The Hamptons Film Festival has finalized its 2021 slate, with the 71-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning director’s latest film making the list.
Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers, starring Penelope Cruz, has been added to the festival’s Spotlight section, alongside Cyrano, The Lost Daughter, The Power of the Dog, joining C’mon C’mon and Jockey.
Parallel Mothers received a 5-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival as the fest’s opening night film. It earned Cruz the Volpi Cup for Best Actress during the festival’s closing ceremony.
Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, starring Tony Revolori, will be the closing-night film on October 13, while Pablo Larraín’s Spencerwill be the Centerpiece Film in its East Coast premiere.
The festival is opening on October 7 with the world premiere of Matthew Heineman’s COVID-19 documentary The First Wave. The 29th edition of the fest will feature a lineup of films that are 53% female-directed and rep 34 countries.
The festival will run as a hybrid in-person/virtual event. Find more info here.
Netflix has released the official trailer for 7 Prisoners, a Brazilian thriller starring the 46-year-old Brazilian actor.
The film, produced by Oscar nominees Ramin Bahrani and Fernando Meirelles, is set to open in select theaters and debut globally on the streamer in November, and may well be put forward for the Academy Award competition for Best International Feature Film.
The second feature from Alexandre Moratto centers on 18-year-old Mateus (Christian Malheiros), who hopes to find a way to provide a better life for his working-class family in the countryside. Accepting a new job in São Paolo, he is shuttled into the city with a handful of other teenage boys from his town, unaware of what awaits them: exhausting work in a scrapyard and the seizure of their identity cards by a vicious taskmaster and exploiter, Luca (Santoro), who threatens them with the unthinkable if they try to escape. But, as Mateus learns, even the boss has a boss. And if he wants to find a way out, what will he have to become?
Moratto wrote the script for 7 Prisoners with Thayná Mantesso. Bruno Rocha, Vitor Julian, Lucas Oranmian, Cecília Homem de Mello, and Dirce Thomaz also star.
The film premiered in the Horizons Extra section of the 78th Venice Film Festival on September 6, subsequently going on to make its North American premiere in Toronto.
Penelope Cruz’s latest performance is already earning her some hardware…
The 47-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress was awarded the Volpi Cup Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Cruz, in an upset for Spencer star Kristen Stewart, won the award for the performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers.
In her acceptance, she said the honor was 100% his, saying, “thank you once again for your trust in me, for inspiring me every day with your search for truth inside and outside the set… you have created magic again.”
Cruz further dedicated the win to her husband Javier Bardem and their children as well as to Bardem’s recently deceased mother. Pilar Bardem “did so much for actors and actresses in our country and her love and passion for this wonderful profession was huge,” said Cruz, adding, “At the end of our last conversation she told me, ‘I love you.’ She was very fragile and I thought those were her last words to me, but then very quiet and very soft and with a smile on her face she said to me two more words ‘Coppa Volpi’… This is for all the mothers.”
Parallell Mothers centers on two single women, who meet in a hospital room where they are both going to give birth. One is middle aged and doesn’t regret it, while the other is adolescent and scared. The two women form a strong bond with one another as they both confront motherhood.
Chilean filmmakers Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña won the Best Short Film prize.
They took home the award for their film Los Huesos, a fictitious take on the world’s first animated film, which uses a three-person melodrama as a metaphor for Chile’s turbulent socio-political regime. Dated in 1901 and excavated in 2021 as Chile drafts a new constitution, the “found” footage shows a young girl performing a ritual with human body parts. The corpses are revealed as the bodies of Diego Portales and Jaime Guzmán, central figures in the construction of authoritarian and oligarchic Chile.
French-Lebanese filmmaker Audrey Diwan won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for her 1963-set abortion drama L’Evénement (Happening).
Here’s the list of the award winners:
VENICE 78
Golden Lion L’Evénement, dir: Audrey Diwan
Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize The Hand Of God, dir: Paolo Sorrentino
Silver Lion, Best Director
Jane Campion, The Power Of The Dog
Volpi Cup Best Actress
Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Volpi Cup Best Actor
John Arcilla, On The Job: The Missing 8
Best Screenplay
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Special Jury Prize Il Buco, dir: Michelangelo Frammartino
Marcello Mastroianni Award for for Best New Young Actor or Actress
Filippo Scotti, The Hand Of God
HORIZONS
Best Film Pilgrims, dir: Laurynas Bareisa
Best Director
Eric Gravel, A Plein Temps
Special Jury Prize El Gran Movimiento, dir: Kiro Russo
Best Actress
Laure Calamy, A Plein Temps
Best Actor
Piseth Chhun, White Building
Best Screenplay
Ivan Ostrochovský, Peter Kerekes: 107 Mothers
Best Short Film Los Huesos, dirs: Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award For A Debut Film Imaculat, dirs: Monica Stan, George Chiper Lillemark
VENICE VR EXPANDED
Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Goliath: Playing With Reality, dirs: Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla
Best VR Experience Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li, dir: Blanca Li
Best VR Story End of Night, dir: David Adler
HORIZONS EXTRA
Audience Award The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic, dir: Teemu Nikki
Focus Features has released the official trailer for Last Night In Soho, starring the 25-year-old Argentine actress, ahead of a planned October 29 release in theaters.
Edgar Wright’s psychological thriller just had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Written by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Last Night In Soho stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eloise, an aspiring fashion designer who is somehow able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer, Sandie (Taylor-Joy). But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something far darker.
Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao and Synnøve Karlsen also star in the filc, which is produced by Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Laura Richardson and Wright.
Wright took to Twitter ahead of the film’s Lido world premiere on Saturday to plead with the gala crowd not to spoil the movie for others, writing that the cast and crew “would love to ask you, our first viewers, to keep the secrets within so that others can discover them later. When writing about the film, we’d love everyone who sees it to discover the story along with Eloise. So, please, if you can, keep the experience intact for future audiences so that what happens in ‘Last Night in Soho,’ stays in Soho….”
He said: “In ‘Last Night in Soho,’ our heroine Eloise goes on a journey. First from the country to the city, and then to another time. I would love the audience to go on that journey too when the film opens on October 29th. We purposely pushed the film back to this autumn date, not just so that it can hopefully be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible, but also so the nights would be longer and the audience could go in cold… literally.
Penelope Cruz’s latest project is headed to theaters in United Kingdom…
The 47-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress’ Spanish-language comedy Official Competition, co-starring Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez, has been acquired for UK distribution by Protagonist Pictures.
The announcement came ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
In Official Competition, Oscar winner Cruz plays renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas, who is recruited by a billionaire entrepreneur who impulsively decides to create an iconic movie. Banderas stars as Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero, and joining them is Argentinian actor Oscar Martínez (The Distinguished Citizen), who plays radical theatre actor Iván Torres.
The Spanish-language comedy, directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat from a script they wrote with Andrés Duprat, will also screen in the Special Presentations section of the Toronto International Film Festival and will open this year’s Perlak Section at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
Produced by The Mediapro Studio, the film has already sold to a string of international indie buyers.
“We are incredibly excited to work with such a talented cast and such lauded directors. We’re thrilled to bring this hilarious and witty film to UK audiences at a time when it is much needed,” said Curzon officials.
Protagonist CCO George Hamilton added: “Our friends at Curzon have a prodigious record in delivering high-quality films to discerning UK audiences, making them the perfect partners to distribute this whip-smart comedy, led by A-list talent at the top of their game, and helmed by some of Spain’s most fiercely talented filmmakers. We know Official Competition is in the best hands possible.”
Michel Franco is preparing for Sundown in England…
The BFI London Film Festival has confirmed an eight-strong lineup for its Official Competition this year, with the 42-year-old Mexican film director, screenwriter and producer’s latest project making the cut.
Franco’s Sundown is the only film from a Latinx filmmaker set to compete at the festival.
The drama, written and directed by Franco, stars Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan and Samuel Bottomley.
Sundown, which centers on a wealthy man who attempts to abandon his family on vacation, is schedule to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2021.
Here’s the complete list of movies in competition:
Belle (Japan, dir-scr. Mamoru Hosoda) Il Buco (Italy-Germany-France, dir. Michelangelo Frammartino) The Hand Of God (Italy, dir-scr. Paolo Sorrentino) Nitram (Australia, dir. Justin Kurzel) Hit The Road (Iran, dir. Panah Panahi) Sundown (Mexico-France-Sweden, dir-scr. Michel Franco) Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (Chad-France-Germany-Belgium, dir-scr. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) True Things (UK, dir. Harry Wootliff)
A jury will select a winning film, to be announced at the LFF Awards Ceremony on October 17.
“With Official Competition our aim is to present a curated programme that showcases the breadth and richness of international cinema for our audiences. Anyone new to the LFF should consider Official Competition a big neon sign that is blinking: “enter here”. This eight film selection is full of individual cinematic diamonds – each one unique and beautiful in its own way. Together they are dazzling and demonstrate the endless potential of cinema in the hands of a great filmmaker. With a selection like this we have made the jury’s job very difficult indeed,” said LFF Director Tricia Tuttle.
Paz Vega will be spending the Night in the United States…
Saban Films has acquired the North American rights to the action thriller American Night, starring the 45-year-old Spanish actress.
The announcement comes ahead of the film’s debut at the Venice Film Festival, with plans to release it in theaters this fall.
The first feature from writer-director Alessio Della Valle is a neo-noir set in New York City’s corrupt contemporary art world, which stars Emile Hirsch, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vega, Jeremy Piven, Michael Madsen and more.
The film follows art dealer John Kaplan (Meyers) and Michael Rubino (Hirsch), the ruthless head of New York’s mafia, as they fight for money, art, power and love.
American Night hails from Martha Productions, Pegasus Entertainment, QMI and RAI Cinema. Martha Capello and Ilaria Dello Iacono produced the film, with Giorgio Ferrero exec producing.
“We look forward to working with Director Alessio Della Valle on his feature directorial debut American Night,” said Saban Films’ Bill Bromiley. “His experiences travelling the world have equipped him with a unique perspective and make him such a gifted filmmaker.”
Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for Dune, starring the 42-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actor.
It’s the first clip of the highly anticipated film since the initial trailer hit last September, prior to the recent schedule change.
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September before it hits theaters and HBO Max day-and-date on October 22.
This trailer begins with Zendaya’s character Chani surveying the deserts of her planet Arrakis before kicking into higher gear with action scenes and a dash or two of comedy (“Look at you – put on some muscle?,” asks Jason Momoa’s Duncan upon seeing Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. “I did?”, Chalament responds. “No,” says Momoa.)
In addition to Isaac, Zendaya, Chalamet and Momoa, Dune features Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen and David Dastmalchian, with Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem.
The official synopsis: A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Dune, a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures presentation of a Legendary Pictures Production, is also being released in 3D and Imax, will makes its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and then plays the Toronto Film Festival. Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth wrote the script.
Warner Bros. has released a series of character posters from Dune, its upcoming sci-fi tentpole starring the 42-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actor.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film is an update of Frank Herbert’s novel, which was turned into a 1984 movie by David Lynch.
Dune is set to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September before it hits theaters and HBO Max day-and-date on October 22.
In addition to Isaac, Dune‘s cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen and David Dastmalchian, with Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem.
The character posters revealed via the film’s social media pages feature Chalamet, who stars as Paul Atreides; Zendaya as Chani; Ferguson as Lady Jessica; Momoa as Duncan Idaho; Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides; Bardem as Stilgar; Brolin as Gurney Halleck; and Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.
The plot centers on Atreides, a brilliant and gifted man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence — a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential — only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Villeneuve directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth.
The 78th Venice Film Festival will open with Pedro Almodovar’s Madres Paralelas, starring the 47-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress.
The film will play in Competition and will open the fest on September 1. It also stars Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Julieta Serrano and Rossy De Palma.
The story follows two women, Janis and Ana, who coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and got pregnant by accident.
Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which chance will undertake to develop and complicate in such a decisive way that it will change the lives of both.
The film is produced by El Deseo and will be distributed in Italy by Warner Bros. Pictures. Almodóvar received Venice’s 2019 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
“I was born as a film director in 1983 in Venice,” commented Almodóvar, “In the Mezzogiorno Mezzanotte section. Thirty-eight years later I am called to open the festival. I cannot explain the joy and the honor, and how much this means to me without falling into complacency. I am very grateful to the festival for this recognition and hope to be up to it”.
Venice director Alberto Barbera added: “I am grateful to Pedro Almodóvar for having given us the privilege of opening the film festival with his new movie, an intense and sensitive portrait of two women as they contend with a pregnancy with unpredictable consequences, women’s solidarity, and sexuality that is experienced in full freedom and without hypocrisy, all against the backdrop of a reflection on the ineluctable need for truth that is to be unwaveringly pursued. This is a very welcome return to Venice in Competition for the recipient of our 2019 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, many years after the success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown the movie that marked his definitive triumph on the international scene.”
