Category: Entertainment

Chilean star power is in full force at the 41^st Guadalajara Film Festival (FICG) where Pablo Larrain, Sebastián Lelio and Maite Alberdi lead a large contingent from Chile as the festival’s guest country of honor.

“They are our golden generation of filmmakers – many of whom reached international recognition, including Oscar nominations and wins, while still in their forties—that helped set us on this path,” CinemaChile director and co-founder Alexandra Galvis told Variety. “The selection of these three is no coincidence: beyond their achievements, they share a common ground in navigating the industry at a global level, collaborating with platforms like Netflix and yet maintaining a distinct, uncompromised artistic voice.”

All three are among the 10 honorees in this edition which also includes a retrospective on Alejandro Jodorowsky, a cult filmmaker and key figure in surrealist cinema, whose work has left a lasting imprint across Latin America and the global stage.

Among the festival industry highlights is a masterclass by Larraín and his producer brother Juan de Dios Larraín with Francisco Ramos, Netflix’s VP of Latin American Content, moderating the talk.

Larraín, whose films has been Oscar-nominated several times, has become a leading voice in contemporary cinema, known for his sharp critiques of power, memory and political history. His key works include “No,” “The Club,” “Neruda,” “Tony Manero” and his trilogy “Jackie,” “Spencer” and “Maria.”

Lelio is known for intimate and human explorations of identity, earning international acclaim with “Gloria” and his Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” as well as “Disobedience” and “The Wave,” which premiered at Cannes.

Alberdi stands out for her tender, precise observation of everyday life. Her Oscar-nominated docs “The Mole Agent“ and “The Eternal Memory” brought her global recognition. She recently directed her first fiction feature “In Her Place” and premiered docu-drama “A Child of My Own” at the Berlinale.

“Gloria,” “The Club” and four of Alberdi’s docus, including the Mexico-set “A Child of My Own” will be screened alongside a selection of Chilean shorts, features and series playing across the festival, some in competition.

FICG will also screen two episodes of Prime Video’s ambitious series “The House of the Sprits,” led by Chilean showrunners Francisca Alegría, Fernanda Urrejola and Andres Wood. The limited series adaptation of Isabel Allende’s iconic debut novel is set to premiere worldwide April 29 on the giant streamer.

“Raza Brava,” international Emmy winner Hernán Caffiero’s soccer-themed series produced by DeCulto, Atómica and Erik Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, will also have a sneak peek.

Chilean series have grown in spades since Chile was the festival’s country guest of honor in 2019, Galvis pointed out. “’Raza Brava’ could not be timelier, given the upcoming FIFA World Cup this summer,” she said.

“We are a delegation of more than 100 people, and I find it very meaningful that two countries with such a strong cultural dialogue are able to connect,” said Daniel Laguna, executive secretary of Chile’s Audiovisual Development Fund. “We are very similar, and that similarity becomes a real strength in collaboration. It generates a kind of creative virtuosity when we work together – something that benefits both countries.”

Atop the agenda is a Mexican-Chilean co-production meeting with Caffiero, Mexican producers Edher Campos (Machete) and Nicolás Celis (Pimienta Films), Chilean actress Paulina Garcia and Mexican director Iria Gómez participating in a panel.

 “This is essentially an effort to reactivate that interest in a co-production agreement which was first proposed in 2019,” said Gabriela Sandoval, Storyboard producer and director of producers association, APCT.

“The idea is for the co-production agreement to be similar to the newer ones that have been signed with Spain or the one that will be signed with Uruguay. The agreement with Spain is already in force and includes not only feature films but also series,” Sandoval noted.

Chile’s presence also extends to the festival juries, with prominent figures from the industry, among them García (Premio Mezcal); producer Beatriz Rosselot (Ibero-American Documentary); filmmaker Hugo Covarrubias (Animation); directors Patricio Valladares and Jorge Olguín (Genre Cinema) and Agustín Olivera Sepúlveda, from the University of Valparaíso, on the youth jury.

Nicole Kidman was interviewed by Hoda Kotb during a History Talks panel in Philadelphia and was asked to recall the moment she learned about her mother’s death. Kidman revealed she learned the news just moments before she was set to accept best actress at the 2024 Venice Film Festival for “Babygirl.”

“I was about to go out on stage, and I found out that my mother had passed,” Kidman recounted on Saturday afternoon. “I went right back to my room in Venice, was getting into bed, and I was completely devastated.” Struggling to process her situation, Kidman recalled thinking, “‘I’m not sure how I’m going to move forward or function now.’ She was so much a part of my existence.”

Kidman went on to describe a “harrowing” attempt to leave Venice in the middle of the night to be with her family, navigating the canals in the dark before ultimately turning back.

“I remember getting into a boat in the canal, literally at night, trying to find my way to the airport, and then turning around going, ‘I can’t even do this,’” she said. “Then I went back to bed. And I was alone. My husband wasn’t there, my children weren’t there. I was there to win an award, which should’ve been a beautiful thing. That there is the contrast of life.”

The “Babygirl” star concluded that the defining experience reinforced her resilience and belief that she “could survive pretty much anything,” a strength she attributes to her mother.

“She told me: don’t ever let anyone break your spirit,” Kidman said. “She came from an era where she wasn’t given the career advice she would’ve loved. She raised us, supported my father, helped him get his PhD. She basically gave to her family and didn’t have the career that she would’ve loved to have had. She was exceptionally smart.”

Kidman’s mother, Janelle Anne Kidman, was a nursing instructor and was a member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby, an Australian feminist group. Later in the conversation, Kidman recounted how her mother was the one who urged her not to leave Hollywood when roles started to dry up in her 40s.

“She was like, ‘I think you need to still keep your toe in the water. I wouldn’t completely give up.’ You’ve been doing this since you were little,” Kidman said. “And thank God she said that.”

What followed was what Kidman called “a much more interesting road” in her career, one where she took on a larger role behind the camera and championed projects that resonated with her. One of her first big swings was adapting the 2006 play “Rabbit Hole,” which follows a couple coping with the loss of a child.

“I thought, ‘What a wonderful thing to do,’ having just given birth to a child,” she smiled. “This is how strange I am — to go and make a film about the thing I’m most terrified of.”

A few years later, Kidman scored a third Oscar nomination for her role in the film, marking a turning point in her career.

“No one wanted to give us any money,” Kidman recalled. “It was a $3.5 million film. We had to fight for every cent, but we got it made. It was scrappy, but it was passionate. That was the beginning of my producing career.”

Kidman recently appeared at CinemaCon in Las Vegas to promote “Practical Magic 2,” the long-awaited sequel to the 1998 romantic fantasy she starred in with Sandra Bullock, set for release this September. She’s also starring in two new streaming series this year: the Apple TV+ original “Margo’s Got Money Problems” and the Prime Video series “Scarpetta.”

History Talks, the brainchild of A+E Networks chief Paul Buccieri, is a live speaker series exploring newsworthy topics and historical events, bringing together trailblazers, global leaders, witnesses, authors and filmmakers for in-depth conversations.

Kidman joined a range of entertainment figures at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia on Saturday, including NFL icons Tom Brady and Jason Kelce, country singer Garth Brooks and comedians Tina Fey and Colin Jost. Former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also attended with their First Ladies.

“HistoryTalks brings together leaders and icons across industries to reflect on our shared history. At A+E Global Media and HISTORY Channel we have always been proud to create moments to celebrate our collective past and contextualize the present,” said Buccieri. “We were honored to join with Comcast NBC Universal in their hometown of Philadelphia, as we commemorate our nation’s 250th anniversary, bringing together teachers, veterans and history enthusiasts to commemorate this milestone in the birthplace of our nation.”

“Heated Rivalry” showrunner Jacob Tierney is in the midst of writing Season 2 of the hockey romance series, which he says will find Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) “in much more serious territory” than the lovers were in the first installment.

“It’s different. It really is different,” Tierney said during a panel alongside “Heated Rivalry” book author Rachel Reid Saturday at BookCon at the Javits Center in New York. “And the challenge of it is, from an adaptation point of view, is that you’re in much more serious territory. A lot of the initial — there’s still lots of flirting and lots of sex — but this kind of danger, this kind of hotel-room-adolescent-sex stuff is largely gone. And so it presents really new challenges.”

Tierney brought on Michael Goldbach as co-writer for “Heated Rivalry” Season 2 to assist in the process as the production team hopes to get the new episodes out sooner rather than later amid the immense popularity of the Crave/HBO Max show’s first season. The storyline in Season 2, which is based on Reid’s book “The Long Game” (the sequel to “Heated Rivalry” and part of Reid’s overall “Game Changer” series), is more complex than the plot in the first season of the show, as it finds Shane and Ilya facing the realities of being in a relationship after a slow-burn romance.

“Part of the reason you start off with ‘Heated Rivalry,’ as far as adapting goes, is because you want to get to ‘The Long Game,’” Tierney said. “Because ‘The Long Game’ is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously. What I’ve always said about this show is there are a lot of books — ‘Game Changer’ is in ‘Heated Rivalry’ and obviously, as I think you guys all know by now — obviously parts of ‘Role Model’ are going to be in [Season 2], to the great surprise of absolutely nobody. But Ilya and Shane are the heartbeat of this series, of my show. It’s always going to be about Ilya and Shane, that is what is the trajectory that runs through it as their world expands.”

Tierney joked that he refers to Reid’s “The Long Game” book as “Sex Scenes From a Marriage,” noting a big fight between Shane and Ilya is one of his favorite moments from the story.

“There’s a Bergman-y kind of, what do you do after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren’t communicating properly, much as you would like to?” Tierney said. “You can say you love each other, but as adults know, there’s so much more to making a relationship a success.”

As Tierney confirmed, Reid’s book “Role Model” — which is part of the overall “Game Changer” novel series but follows the relationship of hockey player Troy Barrett and team social media manager Harris Drover rather than Shane and Ilya — will be worked into “Heated Rivalry” Season 2.

“In ‘Long Game’ you are like, OK, we’re here to ground this in something that feels very real,” Tierney said. “And the same thing with Troy and Harris, right. I think there’s an easy, fascicle way of looking at ‘Role Model’ as it’s very grumpy/sunshine, it’s very apple orchard. It can drift into things that you want. But Troy is a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we are digging into that even harder. Because that’s what’s interesting.”

Back in 2018, Brazilian heiress and philanthropist Olga Rabinovich sat her team down and gave them a mission: to find the most effective way to nurture a cause in dire need of effective financial support in her home country. After a year of research, Olga found her answer in the film industry, launching the Olga Rabinovich Institute the same year and Projeto Paradiso a year later.  

Projeto Paradiso offers a wide range of support to Brazilian screen professionals to maximize their presence on the global stage. The organization is heavily focused on internationalization, working with partners to connect national talent with opportunities worldwide and offering bursaries, training opportunities and carefully curated resources. The initiative was recently behind buzzy festival titles such as Allan Deberton’s Berlinale-winning “Gugu’s World” and Grace Passô’s “Our Secret,” and boasts a talent network of 264 professionals, including Anita Rocha da Silveira (“Medusa”), Juliana Rojas (“Good Manners”) and Dira Paes (“Manas”).

The work of Projeto Paradiso is almost unprecedented in terms of scope and ease of bureaucracy. Given that Rabinovich is the single source of funding and operates without admin-heavy regulatory bodies, the institute has a surprising malleability and agility in how it can support talent. As Projeto Paradiso celebrates its third talent network national meeting in Recife, Variety sat down with Rabinovich and associate Roberta de Oliveira e Corvo to talk about the origins of the institute, its differentials and how one woman is singlehandedly changing the present and future of Brazilian cinema. 

“I have been so immensely privileged in my life and have always been very aware of this privilege and my luck,” says Rabinovich. “One day, I sat down with my long-time lawyer and friend, Roberta, and told her that I wanted to give back somehow. I’ve had wonderful opportunities in life, and I felt like I wanted to enable others to have similar chances.”

When Rabinovich first heard of the issues plaguing the Brazilian film industry, she immediately felt she had found her cause. “I loved the idea of supporting cinema because I feel it is a magical art form,” she says. “You enter a screening room without knowing whether you’ll be elated or disturbed or moved. It’s a transformative experience. I think it’s incredible to have a communal artistic experience that moves you like this. I was immediately onboard.”

After a lengthy research, the institute’s team realized there was a lack of investment in development despite the country boasting healthy incentives and public funding systems. “It was unanimous at that time that the national film industry was not struggling with production per se, because there was a structure in place that was nurturing that side of the market,” adds Corvo. “What we learned is that Brazilian filmmakers had no time to mature their scripts because they needed to make a living while trying to conduct this creative work. That’s when we first came up with the idea of the incubator.”

The incubator became Projeto Paradiso’s first initiative, despite the organization not having been formally named at the time. “Then came Bolsonaro, and we became a much bigger initiative, supporting a much wider network,” recalls Rabinovich. “Bolsonaro wanted to destroy culture altogether. I put my foot down and said: No. We won’t let that happen. Let’s see what we can do.”

When under Bolsonaro funding for Brazil’s national film agency Ancine and other initiatives plunged, Rabinovich stepped up to help Brazilian filmmakers cover travel costs to attend major international festivals. This quick thinking and even quicker action became ingrained in the institute’s ethos. Walking around Recife’s Cais do Sertão, where the Projeto Paradiso Talent Network National Meeting is currently taking place, one could hear producers, directors and writers praising how effective the program is. A producer who asked to remain unnamed said it took less than a week between the Paradiso team confirming they would grant her a travel bursary to a European festival and the money landing in her bank account. “I have been a producer for over two decades and have never seen anything like it.”

Enquired as to how they can operate this efficiently, Corvo says the answer is “simple and frankly quite sad.” “We are dealing with private funds, managed by a single entity. We don’t need to have a long compliance process for every single decision. We have a fiscal board that oversees our work, but we waste very little time in making things happen. If one of our team members comes to us and tells us that someone got selected for a program and they need to jump on the chance right away, we make it happen quickly. We have direct channels between us and talent.”

It also helps that the institute is dealing with relatively small grants, a decision that was made very early on in the company’s establishment. “We opted to offer several smaller grants that could have a meaningful impact on a person and their project instead of only being able to provide one or two massively inflated grants,” adds Corvo.

“I remember the day Josephine [Bourgois, Projeto Paradiso’s executive director] told us about the idea of ‘final cash,’ which is the last bit of money a filmmaker needs to finalize their project. This is often the equivalent of $3,000, but it can make or break a project. Suddenly, the institute can come in and make that happen very quickly. We had people coming to us in tears, sending us long letters… It’s incredible to see the impact of a grant like it.”

Rabinovich is almost like a rock star at the talent network gathering, often being stopped by grateful grantees in the labyrinthine corridors of Cais do Sertão. The warmth she feels at the event makes the philanthropist visibly emotional. “It is such an immense honor and an almost overwhelming feeling of satisfaction,” she says. “I can’t quite believe I have started something that felt so small at the time and that has grown to such success. It is very moving but also feels like a huge responsibility. I’m just grateful we can make it happen.”

As for the future, Rabinovich says she is steadfast in making her charitable work a long-term initiative. “We had a meeting when Projeto Paradiso turned five to think about the next five years and what our priorities were when it came to professionalization,” she recalls. “We wanted to have everything in place to ensure that this is an initiative that can be perpetuated. I don’t want this to have an expiration date. I would love for it to work in perpetuity, and I fully believe we will make it happen.”

SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains plot details from Season 2 of “Beef,” now streaming on Netflix

Netflix’s “Beef” is back for a second season, and the anthology series is wild, revolving around two couples, Josh (Oscar Isaac) and Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) and Austin (Charles Melton) and Ashley (Cailee Spaeny). One of the most intense scenes comes in Episode 5 when Lindsay’s beloved dog, Burberry, has gone missing after Ashley snuck into their house and accidentally left the back door open. After hours of searching, Lindsay comes upon a coyote attacking Burberry and, without a second thought, kills the coyote with her bare hands.

“That was basically what made me want to do it,” Mulligan says.

Creator Lee Sung Jin had not yet fleshed out all eight episodes of “Beef” when Mulligan sat down with him over Zoom, but there was one thing he knew for certain. Mulligan says, “He was like, ‘but I know exactly what happens in Episode 5.’ He pitched the whole episode around losing the dog and ending with that coyote.”

“Shooting it was kind of crazy,” she adds. “But I was very motivated by the idea of that scene.”

This season of “Beef” takes place at an upscale Montecito country club. Isaac plays the club’s general manager, and Lindsay, is an interior decorator there. Gen Z couple Ashley and Austin work at the club, but are at the lower end of the pay scale.

The “Beef” kicks off when Austin and Ashley witness Josh and Lindsay in a heated, violent argument, and capture it on video, suddenly finding themselves with some leverage to blackmail the older couple. Things quickly spiral into a web of lies, power dynamics and desperation. The conflict between Josh and Lindsay escalates, and the coyote scene marks a turning point for Lindsay and her marriage.

“In that whole time, she had never really figured out anything that she cared about or was particularly good at,” Mulligan says of Lindsay. “I think that was a big part of what I found interesting about her — that with all she had built her life on with this marriage, she didn’t really have an identity that she could hold on to.”

Killing the coyote might be an unhinged moment, but Mulligan says: “It’s the realization that the marriage is completely over, and that the only thing in the world that she feels has reciprocal love and understanding for her is this dog. So killing that coyote in defense of the dog is this enormous act of love, but also realizing that you only have that an animal — that you don’t have with people in your life.”

In the next episode, Lindsay has changed. “She cares less about what people think,” Mulligan says. “Much of the first half of the show, she’s being so consumed by how she’s perceived. After she kills the coyote, she’s like, ‘Fuck it. I’ve just got to win somehow. I’ve got to find my path to survival. So I thought it was quite liberating thing for her.”

Before shooting, Isaac sat down with Lee to figure out who Josh is, and where he is in his career and marriage. “We started constructing the character together based on an initial idea of circumstances that happened in the show, and that was it was an incredible thing to do.”

The exploration process with Lee was valuable to both Mulligan and Isaac in working out their respective backstories and understanding who their characters were and what drove them.

When it came to Josh, who appears to be bad with money and desperate to hold on to his youth. Isaac says: “He got this vibe. I’m the young, cool, hip guy — everything’s fine. And then what he does at home, and the tension between those things was really fun to explore.”

Josh’s attempts to achieve that young vibe is reflected at home. He’s got a mancave filled with memorabilia, and even owns a Moog synth that once belonged to his favorite band, Hot Chip. In Episode 2, he plays it — and he’s not great at it. A few episodes later, he’s up on stage, jamming with the band.

Who Josh wants to be is also reflected in his hair — yes, that’s a mini-mullet he’s rocking. Issac worked with his hair stylist Tim Nolan who suggested that style. “It’s a perfect thing that again, speaks to somebody that’s trying to hold on to a particular image of youth,” Isaac says. “And one that shows a sense of relaxation and of energy — even though he’s just being strangled the entire time.”

Josh starts stealing money from the club in order to maintain his lifestyle, and hold onto his image. “He cares more about identity and he wants enough money,” Isaac says. “He’s never going to be able to be a member of this club, but this is the closest he can get to it.”

Josh, who’s surrounded by extreme wealth, feels a sense of entitlement — and he’s also been stealing money from his late mother’s bank account, “So he is already smudging the line there out of desperation,” Isaac says.

“He feels he has the right to, like all the rich people, to get his own,” Isaac says. “Whatever that means.”