Netflix, Higher Ground Acquires Sundance Award Winner ‘Descendant’

Suffering from Covid may make you more likely to experience depression and anxiety, according to a study.

Christopher Vourlias Music Box Films has acquired the North American rights to writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s genre-bending “Leonor Will Never Die,” which won the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit in Sundance this year after premiering in the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition.The film tells the story of Leonor Reyes, once a major player in the Filipino film industry during its ragtag action cinema glory days, but now in her golden years and struggling to pay her bills. When she reads an advertisement for a screenplay contest, Leonor begins tinkering with an unfinished script about a young man avenging his brother’s murder at the hand of thugs.But after a falling television knocks her unconscious and sends her into a coma, Leonor finds herself inside her incomplete movie, re-writing and editing on the fly in a fantastical bid to complete the film while her body lies in limbo.

Angelique Jackson Filmmakers Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Aftershock” has been acquired by Disney’s Onyx Collective and ABC News.News of the joint acquisition comes after the feature won the U.S. Documentary special jury award for impact for change at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where it made its debut as an official selection last month.

Marta Balaga Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom – whose films include Luca Guadagnino’s Oscar nominee for best picture “Call Me by Your Name” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or winner “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” and who recently lensed Netflix thriller “Beckett” – received the third Robby Müller Award on Thursday, following in the footsteps of Mexican DP Diego García and American director Kelly Reichardt.The trophy is given out by International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ Society of Cinematographers and Andrea Müller-Schirmer.“When he films empty space, it becomes clear that it was actually never empty,” argued the jury, but Mukdeeprom was also feted by his illustrious collaborators, from Guadagnino and Tilda Swinton to “Arabian Nights” helmer Miguel Gomes. “You came to work for one year, not knowing what we were going to shoot or how, so I think you are kind of crazy.

Penske Media subsidiary Rolling Stone has acquired a majority interest in Life is Beautiful, the music, arts and ideas festival held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla Cole Hauser has no idea why “Yellowstone” has finally become the sexy hot thing on TV. Along with most of heartland America, he has known that the grizzly and gamy cowboy show has been a good watch since its debut on Paramount Network in 2018.The pandemic may have something to do with it. With sprawling Montana (and Utah) landscapes, outlandish outlaw behavior, pretty ponies, and perpetually-handsome Kevin Costner as its lead, “Yellowstone” has all the ingredients of a hit escapist show.

Nintendo devices.In court documents spotted by Eurogamer, the US government has recommended that Bowser – who pled guilty to two charges in 2021 – should be imprisoned for five years, with a further 3 years of supervised release.This is due to “the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the defendant, and the need for the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense,” as well as “to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.”On the other hand, Bowser’s defence argued that he is “the least culpable and only apprehended defendant from this indictment,” leaving Bowser to “take the full brunt of the government’s argument that the court must ‘send a message’ of general deterrence by imposing a lengthy term.”The defence also added that Bowser has already “served a significant sentence by spending 16 months in pretrial detention under harsh conditions”, and requested a 19-month sentence instead of the US government’s 60-month recommendation.Outside of jail time, Bowser faces paying to significant fines in regards to the case. After Bowser pleaded guilty in November he offered Nintendo £3.2million ($4.5million) in damages, though in December 2021 it was confirmed that he would pay the company £7.5million ($10million).Bowser is being charged with Trafficking in Circumvention Devices, and Conspiracy to Circumvent Technological Measures and to Traffic in Circumvention Devices, after he pled guilty to both in return for a further nine charges being dropped.

With the success of “Yellowstone” and basically everything else that Taylor Sheridan is working on, there is a clear desire for that down and dirty, country vibe project in Hollywood. Something that features dusty roads and guns.

EXCLUSIVE: Sydney Sweeney, Halsey, Paul Walter Hauser, Simon Rex, Toby Huss, Gavin Maddox Bergman, Harriet Sansom Harris and newcomer Derek Hinkey are set to star in Tony Tost’s directorial debut National Anthem from Bron Studios.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterNetflix has ordered the drama series “The Brothers Sun” from co-creators Brad Falchuk and Byron Wu, Variety has learned.The streamer has given the series an eight-episode order. It follows a Taipei gangster, Charles Sun, who’s settled into his life as a ruthless killer. But when his father is shot by a mysterious assassin, Charles must go to L.A.

Directed by Paula Eislet and Tonya Lewis Lee (Spike Lee’s producer and partner), the documentary “Aftershock” chronicles the dismal maternal mortality rate that women of color face in the United States medical system. The statistics are shameful, pointing to a systemic racist indifference, and the documentary chronicles the staggering number of times that expectant mothers entering into hospitals simply do not come out alive due to a lack of care and sensitivity.

TikTok is an undeniable force in our society. It has the power to launch music careers, house the homeless, and unite people worldwide.

Production company MUBI has acquired Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s documentary “Free Chol Soo Lee” that premiered last week at Sundance, the company said in a release.The film has been acquired for North America, UK, Ireland, Latin America, German, Austria, Italy and Turkey and will release theatrically in 2022 in the U.S., with plans for other regions coming later.The documentary is about a movement in the 1970s in San Francisco, where a 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee gets racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Lee is sentenced to life and fights to survive until a journalist takes up his case and ignites a social justice movement in the Asian American community.

Wyatte Grantham-Philips editor“Free Chol Soo Lee” has been acquired by global distributor, streamer and production company MUBI.The documentary, which premiered last week at the Sundance Film Festival, will come to U.S. theaters in 2022, with release plans in other territories (Latin America, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey, the U.K.

IFC Films and Shudder have taken North American rights to Andrew Semans’ psychological thriller Resurrection starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper.

poisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday. Called “Navalny,” it’s a no-holds-barred indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, and insists that Navalny’s close brush with death was the result of a secret state-run operation to assassinate him.“As I became more and more famous guy, I was totally sure that my life became safer and safer because I am kind of famous guy — and it will be problematic for them just to kill me,” Navalny, 45, says in the film. “I was very wrong.” The doc, heading to HBO Max, was added at the last minute to the Sundance slate just as Putin had stationed more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.

At first glance, actor-writer-director Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” might look like your typical cutesy and whimsical Sundance dramedy, about a twenty-something college graduate learning a valuable life lesson and experiencing a bit of a delayed coming of age. While that’s not an inaccurate description of Raiff’s disarmingly lovely film (programmed in this year’s US Dramatic Competition), what feels miraculous about “Cha Cha” is: it doesn’t come with even an ounce of that cringe-inducing Sundance fancifulness, a brand that many love to hate.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival obviously has so much to offer. Big premieres from indie auteurs, world cinema, documentaries, films for kids, and movies that are receiving so much acclaim right now, you’ll be hearing more from them later in the year upon regular theatrical release.

Addie Morfoot ContributorThis year at the Sundance Film Festival, three feature documentaries — Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee’s “Aftershock,” Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There” and Isabel Castro’s “Mija” — share in common a $10,000 grant provided by the Points North Institute and CNN Films’ American Stories Documentary Fund.Launched in 2020, the fund underwritten by CNN has dispensed a total of $100,000 in grants to emerging U.S. filmmakers working on 10 documentary projects that highlight pivotal moments in America. Eiselt and Lewis Lee’s “Aftershock,” and Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There” are two of nine films in the Sundance U.S.