Tag: Entertainment – Variety

The Puerto Rico Film Festival has announced Costa Rica as the official country in focus for its upcoming 17th edition, taking place August 19–23. The announcement marks the first time the festival elects a country of honor, and comes ahead of this year’s Costa Rica Media Market, a leading industry event taking place in San José on July 14-15.

According to the festival, the choice reflects a “growing relationship between both territories and opening new opportunities for artistic and industry collaboration.” The special spotlight will see a series of dedicated initiatives, including welcoming a delegation of Costa Rican filmmakers and a showcase of contemporary Costa Rican cinema. Costa Rica Film Commissioner Marysela Zamora-Villalobos will also attend the festival, where she will take part in industry activities focused on international collaboration, production incentives and regional partnerships.

A festival statement highlighted how having Costa Rica as the festival’s country in focus emphasizes the event’s “long-term commitment to building stronger bridges between Caribbean and Latin American film industries at a time when international co-productions, shared funding opportunities and cross-border distribution have become increasingly important for independent filmmakers.”

“The partnership offers an opportunity to deepen ties with Puerto Rico while introducing audiences and industry professionals to a new generation of Costa Rican storytellers,” the statement continued. “For Puerto Rico, it reinforces the island’s ambition to become a strategic hub where Caribbean and Latin American cinema can collaborate, develop projects and create sustainable industry relationships.”

Lester Rivé, founder and festival director of the Puerto Rico Film Festival said: “For Puerto Rico, having Costa Rica as our Country in Focus represents much more than a cultural exchange. It creates new opportunities for our filmmakers to connect internationally, showcase their work, develop co-productions and explore new business and distribution opportunities across Latin America. Building these relationships today will strengthen the future of our regional film industry.”

Speaking with Variety, Zamora said the festival’s invitation “reflects the growing recognition of Costa Rica as an active player in the regional audiovisual ecosystem.” 

“It gives our filmmakers, producers, and companies another platform to build international partnerships and showcase the quality of the work being created in the country,” she added. “It’s also a sign that Costa Rica is increasingly contributing to regional conversations—not only through its locations, but through its talent, stories and industry initiatives.”

Costa Rica’s audiovisual industry has grown exponentially in the last decade, with breakout films by directors such as Valentina Maurel, Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, Paz Fábrega and Sofía Quirós Ubeda making waves at major festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and Rotterdam.

Well-known for stunning landscapes and rich biodiversity, the small but mighty Central American country has also emerged as a hungry player on the international production scene. In 2021, the country introduced its Law of Attraction of Film Investments, consolidating VAT refunds and tax exemptions for foreign productions. Today, the country offers an up-to-90% VAT refund on local services for qualifying projects, which equates to an around 11.7% tax rebate with a promise to repay within 90 days. 

Last year, Costa Rica attracted $11.2 million in audiovisual investment through 87 international business opportunities, more than double the 41 from the year prior. The country lured projects from Warner Bros. Discovery, Universal and BBC Studios, with the film commission closely supporting their production by minimizing bureaucracy and expediting technical documents.  

Beyond the Costa Rica-tied activities and a full program of screenings, the Puerto Rico Film Festival has become known for a growing industry platform designed to connect Puerto Rico with the global film community while celebrating diverse voices and emerging talent from around the world. This year’s full program is yet to be announced. 

Is David Ellison considering a nuclear option of relocating Paramount’s headquarters from California — and potentially diverting billions of production dollars from the Golden State — if California Attorney General Rob Bonta files his expected challenge to the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal?

That was the suggestion in an anonymously sourced item published by Semafor on Sunday, which said that Ellison’s “friends and advisers” have been “pushing the media executive to consider shifting his business out of the state.” The report cautioned that Paramount has made no decisions on this front and that such talk “may just be a show of brinkmanship.”

Indeed, the Semafor report comes as California’s AG appears to be moving forward with plans to file a lawsuit to block Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery “as soon as this week,” the New York Times reported Sunday. California would be joined by states including New York, Washington and Connecticut in the legal challenge, in arguing the deal would “harm competition in the market” for tentpole films among other claims, per the Times report.

Representatives for Paramount Skydance did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The message in the suggestion that Ellison’s Paramount might exit California: If you try to block or slow down our Warner Bros. takeover, we’ll take our business elsewhere. It’s obviously a saber-rattling move, but it isn’t clear whether the threat will give pause to California or other states with Democratic attorneys general who are opposing the deal.

Paramount last year moved corporate headquarters after buying Paramount Global, relocating from New York City to Los Angeles. Other companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Larry Ellison’s Oracle, in recent years have moved their HQs out of California for tax reasons or over objections to California laws and regulations.

It would be one thing for Paramount to shift its corporate headquarters out of L.A. That would potentially affect a few hundred jobs. But the logistics and repercussions of diverting Paramount-Warner Bros. film and TV productions out of California would be daunting — not only would it take several years to do that, it would poison the merged company’s relations with Hollywood professionals, who are already concerned that Paramount-WBD will curtail job opportunities.

Paramount has lobbied Bonta about the alleged pro-competitive benefits of its Warner Bros. deal, and why specifically it would be a good thing for the state. In May, Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim a letter to Bonta in which he “reiterate[d] our continued commitment and support to Californian movie theaters and audiences” coming “in response to certain misinformation about the marketplace expressed in recent public commentary.” Delrahim also noted Ellison’s repeated pledges that the merged company will release at least 30 films per year.

Revitalized last year as an offshoot of the Central America and Caribbean Audiovisual Market, the Costa Rica Media Market (CRMM) promises a packed two-day conference over July 14-15, followed by fam tours for most of its participants.

Organized by Costa Rica’s Film Commission, its Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Promocomer), and tourism agency Essential Costa Rica, CRMM aims to bolster its position as a key platform for regional projects in the international market.

Spearheaded by film commissioner Marysela Zamora, the market expects to host 900 business meetings among a host of international players numbering some 350, an uptick from last year’s 275.

“One of the most exciting developments this year is the mix of industry perspectives coming together. We’re welcoming Disney, MrBeast, a new generation of producers working in Hollywood and leading players from countries like Mexico and Colombia—two of the region’s strongest audiovisual industries,” Zamora tells Variety.

“Bringing them into conversation with talent from Central America and the Caribbean creates a unique space for new ideas, partnerships and a more connected regional industry.”

Ari Cheren, the producer of MrBeast, the YouTube and TikTok phenomenon known for his fast-paced videos built around elaborate challenges and philanthropic efforts, will have the opportunity to meet with local producers and location managers, as well as join CRMM’s familiarization tours. “For us, it’s a valuable opportunity to showcase the talent, capabilities and locations that Costa Rica offers to international productions,” says Zamora.

Among this edition’s highlights is the launch of Women in Fan LatAm, an extension of the WomanInFan initiative founded by the Sitges Int’l Film Festival as well as the continuation of Fantastic Lab Central America & Caribbean, introduced last year.

“Through Fantastic Lab and Women in Fan LatAm, we’re opening new doors for genre cinema in Central America and the Caribbean, while showcasing 24 curated projects across fiction, documentaries and series. Together, they reflect a region with increasingly ambitious stories that are ready for the international stage,” Zamora notes.

Tuesday’s Day 1 kicks off with a conversation with Costa Rica’s first-ever Oscar-nominated talent, Felipe Pacheco, who was recognized in the best sound category for his work on Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners.”

This is followed by a much-anticipated talk on how studios choose where to film and questions what drives these all-important decisions. Panelists will include reps from Disney, 20th Century Studios and The Mediapro Studio’s Cimarrón Cine, known for a host of noteworthy credits, including J.A. Bayona’s Oscar- nominated “Society of the Snow.”

The second panel, titled “The Future of Storytelling,” features Julye Cuartas from 11:11 Films & TV, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, CEO Alegría Films and Greta Talia Fuentes, Development VP of Macro.

On Day 2, Charlye Sextro, senior VP of acquisitions & business development, Utopia will address one of the most perplexing issues that filmmakers face: “What Makes a Film Break Through? How Festivals, Buyers and Distributors Decide.”

This is followed by a panel comprising TIFF programmer Diana Cadavid, Puerto Rico Film Festival’s Lester Rive and Patricia Velázquez of the Costa Rica Film Festival who will discuss how festivals drive talent, industry and audiences.

The thorny issue of AI will of course be debated with Adriana Ramírez of Megatrax leading the discussion. Pitches and Workshops also form part of the agenda.

Lastly, Sitges Festival director general Mónica García and director-producer Luis Javier Enaine will discuss the notable expansion of genre cinema in Latin America with Pablo Guisa, CEO Grupo Mórbido, moderating.

“Our ambition is to establish Costa Rica Media Market as the leading audiovisual market for Central America and the Caribbean. We want it to be the place where international decision-makers come to discover the region’s next stories, talent and production opportunities. Ultimately, we hope the market becomes a catalyst for projects that move from development to production and reach audiences around the world,” Zamora concludes.

Natalia Solórzano Vásquez’s upcoming “Spells to Revive a Witch” has found new partners in Spain’s Testaferro and Uruguay’s Guay Films. The hybrid documentary, headed to the Costa Rica Media Market, is produced by Costa Rica’s Sputnik Films. Mariana Murillo’s label has previously produced Sofía Quirós Ubeda’s Cannes-selected “Land of Ashes,” and it’s currently in post-production with the filmmaker’s follow-up, “Madre Pájaro.” 

“Spells to Revive a Witch” marks the first collaboration between Natalia Solórzano Vásquez and the burgeoning Sputnik Films banner. Her debut feature, “Avanzaré tan despacio,” premiered at IDFA in 2019 and her short films have found success at the Costa Rica International Film Festival. Her latest project is a “casting call to embody” Costa Rican fortune teller Soralla de Persia, who rose to fame in the 1960s. The hybrid documentary will become a “stage” where “different women invoke her spirit through memories, interpretations, and personal experiences.” 

Speaking with Variety, Solórzano Vásquez says she discovered Soralla “almost by accident” while researching women who had “appeared in Costa Rican media.” “I had never heard of her before, which immediately struck me. She had once been one of the most recognizable women in the country, yet she had almost completely disappeared from our collective memory.”

“That absence became the starting point of the film,” she adds. “The more I searched for Soralla, the more I realized I was also searching for all the women whose lives slowly vanish because no one thought they were worth preserving.”

The director says the fortune teller made her think about the women in her own family, who belonged “to the same generation but lived very different lives.” “She represents the possibility of reinventing yourself, but also the price women often pay for stepping outside the roles society has assigned to them.”

Murillo, who has known Solórzano Vásquez since university, says she has “always been fascinated by her ability to observe and make us observe everyday life with a unique combination of tenderness, humor, and critical insight.” “Soralla’s story gave us the perfect excuse to work together and explore a female character through a deeply performative lens, guided by a feminist perspective and a conviction we have shared from the very beginning: who we are today is nothing more than a reflection of who we once were.”

Asked about how she feels about making a film about memory in Latin America at a time when films broaching issues of both personal and collective memory in the region have found great international success, the director says memory “fascinates” her because “it is always incomplete.” “We tend to think of it as something that preserves the past, but it also transforms it.”

“This film doesn’t try to reconstruct Soralla exactly as she was,” she notes. “It asks what happens when almost everything has disappeared, and only fragments remain. Those fragments live inside other people, and every time they are remembered, they become something slightly different. I’m interested in that fragile space where memory, imagination and lived experience coexist.”

As for being a part of a strong generation of female filmmakers in Costa Rica — which has seen the rise of names such as Valentina Maurel and Sofia Quirós Ubeda — Solórzano Vásquez says she feels “very lucky” to belong to this noteworthy group. “Costa Rican cinema is still small, which means we know each other well and have grown alongside one another,” she adds. “There is an incredible diversity of voices, and many women are telling stories that simply hadn’t been told before. I think we’re less interested in representing an idea of Costa Rica than in questioning it, expanding it, and finding new cinematic languages to talk about who we are.”

The “Spells to Revive a Witch” project has been developed through the Rueda Program of the Spanish Film Academy, CIMA Impulsa and Ventana Sur’s Proyecta.

The Costa Rica Media Market runs July 14-15.

Disney’s live-action reimagining “Moana” sailed straight to the top of the South Korean box office during the weekend of Jul. 10–12.

According to data from KOBIS, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council, the film generated $3 million from 403,931 admissions over the three-day frame, securing a 36.53% share of the weekend market. Since its wide rollout on July 8, the film has accumulated a cumulative gross of $3.7 million from 511,471 total admissions.

Local suspense thriller “The Eyes” held its ground in second place, pulling in $1.8 million from 257,816 admissions. Directed by Yeom Ji-ho and starring Shin Min-ah and Kim Nam-hee, the remake of the Spanish feature “Julia’s Eyes” has now pushed its cumulative haul to $8.7 million from 1,277,263 total viewers.

“Toy Story 5” moved to third place, collecting $1.7 million from 238,520 admissions, bringing its South Korea cume to $17.6 million from 2,580,319 total tickets since its mid-June premiere.

The faith-based animated musical “David” debuted in fourth place, capturing $390,901 from 57,675 admissions over the three-day window. Including previews, the film has brought its early local cume to $493,014 from 75,469 viewers.

Long-running action-horror powerhouse “Colony” took fifth place, generating $275,526 from 37,008 admissions over the weekend frame. Directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, and Ji Chang-wook, the viral hive-mind thriller has reached a cumulative haul of $41.4 million from 5,914,322 total admissions since launching on May 21.

“Marty Supreme” placed sixth on the chart, adding $110,163 to its ledger for a gross of $723,165, while 1990s retro music comedy “Wild Sing” took seventh place, pulling in $72,357 to take its total to $8.5 million.

The Japanese animated adventure “Doraemon the Movie: New Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil” held the eighth position with $82,132 over the frame to land at a cume of $360,752.

Plus M Entertainment’s highly anticipated epic science fiction thriller “Hope” placed ninth, capturing $101,311 from 10,146 preview admissions ahead of its upcoming wide release. Directed by Na Hong-jin and boasting a star-studded international ensemble that includes Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Michael Fassbender, and Alicia Vikander, the film chronicles a rural community facing an extraterrestrial threat, and has a preliminary total of $106,628.

Rounding out the bottom rung of the top 10 was “Backrooms,” which generated $65,575 over the three-day window to lift its lifetime cume to $8.5 million from 1,209,069 admissions.

The overall market collective gross for the weekend was $8.2 million, up from last week’s $7.3 million.

Jay-Z’s third and most hotly anticipated concert at Yankee Stadium on Sunday night was plagued by a nearly four-hour delay due to fans rushing the venue’s gates, with Jay finally taking the stage four hours after the concert’s listed start time (and around three hours after the previous two nights).

“I appreciate your patience. We gonna have a good time. I got some shit for you, I promise you,” Jay said when he finally took the stage after midnight.

“There was like ten thousand people outside,” he explained, “and they closed all the doors ‘cuz [people] rushed the door, and i didn’t want to start music and have people get trampled. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.”

According to a report on New York’s ABC7, citing an unidentified police source (and multiple social media posts), a large number of fans rushed at least two of the stadium’s gates and got past security without being screened. A full lockdown of the stadium ensued, with fans neither being allowed out of the venue nor inside for an extended period of time.

Reps for Jay-Z and Live Nation, the concert’s promoter, did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment.

A video making the rounds online appeared to show A$AP Rocky, Charlamagne Tha God and Fabolous waiting to get in, with the caption “Wow even celebrities are stuck outside the last Jay Z yankee stadium show tonight 😭.”

Sunday’s setback made for an anticlimactic finale to the three-night stand. On the first night, Beyonce joined Jay onstage during the concert’s first song, singing Mary J. Blige’s part on “Can’t Knock the Hustle.” The concert, a celebration of the 30th anniversary of his debut album, “Reasonable Doubt,” also featured guest appearances from their daughter Blue Ivy Carter, as well as Nas and Alicia Keys.

Night two, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of his classic “Blueprint” album, featured guest spots from Eminem and Pharrell.

Night three, however, had an open-ended theme: the tantalizingly titled “Extra Innings.”

Variety will have a show review soon and more on the situation as it develops.