‘Hollywoodgate’ Review: Ibrahim Nash’at’s Terrifying Film Documents The Taliban’s Takeover Of Afghanistan [Venice]

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese comedian Shinagawa Hiroshi has been set as the director of “Among the Dead,” the first project flowing from the co-production and co-financing venture between U.S.-based People of Culture Studios and Japan’s Yoshimoto Kogyo. The previously-announced project is an English-language, found footage zombie movie in which, following an apocalypse of the undead, one emotionally unstable man abandons friends and family to go live among the few remaining zombies before they’re all gone. The screenplay was written by father/daughter duo, Andy Cosby (“Hellboy,” “2 Guns” “Eureka”) and Charlie Danger Cosby, collectively known as Midnight Pizza. Other writing credits go to Brian Caldirola, Patrick Hasson and Juan Carlos Saizarbitoria. Shinagawa is one-half of the comedy duo Shinagawa Shoji, alongside Tomoharu Shoji, and has a considerable acting filmography in his own right including “Kantoku Kansen,” “Deadman Inferno,” “One Third,” and “Drop.” Shinagawa additionally served as director, writer, and starred in the 2011 comedy-drama “Slapstick Brothers,” which won a Citizen’s Choice Award for feature film and an award from the Japanese Academy for rookie of the year.

Prince Harry has closed the Dusseldorf Invictus Games with a speech that some have interpreted as a veiled dig at the British royal family. 

Police searching for Daniel Burke, a former paratrooper from Wythenshawe who travelled to Ukraine to provide aid, have tragically found a body. Greater Manchester Police has confirmed that Ukrainian authorities have informed the force of the discovery. Daniel, 36, was working in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.

Team USA all the way Wednesday at Prince Harry’s Invictus Games.The Duke, 38, and Duchess, 42, of Sussex attended the Wheelchair Basketball Final in Dusseldorf, Germany, on Wednesday and watched as the US beat France. Markle added a pop of red, white, and blue to her all black outfit after a Team USA supporter seated behind her gave her an American flag badge, the Daily Mail reported.

A family of Syrian refugees and an English teacher from Afghanistan receive about five minutes of joy in veteran Polish auteur Agnieszka Holland’s otherwise grim and harrowing refugee drama, “Green Border.” As they land in a plane to Belarus, hoping to cross into Poland and eventually Sweden for asylum where refugee status awaits, their eyes beam with optimism as a new land of promise reflects on their smiling faces.

Liam Neeson’s new action thriller Retribution has been described as in the running for “worst film of the year” by critics.Directed by Nimród Antal (Predators), the film follows financier Matt Turner (Neeson) who is threatened by a mysterious bomber while driving his son and daughter to school. Other cast members include Noma Dumezweni, Lilly Aspell and Jack Champion.It’s the third remake of the 2015 Spanish film The Stranger, following German and Korean adaptations in 2018 and 2021 respectively.Retribution, which was released in the US on August 25, received a negative review on Rolling Stone, who described it as a “formula beaten into submission”.“Retribution is not the worst of his thrillers/action movies – that honour belongs to either last year’s god-awful Blacklight or this freezer-burned turkey – but it does suggest that Neeson may want to consider retiring from the everyman action-hero beat for good,” the review reads.

When a Soviet submarine carrying nuclear warheads sunk into the north Pacific in 1968, the CIA took on a hugely ambitious project to recover it.

EXCLUSIVE: Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, which has just been submitted as Romania’s official entry into the International Oscar race, has been picked up by Mubi for multiple key territories. 

Christopher Vourlias The fall festival circuit features a powerhouse lineup of Polish cinema that showcases an industry in full stride, with hard-hitting topical dramas, award-season hopefuls and potential box-office breakouts highlighting the strength and diversity of filmmaking in a country with a storied cinematic history. Among the hotly anticipated premieres at this week’s Toronto Film Festival is “The Peasants,” a lavish, hand-painted animated feature from the filmmaking team behind Oscar nominee and box-office sensation “Loving Vincent.” Meanwhile, three-time Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland will be on hand for the North American premiere of “Green Border,” her searing portrayal of Europe’s refugee crisis that just bowed in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Ava DuVernay is making history today. In Venice with Origin, which world premieres in the Sala Grande this evening, she is the first African American female filmmaker to ever have been selected in competition at the world’s oldest festival. DuVernay earlier told Deadline’s Dominic Patten, “Venice was a big goal. It feels like a real full-circle moment.”

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Neon has acquired worldwide rights to Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The movie, starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, will also screen at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Origin” will be released in theaters later this year.

As if to come to the aid of her national cinema after the debacle that was Roman Polanski’s The Palace, Poland’s Agnieska Holland, soon to turn 75, restores some of her homeland’s cultural dignity with a devastating exposé that angrily, and quite brilliantly, questions its humanity and political integrity. At 144 minutes, and in black and white, it is not exactly a Trojan horse, and its moral rigor does not come with a spoonful of sugar. But Green Border earns every second of that running time, and with a focus and energy that belies its directors age. Awards-wise, this may prove to be the international feature to beat.

Jessica Kiang While you’re still in the vice-like grip of its multilevel narrative it may not feel like it, but a film like Agnieszka Holland’s bruisingly powerful new refugee drama ultimately comes from a place of optimism. It is optimistic to expect and nurture of a reaction of potentially motivating outrage, when you portray the brutality of which human individuals, at the behest of human institutions, are capable. It is optimistic to believe that, faced with extraordinary cruelty, a viewer’s ordinary decency will be compelled to rise and rebel.

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, October 4-13) has unveiled its full line-up, including opening and closing films, and announced that Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat has been named as Asian Filmmaker of the Year. 

Christopher Vourlias Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland follows the harrowing ordeal of a refugee family trapped on the margins of the E.U. in “Green Border,” a gripping drama from the prolific Polish director that plays in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

A quote by William Friedkin himself opens “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” describing the film, as well as all the filmmaker’s other works, as being about “the thin line between good and evil.” This line is all the thinner here, in the American director’s final feature, for it is entirely a matter of opinion. We are not given to see the facts of this story as they unfolded; we cannot watch and make up our own minds as to whether the people involved were right or wrong to act the way they did.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Don’t let the word “bike” fool you. In Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders,” the wheels in question are choppers — good, all-American motorcycles, built from the ground up by tough guys in leather jackets — and the “club” they’re a part of is really more of a gang.

Addie Morfoot Contributor In his latest documentary, “American Symphony,” Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman delivers a portrait of two artists — Grammy winner and former “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” bandleader Jon Batiste and his wife, author Suleika Jaouad. Heineman is known for putting his life on the line to make documentaries about the Mexican drug wars (“Cartel Land”), the initial explosion of COVID-19 in the U.S.

Prince Harry is continuing to drag his family for their lack of “support” over his mental health issues.

Taylor Swift has announced a concert film for ‘The Eras Tour‘ which will screen in North American cinemas this October.Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour will open at theatres in the United States, Canada and Mexico on October 13, where fans will be able to watch the pop star’s history-making live tour on the big screen.According to a press release, the concert film will be available to watch in IMAX and every US AMC theatre location will run at least four showtimes per day on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are on sale now here.“The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon.