Sony Pictures Classics Closes Sundance Deal For Bill Nighy Starrer ‘Living’

HYBE boybands Tomorrow X Together (TXT) and ENHYPEN have opened up about collaborating with one another for their joint performance at last December’s 2021 KBS Song Festival.In the newly released ‘BACKSTAGE: TXT x EN-‘ documentary – which features never-before-seen backstage footage of the two boybands, alongside interviews with the individual members – the members of TXT and ENHYPEN talked about how the rehearsals leading up to the performance helped form a friendship between both groups.“I thought we would be competitive, but they came to us first. We were so comfortable with each other in the practice studio,” noted TXT member Beomgyu. His thoughts were echoed by ENHYPEN member Ni-ki, who said that the two groups “became much closer” through the process.

Beck and Lizzo are among the keynote speakers announced for this year’s edition of SXSW Festival next month.The two artists join author Neal Stephenson, director Celine Tricart, Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McHill Johnson and Brentwood Growth Partners Founder Reggie Fils-Aimé in giving keynote addresses as part of the program.TX IM COMING BAAAACK—- it’s been a min, is @torchystacos vegan

New Zealand has voted to protect LGBTQ youth from so-called “conversion therapy.”In an almost unanimous vote, the New Zealand Parliament voted 112 to eight in favour of banning the controversial  practice. So-called “conversion therapy” is the discredited and dangerous practice that is intended to change, often by force, a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The New Zealand Herald reported that it is now an offence to “perform conversion practices on a child or young person aged under 18, or on someone with impaired decision-making capacity. Such offences would be subject to up to three years’ imprisonment, and up to five years where it has caused serious harm, irrespective of age.”Leader of End Conversion Therapy NZ Shaneel Lal tweeted, “The ban on conversion therapy is a win for humanity, not just the queer community.

Jamie Redknapp and his wife Frida celebrated their very first Valentine's Day as a married couple this week – but it wasn't quite as romantic as you might think.The newlyweds only recently returned from their honeymoon in the Maldives, along with their baby son Rafael. But it was back to earth with a bump on Monday.WATCH: Jamie Redknapp's baby son is already taking after him!Jamie, 48, shared a snapshot showing the couple looking hot but happy as they posed with their trainer after a boxing session.

Jessica Kiang In a valley in the Swiss canton of Bern dominated by the local watchmaking industry, the first ever International Anarchist Congress was held in 1872. And inside a traditionally made clockwork watch, such as the factories of Bern would have been producing at the time, there is a tiny spiral wheel that balances the mechanism, called the unrueh — the unrest.This dainty coincidence of echoing terminology at most might raise a “huh” from those of us into wordplay and social history and Twitter accounts that exclusively post images of machinery at work.

Bruce Willis might have spent Valentine's Day with his wife Emma Heming Willis and their two daughters, Mabel, nine, and Evelyn, seven, but on Tuesday he planned a special date with two of his eldest daughters.MORE: Bruce Willis delights fans with rare family photo with two daughtersTaking to Instagram, Emma shared the sweetest photo of Bruce smiling widely towards the camera whilst sitting in the passenger seat of a car next to daughter Scout. Behind them, his and Demi Moore's eldest daughter, Rumer, could be seen, with her seatbelt on and smiling at Emma.WATCH: Bruce and Emma's daughter learns how to ride a bike with the help of Demi Moore"If this isn't the cutest daddy-daughter date," Emma wrote alongside the photo, before adding that Bruce was a "girl dad".READ: Demi Moore pays tribute to ex Bruce Willis in the most amazing wayRELATED: Rumer Willis proudly poses in provocative lingerie – fans praise her body and messageBruce has a great relationship with all his daughters and Rumer recently paid tribute to him and mom Demi, 58, for how they have co-parented throughout the years.

Anton Du Beke has taken to Instagram to share three snapshots of his twins for a very special reason.MORE: Anton Du Beke's country home with wife Hannah and twins is full of rustic charm – insideThe pictures show George and Henrietta inside the family home and trying on some new items of clothing ahead of a skiing holiday.WATCH: Anton du Beke's twins gatecrash his live workout"Start 'em young!" Strictly star Anton, 55, wrote. "My little ones ready to hit the slopes in their gorgeous Smalls Merino wool base layers.

center of renewed fervor in recent months, and Amy Poehler's new documentary on the pair aims to shine a different kind of light on their legacy.Poehler, who directed the forthcoming doc, spoke with ET's Matt Cohen at the film's Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday, and opened up about the difficulties she faced when helming the monumental project.«The challenge of this film, because Lucy and Desi are so known, is to figure out almost how to bring them back to life. Make them people again, rather than icons,» Poehler shared.

rescued a clumsy fox who found herself in a tight spot after she got a watering can stuck on her head.Animal rescue officer Natalie Read was called out to Braiswick, in Colchester, Essex, on Friday (11 February) after a man spotted the stricken animal in his garden.Describing how she set the urban fox free after finding it in a panicked state, Natalie said: “The caller said the poor fox had the plastic watering can stuck on her head and was thrashing around trying to get it off; she was clearly distressed.“She’d wedged herself between fencing at the bottom of the garden and must have been exhausted because I was able to catch her easily and carefully prise the can off of her head."Thankfully she wasn’t injured and she was raring to go so I released her and she bounded off back into the safety of the undergrowth. It was lovely to see her running back to her den."Natalie suspects that the animal got the watering can wedged on her head when she peered in to find out whether there was anything to eat or drink inside.She added that the fox was "lucky to be spotted and rescued so quickly" because she "could have suffered serious cuts and injuries to her head" or "may have even died if she’d have been left like that".Anyone who sees a sick, injured or trapped wild animal in need of help is advised to keep a safe distance and monitor, before calling the RSPCA’s emergency hotline for advice on 0300 1234 999.

Manchester City Council made the sudden announcement earlier this week that the speed limit on one of its busiest roads would be dropping.

Blake Lively and her sister Robyn make a stylish duo as they arrive for the Michael Kors Collection Fall/Winter 2022 Runway Show held at Terminal 5 during New York Fashion Week on Tuesday night (February 15) in New York City.

The Sundance Film Festival is revealing award winners for its 2022 edition on Friday afternoon beginning at 2 p.m. PT. Like the rest of this year’s festival, which was forced to go all-virtual because of the recent Omicron surge, the awards ceremony is playing out on Twitter.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter“Living,” an acclaimed re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa’s classic meaning-of-life story, has been sold to Sony Pictures Classics follow its premiere at Sundance Film Festival.Sony Pictures Classics, the indie division of Sony Pictures, has acquired rights in North America, Latin America, India, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Germany, South Africa, Southeast Asia, and airlines worldwide. A release date has not been announced yet.“Living” was directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro.

EXCLUSIVE: Living, one of the Sundance buzz titles since its January 21 premiere, is near a deal to be acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for around $5 million for North American and some international territories, Deadline hears. This after a brisk auction involving the likes of Neon, Bleecker Street, and Focus Features.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic“What would you do if you had six months left to live?” asks the doctor who diagnoses a do-nothing bureaucrat with terminal cancer in “Ikiru,” a 1952 masterpiece I suspect precious few of those who see its English-language remake, “Living,” will recall. Quite unlike anything else in Akira Kurosawa’s career, “Ikiru” ranks among the Japanese director’s best: With no samurai battles or set-pieces, the low-key contemporary melodrama raises profound questions about how we choose to spend the limited time we’re afforded, focusing on a stoic functionary about whom even the narrator apologizes, “He might as well be a corpse.”Culturally specific as so much of “Ikiru” may be, its lessons translate quite well to midcentury British society, courtesy of Nobel-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who did the work of adapting it to 1953 London for director Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie”).

Things have not been going well for Emily. Some of it is just terrible luck.

Attempting to remake a classic film is never an easy assignment. Especially when said classic is as revered as Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama “Ikiru.” Director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro could have placed the story in contemporary times, making a new version more palatable for some critics, but instead, set it in the exact same era only interchanging London for Tokyo.

Even in its truncated virtual Covid-afflicted form last year, the Sundance Film Festival was remarkably able to debut several movies that a year later we are still talking about in the Oscar conversation including CODA, Jockey, Passing, Flee, and Mass. Maybe this success was due to the fact they all had one word titles, but more realistically it was because despite all the drawbacks, the fest honchos picked very well and now awards voters are enjoying the riches.  As I have been seeing one film after another in this year’s (virtual) fest I find myself looking for that breakout movie or performance which with the right distribution we will be talking about still a year from now. There have been some promising performances so far from the likes of Julianne Moore, Bill Nighy and a couple still to come later, but the wow factor really hit me in seeing Emma Thompson in the British film Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, premiering today at Sundance, where to put it mildly, she knocks it out of the park. This is Thompson at her best, a witty, dazzling. and above all brave performance that will undoubtedly be talked about. Her co-star Daryl McCormack  in this two-hander is equally good in the movie which centers on a 60ish widowed mother of two and religious studies teacher who hires a sex worker for a tryst in a hotel room. It is much more complicated than that, in this story of two disparate souls who come together, one full of anxiety and past regrets, the other professional to his core but with a guard he will not let down and a line he will not cross.

I have always had a philosophy that if you are going to do a remake, remake a movie that didn’t work the first time like Howard The Duck,not a classic by a great filmmaker. Well, the latter is exactly what director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) and Nobel Prize winning screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains Of The Day, Never Let Me Go) have had the audacity to do in “reimagining” (the popular term for remakes today) iconic Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s highly praised 1952 drama Ikiru. And they haven’t even bothered to change the early 50’s era in which it takes place, only the location and language. moving from Japan to England. Despite my reservations I am happy to say Living, which has its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival today, works very well and that is solely thanks to the loving care these filmmakers have put into a new version exactly 70 years after the first was released.  Of course it helps to have a writer on the level of the great and admired Ishiguro who vowed to be faithful to the script of Ikiru by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni. There have been some character enhancements, a new love story and other touches but this all holds up and shines a light on life and purpose all this time later as it centers on a decades-long straight-laced office bureaucrat (played in the original by Takashi Shimura) who has been lost in grief for many years following the death of his wife but only discovers the magic of living himself when he is told he is going to die. The other blessing for this version is in the absolutely 100% perfect casting of Bill Nighy who could not be better as the man in question, Mr. Williams.

score record-breaking pacts despite the fact that all-night bidding wars were conducted over Zoom.This year’s festival has a number of high-profile features that should attract buyers’ attention, either because they feature A-list stars like Lena Dunham, Dakota Johnson and Regina Hall or because they deal with hot topics like abortion rights and religion. There are also a number of documentaries exploring everything from the rise of TikTok to the fight to prevent a climate change catastrophe that could score major sales.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaWhen Aimee Lou Wood would tell people that she was starring in “Living,” a re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa’s classic story of a terminally ill bureaucrat’s quest for meaning, the response she received terrified her.“Everyone I spoke would tell me it was their favorite film of all time or the most beautiful film of all time,” she says. “It was a lot of pressure.”But after watching the original, she became convinced that “Living,” which moves the setting from Japan to 1950s Great Britain, had used the elements of Kurosawa’s story that made it so powerful, but provided a fresh perspective that’s uniquely its own. It also helped that the film gave Wood, best known for her work as the popular and big-hearted teenager Aimee Gibbs on Netflix’s “Sex Education,” a chance to work alongside one of her acting icons, Bill Nighy.