EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Emilio Estevez’s The Way: Chapter 2, reuniting the actor-director with the cast members of his original 2010 hit, father Martin Sheen, Yorick Van Wageningen and James Nesbitt.
20.01.2024 - 15:17 / deadline.com
Swiss film producers and financiers Karl Spoerri and Viviana Vezzani have been Sundance regulars for more than 15 years, but this edition is special.
The pair, who were driving forces behind the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) up until 2019, are in Park City this year with Thelma, which is the first feature from their new company Zurich Avenue to make it into Sundance.
Josh Margolin’s action-comedy-drama, starring 94-year-old June Squibb as a L.A. grandmother who sets off on a friend’s mobility scooter on a mission to track down an Internet scammer, is proving one of the early hits of the festival.
“On a personal level, it’s very meaningful because Sundance was always a big influence for us at the Zurich Film Festival from the start,” says Vezzani.
“We always loved going as programmers so getting Thelma accepted at Sundance was a dream come true.”
Former ZFF co-founder and artistic director Spoerri recalls their first trip to Sundance in 2008 as also being memorable because it was where they fired off an email to Oliver Stone asking whether be interested in financing for W out of Zurich.
“It was a key moment. We were in the fourth year of the Zurich Film Festival and starting to move into production financing,” he says of their first push into film producing and financing under the banner of Millbrook Pictures from 2008 to 2011.
Having spearheaded ZFF over the course of 14 years, the pair resigned from the festival in 2019.
They announced the launch of Zurich and L.A.-based development and production company Zurich Avenue in 2022, specializing in developing and creating high-end, filmmaker-driven feature films, TV series and documentaries with international potential.
Alongside Thelma, its credits to date include Bill
EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Emilio Estevez’s The Way: Chapter 2, reuniting the actor-director with the cast members of his original 2010 hit, father Martin Sheen, Yorick Van Wageningen and James Nesbitt.
Laura Jane Grace has spoken to NME about her new album ‘Hole In My Head’, reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the seminal punk album ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’ and the possibility of new Against Me! music.The musician was speaking to NME from her new house in Chicago where she lives with her wife comedian Paris Campbell – who she married last December. Grace is best known as the frontwoman of anarcho-punk group Against Me!, and is also notable for being one of the most visible transgender women in punk rock today, coming out in 2012.The musician will soon release ‘Hole In My Head’, her second solo album written during the pandemic.
-winning singer-songwriter and, more recently, as a runner-up. But you may not know about his years moonlighting as a farmer. (Yes, really.) in San Diego is home to avocados, passionfruit, and—most importantly—coffee, which is a big part of the musician's life.“I've learned a lot from planting trees.
It’s January and whilst most are focused on awards season being in full swing, it is also the start of festival season. Right now the fortieth edition of Sundance is underway, and while THN can’t be there in person, we will be bringing you a round up of what we have been able to access virtually. First up for review is the rather eccentric Krazy House from Dutch duo Steffan Haars and Flip Van der Kuli.Krazy House screens as part of the Midnight strand of programming, which embraces films with an affinity for the macabre or weird.
EXCLUSIVE: WTFilms has snapped up international sales rights for Dutch directorial duo Steffan Haars and Flip Van Der Kuil’s English-language debut Krazy House following its world premiere at Sundance.
There are just a few hours to go until the all-important final of The Traitors after an entertaining second series. Tonight (January 26) viewers will find out if the remaining Traitors, Harry and Andrew, will be victorious and steal the money, or if the final Faithfuls, Evie, Jaz and Mollie, will suss them out in time to win the prize pot.
Marta Balaga Ahead of its 41st edition, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s industry event CineMart isn’t interested in uniformity. “The trend is diversity,” says head of IFFR Pro Alessia Acone.
The Armed have announced a 2024 UK and European tour which is set to begin this summer.The band will kick off their tour with a performance at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival on May 30. From there, Tony Wolski and co.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) opens this evening with New Zealand director Jonathan Olgilvie’s coming-of-age tale Head South set against the late 1970s, post-punk music culture of his home city of Christchurch.
EXCLUSIVE: The Ford Foundation is coming through for documentary filmmakers in a big way.
The Church of Satan would like to make it clear that members don’t worship the Devil, nor do they believe Satan is real. What they do believe in, and the rituals they practice, emerge in the documentary Realm of Satan, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
It starts innocuously enough. “Krazy House,” the English-language debut of Dutch filmmakers Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil, launches with a ‘90s family sitcom parody that ribs their cheese and cringe.
China began loosening its one-child policy in 2015 until finally, in 2021, it abolished all restrictions on the number of children a family could have. Young Chinese filmmakers are beginning to grapple with the fallout of those prior decades in new fiction films that demonstrate how the Chinese family unit has been irreversibly transformed.
Jesse Moss’ chilling and engrossing documentary “War Game” begins ominously, moves with urgency, and never lets up. The film begins with two suspicious men surveilling the capitol building in Washington D.C.
Siddhant Adlakha Modeled on a late-’80s/early-’90s American family sitcom — which soon transitions to a midnight splatterfest — the tongue-in-cheek Dutch production “Krazy House” has all the transgressive stylings of a 15 year-old’s Reddit post on an atheism forum in 2010. Directors Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil offer ideas of subversion that feel both long-outdated in concept and completely dull in execution, to the point that merely describing the film feels irresponsible, lest its premise accidentally lure curious viewers to the cinema.
Every so often, a film comes along that, as if out of nowhere, leaves an unexpected impression and a need to find a moment to take in all that was witnessed fully; it’s a phenomenon that can come from any genre, any type of project, any filmmaker or subject, from battles in a galaxy far, far away to the intricate life story of a media tycoon. Sometimes, the smallest forms of art end up being the most effective, with “Sugarcane” a perfect example of how to draw in an audience to the film’s powerful message with moments as shocking as any entry into the world of horror.
Viaplay‘s Central and Eastern European production division Paprika Studios has exited the Scandinavian media group.
Love Lies Bleeding is an intense, queer, unconventional love story between two unstable people. Directed and written by English filmmaker Rose Glass, and starring Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco, Jena Malone, and Anna Baryshinkov, the film explores the destructive nature of relationships marked by strong performances and a visually arresting narrative.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh and penned by David Koepp, the haunting psychological thriller Presence follows a fractured family as a mysterious supernatural force infiltrates their new home that has taken interest in their daughter Chloe. The film is written by David Koepp and stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, and Julia Fox.An unsettling presence permeates the home of Chris (Sullivan) and Ruth (Liu) before they even move in. This supernatural entity is a witness to the family’s most vulnerable moments. It has a particular focus on the couple’s young daughter Chloe (Liang), who is always at odds with her mother and Brother Tyler (Maday). However, the young girl is in mourning because of her two girls, one of them her best friend Nadia, died recently.
Whether she's surrounded by glitter in the ballroom or the roundtable in a Scottish castle, Claudia Winkleman is always winning praise from viewers over the latest TV escapades. And when she's not on our TV screens, she can be heard entertaining listeners on BBC Radio 2.