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The Sopranosis a brilliant crime drama that follows the life of mob boss Tony Soprano. Tony recently stepped into the role of boss of the Dimeo crime family, which triggered a panic attack due to the numerous layers of stress. While making tough decisions and embracing violence, Tony sought help from a psychiatrist for his panic attacks and personal issues. The trials and tribulations of the Dimeo crime family began in 1999 and continued until 2007.

The Sopranos adopted a new storytelling format, transforming television and ushering in a Golden Age of TV. With phenomenal acting, amazing character arcs, and an authentic portrayal of mafia rules, the show creates a lingering desire in the audience for more. Fortunately, there are plenty of gangster films available, and some serve as perfect companions to The Sopranos.

City of God Shows Gritty Gangster Warfare From the Perspective of a Young Up-And-Coming Photographer IMDb Rating: 8.6/10

City of God...

There is a tremendous demand for Brazilian features at domestic cinemas right now due to a combination of recently established federal government quotas for local pics and the low supply of U.S. blockbusters resulting from last year’s Hollywood strikes, said participants of this year’s Expocine, Latin America’s largest theatrical distribution-based industry event held in Sao Paulo.

A presidential decree set the quotas for 2024. Exhibitors with more than 200 screens must reserve 16% of their screenings for Brazilian pics. The percentage is lower for smaller exhibitors, dropping to 7.5% for exhibitors with just one screen.

The decree also establishes a 50% limit of occupation for a single pic – usually a U.S. blockbuster – in an exhibitor’s circuit. If an exhibitor chooses to screen a blockbuster in more than half of their screening sessions, it must compensate within the year with screenings of local pics above the quota.

Marcelo Lima, CEO of Tonks,...

“Chock full of beautiful and crazy sequences” … Film Threat

The sci-fi thriller King Car, hits theaters on January 7th.following its premieres at Rotterdam, Fantasia & Fantastic Fest. Check out this insane trailer:

Dark Star Pictures has acquired North American rights to Renata Pinheiro’s sci-fi thriller King Car. Dark Star Pictures will release the film in theaters and on VOD/Digital on January 7, 2022. King Car World Premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, North American Premiered at Fantasia Film Festival, and U.S. Premiered at Fantastic Fest.

A young man’s ability to surreally speak with cars sparks a revolution that could save his community. When his invention inadvertently accelerates the underlying problems, our hero’s quest puts him in a fight for survival with capitalism’s zombies.

Directed by Renata Pinheiro and written by Sergio Oliveira, Leo Pyrata, and Renata Pinheiro, King Car stars Matheus Nachtergaele, Luciano Pedro Jr,...

"We are the resistance. We can change this reality." Dark Star Pictures has revealed an official US trailer for a Brazilian indie sci-fi film titled King Car, originally Carro Rei in Portuguese. This even came before Titane, premiering at the 2021 Rotterdam Film Festival at the beginning of the year and hitting a number of other festivals this year. What's it about? A taxi company owner's son has an extraordinary connection with cars: he can talk to them. He makes friends with the car that saved him from an accident as a child, but also hears the old wrecks complain about the law banning cars over 15 years old. Together with his uncle, he converts the write-offs into futuristic vehicles that are conscious & speak. They then take on the status quo under King Car's banner. However, capitalism's zombies prove more evil than expected. It stars Luciano Pedro Jr., Matheus Nachtergaele, Okado do Canal,...

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired worldwide rights to Lance Kawas’ thriller Good Thief, also claiming North American rights to Sonny Mallhi’s Hurt and Phil Harding’s The Reunion. The Red Arrow Studios company will release the first title on Tvod and digital platforms on November 30, with the second debuting in select theaters and on internet, cable, and satellite platforms on December 10, and the third arriving on all Tvod and digital platforms in February.

Good Thief follows a pair of thieves (played by Peter Donahue and newcomer Shomari Giles) on the outskirts of Detroit who rob a neighborhood pawnbroker (Jimmy Doom) of his valuable baseball card collection, only to find out they’ve unleashed something far more sinister. Aaron Sizemore penned the script for the film, which also stars Melanie Mahanna and Bobby Laenen. Kawas produced with Hicham Benkirane’s company, Hbk F.C. Myriad Pictures is handling international sales.

Uno (Luciano Pedro Jr) was born in a car. Not that uncommon, you might think – not everybody being driven to hospital whilst in labour is going to make it in time – but in Uno’s case, something magical happens. He develops a special bond with the car involved and, as he grows up, develops the ability to speak to cars and understand what they say.

It’s not a talent he wants to base his life around. His real passion is for agriculture, something which deeply disappoints his father, who had hoped he would take over the family taxi company, and leads to them becoming estranged. Later, however, after his father has suffered a heart attack, Uno returns to the family home and reconnects with the vehicle he was born in, which has been rusting away at the back of the garage. Aided by his uncle Zé (Matheus Nachtergaele), a highly.

The far-right has now aggressively infiltrated the politics of countless nations, developed and otherwise, advocating malicious rhetoric that targets vulnerable groups, preaches ethnocentrism, and weaponizes religion. Outside of what happened in the United States in 2016, last year’s presidential election in Brazil, which crowned a candidate holding such extreme views, is a testament to the harmful powers of alarmist populism.

Although produced prior to the recent rise of these traditionalist forces in the country, Brazilian animated feature “Tito and the Birds” is a shrewd response to bigotry, packaged as a spooky adventure achieved through the integration of artisanal and digital techniques. The outcome is a stylistically singular treasure with tonal and aesthetic hints of Laika’s horror-inspired “ParaNorman” and the animated Van Gogh biopic “Loving Vincent.”

São Paulo native Gustavo Steinberg, the creative commander propelling the entire operation, co-directed the film with animators Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto. Steinberg made...

As Brazil falls heedlessly into far-right political clutches, the liberal message of Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto’s ravishing animated feature “Tito and the Birds” turns out to be more unhappily timely than its makers would have hoped: Put simply, a society gripped by fear will never take flight. If the boy-against-the-world allegory carrying this moral is painted with a broad brush, so — often quite literally — is the film itself. Employing a darkly iridescent fusion of oil paint and digital embellishment, it renders a growing dystopia in shifting, seasick colors, distorted into about as much exquisite, Expressionist-inspired nightmare fuel as its family-film remit will allow.

A classy acquisition for newbie distributors Shout! Studios, this Annecy and Toronto premiere is among the 25 titles submitted in this year’s animated feature Oscar race. Comparisons to fellow Brazilian dazzler “Boy and the World,” a surprise 2015 nominee, are both obvious and merited,...

Oh, boy, this could be good. A new trailer for O Nome da Morte really steps up the action after a tranquil beginning. André Mattos, Matheus Nachtergaele, and Marco Pigossi star; Henrique Goldman directed. Fernando Meirelles (City of God) serves as one of the producers. It's based on the true story of Julio Santana, a notorious hit-man who claimed to have killed hundreds of people. Maybe that's why the trailer, which you can watch below, looks so chilling. The film will open in theaters in Brazil on August 9. No word on other distribution yet....

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

"He who did justice without drawing his sword." Strand Releasing has debuted an official Us trailer for the film Zama, adapted from Antonio Di Benedetto's acclaimed novel, about a Spanish officer stationed in Paraguay separated from his wife and children. Daniel Giménez Cacho plays Don Diego de Zama, a real-life person who struggled with his mental and emotional state as isolation, bureaucratic setbacks, and self-destructive choices begin to compound themselves in his life. The cast includes Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele, Juan Minujín, Nahuel Cano, Mariana Nunes, and Daniel Veronese. This received rave reviews from some critics at the festivals where it played last year, though it seems like an acquired taste. Some may be fully into it, others may be bored by it, but it certainly is stunning to look at. See below. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Lucrecia Martel's Zama, direct from Strand's YouTube: Zama,...

The day is almost here. Tomorrow, Venice Film Festival audiences will be the first to experience Lucrecia Martel‘s “Zama.” It’s the director’s first feature since 2008’s “The Headless Woman,” and one we’ve been eagerly awaiting. And now, a few more clips provide a new peek at the unique experience the filmmaker is bringing to the table.

Read More: Venice Film Festival: 13 Must-See Movies

Based on the novel by Antonio Di Benedetto, and starring Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele, Juan Minujín, Mariana Nunes, and Rafael Spregelburd, the film follows a bureaucrat who patiently awaits a better appointment by the king, even as he watches others around him move on to better placements.

Continue reading ‘Zama’ Clips: Meet A Man Without Fear In Lucrecia Martel’s New Film at The Playlist.

Brazilian filmmaker Anna Muylaert's follow-up to her Sundance and Berlin prizewinner "The Second Mother" (2015) follows Pierre (Naomi Nero), a gender-bending 17-year-old, after he finds out that his "adoptive" mother, Arcay (Dani Nefussi), kidnapped him at birth — and as he grapples with meeting his more conservative biological parents, Gloria (also played by Nefussi) and Matheus (Matheus Nachtergaele). Read More: "Fest Hit 'The Second Mother' Brings Success — and Pain" Though it starts off jazzy and freewheeling, the trailer soon gets to the meat of what The Hollywood Reporter calls "an energetic and enlightening look at tangled family ties." Knocked sideways by the news, Pierre, born Felipe, must confront his mother's arrest, his new family's traditional expectations — "You paint your nails?" Gloria asks — and the affect of this clash of nature and nurture on his own identity. Loco reportedly attracted several...

Article by Dan Clark

With the recent release of Lawless it had me thinking about one of my favorite movie genres. I’m not sure what it is but the crime genre has produced some of the greatest films of all time. That made creating this list even more difficult. One thing I did do to ease my pain a little was I didn’t include Westerns. I figured I would save those for their own list. After much frustration I was finally able to break it down to the Top 30 Crime Films of All Time. I’m sure some of the list will surprise you while others choices will be far more obvious.

Here’s the Top 10, and for the rest check out the full Top 30 rundown on Gcrn.

10) No Country for Old Men

Directed By: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Written By: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, and Cormac McCarthy

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones,...

Torino Glbt Film Festival 2009: Feature Lineup Feature Films In Competition Rückenwind (Light Gradient) by Jan Krüger (Germany, 2009) friday 24 april, 18.30 – saturday 25 april, 14.30 El patio de mi cárcel (My Prison Yard) by Belén Macías (Spain, 2008) friday 24 april, 22.45 – saturday 25 april, 11.30 Gu huo (Fire in Silence) by Shen Weiwei (China, 2008) saturday 25 april, 18 – sunday 26 april, 14.15 Leonera (Lion’s Den) by Pablo Trapero (Argentina/South Korea/Brazil, 2008) saturday 25 april, 20 – monday 27 april, 11 Selda (The Inmate) by Ellen Ramos, Paolo Villaluna (Philippines, 2008) saturday 25 april, 22.15 – sunday 26 april, 11 A Festa da Menina Morta (The Dead Girl’s Feast) by Matheus Nachtergaele (Brazil, 2008) sunday 26 april, 18.15 – monday 27 april, 15.45 Serbis (Service) by Brillante [...]...

Amsterdam -- The Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf), part of the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, announced Thursday financial contributions to 25 film projects in 19 countries for a total amount of 362,500 euros ($466,000).

The projects include new films by independent filmmakers Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pablo Larrain, Rodrigo Moreno, Raya Martin, Tariq Teguia and Sinisa Dragin as well as many projects by first time filmmakers.

About thirty new films supported by the Hbf will be selected for the upcoming 38th International Film Festival Rotterdam, including those that picked up top prizes during the fall 2008 festival season. These have included: Venice, San Sebastian, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro and Pusan, where Haile Gerima (“Teza”), Yesim Ustaoglu (“Pandora’s Box”), Emily Tang (“Perfect Life”), Matheus Nachtergaele (“The Dead Girl’s Feast”) and Yang Jin (“Er Dong”) took home awards or special mentions. All filmmakers are expected to present their works during the next Rotterdam edition.

Chicago -- "Hunger," a U.K./Ireland film, won the Gold Hugo at the 44th annual Chicago International Film Festival.

Directed by Steve McQueen, the film about a hunger strike in Northern Ireland's Hm Prison Maze in 1981 was singled out by the festival jury Saturday for its "uncompromisingly disturbing story of the courage to fight for one's belief."

The festival, which began Oct. 16, concludes Wednesday.

In the documentary category, a U.S. film, "Valentino: The Last Emperor," won the Gold Hugo. Directed by Matt Tymauer, it is a glimpse into the life of fashion designer Valentino Garavani.

"Tokyo Sonata" (Japan/Netherlands/Hong Kong), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, won the Grand Jury Prize. The film used the story of a humble family as a metaphor for global anxieties.

Henrik Ruben Genz won a Silver Hugo for direction for "Terribly Happy" (Denmark), a genre mix centering on a Copenhagen policeman who is re-assigned to a provincial town.

• I’m guessing that with one third of the films representing first time efforts, this year’s Un Certain Regard section will be a crapshoot for buyers and critics alike. Those that stick out among the pack come from promising directors with sophomore features such as…: Milh Hadha Al-Bahr (Salt of this Sea) (Annemarie Jacir)We often see stories about the immigrant struggle in a country that is not theirs…this is the flipside Pov a former Palestinian finding it difficult to find her footing in her native land. Jacir’s debut looks like a sure bet for a healthy film festival circuit. Los Bastardos (Amat Esclante)Crossing the line for a pair of Mexican immigrants appears to take on a whole new meaning with Amat Esclante’s 2nd feature. His debut, Sangre belongs to the contemporary, art-house bunch of films that portrays a dismal life. Los Bastardos

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• Here is the complete 2008 Cannes Line Up. Main Competition: Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Three Monkeys (Turkey-France-Italy) Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne - Le Silence De Lorna (France-Belgium)Arnaud Desplechin - A Christmas Story (France) Clint Eastwood - Changeling (Us)Atom Egoyan - Adoration (Canada) Ari Folman - Waltz With Bashir (Israel) Philippe Garrel - La Frontiere De L'Aube (France) Matteo Garrone - Gomorra (Italy)Charlie Kaufman - Synecdoche, New York (Us) Eric Khoo - My Magic (Singapore) Lucretia Martel - La Mujer Sin Cabeza (Argentina-Spain) Brillante Mendoza - Serbis (The Philippines) Kornel Mondruczo - Delta (Hungary-Germany) Walter Salles & Daniela Thomas - Linha de Passe (Brazil) Paolo Sorrentino - Il Divo (Italy) Pablo Trapero - Lion's Den (Argentina-South Korea) Wim Wenders - The Palermo Shooting (Germany) Jia Zhangke - 24 City (China)Steven Soderbergh - Che (Us-Spain-France) -- one four-hour competion title comprised of The Argentine and Guerrilla Out of competitionSteven Spielberg -

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• Apart from film examples such as The Band's Visit, Munyurangabo (Liberation Day) and Terror's Advocate, last year’s Un Certain Regard Section had its share of misfires – films that took the experimental route but felt more like - old bath tub water. This year’s batch of twenty titles includes another mix of veteran and first time filmmakers with perhaps the James Toback's bio-docu on friend (Iron Mike) Tyson, Abel Ferrara’s latest work Chelsea On The Rocks and finally Bong Joon Ho, Leos Carax and Michel Gondry collab Tokyo! to garner the most attention from buyers and critic crowds. The five films I’m most looking forward to are Germany’s Wolke 9 by Andreas Dresen, Los Bastardos by Amat Escalante (he is the was the Dop for Carlos Reygadas’ first two films and a couple of years back he released another dismal portrait of Mexico with Sangre.

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• South American cinema comes in like a lion at the 61st Festival de Cannes, with three films competing for the Palme D’or. That’s not even counting Steven Soderbergh’s Che films (The Argentine and Guerilla) which also heavily represent the region. Walter Salles, who’s The Motorcycle Diaries competed for the Palme in 2004 (winning two awards), returns to the fest with Linha de Passe, a Brazilian production set in Sao Paolo’s urban projects. The film follows four soccer-obsessed brothers as they fight to escape poverty and realize their dreams. Argentina has two films in competition, both by Cannes neophytes. La Mujer Sin Cabeza by female director Lucrecia Martel, considered one of the pioneers of New Argentina Cinema, is a politically charged women’s drama. The highly buzzed Leonara by Pablo Trapero tells the story of a young mother trying to raise her son from prison. The

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Released slightly too late to cash in on recent millennium fever, "Midnight", a short feature by Brazilian directors Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, is most notable for being Salles' first film after his award-winning international hit "Central Station".

Part of the "2000 Seen By" series of films by notable directors dealing with the advent of the millennium and produced by Haut et Court for Arte Television, "Midnight" is a slight effort that will make little commercial impact. It opens Friday for a theatrical run at New York's Screening Room.

The film chronicles the activities of various residents of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the star-crossed final day of the century. These include Maria Fernanda Torres), who despairs after she's left suddenly by her live-in lover; Chico (Matheus Nachtergaele), a criminal informer threatening to rat out one of his partners; and Joao Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos), who gets help busting out of prison on the condition that he murder Chico. While Maria contemplates suicide as a way to end her suffering, Joao seeks out his victim so he can fulfill his contract. Inevitably, he and Maria cross paths as the clock strikes midnight.

Although ambitious in its interweaving of characters and situations, "Midnight" never achieves any narrative steam and is far too cliche-laden for its melodramatic plot turns to have resonance. There are interesting touches throughout, such as Chico's encounter with an alley bum who imitates a dog and Joao's meeting with an elderly prison inmate whose collapse precipitates his escape, but the film seems entirely too eager to present images of millennium quirkiness. It is best appreciated for its realistic performances and the many views it provides of Rio's landscapes.

MIDNIGHT

Winstar Cinema

Directors:Daniela Thomas, Walter Salles

Screenwriters:Daniela Thomas, Walter Salles, Emanuel Carneiro

Director of photography:Walter Carvalho

Editor:Felipe Lacerda

Art director:Carla Caffe

Music:Antonio Pinto, Eduardo Bid, Nana Vasconcellos

Color/stereo

Cast:

Maria:Fernanda Torres

Joao:Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos

Chico:Matheus Nachtergaele

Vovo:Nelson Sargento

Pedro:Carlos Vereza

Running time -- 72 minutes

No MPAA rating...