Noticias

The Locarno Film Festival will pay tribute to Greek-French director Costa-Gavras with its Pardo alla carriera lifetime achievement award.

The longtime Paris-based master of politically engaged cinema will be on hand at the prominent Swiss fest dedicated to indie filmmaking to receive the prize during a ceremony on its Piazza Grande square on Aug. 11 followed by an audience-led conversation the next day.

Locarno will also host screenings of two of Costa Gravras’ lesser known films: “Un homme de trop” (“Shock Troops”) from 1967, and “Compartiment tueurs” (“The Sleeping Car Murders”), which is his 1965 debut feature.

In a career spanning nearly 60 years, Costa-Gavras — which is short for Konstantinos Gavras — has become known for highly political works, such as 1969’s “Z,” about the military’s coup d’etat in Greece, which won the foreign film Oscar in 1969; and 1982’s “Missing,” which starred Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in a story inspired by the...

Above: Hungarian poster for The Sleeping Car Murders. Designer: Sándor Benkő.Last summer I wrote about my discovery of Hungarian movie poster design and featured a number of posters for very well known films from The Wizard of Oz to The Elephant Man. Those posters highlighted the distinctly different graphic approaches taken by Hungarian designers compared to their country-of-origin counterparts. But while delving deeper into the world of Hungarian poster design—mostly via the auction site Bedo—I have come across many even more remarkable designs for films that are less well known. The fifteen posters that I’ve chosen to highlight here were all made in the ’60s and ’70s and there is a distinct pop art sensibility at work: a lot of bold, primary colors and almost cartoonish illustrations, but always in the service of bold, striking graphics. Distinctly upbeat, while perhaps not expressly joyful, they do give...

Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.

And Hope to Die

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.

Cinematography: Edmond Richard

Film Editor: Roger Dwyre

Original Music: Francis Lai

Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...

The star from Sid & Nancy, Terminator 2, Candyman, Gattaca, Leaving Las Vegas and the new chiller The Dark And The Wicked takes us on a journey through some of his favorite foreign films.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Candyman (1992)

Frankenstein (1931)

Sid and Nancy (1986)

The Dark And The Wicked (2020)

The Wall of Mexico (2019)

La Dolce Vita (1961)

Il Bidone (1955)

Day For Night (1973)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1967)

8 ½ (1963)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939)

Rififi (1955)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Z (1969)

The Sleeping Car Murders (1965)

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Burn! (1969)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

The Italian Job (1969)

The Italian Job (2003)

The Magician (1958)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Persona (1966)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Last House On The Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Paperhouse (1988)

The Strangers (2008)

The Monster (2016)

Andrei Rublev (1966)

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Nostalghia (1983)

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Zorba The Greek (1964)

Pollyanna (1960)

Other Notable Items

Lon...

Arab Blues Photo: Courtesy of London Film Festival/Carole Bethuel The French Film Festival has announced it will screen a streamlined programme for its 28th edition across dates in November and December.

The programme, which is still a work in progress, will feature films including culture-clash comedy Arab Blues and Papicha - which sees teens fighting fundamentalism - alongside classics like Costa-Gavras' murder mystery The Sleeping Car Murders. Other familiar names joining the line-up include Robert Guédiguian, whose heartfelt family drama Gloria Mundi will also screen.

Festival director Richard Mowe said: "We felt it important that the 28th edition of the French Film Festival UK should continue to keep faith with our colleagues in cinemas and our loyal and enthusiastic audiences stretching from Shetland to Plymouth. The festival will follow the guidelines for distancing and self-protection."

The programme so far - with further titles due to be announced later this...

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...