Indian Immigrant Drama ‘Minimum’ Sets June Start (EXCLUSIVE)

Sidhu Moose Wala, a prominent Indian rapper-turned-politician, was shot dead Sunday while driving in the Mansa district of Punjab, police said. He was 28.

© (photo credit: REUTERS/ERIC GAILLARD) The 75th Cannes Film Festival - Photocall for the film "Crimes of the Future" in competition - Cannes, France, May 24, 2022. Cast member Kristen Stewart poses.

Here’s a fun bit of symmetry: Of the four French titles competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, the first to screen was “Brother and Sister” and the last was “Mother and Son.” (Presumably daughters and grandparents will get their due next year.) Of the two, “Mother and Son” director Léonor Serraille bests her colleague Arnaud Desplechin in the family-saga sweepstakes, delivering a decade-spanning immigration drama that plays on the most intimate of registers.The film closed out the Cannes competition on Friday, providing it an auspicious berth. This year’s jury will go into deliberations with actress Annabelle Lengronne fresh in mind; should the actress win, she won’t have far to travel.She isn’t entirely the lead, as the triptych follows a Franco-Ivorian family in chapters dedicated to each member.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“Plan 75,” Hayakawa Chie’s Japanese dystopian drama which world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, has been sold in a raft of territories by Urban Sales. The movie is set in Japan, in a near future where a government program called Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be voluntarily euthanized in order to remedy the aging society. The film weaves the stories of an elderly woman who isn’t able to live independently, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman and a young Filipino caregiver.

So many stars stepped out for 75th Anniversary celebration screening of The Innocent during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival!

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSpecialty U.S. distributors Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures have acquired Italian director Pasquale Marrazzo’s LGBTQ drama “The Neighbor” for release in North America from Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales.“The Neighbor” (which is titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy) is about two young men who are in love but get bullied by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads that makes their life impossible as hatred and intolerance seeps into the rapport between their respective families.It’s the fifth feature written and directed by Marrazzo whose debut “South of the Sun” launched from Toronto’s Discovery section in 2001.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentREinvent International Sales has closed major territory sales on “UFO Sweden,” a science fiction movie adventure from Crazy Pictures, a Swedish film collective whose past credits includes the 2018 hit movie “The Unthinkable.”Described as a mix between “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” “UFO Sweden” is set in a small town and follows a teenage rebel placed in foster care, who suspects that her father is not dead, but has been kidnapped by UFOs. With the help from a UFO association, she is determined to find out the truth.

Kristen Stewart just gave us another great red carpet moment!

Kristen Stewart keeps it casual while leaving her hotel for an interview appearance in Cannes, France on Monday (May 23).

Christopher Vourlias Estonia received a splashy introduction to the limelight in 2019, when it played host to Christopher Nolan’s time-bending sci-fi drama “Tenet.” The biggest production to shoot in the Baltic nation to date, Warner Bros.’ $200 million blockbuster landed Estonia squarely on the map for international film and television productions.Though the coronavirus pandemic arrived not long after principal photography wrapped, the industry hasn’t skipped a beat since, with both domestic and international production — drawn by a cash rebate of up to 30% —continuing apace. This year, says Estonian Film Institute CEO Edith Sepp, there are no signs of slowing down.“The Estonian cash rebate has been booming more than ever in the first half of this year,” she says.

Not quite a musical, sort of a folktale, and almost but not entirely a hardscrabble hunk of post-war realism before all of a sudden changing gears, “Scarlet” – which opened the 2022 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight sidebar on Wednesday – is a tricky project to pin down. Of course, director Pietro Marcello wouldn’t have it any other way.Shooting in French for the first time, the Italian filmmaker made his name with documentaries before working found and historical footage into the world of make-believe with 2019’s “Martin Eden.” With this more ambitious (if more uneven) follow-up, Marcello continues at a similar pace, folding fact into fiction as he explores both the landscapes of rural Normandy in the aftermath of the First World War and the plight of the working poor, all through the crags of his leading man’s brow.That brow (and those crags) belongs to Raphael (Raphaël Thiéry), who we discover limping home from the front interspersed with historical footage of fellow soldiers doing the same.

Two years in France inspired Italian director Pietro Marcello to create “Scarlet,” his French-language feature debut and the opening film of this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Freely inspired by Aleksandr Grin’s tale “The Scarlet Sails,” the film examines the quiet tenderness that permeates the relationship between a father comfortable in skepticism and a daughter driven by unshakeable belief.

Naman Ramachandran Australian film “The Laugh of Lakshmi,” by renowned theater director turned filmmaker S. Shakthidharan, will be one of the first films to make use of the newly announced Indian filming incentives.The film, a dance drama, is the story of a mother and a son separated by war.

A war of words has broken out between the filmmakers who have brought audiences two different versions, nearly two decades apart, of the real-life mystery behind The Staircase.

Manori Ravindran International EditorU.S. director Lotfy Nathan, best known for his acclaimed debut documentary “12 O’Clock Boys,” is making his feature directorial debut with “Harka.”Screening as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, the film is set in Tunisia, in North Africa, and follows Ali (Adam Bessa), a young man in his twenties who makes a precarious living selling contraband gas on the streets.Ali dreams of a better life for himself, but his domestic responsibilities step up when his father’s sudden death leaves him in charge of his two young sisters. With the family facing impending eviction, Ali seeks steadier work and a stable life.

Manchester United are reportedly facing a fight with Paris Saint-Germain for Darwin Nunez, with the French club understood to have made a huge opening bid for the striker.