Kevin Macdonald: Last News

Alex Ritman Shortly after they moved to New York in 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono became so paranoid that the authorities were bugging their phone that they decided to record their calls. More than 50 years on, a selection of these never-before-heard recordings form what Kevin Macdonald describes as the “beating heart” of his new documentary, “One to One: John and Yoko,” premiering in Venice Aug 30.

The first four episodes of Alfonso Cuarón’s limited series, Disclaimer, are world premiering today at the Venice Film Festival. Oscar winners Cuarón, Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline convened with the press ahead of the screening.

1970s New York. 

Brent Lang Executive Editor Cinetic Media has signed Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin MacDonald for management. Macdonald won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for “One Day in September,” a look at the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics In Munich.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Dungeons and Drag Queens” star Monét X Change has landed her own variety talk series at “Dimension 20” streamer Dropout. Titled “Monét’s Slumber Party,” the show is described as an “edgy, playful and queer variety show” where “Monét X Change will welcome friends, comedians and other celebrities to an adult sleepover.” “Combining honest conversation with a little mischief, ‘Monét’s Slumber Party’ will tackle taboo subjects like sex, dating and relationships with openness and humor,” per Dropout.

Ban This Book, by Alan Gratz, from its shelves, overriding its own Florida district book-review committee’s decision rejecting a challenge to the book.The children’s novel follows a fictional fourth-grade student who creates a secret library of banned books in her locker after her local school board bans those titles.Indian River School Board members said they disliked how it referenced other books that have been removed from schools and accused it of “teaching rebellion of school board authority.”Ban This Book, which had been housed in two elementary school libraries and a middle school, was challenged by Jennifer Pippin, president of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national right-wing group that routinely rails against books that they claim contain “age-inappropriate content” and address LGBTQ rights, among other fabricated grievances.The school board voted 3-2 to remove the book from shelves, with two candidates backed by Moms for Liberty voting to remove it, along with a third member , Kevin McDonald, who was recently appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill a vacant seat following the ill-timed resignation of Brian Barefoot.McDonald tried to justify banning the book by claiming the board was acting on behalf of parents who wanted to keep their children from being “indoctrinated” or exposed to allegedly “woke” ideas.“The title itself and the theme challenges our authority,” McDonald said of Ban This Book.

Alex Ritman While he may be best known for features such as “The King of Scotland” and “The Mauritanian,” Kevin Macdonald has directed a number of documentaries about well-known figures, including 2012’s Bob Marley doc “Marley,” 2018’s revelatory “Whitney” about Whitney Houston and last year’s “High & Low: John Galliano.” His latest film, “Klitschko: More Than a Fight” — which opens the 2024 Sheffield Doc/Fest on Wednesday (and lands on Sky Documentaries in August) — is a little different. At its center is Vitali Klitschko, the Ukrainian heavyweight boxing legend who, alongside his brother Wladimir, dominated the sport for a decade starting in the mid-2000s.

Ellise Shafer SkyShowtime has revealed its upcoming content slate for 2024 and beyond, including the anticipated new series “Landman” from Taylor Sheridan and “The Day of the Jackal” starring Eddie Redmayne. “Landman,” starring Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore and described as a “modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs,” is coming exclusively to the European streaming service later this year.

The Sheffield DocFest will open with Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald’s latest doc Klitschko: More Than a Fight, while Roger Ross Williams, the first African American director to win an Academy Award, is Guest of Honor.

Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald has won the €50,000 ($54,000) Series Mania Seriesmakers award.

High & Low: John Galliano,” in theaters now,by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald. “When I saw him say this stuff in 2011, I was totally repulsed … That to me was when I started thinking about cancel culture.

EXCLUSIVE: Beta Film has picked up distribution rights to French thriller Homejacking, which is co-created by Lupin writer Tigran Rosine, and will launch sales at Series Mania.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Seriesmakers, a joint initiative of Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival, and European film-TV powerhouse Beta Group, has revealed the 10 top-notch project lineup of the second edition of its novel and high-powered mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut. This year’s Seriesmakers features in development drama series from Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“George Blake”), behind “The Last King Of Scotland,” and from Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti, who burst onto the scene co-writing with Juho Kuosmanen the latter’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki,” a 2016 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner.

Ten projects have been selected for the second edition of Seriesmakers, Series Mania’s development lab for feature film directors sidestepping into series production. 

Kevin Macdonald Helming Klitschko Doc For Sky

When movies come out, we grade them with reviews, define them by box office returns or eyeballs on streaming services, and maybe trophies down the line. But every successful, ambitious film starts with a dream, followed by compromise and adversity. Here begins Deadline’s occasional peek into the creative aspirations, and the sweat and blood that propels ambitious films.

EXCLUSIVE: Plan B Entertainment has set a joint venture with Oscar-winning documentarian and filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, known for movies including Touching The Void, One Day In September, Whitney, The Last King Of Scotland and State Of Play. 

Lenny Henry has launched a scripted production outfit backed by the £50M ($61M) Banijay UK Growth Fund.

One viewing of “High & Low – John Galliano, “a documentary chronicling the impressive rise of British fashion designer John Galliano and his equally jarring fall from grace, should be more than sufficient to convince even the most uneducated of the influence he’s held throughout the industry; bolstered by a plentiful amount of talking head interviews from celebrity associates Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz and an abundance of footage showcasing model after model walking the runway in the apparel he brought to life, it’s clear how the man commanded a wealth of respect and love from those who adorned his garments and knew him as both a designer of inspired attire and a dear friend to those who considered themselves as such. Venice Film Festival 2023: The 17 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch The film utilizes a structured signature of so many similar efforts, seemingly going through the motions as it shows him working his way up the ladder throughout the 1990s, initially as his own brand and through his eventual work with the likes of Dior as his own personality is shown growing alongside his body of work; it’s interesting to see the vast number of shots showing a confident Galliano strutting the catwalk as self-assured as any of the models in his employ.

Brent Lang Executive Editor John Galliano loomed large over the world of fashion throughout the 1990s and early aughts. As the creative director of Givenchy and Dior, Galliano was widely admired for his bold, barrier-pushing style and his sensual, elegant designs. But Galliano’s career imploded after videos emerged of him in 2010 and 2011 speaking admiringly of Adolf Hitler and launching into an antisemitic and racist diatribe, shocking the patrons of a Parisian cafe.