Tariffs, tariffs everywhere
May 9 — Last Sunday, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce a plan calling for 100% tariffs on films produced outside of the United States. The White House almost immediately walked back his statement, but the post left film industry professionals everywhere reeling, and wondering – what exactly does this all mean?
The answer? Hard to say. While other details about the proposal have come out in the last few days, it’s still pretty unclear how a tariff, usually imposed on a physical good imported from another country, would work on something like a movie, which involves many more variables in terms of production and distribution. I spent this week speaking to Georgia film industry professionals and experts to get a sense of how the industry here is feeling about the debacle. You can find that piece here.
Without further ado … Action!
💭 Speaking of production moving away from California, according to a new report, California’s share of top animated productions has fallen by 40% since 2010.
💸 The company MoviePass has created a new app called Mogul, where users can create virtual movie studios and compete against their friends by picking actors, directors, and films.
🎙️ The Golden Globes will add a Best Podcast category to its lineup starting in 2026.
👻 Resurgens Gaming is launching a new video game accelerator and publishing division called Ghost Launchpad.
🔪 If you ever wanted to die in an Eli Roth horror film, now’s your chance. The director is offering custom death scenes to top investors in a new venture called The Horror Section.
This week’s newsletter includes an interview with a filmmaker who just got a movie into a New York film festival and one last look at some of my favorite movies coming out of the Atlanta Film Festival. We’ve also got reviews of two feature debut films, “Bonjour Tristesse” and “The Ugly Stepsister.” Plus, a new episode of my podcast Crash Zoom and some reading and listening recommendations for your lunch break.
Thanks for reading!
Sammie
🏡 For the first time ever, Sotheby’s International Realty® is hosting a global Open House Showcase on May 17 and 18. Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty is proud to participate, featuring listings like this Downtown Alpharetta end-unit townhome offering luxury finishes, private outdoor living, and elevator access. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Atlanta filmmaker to debut ‘Feng Shui’ at Changing Minds Young Filmmakers Festival
💻 Kofi King has been telling stories since he was a little kid.
The Southwest Atlanta native grew up recording videos of his action figures with his cousins, and made a short film that premiered at his school’s festival when he was a teenager before deciding to major in film at Columbia University.
Now, he has a new film called “Feng Shui,” that covers extremely personal ground. The film is a desktop documentary – a type of audiovisual essay that uses the computer screen as the camera lens instead of using a traditional camera – and will premiere at this year’s Changing Minds Young Filmmakers Festival in New York City on May 17.
🧠 Learn more about Kofi’s film and the inspiration behind it here.
Scenthound salutes educators with free services
SPONSORED BY SCENTHOUND
🐶 To celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5-9, and thank our amazing educators, Scenthound is offering FREE Basic Hygiene Services for educators’ furry family members throughout May.
Free service includes:
🐾 Bath
🐾 Ear Cleaning
🐾 Nail Clipping & Filing
🐾 Teeth Brushing
📞 Let Scenthound pamper your pup while you continue to shape young minds. Contact our Buckhead, Dunwoody, or Tucker locations to schedule your free service (must have valid ID).
OR
If you know an amazing educator, pass this on.
Five (more) movies to watch from the Atlanta Film Festival
🐕 You thought we were done, but we’re not!
The Atlanta Film Festival ended its in-person run on May 4. While the virtual rendition of the festival will run until May 12, I feel now’s a good time to run down through some of my favorite movies that played.
Ahead of the festival, I released a list of seven movies to watch out for. All my praise for those films still applies, but this list includes five new films that I came out of the theater loving.
🇨🇦 Check out my list here.
Beauty is pain in ‘The Ugly Stepsister’
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
👠 The Brothers Grimm version of “Cinderella” is quite a bit more grisly than you might remember. I won’t get into all the gory details, but as a quick refresher: when the prince in the Brothers Grimm version shows up to test the lost slipper on all the women living in Cinderella’s house, one stepsister cuts off her toes in order to ensure that the slipper fits. The other shaves off part of her heel.
It’s a sign of the sisters’ vanity and trickery, one which they are punished for while Cinderella is rewarded for her purity. But the Brothers Grimm failed to consider perhaps the most important question that this plot point raises: what on God’s green earth would possess a woman to mutilate her foot in order to fit into a damn shoe?
“The Ugly Stepsister,” the directorial debut from Emilie Blichfeldt, is more interested in that question than any other iteration of the tale prior, answering it by way of a body horror extravaganza that will test your endurance of that genre by its end.
🪱 Read my full review here.
‘Bonjour Tristesse:’ Who do I want to be when I grow up?
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
🇫🇷 At the beginning of “Bonjour Tristesse” – based on the 1954 novel previously adapted into a film in 1958 by Otto Preminger – Elsa (Nailia Harzoune) and her boyfriend, Raymond (Claes Bang) take in Raymond’s 18-year-old daughter Cécile (Lily McInerny) as she overlooks the French seaside. She’s standing in that particular way teenagers do: trying to look nonchalant, and in the pursuit of that endeavor, hyper concerned with how she comes across.
“She’s imagining what she looks like to us,” Elsa whispers to Raymond.
This adaptation of “Bonjour Tristesse,” written and directed by filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose, is about just this. While Françoise Sagan’s novel and Preminger’s movie are about a young woman coming to terms with her own selfishness, Chew-Bose’s film is more about that time in a young person’s life when they must decide who they want to be – how they want the world to see them. From that source material, Chew-Bose has wrung a sensitive and sharp coming-of-age story.
🍎 Read my full review here.
🏡 For the first time ever, Sotheby’s International Realty® is hosting a global Open House Showcase on May 17 and 18. Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty is proud to participate, featuring listings like this Downtown Alpharetta end-unit townhome offering luxury finishes, private outdoor living, and elevator access. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Crash Zoom: an interview with Madison Hatfield
📱 Welcome to Crash Zoom, a podcast where we take a deep dive into film and entertainment industry news!
For a normal episode of Crash Zoom, me and my cohost, indie filmmaker Aaron Strand, would explore how things happening at the highest level trickle down and affect the independent artist. But for the latest episode, we spoke with actress/writer/director Madison Hatfield about what it’s like to direct vertical dramas – short-form video series made for viewing on your phone – and her recent essay, “The Billionaire Trope.”
🎙️ Check out that interview here!
Lights, Camera, Action!
🎨 It will probably come as no surprise to anyone reading this newsletter that I am an AI skeptic, particularly when it comes to its use in film and art. That being said, I really enjoyed this Vulture conversation between Jerry Saltz and David Wallace-Wells – one AI-skeptic and the other AI-curious – about what constitutes the difference between AI art and art made by humans. I particularly love this kicker quote from Jerry: “Maybe when AI starts having sex and fears death, it will start making great art.”
✍️ Critics deserve profiles too, and this one is a doozy. Andre Sennwald became the movie critic for the Times in 1934 at the age of 27. He died in 1936 at the age of 28. But even in his short tenure, he witnessed and attempted to make sense of an industry that was quickly evolving, whether it be moving from black and white to color or the invention of the Hays Code. Richard Brody recently wrote a wonderful essay dissecting the work of Sennwald for The New Yorker. You can check that out here.
⭐ Who do you think are our greatest movie stars? The Big Picture has some thoughts, particularly when it comes to the millennial and up demographic. The podcast recently released their rundown of the 35 best movie stars over the age of 35. Take a listen to see if you agree.
🖊️ Today’s Scene was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.
