UK On Track To Double Film Stages By 2025 As Culture Secretary Unveils $62B Creative Sector Ambition

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all North American rights for Catherine Breillat’s drama Last Summer (L’été dernier) following its well-received premiere in competition in the final days of the Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).

The BBC has appointed an acting replacement for departing Chairman Richard Sharp, with Dame Elan Cross Stephens set to take over for up to 12 months.

2023 Tribeca Festival in June, Robert De Niro made a splash at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival, where the Oscar-winner's 45-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, made her debut on the carpet. Additionally, the actor's latest film,, made quite the impression on audiences during its world premiere. «It was great,» De Niro told ET's Rachel Smith about walking the carpet at the Cannes event with Chen in May.

Ethan Shanfeld Robert De Niro is going from Cannes to Tribeca, as the world-renowned actor prepares to kick off the 22nd edition of the film festival he co-founded in 2001 with Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff. It runs from June 7 to 18 across New York City. De Niro recently appeared at Cannes Film Festival for the world premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which he stars opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. The Oscar-winning actor said there were conversations about premiering the Western crime epic at Tribeca, but that idea never materialized. “We did talk about it a little bit, but it was always Cannes,” De Niro told Variety. “There was talk about whether it should go in competition or out of competition. And we decided out of competition. It made more sense.”

On-location filming of scripted TV shows in Los Angeles has ground to a near-complete halt in the fourth week of the Writers Guild’s strike, according to data compiled by FilmLA, the city and county film permit office.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Abel Ferrara announced in an interview with The Film Stage that his “Padre Pio” star Shia LaBeouf is currently writing a movie about Auschwitz that the two men are thinking of filming together. No other details were provided at this time. Variety has tapped LaBeouf’s manager for additional details. In Ferrara’s “Padre Pio,” which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, LaBeouf plays the eponymous 19th century religious figure, who rose to fame in the Catholic world for exhibiting stigmata — crucifixion wounds corresponding to those on the body of Jesus Christ — before becoming a symbol of hope for southern Italians during the country’s turbulent period between the two world wars.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) today shared the timeline for its 2024 awards cycle, with its 2024 Film Awards set for Sunday, February 18.

Jane Fonda took matters into her own hands over the weekend at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The 85-year-old veteran actress introduced the Palme d'Or Award to French director Justine Triet.Fonda introduced the historic moment, noting that seven female directors were nominated for the prestigious award for the first time and applauding the festival for its progress.She then gave Triet the award for her film.

EXCLUSIVE: Nick Meyer has just informed his staff that he’s exiting as eOne’s President of Film when his contract ends next month.

Heidi Klum inadvertently became part of the "free the nipple" movement, when her titillating gown couldn't hold her together. The 49-year-old judge attended the  premiere Wednesday at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival and, while walking the red carpet at Palais des Festivals, all eyes were on Klum, who looked stunning in an aurora yellow Zuhair Murad gown with a hip-high leg slit, crossed neckline and bejeweled sleeves.With her trademark blonde locks flowing, Klum smiled as she raised her arms, and therein lay the problem — when she raised her arms to extend her long cape she suffered a bit of a wardrobe malfunction with a nip slip. Not that she's ever been shy about nudity.Back in February, Klum and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, appeared to have stripped down to their birthday suit to celebrate their four-year wedding anniversary.«Love of my life ❤️,» Klum wrote in her celebratory post.A post shared by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum)The model's dedication to her husband led with a video of her and Kaulitz sharing a kiss in bed.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades.

On-location filming in Los Angeles continues to nosedive amid the ongoing Writers Guild strike, plunging 51.5% last week compared with the same time a year ago. The WGA strike is now in its 23rd day with no signs of abating as films and TV shows shutting down production across the county.

Vivo Film (“Le Quattro Volte,” “Miss Marx”) has boarded André Ristum’s action drama “Tecnicamente Dolce” (“Technically Sweet”), based on a screenplay by Italian legend Michelangelo Antonioni, teaming with Gullane Filmes, Brazil’s biggest independent film production house. The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.

For three decades, filmmaker Takeshi Kitano was fixated on a period of Japanese history, in which Lord Oda Nobunaga was inexplicably betrayed by one of his closest allies, Akechi Mitsuhide, in an ambush at Honno-ji Temple. The reasons behind Mitsuhide’s deception are unknown, but Kitano dedicated years to concocting his own theories, going so far as to pen a novel imagining the events that led to the incident.  Adapted from his own book, “Kubi” is an outrageously exhilarating update of the samurai epic, dialing up the blood and guts and sprinkling in the sick humor to match.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michel Merkt, the Monaco-based producer and consultant who’s played a key behind-the-scene role in bolstering Cannes’s profile post-pandemic, has been named honorary citizen of the city of Cannes Merkt, an AMPAS voter who has produced over 50 films, was awarded the diploma prize by Cannes Mayor David Lisnard during an intimate ceremony on May 23. Lisnard paid tribute to the Swiss-born consultant and benefactor’s crucial backing for the city’s cultural and social initiatives. In the last few years, Merkt has helped reinvigorate Critics Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second films, by financing the renovation of its venue, the Miramar theater. He also lent a precious financing hand to the Cannes Film Festival, Directors Fortnight, as well as Canneseries and helped enlist top-level executives for its industry program, on top of being involved in the city’s plans to build a college campus. He also contributed to initiatives to welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the lineup of Cannes Film Market’s newly launched initiative Cannes Investors Circle has remained under wraps, Variety has learned about four of the nine projects which were pitched during the invitation-only event. The initiative was created by the film market’s new executive director Guillaume Esmiol to connect VIP private investors with select filmmakers and producers boasting a stellar track records. Curated by experts such as Medici’s Tamara Tatishvili, Arte Cinema’s Rémi Burah and financier Serge Hayat, the nine projects are budgeted between €2 million and €12 million. Among these are “Dracula. The Second Coming” directed by Radu Jude, the Romanian helmer of Berlinale prizewinning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” directed by Ada Solomon at microFILM; “Rivo Alto,” directed by Clément Cogitore (“The Wakhan Front”) and produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Kazak Productions (“Titane”); “The Girl” directed by Marina Ziolkowski (“But You Look So Good”) and produced by Philippe Gompel (“Cherry”) at Manny Films, and “The Birthday Party” directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez (“Chaika”) and produced by Giorgos Karnavas (“Triangle of Sadness”) at Heretic.

“Eureka” seems somewhat deceitfully simple: a man called Murphy (Viggo Mortensen) searches for his abducted daughter with the help of the mysterious El Coronel (Chiara Mastroianni), even if he has to shoot everyone who stands in his way.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Kaouther Ben Hania, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Man Who Sold His Skin” whose latest film “Four Daughters” is competing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will next direct “Mimesis,” an epic love story set in Tunisia. While the plot is under wraps, the story is set in two different periods, the 1990s and the 1940s, paying tribute to cinema and Arab-Muslim cultural heritage. It’s being produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Tanit Films, who produced Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” and her previous film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” which world premiered at Venice where it won best actor for Yahya Mahayni and was nominated for best international film at the Oscars in 2021.

K.J. Yossman Culture secretary Lucy Frazer set out her vision for the U.K.’s creative industries on Thursday morning, which included a plan to boost the creative sector’s gross added vale by £50 billion and create a million more jobs by 2030. “Our creative industries are world class,” Frazer said. “We are in the golden age of the silver screen. We rival any country in the world at sound and visual effects, and are on track to double U.K. film stage space by 2025.” Frazer, who was speaking at the Deloitte and Enders Media and Telecoms conference in London, added: “The world over, there is demand for high-end British productions not just because of our fantastic actors and our great locations, but because of our tech know-how and production skills. The imagination of our designers, our producers, our content creators, our writers and artists is spearheading growth right across our economy.”

The Hollywood Reporter.The film will be Slade’s directorial debut.According to Deadline, the film will follow the events that transpired that day and will ask the question of why these massacres continue to happen.“The Kent State shooting was a dark and pivotal moment in our nation’s history. This is a story that needs to be told and surprisingly never has,” producer Tom Ortenberg told the outlet in Sept.