In more ways than one, “Fausto” is a film that likes to keep its audience in the dark: The bulk of its imagery is thickly cloaked in velvety night, often barely illuminated but for pinpricks of moonlight or a flickering candle, sometimes to the point where viewers must strain and squint to identify what they’re really looking at. That’s no accident, as Andrea Bussmann’s beguiling, perplexing sophomore feature is out to challenge the way we see and interpret images, and attach them to accompanying narratives. Packed with shards of local folklore and half-remembered mythology from the Oaxacan beach community on which it centers, this unidentified filmic object resists illustrating these tall tales, effectively testing our belief in its vivid oral ethnography, all while occupying its own liminal, unstable space between documentary and fiction.
Having already garnered festival acclaim in Locarno, Toronto and Berlin’s Critics’ Week sidebar,...
Having already garnered festival acclaim in Locarno, Toronto and Berlin’s Critics’ Week sidebar,...
- 6/15/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)
In lauding Miguel Gomes’ three-part, six-and-a-half hour behemoth, it’s perhaps important to consider his background as a critic. Not just in terms of the trilogy’s cinephilic engagement with Rossellini, Alonso, Oliveira, etc.; also in its defiant nature. While it’s easy to assign the trilogy certain humanist and satirical labels from the get-go and just praise these films for following through on them, Gomes continually seeks to mutate and complicate his of age-of-austerity saga. Far from perfect, and so much more exciting for that very reason. – Ethan V.
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Bait (Mark Jenkin)
For his debut feature,...
Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)
In lauding Miguel Gomes’ three-part, six-and-a-half hour behemoth, it’s perhaps important to consider his background as a critic. Not just in terms of the trilogy’s cinephilic engagement with Rossellini, Alonso, Oliveira, etc.; also in its defiant nature. While it’s easy to assign the trilogy certain humanist and satirical labels from the get-go and just praise these films for following through on them, Gomes continually seeks to mutate and complicate his of age-of-austerity saga. Far from perfect, and so much more exciting for that very reason. – Ethan V.
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Bait (Mark Jenkin)
For his debut feature,...
- 4/12/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
SauvageNew Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art for its 48th edition, and once again proves that for New Yorkers it’s the key festival to discover an exciting new crop of young filmmakers, most of them presenting debut or second features. The program includes some movies previously covered on Notebook: Sofia Bohdanowicz’s Ms Slavic 7, Peter Parlow’s The Plagiarists, and Mark Jenkin’s Bait (Berlin Film Festival premieres), Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto (Locarno Festival), Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s Manta Ray (Venice), Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load (Directors' Fortnight), and Eva Torbisch’s All Is Good (Locarno). While diverse, overall, this year’s slate is thoughtful and yet agile, with films that invite both risk and ambiguity.Not since Agnès Varda’s Vagabond (1985) has there been a film in which the main character drifts into willful dissolution with as...
- 3/26/2019
- MUBI
Binary StarsWhen I was in college, I learned a particular story about the concept of the aesthetic. It was a drama that featured a lot of now-familiar players: Kant, Hegel, and Marx; Nietzsche and Heidegger; Benjamin and Adorno; Jameson and Eagleton; Kristeva and Derrida. Despite the myriad ups and downs of the very concept of art, its relative or absolute autonomy, or its capacity or incapacity for social critique, there remained a general set of constants. One of them was the idea that art, as a space somewhat set apart from the needful things of daily life and especially the instrumentalist thinking of the marketplace, might offer, if not a possible glimpse of a future utopia, at least a clearing for contemplation. Today, an aesthetician is not necessarily a theorist. He or she is also someone who specializes in the treatment of skin. This may seem somehow frivolous, but the connection is real,...
- 1/5/2019
- MUBI
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
Mexico City — Los Cabos Film Festival’s Mexico Primero section is intended to encourage and promote both up-and-coming and against-the-grain Mexican filmmakers.
Five films make up this year’s edition of Mexico Primero, spanning from intimate indie dramas to thrillers to fantasy and horror. Each film offers something unique to the slate, while sharing an almost mystical and auteur commonality. It’s safe to say that Mexico Primero is a singular competition in the world of Mexican cinema.
“Faust” is produced by Andrea Bussmann and famed Mexican director Nicolás Pereda, and directed by Bussmann herself, one of the only two female directors of Mexican films in main competitions at Los Cabos. The film already won her a special jury prize at Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present. A modern, very Mexican, take on the traditional tale of good and evil, the story is told in a ‘70s style mocumentary format...
Five films make up this year’s edition of Mexico Primero, spanning from intimate indie dramas to thrillers to fantasy and horror. Each film offers something unique to the slate, while sharing an almost mystical and auteur commonality. It’s safe to say that Mexico Primero is a singular competition in the world of Mexican cinema.
“Faust” is produced by Andrea Bussmann and famed Mexican director Nicolás Pereda, and directed by Bussmann herself, one of the only two female directors of Mexican films in main competitions at Los Cabos. The film already won her a special jury prize at Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present. A modern, very Mexican, take on the traditional tale of good and evil, the story is told in a ‘70s style mocumentary format...
- 11/6/2018
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
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
The 71st edition of the Locarno Film Festival drew to a close over the weekend, with Singaporean writer-director Yeo Siew Hua’s contemporary noir “A Land Imagined” taking the Golden Lion award in the international competition.
Yeo’s first narrative feature since his experimental 2009 debut “In the House of Straw,” the politically infused mystery – about a Singapore police detective on the trail of a missing Chinese construction worker – was not a widely expected winner of the top prize in a diverse competition that included well-received features by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean and Kent Jones. Variety critic Jay Weissberg was less impressed than Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke’s jury, writing that the film “privileges style over coherence.”
At an award ceremony that saw victories for several female filmmakers, France’s Yolande Zauberman took the Special Jury Prize, essentially the runner-up gong, for “M,” a Yiddish-language exploration of Bnei Brak, the Israeli...
Yeo’s first narrative feature since his experimental 2009 debut “In the House of Straw,” the politically infused mystery – about a Singapore police detective on the trail of a missing Chinese construction worker – was not a widely expected winner of the top prize in a diverse competition that included well-received features by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean and Kent Jones. Variety critic Jay Weissberg was less impressed than Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke’s jury, writing that the film “privileges style over coherence.”
At an award ceremony that saw victories for several female filmmakers, France’s Yolande Zauberman took the Special Jury Prize, essentially the runner-up gong, for “M,” a Yiddish-language exploration of Bnei Brak, the Israeli...
- 8/13/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Can a making-of be a complex anthropological piece of filmmaking? Andrea Bussmann answers that question easily with her documentary short, He Whose Face Gives No Light (2011), filmed during the recording of Malaventura, the first film of Mexican programmer Michel Lipkes. In this documentary, the Canadian director already touches on all of her concerns and intentions regarding cinema, such that her follow-up feature, Tales of Two Who Dreamt (2016), made in collaboration with her husband, the festival-favorite Nicolás Pereda, confirmed her ethnographic approach and her influences from literature, how both of these approaches can work on documentary, and her interest in questioning the concepts and conventions of fiction and documentary forms.We talked to Andrea Bussmann about her first feature directed solo, Fausto (Faust), a particularly interesting and articulate anthropological reflection on the complex historical construction of the present through literature and mythology and the colonizing influence of the word and fiction on quotidian life.
- 8/12/2018
- MUBI
The 71st Locarno Film Festival has come to a close, with Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua’s “A Land Imagined” taking home the coveted Golden Leopard. Joining him on awards night was Dominga Sotomayor, whose “Thursday Till Sunday” follow-up “Too Late to Die Young” earned her Best Director laurels; the 14-hour “La Flor,” however, was not similarly honored.
Carlo Chatrian, who just served his sixth and final year as Artistic Director, said that “Locarno71 was a rich and diversified edition, just as it is in the tradition of a festival which is not afraid to approach extremes and to combine a smile with reflection. The guests who brought their experience and congeniality, were joined by new ideas that were well received.”
Here’s the full list of winners:
Concorso internazionale
Pardo d’oro (Golden Leopard)
A Land Imagined by Yeo Siew Hua, Singapore / France / The Netherlands
Premio Speciale della giuria...
Carlo Chatrian, who just served his sixth and final year as Artistic Director, said that “Locarno71 was a rich and diversified edition, just as it is in the tradition of a festival which is not afraid to approach extremes and to combine a smile with reflection. The guests who brought their experience and congeniality, were joined by new ideas that were well received.”
Here’s the full list of winners:
Concorso internazionale
Pardo d’oro (Golden Leopard)
A Land Imagined by Yeo Siew Hua, Singapore / France / The Netherlands
Premio Speciale della giuria...
- 8/11/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
The 71st edition of the Swiss film festival closed with the awards ceremony on August 11.
Siew Hua Yeo’s second feature A Land Imagined has become the first film from Singapore to take home the top honour of the Golden Leopard in the history of the Locarno Festival.
The Singapore-France-Netherlands co-production, which received backing from Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and Cnc’s World Cinema Fund, follows a police investigator who must find a missing migrant in industrial Singapore.
The International Competition jury headed by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke awarded the special jury prize to Yolande Zauberman’s documentary M,...
Siew Hua Yeo’s second feature A Land Imagined has become the first film from Singapore to take home the top honour of the Golden Leopard in the history of the Locarno Festival.
The Singapore-France-Netherlands co-production, which received backing from Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and Cnc’s World Cinema Fund, follows a police investigator who must find a missing migrant in industrial Singapore.
The International Competition jury headed by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke awarded the special jury prize to Yolande Zauberman’s documentary M,...
- 8/11/2018
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The Toronto Intl. Film Festival has added Denys Arcand’s crime thriller “The Fall of the American Empire” and 18 other Canadian films to its lineup.
Nine of the films are directed by women and 14 are world premieres.
“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, senior programmer. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy, myth to documentary, and romance to a dystopic vision of our neighbours to the south, this year’s Canadian films come from every region in the country, stretching from east to west and north to south.”
“The Fall of the American Empire” stars Alexandre Landry, Maxim Roy, Yan England, and Rémy Girard and centers Landry’s character discovering two bags of money and facing a moral dilemma. Arcand was inspired to make the film after learning about the 2010 murder of two people in a Montreal boutique.
Sony Classics bought the...
Nine of the films are directed by women and 14 are world premieres.
“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, senior programmer. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy, myth to documentary, and romance to a dystopic vision of our neighbours to the south, this year’s Canadian films come from every region in the country, stretching from east to west and north to south.”
“The Fall of the American Empire” stars Alexandre Landry, Maxim Roy, Yan England, and Rémy Girard and centers Landry’s character discovering two bags of money and facing a moral dilemma. Arcand was inspired to make the film after learning about the 2010 murder of two people in a Montreal boutique.
Sony Classics bought the...
- 8/1/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
The Toronto International Film Festival has added another 19 new titles to its 2018 festival lineup, comprised entirely of features directed by Canadian filmmakers. Each year, Tiff highlights the films that hail from its own shores in a standalone announcement, and this year it includes nine new films from female directors, six debut features, a number of titles from fixtures of the Canadian film scene, and the world premiere of three films that showcase some of the country’s Indigenous talent.
The festival will also play home to a special event world premiere and tribute dedicated to the late filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart, centered around his final film, “Sharkwater Extinction.” Stewart passed away in 2017 while working on the film, a followup to his 2006 documentary “Sharkwater.”
“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, Tiff Senior Programmer, in an official statement. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy,...
The festival will also play home to a special event world premiere and tribute dedicated to the late filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart, centered around his final film, “Sharkwater Extinction.” Stewart passed away in 2017 while working on the film, a followup to his 2006 documentary “Sharkwater.”
“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, Tiff Senior Programmer, in an official statement. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy,...
- 8/1/2018
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
New films from Canadian filmmakers Denys Arcand, Maxime Giroux, Jennifer Baichwal and Bruce Sweeney have been added to 2018 Toronto International Film Festival lineup, which announced its slate of Canadian films on Wednesday.
Nine of the films are directed by women, fsix are debut features and 14 are world premieres.
Canadian features will include Arcand’s “The Fall of the American Empire,” Giroux’s “The Great Darkened Days” and Sweeney’s “Kingsway.”
Also Read: 'Beautiful Boy,' 'A Star Is Born' Highlight Toronto Film Festival Lineup
The Canadian documentaries include Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky’s “Anthropocene,” Ron Mann’s “Carmine Street Guitars” and Thom Fitzgerald’s “Splinters.”
Three of the films – Gwaii Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s “Edge of the Knife,” Darlene Naponse’s “Falls Around Her” and Miranda de Pencier’s “The Grizzlies” – feature indigenous talent.
A special event will screen the documentary “Sharkwater Extinction,...
Nine of the films are directed by women, fsix are debut features and 14 are world premieres.
Canadian features will include Arcand’s “The Fall of the American Empire,” Giroux’s “The Great Darkened Days” and Sweeney’s “Kingsway.”
Also Read: 'Beautiful Boy,' 'A Star Is Born' Highlight Toronto Film Festival Lineup
The Canadian documentaries include Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky’s “Anthropocene,” Ron Mann’s “Carmine Street Guitars” and Thom Fitzgerald’s “Splinters.”
Three of the films – Gwaii Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s “Edge of the Knife,” Darlene Naponse’s “Falls Around Her” and Miranda de Pencier’s “The Grizzlies” – feature indigenous talent.
A special event will screen the documentary “Sharkwater Extinction,...
- 8/1/2018
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
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
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