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“The cartel has invaded everything! The festivals, Hollywood! We have kept everything!,” joked Alejandro González Iñárritu chatting with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2014 on his film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Of course, the winner of two Golden Globes and the recipient of four nominations is far from being a drug dealer.

After a long absence due to the pandemic, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) senior undergraduate students of class 2020 were finally able to share their works on Wednesday night, September 14, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. By the time the young and diverse crowd had settled into their seats, at least half an hour after the scheduled start time, the large venue was nearly full, overflowing with eager anticipation.

“This is to say goodbye and thank you,” said Gwen Deglise, the longtime head programmer of the American Cinematheque, from the stage of the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on Friday, September 9th, 2022. The audience, patrons, and team members responded with an emotional standing ovation and “Thank You, Gwen” shout-outs.

The immense fortitude of the female gender was on rich display throughout this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, from well-received narrative features like The Woman King and Women Talking to the gripping documentary In Her Hands, which details two years in the fraught existence of one of the few female mayors in Afghanistan, and by far the youngest. “This is Zarifa Ghafari’s story, but also the story of so many other women in Afghanistan.

Survival of the fittest is the perfect way to describe my inaugural trip to La Biennale di Venezia, better known as the Venice Film Festival, on the Lido di Venezia, Italy. I spent nearly two full weeks in Venice.

Only in the movies can we root for liars, cheats and thieves to succeed in their endeavors to commit a crime. It is the unusual paradox of the heist film, from Oceans 11 to Dog Day Afternoon, from The Sting to Reservoir Dogs, where the hero is someone who should be behind bars but as the audience, we cheer on his lawlessness.

At the northwest corner of Hollywood and Highland Boulevards stands a behemoth commonplace strip mall through which movie stars walk to access the Dolby Theater, home of the Oscars. But over a hundred and twenty years ago, on that location on Prospect Avenue, as Hollywood Boulevard was then known, was the Hotel Hollywood, a gracious building erected in December 1902 by the “Father of Hollywood,” real estate developer H.

In recent years, the film industry has made strides in showcasing female voices on and off screen. The 79th Venice Film Festival was no exception.

Taylor Swift is the only woman in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year three times, tying for the most wins alongside Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. She’s a singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and director and - as her TIFF premiere of All Too Well: A Short Film announces to the world - a really gifted filmmaker.

Kompromat is the new number 1 in the French box office. Directed by Jérôme Salle with Gilles Lellouche, Joanna Kulig, and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, the movie is about a French diplomat victim of a “Kompromat” - forged compromising documents used by the Russian secret services to harm an enemy of the state.