Category Archives: Media

Annual Annie Awards 2025: “The Wild Robot” Leads Nominations

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The-Wild-RobotDreamworks Animation “The Wild Robot” topped the nominations for the feature competition of the 52nd Annie Awards for animation. The Chris Sanders’ animated science fiction led with 10 nominations.

Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and Aardman and Netflix’s “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” received norminations seven apiece; while Locksmith Animation and Netflix’s “That Christmas,” followed with six.

Honoring excellence in the field of animation, the 52nd Annual Annie Awards will be presented in 37 categories including Animated Feature, Animated Feature-Independent, Television/Media Production(s), Sponsored Production, Short Subject and Student Film, as well as the Achievement and Honorary awards.

The 52nd Annual Annie Awards is set to be held on February 8, 2025 at 7:00 pm PT at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

Here are the nominees:

Best Feature
Inside Out 2 – Pixar Animation Studios
Kung Fu Panda 4 – DreamWorks Animation
That Christmas – Locksmith Animation for Netflix
The Wild Robot – DreamWorks Animation
Ultraman: Rising – Netflix Presents in association with Tsuburaya Productions
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – Aardman and Netflix

Best Feature – Independent
Chicken for Linda! – Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, Palosanto Films, France 3 Cinéma.
Flow – Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five, Dream Well Studio
Kensuke’s Kingdom – Paramount Pictures
Look Back – Studio Durian
Mars Express – Everybody on Deck, Je Suis Bien Content
Memoir of a Snail – Snails Pace Films / Arenamedia
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2025 PGA Awards Announce Documentary Motion Pictures Nominees

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SuperMan--The-Christopher-Reeve-Story-The Producers Guild of America has released its 2025 PGA Awards nominees for the category of Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures.

The nominees were announced on December 10, 2024. The ceremony is set take place on February 8, 2025 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, California.

The films nominated for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures are listed below in alphabetical order:

  • Gaucho Gaucho
  • Mediha
  • Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
  • Porcelain War
  • Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
  • We Will Dance Again

These films are in the process of being vetted for individual producer eligibility.

“The Producers Guild Awards honors excellence in motion picture, television and emerging media productions, as well as the most notable names in the industry shaping the producing profession. Honorees this year include Chris Meledandri (David O. Selznick Achievement Award) and Dana Walden (Milestone Award).”

Last year, producers Lauren Domino, Matthew Heineman and Joedan Okun were honored with the award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Picture for “American Symphony.”

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52nd Saturn Awards Nominations Announced

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The 52nd Annual Saturn Awards nominations have been announced, with some high profile blockbusters leading the list.

Warner Bros. received 35 total nominations in the Film category, with its film Dune: Part Two topping the overall nominations with 14. This includes Best Science Fiction Film and acting noms for Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya. Beetlejuice 2 received 13 noms including Best Fantasy Films.

“The Saturn Awards organization is the official awards group of The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The Academy was founded in 1972 and is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.”

On the TV front, video game adaptation Fallout led with five nominations including Best Science Fiction Television Series, Best Actor on Television (Walton Goggins) and Best Actress on Television (Ella Purnell).

The winners are set to be announced during an awards ceremony in Los Angeles on February 2, 2025. It is also set to be streamed on The Roku Channel and ElectricNOW.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

Best Science Fiction Film
Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros./Legendary)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Lionsgate Films)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Studios)
Megalopolis (Lionsgate Films/American Zoetrope)
Venom: The Last Dance (Sony Pictures/Marvel)

Best Fantasy Film
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony Pictures)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary)
My Old Ass (Amazon/MGM)
Poor Things (Searchlight)
Wonka (Warner Bros. Pictures)
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Bradley Cooper To Receive Outstanding Performer of the Year Award At SBIFF

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Bradley-Cooper-SBIFFBradley Cooper will receive the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award at the 39th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Cooper will be honored on Thursday, February 8, 2024 for his critically acclaimed portrayal of Leonard Bernstein in MAESTRO from Netflix.

Bradley Cooper, born in Philadelphia, is an acclaimed actor, filmmaker, writer, and producer. A nine-time Oscar nominee, Grammy winner, and Tony nominee, Cooper’s directorial debut A STAR IS BORN, which he co-wrote, produced, starred and directed garnered 8 Oscar nominations. Following the success of his producorial work, Cooper started his production company Lea Pictures in 2020, which includes his much-anticipated film MAESTRO.

“Nine-time Oscar® nominee Bradley Cooper has proven to be an actor of incredible range and versatility. What has impressed me the most is that he has grown to be one of the most indelible directing voices . He’s a renaissance man – an outstanding performer indeed!” SBIFF’s Executive Director Roger Durling noted.

MAESTRO is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, MAESTRO at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.
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The Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC) Announces New York Edition Of Solidarity Night! Fundraising Event For TV And Film Crews

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The Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC) announced plans today for the New York Edition of Solidarity Night!, an emergency fundraiser for Film & TV crew in partnership with MPTF and Free The Work. The night will feature performances by Ramy Youssef and Ilana Glazer, alongside special guests Ben Stiller and Jeremy O. Harris, surprise guests, dancing, a celebrity raffle, food & beverages. The event will be held in Brooklyn at an exclusive location on Friday, November 17th.

All proceeds from Solidarity Night! will go to MPTF, benefitting Film & TV crew members, support staff and PAs who were affected during the strikes. A host committee including Rose Byrne, Tom Holland, Zoe Kazan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Allen White, Cynthia Nixon, Abbi Jacobson, Daniel Radcliffe, Jenny Slate and many more will welcome one and all at a mixer to underscore TUSC’s mission of inter-union solidarity in the TV and film industry, creating a space for writers, directors, actors and crew to interact in a casual space where entertainment takes on a different meaning than just a Hollywood system in desperate need of reworking. Members of IATSE, LiUNA and the Teamsters can attend the event free of charge. Tickets are first come, first serve.

TUSC hosted The Los Angeles edition back in July, which was hosted by Paul Scheer, Andrea Savage, Zoe Lister-Jones, Natasha Lyonne and Patton Oswalt, a live performance by cult band Fishbone, DJ sets, exclusive tees by artist Brendan Donnelly and more. To date TUSC has raised over $1 million dollars. Their focus is to raise emergency funds for affected TV & Film Crews.

TUSC was founded by a group of writer-directors who were moved to support TV & Film crews suddenly out of work while the WGA and SAG-AFTRA negotiated with the AMPTP for fair deals. Over 200 members decided to take action and begin using their voices and networks to create a model for unity in action. They established a dedicated emergency fund at the Motion Picture & Television Fund, where social workers stand by to help crew who are facing economic hardships and mental health challenges. Free The Work is TUSC’s fiscal guardian, managing fundraising from events like SOLIDARITY NIGHT and celebrity auctions.

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“All of Us Strangers” Leads Gotham Awards Nominations

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By Armando

Searchlight Pictures

The 2023 Gotham Awards, marking the start of the awards season, have just announced their list of nominees.

The nominees were announced by Gotham Film & Media Institute executive director Jeffrey Sharp and deputy director Kia Brooks.

Writer-director Andrew Haigh’s critically acclaimed romantic drama “All of Us Strangers” from Searchlight led with four nominations at the Gotham Awards, including a nod for Best International Feature. The Gotham Awards are touted as the first major awards show of the season.

“We are proud to announce this year’s Gotham Award nominees and look forward to celebrating these amazing storytellers in a few weeks,” Sharp said during the broadcast. “The Gotham Awards in many ways reflects the industry and community we serve. Seen by this year’s nominees, storytelling knows no boundaries as our industry continues to find new audiences across the globe.”

Along with “All of Us Strangers,” films up for best international feature include the French courtroom drama thriller “Anatomy of a Fall,” the black comedy fantasy film “Poor Things,” the family drama “Tótem” and historical drama film “The Zone of Interest”.

Past winners of the big prize at Gothams included “Spotlight” (2015), “Moonlight” (2016) and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022). All such films eventually won the the Academy Awards’ Best Picture Film in their respective years.

The Gotham Awards will be held live Monday, Nov. 27, in New York City at 7 p.m.

Here is the full list:

Best Feature
Passages — dir. Ira Sachs
Past Lives — dir. Celine Song
Reality — dir. Tina Satter
Showing Up — dir. Kelly Reichardt
A Thousand and One — dir. A.V. Rockwell
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Post-SDCC: EU AI Act Voice Amendment Proposal Submitted by NAVA and UVA

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United Voice Artists (UVA) and The National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) have submitted an amendment proposal to the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), seeking to safeguard the rights and interests of voice actors in the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and voice technology.

United Voice Artists (EU Transparency register ID: 810100650765-18) is a global coalition of 35 voice acting guilds, associations and unions in Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Netherlands) together with Switzerland, the United States, Turkey, Canada, Africa, Asia and Latin America representing more than 20,500 artists that have united to ensure that the use of artificial intelligence in the creative and media industry does not harm artistic heritage and human creativity and to preserve artist’s rights in relation to the use of AI, in particular in the dubbing and voice-over industry.

The UVA acknowledges the efforts of the European legislators in designing the AI Act as the first European legislation for the regulation of certain use cases of AI. However, to ensure that the AI Act does not lead to the extinction of human creativity in the entertainment industry through synthetic and cloning AI techniques and the exploitation of artists and their work by infringing their rights, both from a privacy/publicity data protection and an intellectual property rights protection perspective, we have identified the following key areas that should be urgently addressed in the upcoming trilogue negotiations:

Prohibition to create or expand audio/vocal databases
Extension of transparency requirements
Introduction of unfair contract practices unilaterally imposed by generative AI providers

United Voice Artists and The National Association of Voice Actors call upon policymakers and stakeholders within the European Union to carefully consider the proposed amendment, recognizing its potential to elevate the voice acting community while setting a global standard for AI legislation that respects artistic integrity and the rights of creators.

You can read the proposal here >>.

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Kodansha Announces More New Print Releases Coming Fall 2023

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Kodansha Announces More New Print Releases Coming Fall 2023Following-up with the initial Fall 2023 New Print Licenses first revealed at Anime NYC 2022, Kodansha USA announced even more new manga, premium editions, book reissues and even a special box set, all debuting Fall 2023.

All of Kodansha’s Fall 2023 print titles is set to be available to purchase at local and online book vendors like Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Amazon, and more. Visib kodansha.us. for the full list of the amazing Kodansha titles coming later this year.

A subsidiary of Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher, Kodansha USA Publishing is the English-language publisher of some of the world’s most recognizable manga properties, including Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA and Naoko Takeuchi’s Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, along with a robust catalog of English-language Japanese novels, cookbooks, craft guides, historical and cultural literature, and more.

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Stephen Curry, Ryan Coogler, & More Premiere “Stephen Curry: Underrated” At Sundance 2023

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Stephen Curry Ryan Coogler Underrated At Sundance 2023Award-winning filmmaker Peter Nicks documentary is an intimate look at NBA superstar Stephen Curry’s improbable coming of age at tiny Davidson College, where, under the wing of coach Bob McKillop, the team made a thrilling run in the 2008 NCAA tournament. With access to Curry throughout the 2021 season, the film also weaves the Golden State Warriors’ attempt to win another NBA championship following one of the worst seasons in franchise history.

The documentary “Stephen Curry: Underrated” is an official selection of the Special Screenings section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It is an Apple Original Films along with A24.

The film is a remarkable coming-of-age story of one of the most influential, dynamic and unexpected players in the history of basketball: Stephen Curry.

This feature documentary, blending intimate cinéma vérité, archival footage and on camera interviews, documents Curry’s rise from an undersized college player at a tiny backwater Division I college to a four-time NBA champion, building one of the most dominant sports dynasties in the world.

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Lovers & Friends Announces 2023 Lineup Missy Elliott, Usher, Mariah Carey To Headline

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Lovers and Friends 2023 Missy Elliott Usher Mariah Carey To HeadlineFollowing enormous success with its inaugural year, Lovers & Friends returns May 6, 2023 to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds with a massive collection of hip-hop and R&B’s biggest artists, highlighting the ongoing evolution of the genres.

Additional performances by Pitbull, 50 Cent, Christina Aguilera, Miguel and many more, at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds on Saturday May 6, 2023, with presale on Friday, January 20 at 10 AM PST

The incredible lineup will treat fans to over 45 artists with impeccably curated and nostalgia-fueled performances from female powerhouses including Missy Elliott, marking her first billed performance since 2019, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, alongside Usher, 50 Cent, Nelly, Pitbull, with additional performances from contemporary fan-favorites Miguel, Jhene Aiko, Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller, PARTYNEXTDOOR and many more.

GA, GA+, VIP and VIP Cabana presale tickets will go on sale Friday, January 20 at 10 AM PST at www.loversandfriendsfest.com and any remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, January 20 at 2 PM PST.

Layaway payment plans start at $19.99 down. VIP packages include preferred viewing areas, charging stations, a dedicated entry lane at the festival entrance, air-conditioned restrooms and more. VIP Cabanas are available with exclusive viewing areas with VIP service including food vouchers and select complimentary beverages, expedited entry and more.Hotel and ticket packages are available with discounted rates at select Las Vegas hotels, 24/7 hotel concierge, and exclusive add-ons including access to the Lovers & Friends Official Open Bar inside Zouk Nightclub and brunch packages from Resorts World Las Vegas. For tickets and the full list of amenities available in each ticket package, please visit www.loversandfriendsfest.com.

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