News

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

São Paulo production shingle Gullane, which is behind upcoming Netflix series “Senna,” has moved into development on a sequel to the animated feature “Noah’s Ark.”

Produced by Gullane and Walter Salles’ Videofilmes, “Noah’s Ark” has been sold to 45 countries by Edward Noeltner’s Cmg Management. It has grossed $4.25 million in territories in which it’s been released.

Imagem Filmes will bow “Noah’s Ark” in Brazil on more than 1,000 screens, a huge spreading a country of 3,300 screens. Rodrigo Santoro, Alice Braga and Julio Andrade feature among a Brazilian star-studded voice cast. It looks like the biggest release ever of a Brazilian movie in Brazil, Fabiano Gullane told Variety from Toronto, where the company is world premiering Fernando Coimbra’s “Carnival Is Over.”

“Noah’s Ark” was inspired by classic children’s songs by Bossa Nova pioneer Vinicius de Moraes. The 3D animated feature focuses on two male mice, Vini and Tito, who steal onto Noah’s ark,...

John Kander may be close to 100 years old, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

Kander and the late lyricist Fred Ebb – known collectively as Kander and Ebb – composed the music and wrote the songs for the original 1993 Tony-winning Broadway production of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

The upcoming film, directed by Bill Condon, stars Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna and newcomer Tonatiuh.

“John Kander, who is 97 years old, was in the studio with me,” Lopez told me Monday at the premiere of her new Netflix sci-fi action movie, “Atlas.” “He is the most beautiful man. He was there for all of our recordings of the album and the pre-records for the movie. It was a dream.”

Lopez said Kander only had “very small notes” on her performance. “I was shocked,” she said.

Lopez’s producing partner,...

A key driver in Brazil’s late 1990s cinema resurgence, Globo Filmes has co-produced iconic box office blockbusters, Oscar and “A” Fest plays, arthouse breakouts. movies sparking big TV spin-offs. A brief selection of milestones in its storied history:

1990

President Fernando Collar’s government closes state owned film company Embrafilme, decimating Brazilian film production.

1993

A new Audiovisual Law offers companies income tax deductions for investment in Brazilian movies as Brazil’s Resurgence – economic and cultural recovery – lifts off.

1997

Globo Filmes is founded. Recalls Daniel Filho, its guiding spirit, in early years: “I started working in Globo TV but I always said: “I want to make cinema.’ I was on my way to close a deal with exhibitor Luis Severiano Ribeiro to launch a film production house when I got a call from Globo to launch Globo Filmes. I agreed: Globo had to do what French and British channels were doing: Participate in films.

Exclusive: Artists Equity has come on to Kiss of the Spider Woman, serving as the main studio and producer of the feature adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical based on Manuel Puig’s landmark 1976 novel. Diego Luna and Tonatiuh will star in the adaptation as Valentin Arregui and Luis Molina, respectively. They join Jennifer Lopez, who was previously announced in the titular role. Puig’s novel was, of course, previously adapted for the screen by Héctor Babenco. That 1985 version was nominated for four Oscars, with William Hurt winning Best Actor.

The show, which won seven Tony Awards, was written by Terrence McNally with a score by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb. The film is scripted and directed by Oscar winner Bill Condon, with Barry Josephson, Tom Kirdahy and Greg Yolen producing alongside Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Artists Equity, which has secured independent financing for the film.

Michael Joe,...

William Hurt died on March 13, 2022, at age 71, just a week short of his 72nd birthday. The Oscar-winning actor starred in a variety of movies over the last four decades, but how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1950, Hurt made his movie debut with a starring role in Ken Russell‘s psychedelic thriller “Altered States” (1980), quickly followed by Lawrence Kasdan‘s classic neo-noir “Body Heat” (1981). He won the Oscar as Best Actor just four years later for Hector Babenco‘s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1985), playing a transgender inmate at a South American prison who forms a bond with his cellmate (Raul Julia), a political prisoner. The role brought him additional prizes at BAFTA and the Cannes Film Festival.

Hurt followed up his Oscar victory with two more consecutive Best Actor bids: first for...

The title of Girish Kasaravalli's 1977 film "Ghatashraddha" is directly translated as "The Ritual," although the on-screen English title is "Ritual of Excommunication." Both titles reflect the bleak circumstances of the film's protagonist, even though "The Ritual" implies that women are abused and discarded as a matter of course. "Ghatashraddha" is a bleak tragedy about a woman named Yamuna (Meena Kuttappa) who lives with her religious schoolteacher father (Ramaswamy Iyengar) and who is already a widow at a young age. Yamuna is already seeing another man, also a schoolteacher, although their affair is secret ... as is her pregnancy. The only person who treats Yamuna with any friendliness is a young boy named Naani (Ajith Kumar), who serves as a witness to the story.

When her father goes out of town to raise money for his school, everything falls apart. The school deteriorates, gossip begins to spread, and Yamuna becomes an outcast.

Jennifer Lopez is ready to make art out of previous heartache. Her debut single off of her ninth album, titled “Can’t Get Enough,” is set to premiere this Wednesday, Jan. 10.

“I have my new single, from my new album and my new movie,” Lopez told Variety’s senior culture and events editor Marc Malkin on the Golden Globes carpet. “Wednesday is actually a really big day, 22 years in the making.”

There to support her Globe-nominated husband Ben Affleck, J.Lo paused to tease her first studio album since 2014 and the upcoming, wedding-filled music video that will accompany the debut single.

“I think it might surprise some people. It’s definitely kind of a meta story about the journey that it takes from getting from heartbreak back to love … I am somewhat of an expert you could say in a real way. Not so much about marriage but on weddings,...

Jennifer Lopez has joined the cast of the musical adaptation ‘Kiss of the Spiderwoman’ from ‘Dreamgirls’ director, Bill Condon.

Set in an Argentinian prison in 1981. Lopez is to play the titular role, a fantasy woman named Aurora created by Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. To escape the horrors of his imprisonment, Molina imagines movies starring Aurora as a classic silver screen diva, including the role of the spider woman, who kills her prey with a kiss. Molina’s life is upended when a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, is brought into his cell, and the two form an unlikely bond.

Based on the novel by Manuel Puig and the book of the musical by Terrence McNally, Condon has written to script for the big screen as well as directing. John Kander and Fred Ebb will provide the music.

Also in news – First...

There’s an independently financed feature take of the 1992 John Kander and Fred Ebb West End and Broadway musical of Kiss of the Spider Woman that’s being readied to shoot in the spring with Jennifer Lopez set to play the role of Aurora, which Chita Rivera originated on the Great White Way.

Lopez is ripe to put on the high heels for the role: The Billboard hitmaker, Primetime Emmy nominee, 2x Golden nominee sings, and dances too.

Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast filmmaker Bill Condon is writing and directing, and Barry Josephson (Enchanted) is producing with Tom Kirdahy, Greg Yolen and Matt Geller. Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith Thomas and Benny Medina executive producing for Nuyorican Productions. Sergio Trujillo is the choreographer.

The musical is based on the Oscar winning 1985 Hector Babenco directed movie that starred Sonja Braga as the Spider-Woman, as well as the late Raul Julia and William Hurt.

Jennifer Lopez is attached to star in a feature adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” written and directed by “Dreamgirls” filmmaker Bill Condon, Variety has confirmed with a source close to the production. The music is by legends John Kander and Fred Ebb, based on the novel by Manuel Puig and the book of the musical by Terrence McNally.

The musical is set in an Argentinian prison in 1981. Lopez would play the titular role, a fantasy woman named Aurora created by Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. To escape the horrors of his imprisonment, Molina imagines movies starring Aurora as a classic silver screen diva, including a role of the spider woman, who kills her prey with a kiss. Molina’s life is upended when a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, is brought into his cell, and the two form an unlikely bond.

Italian indie producer Vivo Film has boarded André Ristum’s action drama “Tecnicamente Dolce” (“Technically Sweet”), based on a screenplay by Italian legend Michelangelo Antonioni, teaming with Gullane Filmes, Brazil’s biggest independent film production house.

The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.

Featuring Leandra Leal (“A Wolf at the Door”), Pêpê Rapazote (“Narcos”) and Irandhir Santos (“Tropa de Elite 2”), “Carnival” is a Brazilian-Portuguese co-production that teams Gullane with Fado Filmes, Videodrome, Globo Filmes and Telecine, in association with Tc Filmes. France’s Playtime has started to pre-sell the film.

“This movie is our main title for next year. This is the...

Jack Nicholson has had one of the more varied careers in Hollywood. He has appeared in smaller, intense independent dramas, broad comedies, Oscar-bait films, surreal experimental movies, and several well-moneyed Hollywood blockbusters. Indeed, Nicholson was involved in one of the more notable blockbusters of all time, Tim Burton's 1989 film "Batman," where he played the Joker. Famously, Nicholson managed to negotiate a cut of the film's merchandising profits into his salary, making him a very, very rich man.

Nicholson has a talent for playing intense types of characters. He can be friendly or threatening, but he is an expert in taking up a room. In a way, his performance in Alexander Payne's 2002 dramedy "About Schmidt" might be his best, as it's the one notable time he's played a deliberately dull, buttoned-down character.

Given Nicholson's stature as a celebrity, one might think the actor had free reign to select whatever projects he wanted.

“Island City,” the latest film from “Lower City” director Sérgio Machado, has been acquired for international sales by Edward Noeltner’s Beverly Hills-based Cinema Management Group. Given a current absence of Brazilian movies selected for the Cannes Festival, the acquisition gives Cmg one of the most awaited of titles coming out of Brazil this year.

It also marks latest title from Brazilian production powerhouse Gullane, whose credits include Cannes Competition players – Hector Babenco’s “Carandiru,” Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” – as well as Sundance winners, such as Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother,” and Berlin Panorama laureates, such as Luis Bolognesi’s “The Last Forest.”

Exploring the foibles and failure of manhood, also the focus of “Lower City,” “Inner City” tells what Cmg describes as the “captivating” tale of three brothers who end up living under the same roof as middle brother Dalberto’s sensual new wife, Anaira (Sophie Charlotte...

William Hurt, who died Sunday at 71, had a look and an aura that appeared, at first, to fit all too snugly into Hollywood’s conception of what a movie star should be. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a silky shock of wheat-colored hair, his handsome features set off by a cleft chin and a faraway gaze, he was, at a glance, the quintessence of the old-fashioned Wasp he-man ideal. In movies, this sort of fellow was generally presented as a paragon of rectitude, a “strong silent type.” But there was nothing silent about William Hurt. The first time audiences encountered him, he was floating in a sensory-deprivation tank in the loony-tunes acid-head psychodrama “Altered States” (1980), and the moment he climbed out of that tank, suffused with the visions he had seen, he couldn’t stop jabbering about them.

“Altered States” had a notorious backstory that translated onscreen in a special way.

He could play it cool or white-hot, philosophically curious or passionate to a fault — a movie star with leading-man good lucks and a character actor’s way of digging into the idiosyncrasies of a role no matter what size it was. William Hurt, who died today at the age of 71, was one of those performers who could seem both brainy yet profoundly empathetic whether he was playing noble, saintly men or manipulative bastards; he famously had contempt for the film industry, but he never showed contempt for his audiences. And...

William Hurt, who became a top leading man in the 1980s, winning an Oscar for 1985’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and starring in “The Big Chill” and “Body Heat,” died Sunday of natural causes. He was 71. Hurt’s death was confirmed to Variety by his friend, Gerry Byrne.

His son Will said in a statement, “It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar winning actor, on March 13, 2022, one week before his 72nd birthday. He died peacefully, among family, of natural causes.”

Hurt was nominated for four Oscars over the course of his long career, scoring two best actor nominations for “Broadcast News” and “Children of a Lesser God” and a supporting actor nod for less than 10 minutes of screen time in “A History of Violence.” He was one of the most heralded performers of the 1980s, becoming something...

The Oscar nominees luncheon is always a feel-good event where everyone in the room is still a winner, happy to see their category rivals and others, and the one time in a tense season where they can just lay back and have a great time.

“For me this is just a fun thing to go to. People talk about is it Will [Smith] or me or Andrew Garfield. It could be anyone, but I am just happy at this point to be invited to the party,” Denzel Washington told me Monday as he waited for his car after the luncheon for nominees of the 94th annual Academy Awards. He also noted that the live music being spun by the DJ just made it all that much better as he practically danced up to get his photo taken with other nominees.

You could tell in this room everyone was happy, and in...

Chilean star writer José Ignacio “Chascas” Valenzuela, creator, showrunner and executive producer of hit Netflix series “Who Killed Sara?” has formed a production company with L.A.-based Argentine producer Lucas Akoskin of Aliwen Entertainment.

The new bi-coastal production company, called Malule Entertainment, will be based out of Los Angeles and Miami, where Valenzuela resides. Both partners have lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years.

Hinting at the type of films and TV series they’ll be producing, Valenzuela said: “I’m most interested in exploring the chance to collaborate with first-rate screenwriters and, at the same time, give emerging Latin American writers the opportunity to write hybrid stories that mix genres and formats.”

“Who said that a thriller cannot be written as if it were a melodrama? Why can’t a romantic comedy have, in addition to a powerful love story, a layer of suspense?” he pointed out.

Artists of all stripes have openly grappled with the spectres of their own mortality, but few film directors have confronted their own looming deaths as bluntly, or with as much vitality, as did Hector Babenco by participating in this climactic work, the part-sober documentary/part-boisterous extravaganza Babenco: Tell Me When I Die. Eschewing sentimentality and regret altogether, the Argentinian-Brazilian director of such powerful dramas as Pixote and Kiss Of the Spider Woman enthusiastically embraced the idea of confronting his own appointment with oblivion in this rambunctious and stylish obituary, which was directed by his wife, Barbara Paz. This is Brazil’s candidate in the Academy’s Best International Feature Film category this year, after having debuted at the 2019 edition of the Venice Film Festival.

Babenco was first diagnosed with cancer when he was just 38, just as he began production of his one big Hollywood films, Ironweed, starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Argentine-born Brazil-based director Hector Babenco wasted little time making his mark on the world of cinema. In just his first handful of films he was recognized by the likes of the Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards, and was an instant crossover hit upon his arrival in Hollywood.

Below, Variety revisits the director’s body of work.

1973 – “O Fabuloso Fittipaidi” Babenco’s feature debut, this documentary covers the life and career of Brazilian formula one racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi from the beginning of his driving career through to the height of his success and international popularity.

1975 – “King of the Night” A Brazilian man recalls his life story in this, Babenco’s fiction debut. A now old Tertuliano recalls the love stories of his youth including with a sickly girl who moved half a world away, a prostitute and the three daughters of his mother’s friend.

1977 – “Lúcio Flávio” Babenco’s...

While speaking at a masterclass at Mexico’s 2019 Morelia Film Festival, Willem Dafoe said about acting: “When you do the bidding of someone else, it’s like falling in love: You have a new energy, you don’t think about yourself, you’re on an adventure… and it’s always better when it’s through someone else; you become their creature.”

Indeed, Dafoe has portrayed a slew of characters in his storied career, but perhaps inhabiting Hector Babenco’s alter-ego Diego in the deeply personal “My Hindu Friend” was among his more challenging. While Babenco’s last film was not strictly auto-biographical, it was based on his epic battle with cancer combined with some imagined sequences. “Sometimes I’d ask him about the circumstances [surrounding a scene] and he’d say: ‘Don’t look at me! You’re Diego, you tell me!’ but at other times, he’d close his eyes and give testimony,...

It’s been a banner year for Latin American cinema where 18 countries, including newcomer Suriname, have submitted films to vie for the international feature Oscar. Half of this year’s crop are by women, many of them debuts. Several entries focus on the plight of Indigenous people and other marginalized groups.

Despite the region’s chauvinistic societies, female cinematic voices have grown in strength in recent years. Some credit the #MeToo movement for the shift in attitudes and the growing number of femme directors in the region. In Bolivia, 85% of the producers are said to be women.

In some nations, private and public initiatives encourage more aspiring Indigenous and other marginalized filmmakers to create their visions. Mexico’s film institute Imcine, run by filmmaker Maria Novaro and her mostly female team, introduced a film fund for Indigenous and Afro-descendent filmmakers in 2019.

Strong female-led debuts hail from the likes of Peru,...

Following two wins in the past three years, contenders from across the Americas are championing local culture and community.

The lack of physical festivals has not helped any film this year, and the relatively low-key roster from the Americas could have used the opportunity to break out a little-known filmmaker or remind voters of some of the more familiar names in play.

No film from the region made it onto the 10-strong shortlist last season and, despite speculation that some filmmakers might be holding back their latest work for what is hoped will be a return to physical festivals in...

One year ago, the documentary “Honeyland” became the first film ever nominated for Oscars in both the Best Documentary Feature and the Best International Feature Film categories. And in a way, it feels as if that nomination for the nonfiction film from North Macedonia has had a ripple effect on this year’s international Oscar race, where documentaries like “Collective,” “The Mole Agent” and “Notturno” are among the high-profile contenders in a wide-open year.

The presence of docs in the international Oscar category certainly isn’t new — in fact, the seven documentaries in this year’s race are two fewer than the nine that competed in the foreign-language category two years ago. But in the aftermath of “Honeyland,” a cinema vérité look at a beekeeper in a remote mountain village, voters seem to be taking nonfiction films more seriously in a category where the only other nominated docs in this century were two animated ones,...

While the Academy has not yet released the full official list, these are the films Variety has learned have been submitted by various countries in the international film race. The shortlist will be announced Feb. 9 and the nominations on March 15. The Academy Awards ceremony takes place on April 25.

Albania Open Door

Director: Florenc Papas

Key Cast: Luli Bitri, Jonida Vokshi, Gulielm Radoja

Logline: Pregnant woman and her sister try to find a man to pretend to be the mom-to-be’s husband before visiting their traditional father.

Prodco: Bunker Film Plus

Algeria Héliopolis

Director: Djaâfar Gacem

Key cast: Souhila Mallem, Mehdi

Ramdani, Cesar Duminil

Logline: Algerians fight for independence punctuated by the 1945 massacre in the ancient city of Héliopolis.

Prodco: Centre Algérien de Développement du Cinéma

Argentina The Sleepwalkers

Director: Paula Hernández

Key Cast: Érica Rivas, Ornella D’elía, Marilu Marini, Daniel Hendler

Logline: A family drama encompasses the sexual awakening...

In late director Hector Babenco’s last film, “My Hindu Friend,” the doctor attending to Willem Dafoe’s character, a cancer-stricken Babenco alter-ego, observes: “Those who have a dream to fulfill have a better chance of survival.”

These sage words best encapsulate what kept Babenco alive for more than three decades after he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer at the age of 38. He made just 11 feature films in his illustrious career but each film was a miracle that kept him going until he passed away at 70 in 2016.

“Cinema was his oxygen; the films were Hector, Hector was his films,” says filmmaker-actress Barbara Paz, who marks her directorial feature debut with “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die,” the Brazilian submission for the Best International Feature Oscar, Best Documentary Oscar, and the Spirit Awards for Documentary. While Brazil has sent many fact-based fiction films to the Oscars, this is the first documentary to represent the country.

“Babenco: Tell Me When I Die” is the documentary of Babenco dying. Dying is not pleasant and initially I had a really hard time watching. By its end, however, I not only understood why Brazil submitted it to the Academy; it is in honor of Hector Babenco, one of Brazil’s most accomplished transcultural directors, but I was also moved by the genuine love he had for life and that the filmmaker Barbara Paz had for him.

Continue reading on SydneysBuzz The Blog »...

The miraculous prospects of international funding initiatives and the opportunities and pitfalls offered by streaming platforms were among the topics discussed by leading Argentine producers during an online Ventana Sur panel on Thursday.

Diego Dubcovsky of Varsovia Films, Santiago Gallelli of Rei Cine and Paula Zyngierman of Maravillacine also looked back at the dynamic New Argentine Cinema wave that characterized the 1990s, and addressed the role of state funding for the sector, and the silver lining of the Covid-19 crisis.

Already racked by crippling inflation and a plunging peso, the Argentine film industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, which has led to a sharp decline in the cinema admissions and TV advertising that fund the country’s Instituto Nacional de Cinematografia y las Artes Audiovisuals (Incaa).

Dubcovsky, whose credits include “The Motorcycle Diaries,” Daniel Burman films like “Lost Embrace” and “Empty Nest,” as well as such recent pics...

Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

Scroll down for the full list

The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September.

by Nathaniel R

In today's big "international feature" news, Denmark has selected Efa frontrunner Another Round for its submission but we already covered Denmark so let's move southwest to a country that also just announced. They've struggled to return to the Oscar lineup since their golden heyday, the late 1990s, when they had three nominees in a four year span. Brazil has selected Babenco: Tell Me When I Die for its Oscar submission this year. It's a documentary about the last years of Hector Babenco's life, directed by his widow Barbara Paz. Oscar voters are already familiar with Babenco, of course, since he made quite an international splash in the 1980s with films like Pixote, Ironweed, and the Oscar-nominated Kiss of the Spider-Woman. It's an interesting choice for a submission though it's not likely to be nominated given Oscar's general resistance to documentaries about film. Still, we're eager to see it.

Munich-based sales agency Arri Media Intl.’s has signed a North American distribution deal with Rock Salt Releasing for “Curveball – A True Story. Unfortunately.,” which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Berlinale Special Gala section this year.

The film, co-written and directed by Johannes Naber, is released in German cinemas on Nov. 26, and will be released in North America by Rock Salt in the first quarter of next year.

The film tells the true story of how the Iraq war, with the involvement of the German government and secret service, was started based on faulty intelligence.

Bioweapons expert Dr. Arndt Wolf of the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bnd) is obsessed with the idea that, despite Un inspections, anthrax is still being produced in Iraq. Back home in Germany, Wolf’s superior Schatz assigns him as case officer for the Iraqi asylum seeker Rafid Alwan because...

Please welcome new contributor Nick Taylor who is providing us with extra Supporting Actress pleasure inbetween the Smackdown events.

How close was Hector Babenco’s Pixote to an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980? Or rather, why was it disqualified? Already lauded in Brazil for its unflinching, documentary-style depiction of the country’s unique epidemic of child criminality and the institutions benefitting from it, the film got axed for doing test screenings outside The Academy’s allotted time frame. That sounds as "necessary" as many of their eligibility nitpicks. Disqualified from consideration for 1980, Pixote became fair game upon its U.S. release in 1981, winning most of the critics prizes for Best Foreign Language Film and scoring a Golden Globe nomination over Oscar’s eventual winner, Hungary's Mephisto.

Pixote also won Best Film from Boston, who took a page from the National Society of Film Critics and gave Marília Pêra their Best Actress award.

Exclusive: Hector Babenco’s final film, My Hindu Friend was originally released in Brazil (where it is known as Meu Amigo Hindu) in 2015 and made its international premiere at the Montréal World Film Festival the following year where the film’s star Willem Dafoe was honored with a Best Actor award. After Babenco died in 2016, the film never made it stateside. Fast-forward to 2020 and Rock Salt Releasing acquired has title and set a limited weeklong run for the film starting January 17.

Oscar-nominated Babenco co-wrote the film with Guilherme Moraes Guintella. The film was inspired by Babenco’s life story with Dafoe playing Diego, a talented American filmmaker, whose life is quickly disrupted after being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. Close to death, Diego marries the beautiful Livia (Maria Fernanda Cândido) before heading to Seattle for life-saving treatments, including receiving a bone marrow transplant.

Film-lover designed film posters in Rome in 1960s, including one for Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2.

David Weisman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Kiss Of The Spider Woman and an accomplished graphic artist, has died in Los Angeles from illness. He was 77.

Weisman passed away on October 9 at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles due to complications from neuroinvasive West Nile virus.

Born in Binghamton, New York, on March 11, 1942, Weisman attended Syracuse University’s School of Fine Arts in the early 1960’s. Inspired by La Dolce Vita, Weisman dropped out of college and travelled to Italy, where he found work designing film posters in Rome,...

David Weisman, an Academy Award nominee as producer of Kiss of the Spider Woman and an accomplished graphic artist, died on October 9 from complications from neuroinvasive West Nile virus. He died in Los Angeles at Cedars Sinai at age 77, according to his publicist.

Born in Binghamton, New York, in March 1942, Weisman attended Syracuse University’s School of Fine Arts in the early 1960’s. Inspired by the classic Italian film La Dolce Vita and armed with a gift for languages, Weisman dropped out of college to design film-posters in Rome. There he met Federico Fellini, for whom he created a poster for 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo).

Returning to New York, he collaborated with Otto Preminger, who asked him to create the title sequence for Hurry Sundown. He then became Preminger’s assistant on the film. Weisman also designed the key art for The Boys in the Band, among many others.

In 1967, with...

David Weisman, who was Oscar-nominated as producer of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” died Oct. 9 in Los Angeles due to complications from West Nile virus. He was 77.

Weisman had a long career as a graphic designer and photographer and co-wrote and co-directed cult classic “Ciao! Manhattan” about 1960s icon Edie Sedgwick.

Born in Binghamton, N.Y., Weisman dropped out of Syracuse University in the early 1960s to design film posters in Rome. He met Federico Fellini and created a poster for “8 1/2” before returning to New York to work with Otto Preminger on “Hurry Sundown.” He also designed the key art for “The Boys in the Band” and many other films.

On “Ciao! Manhattan” he partnered with John Palmer, an alumnus of Andy Warhol’s Factory. He worked as associate director on avant-garde film “The Telephone Book” and created “Shogun Assassin,” edited from a series of Japanese samurai movies.

Weisman begin...

It is mid-August and Gold Derby expert Oscar panelists are laying the early line on 2020 Oscar winners, no small task given that most films that will actually be in contention in late fall have not been released and, for some, there are no trailers with helpful hints of the writing, directing and acting we can expect.

There is the risk of personal humiliation in such early forecasts. An editor years ago insisted that I predict the next year’s Oscars the day after the current season ended. I picked Hector Babenco’s “At Play in the Field of the Lords“ to win it all. It won nothing. Thanks, boss.

Nevertheless, a challenge has been issued and I now tread where only fools dare to go. (No offense to the fools who have already dared to go.) In arranging such a list, you look at the subject matter, pedigrees and buzz...

Exclusive: U.S. label Rock Salt Releasing is re-launching acclaimed Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco’s (Kiss Of The Spider Woman) final film My Last Friend in the international and U.S markets.

Willem Dafoe stars in the 2015 feature about a film director who learns he is on the brink of death. Rock Salt Releasing will launch international sales on the film, also known as My Hindu Friend, in Cannes.

Originally released in Brazil, the English-language movie internationally premiered at the Montréal World Film Festival in 2016 where Dafoe was awarded Best Actor. The film’s release was put on hold, however, due to Babenco’s untimely death in July 2016. Rock Salt’s parent company TriCoast Worldwide picked up the O2 Production feature on the advice of The Movie Agency.

Co-written by Guilherme Moraes Guintella (Principal Dancer), the project was inspired by Babenco’s own life story, starring his friends and family as characters.

Dukhtar which in Urdu means daughter is a film from Pakistan and premiered at Toronto . It was screened in several other film festivals and went on to win many accolades for the subject it handles.

A ten-year-old girl becomes part of a truce between two feuding tribes when her father decides to give her hand in marriage to the head of the other tribe. Her mother is obviously vexed and decides to take the girl and run. And as forgiving is a trait that does not get along well with honour, the runaways have an arduous road ahead. A truck driver with problems of his own takes them with him. The movie is about their struggle to stay alive against many odds.

Second half of the movie and how it ends do not justify the intensity with which it all starts. Some of it has to do with the half-baked performances.

William Hurt celebrates his 69th birthday on March 20, 2019. The Oscar-winning actor has starred in a variety of movies over the last four decades, but how many of those titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

SEEOscar Best Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

Born in 1950, Hurt made his movie debut with a starring role in Ken Russell‘s psychedelic thriller “Altered States” (1980), quickly followed by Lawrence Kasdan‘s classic neo-noir “Body Heat” (1981). He won the Oscar as Best Actor just four years later for Hector Babenco‘s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1985), playing a transgender inmate at a South American prison who forms a bond with his cellmate (Raul Julia), a political prisoner. The role brought him additional prizes at BAFTA and the Cannes Film Festival.

SEELawrence Kasdan movies: 12 greatest films ranked...

On the morning when the Oscar nominations were announced in 1987, I got a call from David Lynch who said he was astounded that he’d been nominated for directing “Blue Velvet” and equally astounded that I had predicted his nomination in the Los Angeles Times the day before.

“How did you know?” he asked.

The answer, of course, is that I didn’t know. I’d just played an educated hunch. Though he hadn’t been nominated by the DGA, it figured that despite its graphic, inscrutable content, “Blue Velvet’s” daring originality would set well with his peers in the academy.

The academy’s relatively small directors’ branch, unlike the broader-based Directors Guild, had a history of finding room on its ballot for work outside the mainstream that its members appreciated.

The year before, the academy had nominated two of them, Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” and Hector Babenco’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,...

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.

#14 — Helen Archer, a dying homeless alcoholic.

John: Behold, the most devastating sequel to Heartburn imaginable. Directed by Hector Babenco and adapted by William Kennedy from his own Pulitzer-winning novel, Ironweed follows Francis (Jack Nicholson) and Helen (Streep), two homeless drifters biding their time and eking out their lives in Depression-era Albany. At nearly two and a half hours long, Ironweed is a bleak, wrenching study of poverty with nary a promise of redemption in sight. We’re talking about a movie whose most uplifting and musical scene is chased with a crushing dose of hopeless reality, a movie in which dogs assail a woman’s frozen corpse outside a church, digging graves is considered a good day’s work, and ramshackle vagrants pray they drink enough liquor to die in their sleep. It’s a tough sell and an even tougher sit,...

Is Meryl Streep the greatest film actor of all time? That might just be the case judging from her record 21 Oscar nominations. Then again, with three wins she trails Katharine Hepburn, who still holds the record with four acting victories, so Streep still has a big brass ring to reach for if she wants to be the undisputed queen of screen actors. She earned her latest bid this year for her leading role as Washington Post publisher Kay Graham in Steven Spielberg‘s “The Post.” Where does her latest entry rank in her filmography? Even though it seems like she’s nominated for just about every performance she gives it’s not just those Oscar-anointed roles that count among her strongest achievements. Tour through our photo gallery above of Streep’s 25 greatest performances ranked from worst to best.

See Meryl Streep joins ‘Big Little Lies’ season 2 – will she win her fourth Emmy?...

With his farewell film, three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis could break the record for most wins by an actor while Meryl Streep, who just extended her nominations record with bid #21, could match the achievement of four-time winner Katharine Hepburn.

Below, we offer up 13 more facts, stats, and figures regarding this year’s Academy Awards nominees announced on Jan. 23. Winners of the 24 competitive races at the Oscars will be revealed on March 4 during a live telecast on ABC hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

See 2018 Oscar nominations: Full list of Academy Awards nominees in all 24 categories

Lucky 13?

“The Shape of Water” is the tenth film in Oscar history to earn 13 nominations. The current record of 14 nominations is held by three films, “All about Eve” (1951), “Titanic” (1998) and “La La Land” (2017)

Best Actor mainstay

With his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination, Daniel Day-Lewis (“Phantom Thread”) is now tied with Richard Burton for recognition in the category.

Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column. Check out last week’s Roundup right here.

Lineup Announcements

– Exclusive: The 12th Annual Sunscreen Film Festival announced its official selections for the 2017 event featuring films with Alec Baldwin, Dylan McDermott, John Cleese, Daphne Zuniga and more. Opening night will feature Michael Mailer’s newest film, “Blind,” a romantic-drama, starring Alec Baldwin, Demi Moore and Dylan McDermott. Closing night will wrap up the festival with “Albion: The Enchanted Stallion,” a family fantasy adventure, starring John Cleese, Debra Messing, Jennifer Morrison and Stephen Dorff.

Retrospective Screenings will include Daphne Zuniga appearance at the festival honoring the 30th anniversary of “Spaceballs.” Also in this category will be “The Greatest Show on Earth,” from 1952 directed by Cecile B. DeMille, which won the Oscar for Best Pictures and Best Writing in 1953. The screening will honor the closing of the Ringling Bros.

Director Patricio Guzman’s Cordillera among winners in industry strands.

The 32nd Guadalajara Film Festival (March 10-17), bookended by fierce criticism of Us president Donald Trump by local and international industry, has feted Everardo Gonzalez’s documentary Devil’s Freedom (La Libertad Del Diablo) with best Mexican feature, best Ibero-American documentary and best cinematography as well as the Mexican film critics trophy.

The feature, about violence in Mexico, is handled by Films Boutique and received its world premiere in Berlin earlier this year where it won an Amnesty International award.

Carlos Lechuga’s Santa And Andres, about political dissent in Cuba, was named best Ibero-American feature and also won best script.

Nicaraguan director Jose Maria Cabral’s prison drama Carpinteros (Woodpeckers) won best Ibero-American director in addition to best actor for Jean Jean.

Mexican debutant Sofia Gomez’s The Blue Years (Los Anios Azules), a coming of age drama, garnered five awards including best director, the Fipresci...

We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.Hector BabencoArgentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of

We pay tribute to the film stars and directors from around the world who sadly passed away in 2016.

Hector Babenco

Argentine-born Brazilian director Hector Babenco died on July 13 at 70-years-old.

He found international success with Brazilian slum drama Pixote (1981), going on to make Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned a best director Oscar nominee and William Hurt earned an Oscar win for best actor.

Babenco went on to direct Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Ironweed (1987) and Tom Berenger and John Lithgow in At Play In The Fields Of The Lord (1991).

After undergoing cancer treatment in the 1990s, he returned to the director’s chair for films including Brazilian prison...

Holding the festival is an incredibly difficult task especially after the recent attempted military coup in Turkey. The West cannot lose Turkey, a modern and western nation which is also Islamic and is the literal bridge between the West and the East. The Antalya Film Festival feels it is imperative to show that life still goes on after the coup, and the creative and recreative power of entertainment leads the show.Military Coup Blocks Bridge Over the Bosphorus — bbc.co.ukInspired by the failed July 15th coup, films about life under coups suggest what might have happened had the July attempt succeeded. The Sun’s Eclipse program is a powerful testament to the importance of democracy and human rights, and includes films from Turkey, Brazil, USA, Chile, Argentina.

We in the west often regard Turkey more as Eastern than Western…understanding why leads us to recognize the power of our...

Update: The head of the festival has branded reports of eleventh-hour staff resignations “slanderous” and “garbage” as the 40th anniversary edition got underway this week.

“It has nothing to do with the staff of the festival,” Serge Losique, who founded the Montreal World Film Festival in 1976, told Screen International on Friday. “It’s slandering [sic] and they will answer to that.”

The festival president flatly denied that any member of his staff had left, despite an open letter in Le Journal de Montreal this week in which staff said their resignations were motivated by what they claimed was financial instability at the festival.

In an emotional call to Screen in which he sounded irate and frustrated, Losique appeared to concede that there has been turnover of some volunteers and agency workers hired on short-term contracts, but added this was not the same issue.

“These people [volunteers and agency workers] know nothing about or finances,” he said. “When you have...