Zhou Dongyu Talks Cannes Title ‘The Breaking Ice’, Roles For Chinese Actresses & Being Discovered By Zhang Yimou

A version of this story about H.E.R. and “Beauty and the Beast” first appeared in the Comedy Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.Few multi-hyphenates working these days can claim the take-over of industries quite like H.E.R. In just the last four years, the California native with the signature spectacles has racked up five R&B Grammys, an Oscar (for her stirring “Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah”) and a Children’s and Family Emmy for a tune from Netflix’s “We the People.” And after her spirited turn as the beloved Belle from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in ABC’s 30th anniversary special, the Primetime Emmy might be calling.

This story about the casting of “Shrinking” first appeared in the Comedy Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.Say you’re casting a thoughtful comedy about the world of psychotherapists, and you need a seasoned veteran to support the sharp young cast in a potentially scene-stealing mentor role. And then you land one of the biggest movie stars in the world, an icon who has been in two of the largest movie franchises in the last 50 years.This was the reality for “Shrinking” casting directors Debby Romano and Brett Benner when the AppleTV+ comedy was being put together.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Actor Alfredo Castro (The Club, No, From Afar) is in the middle of what could be described as a mid-career boom, but he doesn’t think it’ll bring him many plaudits in his native country.

What’s there to say about French director Michel Hazanavicius? His two “OSS 117” films with Jean Dujardin are foreign cult comedies. And then the duo struck gold stateside with “The Artist,” which won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor at the 2012 Oscars.

Niecy Nash-Betts, 53, graced the latest cover of Variety‘s Emmy Extra Edition as the face of Women of Awards Season, where she sat down for an exclusive interview to discuss her thoughts on her controversial series “Dahmer”.

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s latest pic La Chimera has inked a series of international deals for The Match Factory following its well-received debut at last month’s Cannes Film Festival.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all North American rights for Catherine Breillat’s drama Last Summer (L’été dernier) following its well-received premiere in competition in the final days of the Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).

Bam Margera has lost all contact with his son as his legal battle with estranged wife Nikki Boyd heats up!

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made the shocking announcement back in 2020 that they were quitting their roles as senior working royals. Shortly after, they moved over to the US to start a new life as a family with Prince Archie, and welcomed Princess Lillibet.

The Premier League season may only just have finished but attention is already turning towards next term.

pic.twitter.com/6tv8TEj8zwFonda, an honorary Palme d’Or winner herself, presented Triet the prestigious award for her dramatic thriller film “Anatomy of a Fall” (“Anatomie d’une Chute”). In her speech, Fonda reflected on the first time she attended the French film festival many years ago.“There were no women directors competing at that time, and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that,” Fonda said. “We have a long way to go.

Anthony Chen’s well-regarded Mainland China-set “The Breaking Ice” has found favor with multiple European and Asian buyers in the few days since its Sunday premiere as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard. The film narrates a love triangle story among China’s lost youth generation and is set in the middle of winter in Yanji, a town that is heavily populated by ethnic Koreans. It is headlined by a star-studded Chinese cast of Zhou Dongyu (“Better Days”), Liu Haoran (“Detective Chinatown” franchise) and Qu Chuxiao (“The Wandering Earth”). “The Breaking Ice” has been newly licensed to Challan for release in South Korea, Trigon-Film for Switzerland, One From the Heart for Greece, Tucker Film for Italy and Edko Films for Hong Kong.Rights sales are handled by Rediance, Mainland China’s leading indie sales company, which reports that addition territory deals are currently being negotiated.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s RAI Cinema, which has four titles in this year’s Cannes selection, has closed a deal on Ron Howard’s next movie “Origin of Species,” a hot project at the Cannes market starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Ana de Armas, Jude Law and Alicia Vikander. RAI Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco said the company – which is the film arm of Italian state broadcaster RAI – has teamed up with Rome-based Lucisano Media Group to acquire Italian rights from CAA Media Finance on Howard’s survival thriller penned by Noah Pink (“Tetris”) about a a group of eclectics who turn their backs on civilization and head to the Galapagos. In Cannes, RAI Cinema also picked up Italian rights from Gaumont on family movie “Moon The Panda,” by French humans and animals adventures specialist Gilles de Maistre, known for “Mia and the White Lion”and “The Wolf and the Lion.” De Maistre’s latest, about the friendship between a boy and a panda, is set to shoot later this month in China’s Sichuan mountains.

Mubi has picked The Settlers, the latest pic from Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez for North America, the UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, and India.

Godard speaks! Again. Quite rightly there’s a lot of hoopla about the world premiere of a 20-minute trailer the late cinema legend Jean-Luc Godard made for a feature film that will never exist: Phoney Wars. 

In 2013, filmmaker Anthony Chen’s first feature, “Ilo Ilo,” won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Centered around the inseparable bond between a 10-year-old Singaporean boy and his Filipina nanny, Chen’s full-length debut deployed a specific lens — a family weathering the 1997 Asian financial crisis — to tell a universal story exploring the nooks and crannies of our shared humanity.

You’d expect a movie called “The Breaking Ice” to be cold and Anthony Chen’s gentle drama about three isolated young people finding moments of connection definitely stays away from passionate and heated statements. But it’d be a mistake to think that Chen’s restraint comes at the expense of feeling, because “The Breaking Ice” is one of the most beautifully evocative films to screen during the first few days of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.A luminous “Jules and Jim” riff with a stunning visual design and a real purpose to its apparent aimlessness, “The Breaking Ice” screened on Sunday in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, bringing the Singaporean director back to the festival where he won the Camera d’Or for “Ilo Ilo” in 2013, and also appeared as part of the COVID-era anthology film “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” in 2021.“The Breaking Ice” begins with a fascinating shot of workers cutting ice blocks from a frozen lake.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International In 2021, a generation of disillusioned youth in China decided to step off the hamster wheel and “lie flat” on the ground. Crushed by overbearing workloads with no long-term reward in the form of job security or home ownership, young people indulged in the “tang ping” resistance movement, which advocated for manageable working hours and a quality of life — all of which were the antithesis of China’s punishing 9-9-6 work culture — working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. It’s this tang ping generation that Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen is speaking to in his latest film, “The Breaking Ice.” The movie, which premieres in Un Certain Regard at Cannes on May 21, follows three young people who hit the road together after their lives intersect unexpectedly.

In 2013, filmmaker Anthony Chen’s first feature, “Ilo Ilo,” won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Centered around the inseparable bond between a 10-year-old Singaporean boy and his Filipina nanny, Chen’s full-length debut deployed a specific lens — a family weathering the 1997 Asian financial crisis — to tell a universal story exploring the nooks and crannies of our shared humanity.

Zoljargal Purevdash’s debut feature If Only I Could Hibernate tells the story of a teenager living in the yurt district of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, who is determined to win a physics competition and earn a scholarship to a good school.