ACORN TV
Programming from several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, and UK. AMC Networks chief Josh Sapan told The Hollywood Reporter that Acorn TV has "among the lowest churn" among major services owing to its focus as well as viewers' "dedication and affinity" for its content.

Belle, the latest animated feature from Oscar-nominated Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda (Mirari), has won the inaugural Locarno Kids Award, a new prize handed out by the Locarno International Film Festival to honor “someone capable of bringing cinema to young viewers.” Mamoru Hosoda’s much-awaited new release bowed in Japan on Friday, July 16, topping the box office charts and earning more than $8 million on some 600,000 admissions over its first weekend. The feature follows Suzu, a teenager living with her father in a small town in the mountains who, in a virtual world, is Belle, a musical icon. The movie explores how social media networks are impacting the imaginative lives of even the very youngest in society...

The U.K. government’s Film and TV Production Restart scheme has resulted in 640 film and TV projects worth over £1.9 billion ($2.63 billion) going into production in the last 12 months. Among those which have benefited from the scheme are the sixth season of “Peaky Blinders” and Cannes film favorite “Mothering Sunday,” which stars “The Crown” actor Josh O’Connor and Colin Firth. The £500 million scheme, which was unveiled in July last year to aid pandemic recovery, was created to support productions that were unable to secure insurance related to delays caused by Coronavirus. It has supported more than 55,000 screen sector jobs...

Time Studios, Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions, Sugar23 and P&G Studios are teaming up on “The Tipping Point,” a documentary series that will tackle the big issues of the era, from voting rights to civil rights, human rights to healthcare, American Democracy to the global refugee crisis. Each film in “The Tipping Point” will be a unique, standalone documentary. The talent participating in the series includes Noah, LeBron James and Maverick Carter through their media company The SpringHill Company, as well as Angelina Jolie, Kat Graham and Lance Bass...

The Paris Theater, a beloved arthouse cinema in New York City, is reopening its doors next month. To celebrate its return on Aug. 6, filmmaker Radha Blank is curating a slate of repertory titles to screen alongside her directorial debut “The Forty-Year-Old Version.” Her movie, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, is playing through Aug. 12. The Paris opened in 1948 and is the only single-screen movie theater in Manhattan. Netflix acquired the 545-seat venue in 2019 and, prior to COVID-19, held premieres, special events and screenings of its films in the storied institution, which is just south of Central Park...

 the Transilvania Film Festival can point to a record number of Romanian films unspooling at this year’s 20th-anniversary edition, with 32 feature-length and 13 short films – including 13 world premieres – set to screen in the scenic medieval city of Cluj from July 23 – Aug. 1. But despite the historic selection, which includes three films arriving fresh off of Cannes premieres, it’s an uneasy time for the local film industry. Funding from the Romanian Film Center (CNC) ground to a halt last year as the coronavirus pandemic leveled the Romanian economy, and an industry that for two decades has produced a string of world cinema heavyweights has been left to wonder what the future has in store...

HJungle Cruise, the big-budget adventure film starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, started its journey to the big screen Saturday night at Disneyland, just feet away from where its namesake river boat ride has been running for more than 60 years. That also meant that for Blunt, the world premiere served as the first time she had ridden the Jungle Cruise ride, stepping onto the red carpet after a loop around the attraction. “It was beautiful and nostalgic and magical and whimsical and fun, and it was surreal riding it knowing that we’re in the movie of it. It was weird for me, it was kind of mad,” she told The Hollywood Reporter after the experience, though noting that costar Johnson is in quite a different boat. “This one, you can’t get him off a Jungle Cruise ride. Fifty times he’s been on it. Loves a pun and loves the ride.”...