Sci-Fi Action Pic ‘Viper’ From 308 Entertainment Bites Five At Cannes

CANNES – If you were to have asked us just 48 hours ago whether we believed Cannes would be sending another Best Picture nominee to the Academy Awards we would have been hesitant to answer yes. Now, following Sean Baker’s “Anorma” winning the Palme d’Or, it looks like Cannes’ Oscar streak will continue.

Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comic but devastating Brooklyn odyssey about a sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or.Baker accepted the prize with his movie’s star, Mikey Madison, watching in the audience at the Cannes closing ceremony Saturday. The win for “Anora” marks a new high point for Baker, the director of “The Florida Project.” It’s also, remarkably, the fifth straight Palme d’Or won by indie distributor Neon, following “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness” and last year’s winner, “Anatomy of a Fall.”“I don’t really know what’s happening right now,” said Baker.While “Anora” was arguably the most acclaimed film of the festival, its win was a slight surprise.

CANNES – After 12 days of screenings, the Cannes Film Festival has drawn to a close. That means it’s time for Greta Gerwig and her jury to reveal the winners of the competition section of the festival.

Star Wars creator George Lucas was fêted with an Honorary Palme d’Or at this evening’s Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony.

CANNES – After screening “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, one has to breathe a sigh of relief that director and screenwriter Mohammad Rasoulof is safely out of Iran. A victim of a politically motivated jail sentence for supporting the 2022 Masha Amini hijab protests, Rasoulof‘s latest feature will likely anger the Iranian government even more.

Anamaria Vartolomei, the breakout star of Audrey Diwan’s Venice prizewinning “Happening,” is under the spotlight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival playing strong women in a pair of movies, “Being Maria” and “The Count Monte Cristo.” Both movies are supported by Chanel for which Vartolomei is an ambassador. Vartolomei says since starring in Diwan’s drama “Happening,” which was set in the 1960s and centered around the then-illegal act of abortion, she has continued being lured to demanding roles with political and social themes.

“All We Imagine As Light” opens as only a film set in Mumbai can— with the gradual unfurling of this massive metropolis at dawn. Its essential workers begin corralling the huge resources needed to maintain its creaking infrastructure and feed the tens of millions of people who will wake up and take public transport to work.

CANNES – A very popular actor in his native France, Gilles Lellouche has dipped his toe into filmmaking co-directing one movie and helming another over the past 20 years. Nothing he’s directed previously would prepare anyone for the impressive visual authority he welds over the camera in “Beating Hearts,” which debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Kylie Jenner and Stassie Karanikolaou are grabbing some lunch to go.

It has been a big week for the beloved 1964 musical, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the 1964 Palme d’Or and went on to international acclaim and five Oscar nominations, plus served as one of the key inspirations for Damien Chazelle’s Oscar winning La La Land.

Leo Tolstoy once said, “All great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.” The action genre is particularly suited for the latter plot line and the premise forms the backbone of “Trigger Warning,” a new action thriller set to premiere on the Netflix streaming service. READ MORE: Summer Movie Preview: 50 Must-See Films To Watch Directed by Mouly Surya, the director of the Cannes Film Festival premiering thriller “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts,” “Trigger Warning” is led by Jessica Alba (“Sin City” “Fantastic Four”) in her first acting role in nearly four years.

An hour into “Misericordia,” there is a scene so shocking that it might leave viewers’ mouths agape in disbelief. Only it is a mere conversation between two people.

EXCLUSIVE: One of the market’s biggest-budget projects, the Will Smith action-crime thriller Sugar Bandits, has sealed multi-million dollar deals across the world for AGC ahead of a planned September start date.

The 20024 Cannes Film Festival is in full swing now, and it’s arguably been dominated by expensive passion projects that could be seen as vanity projects by their makers. The first one, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited “Megalopolis,” landed yesterday to much consternation and mixed reviews; ours was positive, but still slightly baffled, and the film currently sits at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

EXCLUSIVE: Colombian actress Diana Hoyos (Sniper: Ultimate Kill, Oye Bonita, Nurses) has joined the cast of the action pic Diablo, which Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired for North America. 

EXCLUSIVE: Duke Nicholson (Us), William H. Macy (Fargo), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Stephen Dorff (Blade), Jake Weary (Oh, Canada) and Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) are set to star in action-Thriller The Deputy, which Highland Film Group is launching for the Cannes market.

CANNES – George Miller’s “Furiosa” got a warm reception from global critics and the Cannes Film Festival faithful last night, and it already has many wondering if another “Mad Max” film is in the works. Miller has often told the story about how “Fury Road: A Mad Max Saga” was only made after scripts provided the back stories for Furiosa (originally played by Charlize Theron) and Max (Tom Hardy) were completed.

EXCLUSIVE: Highland Film Group is launching international sales on the action film Alarum starring Sylvester Stallone, Scott Eastwood, and Willa Fitzgerald, which has just wrapped principal photography. 

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is set to star with Tom Hardy in 77 Blackout, a crime thriller set on the night when the city that never sleeps lost power and plunged into chaos and lawlessness. Cary Joji Fukunaga is directing. Fresh from the Oppenheimer Best Picture Oscar, Charles Roven is producing along with Madison Weireter for Atlas Entertainment, and William Green and Aaron Ginsburg for The Cut.

Sam Claflin and Rupert Friend will star in Thunder Road Pictures’ World War II action-thriller Perdition. Written and directed by Henry Dunham, principal photography is set for the fall.