News

Exclusive: Portuguese-based talent agency Hit Management has hired Sara Puro-Steele in the newly created role of Managing Director.

Puro-Steele joins Hit Management after 17 years at the London-based Independent Talent Group. Puro-Steele is a dual Spanish-British national and fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. She has represented actors such as Ariane Labed (September Says), Olga Kurylenko (Thunderbolts*), Jonas Nay (Deutschland 83), and Phil Dunster (Ted Lasso).

Hit Management was co-founded by João Louro in 2011. The Lisbon-based company represents actors across film and television. Some of their clients include Afonso Pimentel, Inês Pires Tavares, Ricardo Pereira, Leonor Silveira, Simão Cayatte, and Laura Dutra. Hit Management also operates alongside its sister PR and advertising agency, mais que uma.

Discussing the move, Puro-Steele said she has “always had a passion for European talent.”

“The exceptional work of my clients in their home countries is precisely what makes them so attractive for international projects casting...

98% of interviews follow the same pleasantries-exchange / question-and-answer / pleasantries-exchange format, yet there are those rare times an incredible opportunity arrives. Which is to say that when I interviewed Paulo Branco at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival I couldn’t have anticipated he––maybe the greatest producer in film history––would ask me to screen Manoel de Oliveira films that, per him, were receiving no notice from United States programmers. Just five months later I’m delighted to unveil Mirror of Life: Manoel de Oliveira 1996—2004, comprising ten features (and nine restorations debuting in North America) that will screen at Bam from March 28 to April 3.

Featuring John Malkovich, Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, and (of course) Ricardo Trêpa, the program finds Oliveira, who turned 90 during this time, in a period both decadent and reflective––note the Word and Utopia / Porto of My Childhood double-feature or 2001’s I’m Going Home...

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...

Paris-based sales agency and production company Luxbox has sold the French distribution rights to 12 pics of the late Portuguese maestro filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira to Capricci Films, which plans to release the restored films in cinemas across France from 2024.

Expressing his pride at adding some of Oliveira’s best films to its catalog, Capricci’s Louis Descombes said: “We had long hoped to be able to give new life to the unique, mischievous and incredibly modern work of the Portuguese filmmaker.” The Bordeaux-based distributor aims to kick off the releases with “Val Abraham” in the spring.

Bringing back Oliveira’s films to French cinemas “wouldn’t be possible without the work of the Portuguese Cinematheque which already restored ‘Abraham’s Valley’ and will continue the digitization and restoration of the rest of the films in 2024, including Oliveira’s first film, ‘Aniki-Bóbó,’” said Luxbox CEO, Fiorella Moretti.

Inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s classic tale Madame Bovary,...

Following Main Slate and Spotlight, the 61st New York Film Festival has unveiled its Revivals lineup, featuring new restorations of classic and overlooked films. Highlights include Manoel de Oliveira’s Abraham’s Valley, Jean Renoir‘s The Woman on the Beach, Bahram Beyzaie’s The Stranger and the Fog, Abel Gance’s La Roue, Paul Vecchiali’s The Strangler, Lee Grant’s Tell Me a Riddle, Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints, Horace Ové’s Pressure, and more.

“This year’s edition of Revivals is a thrilling showcase of cinema history, packed with groundbreaking discoveries and long unseen classics alike, all in outstanding restorations,” said Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center and NYFF Revivals Programmer. “We never cease to be amazed at the lasting influence of these cinematic gems on our collective sense of cinema, with the way they have tackled cultural, societal, or political issues with such modernity and artistry.

The director’s 1993 film Abraham’s Valley will have a special screening in Directors’ Fortnight this year.

Paris-based sales company Luxbox has acquired 13 titles from the catalogue of the late Portugese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira.

The films span the director’s first feature 1942’s Aniki Bóbó through 1993’s Abraham’s Valley. The latter will be given a special screening at the upcoming Directors’ Fortnight. The Cannes sidebar also pays tribute to the director with its 2023 poster and features an image of Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira in tribute to Abraham’s Valley and celebrates the 30th anniversary of its selection at Directors’ Fortnight that year.

Stars: João Arrais, Anabela Moreira, Gustavo Sumpta, Leonor Silveira, Miguel Amorim, Ivo Arroja, André Cabral, João Cachola, Vicente Gil | Written and Directed by Carlos Conceicao

For me, it can only be a good thing when I say that Tommy Guns is like no film I have ever seen before. It covers several genres and with the genre shifts, almost feels like it’s changing the story each time – whether it covers wartime drama, zombie flick or art house, it’s always engaging.

The story begins in 1974, just one year before the country’s independence from decades of Portuguese rule. Wealthy colonists are fleeing the country as Angolan revolutionaries gradually claim their land back. A tribal girl discovers love and danger when her path crosses that of a Portuguese soldier. Another group of soldiers, completely cut off from the outside world, blindly follow the brutal orders of their commander in the name of serving their country.

Aftersun protagonists, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio feature on the poster for this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week Photo: La Semaine de la Critique With the launch of the official programme of the 76th Cannes Film Festival due with much baited breath in mid-April some of the sidebar sections are ready with revelations.

The 55th edition of the Directors' Fortnight reveals itself, “luminous and adventurous. Serene, with no frills,” according to the organisers.

The striking image is of Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira who is said to “question our gaze.”

Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira is the poster image for this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Photo: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs The 2023 poster pays tribute to Manoel de Oliveira's Abraham’s Valley (inspired by Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its selection (1993 Directors' Fortnight).

As censorship was jeopardising the publication of his novel, Flaubert declared: "There is...

The 2023 Directors’ Fortnight runs in Cannes from May 16-27.

Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight (La Quinzaine des Cinéastes) has unveiled its 2023 poster ahead of its 55th edition complete with a new name and a new artistic director.

The 2023 poster features an image of Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira in tribute to Manoel de Oliveira’s 1993 feature Abraham’s Valley (inspired by Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary) and celebrates the 30th anniversary of its selection at Directors’ Fortnight that year.

Founded in 1969 by France’s directors’ guild the Srf (Société des réalisateurs de films), Directors’ Fortnight is heading into its 55th edition with a complete makeover.

"S'kwata! S'kwata! S'kwata!" Kino Lorber has revealed the official trailer for a film titled Tommy Guns, made by up-and-coming filmmaker Carlos Conceição. Winner of Best European Film Award at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival, Tommy Guns has elicited comparisons to the work of Claire Denis, Miguel Gomes, and even M. Night Shyamalan, and it announces a bold and exciting new voice in Portuguese and Angolan filmmaking. Described as an "ambitious and exquisitely crafted genre-fluid fantasia." In 1974, after years of civil war, the Portuguese and descendants fled the colony of Angola (in Central Africa) where independentist groups gradually claimed their territory back. A tribal girl discovers love and death when her path crosses that of a young Portuguese soldier. Meanwhile, another group of Portuguese soldiers is barracked inside an infinite wall from which they will have to escape once from the past comes out of the grave to claim its long-awaited justice.

Portuguese auteur João Canijo (San Sebastián winner “Blood of My Blood”) has a brace of films at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023. “Bad Living” is in competition while its companion piece “Living Bad” is in the Encounters strand.

“Bad Living” follows five conflicted women who are operating an old family-run hotel, trying to save it from going under. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter to this oppressive space stirs trouble, reviving latent hatred and piled-up resentments. “Living Bad,” which plays out like the reverse shot of “Bad Living,” follows the stories of three groups of guests in the same hotel with glimpses of what transpires in the first film.

The genesis of the films go back to “Blood of My Blood” (2011), where the lives of a family living in the outskirts of Lisbon are disrupted within a short period of time.

“‘Blood of My Blood’ was supposed to be two...

One of the most fascinating, ambitious cinematic projects premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this month comes from Portuguese director João Canijo, who will be debuting a pair of connected films in different sections. First up, his Competition selection Mal Viver (Bad Living) draws inspiration from the plays of Strindberg and films of Rivette in telling the story of five women who are running a decaying hotel. Then the Encounters election Viver Mal (Living Bad) is set in the same location, but from the viewpoint of the guests. Ahead of the premieres, we’re thrilled to exclusively debut the first trailers.

With the same creative team behind both films, including cinematographer Leonor Teles, editor João Braz, sound team of Elsa Ferreira and Tiago Raposinho, production designer Nádia Henriques, and costumer designer Silvia Siopa, the cast of Mal Viver features Anabela Moreira, Rita Blanco, Madalena Almeida, Cleia Almeida, and Vera Barreto,...

Nação Valente Review — Nação Valente (2022) Film Review from the 75th Annual Locarno Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Carlos Conceição, starring João Arrais, Anabele Moreira, Gustavo Sumpta, Leonor Silveira, Miguel Amorim, and André Cabral. For all the “both sides” and “it’s complicated” discourse that’s flooded the media with regards to world events this year – particularly [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: NAÇÃO Valente: Historical Revisionism As the Real Horrors of War [Locarno 2022]...

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay CashINTERNATIONAL Competition(Jury: Eliza Hittman, Kevin Jerome Everson, Philippe Lacôte, Leonor Silveira, Isabelle Ferrari)Golden Leopard: Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Edwin) | Read our reviewSpecial Jury Prize: A New Old Play (Jiongjiong Qiu) | Read our reviewBest Direction: Abel Ferrara (Zeros and Ones) | Read our reviewBest Actress: Anastasiya Krasovskaya (Gerda)Best Actor: Mohamed Mellali and Valero Escolar (The Odd-Job Men)Special Mention: Soul of a Beast (Lorenz Merz) and The Sacred Spirit (Chema García Ibarra) | Read our reviewFILMMAKERS Of The Present( Jury: Agathe Bonitzer, Mattie Do, Vanja Kaludjercic)Golden Leopard: Brotherhood (Francesco Montagner)Special Jury Prize: L'Été l'éternité (Émilie Aussel)Prize for Best Emerging Director: Hleb Papou (The Legionnaire) Best Actress: Saskia Rosendahl (No One's with the Calves) | Read our reviewBest Actor: Gia Agumava (Wet Sand)First Feature(Jury: Amjad Abu Alala, Karina Ressler, Katharina Wyss)Best First Feature: She Will (Charlotte Colbert...

The Locarno Film Festival returns to its original physical format under the guidance of new Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro, who worked with the Selection Committees to pick out the titles screening in Locarno from 4 through 14 August. Alongside the welcome return of long-established favorites, there are also new items such as the competitive short films program Corti d’autore in the Pardi di domani section, plus a dedicated program for younger viewers: Locarno Kids: Screenings.

In full compliance with current health and sanitary regulations, Locarno74 will once again be an in-person event, with the return of evenings in Piazza Grande and of screenings in the other twelve theaters around the city. The venue for all meetings and panel discussions with guest personalities accompanying their films will be the Rotonda by la Mobiliare, the new home of the Forum.

The Ticket Shop will be open for ticket purchase from mid-July, whereas...

Abel Ferrara’s contemporary thriller ’Zeros And Ones’ stars Ethan Hawke.

Abel Ferrara’s contemporary thriller Zeros And Ones and Srdjan Dragojević’s dark comedy Heavens Above are among 17 films from 12 countries having their world premiere in the international competition at the 74th Locarno Film Festival (August 4-14) under the new artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro.

Scroll down for full line-up

In his first collaboration with Ferrara, Zeros And Ones sees Ethan Hawke plays an American soldier stationed in Rome who pursues an unknown enemy threatening the entire world after the Vatican gets blown up.

Ahead of shooting in Italy...

Exclusive: Stephanie Vogt is set as a lead in Glória, Netflix’s upcoming historical spy thriller drama series from SPi productions and Rtp.

Written by Pedro Lopes and directed by Tiago Guedes, Glória takes place in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, in the small village of Glória do Ribatejo, where Raret is located, an American broadcasting center that broadcasts Western propaganda to the Eastern Bloc. João Vidal, an engineer from families linked to the Estado Novo, but recruited by the Kgb, will take on several high-risk espionage missions that could change the course of Portuguese and world history.

Vogt will play Anne. The wife of James, Anne comes from a wealthy and liberal family. She is a Harvard grad in International Relations, recruited by the CIA.

The ensemble cast includes Portuguese and international actors, including Miguel Nunes, Carolina Amaral, Victoria Guerra, Afonso Pimentel, Adriano Luz, Joana Ribeiro,...

If Brazil’s film industry faces unprecedented threats under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, let’s hope this kind of adventurous filmmaking–which ruminates on the country’s unaddressed injustices that shaped the country of today–isn’t in the populist administration’s sights. All the Dead Ones is an accomplished film by directing duo Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra, rich in the nation’s poetry and music, daring in highlighting women’s voices while commenting on Brazil’s history of inequality of wealth, class, and race.

The film hinges on the white, middle-class Soares family in São Paulo at the turn of the twentieth century, a decade after Brazil banned slavery and when the nascent republic was lurching from coup to dictatorship. Before abolition, the Soares were wealthy coffee-plantation owners, but their diminished place in social strata has meant the women of the family shelter in relative obscurity in Brazil’s largest city.

There are a host of important, even vital ideas behind “All the Dead Ones,” a hybrid period piece addressing Brazil’s unresolved legacy of slavery and the imprint it’s had on an all-too-often downplayed contemporary racism of malignant toxicity. Set largely in 1899, 11 years after the abolition of slavery but designed so modern São Paulo increasingly bleeds into the picture, : Having a character express her colonialist guilt by seeing the ghosts of dead slaves feels far too stale when presented with such Freudian hysteria. Caetano Gotardo and Marco Dutra, collaborating as directors for the first time, channel the artificiality of late Manoel de Oliveira but without the enticing mystery, hampered by an understandable earnestness that yearns for a more subtle approach. International prospects are uncertain at best.

It doesn’t help that the character one instantly bonds with dies after the first few minutes. Josefina (Alaíde Costa) is an...

The Berlinale lineup already includes films from Jia Zhangke, Matías Piñeiro, and more, but now the competition slate has arrived and it’s an incredibly promising selection. Headed by Carlo Chatrian, it includes many of our most-anticipated films of the year with Christian Petzold’s Undine, Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days, Philippe Garrel’s The Salt of Tears, Abel Ferrara’s Siberia, and Caetano Gotardo & Marco Dutra’s All the Dead Ones, plus recent festival favorites: Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Check out the lineup below and return for our coverage.

Competition

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Germany / Netherlands

by Burhan Qurbani

with Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, Richard Fouofié Djimeli

World premiere

Dau. Natasha

Germany / Ukraine / United Kingdom / Russian Federation

by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel

with Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo,...

The Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday morning revealed the main competition lineup and gala selections for festival’s 70th edition.

The festival, which begins February 20, will screen 18 films in competition, including movies from Sally Potter, Kelly Reichardt, and Eliza Hittman. Six are from female directors.

Among the gala presentations is Pixar’s” Onward.” The Dan Scanlon-helmed urban fantasy includes the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Kyle Bornheimer, Lena Waithe, and Ali Wong.

Here is the complete list:

Competition

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” (Germany/Netherlands)

Director: Burhan Qurbani

Cast: Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, and Richard Fouofié Djimeli

“Dau. Natasha” (Germany/Ukraine/United Kingdom/Russia)

Directors: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel

Cast: Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo, Alexei Blinov, and Luc Bigé

“Domangchin yeoja” (“The Woman Who Ran”) (South Korea)

Director: Hong Sangsoo

Cast: Kim Minhee,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled its 2020 line-up, with 18 films playing in competition from directors such as Abel Ferrara, Sally Potter, Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, Kelly Reichardt and Eliza Hittman.

Abel Ferrara’s Willem Dafoe starrer “Siberia” is a world premiere in competition, as is Sally Potter’s “The Roads Not Taken.”

Among the U.S. films at the Berlinale, Reichardt’s “First Cow” is an international premiere, and so too is Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”

Pixar’s latest animation, “Onward”, also has its international premiere out of competition in the Special Galas section.

Previous Berlin Silver Bear winner Christian Petzold’s latest, “Undine”, world premieres, while Iranian director Mohammed Rasoulof, who is not allowed to travel outside his home country, world premieres his latest, “There is No Evil.”

Six out of the 18 films in competition are helmed by female directors.

The 70th edition of the festival...

Thai-German title Santikhiri Sonata won in the international competition, while Pedro Felipe Marques' Breeding Ground triumphed in the Portuguese section. The 17th Doclisboa International Film Festival (17 - 27 October) wrapped with the triumph of Santkihiri Sonata, a Thai-German co-production directed by Thunska Pansittivorakul. The experimental, associative docu-fiction hybrid about the eponymous region in the north of Thailand and the rule of General Prem Tinsulanonda and its consequences, received the City of Lisboa Award worth €8,000 from the jury composed of Billy Woodberry, Carlos Almeida, Jérôme Bel, Juliano Gomes, Leonor Silveira and Mania Akbari. The film had its world premiere at Doclisboa. The Portuguese Authors Society International Competition Jury Award worth €2,000 went to French filmmaker Frank Beauvais's Berlinale Forum title Just Don't Think I'll Scream, while Brazilian director Jo Serfaty received a special mention for Sun Inside, which had its international premiere at Doclisboa. In the Portuguese Competition, the...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Manoel de Oliveira's The Convent (1995) is showing November 29 – December 28, 2018 in the United States.One good way to define the Portuguese word “saudade” is to imagine a movie with Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich as a bourgeois couple touring a sinister old European convent, then compare your expectation with what director Manoel de Oliveira made of that scenario in his 1995 film The Convent. That poignant feeling you get from the contrast—a serenely thwarted hope for what this movie might have been, a yearning so deluded that it actually feels good—well, isn’t that quite the essence of saudade?Widely hailed as boring, The Convent might not make anybody’s shortlist of the most inviting Oliveira access points, but it is representative, underscoring an idea that the impressive thing about him has to do with endurance. Aside from...

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. João Nicolau's John From (2015), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from May 12 - June 11, 2017 as a Special Discovery.How can we begin to explain why João Nicolau is such a charming oddity in a Portuguese film scene that seems to thrive on individuality and personality? You do not mess with Colonel Tapioca lightly, as someone says at some point in John From, Nicolau’s second feature: the reference is both to a character from the adventures of Tintin and to a Spanish “adventure wear” brand that was very popular in Portugal in the 1990s. Nicolau’s films are full of these little rabbit holes that enrich the tales he’s spinning and sometimes make it seem as if you’ve been mysteriously inducted into the secret society of the Republic of Telheiras.

The Shadow Knows: Oliveira’s latest a Stringent Meditation on Sacrifice

Inevitably, any discussion pertaining to recent work from Portuguese director Manoel de Oliviera will make mention of the fact that he’s currently the world’s oldest filmmaker at the age of 105. He shows little sign of slowing down, with a short film currently in development and another feature he’s currently trying to fund. After playing the festival circuit in 2012, his latest, Gebo and the Shadow, is an adaptation of a stage play by Raul Brandao, finally landing in theaters, though playing solely in one theater in New York City. It’s a pity it won’t have a wider platform, considering the film’s rather ascetic beauty as well as its bleak examination of poverty and familial sacrifices, made all the more accessible (at least compared to his last effort, 2010’s The Strange Case of Anjelica) with iconic actors like Michael Lonsdale,...

The first-ever manufacturer of light bulbs in Portugal, Manoel de Oliveira’s father died in 1932, nine years after Raul Brandão wrote a play called Gebo and the Shadow. In the year 2012 Oliveira turned the play into a film, making a grimy, dim oil lamp its legitimate character: elderly accountant Gebo burns the midnight oil in it as he plods away at his books. In an early scene, meanwhile, his wife lights the lanterns outside their house with a match. No one seems yet to have heard of electricity; the time setting is unclear; presumably, it’s the turn of the century.

Presumably. Oliveira’s Benilde, or The Virgin Mother (1975) opens with a title-card of this word to gradually lure us into a province of utter chronological disorder. This very same word has ever since been unchallenged as the most accurate description of the bizarre, atemporal effect that grows stronger in each subsequent Oliveira film.

Dear Danny,

Rushing from screen to screen with Tiff’s closing weekend just around the corner, that mix of excitement and exhaustion (a condition Manny Farber once dubbed “Festivalitis”) does indeed become more and more pronounced. Fortunately, the ratio of excitement has for me remained high even when my eyes occasionally grow heavy, thanks largely to alternately stirring and maddening films like Terrence Malick’s latest vision of Eden lost.

Malick’s To the Wonder feels curiously anchorless, which is especially weird as its story aims for the tightest focus on romantic couples since the days of Borzage. “Love makes us one,” go the murmurs on the characteristically dense soundscape as the camera swirls and swoons with the characters’ rush of infatuation, following them from Mont St. Michel to Oklahoma. The vertiginous impressionism accelerates, but the lack of character detailing—the lovers played by Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko become abstractions,...

Following the Toronto International Film Festival line-up earlier this week, the 69th Venice Film Festival has weighed in with their choices this morning. Outside of films also premiering at Tiff — including most notably Ramin Bahrani‘s At Any Price and Terrence Malick‘s To the Wonder – they have a strong batch of films not at that fest. We have the highly anticipated next feature from Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours, Carlos), titled Something In The Air, as well as Brian De Palma‘s sensual thriller Passion with Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace.

Then things get a little silly with Harmony Korine‘s James Franco and Selena Gomez gangster/party film Spring Breakers. Rounding out the other major titles are Susanne Bier following up her Oscar win with Love Is All You Need and Spike Lee’s Michael Jackson documentary Bad 25. The lack of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s heavily rumored The Master...

Zhang Ziyi in Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters

For about a week now, Ioncinema has been counting down its "Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2012" — and they're almost there. As of this writing, after 99 individual entries filling us in on all that Eric Lavallee knows about the films he's looking forward to, the title that'll land in the #1 spot remains a mystery. I'll update when it appears, but for now, click the titles to see the files on the top 20 so far:

Update, 1/12: And we have a #1:

Carlos Reygadas's Post Tenebras Lux. Michael Haneke's Love. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. Terrence Malick's The Burial (that title's likely to change). Olivier Assayas's Something in the Air. Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmasters. Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love. Antonio Campos's Simon Killer. Derek Cianfrance's Place Beyond the Plains. Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone.

"The Strange Case of Angelica" is helmed and screenwritten by Manoel de Oliviera and finds release at the IFC Center in New York on December 29th. Starring in the indie flick are Ricardo Trêpa, Pilar López de Ayala, Leonor Silveira, Luís Miguel Cintra, Ana Maria Magalhães and Isabel Ruth. François d’Artemare, Maria João Mayer,Luís Miñarro, Renata de Almeida and Leon Cakoff produce. "The Strange Case of Angelica" is a magical tale of a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams. One night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who has mysteriously passed away...

"The Strange Case of Angelica" is helmed and screenwritten by Manoel de Oliviera and finds release at the IFC Center in New York on December 29th. Starring in the indie flick are Ricardo Trêpa, Pilar López de Ayala, Leonor Silveira, Luís Miguel Cintra, Ana Maria Magalhães and Isabel Ruth. François d’Artemare, Maria João Mayer,Luís Miñarro, Renata de Almeida and Leon Cakoff produce. "The Strange Case of Angelica" is a magical tale of a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams. One night, Isaac is summoned by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of a young bride, Angelica, who has mysteriously passed away...

Madrid -- The 57th San Sebastian International Film Festival kicked off Sept. 18 with Canadian director Atom Egoyan gracing the stage at the festival's inaugural gala to present "Chloe," which opened the Official Section.

Producer Margaret Menegaz picked up the Fipresci grand prize for Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," voted the best film of 2009 by the Federation of International Film Critics.

The inaugural ceremony, held in the futuristic Kursaal convention center, was presented by Spanish journalist Edurne Ormazabal, with Francis Lorenzo and Barbara Goenaga, in Spanish, English and the local Basque language as is customary for the festival held in Spain's northern Basque region.

Spanish film academy president Alex de la Iglesia was on hand to help launch Spain's biggest festival, as were members of the official jury, including jury chair Laurent Cantet, actors Daniel Gimenez-Cacho, Pilar Lopez de Ayala and Leonor Silveira, and directors Bong Joon-ho, John Madden and Samira Makhmalbaf.

Madrid -- Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz will attend the opening gala on Sept. 18 of the 57th San Sebastian International Film Festival, as they present "Inglourious Basterds," running in the Zabaltegi-Pearls Section.

Also expected on hand for the opening night, is Atom Egoyan, who will screen the international debut of his "Chloe," while Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington are scheduled to attend the closing ceremony on the 26th, as they help Rodrigo Garcia present his latest work, "Mother and Child."

French film director Laurent Cantet will chair the official competition jury. He will be accompanied by Mexican actor Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Korean director Bong Joon-ho, the Spanish actress Pilar Lopez de Ayala, British director John Madden, Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf and Portuguese actress Leonor Silveira.

British actress Saffron Burrows will chair the New Directors Jury, responsible for awarding the €90,000 ($110,000) top prize. The jury is rounded out by director Borja Cobeaga,...

So the line-up for this year's Cannes Film Festival was just released today and I damn near fainted from the awesome. This year's competition has got to be the biggest, baddest one in many years, with so many famous auteurs throwing down with their latest films. Who will get the coveted Palme d'Or?

A sampling of just the biggest names who will be in competition: Pedro Almodovar (Broken Embraces), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Park Chan-wook (Thirst), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon), Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void), Ken Loach (Looking for Eric), Johnnie To (Vengeance), Lars von Trier (Antichrist), Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock).

Not only that, but out of competition, we have Pixar's Up as the opening film, Bong Joon-ho's Mother, Hikorazu Kore-eda's Air Doll, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, and a new documentary by Michel Gondry...

For the most part, the majority of the films Variety speculated would be included at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival made the final list. The only ones that didn't were Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant and Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro out of the group I listed from their early report. However, to make up for it they have added Alejandro Amenabar's Agora starring Rachel Weisz, which is big news if you ask me. Listed below is the early list thanks to Variety. The Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week will be fully announced Friday in Paris. Opener

Up U.S., Pete Docter, Bob Peterson Closer

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky France, Jan Kounen In Competition

Bright Star Australia-u.K.-France, Jane Campion

Spring Fever China-France, Lou Ye

Antichrist Denmark-Sweden-France-Italy, Lars von Trier

Enter the Void France, Gaspar Noe

Face France-Taiwan-Netherlands-Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang

Les Herbes folles France-Italy, Alain Resnais

In the Beginning France,...

Okay, can I just tell you now, that I wish I can go :sad

But work schedule prevents me from going to Cannes (May is ratings period for TV and thou shall not leave your post!). So, I'll just regale myself with fantasizing I was there, or, by counting the days before I can see the films in/out competition!

And this year? It's great! Quentin Tarantino ("Inglourious Basterds") will face off with Ang Lee ("Taking Woodstock") while fighting Pedro Almodovar ("Broken Embraces") and kicking Jane Campion ("Bright Star") to the curb.

It's going to be fierce!

But before all the competition hoopla, Disney/Pixar will entertain everyone by opening the event with "Up" (the first ever animated film to kick off the festival!).

Oh, and out of competition? The last film made by Heath Ledger, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" by Terry Gilliam.

Here's the complete line up, oh,...

Reviewed at the Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- Portuguese director Manuel De Oliveira was born in 1908 and so to have a film in competition at the Venice International Film Festival in 2005 is an achievement worth applauding in itself. His movie, Espelho Magico (Magic Mirror) is an absorbing look at a rich woman wasting away for lack of the corroboration of faith.

The filmmaker's reputation will ensure healthy respect for the picture at festivals and in art houses, although mainstream acceptance is less likely.

Based on a novel, The Soul of the Rich, by Agustina Bess-Luis, Espelho Magico tells of Alfreda (Leonor Silveira), a wealthy but frail woman whose greatest desire is to have a vision of the Virgin Mary before she dies.

Alfreda is married to Bahia (Duarte de Almeida) who makes up for the absence of children of their own by providing the means for other people's offspring to learn music. Meanwhile, Alfreda surrounds herself by people knowledgeable in biblical scholarship including Professor Heschel (Michel Piccoli) and Priest Clodel (Lima Duarte).

The woman is very pleased to learn from her scholars that Mary came from a well-off family and that therefore Jesus Christ was a wealthy man. Her concern has to do with the inconvenient image of a camel and the eye of a needle when it comes to rich folk and heaven.

Introduced into her life is a young man recently released from jail named Luciano (Ricardo Trepa), a decent individual who is not above thinking that it might be helpful to provide Alfreda with the apparition she wishes. Filipe (Luis Miguel Cintra), a forger and piano tuner Luciano befriended in prison, suggests he find a young girl to portray Mary and ease Alfreda's path to the hereafter.

Nothing quite turns out the way anybody expects and there are suggestions of the super-natural with elements unexplained but Oliveira's touch is sure and the result is an atmospheric piece of work that lingers in the mind.

ESPELHO MAGICO

Filbox Productions

No MPAA rating. Running time 137 min.

The only active director whose career intersects the silent film era, 90-year-old Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira continues to astonish for the relevancy and daring his art represents. This amazing filmmaker, who has made a film a year for the last decade, fashions one of his most sublime achievements with "The Letter" -- a beautiful, sorrowful contemporary translation of Mme de la Fayette's 17th century novel, "Madame de Cleves" -- which was awarded a special jury prize at Cannes.

Deftly transposing the material to the present, Oliveira infuses the work with a visual poetry and musical elegance that, taken with its wit and style, makes this one of the director's most accessible films. In addition to the formal innovations, in particular the use of off-screen narration, Oliveira turns the work into a sharp emotional inquiry, a study into the nature of truth and attraction, longing and heartbreak. Oliveira finds new ways to invent himself, opening the film in a way that appears the work of a much different director. A shot of a backstage dressing room leads to a stage, where a handsome, charismatic performer named Pedro Abrunhosa (played, inventively enough, by the Portuguese star of the same name) is performing a concert.

Deploying the first of his wry intertitles, Oliveira shifts the action to the interiors of an fashionably upscale diamond store where Mme de Chartres (Francoise Fabian) is buying an expensive necklace for her daughter, a "noblewoman" (Chiara Mastroianni). The women come under the watchful gaze of a wealthy man, Monsieur de Cleves (Antoine Chappey) -- clearly infatuated with the gilded, beautiful young woman. In his masterpieces such as "Francisca" or "Valley of Abraham", Oliveira utilized with subtlety and grace a narrator whose voice was a brilliant formal idea, unleashing digressions, character nuance and the power of observation to both comment on and provide analysis of the frequently complicated narrative.

Shifting around with time and space, Oliveira uses text superimposed over a blank screen to compress and underline the key narrative developments, the marriage of the aristocrat Cleves to the beautiful young woman. Just as important, Oliveira knits together the two narrative threads contrasting the fates of Mme. Cleves, who doesn't love her husband, and the man she is desperately attracted to, the magnetic Pedro. Following the death of her mother (who realized her daughter's furtive attraction to Pedro and warned her against consummating it), Mme Cleves now confides to her childhood friend, a nun (Oliveira regular Leonor Silveira). As the film moves toward the seemingly inevitable, the acknowledgment of Pedro and Mme. Cleves' mutual attraction, Oliveira beautifully upsets the natural order.

What transforms "The Letter" into a vivid, essential viewing experience is not just the beautifully constructed emotional interplay, the inventive narration, the depth of feeling for his characters, but the way every time, for instance, Oliveira resumes the action following the narration, he finds an image (a brooding, devastating shot inside the cemetery, Mme. Cleves stationed behind an iron fence) that yields a particularly resonant character or emotional detail, a fresh and exciting perspective. Oliveira constantly undermines narrative expectations without compromising the depth of emotion, the hard feelings, the unbearable pain of unrequited love

"The Letter" showcases the vitality of a particular brand of European art movie, complex, rueful and finally, one that is deeply moving. The scenes between Mastroianni and Lenoir are both perfectly underplayed and powerfully etched, demonstrating how great acting and auteurism aren't incompatible. Filmmaking this good is rare, and proper attention must be paid.

THE LETTER

A French/Spanish/Portuguese coproduction

Gemini Films, Wanda Films and Madragoa Filmes

Credits: Producer: Paulo Branco; Director/writer: Manoel de Oliveira; Based on the novel by: Mme. de la Fayette; Cinematographer: Emmanuel Machuel; Editor: Valerie Loiseleux; Sound: Jean Paul Mugel; Production design: Ana Vaz Da Silva; Costumes: Judy Shrewsbury; Cast: Mme. de Cleves: Chiara Mastroianni; Pedro: Pedro Abrunhosa; Mme. de Cleves: Antoine Chappey; the nun: Leonor Silveira; Mme. de Chartres: Francoise Fabian...

You have to hand it to 89-year-old Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira.

Not only does he regularly make films when others have long retired, but his latest is an ambitious, tremendously satisfying experience. "Anxiety" (Inquietude) is visually superb, narratively complex and ultimately moving in ways few films even aspire to.

Alas, this supremely artistic effort -- a special screening selection at the Cannes film festival -- is not commercial enough to warrant more than a minor domestic U.S. release, but it's a sure-fire hit for the festival circuit.

A composite film with three distinct but interconnected sections, "Anxiety" opens with an exquisitely rendered tete-a-tete between a philosophically suicidal old man (Jose Pinto) and his aging son (Luis Miguel Cintra) that tricks one into expecting a rich but stagey meditation on the bodily and mental deterioration that afflicts even the most well-respected and successful of men when they enter their autumn years.

Indeed, about 35 minutes in, both protagonists have fallen to their deaths, and the curtain falls on what has been a 1930s stage production of Helder Prista Monteiro's "The Immortals", with two well-heeled gents in the audience. The story picks up with the middle-aged unnamed "him" (Diogo Doria) and his younger "friend" (David Cardoso) becoming involved with a pair of high-class courtesans, picking up a thread from the play that the love of women can make men of any age feel young.

Mildly jealous of the more substantial patrons they must contend with, the two men develop a theory about Suzy (Leonor Silveira) and Gabi (Rita Blanco). Skilled in lovemaking, but essentially exotic caged animals, the beautiful sophisticates have inherited the stoic legacy of Marcus Aurelius, taking pleasure in sacrifice.

In a melancholy, fatalistic confession, not-long-for-this-world Suzy reveals that "happiness is a small thing" when she has had everything else she's ever wanted in the way of fine living.

Late at night, the "friend" sets out to console "him" with a strange tale called "Mother of a River", based on a short story by Oliveira collaborator Agustina Bessa-Luis.

In this gorgeously composed finale, a socially constricted village girl (Leonor Baldaque) turns to the mystical 1,000-year-old Mother (Irene Papas) in a metaphorical suicide that results in the former being declared a witch and being chased off by a swarm of black-robed matrons. She turns away from the lover (Ricardo Trepa) who encouraged her trying to break with traditions and becomes the new "Deep Water", magically merging with nature to become a guardian of humanity.

ANXIETY

Madrago Filmes, Gemini Films,

Wanda Films and Light Night

Screenwriter-director: Manoel de Oliveira

Producer: Paulo Branco

Director of photography: Renato Berta

Art direction-costumes: Isabel Branco

Editor: Valerie Loiseleux

Sound: Philippe Morel, Jean-Francois Auger

Cast:

The Immortals

Father: Jose Pinto

Son: Luis Miguel Cintra

Marta: Isabel Ruth

Suzy

Him: Diogo Doria

Friend: David Cardoso

Suzy: Leonor Silveira

Gabi: Rita Blanco

Mother of a River

Mother: Irene Papas

Fisalina: Leonor Baldaque

The Fiance: Ricardo Trepa

Running time -- 112 minutes...