By Armando

20th Century Studios just released a new trailer for “Whalefall,” hitting theaters October 16.

The studio’s tagline for the film? “Survivors survive.” Not much else to go on yet, but the October release date puts it squarely in prime fall movie season, when studios typically roll out their major films.

Based on the acclaimed 2023 novel by Daniel Kraus, the film follows a young diver who descends into the ocean to search for his deceased father’s remains, only to find himself swallowed alive by a sperm whale and forced to fight his way out from the inside.

It’s a survival story in the most literal sense, and the source material already has a devoted following among readers who called it one of the most viscerally intense books recently. 20th Century Studios has been ramping up its theatrical slate after years of Disney+ changes, so a mid-October wide release signals a major pivot.

The film is directed by James Watkins, known for “The Woman in Black” and the HBO series “McMafia”. The trailer is live now across the studio’s social channels and presumably attached to prints in theaters.

Mark your calendars for October 16 if you’re into survival stories or just curious what 20th Century has cooking this fall.

A six-hour documentary tracking dissident Russian journalists forced into exile premieres at Film Forum next month.

MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART II — EXILE picks up where Julia Loktev’s award-winning LAST AIR IN MOSCOW left off. When Russia shut down all independent media, these young journalists fled Moscow to keep reporting without going to prison. Now they’re scattered across a dozen countries, from Istanbul to New York, still covering Putin’s war crimes while facing death threats and being labeled terrorists by their own government.

Loktev spent four years following these reporters as they navigate love, friendship, and home from exile, knowing they may never return to Russia.

The documentary is split into five chapters across 355 minutes. Film Forum will screen it in two parts, each requiring separate admission. Executive producers include Meryl Streep and Laura Poitras.

LAST AIR IN MOSCOW swept awards in 2025, winning the Gotham, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics prizes for best documentary. It was also Oscar-shortlisted and landed on year-end top 10 lists at The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NPR’s Fresh Air.

The sequel world premiered at Venice, played Telluride, and hits the New York Film Festival’s main slate before opening October 9.

For indie doc makers, this is what sustained, intimate journalism looks like on screen.

What happens when a lonely guy in a sterile future finds the last living squirrel on Earth? Finland’s betting that story is Oscar-worthy.

“The Squirrel,” the country’s official submission for Best International Film, drops its trailer today ahead of its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin on September 20th. Writer-director Markus Lehmusruusu calls it “2001: A Space Odyssey crossed with Dumb And Dumber,” which is either brilliant or deeply confusing.

The setup: In a world stripped of nature and animals, Pasi designs synthetic pets for a living. When he stumbles on the last real squirrel, he breaks every rule to keep it alive. The squirrel gets depressed. Pasi falls in love. His controlled life falls apart.

Lehmusruusu’s last film, “Ricky Rapper and the Strongman,” was Finland’s biggest box office hit in 2019. This one is a four-country co-production (Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden) starring Miro Lopperi and Mimosa Willamo. Producers Misha Jaari and Mark Lwoff also made “Fallen Leaves” and “The Innocents.”

It’s absurdist sci-fi about loneliness and what it takes to feel human again. For indie filmmakers chasing international recognition, Finland just raised the bar.

NextGen TV just got its biggest validation yet. ATSC 3.0, the broadcast standard behind NextGen TV, is getting a 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

The honor recognizes ATSC’s collaborative effort to build the industry’s first fully IP-based broadcast standard to reach commercial scale. The tech enables broadcasters to transmit Ultra High-Definition programming with HDR, immersive audio, and interactive services over the air.

“This Emmy belongs to the entire ATSC community,” said Madeleine Noland, President of ATSC. The standard came together through a years-long process involving hundreds of experts across broadcast equipment, consumer electronics, and regulatory sectors.

ATSC 3.0 is already deployed across the U.S. and internationally, reaching millions of households. Its flexible, IP-based architecture gives broadcasters a platform to evolve alongside broadband and other communications tech.

This is ATSC’s fourth Emmy. Previous wins honored the original ATSC Digital Television Standard (2009), Active Format Description tech (2012), and audio loudness standards that helped fix those jarring commercial volume spikes (2015).

The award ceremony happens October 14, 2026, at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center in North Hollywood.

For an industry still figuring out how to stay relevant in a streaming world, this recognition matters. Broadcast TV is showing it can innovate, not just survive.

A lonely gas station worker who steals chocolate bars meets a mystery girl who fights crime at night. Naturally, he steals her bike.

That’s the setup for “Girl in the Night,” a deadpan Slovenian feature heading to Fantastic Fest’s main competition on September 20th. Writer-director Luka Marčetić describes it as a story about boredom and the search for friendship in very strange circumstances.

The film follows Rok (Urban Kuntarič), a kleptomaniac killing time on night shifts by pocketing candy. When a bruised girl (Lara Wolf) shows up claiming to have superpowers, he hatches a plan to see her again, stealing her bicycle to force another meeting.

Marčetić, known for Slovenian series “Day of Love” and comedies “At Hostar,” leans into quiet, solitary characters often overlooked in daily life. “I always wanted to put them in roles of vulnerable heroes and antiheroes,” he notes.

Produced by Jerca Jerič and Andraž Jerič of Temporama, the film mixes “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” with “Napoleon Dynamite” energy, plus a splash of “Juno.” It’s a love letter to misfits that finds unexpected connection in the mundane.

Why it matters: Fantastic Fest continues championing genre films from unexpected corners of the world, giving voice to filmmakers exploring loneliness and human connection without Hollywood gloss.

Image Comics is jumping into the livestream shopping game. The publisher will host its first official Whatnot drop next Wednesday, September 9 at 6 p.m. Eastern, featuring an exclusive Spawn 77 #1 variant cover.

The variant ($40) pays homage to Todd McFarlane’s iconic Amazing Spider-Man #300 cover, with new artwork by McFarlane himself. It’s a smart move, tapping into both nostalgia and the current collectibles boom.

The timing ties into Spawn ’77, a new collaboration between McFarlane and artist Mark Spears. The series brings McFarlane’s original 1977 concept for Spawn to life, nearly 50 years after he first sketched out the character.

For those unfamiliar, Whatnot is an app that lets collectors shop, sell, and connect in real time. Think QVC meets comic book culture, with drops happening live. Image is encouraging fans to bookmark the event page and follow them for future surprise releases.

It’s a sign of where the industry is headed. Publishers are meeting collectors where they already are, whether that’s apps, streams, or pop-up events. And for indie creators watching, it’s another reminder that distribution is evolving fast.

Jon B. Elliott’s dramatic debut feature went to camera this week in Vancouver, bringing together a stacked cast of Indigenous talent for a cross-border road trip story about identity and belonging.

Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant, How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and Phillip Forest Lewitski (Die My Love, Bones Of Crows) lead the film as two young Indigenous men who meet in a downtown Vancouver jail. Jesse, a white-passing mixed race Coast Salish college student alienated from his culture, lands there after a drunken fight. Russell, a political activist and graffiti artist from New Mexico, gets locked up for painting a politically charged mural. Despite wildly different upbringings, the two connect and hit the road to New Mexico, navigating hostile territory while grappling with personal demons.

The cast also includes Carmen Moore (Meadowlarks), Joel D. Montgrand (True Detective), and William Belleau (Killers Of The Flower Moon).

Photon Films is distributing in Canada. Producer Jessie Anthony is heading to the TIFF Market to shop the film for U.S. and international distribution on behalf of Vandal Productions and Pass Through Productions.

Skins Game is shooting across British Columbia through September, backed by Telefilm Canada, Creative BC, and the Canada Arts Council. It’s the kind of indie production that puts Indigenous stories and voices front and center, no compromise.

The masked killers are coming back.

Lionsgate is releasing The Strangers – Chapter 2 on 4K and digital October 13, picking up right where the last nightmare left off. Madelaine Petsch returns as Maya, the sole survivor who thought she’d escaped. She didn’t.

When The Strangers learn she’s still breathing, they come back to finish the job. No mercy, no reason, just pure relentless violence.

Director Renny Harlin takes over the franchise built on Bryan Bertino’s original characters, with Gabriel Basso and Ema Horvath joining Petsch in the cast. The 98-minute horror sequel promises the same senseless brutality that made the original a cult hit, only this time the stakes are personal.

The home release includes a 19-minute making-of doc and a 42-minute Q&A with the cast and crew for fans who want to go behind the masks.

For indie horror filmmakers, this is a reminder that sometimes the simplest concepts, executed with raw intensity, cut deepest. The Strangers franchise proves you don’t need elaborate mythology or backstory. Just pure, unrelenting dread.

A teenage cancer survivor gets shipped off to “chemo camp” against her will and finds the best summer of her life. That’s the hook for “Sunny Dancer,” a coming-of-age rom-com-drama hitting select theaters September 18th via Quiver Distribution.

Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us) stars as Ivy, a 17-year-old who’d rather be partying with friends than dealing with her parents’ well-meaning overprotection. Instead, she lands at summer camp surrounded by other young people who get what it means to survive something huge, then figure out how to actually live.

Writer-director George Jaques (Black Dog) built the film around an ensemble of rising talent, including Daniel Quinn-Toye, Earl Cave, Ruby Stokes, Conrad Khan, and Jasmine Elcock. The adult cast brings serious heat too: James Norton (Happy Valley), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer), and Neil Patrick Harris round out the lineup. Este Haim and Zachary Dawes handle the score.

Jaques calls it “profanely funny” and deeply personal, a story about found family and wanting to fit in when life has other plans. It’s not about the illness. It’s about what comes after.

“Sunny Dancer” expands nationwide this fall following its initial release.