Veteran film festival director Marco Müller has been named the new artistic director of Italy’s Taormina Film Fest and will take over for Taormina’s 70th edition this year.
Müller is one of the great journeymen of the festival circuit, having run A-list events in Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno and, most recently, the Pingyao festival in Macao.
Sergio Bonomo, special commissioner of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, which runs the festival, said “Maestro” Müller will be “a driving force of success for the prestigious film event.”
Taormina is one of the world’s oldest film festivals, and one blessed with one of the world’s most beautiful locations in the sun-kissed region of Sicily overlooking Mount Etna that The White Lotus picked as the backdrop for its season 2. The festival centerpiece is the Teatro Antico amphitheater, an historic Greek theater used for Taormina’s premieres.
But the festival’s history has been a stormy one,...
Müller is one of the great journeymen of the festival circuit, having run A-list events in Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno and, most recently, the Pingyao festival in Macao.
Sergio Bonomo, special commissioner of the Taormina Arte Sicilia Foundation, which runs the festival, said “Maestro” Müller will be “a driving force of success for the prestigious film event.”
Taormina is one of the world’s oldest film festivals, and one blessed with one of the world’s most beautiful locations in the sun-kissed region of Sicily overlooking Mount Etna that The White Lotus picked as the backdrop for its season 2. The festival centerpiece is the Teatro Antico amphitheater, an historic Greek theater used for Taormina’s premieres.
But the festival’s history has been a stormy one,...
- 4/12/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Rotterdam Film Festival Sets ‘Head South’ As Opening Film
Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.
Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival
U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...
Jonathan Ogilvie’s post-punk, coming-of-age comedy Head South has been announced as the opening picture of the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), running from January 25 to February 4. The festival has also teased a handful of early selections. They include Indian filmmaker Ishan Shukla’s dystopian, sci-fi animation Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust and U.S. director Billy Woodberry’s biodoc Mário, about African independence activist Mário de Andrade, which will both world premiere. Further confirmations include European premieres for Amanda Kramer’s So Unreal and Ann Hui’s Elegies as well as Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy!, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year. The festival will unveil its full line-up on December 18.
Paul Schrader To Be Feted At Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Avellino Festival
U.S. director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored with a Lifetime...
- 11/23/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
News of the death of Celluloid Dreams CEO Hengameh Panahi has sparked an outpouring of admiration and tributes from the independent film community.
Panahi, a pivotal figure in the global art house scene, died Nov. 5, aged 67. In her decades in the business — as a producer, co-financier and sales agent — Panahi introduced the world to international auteurs from Iran (Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi), Europe (Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Marco Bellocchio, Aleksandr Sokurov, the Dardenne brothers) and across Asia (Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Jia Zanghke, Hirokazu Kore-eda).
“She took films that were challenging, that were difficult to make, to sell, to promote, and she fought for them,” says Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who knew and worked with Panahi for more than 30 years. “She was a unique part of the film ecosystem. She was really inspirational, with the films that she enabled to be made, and seen.”
Celluloid Dreams,...
Panahi, a pivotal figure in the global art house scene, died Nov. 5, aged 67. In her decades in the business — as a producer, co-financier and sales agent — Panahi introduced the world to international auteurs from Iran (Jafar Panahi, Marjane Satrapi), Europe (Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Marco Bellocchio, Aleksandr Sokurov, the Dardenne brothers) and across Asia (Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Jia Zanghke, Hirokazu Kore-eda).
“She took films that were challenging, that were difficult to make, to sell, to promote, and she fought for them,” says Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who knew and worked with Panahi for more than 30 years. “She was a unique part of the film ecosystem. She was really inspirational, with the films that she enabled to be made, and seen.”
Celluloid Dreams,...
- 11/10/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Groundbreaking French-Iranian sales agent and producer Hengameh Panahi, who represented a myriad of renowned Cannes and Venice prize-winning auteur directors, has died at the age of 67.
Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.
She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.
Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.
Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.
She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.
In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...
Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.
She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.
Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.
Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.
She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.
In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...
- 11/9/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Kira Kovalenko's Unclenching the Fists is showing exclusively on Mubi starting May 23, 2023, in many countries in the series Viewfinder.Unclenching the Fists.Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has been almost impossible for members of the global film industry to ignore cinema’s soft power potential as a propagandistic tool of imperialism. Scrutiny over the ethics of supporting films funded by the Russian Ministry of Culture or tied in other ways to state oppression has ignited debate over what Russian culture constitutes—and exposed the fallacy of a monolithic identity within the lands the Kremlin claims as its own. Director Kira Kovalenko’s sophomore feature Unclenching the Fists (2021) counts Russia as its country of production (and was its official Oscar submission). But it was shot in the Ossetian language, in North Ossetia, an official...
- 5/26/2023
- MUBI
Fairytale will have its North American premiere at Locarno in Los Angeles, running March 16 - 19, 2023.Fairytale, director Aleksandr Sokurov’s first film in seven years, arrived at its world premiere at last year’s Locarno Film Festival with little advance notice. A fanciful title and a cryptic artist’s statement was all most viewers had to go on when encountering what is, as I wrote in my festival report, arguably “the Russian master’s most left-field offering yet: a speculative fiction made with deepfake technology that imagines an encounter between Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Winston Churchill.”Composed almost entirely of lightly animated archival footage, Fairytale plays like a belated companion piece to Sokurov’s series of biographical and mythological portrait films (collectively known as the “Tetralogy of Power”) that explore the psychological nuances of tyranny. But whereas those films centered on single subjects, the director’s latest...
- 3/15/2023
- MUBI
Russian director Alexander Sokurov makes weird films, or rather really special ones. Most famous of these is probably 2002's Russian Ark, an absolutely fantastic walk through 300 years of Russian history as displayed in the Hermitage museum, done in one gargantuan take with thousands of extras (and three orchestras thrown in for good measure). His latest film Skazka aka. Fairytale may be his self-proclaimed last one and let's agree that if this is true, it is a pity. For while Sokurov may be an acquired taste and not one for everyone, at least the man has a unique vision and finds interesting ways to tell people about his favorite topics. His films are regularly shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and as I had...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 2/28/2023
- Screen Anarchy
First-time writer-director Malika Musaeva is set to make history at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, where her female-centered coming-of-age drama “The Cage is Looking for a Bird” is the first Chechen-language film ever selected by the venerable German fest.
Musaeva’s debut, which world premieres Feb. 22 in the festival’s competitive Encounters section, focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village, where they must defend their freedom and the right to live their own lives.
At the film’s heart is a friendship between two teenage girls, played by first-time actors Khadizha Bataeva and Madina Akkieva. On the precipice of adulthood, the duo seeks refuge in each other as they navigate difficult decisions about their futures.
“The Cage is Looking for a Bird” is produced by Hype Studios, the recently launched outfit of producer Ilya Stewart, whose upcoming slate includes new features from...
Musaeva’s debut, which world premieres Feb. 22 in the festival’s competitive Encounters section, focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village, where they must defend their freedom and the right to live their own lives.
At the film’s heart is a friendship between two teenage girls, played by first-time actors Khadizha Bataeva and Madina Akkieva. On the precipice of adulthood, the duo seeks refuge in each other as they navigate difficult decisions about their futures.
“The Cage is Looking for a Bird” is produced by Hype Studios, the recently launched outfit of producer Ilya Stewart, whose upcoming slate includes new features from...
- 2/21/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
The exiled Russian producer is in Berlin with Encounters title ’The Cage Is Looking For A Bird’.
Berlin-based Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Disappearance, set to star August Diehl as Josef Mengele, will shoot in South America this summer, confirmed Ilya Stewart, the film’s exiled Russia producer of Hype Studios, at the European Film Market this weekend.
The director will move straight onto it after the completion of his latest feature, Limonov. A sales agent is likely to be announced in time for Cannes. Diehl will play the Nazi war criminal during the years he hid out in Brazil.
Berlin-based Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Disappearance, set to star August Diehl as Josef Mengele, will shoot in South America this summer, confirmed Ilya Stewart, the film’s exiled Russia producer of Hype Studios, at the European Film Market this weekend.
The director will move straight onto it after the completion of his latest feature, Limonov. A sales agent is likely to be announced in time for Cannes. Diehl will play the Nazi war criminal during the years he hid out in Brazil.
- 2/20/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Paris-based international sales and production company Totem Films have boarded debutant Malika Musaeva’s “The Cage is Looking for a Bird,” which will receive its world premiere in the Encounters strand of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.
The film focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village and their struggles to defend their right for freedom and the choice to live their own lives. At the centre is a friendship between two teenage girls, on the verge of adulthood, who seek refuge in each other as they navigate decisions around their future.
Musaeva was born in Grozny, Chechnya, in 1992. During the Second Chechen War in 1999 her family fled and lived in Ingushetia and Ukraine, before settling in Germany. In 2003 her family returned to Russia and lived in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. In 2010, she enrolled in the Kabardino-Balkarian State University and studied under the acclaimed film director Aleksandr Sokurov.
The film focuses on a group of Chechen women living in a remote rural village and their struggles to defend their right for freedom and the choice to live their own lives. At the centre is a friendship between two teenage girls, on the verge of adulthood, who seek refuge in each other as they navigate decisions around their future.
Musaeva was born in Grozny, Chechnya, in 1992. During the Second Chechen War in 1999 her family fled and lived in Ingushetia and Ukraine, before settling in Germany. In 2003 her family returned to Russia and lived in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. In 2010, she enrolled in the Kabardino-Balkarian State University and studied under the acclaimed film director Aleksandr Sokurov.
- 1/30/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias and Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
In a major shift one of the nation’s premier arthouses, Karen Cooper will be exiting as director on June 30 after 50 years running the Film Forum in New York City. Deputy Director Sonya Chung will assume the role.
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
Cooper has led the nonprofit cinema since its first iteration in 1972 as a 50-seat loft space on the Upper West Side open only weekends, to a multi-million dollar operation with four screens and 500 seats in lower Manhattan. She’ll remain an advisor to Chung with a focus on programming premieres and fundraising
“To say this is a transitional moment would be a vast understatement – for virtually all of its history, Film Forum has been energetically and most ably guided by Karen, not least during the very challenging pandemic period from which we are emerging. My board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for her tenure, and excited that in Sonya we have...
- 1/9/2023
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
ReviewThe makers of ‘Yuddha Kaandam’, screened at the Chennai International Film Festival (Ciff) this year, promoted it as the ‘first proper commercial single-shot film’.Saradha UScreengrab/ YouTube The first thing one would notice about the 2022 Tamil film Yuddha Kaandam is that it is a single-shot film. With an elaborate tracking shot of a police vehicle that the film opens, lasting for a good minute, the makers ensure that we notice this about the movie. The makers of Yuddha Kaandam have also promoted it as the ‘first proper commercial single-shot film’. But we shall get back to this in a bit. Yuddha Kaandam is ridden with so many cliches that it can seem like a tutorial video for making a quintessential mainstream Tamil action film. It has a protagonist who goes to great lengths to save his romantic partner. The antagonist is a police officer who has everything it takes to be the archetypical Kollywood villain.
- 12/27/2022
- by SaradhaU
- The News Minute
The Torino Film Festival, which celebrates its 40th edition this year, will open with a special musical and visual event focusing on two of the most iconic British bands – the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – and their love for cinema, which led them to work with the likes of Richard Lester, Jean-Luc Godard, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese.
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
The 70-minute event, set to be held at the prestigious Teatro Regio on Nov. 25 and broadcast by Rai Radio3, will feature “both rare and never-before-seen archive footage.”
Film critic Steve Della Casa, who served as the gathering’s artistic director from 1999-2002, is back at the helm. In his introductory remarks, he described Torino as “a true urban festival,” which places great importance on the theatrical experience, and set to attract both industry reps as well as a large young, cinephile audience. Moreover, this year’s edition will see the inauguration of Casa Festival,...
- 11/8/2022
- by Davide Abbatescianni
- Variety Film + TV
Russia’s relationship with the world began to deteriorate after it invaded Ukraine in February — and the film industry was no exception.
This week, the country announced that it wouldn’t submit a film to the Best International Feature category for the 95th Oscars ceremony. Russia’s own Oscar committee said the decision was a surprise and resigned, but the decision didn’t come out of nowhere. For months, Russia’s presence at major film events has been a contentious subject.
In early March, festivals ranging from Cannes to Venice banned Russian delegations from their gatherings; on the 94th Oscars broadcast later that month, the Academy brought out Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis to condemn the war. The country wasn’t exactly welcome in Hollywood, at least not on its own terms.
Within its borders, Russia sows confusion more than solidarity and the latest announcement falls in line with that. Pavel Chukhray,...
This week, the country announced that it wouldn’t submit a film to the Best International Feature category for the 95th Oscars ceremony. Russia’s own Oscar committee said the decision was a surprise and resigned, but the decision didn’t come out of nowhere. For months, Russia’s presence at major film events has been a contentious subject.
In early March, festivals ranging from Cannes to Venice banned Russian delegations from their gatherings; on the 94th Oscars broadcast later that month, the Academy brought out Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis to condemn the war. The country wasn’t exactly welcome in Hollywood, at least not on its own terms.
Within its borders, Russia sows confusion more than solidarity and the latest announcement falls in line with that. Pavel Chukhray,...
- 9/27/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
The late, great Jean-Luc Godard wrote in his 1960 film "Le Petit Soldat" that photography was truth, and that cinema is truth at 24 frames per second. Every edit is a lie.
Editing is one of those alterations from truth that modern cinema audiences have long ago internalized and accepted as part of the medium's vernacular. We accept that a conversation between two on-screen characters will instantly shift from one person's point of view to the other. Shot, reverse shot. In terms of consumption, this provides a natural form of clarity and lends to cinema a certain kind of unconscious rhythm. In actuality, the shot-reverse-shot will, at the very least, require two cameras running simultaneously, one on each actor. More likely, a single camera will be used, and the actors will run through the scene several times, the camera filming both angles separately. Editors -- the eldritch wizards of the film world...
Editing is one of those alterations from truth that modern cinema audiences have long ago internalized and accepted as part of the medium's vernacular. We accept that a conversation between two on-screen characters will instantly shift from one person's point of view to the other. Shot, reverse shot. In terms of consumption, this provides a natural form of clarity and lends to cinema a certain kind of unconscious rhythm. In actuality, the shot-reverse-shot will, at the very least, require two cameras running simultaneously, one on each actor. More likely, a single camera will be used, and the actors will run through the scene several times, the camera filming both angles separately. Editors -- the eldritch wizards of the film world...
- 9/23/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.
The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.
“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”
The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”
Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...
The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.
“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”
The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”
Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...
- 9/21/2022
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The world premieres of Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” and Sebastian Lelio’s “The Wonder” will take place at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, which announced its lineup on Thursday, one day before the festival begins.
Other notable films in the Telluride lineup include Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Bardo,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Todd Field’s “TÁR” and James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” which are making their North American debuts after premiering at European festivals.
Among the documentaries heading to Telluride, premieres are Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy,” Anton Corbijn’s “Squaring the Circle,” Ryan White’s “Good Night Oppy,” Mary McCartney’s “If These Walls Could Sing” and Eva Webber’s “Merkel.”
Also Read:
TIFF 2022 Lineup: Films From Tyler Perry, Peter Farrelly, Sam Mendes and Catherine Hardwicke to Premiere
Documentary director and film historian Mark Cousins will have two films at the festival,...
Other notable films in the Telluride lineup include Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “Bardo,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Todd Field’s “TÁR” and James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” which are making their North American debuts after premiering at European festivals.
Among the documentaries heading to Telluride, premieres are Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy,” Anton Corbijn’s “Squaring the Circle,” Ryan White’s “Good Night Oppy,” Mary McCartney’s “If These Walls Could Sing” and Eva Webber’s “Merkel.”
Also Read:
TIFF 2022 Lineup: Films From Tyler Perry, Peter Farrelly, Sam Mendes and Catherine Hardwicke to Premiere
Documentary director and film historian Mark Cousins will have two films at the festival,...
- 9/1/2022
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Human Flowers of Flesh.For its second edition under director Giona A. Nazzaro and the first fully physical iteration since 2019, the Locarno Film Festival sought to reestablish itself in 2022 as one of the preeminent destinations for cinephiles looking to simultaneously discover fresh talent, take in new work by veteran directors, and dive deep into film history. While Nazzaro’s stated intention to make the festival more audience-friendly—if not outright commercial—was met with skepticism by critics accustomed to Locarno’s tradition of championing art cinema, it’s clear after two years that these comments didn’t portend a drastic realignment of programming values so much as anticipate a reevaluation of the festival’s perceived strengths. Due to the elimination of a couple of sidebars, the curatorial focus is now centered directly on the International Competition and Filmmakers of the Present sections, with even some clever cross-pollination between these strands...
- 8/29/2022
- MUBI
Julia Murat’s film is second from Brazil to win festival’s top honour.
The Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival’s 75th anniversary edition (August 3-13) has gone to Julia Murat’s Rule 34 (Regra 34), which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s international competition.
The award includes a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.
Rule 34 is the story of a young law student whose sexual desires lead her into a world of violence and eroticism. It was part of the 2019 Berlinale Co-Production Market and last year received...
The Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival’s 75th anniversary edition (August 3-13) has gone to Julia Murat’s Rule 34 (Regra 34), which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s international competition.
The award includes a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.
Rule 34 is the story of a young law student whose sexual desires lead her into a world of violence and eroticism. It was part of the 2019 Berlinale Co-Production Market and last year received...
- 8/13/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
“Rule 34,” a challenging and sexually explicit film from Brazilian director Julia Murat, has emerged as the surprise winner of the Golden Leopard award at this year’s Locarno Film Festival — an edition where typically audacious and formally ambitious work dominated the program. Marking a strong ceremony for female filmmakers, the main competition jury at the Swiss festival also handed an impressive three awards — best director and a brace of acting prizes — to gritty coming-of-age drama “I Have Electric Dreams,” an auspicious debut feature from Costa Rican writer-director Valentina Maurel.
A character study of a young female law student pursuing a parallel calling in amateur online pornography — while defending female abuse victims in her day job — “Rule 34’s” title stems from the popular online meme that “if it exists, there’s a porn version of it.” Murat’s film wasn’t among the buzzier entries in this year’s competition,...
A character study of a young female law student pursuing a parallel calling in amateur online pornography — while defending female abuse victims in her day job — “Rule 34’s” title stems from the popular online meme that “if it exists, there’s a porn version of it.” Murat’s film wasn’t among the buzzier entries in this year’s competition,...
- 8/13/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Latest feature from Nigerian writer-director due to premiere at TIFF.
Nigerian film director and novelist Biyi Bandele has died aged 54 in Lagos, Nigeria.
His family confirmed that he died on Sunday (August 7) but did not reveal a cause of death.
Bandele’s latest feature Elesin Oba, The King’s Horseman is set to premiere at Toronto as a special presentation in September. It comes nearly a decade after his directorial debut, Half Of A Yellow Sun, premiered at Toronto in 2013, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton.
Further credits include Fifty, which played the London Film Festival in 2015, and he directed...
Nigerian film director and novelist Biyi Bandele has died aged 54 in Lagos, Nigeria.
His family confirmed that he died on Sunday (August 7) but did not reveal a cause of death.
Bandele’s latest feature Elesin Oba, The King’s Horseman is set to premiere at Toronto as a special presentation in September. It comes nearly a decade after his directorial debut, Half Of A Yellow Sun, premiered at Toronto in 2013, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandiwe Newton.
Further credits include Fifty, which played the London Film Festival in 2015, and he directed...
- 8/9/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
All through Fairytale (aka Skazka), characters recite the opening of the Divine Comedy and Dante’s preamble to his plunge into hell. But the black-and-white world Alexander Sokurov’s souls are stranded in feels closer to a kind of purgatory. A liminal wasteland of derelict buildings, rubble, and skeletal trees, it’s a nightmare yanked out of a Gustav Doré print, and no surprise one of its denizens—none other than Winston Churchill himself—should wonder early on if it is all a (very bad) dream. Churchill shares the hallucination with a number of other iconic figures from the twentieth century, a sordid cast that includes the likes of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin. But Fairytale has no cast, strictly speaking: these four play themselves. The film’s sleight of hand—and the source of its disquieting allure—lies in its technical wizardry. Brought to life by Sokurov...
- 8/7/2022
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
Planet Terror: Sokurov Gets Purgatorial in Nightmare on 20th Century Tyrants
“Death is the solution to all problems,” said Joseph Stalin. It turns out this is something of a fallacy, at least as examined in the latest film from Russian auteur Aleksandr Sokurov with Fairytale, an ironic title for this nightmarish animated film about the leaders, oligarchs and tyrants who mangled and corroded the globe with a terror irreparably defining the twentieth century. Culling archival footage and splicing together the who’s who of WWII into a shadowy nether world wherein notorious historical figures bicker, berate, and exchange backhanded compliments with one another, it’s a subversive reflection on the past as well as a hypnotic provocation.…...
“Death is the solution to all problems,” said Joseph Stalin. It turns out this is something of a fallacy, at least as examined in the latest film from Russian auteur Aleksandr Sokurov with Fairytale, an ironic title for this nightmarish animated film about the leaders, oligarchs and tyrants who mangled and corroded the globe with a terror irreparably defining the twentieth century. Culling archival footage and splicing together the who’s who of WWII into a shadowy nether world wherein notorious historical figures bicker, berate, and exchange backhanded compliments with one another, it’s a subversive reflection on the past as well as a hypnotic provocation.…...
- 8/6/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Many people, when faced with the old question of who they’d invite to their dream dinner party, dutifully reel off a list of historical titans, which tends to prompt further, usually unasked questions: Would these undoubtedly interesting and consequential individuals make for great company together? Would they have much to say to each each other? And would it make for a better evening than, say, a gathering of your regular, undistinguished drinking buddies? Ever-experimental Russian formalist Alexander Sokurov drolly hints at the answer in his eccentric new film “Fairytale,” though not exactly in a dinner party context: Most of us aren’t hungry to spend an evening clinking glasses with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, after all. Still, this brief, dreamlike musing assembles them — along with other daunting dead men of history, from Churchill to Mussolini to Jesus himself — in a kind of misty purgatory where they’re at liberty to converse.
- 8/6/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Ceremony set for August 13 in Hollywood.
American Film Institute (AFI) announced on Friday (August 5) it will bestow honours upon Everything Everywhere All At Once star Michelle Yeoh and AFI Trustee Emeritus Lawrence Herbert.
Yeoh will receive a Doctorate of Fine Arts degree honoris causa for contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image and will become the first Asian artist to receive the honour.
Herbert will receive a Doctorate of Communication Arts degree honoris causa for his commitment to the mission of the American Film Institute. The honourees will collect their awards at AFI Conservatory’s commencement ceremony...
American Film Institute (AFI) announced on Friday (August 5) it will bestow honours upon Everything Everywhere All At Once star Michelle Yeoh and AFI Trustee Emeritus Lawrence Herbert.
Yeoh will receive a Doctorate of Fine Arts degree honoris causa for contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image and will become the first Asian artist to receive the honour.
Herbert will receive a Doctorate of Communication Arts degree honoris causa for his commitment to the mission of the American Film Institute. The honourees will collect their awards at AFI Conservatory’s commencement ceremony...
- 8/5/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
For the tenth time in 11 years, the Locarno Film Festival is hosting 10 international film critics from various stages of development during the 10 days of the A-list Swiss festival.
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
- 8/5/2022
- by Christopher Small
- Variety Film + TV
Easy to overlook in the looming shadow of the Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals (and all of the awards season hoopla they portend), Switzerland’s historic Locarno Film Festival has remained so distinct and essential precisely because of its refusal to concede to industry pressures or chase attention over artistry.
While the magical Piazza Grande has been home to its fair share of glitzy outdoor screenings over the years — the next few days will see the 8,000-seat town square transform into an impromptu “Bullet Train” station, for example — Locarno has always prided itself on providing a more curious and less hostile platform for elite auteurs whose work may not conform to the commercial demands of the international marketplace; recent winners of the festival’s prestigious Golden Leopard award include Pedro Costa (“Vitalina Varela”), Lav Diaz (“From What Is Before”), and the great Chinese documentarian Wang Bing (“Mrs.
While the magical Piazza Grande has been home to its fair share of glitzy outdoor screenings over the years — the next few days will see the 8,000-seat town square transform into an impromptu “Bullet Train” station, for example — Locarno has always prided itself on providing a more curious and less hostile platform for elite auteurs whose work may not conform to the commercial demands of the international marketplace; recent winners of the festival’s prestigious Golden Leopard award include Pedro Costa (“Vitalina Varela”), Lav Diaz (“From What Is Before”), and the great Chinese documentarian Wang Bing (“Mrs.
- 8/2/2022
- by David Ehrlich and Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
Set during the shoot for a costume drama film in the countryside, events take an odd turn when the director suddenly disappears.
Screen can unveil the first trailer for Valentin Merz’s debut film De Noche Los Gatos Son Pardos (At Night All Cats Are Black) which is set to premiere in the international competition at this year’s Locarno Film Festival (August 3-13.)
Italian sales outfit The Open Reel has world rights for the film except Switzerland where Vinca Film will distribute.
Set during the shoot of a costume drama film in the countryside, events take an odd turn when the director suddenly disappears.
Screen can unveil the first trailer for Valentin Merz’s debut film De Noche Los Gatos Son Pardos (At Night All Cats Are Black) which is set to premiere in the international competition at this year’s Locarno Film Festival (August 3-13.)
Italian sales outfit The Open Reel has world rights for the film except Switzerland where Vinca Film will distribute.
Set during the shoot of a costume drama film in the countryside, events take an odd turn when the director suddenly disappears.
- 7/20/2022
- by Alina Trabattoni
- ScreenDaily
Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman).The lineup for the 75th-anniversary edition of the festival has been announced, including new films by Helena Wittmann, João Pedro Rodrígues, Aleksandr Sokurov and others, alongside retrospectives, tributes, and much more.Piazza GRANDEAlles über Martin Suter. Ausser die Wahrheit. (Everything About Martin Suter. Everything but the Truth.) (André Schäfer)Annie Colère (Blandine Lenoir)Bullet Train (David Leitch)Compartiment tueurs (The Sleeping Car Murder) (Costa-Gavras)Delta (Michele Vannucci)Home of the Brave (Laurie Anderson)Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk)Last Dance (Delphine Lehericey)Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman)My Neighbor Adolf (Leon Prudovsky)Paradise Highway (Anna Gutto)Piano Piano (Nicola Prosatore)Printed Rainbow (Gitanjali Rao)Semret (Caterina Mona)Une femme de notre temps (Jean Paul Civeyrac)Vous n'aurez pas ma haine (You Will Not Have My Hate) (Kilian Riedhof)Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman)Human Flowers of Flesh (Helena Wittmann).Concorso INTERNAZIONALEAriyippu (Declaration) (Mahesh Narayanan)Balıqlara xütbə...
- 7/13/2022
- MUBI
One of the major titles premiering at the Locarno Film Festival next month is the latest feature from Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov. Fairytale (aka Skazka) utilizes newly shot material and archival footage to share a “civil and artistic statement about those who determined the fate of the planet: Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Hitler, according to a Russian newspaper. Ahead of the Locarno premiere, the first trailer has now arrived.
A Belgian co-production, the project utilized no state funds, and although it was submitted to Cannes, Sokurov has said that those festival organizers replied they were “afraid to show it.” He added, “This is a film about history, it is hard for Europe, and it is also hard for us, for everyone.” It’ll now make its debut at Locarno in the Concorso internazionale section and one can check back for our review.
See the trailer below.
Fairytale premieres at Locarno Film Festival.
A Belgian co-production, the project utilized no state funds, and although it was submitted to Cannes, Sokurov has said that those festival organizers replied they were “afraid to show it.” He added, “This is a film about history, it is hard for Europe, and it is also hard for us, for everyone.” It’ll now make its debut at Locarno in the Concorso internazionale section and one can check back for our review.
See the trailer below.
Fairytale premieres at Locarno Film Festival.
- 7/12/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Trailblazing publishing executive was a former managing director of Screen International
Elspeth Tavares, the founder of film industry trade publication The Business of Film and former managing director of Screen International, has died at her home in London following a short illness at the age of 71.
A larger-than-life personality and an industry trailblazer, Tavares began her career in publishing at The Observer newspaper, where she learned the ropes of the printing and advertising sales business.
Her success at the Sunday national newspaper led to an appointment at Screen International, where she rose to become managing director.
She then combined her experience in consumer,...
Elspeth Tavares, the founder of film industry trade publication The Business of Film and former managing director of Screen International, has died at her home in London following a short illness at the age of 71.
A larger-than-life personality and an industry trailblazer, Tavares began her career in publishing at The Observer newspaper, where she learned the ropes of the printing and advertising sales business.
Her success at the Sunday national newspaper led to an appointment at Screen International, where she rose to become managing director.
She then combined her experience in consumer,...
- 7/8/2022
- ScreenDaily
Italian critic Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, has assembled what he defines as a “broad, diversified and inclusive program” for the 75th edition of the Swiss event, which will open with “Atomic Blonde” helmer David Leitch’s Brad Pitt-starrer “Bullet Train” screening on its 8,000-seat outdoor Piazza Grande.
The frothy U.S. action film is precisely the type of smart entertainment Nazzaro is becoming known for programming in this temple of European indie cinema, alongside smaller budget titles with more gravitas.
As always, the Locarno selection is a mix of potential discoveries from newcomers and works by known directors, including masters like Russia’s Alexander Sokurov, who is expected to make the trek to unveil his new work “Fairytale,” in competition. Nazzaro spoke to Variety the day after announcing his 2022 lineup about his selection criteria and why he decided not to boycott Sokurov despite...
The frothy U.S. action film is precisely the type of smart entertainment Nazzaro is becoming known for programming in this temple of European indie cinema, alongside smaller budget titles with more gravitas.
As always, the Locarno selection is a mix of potential discoveries from newcomers and works by known directors, including masters like Russia’s Alexander Sokurov, who is expected to make the trek to unveil his new work “Fairytale,” in competition. Nazzaro spoke to Variety the day after announcing his 2022 lineup about his selection criteria and why he decided not to boycott Sokurov despite...
- 7/7/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
German feature will world premiere at Locarno.
Chinese sales agent Rediance has acquired sales rights to Locarno international competition title Piaffe, the first feature by Berlin-based visual artist and filmmaker Ann Oren.
The German film, which will receive its world premiere at Locarno in August, is produced by Kristof Gerega, Sophie Ahrens and Fabian Altenried of Berlin-based Schuldenberg Films.
Shot on 16mm, the story follows an introvert foley artist who becomes empowered when a horsetail starts growing out of her body while working on a commercial featuring a horse. Written by Oren and Thais Guisasola, the cast includes Simone Bucio,...
Chinese sales agent Rediance has acquired sales rights to Locarno international competition title Piaffe, the first feature by Berlin-based visual artist and filmmaker Ann Oren.
The German film, which will receive its world premiere at Locarno in August, is produced by Kristof Gerega, Sophie Ahrens and Fabian Altenried of Berlin-based Schuldenberg Films.
Shot on 16mm, the story follows an introvert foley artist who becomes empowered when a horsetail starts growing out of her body while working on a commercial featuring a horse. Written by Oren and Thais Guisasola, the cast includes Simone Bucio,...
- 7/6/2022
- by Silvia Wong
- ScreenDaily
Azerbaijani Hilal Baydarov’s drama will debut in competition.
Hong Kong-based sales firm Asian Shadows has picked up rights to Azerbaijani director Hilal Baydarov’s Sermon To The Fish, which is set to world premiere in Locarno Film Festival’s international competition.
It marks the fourth fiction feature by Baydarov, whose In Between Dying played in competition at Venice in 2020 and whose documentary When The Persimmons Grew won best documentary at Sarajevo in 2019.
The feature is a co-production between Azerbaijan, Mexico, Switzerland and Turkey. Baydarov’s Azerbaijan-based production company Ucqar Film and Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas’ Splendor Omnia Studios are among the main backers.
Hong Kong-based sales firm Asian Shadows has picked up rights to Azerbaijani director Hilal Baydarov’s Sermon To The Fish, which is set to world premiere in Locarno Film Festival’s international competition.
It marks the fourth fiction feature by Baydarov, whose In Between Dying played in competition at Venice in 2020 and whose documentary When The Persimmons Grew won best documentary at Sarajevo in 2019.
The feature is a co-production between Azerbaijan, Mexico, Switzerland and Turkey. Baydarov’s Azerbaijan-based production company Ucqar Film and Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas’ Splendor Omnia Studios are among the main backers.
- 7/6/2022
- by Silvia Wong
- ScreenDaily
Ten world premieres among 17 international competition titles.
The Locarno Film Festival (August 3-13) has revealed the line-up for its 75th edition, which includes the world premiere of Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s Fairytale.
The international competition will comprise 17 films, including 10 world premieres, which will vie for the coveted Golden Leopard awards.
Scroll down for full line-up
These titles include Fairytale, a Belgium-Russia co-production written and directed by Sokurov, whose films have played in Competition at Cannes five times with features including Russian Ark in 2002. His debut The Lonely Voice Of a Man received the Bronze Leopard in Locarno in 1987.
The...
The Locarno Film Festival (August 3-13) has revealed the line-up for its 75th edition, which includes the world premiere of Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s Fairytale.
The international competition will comprise 17 films, including 10 world premieres, which will vie for the coveted Golden Leopard awards.
Scroll down for full line-up
These titles include Fairytale, a Belgium-Russia co-production written and directed by Sokurov, whose films have played in Competition at Cannes five times with features including Russian Ark in 2002. His debut The Lonely Voice Of a Man received the Bronze Leopard in Locarno in 1987.
The...
- 7/6/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
It’ll be a field of seventeen competition offerings from the likes of master filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov (Fairytale) to a pair of first time (not unlike this year’s Berlinale) works from Swiss helmer Valentin Merz (De Noche los Gatos Son Pardos) and Costa Rican helmer Valentina Maurel (Tengo Sueños Eléctricos) that make-up Locarno’s Film Festival Golden Leopard competition (aka Concorso internazionale).
Fest topper Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro managed to land the likes of veteran French filmmakers such as Sylvie Verheyde and Patricia Mazuy (who launches Bowling Saturne – formerly titled Les jeunes filles à la peau blanche dans la nuit).…...
Fest topper Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro managed to land the likes of veteran French filmmakers such as Sylvie Verheyde and Patricia Mazuy (who launches Bowling Saturne – formerly titled Les jeunes filles à la peau blanche dans la nuit).…...
- 7/6/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Returning for its milestone 75th edition, Locarno Film Festival has now unveiled its full lineup. Taking place from August 3 through 13th, the selection includes Helena Wittmann’s Human Flowers of Flesh, Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s Une femme de notre temps, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Fairytale, Patricia Mazuy’s Bowling Saturne, Abbas Fahdel’s Tales of the Purple House, Ana Vaz’s It Is Night In America, Leon Prudovsky’s My Neighbor Adolf, a massive Douglas Sirk retrospective, and much more.
“The selection of films that we have put together, after watching and appraising over 3,000 titles (of every length and format), is intended to be the mark of a time and of a cinema in motion,” Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro said. “A historic time that is moving in multiple directions simultaneously, and a cinema that is probing the issues facing the world, and how to live in it re- sponsibly, sustainably. The...
“The selection of films that we have put together, after watching and appraising over 3,000 titles (of every length and format), is intended to be the mark of a time and of a cinema in motion,” Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro said. “A historic time that is moving in multiple directions simultaneously, and a cinema that is probing the issues facing the world, and how to live in it re- sponsibly, sustainably. The...
- 7/6/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival has revealed the lineup for its 75th edition, sticking to its promise of discovering new talent.
A slew of debuting filmmakers will showcase their works, from Italy’s Nicola Prosatore with “Piano Piano” to Caterina Mona, focusing in “Semret” on an Eritrean single mother working at a Zurich hospital and dreaming of becoming a midwife.
Thomas Hardiman’s U.K.’s proposition “Medusa Deluxe,” a murder mystery set in a competitive hairdressing competition — boarded by New Europe Film Sales — is also bound to generate some excitement.
“‘Medusa Deluxe’ is one of the coolest debuts of the year,” the company’s CEO Jan Naszewski enthused to Variety.
“I’m sure it will rock the Piazza Grande and give the festival a great spark.”
But Locarno will also bring in heavyweights, starting with a screening of the much-anticipated Brad Pitt vehicle “Bullet Train,” directed by “Atomic Blond” helmer David Leitch,...
A slew of debuting filmmakers will showcase their works, from Italy’s Nicola Prosatore with “Piano Piano” to Caterina Mona, focusing in “Semret” on an Eritrean single mother working at a Zurich hospital and dreaming of becoming a midwife.
Thomas Hardiman’s U.K.’s proposition “Medusa Deluxe,” a murder mystery set in a competitive hairdressing competition — boarded by New Europe Film Sales — is also bound to generate some excitement.
“‘Medusa Deluxe’ is one of the coolest debuts of the year,” the company’s CEO Jan Naszewski enthused to Variety.
“I’m sure it will rock the Piazza Grande and give the festival a great spark.”
But Locarno will also bring in heavyweights, starting with a screening of the much-anticipated Brad Pitt vehicle “Bullet Train,” directed by “Atomic Blond” helmer David Leitch,...
- 7/6/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Even as Cannes just wrapped up last month, and Tribeca is still going on this week, all eyes on the Festival circuit are turning towards Fall, and the all-important stops like Venice, Toronto, and Telluride that will be kicking off the fest circuit likely to set the table for awards season. And others are making early moves now as New York Film Festival organizers were in town last week holding a reception for studio and PR reps and press to pump up interest in their Fall festival even before that other aforementioned NY-based fest got rolling with its opening night. Leaders of the Toronto International Film Festival were also in town this Spring holding meetings and lunches to assure the industry it would be returning to business as usual in person this Fall. All the festival heads are busy seeing early previews of films that hope to use the Fall fests to launch Oscar campaigns.
- 6/14/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
On February 24, when Russia launched an unprompted military invasion of Ukraine, directors Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko hit the streets to protest.
“We really thought we could change something,” Balagov told IndieWire by phone this month from Los Angeles with Kovalenko on the line. “But later, when we found out real people in our homeland support this, we understood something terrible was happening. This Russian TV propaganda has brainwashed a lot of people. That moment was kind of a breaking point for us and we understood that we needed to get out of Russia.”
Over the past two years, the couple have been among the rising stars of the Russian film community: The 32-year-old Kovalenko’s 2021 drama “Unclenching the Fists” was the country’s official Oscar submission last year, while 30-year-old Balagov’s “Beanpole” was the submission the year prior. Once they realized that opposing the war would put them at risk,...
“We really thought we could change something,” Balagov told IndieWire by phone this month from Los Angeles with Kovalenko on the line. “But later, when we found out real people in our homeland support this, we understood something terrible was happening. This Russian TV propaganda has brainwashed a lot of people. That moment was kind of a breaking point for us and we understood that we needed to get out of Russia.”
Over the past two years, the couple have been among the rising stars of the Russian film community: The 32-year-old Kovalenko’s 2021 drama “Unclenching the Fists” was the country’s official Oscar submission last year, while 30-year-old Balagov’s “Beanpole” was the submission the year prior. Once they realized that opposing the war would put them at risk,...
- 6/14/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
French director Louise Carrin, whose home for the past 13 years has been Lausanne, Switzerland, has an urge to create every day, she tells Variety. Moviemaking being a long process, for about 10 years now she has found equal satisfaction in music. She is about to release her debut rap album “Banana Part” under her alias Lweez. On Friday, she was on stage at the Visions du Réel film festival, in Nyon, Switzerland, to present her first feature film “Big Boy” (“La Cour des grands”). She spoke to Variety about her work.
Selected for the festival’s national competition, the moving film follows Amadou Diallo, a Guinean refugee, shortly after he arrived, on his own, in Lausanne. His brother died on the road to exile. His sister, the only family he has left, stayed behind. Amadou is 16 and his daily life is spent between the asylum seekers’ center and integration classes. Six...
Selected for the festival’s national competition, the moving film follows Amadou Diallo, a Guinean refugee, shortly after he arrived, on his own, in Lausanne. His brother died on the road to exile. His sister, the only family he has left, stayed behind. Amadou is 16 and his daily life is spent between the asylum seekers’ center and integration classes. Six...
- 4/11/2022
- by Trinidad Barleycorn
- Variety Film + TV
The old adage “write what you know” has rarely paid off with such bleak, persuasive power as it does in Unclenching The Fists, which won the Grand Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar this year, is Russia’s submission to the International Feature race at the Oscars and is screening at AFI Fest. Mubi has U.S. rights and is planning a theatrical release ahead of digital in 2022.
Kira Kovalenko’s confident debut feature is largely based on events of her own youth. Like her fictional heroine Ada (Milana Aguzarova), Kovalenko grew up in a dreary mining town in the Caucasus. She captures, with unsentimental precision, the way life spent with the same few people, year after year, can be both suffocating in its intensity and numbingly dull.
Ada’s home is in North Ossetia, a thinly populated but strategically important wedge of Russia on the border of Georgia and next to Chechnya.
Kira Kovalenko’s confident debut feature is largely based on events of her own youth. Like her fictional heroine Ada (Milana Aguzarova), Kovalenko grew up in a dreary mining town in the Caucasus. She captures, with unsentimental precision, the way life spent with the same few people, year after year, can be both suffocating in its intensity and numbingly dull.
Ada’s home is in North Ossetia, a thinly populated but strategically important wedge of Russia on the border of Georgia and next to Chechnya.
- 11/12/2021
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
There are clenched fists aplenty in Unclenching the Fists. Stuck in a former mining town high in the mountains of North Ossetia, its characters are as weighed down with misfortune as they are with strained mitts. There are the protagonist Ada’s, racked with frustration; her brother Akim’s, all white-knuckled and ready for swinging; but most obviously there are their father Zaur’s, strict as iron and with a rigor-mortis grip. The film is the second feature from Kira Kovalenko, a filmmaker from Nalchik, in the foothills of the Caucuses—a locale just next Ada’s, and that sense of place is apparent. The film, a bleak and provocative work with few (if any) soft edges, premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regarde sidebar earlier this summer, where it was awarded the Grand Prix by a jury led by Andrea Arnold—another filmmaker synonymous with tales of young women and isolated places,...
- 9/29/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Across cinema’s long lineage of stories about young women attempting to shake parental control and seize their own destinies, few protagonists have needed to escape quite as viscerally as Ada, the unbearably put-upon heroine of Russian director Kira Kovalenko’s imposing sophomore feature “Unclenching the Fists.” In poor health and kept under literal lock and key by her widowed, loveless father, she fears time is running out for her to make a run for it — though where on earth to go, in a desolate corner of the North Caucasus where the patriarchy threatens to ensnare her in other ways, is the question giving added urgency to this unusual, stonily moving coming-of-ager.
A tough commercial proposition any way you slice it, “Unclenching the Fists” nonetheless had a dream debut at July’s Cannes Film Festival, where it scored both a multi-territory distribution deal (including North America) with arthouse streamer Mubi...
A tough commercial proposition any way you slice it, “Unclenching the Fists” nonetheless had a dream debut at July’s Cannes Film Festival, where it scored both a multi-territory distribution deal (including North America) with arthouse streamer Mubi...
- 9/2/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been a long journey for Barry Jenkins, from his humble debut “Medicine for Melancholy” in 2008 to eventual Oscar winner “Moonlight” eight years later and the sprawling miniseries adaptation “The Underground Railroad” earlier this year. All along, though, there has been one constant for him: The Telluride Film Festival. Jenkins first attended the festival as a film student almost 20 years ago and eventually became a volunteer, then rose through the programming ranks to oversee the shorts program, a gig he maintained even after his career took off.
Now, he’s leveled up again in Telluride stature by serving as the festival’s guest director.
Over the course of this year’s five-day event, Jenkins will introduce six screenings of films handpicked by a director best known for blending his passionate cinephilia with underrepresented voices. His program does that, too: While Jenkins’ favorite director Claire Denis is represented with her debut “Chocolat,...
Now, he’s leveled up again in Telluride stature by serving as the festival’s guest director.
Over the course of this year’s five-day event, Jenkins will introduce six screenings of films handpicked by a director best known for blending his passionate cinephilia with underrepresented voices. His program does that, too: While Jenkins’ favorite director Claire Denis is represented with her debut “Chocolat,...
- 9/1/2021
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Closing out the summer, Mubi has unveiled their August 2021 lineup, kicking off most fittingly with Brett Story’s acclaimed recent documentary The Hottest August. Also among the lineup is Akira Kurosawa’s epic Ran, Fritz Lang’s hugely entertaining two-parter The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. As his latest films arrive, Pablo Larraín’s The Club is also part of the lineup.
Xinyuan Zheng Lu’s Rotterdam winner The Cloud in Her Room is coming to Mubi in August, plus a “late film” special featuring Manoel de Olviera’s Gebo and the Shadow and The Last Sentence by Jan Troell. There will also be a canine double feature of Heddy Honigmann’s Buddy and Los Reyes by Bettina Perut and Ivan Osnovikoff.
See the lineup below and get 30 days of Mubi free here.
August 1 | The Hottest August | Brett Story
August 2 | Gebo and the Shadow | Manoel de Oliveria | Twilight...
Xinyuan Zheng Lu’s Rotterdam winner The Cloud in Her Room is coming to Mubi in August, plus a “late film” special featuring Manoel de Olviera’s Gebo and the Shadow and The Last Sentence by Jan Troell. There will also be a canine double feature of Heddy Honigmann’s Buddy and Los Reyes by Bettina Perut and Ivan Osnovikoff.
See the lineup below and get 30 days of Mubi free here.
August 1 | The Hottest August | Brett Story
August 2 | Gebo and the Shadow | Manoel de Oliveria | Twilight...
- 7/19/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Western Europe traditionally gets the lion’s share of attention in the international film category, with France and Italy still leading the record books in terms of nominations and wins. But a number of the most exciting contenders among this year’s submissions hail from a little further east: in a bumper year for cinema from Central and Eastern Europe, a few titles stand out.
Language has been a subject of significant controversy in this year’s Oscar race. Yet, the Academy has moved the needle on this front in recent years: not so long ago, films that weren’t in an official language of the submitting country were ineligible. That would have ruled out this year’s submission from the Czech Republic, “The Painted Bird.” Aiming to be the first Czech film to score a nomination since 2003’s “Zelary,” Václav Marhoul’s film is a linguistic anomaly in all...
Language has been a subject of significant controversy in this year’s Oscar race. Yet, the Academy has moved the needle on this front in recent years: not so long ago, films that weren’t in an official language of the submitting country were ineligible. That would have ruled out this year’s submission from the Czech Republic, “The Painted Bird.” Aiming to be the first Czech film to score a nomination since 2003’s “Zelary,” Václav Marhoul’s film is a linguistic anomaly in all...
- 12/5/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
While markets such as Afm and the recent Key Buyers Event in Moscow aim to develop the worldwide sales potential of Russian cinema, the Russian branch of Fipresci, the international film critics’ federation, came up with a sure-fire idea to bring media attention to the diversity of Russian production, its varied genres, directions and aesthetics.
From Nov. 11-13, the second Fipresci colloquium on Russian cinema will bring together journalists from a range of international publications, film festival curators, film scholars and members of the Russian film industry. Held under the auspices of the bi-annual St. Petersburg Cultural Forum, the event will take place at the legendary Lenfilm Studio complex in St. Petersburg, the studio that gave the world Grigory Kozintsev, Ilya Averbakh and Aleksey German, as well as Aleksandr Sokurov, who still produces his work there.
Colloquium participants (including this writer) will have the opportunity to tour the building and its historic costume collection,...
From Nov. 11-13, the second Fipresci colloquium on Russian cinema will bring together journalists from a range of international publications, film festival curators, film scholars and members of the Russian film industry. Held under the auspices of the bi-annual St. Petersburg Cultural Forum, the event will take place at the legendary Lenfilm Studio complex in St. Petersburg, the studio that gave the world Grigory Kozintsev, Ilya Averbakh and Aleksey German, as well as Aleksandr Sokurov, who still produces his work there.
Colloquium participants (including this writer) will have the opportunity to tour the building and its historic costume collection,...
- 11/8/2019
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSJia Zhangke on the set of So Close to My LandThe latest from Jia Zhangke film is entitled So Close to My Land, an eight-chapter documentary that follows "esteemed Chinese writers Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong" across four provinces. Jia also notes that the film is "an Eisenstein-styled film, with great subjective influence." Russian Ark filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov has announced that he is shutting down his film foundation Primer Inotnatsii, which supports young Russian filmmakers, in response to pressure from Russia's culture ministry and a lack of funding. The organization helped producer Kantemir Balagov's Closeness, which Mubi premiered in May.Recommended VIEWINGThe first trailer for Takashi Miike's First Love, which follows an orphaned boxer caught in a turf war between Japanese yakuza and Chinese gangs. Read editor Daniel Kasman's review of the film here.
- 7/31/2019
- MUBI
Patience, LaborA school for professional ice skaters in Leningrad in the final days of the Soviet imperium. A young girl, maybe ten, struggles to land her lutz. She jumps. She falls. Time and again. Failure after failure. Her sympathetic but stern trainer chides her, exhorts her to jump again. Without failure, the jump would remain eternally unattainable. The girl jumps. She falls. Again and again. Yet, unlike what a Western version of this documentary might have presented, the girl does not succeed. At least not within the scope of this documentary’s narrative, otherwise abundant with grace and movement, the rigor and creativity and training at the Leningrad Figure Skating School.What better film than Patience, Labor (1985–1987) to take as an analogy for the life work of its director Aleksandr Sokurov, a life of patience and failure-ridden labor on display through his short films at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.
- 7/30/2019
- MUBI
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