Winners Selected For The 8th Annual Women’s Voices Now Film Festival Award Ceremony

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorCasting directors Bernard Telsey and Adam Caldwell are already back at work on season two of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.”The series stars Christine Baranski as Agnes van Rhijn, a socialite living in early-1880s New York City with her sister, Ada Brook, played by Cynthia Nixon. “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes brings wealth, scheming and social hierarchy to New York, and with that a wealth of Broadway actors who make appearances throughout the first season.Telsey and Caldwell spoke with Variety about how they were able to bring Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin and Steven Spinella to the show.

Robert Downey Jr. is a master at transforming for his movie roles and he proved it once again when he was spotted filming in New York on Tuesday, April 12. The 57-year-old thespian looked unrecognizable sporting a full head of white hair as he worked on a scene with Cillian Murphy for Christipher Nolan’s new historical drama Oppenheimer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine has set Chinese-Italian co-production “The Italian Recipe” as the opening title of a revived, largely in-person event.The film, directed by Hou Zuxin, sees an unexpected series of events bring together a Chinese reality TV show contestant and a woman already resident in Italy. The collision of personalities, connections and chemistry between stars Liu Xun and Yao Huang resemble those of “Roman Holiday,” festival organizers suggest.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Venice Film Festival is getting in gear to celebrate its 90th anniversary with an international conference to be held in Venice in July.The Biennale, which is the fest’s parent organization, has announced it will hold a confab on July 9 in Venice in the library auditorium of the Biennale foundation’s archives. It will be attended by an as-yet unspecified plethora of international film academics, critics, and also film directors and talents, to commemorate the advent of the world’s oldest film fest.The First Exposition of Cinematic Art — later to be known as the Mostra del Cinema in Italy and the Venice Film Festival globally — opened on Aug.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentReims Polar, a new international festival set in Northern France and dedicated to police thrillers, has awarded Wen Shipei’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” Adikhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution.” The selection of Reims Polar is curated by Bruno Barde, who is also the artistic director of the Deauville American Film Festival. “Assault,” a dead-pan thriller set fictional village in rural Kazakhstan and revolving around a school hostage situation, won the festival’s Grand Prize Award.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAs the Cannes Film Festival will announce its Official Selection on Thursday, Variety is starting to get a slightly clearer picture of what 75th edition will look like, though fewer titles than usual have leaked. Led by Cannes’ artistic director and general delegate Thierry Fremaux, the selection committee has been flooded with late submissions and is now in the thick of deliberations.Most surprisingly, according to two well-informed sources, there will even be a David Lynch feature film which has been completely off the radar and stars Laura Dern — either as a cameo or a supporting role — along with some other Lynch regulars.We already know the sun-dappled celebration will land several high-profile films from U.S.

Lux Æterna has landed.The film, which is set to open next month, centres on characters trying to make a movie about witches. In the trailer, disorienting flashing lights make for a disconcerting first-look at the movie that was delayed several times during the COVID pandemic.Per Collider, the film’s description provides a little more insight into the plot: “Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg are on a film set telling stories about witches.

Falling in love! Andrea Denver had to push through a Summer House love triangle with Paige DeSorbo and Craig Conover to realize that he already met his perfect match in former flame Lexi Sundin.

Mo'Nique and Lee Daniels are putting their years-long feud to rest! The pair has been at odds since the release of the Academy Award-winning film in 2009.After winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2010 for her critically acclaimed performance as the titular character's abusive mother Mary, the 54-year-old comedian made headlines when she claimed she was «blackballed» from Hollywood, naming Daniels as one of the culprits.Years later, on Saturday, the actress brought the director onstage during her  show on Staten Island, New York.«I am so sorry for hurting you in any way that I did. She was my best friend, my best friend.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, FeaturesPlaying a character in a film who dies by suicide, adapted from a book penned by a famed author who met the same fate, is already a heady experience. But for Liev Schreiber, who tackles the stoically heroic Colonel Richard Cantwell in the big screen version of Ernest Hemingway’s final full-length novel, “Across the River and Into the Trees,” life imitated art — which imitated life — in ways not even Schreiber could have expected.“One of the things that happened to us in this epic, long shoot [in Venice, Italy] is that my father had found a sarcoma on his leg — a very, very rapid [growing] one,” Schreiber told a crowd gathered for a special screening and premiere of the film, directed by Paula Ortiz, at the Sun Valley Film Festival Thursday night.

Jimmy Fallon has something up his sleeve for his next book. ET's Rachel Smith caught up with the 47-year-old late-night host in New York City on Tuesday, and he revealed that he's collaborating with Jennifer Lopez on his next children's book.«The next idea we have… it involves JLo and it’s massive,» he promised. «We always wanted to do something together and, of course, me, I’m like, 'We should do a song together.' She’s like, 'No, I can’t.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Rome Film Festival is under new management following a political shake-up that has led to the appointment of RAI Cinema executive Paola Malanga as the fest’s artistic director and Gian Luca Farinelli, who heads the Bologna film archives, as president.Malanga, who was appointed late on Tuesday, replaces Antonio Monda, the New York based journalist and film academic who during his seven-year stint at the helm of the event secured a steady stream of high-caliber guests such as Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton and Angelina Jolie, to mention a few names on the Rome red carpet at last year’s edition.Farinelli –– who has been appointed president of the Cinema Per Roma foundation that oversees the Rome fest –– takes the reins from Laura Delli Colli, a prominent film journo and critic who remains on the foundation’s board. The new Rome fest regime was prompted by the election last October of new Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri.The Eternal City extravaganza, which is the brainchild of former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, has been undergoing management shake-ups due to Italy’s political spoils system ever since its launch in 2006 with Nicole Kidman on the red carpet and ambitions to rival Venice.While Delli Colli exited gracefully, Monda’s departure has been a bit more acrimonious.

Wilson Chapman editorThe Indian Film Festival Los Angeles has announced the programming lineup for its 2022 edition, which includes Pan Nalin’s “Last Film Show” as a gala presentation.The festival, which spotlights films made about the Indian diaspora from filmmakers of Indian heritage, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year with a return to in-person screenings for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the festival, 10 feature films and 16 short films will be screened, including a world premiere and two North American premieres.“Reflecting on IFFLA’s 20 years, we find ourselves overjoyed by the range of incredible talent we have discovered and celebrated, introducing numerous emerging and established voices to Los Angeles,” IFFA executive director and founder Christina Marouda said in a statement.

Chris Willman Music WriterFor years, the Stagecoach Festival in Indio has had a side stage, dubbed the Palomino tent, that is a virtual festival-within-a-festival, focusing on alternative country, Americana and heritage country acts, “cred” artists that tend to draw a largely different audience than the larger one that stays at the mainstream main stage all day. This summer, Goldenvoice is branching off that approach into a one-day gathering of its own — the Palomino Festival — set to go down for the first time July 9 in Pasadena.Kacey Musgraves, Willie Nelson & Family and Jason Isbell are newly announced as the headliners for the inaugural event, which will take place at Brookside at the Rose Bowl, a park adjacent to the storied stadium that Goldenvoice has used for a number of other genre-specific festivals in the last decade.

Oleksandra Zaritska woke up to a phone call on Feb. 25 at 5 a.m. On the other end of the line was her mother informing her Russia's war on Ukraine had begun.

ABFF Ventures LLC, producer of the American Black Film Festival (ABFF),  announced that its custom-built online platform, ABFF PLAY, has broadened the company’s global footprint offering studios the opportunity to reach beyond the annual film festival to showcase content targeted to Black audiences.

Angelique Jackson Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) has acquired worldwide distribution rights to Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” starring Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell.The project, Guadagnino’s first U.S.-set feature, also stars Mark Rylance, André Holland, Jessica Harper, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Gordon-Green, Francesca Scorsese and Chloë Sevigny.“I am delighted that MGM, a studio that so clearly loves filmmakers and respects bold vision, is going to bring my movie into the world and that the amazing work of Timothée, Taylor, Mark and the rest of the cast will be seen in theaters,” Guadagnino said. “‘Bones and All’ could not be in better hands with Kevin Ulrich, Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy at the helm.