Newport Beach Film Fest Boasts Strong Lineup of Awards Contenders Including ‘The Holdovers’ and ‘May December’

Cata Balzano The 10th anniversary edition of Miami’s Gems Film Festival will get underway in November, promising a four-day line-up of 26 films that feature diversity and highlight more than famous faces from the awards season circuit. The festival, a fall offshoot of the Miami Film Festival hosted by Miami Dade College, will run from Nov. 2-5 this year.

On the heels of the wonderful 2019 The Two Popes, in which Anthony Hopkins starred as Pope Benedict XVI in an imagined conversation with Jonathan Pryce’s future Pope Francis, Hopkins is once again involved in the same kind of cinematic historical fictional meeting as founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, who is engaged in a private debate with The Chronicles of Narnia author and theologian C.S. Lewis (played by Matthew Goode) on the existence of God. As with The Two Popes, there is no proof whatsoever that any meeting ever took place, but it clearly provides lots of material to wrap your head around. That is exactly what Mark St. Germain did in creating his 2009 play Freud’s Last Session, which was built on the 1967 Harvard lectures of Dr. Armond M. Nicholi Jr in his presentation “The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life.”

Independents are out in force with high-profile fall festival fare from Pricilla to The Holdovers, a big Viva Pictures push with Inspector Sun (voiced by Ronny Chieng), Cannes documentary winner Four Daughters and Waikiki, the debut feature by Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Kahunahana. the first homegrown feature to be shown there.

Valerie Wu Intern The 2023 annual Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), hosted from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19, has announced its slate of awards winners.

Mumbai Film Fest To Honor Luca Guadagnino & Mani Ratnam

Jaden Thompson Tonya Mantooth, CEO and artistic director of the San Diego International Film Festival, is keenly aware that film is a uniquely immersive medium with the power to connect people — even strangers. And that power will be evident at SDIFF’s 22nd edition, which will run in person Oct.18-22, with screenings at various venues in the San Diego area. The event will also feature panels, Q and A’s, filmmaker happy hours and more special programming.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome Film Fest opener “There’s Still Tomorrow,” a bold period dramedy that marks the directorial debut of popular Italian actor Paola Cortellesi, has scored a slew of international sales. The film, shot in black-and-white and set in post-World War II Rome, riffs on Italy’s neorealist past, albeit with a female empowerment element angle and a contemporary A-list Italian cast.

Filmmaker Alexander Payne (“Sideways,” “The Descendants,”) recently held a Q&A session during the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France (via Variety), with Los Angeles-based French film journalist Didier Allouch overseeing that conversation. Payne gave the French audience a big tease about what he’s currently working on, which could allow him to tackle a dream film genre.

Lise Pedersen Two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Alexander Payne shared his passion for film and his thoughts on contemporary American cinema with the audience at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon where he is premiering his eighth feature film, “The Holdovers,” under the French title “Winter Break,” on October 15th. In a conversation skilfully led and translated by Los Angeles-based French film journalist Didier Allouch, Payne drew laughs from the Lumière crowd when he explained that the secret to making good films was “keeping your budgets low.” “John Huston approached Luis Buñuel one day and asked him, ‘How is it that you make these wonderful films, like “Viridiana” and “The Exterminating Angel”?’ And Buñuel replied, ‘How much money do you make and how much money do you think I make?’” said Payne with a smile.

The Wrestler, directed by Bangladeshi-Canadian filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, and September 1923, from Japan’s Tatsuya Mori, picked up the New Currents Awards as Busan International Film Festival wrapped a busy 28th edition on October 13. 

Todd Haynes tells me that May December, his gripping melodrama starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, “aggressively disturbs our moral moorings.”

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Mexican actor/director/writer/ producer Eugenio Derbez “can do anything.” That’s what Ben Odell, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Derbez’s production company, 3Pas, believes. “The roles he’s been offered to date are the comedy relief guy,” Odell tells Variety. “The best of Hollywood is the big spectacle movies.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Tiger Stripes,” the Malaysian coming-of-age, body horror film that debuted in Cannes’ Critics Week section has been set as the opening title for this year’s Singapore International Film Festival (Nov. 30 – Dec.

Deadline kicked off movie-awards season Saturday with Contenders London, which featured creatives and key craftspeople from 13 buzzy films that will be at the forefront of kudos conversations leading up to the Oscars in March.

Emmerdale stars Emma Atkins, Lawrence Robb and Jessie Elland have divulged some of the behind-the-scenes details from filming their first major stunt. Despite being on the soap for more than 20 years, Charity Dingle actress Emma has never been part of a big showpiece like next week's Super Soap Week.

Valerie Wu Intern The Urbanworld Film Festival, based in New York City, has released its 2023 slate of screenings and presentations. With HBO and WBD as Founding Partner and Prestige Partner, respectively, the 27th annual festival will take place from Nov. 1 to Nov.

Caroline Brew editor The Savannah College of Art and Design’s 26th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, which will run from Oct. 21-28, has announced its film lineup. “Nyad,” a film based on the life of world-class athlete Diana Nyad, will open the festival on Oct.

William Earl The Newport Beach Film Festival has added a screening of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” to its Fashion Island main stage line-up. The screening on Sunday, Oct. 15 will include a Q&A with author Judy Blume, writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig and producers James L.

Marta Balaga Warsaw Film Festival sets out to spotlight a slew of new local releases, from “Anxiety” by Sławomir Fabicki – Oscar-nominated for his short “A Man Thing” – to this year’s opener “Song of Goats” by Andrzej Jakimowski. The latter, featuring “EO” star Mateusz Kościukiewicz and set in Greece, will show characters living close to an active volcano, exploring the question of how “each of us is responsible for maintaining our fragile heritage,” says the director.

Naman Ramachandran A total of 39 European companies, surpassing 2022, will promote and sell films from the continent at Busan International Film Festival‘s accompanying Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM). Of these, 32 will be onsite while seven more will participate online.