Newport Beach Film Festival Honors to Include William Shatner, Patricia Clarkson, Eugenio Derbez

Between the Rains and The Echo are among the big winners at the prestigious Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas.

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.

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.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor Co-founder and CEO of the Newport Beach Film Festival Gregg Schwenk muses that there are several reasons the fest, which will run Oct. 12-19 this year, has grown in popularity over the last 24 years. There are, of course, the movies: over 300 films this year, including about 100 features and over 200 shorts from countries all over the world.

Béla Tarr Set For European Film Awards Honor

It’s not every day that a filmmaker will rise up during an interview and recite Old Testament tales and sing out their favorite hymn. Well, hallelujah, brother Jeymes Samuel for spreading the gospel’s good news.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: The DTLA Film Festival has set the full feature lineup for its 15th edition, taking place at Regal L.A. Live from November 1-5, announcing the Jack Huston starrer Hail Mary as its opening night film.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia” has garnered the best documentary and best doc editing honors at the 24th annual Woodstock Film Festival. The documentary, which was recently acquired by Roadside Attractions, is vying for Academy Award attention.

International execs from Unifrance, MK2 and TrustNordisk kicked off the annual Zurich Summit on Saturday to discuss the importance of film festivals when promoting a title and if fests are drifting away from what works in cinemas. 

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Rodrigo Prieto, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer, will be honored with the 2023 Árbol de la Vida – lifetime achievement award at the 13th edition of the GuadaLAjara Film Festival on Nov. 1. Taking place at the Theater at the Ace Hotel in Downtown L.A., the Mexican D.P.

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.

Jaden Thompson The Newport Beach Film Festival, which will run from Oct. 12-19 this year, has announced their opening and closing night films. Marco Perego’s “The Absence of Eden,” which stars Zoë Saldana, will open the festival on Oct.

The 2023 film festival season has wound its way from Sundance and SXSW through Cannes and Tribeca to the fall stops at Venice, Telluride and Toronto.

Maja Hoffmann has been officially confirmed as President of the Locarno Film Festival following a vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly on Wednesday.