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László Nemes’ post-World War II Hungarian family drama Orphan has sold to Portugal’s Midas Filmes, Italy’s Movies Inspired, Greece’s Spentzos Film Sa, Baltic’s Kino Pavasaris and ex-Yugoslavia’s McF MegaCom Film for Charades and New Europe Film Sales.

The film has already sold to Mubi for a multi-territory deal in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey. Le Pacte will release the film in France.

Set in 1957 Budapest after the uprising against the Communistregime, Orphanis about a young boy’s journey when a man appears from his mother’s past and...

Géza Röhrig in Richard Kroehling’s After: Poetry Destroys Silence: “It was really quite a magic tree there on the shore.”

I first met Géza Röhrig when László Nemes introduced us at the Universal Pictures brunch in The Vault of the St. Regis for Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender as Jobs with Jeff Daniels as Steve Wozniak and Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld.

Géza Röhrig played Saul Ausländer in László Nemes’s Oscar-winning Son Of Saul. He played Georges, the cousin of Marcel Marceau (Jesse Eisenberg) in Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Resistance, and Shmuel opposite Matthew Broderick in Shawn Snyder’s To Dust (co-written with Jason Begue and co-produced by Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer).

Géza Röhrig with Anne-Katrin Titze on The Way Of The Wind: “Obviously it has been edited forever, and we all know that Terrence Malick is a maestro.”

He will be seen as...

Mubi has taken László Nemes’ Orphan on board in a multi-territory deal on the post- World War II Hungarian family drama; Le Pacte will release the film in France.

Charades and New Europe Film Sales are handling sales on the film.

Mubi has acquired all rights in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey.

The Hungarian-language film is the third film by Nemes following Son Of Saul and Sunset. Set in Budapest in 1957 after the uprising against the Communist regime, Orphan follows a young Jewish boy raised by his mother whose world turns upside down...

For his third feature (in a row), László Nemes is going back into the history books for his next project set to month into production this June. Set in 1957’s Budapest, Orphan follows a young Jewish boy whose mother has raised him in the hope that his father will return from the camps. These hopes are shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the doorstep to take his family back. Variety reports that the project sees Nemes reteam with cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and his co-writer partner in Clara Royer. Producers onboard include Pioneer Pictures’ Ildiko Kemeny and Ferenc Szale, Good Chaos’ Mike Goodridge and Nemes himself.…...

Exclusive: Charades and New Europe Films are joining forces to co-sell Oscar-winning Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes’ long-awaited new feature Orphan, as the production gears up to commence shooting in and around Budapest this June.

Orphan will be Nemes’ third film after Sunset, which world premiered in Venice in 2018, and his Oscar-winning breakthrough Son of Saul, which debuted in Cannes in 2015, winning the Grand Prize of the Jury before clinching Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year.

The new film is set in Budapest in 1957, twelve years after the end of WWII and one year after the uprising against the Communist regime.

The story follows a young Jewish boy whose mother has raised him in the hope that his father will return from the camps. These hopes are shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the doorstep to take his family back.

Nemes co-wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer,...

It’s clear from the outset that the murderer in Dominik Moll’s true crime procedural will never be found as an intertitle notifies us that 20% of murder investigations in France go unsolved. But while a specific killer may not be unmasked, toxic masculinity and its co-conspirator the patriarchal society stand in the dock - and the case against them is damning.

Clara Royer (Lula Cotton-Frapier) is a pretty typical 21-year-old, although we get to know her in person only briefly, as she leaves a friend’s house in the small hours, enthusiastically recording a voice message on her phone, unaware her murderer is lying in wait. It’s a premeditated and horrific crime, brought home by Moll in a way that feels bleak without being voyeuristic. Based on part of Pauline Guéna’s non-fiction book Une année à la Pj - concerning the workings of the police judiciaire (a sort of detective hive off.

A fascination with Vice-President elect Kamala Harris could drive American audiences towards Mira Nair’s mini-series “A Suitable Boy,” the director says.

Based on Vikram Seth’s epic 1993 novel, the series follows the Mehra family and their associates as they go about the process of finding a husband for 19-year-old university student Lata Mehra (newcomer Tanya Maniktala), against the backdrop of the 1951 general elections in newly independent India.

The series aired on the BBC in July and began streaming in several territories on Netflix, excluding North America, in October. AMC Networks’ Acorn TV acquired the series for North America, as revealed by Variety.

“Certainly what we show in ‘A Suitable Boy,’ that extraordinary idealism of the fifties that created a free India and the first elections, is something that I have never seen in America about the sub-continent,” the Indian director tells Variety.

“It’s going to be a new chapter,...

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning (Main Slate selection of the New York Film Festival), co-written with Rati Oneli, executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and Gaetan Rousseau, stars Ia Sukhitashvili with Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili. Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Oscar-winning film Son Of Saul, starring Géza Röhrig, was also the editor and co-writer with Nemes and Clara Royer on Sunset (Napszállta), featuring Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. Taponier edited Beginning, shot by Arseni Khachaturan with music by Nicolas Jaar.

Beginning begins in a small Jehovah's Witness prayer house in rural Georgia. The woman Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili) whose story this is, greets the congregation one by one as they enter. The carpet is red, the people are happy to attend. Yana’s husband David (Rati Oneli) gives the sermon about Abraham and Isaac, and asks if Abraham was really intent on killing Isaac, his...

Ia Sukhitashvili stars in Dea Kulumbegashvili's Beginning

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning, co-written with Rati Oneli, executive produced by Carlos Reygadas and Gaetan Rousseau, stars Ia Sukhitashvili with Oneli and Kakha Kintsurashvili. Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Oscar-winning film Son Of Saul, starring Géza Röhrig was also the editor and co-writer with Nemes and Clara Royer on Sunset (Napszállta), featuring Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. Taponier edited Beginning, shot by Arseni Khachaturan with music by Nicolas Jaar.

Koné Bakary in Night Of The Kings

During the Rethinking World Cinema panel discussion with Chaitanya Tamhane (The Disciple), Philippe Lacôte (Night of the Kings), Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf (Ouvertures) at the New York Film Festival, I sent in the following comment and question for Dea Kulumbegashvili: You worked with Matthieu Taponier, the editor of László Nemes’s Son Of Saul and Sunset. Can you talk about your collaboration with him?...

Here’s something for those few who don’t want to see (or can’t get tickets to) the big superhero slugfest that’s on most of this country’s movie screens. It’s a drama set in a turbulent time in another country. It’s full of lush intricate costumes and lavish estates because it’s set near the end of a genteel, refined era, just before the dawning of the coarse, mechanized, violent modern age. Perhaps that’s the reason for the English title: Sunset.

After a title card telling us about the 1913 rivalry between Budapest and Vienna, the camera is locked on the listless face of an aristocratic young woman, perhaps in her early twenties being served at a clothes store. After trying on several fancy decorative hats, she announces that she’s actually there in search of a job. The flustered floor manager Zelma (Evelin Dobos...

Chicago – History is made when you’re often busy making other plans. That is ardently illustrated in “Sunset,” a drama set early in the second decade of the 20th Century in the on-the-brink-of-revolution capital of Budapest, Hungary. A retail store is the town’s centerpiece, plus there is a mysterious woman associated with that store, until she isn’t.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Juli Jakab portrays the woman, and she single handedly (practically) brings this history to life. The camera focuses on Jakab in a series of episodic vignettes amid the edgy and anarchy-ridden streets of the city, giving the film a sense of confinement from everything going on around her. That is part of the remarkable nature of this film … while the eye of the action is on the woman, squeezed around her in the frame are the events of that moment. This may be as simple as a team of horse thundering by,...

Sunset (Napszállta) Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net by: Harvey Karten Director: Lázló Nemes Screenwriter: Lázsló Nemes, Clara Royer, Matthieu Taponier Cast: Juli Jakab, Vlad Ivanov, Evelin Dobos, Marcin Czarnik, Levente Molnr, Julia Jakubowska Screened at: Sony, NYC, 1/31/19 Opens: Tbd The 1950s in America may be looked upon as perhaps the dullest […]

The post Sunset Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Two historic dramas headline a comparatively slow weekend for new Specialty roll outs vs. last weekend’s heavy roster. Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures’ Hotel Mumbai with Oscar-nominee Dev Patel and Golden Globe-nominee Armie Hammer will have a minimal start in New York and Los Angeles ahead of a fairly wide release in the coming weeks. The film recounts the true events in 2008 when terrorists laid siege of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai. Sony Pictures Classics is opening Budapest-set Sunset by László Nemes, whose previous feature, Son Of Saul won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Sunset is a fictional drama set amid the tense days leading up to World War I. The film will have a slow roll out, beginning in New York and L.A. Grand Rapids, Michigan, however, will have the theatrical bow for Oscilloscope’s Relaxer by Joel Potrykus. The company is opening the title...

A few years ago, filmmaker László Nemes blew festival audiences away with his Holocaust tale Son of Saul. Starting with an award winning debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie more or less swept the awards season, culminating in an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Feature. Nemes was immediately a new name to watch on the international cinema stage. Now, after screening a bit last year, his follow up effort Sunset hits theaters this week. Unfortunately, he’s not able to repeat the success from last time out. This is a definite letdown of an experience and a real big disappointment. Alas. The film is a drama set in Budapest during the year 1913, before World War I would devastate Europe. When Irisz Leiter (Juli Jakab) first arrives in the Hungarian capital, she aims to work at a special hat store that once belonged to her late parents. Despite the desire to become a milliner,...

I saw Hungarian director/writer László Nemes' sophomore film Sunset at this year's Film Comment Selects series and was blown away by it. It is just as strong as his phenomenal debut film Son of Saul, a riveting Holocaust drama that brought him awards and international recognition. Layered, complex and technically brilliant, Sunset is a challenging film that will leave an indelible mark on many year-end lists as one of the best films of 2019. I missed the chance to talk to him in New York due to his flu symptoms, but he graciously granted a Skype interview at a later date. This is the how the interview went down: Screen Anarchy: Sunset is co-written by Clara Royer and Matthieu Taponier. How was the writing process...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Chicago – The Oscar nominated, Golden Globe winning Best Foreign Language Film is a another trip into the well of horror that was the Holocaust. After over 100 movie treatments, director László Nemes finds a more personal story to tell, and it all unfolds in “Son of Saul.”

Rating: 3.5/5.0

The telling and style of the film is its greatest strength. Director Nemes chose to present the circumstance through the “Academy” screen ratio (1.37 to 1, more square than a normal widescreen), and focuses on his main character Saul throughout his path in the story. This allows for the actor Géza Röhrig to use his character as a focus – all the pain, dread and numbness spill into the audience. This is harsh and difficult subject matter – with death being the norm – and little hope for the Jewish prisoners who both march to the gallows, or in the case of Saul, are forced to clean up...

Chicago – The Holocaust, and its horrors, will forever inspire cinematic interpretation, even as the World War II era fades in memory. One of the latest films about the subject is “Son of Saul,” which just won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film. It was directed by László Nemes, and features Géza Röhrig as Saul.

The film centers on the so-called “Sonderkommandos,” the group of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps that were forced to work disposing the exterminated corpses of their fellow prisoners, and subsequently they were the “bearer of secrets” regarding those killings. In this story, the character of Saul Ausländer was part of that crew, and in his gruesome work believes he sees his son as one of the victims.

He journeys through the rest of the story running aimlessly, looking to bury the boy’s corpse in a traditional Jewish ritual, while staying clear of his captors.

Géza Röhrig: "This is kind of when my childhood was over." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

László Nemes' trenchant Son Of Saul (Saul Fia), co-written with Clara Royer, cinematography by Mátyás Erdély, sound design Tamás Zányi and an unforgettably unsettling performance by Géza Röhrig as Saul Ausländer, clothed by Edit Szücs, today received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Deniz Gamze Ergüven's Mustang, Naji Abu Nowar's Theeb, Ciro Guerra's Embrace Of The Serpent and Tobias Lindholm's A War were also honoured.

Son Of Saul director László Nemes at the New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Slavoj Žižek, Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List impacting Stanley Kubrick's The Aryan Papers, what Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds has in common with The Sound Of Music, the profound impact of a visit to Auschwitz at age 17, the fragility of civilisation,...

By Patrick Shanley

Managing Editor

With a number of big Golden Globe wins last night, including best director and best dramatic picture for The Revenant, director Alejandro G. Inarritu finds himself once more in the thick of the Oscar hunt. The Mexican-born filmmaker won big last year with three Oscars for his avant garde drama Birdman, which scored him the best original screenplay, best director, and best picture awards.

This year, with the western revenge thriller The Revenant, Inarritu has once more directed a film that he wrote himself, this time adapting the screenplay from the novel by Michael Punke with co-writer Mark L. Smith.

Inarritu is not the only writer/director with films in the race this year, however, as a number of other contenders boast a director who also penned the film’s script. The original screenplay hopefuls include Spotlight (directed and written by Tom McCarthy with co-writer...

The last few days of 2015 are spent in reflection about the year that's just wrapping up and in anticipation of the year just ahead, at least for me, and since we had our ten best list last week, this week it's time for the runners-up, the fifteen films that also filled out our year. As always, I look at this list and I think it would make a perfectly spiffy top ten if that's how things had shaken out, which is to say that the only real purpose of any of these lists is to remind you of more of the experiences that were worth having in a theater. There are plenty of good films that aren't on either of my lists this year. That doesn't mean I didn't like them or they're not good. It just means that these films meant more to me for some reason. For now,...

The entire Academy Awards endeavour seems to expand every year, as more and more often, shortlists are announced during the behind-the-scenes nominations process, ahead of the final nominations announcement. While that tends to make the awards season feel even longer, it does much to raise the profile of films that might otherwise be little noticed by general audiences – including those submitted to the Academy for consideration as Best Foreign Film.

The Academy accepts one submission from each country, and the deadline for those submissions was October 1st this year. The selection process then has two phases. In the first phase, the Foreign Language Film Award Committee screens each submission, and selects six for shortlisting, with an additional three selected by the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee. This set of nine films is then announced as the shortlist, and this is the announcement we have seen today.

The shortlisted films...

Just when you think you’ve seen every possible aspect of the World War II Holocaust experience, along comes a film like Son of Saul to remind us that there are an infinite number of stories to be told under this umbrella—and daring ways to tell them. In a dazzling debut, director László Nemes (who co-wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer) immerses us in one man’s desperate search for meaning and humanity in a hellish environment. Told in an almost unbroken series of hand-held closeups, we follow Saul, one of the Jewish Sonderkommandos whose lives are temporarily spared in return for preparing their fellow Jews for...

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When it comes to the documentary and especially foreign film contenders for Oscar, it can be hard to, you know…actually find them. Usually, the frontrunner for a nomination and in turn a win tends to be what’s actually been seen and enjoyed by audiences in addition to critics. Well, opening this weekend in limited release is Son of Saul, the clear frontrunner at the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Feature. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it’s not only clearly the one to beat, but it’s one that almost assuredly won’t be beaten. There are very few locks right now, but this could be one of them. For those unaware, the film is a Holocaust drama centered on Saul (Géza Röhrig), a prisoner in 1944 at the Auschwitz death camp. Saul is tasked with burning the bodies of his fellow detained citizens,...

Son Of Saul (Saul Fia) director László Nemes with Anne-Katrin Titze Photo: Sophie Gluck

Claude Lanzmann's The Patagonian Hare, Shoah and The Last Of The Unjust, working with cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, the clothing choices of Edit Szücs, Stanley Kubrick's influence from Barry Lyndon to The Shining, the chaos of language and sound design by Tamás Zányi, were among the insights culled from my conversation with László Nemes on the making of his extraordinary, uncompromising film, Son Of Saul (Saul Fia), co-written with Clara Royer and starring Géza Röhrig.

Danny Boyle with Géza Röhrig and László Nemes at the brunch for Steve Jobs Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

I caught up with the director in New York a couple of weeks before the Us theatrical release and ran into him and Géza during the brunch for Danny Boyle's unorthodox take on Steve Jobs with Aaron Sorkin and Jeff Daniels, organized by Peggy Siegal,...

The American Film Institute announced today the films that will screen in the World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight, Shorts and Cinema’s Legacy programs at AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi.

AFI Fest will take place November 5 – 12, 2015, in the heart of Hollywood. Screenings, Galas and events will be held at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, Dolby Theatre, the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, the El Capitan Theatre and The Hollywood Roosevelt.

World Cinema showcases the most acclaimed international films of the year; Breakthrough highlights true discoveries of the programming process; Midnight selections will grip audiences with terror; and Cinema’s Legacy highlights classic movies and films about cinema. World Cinema and Breakthrough selections are among the films eligible for Audience Awards. Shorts selections are eligible for the Grand Jury Prize, which qualifies the winner for Academy Award®consideration. This year’s Shorts jury features filmmaker Janicza Bravo,...

Son of Saul

Directed by László Nemes

Screenplay by László Nemes and Clara Royer

Hungary, 2015

Auschwitz, Autumn, 1944. Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig) is a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner and member of the Sonderkommando, one of the cursed work gangs selected by the Nazi genocide machine to assist in the industrial slaughter of undesirables and perceived enemies of their genocidal regime. Ausländer’s horrifying Sisyphean task involves herding the trainloads of men, women and children into the killing chambers, and then clearing the debris before the next doomed arrival. Due to their proximity to the extermination process the Sonder know their own life expectancy is weeks or months at best, branded as their name suggests as ‘the keeper of secrets’, as any witnesses to such unimaginable crimes cannot be permitted to live and possibly spread the net of knowledge. Stumbling through this film as a pallid corpse, frozen behind the eyes and spiritually obliterated...

Son Of Saul (Saul Fia) Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for CompuServe ShowBiz. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B Director: László Nemes Written by: Clara Royer, László Nemes Cast: Gézá Röhrig, Levente Monar, Urs Rechn, Tood Charmont, Sándor Zsotér, Marcin Czarnik, Jerzy Walczak Screened at: Sony, NYC, 9/30/15 Opens: December 18, 2015 As you watch László Nemes’s “Son of Saul” with its realistic mélange of Hungarian, German and Yiddish dialogue, you might become even more enraged at the pronouncements of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When Ahmadinejad assured us that the Holocaust was merely an invention to garner sympathy for the desire for a home in the Jews’ [ Read More ]

The post Son of Saul Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

László Nemes's feature debut rapidly became one of the most hotly debated films to premiere at Cannes this year, and one of the liveliest discussions was hosted by Film Comment—which now brings Son of Saul to the New York Film Festival. Our second roundup on the film opens with Richard Porton's guide to the opposing parties' lines of argument. We then move on to fresh reviews, many of which highlight the work of cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, and interviews with Nemes, a former assistant director for Béla Tarr who co-wrote the script with Clara Royer, and his lead actor, Géza Röhrig. Plus, of course, the trailer. » - David Hudson...

László Nemes's feature debut rapidly became one of the most hotly debated films to premiere at Cannes this year, and one of the liveliest discussions was hosted by Film Comment—which now brings Son of Saul to the New York Film Festival. Our second roundup on the film opens with Richard Porton's guide to the opposing parties' lines of argument. We then move on to fresh reviews, many of which highlight the work of cinematographer Mátyás Erdély, and interviews with Nemes, a former assistant director for Béla Tarr who co-wrote the script with Clara Royer, and his lead actor, Géza Röhrig. Plus, of course, the trailer. » - David Hudson...

Son of Saul

Written by László Nemes and Clara Royer

Directed by László Nemes

Hungary, 2015

Hungarian director László Nemes’ first feature Son of Saul plunges us into a pit of despair through the eyes of a member of the Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners forced to burn and bury corpses during the Holocaust. In 1944 Auschwitz, Saul (musician, actor and poet Géza Röhrig) is living on borrowed time as part of this team on the front lines of the liquidating their own people. With the knowledge that the Sonderkommando are slaughtered after a number of months, Throughout this bloodbath, Saul is intent on salvaging something from his predetermined fate. The result is a singular perspective of heartache over what he cannot do, those who have already been lost and the mental despondency that takes over in situations that are beyond control. Son of Saul weighs the horrors of genocide in a...

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...

Saul Fia

Directed by Laszlo Nemes

Written by Laszlo Nemes and Clara Royer

Hungary, 2015

After a kick-off day with some alright films, variously peddling frivolous contrivance or social awareness rehash, Saul Fia (Son of Saul), the third film in the official competition, finally delivers an overdose of the goosebumps absent so far. An all-too-real horror film for grown-up audiences by first-time director Laszlo Nemes, Saul Fia should at least scoop the Caméra d’Or award for first film and a best actor prize for newcomer Géza Röhrig’s performance.

Géza Röhrig stars as concentration camp prisoner Saul Auslander, a member of a Sonderkommando in charge of rummaging through the belongings of new arrivals destined for the gas chambers and assisting with cremation, burial and other corpse (or “pieces” as they are called in camp jargon) disposal tasks. We never learn much about the taciturn Saul, except that he is Hungarian and possibly a former watchmaker.