Coproduction Office has acquired international rights to the catalogue of acclaimed post-War East German filmmaker Konrad Wolf. The Paris and Berlin-based company is working with Defa Foundation and Defa Distribution, part of a German government-run group of film studios founded in the late 1940s to restore Wolf’s 14 features to commemorate the centenary of his birth in 2025.
Wolf’s anti-fascist film Sterne (Stars) won him a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1959 and his 1964 feature Divided Heaven captured the complexities of life in divided Germany. His 1971 drama Goya Of The Hard Way to Enlightenment,was a biopic of the Spanish painter.
Wolf’s anti-fascist film Sterne (Stars) won him a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1959 and his 1964 feature Divided Heaven captured the complexities of life in divided Germany. His 1971 drama Goya Of The Hard Way to Enlightenment,was a biopic of the Spanish painter.
- 2/9/2024
- ScreenDaily
Though we aim to discuss a wide breadth of films each year, few things give us more pleasure than the arrival of bold, new voices. It’s why we venture to festivals and pore over a variety of different features that might bring to light some emerging talent. This year was an especially notable time for new directors making their stamp, and we’re highlighting the handful of 2023 debuts that most impressed us.
Below one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres, and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature,...
Below one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres, and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature,...
- 11/29/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Jointly organized by Cannes’ Marché du Film with a Thierry Fremaux Cannes Film Week adding star auteur glamor, Ventana Sur turns 15 this week unspooling Nov. 27-Dec.1 at its usual venue of the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires’ Puerto Madero, its most modern and most chic of districts.
Founded with Argentina’s Incaa film-tv agency in 2009, Ventana Sur has proved a modern addition to Latin America’s film landscape, adding international edge to national film industries then lifting off from Mexico City to Bogotá, São Paulo and Rio, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires, energized by new film laws modeled on Europe and a wave of new filmmakers: Think Chile’s Pablo Larraín, Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas, Pablo Trapero and Santiago Mitre.
As an arthouse industry worldwide experienced ever more challenges in clinching substantial theatrical sales abroad, Ventana Sur with forward-looking zeal launched sub-markets focusing on still remaining growth axes:...
Founded with Argentina’s Incaa film-tv agency in 2009, Ventana Sur has proved a modern addition to Latin America’s film landscape, adding international edge to national film industries then lifting off from Mexico City to Bogotá, São Paulo and Rio, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires, energized by new film laws modeled on Europe and a wave of new filmmakers: Think Chile’s Pablo Larraín, Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas, Pablo Trapero and Santiago Mitre.
As an arthouse industry worldwide experienced ever more challenges in clinching substantial theatrical sales abroad, Ventana Sur with forward-looking zeal launched sub-markets focusing on still remaining growth axes:...
- 11/27/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Rotterdam Film Festival Sets ‘Head South’ As Opening Film
Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.
Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival
U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...
Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.
Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival
U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...
- 11/23/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Amat Escalante brings great intensity to this story of a young man seeking out the truth of his mother’s disappearance, but the point gets rather lost
Amat Escalante is the Mexican film-maker who created the brutal and politically engaged crime drama Heli in 2013, for which he won the best director award in Cannes, and in 2016 the deeply strange body horror parable The Untamed which was a prizewinner at Venice. Now, after a stint on the streaming TV drama Narcos: Mexico he has directed and co-written this contorted Lynchian melodrama about Mexico’s corruption, cynicism and indifference, and all the secrets and lies that bloat the country’s ruling classes.
Lost in the Night concerns what may be the corpse of a woman buried in the grounds of a super-rich family and in this respect it rather resembles Robe of Gems from Natalia López Gallardo, who like Escalante has worked with Carlos Reygadas.
Amat Escalante is the Mexican film-maker who created the brutal and politically engaged crime drama Heli in 2013, for which he won the best director award in Cannes, and in 2016 the deeply strange body horror parable The Untamed which was a prizewinner at Venice. Now, after a stint on the streaming TV drama Narcos: Mexico he has directed and co-written this contorted Lynchian melodrama about Mexico’s corruption, cynicism and indifference, and all the secrets and lies that bloat the country’s ruling classes.
Lost in the Night concerns what may be the corpse of a woman buried in the grounds of a super-rich family and in this respect it rather resembles Robe of Gems from Natalia López Gallardo, who like Escalante has worked with Carlos Reygadas.
- 11/21/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Mubi Podcast: Encuentros returns for a fifth season.The first episode features:Lois Patiño (Spain), visual artist and filmmaker. Her experimental and contemplative feature and short films have been screened at venues such as the Directors Fortnight, the New York Film Festival, and Ficunam. His debut feature Costa da morte won the award for Best Director in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno and, more recently, Samsara, his third feature, won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section at the Berlinale.Natalia López Gallardo (Bolivia-México), editor, actress and director. She has edited films such as Heli, by Amat Escalante; Jauja, by Lisandro Alonso, and Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) by Carlos Reygadas, for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. She made her directorial debut in 2006 with her short film En el cielo como en la tierra, presented in Rotterdam, and 17 years later, her first feature film...
- 11/8/2023
- MUBI
Fotosíntesis Media, a Mexican pioneer in cause-driven entertainment, has unveiled “Ch’ulel,” a 2D fantasy adventure animated feature for 6-8s tapping into the mindset of Tzeltal community.
Mexico City-based, Fotosíntesis Media burst onto the scene in 2015, launched by Cannes-winning director Carlos Reygadas and producer Jaime Romandia and director-producer Miguel Angel Uriegas.
Having scored Mexican Academy best animated feature Ariels in 2016 for “The Stone Boy,” which Uriegas directed and produced and another Ariel in 2021 for “A Costume for Nicholas” “Ch’ulel” will be the sixth feature for Fotosintesis which world premiered a fourth, “Bestia,” co-produced with Denmark’s Zentropa and Brazil’s Levante Films, at June’s Guadalajara Film Festival.
Announced at the 2021 Quirino Awards, a fifth feature, “My Friend the Sun,” is in production, with a completion date set for Nov. 2024 and theatrical release in 2025.
“Ch’ulel” has just been selected for Animation! Pitching Sessions, the animated project forum at Ventana Sur,...
Mexico City-based, Fotosíntesis Media burst onto the scene in 2015, launched by Cannes-winning director Carlos Reygadas and producer Jaime Romandia and director-producer Miguel Angel Uriegas.
Having scored Mexican Academy best animated feature Ariels in 2016 for “The Stone Boy,” which Uriegas directed and produced and another Ariel in 2021 for “A Costume for Nicholas” “Ch’ulel” will be the sixth feature for Fotosintesis which world premiered a fourth, “Bestia,” co-produced with Denmark’s Zentropa and Brazil’s Levante Films, at June’s Guadalajara Film Festival.
Announced at the 2021 Quirino Awards, a fifth feature, “My Friend the Sun,” is in production, with a completion date set for Nov. 2024 and theatrical release in 2025.
“Ch’ulel” has just been selected for Animation! Pitching Sessions, the animated project forum at Ventana Sur,...
- 10/23/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Trojan Women: Lopez Crafts Collage of Complicity in Stellar Debut
For her directorial debut Robe of Gems (Manto de gemas), Natalia López Gallardo resists expectations in a chilly narrative of complex intersections. Heretofore celebrated as the editor of critically revered titles from Amat Escalante, Lisandro Alonso and her partner Carlos Reygadas (with whom she co-starred in the underrated 2018’s Our Time – read review), Lopez’s stylistic choices remain self-evident, but there’s an almost harsh reticence in how she continually undermines not only a certain arthouse convention, but the inherent apathy of those balanced precariously in this world on a wire.…...
For her directorial debut Robe of Gems (Manto de gemas), Natalia López Gallardo resists expectations in a chilly narrative of complex intersections. Heretofore celebrated as the editor of critically revered titles from Amat Escalante, Lisandro Alonso and her partner Carlos Reygadas (with whom she co-starred in the underrated 2018’s Our Time – read review), Lopez’s stylistic choices remain self-evident, but there’s an almost harsh reticence in how she continually undermines not only a certain arthouse convention, but the inherent apathy of those balanced precariously in this world on a wire.…...
- 9/19/2023
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Largely known as a film editor for having worked with partner Carlos Reygadas on 2007 masterwork Silent Light and with further collaborations with the likes Amat Escalante, Daniel Castro Zimbrón and Lisandro Alonso, it’s after several years in development (film market murmurs it was known as Supernova), Natalia López Gallardo unveiled her sensory-filled feature debut Robe of Gems (Manto de Gemas) at the 2022 Berlinale — where she walked away with the Jury Prize Silver Bear.
Per our review – Gallardo “focuses on how class, privilege and social status tend to evaporate when the women connecting her narrative dare to employ any real sense of agency, highlighting their often chilling relationship to a power structure which demands their complicity.…...
Per our review – Gallardo “focuses on how class, privilege and social status tend to evaporate when the women connecting her narrative dare to employ any real sense of agency, highlighting their often chilling relationship to a power structure which demands their complicity.…...
- 9/18/2023
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Shrooms.This year’s edition of TIFF Wavelengths opened with an unannounced extra. It was a 1967 film called Standard Time, an eight-minute series of circular pans around an apartment. The camera speeds up and slows down; it pans right, then left, then right again. Later, the film describes a truncated arc, showing one small section of the flat. Then, the camera pans up and down. Living beings can be glimpsed along the way, most notably a cat perched in a window, artist Joyce Wieland, and a surprise visitor at the end. But they are given the same relative attention as the objects in the space: a TV, a stereo, a cooktop, a blender, and a hutch full of china. Which is to say that all things in the field of the camera’s vision are abstracted, turned into pure painterly velocity.Of course, Standard Time is by Michael Snow, a...
- 9/12/2023
- MUBI
Far and away the best film to premiere at Sundance Film Festival this year was Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Produced by Barry Jenkins and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, the film takes a beautifully poetic decades-spanning look at a woman’s life in Mississippi. Nine months after its Sundance premiere, the film will finally resurface as part of New York Film Festival’s just-announced Main Slate followed by an A24 release later this fall. Ahead of the release, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
I said in my review, “Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few...
I said in my review, “Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few...
- 8/9/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Carlos Reygadas is currently in production on his sixth feature film, Estela de sombra. We suspect that filming in taking place in his native Mexico. We had reported that Reygadas had received some coin and could possibly film portions of his next film in Poland. We conclude that the titled next project Wake of Umbra and Estela de sombra are one of the same – when translated it means “trail of shadow.”
Cristina Velasco who was a producer on Peter Greenaway’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato, and more recently Michel Franco’s last Venice preemed pair in New Order (2020) and Sundown (2021) will produce for Paloma Negra Films.…...
Cristina Velasco who was a producer on Peter Greenaway’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato, and more recently Michel Franco’s last Venice preemed pair in New Order (2020) and Sundown (2021) will produce for Paloma Negra Films.…...
- 7/17/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Cannes frequently gets criticized for the paucity of Latin American representation in the main competition, so it was widely assumed that the new feature from festival veteran Amat Escalante, the 2013 best director winner for Heli, would be guaranteed a spot. Sad to report that watching Lost in the Night (Perdidos en la noche), it’s easy to see why it was shuffled off to a sidebar. The Mexican filmmaker moves out from the shadow of his former mentor, Carlos Reygadas, with his most accessible work to date in this revenge thriller, which is engrossing enough but also a bit meandering and underpowered.
Escalante’s fifth feature takes its cues more from his experience in television on Narcos: Mexico than from his previous big-screen work, which could in theory bring him to a wider audience. But it lacks the tight cohesion of that series at its best, and softens the jarring intensity,...
Escalante’s fifth feature takes its cues more from his experience in television on Narcos: Mexico than from his previous big-screen work, which could in theory bring him to a wider audience. But it lacks the tight cohesion of that series at its best, and softens the jarring intensity,...
- 5/23/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This important film tells the story of a community battered by rape and patriarchal ideas, as a mainly female cast debate the repercussions of the brutality meted out to them
Sarah Polley’s sober, sombre ensemble picture stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, among others, as traumatised female members of a remote, patriarchal religious colony, and it’s a heartfelt new engagement with the #MeToo debate, reminding us that the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale really does exist more literally than you think. The movie thinks its way intuitively into the darkest spaces of violence and survival, and attempts to give women a voice where they had none; it is, as the opening title says, “an act of female imagination”. And if the result is just a little stagey and verbose, telling rather than showing the rage and the fear, it is also...
Sarah Polley’s sober, sombre ensemble picture stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, among others, as traumatised female members of a remote, patriarchal religious colony, and it’s a heartfelt new engagement with the #MeToo debate, reminding us that the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale really does exist more literally than you think. The movie thinks its way intuitively into the darkest spaces of violence and survival, and attempts to give women a voice where they had none; it is, as the opening title says, “an act of female imagination”. And if the result is just a little stagey and verbose, telling rather than showing the rage and the fear, it is also...
- 2/9/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Raven Jackson’s directorial debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Daring in its formal gambits but universal for how it explores humanity’s connection with nature, loss, and love, it’s among few films in the history of Sundance that genuinely seems to advance the language and possibilities of cinema. With adoring notes of Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Carlos Reygadas, and Julie Dash, Jackson isn’t wholly reinventing what has come before, but rather pushing this poetic-based variety into thrilling new territories.
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
Freed from the shackles of linear storytelling, Jackson jumps around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond. We begin with her as a child (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father (Chris Chalk), though it’s many minutes...
- 1/26/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Buenos Aires — Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” Lukas Dhont’s “Close” and the Dardenne brothers ‘Tori and Lokita” screen at this week’s Cannes Festival Film Week in Buenos Aires, which runs Dec. 28 to Dec. 3.
The Week saw another highlight this Tuesday in a masterclass by French actor Vincent Lindon (“The Measure of a Man”), this year’s Cannes jury president, who spoke with bracing honesty about he art and reality of acting in films.
Lindon was interviewed on stage by Argentina’s Santiago Mitre, whose Argentine Oscar entry, “Argentina, 1985,” has had an extraordinary box office run in Argentina this fall, scoring 1.2 million admissions, despite playing simultaneously in the latter stage of its run both in cinema theaters and on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Further titles in the six-pic Film Week lineup take in Jerzy Skolimoswski’s “Eo,” Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” and “Boy from Heaven” from Tarik Saleh.
The Week saw another highlight this Tuesday in a masterclass by French actor Vincent Lindon (“The Measure of a Man”), this year’s Cannes jury president, who spoke with bracing honesty about he art and reality of acting in films.
Lindon was interviewed on stage by Argentina’s Santiago Mitre, whose Argentine Oscar entry, “Argentina, 1985,” has had an extraordinary box office run in Argentina this fall, scoring 1.2 million admissions, despite playing simultaneously in the latter stage of its run both in cinema theaters and on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Further titles in the six-pic Film Week lineup take in Jerzy Skolimoswski’s “Eo,” Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” and “Boy from Heaven” from Tarik Saleh.
- 12/2/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Writer/producer/showrunner David Kajganich discusses a few of his favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
All The Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
Badlands (1973)
Bones And All (2022)
A Bigger Splash (2015)
Suspiria (2018)
Deathdream (1974) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Porky’s (1981)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Black Christmas (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings
Murder By Decree (1979) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972)
Black Vengeance a.k.a. Poor Pretty Eddie (1975)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
The Last Wave (1977) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (2003)
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary
Dressed To Kill (1980) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Criterion review
The Last Picture Show (1971) – Mark Pellington’s trailer...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
All The Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
Badlands (1973)
Bones And All (2022)
A Bigger Splash (2015)
Suspiria (2018)
Deathdream (1974) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Porky’s (1981)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Black Christmas (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings
Murder By Decree (1979) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972)
Black Vengeance a.k.a. Poor Pretty Eddie (1975)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary
Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s Mogwai Madness
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
The Last Wave (1977) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary
Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (2003)
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary
Dressed To Kill (1980) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Criterion review
The Last Picture Show (1971) – Mark Pellington’s trailer...
- 11/22/2022
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Belle (Mamoru Hosoda)
If a name can trigger nostalgia, don’t be surprised when the occasional sense of deja vu sets in while watching Belle, a dazzling near-future tech fantasia wrapped around a tale, yes, as old as time. Directed by Mamoru Hosoda and mostly set in a vast online world of sweeping musical numbers and weightless action sequences, it tells of Suzu, an awkward teenager (as if there were any other kind) who finds quick fame performing as the pop-singer Belle: her avatar on a hugely popular social media platform called U that looks like a sugary cocktail of Tik Tok and “The Oasis” from Spielberg’s Ready Player One. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Blue Island...
Belle (Mamoru Hosoda)
If a name can trigger nostalgia, don’t be surprised when the occasional sense of deja vu sets in while watching Belle, a dazzling near-future tech fantasia wrapped around a tale, yes, as old as time. Directed by Mamoru Hosoda and mostly set in a vast online world of sweeping musical numbers and weightless action sequences, it tells of Suzu, an awkward teenager (as if there were any other kind) who finds quick fame performing as the pop-singer Belle: her avatar on a hugely popular social media platform called U that looks like a sugary cocktail of Tik Tok and “The Oasis” from Spielberg’s Ready Player One. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Blue Island...
- 8/5/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Bianca Lucas’ “Love Dog” has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere at Locarno Film Festival in Concorso Cineasti del Presente. Lights On has bought international sales rights.
The film centers on John who – after finishing a job on a Texas oil rig – returns to his home town in Mississippi, where he will confront not only his own repressed trauma, but that of a society grieving dying American myths.
In a statement, Lucas said: “‘Love Dog’ is about the personal and collective process of grief, repression of trauma, and their repercussions in our everyday lives. About the breakdown of a mythicized American identity, and the universal ways in which truth, love and reckoning might break generational cycles of violence and emotional pain. It is about mourning, and learning how to live and love – not just function – in the midst of our ghosts.”
The producers are Lucas and Joaquín del Paso...
The film centers on John who – after finishing a job on a Texas oil rig – returns to his home town in Mississippi, where he will confront not only his own repressed trauma, but that of a society grieving dying American myths.
In a statement, Lucas said: “‘Love Dog’ is about the personal and collective process of grief, repression of trauma, and their repercussions in our everyday lives. About the breakdown of a mythicized American identity, and the universal ways in which truth, love and reckoning might break generational cycles of violence and emotional pain. It is about mourning, and learning how to live and love – not just function – in the midst of our ghosts.”
The producers are Lucas and Joaquín del Paso...
- 7/21/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Energetic Italian sales agent Open Reel has closed world sales rights to Valentin Merz’s “De noche los gatos son pardos,” which will world premiere in this year’s Locarno Festival International Competition.
One of two first features in Locarno’s main competitive section, “De noche los gatos son pardos” (“At Night All Cats Are Black”) returns to Europe’s largest mid-Summer film event after winning the biggest prize last year at its First Look pix-in-post showcase focused on Swiss movies.
That prize went to the section’s boldest entry, a genre mashup of film shoot drama and comedic procedural which proves an ode to sexuality in its multiple manifestations, as well as to love and filmmaking.
Shot through with a meta conscience, “De noche…” turns on a highly disparate crew and cast shooting a sexually-souped costume drama in wooded hills. Suddenly, its director, Valentin disappears. Clodhopping local cops interview the crew,...
One of two first features in Locarno’s main competitive section, “De noche los gatos son pardos” (“At Night All Cats Are Black”) returns to Europe’s largest mid-Summer film event after winning the biggest prize last year at its First Look pix-in-post showcase focused on Swiss movies.
That prize went to the section’s boldest entry, a genre mashup of film shoot drama and comedic procedural which proves an ode to sexuality in its multiple manifestations, as well as to love and filmmaking.
Shot through with a meta conscience, “De noche…” turns on a highly disparate crew and cast shooting a sexually-souped costume drama in wooded hills. Suddenly, its director, Valentin disappears. Clodhopping local cops interview the crew,...
- 7/6/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSCarla Simón’s Alcarrás (Courtesy of MK2 Films)This year's Berlinale has now concluded, with Carla Simón’s Alcarrás taking home the Golden Bear, and Hong Sang-soo, Claire Denis and Natalia Lopez Gallardo taking home prizes as well. Check out the full list of awards winners here.Horror filmmaker and production designer Alfred Sole has died at the age of 78. Sole famously directed the cult horror classic Alice, Sweet Alice (1976). However, he first gained notoriety with his X-rated film Deep Sleep (1972), which was pulled from theaters. Sole continued as a prolific production designer for many television films and shows like Veronica Mars and Melrose Place. Netflix has officially signed an updated windowing agreement with France's film industry, which will "see the window between theatrical and SVOD release significantly reduced" from 36 months to 15 months. And as Deadline points out,...
- 2/23/2022
- MUBI
2022 has already been a fruitful year for Carlos Reygadas. Working in a producer capacity for some time now, he saw the fruit of his labors land back to back festival prizing when the Rotterdam preemed Paz Encina ecological drama Eami claimed the Tiger Award, and when his creative-collaborator and life partner Natalia Lopez Gallardo won a Silver Bear Jury prize at the Berlinale for Robe of Gems. In our interview with Gallardo, we learned that Reygadas will likely shift outside his native Mexico for his next project. More specifically: Poland. With a tax rebate on film productions in the area of 30 percent — even fellow countryman Michel Franco is possibly looking to film there as well.…...
- 2/22/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
How you respond to the news that “Robe of Gems” director Natalia López Gallardo is making her feature debut after editing work by the likes of Amat Escalante and Carlos Reygadas may ultimately guide your response to the film as a whole. Though the first-time writer-director forges her own cinematic path here and is very much an artist unto herself, the influence of her collaborators is evident in this elliptical exploration of a criminal underbelly that’s spent so much time in the light it’s hardly even dark anymore.
Nailea Norvind stars as Isabel, who moves into her mother’s villa in rural Mexico along with her husband and children following the matriarch’s departure. There they learn that the sister of Mari, who’s taken care of the family home since time immemorial, has gone missing — a development that so upets Isabel it spurs her into ill-advised action.
Nailea Norvind stars as Isabel, who moves into her mother’s villa in rural Mexico along with her husband and children following the matriarch’s departure. There they learn that the sister of Mari, who’s taken care of the family home since time immemorial, has gone missing — a development that so upets Isabel it spurs her into ill-advised action.
- 2/14/2022
- by Michael Nordine
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Veteran editor Natalia Lopez Gallardo’s feature directing debut Robe Of Gems screens in competition today at the Berlin Film Festival, check out the first trailer above.
Set in the countryside of Mexico, the film sees the fates of three women collide when the case of a missing person leads them on a path of pain and redemption.
Robe Of Gems stars Nailea Norvind, Daniel García (Narcos) and newcomers Antonia Olivares and Aida Roa.
In the midst of divorce, Isabel (Norvind) settles in the countryside where she discovers that her housekeeper María (Olivares) has a missing sister. When Isabel offers her help, an unspoken pact to find the missing one is born between the two women. Meanwhile, Roberta (Roa), the local police commander, hopes to rescue her son from the criminal underworld, and ends up crossing paths with Isabel and María. Their destinies come together in...
Set in the countryside of Mexico, the film sees the fates of three women collide when the case of a missing person leads them on a path of pain and redemption.
Robe Of Gems stars Nailea Norvind, Daniel García (Narcos) and newcomers Antonia Olivares and Aida Roa.
In the midst of divorce, Isabel (Norvind) settles in the countryside where she discovers that her housekeeper María (Olivares) has a missing sister. When Isabel offers her help, an unspoken pact to find the missing one is born between the two women. Meanwhile, Roberta (Roa), the local police commander, hopes to rescue her son from the criminal underworld, and ends up crossing paths with Isabel and María. Their destinies come together in...
- 2/11/2022
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Supernova
It’s always a noteworthy point of interest when an artist who excels in one film department crosses over into the directors’ chair. Apart from a 2006 Rotterdam selected short (En el cielo como en la tierra), this is Natalia López feature film debut after editing such noteworthy titles as 2007’s Silent Light, 2012’s Post Tenebras Lux, 2013’s Heli, 2014’s Jauja, and 2016’s The Darkness – plus she appeared alongside her hubby Carlos Reygadas in Nuestro tiempo. We didn’t really take notice of the project when it was making the film coin rounds circa 2018, but it was among the projects selected for Venice Gap-Financing in 2020.…...
It’s always a noteworthy point of interest when an artist who excels in one film department crosses over into the directors’ chair. Apart from a 2006 Rotterdam selected short (En el cielo como en la tierra), this is Natalia López feature film debut after editing such noteworthy titles as 2007’s Silent Light, 2012’s Post Tenebras Lux, 2013’s Heli, 2014’s Jauja, and 2016’s The Darkness – plus she appeared alongside her hubby Carlos Reygadas in Nuestro tiempo. We didn’t really take notice of the project when it was making the film coin rounds circa 2018, but it was among the projects selected for Venice Gap-Financing in 2020.…...
- 1/8/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
According to former cop and convicted kidnapper Davud, an old legend about guiding cranes home through dark forests with carefully placed lanterns doubles as a trap for hunters to locate them. That’s an apt metaphor for both characters and Crane Lantern (‘Durna Cıragı‘) itself, Azerbaijani writer-director Hilal Baydarov’s second release in roughly a year, after the Venice bow of In Between Dying in 2020.
Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and actor Danny Glover return as producers on some fairly familiar material. If it weren’t already clear from his first two features, Crane Lantern cements Baydarov’s place among current cinema’s most ethereal, existentially focused ...
Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and actor Danny Glover return as producers on some fairly familiar material. If it weren’t already clear from his first two features, Crane Lantern cements Baydarov’s place among current cinema’s most ethereal, existentially focused ...
- 10/30/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
According to former cop and convicted kidnapper Davud, an old legend about guiding cranes home through dark forests with carefully placed lanterns doubles as a trap for hunters to locate them. That’s an apt metaphor for both characters and Crane Lantern (‘Durna Cıragı‘) itself, Azerbaijani writer-director Hilal Baydarov’s second release in roughly a year, after the Venice bow of In Between Dying in 2020.
Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and actor Danny Glover return as producers on some fairly familiar material. If it weren’t already clear from his first two features, Crane Lantern cements Baydarov’s place among current cinema’s most ethereal, existentially focused ...
Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and actor Danny Glover return as producers on some fairly familiar material. If it weren’t already clear from his first two features, Crane Lantern cements Baydarov’s place among current cinema’s most ethereal, existentially focused ...
- 10/30/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Producers are Elşən Abbasov, Carlos Reygadas and Baydarov, with Danny Glover and Joslyn Barnes executive producing.
Screen can unveil the first trailer for Hilal Baydarov’s Crane Lantern, which is set to world premiere in the main competition at the 2021 Tokyo international Film Festival.
The film is about a law student’s interviews with a serial kidnapper whose female victims never press charges. The lead actors include Orkhan Iskandarli and Elshan Abbasov.
Producers are Elşən Abbasov, Carlos Reygadas and Baydarov, with Danny Glover and Joslyn Barnes executive producing. It a co-production between Azerbaijan’s Ucqar Film, Mexico’s Splendor Omnia Studios and US-based Louverture Films.
Screen can unveil the first trailer for Hilal Baydarov’s Crane Lantern, which is set to world premiere in the main competition at the 2021 Tokyo international Film Festival.
The film is about a law student’s interviews with a serial kidnapper whose female victims never press charges. The lead actors include Orkhan Iskandarli and Elshan Abbasov.
Producers are Elşən Abbasov, Carlos Reygadas and Baydarov, with Danny Glover and Joslyn Barnes executive producing. It a co-production between Azerbaijan’s Ucqar Film, Mexico’s Splendor Omnia Studios and US-based Louverture Films.
- 10/28/2021
- by Madeleine Morgan
- ScreenDaily
The director talks taking inspiration from ‘Carrie’, Islam and motherhood.
Danish director Tea Lindeburg’s feature debut As In Heaven – which receives its European premiere in the main competition at San Sebastian Film Festival today (September 19) – provides an unflinching look at the brutality of motherhood, as told through the eyes of a young teenage girl named Lise (Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl), living in Denmark’s countryside in the late 1800s.
Across the space of a single day, we see Lise’s life change forever when the girl, who is the eldest of a large brood of children, sees her mother...
Danish director Tea Lindeburg’s feature debut As In Heaven – which receives its European premiere in the main competition at San Sebastian Film Festival today (September 19) – provides an unflinching look at the brutality of motherhood, as told through the eyes of a young teenage girl named Lise (Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl), living in Denmark’s countryside in the late 1800s.
Across the space of a single day, we see Lise’s life change forever when the girl, who is the eldest of a large brood of children, sees her mother...
- 9/19/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Mymovies Chief Gianluca Guzzo on How Streaming Venice Pics Has Led to ‘Unique’ Biz Model (Exclusive)
The Venice Film Festival and Italy’s Mymovies streaming platform have devised what the streamer’s chief Gianluca Guzzo calls “a unique model.”
It’s an SVOD service called Biennale Cinema Channel that offers Italians Lido titles from past editions that never made it into local theaters and in September will also provide them with a selection of world premieres launching from Venice’s upcoming 78th edition.
It all started with Alberto Barbera’s second mandate at Venice 10 years ago, says Guzzo. Barbera wanted to give more visibility to films screening in the Horizons section dedicated to more cutting edge pics, and subsequently also to Biennale College titles, the micro budget works that Venice shepherds from development to distribution.
So Mymovies created a virtual screening room during the Venice fest with access limited to 2,500 spectators that recreated the collective cinema experience one gets in movie theaters.
Subsequently Guzzo and his...
It’s an SVOD service called Biennale Cinema Channel that offers Italians Lido titles from past editions that never made it into local theaters and in September will also provide them with a selection of world premieres launching from Venice’s upcoming 78th edition.
It all started with Alberto Barbera’s second mandate at Venice 10 years ago, says Guzzo. Barbera wanted to give more visibility to films screening in the Horizons section dedicated to more cutting edge pics, and subsequently also to Biennale College titles, the micro budget works that Venice shepherds from development to distribution.
So Mymovies created a virtual screening room during the Venice fest with access limited to 2,500 spectators that recreated the collective cinema experience one gets in movie theaters.
Subsequently Guzzo and his...
- 8/26/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Thuthuka is launching today in Cannes.
Netherlands-South Africa co-development fund Thuthuka is launching today in Cannes, to enhance collaboration between the two countries.
The new fund will provide selective script and co-development support for film and documentary projects with South African- and Dutch-related content.
“Thuthuka stands for growth and development,” explained Bero Beyer, CEO of the Netherlands Film Fund. “We are trying to foster creative collaborations between the South African and Netherlands film teams to develop their ideas.”
A 2016 co-production treaty between the countries is already perceived to be working well, with at least one project produced per year since...
Netherlands-South Africa co-development fund Thuthuka is launching today in Cannes, to enhance collaboration between the two countries.
The new fund will provide selective script and co-development support for film and documentary projects with South African- and Dutch-related content.
“Thuthuka stands for growth and development,” explained Bero Beyer, CEO of the Netherlands Film Fund. “We are trying to foster creative collaborations between the South African and Netherlands film teams to develop their ideas.”
A 2016 co-production treaty between the countries is already perceived to be working well, with at least one project produced per year since...
- 7/10/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
An apt alternate title for Bebia, à mon seul désir could well be Grandma, which of course was also the name of a Lily Tomlin-starring comedy from 2015. Indeed, ‘bebia,’ in its transliterated form, is Georgian for the word ‘grandmother.’ And if little else, amidst all the virtues and frustrations of this debut from Russian author and painter Juja Dobrachkous, there is no doubt that this is grandma-oriented filmmaking par excellence.
The slightly bathetic title Grandma rings true for another reason. Bebia, à mon seul désir is a film that treats a routine family obligation for a diffident, stroppy teenager––her grandmother’s funeral––as a mythopoeic battle of will. It’s not that the funeral is a formality––of course, it is an irreplaceable mourning ritual for her wider family. The issue is with Dobrachkous’ choice to frame it through this focalizing figure of the daughter, and the slightly opaque,...
The slightly bathetic title Grandma rings true for another reason. Bebia, à mon seul désir is a film that treats a routine family obligation for a diffident, stroppy teenager––her grandmother’s funeral––as a mythopoeic battle of will. It’s not that the funeral is a formality––of course, it is an irreplaceable mourning ritual for her wider family. The issue is with Dobrachkous’ choice to frame it through this focalizing figure of the daughter, and the slightly opaque,...
- 5/10/2021
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Praised for its immersive approach to mapping out a drummer’s confrontation with hearing loss, writer-director Darius Marder’s “Sound of Metal,” now contending for six Academy Awards, features a singularly story-driven use of sound.
Part of that sonic alchemy proudly bears a “Made in Mexico” stamp. The film is nominated for best sound, and three of the nominated artisans are Mexican re-recording mixers Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, and Carlos Cortés Navarrete. Together they worked alongside fellow nominees Nicolas Becker and Phillip Bladh to fine-tune the sonic palette. The Mexican trio lent their seasoned skills, honed over many years working on homegrown productions and the occasional international job, across multiple stages of the film’s post-production journey.
Though all of them studied in Europe or the United States, given the limited availability of sound-focused education in their homeland during their formative period, they returned to Mexico to carve out their careers.
Part of that sonic alchemy proudly bears a “Made in Mexico” stamp. The film is nominated for best sound, and three of the nominated artisans are Mexican re-recording mixers Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, and Carlos Cortés Navarrete. Together they worked alongside fellow nominees Nicolas Becker and Phillip Bladh to fine-tune the sonic palette. The Mexican trio lent their seasoned skills, honed over many years working on homegrown productions and the occasional international job, across multiple stages of the film’s post-production journey.
Though all of them studied in Europe or the United States, given the limited availability of sound-focused education in their homeland during their formative period, they returned to Mexico to carve out their careers.
- 3/23/2021
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Variety Film + TV
Two of the most distinctive voices in filmmaking are teaming for a new project. American director Rick Alverson and Argentine director Lisandro Alonso will co-direct the Brazilian production The God Beside My Bed. “It will be a film about an American cultural irrelevance that Americans are incapable of seeing, lost in their romantic hall of mirrors, set in Amazonia,” says Alverson, who has shared his admiration for Alonso’s work.
“Lisandro Alonso, and Carlos Reygadas to some degree, for those contemporary filmmakers, it’s all about contention with time — the temporal, and your relationship to the thing — and how the audience changes,” Alverson told Seventh Row in 2015. “I’m really irritated by passive viewing, but I don’t think it’s the audience’s fault. I think they’re conditioned to be passive viewers, because what they see in media does everything for them. It does all of the thinking,...
“Lisandro Alonso, and Carlos Reygadas to some degree, for those contemporary filmmakers, it’s all about contention with time — the temporal, and your relationship to the thing — and how the audience changes,” Alverson told Seventh Row in 2015. “I’m really irritated by passive viewing, but I don’t think it’s the audience’s fault. I think they’re conditioned to be passive viewers, because what they see in media does everything for them. It does all of the thinking,...
- 3/23/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
This Georgia-set film about the firebombing of a Jehovah’s Witness prayer house and the subsequent rape of a local woman is intense but inert
This is the much-admired feature debut of Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili, part of the official selection for last year’s cancelled Cannes film festival, where it might well have been a shock-cinema talking point had the event gone ahead. It is co-produced by the Mexican film-maker Carlos Reygadas, whose influence is very apparent, and the movie as a whole is an intensely, indeed overbearingly, curated and controlled experience. It is a succession of disquieting tableaux, shot mainly from fixed camera positions in which the relevant action can be happening very far away, and one of the speakers can be off-camera for long periods: a cinema in the high style of Haneke, Farhadi and Kiarostami.
Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili) and David are a devout Jehovah’s Witness...
This is the much-admired feature debut of Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili, part of the official selection for last year’s cancelled Cannes film festival, where it might well have been a shock-cinema talking point had the event gone ahead. It is co-produced by the Mexican film-maker Carlos Reygadas, whose influence is very apparent, and the movie as a whole is an intensely, indeed overbearingly, curated and controlled experience. It is a succession of disquieting tableaux, shot mainly from fixed camera positions in which the relevant action can be happening very far away, and one of the speakers can be off-camera for long periods: a cinema in the high style of Haneke, Farhadi and Kiarostami.
Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili) and David are a devout Jehovah’s Witness...
- 1/25/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
One of the most accomplished directorial debuts you’ll see all year will be arriving next week. Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning––recently named one of our favorite films of 2020 after catching it on the festival circuit––was selected as Georgia’s Oscar entry and Mubi picked it up for a release. Ahead of the January 29 debut, the first U.S. trailer has arrived for the film, which is executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and follows a woman’s harrowing journey in a rural community of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
C.J. Prince said in his review, “Beginning, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature, announces its director’s arrival on the arthouse scene with several bangs. In a lengthy opening shot, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a rural Georgian community have their service interrupted by someone throwing molotov cocktails in their church. Everyone gets out alive, but the building gets reduced...
C.J. Prince said in his review, “Beginning, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature, announces its director’s arrival on the arthouse scene with several bangs. In a lengthy opening shot, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a rural Georgian community have their service interrupted by someone throwing molotov cocktails in their church. Everyone gets out alive, but the building gets reduced...
- 1/20/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Of this year’s 49 selections at the Black Movie International Independent Film Festival – Geneva, 12 — that is, roughly 25% — of them hail from Asia. The net is as wide as it is expansive: films range from the west reaches of the Caucasus in Azerbaijan to multiple entries from S. Korea. The notable Korean presence only speaks to the increased interest in S. Korean cinema as well, as their four entries include festival hits like Kim Yong-hoon’s “Beasts Clawing at Straws” and Berlinale Silver Bear “The Woman Who Ran” (Hong Sang-soo).
Black Movie International Independent Film Festival – Geneva first emerged from a desire to showcase African films. In 1999, the Black Movie expanded to include other members of the Global South — especially focusing on Asia and Latin America. Black Movie is known for its discovery of auteur cinema, including showcases of Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, Carlos Reygadas, Wang Bing, Takashi Miike, João Pedro Rodrigues in Switzerland.
Black Movie International Independent Film Festival – Geneva first emerged from a desire to showcase African films. In 1999, the Black Movie expanded to include other members of the Global South — especially focusing on Asia and Latin America. Black Movie is known for its discovery of auteur cinema, including showcases of Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhangke, Carlos Reygadas, Wang Bing, Takashi Miike, João Pedro Rodrigues in Switzerland.
- 1/20/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Yorgos Lanthomos’s Nimic is exclusively showing on Mubi in the Luminaries series.A thriller in twelve minutes? Sure: just create a doppelganger that forces a person to confront themselves and their unstable identity. There is, apparently, nothing more terrifying than a steadily executed undoing of one’s personality, as Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest short film Nimic, testifies. With an elliptic story of a man, suddenly and inexplicably, being copied by a woman, the Greek-born director uses doubling as social criticism. And as in previous works, his preferred mode of address is one of stern disinterest, since all characters hold zero investment in the world outside their doorstep, hotel room (The Lobster), or royal palace (in The Favourite).Nimic is Lanthimos’s second artistically acclaimed short film following Necktie (2013), made as part of “Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded,” for which the...
- 12/16/2020
- MUBI
Mexican art cinema in the last two decades has been defined by a confrontational formalist rigor most widely seen in the films of Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante. Long takes, static camera shots with elaborate blocking, and sudden acts of cruelty are each stylistic staples. These cinematic devices undoubtedly parallel a collective feeling of suffocation, anxiety, and socio-political tumult brought upon by rampant Narco violence and government corruption.
Influenced by films like Battle in Heaven and Heli, Carlos Lenin’s The Dove and the Wolf sticks relentlessly close to a tormented young couple as they try to deal with the financial hardships and hidden traumas slowly crippling their relationship. While they share a living space, Paloma (Paloma Petra) and Lobo (Armando Hernandez) seem to be hitting that dire stage in every romantic partnership where apathy flourishes. Both work in blue-collar factory jobs with colleagues who are much more adept at...
Influenced by films like Battle in Heaven and Heli, Carlos Lenin’s The Dove and the Wolf sticks relentlessly close to a tormented young couple as they try to deal with the financial hardships and hidden traumas slowly crippling their relationship. While they share a living space, Paloma (Paloma Petra) and Lobo (Armando Hernandez) seem to be hitting that dire stage in every romantic partnership where apathy flourishes. Both work in blue-collar factory jobs with colleagues who are much more adept at...
- 12/16/2020
- by Glenn Heath Jr.
- The Film Stage
Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” won the top prize at Mexico’s Los Cabos Film Festival, adding the award to a brace of trophies dating back this year to a Silver Bear at Berlin and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award in Sundance.
Tipped as a contender in 2021’s Oscar race, teen drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was hailed by Variety as a “quietly devastating gem,” “both of a piece with, and a significant step forward from” Hittman’s prior youth-in-crisis works “Beach Rats” and “It Felt Like Love.”
Mexican writer-director Bruno Santamaría Razo’s “Things We Dare Not Do” won Los Cabos’ Cinecolor-Shalalá Award. The second doc feature from Bruno Santamaría Razo whose debut “Margarita” won a Mezcal Prize special mention at the 2016 Guadalajara Festival, “Things We Dare Not Do,” sits on the borderlands between documentary and fiction, it tells the story of a gay teen...
Tipped as a contender in 2021’s Oscar race, teen drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was hailed by Variety as a “quietly devastating gem,” “both of a piece with, and a significant step forward from” Hittman’s prior youth-in-crisis works “Beach Rats” and “It Felt Like Love.”
Mexican writer-director Bruno Santamaría Razo’s “Things We Dare Not Do” won Los Cabos’ Cinecolor-Shalalá Award. The second doc feature from Bruno Santamaría Razo whose debut “Margarita” won a Mezcal Prize special mention at the 2016 Guadalajara Festival, “Things We Dare Not Do,” sits on the borderlands between documentary and fiction, it tells the story of a gay teen...
- 11/23/2020
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Film gets red-carpet treatment at the Cannes Film Festival’s three-day special event this week.
Wild Bunch International has unveiled first sales on Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s San Sebastian winner Beginning ahead of its gala screening on Wednesday as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s special three-day event in Cannes this week.
Global streaming platform and theatrical distributor Mubi has snapped up all rights in a multi-territory deal covering North America, Latin America, UK, Germany, Turkey and India. They are currently planning the film’s release and awards campaign.
The feature has also sold to Benelux (September), France...
Wild Bunch International has unveiled first sales on Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s San Sebastian winner Beginning ahead of its gala screening on Wednesday as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s special three-day event in Cannes this week.
Global streaming platform and theatrical distributor Mubi has snapped up all rights in a multi-territory deal covering North America, Latin America, UK, Germany, Turkey and India. They are currently planning the film’s release and awards campaign.
The feature has also sold to Benelux (September), France...
- 10/28/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning (Main Slate selection of the New York Film Festival), co-written with Rati Oneli, executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and Gaetan Rousseau, stars Ia Sukhitashvili with Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili. Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Oscar-winning film Son Of Saul, starring Géza Röhrig, was also the editor and co-writer with Nemes and Clara Royer on Sunset (Napszállta), featuring Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. Taponier edited Beginning, shot by Arseni Khachaturan with music by Nicolas Jaar.
Beginning begins in a small Jehovah's Witness prayer house in rural Georgia. The woman Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili) whose story this is, greets the congregation one by one as they enter. The carpet is red, the people are happy to attend. Yana’s husband David (Rati Oneli) gives the sermon about Abraham and Isaac, and asks if Abraham was really intent on killing Isaac, his...
Beginning begins in a small Jehovah's Witness prayer house in rural Georgia. The woman Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili) whose story this is, greets the congregation one by one as they enter. The carpet is red, the people are happy to attend. Yana’s husband David (Rati Oneli) gives the sermon about Abraham and Isaac, and asks if Abraham was really intent on killing Isaac, his...
- 10/12/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Wild Bunch International handles world sales.
The Georgian National Film Center has selected Beginning as the country’s official submission for the 2020 best international film Oscar race.
Dea Kulumbegashvili’s feature debut premiered at San Sebastian where it won best film, director, actress and screenplay. Jury president Luca Guadagnino called it, “a revelation, a moment of authentic cinema that fills the screen with flames.”
Beginning also won the Fipresci critic’s prize at Toronto Film Festival, and was an official selection of Cannes and New York. It will next screen in Busan and the upcoming four-film ‘Special Cannes’ event at the end of October.
The Georgian National Film Center has selected Beginning as the country’s official submission for the 2020 best international film Oscar race.
Dea Kulumbegashvili’s feature debut premiered at San Sebastian where it won best film, director, actress and screenplay. Jury president Luca Guadagnino called it, “a revelation, a moment of authentic cinema that fills the screen with flames.”
Beginning also won the Fipresci critic’s prize at Toronto Film Festival, and was an official selection of Cannes and New York. It will next screen in Busan and the upcoming four-film ‘Special Cannes’ event at the end of October.
- 10/9/2020
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Georgia has become the latest country to submit its entry for this year’s International Oscar Race, selecting Beginning, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature that was a hit at the recent San Sebastian Film Festival.
The film swept the top awards at the Spanish fest, winning best film, director, actress and screenplay. Jury president Luca Guadagnino said it was “a revelation”. It also screened at Toronto and New York and was a Cannes label selection.
The story takes place in a sleepy provincial town in Georgia, in a Jehovah’s Witness community that is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. Yana’s inner discontent grows as she struggles to make sense of her desires.
The Georgian National Film Center is seeking its second Oscar nomination with the movie, having been previously nominated...
The film swept the top awards at the Spanish fest, winning best film, director, actress and screenplay. Jury president Luca Guadagnino said it was “a revelation”. It also screened at Toronto and New York and was a Cannes label selection.
The story takes place in a sleepy provincial town in Georgia, in a Jehovah’s Witness community that is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. Yana’s inner discontent grows as she struggles to make sense of her desires.
The Georgian National Film Center is seeking its second Oscar nomination with the movie, having been previously nominated...
- 10/9/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Ia Sukhitashvili stars in Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning
Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning, co-written with Rati Oneli, executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and Gaetan Rousseau, stars Ia Sukhitashvili with Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili. Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Oscar-winning film Son Of Saul, starring Géza Röhrig was also the editor and co-writer with Nemes and Clara Royer on Sunset (Napszállta), featuring Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. Taponier edited Beginning, shot by Arseni Khachaturan with music by Nicolas Jaar.
Koné Bakary in Night Of The Kings
During the Rethinking World Cinema panel discussion with Chaitanya Tamhane (The Disciple), Philippe Lacôte (Night of the Kings), Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf (Ouvertures) at the New York Film Festival, I sent in the following comment and question for Dea Kulumbegashvili: You worked with Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Son Of Saul and Sunset. Can you talk about your collaboration with him?...
Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning, co-written with Rati Oneli, executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and Gaetan Rousseau, stars Ia Sukhitashvili with Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili. Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Oscar-winning film Son Of Saul, starring Géza Röhrig was also the editor and co-writer with Nemes and Clara Royer on Sunset (Napszállta), featuring Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. Taponier edited Beginning, shot by Arseni Khachaturan with music by Nicolas Jaar.
Koné Bakary in Night Of The Kings
During the Rethinking World Cinema panel discussion with Chaitanya Tamhane (The Disciple), Philippe Lacôte (Night of the Kings), Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf (Ouvertures) at the New York Film Festival, I sent in the following comment and question for Dea Kulumbegashvili: You worked with Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Son Of Saul and Sunset. Can you talk about your collaboration with him?...
- 10/7/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
13 films were in the running for prizes in this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival competition, but it doesn’t appear to have been much of a contest at all. In a stunning sweep, Georgian writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature “Beginning” took four of the jury’s seven prizes, including Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actress for star Ia Sukhitashvili, and finally the Golden Shell for Best Film.
It’s a remarkable haul for a harrowing, avant-garde film that has taken critics by surprise this fall festival season, also landing the Fipresci critics’ prize in Toronto last week. The Franco-Georgian production centers on a close-knit community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in remote rural Georgia, and tracks the growing psychological torment of its leader’s wife (played by Sukhitashvili) in the wake of an extremist attack on their place of worship.
A challenging film to economically distil, it has prompted...
It’s a remarkable haul for a harrowing, avant-garde film that has taken critics by surprise this fall festival season, also landing the Fipresci critics’ prize in Toronto last week. The Franco-Georgian production centers on a close-knit community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in remote rural Georgia, and tracks the growing psychological torment of its leader’s wife (played by Sukhitashvili) in the wake of an extremist attack on their place of worship.
A challenging film to economically distil, it has prompted...
- 9/26/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The film also won best director, best actress and best screenplay.
Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning has won the Golden Shell for best film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The film has also been awarded the prizes for best director, best actress for Ia Sukhitashvili, and best screenplay for Kulumbegashvili and co-writer Rati Oneli by a competition jury headed by Luca Guadagnino.
It is the first time a Georgian film has won the Golden Shell.
The Silver Shell for best actor was shared by the four stars of Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round - Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen,...
Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning has won the Golden Shell for best film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The film has also been awarded the prizes for best director, best actress for Ia Sukhitashvili, and best screenplay for Kulumbegashvili and co-writer Rati Oneli by a competition jury headed by Luca Guadagnino.
It is the first time a Georgian film has won the Golden Shell.
The Silver Shell for best actor was shared by the four stars of Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round - Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen,...
- 9/26/2020
- by Elisabet Cabeza
- ScreenDaily
The film also won best director, best actress and best screenplay.
Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning has won the Golden Shell for best film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The film has also been awarded the prizes for best director, best actress for Ia Sukhitashvili, and best screenplay for Kulumbegashvili and co-writer Rati Oneli by a competition jury headed by Luca Guadagnino.
It is the first time a Georgian film has won the Golden Shell.
The Silver Shell for best actor was shared by the four stars of Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round - Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen,...
Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning has won the Golden Shell for best film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The film has also been awarded the prizes for best director, best actress for Ia Sukhitashvili, and best screenplay for Kulumbegashvili and co-writer Rati Oneli by a competition jury headed by Luca Guadagnino.
It is the first time a Georgian film has won the Golden Shell.
The Silver Shell for best actor was shared by the four stars of Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round - Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen,...
- 9/26/2020
- by Elisabet Cabeza
- ScreenDaily
In the new Azerbaijani film In Between Dying, a man goes on the run after shooting a low-end criminal. Over the course of a day, he encounters a number of women who have been beset by various miseries. In flashback, we meet what might be his wife and son. He says he is trying to find them.
The film is by Hilal Baydarov, a 33-year-old director who comes with no shortage of clout. It is an attractive story: Born in Baku in 1987, Baydarov twice won the national mathematics award while still in school before earning an M.A. in computer science. More stable and lucrative paths surely awaited but while in university he saw Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Veronique and decided to become a filmmaker. He was accepted into the Sarajevo Film Academy where he studied under Béla Tarr and, since 2018, has released a whopping six movies––one narrative and five documentaries,...
The film is by Hilal Baydarov, a 33-year-old director who comes with no shortage of clout. It is an attractive story: Born in Baku in 1987, Baydarov twice won the national mathematics award while still in school before earning an M.A. in computer science. More stable and lucrative paths surely awaited but while in university he saw Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Veronique and decided to become a filmmaker. He was accepted into the Sarajevo Film Academy where he studied under Béla Tarr and, since 2018, has released a whopping six movies––one narrative and five documentaries,...
- 9/22/2020
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
The existential road movie gets an offbeat, elliptical yet peculiarly compelling Transcaucasian makeover in director Hilal Baydarov’s second fiction feature, “In Between Dying.” Set against the striking, often purgatorially stark backdrop of Azerbaijan’s rural landscapes, with their striated mountains, autumn forests, fog-shrouded fields and silvery pebbled lakesides, it’s a film indebted to its influences. Baydarov was a student of Bela Tarr’s, although the additional imprints of Carlos Reygadas (who produces), Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Andrei Tarkovsky, with even a little Godardian absurdity thrown in for good measure, at least ensure this particular admixture eventually emerges as its own singular animal — in this case, a frequently glimpsed white horse, whose heroic associations are offset by its increasing dirtiness and apparent despondency.
The narrative eventually emerges as a kind of hero’s quest, which is surprising given the protagonist, Davud (Orkhan Iskandarli), initially seems very far from anyone’s idea of a hero.
The narrative eventually emerges as a kind of hero’s quest, which is surprising given the protagonist, Davud (Orkhan Iskandarli), initially seems very far from anyone’s idea of a hero.
- 9/12/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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