Exclusive: After clinching the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 with her debut fiction feature Atlantics, French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop had one burning desire.
“My dream was to set up a film school in Dakar,” she tells Deadline.
Diop made history that year in Cannes as the first Black woman to compete in the festival’s official competition. She clocked a similar milestone in February when she became the first Black filmmaker to win Berlin’s Golden Bear with the inventive documentary Dahomey.
Borrowing its name from the ancient West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin, the doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, the artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892.
Dahomey is Diop’s second feature project and the first from Fanta Sy,...
“My dream was to set up a film school in Dakar,” she tells Deadline.
Diop made history that year in Cannes as the first Black woman to compete in the festival’s official competition. She clocked a similar milestone in February when she became the first Black filmmaker to win Berlin’s Golden Bear with the inventive documentary Dahomey.
Borrowing its name from the ancient West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin, the doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, the artifacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892.
Dahomey is Diop’s second feature project and the first from Fanta Sy,...
- 5/9/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Mediawan Rights has boarded “Kabul,” a highly anticipated thriller series produced by France’s 24 25 Films and Cinétévé.
Shervin Alenabi (“Tehran”) and “Euphoria’s” Eric Dane (in a small role) have joined the international cast of the show, which already comprises Jonathan Zaccaï (“Le bureau des legendes”), Thibault Evrard (“The Night of the 12th”), Vassilis Kukalawi (“Kandahar”), Jeanne Goursaud (“Pax Massilia”), Gianmarco Saurino (“L’estate piu Calda”) and Valentina Cervi (“Medici: Masters of Florence”).
The series, set against the backdrop of U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban’s sweep to power, just started filming on April 1. Mediawan Rights will introduce the gripping series project to international buyers at upcoming markets, and is handling worldwide distribution with the participation of Entourage.
“Kabul” explores the chaotic evacuation of various characters, from diplomats to soldiers to civilians, who desperately seek refuge and solidarity in a country in crisis, with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.
Shervin Alenabi (“Tehran”) and “Euphoria’s” Eric Dane (in a small role) have joined the international cast of the show, which already comprises Jonathan Zaccaï (“Le bureau des legendes”), Thibault Evrard (“The Night of the 12th”), Vassilis Kukalawi (“Kandahar”), Jeanne Goursaud (“Pax Massilia”), Gianmarco Saurino (“L’estate piu Calda”) and Valentina Cervi (“Medici: Masters of Florence”).
The series, set against the backdrop of U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban’s sweep to power, just started filming on April 1. Mediawan Rights will introduce the gripping series project to international buyers at upcoming markets, and is handling worldwide distribution with the participation of Entourage.
“Kabul” explores the chaotic evacuation of various characters, from diplomats to soldiers to civilians, who desperately seek refuge and solidarity in a country in crisis, with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.
- 4/4/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Bettina Blümner’s “Vamos a la playa” won ArteKino Festival’s European Audience Award at a ceremony co-organized by the iconic French fashion house Chanel in Paris.
Held at La Femis, Paris’ prestigious film school, the event also included a conversation with French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski (“Other People’s Children”), followed by a ceremony honoring Blümner and a screening of “Vamos a la playa,” as well as a posh cocktail which brought together film talent, executives and students.
ArteKino Festival is a competitive online event taking place in December and showcasing director-driven films which are made available in six language across 32 countries on the website of Arte and its YouTube channel.
“Vamos a la playa” was one of the 12 feature films selected for the latest edition of ArteKino Festival, an initiative spearheaded by Remi Burah, ArteKino Foundation president and CEO of Arte France Cinema, the film division of the TV network.
Held at La Femis, Paris’ prestigious film school, the event also included a conversation with French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski (“Other People’s Children”), followed by a ceremony honoring Blümner and a screening of “Vamos a la playa,” as well as a posh cocktail which brought together film talent, executives and students.
ArteKino Festival is a competitive online event taking place in December and showcasing director-driven films which are made available in six language across 32 countries on the website of Arte and its YouTube channel.
“Vamos a la playa” was one of the 12 feature films selected for the latest edition of ArteKino Festival, an initiative spearheaded by Remi Burah, ArteKino Foundation president and CEO of Arte France Cinema, the film division of the TV network.
- 3/27/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
“Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange.
Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.
“Dahomey” was previously acquired by Mubi for North America, Latin America, U.K., Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and Turkey. Les Films du Losange is currently negotiating more international sales deals and will distribute the film in theaters in France.
Weaving fantasy and documentary, “Dahomey” explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious...
Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.
“Dahomey” was previously acquired by Mubi for North America, Latin America, U.K., Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and Turkey. Les Films du Losange is currently negotiating more international sales deals and will distribute the film in theaters in France.
Weaving fantasy and documentary, “Dahomey” explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious...
- 3/26/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
With its focus on looted African art, Mati Diop’s captivating, fabulistic documentary Dahomey confronts the reality of how modernity has been shaped by the West’s theft of cultural heritage. Named after the seat of power in the historical Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin), the film narrates the 2021 return of 26 artifacts that France had stolen from the former kingdom when, after centuries of occupation and colonial meddling, it was finally conquered and ransacked in the 1890s. Since then, some 7,000 Beninese artworks, many of them taken directly from the royal palace, have been on display in French museums.
As in her last film, the fictional feature Atlantics, Diop concerns herself here with restoring a sense of enchantment to a world that no longer thinks of the dead—the past—as existing both materially and spectrally alongside the present. The film’s narrator, such as it is, is the spirit embodied...
As in her last film, the fictional feature Atlantics, Diop concerns herself here with restoring a sense of enchantment to a world that no longer thinks of the dead—the past—as existing both materially and spectrally alongside the present. The film’s narrator, such as it is, is the spirit embodied...
- 2/27/2024
- by Pat Brown
- Slant Magazine
Por segundo año consecutivo, Filmin distribuirá en España la ganadora del prestigioso Oso de Oro del Festival de Berlín 2024. © Filmin
Filmin se ha hecho con los derechos de distribución en España del documental “Dahomey”, dirigido por la actriz y cineasta Mati Diop, que ha sido galardonado este fin de semana con el Oso de Oro a la Mejor Película en el Festival de Berlín. El jurado de la Sección Oficial, presidido por Lupita Nyong’o y del que también formaba parte el director español Albert Serra, ha reconocido así el mérito de una película que aborda la descolonización de los museos occidentales y que documenta el viaje de vuelta al antiguo Reino de Dahomey (la actual Benín) de 26 obras de arte expoliadas por Francia y que hasta ahora se conservaban en Museo Quai Branly de París. En el foco de la película se pone a una de las piezas, una especie de deidad,...
Filmin se ha hecho con los derechos de distribución en España del documental “Dahomey”, dirigido por la actriz y cineasta Mati Diop, que ha sido galardonado este fin de semana con el Oso de Oro a la Mejor Película en el Festival de Berlín. El jurado de la Sección Oficial, presidido por Lupita Nyong’o y del que también formaba parte el director español Albert Serra, ha reconocido así el mérito de una película que aborda la descolonización de los museos occidentales y que documenta el viaje de vuelta al antiguo Reino de Dahomey (la actual Benín) de 26 obras de arte expoliadas por Francia y que hasta ahora se conservaban en Museo Quai Branly de París. En el foco de la película se pone a una de las piezas, una especie de deidad,...
- 2/26/2024
- by Marta Medina
- mundoCine
The 74th Berlin Film Festival (also known as Berlinale locally) has wrapped its 2024 run following two weeks of screenings, with a big ceremony again in Berlin on Saturday evening, announcing the winner of the Golden Bear (Goldener Bär) for Best Film. That top prize from this year was given to yet another intriguing French documentary, this one titled Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop (of the film Atlantics previously). It follows the journey of 26 plundered royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey exhibited in Paris, now being returned to the original home of Benin in Africa. A French documentary also won the Golden Bear last year, too. Is this the hot trend now? The festival also awarded Sebastian Stan for Best Performance; along with Martin Gschlacht for Best Cinematography in the film The Devil’s Bath (Des Teufels Bad) - the latest from the Austrian co-directors of Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge previously.
- 2/24/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Winners have been announced at the 74th Berlin Film Festival, with Dahomey by French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop scooping the coveted Golden Bear for best film. Scroll down for the full list of winners, which were revealed Saturday evening at the Berlinale Palast.
The doc borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).
Diop’s doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were...
The doc borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).
Diop’s doc opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were...
- 2/24/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop made history at tonight’s Berlin Film Festival awards ceremony, becoming the first Black director ever to win the Golden Bear, the fest’s top prize, for her inventive, resonant documentary “Dahomey.” She accepted the award from Lupita Nyong’o, in turn the first Black person ever to preside over the festival’s Competition jury — a stark image of progress to cap off a ceremony marked by impassioned statements against war and social discrimination.
Following French docmaker Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear triumph last year with his film “On the Adamant,” “Dahomey” is the second consecutive nonfiction feature to take the award. But it’s a radically unorthodox winner nonetheless, beginning with its 67-minute running time. Yet Diop, the actor-turned-director who took the Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 with her fictional debut feature “Atlantics,” packs a world of historical and political perspective into her film’s tight framework,...
Following French docmaker Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear triumph last year with his film “On the Adamant,” “Dahomey” is the second consecutive nonfiction feature to take the award. But it’s a radically unorthodox winner nonetheless, beginning with its 67-minute running time. Yet Diop, the actor-turned-director who took the Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 with her fictional debut feature “Atlantics,” packs a world of historical and political perspective into her film’s tight framework,...
- 2/24/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi has acquired Mati Diop’s Berlin Competition entry Dahomey for North America, UK & Ireland, Latin America, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India.
‘Dahomey’: Berlin Review
Mubi plans a late 2024 release for Diop’s second feature and follow-up to her breakout 2019 Cannes Grand Prix winner Atlantics, which became Senegal’s Oscar submission and made the shortlist.
Dahomey takes place in November 2021 and chronicles the repatriation of 26 plundered royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey to moder-day Benin more than 130 years after they were plundered by French colonial forces.
Eve Robin and Judith Lou Levy of France’s Les Films Du Bal produced,...
‘Dahomey’: Berlin Review
Mubi plans a late 2024 release for Diop’s second feature and follow-up to her breakout 2019 Cannes Grand Prix winner Atlantics, which became Senegal’s Oscar submission and made the shortlist.
Dahomey takes place in November 2021 and chronicles the repatriation of 26 plundered royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey to moder-day Benin more than 130 years after they were plundered by French colonial forces.
Eve Robin and Judith Lou Levy of France’s Les Films Du Bal produced,...
- 2/23/2024
- ScreenDaily
Berlin film festival
Mati Diop’s documentary is told partly in the ‘voice’ of one of the looted treasures, in a realist jeu d’esprit about the legacy of plunder
Franco-Senegalese actor and film-maker Mati Diop made history in 2019 as the first woman of colour to have a movie selected for competition at Cannes, the poetic migrant drama Atlantique. Now she brings an intriguing, 67-minute long documentary feature to Berlin: a kind of realist jeu d’ésprit or interrogative reverie about colonialism, culture, the past and the present. Dahomey is about the return in 2021 of looted treasures from France to the west African state of Benin, items plundered by French troops in 1892. These include the bold and mysterious zoomorphic figures of King Ghezo (who ruled what was then called Dahomey from 1797 to 1818) and his heirs Glele and Béhanzin, shown with the heads of a bird or a lion or a...
Mati Diop’s documentary is told partly in the ‘voice’ of one of the looted treasures, in a realist jeu d’esprit about the legacy of plunder
Franco-Senegalese actor and film-maker Mati Diop made history in 2019 as the first woman of colour to have a movie selected for competition at Cannes, the poetic migrant drama Atlantique. Now she brings an intriguing, 67-minute long documentary feature to Berlin: a kind of realist jeu d’ésprit or interrogative reverie about colonialism, culture, the past and the present. Dahomey is about the return in 2021 of looted treasures from France to the west African state of Benin, items plundered by French troops in 1892. These include the bold and mysterious zoomorphic figures of King Ghezo (who ruled what was then called Dahomey from 1797 to 1818) and his heirs Glele and Béhanzin, shown with the heads of a bird or a lion or a...
- 2/23/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Mubi has bought “Dahomey,” a highlight of this year’s Berlinale competition and directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantics”), for North America, Latin America, U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and India.
The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her feature debut, “Atlantics,” won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2019, and went to win the Nation Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Critics Choice Award and Director’s Guild Award.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin after being plundered, along with thousands of others,...
The feature film is represented in international markets by Films du Losange, which negotiated the deal with Mubi. “Dahomey” marks the sophomore outing of Diop, a French-Senegalese talent who is considered one of the leading figures in international arthouse cinema and of a new wave in African and diasporic cinema. Her feature debut, “Atlantics,” won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2019, and went to win the Nation Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Critics Choice Award and Director’s Guild Award.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin after being plundered, along with thousands of others,...
- 2/23/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy and Alex Ritman
- Variety Film + TV
When Europe’s great powers raced to colonize a continent in the so-called “Scramble for Africa” just before the First World War, the tiny coastal Kingdom of Dahomey in the south of modern-day Benin, west Africa, was high on France’s shopping list. Only 85 French soldiers were killed when it was taken in 1894, while as many as 4,000 Dahomeans lost their lives. Nearly three hundred years of culture and history were extinguished, and thousands of the nation’s most valuable treasures shipped to Paris.
Mati Diop’s 67-minute documentary isn’t about the theft but rather the return in late 2021 of 26 Dahomean treasures to Benin from the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. We’re told before the movie starts that their “captivity” in France is finally coming to an end. That feels a little dramatic, but Diop means what she says. The most famous of the items, including a defiant...
Mati Diop’s 67-minute documentary isn’t about the theft but rather the return in late 2021 of 26 Dahomean treasures to Benin from the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. We’re told before the movie starts that their “captivity” in France is finally coming to an end. That feels a little dramatic, but Diop means what she says. The most famous of the items, including a defiant...
- 2/18/2024
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
In November 2021, 61 years after Benin gained independence from the French empire, 26 of the many thousands of plundered national antiquities were returned by France to their African home. Inserting an inquisitive, imaginative intelligence into this key moment in the troubled timeline of post-imperial cultural politics, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop fashions her superb, short but potent hybrid doc “Dahomey” as a slim lever that cracks open the sealed crate of colonial history, sending a hundred of its associated erasures and injustices tumbling into the light.
The film takes its title from the kingdom on Benin’s Atlantic coast, that existed in formidable militarism for 300 years until 1894, and whose fabled female warriors were recently the subject of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King.” But “Dahomey” starts far from the pomp and grandeur of that wealthy, warlike kingdom, in the basement level of the Parisian Musée du Quai Branly, where CCTV cameras stare down at empty,...
The film takes its title from the kingdom on Benin’s Atlantic coast, that existed in formidable militarism for 300 years until 1894, and whose fabled female warriors were recently the subject of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King.” But “Dahomey” starts far from the pomp and grandeur of that wealthy, warlike kingdom, in the basement level of the Parisian Musée du Quai Branly, where CCTV cameras stare down at empty,...
- 2/18/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
With her mesmerizing 2019 debut feature, the lyrical Senegalese ghost story Atlantics, as well as the nonfiction project that preceded it, A Thousand Suns, Mati Diop jumped to the forefront of diasporic Black European directors reclaiming their ancestral African roots. The director’s own path as a cultural revenant continues to be inextricably woven through her work, alongside a contemplative consideration of repatriation and reparations, in her multifaceted medium-length docu-fictional essay Dahomey.
The film is both a response to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker’s 1953 inquiry into African art and colonialism, Statues Also Die, and an ongoing debate on the significance of returned artifacts and the responsibility of new generations to continue the vital work of conservation and cultural reclamation.
Running just over an hour but loaded with thematic weight and aesthetic beauty, Dahomey sprang from the French government’s return, in 2021, of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey to...
The film is both a response to Alain Resnais and Chris Marker’s 1953 inquiry into African art and colonialism, Statues Also Die, and an ongoing debate on the significance of returned artifacts and the responsibility of new generations to continue the vital work of conservation and cultural reclamation.
Running just over an hour but loaded with thematic weight and aesthetic beauty, Dahomey sprang from the French government’s return, in 2021, of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey to...
- 2/18/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“The first shape I had in mind for this film was fiction,” filmmaker Mati Diop told a Berlin Film Festival presser this morning when quizzed on the structure of her inventive documentary Dahomey.
The doc — which screens in the Berlinale competition this afternoon — borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).
Diop’s film opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered...
The doc — which screens in the Berlinale competition this afternoon — borrows its name from the former West African kingdom of Dahomey, located in the south of today’s Republic of Benin. It was founded in the 17th century by King Houegbadja. Under his reign and that of his descendants — a three-century dynasty — the kingdom was a considerable regional power, with a highly structured local economy, a centralized administration, a system of taxes, and a powerful army, including the famous Amazon women (Agodjié).
Diop’s film opens in November 2021 as twenty-six royal treasures from the former Kingdom are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin. Along with thousands of others, these artifacts were plundered...
- 2/18/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Simon Moutaïrou, the critically acclaimed screenwriter behind the spy thriller hit “Black Box,” has partnered with some of France’s biggest players — leading producer Chi-Fou-Mi and Studiocanal — on his ambitious directorial debut, “No Chains, No Masters.”
Now in post, “No Chains, No Masters,” is an epic movie inspired by historical accounts of former slaves in West Africa, nicknamed Maroons, who emancipated themselves from French settlements.
Set in 1759, in the French colony of Mauritius Island, “No Chains, No Masters” is an epic historical drama following a father, Massamba (Ibrahima Mbaye Thié), and his fierce teenage daughter Mati (Anna Thiandoum) who defy all odds to survive a manhunt across the jungle and emancipate themselves from the hell of a colonial plantation.
The story revolves around Mati, who refuses to accept her fate and flees from the plantation, hoping to seek freedom in a remote part of the island, where a community of fugitives is said to live.
Now in post, “No Chains, No Masters,” is an epic movie inspired by historical accounts of former slaves in West Africa, nicknamed Maroons, who emancipated themselves from French settlements.
Set in 1759, in the French colony of Mauritius Island, “No Chains, No Masters” is an epic historical drama following a father, Massamba (Ibrahima Mbaye Thié), and his fierce teenage daughter Mati (Anna Thiandoum) who defy all odds to survive a manhunt across the jungle and emancipate themselves from the hell of a colonial plantation.
The story revolves around Mati, who refuses to accept her fate and flees from the plantation, hoping to seek freedom in a remote part of the island, where a community of fugitives is said to live.
- 2/15/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Distinguishing itself from other immigration narratives by telling a story set in an overlooked part of the world, “In the Land of Brothers” introduces two distinctive new filmmakers in Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi. Making their feature debut — which landed them the directing prize in Sundance’s World Dramatic competition — the pair follow in the footsteps of such recent movies about the journey to a new land as Mati Diop’s “Atlantics“(which traced African migration into Europe) and “I Carry You With Me” (one of many about flight from the Americas into the U.S.). With deft storytelling and assured filmmaking, they tell the story of an extended family from Afghanistan and their 20-year odyssey to find shelter and home in neighboring Iran after the American invasion of 2011.
The film is divided into three vignettes, all set in Iran, though each at a different time and around a different...
The film is divided into three vignettes, all set in Iran, though each at a different time and around a different...
- 1/28/2024
- by Murtada Elfadl
- Variety Film + TV
“Dahomey,” a documentary directed by Cannes prizewinner Mati Diop (“Atlantique”) and slated for the Berlinale competition, will be represented internationally by Paris-based Les Films du Losange.
The feature marks the directorial comeback of the French-Senegalese talent after winning the Grand Prize at Cannes with “Atlantique” in 2019. Diop, who is also a well-known actor (“Fire”), is considered one of the leading lights in a new wave of African and diaspora cinema.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to Benin in November 2021 after being stolen by French colonizers in 1892, when the African country was called the Kingdom of Dahomey.
The documentary follows the journey of 26 royal treasures plundered by French colonial troops in the Kingdom of Dahomey, which have been exhibited at the Musée du Quai de Branly in Paris and are being returned to Cotonou in Benin. Diop “bring the artifacts back...
The feature marks the directorial comeback of the French-Senegalese talent after winning the Grand Prize at Cannes with “Atlantique” in 2019. Diop, who is also a well-known actor (“Fire”), is considered one of the leading lights in a new wave of African and diaspora cinema.
In “Dahomey,” Diop explores the issue of colonization through the story of precious artworks restituted to Benin in November 2021 after being stolen by French colonizers in 1892, when the African country was called the Kingdom of Dahomey.
The documentary follows the journey of 26 royal treasures plundered by French colonial troops in the Kingdom of Dahomey, which have been exhibited at the Musée du Quai de Branly in Paris and are being returned to Cotonou in Benin. Diop “bring the artifacts back...
- 1/22/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Memento International has boarded “Arenas,” Camille Perton’s feature debut set in the world of professional soccer, starring Édgar Ramírez (“Carlos”), Iliès Kadri (“Nobody’s Hero”), Sofian Khammes (“November”) and Lorenzo Zurzolo (“Eo”).
Now in post-production, the film shot across Lyon, Monaco, Nice and Baku in Azerbaijan. Memento International will kick off sales at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous showcase in Paris next week.
The film follows Brahim, a rising soccer star who is about to sign his first contract at his prestigious hometown club. But when a mysterious and powerful agent disrupts the negotiations, Brahim discovers the shady side of the business. Torn between loyalty and money, he will engage in a race against time to claim his destiny.
“Arenas” is produced by Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy for Les Films du Bal, the ambitious independent company behind Mati Diop’s Cannes prizewinner “Atlantics,” “Ahed’s Knee” by Nadav Lapid and the...
Now in post-production, the film shot across Lyon, Monaco, Nice and Baku in Azerbaijan. Memento International will kick off sales at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous showcase in Paris next week.
The film follows Brahim, a rising soccer star who is about to sign his first contract at his prestigious hometown club. But when a mysterious and powerful agent disrupts the negotiations, Brahim discovers the shady side of the business. Torn between loyalty and money, he will engage in a race against time to claim his destiny.
“Arenas” is produced by Eve Robin and Judith Lou Lévy for Les Films du Bal, the ambitious independent company behind Mati Diop’s Cannes prizewinner “Atlantics,” “Ahed’s Knee” by Nadav Lapid and the...
- 1/8/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Clockwise from upper left: May December (Netflix), Maestro (Netflix), Rustin (Netflix), Elvis (Warner Bros.)Graphic: The A.V. Club
This weekend’s Golden Globes ceremony marks the beginning of the final stretch of the 2024 awards season, leading up to the main event, the Oscars on March 10. If you haven’t had...
This weekend’s Golden Globes ceremony marks the beginning of the final stretch of the 2024 awards season, leading up to the main event, the Oscars on March 10. If you haven’t had...
- 1/6/2024
- by The A.V. Club
- avclub.com
Buzzy female-driven dystopian thriller also stars Souheila Yacoub.
Orange Studio has unveiled an exclusive first image of Adèle Exarchopoulos in Planet B, Aude Léa Rapin’s buzzy female-driven dystopian thriller also starring Souheila Yacoub.
Exarchopoulos plays an activist who mysteriously disappears after a revolt turns violent. After being shot in the eye by a flash-ball gun, she is knocked unconscious and wakes up in an unknown world, aka Planet B. The titular Planet B is described as the first virtual prison where prisoners are being held in the form of an avatar of themselves.
It marks Rapin’s follow-up to...
Orange Studio has unveiled an exclusive first image of Adèle Exarchopoulos in Planet B, Aude Léa Rapin’s buzzy female-driven dystopian thriller also starring Souheila Yacoub.
Exarchopoulos plays an activist who mysteriously disappears after a revolt turns violent. After being shot in the eye by a flash-ball gun, she is knocked unconscious and wakes up in an unknown world, aka Planet B. The titular Planet B is described as the first virtual prison where prisoners are being held in the form of an avatar of themselves.
It marks Rapin’s follow-up to...
- 10/31/2023
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 10/17/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 10/16/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Acquisition follows the company’s first pickup ‘Earth Mama’, which it will release in December.
Black cinema distributor and supporter We Are Parable has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Cannes Competition title Banel And Adama from Brussels-based sales agent Best Friend Forever.
It is planning a 2024 theatrical release for the film that will have its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival this evening.
Set in remote northern Senegal, Banel And Adama is a romance following two lovers in their quest to carve a life for themselves beyond the expectations of others. Sy became only the second...
Black cinema distributor and supporter We Are Parable has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Cannes Competition title Banel And Adama from Brussels-based sales agent Best Friend Forever.
It is planning a 2024 theatrical release for the film that will have its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival this evening.
Set in remote northern Senegal, Banel And Adama is a romance following two lovers in their quest to carve a life for themselves beyond the expectations of others. Sy became only the second...
- 10/9/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Film programming, like history, doesn’t repeat itself but does rhyme. This is proven by the fact that two highly complementary, equally excellent films about immigration, Me Captain (Io Capitano) and Green Border, both landed in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Agnieszka Holland’s meticulous Green Border offers a polyphonic examination of the plight of refugees trying to enter the EU through Belarus, but also encompasses the views of local Poles to create a panoramic, intellectually rigorous view of the situation. Italian director Matteo Garrone’s emotionally searing but ultimately uplifting epic, on the other hand, confines itself to the experience of Seydou, a 16-year-old boy from Senegal.
Indelibly played by non-professional Seydou Sarr, offering a remarkably mature performance, he makes his way with his cousin (Moustapha Fall) from their home in West Africa across thousands of miles on a quest to reach Europe. Taking viewers with...
Agnieszka Holland’s meticulous Green Border offers a polyphonic examination of the plight of refugees trying to enter the EU through Belarus, but also encompasses the views of local Poles to create a panoramic, intellectually rigorous view of the situation. Italian director Matteo Garrone’s emotionally searing but ultimately uplifting epic, on the other hand, confines itself to the experience of Seydou, a 16-year-old boy from Senegal.
Indelibly played by non-professional Seydou Sarr, offering a remarkably mature performance, he makes his way with his cousin (Moustapha Fall) from their home in West Africa across thousands of miles on a quest to reach Europe. Taking viewers with...
- 9/7/2023
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Though it’s become a convenient catch-all term for journalists covering the subject, the phrase “European migrant crisis” can’t help but leave a sour taste in the mouth — implying as it does that Europe, the destination for so many hard-up voyagers from variously ailing or hostile countries, is the disadvantaged party in all this. That bias carries through to the bulk of well-intended films on the matter, which tend to pick up migrants’ stories, however sympathetically, on European turf. Breaking from such Italian titles as Jonas Carpignano’s “Mediterranea,” Emmanuele Crialese’s “Terraferma” and Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea,” Matteo Garrone’s stirring “Io Capitano” instead takes Europe not as its setting but as a near-mythic objective, tracing one Senegalese teen’s vast journey from Dakar to Tripoli to overloaded migrant boat in gripping, sometimes agonizing detail.
For Garrone, this proves an energizing shift in focus, yielding his most robust,...
For Garrone, this proves an energizing shift in focus, yielding his most robust,...
- 9/6/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
An edgy new voice within the world of French genre, Adrien Beau worked as a designer and scenographer for the likes of Dior, John Galliano and Agnes B before making his feature debut with the offbeat vampire movie “Vourdalak.”
Produced by Judith-Lou Levy at Les Films du Bal, “Vourdalak” will world premiere at Venice Critics’ Week and will likely be one of its boldest entries. At a time when horror has become a mainstream genre overloaded with special effects, “Vourdalak” couldn’t be more radical. Lensed in Super 16, the film’s central character is a vampire patriarch named Gorcha, played by a marionette that Beau operates and lends his voice to.
In an interview with Variety ahead of the festival, Beau says he got the idea for the film after he and Levy came across “La Famille du Vourdalak,” a strange vampire novella penned by Alexeï Konstantinovitch Tolstoï, published in...
Produced by Judith-Lou Levy at Les Films du Bal, “Vourdalak” will world premiere at Venice Critics’ Week and will likely be one of its boldest entries. At a time when horror has become a mainstream genre overloaded with special effects, “Vourdalak” couldn’t be more radical. Lensed in Super 16, the film’s central character is a vampire patriarch named Gorcha, played by a marionette that Beau operates and lends his voice to.
In an interview with Variety ahead of the festival, Beau says he got the idea for the film after he and Levy came across “La Famille du Vourdalak,” a strange vampire novella penned by Alexeï Konstantinovitch Tolstoï, published in...
- 7/28/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
A record number of African films are premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — including two titles in the main competition and four more in Un Certain Regard — promising a robust turnout on the Croisette from a continent that doesn’t often find itself being feted on world cinema’s grandest stage.
Perhaps a more noticeable shift, however, has been taking place in and around the Palais des Festivals, where participants at the Cannes Market are opening their arms — and their checkbooks — to an industry just beginning to realize its potential.
Witness the delegation of international film financiers, including Creative Wealth Media’s Jason Cloth and Convergent Media Capital’s Michael Cleaver, gathered on a recent, rainy morning to talk shop at a full house at the Pavillon Afriques. Or check the scene at the Palais des Festivals nearby, where three representatives of the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank...
Perhaps a more noticeable shift, however, has been taking place in and around the Palais des Festivals, where participants at the Cannes Market are opening their arms — and their checkbooks — to an industry just beginning to realize its potential.
Witness the delegation of international film financiers, including Creative Wealth Media’s Jason Cloth and Convergent Media Capital’s Michael Cleaver, gathered on a recent, rainy morning to talk shop at a full house at the Pavillon Afriques. Or check the scene at the Palais des Festivals nearby, where three representatives of the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank...
- 5/21/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
“You cannot go against your destiny,” 18-year-old Banel is warned in Banel & Adama (Banel e Adama), a visually striking and deceptively heavy debut from French-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy, only the second Black woman to make it into the Cannes Competition since Mati Diop’s Atlantics in 2019. At first sight, Sy’s film seems a bit of an outlier in a lineup sprinkled with veterans, and the extra scrutiny that comes with a Competition slot may well work against it. But it’s entirely possible that it might strike a chord with the jury, notably Rungano Nyoni, whose debut I Am Not a Witch took a similarly subversive and sophisticated approach to themes of African tradition and folklore.
Banel, played by the revelatory Khady Mane, is a romantic, and when we meet her she is hopelessly in love with Adama (Mamadou Diallo), her childhood sweetheart. Banel was once promised to another man,...
Banel, played by the revelatory Khady Mane, is a romantic, and when we meet her she is hopelessly in love with Adama (Mamadou Diallo), her childhood sweetheart. Banel was once promised to another man,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the rarest sightings at the Cannes Film Festival is the first-time filmmaker whose debut feature has been admitted to the exclusive Main Competition lineup. That section is normally the domain of veteran directors who’ve been to Cannes before, but a Senegalese-French director named Ramata-Toulaye Sy has joined the 2023 ranks with “Banel & Adama,” her first feature after one short and a couple of writing credits.
Hers is the first debut film to land in the Main Competition since Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables” did so four years ago; the former film made the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category and the latter was nominated for that award. In the past decade, the only other first films to crash the competition were Abu Bakr Shawky’s “Yomeddine” in 2018 and Laszlo Nemes’ Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” in 2015.
So Sy is in rarefied company,...
Hers is the first debut film to land in the Main Competition since Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables” did so four years ago; the former film made the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category and the latter was nominated for that award. In the past decade, the only other first films to crash the competition were Abu Bakr Shawky’s “Yomeddine” in 2018 and Laszlo Nemes’ Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” in 2015.
So Sy is in rarefied company,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Cannes Hidden Gem: Patriarchal Oppression Meets Supernatural Horror in Pakistani Feature ‘In Flames’
When Zarrar Kahn moved back to Pakistan, the culture shock was immediate. Kahn was born in Karachi but spent his childhood and early school years in Mississauga, outside Toronto. He returned with his family to Pakistan when he was 13.
“It’s a really impressionable age and while my life, as a young man, wasn’t significantly changed, there was a huge disparity in the lives of the women I knew,” he says. “Their lived reality, navigating in public, was that they were always being watched by men. There’s a sinister sense of being patrolled. The use of gender, as a tool of discrimination, was very apparent.”
For In Flames, his debut feature, which will premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar and is being sold worldwide by XYZ Films, Kahn translates that sinister sense of being watched into the language of supernatural horror. Taking inspiration from “those amazing French female...
“It’s a really impressionable age and while my life, as a young man, wasn’t significantly changed, there was a huge disparity in the lives of the women I knew,” he says. “Their lived reality, navigating in public, was that they were always being watched by men. There’s a sinister sense of being patrolled. The use of gender, as a tool of discrimination, was very apparent.”
For In Flames, his debut feature, which will premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar and is being sold worldwide by XYZ Films, Kahn translates that sinister sense of being watched into the language of supernatural horror. Taking inspiration from “those amazing French female...
- 5/18/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sales banner Best Friend Forever has unveiled the teaser for Ramata Toulaye-Sy’s buzzed-about Senegalese drama “Banel & Adama,” which is the sole feature debut slated for the competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
- 5/11/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Norwegian animation “Pesta,” directed by Hanne Berkaak, will head to the Frontières Platform in May. Directed at genre film professionals, the event is organized by the Fantasia International Film Festival with the Cannes’ Marché du Film.
The film, set in 1349 during the outbreak of the Black Plague, will see two teenagers, Astrid and Eilev, fighting for their forbidden love among the apocalypse as Astrid, a nobleman’s daughter, struggles with her growing desire for “the outcast heathen.”
Granted development funding from the Norwegian Film Institute, “Pesta” is produced by Mikrofilm’s Tonje Skar Reiersen and Lise Fearnley. It’s also named after a shadowy figure from Norwegian folklore, a personification of the plague itself.
“She was depicted as an old woman travelling from farm to farm, carrying a rake and a broom. Where she used her rake, some would survive. Where she swept her broom, everyone would die. Dark stuff,...
The film, set in 1349 during the outbreak of the Black Plague, will see two teenagers, Astrid and Eilev, fighting for their forbidden love among the apocalypse as Astrid, a nobleman’s daughter, struggles with her growing desire for “the outcast heathen.”
Granted development funding from the Norwegian Film Institute, “Pesta” is produced by Mikrofilm’s Tonje Skar Reiersen and Lise Fearnley. It’s also named after a shadowy figure from Norwegian folklore, a personification of the plague itself.
“She was depicted as an old woman travelling from farm to farm, carrying a rake and a broom. Where she used her rake, some would survive. Where she swept her broom, everyone would die. Dark stuff,...
- 4/5/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Just one year after Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”) became the second woman to win the Directors Guild of America’s First-Time Film Director award, Charlotte Wells (“Aftersun”) is set to follow her as the category’s third female champ. The 35-year-old Scottish filmmaker, who helmed three narrative shorts between 2015 and 2017, has already been heavily feted for her feature directing (and writing) debut with accolades such as the Cannes French Touch Prize and the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director. Now, the fact that a whopping 96 of Gold Derby’s 2023 DGA Awards predictions odds-makers have her as their top choice in the rookie race should translate to a decisive win.
This category’s current lineup is the only one in its eight-year history to include just one male nominee. Last year’s unprecedented field of six consisted of two men and four women, including Gyllenhaal. Our odds show Wells far outpacing female contenders Alice Diop,...
This category’s current lineup is the only one in its eight-year history to include just one male nominee. Last year’s unprecedented field of six consisted of two men and four women, including Gyllenhaal. Our odds show Wells far outpacing female contenders Alice Diop,...
- 1/27/2023
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
Portugal’s colonial past in Africa continues to haunt some of the country’s most vital and subversive filmmakers. With his remarkable second feature “Tommy Guns,” Angolan-Portuguese director Carlos Conceição’s steps into the same precarious territory sometimes occupied by Pedro Costa and Miguel Gomes — borrowing, perhaps, a measure of the former’s visceral austerity and the latter’s shape-shifting playfulness, but mostly proving his own sly, supple talent. Formally and structurally audacious in ways that build in power and meaning as the film unfolds, this study of a Portuguese military squad gradually unraveling in a remote, bloodied wilderness begins with a clear sense of time, place and space, before collapsing those certainties in a horror-tinged nightmare that nods to the sprawling impact of colonialism across eras.
That brush of genre influence — comparable, in its subtle, dimension-twisting fluidity, to Mati Diop’s recent “Atlantics” — ought to heighten interest around “Tommy Guns...
That brush of genre influence — comparable, in its subtle, dimension-twisting fluidity, to Mati Diop’s recent “Atlantics” — ought to heighten interest around “Tommy Guns...
- 8/9/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Jean Dujardin, best known for his roles in light-hearted films such as the Oscar-winning “The Artist,” plays the fierce boss of a highly-secretive police brigade that tracked down the assailants of the 2015 Paris attacks in Cedric Jimenez’s “November.”
Written by Olivier Demangel (“Atlantics”), the fast-paced and tense thriller world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is being represented in international markets by Studiocanal. Jimenez, who was at Cannes last year with another action-packed police thriller, “The Stronghold,” sat alongside Dujardin with Variety during the festival to discuss the genesis of “November,” how the ensemble cast — including Dujardin, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anais Demoustier and a flurry of fresh faces — worked together, and what it meant for them to tackle this recent tragedy.
“November” is one of the few recent movies alluding to, or set against the backdrop of the Paris terror attacks of 2015, for instance Alice Winocour’s “Paris Memories...
Written by Olivier Demangel (“Atlantics”), the fast-paced and tense thriller world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is being represented in international markets by Studiocanal. Jimenez, who was at Cannes last year with another action-packed police thriller, “The Stronghold,” sat alongside Dujardin with Variety during the festival to discuss the genesis of “November,” how the ensemble cast — including Dujardin, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anais Demoustier and a flurry of fresh faces — worked together, and what it meant for them to tackle this recent tragedy.
“November” is one of the few recent movies alluding to, or set against the backdrop of the Paris terror attacks of 2015, for instance Alice Winocour’s “Paris Memories...
- 5/27/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
“They don’t see you, they don’t hear you” said one panellist.
The Cannes Film Festival was criticised for not being inclusive enough during a diversity panel session at the UK Pavilion yesterday (22 May).
Yolonda Brinkley, the founder and executive director of Diversity In Cannes, an initiative to promote inclusion in Cannes, called out the festival for only programming one film from a Black female director in competition in the event’s 75-year history, the French-Senegalese director Mati Diop’s 2019 title Atlantics.
Brinkley formed Diversity In Cannes after she attended the festival for the first time in 2009, and found...
The Cannes Film Festival was criticised for not being inclusive enough during a diversity panel session at the UK Pavilion yesterday (22 May).
Yolonda Brinkley, the founder and executive director of Diversity In Cannes, an initiative to promote inclusion in Cannes, called out the festival for only programming one film from a Black female director in competition in the event’s 75-year history, the French-Senegalese director Mati Diop’s 2019 title Atlantics.
Brinkley formed Diversity In Cannes after she attended the festival for the first time in 2009, and found...
- 5/23/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Gaumont has locked major territory deals on “Father & Soldier,” Mathieu Vadepied’s WWI action-drama about headlined by “Lupin” star Omar Sy. The movie world premiered on opening night of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.
“Father & Soldier” has sold to Latin America (Synapse Distribution/Leda Films), Germany and Austria (Weltkino), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (A Contracorriente), Italy (Minerva), Benelux (Athena), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Former Yugoslavia (Cinemania Group), Indonesia (Falcon) and French-speaking Africa (Pathe BC Africa).
Exploring Africa’s forgotten war heroes, the film opens during in 1917, in the French colony of Senegal. Sy stars as Bakary, a father who enlists in the army to stick by Thierno, his 17-year-old son, who was recruited against his will. Together, father and son must fight in the trenches in France.
Vadepied made his directorial debut with 2015’s “Learn by Heart,” which world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week. Vadepied also worked as the artistic...
“Father & Soldier” has sold to Latin America (Synapse Distribution/Leda Films), Germany and Austria (Weltkino), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (A Contracorriente), Italy (Minerva), Benelux (Athena), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Former Yugoslavia (Cinemania Group), Indonesia (Falcon) and French-speaking Africa (Pathe BC Africa).
Exploring Africa’s forgotten war heroes, the film opens during in 1917, in the French colony of Senegal. Sy stars as Bakary, a father who enlists in the army to stick by Thierno, his 17-year-old son, who was recruited against his will. Together, father and son must fight in the trenches in France.
Vadepied made his directorial debut with 2015’s “Learn by Heart,” which world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week. Vadepied also worked as the artistic...
- 5/21/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Les Films du Losange has unveiled the trailer for Lola Quivoron’s daring feature debut “Rodeo” ahead of its world premiere in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.
Produced by Charles Gillibert (“Annette”) at CG Cinema, “Rodeo” follows a hot tempered and fiercely independent young woman who infiltrates an underground dirt bike community in France.
Julie Ledru makes her acting debut in the film as Julia, a small-time thug who has a passion for motorcycles and the high-octane world of urban ‘Rodeos’ – illicit gatherings where riders show off their bikes and their latest daring stunts. After a chance meeting at a Rodeo, Julia finds herself drawn into a clandestine and volatile clique and, striving to prove herself to the ultra-masculine group, she is faced with a series of escalating demands that will make or break her place in the community.
“Rodeo” is packed with action scenes spearheaded by Mathieu Lardot,...
Produced by Charles Gillibert (“Annette”) at CG Cinema, “Rodeo” follows a hot tempered and fiercely independent young woman who infiltrates an underground dirt bike community in France.
Julie Ledru makes her acting debut in the film as Julia, a small-time thug who has a passion for motorcycles and the high-octane world of urban ‘Rodeos’ – illicit gatherings where riders show off their bikes and their latest daring stunts. After a chance meeting at a Rodeo, Julia finds herself drawn into a clandestine and volatile clique and, striving to prove herself to the ultra-masculine group, she is faced with a series of escalating demands that will make or break her place in the community.
“Rodeo” is packed with action scenes spearheaded by Mathieu Lardot,...
- 5/9/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
This year’s crop of filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival does not represent a new benchmark in terms of gender diversity.
Since becoming the first international festival to sign a gender parity pledge in 2018, Cannes has failed to make substantial progress in ramping up the representation of female directors in competition, which remains dominated by male directors.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux told Variety last week that he was aiming to “hopefully” have a “stronger presence of female directors” in 2022. But so far, it’s not looking like he’s achieved that goal.
At this point, there are only three films by female directors in competition out of 18 titles. The proportion is on par with last year when four of the 21 titles were from female filmmakers. That matched a previous high of four female moviemakers from the 2019 edition.
This year’s competition boasts a handful of well-established veteran directors such as Kelly Reichardt,...
Since becoming the first international festival to sign a gender parity pledge in 2018, Cannes has failed to make substantial progress in ramping up the representation of female directors in competition, which remains dominated by male directors.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux told Variety last week that he was aiming to “hopefully” have a “stronger presence of female directors” in 2022. But so far, it’s not looking like he’s achieved that goal.
At this point, there are only three films by female directors in competition out of 18 titles. The proportion is on par with last year when four of the 21 titles were from female filmmakers. That matched a previous high of four female moviemakers from the 2019 edition.
This year’s competition boasts a handful of well-established veteran directors such as Kelly Reichardt,...
- 4/14/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Nearly three decades after making her film acting debut at age 14, Maggie Gyllenhaal has now added her first feature writing and directing credits to her resume. Since its Venice International Film Festival premiere last September, her “The Lost Daughter” has won her numerous accolades, from the festival’s Golden Osella to the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Gyllenhaal is also nominated for the Directors Guild of America’s First-Time Film Director award. According to our DGA Awards odds, she is widely expected to prevail and thereby become only the second woman to receive the honor.
This particular glass ceiling was broken by Alma Har’el, who took the 2020 prize for helming “Honey Boy.” Since the category’s establishment in 2015, 11 women and 25 men have vied for the award, making for a 1:2.3 ratio. The first female contender was inaugural nominee Marielle Heller. Aside from her and Har’el,...
This particular glass ceiling was broken by Alma Har’el, who took the 2020 prize for helming “Honey Boy.” Since the category’s establishment in 2015, 11 women and 25 men have vied for the award, making for a 1:2.3 ratio. The first female contender was inaugural nominee Marielle Heller. Aside from her and Har’el,...
- 3/10/2022
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
After a stampede of awards announcements that include Ace Eddies, Producers Guild and Writers Guild of America Awards, the prestigious Directors Guild of America Awards has finally weighed in with their own set of nominees that recognizes achievements in directing.
In the motion pictures category, the group nominated Kenneth Branagh for “Belfast” (Focus Features), Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), Paul Thomas Anderson for “Licorice Pizza” (MGM/United Artists Releasing), Steven Spielberg for “West Side Story” (20th Century Studios) and Denis Villeneuve for “Dune” (Warner Bros).
Notable snubs included Joel Coen (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”), Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Siân Heder (“Coda”), Guillermo del Toro (“Nightmare Alley”) and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).
Campion is the second woman ever to receive a second nod from the Directors Guild. Her first came nearly 20 years ago for “The Piano” (1993), for which she went on to become the second...
In the motion pictures category, the group nominated Kenneth Branagh for “Belfast” (Focus Features), Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), Paul Thomas Anderson for “Licorice Pizza” (MGM/United Artists Releasing), Steven Spielberg for “West Side Story” (20th Century Studios) and Denis Villeneuve for “Dune” (Warner Bros).
Notable snubs included Joel Coen (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”), Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Siân Heder (“Coda”), Guillermo del Toro (“Nightmare Alley”) and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).
Campion is the second woman ever to receive a second nod from the Directors Guild. Her first came nearly 20 years ago for “The Piano” (1993), for which she went on to become the second...
- 1/27/2022
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Hot French helmer Cedric Jimenez, whose latest hit movie “The Stronghold” is nominated for seven Cesar awards, is developing “Verde,” an epic adventure drama revolving around the kidnapping of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and her campaign manager Clara Rojas, who were held captive in the jungle for seven years.
Inspired by a true story like all of Jimenez’s films, “Verde” opens in 2002, when Betancourt — a high-profile French-Colombian senator who was running for president and had vowed to end political corruption — was brutally kidnapped with her campaign manager, Rojas, by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). The pair were held hostage by the rebel group in the hostile jungle for nearly a decade, along with many other victims of Colombia’s civil war.
Jimenez is writing the script for “Verde” with Olivier Demangel, the co-screenwriter of Mati Diop’s Cannes’ grand prize winner “Atlantics” and Jimenez’s upcoming movie “November,...
Inspired by a true story like all of Jimenez’s films, “Verde” opens in 2002, when Betancourt — a high-profile French-Colombian senator who was running for president and had vowed to end political corruption — was brutally kidnapped with her campaign manager, Rojas, by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). The pair were held hostage by the rebel group in the hostile jungle for nearly a decade, along with many other victims of Colombia’s civil war.
Jimenez is writing the script for “Verde” with Olivier Demangel, the co-screenwriter of Mati Diop’s Cannes’ grand prize winner “Atlantics” and Jimenez’s upcoming movie “November,...
- 1/27/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Ten years after Mark Cousins created The Story of Film: An Odyssey, his compelling 15-hour history of cinema, the filmmaker has graced us with a sequel, The Story of Film: A New Generation. At 2hrs and 40 minutes, it is a sweeping topography of 21st century cinema, referencing some 97 films from Britain and America to Senegal and India. An absorbing, informative and even therapeutic experience, I have to concur with our critic Jo-Ann Titmarsh when she says it is,“a true celebration of what cinema is and what it means to us”.
Ever the busy and nomadic filmmaker, Mark was kind enough to speak with me about his new film, his cinema-going habits, the defining films of the 2010s, and the future of the theatrical experience.
Jh: A New Generation covers an impressive breadth of international films. How many films do you watch per month and year? Are you a grazer or a binger?...
Ever the busy and nomadic filmmaker, Mark was kind enough to speak with me about his new film, his cinema-going habits, the defining films of the 2010s, and the future of the theatrical experience.
Jh: A New Generation covers an impressive breadth of international films. How many films do you watch per month and year? Are you a grazer or a binger?...
- 12/13/2021
- by Jack Hawkins
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Paris-based production banner Cinetévé is powering up several international-driven premium series across different genres, including the contemporary Afghanistan-set “Kabul,” procedural “Birdwatcher,” mystery thriller “L’ile prisonnière,” feminist dramedy “Split” and a French adaptation of “On the Spectrum.”
“Kabul,” co-developed by Cinétévé’s Thomas Saignes, Fabienne Servan Schreiber, Matthias Weber and Thibault Gast at 2425 Films, is a six-part thriller set between the Taliban’s sweep to power on Aug. 14 and the closure of borders two weeks later. The series is being penned by Olivier Demangel, whose credits include Cedric Jimenez’s upcoming movie “November,” Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Thomas Finkielkraut’s “Les guerriers.”
Saignes, who joined Cinetévé in late 2017 as a driving force behind the company’s push into international series, stated that “Kabul” will revolve around the refugee crisis that was prompted by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, describing how locals and expats embarked on a race against...
“Kabul,” co-developed by Cinétévé’s Thomas Saignes, Fabienne Servan Schreiber, Matthias Weber and Thibault Gast at 2425 Films, is a six-part thriller set between the Taliban’s sweep to power on Aug. 14 and the closure of borders two weeks later. The series is being penned by Olivier Demangel, whose credits include Cedric Jimenez’s upcoming movie “November,” Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Thomas Finkielkraut’s “Les guerriers.”
Saignes, who joined Cinetévé in late 2017 as a driving force behind the company’s push into international series, stated that “Kabul” will revolve around the refugee crisis that was prompted by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, describing how locals and expats embarked on a race against...
- 11/29/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
“Annette” producer Charles Gillibert is set to produce “Rodeo,” Lola Quivoron’s daring feature debut about a young woman who infiltrates an underground dirt bike community in France.
Quivoron previously directed the short film “Au Loin, Baltimore,” which played at Locarno in 2016 and, co-directed (with Antonia Buresi) “Headshot,” a documentary about today’s youth that aired on Franco-German network Arte.
“Rodeo” shot entirely on the outskirts of Bordeaux, France, and follows a young misfit and small-time thug, Julia, who is fiercely passionate about riding. One summer, she encounters a crew of dirt riders and sets off to infiltrates their male-dominated world, but an accident will compromise her ability to fit in. As its title suggests, “Rodeo” will be packed with action scenes spearheaded by Mathieu Lardot, a stunt expert who’s worked on “Jason Bourne,” “Spectre,” “Rogue City,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” among others.
Gillibert...
Quivoron previously directed the short film “Au Loin, Baltimore,” which played at Locarno in 2016 and, co-directed (with Antonia Buresi) “Headshot,” a documentary about today’s youth that aired on Franco-German network Arte.
“Rodeo” shot entirely on the outskirts of Bordeaux, France, and follows a young misfit and small-time thug, Julia, who is fiercely passionate about riding. One summer, she encounters a crew of dirt riders and sets off to infiltrates their male-dominated world, but an accident will compromise her ability to fit in. As its title suggests, “Rodeo” will be packed with action scenes spearheaded by Mathieu Lardot, a stunt expert who’s worked on “Jason Bourne,” “Spectre,” “Rogue City,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” among others.
Gillibert...
- 11/17/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
“Lupin” star Omar Sy is re-teaming with Gaumont on his big screen comeback with “Father & Soldier,” a politically minded WWI action-drama about family bonds and Africa’s forgotten war heroes.
Shooting now in France, the film is being helmed by Mathieu Vadepied, who made his directorial debut with “Learn by Heart,” which world premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week. Vadepied also worked as the artistic director and cinematographer on “Untouchable,” Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s 2010 comedy smash hit which marked Sy’s acting breakthrough and earned him a Cesar nod.
The story opens during the First World War, in 1917, in the French colony of Senegal. Sy stars as Bakary, a father who enlists in the army to stick by Thierno, his 17-year-old son, who was recruited against his will. Together, father and son must fight the First World War in the trenches in France. Thierno is ready to sacrifice his life to fight for France,...
Shooting now in France, the film is being helmed by Mathieu Vadepied, who made his directorial debut with “Learn by Heart,” which world premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week. Vadepied also worked as the artistic director and cinematographer on “Untouchable,” Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s 2010 comedy smash hit which marked Sy’s acting breakthrough and earned him a Cesar nod.
The story opens during the First World War, in 1917, in the French colony of Senegal. Sy stars as Bakary, a father who enlists in the army to stick by Thierno, his 17-year-old son, who was recruited against his will. Together, father and son must fight the First World War in the trenches in France. Thierno is ready to sacrifice his life to fight for France,...
- 10/26/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
“Authenticity” is the holy grail for a certain type of narrative filmmaking. Specifically, films that make a virtue of depicting poor people and the “issues” they face. Quite often, an improvisational, doc-style aesthetic helps cement the idea that we’re just peering in. Gaining a privileged insight into “real lives.” But it bears stating that such films are artificial constructs too.
With my debut feature, “Lorelei,” I wanted to try something different. I grew up in a low-income family — my dad works in construction and neither of my parents graduated high school — so this is personal for me. My interior life, my imaginary life, allowed me do things that weren’t expected for someone from my background: get into my dream college, win a scholarship to attend film school and, now, direct a feature film.
I don’t fetishize verisimilitude, nor consider it a byword for truth. Growing up, it was the opposite,...
With my debut feature, “Lorelei,” I wanted to try something different. I grew up in a low-income family — my dad works in construction and neither of my parents graduated high school — so this is personal for me. My interior life, my imaginary life, allowed me do things that weren’t expected for someone from my background: get into my dream college, win a scholarship to attend film school and, now, direct a feature film.
I don’t fetishize verisimilitude, nor consider it a byword for truth. Growing up, it was the opposite,...
- 7/30/2021
- by Sabrina Doyle
- Variety Film + TV
Now that the dust has settled on the Cannes Film Festival, Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos is setting the record straight with festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux, who commented early on in the event that streaming platforms don’t discover talent in the same way.
At a pre-festival press conference, Fremaux had praised Netflix productions like “Mank” and “The Irishman” and also lauded the work of Sarandos and Scott Stuber. However, he asked: “What directors have been discovered by [streaming] platforms?”
Speaking at a Film Companion Front Row session hosted by noted Indian journalist and former Variety contributor Anupama Chopra on Thursday, Sarandos emphasized the brotherhood and shared passion for cinema, stories and storytellers between him and Fremaux.
“The only thing that happened between Netflix and Cannes is they changed the rules,” said Sarandos. “And I just thought, I don’t want to bring our films if we are uniquely excluded from competition.
At a pre-festival press conference, Fremaux had praised Netflix productions like “Mank” and “The Irishman” and also lauded the work of Sarandos and Scott Stuber. However, he asked: “What directors have been discovered by [streaming] platforms?”
Speaking at a Film Companion Front Row session hosted by noted Indian journalist and former Variety contributor Anupama Chopra on Thursday, Sarandos emphasized the brotherhood and shared passion for cinema, stories and storytellers between him and Fremaux.
“The only thing that happened between Netflix and Cannes is they changed the rules,” said Sarandos. “And I just thought, I don’t want to bring our films if we are uniquely excluded from competition.
- 7/22/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
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