Tag: Entertainment – Variety

A boy’s devotion to his uncle, a man with an intellectual disability, curdles into shame as he grows up and away from home in “Uncle,” the first feature written and directed by Taiwan’s Yen Hao-hsuan.

The project is part of the Asian Project Market, which runs within the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).

Set in rural Taiwan from 1997 to 2000, the film follows 10-year-old Wen and A-Tsik, the uncle he is inseparable from, in a turbulent household where Wen’s grandfather runs an illegal gambling den on the ground floor. As Wen hits adolescence, his affection turns to embarrassment, while the family’s efforts to police A-Tsik’s behavior and sexuality reveal how little say he has over his own life. With the country rebuilding after an earthquake and going through its first democratic handover of power, Wen starts picturing a life beyond his hometown. When he heads off to school in the city, A-Tsik stays put.

The story is Yen’s own. He lived with his uncle for 18 years, a relationship that moved from childhood closeness to teenage shame to Yen leaving for a better future while his uncle remained unchanged. Yen kept his own life out of his short films, unsure back then whether he could separate honesty from indulgence. “Making those short films and the time that has passed since, have given me enough distance to see him as a person, not only as a relative or as a material for a film. Now I think I’m ready,” he says.

As Taiwan races toward the new millennium, its hunger for progress propels the boy forward, Yen says, while the uncle never gets that option. “I hope the film makes us think about who we leave behind, and what we fail to recognize when progress becomes the measure of a person’s worth.”

Yen also wants audiences to meet A-Tsik, and people like him, as equals. “He is loving, funny, stubborn and difficult. He has sexual desires, falls in love, makes mistakes and can hurt people,” he says. “Society labels my uncle ‘abnormal.’ I am not trying to make him ‘normal’; I just hope this film could make the gap between those two words a little smaller.”

The film is produced by Patrick Mao Huang, who founded Flash Forward Entertainment, and Sung Chin-hsuan, with Flash Forward, wpd films and Soseki Studio presenting. Huang’s credits include “Tiger Stripes,” which won the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize in 2023, and “Deep Quiet Room.” Sung’s work spans film, series and immersive media, including 2025 Venice Immersive Grand Prize winner “The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up.”

Huang, who had long hoped to work with Yen, says the director’s shorts showed rare command of performance and sound and image, along with an honest grasp of adolescence. “To grow up is also to abandon something,” Huang says. He believes the film’s emotional core can travel beyond Taiwan.

“Uncle” is in development and financing, backed by a Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) development grant, and was developed in the New Director Workshop held this year by the Taipei Film Festival. Yen is now writing a fresh draft and working out the film’s visual style. The project has also been picked for the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market.

In Busan, where the project is making its first Asian market outing, the producers are courting co-production partners from Korea, Japan, elsewhere in Asia and Europe, along with financiers, post-production collaborators, sales agents and distributors. Huang wants a financing and creative setup that safeguards Yen’s voice and the film’s Taiwanese character.

Yen’s 2024 short “Caged Dog” earned a Golden Horse Awards nomination in the live action short category, and his first short, 2022’s “On Another’s Sorrow,” bowed at the Golden Horse festival. He is finishing his third short, “Accident,” now in post-production, and is toying with a possible second feature or series about Taiwan’s democratization.

“Demon Hunters,” Mei-Juin Chen’s India-Taiwan action-comedy, will open in cinemas across the Netherlands on Oct. 29 via LAX Entertainment, extending a run that began theatrically in Taiwan and continued on streaming and digital platforms in India and the U.S.

LAX chief Soeniel Sewnarain has lined up screens with leading Dutch exhibitors, among them Pathé and Kinepolis.

“What attracted us to ‘Demon Hunters’ is that it is genuinely different. It brings together India and Taiwan in a way that is energetic, entertaining and accessible to an international audience,” said Sewnarain.

Arjan Bajwa, JC Lin, Regina Lei, Jack Kao, Harry Chang and Jayanta Meetei star. Chen’s film mixes action and comedy with a supernatural streak, and builds its story around the collision of two cultures.

The film first played in Taiwan through Vie Show Cinemas. Indian audiences then got access via JioHotstar and Prime Video, and a U.S. rollout followed on Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube and other digital services.

Cindy Shyu of Taiwan’s Light House Productions produced the independent feature, which also had support from the Taiwanese government. Gayathiri Guliani, founder of India’s Kleos Entertainment Group, came aboard as co-producer.

“The Netherlands release is an important milestone for us because it brings ‘Demon Hunters’ back to the big screen in a new international market,” said Shyu. “From Taiwan to India, the U.S. and now the Netherlands, the film has continued to find audiences across cultures. That is ultimately what we hoped for when we began this India-Taiwan collaboration – to create a film that could travel.”

Guliani said the film had been designed from the start to cross borders, adding that its journey through Taiwan, India, the U.S. and the Netherlands showed “stories rooted in one culture can find resonance in another when they are driven by universal entertainment values.”

The news was unveiled on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents & Film Market.

Japan’s Dwarf Studios is looking for a new partner for “Hidari,” the stop-motion samurai film voiced by Keanu Reeves, after talks with a U.S. company that offered to fund the entire budget in exchange for all rights stalled, producer Matsumoto Noriko told an audience at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) on Sunday.

Dwarf Studios co-founder and head producer Matsumoto was speaking at “Co-Producing with Japan: Opportunities and Challenges,” a Producer Hub session co-hosted by VIPO. Japan is the Producer Hub’s focus country this year. She was joined by Questry CEO Ibe Tomonobu and Knockonwood founder Yamaguchi Shin, with VIPO’s Tanimoto Hiroyuki moderating. Kawamura Masashi directs “Hidari,” produced by Dwarf, Whatever and Tecarat.

Dwarf’s “Hidari” pitch was a highlight of the Annecy Animation Showcase at Cannes and at Annecy itself earlier this year. A U.S. company’s offer to fund it came with a condition: it would take all the rights. Matsumoto said the company respected Dwarf’s creativity and was prepared to pay enough, but full funding would have left the studio with no control over a highly original project. Dwarf wanted to hold on to half the rights and asked Ibe to find the Japanese share. Before the talks could go further, the people Matsumoto had been negotiating with lost their jobs amid upheaval in Hollywood, and Dwarf is now looking for a new partner.

“Even with Keanu, we cannot stop the fire,” Matsumoto said.

Questry has set up a special purpose company for “Hidari” so that overseas and local investors can put money into the film side by side. Ibe said the project shows why development money matters. Dwarf made a pilot short in 2023 at its own risk, partly through crowdfunding, and the pilot traveled far enough to bring Reeves aboard. Questry now wants to back pilots and development-stage work, which in Japan studios and creators usually pay for themselves.

The film could not have been financed in Japan alone, Ibe said, and the reason lies in how Japanese film and anime are usually funded. Ibe spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs before founding Questry about four years ago. His presentation put the share of Japanese anime and films backed by production committees, or seisaku iinkai, at more than 90%, citing industry estimates. Publishers, labels, broadcasters, streamers, toy companies and ad agencies each put in a share, mainly to win a “window” – the right to exploit the title in their own business. Window fees are deducted first, so members often make more from their window than from their stake. Studios, meanwhile, are typically hired for a fee and see little upside.

In Korea, by contrast, investors, distributors and producers play separate roles, and Ibe said producers often take around 40% of profit after recoupment. “How you raise money decides how you share it,” he said.

Ibe’s presentation described the committee as a well-built system that works very well for titles made in Japan for Japan. It can still serve titles sold worldwide if overseas rights are planned from day one, he said, but the fit gets worse the more global a project is. A co-production with few Japanese windows to sell gives Japanese companies little reason to invest, and only Japanese companies can sit on a committee. Overseas sales made up 56% of anime industry revenue in 2024, up from 20% in 2014, he noted.

“If the world needs a project, we want to put money into it, even if the Japanese market can’t see it yet,” Ibe said.

Yamaguchi, who said he has wrestled with financing for more than 20 years, has made the committee work for an international film. Fukada Koji’s “Love on Trial,” which Knockonwood joined in 2017, drew 60% of its budget from a Toho-led committee, 29% from the government’s JLOX subsidy and 11% from presales through MK2 Films and French distributor Art House. Yamaguchi kept the committee to Toho, Knockonwood and one music company. The French money went in through Knockonwood’s share, backed by a separate contract giving the French partner full sight of the numbers – an arrangement he said still sits in a gray zone. The film world premiered at Cannes and had its Asian premiere in Busan last year.

Hikari’s “Rental Family,” starring Brendan Fraser, took a different route. U.S. partner Sight Unseen put in seed money in 2020 and later connected the project to Searchlight Pictures, which signed on in 2023. Searchlight covered 90% of the budget and a JLOX location incentive the other 10%. The film world premiered in Toronto in 2025 and was released in 73 countries. Yamaguchi has worked with Hikari for 15 years.

His third case, Eddie Cahyono’s “Ibuku,” plays in competition at Busan this year. Indonesia’s Talenta Media and Yasa Buana Films hold 80% and Knockonwood 15%. The last 5% came from Thailand’s White Light gap fund, released after the project won the White Light Asian Project Award at BICM. Christine Hakim stars in the 16mm film, which first won a prize at Busan’s Asian Project Market in 2015. Knockonwood came aboard nearly a decade later through Cinema at Sea.

“Independent filmmakers and producers never give up because we have to find the new ways,” Yamaguchi said. Japan has started opening up to co-production over the past two years, he added, though it remains behind other countries on language, legal and accounting fronts. Japan has co-production treaties only with China and Italy, and Yamaguchi said neither works well for the Japanese side.

Tanimoto said the government subsidy behind “Love on Trial” and “Rental Family” has been upgraded this year into a new program, IP360, with higher minimum budgets for production and post-production. Pre-production support remains, and applicants need a Japanese producer partner. The Agency for Cultural Affairs also offers a co-production subsidy covering 20%, subject to caps.

Stop-motion brings its own problems, Matsumoto said. A co-production typically requires 20% to 30% of the budget to be spent outside Japan, which is hard when the shoot cannot easily be split. Dwarf, which co-owns NHK mascot Domo-kun, has still found partners abroad. Its feature “Komaneko” drew more than 250,000 moviegoers in France, over 10 times its ticket sales at home, and “Mogu & Perol” is being developed as a series with French and Taiwanese partners. Dwarf is also adapting Matsumoto Taiyo’s autobiographical manga “Sunny.” Matsumoto, meanwhile, is developing “Moritō,” drawn from an art exhibition by Shibata Keiko, creator of the picture book “Pan Dorobou.”

“Even if I give up co-production, I don’t give up finding collaborators,” Matsumoto said.

Kim Sung-soo, director of Korean box office hit “12.12: The Day,” once saw AI as a destroyer of the film industry. Speaking Sunday at a session hosted by Kling AI at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents & Film Market, he described how it has instead become part of his craft.

His turning point was “Worm Train,” an eight-minute short he first gave up on because AI couldn’t render its key scene, a giant insect colliding with a packed train crowd. Months later, the technology had caught up. “Technology doesn’t replace creativity. It shows what’s in your imagination,” Kim said. The project changed how he imagines and collaborates, he added: “I’ll never go back to the way I used to make films.”

He did not make it alone. Kim assembled a nine-person team, including an animation art director and a music director. Though the short could have been made entirely with AI, he said, they chose to generate only part of it and handle the rest with conventional filmmaking methods. He plans a similar hybrid approach for a seven-part drama series he is developing. Its nearly 15-minute opening chase on the Gyeongin Expressway, which he said would require “enormous financial resources” to shoot conventionally, will first be generated with AI, then used to decide which shots need actors on set and where traditional VFX come in.

Kim was joined by Harry Hyun, director and CEO of AI production company MooAm; Chinese animation director Li Wei, co-director of “Jiang Ziya”; and Lee Sangwook, producer and team manager at MBC C&I’s AI Contents Lab.

Li made a similar case for animation. Presenting a trailer for “Born of the Tide,” a 105-minute AI-animated feature about China’s boat-dwelling Tanka community, he said the technology works best at the trial-and-error stage: concept designs that once took enormous time to draw by hand can now be visualized quickly and shared with the team. “AI can generate many things, but the choice and the details all come down to the director,” he said.

Hyun agreed that filmmaking skill is what makes the difference. “Faces look identical, sets look identical, lighting looks identical,” she said of AI output made without it. That is why MooAm looks for AI artists who have directed at least one live-action short.

Otherwise, she said, AI production is not fundamentally different from a conventional shoot, only more efficient. What changes is the crew. Her directing team now includes an “AI coordinator,” who decides which cuts will be generated, keeps a continuity script for them and checks with AI artists that everything cuts together. Even assistant directors need a basic grasp of AI, as gray screens marked with tracking points replace green screens.

Building those skills is also a priority for Lee, whose lab is producing “Rendering Love,” a short-form K-pop romantic comedy about a virtual idol group, with “Parasite” producer Barunson E&A developing the story. “If even one or two individuals lag on the learning curve, overall quality can suffer,” he said of keeping pace as models update.

Mastering the tools won’t settle every question, though. Kim argued that rules on commercial use and permissions should be settled before the industry sets any technical standards. “Whenever I generate outputs, I scrutinize the results closely to ensure they do not infringe upon existing works or violate anyone’s publicity rights,” he said.

“In the future, we won’t call AI movies ‘AI movies,’ just as we no longer call films ‘color movies,’” Kim said.

Small, AI-native companies running automated pipelines can develop their own intellectual property, while traditional studios hold on to their advantages in established franchises, production infrastructure, talent and distribution, according to VFX veteran Hong Jae Cheol.

Hong, a producer-director at Viscode who began his career at Industrial Light & Magic and worked on films including “Iron Man,” “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” laid out that vision at the InnoAsia AI Creators Camp, held Sunday at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents & Film Market in Busan. “We are moving from using AI to generate individual images toward using AI as part of a complete production workflow,” he said.

AI is changing the production model, Hong argued, while traditional visual effects remain essential to making generated material usable on screen. He framed the future as a hybrid, and a partnership between AI and human creativity, rather than a wholesale replacement of existing studios.

Hong contrasted a conventional live-action and VFX process, involving 3D assets, animation, rendering and compositing, with an AI-assisted approach. In the latter, actors perform on a controlled set; AI generates environments and visual elements; and VFX artists handle tracking, integration and finishing. He also outlined current AI applications across VFX, animation and filmmaking, including rotoscoping, cleanup, previs, character design, camera tests and environment creation.

Mark Wachholz, chief creative director of Berlin-based Dreamkite Studios, whose AI films “The Cinema That Never Was” and “Céremony” have won top prizes at AI film festivals, approached the shift from the creative side. He described AI co-creation as an invitation to give up some control and allow for surprise, framing the process as “exploring instead of controlling” and “finding instead of knowing.” He also argued that new tools require new ways of thinking, rather than simply applying old methods to new technology.

Director Ahn Jaehong of Climax Studio, who turned to AI filmmaking after arm injuries ended his work behind the camera, brought the discussion back to directing and production. He mapped a workflow from prompts and camera information to scene context, shot lists, storyboards, character and prop sheets, locations and keyframes. The sequence reinforced a point shared by the speakers: AI can assist across multiple stages, but filmmakers still need to shape the story, visual design and final result.

Hong summed up the distinction: “AI is just a tool; film is a sequence.” The discussion centered on how that tool might become part of a connected filmmaking process, with human direction and VFX expertise still determining how its images fit together.

Brazilian media behemoth Globo and Endemol Shine Brasil, part of Banijay Latin America, have forged a non-scripted IP strategic partnership to develop and produce a next generation of franchises from Brazil, with the aim of jointly crafting original IP with global appeal, as well as of course local relevance.

The ambitious pact will further the partners’ previous collaborative efforts, which has produced the likes of such mega hits as “Big Brother Brasil,” “No Limite” (“Survivor”),” “The Masked Singer,” “Dança dos Famosos” (“Dance of the Famous”) and “The Wall,” among others. Both companies will have a hefty presence at Mipcom.

Globo’s proven ability to create and produce Brazilian content that reaches and engages more than 70 million people daily, combined with Endemol Shine Brasil’s knowhow and access to the global reach of parent company Banijay Entertainment, makes this a formidable pairing.

Said Nani Freitas, CEO of Endemol Shine Brasil: “Our partnership with Globo goes back many years, all the way to Endemol’s arrival in Brazil. The combination of our expertise creates a highly powerful environment for developing culture-defining entertainment. That is why it is especially meaningful to take another step forward in this relationship and join forces in the creation of new entertainment formats from the very beginning of the development process, with the potential to connect audiences far beyond our market.”

Amauri Soares, Executive Director of Globo Studios, concurred: “Globo has been expanding investments in creative development hubs, connecting our talent with strategic partners to accelerate the creation of original formats. By bringing together Globo’s creativity with the international expertise of Endemol Shine Brasil and Banijay Entertainment, we are taking another step toward transforming our studios into a hub for developing Brazilian intellectual properties with global reach.”

Under the agreement, Globo will have priority rights to exploit the new formats across its channels and platforms, while Endemol Shine Brasil will spearhead international expansion through Banijay Entertainment’s worldwide network of more than 170 labels across 25 territories, opening a direct route to international markets.

“Everyone knows launching new original programming in our markets is no easy task, which makes this partnership all the more significant. I’m very excited and proud Endemol Shine Brasil has possibility to do exactly that with a major player like Globo. I can’t thank Amauri enough for this great opportunity to collaborate,” said Laurens Drillich, CEO, Banijay Latin America.

Endemol Shine Brasil has been aggressively expanding its production footprint across traditional, digital and vertical microdramas.

In April, it teamed up with ReelShort on the Brazilian version of the microdrama platform’s biggest hit, “Married at First Sight.” It also formed a partnership with A Fábrica, a Banijay Americas company, to create a slate of vertical-format microdramas.

Its new docu-reality series “Underground City” (“Cidade Subterrânea”), an original format it created, which delves into São Paulo’s subway system, premiered on GNT and Globo’s streaming platform, Globoplay, and also aired on TV Globo’s Fantástico.

Mipcom runs over Oct. 10-15.

“SNL U.K.” once again skewered the royal family in this week’s cold open, showing a contentious reunion between Prince William and Kate and Prince Harry and Meghan at Sandringham Estate.

“This place brings back so many memories,” Ayoade Bamgboye as Meghan said to Prince Harry (Jack Shep). “Look, this is where your grandpa asked if I was related to Beyoncé.”

“Classic. And this is where he asked if I was related to him! But still, I can only wonder who sent us this mysterious invite,” Shep as Prince Harry said, holding up a red envelope.

“It’s your family, H,” Bamgboye’s Meghan said. “They must want us to be royals again! I’ll bet we won them over with my famous brownie recipe: it’s brownie and oven.”

Then, Prince William (Freddie Meredith) and Kate (Annabel Marlow) appeared, also with a red envelope in hand. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Prince Ginger Pubes,” Meredith as Prince William said.

“Oh look, William! It’s the woman from ‘Suits,’” Marlow’s Kate added, gesturing to Meghan.

“Jokes on you, she’s not on ‘Suits’ anymore. She doesn’t do anything anymore!” Shep as Prince Harry replied.

King Charles (Larry Dean) and Queen Camilla (Emma Sidi) then entered the room, with Charles saying: “Oh boys, I’m so happy to see you back together. I can’t wait to tell mummy once I’ve died!”

However, it’s soon revealed that they didn’t send the invitation either. Preceded by an evil laugh, former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (George Fouracres) — whose title was stripped due to his links with Jeffrey Epstein — appears and discloses that it was him that brought the family together.

“Didn’t you hear the good news? The search warrants were unlawful! That means it doesn’t count. I’m innocent!” Fouracres as Andrew exclaimed.

“Listen, Andrew —” Dean as Charles began.

“That’s Prince Andrew to you!” Fouracres’ Andrew fired back.

“No, it isn’t. Andrew, enough is enough,” Dean’s Charles replied. “You’re arrogant, you’re entitled, you represent an outdated institution founded on centuries of war, tax evasion and slavery. And that’s all great! But you’ve also been accused of terrible things, and that’s where I draw the line.”

However, they all decide to put their differences aside for one drink, with Dean’s Charles saying: “Very well, Andrew. We can have one drink together. And that’s it. Except for the million pounds I’ll give you for the rest of your life.”

Saturday’s episode of “SNL U.K.” was hosted by Danny Dyer with musical guest Sasha Keable.

The sophomore feature from Hirokazu Kore-eda protégé Nanako Hirose, “Between Two Lovers” tackles a variety of potential hot-button issues, from polyamorous relationships to same-sex parenting, in its contemporary Japanese setting. The film stars Masami Nagasawa as a free-spirited children’s author who invites her doting husband and secret girlfriend to enter into a three-way relationship of convenience, when both partners simultaneously express their desire to start a family. But what begins as a bold and daring attempt to broach progressive issues in a notoriously conservative society ultimately loses its nerve, acquiescing to a number of eyebrow-raising narrative compromises.

Internationally recognizable talent both above and below the line should ensure that “Between Two Lovers” travels far beyond its debut in Competition at the Busan Film Festival, but more progressive audiences may be left frustrated by where Hirose leaves them.

Uta (Nagasawa) has built a comfortable life for herself and her husband Morio (Tasuku Emoto), thanks to the popularity of her “Little Miss Mushroom” series of picture books. While her work regularly brings her into close proximity with children, Uta has little interest in starting a family of her own. Conversely, Morio is desperate to have kids, but any effort to discuss the topic with his wife is quickly dismissed.

Little does he know, Uta has also been involved in a passionate six-year affair with her female editor, Junna (Shizuka Ishibashi), and happily flits back and forth between her two homes, beds, and lovers. Junna is eager to become a mother, although several legal barriers prevent her from accessing sperm donations or fertility treatment. She also wants Uta to accept her sexuality and get a divorce, so that they can live together openly.

Everything comes to a head when Morio invites Junna over for dinner, under the misapprehension that he is extending an olive branch to the colleague who demands so much of his wife’s time. The compounding frustrations of this situation, fueled by too much alcohol, finally expose Uta’s double life. However, desperate to enjoy all the benefits of her unconventional and self-serving situation, without shouldering any of the blame, Uta proposes that Morio be the donor for Junna’s child, and that all three of them move in together.

Hirose, who also writes and edits, has constructed a brilliantly volatile scenario, vulnerable to any number of potentially explosive and destructive dramatic developments. Disappointingly, her screenplay proceeds to unfold in a procession of frustrating get-outs and compromises, repeatedly choosing the least interesting or challenging direction to take this would-be throuple. The archaic legal restrictions restricting same-sex couples or unmarried women, for example, are acknowledged and adhered to, rather than being openly challenged or criticized.

The film certainly expresses an interest in the shifting dynamics of this unconventional unit, especially once Junna does fall pregnant and moves into the family home. Morio, already a tender and delicate soul, becomes increasingly protective of the woman carrying his child. At the same time, Junna finds herself sliding into a more conventional role, at once maternal but also spousal. The ever-precocious Uta, meanwhile, feels more and more ostracized within the group, as the supposedly idyllic threesome she conceived to feed her own compulsive nature relegates her to a sulking adolescent. For good or ill, the film also refrains from forcing Uta to ever clarify her sexuality or choose one partner over the other.

With the influence of Kore-eda on full display, Hirose raises several legitimate questions about what constitutes a real family, as well as the perceived role of women in society and the guardrails that continue to exist so as to limit and enforce these outdated expectations. While it could be argued that the very fact “Between Two Lovers” addresses these issues at all, and does so this explicitly, is already a bold stride in the right direction, much of that intention is undone in how they are resolved and acquiesced to on screen.

Performances across the board are strong, even if the characterizations themselves are more difficult to embrace. Uta is frustratingly selfish and naive, but Nagasawa willfully throws herself into the role, in a manner that makes her unlikable to a degree we have rarely seen her. Ishibashi makes for a resilient and empathetic Junna, even as her character inevitably bears the brunt of much of the film’s divisive moralizing, while Emoto’s Morio is a quivering wreck of fragility and good intentions.

Technical contributions are polished, with particular kudos to Ryo Sugimoto’s production design, which creates a pair of equally warm, yet subtly contrasting, living spaces in the married couple’s suburban home and the women’s more illicit love nest, deftly reflecting Uta’s dual existence. HIMI’s score is also employed sparingly yet effectively, but these aesthetic elements fade quickly from memory, overshadowed by the film’s more contentious narrative choices.

“Midday Meal” isn’t necessarily about the art of cooking, but it is in part about the rituals of food, rituals which become more precious with scarcity. But more than that, the new film from director Majid Majidi — best known for his 1997 drama “Children of Heaven”, the first Iranian production ever nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar — is about the right to have food, a punishing struggle to find and provide it in the absence of governmental care.

Set in the Iranian village of Goorankesh, housed in an incredibly arid and seemingly inhospitable region, the film follows schoolteacher Davoud Soulan (Mohammad Rahimi), whose job lies on precarious foundations. His livelihood is mostly privately funded — though his salary is from the ministry of education, he’s only a contractor — and his benefactor has passed away. Worse still, the dead man’s heirs don’t wish to continue the investment that allows him to provide lunches for his students. This pause in food supply imperils the entire school due to a domino effect: With no lunch, the kids will stop showing up, which would shut the school down after an estimated two weeks.

The teacher accepts the semi-transactional nature of his relationship with his students: It’s hard to fault a child for being hungry, and it’s difficult not to be moved by the desperate measures that Soulan takes to keep his school open. He lives in the building to save on rent (which then goes to food), and moonlights smuggling and selling fuel to keep the school running. (Here, smuggling is a pastime than many engage in, children included.)

But it’s not so simple as Soulan choosing and continuing to do the right thing. His determination to keep the school open comes with some moral compromises — and this is what makes “Midday Meal” more interesting, and more fraught, than expected.

The conflict between pragmatism and generosity begins at a small scale and incrementally escalates. At first, it’s seen in Soulan’s hesitation at accepting children from other villages to his class — then in his rage at his mother for feeding guests at the potential expense of the children’s meals. Between Rahimi’s performance and Majidi’s patient exploration of his reactions, it comes off as very human rather than as an idealistic cipher for how the director wishes the world was. Desperation shifts Soulan’s actions into more dubious territory, especially as one character even calls into question how much of what he does is charity and how much is pursuit of a guaranteed salary.

Either way, Rahimi balances the character’s clear vulnerability with just enough ambiguity about his plans for the school, accentuated through Majidi’s restrained and naturalistic approach. The director’s deliberate obfuscation of Soulan’s immediate intentions — beyond his desire to keep the school open — make for a fascinating character study. Rahimi plays him as a mostly sincere but deeply conflicted man, and most importantly a desperate one, capable of some rather unexpected deceptions. One of these is effectively kept hidden from scene to scene, especially once a sick old man falls into Soulan’s care.

At one point, Soulan points out that the crime of fuel-smuggling is minor compared to the barons profiting off the very same — and shouldn’t the motivation, the practical outcome of the act, count for something? Majidi tests the limits of this sentiment throughout “Midday Meal,” often to great effect. The film starts from a point of frustration about a lack of governmental care, and a community falling apart from the stressors of being left with no support. The few encounters with representatives of the law are exasperating — an officer chastises Soulan for being a bad role model for his students — though not necessarily cut and dried. Meanwhile, a member of the education department treats his organization and financing with suspicion, despite having already left him to his own devices.

This is where the anger of “Midday Meal” comes in, an innate frustration at how so many institutions continually fail to make the simplest decision in the world: to provide for people. Majidi’s matter-of-fact style of shooting underlines the cold reality that Soulan tries to navigate, and strips away any semblance of potential didacticism. For every good deed he does, there’s an underside of pragmatism to it, which can seem a little ruthless.

But some good deeds do seem to come back around, in moments of grace that keep “Midday Meal” from being a punishingly bleak affair. Despite his seeming sternness and the board’s outright negligence, the inspector sees Soulan’s charity and decides to help how he can — even if the scene of the inspection itself is incredibly stressful. In a film that, at the outset, seems like it could be open-and-shut in terms of moral simplicity, there are ultimately no easy answers.

To the question of whether Rosalía would be dancing during her “Saturday Night Live” appearance or not, that depends on how you’re looking at it. The acclaimed singer stood in place, perfectly still, during her first number, “Reliquia” — but appeared to be standing en pointe for the entire four-minute performance.

For her second “SNL” number, “Magnolias,” Rosalía didn’t assume such a difficult position, but the equally gorgeous performance had a different set of physical demands, as an in-studio rain shower erupted midway through the song, dampening her hair and face and turning her white dress clingy and sheer.

On social media, viewers immediately marveled at Rosalía’s ability to deliver her usual powerful vocals during the first song while striking the pose — and some wondered if she was somehow being propped up through unseen means. Fans who have seen her balletic prowess on display on her global “Lux” tour testified to her ability to pull off something that athletic without resorting to artificial measures. She was joined at the very end of “Reliquia” by a dozen dancers, who lined up on either side of her as a strobe effect took over.

In her subsequent singin’-in-the-rain performance of “Magnolias,” the singer’s undergarments became visible as her dress got more drenched. But viewers had already seen Rosalía in them minutes earlier, at the conclusion of her one appearance in a comedy sketch. The skit had the singer appearing in a thought bubble and and encouraging host Shane Gillis to abandon his gravely ill mother’s bedside to go to a Jelly Roll concert at Las Vegas’ Sphere.