What happens when a bestselling fantasy author is a decade past deadline and completely out of ideas?

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the duo behind Criminal and Kill Or Be Killed, are exploring that nightmare in Unfinished Tales, a new original graphic novel coming this winter from Image Comics.

The story follows Finnegan Blake, a wildly successful author whose epic fantasy series became a massive TV show. There’s just one problem: he’s ten years overdue on the final book and has no clue how to finish it. When an old friend arrives with a solution to his writer’s block, things spiral into dark territory fast.

“I’ve always been fascinated by why people write, or in this case, why they don’t,” Brubaker said. “It’s a deep dive into the world of writers and publishing, the pressure to succeed, and what that may cost you. It’s also a very fucked up thriller about egos and ambition.”

The book mixes Stephen King’s Misery with The Talented Mr. Ripley, and somehow threads the needle for fans of both Tolkien and Megan Abbott.

Unfinished Tales hits comic shops November 11 and bookstores December 8. For indie creators grinding through their own deadlines and creative demons, this one might hit a little too close to home.

A trio of stories connected by an ancient ginkgo tree just won director Ildikó Enyedi the Sloan Science on Screen Award.

SFFILM announced the honor for Enyedi’s Silent Friend at the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs through May 4. The film stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Léa Seydoux, and Luna Wedler as souls linked across a century. Enyedi takes home $5,000 along with the award.

But the bigger story is the $115,000 in grants going to five filmmakers developing science-driven screenplays. The Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative, now in its tenth year, pairs writers with science advisors to shape stories where discovery becomes drama.

Destiny Macon’s Talk Black follows a Black engineer battling gentrification and workplace sexism. Justin Kim WooSŏk’s The Green Corridor tracks a Korean-American anthropologist searching for a rumored tiger in the DMZ. Each receives $35,000.

Three more writers split $20,000 grants for early-stage projects inspired by real scientific breakthroughs. Lane Unsworth’s Hello Neighbor imagines how NASA would announce alien life. Sid Gopinath and Aditya Joshi’s One Inch From Earth chronicles the scramble to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa.

“We’re getting to support a filmmaker at the screenplay stage while the story is being shaped,” says SFFILM’s Masashi Niwano.

Since 2015, the initiative has supported 40 artists. The goal? Help audiences connect to science through cinema that gets the facts right.

A farmhand’s simple life gets upended when village elders force him to march across Transylvania with a dangerous stranger. Their mission: take down the region’s murderous viceroy.

That’s the setup for Regicide, a new ongoing series from Image Comics launching August 12. Writer Patrick Kindlon (Tigress Island, Gehenna: Naked Aggression) and artist Ludovic Lalliat (Akutezoïde) are promising a bloodsoaked fantasy that mixes Dracula with Berserk.

“True monster-of-the-issue storytelling where you are guaranteed sensational and sensual battles for the souls of our heroes every month,” Kindlon said. “Violence you can feel in a world so dripping with evil the droplets will hit your head as you read.”

The series will feature multiple covers for the first issue, including variants by Atomcyber and Kerbcrawlerghost, plus a blank sketch cover for artists. Digital versions will be available through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

For indie creators working in dark fantasy, this is the kind of swing-for-the-fences project that shows there’s still room for uncompromising horror storytelling in comics.

A daughter goes home to face the family tragedy that broke everything.

“Hearse Chasing,” the new documentary from director Teresa Alfeld, follows singer-songwriter Cassidy Waring as she returns to Calgary with her brother Cooper to confront their mother’s death and the violence that led to it. The film screens at VIFF Centre on Mother’s Day, May 10th, with a live performance from Waring and her band.

Growing up in 90s suburban Calgary, Waring’s family looked stable until addiction and abuse shattered it. Years later, now deep into her music career, she’s diagnosed with Complex PTSD and starts unpacking what really happened. Through therapy sessions, home movies, and her songwriting process, the film traces what healing actually looks like when the past won’t stay buried.

The doc premieres on TELUS Optik TV and TELUS Stream+ on May 13th, then drops free on YouTube the same night during Mental Health Awareness Month. A live chat will run alongside the online premiere.

“My relationship with my mom is such a big part of both the film and my music,” Waring says. “I know this day can bring love and celebration, but also grief and heartache.”

Waring’s new album, “If I Had Only Been Better,” digs deeper into her experience with complex trauma. For indie artists turning their pain into art, this one hits close.

One of the greatest documentaries ever made about filmmaking is getting the deluxe treatment it deserves. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse hits 4K UHD on May 19, exclusively through Lionsgate Limited.

Eleanor Coppola’s raw, unflinching chronicle of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s chaotic production of Apocalypse Now remains a masterclass in documentary filmmaking. She captured everything, the disastrous weather delays, Martin Sheen’s health crisis, the political turmoil in the Philippines, and Francis spiraling under the weight of his own ambition. The documentary even includes secretly recorded conversations with Coppola at his most vulnerable.

The three-disc collector’s edition is loaded. Beyond the 4K restoration of the 97-minute doc, it includes audio commentary from Eleanor and Francis, plus a new featurette titled “Eleanor Coppola: Art Is All Around Us.” A third disc dives deep into Eleanor’s broader body of work, featuring her shorts from the ’70s and behind-the-scenes docs she shot on films like Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, and CQ.

Eleanor passed away in 2024, making this release a fitting tribute to an artist who understood that the struggle behind great art is often as compelling as the finished work itself. Pre-orders are live now at Lionsgate Limited for $79.99.

A surly middle schooler who only cares about plants might be the most relatable protagonist you’ll see this year.

“Mabel” opens today at Cinema Village in New York, marking the feature debut of director Nicholas Ma. The coming-of-age story centers on Callie, a biracial teen played by newcomer Lexi Perkel, who’s more interested in botany than people. After her family moves and she has to switch schools, Callie talks her way into a high school science class taught by substitute teacher Ms. G (Judy Greer). There, she starts an experiment growing chrysanthemums in complete darkness and somehow convinces her bubbly younger neighbor Agnes to help.

Christine Ko and Quincy Dunn-Baker round out the cast. Ma co-wrote the script with Joy Goodwin, and the film was produced by Ben Howe, Luca Borghese, and Helen Estabrook.

“Mabel” screened at the 2024 San Francisco Film Festival before landing its theatrical release. The film hits digital on April 21, just four days after its Cinema Village run begins.

It’s refreshing to see an indie coming-of-age story that ditches the usual teenage angst for something more specific. A precocious kid using plants as a bridge into adolescence? That’s a new one.

A grocery run. A commute. Planting a tree in the yard. These mundane moments became the raw material for something unexpected.

IT GOES THAT QUICK follows two families across eight years as filmmakers Ashley Connor and Joe Stankus blur the line between documentary and fiction. What began as a playful project, casting their own relatives in short films about everyday life, evolved into something deeper as the cameras kept rolling.

Set against strip malls and highways in the American Northeast, the 70-minute feature captures the texture of ordinary existence. But as years pass and the filmmakers keep shooting, those trivial routines start to mean something. The result is part time capsule, part meditation on why we pick up cameras in the first place.

Connor, a cinematographer nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for MADELINE’S MADELINE, brings her eye to HBO’s THE CHAIR COMPANY and features like REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES. Stankus, a Brooklyn writer/director whose shorts have played New York Film Festival and Rotterdam, makes his feature debut here.

The film premieres April 25 at MoMI’s First Look Festival, with both directors in attendance. For indie filmmakers wrestling with how to make something personal without a budget, this one’s worth watching. Sometimes the best stories are hiding in your parents’ driveway.

A son’s tribute to his late father is heading back to where it all began.

“Voices: The Danny Gans Story” will screen three times at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival on April 25, 26, and 27. The timing is significant. Danny Gans attended Cal Poly SLO in 1976, playing baseball as a left-handed power hitter before being drafted by the Chicago White Sox. His widow also attended school there.

The documentary, directed by Danny’s son Andrew, explores the life of the legendary Las Vegas entertainer who held the title of “Las Vegas Entertainer of the Year” for more than a decade. Danny performed to sold-out crowds at The Mirage and Encore, beloved for his voice impressions, comedy, and heartfelt performances.

But the film digs deeper than the public persona. It examines the private complexities of a man who went from professional baseball to entertainment stardom.

Danny died suddenly in 2009. May 1, 2026 marks the 17th anniversary of his passing. The festival screenings fall during Mental Health Awareness Month, adding another layer of resonance to this emotional documentary.

Andrew will attend all three screenings and be available throughout the festival. The film has been winning awards and leaving audiences in tears at festivals nationwide.

A new series shot on Vancouver Island is about to make waves, and it’s the first bilingual French-English drama ever produced in British Columbia.

*Surf Bay, côte Ouest* launches nationally on TV5+ April 24th, with a Crave release set for 2027. The 10-episode series follows Camille Felton as Margot Swann, a pro surfer whose Olympic dreams collide with environmental activism when she fights to protect her hometown’s old-growth forest from tourism development. The clash puts her at odds with her own community and family.

Producer Anthony Cauchy, originally from France, developed the project after falling for BC’s surf scene. “The surf beaches of Vancouver Island are truly unique,” he says. Director Dominic Desjardins (*Paris Paris*) adds that the show offers “active environmentalism that isn’t defeatist at all, which feels refreshing.”

Shot in Tofino, Ucluelet, and around Vancouver, the production brought together a bilingual cast and crew, with over 60% speaking French. The series even landed a David Suzuki cameo and support from surf brands like Billabong and Rip Curl.

The series had its world premiere at Montreal’s Festival Courts d’un Soir, with a public Vancouver screening set for April 17th at L’Alliance Française.

For a BC indie production pulling off a bilingual series with this scope, it’s proof that regional stories can punch above their weight, especially when they tap into something universal like the fight to protect what you love.

The final season of *BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War* is getting a theatrical run before it hits streaming.

VIZ Media and Fathom Entertainment are bringing the first three episodes of *The Calamity* to U.S. theaters June 25–29, ahead of the broadcast and streaming premiere. Tickets go on sale May 29.

The theatrical event includes exclusive behind-the-scenes content featuring creator Tite Kubo and directors Tomohisa Taguchi and Hikaru Murata discussing the production. Both subtitled and dubbed versions will screen nationwide.

*BLEACH* returned in 2022 to adapt the manga’s climactic Thousand-Year Blood War arc after the original series wrapped in 2012. The comeback has been massive. It took home Anime Trending’s “Anime of the Year” in 2024 and earned multiple nominations at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, including nods for Best Action, Best Continuing Series, and Best Score.

The series routinely pulls 9.4/10 ratings from fans and critics. It’s part of Shonen Jump’s original “Big 3” alongside *One Piece* and *NARUTO*, making it foundational viewing for a generation of anime fans.

*The Calamity* picks up as the Soul Reapers and Quincies face their final battle, with Yhwach and the Royal Guard transforming the Royal Palace into the Wahr Welt. The fate of three worlds hangs in the balance.

This gives fans a chance to experience the finale on the big screen before everyone else catches it at home.