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The much-anticipated live boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul is being postponed. The event was slated to take place on July 20th, but Tyson’s medical team has requested the delay after the famed boxer experienced a recent ulcer flare-up and needs to take a step back from training to recover.

“During a follow-up consultation on Thursday with medical professionals on his recent ulcer flare-up, the recommendation is for Mike Tyson to do minimal to light training over the next few weeks and then return to full training with no limitations,” said event organizer Most Valuable Promotions.

Related Asphalt City Review

In his own statement, Tyson said, “I want to thank my fans around the world for their support and understanding during this time. Unfortunately, due to my ulcer flare-up, I have been advised by my doctor to lighten my training for a few weeks to rest and recover.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Asphalt City (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)

I entered Asphalt City at last year’s EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival with nothing but morbid curiosity. Having engendered some rank responses from its Cannes premiere and not secured any known U.S. distributor, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film had the right kind of bad-object energy one needs at the jetlagged start to their week in a small Polish city. (Or just the comfort I personally get from a Brooklyn-shot feature featuring two Club Random guests.) I walked away boasting complicated, fascinated enthusiasm: nearly every second is ridiculous and never boring, and it doesn’t not deserve to play at a cinematography festival––having the most cinematography counts for something. Starting and ending with a blatant homage to The New World...

Here’s the latest episode of The Filmmakers Podcast, part of the podcast roster here on Nerdly. If you haven’t heard the show yet, you can check out previous episodes on the official podcast site, whilst we’ll be featuring each and every new episode as it premieres.

For those unfamiliar with the series, The Filmmakers Podcast is a podcast about how to make films from micro-budget indie films to bigger-budget studio films and everything in between. Our hosts Giles Alderson, Dom Lenoir, Dan Richardson, Andrew Rodger and Cristian James talk about how to get films made, how to actually make them and how to try not to f… it up in their very humble opinion. Guests will come on and chat about their filmmaking experiences from directors, writers, producers and screenwriters, to actors, cinematographers and distributors.

The Filmmaker’s Podcast #391: Tye Sheridan – Actor and Producer: Asphalt City,...

World Boxing Council middleweight champ Kali Reis recently shared the screen with Jodie Foster in the HBO series True Detective: Night Country, and now Deadline reports that she is following up the success of that season of television by signing on to join previously announced cast members Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy), Rebecca Ferguson (Dune), and Annabelle Wallis (Malignant) in the sci-fi thriller Mercy.

Mercy reunites Pratt with his Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov to tell a story that is “set in the near future when capital crime has increased” and follows “a detective (Pratt] who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence.” The screenplay was written by Marco Van Belle (Arthur & Merlin).

Coming our way from Amazon MGM Studios, the film is expected to go into production this spring and is already scheduled to receive a worldwide theatrical release on August 15, 2025.

Charles Roven, who...

Actor Tye Sheridan spoke about his experience on the set of the drama Asphalt City in his new uInterview.

Asphalt City centers around a young paramedic (Sheridan), who is assigned the night shift with a seasoned New York City veteran (Sean Penn).

When asked how he was able to adapt his mindset to that of a medical worker, Sheridan told uInterview founder Erik Meers, “Paramedics are very unique. Really understanding from a technical standpoint how they operate, but also, what they experience on a day-to-day basis, on a more emotional, mental level as well, what are the things that they struggle with. I think was super crucial to us in understanding how to convey them in a really authentic light, and I think that was always the intention of the movie, to do something more authentic and something hyper-real.”

Sheridan continued, “We went on a lot of ride-alongside for years,...

Exclusive: True Detective star and World Boxing Council middleweight champ and Independent Spirit nominee Kali Reis has boarded Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming thriller Mercy opposite Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson and Annabelle Wallis. The pic is looking to roll cameras this spring for an August 15, 2025 theatrical release.

The movie, from director Timur Bekmambetov, is set in the near future when capital crime has increased. A detective (Pratt) has been accused of a violent crime and is forced to prove his innocence.

Bekmambetov (Wanted) is directing the sci-fi thriller from a script penned by Marco van Belle (Arthur & Merlin). The project came to Amazon MGM Studios from Charles Roven, who just earned an Academy Award for Best Picture as a producer on Oppenheimer. Roven is producing Mercy with Atlas Entertainment SVP Robert Amidon alongside Bekmambetov’s Bel banner and Majd Nassif.

Now only three short years into a career pivot, multi world-title-winning...

IFC Films’ Late Night With The Devil topped the specialty market in its second week, as a Tollywood and a Bollywood film both made the top ten in a rare occurrence. Strong horror and Indian fare have helped buoy the box office since Covid. They continue to fill in the top ten, including this week, which boasts a monstrous hit in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire — but is a neighborhood with fewer overall wide release due to Hollywood strikes.

Scary first: Late Night With The Devil by Australian duo Colin and Cameron Cairnes stars David Dastmalchian, perfection as a late 1970s talk show host whose quest for ratings on a Halloween night broadcast goes nowhere good, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms. It grossed $2.2 million on 1,442 screens in week two, for a cume of $6.2 million. The film is in the top ten again, at no. 7.

A pleased...

Liam Neeson crime thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners opens on 896 screens this weekend, joined by Sean Penn in Asphalt City — the Godzilla vs. Kong of the specialty market?

Neeson reunites with The Marksman director Robert Lorenz as a newly retired assassin in a remote Irish village who finds himself drawn into a lethal game of cat and mouse with a trio of vengeful terrorists. Ciarán Hinds, Kerry Condon, Colm Meaney and Jack Gleeson also star in Land of Saints and Sinners, which premiered at Venice, and was shot in County Donegal, Ireland. Screenplay by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane. Samuel Goldwyn Films’ widest release post-pandemic sits at 80% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Penn stars with Tye Sheridan in Asphalt City, Vertical’s co-release with Roadside Attractions that opens on 297 screens, also with a national footprint. Young paramedic Ollie Cross (Sheridan) is paired with seasoned partner Gene...

With his features Johnny Mad Dog and A Prayer Before Dawn — the former a breakneck, road-to-ruin chronicle of child soldiers in war-torn Liberia and the latter a visceral portrait of a British expat, imprisoned in Thailand on a drug charge and conscripted into a violent kickboxing competition — French-born director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire has consistently dropped viewers into extreme, ultra-violent scenarios, employing a mis-en-scene steeped in hyper-graphic realism to compel a one-to-one relationship between his audience and protagonists. His most recent feature, Asphalt City, is no different. Sauvaire’s first film to shoot in the US, where he has lived for over a […]

The post “Sometimes the Cinema is Here To Make You Watch Something You Don’t Want to Watch”: Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire on Asphalt City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With his features Johnny Mad Dog and A Prayer Before Dawn — the former a breakneck, road-to-ruin chronicle of child soldiers in war-torn Liberia and the latter a visceral portrait of a British expat, imprisoned in Thailand on a drug charge and conscripted into a violent kickboxing competition — French-born director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire has consistently dropped viewers into extreme, ultra-violent scenarios, employing a mis-en-scene steeped in hyper-graphic realism to compel a one-to-one relationship between his audience and protagonists. His most recent feature, Asphalt City, is no different. Sauvaire’s first film to shoot in the US, where he has lived for over a […]

The post “Sometimes the Cinema is Here To Make You Watch Something You Don’t Want to Watch”: Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire on Asphalt City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Angel Heart: Sauvaire Serves Savior Complex in Ems Thriller

“It’s easier with wings than without,” was the tagline for Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire, which could easily have been borrowed for Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s fourth feature, Asphalt City. Based on the 2008 novel by Shannon Burke, Ben Mac Brown and Ryan King, both making their screenwriting debut, make the rookie mistake of not trusting their audience well enough to discern its key themes and motifs. Filled with fascinating characters and a handful of intense altercations, it’s a pity to see such a promising character study of how good intentions often lead to dark consequences hobbled significantly by such discernible handholding.…...

Vertical has acquired U.S. rights to “Bucky F*cking Dent,” a father-son story set against the 1978 Red Sox vs. Yankees pennant race.

The movie was written, directed by and stars David Duchovny. It also happens to be based on Duchovny’s 2016 best-selling novel of the same name. The cast of “Bucky F*cking Dent” includes Logan Marshall-Green (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), Jason Beghe (“Chicago P.D.”), Evan Handler (“Californication”) with Daphne Rubin-Vega (“In the Heights”) and Pamela Adlon (“King of Staten Island”). The film is produced by Yale Productions’ Jordan Yale Levine and Jordan Beckerman, as well as Duchovny.

“Bucky F*cking Dent” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. The release date is slated for later this year.

The film follows Ted (Marshall-Green), a failed writer-turned-Yankees Stadium peanut seller who moves back home after learning of the failing health of his Red Sox-obsessed father, Marty (David Duchovny). While...

Plot: Asphalt City follows Ollie Cross, a young paramedic assigned to the NYC night shift with an uncompromising and seasoned partner Gene Rutkovsky. The dark nights reveal a city in crisis; Rutkovsky guides Cross, as each 911 call is often dangerous and uncertain, putting their lives on the line every day to help others. Cross soon discovers firsthand the chaos and awe of a job that careens from harrowing to heartfelt, testing his relationship with Rutkovsky and the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.

Review: Stories about first responders, specifically EMTs, are often material depicted on small-screen procedurals and dramas like 9-1-1 and Chicago Med. Doctors tend to get all the glory on the big screen, except for Martin Scorsese’s haunting 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead. Where that film went down a horror-tinged rabbit hole reminiscent of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, it managed to...

When Tye Sheridan was just 11 years old, something crazy happened: Terrence Malick came looking for him.

Specifically, the beloved American auteur wanted to cast a trio of young brothers for his “The Tree of Life,” co-starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. The vast majority of kids Malick and his team saw were — like Texas native Sheridan — totally green to this acting thing.

Sixteen years later, Sheridan isn’t green anymore. The actor is only continuing to build out his resume, adding producing into the mix with his most recent feature film, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s “Asphalt City,” which debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival under the title “Black Flies.”

Still, ask Sheridan about where his initial love of moviemaking came from, and it’s like he’s right back on Malick’s set. “I was randomly cast in the film. They recruited 10,000 kids in the state of Texas to come and audition.

Vertical and Roadside Attractions are set to give the paramedic thriller Asphalt City (formerly known as Black Flies) a theatrical release on March 29th, and in anticipation of that release we have the Exclusive first look at a clip from the film that features the lead characters, played by Sean Penn (Mystic River) and Tye Sheridan (Ready Player One). The characters are taking a dinner break in this clip, and you can see how it plays out by taking a look at the video embedded above.

Based on Shannon Burke’s 2008 novel Black Flies, Asphalt City was directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (A Prayer Before Dawn) from a screenplay by Ryan King and Ben Mac Brown. The story follows Ollie Cross (Sheridan), a young paramedic assigned to the night shift alongside uncompromising and seasoned New York City Emt, Gene Rutkovsky (Penn). The dark nights reveal a city in crisis; Rutkovsky guides Cross,...

Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Asphalt City was originally titled Black Flies, after the Shannon Burke novel from which it’s adapted, when it premiered last year at Cannes. For a film about the difficult situations that E.M.T. workers have to deal with on New York City’s streets, Asphalt City has an appropriate directness. But it’s Black Flies that more accurately reflects the film’s lurid register. It’s a reference to an encounter that rookie E.M.T. worker Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan) has on the job that echoes a childhood trauma, but the way the filmmakers shoot the moment, it’s as if they’re touting their belief in New York as a rotted corpse.

Regardless of what it goes by, the film reveals its agenda from the moment that Ollie walks to a crime scene in the projects and the herky-jerky camera approximates his addled consciousness. Gene...

Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn headline single location drama Daddio, and the first trailer has landed: more here.

It would be fair to say that Dakota Johnson hasn’t had the best month. It began with a press tour that seemed to be doing more harm than good in trying to promote Sony’s Spiderman spin-off Madame Web, in which her comments during the tour generated a huge amount of press. This was swiftly followed by a slew of vitriolic reviews – we gave Madame Web a firm but fair one star.

Still, Johnson has many films in the pipeline, the next one to be released will be single location philosophical drama Daddio. For reference, this is the film Johnson was talking about when she described Hollywood as “heartbreaking” and “fucking bleak” – a conclusion she came to because Daddio took “a lot of fighting to get made.”

At any rate, Daddio...

"I know what you're thinking... is it worth it? It's the job..." Vertical has revealed the official trailer for an intense thriller set on the streets of New York City titled Asphalt City, made by French filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, of the film A Prayer Before Dawn previously. This first premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival last year under the title Black Flies, but got pretty dismal reviews from most critics. A young paramedic is paired with a seasoned partner on the night shift in NYC revealing a city in crisis. Discovering the chaos firsthand, he is tested with the ethical ambiguity that can often mean the difference between life & death. Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan co-star, along with Gbenga Akkinagbe, Raquel Nave, Kali Reis, with Michael C. Pitt, Katherine Waterston, and Mike Tyson as their captain. It's an intense and horrifying look at just how unsettling it is to work...

I entered Asphalt City at last year’s EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival with nothing but morbid curiosity. Having engendered some rank responses from its Cannes premiere and not secured any known U.S. distributor, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film had the right kind of bad-object energy one needs at the jetlagged start to their week in a small Polish city. (Or just the comfort I personally get from a Brooklyn-shot feature featuring two Club Random guests.)

I walked away boasting complicated, fascinated enthusiasm: nearly every second is ridiculous and never boring, and it doesn’t not deserve to play at a cinematography festival––having the most cinematography counts for something. Starting and ending with a blatant homage to The New World before thanking Terrence Malick in its credits; Michael Pitt relaunching a troubled career by billing himself Michael C. Pitt and asking Tye Sheridan “you believe in Heaven, bro?” with a mile-thick Noo...

Vincent Maraval’s Goodfellas has seized the worldwide sales rights to Galapagos adventure doc “Lions of the Sea,” which wrapped principal photography in mid-January.

“Sea” is the latest from Italian-Ecuadorian explorer-filmmaker Luis Felipe Fernández-Salvador y Campodonico, best known by his nom de cinéma, Jamaicanoproblem, and whose film “A Son of Man” was Ecuador’s official selection for the 2019 Academy Awards.

Described by the filmmaker as “a fictional account grounded in science,” “Lions of the Sea” is set in the Galapagos Islands where a young sea lion struggles to fend for himself in the face of food scarcity and after losing his mother while fleeing from illegal fishermen. Determined, he sets out to find a new sanctuary. “I hope to call attention to the problems that beset the islands, not only from climate change but from over-fishing on the perimeters of the archipelago and other factors that have led to the...

Roadside Attractions and Vertical have acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Lee,” a biopic about American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller that stars Oscar winner Kate Winslet.

“Lee” is the feature directorial debut of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Ellen Kuras, who previously worked with Winslet on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The film’s ensemble includes “The Crown” breakout Josh O’Connor, Oscar-nominated “To Leslie” star Andrea Riseborough, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s” Andy Samberg, “Big Little Lies” star Alexander Skarsgård, and Oscar-winning “La Vie en Rose” star Marion Cotillard. Roadside Attractions and Vertical will release the film theatrically on Sept. 20.

“Lee” debuted at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, but it took time for a sale to be hammered out. The film follows Miller’s personal and professional life as she becomes a top photographer during the tumult of World War II. “Lee” is written by Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical have co-acquired U.S. rights To the WWII drama Lee, marking the feature directorial debut of veteran cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). which stars Academy Award winner Kate Winslet (The Regime) as famed American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller.

The film, written by Liz Hannah (The Post) and Marion Hume & John Collee, is slated to hit theaters September 20th, opening against Sony and Apple’s thriller Wolfs starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, and Uni animation The Wild Robot.

World premiering at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Lee begins in the late 1930s, as Hitler amasses power in Germany. Miller (Winslet) leaves her world and her artistic circle of friends behind in France and travels to London, having fallen wildly in love with the art dealer Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård). The two embark on a passionate relationship, and then war breaks out in Europe.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical have acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Lee,” the war biopic starring Kate Winslet as influential WWII photographer Lee Miller.

“Lee” is the narrative feature directorial debut of cinematographer Ellen Kuras (she was previously nominated for an Oscar for co-directing “The Betrayal”), who worked with Winslet on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The film earned buzz for Winslet’s performance following its premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, sparking some hope of an Oscar or awards campaign for Winslet, but the film took some time to find a domestic distributor in a market slowed by the strikes.

Roadside Attractions and Vertical will release “Lee” theatrically on September 20.

Lee Miller captured some of the most indelible images of war in the 20th century, including an iconic photo of Miller herself inside Hitler’s private bathtub. The film begins in the late 1930s and...

Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive), Tye Sheridan (Ready Player One), Michael Imperioli (The White Lotus) and Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead franchise) have signed on to star in The Housewife, a psychological drama from first-time feature filmmaker Ben Shirinian that is launching foreign sales at EFM via Neon International.

Based on a true story from 1964, the film follows a determined young New York Times journalist (Sheridan) as he tracks down a potential Nazi officer living secretly in Queens. When he befriends the suspect’s elegant and charming wife (Watts), the implications of his investigation become much more unsettling.

Robbie Brenner, Kevin McKeon (Call Jane), and Lee Broda (May December) are producing alongside EP Alyssa Hill, who also penned the script. CAA Media Finance is repping domestic rights. Production is set to commence in June.

Currently starring as socialite Babe Paley in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,...

Exclusive: Vertical has set a March 8th day-and-date release for American Dreamer, an indie comedy starring Peter Dinklage and Shirley Maclaine, to which it’s acquired North American rights.

First introduced to the world at the 2022 Tribeca Festival, the film marks the directorial debut of Paul Dektor, who worked from a script by Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures). Pic is based on a true story from Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life and follows Phil Loder (Dinklage), a twice divorced, frustrated, underpaid professor of economics, whose grand dream of home ownership is tragically out of reach. When an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes his way, Phil strikes a deal with Astrid Finnelli (MacLaine), a lonely, childless, near-death widow who offers her sprawling estate for pennies. But Phil quickly learns the deal is too good to be true and the American dream is not quite what it used to be.

Also starring Kim Quinn,...

Paul Thomas Anderson is writing, directing, and producing an upcoming film from Warner Bros. starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Regina Hall.

Deadline reports that details about the currently untitled project are largely being kept under wraps for now. What we do know is that it’ll be a modern-day story featuring a big ensemble cast, and will mark Anderson’s “most commercial” project to date, with a hefty budget to match.

Stay tuned here for information about the film as it comes.

DiCaprio recently starred in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, while Penn appeared in the medical drama Black Flies. Anderson’s last full-length feature was 2021’s Licorice Pizza, and he also teamed up with The Smile for Wall of Eyes, On Film, a cinematic event premiering later this month.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Next Movie Will Star Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn

Abby Jones...

Paul Thomas Anderson is lining up the cast for his latest film, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall set for the feature.

The film is set up at Warner Bros., whose studio’s picture group heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy worked with Anderson on his last film, Licorice Pizza, during their time at MGM.

Anderson wrote the script and is set produce the film with Adam Somner and Sara Murphy, who worked with the director on Licorice Pizza.

The logline for this feature is being kept under wraps, but it is due to begin filming soon in California. An ensemble cast is expected for the feature.

Licorice Pizza was nominated for three Oscars, including writing and directing for Anderson, and grossed north of $33 million at the box office. Anderson’s career Oscar nominations now total 11.

DiCaprio was last seen in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon,...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

There was much to be thankful for in 2023. Besides new works by several legendary directors, there were personal opportunities that allowed me to spread a larger net and take stock of the cinema landscape from a more privileged vantage point. I got to attend the Cannes and Toronto film festivals for the first time and also became a voter for some key year-end awards. The experience of thus watching films, before most of my cinephile brethren, allowed me to contemplate how much campaigns and narratives can alter a film’s reception and trajectory.

What has come into sharper relief, and what is evident from the list below too, is that Cannes has the lock on much of the best product of the year––at least anything not...

Exclusive: Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) and Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason) have entered production overseas on Hallow Road, a new psychological thriller, which Under the Shadow‘s Babak Anvari is directing from a script by William Gillies.

Commissioned and developed by London Film & TV, the film watches as two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident. Production is taking place in Ireland and Prague, with Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures producing alongside Ian Henry of London Film & TV and Richard Bolger of Hail Mary Pictures. XYZ Films and Screen Ireland are co-financing.

XYZ and Anvari’s Two & Two come to the project after collaborating on the Anvari-helmed features Under the Shadow and I Came By, as well as the upcoming History of Evil, written and directed by Bo Mirhosseni. They’re also...

Just weeks before the 31st edition of Poland’s EnergaCamerimage gets underway, there was a groundbreaking for the planned European Film Center Camerimage, a Pln 600 million (roughly ($144 million) cultural center that will be built in host city Toruń and used in future years as the international cinematography film festival’s main venue. Plans call for the center to include a main screening room with seating for roughly 1,500, as well as three 200-300-seat screening rooms, a soundstage for production and postproduction facilities.

The new center underscores the growth of the festival, which has become a bellwether for what’s to come in the cinematography Oscar race. In three of the past four years, the winner of Camerimage’s Golden Frog has gone on to earn an Oscar nomination in cinematography, including 2019’s Joker and 2020’s Nomadland and 2022’s Tár.

According to festival director Marek Żydowicz, more than 1,000 films were viewed...

The EnergaCamerimage international cinematography film festival announced a trio of films that will join this year’s main competition lineup: El Conde, Filip and Ferrari.

Michael Mann’s Ferrari was lensed by Oscar-winning Dp Erik Messerschmidt (Mank); Pablo Larraín’s El Condo was photographed by Academy-Award nominated cinematographer Edward Lachman, who won the Camerimage Golden Frog in 2015 for Carol; and Michal Kwiecinski’s Filip was lensed by Dp Michal Sobocinski (The Art of Loving: Story of Michalina Wislocka).

As previously announced, the main competition also includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Dp’d by Robbie Ryan, which will be the opening night film; Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, lensed by Rodrigo Prieto; Black Flies, directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire and lensed by David Ungaro; and All of Us Strangers, helmed by Andrew Haigh and photographed by Jamie Ramsay.

The festival also announced this week that Krzysztof Zanussi (The Constant Factor,...

Killers of the Flower Moon, All of Us Strangers and Black Flies will be part of the main competition at this year’s EnergaCamerimage international cinematography film festival.

Martin Scorsese’s 1920s-set Killers, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, tracks suspicious murders of members of the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world after oil was discovered underneath their land. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who will introduce the film at the Polish festival, previously won Camerimage’s main competition Golden Frog for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Amores Perros and Silver Frog for Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, shot by Dp Jamie Ramsey, who will also introduce the film, is inspired by Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers. A year ago, Ramsay was awarded Camerimage’s Bronze Frog for his work on Oliver Hermanus’ Living.

EnergaCamerimage, the cinematography-focused film festival set for Torun, Poland, for Nov. 11-18, has announced that high-profile award contenders “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Black Flies” and “All of Us Strangers” will be featured in its main competition.

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” the latest pic from director Martin Scorsese, takes audiences on a journey through 1920s Oklahoma to tell a heartbreaking tale of love, greed and betrayal. Based on a true story and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, it centers on the suspicious murders of members of native American tribe Osage Nation, who became wealthy overnight after oil was discovered beneath their land.

This is the eighth Camerimage main competition nomination for Scorsese’s cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto. He previously won the fest’s Golden Frog for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Amores Perros” (2000) and Silver Frog for Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” (2004).

“Black Flies,” a suspenseful story directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire,...

Sean Penn is pulling no punches in his takedown of studios wanting to use artificial intelligence to exploit the likenesses and voices of actors for use in future projects. In a new interview with Variety, Penn sounded off on the major SAG and WGA sticking point amid the strikes that have made the once-looming threat of AI now feel like a pervasive reality.

His pitch starts with him and a camera crew in a room with studio heads, where he will then tell executives, “So you want my scans and voice data and all that. Ok, here’s what I think is fair: I want your daughter’s, because I want to create a virtual replica of her and invite my friends over to do whatever we want in a virtual party right now. Would you please look at the camera and tell me you think that’s cool?”

Penn,...

There’s been a lot of jealous talk about nepotism in the film world lately, but who would really want to come into the movie world as a, what, fourth-generation Huston? There are likely swords already being sharpened for Jack Huston, the handsome, charming, 40-year-old nephew of Anjelica, grandson of John and great-grandson of Walter. But his directing debut, Day of the Fight, which premiered this week in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra section, is certainly worthy of the family name. It’s a little earnest, sometimes a bit too style-conscious, and Huston is inclined to put performance before story every time. But the emotional input really earns its payoff in a confident, imaginatively mounted calling card.

For many, Huston is off to a flying start with the casting of Michael Pitt, a terrific actor rescued from a life of Dawson’s Creek himbo-dom by Larry Clark in his...

Chile’s Francisca Alegria, whose debut feature “The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future” premiered at Sundance 2022, is launching a Latinx production company called Madre, with offices based in Chile, Uruguay and the U.S.

Together with her partners Fernanda Urrejola, Gabriela Rosés and Cristóbal Güell, Alegria said: “We firmly believe that stories have the ability to shape perspectives, challenge norms, and inspire action. With this in mind, we strive to select projects that not only entertain but also provoke thought and spark meaningful conversations.”

Recognizing that “representation matters,” the company intends to showcase Latinx culture “beyond surface-level diversity” stating: “We aim to portray the complexities, nuances, and rich tapestry of our community, shedding light on the multifaceted experiences and identities that often go unseen or are misunderstood.”

The new company is working on a fantasy feature set in Chile with Latinx producers Sergio Lira and Lynette Coll atLuz Films and “The Cow…...

That’s a wrap on the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Movie stars, cinephiles, press and jet-set glitterati mixed with celebrated auteurs and the international film industry’s next generation on the French Riviera for a jam-packed schedule of black-tie world premieres, starry gatherings and beach-set parties. And what a run it was from May 16-27.

After opening with the world premiere of Maïwenn’s Johnny Depp starrer Jeanne du Barry, the festival screened such titles as Sam Levinson, The Weeknd and Reza Fahim’s The Idol; Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon; Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City; Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Black Flies; Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand,; Todd Haynes’ May December; Ken Loach’s The Old Oak; and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall.

To get a more exclusive look behind the iconic red carpet-laden steps of the Palais, The Hollywood Reporter once again partnered...

Nobody can see everything that screens in competition at the Cannes Film Festival — there were 21 titles in the mix this year — and I certainly didn’t. So, without passing judgment on all of the titles that were recognized with prizes on Saturday, I must say that I am struck by the fact that all five of the eligible English-language titles — Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Black Flies, Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand, Todd Haynes’s May December and Ken Loach’s The Old Oak — were completely passed over by the jury.

Needless to say, it is not the mandate of the Cannes jury — which this year included the likes of Paul Dano, Brie Larson and recent Palme d’Or winners Ruben Östlund (2017’s The Square and 2022’s Triangle of Sadness) and 2021’s Julia Ducournau (Titane) — to try to presage the Oscar race. But it is still noteworthy, to me,...

Updated with latest: The Cannes Film Festival kicked off this year with opening-night movie Jeanne du Barry, and concluded Saturday evening with Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall scooping the Palme d’Or. Deadline was on the ground to watch all the key films. Here is a compilation of our reviews from the fest, which last year saw Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness win the coveted top prize on its way to an Oscar Best Picture nomination.

Check out the reviews below, click on the titles to read them in full, and keep checking back as we add more.

About Dry Grasses ‘About Dry Grasses’

Section: Competition

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Cast: Deniz Celiloglu, Ece Bagci, Merve Dizdar, Musab Ekici

Deadline’s takeaway: For Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s many fans, this is another opportunity to slip into his world, spot his sly political references and subside for a...

Alice Rohrwacher’s ’La Chimera’ and Ken Loach’s ’The Old Oak’ were the final two titles to land on the grid.

Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves has topped Screen’s 2023 Cannes jury grid with an average score of 3.2, after the final two titles, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera and Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, landed with 2.9 and 2.1, respectively.

See the final jury grid below.

Rohrwacher’s La Chimera saw four critics give the Italian drama a four (excellent) while Die Zeit’s Katja Nicomedus and Postif’s Michel Ciment gave it one (poor). The rest of the...

Elisa Giudici reporting from Cannes

Benoit Magimet & Juliette Binoche star in "La Passion de Dodin Bouffant"

Another edition of the Cannes Film Festival is close to the finish line. It's time for some 'for your considerations', some praise for my favourites, and the impossible task of predicting the Palme d'Or winner. Predictions which will quickly be outdated by the actual winners at the closing ceremony. 

How was this Cannes Film Festival overall? I managed to see all of the Competition titles (a couple more reviews coming), a large chunk of Out of Competition titles and a couple each from Quinzaine and Un Certain Regard. The general impression is that this Cannes edition lacks a masterpiece that everyone agrees upon. This absence is perceived only in these final hours, when we're all trying to guess the big winner. But the competition did feature a large group of excellent movies. There was only one terrible movie.

New films by Tran Anh Hung and Nanni Moretti take their place on the grid.

Tran Anh Hung’s The Pot-Au-Feu posted a 2.8 average on Screen International’s 2023 Cannes jury grid, whilst Nanni Moretti’s A Brighter Tomorrow landed joint-bottom with 1.3.

Vietnam-born Hung’s seventh feature, his first since 2016’s French family saga Eternity, is a food-themed period romance starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel as a cook and a gourmet who fall in love.

Click on the jury grid above for the most up-to-date version.

The Pot-Au-Feu scored fours (excellent) from Meduza International’s Anton Dolan, Time Magazine’s Stehanie Zacharek and rogerebert.

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival is jam-packed with buzzy world premieres, from Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” to Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.” Todd Haynes is also back to unveil “May December,” featuring the A-list pairing of Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, while Disney is bringing Harrison Ford to the Croisette for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” New films from Pedro Almodovar, Jessica Hautner, Jonathan Glazer, Catherine Corsini, Hirokazu Kore-eda and more are also set to make their debuts at Cannes this year.

Cannes is often seen as a launching pad for Oscar season. Warner Bros. in 2022 kicked off its lengthy awards run for Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” on the French Riviera, with the film going on to land eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture. Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” also picked up Oscar nods for best picture, director and original screenplay. Two international film nominees,...

The disturbing thriller “Club Zero” that played at Cannes will divide audiences and critics with a scene of a teen eating vomit, but director Jessica Hausner gets one crucial thing right: It starts with a trigger warning for attendees, stating that the film features scenes regarding eating disorders. Of course, there will be many opinions on the auteur’s execution and theme, but in the same way her villainous lead character promotes “conscious eating,” Hausner delivered a “conscious warning.”

This practice should become the norm for content, whether movies or television. Not only should an advisory be shown at the beginning, but marketing departments should brainstorm ways to include it on posters, trailers and other campaigns. We, and studios, cannot rely solely on the MPAA rating system to inform viewers of brutal scenes that could be triggering. “Club Zero” involves scenes and topics of bulimia, while many other films and...

As the 76th Cannes Film Festival heats up, some of the world’s biggest stars are hitting the red carpet for the premieres of the festival’s buzziest films.

“Jeanne du Barry” opened the festival on May 16, which follows a young working class woman’s relationship with King Louis Xv (Johnny Depp). The film has received criticism for opening the festival, as it marks Depp’s comeback to cinema after he won a defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Director and co-star Maïwenn has also been the focus of controversy, as she admitted to spitting on a French journalist in February. Depp and Maïwenn were on hand for the premiere of the film, and other stars including Uma Thurman, Helen Mirren, Elle Fanning and John C. Reilly also stepped out in their best looks.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s “Monster” had its premiere on May 17, which Viola Davis, Ethan Hawke and Gemma Chan attended,...

U.S. writer and political advocate Dane Waters and “Superpower” co-director Aaron Kaufman announced the launch of a new global nonprofit group, Humanity for Freedom, Monday in Cannes. The organization is dedicated to the fight against authoritarian governments through educational and advocacy work.

The group’s global kick-off event, 72 Hours for Freedom, will feature screenings around the world of “Superpower,” the documentary about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, co-directed by Kaufman and Sean Penn. The event will take place in over a dozen countries on six continents, starting in London on June 6 and wrapping in Washington, D.C., June 8, including stops in Rome; Tbilisi, Georgia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Abuja, Nigeria; Tokyo; Sydney; and Buenos Aires.

Set on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, “Superpower” is a courage-under-fire portrait of President Zelenskyy, a former actor who suddenly found himself in the unlikely position of leading a country at war.

A film festival as large as Cannes is always a study in contradictions, but the first six days of the 2023 edition feel particularly schizophrenic as the fest has veered between sentimental celebration and unsentimental artistry.

Both were on display in the festival’s biggest premiere so far, when Martin Scorsese’s monumental “Killers of the Flower Moon” had its debut in front of a delirious crowd at the Grand Theatre Lumiere on Saturday night. The invitation-only, black-tie audience was there to celebrate Scorsese, who first came to Cannes in 1976 with “Taxi Driver,” greeting him as a conquering hero and giving him a lengthy and emotional standing ovation that didn’t stop until he left the theater.

His film, meanwhile, was a hard-eyed and epic-length examination of the systematic murder of Native Americans from the Osage nation by whites looking to take the tribe’s oil money; the film’s biggest stars,...

by Cláudio Alves

The third day of the festival, second day of competition screeners, brought with it our first big Cannes stinker of the year, as well as a potential prize magnet. Starting with the catastrophe, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's Black Flies, which stars Sean Penn, incurred the wrath of many a critic. In more positive news, Chinese documentarian Wang Bing presented the first part of a tetralogy project (Youth or Spring are the alternate English language titles), a three-hour-plus epic of observational cinema concerning the lives of young laborers in China's garment industry. Could this be a significant contender for end-of-the-festival honors?

For the Cannes at Home project, let's consider how these two auteurs have dedicated much of their careers to depicting violence – Sauvaire the brutality of war and combat, Wang the horrors of exploitation. With that in mind, our films for today (both available to stream) are Johnny Mad Dog and Bitter Money…...

Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over artificial intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

Penn addressed the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike in a press conference for his new film, “Black Flies”, director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s harrowing, gritty drama about New York paramedics. Asked about the strike, Penn said “the industry has been upending the writers and actors and directors for a very long time.”

“There’s a lot of new concepts being tossed about including the use of AI. It strikes me as a human obscenity for there to be pushback on that from the producers,” said Penn, a veteran writer-director in addition to being an actor.

Read More: Tony Awards Won’t Be Televised Due To Writers’ Strike

Film and TV screenwriters earlier this month began striking after talks with producers broke off.

In “Black Flies,” a movie that keeps working to get high on its own intensity, Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan play paramedics who spend their nights driving through hell. There are countless shots of the two in their Ems van, riding along under the tracks of an overhead subway train — the exact kind of grungy Brooklyn boulevard that Popeye Doyle went smashing through in the famous “French Connection” car/subway chase. As Rut (Penn) and Cross (Sheridan) patrol the borough neighborhood of Brownsville, one of the poorest and most crime-ridden sections of New York City, those overhead tracks become part of the film’s meticulously oppressive visual design. The two have so little breathing room they can barely see the sky. After a while, though, you start to think: Don’t these guys ever drive down a side street? Like everything else in “Black Flies,” those subway tracks are stylish...