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.

The California Film Commission said on Tuesday (November 16) that California’s Film & TV Tax Credit Program 3.0 is on course to generate $2.6bn in production spending across the state during its first fiscal year. The third iteration the state’s programme launched on July 1 as part of the state’s effort to stem the tide of runaway production. According to an annual progress report, of the amount generated through 48 supported film and TV projects more than $992m comes from qualified expenditures such as wages to below-the-line workers and payments to in-state vendors...

After a six-year hiatus, Korean cinema is set to return to the Chinese big screen in wide release at last. Chinese cinemas will run the 2020 comedy “Oh! My Gran (Oh! Moon-Hee.)” Directed by Jeong Se-Gyo and written by Kim Soo-jin, the title stars Na Moon-hee as Moon-hee, the titular spirited grandma suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who, along with her dog, are the only witnesses of a hit-and-run accident that leaves her grandchild unconscious. The film tells the story of the sleuthing that ensues when she remembers a clue to the culprit. When Seoul deployed the THAAD U.S. missile defense system in 2016, Beijing expressed its displeasure with a ban on Korean film and culture imports. A Korean film hasn’t had a proper theatrical outing in the mainland since 2015’s “The Assassination,” co-written and directed by Choi Dong-hoon...

A record 5,100 short films were submitted to the Cairo Film Festival’s short film competition this year, thanks to a new collaboration with FilmFreeWay. Around 1,200 shorts are sent in more usually for the region’s only A-list festival. The section comes with the added bonus of the winning film being submitted to the Oscars’ long list....

Josephine Baker, the trailblazing American-born entertainer and civil rights activist, is the first Black woman to be laid to rest at France’s Pantheon.The Parisian monument is dedicated to iconic figures that have left a decisive imprint on French history, including the writers Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola, resistance hero Jean Moulin and politician Simone Weil. Baker is only one of the six women to have received this rare honor, along with Weil, scientist Marie Curie, chemist Marcellin Berthelot and resistance figures Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Athonioz. Baker’s remains will stay in Monaco, where she was buried, but her presence at the Pantheon is commemorated with a plaque on a cenotaph. Josephine Baker, the trailblazing American-born entertainer and civil rights activist, is the first Black woman to be laid to rest at France’s Pantheon. The Parisian monument is dedicated to iconic figures that have left a decisive imprint on French history, including the writers Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola, resistance hero Jean Moulin and politician Simone Weil. Baker is only one of the six women to have received this rare honor, along with Weil, scientist Marie Curie, chemist Marcellin Berthelot and resistance figures Germaine Tillion and Geneviève de Gaulle-Athonioz. Baker’s remains will stay in Monaco, where she was buried, but her presence at the Pantheon is commemorated with a plaque on a cenotaph...

Movie theaters may need to offer cheaper tickets and institute vaccine mandates if they want to attract former customers who stopped visiting multiplexes during COVID-19, a new study finds. The report, which was commissioned by Quorum, a film research company, Cultique, a brand consulting firm; and Fanthropology, a research and strategy agency, surveyed more than 2,500 pre-pandemic moviegoers. It discovered that nearly half of respondents, some 49% of those polled, once went to cinemas, but no longer do so. Their reluctance mostly comes down to concerns about safety and price, the study’s authors claim. Among former filmgoers, 59% said they don’t feel safe in theaters. Some 33% of those surveyed said requiring customers to present proof of COVID-19 vaccination would make them more comfortable about seeing a movie in theaters. Another 30% said they were “fine” with showing they had been vaccinated...