For three decades, the Oldenburg Film Festival has been devoted to celebrating independent cinema outside the mainstream of both Hollywood and the international art-house market.
For its 30th edition, which runs through Sunday, festival founder and artistic director Torsten Neumann continues to highlight weird, extreme and cutting-edge indie movies from around the world.
Here are five can’t-miss movies from the 2023 crop.
The Wait The Wait
After the success of his debut film Before the Fall (2008), Spanish director Javier Gutiérrez followed Hollywood’s call and directed Rings (2017), the third entry in The Ring horror franchise. Despite grossing $83 million at the box office, the film was considered a flop, and Gutiérrez returned to Spain, spending six years developing his third feature, which will have its world premiere in Oldenburg. The raw drama, about a hardscrabble family whose life slowly descends into a nightmare, looks like a return to form for one...
For its 30th edition, which runs through Sunday, festival founder and artistic director Torsten Neumann continues to highlight weird, extreme and cutting-edge indie movies from around the world.
Here are five can’t-miss movies from the 2023 crop.
The Wait The Wait
After the success of his debut film Before the Fall (2008), Spanish director Javier Gutiérrez followed Hollywood’s call and directed Rings (2017), the third entry in The Ring horror franchise. Despite grossing $83 million at the box office, the film was considered a flop, and Gutiérrez returned to Spain, spending six years developing his third feature, which will have its world premiere in Oldenburg. The raw drama, about a hardscrabble family whose life slowly descends into a nightmare, looks like a return to form for one...
- 9/13/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Oldenburg Film Festival, Germany’s leading all-indie fest, unveiled highlights for its 30th-anniversary edition, including several world premieres featuring Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard and Mission : Impossible star Ving Rhames.
Uppercut, a boxing film featuring Mission: Impossible star Ving Rhames, will close the festival on September 17. Director Torsten Ruether remade his own, German-language, debut Leberhaken, which premiered in Oldenburg in 2021. The Million Dollar Baby-style story sees Rhames as a disillusioned former boxer who gets a shot at redemption when a young woman shows up at his gym, begging him to train her.
Spanish genre director F. Javier Gutierrez will bring his latest horror tale, The Wait, to Oldenburg this year. Gutiérrez’s 2008 debut Before the Fall, an end-of-the-world sci-fi thriller, was a cross-over hit, and his follow-up was the big-budget Rings (2017) for Paramount, the third entry in the Japanese-inspired horror saga. But the film, despite grossing $83 million worldwide, was...
Uppercut, a boxing film featuring Mission: Impossible star Ving Rhames, will close the festival on September 17. Director Torsten Ruether remade his own, German-language, debut Leberhaken, which premiered in Oldenburg in 2021. The Million Dollar Baby-style story sees Rhames as a disillusioned former boxer who gets a shot at redemption when a young woman shows up at his gym, begging him to train her.
Spanish genre director F. Javier Gutierrez will bring his latest horror tale, The Wait, to Oldenburg this year. Gutiérrez’s 2008 debut Before the Fall, an end-of-the-world sci-fi thriller, was a cross-over hit, and his follow-up was the big-budget Rings (2017) for Paramount, the third entry in the Japanese-inspired horror saga. But the film, despite grossing $83 million worldwide, was...
- 8/16/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Seven countries, 17 cities and one global pandemic later, The Amazing Race has finally crowned the winners of Season 33.
While best friends Ryan and Dusty led the pack in the early stages of the Race, married YouTubers Kim and Penn kicked it into high gear, winning three straight legs in a row along the way. But going into Wednesday’s finale, Raquel and Cayla were picking up some serious steam. Despite their fair share of errors throughout the run, the two flight attendants pulled it together to secure their first win of the season just last week.
More from TVLineTV Ratings: Fire,...
While best friends Ryan and Dusty led the pack in the early stages of the Race, married YouTubers Kim and Penn kicked it into high gear, winning three straight legs in a row along the way. But going into Wednesday’s finale, Raquel and Cayla were picking up some serious steam. Despite their fair share of errors throughout the run, the two flight attendants pulled it together to secure their first win of the season just last week.
More from TVLineTV Ratings: Fire,...
- 3/3/2022
- by Nick Caruso
- TVLine.com
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Edgar Ramírez have teamed up for romantic drama “Nobody’s Heart,” directed by Isabel Coixet.
WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the film, which will be presented to buyers at the virtual American Film Market this week. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.
Set in Lisbon in the 1930s, “Nobody’s Heart” centers on a new widow, Lily, who inherits her husband’s cork factory, and begins to form an unexpected relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.
The film, which will begin shooting in January in Portugal, is adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story “Cork,” and is based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. The film is produced by John Fiedler (“Girl in Progress”).
Said Coixet: “This is a fascinating, twisted...
WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the film, which will be presented to buyers at the virtual American Film Market this week. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.
Set in Lisbon in the 1930s, “Nobody’s Heart” centers on a new widow, Lily, who inherits her husband’s cork factory, and begins to form an unexpected relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.
The film, which will begin shooting in January in Portugal, is adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story “Cork,” and is based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. The film is produced by John Fiedler (“Girl in Progress”).
Said Coixet: “This is a fascinating, twisted...
- 11/2/2021
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Loki star Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Girl on the Train’s Edgar Ramírez are to star in passionate love story Nobody’s Heart from The Bookshop director Isabel Coixet.
London sales house WestEnd Films has this week launched international sales on the pic, which enters production in January in Portugal and is being introduced at the American Film Market. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.
Adapted from William Boyd’s short story Cork and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, the film follows Lily (Raw), who is forced to confront the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork factory and begins to form an unexpected, highly charged relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.
The film is set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s, with...
London sales house WestEnd Films has this week launched international sales on the pic, which enters production in January in Portugal and is being introduced at the American Film Market. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.
Adapted from William Boyd’s short story Cork and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, the film follows Lily (Raw), who is forced to confront the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork factory and begins to form an unexpected, highly charged relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.
The film is set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s, with...
- 11/2/2021
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (The Bookshop, Learning to Drive) has cast the duo of Edgar Ramirez (The Girl on the Train, Joy, Jungle Cruise) and BAFTA nominee Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Misbehaviour, Belle, The Morning Show) in her next feature.
Nobody’s Heart, adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story Cork, and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, is described as a “beautiful, poetic story of love and loss” set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s. WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the project.
The film follows Lily after the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork ...
Nobody’s Heart, adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story Cork, and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, is described as a “beautiful, poetic story of love and loss” set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s. WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the project.
The film follows Lily after the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork ...
- 11/2/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (The Bookshop, Learning to Drive) has cast the duo of Edgar Ramirez (The Girl on the Train, Joy, Jungle Cruise) and BAFTA nominee Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Misbehaviour, Belle, The Morning Show) in her next feature.
Nobody’s Heart, adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story Cork, and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, is described as a “beautiful, poetic story of love and loss” set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s. WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the project.
The film follows Lily after the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork ...
Nobody’s Heart, adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story Cork, and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, is described as a “beautiful, poetic story of love and loss” set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s. WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the project.
The film follows Lily after the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork ...
- 11/2/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
In 2018 we've published 70 interviews whose subjects have ranged from old masters to emerging new voices, and including some unexpected conversations, including those with curators (Dave Kehr of the Museum of Modern Art), as well as archival finds (a 1971 talk with Jerry Lewis).Below you will find an index of our conversations throughout the year, listed in order of publication date.Blake Williams (Prototype)Samira Elagoz (Craigslist Allstars)F.J. Ossang (9 Fingers)Jerry LewisAndré Gil Mata (The Tree)Christian Petzold (Transit)Raoul Peck (Young Karl Marx)Ashley McKenzie (Werewolf)Penelope SpheerisTed Fendt (Classical Period)Dominik Graf (The Red Shadow)Blake Williams ("Stereo Visions")Arnaud Desplechin (Ismael's Ghosts)Ruth Beckermann (The Waldheim Waltz)Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias (Cocote)Esther GarrelPhilippe Garrel (Lover for a Day)Jonas MekasJohann Lurf (★)Karim Aïnouz (Central Airport Thf)Juliana Antunes (Baronesa)Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra (Birds of Passage)Wang Bing (Dead Souls)Donal Foreman...
- 12/27/2018
- MUBI
A Land Imagined director Yeo Siew Hua Below you will find the awards for the 71st Locarno Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.AWARDSInternational CompetitionGolden Leopard: A Land Imagined (Yeo Siew Hua) Special Jury Prize: M (Yolande Zauberman) Special Mention: Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham) Best Direction: Dominga Sotomayor (Too Late to Die Young) Best Actress: Andra Guti (Alice T.) Best Actor: Ki Joobong (Hotel By the River)Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard: Chaos (Sara Fattahi) Special Jury Prize: Closing Time (Nicole Vögele) Prize for Best Emerging Director: Tarik Aktas (Dead Horse Nebula) Special Mention: Fausto (Andrea Bussmann)Rose in Matthieu Bareyre's L'EpoqueSigns of Life Best Film: The Fragile House (Lin Zi) Mantarraya Award: The Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas Chauvin (Benjamin Crotty)First Feature Best First Feature: Alles Ist Gut (Eva Trobisch)Art Peace Hotel Award: Acid Forest (Rugile Barzdziukaite)Special Mention: Erased, Ascent of the...
- 8/24/2018
- MUBI
With director Eugène Green, it’s always key to be attentive to one’s surroundings. Accordingly, French cinema’s foremost native New Yorker agreed to meet me on a picturesque piazza where he was spending the morning with an espresso and getting some writing done. Green had arrived in muggy Locarno, Switzerland for the premiere of his newest work, the “mini-film,” How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal. One of the twentieth century’s leading modernist writers, Pessoa might seem an unlikely subject for Green—particularly for audiences only partially familiar with the filmmaker’s work (including a great deal of writing not yet translated into English), for whom Green may be associated first and foremost with the baroque, one of his films' predominant themes. But Green remains concerned above all with the present, even as he advocates for a vision of the good life rather at odds with the proverbial "way we live now.
- 8/15/2018
- MUBI
Since 2012, IndieWire has lent its support to the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop developed as part of the Summer Academy initiative at the Locarno Film Festival designed to foster aspiring film critics. This year’s participants will contribute essays on the 71st edition of the festival, currently underway in Switzerland. Here’s an overview of their backgrounds and interests.
Name: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal
Age: 28
Twitter Handle: @PedroEmilioSB / @LAOLACine
Home: Mexico City
Cinematic Area of Expertise: I can’t say I have expertise in anything… I can confess certain predilection for “non-traditional” narratives.
Best You’ve Seen in 2018: “Le Livre d’Image” (“The Image Book”) – Jlg
Movie You’re Most Looking Forward to Seeing At Locarno: It’s a tie between Mariano Llinas’ “La Flor” and “Gangbyeon Hotel” by Hong Sang Soo
Favorite Book or Piece of Writing About Film: The poem-essay used and composed by Godard as a...
Name: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal
Age: 28
Twitter Handle: @PedroEmilioSB / @LAOLACine
Home: Mexico City
Cinematic Area of Expertise: I can’t say I have expertise in anything… I can confess certain predilection for “non-traditional” narratives.
Best You’ve Seen in 2018: “Le Livre d’Image” (“The Image Book”) – Jlg
Movie You’re Most Looking Forward to Seeing At Locarno: It’s a tie between Mariano Llinas’ “La Flor” and “Gangbyeon Hotel” by Hong Sang Soo
Favorite Book or Piece of Writing About Film: The poem-essay used and composed by Godard as a...
- 8/4/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Bruno Dumont's CoinCoin et les Z'inhumainsThe lineup for the 2018 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean, Mariano Llinás and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes, and much more.
Piazza GRANDEBlacKkKlansmanBlazeCoincoin et les Z'inhumainsI Feel GoodLe vent tourneLes Beaux EspritsLibertyL'ordre des medecinsL'ospiteManila in the Claws of LightBirds of PassageRuben Brandt, Collector (Milorad Krstic, Hungary)Se7enSearchingThe Equalizer 2Un nemico che ti vuole bene (Denis Rabaglia, Italy/Switzerland)What Doesn't Kill Us
Concorso INTERNAZIONALEGlaubenbergA Family TourDianeLa FlorYaraMenocchioToo Late To Die YoungRay & LizHotel By the RiverA Land ImaginedMSibelGenèseWintermärchenAlice T.
Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTEAll GoodThose Who WorkChaosClosing TimeImmersed FamilyFaust The Dive Suburban BirdsYoung and AliveLikemebackDead Horse NebulaWe Are ThankfulSophia AntipolisHierLong Way HomeTrot
Signs Of Lifea Room with a Coconut ViewCommunion Los AngelesHow Fernando Pessoa Saved PortugalDulcineaGulyabaniThe Fragile HouseMan in the WellJulio Iglesias's HouseThe Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas ChauvinSedução da CarneAnything And AllThe Grand BizarreErased,...
Piazza GRANDEBlacKkKlansmanBlazeCoincoin et les Z'inhumainsI Feel GoodLe vent tourneLes Beaux EspritsLibertyL'ordre des medecinsL'ospiteManila in the Claws of LightBirds of PassageRuben Brandt, Collector (Milorad Krstic, Hungary)Se7enSearchingThe Equalizer 2Un nemico che ti vuole bene (Denis Rabaglia, Italy/Switzerland)What Doesn't Kill Us
Concorso INTERNAZIONALEGlaubenbergA Family TourDianeLa FlorYaraMenocchioToo Late To Die YoungRay & LizHotel By the RiverA Land ImaginedMSibelGenèseWintermärchenAlice T.
Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTEAll GoodThose Who WorkChaosClosing TimeImmersed FamilyFaust The Dive Suburban BirdsYoung and AliveLikemebackDead Horse NebulaWe Are ThankfulSophia AntipolisHierLong Way HomeTrot
Signs Of Lifea Room with a Coconut ViewCommunion Los AngelesHow Fernando Pessoa Saved PortugalDulcineaGulyabaniThe Fragile HouseMan in the WellJulio Iglesias's HouseThe Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas ChauvinSedução da CarneAnything And AllThe Grand BizarreErased,...
- 7/11/2018
- MUBI
The lineup for this year’s Locarno International Film Festival, which celebrates its 71st edition, has arrived. Among the most-anticipated titles in the lineup there’s a new feature from Hong Sang-soo titled Hotel by the River and the latest film from Tuesday, After Christmas director Radu Muntean, Alice T. Also in the slate is Man in the Well, a short film from Hu Bo, made before his first and final feature An Elephant Sitting Still. Ahead of our coverage, check out the full lineup below (via Mubi), also featuring previously premiered films from Spike Lee, Kent Jones, Ethan Hawke, Ciro Guerra & Cristtina Gallego, Aneesh Chaganty, and more.
Piazza Grande
BlackKkansman
Blaze
Coincoin et les Z’inhumains
I Feel Good
Le vent tourne
Les Beaux Esprits
Liberty
L’ordre des medecins
L’ospite
Manila in the Claws of Light
Birds of Passage
Ruben Brandt, Collector
Se7en
Searching
The Equalizer 2...
Piazza Grande
BlackKkansman
Blaze
Coincoin et les Z’inhumains
I Feel Good
Le vent tourne
Les Beaux Esprits
Liberty
L’ordre des medecins
L’ospite
Manila in the Claws of Light
Birds of Passage
Ruben Brandt, Collector
Se7en
Searching
The Equalizer 2...
- 7/11/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Brazilian director Ana Vaz is steadily building a portfolio of experimental works that address in equal share the lasting impact of the spread of empire, and the felt effects of the anthropocene. This summer, Mubi is screening Vaz’s 2014 short film, Occidente, a captivating work that deftly layers sound and image, taking aim at Portugal’s colonial legacy and strategically drawing past and present into fresh and unpredictable relations. I spoke with Vaz recently about her filmmaking process, and about the philosophical implications of her work. Notebook: Your film is immediately striking for the diversity and material density of its images. Watching it again, I was particularly taken with the way that so much is concentrated within its 15-minute timeframe, just as there is a tension at play between all the different components. The most dissimilar of scenes somehow all cohere, while at the same time I feel a...
- 6/3/2016
- MUBI
Andrzej Żuławski. Photo by Isabelle Vautier.How does one translate into film the books by Witold Gombrowicz, who ranks among the greatest modernists of the 20th century? Few have actually dared. Whereas Peter Lilienthal’s adaptation for television of Pornografia (Die Sonne angreifen, 1971) has been all but consigned to oblivion, the famed Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski went on a 17-year hiatus following his failed adaptation of Ferdydurke (30 Door Key, 1991). However, the opposite holds true for Andrzej Żuławski, who came out of a 15-year pause to adapt for the screen Gombrowicz’s fourth novel Cosmos (1965), also his last and most complex. Unfortunately, it became a farewell work for Żuławski as well. What kind of cosmos is it? First and foremost, it’s the bizarre microcosm of a boarding house where the young writer Witold (Jonathan Genet) arrives with his friend Fuchs (Johan Libéreau) in tow to finish his novel The Haunted.
- 3/13/2016
- by Boris Nelepo
- MUBI
Underground filmmaker Carlos Atanes has recently published the screenplay of one of his films that he has never been able to complete: Aleister Crowley in the Mouth of Hell.
For over a decade, Atanes has tried numerous times to mount a production based on Crowley, the legendary cult figure and mystic. His latest attempt — begun in 2007 — followed Crowley on a mystical trip through the Egyptian underworld where he battles the demon Choronzon and encounters several significant people from his real life, such as Hanni Jaegger, Fernando Pessoa, Leila Wadell, Victor Neuburg and Raoul Loveday.
That project, instead of a completed film, is presented as the unproduced screenplay Aleister Crowley in the Mouth of Hell and is now available on Amazon.Crowley continues to be a subject of great interest to underground filmmakers, being a source of inspiration to classic filmmakers like Kenneth Anger and Harry Smith; figuring as a major...
For over a decade, Atanes has tried numerous times to mount a production based on Crowley, the legendary cult figure and mystic. His latest attempt — begun in 2007 — followed Crowley on a mystical trip through the Egyptian underworld where he battles the demon Choronzon and encounters several significant people from his real life, such as Hanni Jaegger, Fernando Pessoa, Leila Wadell, Victor Neuburg and Raoul Loveday.
That project, instead of a completed film, is presented as the unproduced screenplay Aleister Crowley in the Mouth of Hell and is now available on Amazon.Crowley continues to be a subject of great interest to underground filmmakers, being a source of inspiration to classic filmmakers like Kenneth Anger and Harry Smith; figuring as a major...
- 4/11/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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