First Slam Film Festival To Launch With 30th Anniversary Screenings Of Basketball Pics ‘Hoop Dreams’, ‘Above The Rim’ & ‘Blue Chips’

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

4 min read The 31st Mardi Gras Film Festival (MGFF) is here, and it’s not just about popcorn and previews. This year, Queer Screen throws down the gauntlet, inviting audiences to engage in […]

Michaela Zee Dakota Johnson put a lot of trust in director SJ Clarkson while filming “Madame Web.” The actor, who stars as Cassandra Webb in the upcoming superhero thriller set in Sony’s “Spider-Man” universe, reflected on her experience working with a blue screen for CGI effects. “I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion,” Johnson said in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “That to me was absolutely psychotic.

BBC: “It could not come at a more important time, the adulteration risks of the illegal drug market have never been greater.“After 12 years of preparations, evaluations and negotiations, it is fantastic that we can start the UK’s first regular drug checking service. With more cities due to follow soon, this is a landmark moment for harm reduction.”A post shared by The Loop (@theloop_uk)Drug users can use the service by placing small amounts into an “amnesty bin” at the BDP’s headquarters in central Bristol (11 Brunswick Square, BS2 8PE).

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is almost at an end, but there are still films to screen in the online portion of the festival and, almost as importantly, awards to hand out to happy independent filmmakers. The big winners at this year’s awards ceremony were Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers” which won the Grand Jury Prize U.S.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is almost at an end, but there are still films to screen in the online portion of the festival and, almost as importantly, awards to hand out to happy independent filmmakers. The big winners at this year’s awards ceremony were Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers” which won the Grand Jury Prize U.S.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The 2024 Sundance Film Festival Awards are underway in Park City, Utah, where a new crop of indies will do battle across multiple categories, including the coveted U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony honoring the best of this year’s lineup in Park City is in progress right now at the Ray Theatre. Refresh frequently as the winners are announced.

Justin Timberlake has announced the ‘Forget The World’ 2024 US tour, marking his first tour in five years.While appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last night (January 25), the ‘Cry Me A River’ singer took the time to announce his 2024 US tour.The string of live shows will kick off at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver on April 29. From there, Timberlake will make stops in major cities including Seattle, San Jose, Las Vegas, Inglewood, Phoenix, San Antonio, Austin, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Hersey and Cleveland.

Primetime Emmy nominee Tessa Thompson‘s Viva Maude has closed a multiyear first-look film deal with Amazon MGM Studios.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The CinemAsia Film Festival in Amsterdam has unveiled titles from seven different Asian countries for its competition section. The festival will play at the Studio/K, Rialto De Pijp and Rialto VU venues March 5-10, 2024. The event will close with the out-of-competition screening of “Gaga,” a drama about indigenous communities in Taiwan, directed by Laha Mebow. “Gaga” documents the challenges faced by a commune after the death of a respected tribal elder who, while alive, had held things together.

Madison Square Garden residency, telling the crowd, “I have good news. I have bad news. I’ll give you the bad news first.

Dakota Johnson stars in Madame Web and said that she put her trust in director S.J. Clarkson as filming it was “absolutely psychotic.”

In the realm of zombie-themed films, a genre often filled with clichés and predictable plot lines, Handling the Undead aims to stand out as something different.

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the weird and wonderful will have seen, if not heard of, the Patterson-Gimlin footage, the cryptoozological equivalent of the Zapruder film. Shot in 1967 in the forests of Northern Carolina, it purports to show a large, ape-like creature with an elongated forehead striding purposefully into the trees. Unlike an ape, the creature walks upright, and, unlike the furtive behavior of any other forest creature, it has the casual air of the average human being popping over to the 7-11 to pick up a gallon of milk. Most people who see the footage wonder what the hell this damn thing is, but the sibling directors of Sasquatch Sunset have a couple more questions that they’d like answered. Like, where is it going? And what does it do all day?

Set in a post-human world, Love Me, directed and written by Sam and Amy Zuchero and starring Steven Yeun and Kristen Stewart, unfolds as an unconventional love story between two inanimate objects. These entities stumble upon each other in the digital realm and, through the remnants of human knowledge, adopt new identities in hopes of evolving their relationship.

In the space of just two movies, Jane Schoenbrun has established a completely unique aesthetic; from the opening credits alone, a riot of black light and neon pastels, it’s obvious that I Saw the TV Glow comes from the same mind that created the trippy 2021 cult hit We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Anyone puzzled by the latter is advised to stay clear, since the follow-up is more vertiginously dizzying and twice as impressionistic, causing lots of head-scratching at its Sundance premiere. For those ready and willing to embrace its commitment to mood over logic, I Saw the TV Glow is a must-see, pairing the otherworldly ambience of Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink with the morbid surrealism of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. (If you know, you know.)

Diego Ramos Bechara editor The Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, in which participants write and produce short films that promote disability inclusion, returns for its 11th consecutive year and will run from April 2-7. This year, in addition to the traditional awards of cash, computers and other technology, subscriptions, mentorships and screening opportunities, the EDFC will award ten $15,000 grants for the winners of the best film, best director, best writer, best actor and best editor categories to develop their projects further.

, The Heart. The 25-year-old daughter of former president Barack Obama dressed the part of an indie filmmaker for the screening in a gray coat, pinstriped button-down, black jeans, cherry-colored leather Chelsea boots, and a skinny gray scarf for a look that feels very indie sleaze. Thin impractical scarves do seem to be for spring.

Cillian Murphy will open the Berlin International Film Festival this year.Small Things Like These, directed by Peaky Blinders’ Tim Mielants, is based on the 2021 book by Irish author, Claire Keegan, and the screenplay has been written by Enda Walsh.The Oppenheimer star plays a devoted father and coal merchant named Bill Furlong. Set in 1980s Ireland, he discovers unsettling truths about the Magdalene Laundries, which were dreadful asylums run by the Roman Catholic church, said to house “fallen women”, mainly sex workers.The cast includes Belfast‘s Ciaran Hinds, Emily Watson (Chernobyl), Game Of Thrones’ Michelle Fairley, and Irish actor, Eileen Walsh, who also starred in a 2002 movie about the infamous asylums, titled The Magdalene Sisters.Murphy produced the film with Alan Moloney through their company, Big Things Films, alongside Catherine Magee.