Category Archives: Film

China to restrict US film releases after Trump’s tariff hike

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After the US president imposed 125% duties on Chinese imports, Beijing says it will restrict American films opening in its lucrative market

Hours after Donald Trump imposed record 125% tariffs on Chinese products entering the US, China has announced it will further curb the number of US films allowed to screen in the country.

“The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience’s favourability towards American films,” the China Film Administration said in a statement on Thursday. “We will follow the market rules, respect the audience’s choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported.”

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Anjelica Huston reveals cancer diagnosis – but says she is now ‘in the clear’

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The 73-year-old actor was diagnosed after her role in the John Wick franchise, and chose to keep it private – but is now speaking out in case it helps others

Anjelica Huston has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer six years ago, saying she is now “in the clear”.

The 73-year-old actor declined to tell People magazine what kind of cancer she had, saying she wanted to keep that private, but did reveal she was diagnosed after the release of her 2019 film John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

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Sexual violence and harassment ‘endemic’ in French entertainment industry, report finds

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Attitudes in France ‘barely evolving’ amid ‘collective denial’ years after the #MeToo movement began, according to parliamentary commission

Sexual violence and sexual harassment are “endemic” in France’s entertainment industry, a damning report by French politicians has found, concluding that women and children are still being routinely preyed on, despite the country’s #MeToo movement.

The Green MP Sandrine Rousseau and the centrist Erwan Balanant found that sexual violence, harassment and bullying were “systemic, endemic and persistent” in all sectors of the French culture and entertainment industry, from TV and cinema to theatre, radio, comedy, advertising, rock and classical music.

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‘Incompatible with the symbolism’: Yorgos Lanthimos denied permission to shoot new film at the Acropolis

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The country’s best-known director was refused by Greece’s culture ministry when he applied to shoot scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at iconic Athens site

Greece’s leading contemporary director has had a request to shoot footage for his new film at the Acropolis in Athens denied by his country’s culture ministry.

Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because “the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents”.

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Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and The Doors, dies aged 65

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Known for his roles in Batman Forever, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Tombstone, the prolific actor’s cause of death was pneumonia

Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65.

His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and later recovered, after treatment with chemotherapy and trachea surgery that had reduced hisability to speak and breathe.

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Richard Chamberlain, hero of Dr Kildare and ‘king of the miniseries’, dies aged 90

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The actor died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, his publicist says

Richard Chamberlain, the hero of the 1960s television series Dr Kildare who found a second career as an award-winning “king of the miniseries,” has died. He was 90.

Chamberlain died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll.

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FCC to investigate Disney and ABC over potential violation in diversity practices

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Federal Communications Commission says its DEI efforts may breach equal employment opportunity regulations

The US’s top media regulator on Friday said it was opening an investigation into the diversity practices of Walt Disney and its ABC unit, saying they may violate equal employment opportunity regulations.

Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair, wrote to the Disney CEO, Robert Iger, in a letter dated on Thursday that the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts may not have complied with FCC regulations and that changes by the company may not go far enough.

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No Other Land co-director condemns Academy’s letter to members after Hamdan Ballal attack

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Yuval Abraham criticised the Academy’s statement defending its silence after Israeli settlers attacked his co-director Hamdan Ballal

The Israeli director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has condemned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its response to a violent attack on his Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal, who was beaten by Israeli settlers and detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Monday.

Earlier this week, Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham criticised the Academy for failing to publicly speak out in support of Ballal. Now he has criticised a statement issued by the Academy to its members on Wednesday, in which it appeared to defend its silence.

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Boulder, Colorado, to be new home for the Sundance film festival

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The festival, started by Robert Redford in 1978, will move from its previous home in Park City, Utah, for 2027

Boulder, Colorado, has been named as the new home for the Sundance film festival starting in 2027.

The festival, which was started in 1978 by Robert Redford, will move from its home in Park City, Utah. Sundance brings more than 20,000 people a year to the ski town, which many had seen as too small to house something of this size.

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‘It was revenge for our movie’: Oscar winner says soldiers helped settlers attack him in West Bank

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Hamdan Ballal says Israeli soldiers beat him with their rifle butts and threatened to kill him

The Oscar-winning Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal has said that Israeli settlers who attacked him were aided by two Israeli soldiers, who beat him with the butt of their rifles outside his home and threatened to kill him.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ballal, one of the four directors of the film No Other Land, which documents the destruction of villages in the West Bank and won best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, recounted how on Monday two Israeli soldiers first encircled him while a settler was assaulting him, before violently striking him on the head and threatening to shoot him.

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Woman tells court Gérard Depardieu groped her buttocks and breasts on set

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Film assistant says actor groped her several times in three incidents while filming Les Volets Verts

The French actor Gérard Depardieu sexually assaulted an assistant director on three occasions while she was working with him on a film shoot, placing his hands on her buttocks and breasts, leaving her feeling “petrified”, the woman told Paris’s criminal court on Wednesday.

Depardieu – the biggest French cinema star to face trial for sexual assault since the #MeToo movement – is charged with sexually assaulting the assistant director three times during the shooting of the feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in Paris in 2021.

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Internationally acclaimed film Santosh blocked in India over portrayal of police brutality

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Award-winning film set in fictional town has already made its debut at Cannes but censors have refused to approve it for domestic release

Indian film censors have blocked the release of critically acclaimed film Santosh over concerns about its portrayal of misogyny, Islamophobia and violence in the Indian police force.

Santosh, written and directed by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri, is set in north India and has won international plaudits for its portrayal of a young widow who joins the police force and investigates the murder of a young Dalit girl.

Santosh is currently on release in UK cinemas

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Gérard Depardieu tells court he grabbed sexual assault accuser by hips to avoid slipping

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Actor denies assault and says he was following advice of his then lawyer when he previously told police there had been no physical contact

The French actor Gérard Depardieu has admitted in court that he grabbed the hips of a woman who has accused him of sexual assault, but said it was to avoid slipping and was not a sexual attack.

“I grabbed her hips,” the actor, 76, told his trial for sexual assault at the Paris criminal court on Tuesday. The head judge noted that this was a change from his testimony during police interrogation when he had denied that any physical contact had taken place with the 54-year-old set decorator.

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Hamdan Ballal: Oscar-winning Palestinian director attacked by Israeli settlers and arrested

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Director of No Other Land attacked by armed settlers in West Bank and handed to Israeli military, witnesses say

A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has been arrested by the Israeli army after masked settlers attacked his house.

According to five Jewish American activists who witnessed the attack, Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the the film that documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank, was surrounded and attacked by a group of about 15 armed settlers in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron.

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Gérard Depardieu to appear in Paris court over sexual assault allegations

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Actor, 76, denies claims made by assistant director and set designer who worked with him on Les Volets Verts

Gérard Depardieu will become the most high-profile French person to stand trial on #MeToo abuse allegations when he appears in a Paris court on Monday.

The actor, a titan of French cinema with more than 200 films and television series to his name, is accused of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021.

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Karla Sofía Gascón says she is ‘less racist than Gandhi’ on return to public eye

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Actor suggests she may have been intentionally smeared and says ‘no one has to forgive me’ after recent controversy

Karla Sofía Gascón has described herself as “less racist than Gandhi” and insisted “no one has to forgive me for anything” as she returns to the public eye after the emergence of offensive social media posts widely thought to have torpedoed the Oscar hopes of her film Emilia Pérez.

The Spanish performer, who became the first transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, was dropped from the film’s campaigning materials by its studio, Netflix, and criticised by colleagues and prominent politicians after the series of old racist and Islamophobic tweets came to light.

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No Other Land director calls Florida mayor’s campaign against his film ‘very dangerous’

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Israeli Oscar-winner Yuval Abraham speaks out after Miami Beach mayor proposed evicting a local cinema for screening the Palestinian-focused documentary

The Israeli director of No Other Land has criticised a Florida mayor’s efforts to evict a local cinema after it screened his Oscar-winning documentary about Palestinian displacement in the West Bank, saying: “Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.”

Steven Meiner, the mayor of Miami Beach, has issued a draft resolution calling for the termination of the city’s lease agreement with O Cinema, and withdrawing $40,000 in promised grant funding for the nonprofit that runs the independent cinema.

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Pamela Bach, Baywatch actor and David Hasselhoff’s ex-wife, dies

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Actor also known as Pamela Hasselhoff died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation, authorities say

Pamela Bach, an actor and the ex-wife of the Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, has died.

The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office reports that she died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation. Also known as Pamela Hasselhoff, Bach appeared on The Young and the Restless and met her future husband on the set of his series Knight Rider.

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Adrien Brody breaks record for longest ever Oscar acceptance speech

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The actor, who won for The Brutalist, spoke for five minutes and forty seconds, beating Greer Garson in 1943

Adrien Brody has broken the record for the longest ever Oscars acceptance speech.

The 51-year-old, who picked up his second best actor Oscar on Sunday, spoke for five minutes and 40 seconds, beating Greer Garson, who spoke for five minutes and 30 seconds when she accepted for Mrs Miniver in 1943.

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Jubilant Brazilians hail I’m Still Here’s Oscar as landmark in fight for justice

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Walter Salles’s dictatorship-era movie turns focus on dark time in country’s history and more recent coup attempt

Ahead of the Oscars ceremony, Brazil’s Fernanda Torres – star of Walter Salles’s dictatorship-era movie I’m Still Here – had warned her compatriots not to get into a “World Cup fever” over the Academy Awards.

Her plea went in vain on Sunday night, however, as crowds across the country – already gathered to celebrate carnival – erupted in joy over Brazil’s first-ever Oscar win, for best international feature.

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