Films by Pierre Creton, Ghassan Salhab and Mariano Llinás are among the line-up of the FIDMarseille international film festival in France (June 25-30).
The international competition features 13 world premieres and one international premiere, including Day Is Night from Lebanese filmmaker Salhab which chronicles the uprising in Lebanon.
French filmmaker Creton, who won the Sacd prize for best French-language feature at last year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, co-directs with Vincent Barré on 7 Walks With Mark Brown, described as an essay on attention and friendship.
Also in competition is Kunst De Farbe from Argentina, 1985 screenwriter Llinás exploring themes of music, painting and cinema.
The international competition features 13 world premieres and one international premiere, including Day Is Night from Lebanese filmmaker Salhab which chronicles the uprising in Lebanon.
French filmmaker Creton, who won the Sacd prize for best French-language feature at last year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, co-directs with Vincent Barré on 7 Walks With Mark Brown, described as an essay on attention and friendship.
Also in competition is Kunst De Farbe from Argentina, 1985 screenwriter Llinás exploring themes of music, painting and cinema.
- 6/6/2024
- ScreenDaily
In “Pepe,” Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias tells the story of a very special hippopotamus. Or rather, he allows the hippopotamus to tell the story himself.
“Pablo Escobar brought three hippos to Colombia back in 1981. He was ‘the pioneer’ among drug lords investing in exotic pets. When he had to abandon his mansion [Naples Estate] and flee, there were so many of them. Lions, elephants,” recounts the Dominican director.
But it was the hippos that managed to adapt to their new environment, taking advantage of South American rivers.
“It’s the first wild herd outside of Africa. Initially, there was this alpha male Pablito and Pepe fought him and he lost. He was the first male who left the herd. To the people who saw him, he seemed like a monster!”
Soon, a hunt was well on its way.
“When I finished [previous film] ‘Cocote,’ I was so tired. I went to Colombia,...
“Pablo Escobar brought three hippos to Colombia back in 1981. He was ‘the pioneer’ among drug lords investing in exotic pets. When he had to abandon his mansion [Naples Estate] and flee, there were so many of them. Lions, elephants,” recounts the Dominican director.
But it was the hippos that managed to adapt to their new environment, taking advantage of South American rivers.
“It’s the first wild herd outside of Africa. Initially, there was this alpha male Pablito and Pepe fought him and he lost. He was the first male who left the herd. To the people who saw him, he seemed like a monster!”
Soon, a hunt was well on its way.
“When I finished [previous film] ‘Cocote,’ I was so tired. I went to Colombia,...
- 2/19/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
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.
All My Friends Hate Me (Andrew Gaynord)
Pete (Tom Stourton) hasn’t seen his university mates in years. Ten years to be exact. It happens. Life happens. We reach adulthood, mature, and set goals for ourselves that the people who were closest to us during that formidable period simply cannot follow—their own ambitions lie upon different forks in the road. So resentment shouldn’t factor in. Nor should jealousy. Yet Pete can’t help wondering about both. A little voice in the back of his head wonders if a decade was too long to pretend things could pick up where they left off. Would their very posh upbringing think he abandoned them to work with refugees? Do they think he thinks...
All My Friends Hate Me (Andrew Gaynord)
Pete (Tom Stourton) hasn’t seen his university mates in years. Ten years to be exact. It happens. Life happens. We reach adulthood, mature, and set goals for ourselves that the people who were closest to us during that formidable period simply cannot follow—their own ambitions lie upon different forks in the road. So resentment shouldn’t factor in. Nor should jealousy. Yet Pete can’t help wondering about both. A little voice in the back of his head wonders if a decade was too long to pretend things could pick up where they left off. Would their very posh upbringing think he abandoned them to work with refugees? Do they think he thinks...
- 7/29/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
It’s another eclectic month for Mubi releases as they’ve announced their July 2022 slate. When it comes to new releases, highlights include Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley’s inventive Sundance hit Strawberry Mansion, Andrew Dominik’s new Nick Cave and Warren Ellis documentary This Much I Know to Be True, Camilo Restrepo’s Los conductos, Laura Wendel’s Oscar-shortlisted drama Playground, and Lucrecia Martel’s new short North Terminal.
They’ll also be featuring Johnnie To’s Drug War, King Hu’s Raining in the Mountain, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, a pair of features from both Diao Yi’nan and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
July 1 – Strawberry Mansion, directed by Albert Birney, Kentucker Audley | Mubi Spotlight
July 2 – The Wild Goose Lake, directed by Diao Yi’nan | The Electric Dark: Two Neo-noirs by Diao Yinan
July 3 – Little Girl,...
They’ll also be featuring Johnnie To’s Drug War, King Hu’s Raining in the Mountain, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, a pair of features from both Diao Yi’nan and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
July 1 – Strawberry Mansion, directed by Albert Birney, Kentucker Audley | Mubi Spotlight
July 2 – The Wild Goose Lake, directed by Diao Yi’nan | The Electric Dark: Two Neo-noirs by Diao Yinan
July 3 – Little Girl,...
- 6/29/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Los Conductos Trailer — Camilo Restrepo‘s Los Conductos (2020) movie trailer has been released by Grasshopper Film. The Los Conductos trailer stars Fernando Úsaga Higuíta and Luis Felipe Lozano. Crew Camilo Restrepo wrote the screenplay for Los Conductos. Arthur B. Gillette created the music for the film. Guillaume Mazloum crafted the cinematography for the film. Plot Synopsis Los [...]
Continue reading: Los Conductos (2020) Movie Trailer: Ex-cult Member Luis Felipe Lozano is on the Run in Camilo Restrepo’s Film...
Continue reading: Los Conductos (2020) Movie Trailer: Ex-cult Member Luis Felipe Lozano is on the Run in Camilo Restrepo’s Film...
- 4/10/2022
- by Rollo Tomasi
- Film-Book
Premiering in a pre-pandemic world, Camilo Restrepo’s Los Conductos was a highlight at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Best First Feature Prize. Picked up by Grasshopper Film, they’ve thankfully had the patience to wait until a proper theatrical release and now the mesmerizing fever dream of a film will arrive this month, beginning on April 29 at Film at Lincoln Center. Ahead of the run, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the trailer and poster.
Set in Medellín, Colombia and freely inspired by a true story, the film follows Pinky (Luis Felipe Lozano), an ex-cult member who is on the run. Having just freed himself from the grip of a religious sect by assassinating its leader, Pinky finds a place to squat and a job in a counterfeit t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he begins to question everything. But as he tries to put...
Set in Medellín, Colombia and freely inspired by a true story, the film follows Pinky (Luis Felipe Lozano), an ex-cult member who is on the run. Having just freed himself from the grip of a religious sect by assassinating its leader, Pinky finds a place to squat and a job in a counterfeit t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he begins to question everything. But as he tries to put...
- 4/4/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The spring often brings the most interesting slate of releases––films operating outside the prescribed box of awards season contenders while also attempting to steer clear of a summer movie season dominated by tentpoles––and this April is no exception. With a number of our festival favorites from the past few years, a couple of promising wide releases, and more, there’s plenty to discover.
15. Ambulance (Michael Bay; April 8 in theaters)
However one may feel about Michael Bay, he remains one of the few Hollywood directors who actually bring a bold (if ridiculously over-the-top) vision to studio filmmaking. After teaming with Netflix, he’s now back in theatrical mode for Ambulance. Led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González, this remake of the Danish film follows a decorated veteran who, desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, embarks on a bank heist with his adoptive brother.
15. Ambulance (Michael Bay; April 8 in theaters)
However one may feel about Michael Bay, he remains one of the few Hollywood directors who actually bring a bold (if ridiculously over-the-top) vision to studio filmmaking. After teaming with Netflix, he’s now back in theatrical mode for Ambulance. Led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González, this remake of the Danish film follows a decorated veteran who, desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, embarks on a bank heist with his adoptive brother.
- 3/31/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
New York-based distribution company Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films have jointly acquired U.S. distribution rights to Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino’s Venice Special Jury Prize winner “Il Buco,” about a group of speleologists who in 1961 discover Europe’s deepest cave.
The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film with Nadine Rothschild of Paris and Berlin-based Coproduction Office on the eve of the U.S. premiere of “Il Buco” at the New York Film Festival.
Gratitude, which is based in Los Angeles and Mumbai, is headed by Anu Rangachar, a producer and the former programmer for the Mumbai Film Festival.
With “Il Buco” Frammartino, whose dialogue-free “Le Quattro Volte” made a global splash in 2010, has segued with another similarly eclectic pic that has no dialogue or music.
His latest work reconstructs the young cave scientists’ journey to explore the depth of the Bifurto Abyss, 700 meters below Earth in the pristine Calabrian hinterland.
The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film with Nadine Rothschild of Paris and Berlin-based Coproduction Office on the eve of the U.S. premiere of “Il Buco” at the New York Film Festival.
Gratitude, which is based in Los Angeles and Mumbai, is headed by Anu Rangachar, a producer and the former programmer for the Mumbai Film Festival.
With “Il Buco” Frammartino, whose dialogue-free “Le Quattro Volte” made a global splash in 2010, has segued with another similarly eclectic pic that has no dialogue or music.
His latest work reconstructs the young cave scientists’ journey to explore the depth of the Bifurto Abyss, 700 meters below Earth in the pristine Calabrian hinterland.
- 10/10/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films have jointly acquired U.S. distribution rights to Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard selection “Rehana” from sales agent Films Boutique.
The film will open in cinemas in early 2022 followed by digital, home video, and non-theatrical releases.
The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film with Julien Razafindranaly of Films Boutique.
The film follows Rehana, played by Azmeri Haque Badhon, an assistant professor at a medical college, who struggles to keep the harmony between work and family, as she has to play all the complex roles of a teacher, doctor, sister, daughter, and mother. One evening, she witnesses a student storming out of a professor’s office, crying. Deeply affected by this event, Rehana’s descends into obsession, seeking retribution, just as she receives a complaint from the school about her six-year-old daughter’s unusual behavior. Her quest...
The film will open in cinemas in early 2022 followed by digital, home video, and non-theatrical releases.
The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film with Julien Razafindranaly of Films Boutique.
The film follows Rehana, played by Azmeri Haque Badhon, an assistant professor at a medical college, who struggles to keep the harmony between work and family, as she has to play all the complex roles of a teacher, doctor, sister, daughter, and mother. One evening, she witnesses a student storming out of a professor’s office, crying. Deeply affected by this event, Rehana’s descends into obsession, seeking retribution, just as she receives a complaint from the school about her six-year-old daughter’s unusual behavior. Her quest...
- 7/15/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Each month, we're commissioning a different artist to create a movie poster for a film exclusively playing on the platform. This March, Chris Burnett has made a poster for Camilo Restrepo's Los Conductos, which is receiving an exclusive streaming premiere on Mubi in many countries starting March 11, 2021 in the Debuts series.***Chris has also shared with us his collages and an animated Gif of his creation of the poster:...
- 3/29/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: David Fincher and Gary Oldman on the set of Mank (2020). David Fincher's Mank leads this year's nominations for the Academy Awards. A complete list of all nominations can be found here.Legendary actor Yaphet Kotto, best known for his charismatic presence in films like Alien, Blue Collar, and Live and Let Die has died.Spike Lee will be leading the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Jury, promising to return after the cancellation of last year's festival: "Book my flight now, my wife and I are coming!" After a months-long hiatus, Film Comment has announced its return, marked by a new weekly letter and two new episodes of the Film Comment podcast. Recommended VIEWINGAbove: Mark Rappaport's The Stendhal Syndrome or My Dinner with Turhan Bey. Today's the last day to watch two new essay films...
- 3/17/2021
- MUBI
Camilo Restrepo's Los Conductos is exclusively showing in many countries starting March 11, 2021 in Mubi's Debuts series.Nervy and brazen, Camilo Restrepo’s much-anticipated feature debut is a portrait of a young Colombian man struggling with addiction and the physical and psychological after-effects of religious indoctrination and exploitation at the hands of a cult leader. Shot on grainy 16mm in vibrant primaries and unfolding a striking, graphic interplay of light and darkness fitting to the protagonist’s dramatic plight, Los Conductos is a feverish fictionalized account of Felipe “Pinky” Lozano’s life. A friend of Restrepo who appears in his short film Como crece la sombra cuando el sol declina (2013), Pinky plays himself in this revenge fantasy destined to expiate his demons but which also exhumes the cyclical violence of Colombia’s past through radical and energizing abstraction. With hypnotic and elliptical rhythms, the film takes place in a largely nocturnal and quasi-mythological Medellín,...
- 3/11/2021
- MUBI
Whether a viewer in 1896 or 2020, cinema has always been a dynamic and variable experience. Cinema as an event—as a manifestation of a meeting point between the art of moving images and an audience, big or small—has never fit any one definition, and this last year, so severely disrupted by a global pandemic, has deeply underscored the versatility and resilience of our great love.Our viewing this year, like that of so many, has been strange: compromised, confrontational, escapist, euphoric, painful, revelatory—encompassing all of the reactions one can have to film. How we encountered our favorite movies and most meaningful cinematic experiences of the year was hardly new: A by-now-normal mix of festivals, theatres, various subscription and transactional streaming services, as well as private screener links and gems buried on over-stuffed hard drives. But for most of the year, the communal experience shrunk to living rooms and glowing screens.
- 12/23/2020
- MUBI
New York-based outfit Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Ephraim Asili’s debut feature, “The Inheritance,” following its premiere at Toronto and screening at the New York Film Festival.
Grasshopper Film is planning to have “The Inheritance” open on March 12 in New York at Film at Lincoln Center, as well as in other cities.
The ensemble film takes place almost entirely in a West Philadelphia house, where a community of young people come together to form a collective of Black artists and activists. Shot in 16 mm, the movie interweaves a scripted drama with a documentary recollection of the Philadelphia liberation group Move, which was the victim of a notorious police bombing in 1985.
A Pennsylvania-born filmmaker, Asili has been exploring different facets of the African diaspora for nearly a decade and “The Inheritance” is based on his own experiences in a Black liberationist group.
The film references legacies of the Black Arts Movement,...
Grasshopper Film is planning to have “The Inheritance” open on March 12 in New York at Film at Lincoln Center, as well as in other cities.
The ensemble film takes place almost entirely in a West Philadelphia house, where a community of young people come together to form a collective of Black artists and activists. Shot in 16 mm, the movie interweaves a scripted drama with a documentary recollection of the Philadelphia liberation group Move, which was the victim of a notorious police bombing in 1985.
A Pennsylvania-born filmmaker, Asili has been exploring different facets of the African diaspora for nearly a decade and “The Inheritance” is based on his own experiences in a Black liberationist group.
The film references legacies of the Black Arts Movement,...
- 12/16/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
For the Andalusian audiovisual industry, the positive side of the pandemic was a move without precedent: The coalescence of all its sectors under the umbrella Plataforma del Audiovisual Andaluz.
The Ppa alliance brings together 27 industry entities from all the sectors, also taking in creative organizations.
“Suddenly, we have a unique voice with which to express ourselves and convey messages to the public administration. We are more united than ever,” said La Claqueta’s Olmo Figueredo, president of Ancine, Andalusia’s biggest film producers’ association.
While the Andalusian audiovisual industry grows, so do its infrastructures. And they do so at a critical moment, when film and TV financing models are rapidly changing, after the global irruption of TV platforms and the regulation of the sector.
Alongside Catalonia, Andalusia is the only Spanish region which boasts a specific film law -approved in 2018- currently in legal development.
“The law is a key change,...
The Ppa alliance brings together 27 industry entities from all the sectors, also taking in creative organizations.
“Suddenly, we have a unique voice with which to express ourselves and convey messages to the public administration. We are more united than ever,” said La Claqueta’s Olmo Figueredo, president of Ancine, Andalusia’s biggest film producers’ association.
While the Andalusian audiovisual industry grows, so do its infrastructures. And they do so at a critical moment, when film and TV financing models are rapidly changing, after the global irruption of TV platforms and the regulation of the sector.
Alongside Catalonia, Andalusia is the only Spanish region which boasts a specific film law -approved in 2018- currently in legal development.
“The law is a key change,...
- 12/3/2020
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Spain’s Luis López Carrasco picked up the Best International Film prize for his documentary “The Year of the Discovery” (“El año del descubrimiento”) on Sunday at Argentina’s Mar del Plata, the only Latin American film fest granted a Category A status by producers assn. Fiapf, placing it in the same league as Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian and Locarno, among others.
Given the restraints imposed by the pandemic, the festival hosted an online edition and offered free access to all Argentine residents.
Carrasco’s sophomore feature follows his debut film “El Futuro,” which premiered at Locarno and collected numerous awards on the festival circuit. “The Year of the Discovery” portrays the flipside of 1992 Spain, which celebrated hosting the Olympics Games in Barcelona and the World Expo in Seville while in Murcia, south-east Spain, enraged workers from the naval, mining and chemical sectors where companies were shut down, battled alongside students against the police,...
Given the restraints imposed by the pandemic, the festival hosted an online edition and offered free access to all Argentine residents.
Carrasco’s sophomore feature follows his debut film “El Futuro,” which premiered at Locarno and collected numerous awards on the festival circuit. “The Year of the Discovery” portrays the flipside of 1992 Spain, which celebrated hosting the Olympics Games in Barcelona and the World Expo in Seville while in Murcia, south-east Spain, enraged workers from the naval, mining and chemical sectors where companies were shut down, battled alongside students against the police,...
- 11/30/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
New York-based distribution company Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Valentyn Vasyanovych’s sci-fi drama “Atlantis,” Ukraine’s official selection for next year’s Academy Awards.
Represented in international markets by Belgian sales group Best Friend Forever, “Atlantis” played at Toronto, Rotterdam and Venice, where it won the best film award in the Horizons Competition. The critically acclaimed film was also selected for New Directors/New Films.
The movie, which is expected to be released theatrically early next year, is set in 2025. Eastern Ukraine in a desert unsuitable for human habitation and water is an expensive commodity brought by trucks. As a wall is being built on the border, Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to this new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming war corpses. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which...
Represented in international markets by Belgian sales group Best Friend Forever, “Atlantis” played at Toronto, Rotterdam and Venice, where it won the best film award in the Horizons Competition. The critically acclaimed film was also selected for New Directors/New Films.
The movie, which is expected to be released theatrically early next year, is set in 2025. Eastern Ukraine in a desert unsuitable for human habitation and water is an expensive commodity brought by trucks. As a wall is being built on the border, Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to this new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming war corpses. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which...
- 11/17/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Line-up for the virtual event includes awards contenders Boys State, Collective and The Mole Agent.
New York City’s Film at Lincoln Center (Flc) and The Museum of Modern Art have announced that this year’s New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) programme, originally scheduled for March, will take place as a virtual event running from December 9-20.
Twenty-four features and 10 shorts, selected as standouts from the international festival circuit, will be made available to viewers across the US in the Flc Virtual Cinema.
From the Rotterdam festival come films including Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s debut feature The Cloud In...
New York City’s Film at Lincoln Center (Flc) and The Museum of Modern Art have announced that this year’s New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) programme, originally scheduled for March, will take place as a virtual event running from December 9-20.
Twenty-four features and 10 shorts, selected as standouts from the international festival circuit, will be made available to viewers across the US in the Flc Virtual Cinema.
From the Rotterdam festival come films including Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s debut feature The Cloud In...
- 11/12/2020
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
Grasshopper Film has picked up North American distribution rights to Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s “Slow Machine,” ahead of the film’s premiere at the 58th annual New York Film Festival this week.
Set to release theatrically next year, the film is billed as a “miniature epic” of paranoia, espionage, subterfuge, music and performance on 16mm. It first bowed at January’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the few physical film fests to take place ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Slow Machine” follows Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actor, who meets a troubled counter-terrorism specialist who’s also an aficionado of experimental theater. Their relationship ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the ramshackle home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, where she’s haunted by violent memories of her past life.
“As moviegoers, we’ve seen the ‘Grasshopper Film’ logo in front of some of our favorite new and restored...
Set to release theatrically next year, the film is billed as a “miniature epic” of paranoia, espionage, subterfuge, music and performance on 16mm. It first bowed at January’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the few physical film fests to take place ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Slow Machine” follows Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actor, who meets a troubled counter-terrorism specialist who’s also an aficionado of experimental theater. Their relationship ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the ramshackle home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, where she’s haunted by violent memories of her past life.
“As moviegoers, we’ve seen the ‘Grasshopper Film’ logo in front of some of our favorite new and restored...
- 10/8/2020
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Braving Covid-19, Spain’s 68th San Sebastián Film Festival bowed on-site on Sept. 18, launching a somewhat slimmed edition that maintains, however, all its main sections. Following, seven more takes on the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world as it finally kicks off:
Depp, Dillon, Gershon Confirm Attendance
Stars are rallying round this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Viggo Mortensen is already confirmed as the recipient of a Donostia Award. On Thursday, the festival announced that Johnny Depp, who takes a producer credit on Julien Temple’s “Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan,” will also be in town, as Matt Dillon, director of Cuban music doc “The Great Fellove,” and Gina Gershon, star of Woody Allen’s “Rifkin’s Festival.” “The Skin I Live In’s” Elena Anaya, Rifkin’s Festival’s” other female lead, also attends along with a strong Spanish star contingent attached to other titles.
Depp, Dillon, Gershon Confirm Attendance
Stars are rallying round this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Viggo Mortensen is already confirmed as the recipient of a Donostia Award. On Thursday, the festival announced that Johnny Depp, who takes a producer credit on Julien Temple’s “Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan,” will also be in town, as Matt Dillon, director of Cuban music doc “The Great Fellove,” and Gina Gershon, star of Woody Allen’s “Rifkin’s Festival.” “The Skin I Live In’s” Elena Anaya, Rifkin’s Festival’s” other female lead, also attends along with a strong Spanish star contingent attached to other titles.
- 9/18/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Egyptian drama follows two teenage sisters who escape conversative reality via the social networks.
Brussels-based Best Friend Forever has acquired world sales rights to Ayten Amin’s second feature Souad, a Cannes 2020 selection.
The Alexandria-set drama revolves follows two teenage sisters growing up within a conservative family, the older of whom escapes into a secret life via the virtual world of social networks. When real-life catches up with her, tragedy strikes and her younger sister embarks on a journey looking for answers.
The cast features non-professional newcomers Bassant Ahmed, Basmala El Ghaiesh and Hussein Ghanem.
Amin’s debut feature...
Brussels-based Best Friend Forever has acquired world sales rights to Ayten Amin’s second feature Souad, a Cannes 2020 selection.
The Alexandria-set drama revolves follows two teenage sisters growing up within a conservative family, the older of whom escapes into a secret life via the virtual world of social networks. When real-life catches up with her, tragedy strikes and her younger sister embarks on a journey looking for answers.
The cast features non-professional newcomers Bassant Ahmed, Basmala El Ghaiesh and Hussein Ghanem.
Amin’s debut feature...
- 9/9/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
In today’s Global Bulletin, the Zurich festival opens with “My Wonderful Wanda,” Philip Garrel, Tsai Ming-liang and Hong Sang-soo are contenders at San Sebastian, a new talent agency launches with “The Crown” actor Emma Corrin, WaZabi picks up Toronto title “Beans,” and the U.K. celebrates returning to cinemas.
Bettina Oberli’s “My Wonderful Wanda” will open the 16th Zurich film festival on Sept. 24, the first time the event is opening with a film by a female director.
The film was supposed to bow at Tribeca, until the coronavirus pandemic forced its postponement to 2021. Consequently, it will have its world premiere at Zurich.
“My Wonderful Wanda” tells the story of Polish-born Wanda who looks after patriarch and post-stroke patient Josef at his lakeside family villa. The work is poorly paid, but Wanda needs the money to support her own family back in Poland. As a live-in caregiver, she gains...
Bettina Oberli’s “My Wonderful Wanda” will open the 16th Zurich film festival on Sept. 24, the first time the event is opening with a film by a female director.
The film was supposed to bow at Tribeca, until the coronavirus pandemic forced its postponement to 2021. Consequently, it will have its world premiere at Zurich.
“My Wonderful Wanda” tells the story of Polish-born Wanda who looks after patriarch and post-stroke patient Josef at his lakeside family villa. The work is poorly paid, but Wanda needs the money to support her own family back in Poland. As a live-in caregiver, she gains...
- 8/21/2020
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Hong Sang-soo’s ‘The Woman Who Ran’ previously won a Berlinale Silver Bear.
Source: G. Ferrandis 2019/Rectangle Productions Close Up Films - Arte France Cinéma Rts Radio Télévision Sui
New features by Philippe Garrel and Hong Sang-soo are among those set to compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award – a strand at the San Sebastian Film Festival free of style or length constraints.
The section will comprise 10 features and nine shorts, which include a six-minute film by UK filmmaker Peter Strickland titled Cold Meridian.
Several selected features were previously seen at the Berlinale in February, including The Woman Who Ran from South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo,...
Source: G. Ferrandis 2019/Rectangle Productions Close Up Films - Arte France Cinéma Rts Radio Télévision Sui
New features by Philippe Garrel and Hong Sang-soo are among those set to compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera Award – a strand at the San Sebastian Film Festival free of style or length constraints.
The section will comprise 10 features and nine shorts, which include a six-minute film by UK filmmaker Peter Strickland titled Cold Meridian.
Several selected features were previously seen at the Berlinale in February, including The Woman Who Ran from South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo,...
- 8/20/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Pressing on with plans to hold its physical edition September 18-26, Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section, the competitive strand that does not mandate any style or length standards.
There are 10 features and nine shorts present this year. The feature length projects include South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, which arrives having premiered at Berlinale earlier this year where it picked up the Silver Bear for Best Director.
Also arriving from the 2020 Berlinale selection are Philippe Garrel’s The Salt Of Tears, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Rizi I Days, Catarina Vasconcelos’s The Metamorphosis Of Birds, Sandra Wollner’s The Trouble With Being Born, Song Fang’s The Calming and Camilo Restrepo’s Los Conductos.
Arriving from elsewhere are Nicolás Pereda’s Fauna, which will have its international premiere in San Seb after debuting in Toronto, and Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Yellow Cat,...
There are 10 features and nine shorts present this year. The feature length projects include South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, which arrives having premiered at Berlinale earlier this year where it picked up the Silver Bear for Best Director.
Also arriving from the 2020 Berlinale selection are Philippe Garrel’s The Salt Of Tears, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Rizi I Days, Catarina Vasconcelos’s The Metamorphosis Of Birds, Sandra Wollner’s The Trouble With Being Born, Song Fang’s The Calming and Camilo Restrepo’s Los Conductos.
Arriving from elsewhere are Nicolás Pereda’s Fauna, which will have its international premiere in San Seb after debuting in Toronto, and Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Yellow Cat,...
- 8/20/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Selection includes Sundance, Berlinale and Rotterdam award-winners.
The Sarajevo Film Festival (August 14-21) has revealed the 15 features selected for its Kinoscope strand, including award-winners from Sundance, the Berlinale and Rotterdam.
Scroll down for full lineup
Titles include South Korea’s The Woman Who Ran, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin for director Hong Sangsoo, and Shirley, starring Elisabeth Moss, which won the Auteur Filmmaking award at Sundance for director Josephine Decker.
Cannes 2020 label title Garagine, which proved one of the buzziest arthouse titles at the virtual Marche du Film, has also been selected as well as South Korea’s Beasts Clawing At Straws,...
The Sarajevo Film Festival (August 14-21) has revealed the 15 features selected for its Kinoscope strand, including award-winners from Sundance, the Berlinale and Rotterdam.
Scroll down for full lineup
Titles include South Korea’s The Woman Who Ran, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin for director Hong Sangsoo, and Shirley, starring Elisabeth Moss, which won the Auteur Filmmaking award at Sundance for director Josephine Decker.
Cannes 2020 label title Garagine, which proved one of the buzziest arthouse titles at the virtual Marche du Film, has also been selected as well as South Korea’s Beasts Clawing At Straws,...
- 8/3/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
The Hong Kong International Film Festival has taken the unusual decision of revealing the pictures it selected for its now canceled 44th edition. It also plans to award prizes in its competition sections, though there will be neither in-person or online screenings for the public.
The festival had previously rescheduled its 44th edition from its usual slot in March, due to the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak. And then set Aug 18-31 Aug. dates instead. But, with the city now facing a third wave of the virus, organizers last Friday bowed to the inevitable and announced the cancellation of HKIFF44 and the smaller Cine Fan activities in September and October.
Now it says that this year’s Firebird Awards and Fipresci prize competitions will proceed with online judging. Winners will be announced on Aug. 20.
“The decision to announce the original program is intended to pay tribute to filmmakers whose...
The festival had previously rescheduled its 44th edition from its usual slot in March, due to the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak. And then set Aug 18-31 Aug. dates instead. But, with the city now facing a third wave of the virus, organizers last Friday bowed to the inevitable and announced the cancellation of HKIFF44 and the smaller Cine Fan activities in September and October.
Now it says that this year’s Firebird Awards and Fipresci prize competitions will proceed with online judging. Winners will be announced on Aug. 20.
“The decision to announce the original program is intended to pay tribute to filmmakers whose...
- 7/30/2020
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Project awarded “White Mirror Award” at the 2019 Torino Script Lab.
French production company 5a7 Films is joining forces with Berlin-based One Two Films to co-produce Swiss writer/director Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Wild Encounters.
The project just received $33,300 development funding from the German-French co-production fund Mini-Traite backed by Ffa and Cnc.
The team is aiming to shoot in 2021.
The project had already received funding from the Region Grand Est and Grand Region and was awarded the new White Mirror Award at the 2019 Torino Script Lab. The project also participated in the Full Circle Lab – Upper Rhine, where Arnold and...
French production company 5a7 Films is joining forces with Berlin-based One Two Films to co-produce Swiss writer/director Sarah Arnold’s debut feature Wild Encounters.
The project just received $33,300 development funding from the German-French co-production fund Mini-Traite backed by Ffa and Cnc.
The team is aiming to shoot in 2021.
The project had already received funding from the Region Grand Est and Grand Region and was awarded the new White Mirror Award at the 2019 Torino Script Lab. The project also participated in the Full Circle Lab – Upper Rhine, where Arnold and...
- 6/26/2020
- by 1100142¦Wendy Mitchell¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Grasshopper Film has acquired U.S. rights to Camilo Restrepo’s critically acclaimed feature debut, “Los Conductos,” which won the best first film award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
“Los Conductos” — represented in international markets by Brussels-based Best Friend Forever — was expected to have its North American premiere at New Directors/New Films but the festival was canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. The movie world-premiered as part of the Berlinale’s new competitive section Encounters.
Exploring the shattered psyche of a man on the run, “Los Conductos” is a Spanish-language film set in Medellin, Colombia, and loosely based on the true story of Pinky, who freed himself from the grip of a religious sect and gets a job in a T-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he tries to to get his life back on track, but is haunted by the violent memories of his past.
“Los Conductos” — represented in international markets by Brussels-based Best Friend Forever — was expected to have its North American premiere at New Directors/New Films but the festival was canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. The movie world-premiered as part of the Berlinale’s new competitive section Encounters.
Exploring the shattered psyche of a man on the run, “Los Conductos” is a Spanish-language film set in Medellin, Colombia, and loosely based on the true story of Pinky, who freed himself from the grip of a religious sect and gets a job in a T-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he tries to to get his life back on track, but is haunted by the violent memories of his past.
- 6/23/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Brussels-based Best Friend Forever has acquired Canadian artist-turned-filmmaker Bruce Labruce’s queer comedy fantasy “Saint-Narcisse,” ahead of Cannes’ virtual Marché du Film.
Set in 1972 Canada, “Saint-Narcisse” follows Dominic, a handsome narcissistic young man who discovers the existence of his twin brother, living in a remote monastery lead by a depraved priest. Dominic sets out to save him and reunite once and for all. The two beautiful, identical brothers are soon embroiled in a strange web of sex, revenge and redemption.
“‘Saint-Narcisse’ is my biggest budgeted and most ambitious movie to date with spectacular locations, elevated cinematography and art direction,” said Labruce, who has so far written and directed 11 feature films, notably “Gerontophilia” which played at Venice in 2013 and “Pierrot Lunaire” which won the Teddy Award in Berlin in 2014.
“Every filmmaker should make at least one film in their career on the following subjects: twins or doppelgangers, incest, a cabin in the woods,...
Set in 1972 Canada, “Saint-Narcisse” follows Dominic, a handsome narcissistic young man who discovers the existence of his twin brother, living in a remote monastery lead by a depraved priest. Dominic sets out to save him and reunite once and for all. The two beautiful, identical brothers are soon embroiled in a strange web of sex, revenge and redemption.
“‘Saint-Narcisse’ is my biggest budgeted and most ambitious movie to date with spectacular locations, elevated cinematography and art direction,” said Labruce, who has so far written and directed 11 feature films, notably “Gerontophilia” which played at Venice in 2013 and “Pierrot Lunaire” which won the Teddy Award in Berlin in 2014.
“Every filmmaker should make at least one film in their career on the following subjects: twins or doppelgangers, incest, a cabin in the woods,...
- 6/10/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Showing how much punch can be put in an unconventional indie, Los Conductos by Colombian director, writer and editor Camilo Restrepo strings together simple visuals to follow a runaway from a religious cult of “the chosen.” Hiding out in empty warehouses, the young man reviews the events that led up to his life in a group from which there is no escape, and his disillusionment with its charismatic but criminal leader. Set in a nocturnal dreamland that is minimalist but expressive, it should attract younger audiences willing to forgo narrative certainty, because never can the viewer be sure what ...
- 3/31/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Showing how much punch can be put in an unconventional indie, Los Conductos by Colombian director, writer and editor Camilo Restrepo strings together simple visuals to follow a runaway from a religious cult of “the chosen.” Hiding out in empty warehouses, the young man reviews the events that led up to his life in a group from which there is no escape, and his disillusionment with its charismatic but criminal leader. Set in a nocturnal dreamland that is minimalist but expressive, it should attract younger audiences willing to forgo narrative certainty, because never can the viewer be sure what ...
- 3/31/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Update, writethru: The 70th Berlin Film Festival, and the first under new leadership team Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, drew to a close this evening with the Golden Bear awarded to Mohammad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil. Rasoulof is currently banned from leaving Iran for participation in social and political activity. This is the second time in five years that Berlin’s top prize has gone to an Iranian filmmaker unable to travel outside their home country — the last time was in 2015 when Jafar Panahi scooped the honor for Taxi.
Along with Panahi and Asghar Farhadi, Rasoulof, whose credits also include Manuscripts Don’t Burn, is among the best-known Iranian filmmakers on the international stage. His last picture, A Man Of Integrity, won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize in 2017, but his passport was confiscated that same year. Yesterday, the director issued a statement of regret over his inability to...
Along with Panahi and Asghar Farhadi, Rasoulof, whose credits also include Manuscripts Don’t Burn, is among the best-known Iranian filmmakers on the international stage. His last picture, A Man Of Integrity, won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize in 2017, but his passport was confiscated that same year. Yesterday, the director issued a statement of regret over his inability to...
- 2/29/2020
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Eliza Hittman’s ’Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ wins Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.
Mohammad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil has become the latest film from Iran to win the Berlinale’s top honour, the Golden Bear, following Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation in 2012 and Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Tehran in 2015.
Rasoulof was not able to attend this year’s festival because he is banned from leaving Iran following his arrest last year. The film’s producers Farzad Pak and Kaveh Farnam, and the director’s daughter Baran Rasoulof (an actress who lives in Hamburg) collected the award on his...
Mohammad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil has become the latest film from Iran to win the Berlinale’s top honour, the Golden Bear, following Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation in 2012 and Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Tehran in 2015.
Rasoulof was not able to attend this year’s festival because he is banned from leaving Iran following his arrest last year. The film’s producers Farzad Pak and Kaveh Farnam, and the director’s daughter Baran Rasoulof (an actress who lives in Hamburg) collected the award on his...
- 2/29/2020
- by 158¦Martin Blaney¦40¦
- ScreenDaily
The 2020 Berlin Film Festival, which kicked off on February 20, handed out its top prizes today as the fest comes to a close in Germany. The night’s top winner, Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof for “There Is No Evil,” could not attend the ceremony due to an Iran-sanctioned travel ban and possible prison sentence for his politically charged film (read IndieWire’s review here). See all this year’s winners below.
As is befitting for a festival season marked by tension, activists were gathered outside the festivities in front of the Berlinale Palast, where the honors took place, demonstrating for climate change. The 70th edition of the Berlinale weathered its share of controversies this year, too, from jury president Jeremy Irons digging up past controversial remarks to the revelation that late festival chief Alfred Bauer had ties to the Nazi party. The first edition assembled by artistic director Carlo Chatrian and...
As is befitting for a festival season marked by tension, activists were gathered outside the festivities in front of the Berlinale Palast, where the honors took place, demonstrating for climate change. The 70th edition of the Berlinale weathered its share of controversies this year, too, from jury president Jeremy Irons digging up past controversial remarks to the revelation that late festival chief Alfred Bauer had ties to the Nazi party. The first edition assembled by artistic director Carlo Chatrian and...
- 2/29/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “There Is No Evil,” a drama about the impact of capital punishment on society and the human condition, won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival on Saturday.
The seven-person festival jury, headed by Jeremy Irons, spread the prizes far and wide, with no single filmmaker dominating the awards.
American writer-director Eliza Hittman won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize for “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” a drama about teen pregnancy, while the Silver Bear for best director went to South Korea’s Hong Sang Soo for his Seoul-set drama “The Woman Who Ran.”
Rasoulof, who is unable to leave Iran due to a travel ban, faces a one-year prison sentence for “spreading propaganda.” The filmmaker released a statement on Friday expressing his sorrow at missing the premiere of “There Is No Evil”: “I am sorry that I will not be able...
The seven-person festival jury, headed by Jeremy Irons, spread the prizes far and wide, with no single filmmaker dominating the awards.
American writer-director Eliza Hittman won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize for “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” a drama about teen pregnancy, while the Silver Bear for best director went to South Korea’s Hong Sang Soo for his Seoul-set drama “The Woman Who Ran.”
Rasoulof, who is unable to leave Iran due to a travel ban, faces a one-year prison sentence for “spreading propaganda.” The filmmaker released a statement on Friday expressing his sorrow at missing the premiere of “There Is No Evil”: “I am sorry that I will not be able...
- 2/29/2020
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Succinctly potent like a concentrated shot of a mood-altering substance, Camilo Restrepo’s Los Conductos renders a Colombian portrait of a damaged soul reclaiming his humanity amidst widespread bleakness. In a swift 70 minutes, the lugubriously solemn film punctures one’s psyche as it interrogates a society’s moral corrosion that has normalized violence as the lone avenue to salvation for the marginalized.
Loosely assembled from the memories of its lead actor Luis Felipe Lozano, a man who survived a religious sect that seemingly doubled as a lucrative criminal organization, the ordeal begins with a gunshot and a motorcycle escape that non-verbally introduces Pinky (Lozano). The disheveled fugitive settles on a new warehouse before explaining himself.
Boasting a 1:33 aspect ratio, excellently employed to conceal visual information that amps its enigmatic aura, Restrepo’s debut also gains a timeless quality from being shot on 16mm and reveling on its graininess. There...
Loosely assembled from the memories of its lead actor Luis Felipe Lozano, a man who survived a religious sect that seemingly doubled as a lucrative criminal organization, the ordeal begins with a gunshot and a motorcycle escape that non-verbally introduces Pinky (Lozano). The disheveled fugitive settles on a new warehouse before explaining himself.
Boasting a 1:33 aspect ratio, excellently employed to conceal visual information that amps its enigmatic aura, Restrepo’s debut also gains a timeless quality from being shot on 16mm and reveling on its graininess. There...
- 2/26/2020
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Film Stage
Above: Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns BlueThis year is the 70th anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival, and it celebrates with a change of guard: Out goes festival director Dieter Kosslick and in comes Executive Director Mariette Rissenbeek, presumably managing the business side of the massive event, and Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian, who most recently held the same title at the Locarno Film Festival, leading the curation. This hand-over of responsibility is not unique to Berlin; last year, Locarno’s programming team was new; this year sees new heads of Sundance, Sheffield, and New York film festivals; and next year Rotterdam is under new leadership. As film culture is shifting under the just cultural pressure of inclusion and diversity, major festivals around the world are in the process of shifting gears.What does that mean for the Berlinale? In these early days—and in the first year with...
- 2/22/2020
- MUBI
Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired international sales rights to Caroline Monnet’s feature debut “Bootlegger” which won best screenplay at Cannes’ Cinefondation in 2017.
A well-known contemporary artist, Monnet has shed light on Indigenous identity and has debunked stereotypes through her works, which have been shown at the Whitney Biennial in New York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Haus der Kulturen in Berlin, Aesthetica in London and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, among many other places. Monnet has also earned critical acclaim with her short films, six of which played at Toronto. She also directed the 2016 short “Mobilize,” which world premiered at Sundance.
Currently in post-production, “Bootlegger” was written by Monnet and Daniel Watchorn. Set in contemporary Northern Quebec, the film follows Mani, an ambitious lawyer in her 20s who heads back to her remote Indigenous community to help her people free themselves from outdated paternalistic laws, leading...
A well-known contemporary artist, Monnet has shed light on Indigenous identity and has debunked stereotypes through her works, which have been shown at the Whitney Biennial in New York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Haus der Kulturen in Berlin, Aesthetica in London and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, among many other places. Monnet has also earned critical acclaim with her short films, six of which played at Toronto. She also directed the 2016 short “Mobilize,” which world premiered at Sundance.
Currently in post-production, “Bootlegger” was written by Monnet and Daniel Watchorn. Set in contemporary Northern Quebec, the film follows Mani, an ambitious lawyer in her 20s who heads back to her remote Indigenous community to help her people free themselves from outdated paternalistic laws, leading...
- 2/21/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Competition
“All the Dead Ones”
Caetano Godardo, Marco Dutra
Following up on their Locarno-prized “Good Manners,” genre auteur Dutra and Gotardo deliver a lushly turned-out family drama that converts ghostliness into political metaphor, conflating 1899 Sao Paulo with its high-rise present, asking if the uneasy relationship between Brazil’s white elite and black majority has essentially changed.
Sales: Indie Sales
Encounters
“Los Conductos”
Camilo Restrepo
Pinky, on the run from a sect, takes to squatting, making T-shirts for a living, taking drugs and spinning images of the Apocalypse, damnation, revenge. A spectral, crazed allegory of Colombian post-civil conflict reinsertion that won Mar del Plata’s 2019 Works in Progress.
Sales: Best Friend Forever
Panorama
“A Common Crime”
Francisco Márquez
Set in class-riven Argentina and packing, reportedly, a great finale and commanding performance from lead Elisa Carricajo as an Argentine university teacher who fails to help her maid’s son, with literally haunting consequences.
“All the Dead Ones”
Caetano Godardo, Marco Dutra
Following up on their Locarno-prized “Good Manners,” genre auteur Dutra and Gotardo deliver a lushly turned-out family drama that converts ghostliness into political metaphor, conflating 1899 Sao Paulo with its high-rise present, asking if the uneasy relationship between Brazil’s white elite and black majority has essentially changed.
Sales: Indie Sales
Encounters
“Los Conductos”
Camilo Restrepo
Pinky, on the run from a sect, takes to squatting, making T-shirts for a living, taking drugs and spinning images of the Apocalypse, damnation, revenge. A spectral, crazed allegory of Colombian post-civil conflict reinsertion that won Mar del Plata’s 2019 Works in Progress.
Sales: Best Friend Forever
Panorama
“A Common Crime”
Francisco Márquez
Set in class-riven Argentina and packing, reportedly, a great finale and commanding performance from lead Elisa Carricajo as an Argentine university teacher who fails to help her maid’s son, with literally haunting consequences.
- 2/21/2020
- by John Hopewell and Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
"How long would the others look for me?" Berlinale has debuted a promo trailer for the highly anticipated Colombian feature called Los Conductos, which premieres this month in the Berlin Film Festival's new "Encounters" section. It's described as "visionary, physical and elastic as the 16mm celluloid on which it was shot." The film is set in Medellin, Colombia and is about a man on the run named Pinky. "The deeper Los Conductos dives into the nightmarish and the hallucinatory, the tougher, more political and hungrier for reality the film becomes. In a narrative downward spiral, it conveys with the utmost precision the survival instincts of a character who is unwittingly fighting to liberate an entire country, perhaps even a continent. [It] uses the medium of cinema to transform an allegorical exploration of one's roots into an irrepressible desire to change the world." Sounds major. Starring Luis Felipe Lozano and Fernando Úsaga Higuíta.
- 2/20/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired Kamir Aïnouz’s promising feature debut “Honey Cigar” which was developed with the support of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is co-produced by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, the Palme d’Or-winning directors/producers.
Set in Paris in 1993, the film follows Selma, 17, who lives in a bourgeois and secular Berber family. When she meets Julien in college, she realizes for the first time the impact of patriarchal rules on her intimacy. While Selma discovers the strength of her own desire, fundamentalism takes over her country and her family starts to crumble.
“Honey Cigar” is being produced by French veteran producer Christine Rouxel (“Houba! On the Trail of the Marsupilami”) and Marie-Castille Mention Schaar (“Heaven Will Wait”). The movie is being co-produced by the Dardennes and Malek Ali-Yahia, as well as French star Dany Boon.
Best Friend Forever will unveil the exclusive first footage of...
Set in Paris in 1993, the film follows Selma, 17, who lives in a bourgeois and secular Berber family. When she meets Julien in college, she realizes for the first time the impact of patriarchal rules on her intimacy. While Selma discovers the strength of her own desire, fundamentalism takes over her country and her family starts to crumble.
“Honey Cigar” is being produced by French veteran producer Christine Rouxel (“Houba! On the Trail of the Marsupilami”) and Marie-Castille Mention Schaar (“Heaven Will Wait”). The movie is being co-produced by the Dardennes and Malek Ali-Yahia, as well as French star Dany Boon.
Best Friend Forever will unveil the exclusive first footage of...
- 2/18/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Madrid — Brussels-based sales agent Best Friend Forever has dropped a first trailer for Colombian Camilo Restrepo’s feature debut “Los Conductos,” a movie which captures the shattered mental landscape of a man on the run from a sect.
Winner of last year’s Mar del Plata Work in Progress competition, Restrepo’s has scored a prime festival berth for its world premiere as one of the contenders in the Berlinale’s first ever Encounters competition.
Appealing to a kaleidoscope of visual styles, the movie can be read as a portrait of the difficulties of reinsertion in post civil conflict Colombia, or the enduring emotion devastation of any kind of fanaticism, even when an individual has renounced its creed.
Inspired by the experience of a real-life person, Pinky, whom the director befriended and persuaded to play himself in the film, “Los Conductos” captures Pinky now on the lam, living in a squat.
Winner of last year’s Mar del Plata Work in Progress competition, Restrepo’s has scored a prime festival berth for its world premiere as one of the contenders in the Berlinale’s first ever Encounters competition.
Appealing to a kaleidoscope of visual styles, the movie can be read as a portrait of the difficulties of reinsertion in post civil conflict Colombia, or the enduring emotion devastation of any kind of fanaticism, even when an individual has renounced its creed.
Inspired by the experience of a real-life person, Pinky, whom the director befriended and persuaded to play himself in the film, “Los Conductos” captures Pinky now on the lam, living in a squat.
- 2/12/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The young international sales company continues to rise with four titles selected in Berlin, directed by Patric Chiha, Camilo Restrepo, Radu Jude et Matthew Rankin. Launched last May, international sales company Best Friend Forever, the Belgian branch of Parisian company Indie Sales, will be well armed at the European Film Market of the 70th Berlinale with four of its features selected, one of them in Panorama, one in the new competitive section Encounters, and two in Forum. French documentary If It Were Love by Patric Chiha will have its world premiere in the Panorama section before its French release on 4 March via Norte Distribution. This is the 4th film from the Austrian filmmaker of Hungarian and Lebanese origin, director of two fiction films and the documentary Brothers of the Night (unveiled in the Panorama section...
Best Friend Forever boards sales on Radu Jude’s Berlinale Forum title ‘Uppercase Print’ (exclusive)
Feature tells true story of student arrested by Communist Romania’s secret services after challenging regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has boarded world sales on Romanian director Radu Jude’s new political drama Uppercase Print ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section.
An adaptation of 2013 play Typographic Capital Letters by Romanian playwright Gianina Carbunariu, it tells the true story of high school student Mugur Călinescu who was arrested in the early 1980s by Romania’s secret police agency, or Securitate, for graffiti criticising the regime of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has boarded world sales on Romanian director Radu Jude’s new political drama Uppercase Print ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section.
An adaptation of 2013 play Typographic Capital Letters by Romanian playwright Gianina Carbunariu, it tells the true story of high school student Mugur Călinescu who was arrested in the early 1980s by Romania’s secret police agency, or Securitate, for graffiti criticising the regime of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
- 1/21/2020
- by 1100388¦Melanie Goodfellow¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired two debut features, Camilo Restrepo’s Berlinale-bound “Los Conductos” and Pascal Tagnati’s “Corsican Summer.” Both films are produced by up-and-coming outfit 5à7 films.
Set to premiere at the Berlinale’s new competitive section Encounters, “Los Conductos” is a Spanish-language film set in Medellin, Colombia, and loosely based on the true story of Pinky, who freed himself from the grip of a religious sect and gets a job in a t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he tries to to get his life back on track, but is haunted by the violent memories of his past.
Restrepo has shot several shorts such as “La Bouche,” which played at Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight. The French banner 5à7 films produced the film with Mutokino in Colombia, in co-production with the outfits If You Hold a Stone and Montanero Cine. Mutokino will release “Los Conductos...
Set to premiere at the Berlinale’s new competitive section Encounters, “Los Conductos” is a Spanish-language film set in Medellin, Colombia, and loosely based on the true story of Pinky, who freed himself from the grip of a religious sect and gets a job in a t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he tries to to get his life back on track, but is haunted by the violent memories of his past.
Restrepo has shot several shorts such as “La Bouche,” which played at Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight. The French banner 5à7 films produced the film with Mutokino in Colombia, in co-production with the outfits If You Hold a Stone and Montanero Cine. Mutokino will release “Los Conductos...
- 1/17/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The 70th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 20 – March 1) unveiled its Encounters program today, featuring the premieres of new works by Tim Sutton and Romanian director Cristi Puiu.
Also screening is Josephine Decker’s Shirley with Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg, marking the film’s international premiere after its upcoming Sundance bow, and Gunda by Victor Kossakovsky, whose last pic was the 2018 Venice doc Aquarela.
Encounters is a newly-created competitive section at the Berlin festival that looks to highlight “new voices in cinema and to give more room to diverse narrative and documentary forms.” A three-member jury will choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award.
“As a result of passionate research, the 15 titles chosen for Encounters present the vitality of cinema in all of its forms. Each film presents a different way of interpreting the cinematic story: autobiographical, intimate, political,...
Also screening is Josephine Decker’s Shirley with Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg, marking the film’s international premiere after its upcoming Sundance bow, and Gunda by Victor Kossakovsky, whose last pic was the 2018 Venice doc Aquarela.
Encounters is a newly-created competitive section at the Berlin festival that looks to highlight “new voices in cinema and to give more room to diverse narrative and documentary forms.” A three-member jury will choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award.
“As a result of passionate research, the 15 titles chosen for Encounters present the vitality of cinema in all of its forms. Each film presents a different way of interpreting the cinematic story: autobiographical, intimate, political,...
- 1/17/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
‘Shirley’, starring Elisabeth Moss, among films in the new competitive strand.
The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 20-Mar 1) has unveiled the 15 features that will comprise its first ever Encounters competitive strand.
The new section has been introduced to support new voices in cinema, running alongside the long-established competition and Berlinale Shorts, which award the Golden and Silver Bears.
A three-member jury, which has yet to be announced, will choose the winners of best film, best director and a special jury award.
The section will open with Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog, a 200-minute drama in which an elite group of individuals...
The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 20-Mar 1) has unveiled the 15 features that will comprise its first ever Encounters competitive strand.
The new section has been introduced to support new voices in cinema, running alongside the long-established competition and Berlinale Shorts, which award the Golden and Silver Bears.
A three-member jury, which has yet to be announced, will choose the winners of best film, best director and a special jury award.
The section will open with Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog, a 200-minute drama in which an elite group of individuals...
- 1/17/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Yann Gonzalez, rated as one of France’s most gifted young directors after his heartfelt Giallo homage “Knife + Heart” played in 2018’s Cannes competition, has boarded “Brasília! Brasília!” from Brazil’s Bernardo Zanotta who last year won Locarno’s Pardino d’Argento for best short film with “Heart of Hunger.”
Gonzalez served as president of the Pardino d’Argento award, saw in Zanotta a kindred subversive spirit in an increasingly conformist landscape and when Zanotta sent him an early treatment of Brasília!Brasília!” wanted to form part of the project.
Introduced to the market at Locarno’s Match Me! Forum by André Mielnik, “Brasília Brasília!”, which is another’s feature debut, is being co-developed by Gustavo Beck and Mielnik at their Rio de Janeiro-based If You Hold a Stone and Gonzalez and partner Flavien Giorda at their upcoming French production company.
Written by Zanotta and Larissa Lewandowski, “Brasília!Brasília!” embodies...
Gonzalez served as president of the Pardino d’Argento award, saw in Zanotta a kindred subversive spirit in an increasingly conformist landscape and when Zanotta sent him an early treatment of Brasília!Brasília!” wanted to form part of the project.
Introduced to the market at Locarno’s Match Me! Forum by André Mielnik, “Brasília Brasília!”, which is another’s feature debut, is being co-developed by Gustavo Beck and Mielnik at their Rio de Janeiro-based If You Hold a Stone and Gonzalez and partner Flavien Giorda at their upcoming French production company.
Written by Zanotta and Larissa Lewandowski, “Brasília!Brasília!” embodies...
- 8/10/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Camilo Restrepo's Impression of a War (2015) is playing August 10 - September 8, 2017 on Mubi in many countries around the world as part of the series Direct from Locarno.Like Shadows Growing as the Sun Goes DownThe characters in Camilo Restrepo’s films make art in the face of death. They are dancers, jugglers, tattoo artists, painters, and singers who collectively rise to exorcise hardships. Their journeys are chronicled in lucid, elliptical fashion by an artist whose handheld pursuits of people endow them with explosive and ethereal impressions of force and power.Restrepo was born in 1975 in Colombia, where he lived until a scholarship took him to Europe to study painting. His first three films were shot in his birth country on Super 8 and 16mm and additionally utilized digital archival materials to tell parts of the nation’s recent past in relation to its present time; his two subsequent films were...
- 8/21/2017
- MUBI
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Camilo Restrepo's Impression of a War (2015), is showing from August 10 - September 9, 2017 in most countries around the world as part of our Direct from Locarno series. “Why, why, why!” screamed a woman as she tore at the twisted and charred wreckage of a car in the hope of finding the body of her young daughter, whom she had left inside. The force of the blast hurled the remains of the vehicle into the front of a furniture store.—The New York Times, April 16, 1993In any event, ordinary Colombians celebrated the tenth anniversary of the slaying of their most famous billionaire criminal with little optimism that the car-bombings would ever cease. While the Colombian army and rightwing militia persist in murdering trade unionists, oppositional journalists, and leaders of the legal Left, the corrupted guerillas of [the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia] defiantly maintain Escobar’s...
- 8/17/2017
- MUBI
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