Tag: greta gerwig

  • Greta Gerwig, director of ‘Barbie,’ to lead jury at 77th Cannes Film Festival

    The Cannes Film Festival announced Thursday that Greta Gerwig, director of summer blockbuster “Barbie”, will preside over the jury at its 77th edition in May.

    The 40-year-old Gerwig, also an actor and screenwriter, takes the baton from Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund, whose jury awarded the 2023 Palme d’Or to courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall”.

    She is the first American woman filmmaker to take on the role, the festival said in a statement.

    Gerwig’s presence will provide a youthful flair to Cannes, which has not had such a young president since 1966, when it was led by then-31-year-old Sophia Loren.

    She is also the first woman since actor Cate Blanchett in 2018 to assume the prestigious position, where men remain over-represented.

    “I love films — I love making them, I love going to them, I love talking about them,” Gerwig said in a statement.

    “As a cinephile, Cannes has always been the pinnacle of what the universal language of movies can be”.

    Aside from “Barbie”, a vivid feminist satire about the all-conquering line of plastic dolls, Gerwig has also directed “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Dr March’s Daughters” (2020).

    She is currently working on an adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia” for Netflix.

    The festival described Gerwig, who has starred in more than two dozen films, as a heroine for modern times who has rattled the status quo.

    “This is an obvious choice, since Greta Gerwig so audaciously embodies the renewal of world cinema,” said Cannes boss Iris Knobloch and festival delegate Thierry Fremaux

    “Beyond the seventh art, she is also the representative of an era that is breaking down barriers and mixing genres, and thereby elevating the values of intelligence and humanism,” they added.

    In announcing a high-profile woman director, the world’s largest film festival stole back the spotlight from its younger competitor, February’s Berlinale.

    The festival in the German capital on Monday announced its own jury president, 40-year-old Mexican-Kenyan actor Lupita Nyong’o, the first black person named to the role.

    In choosing Gerwig, Cannes is also highlighting its continued ties with the powerful American film industry.

    The Cannes Film Festival has yet to unveil the rest of the jury or the films in the official selection.

  • Barbie is the first billion dollar film to be made by a female director

    Barbie is the first billion dollar film to be made by a female director

    Life in plastic is fantastic!

    As if leading a pink wave around the world wasn’t enough, cashing in a billion dollars from your first month in cinemas alone would be perfect. Warner Bros Pictures announced on Sunday that the Greta Gerwig directed film has broken records to make more than $1 billion dollars at the global box office, making Gerwig the first female director to accomplish this. The studio revealed that the movie took $459 million from North American theatres, and an extra $572 million from overseas screening, making a total of $1.0315 bn. Their final figures were confirmed by the media analytics firm Comscore:

    “As distribution chiefs, we’re not often rendered speechless by a film’s performance, but Barbillion has blown even our most optimistic predictions out of the water,” said Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripps, who oversee domestic and international distribution for the studio.

    The film, which was written and directed by the Oscar-nominated Greta Gerwig, stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in leading roles, as Barbie travels from her fantasy world to the real world in an attempt to understand the recent unravelings happening to her.

    Oppenheimer, meanwhile, has officially become the highest grossing World War II film ever made, by crossing the $550 million mark at the global box office.

  • Factcheck: Is ‘Barbie’ banned all over Lahore?

    Factcheck: Is ‘Barbie’ banned all over Lahore?

    The devastating news that the iconic film ‘Barbie’ was recalled once more from cinemas by the Punjab Government for a second review has left fans fuming. News outlets said that the film was banned over four words were circulating on social media.

    On Saturday night some social media reports said that the screening had halted midway, and cinemas like Cue and Universal replaced the movie schedule for Barbie on their website with ‘Mission Impossible’.

    After speaking to an insider from the Punjab Film Censor Board, The Current has been informed that the film had previously been cleared to play in cinemas across Lahore, but it was the Punjab Government that had halted the screening and will release it after a second review. When we asked why there uproar on Barbie, and not Oppenheimer, the insider refused to comment on it.

    Speaking to Geo Fact Check, Amir Mir, the caretaker Information and Culture Minister of Punjab revealed ‘Barbie’ was re-called because of concern of the film’s content which showed ‘homosexuality’.

    “There is a gay character in it,” Mir said. “You can Google and find out if there is any such thing in it or not.”

    Mir added that the film will be re-examined in a few days and will be released to cinemas after censoring a few dialogues.

    However, Barbie was not censored in other cities like Islamabad or in Sindh. When Mir was asked about this his response was:

    “Other provinces probably like this kind of stuff. We have a problem with it.”

    However, we can advice you to not toss away your pink outfit yet, because Barbie is still playing in Chalo Cinemas at Fortress Square Mall. We contacted the cinema and a manager confirmed to us that the film has not been banned.

    On the official Instagram page, Chalo Cinema has still posted timings of the ‘Barbie’ movie.

    On their Instagram stories, the organisation shared Galaxy Lollywood founder Momin Ali Munshi’s post on how their cinema was the only place that was allowed to play Barbie. There are three censor boards in Pakistan: Sindh, Punjab, and for Central Cantonment. Cantt has a separate censor board, which is present in all provinces, and Barbie has been cleared by their Censor Board which is why it is playing in the only cinema present inside Lahore Cantt, at Fortress Stadium.

  • Is Barbie banned in Pakistan? We investigate

    Is Barbie banned in Pakistan? We investigate

    Everything was fine and handy dandy on the internet when suddenly fire started spewing on the bird app that the upcoming film ‘Barbie’ is banned in Pakistan

    https://twitter.com/notbabyze/status/1673642005820317696?s=20

    https://twitter.com/garbajjj/status/1676269902347345926?s=20
    https://twitter.com/olivescoil/status/1672895133354979331?s=20

    This has to be a joke pulled by the Oppenheimer marketing team, because when it comes to Barbie and the sacred Greta Gerwig, our claws are out.

    Since our occupation is journalism, we got out our pink notebooks and glittery pen, and investigated this nonsense rumor to tell you guys that there is no such thing happenening. From the major cinemas we have spoken to in Lahore and Karachi, we can confidently say Barbie is not banned in Pakistan.

    In Lahore, here are some of the places where it is confirmed that the film will release on July 21:

    Xinhua Mall

    Emporium Mall

    Cue Cinema

    Chalo Cinema at Fortress Stadium is only showing Oppenheimer. When we spoke to an employee of the organisation, they said that there was no current confirmation about whether or not Barbie will be playing in their theatre.

    Whereas in Karachi, we had reached out to Nueplex Cinemas where although Barbie and Oppenheimer are grouped under the category of movies coming soon, but two employees at the cinema said that currently there was no confirmation about whether the movie will play in their cinema or not. Fans of the film can call them three days before the release to confirm.

    But there you have it folks. This Barbie has proven that the film was not banned in Pakistan.

  • Summer blockbusters we are excited about

    Who said this is going to be a boring summer?

    With super stars like Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie and powerhouse directors like Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan bringing their art to cinemas, this summer is going to be anything but boring.

    We have Pakistan’s first ever crime thriller, based on a serial killer no one has depicted on film, a gorgeous Disney adaptation of the beloved story ‘The Little Mermaid’ and yes, the woman ,the myth, the legend herself, Greta Gerwig, bringing the world to its knees with Barbie.

    Here is our list of summer blockbusters that have us already booking our tickets with glee.

    1 Kukri

    Abu Aleeha thrilled audiences with ‘Daadal’ starring the powerhouse Sonya Hussein, depicting a boxer from Lyari who turns to the sport to avenge her sister’s honor. Now, he is bringing to screens the story of child serial killer Javed Iqbal. Starring Ayesha Omar and Yasir Hussain, the trailer has us excited because this is the first time such a story is being released in cinemas.

    2 Barbie

    Icon and savior Greta Gerwig made history when she released the trailer for the upcoming comedy film ‘Barbie’, impacting the film industry in a way never seen before. In this adaptation, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling take on the roles of Barbie and Ken, taking us on a hilarious journey as Barbie steps out in to the new world in order to get to know who she is.

    3 The Little Mermaid (2023)

    If you’re looking for a good film to watch with family, this is the perfect one. Halle Bailey set our 90’s heart soaring when it was announced that she would be taking on the role of Ariel for ‘The Little Mermaid’. Featuring a star-studded cast with the likes of Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Simone Ashley and Daved Diggs, the gorgeous special effects and the positive reviews have already gotten us excited.

    4 Oppenheimer

    If this list wasn’t up to your taste then wait for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’. Featuring Cillian Murphy, the film is about Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is working with a team of scientists during the Manhattan Project, developing the atomic bomb.

  • ‘Not apologising for the person I become when this releases’: Twitter delighted with new ‘Barbie’ trailer

    Warner Bros unleashed chaos with the new trailer of ‘Barbie’ and yes, Twitter lost it’s marbles.

    Directed and written by Greta Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach, the second trailer finally gave us the complete story that maybe, life isn’t always fantastic.

    Played by Margot Robbie, Barbie has an existentialist crisis which compels her to go to the real world in order to learn more about herself.

    https://twitter.com/PopBase/status/1661764247175700480?s=20

    It has been just a few hours since the trailer released, but fans of the long anticipated movie are already shaking, crying, throwing up, gearing up to do anything to book their cinema seats to watch ‘Barbie’.

    The film also announced the artists who would be featuring on the final ‘Barbie’ soundtrack, which included Ice Spice, Dua Lipa, and Nicki Minaj who will be performing a new version of ‘Barbie’.