Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, about the Paris-born painter Apolonia Sokol, earned Best Film in international competition as the IDFA awards ceremony unfolded in Amsterdam tonight.
01.11.2022 - 20:05 / deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Prasanna Puwanarajah as an actor has appeared in Doctor Foster: A Woman Scorned, Ten Percent and Patrick Melrose, and he’ll next pop up in two episodes of The Crown‘s upcoming fifth season portraying Martin Bashir, the controversial journalist who conducted the infamous BBC interview with Princess Diana. However, on Thursday he’ll wear a different hat when the Belfast Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Ballywalter, which marks his feature directing debut.
The film stars Northern Irish comedian and presenter Patrick Kielty — husband of So You Think You Can Dance host Cat Deeley — in his first major acting role, as Shane, broken after the collapse of his marriage he chooses to rehabilitate by joining a stand-up comedy course; and Seana Kerslake’s Eileen, a sharp-tongued Ballywalter local who has moved back home with her mum and pregnant sister, and borrowed her exe’s battered Toyota to drive as an unlicensed taxi.
The two lonely souls meet when Shane books a regular cab, driven by Eileen, to ferry him to his lessons. He can’t tell a joke, while Eileen’s acidic one-liners are, unintentionally, hilarious.
Over time the film has been referred to, variously, as a comedy, a comedy drama and a dark comedy but Puwanarajah said “it’s reasonable to call it a human drama,” during a recent four-way Zoom call with Kielty, Kerslake and Deadline.
The film considers the “absurdity and challenge in human life,” he said. “I guess I’m quite pleased that it just defies a genre pin in that way,” he added, while acknowledging that it’s not that useful “for our colleagues in sales.”
Kielty, who has performed countless comedy spots on TV, and showed a more serious side when he returned from his home in London to
Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, about the Paris-born painter Apolonia Sokol, earned Best Film in international competition as the IDFA awards ceremony unfolded in Amsterdam tonight.
The International Film Festival Of India (IFFI) has announced the 15 films that will screen in competition at this year’s edition of the annual event, including recent festival favourites such as Maha Haj’s Mediterranean Fever and Lav Diaz’ When The Waves Are Gone, and three Indian films, including recent Busan premiere The Storyteller.
The influence of streaming companies was a central topic of the Women in Leadership panel at the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival this past weekend.
EXCLUSIVE: Prasanna Puwanarajah said he jumped at the opportunity to appear in The Crown portraying infamous television journalist Martin Bashir, pummeled by a BBC inquiry that condemned the “deceitful” methods he used to obtain the controversial 1995 Panorama TV interview with Princess Diana, because ”roles like that just don’t really exist for Asian actors.”
Former Heyday President Tom Winchester’s Pure Fiction Staffs Up
Psychological thriller The Beasts, directed by Spain’s Rodrigo Sorogoyen, won three awards at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, including the Tokyo Grand Prix, best director and best actor for Denis Menochet.
Images from classic and contemporary films were beamed onto some of Edinburgh’s most famous locations Monday evening as part of a growing campaign to save the city’s Filmhouse cinema and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the world’s longest continuously running film festival.
EXCLUSIVE: Multimedia mogul Lenard “Charlamagne Tha God” Mckelvey has boarded the documentary short In the Bubble with Jaime as an executive producer, ahead of its weekend premiere at the Montclair Film Festival.
Orestis Andreadakis, director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, has a lot on his mind when he sits down with Deadline via Zoom from his office in Athens. Climate change, women’s rights, and the war in Ukraine are all topics he discussed, and he believes film festivals, including his own, must find a way to address and interrogate wider social issues.
Days before a Targaryen civil war erupts between Rhaenyra and Alicent on the Season 1 finale of HBO’s House of the Dragon, you’ll find series creator George R.R. Martin staying mum on fire-breathing animals and talking up his latest rotoscope animated short, Night of the Cooters, in his Santa Fe, NM stomping ground.
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans has been announced as the opening film of 44th Cairo International Film Festival, running from November 13 to 22.
Lise Pedersen U.S. film writer and director James Gray (“Little Odessa”, “Two Lovers”, “The Immigrant”, “Armageddon Time”) drew several laugh-out-loud moments from a packed theatre during a masterclass at the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon. In a disarmingly honest conversation laced with humorous self-deprecation, the Venice Silver Lion Winner (“Little Odessa”, 1994) opened up about his love of cinema and the ups and downs of his career. Speaking about the highly autobiographical nature of his new film, “Armageddon Time”, a deeply personal look at his Queens childhood in 1980s America, Gray explained that it was a natural evolution after his two previous films, “The Lost City of Z”, which is partly set in the Amazon and left him physically exhausted, and “Ad Astra.”
Andrea Iervolino’s Social Media App TaTaTu Lists On Euronext
The 66th London Film Festival closed Sunday with a lively screening of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Katie Reul editor The 66th annual British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival announced winners Saturday evening for a competition group representing a diverse selection of stories ranging from period pieces to eerie thrillers. Writer-director Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage,” was recognized with the festival’s highest honor — the best film award — continuing the historical drama’s festival praise after lead actress Vicky Krieps was awarded the Un Certain Regard best performance prize at Cannes. Set during Christmas in 1877, “Corsage” follows Empress Elizabeth as she attempts to find liberation from the stifling conformity of her stuffy, image-focused lifestyle as a Vienna royal. Though the film is in part based on the historical figure, who reigned for 44 years, artistic deviations are made in the former ruler’s story.