London Soundtrack Festival to celebrate film, TV and video game music

EXCLUSIVE: C. Thomas Howell (SEAL Team) and Michelle Hurd (Star Trek: Picard) have signed on to star alongside Trevor Donovan and Ashley Elaine in Where the Wind Blows, a romantic Western based on the USA Today bestselling novel by Caroline Fyffe.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SAG-AFTRA is launching a fourth tier of its proposed indie video game contract that covers game developers’ projects in the $15 million to $30 million budget range. The news comes amid ongoing negotiations between the union and gaming giants including Activision, EA, WB Games, Disney and Take Two, among others.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Five documentary filmmaking teams haven been selected to participate in the Catapult Film Fund and True/False Film Festival‘s ninth annual Rough Cut Retreat. The immersive mentorship is designed for documentary feature filmmakers who lack strong feedback networks.

Marta Balaga Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival is readying for its upcoming edition, featuring “lots of interesting themes, lots of different countries and lots of female directors,” says programmer Vojtěch Kočárník. Themes of “fragile family bonds and explorations of love driven by complex female characters,” Kočárník says, will also feature prominently in many of the fest’s films, such as Norway’s “Loveable.” In addition, there are a few period dramas with a contemporary touch, such as Margarida Cardoso’s “Banzo,” Bruno Anković’s “Celebration,” about young men seduced by right-wing ideology, and Iveta Grófová’s 1940s-set “Hungarian Dressmaker.” “In many historical films, there is this clear distinction between good and evil.

K-pop singer Chuu has returned with her second mini-album and its title track ‘Strawberry Rush’.In the new visual, Chuu enters the world of a video game, where she runs on walls and shoots her way through hordes of colourful enemies as she chases down a golden trophy. Her pursuit takes her into space, where she races along a rainbow road and eventually back to earth to claim her prize.“Can’t get enough, that strawberry rush / I’ll rush over to you and keep you safe / In lightning speed, crushin’ ya, crushin’ ya, crushin’ ya / Find your bravery, woo,” she sings in the upbeat chorus.

Brent Simon As festivals have increasingly endeavored to showcase more diverse talent, benchmarks of inclusivity occasionally run the risk of feeling like a dutiful checklist. The Bentonville Film Festival, though, has celebrated — and elevated — underrepresented voices since its inception.

Fontaines D.C. have performed the brooding title track of their upcoming album ‘Romance’ on their European festival tour – check out the footage below.The band have been playing a number of shows around the continent this month, with ‘Romance’ often serving as the opening track.

Rick Schultz Donald Sutherland, the tall, lean and long-faced Canadian actor who became a countercultural icon with such films as “The Dirty Dozen,” “MASH,” “Klute” and “Don’t Look Now,” and who subsequently enjoyed a prolific and wide-ranging career in films including “Ordinary People” and “Without Limits,” has died, his agency, CAA, confirmed. He was 88.

Fontaines D.C. have announced a handful of intimate UK album launch shows for their forthcoming LP ‘Romance‘.The Dublin band – comprised of Grian Chatten, Carlos O’Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, and Tom Coll – took to their official social media accounts to share a list of intimate live shows in collaboration with select record shops.They will be playing at Kingston’s Pryzim with Banquet Records, Liverpool’s Content with Rough Trade and Newcastle’s Bolier Shop with Reflex.Tickets to the shows are set to go on sale this Friday (June 21) at 10am local time.

The Toronto Film Festival on Tuesday announced the first six titles set to make their world premieres at the 49th edition, in the Gala and Special Presentation program, also naming this year’s TIFF Tribute Award recipients.

Paranormal Activity, The Purge, and Whiplash, has announced that it is stepping into the world of video games with six new indie titles.The creators of Immortality will be working on Project C. There’s also a Stardew Valleyesque farming sim where one of the townsfolk is a serial killer, Grave Seasons.

Jon Burlingame Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are on the verge of EGOT status… that is, if Emmy voters nominate their song from “Only Murders in the Building” and it winds up winning three months from now. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — already Oscar winners for “La La Land” and Tony and Grammy winners for “Dear Evan Hansen” — could finally manage that feat with the witty comic patter song “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?,” sung by Steve Martin and co-written with fellow Tony and Grammy winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for the third season of the Hulu comedy-drama.

Deauville American Film Festival Director Bruno Barde has been suspended from his role following accusations by seven women of sexual harassment in report by French investigative website Mediapart.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance – one of the breakout films of this year’s Cannes Film Festival – will close the new Midnight Madness strand at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival [EIFF]. 

Microsoft is making gamers very happy!

Professional soccer player Kelley O’Hara has added executive producing to her resumé as she plays her last NWSL season before retiring from the sport.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Games has dropped the first trailer for its next video game in the Wizarding World universe: “Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions.” The studio released the footage out of Summer Game Fest on Friday, where it also revealed the launch date for the followup to the massively successful “Hogwarts Legacy” will release on Sept. 3.

Naman Ramachandran India enjoyed a record year at the Cannes Film Festival — winning three major awards and an honor — and this is likely to have a positive impact on the country’s independent cinema scene, according to industry experts. Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” won the competition grand prix, Anasuya Sengupta was awarded best actress at the festival’s Un Certain Regard strand for “The Shameless” and Chidananda S. Naik’s “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know” was crowned the best film at the La Cinef section.

Tom Blyth has selected his next big project!

Star Wars universe is continuing to expand. When “The Acolyte” premieres tonight on Disney+, June 4, the High Republic Era will make its way into live-action canon after years of canonical comics and novels. In “The Acolyte,” an investigation into a spree of murders pits a Jedi Master and his former Padawan against forces of evil long thought to be extinct within the galaxy.