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August 23 - August 29

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Apple TV+ announced a second season for the widely acclaimed thriller “Criminal Record,” starring Academy Award winner Peter Capaldi (“Doctor Who,” “The Thick of It”) as Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty and Critics Choice Award nominee Cush Jumbo (“The Good Wife,” “The Good Fight”) as Detective Sergeant June Lenker. From BAFTA Award nominee Paul Rutman (“Vera,” “Indian Summers”), “Criminal Record” is a powerful thriller set in the heart of contemporary London, featuring the return of the two brilliant detectives clashing in a complex murder investigation...

Australian Film Television and Radio School, Australia’s finest film and television school draws applicants from far and wide with its picturesque Sydney campus and many lecturers with deep ties to the Australian screen industry. Notable alumni include The Power of the Dog Oscar winner Jane Campion and Poor Things screenwriter Tony McNamara and a long list of accomplished craftspeople like Margaret Sixel (editing on Mad Max: Fury Road), David White (sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road) and Andrew Lesnie (cinematography for The Lord of the Rings). In July, AFTRS also tapped Peter Noble, a local industry veteran of Indigenous background, to serve as director of the school’s First Nations and Outreach program, which develops training pathways for emerging and experienced industry practitioners from Australia’s culturally and racially marginalized groups...

A24 is offering free screenings of “Sing Sing” at AMC theaters across the U.S. Through its “See Sing Sing” campaign, the studio has partnered with celebs including Jesse Williams, Bowen Yang, Mark Duplass, Janicza Bravo and Dax Shepard, who are championing the film about a group of incarcerated men who put on theatrical shows. Screenings from Aug. 22-28 will be “hosted” by Natasha Lyonne, Stephanie Hsu, Bette Midler, Gabrielle Union, Liza Koshy, Common and the Brooklyn Nets...

Rotten Tomatoes, the industry’s largest film review aggregation site, has launched a new badge to honor fan-favorite films with a high score rating. The new “Verified Hot” badge will complement the popular “Certified Fresh” Tomatometer badge. The latter is given to the highest praised films by critics, and the latest badge will be awarded to films with verified audience scores of 90% or higher...

A nationwide Sept. 15 screening of Rebecca and Peter Davis’s feature documentary “Join or Die” will kick off the inaugural In Real Life Movie Club, a non-profit, in-person film series created for U.S. audiences to gather and connect with their local community and discuss trending topics currently being explored in independently made documentaries. “Join or Die,” which is about the work of “Bowling Alone” author and social scientist Robert Putnam, who argues that joining a club can help save democracy, made its world premiere at the 2023 South by Southwest Film Festival. The doc features interviews with Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Abramorama acquired the doc’s North American theatrical rights and released the film in select theaters on July 31...

Distribution Advocates, a collective that aims to reclaim power for independent storytellers, has launched the FilmADE Fund. The program seeks to support up to 30 independent film releases a year by offering financial support, skills training and industry collaborations for U.S. theatrical and non-theatrical releases. Applications for the fund open Thursday, and will feature grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to fund marketing strategies and distribution experiments. The program is aiming to cultivate a field-wide transformation in the industry to improve how independent films reach and engage with their audiences...