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The British Independent Film Awards (Bifas) has unveiled the documentary and international film longlists for its 2024 ceremony, with films including in-videogame title Grand Theft Hamlet and Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora.

Grand Theft Hamlet is on the 12-strong best feature documentary list. The film is the debut feature from directorial duo Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane; it premiered at SXSW this year and was recently acquired for a UK-Ireland theatrical release. It follows two struggling actors who find solace from lockdown isolation by staging William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the online Grand Theft Auto game.

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Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Big World Pictures has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to Iair Said’s “Most People Die on Sundays” from sales agent Heretic. The existential comedy, Said’s fiction feature debut, was an official selection in the Acid sidebar at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film is set for a theatrical release in early 2025, following a fall festival run. Said previously directed the documentary feature “Flora’s Life Is No Picnic.”

“Most People Die on Sundays” follows David, a young middle-class Jewish man described as corpulent, homosexual, and afraid of flying. He returns to Buenos Aires from Europe for his uncle’s funeral, only to learn that his mother has decided to disconnect his father’s respirator. The story explores David’s struggle with existential anguish as he navigates his new reality.

Said explained the film’s genesis: “When my dad died, we had to pay $10,000 to...

A village teacher is accused of inappropriate behaviour in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s handsome, beautifully performed, three-and-a-half-hour fable

When we first glimpse schoolteacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), he’s little more than a sooty smudge in the wide, white snowscape of a bitter Anatolian winter. Spilled out of a minibus after a holiday, he registers displeasure with every heavy step through the blizzard as he returns to a place he describes repeatedly as a hellhole. Thick snowfall blurs the edges of his advancing figure, which takes an unexpectedly long time to take on a solid, three-dimensional form. Such unhurried pacing prevails for nearly three-and-a-half hours in this Turkish-language arthouse epic, the latest from festival heavyweight and 2014 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan. It’s an approach familiar from his previous pictures, such as Winter Sleep and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, as a portrait of Samet is built by increments,...

Disney’s latest blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine headlines this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, aiming to revive the recent fortunes of the once-mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

A sequel to Deadpool and Deadpool 2 as well as a follow-up to Logan, the film sees Deadpool pulled from his quiet life by the Time Variance Authority and set on a mission to save his universe – during which he collides with Wolverine from another universe. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman reprise their roles as the titular superheroes, with Matthew Macfadyen, Morena Baccarin and Screen Stars of Tomorrow Emma Corrin and Dafne Keen also among the cast.

Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” maintained its lead at the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second consecutive week, earning £4.9 million ($6.3 million), according to numbers from Comscore. The animated sequel has now accumulated £17.4 million in total.

Warner Bros.’ “Twisters” made a notable entrance, blowing into the second position with a £4.1 million opening. Disney’s “Inside Out 2” continued to perform well in its sixth week, adding £1.5 million to reach a cumulative total of £47.2 million after six weekends.

Black Bear’s “Longlegs” held onto fourth place in its second week with £1.3 million, bringing its total to £3.9 million. Paramount’s “A Quiet Place: Day One” rounded out the top five, earning £447,907 in its fourth week for a total of £9 million.

Further down the chart, Bollywood film “Bad Newz” from Moviegoers and Altitude’s “Blur: To The End” debuted at seventh and eighth places respectively, with openings of £165,464 and £147,981. The National Theatre Live...

Although Turkish cinema scene is more associated with mainstream art house efforts, its more genre-oriented pool is also quite strong and recognized globally. One of the newer examples of it, a multi-genre crossover “The Funeral” written and directed by Orcun Behram is touring the genre festivals since its world premiere at the last year's edition of Sitges. Most recently, it was showcased at the official competition of Grossmann Fantastic Wine and Film Festival in Ljutomer, Slovenia, where it scooped the main Viscious Cat award.

Behram opens his film with a sequence mostly located in a hearse van touring the back roads of Turkey to a small village graveyard where a funeral takes place in the rain. Its purpose is to establish the character of our protagonist, the driver named Cemal as a loner and a man of few words who possibly holds a secret. Soon enough, Cemal is approached by...

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week we’re talking to leading German producer Fabian Gasmia, whose credits include Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, Leos Carax’s Annette and, more recently, Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry starrer Treasure, which had its North American premiere at Tribeca last weekend. Gasmia, who set up production banner Seven Elephants in 2018 with directors Julia von Heinz, Erik Schmitt and David Wnendt, talks us through building that outfit, his “special relationship” with France and why he thinks German cinema is having a “renaissance.”

International relationships are proving more significant than ever in what is now a fragile and economically strained independent film market and Fabian Gasmia is proving to be a European partner with clout. The German producer, who recently produced Lena Dunham...

Iconic Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the maker of films like Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep, and The Wild Pear Tree, once again proves his brilliance in encapsulating the complexities between man and society in his latest work, About Dry Grasses. The film’s plot is centered around Samet, a school teacher posted in a remote village in snowy Anatolia who desperately wants to leave the place. Ceylan masterfully presents an introspection into his far-from-perfect protagonist while also painting a picture of the regional culture and struggles through the other characters seen in the film.

Spoiler Alert

What is the film about?

About Dry Grasses begins amidst heavy snowfall at a small village in Eastern Anatolia during the harsh winter season when the entire area is covered under a thick white blanket of snow. A man is seen getting off a bus on the main road and...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Nuri Bilge Ceylan made a triumphant return to Cannes last year with About Dry Grasses, for which Merve Dizdar won Best Actress at Cannes, and now Turkey’s Oscar entry now arrives on streaming. In his review, Leonardo Goi said, “The pastures in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s luminous new film are only dry at the very end. Save for that brief summery coda, the landscape in About Dry Grasses remains a snowcapped immensity where prairies are ringed by belittling peaks, people stand out as calligraphic silhouettes, and snow falls so heavy as to blot out everything. It’s as if it fell ‘to make oblivion possible,’ observes art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), and in a film...

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival competition jury, led by president Greta Gerwig, met the international press Tuesday — and it didn’t take long before the assembled stars were urged to address the various fraught political issues swirling around this year’s edition of the world’s most glamorous film fest.

On the eve of the 77th festival, Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux had set the tone by attempting to distance the event from hot-button topics, saying at his own press conference on Monday, “We are trying to have a festival without these polemics. In Cannes, the politics should be on the screen.”

The French festival head, who has served in his role since 2001, noted how coverage of Cannes has changed over his tenure, as the international media’s interest has shifted from the films on exhibition to an expectation that the festival be responsive to surrounding social issues. That was certainly the case Tuesday,...

Isabelle Huppert will head up the 2024 Venice Film Festival jury this year. Serving as jury president, Huppert will hand out the Golden Lion and other awards when the festival on the Lido concludes. The dates for this year’s edition are August 28 to September 7.

Huppert has never before served as jury president at Venice, but she did at Cannes in 2009, awarding the Palme d’Or to Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” after deliberations with James Gray, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Asia Argento, Robin Wright, and Lee Chang-dong. Before that she’d served on the jury headed by Dirk Bogarde at Cannes in 1984, which gave the top prize to “Paris, Texas.”

The 71-year-old actress has been a powerhouse force in global cinema for the past 50 years, making her mark in French cinema before quickly appearing in Hollywood productions such as Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate.” Over the past decade Huppert’s...

We’re just two weeks away from the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and this morning the august French institution revealed who will determine the winners of this year’s awards. A cross-section of international talent will join “Barbie” and “Lady Bird” director Greta Gerwig, who will lead the panel, in an effort to undoubtedly compare apples to oranges and try to make sense of a diverse slate of films from directors like David Cronenberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Baker, Ali Abbasi, and many others.

Lily Gladstone, who won several Best Actress awards last year (but not the Oscar!) for her revolutionary turn in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is the other American joining Gerwig. The actress, currently seen on FX/Hulu’s “Under the Bridge,” is returning to Cannes one year after Martin Scorsese and Apple Original Films brought “Flower Moon” to the French Riviera festival for its out-of-competition debut.

The Cannes Film Festival has picked its full jury.

Oscar-nominated The Killers of the Flower Moon lead Lily Gladstone, French stars Eva Green and Omar Sy, and Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino are among the A-listers who will join Barbie director Greta Gerwig, this year’s jury president for the 77th Cannes Film Festival, in selecting the winners, including the best film Palme d’Or, from the 2024 competition lineup.

A trio of international Oscar-nominated directors: Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki (Capernaum), Spain’s Juan Antonio Bayona (Society of the Snow) and Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), as well as Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, co-writer of 2014 Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep (with director husband Nuri Bilge Ceylan), complete the five-woman, four-man jury.

Among the films in the running for this year’s Palme d’Or are Francis Ford Coppola’s long-anticipated Megalopolis, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things follow-up Kinds of Kindness,...

The Cannes Film Festival has named the eight members of its main Competition jury who will join previously announced president Greta Gerwig in deciding the Palme d’Or and other key prizes at 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

They are Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, U.S. actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director and screenwriter J.A. Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda and French actor and producer Omar Sy.

The wife and long-time collaborator of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, screenwriter and photographer Ceylan co-wrote 2014 Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep and also took co-writing credits on Cannes selected films Three Monkeys (Best Director Prize 2008), Once upon a time in Anatolia (Grand Prix 2011), The Wild Pear Tree (2018) and About Dry Grasses (2023).

Ceylan also appeared as an actress and took art director credits on her husband’s early films...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the eight jurors who will be joining jury president Greta Gerwig for the event’s 2024 edition (May 14-25).

They are American actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, French actor and producer Omar Sy, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director and screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, and Italian actor Pierfrancisco Favino.

The jury will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 22 films in competition at the closing ceremony on May 25. Anatomy Of A Fall picked up the top prize last year.

The movie About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes you into a village with snowy mountains where life moves slowly. It feels like you’re right there, watching the characters go about their lives. The story revolves around three main characters: Samet, Kenan, and Nuray. Samet is a middle-aged man who wants to leave the village for Istanbul because he doesn’t like the boring people or their traditional ways. But he’s stuck working as an elementary teacher there. Kenan, his colleague and roommate, seems like a simple man who is happy with his ordinary life. Both Samet and Kenan are attracted to Nuray, who’s an artist, an English teacher, and a leftist. The movie explores their relationships and how they unfold. Then, there’s a big incident at the school where Samet and Kenan are accused of doing something inappropriate with their students. What really happened?...

China’s video streamers, much like their counterparts in the west, have passed their peak growth phase and have been forced to refocus their efforts on achieving profitability. In the case of IQiyi, which is a subsidiary of tech giant Baidu but has its own stock market listing on the Nasdaq, that transition has meant reduced content spending and a more rigorous approach to quality and investment in winning shows.

“To the Wonder,” which debuted on Sunday in competition at Canneseries, is a product of that less-is-more approach. It follows the appearance of IQiyi’s crime drama “Why Try to Change Me Now” in the 2023 Berlin Series lineup.

The eight-part “To the Wonder,” which shares a title with the 2012 fantasy film by Terrence Malick but has no connection to it, is a big-budget heart-warmer that stars Ma Yili (“The First Half of My Life”), Zhou Yiran (“Across the Furious Sea”) and Yu Shi.

With no new bust-out limited releases, repertory continues to do its part for the specialty box office, the latest a 4k restoration of Nostalghia. Kino Lorber said the Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film, which opened Wednesday, will gross an estimated $22.87k at Film Forum in NYC for the five days.

It’s currently the top performer at the theater and will take in more than all other films screening there combined over that period. Two additional shows at the Roxie in San Francisco and the Austin Film Society bring combined grosses to about $29.4k. Expands next week to Philadelphia and Montreal with additional markets coming later. The film about a Russian poet and his interpreter, who travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, stars Oleg Yankovskiy, Andrei Gorchakov, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano and Patrizia Terreno.

Kino Lorber had success with the restored 4k re-release of Bernardo Bertolucci’s...

by Nick Taylor

Are you, like the rest of us here at The Film Experience, furiously racing to catch up with some of last year’s most celebrated films before March 10th? Depending on where you live, there’s another certified banger making its way across the US and Canada this weekend. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses likely made its biggest headlines out of Cannes for Merve Dizdar’s semi-surprising Best Actress prize against more internationally recognizable competition like the May December gals and newly Oscar-nominated Sandra Hüller. If you can believe it, Dizdar’s win is wholly deserving, and the film itself is remarkable…...

Italy’s Best International Feature Oscar-nominated Io Capitano starts its U.S. run today in ten market on 21 screens, a bit wider than usual for Cohen Media Group but with Academy final voting just started, reviews are gold for the odyssey that director Matteo Garrone calls “a movie about human rights. About the rights of everybody to move, to look for a better life.”

That’s the quest of teenage cousins Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall), who live in a close-knit village in Senegal. They’re not starving, not in danger. They are poor, restless, want a shot at something better in Europe and are oblivious to the horrors along the way.

Sarr won Best Emerging Actor at the Venice premiere of the film, which marks the onscreen debut for both stars and the first acting role for Sarr, who, Deadline’s review says, “carries the whole movie...

To Sir, With Ego: Ceylan Waltzes with Narcissism in Captivating Character Study

The filmography of Nuri Bilge Ceylan is characterized by complex examinations of human nature, stretched across scenarios which have only become more dense over the past two decades. His latest, About Dry Grasses, co-written by his regular collaborator (and wife) Ebru Ceylan and Akin Aksu (returning for script duty after first working on Ceylan’s 2018 title The Wild Pear Tree) showcases, once again, an unparalleled level of dialogue in modern cinema. Arguably less abstruse than some of his past works, this latest marathon focuses on a generally unfavorable protagonist, a manipulative narcissist whose behavior is both fascinating and repellant as it is understandable.…...

Exclusive: Cannes Marché du Film has unveiled the four film industry professionals who will select the projects for the second edition of its Investors Circle initiative.

The one-day event – taking place within the framework of this year’s market, running from May 14 to 22 – is aimed at connecting elevated, international feature film projects with film financiers and high-net worth individuals with a desire to invest in cinema.

This year’s selection committee comprises Arte France Cinéma CEO Remi Burah; French film and TV biz entrepreneur Serge Hayat; Georgian cinema professional Tamara Tatishvili, who is currently head of the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund, and Korean co-production expert Wonsun Shin.

The projects are gathered through a combination of networking and scouting as well as direct submissions to the Cannes Marché du Film up until February 29. The Selection Committee will meet throughout March to decide the final line-up.

Aleksandra Zakharchenko,...

The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2024 will celebrate its 21st edition from July 13th (Sat) to 21st (Sun), 2024 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production.

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.

Playtime (“Son of Saul”) is reteaming with celebrated French directors François Ozon (“By the Grace of God”) and sister duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin (“17 Girls”) on their respective upcoming films, “When Fall Is Coming” and “The Quiet Son.”

“When Fall is Coming” marks Ozon’s follow up to “The Crime Is Mine.” The film stars Hélène Vincent (“The Specials”), Josiane Balasko (“Back to Mom’s”), Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin”) and Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”).

The film tells the story of Michelle, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a charming Burgundy village near her longtime friend Marie-Claude. She eagerly anticipates her grandson Lucas spending the school vacation with her, but things don’t go as planned. Feeling lonely, Michelle loses her sense of purpose, until Marie-Claude’s son gets out of prison.

The film is self-produced by Ozon through his vehicle Foz. Diaphana Distribution will release it in France.

After keeping a fairly low profile as president of France’s leading commercial network TF1 Group for seven years, Gilles Pelisson, the discreet Harvard-educated executive, is ready for showtime. He has been propelled into the spotlight to promote French film and TV in his new role as president of Unifrance, succeeding Serge Toubiana last summer.

While participating in his first big gig for Unifrance at the Rendez-Vous showcase in Paris (which wraps Tuesday), Pelisson showed he had enough swagger to mingle with French stars and industry professionals alike, as well as deliver speeches about the prospects for French movies and TV series with both authority and conviction.

In the space of one week during the Rendez-Vous, he handed out the French Film Award to “By the Grace of God” actor Melvil Poupaud, and presented Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan with the best international co-production prize at the Lumiere Award on Monday.

Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall was named best film of the year at France’s Lumiere Awards on Monday evening.

Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari also took home the best screenplay award and lead Sandra Hüller earned the prize for best actress at the 29th edition of the awards, considered to be France’s version of the Golden Globes and voted on by international correspondents from 36 countries.

The courtroom drama about a woman on trial for her husband’s death in the French Alps was nominated in six categories, but Lumiere voters spread their votes across the board...

Justine Triet’s Oscar contender Anatomy of a Fall was the big winner at the 29th Lumiere Awards, France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes, picking up three trophies, including best film and best actress for star Sandra Hüller.

Triet missed out on the best director trophy, losing to Thomas Cailley for his supernatural family drama The Animal Kingdom but picked up the best screenplay honor for Anatomy of a Fall, sharing it with co-writer Arthur Harari. The mystery thriller premiered in Cannes last year, where it won the Palme d’Or. Anatomy of a Fall won two Golden Globes, for best foreign-language film and best screenplay, and is nominated for seven BAFTAs, including best film.

Arieh Worthalter won best actor for his starring role in Cédric Kahn’s courtroom drama The Goldman Case. Iris Kaltenbäck took best first film for her debut The Rapture. Best documentary honors went to...

Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall continued its prize-winning run on Monday at France’s 29th Lumière Awards clinching Best Film and Best Screenplay, while its German star Sandra Hüller won Best Actress.

The Lumières fete the best films, performances and technical achievements of French cinema across 13 categories.

The French equivalent of the Golden Globes, they are voted on by the Académie des Lumières which is made up of France-based international journalists representing 36 countries.

In other key prizes, Thomas Cailley won Best Director for Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard opener The Animal Kingdom, while Arieh Worthalter won Best Actor for his performance in Cédric Khan’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight opener The Goldman Case.

Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall, which was nominated in six Lumière categories, is on an award-winning streak.

The movie swept the board at the European Film Awards in Berlin last December...

Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning “Anatomy of a Fall” picked up top accolades at the 29th Lumiere Awards, France’s equivalent to the Golden Globes, at a ceremony held Monday at the Forum des Images in Paris.

While Triet lost the best director nod to Thomas Cailley for his supernatural family drama “The Animal Kingdom,” “Anatomy of a Fall” won best film, actress for Sandra Huller, and screenplay for Triet and Arthur Harari. The movie is nominated for seven BAFTA awards, and won two Golden Globes (for screenplay and foreign-language film) earlier this month. While on stage to receive the best screenplay award, Triet and her partner Harari delivered the ceremony’s highlight, debating whether they’re collaborate again on a project. Triet admitted that the writing process had been complicated and said, “I don’t think he’s accept to work again with me but one time was already great.

UK exhibitor-distributor Picturehouse Entertainment today unveiled an updated acquisitions team following the departure of its long-term head, Paul Ridd, who joined the Edinburgh Film Festival as director late last year.

Industry veteran James Brown has joined the company to head acquisitions strategy, a role that he will begin immediately on a consultant basis. He will work alongside Julia Trawinska, a former Picturehouse part-time staffer who has now taken on the full-time role of Acquisitions Manager.

Brown and Trawinska will report to Picturehouse Managing Director Clare Binns, who will continue to attend all major film festivals to lead the acquisitions team.

Julia Trawinska

Brown previously held acquisition roles at a variety of independent distribution companies across the world, including Metrodome (UK/Ire), The Works (UK/Ire), Music Box (US), and Rialto (Aus/Nz). He will continue to work as a film producer, with his notable productions including the Academy Award winner Still Alice.

The general advice given to filmmakers, as to other kinds of creative artist, is to show, not tell. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, however, shows through the telling. About Dry Grasses is a film built largely out of conversations, but not every voice receives equal attention, and the different narratives they present cannot easily be reconciled, even over the course of three and a quarter hours.

Samet (Deniz Celiloglu) is a teacher working out his four year mandatory post-training placement in a remote Anatolian village before, he hopes, getting a transfer to the capital. Things go wrong for him when he is accused of inappropriate behaviour with two of his young female pupils. In the mess which follows, he struggles to rebuild his life, finding hope in a possible relationship with fellow teacher Nuray (Merve Dizdar) – but nothing here is quite what it seems, and Samet will ultimately be left wrestling with.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.

List of journalists who have been killed.

The below is of lesser note:

Best First Watches:

Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...

2023 was a year of seemingly seismic change for the film industry, as superhero movies (especially Marvel) lost their grip on the box office while more auteur-led efforts such as Oppenheimer and Barbie made serious bank. Audiences seem hungry for a return to thoughtful and engaging efforts, voting for their wallets against a decade of cape-clad hegenomy in favour of more challenging (and visually interesting) cinema. But as with the majority of contemporary film analysis, these are mostly concerns for Hollywood. The international arthouse scene plugs away as usual, providing a diverse range of exciting visions that once again expand the very possibilities of the cinematic form. I went back and forth on this list several times, only coming to a final top ten this very morning. With courtroom drama, oddball romance, epic character study and even outright horror, this year’s selection subverted and expanded genre norms, showing that great cinema,...

China’s 5th Hainan Island International Film Festival (Hiiff) welcomed an esteemed roster of global movie figures including jury head and Palme d’Or-winning auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan when it opened on Dec. 16, with local state media hailing the event for building new platforms for filmmakers to “communicate and collaborate.”

But the festival continues to be shadowed by accusations concerning a distinct lack of communication — and the non-payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money promised to young filmmakers at its past editions.

Chinese producer Yini Qian’s film Drop Your Cat won the festival’s 2020 Hainan Choice Award, which included a RMB1.5 million (about $212,000) production-support prize. But the filmmaker says only RMB225,000 ($32,000) was paid — and not until June 2021. Repeated attempts by Yini and her partners to follow up on the unpaid award have yielded nothing.

“From 2021 to 2022, the former festival organizer responded with acknowledgment of the debts,...

The shortlist of 15 films to vie for a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination is set to be announced on December 21. In all, movies from 88 countries are eligible this year, and as we regularly see, they offer up a rich treasure trove.

Below, we take a closer look at the potential candidates for the early cut. They include prize winners from Sundance to Berlin, Cannes, Venice and myriad other festivals and awards bodies.

Deadline, through its various Contenders events as well as separate interviews, has spoken with filmmakers behind many of the entries while all of the titles on the main list below have been reviewed by Deadline’s critics as we continue to grow our focus on international films.

To note, we have not highlighted films which are also eligible in Animation and Documentary, though our picks for possible crossovers are at the end of the main list, as are our Special Mentions.

France’s awards season has officially kicked off with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” landing six nominations at the Lumières Awards, including best film and director.

The courtroom drama, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, is the season’s frontrunner. The Lumières are voted on by Paris-based correspondents working for foreign outlets across 36 countries.

Sandra Huller, who stars in the film as a German novelist put on trial after her French husband dies mysteriously, is nominated for best actress, while Milo Machado Graner, who plays her astute, low-vision son, is nominated for best male newcomer.

“Anatomy of Fall” has been on a roll, garnering a raft of international prizes at the European Film Awards, Gothams, as well as Los Angeles and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, along with four Golden Globe nominations for best film, screenplay, actress and foreign film. The movie that was...

Nader Saeivar’s Iranian drama No End has been dropped from the official selection of the Hainan Island International Film Festival in what filmmakers say was an act of censorship by Chinese authorities.

ArtHood Entertainment, which is handling world sales for No End, told The Hollywood Reporter it received a confirmation from the Hainan Island festival on Nov. 19 that the Iranian drama had been picked to run in the main competition at the event. The 2023 Hainan festival runs Dec. 16-22 in the tropical resort city of Sanya in China’s southernmost province.

But this week, the festival has pulled the film, citing “political pressure and censorship laws of the Chinese government,” said ArtHood.

The Hainan festival is backed by the state-run China Media Group and the People’s Government of Hainan Province, under the guidance of the China Film Administration. The event’s competition jury this year includes international figures like...

Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall is the frontrunner for France’s Lumiere awards, the country’s answer to the Golden Globes, with 6 nominations, including for best film and best director.

The courtroom drama, starring Sandra Hüller as a writer who may have murdered her husband, won the Palme d’Or in Cannes this year and swept the European Film Awards on the weekend, taking 5 trophies, including best film. Anatomy of Fall, a Neon release in the U.S., has been nominated for 4 Golden Globes.

Tran Anh Hung’s foodie period drama The Taste of Things, which was picked over Anatomy of a Fall as France’s country’s official Oscar contender in the best international feature category, received just one Lumiere nom, for best cinematography.

Another French courtroom drama, Cedric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, picked up 5 Lumiere noms, tying with Thomas Cailley’s sci-fi tale The Animal Kingdom.

The Lumieres are voted on by international correspondents from 36 countries.

Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning Anatomy Of A Fall leads the nominations for France’s Lumiere awards, nominated in six categories, including best film and best director.

Cedric Kahn’s courtroom drama The Goldman Case and Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom, have each received five nominations.

All three films have been nominated in the best film category alongside Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer that earned four nominations and Clément Cogitore’s Son of Ramses with three.

The filmmakers of all five of those titles have also been nominated for best director.

Every year since its creation in 1956, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invites the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The category was previously called the Best Foreign Language Film, but this was changed in April 2019 to Best International Feature Film, after the Academy deemed the word “Foreign” to be outdated.

The award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. For the 96th Academy Awards, the submitted motion pictures must be first released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline for submissions to the Academy was October 2, 2023, and 92 countries submitted a film. The 15-film shortlist will be announced on December 21, 2023, followed by the official nominations on January 23, 2024.

Here are this edition's Asian Submissions for Best International Feature Film.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSTrenque Lauquen.Absurdly early as it may seem, the Best of 2023 lists are starting to arrive. The New York Times published top tens by Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson (only her third published piece as the Times’s newest movie critic after an illustrious run at Vox), Vulture shared lists from Bilge Ebiri and Allison Willmore, and Richard Brody unveiled his impossible-to-hem-in roundup at the New Yorker (we’ll return to his list in the Readings section). There are some consensus picks—among them, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Showing Up, and Passages—but there’s an exciting sprawl overall. Meanwhile, Cahiers du Cinéma shared their top ten; Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen was their delightful, well-deserved sleeper choice for film of the year. But...

"A searing, mesmerizing, and unforgettably wintry mood piece." Janus Films + Sideshow have revealed the official US trailer for About Dry Grasses, the latest film from award-winning Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where I wrote a rave review and it ended up winning the Best Actress award. A young teacher is sent to work in a snowy village in East Anatolia. After a long time waiting he loses all hope of escaping from this gloomy life. However, his colleague Nuray helps him to regain perspective. The latest deeply philosophical drama from Ceylan is a work of elegant, novelistic filmmaking, rigorously unpacking questions of belief versus action, the tangible versus the enigmatic, and who we wish to be versus how we live... A remarkable dinner table conversation between Samet and Nuray "ranks with Ceylan's greatest sequences, and Dizdar, who won the Best Actress prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival,...

Returning to Cannes with his first film in five years, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses earned a Best Actress prize for Merve Dizdar. The film follows the young art teacher Samet “who is finishing his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in. Will his encounter with Nuray, herself a teacher, help him overcome his angst?” After this month’s Oscar-qualifying run, Janus-Sideshow will begin unrolling About Dry Grasses on February 23, 2024, ahead of which there’s a U.S. trailer.

Rory O’Connor was impressed with the film at Cannes, writing, “It’s a hallmark of Ceylan’s artistry that those exchanges are as strongly staged as they are dramatic. Here as in another of the director’s Anatolia-set dramas,...

Turkey’s Best International Feature Oscar entry “About Dry Grasses” defrosts the blurred lines between teacher and student, colleague and mentor, in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s epically ambitioned, Cannes award-winning drama.

IndieWire debuts the trailer for the film that follows an abusive teacher (Deniz Celiloğlu) as he grapples with living in icy Anatolia, including favoring one pupil (Ece Bağcı), and seeking solace with a fellow teacher.

Samet (Celiloğlu) is a young art teacher now in his fourth year of compulsory service in a remote village in Anatolia. After a turn of events he can hardly make sense of, as is the case of many a Ceylan character facing a void, he loses his hopes of escaping the grim life he seems to be stuck in. Will his encounter with Nuray, also a teacher, help him overcome his angst? Musab Ekici also stars as Samet’s roommate.

The film is directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan,...

‘About Dry Grasses’, a Turkish film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, will be screened as the Mid-fest Film at the 54th International Film Festival of India (Iffi) here on Friday.

The film, known for its storyline and performance by the actors, has garnered international acclaim, with its latest accolade being Merve Dizdar winning the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival 2023.

‘About Dry Grasses’ has already made its mark at prestigious film festivals worldwide, including at Cannes, Toronto International Film Festival 2023, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023, Busan International Film Festival 2023, and Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2023.

Its narrative has resonated with global audiences, making it a standout film in the cinematic landscape.

‘About Dry Grasses’ will be screened at Inox Screen-1 in Panaji at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. The cast and crew of the film will be present during its screening.

The film revolves around a young teacher...

‘About Dry Grasses’, a Turkish film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, will be screened as the Mid-fest Film at the 54th International Film Festival of India (Iffi) here on Friday.

The film, known for its storyline and performance by the actors, has garnered international acclaim, with its latest accolade being Merve Dizdar winning the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival 2023.

‘About Dry Grasses’ has already made its mark at prestigious film festivals worldwide, including at Cannes, Toronto International Film Festival 2023, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023, Busan International Film Festival 2023, and Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2023.

Its narrative has resonated with global audiences, making it a standout film in the cinematic landscape.

‘About Dry Grasses’ will be screened at Inox Screen-1 in Panaji at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. The cast and crew of the film will be present during its screening.

The film revolves around a young teacher...

Co-organized by the Cannes Film Festival and Market and Argentina’s Incaa film-tv agency, late November’s Ventana Sur market looks set to have at least one star: Cannes head Thierry Fremaux himself.

Presenting the Cannes Film Week, a extraordinary showcase of 2023 winners led this year by Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” and bowing on Nov. 27 with Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” Fremaux usually conducts or presents on-stage conversations with Cannes winners, which of course take in a significant part of the greatest filmmakers in the world. In Argentina, a country with a huge film tradition and one of the biggest market shares for national films until economic crisis and the pandemic decimated state funding, visiting auteurs have been treated like rock stars, even such unyielding social realist directors such as the Dardenne brothers.

This year round, however, the limelight will fall on Fremaux...