A quarter of the features in this year's London Film Festival lineup were directed by women, organizers said Thursday as they revealed the schedule for the October extravaganza.
The dearth of female filmmakers at major festivals has drawn much criticism. The Venice Film Festival, running to Sept. 9, has just one woman among 21 directors competing for the main prize.
London, which opens Oct. 4, has done better, with 61 female filmmakers in this year's lineup of 242 films.
The 61st London festival opens with Andy Serkis' based-on-a-true-story "Breathe," and ends Oct. 15 with Martin McDonagh's dark comedy "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." Among the major galas is "Battle of the Sexes," co-directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell as tennis opponents Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Festival director Clare Stewart said the 1970s-set true story is a comic gem, but also "demonstrates how far we haven't come" toward equality for women.
Stewart says the festival lineup is strong on movies that take "inventive and exciting" liberties with genre. They include Guillermo del Toro's fantastical "The Shape of Water," Alexander Payne's sci-fi story "Downsizing" and Yorgos Lanthimos' absurdist "The Killing of a Sacred Deer."
This year's festival will also include discussions on disabilities. Organizers say "the film industry still has a long way to go in terms of representation for disabled people."
Apple sells $46 billion worth of iPhones over the summer as AI helps end slump
Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.
Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year, according to Apple's fiscal fourth-quarter report released Thursday. That improvement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone's quarterly sales.
The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly revenue and profit that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-time charge of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court decision that lumped the Cupertino, California, company with a huge bill for back taxes.
Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per share, a 36% decrease from the same time last year. If not for the one-time tax hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per share — topping the $1.60 per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Revenue rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts forecast.
But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter and appeared disappointed by an Apple forecast that implied its revenue for the October-December quarter covering the holiday shopping season might not grow as robustly as analysts envisioned. Apple's stock price shed about 2% in Thursday's extended trading, leaving the shares hovering around $221 — well below their peak of about $237 reached in mid-October.
The latest quarterly results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a new iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed... Read More