China’s Hainan Film Festival Has Ambitious Plans

Rebecca Davis editorThe fourth annual Pingyao International Film Festival will run as an in-person event from Oct.

Nancy Tartaglione International Box Office Editor/Senior ContributorAfter U.S. politicians called out Disney over the filming of Mulan in the Xinjiang region of China, it’s now Netflix’s turn in the crosshairs.

Netflix's high-profile plan to have Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss adapt Chinese writer Liu Cixin's bestselling sci-fi trilogy The Three-Body Problem is getting a challenge from a group of Republican Senators.

Holdover local war epic The Eight Hundred dominated Mulan over the weekend in China, as the Disney tentpole continued its precipitous decline in its most important theatrical market. The Eight Hundred, which has been in cinemas for a month, earned $17.7 million, lifting its total gross to $423.2 million, according to data from local box office tracker Artisan Gateway.

Filmmaker Judd Apatow gave a recent interview in which he criticized the film industry for essentially censoring content that’s critical of places like China where human rights abuses are happening.

There are still idealistic young writers out there aiming to transform the world, at least in China, and the newsroom drama The Best Is Yet to Come (Bu zhi bu xiu) catches the viewer up in the fast-paced story of an untutored youth from the provinces who breaks a scoop on hepatitis B.

76 Days— which follows exhausted doctors and nurses in Wuhan, China struggling to cope as the deadly global outbreak of the new coronavirus first originated — will be eagerly anticipated at the Toronto Film Festival as it's the first documentary from ground zero of the COVID-19 crisis to reach movie theaters. The irony is the ongoing global pandemic will keep New York City-based co-director Hao Wu from physically attending the world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept.

By Hanna RantalaVENICE (Reuters) - "Nomadland", a U.S.

Guy Lodge Film CriticOne day after premiering and receiving the most rapturous reviews of any film in competition, U.S.-based Chinese director Chloé Zhao has won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for her film “Nomadland,” a documentary-influenced road movie starring Frances McDormand as an itinerant widow traveling across America.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefDetails of a massive new film studio complex now being built in Changchun, North East China, have began this week to emerge on the sidelines of the city’s film festival.Construction began in May on the Changchun International Movie Metropolis project which is forecast to be valued at some $21.5 billion (RMB148 billion), and could start to come on stream in 2023.

Rebecca Davis editorThough China was among the first in the world to restart film shoots in the wake of COVID-19, the number of projects going into production has been drastically reduced by the pandemic and its accompanying economic uncertainty. Recent financial reports and public comments from China’s major studios reveal some trends in what to expect from those productions still in the pipeline.

No matter what you think of the Sandman’s films, Adam Sandler brings the talent.

Ben Croll At a panel hosted by the Venice Production Bridge – the industry section of the Venice Film Festival – earlier this week, delegates from the Italian, American, and Chinese industries shared the virtual stage with European regulators as they enumerated the challenges facing the global film business in the post-pandemic era.Jointly organized by Italy’s cultural heritage ministry (MiBACT) and motion picture association (ANICA) for the second year in a row, the panel brought together

Vivienne Chow Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” leads the race of this year’s Asian Film Awards, which will be hosted in his home country South Korea for the first time since the prize ceremony’s inception in 2007. The acclaimed drama picked up 10 nominations, including best film, best director and best screenplay.“Parasite” was closely followed by Wang Xiaoshuai’s drama “So Long, My Son” from mainland China, and Taiwan drama “A Sun” by Chung Mong-hong.

Get the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter.A scaffolder was caught by border agents buying a stun gun which was shipped to his home from China.Sean Crozier admitted the offence under the Firearms Act and faced a prison sentence for obtaining the device.A court heard the dad-of-two was unaware the purchase made over a shopping app was illegal.Sheriff Alistair Noble told him he “didn’t think a sentence of imprisonment was necessary” and accepted

Taking Soviet films from the past as its model, Russian veteran Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! (Dorogie Tovarischi!) pinpoints a moment inhistory when people’s unquestioning belief in the high-minded principles of the Communist party wavered as evidence to the contrary mounted and personally impacted their lives. Although at first sight this dramatization of a 1962 strike at a factory in the U.S.S.R.

Last year’s unrest in Hong Kong has some wondering about the viability of holding the Gay Games there in 2022. (Photo by Studio Incendo via Flickr)

Eli Countryman The live-action remake of Disney’s “Mulan” is a story rooted in Chinese culture and a tale of forging one’s own path, said the film’s director and stars during the #GoldOpen Premium Access panel moderated by Variety‘s Audrey Cleo Yap on Friday evening, one of three panels with cast members airing throughout the weekend.