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Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s coming-of-age saga “In the Summers” took top honors at this year’s 50th edition of the Deauville American Film Festival, claiming both the Grand Prize and the Fondation Louis Roeder Revelation Prize, awarded by a parallel jury.

At once intimate and expansive, the film traces a Latin-American family portrait, using four vignettes to span two decades while following the evolving and often challenged relationship two siblings share with their father, played by Puerto Rican rap great Residente. “In the Summers” had previously won the grand jury prize and the director award out of Sundance, and is set for release by Music Box Films next week.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of French cinema so it was already an honor to show my film at the Deauville American Film Festival,” the director tells Variety. “To win was unbelievable; [I’m] incredibly grateful. I hope this allows more...

Deauville American Film Festival has unveiled the 14 US features for its 50th anniversary edition running September 6-15 in the Normandy seaside town.

They include Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio’s 2024 Sundance prize-winner In The Summers, Cannes-premiering titles including Roberto Minervini’s The Damned and Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve At Miller’s Point, and Christy Hall’s taxi drama Daddio.

Eight of the films are debut features, among them David Fortune’s Color Book which world-premiered at Tribeca and Brandt Andersen’s The Strangers’ Case which made its debut at Berlin.

Benoit Magimel heads up this year’s Deauville jury alongside Ludivine Sagnier,...

Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz drama Life scooped the top Golden Bee award for Best Feature Film at Malta’s second Mediterrane Film Festival over the weekend.

This year’s selection was overseen by Italian film festival veteran Teresa Cavina, who pulled together a line-up of 45 works with Mediterranean basin connections, 15 of which were in the main Competition.

In the backdrop to the festival, leading English-language newspaper The Times of Malta continued to probe whether the event’s budget of $4.1M budget (€3.9) was good use of taxpayers’ money on the island nation, with a population of roughly 500,000 people.

Last year, the newspaper heavily criticized the event for allegedly splashing cash on business class fights and luxury hotels for actors, directors and journalists as well as a lavish black-tie closing event, fronted by UK star David Walliams.

Replying to fresh questions from the newspaper, Malta Film Commission head Johann Grech said the...

Jason Yu’s Sleep and Brant Anderson’s The Strangers’ Case were among the winners at the 32nd Raindance Film Festival, which held its jury awards ceremony today in London.

Korean filmmaker Yu - a former assistant director to Bong Joon Ho - won the Discovery award for best debut feature with Sleep. The black comedy stars the late Lee Sun-kyun and Jung Yu-mi, in the story of an expectant wife who must stop her husband’s sleepwalking habits before he harms himself or his family.

Scroll down for the full list of feature awards

Sleep debuted in Critics’ Week...

The 32nd Raindance Film Festival (June 19-28) has revealed its jury award winners, reflecting a renewed focus on emerging filmmakers.

Korean thriller “Sleep,” directed by Jason Yu and starring Lee Sun-kyun and Jung Yu-mi, took home the Discovery Award for best debut feature. The film marks Lee’s final role before his passing.

Brandt Anderson’s “The Strangers’ Case,” a multi-perspective drama about Syrian refugees, won best international feature. The documentary category saw “Searching for Amani” emerge victorious. Directed by Debra Aroko and Nicole Gormley, the Kenya/U.S. co-production follows a 13-year-old boy investigating his father’s murder within a Kenyan wildlife conservancy.

Luke Gilford secured best debut director for “National Anthem,” a coming-of-age tale set in the world of queer rodeo. Paula Grimaldo claimed best performance in a debut feature for her turn in “The Quiet Maid,” portraying a young Colombian woman working for a wealthy Spanish family who seeks revenge.

Alison Victoria is sharing her new love with the world. The Windy City Rehab star attended the 2024 Daytime Emmys on June 7 with her new boyfriend, Brandt Andersen. The Battle on the Beach star went Instagram official with Anderson on June 13 by sharing a series of photos from their first official event as a couple. My ,” she captioned the post. “‘Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.’ – Rumi.” The HGTV star looked gorgeous in a black sequin dress for the Daytime Emmys. Andersen, in a white suit jacket and black slacks, color-coordinated with Victoria. The couple sweetly held hands and hugged on the red carpet. Victoria’s Windy City Rehab was a nominee for Outstanding Instructional and How-To Program. Andersen is a writer, director, and producer. He served as a producer of films like Everest, Silence, and Journey to Bethlehem. He also directed and produced the 2024 film The Strangers’ Case.

The Mediterrane Film Festival announced its complete program ahead of its second edition, taking place in Malta’s capital of Valetta from June 22-30. New titles selected include recent Cannes highlights in Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-led body horror “The Substance” and Roberto Minvervini’s “The Damned,” which join previously announced films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow.”

Further program additions include Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight standout “To a Land Unknown,” which Variety labeled “a confident, angry, fully-realized drama,” and Truong Minh Quy’s Un Certain Regard breakout “Viet and Nam.” An extended version of the Malta-shot “Jurassic World: Dominion” will play as part of the Malta Expanded strand, while on the retrospective end of the program, the festival will honor David Bowie with screenings of Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and Lisa Azuelos’s “My Way,...

The Mediterrane Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its second edition (June 22-30), with Cannes premiere The Count Of Monte Cristo set to open the event.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the film is among seven titles in the out of competition strand, which also includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance title I Saw The TV Glow and Tarsem Singh’s Dear Jassi.

The 15-strong competition section features Cannes competition titles Kinds Of Kindness and The Substance, and Berlin premiere The Strangers case starring Omar Sy,

Seven films compete in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section,...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

“La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that premiered at the 2024 Berlinale, is among four feature films that will screen at the inaugural Croatian International Film Festival beginning Aug. 8.

The four-day event, set in the coastal city of Sibenik, will also feature 18 documentary and narrative shorts, giving the struggling independent film market an additional international venue to screen movies and launch careers.

Created by Croatia-born, America-based Ella Mische, Ciff was conceived as a fest that will amplify women in media and second-time directors, and will serve as an event to connect nonfiction and narrative filmmakers from around the world. Mische, who was part of the casting department on the 2022 Adam Sandler film “Hustle,” has worked in the entertainment industry for the last two decades casting, directing, acting and producing.

“Being a citizen of both Croatia and America, this festival began as a passion project,” says Mische. “I wanted to connect...

Fresh out of its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” is one of the titles headed to this year’s Mediterrane Film Festival, taking place in Malta between June 22-30.

Other highlights in the festival’s first wave of programming include Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance breakout “I Saw the TV Glow” and Meryam Joobeur’s Berlinale competition entry “Who Do I Belong To.”

The festival’s sophomore edition marks the first under the curatorial guise of Artistic Director Teresa Cavina, appointed earlier in the year. Cavina reorganized the festival’s program into four strands: In Competition, featuring films from across the Mediterranean; Out of Competition, featuring films from the rest of the world; Mare Nostrum or Our Sea, showcasing films dedicated to sustainability and the environment; and Future Visions, focusing on experimental VR projects.

In a statement, Cavina said that this...

The 32nd edition of the UK’s Raindance Film Festival is to open with horror-thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, as the festival shifts away from autumn to a midsummer slot, running June 19-28.

This year, 90% of the international films screening in competition are debut features. The jury includes actors Alice Englert, Claes Bang, Jared Harris and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and producers Ivana MacKinnon and Paul Sng.

Cuckoo is a German-us co-production that has played at Berlin and SXSW. Schafer plays a 17- year-old who is forced to leave her American home to live with her father and his new family as...

The 32nd edition of the UK’s Raindance Film Festival is to open with Tilman Singer’s horror-thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, as the festival shifts away from autumn to a midsummer slot, running June 19-28.

This year, 90% of the international films screening in competition are debut features.

The jury includes actors Alice Englert, Claes Bang, Jared Harris and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and producers Ivana MacKinnon and Paul Sng.

Opening night film Cuckoo is a German-us co-production, that has played at Berlin and SXSW. Schafer plays a 17- year-old who is forced to leave her American home to live with her...

Exclusive: Last month, when Brandt Andersen’s debut feature film The Strangers’ Case won the Amnesty International Film Award at Berlinale, it marked the recognition of a long and impassioned journey for the writer, director and long-time producer as he sought to marry film with his extensive activism background.

The drama, which world premiered as a Special Gala at Berlin, is an extended version of his Oscar-shortlisted short film Refugee and stars French actor Omar Sy and Lebanese-born Yasmine Al Massri. It’s a searing account of the refugee exodus sparked by the Arab Spring and ensuing Syrian Civil War. Andersen, whose producing credits include Everest, Lone Survivor and Golden Globe nominee The Flowers of War, writes and directs The Strangers’ Case and drew inspiration from people he encountered while working with humanitarian agencies in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Jordan and Syria.

The film follows the chain reaction of events involving...

The international scope and grueling human cost of the global refugee crisis lends itself to contemporary epic filmmaking of a particularly sober stripe, as seen mostly recently in Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” and Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano.” Shorn of their ripped-from-the-headlines urgency, such stories of humans crossing vast distances and facing hostile odds in pursuit of a better life are as old as time itself. A muscular, assured debut feature from U.S. producer-turned-director Brandt Andersen, “The Strangers’ Case” stresses the sprawling scale of the situation with a chaptered structure that pivots between multiple involved parties in the refugee’s journey, from warmongers to traffickers to rescuers to the displaced victims themselves.

That wide span, however, prevents a particularly penetrating look at any individual experience of the crisis. Brandt draws his characters in broad, flat strokes that serve the architecture of the narrative — and its cumulative, practically...

The independent juries of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival early Saturday unveiled their picks of the best movies at the 2024 Berlinale.

Matthias Glasner’s German family epic Sterben (Dying), and the Iranian feature My Favourite Cake from directors Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, both of which are considered frontrunners for the top prize at the official festival ceremony on Saturday night, received multiple awards for the indie juries, as did Dag Johan Haugerud’s Norwegian drama Sex, a critical favorite from this year’s Panorama sidebar.

Sterben, which follows a classical conductor (played by Lars Eidinger) and his very dysfunctional family, won the best film honor from the guild of German arthouse cinemas and the top prize awarded by the jury of Berliner Morgenpost readers representing the Berlin newspaper.

My Favourite Cake, a quiet drama about a 70-year-old widow who takes a chance on new love, won the Fipresci...

The line between art and activism is blurred — often to a fault — in The Strangers’ Case, a visceral migrant drama that plays less as a movie with a message than as a message with a movie.

Written and directed by Brandt Andersen, an executive producer (American Made, Everest), former NBA G League franchise owner and international activist, the film follows several characters whose lives are upended by the Syrian Civil War, switching points of view as it moves from the grim battlegrounds of Aleppo to the gates of Europe.

It can be an intense experience to sit through, and Andersen doesn’t hold back on the gruesome violence and nonstop tragedy many migrants suffered during the conflict — and continue to suffer to this day. But that doesn’t always make for great drama, nor for characters who go deep enough, resulting in a well-meaning film that feels half like a globetrotting Hollywood thriller,...

Exclusive: Beloved French actor Omar Sy stars in the debut feature from longtime producer Brandt Andersen in The Strangers’ Case, a searing and international ensemble that is world premiering at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. Watch an exclusive clip above.

Sy stars along with Yasmin Al Massri in the film, which is an extension of Andersen’s Oscar shortlisted 2020 short Refugee also starring Sy and Al Massri. It’s playing as a Berlinale Special Gala title later this week.

The film follows the chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries after tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo: a doctor (Al Massri) and her daughter, who come home following a chaotic shift at an Aleppo hospital; a soldier who witnesses heinous crimes towards men, women and children in the service of the Syrian regime; a smuggler in Turkey (Sy) who tries desperately to make...

Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Cate Blanchett, and Dave Bautista all star in projects at one of the biggest Berlin markets in recent memory, post and pre-pandemic.

Whether this year’s high-rollers will sell is the crux at a 2024 European Film Market which AGC Studios’ Stuart Ford is describing as a “watershed market.”

The big question is: “Was the tepid AFM an anomaly brought about by the strikes and a broader industry pullback in 2023? Or was the AFM an indicator of a more sustained downturn?” he asks.

It’s early days in 2024 but “signs for Berlin are quite positive,” says Ford, who is bringing to market three new star-driven thrillers starring Will Smith –action movie “Sugar Bandits” – Sylvester Stallone and Michelle Yeoh.

“One week ago, I would have said this is going to be a dry market. Now it’s going to be a busy market,” agrees Martin Moszkowicz at Constantin Film,...

UK sales outfit Mister Smith Entertainment has boarded international sales on The Strangers’ Case, with WME Independent overseeing North American sales, ahead of its world premiere as a Berlinale Special Gala.

Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Omar Sy, Ziad Bakri, Constantine Markoulakis and Jason Beghe star in the feature directorial debut of veteran US producer Brandt Andersen, whose credits include Everest, Lone Survivor and Broken City.

Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, starting a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries. The drama interweaves personal stories to illuminate the bravery and heartbreak of the refugee experience.

The Strangers’ Case from American filmmaker Brandt Andersen and starring French actor Omar Sy will make its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The film’s short synopsis reads: Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, starting a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries.

The pic is among a trio of late additions to the Berlinale Special sidebar, announced this morning by the festival. Also showing in Berlin are the two mid-length Japanese films Chime by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and August My Heaven by Riho Kudo.

Chime follows Tashiro, a student at a culinary school, who hears voices in his head. His teacher, Matsuoka, remains unconcerned. But then Tashiro claims that a machine has replaced half of his brain. August My Heaven follows Joe, who earns a living as a professional stand-in actor for hire to play a relative, lover, or friend...

The Berlinale has rounded out its special screenings programme with three more films.

Omar Sy-starring The Strangers’ Case by Brandt Andersen is a Berlinale Special Gala.

Two Japanese mid-length films - Chime by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and August My Heaven by Riho Kudo - will play as Berlinale Specials.

Andersen’s The Strangers’ Case is about a tragedy that strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo which triggers a chain reaction of events involving five different families in four different countries. The cast includes Omar Sy, Jason Beghe and Yasmine Al Massri.

It is based on a 2020 short, Refugee, that Andersen...

“Chime,” a mid-length movie by leading Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi, is among three late additions to the Berlin Film Festival’s Berlinale Special section.

The two others are “August My Heaven,” another mid-length picture form Japan, directed by Kudo Riho, and “The Strangers’ Case,” a full-length feature directed by Brandt Andersen which will play as a Berlinale Special Gala presentation.

In “Chime” Tashiro, a student at a culinary school, hears voices in his head. His teacher, Matsuoka, remains unconcerned. But then Tashiro claims that half of his brain has been replaced by a machine.

In “August My Heaven,” Joe earns a living as a professional stand-in actor for hire to play a relative, lover or friend for her clients and attend ceremonies. After an encounter at a funeral, her professional and private live begin to merge.

Tragedy strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo in “The Strangers’ Case.” This triggers a...

The 2024Berlin Film Festival has added Brandt Andersen’s refugee drama The Strangers’ Case, featuring French superstar Omar Sy (Lupin) to its official lineup. The drama, about a tragedy that strikes a Syrian family in Aleppo, triggering a chain reaction of events that impact five different families across four countries, will screen in the Berlinale Special sidebar at this year’s festival, which runs Feb. 15-25. Jason Beghe and Yasmine Al Massri co-star in the film’s ensemble cast.

Berlin on Thursday also added two mid-length Japanese films to its Berlinale Specials lineup: Chime by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata) and August My Heaven by Riho Kudo (Orphan’s Blues). Chime follows a student at a culinary school who begins to hear voices and becomes convinced half of his brain has been replaced by a machine. August My Heaven centers on Joe, a professional stand-in actor who is hired by clients to play their friend,...

Exclusive: Fiona Palomo is Mary, Milo Manheim is Joseph and Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas is King Herod in Sony Affirm’s upcoming untitled holiday musical centered around the Nativity.

The movie is currently in production with Monarch Media on the coast of Spain for a Nov. 10 theatrical release.

Award-winning music producer Adam Anders is making his feature directorial debut and wrote the script along with Peter Barsocchini (High School Musical franchise) and wrote the music with Nikki Anders and Peer Astrom.

Logline: A young woman carrying an unimaginable responsibility. A young man torn between love and honor. A jealous king who will stop at nothing to keep his crown. This live-action Christmas musical celebration for the entire family, weaves classic Christmas melodies into new pop songs in a music-infused retelling...