Noticias

There’s a Ghost in Me: Zurcher Explores the Necessity of Destruction

Amidst all the existential dread in Franz Kafka’s body of work, silver linings abound, perhaps no more succinctly than in an oft quoted phrase from his diaries, “The relief of giving intro destruction.” In their third feature, the Swiss filmmaking duo Ramon and Silvan Zürcher complete their metaphorical animal themed trilogy with a scream of significant anguish (and relief) with The Sparrow in the Chimney (Der Spatz im Kamin), a culmination of the interconnected miseries and joys wrought through microcosmic communal situations explored previously in 2013’s The Strange Little Cat (review) and 2021’s The Girl and the Spider (review).…...

There’s a moment in The Sparrow in the Chimney involving a household appliance that implies a gruesome outcome for one of the film’s characters, and it’s sure to elicit a more visceral reaction than your run-of-the-mill slasher. This is the third film in an unofficial trilogy about domestic dysfunction by Ramon Zürcher, with much of the tension built up by the meticulously crafted The Strange Little Cat and The Girl and the Spider seemingly being released in The Sparrow in the Chimney’s stinging finale.

As a family gathers for a birthday party in the Swiss countryside, complaints about little tasks turn into passive-aggressive squabbles that ultimately lead to violence. Members of this family love to tyrannize and flirt with each other, either around the house or in the more private cabin near the lake—moments of needless cruelty or awkward romance that are never as private as the characters imagine.

Indie distributor Film Movement has snapped up North American rights to Swiss director Ramon Zürcher’s “The Sparrow in the Chimney” following its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.

Described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as a “darkly engrossing psychodrama of pent-up domestic tensions,” the film explores the tumultuous relationship between two sisters, Karen and Jule, whose reunion at a family gathering reignites old conflicts and deep-seated emotional turmoil.

Zürcher, thrilled by its pending North American release, explained: “This film is an exploration of the invisible forces that shape us, particularly within the family structure.”

Sold worldwide by Cercamon, the family drama “should be an arthouse breakthrough” per Variety‘s review.

“This film offers a beautifully crafted, intimate story that will resonate with audiences who appreciate cinema that is both emotionally authentic and visually captivating,” said Sebastien Chesneau of Cercamon, who negotiated the deal with Film Movement.

“What drew...

Maren Eggert, centre, as Karen in The Sparrow In The Chimney. Ramon Zürcher: 'There’s a first Karen and there’s a second Karen, because after the second day, she kind of changes. It's really a little bit like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly' Photo: Zürcher Film With The Sparrow In The Chimney (Der Spatz Im Kamin), Swiss filmmakers Ramon and Silvan Zürcher have completed their “animal trilogy”, which began with The Strange Little Cat in 2013, a tale of passive-aggressive family life, and continued with the slightly more sprawling but not much less intense The Girl And The Spider three years ago. Now, with Ramon back on solo writing/direction duty and his twin producing, they have made The Sparrow In The Chimney, which again takes us into the boiling emotions of a family whose relationships are affected by past trauma.

Ramon Zürcher chats to star Maren Eggert Photo:...

The opening frame of “The Sparrow in the Chimney” evokes a kind of art-directed ideal of country living: In a spacious, rustically textured farmhouse kitchen, mid-afternoon sunlight pours in through open windows so large they double as French doors, looking out onto rolling, summer-kissed lawns and hazy woods beyond. A regal ginger cat slinks in over the sill, as amplified birdsong and insect chatter also seem to blur the indoor-outdoor boundary. A casserole simmers patiently on the stove. Who wouldn’t want to live like this? Pretty much everyone, it turns out, in Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s elegantly vicious domestic horror movie, which forensically unpicks the compacted resentments, betrayals and traumas underpinning a single weekend family gathering, with a touch as icy as the lighting is consistently, relentlessly warm.

The Zürcher twins — who take a joint “a film by” credit on all their work, though only Ramon is billed here as writer,...

Tense, ominous, and stuffed with psychosexual insinuation almost to the point of absurdity, The Sparrow in the Chimney has much in common thematically with writer-director Ramon Zürcher’s previous feature, The Girl and the Spider, which he co-directed with his twin brother, Silvan Zürcher. His third feature, on which Silvan Zürcher served as first assistant director, is a similarly elliptical chamber piece demonstrating a fascination with the conflicts and desires that simmer beneath mundane or sedate social surfaces, though here an expanded canvas allows him to occasionally loosen up and paint with slightly broader strokes.

The film opens with a few bucolic, sun-dappled images of a rural house and its surrounding countryside, the setting for an extended family gathering arranged by dour, prickly matriarch Karen (Maren Eggert) in honor of her husband Markus’s (Andreas Döhler) birthday. We’re soon introduced to the family of Karen’s more outwardly relaxed,...

The Locarno Film Festival, taking place in the picturesque town in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, always shines a light on arthouse voices, whether new or established. And it showcases Swiss films worth audiences’ attention.

That will be the case again during Locarno77, taking place Aug. 7-17, soon after Switzerland also took center stage at the 2024 Cannes Film Market where the Alpine nation was the country of honor.

Among the Swiss fare featured at Locarno this year are such Cannes hits as Laetitia Dosch’s Dog on Trial, and Swiss animator Claude Barras’ Savages, which are screening in the Piazza Grande lineup along with the world premiere of Swiss director Simon Jaquemet’s Electric Child, the international premiere of U.S.-Swiss filmmaker Freddy Macdonald’s Sew Torn and the Swiss premiere of Swiss-Peruvian filmmaker Klaudia Reynicke’s Reinas.

Meanwhile, Locarno’s international competition includes the Swiss entry Der Spatz im Kamin...

After two of the finest films of their respective years, The Strange Little Cat and The Girl and the Spider, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher are back this year to close out their animal trilogy. The Sparrow in the Chimney, which world premieres this Saturday at Locarno Film Festival, features a cast including Maren Eggert, Britta Hammelstein, Luise Heyer, Andreas Döhler, Milian Zerzawy, Lea Zoe Voss, Paula Schindler, Ilja Bultmann, and Luana Greco. Ahead of the premiere, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Karen lives with her husband Markus and their children in her idyllic childhood home. Karen’s sister Jule and her family are visiting for Markus’ birthday. The two women could not be more different. Grim reminders of their deceased mother incite Jule’s rebellion against her domineering sister. As the house gradually fills with life and a sparrow in the chimney seeks a way out to freedom,...

Ahead of its Locarno Festival world premiere, sales agent Outplay Films (“León”) has dropped an international trailer and poster for coming-of-age drama “Rivière,” an earnest take on adolescence and the way youth negotiates trauma.

“Riviére,” the debut feature of Hugues Hariche, will bow in the Festival’s Cineasti del Presente strand which highlights first and second feature-film debuts from emerging directors, sometimes uncovering exceptional talent. It follows Manon (Flavie Delangle), 17, as she abruptly returns to her hometown of Belfort, France in an attempt to reconcile with her estranged father. Near-orphaned by circumstance, she blends effortlessly into the scenery, taking up with local teens at the neighborhood ice rink. They maneuver their traumas with nuance while hockey and figure-skating act as vehicles that portray the script’s tensions, never the film’s primary focus.

Manon is determined to make it as a professional ice hockey player.

“I love sports, but I...

The Girl And The Spider Photo: Beauvoir Films The Girl And The Spider, All4, on demand

We featured this when it was available on Mubi last year, but now you can watch it without subscription on Channel 4’s free streaming service. Ramon Zürcher and Silvan Zürcher have a distinctive style that's all of their own, making tensions spring up from what have previously appeared to be the most benign of environments. Their follow up to their equally quirky The Strange Little Cat centres on Lisa (Liliane Amuat) who is preparing to move from the place she shares with Mara (Henriette Confurius) and Markus (Ivan Georgiev) and into a new one where she will live alone. A real spider will make its presence felt across this web of relationships but the mood is dominated by the desire for connections that ebbs and flows over the course of a couple of days.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Juan Pablo González’s fiction feature debut Dos Estaciones, which won a special jury award for lead actor Teresa Sánchez’s performance when it premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

The drama follows 50-year-old businesswoman María García (Sánchez), who owns Dos Estaciones—a once-majestic tequila factory now struggling to stay afloat. The factory is the final hold-over from generations of Mexican-owned tequila plants in the highlands of Jalisco, the rest having folded into foreign corporations. Once one of the wealthiest people in town, María knows her current financial situation is untenable. When a persistent plague and an unexpected flood cause irreversible damage, she is forced to do everything she can to save her community’s primary economy and source of pride.

Dos Estaciones was also an official selection of the True/False Film Festival, where González was honored with the True Vision Award,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Shiva Baby (2020) Emma Seligman's Bottoms now has a cast, which includes Shiva Baby star Rachel Sennott, Havana Rose Liu, Ayo Edebiri, and former NFL player Marshawn Lynch. Written by Seligman and Sennott, the film is a high school sex comedy about "two unpopular queer girls in their senior year who start a fight club to try to impress and hook up with cheerleaders." Michel Bouquet, the prolific French film and theater actor, has died at 96. Early in his film career, Bouquet narrated Alain Resnais' Night and Fog (1955), then went on to appear in films by François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Deray, and many more. Among his later performances was the role of the tiular painter in Gilles Bourdos's Renoir (2013). Submissions are now open for "The Video Essay," the annual collaborative section of...

“Sonic the Hedgehog 2” (Paramount) came through and then some with a 71 million estimated opening weekend gross, overperforming even more than last week’s “Morbius” (Sony) disappointed.

“Sonic” benefits from being the first top-flight family theatrical release since “Sing 2” last Christmas. The February 21 release of Pixar’s “Turning Red” received much better reviews, but of course Disney made that a Disney+ exclusive outside of three limited runs.

The original “Sonic the Hedgehog” opened to 58 million on February 14, 2020 to become the last pre-covid theatrical debut over 50 million. The second installment of a franchise often exceeds the first, which suggests 71 million represents a shot at normalcy. The summer is top heavy with sequels from major franchises; similar performances could mean exceeding expectations.

This extends Paramount’s consistent run of opening above projections and by some distance, it’s the best. After a minimum 45-day window, it will feed Paramount+ and presumably increase its family appeal.

Moviegoing Memories is a series of short interviews with filmmakers about going to the movies. Ramon Zürcher & Silvan Zürcher's The Girl and the Spider is Mubi Go's Film of the Week in the US for April 8, 2022.Notebook: How would you describe your movie in the least amount of words?Ramon ZÜRCHER: A disaster film as a psychological chamber play.Notebook: Where and what is your favorite movie theater? Why is it your favorite?Silvan ZÜRCHER: The Lido cinema in Biel (Switzerland). It isn't particularly beautiful, but we worked there as ushers in our school days and watched a lot of films. I still remember many of the films I have seen back then very vividly. I also like the relation between screen size and auditorium there. And furthermore, the view to the screen is never disturbed by large people sitting in front of you.Ramon: I also...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe official poster for the the 54th Directors' Fortnight is by multidisciplinary artist Cecilia Paredes. In a statement, the festival points out that Paredes' photo-performance is "both visible and invisible, the artist blends into the image she creates, much like filmmakers do in their films." Following the release of Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan Coen is setting out to make his own solo directorial debut with a still-untitled "lesbian road trip project that Coen and [his wife, Tricia Cooke] initially wrote in the mid-2000s." Gus Van Sant is set to direct the second season of Ryan Murphy's anthology series Feud, which will be based on Laurence Leamer's book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era. Playing one such woman will be Naomi Watts,...

A Roommate of One’s Own: The Zurcher Bros. Cast a Spell in Weirdo Existential Melodrama

The two central characters of Ramon and Silvan Zurcher’s enchantingly bizarre sophomore film The Girl and the Spider really are together apart in this microcosm of shifting spaces and relationships which dances irrevocably into the existential even as it remains pertly banal.

An ambitious ensemble imbues two juxtaposed environments, mirror images of apartment complexes in Bern, Switzerland, one about to receive a presence as the other undergoes an absence. Ramon Zurcher once more directs a project conceived alongside his brother Silvan, and is a long-awaited follow-up to their distinctive debut, The Strange Little Cat, a breakout on the 2013 film festival circuit as it journeyed from the Berlinale to the Acid program in Cannes.…...

The first five Friday month of 2022 has arrived and studios are bringing their heavy hitters like Morbius, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, and The Bad Guys to utilize that extra time. That kind of even spacing hopefully means there should still be plenty of screens to house the littler fare as well.

So, keep the creative imagery coming as full-scale competition for eyeballs is seemingly back for good. The “Theatrical Only” text has become a permanent fixture on marketing materials to manufacture an air of “quality” for Hollywood blockbusters while other independent shingles have refused to bat an eye when going day and date with digital too. More forums mean more opportunity. More opportunity means more titles. It’s never been more crucial to stand out from the pack.

Just in frame

I love the excitement bursting from the one-sheet for Hit the Road. The...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Fatal Attraction (1987)The next season of Karina Longsworth's podcast You Must Remember This will focus on the thorny and sumptuous erotic films of the 1980s and 1990s, including films by Adrian Lyne, Brian De Palma, and Stanley Kubrick. The two-part season will start on April 5. Ahead of its theatrical release, the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick will play at a special screening in Cannes for the 75th edition of the festival in May. This year's Cannes Film Festival also has a new official partner: TikTok. The partnership will include exclusive festival-related content for users and an in-app competition called #TikTokShortFilm. James Morosini's I Love My Dad and Rosa Ruth Boesten's documentary Master of Light lead this year's SXSW Film Festival awards. Actor William Hurt has died at the age of 71. Hurt was known...

Can space define our relationships? It’s a concept that directors Ramon and Silvan Zürcher investigate in their new film “The Girl and the Spider.” Set around the confines of a cramped apartment, the dwelling becomes a central character as important as the roommates — and possibly former lovers — who inhabit it. In the film, Lisa (Liliane Amuat) is about to move out but not before dealing with the peculiar qualities of Mara (Henriette Confurius).

Continue reading ‘The Girl And The Spider’ Trailer: the Zurcher Brothers Berlin-Winning Best Director Drama Opens On April 8 at The Playlist.

"You tried to smile. But you had tears in your eyes." The Cinema Guild in NYC has revealed a new official US trailer for the intriguing Swiss film titled The Girl and The Spider, which first premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival last year. The film is the latest feature from Swiss filmmaking brothers Ramon & Silvan Zürcher, "the second work in the Zücher brothers' trilogy about human togetherness which began with the 2013 drama The Strange Little Cat." Lisa moves out, and Mara is left behind. As boxes are being moved and cupboards built, abysses begin to open up, an emotional rollercoaster is set in motion. It's described as "a tragicomic catastrophe film. A poetic ballad about change and transience." Starring Henriette Confurius, Liliane Amuat, Ursina Lardi, André Hennicke, and Sabine Timoteo. "Day turns into night and one final party in the apartment. When the last box is moved, the fragments of their lives remain.

More than a year since its Berlinale premiere is The Girl and the Spider coming to U.S. shores. Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s follow-up to The Strange Little Cat delivered on expectations set by their 2013 sleeper hit. With an April 8 release set for Film at Lincoln Center and Metrograph, Cinema Guild have given us a trailer.

Though brimming with ascetic, ostensibly perfect compositions, the preview makes way for a bit of synthesizers and New Wave magic. As we said in our review, it’s “a mesmerizing, uniquely ambiguous study of friendship, rivalry, tension, and memory. It is difficult to remember another recent film that does so much with so little in the way of plot and location.”

Watch the preview below:

The Girl and the Spider opens on April 8.

The post U.S. Trailer for The Girl and the Spider Brings One of 2022's Best first appeared on The Film Stage.

Ramon and Silvan Zürcher deliver another droll, primary-colored wonder that never reveals its secrets — sexual, sinister, and otherwise — with “The Girl and the Spider.” Here, the brothers turn their camera from “The Strange Little Cat” (their previous film) to another creature that proves a point of connection for the residents of a Berlin apartment complex teeming with troubled people whose secret longings are rising to the surface. “The Girl and the Spider” won the Best Director prize at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, and after a hearty festival rollout that included Toronto and New York and inclusion on Cahiers du Cinema’s list of last year’s 10 best films, it’s finally coming to U.S. theaters. Exclusively on IndieWire, watch the trailer for the film below.

“The Girl and the Spider” opens with a Pdf floor plan of an apartment layout, and ends with a young woman perhaps vanishing. The...

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.

In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch...

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to Cane Fire, an award-winning documentary from director Anthony Banua-Simon, with plans to release it in theaters across the U.S., beginning with a New York theatrical premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 20.

The filmmaker’s deal with Cinema Guild also encompassed his short films Third Shift and Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story, which will be released on the educational market.

Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history with accounts of numerous Hollywood productions shot there, along with troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.

The film premiered at Hot Docs in 2020, subsequently going on to screen at the Indie Memphis Film Festival,...

“Drive My Car” filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke, director Karim Ainouz (Berlin-winner “Central Airport Thf”) and actor Connie Nielsen (“Wonder Woman”) will join president M. Night Shyamalan on the international jury of the Berlin Film Festival.

Also serving on the international jury are producer Saïd Ben Saïd (“Benedetta”) and filmmakers Anne Zohra Berrached (“24 Weeeks”) and writer-director Tsitsi Dangarembga (“I Want a Wedding Dress”). The international jury decides the Golden and the Silver Bear winners.

The jury for the festival’s Encounters strand includes Mubi director of content Chiara Marañón and filmmakers Ben Rivers (Venice Fipresci prize winner “Two Years at Sea”) and Silvan Zürcher (Berlin Fipresci prize winner “The Girl and the Spider”). They will choose the winners for the strand’s best film, best director and the special jury awards.

The jury for the Gwff Best First Feature Award includes Gaia Furrer, artistic director of the Venice Film Festival’s Venice...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

It goes without saying that the past two years have been a lot for everyone to deal with. There were plenty of films released in 2021, but every aspect of the industry suffered through it. Productions dealt with new, costly protocols, festivals had to navigate physical and / or virtual events, distributors chose between theatrical exclusives or hybrid releases, exhibitors did everything they could to stay afloat, and everyone lost a ton of money in the process. There is no easy way out of this pandemic, but that’s not stopping anyone from burning through everything they can to find one.

Still, there were lots of things to see in 2021, and the spread of great to good to bad wasn’t particularly different from any other year. Some films...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Two years into the pandemic, we’re still living through a collective nightmare, a cycle of crisis/reprieve/next-wave that can be so demoralizing. All the more reason, then, to be thankful for the filmmakers who soldiered on, telling stories that helped to make things feel less bad.

What a joy it was to travel through Siberia with the protagonists of Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6 and be reminded of the sparks of chemistry we share with random passers-by in our lives. How healing it felt to see a deep, life-changing bond develop between two strangers in Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s poetic Murakami adaptation Drive My Car. And bless Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier for the bittersweet ride that is The Worst Person in the World,...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

As 2021 careens recklessly to a close, it seems mentally beneficial to emphasize the positives.

On a personal level, the opportunity to return to cinemas, especially with my children, felt wondrous. And while I was unable to attend the Toronto International Film Festival in person for the second-straight year, having the chance to virtually cover TIFF, Sundance, SXSW, Hot Docs, Tribeca, New York, and Chicago in the last twelve months was a genuine pleasure. It was through these festivals that I saw many of the films on the list below.

Just outside my top fifteen are a number of films that delighted and enthralled me: Joel Coen’s marvelous Tragedy of Macbeth; Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s triumphant Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Drive My Car; Edgar Wright’s...

Revisiting last year's introduction when putting together 2021's favorites, it is with a shock to realize how little has changed in the wildly disrupted world of cinema under the shroud of the pandemic. The urge to copy-and-paste the whole shebang is quite tempting indeed.What can we say about this year, 2021? We got a little more used to long-term instability. Cinemas and festivals re-opened, only for some to close again. We, like many, ventured carefully out into the world to finally see films again with audiences, all kinds: nervous ones, uproarious ones, spartan ones, and delighted ones. It was an experience both anxious and joyous. We also doubled down on the challenges, but also the pleasures, of home viewing: of virtual cinemas and virtual festivals, of straight to streaming premieres, of trying to capture a social joy in semi-isolation by connecting with others over experiences shared and disparate.The long...

Established in the 1950s by André Bazin, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, France’s Cahiers du cinéma has recently gone through major changes this year, with their staff quitting en masse to protest new ownership. The heralded magazine, however, has soldiered on and returned last year. They are now back with their favorite films of 2021.

Topping the list is Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, a film that premiered in 2019, came out in the U.S. in 2020, and finally arrived in France this year. Over half the list features Cannes selections, including Leos Carax’s Annette, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Memoria.

There’s also the requisite entry that hasn’t traveled far beyond France, Guillaume Brac’s À l’abordage aka All Hands on Deck, as well as my personal favorite 2022 U.S. release thus far: Silvan and Ramon Zürcher’s The Girl and the Spider.

See the full list below.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Payal Kapadia’s “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” which won the Golden Eye award for best documentary at Cannes.

Kapadia’s debut film, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” world premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight. It also won the Amplify Voices Award at Toronto, as well as the Emerging Cinematic Vision Award at Camden fest; and also played at the New York Film Festival.

The documentary is set in contemporary India, at the local film and television institute, where a student writes love letters to her estranged lover. The doc also delivers a snapshot of the drastic changes taking place within the school and across the country as young people take the streets to protest against discrimination.

Represented in international markets by Square Eyes, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” mixes reality with fiction and includes archival footage of student protests to draw...

After opening the Venice Film Festival and continuing on to the New York Film Festival, Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers from Sony Pictures Classics will have a red-carpet premiere at this year’s AFI Fest at the Tcl Chinese Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 13.

In the movie, two women, Janis and Ana, played respectively by Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way. Cruz won the Volpi...

Above: US release poster for Flee. Illustrations by Mikkel Sommer and Kenneth Ladekjaer; art direction by Martin Hultman.Since 2010, on the last Friday of every September, I have gathered all the posters for the films in the main slate of the New York Film Festival. Last year, six months into the pandemic, I didn’t do it. There was a New York Film Festival, and there was a main slate, but with most of the films only screening online, it just didn’t seem like the real thing and my heart wasn’t in it. This year the NYFF is back and entirely Irl and, although we’re still not out of the pandemic woods, I feel that the wonderful new poster for Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee is emblematic of the moment: people, lots of them,, coming together. Aside from the Flee poster, the highlights of this year would...

This Friday, the 59th New York Film Festival kicks off, boasting one of the finest festival lineups of 2021. With highlights from Sundance, Cannes, Berlinale, Telluride, and premieres of their own, the annual event is back in person both at Film at Lincoln Center and, for the first time, across the city.

To kick off our coverage, we’ve rounded up some essential, perhaps under-the-radar (at least in relation to a certain sci-fi blockbuster) selections from the festival, ranging from new releases to restorations. If you’re in the area, one can also see all available tickets here.

A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano)

Writer-director Jonas Carpignano completes his Calabrian trilogy with A Chiara, an enthralling drama about a teenage girl coming to terms with her family’s role in the mafia, which won the Europa Cinema Label at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. With a documentary-like authenticity, this is a touching, powerful...

“The Girl and the Spider” opens with a Pdf floor plan of an apartment layout, and ends with a young woman perhaps vanishing. The tantalizing mysteries in the latest film from the “Strange Little Cat” team of Ramon and Silvan Zürcher never quite reveal themselves in this story about two roommates torn asunder and to separate middle-class flats in Berlin. While the mad entropy of this chamber piece — filled with doppelgängers, women coming and going from rooms, as T.S. Eliot might say — will drive some viewers barking insane, .

One half of the splitting duo (and it’s never clear if she and her now-ex-roommate were ever quite romantic) is Mara (Henriette Confurius), whose odd tactile obsessions puncture the entire film and are immediately announced in the opening scene: she is oddly soothed by the sight and sound of a jackhammer. She hangs around in the wings, picking at a herpes blister,...

Films include Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ and Blerta Basholli’s ‘Hive’.

More films than ever before are eligible for this year’s European Film Awards’ feature film and documentary film selection, with 40 feature films and 15 documentary films, and further feature film titles to be revealed in September.

Titles in the feature film selection include Blerta Basholli’s Sundance hit Hive and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The latter is eligible despite being listed as a film of US origin. The European Film Academy (Efa) told Screen this was because the film reaches the number of points in...

Bruno Dumont’s France, starring Léa Seydoux will screen in the Main Slate of the 59th New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Film at Lincoln Center has announced that Cannes Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau’s Titane, Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part II, Bruno Dumont’s France, Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco, Mia Hansen-Løve's Bergman Island, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, Ramon Zürcher and Silvan Zürcher’s The Girl And the Spider, Rebecca Hall’s Passing, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta, and Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, and Alice Rohrwacher’s Futura will be among the Main Slate selections of the 59th New York Film Festival.

Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island stars Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

These highlights join the Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Closing Night selections Joel Coen’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth, Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog, and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers.

The New York Film Festival organizers have set the main slate for this fall’s largely in-person 59th edition, as well as enhanced pandemic measures including a Covid-19 vaccine requirement.

The 32 films in the Main Slate were produced in 31 different countries, reflecting New York’s decades-long reputation as a curator of global cinema. In recent years, it has also has shown it can enhance the imprimatur of an awards-season hopeful.

Consistent with New York City’s vaccine mandate, which takes effect September 13, the festival said proof of vaccination will be required for all staff, audiences, and filmmakers at fest venues. The event will also adhere to health and safety policies in coordination with Lincoln Center and state and city medical experts.

Among the films in the main slate (see the full list below) are Cannes prize winners Cannes prizewinners Titane, Ahed’s Knee, Memoria and The Worst Person in the World.

The New York Film Festival has revealed the full lineup for its 59th edition, including Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground” and more.

“Titane” won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Other Cannes prizewinners featured on this year’s slate include Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee,” Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria” and Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World.” Directors Alexandre Koberidze, Kira Kovalenko, Rebecca Hall, Panah Panahi, Jonas Poher Rasmussen and Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyma have films in the festival for the first time.

“Taken together, the movies in this year’s Main Slate are a reminder of cinema’s world-making possibilities,” said Dennis Lim, NYFF director of programming and chair of the main slate selection committee. “They open up new ways of seeing and feeling and thinking, and whether or not they refer to our uncertain present,...

The New York Film Festival has rounded out its lineup with a main slate of 32 films, adding buzzy festival titles such as Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” Palme D’Or winner “Titane” and Rebecca Hall’s Sundance darling “Passing.”

“Benedetta” is one of the new titles making its North American premiere at NYFF, as well as two films by South Korea’s Hong Sangsoo including “Introduction” and “In Front Of Your Face.” Sangsoo is making his 16th and 17th appearance at the festival with his two films. Other North American premieres include Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part II,” “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” from director Alexandre Koberidze.

They join the previously announced world premiere of “The Tragedy of Macbeth” as the opening night film, Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” as the centerpiece and the North American premiere of “Parallel Mothers” from Pedro Almodóvar...

No virtual screenings at this year’s event.

Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winner Titane, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta and Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Sundance hit Flee are among selections on New York Film Festival’s (NYFF) main slate.

The line-up, announced on Tuesday (August 10), includes Radu Jude’s Berlin Golden bear winner Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Cannes selection Drive My Car that topped Screen’s jury grid during the festival, and Rebecca Hall’s directing debut and Sundance entry Passing.

The 59th New York Film Festival (NYFF) runs September 24-October 10 as a primarily...

The second film in a loosely planned trilogy about 'human togetherness', The Girl and the Spider begins with the literal construction of a contemporary chamber piece, a very busy apartment move-out and later a similar apartment's move-in. The first film The Strange Little Cat examined a family household unit, now this one seeks to peel apart the unspoken microcosm of twenty-something apartment dwellers and their many repressions. The film begins as the ground is broken by obnoxious jackhammers, the blueprints for an apartment whose space is consumed with itself, which is splayed out on a table, the literal setup for the fleeting conversations and adverse social study about to take place. The Girl and the Spider is hard to recommend, it is not particularly enjoyable,...

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

The Toronto International Film Festival announced which films will fill the TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness, and Wavelength sections at this year’s edition of the event, which runs from Sept. 9-18. The festival also added new titles to the Special Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema programs.

Opening TIFF Docs is the world premiere of “Attica” by Stanley Nelson, which tells the story of the 1971 Attica prison riot. Coming about as a result of the prisoners’ fight for more humane living conditions and lasting for five days, it remains the deadliest prison rebellion in U.S. history.

Wavelengths will open with “Neptune Frost” from directors and married couple Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman. The film is billed a sci-fi musical romance between an intersex hacker and a coltan miner that will follow the “virtual marvel born as a result of their union.” This marks the North American premiere of the film,...

BenedictionThe lineup has been unveiled for the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, which will take place over 10 days (September 9-18) both in-person and physically in Toronto, and digitally across Canada. Wavelengths - FEATURESFutura (Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher)The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zürcher, Silvan Zürcher)Neptune Frost (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman)A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette)The Tsugua Diaries (Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes)Wavelengths - SHORTSThe Capacity for Adequate Anger (Vika Kirchenbauer)Dear Chantal (Querida Chantal) (Nicolás Pereda)earthearthearth (Daïchi Saïto)Inner Outer Space (Laida Lertxundi)Polycephaly in D (Michael Robinson)“The red filter is withdrawn.” (Minjung Kim)Train Again (Peter Tscherkassky)Midnight Madness After Blue (Dirty Paradise) (Bertrand Mandico)Dashcam (Rob Savage)Saloum (Jean Luc Herbulot)Titane (Julia Ducournau)You Are Not My Mother (Kate Dolan)Zalava (Arsalan Amiri)TIFF DOCSAttica (Stanley Nelson)Beba (Rebeca Huntt)Becoming Cousteau...

Titles include a new film from ‘Host’ director Rob Savage.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has added 35 feature titles to its line-up for 2021, predominantly across the TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness and Wavelengths strands.

The new titles include 11 world premieres, consisting of eight in TIFF Docs and three in Midnight Madness.

Titles in the latter include Dashcam, the new film from Rob Savage, director of 2020 pandemic horror hit Host. Savage was named a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2013.

Also in the Midnight Madness section is Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother, inspired by the mythology of the Changeling, which...

New nonfiction films from directors Liz Garbus, Stanley Nelson, and E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the TIFF Docs program, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday.

Nelson’s documentary “Attica” will serve as the opening-night film in the section, while other docs at the festival will include Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau,” Barry Avrich’s “Oscar Peterson: Black + White,” Penny Lane’s “Listening to Kenny G” and Vasarhelyi and Chin’s “Rescue.”

The festival’s Midnight Madness section will open with the Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Titane,” by Julia Ducournau, while TIFF has also added three Special Presentations films that also premiered in Cannes: Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee,” Bruno Dumont’s “France” and Ari Folman’s “Where Is Anne Frank?”

In the Contemporary World Cinema section, additions include Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” and Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s “The Gravedigger’s Wife.

Toronto International Film Festival announced its section of TIFF Docs presented by A&e IndieFilms, Wavelengths and Midnight Madness sections, and confirmed additions to the Special Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema programs of the fest.

“We’re so proud to present the films selected for the popular programmes TIFF Docs, Wavelengths and Midnight Madness,” stated Joana Vicente, Executive Director and Co-Head. “Always provocative, exhilarating and engaging, this year’s offerings are guaranteed to thrill Festival audiences.”

“​A​s an audience-first ​film ​festival​, mesmerizing​ film lovers with boundary-pushing stories is pivotal,” said Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director and Co-Head. “​​​It’s exciting that even in this exceptional time in our industry, we’re able to bring such​ ​thought-provoking selections​​ to these coveted TIFF programmes.”

Of note today in the lineup is the international premiere of National Geographic’s documentary Becoming Cousteau from two-time Oscar-nominated and two-time Emmy-winning director Liz Garbus (The Farm, Angola USA,...

Brussels-based sales agency Best Friend Forever has closed a deal for France with ambitious distributor Wayna Pitch on Anita Rocha da Silveira’s “Medusa,” which plays in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

The drama, set in contemporary Brazil, centers on 21-year-old Mariana, who belongs to a world where she must do her utmost to keep up the appearance of a perfect woman. In order to resist temptation, she and her girlfriends try their best to control everything and everyone around them, including those they see as sinners. At night, their girl squad put on masks, hunt and beat up women who they believe have deviated from the righteous path.

Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Rocha da Silveira has written, directed and edited three short films: “The Noon Vampire” (2008), “Handball”, and “The Living Dead”.

Her first feature “Mate-Me Por Favor” (Kill Me Please) (2015) was screened in the...

22 distributors have lined-up more than 25 films for release tomorrow (July 1).

Cinemas throughout Germany will reopen tomorrow (July 1) after being closed for eight months due to the pandemic.

22 distributors have lined-up more than 25 films for release including the Oscar-winning Nomadland (Disney); Maria Schrader’s Berlinale prize-winner I’m Your Man (Majestic/Paramount) and Catweazle (Tobis Film), based on the cult UK TV series from the 1970s.

German cinemagoers will also finally get to see major US releases such Godzilla vs. Kong (Warner Bros); Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (Sony) and Nobody (Universal) as well as video game adaptation Monster Hunter and family...

France- and Dubai-based sales agency Cercamon has picked up international rights to Chinese crime drama “Streetwise,” which will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section. Before that, Cercamon has released a trailer.

The film (aka “Gaey Wa’r”) is the debut feature effort of Na Jiazuo, who is a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy and had previously directed shorts. That makes “Streetwise” a candidate for the Camera d’Or awarded to the best first film in any of Cannes’ official and sidebar sections.

“Streetwise” was executive produced by Guan Hu, who directed record breaker “The Eight Hundred” and “Mister Six,” and has a track record as a discoverer and supporter of new directing talent.

The film is a detailed look at the lives and predicaments of young people in China in the early 2000s who did not migrate to the big cities.