Writer-director Matteo Garrone had some trepidation about making a film, which eventually became Io Capitano (Italian for I Captain ), centering on a pair of impoverished African teens seeking a better life by migrating to Europe. After all, with Italian middle-class roots, Garrone questioned whether he was equipped to tell such a story. But it was a narrative that fascinated him--sparked when he came across the journey of Amara Fofana, a 15-year-old African boy without nautical experience who... Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- A jury convicted a movie weapons supervisor of involuntary manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western movie "Rust." The verdict against movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed assigned new blame in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after an assistant director last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm. Gutierrez-Reed also had faced a second charge of... Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- The trial and conviction of a movie armorer in connection with a fatal shooting on the set of the Western movie "Rust" has given Alec Baldwin and his legal team a unusual window into how his own trial in the death could unfold. A New Mexico jury deliberated less than three hours Wednesday before convicting armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. She was swiftly taken into custody as she awaits sentencing, facing up to 18 months... Read More 

For a few years, the Oscars looked to be hanging on by a thread. Viewership was plummeting. The pandemic didn't help. And the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind Hollywood's biggest night, kept finding itself on the wrong side of the conversation, whether it be #OscarsSoWhite, envelope-gate, the blip that was the popular Oscar, the untelevised awards or the slap. Then a funny thing happened: Interest started increasing both in and outside the academy. It seemed... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Filmmaker Ava DuVernay remembered working as a publicist years ago, struggling to draw major traffic to star-studded events for the African American Film Critics Association. No matter which renowned Black actor showed up — from Viola Davis to Forest Whitaker — the organization known as AAFCA still had a hard time garnering mainstream media's attention and attendance from non-Black honorees to its flagship awards ceremony and other events. But the group, led by co-founder and president Gil... Read More 

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) held its annual awards on Sunday evening (3/3) with Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC earning the marquee feature film honor for Oppenheimer. In his acceptance remarks before an industry audience at the Beverly Hilton, van Hoytema thanked Oppenheimer writer-director Christopher Nolan, producer Emma Thomas, and a close-knit camera team. The cinematographer added that a priority for him over the years has been to help keep celluloid alive as a viable... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Jennifer Lame, ACE and Kevin Tent, ACE won the marquee feature honors at the 74th Annual ACE Eddie Awards, respectively, for Oppenheimer , which topped the Best Edited Drama category, and The Holdovers , honored for Best Edited Comedy. Presented by American Cinema Editors (ACE), the Eddie Awards recognize outstanding editing in 14 categories of film, TV and documentaries. Rounding out the winners in the feature categories were Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie for Best Edited Documentary, and... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Oppenheimer added to its hardware collection on Sunday night (3/3) with two honors at the 71st Annual Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Golden Reel Awards--topping the Sound Editing--Feature Effects/Foley, and Sound Editing--Feature Effects/Foley feature film categories. Also scoring on the feature front during an awards ceremony hosted by Patton Oswalt at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles were: Maestro for music editing; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for sound editing in an... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Cinema Audio Society (CAS) revealed the winners of the 60th annual CAS Awards, held Saturday evening (3/2) at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom. The sound mixing teams for Oppenheimer, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and 32 Sounds were honored with feature film wins, while The Last of Us, The Bear, 100 Foot Wave and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story won the top non-theatrical honors. Additionally, two special honorees and the annual student filmmaker award winner were honored during... Read More 

NEW YORK -- The lineup for the 2024 AICP Awards Committee has been set. A far-reaching and diverse group of industry veterans from the production, postproduction, agency, and brand ranks, the Committee is tasked with promoting and marketing the 2024 AICP Awards, which comprises the AICP Show: The Art & Technique of the Commercial, the AICP Post Awards and the AICP Next Awards. The Committee was assembled by Ralph Laucella, founding partner and executive producer at O Positive and 2024 AICP Show... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Anomaly has named Ariba Jahan as head of transformation, North America. Based in New York, she will work across Anomaly offices in NYC, Los Angeles and Toronto. Jahan will help clients shape experiences, products and content to drive change across their business, with a keen focus on guiding the future of responsible technology and business transformation. “Ariba was the perfect choice for this vital leadership role--technological know-how combined with ambition, innovation, creativity and an... Read More 

Julio Torres mined his own life and experiences to make his feature directorial debut " Problemista," in which he plays an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador caught in the nightmarish Catch-22 of the U.S. immigration system. His character Alejandro desperately needs someone to sponsor his work visa, and he thinks he may have found that person in Tilda Swinton's Elizabeth, a caustic, put-upon art critic. Together they embark on a wild, surreal New York odyssey of setbacks, bureaucratic... Read More 

LONDON (AP) -- One of the original momagers, Mary Villiers knew how to use her son to get wealth, power and prestige. In "Mary & George," Julianne Moore plays the white ruff-wearing, pushy mom who took advantage of her son George's charms to win favor in the court of King James I in 17th century England. "People who do that are using their kids as proxies, right? They're living through them," says Moore. "She sees in George what she would like, a kind of access to the world. You know, he's male, he's good... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- When we first meet the hero of Guy Ritchie's new Netflix series, he's not exactly what you'd expect from a Guy Ritchie hero. He's a peacekeeper for the United Nations, under orders to de-escalate tensions. Can that really last, this being a Guy Ritchie series? Doubtful. "The Gentlemen," a captivating mix of menacing thriller, satire, soap opera, gangster caper and absurdist humor, will eventually have blood splashing on walls, but it delights in the promise of violence more than the acts... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Production studio Identity has added director Sage Bennett to its roster. An alum of SHOOT ’s 2020 New Directors Showcase, Bennett has a self-described directing style that is “emotive, vibrant, and often through a feminine perspective.” She further shared, “I enjoy finding beauty in simplicity, delving into the nuances of moments that are often overlooked. Creating an emotional resonance is essential for me—I aim to evoke a feeling without the need for intellectualization of said feeling.”... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Cutter Entertainment has added director Severine Reisp to its creative roster of talent for U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content. This marks her first production company representation as a director. Reisp brings a decade of experience to her new roost, including serving as a creative producer and director at auction house Christie’s where she had the opportunity to direct spots for major brands in the luxury space such as Nike, Cartier, and Rolex and individuals like... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- Production house kaboom has added director/editor Noah Kistler to its roster for U.S. representation spanning commercials and other branded projects. This marks his first such career representation. Laying the foundation for Kistler and kaboom formally coming together was a positive experience they had collaborating on a U.S. Air Force project for agency GSD&M. Kistler directed the job as an independent via kaboom, which witnessed firsthand his ability to work under conditions that involved... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Through one of the most tumultuous periods in Oscar history, through flub and slap, Jimmy Kimmel has emerged as the steadying hand and abiding face of the Academy Awards. When Kimmel hosts the 96th Oscars on Sunday, he'll be emceeing the telecast for the fourth time. Only three people — Bob Hope (19 times), Billy Crystal (nine times) and Johnny Carson (five times) — will have hosted more than him. After Kimmel hosted the 2017 and 2018 ceremonies, he watched the Oscars experiment without a host... Read More 

Nuri Bilge Ceylan makes long films, by movie standards, but short ones by Russian literature standards. There may be no filmmaker more consciously working in a novelistic tradition. The Turkish director counts reading "Crime and Punishment" as a formative experience. His Palme d'Or-winning 2014 film "Winter Sleep" adapted a pair of Chekhov short stories. But regardless of any direct correlations, Ceylan's films — colossal, existential, talky — reach for (and often attain) an enveloping vastness... Read More 

Muscles ripple, veins pop and electronic music throbs in "Love Lies Bleeding," a heaving, hyper-sexy neo-noir drenched in sweat, blood and bug guts. If that last one seems a touch less expected, that moment, courtesy of a beetle-chomping Ed Harris, is far from the only off-the-wall provocation in Rose Glass's film, a pulpy, fable-like lesbian crime thriller where bodies, large and small, get ravaged beneath starry desert skies. Not all of it works. Heavy doses of melodrama and flashy surrealism... Read More 

LONDON (AP) -- Europeans scrolling their phones and computers this week have new choices for default browsers and search engines, where to download iPhone apps and how their personal online data is used. They're part of changes required under the Digital Markets Act, a set of European Union regulations that six tech companies classed as "gatekeepers" — Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance — began following on Thursday (3/7). The DMA is the latest in a series of... Read More 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A bill that could lead to the popular video-sharing app TikTok being unavailable in the United States is quickly gaining traction in the House as lawmakers voice concerns about the potential for the platform to surveil and manipulate Americans. The measure gained the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson and could soon come up for a full vote in the House. The bill advanced out of committee Thursday in a unanimous bipartisan vote — 50-0. The White House has provided technical support in the... Read More 

Movie theaters were looking for a savior and "Dune: Part Two" is delivering on the promise. Armed with sandworms, big screen spectacle and the star power of Timothée Chalamet, Denis Villeneuve 's science fiction epic stormed the North American box office this weekend earning $81.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Internationally, it earned $97 million, bringing its global debut to $178.5 million. "Denis made a really extraordinary and special film and its been... Read More 

For the latest Shot on iPhone film in Japan, Apple partnered with renowned director Takashi Miike and TBWA\Media Arts Lab in Tokyo to create a 19-minute, live-action adaptation of Midnight, a 1986 manga series by Manga guru Osamu Tezuka--shot entirely on iPhone 15 Pro. The Midnight short is a suspenseful drama about a taxi driver who encounters strange passengers during his night rounds. The cabbie ends up pulled out of his way to help a female truck driver, Kaede, who’s being pursued by a... Read More 

Cancer is the leading cause of death among Hispanics, and to raise awareness around this statistic, cancer treatment and research institution Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center partnered with Miami-based creative agency Alma to produce and launch a bilingual public service campaign that promotes the importance of cancer screenings. The campaign includes this short film, Late , directed by Rodrigo Garcia Saiz who has a special connection to the story, having been treated for cancer himself... Read More 

On International Women’s Day (Friday, 3/8), Ford is rolling out a campaign, which includes this film, “Dear Car Girl,” directed by Jihye Ku for Wieden+Kennedy NY, produced by W+K’s editorial studio JOINT and starring inspiring women figures such as stunt driver Dee Bryant, Ford engineer Fernanda Media, racer, car builder and Bronco ambassador Gabby Downing, and drag racer and Mustang ambassador Lauren Stoney. A love letter to women in the automotive arena, the film sends out the message loud... Read More 

Eyes are the window to the soul. And when you lock gazes with the magnificent wildlife at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, you’ll see them through a whole new perspective. And the more you see them, the more you can’t see the world without them. This is the essence of the new campaign by David&Goliath (D&G) for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, “See Conservation From a New Perspective,” inviting you to an immersive experience unlike any traditional zoo. At the Safari Park, visitors are... Read More 

At various points in our careers, we’ve all asked ourselves, “Am I a fit for this job?” In this spot, we see a man who resolves that question with the help of LinkedIn Premium, which offers professionals a smarter way to unlock opportunities. Titled “Office,” the commercial is part of a “That’s Premium” campaign created in-house at LinkedIn in partnership with director Terence Neale of Park Pictures. In “Office,” we see a LinkedIn Premium member shoehorned into a cramped, uncomfortable... Read More 

Currys, the U.K.’s largest tech retailer, has launched its latest trade-in and recycling campaign--created by agency AMV BBDO, London. Currys is paying above-market prices to customers for old TVs, smartphones and domestic appliances. Consumers are urged to embrace more circular buying behaviors by trading in old pieces of tech that they no longer need, unlocking great discounts while reducing the volume of e-waste going to landfill. In “The Big Trade-In” campaign spots, including this one in... Read More 

Brian Billow of O Positive directed a pair of tongue-in-cheek comedy shorts--including this piece titled “Museum-Worthy”--to promote the extended entry deadline for the AICP Awards. In “Museum-Worthy,” we open on Vincent Van Gogh working in his studio as two account people, dressed in period clothes but spouting contemporary marketing-speak, bring unwelcome feedback on his classic “Starry Night” painting. “The client loved the painting,” says one. “They just found it a little, um, dark.”... Read More 

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