Werner Herzog, Laura Poitras Documentaries Added to Toronto International Film Festival Lineup

After a lifetime spent creating outrage and offence, both on and off screen, Korean master Kim Ki-duk has left the world with this final film, finished by his friends after his death. The story of a passionate affair that curdles almost immediately into jealousy and hate – but ends on a lyrically wistful note – is a startlingly appropriate rogue’s epitaph.

Neon in association with National Geographic Documentary Films said director Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love will cross $1 million at the box office this weekend, becoming the biggest documentary release of the year for combined domestic and international gross. The film opened this summer and is entering its ninth week in theaters nationally. It will stream on Disney+ later this year.

ARMAGEDDON TIME (d. James Gray, U.S., 2022) BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS (d. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Mexico-U.S., 2022) BOBI WINE, GHETTO PRESIDENT (d.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Utopia has acquired Participant Media’s feature documentary “Unseen Skies,” which the U.S. distributor will release on Sept. 13. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Yaara Bou Melhem, “Unseen Skies” explores the evolution of state and corporate surveillance. The film follows American artist and geographer Trevor Paglen as he launches an artwork called “Orbital Reflector” into space, visible with the naked eye from Earth, to highlight the global impact of technology in the modern world. Having achieved international notoriety for his conceptual art, which fuses photography and large-scale multidisciplinary events, Paglen’s work reveals the largely unseen power structures of technology and surveillance that shape, impact and increasingly define the framework of our lives.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy” and Evgeny Afineevsky’s “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” are among 11 documentaries making their world premieres at the Venice Film Festival this year, with Poitras’ competition title vying for a Golden Lion — a rare feat for a doc at a major international film festival. The growing number of high-profile non-fiction films in and out of competition at Venice suggests that major European film festivals have finally accepted documentaries as viable, cinematic art.While docs at the Toronto International Film Festival and major U.S. fests, including Sundance, Telluride and South by Southwest, have long been the belles of the ball, the most prominent international festivals, including Venice, Cannes and Berlin, have been slow to embrace non-fiction content, especially in competition.  

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paris-based company Indie Sales has boarded Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s feature debut “A Tale of Shemroon” which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian. Set in the north of Tehran, “A Tale of Shemroon” follows Iman and his younger brother Payar who live with their father. After the death of their mother, Iman starts a business thanks to his connections with the city’s affluent youth, but these new opportunities bring him on a dangerous path affecting his family’s destiny. “We are proud to be a part of San Sebastian’s New Directors competition with this new voice from Iranian cinema,” said Nicolas Eschbach at Indie Sales. “Emad (Aleebrahim Dehkordi) depicts the reality of the Iranian youth living in parts of Tehran that have seldom been seen before,” Eschbach continued.

Michaela Zee editor DCTV’s new documentary-dedicated theater, “Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film,” will open its doors Sept. 23. Located in DCTV’s historic Chinatown firehouse building in New York, the nonprofit theater will begin its opening week with an exclusive screening of Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.” “I’m so excited that my new documentary, ‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,’ will kick off the opening of DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema,” Disney said in a statement. “I can’t wait to meet the first audiences who will be enjoying and shaping this vital new addition to New York City’s arthouse film scene.”

EXCLUSIVE: The Points North Institute today announced recipients of three of its prestigious fellowship programs, ahead of next month’s Camden International Film Festival in Maine.

Annika Pham New Europe Film Sales has added U.K. distributor Signature Entertainment to the slew of global buyers won over by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s “Beautiful Beings,” which has racked up awards from Poland, Bulgaria, Italy and Taiwan, since its first bow at the last Berlinale Panorama. Earlier deals were closed with the U.S. (Altered Innocence), Hungary (Vertigo), Benelux (Arti Film), Germany/Austria (Salzgeber), Spain (Filmin), and CEE (HBO).Billed by Variety reviewer Jessica Kiang as an “Icelandic coming-of age, radiant with violence and tenderness,” Guðmundsson’s drama revolves around a young boy raised by a clairvoyant mother who decides to adopt a bullied misfit into his gang of outsiders. 

Altitude has boarded international sales and UK and Irish distribution on Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras’s Nan Goldin bio-pic All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, ahead of its world premiere at Venice and North American debut at Toronto.

Naman Ramachandran Altitude is handling international sales and U.K. and Irish distribution for Laura Poitras’ documentary about artist and activist Nan Goldin, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”The film is scheduled to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it will compete for the Golden Lion, an opportunity rarely accorded to non-fiction titles.

Jessica Kiang After 18 days of in-person screenings, over 370 movies and the allocation of a new prize fund totaling $210,000 AUD (approx. $145,000 USD) the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has to be one of the lengthiest, liveliest and now most lucrative film festivals in the world.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras’s new documentary about artist and activist Nan Goldin, has sold to Neon. The indie studio acquired the film before it was scheduled to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It has also landed prominent spots at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, where it will get the centerpiece slot.

NEON has acquired rights to the Participant Laura Poitras docu All the Beauty and the Bloodshed which will hit theaters this fall followed by an ancillary and digital release.

The Native American Media Alliance announced today they have selected six fellows for the 5th Annual Native American Feature Film Writers Lab, a talent development program that boosts the careers of Native American writers.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior CorrespondentEboni K. Williams is launching a new season of her podcast with Interval Presents, the new in-house podcast network from Warner Media Group, Variety has learned exclusively.Williams — an attorney, journalist, TV host and author — recently starred on “The Real Housewives of New York City,” becoming the first-ever Black cast member to be cast on the Bravo show.“Holding Court with Eboni K.

The New York Film Festival on Tuesday revealed its Spotlight section lineup, which includes the world premiere of She Said, Universal’s drama based on the work of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who investigated and wrote the bombshell 2017 Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse story.

Michael Grandage’s Prime Video movie My Policeman and its ensemble cast will be lauded with the TIFF Tribute Award for Performance at the TIFF Tribute Awards.