CULTURE / REVIEWS
My Recent Watches: Personal Reviews
Tony, The Death of Robin Hood and I Swear: reviews by Maria Eduarda Vasconcellos.
Written by: Maria Eduarda Vasconcellos
READ THE STORYTHE OPENING FRAME / FILM & TELEVISION
There is a story
behind every
release.
Where films go, who gets to see them, and what it takes to get them there. The business of the screen, without the red-carpet blur.
READ THE FEATUREFRAME / LINE · THE OPENING EDITIONFILM & TELEVISION TRADE EDITORIAL
Cinema seating, contextual photograph. Photo: Elijah Flores baesik / Wikimedia Commons · CC0. Cropped to fit the layout.
THE IMDB & JOBLO CORNER, ON OUR RADARTrending, all-time favourites & rumors
01 / THE DESK
Look past the premiere.
The premiere is where the cameras point. The real story is everything around it: how a film gets developed, financed, picked up, positioned and sold - the whole engine, before and after the red carpet.
THE LATEST
Analysis & perspective
A crew films inside an aircraft for Transformers in 2006; archival production photograph, not The Odyssey. Photo: Capt. Corinna Jones, USAF / Wikimedia Commons
01 THE BUSINESS / THREE QUESTIONS · III CRAFT
Real is the new rare
How handmade craft became the movies’ best marketing. The Odyssey is one expression of a wider cultural turn.
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Fernando Meirelles at an earlier film premiere; not a Here Comes the Flood still. Photo: Manfred Werner (Tsui) / Wikimedia Commons
02 GLOBAL PLATFORM / PRODUCTION
Here Comes the Flood: a Brazilian director, a global canvas
Fernando Meirelles returns to Netflix. How should a global heist film carry the story of its filmmaker?
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Ciné Lumière, a London Latino Film Festival venue; archival photograph. Photo: Ewan Munro / Wikimedia Commons
03 FESTIVALS / EXHIBITION
A new screen for Latin American cinema in London
London Latino Film Festival arrives with a question about what lasting visibility can look like beyond its opening edition.
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BFI London Film Festival at Odeon Leicester Square, archival photograph. Photo: Bex Walton / Wikimedia Commons
04 FESTIVALS / WHAT WE ARE WATCHING
What we're watching at the London Film Festival
Opening and closing nights, a Brazil-Argentina competition film and Screen Talks: the routes from a festival room to an audience.
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BFI Southbank, a London Film Festival hub venue; archival photograph. Photo: Ewan Munro / Wikimedia Commons
05 FESTIVALS / UPCOMING
Coming up: films and talks on the festival radar
LoLaFF and BFI London Film Festival programme picks, official dates and venues, with reasons to take a closer look.
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Cine Doré, Madrid; contextual Spanish cinema photograph, not a La Bola Negra screening. Photo: Neslihan_Turan / Wikimedia Commons
06 DISTRIBUTION / CASE STUDY
La Bola Negra: one film, several release clocks
Spanish attendance, a London gala and Netflix’s planned theatrical window are different audience stories.
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Film editing workstation; contextual photograph, not an LFF work-in-progress presentation. Photo: Marcel Oosterwijk / Wikimedia Commons
08 THE BUSINESS / FESTIVAL MARKET
Before the premiere: the work-in-progress room
Eight unfinished films meet buyers, sellers and programmers. Selection is an opening, not a sale.
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Palazzo del Cinema, Venice; archival venue photograph. Photo: Derbrauni / Wikimedia Commons
09 FESTIVALS / MARKET
Venice 2026 in brief: a prize is not a release
A Golden Lion, new territory deals and a cautious market showed how festival acclaim travels.
READ THE STORY
Palais des Festivals, Cannes; archival venue photograph. Photo: Alexander Migl / Wikimedia Commons
10 FESTIVALS / MARKET
Cannes 2026 in brief: the sale is only one part of the story
A compact look at the festival and market through the deals and audience questions that mattered.
READ THE STORYCAMPAIGNS / AUDIENCES
Case Studies
Times Square lights and crowd; contextual advertising photograph, not a campaign image. Photo: ScottandYanling / Wikimedia Commons
01 / CASE STUDY
The stunt-led campaign: what happens off screen
Blimps, living billboards and a face at a baseball game. What can a physical stunt buy that an advert cannot?
READ THE STORY
Cinema foyer; contextual photograph, not a scene from Obsession. Photo: Mecanautes / Wikimedia Commons
02 / CASE STUDY
Obsession: how a campaign found its audience
The launch was clever. The box-office climb was stranger. Where marketing ends and word of mouth begins.
READ THE STORY
The Rio Cinema, Dalston; contextual cinema photograph. Photo: Andrew Woodyatt / Wikimedia Commons
03 / CASE STUDY
Coyote vs. Acme: the comeback became the campaign
What happens when a film’s rescue becomes its pitch, and what other campaigns reveal about making a premise tangible.
READ THE STORYScores, Horror and the Flight for Attention
A conversation about why movie music matters — from Ludwig Göransson's composer-director collaborations to how scores shape emotion in horror. We dig into the recent horror resurgence and Obsession's breakout, ask why some acclaimed small films break through while others get ignored, and unpack how marketing, TikTok, and the battle for audience attention are reshaping which movies find their audience.
More from the desk
ANALYSIS / EXPLAINERS / CULTURE13 DISTRIBUTION / ANALYSIS
The new distribution playbook is not one window
Theater and streaming are being recombined, title by title. What changed, and who benefits?
14 MARKETING / EXHIBITION
The gap between being seen and being booked
A campaign can travel fast. The path from attention to an actual seat is more complicated.
15 THE BUSINESS / MARKETING / ANALYSIS
Excellence has become a superpower
Why word of mouth is now film’s most powerful marketing. The campaign no longer owns the whole conversation.
16 TELEVISION / STREAMING
Some TV shows never really leave
Why Gilmore Girls and The Office find new audiences, and why a place in the streaming library is only the beginning.
17 THE BUSINESS / EXPLAINER
Should TV go back to older cameras?
What makes television feel like a film.
18 THE BUSINESS / MARKETING / SERIES
How they did it
Film and TV marketing worth learning from, one campaign at a time.
19 THE BUSINESS / EXPLAINER
Product placement in film and TV
The money, the immersion, and everything in between.
20 THE READING ROOM / SERIES
The reading room
Pieces that explain what happens between making a film and finding its audience.
21 FILM / GENRE
Can the romcom make a real comeback?
Why the 2000s favourites endure, and what it takes to make the comeback work.
22 THE BUSINESS / RIGHTS
What Reese Witherspoon really buys
What it means to buy the rights to a story.
23 FESTIVALS / CULTURE
Are we watching the film or timing the applause?
Festival standing ovations have become a scoreboard. The stopwatch needs a little context.
24 FESTIVALS / CULTURE
Sometimes the speech is the scene
Four cinema-stage moments worth revisiting, from Clooney's Venice charm to Colman's Oscar surprise.
25 FESTIVALS / ANALYSIS
London's festival week is a beginning, not a release strategy
The BFI London Film Festival returns this autumn. For films looking beyond their first audience, the important question is what happens after the room empties.
26 ACQUISITIONS / CASE STUDY
Isabel: from Berlin to a UK release
A Brazilian film crossed the festival circuit before Conic bought its UK-Ireland rights. The London premiere is a stop on that route, not its finish.
27 THE BUSINESS / THREE QUESTIONS · I MONEY
Does a bigger budget buy a bigger box office?
Across a selected 40-film sample, budgets and grosses move together. Two releases show why the pattern is not a forecast.
28 THE BUSINESS / THREE QUESTIONS · II IP
What does IP actually buy?
Black Bear’s Atmosphere deal asks what a known title gives a film before audiences see it.
29 ACQUISITIONS / EXPLAINER
Who buys the story?
Start with the rights, the buyer and the route a film or series will take to viewers.
30 MARKETING / CASE STUDY
Weapons: selling the question
How a missing-children mystery became a campaign, and where the suspense needed guardrails.
31 THE BUSINESS / CO-PRODUCTION
Why look to Brazil for the next co-production?
Stories, production expertise, financing routes and audiences: the case for a Brazilian partner.
CASE STUDIES / THE BUSINESS
Follow the deal beyond the headline.
Five cases on deals, campaigns, word of mouth and the work of turning attention into an audience.
BROWSE CASE STUDIESTHE INDUSTRY / EXPLAINED
Who buys the story?
An acquisition can mean a script, a finished film, a television series or a set of rights for one territory. The buyer, the rights and the route to viewers are rarely the same thing.
READ THE ACQUISITIONS EXPLAINERON OUR RADAR
Keep an ear on the business.
The film business sounds different away from a premiere microphone. Five sourced shows that follow the choices, arguments and people behind the screen.
EXPLORE ON OUR RADARTHE EDITORIAL LENS
A film can win the room and still have no route to its next audience. The decisions after the applause are the story here.ABOUT THE OUTLET