Ethan Hawke Talks Sense; Cha Cha Real Smooth Trailer; All About Your Mothers

The new trailer for Cha Cha Real Smooth, Apple’s next big Sundance bet after the Oscar-magnet CODA; Ethan Hawke seeks peace between superhero movies and art movies; we asked you all who you would cast as your mother, and we love your answers.

But First: What about fathers? Today we have a sadly not-great example of one. The new Netflix doc Our Father tells the story of fertility doc Donald Cline, who secretly inseminated patients with his own sperm without their consent. In this piece, Margeaux Sippell talks with director Lucie Jourdan about whether Cline was inspired by a religious concept called “Quiverfull.”

‘There’s No Game to Win’: Here’s Ethan Hawke, indie icon and co-star of the Marvel series Moon Knight, talking good sense about superhero movies vs. non-superhero movies, and why they don’t have to fight. “I don’t think there’s a difference between high art and low art,” he explains. “There are movies that people put their heart into, and there are movies that people try to cash in on. And the ones that I like are the ones that people put their heart into. And you can feel it in a superhero movie, or you can feel it in a horror movie, or you can feel it in some arthouse movie.”

Nantucket: The Nantucket Film Festival’s list of guests and honorees is one of the most impressive I’ve seen this year. Among those in attendance will be Barry Je​nkins, John Turturro, Ramin Bahrani, Cooper Raiff, Ben Stiller, Lulu Wang, and Peter Farrelly. Jenkins will receive the Screenwriters Tribute Award at the Screenwriter Tribute Ceremony. Turturro will receive the Compass Rose Award, presented by his Severance director, Ben Stiller. The two will also talk Severance. Bahrani will receive the Documentary Storytelling Award, and Cooper Raiff will receive the New Voices in Screenwriting Award. His film Cha Cha Real Smooth will also screen at the festival, and you can watch the trailer for it at the end of this very Rundown. The 27th The 27th Nantucket Film Festival will take place June 22-27, and you can learn more about it here.

Sundance: Sundance has just announced a new funding/fellowship program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Humanities Sustainability Fellowship will provide direct unrestricted funds to 20 documentary media makers for a year. Each of the 20 will receive $60,000 in installments over 12 months, and intriguingly, this is not project-based: The money is intended to allow career sustainability.

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Scream 6: Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen Scream 4 or 5, okay? Okay. The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reports that Scream 4 Survivor Hayden Panettiere will be back for Scream 6, which will also include Scream 5 (aka Scream) survivors Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding and Jenna Ortega.

Pleading Pays Off: Also, here’s Margeaux Sippell’s terrific recent profile on Ortega, who started pleading with her mom for a chance to act at the age of six. It worked: Ortega quickly went from Disney star to Scream queen.

AFI: The American Film Institute has announced that Academy Award winner Siân Heder, writer and director of CODA, this year’s winner for Best Picture Oscar, will receive the 2022 Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal. It will be presented at the AFI Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to Julie Andrews, airing on TNT on June 16. We’re big fans of Heder — you can read my profile of her here.

All About Your Mothers: Yesterday, after an item about Steven Spielberg choosing Michelle Williams to play his mom in his very autobiographical new film The Fablemans, we asked you who you would choose to play your mom in a movie of your life. Here are some great answers:

“My mom – Dame Judy Dench, not only do they look like sisters, but my mom is as much of a spitfire as the Dame herself!” — Tom Patterson.

“Well if I could work with Meryl Streep I’d pick her but probably Gina Lollobrigida would be more like her!” — actor/writer Anna Primiani.

“The iconic Angela Bassett because my mom deserves the best.” — screenwriter and Low Key Podcast host Aaron Lanton.

“Shirley MacLaine.” — actor-writer-producer Lesleh Donaldson.

“My mum.” — filmmaker James Stephen Roberts.

More great answers are in this Twitter thread:

Cha Cha Real Smooth: Speaking of moms, here’s the trailer for Cha Cha Real Smooth, which Apple bought for $15 million at Sundance. It tells the story of a young party starter (Cooper Raiff) who falls for an engaged single mom (Dakota Fanning). The latest movie Apple paid a bunch of money for at Sundance was CODA, and we know how that turned out. 

Main image: Dakota Johnson in Cha Cha Real Smooth.