Director of Oscar Entry ‘Voy! Voy! Voy!’ on the Dark Humor of Egyptians: ‘We Express Our Sadness by Laughing’

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlists in 10 categories for the upcoming 96th Oscars ceremony. Overall, Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy “Barbie” had the most mentions with five including sound, original song for its three submissions from Billie Eilish (“What I Was Made For?”), Dua Lipa (“Dance the Night”) and Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (“I’m Just Ken”), and original score, from the latter duo. The big miss for “Barbie” was in makeup and hairstyling, which was the category that yielded the most surprises.

J. Kim Murphy Filmmaker Michael Goorjian set out to create a different kind of film about Armenian nationality when developing “Amerikatsi,” the country’s submission in the international feature category for this year’s Academy Awards. Along with directing, Goorjian also stars as Charlie, an American who repatriates to Armenia after World War II — but ends up in a Soviet prison for simply wearing a tie.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Oscars shortlist voting period has closed as of 5:00 p.m. PT. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the finalists in 10 categories — documentary feature (15), documentary short subject (15), international feature (15), makeup and hairstyling (10), sound (10), original score (15), original song (15), animated short film (15), live action short film (15), and visual effects (10) — on Thursday, Dec.

The Darkness has performed their version of ‘Don’t Let The Bells End’ with a 12-piece choir – watch the footage below.‘Don’t Let The Bells End’ was The Darkness’ bid at the 2003 Christmas Number One (sadly Gary Jules beat them to the top spot with ‘Mad World’).Originally recorded at Abbey Road studios as an epic rock ballad complete with jingle bells and a children’s choir, The Darkness have honoured the track for its 20th birthday with a particularly festive performance.Playing the track on the Jo Whiley BBC Radio 2 show at BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, frontman Justin Hawkins appeared with an appropriately glittery red guitar and a 12-piece choir to perform the song.“Thank you so much to the wonderful Jo Whiley and her fantastic BBC Radio 2 team for having us and of course to Mark Delisser’s angelic sounding 12 piece choir,” wrote the band on social media. “Beautiful.” Take a look below:Recently, Justin Hawkins has opened up about his regret over The Darkness’ split.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor When writer-director Mohamed Kordofani first conceived of the film “Goodbye Julia,” he realized that he didn’t have a single friend from South Sudan — “and there are millions who live in Khartoum.” Now he has hundreds, he tells Variety. The first Sudanese film to premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes, his debut feature won the Prix de la Liberté and is now the official Sudanese entry for the Academy Awards, with Lupita Nyong’o on board as an executive producer. The film had its Middle East and North Africa premiere this week at El Gouna Film Festival, where Kordofani was awarded the Variety MENA Region Talent Award.

The official German Oscar entry for Best International Feature is an insular, pulse-pounding thriller set within the confines of a school that, for cinematic purposes, doubles as a microcosm of society in general circa 2023 where facts don’t matter, misinformation is rampant, suspicions run hot, divisions run deep, racism still rears its ugly head, and no one can be quite sure where, and even if they want to, fit in.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Veteran TV director David Nutter has been selected to receive the Directors Guild of America’s lifetime achievement award for distinguished achievement in directing. He will receive the honors at the 76th Annual DGA Awards ceremony on Saturday, February 10, 2024.

Ed Sheeran has made a surprise appearance with The Darkness, playing a surprise opening set and later joining them to perform their song ‘Love Is Only A Feeling’ – watch the footage below.The global popstar has had a long relationship with The Darkness. Sheeran previously confessed his intentions to take Taylor Swift to the Suffolk band’s show: “I think she’d really dig The Darkness.” Meanwhile, the band opened for Sheeran on the UK leg of the 2019 ‘Divide Tour’ along with James Bay and Zara Larsson.Now, Sheeran has repaid the favour by performing a surprise opening set for the band’s show at London’s Roundhouse last night (December 9). According to website setlist.fm, Sheeran played six of his megahits, including his mashup of ‘Don’t’ (from 2014 album ‘x‘) and Blackstreet‘s ‘No Diggity’.

Omen is the official submission from Belgium for the International Feature Oscar category and comes from multi-hyphenate interdisciplinary artist Baloji, who makes his feature directing debut. The film had its world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year where it won the New Voice Prize, before going on to play myriad festivals. Utopia is the North American distributor. 

Beginning as a simple two-hander in which a young working-class caretaker comes under the spell of his returning boss — a charismatic military man who has designs on getting into local politics — Makbul Mubarak’s debut film Autobiography soon develops into a tense psychological thriller about the way populist leaders groom and abuse their people. It works on its own terms, as a simple yet dark father-son allegory set within Indonesia’s military culture, but there’s a universality here that’s hard to miss.

Murtada Elfadl Shot in dense, high-contrast black and white, writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s “Mami Wata,” unspools like a mysterious dream. It’s both inscrutable and hypnotic, delivering indelible images while remaining narratively opaque.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based Women Make Movies (WMM) has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Winterstone Pictures has secured the rights to “The Dark Between Stars” and “Love Her Wild,” by the bestselling author Atticus, who is also known as the world’s most “mysterious poet.” Ashley Avis, director of Disney’s “Black Beauty” and the upcoming film “City of Angels” for Warner Bros., is set to write, direct and produce under her own banner. The feature film will draw inspiration from the true story of the enigmatic author, who chose to remain anonymous after the death of a close friend.

Bradley Cooper made his directorial debut with A Star Is Born in 2018, and he returned to the directors seat for his new movie Maestro.

The Darkness have paid tribute to the late Shane MacGowan at a recent show in Dublin by leading the crowd through a sing-along of The Pogues’ signature song, ‘Fairytale of New York’. At the band’s show at Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre on December 3, they performed the cover towards the end of the set, with frontman Justin Hawkins singing minimally, frequently pointing the microphone towards the crowd as an invitation to lead the sing-along, against sporadic guitar accompaniment.The band posted a clip of the performance on X yesterday (December 7), writing: “Thanks for the sing-a-long Dublin.

Is the Western a dead genre? Not if Chilean director Felipe Gálvez has anything to do with it. Gálvez’s “The Settlers,” wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival this past May and won the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize in the process.

Coca-Cola is on a mission to further spread its ethos of ‘Real Magic’ and human connection this holiday season, with a new short film anthology: The Santa Stories.

Naman Ramachandran Singapore‘s Mediacorp has begun introducing virtual sets into its scripted content, starting with two Chinese drama series, it was revealed during the ongoing Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF). “Strangers in the Dark” is about an outcast in school, who uses her vivid imagination to help solve various mysteries.

After the production team at Studio Ghibli disbanded, cinematographer Atsushi Okui worked as a freelance artist for a while. But when director Hayao Miyazaki began working on The Boy and the Heron, Okui was excited to be called back to the team.

Society of the Snow” is entering awards season. The film, directed by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona and produced by Netflix, is based on the true story of the survivors of a horrifying plane crash in the Andes, who managed to survive for two months in inhospitable conditions.