Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander & Producers Of Buzzy Market Title ‘Night Boat To Tangier’ Touch Down In Cannes For Exclusive Buyers Event Hosted By Hyde Park International

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Forest,” an Italian eco-themed animation film about deforestation, has scored some strong pre-sales for Rome-based True Colours at the Cannes Marché du film. The still-in-production 3-D animation feature – the protagonist of which is a young mushroom named Fey – has been picked up for roughly 20 territories by Top Film Distribution which will distribute “Forest” in Ukraine, CIS, the Baltics, and Eastern European countries including former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech and Slovak Republics, Romania, and Hungary.  Helmed by Luca Della Grotta and Francesco Dafano, the film is produced by Italy’s AI One, the same team that previously spawned 2020 similarly themed animation feature “Trash” that sold in more than 30 countries. 

“La Bestia,” (Ram Tamez, 2020) A best student film Annie Award winner and the first Spanish-language film from great Paris animation school Gobelins, co-directed and co-written by Tamez, a Guillermo del Toro Gobelins scholar. A heartrending gem, set on the roof of La Bestia, a freight train hurtling through Mexico used by emigrants to hitch a fast ride to the U.S., the wrench of emigration caught by a song co-wrote by Tamez.  “Cerulia,” (Sofia Carrillo, 2017)

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It’s widely know that Henry VIII, the Tudor king, had a particularly grim batting average when it came to matrimony.

Jude Law and Alicia Vikander step out for the photo call in support of their new movie Firebrand during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Jude Law and Alicia Vikander step out for the photo call in support of their new movie Firebrand during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

CANNES – Henry VIII was a bad, bad, bad man. The 16th Century King of England notoriously beheaded two of his six wives, divorced another two, and saw another die during childbirth.

Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender looked all loved up on the red carpet for the premiere of her new movie, Firebrand.

Jude Law and Alicia Vikander led stars on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival ahead of the premiere of their new film Firebrand. The historical drama, based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s 2013 novel Queen’s Gambit, explores the life of Catherine Parr – the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII. Law stars as the notorious King of England while Oscar-winning actress Vikander plays Parr in the film which is the English-language debut for its director, Brazilian filmmaker Karim Ainouz.

Most movies about England’s King Henry VIII like to focus on the mercurial monarch’s failed marriages. His six wives have been collectively described as divorced, died, beheaded, divorced, beheaded, survived. That last one, the little talked-about Katherine Parr, had the distinction of outlasting Henry — their marriage was about four years as he started to succumb to the result of hard living. She was there during that time, but also a wife who if she weren’t so connected to the King easily could have qualified as a feminist. She not only was the first English woman to have a book published, was privately a radical Protestant in an England that had been staunchly Catholic, but also a sharply intelligent woman who had a head on her shoulders and was determined to keep it there.

Alicia Vikander was greeted with an eight-minute standing ovation at the May 21 Cannes premiere of Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s “Firebrand,” from a crowd that included best actress Oscar winners Michelle Yeoh and Marion Cotillard.With her husband Michael Fassbender beaming on from the row behind, Vikander motioned for the cheering audience to stop or she would cry. But then she gave into the adulation and blew kisses to the upper balconies Vikander’s co-star Jude Law and Aïnouz also got huge applause. Vikander joins a group of Cannes leading ladies including Lily Gladstone, Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore who have turned in show-stopping performances.

Sunday night at the 76th Cannes Film Festival was all about the world premiere of the Jude Law and Alicia Vikander Henry VIII period pic Firebrand, which received a royal response from the crowd in the Grand Theatre Lumiere with an eight and a half minute standing ovation.

Cannes Film Festival, Henry (Jude Law) is away in France with his army and Catherine takes the opportunity to ride off to a mossy forest for secret meetings with Anne Askew (Erin Doherty), a childhood friend who is now preaching revolt against a new law that has banned English-language Bibles and returned authority to Latin-reading priests. Compared to her radical friend, Catherine appears to be a cowed, abused wife.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Tudor, or not Tudor. That is the question in “Firebrand,” a revisionist royal portrait of Henry VIII’s last wife, Katherine Parr (played here by Alicia Vikander), that features all the pageantry you’d expect from a lavish costume drama, while showing the ahistorical audacity to call “Time’s Up” on the gluttonous king (Jude Law). Never mind that Henry VIII died — of very different causes than the movie depicts — all of 476 years ago. When it comes to art, there’s no statute of limitations on taking toxic masculinity to task, which can be both encouraging (since history has excused no shortage of monsters) and frustrating. There’s a big difference between exposing the truth and rewriting what came before to suit a contemporary political agenda, the way this movie does. Liberally adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle’s fast-and-loose historical fiction “The Queen’s Gambit,” director Karim Aïnouz’s tony British production needn’t try hard to demonstrate that Henry was a notoriously bad husband.

It’s a solemn command from Firebrand’s first assistant director Lydia Currie: “When you bow to the king, bow straight down,” she announces. “Don’t look at him; you’ll get your head cut off.” The fearsome monarch Currie is referring to is Henry VIII, and on this particular day, Jude Law’s king is in an ax-swinging mood. The background artists on Karim Aïnouz’s set comply to orders and stare down at their toes. Before them, seated on thrones arranged on a raised plinth, is the potentate in question, and Katherine Parr, his queen.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International In Britain, schoolchildren learning about Tudor history are taught a handy rhyme to remember the order of King Henry VIII’s six wives: “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.” Hollywood has for decades been transfixed by the “beheaded” and “died” bits — essentially, the stories about women suffering — but what moviegoers are rarely reminded of is the wife who outlived Henry. In Karim Aïnouz’s hotly anticipated “Firebrand,” it’s the notorious Tudor king’s final companion, Katherine Parr, who finally takes center stage. “What’s mostly been dramatized are the wives who didn’t make it,” says Swedish star Alicia Vikander, who plays the surviving queen opposite Jude Law’s ailing monarch. “[When I read the script] I immediately thought, ‘Huh, isn’t it interesting that most people know more about the other wives.’ It’s almost like people are drawn to quite grim stories.”

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Firebrand,” a period drama about Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, has sold out internationally ahead of its world premiere on Sunday. Sources tell Variety that the film has sold into STXInternational for the U.K. and to Sony Pictures for most other overseas markets. FilmNation has sold remaining international markets to independent international distributors. In the U.K., Variety understands that Prime Video is in the process of buying the film from STX. This could mean that STX is handling a theatrical release, while Prime Video takes the film for streaming, or that the streamer will also handle theatrical in the territory. Sources indicate that Prime Video is also picking up streaming rights in a number of other international markets.