit which featured Isaak and model Helena Christensen.Their previous single, ‘Video Games’, was released last month.

sharing an anti-Nazi quote, with fans accusing him of fascism and intolerance.Morello, who has played guitar with the rock band for more than three decades, posted the quote to his Twitter page Wednesday. “German saying: If 9 people sit down at a table with 1 Nazi without protest, there are 10 Nazis at the table,” the post read. While the quote was unattributed, it clearly claims those who politely engage with people who demonstrate hateful behavior are complicit in their bad acts.

The Little Mermaid has been criticized by a prominent media diversity advocate for failing to acknowledge the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean.

At Tuesday night’s world premiere of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, there was a huge sigh of relief from the mass of animators inside Westwood’s Regency Village Theater: The $100M-budgeted sequel to the Oscar-winning 2018 animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, was done, having completed post-production literally just 10 days ago after a five-year trek to the screen which included a Covid delay due to the backlog in post-production houses. Starting today abroad, and into Thursday in U.S./Canada, the continuing adventures of Miles Morales will see the light of day in what is expected to be a $150M global opening.

Documentary fans might be forgiven for nurturing a dream – that Cannes would follow the recent example of Venice and Berlin and award its top prize to a nonfiction film. Complete the documentary Triple Crown – the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Palme d’or.

Asda is to buy the majority of EG Group's UK and Ireland operations in a deal worth over £2bn.

The ladies of Aespa just made their Cannes Film Festival debut!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Kirsten Niehuus, CEO at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, which funds films and TV series production in the Berlin region, and Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films, which promotes and supports the release of German films abroad, welcomed a wide array of guests to their garden party at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. Three Medienboard-funded films are in this year’s Competition: Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” and U.S. helmer Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.” Niehuus told Variety: “Those are three very different productions, but it shows the spectrum [of films] that Medienboard supports.” Tunisian films, like “Four Daughters,” need international co-production funding to get made, she said, and “we believe in world cinema, so were very happy [to back it].” Hausner is “one of the most impressive female filmmakers [in the world], and I think there should be more female filmmakers on the Croisette and every other ‘A’ festival,” she said. “Asteroid City” is “the best of American arthouse filmmaking; very stylish, with a great narrative – so we love it,” she said.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Paris-based company Indie Sales has closed further sales on “Richard the Stork 2,” and expects to sell the last remaining territories during the Cannes Film Market. The film, also known as “Richard the Stork and the Mystery of the Great Jewel,” is a follow up to “Richard the Stork” (released in North America as “A Stork’s Journey”), which was widely distributed in 155 countries and grossed more than $20 million worldwide. Indie Sales, which sold Oscar nominee “My Life as a Zucchini” to more than 80 territories, is increasingly focusing on acquiring big budget animation.

EXCLUSIVE: New indie film financier Mizzel Media is launching in Cannes with what we understand to be a healthy six-figure investment in feature The Girl From Köln, the next film from Holy Spider and The Tale outfit One Two Films.

In “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the sturdy lark, positioned precariously in the liminal space between commerce and taste, there are the familiar callbacks, the big set pieces, the cracking bullwhip, dashing fedoras, nefarious Nazis, exotic locales, old friends and new faces. Something, however, is missing.

Six months after the landmark debut of its ad-supported subscription tier, Netflix said the plan has hit 5 million monthly active users globally.

In cinematic form, how do you tell history without archive footage? Occupied City shows how it can be done, and to what effect.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Steve McQueen looks stressed out. He’s a few weeks into post-production on “Blitz,” his World War II drama for Apple TV+, while starting promotion on his other, long-gestating wartime project, the documentary “Occupied City.” “It’s definitely pleasurable, but this is work,” declares McQueen with the wariness of a filmmaker who’s just been plucked out of the edit suite. “Hard work is always hard work. You can’t avoid it.” The British director, who was Oscar-nominated for “12 Years a Slave,” didn’t set out to make back-to-back movies about the war, but “you plant seeds, and some come to fruition and others don’t,” he explains. “These two happened to blossom fairly close to each other.”

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Vincent Cassel (La Haine) in action-thriller Damaged, which wrapped this spring in Scotland.