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The popular South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, wrapped on March 20 after 10 memorable days celebrating the convergence of tech, film, music, and comedy. Of course, you’ll find coverage of the festival highlights on our website, but what is it really all about? The Hollywood Foreign Press invited three of our members who were attending the event for the first time to share their impressions; on not just the events that make the festival so unique, but the party vibe, the BBQ, and the Nic Cage flyers all over town asking him to call his biggest fan.

Not long ago, documentary films used to struggle to find market share. Only a small handful of brand-name auteurs, like Michael Moore and Errol Morris, would receive consistent wide-scale international release, and big box office breakthroughs, like the $127 million worldwide haul of 2005’s March of the Penguins, were few and far between.

Essie Davis looks different in almost every role she plays, going from wearing a dark 1920s bob haircut as Phryne Fisher in the television series Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, to a super-short blonde cut in The Matrix films, to a rather messy look with grey roots as the eccentric Helen in her current film Nitram.   It is not only different looks that the Australian actress is able to slip into.

“When you get a chance to be in the room, don't shut the door behind you. Don't say, ‘I'm in.

Honoring Women’s History Month, the HPFA hosts its 2022 International Women Directors’ Symposium What’s Left to Do? Moderated by award-winning journalist and HFPA member KJ Matthews, this virtual panel connects three brilliant female directors – Teniola Olatoni Ojigbede from Nigeria, Katja von Garnier from Germany, and Sol Berruezo Pichon-Rivière from Argentina – to speak about the current trends, the controversy of being a woman in the modern movie industry, to discuss perspectives of the film industry and elaborate on what’s left to do. Join us at 9:00 am PT/12 pm ET on March 22, 2022: the HFPA International Women Directors’ Symposium will be streamed on our YouTube channel and www.

Proving that anime movies continue to increase their appeal in the United States and Canada, Jujutsu Kaisen O opened strongly and landed second place in the box office charts. But the number two showing of Jujutsu Kaisen O, a film adaptation of Gege Akutami’s manga series revolving around Yuji Itadori, a young student who becomes a jujutsu sorcerer, surprised even some box office analysts.

Singing. Dancing.

Italy and its film production are at the center of attention today also in Hollywood, where this week is filled with free screenings in the multiplex Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, a few feet away from where the Oscar ceremony will be celebrated on Sunday, March 27th, for the yearly Los Angeles-Italia Film Festival, which brings to the Californian city a large selection of the Italian production – both films and television – of the year. Well-known actor Riccardo Scamarcio was on hand for the opening on Sunday night, introducing the film he produced – and stars in – The Shadow of the Day by Giuseppe Piccioni, with Benedetta Porcaroli who was also present.

Javier Bardem, nominated as Best Actor for the Golden Globes and the Academy for his performance as Ricky Ricardo in Being the Ricardos, spoke to the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press in 2004 about the Spanish movie Mar adentro (The Sea Inside) directed by Alejandro Aménabar, Golden Globe winner as Foreign Picture in 2005.   He supported the fight of Ramón Sampredo for the right to end his life, after becoming a quadriplegic at age 25 in a diving accident.

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA), one of the HFPA grantees, champions emerging and diverse filmmakers and storytellers from around the world and provides a forum where filmmakers can be recognized for their contributions, have open audience discussions about their work and connect with industry professionals for insight on distribution, production and representation. We caught up with Larry Laboe, Co-Founder and Executive Director of NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, whose industry credits include producer for Ctrl (2009) and Fact Checkers Unit.