Cinema Guild Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Debora Stratman’s well-received latest Last Things, which premiered in the New Frontiers section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for Portuguese director Pedro Costa’s short film The Daughters of Fire, following its buzzy world premiere in Cannes this year.

Finecut.“In Our Day” marks Hong’s 12th film to premiere at Cannes, where he most recently unveiled “In Front of Your Face” in 2021. Cinema Guild now handles 20 films by the director.

Hong Sangam is soo’s In Our Day, the closing night film at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, has sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights for Belgian director Bas Devos’s film Here which won best film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section last month as well as the Fipresci prize.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has nabbed North American rights to the feature doc Our Body directed by Venice prize winner Claire Simon (The Competition), which premiered to critical acclaim at last month’s Berlin Film Festival before touching down stateside at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight as well as True/False. Pic is slated for release in theaters later this year.

Hong Sang-soo’s latest film, “In Water,” has been bought by Cinema Guild for North American distribution on the heels of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. The film played in the Encounters section and is expected to have its North American premiere at a festival later this year. Cinema Guild will be releasing “In Water” theatrically. Described by Cinema Guild as Hong’s “most overtly experimental work to date,” “In Water” follows Seongmo (Shin Seokho), a young man who recently gave up acting and has decided to make a film with his own money. He and his two friends venture to the rocky shores of a large island to shoot the movie together. His former classmate, Sangguk (Ha Seongguk), will operate the camera and Namhee (Kim Seungyun) will act in it. The only problem is that Seongmo hasn’t decided what to make. As he wanders in the rocks and wind, Seongmo searches inspiration but what he finds is a young woman picking up trash. And that’s all he needs.

American distribution following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its North American festival premiere later this year. The film tells the story of a a pair of wayward young people who abandon theirnewborn child on a stormy night in the mountains of Greece. Taken in by a family of farmers, Jon grows up without knowing his father or mother. Years later, after a tragic accident, he is sent to prison, where he meets Iro. The two form a connection, expressed through music, that will, by turns, haunt them and uphold them the rest of their days. Freely inspired by the story of Oedipus, Schanelec’s latest is as terrifying as myth and as gentle as a folk song.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has picked up U.S. rights to the Jacquelyn Mills-directed Berlin prize winner Geographies of Solitude with plans to open the documentary in theaters next year, beginning with a run at New York City’s Anthology Film Archives from January 25- 31.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has picked up U.S. rights to the documentary Sansón and Me, directed by Rodrigo Reyes (499), which won Best Film at Sheffield DocFest in June after world premiering in Tribeca. The film has been slated for release in theaters next year, beginning with a run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on March 3.

Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for Human Flowers of Flesh directed by Helena Wittmann (Drift).

Hong Sangsoo’s film Walk Up has been acquired by Cinema Guild, the distributor confirmed today. The movie will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month and will also play in competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Cinema Guild will open the film in theaters next year following its release of Hong’s other 2022 title, The Novelist’s Film.

EJ Panaligan editorCinema Guild has acquired the North American distribution rights for Hong Sangsoo’s upcoming film “Walk Up.” The film will world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and will also play in competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Cinema Guild will open the film in theaters in 2023 following its release of Hong’s other 2022 title, “The Novelist’s Film,” this fall.Kwon Haehyo, in his ninth film for Hong, plays Byungsoo, a film director who goes with his daughter, an aspiring interior designer, to a building owned by an old friend who is already established in the design field.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Juan Pablo González’s fiction feature debut, Dos Estaciones, which won a special jury award for lead actor Teresa Sánchez’s performance when it premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to Cane Fire, an award-winning documentary from director Anthony Banua-Simon, with plans to release it in theaters across the U.S., beginning with a New York theatrical premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 20.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Payal Kapadia’s “A Night of Knowing Nothing” which won the Golden Eye award for best documentary at Cannes.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKorean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s “In Front of Your Face” is assured of a release in the U.S. following a rights deal between sales agent Finecut and distributor the Cinema Guild.“In Front of Your Face” will have its world premiere in competition in Cannes and plays late on the second week of the festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights to Rock Bottom Riser, a documentary that received a Special Mention from the Encounters jury at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival where it premiered earlier this month. It’s the first film by Fern Silva, who wrote, directed, and produced the documentary. Cinema Guild has slated it for a 35mm theatrical tour planned for 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has secured the North American distribution rights to Expedition Content, a documentary that premiered in the Forum section at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and had its U.S. debut as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real. Directed by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, the doc will be released in theaters later this year.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCinema Guild has acquired North American rights to Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s “The Girl and the Spider” which world premiered at the Berlinale in the Encounters section, and won best director. “The Girl and the Spider” was co-written and directed by Ramon Zürcher, and written and produced by Silvan Zürcher.

Cinema Guild has picked up U.S. distribution rights to Introduction, the new film from acclaimed South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo (The Woman Who Ran) thatpremiered in competition this week at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Cinema Guild has taken U.S. rights to Introduction, Hong Sangsoo’s latest feature that was selected in this year’s competition program at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Cinema Guild has picked up the U.S. rights to Mischa Richter’s I Am a Town, a debut feature documentary about distinctive outsider personalities in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentRodrigo Reyes’ Tribeca prize-winning documentary feature “499” has been acquired by Cinema Guild for U.S. distribution, Variety has learned exclusively.The film was selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival where it won the best cinematography award in the documentary competition.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired all U.S. distribution rights to the Lynne Sachs-directed documentary Film About a Father Who, which made its world premiere in January as the opening night film at the Slamdance Film Festival. The film is set to open at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image on January 15, 2021, alongside a retrospective of Sachs’ work. It will also be available in virtual cinemas across the country.

Anthony D'Alessandro Editorial Director/Box Office EditorEXCLUSIVE:  Cinema Guild has picked up all U.S. distribution rights to Jia Zhangke’s documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue.The Chinese film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February and made its U.S.

Anthony D'Alessandro Editorial Director/Box Office EditorEXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights to Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella which won a special jury mention in the Encounters section at the 70th Berlinale earlier this year.

By Dino-Ray Ramos

By Dave McNary

By Amanda N'Duka