Generally, when I enter the small sauna room at my local Ymca after a workout, I’m prone to eavesdrop on a group of men opining on topics such as Andrew Tate. In comparison, the Sundance-winning documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood presents the steamy (not in that way) space as something genuinely holy. 89 minutes of, ahem, women talking, director Anna Hints’ film is a noble effort from whom you can easily appreciate the overall gesture. But for veering into the cosmic or transcendental to often corny effect, one doesn’t really feel it conceptualizing in some intelligent fashion.
Taking us to a cabin in rural Estonia that’s been officially deemed a place of cultural importance by Unesco, we maybe get a subtle advertisement cloaked inside images that at times resemble the avant-garde concoctions of director Philippe Grandrieux. If one thinks of naked old bodies, in cinematic terms, as a shock effect in horror films,...
Taking us to a cabin in rural Estonia that’s been officially deemed a place of cultural importance by Unesco, we maybe get a subtle advertisement cloaked inside images that at times resemble the avant-garde concoctions of director Philippe Grandrieux. If one thinks of naked old bodies, in cinematic terms, as a shock effect in horror films,...
- 11/24/2023
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
Groundbreaking French-Iranian sales agent and producer Hengameh Panahi, who represented a myriad of renowned Cannes and Venice prize-winning auteur directors, has died at the age of 67.
Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.
She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.
Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.
Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.
She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.
In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...
Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.
She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.
Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.
Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.
She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.
In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...
- 11/9/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Shrooms.This year’s edition of TIFF Wavelengths opened with an unannounced extra. It was a 1967 film called Standard Time, an eight-minute series of circular pans around an apartment. The camera speeds up and slows down; it pans right, then left, then right again. Later, the film describes a truncated arc, showing one small section of the flat. Then, the camera pans up and down. Living beings can be glimpsed along the way, most notably a cat perched in a window, artist Joyce Wieland, and a surprise visitor at the end. But they are given the same relative attention as the objects in the space: a TV, a stereo, a cooktop, a blender, and a hutch full of china. Which is to say that all things in the field of the camera’s vision are abstracted, turned into pure painterly velocity.Of course, Standard Time is by Michael Snow, a...
- 9/12/2023
- MUBI
Loïc Phil’s Connection is an emotive love letter to that potent and all-consuming rush that comes with a powerful first romantic encounter. The French director comes from a background in documentary making and music production and Connection marks his first narrative short and exhibits his strong pull to balance sound and image to create a unique rhythm in his work. The intense dialogue free three minute runtime follows a young couple as they race through those delicious and passionate first moments together before an abrupt departure that could tear them apart. Each meticulously planned and skilfully framed scene seems to encapsulate a much more extended and weighty moment in their meeting due to Loïc’s rigorous planning in order to capture everything he needed over an intense two day shoot. As Connection premieres on the pages of Dn we spoke to Loïc about taking a step away from the comfort offered by digital production,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSProlific title designer Wayne Fitzgerald, who created the titles for films like The Godfather, Touch of Evil, and even Beverly Hills Ninja, has died. You can find the many infamous title cards designed by Fitzgerald on Annyas. Recommended VIEWINGThe official trailer for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, as introduced by Robert De Niro on Jimmy Fallon. Read our review of the film from the New York Film Festival here. The 4K restoration of Béla Tarr's slow cinema masterpiece, Sátántangó (1994), about a collective of Hungarian villagers seeking refuge during the fall of communism. Kazuo Hara's latest, Reiwa Uprising, follows "Ayumi Yasutomi, a cross-dressing candidate, who is also a Tokyo University professor, as she embarks on a national campaign for a seat in Japan's Upper House." For Sight & Sound, critic Charlie Lyne delves into...
- 10/1/2019
- MUBI
The career trajectory of Philippe Grandrieux has in some respects come full circle in the last ten years. International acclaim came to the director with his signature narrative film Sombre (1998) in part due to its loose association with the so-called French New Extremity movement of the late-1990s and early 2000s, and he has cultivated a devoted following among certain audiences, critics, and critical theorists with the features A New Life (2002), Un Lac (2008), and Despite the Night (2015). His work originates, however, in video installation, photography, and documentaries—media that he has worked in consistently from the mid-1970s through today. While their subject matter is diverse, a “thesis” of sorts running through nearly all of his works can be distilled into a statement by Grandrieux himself: “Le cinéma est l’art de la sensation” (“cinema is the art of sensation”). Grandrieux’s approach to the film subject has been distinguished...
- 9/30/2019
- MUBI
F.J. Ossang's 9 Fingers (2017) is exclusively showing November 9 – December 8, 2018 as a Special Discovery. The retrospective F.J. Ossang: Cinema Is Punk is showing November 2018 - January 2019 on Mubi in most countries around the world.Dharma GunsThe films of F.J. Ossang are richly paradoxical objects. One of the things that struck me most forcefully on my initial encounter with his work was the odd and compelling discrepancy between a bursting-at-the-seams fullness on one level, and an almost minimalistic void on another level. The friction of these two levels—the full and the empty—is simultaneous and constant, from the first moments of Ossang’s first feature film to the termination of his latest, 9 Fingers (2017). The evidence of this unusual style is directly there, poured into your eyes and ears. The characters—themselves palpably “there” as physical presences, yet militantly lacking any conventional psychology—never stop talking about the...
- 11/12/2018
- MUBI
The Notebook is covering Tiff with an on-going correspondence between critics Kelley Dong and Daniel Kasman.Dear Kelley,You have found two of the better films at the festival for sure—I am also struggling a bit to find the impressive amongst the uneven, broken, just plain dull or, worst of all, irresponsible. Of course, Barry Jenkins' film is none of these things, but rather a warm hug of a film, one that recognizes the inequities of American society for black Americans and counters it not just with love in its story, but love in its form. For Jenkins clearly is, three movies in, a director of love: love for actors, for characters, and ultimately for the people evoked through the coaxing of the latter from the former. If Beale Street Could Tak is coated in a balm of compassion, one so enveloping that it threatens to render the film too nice,...
- 9/19/2018
- MUBI
Above: French poster for Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!. Artist: Enrico de Seta.Starting today, the Quad Cinema in New York will be playing what must be the most entertaining and esoteric genre series of the summer. In advance of the release of the delirious nuovo spaghetti western crime thriller Let the Corpses Tan, the Quad has invited directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani to program ten personal favorites that have influenced their new film.The resulting curation is a fabulous mix of genres and locations, with films both well known (John Boorman’s Point Blank) and relatively obscure. The majority are from the filmmakers’ favorite period of the late ’60s and early ’70s—as the Quad’s introduction says, “apart from Quentin Tarantino, few writer/directors active in film today have the lifeblood of 1960s and 1970s cinema coursing through their veins as fulsomely as Hélène Cattet and...
- 8/23/2018
- MUBI
The medium of cinema is used to tackle painfully unfinished family business in The Image You Missed, Irish multi-hyphenate Donal Foreman's deeply personal essay-film examining his estranged dad, the firebrand cineaste Arthur "Art" MacCaig. Premiering in a sidebar at Rotterdam, this elliptical compendium of archival and newly shot footage quickly became a "buzz" picture among the event's more ardently cinephile attendees.
The U.K.-U.S.-Ireland-France co-production has already nabbed several festival bookings in the months ahead, and the involvement of maverick auteur Philippe Grandrieux and esteemed critic/curator Nicole Brenez as executive producers will doubtless yield further high-profile engagements...
The U.K.-U.S.-Ireland-France co-production has already nabbed several festival bookings in the months ahead, and the involvement of maverick auteur Philippe Grandrieux and esteemed critic/curator Nicole Brenez as executive producers will doubtless yield further high-profile engagements...
- 2/3/2018
- by Neil Young
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
France has a rich history of horror. There’s the sadomasochistic novels of the Marquis de Sade as well as the blood and guts of Grand Guignol theatre. In cinema, the horror lineage runs deep. There’s Georges Méliès’ shorts and trick films (The Haunted Castle [1896], The Four Troublesome Heads [1898]); the eye-slicing of Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (1929); Georges Franju’s nauseating documentary on slaughterhouses, Blood of the Beasts (1949), as well as his clinical and poetic Eyes Without a Face (1960); there’s Henri-Georges Clouzot’s nasty Diabolique (1955); and the rotting poetry of Jean Rollin’s collective work. Flash forward a few decades, to the mid-1990s and 2000s, where we find the intense and brutal "New French Extremity" films by Philippe Grandrieux, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar Noé, Marina de Van, and others. And there are the genre filmmakers creating work around the same time as the more...
- 3/10/2017
- MUBI
Exclusive: Celluloid sets down at Efm with biggest slate in years, adding two new Italian productions.
Paris-based sales agent Celluloid Dreams, at the European Film Market (Efm) this week with one of its biggest slates in recent years, has boarded sales on two high-profile Italian titles, Silvio Soldini’s [pictured] Emma and Marco Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donna.
Soldini’s Emma stars Adriano Giannini as a womanising creative director at a trendy ad agency who falls under the spell of a beautiful, married and blind osteopath. It is now in post-production. Videa has acquired Italian rights.
Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donne stars Cristiana Capotondi as a single mother who works at an old people’s home, where she discovers that the manager is sexually abusing the staff and she sets out to bring him to justice.
Celluloid Dreams president and head of acquisitions Hengameh Panahi acquired the films through her long-time contact, Lionello Cerri at Lumière...
Paris-based sales agent Celluloid Dreams, at the European Film Market (Efm) this week with one of its biggest slates in recent years, has boarded sales on two high-profile Italian titles, Silvio Soldini’s [pictured] Emma and Marco Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donna.
Soldini’s Emma stars Adriano Giannini as a womanising creative director at a trendy ad agency who falls under the spell of a beautiful, married and blind osteopath. It is now in post-production. Videa has acquired Italian rights.
Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donne stars Cristiana Capotondi as a single mother who works at an old people’s home, where she discovers that the manager is sexually abusing the staff and she sets out to bring him to justice.
Celluloid Dreams president and head of acquisitions Hengameh Panahi acquired the films through her long-time contact, Lionello Cerri at Lumière...
- 2/10/2017
- ScreenDaily
Sales outfit has also acquired Spanish drama and Iffr Tiger contender Sister Of Mine ahead of the Efm.
Paris-based International sales outfit Stray Dogs is ramping up its slate ahead of next month’s European Film Market in Berlin (Feb 9-17).
The company, founded by Nathan Fischer in 2015, has confirmed two new pick-ups at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Among the most striking acquisitions is Mansfield 66/67, the experimental feature documentary about the last two years in the life of screen siren and Hollywood sex symbol, Jayne Mansfield.
In the film, which features cult director Kenneth Anger and actress Tippi Hedren, Mansfield is portrayed by Ann Magnuson. It combines archive footage and interviews blended with experimental dance numbers and animations.
Tood Hughes and P. David Ebersole directed the documentary, which premieres in Rotterdam today (Jan 28).
2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Mansfield’s death in a car crash.
Also new on Stray Dogs’ slate is Spanish Iffr Tiger contender, Sister...
Paris-based International sales outfit Stray Dogs is ramping up its slate ahead of next month’s European Film Market in Berlin (Feb 9-17).
The company, founded by Nathan Fischer in 2015, has confirmed two new pick-ups at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Among the most striking acquisitions is Mansfield 66/67, the experimental feature documentary about the last two years in the life of screen siren and Hollywood sex symbol, Jayne Mansfield.
In the film, which features cult director Kenneth Anger and actress Tippi Hedren, Mansfield is portrayed by Ann Magnuson. It combines archive footage and interviews blended with experimental dance numbers and animations.
Tood Hughes and P. David Ebersole directed the documentary, which premieres in Rotterdam today (Jan 28).
2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Mansfield’s death in a car crash.
Also new on Stray Dogs’ slate is Spanish Iffr Tiger contender, Sister...
- 1/28/2017
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Festival moves to new autumn dates; audience award goes to Heartstone, and Girls Lost wins best children’s film.
Cph Pix’s New Talent Grand Pix has been awarded to Bulgarian filmmaker Ralitza Petrova for her film Godless.
The film, which is co-produced by new Danish production company Snowglobe, previously won the Golden Leopard in Locarno. It tells the story of a young physiotherapist struggling to survive in an economically depressed mountain town in post-Communist Bulgaria, who forms an unlikely bond with one of her elderly patients.
The New Talent Grand Pix – awarded for a debut feature — comes with $11,000 (€10,000); the jury was comprised of director Philippe Grandrieux (France), producer Erika Wasserman (Sweden) and DoP Manuel Alberto Claro (Denmark) [pictured with director Petrova].
In a statement, the jury said, “We were looking for a film-maker and talent who is not afraid to grab the world with the possibilities of cinema itself and use all its means to invite us inside this process...
Cph Pix’s New Talent Grand Pix has been awarded to Bulgarian filmmaker Ralitza Petrova for her film Godless.
The film, which is co-produced by new Danish production company Snowglobe, previously won the Golden Leopard in Locarno. It tells the story of a young physiotherapist struggling to survive in an economically depressed mountain town in post-Communist Bulgaria, who forms an unlikely bond with one of her elderly patients.
The New Talent Grand Pix – awarded for a debut feature — comes with $11,000 (€10,000); the jury was comprised of director Philippe Grandrieux (France), producer Erika Wasserman (Sweden) and DoP Manuel Alberto Claro (Denmark) [pictured with director Petrova].
In a statement, the jury said, “We were looking for a film-maker and talent who is not afraid to grab the world with the possibilities of cinema itself and use all its means to invite us inside this process...
- 11/7/2016
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Following yesterday’s announcement of more than 60 new titles, AFI Fest has named the 30-plus films in its World Cinema section. Cristian Mungiu’s “Graduation,” Betrand Bonello’s “Nocturama” and Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or–winning “I, Daniel Blake” are among the more notable selections, most of them culled from Cannes, Venice and other festivals.
The weeklong event, which begins in Hollywood with the world premiere of Warren Beatty’s “Rules Don’t Apply” on November 10, also announced that Raoul Peck and Lav Diaz will present their films “I Am Not Your Negro” and “The Woman Who Left,” respectively, as part of the Masters in Conversation program.
Read More: AFI Fest Announces New Auteurs, American Independents, Midnight and Shorts Sections
“After Love” (dir. Joachim Lafosse)
“Albüm” (dir. Mehmet Can Mertoğlu)
“Boris Without Beatrice” (dir. Denis Côté)
“The Commune” (dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
“Crosscurrent” (dir. Yang Chao)
“Death in Sarajevo” (dir.
The weeklong event, which begins in Hollywood with the world premiere of Warren Beatty’s “Rules Don’t Apply” on November 10, also announced that Raoul Peck and Lav Diaz will present their films “I Am Not Your Negro” and “The Woman Who Left,” respectively, as part of the Masters in Conversation program.
Read More: AFI Fest Announces New Auteurs, American Independents, Midnight and Shorts Sections
“After Love” (dir. Joachim Lafosse)
“Albüm” (dir. Mehmet Can Mertoğlu)
“Boris Without Beatrice” (dir. Denis Côté)
“The Commune” (dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
“Crosscurrent” (dir. Yang Chao)
“Death in Sarajevo” (dir.
- 10/19/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Philippe Grandrieux’s Despite the Night is a relentlessly morose, miasmic thing that, like much of his work, alternately seeks to narcotize and brutalize its viewer into submission until the distinctions between agony and ecstasy, tenderness and violation, are indistinguishable. Grandrieux is, in many respects, a wildly contradictory figure: a tough sell for most audiences; an easy pitch for prospective fans (the maximalist Denis? the haptic Lynch? the narrative Brakhage? the goth Malick? etc); a niche artist even in the realm of “festival cinema”; yet (for instance) a favorite of Marilyn Manson, who once recruited him to direct a music video. In a skeptical piece written for Reverse Shot, Michael Sicinski characterizes Grandrieux as the Scott Walker to Gaspar Noé’s Trent Reznor — the shadowy, marginal alternative to the celebrity provocateur. Facetiously, Sicinski continues, “To judge from his mystique, Grandrieux is that awesome band nobody likes yet, and you secretly hope nobody discovers.
- 8/20/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
NEWSFilm scholar V.F. Perkins, author of the essential book Film As Film (1972), has died at the age of 80.The BFI in London has announced Black Star, the UK's largest celebration of black screen actors, to run October 17 - December 31, 2016.Consummate Hollywood director Garry Marshall, best known for Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride and such television productions as Happy Days and Mork & Mindy, has died at 81.Filmmaker and Mubi team member Kurt Walker and filmmaker Isaac Goes are launching online film exhibition space Kinet, "catered to the dissemination of new and boundary pushing avant-garde cinema." Kinet's first program, which begins next week, includes Masha Tupitsyn's epic Love Sounds.Recommended VIEWINGThe feature debut of Canadian director Isiah Medina, 88:88, which received its global online premiere on Mubi last spring, is now streaming for free.An English-subtitled, behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Johnnie To's excellent thriller, Three.The teaser trailer for...
- 7/20/2016
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSAnton Yelchin in Green RoomUnexpected and tragic news at the end of the weekend was that actor Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Only Lovers Left Alive, Joe Dante's Burying the Ex, Green Room) was accidentally killed at his home.French New Wave director Éric Rohmer was intensely private, so details of his long, productive life have generally been slim. But now, as Richard Brody writes at the New Yorker, a 2014 biography by Antoine de Baecque and Noël Herpe has been translated into English, and makes for essential reading about one of cinema's greats.We won't get properly excited until, first, the cameras are rolling, and second, there's a hope of some kind of release date, but The Film Stage has gathered enough evidence to point towards what Terrence Malick's next film will be: Radegund,...
- 6/22/2016
- MUBI
The first trailer for Philippe Grandrieux’s Despite The Night (Malgré la nuit) has arrived and, despite no English subtitles, makes its tone and narrative trappings abundantly clear. Over an eerie, moaning score are explicit and violent images spliced together to create a dark vignette of eroticism and menace that the film seems to consist of.
Some Denis-esque cinematography and compositions combined with some chilling static frames suggest an intimate, disturbing journey through Paris at night. Starring Ariane Labed, recently seen in The Lobster and who will be in Assassin’s Creed this fall, see the Nsfw trailer below, with a thanks to Keyframe Daily.
English musician Lenz searches for his lover Madeleine, who has mysteriously disappeared, but tumbles into an amour fou with troubled, self-destructive Héléne. Grieving the loss of her infant son, Héléne seeks oblivion in the murky subterranean world of a brutal sex ring, followed by Lenz.
Some Denis-esque cinematography and compositions combined with some chilling static frames suggest an intimate, disturbing journey through Paris at night. Starring Ariane Labed, recently seen in The Lobster and who will be in Assassin’s Creed this fall, see the Nsfw trailer below, with a thanks to Keyframe Daily.
English musician Lenz searches for his lover Madeleine, who has mysteriously disappeared, but tumbles into an amour fou with troubled, self-destructive Héléne. Grieving the loss of her infant son, Héléne seeks oblivion in the murky subterranean world of a brutal sex ring, followed by Lenz.
- 6/21/2016
- by Mike Mazzanti
- The Film Stage
When the Night Has Come: Grandrieux Laments Lost Love
Seven years have passed since provocateur Philippe Grandrieux’s 2008 film Un Lac, and he remains somewhat of an acquired taste, though considering the subject matter, Malgré la nuit (Despite the Night) is surprisingly less galvanizing than his early features. The narrative, should we indeed call it thus, couldn’t be more simple, roughly concerning a British bloke returning to Paris to reconnect with his lost love. His reasons for leaving or returning aren’t apparently of importance once he disappears into a sort of Parisian ether, where passionate memories are pierced by a current state of abject degradation upon reconnecting with his troubled object of affection. The take away is more of a cerebral, extrasensory experience, existing as a diluted nightmare where pleasure and punishment are doled out in equal measure, which is hardly a surprise for those accustomed to Grandrieux’s filmography.
Seven years have passed since provocateur Philippe Grandrieux’s 2008 film Un Lac, and he remains somewhat of an acquired taste, though considering the subject matter, Malgré la nuit (Despite the Night) is surprisingly less galvanizing than his early features. The narrative, should we indeed call it thus, couldn’t be more simple, roughly concerning a British bloke returning to Paris to reconnect with his lost love. His reasons for leaving or returning aren’t apparently of importance once he disappears into a sort of Parisian ether, where passionate memories are pierced by a current state of abject degradation upon reconnecting with his troubled object of affection. The take away is more of a cerebral, extrasensory experience, existing as a diluted nightmare where pleasure and punishment are doled out in equal measure, which is hardly a surprise for those accustomed to Grandrieux’s filmography.
- 2/25/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Returning with another diverse, auteur heavy line-up with their 66th edition, the Berlin International Film Festival continues to impress just as much with selections available outside of the titles competing for the coveted Golden Bear (including the festival’s second edition of a Critics’ Week, where the latest titles from Andrzej Zulawski and Philippe Grandrieux are playing). New items from Bence Fliegauf, Eugene Green, Anna Muylaert, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Doris Dorrie are also significant highlights, but here’s a glance at my top five most anticipated.
#5. An Outpost of Progress – Dir. Hugo Vieira da Silva
Portuguese director Hugo Vieira da Silva returns with this adaptation of a Joseph Conrad story (the author considered this his best work), a tale of two colonial officials in a remote ivory trading post on the Congo. Conrad remains a difficult author to translate to the screen (some great exceptions from Coppola, Patrice Chereau, and...
#5. An Outpost of Progress – Dir. Hugo Vieira da Silva
Portuguese director Hugo Vieira da Silva returns with this adaptation of a Joseph Conrad story (the author considered this his best work), a tale of two colonial officials in a remote ivory trading post on the Congo. Conrad remains a difficult author to translate to the screen (some great exceptions from Coppola, Patrice Chereau, and...
- 2/11/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
"I owe a good part of my sensibility, if not my career, to the films of Mark Rappaport, an American director who now lives in Paris," writes Matt Zoller Seitz at the top of his interview for RogerEbert.com. We've also gathered interviews with Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Ben Rivers, Sean Baker, Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani, Philippe Grandrieux (Malgré la nuit), Peter Greenaway (with Elmer Bäck and Luis Alberti), cinematographer Edward Lachman, Frances Bodomo (Afronauts), Lee Grant, Gregory Crewdson, Jean-Claude Carrière, Michael Winterbottom, Owen Wilson—and in Interview, you'll find Peter Dinklage talking with Paul Dano. » - David Hudson...
- 2/8/2016
- Keyframe
"I owe a good part of my sensibility, if not my career, to the films of Mark Rappaport, an American director who now lives in Paris," writes Matt Zoller Seitz at the top of his interview for RogerEbert.com. We've also gathered interviews with Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Ben Rivers, Sean Baker, Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani, Philippe Grandrieux (Malgré la nuit), Peter Greenaway (with Elmer Bäck and Luis Alberti), cinematographer Edward Lachman, Frances Bodomo (Afronauts), Lee Grant, Gregory Crewdson, Jean-Claude Carrière, Michael Winterbottom, Owen Wilson—and in Interview, you'll find Peter Dinklage talking with Paul Dano. » - David Hudson...
- 2/8/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Sex GameWith so much gentility and desire for respect and accolades to be found in a random scan of any film festival program, the audacity of highlighting the films of someone with as checkered a history—to say the least—as Japanese director Masao Adachi might seem a provocation if this filmmaker was not in his venerable 70s, yet even so his home country wouldn't allow him to travel to Rotterdam for a spotlight on his career. Infamous first as a collaborator with prolific Japanese art-exploitation master Koji Wakamatsu—for whom he wrote a number of screenplays before then directing for Wakamatsu's production company—then for going with Wakamatsu to shoot 1971’s Red Army / Pflp: Declaration of World War in Lebanon, then for joining the Japanese Red Army and remaining in Lebanon for twenty years (an idea even more shameful in Japan than it might be considered elsewhere), Adachi was then arrested for passport violations,...
- 2/3/2016
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Berlin Critics' Week returns this year for a second edition, running from February 11 through 18. We've got notes on the lineup, which includes Zahra Vargas's Homer, a Hunter's Fate, Pablo Agüero's Eva Doesn't Sleep, Sara Fattahi's Coma, Philippe Grandrieux's Malgré la nuit, Denis Côté's Que nous nous assoupissions, Andrej Zulawski's Cosmos, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Vapour, Igor Minaev's Blue Dress, Lewis Klahr's Sixty Six, Isiah Medina's 88:88 and Marita Neher and Tatjana Turanskyj's Disorientation Isn't a Crime. » - David Hudson...
- 1/28/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Berlin Critics' Week returns this year for a second edition, running from February 11 through 18. We've got notes on the lineup, which includes Zahra Vargas's Homer, a Hunter's Fate, Pablo Agüero's Eva Doesn't Sleep, Sara Fattahi's Coma, Philippe Grandrieux's Malgré la nuit, Denis Côté's Que nous nous assoupissions, Andrej Zulawski's Cosmos, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Vapour, Igor Minaev's Blue Dress, Lewis Klahr's Sixty Six, Isiah Medina's 88:88 and Marita Neher and Tatjana Turanskyj's Disorientation Isn't a Crime. » - David Hudson...
- 1/28/2016
- Keyframe
The 45th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 27 through February 7 and in the past week or two, Iffr has rolled out lineups featuring new work by Takeshi Kitano, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Jerzy Skolimowski, Hashiguchi Ryosuke, Billy Woodberry, Grant Gee, Philippe Grandrieux, Arturo Ripstein, John Gianvito, Ben Rivers, Philippe Garrel, Laurie Anderson, Brady Corbet, Claire Simon, Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nicolás Pereda, Ben Wheatley, Mike Ott and Nathan Silver—and many more. » - David Hudson...
- 1/16/2016
- Keyframe
The 45th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 27 through February 7 and in the past week or two, Iffr has rolled out lineups featuring new work by Takeshi Kitano, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Jerzy Skolimowski, Hashiguchi Ryosuke, Billy Woodberry, Grant Gee, Philippe Grandrieux, Arturo Ripstein, John Gianvito, Ben Rivers, Philippe Garrel, Laurie Anderson, Brady Corbet, Claire Simon, Jeremy Saulnier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nicolás Pereda, Ben Wheatley, Mike Ott and Nathan Silver—and many more. » - David Hudson...
- 1/16/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSJust have celebrating his 69th birthday and releasing a new album, David Bowie has left us. (The wonderful gif above is by Helen Green, via Dangerous Minds.)Dalian Wanda buys Legendary Entertainment: For the oh-so-reasonable price of $3.5 billion, the Chinese company which already owns American cinema chain AMC has bought the Hollywood production company. Some may remember this company because of its announcement to create the lavishly funded Qingdao Film Festival, directed and programmed by several Americans.Mia Hansen-Løve's Things to Come.More titles have been announced for next month's Berlin International Film Festival. Most exciting to us are new films by Lav Diaz, Mia Hansen-Løve, and André Téchiné. (And there's a wonderfully Ralph Fiennes-full new trailer for the Coen brothers' opening night film, Hail Caesar!) Meanwhile, the...
- 1/14/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Jimmy Gimferrer. Photo by Jan Baka.The bold films of Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra—Birdsong (2008) and Story of My Death (2013), along works commissioned by museums or galleries, the cross-over of documentary and essay, The Lord Worked Wonders in Me (2011), and the unorthodox and experimental 14-episode “television series” El Noms de Crist (2010)— share the same man behind the camera, French-born, Spanish-based cinematographer Jimmy Gimferrer, often billed as Albert Serra's cameraman.Gimferrer studied at Arts and Design school Escola Massana in Barcelona, and, similarly to Serra, is an autodidact. Their film career trajectories have roots to Serra's first film, Crespià (2003)—though Gimferrer did not grab the camera before Birdsong, for which he won a Gaudí Award—carrying the tasks of art director, production designer and actor in the director's second film, Honour of the Knights (2006). The penetrative and concentrating gaze of Gimferre's lens has also served other filmmakers, most notably José Maria...
- 12/11/2015
- by Martin Kudlac
- MUBI
Jimmy Gimferrer. Photo by Jan Baka.The bold films of Catalonian filmmaker Albert Serra—Birdsong (2008) and Story of My Death (2013), along works commissioned by museums or galleries, the cross-over of documentary and essay, The Lord Worked Wonders in Me (2011), and the unorthodox and experimental 14-episode “television series” El Noms de Crist (2010)— share the same man behind the camera, French-born, Spanish-based cinematographer Jimmy Gimferrer, often billed as Albert Serra's cameraman.Gimferrer studied at Arts and Design school Escola Massana in Barcelona, and, similarly to Serra, is an autodidact. Their film career trajectories have roots to Serra's first film, Crespià (2003)—though Gimferrer did not grab the camera before Birdsong, for which he won a Gaudí Award—carrying the tasks of art director, production designer and actor in the director's second film, Honour of the Knights (2006). The penetrative and concentrating gaze of Gimferre's lens has also served other filmmakers, most notably José Maria...
- 12/11/2015
- by Martin Kudlac
- MUBI
Exclusive: New festival director Bero Beyer to implement more changes to Iffr’s structure.
International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has shaken up its programme structure ahead of its 45th edition (Jan 27-Feb 7) and named eight titles selected for the line-up including Jerzy Skolimowski’s 11 Minutes, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia and Steve Oram’s Aaaaaaaah!.
The programme, which was previously split between 14 sections, has been streamlined into four strands: Bright Future, Voices, Deep Focus and Perspectives.
New festival director Bero Beyer said the change was made to “provide more context and clarity for visitors to the festival”.
“In recent years, Iffr has found a good balance between the number of films shown and the breadth of the cinematic spectrum,” said Beyer.
“Every festival has to strike the right balance to deliver quality programming and generate the right kind of attention for each film it shows, long or short. Our task now is to provide more context and clarity...
International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has shaken up its programme structure ahead of its 45th edition (Jan 27-Feb 7) and named eight titles selected for the line-up including Jerzy Skolimowski’s 11 Minutes, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia and Steve Oram’s Aaaaaaaah!.
The programme, which was previously split between 14 sections, has been streamlined into four strands: Bright Future, Voices, Deep Focus and Perspectives.
New festival director Bero Beyer said the change was made to “provide more context and clarity for visitors to the festival”.
“In recent years, Iffr has found a good balance between the number of films shown and the breadth of the cinematic spectrum,” said Beyer.
“Every festival has to strike the right balance to deliver quality programming and generate the right kind of attention for each film it shows, long or short. Our task now is to provide more context and clarity...
- 11/12/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
More articles, videos and interviews commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Also in today's roundup: Interviews with Philippe Grandrieux, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, Mathieu Amalric, Ulrich Seidl and Carolee Schneemann, new books on Douglas Fairbanks and Richard Pryor, Jacques Rancière on Béla Tarr, Seijun Suzuki in Austin and news of forthcoming films by Asghar Farhadi, Wim Wenders and Walter Hill. Plus, the return of Star Trek, Abel Ferrara and Gaspar Noé in conversation—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/3/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
More articles, videos and interviews commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Also in today's roundup: Interviews with Philippe Grandrieux, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, Mathieu Amalric, Ulrich Seidl and Carolee Schneemann, new books on Douglas Fairbanks and Richard Pryor, Jacques Rancière on Béla Tarr, Seijun Suzuki in Austin and news of forthcoming films by Asghar Farhadi, Wim Wenders and Walter Hill. Plus, the return of Star Trek, Abel Ferrara and Gaspar Noé in conversation—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/3/2015
- Keyframe
The 44th edition of the Festival du Nouveau Cinema has just announced their entire lineup and it’s pretty insane! The festival which takes place in Montreal from October 7 to 18 is screening nearly 400 films and events in only 11 days. This includes 151 feature films and 203 short films from 68 countries – 49 world premieres, 38 North American premieres and 60 Canadian premieres. Give credit to the team of programmers: Claude Chamberlan, Dimitri Eipides Julien Fonfrède, Philippe Gajan, Karolewicz Daniel, Marie-Hélène Brousseau, Katayoun Dibamehr and Gabrielle Tougas-Frechette.
Below is the lineup. There’s a lot to process so take your sweet time!
Opening and closing
The whole New Testament directed by Jaco Van Dormael (Toto the Hero, Mr Nobody, The Eighth Day), will kick off this 44th edition.
After its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last May, the new opus unconventional Belgian director, starring Benoît Poelvoorde (Three Hearts, Ransom of Glory), Yolande Moreau (Mammuth,...
Below is the lineup. There’s a lot to process so take your sweet time!
Opening and closing
The whole New Testament directed by Jaco Van Dormael (Toto the Hero, Mr Nobody, The Eighth Day), will kick off this 44th edition.
After its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last May, the new opus unconventional Belgian director, starring Benoît Poelvoorde (Three Hearts, Ransom of Glory), Yolande Moreau (Mammuth,...
- 9/29/2015
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Catch me Daddy
Written by Daniel and Matthew Wolfe
Directed by Daniel Wolfe
UK, 2014
Pink hair, silver nails, green eyes. Smoke rises from a rolled cigarette and from nearby work in the field. These impressions, whispers of a time and a place, fuel Catch Me Daddy the debut feature of Daniel Wolfe. The film is undeniably beautiful, a minimalist ode to the underside of Yorkshire life. The surfaces of image, sound and performance craft a poetic illusion that is impenetrable thematically and emotionally. The overall experience is frustrating and empty.
The story itself is straightforward. Laila(Sameena Jabeen Ahmed), in the throes of adolescent rebellion, has left her family and lives in a run down trailer with her boyfriend, Aaron (Conor McCarron). Her ailing father is desperate for her return and offers a reward to two groups of low-end criminals to retrieve his daughter. Motives remain estranged for the most...
Written by Daniel and Matthew Wolfe
Directed by Daniel Wolfe
UK, 2014
Pink hair, silver nails, green eyes. Smoke rises from a rolled cigarette and from nearby work in the field. These impressions, whispers of a time and a place, fuel Catch Me Daddy the debut feature of Daniel Wolfe. The film is undeniably beautiful, a minimalist ode to the underside of Yorkshire life. The surfaces of image, sound and performance craft a poetic illusion that is impenetrable thematically and emotionally. The overall experience is frustrating and empty.
The story itself is straightforward. Laila(Sameena Jabeen Ahmed), in the throes of adolescent rebellion, has left her family and lives in a run down trailer with her boyfriend, Aaron (Conor McCarron). Her ailing father is desperate for her return and offers a reward to two groups of low-end criminals to retrieve his daughter. Motives remain estranged for the most...
- 7/17/2015
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
As the sun sought slumber behind the Mediterranean in one final, slow-motion plummet, two thick-twanged film critics from North East England sat down to record a chat. There was no script, but their topic was clear: FIDMarseille, France’s most eclectically programmed and well-respected film festival. The idea of a video blog had been posed to Neil Young and myself as far back as February, at this year’s Berlinale. Conflicting schedules and a comically limited knowledge of how these things work prevented this, our first dispatch, from happening sooner.Under its current artistic director Jean-Pierre Rehm, FIDMarseille eschews convention. Now 26 editions old, the weeklong event has no qualms when it comes to programming—often in competition—those medium-length works of an experimental bent that few other festivals seem to touch. As I have written elsewhere, Marseilles itself is a promisingly rough-edged city. For these qualities alone, the fuzzy image...
- 7/17/2015
- by Michael Pattison
- MUBI
For her fifth feature, If You Don’t, I Will, director Sophie Fillieres reunites with star Emmanuelle Devos to document the wistful disintegration of a relationship that probably should have ended years prior. Premiering at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival, the title received a very limited theatrical engagement in New York at the end of the year, which is a pity considering the attraction of its two lead performers. At times droll in its routine procedure of two beings unwisely torturing one another for the sake of familiarity, Fillieres dips the film into more emotionally evasive territories in its second half that maintains a dark, comedic edge even as it grapples with examining the self-made traps people back themselves into.
Pomme (Devos) and Pierre (Mathieu Amalric) have been together for fifteen years, now alone after their son Romain (Nelson Delapalme) has left for college. We see them engaged in bitter resentment from the start,...
Pomme (Devos) and Pierre (Mathieu Amalric) have been together for fifteen years, now alone after their son Romain (Nelson Delapalme) has left for college. We see them engaged in bitter resentment from the start,...
- 4/7/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Gazing into the crystal ball, Screen rounds up its Cannes predictions.
With the unveiling of Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection now exactly three weeks away buzz over the titles that Thierry Fremaux and his team will select for the 68th edition is hitting fever pitch.
Official teaser announcements have started to roll this week, led by the confirmation on Wednesday that George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road would premiere in an Out of Competition screening on May 14.
Earlier the week, Cannes unveiled its poster featuring Ingrid Bergman to mark the centenary of the late big screen’s birth and it was announced that Stig Bjorkman’s documentary Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words would show in Cannes Classics as part of the commemorations.
For the rest of the Official Selection, except perhaps the opening film which is traditionally revealed in advance, Cannes watchers will have to wait for the announcement press conference in Paris on April...
With the unveiling of Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection now exactly three weeks away buzz over the titles that Thierry Fremaux and his team will select for the 68th edition is hitting fever pitch.
Official teaser announcements have started to roll this week, led by the confirmation on Wednesday that George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road would premiere in an Out of Competition screening on May 14.
Earlier the week, Cannes unveiled its poster featuring Ingrid Bergman to mark the centenary of the late big screen’s birth and it was announced that Stig Bjorkman’s documentary Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words would show in Cannes Classics as part of the commemorations.
For the rest of the Official Selection, except perhaps the opening film which is traditionally revealed in advance, Cannes watchers will have to wait for the announcement press conference in Paris on April...
- 3/26/2015
- ScreenDaily
Malgré la nuit
Director: Philippe Grandrieux // Writer: Philippe Grandrieux
French provocateur Philippe Grandrieux may not be an auteur to everyone’s liking, but since debuting with 1998’s visceral Somber, his cinema has always been a point of contention, and he’s since cultivated a growing cult following that includes names like Marilyn Manson. His most infamous work is the Anna Mougalalis headlined A New Life (2002), which is difficult to find copies of. Since then, titles like 2008’s Un Lac (which is available streaming via boutique site Vyer Films) and 2012’s White Epilepsy have waned in peripheral conversations following their limited festival play. But we are excited to see that Grandrieux wrapped a new project in November, Malgré la nuit (Despite the Night), which should receive a more renowned reception as it’s headlined by Ariane Labed, one of the prominent faces from the Greek Weird Wave (Attenberg; Alps), and one...
Director: Philippe Grandrieux // Writer: Philippe Grandrieux
French provocateur Philippe Grandrieux may not be an auteur to everyone’s liking, but since debuting with 1998’s visceral Somber, his cinema has always been a point of contention, and he’s since cultivated a growing cult following that includes names like Marilyn Manson. His most infamous work is the Anna Mougalalis headlined A New Life (2002), which is difficult to find copies of. Since then, titles like 2008’s Un Lac (which is available streaming via boutique site Vyer Films) and 2012’s White Epilepsy have waned in peripheral conversations following their limited festival play. But we are excited to see that Grandrieux wrapped a new project in November, Malgré la nuit (Despite the Night), which should receive a more renowned reception as it’s headlined by Ariane Labed, one of the prominent faces from the Greek Weird Wave (Attenberg; Alps), and one...
- 1/7/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The new issue of Film Quarterly tops today's round of news and views. Also: Brad Stevens on novelizations, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Michelangelo Antonioni, Jeff Reichert on Martin Scorsese, Michael Koresky on Terence Davies, Nick Pinkerton on Pee-wee's Playhouse, David Schmader on Drew Christie, plus news of forthcoming work from Philippe Grandrieux, Charlie Kaufman and Steve Carell, Robert Budreau and Ethan Hawke, and Jonathan Demme and Justin Timberlake. And the lineup for this year's AFI Fest is set. » - David Hudson...
- 10/23/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
The new issue of Film Quarterly tops today's round of news and views. Also: Brad Stevens on novelizations, Jonathan Rosenbaum on Michelangelo Antonioni, Jeff Reichert on Martin Scorsese, Michael Koresky on Terence Davies, Nick Pinkerton on Pee-wee's Playhouse, David Schmader on Drew Christie, plus news of forthcoming work from Philippe Grandrieux, Charlie Kaufman and Steve Carell, Robert Budreau and Ethan Hawke, and Jonathan Demme and Justin Timberlake. And the lineup for this year's AFI Fest is set. » - David Hudson...
- 10/23/2014
- Keyframe
4. Desire Without Language
Weekend 3 - Jan.24-26th
The fourth chapter of the Harvard-Gulbenkian program stages a unique extended dialogue between Manuela Viegas and Lucrecia Martel, two artists who share a similar ambition to dramatically renew the potential of the cinema as an audio-visual and uniquely sensorial medium. Unseating the long-standing hierarchy of the visual in the cinema, the films of Viegas and Martel are intensely tactile and audio-visual, enriched by complex soundscapes that awaken the invisible, immeasurable space beyond the frame, animating and decentering the dynamically abstract mise-en-scene favored by both filmmakers. Despite their relatively small respective oeuvres—to date Martel has completed three features, Viegas just one—their every film is career defining and milestone. Indeed, with each work Viegas and Martel define a new paradigm of narrative cinema, a different means of reaching far beyond mere representation and story to open the all too often untapped phenomenological...
Weekend 3 - Jan.24-26th
The fourth chapter of the Harvard-Gulbenkian program stages a unique extended dialogue between Manuela Viegas and Lucrecia Martel, two artists who share a similar ambition to dramatically renew the potential of the cinema as an audio-visual and uniquely sensorial medium. Unseating the long-standing hierarchy of the visual in the cinema, the films of Viegas and Martel are intensely tactile and audio-visual, enriched by complex soundscapes that awaken the invisible, immeasurable space beyond the frame, animating and decentering the dynamically abstract mise-en-scene favored by both filmmakers. Despite their relatively small respective oeuvres—to date Martel has completed three features, Viegas just one—their every film is career defining and milestone. Indeed, with each work Viegas and Martel define a new paradigm of narrative cinema, a different means of reaching far beyond mere representation and story to open the all too often untapped phenomenological...
- 10/13/2014
- by Cinema Dialogues: Harvard at the Gulbenkian
- MUBI
In his continually eccentric series of extracurricular activities, Steven Soderbergh has posted a black and white version of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Here's what he has to say about why:
"So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? Sounds like fun, right? It actually is. To me. Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Wait, What? How Could You Do This? Well, I...
"So I want you to watch this movie and think only about staging, how the shots are built and laid out, what the rules of movement are, what the cutting patterns are. See if you can reproduce the thought process that resulted in these choices by asking yourself: why was each shot—whether short or long—held for that exact length of time and placed in that order? Sounds like fun, right? It actually is. To me. Oh, and I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect. Wait, What? How Could You Do This? Well, I...
- 10/1/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
MoMI (Museum of Moving Image) presents First Look, a bona fide film series showcasing new works by established filmmakers and first timers alike from all corners of the globe, carefully selected by the esteemed curatorial staff (critic Denis Lim, David Schwartz and Aliza Ma). Quietly nestled in post-New Year hangover days with crazy award season just around the corner.First Look is fast becoming one of the most sought after film series in New York City. The series runs from January 9 - 19.This is where I first saw Chantal Akerman's gorgeous new film Almayer's Folly and Philippe Grandrieux's loving documentary, It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi, on the Japanese New Wave great Masao Adachi in its inaugural edition two years...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 1/9/2014
- Screen Anarchy
Nothing Human Loves Forever: Cassavetes’ Feature Debut Gloriously Vintage
Xan Cassavetes joins the family directorial legacy with her feature debut, Kiss of the Damned, a deliciously vintage throwback to the erotic horror output of the Hammer studio heyday. Previously, this Cassavetes was responsible for a 2004 documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and her fiction debut seems considerably removed both from her own work and that of the familial output. A visual feast with a killer sound design, she manages to invoke Stephanie Rothman and Jean Rollin, where naughty immortal creatures from the dark side explore a bloodlust as inextinguishable as their sexual desires.
Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful, lovelorn vampire residing in a remote mansion in the Connecticut countryside spends her nights hunting animals in the surrounding woods and watching vintage cinema. The residence belongs to Xenia (Anna Mougalalis), an actress and older, wiser vampire, but the estate...
Xan Cassavetes joins the family directorial legacy with her feature debut, Kiss of the Damned, a deliciously vintage throwback to the erotic horror output of the Hammer studio heyday. Previously, this Cassavetes was responsible for a 2004 documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and her fiction debut seems considerably removed both from her own work and that of the familial output. A visual feast with a killer sound design, she manages to invoke Stephanie Rothman and Jean Rollin, where naughty immortal creatures from the dark side explore a bloodlust as inextinguishable as their sexual desires.
Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful, lovelorn vampire residing in a remote mansion in the Connecticut countryside spends her nights hunting animals in the surrounding woods and watching vintage cinema. The residence belongs to Xenia (Anna Mougalalis), an actress and older, wiser vampire, but the estate...
- 5/1/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
White Epilepsy is the latest from the esteemed French visual artist Philippe Grandrieux (Sombre, La Vie Nouvelle, Un Lac).It starts with a back side of an androgynous nude figure in the dark accompanied by the sound of nocturnal insects. The movement of this body mass is slowed down and as it lurches forward and back, it reveals all the nooks and crannies: every vertebrae, every flutter of muscles becomes subtly visible in an eerie muddy visualization that has become the trademark of the French auteur's haptic cinema.While watching this 67 minute film, a sort of primal Adam and Eve story with no dialog, displayed in an inverted format (acting taking place only in a vertical rectangle in the center of the screen- like an iphone...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 2/24/2013
- Screen Anarchy
Part of the Tony Scott: A Moving Target critical project. Go here for the project's description, index and links to project's other movement.
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This article is part of the critical project Tony Scott: A Moving Target in which an analysis of a scene from a Tony Scott film is passed anonymously to the next participant in the project to respond to with an analysis of his or her own.
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
"Visually the film is quite impressive, something like a confetti storm in which the spectator never gets to rest."
–Manny Farber, 1968
Participating in this writing game is a little like being crossed between Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) and Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1950). Both prison films, both about Men on Fire. One implicitly gay, the other explicitly so. Alone in my cell, like in Bresson, I am doing my bit to chip my way through to collective freedom and enlightenment. And, meanwhile, I am being presented, like in Genet, with things—all kinds of things—to help me along,...
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
"Visually the film is quite impressive, something like a confetti storm in which the spectator never gets to rest."
–Manny Farber, 1968
Participating in this writing game is a little like being crossed between Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) and Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1950). Both prison films, both about Men on Fire. One implicitly gay, the other explicitly so. Alone in my cell, like in Bresson, I am doing my bit to chip my way through to collective freedom and enlightenment. And, meanwhile, I am being presented, like in Genet, with things—all kinds of things—to help me along,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Adrian Martin
- MUBI
This text was begun in mid-to-late 2010. I posted two work-in-progress excerpts on my personal blog in December of that year. Following Scott's death, I decided that it was time to revise and complete it.
***
More often than not, innovation resembles deficiency. Jean-Luc Godard couldn't tell a story, Yasujiro Ozu never learned the 180 degree rule, Robert Bresson didn't know how to direct actors, D.W. Griffith first didn't understand that the audience wanted to see the whole actress and not just her face and then didn't understand how you were supposed to make a talkie—and, toward the end of his career, Tony Scott made movies the wrong way, never letting an image hold long enough for the viewer to figure out just exactly what was going on.
The party line on Tony Scott is that he was a "stylist," a man who made popular, "technically accomplished" and therefore insubstantial films; he...
***
More often than not, innovation resembles deficiency. Jean-Luc Godard couldn't tell a story, Yasujiro Ozu never learned the 180 degree rule, Robert Bresson didn't know how to direct actors, D.W. Griffith first didn't understand that the audience wanted to see the whole actress and not just her face and then didn't understand how you were supposed to make a talkie—and, toward the end of his career, Tony Scott made movies the wrong way, never letting an image hold long enough for the viewer to figure out just exactly what was going on.
The party line on Tony Scott is that he was a "stylist," a man who made popular, "technically accomplished" and therefore insubstantial films; he...
- 8/22/2012
- MUBI
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