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Prior to turning to acting in the mid-70s, Mickey Rourke was a notable prodigy in the amateur boxing landscape in Miami. But to the shock of his peers, the Robert Downey Jr-led Iron Man 2 star opted to leave boxing behind for Hollywood fame, and it didn’t take him long to garner notoriety on the silver screen with releases, Diner, Rumble Fish, among others.

Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2 | Credit: Marvel Studios

However, his rise to stardom in the ’80s was far from smooth sailing, as only a decade after his breakthrough, Rourke returned to his roots, which resulted in his face getting thrashed.

Mickey Rourke’s return to boxing took a toll on his face 9½ Weeks | Credit: 20th Century Fox

While the ’80s were a roaring period for The Wrestler star, Rourke confessed that he was surrounded by “guys from the street, goofballs and villains,...

In Bangladesh, the sport of boli khela — or the wrestler game — is a meticulous, methodical affair, a tone Iqbal H. Chowdhury re-creates for his debut feature, “The Wrestler.” Straddling a line between observational and oblique, the film seems designed to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure, gesturing toward masculine boundaries in a rural, often overcast coastal setting without fully articulating them.

In leaving much of his story up to intuition — and taking a climactic turn toward the surreal — Chowdhury crafts a scrupulous slow-burn drama about a kind of obsession that, despite being opaque, comes off as entirely tragic. Its central focus is the elderly wrestler/wrestling trainer Moju (Nasir Uddin Khan), an aging fisherman whose frustrations with his lack of recent catch lead him to challenge local champion Dofor (Akm Itmam). Then again, this economic woe is just one of several possibilities pushing Moju toward certain self-destruction (it’s the...

Plot: When the glittering Las Vegas revue she has headlined for decades announces it will soon close, a glamorous showgirl must reconcile with the decisions she’s made and the community she has built as she plans her next act.

Review: A lot of press has surrounded Pamela Anderson’s role in The Last Showgirl. After returning to acting in 2022 with a stint in a Broadway production of Chicago, Anderson released her memoir Love, Pamela and a corresponding Netflix documentary in 2023. With Lily James portraying Anderson in the Hulu limited series Pam & Tommy, Anderson has again entered the pop culture limelight, with many hailing The Last Showgirl as the actress’s revelatory rebirth as a dramatic actress. Directed by Gia Coppola, The Last Showgirl is an intriguing and devastating look at a fading aspect of Las Vegas and a stark portrait of a woman reflecting on the missed opportunities in her life.

Marisa Tomei, who is attending the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia this week, is looking for film and stage roles that address the themes confronting women in the post #MeToo era, she tells Variety.

Tomei, who won the 1993 Oscar for best actress in a supporting role for “My Cousin Vinny” and received Oscar nominations in the same category for “In the Bedroom” in 2002 and “The Wrestler” in 2009, plays an outspoken psychologist in Ann Marie Allison’s debut feature “You’re Dating a Narcissist!,” now in post. The film will hit the festival circuit early next year. Allison recently wrote the screenplay for Jocelyn Moorhouse’s “The Fabulous Four,” starring Susan Sarandon and Bette Midler.

Tomei explains that the story for “You’re Dating a Narcissist!” revolves around a mother-daughter relationship. “My character is a psychologist who is trying to warn her daughter about this prevalent syndrome. She’s a...

Emilia Pérez is Jacques Audiard’s bold musical crime drama film, where the lines between power and vulnerability blur in the most unexpected of ways. Centering on a feared cartel leader’s journey of self-realization and discovery, the film captures both the grit and grace of a character yearning for authenticity and self-love in a world of chaos and crime.

Emilia Pérez | Credit: Pathé

To bring this to the big screen, Audiard made a bold decision to have trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón play both characters. And one controversial Marvel actor played a crucial role in bringing the character to life.

How One Marvel Star Influenced Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez Mickey Rourke in a still from Iron Man 2 | Credits: Marvel Studios

Emilia Pérez is a musical crime drama film that features the gender identity struggles of a drug cartel leader, Manitas, and how he hires a lawyer to...

“Emilia Perez,” the bold and stylish musical from director Jacques Audiard starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Zoe Saldana, is pure cinema. Riffing on genres with ease and abandon, the musical is, at various turns, a drug cartel drama, a trans coming out story, a family drama, a love story, and an action film. Not to mention a French film in Spanish made by filmmakers who had never before worked on a musical. That meant every member of the team had to stay open to the innate rhythms of the story being told, no matter the genre.

“This film was acting like a very wild animal, you know,” sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz told IndieWire. “So we had to adapt always. The process was really for us experimental. It was really like planting seeds and ideas and [letting] them grow. The essential was to get something emotional at the end.

Plot: A washed-up boxer (Michael Pitt) prepares for the biggest match of his career – his first in ten years – while trying to patch up the various frayed relationships in his life.

Review: Day of the Fight marks actor Michael Pitt’s (billed here as Michael C. Pitt) first leading role in many years. A former heartthrob best known for The Dreamers, the American remake of Funny Games, and his role on Boardwalk Empire, he recently turned up in the underrated Benicio del Toro film Reptile but otherwise has been out of the spotlight for years. If you google his name, you can see that he had to deal with some personal issues we’re not going to dredge up here, but suffice it to say that Day of the Fight offers him a strong star vehicle that could help him make a comeback if the right people see it.

The...

There are 31 animated films, 85 international films and 169 documentaries competing in the 2024 Oscar races for Best Animated Feature, Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature, the Academy announced on Thursday.

In the animated feature category, contenders include “Flow,” “Inside Out 2,” “Memoir of a Snail,” “Piece by Piece,” “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rorhirrim,” “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” and “The Wild Robot.”

In the international category, the list includes “Emilia Perez,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and “I’m Still Here.” The list of eligible films was reported exclusively by TheWrap in October.

In documentaries, the field includes “Sugarcane,” “Dahomey,” “No Other Land,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” “Black Box Diaries” and “Daughters,” among many others.

In all three categories, Academy members are given lists of films that are required viewing, but are eligible to view and vote for films outside their lists as...

When it came time to choose a name for our first child, my husband and I had a list of one.

A couple of years before her birth, we’d been on an especially good date to see an Agnès Varda film in repertory; the protagonist’s style, wit and ultimate resilience appealed to us as much as Varda’s own story as a pathbreaking woman in the French New Wave did. We’d seen Varda’s documentary “Faces Places” at New York’s Quad Cinema just a week prior to seeing “Cléo From 5 to 7” at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, and, especially in the spring of 2020, the double bill sat lodged in our minds. Cleo D’Addario turned 4 this past May.

I’d always assumed that moviegoing would be a part of Cleo’s story, and the story of our parenting her. I grew up movie mad,...

Spoiler alert. That’s actress Karla Sofia Gascón playing both roles in Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez.”

The film, now streaming on Netflix, follows Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascón), a feared drug lord who seeks the help of a lawyer, Rita (Zoe Saldaña), to fake her death and undergo gender-affirming surgery.

Gascón portrays a fearsome drug lord before Emilia’s transition. It took a team of artisans who considered Mickey Rourke’s character Randy Robinson in “The Wrestler” to be the prime inspiration. From beginning to end, creating Emilia’s pre-transition look took three hours; an hour and a half of that was prosthetics application.

Prosthetic pieces were applied to Gascón’s nose, jawline and cheeks to make her look as masculine as possible. Makeup department head Julia Floch Carbonel worked closely with SFX makeup artist Jean Christophe Spadaccini to experiment with different noses, damaged skin and hairstyles. Carbonel’s challenge...

Of the many twists and surprises in Jacques Audiard’s audacious musical “Emilia Pérez,” the most startling comes during the film’s end credits, when one realizes that breakout performer Karla Sofía Gascón stars as the eponymous Emilia both pre- and post-gender-affirming surgery. Of course she’s the stunning Emilia, but she also plays evil cartel leader Manitas.

That’s a bold move, and no one involved in the transformation of Gascón into a male character took it lightly.

“I was scared for Karla when we had to talk about this part of the film,” co-head of makeup Julia Floch Carbonel told IndieWire. “I was scared to put her back somewhere that she, of course, had been really unhappy. But what we created, she was really joyful about it. Very enthusiastic all the time.”

For Manitas, the terrifying cartel leader who hires a young lawyer named Rita (Zoe Saldana) to...

Spoiler Alert: This story discusses major plot points, including the ending for “Emilia Pérez,” currently streaming on Netflix.

Mickey Rourke’s Randy Robinson in “The Wrestler” and the timeless looks of Catherine Deneuve served as inspiration for the titular character in Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez.”

The film follows Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascón), a feared cartel leader who seeks the help of a lawyer, Rita (Zoe Saldaña), to fake her death and undergo gender-affirming surgery to finally live life authentically as her true self. Gascón was confident she could play both roles in Emilia’s transition journey, which set up a mammoth task for the team of artisans.

When audiences first meet Emilia, the character is a fearsome drug lord whose penchant for killing creates a sense of terror. “Manitas is just trying to survive and to get ahead in society,” Gascón explains. “All he had left was pretending to...

The Asian World Film Festival (Awff) is delighted to announce the festival’s Main Competition and Short Film lineups; select, noteworthy screenings; special program highlights; and centerpiece film. Celebrating its 10th anniversary of showcasing Asian film from around the world, Awff will take place November 13-21, 2024, at The Culver Theater in Culver City, CA.

The nine-day festival will present narrative and documentary motion pictures and short films from 27 countries, including four that premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. More than 30 of the screenings will feature live Q&As with the filmmakers, talent, and crew.

Georges N. Chamchoum, Awff Executive Director, said, “We are very grateful to the filmmakers around the world supporting this year’s line-up with more than 60 narrative and documentary films. The Awff continues to open the window to the region of Asia as well to showcase AsianAmerican talent through our range of programs. I am amazed at...

While his New Jersey home was presumably being egged and toilet-papered by empty-handed trick-or-treaters, Bruce Springsteen spent Halloween night on the road, performing a sold out show with the E-Street Band in Montreal. While the Boss couldn’t be bothered to dress up as, say, a pirate, or a giant, freakishly lifelike E.T., he did get into the Halloween spirit by playing a seasonal track.

In fact, Springsteen opened the show with his Halloween tribute: Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” – which, as we’ve discussed before, isn’t so much about scientists fighting ghosts with nuclear accelerators as it is about horny poltergeists being total pervs.

Springsteen certainly didn’t half-ass the performance, he and the band played the “Ghostbusters” song as if it were one of their trademark hits, even enlisting the crowd to sing along in response to the line “Who you gonna call?” The only way...

Oscar nominee Dev Patel (The Green Knight) is set to star in The Journeyman, a new crime thriller fro director Tarsem Singh (The Fall) and Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios, which will produce and fully finance the project.

AGC International reps the film’s international distribution rights and will introduce it to buyers at AFM.

Scripted by the husband-and-wife duo of Bryan and Alexis Roberts, aka The Roberts, The Journeyman is the story of a struggling pro tennis player who is lured into an illegal match-fixing ring to support his family and finds himself trapped in a ruthless world of corruption and violence he may never escape.

Oscar nominee Scott Franklin is producing alongside Ford for AGC, Mason Eways for Lbi Entertainment, and Patel’s Minor Realm, with Shamier Anderson and Stephan James exec producing for Bay Mills. CAA Media Finance is handling domestic alongside AGC, with EVP of Legal...

Kicking off Nov. 13, the Asian World Film Festival sports features from 27 countries with its main competition screening 16 films submitted for the international feature Oscar. The festival runs through Nov. 21 at the Culver Theater in Culver City, celebrating its 10th anniversary. More than 30 of the screenings will include Q&As with the filmmakers, talent and crew.

“We are very grateful to the filmmakers around the world supporting this year’s lineup with more than 60 narrative and documentary films,” says Georges N. Chamchoum, Awff executive director, said. “The Awff continues to open the window to the region of Asia as well to showcase Asian-American talent through our range of programs. I am amazed at the depth and breadth of the work on the Awff schedule this year.”

The festival opens with South Korean drama “A Normal Family” and closes with Filipino romantic drama “Hello, Love, Again.” The Centerpiece film is Wong Kar-wai...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a man potentially becoming hoodwinked by unconventional spiritual practices at a "new-age retreat" in the upcoming horror movie Pendulum, to be written and directed by Black Swan writer Mark Heyman, reports Variety.

Pendulum revolves around a couple, Patrick (Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail, who attend a spiritual retreat in New Mexico after a traumatic event. Abigail finds herself drawn to the group's mysterious leader.

More details on the synopsis: "Patrick is willing to do anything to help his wife, but becomes distrustful of the retreat’s enigmatic leader even as Abigail falls under her spell. As paranoia builds, the couple must determine if the group’s unconventional spiritual practices offer genuine healing – or mask a terrifying truth that threatens to consume them both."

Gordon-Levitt has starred in many comedies and thrillers throughout the year, but Pendulum appears to be his first full-on horror movie. As for Heyman, he's best...

Darren Aronofsky and Mark Heyman have worked together several times over the years. Heyman was Aronofsky’s assistant when he made The Fountain, then he was the co-producer on The Wrestler, a writer on Black Swan, and an executive producer on Mother! So now that Heyman is set to make his feature directorial debut with the horror film Pendulum, it’s good to see that Aronofsky is there to back him up, producing the film through his company Protozoa. A press release sent out today has also revealed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt of The Dark Knight Rises and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has signed on to star in the film, which is set to start filming in New Mexico next March.

Pendulum will tell the following story: Young couple Patrick (Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail journey to a new-age retreat in New Mexico, drawn by the possibility of healing after a traumatic event.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to lead the horror feature “Pendulum,” written and directed by “Black Swan” scribe Mark Heyman.

The film will be produced by Darren Aronofsky for Protozoa, Jacob Jaffke (“MaXXXine,” “Dream Scenario”) for Motel Mojave and Dave Caplan (“Longlegs”) for C2, who will also fully finance. The picture will start principal photography in March 2025 in New Mexico, with Black Bear launching the project to buyers internationally.

In “Pendulum,” young couple Patrick (Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail journey to a new-age retreat in New Mexico, drawn by the possibility of healing after a traumatic event. Patrick is willing to do anything to help his wife, but becomes distrustful of the retreat’s enigmatic leader even as Abigail falls under her spell. As paranoia builds, the couple must determine if the group’s unconventional spiritual practices offer genuine healing – or mask a terrifying truth that threatens to consume them both.

A long-time collaborator of Aronofsky,...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has signed on to star in Pendulum, a new feature produced by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and directed by Mark Heyman (Black Swan).

The film will start principal photography in March 2025 in New Mexico. Black Bear is repping international rights on the film and will introduce the project to buyers at the American Film Market next week. UTA Independent Film Group, CAA Media Finance, and WME Independent hold domestic rights.

Described as a “terrifying new genre film,” the film follows the young couple Patrick (Gordon-Levitt) and Abigail on a journey to a new-age retreat in New Mexico, drawn by the possibility of healing after a traumatic event. Patrick is willing to do anything to help his wife but becomes distrustful of the retreat’s enigmatic leader even as Abigail falls under her spell. As paranoia builds, the couple must determine if the group’s unconventional spiritual practices offer genuine...

Academy members who are voting in the Best International Feature Film category have been given 85 different films to consider, according to emails sent to voters on Friday and obtained by TheWrap.

The 85 films make up the smallest field in the category in nine years. Last year saw 88 qualifying films, after the total number of eligible films had topped 90 in five of the previous six years. The record was 93, set in 2000.

In late September, all prospective voters in the category received emails inviting them to vote in the international category and telling them that those who opted in would receive emails with their assigned viewing on Friday, Nov. 1. But those emails came a week early, going to prospective voters on Friday afternoon, Oct. 25, and separating the members into seven separate groups.

Each group was given a list of 12 or 13 films to view, either in the Academy’s members-only screening platform devoted...

Welcome to Deadline’s roundup of the submissions for this year’s Best International Feature Film Oscar category. Below you will find details on each movie that has been officially put forward so far. The official deadline for submission was 5pm Pt October 2. We’ve rounded up 86 submissions so far, against 88 last year, but announcements continue to trickle in. Keeping checking in for updates.

This is a hotly contested race that often results in clear front-runners but also surprising gems. Click on titles for links to reviews, first looks, news and more.

In alphabetical order by country, these are the entries so far:

Albania

Title: Waterdrop

Director: Robert Budina

Prod: Erafilm

Notes: Waterdrop, which will have its festival premiere in Warsaw next month, is set on the shores of Lake Ohrid where City Planner Aida, a tough and successful businesswoman, manages the allocation of lucrative EU subsidies, navigating a corrupt system.

Pamela Anderson on the role of Shelley in The Last Showgirl: 'I just relate to the character so much and I really worked on it drawing from personal experience' Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival/Jorge Fuembuena With Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson becomes the latest older star to have the opportunity to reframe herself and show her acting mettle at the movies. In a role that puts you in mind of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, the former Baywatch star plays Shelley, a dancer who is facing major life choices as the Vegas show she has performed in for decades is marked for closure. In addition to facing up to life away from the stage, Shelley, whose friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) is also facing up to ageing, is trying to reconnect with her adult daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd).

The film premiered in Toronto...

Gold Derby recently conducted a poll asking our readers to name their dream Oscar host for the upcoming 2025 ceremony, and the winner is — drumroll, please — Hugh Jackman! The Australian performer is having a banner year thanks to his movie “Deadpool and Wolverine” dominating the box office, and longtime Oscar viewers still fondly remember when he hosted the 2009 ceremony to great acclaim (watch a clip below).

As it turns out, Jackman is very much “in the mix” to serve as this year’s host alongside his superhero counterpart Ryan Reynolds. As our sister site Deadline reports, “The plan we hear would be to include them as part of a star ensemble of rotating hosts, each — or in pairs — doing a portion of the show, per a plan to shake things up.”

Jackman is a former Best Actor Oscar nominee for playing Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables” (2012), and this year he’s...

Singapore: “La Luna”

“La Luna”, directed by M Raihan Halim, has been picked to represent Singapore in the best international feature film category at the Oscars. The Singapore-Malaysia co-production is a Malay-language comedy about a woman who opens a lingerie shop in a conservative Malaysian village.

The film had its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival last November in the Asian Future Section and participated at the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival. It was also the closing title at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and played in Shanghai earlier this year.

Produced by Singaporean firms Clover Films and Papahan Films, in association with Malaysia’s Act 2 Pictures and One Cool Film, the film stars Shaheizy Sam, Sharifah Amani, Wan Hanafi Su and Hisyam Hamid. It was released in Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian cinemas in November last year.

“La Luna” is M Raihan Halim’s second feature directing effort,...

Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke and former NFL star Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski have nabbed starring roles in writer/director Tom DeNucci’s sports comedy The Roaring Game.

Also joining the Verdi Productions pic, that just wrapped production, in key roles is William Forsythe (The Devil Rejects) and Vanessa Angel (Kingpin). The Roaring Game centers on Rickey, a high school janitor who loses everything when his girlfriend, Kelly, is selected to play hockey for Team USA and compete in the World Games.

To win her back, Rickey creates a misfit curling team and uses his sweeping skills to compete for gold and complete a comic quest for redemption that captivates the nation.

Rourke is best known for his role in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, which earned him Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Former New England Patriots tight-end Gronkowski has acting credits that include The Clapper, Entourage, Boss Level and the buddy comedy The Instigators.

Iqbal H Chowdhury, whose The Wrestler won the New Currents competition at Busan International Film Festival last year, has returned with his latest story at the Asian Project Market.

Dhakar Nagin is billed as a horror drama musical and centres on a journalist on the hunt for a controversial B-movie actress. Looking to avoid detection, the star hides in a cinema where she is transformed into the mythical nagin monster.

Bangladesh’s Chowdhury is at Apm with DoP and producer Tuhin Tamijul, who also worked on The Wrestler. Produced by Mayer Doa Films and with a proposed budget of $250,000, they...

Iqbal H Chowdhury, whose The Wrestler won the New Currents competition at Busan International Film Festival last year, has returned with his latest story at the Asian Project Market.

Dhakar Nagin is billed as a horror drama musical and centres on a journalist on the hunt for a controversial B-movie actress. Looking to avoid detection, the star hides in a cinema where she is transformed into the mythical nagin monster.

Bangladesh’s Chowdhury is at Apm with DoP and producer Tuhin Tamijul, who also worked on The Wrestler. Produced by Mayer Doa Films and with a proposed budget of $250,000, they...

CAA’s Roeg Sutherland looked back on his eventful career and discussed the changing landscape of the global film industry at the Zurich Film Festival, where he’s being honored with this year’s Game Changer Award.

Taking part in the Zurich Summit industry forum, where he’s been a regular for years, Sutherland pushed back against the idea of a “game changer,” at least in the film business, joking that “LeBron James can be a game changer.”

At CAA, where Sutherland co-heads the Media Finance department and the International Film Group, finding solutions for clients and ensuring films get made despite major obstacles is a big part of his job.

“Our goal, our job is to make sure that whatever happens, if there’s a pandemic, if there are two strikes, if the studios aren’t buying, if China closes down, if Russia’s at war, whatever happens, we...

Bangladeshi-Canadian filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, joint winner of the New Currents competition at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival for “The Wrestler,” has his next film at the festival’s Asian Project Market (Apm).

Set in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka in the early 2000s, “Dhakar Nagin” will follow a film journalist searching for a controversial B-movie star in the chaos of a push to ban vulgar movies.

“The idea for ‘Dhakar Nagin’ came from one of my essay presentations at York University in Toronto. My Ma thesis focused on popular Bangladeshi cinema, and I wrote an essay analyzing the various dance moves of Bangladeshi film stars as a part of my course curriculum. Watching Bangla films in the cinema has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Nagin [snake] musicals, fight scenes, dance numbers, and melodrama created an exciting experience for audiences in Bangladeshi cinema halls. Growing up with that kind of cinema,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has described the gratitude he feels about having his film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig selected as Germany’s entry to the Oscars.

Speaking at the Busan International Film Festival as head of the New Currents jury, the director said that Germany’s decision to submit the feature “has great meaning. I felt they were opening their arms and understanding other cultures.”

Although set in Tehran, with a mix of German and Iranian cast and crew, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is produced by Rasoulof’s German outfit Run Way Pictures alongside France...

Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has described the gratitude he feels about having his film The Seed Of The Sacred Fig selected as Germany’s entry to the Oscars.

Speaking at the Busan International Film Festival as head of the New Currents jury, the director said that Germany’s decision to submit the feature “has great meaning. I felt they were opening their arms and understanding other cultures.”

Although set in Tehran, with a mix of German and Iranian cast and crew, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is produced by Rasoulof’s German outfit Run Way Pictures alongside France...

Selection committees from countries around the world had until 5pm on October 2, 2024 to submit their entry for Best International Feature at the 2025 Oscars. Films submitted must meet the eligibility criteria and qualify between November 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024. From this group, a shortlist of 15 contenders will be revealed on December 17, 2024 and the five Oscar nominees will be announced on January 17, 2025.

Below are details on the 85 films selected.

Albania

Title: “Waterdrop”

Director: Robert Budina

Language: Albanian, Italian

Synopsis: Aida, 45, a city hall manager in a small Albanian town by Lake Ohrid, is forced to face her own complicity when her son Mark, 15, is involved in a rape scandal that could send him to jail.

Algeria

Title: “Algiers”

Director: Chakib Taleb-Bendiab

Language: Arabic, French

Synopsis: The kidnapping of a little girl creates tension and suspicion in Algiers. Only Dounia, a brilliant psychiatrist, and Sami, a police inspector, can unearth the demons of the past.

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Bangladesh has picked writer-director Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury’s award-winning feature debut Boli (The Wrestler) as its selection to the 2025 Oscars in the best international feature film category. The movie won the 2023 Busan International Film Festival’s New Currents prize, and it was warmly received by critics at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June.

The movie follows an eccentric fisherman who resolves to beat the current local champion at Boli Khela, a traditional form of wrestling from Chattogram, Bangladesh’s second-largest city. Set in the late 1990s in a remote coastal village, the story weaves together local myths about dervishes (Sufis), mahi sawars (fish riders) and mysterious creatures believed to be angels in disguise.

Said Chowdhury in his director’s statement: “One of the most significant elements of this movie is the mystic nature of the coastal area. Unlike popular wrestling, ‘Boli Khela’ is quite slow-paced and more about technique and patience.

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

I'm going to cut right to the chase: Matt Smith, known for playing the Doctor on Doctor Who and Daemon Targaryen on House of the Dragon, is filming a new movie called Caught Stealing, a crime drama about a former baseball player who gets caught up in the world of underground crime in 1990. Smith doesn't play the baseball player; that honor goes to Austin Butler, lately of Dune: Part II and Elvis. Smith plays another character: I don't even know his name, but I know he wears a heavily studded jacked, plaid pants with chains, and a straight-up brown, red and yellow mohawk that makes him look like he was merged with a dirty paintbrush in a science experiment gone wrong.

I'm not actually going to post the image here, because it looks like it's a papparazzi photo and I don't want to get sued, but you can see it...

In the 2022 HBO docuseries “The Last Movie Stars,” Ethan Hawke floats the possibility that the great Joanne Woodward’s risk-it-all role — the one that could have won the “Three Faces of Eve” star a second Oscar, had it gone differently — was playing a failed starlet who resorts to burlesque to get by. Adapted from the William Inge play “A Loss of Roses,” it was a part intended for Marilyn Monroe, who died, so Woodward stepped in and gave it her Method-acting all. Alas, the studio lost faith, recut the film and slapped a tacky new title on it: “The Stripper.”

In a different world, “The Last Showgirl” could have been such a vehicle for its leading lady, Pamela Anderson. Tightrope-walking the gossamer line between objectification and empowerment, the project lands amid a charitable reappraisal of Anderson’s career, during which a memoir, a Netflix doc and countless thinkpieces have caused...

It's bizarre to even consider, but at one point, Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei auditioned to play Penny on "The Big Bang Theory" — and while it's hard to imagine her in Kaley Cuoco's role, it's also funny to imagine an alternate universe with Tomei as the show's bubbly female lead.

Fans of "The Big Bang Theory" know there was a decent amount of strife over who would play Penny — one actress, Katie Walsh, was replaced after a badly-shot pilot didn't impress CBS — but it's definitely shocking to hear that Tomei was in the mix. In 2022, Tomei opened up about "The Big Bang Theory" and said that she did like the project, and obviously had no idea that it would be such a huge pop culture phenomenon.

"I thought it was a great script, and that's why we went so far as to check it out," Tomei told Business Insider in an...

In the world of Hollywood, celebrity feuds are pretty common. From Kanye West and Taylor Swift’s beef to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s rivalry, fans have seen it all unfold. However, some feuds are more unexpected than others. One such alleged dispute involves two legendary performers, Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro. In fact, the stars have been embroiled in a curious and seemingly one-sided feud that dates back over three decades.

Mickey Rourke in a still from Iron Man 2 | Credits: Marvel Studios

De Niro has chosen to remain largely silent for years. However, Rourke has continued to fuel the narrative of their long-time rivalry through any means necessary.

Mickey Rourke’s alleged feud with Robert De Niro

Over the years, Robert De Niro has become one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. After all, the star’s portrayals in The Good Fellas, The Godfather Part II,...

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival was a success on many fronts, launching many titles into the marketplace looking for buyers, and others into the fall season, including the usual spate of Oscar contenders. But the festival continues to contract, with empty seats in the largest houses.

Many sales titles weren’t scooped up quickly. According to buyers, many were demanding too much money, which should eventually shake out. David Gordon Green’s opening night family movie “Nutcrackers,” starring Ben Stiller, found a home at Hulu, and Paramount just picked up Munich Olympic Games thriller “September 5” for November release, promising an Oscar campaign.

Surprisingly, “The Life of Chuck,” without a distributor, won the People’s Choice Award that usually leads to a Best Picture Oscar nomination and occasionally an actual win. The likelihood that the film will instantly become an Oscar contender the way “American Fiction” did last year remains slim.

CAA’s Roeg Sutherland is set to be honored with the Zurich Film Festival’s Game Changer Award for his outstanding achievements and contributions within the film industry.

The co-Head of CAA’s Media Finance department as well as its International Film Group, will be presented with the award during the festival’s industry-focused Zurich Summit, which takes place in October within the framework of the 20th Zurich Film Festival (Zff).

As part of the recognition, FilmNation Entertainment CEO Glen Basner will host the Game Changer Award recipient conversation, in which he will speak with Sutherland about his journey.

“Roeg is a passionate cinephile and industry leader, who has not only discovered, but also nurtured and developed the careers of countless artists. In the past several years, he has secured financing and sold some of the most important and critically acclaimed films, both domestic and international,” commented Zff Artistic Director Christian Jungen.

Toronto film festival: an empty-headed attempt to give the star her version of The Wrestler is a regrettable misfire

The desire to see Pamela Anderson receive her flowers after being mistreated and denigrated by numerous parties – from the media to men in the industry to most recently Hulu – is strong enough to initially outweigh other concerns over her big-screen comeback. Even framing it as such feels like an understatement, the star having never received anything like the dramatic lead she’s been given in Vegas-set character drama The Last Showgirl. It’s a genuinely huge moment for Anderson after regaining control of her narrative with a well-received turn in Chicago on Broadway and a likable Netflix documentary which allowed her to right some wrongs.

But while goodwill might have propelled her here, to a ritzy Toronto film festival premiere, it can only take her so far. The film, directed by...

Before Deadpool & Wolverine, Hugh Jackman starred in what he thought to be his final appearance as Wolverine in Logan. Among the Fox X-Men films, Logan stood out as a film that subverted the expectations of viewers about a superhero film. It is not surprising considering Jackman cited Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and Mickey Rourkle’s The Wrestler as inspirations for the film.

Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen in Logan | 20th Century Fox

Eastwood’s 1992 film was one film from the Western genre that dared to visit themes which remained unexplored in films before that. Unforgiven was the Academy Award winner that year for Best Picture, with a Best Director win for the Dirty Harry actor.

Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven Served as an Inspiration for Hugh Jackman’s Logan Clint Eastwood in a still from Unforgiven | Malpaso Productions

Hugh Jackman did a lot of things right in Logan, thinking that...

Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has revealed 30 titles chosen for the 2024 Asian Project Market (Apm), including upcoming features by award-winners Kirsten Tan, Iqbal H. Chowdhury, Woo Ming Jin and Daishi Matsunaga.

The investment and co-production market, which runs as part of Biff’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm), is set to take place from October 5-8 in Busan, South Korea.

Scroll down for full list of titles

This year’s Apm selection features an expanded variety of genres, including crime thrillers, horror, queer cinema, and animated films, alongside the more traditional selections of drama, comedy and romance. Organisers said...

Busan International Film Festival has revealed the 30 projects that have been selected for this year’s Asian Project Market (Apm), including several from Asian filmmakers who have previously had films selected for the Korean festival.

The line-up includes Dhakar Nagin, from Bangladeshi filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, who won Busan’s New Currents Award last year with The Wrestler. Also returning is Indonesia’s Wregas Bhanuteja with Levitating, after his film Photocopier screened in New Currents in 2021.

Other returnees include Japan’s Sotoyama Bunji with Life Redo List after Soiree screened at the festival in 2020, along with Asian Film Academy alumni Aigerim Satybaldy, a Khazakh filmmaker who is producing Leg from Uzbek filmmaker Shokir Kholikov; Sri Lanka’s Ilagno Ram with Rabbit Hole; and Myanmar’s Lin Htet Aung with Making A Sea.

Established filmmakers in the selection include Hong Kong documentary filmmaker Chan Tze-woon with Nothing Happened, Filipino indie filmmaker Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan,...

If there is one horror film that left us scarred, confused, and terrified all at once, it will have to be Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! For someone who dreads unexpected guests showing up at their doorstep, the psychological horror film was disturbing in more ways than one. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem in the lead role, Mother! Is truly one of a kind, and it might not be for everyone.

Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence in Mother! (2017) | Paramount Pictures

Another disturbing part of the film is the age difference between Javier Bardem’s ‘Him’ and Jennifer Lawrence’s Mother. While ‘Him’ was well in his late forties, Mother was only 27 years old – a striking echo of reality, where Darren Aronofsky was 48 and Jennifer Lawrence was 27 at the time. Did the director base ‘Him’ on himself? He denies the allegations.

Jennifer Lawrence’s On-Screen Husband Was Not Based on Her...

Iron Man 2 cemented Robert Downey Jr. as the cornerstone of the MCU, with the franchise only moving onward and upwards after the film’s financial success. However, actor Mickey Rourke, who played the role of Ivan Vanko in the movie claimed that his character and screen time greatly suffered to ensure Downey Jr. remained the star.

Mickey Rourke played Whiplash in Iron Man 2 (Credit: Marvel Studios).

During an interview, Rourke opened up about his brief stint in the MCU, while also voicing his frustrations with most of his scenes ending up on the chopping board. As a result, Rourke had some pretty nasty and stingy words for the makers of Iron Man 2, and here is what the actor had to say about his deleted scenes from the movie.

Mickey Rourke Claimed That 80% of His Scenes Were Cut From Iron Man 2

Actor Mickey Rourke played the role of Ivan Vanko / Whiplash,...

Robert Downey Jr. still remains the biggest star of the MCU, although Hugh Jackman may have something to say about that when he eventually makes it to the mainstream. The actor who kicked it all off with 2008’s Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. has become synonymous with the character, and his demise in Avengers: Endgame was rued by fans all over the globe.

Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. | Marvel

On the other hand, Marisa Tomei also deserves flowers for the work she has done in the MCU as Aunt May for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. Meeting her death in 2021’s No Way Home, Tomei said goodbye to the franchise. But what many might not know is that she formerly dated Robert Downey Jr. briefly, which seems to have paid off more than two decades later.

Robert Downey Jr. recommended Marisa Tomei for the role of Aunt May

Marisa...