Tag: international brightlight film festival

By Clayton Davis According To The variety In a quaint theater in the Colorado mountains where we lay our scene, a clear Oscar contender emerges. Before Chloé Zhao’s anticipated drama “Hamnet” held its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday, the director took the stage with her two stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal to lead the audience in a meditation before they took in her heartbreaking story. With a room that included some of her peers like “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler and actor-turned-director Harris Dickinson, the immaculate adaptation unspooled before the sold out crowd and captivated the audience. The moving and fictionalized portrait of grief and loss that inspired one of history’s most treasured playwrights held its grip...

By Nick Vivarelli According To The variety Switzerland-based distributor First Hand Films has taken world sales on “Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence,” which reconstructs the overlooked story of Italy’s first female director, ahead of the documentary’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The doc, which is directed by Valerio Ciriaci and launches in the Venice Classics section, blends rare films and photographs from Italy’s Cineteca Nazionale film archives and the Cineteca di Bologna, known globally as a prime film preservation entity, with the voices of contemporary artists and academics.  Between 1906 and 1930, Notari created more than 60 feature films that blended melodrama with raw depictions of Naples’ street life. These pioneering works captivated audi...

By Andrew McGowan According To The variety John Williams is one of the most prolific film composers of all time, having created some of the most iconic scores of the past 60 years, winning five Oscars and becoming the gold standard of movie musicians. Ironically, though, the 93-year-old maestro recently admitted to his indifference and criticism of film music as a genre, telling a biographer “I never liked film music very much.” In this Guardian interview with author Tim Grieving about Grieving’s upcoming biography of the composer, Williams broke down the craft that he’s contributed so much to. “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there,” he said, “I just think the music isn’t there.” He contin...

By Richard Natale According To The variety Veteran motion picture and television executive Frank Price, who had more than one go-round at both MCA/Universal and Columbia Pictures, died Monday in Santa Monica. He was 95. His son Roy Price, former president of Amazon Studios, reported his death, posting on X, “My father, Frank Price, passed away peacefully in his sleep this morning at 95. He lived a full life and we will miss him deeply.” One of the few journeymen writer-producers to rise through the ranks to head both television and film production divisions, Price headed MCA’s TV division in the 1970s, a period of great prosperity for the company, with such series as “Kojak,” “Baretta” and “The Rockford Files.” He moved on to become president of Columbia Pictures in 1978...