More than 90 feature films showcasing the best in U.S. moviemaking will take center stage next month at Poland’s American Film Festival (Aff), whose 14th edition takes place Nov. 7 – 12 in Wrocław, Poland.
Founded in 2010 as the sister event of the long-running New Horizons Film Festival, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
In putting together the program for the 14th edition, festival director Ula Śniegowska says she and the programming team spent the past year “scouting the festivals and trying to get our hands on the pulse of what’s happening in American auteur and independent film.” The festival, which includes titles that have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes and other leading fests, is similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which mounted its 49th edition this year.
Founded in 2010 as the sister event of the long-running New Horizons Film Festival, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
In putting together the program for the 14th edition, festival director Ula Śniegowska says she and the programming team spent the past year “scouting the festivals and trying to get our hands on the pulse of what’s happening in American auteur and independent film.” The festival, which includes titles that have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes and other leading fests, is similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which mounted its 49th edition this year.
- 10/24/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
“Regressive.” “Hostile to feminism.” “A male fantasy.” “Totally disempowered.” “Women as toilet paper.” “Sleazy and tawdry.” “Porny.”
Four weeks in, that’s how “The Idol” — HBO’s latest and one of its most scandalous Sunday night shows — was described to TheWrap by leading feminist voices who specialize in media. On the heels of the Parents and Television Media Council calling for HBO to cancel the series, it’s not just special interest parenting groups that have questioned the premium cable network’s decision to air the drama from “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Reza Fahim.
“If we’re going to have our cake and eat it too, in this way of exploiting female sexuality in order to comment on the exploitation of female sexuality, I’m not sure that’s a super important message right now,” Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of “When Women Invented Television” and “Pop Star Goddesses,...
Four weeks in, that’s how “The Idol” — HBO’s latest and one of its most scandalous Sunday night shows — was described to TheWrap by leading feminist voices who specialize in media. On the heels of the Parents and Television Media Council calling for HBO to cancel the series, it’s not just special interest parenting groups that have questioned the premium cable network’s decision to air the drama from “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Reza Fahim.
“If we’re going to have our cake and eat it too, in this way of exploiting female sexuality in order to comment on the exploitation of female sexuality, I’m not sure that’s a super important message right now,” Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of “When Women Invented Television” and “Pop Star Goddesses,...
- 6/27/2023
- by Kayla Cobb and Loree Seitz
- The Wrap
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.Extra! Extra!A new Notebook publication has been released into the world! Our limited-edition, print-only Notebook Cannes Special is exclusively available at the Cannes Film Festival. It includes interviews with Souleymane Cissé and Alice Rohrwacher, an insider’s guide to the festival, a crossword, a comic, and much more. The publication is pictured above, but the bright red Pantone color must be seen on the page to be truly appreciated! (As an online preview: Yasmina Price's interview with Souleymane Cissé is available online.)NEWSIn production news, writer Durga Chew-Bose will make her directorial debut with an adaptation of Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, starring Chloë Sevigny and Claes Bang (The Square). Filming began last week in the south of France.Noémie Merlant (of...
- 5/17/2023
- MUBI
New documentary uses hundreds of clips to show how even the most acclaimed classics of cinema have encouraged a culture of sexual harassment of women
“I get letters every day from people around the world, saying, ‘Oh my God, thank you for making this’,” says Nina Menkes. “But one woman told me, ‘You’ve ruined all my favourite films’.”
Menkes is the director of Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, a documentary arguing that even the most acclaimed classics of cinema have encouraged a culture of sexual harassment of women. Using hundreds of clips, Menkes shows how female characters are consistently framed as the object by the male subject.
“I get letters every day from people around the world, saying, ‘Oh my God, thank you for making this’,” says Nina Menkes. “But one woman told me, ‘You’ve ruined all my favourite films’.”
Menkes is the director of Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, a documentary arguing that even the most acclaimed classics of cinema have encouraged a culture of sexual harassment of women. Using hundreds of clips, Menkes shows how female characters are consistently framed as the object by the male subject.
- 4/21/2023
- by Anna Smith
- The Guardian - Film News
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSLast Summer.The first round of Cannes-centric announcements has arrived (full selections linked): on Thursday, the festival unveiled the Competition, Un Certain Regard, and Special Screenings lineups. The Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week slates followed on Monday and Tuesday.Applications are now open for this year’s edition of the Locarno Critics Academy. Participating critics will be able to cover the festival and attend workshops with critics, programmers, and filmmakers. Some Notebook samples by a few of last year's critics: Dini Adanurani covered Locarno's experimental 24-hour panel, and Laura Staab contributed interviews with Helena Wittmann and Kelly Reichardt (the latter cowritten with Christopher Small).Jim Jarmusch is planning to shoot his next film in the autumn—characteristically, it will be “quiet, funny,...
- 4/19/2023
- MUBI
Over the past several years, intimacy coordination has rapidly become one of the most essential aspects of production in Hollywood. The #MeToo movement exposed not only sexual assault and harassment prevalent in Hollywood, but the kind of environments and power dynamics that enable such situations.
At South by Southwest 2023, Regina Banall and Laura Rikard, two experts in intimacy coordination, hosted an hourlong Q&a for filmmakers on how to create better, safer sets while also filming sexual scenes. Banall is part of the Intimacy Coordinators Alliance for Film and Television, and Rikard specializes in theatre intimacy education.
The hour showed just how important it is to discuss sex scenes and intimacy coordination comfortably and openly, not just for actors and directors but for everyone involved in the filmmaking process and learning about it.
1. Language Matters
While it doesn’t need to be overly sanitized, Rikard noted that desexualized language can go a long way.
At South by Southwest 2023, Regina Banall and Laura Rikard, two experts in intimacy coordination, hosted an hourlong Q&a for filmmakers on how to create better, safer sets while also filming sexual scenes. Banall is part of the Intimacy Coordinators Alliance for Film and Television, and Rikard specializes in theatre intimacy education.
The hour showed just how important it is to discuss sex scenes and intimacy coordination comfortably and openly, not just for actors and directors but for everyone involved in the filmmaking process and learning about it.
1. Language Matters
While it doesn’t need to be overly sanitized, Rikard noted that desexualized language can go a long way.
- 3/12/2023
- by Proma Khosla
- Indiewire
Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including an epic six-film series dedicated to the brand new restorations of the films of Nina Menkes. The slate also includes a Brian De Palma double bill with Obsession and Body Double as well as Paul Schrader’s Hardcore.
Additional highlights include the Andrea Riseborough-led Please Baby Please, three films by Eugene Kotlyarenko, a Ghost in the Shell double bill, and, ahead of their release of Passages later this year, Ira Sach’s Little Men.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
March 1 – Glass Life, directed by Sara Cwynar | Brief Encounters
March 2 – The Great Sadness of Zohara, directed by Nina Menkes | Phantom Cinema: The Films of Nina Menkes
March 3 – Please Baby Please, directed by Amanda Kramer | Mubi Spotlight
March 4 – Hardcore, directed by Paul Schrader
March 5 – Kedi, directed by Ceyda Torun
March 6 – Magdalena Viraga, directed by...
Additional highlights include the Andrea Riseborough-led Please Baby Please, three films by Eugene Kotlyarenko, a Ghost in the Shell double bill, and, ahead of their release of Passages later this year, Ira Sach’s Little Men.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
March 1 – Glass Life, directed by Sara Cwynar | Brief Encounters
March 2 – The Great Sadness of Zohara, directed by Nina Menkes | Phantom Cinema: The Films of Nina Menkes
March 3 – Please Baby Please, directed by Amanda Kramer | Mubi Spotlight
March 4 – Hardcore, directed by Paul Schrader
March 5 – Kedi, directed by Ceyda Torun
March 6 – Magdalena Viraga, directed by...
- 2/21/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Matthew Heineman’s Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Retrograde (Matthew Heineman)
There’s a common view that one needs distance and perspective to truly process and reconcile current events before making a worthwhile film on any particular subject, be it narrative or nonfiction. Throughout his intrepid career, Matthew Heineman has refuted this notion, immersing himself in the Syrian conflict, on the front lines of the Mexican drug war, and NYC’s early days of Covid-19. In each instance he has delivered full-bodied, cinematic portraits of considerable immediacy, humanity, and discernment of the events unfolding around him. His work not only provides vital dispatches of ongoing conflict,...
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Matthew Heineman’s Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Retrograde (Matthew Heineman)
There’s a common view that one needs distance and perspective to truly process and reconcile current events before making a worthwhile film on any particular subject, be it narrative or nonfiction. Throughout his intrepid career, Matthew Heineman has refuted this notion, immersing himself in the Syrian conflict, on the front lines of the Mexican drug war, and NYC’s early days of Covid-19. In each instance he has delivered full-bodied, cinematic portraits of considerable immediacy, humanity, and discernment of the events unfolding around him. His work not only provides vital dispatches of ongoing conflict,...
- 12/9/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Poland’s American Film Festival readies for its — lucky — 13th edition, unspooling Nov. 8-13 in Wrocław.
The fest, which will open with “Bones and All” and close with Florian Zeller’s “The Son,” will once again combine classics with contemporary titles, for instance pairing Nancy Buirski’s doc “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy” with John Schlesinger’s Oscar-winner, or introducing retrospectives dedicated to Robert Altman and Nina Menkes.
Menkes — behind “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” — will also get Aff’s Indie Star Award. Previous recipients include Todd Solondz, David Gordon Green, Hal Hartley, Whit Stillman, Rosanna Arquette and John Waters, who came to Poland last year.
“It was amazing,” Waters tells Variety, and he was “pleasantly surprised and flattered” by the local audience’s knowledge of his work.
“They really knew who I was! My favorite thing happened during a Q&a, when this man, who looked like an old Communist,...
The fest, which will open with “Bones and All” and close with Florian Zeller’s “The Son,” will once again combine classics with contemporary titles, for instance pairing Nancy Buirski’s doc “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy” with John Schlesinger’s Oscar-winner, or introducing retrospectives dedicated to Robert Altman and Nina Menkes.
Menkes — behind “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” — will also get Aff’s Indie Star Award. Previous recipients include Todd Solondz, David Gordon Green, Hal Hartley, Whit Stillman, Rosanna Arquette and John Waters, who came to Poland last year.
“It was amazing,” Waters tells Variety, and he was “pleasantly surprised and flattered” by the local audience’s knowledge of his work.
“They really knew who I was! My favorite thing happened during a Q&a, when this man, who looked like an old Communist,...
- 11/3/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Celebrating its 60th edition this year, the Viennale has marked the occasion by inviting six filmmakers to create trailers for the festival. Featuring work by Claire Denis, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Albert Serra, Narcisa Hirsch, Sergei Loznitsa, and Nina Menkes, the festival notes “their short works differ in tonality as well as emotion, but they all speak of cinema, its history and the world around us.”
Denis’ short pays tribute to the late Michel Subor, while the Oscar-winning Hamaguchi looks to nature and Serra to animals. Hirsch and Menkes deliver beautifully impressionistic shorts, with the former looking into her archives, and Loznitsa captures the convergence of citizens and war in the present day.
Watch below with a hat tip to Mubi and learn more about each shot on the official site.
Le Soldat by Claire Denis
Walden by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Vienna Waltz by Albert Serra
Songs from Naples by Narcisa Hirsch
Independence Day...
Denis’ short pays tribute to the late Michel Subor, while the Oscar-winning Hamaguchi looks to nature and Serra to animals. Hirsch and Menkes deliver beautifully impressionistic shorts, with the former looking into her archives, and Loznitsa captures the convergence of citizens and war in the present day.
Watch below with a hat tip to Mubi and learn more about each shot on the official site.
Le Soldat by Claire Denis
Walden by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Vienna Waltz by Albert Serra
Songs from Naples by Narcisa Hirsch
Independence Day...
- 10/27/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAnna May Wong in Piccadilly.Trailblazing film star Anna May Wong will be the first Asian American to appear on US currency. Wong, whose legacy is overviewed in this Guardian article by Pamela Hutchinson, will be the face of more than 300 million quarters.Alice Diop has won the Prix Jean Vigo, an award given to a French director each year since 1951, for her first fiction feature Saint Omer. Earlier this year, the film won won two awards at the Venice Film Festival and was selected as the French entry for Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars.Paweł Pawlikowski’s next feature—tentatively titled The Island—will be led by Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara. Per Variety, they play an American couple who “turn their backs on civilization to build a secluded paradise,” until a...
- 10/26/2022
- MUBI
Nina Menkes’ bracing 1991 feature Queen of Diamonds is one of a group of notable films by female auteurs that have recently been restored and brought back into wider circulation. But rather than using the momentum as of yet to get another fictional film in production, Menkes has adapted a lecture presentation she began giving in 2018 entitled “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression” into Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, the first solo-directed non-fiction work in her filmography.
Surveying how the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey in her pathbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” has influenced and hamstrung the medium across its history, Menkes has received some critical pushback for this film, including from those who were supportive of her more experimental fiction work, which is considered ahead-of-its-time and certainly would’ve received greater attention in today’s more egalitarian independent film climate. Yet the documentary still alights on an...
Surveying how the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey in her pathbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” has influenced and hamstrung the medium across its history, Menkes has received some critical pushback for this film, including from those who were supportive of her more experimental fiction work, which is considered ahead-of-its-time and certainly would’ve received greater attention in today’s more egalitarian independent film climate. Yet the documentary still alights on an...
- 10/25/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Searchlight Pictures’ The Banshees Of Inisherin opened to an estimated 181,000 and a raring per screen average of 45,250, beating Tár’s impressive 40,000. Both opened in four locations and now rank no. 2 and no. 3 for an indie per-theater gross this year after A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. That film’s in a class of its own with an April opening PTA of over 50k on many more screens and a 100 million+ worldwide grosses. But Banshees is the latest in a wave of strong limited openings this month from Decision To Leave to Triangle of Sadness to Aftersun to Till making the case for an arthouse revival. Case made.
“It’s really cool, it looks like there are a number of specialty films that are out there and doing well. It’s not the old numbers we used to get — like 75k, 80k, 90k per screen. Those will come back, someday,...
“It’s really cool, it looks like there are a number of specialty films that are out there and doing well. It’s not the old numbers we used to get — like 75k, 80k, 90k per screen. Those will come back, someday,...
- 10/23/2022
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Independent filmmaker Nina Menkes can hardly believe that her new documentary “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” about the gendered politics of shot design is causing a stir.
The film is being released in theaters starting Friday via Kino Lorber at the Laemmle in the Los Angeles area and at Dctv’s Firehouse Cinema in New York City, with a national rollout to follow.
“We’ve had a lot of rave reviews, but we’ve also been attacked and it’s unbelievable to me that women would attack this film,” Menkes, who also teaches film production at California Institute of the Arts, told The Wrap. “It’s just like the whole way of cinema being based on these kinds of beautiful, fragmented female bodies seems to be like something people are dying to defend.”
The documentary’s premise is that male and female actors are often shot in very different ways regardless of the context,...
The film is being released in theaters starting Friday via Kino Lorber at the Laemmle in the Los Angeles area and at Dctv’s Firehouse Cinema in New York City, with a national rollout to follow.
“We’ve had a lot of rave reviews, but we’ve also been attacked and it’s unbelievable to me that women would attack this film,” Menkes, who also teaches film production at California Institute of the Arts, told The Wrap. “It’s just like the whole way of cinema being based on these kinds of beautiful, fragmented female bodies seems to be like something people are dying to defend.”
The documentary’s premise is that male and female actors are often shot in very different ways regardless of the context,...
- 10/21/2022
- by Brenda Gazzar
- The Wrap
If you read a lot of film reviews, the chances are that you come across a lot of references to cinematic techniques, trends or practices which you have a vague understanding of but may or may not have thought about in depth. This documentary sets out to explain a phrase which you are likely to have heard more frequently in recent years: the male gaze.
Sometimes erroneously interpreted as a simple criticism of the fact that most cinema to date has been made by men, this is, on the contrary, a term referring to specific aspect of cinematic language which stem from that history within the context of a society with particular ideas about male and female roles. Nina Menkes lectures on the subject and her brings her teaching to life on film with a profusion of clips which illustrate her points. It’s a little like being in film...
Sometimes erroneously interpreted as a simple criticism of the fact that most cinema to date has been made by men, this is, on the contrary, a term referring to specific aspect of cinematic language which stem from that history within the context of a society with particular ideas about male and female roles. Nina Menkes lectures on the subject and her brings her teaching to life on film with a profusion of clips which illustrate her points. It’s a little like being in film...
- 10/20/2022
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
By Glenn Dunks
Hmm. This is a curious one, isn’t it?
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is a cinematic adaptation of an on-stage presentation by filmmaker Nina Menkes on the male gaze. Originally titled “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression”, Menkes has reworked the live show into a curious hybrid that deconstructs the way many movies are shot and framed in a way that subjugates the female characters. The first image we see is of Ana De Armas as the nude advertisement in Blade Runner 2049 before dissecting over 170 films in one form (very briefly) or another (more up close and personal).
Hmm. This is a curious one, isn’t it?
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is a cinematic adaptation of an on-stage presentation by filmmaker Nina Menkes on the male gaze. Originally titled “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression”, Menkes has reworked the live show into a curious hybrid that deconstructs the way many movies are shot and framed in a way that subjugates the female characters. The first image we see is of Ana De Armas as the nude advertisement in Blade Runner 2049 before dissecting over 170 films in one form (very briefly) or another (more up close and personal).
- 10/20/2022
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Early in “Brainwashed,” filmmaker and cinema studies professor Nina Menkes quotes author James Baldwin when she says, “Nothing can be changed until it is fixed.” But before a broken system can be fixed, it first needs to be acknowledged. That’s Menkes’ job, and she does it so well that her lecture — which forms the basis of the movie — should be seen by everyone.
As a substitute for a Feminist Film Studies 101 class, “Brainwashed” gets the job done a lot more quickly and cheaply than if you registered for grad school. In sharing her academic talk, “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression,” Menkes gives us a base from which to understand the visual language of movies. She interviews seminal theorist Laura Mulvey, who popularized the concept of the “male gaze.” And she talks to a range of filmmakers, academics, and performers, who expand on what that concept has meant to them professionally.
As a substitute for a Feminist Film Studies 101 class, “Brainwashed” gets the job done a lot more quickly and cheaply than if you registered for grad school. In sharing her academic talk, “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression,” Menkes gives us a base from which to understand the visual language of movies. She interviews seminal theorist Laura Mulvey, who popularized the concept of the “male gaze.” And she talks to a range of filmmakers, academics, and performers, who expand on what that concept has meant to them professionally.
- 10/20/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for both “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Blonde.”]
It’s been five years since the start of #MeToo, and mainstream Hollywood still doesn’t know what a truly feminist film looks like.
The releases of the highly debated, female-directed “Don’t Worry Darling” and the would-be awards darling that reimagines Marilyn Monroe’s trauma, “Blonde,” proved an even deeper issue when debating the gender politics of films: “Feminism” has been co-opted to the point of becoming meaningless. 2022 marked the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade… and also #MeToo film marketing jumping the shark.
Olivia Wilde’s off-the-rails press tour for “Don’t Worry Darling” started with the “Booksmart” helmer praising the film for being a beacon of female pleasure (spoiler: lead star Florence Pugh’s character is repeatedly raped in retrospect and cannot consent since she is chained to a bed and held captive unconscious). In a splashy pre-release cover story, Wilde made...
It’s been five years since the start of #MeToo, and mainstream Hollywood still doesn’t know what a truly feminist film looks like.
The releases of the highly debated, female-directed “Don’t Worry Darling” and the would-be awards darling that reimagines Marilyn Monroe’s trauma, “Blonde,” proved an even deeper issue when debating the gender politics of films: “Feminism” has been co-opted to the point of becoming meaningless. 2022 marked the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade… and also #MeToo film marketing jumping the shark.
Olivia Wilde’s off-the-rails press tour for “Don’t Worry Darling” started with the “Booksmart” helmer praising the film for being a beacon of female pleasure (spoiler: lead star Florence Pugh’s character is repeatedly raped in retrospect and cannot consent since she is chained to a bed and held captive unconscious). In a splashy pre-release cover story, Wilde made...
- 10/18/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Nina Menkes’s rigorous film-theory docu-essay teases out the differences in the ways men and women are treated, both on screen and in the industry
Film-maker and theorist Nina Menkes takes to the stage in this docu-essay slash movie lecture: a fierce and focused polemic reviving the subject of the “male gaze” for the #MeToo era. Starting with an interview with British critic Laura Mulvey (described by Menkes as the “original gangster” who invented the term), Menkes shows us that the way the camera looks at women, and everything else, is not a transparent, value-free business. On the contrary: with men so overwhelmingly in charge, it is an activity of coercion and imposition, determined by gender politics. And sexuality as it appears on screen is not the natural, unmediated free expression of equal pleasure, but deeply embedded in male power relations.
One movie clip Menkes could have cited but doesn...
Film-maker and theorist Nina Menkes takes to the stage in this docu-essay slash movie lecture: a fierce and focused polemic reviving the subject of the “male gaze” for the #MeToo era. Starting with an interview with British critic Laura Mulvey (described by Menkes as the “original gangster” who invented the term), Menkes shows us that the way the camera looks at women, and everything else, is not a transparent, value-free business. On the contrary: with men so overwhelmingly in charge, it is an activity of coercion and imposition, determined by gender politics. And sexuality as it appears on screen is not the natural, unmediated free expression of equal pleasure, but deeply embedded in male power relations.
One movie clip Menkes could have cited but doesn...
- 10/15/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Unavoidably, as a viewer and as a critic, I bring myself to every film I watch. In a lot of ways, I’m the default viewer that most filmmakers, male filmmakers at least, have in mind: white, male, heterosexual. At 41, I’ve aged out of the target audience for the blockbusters, but I’m also of an age where a lot of working directors are or were making films. They’re talking to me because in these broad terms a lot of them are me.
Nina Menkes definitely made me think about that, and the way this status makes me approach film, and film approach me, with this adaptation of her illustrated talk on the male gaze as a pervasive, and destructive, force in cinema. Menkes argues that the male gaze helps form part of a triangle: the visual language of cinema, employment discrimination and sexual harassment and assault, each feeding into the other.
Nina Menkes definitely made me think about that, and the way this status makes me approach film, and film approach me, with this adaptation of her illustrated talk on the male gaze as a pervasive, and destructive, force in cinema. Menkes argues that the male gaze helps form part of a triangle: the visual language of cinema, employment discrimination and sexual harassment and assault, each feeding into the other.
- 10/14/2022
- by Sam Inglis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
As we get deeper into the fall movie season, October—per usual—delivers some of the most essential films of the year. As much of the cinema-related excitement is owed to the New York Film Festival, many of the finest in this year’s slate will begin their limited releases this month, while other favorites from earlier in the festival year also start rolling out. See our top picks below.
15. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (Arthur Harari; Oct. 7)
The opening title of Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year, Arthur Harari’s epic adventure Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle will finally hit U.S. theaters this week. Following the true story of a Japanese soldier who refused to believe that World War II had ended and continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974, there’s been much acclaim for the nearly three-hour film; we’re looking forward to finally catching up with it.
15. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (Arthur Harari; Oct. 7)
The opening title of Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year, Arthur Harari’s epic adventure Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle will finally hit U.S. theaters this week. Following the true story of a Japanese soldier who refused to believe that World War II had ended and continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974, there’s been much acclaim for the nearly three-hour film; we’re looking forward to finally catching up with it.
- 10/5/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
After watching thousands of hours worth of cinema, what filmmaking techniques are ingrained to the form that lead to disempowering and objectifying women? Using examples from Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color, and much more, Nina Menkes digs deep to unpack the precise directorial decisions––some perhaps even subconscious––that have led to women being diminished throughout cinema history in her latest film. Ahead of an October 21 theatrical release via Kino Lorber, the first trailer has arrived.
David Katz said in his review, “It’s interesting, still, that Nina Menkes, a radical American independent filmmaker, has chosen to take up this mantle of something so pedagogic, when her own slippery and ever-mysterious films (such as Queen of Diamonds and Phantom Love) are not. But it does clarify,...
David Katz said in his review, “It’s interesting, still, that Nina Menkes, a radical American independent filmmaker, has chosen to take up this mantle of something so pedagogic, when her own slippery and ever-mysterious films (such as Queen of Diamonds and Phantom Love) are not. But it does clarify,...
- 9/28/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Independent filmmaker Nina Menkes returns with Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power, a documentary that uses clips from hundreds of films to demonstrate the pervasiveness of the male gaze in the dominant cinematic canon—and the real-world misogyny that Menkes believes these depictions abet. Originally conceived as a presentation that the filmmaker gave at film festivals or as stand-alone talks, the documentary takes images from films like Vertigo, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and Titane in order to make its argument. The film also features an array of prominent women and non-binary industry figures speaking to the […]
The post Trailer Watch: Nina Menkes’s Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Nina Menkes’s Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/26/2022
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Documentarian Nina Menkes is turning her camera on cinema history itself.
Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” centers on the cultural normalization of the exploitative male gaze found in cinema. Using clips from more than 175 films ranging from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Spring Breakers,” Menkes deconstructs how the visual language of cinema is connected to “employment discrimination against women and an environment of pervasive sexual harassment, abuse, and assault.”
The film premieres October 21 via Kino Lorber at the new Dctv Firehouse Cinema in New York City and the Laemmle in Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.
Based on Menkes’ acclaimed talk “Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema,” the film made its world premiere at 2022 Sundance. Award-winning documentarian Menkes argues that shot design is gendered, with “Brainwashed” seeking to illuminate the patriarchal narrative codes that hide within supposedly “classic” set-ups and camera angles, and demonstrates how women are...
Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” centers on the cultural normalization of the exploitative male gaze found in cinema. Using clips from more than 175 films ranging from “Sleeping Beauty” to “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Spring Breakers,” Menkes deconstructs how the visual language of cinema is connected to “employment discrimination against women and an environment of pervasive sexual harassment, abuse, and assault.”
The film premieres October 21 via Kino Lorber at the new Dctv Firehouse Cinema in New York City and the Laemmle in Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.
Based on Menkes’ acclaimed talk “Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema,” the film made its world premiere at 2022 Sundance. Award-winning documentarian Menkes argues that shot design is gendered, with “Brainwashed” seeking to illuminate the patriarchal narrative codes that hide within supposedly “classic” set-ups and camera angles, and demonstrates how women are...
- 9/26/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
A cross-section of works from revered masters and fresh faces will take center stage at Poland’s American Film Festival (Aff), whose 13th edition takes place Nov. 8 – 13 in Wrocław, Poland.
Established in 2010 as the sister event of the New Horizons Film Festival, a showcase of independent and arthouse cinema launched in 2001, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
“We are searching for those voices, those auteurs, those talents and tendencies, and those waves of American film that are the most original and show some vibes of the current moment,” said festival director Ula Śniegowska.
Similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which this year will host its 48th edition, the Aff aims to spotlight the breadth and diversity of contemporary American filmmaking.
Śniegowska describes last year’s opening film, Wes Anderson...
Established in 2010 as the sister event of the New Horizons Film Festival, a showcase of independent and arthouse cinema launched in 2001, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
“We are searching for those voices, those auteurs, those talents and tendencies, and those waves of American film that are the most original and show some vibes of the current moment,” said festival director Ula Śniegowska.
Similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which this year will host its 48th edition, the Aff aims to spotlight the breadth and diversity of contemporary American filmmaking.
Śniegowska describes last year’s opening film, Wes Anderson...
- 9/6/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Some of the films have never been seen by Scandinavian audiences.
Nordic distributor NonStop Entertainment’s classics label NonStop Timeless has acquired Scandinavian rights to a huge batch of 111 classic films from a variety of international sellers.
The films span Fernando Meirelles’s City of God (pictured) through to James Ivory’s Maurice. Some of the notable filmmakers included in the deals are David Lynch, Catherine Breillat and Nina Menkes.
The acquisitions also include George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park from Yellow Veil; Taika Waititi’s Boy and Eagle vs. Shark from HanWay; Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable...
Nordic distributor NonStop Entertainment’s classics label NonStop Timeless has acquired Scandinavian rights to a huge batch of 111 classic films from a variety of international sellers.
The films span Fernando Meirelles’s City of God (pictured) through to James Ivory’s Maurice. Some of the notable filmmakers included in the deals are David Lynch, Catherine Breillat and Nina Menkes.
The acquisitions also include George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park from Yellow Veil; Taika Waititi’s Boy and Eagle vs. Shark from HanWay; Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable...
- 6/24/2022
- by Wendy Mitchell
- ScreenDaily
The documentary, which premiered at Sundance, has also scored international deals.
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Nina Menkes documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power and is teaming with library streaming platform Kanopy to release the film.
Billed as an “interrogation of the male gaze in cinema,” Brainwashed will be released theatrically in the US and Canada this autumn, with an educational streaming launch exclusively on Kanopy to follow.
Cinephil is handling international sales at the Cannes Marche and has secured deals for UK/Ireland with the BFI, for the Nordics and Baltics with Non Stop Entertainment, for Poland with New Horizons,...
Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Nina Menkes documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power and is teaming with library streaming platform Kanopy to release the film.
Billed as an “interrogation of the male gaze in cinema,” Brainwashed will be released theatrically in the US and Canada this autumn, with an educational streaming launch exclusively on Kanopy to follow.
Cinephil is handling international sales at the Cannes Marche and has secured deals for UK/Ireland with the BFI, for the Nordics and Baltics with Non Stop Entertainment, for Poland with New Horizons,...
- 5/19/2022
- by John Hazelton
- ScreenDaily
The Bloody ChildA vast, arid desert, a noisy casino, a sun-lit motel room, a glittering dance floor in a small town dive bar: this is the world of Nina Menkes. Universal spaces made intimate and confined, these locations mark the sites of socialization for the American experimental filmmaker’s wandering, lonely characters. Mostly women, and mostly marginalized by the gaze of a dominant male world, Menkes’ ghostly souls search for community and release in these symbols of rural Americana.With a new documentary, Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (2022), that premiered at Sundance in January and a retrospective of her restored films hosted by the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this month, Menkes has found a fresh spotlight. Despite Brainwashed’s movement away from the filmmaker’s compelling fiction-hybrid work, the opportunity to reconnect with her oeuvre is a welcome one. Exploring gender dynamics and their interplay with sex, violence, and capitalism, Menkes operates in an explictly feminist sphere.
- 4/11/2022
- MUBI
The measures will be introduced from April 1 2022.
UK funding and support body Screen Scotland is incorporating the British Film Industry (BFI) Diversity Standards for all of the film projects and festivals it supports.
The BFI Diversity Standards – Screen Scotland will be piloted on all projects applying for Screen Scotland’s Film Development and Production Fund and its Film Festivals Fund during 2022.
Following the pilot, the aim is to roll out of the standards across the full range of Screen Scotland’s film and TV funds from 2023.
Screen Scotland’s executive director Isabel Davis said: “A truly representative screen sector reflects the whole of society,...
UK funding and support body Screen Scotland is incorporating the British Film Industry (BFI) Diversity Standards for all of the film projects and festivals it supports.
The BFI Diversity Standards – Screen Scotland will be piloted on all projects applying for Screen Scotland’s Film Development and Production Fund and its Film Festivals Fund during 2022.
Following the pilot, the aim is to roll out of the standards across the full range of Screen Scotland’s film and TV funds from 2023.
Screen Scotland’s executive director Isabel Davis said: “A truly representative screen sector reflects the whole of society,...
- 3/9/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Screen team give their final Bafta predictions ahead of the ceremony on March 13
In the latest episode of The Screen Podcast, the team discuss the final contenders for the Baftas, and mark International Women’s Day by speaking to renowned independent filmmaker Nina Menkes.
The Screen International Podcast · Our final Bafta predictions plus Nina Menkes interview
Screen’s editor Matt Mueller, deputy editor Louise Tutt, awards and box office editor Charles Gant, and chief film critic and reviews editor Fionnuala Halligan give their final Bafta predictions ahead of the ceremony on March 13, and assess the overall awards race as it enters its final stretch.
In the latest episode of The Screen Podcast, the team discuss the final contenders for the Baftas, and mark International Women’s Day by speaking to renowned independent filmmaker Nina Menkes.
The Screen International Podcast · Our final Bafta predictions plus Nina Menkes interview
Screen’s editor Matt Mueller, deputy editor Louise Tutt, awards and box office editor Charles Gant, and chief film critic and reviews editor Fionnuala Halligan give their final Bafta predictions ahead of the ceremony on March 13, and assess the overall awards race as it enters its final stretch.
- 3/8/2022
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Beginning March 4, Brooklyn Academy of Music (Bam) will host a retrospective of pioneering filmmaker Nina Menkes. The exhibition arrives just after Menkes debuted her latest documentary “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” at 2022 Sundance. Exclusive to IndieWire, watch the trailer for the retrospective below.
The week-long Bam retrospective, “Cinema Is Sorcery: The Films of Nina Menkes,” features new restorations of “The Bloody Child” (4K by by The Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation) which premiered at NYFF last fall, and “Magdalena Viraga,” (2K by Arbelos Films) which makes its New York City premiere with the museum.
“Magdalena Viraga” was filmed in bars and hotels in East Los Angeles, following the inner life of a prostitute, played by Tinka Menkes, who is imprisoned for killing her pimp. The 1986 film won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Independent/Experimental Film of the Year, and went on to be featured in the Whitney...
The week-long Bam retrospective, “Cinema Is Sorcery: The Films of Nina Menkes,” features new restorations of “The Bloody Child” (4K by by The Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation) which premiered at NYFF last fall, and “Magdalena Viraga,” (2K by Arbelos Films) which makes its New York City premiere with the museum.
“Magdalena Viraga” was filmed in bars and hotels in East Los Angeles, following the inner life of a prostitute, played by Tinka Menkes, who is imprisoned for killing her pimp. The 1986 film won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Independent/Experimental Film of the Year, and went on to be featured in the Whitney...
- 2/24/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)Visual FX pioneer Douglas Trumbull has died at the age of 79. Among Trumbull's many achievements are his VFX contributions to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (which Trumbull worked on at the age of 25), Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. In a 2012 interview with the New York Times, Trumbull described his ongoing experiments with new technology and his belief that "if you want to get people to go out to the movies, to pay a premium price for some kind of premium experience, it better be damned premium. It better be extraordinary.”With this year's Oscar nominations, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car becomes the first Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture.
- 2/10/2022
- MUBI
“Perception is not whimsical, but fatal.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Movies turn viewers into willing participants looking to break through the screen—the “fourth wall”—and temporarily adopt the Pov of the camera and taking on its surveying gaze. Your own emotional response may vary—excitement, titillation, utter boredom—but the camera’s eye is your own, if only for the duration of the film. In her landmark essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” written in the 1970s, scholar and filmmaker Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the “male gaze,” arguing that the camera’s eye was inherently male and could often be misogynistic in its depiction […]
The post “120 Years of the Male Gaze On Our Backs”: Nina Menkes on Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “120 Years of the Male Gaze On Our Backs”: Nina Menkes on Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/4/2022
- by Erik Luers
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
“Perception is not whimsical, but fatal.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Movies turn viewers into willing participants looking to break through the screen—the “fourth wall”—and temporarily adopt the Pov of the camera and taking on its surveying gaze. Your own emotional response may vary—excitement, titillation, utter boredom—but the camera’s eye is your own, if only for the duration of the film. In her landmark essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” written in the 1970s, scholar and filmmaker Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the “male gaze,” arguing that the camera’s eye was inherently male and could often be misogynistic in its depiction […]
The post “120 Years of the Male Gaze On Our Backs”: Nina Menkes on Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “120 Years of the Male Gaze On Our Backs”: Nina Menkes on Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/4/2022
- by Erik Luers
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
With nearly every feature film at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival reviewed, it’s time to wrap up the first major cinema event of the year. We already got the official jury and audience winners here, and now it’s time to highlight our favorites.
Our Sundance contributors have shared their top picks from the festival, also including a handful of shorts (with a more substantial shorts overview coming soon). Check out everything below and stay tuned to our site, and specifically Twitter, for acquisition and release date news on the below films in the coming months.
Mitchell Beaupre
1. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)
2. After Yang (kogonada)
3. Speak No Evil (Christian Tafdrup)
4. God’s Country (Julian Higgins)
5. A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)
6. Resurrection (Andrew Semans)
7. Nanny (Nikyatu Jusu)
8. Happening (Audrey Diwan)
9. Emergency (Carey Williams)
10. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde)
John Fink
1. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier...
Our Sundance contributors have shared their top picks from the festival, also including a handful of shorts (with a more substantial shorts overview coming soon). Check out everything below and stay tuned to our site, and specifically Twitter, for acquisition and release date news on the below films in the coming months.
Mitchell Beaupre
1. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)
2. After Yang (kogonada)
3. Speak No Evil (Christian Tafdrup)
4. God’s Country (Julian Higgins)
5. A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)
6. Resurrection (Andrew Semans)
7. Nanny (Nikyatu Jusu)
8. Happening (Audrey Diwan)
9. Emergency (Carey Williams)
10. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde)
John Fink
1. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier...
- 2/1/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
IndieWire reached out to the cinematographers behind the nonfiction features premiering at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and asked which cameras, lenses, and formats they used, and why they chose them to create the looks and meet the production demands of their films. Here are their responses.
Films appear in alphabetical order by title.
“All That Breathes“
Section: World Cinema Documentary Competition
Dir: Shaunak Sen, DoP: Ben Bernhard
Format: 4K Canon Log/ V-Log
Camera: Canon Eos C500MkII, Panasonic S1H
Lens: Leica R Primes and Zooms, Angenieux 45-90mm, Canon 500mm and Macro
Bernhard: In “All That Breathes,“ our approach was always “to render the scientific into the poetic,“ as Shaunak puts it. We were intrigued by how the organic matter of the earth shifts and changes because of human intervention, and how new natural habitats are formed. That’s why we chose a cinematic language that would keep the...
Films appear in alphabetical order by title.
“All That Breathes“
Section: World Cinema Documentary Competition
Dir: Shaunak Sen, DoP: Ben Bernhard
Format: 4K Canon Log/ V-Log
Camera: Canon Eos C500MkII, Panasonic S1H
Lens: Leica R Primes and Zooms, Angenieux 45-90mm, Canon 500mm and Macro
Bernhard: In “All That Breathes,“ our approach was always “to render the scientific into the poetic,“ as Shaunak puts it. We were intrigued by how the organic matter of the earth shifts and changes because of human intervention, and how new natural habitats are formed. That’s why we chose a cinematic language that would keep the...
- 1/27/2022
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
It's no secret that Hollywood has long objectified women and kept them away from any positions of power that would allow them to do anything about it. Only in recent years have significant dents been made to further diversify the hierarchy of misogyny and patriarchy that dominates the entertainment industry. But in her new documentary "Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power," filmmaker Nina Menkes reveals that the visual language of cinema has long held the male gaze in the endless objectification of women and their bodies.
Inspired by her own cinematic lecture, "Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Cinema," Menkes provides a clear connection between how women...
The post Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power Review: The Inherent Misogyny of Cinema is Academically Analyzed [Sundance 2022] appeared first on /Film.
Inspired by her own cinematic lecture, "Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Cinema," Menkes provides a clear connection between how women...
The post Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power Review: The Inherent Misogyny of Cinema is Academically Analyzed [Sundance 2022] appeared first on /Film.
- 1/24/2022
- by Ethan Anderton
- Slash Film
The crux of Nina Menkes’s documentary feature “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” is that nearly all movies have been made using a specific visual language that teaches society to disempower, disenfranchise, and even abuse women. You may think that on-screen sexism is a thing of the past, or that it can’t possibly affect our society, in which women can now run companies and win Best Director Oscars. Menkes is here to tell you, emphatically, that you are wrong.
Continue reading ‘Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power’ Review: How The Male Gaze Actually Harms Women [Sundance] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power’ Review: How The Male Gaze Actually Harms Women [Sundance] at The Playlist.
- 1/23/2022
- by Lena Wilson
- The Playlist
Though the different eras of global feminist thought are known as “waves,” which implies successive awakenings of liberation and critique, the film world takes an inordinately long time to develop alongside it. Amidst the social upheavals of the ‘60s, where previously “permissive” sexual content was finally allowed to be seen in mainstream cinema, the industry arguably became even more sexist, lecherous, and restrictive around female subjects.
There’s also a more subtle way to see the pervasive sexism of film culture: through documentaries, and broadcast TV on film criticism and history. While a titan like Pauline Kael could flourish on public radio (leading to her influential reign at the New Yorker), from Siskel & Ebert, to Scorsese’s Journey Through American Movies and onto the video-essay era, it is a sausage fest. Faint as it may seem, it makes a difference when an authoritative-seeming, patriarchal figure is alone on that pedestal,...
There’s also a more subtle way to see the pervasive sexism of film culture: through documentaries, and broadcast TV on film criticism and history. While a titan like Pauline Kael could flourish on public radio (leading to her influential reign at the New Yorker), from Siskel & Ebert, to Scorsese’s Journey Through American Movies and onto the video-essay era, it is a sausage fest. Faint as it may seem, it makes a difference when an authoritative-seeming, patriarchal figure is alone on that pedestal,...
- 1/22/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
For their 2022 edition, the Sundance Film Festival has once again adapted to the ever-shifting pandemic landscape. Having recently scrapping their in-person plans, they’ve shifted to a virtual-only lineup that will begin this Thursday and last through January 30, offering the first glimpse at the year in cinema.
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re highlighting the premieres that should be on your radar. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
As his early films exuded a documentary-like approach to riveting character studies, it’s not surprising that Ramin Bahrani’s first fully fledged non-fiction feature is a wildly entertaining look at a complicated figure. 2nd Chance explores the life and career ambitions of Richard Davis, a pizzeria owner who built a bulletproof-vest empire. Full of twists,...
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re highlighting the premieres that should be on your radar. If you’re interested in experiencing Sundance from home, one can see available tickets here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
As his early films exuded a documentary-like approach to riveting character studies, it’s not surprising that Ramin Bahrani’s first fully fledged non-fiction feature is a wildly entertaining look at a complicated figure. 2nd Chance explores the life and career ambitions of Richard Davis, a pizzeria owner who built a bulletproof-vest empire. Full of twists,...
- 1/18/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Following the lead of the Sundance Film Festival itself, the ASCAP Music Cafe that usually takes place during the festival will be going virtual for a second consecutive year. ASCAP’s web offerings for the 2022 fest will feature performances by Brandy Clark, John Doe and the teaming of Evan Rachel Wood and Zane Carney, among others, along with panels including composers who scored films premiering as part of Sundance.
The 24th annual edition of the performing rights organization’s Music Cafe will go down in the online Sundance Film Festival Village over a period of four days. The performances will take place Jan. 21-22, followed by panel discussions Jan. 23-24 billed as part of “ASCAP Screen Time,” the org’s ongoing interview series about the art and business of film composing.
Evan Rachel Wood has already made Sundance news with the announcement Wednesday that a two-part documentary about the singer-actor,...
The 24th annual edition of the performing rights organization’s Music Cafe will go down in the online Sundance Film Festival Village over a period of four days. The performances will take place Jan. 21-22, followed by panel discussions Jan. 23-24 billed as part of “ASCAP Screen Time,” the org’s ongoing interview series about the art and business of film composing.
Evan Rachel Wood has already made Sundance news with the announcement Wednesday that a two-part documentary about the singer-actor,...
- 1/13/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
PoetBerlinale have announced the first 62 titles selected for the 72nd edition of their festival, set to take place physically from February 10 — 20.FORUMAfterwater (Dane Komljen)Poet (Darezhan Omirbayev)The Middle AgesEurope (Philip Scheffner)A Flower in the Mouth (Éric Baudelaire)Memoryland (Kim Quy Bui)My Two Voices (Lina Rodriguez)Nuclear Family (Erin Wilkerson, Travis Wilkerson)Super Natural (Jorge Jácome)The United States of America (James Benning)Forum EXPANDEDDragon Tooth (Rafael Castanheira Parrode)Home When You Return (Carl Elsaesser)Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair (James Gregory Atkinson)Sol in the Dark (Mawena Yehouessi)vs (Lydia Nsiah)PANORAMATalking About the Weather (Annika Pinske)The Apartment with Two Women (Kim Se-in)Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (Nina Menkes)Swing Ride (Chiara Bellosi)Dreaming WallsKlondike (Maryna Er Gorbach)A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)Myanmar Diaries (The Myanmar Film Collective)Into My Name (Nicolò Bassetti)Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten)We, Students! (Rafiki Fariala)Until Tomorrow (Ali Asgari...
- 12/15/2021
- MUBI
The 2022 Berlin International Film Festival has revealed its first titles, including seven films that have been invited to the Berlinale Special program. You can see the full list of confirmed films below.
Those seven include Peter Flinth’s Against The Ice, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Heida Reed and Charles Dance, and Laurent Larivière’s About Joan, starring Isabelle Huppert, which both play as Berlinale Special Galas.
The Panorama program has unveiled 13 titles, with Generation confirming eight features, and further films set for Forum and Forum Expanded.
The Panorama strand includes Myanmar Diaries, a doc/feature hybrid from the Myanmar Film Collective that highlights violence suffered by Burmese citizens.
“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic, reflecting on how it feels to be disconnected from others. It is with this first...
Those seven include Peter Flinth’s Against The Ice, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Heida Reed and Charles Dance, and Laurent Larivière’s About Joan, starring Isabelle Huppert, which both play as Berlinale Special Galas.
The Panorama program has unveiled 13 titles, with Generation confirming eight features, and further films set for Forum and Forum Expanded.
The Panorama strand includes Myanmar Diaries, a doc/feature hybrid from the Myanmar Film Collective that highlights violence suffered by Burmese citizens.
“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic, reflecting on how it feels to be disconnected from others. It is with this first...
- 12/15/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
The Berlin Film Festival has revealed several titles across various programs for the 2022 edition of the festival.
Women directors account for seven of the 13 titles revealed so far in the Panorama section, including U.S. filmmaker Nina Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power,” emerging German director Annika Pinske’s debut feature “Alle reden übers Wetter” (“Talking About the Weather”), and Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama “Klondike.”
“The films confirmed so far herald a contemporary, unsparing but also conciliatory cinema in the 2022 Panorama,” said section head Michael Stütz.
Seven films have been unveiled for the festival’s Berlinale Special gala strand, including Peter Flinth’s “Against the Ice,” starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Laurent Larivière’s “About Joan,” featuring Isabelle Huppert, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” with Alia Bhatt.
“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic,...
Women directors account for seven of the 13 titles revealed so far in the Panorama section, including U.S. filmmaker Nina Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power,” emerging German director Annika Pinske’s debut feature “Alle reden übers Wetter” (“Talking About the Weather”), and Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama “Klondike.”
“The films confirmed so far herald a contemporary, unsparing but also conciliatory cinema in the 2022 Panorama,” said section head Michael Stütz.
Seven films have been unveiled for the festival’s Berlinale Special gala strand, including Peter Flinth’s “Against the Ice,” starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Laurent Larivière’s “About Joan,” featuring Isabelle Huppert, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” with Alia Bhatt.
“The pandemic has created distances – not only between people but also the way we see the world. Amongst the 2022 selection are films shot during the pandemic,...
- 12/15/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Following their Main Slate announcement, Film at Lincoln Center has now unveiled the slate of new restorations set to premiere at the 59th New York Film Festival. Featuring work by Mira Nair, John Carpenter, Michael Powell, Lynne Ramsay, Joan Micklin Silver, Melvin Van Peebles, and more, it’s an eclectic lineup of classics and rarities.
“We are delighted to share this year’s particularly strong Revivals lineup,” said Florence Almozini, Flc Senior Programmer at Large. “The section showcases groundbreaking works by John Carpenter, Mira Nair, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Menkes, Wendell B. Harris Jr., Michael Powell, and more, in masterful restorations. One of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema. We think this selection is both a celebration and a thought-provoking adventure, and we hope audiences will enjoy exploring it,...
“We are delighted to share this year’s particularly strong Revivals lineup,” said Florence Almozini, Flc Senior Programmer at Large. “The section showcases groundbreaking works by John Carpenter, Mira Nair, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Menkes, Wendell B. Harris Jr., Michael Powell, and more, in masterful restorations. One of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema. We think this selection is both a celebration and a thought-provoking adventure, and we hope audiences will enjoy exploring it,...
- 8/18/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Groundbreaking works by John Carpenter, Mira Nair, Melvin Van Peebles, Nina Menkes and Michael Powell will be featured in the Revivals lineup of the 59th New York Film Festival. These films, which range from historical dramas to pulpy crime thrillers, have been digitally remastered and restored.
Films being highlighted this year include a 4K restoration of Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13,” Powell’s “Bluebird’s Ghost,” Menkes’s “The Bloody Child,” Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” and Van Peebles’s “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.”
“One of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema,” said Florence Almozini, Flc Senior Programmer at Large. “We think this selection is both a celebration and a thought-provoking adventure, and we hope audiences will enjoy exploring it, whether they are seeing these films for the first or 20th time.
Films being highlighted this year include a 4K restoration of Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13,” Powell’s “Bluebird’s Ghost,” Menkes’s “The Bloody Child,” Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” and Van Peebles’s “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.”
“One of the biggest satisfactions of programming Revivals within this festival is looking back at cinematic treasures of the past and seeing their continuity and relevance with today’s cinema,” said Florence Almozini, Flc Senior Programmer at Large. “We think this selection is both a celebration and a thought-provoking adventure, and we hope audiences will enjoy exploring it, whether they are seeing these films for the first or 20th time.
- 8/17/2021
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced the 395 artists and executives that have been invited to join this year — about half the number of last year’s class. The 2021 class is comprised of 46% women, 39% underrepresented ethnic/racial communities and 53% international from 49 countries outside the United States. Of the 395 invitees, 89 are former Oscar nominees, including 25 winners.
Eight individuals have been invited to join by multiple branches and must select one branch upon acceptance. They include Leslie Odom Jr, Kaouther Ben Hania, Craig Brewer, Lee Isaac Chung, Emerald Fennell, Shaka King, Alexander Nanau, Florian Zeller.
Other big names among the newly invited include Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek, “Promising Young Woman” original screenplay winner Emerald Fennell and “Minari” stars Steven Yeun, Ye-ri Han and recently crowned supporting actress Yuh-Jung Youn.
In the directing category, new invitees include Janicza Bravo, Nia DaCosta, Cathy Yan, Darius Marder, Michael Almereyda, Lizzie Borden,...
Eight individuals have been invited to join by multiple branches and must select one branch upon acceptance. They include Leslie Odom Jr, Kaouther Ben Hania, Craig Brewer, Lee Isaac Chung, Emerald Fennell, Shaka King, Alexander Nanau, Florian Zeller.
Other big names among the newly invited include Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek, “Promising Young Woman” original screenplay winner Emerald Fennell and “Minari” stars Steven Yeun, Ye-ri Han and recently crowned supporting actress Yuh-Jung Youn.
In the directing category, new invitees include Janicza Bravo, Nia DaCosta, Cathy Yan, Darius Marder, Michael Almereyda, Lizzie Borden,...
- 7/1/2021
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
After unveiling the discs that will be arriving in April, including Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder, Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep, and more, Criterion has now announced what will be coming to their streaming channel next month.
Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.
Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...
Highlights include retrospectives dedicated to Guy Maddin, Ruby Dee, Lana Turner, and Gordon Parks, plus selections from Marlene Dietrich & Josef von Sternberg’s stellar box set. They will also present the exclusive streaming premieres of Bill Duke’s The Killing Floor, William Greaves’s Nationtime, Kevin Jerome Everson’s Park Lanes, and more.
Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which recently arrived on the collection, will be landing on the channel as well, along with a special “Lovers on the Run” series including film noir (They Live by Night) to New Hollywood (Badlands) to the French New Wave (Pierrot le fou) to Blaxploitation (Thomasine & Bushrod) and beyond. Also...
- 1/26/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
As the #MeToo movement continues to resonate, filmmaker Nina Menkes has unveiled details about her forthcoming documentary Brainwashed and the all-female team behind it. The feature docu exposes common cinematic techniques that disempower women and girls. Produced, conceived and directed by Menkes, the film is slated for completion in mid-2021 and will be entered for festival consideration.
The docu gives incisive commentary on films from the 1940s through the present. Using key scenes from A-list directors, Menkes spotlights how filmmakers employ framing, lighting, visual effects and camera angles to disempower women while appearing to glamorize them. These cinematic techniques for disempowerment have been dubbed “The Menkes List.”
Maria Giese and Summer Xinlei Yang have boarded the project as co-producers. Giese is the DGA member who instigated the groundbreaking 2015 industry-wide federal investigation of sex discrimination in Hollywood. Yang is an independent producer and founder of Summary Productions. Giese is also featured...
The docu gives incisive commentary on films from the 1940s through the present. Using key scenes from A-list directors, Menkes spotlights how filmmakers employ framing, lighting, visual effects and camera angles to disempower women while appearing to glamorize them. These cinematic techniques for disempowerment have been dubbed “The Menkes List.”
Maria Giese and Summer Xinlei Yang have boarded the project as co-producers. Giese is the DGA member who instigated the groundbreaking 2015 industry-wide federal investigation of sex discrimination in Hollywood. Yang is an independent producer and founder of Summary Productions. Giese is also featured...
- 10/9/2020
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
The fact the case came to trial and resulted in convictions stunned some prosecutors.
The news of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault has been met positively amongst the female filmmaker community around the world despite the mixed verdict at his New York trial on Monday.
Weinstein was convicted of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act, based on the testimonies of two of his accusers - then aspiring actress Jessica Mann and production assistant Mimi Haleyi.
Sentencing is set for March 11 and could carry a prison term of between five and 29 years. Weinstein has still...
The news of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault has been met positively amongst the female filmmaker community around the world despite the mixed verdict at his New York trial on Monday.
Weinstein was convicted of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act, based on the testimonies of two of his accusers - then aspiring actress Jessica Mann and production assistant Mimi Haleyi.
Sentencing is set for March 11 and could carry a prison term of between five and 29 years. Weinstein has still...
- 2/27/2020
- by ¬0¦Liza Foreman¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
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