Bobby Cannavale to Receive Artist of Distinction Award at Newport Beach Film Festival

Bobby Cannavale has earned a special distinction

The 54-year-old half-Cuban American Emmy-winning actor will be among the honorees at this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival, which runs October 17-24.

Bobby CannavaleCannavale will be recognized with the Artist of Distinction Award during the festival’s awards brunch on October 20.

Cannavel’s recent credits include Ezra, Old Dads and Under the Boardwalk.

Margaret Qualley, meantime, will receive the Spotlight Award, while Kiernan Shipka will receive the Artist of Distinction Award.

Previously announced honorees include Nicolas Cage, Joan Chen, Colman Domingo, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Sheryl Lee Ralph, George MacKay, Diane Warren and June Squibb.

The festival will also be celebrating those behind the camera with the just-announced Master of the Frame panel with leading industry cinematographers on October 19. Current participants include Alice Brooks (“Wicked”) and Lawrence Sher (“Joker: Folie à Deux.”)

The luxury lifestyle film festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with a wide selection of international films including buzzy titles like Blitz, Nightbitch and The Piano Lesson.

For Festival passes, tickets, and complete line-up, visit www.NewportBeachFilmFest.com.

Raul Esparza  to Star in FX’s Limited Series “Retreat”

Raul Esparza is going on retreat

The 51-year-old Cuban American actor and Broadway star has been cast in FX’s Retreat, a limited series from Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij.

Raul EsparzaLed by Emma Corrin, the list of new additions to the cast includes Clive OwenHarris Dickinson, Alice Braga, Jermaine FowlerJoan ChenEdoardo Ballerini Pegah Ferydoni, Ryan J. Haddad and Javed Khan.

Retreat is a radical conceptualization of the whodunit with a new kind of detective at the helm — a gen Z amateur sleuth named Darby Hart (Corrin). Darby and 11 other guests are invited by a reclusive billionaire to participate in a Retreat at a remote and dazzling location. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must fight to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life.

Esparza is David; Owen plays Andy; Marling portrays Lee; Dickinson is Bill; Braga plays Sian; Fowler is Martin; Chen portrays Lu Mei; Ballerini plays Ray; Ferydoni portrays Ziba; Haddad plays Oliver and Khan is Rohan.

Marling and Batmanglij will write and direct the series. FX Productions is the studio.

Esparza is best known for his role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

He received Tony Award nominations for his roles as Philip Salon in the Boy George musical Taboo in 2004; Robert in the musical comedy Company in 2006; Lenny in Harold Pinter‘s play The Homecoming in 2008; and Charlie Fox in David Mamet‘s play Speed-the-Plow in 2009.

Guillermo del Toro Taking Part in Tribeca Enterprises & YouTube’s ‘We Are One: A Global Film Festival’

Guillermo del Toro is taking his talk global…

The 55-year-old Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker, author, actor, and former special effects makeup artist will take part in Tribeca Enterprises and YouTube’s We Are One: A Global Film Festival

Guillermo del Toro

The fest will stream exclusively on YouTubefor free and feature more than 100 films co-curated by 21 of the most renowned festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.

The 10-day fest kicked off on Friday, May 29 and will not only provide entertainment but also offer relief to the COVID-19 pandemic via supporting organizations.

The truly global event will feature programming from different cultures all over the world, with films representing more than 35 countries and include 23 narrative and 8 documentary features, 57 narrative and 15 documentary short films, 15 archived talks along with 4 festival exclusives and 5 VR programming pieces. 

The fest will include 13 world premieres, 31 online premieres and 5 international online premieres. Each selection was handpicked to give shine and highlight each participating festival.

“We are so excited to share the combined efforts of our festival partners and YouTube with the world this week,” said Tribeca Enterprises and Tribeca Film Festival Co-Founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal. “Together, we were able to curate a compelling slate of programming that succinctly reflects the subtle variations in style that make each festival so special. We Are One: A Global Film Festival will offer audiences an opportunity to not only celebrate the art of film, but the unique qualities that make each story we watch so memorable.”

The fest will include the world premiere of Ricky Powell: The Individualist, which spotlights the titular legendary street photographer featuring interviews with Natasha Lyonne and LL Cool J

Eeb Allay Ooo! will make its online debut and introduce a whole new audience to New Delhi’s professional “monkey repellers”. The satirical film won Mumbai Film Festival’s Golden Gateway Award

The iconic Joan Chen will present the world premiere of Iron Hammer, a documentary about legendary, trailblazing Chinese Olympic volleyball star Jenny Lang Ping.

There will also be a lineup of specially-curated talks from past festivals as well as new discussions. Talks will feature del Toro, Francis Ford Coppola with Steven Soderbergh, Song Kang-ho and Bong Joon-ho, Jane Campion and Claire Denis.

In addition to features, audiences will be able to access over 50 narrative and documentary shorts such as the world premiere of Japanese narrative short Yalta Conference Online (wt), which was created exclusively for the fest by director Koji Fukada. The fest will also include the global premiere of the Third Eye Blind documentary short Motorcycle Drive By, as well as shorts from Dreamworks Animation, BilbyMarooned and Bird Karma.

360 VR selections will feature Emmy-nominated documentary Traveling While Black and Alteration, a sci-fi narrative starring Bill Skarsgard, as well as titles featuring John Legend, Oprah Winfrey and Lupita Nyong’o. On top of the film goodness, Questlove from the legendary Roots crew will perform a DJ set for your listening and dancing pleasure.

On the episodic side, We Are One will host the world premiere of Losing Alice, an Israeli female-fronted neo-noir psychological TV thriller as well as the two-part docuseries She Could Be Next which chronicles the experiences of women of color running for office, including Stacey Abrams and  Rashida Tlaib.

In addition to Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, Toronto and Tribeca, participating festival also include Annecy International Animation Film FestivalBFI London Film FestivalGuadalajara International Film Festival,International Film Festival & Awards Macao (IFFAM), International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), Jerusalem Film FestivalMumbai Film Festival (MAMI), Karlovy Vary International Film FestivalLocarno Film Festival,Marrakech International Film Festival, New York Film FestivalSan Sebastian International Film Festival, Sarajevo Film FestivalSydney Film Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival.

The fest will provide COVID-19 relief through donations to the World Health Organization( WHO), UNICEFUNHCRSave the Children, Doctors Without BordersLeket IsraelGO Foundation and Give2Asia, among others. Audiences will be able to donate via a link on every film page.

Click herefor the full festival schedule.