Edinburgh Film Festival Sets 2023 Sundance Pic As Closing Film

Meera Syal is to deliver the Alternative MacTaggart at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid all the strike news and Emmy noms on the horizon, here’s something wild we heard recently and that’s that the Sundance Film Festival has been fielding bids from a handful of cities to relocate the festival from its Park City, UT home base.

EXCLUSIVE: Woody Harrelson (True Detective) and Owen Wilson (Loki) have been cast as leads in feature thriller Lips Like Sugar, which will be directed by Grammy-winner Brantley Gutierrez and has been written by Anthony Tambakis (Warrior). 

Crystal Globe CompetitionJury members:Dora Bouchoucha, TunisiaPatricia Clarkson, USAJohn Nein, USAOlmo Omerzu, Czech Republic / SloveniaBarry Ward, IrelandGRAND PRIX – CRYSTAL GLOBE (25 000 USD)The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winningfilm.“Blaga’s Lessons” (“Urotcite na Blaga”)Directed by: Stephan KomandarevBulgaria, Germany, 2023SPECIAL JURY PRIZE (15 000 USD)The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winningfilm.“Empty Nets” (“Toorhaye khali”)Directed by: Behrooz KaramizadeGermany, Iran, 2023BEST DIRECTOR AWARDBabak Jalali for the film “Fremont”USA, 2023BEST ACTRESS AWARDEli Skorcheva for her role in the film “Blaga’s Lessons” (“Urotcite na Blaga”)Bulgaria, Germany, 2023BEST ACTOR AWARDHerbert Nordrum for his role in the film “The Hypnosis” (“Hypnosen”)Sweden, Norway, France, 2023SPECIAL JURY MENTION“Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano”Directed by: Cyril ArisGermany, Lebanon, 2023PRÁVO AUDIENCE AWARD“The Edge of the Blade” (“Une affaire d’honneur”Directed by: Vincent PerezFrance, 2023Proxima CompetitionJury Members:Dana Linssen, NetherlandsMarija Razgutė, LithuaniaŠimon Šafránek, Czech RepublicBarbara Wurm, AustriaMeng Xie, People’s Republic of ChinaPROXIMA GRAND PRIX (15 000 USD)The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winningfilm.“Birth”Directed by: Yoo Ji-youngSouth Korea, 2022PROXIMA SPECIAL JURY PRIZE (10 000 USD)The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winningfilm.“Guras”Directed by: Saurav RaiIndia, Nepal, 2023SPECIAL JURY MENTION“Brutal Heat” (“Brutální vedro”Directed by: Albert HospodářskýCzech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2023CRYSTAL GLOBE FOR OUTSTANDING

Christian Petzold’s Afire and Celine Song’s Past Lives are among the titles set to screen at this year’s scaled-down Edinburgh International Film Festival (Aug 18-23), which is being mounted as part of Edinburgh’s wider cultural Festival.

Naman Ramachandran “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Choose Irvine Welsh” are among the world premieres at the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), the full program for which was unveiled on Thursday. As previously announced, “Silent Roar” and “Fremont” will bookend the festival, which includes 24 feature films, five retrospective titles, five short film programs and an outdoor screening weekend with seven features. A hybrid adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Hope Dickson Leach’s film transposes the action from London to Victorian Edinburgh. Ian Jefferies’ “Choose Irvine Welsh” is a documentary about the renowned “Trainspotting” author and features his admirers including Iggy Pop, Martin Compston, Danny Boyle, Bobbie Gillespie, Gail Porter, Rowetta and Andrew Macdonald.

EXCLUSIVE: Music Box Films has picked up U.S. rights to director Richie Adams’ well-reviewed drama The Road Dance, starring Hermione Corfield.

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired North American VOD rights to the dramatic feature film Waiting For The Light To Change — the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival ‘Grand Jury Prize’ winner for ‘Best Narrative Feature.

K.J. Yossman Louis Theroux will deliver this year’s James MacTaggart memorial lecture, the flagship address at the Edinburgh TV Festival. The documentary maker, who also founded unscripted production company Mindhouse in 2019, has examined everything from Scientology to porn to neo-Nazis in his films. He has also turned his hand to social media, podcasting and streaming. Theroux will address the challenges broadcasters face in today’s “multi-platform universe,” how he has maintained longevity after a quarter of a century in the broadcasting industry and the pros and cons of the tech revolution we are all living through.

It was a family affair for the Williams family at the 2023 Nantucket Film Festival!

In exciting news for movie lovers and soccer enthusiasts alike, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced that Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy, “Next Goal Wins”, will have its world premiere at the 48th edition of the festival.

The Malta Film Commission has outlined its plans to take the Mediterranean island’s burgeoning locations business to the next level as it enjoys its busiest year ever, on the fringes of its new Mediterrane Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of his newest feature Radical‘s Festival Favorite Award win at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Christopher Zalla has inked with Entertainment 360 for management.

Naman Ramachandran The world premiere of Scottish writer-director Johnny Barrington‘s debut feature “Silent Roar” will open the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival on Aug. 18. Billed as a “teenage tale of surfing, sex and hellfire” set in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, the film stars emerging actor Louis McCartney as Dondo, a young surfer struggling to accept his father’s recent disappearance at sea. Caught up in grief, he is brought to his senses by rebellious crush Sas (Ella Lily Hyland), a high achiever who dreams of escaping the island. When an oddly-behaved new minister arrives on the island, Dondo begins to have cosmic visions. The film is produced by Scottish producer Chris Young (“The Inbetweeners Movie”) and was made with the participation of Screen Scotland, BBC Films and BFI. MK2 Films is handling sales.

This year’s scaled-down, “special one-year iteration” of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) will open on August 18 with the world premiere of Silent Roar, the debut feature from Scottish writer and director Johnny Barrington.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia is the latest high-net-worth individual to get involved in the documentary business. As a producer on Waad Al-Kateab’s “We Dare to Dream,” about the refugee Olympic team at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Gebbia not only helped fund the project, he also played an active role in the film’s pre-production, production, and edit. “We Dare to Dream” is Al-Kateab’s second feature docu. In her first film, “For Sama,” which was nominated for an Academy Award, the Syrian director used her camera to capture her daily life during the siege of Aleppo.Gebbia produced “We Dare to Dream” alongside Violet Films’ Joanna Natasegara (“Virunga”) and Abigail Anketell-Jones (“The Edge of Democracy”) and XTR’s Bryn Mooser and Kathryn Everett. Angelina Jolie recently signed on as an executive producer on the project. Gebbia joins fellow philanthropists Laurene Powell Jobs (Concordia Studio), Jeff Skoll (Participant Media) and Jim Swartz (Impact Partners) in the docu investment business.

Ewan McGregor and Alicia Vikander will receive the President’s Award at the 57th annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, KVIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.Both performers will attend the opening weekend of the festival, which begins on June 30 and runs through July 8 in the spa town west of Prague.Previously, the festival announced that Russell Crowe would receive the Crystal Globe Award and perform with his band on opening night, giving KVIFF an unusual three honorees on its opening weekend (with others to potentially be announced later).McGregor will be in Karlovy Vary for a screening of “You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder,” a drama from director Emma Westenberg in which he plays a former addict who drives his estranged daughter to rehab after she has an overdose. The actor co-stars with his real-life daughter, Clara McGregor, who also served as one of the producers on the film.Vikander will be there with “Firebrand,” a Karim Ainouz film which premiered in Cannes.

Naman Ramachandran International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has appointed former BFI London Film Festival director Clare Stewart to the position of managing director, taking over from Marjan van der Haar. Stewart was most recently interim CEO at Sheffield DocFest and commences in the role at IFFR on June 21. IFFR has a dual leadership structure where the managing director and festival director oversee the commercial and creative elements of the organization respectively, working in partnership. Stewart previously consulted with the IFFR board of directors in 2021 in its first phase of re-evaluation prior to her joining DocFest, with a focus on the IFFR program structure and content strategy.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has appointed Clare Stewart to the post of Managing Director, taking over from outgoing Managing Director Marjan van der Haar.

EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Alcazar’s Sundance-lauded feature Divinity will premiere internationally at the Taormina Film Festival on June 29th in Italy. Writer and Director Alcazar and stars Bella Thorne, Karrueche Tran and Moises Arias are set to appear at the Teatro Antico for the celebration.