Activists call for Dominique Boutonnat to step down saying allegations undermine his ability to lead change
Dominique Boutonnat, the head of France’s top cinema institution, is to be tried in June on charges of sexually assaulting his godson, prosecutors have said.
The announcement came as French cinema reels from a renewed #MeToo reckoning in which several big names, including the actor Gérard Depardieu, have been accused of sexual abuse.
Continue reading...Film-maker held to account for dismissing claim of 1983 sexual assault against Charlotte Lewis as ‘heinous lie’
The film director Roman Polanski has gone on trial for libel in Paris after accusing a British actor who claimed he abused her of “a heinous lie”.
Charlotte Lewis, who was in court in Tuesday at the opening of the hearing, said she had been the victim of a “smear campaign” after she accused the film-maker of sexually abusing her as a teenager.
Continue reading...The film-maker, who won the Palme d’Or for 1977’s Padre Padrone, was a towering presence for more than three decades, creating politically engaged works with his brother Vittorio
The Italian film-maker Paolo Taviani, whose gritty biopic Padre Padrone won top prize at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 92, Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said on Thursday.
For more than three decades Taviani and his brother Vittorio formed one of cinema’s greatest directorial duos. “Paolo Taviani, a great maestro of Italian cinema, leaves us,” Gualtieri said on X. The brothers “directed unforgettable, profound, committed films which entered into the collective imagination and the history of cinema”, Gualtieri added.
Continue reading...Actor’s landmark address comes amid claims arts sector has shrugged off sexual abuse for decades
The actor Judith Godrèche has denounced France’s “incestuous” film industry and called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry into sexual violence in the sector as she spoke in front of senators in the upper house of parliament.
The landmark hearing – the first time an artist has spoken to the senate about sexual and gender-based violence in the French film industry – comes amid claims that the world of arts has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades.
Continue reading...Neighbours complaining of building noise from property in Mawgan Porth, reports say
It is the latest sequel in the long-running saga over the luxury ecohome Cate Blanchett is building in a picturesque seaside town in Cornwall once dubbed “Hollywood-on-Sea”.
Neighbours have accused the actor of destroying family holidays with the building noise from the property in Mawgan Porth, it has been reported.
Continue reading...Firearms expert says he sees no evidence gun was broken, despite actor’s claim it went off without his pulling the trigger
Courtroom testimony by an independent gun expert on Tuesday cast new doubt on Alec Baldwin’s account that his gun went off without his pulling the trigger in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer during a 2021 rehearsal on the set of the western movie Rust.
Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter, with a trial scheduled for July in the death of Halyna Hutchins during a movie rehearsal on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Continue reading...Jury selection for the case, stemming from the shooting on the Rust movie set, will start on 9 July and the trial the next day
A New Mexico judge has set a trial date for Alec Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge stemming from the 2021 deadly shooting on the set of the Western movie Rust.
The scheduling order entered Monday calls for jury selection to begin 9 July, with the trial starting the following day with opening statements by special prosecutors and Baldwin’s defense attorneys. The proceedings are expected to last eight days.
Continue reading...Charles Stopford Sackville says he was unprepared for the intense interest in his home after the 700-year-old Drayton House was used in the film
The owner of the stately home used in the film Saltburn has revealed he has had to ask staff to patrol the grounds to stop trespassers trying to take photos and videos of themselves on the grounds.
Charles Stopford Sackville, the current owner of the 700-year-old Drayton House in Northamptonshire, told the Mail on Sunday he was unprepared for the intense attention Emerald Fennell’s film would bring with it.
Continue reading...Christopher Nolan’s historical epic picked up three major acting awards while The Bear and Succession shared the big TV wins
Christopher Nolan’s hit biopic Oppenheimer has dominated this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards.
The cast of the biographical epic won for best ensemble, ahead of Barbie and Killers of the Flower Moon. Cillian Murphy picked up male actor in a leading role, which was also contested by Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright. “This is extremely, extremely special to me because it comes from you guys,” he told the audience at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium.
Continue reading...Star tells audience at prestigious César awards that they need to challenge powerful and abusive men whatever the career risk
Judith Godrèche has urged the French film industry to break its omertà on sexual abuse in an unprecedented address to the country’s most prestigious awards ceremony on Friday evening.
Godrèche, who says she was groomed and raped as a teenager by an acclaimed director, received a standing ovation as she took the stage at the Césars – the French equivalent of the Oscars.
Continue reading...Despite Barbie’s success, study shows that out of 2023’s top 100 films, only 30 were led or co-led by women, down from 44 in 2022
A new study has shown that the number of female leads in Hollywood movies is at a 10-year low.
Despite the $1.4bn success of Barbie, last year’s top 100 films saw just 30 feature a female lead or co-lead, the worst result since 2014 according to a new study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
Continue reading...Actor, who has accused two directors of raping her as a teenager, to address France’s most prestigious film awards ceremony
Judith Godrèche, an actor who has accused two high-profile directors of raping her as a teenager, will address France’s most prestigious film awards ceremony on Friday in an unusual move aimed at breaking what she calls the “omertà” surrounding the abuse of women and girls in the industry.
Godrèche, whose autobiographical hit TV show about the grooming of a 14-year-old girl has sparked a national debate, will take to the stage at the César awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars, which is broadcast live on television.
Continue reading...The two actors will be joined by The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Stranger Things breakout Joseph Quinn
Marvel has announced the cast for its much-anticipated reboot of Fantastic Four: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn.
The film, about a quartet of superheroes with different powers, has been dated for 25 July 2025.
Continue reading...Audiences should be ‘shocked and disturbed’ by the impact of theatre, says Schindler’s List and Harry Potter actor
Trigger warnings for theatre audiences should be scrapped because people should be “shocked and disturbed” by what they see, the actor Ralph Fiennes has said.
The warnings are issued before the beginning of a performance to alert audiences to upsetting or distressing content and have become increasingly commonplace in theatres.
Continue reading...Even Though it’s Night, which chronicles the conditions of Europe’s largest shantytown, Cañada Real, in running for a Goya
A short film that chronicles the lives of the forgotten, deprived and marginalised children who live in Europe’s largest shantytown, just outside Madrid, is in the running for Spain’s equivalent of an Oscar at the Goya awards on Saturday.
Aunque es de noche (Even Though it’s Night), which was shot on location in the Cañada Real informal settlement, using a cast of residents, follows 13-year-old Toni as he prepares to say goodbye to his best friend, Nasser, who is moving to France, and to his own childhood.
Continue reading...French actor alleges arthouse film-maker Benoît Jacquot groomed her when she was 14 and he was 39
French prosecutors have opened a rape inquiry after the actor Judith Godrèche filed a complaint against the arthouse film director Benoît Jacquot, who she says groomed her when she was 14 and he was 39.
A formal complaint was filed against Jacquot, 77, for the alleged rape of a minor by a person in a position of authority. The French police’s specialist juvenile protection unit is handling the inquiry, which will investigate several allegations, including rape of a minor by a person in a position of authority, rape, domestic violence and sexual assault.
Continue reading...Actors say non-specific categories benefit men as industry still offers them more interesting roles
The Flemish film and television awards are facing calls to temporarily do away with gender-neutral categories amid concerns that the switch has left women routinely shut out of the top awards.
At the Ensors awards on Saturday male actors cleaned up the categories for best lead and supporting actors. It was an echo of 2022 – the first year that the awards ceremony axed gendered categories – when men also walked away with each of the four awards recognising the best actors.
Continue reading...Fiona McArthur’s vegan sweets began as an experiment – and now they’re food for the Hollywood stars
It’s a long way from the windswept waterfront of Campbeltown to Hollywood: but for next month’s Oscar nominees a taste of this remote corner of Scotland awaits, after the owner of the town’s chocolate shop was chosen to produce the sweet treats for the famed $125,000 award ceremony goodie bags.
Fiona McArthur, who started creating her chocolates in her mother’s kitchen four-and-a-half years ago, says she’s still pinching herself at the coup. “It’s blowing my mind that my chocolates are going to be eaten by people like Bradley Cooper and Margot Robbie,” she says.
Continue reading...Pair are rumored to be reuniting for 70s-set drama The Movie Critic after last working together in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Brad Pitt is reportedly starring in Quentin Tarantino’s final film The Movie Critic, according to a Deadline report.
The pair previously worked together in 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with the role bringing Pitt his first Oscar for best supporting actor. Pitt also starred in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and featured in 1993’s True Romance, which was co-written by Tarantino.
Continue reading...Terry Jon Martin, 76, who is living in hospice care, stole slippers from Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005
A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz because he wanted to pull off “one last score” was given no prison time at his sentencing hearing Monday.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1m insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
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