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A popular anime empire and a beloved manga both hit screens in North America this weekend, with The Outrun starring Saoirse Ronan, five actors playing surrealist artist Salvador Dali, and a trio of thought provoking docs new on the specialty circuit this weekend.

Also noting Columbia Pictures’ Saturday Night from Jason Reitman, which rocked its opening last week, expands in NY and LA and adds ten new markets for 21 locations total before going wide Oct. 11. The film, based on the true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975, debuted to $270k at five theaters in NY/LA for a terrific $54k per theater average.

Moderate releases: Sony Pictures Classics’ Saoirse Ronan-starring and Nora Fingscheidt-directed drama The Outrun hits 508 screens. After a decade away in London, 29-year-old Rona (Ronan) returns home to the Orkney Islands. Sober but lonely,...

‘The Substance’ is being distributed by Mubi, but does that mean the Mubi streaming service is where you’ll be able to watch it at home first?

Demi Moore returns to the silver screen in the new body horror flick “The Substance.” The movie makes its official theatrical debut in the United States on Friday, Sept. 20, but how long will it be until you’re able to stream it from the comforts of your own couch? Get our expert prediction below!

Key Details: “The Substance” has compiled a promising critical and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is being distributed in the United States by Mubi, and will most likely wind up on that streamer first. A theatrical-exclusive window of fewer than 90 days seems most likey. 7-Day Free Trial $14.99+ / month via amazon.com Watch the Trailer for ‘The Substance’:

“The Substance” stars Moore as Elisabeth, a popular TV aerobics...

From “Rubber” to “Wrong” to “Smoking Causes Coughing” and “The Second Act,” eccentric French auteur Quentin Dupieux is quickly becoming one of Europe’s most prolific filmmakers akin to a Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Albeit with eccentric, often fourth-wall-breaking comedies. He had two films debut at festivals in 2023, including the heckler hostage comedy “Yannick” at Locarno and the Salvador Dalí “real fake biopic” “Daaaaaalí!” out of competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A movie where five actors play the surrealist icon, “Daaaaaalí!” is now making its way to U.S. theaters courtesy of Music Box Films, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “For journalist Judith Rochant (Anaïs Demoustier), the assignment to interview renowned artist Salvador Dalí is a great career opportunity–if only he would agree to sit still and answer a single question. What begins as a 15-minute conversation blows up into a bonafide cinematographic documentary portrait,...

Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.For more Cannes 2024 coverage, subscribe to the Weekly Edit newsletter.The Second Act.There is a filmmaker who makes movies that are above all conceptual, with the story but a brittle skeleton barely holding the thing together. He makes at least one movie a year, all under 90 minutes, all modestly casual affairs with various doses of drollness; and all feature a philosophical premise or metaphysical quandary at their core. He writes, directs, shoots, and edits the films himself. Dissenters tend to think he isn’t funny and that all his movies are tedious and basically the same; fans, of course, hold the opposite opinion. He opened the Cannes Film Festival this year, but despite what you may assume, this filmmaker isn’t Hong Sang-soo; rather, it’s Quentin Dupieux, who also shares with Hong a cinema of welcome brevity and levity. These might be the reasons...

Quentin Dupieux’s new film The Second Act (Le deuxième acte) opened the 77th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival. It’s noteworthy that it’s a Netflix co-production and, although this could mean that Dupieux eventually reaches many more people, there’s nothing to worry about in the sense that his cinema remains very peculiar. Likewise, Dupieux continues a prolific and high-quality streak, which includes recent titles such as Incredible But True (Incroyable mais vrai), Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer fait tousser) and Yannick. At the beginning of The Second Act we see friends David (Louis Garrel) and Willy (Raphaël Quenard) walking together and chatting about a peculiar proposal: David wants Willy to help him get rid of a woman who has been trying to seduce him for...

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

This year’s Cannes Film Festival should prove particularly festive for Mediawan Pictures managing director Elisabeth d’Arvieu. With five in-house productions premiering in the official selection and another in Critics’ Week, the exec and her team will hit the Croisette with cause for celebration.

As an ardent cinephile, she bolstered an extracurricular passion for movies while getting an Mba from Baruch College in New York. She still takes in a film a day.

The Cannes celebration promises to start early for Mediawan, kicking off with Quentin Dupieux’s festival opener “The Second Act,” then Palme d’Or contending Hearts” from Gilles Lellouche and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie,” the epic “The Count of Monte-Cristo” screening out of competition and Un Certain Regard player “Le Royaume” from

emerging talent Julien Colonna.

When taken as a whole, the strong showing nicely reflects the group’s wider ambitions, from...

Cannes film festival

With help from an A-list cast, Dupieux brings his customary mischief to an amiable tale of imposture and role play

Cannes can always do worse than choose a comedy for its opening gala, and the festival is off to an amiable, entertaining start. Quentin Dupieux brings the wackiness onstream with this cheerfully mischievous, unrepentantly facetious fourth-wall-badgering sketch. It’s a sprightly meta gag, a movie about a movie, or perhaps a movie about a movie about a movie – or perhaps just a movie, full stop, whose point is to claim that reality as we experience it inside and outside the cinema is unitary despite the levels of imposture and role-play we bring to it. It is all just one unbroken skein of experience like the endless dolly-track (the temporary rail that lets the camera move smoothly) that Dupieux finally shows us.

There are plenty of laugh lines,...

With 13 features made since 2007, and six in the past four years, French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupieux is clearly no slacker. Not only has he helmed all these films — he’s also written, shot and edited them, as well as composed many of their scores.

Starting with his surreal deadpan début, Rubber, and up through last year’s Yannick and Daaaaali!, Dupieux has had an impressively prolific run, gradually improving with each new movie while honing a style and tone that are completely his own.

If, however, there’s one drawback to this incessant activity, it’s that his films all have very short running times because they tend to lack classic denouements. They’re well-executed, high-concept affairs blending comedy, sci-fi, horror and other genres in fun ways, but they often play out like long second acts without real endings.

Dupieux was perhaps aware of this flaw when he decided to call...

Something has subtly shifted in Quentin Dupieux’s perspective, leaving the one-man-band of French cinema a rather different auteur than the anti-comedy punk that nearly stumbled onto the festival stage so many years ago. Chalk it up to maturity or to an impressive professional rise — reaching new highs this year with the opening slot at the Cannes Film Festival — but the director’s tone has softened and his targets have shifted, even as his working methods (and working ethic) remain set-in-stone.

Like a distant Gallic cousin to Wes Anderson and Hong Sang-soo (now there are two names you rarely see together), Dupieux has connected a distinctive voice into a well-honed system built for productivity, allowing him to write-direct-shoot-edit-and-score a new film every year. And sometimes, he finds time for two.

Within the past twelve months, he’s brought films “Yannick” and “Daaaaaalí!” to Locarno and Venice, and now steps into...

"Total nonsense, don't listen to what they're saying." Unifrance has revealed the first look teaser trailer for the new film from Quentin Dupieux titled The Second Act, which will be the Opening Night premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival this month. The fest kicks off May 14th – and this will be screening on that same day and opening in French theaters, too. Dupieux has been cranking out films non-stop, with Smoking Causes Coughing, Yannick, and Daaaaaali! just in the last few years. This next one stars Léa Seydoux as Florence, Louis Garrel as David, Vincent Lindon as Guillaume, and Raphaël Quenard as Willy, plus Manuel Guillot as Stephane and Françoise Gazio as Rose. Here is the setup: Florence (Seydoux) wants to introduce David (Garrel), the man she's madly in love with, to her father, Guillaume (Lindon). But David isn't attracted to Florence and wants to throw her into the arms...

Quentin Dupieux's Yannick is now showing exclusively on Mubi from April 5, 2024.Yannick.Ever since he dogged a sentient tire on a killing spree in Rubber (2010), musician-turned-filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has been distilling a singular form of gonzo. The films he’s crafted—a body of work swelling at the speed of Hong Sang-soo, with six features released since 2019—all belie their modest means. Rarely stretching longer than eighty minutes, they’ve followed a number of deranged characters, which have recently included a man reprogrammed as a killing machine by his leather jacket; a pig-sized fly and the two bums who try to make a pet out of it; a gang of Power Rangers–type avengers armed with tobacco smoke’s chemical constituents, and a middle-aged couple who discovers a time-travel portal in their basement. Dupieux—who routinely writes, shoots, directs, and edits his own films—likes to work with a...

This year’s Cannes Film Festival is getting … zany? Such is the news today, as the festival has announced that Quentin Dupieux’s “Le Deuxième Acte” (“The Second Act”) will open the 77th edition of the lauded festival in an out of competition slot. The film will premiere on opening day, Tuesday, May 14.

The film stars Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, and Louis Garrel — and, yes, you can thank Cannes brass for that “zany” designation, as today’s official announcement shares that the trio are entering the filmmaker’s “zany universe for the first time” — and they will be joined by Dupieux regular Raphaël Quenard (who previously starred in the singular filmmaker’s “Mandibles,” “Smoking Causes Coughing,” and “Yannick”).

“The Second Act” is a “four-part comedy” that, per the festival, “shows itself to be a new mise en abyme around acting.” Per its official synopsis: “Florence wants to introduce David, the...

Quentin Dupieux’s Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act), starring Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon, will kick off the 77th Cannes Film Festival.

The French director will world premiere his latest film out of competition on May 14, with the surreal comedy to be released in French cinemas on the same day. Dupieux and his cast will walk the red carpet at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, to help launch the film and the wider Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes organizers praised the prolific French director for having “freed himself from convention through an already extensive body of work (13 feature films in 17 years), establishing the absurd as a genre in its own right and shaking up all the others – of which The Second Act is a perfect case in point!”

The marquee French festival earlier announced Barbie director Greta Gerwig will serve as the Cannes jury president, becoming only the second female director to take over the post,...

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will kick off with Quentin Dupieux’s “The Second Act,” a star-studded surreal French comedy headlined by Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphaël Quenard, Variety has learned.

The anticipated movie is produced by Hugo Selignac at Chi-Fou-Mi, a Mediawan company, and is represented in international markets by Kinology. The film will play out of competition on May 14 and will be released on the same day in French theaters.

Laced with absurdist humor, the meta movie follows actors starring in a doomed film production. Dupieux is one of France’s most popular and prolific filmmakers. He delivered two films in 2023: “Daaaaaalí,” which played out-of-competition at Venice, and “Yannick,” a French box office hit that sold around the world.

In confirming the film’s selection at Cannes, the festival described Quentin as a “filmmaker who embraces freedom – in tone, form and...

"What's my name again?" Mubi has unveiled an official trailer for an absurdity, meta French comedy called Yannick, the second film from 2023 by the wacky French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux. This premiered at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival last year and will be streaming on Mubi starting in April. Dupieux never stops working! Smoking Causes Coughing was released last year, and he also brought Daaaaaali! in Venice and this one in Locarno, plus he has another new film rumored for Cannes 2024. In this – on a rare night off, parking attendant Yannick goes to the theater to catch a production of the comedy The Cuckold (aka "Le Cocu"). Dissatisfied by the boring performance, Yannick hijacks the show: he takes the theater hostage and demands to become the playwright. This film stars Raphaël Quenard as Yannick, Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin and Sébastien Chassagne. Shot in secret in just 6 days, this award-winning comedy is ready...

French director Quentin Dupieux may be in the busiest period of his career. After two films in 2022 (“Smoking Causes Coughing” and “Incredible But True“), he released two more last year. First up, the faux-biopic “Daaaaaalí!,” which bowed at the Venice Film Festival and still awaits a stateside theatrical release. And then there’s “Yannick,” another film Dupieux quickly released in French theaters last August before screening at the Locarno Film Festival the next day.

Continue reading ‘Yannick’ Trailer: Quentin Dupieux’s Latest Debuts On Mubi On April 5 at The Playlist.

France’s awards season has officially kicked off with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” landing six nominations at the Lumières Awards, including best film and director.

The courtroom drama, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, is the season’s frontrunner. The Lumières are voted on by Paris-based correspondents working for foreign outlets across 36 countries.

Sandra Huller, who stars in the film as a German novelist put on trial after her French husband dies mysteriously, is nominated for best actress, while Milo Machado Graner, who plays her astute, low-vision son, is nominated for best male newcomer.

“Anatomy of Fall” has been on a roll, garnering a raft of international prizes at the European Film Awards, Gothams, as well as Los Angeles and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, along with four Golden Globe nominations for best film, screenplay, actress and foreign film. The movie that was...

Producer is France’s Ts Productions, whose credits include Golden Bear-winner ’On The Adamant’.

France TV Distribution has taken worldwide rights to Giulio Callegari’s debut feature Robot T-0 now in production in France. It is selling the film at Rome’s Mia film market this week.

Callegari is best known in France for co-writing and co-creating Canal+ hit series All the Way Up (Validé) and as a co-writer on French anthology film Selfie that explored humans’ relationship with technology.

Robot T-0 is set in a near future where robots have replaced humans in every household. The film follows a...

Brussels-based distributor’s first release is Quentin Dupieux comedy Yannick.

Brussels-based producers Joao Vinhas and Benjamin Honoré and lawyer Camille Doyen are launching distribution outfit Case Départ into the Benelux market with the release of Quentin Dupieux’s comedy Yannick in September.

Sold by Kinology, the film won the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film at this month’s Locarno Film Festival.

Case Départ has also acquired Dupieux’s comedy Daaaaaali! which is screening out of competitin at the Venice film festival, to be released in spring 2024.

Further releases include Edouard A. Tremblay’s fantasy comedy Farador on November...

“You’re full of hate and frustrations. you should take a break,” director Quentin Dupieux once tweeted at me, immediately following my review of his 2014 film “Reality.” In another world, someone might have advised him against picking a fight with a film critic. You know, never quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel, and all that. But I didn’t mind. I’d said some harsh things about his movie. Seems only fair that he could retort.

In Dupieux’s latest, “Yannick,” the title character is a critic. Like Dupieux, Yannick does the unthinkable, expressing his displeasure. In a way. That. Is. Not. Done. He opens his mouth during the show. And it’s hilarious — by challenging this incredibly specific (but seldom questioned) cultural taboo, Dupieux has concocted both a ripe comedic premise and a chance to interrogate what audiences expect from art: Diversion? Entertainment? Uplift? Provocation?...

As the first major international film festival mounted following SAG-aftrta’s decision to join the WGA in strike action against the studios, there was much speculation about how the Locarno Film Festival would adapt its lineup.

The fest lost its opening-night centerpiece at short notice, with UK actor-producer Riz Ahmed pulling out of an appearance during which he was set to receive Locarno’s Davide Campari lifetime achievement award. Fellow lifetime award recipient Stellan Skarsgård also pulled out of his festival engagements.

Instead, the fest pulled into motion Wednesday evening with a subdued opening-night ceremony. Proceedings began with the festival’s outgoing president, Marco Solari, opening the event for the last time following a 23-year tenure. He was followed onstage by artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who, despite Ahmed’s absence, pushed on with the Davide Campari lifetime achievement award presentation, handing the gong to director Yann Mounir Demange. The...

When we dial Locarno chief Giona A. Nazzaro’s line, he’s in the process of slipping into an air-conditioned bar where he can escape the blistering heat that has consumed Southern Europe for much of July.

“It’s like living in a furnace,” he says. “It’s terrible, believe me.”

This year’s Locarno Film Festival is Nazzaro’s third edition as Artistic Director. He took charge in 2020, navigating the festival through the pandemic, and has now been tasked with pulling the event together amid dual US labor strikes.

“There hasn’t been a moment since I took the helm where I could switch to autopilot and cruise along,” he adds.

Mounted on the Italian-Swiss border, Locarno will be the first major international festival impacted by the strike, with an Aug 2 kick-off date. The fest runs until Aug 12. Locarno hosts an Official Competition, several sidebar sections, and an open-air screening program for local audiences.

Kinology has boarded Quentin Dupieux’s (“Rubber”) ferocious comedy “Yannick” which will world premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.

The anticipated film is produced by Thomas et Mathieu Verhaeghe at Atelier de production, and Hugo Selignac at Chi-Fou-Mi Productions. “Yannick” stars Raphaël Quenard, Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin and Sébastien Chassagne.

Yannick” unfolds during a mediocre stage performance of “Le Cocu” during which an audience member revolts and takes the full reins of the room.

“‘Yannick’ is Quentin Dupieux’s most mature film; it’s both melancholic and thoughtful,” said Gregoire Melin, Kinology’s founder and president. “We’re so excited to be reteaming with him after ‘Daaaaaali!’ and ‘Wrong’ on this new film which could become even more cult than his previous movies,” Melin continued.

Diaphana will release “Yannick” in France on Aug. 2. Kinology will kick off international sales at Locarno. Dupieux, who is one of France’s most prolific filmmakers,...

A stellar precursor to the busy fall film festival season, Locarno Film Festival annually premieres some of the year’s most exciting cinema and 2023 looks to be no different. Taking place from August 2-12 in the Swiss town, the festival has now unveiled its lineup for the 76th edition. Highlights include Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3 (brilliantly forgoing a second film), Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths of the Lake, Sylvain George’s Nuit Obscure – Au Revoir Ici, N’Importe Où, and Quentin Dupieux’s Yannick.

Speaking to its main section, Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, said, “From Quentin Dupieux and his edgy surrealism to Lav Diaz. From the sarcastic humor of Radu Jude to the night poetry of Sylvain Georges. From the mad inventions of Rainer Sarnet to the abstract psychedelia of Eduardo Williams.

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, Europe’s biggest mid-Summer movie event, has announced its lineup, welcoming recognizable names to its main competition, from Filipino auteur Lav Diaz (“Essential Truths of the Lake”) to Romanian powerhouse Radu Jude, who will show “Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World.”

As already announced, Cate Blanchett and Zar Amir Ebrahimi are set to attend the Locarno Film Festival’s closing night to promote the European launch of Iranian-Australian director Noora Niasari’s debut film “Shayda.”

Among the titles selected for Locarno’s more broad-audience-friendly Piazza Grande lineup, Justine Triet will attend with her Cannes Palme’ d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” along with Ken Loach and his “The Old Oak.”

The festival will also celebrate the careers of Harmony Korine, producer Marianne Slot, editor Pietro Scalia, Tsai Ming-liang and present a Lifetime Achievement Award to Italian producer Renzo Rossellini.

UK star Riz Ahmed will be feted with a career achievement award at the upcoming 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, running August 2 and 12.

The Sound Of Metal actor will be presented with the Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening night ceremony on the festival’s landmark Piazza Grande open-air cinema.

The ceremony will premiere Yann Mounir Demange’s semi-autobiographical short film Dammi, in which Ahmed participated alongside Isabelle Adjani, Souheila Yacoub, Sandor Funtek and Suzy Bemba.

The tribute will also screen Bassam Tariq’s 2020 rapper drama Mughal Mowgli, which Ahmed starred in and also produced and co-wrote, as part of it program.

Locarno announced the tribute during its announcement on Wednesday of its full 2023 line-up.

French directorial duo Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel’s The Falling Star will open the festival as part of the Piazza Grande program, which also features Justine Triet’s 2023 Cannes d’Or Winner Anatomy of a Fall,...