Latest news with #filmindustry
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Danny Boyle Says He Would Never Make Oscar-Winner ‘Slumdog Millionaire' Now Amid 'Cultural Appropriation' Concerns
Danny Boyle says he remains proud of Slumdog Millionaire, but he would never make the Oscar-winning film in the current climate. Reflecting on his 2008 Best Picture winner in an interview with The Guardian, Boyle said the film, about a Mumbai ghetto kid (Dev Patel) who wins a quiz jackpot, would be difficult to mount — and for good reasons. More from Deadline '28 Years Later' $5M+, 'Elio' $2.5M-$3M Previews - Thursday Night Box Office What Are The Critics Saying About '28 Years Later'? Deadline On The Red Carpet: Aaron Taylor-Johnson On '28 Years Later's Brexit Nod, Danny Boyle Talks "The Growth" Of Horror, Jodie Comer On "Manifesting" A Movie Musical & Tom Rothman With An Actor Tip 'We wouldn't be able to make that now,' the 28 Years Later director said. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' Asked if he felt the production was a form of colonialism, Boyle responded: 'No, no … Well, only in the sense that everything is. At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method.' He continued: 'That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I'm proud of the film, but you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.' Boyle's comments suggest he is unlikely to be involved in the effort to revisit Slumdog Millionaire through a film sequel and/or TV adaptation housed at Bridge7, a production company founded by former Netflix executive Swati Shetty and former CAA agent Grant Kessman. Directed by Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of 18-year-old Jamal whose life of hardship in the slums of Mumbai gives him the answers he needs to win a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-style show. The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Costa Rica Strengthens Its Position as a Regional Hub for the Audiovisual Industry with New Regional Market
Costa Rica Media Market will take place June 24–25 in San José, with over 500 business meetings and participation from buyers, producers, and experts from 19 countries Organized by the Costa Rica Film Commission, PROCOMER and the Ministry of Culture and Youth, the event includes tours across six Film Friendly Zones in the country to highlight Costa Rica's advantages for audiovisual production. The platform offers project showcases, co-production opportunities, masterclasses, and funding access for the region. SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica, June 19, 2025 /CNW/ -- More than 50 buyers and 130 content creators from the Americas, Europe, and Asia will gather this June 24 and 25 at the Costa Rica Media Market (CRMM)—a space designed to boost the audiovisual industry in Central America and the Caribbean, energize regional content, and attract international co-productions and services. Hosted in San José, Costa Rica, the event will welcome leaders from the film, television, animation, video game, advertising, and technical service industries. Organized by the Costa Rica Film Commission, the Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (PROCOMER), and the Ministry of Culture and Youth (MCJ), CRMM is consolidating itself as a key platform to connect regional projects with the global market. This year, Costa Rica Media Market will feature more than 500 business meetings and 51 international buyers from 19 countries: Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Curaçao, Spain, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. "Costa Rica Media Market is born as a bridge between creativity and opportunity. It is a space where Costa Rican talent in film, music, and literature finds strategic allies to grow, export, and transform our economy through culture. Together with PROCOMER, we are promoting not just a market, but an ecosystem of collaboration, innovation, and pride in what we have to share with the world. Because we believe in our stories, in our voices, and in the power of our narratives, this is a firm step toward a vibrant, strong, and future-facing cultural economy," said Jorge Rodríguez Vives, Minister of Culture and Youth. During the CRMM, there will be business roundtables, matchmaking sessions, expert panels, and masterclasses. The agenda also includes project showcases from the Costa Rica International Film Festival's Industry Section and from Tres Puertos Cine, a prominent residency for Latin American film projects that guides selected proposals from development to market. "Costa Rica Media Market is becoming a strategic platform to connect regional audiovisual talent with international opportunities. It's a tool to diversify our audiovisual content offering and generate co-productions, increasing exports and productive linkages for the sector. Costa Rica, with its strong value proposition, natural richness, and competitive tax incentives, positions itself as a key meeting point for the global industry," explained Laura López, CEO of PROCOMER. A highlight of the event will be the Fam Tours, scheduled for June 26–28. These are designed to showcase Costa Rica's potential as a filming destination. Producers and directors will tour the six Film Friendly Zones, mostly located outside the country's major cities. These areas offer a diversity of natural and urban settings, including jungles, coasts, rural towns, volcanoes, and historic centers—supported by solid logistical infrastructure, legal stability, and an incentive framework for international productions. CRMM builds upon the legacy of the Central America and Caribbean Audiovisual Market (MAUCC), which hosted over 1,000 business meetings across seven editions. This platform led to milestones such as the distribution of the film Una Navidad sin Nieve in the Arab region and the creation of the first digital channel exclusively dedicated to Costa Rican cinema on the well-known streaming platform FILMIN. Why Film in Costa Rica? Costa Rica offers key advantages for international audiovisual production: diverse locations within short distances, skilled technical professionals, legal stability, and reliable logistics. These are complemented by attractive fiscal incentives, such as income tax exemptions for foreign film productions, and streamlined administrative procedures to facilitate production processes. This set of benefits has positioned the country as a competitive destination for studios and production companies seeking efficiency, quality, and sustainable practices in their filming projects. World-Class Talent The CRMM will feature a diverse selection of international figures with broad experience in film, television, and content production. Among the guests are Costa Rican directors Antonella Sudasassi and Hernán Jiménez, as well as Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Andy van Veen, Lynette Coll, Adrian Gueyer, Emerson Machtus, Rom Donahue, Arnon Manor, and Arturo Cardelús, among others. As part of the official agenda, CRMM will also host project presentations selected by the Costa Rica International Film Festival and Tres Puertos Cine, a Latin American film project residency. The latter has formed a strategic alliance with Costa Rica Media Market to offer a program that merges creative development with direct market access—allowing top regional projects to move from incubation to co-production, financing, and international circulation. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Promotora de Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica (PROCOMER) View original content to download multimedia: Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Zombie Apocalypse Infected by Brexit, the Manosphere and Trump
It begins with a deadly lab leak. Inside an English research facility in Cambridge, a bank of TV monitors is blasting clips of documentary violence — riots, hangings — into the eyes of a chimpanzee, a test subject in what we'd now recognize as 'gain of function' virus research. Today, the rest plays out like Instagram highlights: Animal rights activists burst into this 'Clockwork Orange' tableau and free an infected chimp. The chimp promptly mauls its human liberator. Then comes the familiar transformation — spasm, contortion, brisk snap into embodied demon — that starts murderous insanity spreading through the lab's remaining humans, and then to those outside. This was the start of Danny Boyle's '28 Days Later,' the movie that helped reboot the zombie apocalypse, turning a moribund horror subgenre into one of the dominant forces in entertainment. Boyle's innovations — tonal seriousness, punk-rock filmmaking, speedy zombies bearing infectious disease — are still visible in everything from 'World War Z' to 'The Last of Us.' But it's that opening scene, in which triggering media turns a primate virus into a fatal blood-borne psychosis, that sets up a prescient metaphor for what has happened in the decades between the movie's release in 2002 and the arrival, this month, of '28 Years Later,' a new sequel from Boyle and the original screenwriter, Alex Garland. Across those years, a digital intoxication not unlike the film's 'Rage virus' really has made society feel angrier, crazier and more unstable. The original film had a grungy kinetic intensity; Boyle used digital video and the fast, cheap Canon XL1 to energize his shots, finding a jittery, claustrophobic, hyperreal visual language. Using what Garland has called a 'Tootsie' cut — after the moment in that movie when Dustin Hoffman is suddenly revealed dressed as a woman — the story jumps straight from the initial outbreak of the virus to the moment, 28 days later, when a young bike messenger, Jim, awakes from a coma in an abandoned hospital and wanders out into an indelible vision of London after a people-vanishing cataclysm. (The walls and kiosks, covered with missing-person fliers, are one of several images that were transformed by real-life events after the film began shooting on Sept. 11, 2001.) He is rescued from his first contact with the infected by two masked survivors, one of whom explains that the apocalypse first appeared as a news item — 'and then it wasn't on the TV anymore,' she says, 'it was coming through your windows.' Jim's small crew must resist both the infected and a company of British soldiers who offer protection at the cost of sexual slavery. Finally escaped to a remote Lake District idyll, they see a military jet flyover as proof that civilization still endures — that the late-'90s neoliberal order may soon be restored. Clearly, things didn't quite play out that way. A 2007 sequel, '28 Weeks Later' (neither original creator was involved) was rooted in post-9/11 security and warfare, imagining survivors huddled in a militarized safe zone controlled by American-led NATO troops, testing what a fearful society will tolerate to defend itself from an external threat. Then time passed and the paradigm shifted; ordinary people's anger and fear was redirected from distant menaces to various enemies within. Real-life media and political institutions seemed to succumb to their own Rage, a process amplified by everything from new apps and platforms to a nonfictional pandemic. Now, '28 Years Later' shows us how the weaponized virus alters even the uninfected, reshaping society in terrifying ways. 'Some of the stuff in this film is about people misremembering the world we had.' The new film imagines a kind of extreme Brexit, extended a generation into the future. It, too, opens in the new-millennium world of pixels and screens, with a close-up of a TV playing the old British toddler show 'The Teletubbies,' whose original series ended in 2001. But from there it moves to the residents of the tidal Holy Island, where, 28 years later, residents maintain a rugged nationalism apart from both the existing England and the smartphone-using world they've never seen. 'We've gone backwards,' is how Boyle explained it to me. 'Because inevitably you would retrench back to analog.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNA
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CNA
Lilo & Stitch actor David Hekili Kenui Bell dies aged 46
Lilo & Stitch actor, David Hekilli Kenui Bell, has died aged 46. He played Big Hawaiian Dude in the 2025 live-action remake of the movie. His sister, Jalene Kanani Bell, confirmed the death on Sunday (Jun 15). She wrote on her Facebook account: "It is with a heavy heart I share that my sweet, generous, talented, funny, brilliant and handsome little brother David H. K. Bell will spend today in the company of our Heavenly Father. "I've been waiting for the words and mindset to properly express the joy of a human, and Prince of a Man he was, but fate pushed my hand this morning by a pre-scheduled Father's Day newsletter honoring the men in our lives." Bell also shared how her brother "loved being an actor" and "doing voiceovers" and how "the film industry and entertainment was so exciting to him". She added: "You can hear him over the PA system on arrival at Kona Airport where he loved working to create an awesome and safe customer experience. He was and will remain a bright and shining star. He recently made it on to the big screen with an iconic Lilo Stich moment." Bell said her brother bought "the best seats in the house" for his family to watch the movie at the cinema "just two short weeks ago". "We talked about and were so energized by the fans dressed in L+S gear head to toe, t-shirts, onezees, hats, mask, and the merch galore flying off the shelf as we stood in line for pop-corn (sic)," she added. She ended the post with a poignant reminder: "Hug your loved ones last time together after returning home from the movie was just sitting on my living room couch talking story about life, having a seltzer and doing a little genealogy. Blessed by this and all the big and small moments, I will keep our memories alive."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jason Constantine, Co-President of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, Dead at 55
Jason Constantine, co-president of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group who has been with the film studio for the last 25 years, nearly since the company's inception, has passed away following a long fight with cancer. He was 55. In his time with Lionsgate Constantine has overseen some of the studio's biggest franchises, including 'John Wick' and 'Saw,' having pushed for the latter after seeing just a brief concept short, and he's been closely associated with 'The Expendables' and award-winning films like 'Crash,' 'Precious,' 'Knives Out,' 'I Can Only Imagine,' and many more. Constantine was elevated to the co-president role in 2023. More from IndieWire 'Ballerina' Director Len Wiseman on the Film's Most Killer Set Pieces, from an Ice Skate Melee to a 'Snowball Fight' with Grenades Michael Jackson Biopic at Lionsgate Likely to Be Pushed Deep Into 2026 'With his fearless spirit, creative energy, and enduring talent relationships, Jason embodied the very best of our studio and our industry. His influence will continue to be felt in many of our most successful franchises,' Lionsgate said in a statement. 'His career was built around the principles that a great idea can come from anywhere, a box office triumph is meant to be shared by an entire team, and our creative choices need to be bold and daring. We mourn the passing of a highly respected executive, a trusted partner and a cherished friend, and we extend our deepest condolences to his wife Kristin, his three children and his entire family.' Constantine began his career as a junior director of acquisitions at the company that preceded Lionsgate, Trimark Pictures, and he had been a passionate lover of the movies and being a part of the business from an early age. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.F.A in film production from Loyola Marymount University. He wrote and directed two short films: a rom-com called 'For Whom The Wedding Bell Tolls' and a drama called 'Ashes' that won a PGA award for Best Student Short Film. A 'boombox' account has been set up for people to send written stories and photos for the Constantine family. The family and studio encourages people to upload any written stories or photos to the following link here. In lieu of flowers, the Constantine family requests those who wish to make gifts in Jason's memory consider funding the brain cancer research conducted by Jason's neurosurgeons, led by Dr. Michael Lim, or Jason's neuro-oncology team at UCLA, led by Dr. Tim Cloughesy and Dr. Robert Chong. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
