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Personified in the cycle of elemental forces, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter” makes a complete circle encompassing a constant state of flux. The film chronicles the imagist excursion of a Buddhist monk through the four seasons of life: birth, suffering, death, and rebirth (samsara). Locked away in a floating monastery with his mentor, his is a life that is rehearsed, in the sequestered boondocks, per the traditional Buddhist philosophies- a Dog in the spring, a Rooster in summer, a Cat in the fall, a Snake in winter. Each season is contemplated like a psalm, a turn of the prayer wheel, filigreed with mystic aesthetics of vital truths, like the spokes on a mandala, representing totality and unity, or the wheel of fortune,.

As in Bodhi dharma, the young monk’s fate is brought upon by himself, though perhaps only subconsciously inscribed by him. Here, the ‘self’ is the locus of squalls and qualms,...

South Korean cinema is best known for its grotesque, no-holds-barred, onscreen violence that can easily find some space in the list of the most unsettling movies. The biggest name in Korean cinema continues to be Park Chan-wook. His work not only gained international acclaim but also set the stage for a new wave of filmmakers who specialize in genre films that captivate audiences at both domestic and prominent international festivals, contributing to the rich tapestry of best Korean movies.

Bong Joon-ho and Kim Jee-Woon, contemporaries of the influential Park Chan-wook, have contributed significantly to the rise of Korean cult cinema, a movement that Park spearheaded. Together, these filmmakers have propelled South Korean cinema to international acclaim. Meanwhile, directors like Lee Chang-dong, Kim Ki-Duk, Hong Sang-soo, and Im Kwon-Taek have earned recognition for their artistry in film festivals, creating a unique space for themselves. Balancing mainstream appeal and artistic depth, South Korean cinema has evolved,...

Featuring music by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Black Ox” is the the first feature-length movie in Japan to use in part 70mm film. It is also inspired by “The Oxherding Pictures”, which depicts the path to enlightenment using ten poems and drawings of cows, while stars Lee Kang-sheng, who has had a quite prolific year in 2024.

Black Ox is screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

Starting with a rather impressive scene of a fire, the movie then settles in a sharp monochrome 4:3, introducing the main character in the nude. As the intertitles highlight, In Japan’s era of Civilization and Enlightenment, villages who opposed the nationalization of the mountains set fire to the trees and burned the forests. Mountain nomads who lost their homes trekked down to the village and began to live among the people. The protagonist however, as a dialogue with a woman of his tribe highlights,...

Following a 2023 that definitely belonged to Malaysia, with titles like “Tiger Stripes“, “Abang Adik”, “La Luna” and a number of others, it seems that 2024 belongs to another Asean country, Indonesia. For us that we have been following local cinema for some years, this does not come as a surprise, since the stories were already there and it seemed that the industry just needed some nurturing in order to fully bloom. Following investment by Cj, it was when streamers and particularly Netflix started investing in local content, that the leap that was bound to happen finally became reality. Headed by Joko Anwar, Kamila Andini, Kimo Stamboel, Timo Tjahjanto and a number of others, local cinema seems to be in good hands, as the movies in the following list eloquently highlight. At the same time, the same can be said about the actors, with names like Laura Basuki, Shenina Cinnamon, Yusuf Mahardika,...

Jigra (which means both heart and courage) is, in equal parts, gutting and emotional but also far-fetched and logic-free. Director and co-writer Vasan Bala creates a jailbreak movie that tries to find the sweet spot between moving sibling drama, thrilling action and breathless suspense, and although he doesn’t hit all the marks, lead actor and co-producer Alia Bhatt reconfirms that she is a formidable talent.

Even when the plot becomes looser and the twists too convenient, Bhatt doesn’t miss a beat. She’s fabulously fierce as protagonist Satya, her eyes maintaining an expression of unblinking determination. She might be small physically, but when she takes down a grown man, we don’t question it because her conviction is so absolute. In one scene, another character admiringly calls her a gundi (gangster). In this environment, it’s a compliment.

Satya is unbreakable because she’s had to grow up too fast.

Loeloe Hendra pursued a Bachelor’s degree majoring in Film and Television and a Master’s Degree at the Indonesian Art Institute Yogyakarta. His short film “Onomastika” (2014) was screened at multiple international film festivals including Berlinale and Singapore and won Best Short film at the Festival Film Indonesia. “Tale of the Land” is his first feature film.

Tale of the Land is screening at Busan International Film Festival

The story takes place in Kalimantan, Indonesia. A conflict over indigenous land traumatized a Dayak girl, Maya, who was separated by her family. At that time, an old man named Tuha saved her from slaughter, and brought her to live on a floating house in the waters. As the story begins, she has been living afloat for over a decade and every time she tries to even step on land, she experiences a shock that makes it evident she cannot set foot on it.

Exclusive: Venice Critics’ Week title Don’t Cry Butterfly has been boarded by Cj Cgv Vietnam for distribution in Vietnam.

Affiliated with Korea’s Cj Group, Cj Cgv Vietnam also distributed the Vietnamese-language Camera d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell last year.

Don’t Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year old housewife, Tam, who learns through live TV that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then attempts to voodoo her husband back into love.

The debut feature by Duong Dieu Linh will have its world premiere at the Venice Critics’ Week on September 3 before arriving at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10.

Don’t Cry Butterfly is a Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-Philippines co-production. Korea’s Barunson E&a picked up world sales rights to the title ahead of the Cannes market this year.

“The idea for this feature started 10 years ago, when I came back to Vietnam to make my first short film,...

Fresh from their Cannes success with “Kinds of Kindness,” iconic director Yorgos Lanthimos and his totemic star Emma Stone are now busily filming “Bugonia,’ a sci-fi conspiracy movie that is a remake of South Korean film “Save the Green Planet.”

The film follows two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. The adapted script is from “Succession” and “The Menu” writer Will Tracy.

While the new film’s co-producer and co-financier Korean conglomerate Cj Enm long ago put in place an IP strategy that involves the development of local and international remakes, the company believes it unlikely that a new “Save the Green Planet” would have taken off without the global expansion of “Hallyu,” or the Korean wave.

The original “Save the Green Planet,” with its elements of comedy and sadistic torture, was directed...

Harking back to those erotic thrillers of yore, especially from the 1980s and 90s, writer-director Joy Wilkinson’s 7 Keys, her debut feature, starts out full of promise and potential — much like the impromptu hook-up that gets the plot rolling. Unfortunately, like many an ill-starred love match, what follows is disappointing as things evolve in a lurid and yet strangely predictable direction. But while it all goes sour and south in the last act, there are definitely sparks of originality in the early running, supported by a brace of strong performances from Emma McDonald and Billy Postlethwaite, who deserve better than what the script gives them to work with.

Premiering in the Visions section at SXSW, this low-budget striver of a feature may find berths with streamers, and ought to at least attract attention from casting directors looking for new talents.

McDonald and Postlethwaite aren’t entirely unknown quantities. The...

Director Um Mun-suk works with his best friend, the popular singer Hwang Chi-yeul, in a film that moves into family drama/road movie paths, but also includes a ‘sudden stranger appearance' element, probably in order to to fit the latter in the story.

Accompany is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

The film begins in a church, where a woman who appears to be a teacher, is called in the principal's office by a young student. The teacher of interest is Su-yeon, a counselor at an orphanage and she has four days to settle family affairs in the distant city of Asan before she is back on the job. As she is walking on the street, on her way to take the bus, she seems to be followed by a man, whose attitude resembles stalking significantly, as he also enters the same bus. It turns out that he is Sang-su,...

Grittiness and intense social critique hidden in an art house package is not exactly an easy feat to accomplish, although Korean cinema has Kim Ki-duk as champion of that approach, at least in his first movies. Jeon Kyu-hwan seems to have accomplished something very similar with “Animal Town” , a movie that was awarded in Vesoul, Black Movie and Busan.

Animal Town is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

Oh Sung-Chul has been released on parole. He wears an ankle bracelet that monitors his movements as well as reminding himself of his horrifying past deeds. He lives in an rundown apartment complex which is about to be demolished and works construction, although, as the movie begins, he is fired and his last paycheck is cut in half. If that was not enough, he also has to take medications to suppress his mental issues. Kim Hyung-do is a religious...

Although not exactly famous for erotic films, particularly considering the conservative nature of many countries and the harsh censorship occasionally found (with the exception of Japan and Korea), films that could be described as erotic can be found in Asia also. Of note, however, is a recent trend that has begun within the Japanese movie industry, of presenting erotic films that try to cater to the aesthetics of both men and women, while abiding by the MeToo rules, with the result being interesting as much as ambitious as much as an effort mostly found in Chinese cinema, to come up with titles that combine the erotic with the intensely art house.

In this list, we tried to focus on titles where the erotic is one of the key elements, while trying to stay away from exploitation or soft-porn (S. Korean cinema is filled with these btw) for the most part,...

KimiKat Productions Presents Onlookers, a film by Kimi Takesue

Opens Friday, Feb. 16th, 2024 in U.S. theatres

Metrograph (New York exclusive) U.S. theatrical premiere

“Onlookers” will screen as part of the series Fire Over Water: Films of Transcendence January 26 – February 25, 2024 at Metrograph featuring films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Kim Ki-duk, Kimi Takesue and more.

Official Selection:

World Premiere – Slamdance Film Festival 2023, Breakouts Feature Honorable Mention Winner

International Premiere – Cinéma du Réel 2023

Ridm: Montreal International Documentary Film Festival 2023

Dmz International Documentary Film Festival 2023

San Diego Asian American Film Festival 2023

Krakow International Film Festival 2023

Prismatic Ground 2023

Cinéma du Réel 2023

Onlookers, a film by Kimi Takesue

USA | 2023 | 72 minutes

Official site: www.onlookersfilm.com

Onlookers offers a visually striking, immersive meditation on travel and tourism in Laos, reflecting on how we all live as observers. Unfolding in painterly tableaux, Onlookers explores the paradox of travel: Why do people fly thousands of miles from home...

Adapted from two short stories by Vietnamese author Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Bui Thac Chuyen's fourth movie premiered in competition in Tokyo and is now making its festival round, with the latest being Helsinki Cine Aasia.

Glorious Ashes is screening at Five Flavours

The story focuses on life in the areas around Mekong while revolving around three women living in the same small village. Hau is married to Duong, a fisherman in the delta, but their relationship is anything but ideal, since the latter is missing quite often, and even when he returns, he hardly has anything to say to his wife. The reason is widely known in the village, as Duong never hid his feelings towards Nhan, a childhood friend who lives close by and is happily married to Tam, a ceramics worker for the local cottage industry. Loan, a middle aged woman who is perceived as a ‘weird...

“Address Unknown” is a (slightly) autobiographical film, since Kim Ki-duk has stated that Ji-heum was conceived based on his own experiences, and the rest of the characters are based on people he actually knew.

A newly restored version of “Address Unknown” is screening at Metrograph and is available from Echelon Studios

The story takes place in 1970, in a rural town near an American military base. The central characters live in this town: Chang-gook is a half-breed who works for Dog-eye killing dogs, whose meat is later sold in local restaurants. According to his mother, his father is African-American; he, however, has never met him. Furthermore, she keeps saying to her son that, eventually, they will travel to America and live with his father, and in that fashion, she tries to teach him English. At the same time, she keeps sending letters to the address the soldier gave her, despite the fact they are always returned,...

Just when you thought that the style of Hk action movies is long since gone, here comes “Limbo” to prove the exact opposite, in a rather impressive title that seems to combine “Seven”, Kim Ki-duk’s “Pieta” and Johnnie To’s action aesthetics in the most artful way possible.

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

The film was initially reviewed back in 2021, when it premiered in Berlinale. However, now that one of the best movies of that year is getting a much awaited physical release in North America, we thought it was time to revisit the article.

Rookie, dandy-looking policeman Will Ren has his work cut out for him, since his first case is pursuing an obsessive and especially brutal murderer of women who has a fetish with cutting arms, and his partner is the almost ragtag, not-above-using-violence- to-get-what-he-wants, veteran cop Cham Lau. As Will soon realizes that his colleague,...

In the 1990s, South Korea was undergoing a period of political and social transformation, as the country emerged from decades of authoritarian rule and embraced democracy and cultural diversity. For a generation of young Koreans, this was also a time of discovering and celebrating the art of cinema, both from their own country and from around the world. Among them were some of the most influential filmmakers of today, such as Bong Joon-ho, the Oscar-winning director of Parasite.

Bong Joon-ho was a student of sociology at Yonsei University in Seoul, where he co-founded a film club named “Yellow Door” with students from neighboring universities. The club was a gathering place for film enthusiasts, who shared their passion and knowledge of movies through screenings, discussions, and publications. The club also had a video library that contained hundreds of films from various genres and countries, which Bong Joon-ho managed meticulously.

Yellow Door...

Echelon Studios has acquired award-winning feature films Address Unknown and Bad Guy from critically-acclaimed South Korean writer-director Kim Ki-Duk.

Two of the filmmaker's earlier works, both feature characteristically boundary-challenging shock elements. Address Unknown offers an uncompromising view of humanity and the dehumanizing effects of war, while Bad Guy tows the line between what is right and wrong with an unconventional and uncharacteristic tale of obsession.

Speaking on the acquisition, Sandro Gohoho, President of Licensing and Logistics for Echelon Studios, said: “Kim Ki-Duk is an unparalleled cinematic provocateur and among the most celebrated auteurs. We are very excited to have acquired two of his finest art-house works, continuing our commitment to bring inspiring and innovative cinema to those seeking it.”

Echelon will partner with Kinoscope – a New York based streaming and publication company – for a theatrical screening of Address Unknown on August 23rd at NYC's Maxwell House, followed by a multi-platform...

Streaming

Amazon Freevee has unveiled the first trailer for the new chapter of long-running Australian soap “Neighbours.” The continuation of the series – about the lives, loves and challenges of the residents on Ramsay Street in Erinsborough, Australia, a fictional suburb of Melbourne – will pick up two years after the finale in 2022.

“Neighbours” ran for more than three decades and nearly 9,000 episodes before being canceled in 2022 when the show’s primary funder, U.K.’s Channel 5, pulled out. Freevee then picked up the rights from “Neighbours” producer and distributor Fremantle.

The new series will star Alan Fletcher, Annie Jones, Candice Leask, Emerald Chan, Georgie Stone, Jackie Woodburne, Lloyd Will, Lucinda Armstrong Hall, Lucinda Cowden, Marley Williams, Naomi Rukavina, Rebekah Elmaloglou, Riley Bryant, Ryan Moloney, Sara West, Shiv Palekar, Stefan Dennis, Tim Kano, and Xavier Molyneux as series regulars. April Rose Pengilly, Guy Pearce, Ian Smith, Jodi Gordon, Melissa Bell, Mischa Barton...

The successful distribution of Korean media around the world has led to the celebration of brilliant filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. However, if you ask an American cinephile or film critic to name one Korean woman director they would likely not be able to come up with an answer.

With its ongoing series “A New Wave of K-Cinema: Korean Women Directors,” The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is hoping to change that. Across the month of June, the Los Angeles museum is showing 10 contemporary Korean films made by women that “explore the complexities of diverse conditions, including the trauma of domestic violence, investigations into gender and class politics, humanity’s relation to nature and the environment, and love and friendship.”

Hyesung ii, who organized “A New Wave of K-Cinema,” told TheWrap it is a series she has had in mind since she began working at the museum. “As...

It seems the 1995 film “Kids” still sends ripples across the movie industry, with Lee Hwan implementing a similar approach for his movie about young adults, although the focus here seems to be more on the visuals and impression rather than context itself, while the influence of Kim Ki-duk is equally evident.

“Young Adult Matters” is available from Echelon Studios

High schooler Se-jin seems to be a kind of sociopath, since her reactions to what is happening in her life are minimal if any and her overall actions equally perplexing. Se-jin lives with her younger sister, and frequently spends her time slashing her arms and uploading the deed on Instagram feeds, something that has caused her to be intensely bullied in school. The one who bullies her, however, is Eun-jeong, a girl who also happens to be her lesbian lover who tortures her in school and then searches for her during...

Adapted from two short stories by Vietnamese author Nguyen Ngoc Tu, Bui Thac Chuyen's fourth movie premiered in competition in Tokyo and is now making its festival round, with the latest being Helsinki Cine Aasia.

“Glorious Ashes” is screening at Helsinki Cine Aasia

The story focuses on life in the areas around Mekong while revolving around three women living in the same small village. Hau is married to Duong, a fisherman in the delta, but their relationship is anything but ideal, since the latter is missing quite often, and even when he returns, he hardly has anything to say to his wife. The reason is widely known in the village, as Duong never hid his feelings towards Nhan, a childhood friend who lives close by and is happily married to Tam, a ceramics worker for the local cottage industry. Loan, a middle aged woman who is perceived as a...

Before he fell victim to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and a tragic personality of sorts due to the circumstances of his death, Kim Ki-duk had already become a controversial figure in Korean cinema. The thing in question were not his films, but his on-set behavior that included physical and even sexual violence towards the actresses, by himself or by his collaborators, so he was basically cancelled from his own country's cinema and spent the rest of his life in different Asian and European parts of the former Soviet Union, where he also filmed his two final movies. “Call of God” is a Kyrgyz-Estonian-Lithuanian co-production.

It is questionable if “Call of God”, that premiered at last year's Venice and we caught at Belgrade Fest, could be called his proper movie, since it was not finished by him, but by his Estonian colleagues led by Artur Veeber. However, Kim completed the photography...

Squid Game star O Yeong-su appeared to acknowledge some guilt as he spoke to the press while entering the courtroom Friday for the first day of his sexual misconduct trial in Seoul, South Korea. Clad in a gray jacket and hat, the 78-year-old actor said to a group of reporters, “I am sorry. I think I behaved badly.”

The stage and screen veteran, best known for his role in the smash-hit Netflix, was indicted by local prosecutors in November for allegedly inappropriately touching a young actress while the two were on tour for a play in 2017. The police report said that O attempted to hug the unidentified woman by force and kissed her on the cheek while they went out for a stroll together. O has admitted that he held the victim’s hand but denies there was any indecent assault. The allegations were originally brought in 2021, but the police...

The psychotic male with a poetic side is an old saw, but director Marc Fouchard brings some original and freshly disturbing touches to it

This artfully made, borderline-despicable French drama revolves around Leo (Kévin Mischel), a brooding, lonely taxi driver with cheekbones sharp as dressmaker’s shears, a secret talent for musical composition, romantic longings for pretty dancer Amélie (Aurélia Poirier) and the uncontrollable urge to kill women. Whether he actually does that or not isn’t clear at first, since scenes where he murders one woman turn out to be fantasies … or are they?

In a way, this film seems to not care either way because it’s essentially much more interested in Leo and his mental anguish: anguish that is seeded by a former chanteuse mother (Dominique Frot) who beat him when he was little. The whole handsome-tragic-murderer shtick is one we’ve seen before in an assortment of films,...

Oh Yeong-su, the Korean actor who recently won a Golden Globe for his performance in hit series “Squid Game,” has been indicted on sexual misconduct charges. He was released without detention.

Prosecutors in Suwon, South Korea, revealed on Friday that they had charged Oh a day earlier. The 78-year-old Oh is alleged to have inappropriately touched a woman in mid-2017.

The alleged victim filed a complaint against Oh in December 2021. Authorities closed the case in April 2022, but reopened it again at the victim’s request, the Yonhap news agency reports. Oh denied the allegations when questioned by prosecutors.

In a statement Oh shared with Korean broadcaster Jtbc, the actor said: “I just held her hand to guide the way around the lake. I apologized because [the person] said she wouldn’t make a fuss about it but it doesn’t mean that I admit the charges.”

The Afp news agency quoted a...

Tallinn Black Nights film festival kicked off on November 11th, but the screenings of films from all five competition segments – Official Selection, First Feature Competition, Baltic Film Competition, Rebels With a Cause and Critics’ Picks- have just begun.

Five titles from Asia compete in the Official Selection. Vietnamese director Dung Luon Dinh is in Tallinn with his martial arts rich thriller “Magnum 578”, Israeli director Shahar Rozen competes with “Ducks – An Urban Legend”, a comedy thriller that involves yellow rubber ducks, and a year after his sophomore film “Make the Devil Laugh” had its world premiere here in Tallinn, the Japanese director Ryuchi Mino is back in town with a period comedy “Ginji The Speculator”. Indian director Sudhansu Saria, whose debut feature film “Loev” competed at PÖFF in 2015, is back with “Sanaa”, a drama starring Pooja Bhatt and Sohum Shah. Iranian title “The Wastetown” directed by Ahmad Bahrami is also...

2022 has been an unforgettable year for Korean cinema thus far, with through-provoking masterpieces such as Broker, praised for its remarkable performances, and Decision To Leave, South Korea's submission for Best International Feature, two promising movies that premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Korean cinema continues to grow rapidly in quality and technological advances, investing tons of money in quality and innovation in exchange for modern classics such as Parasite and Train To Busan. It's time to take a look at the most talented filmmakers in Korea according to insightful Reddit users.

Kim Ki-Duk

Kim Ki-Duk's filmography is filled with violence and magical realism; one for the shock value element, and the other a more subtle element. These two contrasting characteristics make total sense with his approach to cinema, devoted to addressing the darkest impulses of the human soul with a delicate touch of mysticism.

Related: The 10 Best Korean Movies...

New section has 16 features, of which 10 are world premieres.

The world premiere of Carol Morley’s Typist Artist Pirate King is among the 16 features programmed in Critics’ Picks, the new competitive section of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

The section will host 10 world and three international premieres, with three further films screening out of competition including a gala screening of Estonian co-production Call Of God.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

Speaking about how Poff is trying to innovate with the section, festival director Tiina Lokk said: “The Critics’ Picks competition programme solves a challenge our programme team...

Kamila Andini, Indonesian filmmaker and member of the jury at this year’s Busan International Film Festival, said that she would look out for “Asian texture” among the films presented in the festival’s premiere New Currents competition section.

French director Alain Guiraudie said that he would be seeking “new colors” and “new flavors.” He added that he thought Asian cinema could be “enigmatic and mysterious.”

Both were speaking at a meet the press event on Thursday, the first full day of the festival. And jurors have yet to start screening the competition titles.

Festival director Huh Moonyoung was on hand to remind all present that New Currents is the festival’s most prestigious and important section. But his task moderating the session was minimal.

Such was the eloquence and care taken by the jurors that in an hour there was time only for three questions.

Serge Toubiana, jury head,...

Click here to read the full article.

“I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes,” Italian actress Asia Argento told a shocked crowd at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. “I was 21 years old. The festival was his hunting ground. I want to make a prediction: Harvey Weinstein will never be welcomed here ever again. He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes.”

When it comes to Weinstein, currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape, Argento was certainly right. Five years after the #MeToo movement kicked off an avalanche of revelations of abuse and assault, the global film community has washed its hands of the once all-powerful producer. A Weinstein comeback is not in the cards.

But what of the climate, the “hunting grounds” of the international film festivals? As Argento and others have pointed out, for years...

After nearly two weeks of lush red carpets, timed standing ovations, and viral “Don’t Worry Darling” drama, the 79th Venice Film Festival comes to a close on Saturday in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia). Julianne Moore chairs the festival’s jury alongside her fellow judges and elite film peers Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

“I feel like so often the discussion around the future of cinema ends up being a discussion that’s more commercial, more business oriented,” Moore said in her opening remarks on August 31. “When we talk about the future of cinema it often degrades into what the future of the business is. That’s not the future of art.”

Established in 1932, Venice is the oldest ongoing cinematic awards celebration and is regarded among the world’s most esteemed international film festivals. 22 titles...

After a lifetime spent creating outrage and offence, both on and off screen, Korean master Kim Ki-duk has left the world with this final film, finished by his friends after his death. The story of a passionate affair that curdles almost immediately into jealousy and hate – but ends on a lyrically wistful note – is a startlingly appropriate rogue’s epitaph.

Call of God was shot in Kyrgyzstan, Estonia and Latvia in 2019. Kim died of complications from Covid in late 2020 at age 59; the film was assembled by Artur Veeber, his Estonia-based producer. Sexual manipulation, seething violence, spiritual yearning and the consoling beauty of the natural world – all the signal elements of his work since his debut with Crocodile in 1996 – are here. It is a minor film but, like everything he made, distinctively his.

Venice Film Festival Photo Gallery – Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde & Florence Pugh Step Out For ‘Don’t Worry Darling’; Plus Cate Blanchett,...

Click here to read the full article.

South Korean film organizations are heaping criticism on the Venice Film Festival in response to a decision to screen the final film of the late Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk despite the multiple sexual abuse allegations he was facing prior to his death.

Kim died from Covid-19-related complications in Latvia in 2020. He had lived his last years mostly abroad after a wave of sexual assault allegations against him during the height of Korea’s #MeToo movement tarnished his reputation at home. At the time of his death, the director was at work on what would be his final feature, an Estonia, Kyrgyzstan and Latvian project titled Call of God. The film was completed posthumously by Kim’s Estonia-based collaborator, filmmaker and producer Artur Veeber. The work will receive its world premiere in a coveted out-of-competition slot in Venice on Sept. 6.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter,...

Distribution

“Mariupol. Unlost Hope,” one of two Ukrainian documentaries recently acquired by Beta Film’s Autentic Distribution, will be released in 40 cities across the world, which are similar to Mariupol either by population or as a port and/or industrial center, or cities that are twinned with Mariupol, on Aug. 24, Ukraine independence day.

The film shows the Ukraine war through the eyes of ordinary people who lived through the first month of the invasion in Mariupol. Based on the diaries of local journalist Nadia Sukhorukova, the film is directed by Maksym Litvinov and produced by Volodymyr Borodyansky. It is backed by the Organization of Ukrainian Producers, a group of seven Ukrainian TV and film producers established in March to document the Russian invasion and its impact on Ukraine.

The release campaign is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Dmytro Kuleba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said:...

Hello and welcome to another week that was in international entertainment. Jesse Whittock here, back to guide you through the big stories and scoops. Also, a warm welcome to another new face in our London office, Zac Ntim, who’s joined us as International Film Reporter. Drop him a note and say hello.

Festival Fever Returns (L-r): ‘Blonde,’ ‘Don’t Worry Darling,’ ‘Bones’ and ‘All That Bardo’

Very nice, Venice: Venice and Toronto fired the opening shots of the 2022/23 awards season as they unveiled their line-ups this week. Opening the Venice Film Festival on August 31 will be Noah Baumbach’s Netflix picture White Noise, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. Venice chief Alberto Barbera said the film was “worth waiting for,” using a ton of adjectives to display his excitement – spanning ‘ambitious,’ ‘compelling,’ ‘dramatic,’ ‘ironic’ and ‘satirical.’ We’re sold. Also gaining plenty of social traction was Netflix’s much-discussed...

White NoiseCOMPETITIONWhite Noise (Noah Baumbach)Il Signore Delle Formiche (Gianni Amelio)The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)L’Immensita (Emanuele Crialese)Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Blonde (Andrew Dominik)Tár (Todd Field)Love Life (Koji Fukada)Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (Alejandro G. Inarritu)Athena (Romain Gavras)Bones & All (Luca Guadagnino)The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)Beyond The Wall (Vahid Jalilvand)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)Chiara (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Monica (Andrea Pallaoro)No Bears (Jafar Panahi)All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)The Son (Florian Zeller)Our Ties (Roschdy Zem)Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionThe Hanging Sun (Francesco Carrozzini)When The Waves Are Gone (Lav Diaz)Living (Oliver Hermanus)Dead For A Dollar (Walter Hill)Call Of God (Kim Ki-duk)Dreamin’ Wild (Bill Pohlad)Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)Siccità (Paolo Virzi)Pearl (Ti West)Don’t Worry Darling...

Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera revealed a typically intriguing lineup today, full of potential fireworks and serious cinema. From Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s “personal and ambitious” Bardo to Netflix’s much-discussed Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde, there are buzz titles on offer and plenty of talking points. The lineup also offered up some interesting deviations from previous editions. Below, we discuss the selection with Barbera, who cultivated the lineup with his team over a nine-month span.

Deadline: This is a great-looking lineup. Rich and serious. How are you feeling about it?

Alberto Barbera: I’m very happy. It was a challenging and long process. We started to watch films last November. Of course, there were films that aren’t completed and we couldn’t get, but most of the films I wanted to see I could and many of those are here in the selection. There is great diversity in the lineup,...

The lineup announced today for the 79th Venice Film Festival is a varied and rich offering from the world’s oldest event of its kind. There are auteur filmmakers galore who have also shown commercial mettle, previous Lido winners and some tantalizing out-of-competition entries including a short film featuring Chris Rock. While there may not be a Dune– or Joker-sized Hollywood tentpole in the bunch, this is an intriguing mix which is sure to bring plenty of star power — notably with Olivia Wilde’s out of competition title Don’t Worry Darling ferrying Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Gemma Chan and Chris Pine to the island.

Venice Film Festival 2022: Deadline’s Full Coverage

Politics and serious issues will also be at the fore; Artistic Director Alberto Barbera today took time to call out the war in Ukraine with “European democracies threatened by Putin’s imperialism.” There are titles from Ukraine as...

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Paul Schrader, a singular American auteur and key figure of the New Hollywood era, will be back at the Venice Film Festival this year to collect a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. But that shouldn’t suggest the 76-year-old director has acquiesced into the valedictory phase of his creative life.

Schrader will also be on hand in Venice to unveil his 22nd directorial feature, Master Gardener, starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver. The film will premiere in one of Venice’s coveted out-of-competition slots, alongside new features from Olivia Wilde, Walter Hill and the late Kim Ki-duk, among others.

Not much has been revealed about the new film, but its summary suggests it loosely conforms to the self-pioneered genre that has defined so much of Schrader’s filmography — what he calls “man in a room” stories, or intimate character studies of socially disaffected men.

With opening night locked in––Noah Baumbach’s highly-anticipated Don DeLillo adaptation White Noise––Venice Film Festival has unveiled the rest of their lineup. Amongst the slate is Todd Field’s TÁR, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener, Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter, Frederick Wiseman’s A Couple, Laura Poitras’ All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, Walter Hill’s Dead for a Dollar, and more.

Check out the lineup below, with a hat tip to Deadline.

Venezia 79 Competiton

Il Signore Delle Formiche, dir: Gianni Amelio

The Whale, dir: Darren Aronofsky

L’Imensita, dir: Emanuel Crialese

Saint Omer, dir: Alice Diop

Blonde, dir: Andrew Dominik

TÁR, dir: Todd Field

Love Life, dir: Koji Fukada

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, dir: Alejandro G. Inarritu

Athena,...

Update: The Venice Film Festival has revealed a robust lineup for the 79th edition which runs from August 31-September 10 on the Lido. Scroll down for the full list of Competition titles which include new works from such directors as Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro G Iñárritu, Todd Field, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino, Alice Diop, Joanna Hogg, Martin McDonagh, Jafar Panahi and Florian Zeller.

In big-ticket Out of Competition berths are Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling from Warner Bros and starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as well as a new documentary from Oliver Stone and TV series The Kingdom Exodus and Copenhagen Cowboy, respectively from Danish auteurs Lars von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn.

Previous: The Venice Film Festival will unveil its lineup for the 79th edition this morning at 11 a.m. local time (2 a.m. Pt/5 a.m. Et). The press conference is being held at the Library of the...

Includes films by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Joanna Hogg, Olivia Wilde, Darren Aronofsky, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino and Florian Zeller.

The line-up of the 79th Venice Film Festival (August 31-September 10) has been announced by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera.

Scroll down for full line-up

The heavyweight competition line-up includes films by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Joanna Hogg, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Darren Aronofsky, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino, Martin McDonagh and Florian Zeller. As with last year, five female directors were selected in the main competition. Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is playing out of competition.

As previously announced, Noah Baumbach...

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Filmmakers Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning) and Visar Morina (Exil) are this year’s joint winners of the 2022 Baumi Script Development Award, an indie film bursary set up in honor of the late German producer Karl Baumgartner (Le Havre, Clouds of Sils Maria).

Georgian filmmaker Kulumbegashvili won for her treatment for her next feature project, Historia, which follows a female obstetrician in a rural part of Georgia who performs illegal abortions. German-Kosovar filmmaker Morina got the nod for the pitch for his upcoming feature Hatixhe and Shaban, which looks at a family in rural Kosovo, which loses its farm and is forced to move to the city to earn a living.

The two will share the 21,000 (20,000 eduro) cash prize, to be put toward developing their respective scripts.

Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature, Beginning, a story of a woman caught in an isolated community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in rural Georgia,...

Idiosyncratic Korean arthouse director Kim Ki-duk passed away on December 11, 2020 from complications caused by Covid-19, while he was in Latvia, having traveled there a month earlier. Though many of his films have received critical acclaim, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” is widely considered his crowning achievement and an essential piece of South Korean cinema.

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“Spring, Summer” tells the story of a young monk as he comes of age in a quiet, secluded monastery, drifting on a serene lake in the mountains. Guided by an older teacher (Oh Yoeng-su), the boy (Kim Jong-ho) lives a simple life, filled with long walks, prayer, meditation and picking herbs for medicine. It is not as idyllic as it seems, however. The boy takes great pleasure in torturing the small animals that populate the forest surrounding the floating monastery, tying rocks to them to make them immobile and laughing...

Image Source: Elephante: Alex Lopes; Thuy: Sarah Ohta; Luna Li: Felice Trinidad; Background Image: Unsplash

In recent years, a handful of Asian American musicians have made a name for themselves in the American music scene. There's indie rock artist Mitski, Michelle Zauner of the genre-defying band Japanese Breakfast, and house DJ and producer Yaeji. The list grows a bit longer if we count Grammy-winning mainstream artists like H.E.R., Olivia Rodrigo, Bruno Mars, and Anderson .Paak, all of whom have some Asian heritage. However, they're the notable exceptions in an industry in which Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Aapi) are still grossly underrepresented and underpromoted, despite the wealth of musical talent that exists within the community.

In contrast, many K-pop stars - the majority of whom hail from South Korea - are now more successful and famous in the US than most Aapi artists. This striking paradox speaks to...

I have to admit, although I am a big fan of Kim Ki-duk’s films, his latest efforts have not satisfied me at all. After the trouble he had with “Moebius,” he has toned down, to the point that his films have lost the shocking element that made them so special. “The Net,” however, seems like an effort to return to his roots, although not fully realized.

“The Net” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema

The net of Chul-woo, a poor North Korean fisherman, is caught in the engine of his boat, and accidentally, he drifts into South Korea. The authorities arrest him and start interrogating him brutally, as they also try to make him defect. His situation is worsened by his main interrogator, who seems to harbor an intense hatred for North Koreans. On the other hand, a younger agent named Jin-woo, who is assigned to him,...

Jean-Marc Thérouanne has a BA in Law and a Ma in History, he specialised in librarianship.

He is the CEO and co-founder of Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas created in 1995 for the celebration of hundred years of cinema.

He has been President of Jury at Silk Road International Film Festival Of Xi’an 2014 (China), Art Film Festival Of Kosice 2017 (Slovakia) and Festival Fenêtre sur Courts Of Dijon 2010 (France), a member of international juries in France and abroad : Chungmuro International Film Festival Of Seoul 2009 (Korea), Osian’Cinefan Of New-Delhi 2009 (India), Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival Of Manila (Philippines),… and his action for cinema granted him several decorations such as : Korean Cinema Award (2018), Officier des Palmes Académiques (2018), Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (2003), as well as Medal of Oriental Languages (2006), Chevalier des Palmes Académiques (2007), Medal of Francophonia (2009), Cultural Award France-Korea (2011), Medal of Honor of the city of Vesoul (2014), Trophy...

Jang Hoon, who started his career as an assistant to Kim Ki-duk, has only directed four feature films as of now. “Rough Cut” in 2008, “Secret Reunion” in 2010, “The Front Line”, in 2011 and “A Taxi Driver” in 2017. However, all of them are considered top notch, with Hung managing to combine commercial success with acclaimed reviews. This particular one also netted him the Best Film Award from the Blue Dragon Awards.

Ji-won and Han-gyoo are special agents for North and South Korea, respectively. The two of them exchange glances during a North Korean assassination attempt of Kim Jong-il’s second cousin, which fails due to Tae-soon’s betrayal. Shortly after, Han-gyoo is discharged for mishandling the case and Ji-won takes the blame for Tae-soon, subsequently going into hiding from his commander named Shadow. Six years later, Ji-won and Han-gyoo meet again and through a series of seemingly random consequences,...

After years of growing one of the world’s strongest local entertainment industries with high quality product, a sophisticated audience and a box office that consistently ranks among the Top 5 international markets, South Korea seemed to suddenly burst into global consciousness with Bong Joon-ho’s smash 2019 hit Parasite. This was the first-ever foreign language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, as well as, shockingly, the first time the country scored an International Feature nomination, much less a prize.

Hollywood execs, box office watchers, and festival curators have long had their eyes on Korea, but even with such confirmed talent as Bong (who made cult hit Snowpiercer in 2013 and Netflix’s Okja in 2017), Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong and Kim Ki-duk, mainstream worldwide awareness was not especially rampant.

One company that has arguably tipped the scales is Cj Enm. In 2019, a local film it released, Extreme Job, grossed more than Avengers: Endgame in the market.