A judge has dismissed a harassment charge against an activist after his accuser decided to stay away from court to scatter her mother's ashes in Greece.
16.04.2024 - 07:27 / variety.com
Naman Ramachandran Athens-based boutique film outfit Heretic has two titles in the Cannes ACID (Association for the International Distribution of Independent Cinemas) sidebar. Heretic’s own Greek production, co-produced with North Macedonia’s List Production, “Kyuka Before Summer’s End,” by debut director Kostas Charamountanis, is the opening film of the ACID program.
The film follows a family of three, a single father, Babis, and his twin children on the verge of adulthood, Konstantinos and Elsa, who sail to the island of Poros on the family boat for their holidays. In the midst of swimming, sunbathing and making new friends, Konstantinos and Elsa meet, unbeknownst to them, their birth mother Anna who abandoned them when they were babies.
The encounter stirs up long-held feelings of resentment in Babis, resulting in a bittersweet coming-of-age journey. “Kyuka Before Summer’s End” is produced by Danae Spathara, Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovrakis of Heretic, Greece and co-produced by Marija Dimitrova and Igor Ivanov of List Production, North Macedonia.
The cast includes Simeon Tsakiris, Elsa Lekakou, Konstantinos Georgopoulos, Afroditi Kapokaki and Elena Topalidou. Heretic has also acquired for world sales ACID selection “Most People Die On Sundays” by feature debutant director lair Said, whose previous short “Present Imperfect” was nominated for best short at Cannes in 2015.
It follows 30-something gay man David, who with a fear of flying, regretfully returns to his native Argentina to attend his uncle’s funeral. There he reconnects with his mother and his Jewish family, while embarking on a quest across Buenos Aires to quench his anxiety via driving lessons, cheap healthcare and trying to sleep with any man
.A judge has dismissed a harassment charge against an activist after his accuser decided to stay away from court to scatter her mother's ashes in Greece.
Greta Gerwig has her jury. This evening, the Cannes Film Festival revealed the rest of the nine-member jury filled with festival veterans and Academy members.
Naman Ramachandran Usman Riaz’s Annecy selection “The Glassworker” has unveiled its first trailer. The film will also screen at the Cannes Film Market and has set a date for theatrical release in Pakistan. The animated film will debut in Annecy’s Contrechamp strand.
Naman Ramachandran The next project from Garima Pura Patiyaalvi, who co-wrote the Oscar-winning “The Elephant Whisperers,” is a teen drama Amazon series. “Amber Girls School” is set in an all-girls institution that focuses on conditioning young women in traditional Indian culture.
EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights to Romanian actor and director Emanuel Parvu’s thriller Three Kilometers To The End Of The World.
Let’s catch up on all things Cannes Film Festival. For one, if you haven’t seen it, Cannes recently revealed its 2024 poster, featuring a scene from “Rhapsody in August,” directed by the great Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, 81 at the time (see it below in full).
Thousands of summer holidays could be disrupted as Just Stop Oil activists plan a series of protests at airports across the UK and Europe.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been granted exclusive access to the trailer (below) for Portuguese director Miguel Gomes‘ “Grand Tour,” which will have its world premiere in Cannes Film Festival’s Competition section. Variety can also exclusively reveal that that distribution on “Grand Tour” will be handled in France by Tandem, and in Italy by Lucky Red, and that Gomes’ next film will be “Savagery.” “Grand Tour” kicks off in 1917 in Burma. It centers on Edward, a civil servant for the British Empire, who runs away from his fiancée Molly the day she arrives to get married.
Holly Jones German sales outfit Patra Spanou Film (“Blue Moon”) has acquired international rights to “The Pleasure Is Mine” (“El Placer Es Mío”), the debut feature from Brazilian-born screenwriter and director Sacha Amaral, whose prior efforts on short “Billy Boy” earned him a slot at the Cannes Cinéfondation program in 2021. The boutique sales agency has also shared an exclusive first-look teaser with Variety ahead of the drama’s premiere in international competition at this year’s Bafici in Buenos Aires, running April 17-28.
The 55th edition of the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, the parallel section of the main Cannes Film Festival, has announced its 2024 line-up. Running from May 15 to 23, the Fortnight, or the Quinzaine Des Cinéastes, in French, will debut 21 feature films and ten short films.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Marco Mueller has been appointed artistic director of Italy’s Taormina Film Festival, which will have a top notch selection committee comprising British film curator and former London fest chief Sandra Hebron and former Cannes Directors’ Fortnight boss Edouard Waintrop. As anticipated by Variety, Mueller, who over the past decades has headed both the Venice and Rome fests — among several other events — is taking the reins of the storied Sicilian event that has had its ups and downs over the years. Held since the mid-1950s in the Sicilian resort known to U.S.
Lise Pedersen Zagreb-based doc specialist Splitscreen has boarded Argentinian gaucho tale “Where the Trees Bear Meat” by Alexis Franco ahead of its world premiere at Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel. It is one of 15 films vying for the top prize in the main international competition. Set in the Argentine Pampas, the film follows Omar, a farmer, whose cows are dying as a result of a prolonged drought.
Thanks to early official announcements a number of the movies debuting at this year’s 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes are already known. Quentin Dupieux’s “The Second Act” will open the festival.
Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov returns to Cannes once again this year with Limonov: The Ballad starring Ben Whishaw, for which we can share a first-look image from above.
Alex Ritman “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” the second feature from Zambian-Welsh writer-director Rungano Nyoni, has been picked up by A24 for international sales ahead of its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival next month. The film, which marks Nyoni’s follow-up to her acclaimed 2017 feature debut “I Am Not a Witch,” was also financed by A24 alongside BBC Film and Fremantle, while it was developed by BBC Film and Element Pictures.
Greek weird wave filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, known for Academy Award-nominated favorites like “Poor Things” and “The Favourite,” is heading back to the Cannes Film Festival once again this year with his new film, “Kind Of Kindness.” And Searchlight Picture is wasting no time celebrating by releasing a new trailer for the film. READ MORE: Cannes 2024: New Films From Yorgos Lanthimos, Frances Ford Coppola, Sean Baker & Andrea Arnold “Kind of Kindness” is an anthology film drama that follows three different stories.
Thanks to early official announcements a number of the movies debuting at this year’s 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes are already known. Quentin Dupieux’s “The Second Act” will open the festival.
Rumored to be in the mix for several festivals, Francis Ford Coppola’s expensive, long-gestating “Megalopolis” is expected to premier at the Cannes Film Festival this May. According to Deadline’s The Dish, Coppola’s film, which he funded himself to the tune of over 100 million, will play in competition on the Croisette on May 17.
Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Germany’s Beta Film is bringing the love story between a Dutch prince and a beautiful Argentinian financier to the Croisette. The world premiere of “Máxima” screens out-of-competition at Canneseries on April 9 after being teased at the London TV Screenings in late February.
Already a big, ambitious bet as a two-part offering, Kevin Costner and Warner Bros. are going even bigger with his Western epic “Horizon,” which will make its world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival in May.