MK2, TrustNordisk & Unifrance Execs Talk “Shifting World” Of Film Festivals — Zurich Summit

Guangzhou-based director Choy Ji has filmed Hong Kong from a perspective we’ve rarely seen before in his debut feature Borrowed Time, which played at Pingyao film festival this week after screening in Busan’s New Currents competition. 

Ellise Shafer Daniel Kaluuya world premiered his feature directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday night, calling it “one of the best days of my life.” Kaluuya was on hand alongside his co-director Kibwe Tavares, producer Daniel Emmerson and several of the film’s actors, including “Top Boy” star Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman. Set in a dystopian London where all social housing has been banned, the film follows the residents of a community called the Kitchen who must fight to save their home. Speaking before the premiere, Kaluuya and Tavares explained that it’s taken nearly a decade to bring the Netflix film to the screen.

Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).

Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.  

Marta Balaga “Hesitation Wound” and “Hollywoodgate” were named winners at the Zurich Film Festival, as the 19th edition of the Swiss festival came to a close. Selman Nacar’s drama “Hesitation Wound” impressed the Feature Film Competition jury.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

Jessica Chastain is being honored!

Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.

“This is the perfect opportunity for us to make reality ‘real’ again,” says Peter Tierney, the commissioner who has spent the past two years overseeing ITV‘s rebooted Big Brother.

Ed Meza @edmezavar The changing global strategies of streamers and their impact on the independent film sector were front and center for international industry reps at the Zurich Summit on Saturday. Sasha Bühler, Netflix’s director of film for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Patrick Wachsberger, Black Bear president John Friedberg, John Lesher, Neon CEO Tom Quinn, Focus Features’ Kiska Higgs and CAA’s Roeg Sutherland were among the participants taking deep dives into major issues facing the global entertainment market. Commenting on changing investment strategies at Netflix, Bühler stated, “We’re available in over 190 countries and we have 238 million subscribers, very diverse, around the world, and we actively produce in 50 countries, so it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, and there are territories that are more saturated than others.” There are definite growth markets for Netflix and the company has not slowed down its investments at all, she added.

EXCLUSIVE: Neon CEO and founder Tom Quinn, Black Bear International President John Friedberg and Iconoclast‘s Head of Film and TV Robert Walak stopped by Deadline’s Zurich Summit studio this weekend to talk about current projects. Watch the video above.

Leonine Studios founder and CEO Fred Kogel has said he does not expect his Germany-focused content group to expand much more in the near future, after four years of rapid and continuous growth.

EXCLUSIVE: Thomas Benski, former CEO and co-founder of Gangs of London producer Pulse Films, stopped by Deadline’s Zurich Summit studio to discuss his time at Pulse and what the future holds for him, including an upcoming production. You can watch the video above.

Neon CEO Tom Quinn has addressed the debate around the new theatrical standards for Best Picture eligibilityannounced by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over the summer.

“Are streamers scaling back?” and “Is this a renaissance period for indie financed films?” were two of the questions at the heart of a Zurich Summit panel this morning, featuring CAA‘s Roeg Sutherland, WME‘s Katie Irwin and Oscar-winning producer John Lesher (Birdman).

The future of working with streamers was on the table at the Zurich Summit on Saturday amid talk that the content bubble has burst as key markets such as the U.S. reach saturation point.

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.

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

Naman Ramachandran Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig and Emerald Fennell are among the filmmakers delivering screen talks at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, alongside Andrew Haigh, Lulu Wang and Kitty Green. Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, is a headline gala at the festival. He will be in conversation with filmmaker Edgar Wright about his body of work.

France has submitted The Taste Of Things as its candidate for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, in a major upset after Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner and hot favorite Anatomy Of A Fall was shut out.