Urbanworld Film Festival Releases 2023 Slate, Features Event with ‘The Marvels’ Director Nia DaCosta (EXCLUSIVE)

Valerie Wu Intern The 2023 annual Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), hosted from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19, has announced its slate of awards winners.

We’re already into Phase 5 and Marvel’s The Multiverse Saga, which began with “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quanumania” and goes all the way to 2027 with “Avengers: Secret Wars.” This means that eventually, we’ll likely end up seeing “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” (2026) and ‘Secret Wars’ become massive ‘Endgame‘-level events that allow dozens and dozens of heroes to face off against the main antagonist Jonathan Majors’ Kang The Conqueror.

Christopher Vourlias As a young boy growing up in Budapest, a town that would come to be known as “Hollywood on the Danube,” Béla Bunyik dreamed of being in the pictures. “I fell in love with movies in Hungary back in the ’50s,” Bunyik tells Variety. “When I was 12 years old, I started to work as an extra in a few movies….

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor How does one create a film festival during an actors strike? Middleburg Film Festival executive director Susan Koch explains she’s approached programming the Virginia fest in the same manner as she has always done. “We looked for the strongest films and a wide range of films that represent diverse voices and ones we feel will expand our view of the world,” she tells Variety. Now in its 11th year, the festival continues to be a carefully curated weekend of films and conversations, including many of the year’s buzziest titles.

“Dancing With The Stars Live” will return to stages all over North America with special guest Julianne Hough appearing on select dates.As of now, the classic reality show turned thrilling live experience has 64 performances planned including five in New York and three in New Jersey.The five New York stops will take place at Brookville’s Tilles Center for Performing Arts on Jan. 16, White Plains’ The Westchester County Center on Jan. 17, Verona’s Turning Stone Resort Casino on Jan.

Ellise Shafer Daniel Kaluuya world premiered his feature directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday night, calling it “one of the best days of my life.” Kaluuya was on hand alongside his co-director Kibwe Tavares, producer Daniel Emmerson and several of the film’s actors, including “Top Boy” star Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman. Set in a dystopian London where all social housing has been banned, the film follows the residents of a community called the Kitchen who must fight to save their home. Speaking before the premiere, Kaluuya and Tavares explained that it’s taken nearly a decade to bring the Netflix film to the screen.

The co-heads of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which was rescheduled at the eleventh hour this week due to the Israel-Gaza crisis, have vowed that the event will go ahead in some shape or form.

It’s not every day that a filmmaker will rise up during an interview and recite Old Testament tales and sing out their favorite hymn. Well, hallelujah, brother Jeymes Samuel for spreading the gospel’s good news.

Ben Croll Home to the Taylor Sheridan stable and to the “Star Trek” franchise, Paramount+ is looking for “populist” dramas that hold a wider sway and can span several seasons, said Paramount TV president Nicole Clemens at her keynote at MIA Market in Rome on Tuesday. “We’re not looking for shows that just play to New York and Los Angeles,” Clemens explained. “That doesn’t mean they’re not edgy, that doesn’t mean [they can’t be] dark.

Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).

Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.  

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Anthony Chen (“The Breaking Ice”) is attached to direct and Shinho Lee to write “Sunset Park” for Barunson C&C, a film and TV production subsidiary of Barunson E&A, the Korean company that produced Oscar-winning hit “Parasite.” “Sunset Park” recounts a surprising journey in the U.S. made by a Korean father with his son’s room mate, after the man receives tragic news about his son.

Carole Horst Tucked in the beautiful countryside north of San Francisco, Mill Valley has been home to artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and all sorts of dreamers. Thus it makes sense that the local film festival, celebrating 46 years, has programmed the best of the fest circuit and buzzy premieres — and mixed it up with art and music events. The event runs Oct.

Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.

EXCLUSIVE: The DTLA Film Festival has set the full feature lineup for its 15th edition, taking place at Regal L.A. Live from November 1-5, announcing the Jack Huston starrer Hail Mary as its opening night film.

The San Sebastian Film Festival awarded O Corno (The Rye Horn) with the Golden Shell for Best Film. San Sebastián native Jaione Camborda took the top prize of the night for the feature she directed.

International execs from Unifrance, MK2 and TrustNordisk kicked off the annual Zurich Summit on Saturday to discuss the importance of film festivals when promoting a title and if fests are drifting away from what works in cinemas. 

The Tokyo Film Festival has set the lineup for its bumper 2023 edition, running October 23 to November 1. Scroll down for the full list. 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Museum said today that they will gift a replacement of Hattie McDaniel’s 1939 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Gone with the Wind to the Howard University Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.