Industry

As predicted the recent Tony Awards were a grand celebration of the musical that has monopolized all the year’s attention while breathing new life into Broadway. Hamilton may point to the future of musical theater even the giants of the past still weigh on the entertainment landscape, including Hollywood.

Fans of the 2010 Australian movie Animal Kingdom are probably excited and curious to see how that terse crime drama will translate into a TV show – starting June 14 the series will launch on TNT, transposed from Down Under to a Southern California beach town. Here’s a piece of good news: the pivotal role of implacable matriarch Janine “Smurf” Cody, which earned Jackie Weaver a Golden Globe nomination, has been taken over by another Golden Globe nominee, the talented Ellen Barkin.

“It doesn’t matter where you come from – if you barely speak the language, or genders – it all comes down to the work done at one's desk and what you have to offer”, asserts Carolina Lopez Dau about working in the male- dominated field of animation. One of the growing number of women in the industry, the Pixar employee grew up watching cartoons and playing video games with her brothers and their friends in her native Spain.

Muhammad Ali, a giant of boxing and a 20th century icon, has died of pulmonary complications from Parkinson’s disease in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of 74. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali is considered the most important professional boxer in the heavyweight category, having been named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated.

Something new happened at the 69th Cannes Film Festival – for the first time in its history the festival offered a selection of virtual reality shorts and a pavilion dedicated exclusively to the new technology. Included in the VR slate were Invasion! , an animated six-minute short by Madagascar co-director Eric Darnell ; San Francisco’s Penrose Studios’ Allumette, based on Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl”; the “first person reality short film” The Doghouse by Denmark’s VR studio Makropol; and Giant, a “virtual reality experience of war”  by Milica Zec and Winslow Tuner Porter III that had already raised quite the buzz at Sundance.

Just when you thought you had finally figured out all the different options to viewing media, a more recent technological advance rises up demonstrating how to incorporate advances into the viewing experience. Virtual reality director Milica Zec, Winslow Turner Porter III and HP are intent on bringing the viewer into the movie itself: Giant is a short and intense film  inspired by Milica’s youth during the Serbian war.

“People presume that because of the relatively small number of women who are directors, when a woman directs it's a sexist set,” says Liza Johnson, the director of Elvis & Nixon. The very funny movie depicts the actual meeting of the King and the 37th president and stars Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon.

Ronit Elkabetz, Golden Globe nominee in 2014 for her movie Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, died of cancer, age 51. A leading force in the Israeli cinema, and also an admired and busy actress in France, her sudden passing brought accolades from around the world.

“No, being a woman does not make it more difficult to direct action sequences,” laughs Susanne Bier, dismissing the possible explanation for why studios and production companies fail to give tentpole projects to women directors. “Directing an action sequence is no different than any other part of visual storytelling.