Global stories. Digital first.
Topic
Indonesian director Danial Rifki’s remake of Spanish thriller “The Invisible Guest,” which he says was completed in 2023 before exclusivity clauses with HBO held up its release, finally reached the big screen at Jakarta World Cinema. It is one of three Rifki films at the festival. The Falcon Pictures production, which reworks Oriol Paulo’s 2016 […]
Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord” took the audience award at Jakarta World Cinema, which wrapped with Banjong Pisanthanakun’s Thai horror film “Inherit” and handed three Indonesian short filmmakers funding for their first features. “Fjord,” which also opened the festival, won the Jakarta World Cinema Audience Award, the event’s only feature prize. The closing ceremony […]
French cinema may be enjoying a golden run on the festival circuit and in the awards race, but getting those films into U.S. theaters, and persuading American audiences to buy tickets, has become an increasingly uphill battle. That paradox was at the heart of a lively discussion at the American French Film Festival on Thursday, […]
Banjong Pisanthanakun, the Thai director of horror hits “Shutter” and “Pee Mak,” tells Variety his new psychological horror film “Inherit” will get a sequel, with star Davika Hoorne set to return. “Inherit,” a Centrepiece selection at the Toronto Film Festival, where it world premiered in September, is closing the Jakarta World Cinema festival. Pisanthanakun and […]
The 21st Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF) will open with Lawrence Fajardo’s Filipino drama “Silenced Nights” and close with Ueda Makoto’s Japanese comedy-drama “You Are the Film.” The festival will screen 254 films from 34 countries across its competitive and non-competitive sections. The festival runs Nov. 28–Dec. 5 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, under the theme “Influx.” […]
“Enjoy Your Stay,” the Berlin Film Festival drama from “Goliath” director Dominik Locher and Filipino filmmaker Honeylyn Joy Alipio, has been acquired by Indonesian distributor Falcon and has its Indonesian premiere at Jakarta World Cinema. The film follows Luz, an undocumented Filipina cleaner at a Swiss luxury ski resort. “We heard about [stories of] Indonesian […]
The dust had barely settled on last year’s Torino Film Festival when artistic director Giulio Base began plotting his next move. 2026 would mark the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth, and Base was determined not to be beaten to it. “I really wanted to be the first to announce a retrospective,” he says. “I knew […]
Known for championing first and second features, the Torino Film Festival has increasingly become a showcase for rising female talent. For the second year running, 10 of the 16 films in Torino’s feature competition are directed by women, a proportion now matched by this year’s short-film selection. While few festivals, in Italy or elsewhere, can […]
John Travolta, Isabelle Huppert, Pamela Anderson and Josh Safdie will be among the honorees at the 44th Torino Film Festival, running Nov. 24 – Dec. 2 in the Piedmontese capital. Tributes will also go to Luc Besson, Fanny Ardant, Margarethe von Trotta, Stephen Frears, Mike Newell, Maria de Medeiros, Andy Garcia and Mira Sorvino. Special […]
Pamela Anderson will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at Italy’s Torino Film Festival, where she will introduce a special screening of Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl.” At the Torino fest — which is a preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema run by Italy’s National Film Museum — Anderson will hold an […]
Milcho Manchevski’s “Sister Brother Manhole Cover,” a comic allegory about two siblings who strip scrap metal from the streets of Skopje, won the Tokyo Grand Prix at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival on Wednesday. A steady drizzle failed to dampen the spirits of a full house at Hulic Hall for closing night, a gentler […]
Known for his long-time collaboration with Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu, cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru shared his experience making “Graduation,” “R.M.N.,” “Fjord” and Iraqi director Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake” during his masterclass at Jakarta World Cinema. Benh Zeitlin, the Oscar-nominated director of “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” said he was moderating the session because “we […]
Co-recipient of the 2026 Kurosawa Akira Award together with Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, Korean-Japanese director O Mipo was in an understandably upbeat mood when she met with Variety just before the award ceremony on Tuesday at Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, under the aegis of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival. The award honors filmmakers of substantial […]
One of Naver Webtoon’s most popular titles, “The Remarried Empress” has drawn nearly 3 billion views in 10 languages since it launched in 2019. As a live-action series on Disney+, and on Hulu in the U.S., it carrys the expectations of a fan base that already knows every character. Originally scheduled to premiere on Nov. […]
When Isomura Hayato was considering a part in “The Moon,” Ishii Yuya’s drama drawn from a real incident at a facility for people with disabilities, the people around him tried to talk him out of it. The events were still fresh, and they worried the role could damage his career. He took it anyway. The […]
Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof pointed to Jafar Panahi’s latest prison sentence as proof that Iranian cinema remains under repression, speaking at a Tokyo International Film Festival press conference for the Kurosawa Akira Award. Rasoulof and Japanese director O Mipo are this year’s recipients. “Of course, Iranian cinema continues to face repression, and my friends […]
Chinese director Wang Jiangyong keeps the camera at a distance in his feature debut “The Night That Binds Us,” which world premiered in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, observing the uneasy connection between a college student and an older dormitory manager. “I think you have to show the painful parts truthfully for the […]
John Travolta will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the upcoming Torino Film Festival in Turin. The iconic actor’s directorial debut, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach,” will get its second international festival screening there after premiering out-of-competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The Torino Film Festival, which is Italy’s preeminent event for […]
Beloved independent filmmaker Tsukamoto Shinya gave a masterclass at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), speaking about the pivotal works of his career as well as his most recent film, the English-language feature “Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?” Perhaps most famous overseas for his 1989 feature “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” Tsukamoto spoke candidly […]
A new Japanese anime awards program will be called the Nippon Anime Awards, with the first ceremony set for Nov. 21, 2027, at SGC Hall Ariake in Tokyo’s Ariake district. The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA), the industry body behind the prize, announced the name on Nov. 2 at Tokyo Tatemono Brillia Hall. The reveal […]
