The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled new additions to the Official Selection for its upcoming 77th edition from May 14 to May 25. Three new films have been added to the Competition lineup: Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius' animated feature The Most Precious of Cargoes, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof's Seed of the Sacred Fig and Emanuel Parvu's Three Miles to the End of the World.

The Artist skyrocketed Hazanavicius to international fame in 2011 as the film won best picture at the Academy Awards, and received 10 Oscar nominations and five wins. Hazanavicius for his latest film adapted the Second World War novel of the same title by Jean-Claude Grumberg that is set against the events of the Holocaust and told with magical realism.

Rasoulof is not expected to attend his Cannes premiere as the director a year ago was barred by Iranian authorities from leaving the country to attend the Cannes Film Festival to serve on the Un Certain Regard jury. In addition, a film adaptation of the classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo by directors Alexandre De La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte, and starring Pierre Niney, will debut out of competition in Cannes.

The French festival has also announced special screenings for Oliver Stone's Lula, a documentary about Brazilian leader Lula da Silva; Arnaud Desplechin's Spectators; Lou Ye's An Unfinished Film; and Tudor Giurgiu's Nasty. And in the Cannes Premiere sidebar, the festival has added Gael Morel's Vivre, Mourir, Renaitre and Jessica Palud's Maria.

Cannes also announced that When the Light Breaks, by director Rúnar Rúnarsson, will open the Un Certain Regard section on May 15, while Céline Sallette's debut feature Niki and Gints Zilbalodis' Flow have been added to that section.

The 77th Cannes Festival kicks off May 14 with Quentin Dupieux's The Second Act starring Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon. It runs through May 24.

Please also visit the Official Website of the Cannes Film Festival for more information.

The Academy of Motion Picture Ars and Sciences has published new rules for qualifying for awards starting next year. While the biggest change is the expansion of the theatrical requirements for Best Picture, there are other highlights of note, that includes animated feature films submitted for Best International Feature Film now being able to also submit for Best Animated Feature Film if eligibility requirements outlined for both categories are met. There's also a new eligibility period for the Best International Feature Film - November 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024 - and Best Original Score now allowing three composers to receive individual statuettes if, in rare circumstances, they all contributed fully to the score. Plus, the screenplay categories now require a final shooting script to be part of submissions and a handful of overall name changes and/or clarifications for some of the awards The Academy hands out at the separate Governors Awards and Scientific and Technical Awards ceremonies.

Similarly, The Academy also updated and clarified formatting and language in the campaign promotional regulations for the 97th Oscars. Much of what was instated last year in wake of the "To Leslie" campaign scandal still stands, with the campaign promotional regulations specifying motion picture companies and individuals directly associated with Oscars-eligible motion pictures may promote such motion pictures, achievements, and performances to Academy members and how Academy members may promote Oscars-eligible motion pictures, achievements, and performances. (See the full list of rules and regulations for the 97th Academy Awards here.)

To elaborate on the theatrical requirement changes, the easiest thing to first highlight is that drive-in theaters will no longer be a means of qualification-one of the last vestiges of adaptations made during the peak of COVID-19.

Please also visit the Official Website of the Motion Pictures Academy for more information

A Hollywood legend, the director, screenwriter and producer George Lucas will receive the Honorary Palme d'or on Saturday, May 25, at the Closing Ceremony of the 77th Festival de Cannes, to be broadcast live on French TV channel France 2.

At the mere mention of his name, a whole section of the Seventh Art lights up, and you can hear a few unforgettable music notes (by John Williams!). Inseparable from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones sagas, George Lucas has forever given the blockbuster an illustrious history, and audiences the world over unrivalled pleasure.

"The Festival de Cannes has always held a special place in my heart.  I was surprised and elated when my first film, THX-1138, was selected to be shown in a new program for first time directors called the Directors' Fortnight.  Since then, I have returned to the festival on many occasions in a variety of capacities as a writer, director and producer.  I am truly honored by this special recognition which means a great deal to me."

George Lucas' debut in the film industry was marked by his close collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola, who helped him produce THX 1138 (1971), adapted from one of his experimental short films made at the University of Southern California. From his very first feature, George Lucas staged the themes that are dear to him: science fiction to denounce a society of surveillance, using love to fight fate and conformity, and reversing moral values to challenge the role of good and evil.
With American Graffiti, an ode to American youth, George Lucas revealed Harrison Ford and directed his first major success which enabled him to embark on his ambitious saga.

A visionary intergalactic odyssey that reinvented the codes of cinematic genres as part of the New Hollywood movement, Star Wars is nothing short of mythology, a study that has fascinated George Lucas since his university days, in the construction of characters and plots and the breadth of its cultural reach. Like Tolkien in literature, he imagined a universe, with its geography, populations, languages, moral values and even its vehicles. This exceptional ambition, which initially frightened 20th Century Fox's producers and led to a grueling post-production period, was nonetheless the recipe for unprecedented success: the film captivated the American crowds and became a worldwide socio-cultural phenomenon, which continues to this day.

In the space of 40 years, George Lucas built a Hollywood empire through the nine episodes of the saga — four of which he directed himself. With his company Lucasfilm and its many subsidiaries, acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2012, George Lucas touched on everything. His unflagging passion for technology made him one of the pioneers of the visual effects industry: he founded Industrial Light & Magic and helped develop many new visual technologies, including the computer-assisted camera. In sound, he contributed to the evolution of stereo through his company THX. He also founded the famous animation studio Pixar. Moreover, George Lucas is an outstanding producer: in addition to the three Star Wars trilogies, he is associated with the development of mythical films by other directors, from Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha to the Indiana Jones saga, which he created.
The Honorary Palme d'or will be presented to him on stage at the Grand Théâtre Lumière during the Closing Ceremony on Saturday May 25, 2024.

The Festival de Cannes is delighted to pay tribute to one of the greatest figures of contemporary cinema, a man with an extraordinary career, who brings together great entertainment and innovation, mythology and modernity and cinephilia and technology.

So far  moviegoers have repeatedly shown that they are willing to return to theaters for quality content and altogether skip any content that is not deemed theater-worthy. The driving demand for premium large-format screens -- like Imax's curved, giant displays; Dolby's luxe auditoriums; or ScreenX's 270-degree screens that extend projection onto three walls. Even more immersive movie experiences, although still niche, appear to be growing. D-Box puts you in a moving, haptic seat, usually positioned in a prime location of an otherwise standard auditorium. More intense formats like 4DX and MX4D build upon motion chairs with blasts of air, water and fog, even scent effects and haptics that "tickle" or "punch."

D-Box is among the most prevalent, present in more than 800 auditoriums globally, including a large partnership with Cinemark, the No. 3 US chain behind AMC and Regal. In a world with about 200,000 total movie screens, 800 is a sliver. But Cinemark's D-Box revenues climbed 25% in the third quarter compared with the same period pre-pandemic in 2019, even though the overall box office was down 32%.

So far, audiences are favoring these formats for tent-pole releases that make the best use of a huge screen and top-notch sound. But with studios pivoting toward franchise extravaganzas, they're moving away from the "little movies" that used to show on the eighth, ninth or 10th screen at any location.

Kevin Costner's HORIZON, AN AMERICAN SAGA has been selected at Cannes to be the film to play out of competition this year. The Cannes Film Festival celebrates its 77th year and is considered one of the oldest and most important film festivals in the world, it will run from 14 - 25 May 2024.

The first chapter of "Horizon" will debut at the French film festival on May 19, giving the world its first glimpse of Costner's ambitious Western epic. The first two parts of "Horizon" are set to open in quick succession this summer, with Warner Bros. releasing chapter one in theaters June 28 and the second installment on Aug. 16.

"It's been 20 years since I've had the pleasure of being on the Croisette," Costner said in a statement. "I've been waiting for the right time to return and I'm proud to say that this time has come."

"The French have always supported films and believed deeply in filmmaking," added Costner. "Just as I believe deeply in my film."

"Horizon," which will screen out of competition at Cannes, is directed by Costner and stars him, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Jena Malone.

The 77th Cannes Film Festival runs May 14-25. George Miller's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," also from Warner Bros., was recently announced as another high-profile premiere at Cannes. The full lineup will be announced Thursday.

GODZILLA X KONG: The New Empire continues leading the global box office with $361.1 million worldwide in two weeks, "Godzilla x Kong" could ultimately leapfrog the $529 million global haul of 2014's "Godzilla.", it also more than doubled the second film behind the DreamWorks studio produced KUNG FU PANDA 4.  The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release, directed by Adam Wingard, has thus far outperformed any of the studio's recent monster films except for 2014's "Godzilla." The latest installment, in which Godzilla and Kong team up, cost about $135 million to produce.

Hong Kong's CineFan Club released its new program for the months of May/Jun/Jul which will feature Aki Kaurismäki Finnish film director's film along with little know artist Godfrey Reggio and the 1960s and 1970s inspired films of psychedelic cinema. Please go to our event posts for more information about the program: Click here

CineFan of Hong Kong released its new film lineup for the months of May, June and July. The main focus are the films of Finnish film director and screenwriter Aki Kaurismäki. Also featuring the films of artist and activist Godfrey Reggio and finally some of the 1960s and 1970s culture inspired classics known as the psychedelic era.

Aki Kaurismäki thinks his own films are dreadful. And his deadpan comedies are grim. But the bleaker the director has become, the more tender his films. No matter how despairing the reality is, his underdog characters always find solace in a sleazy bar, in eccentric rock 'n' roll, and in the company of a devoted canine friend.

Combining the restraint of Robert Bresson with the surrealism of Luis Buñuel, the profound Finn cinephile creates his own cinematic universe of visual stylisation and mordant jokiness for his humane comedy. Highly distinctive but hard to define, Aki's compositions are simple yet subtly expressive; his approach skews towards a tradition of neorealism, yet flecked with fairytalelike fantasy; his ambiance is nostalgic, yet evoking a modernist vibe. With witty irreverence and stylish intelligence, the artist works dichotomy into an arresting sensibility, championing humanity and spontaneous solidarity while sliding out an unspoken critique towards modern alienation and social injustice.

Seeing the Unseen Godfrey Reggio's The Qatsi Trilogy

In his Qatsi (= life) Trilogy, former Catholic monk and artist and activist Godfrey Reggio's critique of technology is not a message, but manifests as cinematic method in the form of non-fiction and wordless, visual narrative. Between poetry and discourse, and via torrents of images transported through Philip Glass' music, cinema becomes, in Reggio's own terms, a 'sacrament' directly confronting the technicised human world by firing it up.

Psychedelia – Cinema as a Fever Dream

Dennis Hopper's 1969 Easy Rider, one of America's first counterculture films that fused mainstream aesthetics with avant-garde tendencies to capture the sociopolitical climate of the time, helped bring psychedelic films into Hollywood. Robert Altman's surreal, dreamlike reality in 3 Women, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's dizzying experiment in Performance, and Hayashi Kaizo's grafting of silentera aesthetics in To Sleep So as to Dream - all see the artists explore the interplay of films and druginduced states of mind as mutually constitutive transformations in human consciousness – and also cinematic adventures.

Some psychedelic films are full-on assault on the senses, pushing your mental state to the edge. Recreating an out-of-body experience fuelled by psychedelic drugs, provocateur Gaspar Noé conceives a transcendental odyssey that defies life and death with masterful aerial shots in Enter the Void. Ken Russell creates a bombastic take on the pop opera genre with Tommy, a relentlessly frenetic musical experience with jaw-dropping visual imagination.

Visit the Official Website for the full program and more information.

Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City's first international film festival has opened its doors and welcome guests and participants.

Please visit the Official Website for more information.

The country's long overdue cinema law was finally revised last year and now permits local city governments to host international film festivals. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest city, seized this opportunity to organise its inaugural international film festival.

"This collaboration highlights the close partnership between governmental bodies and private companies, facilitated by an open policy allowing private entities to participate in government social projects," says HIFF executive director Pham Minh Toan.

His event company Vietfest, which specialises in running large-scale entertainment and cultural projects, has previously collaborated with the Department of Culture and Sports of HCMC on several major events such as the Ho Chi Minh City International Music Festival (HOZO). Three successful editions have been held for HOZO since 2019, with latest hosting 250 artists and 150,000 attendees.

Toan and long-time collaborator Do Hoa have spent the past few years cultivating the idea of an international film festival in Vietnam. "We established Vietfest, which stands for Vietnam Festival, to organise multiple type of festivals, including film," says Hoa, who is HIFF deputy executive director. "We believed the time for a film festival in HCMC would come and have included activities related to film festivals in our agenda during business trips."

Toan and Hoa attended the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2019, but Covid put a stop to overseas travelling until they visited South Korea's Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in 2022. Last year, they returned to Busan and travelled to Singapore and Indonesia to immerse themselves in various cultures and attend music and film festivals to gain insight and knowledge.

Please visit the Official Website for the Film Festival