'Project Power': Film Review

Christopher Vourlias While the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered months of protests in the U.S.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/coatdyke-theatre-star-anna-play-20380159Like many performers in the arts, Anna has experienced a tough time throughout the coronavirus lockdown but she is optimistic about what the future holds.Anna said: “I was in the middle of some acting jobs when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, which led to them being cancelled.“It has been a difficult time as I was very busy for six months and then all of a sudden nothing was happening.“I have been doing some radio plays in my house to keep me going during lockdown.“In terms of the future I would like to work in both film and theatre but realise the latter could be tougher due to social distancing measures.“Hopefully being at the Venice Film Festival will open

Ashton Kutcher has found a novel and interesting way to raise money for a cause that is near and dear to him.The Dude Where's My Car actor, 42, appeared in a TMZ videoTuesday for a new crypto-technology auction platform called Cryptograph, in order to raise money for environmental charitiesGlobal Wildlife Conservation and Oxygen Seven.In the snippet, Ashton is seen holding up a rather pedestrian doodle he's made on a piece of notebook paper, which includes a star, some scribbles and his signature.

“Mulan” is going behind-the-scenes ahead of its Disney+ release.

Ellise Shafer editorThe Savannah College of Art and Design has announced that the 23rd edition of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival will take place in an all-virtual format this year from Oct. 24-31.During the week-long online event, programming will include live film premieres, spotlights, competitions, events, Q&As and forums, including the Docs to Watch and Wonder Women series.Georgia’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival is the largest university-run film festival in the U.S.

Horror movies can easily get lost going down a path of just being a gore-fest or just being one big metaphor. The most successful efforts in the genre manage to do more than one thing, or at least aren’t completely simple to pin down. Jay Baruchel’s second outing behind the camera, the horror flick Random Acts of Violence, manages to do this with aplomb. Not only is it gnarly and gory, it’s peddling a message, one rooted in the creative process. Almost a decade after he first began to try to bring this story to the screen, it’s now coming out on Shudder and is well worth your time. For Baruchel, as well as fans of the genre, it’s worth the wait.

Martin Scorsese has given his seal of approval to Kornél Mundruczó's Pieces of a Woman, boarding the finished film, which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival next month, as an executive producer. Mundruczó's English-language debut, Pieces of a Woman stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf as Martha and Sean Carson, a Boston couple whose lives are irrevocably disrupted when their home birth goes horribly wrong and their midwife (Molly Parker) is brought up on charges of criminal negligence.

Following his 2012 directorial debut, martial arts homage The Man With the Iron Fists, and 2017’s romantic musical drama Love Beats Rhymes, filmmaker, composer and producer RZA changes up genres once again for his third feature, a convoluted New Orleans-set heist pic. Unfolding in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, RZA’s trenchant take on the synergistic interaction of poverty and greed gradually loses focus as it devolves into a familiar account of warring gangsters, corrupt politicians and a city struggling for redemption.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentVenice Days pic “Beware of Children” and Sundance alumnus “Charter” are among the five Nordic films nominated for the coveted Nordic Council Film Prize.“Beware of Children” was directed by Norwegian scribe/helmer Dag Johan Haugerud and produced by Yngve Sæther.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentVenice Days pic “Beware of Children” and Sundance alumnus “Charter” are among the five new Nordic films nominated for the coveted Nordic Council Film Prize of 2020. “Beware of Children” was directed by Norwegian scribe/helmer Dag Johan Haugerud and produced by Yngve Sæther.

Christopher Vourlias Xhafer is a 45-year-old pharmacologist who left Kosovo to live in Germany, where he has a comfortable, middle-class life with his German wife and children. But one day a dead rat mysteriously appears hanging from the garden gate in front of his home, setting off a bizarre series of menacing events.

Dave McNary Film ReporterWill Smith and Kevin Hart will star in and produce a remake of the 1987 road comedy “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” for Paramount Pictures.The original “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” was directed by John Hughes, and starred Steve Martin and the late John Candy as a pair of mismatched businessmen trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving in the face of a variety of travel disasters.The remake will be a modern update of the original, with Smith and Hart playing characters who are forced to team up to tackle travel obstacles to get home to their loved ones.Hart’s HartBeat Productions and Smith’s Westbrook Studios are developing the remake.

Naman Ramachandran The British Film Institute (BFI) launched a new £630,000 ($825,000) Film Audience Network exhibition fund on Monday in order to “support dynamic cultural programming and activities to engage diverse audiences.”Exhibitors around the U.K. will be able to apply for up to £10,000 ($13,100) in order to reengage with audiences who are now slowly returning to cinemas after a coronavirus-enforced lockdown that lasted months.

James McClain While a $20 million pricetag attached to a Beverly Hills property is a fairly common sighting, it’s rare to find one affixed to a tastefully renovated midcentury modern located in the most prime neighborhood pocket of town, where some of the nearest neighbors include heavyweights like Ellen DeGeneres, Sam Gores, and Fiji Water/Pom Wonderful billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick.Built in the late 1960s, the sprawling single-story has long been owned by Nathalie Marciano, the founder of independent film production company 26 Films (“The Duel,” “My Life in Ruins”) and a contemporary art dealer.

Alissa Simon Film CriticThe micro-budget feature “Focus, Grandma” from Bosnian helmer-writer Pjer Žalica is a black comedy set in Sarajevo during the spring of 1992, when members of a dysfunctional family are summoned to the bed of their dying matriarch. As the siblings and their spouses arrive from far-flung parts of Yugoslavia, their squabbles and meanderings down memory lane, as well as machinations over the anticipated inheritance, distract them from the bigger picture of what is happening to their country.Although the storyline feels a tad familiar and the humor is less sharp than in Žalica’s debut “Fuse,” there is considerable pleasure in watching the talented players in the ensemble.

When Sujata Day set out to write her first feature film, Definition Please, her idea was to explore the life of an Indian-American woman who once won a national spelling bee. Rather than have Monica, of whom Day plays in the film, follow a traditionally expected trajectory of becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer or business executive, she opted for Monica's life to take a different route.

Jamie Lang Tehran-born filmmaker Abtin Sarabi’s “Land Lot S7” featured in this year’s Pardi di domani short film competition at the Locarno  Festival. Now, the director is prepping two feature length documentaries, and has shared early details of each with Variety.“The mad proliferation of the wind gives the trees strange outlines,” reads “Land Lot S7’s” cryptic synopsis.

Christopher Vourlias Bosnian director Pjer Žalica recently found himself standing before Sarajevo’s National Theater, which in less troubled times would have hosted the world premiere of his comic drama “Focus, Grandma”—the opening film of the 26th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “In front of the theater, there is this red carpet and nothing else,” Žalica told Variety.

GARRETT CLAYTON’S A GAY IN THE LIFE Former Disney Channel star and out Hollywood actor Garrett Clayton (King Cobra) recently launched a weekly LGBTQ series on YouTube with the long-term goal of humanizing the stories and struggles of contemporary LGBTQ rights and peoples around the world. Co-created and co-hosted by Clayton’s fiancé Blake Knight, the series also intends to reveal how LGBTQ identities, attitudes, and experiences vary greatly from one country and culture to the next.

Mackenzie Nichols Staff WriterAs artists and creatives find themselves out of work due to the pandemic, the Sundance Institute has initiated a plan to help those in marginalized communities that are disproportionally affected by coronavirus-related shutdown.The Sundance Institute announced on Thursday the organizations that have been selected as part of their $1 million Sundance Institute Respond and Reimagine Plan, which redistributes funds to support artists who need urgent assistance, as well as organizations around the world who are working to support artists in marginalized communities.Among the many organizations selected include Ambulante, a non-profit organization promoting documentary cinema in Mexico; The Black TV & Film

Variety welcomed as a “charming, humorous debut.” “American Night” turns on the sometimes fractious dynamics between movie animal actors and their wranglers. Among a trio of titles from young Colombian directors,  neo-noir documentary “Anhell69” is Colombian Theo Montoya’s first feature, after his short film “Son of Sodom” was chosen for the Cannes 2020 Official Selection.