Hungarian Oscar Entry ‘Four Souls Of Coyote’ Acquired By Juno Films

J. Kim Murphy Filmmaker Michael Goorjian set out to create a different kind of film about Armenian nationality when developing “Amerikatsi,” the country’s submission in the international feature category for this year’s Academy Awards. Along with directing, Goorjian also stars as Charlie, an American who repatriates to Armenia after World War II — but ends up in a Soviet prison for simply wearing a tie.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Actor and producer Benjamin Bratt has joined the Oscar hopeful documentary short “Wings of Dust” as executive producer. The “Poker Face” star boards the project with his brother Peter Bratt and Alpita Patel, all under their production banner 5 Stick Films. “Wings of Dust” took the 2023 gold medal at the Student Academy Awards, telling the story of a Peruvian indigenous journalist who risks his life to protect the natural resources of ancestral lands.

As an internationally renowned director, Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho is, in a manner of speaking, a citizen of the world: Regularly premiering films at Cannes, frequently traveling to festivals elsewhere in Europe, Australia, and the United States.

There’s a lot to take in and even more to process in American-Armenian director Michael Goorjian’s ambitious period piece: What he’s tilting at here is not beyond the realms of comedy, as Armando Iannucci proved with his 2017 jet-black satire The Death of Stalin. But tone is crucial, and Amerikatsi has a waywardness that too often undermines its intent — there’s a lot that works here and so much that doesn’t. There are moments that are sensitive, thoughtful, and really quite moving — in an elegant, silent-movie way — but the framing is so dark in its humor that many viewers may never make it to them.

Fresh off its fall festival circuit run, including its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, “The Promised Land” will finally arrive in US theaters next February. That’s plenty of time for audiences to catch up with the historical drama before it might vie for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film in March.

In one of the earliest announcements in recent memory, the Cannes Film Festival announced early Thursday morning Paris time the president of the jury for 2024. And, in something of a surprise, this year’s president is Greta Gerwig, a soon-to-be multiple Oscar nominee for the 2023 blockbuster “Barbie.” Gerwig is the first woman to lead the jury since Cate Blanchett in 2018 and the second American this decade after Spike Lee presided over the first post-pandemic jury in 2021.

In a clip from the documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything, we hear the young entertainer singing an early version of what would become his signature tune, “Tutti Frutti.” But surprise! The original lyrics were different than the ones we know today: “Tutti frutti, good booty/Tutti frutti, good booty!”

French director Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy Of A Fall swept the awards at 36th European Film Awards in Berlin this evening, winning Best European Film, Director, Screenplay (with Arthur Harari) and actress for Sandra Hüller.

Omen is the official submission from Belgium for the International Feature Oscar category and comes from multi-hyphenate interdisciplinary artist Baloji, who makes his feature directing debut. The film had its world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year where it won the New Voice Prize, before going on to play myriad festivals. Utopia is the North American distributor. 

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based Women Make Movies (WMM) has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor “The Pianist” and “King Kong” star Adrien Brody spoke at the Red Sea Film Festival Friday about a wide variety of creative pursuits, including making music from popcorn in the 1990s. “I liked the sound of the kernels of popcorn hitting the aluminium lid of the pan and so I set my microphone up and recorded it and then I sampled it and put on some reverb,” he told the audience in Saudi Arabia. “It went pok-a-pok-a-pok.” Something of a prodigy, he was cast as a lead in a TV movie “Home at Last” when he was only 15 and later became the youngest actor to win the best male lead Oscar.

EXCLUSIVE: Samantha Bee is joining director Nazrin Choudhary and producer Sara McFarlane as Executive Producer on the film campaign for the Oscar-qualifying short film Red, White and Blue.

The list of the 10 films chosen for the prestigious AFI Awards is out, and it is good news for Barbenheimer.

Is the Western a dead genre? Not if Chilean director Felipe Gálvez has anything to do with it. Gálvez’s “The Settlers,” wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival this past May and won the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize in the process.

Naman Ramachandran Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams,” Netherlands’ submission in the Academy Awards international feature category, has secured North American distribution via Dekanalog. The film had its world premiere at Locarno, where it won the Pardo for best performance for Renée Soutendijk (“Suspiria”) and the second prize of the junior jury. The film debuted in North America in Toronto’s Centrepiece section and won the Silver Hugo new directors award at Chicago.

The Sundance Film Festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary in January and it’s no surprise that some legendary Park City filmmakers are returning with new films for the 2024 edition. Among the alumni are Steven Soderbergh, whose landmark film “Sex, Lies and Videotape” debuted at the 1989 fest; Debra Granik, whose Best Picture nominated “Winter’s Bone” won the Grand Jury Dramatic prize at the 2010 festival; and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who will premiere their fourth movie at Sundance following 2006’s “Half Nelson,” 2008’s “Sugar” and 2015’s “Mississippi Grind.” READ MORE: “American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” Top 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards Soderbergh’s latest effort is “Presence,” starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, and Julia Fox.

Bad Press, King Coal, Joonam and Fantastic Machine are all award-winning documentaries, yet in the race for Oscar recognition, they’re underdogs. Despite the many honors they have collected at festivals around the world, each of these exceptional films has struggled to land distribution, complicating efforts to get attention from Academy voters (on Monday, King Coal did lock down a deal with American Documentary for broadcast next year on POV). 

Addie Morfoot Contributor Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia” will kick off the winter season of PBS documentary series “Independent Lens” on Jan. 9. Using hidden camera footage, the 115-minute doc follows the high-stakes journey that a handful of desperate families make in order to defect from North Korea — a country with the most brutal regime on earth, led by a dictator, Kim Jong-un.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Negotiations are under way to secure a December or more likely an early January release for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” movie in mainland China cinemas. The film, which has grossed some $250 million worldwide since debuting on Oct. 13, is currently being reviewed by Chinese authorities.

The groundwork was laid for Nicole Newnham’s Oscar-contending documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite back when the director was just a girl.