NEW YORK -- Though it wasn’t planned, it’s somehow fitting that Vincent Lin finds himself in postproduction putting the final touches on his feature directorial debut, Chopin , as May--which is Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month--fast approaches. The timing is apropos not only because of Lin’s heritage as a first-generation Taiwanese American but also the nature of the Chopin narrative. While it is ultimately a father-and-son story, the character in the title role (... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The 2024 Tribeca Festival--scheduled to run from June 5-16 in New York City--has unveiled its features lineup, offering a diverse array of narrative, documentary, and animated films. Tribeca kicks off on Wednesday, June 5, with the world premiere of Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge , an intimate look at the life of the fashion designer and cultural luminary. The film captures von Furstenberg’s impact as a creative icon, who challenged the status quo with the bold inquiry, “Why shouldn’t a... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The 2024 Tribeca Festival has revealed its lineup of television and original indie episodic series. The Festival, which takes place June 5-16, showcases highly anticipated world premieres of new and returning programs from networks and streamers at the forefront of groundbreaking storytelling including Apple TV+, AMC, HBO, Hulu, and Paramount+. This year’s TV lineup features 11 series premieres and two first looks at returning classics. World premieres include Hulu’s Mastermind: To Think Like A... Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- A movie weapons supervisor was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film "Rust," during a hearing Monday in which tearful family members and friends gave testimonials that included calls for justice and a punishment that would instill greater accountability for safety on film sets. Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March by a jury on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of... Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- A movie weapons armorer received the maximum sentence of 18 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on a Western movie set, as authorities now turn their focus on prosecution of Baldwin himself. A New Mexico judge on Monday found that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's recklessness amounted to a serious violent offense, while noting few indications of genuine remorse from the defendant since her conviction in March. Prosecutors blame Gutierrez... Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- An attorney has been added to the special prosecution team that is pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie "Rust," court officials confirmed Thursday. The district attorney for Santa Fe has appointed Erlinda Johnson as special prosecutor to the Baldwin case, which is scheduled for trail in July. She was sworn in Tuesday. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge... Read More 

Participant, the activist film and television studio that has financed Oscar winners like "Spotlight" and socially conscious documentaries like "Food, Inc," and "Waiting For Superman" is closing its doors after 20 years. Billionaire Jeff Skoll told his staff of 100 in a memo shared with The Associated Press Tuesday that they were winding down company operations. "This is not a step I am taking lightly," Skoll wrote in the memo. "But after 20 years of groundbreaking content and world-changing... Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK -- Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) unveiled the winners of the 2024 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for film, television, new media, news, radio/audio, and promotional categories during concurrent ceremonies on Sunday evening (4/14). On the feature front, David Hemingson topped the Original Screenplay category for The Holdovers while Cord Jefferson won for Adapted Screenplay on the strength of American Fiction , a film he... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The AICP Awards released the shortlists for the 2024 editions of its three competitions: The AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial, the AICP Next Awards and the AICP Post Awards. To review the full shortlist for each competition, click here . The shortlists are the results of a bifurcated judging system that began earlier this year with a series of panels with experts in various fields from around the globe, nominated by their peers, who judged the work across their respective... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The One Club for Creativity has unveiled the entries from 50 countries and regions that are finalists for The One Show 2024. FCB New York has the most in the world with 50 finalists, including 45 for “Dreamcaster” on behalf of AB InBev, Michelob ULTRA. TBWA\Media Arts Lab Los Angeles is second with 39 finalists, including 12 for “Fuzzy Feelings”, seven for “AirPods - Quiet the Noise”, and six for “Another Birthday”, all for Apple. With 33 finalists is Rethink Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver,... Read More 

LONDON -- This year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity will present more than 150 hours of content, with around 500 speakers from across the spectrum of creativity. The Festival runs from June 17-21, in Cannes, France. About this year’s lineup, Natasha Woodwal, director of content, Lions, said, “Our open call for content gives us unparalleled insight into what matters most to the industry right now, and we’ve used this to design a program filled with a diversity of voices offering... Read More 

PARIS (AP) -- In Paris' outskirts, a bright-eyed young girl is eager for the Olympic and Paralympic Games to end. That's because the swimming club where 10-year-old Lyla Kebbi trains will inherit an Olympic pool. It will be dismantled after the Games and trucked from the Olympic race venue in Paris' high-rise business district to Sevran, a Paris-area town with less glitter and wealth. There, the pieces will be bolted back together and — voila ! — Kebbi and her swim team will have a new Olympic-sized pool to... Read More 

Vietnamese journalist-turned-filmmaker Phanxinê remembers exactly when he decided to make movies in his native country rather than Hollywood. It was in 2008 but it could have been a satirical scene out of the Vietnam Era-novel "The Sympathizer." Someone from a movie studio visiting his University of Southern California film class told him his story pitch about a Vietnamese American woman traveling the U.S. would only work if the heroine was white. Having a white star would give the film "a... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The giant stuffed bear, its face a twisted smile, lumbers across the screen. Menacing music swells. Shadows mask unknown threats. Christopher Robin begs for his life. And is that a sledgehammer about to pulverize a minor character's head? Thus unfolds the trailer for the 2023 movie "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey," a slasher-film riff on A.A. Milne's beloved characters, brought to you by ... the expiration of copyright and the arrival of the classic children's novel into the American public... Read More 

NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES -- The Zellner Brothers have joined the directorial roster of production company m ss ng p eces for commercial representation. Brothers and longtime creative collaborators, David and Nathan Zellner are the directing duo behind the non-human nature-survival comedy-drama Sasquatch Sunset , starring Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough and executive produced by Ari Aster, in theaters April 12. Signing with m ss ng p eces marks the helming duo’s first foray into the advertising space. The Zellner Brothers... Read More 

LOS ANGELES & LONDON -- Object & Animal has added 91 Rules, a directing and photography duo, to its roster for worldwide representation--except for France where the filmmakers continue to be handled by production house Wanda. Comprised of Erik Saltzman and Cameron Tidball-Sciullo, 91 Rules bring a diverse range of projects to the table--from global campaigns to surreal fashion films--for brands including Saint Laurent, Dior, Valentino, Boss, Apple, Vogue, Nike, Adidas, Oakley, Ivy Park, and Bose. Recently, 91... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Creative executive Karan Dang, whose award-winning career spans running in-house advertising agencies at Disney and Walmart, and UX/UI expert Shruti Dang are launching DANG, a creative consultancy built to guide brands to captivate the next generation of consumers through innovative strategies and creative excellence. Whether pioneering metaverse and AI applications, crafting viral social media strategies, or instilling future-fluent creative capabilities within organizations, DANG looks to... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Directing team nutmeg has joined SLMBR PRTY’s talent roster. The Gen-Z directing duo--consisting of childhood friends Andres O’Beirne and Loucas Tsilas--brings nearly a decade’s worth of experience in direct-to-brand collaborations, creating films, and managing social campaigns. O’Beirne and Tsilas’ shared background growing up in the Pacific Northwest informs work that artfully explores the human connection to the natural world. Stemming from their origin story meeting on a soccer field,... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- DOMO has added Nico Bongio to its roster of multidisciplinary directors. This marks his first signing with a U.S. company. He continues to be handled in Mexico by production house Landia. Born and raised in Mexico, Bongio began his career in photography. As a director, he combines that refined appetite for lighting and framing with his drive to tell contemporary stories that evoke emotion. He has directed campaigns for international brands like Nissan, Delta, KFC, YouTube, Modelo, Samsung, Home... Read More 

CHICAGO & LOS ANGELES -- French Butter, a food and beverage production company, has signed tabletop director/DP and still photographer Jennifer Davick. She brings not only a finely honed flair for evocative visual storytelling but also access to her fully-equipped Los Angeles production facility, Ingredient Studios, to the French Butter fold. With an eclectic background that includes significant magazine editorial experience prior to her segue into motion work, Davick has a showreel with work that strikes an a balance... Read More 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Google on Friday began removing California news websites from some people's search results, a test that acted as a threat should the state Legislature pass a law requiring the search giant to pay media companies for linking to their content. Google announced the move in a blog post on Friday, calling it a "short-term test for a small percentage of users ... to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience." The company said it also would pause new investments in the California... Read More 

Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola's iconic films, including the infamously tortured production of "Apocalypse Now," and who raised a family of filmmakers, has died. She was 87. Coppola died Friday surrounded by family at home in Rutherford, California, her family announced in a statement. No cause of death was given. Eleanor, who grew up in Orange County, California, met Francis while working as an assistant art director on his directorial... Read More 

Two 11-year-old boys navigate school, friendship, family and change in Minhal Baig's lyrical drama "We Grown Now." It's an evocative memory piece, wistful and honest, and a different kind of portrait of a very infamous place: Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing development. And, pointedly, it's a film that might not have existed without Participant, the activist film and television studio that just this month announced it was shutting down operations. Baig sets her film in the fall of 1992,... Read More 

The latest Guy Ritchie flick "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" has a spine of true story to it, even if it does all it can to amplify a long-declassified World War II tale with enough dead Nazis to make "Inglourious Basterds" blush. The result is a jauntily entertaining film but also an awkward fusion. Ritchie's film, which opens in theaters Friday, takes the increasingly prolific director's fondness for swaggering, exploitation-style ultraviolence and applies it to a real-life stealth... Read More 

Alex Garland's provocative " Civil War " didn't only ignite the discourse. The film also inspired audiences to go to the cinemas this weekend where it surpassed expectations and earned $25.7 million in ticket sales in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday. It's the biggest R-rated opening of the year to date and a record for A24, the studio behind films like "Everything Everywhere All At Once" and "The Iron Claw." "Civil War" also unseated "Godzilla x Kong " from its perch atop... Read More 

Looking to make more strides towards real beauty representation--particularly in the face of artificial intelligence--Dove has unveiled “The Dove Code” to mark 20 years of the campaign for “Real Beauty.” “The Code” was created by Brazilian independent agency Soko to challenge and transform the portrayal of women on AI-generated content. “We are honored to lead the global campaign creative marking the 20 years of Dove advocating for Real Beauty. The prevailing trend within AI-generated imagery... Read More 

Unilever’s Marmite has called on loyal fans in the U.K. to spread the love in its new cross-border campaign created by adam&eveDDB London and New York. The Unilever brand is going to extreme lengths to get jars of the sticky breakfast spread into the U.S. for desperate British expats hankering for their Marmite fix. Surveys regularly show that Marmite is one of the most missed products by expats, and right now, over 700,000 Brits living in the US have little or no access to Marmite. So, for... Read More 

Rich Hall via Riff Raff Films directed this Depeche Mode music video, “People Are Good.” “It’s equal parts an honor and daunting when making a video for Depeche Mode,” said Hall. “Not only do they have music video royalty behind them, but even Riff Raff have churned out some outstanding videos themselves for the band in recent times (Personal Jesus, Wagging Tongue). Throw a world class DOP like Martin Ruhe into the mix, 8 days prep and 1 shoot day then you’ve got a real mind f***. I wanted to... Read More 

DIRECTV partners with baseball legend Randy Johnson in an all-new extension of its “For The Birds” campaign--“Bird Ballparks.” These stadium sanctuaries, built atop DIRECTV satellite dishes, finally give birds a safe place to watch baseball. An extension of the brand’s current TV campaign, “For the Birds,” which features two pigeons who are disgruntled that people can get DIRECTV without a dish, “Bird Ballparks” assures all fans (human and feathered alike) that DIRECTV is their home for... Read More 

Rock & Roll legend Alice Cooper is back to reluctantly promote the AMP Awards for Music & Sound. Earlier he was upset about being asked to help convince music and sound artisans to enter their work in the competition. This time around, he’s not too enthused over being tasked with trying to push ticket sales for the awards gala. When told by an off-camera voice that the AMP Awards are cool, he counters by observing that even cooler is not having to promote an awards show he’s never heard... Read More 

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