Laura Poitras Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Charna Flam The Sundance Institute has selected four feature film projects and filmmakers for its 2023 Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellowship, which takes place from June 16-24 at the Sundance Resort. The fellows include “Blacked Out Dreams” (U.S.A.), “Concrete Land” (Jordan), “No Other Land” (Palestine, Norway) and “Remaining Native” (U.S.A,). The documentary program’s advisors are Laura Poitras (“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”) and Bhawin Suchak (“Outta The Muck”). The Documentary Edit and Story Lab fellowship is designed to encourage experimentation and risk-taking, for the fellows to develop, interrogate and collaborate in post-production.

Annika Pham New York-based director/producer Katy Scoggin has worked with high-profile U.S. documentary filmmaker/journalist Laura Poitras on two shorts and three features, notably as co-producer and DP on Poitras’ Oscar-winner “Citizenfour” and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight’s “Risk.” Poitras now serves as executive producer on Scoggin’s feature debut “Flood,” one of six creative documentaries to be pitched as works in progress April 16, at the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland. “Flood” centers on Scoggin’s journey to repair her relationship with her former missionary father, with whom she has become estranged.

The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie , an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.

We’re back, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here. After a week away, we’ve got you covered for all the big news as festival season gears up once again. We’ve been mob-handed in Venice while diligently covering all the major TV and film news around the world. Let’s begin…

The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie , an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.

Venice Film Festival jury head Damien Chazelle arrived at the opening press conference sporting a Writers Guild on strike t-shirt and badge today.

So what film will win the coveted Golden Lion at the 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival this year? Well, there’s no front-runner right now because festival director Albert Barbera hasn’t even anvnounced the in-competition line-up yet. But now we know who will choose the winners alongside jury head Damien Chazelle.

The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the names who will join Damien Chazelle on the main Competition jury of its 80th edition, running Aug 30 — Sep 9.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Jane Campion, Laura Poitras, Mia Hansen-Løve and Martin McDonagh are among high-caliber members of the Venice Film Festival’s main jury. The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined on the Venice jury panel by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year. They will join Damien Chazelle who – as previously announced – will serve as president of the Venice competition jury. 

Marta Balaga Photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková – no stranger to Prague’s nightlife in the 1970s and 80s, as depicted in upcoming documentary “I’m Not Everything I Want to Be” – has already earned comparisons to a certain American icon. “Libuše had this big exhibition in France in 2019 and on the radio they said: ‘She is like Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia,’” says producer Lukáš Kokeš. Klára Tasovská directs. Recently, Goldin has been the subject of Laura Poitras’ Oscar-nominated “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.” “The very first time we pitched this project, our tutor, ‘Navalny’s’ editor Maya Daisy Hawke, said: ‘That’s funny. My husband [Joe Bini] is actually editing a film about Goldin next door,’” laughs Kokeš.

Sophia Scorziello editor The 2024 Independent Spirit Awards are set to take place in Los Angeles on Feb. 25. The 39th annual awards will recognize achievements in American independent film and television and celebrate the power of independent visual storytelling. The February date, on a Sunday, puts the awards two weeks ahead of the March 10 Oscars, rather than the day before as the Spirits had been in some previous years. This year, the Spirit Awards embraced non-gendered award categories. ““For the first time in history, all the men will know how all the women feel when they find out they are competing against Cate Blanchett,” said the host of the evening, comedian, producer and writer Hasan Minhaj. The joke was met with a close-up of Blanchett looking quite confused.

Wanna feel old? Contrary to popular depictions of millennial youth as being disenfranchised, politically feckless and bone idle, this eye-opening documentary might be the bazooka that’s needed to shatter all those cozy assumptions. So of-the-moment is Ondi Timoner’s latest work that it premiered almost exactly when the collapse of SVB made international news, and though that particular eventuality isn’t foreseen here, it won’t take much post-festival fine-tuning to bring her film bang up to date.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) will open with two local films – Soi Cheang’s noir thriller Mad Fate and the world premiere of Ann Hui’s Elegies, a documentary about contemporary local poetry.

Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Whale, and Tár, among others. Looking at the actual list of people up for the awards, however, shows that only a handful of LGBTQ artists are in the running for prizes.In fact, it appears that only five talents who identify as LGBTQ (or who appear to be, in one instance) are nominated this time around.

Tara Karajica In her debut film, exec produced by Oscar winner Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour”), Syrian activist-journalist Lina chronicles the real-time transition from peaceful revolution, ushered in by the Arab Spring more than a decade ago, to civil war in Syria. The film plays in the Newcomers Competition at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. At first, Lina thought she would document the women’s involvement in the Syrian uprising. “I was thinking that despite how much women are involved in every aspect of what is happening, once everything is over, somehow, we’re going to slip through the cracks and disappear from the story. So, I decided it was best to start documenting what we do as we do it, to make sure that memories were not erased. But as things progressed, and took unexpected turns, I had more and more reasons to keep making the film. And, some of the reasons changed because, as I was making it, I felt that documenting the role of women isn’t exactly an objective for the film. It’s just part of the texture of the film. I don’t need to aim for it anymore. It’s there.”

Christopher Vourlias Stories of war and its devastating human toll, migration across borders, the struggle for human rights and the battle to save a rapidly warming planet are among the themes that take center stage on March 6 during the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum, the co-production and co-financing platform of the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. Fourteen projects representing filmmakers from 21 countries will be pitching before an audience of international industry guests including producers, broadcasters, funding bodies and festival programmers, as well as a jury comprised of Eleni Chandrinou, a consultant and producer from Cigale Films; Nevena Milašinović, a sales and acquisitions executive from Lightdox; and Sara Rüster, international distribution manager at the Swedish Film Institute.

Christopher Vourlias The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival kicks off its 25th edition Thursday at a time when the nonfiction genre has arguably reached unprecedented heights. This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews). Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion award.

From the minute the credits rolled after its world premiere, awards pundits were happy to claim that “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” was the frontrunner for Oscars gold. Now, months later, it’s looking like that might very well be the case.

A24’s Oscar-nominated Everything Everywhere All at Once won the Film of the Year and LBGTQ Film of the Year as it swept to a leading nine trophies at the 14th annual Dorian Film Awards, bestowed by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

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 are Davis’ assessment of the current standings of the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any film or performance. Like any organization or body that votes, each individual category is fluid and subject to change. Predictions are updated every Thursday. LAST UPDATED: Feb. 21, 2023 CATEGORY COMMENTARY: Sara Dosa won the Directors Guild of America Awards, where The guild crowned “Fire of Love” from National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon. A feel-good documentary that recalls the story of Katia and Maurice Kraftt, two scientists who die in a volcanic explosion.

have to tell is critical. “Compelled, obsessed — I mean, you have to really love [a topic].

Todd Field’s psycho-music drama Tár picked up the Film of the Year gong at the London Critics’ Circle Awards Sunday evening.

BEST FILMALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Malte GrunertTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonaghELVIS Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick McCormick, Schuyler WeissEVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan WangTÁR Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra MilchanOUTSTANDING BRITISH FILMAFTERSUN Charlotte Wells, Producer(s) TBCTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete CzerninBRIAN AND CHARLES Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris HaywardEMPIRE OF LIGHT Sam Mendes, Pippa HarrisGOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy BrandLIVING Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo IshiguroROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis KellySEE HOW THEY RUN Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark ChappellTHE SWIMMERS Sally El Hosaini, Producer(s) TBC, Jack ThorneTHE WONDER Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma DonoghueOUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCERAFTERSUN Charlotte Wells (Writer/Director)BLUE JEAN Georgia Oakley (Writer/Director), Hélène Sifre (Producer)ELECTRIC MALADY Marie Lidén (Director)GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE Katy Brand (Writer)REBELLION Maia Kenworthy (Director)FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGEALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Edward Berger, Malte GrunertARGENTINA, 1985 Santiago Mitre, Producer(s) TBCCORSAGE Marie KreutzerDECISION TO LEAVE Park Chan-wook, Ko Dae-seokTHE QUIET GIRL Colm Bairéad, Cleona Ní ChrualaoíDOCUMENTARYALL THAT BREATHES Shaunak Sen, Teddy Leifer, Aman MannALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED Laura Poitras, Howard

All That Breathes and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — the two frontrunners for best documentary at the Oscars — split the top awards at the 16th annual Cinema Eye Honors in New York tonight.

The Directors Guild of America has unveiled the television and documentary nominations for its 75th anniversary DGA Awards, which will be handed out next month.

Spectacular.

After two truncated years of pandemic-related disruptions, film festivals around the world returned with full-flowing in-person events this year.

The documentary form continued to flex its power in 2022, delivering stories and perspectives of astonishing breadth and sometimes granular artistry. What stood out were the movies that didn’t take their issues or subjects at face value, but rather sought something more resonant about the workings of the world, or even told us more about ourselves and what’s possible.

The PGA Awards announced its nominees for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures today, a list noted for a number of snubs and surprises.