The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) Salutes The Stage With Ceremony To Celebrate Broadway’s Impact On Hollywood

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has acquired all North American rights to the feature documentary Refuge from levelFILM, Katie Couric Media and Artemis Rising Foundation. The multi-platform entertainment distribution and production arm of Shout! Factory plans to release the film in theaters and across all major digital platforms early next year.

is no stranger to reinvention, and for her October 24 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the singer-songwriter seems to have reinvented herself as . Swift's three-piece black-and-white chevron Dorothee Schumacher suit pairs boot-cut trousers with a tailored blazer over a mock-neck turtleneck. She paired the look with a cherry-red lip (natch), hoops, and chunky black boots. Swift's ‘fit is a note-perfect exemplar of a look Keaton perfected in the 1970s and has maintained throughout every decade since.

Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel Life of Pi will premiere at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre with performances beginning Thursday, March 9, 2023, ahead of an official opening on Thursday, March 30, 2023.

Twenty years after it first arrived to shake up a complacent Broadway and make a Pulitzer Prize winner of its author Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog has lost none of its vitality and power and cunning. Director Kenny Leon proves that in a vibrant new production opening tonight at the Golden Theatre.

Black celebrities have been buying out theatres playing “The Woman King” so viewers can experience the film for free, something that the movie’s director says is “incredibly moving” to her.

EJ Panaligan editor To celebrate October being National Book Month, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation released a new promotional video for its reading initiative Storyline Online featuring actors and children’s literacy advocates Nancy Cartwright, Terry Crews, Rosario Dawson, Jennifer Garner, Joel McHale and Seth Meyers. Endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, the reading initiative also offers free educational activity guides aligned with Common Core Standards. The guides provide supplemental learning resources and support for teachers in classrooms, in addition to parents with school-aged children at home. “All kids need to know is that while you may have best friends out there in the real world, here at Storyline Online, you have book friends,” Garner says in the video.

Kicking off the nomination season, ‘Fire Of Love’ with seven and ‘Good Night Oppy’ with six lead all comers in nominations for the 7th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cinemed, the Mediterranean Cinema Film Festival, is partnering up with Lebanese film org Aflamuna / Beirut DC to launch a new co-production and co-financing initiative aimed at high-profile projects from the Arab world. The new program, which is also backed by France’s National Film Board and is part of the festival’s industry showcase Cinemed Meetings, will present seven projects involving 22 Arab countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Liban, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Syria, among others. All selected projects are currently in development and are being brought by filmmakers who have previously directed at least one short film.

Clayton Davis Director Gina Prince-Bythewood knows you can’t win an argument on Twitter. That’s why she stays off social media platforms and chose not to engage with users that were attacking her, and the filmmakers from her box office hit “The Woman King” for taking license in its depiction of the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries, and its role in the slave trade. “There was an absolute assumption we weren’t dealing with it,” Prince-Bythewood says. “So much of the argument is based on bad facts. So, what the ‘Wikipedia historians’ are parroting is history written from the wrong point of view.” Listen below:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Novelist Amy Tan and Oscar-winning “Rain Man” screenwriter Ron Bass are on board to deliver a sequel to “The Joy Luck Club,” the 1993 movie that broke new ground for Asian American representation. The new film, “Joy Luck Club 2,” is set up at Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group, with Ashok and Priya Amritraj producing alongside Tan, Bass and Jeff Kleeman. A director hasn’t been announced yet. The original “Joy Luck Club,” directed by Wayne Wang, was an epic, multigenerational saga of Chinese and Chinese-American mothers and daughters, whose histories, stories and lives interweave as they navigate life. Club members included characters played by Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu and Kieu Chinh. The ensemble cast also included Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao and Russell Wong.

William Earl “Death of a Salesman” actor Wendell Pierce, “The Piano Lesson” director LaTanya Richardson Jackson and “Till” star John Douglas Thompson are among the honorees set for the inaugural Salute to Broadway presented by the African American Film Critics Association. The event is set for Oct. 17 at The Lambs Club in the heart of Midtown’s theater district. “It’s no secret that some of our greatest actors have come from the stage or have tested their chops on it,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder of AAFCA. “Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are just a handful of our beloved icons for which this was true, with Tony winners Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Audra McDonald, Adrienne Warren and Myles Frost among those continuing that legacy. As a reliable pipeline for outstanding Black talent in front of the camera as well as behind it, Hollywood has benefited greatly from this esteemed training ground and AAFCA Salutes Broadway celebrates that rich heritage.”

Angela Lansbury, one of the most beloved and acclaimed actors of stage, film and television, died at her Los Angeles home today in her sleep, just five days short of her 97th birthday.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired domestic distribution rights to “Sweetwater,” a recently completed feature about Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, the first African American to land an NBA contract. The drama is written and directed by Martín Guigui and stars newcomer Everett Osborne as Clifton. The ensemble includes veteran actors such as Kevin Pollak, Cary Elwes, Jeremy Piven, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Ri’chard. There are also special appearances by Gary Clark Jr., Jim Caviezel and NBA champion Bobby Portis Jr.  The film follows Clifton (Osborn), who is the star attraction of the Harlem Globetrotters, led by owner/coach Abe Saperstein (Pollak). When New York Knicks executive Ned Irish (Elwes) and Knicks coach Joe Lapchick (Piven) decide it is time for the Knicks to integrate, with the support of NBA President Maurice Podoloff (Dreyfuss), they come together with the other team owners of the league to make history. Briarcliff will give the film a wide theatrical release on April 14, 2023. 

Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s classic tragedy of the American Dream gone sour, is revitalized and given room to encompass the Black experience in director Miranda Cromwell’s intriguing production opening at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway tonight. Boasting flat-out terrific performances – Wendell Pierce as Willie Loman and the amazing Sharon D Clarke as his wife Linda – this Death of a Salesman doesn’t so much reinvent Miller’s masterpiece as open its doors to perspectives that enrich the material.

Marilyn Stasio Theater Critic In the new Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” Wendell Pierce’s powerhouse performance firmly identifies Willy Loman as a tragic hero for these modern times. It’s a searing portrait of a working-class man who has struggled all his life to achieve. Not a man who works with his hands, or on an assembly line, but a man — a Black man — who goes to work in a suit and is welcomed wherever he goes by clients who greet him with a grin and a handshake. As a traveling salesman, he has dignity, respect and a shot at the American Dream, so long as he maintains his footing on the ladder of success — and pulls up his two sons behind him. If Willy should lose his job, he’ll lose that dignity, that respect, that place in society which defines him as a successful Black man in a white man’s world.

Boris Johnson, Ben Goldsmith is keeping up with the former PM when it comes to children. The financier son of late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith is celebrating the birth of his seventh child. He and his wife, model-turned-society caterer Jemima, have named their son Vincent.