Marat Sargsyan to Follow Venice’s ‘The Flood Won’t Come’ With ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’ Centering on a Malevolent AI Protagonist

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor At the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, the Baltic Film sidebar has showcased an impressive range of work from the Baltic states – Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – including the post-Soviet documentary “The Last Relic” and the 3D fable “Twittering Soul,” the hand-painted animation “The Peasants” and the Estonian oddity of “Spit in My Face.” A palpable urgency can be felt as these former Soviet countries find themselves once more quite literally on the frontline between Europe and Russia and seek to affirm more keenly their own identity. Leading the way this year has been “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” an intimate documentary of women ridding themselves of their demons in the smoke sauna of the title. Having picked up prizes in Sundance and now Tallinn, the film is heading into the Oscar race as Estonia’s nominee and is in the running in the documentary category also.

The Peasants would already be a daunting project in the best of times. Like their previous film, Loving Vincent, directors Hugh and DK Welchman oversaw a team of animators painting each frame of the film based on live-action reference material. Hugh, who came to Los Angeles from Poland just for his 12-minute Contenders panel, said The Peasants also had to work around COVID and the Ukraine War.

Focus Features has set a Jan. 26, 2024 theatrical release date for Goran Stolevski’s latest, Housekeeping For Beginners.

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones) and BAFTA winner Francesca Annis (Fresh & Blood) are among a host of stars boarding season 2 of Ben Richards’ BBC legal drama Showtrial.

France’s César Academy has unveiled its annual Revelations list showcasing 32 emerging acting talents making their mark in the French-speaking cinema world.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer In “Masters of the Universe,” He-Man’s nemesis is the evil wizard Skeletor. In Hollywood, his greatest threat has been a list of studio partners that have sidelined him from the big screen for nearly two decades. The blond barbarian, based on a popular set of Mattel toys, may finally win the day.

Emiliano De Pablos The 49th edition of Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival, Spain’s largest confab for films from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, will honor Mexican star Cecilia Suárez with its City of Huelva Award. With leading roles in Netflix’s “The House of Flowers” and HBO Latin America’s “Capadocia,” Suárez has also be seen in ABC’s drama “The Promised Land” and has worked on films by as Tommy Lee Jones (“The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”), James L.

Jessica Kiang The 87 submissions for this year’s Academy Award for international feature mark a drop-off from the last few record-setting years when that number has been consistently in the 90s. Whether this is an immediate reaction to the Academy’s rule change mandating that at least 50% of every national selection committee needs to be made up of “artists and or craftspeople from the field of motion pictures” is an open question. But the big-hitters remain in the race and so, pending the official confirmation of the eligibility of the below from the Academy, here is the full international feature submissions list for the 96th Academy Awards.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Marina Cicogna, Italy’s first major female film producer who shepherded films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Zeffirelli and Elio Petri, including Petri’s Oscar-winning “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” has died. She was 89. Cicogna died on Nov.

Sofia Coppola‘s “Priscilla” hits theaters today amid a great deal of buzz, partially thanks to star Cailee Spaeny winning the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for her title role. But not everyone was thrilled Coppolla announced plans to adapt Priscilla Presley‘s 1985 “Elvis And Me” for the big screen last year.

Agora, the industry section of Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival, kicks into gear this weekend with an eye on expansion as industry head Angeliki Vergou and her team introduce a series of changes to the established event.

Swedish director Ruben Östlund has been announced as a guest of honor at the 15th edition of France’s Les Arcs Film Festival, in the role of its Talent Village Ambassador.

Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has received an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA, which means that stars Zegler, Blyth, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage and Hunter Schafer are allowed to promote the film before it premieres in theaters on Nov. 17. It’s not clear why the agreement was granted so close to the film’s release date.

Emiliano De Pablos In standout results that suggests the strength of select Spanish arthouse films on the current international market, Bendita Films Sales, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife-based boutique world sales agency, has closed a formidable raft of deals to Galician auteur Lois Patiño’s multisensory journey film “Samsara.” Winner of a Special Jury Award at Berlin’s 2023 major sidebar Encounters and the Audience Award at Mexico’s Ficunam festival, “Samsara” has just screened in main competition gathered “Samsara”(Oct. 20-28), running up more than a dozen international film festival selections. Bendita Film Sales has clinched commercial release pacts in the U.K.

Netflix has a bunch of anticipated films left on their 2023 release calendar, but maybe none more so than David Fincher‘s “The Killer.” And the director’s follow-up to 2020’s “Mank” sees him in familiar territory: adapting a hardboiled thriller in a way only he can. READ MORE: David Fincher On Why He Chose To Use The Smiths In ‘The Killer’: “I Thought It Was Amusing And Funny” Fincher reunites with “Se7en” scribe Andrew Kevin Walker for his latest feature, about an assassin who gets caught in an international manhunt after a hit goes wrong.

Shia LaBeouf is opening up in an interview about his career.

Tom Bergeron, former longtime host of Dancing With The Stars, is opening up about his exit from the reality competition series. After hosting DWTS since its launch in 2005, Bergeron was dismissed in 2020 after being publicly critical of the show’s choice to cast Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer in Season 28.

Alessandra Ambrosio and Richard Lee are making it very clear that they are still an item a few weeks after reports suggested they’d broken up.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. “A Haunting in Venice” is getting a digital release just in time for Halloween. Kenneth Branagh‘s third Agatha Christie adaptation, which hit theaters in September, will debut on digital retailers and Hulu on Oct.

After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “Poor Things” may be the most anticipated movie still to come in 2023. But it’s not just nabbing Venice’s top prize: “Poor Things” received unanimous praise from the Lido, with many critics already proclaiming it the year’s (or even decade’s) best film.