Oscar Winner Stefan Ruzowitzky on Creating an Expressionist Landscape for Crime Thriller ‘Hinterland,’ Premiering at Locarno

We’ve seen quite a few thrillers about the rise of a lowly criminal through the ranks of the underworld. Most famously, this can be seen in Brian De Palma’s classic, “Scarface.” However, the new film, “Snakehead,” aims to put a different spin on the tried-and-true formula.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterBET is closing out the summer with a block of original feature films, including the Taryn Manning lightning rod “Karen.”Titled “Summer of Chills,” the slate of suspense thrillers includes three BET original movies and the linear debut of two titles from streaming service BET Plus.Stars including Paula Patton, Lauren London, LisaRaye McCoy, Loretta Devine, Wood Harris, V.

Sandra Bullock, 57, is not only an incredible actress, she’s also an incredible mom! The Speed star is the proud parent of two children she adopted over the years, including son Louis, 11, and daughter Laila, 9, and has gushed over them on numerous occasions. Although she initially chose to keep their adoptions private, when she did opt to announce them to the world, she was overjoyed and they are now clearly two of the most important people in her life.

Alissa Simon Film CriticAfter winning Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s Crystal Globe for best director in 2018 for “Winter Flies,” the Slovenian-born Czech director Olmo Omerzu returns to its competition with the world premiere of his fourth feature “Bird Atlas.” It is co-written with his “Winter Flies” collaborator Petr Pýcha.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlin-based sales agency Picture Tree Intl. has kicked off sales for action biopic “Chasing the Line,” about the Austrian skiing champion Franz Klammer, which will make its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival.PTI has closed its first deal on the film with Praesens Film taking rights for Switzerland, and will launch its international campaign with an exclusive work-in-progress buyer screening at the Toronto Film Festival.

Director Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” has been racking up awards since its film festival debut last year. After winning several awards from critics’ associations, the TIFF People’s Choice Award, the BAFTAs and a historic win Best Director win for Zhao at the Academy Awards where it also took home Best Picture and Best Actress for Frances McDormand, “Nomadland” is adding yet another top honour to its collection.

The brand new trailer for Scenes From A Marriage, starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, has been unveiled.

Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac are playing a married couple navigating the ups and downs of their relationship in HBO’s new limited series,. The five-episode limited series is based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 Swedish miniseries by the same name.

In 2020, we received one of the most wrenching tales of marriage, love, and divorce ever with Noah Baumbach’s heartbreaking “Marriage Story” with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. But arguably, one of the early towering masterpieces on this same subject is Ingmar Bergman’s 1970s TV project, “Scenes From A Marriage” (Bergman was married five times, he should know).

The HBO limited series Mare of Easttown, which received a whopping 16 Emmy nominations this year, got off to such a compelling start with a title character so strong that Kate Winslet admitted in a chat for Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees award-season event that she needed to read only two of the seven episodes created and written by Brad Ingelsby to commit. Winslet was joined in the panel by Ingelsby and Craig Zobel, who helmed all the episodes.

Christopher Vourlias Describing its world premiere on the opening night of the Sarajevo Film Festival as “magic,” Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanović (“No Man’s Land”) called his latest feature “a love letter to our city,” offering it as a beacon of hope in troubled times to the people of Sarajevo.Speaking to Variety the day after the premiere, Tanović described an emotional night as his feel-good film “Not So Friendly Neighborhood Affair” opened the festival’s 27th edition.“For me,

Jessica Kiang Given that, after its shuttered 2020 edition, the 74th Locarno Film Festival’s ident features a prowling, growling, resurgent leopard and the distinctly tumescent tagline “Cinema is Back” it’s somewhat ironic that the festival’s top prize should go to a film about erectile dysfunction.In other ways, however, Indonesian director Edwin’s fabulously if nonsensically titled “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” is perhaps the ideal Golden Leopard winner, in what is a strange year

Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news, “By All” centers on “the aftermath of a tragic event and follows Donte, a man struggling to make ends meet who is forced to go on the run in a world without police, where justice is crowd-sourced.”Caple will produce “By All” alongside Legendary’s Mary Parent and Alex Garcia as well as Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson. Taylor and Rettenmaier will produce as well.

Jay Weissberg It was a bold move for Stefan Ruzowitzky (“The Counterfeiters” among many others) to conceive of a gritty Expressionist detective-thriller set in the aftermath of World War I, shot almost entirely on blue screen. Whether it’s also fully successful is open for debate.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLondon-based sales agency Film Republic has picked up Peter Brunner’s “Luzifer,” which will feature next week in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterParamount Players’ upcoming adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel “Razorblade Tears” has found its screenwriter in Sherman Payne.Payne, best known for the HBO Max original “Charm City Kings,” will adapt S.A. Cosby’s acclaimed novel for the studio division.

EastEnders star Sid Owen, who played Ricky Butcher on the popular BBC soap, has revealed Hollywood megastar Al Pacino nearly adopted him when he was 13.The unlikely duo made a film together in 1985, and it turns out life could have taken a very different path for the London-based actor.The Godfather great played youngster Sid’s father in the period epic Revolution. After discovering his teen co-star’s mum had tragically died, the now 81 year old Al considered adopting him instead.

Christopher Vourlias South Africa’s Local Motion Pictures, whose dystopian sci-fi feature “Glasshouse” will world premiere at the Fantasia Intl.