Slamdance has unveiled The Indie Awards, a new annual award show dedicated to celebrating independent filmmaking. The inaugural ceremony will take place on December 9, 2024, at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, hosted by comedians and actors Nic Novicki (Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos) and Steve Way (Ramy).
David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s latest film The Friend has been acquired by Bleecker Street with plans to release the film in 2025. This marks Siegel & McGehee’s second collaboration with Bleecker Street following their 2021 neo-Western drama film, Montana Story, which starred Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague.
Executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Jennifer Lawrence, Zurawski v Texas is a documentary on abortion rights in Texas. The documentary follows women who were denied abortions as they band together to sue the state of Texas.
Starring Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted) in the leading role, Pablo Larraín’s latest biographical drama, Maria, explores the final days of legendary opera singer Maria Callas. The film continues Larraín’s focus on notable female historical figures, following 2016’s Jackie and 2021’s Spencer.
Based on the real events of the 1972 Munich massacre, September 5 follows the intense experience of a broadcast team covering the live hostage crisis during the Munich Summer Olympics. The film had its world premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival under the Orizzonti Extra section. The film also screened at the 51st Telluride Film Festival, the 2024 Santa Fe International Film Festival, and the 33rd Heartland International Film Festival where it won the Narrative Special Presentation Audience Choice Award.
The Ghost Trap, the drama/thriller film starring Zak Steiner, Greer Grammer, Sarah Catherine Hook, and Steven Ogg will be available to rent or purchase on digital and DVD, along with a limited theatrical release in select U.S. theaters starting Friday, November 1, 2024.
Celebrating its 6th edition of the festival, the Hico, Texas-based outlaw-themed Billy the Kid Film Festival (BTKFF) unveiled the film lineup and events for this year’s festival taking place November 1-3, 2024. The festival is set to open with Chris Hanna’s dramatic redemption tale On the Edge of Freedom and to close with Jason Vandygriff’s thriller Blood Dried Hands. The festival will also honor celebrated Western character actor Wally Welch (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Magnificent Seven, Javelina Run) with the BTKFF lifetime achievement honor.
Directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, the documentary Porcelain War will open in theaters, on November 22 in New York at the IFC Center, and on November 29 in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, followed by a roll out across North America including the SF Bay Area in December.
Waltzing Matilda, directed by Petr Slavík won the Best Narrative Feature Jury Award and The Strike, directed by Joe Bill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey won Best Documentary Feature Jury Award at the 2024 Santa Fe International Film Festival.
Helmed by the Oscar-nominated director of I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a documentary telling the story of influential South African photographer Ernest Cole. The documentary features narration from Oscar-nominated actor LaKeith Stanfield as the voice of Cole.
American humanitarian and BlinkNow CEO Maggie Doyne is the subject of the documentary Between the Mountain and the Sky selected to screen at the 2024 Naples Film Festival. Based on Doyne’s 2022 book, the documentary chronicles her journey from childhood to building a children’s home, women’s center, and school in Nepal.
Starring Ke Huy Quan, Oscar-winning actor of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Love Hurts marks the directorial debut of veteran stunt and fight coordinator JoJo Eusebio, known for his work on Black Panther and John Wick. The action-comedy film features Quan as a retired hitman pulled back into his old life by his crime-lord brother.