Lucrecia Martel, without a doubt, is one of the most celebrated auteurs of our times. In a career spanning over two decades, she has successfully made a mark as a unique voice in the world of contemporary cinema, even though she has made only 4 feature-length films to date. Her 2001 debut La Ciénaga was enough to put her on the world map as someone who not only has great mastery over the craft but also as someone who can effortlessly forge a distinct cinematic world of her own. Her subsequent ventures The Holy Girl (2004) and The Headless Woman (2008) have only strengthened her place as an auteur. The layers at which a Lucrecia Martel film works are multiple and complex; hence, viewing or even trying to analyze her films through a single prism is futile. But one recurring and prominent aspect of her films is how she explores sexual tension between her...
- 12/14/2023
- by Adhiraj Kashyap
- Talking Films
John Tilley, a longtime distribution exec and advocate for independent film at companies including United Artists Classics, Cinevista and Strand, who was instrumental in introducing the films of Pedro Almodovar to U.S. audiences, died Sunday in New York City. He was 75.
“John was always a consummate encyclopedia of knowledge of the industry, and his pool of friends and colleagues from around the globe always created a sense of family in Cannes, Berlin and more. His work at Strand Releasing was invaluable,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand Releasing.
Filmmaker Ira Sachs said, “John was one of the first people I met in the film business, and he remained one of the kindest. He was open, curious, passionate, opinionated, and wise, and he knew the history of American and queer independent cinema like few others. His loss represents the passing of a generation of pioneers that created the community and industry that we know today.
“John was always a consummate encyclopedia of knowledge of the industry, and his pool of friends and colleagues from around the globe always created a sense of family in Cannes, Berlin and more. His work at Strand Releasing was invaluable,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand Releasing.
Filmmaker Ira Sachs said, “John was one of the first people I met in the film business, and he remained one of the kindest. He was open, curious, passionate, opinionated, and wise, and he knew the history of American and queer independent cinema like few others. His loss represents the passing of a generation of pioneers that created the community and industry that we know today.
- 10/11/2023
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Roxy Cinema
The Headless Woman and Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise screen on Friday; prints of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, I’m Still Here, Cool Runnings: The Reggae Movie, Girl 6, and Dick Tracy play.
Anthology Film Archives
“Shopping Worlds” is a cinematic exploration of malls, offering the likes of Jackie Brown, Nocturama, and Akerman’s Golden Eighties; works by Michael Snow and von Stroheim play in Essential Cinema.
Museum of Modern Art
“Views from the Vault” closes with films by Sofia Coppola, Jia Zhangke, and more.
Museum of the Moving Image
Malcolm X, Nope, Inception, and 2001 play on 70mm in a new series; Barbershop screens on Saturday.
Film Forum
Contempt and Thelma & Louise continue screening, while the Tarantino-presented Winter Kills play on 35mm.
Bam
A restoration of the recently rediscovered Tokyo Pop continues.
IFC Center
Sucker Punch, Brüno,...
Roxy Cinema
The Headless Woman and Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise screen on Friday; prints of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, I’m Still Here, Cool Runnings: The Reggae Movie, Girl 6, and Dick Tracy play.
Anthology Film Archives
“Shopping Worlds” is a cinematic exploration of malls, offering the likes of Jackie Brown, Nocturama, and Akerman’s Golden Eighties; works by Michael Snow and von Stroheim play in Essential Cinema.
Museum of Modern Art
“Views from the Vault” closes with films by Sofia Coppola, Jia Zhangke, and more.
Museum of the Moving Image
Malcolm X, Nope, Inception, and 2001 play on 70mm in a new series; Barbershop screens on Saturday.
Film Forum
Contempt and Thelma & Louise continue screening, while the Tarantino-presented Winter Kills play on 35mm.
Bam
A restoration of the recently rediscovered Tokyo Pop continues.
IFC Center
Sucker Punch, Brüno,...
- 8/11/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The Argentinian filmmaker has been working on her docu-drama ‘Chocobar’ for 12 years.
Argentinian writer-director Lucrecia Martel was candid about her long-in-gestation documentary Chocobar during a masterclass at the Visions du Reel festival in Nyon in Switzerland where she was being honoured for her life’s work - thus far
The work-in-progress was provoked by the 2009 murder, part-captured on YouTube, of Indigenous activist Javier Chocobar in Tucuman in northern Argentina, while trying to stop evictions from his ancestral land. “We’ve been working on it for 12 years,” she acknowledged. “It is very strongly based on facts, although it’s hard to...
Argentinian writer-director Lucrecia Martel was candid about her long-in-gestation documentary Chocobar during a masterclass at the Visions du Reel festival in Nyon in Switzerland where she was being honoured for her life’s work - thus far
The work-in-progress was provoked by the 2009 murder, part-captured on YouTube, of Indigenous activist Javier Chocobar in Tucuman in northern Argentina, while trying to stop evictions from his ancestral land. “We’ve been working on it for 12 years,” she acknowledged. “It is very strongly based on facts, although it’s hard to...
- 4/27/2023
- by Fionnuala Halligan
- ScreenDaily
Lucrecia Martel, whose films include “La Ciénaga,” “The Holy Girl” and “The Headless Woman,” has been celebrated as guest of honor at the 54th edition of international documentary film festival Visions du Réel, where organizers had to switch to a larger venue to accommodate the large, enthusiastic audience attending her masterclass.
During the three-hour event on Tuesday, the acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker and leading figure of the New Argentine Cinema delved into her body of work and spoke about her upcoming hybrid project, “Chocobar,” her first foray into feature-length non-fiction.
“I am learning as I’m doing, that’s why it’s taking so long,” she quipped, with characteristic self-deprecation. “I am currently on version four of the edit,” she explained of her doc, which focuses on the real-life murder of indigenous leader Javier Chocobar. The film explores the subject of land ownership and indigenous struggles in Latin America, asking what...
During the three-hour event on Tuesday, the acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker and leading figure of the New Argentine Cinema delved into her body of work and spoke about her upcoming hybrid project, “Chocobar,” her first foray into feature-length non-fiction.
“I am learning as I’m doing, that’s why it’s taking so long,” she quipped, with characteristic self-deprecation. “I am currently on version four of the edit,” she explained of her doc, which focuses on the real-life murder of indigenous leader Javier Chocobar. The film explores the subject of land ownership and indigenous struggles in Latin America, asking what...
- 4/27/2023
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
After last month kicked off with Sight and Sound unveiling of their once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll, detailing the 100 films that made the cut that were led by Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, they’ve now unveiled the full critics’ top 250. While the discourse up until now has featured many wondering why certain directors were totally absent and why other films that previously made the top 100 were left out, more clarity has arrived with this update.
Check out some highlights we clocked below, the full list here, and return on March 2 when all ballots and comments will be unveiled.
The films closest to making the top 100 were Rio Bravo, The House Is Black, and Vagabond, which tied for #103. Four directors absent in the top 100––Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Jacques Demy––have two films each in the top 250: The Tree of Life...
Check out some highlights we clocked below, the full list here, and return on March 2 when all ballots and comments will be unveiled.
The films closest to making the top 100 were Rio Bravo, The House Is Black, and Vagabond, which tied for #103. Four directors absent in the top 100––Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Jacques Demy––have two films each in the top 250: The Tree of Life...
- 1/31/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
"If we leave, our land will be left alone in silence." Kino Lorber has revealed the official US trailer for a Bolivian drama titled Utama, which originally premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It earned some rave reviews from critics and went on to play at the Göteborg, Seattle, Sydney, Taipei, and Transilvania Film Festivals. In the Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living the same daily life for years. During an uncommonly long drought, Virginio and his wife (Sisa) face a dilemma: resist or be defeated by the environment & time itself. This visually jaw-dropping debut by photographer Alejandro Loayza Grisi is lensed by award-winning cinematographer Barbara Alvarez (also of Lucretia Martel’s The Headless Woman) and won the Grand Jury Prize (in World Cinema Dramatic) at Sundance. Featuring local actors in all the roles. Utama is a bit of a slow burn thriller, very...
- 9/16/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Carolina Markowicz’s dark satire “Charcoal,” which world premieres on Sept. 11 at Toronto Film Festival, has debuted its teaser trailer with Variety (below). World sales are being handled by Urban Sales.
The film, which plays in the festival’s Platform section, centers on a poor family living in a remote area in Brazil, who earn a pittance from their charcoal business. When a shady nurse asks them to host a mysterious foreigner they accept. The home soon becomes a hideout as the so-called guest happens to be a highly wanted drug lord. The mother, her husband and child will have to learn how to share the same roof with this stranger, while keeping up appearances of an unchanged peasant routine.
Diana Cadavid at Toronto Film Festival commented: “For her unsettlingly precise feature-film debut, writer-director Carolina Markowicz blends biting social commentary on the pervasive forces that prey on the least fortunate...
The film, which plays in the festival’s Platform section, centers on a poor family living in a remote area in Brazil, who earn a pittance from their charcoal business. When a shady nurse asks them to host a mysterious foreigner they accept. The home soon becomes a hideout as the so-called guest happens to be a highly wanted drug lord. The mother, her husband and child will have to learn how to share the same roof with this stranger, while keeping up appearances of an unchanged peasant routine.
Diana Cadavid at Toronto Film Festival commented: “For her unsettlingly precise feature-film debut, writer-director Carolina Markowicz blends biting social commentary on the pervasive forces that prey on the least fortunate...
- 8/31/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Rushes: Bruno Dumont's "The Empire," John Carpenter Interviewed, Hito Steyerl x Film Comment Podcast
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSHaunted Hotel.The British Film Institute has begun unveiling the program for the London Film Festival, which runs from October 5-16. So far, they have announced the official competition, featuring films from Alice Diop, Mark Jenkin, and Hlynur Pálmason, and the VR- and Ar-oriented "Extended Realities" strand, including a new work from Guy Maddin, Haunted Hotel.Production has begun on Bruno Dumont's The Empire. Cineuropa reports that the science-fiction film depicts the "epic parallel life of knights from interplanetary kingdoms"; the cast includes Lyna Khoudri (César-winner for Papicha) and the gendarmerie duo from Li'l Quinquin, Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore.The international film critics association Fipresci have chosen the winner of their 2022 Grand Prix for Film of the Year: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car.Recommended VIEWINGAndrew Mau and Alan Mak's seminal...
- 8/30/2022
- MUBI
When one is asked to picture those who are most impacted by global warming, the imagination flashes to Inuits on a melting ice floe or Maldives natives threatened by rising tides, not Bolivian shepherds who graze their livestock on the Altiplano, nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. But the residents of these remote highlands are also endangered, as director Alejandro Loayza Grisi reveals in his sublime, quietly elegiac feature debut, “Utama,” focusing on an elderly couple who refuse to relocate to the nearby city of La Paz, even as mountain glaciers melt, rains become less reliable and their herd of llamas slowly succumb to dehydration.
Played by actual couple José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, long-married Virginio and Sisa share a small mud house without electricity or running water. Fetching water has always been a chore for Sisa — that’s her responsibility, Virginio sternly reminds her, whereas he handles the animals — but lately,...
Played by actual couple José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, long-married Virginio and Sisa share a small mud house without electricity or running water. Fetching water has always been a chore for Sisa — that’s her responsibility, Virginio sternly reminds her, whereas he handles the animals — but lately,...
- 1/28/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Utama (Our Home) is precisely the sort of discovery that justifies film festivals and makes them useful: a small, hitherto unheard-of work from an out-of-the-way country that grabs you from the opening minutes and afterwards makes you want to tell your friends they’ve got a real treat to look forward to. A rare Bolivian entry in a major festival, this Sundance World Dramatic Competition title and feature debut by Alejandro Loayza Grisi is gorgeously made and brings to life a backwater existence in a distant land with skill and assurance.
“Backwater” should actually be “no water,” as such is the case in a Bolivian high desert more than two miles above sea level where even the wells have gone dry. Young people are nowhere to be seen and the aged couple we meet, weather-beaten Virginio and Sisa, live in a small cabin, speak in a version of the ancient Incan Quechua language,...
“Backwater” should actually be “no water,” as such is the case in a Bolivian high desert more than two miles above sea level where even the wells have gone dry. Young people are nowhere to be seen and the aged couple we meet, weather-beaten Virginio and Sisa, live in a small cabin, speak in a version of the ancient Incan Quechua language,...
- 1/27/2022
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
If 2021 has been a calvacade of bad decisions, dashed hopes, and warning signs for cinema’s strength, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming has at least buttressed our hopes for something like a better tomorrow. Anyway. The Channel will let us ride out distended (holi)days in the family home with an extensive Alfred Hitchcock series to bring the family together—from the established Rear Window and Vertigo to the (let’s just guess) lesser-seen Downhill and Young and Innocent—Johnnie To’s Throw Down and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons in their Criterion editions, and some streaming premieres: Ste. Anne, Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over, and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.
Special notice to Yvonne Rainer’s brain-expanding Film About a Woman Who . . .—debuting in “Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers,” a series that does as it says on the tin—and a Joseph Cotten retro boasting Ambersons,...
Special notice to Yvonne Rainer’s brain-expanding Film About a Woman Who . . .—debuting in “Female Gaze: Women Directors + Women Cinematographers,” a series that does as it says on the tin—and a Joseph Cotten retro boasting Ambersons,...
- 11/21/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
“Memoria” begins with the first jump scare in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s career, but the sudden impact isn’t as relevant as the way it resonates in the silence that follows. Anyone familiar with the slow-burn lyricism at the center of the Thai director’s work knows how he adheres to a dreamlike logic that takes its time to settle in. The Colombia-set “Memoria,” his first movie made outside his native country, does that as well as anything in “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” or “Cemetery of Splendor.” But this time around, there’s a profound existential anxiety creeping in.
With Tilda Swinton’s puzzled gaze as its guide, “Memoria” amounts to a haunting, introspective look at one woman’s attempts to uncover the roots of a mysterious sound that only she can hear. More than that, it’s a masterful and engrossing response to rush of modern...
With Tilda Swinton’s puzzled gaze as its guide, “Memoria” amounts to a haunting, introspective look at one woman’s attempts to uncover the roots of a mysterious sound that only she can hear. More than that, it’s a masterful and engrossing response to rush of modern...
- 7/15/2021
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Condor Entertainment acquires French rights
Paris-based Alpha Violet has picked up worldwide sales rights excluding Bolivia and Uruguay to Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s anticipated Utama and will show footage at the virtual Cannes market next month.
The sales agent has licensed French rights on the Bolivia/Uruguay drama to Condor Distribution, whose slate includes Quo Vadis, Aida?, and First Cow. Buyers have been tracking the Alma Films production since it won three key awards at Films In Progress 39 in Toulouse earlier this year.
Currently in post, Utama is expected to land prestige festival slots this year and is set against...
Paris-based Alpha Violet has picked up worldwide sales rights excluding Bolivia and Uruguay to Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s anticipated Utama and will show footage at the virtual Cannes market next month.
The sales agent has licensed French rights on the Bolivia/Uruguay drama to Condor Distribution, whose slate includes Quo Vadis, Aida?, and First Cow. Buyers have been tracking the Alma Films production since it won three key awards at Films In Progress 39 in Toulouse earlier this year.
Currently in post, Utama is expected to land prestige festival slots this year and is set against...
- 5/19/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Welcome back to Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, I invite a guest to discuss an arthouse, foreign, or experimental film of their choice.
For the twelfth episode, I talked to prolific Chicago critic Ben Sachs, an associate editor at Cine-File, about Martín Rejtman’s 2014 Argentine comedy Two Shots Fired (available along with the rest of Rejman’s fiction work on Mubi). A wryly absurd, deceptively simple portrait of weathering middle class discontentment, Rejtman’s film traces the undulations of a family and their friends/acquaintances after a 16-year-old boy attempts suicide. He presents that event as little more than a darkly comedic non-sequitur, a corollary into a series of vignettes about disconnection and spiritual fatigue.
His sparely evocative sensibility can occasionally recall filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki, but it’s more productive to contextualize him with his regional contemporaries and descendants.
For the twelfth episode, I talked to prolific Chicago critic Ben Sachs, an associate editor at Cine-File, about Martín Rejtman’s 2014 Argentine comedy Two Shots Fired (available along with the rest of Rejman’s fiction work on Mubi). A wryly absurd, deceptively simple portrait of weathering middle class discontentment, Rejtman’s film traces the undulations of a family and their friends/acquaintances after a 16-year-old boy attempts suicide. He presents that event as little more than a darkly comedic non-sequitur, a corollary into a series of vignettes about disconnection and spiritual fatigue.
His sparely evocative sensibility can occasionally recall filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki, but it’s more productive to contextualize him with his regional contemporaries and descendants.
- 4/22/2021
- by Michael Snydel
- The Film Stage
Brooklyn-based distributor KimStim has acquired North American rights to Brazilian director Maya Da-Rin’s feature debut “The Fever” (“A Febre”), which world premiered in competition at Locarno and played at Toronto in 2019.
The film is represented in international markets by Pierre Menahem’s French sales banner Still Moving, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the producers with KimStim’s Mika Kimoto. “The Fever” will have its New York premiere at New Directors/New Films in December.
“The Fever” follows Justino, a 45-year-old member of the indigenous Desana people, who is a security guard at the Manaus harbor. As his daughter prepares to study medicine in Brasilia, Justino comes down with a mysterious fever. The movie’s key crew includes the veteran cinematographer Barbara Alvarez.
“The Fever” is set to open in theaters in 2021 in France where it will be distributed by Survivance, and in the U.K. with New Wave Films handling,...
The film is represented in international markets by Pierre Menahem’s French sales banner Still Moving, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the producers with KimStim’s Mika Kimoto. “The Fever” will have its New York premiere at New Directors/New Films in December.
“The Fever” follows Justino, a 45-year-old member of the indigenous Desana people, who is a security guard at the Manaus harbor. As his daughter prepares to study medicine in Brasilia, Justino comes down with a mysterious fever. The movie’s key crew includes the veteran cinematographer Barbara Alvarez.
“The Fever” is set to open in theaters in 2021 in France where it will be distributed by Survivance, and in the U.K. with New Wave Films handling,...
- 11/20/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Selection includes projects from Gabon, Chile, Mongolia and Argentina.
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected 12 film projects for its 2020 funding round, marking an increase on the 10 selections of previous years.
The 12 projects for the Script and Project Development Scheme hail from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Each will receive €9,000 for a total of €108,000 funding.
Selected projects for the development scheme include Tremble Like A Flower from Thai director Pathompon Mont Tesprateep, whose short Lullaby received its European premiere at IFFR 2020.
Also chosen is Gente De Noche from Argentina’s Romina Paula. Paula...
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected 12 film projects for its 2020 funding round, marking an increase on the 10 selections of previous years.
The 12 projects for the Script and Project Development Scheme hail from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Each will receive €9,000 for a total of €108,000 funding.
Selected projects for the development scheme include Tremble Like A Flower from Thai director Pathompon Mont Tesprateep, whose short Lullaby received its European premiere at IFFR 2020.
Also chosen is Gente De Noche from Argentina’s Romina Paula. Paula...
- 11/19/2020
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
If his work on Skate Kitchen and Sollers Point didn’t yet clue you into the immense talents of cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, get ready for one of the greatest achievements in the field this year: Steve McQueen’s five-film anthology series Small Axe. From the immersive, ecstatic Lovers Rock is a Jubilant Portrait of Community”>Lovers Rock to the fiery, urgent Mangrove“>Mangrove, Kirchner brings an immaculate, varied eye to these stories of the West Indian community of London. Now, he’s set to embark on his directorial debut.
Screen Daily reports Kirchner will direct Augustown, adapting Kei Miller’s 2016 novel with a script by Courttia Newland and executive produced by Steve McQueen. Backed by Potboiler Productions and Rathaus Films, as well as BBC Film, the story is set in 1980s Jamaica.
According to the official synopsis, the “story begins when a teacher cuts off the dreadlocks of Kaia, a...
Screen Daily reports Kirchner will direct Augustown, adapting Kei Miller’s 2016 novel with a script by Courttia Newland and executive produced by Steve McQueen. Backed by Potboiler Productions and Rathaus Films, as well as BBC Film, the story is set in 1980s Jamaica.
According to the official synopsis, the “story begins when a teacher cuts off the dreadlocks of Kaia, a...
- 10/30/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Criterion Channel’s September 2020 Lineup Includes Sátántangó, Agnès Varda, Albert Brooks & More
As the coronavirus pandemic still rages on, precious few remain skeptical about going to the movies. But while your AMCs and others claim some godlike safety from Covid, there remains a chunk of people still uncomfortable hitting up theaters. To them, we bring you the September 2020 Criterion Channel lineup.
It starts off with quite the swath of content too. Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó hits the service on September 1, and its seven-plus hours should take up a large chunk of your day. Coming soon after is a collection of more than a dozen Joan Blondell starrers from the pre-Code era, including Howard Hawks’ The Crowd Roars, three collaborations with Mervyn LeRoy, and Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley’s Dames.
For some stuff released almost a century later, the service also sees the addition of documentary bender Robert Greene. His Actress, Kate Plays Christine, and Bisbee ’17 join soon after. Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon,...
It starts off with quite the swath of content too. Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó hits the service on September 1, and its seven-plus hours should take up a large chunk of your day. Coming soon after is a collection of more than a dozen Joan Blondell starrers from the pre-Code era, including Howard Hawks’ The Crowd Roars, three collaborations with Mervyn LeRoy, and Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley’s Dames.
For some stuff released almost a century later, the service also sees the addition of documentary bender Robert Greene. His Actress, Kate Plays Christine, and Bisbee ’17 join soon after. Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon,...
- 8/25/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
The news that Lucrecia Martel was working on a new feature film — less than three years after premiering 2017’s “Zama” — was excitedly received by world cinema buffs: nine long years had separated “Zama” and her previous feature, “The Headless Woman,” and admirers of the enigmatic Argentine auteur had no reason to expect a suddenly increased work rate.
“Zama,” after all, was a film that reflected its lengthy gestation and repeated delays in its hypnotic style. A scathing post-colonial portrait of a Spanish magistrate in a remote South American colony, spiraling into madness as he awaits a reassignment that never seems to come, the film’s feverish, intoxicated atmospherics bespoke a filmmaker fully immersed and entangled in her own creative process: the type of cinema Lucrecia Martel makes is not conceived, much less made, overnight.
Perhaps, then, Marcel will take the pandemic-induced limbo in which the film industry finds itself more in her stride than most.
“Zama,” after all, was a film that reflected its lengthy gestation and repeated delays in its hypnotic style. A scathing post-colonial portrait of a Spanish magistrate in a remote South American colony, spiraling into madness as he awaits a reassignment that never seems to come, the film’s feverish, intoxicated atmospherics bespoke a filmmaker fully immersed and entangled in her own creative process: the type of cinema Lucrecia Martel makes is not conceived, much less made, overnight.
Perhaps, then, Marcel will take the pandemic-induced limbo in which the film industry finds itself more in her stride than most.
- 8/7/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
New works by prominent auteurs Lucrecia Martel, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso and Wang Bing grace the lineup of works-in-progress unveiled by the Locarno Film Festival.
The canceled Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema on Thursday announced 20 titles that made the cut for its innovative The Films After Tomorrow initiative that will provide support to filmmakers forced to stop working due to the global pandemic. Of these, 10 are international and 10 from Switzerland. Prizes will be awarded by juries made up by still unspecified filmmakers on Aug. 15.
“Our role is to act as a link between films, the industry and audiences, and so (when Locarno was canceled due to coronavirus concerns) we looked at alternative ways of carrying out that mission, assessing where our intervention could be most useful at this time,” said Locarno artistic director Lili Hinstin at a Zoom presentation during the Cannes Virtual Market. A total of 545 projects from 101 countries were submitted,...
The canceled Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema on Thursday announced 20 titles that made the cut for its innovative The Films After Tomorrow initiative that will provide support to filmmakers forced to stop working due to the global pandemic. Of these, 10 are international and 10 from Switzerland. Prizes will be awarded by juries made up by still unspecified filmmakers on Aug. 15.
“Our role is to act as a link between films, the industry and audiences, and so (when Locarno was canceled due to coronavirus concerns) we looked at alternative ways of carrying out that mission, assessing where our intervention could be most useful at this time,” said Locarno artistic director Lili Hinstin at a Zoom presentation during the Cannes Virtual Market. A total of 545 projects from 101 countries were submitted,...
- 6/25/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
To open with an establishing drone shot has become something of a cliché for lower-budget films looking to create a sense of scale inexpensively, but in Argentinian director Verónica Chen’s fifth narrative feature “High Tide,” the choice feels unusually apt. The camera glides frictionlessly over an opaque turquoise sea, breakers foaming at its edges, and into a darkened beachside forest in which sits a large, modern, architect-designed house. The dispassionate sterility of the floating, impersonal image establishes the tone of Chen’s film: Whatever else it might be, it won’t be warm.
Inside the house, Laura (Gloria Carrá) a willowy and well-kept middle-aged woman, dances alone. Well, not entirely alone — three workmen watch from the partially built barbecue pit they’re constructing outside. Like a moth to a flame, the foreman, Weisman (Jorge Sesán) eventually slips into the living room and starts to dance with her. Book publisher Laura,...
Inside the house, Laura (Gloria Carrá) a willowy and well-kept middle-aged woman, dances alone. Well, not entirely alone — three workmen watch from the partially built barbecue pit they’re constructing outside. Like a moth to a flame, the foreman, Weisman (Jorge Sesán) eventually slips into the living room and starts to dance with her. Book publisher Laura,...
- 2/4/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth puts spotlight on motherhood, female relationships and the nature of cinema itself.
The Venice Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday night (Aug 28) with Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s French-language debut The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.
The generally well-received feature made for a fitting opening film amid the ongoing debate over female representation at the festival, spurred by the fact that just two of the 21 films in competition this year are directed by women.
Deneuve plays a steely cinema diva who has put career ahead of friends and family throughout her life, opposite Binoche as her long-suffering,...
The Venice Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday night (Aug 28) with Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s French-language debut The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.
The generally well-received feature made for a fitting opening film amid the ongoing debate over female representation at the festival, spurred by the fact that just two of the 21 films in competition this year are directed by women.
Deneuve plays a steely cinema diva who has put career ahead of friends and family throughout her life, opposite Binoche as her long-suffering,...
- 8/29/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
The 76th Venice Film Film Festival kicked off Wednesday evening with Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche on the red carpet for the world premiere of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “The Truth,” in which they play a mother and daughter in conflict. The well-received opening film by a male director, but with women at its core, encapsulates the mood on the Lido, where the ongoing uproar over female representation took center stage.
Deneuve in black and devilish red, Binoche in silver sequins, and fellow French actress Ludivine Sagnier, who is also in the film, had the flashbulbs popping in the balmy Lido evening glow. Ethan Hawke, who also stars, did not make the trek.
Earlier in the day at the opening press conference, fest director Alberto Barbera defended the often-cited fact that there are just two films directed by women in the 21-title competition. Barbera also stood firm on the inclusion in...
Deneuve in black and devilish red, Binoche in silver sequins, and fellow French actress Ludivine Sagnier, who is also in the film, had the flashbulbs popping in the balmy Lido evening glow. Ethan Hawke, who also stars, did not make the trek.
Earlier in the day at the opening press conference, fest director Alberto Barbera defended the often-cited fact that there are just two films directed by women in the 21-title competition. Barbera also stood firm on the inclusion in...
- 8/28/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel, who presides over the Venice Film Festival jury, defended the inclusion of Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and A Spy” in the competition but said she would not attend a gala dinner for Polanski’s movie later this week.
“I will not congratulate him,” Martel said during the festival’s opening press conference. “But I think it is right that his movie is here at this festival.”
Martel, whose credits include “The Headless Woman” and “Zama,” added that “we have to develop our dialogue with him, and this is the best possible place to go on with this type of discussion.”
Polanski, who was convicted of statutory rape in 1977, will not be making an appearance on the Lido, according to his film’s publicist.
Speaking of the case, Martel said: “A man who commits a crime of this size who is then condemned, and the victim...
“I will not congratulate him,” Martel said during the festival’s opening press conference. “But I think it is right that his movie is here at this festival.”
Martel, whose credits include “The Headless Woman” and “Zama,” added that “we have to develop our dialogue with him, and this is the best possible place to go on with this type of discussion.”
Polanski, who was convicted of statutory rape in 1977, will not be making an appearance on the Lido, according to his film’s publicist.
Speaking of the case, Martel said: “A man who commits a crime of this size who is then condemned, and the victim...
- 8/28/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The 2019 Venice Film Festival officially kicked off with a press conference featuring the event’s chief, Alberto Barbera, and this year’s jury president Lucrecia Martel, the Argentine director behind “La Ciénaga,” “The Headless Woman,” and “Zama.” As reported by Deadline, one of the most pressing topics discussed was the inclusion of Roman Polanski in this year’s competition lineup. The French director is debuting his Dreyfus affair drama “An Officer and a Spy,” starring Emmanuelle Seigner, Louis Garrel, Jean Dujardin, and Mathieu Amalric.
The Venice Film Festival has been under fire for including Polanski in this year’s competition because the director was charged with rape in the 1970s. The #MeToo era has put a new focus on Polanski’s behavior, resulting in his expulsion from the Academy in May 2018. Barbera continued to defend Polanski’s inclusion at Venice 2019 during the opening press conference.
“[I am] convinced that we have to...
The Venice Film Festival has been under fire for including Polanski in this year’s competition because the director was charged with rape in the 1970s. The #MeToo era has put a new focus on Polanski’s behavior, resulting in his expulsion from the Academy in May 2018. Barbera continued to defend Polanski’s inclusion at Venice 2019 during the opening press conference.
“[I am] convinced that we have to...
- 8/28/2019
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
The Venice Film Festival is getting underway today, kicking off with the world premiere of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth. However, before the red carpet rollout this evening, there was some spirited discussion — and a bit of dissension in the ranks — at the annual opening press conference. The panel, led by Venice chief Alberto Barbera, who was joined by jury president Lucrecia Martel, was dominated by debate over the fest’s inclusion of Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy, as well as the fact that only two female filmmakers are in the main section, and how to change that going forward.
Regarding Polanski, Barbera reiterated that he is “convinced that we have to distinguish necessarily between the artist and the man. The history of art is full of artists who committed crimes of a different nature, nevertheless we have continued to admire their works of art. The same...
Regarding Polanski, Barbera reiterated that he is “convinced that we have to distinguish necessarily between the artist and the man. The history of art is full of artists who committed crimes of a different nature, nevertheless we have continued to admire their works of art. The same...
- 8/28/2019
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Paris-based Still Moving has dropped a first international teaser-trailer for Maya Da-Rin’s “A Febre” (The Fever), which world premieres this week in main International Competition at the 2019 Locarno Intl. Film Festival.
One of two Latin American Locarno Golden Leopard contenders, with Maura Delpero’s Argentine-Italian “Maternal” (“Hogar”), “The Fever” marks one of the latest productions from Germany’s Komplizen Films, the recipient of Locarno’s 2019 Best Independent Producer Award.
Produced by Dar-Rin’s label, Tamandua Vermelho, and Sao Paulo-based Enquadramiento Filmes, “The Fever” is co-produced by Komplizen and Still Moving, which has also stepped up to handle international sales.
Brazil’s Vitrine Filmes, the go-to-distributor for many top Brazilian films – “Divine Love,” “Bacurau” – will release “The Fever” in Brazil.
At a time when Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has drawn world attention to the fate of the Amazon, championing its predominantly illegal logging industry, “The Fever” nails the fate of many indigenous Brazilians.
One of two Latin American Locarno Golden Leopard contenders, with Maura Delpero’s Argentine-Italian “Maternal” (“Hogar”), “The Fever” marks one of the latest productions from Germany’s Komplizen Films, the recipient of Locarno’s 2019 Best Independent Producer Award.
Produced by Dar-Rin’s label, Tamandua Vermelho, and Sao Paulo-based Enquadramiento Filmes, “The Fever” is co-produced by Komplizen and Still Moving, which has also stepped up to handle international sales.
Brazil’s Vitrine Filmes, the go-to-distributor for many top Brazilian films – “Divine Love,” “Bacurau” – will release “The Fever” in Brazil.
At a time when Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has drawn world attention to the fate of the Amazon, championing its predominantly illegal logging industry, “The Fever” nails the fate of many indigenous Brazilians.
- 8/5/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Led by the ‘Zama’ director, the jury will award prizes including the Golden Lion.
Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel will be the president of the Competition jury of the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival (August 28 – September 7).
The decision was made by Venice board chair Paolo Baratta and festival director Alberto Barbera.
The nine-person Competition jury will award eight prizes, including the Golden Lion for best film, the Silver Lion for best director and the Coppa Volpi for best actor and best actress.
Zama, Martel’s most recent film, made its world premiere in Competition at Venice in 2017.
Martel directed...
Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel will be the president of the Competition jury of the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival (August 28 – September 7).
The decision was made by Venice board chair Paolo Baratta and festival director Alberto Barbera.
The nine-person Competition jury will award eight prizes, including the Golden Lion for best film, the Silver Lion for best director and the Coppa Volpi for best actor and best actress.
Zama, Martel’s most recent film, made its world premiere in Competition at Venice in 2017.
Martel directed...
- 6/24/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The Venice Film Festival (August 28 – September 7) has appointed The Headless Woman and Zama director Lucrecia Martel as president of the international jury for its 76th edition.
Martel and her jury will assign the Golden Lion for best film, as well as other awards. The choice was approved by board of directors of the festival, chaired by Paolo Baratta, at the recommendation of festival artistic director Alberto Barbera.
The Argentinian filmmaker said, “It’s an honor, a responsibility, and a pleasure to be a part of this celebration of cinema, of humanity’s immense desire to understand itself.”
Barbera commented that, “Four feature films and a handful of shorts, in just under two decades, have been enough to make Lucrecia Martel Latin America’s most important female director, and one of the top worldwide. In her films, the originality of her stylistic research and her meticulous mise-en-scène are at the service...
Martel and her jury will assign the Golden Lion for best film, as well as other awards. The choice was approved by board of directors of the festival, chaired by Paolo Baratta, at the recommendation of festival artistic director Alberto Barbera.
The Argentinian filmmaker said, “It’s an honor, a responsibility, and a pleasure to be a part of this celebration of cinema, of humanity’s immense desire to understand itself.”
Barbera commented that, “Four feature films and a handful of shorts, in just under two decades, have been enough to make Lucrecia Martel Latin America’s most important female director, and one of the top worldwide. In her films, the originality of her stylistic research and her meticulous mise-en-scène are at the service...
- 6/24/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Argentine director Lucrecia Martel will serve as president of the jury for the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. Martel will lead jurors in assigning awards for Golden Lion for best film, Silver Lions for grand jury prize and best director, as well as best actor, best actress, best screenplay, special jury prize and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.
Martel has directed four features, including The Swamp, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman and, most recently, Zama, which debuted out-of-competition in Venice in 2017. She is currently working on her first documentary, Chocobar, about the murdered photographer ...
Martel has directed four features, including The Swamp, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman and, most recently, Zama, which debuted out-of-competition in Venice in 2017. She is currently working on her first documentary, Chocobar, about the murdered photographer ...
- 6/24/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Argentine director Lucrecia Martel will serve as president of the jury for the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. Martel will lead jurors in assigning awards for Golden Lion for best film, Silver Lions for grand jury prize and best director, as well as best actor, best actress, best screenplay, special jury prize and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.
Martel has directed four features, including The Swamp, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman and, most recently, Zama, which debuted out-of-competition in Venice in 2017. She is currently working on her first documentary, Chocobar, about the murdered photographer ...
Martel has directed four features, including The Swamp, The Holy Girl, The Headless Woman and, most recently, Zama, which debuted out-of-competition in Venice in 2017. She is currently working on her first documentary, Chocobar, about the murdered photographer ...
- 6/24/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar will be honored by the Venice Film Festival with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
The Spanish director, 69, is having a good year after his “Pain and Glory” was recently one of the standout movies in competition in Cannes, where it was praised by Variety’s Peter Debruge as “a remarkable mature meta-fiction, exploring the emotional scars that underlie his own physical frailty.” Lead actor and frequent Almodovar collaborator Antonio Banderas won the award for best actor in Cannes for his depiction of an aging director loosely based on Almodovar himself.
“I am very excited and honored by the gift of this Golden Lion,” Almodovar said in a statement.
Almodovar is the second person set to be feted during Venice’s upcoming edition. Oscar-winning actress Julie Andrews’ Golden Lion was announced in March. The two honorees follow the pattern of Venice awarding career prizes to an actor and a director.
The Spanish director, 69, is having a good year after his “Pain and Glory” was recently one of the standout movies in competition in Cannes, where it was praised by Variety’s Peter Debruge as “a remarkable mature meta-fiction, exploring the emotional scars that underlie his own physical frailty.” Lead actor and frequent Almodovar collaborator Antonio Banderas won the award for best actor in Cannes for his depiction of an aging director loosely based on Almodovar himself.
“I am very excited and honored by the gift of this Golden Lion,” Almodovar said in a statement.
Almodovar is the second person set to be feted during Venice’s upcoming edition. Oscar-winning actress Julie Andrews’ Golden Lion was announced in March. The two honorees follow the pattern of Venice awarding career prizes to an actor and a director.
- 6/14/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
If, at this point in this season, you’re tired of hearing the same handful of titles bandied about in the awards conversation, the prizes given out by the International Cinephile Society should come as a tonic. Voted on by a globe-spanning group of over 100 film critics, scholars, programmers and industry professionals, they can be counted on to zig where even the most broad-minded critics’ groups zag, often singling out films widely ignored by other precursors.
Case in point: The big winner in this year’s Ics awards was a Spanish-language auteur work, but it wasn’t “Roma” — Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar frontrunner received only the cinematography prize. Instead, it was “Zama,” a nightmarishly atmospheric colonial drama from Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, that ruled the roost with wins for Best Picture, Director, Non-English Language Film and Actor for leading man Daniel Giménez Cacho.
A favorite of critics on the festival...
Case in point: The big winner in this year’s Ics awards was a Spanish-language auteur work, but it wasn’t “Roma” — Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar frontrunner received only the cinematography prize. Instead, it was “Zama,” a nightmarishly atmospheric colonial drama from Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel, that ruled the roost with wins for Best Picture, Director, Non-English Language Film and Actor for leading man Daniel Giménez Cacho.
A favorite of critics on the festival...
- 2/4/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Zama director gets backing for first documentary project.
The Sundance Institute and the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Arts have boarded Zama director Lucrecia Martel’s debut documentary Chocobar.
The two companies are funding the developing of the proejct via the Ica Cinema and Sundance’s Documentary Film Fund.
The Argentina-us co-production will chronicle the murder of indigenous activist Javier Chocobar and the removal of his community from their ancestral land in Argentina. The film unravels the 500 years of actions that led to this shooting, both with a gun and a camera, and contextualises it within the system of land...
The Sundance Institute and the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Arts have boarded Zama director Lucrecia Martel’s debut documentary Chocobar.
The two companies are funding the developing of the proejct via the Ica Cinema and Sundance’s Documentary Film Fund.
The Argentina-us co-production will chronicle the murder of indigenous activist Javier Chocobar and the removal of his community from their ancestral land in Argentina. The film unravels the 500 years of actions that led to this shooting, both with a gun and a camera, and contextualises it within the system of land...
- 11/5/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Zama director gets backing for first documentary project.
The Sundance Institute and the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Arts have boarded Zama director Lucrecia Martel’s debut documentary Chocobar.
The two companies are funding the developing of the proejct via the Ica Cinema and Sundance’s Documentary Film Fund.
The Argentina-us co-production will chronicle the murder of indigenous activist Javier Chocobar and the removal of his community from their ancestral land in Argentina. The film unravels the 500 years of actions that led to this shooting, both with a gun and a camera, and contextualises it within the system of land...
The Sundance Institute and the UK’s Institute of Contemporary Arts have boarded Zama director Lucrecia Martel’s debut documentary Chocobar.
The two companies are funding the developing of the proejct via the Ica Cinema and Sundance’s Documentary Film Fund.
The Argentina-us co-production will chronicle the murder of indigenous activist Javier Chocobar and the removal of his community from their ancestral land in Argentina. The film unravels the 500 years of actions that led to this shooting, both with a gun and a camera, and contextualises it within the system of land...
- 11/5/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
The past is a hurriedly abandoned house, ripe for the looting, in Benjamin Naishtat’s superbly sinister and stylish “Rojo.” And so it begins with one: A mid-sized, detached 1970s home, its windows shuttered like the closed eyes of a coma patient. A portly, well-dressed man emerges carrying an ornamental clock — this scoreless scene, set to chilly early-morning birdsong, is already tinged with absurdity — before a girl scurries off with an armful of clothes, an older lady totters out under the weight of a gilt mirror and some men maneuver a TV through the doorway. They are not residents, nor neighbors attending a yard sale; they are scavengers, implicitly turning some unseen family’s misfortune to their own end. This is regional Argentina in 1975, and while the coup d’état won’t happen for months, the unease of it is already an airborne disease carried backward on the wind. Argentina...
- 9/28/2018
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel is the definition of a festival darling. Since 2001, each of her four feature films, have had major premieres at large festivals. Her first film, “La Ciénaga,” proved that Martel was a new force to reckon with, earning acclaim at Sundance and Berlin. From there, her next two features, “The Holy Girl” and “The Headless Woman,” were both standouts at their respective Cannes debuts.
Continue reading Watch Acclaimed Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s Beautiful ‘Fantasmas’ Music Video For Julieta Laso at The Playlist.
Continue reading Watch Acclaimed Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s Beautiful ‘Fantasmas’ Music Video For Julieta Laso at The Playlist.
- 7/30/2018
- by Charles Barfield
- The Playlist
In Lucrecia Martel’s magnificent drama, a Spanish officer stuck at a remote South American outpost numbs his burgeoning panic with erotic reveries
Horror and despair hover just out of the frame, or below the surface, or behind the curtain, of Lucrecia Martel’s mysterious and dreamlike movie Zama. It’s a film that returns Martel to her themes of guilt, sex and shame – her first picture, in fact, since the enigmatic The Headless Woman 10 years ago. But Zama, with its eerie andante tempo and period setting, gives her ideas a new exalted platform, a new theatrical and formal grandeur.
It’s the story of Diego de Zama, an 18th-century administrator in the service of imperial Spain, whose courageous exploits in battle long ago won him a sinecure as a magistrate in the brutally remote outpost of what is now Asunción, on the Paraguay River. Now he waits endlessly, frantically,...
Horror and despair hover just out of the frame, or below the surface, or behind the curtain, of Lucrecia Martel’s mysterious and dreamlike movie Zama. It’s a film that returns Martel to her themes of guilt, sex and shame – her first picture, in fact, since the enigmatic The Headless Woman 10 years ago. But Zama, with its eerie andante tempo and period setting, gives her ideas a new exalted platform, a new theatrical and formal grandeur.
It’s the story of Diego de Zama, an 18th-century administrator in the service of imperial Spain, whose courageous exploits in battle long ago won him a sinecure as a magistrate in the brutally remote outpost of what is now Asunción, on the Paraguay River. Now he waits endlessly, frantically,...
- 5/24/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
There’s a moment in Lucrecia Martel’s newest film, “Zama,” when her defeated protagonist, the eponymous Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) – a corregidor for the Spanish Empire, whose authority is continually undermined – is joined in frame by a llama, one that almost takes a position of prominence over the beleaguered colonial bureaucrat. It’s a slow developing moment that feels as absurd as it does unstaged, and it is pure Martel – a filmmaker who is continually able to mine the illusive line between the surreal and reality itself.
It may be a cliche to say that a film is dream-like, but in the case of the films of Martel, it is also formally inaccurate, as she avoids edits that break the continuity of space and time and imagery that embraces the surreal. And while “Zama” mirrors the heightening fever-like disorientation of the title character, Martel has always...
It may be a cliche to say that a film is dream-like, but in the case of the films of Martel, it is also formally inaccurate, as she avoids edits that break the continuity of space and time and imagery that embraces the surreal. And while “Zama” mirrors the heightening fever-like disorientation of the title character, Martel has always...
- 5/7/2018
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
Mortal Transfer: Martel Returns with Lush, Dark Comedy on Colonial Maneuvering
Unfairly disposed to doomed distribution prospects and perhaps unfortunate dismissal during its initial reception comes Lucrecia Martel’s long-awaited fourth feature, Zama an epically staged period piece, which premiered out-of-competition at the 2017 Venice Film Festival after over four years in the making and arriving nearly a decade after her last film, 2008’s The Headless Woman.
Based on the 1956 novel by fellow Argentinean Antonio Di Benedetto, Martel examines, in devilishly droll and increasingly perplexing fashion, the frustrations of Don Diego de Zama, a seventeenth century Spanish officer eager to…...
Unfairly disposed to doomed distribution prospects and perhaps unfortunate dismissal during its initial reception comes Lucrecia Martel’s long-awaited fourth feature, Zama an epically staged period piece, which premiered out-of-competition at the 2017 Venice Film Festival after over four years in the making and arriving nearly a decade after her last film, 2008’s The Headless Woman.
Based on the 1956 novel by fellow Argentinean Antonio Di Benedetto, Martel examines, in devilishly droll and increasingly perplexing fashion, the frustrations of Don Diego de Zama, a seventeenth century Spanish officer eager to…...
- 4/13/2018
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
A man in a uniform is standing on the beach, staring at the sea. Natives trudge along the shore behind him. His profile makes him look like a statue, the sort of noble "Hail the conquering hero!" sculpture you'd see in national galleries. His name is Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho). The place is the edge of Argentina. The century is the 18th. He's been sent to claim and tame this land for Spain, a good old-fashioned magistrate of the crown in full colonialist bloom. Hearing the sound of laughter behind some rocks,...
- 4/13/2018
- Rollingstone.com
After helming some of the best films of the previous decade with La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, and The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel returned last fall with Zama. Produced by brothers Pedro and Agustin Almodóvar, Argentinean author Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel has been adapted by Martel, which follows a story set in the late 18th century in Paraguay, tracking Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), an officer of the Spanish Crown, who is tasked with going after a bandit.
The film is a towering achievement of composition and craft and while I can see why our Venice review was mixed due to the narrative’s elusive nature, I’m dying to experience this one on the big screen again. The chance will now arrive as Strand Releasing will give the film a U.S. theatrical release this April, and they’ve now debuted a new preview, which shows...
The film is a towering achievement of composition and craft and while I can see why our Venice review was mixed due to the narrative’s elusive nature, I’m dying to experience this one on the big screen again. The chance will now arrive as Strand Releasing will give the film a U.S. theatrical release this April, and they’ve now debuted a new preview, which shows...
- 3/8/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Lukas Valenta Rinner's A Decent Woman (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from January 26 - February 25, 2018 as a Special Discovery.It’s possibly belaboring the obvious to note—to quote Naomi Watts’s Janey-e in David Lynch’s return to Twin Peaks—that we live in dark, dark times; for a counterblast against the rot, even irresponsible, unfocused dissent is cathartic. Lukas Valenta Rinner’s A Decent Woman premiered two years ago but feels absolutely of the moment: a story about cloistered communities which impose conservative impulses on everything around them. In this case, “conservative” doesn’t designate the old Gop model—in which a balanced budget is the top moral priority of the country and social issues come are a not-quite-as-close second—but the complete subjugation of all those who don’t...
- 1/25/2018
- MUBI
Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel, the Argentine auteur behind La Cineaga and The Headless Woman, Zama is the long-awaited adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto’s classic of Latin American modernism.
Zama transports us to a remote corner of 18th-century South America where Zama, a servant of the Spanish crown, slowly loses his grip on reality. Zama brings a 21st century perspective to bear on the history of colonial catastrophe in the Americas. Marooned in an a colonial outpost, the titular Don Diego De Zama (a soulful yet funny Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Bad Education, Y Tu Mama narrator, Arrancame la vida) waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious post.
Martel, in a perfect coupling of literary source material and cinematic sensibility, renders Zama’s world as both absurd and mysterious as he succumbs more and more to lust, paranoia and a creeping disorientation. A fever dream, the...
Zama transports us to a remote corner of 18th-century South America where Zama, a servant of the Spanish crown, slowly loses his grip on reality. Zama brings a 21st century perspective to bear on the history of colonial catastrophe in the Americas. Marooned in an a colonial outpost, the titular Don Diego De Zama (a soulful yet funny Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Bad Education, Y Tu Mama narrator, Arrancame la vida) waits in vain for a transfer to a more prestigious post.
Martel, in a perfect coupling of literary source material and cinematic sensibility, renders Zama’s world as both absurd and mysterious as he succumbs more and more to lust, paranoia and a creeping disorientation. A fever dream, the...
- 12/6/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Sixteen years ago, Pedro Almódovar saw Argentine director Lucrecia Martel’s first narrative feature “La Ciénaga,” the story of teenagers in a bourgeois family driven to madness by their boredom. Almódovar immediately called his brother Agustin, with whom he runs a production company. “We absolutely had to contact the director to be part of her next movie,” Almódovar said by email. “It was an epiphany. When you discover an auteur so original, mature and elusive as Lucrecia Martel, you feel as if you’re witnessing a miracle.”
In fact, there are many miraculous aspects to Martel’s career: She developed an aesthetic out of languid poetry, digging into the contradictions of modern Argentine identity with a near-experimental focus on characters who feel out of sync with their surroundings. She became an internationally revered filmmaker with only a few features to her name, and clung to that identity for nine long years,...
In fact, there are many miraculous aspects to Martel’s career: She developed an aesthetic out of languid poetry, digging into the contradictions of modern Argentine identity with a near-experimental focus on characters who feel out of sync with their surroundings. She became an internationally revered filmmaker with only a few features to her name, and clung to that identity for nine long years,...
- 11/21/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour)
Ana Lily Amirpour’s second feature shoots for Harmony Korine meets Mad Max and would have nearly almost hit the mark were it not for the gratingly aloof attitude and the swaths of directorial license being taken. The Bad Batch — an ambitious, expansive dystopian sci-fi western which features partying, drugs, and cannibals — might come as music to the ears of diehard fans of...
The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour)
Ana Lily Amirpour’s second feature shoots for Harmony Korine meets Mad Max and would have nearly almost hit the mark were it not for the gratingly aloof attitude and the swaths of directorial license being taken. The Bad Batch — an ambitious, expansive dystopian sci-fi western which features partying, drugs, and cannibals — might come as music to the ears of diehard fans of...
- 9/29/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Lucrecia Martel. Photo by Darren Hughes.Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is a man out of time. Trapped in Argentina, the land of his birth, and serving at the whims of a foreign crown, he embodies the role of colonizer as a middle-aged, corporate functionary—bored, horny, witless, and incompetent. He waits and waits for a promised transfer to reunite with his wife and child, and then waits some more. When he finally does take action, volunteering to join an expedition to find and kill the notorious bandit Vicuña Porto, this adventure too is folly that ends only in further humiliation.Lucrecia Martel’s Zama resolves few of the episodes she selected to adapt from Antonio Di Benedetto’s 1956 novel of the same name. Instead, she ensnares viewers in a similarly unnerving stasis. Characters enter Zama’s life—three lovely sisters, a visiting merchant called “The Oriental,” the...
- 9/18/2017
- MUBI
You don’t make La Ciénaga, The Holy Girl, and The Headless Woman in a row without winning accolades and a passionate following the world over. As such, the anticipation level for Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel’s fourth feature and first in nearly a decade is understandably high. When Zama was denied a Cannes slot back in May, people assumed it was a blameless case of conflict of interest, as competition jury president Pedro Almodóvar is also a producer of the film. When the Venice Film Festival subsequently selected the long-awaited picture but put it in the less prestigious out-of-competition section, however, eyebrows were raised with palpable outrage – especially considering the fact that among the 21-title strong competition line-up, only one film comes from a female filmmaker.
Well, now that we’ve seen it, the festival programmers’ reservations seem easier to understand.
A synopsis of the film reads: Based on...
Well, now that we’ve seen it, the festival programmers’ reservations seem easier to understand.
A synopsis of the film reads: Based on...
- 9/3/2017
- by Zhuo-Ning Su
- The Film Stage
The uneasy co-existence of indigenous and colonial cultures in Latin America is given darkly oneiric treatment in Zama, Lucrecia Martel's atmospheric adaptation of the well-regarded 1956 existential novel by fellow Argentinean Antonio di Benedetto. The director of The Holy Girl and The Headless Woman has always been more concerned with creating an enveloping experience than shaping a conventional narrative. That's more than ever the case with this freewheeling historical drama about a minor officer of the Spanish crown stationed in a remote backwater of what is now Paraguay, waiting for a transfer that will never come.
Some no doubt will...
Some no doubt will...
- 8/31/2017
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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