Subscribers to the Disney+ streaming service in Hong Kong won’t see yet another episode of The Simpsons, the latest one for referring to forced labor in China.
19.01.2023 - 15:41 / deadline.com
Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen is on a roll – his English-language debut Drift is premiering at Sundance Film Festival, he has Chinese-language drama The Breaking Ice being readied for festival play later this year, and several other directing projects in different languages at various stages of development and pre-production.
Drift, which stars Cynthia Erivo as a Liberian refugee scratching out an existence on a Greek island, is thematically not a million miles away from Chen’s previous two features – Ilo Ilo and Wet Season – in that they’re stories about outsiders or people struggling to find their place in the world and fit in. “I seem to gravitate to telling stories about outsiders and the bonds, or the human connections, that we make between strangers,” says Chen, who has some experience with feeling dislocated, as he grew up in Singapore but spent many years living in the UK.
Chen shot the film, based on Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker To Measure Drift, on location in Greece and the UK last year, starting pre-production just a few weeks after wrapping the winter shoot of The Breaking Ice in China’s Jilin province. “Chinese productions always have a lot of crew, so I went from working with a crew of 120 people to just 40 in Europe, and from shooting seven days a week to just five,” Chen recalls of this rapid shift from China’s frozen far Northeast to Southern Europe. “But it was very efficient and we had some of the top heads of department on the film. “
The crew of Drift includes DoP Crystel Fournier, who shot Celine Sciamma’s ‘Girlhood’ trilogy, and first assistant director Dominique Delany, who worked on Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and a few projects with Olivier Assayas. Scripted by
Subscribers to the Disney+ streaming service in Hong Kong won’t see yet another episode of The Simpsons, the latest one for referring to forced labor in China.
Lionsgate has named Joy Ride as the title of its upcoming comedy marking the feature directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians scribe Adele Lim. The studio also on Monday unveiled the first still from the film, which you can view below.
Bleecker Street has picked up North American rights to Laurel Parmet’s feature directorial debut The Starling Girl following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, slating it for release in theaters later this year. Financials weren’t disclosed.
The Bob Odenkirk and Mireille Enos-led series Lucky Hank is rounding out its cast with Shannon DeVido (Best Summer Ever, Difficult People) and Jackson Kelly (Witch Mountain, Lessons in Chemistry). Lucky Hank premieres on March 19 on AMC and AMC+.
With New Jersey nipping at its heels and producers complaining about tardy payouts, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s latest budget for New York state, out Wednesday, raises the tax credit for film and television production back to 30%, boosts the annual cap to $700 million, modifies payout terms and attempt to lure TV production from other states in a new incentive package that would run through 2034.
One of the most delightfully warming and comically offbeat films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Babak Jalali’s “Fremont” tells the story of Donya, a former Afghan translator for the U.S. government who’s felt adrift in the titular California city since resettling there to evade the Taliban. READ MORE: ‘Fremont’ Review: An Afghan Insomniac Tries To Find Purpose In A Refreshingly Unique & Jarmuschian-Esque Indie Dramedy [Sundance] Living in an apartment complex alongside other Afghan immigrants, working at a Chinese-American fortune cookie factory in San Francisco, and spending evenings alone at a local restaurant that plays Afghan soap operas, Donya — portrayed, in a captivating debut performance, by real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada —longs for companionship.
The Berlinale Film Festival has unveiled the jury members for its main International Competition, which will be presided over by Kristin Stewart.
Coming clean! Hilary Duff isn’t just on good terms with ex Joel Madden — she and husband Matthew Koma are besties with the rocker and his wife, Nicole Richie.
Not meant to be. Nikki Bella and John Cena have been candid about one another since their split.
Anyone who has traveled to seaside resort areas around the world will recognize them, the obvious foreigners who spend their days approaching tourists with assorted trinkets to sell and are most often ignored or shooed away by Westerners. Precious few films have put such figures centerstage, but Drift does that and quite a bit more as it examines a young woman whose currently forlorn position in the world masks the very different sort of life to which she was once accustomed.
Brendon (Algee Smith) isn’t a bad kid. An aspiring artist living in Los Angeles, in his last month of high school, the pressures of his daily life, however, are beginning to overwhelm him.
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Based on the 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift” by Alexander Maksik, set just after the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, “Drift” aims for impressionistic insight but is ultimately manipulative and reductive. Maksik’s screenplay, which he co-wrote with Susanne Farrell, sees its heroine Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet”) as nothing more than a vessel to explore an outsider’s view of the trauma inflicted by war.
In Montana’s Big Sky Country, a black cloud hangs over the state’s expansive horizon. It looms above the indigenous residents of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Reservations and nearby towns in Big Horn County most of all.
While it may seem niche to those outside of Texas, high school mariachi competitions are quite prolific in the Lonestar State. The teams give students a creative outlet, as well as an opportunity to pursue scholarships in college music.
Taking a pass. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah opened up about the choice to skip her interview with Andy Cohen following her January 2023 prison sentence.
EXCLUSIVE: Some were expecting Netflix to curb their acquisitions here in Park City, but, as we told you earlier this morning, never count them out of the Sundance marketplace. Before its premiere in the midnight section tonight, the Reed Hastings-Ted Sarandos-run streamer has scooped up a majority of global rights on the Australian horror movie, Run Rabbit Run, starring 2x Emmy nominated Succession actress Sarah Snook. XYZ Films, which co-funded the film, brokered the deal with Netflix on behalf of the filmmakers.