Newport Beach Film Festival Announces 2023 Winners, “American Fiction” and “Monster” Receive Honors (EXCLUSIVE)

Jaden Thompson The Critics Choice Association has announced that Edward James Olmos, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Ken Jeong are among the honorees for the upcoming Celebration of Cinema and Television: Honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements. The event will be held at the Fairmont Century Plaza on Dec.

Two-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Ed Lachman looked shattered by the time he sat down with us for an interview here at EnergaCamerimage in Torun, Poland. 

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In the most shockingly funny moment of Alexander Payne’s “Sideways,” Miles Raymond, the desperate English teacher and wine aficionado (that is, alcoholic with good taste) played by Paul Giamatti, has just learned that his book was turned down by the publisher he had his hopes pinned on. It’s more than a rejection; it’s the death of his dream. Miles is in the middle a chi-chi Napa Valley wine tasting, and suddenly he’s in dire need of a drink.

Christopher Vourlias Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” won the Golden Alexander at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival on Sunday, marking the first time in 30 years that a Greek film took home the top honors at the country’s longest-running film event. Exarchou’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was praised by Variety’s Jessica Kiang as “a poignant portrait of life amid the sequins and the seediness of a Greek resort.” The film follows a group of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort preparing for the busy tourist season who are forced to wrestle with the dark reality that the show must go on as the sultry Mediterranean nights turn violent.

Strictly Come Dancing fans have said it will be a 'disgrace' if one couple don't win the competition after they 'sealed' their 2023 winner. The stakes were high in the ballroom on Saturday night (November 11) as the remaining eight couples took to the floor in a bid to make it through the Blackpool.

Marta Balaga India Donaldson picked up the Polish Film Institute Award for her upcoming feature “Good One” at the American Film Festival in Wrocław, coming with a $50,000 cash prize for post-production in Poland. “It’s an affirmation of how we have been working and what we have been working towards,” Los Angeles-based Donaldson told Variety after the ceremony. “Good One” – presented during AFF’s industry event U.S.

When you’re composing music for a character named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in the movie American Fiction, it should be pretty obvious where a composer like Laura Karpman might find her inspiration.

Sarvnik Kaur’s documentary Against The Tide won the Golden Gateway Award at this year’s Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, while the Silver Gateway Award went to Bahadur – The Brave, directed by Diwa Shah. The Special Jury Award went to Kanu Behl’s Agra. 

Naman Ramachandran Bangladeshi filmmaker Nuhash Humayun’s “Pett Kata Shaw” won best international feature at the 31st Raindance Film Festival‘s jury awards. British documentary filmmaker Kit Vincent won best U.K.

Adam Driver will be the guest of honor at this year’s Camerimage Film Festival, where he will receive the Special EnergaCAMERIMAGE Award for an Actor and present his Michael Mann-directed biopic, Ferrari.

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival returns this evening for its 64th edition with a screening of The Pot-au-Feu (The Taste of Things), the latest film by French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng. 

Kino Lorber has launched a new subscription streaming outlet, Kino Film Collection.

Christopher Vourlias When the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, kicks off this week in Greece’s second city, organizers will be looking to expand upon recent additions to a time-tested formula that’s served the event across nearly two decades as a launching pad and incubator for Greek and regional talent. “We’ve been doing the Agora since 2005, and we have slowly but steadily established it as one of the markets where you can find new talents and emerging directors from this region,” says industry head Angeliki Vergou, who took over from longtime Agora topper Yianna Sarri last year.

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.

Naman Ramachandran Chinese superstar actor and producer Fan Bingbing will be the 2023 recipient of the Singapore International Film Festival‘s (SGIFF) Cinema Icon Award. The festival will screen three of Fan’s films, curated by her – the recent “Green Night,” “Buddha Mountain” and “Double Xposure” – and the star will walk the red carpet on opening night, Nov. 30.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Cord Jefferson’s satirical comedy “American Fiction” has won the Audience Award for narrative film at the Middleburg Film Festival. Proving to be a true crowd-pleaser, it’s the third audience prize for the MGM title on the festival circuit following the Toronto and Mill Valley Film Festivals (at the latter it tied with “Rustin”).

American Fiction” from writer, director and producer Cord Jefferson, and the recent winner of the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award. Based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett, the film stars Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison,” a frustrated novelist who is fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired narratives and themes. After he writes an outlandish book making fun of the offensive tropes, his success propels him into the center of hypocrisy.

Matthew Heineman’s documentary profiling Grammy and Oscar winning musician Jon Batiste and the medical struggles for his wife that have marked trying times in their marriage leads the pack of nominees for the 8th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards with six. The inspiring docu from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground was picked up by Netflix after premiering and winning acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival last month. Not far behind are a trio of docus each with 5 mentions including 20 Days In Mariupol, Kokomo City, and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. And not to be ignored, this weekend’s boxoffice champ, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which landed a nomination as Best Music Documentary. The CCDA nod marks the first awards recognition for the film (however it is not eligible for a Documentary Oscar) which only just had its first premiere screening on Wednesday of last week and came in just under the eligibility wire.

“American Fiction” has quickly become the movie to watch in the awards season after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim, garnering the festival’s People’s Choice Award. The award has come to be seen as a precursor for Academy Award nominations.

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.