News

Partners Sideshow Pictures and Janus Films open All We Imagine As Light on Friday and will follow the playbook for Drive My Car, the indie distributor’s first film that began a slow rollout about this time in 2021, collecting awards, nice grosses and finishing with an International Picture Oscar win amid a flurry of nominations. Payal Kapadia’s film, among the best reviewed of the year, was snubbed by India for an Oscar selection. Its distributor has something to say about that and is campaigning for other key categories.

Also this weekend, comedy A Real Pain with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin from Searchlight Pictures hits 900-plus screens in a major expansion. Sony Pictures Classics’ Saorsie Ronan starrer The Outrun, which opened in early October and was down to 19 screens, is jumping back to 200 by popular demand, which is nice to hear.

Gkids debuts Ghost Cat Anzu on 300-plus screens.

A sprawling lineup of filmmakers, including Sean Penn, Tim Burton, Alfonso Cuaron, Justine Triet, Ava DuVernay and David Cronenberg will attend the Marrakech Film Festival and take part in conversations in front of audiences.

In total, 18 directors, actors, screenwriters and producers from six continents will participate in on-stage discussions to reflect on their craft, lives and careers at the festival, which kicks off Nov. 29 and runs until Dec. 7.

Surpassing the talent roster of major international festivals such as Cannes or Venise, this year’s Marrakech conversations program will also includes Iranian director, screenwriter and producer Mohammad Rasoulof; Australian director and screenwriter Justin Kurzel; French director and screenwriter François Ozon; British actor Gemma Arterton; Brazilian director and screenwriter Walter Salles; Russian director and screenwriter Kirill Serebrennikov; Mauritanian director and screenwriter Abderrahmane Sissako (“Timbuktu”); Moroccan filmmakers Alaa Eddine Aljem (“The Unknown Saint”), Yasmine Benkiran (“Queens”), Ismaël El Iraki (“Zanka Contact”) and Kamal Lazraq...

U.S. indie filmmaker Alex Ross Perry’s long-awaited work Videoheaven, celebrating video stores in Hollywood cinema, will world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

The film, which has been more than a decade in the making, comes hot on the heels of Pavements, which debuted at Venice this year, and follows festival hits such as Listen Up Philip and Her Smell.

The Videoheaven world premiere was announced by Rotterdam as part of one of four Focus strands in its 54th edition, running from January 30 to February 9, 2025.

The film will be unveiled in a Focus strand entitled “Hold Video in Your Hand”, celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture.

Other works in the selection include Rotterdam filmmaker Gyz’s Videotheek Marco, an investigation into local video store history and connected audiovisual activities like community television.

The program also includes Indian documentary Videokaaran (2011) and David Cronenberg’s latest work The Shrouds...

Justin Kurzel’s timely thriller “The Order,” starring Jude Law as a FBI agent fighting neo-Nazi terrorists, will open the Marrakech International Film Festival with Law and producer Stuart Ford in tow.

The festival – which runs Nov. 29 to Dec. 7 in the ancient Moroccan city – has announced its lineup of more than 70 films which, as is customary, mixes known titles and fresh fare.

“The Order” will screen as part of the event’s gala screenings that also comprise French-Moroccan auteur Nabil Ayouch’s feminist musical drama “Everybody Loves Touda,” Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” all of which will be accompanied by their directors.

The 14-title competition dedicated to first and second works includes Moroccan director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s melodrama “Across the Sea,” about North African exiles in Marseilles, and Hind Meddeb’s doc “Sudan, Remember Us,” which pays homage to...

The Marrakech Film Festival unveiled its 2024 lineup on Thursday and set that Luca Guadagnino would replace Thomas Vinterberg as its jury president. The other jury members will be Andrew Garfield, Jacob Elordi, Virginie Efira, and Ali Abbasi. Vinterberg “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” festival organizers said.

The Marrakech fest on Thursday also unveiled the lineup for its competition, 11th Continent, and Moroccan Panorama sections, as well as gala and special screenings. In the competition, 14 films will compete for the Étoile d’Or, or Golden Star.

The 21st edition of the fest in Morocco will also honor Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and, posthumously, pay homage to Moroccan star Naïma Elmcherqui. The Marrakech fest takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 7.

Check out the full lineup for the 2024 edition below.

Competition

Across The Sea (LA Mer Au Loin)

by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi / France, Morocco, Belgium

with Ayoub Gretaa, Anna Mouglalis, Grégoire Colin, Omar Boulakirba,...

Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the full line-up for its 21st edition which will open with Justin Kurzel’s crime thriller The Order onNovember 29 and run to December 7.

Kurzel’s debut featureSnowtownwon thefestival’s jury prize in 2011, and the filmmaker returned in 2022 to serve on the jury.

This year’s jury will be presided over by Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, replacing Thomas Vinterberg, and will award the Étoile d’Or for best film to one of 14 first- and second-time features in the international competition.

In total, the festival will screen 70 films from 32 countries, including 14 documentaries, 12 Moroccan titles, nine world...

After crafting the best film of 2023 with The Beast, Bertrand Bonello is prepping his next feature. While he was tight-lipped on details, he tells Variety, “It’s a little early to talk about it. It’s going to be very different. It’s going to be completely different. The writing is finished, and we’re going to start the casting process. I’m going to announce it once the casting is done. I hope to start shooting next September.” Speaking about how cinema is changing, he added, “This mutation is freaky and fascinating. If you don’t involve it in your creation, you’re out. It’s always an equilibrium. You must protect the past and welcome the future. If you just welcome the future, you’re lost in the movement. If you protect the past, you’re out now.”

The ever-prolific Takashi Miike has unveiled his next film, Sham,...

Exclusive: With a horror project for Universal/Monkeypaw and a Night of the Living Dead sequel still in the offing, Nikyatu Jusu has begun development on The Fly, a new film based on David Cronenberg’s body horror masterwork, which she wrote and will direct for 20th Century Studios and Chernin Entertainment.

While the film’s plot is under wraps, sources stressed that it’s set in the universe of Cronenberg’s film, rather than a straightforward remake. Nikyatu will direct from her own script, with Chernin Entertainment’s Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping producing. The project coalesces in a moment when body horror is very much back in vogue, with the success of Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes prize-winner The Substance, which has grossed over $43M worldwide and drummed up Oscar buzz for star Demi Moore.

A landmark in both science fiction and horror cinema, Cronenberg’s The Fly follows...

Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and late great Moroccan actor Naïma Elmcherqui are set to be celebrated with career tributes by the Marrakech International Film Festival.

Elmcherqui, who was one of Morocco’s best-loved personalities, died in Casablanca on Oct. 5. After becoming a household name during the 1960s and 70s working with Moroccan theatre director and dramatist Tayeb Seddiki she soared on the big-screen in movies such as Souheil Ben Barka’s “Blood Wedding” (1977), which was Morocco’s first submission for the international Oscar; Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi’s female empowerment drama “Badis” (1989); and, more recently Mohamed Mouftakir’s “The Fall of Apple Trees,” her final film role, for which Elmcherqui won the best actress prize at Sweden’s Malmö Arab Film Festival.

Elmcherqui – who was a member of the board of the foundation that oversees the Marrakech fest – had also appeared in a slew of soaps and Moroccan TV movies that boosted boosted her popularity.

The Marrakech International Film Festival announced plans to recognize three influential figures at its upcoming 21st edition. The festival will celebrate Sean Penn, David Cronenberg, and the late Moroccan actress Naïma Elmcherqui for their contributions to film.

Sean Penn, a two-time Oscar winner, will make his first visit to Morocco and the prestigious festival. Penn is known for acting in and directing movies. He is also active in humanitarian work using his fame. Festival organizers noted Penn’s commitment to social causes.

Veteran director David Cronenberg said he was excited and honored by the recognition. Cronenberg, 77, has made over 50 films spanning six decades, including The Fly and A Dangerous Method. His latest, The Shrouds, has screened at other festivals this year. Cronenberg is celebrated for launching the careers of stars like Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson.

The festival will also pay tribute to the late Naïma Elmcherqui. A veteran of Moroccan cinema for 60 years,...

The Marrakech International Film Festival will honor Sean Penn and David Cronenber and late Moroccan actor Naïma Elmcherqui at its upcoming 21st edition, kicking off in late November.

The posthumous honor for Elmcherqui (aka Lamcharki) has been announced just three weeks after her death at the age of 81 years old on October 5.

Elmcherqui was one of Morocco’s most revered actresses with highlights of her 60-year career including Badis (1989) Allal Al Kalda (2003) and Autumn of Apple Trees (2021), for which she received the Best Actress award at the Arab Film Festival in Malmö.

A life-long supporter of emerging talent, she also took a role in Nabil Ayouch’s first 1992 short film Les Pierres bleues du desert, starring a teenage Jamel Debbouze, who would go on to become one of Morocco and France’s best known comedians and actors.

The festival described Elmcherqui as an advocate of Moroccan culture and “a loyal...

As the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) marks its 35th edition, the nation’s largest and longest-running film event reinforces its position as a key reference point for Singapore and Asian cinema, while showcasing its unique perspective on contemporary trends in global cinema.

Held from 28 November to 8 December, this year’s lineup features 105 films from 45 countries, with 80% of the selections hailing from Asia. International highlights this year include the horror-comedy Nightbitch featuring Amy Adams, The Shrouds by master of body horror David Cronenberg, Grand Tour by Cannes-award winning director Miguel Gomes, and a newly restored version of Bong Joon-ho’s debut feature Barking Dogs Never Bite, which will have its international premiere at Sgiff.

In keeping with one of the festival’s core missions to nurture both local and regional cinema, this year’s Sgiff boasts an impressive lineup of works originating from both at home and abroad; many of...

The 35th edition of the Singapore International Film Festival has unveiled its full lineup, which features 105 films from 45 countries, with 80% of the selections hailing from Asia.

Held from 28 November to 8 December, the festival will hold special gala presentations for two films, The Fable and The Unseen Sister, with selected talents from each film in attendance.

International highlights this year include the horror-comedy Nightbitch featuring Amy Adams, The Shrouds by David Cronenberg, Grand Tour by Cannes-award winning director Miguel Gomes, and a newly restored version of Bong Joon-ho’s debut feature Barking Dogs Never Bite, which will have its international premiere at Sgiff.

The festival will also present the Screen Icon Award, which recognises exceptional Asian talents, to Yang Kuei-mei and Lee Kang-sheng.

For the first time, each festival section will have an opening film that embodies the spirit of its category, with all of them hail from the Asian region.

The Singapore International Film Festival is marking its 35th edition with 105 films from 45 countries, with Asian titles comprising 80% of the program.

Running Nov. 28-Dec. 8, the fest will host three world premieres of Singapore features, including Ong Keng-Sen’s “The House of Janus,” Wong Chen-Hsi’s “City of Small Blessings,” adapted from Simon Tay’s novel, and Jason Soo’s documentary “Al Awda.”

Among the international highlights are Amy Adams-starrer “Nightbitch,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour,” and a restored version of Bong Joon-ho’s feature debut “Barking Dogs Never Bite.”

Two special gala presentations are scheduled: Raam Reddy’s “The Fable,” starring Indian actor Manoj Bajpayee, and Myanmar-born Taiwanese filmmaker Midi Z’s “The Unseen Sister,” featuring Zhao Liying and Xin Zhilei.

The fest will present its Screen Icon Award to Taiwanese talents Yang Kuei-mei and Lee Kang-sheng. Yang, a four-time Sgiff performance award winner, recently appeared in “Yen and Ai-Lee,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News Kaizen.Kaizen (2024), a documentary about an influencer’s quest to scale Mount Everest, has attracted the ire of other French distributors after mk2 violated the terms of its “exceptional visa,” booking almost double its legal allowance of screenings before releasing the film on YouTube the next day. One industry professional compared the company to “guys in hoodies with machine guns robbing a bank.”Total Film, the British monthly, has ceased print publication after 356 issues and 27 years.The United Kingdom has passed into law an Independent Film Tax Credit, part of a large investment in the culture industry by the new Labour government. FESTIVALSBeing John Smith.In an open letter, filmmakers and workers call on the New York...

Stars: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, Elizabeth Saunders, Jennifer Dale, Eric Weinthal | Written and Directed by David Cronenberg

The Shrouds, the latest film from director David Cronenberg is a poorly conceived hodge-podge of ideas about sex, death and technology, with a dash of bog-standard body horror thrown in. Tonally, it’s all over the place, which means it fails to satisfy on a number of different levels.

As the film begins, it feels like jet jet-black comedy, except you’re not sure just how much you’re actually meant to be laughing. It opens in a restaurant, where tech genius Karsh (Vincent Cassel) – who also owns the restaurant – is entertaining a beautiful young woman (Elizabeth Saunders as Gray Foner) on a first date. Abruptly, he insists she accompanies him outside to the adjoining cemetery – which he also owns – so that he can show her not just the...

While many filmmakers throughout the last century have come to view entry into the Cannes Film Festival as the pinnacle of talent — a forum where the best of the best can unveil their work on a global scale — 81 year-old Canadian horror master David Cronenberg understands that it’s not without its tradeoffs. Premiering his latest project, “The Shrouds,” there back in May, Cronenberg was met with a relatively tepid response (though our own review listed it as a Critic’s Pick). As he continued to screen the film at TIFF in his home country and now in the U.S. at the New York Film Festival last week, favor around the film has warmed. As reported on by Deadline, while speaking at Alice Tully Hall following the film’s screening, Cronenberg admitted that the Cannes audience didn’t quite respond to “The Shrouds” in the way that he intended.

“They didn’t get the movie,...

Watch the full episode above or listen to it below.

After a short, overwhelming stint in the mobile Criterion Closet, which boasts over 1,200 titles in the order they were added to the collection, Screen Talk co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio welcomed Criterion president Peter Becker to the annual New York Film Festival edition of “Screen Talk” Live.

But first, the co-hosts debated the merits of Luca Guadagnino’s artful but long “Queer” starring Daniel Craig as an aging gay junkie suffering from unrequited love. And they also argued about the NYFF closing nighter, “Blitz,” which some think lacks that Steve McQueen edge. His biggest budget film to date is also his most traditional, starring Saoirse Ronan and Elliott Heffernan as a mother and son separated during the London blitz of World War II. Reviews are stronger in Britain than stateside so far (Metascore: 76). Anne thinks it will play for Academy voters,...

Plot: When a preacher arrives at a British settlement in 1830s New Zealand his violent past is drawn into question and his faith put to the test as he finds himself caught in the middle of a bloody war between Māori tribes.

Review: When many of us picture Maori culture, the first film that comes to mind is usually Once Were Warriors. Director Lee Tamahori’s contemporary 1994 drama looked at the modern legacy of the Maori people. After four decades of Hollywood fare, including Mulholland Falls, The Edge, XXX: State of the Union, and the James Bond film Die Another Day, Tamahori returns to the subject of his feature debut but through a very different lens. The Convert is an epic yet intimate look at Maori culture in the early 19th Century, just as the British Empire expanded its colonialization. Told through the experiences of a preacher welcomed into tribal society,...

David Cronenberg certainly has enough experience to know when an audience is not connecting with a film.

Case in point: last May’s world premiere in Cannes of The Shrouds, the 81-year-old Cronenberg’s latest outing as writer-director. “They didn’t get the movie, partly because of the language and cultural things and the fact that maybe people felt if they laughed it was being disrespectful or something,” he said. “It’s the pressure of the Cannes Film Festival. We didn’t get the kind of laughs that I knew we would get, let’s say, at the Toronto Film Festival or that we would get here”

Cronenberg shared his thoughts after The Shrouds had its U.S. premiere Saturday night at the New York Film Festival (after a September bow in his native Toronto). “I wasn’t here while the movie was playing, but I hope you laughed a little bit,...

Composer Howard Shore likes to sleep on it.

“I try to get in touch with my inner feelings,” he said at the Zurich Film Festival, explaining his preferred method of working.

“If you think about cinema, you go into a dark room and all this imagery starts appearing. You are in a dream-like state and I like to use that idea when I write music for film. There is some napping involved, you try to be very relaxed and imagine what the piece could be. And then I set to work with my pencil, creating the actual score to what I am dreaming,” he said.

“I don’t study a film: I listen to it. I listen to the rhythm of the actors, the sounds. I kind of imagine the visualization, writing to this more abstract idea in my mind.”

A three-time Oscar winner, Shore received the Career Achievement Award at the Swiss festival,...

Much of the press about The Shrouds since its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year has focused on the deeply personal inspiration for the film: David Cronenberg’s grief over the death of his wife in 2017. For those who are aware of this context going in, one could see signs of that extra investment on the writer-director’s part here and there, especially in the way one of the film’s stars, Vincent Cassel, is made up to look like Cronenberg himself. Lest that suggests something more overtly emotional than what one might expect from the Canadian auteur, though, The Shrouds dispels that notion very early on.

The film’s opening credits sequence features a bunch of swirling dots that eventually form into the outline of a woman. Allied with the insinuating low-pitched electronic droning of Howard Shore’s score, the sequence dissolves into a dreamy...

Is a David Cronenberg movie even a David Cronenberg movie if it isn't dealing with the intersection between technology, existentialism, and sex? Set in the near future of a deceptively dystopian world, "The Shrouds" is a bleak and thought-provoking experience right from its opening frame: a closeup of a woman's naked corpse in ghostly suspended animation, followed by open-mouthed howls of pain and grief from her onlooking widower. The director's pitch-black sense of humor creeps in almost immediately, however, with a jarring transition to a dentist visit years later and the practitioner's blunt, deliciously deadpan proclamation that, "Grief is rotting your teeth." Subtext? Who needs it! The brazen unsubtlety of these opening moments, to put it mildly, is a perfect summation of everything that's to come in the following 119 minutes.

"The Shrouds" is a testament to the idea that, at this point, Cronenberg's personal life can't help but bleed onto the page.

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada have joined the line-up for AFI Fest running October 23-27.

The full roster includes Samir Oliveros’s The Luckiest Man In America, and Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s Zurawski v Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence.

Women and non-binary directors account for 48% of the official selection, and films from Bipoc filmmakers represent 26% of the line-up.

Festival highlights include No Other Land by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds...

AFI Fest is primed and ready to roll out.

The American Film Institute revealed the full lineup for this month’s festival, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles from Oct. 23-27. Joining the previously announced roster of films will be Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, Samir Oliveros’ The Luckiest Man in America, Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s abortion rights documentary Zurawski v Texas (executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence), and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, among many others.

The lineup includes six red carpet premieres, 12 special screenings, 13 luminaries picks, 15 discovery films, 12 world cinema films, 14 documentaries, four after-dark titles, 54 films in the short film competition and 28 films from the AFI Conservatory Showcase presented by AMC Networks. Other notable titles include Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse with Chloë Sevigny; Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste; Paolo Sorrentino...

Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t disclose in our official review. Fair warning: This article features plot details of Megalopolis.

It’s a great time for Old Man Cinema. Legendary filmmakers are leaning into their late eras in order to...

Like many of the fall film festivals, New York Film Festival had to mount its 2023 edition during the actors strike and without major stars like Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore (“May December”) or Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal (“All of Us Strangers”) in attendance to promote their movies.

So, NYFF’s artistic director Dennis Lim is relieved the annual celebration of cinema is returning in 2024 with business as usual. This year’s fest runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 14. “We are very happy to not have to work around those restrictions this year,” he says. “And we have many, many actors attending for some of the bigger films.”

He’s referring to movies like director Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” starring Moore and Tilda Swinton; filmmaker Sean Baker for Palme d’Or-winner “Anora”; Steve McQueen’s historical drama “Blitz,” featuring Saoirse Ronan; Pablo Larraín’s...

by Cláudio Alves

Vincent Cassel and Guy pearce in David Cronenberg's The Shrouds.

All of us are on a long journey into death, set on a collision course with the great end that nothing can entirely prevent and no one can avoid forever. Artists are no different, mere mortals like the rest of us. However, the nature of their work means those persons' relationship with our collective finality may take unexpected forms, many of them public. Whether a creator wants it or not, when the finish line comes into conscious sight, their creation shall reflect it. Mortality subsumes the art, even when buried deep within layers of escapism, deflection, and delusion. The brave ones disregard such distractions and stare at the monster head-on. For them, late style is a cinema of death.

Consider the most recent works from two of our greatest masters – David Cronenberg and Paul Schrader. The...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all US rights from Sbs International to David Cronenberg’s Cannes world premiere and recent TIFF gala screening The Shrouds starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce.

‘The Shrouds’: Cannes Review

The film will receive its US premiere in the Main Slate at New York Film Festival next month and stars Cassel as Karsh a businessman and grieving widower who invents a controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their deceased loved ones in their shrouds.

After multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated, the businessman sets out to track down the perpetrators.

Guy Pearce, Hannah Waddingham, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and more have joined Netflix’s feature adaptation of Ruth Ware’s bestselling mystery “The Woman in Cabin 10,” starring Keira Knightley.

Netflix announced that co-stars will include Pearce from “Memento,” Waddingham from “Ted Lasso,” Daniel Ings from “The Gentlemen,” David Morrissey from “Sherwood,” Kaya Scodelario, also from “The Gentlemen” and the “Maze Runner” franchise and Mbatha-Raw from “The Morning Show.” Also joining the ensemble are David Ajala, Art Malik, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Gitte Witt, Christopher Rygh and Pail Kaye.

The film follows a travel journalist (Knightley) who is sent to cover a story on a luxury yacht when she is woken up in the middle of the night by screams. Looking for the source of the trouble, she witnesses a passenger being thrown overboard in her neighboring cabin. The next day her testimony goes unnoticed as everyone in the ship is accounted for and present.

David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” has finally found a home.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. rights to “The Shrouds,” written and directed by Cronenberg and starring Vincent Cassel as a tech mogul who invents a technology that allows you to watch your loved one rot in their grave.

The latest freakout from the Canadian auteur premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (where it screened in competition) and recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival as a special presentation. It will have its U.S. premiere next month as part of the main slate of the New York Film Festival. Sideshow and Janus are planning a spring 2025 release.

The deal was negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with Sbs International. The producers of the film are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It is an Sbs, Prospero Pictures and Saint Laurent Productions Film,...

After having its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival back in May, The Shrouds will have its France theatrical debut on Jan. 22, 2025, followed by its U.S. theatrical release in spring 2025. Yes, you read that right. Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired the U.S. rights to The Shrouds and set its release in U.S. theaters this coming spring.

An official release date has not been revealed just yet, but a spring release means we're looking at somewhere between March 20, 2025, and June 20, 2025. No worries! We'll get back to you with the official U.S. release date once it's announced.

The Shrouds is described as an arthouse horror film. It was written and helmed by David Cronenberg, who you might recognize as the writer and director of the horror films Shivers, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly. Initially, it was going to be a Netflix show, but the streaming giant...

Sideshow and Janus Films have picked up the U.S. rights to David Cronenberg’s sci-fi drama The Shrouds.

The U.S. deal follows a world bow in Cannes, a North American premiere in Toronto and additional play at the New York Film Festival next month. Sideshow and Janus plan a spring 2025 theatrical release.

Sideshow and Janus Films are also reteaming with body horror director Cronenberg after earlier releases of films like Videodrome and Naked Lunch. “This is Cronenberg at his wittiest, most personal and romantic in this thought-provoking thriller with knockout performances from Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger,” the distributors said in a joint statement.

Cronenberg originally pitched the project, inspired by his real-life grief over the loss of his wife in 2017, to Netflix executives as a TV series. But after financing a first episode, the streaming giant passed on going further with the project.

The Shrouds stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh,...

David Cronenberg has said that his new film The Shrouds – which has been making the festival rounds lately (you can read what JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray thought of it Here) – was originally intended to be a Netflix TV series, but the streamer dropped it after paying him to write the pilot episode. So a feature film it is, and Deadline reports that Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. distribution rights to the film, with their plan being to give it a theatrical release sometime in the spring of 2025.

In The Shrouds, Vincent Cassel, who previously worked with Cronenberg on Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method, takes on the role of Karsh, “an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a novel device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud. This burial tool installed at his own state-of-the-art though controversial cemetery allows him and his...

Fresh off the film’s North American premiere at TIFF, horror master David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds has been acquired for U.S. release by Sideshow and Janus Films.

Deadline notes that they’re planning a Spring 2025 release for the film.

“Building on a long history with David Cronenberg that has included releases of Videodrome, Scanners, The Brood, Crash, Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch, Janus Films and Criterion are very proud to be working with Sideshow and Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello to premiere The Shrouds, a major new work by the Canadian master in the United States,” Sideshow/Janus said in a statement shared by Deadline this morning.

Vincent Cassel (Irreversible, Eastern Promises) stars alongside Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds), Guy Pearce (Memento) and Sandrine Holt (“Fear the Walking Dead”).

Variety previews, “The Shrouds centers on Karsh, a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. rights to The Shrouds, written and directed by David Cronenberg and are planning a spring 2025 theatrical release.

The film world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it screened In Competition. It played the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Gala program and is set for its U.S. premiere in the Main Slate at the New York Film Festival next month.

The deal was negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with Sbs International. Producers are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It’s an Sbs, Prospero Pictures & Saint Laurent Productions Film with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Eurimages, Ontario Creates in association with Sphere Films, Crave & CBC Films with the support of Canal +, Ocs & the Centre National du Cinema et de L’image Animée.

“Building on a...

Exclusive: Serendipity Point Films (Eastern Promises) and January Media, along with their Greek partner Filmiki Productions, are underway in Athens, Greece, on feature Maya & Samar.

Directed by Anita Doron, best known for scripting Oscar-nominated The Breadwinner, and written by Tamara Faith Berger (Lie With Me), the film stars Nicolette Pearse (Maybe It’s You) and Amanda Babaei Vieira (Störung).

Pic is produced by Serendipity’s Robert Lantos, known for movies including Sunshine, Barney’s Version and Eastern Promises, and January’s Julia Rosenberg (Charlotte). Laura Lanktree (Crimes Of The Future), Steve Solomos (The Shrouds) and Filmiki’s Nikolas Alavanos (When We Were Sisters) are co-producers.

Distant Horizon’s Anant Singh (Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom) is an executive producer. Vvs’s Harry Grivakis, Ernie Grivakis, Javi Hernandez, and Claire Peace-McConnell are co-executive producers.

The film shoots in Athens, Greece, and Toronto, Canada, with production set to wrap in October 2024. Vvs will release...

Diane Kruger is looking chic at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival!

The 48-year-old actress wore a black silk blouse with a lace skirt and a black veil as she attended the premiere of her new movie The Shrouds on Wednesday (Sept. 11) at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Canada.

Joining Diane at the premiere were her costars Sandrine Holt, Elizabeth Saunders, Jennifer Dale, and Jeff Yung along with director David Cronenberg.

In The Shrouds, Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, “a technological entrepreneur still grieving the death of his wife Becca (Kruger) four years earlier. He has thrown himself into his work, devising technologically augmented burial shrouds that let loved ones watch their lost family members decompose. It’s the closest thing to being there with them — and no, it’s not for everyone. But when his wife’s plot is among several desecrated in an apparent act of vandalism, Karsh slips into...

Audiences hungry for David Cronenberg’s infamous brand of body horror may have hoped that 2022’s Crimes of the Future marked his return to the genre. That film, which formed an unofficial trilogy that began with 1983’s Videodrome and continued in 1999’s eXistenZ, featured several callbacks to the Canadian director’s recurring visual and thematic interests.

The Shrouds, Cronenberg’s latest, is even less of a genre film than Crimes of the Future, though it does share its predecessor’s same dark sense of humour, as well as the director’s tendency to revisit or reconsider his previous work.

The film is ostensibly set in 2023, four years after the death of Karsh (Vincent Cassel)’s wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). Becca died of bone cancer and Karsh has yet to recover, as the opening scene of him crying during a visit to the dentist proves.

The introductory scenes also establish the...

Spain’s attractive tax incentives and its vibrant production scene were among topics discussed in a round table hosted by production services company Anima Stillking and Screen International at Toronto International Film Festival.

Anima Stillking executive producers María Cabello and Jordi Utset met with producers, financiers and attorneys from Canada and the United States at the invite-only session on Sunday (September 9) to discuss what the new Malaga-based company can offer filmmakers looking to shoot further afield and benefit from production incentives, experienced crews, and stunning locations.

Spain’s appeal in the wake of last year’s Hollywood strikes was top...

This year’s 2024 TIFF Tribute Award honorees addressed a packed black-tie Fairmont Royal York Ballroom. Sometimes the tributees go on to Oscar glory. For example, after his 2019 tribute, Joaquin Phoenix went on to win Best Actor for “Joker,” Variety Artisan Award winner Roger Deakins landed a cinematography win for “1917,” and after his 2020 tribute, Anthony Hopkins grabbed an Oscar for Best Actor for “The Father” and TIFF tributee Chloé Zhao won Best Director for her movie “Nomadland.” The list goes on. Eventual Best Actress Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain was tributed at TIFF for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” as was Brendan Fraser for his work as an actor on the movie “The Whale.” And tributee Michelle Yeoh went on to win Best Actress for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Many on this year’s list harbor similar hopes. Here are the award winners:

Angelina Jolie, TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media,...

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrated some of the most talented figures in film and entertainment at this year’s Tribute Awards. The star-studded event, held annually at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, serves as both a gala dinner fundraiser for TIFF’s philanthropic efforts and a potential precursor for future award-season contenders.

Among the evening’s honorees were acclaimed actors Angelina Jolie and Jharrel Jerome, alongside directing legends David Cronenberg and Mike Leigh. Presenters included Julie Delpy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Franklin Leonard and Sandra Oh (who served as honorary chair for this year’s edition).

Here are some of the highlights of the evening.

Angelina Jolie’s Strict Request Raises Eyebrows

Jolie, an Oscar-winning actress and director known for films such as “Unbroken” and “First They Killed My Father,” received her tribute early in the evening. Her latest film “Without Blood” premiered at the festival Sunday night. Yet, hours before the ceremony,...

David Cronenberg was awarded the Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award at the Toronto International Film Festival’s sixth annual TIFF Tribute Awards on Saturday, September 8.

The award recognizes Canadians in the film industry who have made a global impact with their careers. Cronenberg’s “willingness to explore unconventional themes and his innovative storytelling continues to shape contemporary cinema worldwide,” as the festival stated.

At the TIFF Tribute Awards, Cronenberg weighed in on the use of artificial intelligence in his own movies. “Well, I’ve actually used AI in my filmmaking for years,” he told IndieWire.

“You know, it’s just not something that people normally are aware of. But when you’re correcting the color, when you’re manipulating your film’s images, it’s a form of AI already. It’s not something surprising in a way to me,” he continued.

Speaking with Variety earlier this year, he was...

Cate Blanchett thanked Knix, the underwear maker, for sponsoring her TIFF Tribute Award on Sunday night, which was ironic because the Elizabeth and Carol actress apparently went bottomless to the glittering festival event.

“I’m not actually wearing any underwear,” Blanchett revealed, jokingly or not, while wearing a long party dress on stage at the Royal York Hotel. “As Michelle Obama says, when I go low, you go high,” she added during a freestyle acceptance speech without the use of a teleprompter or her cellphone.

On a more serious note, Blanchett paid tribute to fellow women actors. “We have to keep asking questions that open locked doors and knowing our worth — our worth creatively as well as financially — as greater inclusivity on our sets leads to less homogenous and more vibrant storytelling,” she said.

“I think homogeneity is the enemy of everything we make,” Blanchett, also the star of Tár and Blue Jasmine,...

Ontario got a much-needed boost amid Hollywood’s unexpectedly slow post-strikes return when Amazon MGM Studios launched a production hub at Pinewood Toronto Studios.

In January 2024, the major studio unveiled a deal with Pinewood Group to exclusively use five new soundstages and office space totaling around 160,000 square feet. “That was an immense vote of confidence in the province,” Justin Cutler, Ontario’s film commissioner at Ontario Creates, tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Amazon MGM Studios had already shot around 40 films and TV series in the Canadian province. But the multiyear soundstage lease crystallized how the return of the major studios and streamers had suddenly roared back to life and was building momentum.

Bonjour Tristesse

“Amazon has worked in Ontario on bigger projects like The Boys and Reacher, which have gone on to break records for their platform, and that’s built a lot of confidence in our crews, in our locations...

Ontario talent has long starred onscreen in Hollywood, from Ryan Gosling and Mike Myers to Rachel McAdams and Sandra Oh.

But just as the province has become a key Hollywood production hub for the major studios and streamers, top global film and TV producers are also embracing local below-the-line talent to realize their creative ambitions behind the camera.

“When the amazing shows come and they bring the crazy scripts and the ambitiousness of it all, we’re able to meet the challenge, which is satisfying to see,” Shayne Fox, who has just received her third Emmy nomination for her production design work on the series What We Do in the Shadows, tells The Hollywood Reporter about doing her best work in the FX sandbox.

From Francis Ford Coppola’s dystopian epic Megalopolis to Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ontario talent is bringing its A-game to some of the biggest titles of the fall,...

Plot: A prominent businessman (Vincent Cassel), grieving over the death of his wife, invents a company called GraveTech, where corpses are wrapped in technologically enhanced burial shrouds that allow family members to monitor the decaying bodies of their loved ones in real-time.

Review: So, if you read the plot outline posted about, you likely muttered a little “wtf” to yourself once you got to the “monitor the decaying bodies of their loved ones” bit. But hey, The Shrouds is a David Cronenberg movie. Would you want to see one without any Wtf moments? I think not. Indeed, The Shrouds has enough ultra-weird imagery and kinky twists to make this Cronenberg’s edgiest movie since Crash and perhaps his most personal work to date.

Tragically, Cronenberg lost his wife several years ago, and The Shrouds seems autobiographical in the way it deals with grief. In it, Vincent Cassel plays Karsh, a...

Filmmaker Jacques Audiard gave virtually no notes when he sent French songwriting and composing duo Clément Ducol and Camille an early draft of his latest film, “Emilia Perez,” but by the time they got to the last page of the script, they were inspired to write a song called “Para.”

The duo will be feted at the at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival with the TIFF Variety Artisan Award, which recognizes a distinguished creative or in this case, creatives, who has excelled at their craft and made an outstanding contribution to cinema and entertainment.

Dalmais and Ducol are among the artists being honored at the festival’s Tribute Award fundraising gala on Sept. 8, with Canada’s own Sandra Oh serving as the gala’s honorary chair.

“Emilia Perez,” which premiered at Cannes in May and unspools in TIFF, stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón in a genre-defying...

A year since Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World amused us so, Radu Jude has now unveiled two new experimental found-footage films in Locarno. And true to his current media and mass–culture interests, they respectively concern junky Romanian broadcast television, and a splotchy, low-resolution livestream of a cemetery site. Entitled Eight Postcards from Utopia and Sleep #2, you could say one is his nostalgic YouTube supercut movie, the other his The Shrouds.

They’re both quite strong: satisfying additions to his corpus, not redundant side projects. They are separate and self-contained works that complement each other: definable as compilations of found material, yes, but which stick to rigorous formal guardrails before deconstructing those very boundaries. Locarno’s premiere screening exhibited Postcard followed by Sleep; future presentations could well mimic that, yet it would also be incorrect to perceive them as one complete film sundered in two.

Grand Prix winner All We Imagine As Light Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival New York Film Festival has announced the main slate for its 62nd edition, which will run from September 27 to October 14.

While most of the films have had their world premieres elsewhere, those making a first bow at the event are NYFF Suburban Furly, directed by Robinson Devor, which offers a documentary consideration of presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore, and Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow a factual film about independent journalism in Russia ahead of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

A number of films will screen from Cannes, including David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light, which won the Grand Prix, and Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed Of The Sacred Fig. There are also several films from Berlin, including Mati Diop's...