Casting Society Announces 2022-23 Board of Directors; ‘Devotion’ Trailer With Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell – Film News in Brief

Clayton Davis, Wilson Chapman, Michaela Zee and EJ Panaligan
·9 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Casting Society (CSA) has announced its newly elected board of directors for 2022-23, including Destiny Lilly as president, Elizabeth Berra as secretary and Steven Tylor O’Connor as treasurer. Lilly is a New York-based casting director whose recent projects include “Only Murders in the Building” on Hulu and “A Strange Loop” on Broadway. Berra is serving on the board for her third year, while O’Connor is serving for the first time.

In an ongoing effort to diversify its board, CSA has also welcomed its first trans board member Candido Cornejo Jr., as well as its first reality casting director Erin Tomasello.

More from Variety

The 2022-23 CSA board of directors include:

  • Destiny Lilly, President

  • Elizabeth Berra, Secretary, Associate Casting Director

  • Steven Tylor O’Connor, Treasurer, Associate Casting Director

  • Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick, Vice President, Advocacy

  • Felicia Joseph, Vice President, Advocacy

  • Caitlin D. Jones, Vice President, Communications, Associate Casting Director

  • Sujotta Pace, Vice President, Events, Associate Casting Director

  • Wendy Kurtzman, Vice President Events, European Chapter liaison

  • Rachel Reiss, Vice President, Technology

  • Daniel Cabeza

  • Tiffany Little Canfield

  • Candido Cornejo, Jr.

  • Jessica Daniels

  • Zora DeHorter

  • Kimberly Ehrlich, Associate Casting Director

  • Eryn Goodman

  • Erica A. Hart

  • Stephanie Klapper

  • Erin Tomasello

  • Julie Tucker

“Devotion” Trailer With Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell

Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell are taking off in the official trailer for “Devotion,” the new drama set to release this Thanksgiving.

Based on the nonfiction book by Adam Makos, “Devotion” focuses on the military careers of Jesse Brown (Majors) and Tom Hudner (Powell), two elite Navy fighter pilots who served during the Korean War. In spite of the racism that Brown experiences as one of the first Black aviators, he forms a close camaraderie with the white Hudner, and the two go on to work together as wingmen in several battles, including the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.

Along with Majors and Powell, “Devotion” also stars Christina Jackson, Joe Jonas and Thomas Sadoski. J.D. Dillard directs the film from a screenplay by J.D. Dillard from a screenplay by Jake Crane and Jonathan A. H. Stewart. Dillard and Powell executive produce while Molly Smith, Rachel Smith, Thad Luckinbill and Trent Luckinbill produce for Columbia Pictures. The film was initially intended to open via a platform release throughout October, but Sony Pictures will now give the film a wide release during the Thanksgiving holiday.

“Devotion” flies into theaters on Nov. 23. Watch the full trailer below.

Sundance Institute Launches Latine Program and Announces 2022 Fellows and Collab Scholarship Recipients

.
.

The Sundance Institute announced the launch of the Latine Fellowship and Collab Scholarship, created to make a significant impact on Latinx representation in media. It will provide six emerging Latinx artists who have been previously supported by the Institute with a year-long multi-disciplinary fellowship experience beginning in August 2022 and unrestricted non-recoupable grants of $10,000. In addition, the program provides fellowships and scholarships to 11 emerging Latinx artists, offering professional development opportunities and networking opportunities.

The fellows selected for the 2022 Sundance Institute Latine Fellowship are:

  • Ashley Alvarez (writer) and Michael León (co-writer and director) with “Crabs in a Barrel” (U.S.): When her talentless frenemy is anointed the “future of Latinx voices,” a struggling Latina writer sets out to sabotage the unearned opportunity. After failing to recruit her friends to join her crusade, she gets a lucky break when she learns her rival isn’t exactly who she says she is.

  • Luna X. Moya (director/producer/editor/DP) with “What the Pier Gave Us” (U.S.): A visually poetic film about immigrants who fish at a New York City pier. In five vignettes, What the Pier Gave Us lyrically captures the seasonal changes of a pier in a year.

  • Marilyn Oliva (director/producer) with “Chalate” (U.S.): A grandmother teaches her young granddaughter valuable life lessons while they make ends meet selling what they can in the small market of Chalatenango, El Salvador.

  • George Pérez (creator/writer) with “Los Cubanos” (U.S.): Forced to flee Castro’s Cuba in 1980, a husband and wife make the gut-wrenching decision to abandon their daughter. Now, in a menacing and uncertain America, they’ll do anything to protect their other child; becoming drug traffickers and assassins, echoing the past they left behind.

  • Cat Rodríguez (divisor/performer) with “Untitled Bikini Bodybuilding Project” (U.S.): A hybrid theater and live-stream performance that uses a female bodybuilding competition as an allegory for questions about race, class, gender, and climate.

The artists selected for the 2022 Sundance Institute Latine Collab Scholarship are:

  • Shireen Alihaji (writer/director) with “Blue Veil” (U.S.): In the wake of 9/11, a First-Gen Muslim teenager discovers her mother’s record collection and begins sampling. The songs reflect her parent’s migration stories (from Iran and Ecuador) to America and serve as a roadmap to Amina’s identity. As music unlocks memories, Amina remembers who she is.

  • Erin Nene-Lee Ramirez (writer/director) with “Love, as an Illusion” (U.S.): In the heat of a New England summer, a young Dominican student finds himself stirring up the intimate dynamic between a reckless teenage couple as he spends his final days in the US, where he challenges the couples’ ideas of acceptance, intimacy and love.

  • Fabiano Mixo (writer/director) with “A Home of My Own” (U.S.): When an insomniac handyman comes across a train in the forest after a flood in town, he decides it’s time to build his own house.

  • Maggy Torres-Rodriguez (writer) with “Cherries” (U.S.): Inner-city Miami knew the gang as The Cherries – sweet Latina vigilantes who protected teenage girls by keeping drugs off the streets… and butchering drug dealers if they had to. Ten years later, the retired Cherries are forced to reconvene in order to survive against the resurgence of old enemies.

  • Mathew Ramirez Warren (director/producer) with “Weed Dreams” (U.S.): Black-owned businesses in Oakland, California try to break into the predominantly white legal Cannabis industry, through the nation’s first-ever Cannabis Equity Program.

Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) Presents LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion

The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) will present LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion, a new exhibit and partnership with the award winning animation studio LAIKA. This new installation will “take over” the animation section of the Museum’s dynamic core exhibition Behind the Screen from Sept. 1.

It will include puppets, sets, and video clips from LAIKA’s first five films. The installation also features 2-D LAIKA character figures and environments that visitors can use to create their own stop-motion animations at MoMI’s interactive stations, which the creator can share and post online.

“LAIKA has created unforgettable characters and stories using stop-motion animation, with hand-crafted techniques that date from the emergence of cinema,” said Barbara Miller, the Museum’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs. “At the same time, they have done more than any other studio to bring this art form into the digital age. They are perfect partners for this exhibit, which invites visitors of all ages to appreciate the painstaking work of stop-motion animation, and experiment with making their own short films.”

“LAIKA has established a unique identity in the world of cinema with its original and timeless stories amid advancing stop-motion animation with technological innovations,” said David Burke, Chief Marketing Officer & SVP Operations: LAIKA, LLC. “We share with MoMI a love of cinema and are delighted that the ‘hands on’ element of our exhibit allows fans to enjoy and embrace LAIKA’s singular way of filmmaking.”

LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion will be on view through August 27, 2023. It will be accompanied by screenings of LAIKA films in the Museum’s Redstone Theater.

New York Film Festival Announces 60th Anniversary Screening Event Featuring James Gray’s ‘Armageddon Time’ 

Film at Lincoln Center announced that director James Gray’s forthcoming “Armageddon Time” will be a Main Slate selection of the 60th New York Film Festival, playing at Alice Tully Hall on October 12. The premiere will be a special 60th anniversary screening event celebrating the history of the festival; Gray and cast from the film will attend. The film, which is a semi-autobiographical period drama largely inspired by Gray’s upbringing in Queens, stars Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Jeremy Strong and more. Gray’s new film initially premiered at Cannes in May to a seven-minute standing ovation, and is slated for a theatrical release at the end of October. “Armageddon Time” will be distributed in the US by Focus Features and internationally by Universal Pictures.

Michelle Yeoh And Lawrence Herbert Will Receive Honorary Degrees At AFI Conservatory Commencement

The American Film Institute announced Friday that actress Michelle Yeoh will receive an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree for her “contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image,” becoming first Asian artist to receive the AFI honor. AFI Trustee Emeritus Lawrence Herbert will receive an honorary Doctorate of Communication Arts degree for his “commitment to the mission of the American Film Institute.” They will be recognized during the AFI Conservatory’s commencement ceremony celebrating the Class of 2022 on August 13 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

“Michelle Yeoh and Lawrence Herbert have inspired the world with their remarkable talents,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO. “Though both of these trailblazers have proven impact in vastly different ways, it is their shared dedication to the art of the moving image that provides this proud moment for AFI to shine a proper light upon their gifts given us.”

Yeoh starred in A24’s indie breakout hit “Everything Everywhere, All At Once,” which just recently achieved a $100 million global box office in ticket sales. Herbert served on the AFI Board of Trustees from 1987 to 2017, and in 2020, AFI established the Lawrence Herbert Alumni Center in his name on the AFI Campus. Past recipients of the honorary degrees have included Maya Angelou, Angela Bassett, Clint Eastwood, Roger Ebert, Spike Lee and more.

Best of Variety

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.