Wagner Moura to Star as Paulo Freire in Upcoming Biopic “Angicos”

Wagner Moura has landed a new role…

The 46-year-old Brazilian actor, director and filmmaker will star in the upcoming biopic Angicos about Brazilian educator and author Paulo Freire.

Wagner MouraFelipe Hirsch will write and direct the film.

Angicos begins in the town of the same name in Rio Grande do Norte in 1963, with the mission of educator Freire (Moura) to fight against illiteracy by teaching the entire village of blue-collar, domestic, and cotton farm workers how to read and write in only 40 hours – a seemingly impossible feat.

Funded by President John F. Kennedy to solidify the South American nation as an ally in the Cold War amidst worldwide social and economic tensions, the success of the endeavor resulted in the planned implementation of Freire’s literary system on a nationwide level. However, before long, political uprisings, a military coup and authoritarian local politicians resisted Freire’s education initiative, destroying texts, deeming the curriculum “subversive,” and eventually sending Freire into exile. These events demonstrated the power of literacy and education against autocratic rule – a testament to the significance of Freire’s methods.

“The enchantment amongst the people of Angicos by the battery-powered slide projectors Freire used in his classes is undeniable, especially as they associated the projections with cinema – something rare in their city at this time, as home television sets had not yet arrived,” said Hirsch. “To that end, Angicos doubles as a film about the power of cinema and the power of knowledge.”

Casting is underway for the film’s ensemble, with principal photography beginning in November of this year.

Moura’s previous credits include television appearances in Narcos, Narcos: Mexico and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, as well as film appearances in Wasp Network, The Gray Man and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Hirsch is a Brazilian film and theater director and one of the founders of Ultralíricos, a company where he develops award-winning and critically-acclaimed experiential art. He has been named by O Globo newspaper as one of the most influential thinkers in the country. In 2008, he won the Grammy for his work as the director of the show Homage to Tom Jobim.

In 2009, he directed his first feature film, Sunstroke, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In 2016, he directed Severina, his second feature film, which made its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. Most recently, Hirsch developed the stage project Língua Brasileira with singer/songwriter Tom Zé, and also directed the concert special 2022 for HBO Max, featuring Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso and many other Brazilian musicians.

Coral Peña to Star on Season 2 of AppleTV+’s Space Drama Series “For All Mankind”

Coral Peña is spacing out…

The Dominican actress has been cast as a series regular for Season 2 of AppleTV+’s space drama For All Mankind.

Coral PeñaThe second season will premiere on Friday, February 19, with Cynthy Wu and Casey W. Johnson also joining the cast as series regulars.

They join returning cast members Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman, Sarah Jones, Shantel VanSanten, Wrenn Schmidt, Jodi Balfour, Krys Marshall and Sonya Walger.

Created by Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt WolpertFor All Mankind will see its second season pick up in 1983, at the height of the Cold War. The cast heads into space with even greater ambitions as the Soviet Union and the United States battle it out for control over lunar resources on the moon. As tensions rise, the various characters see the militarization of NASA impact their own lives, with the threat of a nuclear war looming.

Peña, who has acted in The Post and Chemical Hearts, will play brilliant yet troubled engineer Aleida Rosales.

For All Mankind season two features 10 new episodes, with each new installment airing weekly, every Friday only on AppleTV+.

For All Mankind is produced by Sony Pictures Television.

Netflix Releases Opening Scene of Upcoming Second Season of David Castañeda’s “The Umbrella Academy”

David Castañeda is blasting into the past…

Netflix has released the opening scene of Season Two of the 30-year-old Mexican-American actor’s comic book series The Umbrella Academy.

David Castañeda The Umbrella Academy

The opening scene shows Aidan Gallagher’s Number Five land in Dallas. While searching for his siblings in the Lone Star State, the super-powered human sees the beginnings the Cold Warunfold before him as the Soviet Union and the United States begin carrying out their first attacks against each other.

As the teaser progresses, Frank Sinatra’s iconic voice rings out, scoring a montage of high impact combat scenes between the two opposing world powers and the Hargreeves family fighting against their adversaries. The season two opening sequence concludes as a mushroom cloud blooms and reveals the show’s title card.

Season two of The Umbrella Academy, which Netflix announced in May, hits the streamer on Friday July 31.

The Umbrella Academy is based on the Dark Horse Comicsseries created and written by Gerard Wayand illustrated by Gabria Bà

Castañeda, Gallagher, Ellen PageTom HooperEmmy Raver-LampmanRobert Sheehanand Justin H. Minwill reprise their roles as unlikely superheroes. 

Also joining the new 10-episode season are Ritu Arya, Marin Ireland and Yusuf Gatewood. Showrunner Steve Blackman will return to produce the second season.

In 2019, The Umbrella Academy ranked third on the list of Netflix’s most popular series of the year and was one of the only three series to crack the streamer’s overall top 10 list of its most popular 2019 releases.

Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” Wins Top Prize at the Venice Film Festival

Guillermo del Toro has reason to roar…

The 52-year-old Mexican filmmaker’s lyrical period fairy tale, The Shape of Water, was awarded the top prize Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Guillermo del Toro

del Toro’s fantasy premiered on the Lido last week early in the proceedings, and left viewers swooning in its wake. It was among the best-reviewed films of the festival, and had one of the most emotional gala screenings in memory.

When the Lion was announced tonight, the press room positively erupted with joy.

The Shape Of Water, a Cold War-set parable that stars Sally Hawkins, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer and Michael Shannon, represents del Toro’s first time in competition in Venice.

The prize, he noted, is the first time a Mexican helmer has won the Golden Lion.

From the stage, the filmmaker said, “I’m 52 years old, I weigh 300 pounds, and I’ve done 10 movies. There is a moment in every storyteller’s life, no matter what age you are, you risk it all and go and do something different.”

Added the teary del Toro, “To every Latin American filmmaker dreaming of doing something in the fantastic genre, it can be done.”

He said he intends to call the statue the “Sergio Leone” and remarked how full the Sala Grande was of the things he believes in, “Life, love and cinema.” That echoed something he’d said earlier in the week of the film, which mixes fantasy, romance, thriller, and old-style Hollywood: it’s a movie that’s “in love with love and in love with cinema.”

Shape took 10 years of struggle for del Toro to get made, and he’s said it was the hardest shoot he’s ever had.

With his Venice appearance, del Toro completed, in a way, a circle begun by his compatriots and pals Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro G Inarritu, whose Gravity and Birdman, respectively, made big splashes in recent years on this island before going on to Oscar glory. The Shape Of Water is a movie we will be talking about all through awards season.

Backstage, del Toro spoke to the press and was asked about the significance of the win for genre movies. “It means a lot,” he said pointing to parables that are “artistic, beautiful, politically charged movies.” It’s about time, he said, that “we understand every vernacular in cinema done with intelligence and passion is valid.”

Here’s a look at the overall winners:

VENICE 74

Golden Lion
The Shape Of Water, dir: Guillermo del Toro

Grand Jury Prize
Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz

Silver Lion, Best Director
Xavier Legrand, Jusqu’à La Garde

Volpi Cup, Best Actress
Charlotte Rampling, Hannah

Volpi Cup, Best Actor
Kamel El Basha, The Insult

Best Screenplay
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Special Jury Prize
Sweet Country, dir: Warwick Thornton

Marcello Mastroianni Award for for Best New Young Actor or Actress
Charlie Plummer, Lean On Pete

VENICE HORIZONS

Best Film
Nico, 1988, dir: Susanna Nicchiarelli

Best Director
Vahid Jalilvand, No Date, No Signature

Special Jury Prize
Caniba, dirs: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel

Best Actress
Lyna Khoudri, Les Bienheureux

Best Actor
Navid Mohammadzadeh, No Date, No Signature

Best Screenplay
Los Versos Del Olvido, dir: Alireza Khatami

Best Short Film
Gros Chagrin, dir: Céline Devaux

Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film
Jusqu’à La Garde, dir: Xavier Legrand

VENICE CLASSICS

Best Restoration
Idi I Smotri, dir: Elem Klimov

Best Documentary on Cinema
The Prince And The Dybbuk, dirs: Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolowski

VENICE VIRTUAL REALITY

Best VR
Arden’s Wake (Expanded), dir: Eugene YK Chung

Best VR Experience
La Camera Insabbiata, dirs: Laurie Anderson, Hsin-Chien Huang

Best VR Story
Bloodless, dir: Gina Kim

Fox Searchlight to Release del Toro’s Cold War Drama “The Shape of Water” in December

Guillermo del Toro is getting in Shape for December…

Fox Searchlight will release the 52-year-old Mexican filmmaker’s Cold War drama The Shape of Water on December 8, right in the wheelhouse of the annual film awards season.

Guillermo del Toro

The fantasy adventure film, which has been mostly shrouded in secrecy stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Lauren Lee Smith, Michael Stuhlbarg and Octavia Spencer.

Fox Searchlight describes the film as “an other-wordly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Her life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.”

The experiment apparently is an “aquatic man,” played by Jones, a frequent del Toro collaborator who has appeared in the writer-director’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy movies, as well as his FX series The Strain.

del Toro directs from the script he wrote with Vanessa Taylor.

del Toro to Direct & Produce a Cold War Drama for Fox Searchlight

Guillermo del Toro is going off to war…

The 51-year-old Mexican filmmaker is set to direct and produce an untitled Cold War drama from Fox Searchlight.

Guillermo del Toro

It’s described as a mysterious and magical otherworldly love story set in 1963 America. J.Miles Dale will produce with del Toro.

Sally Hawkins is set to star in the film, and Octavia Spencer is in talks to join the cast.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Peak and Pacific Rim filmmaker is developing and might direct Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark for CBS Films, based on the book trilogy by Alvin Schwartz.

George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures Acquires Film Rights to Navarro’s “Three Minutes to Doomsday”

It’s a special three minutes for Joe Navarro

George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s Smokehouse Pictures has acquired the film rights to the Cuban author, public speaker and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent’s book Three Minutes to Doomsday.

Joe Navarro

The deal was brokered by Abrams Artists Agency, after Scribner bought the book’s North American rights.

Written by Navarro and Howard Means, Three Minutes to Doomsday recounts efforts by Navarro, during his career the FBI’s leading body-language expert, to track down Clyde Lee Conrad, an Army officer who sold secrets to Hungary during the Cold War. The book focuses on Navarro’s relationship and interviews with Rod Ramsey, who knew of Conrad’s crime.

Co-author Means has collaborated on multiple bestsellers, including the Robert Baer books See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil that led to Clooney’s movie Syriana, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Baer these days is a frequent national-security commentator on CNN and elsewhere.

Smokehouse Pictures’ next film is Our Brand Is Crisis, a comedy set during the 2002 Bolivian presidential election and based on the true story of Democratic political consultants Greenberg Carville Shrum as they bring U.S. campaign techniques to South America. It’s directed by David Gordon Green and set for release in 2016.

Navarro is represented through Abrams Artists Agency by Steve Ross and Paul Weitzman.

Molina to Star in BBC 2’s Six-Part Drama “Close to the Enemy”

Alfred Molina is getting too close to the enemy

The 61-year-old half-Spanish actor has been cast in BBC 2’s new six-part drama Close to the Enemy.

Alfred Molina

Written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, the Cold War drama is set in a bomb-damaged London hotel in the aftermath of World War II.

Jim Sturgess plays an intelligence officer whose last task for the Army is to ensure that a captured German scientist, played by August Diehl, starts working for the British RAF on urgently developing the jet engine.

There’s no word on Molina’s character in the project, which also stars Freddie Highmore, Charlotte Riley, Alfie Allen, Charity Wakefield and Angela Bassett.

Close To The Enemy is set in the transitional period of 1946 — the brutal Second World War is finally over but the destruction of families and cities permeates everyone’s lives,” said producer Helen Flint, a longtime collaborator with Poliakoff. “As the Cold War takes its hold in Europe and the public realization that the atom bomb could be used by any government, our hero Callum (Sturgess) passionately believes that to safeguard the future you mustn’t heed the past regardless of how terrible it has been.”

Close to the Enemy will film in Liverpool and London and air in 2016.