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Jamie Lang Spanish animation is experiencing a historic boom. Shorts and features from the country are achieving notable success at festivals and the box office, while Spanish artists are contributing to some of the most influential film and TV productions coming from Hollywood today. The question now is what steps should be taken to build on recent success.

Jamie Lang The first significant deal at last year’s Marché du Film was Neon’s acquisition of Pablo Berger’s eventual Oscar nominee, “Robot Dreams.” Whether or not another Spanish animated film can have that kind of impact in 2024 remains to be seen, but there is a long list of contenders to consider. Perhaps the buzziest Spanish title at this year’s market is adult animation auteur Alberto Vázquez’s “Decorado,” sold by French powerhouse Le Pacte. Like his previous titles, “Decorado” is based on a Vázquez short adapted from one of his graphic novels.

When Hayao Miyazaki’s long-awaited and supposed swansong The Boy and the Heron opened at No. 1 at the North American box office last December with a record-breaking $12.8 million tally, it was not only the first original anime title to achieve such a feat, but it was the biggest ever opening for U.S. distributor Gkids. It kickstarted what would be a whirlwind few months for the now 16-year-old company as it took the Studio Ghibli film, (which had opened the Toronto Film Festival in September) to an enormous $46.7 million box office gross (more than double their initial projections) in North America and, later a Best Animation win at the Oscars.

A glowing brain, world leaders lost in the woods, a U.S President with a glaring British accent, oh, and bog men — mummies whose manhood has been severed and wrapped around their necks. Such are the sundries of Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson’s political comedy Rumours here at Cannes.

Alex Ritman Julianne Moore says the film industry has “changed dramatically” since she started out in the early 1990s when it comes to female representation. Speaking as part of Kering’s Women in Motion program at the Cannes Film Festival, the Oscar winner said one of the most noticeable differences is when it comes to career longevity for actresses. “Meryl [Streep] said this too the other day [during the festival’s opening ceremony], this idea that when she was 40, she thought it was all going to be over,” she said.

Emma Stone is set to team up with Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos again on the upcoming film Bugonia.Stone and Lanthimos are currently in Cannes to attend the premiere of another new collaboration, Kinds of Kindness, where they have announced their next project.Bugonia will be the pair’s fifth combination, following on from The Favourite, the short film Bleat, Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness. It is set to co-star Jesse Plemons, who also appears in Kinds of Kindness, which gets a UK release on June 28.Bugonia will be based on a 2003 sci-fi film from South Korea named Save The Green Planet!, and it will tell the story of a group of conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO that they believe is trying to destroy the Earth.Earlier this year, Stone picked up her second Oscar for Poor Things, following on from her success for La La Land in 2017.Promoting the film, Stone went out of her way to respond to those who suggested that it was sexist and exploitative.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Focus Features has bought international rights to “Hamlet,” Aneil Karia’s London-set modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s famed play starring Oscar winner Riz Ahmed. Morfydd Clark (“Saint Maud,” “Rings of Power”) and Joe Alwyn (“Kinds of Kindness”) also star in the film, which wrapped production at the end of last year and was acquired by Focus Features some time ago. CAA is repping North American rights, while WME Independent handled international sales.

Gregg Goldstein Raoul Peck‘s life is as fascinating as his films, filled with unexpected twists and turns. From his early stints as a cab driver and journalist, to a minister of culture post in his native Haiti, to teaching, to founding his Velvet Film production shingle to his breakthrough when he earned an Oscar nomination as producer/director with the James Baldwin doc, “I Am Not Your Negro,” the common denominator is Peck’s drive to make life better through his work.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Spain’s Latido Films has clinched world sales rights to “Sacamantecas,” the third feature by writer-director David Pérez Sañudo, whose Latido-repped debut feature, “Ane,” swept three Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2021. Latido is already handling Pérez Sañudo’s second feature, “Los últimos románticos,” which it announced at the Berlin Film Festival as the first title in a two-picture deal with Sañudo.

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Kinds of Kindness hasn’t even arrived yet, but the pair has already lined up their next collaboration!

Cate Blanchett is looking stunning on the red carpet at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival!

Danny DeVito is opening up about plans for his new movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Yorgos Lanthimos can’t stop (won’t stop!) working with Oscar winner Emma Stone, casting the actress once again as leading lady for his next project “Bugonia.” The drama will also star Jesse Plemons who, along with Stone, appears in Lanthimos’ forthcoming “Kinds of Kindness.” That three-chapter feature just premiered on Friday at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “Bugonia” follows two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. The script is from heat-seeking “Succession” and “The Menu” writer Will Tracy.

Everyone wanted to know about the nudity and bawdy sex scenes in Searchlight’s Kinds of Kindness at the pic’s riotous Cannes Film Festival press conference Saturday but politely referred to it as “physicality.”

Following four Oscar wins just a few months ago for his Emma Stone-starrer Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos unveiled his latest feature at Cannes‘ Grand Theatre Lumiere this evening. His three-hour absurdist anthology Kinds of Kindness, also starring Stone as well as Willem Dafoe and Jesse Plemons, reaped a six-minute ovation.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominee Bill Nighy (Living), Indie Spirit nominee Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place I & II), BAFTA nominee George MacKay (1917) and BAFTA nominee Matt Smith (The Crown) are set to star in acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker Pablo Trapero’s (El Clan) English-language movie debut & Sons, which is being scripted by Oscar winner Sarah Polley (Women Talking).

arrived at the premiere of Kinds of Kindness, her third film in collaboration with writer and director Yorgos Lanthimos, dressed in a stunning shimmery Louis Vuitton gown in the deep-V silhouette she's all but made her signature. The intricate beading almost created the illusion of velvet or chenille, adding to the overall uber luxe vibe.The rich burgundy color complemented her auburn hair, which she wore in loose waves that just brushed her collarbone.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Neon has bought North American rights to “The Unknown” (“L’Inconnue”), the hotly anticipated next movie from “Anatomy of a Fall”’s Oscar-winning co-writer Arthur Harari. As revealed by Variety earlier this week, the movie will star Léa Seydoux (“Dune 2”) and is being represented in international markets. Harari is rolling off of “Anatomy of a Fall” which he co-wrote with director Justine Triet, abd won an Oscar, two Golden Globes, a BAFTA and the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Surreal. That’s how Misan Harriman describes his first time at the Academy Awards earlier this year. Six years before, his wife had bought him a Fujifilm X100 for his 40th birthday and encouraged him to start taking pictures with it. Then there he was, surrounded by the global industry’s most overachieving, himself an Oscar-nominated director.

There have been countless books written about the immortal star, Elizabeth Taylor, even some credited to her as both memoir or autobiography including 1989’s “Elizabeth On Elizabeth”. But a book released on January 1, 1965 probably comes closest to a pure autobiography, and looking at the cover it simply says “Elizabeth Taylor by Elizabeth Taylor”. It is a by the numbers account of her life through her own words up until that point, but the fact is it was actually written by Richard Meryman, a journalist credited with among other things the last interview with Marilyn Monroe (published two days before her August 4, 1962 death). Meryman got Taylor to sit for some taped recorded sessions in 1964 out which he would be able to write the book as if Taylor did it herself. Now exactly 60 years later those presumed “lost” tape recordings have been found and cleared for release by Taylor’s and Meryman’s estates. They have been in fact in Meryman’s wife’s possession all these years, but now filmmaker Nanette Burstein (Hillary, The Kid Stays In The Picture) has rediscovered a treasure trove of about 40 hours of interview in order to produce the new HBO Documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes“.

Drag Race Mexico is getting a new co-host for season two!

Kevin Spacey is facing another sexual assault trial in the UK next year, but today the two-time Oscar winner saw some major star power in his corner.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sharon Stone, Liam Neeson and more actors are coming to the defense of Kevin Spacey and calling for his return to the industry at large. Spacey has not worked in Hollywood since being accused by several men of sexual misconduct starting in 2017. The two-part documentary “Spacey Unmasked” recently aired in the U.K.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent A key driver in Brazil’s late 1990s cinema resurgence, Globo Filmes has co-produced iconic box office blockbusters, Oscar and “A” Fest plays, arthouse breakouts. movies sparking big TV spin-offs.

Kevin Costner‘s two-part Western epic “Horizon: An American Saga,” which makes its world premiere in the Out of Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival, has been acquired in France by Metropolitan FilmExport, one of the country’s biggest distributors. Daniel Baur’s K5 Intl. is handling international rights.

Late in the highly entertaining and enlightening new HBO Documentary Films movie on the life and career of Faye Dunaway we learn how much this iconic star just loves coming to the Cannes Film Festival. “Just about every year,” she says not only for the world’s best films but also to immerse herself in all aspects of filmmaking. In fact I have seen her many times just soaking it all up cinematically both here in Cannes and Telluride to name two fests. So it seems appropriate that the Cannes Classics section would be the place for the World Premiere Wednesday night (in the presence of Dunaway as the French like to call it) of this terrific new docu in which Dunaway pretty much tells it all straight about her life, loves, desires, ambitions, movies, co-stars, depression, controversies, family, and hopes for the future in a profession she says she can’t imagine not working in.

EXCLUSIVE: Activist Artists Management has signed Chilean actress Renata González Spralja (The Wave) for representation, with Bernie Cahill and Justin Deanda to run point for the new client.

Since their beginnings in 1979, George Miller‘s hyper-jacked Mad Max movies with Mel Gibson had not received a single Oscar nomination, not even for Tina Turner’s great signature song “We Don’t Need Another Hero” in 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome. But then, 30 years later, when finally the fourth and Gibson-less edition appeared, the snooty Academy got on board and gave the newly regenerated Mad Max: Fury Road 10 nominations including for Best Picture and Director. It won six of them, virtually sweeping the crafts categories.

Brent Lang Executive Editor When Andrew Karpen wants to convince a filmmaker to let him release their movie, he doesn’t blow them away by offering more and more money. For one thing, Bleecker Street, the indie studio he founded in 2014, doesn’t have the financial firepower of an Apple or a Netflix.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh looks to have found his next director outing as well as landing an top tier star to lead the film as sources tell Deadline Emmy and BAFTA winner Jodie Comer is set to star in Branagh’s new film The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, which he wrote and will direct. The film is being described as a contemporary psychological thriller but logline is being kept under wraps. The independently financed film will begin production in August in the UK.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Neon, the indie studio behind “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Parasite,” has made a pair of key promotions. Elissa Federoff has been named chief distribution officer, having previously served as president of distribution, while Ryan Friscia has been upped to chief financial officer, having previously served as the company’s EVP of finance and business development.

Cannes Film Festival, Oscar winner Meryl Streep opened up about one of her most iconic on-screen moments — the shampoo scene from “Out of Africa.” The 1986 Sydney Pollack film starred Streep and Robert Redford as a baroness and a big game hunter who fall in love in a lush desert romance. In what is considered one of the most intimate moments in movie history, Redford gives Streep a steamy salon scrub in a South African river. The actress went so far as to call the moment a sex scene.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor After four Oscar wins for “All Quiet on the Western Front” last year and the Oscar nomination for “The Teachers’ Lounge” this year, Germany’s film sector seemed to be on the up, but while a government plan to revamp the country’s film funding system is broadly welcomed, its painfully slow progress is also causing some anxiety. The fact that Cannes’ various sections contain not one feature by a German filmmaker may be seen as a cause for concern, but 13 German productions and co-productions have been selected.

Naman Ramachandran The Seattle-based Tasveer Film Festival has unveiled several high-profile partner sponsors for its inaugural South Asian film market, ahead of its launch at the Cannes Film Festival. The sponsors include Amazon, NBCUniversal Launch, Film Companion, credit union BECU, civil liberties organization ACLUWA, University of Washington South Asia Center and Bully Media. The newly rechristened Tasveer Film Festival & Market will take place Oct.

Meryl Streep has made her big arrival for her 2024 Cannes Film Festival photo call!