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Exclusive: New York-based Women Make Movies has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.

The intimate work sees Soualem accompany her Palestinian-French actress mother Hiam Abbass back to the Arab village within Israeli borders, which she left in the 1980s to pursue her acting career in Europe.

There, they reflect on her past as well as the lives of Abbass’ mother and grandmother in a powerful work exploring themes of displacement, identity and survival across four generations of women.

Wmm executive director Debra Zimmerman said the film was a “perfect fit” for the label, which aims to put spotlight on the work of female filmmakers.

“It is a beautiful film about four generations of Palestinian women,” she said. “I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to have this film seen widely right now by the diverse audiences that need and deserve to see it.

"The paradox of going back [in time] is to have to succumb, once again, to that sense of yourself as totally inconsequential. So why on earth would I go back?" HBO has unveiled an official trailer for a documentary film titled You Were My First Boyfriend, directed and produced by Cecilia Aldarondo and co-directed by Sarah Enid Hagey. This premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival this year, and it will be out to watch on HBO / Max streaming soon this November. "What if you could rewrite your adolescence?" is the predominant thought. You Were My First Boyfriend is a hybrid doc film that embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile one woman's tortured teen years by revisiting her most formative and cringeworthy experiences. As she describes in this trailer, it's an attempt at an "exorcism" of the horrors of her time growing up, and the memories that still haunt her. I do...

Director Cecilia Aldarondo looks back on her adolescence and examines how experiences from high school continue to impact her life in the documentary You Were My First Boyfriend. HBO’s released the first trailer for what’s described as a hybrid documentary that features recreations of key events from Aldarondo’s past.

“What if you could rewrite your adolescence? In this high school reunion movie turned inside out, filmmaker Aldarondo embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile her tortured teen years. She revisits some of her most formative – and at times cringeworthy – childhood experiences, tracking down old crushes and reenacting visceral memories of youthful humiliation and desire, at times playing the role of her younger self and casting teenagers to play the kids in her life who still haunt her,” reads HBO’s synopsis. “Oscillating between present and past, humor and heartbreak, You Were My First Boyfriend is a hybrid...

The documentary You Were My First Boyfriend, directed and produced by Cecilia Aldarondo and co-directed by Sarah Enid Hagey, premieres November 8th at 9:00 p.m. Et/Pt on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. The film had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival.

Synopsis: What if you could rewrite your adolescence? In this high school reunion movie turned inside out, filmmaker Aldarondo embarks on a fantastical quest to reconcile her tortured teen years. She revisits some of her most formative – and at times cringeworthy – childhood experiences, tracking down old crushes and reenacting visceral memories of youthful humiliation and desire, at times playing the role of her younger self and casting teenagers to play the kids in her life who still haunt her. Oscillating between present and past, humor and heartbreak, You Were My First Boyfriend is a hybrid documentary that takes seriously the power...

The New York Latino Film Festival (Nylff), the nation’s premier Latino film festival, kicks off Latino Heritage Month from Sept. 15-24. It features an impressive roster of 116 films from nearly 20 countries. Watch a trailer for the festival above.

Held, once again, at Regal Union Square, Nylff will open with the New York City premiere of Amazon Prime’s film “Cassandro”, starring Gael Garcia Bernal. It follows the true story of a colorful gay wrestler from El Paso who rose to international stardom.

Presented by Kino Lorber, the Festival will screen Aristotle Torres’ debut feature “Story Ave”, starring Luis Guzman as an Mta transit worker held up by young graffiti artist Kadir (Asante Blackk).

HBO Documentaries will present “You Were My First Boyfriend”, the heartwarming story of Cecilia Aldarondo as she revisits her 1990s adolescence. Also showing is “Radical”, the story of actor Eugenio Derbez as a teacher in a...

Updated with the addition of The Holly and American Symphony to the FallDocs lineup.

The Holly, Julian Rubinstein’s documentary about conflict over a gentrifying neighborhood near Denver, and Matthew Heineman’s film American Symphony, about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste, have been added to the IDA’s FallDocs screening series.

American Symphony will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles, followed by a live Q&a with Heineman.

The Holly will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the Culver Theater, followed by a live Q&a with Rubinstein, main participant Terrance Roberts, and Aqeela Sherrills, anti-violence activist and co-founder of Community Based Public Safety Collective.

Earlier: Exclusive: The International Documentary Association announced the lineup for its prestigious FallDocs 2023 program, featuring a slew of Oscar contending nonfiction films as well as more than two dozen films that haven’t yet nailed down distribution.

Corporate consolidation, along with shrinking publicity budgets and streaming services’ willingness to bury their own content, have made film festivals and series increasingly desirable to documentary filmmakers who are not only seeking distribution, but also to those nonfiction helmers who have found a platform for their work.

The rocky landscape has made the competition fierce for a slot at not only top-tier festivals, but also regional film events like New York’s Rooftop Films’ Summer Series.

Over the course of the last year, Rooftop Films president Dan Nuxoll received 3,500 film submissions for the nonprofit organization’s 27th annual Summer Series, which kicks off on May 25. Only 23 feature films were accepted. (Not all films have been announced.)

Fourteen of the 23 features Nuxoll chose are documentaries. include high profile docs like Chris Smith’s “Wham!” (Netflix), Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s “The Stroll” (HBO Documentary Films), Sacha Jenkins’ “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues...

Exclusive: Anonymous Content has hired longtime literary agent and former UTA partner Bec Smith as a partner and manager in their Los Angeles-based lit team. We revealed Smith’s impending exit from UTA last month.

The respected veteran has amassed a client roster including directors and writers such as Coline Abert, Levan Akin, Jane Anderson, Benedict Andrews, Emily Atef, Anthony Chen, Eva Husson, Ellen Kuras, Katrin Gebbe, Sebastian Junger, Julia Leigh, Phillip Noyce, Joshua Oppenheimer, Jennifer Peedom, Maria Schrader, Tali Shalom-Ezer, Dawn Shadforth, Kirsten Sheridan, Goran Stolevski, Warwick Thornton and Max Werner.

Related Story Shocker! Anonymous Content CEO Dawn Olmstead & COO Heather McCauley Resign; Protesting Settlement To Former Top Producer Keith Redmon? Related Story UTA Partner & Top Talent Agent Brian Swardstrom Leaving Agency For New Ventures; Will Produce With 'Nomadland's Peter Spears To Start Related Story UTA Signs Cecillia Aldarondo, Filmmaker Behind SXSW-Premiering Documentary 'You Were My First Boyfriend...

As SXSW basks in the Oscars afterglow of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which premiered out of competition at the event last year, jury and special awards winners for the 30th edition of the film and TV festival have been announced.

Related Story SXSW Film Festival Narrative Feature Competition Winners Through The Years – Photo Gallery Related Story 'The New Americans: Gaming A Revolution' Review: Ondi Timoner's Provocative Doc Previews The World That Awaits Us – SXSW Related Story UTA Signs Cecillia Aldarondo, Filmmaker Behind SXSW-Premiering Documentary 'You Were My First Boyfriend'

Top honors in the Narrative Feature Competition went to Paris Zarcilla’s horror pic Raging Grace. The film follows Joy, an undocumented Filipino immigrant who is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter Grace when she secures the perfect job: taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new...

Bob Goody, veteran British stage and screen actor and co-writer of 1985 BBC1 comedy Wilderness Road, has died at age 71.

He passed away March 5 after a long battle with cancer that he chronicled in a book of verse.

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Born in Brighton in 1951, Goody trained at Rada and became known as a charismatic actor and poet. He fronted his own ITV children’s sketch show, Smith & Goody, in the 1980s with writer and comedian Mel Smith before penning Wilderness Road, a sitcom set in a seedy London pub, with Richard Cottan.

Goody’s TV acting roles included appearances in Bleak House, EastEnders, Lovejoy, the Lock Stock and Two...

Exclusive: UTA has signed director-producer Cecilia Aldarondo, whose third feature, You Were My First Boyfriend, premiered in Documentary Feature Competition at the SXSW Film Festival on Friday.

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The hybrid doc written and directed by Aldarondo and Sarah Enid Hagey is billed in SXSW’s official program as an examination of “the power of adolescent fantasy, the subtle violence of cultural assimilation, and the fun house mirror of time’s passage.” Aldarondo also produced the pic heading to HBO later this year, which sees her revisit her 1990s adolescence, a generation after she thought she’d left it all behind.

For over 30 years South by Southwest – styled SXSW, or “South By” for short – has been serving up films of a certain flavor: out-there, original, a bit of everything, everywhere, all at once.

Starting on Friday, hundreds of thousands will flock to Austin for 10 days of film, television, music, comedy, technology, exhibitions, interactive media, and conferences.

“There can be this great cross-pollination between [events] that makes what we program, and how [SXSW] feels, a little bit different,” Director of Film & TV Claudette Godfrey said in an interview with TheWrap. “It’s the audience from a normal film festival, plus a bunch of people who would maybe never have gone to a film festival only.”

The Film & TV program reflects both its local roots and international scope. Music, technology, pop culture and genre films are all well-represented in this year’s lineup of 250 projects.

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High school is a battlefield, no one gets out unscathed. So why decide to enmesh yourself in that world for the sake of entertainment? Director Cecilia Aldarondo is no stranger to mining the past for new revelations. Her 2016 documentary “Memories of a Penitent Heart” focused on Aldarondo’s quest to learn more about her uncle Miguel, who struggled with identity and his sexuality within a strict Catholic upbringing. Now, the director turns the camera on herself for her HBO documentary, “You Were My First Boyfriend,” premiering Saturday at the SXSW Film Festival.

The documentary was a tough sell with its focus on Aldarondo’s own high school experiences and how, as a fortysomething adult, she still finds herself haunted by the emotional trauma she experienced during that time. The documentary is as funny as it is heartbreaking and for the filmmaker it’s stories like these that often hit audiences.