Alfonso Cuarón Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Mexico has selected the Berlin competition title Tótem, the latest film from Lila Avilés, as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Oscars.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Calling all Latino filmmakers, John Travolta wants to work with you. Swinging by Panama to present his 1978 musical rom-com “Grease” at the 12th Panama International Film Festival (IFF Panama), Travolta professed his great love for “Mexico, Central America, South America, all of its parts.” “There is an incredible humanity that prevails and is different from anywhere else in the world,” he told Variety. Surprised to hear that Robert de Niro had starred in the Argentine series “Nada,” Travolta exclaimed: “I would have loved that, I would have enjoyed being lured to South America to play a part for a while.” The closest he’s come to working with a Latino director was with Alfonso Cuarón, who produced the short film streaming on Disney+ “The Shepherd,” based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1975 novella, which follows a young Royal Air Force pilot flying home for Christmas across the North Sea.

EXCLUSIVE: Carter Cohn, an alum of the agencies CAA and ICM, has joined Anonymous Content as a manager, Deadline has learned. He starts in his new role effective immediately and will be based out of the company’s Los Angeles office.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Chris Rock had the good sense to arrive early at the Jean-Michel Basquiat Made on Market Street exhibition at the  Larry Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills.

Salma Hayek has a close friendship with the Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron. The two have been friends for years, resulting in a familial bond that has been passed down to their kids. In a recent post, Hayek congratulated Tess Bu Cuaron, the director’s eldest daughter with the filmmaker Annalisa Bugliani, as she released her new song “Viceversa,” and launched her career as a musician.

In perhaps one of the best feel-good stories in Hollywood this year, a coalition of 35 filmmakers have invested in a coalition to save Los Angeles’ fabled Westwood Village Theater. Organized by Jason Reitman, the group will book first-run features and repertory programming from the theater’s directors/caretakers.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor UPDATED: Jason Reitman has gathered more than two dozen filmmakers to help acquire Westwood’s historic Village Theater, which will program first-run and repertory programming. The group includes JJ Abrams, Judd Apatow, Damien Chazelle, Chris Columbus, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonathan Dayton, Guillermo del Toro, Valerie Faris, Hannah Fidell, Alejandro González Iñárritu, James Gunn, Sian Heder, Rian Johnson, Gil Kenan, Karyn Kusama, Justin Lin, Phil Lord, David Lowery, Christopher McQuarrie, Chris Miller, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Todd Phillips, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Jay Roach, Seth Rogen, Emma Seligman, Brad Silberling, Steven Spielberg, Emma Thomas, Denis Villeneuve, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao.

Alison Herman TV Critic The new Apple TV+ series “Constellation” is a space drama, a category in which its deep-pocketed platform has developed something of a preoccupation. (There’s also “For All Mankind,” “Foundation” and, technically, the most recent season of “The Morning Show.”) But the show also exemplifies a type of series so recognizable it’s become practically a genre unto itself: a story that calls for the concision of a feature film that’s been stretched out to fill a TV-sized number of episodes.

Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios has had a winning record coming to the Berlin Film Festival since 2013, when his film Gueros took the Best First Feature prize. Five years later he was back with his second, the sensational museum-heist film Museo, and deservedly won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay. His third, A Cop Movie, which plays with the traditional docu form by using actors, won Best Documentary at Mexico’s Golden Ariel Awards.

Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars, will have its Polish premiere on Thursday at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.According to Variety, director Jonathan Glazer will introduce the harrowing film at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where parts of the movie were shot. “Zone” is about Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the Nazi officer and commandant of Auschwitz during World War II, and juxtaposes his home life with wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their five children to the horrors of the Holocaust happening right next door.“To acknowledge the couple as human beings was a big part of the awfulness of this entire journey of the film, but I kept thinking that, if we could do so, we would maybe see ourselves in them,” Glazer, 58, told the Guardian.

Valerie Wu Intern Lily Gladstone has become the first Native American woman to be nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards. Gladstone was recognized for her role as Osage woman and historical figure Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s epic “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone’s nomination comes four years after Yalitza Aparicio, who is Indigenous Mexican, received a best actress nomination at the 2019 Oscars. Aparicio starred in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 film “Roma” as housekeeper Cleodegaria “Cleo” Gutiérrez.

Netflix‘s film chief Scott Stuber is leaving the streamer to start a new production company. The exec will stay at Netflix through the middle of March, after which chief content officer Bela Bajaria will find his replacement, according to those familiar with the situation. Stuber has secured financing for this new endeavor, which will focus on making TV shows and movies, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news of Stuber’s departure.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender.

Scott Stuber is leaving Netflix. The chairman of Netflix film since 2017, he will be leaving in March to start his own media company.  

The move in recent years to make the Oscars a truly global event in terms of the membership drive by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has paid off particularly well this year: Eligible voters from a record 93 countries submitting ballots in the Academy Awards’ nominating round, which ended Tuesday at 5 p.m. PT.

EXCLUSIVE: Seth Brodie, Chief Financial Officer at Anonymous Content, is leaving the company.

th year, Variety’s annual 10 Directors to Watch highlights some of the most promising and creative young filmmakers in the entertainment industry. Presented this year (as we have for the last several) at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, our list is as full of promising up-and-comers as ever, with at least three directors whose work has already staked a claim during the 2023-2024 awards season, and several with films that are set to premiere at Sundance, Berlin and other spring festivals.

Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” is available on Netflix now and out in the world. Cooper’s second directorial effort, many heavy-hitting filmmakers seem to be going to bat for the film, including director Alfonso Cuaron and Steven Spielberg, though the latter may not be entirely a surprise given he is a producer on the film.

The sound of music was back with us this week in the form of two polar opposite productions that may intrigue audiences but challenge marketers.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Paul Greengrass has been hired to adapt the big-screen version of T.J. Newman’s novel “Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421.” Greengrass will write, direct and produce the film, which is set at Warner Bros. The studio emerged victorious earlier this year in a bidding war, one that drew interest from the likes of Nicole Kidman, Alfonso Cuarón and Steven Spielberg, along with seven-figure offers from Apple and Bruckheimer, Paramount and Damien Chazelle, Legendary and Universal Television.

K.J. Yossman John Travolta has revealed it was his own near-death experience while flying a plane on Thanksgiving that first drew him to “The Shepherd,” the new Alfonso Cuarón-produced short film set to premiere on Disney+ this winter. The film, which is based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1975 novella of the same name, tells the story of Freddie Hooke (played by Ben Radcliffe), a young Royal Air Force pilot flying home for Christmas across the North Sea.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Tessa Ía, who broke out heading “After Lucía,” Michel Franco’s Cannes winning first feature, is set to star in “Hyperballad,” which offers what is proving one of the most potent mixtures in cutting-edge Latin American film: Genre, ambition, and a first-feature young woman director. Directed by Alejandra Villalba García, “Hyperballad” (“Hiperbalada”) is lead produced by Hiperbalada, a production house lead by Villalba Garcñia and pic producer Carlos Paz.

Two-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Ed Lachman looked shattered by the time he sat down with us for an interview here at EnergaCamerimage in Torun, Poland. 

J. Kim Murphy Steven Weisberg, a film editor whose career through the ’90s onward led him to collaborations with directors like Alfonso Cuarón, Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Levinson, died Oct. 16 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In perhaps one of her meatiest roles since Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Oscar-nominated thesp Yalitza Aparicio stars in Prime Video’s upcoming series “Cometierra,” created by its showrunner Daniel Burman, The Mediapro Studio’s head of content for the U.S., Mexico and Central America. Principal photography is underway, predominantly in Mexico, with some scenes shot in Uruguay.

Thierry Frémaux is best known internationally as the long-time head of France’s Cannes Film Festival, which is organized out of its offices in Paris’s trendy Marais neighborhood.

EXCLUSIVE: Blue Bayou filmmaker Justin Chon has signed with WME and Blue Marble Management for representation. 

On Christmas Eve, a young Royal Air Force pilot flying home across the North Sea finds himself in peril when his radio and electric power cut out, leaving him stranded and running on limited fuel. Just when it appears his luck is about to run out, a mysterious good Samaritan guides him to safety.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Disney+ has released the first trailer for the upcoming short film “The Shepherd,” premiering on Dec. 1. The story follows Ben Radcliffe as Pandora, a young Royal Air Force pilot flying home across the North Sea on Christmas Eve.

Add Anonymous Content to the list of entertainment companies hit by layoffs, as Deadline has confirmed that around 8% of staffers were let go on Friday.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Anonymous Content enacted a small round of layoffs on Friday, representing about 8% of the workforce at a company of around 170 people. The talent management and production shop reduced staff across all divisions, including representation, television, motion picture, literary, media rights and branded entertainment. Insiders familiar with Anonymous cited the Hollywood labor strikes and a volatile larger entertainment marketplace as reasons for the job cuts.