The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader. Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager in 1963 and encouraged them to write their own songs. The Jagger–Richards partnership soon became the band's primary songwriting and creative force.
Sir Michael Philip Jagger is an English musician. He is best known as the lead singer and one of the founder members of the Rolling Stones. Jagger has co-written most of the band's songs with lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in rock music history. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential front men in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Early in his career, Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades, he received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards as well as a BAFTA Award nomination. Considered one of the best actors never nominated for an Academy Award, he was given an Academy Honorary Award in 2017. Sutherland was a prominent anti-war activist during the Vietnam War era.
Eon Productions Limited is a British film production company that primarily produces the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the UK.
Charles Ray Willeford III was an American writer. An author of fiction, poetry, autobiography, and literary criticism. Willeford wrote a series of novels featuring hardboiled detective Hoke Moseley. Willeford published steadily from the 1940s on, but vaulted to wider attention with the first Hoke Moseley book, Miami Blues (1984), which is considered one of its era's most influential works of crime fiction. Film adaptations have been made of four of Willeford's novels: Cockfighter, Miami Blues, The Woman Chaser, and The Burnt Orange Heresy.
The Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment to manage its motion picture operations. It was launched in 1998 by integrating the businesses of Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. and TriStar Pictures, Inc.
Crackle is an American video streaming service. It was founded in 2004 as Grouper, before the service was purchased by Sony Pictures in 2006 and renamed Crackle. In 2018, the name was changed to Sony Crackle. Sony sold a majority stake to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment in March 2019, and the name was changed back to Crackle.
Stage 6 Films, Inc. is an American film production label of Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions that acquires and produces feature films that are low budget and that are being released direct-to-disc, on demand, or through streaming services. Some of their films are also being released theatrically. Once a film is finished, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will decide if the film will be released theatrically or on a different platform.
Giuseppe Capotondi is an Italian director of feature films, music videos and commercials signed to Oil Factory in the United States and Factory Films in the United Kingdom. Before signing with Factory Films, he worked with Battlecruiser and Soixan7e Quin5e.
Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi are twin French artists, painters, illustrators, animators, and film directors.
Elizabeth Debicki is an Australian actress. Born in Paris and raised in Melbourne, she studied acting at the University of Melbourne, and made her film debut in the comedy A Few Best Men (2011). She gained wider recognition with her performances in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013)—which won her the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress—and as Ayesha in the Marvel films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). Debicki's profile grew with roles in the limited series The Kettering Incident and The Night Manager and in Steve McQueen's heist thriller Widows (2018), and in 2019, she received the Cannes Trophée Chopard.
Tom Bernard is an American film distributor specializing in art cinema and is one of the co-founders of Sony Pictures Classics (SPC). Bernard and fellow Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker have worked together for approximately four decades and have won 41 Oscars.
Peter Rabbit is a 2018 comedy film based upon the character of the same name created by Beatrix Potter, co-produced by Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Olive Bridge Entertainment, Animal Logic, 2.0 Entertainment, and Screen Australia, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It was directed by Will Gluck, who also produced the film with Zareh Nalbandian, from a screenplay and story written by Gluck and Rob Lieber. James Corden stars as the voice of the title character, with Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, Sam Neill, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in live-action roles, as well as the voices of Daisy Ridley, Elizabeth Debicki, and Margot Robbie. The film's story focuses on Peter Rabbit as he deals with new problems when the late Mr. McGregor's great nephew arrives and discovers the trouble Peter's family can get into.
Vita & Virginia is a 2018 biographical romantic drama film directed by Chanya Button. The screenplay, written by Button and Eileen Atkins, is adapted from the 1992 play Vita & Virginia by Atkins. The film stars Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, and Isabella Rossellini. Set in the 1920s, Vita & Virginia tells the story of the love affair between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf.
Claes Kasper Bang is a Danish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the leading role of Christian in Ruben Östlund's 2017 film The Square, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and for the role of Fjölnir in Robert Eggers's 2022 film The Northman. In 2019, he played the role of Sasha Mann for the final season of The Affair, and he rose to further international recognition by starring as Count Dracula in the BBC/Netflix series Dracula (2020). For his role in The Square, he became the first Dane to win the European Film Award for Best Actor. Bang has also developed a music career under the moniker of This Is Not America.
The Leisure Seeker is a romantic comedy novel written by American author Michael Zadoorian, published in 2009. The second novel of the author. The novel was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren, and was premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in 2017.
The Last Vermeer is a 2019 American drama film directed by Dan Friedkin from a screenplay by John Orloff, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby. It is based on the 2008 book The Man Who Made Vermeers by Jonathan Lopez, and tells the story of Han van Meegeren, an art maker who swindles millions of dollars from the Nazis, alongside Dutch Resistance fighter Joseph Piller.
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is a 2021 adventure comedy film directed and produced by Will Gluck, who co-wrote the screenplay with Patrick Burleigh. The film is a sequel to Peter Rabbit (2018). Produced by Sony Pictures Animation, and is based on the stories of Peter Rabbit created by Beatrix Potter. James Corden reprises his role as the title character, alongside Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, and David Oyelowo in live-action roles, and the voices of Elizabeth Debicki, Lennie James, and Margot Robbie.
The 76th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 28 August to 7 September 2019.
The Climb is a 2019 American comedy-drama film written, produced by and starring Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. Covino also directs, while Gayle Rankin, Talia Balsam, George Wendt, and Judith Godrèche also star. Based on Covino and Marvin's short film of the same name, the plot follows two friends and looks into their lives over several years.
