"Let me play among the stars, Let me see what spring is like on a-Jupiter and Mars." Hey Moon, why you look so good? Why you look so big?! Uh, is that normal...? This amusing and entertaining supercut created by editor / video essayist Ariel Avissar is worth a watch. This "Supermoon" mashup features a bunch of shots of gigantic Moon-in-the-background scenes from movies of all kinds. Everything from Black Swan to Frozen to The Lion King to Catwoman to Joe vs the Volcano to Shrek to Sin City and plenty of others. This also reminds me of a doc made up of nothing but the shots of stars from movies (it's called simply Star by Johann Lurf). For those curious, the Moon looks big on the horizon because of its relative size to the Earth. Thanks to Kottke for the tip on this Moon mashup video. The "Supermoon (Supercut)" video...
- 2/18/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Mark Jenkin’s debut won the Grand Prix and audience award at the event in Wrocław, Poland.
Bait, the debut feature from UK filmmaker Mark Jenkin, was awarded the Grand Prix and the audience award at the closing ceremony of New Horizons International Film Festival on Saturday (August 3).
This year a total of 12 features were competing for the Grand Prix at the 19th edition of the event, held in Wrocław, Poland from July 25 to August 4.
Produced by Early Day Films, Bait was shot on 16mm black and white film and follows a small fishing community in Cornwall which comes under...
Bait, the debut feature from UK filmmaker Mark Jenkin, was awarded the Grand Prix and the audience award at the closing ceremony of New Horizons International Film Festival on Saturday (August 3).
This year a total of 12 features were competing for the Grand Prix at the 19th edition of the event, held in Wrocław, Poland from July 25 to August 4.
Produced by Early Day Films, Bait was shot on 16mm black and white film and follows a small fishing community in Cornwall which comes under...
- 8/5/2019
- ScreenDaily
Viennese experimental filmmaker Johann Lurf’s latest film ★ is a moving and surprisingly whimsical gem of cinematic archeology of the heavens. It is an astral archive of the stars throughout 115 years of film history and a rapturous celebration of the scope of our imagination to capture that which will be forever beyond our reach—the clear nighttime sky dotted with those blinking specks of eternal light. Beginning in 1905 and continuing into the present day, Lurf has extracted shots of clear starry night skies from mostly feature films, organizing them in chronological order while keeping the original sound and shot length, resulting in a truly transportive cinematic experience that takes us on a voyage not just across the infinite terrain of the stars, but also through the endlessness of cinema itself. And just as the universe is expanding so will the film, with Lurf intending to update it annually—a dauntingly...
- 5/2/2018
- MUBI
Diagonale: Festival of Austrian Film has taken place annually since 1998 in Graz (pron. "Grats," pop. 325,000), Austria's second city, capital of the wealthy Styria province, and best known internationally as the home town of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over its six days (this year March 13-18) the event provides a handy snapshot of current Austrian film production, with a couple of retrospective strands included for context—rendered tantalizingly inaccessible to most international visitors by the lack of English subtitles.The newer films are divided into fiction, documentary, short fiction, short documentary and what the festival labels "Innovative Kino" (Ik). A sidebar dedicated to experimental and animated work would in most festivals of this type be a decidedly marginal affair—but, given the remarkable history of Austrian avant-garde cinema over the last half-century (and more; see Adrian Martin's essay "I Dream Of Austria"), at Graz it's a big deal indeed. The standard is...
- 3/25/2018
- MUBI
more than everythingFor those who love their live music to be risk-taking and cutting-edge, the Big Ears Festival, a 4-day event each March in Knoxville, Tennessee, is the place to be. For those who like their cinema of similar boldness and eclecticism, Big Ears is becoming a destination for that, too. Focusing on experimental work and inspired retrospectives, the film section of Big Ears is now in its third year, programmed by critic Darren Hughes (who writes regularly for the Notebook) and filmmaker Paul Harrill (Something, Anything), who together run The Public Cinema, a non-profit screening series shown at the Knoxville Museum of Art that operates year-long. Big Ears' film program is an exciting extension and expansion of The Public Cinema's initiative, which brings international art cinema like Hong Sang-soo's On the Beach Alone at Night and Valeska Grisebach's Western, as well as American independent cinema like Frederick Wiseman...
- 3/22/2018
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSActor Dorothy Malone, a true original of Hollywood's golden age and beyond, has died. David Hudson is collecting tributes at Criterion.In case you missed it, the 90th Academy Awards have announced their nominations. Find them on the Notebook here.Recommended VIEWINGWe love Czech animator & filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, so naturally we're very excited for his long awaited new feature Insect, which premieres at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week. Here's the beautiful and disgusting first trailer: Also at this years Iffr is Austrian experimental filmmaker Johann Lurf's "★". His cinema consistently challenges and surprises with its investigations of form and time, so we can't wait to see this structuralist space epic. Trailer:recommended READINGThe BFI has compiled a comprehensive (and crushing) list of all the film talents who died in 2017, complete with stunning visual tributes.
- 1/24/2018
- MUBI
As the entertainment space evolves and pushes further into the technology world, including virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and other experimental works, the Sundance Film Festival is continuing to debut some of the best examples of such crossovers as part of its New Frontier section. Every year, the section aims to “offer some of the most innovative independent production and experimentation at the crossroads of film, art and technology that is being created today.” For the 2018 edition of the festival, that will include an international slate of VR, Mr, and AI.
This year, New Frontier programming will encompass three venues, including the New Frontier Exhibition at Kimball Art Center (which will host immersive dance and cutting edge VR & Mr works as well as works involving Artificial Intelligence), along with New Frontier at The Ray, which will also include The Box at New Frontier at The Ray (a 40-seat mobile VR theater...
This year, New Frontier programming will encompass three venues, including the New Frontier Exhibition at Kimball Art Center (which will host immersive dance and cutting edge VR & Mr works as well as works involving Artificial Intelligence), along with New Frontier at The Ray, which will also include The Box at New Frontier at The Ray (a 40-seat mobile VR theater...
- 12/6/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Vienna, one month ago: Neil and I, in town for the city’s annual international film festival, get wind of a nearby press screening for Spectre, the new James Bond picture. Both of our upcoming schedules suggest that if we’re to get in on this cultural phenomenon, if we’re even to see it, we’ll have to wait till at least mid-November, owing to the slim chances of there being undubbed, original-language screenings in any of the far-flung locales we’re traveling to next. The wind changed—twice. First, we were welcome to attend the press screening in question so long as we didn’t mind the small fact that it was going to be in German. We did. But then came the prestige: it was going to screen in English after all. Smashing.If you’re going to crash a party, do it proper. Each of the...
- 11/24/2015
- by Michael Pattison
- MUBI
Embargo (Johann Lurf, 2015)The Promise Of Real FICTIONAs Neo awakes from his immersive slumber covered in the pink goo of experience, The Matrix provides us with the perfect image that is the cyborg theorist’s wet dream and cinema’s eternal promise: an immersion so total in the artificial perceptive experience that this fiction becomes entirely indifferentiable from any supposed external reality.This promise of cinema’s ‘realer real’ is in full force in the mythology driving the production of 3-D movies. As 3-D cinema was the curated theme of this year’s International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the plethora of films and 3-D techniques (or as the curator Björn Speidel more accurately calls it: “stereoscopic techniques”) granted the perfect opportunity to explore the myths, possibilities and limitations of a cinema in the third dimension.Just being in the theater during the screenings of the program’s nearly 50 films sufficed...
- 6/9/2015
- by Yaron Dahan
- MUBI
Starting tomorrow, BAMcinématek in Brooklyn has curated a series celebrating the best of recent three dimensional cinema, "3D in the 21st Century":"The unprecedented resurgence of 3D in the last decade has expanded the visual and emotional possibilities of cinema in frequently wondrous—and sometimes divisive—new ways. At its best, the technology creates almost hallucinatory immersive landscapes and retina-dazzling surprises with an immediate visceral impact. From big-budget blockbusters to high-concept mind-benders by arthouse icons, this first-of-its-kind series surveys recent films that showcase the full range of stereoscopic cinema’s expressive potential."Running May 1 - 17, the series surveys an exciting and wide-ranging number of 3D films, from blockbusters like Avatar and Gravity, genre films like Step Up 3D and Resident Evil: Retribution, to such art-house hits as Goodbye to Language and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, as well experimental works by Jodie Mack, Ken Jacobs, Johann Lurf, and more. The...
- 5/5/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Edited by Adam CookAbove: Adam Nayman interviews Jauja director Lisandro Alonso for Reverse Shot. If like us you're excited to see James Wan's Furious 7, we recommend this piece by Orlando Whitfield from The White Review which surveys the franchise up to now. Filmmaker Robert Greene is not pleased with the HBO documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. For AnOther, Mark Cousins has created a video tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini. Above: Filmmaker Gina Telaroli has a new exhibition opening Friday March 27th (and runs until April 25th) at the 308 at 156 Project Artspace. It features an installation with her new film Silk Tatters and Johann Lurf's Twelve Tales Told, as well as video pieces that appropriate the work of Michael Mann, Tony Scott, John Carpenter. At Toronto Film Review, David Davidson takes a look at Cahiers du Cinéma's writing on Martin Scorsese during the eighties.
- 3/31/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
- 3/24/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2014?
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/5/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
With so few events during which to premiere new and important avant-garde films in North America—among them, the recently wrapped Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Fest, and the San Francisco Cinematheque's Crossroads series—the shift that has occurred at this year's New York Film Festival is one well worth noting. This weekend, the inaugural Projects program will debut. Previously known as "Views from the Avant-Garde" and programmed by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith (though last year's titanic program was done by McElhatten alone), this sidebar more akin to a festival-inside-a-festival of film and video works has been re-named "Projections" and in its first year is programmed by a returned Smith, Film Society of Lincoln Center's Director of Programming Dennis Lim, and Aily Nash.
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
- 10/4/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Below you will find our total coverage of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, including a round up on experimental short films, reviews, and the festival-spanning dialog between our two main critics at Tiff. More interviews will be added to the index as they are published.
Correspondences
Between Fernando F. Croce and Daniel Kasman
#1
Fernando F. Croce on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Lisandro Alonso's Jauja, and Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria
#2
Daniel Kasman on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Peter Ho-Sun Chan's Dearest, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body, and Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe
#3
Fernando F. Croce on Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe, Jessica Hausner's Amour Fou, Johnnie To's Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, and Abel Ferrara's Pasolini
#4
Daniel Kasman on Alexandre Larose's brouillard passage #14, Friedl vom Gröller's...
Correspondences
Between Fernando F. Croce and Daniel Kasman
#1
Fernando F. Croce on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Lisandro Alonso's Jauja, and Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria
#2
Daniel Kasman on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Peter Ho-Sun Chan's Dearest, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body, and Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe
#3
Fernando F. Croce on Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe, Jessica Hausner's Amour Fou, Johnnie To's Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, and Abel Ferrara's Pasolini
#4
Daniel Kasman on Alexandre Larose's brouillard passage #14, Friedl vom Gröller's...
- 9/16/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
brouillard passage #14
Dear Fern,
Many of the features you have told me about I have subsequently seen and very much like: Ferrara's tender, banal Pasolini (with a fantastic lead performance by Willem Dafoe, and, as you so justly pointed out, a truly moving homage with Ninetto Davoli), and the eccentric structural romantic comedy from Johnnie To, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2. Two of the best films at Toronto, so far. Maybe I will return to these films later in the festival to tell you more of what I thought, but first somethings you may not have seen.
The much-anticipated shorts programs of the Wavelengths section wrapped up two nights ago and was presided over as always by indomitable programmer Andréa Picard—practically a cult figure in the festival world these days—who year after year has made it the most distinctive, the most personal, and the most engaged and engaging section at Tiff.
Dear Fern,
Many of the features you have told me about I have subsequently seen and very much like: Ferrara's tender, banal Pasolini (with a fantastic lead performance by Willem Dafoe, and, as you so justly pointed out, a truly moving homage with Ninetto Davoli), and the eccentric structural romantic comedy from Johnnie To, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2. Two of the best films at Toronto, so far. Maybe I will return to these films later in the festival to tell you more of what I thought, but first somethings you may not have seen.
The much-anticipated shorts programs of the Wavelengths section wrapped up two nights ago and was presided over as always by indomitable programmer Andréa Picard—practically a cult figure in the festival world these days—who year after year has made it the most distinctive, the most personal, and the most engaged and engaging section at Tiff.
- 9/15/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
What follows is a highly selective, unavoidably partial guide to the Wavelengths section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off today. Perhaps it seems that “selective” and “partial” are synonymous enough to produce redundancy when placed within the same sentence, and in most instances I would agree with this objection. In the first case, "selective," I will note that, of the 28 shorts and features that I was able to preview from the Wavelengths section (impeccably curated, as always, by the perspicacious Andréa Picard), I have chosen to highlight the fifteen that I personally found most aesthetically and intellectually bold, invigo(u)rating, troubling, critical-verbiage-thwarting, or otherwise worthy of hearty recommendation. This in no way implies that the other works were somehow lacking, only that I could not see my way through to them at this particular time and place. A different set of viewing circumstances (the ones you’re about to embark upon,...
- 9/10/2014
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
Yesterday, Tiff’s Wavelengths program unveiled a Locarno-heavy line-up of feature-length films that all aim to push the cinematic medium to its breaking point. Highlights include new films by Pedro Costa’s first “proper” feature in eight years, Horse Money (scarequotes because Ne change rien really is quite a singular, musky piece of work – see pic above); Eugène Green’s typically Baroque La Sapienza; 338 minutes of gruelling Filipino mastery from Lav Diaz in the form of From What is Before; Yoo Soon-mi’s essay film on the tensions between North and South Korea, Songs From the North; and The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro’s follow-up to his breakout revisionist Shakespeare drama. Other features include Tsai Ming-liang’s sixth and longest entry in his Walker series, Journey to the West (complete with a Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) cameo); Cannes hits like Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja...
- 8/13/2014
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
The Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin zombie drama Maggie, Dustin Hoffman drama Boychoir, Kristen Wiig comedy Welcome To Me and Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary have landed world premieres, Tiff gala and special presentation slots.
Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelengths, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.
Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.
Galas
Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp
The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp
Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp
The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp
Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp
Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP
Ruth & Alex...
Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelengths, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.
Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.
Galas
Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp
The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp
Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp
The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp
Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp
Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP
Ruth & Alex...
- 8/12/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin zombie drama Maggie, Kristen Wiig comedy Welcome To Me and Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary have landed world premieres, Tiff gala and special presentation slots.
Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelength, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.
Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.
Galas
Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp
The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp
Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp
The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp
Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp
Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP
Ruth & Alex (Us), Richard Loncraine Wp
Special...
Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.
Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelength, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.
Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.
Galas
Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp
The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp
Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp
The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp
Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp
Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP
Ruth & Alex (Us), Richard Loncraine Wp
Special...
- 8/12/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The 52nd annual Ann Arbor Film Festival will be a jam-packed experimental feature and short film screening event running for six days and nights, this time on March 25-30.
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
- 3/18/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Bombardment!
Bombardment: textures. If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German (My Friend Ivan Lapshin; Khrustalyov, My Car!) to finish what, upon the director's passing last year, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely sci-fi...
Bombardment: textures. If you, like many, have been waiting so many years for Soviet/Russian master Aleksei German (My Friend Ivan Lapshin; Khrustalyov, My Car!) to finish what, upon the director's passing last year, has ended up being his final film (with finishing touches by his wife and co-writer Svetlana Karmalita and his son Aleksei German Jr.), you will have to embrace muck. You will have to swim in shit, slather yourself with grime, dirt, and water, enrobe yourself in filthy fog, feel roughened leather, splintered wood, caked and hardened cloth, rusted and creaky iron armor; you will have to embrace the damp, dank, dirty opus of cinema that is Hard to Be a God. It is cinematic texture taken to an extreme.
Based on a 1964 novel by the Strugatsky brothers (literary sources for Tarkovsky's Stalker and Aleksandr Sokurov's Day of Eclipse, among other adaptations), its barely sci-fi...
- 1/30/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The Ann Arbor Film Festival, having survived their half-a-century blowout in 2012, is back with another rip-roarin’ 51st edition in 2013, which will run from March 19-24, screening a mind-boggling amount of experimental short films and a few features.
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The Bradford International Film Festival is typically an underground-friendly fest. This year appears to be no exception with two very special experimental film retrospectives, as well as a few modern underground-type flicks.
The 19th annual Biff will roll on April 11-21 at several locations around Bradford and Leeds in England, including the National Media Museum, Hebden Bridge Picture House, Hyde Park Picture House and other venues.
Biff is hosting a tribute to Stan Brakhage this year by screening the prolific filmmaker’s magnum opus, Dog Star Man, as well as a selection of his short films, from 1963′s legendary Mothlight to 1994′s Black Ice. There’s also going to be an epic-sized tribute/retrospective of experimental films from Austria, a country with a proud avant-garde filmmaking tradition that’s typically overlooked.
From Austria, Biff is, of course, screening two works from one of the experimental film world’s biggest masters,...
The 19th annual Biff will roll on April 11-21 at several locations around Bradford and Leeds in England, including the National Media Museum, Hebden Bridge Picture House, Hyde Park Picture House and other venues.
Biff is hosting a tribute to Stan Brakhage this year by screening the prolific filmmaker’s magnum opus, Dog Star Man, as well as a selection of his short films, from 1963′s legendary Mothlight to 1994′s Black Ice. There’s also going to be an epic-sized tribute/retrospective of experimental films from Austria, a country with a proud avant-garde filmmaking tradition that’s typically overlooked.
From Austria, Biff is, of course, screening two works from one of the experimental film world’s biggest masters,...
- 3/11/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 15th annual Antimatter Film Festival is grinding out, as it always does, an incredible program of avant-garde and experimental short films and features from all over the world. The visual smorgasbord is assaulting Victoria, British Columbia on Oct. 12-20.
Some of the features include Matt McCormick‘s lyrical travelogue road trip The Great Northwest, Sabine Gruffat‘s Detroit & Dubai contrast and comparison I Have Always Been a Dreamer and Ben Rivers‘ acclaimed pastoral odyssey Two Years at Sea.
On the short film front, there’s Salise Hughes‘ vanishing Erasable Cities, Deborah Stratman‘s reworked silent film Village, silenced, Matt McCormick‘s meditation on abandoned spaces Future So Bright, Jem Cohen‘s portrait doc Crossing Paths With Luce Vigo, Lyn Elliot‘s stop-motion Another Dress, Another Button, Alyssa Timon‘s A Dog Wearing Glasses; and tons more.
Plus, there’s the special “Home Movie Day” tribute to Victoria, BC on Oct.
Some of the features include Matt McCormick‘s lyrical travelogue road trip The Great Northwest, Sabine Gruffat‘s Detroit & Dubai contrast and comparison I Have Always Been a Dreamer and Ben Rivers‘ acclaimed pastoral odyssey Two Years at Sea.
On the short film front, there’s Salise Hughes‘ vanishing Erasable Cities, Deborah Stratman‘s reworked silent film Village, silenced, Matt McCormick‘s meditation on abandoned spaces Future So Bright, Jem Cohen‘s portrait doc Crossing Paths With Luce Vigo, Lyn Elliot‘s stop-motion Another Dress, Another Button, Alyssa Timon‘s A Dog Wearing Glasses; and tons more.
Plus, there’s the special “Home Movie Day” tribute to Victoria, BC on Oct.
- 10/15/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
September is here again, and it's time to delve into the cinematic bounty of the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, that rambunctious and idiosyncratic corner of the Reitman Machine largely cordoned off from commercial concerns and set aside for lovely and sometimes difficult film art. Despite the ever-changing profile of Tiff, stalwart programmer Andréa Picard has [cue needle-scratching-record sound] What? Yes, last year at this time, the avant-garde community thought we were seeing Ms. Picard leaving this position behind. Fortunately for us all, Tiff won her back.
And this is where things get interesting. Starting with this 2012 edition of the festival, the Wavelengths section is a much more broadly based, festival-wide category. In essence, it now subsumes the old Visions designation, which was Tiff’s home for formally challenging, feature-length arthouse fare. This merger, which may seem like a bit of a shotgun wedding to some, does in fact make sense.
And this is where things get interesting. Starting with this 2012 edition of the festival, the Wavelengths section is a much more broadly based, festival-wide category. In essence, it now subsumes the old Visions designation, which was Tiff’s home for formally challenging, feature-length arthouse fare. This merger, which may seem like a bit of a shotgun wedding to some, does in fact make sense.
- 9/11/2012
- MUBI
Above: Ernie Gehr's Auto-Collider Xv.
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
- 8/22/2012
- MUBI
The 37th Toronto International Film Festival® will roll out the red carpet for hundreds of guests from the four corners of the globe in September. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Rian Johnson, Noah Baumbach, Deepa Mehta, Derek Cianfrance, Sion Sono, Joss Whedon, Neil Jordan, Lu Chuan, Shola Lynch, Barry Levinson, Yvan Attal, Ben Affleck, Marina Zenovich, Costa-Gavras, Laurent Cantet, Sally Potter, Dustin Hoffman, Francois Ozon, David O. Russell, David Ayer, Pelin Esmer, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Andrew Adamson, Michael McGowan, Bahman Ghobadi, Ziad Doueiri, Alex Gibney, Stephen Chbosky, Eran Riklis, Edward Burns, Bernard Émond, Zhang Yuan, Michael Winterbottom, Mike Newell, Miwa Nishikawa, Margarethe Von Trotta, David Siegel, Scott McGehee, Gauri Shinde, Goran Paskaljevic, Baltasar Kormákur, J.A. Bayona, Rob Zombie, Peaches and Paul Andrew Williams.
Actors expected to attend include: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jackie Chan, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Robert Redford,...
Actors expected to attend include: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jackie Chan, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Robert Redford,...
- 8/21/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
By merging the former Visions into the Wavelengths section, Cameron Bailey has essentially made a new incontournable programme. Headed by Andréa Picard, the section which at a time was populated by medium to short run times now includes some of the bigger names in innovative feature film filmmaking who have no qualms about bending the medium. This year the sections includes long, medium and short length works from the likes of Ben Rivers, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Carlos Reygadas (pic of his controversial Post Tenebras Lux above), Wang Bing, Mati Diop (actress from Claire Denis and Antonio Campos films) and our very own writer Blake Williams who makes it two for two at Tiff with Many a Swan – he previously had Coorow-Latham Road programmed last year. Here’s the complete A to Z listing and well-worth reading descriptions.
Pairings
The Capsule Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, 37’ A bevy of gorgeous Gothic...
Pairings
The Capsule Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, 37’ A bevy of gorgeous Gothic...
- 8/14/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Toronto’s Images Festival celebrates it’s 25th anniversary on April 12-21 at theaters, galleries and other venues all over the city. They are celebrating with a massive event with films and videos, live performances, installations, artist talks and other events.
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
- 4/9/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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