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“There's nothing inherently gender-specific about the work that I do,” notes Riva Marker, co-founder of Nine Stories, the production company that has a first-look deal with Bold Films and which producer the Jake Gyllenhaal starrer, Stronger. Jake also happens to be her producing partner, and the two are spearheading a drive both to bring intimate, more character-driven movies to the screen, as well as strong portrayals of women.

“I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. deMille” and  “I am big.

A Golden Globe nominee for Black Swan, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky gives a lot of importance to the music score in his films. But for his latest, the controversial mother! , he made a surprising choice.

This was the film of the year: after winning three Golden Globes (Best Picture, Best Director, John Huston, and Best Supporting actor, his father Walter Huston), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre went on to win three Oscars. It is remembered as one of John Huston's finest movies, with Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt headlining a great cast.

A taboo theme – rape – became a landmark in the convoluted trajectory of Romanian-born director Jean Negulesco through Hollywood. Born in a poor family in Romania, Negulesco left home at age 12, became a dishwasher in Paris, worked as an orderly in a field hospital; during World War 1, learned drawing and painting, emigrated to the US and landed a job as a sketch artist and, soon, art director on the Paramount lot.

The issue of antisemitism gets the Elia Kazan treatment in this tight drama sprung out of a personal experience: when producer Darryl F. Zanuck’ application to join the prestigious Los Angeles Country Club was denied because it was assumed (incorrectly) that he was Jewish.

War comes home in director William Wyler’s drama about three servicemen returning from the blood-soaked battlefronts of World War II to hometowns they no longer recognize. The project started as an article in Time magazine about the difficulties encountered by troops coming home, turned into a screenplay by MacKinlay Cantor, commissioned by producer and studio head Samuel Goldwyn.

A powerful drama about four days in the life of an alcoholic writer spiraling out of control, The Lost Weekend is the fourth film of Billy Wilder’s extraordinary career as a director and only his third US production. Self-exiled in Hollywood after the ascent of Nazism in his native Austria, Wilder had left behind over a decade of steady work as a screenwriter, and was, in his own words, “learning to do it all over again”, in great part thanks to his collaboration with writer Charles Brackett, who would be his writing partner throughout his career.

This weekend Thor: Ragnarok dropped its hammer on 36 territories while Jigsaw kept the horror train rolling and Geostorm got downgraded to a category zero in the US. Disney and Marvel’s superhero smash opened to $107.

For over a decade, the German Currents Film Festival has brought the best of German, Austrian and Swiss cinema to Los Angeles. This year’s festival line-up included a special focus on films from and about Berlin, highlighting the 50th Anniversary of the Berlin – Los Angeles Sister Partnership.