Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.Fallen Leaves.There’s a moment early in Aki Kaurismäki’s latest film, Fallen Leaves (2023), that will surely tug at the heartstrings of shy lovers everywhere. A man, Holappa (played by Jussi Vatanen), and a woman, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), sit across from each other in a bar. Between them, his friend tries vainly to flirt with hers, getting nowhere, but Holappa and Ansa themselves do not speak, and instead merely stare meekly into their drinks, the gap of a few meters opening up like a yawning chasm. Then, for just a moment, Holappa looks up from his beer and their eyes meet. And as they do, the first cascading piano chords of Franz Schubert’s “Serenade” are heard and a besuited man takes the karaoke stage to start singing: “Softly my songs plead / through the night for...
- 2/4/2024
- MUBI
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival’s documentary slate featured probes into human rights abuses and profiles of unsung visionaries. At least one movie falls into both categories. This year marks the second time that the L’Œil d’or, first presented in 2015, has gone to two films. It’s also the first time in 19 years that nonfiction has competed for the Palme d’Or. Do you think any of the following titles 10 should be on our radar come Oscar season?
See Cannes 2023 round-up: Top 25 movies to emerge from this year’s festival [Photos]
“Anita”
Anita Pallenberg is known by a small group, and still only as a muse rather than an actress, fashion icon and writer. Laird Borrelli-Persson (Vogue) describes her as a “troubled woman who has come close to being mythologized out of existence and sidelined by the juggernaut that is The Rolling Stones.” Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill made “Anita...
See Cannes 2023 round-up: Top 25 movies to emerge from this year’s festival [Photos]
“Anita”
Anita Pallenberg is known by a small group, and still only as a muse rather than an actress, fashion icon and writer. Laird Borrelli-Persson (Vogue) describes her as a “troubled woman who has come close to being mythologized out of existence and sidelined by the juggernaut that is The Rolling Stones.” Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill made “Anita...
- 6/2/2023
- by Ronald Meyer
- Gold Derby
A record 102 reviews were published in the festival’s 12 days.
With its review of the closing film, Elemental, Screen International marks the second year in which it has reviewed every title in selection at Cannes during the festival itself — from Official Selection - Competition, Un Certain Regard, Special Screenings, Out of Competition and midnight - to Quinzaine and Critics Week.
That makes a record 102 reviews published in the festival’s 12 days from a team of highly experienced and professional trade critics.
Led by executive editor, reviews, Fionnuala Halligan and deputy reviews editor Nikki Baughan Screen’s critics team at Cannes also included Wendy Ide,...
With its review of the closing film, Elemental, Screen International marks the second year in which it has reviewed every title in selection at Cannes during the festival itself — from Official Selection - Competition, Un Certain Regard, Special Screenings, Out of Competition and midnight - to Quinzaine and Critics Week.
That makes a record 102 reviews published in the festival’s 12 days from a team of highly experienced and professional trade critics.
Led by executive editor, reviews, Fionnuala Halligan and deputy reviews editor Nikki Baughan Screen’s critics team at Cannes also included Wendy Ide,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
A record 102 reviews were published in the festival’s 12 days.
With its review of the closing film, Elemental, Screen International marks the second year in which it has reviewed every title in selection at Cannes during the festival itself — from Official Selection - Competition, Un Certain Regard, Special Screenings, Out of Competition and midnight - to Quinzaine and Critics Week.
That makes a record 102 reviews published in the festival’s 12 days from a team of highly experienced and professional trade critics.
Led by executive editor, reviews, Fionnuala Halligan and deputy reviews editor Nikki Baughan Screen’s critics team at Cannes also included Wendy Ide,...
With its review of the closing film, Elemental, Screen International marks the second year in which it has reviewed every title in selection at Cannes during the festival itself — from Official Selection - Competition, Un Certain Regard, Special Screenings, Out of Competition and midnight - to Quinzaine and Critics Week.
That makes a record 102 reviews published in the festival’s 12 days from a team of highly experienced and professional trade critics.
Led by executive editor, reviews, Fionnuala Halligan and deputy reviews editor Nikki Baughan Screen’s critics team at Cannes also included Wendy Ide,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Holocaust drama has emerged as likely awards contender at Cannes and for 2024 awards season.
A24 has closed a string of major territory deals for Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest following its well-received world premiere in Competition at Cannes last week.
The Holocaust drama has sold to Austria and Germany (Leonine), Benelux (Cineart), France (Bac), Greece (Spentzos), Italy (I Wonder), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Scandinavia (Sf Studios), Spain (Elastica and Wanda) and Switzerland (Filmcoopi).
Gutek also plans to release the movie in Poland, where The Zone of Interest was filmed.
A24 is handling the release of the film in the US.
A24 has closed a string of major territory deals for Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest following its well-received world premiere in Competition at Cannes last week.
The Holocaust drama has sold to Austria and Germany (Leonine), Benelux (Cineart), France (Bac), Greece (Spentzos), Italy (I Wonder), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Scandinavia (Sf Studios), Spain (Elastica and Wanda) and Switzerland (Filmcoopi).
Gutek also plans to release the movie in Poland, where The Zone of Interest was filmed.
A24 is handling the release of the film in the US.
- 5/26/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Ticketholders reported queuing for an hour but still not being given access to the only screening.
Update, 17/5/23 20.58 Cet: The Cannes Film Festival has confirmed to Screen that, under pressure from crowds, security at the Palais de Festivals decided to let people without tickets into the 15.00 screening of Pedro Almodovar’s ‘Strange Way Of Life’, ahead of those who had tickets.
Original story:
A large number of Cannes ticketholders have been turned away from the only screening of Pedro Almodovar’s short film Strange Way Of Life.
Long queues formed outside the Palais des Festivals for the 3pm screening of the...
Update, 17/5/23 20.58 Cet: The Cannes Film Festival has confirmed to Screen that, under pressure from crowds, security at the Palais de Festivals decided to let people without tickets into the 15.00 screening of Pedro Almodovar’s ‘Strange Way Of Life’, ahead of those who had tickets.
Original story:
A large number of Cannes ticketholders have been turned away from the only screening of Pedro Almodovar’s short film Strange Way Of Life.
Long queues formed outside the Palais des Festivals for the 3pm screening of the...
- 5/17/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Critics this year include LA Times’ Justin Chang, Die Zeit’s Katja Nicodemus, and Positif’s Michel Ciment.
Screen International has revealed its critics for the jury grid that will run throughout the 2023 Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).
Joining Screen’s reviewing team will be critics from 11 international outlets to give their verdict on the 21 films in Competition this year for the Palme d’Or.
The results will be published in Screen’s Cannes daily magazines and for the first time the grid will also be updated live on screendaily.com.
Egyptian critic Ahmed Shawky joins the Screen jury critics...
Screen International has revealed its critics for the jury grid that will run throughout the 2023 Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).
Joining Screen’s reviewing team will be critics from 11 international outlets to give their verdict on the 21 films in Competition this year for the Palme d’Or.
The results will be published in Screen’s Cannes daily magazines and for the first time the grid will also be updated live on screendaily.com.
Egyptian critic Ahmed Shawky joins the Screen jury critics...
- 5/16/2023
- by ¬Ella Gauci
- ScreenDaily
While Agnès Varda explored her own work throughout her career, including in The Beaches of Agnès, her TV series From Here to There, and her final film Varda by Agnès, a new documentary has been announced that will take a look at the late, legendary Belgian-born French director’s massive contributions to the art of cinema.
Variety reports Mk2 Films, Cinétévé Sales, and Varda’s own Ciné-Tamaris have backed Viva Varda!, which will feature never-before-seen archival footage along with interviews from directors, including Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Helmed by Pierre-Henri Gibert, the film features interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy, and Jonathan Romney. With a French Cinémathèque retrospctive also taking place the fall, here’s hoping the documentary will debut for the occasion.
“With the upcoming homage at the French Cinémathèque, I felt like...
Variety reports Mk2 Films, Cinétévé Sales, and Varda’s own Ciné-Tamaris have backed Viva Varda!, which will feature never-before-seen archival footage along with interviews from directors, including Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Helmed by Pierre-Henri Gibert, the film features interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy, and Jonathan Romney. With a French Cinémathèque retrospctive also taking place the fall, here’s hoping the documentary will debut for the occasion.
“With the upcoming homage at the French Cinémathèque, I felt like...
- 2/17/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Agnès Varda, the late New Wave cinema legend, is the subject of “Viva Varda!,” a documentary boasting exclusive archive footage and interviews by filmmakers such as Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Mk2 Films is co-representing the documentary feature with Cinétévé Sales.
“Viva Varda!” will be first portrait of the Honorary Oscar recipient that’s not directed by Varda herself. The last film she directed was “Varda par Agnes,” a documentary shedding light on her own experiences as a filmmaker. Her sprawling career and legacy will be celebrated this fall at the French Cinémathèque.
Pierre-Henri Gibert, a film buff who’s made several documentaries about filmmakers, including Jacques Audiard, explored different aspects of Varda’s life and body of work and conducted insightful interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy and Jonathan Romney, among others.
“Viva Varda!
“Viva Varda!” will be first portrait of the Honorary Oscar recipient that’s not directed by Varda herself. The last film she directed was “Varda par Agnes,” a documentary shedding light on her own experiences as a filmmaker. Her sprawling career and legacy will be celebrated this fall at the French Cinémathèque.
Pierre-Henri Gibert, a film buff who’s made several documentaries about filmmakers, including Jacques Audiard, explored different aspects of Varda’s life and body of work and conducted insightful interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy and Jonathan Romney, among others.
“Viva Varda!
- 2/16/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
On October 13, Shudder premiered “Dark Glasses,” the highly anticipated return from the master of horror, Dario Argento. Fleeing her predator, a young escort (Ilenia Pastorelli) crashes her car and loses her sight. She emerges from the initial shock determined to fight for her life, but she is no longer alone. Defending her and acting as her eyes is a little boy, Chin (Andrea Zhang), who survived the car accident. But the killer won’t give up his victim. Who will be saved?
Reviews for the thriller are mixed, earning it a current score of 58 on Rotten Tomatoes to date. But what exactly are critics saying about Argento’s latest?
See A new ‘Hellraiser’ hits Hulu and Jamie Clayton’s turn as Pinhead may be ‘even better’ than the original
Hope Madden of MaddWolf cheers Argento’s gory return. “There are some inventive kills, gore aplenty, and loads of reminders of...
Reviews for the thriller are mixed, earning it a current score of 58 on Rotten Tomatoes to date. But what exactly are critics saying about Argento’s latest?
See A new ‘Hellraiser’ hits Hulu and Jamie Clayton’s turn as Pinhead may be ‘even better’ than the original
Hope Madden of MaddWolf cheers Argento’s gory return. “There are some inventive kills, gore aplenty, and loads of reminders of...
- 10/14/2022
- by Vincent Mandile
- Gold Derby
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Newsi ran from it and was still in it.The Filmmaker Magazine editorial staff shared their annual roster of 25 New Faces of Independent Film, including Antonio Marziale, Darol Olu Kae, Lucy Kerr, and more.John Waters will return to directing with Liarmouth, an adaptation of his own novel of the same name. It will be his first film since 2004’s A Dirty Shame. The Edinburgh International Film Festival has been shut down after the charity that runs it, the Centre for the Moving Image (Cmi), announced it has called in administrators and made 102 out of the 107 current staff redundant. Mark Cousins wrote about the closure of the “feminist, unbridled, Nonconformist Scottish and passionately international” festival in the Guardian. The legendary actress Angela Lansbury died this week at age 96. "She moved so easily between film,...
- 10/11/2022
- MUBI
Long-time chief critic and reviews editor will also roll out the trade magazine’s new talent programme.
Screen International has promoted Fionnuala Halligan to executive editor, reviews and new talent, formalising the responsibility for developing its new talent ‘Stars’ programme globally alongside her long-term roles as chief film critic and reviews editor.
Halligan, whose association with Screen dates to the late 1990s, will take up the position immediately.
Joining her as deputy reviews editor is Nikki Baughan, who has worked with Screen International as contributing editor since 2016.
Halligan has been building Screen’s reviews desk for the last seven years,...
Screen International has promoted Fionnuala Halligan to executive editor, reviews and new talent, formalising the responsibility for developing its new talent ‘Stars’ programme globally alongside her long-term roles as chief film critic and reviews editor.
Halligan, whose association with Screen dates to the late 1990s, will take up the position immediately.
Joining her as deputy reviews editor is Nikki Baughan, who has worked with Screen International as contributing editor since 2016.
Halligan has been building Screen’s reviews desk for the last seven years,...
- 9/20/2022
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Critics reviewing for 10 international outlets will join Screen’s own reviewing team to give their verdicts on each of the 21 films in Competition.
Screen International has revealed its critics for the jury grid that will run throughout the 2022 Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28).
Critics reviewing for 10 international outlets will join Screen’s own reviewing team to give their verdicts on each of the 21 films in Competition for the Palme d’Or this year.
This year Screen’s long-term Russian contributor to the jury, Anton Dolin, will be joined by his Ukrainian counterpart, Nataliia Serebriakova. Both have had to leave their...
Screen International has revealed its critics for the jury grid that will run throughout the 2022 Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28).
Critics reviewing for 10 international outlets will join Screen’s own reviewing team to give their verdicts on each of the 21 films in Competition for the Palme d’Or this year.
This year Screen’s long-term Russian contributor to the jury, Anton Dolin, will be joined by his Ukrainian counterpart, Nataliia Serebriakova. Both have had to leave their...
- 5/12/2022
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
April’s horror and sci-fi home media releases are ending in a big way, as we have a lot of genre goodness to look forward to with this week’s 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD offerings. In terms of new titles, Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall is arriving this Tuesday on a variety of formats, and both Gia Elliott’s psychological thriller Take Back the Night and Dead by Midnight Y2Kill are headed to DVD as well.
Arrow Video is giving Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys the 4K treatment this week, and Vinegar Syndrome has several titles headed to 4K this week, too, including Scanner Cop, Scanner Cop II: The Showdown, Madman, and a Schizoid/X-Ray double feature. Severin Films is showing some love to the Ozploitation flick Stone with a Special Edition release, and Agfa/Bleeding Skull are putting out Emily Hagins’ Pathogen on Blu-ray, too.
Other titles headed home on...
Arrow Video is giving Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys the 4K treatment this week, and Vinegar Syndrome has several titles headed to 4K this week, too, including Scanner Cop, Scanner Cop II: The Showdown, Madman, and a Schizoid/X-Ray double feature. Severin Films is showing some love to the Ozploitation flick Stone with a Special Edition release, and Agfa/Bleeding Skull are putting out Emily Hagins’ Pathogen on Blu-ray, too.
Other titles headed home on...
- 4/26/2022
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
“I am insane. And you are my insanity.”
Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys (1995) will be available on 4K Ultra HD April 26th from Arrow Video.
Following the commercial and critical success of The Fisher King, Terry Gilliam next feature would turn to science fiction and a screenplay by Janet and David Peoples inspired by Chris Marker’s classic short film La Jetée.
In 1996, a deadly virus is unleashed by a group calling themselves the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, destroying much of the world’s population and forcing survivors underground. In 2035, prisoner James Cole is chosen to go back in time and help scientists in their search for a cure.
Featuring an Oscar-nominated turn by Brad Pitt (Fight Club) as mental patient Jeffrey Goines, Twelve Monkeys would become Gilliam’s most successful film and is now widely regarded as a sci-fi classic. Arrow Films are proud to...
Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys (1995) will be available on 4K Ultra HD April 26th from Arrow Video.
Following the commercial and critical success of The Fisher King, Terry Gilliam next feature would turn to science fiction and a screenplay by Janet and David Peoples inspired by Chris Marker’s classic short film La Jetée.
In 1996, a deadly virus is unleashed by a group calling themselves the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, destroying much of the world’s population and forcing survivors underground. In 2035, prisoner James Cole is chosen to go back in time and help scientists in their search for a cure.
Featuring an Oscar-nominated turn by Brad Pitt (Fight Club) as mental patient Jeffrey Goines, Twelve Monkeys would become Gilliam’s most successful film and is now widely regarded as a sci-fi classic. Arrow Films are proud to...
- 4/4/2022
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Following up on her 2016 feature debut, Raw, which chronicled a veterinary-cum-vegetarian student’s pivot to cannibalism, Julia Ducournau pushes her fascination for the pliability of human flesh to even further extremes with Titane. The film, awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes earlier this year—only the second time the top prize is given to a woman director—kicks off with a near-fatal car accident, after which Alexia is left with a titanium plate fixed to her skull and a seemingly insatiable appetite for the vehicular. Next we see her, she’s turned into a serial killer and a car show dancer. In one outrageous early sequence, she’s impregnated by a Cadillac. Following a killing spree that sends her on the lam, she disfigures herself to pass as a boy gone missing years prior, Adrien, and finds an unlikely refuge in Vincent (Vincent Lindon), a middle-aged firefighter who welcomes her back as his son,...
- 10/27/2021
- MUBI
The reviews for Pablo Larraín’s “Spencer” are here straight from the Venice Film Festival, declaring that even if the melodramatic-bordering-on-campy film isn’t for everyone, Kristen Stewart’s “genius” take on Princess Diana just might be.
In his review for The Wrap, Jason Solomons describes “Spencer” as an “intense, giddy spectacle with Shakespearean or indeed Racinian ambitions,” before making it very clear that, ultimately, “it’s Stewart’s film.”
“She gets the doe-eyed, pitying tilt of the head and the little posh girl voice down pretty well, but this is no impression — it’s more an interpretation of a classic role, bringing layers of real human complexity to a figure who, for all the mythology that surrounds her, still looms large in the British and global conscience,” Solomons wrote.
“This Diana isn’t the likable People’s Princess or Queen of Hearts whom the public adored. We get none of that.
In his review for The Wrap, Jason Solomons describes “Spencer” as an “intense, giddy spectacle with Shakespearean or indeed Racinian ambitions,” before making it very clear that, ultimately, “it’s Stewart’s film.”
“She gets the doe-eyed, pitying tilt of the head and the little posh girl voice down pretty well, but this is no impression — it’s more an interpretation of a classic role, bringing layers of real human complexity to a figure who, for all the mythology that surrounds her, still looms large in the British and global conscience,” Solomons wrote.
“This Diana isn’t the likable People’s Princess or Queen of Hearts whom the public adored. We get none of that.
- 9/3/2021
- by Alex Noble and Rosemary Rossi
- The Wrap
Julia Ducournau’s title lands behind ‘Lingui, The Scared Bonds’ on the jury grid.
Julia Ducournau’s Titane landed with a thud on Screen’s Cannes 2021 jury grid, scoring an average of just 1.6 with our critics.
That places it fourth from last on the grid to date, only ahead of Sean Penn’s Flag Day (1.1), Catherine Corsini’s The Divide (1.4) and Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors (1.5).
Starring Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon, Titane is Ducournau’s much-discussed follow-up to her feature debut Raw, which debuted in Critics’ Week in 2016.
Liberation’s critics Julien Gester and Didier Péron were not impressed,...
Julia Ducournau’s Titane landed with a thud on Screen’s Cannes 2021 jury grid, scoring an average of just 1.6 with our critics.
That places it fourth from last on the grid to date, only ahead of Sean Penn’s Flag Day (1.1), Catherine Corsini’s The Divide (1.4) and Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors (1.5).
Starring Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon, Titane is Ducournau’s much-discussed follow-up to her feature debut Raw, which debuted in Critics’ Week in 2016.
Liberation’s critics Julien Gester and Didier Péron were not impressed,...
- 7/14/2021
- by Melissa Kasule
- ScreenDaily
Julia Ducournau’s title lands behind ‘Lingui, The Scared Bonds’ on the jury grid.
Julia Ducournau’s Titane landed with a thud on Screen’s Cannes 2021 jury grid, scoring an average of just 1.6 with our critics.
That places it fourth from last on the grid to date, only ahead of Sean Penn’s Flag Day (1.1), Catherine Corsini’s The Divide (1.4) and Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors (1.5).
Starring Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon, Titane is Ducournau’s much-discussed follow-up to her feature debut Raw, which debuted in Critics’ Week in 2016.
Liberation’s critics Julien Gester and Didier Péron were not impressed,...
Julia Ducournau’s Titane landed with a thud on Screen’s Cannes 2021 jury grid, scoring an average of just 1.6 with our critics.
That places it fourth from last on the grid to date, only ahead of Sean Penn’s Flag Day (1.1), Catherine Corsini’s The Divide (1.4) and Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors (1.5).
Starring Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon, Titane is Ducournau’s much-discussed follow-up to her feature debut Raw, which debuted in Critics’ Week in 2016.
Liberation’s critics Julien Gester and Didier Péron were not impressed,...
- 7/14/2021
- by Melissa Kasule
- ScreenDaily
When Joaquin Phoenix won his Oscar for “The Joker” last year, he decided to use his platform to “give a voice to the voiceless” during his acceptance speech broadcast to millions of viewers around the globe. In a passionate plea for humanity to elevate itself, the actor called on his species to reconnect with the “natural world,” shining a spotlight on animal rights. At the time, Phoenix had no idea his next screen credit would be as executive producer on one of 2020’s most acclaimed documentaries, “Gunda,” a film that had an emotional impact on the actor and saved the life of a lovable sow in Norway.
Shot in black and white with no dialogue, “Gunda” is the celebrated documentary from filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky, which follows the daily life of a pig as she navigates life on a farm, giving birth to a litter of piglets, snorting and rolling around in the mud.
Shot in black and white with no dialogue, “Gunda” is the celebrated documentary from filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky, which follows the daily life of a pig as she navigates life on a farm, giving birth to a litter of piglets, snorting and rolling around in the mud.
- 3/3/2021
- by Denton Davidson
- Gold Derby
Above: In the Same Breath Browsing through the gargantuan output of reviews, dispatches, and reports coming in from Sundance, the festival’s 2021 edition is widely praised as a logistical and curatorial success. Shortened to seven days compared to the usual ten, its films premiered on a bespoke digital platform and in a handful of selected hubs in Utah and other US states—a hybrid approach that worked smoothly, and made up for the social-cultural intangibles lost in the online format. As Eric Kohn notes at IndieWire, the new virtual hangout spaces set up for post-screening discussions helped make sure “#Sundance felt like Sundance,” while the edition’s slimmer lineup also gave more breathing room to smaller, more intriguing titles. If those went on to enjoy “the proverbial big-stage treatment,” A.A. Dowd contends in his roundup at the A.V. Club, it was largely because “they weren’t competing with the more polished,...
- 2/10/2021
- MUBI
Oscar winner and animal rights activist Joaquin Phoenix was so moved by an early screening of documentary filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky’s latest film “Gunda” that he reached out to sign on as an executive producer. Shot in black and white with no dialogue, the film follows the daily life of a pig as she navigates life on a farm, giving birth to a litter of piglets, snorting and rolling around in the mud. If it sounds simplistic, it is, and that’s exactly why critics have been singing the film’s praises since it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
“Gunda” has a perfect 100 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 86, solidifying the Neon production as a serious contender to win Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. Jonathan Romney of “Screen Daily” writes, “You don’t have to be an animal lover to...
“Gunda” has a perfect 100 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 86, solidifying the Neon production as a serious contender to win Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars. Jonathan Romney of “Screen Daily” writes, “You don’t have to be an animal lover to...
- 12/18/2020
- by Denton Davidson
- Gold Derby
Although it’s still up in the air when Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” will be available to all U.S. moviegoers, with many theaters still closed, the reviews are in – and largely positive.
“Tenet” is slated for an international premiere on Aug. 26 and will open in select U.S. cities on Sept. 3, after its release date was pushed back three times due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, critics are promising that the film is worth the wait, and that the pent-up anticipation from all of its delays will make the public even more hungry to watch it.
Variety‘s reviewer Guy Lodge called the film – starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki – a “grandly entertaining, time-slipping spectacle,” praising its futuristic elements and surprising straightforwardness:
“The sheer meticulousness of Nolan’s grand-canvas action aesthetic is enthralling, as if to compensate for the stray loose threads and teasing paradoxes of...
“Tenet” is slated for an international premiere on Aug. 26 and will open in select U.S. cities on Sept. 3, after its release date was pushed back three times due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, critics are promising that the film is worth the wait, and that the pent-up anticipation from all of its delays will make the public even more hungry to watch it.
Variety‘s reviewer Guy Lodge called the film – starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki – a “grandly entertaining, time-slipping spectacle,” praising its futuristic elements and surprising straightforwardness:
“The sheer meticulousness of Nolan’s grand-canvas action aesthetic is enthralling, as if to compensate for the stray loose threads and teasing paradoxes of...
- 8/21/2020
- by Ellise Shafer
- Variety Film + TV
Ahead of its international rollout starting August 26, the reviews are in for Christoper Nolan’s time-travel thriller Tenet, and fair to say it’s a mixed bag of opinions.
You can read Deadline‘s verdict here. Anna Smith writes that it’s “chiefly one for those numerous and ardent Nolan fans”, and that “there’s a niggling question of “Wtf?” throughout Tenet“, but “it is easy to sit back and revel in the wonder of the big-screen experience”.
In the UK papers, The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin is firmly in the “yes” camp, with his five-star writeup calling it a “time-bending action spectacular” and adding that it’s “the perfect film to get us back in cinema.” He also thinks that one viewing won’t be enough and that most viewers might struggle to grasp some of the finer points of the movie’s plot.
The Guardian’s Catherine Shoard takes a very different stance,...
You can read Deadline‘s verdict here. Anna Smith writes that it’s “chiefly one for those numerous and ardent Nolan fans”, and that “there’s a niggling question of “Wtf?” throughout Tenet“, but “it is easy to sit back and revel in the wonder of the big-screen experience”.
In the UK papers, The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin is firmly in the “yes” camp, with his five-star writeup calling it a “time-bending action spectacular” and adding that it’s “the perfect film to get us back in cinema.” He also thinks that one viewing won’t be enough and that most viewers might struggle to grasp some of the finer points of the movie’s plot.
The Guardian’s Catherine Shoard takes a very different stance,...
- 8/21/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
The reviews for Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” are in, and critics have applauded the “Dark Knight” director’s slick take on the James Bond-style espionage thriller, even as they generally agree this is by far Nolan’s “most confusing film” yet.
That’s saying something from the guy who directed “Inception” and “Memento,” both of which critics have compared “Tenet” to as spiritual cousins to the plot structure and the film’s labyrinth ideas about time inversions and the non-linear way in which objects travel through time and space.
And if that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s not supposed to. Early critic reviews have mentioned that the film seems designed to be watched multiple times. While the main concept is easy enough to understand, it’s the more minute details that get lost in dialogue and slick, globetrotting set pieces, with critics calling the plot specifics “incomprehensible.
That’s saying something from the guy who directed “Inception” and “Memento,” both of which critics have compared “Tenet” to as spiritual cousins to the plot structure and the film’s labyrinth ideas about time inversions and the non-linear way in which objects travel through time and space.
And if that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s not supposed to. Early critic reviews have mentioned that the film seems designed to be watched multiple times. While the main concept is easy enough to understand, it’s the more minute details that get lost in dialogue and slick, globetrotting set pieces, with critics calling the plot specifics “incomprehensible.
- 8/21/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Halted by Covid-19, and now part of Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow competition, Lav Diaz’s “When the Waves Are Gone” looks set to mark the first time the Filipino auteur will enjoy the upsides of full-force international co-production.
That co-production involve, moreover, some of highest-profile art film producers currently working in Europe.
Winner of Locarno Golden Leopard (2014’s “From What Is Before”) and a Venice Golden Lion (2016’s “The Woman Who Left”), Díaz movies have been set apart not only by their extraordinary lengths – 2016’s “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” clocked in at just over six hours – but also their lack of resources.
“It’s understood that Diaz’s low-budget techniques involve a certain suspension of belief: thus, we accept that a powerful dictator only seems to have a staff of two,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote of last year’s “The Halt,” a low-fi sci-fi drama set in a 2034 dystopia.
That co-production involve, moreover, some of highest-profile art film producers currently working in Europe.
Winner of Locarno Golden Leopard (2014’s “From What Is Before”) and a Venice Golden Lion (2016’s “The Woman Who Left”), Díaz movies have been set apart not only by their extraordinary lengths – 2016’s “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” clocked in at just over six hours – but also their lack of resources.
“It’s understood that Diaz’s low-budget techniques involve a certain suspension of belief: thus, we accept that a powerful dictator only seems to have a staff of two,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote of last year’s “The Halt,” a low-fi sci-fi drama set in a 2034 dystopia.
- 8/8/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The 1988 French Comedy Life Is A Long Quiet River is currently available on Blu-ray From Arrow Academy.
An outrageously wicked comedy about two families from award winning debut filmmaker Étienne Chatiliez, this fast-paced satire became the most popular French comedy of the decade.
The radiantly bourgeois Le Quesnoys with their immaculate children and perfect manners and the grubby, disreputable Groseilles are thrown together in absurd chaos by an act of revenge as they discover that twelve years prior their babies were switched at birth.
A witty send up of class relations and family ties, Life Is a Long Quiet River was celebrated with a host of trophies at France s César Awards ceremony winning for best screenplay, best debut work and acting prizes for Héléne Vincent and Catherine Jacob.
Special Edition Contents:
High Definition digital transferHigh Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentationOriginal Mono audioNewly translated optional English subtitlesArchival interviews with director Étienne Chatiliez,...
An outrageously wicked comedy about two families from award winning debut filmmaker Étienne Chatiliez, this fast-paced satire became the most popular French comedy of the decade.
The radiantly bourgeois Le Quesnoys with their immaculate children and perfect manners and the grubby, disreputable Groseilles are thrown together in absurd chaos by an act of revenge as they discover that twelve years prior their babies were switched at birth.
A witty send up of class relations and family ties, Life Is a Long Quiet River was celebrated with a host of trophies at France s César Awards ceremony winning for best screenplay, best debut work and acting prizes for Héléne Vincent and Catherine Jacob.
Special Edition Contents:
High Definition digital transferHigh Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentationOriginal Mono audioNewly translated optional English subtitlesArchival interviews with director Étienne Chatiliez,...
- 7/29/2020
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“It needs to be recognised in the way that film is recognised.”
Virtual Reality is taking hold on the Lido as Venice, the only A-list festival which has its own Vr competition, ramps up its Vr offerings yet further.
“[Vr] is a new form of storytelling and art and it needs to be recognised in the same way that film is recognised,” said Liz Rosenthal, co-programmer of Venice Vr alongside Michel Reilhac.
The Venice competition is divided into two strands. Linear and Interactive. There is also an Out of Competition/Best Of Vr section.
“What we felt was that Vr was...
Virtual Reality is taking hold on the Lido as Venice, the only A-list festival which has its own Vr competition, ramps up its Vr offerings yet further.
“[Vr] is a new form of storytelling and art and it needs to be recognised in the same way that film is recognised,” said Liz Rosenthal, co-programmer of Venice Vr alongside Michel Reilhac.
The Venice competition is divided into two strands. Linear and Interactive. There is also an Out of Competition/Best Of Vr section.
“What we felt was that Vr was...
- 8/30/2019
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Nobuhiro Suwa's The Lion Sleeps Tonight (2017), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from May 28 – June 26, 2019 in Mubi's Luminaries strand.From the charged realism of his first feature, the raw, bristling relationship drama 2/Duo (1997), to his most recent, the tender ode to lost love and bygone youth, The Lion Sleeps Tonight (2017), the sublimely understated work of Nobuhiro Suwa comprises a rich, but mostly unexposed pocket of contemporary Japanese cinema. Between the filmmaker’s formal command and his direction of beautifully organic, often improvised performances, Suwa’s films have enjoyed critical acclaim, but only of the amnesiac variety—praised and then summarily forgotten. Despite the accessibility promised by digital platforms, most of us today will find the bulk of his work is entirely unattainable through traditional means, a seemingly arbitrary punishment for an auteur well-worth discovering.
- 6/4/2019
- MUBI
The first Robert Pattinson film to make its debut since it came out that it’s all but guaranteed he will be playing the next incarnation of Batman is here: “The Lighthouse” continues the actor’s streak of working with celebrated auteurs to realize challenging visions. Much as he was in “The Lost City of Z,” Pattinson is largely unrecognizable here in Robert Eggers’ (“The Witch”) horror film, with mustache and sailor’s cap. And the first reactions from critics and journalists at the Cannes Film Festival where “The Lighthouse” just debuted in the Directors’ Fortnight section are saying that this black-and-white frightfest, built around seafaring lore, is a spectacular achievement.
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian went so far as to say, “Robert Eggers’s gripping nightmare ‘The Lighthouse’ is the best thing [at Cannes] with sledgehammer performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, like Steptoe and Son in hell.”
Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist said,...
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian went so far as to say, “Robert Eggers’s gripping nightmare ‘The Lighthouse’ is the best thing [at Cannes] with sledgehammer performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, like Steptoe and Son in hell.”
Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist said,...
- 5/19/2019
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Screen editor Matt Mueller is joined by critics Wendy Ide and Jonathan Romney, producer Rebecca O’Brien, HanWay’s Gabrielle Stewart, Premier PR’s Liz Miller and Dda’s Lawrence Atkinson.
Screen International reports from the Cannes Film Festival in the second of our new Media Business Podcasts, brought to listeners monthly by Media Business Insight, the publisher of Screen International and Broadcast.
In this special edition recorded on the ground at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs until May 25, Screen International editor Matt Mueller is joined by Screen critics Wendy Ide and Jonathan Romney for a rundown of their...
Screen International reports from the Cannes Film Festival in the second of our new Media Business Podcasts, brought to listeners monthly by Media Business Insight, the publisher of Screen International and Broadcast.
In this special edition recorded on the ground at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs until May 25, Screen International editor Matt Mueller is joined by Screen critics Wendy Ide and Jonathan Romney for a rundown of their...
- 5/18/2019
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
The 2019 Cannes Film Festival kicked off on Tuesday with the premiere of Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,” and the response to the zombie horror comedy was decidedly mixed.
On Twitter, several attendees at the Grand Theatre Lumiere left the premiere excited, praising Adam Driver’s performance as a self-aware small-town cop and Tilda Swinton as a Scottish immigrant with a love for katanas that proves to be quite useful when the dead pop up.
“This is a winningly eccentric film, as attuned in its own way to the rhythms of ordinary life as Jarmusch and Driver’s (even better) 2016 feature ‘Paterson,'” Robbie Cohen wrote for The Telegraph. “But there is a pessimism gnawing away in its gut that can’t be laughed off. ‘I guess all those ghost people plumb lost their goddamn minds,’ Waits wearily intones. Right on.”
Also Read: 'The Dead Don't Die...
On Twitter, several attendees at the Grand Theatre Lumiere left the premiere excited, praising Adam Driver’s performance as a self-aware small-town cop and Tilda Swinton as a Scottish immigrant with a love for katanas that proves to be quite useful when the dead pop up.
“This is a winningly eccentric film, as attuned in its own way to the rhythms of ordinary life as Jarmusch and Driver’s (even better) 2016 feature ‘Paterson,'” Robbie Cohen wrote for The Telegraph. “But there is a pessimism gnawing away in its gut that can’t be laughed off. ‘I guess all those ghost people plumb lost their goddamn minds,’ Waits wearily intones. Right on.”
Also Read: 'The Dead Don't Die...
- 5/14/2019
- by Jeremy Fuster
- The Wrap
Photo by Darren HughesTHE Beau Travail Effect When Film Comment surveyed nearly 120 filmmakers, critics, and programmers for its “Best of the Nineties” feature in the January/February 2000 issue, only four people mentioned Claire Denis.. A year later Beau travail topped the magazine’s poll of the best films of 2000. The only evidence I’ve been able to find of a complete Denis retrospective in the English-speaking world during the 1990s was one organized by Linda Blackaby at the 1997 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema. Whereas between 2000 and 2003—following Beau Travail’s festival tour of Venice, Toronto, New York, Sundance, Berlin, and on and on—Denis was the spotlight of retros at the Cinematheque Ontario (courtesy of James Quandt), the National Film Theatre London, the Dublin International Film Festival, and the Northwest Film Forum. There were certainly others. This is not to suggest that Denis was unknown before Beau travail. Her first...
- 4/17/2019
- MUBI
Alain Resnais’ Melo (1986) will be available on Blu-ray April 9th From Arrow Academy
Master director Alain Resnais (Last Year At Marienbad) blurs the line between cinematic technique and theatrical artifice in his acclaimed Mélo, adapted from Henri Bernstein s classic play about a doomed love triangle in 1920s Paris.
Pierre and Marcel are both celebrated concert violinists and lifelong friends, in spite of their differing temperaments. Pierre is modest, sensitive and content with his lot; Marcel is hungry, driven, and pursues a solo career that takes him to the four corners of the world. After years apart, the two friends reunite when Pierre invites Marcel to his home for dinner. It is then that Marcel first meets Pierre s wife Romaine, sparking a passionate affair that can only end in tragedy before the curtain falls.
As thrillingly intimate on film as it was on the stage, Mélo s César award-winning...
Master director Alain Resnais (Last Year At Marienbad) blurs the line between cinematic technique and theatrical artifice in his acclaimed Mélo, adapted from Henri Bernstein s classic play about a doomed love triangle in 1920s Paris.
Pierre and Marcel are both celebrated concert violinists and lifelong friends, in spite of their differing temperaments. Pierre is modest, sensitive and content with his lot; Marcel is hungry, driven, and pursues a solo career that takes him to the four corners of the world. After years apart, the two friends reunite when Pierre invites Marcel to his home for dinner. It is then that Marcel first meets Pierre s wife Romaine, sparking a passionate affair that can only end in tragedy before the curtain falls.
As thrillingly intimate on film as it was on the stage, Mélo s César award-winning...
- 3/19/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cinephiles rushed to praise the list and take it to task: here are some responses that stood out
Last Sunday, in the Observer special supplement on European cinema, we published a list of 25 films from across the continent that we felt were essential viewing in these tumultuous times.
Compiled by Observer critics Mark Kermode, Simran Hans, Wendy Ide, Guy Lodge and Jonathan Romney, and edited down to the final 25 by me, the list ran in chronological order from 1922 (Nosferatu) to 2017 (On Body and Soul), taking in masterpieces from France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Greece and the UK along the way.
Last Sunday, in the Observer special supplement on European cinema, we published a list of 25 films from across the continent that we felt were essential viewing in these tumultuous times.
Compiled by Observer critics Mark Kermode, Simran Hans, Wendy Ide, Guy Lodge and Jonathan Romney, and edited down to the final 25 by me, the list ran in chronological order from 1922 (Nosferatu) to 2017 (On Body and Soul), taking in masterpieces from France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Greece and the UK along the way.
- 2/16/2019
- by Killian Fox
- The Guardian - Film News
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean-Luc Godard's The Image Book (2018) is having its exclusive online premiere in the United Kingdom from December 3 – January 1, 2019.Attempting to write about Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book is a frankly Sisyphean and onerous task. We can start with the fact that the film was screened in Cannes and in the closing ceremony was awarded a Special Palme d’Or, the first in the festival’s history. The award felt like a merci et au revoir to one of the most distinctive, pioneering thrillingly intellectual and irascible directors in cinema; a man who re-mapped and re-routed the destination of the medium many times. But was seldom thanked for it, at least not after the halcyon New Wave period that incorporated Breathless (1960) and Contempt (1963). Godard, it transpires, has no plans to stop working. Good for him; the perennial fly in the ointment.
- 11/30/2018
- MUBI
Veteran American publicist and producer Richard Lormand, a well-loved fixture on the international festival circuit, where he was instrumental in launching and championing scores of auteurs such as Fatih Akin, Amos Gitai, Lav Diaz and Alice Rohrwacher, has died.
Lormand, who was based in Paris, was 56. The cause of death was complications from cancer. Lormand, a tireless promoter with a genuine passion for film, had been fighting the disease for the past year while working almost nonstop at the Berlin, Locarno, Venice and San Sebastian festivals, among other events, his assistant, Federico Mancini, said in a statement.
Lormand’s FilmPressPlus slate announcements, which generated genuine buzz among many critics and journalists, always opened with an affectionate “Bonjour Film Lovers!” Over the past 25 years, he handled several Palme d’Or, Golden Lion and Golden Bear winners, such as the Taviani Brothers’ “Caesar Must Die,” which took the top prize in Berlin...
Lormand, who was based in Paris, was 56. The cause of death was complications from cancer. Lormand, a tireless promoter with a genuine passion for film, had been fighting the disease for the past year while working almost nonstop at the Berlin, Locarno, Venice and San Sebastian festivals, among other events, his assistant, Federico Mancini, said in a statement.
Lormand’s FilmPressPlus slate announcements, which generated genuine buzz among many critics and journalists, always opened with an affectionate “Bonjour Film Lovers!” Over the past 25 years, he handled several Palme d’Or, Golden Lion and Golden Bear winners, such as the Taviani Brothers’ “Caesar Must Die,” which took the top prize in Berlin...
- 11/16/2018
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Veteran international film publicist Richard Lormand has passed away aged 56 following illness.
Lormand, an art-house champion and regular fixture at major film festivals, worked in the business for more than 25 years. He and his Film Press Plus banner handled publicity on a string of award-winning movies including Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, Fatih Akin’s In The Fade, Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee and Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi.
The respected and well-liked Paris-based professional worked closely with festivals such as Locarno and Marrakech and in recent months was working tirelessly on the latter, which kicks off November 30.
Born and raised outside Lafayette, Louisiana, Lormand was the son of a Japanese mother and a native French-speaking Cajun American father. He had an international outlook from early life, which contributed to the wide network he was able to build. He began his career...
Lormand, an art-house champion and regular fixture at major film festivals, worked in the business for more than 25 years. He and his Film Press Plus banner handled publicity on a string of award-winning movies including Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, Fatih Akin’s In The Fade, Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee and Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi.
The respected and well-liked Paris-based professional worked closely with festivals such as Locarno and Marrakech and in recent months was working tirelessly on the latter, which kicks off November 30.
Born and raised outside Lafayette, Louisiana, Lormand was the son of a Japanese mother and a native French-speaking Cajun American father. He had an international outlook from early life, which contributed to the wide network he was able to build. He began his career...
- 11/16/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Claire Denis, Thierry Frémaux are on the committee that will decide which French film will head to the Academy Awards.
Gaspar Noé’s Climax, Xavier Legrand’s Custody and the late Claude Lanzmann’s last film The Four Sisters are among the films on the short list to be France’s Foreign Language submission will be announced tomorrow (September 21).
A committee overseen by France’s National Cinema Centre (Cnc) will audition the producers and sales agents of the five pre-selected candidates tomorrow morning.
The other two films in the running are Emmanuel Mouret’s Mademoiselle de Joncquières and Emmanuel Finkiel’s Memoir Of Pain.
Gaspar Noé’s Climax, Xavier Legrand’s Custody and the late Claude Lanzmann’s last film The Four Sisters are among the films on the short list to be France’s Foreign Language submission will be announced tomorrow (September 21).
A committee overseen by France’s National Cinema Centre (Cnc) will audition the producers and sales agents of the five pre-selected candidates tomorrow morning.
The other two films in the running are Emmanuel Mouret’s Mademoiselle de Joncquières and Emmanuel Finkiel’s Memoir Of Pain.
- 9/20/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama is heading to Japan, Japan and Italy.
Paris-based mk2 films has unveiled a raft of sales on French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama Amanda following its well-received premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti selection.
The film has captured the attention of Asian buyers, selling to Japan (Bitters End), China (Hualu), Taiwan (Andrews).
The first European distributors on board include Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Jmh), Italy (Officine Ubu), Scandinavia (Angel), Poland (Best Film). The film has also sold to Israël (Lev) and Brazil (Imovision).
Amanda is Hers’ third feature after Memory Lane and This Summer Feeling.
Paris-based mk2 films has unveiled a raft of sales on French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama Amanda following its well-received premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti selection.
The film has captured the attention of Asian buyers, selling to Japan (Bitters End), China (Hualu), Taiwan (Andrews).
The first European distributors on board include Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Jmh), Italy (Officine Ubu), Scandinavia (Angel), Poland (Best Film). The film has also sold to Israël (Lev) and Brazil (Imovision).
Amanda is Hers’ third feature after Memory Lane and This Summer Feeling.
- 9/14/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama is heading to Japan, Japan and Italy.
Paris-based mk2 films has unveiled a raft of sales on French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama Amanda following its well-received premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti selection.
The film has captured the attention of Asian buyers, selling to Japan (Bitters End), China (Hualu), Taiwan (Andrews).
The first European distributors on board include Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Jmh), Italy (Officine Ubu), Scandinavia (Angel), Poland (Best Film). The film has also sold to Israël (Lev) and Brazil (Imovision).
Amanda is Hers’ third feature after Memory Lane and This Summer Feeling.
Paris-based mk2 films has unveiled a raft of sales on French director Mikhaël Hers’ timely drama Amanda following its well-received premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti selection.
The film has captured the attention of Asian buyers, selling to Japan (Bitters End), China (Hualu), Taiwan (Andrews).
The first European distributors on board include Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Jmh), Italy (Officine Ubu), Scandinavia (Angel), Poland (Best Film). The film has also sold to Israël (Lev) and Brazil (Imovision).
Amanda is Hers’ third feature after Memory Lane and This Summer Feeling.
- 9/14/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Natalie Portman is earning breakout acclaim following the world premiere of “Vox Lux” at the Venice Film Festival. Brady Corbet’s second directorial effort casts Portman as a pop star trying to overcome a past tragedy and mount a music comeback. The role was rumored to be on the same level as Portman’s Oscar-winning work in “Black Swan,” and the ecstatic first reviews for the actress prove those expectations weren’t far off.
“‘Vox Lux’ is a powerful, haunting film in part because Portman is a powerful, haunting presence — you can’t turn away from her, even if you occasionally want to,” IndieWire’s Michael Nordine writes in his B+ review. “Portman is fearless, going all out in a role that requires nothing less.”
Variety film critic Guy Lodge, in a rave review for the film overall, hails Portman as “ferocious,” calling her work in the film’s second...
“‘Vox Lux’ is a powerful, haunting film in part because Portman is a powerful, haunting presence — you can’t turn away from her, even if you occasionally want to,” IndieWire’s Michael Nordine writes in his B+ review. “Portman is fearless, going all out in a role that requires nothing less.”
Variety film critic Guy Lodge, in a rave review for the film overall, hails Portman as “ferocious,” calling her work in the film’s second...
- 9/4/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
“A Star Is Born” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, and critics are raving about Bradley Cooper’s remake starring Lady Gaga, giving the film a score of 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics gave praise for Cooper behind and in front of the camera, but Gaga’s performance was also lauded as “extraordinary.”
“Believe the pre-premiere hype: Lady Gaga is nothing short of extraordinary,” The Film Stage’s Leonardo Goi wrote in his review, while Time’s Stephanie Zacharek wrote, “Cooper has succeeded in making a terrific melodrama for the modern age.”
Also Read: 'A Star Is Born' Film Review: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga Reinvigorate a Classic
TheWrap’s film critic Alonso Duralde wrote, “For all the reasons that a fourth iteration of ‘A Star Is Born’ — fifth, if you count the 1932 drama ‘What Price Hollywood?’ whose DNA is in every ‘Star...
Critics gave praise for Cooper behind and in front of the camera, but Gaga’s performance was also lauded as “extraordinary.”
“Believe the pre-premiere hype: Lady Gaga is nothing short of extraordinary,” The Film Stage’s Leonardo Goi wrote in his review, while Time’s Stephanie Zacharek wrote, “Cooper has succeeded in making a terrific melodrama for the modern age.”
Also Read: 'A Star Is Born' Film Review: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga Reinvigorate a Classic
TheWrap’s film critic Alonso Duralde wrote, “For all the reasons that a fourth iteration of ‘A Star Is Born’ — fifth, if you count the 1932 drama ‘What Price Hollywood?’ whose DNA is in every ‘Star...
- 8/31/2018
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
One of the preeminent figures of Iranian cinema, Mohsen Makhmalbaf has written and directed an impressive array of acclaimed films, winning accolades at international film festivals and the admiration of world cinema audiences.
This collection presents three of Makhmalbaf s most lyrical films which the director has termed his Poetic Trilogy.
Gabbeh tells of an elderly couple who stop by a stream to wash a vividly woven traditional Persian rug ( Gabbeh ). A beautiful woman, depicted in in the rug s elaborate design, suddenly appears and tells a heart-rending story of love and loss. A film imbued with the ideas of Sufism, The Silence tells of Khorshid, a young blind boy from Tajikistan who earns rent money for his family by tuning rare instruments but becomes enraptured by the sonorous music he hears on his way to work each day. The Gardener is an imaginative documentary which follows Makhmalbaf, and his son Maysam,...
This collection presents three of Makhmalbaf s most lyrical films which the director has termed his Poetic Trilogy.
Gabbeh tells of an elderly couple who stop by a stream to wash a vividly woven traditional Persian rug ( Gabbeh ). A beautiful woman, depicted in in the rug s elaborate design, suddenly appears and tells a heart-rending story of love and loss. A film imbued with the ideas of Sufism, The Silence tells of Khorshid, a young blind boy from Tajikistan who earns rent money for his family by tuning rare instruments but becomes enraptured by the sonorous music he hears on his way to work each day. The Gardener is an imaginative documentary which follows Makhmalbaf, and his son Maysam,...
- 7/31/2018
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Four years after wowing critics at the Berlin Film Festival with “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Wes Anderson has done it again with his latest, “Isle of Dogs.” The stop-motion animated movie opened Berlinale on a “scintillating” high, according to the first round of reviews. Critics are also calling the movie “extraordinary” and both Anderson’s most “daring” and “imaginative” film to date.
Featuring the voices of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, and Tilda Swinton, “Isle of Dogs” is set in a futuristic Japanese city where dogs have been banned to an island trash dump. A young explorer sets out on a mission to find his missing dog, Spots, but his plane ends up crashing on the eponymous isle. The boy befriends a group of abandoned dogs and sets out on a mission to infiltrate the city and rescue Spots.
Here’s what critics have to say about “Isle of...
Featuring the voices of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, and Tilda Swinton, “Isle of Dogs” is set in a futuristic Japanese city where dogs have been banned to an island trash dump. A young explorer sets out on a mission to find his missing dog, Spots, but his plane ends up crashing on the eponymous isle. The boy befriends a group of abandoned dogs and sets out on a mission to infiltrate the city and rescue Spots.
Here’s what critics have to say about “Isle of...
- 2/15/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name appears to be well on its way to box office and awards success, having earned both this year’s best opening weekend among limited releases and a Best Picture award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The film is about an affair between Elio (Timothée Chalamet), a precocious teenager, and Oliver (Armie Hammer), the graduate student who comes to Italy to assist Elio’s father in the summer of 1983. Like 2015’s A Bigger Splash, Guadagnino’s latest features lots of pretty images of beautiful people doing luxurious things, but, as Manohla Dargis contends at The New York Times, it has more than that to offer:Even so, the lyricism seduces as does fragile, ecstatic Elio. “Call Me by Your Name” is less a coming-of-age story, a tale of innocence and loss, than one about coming into sensibility. In that way, it is...
- 12/14/2017
- MUBI
Strand Releasing’s The Untamed is now available on VOD platforms. Celebrated filmmaker Amat Escalante follows up his critically lauded features Heli and Los Bastardos with the award-winning The Untamed, which critics have called “ferociously intelligent” (Jonathan Romney, Screen) and “brilliant, frightening” (Rory O’Connor, The Film Stage). The Blu-ray release includes an 85-minute behind the scenes featurette. “Alejandra is a housewife, […]...
- 10/23/2017
- by Brad Miska
- bloody-disgusting.com
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which recounts the evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied soldiers from a beach in Northern France in May and June of 1940, finds the director working in a different register. From Julien Allen at Reverse Shot:For one thing, the events being dramatized in Dunkirk are not a leap of a storyteller's imagination, but recorded facts. Nolan's challenge is constricted by history rather than by science; and it is complicated, morally and artistically, by the need to do justice to real life events. For another, Nolan's obsession with exposition—a painful burden for his films to carry, particularly his highest concept pictures such as Inception and Interstellar—is nowhere to be seen. The story of these stranded men, sitting ducks on the barren beaches, is stripped down to a bare exercise in survival, in which the denial of exposition is demonstrative almost to the point of abstraction. The...
- 7/27/2017
- MUBI
Arrow UK today announced the release of The Untamed in theaters August 18th and on Blu-ray and DVD September 25th. Celebrated filmmaker Amat Escalante follows up his critically lauded features Heli and Los Bastardos with the award-winning The Untamed, which critics have called “ferociously intelligent” (Jonathan Romney, Screen) and “brilliant, frightening” (Rory O’Connor, The Film […]...
- 7/14/2017
- by Brad Miska
- bloody-disgusting.com
Ten Screen critics select their hidden film gems of the year.Fionnuala Halligan, chief film critic
A Date For Mad Mary
Dir Darren Thornton
This big-hearted Irish romcom, which shared the top prize at Galway this summer, has all the smarts to hit with younger audiences should it get the chance. Just released from prison, surly, boozy Mary pines for her bridezilla Bff who has moved on. Now she needs a date for the wedding and rarely has someone looked for love with less interest. Thornton directs a scuzzily radiant Seana Kerslake as the miserably mad Mary, wildly unpredictable and widely misunderstood, in a film that feels like the love child of Weekend and Once.
Contact Mongrel International international@mongrelmedia.com
Tim Grierson, Senior Us critic
The Student
Dir Kirill Serebrennikov
The dangers of religious fervor overwhelming reason is the cauldron into which The Student drops its audience, taking us to a Russian high school where a Bible-quoting...
A Date For Mad Mary
Dir Darren Thornton
This big-hearted Irish romcom, which shared the top prize at Galway this summer, has all the smarts to hit with younger audiences should it get the chance. Just released from prison, surly, boozy Mary pines for her bridezilla Bff who has moved on. Now she needs a date for the wedding and rarely has someone looked for love with less interest. Thornton directs a scuzzily radiant Seana Kerslake as the miserably mad Mary, wildly unpredictable and widely misunderstood, in a film that feels like the love child of Weekend and Once.
Contact Mongrel International international@mongrelmedia.com
Tim Grierson, Senior Us critic
The Student
Dir Kirill Serebrennikov
The dangers of religious fervor overwhelming reason is the cauldron into which The Student drops its audience, taking us to a Russian high school where a Bible-quoting...
- 12/15/2016
- ScreenDaily
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