Polish Cinema’s Fall Festival Lineup Showcases Strength, Diversity of Its Growing Film Industry

Liza Foreman SAN SEBASTIAN – Top International business execs gathered on Tuesday at a rooftop venue, glistening in the Basque sunlight, for the second Creative Investors Conference at this week’s San Sebastian International Film Festival. The second panel of the day at this two-day confab, The Global Film Industry: State of the Union 2023 round table, was moderated by Roeg Sutherland, co-head, CAA Media Finance. Speakers took in Pete Czernin co-chairman of Blueprint Pictures, David Flynn, head of global drama at WIIP, Fionnuala Jamison, managing director of MK2, and Vincent Maraval, president of Goodfellas.

Agnieszka Holland’s migrant crisis drama Green Border has achieved the best opening weekend in Poland for a Polish film in 2023 in spite of a fierce political backlash from the country’s right-wing government.

EXCLUSIVE: Poland will submit animated feature drama The Peasants for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Christopher Vourlias Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland has remained defiant despite a wave of vicious political attacks and online hate speech as she prepares to release her Venice Special Jury Prize-winning refugee drama “Green Border” in Poland on Sept. 22.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has set a Halloween global premiere for Ralph Barbosa: Cowabunga, its first special from rising star comic Barbosa, which was shot in August as part of his ongoing North American tour. The hour-long special, taped at The Kessler Theater in Barbosa’s hometown of Dallas, TX, premieres globally on Tuesday, October 31st.

Lise Pedersen LYON, France — Four-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón and “Time Bandits” helmer Terry Gilliam will join a star director-studded lineup at this year’s Lumière Film Festival including Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne and Wim Wenders. Cuarón (“Roma,” “Gravity”) is returning to Lyon – where he was a guest of honor in 2018 – to present a selection of films by Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner (“Charles Dead or Alive,” “The Salamander,” “Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000”).

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Plans to axe several screen funding programs in Australia are “hard to comprehend” and will be a “disaster” for the country’s film and TV industry, the country’s producers body has warned.

The Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion has been given to a winner!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director According to Jerry Seinfeld, Rolling Stone’s recent exposé on Jimmy Fallon includes an “idiotic twisting of events.” The magazine published a report on Sept. 7 in which several former “Tonight Show” staff members claimed the series had a toxic work environment, which included alleged outbursts from Fallon himself. Two employees said they witnessed Fallon berate a crew member who was holding cue cards during a taping of the show with Seinfeld as a guest.

Christopher Vourlias Three decades ago, just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in a new era of hope and promise in Europe, Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland made the historical drama “Europa, Europa,” which follows the harrowing ordeal of a Jewish teenager who goes to impossible lengths to survive the Holocaust. The title, says Holland, was meant to express “the duality of the European tradition: Europe of our aspirations, the cradle of culture and civilization, the rule of law and democracy, human rights, equality and fraternity, but on the other hand, Europe as the cradle of the worst crimes against humanity, selfishness and hatred.” Throughout her career, the three-time Academy Award nominee has found inspiration in “the great and tragic subjects of the 20th century,” powered by the conviction that “history is relevant, that what happened is relevant,” Holland tells Variety.

Marta Balaga Controversy over Venice title “Green Border” continues to heat up as director Agnieszka Holland gave an ultimatum to Poland’s Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro following his comments about her film. According to the statement shared with Variety, Holland has hired the lawyers Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram and Michał Wawrynkiewicz.

Jung Kook of BTS will join the Global Citizen Festival lineup, making one of his first live solo appearances at the Sept. 23 concert in New York’s Central Park.

Even if the critical reactions have been mixed, Italian films have proven much stronger than usual at this year’s Venice Film Festival, with a notable resurgence of genre filmmaking in the likes of Adagio and Enea. Ironically, Matteo Garrone, the one local director in the selection whose actual stock in trade is genre of all stripes — gangster realism (Gomorrah, Dogman), satirical comedy (Reality), and baroque fantasy (Tale of Tales) — arrived this year with a blisteringly topical drama that might be his most traditional, and best, yet.

Christopher Vourlias Three-time Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland has called out a hard-right Polish minister who compared her refugee drama “Green Border” to Nazi propaganda, accusing him of “hate speech” and insisting that the Eastern European nation’s right-wing ruling party is “afraid” of her film’s damning portrayal of its response to the refugee crisis. The movie is competing for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival this week. “We expected that they would be furious.

Thania Garcia Jung Kook of BTS will make his solo debut on the Global Citizen Festival stage for the 2023 iteration, joining a lineup that also includes previously announced headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lauryn Hill, Anitta, Megan Thee Stallion, Stray Kids, Conan Gray and more. Taking place in New York City’s Central Park on Sept. 23, the Global Citizen Festival is a free, ticketed event that will be broadcast live and is driving urgent action to end extreme poverty by calling on world leaders to address the issue along with climate crisis and equity for women and girls.

As if to come to the aid of her national cinema after the debacle that was Roman Polanski’s The Palace, Poland’s Agnieska Holland, soon to turn 75, restores some of her homeland’s cultural dignity with a devastating exposé that angrily, and quite brilliantly, questions its humanity and political integrity. At 144 minutes, and in black and white, it is not exactly a Trojan horse, and its moral rigor does not come with a spoonful of sugar. But Green Border earns every second of that running time, and with a focus and energy that belies its directors age. Awards-wise, this may prove to be the international feature to beat.

Dancing with the Stars‘ 2023 season is kicking off in just a few weeks on ABC.

Lauren Lyle is best known for her role as Marsali MacKimmie Fraser in hit time-travelling drama Outlander and, most recently, as the titular detective in Karen Pirie.