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Oscar-nominated producer Bill Pohlad has a long history of aligning himself with auteurs on award-winning fare—from Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain to Terrence Malick on the Palme d’Or winning The Tree of Life to Steve McQueen’s Oscar Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave, and getting financially behind them with his River Road Entertainment banner. We talk with Pohlad on Crew Call today about his third career feature as director, Dreamin’ Wild, based on the New York Times Steven Kurutz article about the Fruitland, WA-based Emerson brothers whose dad literally bet the farm (mortgaging it to the tune of $100K) on the duo’s singing talents in the 1970s, and built them a studio. They didn’t make it initially — not until 2008 when the album they made some near 40 years prior, “Dreamin’ Wild,” was discovered by a record collector in Spokane, Jack Fleischer, and championed fervently. The record’s single “Baby” ultimately became a cult hit when it was covered by Ariel Pink in 2012. Casey Affleck plays Donnie Emerson, the aorta of the songwriting duo, who grapples with the mid-life crisis of finding some facet of fame, when all seemed forever lost.

Sharon Farrell, whose long career included star turns in film, television, and on Broadway, died May 15 in Orange County. Her death at 82 was only recently discovered by relatives, who posted the news to Facebook, but they were unsure of the cause.

UK agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates has named former Meta and Film4 exec Anna Higgs as Managing Director.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Former Meta executive and BAFTA Film Committee chair Anna Higgs has joined U.K. theater, film and television agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates as managing director. Higgs, who will begin her role in August, will be entrusted by the Casarotto board to oversee the business and drive the strategic development and direction of the org. Founded in 1989 and based in London, the independent global agency represents many top writers, directors, playwrights, theater creatives, literary properties and heads of departments in film, theater, TV and new media.

New Regency said today it’s closed a $175 million term loan from global investment firm Carlyle Group, providing new capital for the indie to scale up production. The loan is a refinancing and upsize of an existing Carlyle facility.

Frank Sinatra's former co-star Jacqueline Bisset shared insight into the musician's tough guy reputation as the two starred together in "The Detective" in the 1960s. Bisset's role was small, but she described Sinatra as "protective" of her during the time they worked together. "He wasn’t going through an easy period in his life with the breakup with his wife, but he was very protective of me," Bisset explained to Closer Weekly.

Naman Ramachandran A reimagined version of Fleetwood Mac’s all-time classic song “Don’t Stop” is the soundtrack to environmental organization Greenpeace’s new call to action. Fleetwood Mac vocalist and keyboard player Christine McVie wrote the song, which featured in hit 1977 album “Rumours,” and she gave Greenpeace the rights to use the song before she died in 2022. Created by Grammy-winning producer Fraser T Smith, who has worked with Stormzy, Adele, Dave and Drake, and acclaimed British rapper Avelino (“God Save The Streets”), the song features instrumentation from jazz talent development organization Tomorrow’s Warriors and vocals from the House Gospel Choir. 

Angelique Jackson Growing up in South London, “They Cloned Tyrone” star John Boyega would sit on his mattress watching Jamie Foxx act up on “The Jamie Foxx Show” or his Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in “Ray.” So, getting the opportunity to team up with Foxx for the conspiracy caper “They Cloned Tyrone,” was a dream come true. “That’s someone that I’m very much inspired by,” Boyega told Variety on the red carpet at the American Black Film Festival, where the Netflix movie was the opening night selection. “He’s definitely been one of the major hands behind my career that helped me to get roles, get opportunities and I appreciate it.” Of course, Boyega has come a long way from watching movies and TV in his bedroom. After breaking onto the scene in “Attack the Block” and then playing Finn in the latest “Star Wars” trilogy,” Boyega has starred as King Ghenzo in the critically acclaimed film “The Woman King,” portrayed a military veteran with PTSD in “Breaking,” and delivered a Golden Globe-winning performance in Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology series. But watching Foxx’s process up close made a major impression.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Harrison Ford revealed in a new interview with Esquire magazine that the most common question “Star Wars” fans ask him is who would win a fight: Han Solo or Indiana Jones? It’s a question that has provided fodder for many Reddit discussions and social media debates, but it’s not one Ford ever wants to entertain. As Ford said about his fans: “Well, they usually ask me, ‘If there was a fight between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, who would fuckin’ win?’ And I say [voice rising, fingers drumming], ‘Me, asshole! I don’t want to fucking make shit up like that. I mean, what are you asking me that crap for?’” Ford has played Indiana Jones in five movies, including the upcoming “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” while his filmography with Han Solo also consists of five movies, including an uncredited cameo appearance in 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” That film marked the end of his Han Solo run, while “Dial of Destiny” will mark the same for Indiana Jones. Despite these iconic characters, Ford often stresses to fans that he is Harrison Ford and not Han Solo or Indiana Jones.

Documentary fans might be forgiven for nurturing a dream – that Cannes would follow the recent example of Venice and Berlin and award its top prize to a nonfiction film. Complete the documentary Triple Crown – the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Palme d’or.

Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford swung into Cannes on Thursday for the world premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” in one of the most anticipated events of the French Riviera festival.

Cannes Film Festival was bursting with powerful auteurs debuting new work and a bevy of titles being prepped for acquisition. From Pedro Almodóvar to Steve McQueen, festival attendees were flush for choice on what to watch — this despite reports that issues with tickets were still happening.

Cannes Film Festival features an unusually robust selection of documentaries, two in the Main Competition alone, where nonfiction films almost never appear. And if the ones that have screened in the festival’s first three days have anything in common, it’s scale.

“Johnny! Johnny!! Johnny!!! Johnny Depp!!!!” The celebrity dutifully signed autographs for his followers on the red carpet for the premiere of Jeanne du Barry, director Maiwenn’s Cannes Film Festival opener.

Somewhere in the third hour of Steve McQueen’s documentary “Occupied City,” the camera slowly dollies left over a list of names in glowing green print on a black background, enumerating the thousands of Jews deported from Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. A moment of silence in the audio mix announces this as an important shot, an occasion to consider the enormity of the loss that this four-and-a-half-hour film itemizes with near-comprehensive diligence.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Over the past 15 years, Steve McQueen has become one of my favorite filmmakers. He’s made only a handful of features, but in almost every case he takes a subject of extraordinary magnitude (the 1971 IRA prison hunger strike in “Hunger,” the complex horrors of slavery in “12 Years a Slave,” the collision of gritty city politics and feminine revolt in “Widows,” the epochal crackdown on West Indian immigrants in London in “Mangrove”) and uses it to box open your heart and mind. And he does it all with a storytelling vibrance that’s at once heady and populist. So when it was announced that McQueen would be directing his first documentary feature, and that it would tackle the subject of the Holocaust, dealing with the victims of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam (the city where McQueen now lives), my anticipation took the form of thinking: How, with a director of McQueen’s skill and imagination and gravity, could this be less than fascinating?

In cinematic form, how do you tell history without archive footage? Occupied City shows how it can be done, and to what effect.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Steve McQueen looks stressed out. He’s a few weeks into post-production on “Blitz,” his World War II drama for Apple TV+, while starting promotion on his other, long-gestating wartime project, the documentary “Occupied City.” “It’s definitely pleasurable, but this is work,” declares McQueen with the wariness of a filmmaker who’s just been plucked out of the edit suite. “Hard work is always hard work. You can’t avoid it.” The British director, who was Oscar-nominated for “12 Years a Slave,” didn’t set out to make back-to-back movies about the war, but “you plant seeds, and some come to fruition and others don’t,” he explains. “These two happened to blossom fairly close to each other.”

Twelve months ago, the UK industry drew a sharp intake of breath when Euphoria and Moonlight outfit A24 lured Piers Wenger and Rose Garnett to launch the studio’s London-based production division.

Amsterdam today. Pause on a bridge and watch the Amstel River gently flow through picturesque canals. Eighty years ago, the same vista might have revealed a horror – bodies floating by of Jews who had flung themselves into the Amstel rather than face cruel death from the occupying Nazi forces.

EXCLUSIVE: Argo actor Scoot McNairy is the latest to join the cast of Speak No Evil, the Blumhouse and Universal psychological horror thriller from writer/director James Watkins.

2023 Cannes Film Festival. The Caméra d’Or prize is presented to one debut feature film that is entered in Cannes’ Official Selection or a parallel category.

French actress Anaïs Demoustier has been announced as the president of the Cannes Film Festival’s Caméra d’Or jury for the upcoming 76th edition running from May 16 to 27.

Like many others, Jessica Chastain thinks Viola Davis should’ve nabbed an Oscar nomination at this year’s ceremony for her role in “The Woman King”.

PJ Harvey has announced her upcoming 10th album, ‘I Inside The Old Year Dying’ with the release of the lead single, ‘A Child’s Question, August’. Check out the track below.Shared today (April 26), the new single follows a series of teasers shared by Harvey on social media, and follows on from her last full-length LP with 2016’s ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’.According to the double Mercury Prize-winning artist, ‘I Inside The Old Year Dying’, was written over a period of three weeks, although stemmed from ideas dating back to 2017 when she felt she had lost her connection with music.Seeking to revive her connection with songwriting, the inspiration for the new tracks was uncovered following advice from film-maker Steve McQueen, who told her to ignore the ‘process of writing an album’, and instead rediscover why she first fell in love with “words, images and music”.The album will see the singer-songwriter return to her roots – inspired by the likes of Nina Simone and Bob Dylan – and provide fans with “a resting space, a solace, a comfort, a balm” which is created to feel “timely for the times we’re in.”Today also sees Harvey share the first single from the LP, ‘A Child’s Question, August’.

Viola Davis gets support from former co-stars Meryl Streep and Jessica Chastain while being recognized at the 2023 Chaplin Award Gala honoring Viola Davis at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on Monday (April 24) in New York City.

True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto is writing and executive producing The Magnificent Seven TV series in development at Amazon Studios.

You wouldn’t be wrong, as a film fan, to have your festival sights set on the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. That’s perhaps the premier festival each and every year.

Quentin Tarantino has said that he is “ready to quit” making movies following an illustrious 30-year career in the industry.The director and screenwriter, who has helmed such classics as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill, initially said in 2009 that he planned to retire once he reached the age of 60 – which he did on March 27 this year – to “go and write novels and cinema literature, stuff like that”.Tarantino reiterated that desire in 2014 while promoting his 2015 movie The Hateful Eight, outlining his plan to “leave a 10-film filmography”. However, he said at the time that this was “not etched in stone”.Last month, Tarantino announced the title of his 10th film – The Movie Critic – which is likely to be his final big-screen project.

Kicking off on May 16, the Cannes Film Festival is around the corner, and the lineup was announced this morning alongside the names of six female filmmakers that will be participating this year that have films in competition. It’s a small number, but a new record for the festival.

Next month will see the Cannes Film Festival return and give us early glimpses of high-profile/awards-caliber films ahead of their official releases, and many will be premiered at the event. With that in mind, there are some interesting tidbits in a recent Screen Daily interview with Thierry Fremaux, the festival’s delegate general.

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here penning the weekly mailer a day after Cannes revealed its long-awaited lineup. Read on for all the details and plenty more, and sign up to the International Insider here.

Kicking off on May 16, the Cannes Film Festival is around the corner, and the lineup was announced this morning alongside the names of six female filmmakers that will be participating this year that have films in competition. It’s a small number, but a new record for the festival.

Stars are getting ready to walk the Croisette.

The Cannes Film Festival revealed the lineup for its 76th edition Thursday morning, and the Official Selection featured a record number of films directed by women filmmakers set to play in Competition.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” will screen out-of-competition on May 20, while James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the final installment in the franchise begun in 1982 by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, will also screen in an out-of-competition slot.French director and actress Maïwenn will have the opening-night film with “Jeanne du Barry,” which stars Johnny Depp in his first film since his court battle with Amber Heard. And Pedro Almodovar’s short film “Strange Way of Life,” which stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, was also confirmed in advance of Thursday’s announcement.Other films screening out of competition include “The Idol,” directed by Sam Levinson and starring The Weeknd, and “Occupied City,” a film about Amsterdam from British director Steve McQueen.The Un Certain Regard section, which is typically devoted to films from less established directors, includes Australian director Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy,” starring Cate Blanchett.Additional films are typically added to the Cannes lineup in the weeks leading up to the festival.