World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
An unseen Bowie concert heads to Berlin, a new BAFTA chair, Tokyo’s festival kicks off & Susan Saint James is mourned.
Morning, all. After yesterday’s sad Star Trek news, today is a gentler affair, with a major Bowie premiere for the Berlin Film Festival and a changing of the guard at BAFTA.
An unseen Bowie concert heads to Berlin: Brett Morgen, the director of Moonage Daydream, will present the world premiere of David Bowie “Stage”, an immersive concert experience, at the 77th Berlin Film Festival on 14 February at Berlin’s Uber Arena. It’s built around previously unseen 35mm footage of Bowie’s 1978 Isolar II World Tour, when he performed songs from his Berlin-made album Heroes, which Morgen discovered while researching Moonage Daydream. It’s a three-screen presentation with transparent LED screens and lighting by Patrick Woodroffe, who has worked with the Rolling Stones and Elton John, and it’s made with the David Bowie Estate and Rob Hallett’s Wonderworld. It’s due to tour arenas in 2027. As I mentioned when The Prestige turned 20, Bowie was an unforgettable Nikola Tesla, but for his legions of fans this might be an even better way to spend an evening with him.
BAFTA’s new chair: Hilary Rosen, director of commissioning at UKTV, has been confirmed as the new chair of BAFTA, succeeding Sara Putt, who is stepping down after a three-year term. Rosen, who has been the BAFTA Television Committee chair and spent the past year as deputy chair, will be supported by new deputy chairs Ade Rawcliffe and Andrew Miller MBE. The new committee chairs are Caroline Levy for television, Charu Desodt for games and Nahrein Kemp for learning, inclusion and talent.
Tokyo’s festival kicks off: The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival opened on Monday evening in steady rain, with 262 guests walking a 250-metre red carpet for the gala showing of Zeze Takahisa’s Sukiyaki, about the creation of the song that topped the US charts in 1963. The festival has 204 films over ten days, including 15 in the main competition, and it marks the return of Takeo Hisamatsu as festival director. Academy CEO Bill Kramer attended, and Japan’s prime minister announced a plan to increase overseas sales of Japanese entertainment to $130 billion by 2033. It runs until 4 November.
Susan Saint James, 1946–2026: The actress died on Monday from pancreatic cancer, aged 80, her representative confirmed. Although best known on television as the Emmy-winning star of The Name of the Game, McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie, her passing is included here because she contributed to one of my favourite comedies of my teenage years – Love at First Bite – the 1979 horror/comedy in which George Hamilton’s Count Dracula moves to New York and falls for her fashion model, Cindy Sondheim. It’s a disco-era vampire comedy that has rarely been bettered, and Saint James held her own with warmth and a very sharp comic touch opposite Hamilton, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson as an hilarious Renfield. Despite also starring in other successful feature films – Outlaw Blues (1977) opposite Peter Fonda and the female buddy crime caper How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980) with Jane Curtin and Jessica Lange, she strangely never parlayed that into a more successful film career. Her family remembered her as generous with her time and energy, and she is survived by her husband, the television executive Dick Ebersol, and her four children. Rest in peace.
Birthdays: Julia Roberts, star of Pretty Woman, turns 59 today, and Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for Joker, turns 52. Also celebrating is former Doctor Who Matt Smith (44), who starred in Morbius, Last Night in Soho and Caught Stealing.
That’s all for today.
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