Anna Smith: Last News

More than 100 women will take their bikes onto the dark streets of Manchester for a ride to raise awareness about cycling safety. Participants will be making as much noise as they can through music, whistles and chants in a scheme that has been set up to address women's worries and gender disparity.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance took the award for Best Feature at the annual Girls On Film Awards while Emilia Pérez and Hard Truths star Marianne Jean-Baptiste took awards for Best Ensemble and Best Actress respectively. 

A five-strong Lanarkshire Karate Academy team won 10 medals between them at the Swedish International Open earlier this month.

Vivian Oparah is aware of the spotlight on her following her BAFTA Film Awards nomination for her breakthrough performance in Searchlight’s romance movie Rye Lane, but she feels it’s imperative that she “stay grounded” because it’s a more disparate path towards stardom for Black actresses.

Few feature films in recent memory have generated as much excitement around the city of London as Searchlight’s latest pic Rye Lane.

‘The Woman King’ & ‘Aftersun’ Dominate Girls On Film AwardsThe Woman King and Aftersun dominated the main awards at the second annual Girls On Film Awards. The Woman King picked up Best Ensemble, sponsored by Netflix, and Best Female Friendship On Screen. Woman King star Viola Davis was also awarded the Feminist Superhero award. Woman King lead Sheila Atim was there in person to accept the awards. Aftersun nabbed Best Feature Film Sponsored by EON Productions, while the film’s publicity team also won Best Publicity Campaign. Other big winners included Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder, which took home Best Cinematography and the Sinéad O’Connor pic Nothing Compares (Best Documentary). Nominees for the awards were chosen by a selection of critics and journalists. Girls On Film was launched by Deadline critic and broadcaster Anna Smith and producer Hedda Archbold with the aim of rewarding excellence in the field of feminism, inclusion, and diversity in cinema. Check out the full winners on the Girl On Film Twitter account.

EXCLUSIVE: Hot off the heels of their Sundance premiere of Rye Lane, writers Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia have teamed up with Vertigo Films for their next romantic comedy The Whole Hog. 

The influence of streaming companies was a central topic of the Women in Leadership panel at the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival this past weekend.

Viaplay Plans November 1 Launch Date For UK As Premier Sports Deal Closes

A24 acquired North American rights to Charlotte Wells’ feature debut breakout Aftersun following its bow in Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival last May. Today, we have the first trailer for the award-winning drama — check it out above. A24 releases in North America on October 21.

Netflix has bagged Thomas M. Wright’s tense Cannes thriller The Stranger and will premiere it globally in October.

“There’s nothing wishy-washing about working with Phyllis Nagy,” Elizabeth Banks tells Deadline of working with the Call Jane director. “She’s very gentle with her direction but she’s also firm with what she expects or wants out of something, which I really appreciate.”

James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has said that the character could be non-binary in the future.As speculation mounts over who will replace Daniel Craig in the role following No Time To Die, the producer appeared on the Girls On Film podcast and reiterated that Bond would remain a man.However, when host Anna Smith asked about the prospect of a non-binary 007 in future, Broccoli replied: “Who knows, I think it’s open, you know? We just have to find the right actor.”The Bond boss’s latest words come after she said last week that the next iteration of the spy would be a British man of “any ethnicity”.“I think it will be a man because I don’t think a woman should play James Bond,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

Is it possible that a future James Bond could identify as non-binary? Producer Barbara Broccoli thinks so. 

An official trailer has been released for the Downton Abbey movie sequel that promises a new location to be featured as the Crawley family embark on a trip to the South of France. Opening up with an aerial shot of the Downton Abbey estate, the clip to Downton Abbey: A New Era shows glimpses of some of the show’s original characters that will return in the film, including Lady Mary, Anna Smith and maid Daisy Mason.

Clio Barnard took inspiration from two people she met while filming previous films for Ali & Ava, which premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

Only Ten Months Until the Next Cannes.

The opening scene of Dara Of Jasenovac, Serbia’s submission to the International Feature Oscar race, gives a poignant hint of the horrors to come. The setting is rural Croatia in the 1940s. A large group of Serbian women and children are being marched to a train station by armed guards. Two Croatian women work in the fields, watching them fearfully, also cautious of their own fate. One catches the eye of a woman in the line who’s holding a baby, understanding her pleading look. With one small, sad, wordless nod, an infant is left with a stranger, his mother knowing that the alternative will likely be far worse. 

After an impressive start at India’s box office, the Tamil-language film Master has hit Amazon Prime Video across the globe, and looks set to maintain the star power of leading actor Vijay. Two years after playing a charismatic soccer coach in Bigil, Vijay dances into the role of a charismatic professor in Master.