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If there’s one director whose entire filmography is consistently horror-adjacent, it would have to be Yorgos Lanthimos. The Athenian filmmaker is mostly known for his absurdist dramas, but nearly all of his movies feature some form of horrific undercurrent beneath the offbeat dialogue and odd characters. And while his 2023 feature Poor Things wears its horror influences on its Frankenstein-inspired sleeves, today I’d like to look back on the director’s most effortlessly terrifying film – 2017’s psychological thriller The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

After reaching mainstream critical acclaim with 2015’s The Lobster, Lanthimos was basically given carte blanche on his next strange project. Borrowing the premise of an ancient Greek play, his next film would be a modern-day tragedy co-written by Efthymis Filippou and financed by Irish and British production companies. And like Yorgo’s previous English-language project, The Killing of a Sacred Deer would also benefit...

A version of this story about “Master of None” first appeared in the Comedy & Drama Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

If you have seen any of the third season of Netflix’s Emmy-winning “Master of None,” it’s readily apparent that it looks quite different from other seasons, almost to the point of wondering if you clicked on the right series from your onscreen menu. Not only is series lead Aziz Ansari’s Dev largely absent, but the focus is on Dev’s best friend Denise (series co-writer Lena Waithe) and her unpredictable marriage to Alicia (Naomi Ackie). But the boldest nuance is the show’s lush new appearance: shifting from digital to old-fashioned film stock, with the newly-cool-again 4:3 ratio more often seen in modern arthouse films.

“Aziz had known for the start that he wanted to shoot this on film”, says cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, best known for his bold,...

Through such feature films as “The Lodge,” “The Lobster” and “Keep the Lights On,” cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis has become known for artistically depicting the tension of complicated familial and romantic relationships, often in isolated settings. Stepping into the third season of “Master of None” continued the trend in his career as the season focuses on the day-to-day nuances of Denise (Lena Waithe) and Alicia’s (Naomi Ackie) crumbling marriage and takes place almost entirely in their farmhouse.

Aziz Ansari co-wrote the episodes and also directed, so he obviously had a very specific vision for the season. What drew you to that vision and what was your collaboration like once you were working together?

Actually it was really easy once we met and decided we were doing this together. When I got the call from my agent, I hadn’t seen “Master of None” and I didn’t know Aziz, but...

Stars: Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone, Katelyn Wells, Danny Keough, Lola Reid | Written by Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Sergio Casci | Directed by Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

The first English-language feature from Austrian writer-directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (Goodnight Mommy), The Lodge is a slow-burning chiller that plays some interesting games with the audience.

After a shocking prologue, The Lodge jumps forward six months to find pre-teen Mia (Lia McHugh) and her adolescent brother Aiden (Jaeden Martell) reluctantly travelling to a remote winter cabin with their widowed father Richard (Richard Armitage) and his new girlfriend Grace (Riley Keogh). The children are hostile to Grace because they blame her for the death of their mother (Alicia Silverstone), so tensions are high when a storm comes in and strands Mia and Aiden with their would-be stepmother while Richard is away on business.

Already convinced Grace is “a...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ career has long displayed a morbid fascination for the contours of the body, mind, and spirit, in all their ugliness. Well before “Dogtooth” shook the international film scene and “The Favourite” won Olivia Colman an Oscar, the Greek filmmaker made his debut with “Kinetta.” While this head-scratching puzzle box may at times feel like a sketchpad draft for his films to come, it nevertheless exerts a hypnotic power that makes it easy to see why Lanthimos quickly became a director to watch.

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Most of Lanthimos’ movies include self-flagellation of some sort, whether the literal acts of torture inflicted by the women of “The Favourite” on themselves,...

Art house horror is the current fad in fright flicks, that much is clear. I’m hardly complaining, either, as It Follows, Midsommar, The Witch, and plenty of other titles have helped push the genre forward. At the same time, it does seem like we’re entering a period where filmmakers will begin to ape what’s been successful, and too much of The Lodge, opening this week, feels as though it’s riffing on Hereditary. Now, for many, that might be a good thing. Sadly, I found that effort lacking, so this is even more of a letdown. Riley Keough is fantastic in a central role, and there’s ample amounts of dread, but it all adds up to so little that it’s hard not to question if it was worth close to two hours in order to endure, especially after over a year of hype, starting off at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Arriving in theaters this weekend is The Lodge, the latest film collaboration between directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the team behind Goodnight Mommy. Recently, Daily Dead had the opportunity to speak with them about their involvement with the Hammer production, and how they worked to remove any of the initial “fun” that had been in an earlier version of the script. Fiala and Franz also discussed collaborating with Riley Keough, whose journey in The Lodge propels the story into some dark places, their desire to keep everything as authentic as possible throughout production, and how their Dp, Thimios Bakatakis, helped elevate the thematic elements The Lodge explores on a narrative level.

Great to speak with you both today. With The Lodge, there are the issues of blending families and kids not adapting well to that, especially while dealing with grief, but there’s also isolation and these things about...

Atmosphere, creepy and unnerving, is the main star of The Lodge, a fits-and-starts horrorshow from Veronika Franz and her nephew Severin Fiala, the Austrian duo who made a skin-crawling debut in 2014 with Goodnight Mommy. Now they’re up to their old tricks, this time in English, with parenthood and its contingent terrors very much a part of the equation. The mommy here is Laura (Alicia Silverstone), a fragile soul who reacts very badly when her estranged journalist husband Richard (Richard Armitage) pushes for a divorce. His goal is to marry...

“The Lodge” opens with a graphic suicide enacted as a jump scare, and it’s clear that directors Severin Fail and Verokia Franz aren’t messing around. The Austrian filmmakers’ English-language follow-up to their disturbing 2014 debut “Goodnight Mommy” resurrects many of the same unnerving tropes: a pair of kids trapped in a remote house, the circumstances of their situation lingering in ambiguity and baked in palpable dread. Those siblings were naughty, demented, and haunted by their past; the ones in “The Lodge,” however, could be any of those things or none of them, as the directors play endless mind games until even the jump scares ring hollow.

But that’s not to say that the movie lacks a freaky setup, or the same deliciously creepy atmosphere that made “Goodnight Mommy” such a haunting ride. After Richard (Richard Armitage) tells his estranged wife (Alicia Silverstone) that he wants a divorce, she...

The Lodge

Art-house commodities after their stylish 2014 debut Goodnight Mommy (read review), co-directors Veronika Franz (wife of Ulrich Seidl) and Severin Fiala scored their English language debut with The Lodge, a co-production between the UK’s Hammer Films and FilmNation Entertainment with distribution rights secured by Sony Pictures. In a similar vein to their previous film (which is set for its own English remake from Matt Sobel of Take Me to the River), filming took place in early 2018 in Montreal shooting in 35mm with Greek cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis (The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and featuring a cast including Riley Keough, Richard Armitage (The Hobbit), Jaeden Lieberher (It: Chapter One), and Lia McHugh.…...

On the day before the Oscars, the Film Indepdnent Spirit Awards were handed out. In what may be a warm up for the Academy Awards, Get Out took Best Film, marking an excellent night overall for the movie. Impending Oscar winners Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell both won as well for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, while the rest of the winners you can see below… Here are all of the Spirit Award winners: Best Feature “Call Me by Your Name” “The Florida Project” “Get Out” (Winner) “Lady Bird” “The Rider” Best First Feature (Award given to the director and producer) “Columbus” “Ingrid Goes West” (Winner) “Menashe” “Oh Lucy!” “Patti Cake$” John Cassavetes Award – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. (Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.) “Dayveon” “A Ghost Story” “Life and Nothing More” (Winner) “Most Beautiful Island” “The Transfiguration” Best Director Sean Baker,...

by Ilich Mejia

Sometime this fall, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer began recurring less and less in conversations surrounding films likely to be Oscar nominated this month. The fact that a film featuring a vindictive teen with supernatural powers was even in any awards-friendly conversation despite voters’ general aversion to anything paranormal is a testament to its many assets: a compelling cast well led by Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Barry Keoghan (and even child actors Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic, both easily disturbed but unmoved like any Lanthimos vet), an eerie score tuned flawlessly to make you laugh out loud at the most horrific sight, and some of the most concealed but poignant contemporary costume work in film this year. But perhaps the movie’s greatest showcase is Thimios Bakatakis’s cinematography as he paints ordinary Cincinnati into a most chilling Epidaurian stage.

Come read more about Bakatakis's wizardry,...

The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the latest feature from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, is set in a recognizably American city, but otherwise occupies much the same kind of off-kilter reality as Lanthimos’ previous film, last year’s The Lobster. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a successful heart surgeon who returns every night to his stately house, attentive wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), and their two children. During his days at the hospital, he alternately spends time with and deflects a teenaged boy, Martin (Barry Keoghan), to whom he seems to owe some debt, the origin of which is unclear. A. O. Scott continues at The New York Times:It’s made clear soon enough. Martin, who seems both a little slow and spookily intuitive, turns out to be the evil force who will torment the Murphys. Some years earlier, Steven had performed an operation on the boy’s father, who subsequently died.

There’s a very specific vibe to be found within the films of Yorgos Lanthimos. To call his movies black comedies is to underestimate just how dark things get and how uncomfortable the laughs usually are. Lanthimos made his breakthrough with Dogtooth, before getting a major Academy Award nomination for last year’s The Lobster. This week, The Killing of a Sacred Deer opens after a fairly divisive reception at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It marks the second collaboration between Lanthimos and Colin Farrell, while the second time this year that Farrell has been paired with Nicole Kidman this year, after The Beguiled. Without question, this is the weirdest one yet for them all. This movie is hard to categorize, but perhaps could be called a morbid black comedy. It centers on the Murphy family, led by surgeon Steven (Farrell). He and his wife Anna (Kidman) seem to have a perfect life,...

Holy shit.

That's pretty much the only thing going through my mind the first time I watched the trailer for for Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Our French correspondent had somewhat prepared me for something great to come but this trailer has more than sealed the deal.

Lanthimos' latest stars Colin Farrell as a surgeon and Nicole Kidman as his wife as the pair deal with a phenomenon where children, specifically theirs but perhaps others as well, start to lose control of their limbs.

The trailer is cryptic, beautiful (shot by Lanthimos' long-time cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis) and eerie. I never considered that [Continued ...]...

Author: Jo-Ann Titmarsh

Intense choral music in the dark opens The Killing of a Sacred Deer, setting the tone for an intense ride into the crazy world of Yorgos Lanthimos. The first image we see is a close-up of a beating heart, the marble and red organ surrounded by the blue sheet of the operating theatre. This segues onto the surgeon dropping his bloodied gloves into a bin: the colours and image is similar, but one represents pulsating life and the other defeat and death.

The surgeon is Steven (Colin Farrell). He’s a renowned cardiologist married to ophthalmologist Anna (Nicole Kidman). They are a beautiful couple with two gorgeous kids – Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic). But there is another less gorgeous element: Martin (Barry Keoghan) is a teenager who surreptitiously visits Steven. They have covert meetings and Steven lavishes the boy with expensive gifts. Is he an illegitimate child?...

The celluloid comeback continues. Less than three years ago, Kodak was faced with the prospect of closing its film manufacturing plant in Rochester, New York, which also would have closed the doors on filmmakers’ ability to shoot on film. Now they’re back from the dead, and a number of Hollywood biggest blockbusters are being shot on film (hello, “Dunkirk”), and going analog has become a mark of prestige for award contenders and first-rate TV.

Read More: Cannes 2017 – Here Are the Cameras Used To Shoot 29 of This Year’s Films

To highlight how integral shooting on film is to the top filmmakers, 15 films premiering at the Cannes Film Festival shot on Kodak stock, according to the company.

Seven of the 15 films are in competition, and among the most highly anticipated of the year:

“The Beguiled,” directed by Sofia Coppola, Dp Philippe Le Sourd, stars Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst

“Wonderstruck,...

A forbidden affair that ruined the lives of a man and a young girl is explored by both parties once again in the first trailer for Una. Rooney Mara stars as the title character, with Ben Mendelsohn starring as Ray, the man she ran away with 15 years ago, before their affair came to a sudden end. As you can see in this trailer, the re-emergence of Una threatens to destroy the new life that Ray has built for himself in the years following the affair.

Una, based on David Harrower's play 'Blackbird', follows a young woman's journey to reclaim her past. Fifteen years earlier, Una (Rooney Mara) ran away with an older man, Ray (Ben Mendelsohn), a crime for which he was arrested and imprisoned. When she comes across a photo of him in a trade magazine, Una tracks him down and turns up at his workplace. Her abrupt...

Exclusive: WestEnd inks deals in Germany, Australia, Latin America, and more, on sexual abuse drama.

WestEnd Films has secured a string of deals on hard-hitting sexual abuse drama Una, starring Rooney Mara.

Since debuting at Telluride and Toronto, director Benedict Andrews’ film has sold to Weltkino (Germany, Austria), Madman (Australia, New Zealand), Swen (Latin America), Abmo (Canada), Non Stop (Scandinavia), Splendid Film (Benelux), Ecs (Middle East), United King (Israel), Pris (Portugal), Tanweer (Greece), Top Films (Russia), Mars (Turkey), Edko (Hong Kong), Shaw (Singapore), Encore (Taiwan), Captive (Philippines) and DDDreams (China).

Read: Benedict Andrews talks sexual abuse drama ‘Una’

Mara (Carol) stars alongside Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom) and Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler) in Andrews and David Harrowers’ adaptation of the latter’s Olivier Award-winning play Blackbird about a woman struggling with the psychological repercussions of abuse following a relationship she had with an older man when aged 13.

The film is produced by Jean Doumanian and Patrick Daly alongside WestEnd...

Coming out of the Cannes Film Festival, one of our favorites was Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Kubrickian, uproarious drama The Lobster. Toplined by Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly, it follows the peculiarly fascinating story in which singledom is banned and people are forced to find a match within 45 days or they turned into the animal of their choice. Once set to be released by Alchemy, financial troubles have caused them to give it up to A24, and the film was pulled just a few weeks prior to its March 11th release. The distributor has now settled on a new release date of May 13th, confirming to EW, as well as debuting a new trailer.

We said in our review, “In this first half, The Lobster closely resembles Dogtooth and Lanthimos again exhibits his aptitude for creating insular, ruthlessly regimented microcosms through which to unleash his scathing satire.

Coming out of the Cannes Film Festival, one of our favorites was Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Kubrickian, uproarious drama The Lobster. Toplined by Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly, it follows the peculiarly fascinating story in which singledom is banned and people are forced to find a match within 45 days or they turned into the animal of their choice. Finally set to arriving in the U.S. next month, we have the first domestic trailer.

We said in our review, “In this first half, The Lobster closely resembles Dogtooth and Lanthimos again exhibits his aptitude for creating insular, ruthlessly regimented microcosms through which to unleash his scathing satire. Unlike that of its predecessor, however, the attributes of this warped world are immediately familiar, even relatable. As a result, the director’s trademark deadpan humor is no longer simply droll, but uproarious – and also inescapably implicating. Lanthimos and his Dp,...

Reemerging after its Cannes Film Festival premiere — where we named it one of our favorites — Yorgos Lanthimos‘ English-language debut The Lobster has stopped by Tiff, Nyff, and more in the past few weeks. While Alchemy still has yet to set a U.S. release date (only word that it’ll arrive next spring), thanks to various international releases we have more previews from the film following the trailer.

Toplined by Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly, it follows the peculiarly fascinating story in which singledom is banned and people are forced to find a match within 45 days or they turned into the animal of their choice. Today brings a new featurette in which the filmmakers and cast discuss the making of the project, a “music video,” which highlights a great deal of new photos, as well as some fresh stills. Also, if you’d like to...

Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. This September, we feature a filmmaker who doesn’t need much of an introduction to the readers of this site. Co-scribe on all of Joachim’s Trier’s films (Reprise, Oslo, August 31st and Cannes Main Comp selected Louder Than Bombs), Norwegian filmmaker Eskil Vogt sees his debut film, Blind open on Friday September 4th in NYC at the IFC Center and September 11th in L.A. at Cinefamily with Fandor releasing the film on VOD.

Considered among the best undistributed films of 2014, this import received instant acclaim at the back to back fests it premiered at early last year (it won Sundance Ff’s World Cinema Best Screenplay and Berlin Ff’s Label Europa Cinema). Below we discussed how he landed on the project, his writing process and visual strategies he employed.

Relationship drama to shoot for five weeks in the UK.

Principal photography has begun on Benedict Andrews’ Blackbird andwill shoot for five weeks across the south of England.

Rooney Mara, who won Best Actress at Cannes last month for her role in Carol, will star opposite Ben Mendelsohn (Starred Up) in the relationship drama.

Based on playwright David Harrower’s Olivier Award-winning play of the same name, it tells the story of Ray (Mendelsohn) who is confronted with his past when Una (Mara) arrives unannounced at his office.

Fifteen years earlier, the two had an illicit affair, for which Ray was arrested and imprisoned. He has since built a new life for himself; she is looking for answers.

Andrews said: “I am relishing the opportunity to bring this vital, highly-charged story to the screen. David has written a beautiful, brutal script and I have two outstanding actors in the roles of Ray and Una.

“The fragility...

Cannes — Awards season is no stranger to Cannes. From "Amour" to "The Tree of Life" to "No Country For Old Men" to "The Pianist" to "The Piano," every year there seems to be a player or two that pokes its head out from the crowded Croisette and into Oscar's waiting arms. This year's potential players may not include a true Best Picture contender, but they are evidence enough that the festival's presence will be felt throughout the upcoming campaign. Before you start second guessing which films have a shot and which don't, remember the actions of this year's Hollywood-influenced competition jury. The Coen brothers, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller and the Guillermo Del Toro, among others, awarded some interesting prizes that will absolutely affect the race. The critical kudos are important, too (as are those of us who cover the beat on a regular basis and took in this year's slate...

For the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, Yorgos Lanthimos's first feature in English, The Lobster, is "an adventure which begins by being bizarre and hilarious but appears to run out of ideas at its mid-way point." But the Playlist's Oliver Lyttelton finds that the cast—Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, Jessica Barden, Ashley Jensen and Aggeliki Papoulia—commits to the absurd premise "with gusto." The Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Felperin: "Co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou’s collaboration with the director is faithfully served by DoP Thimios Bakatakis, using lots of long lenses and natural lighting to create stunningly composed tableaus, and editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis smoothing down the tonal shifts to a glassy sheen." » - David Hudson...

For the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, Yorgos Lanthimos's first feature in English, The Lobster, is "an adventure which begins by being bizarre and hilarious but appears to run out of ideas at its mid-way point." But the Playlist's Oliver Lyttelton finds that the cast—Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, Jessica Barden, Ashley Jensen and Aggeliki Papoulia—commits to the absurd premise "with gusto." The Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Felperin: "Co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou’s collaboration with the director is faithfully served by DoP Thimios Bakatakis, using lots of long lenses and natural lighting to create stunningly composed tableaus, and editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis smoothing down the tonal shifts to a glassy sheen." » - David Hudson...

Exclusive: Riz Ahmed, producer Kevin Loader join Rooney Mara drama.

Nightcrawler co-star Riz Ahmed and Tara Fitzgerald (Game of Thrones) have joined Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn in director Benedict Andrews’ upcoming drama Blackbird, which is due to shoot in the UK from June 13.

Creative Scotland, Film 4 and WestEnd Films will back the feature, produced by Jean Doumanian and Patrick Daly alongside WestEnd, which also handles world sales.

In the Loop and Alan Partridge producer Kevin Loader has joined as a co-producer. Executive producers are Ron Burkle, Terry Allen Kramer and George Kaufman.

The buzzed about script, adapted by playwright David Harrower from his celebrated and controversial Olivier Award-winning play of the same name, charts the confrontation between a middle aged man and a young woman who had an illicit affair 15 years earlier, for which the man was arrested and imprisoned.

The film’s stellar crew will include The Lobster DoP Thimios Bakatakis, Macbeth production...

With his latest, director Ira Sachs provides further proof of his narrative proficiency while delving into the most personal aspects of his previous long term relationship which crumbled in the hands of indecision and drug addiction. A heartbreaking chronicle of a decade long love affair and a strikingly honest depiction of modern gay culture rarely seen in cinema, Keep the Lights On is what so many Lgbt films of the past failed to achieve, candidly portraying the prevalent sexual casualty that often brings gay individuals together while sincerely rendering the challenges of a genuine romance with equal weight, all of which is lensed on the iconic streets of New York, outlined in the expressive, atavistic grain of Super 16.

Inhabiting Ira’s role, actor Thure Lindhardt plays Erik, a blond and toothy 30-something Danish documentarian in search of sex, love and professional fulfillment in the big city. Our first introduction sees...

When documentary filmmaker Erik Rothman (Thure Lindhardt) first meets Paul Lucy (Zachary Booth), he’s a bright and warm publishing lawyer. However, as the years pass and their relationship develops from one of occasional sex to one supposedly rooted in trust, Paul’s drug usage increases from mild stress relief to ripe addiction. Unwilling to lose hope that Paul’s habit will subside and he’ll return to the person he once was, Erik must find a way to love him regardless of his problems.

Keep the Lights On, written by Ira Sachs (who also directs) and Mauricio Zacharias, tells the harsh, yet poignant and truthful story of how two people are ravaged by addiction and how it forces them to reassess certain aspects of their lives and attitudes. Reinforced by the fact it’s based on Sachs’ own personal experience from a previous relationship, the film is remarkable in...

Keep The Lights On

Directed by Ira Sachs

Written by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias

2012, USA

Director and writer Ira Sachs puts his soul into Keep the Lights On, a deeply personal but fictionalized remembrance of his own relationships, thoughts and journals. There is joy, anguish, desperation and devotion, components of any true to life love story- that the romance portrayed just happens to concern a long-term gay relationship isn’t a surprise. It is however a rarity for any love story to be handled so earnestly.

Beginning in New York City during the late ‘90s and spanning a decade- Lights is deliberately slow paced, taking it’s time developing and unraveling the passion before us. It’s clear from the start that Danish filmmaker Erik (Thure Lindhardt of Flame and Citron) is a stand-in for Sachs. Erik is a rising documentarian who hooks up with Paul (Zachary Booth from...

A trailer has been released for L, a film directed by Greek filmmaker Babis Makridis and co-written by Dogtooth and Alps writer Efthimis Filippou – and shot by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, who also worked on Dogtooth. As we’ve been told, the film looks pretty bizarre, but the reviews coming of out of Sundance have been extremely positive.

Here’s the synopsis, via Twitch:

A man lives in his car. He’s 40 and separated from his wife and kids, who live in a different car. They meet in parking lots. A professional driver, the man delivers honey to a narcoleptic man and often dreams of his friend, who was killed when a hunter mistook him for a bear. Frequently late delivering honey, the man is fired, and his driving skills are questioned. Thrust into existential uncertainty, he abandons “car life” and joins a rogue motorbike gang.

via The Daily Motion

L...

Monday afternoon at Sundance's Filmmakers Lounge, GLAAD held a panel to discuss "Keep the Lights On," the latest drama from Ira Sachs playing in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. The event, dubbed "What Modern Queer Cinema Looks Like" (moderated by New York Magazine's Kyle Buchanan), was quick to address the state of the New Queer Cinema; a term established at a Sundance panel twenty years ago. Returning from the original panel was critic B. Ruby Rich, writer of the original Sight and Sound articles on the New Queer Cinema movement. Rich and Sachs sat on the panel with "Keep the Lights On" actor Zachary Booth, co-writer Mauricio Zacharias, and cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis. The panel eventually became a conversation about "Keep the Lights On," with plenty of expected questions ("What was it like being naked on set?" "What was it like to smoke those fake drugs?"), but the most important part of the.

Yorgos Lanthimos got our attention with Dogtooth -- hell, he got the world's attention with the film -- but he isn't the only person responsible for that film and its follow-up, Alps. Efthimis Filippou wrote both Dogtooth and Alps, and Dogtooth was shot by Thimios Bakatakis. Now there is L, directed by Babis Makridis and co-written by Filippou and shot by Bakatakis. The film is a Sundance entry, and has the tagline "What is the best vehicle in the world? A movie about walking." Now there is also a teaser for L; it certainly displays the deft touch that Bakatakis has with lighting. And for those who are fans of Dogtooth, there is an odd sensibility here that will prove instantly endearing. Twitch [1] has the trailer: Here's the synopsis from Sundance: A man lives in his car. He's 40 and separated from his wife and kids, who live in a different car.

The latest product of the Greek new wave is an intriguing oddity that suggests the troubling mind-state of a country in social and economic meltdown

Are we seeing the consolidation of a Greek new wave? Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg is an angular, complex, absorbing and obscurely troubling movie. It offers its audience a mordant commentary on modern Greece – deriding its cultural and social decay, though without commenting directly on economic difficulties – and affects a serio-comic, quasi-anthropological detachment. The title mispronounces the surname of David Attenborough, whose TV documentaries the lead character loves. Its deadpan mannerisms and eccentricities are a deliberately unreal stylisation, a distancing effect, and yet somehow at the same a real symptom of real unhappiness and dysfunction.

Tsangari was a producer on Giorgios Lanthimos's disturbing award-winner Dogtooth; Lanthimos acts in this and the movies share a cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis. The resemblances between the two are striking, particularly their demystified,...

Lev Lewis signing off from the Toronto International Film Festival

For ten days a year my little big city is overtaken by the masses of the film industry. Celebrities of all kinds are spotted walking casually through Yonge St.; semi-recognizable journalists with their green laniards hurry from screening to screening. A little piece of Hollywood just one streetcar ride away from me. So, it's odd to see how a city can overnight seem the centre of the world and then, just like that, retreat back to its former, seemingly dull self.

Not that I'm complaining. As exciting as the last ten days have been, a respite from line-ups and writing and, yes, even films, will be most welcome. 18 films in ten days isn't an exorbitant amount but it's more than enough for me. I'll leave you with a write-up on the best films I saw at the festival.

Now for the movies!

Lev Lewis reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

My second day at Tiff was likely to be my most relaxing. My first and only film was at 9:45pm, so I decided to head over to Yorkville to see if anything was happening. Walking along Cumberland I spotted Jeffrey Wells at a Starbucks and decided to say hello. For someone like me who lives in Toronto far removed from the film world of La or New York it was fun to see someone I read everyday hanging out in my town.

I'm currently sitting in a coffee shop with not much time between screenings (Day Three). So, the movie...

Dogtooth

Yorgos Lanthimos' sophomore feature, which won Un Certain Regard at Cannes, tells the odd story of three "children" whose parents have guarded them from any interaction with or unfiltered knowledge of the outside world. The film moves languidly, eschewing...