The Wind Carries On: Mateus Crafts Political Fable Fusing Past & Present
In her debut film, Fogo do Vento (Fire of Wind), which finds a harvesting community lost in the past as they face an uncertain future, Portuguese director Marta Mateus descends into an abstract fable where shared memories, prayers, and pleas coalesce. Produced by Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa, whose influence on Mateus’ presentation feels apparent, it’s an arthouse fable about the metaphorical plights of the working class, where even the beasts of burden have revolted, pinning them between a rock and a hard place. A long night spent in the trees ends with a morning bringing with it struggles of the past, marrying a past with the unstable present.…...
In her debut film, Fogo do Vento (Fire of Wind), which finds a harvesting community lost in the past as they face an uncertain future, Portuguese director Marta Mateus descends into an abstract fable where shared memories, prayers, and pleas coalesce. Produced by Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa, whose influence on Mateus’ presentation feels apparent, it’s an arthouse fable about the metaphorical plights of the working class, where even the beasts of burden have revolted, pinning them between a rock and a hard place. A long night spent in the trees ends with a morning bringing with it struggles of the past, marrying a past with the unstable present.…...
- 8/13/2024
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Founded in 1946, Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is one of the world’s longest-running film festivals, known for its adventurous programming, exciting retrospectives, and nightly open-air screenings in the Piazza Grande, capable of seating 8,000 spectators. The latter is by no means the only screening spot, but it’s the location most associated with the festival.
Hosting world premieres and special screenings of highlights from Cannes, SXSW, and other early-year festivals, this year’s Piazza Grande selection includes the launch of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette portrait “The Flood,” starring Guillaume Canet and Mélanie Laurent; Bérénice Béjo-led thriller “Mexico 86”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s Cannes prizewinner “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; actor Paz Vega’s directorial debut “Rita”; and the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored recut of “The Fall.”
The Piazza Grande often showcases more mainstream fare, but Locarno has always prided itself on providing a less hostile...
Hosting world premieres and special screenings of highlights from Cannes, SXSW, and other early-year festivals, this year’s Piazza Grande selection includes the launch of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette portrait “The Flood,” starring Guillaume Canet and Mélanie Laurent; Bérénice Béjo-led thriller “Mexico 86”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s Cannes prizewinner “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; actor Paz Vega’s directorial debut “Rita”; and the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored recut of “The Fall.”
The Piazza Grande often showcases more mainstream fare, but Locarno has always prided itself on providing a less hostile...
- 8/6/2024
- by Josh Slater-Williams
- Indiewire
Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa will host this year’s Creators Lab, organized and operated in Mexico by Playlab Films. The 2024 edition of the Lab will be held in Mexico, with a record 50 emerging filmmakers in attendance.
Pedro Costa Lab: Mexico will run from Sept. 23 to Oct. 3 at the Shambalanté, a space in the Yucatecan jungle curated by the Playlab Films team. According to its designers, the space uses “sacred geometry, ancient techniques, and modern eco-technology to achieve harmony across times, becoming a sanctuary of relaxation and healing.”
For 12 days, participants will share meals, walks, and stream-of-consciousness conversations about their craft. Each will get the chance to make a short film with input and support from their peers. Ten of the shorts will be picked to receive full-color grading and distribution at international festivals. All on-site transportation, accommodations, meals, and activities are included in the Lab’s €6,100 fee.
Attendees of this...
Pedro Costa Lab: Mexico will run from Sept. 23 to Oct. 3 at the Shambalanté, a space in the Yucatecan jungle curated by the Playlab Films team. According to its designers, the space uses “sacred geometry, ancient techniques, and modern eco-technology to achieve harmony across times, becoming a sanctuary of relaxation and healing.”
For 12 days, participants will share meals, walks, and stream-of-consciousness conversations about their craft. Each will get the chance to make a short film with input and support from their peers. Ten of the shorts will be picked to receive full-color grading and distribution at international festivals. All on-site transportation, accommodations, meals, and activities are included in the Lab’s €6,100 fee.
Attendees of this...
- 7/5/2024
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Everything is ready for the 14th edition of the Festival Internacional de Cine Unam (Ficunam), which will take place from June 13 to 20 in Mexico City. As part of the Atlas section, we will finally be able to see Harmony Korine’s new experimental film in Cdmx: Aggro Dr1ft, starring rapper Travis Scott and notorious for having been “shot entirely through termal lens.” This section, dedicated to international auteur cinema, also includes recent works by Wang Bing (Youth (Spring)), Mati Diop (the documentary Dahomey), Tsai Ming-liang (Abiding Nowhere), Kleber Mendoça Filho (Pictures of Ghosts), Pedro Costa (The Daughters of Fire), and Hong Sang-soo (A Traveler’s Needs). Straight from Cannes comes Payal Kapadia’s Grand Prix-winning drama All We Imagine as Light. This Mumbai-set film is part...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 6/7/2024
- Screen Anarchy
God bless everyone who truly thought David Lynch announcing “something for you to see and hear” portended a fourth season of Twin Peaks or new feature. I long for anything even within the vicinity of such optimism, but longtime completists knew the safe money was on more music. Lo and behold: today brings the official unveiling of his next album Cellophane Memories, recorded with longtime collaborator Chrystabell, featuring contributions from the late Angelo Badalamenti, and arriving August 2 via Sacred Bones Records.
According to Spin, Cellophane Memories emerged from Lynch’s vision experienced “during a nighttime walk through a forest of tall trees, over the tops of which he saw a bright light” that became Chrystabell’s voice, and in turn “revealed a secret to him.”
Great news for those of us who can hum BlueBOB tracks. Those wanting something more cinematic will have a little bit to chew on: with...
According to Spin, Cellophane Memories emerged from Lynch’s vision experienced “during a nighttime walk through a forest of tall trees, over the tops of which he saw a bright light” that became Chrystabell’s voice, and in turn “revealed a secret to him.”
Great news for those of us who can hum BlueBOB tracks. Those wanting something more cinematic will have a little bit to chew on: with...
- 6/5/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDahomey.Mati Diop’s Dahomey (2024), a documentary about the repatriation of artifacts plundered by French colonists to the present-day Republic of Benin, won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. It is only the second film from the African continent to take the festival’s top prize.The Berlinale has filed criminal charges against activists who hacked the festival’s Instagram account on Sunday to post calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which the festival deemed “anti-Semitic.”The festival has also released a statement disavowing the acceptance speeches of award winners who used their platform to speak out against the occupation and war. Such speeches included those by Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau, whose Direct Action won Best Film in the Encounters section, and by Yuval Abraham,...
- 2/29/2024
- MUBI
Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.Fallen Leaves.There’s a moment early in Aki Kaurismäki’s latest film, Fallen Leaves (2023), that will surely tug at the heartstrings of shy lovers everywhere. A man, Holappa (played by Jussi Vatanen), and a woman, Ansa (Alma Pöysti), sit across from each other in a bar. Between them, his friend tries vainly to flirt with hers, getting nowhere, but Holappa and Ansa themselves do not speak, and instead merely stare meekly into their drinks, the gap of a few meters opening up like a yawning chasm. Then, for just a moment, Holappa looks up from his beer and their eyes meet. And as they do, the first cascading piano chords of Franz Schubert’s “Serenade” are heard and a besuited man takes the karaoke stage to start singing: “Softly my songs plead / through the night for...
- 2/4/2024
- MUBI
Argentina’s newly elected president Javier Milei is bent on keeping his chainsaw-wielding campaign promise to cut state spending, including scrapping the country’s national film institute (Incaa) and its film schools (Enerc).
His mega draft bill, aimed at reining in Argentina’s hyper-inflation, has prompted more than 300 directors, producers, actors, critics and colleagues from across the world, led by Academy Award winners Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cannes winners Aki Kaurismäki (“Autumn Leaves”) and the Dardenne Brothers (“Rosetta”), to sign a communiqué protesting the far-right libertarian’s proposal.
The other signees include actor-producers Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, Isabelle Huppert, directors Olivier Assayas, Kelly Reichardt, Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juan Antonio Bayona, Pedro Costa, Asif Kapadia, Corneliu Porumboiu, Abel Ferrara, Mira Nair, Roger Corman and Isabel Coixet, among many other prominent figures in the global film community.
In a statement, the newly formed coalition Cine Argentino Unido, spearheaded by film director associations,...
His mega draft bill, aimed at reining in Argentina’s hyper-inflation, has prompted more than 300 directors, producers, actors, critics and colleagues from across the world, led by Academy Award winners Pedro Almodóvar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cannes winners Aki Kaurismäki (“Autumn Leaves”) and the Dardenne Brothers (“Rosetta”), to sign a communiqué protesting the far-right libertarian’s proposal.
The other signees include actor-producers Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, Isabelle Huppert, directors Olivier Assayas, Kelly Reichardt, Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juan Antonio Bayona, Pedro Costa, Asif Kapadia, Corneliu Porumboiu, Abel Ferrara, Mira Nair, Roger Corman and Isabel Coixet, among many other prominent figures in the global film community.
In a statement, the newly formed coalition Cine Argentino Unido, spearheaded by film director associations,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDry Leaf.On Criterion’s Daily, David Hudson has shared a useful roundup of films that might be expected to premiere during 2024. Among the inclusions are: Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho’s first film since Parasite (2019); It’s Not Me, Leos Carax’s latest collaboration with Denis Lavant; and Dry Leaf, the enticing-sounding new film by Alexandre Koberidze (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? [2021]), which is said to be about “a photographer who shoots soccer stadiums [who] goes missing.”A list of international filmmakers including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa, Radu Jude, Ira Sachs, Claire Denis, and Abderrahmane Sissako have signed a letter, published during the holiday season in the French newspaper Libération, demanding (as translated by the Film Stage) “an immediate end to the bombings on Gaza,...
- 1/10/2024
- MUBI
As we continue to explore the best in 2023, today we’re taking a look at the articles that you, our dear readers, enjoyed the most throughout the past twelve months. Spanning reviews, interviews, features, podcasts, news, and trailers, check out the highlights below and return for more year-end coverage as well as a glimpse into 2024.
Most-Read Reviews
1. Body Parts
2. The Exorcist: Believer
3. Barbie
4. Beau Is Afraid
5. Priscilla
6. Suzume
7. Hypnotic
8. No Hard Feelings
9. The Zone of Interest
10. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Most-Read Interviews
1. Claire Simon on Capturing the Female Body and What Sets Her Apart From Frederick Wiseman
2. “I Don’t Think Directors Should Be Amenable”: Erik Messerschmidt on Shooting The Killer and David Fincher’s Simple Process
3. Richard Kelly on Creative Heartbreak, Political Cinema, and Future Projects
4. Christopher Blauvelt on May December, Formatting for Netflix and 35mm, and Life Lessons from Harris Savides
5. Brandon Cronenberg on Infinity Pool,...
Most-Read Reviews
1. Body Parts
2. The Exorcist: Believer
3. Barbie
4. Beau Is Afraid
5. Priscilla
6. Suzume
7. Hypnotic
8. No Hard Feelings
9. The Zone of Interest
10. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Most-Read Interviews
1. Claire Simon on Capturing the Female Body and What Sets Her Apart From Frederick Wiseman
2. “I Don’t Think Directors Should Be Amenable”: Erik Messerschmidt on Shooting The Killer and David Fincher’s Simple Process
3. Richard Kelly on Creative Heartbreak, Political Cinema, and Future Projects
4. Christopher Blauvelt on May December, Formatting for Netflix and 35mm, and Life Lessons from Harris Savides
5. Brandon Cronenberg on Infinity Pool,...
- 1/1/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
No reasonably intelligent person imagines an artist’s statement about the horrors in Gaza would, in fact, end those horrors, but there are always limits to what one can take and hopes for what one could do. It might even be said that, as observers of the world and human behavior, filmmakers are especially inclined to recoil. When I interviewed Pedro Costa last month he spoke, unprompted, of a situation that’s only grown worse: “It’s very clear that we cannot stand images anymore. I can’t. I can’t. The images of the world for me [Exhales] I can’t. I turn my eyes, and I’m sure you do the same. It’s unbearable.” When I spoke with Anthony Dod Mantle a couple of weeks later it, again, emerged––vis-a-vis The Zone of Interest, whose own cinematographer alluded to it the next day. It’s difficult being a person in the world,...
- 12/29/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
What do some of the directors of the best movies of 2023 think about the year in cinema? Films in Frame polled Christian Petzold, Justine Triet, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice, Aki Kaurismäki, Bas Devos, Pham Thien An, Joanna Arnow, Radu Jude, Pedro Costa, Rodrigo Moreno, Lisandro Alonso, and more––and we’ll spotlight one of the best lists, from the Afire director, here.
While he admits he wasn’t able to check out the latest from Albert Serra, Jonathan Glazer, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kelly Reichardt, Aki Kaurismäki, and Hirokazu Kore-eda, he did find time for this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Mexico’s 2023 Oscar entry, Ireland’s 2022 Oscar entry, and of course, the latest from one of his favorite actors on the planet, Gerard Butler.
Check out Petzold’s picks below and visit Films in Frame to see more lists.
The Quiet Girl (Colm Bairead)
Anatomy of a Fall...
While he admits he wasn’t able to check out the latest from Albert Serra, Jonathan Glazer, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kelly Reichardt, Aki Kaurismäki, and Hirokazu Kore-eda, he did find time for this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Mexico’s 2023 Oscar entry, Ireland’s 2022 Oscar entry, and of course, the latest from one of his favorite actors on the planet, Gerard Butler.
Check out Petzold’s picks below and visit Films in Frame to see more lists.
The Quiet Girl (Colm Bairead)
Anatomy of a Fall...
- 12/20/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In 1951, a volcano erupted on Fogo, one of the Cape Verde islands. That incident is the starting point for The Daughters of Fire, an experimental short by the Portuguese director Pedro Costa. Costa splits the screen into panels portraying three women—Adelaide, Clotilde, and Irodina—singing over an arrangement of Biagio Marini’s “Passacaglia (Opus 22).” The film ends with footage from A Erupcao do vulcao da ilha do Fogo, a 1951 documentary by ethnologist Orlando Ribeiro. The films are part of Canción de Pedro Costa, a museum exhibition currently touring Europe. In museums the films are projected separately in three different […]
The post “Why Make It Simple?” Pedro Costa on The Daughters of Fire first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Why Make It Simple?” Pedro Costa on The Daughters of Fire first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 12/1/2023
- by Daniel Eagan
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
In 1951, a volcano erupted on Fogo, one of the Cape Verde islands. That incident is the starting point for The Daughters of Fire, an experimental short by the Portuguese director Pedro Costa. Costa splits the screen into panels portraying three women—Adelaide, Clotilde, and Irodina—singing over an arrangement of Biagio Marini’s “Passacaglia (Opus 22).” The film ends with footage from A Erupcao do vulcao da ilha do Fogo, a 1951 documentary by ethnologist Orlando Ribeiro. The films are part of Canción de Pedro Costa, a museum exhibition currently touring Europe. In museums the films are projected separately in three different […]
The post “Why Make It Simple?” Pedro Costa on The Daughters of Fire first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Why Make It Simple?” Pedro Costa on The Daughters of Fire first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 12/1/2023
- by Daniel Eagan
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Rarely does a short generate interest like The Daughters of Fire, an ink-to-runtime ratio that could best be explained by its status as Pedro Costa’s first project since 2019’s Vitalina Varela. But it merits that bandwidth. Speaking by phone earlier this month, Costa described Fire with clarity, conviction, and care that wouldn’t suggest his film runs, sans credits, just seven minutes and primarily consists of three shots spread across a single wide frame. Nothing less should be afforded a work that yields so much each time through: new textures in its seemingly rigid design, new resonances in musical arrangement, and perpetual surprise when it cuts, in the final moments, to archival images shot by Portuguese historian Orlando Ribeiro.
Our interview started with Fire before expanding to a cosmology of Costa: the joy of Stevie Wonder, the pain of film festivals, and memories of Jacques Rivette. The Daughters of Fire...
Our interview started with Fire before expanding to a cosmology of Costa: the joy of Stevie Wonder, the pain of film festivals, and memories of Jacques Rivette. The Daughters of Fire...
- 11/29/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
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
We are less than a year removed from Robert Redford’s provocative declaration, at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival’s opening presser, that “there are too many film festivals.” It was a comment that itself came a year after Redford’s even more contentious comment that, as far as he knew, his Park City annual was the only festival in the world that could claim to be “purely independent.” Most of the world’s film festivals are still in revival mode following more than three years of cancellations, hybridizations, shutterings and overhauls, and the persistent question of whether or not they’re still necessary to cinema culture should arguably begin with the regional film festival—a category that contains more than 95% of the world’s festivals, and also does not include Sundance. Without getting too hung up on the terms “regional” and “independent”—the latter, in particular, is prone to very...
- 11/21/2023
- by Blake Williams
- The Film Stage
Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of Leffest Lisboa Film Festival, which announced awards Saturday night.
Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.
During Leffest, in a session moderated by Paulo Branco, 83-year old Erice took part in a conversation with preeminent 64-year old Portuguese helmer, Pedro Costa, whose short “The Daughters of Fire,” was a Cannes Special Screening and also had its Portuguese premiere at the fest.
Erice remarked during the event, one fest highlight, that both he and Costa are working in the shadow of two great filmmakers – “Don Luis Buñuel” and “Don Manoel de Oliveira” – and he added...
Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.
During Leffest, in a session moderated by Paulo Branco, 83-year old Erice took part in a conversation with preeminent 64-year old Portuguese helmer, Pedro Costa, whose short “The Daughters of Fire,” was a Cannes Special Screening and also had its Portuguese premiere at the fest.
Erice remarked during the event, one fest highlight, that both he and Costa are working in the shadow of two great filmmakers – “Don Luis Buñuel” and “Don Manoel de Oliveira” – and he added...
- 11/19/2023
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
When we spoke last week, Pedro Costa described his latest project The Daughters of Fire with a clarity, conviction, and care that wouldn’t suggest his film runs, sans credits, just seven minutes and mostly consists of three shots spread across a wide frame. But nothing less should be afforded a work that yields so much each time through: new textures in its seemingly rigid design, new resonances in musical arrangement, and perpetual surprise when it cuts, in the final moments, to archival images shot by Portuguese historian Orlando Ribeiro.
That footage––which Costa described as the necessary closing “breather”––is the locus of Daughters‘ official trailer, which he’s personally edited and we’re honored to debut ahead of the short’s theatrical premiere (at Metrograph) on December 1. Cinema Guild will screen it with Hong Sangsoo’s In Water as part of the “Fire+Water” double-bill, a pairing Costa approves by telling me,...
That footage––which Costa described as the necessary closing “breather”––is the locus of Daughters‘ official trailer, which he’s personally edited and we’re honored to debut ahead of the short’s theatrical premiere (at Metrograph) on December 1. Cinema Guild will screen it with Hong Sangsoo’s In Water as part of the “Fire+Water” double-bill, a pairing Costa approves by telling me,...
- 11/6/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
2023’s second Hong Sangsoo release (third if The Novelist’s Film came your way a bit late) is In Water, his shortest-ever feature at 61 minutes and wildest formal gambit: the entire film is out-of-focus, hardly aswim with plot to begin with. A unique sell that Cinema Guild will heroically make by pairing In Water with Pedro Costa’s fantastic short The Daughters of Fire for a “Fire+Water” double-bill that begins its run at Metrograph on December 1. With exactly one month between now and then, there is a trailer.
As Rory O’Connor said in his review out of Berlin, “Narratively it’s nothing if not succinct, and whatever In Water lacks for plot it more than makes up for in mood and ideas, as well as a kind of raw artistic honesty––regarding his work, yes, but also his sense of mortality. All of which only makes you wonder: might...
As Rory O’Connor said in his review out of Berlin, “Narratively it’s nothing if not succinct, and whatever In Water lacks for plot it more than makes up for in mood and ideas, as well as a kind of raw artistic honesty––regarding his work, yes, but also his sense of mortality. All of which only makes you wonder: might...
- 11/1/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSubscribe to Notebook magazine before November 1 to receive Issue 4, which explores cinematic soundscapes in their diverse sonic forms and includes contributions from filmmakers like Pedro Costa, Garrett Bradley, and Dominga Sotomayor, pop musician Julia Holter, plus a wide range of artists, writers, and scholars. Subscribers will also receive with this issue a very special gift, a seven-inch record featuring a song by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and a field recording by sound designer Leslie Shatz.This week brought the sad, shocking news that the legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien has retired from filmmaking due to illness. Hou's family confirmed in a statement that he is battling Alzheimer's, and the effects of long Covid have forced him to stop making films; they requested privacy during this time, adding that he is healthy overall, in the presence of family.
- 10/25/2023
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.The Deep Blue Sea.REMEMBERINGTerence Davies has died, aged 77. Michael Koresky, who wrote a monograph on Davies in 2014, penned a beautiful Sight & Sound obituary, in which he wrote that “no one made movies like Davies, who precisely sculpted out of a subjective past, creating films that glided on waves of contemplation and observation, inviting viewers to join him in the burnished darkness of a past about which he felt complex, contradictory feelings.” Last year, Dan Schindel wrote for Notebook about the role of poetry in Benediction (2022), and in 2012, Michael Guillen interviewed Davies about The Deep Blue Sea (2011). "The problem with film is that it's always in the eternal present,” says Davies. “But it's closest, I think, to music. You don't have to be a musician to follow a symphonic argument. If you love the music,...
- 10/11/2023
- MUBI
The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is set to return from October 27 for 10 days of a loaded line-up of films from across the world to treat the cinephiles. It will feature 250 films from October 27 to November 5. Farhan Akhtar, Rana Daggubati, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Vikramaditya Motwane, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy, Ajay Bijli and Anupama Chopra unveiled line-up whhich includes over 40 World Premieres, 45 Asia Premieres, and 70+ South Asia Premieres.
This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.
This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...
This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.
This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...
- 10/9/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is set to return from October 27 for 10 days of a loaded line-up of films from across the world to treat the cinephiles. It will feature 250 films from October 27 to November 5. Farhan Akhtar, Rana Daggubati, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Vikramaditya Motwane, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy, Ajay Bijli and Anupama Chopra unveiled line-up whhich includes over 40 World Premieres, 45 Asia Premieres, and 70+ South Asia Premieres.
This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.
This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...
This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.
This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...
- 10/9/2023
- by Agency News Desk
The festival has dropped its international competition in favour of a South Asia focus.
The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival has unveiled a South Asia-focused revamp for its first in-person event since 2019, set to run October 27 to November 5.
The festival has dropped its international and India Gold competitions and will launch its first South Asia competitive section as part of a new approach to become a hub for cinema and talent from the region and diaspora.
The 14 films in the South Asia Competition are from first and second-time filmmakers from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany,...
The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival has unveiled a South Asia-focused revamp for its first in-person event since 2019, set to run October 27 to November 5.
The festival has dropped its international and India Gold competitions and will launch its first South Asia competitive section as part of a new approach to become a hub for cinema and talent from the region and diaspora.
The 14 films in the South Asia Competition are from first and second-time filmmakers from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany,...
- 10/9/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
After a three-year hiatus, the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is returning with a larger lineup and an expanded focus on South Asian cinema.
The festival will feature 250 films including 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres and 70 South Asia Premieres. The opening and closing films have not been finalized yet.
The festival’s new vision is to become a hub for South Asian and South Asian diaspora cinema and talent and, in keeping with this, the main competition is for 14 films from the region. These include the world premieres of Leesa Gazi’s “A House Named Shahana” (Bangladesh-u.K.), Dibakar Das Roy’s “Dilli Dark” (India), Sumanth Bhat’s “Mithya” (India) and Fazil Razak’s “The Sentence” (India). The new focus will also include 46 non-competition films from South Asia.
The Icons South Asia strand features Anand Patwardhan’s Toronto title “The World is Family”; “Indi(r)a’s Emergency” by Vikramaditya Motwane...
The festival will feature 250 films including 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres and 70 South Asia Premieres. The opening and closing films have not been finalized yet.
The festival’s new vision is to become a hub for South Asian and South Asian diaspora cinema and talent and, in keeping with this, the main competition is for 14 films from the region. These include the world premieres of Leesa Gazi’s “A House Named Shahana” (Bangladesh-u.K.), Dibakar Das Roy’s “Dilli Dark” (India), Sumanth Bhat’s “Mithya” (India) and Fazil Razak’s “The Sentence” (India). The new focus will also include 46 non-competition films from South Asia.
The Icons South Asia strand features Anand Patwardhan’s Toronto title “The World is Family”; “Indi(r)a’s Emergency” by Vikramaditya Motwane...
- 10/9/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSMe and You and Everyone We Know.The Writers Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and have voted to end the strike as of 12:01 a.m. Pt this morning. A summary of the agreement is available here. Before the details were released, the WGA negotiating committee had this to say in a statement: "We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership." The WGA has also encouraged their members to support SAG-AFTRA's ongoing picket line.A new novel from Miranda July is due out in May of next year: All Fours follows an artist in the throes of a midlife crisis and a messy divorce. While driving...
- 9/27/2023
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSNext week, we are holding a launch event for Issue 3 of Notebook in London. Join us at the Ica London on September 28 for a screening of a new 4K restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, followed by a conversation between issue contributor Erika Balsom and critic Simran Hans. We are sorry to say that the event is now sold out, but you can still enter our competition to win a pair of tickets. Lee Kang-sheng’s Instagram seems to indicate that he and Tsai Ming-liang shot another installment of their ongoing Walker series in Washington, DC: a few images are posted here.REMEMBERINGPressure.Horace Ové has died aged 86: His debut Pressure (1975) is considered the first full-length feature by a Black British filmmaker; it centers on a Trinidadian teenager living with his family in West London,...
- 9/20/2023
- MUBI
Pedro Costa has made the latest in a long line of festival trailers commissioned by the Viennale from leading auteurs. This one stars Elizabeth Pinard, star of his newest short, The Daughters of Fire, singing a Brecht song. This year’s Viennale runs from October 19 to 30.
The post Trailer Watch: Pedro Costa’s Viennale Trailer first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Pedro Costa’s Viennale Trailer first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/18/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Pedro Costa has made the latest in a long line of festival trailers commissioned by the Viennale from leading auteurs. This one stars Elizabeth Pinard, star of his newest short, The Daughters of Fire, singing a Brecht song. This year’s Viennale runs from October 19 to 30.
The post Trailer Watch: Pedro Costa’s Viennale Trailer first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Pedro Costa’s Viennale Trailer first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/18/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Giacomo Abbruzzese’s debut feature is a hazily seductive, frequently dreamlike study of life in the French Foreign Legion, fixated on masculine bodies in synchronized and sometimes violently clashing motion. It is also called “Disco Boy.” You almost certainly wouldn’t choose that subject, tone and title for a film if you didn’t want viewers’ minds to immediately wander to “Beau Travail,” Claire Denis’ seminal Foreign Legion cine-ballet, with its climactic solo number set to a thumping Eurodance classic; even if you somehow made that error, you wouldn’t compound it with electro-scored terpsichorean interludes of your own. Choosing homage this direct for a first feature is a brazen move, but notwithstanding its openly derivative qualities, “Disco Boy” doesn’t want for boldness or surprise — Abbruzzese’s hot, fluxional command of sound and image keeps us curious.
One feature of “Disco Boy,” at least, plays as expected: the reliably fragile,...
One feature of “Disco Boy,” at least, plays as expected: the reliably fragile,...
- 8/17/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick).According to Terrence Malick’s producer, Alex Boden, the filmmaker is in the editing room working on his biblical epic The Way of the Wind, formerly known as The Last Planet. “Terry is very happy with what he is working on so far is the word,” Boden told Variety. Over at The Film Stage, Nick Newman compiles all of the updates and rumors so far about the production. Mark Rylance, who plays Satan in the film, says of Malick’s process: “It’s like a fine wine or whiskey; it only gets better with time.”We’ve updated our TIFF lineup master post to reflect new additions—notably the excellent selections that make up Wavelengths, TIFF’s experimental program. Featuring films by Radu Jude, Eduardo Williams, Pedro Costa,...
- 8/16/2023
- MUBI
TIFF 2023 Adds Films by Jean-Luc Godard, Radu Jude, Pedro Costa, Eduardo Williams, Phạm Thiên & More
In one of their festival announcements, Toronto International Film Festival have unveiled some of the most exciting international offerings of the year with Wavelenghts. Featuring Jean-Luc Godard’s posthumous short Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, Pedro Costa’s Daughters of Fire, Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Bas Devos’ Here, Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3, Phạm Thiên’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, Angela Schanelec’s Music, and much more, it’s quite an eclectic lineup.
“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” stated Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “It is also evidence that artist-driven experimental films are thriving and growing a new generation of cinephiles.”
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules, and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” stated Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “It is also evidence that artist-driven experimental films are thriving and growing a new generation of cinephiles.”
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules, and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
- 8/11/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths program for artist-driven experimental work that includes films by avant garde directors Denis Côté, Radu Jude, the late Chantal Akerman and Wang Bing.
There’s selections for Isiah Medina’s He Thought He Died, an experimental heist film; Angela Schanelec’s Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth; and Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which stars Larissa Corriveau and will first bow at the Locarno Film Festival.
Wavelengths also booked fiction debuts with Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, a portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress; and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, the Vietnamese director’s hypnotic first feature about a man haunted by past memories when returning to his hometown that picked up the Caméra d’Or in Cannes.
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
There’s selections for Isiah Medina’s He Thought He Died, an experimental heist film; Angela Schanelec’s Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth; and Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which stars Larissa Corriveau and will first bow at the Locarno Film Festival.
Wavelengths also booked fiction debuts with Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, a portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress; and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, the Vietnamese director’s hypnotic first feature about a man haunted by past memories when returning to his hometown that picked up the Caméra d’Or in Cannes.
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
- 8/11/2023
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s 1993 Palme d’Or winner “Farewell My Concubine” is a highlight of the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Classics strand while Jean-Luc Godard’s last film will feature in Wavelengths.
The Classics strand also includes Canadian producer-director Brigitte Berman’s Oscar-winning feature documentary “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got” (1985), portraying the life of the clarinettist and bandleader, and, after decades of oblivion Jacques Rivette’s New Wave classic “L’amour fou” (1969), whose original celluloid elements were damaged in a fire. A 50th anniversary screening of “Touki Bouki” (1973), from Sengal’s Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ousmane Sembène’s “Xala” (1975), presented in 4K, complete the program. Classics is curated by Robyn Citizen, director of programming and platform lead, with contributions from Andréa Picard.
The Wavelengths strand has 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by...
The Classics strand also includes Canadian producer-director Brigitte Berman’s Oscar-winning feature documentary “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got” (1985), portraying the life of the clarinettist and bandleader, and, after decades of oblivion Jacques Rivette’s New Wave classic “L’amour fou” (1969), whose original celluloid elements were damaged in a fire. A 50th anniversary screening of “Touki Bouki” (1973), from Sengal’s Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ousmane Sembène’s “Xala” (1975), presented in 4K, complete the program. Classics is curated by Robyn Citizen, director of programming and platform lead, with contributions from Andréa Picard.
The Wavelengths strand has 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by...
- 8/11/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Classics includes restored version of Jacques Rivette’s New Wave film L’amour Fou.
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced selections in the Wavelengths and Classics programmes ahead of the festival (September 7-17).
The expanded Wavelengths section offers 11 features and 19 shorts including the world premiere of Canadian artist and filmmaker Isiah Medina’s deconstructed heist tale He Thought He Died (pictured), Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, and Angela Schanelec’s retelling of the Oedipus myth, Music.
“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” said Anita Lee, TIFF’s chief programming officer. “It is also evidence...
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced selections in the Wavelengths and Classics programmes ahead of the festival (September 7-17).
The expanded Wavelengths section offers 11 features and 19 shorts including the world premiere of Canadian artist and filmmaker Isiah Medina’s deconstructed heist tale He Thought He Died (pictured), Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, and Angela Schanelec’s retelling of the Oedipus myth, Music.
“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” said Anita Lee, TIFF’s chief programming officer. “It is also evidence...
- 8/11/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The Toronto International Film Festival has added an additional 17 films to its 2023 lineup, with the new entries the work of a variety of bold international directors, from Radu Jude and Kleber Mendonca Filho to the late Jean-Luc Godard and Chantal Akerman.
The Wavelength section contains 12 features, two films paired in a single program and 19 shorts grouped in three separate programs. It is devoted to “artist-driven experimental films,” in the words of TIFF Chief Programming Officer Anita Lee. “Wavelengths continues to be a celebration of subversion, personal expression, and the vast, inexhaustible capabilities of cinema to enlighten, inspire, awe, resist, disrupt, and propose new ways of seeing and being in the world.”
Films in the section include “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” from the fiery Romanian satirist Radu Jude, “Here” from Belgian director Bas Devos,” the “Oedipus” retelling “Music” from Angela Schanelec, Brazilian Kleber Mendonca...
The Wavelength section contains 12 features, two films paired in a single program and 19 shorts grouped in three separate programs. It is devoted to “artist-driven experimental films,” in the words of TIFF Chief Programming Officer Anita Lee. “Wavelengths continues to be a celebration of subversion, personal expression, and the vast, inexhaustible capabilities of cinema to enlighten, inspire, awe, resist, disrupt, and propose new ways of seeing and being in the world.”
Films in the section include “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” from the fiery Romanian satirist Radu Jude, “Here” from Belgian director Bas Devos,” the “Oedipus” retelling “Music” from Angela Schanelec, Brazilian Kleber Mendonca...
- 8/11/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
This year marks 30 years since Bob Byington’s first feature, though it’s only during the last 15 of those — since SXSW midnight-movie breakout “Rso: Registered Sex Offender” — that the Austin-based director has enjoyed “indie darling” status. During that same stretch, the cultural discourse has changed a great deal, while Byington’s voice remains remarkably (if somewhat frustratingly) consistent, churning out self-deprecating feature-length sitcoms about flaccid man-babies. Those aren’t the kind of movies American festivals are looking for so much anymore, which could explain why his latest, “Lousy Carter,” wound up premiering abroad, at the Locarno Film Festival.
Locarno’s programmers typically gravitate toward austere, experimental and/or formally audacious works of cinema. “Lousy Carter” is none of these things, but neither is it lousy. That unfortunate moniker belongs to the film’s lead character, a lumpy failed animator turned tenured literature professor, who’s rendered all the more pathetic...
Locarno’s programmers typically gravitate toward austere, experimental and/or formally audacious works of cinema. “Lousy Carter” is none of these things, but neither is it lousy. That unfortunate moniker belongs to the film’s lead character, a lumpy failed animator turned tenured literature professor, who’s rendered all the more pathetic...
- 8/9/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Ask any short-film director and they’ll tell you the same thing: finding distribution for short films absolutely sucks. Ask any distributor and they’ll tell you the same thing: we want to release more short films but properly distributing them absolutely sucks.
Due credit to Cinema Guild for engineering a neat workaround: they’ve acquired Pedro Costa’s nine-minute short The Daughters of Fire off its Cannes premiere and will pair it with Hong Sangsoo’s 61-minute In Water––naturally branding the experience Fire+Water, at last giving Barbenheimer its reckoning. As Cinema Guild’s Peter Kelly noted, “There are too few opportunities for short films to play theatrically, but no recent short is more demanding of a theatrical experience than Pedro Costa’s monumental new work.” Apologies to everyone hoping they might watch the latest from one of our great imagemakers on their 13-inch MacBook Air. [Deadline]
The Daughters of Fire,...
Due credit to Cinema Guild for engineering a neat workaround: they’ve acquired Pedro Costa’s nine-minute short The Daughters of Fire off its Cannes premiere and will pair it with Hong Sangsoo’s 61-minute In Water––naturally branding the experience Fire+Water, at last giving Barbenheimer its reckoning. As Cinema Guild’s Peter Kelly noted, “There are too few opportunities for short films to play theatrically, but no recent short is more demanding of a theatrical experience than Pedro Costa’s monumental new work.” Apologies to everyone hoping they might watch the latest from one of our great imagemakers on their 13-inch MacBook Air. [Deadline]
The Daughters of Fire,...
- 7/25/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for Portuguese director Pedro Costa’s short film The Daughters of Fire, following its buzzy world premiere in Cannes this year.
Set against the backdrop of Costa’s stomping ground of the Atlantic Ocean island of Cape Verde, the film follows three sisters who are separated by the eruption of the local Fogo Volcano.
They remain bound in spirit, singing the same words: one day, we will know why we live and why we suffer.
The Daughters of Fire received an enthusiastic reception in Cannes when it played as Special Screening Jean-Luc Godard’s Trailer of the Film that Will Never Exist: “Phony Wars” and Wang Bing’s 2023 Palme d’Or contender Man in Black.
For its North American theatrical release in late 2023 or early 2024, Cinema Guild is planning to play the short alongside Korean director Hong Sangsoo’s Berlinale 2023 Encounters title In water,...
Set against the backdrop of Costa’s stomping ground of the Atlantic Ocean island of Cape Verde, the film follows three sisters who are separated by the eruption of the local Fogo Volcano.
They remain bound in spirit, singing the same words: one day, we will know why we live and why we suffer.
The Daughters of Fire received an enthusiastic reception in Cannes when it played as Special Screening Jean-Luc Godard’s Trailer of the Film that Will Never Exist: “Phony Wars” and Wang Bing’s 2023 Palme d’Or contender Man in Black.
For its North American theatrical release in late 2023 or early 2024, Cinema Guild is planning to play the short alongside Korean director Hong Sangsoo’s Berlinale 2023 Encounters title In water,...
- 7/25/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Below you will find the results of Notebook's critics' poll for the best films of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage of the festival.Awardstop 101. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)3. May December (Todd Haynes)4. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)5. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)6. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)7. La chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)8. The Pot-au-feu (Tràn Anh Hùng)9. A Prince (Pierre Creton)10. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)(Poll contributors: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal, Anna Bogutskaya, Jordan Cronk, Flavia Dima, Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, Daniel Kasman, Jessica Kiang, Roger Koza, Elena Lazic, Beatrice Loayza, Guy Lodge, Łukasz Mańkowski, Savina Petkova, Caitlin Quinlan, Vadim Rizov, Christopher Small, Öykü Sofuoğlu, Blake Williams)DISPATCHESThe Obscenity of EvilLeonardo Goi on The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer), The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams), Eureka (Lisandro Alonso), and Killers of the Flower Moon...
- 6/14/2023
- MUBI
The Daughters of Fire.Three square images, placed side by side on the screen. The full frame is as wide as CinemaScope, which Fritz Lang famously said was only suitable for snakes and funerals. On the left, a woman stares forward as she stalks, like a Jacques Tourneur character, toward no certain destination; as she does so—singing, half her face shrouded in shadow—she passes through a seemingly endless corridor of ash, an ever-rotating carousel of clay streaked with wisps of fire. In the center frame, another woman lies prone, bent over on the shores of a volcanic beach. The sea laps in apocalyptic, dusky light behind her, the horizon stretches out to the limits of vision; uncertainly, she heaves her body upright to sit as she sings. In the far-right frame, another woman peers out from around a doorframe, staring into the camera, also singing in direct counterpoint with the other two women,...
- 6/14/2023
- MUBI
Cannes Docs, the Cannes Film Market event dedicated to documentary film, brought together an expert industry panel to discuss the place of creative documentary in the fast-changing audiovisual market, where words like “content” and “format” are increasingly replacing “film” and “language.”
Joining Dae co-founder Brigid O’Shea on stage for the May 21 talk were Emilie Bujès, artistic director of Swiss international doc film fest Visions du Réel (VdR); Edo Choi, associate curator of film at the NYC Museum of the Moving Image; and Ryan Krivoshey, president and founder of distribution company Grasshopper Film.
Kicking off the conversation, the question of what defines a creative doc was thrown up by O’Shea, who joked about the “dirty reputation” of experimental films.
Choi pointed out that while notions such as experimental, avant-garde, cinéma vérité or underground have a particular historic meaning that stems from generic forms born in the 1960s, which are now...
Joining Dae co-founder Brigid O’Shea on stage for the May 21 talk were Emilie Bujès, artistic director of Swiss international doc film fest Visions du Réel (VdR); Edo Choi, associate curator of film at the NYC Museum of the Moving Image; and Ryan Krivoshey, president and founder of distribution company Grasshopper Film.
Kicking off the conversation, the question of what defines a creative doc was thrown up by O’Shea, who joked about the “dirty reputation” of experimental films.
Choi pointed out that while notions such as experimental, avant-garde, cinéma vérité or underground have a particular historic meaning that stems from generic forms born in the 1960s, which are now...
- 5/24/2023
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
Social media routinely perks up when videos start circulating of actor Ben Affleck speaking Spanish. For many, they don’t know that the actor is fluent in the language and regularly speaks it in interviews. This revelation was also a surprise for Brazilian actress Alice Braga (“Queen of the South”), who stars opposite Affleck in the new Robert Rodriguez feature, “Hypnotic.”
“Ben speaks super good Spanish, like, impressively good,” Braga told TheWrap. “I never knew that! I was like, ‘You speak Spanish?'” In the film, Braga and Affleck play a couple thrown together when Affleck’s cop character, Roarke, is drawn into a shadowy world involving hypnotic suggestion that might connect to the disappearance of Roarke’s young daughter.
Braga said the revelation that Affleck could speak Spanish came during a quiet moment on set when her and Affleck got to talking. “As an actor you sit and wait for cameras to be ready,...
“Ben speaks super good Spanish, like, impressively good,” Braga told TheWrap. “I never knew that! I was like, ‘You speak Spanish?'” In the film, Braga and Affleck play a couple thrown together when Affleck’s cop character, Roarke, is drawn into a shadowy world involving hypnotic suggestion that might connect to the disappearance of Roarke’s young daughter.
Braga said the revelation that Affleck could speak Spanish came during a quiet moment on set when her and Affleck got to talking. “As an actor you sit and wait for cameras to be ready,...
- 5/10/2023
- by Kristen Lopez
- The Wrap
When it comes to the films we associate him with, a lot has changed since the ‘90s when Robert Rodriguez was among the most exciting indie names in cinema with the inventive likes of “El Mariachi,” “From Dusk Till Dawn” and the best segment of the “Four Rooms” anthology. He now has several “Spy Kids” movies, high-profile music videos and middling efforts like “Alita: Battle Angel” under his belt, though this critic can’t help but think of him as the same scrappy independent auteur of decades past in search of a meaty, inventive story.
Which is why the Ben Affleck-starring “Hypnotic” looked and sounded exciting, at least on paper, signaling a brainy yet accessible neo-noir detective tale with an original Rodriguez spin. Sadly, the film is a tedious and erratically cut caper, whose shape-shifting story feels like an uneven and over-plotted rehash of various recognizable films that we’ve seen before.
Which is why the Ben Affleck-starring “Hypnotic” looked and sounded exciting, at least on paper, signaling a brainy yet accessible neo-noir detective tale with an original Rodriguez spin. Sadly, the film is a tedious and erratically cut caper, whose shape-shifting story feels like an uneven and over-plotted rehash of various recognizable films that we’ve seen before.
- 5/10/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
The summer season is upon us and, per each year, we’ve dug beyond studio offerings (though a few potential highlights remain) to present an in-depth look at what should be on your radar. From festival winners of the past year to selections coming straight from Cannes to genre delights to, yes, a few blockbuster spectacles, there’s more than enough to anticipate.
Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar.
Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim; May 2)
So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) didn’t want to leave South Korea. She had no choice. The father of her newborn son committed suicide and, as an orphan who was never adopted, she had no other family. So, with nowhere to turn and a boy who couldn’t legally become a citizen due to being born out of wedlock, she immigrated to Canada to start anew.
Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar.
Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim; May 2)
So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) didn’t want to leave South Korea. She had no choice. The father of her newborn son committed suicide and, as an orphan who was never adopted, she had no other family. So, with nowhere to turn and a boy who couldn’t legally become a citizen due to being born out of wedlock, she immigrated to Canada to start anew.
- 4/25/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
At CinemaCon 2023, Sony revealed another look at “No Hard Feelings,” the Gene Stupnitsky-directed romp starring Jennifer Lawrence as a down-on-her-luck Uber driver who takes a gig to “date” a socially awkward high schooler to bring the 19-year-old out of his shell before college. It’s an old-school, R-rated star+concept comedy, something that was in short supply even before Covid sent many such titles to streaming platforms.
The footage features the initial meeting between Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. It’s the full sequence heavily featured in the first trailer, whereby Lawrence attempts to “pick up” the kid at the animal shelter where he volunteers. There’s a dog at the shelter who is apparently addicted to cocaine and who barks furiously when the word “cocaine” is uttered.
We get a slew of not-so-subtle entendres to which the kid has no idea how to react. Again, as seen in the trailer,...
The footage features the initial meeting between Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. It’s the full sequence heavily featured in the first trailer, whereby Lawrence attempts to “pick up” the kid at the animal shelter where he volunteers. There’s a dog at the shelter who is apparently addicted to cocaine and who barks furiously when the word “cocaine” is uttered.
We get a slew of not-so-subtle entendres to which the kid has no idea how to react. Again, as seen in the trailer,...
- 4/25/2023
- by Scott Mendelson
- The Wrap
Sony Pictures has acquired “Hell Naw,” a horror comedy from Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi and “Euphoria” producer Sam Levinson, TheWrap has confirmed.
Keith and Kenny Lucas, who were nominated for an Oscar for their work on the “Judas and the Black Messiah” screenplay, are on board to write the film, which is in the early stages of development. While plot details are being kept under wraps, it is set at Paris Fashion Week and involves zombies. Mescudi will star and also produce, alongside Karina Manashil, Dennis Cummings, Sam Levinson and Ashley Levinson.
Also Read:
Robert Rodriguez, Catherine Corsini and Pedro Costa Round Out Cannes’ Filmmakers Lineup
“This movie has been 5 years in the making. I am telling the world now, this film will f— you up in all the best ways. I have been a horror fan since I was 7 years old. The first horror movies I ever saw were...
Keith and Kenny Lucas, who were nominated for an Oscar for their work on the “Judas and the Black Messiah” screenplay, are on board to write the film, which is in the early stages of development. While plot details are being kept under wraps, it is set at Paris Fashion Week and involves zombies. Mescudi will star and also produce, alongside Karina Manashil, Dennis Cummings, Sam Levinson and Ashley Levinson.
Also Read:
Robert Rodriguez, Catherine Corsini and Pedro Costa Round Out Cannes’ Filmmakers Lineup
“This movie has been 5 years in the making. I am telling the world now, this film will f— you up in all the best ways. I have been a horror fan since I was 7 years old. The first horror movies I ever saw were...
- 4/24/2023
- by Drew Taylor
- The Wrap
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival lineup was officially announced on April 13, but Monday the organization included the last of the entries for competition and non-competition categories, most notably with the addition of Robert Rodriguez’s “Hypnotic,” a science-fiction opus starring Ben Affleck and Alice Braga, in the Midnight section.
Also Read:
Cannes Film Festival Lineup Includes New Films From Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Jonathan Glazer
Other high-profile titles include Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s “Black Flies”, a NYC-set drama starring Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan and Mike Tyson, Catherine Corsini’s buzzy French film “Le Retour,” and Sahra Mani’s documentary “Bread and Roses,” concerning Afghan women living under Taliban rule.
Below are the 14 new features and shorts that round out the 2023 Cannes Film Festival lineup:
Also Read:
Tribeca 2023: Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon, Chelsea Peretti and Randall Park Among Participating Filmmakers
Competition
“Black Flies” (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
“Le Retour
“Le Retour” (Catherine Corsini)
Cannes...
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Other high-profile titles include Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s “Black Flies”, a NYC-set drama starring Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan and Mike Tyson, Catherine Corsini’s buzzy French film “Le Retour,” and Sahra Mani’s documentary “Bread and Roses,” concerning Afghan women living under Taliban rule.
Below are the 14 new features and shorts that round out the 2023 Cannes Film Festival lineup:
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Competition
“Black Flies” (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
“Le Retour
“Le Retour” (Catherine Corsini)
Cannes...
- 4/24/2023
- by Jason Clark
- The Wrap
After previous announcements revealed the initial lineup for the Cannes Film Festival and adjoining Directors’ Fortnight program, several more titles have just been added to the mix. Today, the festival announced 14 additional films that will debut on the Croisette within various sections, including efforts from Lisandro Alonso, Pedro Costa, Robert Rodriguez, Amat Escalante, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and more. The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will run from May 16-27. Find the latest editions to this year’s lineup below. Competition: Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire Le Retour by Catherine Corsini Cannes Premiere: Perdidos en la noche by Amat Escalante […]
The post Films by Amat Escalante, Pedro Costa, Robert Rodriguez, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and More Added to Cannes Film Festival 2023 Lineup first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Films by Amat Escalante, Pedro Costa, Robert Rodriguez, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and More Added to Cannes Film Festival 2023 Lineup first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 4/24/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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