‘Tiger Stripes,’ Malaysian Film at Cannes, Unveils Feisty First Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)

Naman Ramachandran Female Film Club (FCC), an online members club for female filmmakers and creatives, has partnered with French production company Sisterland Connect to advocate for women in film on an international scale. Sisterland Studio and Sisterland Connect bowed at Cannes earlier this week with the launch of an investment fund and production company for women in industry which will target a total of €35 million ($37.5 million) and have already begun the process of curating a selection of films made by women. Led by producer Sandra Rudich and supported by actor, producer and activist Julie Gayet, Sisterland aims to empower women in film and media in France and worldwide by financially supporting and co-producing over 100 female-driven projects within the next seven years.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades.

With the Cannes Film Festival heading towards its conclusion on Saturday, the first awards are starting to trickle out. Sidebar Critics’ Week, which is devoted to first and second features, closed this evening, honoring Amanda Nell Eu’s debut Tiger Stripes with its Grand Prize. (Scroll down for the full list of winners).

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Tiger Stripes,” the debut feature of Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu, won the Grand Prize at Cannes’ Critics Week, the Cannes sidebar dedicated to first or second films. The prize was awarded by a jury presided over by Audrey Diwan, the Venice prizewinning director of “Happening.” The French Touch Jury Award went to Belgian director Paloma Sermon-Daï’s “It’s Raining in the House,” a film about adolescence, while the Revelation prize from the Louis Roederer Foundation was handed out to Jovan Ginic, the actor of Vladimir Perisic’s “Lost Country.”  The SACD prize, meanwhile, went to “Le Ravissement” by Iris Kaltenbäck.

Naman Ramachandran “RuPaul’s Drag Race” producer World of Wonder has revealed a trailer for “Big Freedia Means Business,” an eight-part docu-series that follows “Queen of Bounce” Big Freedia. A subgroup of 1980s hip-hop music, Bounce music has defined much of contemporary hip-hop culture. The series follows New Orleans choirboy-turned-Bounce rapper Freddie “Big Freedia” Ross, Jr., as she juggles new business ventures, touring, and the ups and downs of her personal relationships. This season Freedia begins work on opening a hotel; starts a cannabis line; and prepares to launch her own beauty and fragrance lines. The series will also chronicle the launch of a new album, set to drop later this year.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent This year at Cannes Iran being repped by just one film, the timely underground drama “Terrestrial Verses,” co-directed by Canada-based Alireza Khatami and Iran-based Ali Asgari, premiering in Un Certain Regard. Shot in Tehran after the Mahsa Amini movement started, “Verses” consists of 12 tableaus depicting the increasingly absurd and tragic plight that Iranians face in their everyday life with a scathingly ironic deadpan tone. Variety spoke to the directors about how they teamed up and decided to capture the zeitgeist in turbulent Tehran. How did the project germinate?

Marta Balaga Julio Hernández Cordón’s vampire tale “The Day is Long and Dark” (“El Día es Largo y Oscuro”) is unveiling first images and trailer, which world premieres at Cannes’ Fantastic Pavilion. Alina Rojas, Diana Bustamante and Hernández Cordón produce, for La Mitad del Continente (Mexico) and Burning (Colombia).  The film, currently in post-production, dives into a complicated family dynamic as Vera, a 17-year-old girl, needs to learn how to live with her “vampirism gene.”  Prisoners of the sun, she and her father, Cruz, spend their days in hotel rooms until she can’t take it: Feeling guilty and misunderstood, and missing her boyfriend she is afraid of hurting, Vera wants to die. Suddenly, her father – who is also a film director – has two missions in life. He can’t let her attack anyone but he also needs to make sure she doesn’t commit suicide.

The producers of NTR30, the working title of an upcoming project from RRR star N.T. Rama Rao Jr. (aka NTR Jr), have confirmed that the film’s title will be Devara, and have shared a first look of the film. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Amanda Nell Eu’s “Tiger Stripes,” which had its premiere this week in Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, is being celebrated as a punchy female-driven debut feature and as the first film by a Malaysian woman director in any section Cannes. The story focuses on a small group of 11 or 12-year-old girls. When one of the friends enters puberty she finds her body changing in unexpected ways. Relations with her friends and family start morphing too. Eu’s finished film straddles the metaphorical drama and body horror genres. “Tiger Stripes” is also a triumph for the now highly-developed global network of project markets, talent development programs, script and production workshops (often labelled as ‘labs’) and grant schemes. These are intended to encourage diversity and nurture film-making talent in countries where that is a rarity or where commercial films crowd out more experimental art-house titles.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Brazil is back.  Brazilian President’s Lula Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government, which took office on Jan. 1,  looks set to invest just under $1 billion in 2023 into the country’s audiovisual sector. It’s one of the biggest upticks in government film and TV aid in history, and comes after Lula predecessor Jair Bolsonoro slowed state aid to a glacial pace. The new financial injection should turn Brazil into the film and TV powerhouse of Latin America.  Brazilian audiovisual secretary Joelma Gonzaga told Variety that regulation of global streaming services operating in Brazil, which foreseeably will introduce quotas for Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video and other players, is also on Lula’s government agenda. 

The use of body horror allegories in cinema to address the physical, physiological, and mental changes brought on by puberty could hardly be called original. However, by delightfully and intelligently remixing symbols and metaphors Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu refreshes the concept in her zesty debut feature “Tiger Stripes.”  The term “body horror” could in fact be considered a misnomer in this case, as our fierce lead protagonist Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) doesn’t undergo anything as monstrous as growing a car in her belly or a biogun out of her hand.

Naman Ramachandran Distributor Verve Pictures has revealed the first trailer for “Inland,” headlined by Oscar-winning thespian Mark Rylance. The film marks the debut of Fridtjof Ryder and alongside Ryland the cast includes Rory Alexander (“Pistol”), Kathryn Hunter (“Andor”), Eleanor Holliday, Alexander Lincoln (“The Fence”), Nell Williams (“The Good Liar”) and Shaun Dingwall (“Top Boy”). Described as a “modern folktale,” “Inland” explores the fractured identity of a young man after the mysterious disappearance of his mother. Guided by a father figure (Rylance) and old friends who care deeply, his journey through the dreamlike spaces of rural England brings him face to face with the loss that haunts him in ways he could never have expected.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Ten years after winning the Camera d’Or in Cannes for “Ilo Ilo,” director Anthony Chen is back with “The Breaking Ice.” The film, which premieres in Un Certain Regard on May 21, is set in Yanji, a border city in north China, and follows a budding relationship between three 20-somethings as they spend a few days together. Nour Films has acquired the pic for France, while Rediance are handling worldwide sales. Chen became the first Singaporean to win an award at Cannes with his short film “Ah Ma” in 2007. In 2013, he won the Camera d’Or for his debut feature “Ilo Ilo.” His sophomore film “Wet Season” was nominated for the Platform Prize at Toronto. Chen made his English-language debut with “Drift,” starring Cynthia Erivo, which premiered at Sundance in January.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled the first trailer for hard hitting crime drama series “Scoop” from acclaimed filmmaker Hansal Mehta (“Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story”). Based on journalist Jigna Vora’s 2019 memoir “Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison,” the series is created by Mehta and Mrunmayee Lagoo Waikul (“Thappad”). The book recounts how renowned journalist Jyotirmoy Dey was murdered by members of the Chhota Rajan gang in 2011. A few months later, fellow journalist and crime reporter Vora was arrested in connection with the murder.  “Scoop” marks Mehta and Netflix’s maiden partnership and the series is set up as the first season of a franchise. Mehta has directed all six episodes of the first season.

Naman Ramachandran Jim Caviezel (“The Passion Of The Christ,” “Frequency,” “Deja Vu”) stars in human trafficking drama “Sound of Freedom,” the first trailer for which has been unveiled by Angel Studios. The film is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former U.S. government agent that quits his job to rescue children from global sex traffickers. Ballard (Caviezel), a federal agent, finds himself losing hope in the dark field of children crime work. However, Ballard quickly uncovers his life mission when he’s able to free a seven-year-old boy that was kidnapped. When the young boy asks Ballard to find his sister who was also kidnapped, Ballard decides to devote his life to rescuing children from sex slavery.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The trailer for Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir’s Cannes entry “The Mother of All Lies” debuts here (below). The documentary hybrid, about the lies that pervaded El Moudir’s childhood in Casablanca, has its premiere in Un Certain Regard on May 24. World sales are being handled by Autlook Filmsales. The film starts with El Moudir wanting to know why she has only one photograph from her childhood, and why the girl in the picture isn’t even her. To get to the truth, El Moudir and her father build a miniature set that recreates their neighborhood, and bring the whole family to the soundstage where it is built.

Disney+ has revealed first trailer for its Full Monty reboot, coming 25 years after the iconic movie.

's landmark 20th season: the network's first-ever all-star season!Christian Siriano, an all-star in his own right, returns as a mentor, while Nina Garcia, Brandon Maxwell and Elaine Welteroth are all back as judges, all ready to critique the couture of 14 fan-favorite designers from across the series' 19 seasons. It's a chance at redemption, as this cast features no returning winners. Each 90-minute episode will feature challenges that test the designers' artistry and push their limits, including an unconventional challenge that takes everyone by surprise.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks has nabbed worldwide rights to Spanish filmmaker Chiqui Carabante’s black-comedy whodunnit “The Fortress” (“La Fortaleza”) and is debuting its trailer ahead of the Cannes Film Market. The film centers on the death of Arturo Viaplana and its aftermath as his offspring, hoping to inherit a great fortune, discover that instead of leaving them the estate, their father has devised a macabre, posthumous game in which his children must first locate his body and bury it themselves in a specified location. Working together to carry out their father’s instructions and pass a series of tests, the siblings are forced to come to terms with a deeply hidden family secret.

Sometimes the cultural re-evaluation of a film can go both ways: For as much as viewers can say “Yes, this movie is actually good” they can also say “We see now it’s incredibly problematic.” Such is the case with director Kevin Smith’s 1997 feature “Chasing Amy,” which tells the story of a straight man (played by Ben Affleck) falling in love with a lesbian (played by Joey Lauren Adams). As director Sav Rodgers’ documentary, “Chasing Chasing Amy” explores in its first trailer: Can one enjoy a film that falls into stereotypes as often as it breaks them?“Chasing Chasing Amy” isn’t just a look at the Smith film but how it influenced Rodgers own journey of self-discovery.