Middleburg Film Festival Mixes Virtual and Outdoor Screenings

If you have Netflix, you’re well aware that Aaron Sorkin’s latest feature, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” is now available to stream globally on the platform. The new drama tells the true story of a group of people in the late-‘60s that were accused of conspiracy after protesting the Democratic National Convention.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterProminent Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke has announced he is departing the Pingyao International Film Festival, which he co-founded four years ago.The fest has not yet made an official statement but the director made the surprise announcement yesterday during the closing day of the fourth edition, telling local media he was looking for the event to “get rid of Ji Zhangke’s shadow and let it gain independent vitality” and that he was opting to “leave when it

Another Round has scooped the Best Film prize at this year’s BFI London Film Festival.The annual festival took place largely online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the usual jury-selected prizes replaced by the Virtual LFF Audience Awards, which selected films only available virtually throughout the festival.Another Round, which was also selected for this year’s Cannes Label and is directed by Thomas Vinterberg, stars Mikkelsen as an underappreciated middle-aged teacher who turns

Ellise Shafer editorThomas Vinterberg’s film “Another Round,” starring Mads Mikkelsen, has taken home the top prize at this year’s BFI London Film Festival.“Another Round” won the Audience Award for best film, while “The Painter and the Thief,” directed by Benjamin Ree won best documentary; Tommy Gillard’s “Shuttlecock” was the best short film and “To Miss the Ending,” directed by Anna West and David Callanan, was awarded best XR/immersive art.“Another Round” tells the story of Martin, played

Tom Grater International Film ReporterThe 2020 BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its virtual audience award winners, with Thomas Vinterberg’s Mads Mikkelsen-starring Danish comedy Another Round scooping Best Film.The awards replaced the typical jury-voted prizes, which didn’t happen this year due to the pandemic forcing the majority of the fest online.Also awarded tonight was the IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker Bursary, with Wildfire filmmaker Cathy Brady receiving the £50,000 grant, which goes

Justin Kroll Senior Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: MTV Studios has acquired the worldwide rights to Stampede Ventures’ coming-of-age film Pink Skies Ahead from writer/director Kelly Oxford. The film will make its worldwide premiere at the AFI Film Festival tomorrow.Set in Los Angeles in 1998, the film follows Winona, who after dropping out of college and moving back home to live with her parents, is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

A 17-year-old high school student at a prestigious northern Virginia boarding school is fighting possible expulsion that her attorney says is unfairly due to her conservative viewpoints expressed in a "cancel culture."  The student’s attorney, Jesse Binnall, who also represents former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, told Fox News his client, Mackenzie, is involved in disciplinary hearings at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., this week.

Michael B. Jordan and Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi have unveiled the line-up for their virtual Social Justice Now Film Festival (SJNFF).The new initiative is set to launch with the Black Panther star and the activist as co-ambassadors and on Monday (October 12, 2020), organizers for the event announced the socially conscious productions they plan to screen.The documentaries 40 Years a Prisoner and Freedia Got a Gun will be featured while original films Us Kids, Reefa, and SNCC,

Angelique Jackson Michael B. Jordan’s award-winning films “Just Mercy,” and “Fruitvale Station” will serve as opening night screenings for the inaugural Social Justice Now Film Festival (SJNFF).Both films will play on Wednesday, Oct.

Dino-Ray Ramos editorThe Film Life Foundation’s inaugural Social Justice Now Film Festival (SJNFF) has unveiled its robust program including its spotlight screenings including the documentaries 40 Years A Prisoner from HBO, Us Kids, and SNCC executive produced by Pharell Williams as well as I Am Other. and the narrative feature REEFA.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, FeaturesThe 43rd iteration of the Mill Valley Film Festival may not look as it has in previous years due to COVID-19 with many of its sections navigating online, but that in no way detracts from what the fest, running Oct. 8-18, will and already has accomplished on the artistic front.

Chris Willman Music WriterThe idea of a U.S. film festival sticking to its dates in 2020 with a fully programmed, all-physical, non-virtual slate of screenings? It might seem beyond possibility, but then, the suspension of disbelief is particularly accentuated at L.A.’s annual Beyond Fest, which programs “genre” films every fall at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Sundance title in the mix, too.)For the 2021 Oscars, however, the enthusiasm is muted — COVID, election — and that 7/9 proportion will likely skew lower. After Sundance, the last carefree, business-as-usual festival, big titles a la “Joker” and “1917” have been in relatively short supply because studios want traditional theatrical releases after premieres.

Steve McQueen helped raise the curtain on the 2020 BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday night, with his feature Mangrove — one of his five films in the BBC/Amazon Small Axe anthology — getting its European premiere in London and simultaneously across select cinemas around the U.K.

Addie Morfoot ContributorFor the past 27 years the Hamptons Intl. Film Festival meant fancy cocktail hours, plenty of celebrity sightings and the unspooling of award season’s buzziest films.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentDavid Bowie origin story “Stardust,” starring Johnny Flynn as the musician, has secured distribution in Italy with a deal inked with I Wonder Pictures ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Rome Film Festival this month.Flynn and director Gabriel Range will be in Rome for the red carpet event on Oct.

Patrick Hipes Executive Managing EditorNewFest is hosting a reading of Ang Lee’s groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain at its New York LGBTQ Film Festival on October 18, employing an all-trans cast for the event that commemorates the film’s 15th anniversary.The cast features Leo Sheng (The L Word) as Ennis, Brian Michael Smith (911: Lone Star) as Jack, Jen Richards (Tales of the City) as Alma, Alexandra Grey (Empire) as Lurleen and Disclosure director Sam Feder as the narrator.The original film

George Clooney has joined the line-up of the BFI London Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Actor and filmmaker George Clooney will deliver a virtual screen talk at the 64th British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival, where he will discuss his career and his latest feature “The Midnight Sky.”“The Midnight Sky” is a post-apocalyptic tale that follows Clooney, playing a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop an astronaut, played by Felicity Jones (“On the Basis of Sex”), and her team from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Pete Hammond Awards Columnist/Chief Film CriticIn a letter sent to “the TCM Classic Film Festival Community” today. Turner Classic Movies has confirmed that , due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, their live and in person Four Day Classic Film Fest which normally takes place in April in  Hollywood is formally moving to a virtual format in 2021.