LOS ANGELES You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) “Anora,” a strip club Cinderella story without the fairy tale ending, was crowned best picture at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, handing Sean Baker’s gritty, Brooklyn-set screwball farce Hollywood’s top prize. In a stubbornly fluctuating Oscar season, “Anora,” the Palme d’Or-winner at the Cannes Film Festival, emerged as the unlikely frontrunner. Baker’s tale of Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Last fall, Sean Baker was sitting in a Manhattan restaurant, talking about a poll. The survey, about sex in movies and television, showed that Gen Z moviegoers were mostly turned off by sex in film. “That broke my heart. I thought, there’s something wrong here,” said Baker. “You’re OK with all the violence that’s out Read More 

MEXICO CITY (AP) If there is a still open wound in Latin America, it is that of the tens of thousands of disappeared people and decadeslong pain that has accumulated in parts of the region such as Mexico and Colombia. Two visions of the trauma had a central role at the 97th Academy Awards: the Brazilian film “Ainda Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) A lawyer for actor Blake Lively asked a federal judge Thursday to impose strict rules to prevent anyone associated with Justin Baldoni getting personal or intimate information about her or other celebrities while potential evidence is shared among attorneys as her sexual harassment claims against her costar in “It Ends With Us” proceed toward trial. Read More 

NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES HBO has signed a two-year first-look television deal with BAFTA-winning and Emmy®-nominated actor, writer, and producer Sharon Horgan (“Bad Sisters,” “Catastrophe”) and her multi award-winning production company Merman. HBO has also given a straight-to-series order for a new original comedy series, the first project under this deal, from Horgan and produced by Merman, with Horgan Read More 

BERLIN & NEW YORK German writer, producer and filmmaker, Werner Herzog–who’s behind celebrated work such as Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo (Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival), and Aguirre, The Wrath of God–will take on his first animated film, The Twilight World. Herzog will direct the narrative feature, with animation and production support from animation studio Psyop in partnership with Read More 

ROME (AP) “The Leopard,” a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them. Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, Read More 

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) Abdullah Saeed wasn’t looking to write a groundbreaking comedy. He was just looking for a job. The “Deli Boys” creator wrote a sample script in 2019, hoping to secure a staff position in a writers’ room after transitioning from journalism to screenwriting. (“Nobody was buying my documentaries,” jokes Saeed.) He had recently co-written a script Read More 

NEW YORK Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) has sold R/GA, the creative innovation company, to Truelink Capital, a private equity firm with a track record of investing in tech-enabled services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The move thus marks R/GA’s return to independence as a privately owned company after 23 years as part of IPG. Read More 

NEW YORK The AICP has set the full roster for the Curatorial Committee for the 2025 AICP Post Awards. The group, representing experts from the full gamut of postproduction crafts as well as from the agency and brand ranks, will meet this spring under the leadership of AICP Post Awards chairperson James Razzall, U.S. president of advertising, Read More 

CULVER CITY, Calif. PRETTYBIRD, the production company helmed by Paul Hunter, Kerstin Emhoff and Ali Brown, has added award-winning filmmaker Goh Iromoto to its roster for commercial and music video representation in the U.S. and U.K. Born to immigrant parents who founded a Japanese Canadian newspaper company, Goh traveled across the vast country and cultivated his sense of Read More 

PARIS (AP) Oscar contender “Emilia Pérez” was named the best French film of the year at the Césars awards — France’s equivalent of the Oscars — and under-fire Karla Sofia Gascón, the star of Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set melodrama, made a rare public appearance. The musical is one of the most celebrated films of the year but has Read More 

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Preliminary autopsy results didn’t determine how Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and his wife died at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but did rule out that they were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, the sheriff leading the investigation said Friday. The condition of the bodies found Wednesday indicated the deaths occurred at least several days Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) George Clooney made waves in July when he called on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, citing diminished capacity. For Clooney, there wasn’t a choice to stay silent. “I was raised to tell the truth and telling the truth means telling it when it’s not comfortable,” the actor-director and big Democratic booster Read More 

NEW YORK Ogilvy has elevated Tim LeGallo to a new role within the agency–chief production officer, North America. LeGallo will be integral to Ogilvy North America’s regional leadership, partnering closely with chief creative officer Rafael Rizuto to drive the effective integration of talent, capabilities and resources, and deliver world-class creative excellence across North America clients and key Read More 

LOS ANGELES Production company MADRE has added Brazilian director Lu Villaça to its talent roster. With degrees in cinema and performance and a master’s in screenwriting, Villaça brings a multifaceted approach to filmmaking. Villaça’s tastes have been shaped by her childhood training in ballet, studying Greek theatre texts, her passion for music, and her contemplative nature. She Read More 

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, Read More 

NEW YORK Digital agency Barbarian has named Adam Gloo as its chief creative officer. With over a decade of creative leadership experience, Gloo has shaped standout work at agencies including VML, 360i/Dentsu Creative, and most recently, SPCSHP (formerly Big Spaceship). During that time, he led teams that developed award-winning campaigns for brands such as Starbucks, Oreo, HBO, Read More 

LOS ANGELES Director and cinematographer Alice Gu has joined the talent roster at production company Good Times for commercial representation in the U.S. Known for building visual worlds through thoughtful composition, highlighting human truths about shared experiences, Gu has turned out work for brands including Apple, Beats by Dre, Microsoft, ESPN, Billabong, FIFA, NFL, Tripadvisor, IKEA x Read More 

NEW YORK Production studio Identity continues to ramp up its tabletop capabilities and expand its roster of talent with the addition of director Kevan Bean. Bean honed his expertise in painting, learning composition, color, and tone before subsequently bringing his distinctive visual flair behind the lens in award-winning campaigns, Super Bowl ads, and spots for the likes Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) So you think YOUR job is bad? Sorry if we seem to be lacking empathy here. But however crummy you think your 9-5 routine is, it’ll never be as bad as Robert Pattinson’s in Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” — nor will any job, on Earth or any planet, approach this level of misery. Mickey, Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Shula is driving home from a fancy dress party one night when she encounters an unusual sight in the middle of a country road: her Uncle Fred’s dead body. But Shula, portrayed by Susan Chardy, does not behave in a way that we would expect. She doesn’t cry out in horror or appear the least Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) In Carson Lund’s “Eephus,” two teams – the Riverdogs and Adler’s Paint – gather on a neighborhood field for a baseball game. The leaves are already starting to turn — “It’s getting late early,” as Yogi Berra said — and this is to be the final game for their adult rec league. The field is Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) “Captain America: Brave New World” kept falling but still hovered above all others at a weak weekend box office. The latest Disney-Marvel offering brought in another $15 million according to studio estimates Sunday, when most of Hollywood’s attention was on the Oscars. The Anthony Mackie-led “Captain America: Brave New World” opened strong at about $120 Read More 

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