Mads Mikkelsen To Receive Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Eye Award

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the country’s top international film event, has been canceled due political pressure following a storm of controversy prompted by the presence of an explosive documentary in the lineup. The doc, titled “Decree” and directed by Nejla Demirci, is about the plight of a doctor and a teacher who were fired from their government jobs under a state of emergency declared after a failed attempted coup on July 15, 2016, in Turkey.

International execs from Unifrance, MK2 and TrustNordisk kicked off the annual Zurich Summit on Saturday to discuss the importance of film festivals when promoting a title and if fests are drifting away from what works in cinemas. 

Baz Luhrmann has been named president of the Features Competition jury at the upcoming Red Sea International Film Festival. This third edition of the event runs from November 30-December 9 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Denmark has submitted Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land as its candidate for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Netherlands photographer and director Anton Corbijn has been named as president of the main feature film jury for the upcoming Zurich Film Festival.

Maja Hoffmann has been officially confirmed as President of the Locarno Film Festival following a vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly on Wednesday.

A first-time filmmaker has claimed the top prize at the 19th Annual Camden Film Festival in Maine, one of the country’s foremost all-documentary festivals.

Multi-Emmy-winning producing duo Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner have been tapped as executive producing showrunners for the 81st Golden Globe Awards. Weiss also is set to direct the live show on Sunday, January 7, 2024.    

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Zurich Film Festival, which runs Sept. 28 – Oct.

The People’s Choice Award from the just-wrapped 2023 Toronto Film Festival has gone to American Fiction . First Runner Up is Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Second Runner Up was Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy And The Heron . The Documentary Award went to Mr. Dressup: The Magic Of Make-Believe, ,and the Midnight Madness winner was Dicks: The Musical.

Organizers of the Camden International Film Festival in coastal Maine are moving ahead with regular programming today, as Hurricane Lee – downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone – aims further north towards Nova Scotia.

Todd Haynes will be honored with the Zurich Film Festival’s A Tribute To… Award at its upcoming 19th edition.

Naman Ramachandran Jessica Chastain will receive the Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Icon Award. Chastain will present her latest film “Memory” at the festival alongside director Michel Franco and co-star Peter Sarsgaard on Oct. 1.

Mads Mikkelsen had a slightly heated exchange with a reporter during a Q&A promoting his new movie The Promised Land at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

Mads Mikkelsen and The Promised Land director Nikolaj Arcel were confronted by a reporter about the “lack of diversity” on screen and how it could affect their possibilities of getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

fired back at an unnamed reporter at the Venice Film Festival on Friday over a question regarding cast diversity in their new film, “The Promised Land.”The movie is set in 1750’s Denmark. Mikkelsen, 57, stars as an army captain struggling to raise his social status and maintain his values in an increasingly hostile climate.

Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore‘s new movie May December is set to introduce the 2023 New York Film Festival later this month!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The international trailer for “A Whole Life,” which will have its world premiere in the Gala section of the Zürich Film Festival (Sept. 28 to Oct. 8), has debuted with Variety (below).

In principle, using the rainy-day, kitchen-sink post-rock of Manchester band The Smiths so prominently in a film like The Killer seems incredibly perverse, given that it’s an exotic, globe-trotting thriller about an American assassin. But in reality, it’s actually very sound choice indeed: legend has it that the band’s singer, Morrissey, had two reasons for naming his band so, the first being that “Smith” is one of the most common and thus unremarkable surnames in the world. The second, and much more subversive theory, suggests that it’s also a reference to David and Maureen Smith, brother-in-law and sister of ’60s serial killer Myra Hindley, the snappily dressed couple whose testimony blew open the Moors Murderers case and whose beatnik likenesses adorn the cover of Sonic Youth’s 1990 album “Goo”.

Five years after his triumphant A Star is Born world premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Bradley Cooper is back on the Lido with Maestro. Except, the director and star is only here in spirit owing to the SAG-AFTRA strike.