The twelve 2019 films that will predict 2020 box office and industry trends, according to “IndieWire”

In an effort to combat arbitrary year-end lists and myopic annual box office summaries, IndieWire cited eight studio releases as well as four films from specialized companies for what they mean to future productions. Non-franchise auteur projects are making a comeback. The twelve movies are: Jon Favreau’s The Lion King (2019); James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari (2019); Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019); Jordan Peele’s Us (2019); David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! (2019); Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell (2019); Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019); Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers (2019); Michael Engler’s Downton Abbey (2019); Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems (2019); Christian Petzold’s Transit (2018); and Nisha Ganatra’s Late Night (2019).

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2019 New York Film Festival kicks off this weekend

Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner, Parasite (2019), is coming up October 5 and 7. (Image Courtesy: CBS News).

The fifty-seventh New York Film Festival began Friday at Lincoln Center, and before it ends October 13, more than a hundred fifty movies will play, with many American and New York premieres for top prize winners from Cannes, Berlin, and Venice, according to CBS News. In addition, panel discussions, filmmakers workshops, revivals, and free screenings will take place. These sidebars include: a catalogue of documentary features; the “Secret Screening” (Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems (2019)); “Projections,” a slate of experimental and short pictures; “Convergence,” interactive and virtual reality; a screenwriting masterclass by Olivier Assayas; and a celebration for the centennial anniversary of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Dakota Fanning speaks out on backlash against new role as Ethiopian Muslim

Dakota Fanning took to Instagram Wednesday to respond to the controversy surrounding her part as a Muslim woman in Ethiopia in Zeresenay Berhane Mehari’s Sweetness in the Belly (2019), according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The twenty-five-year-old actress says her character is British, abandoned by her parents in Africa at seven years old and raised Muslim; the film, based on a book by Camilla Gibb, will debut at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival later this month. Twitter’s reaction to the casting is still divided, with some defending the faithfulness to the source material and others criticizing the whiteness of the protagonist.