Kai Ko, Chen Bolin Among Taiwanese Stars Selected For Taipei Film Festival’s Top Talents Showcase

Christian Petzold’s Afire and Celine Song’s Past Lives are among the titles set to screen at this year’s scaled-down Edinburgh International Film Festival (Aug 18-23), which is being mounted as part of Edinburgh’s wider cultural Festival.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Riz Ahmed will be honoured by the Locarno Film Festival where the latest short in which the British actor appears – titled “Dammi” and directed by French auteur Yann Mounir Damage – will world premiere. Ahmed, who earned an Oscar nomination for best actor in 2021 for his performance as a drummer who suddenly goes deaf in Amazon’s “Sound of Metal,” will be feted by the Swiss fest dedicated to indie filmmaking cinema with with its 2021 Excellence Award Davide Campari, which pays tribute to film personalities who have left their personal stamp on contemporary cinema. “Dammi,” which was teased at Cannes, is an experimental work, broadly on the theme of immigration and identity, produced by French fashion brand  AMI, founded by Alexandre Mattiussi, and also starring Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba. The buzzed-about short will screen at Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande, on opening night, Aug. 2, during the ceremony at which Amed will receive the award.

The numbers are in!

When Anthony Mackie makes his big-screen debut as Captain America in the upcoming “Captain America: Brave New World”, he’ll be joined by Marvel newcomer Harrison Ford.

Brave is the man who will sign up for a real-life father-daughter road movie set the aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, but Ewan McGregor his no regrets about pairing up with his eldest child — by his first wife — for You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder, which screened as a tribute to the actor in Karlovy Vary. Set in a dreamlike American West, and very far removed from the specifics of the McGregors’ own personal situation, it finds a reformed alcoholic dad trying to reconnect with his offspring after collecting her from hospital. She thinks they’re off to visit an artist friend of her father’s, but the truth is that, in a bid to absolve himself of many years’ worth of guilt, he’s taking her to rehab.

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired North American VOD rights to the dramatic feature film Waiting For The Light To Change — the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival ‘Grand Jury Prize’ winner for ‘Best Narrative Feature.

From Studio Ghibli leading the charge for the expansion of anime to BTS and BLACKPINK topping the music charts to TV series and films such as “Squid Games,” Parasite,” “Minari,” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” dominating the awards circuit, the popularity of Asian culture and media has surged recently in the United States in recent years.

This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) will close with the UK premiere of British Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s well-received Sundance pic Fremont.

nearly $2.5 million in 2020. The pair have gone on to help elevate the team’s popularity with an FX documentary called “Welcome to Wrexham.” Meanwhile, Formula 1 racing has become popular in the U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Some 18 film industry guilds and trade associations are calling for urgent structural reform of the Busan International Film Festival. They point out that this year’s edition of the festival is looming less than 100 days away. The festival’s management has made a succession of management missteps in recent weeks, including one that resulted in an official apology. At the beginning of May, a decision to split the festival’s senior management in two by creating a new position for Cho Jongkook, was followed by consternation among guilds and the resignation of festival director Huh Moonyoung.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Prince Aden,” a new drama by Italian directing duo Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, known internationally for their immigration-themed “Seven Acts of Mercy,” is among projects selected by Locarno’s Alliance for Development initiative. The platform, now in its 8th year, is geared towards fostering co-productions between France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Inspired by the book “Partigiani d’Oltremare,” by Italian historian Matteo Petracci, the De Serio twins’ new colonial-era film follows the vicissitudes of a 16-year-old Somali named Aden Sicré who in 1935 becomes a soldier in the Italian army that invaded Ethiopia on Mussolini’s orders. In an unexpected turn, he becomes hailed as a war hero by the Fascist regime. Then a few years later Aden and other African fighters play a pivotal role in the partisan struggle against fascism in Europe.

Sophia Scorziello editor Yara Shahidi, the “Black-ish” star who recently starred as Tinker Bell in Disney’s live-action film “Peter Pan & Wendy,” will be honored with the Shining Star award at the 2023 Maui Film Festival. The festival has revealed its full honoree and film slate for this year’s event, which is set to take place from June 28 to July 2 in Kahului. Shahidi is known for starring as Zoey in ABC’s beloved “Black-ish” and is now the executive producer of Freeform’s spinoff series, “Grown-ish.” She soon will star in Amazon’s upcoming rom-com “Sitting in Bars With Cake,” for which she will also serve as EP, along with the upcoming action thriller “Ballerina Overdrive.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan International Film Festival has apologized for its mishandling of the resignation of its executive director Huh Moon-young and related sexual harassment allegations. “We sincerely apologize over the sexual harassment case that occurred in the workplace,” BIFF said in a Korean-language statement on Thursday. (A festival spokesperson said that an English-language statement, along with an update, will be issued in the coming days.) Huh has publicly denied the allegations, though he has not replied to email and telephone requests for comment by Variety.

Pharrell Williams is making Louis Vuitton happy. The musician — who was named the artistic director of the French fashion house in February — unveiled his first collection with the luxury label on Tuesday, June 20. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang, the arthouse darling known for works including Venice Golden Lion winner “Vive L’Amour” and “The River,” which scored the Berlin Silver Bear, will be celebrated by the Locarno Film Festival with its Honorary Leopard achievement award.  The iconoclastic auteur, who is a key figure in Taiwan’s so-called Second New Wave, will receive the prize from the Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema during an Aug. 6 ceremony held on its 8,000-seat outdoor Piazza Grande venue. The tribute to Tsai Ming-liang will also involve an onstage conversation with the director on the future of cinema and a screening of the helmer’s 2020 film “Days” (Rizi), as well as an art gallery exhibition of his experimental works.

The numbers are in!

U.S. NARRATIVE COMPETITIONBest Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature: Ji-Young Yoo for “Smoking Tigers,” (United States) – World Premiere.

Manchester United ace Marcus Rashford has revealed that he switched his TV off ahead of Manchester City laying their hands on the Champions League trophy in Istanbul last Saturday evening.

Dianne Buswell, Black Eyed Peas rapper apl. de. Ap, TV star Dani Dyer and The Inbetweeners actor James Buckley are among a new batch of celebrities in the latest series of Celebrity MasterChef, it has been announced.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Scottish actor Ewan McGregor and Swedish actor Alicia Vikander will be honored at the 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where they will receive the President’s Award, and present their latest films. The festival will open with “Firebrand,” in which Vikander has the leading role of Katherine Parr. McGregor will present “You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder,” in which he stars alongside his daughter Clara McGregor. McGregor’s role in Danny Boyle’s dark comedy “Shallow Grave” (1994) earned him an Empire Award for best British actor, and their next joint film, “Trainspotting” (1996), was an international sensation. McGregor and Boyle teamed up again for the 1997 romantic comedy “A Life Less Ordinary,” in which McGregor appeared alongside Cameron Diaz.