In its second to last year in Park City, Utah, “it was hard to escape the specter of those difficult times,” including - of course - the fires in Los Angeles. - Washington Post
The “French musical about a Mexican drug trafficker who transitions and leaves behind a life of violence has generated a wave of controversy,” but stars Selena Gomez and Édgar Ramírez say it’s not a political film. - El País
One producer says, “Unfortunately, the talent isn’t really stimulated in the Netherlands in the right way, and there is a definite lack of ambition, focus and perseverance.” - Variety
“Alone among the Oscar categories, International Film puts people who are not in the Academy in charge of what Academy members can and cannot nominate. This has been an especially hot topic the past three seasons.” - Vulture
"In addition to being the most compelling conflict between France and Mexico since the Battle of Puebla, Johanne Sacreblu is the critique of shallow Hollywood representation I’ve been waiting for. .. (It) also models what media criticism can look like when there’s general fatigue with 'call-out culture.'" - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
To some in Hollywood, today’s rhetoric reflects a throwback to the epoch of the backlist decades ago. Those who publicly defied the mandates of that moment faced job loss and even exile. “If you’re red, you’re dead,” said Dalton Trumbo, the great screenwriter whose career was terminated by his suspected politics. - Deadline
Netflix and the other streaming giants are reshaping media systems across Europe. An audience survey in four European countries (Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) of 1,813 respondents aged between 16 and 34 revealed that Netflix was by far the most popular destination for long-form content such as films. - The Conversation
The discovery of posts from 2020-21 in which she disparaged George Floyd, Islam, Arabs in Spain, China and its COVID vaccine, and even the Oscars themselves may have taken the movie she starred in — which was receiving backlash already, especially from appalled Mexicans — from frontrunner-with-13-nominations status to … well, a touchy subject. - Variety
"If you’re wondering what I’m doing right now, I’m writing a play. It’s probably going to be the next thing I end up doing. If it’s a fiasco I probably won’t turn it into a movie. But if it’s a smash hit? It might be my last movie." - The Hollywood Reporter
It’s this imperfect yet fascinatingly complex ultrasocial world that we have thrust our children into. Nearly 20 years on, we are all a bit confused, baffled, frustrated, and fearful about the maelstrom of stimuli that whirl around us every day, and Haidt has considerably changed his mood about it all from curious to judgmental. - New Republic
"There is nothing more irritating to enthusiasts than when the mainstream tries to portray their niche world and gets it wrong. And The Brutalist gets an awful lot wrong. … The film has aroused such ire because, despite its claims to be fictional, it is clearly based on a real historical figure." - The Guardian
Responding to a series of questions asked by Hyperallergic about dissident artists, cultural institutions in Taiwan and Tibet, and the destruction of mosques in the Xinjiang region, DeepSeek expressed faith in China’s “judicial organs” and said that artistic endeavors were “thriving under the leadership of the Party and government.” - Hyperallergic
"BBC World Service is set to axe 130 jobs as it seeks to save around £6 million for the next financial year. Planned cost-saving measures include closing posts across the service in the UK and internationally as well as cutting roles in BBC Monitoring." - Press Association (UK)
"The organizers have said, essentially, that the event has gotten too big for Park City. When Sundance arrives every January, it balloons the ski town of 8,200 full-time residents into a snowy circus, with over 20,000 people streaming in from around the globe." - The New York Times
