Liev Schreiber will receive the Global Noir Icon Award as an actor and activist at a closing ceremony for the Lakes Noir International Film Festival.

The Sept. 27 gala in Luino, Italy, will also honor BlueCheck Ukraine, a humanitarian organization Schreiber co-founded, and give the Global Noir Visionary Award to Ukrainians in Exile director Janek Ambros.

In addition, the late Hayden Panettiere, who supported BlueCheck Ukraine, will receive a moment of silence at the festival’s Grand Finale Gala ceremony. Lakes Noir will screen the 2024 documentary Ukrainians in Exile, directed by Ambros and executive produced by Schreiber. Panettiere passed away on Aug. 17 at age 36. The circumstances of her death are currently under investigation.

Filmed on the Ukrainian border just weeks into the 2022 conflict, the film is executive produced by Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) and has served as a fundraising vehicle for BlueCheck Ukraine.  

Panettiere will be honored at the Lakes Noir gala for her support of Ukraine, which stemmed in part from a nine-year relationship with Wladimir Klitschko, brother to Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko, with whom she had a daughter, Kaya.

In March 2022, Panettiere founded the charity Hoplon International to offer direct relief and life-saving body armor and medical kits to front-line Ukrainian soldiers. BlueCheck Ukraine was also launched in March 2022 to provide emergency support to populations in Ukraine impacted by the ongoing war with Russia.

The Lakes Noir Film Festival spotlights the “noir” aesthetic, including stylized crime dramas to dark and sobering documentaries.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) has unveiled the winners of its feature filmmaking and short filmmaking awards on Wednesday evening.

Skintown, directed by Kieron J. Walsh, was awarded the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, voted on by the audience and funded by the Connery Foundation. The winner receives £50,000 ($68,055) to fund future projects.

A portrait of Northern Ireland youth in the 1990s, Skintown sees best friends Vinny and Jonty party, cut deals and plan to escape small-town life in Northern Ireland during the 1994 ceasefire, a period known as the Troubles. The festival called the film a “humorous, poignant and terrifically acted period piece with a killer ‘90s soundtrack.”

In an interview about Skintown, Walsh and actor Jack Rowan told THR that making the film “was a bumpy ride!”

Meanwhile, the Edinburgh festival also revealed on Wednesday evening that the Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence was awarded to Grief Room, directed by Sinda Agha. The winner receives £15,000 ($20,416) to fund future projects.

“Emily Beecham, Daisy Bevan and Louisa Harland are on peak form in this film about estranged sisters who reunite at their mother’s deathbed,” the festival highlighted. And a synopsis teases: “Using experimental tech to interpret their mother’s thoughts, the youngest becomes convinced of an urgent, final message they must uncover.”

EIFF CEO and festival director Paul Ridd lauded this year’s film lineup. “The standard of films and filmmakers competing this year at EIFF has been exceedingly high,” he said. “We are so proud of being able to launch this terrific work into the world, and we wish all our filmmakers the very best as they continue their journeys with their films and with their careers. Grief Room is a contained gem of wit, warmth and sadness, and Skintown is a beautiful, funny and very moving film. We are delighted to see that audiences have responded so enthusiastically to both films. Cinema is alive and well in the hands of these immense talents.”  

EXCLUSIVE: Curtis Lum (The Night Agent, The Audacity) will join the cast of ABC‘s The Rookie spinoff series The Rookie: North and Prime Video‘s Cross for Season 3.

Expanding the universe, The Rookie: North introduces Alex Holland (Jay Ellis), who believed his midlife wasn’t worthy of a crisis. But after a violent home invasion ignites a dormant purpose, Alex battles a lifetime of failed commitments by joining the Pierce County Police Department as a rookie. Policing from the urban coast to the rural forest where backup isn’t just five minutes away, Alex must prove to his skeptical training officer, his fellow rookies, and himself that he’s finally found something worthy of the fight.

In a recurring role, Lum will recur as Officer Charley Furst. Furst is a cheerful and relaxed officer who has a reputation for always finding the path of least resistance when it comes to the job. 

The series also stars Chris Sullivan, Karen Fukuhara, Froy Gutierrez, Janet Montgomery, Mya Lowe, and Malik Watson. It is set for premiere in 2027.

Alexi Hawley will serve as executive producer and writer of The Rookie: North, with Fillion, Mark Gordon, Bill Norcross, and Michelle Chapman also executive producing. Ellis is a producer.

On the third season of Prime Video’s Cross, Lum will guest star as F.W. Jung. Jung provides discreet, ever-changing services for powerful clients, solving problems with meticulous planning and quiet efficiency. Pragmatic and unemotional, Jung views every situation as a problem to be resolved. By the time he speaks, the outcome is already in motion.

Cross, based upon characters created by James Patterson, is a Washington, D.C.-based crime drama that follows Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge), a brilliant homicide detective and forensic psychologist, uniquely capable of digging into the minds of serial killers in order to identify and catch them. In Season Three, the hit thriller will continue to expand the high-stakes world of its lead character.

Cross was developed for television by showrunner and executive producer Ben Watkins and produced by Amazon, MGM Studios, and Paramount Television Studios. Season 2 was executive produced by Craig Siebels, Patterson, Sam Ernst, Jim Dunn, Aiyana White, J. David Shanks, Owen Shiflett, Bill Robinson, Patrick Santa, and Hodge.

Lum was recently featured in the third season of the Netflix series, The Night Agent, from creator Shawn Ryan. He can currently be seen in the AMC series, The Audacity, playing Tim Kwan. He will reprise the role in the show’s upcoming second season. On the film side, Lum will next be seen in the action thriller film Karoshi from Lionsgate, and making his leading role in a feature film debut in The Chinatown Diner from Lawrence Le Lam. Next year he will also lead an ensemble cast in New Diamond Restaurant from Milton Ng, for which Lum is also a producer. Lum is repped by Artium Talent and Trisko Talent in Canada.