Sundance Winner ‘Utama’ Takes Top Prize at Transilvania Film Festival

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentFernando Franco’s coming of age drama “The Rite of Spring” and Mikel Gurrea’s rural drama “Suro” will vie for the top Golden Seashell at September’s 70th San Sebastian Festival, the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world. Also making the cut are Jaime Rosales’s female emancipation tale “Wild Flowers” and Pilar Palomero’s teen motherhood story “La Maternal.”The four titles form part of a Spanish film line-up which looks to be “the strongest Spanish movie presence at San Sebastian in the 11 years I’ve been directing the festival,” San Sebastian director José Luis Rebordinos said on Friday.One or two more Spanish films could still be added to the selection, including one more in New Directors, he went on. Galvanizing the selection is new talent.

EXCLUSIVE: The latest casting round of tributes and mentors in Lionsgate’s prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes includes Irene Boehm, Cooper Dillon, Luna Kuse, Kjell Brutscheidt, Dimitri Abold, Athena Strates, Dakota Shapiro, George Somner and Vaughan Reilly.

British Independent Film Awards are doing away with gendered “actor” and “actress” performance categories. Following in the footsteps of other awards organizations like the Berlin Film Festival, the MTV Movie Awards and the BRITs – and in the midst of a growing insistence within some major American academies to do the same – actors of all genders will be eligible for its gender-neutral recognitions, including best lead performance and best supporting performance. Along with this shake-up, more nominees will be named for each category.

The British Independent Film Awards is making some changes for its 25th anniversary, going gender-neutral with its acting categories as it also adds new performance awards, a new debut director category for feature documentaries, and two new music prizes.

Marta Balaga SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you intend to watch the film.Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski isn’t afraid of the subject of his latest film “Fools,” even though he focuses on an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son, played by Dorota Kolak and Łukasz Simlat.“It was never my intention to shock anyone. I just wanted to tell the story of the hardest love of all,” the Polish director tells Variety.“Fools,” produced by Extreme Emotions and lensed by Romanian DP Oleg Mutu, is set to premiere in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s new section Proxima.

Naman Ramachandran The world Premiere of local filmmaker Tearepa Kahi’s action-drama “Muru” will open the Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin chapters of the New Zealand International Film Festival, while American filmmaker Sara Dosa’s Sundance-winning documentary “Fire of Love” will open all the other festival locations, which include Gore, Hamilton, Hawke’s Bay, Masterton, Matakana, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Tauranga and Timaru. Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning “Triangle of Sadness” will close the festival in all centers.Other Cannes titles joining the lineup include Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Queer Palm winner “Joyland,” from Saim Sadiq and “Sick of Myself,” by Kristoffer Borgli. Award winners from this year’s Berlin International Film Festival include Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs,” by Carla Simón and Natalia López Gallardo’s Silver Bear jury winning “Robe of Gems.” Other local films include Fergus Grady and Noel Smyth’s “Gloriavale,” Tom Levesque’s “Shut Eye” and New Zealand-U.S.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAlbert Serra’s “Pacifiction” has lured major distributors around the world following its critically acclaimed world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Berlin-based Films Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom,” “Charlatan”) is representing the film in international markets.“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.

Courtney Barnett and Animal Collective are among the leading names in the first wave of acts to be announced for Pitchfork Music Festival London 2022.The event will return for its second London edition from November 9-13 and will take places in a number of London venues, including The Roundhouse and EartH.Over 50 artists will perform during the five days of Pitchfork Music Festival London 2022, including the aforementioned Barnett and Animal Collective.Faye Webster, Jenny Hval, Cate Le Bon, Desire, William Basinski, Injury Reserve, KOKOKO!, Dehd, Anjimile, Big Joanie, Club Intl, Billy Woods, Girlpool, Lyra Pramuk, Sister Ray, Léa Sen, They Hate Change, Jordana, Marina Herlop, Lido Pimienta, Fake Fruit, Guerilla Toss and Johanna Warren will also perform during this year’s event series.More acts will be announced for Pitchfork Music Festival London 2022 in the coming weeks and months.Tickets for each Pitchfork Music Festival London event will be sold separately, with general sale beginning tomorrow (July 1) at 10am from here.“We’re thrilled to be today announcing our first incredible artists for the second Pitchfork Festival London – and to be part of a growing family of events now in Paris and Berlin in the same period,” Dan Monsell, Co-Managing Director at the festival’s promoters FORM Concerts, said in a statement.“We were blown away by the reception to the launch of Pitchfork Festival in the UK last year, and we can’t wait to develop the event into its second year.

Wilson Chapman editorThe Maui Film Festival has announced the slate of films and honorees for its 22nd annual edition.The 2022 festival will feature the Maui premieres of 13 feature films, including “McCurry: The Pursuit of Color,” “Gratitude Revealed,” “Facing Monsters,” “The Story of Everything,” “Pretty Problems,” “Kapo,” “Tango Shalom” and “Pe’Ahi.” The festival opener will be a special surprise, with the film remaining a secret until the screening on July 6.The in-person festival will take place at the outdoors Stardust Cinema, featuring live music, Kahiko style hula and other activities. In addition, 80 short and feature films will be available to stream online through the festival’s Speed-of-Light Virtual Cinema from July 6-31.

Christopher Vourlias Bogdan George Apetri’s “Miracle” took home the top prize in the Romanian Days competition at the Transilvania Intl. Film Festival, which saw nine first-time directors among the 12 filmmakers competing in the annual showcase of domestic cinema.It’s the first time such a formidable number of debuts have featured in the competition, offering a snapshot of what the fest’s artistic director Mihai Chirilov describes as a “balanced landscape” of new and established voices in Romania’s celebrated film industry.It’s been nearly two decades since Cristi Puiu’s “The Death of Mr.

The Bentonville Film Festival announces the jury prize winners for their 8th annual Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: WME has signed Eric Warren Singer, one of the screenwriters behind Paramount’s summer smash Top Gun: Maverick.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor“The Tourist,” starring Jamie Dornan, won best series Tuesday at the Golden Nymphs Awards, handed out at the conclusion of the 61st Monte-Carlo Television Festival.The show, created and written by Harry and Jack Williams, is a British thriller with comedy moments centering on the theme of identity. It was also given the best creation prize and the BetaSeries public prize.Germany’s “Martha Liebermann,” a drama about a German-Jewish woman in Nazi-era Berlin standing up for her values while risking her life, won best TV film, and Thekla Carola Wied, who plays the titular character, won best actress.Ulrich Thomsen, the lead from Nordic crime drama “Trom” won best actor.

Christopher Vourlias Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, whose feature debut “Pamfir” premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight section, and director and former political prisoner Oleh Sentsov (“Rhino”) are among the Ukrainian filmmakers who say they’re “distraught” by the inclusion of a Russian film in the main competition at the Transilvania Film Festival.In a statement posted on Monday to the Facebook page for “Pamfir,” the filmmakers spoke out against the selection of Russian director Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution” as one of 12 features competing for the Transilvania Trophy, criticizing the “illusion of cultural reconciliation” created by the festival’s decision and insisting that “art does not exist outside of politics.” The filmmakers noted that Kvataniya’s psychological thriller was produced with the support of the state-backed Russian Film Fund as well as Kinoprime, the $100 million film fund bankrolled by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by the U.K.

Naman Ramachandran Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second weekend in a row with £5.7 million ($7 million) for a total of £21.7 million, according to numbers released by Comscore.In its fourth weekend, Paramount’s Tom Cruise vehicle “Top Gun: Maverick” collected a lofty £4.2 million in second place to soar to £57.3 million.Disney’s Toy Story franchise film “Lightyear” debuted in third place with £3.7 million, while Lionsgate’s critically acclaimed “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande” debuted in fourth position with £238,640.Rounding off the top five was Disney’s “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” in its seventh weekend for a total of £41.8 million.

Katherine Tulich Lukas Dhont’s “Close,” which won the Grand Prix in Cannes last month, picked up the Sydney Film Prize, the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival, on Sunday evening.Accepting the award via video message Dhont said: “It’s a film that comes from our hearts, that we worked on for a lot of years with many people.”The international jury consisted of Australian actor David Wenham, Australian director Jennifer Peedom, writer-director-producer Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (Bangladesh), Berlin Golden Bear winner Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey), and the executive director of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute in Tokyo, Yuka Sakano (Japan). Twelve titles in the official competition included Carla Simon’s “Alcarras”, Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland”, Colm Bairead’s “The Quiet Girl” and Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze.” The winner is awarded AUD$60,000 ($41,600).

Directors Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre take home the top prize for their animated film Little Nicholas–Happy as Can Be at the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. 

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentStudiocanal has signed a film output deal with Scanbox Entertainment, one of the Nordics’ leading all-rights distribution banner. The pact will see Studiocanal’s current slate of films released in the Nordics, including Cédric Klapisch’s “Rise” (pictured), Claude Zidi Jr.’s comedy “Tenor,” Eric Lartigau’s coming-of-age story “This One Summer” based on the New York Times bestseller graphic novel of the same name, and Isaki Lacuesta’s “One Year, One Night” which was produced by Studiocanal’s Bambú Producciones and world premiered at Berlin.

Christopher Vourlias When Dumitrana Lupu took over as the head of the Transilvania Film Festival’s industry program earlier this year, she was tasked with a two-fold mission of continuing to discover and boost emerging talents from the host country, as well as ensuring that the Romanian festival remains a vital meeting place for filmmakers from Southeastern Europe and the surrounding region.To do so, she and the organizing team revamped some of TIFF’s industry sections while ensuring that long-running programs provide continuity for a festival that unspools its 21st edition from June 17 – 26.With a focus on the Black Sea region and its neighboring countries, the Transilvania Pitch Stop has emerged as one of the leading co-production and co-financing platforms for the region’s filmmakers. Among the films supported by the TPS since its inception in 2014 include “Apples,” by Greece’s Christos Nikou, which opened the Horizons sidebar of the Venice Film Festival; “The Man Who Surprised Everyone,” a Horizons prize winner from Russia’s Alexey Chupov; and “La Civil,” by Teodora Ana Mihai, which won the Prize of Courage in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar last year.