AFI Fest: Guest Artistic Director Greta Gerwig Curates Personal Lineup, U.S. Premiere of ‘Lee’ Among Screenings

Greta Gerwig is opening up about Hollywood.

Hussain Currimbhoy is the new Artistic Director at Toronto’s Hot Docs.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Toronto’s Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival, has appointed Hussain Currimbhoy as its artistic director. He replaces Shane Smith, who left the organization in June, and will assume his role immediately. Currimbhoy has worked as a film producer, director and film curator since 2002.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has issued an apology after three activists burst on stage during the opening ceremony on Nov. 8 with a banner that read “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” The slogan, which calls for the destruction of Israel, has been used by Hamas, the terrorist group behind the Oct.

William Earl Netflix film chief Scott Stuber once ran Universal Studios – today he sometimes feels like the operator of “the AMC 6000” given the volume of movies that Netflix produces and acquires. From Greta Gerwig’s plans for Narnia adaptations to wooing Denzel Washington and Steven Spielberg, Stuber shared Netflix’s vision of film’s future in a wide-ranging Q&A with Variety executive editor Brent Lang that was held Nov. 8 as part of Variety’s Business Managers Elite Breakfast presented by City National Bank.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor For the second year in a row, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) launches against the backdrop of a major war. Last year, the festival took place at the height of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, this year it runs as the Israel-Hamas War rages.

Barbenheimer film is in development to capitalise on the dual release phenomenon of Barbie and Oppenheimer.The planned comedy is from B-movie mogul Charles Band, who has been making low-budget horror comedies since the 1970s.In a mash-up of Barbie and Oppenheimer’s storylines, the film follows scientist doll Dr. Bambi J.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Pia Lundberg, a Swedish film industry veteran, is set to succeed Jonas Holmberg as the new artistic director of Göteborg Film Festival, Scandinavia’s leading film-TV event. Lundberg most recently served as counsellor for cultural affairs at the Embassy of Sweden in London for the last five years.

The Göteborg Film Festival has found a new Artistic Director. 

It’s the question on the lips of countless moviegoers: who will be the next James Bond? Since Daniel Craig took his final bow as 007 in 2021’s “No Time To Die,” there’s been tons of speculation on who will don the spy’s tuxedo and wield his Walther PPK. And despite some clamor for a female Bond, it’s (mostly) British actors who have had rumors swirling about their names.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Barbie” screenwriters Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach recently joined Tony Kushner (“Angels in America,” “Lincoln”) for a discussion about the record-breaking Warner Bros. blockbuster and revealed one of the first notes Mattel gave them on the script: Please don’t have the Mattel exec stand-in characters be shot. In the third act of “Barbie,” an all-out beach battle takes place between the warring Ken characters.

Barbie star Kingsley Ben-Adir should play the next James Bond, according to director Greta Gerwig.Appearing on Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast to discuss her record-breaking film about the iconic Mattel doll, Gerwig detailed how Ben-Adir was “so funny” in the role of Basketball Ken, while also praising his classical acting skills.Gerwig described the scene near the end of the film where Ryan Gosling’s Ken gifts his faux-fur jacket to Ben-Adir’s Ken, who then turns around to his fellow Kens and delivers an inspiring speech as their apparent new leader.“He can do anything, and is a very proper, trained British actor,” Gerwig said. “He can do the [Laurence] Olivier voice, so we had versions where he turned around and it was British.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor There may not be a funnier moment on screen this year than when Ryan Gosling yells “sublime!” off-screen in Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar box office smash “Barbie.” That’s why Variety Awards Circuit Podcast had a pressing question that needed answering from the filmmaker herself: Who gets the credit for this brilliant moment? “Ryan had the idea of [Ken] having a private moment that she [Barbie] can hear,” Gerwig reveals. “Because, of course, there’s no walls or privacy in Barbie Land. And then I will give myself credit, I came up with ‘sublime.’ I kept thinking, what’s the funniest word? I kept going back to ‘sublime.’ It’s the oddest word.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor As the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, prepares for its 27th edition, Variety spoke with artistic director Tiina Lokk about its ambitions and coming highlights. “If you see the festival like a big building, then all the walls are in and the building is ready, but some rooms are not furnished yet,” Lokk says, before adding philosophically.

When it was announced that Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig were co-writing “Barbie,” with the latter taking on the directing gig as well, people were confused. Those are not the two names you’d associate with a massive IP-driven blockbuster film.

Barbie” continued its run of pop culture domination over the pre-Halloween weekend, the film’s co-writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach dished on their writing process following a special screening at the Writers Guild of America West headquarters. Because Baumbach sat out the “Barbie” press tour in accordance with the WGA strike, Friday night’s screening marked his first in-depth interview about the $1.4 billion-grossing film. Sitting opposite Judd Apatow, who moderated the hour-long conversation, Baumbach reacted to the worldwide acclaim for the film, which was evidenced by the completely sold-out screening.

EXCLUSIVE: Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary), Timothy V. Murphy (Appaloosa) and Bruce Greenwood (The Fall of the House of Usher) have boarded The Fabulous Four, a new comedy from Bleecker Street, which has entered production in Georgia under an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA.

“Going Varsity in Mariachi” is one of the films with LGBTQ themes that will screen at AFI Fest 2023 in Hollywood. Photo: Provided by AFI Fest.

The Simpsons fans believe the show has predicted the bed bug crisis that is sweeping across France and the UK.The show has been credited with prophesising various world events throughout its run, from Donald Trump’s presidency, Disney’s takeover of Fox, to the existence of a three-eyed fish.TikTok user @curioususer3 has now posted a new theory connecting the show to the bed bug epidemic in Europe, sharing a clip from season 24 episode Pulprit Friction which aired in April 2013.In the episode, Springfield is hit with a bedbug crisis of its own, as Reverend Lovejoy is replaced by preacher Elijah Hooper (voiced by Edward Norton). The infestation is later thwarted via a horde of frogs.The TikTok clip, which has racked up over 1.4million views, shows the bed bug infestation across Springfield, with the caption: “The Simpsons Predicted It Again.”Bed Bugs Have Been Seen Crawling All Over Public Spaces In Paris As France Battles An Epidemic Of Insects.

Few in the film industry may be as quietly prolific as Tyler Perry. And a lot of his success comes thanks to his “Madea” movies: totaling twelve in all since “Diary Of A Mad Black Woman” in 2005.