‘Suzume’: Makoto Shinkai Animated Film To Stream Exclusively On Crunchyroll This November

Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir has made history at the 20th edition of Morocco’s Marrakech Film Festival as the first local director to win its top prize with her hybrid documentary The Mother Of All Lies.

EXCLUSIVE: Plan B Entertainment has started a new micro budget film finance initiative to produce and finance lower cost films which will be led by newly hired Caddy Vanasirikul. The veteran film producer and acquisition and production executive will manage Plan B’s forthcoming slate in this sector.

French director Maïwenn and Johnny Depp hit Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival on Friday for a special screening of period romance Jeanne du Barry followed by a Q&A.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The third edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, taking place in Jeddah between Nov. 30 – Dec. 9, will be the culmination of a highly successful funding cycle for the Red Sea Film Foundation.

Naman Ramachandran High powered global experts will feature at the inaugural edition of AniMela, India’s first-ever international festival for animation, VFX, XR, gaming and comics (AVGC-XR). The four-day event is by India’s Aniverse and Visual Arts Foundation (AVAF), which has partnered with the government of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and France’s Annecy International Animation Festival. As revealed by Variety, the festival will take place Jan.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Though the Red Sea Film Festival will feature a slew of films from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – including 11 feature films from Saudi Arabia – there is a rich roster of international fare set to launch locally from Jeddah. Kaleem Aftab, the festival’s director of international programming, says they received lots more submissions for this year’s third edition.

20,000 Species Of Bees, the debut film by Basque filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, and Society Of The Snow, J. A. Bayona’s survival drama for Netflix, have dominated the nominations at this year’s Goya Film Awards.

Belgian Oscar Entry ‘Omen’ Opens In France, Director Baloji Releases Soundtrack Inspired By Film 

Anna Marie de la Fuente Spain’s 7th Ibero-American Quirino Animation Awards has found its jury for next year, to be held over May 9-11. The jury is led by animation directors José Miguel Ribeiro from Portugal, Colombian Marcela Rincón and Wesley Louis (U.K.) alongside Zane Valeniece, director of acquisitions at Latvian public television (LTV) and Emmanuèle Petry, head of international sales at Dandelooo, France.

Naman Ramachandran Zee Studios‘ “Gandhi Talks,” directed by Kishor P. Belekar, had a sold out premiere at the 54th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa. The cast includes Aravind Swami, Vijay Sethupathi, Aditi Rao Hydari and Siddharth Jadhav.

Caroline Brew editor Makoto Shinkai discussed his inspirations for establishing the tone of “Suzume” and how he approached themes of natural disaster in a conversation for Variety’s Artisans Screening Series moderated by Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge and translated by Mikey McNamara. Shinkai revealed that with “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” being grouped together as “Barbenheimer,” he expected “Barbie” to carry a similar seriousness to “Oppenheimer.” Thus, he was surprised to see how comedic the film was.

Developments around AI continued to accelerate rapidly on Tuesday, as news emerged of an Edith Piaf biopic that will be the first crafted in animation through AI. The project, from Warner Music Entertainment and the production company Seriously Happy, is sanctioned by the iconic French musical artist’s estate, which will be a partner in its creation.

that has to do with perfume. It's no wonder, as the French have a long history with perfumes and traditions such as perfuming gloves or handkerchiefs as Hubert de Givenchy recommended and some contemporary French women continue to do.

Christopher Vourlias Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” won the Golden Alexander at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival on Sunday, marking the first time in 30 years that a Greek film took home the top honors at the country’s longest-running film event. Exarchou’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was praised by Variety’s Jessica Kiang as “a poignant portrait of life amid the sequins and the seediness of a Greek resort.” The film follows a group of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort preparing for the busy tourist season who are forced to wrestle with the dark reality that the show must go on as the sultry Mediterranean nights turn violent.

It wasn’t a tough decision for Anthony Willis when Emerald Fennell asked him to compose Saltburn, the drama that stars Barry Keoghan as a young and nerdy Oxford university student who becomes obsessed with a popular and wealthy student (Jacob Elordi).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief France and Taiwan on Thursday signed a wide-ranging agreement to enable their film and TV industries co-operate on a higher level. At a signing ceremony in Taipei at the Taiwan Creative Culture Fest (TCCF) convention, government representatives of both territories stressed shared values at the political level and in the audiovisual sphere.

Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and UK director Jonathan Glazer The Zone Of Interest lead the nominations in the main categories of the 36th European Film Awards which will take place in Berlin on December 9.

Crunchyroll has acquired the North American and select global theatrical rights for SPY x FAMILY CODE: White.Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment will bring the first film installment of the  television series that’s directed by Takashi Katagiri. written by Ichiro Okouchi, and the original story by Tatsuya Endo. The television series SPY x FAMILY originally debuted on April 9, 2022 and was quickly embraced by fans across the globe. The second season launched on October 7 on Crunchyroll.

EXCLUSIVE: Steven Soderbergh has dedicated more than four decades to shaping his legacy in Hollywood as a director, cinematographer and producer. But instead of splurging on yachts or a home in the South of France, he is investing in the future of independent filmmaking by mentoring directors like Joe and Anthony Russo, Christopher Nolan and most recently Eddie Alcazar. He and Alcazar’s second collaboration (after 2018’s Perfect) is Divinity, which hits theaters nationwide Friday after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Crunchyroll announced today a special one-day-only private pop-up installation MAKOTO SHINKAI: A Journey from Voices of a Distant Star through Suzume which will explore the complete works of Japanese animation filmmaker Makoto Shinkai.