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Coppola said his masterpiece Apocalypse Now ‘is not about Vietnam; it is Vietnam’ – this superb film shows how little he was exaggerating

The greatest ever making-of documentary is now on re-release: the terrifying story of how Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war masterpiece Apocalypse Now got made – even scarier than Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, about the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. The time has come to acknowledge Eleanor Coppola’s magnificent achievement here as first among equals of the credited directors in shooting the original location footage (later interspersed with interviews by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper), getting the stunningly intimate audio tapes of her husband Francis’s meltdown moments and, of course, in unassumingly keeping the family together while it was all going on.

With his personal and financial capital very high after The Conversation and the Godfather films, Coppola put up his own money and...

Disney family title Lilo & Stitch and Paramount action film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning square off at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, in what exhibitors will hope is one of the highest-grossing weekends of the year.

Both titles are opening wide, and have built interest with extensive marketing campaigns and two days of previews, from Wednesday 21.

Box office takings are not expected to crack the weekend of July 21-23, 2023, when the Barbenheimer phenomenon brought in £29.4m from Barbie and Oppenheimer alone – the only occasion when two films have taken more than £10m on the same weekend in the territory.

A rerelease of the documentary about the German film-maker’s operatic adventure in the Peruvian jungle is a compelling portrait of an artist obsessed

In 1982, film-maker Les Blank released this sombre, thoughtful, quietly awestruck documentary account of Werner Herzog’s crazy sisyphean struggle in a remote and dangerous Peruvian jungle location, making his extraordinary drama Fitzcarraldo, which came out the same year. Fitzcarraldo was Herzog’s own bizarre and brilliant story idea, crazily amplifying and exaggerating a case from real life.

Early 20th-century opera enthusiast Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, played with straw-hair and mad blue eyes by Klaus Kinski, goes into the rubber trade to make enough money to realise his dream of building an opera house in the Peruvian port town of Iquito; he works out that the steamship needed to transport materials can only be brought into the required stretch of water by dragging it across land between two tributaries.

Warner Bros. claimed the No. 1 position at the U.K. and Ireland box office this weekend with “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” which opened to a powerful £4 million ($5.3 million), according to Comscore.

In its third week, Disney’s Marvel movie “Thunderbolts*” dropped to second but still posted a strong $1.6 million, bringing its running total $18.5 million. Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” followed in third, earning £718,770 $961,049 across its fifth weekend. The film has now reached $19.2 million.

Still a fixture in the top five after seven weeks, “A Minecraft Movie” added $630,986 to bring its cumulative total to $74.1 million. Altitude’s environmental documentary “Ocean With David Attenborough” held fifth place with $285,429 and is now at $1.4 million after two weeks.

New entry “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” released by Lionsgate U.K., debuted in sixth place with $254,125. Warner Bros.’ “The Accountant 2” continued in seventh, adding $149,259 in its fourth weekend for a total of $3.4 million.

Universal’s thriller “Hallow Road” opened...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Fidelio, our four-film program with Chapo Trap House’s Movie Mindset, begins this Saturday with Eyes Wide Shut on 35mm, which plays again on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

70mm prints of 2001 and Lawrence of Arabia screen.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Mexican popular cinema from the 1940s to the 1960s continues and a new restoration of Shinji Sōmai’s Moving opens.

Film Forum

A career-spanning Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective continues, as do restorations of Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams and Seven Samurai.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by James Benning, Robert Bresson, and Jean Eustache screen in “Verbatim“; films by James Broughton play in “Essential Cinema.”

Bam

Claire Denis’ monumental No Fear, No Die and Mapantsula continue screening in new restorations.

Museum of Modern Art

“Silent Movie Week 2024” begins

IFC Center

“Defamed to Acclaimed” brings films by the Wachowskis,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Mexican popular cinema from the 1940s to the 1960s is underway.

Film Forum

A career-spanning Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective has begun; restorations of Ann Hui’s July Rhapsody (watch our exclusive trailer debut), Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, Fitzcarraldo and Seven Samurai continue.

Museum of the Moving Image

A 70mm print of Playtime screens this weekend; The Color of Pomegranates and Speed Racer play.

Anthology Film Archives

Robert Bresson plays in “Essential Cinema.”

Bam

Claire Denis’ monumental No Fear, No Die continues screening in a new restoration; Mapantsula begins playing.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues.

IFC Center

The Time Masters, Amadeus, and In the Mood for Love play daily; Fritz the Cat, Friday the 13th, The Last House on the Left, and The Matrix play late.

Metrograph...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

Claire Denis’ monumental No Fear, No Die begins screening in a new restoration.

Museum of the Moving Image

A new 70mm print of The Searchers plays this weekend.

Japan Society

A restoration of Shinji Sōmai’s Moving and Toshiharu Ikeda’s Mermaid Legend play on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Film Forum

New restorations of Ann Hui’s July Rhapsody (watch our exclusive trailer debut), Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, and Fitzcarraldo begin screening; Seven Samurai and Powell and Pressburger’s The Small Back Room continue.

Anthology Film Archives

Enrique Gómez Vadillo’s rarely screened Death on the Beach shows in a new restoration this Friday; Stan Brakhage plays in “Essential Cinema.”

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective continues, including A Matter of Life and Death and The Tales of Hoffmann.

Nitehawk Cinema

Lucio Fulci...

"I'm running out of fantasy. I don't know what else can happen now. Argot Pictures has revealed a brand new re-release trailer for the documentary classic Burden of Dreams, one of the great behind-the-scenes looks at making an epic. Les Blank's doc is about filming Werner Herzog's masterpiece Fitzcarraldo, an extraordinary undertaking filming on location in Peru, essentially mirroring a lot of what's happening in the film's plot. This fascinating doc film follows a young, mustachioed Werner as he deals with difficult actors, bad weather, and getting a boat moved over a mountain, all in an effort to make his film. The 4K restoration will open in select US theaters this summer for a rerun right alongside Fitzcarraldo. "Since Les Blank died in 2013 we have remastered & released 7 of his films. The restoration of Burden of Dreams is of the highest quality to date and what may set it apart is the audio restoration,...

If you had to name the greatest documentaries of all time, well, that’s tough, but if you had to name the greatest portrait documentaries of all time, well, at the very least, “Burden of Dreams” would easily be in the top ten and likely on the all-time list too. Directed by the late legendary documentarian Les Blank, the award-winning “Burden Of Dreams” (1982) centers on German filmmaker Werner Herzog, actor Klaus Kinski, and the nearly disastrous making of their third collaboration, “Fitzcarraldo” (1982).

Continue reading ‘Burden Of Dreams’ Trailer: Les Blank’s Classic Werner Herzog Doc Gets A 4K Restoration & Theatrical Release at The Playlist.

As much a standard-bearer for behind-the-scenes docs as Hearts of Darkness––maybe there’s something about watching famed auteurs lose their grip in the jungle––Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams cuts through much mythos and memery that’s defined Werner Herzog, burrowing deep into the making of his life-threatening (in some cases -ending) Fitzcarraldo. Whether it’s actually better than the final product is a worthwhile debate, and one that can be had in greater spirit soon: a restoration’s to be released by Argot Pictures on July 19 at Film Forum, which will also screen Fitzcarraldo, and a new trailer’s arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Burden Of Dreams is the riveting account of the near-disastrous production of director Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, starring Klaus Kinski in the titular role and Claudia Cardinale, which traces the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle.

How now, what news: the Criterion Channel’s July lineup is here. Eight pop renditions of Shakespeare are on the docket: from movies you forgot were inspired by the Bard (Abel Ferrara’s China Girl) to ones you’d wish to forget altogether (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing), with maybe my single favorite interpretation (Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet) alongside Paul Mazursky, Gus Van Sant, Baz Luhrmann, Derek Jarman, and (of course) Kenneth Branagh. A neonoir collection arrives four months ahead of Noirvember: two Ellroy adaptations, two from De Palma that are not his neonoir Ellroy adaptation, two from the Coen brothers (i.e. the chance to see a DVD-stranded The Man Who Wasn’t There in HD), and––finally––a Michael Winner picture given Criterion’s seal of approval.

Columbia screwballs run between classics to lesser-seens while Nicolas Roeg and Heisei-era Godzilla face off. A Times Square collection brings The Gods of Times Square,...

Comedy can be one of the hardest things to do well. Sure, you can get by on boring pop culture references, stale bits, and shock humor, but making truly great comedy can be incredibly hard. HBO is no stranger to this struggle. They've produced some of the most iconic, well-done, and long-lasting comedy shows ever made. Sex and the City, Barry, Veep, you name it, HBO has been at the forefront of great comedy TV for decades now. Yet, one show stands apart, both in its content, uniqueness, and of course, hilarity. How To with John Wilson may not have the same name recognition or star power as those other shows, but it goes toe-to-toe with all of them. An exploration of the strange world of New York City and beyond, How To is so much more than a comedy show. Rooted in the tradition of documentary filmmaking done by...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Can Documentaries Make for Great Midnight Movies?

American documentaries are facing headwinds in awards. It’s not my area of expertise. But Anne Thompson’s predictions for the Best Documentary Feature race ahead of the 96th Oscars on Sunday explain the situation well.

“With the international membership now representing more than 20 percent of the total voters, this year all five documentary nominees were international,” Thompson wrote, tying the trend to numerous non-fiction films left without distributors at Sundance.

“As the top American film festival for docs, Sundance usually supplies...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSLa Práctica.The New York Film Festival has announced its Main Slate. Alongside a good showing of Cannes prizewinners, the festival will present new films from Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrew Haigh, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Hong Sang-soo (x2 this year), Raven Jackson, Martín Rejtman, and the feature debut from playwright Annie Baker.In an interview with Indiewire, Ira Sachs shared that he and Ben Whishaw are preparing a new film about the photographer Peter Hujar, titled Peter Hujar’s Day (and presumably inspired by Linda Rosenkrantz’s book of the same name).Recommended VIEWINGIn memory of William Friedkin, who died this week at the age of 87, revisit Christopher Small and James Corning’s video essay about his films’ deftly constructed endings. “Over the course of Friedkin's films,” they write in their introduction, “our perspective...

Issue 2 of Notebook magazine includes an original essay by Lyon, accompanied by a piece about the self-distribution of his works. The issue is currently available in select stores around the world.In September 1962, Danny Lyon, a history and philosophy student at the University of Chicago, flew to Jackson, Mississippi to photograph voter registration workers for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Sncc). By 1963, Lyon was working as Sncc’s in-house photographer, and for the next two-plus years he would document nearly every major moment of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, including the March on Washington and historic demonstrations led by John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. If you’ve seen a photo from this era in a newspaper, magazine, or history book, there’s a good chance it was taken by Lyon.But while the artist’s contemporaneous photos of an outlaw Chicago motorcycle gang and, later, Texas...

What will be your first movie of 2023? If you’re reading this it’s likely you put some (let’s be honest: too much) thought into what commences the cinematic year. The Criterion Channel’s January lineup will put some good things front and center: they’re launching a 20-film cinema verité series that highlights all major figures of the form; an eight-film Mike Leigh retrospective that focuses on his little-seen, lesser-discussed BBC features produced between 1973 and 1984; a series on Abbas Kiarostami’s studies of childhood; and because you’ve either seen Eo or have it marked to watch, Jerzy Skolimowski’s three most-acclaimed films should be of equal note.

Another 2022 favorite, Il Buco, will have its streaming premiere alongside Kamikaze Hearts, the Depardieu-led Cyrano de Bergerac, and the recent restoration of Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane. The sole Criterion Edition for this month is 3 Women, while some notable recent documentaries—The American Sector,...

For over half a century, Documentary Now! has gifted us with the finest in cinema verité, introducing generations upon generations of documentarians to viewers around the nation. Who can forget when D.A. Pennebaker first unveiled his groundbreaking Dylan doc Dont Look Back on the show in the early spring of 1967, right before he brought it to the hippies and headcases on Haight Street? Or the controversy that occurred when the series defied its sponsors’ wishes and broadcast Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County U.S.A. in 1976? (It would win the...

Early in Les Blank’s 1982 documentary “Burden of Dreams,” director-turned-subject Werner Herzog explains why he feels obligated to see a difficult production through to the end.

“It’s not only my dreams,” Herzog says about the movies he makes. “My belief is that all these dreams are yours as well, and the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them. That is what poetry or painting or literature or filmmaking is all about. […] It is my duty because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. We have to articulate ourselves — otherwise, we would be cows in the field.”

Few explanations come closer to defining the continued wonder evoked by “Documentary Now!,” IFC’s seven-year-old comedy series that returns for a fourth season Wednesday night. Comprised of loving parodies of famous (or infamous) documentaries, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas’ creation...

U.S. director-producer Laura Poitras, who won an Oscar and an Emmy with Edward Snowden film “Citizenfour,” and recently took the Golden Lion at Venice with opioid epidemic pic “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” will be the Guest of Honor at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The 35th edition of the festival takes place from Nov. 9 to 20.

Poitras will be honored at IDFA with the Retrospective and Top 10 programs, in which she curates 10 films. The Top 10 program includes reflections on political imprisonment (“Hunger” by Steve McQueen; “This Is Not a Film” by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb), incarceration and psychiatry (Frederick Wiseman’s “Titicut Follies”), and genocide (Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah”). As part of the Top 10, Poitras will be in conversation with several of her selected filmmakers during the festival’s public talks program.

In the Retrospective section, IDFA presents all seven films directed by Poitras from 2003 to today.

Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras will be guest of honor at the 35th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), running from November 9 to 20.

Poitras is currently on a packed festival tour with All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, which won the Golden Lion in Venice and is now an awards season contender. After Venice, the title screened in Toronto and has dates set for New York and the BFI London Film Festival.

As guest of honor at IDFA, Poitras will be feted with a retrospective and has also been given carte blanche to curate 10 films that have influenced her work and shaped her view of the world.

Her Top 10 selections include Steve McQueen’s Hunger, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s This is Not A Film, Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies and Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.

As part of the sidebar, Poitras will also conduct on-stage conversations with a number of the selected filmmakers.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSEnys Men (Mark Jenkin).The New York Film Festival announced its Main Slate. Highlights include new films from Park Chan-wook, Claire Denis, and Kelly Reichardt; a fiction feature from Frederick Wiseman; Mark Jenkin's Bait follow-up Enys Men; and much more.Hong Kong action director John Woo will reimagine his 1989 crime classic The Killer in a new remake due out in 2023. French actor Omar Sy (The Intouchables) will play the lead.Lars Von Trier has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, his production company Zoetrope has confirmed. The director is doing well, and is currently being treated for symptoms whilst continuing to work on The Kingdom Exodus.Artist and El Planeta filmmaker Amalia Ulman's visa is expiring, meaning she may have to leave the United States, where she is currently working on her next feature film.

Sterlin Harjo, co-creator of FX’s Reservation Dogs, discusses a few of his favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Mekko (2015)

Boy (2010)

Cool Hand Luke (1967) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Being There (1979) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary, Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

A Woman Under The Influence (1974)

Husbands (1970) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Stand By Me (1986)

Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

The Princess Bride (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Friday (1995)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – Adam Rifkin’s trailer commentary

Dead Man (1995)

Powwow Highway (1989)

Airplane! (1980) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai (1999)

Stalker (1979) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Come And See (1985) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

A Clockwork Orange...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Aftershock (Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt)

A work of deep pain and fervent justice, Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt’s Sundance winner Aftershock examines the failings of maternal health support particularly as it relates to Black mothers. Centering on two NYC families forever torn apart after maternal deaths due to childbirth-related complications, the film takes an intimate look at the widowers and family left behind as they pick up the pieces to fight for change in a prejudiced system. Amongst its most interesting passages, the filmmakers also go back decades and beyond, filling in the historical foundation for how we ended up with our current, faltering maternal health system and setting the stage for how it can be changed.

Where...

Werner Herzog has always been drawn to people like himself; dreamers, eccentrics with peculiar passions, obsessives driven to the ends of the Earth by their burning desires. Their compulsion often brings them into direct conflict with nature, and Herzog tells these stories over and over again, sometimes blurring the line between subject and filmmaker.

The most famous case was "Fitzcarraldo," charting the adventures of a maniacal music lover who drags a steamboat up a hill from one river to another in search of lucrative rubber, all to fulfil his dream of building an opera house in the jungle. As Les Blank's "Burden of Dreams"...

The post Christian Bale Thought Werner Herzog Was Going To Get Him Killed appeared first on /Film.

Multi-faceted filmmaker Mark Duplass discusses the movies he wishes more people knew about with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Duck Butter (2018)

The Puffy Chair (2005)

Prince Of Broadway (2008)

Tangerine (2015)

The Florida Project (2017) – Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Red Rocket (2021)

Starlet (2012)

Take Out (2004)

Mack & Rita (Tbd)

Old Joy (2006)

First Cow (2020)

Wendy And Lucy (2008) – Dennis Cozzalio’s favorite movie of 2020

Henry Fool (1997)

Trust (1990)

Amateur (1994)

Medicine For Melancholy (2008)

Shang-Chi (2021)

Your Sister’s Sister (2011)

My Effortless Brilliance (2008)

What the Funny (2008)

Humpday (2009)

True Adolescents (2009)

Man Push Cart (2005)

The White Tiger (2021)

Baghead (2008)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012)

Language Lessons (2021)

Stevie (2002)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

American Movie (1999)

What Happened Was… (1994) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Creep (2014)

Grown-Ups (1980)

Abigail’s Party (1977)

Nuts In May (1976)

Secrets And Lies (1996) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Naked (1993)

Parallel Mothers (2021)

The Freebie (2010)

East Of Eden (1955) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Strange...

Six of the most celebrated documentaries of 2021 reflect subjects that span the spectrum of fascinating subjects. They touch on a legendary filmmaker and conservationist, a broken police system in North America’s most populous city, an under-recognized civil rights leader, the stories of families displaced by a brutal civil war and one of the defining rock bands of the late 1960s. In a recent discussion, we got to hear what the filmmakers behind these docs thought about the current state of documentaries and some of their favorites in the genre. Gold Derby recently got to ask these questions with Dan Cogan (“Becoming Cousteau”), Elena Fortes (“A Cop Movie”), Betsy West and Julie Cohen (“My Name is Pauli Murray”), Megan Mylan (“Simple as Water”) and Julie Goldman (“The Velvet Underground”) during our recent Meet the Experts panel.

You can watch the film documentary group panel above with the people behind these five films.

Morkovcha (Korean Carrot Salad) director Lidiya Kan on Russian-Korean professor German Kim: “He gave me some readings and some information to help place the personal stories into more of a general history.”

In the second in a series of Doc NYC conversations with filmmakers from the Hunter College Mfa Program in Integrated Media Arts (see Neville Elder on his Anamnesis [Part One]), I discussed with Morkovcha (Korean Carrot Salad) director Lidiya Kan the influence of Les Blank’s 1980 film Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, Russian-Korean cultural history, her meeting on Skype with historian German Kim in Kazakhstan, the use of old photos and the animation of Wendy Cong Zhao for the representation of her memory.

Lidiya Kan with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I work with a great animator and she is also a student, her name is Wendy Cong Zhao. I’m so happy she was available.”

Recipes are means of storytelling...

Mo Scarpelli cannily captures family dynamics in this documentary about the filming of Jorge Thielen Armand’s La Fortaleza, which starred his hard-drinking dad

Here’s a behind-the-scenes documentary in the tradition of Burden of Dreams­, Les Blank’s making-of film about Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. This one even has a wild-man actor, Jorge Thielen Hedderich – though he’s not quite a match for Klaus Kinski in the ego stakes. Actually, he’s not even an actor by trade, but he is starring in a movie about his own life directed by his son Jorge Thielen Armand. Or, at least he’s meant to be. His rum-fuelled all-nighters, tantrums and fits of rage are constantly threatening to bring the production crashing down. Though when El Father – as everyone on set calls him – is in a good mood, on full-wattage, his charisma is dazzling.

This documentary is directed by Armand’s partner,...

Cajun music’s most magical, unique aspect is how it creates joyous, raucous compositions from minimal instrumentation. Most Cajun bands consist, maybe, of a violin, an accordion, possibly a guitar, and not much more. Les Blank’s I Went to the Dance (J’ai Été Au Bal), which has received a glorious 5K restoration courtesy of Harrod Blank and Anthony Matt, encompasses an entire cultural tradition with notes, words, and dances. With an almost non-stop exhibition of different Cajun songs—some classic, others more obscure—as a backdrop to recounting the history of the region and its people, the director forms an inseparable bond between their lives and the music.

One interviewee discusses the inextricable connection between Cajuns and their music as being borne from the need to express themselves––their joys and sorrows, following a hard, long work week. The music, notable for its high-pitched, almost blues-like wailing vocals,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe poster for Hong Sang-soo's latest, Introduction, which will compete at this year's Berlinale. The competition slate for the 71st Berlin International Film Festival features a wide range of heavy hitters, from Hong and Radu Jude to Aleksandre Koberidze and Céline Sciamma. The competing titles, as well as the rest of the lineup, can be found here.The lineup for this year's SXSW Film Festival has been announced. The roster includes the directorial debut of House of Psychotic Women author Kier-La Janisse, a documentary on musician William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, and a restoration of Les Blank's I Went to the Dance. Recommended VIEWINGFrom February 17 to February 23, the National Gallery of Art is screening the series "The Voice and Vision of Billy Woodberry." The series includes Woodberry's Bless Their Little Hearts, a landmark work of the L.

If you’re looking to dive into the best of independent and foreign filmmaking, The Criterion Channel has announced their August 2020 lineup. The impressive slate includes retrospectives dedicated to Mia Hansen-Løve, Bill Gunn, Stephen Cone, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Alain Delon, Bill Plympton, Les Blank, and more.

In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.

See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.

25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...

More than 50 years since black protestors first attempted to walk with protestors across a bridge in Selma—a bridge where they were met with violence and bloodshed at the hands of local authorities—it appears much and little has changed in American life. Millions make that connection each day as we head into the second weekend of protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Maybe that’s why some are eager to revisit the history of this American experience.

Hence Paramount Pictures announced Friday it is making Ava DuVernay’s Selma available for free across all major content platforms. This means you can watch the movie on Amazon, Apple, YouTube, or streamer of your choice.

“We hope this small gesture will encourage people throughout the country to examine our nation’s history and reflect on the ways that racial injustice has infected our society,” Paramount said in a statement.

The Criterion Collection on Thursday joined the wave of industry supporters who’ve come out in the past week to help fight systemic racism, and help advocate for police reform and support protesters across America. From A24 to Bad Robot, film’s leading voices are stepping up in response to current events. In an email from Criterion president Peter Becker and CEO Jonathan Turell, the company announced a $25,000 initial contribution, followed by an ongoing $5,000 monthly commitment for organizations supporting Black Lives Matter.

But Criterion also announced that it’s lifting the paywall on select titles from Black filmmakers, and white filmmakers who’ve captured the Black experience through documentary, so that audiences at home can stream them for free, with no need for a subscription.

Titles streaming for free on Criterion Channel include Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust,” Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta,” Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason,...

When he founded the California Film Institute in 1977, Mark Fishkin didn’t know much about running a film festival. Not many people did — there were few major film festivals in the United States at the time, and it would be decades before there emerged anything like today’s bustling international festival circuit. Fishkin had recently moved to California from the small town of Ouray, Colo., about an hour’s drive to Telluride the long way around Mt. Sneffels. He’d visited once or twice while the festival was on, by chance, and had seen how they did things out there and it inspired him, when he founded a festival of his own, to do things a little differently.

The first Mill Valley Film Festival took place Aug. 11-13, 1978, and was intended, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle from that summer, to “honor successful filmmakers living or working out of Marin County,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

Marguerite Duras’s India Song and Jean-Luc Godard’s Hélas Pour Moi play on Saturday and Sunday.

The Pasolini retrospective continues.

Les Blank’s Chulas Fronteras and Del Mero Corazón have been restored and are screening.

The restoration of A Bigger Splash continues its run, while Audition is now screening.

The J. Hoberman...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGFrom the Criterion Collection, an excerpted clip from B. Ruby Rich's overview of pioneering female (and openly gay) filmmaker Dorothy Arzner's career and feminist reshaping of the woman's-picture. A trailer for Les Blank's recently restored Chulas Fronteras, which documents the lives of the Norteño musicians from the Texas-Mexican border and the social protests of their songs. Recommended READINGOn the set of Eyes Wide Shut.Indiewire has gathered an invaluable set of reflections on the state and the future of moviegoing from the perspective of exhibitors. Bilge Ebiri delves into the oral history of the notorious orgy scene from Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, from its lengthy planning period to a more improvised shoot.Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, Paul Schrader, and more, have published a letter in response to...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

“Grit and Glitter: Before and After Stonewall” continues with the likes of Dog Day Afternoon, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Tropical Malady. Read our piece on Laundrette here.

“See It Big! Action” offers a print of Coffy.

Two John Waters films, Multiple Maniacs and Hairspray, have showings.

Metrograph

Les Blank’s...

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode features panel conversations and 1:1 interviews offering insights on movies that premiered in a particular season of a year in the past, which were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by William Remmers, Josh Hornbeck, Jason Beamish and Aaron West to discuss a selection of short films released in 1969. Titles include: Carroll Ballard’s Rodeo and The Perils of Priscilla; Paul Bartel’s Naughty Nurse; Les Blank’s The Sun’s Gonna Shine; Octavio Cortázar’s For the First Time; Hollis Frampton’s Carrots and Peas and Lemon; and Clu Gulager’s A Day with the Boys.

Episode Time Markers Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:04:51 The Sun’s Gonna Shine: 0:04:52 – 0:17:58 For...

Track my film passions of the past year and the result is this list. These are the films that wowed and moved me, that turned me into a rabid champion, that gave me hope that brilliant cinematic storytelling — and a rebel spirit — is alive and well. It turned out to be a strong year for women directors (five), romances (three), World War II dramas (two), Angelina Jolie movies (two), animation (one), and documentaries (one).

See More:The Best Movies of 2017, According to IndieWire Critic Eric Kohn 12. “The Breadwinner” (GKids)

Directed by Nora Twomey of Cartoon Saloon (“The Secret of Kells”) and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Irish-Canadian “The Breadwinner” is based on Deborah Ellis’s Ya novel about 11-year-old Parvana (voiced by Canadian actress Saara Chaudry), a strong-willed Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family and save her father under threat from the Taliban.

Many people may know Les Blank most for his association with Werner Herzog, who he filmed while on the brink of creative madness in Burden of Dreams and earlier in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, in which the notoriously true-to-his-word filmmaker indeed ate his shoe after having promised he’d do so if Errol Morris managed to finish his pet cemetery film, Gates of Heaven. But those ignoring the larger majority of Blank’s overflowing oeuvre would be sorely missing out on the jubilance of life that the quietly curious documentarian managed to strike on film with just his trusty 16mm Eclair, his appreciation for cultures of all kinds, and a fervent hunger for life. Sadly, Blank passed away in the spring of last year, just weeks before receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award and a restored retrospective of his body of work in Toronto at the Hot Docs Film Festival,...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 25, 2014

Price: DVD $124.95, Blu-ray $124.95

Studio: Criterion

An uncompromisingly independent filmmaker, Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) made documentaries for nearly fifty years, elegantly disappearing with his camera into cultural spots rarely seen on-screen—mostly on the peripheries of the United States, but also occasionally abroad.

The collector’s set Les Blank: Always for Pleasure provides a diverse survey of Blank’s vast output.

Gap Toothed Women, a 1987 film by Les Blank

The collection provides a diverse survey of the late filmmaker’s vast output, including the warmly funny The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins, about the legendary Texas musician; Always for Pleasure, which captures the vivacious spirit of New Orleans; Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, a hilarious celebration of the pungent, flavorful “stinking rose” of the title; and eleven other unexpected features, plus eight of Blank’s short films.

Seemingly off-the-cuff yet poetically constructed,...

Criterion has announced their November slate of releases and among them is Frank Capra's romantic-comedy classic It Happened One Night and Blu-ray upgrade of Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura and Sydney Pollack's Tootsie starring Dustin Hoffman. First off, and most exciting as far as I'm concerned, is Capra's It Happened One Night, which I speculated previously would be added to the collection sooner rather than later. Starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, this is an all-timer in terms of romantic comedies and Criterion is delivering it with an all new 4K digital restoration, new conversation between critics Molly Haskell and Phillip Lopate, the 1997 feature-length documentary Frank Capra's American Dream, Capra's first film, the 1922 silent short The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House, the American Film Institute's tribute to Capra from 1982 and the film's trailer. The release arrives on November 18. The other title I'm excited about is Antonioni's L'avventura, the...

Film-maker behind intimate, rounded portraits of musicians including Dizzy Gillespie and Lightnin' Hopkins

Les Blank and Werner Herzog: strange dreams and sole food

The film-maker Les Blank, who has died aged 77, explored the margins of America's music, capturing and framing idioms such as Louisiana Cajun and zydeco, the norteño music of the Texas-Mexico border, blues, polka, and Appalachian old-time music. He was also fascinated by traditions of eating and cookery, and when screening his film Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1980) he sometimes created what he called "smellovision" by cooking garlicky dishes in the auditorium.

Blank made more than 40 films, including Burden of Dreams (1982), about the shooting of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. While few of his documentaries were known to a wide public, many were admired by other directors. In 2007, he received the Edward MacDowell medal, an annual award for achievement in the arts, only twice before given to film directors,...

Berkeley, Calif. — Les Blank, an acclaimed documentary maker who focused his camera on cultural corners ranging from blues music, to garlic lovers, to shoe-eating artists, died Sunday at age 77, his son said.

Blank died at his home in Berkeley, Calif. nearly a year after being diagnosed with bladder cancer, Harrod Blank said.

Blank's 42 films earned him a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute.

"I think he's a national treasure," filmmaker Taylor Hackford, president of the Directors Guild of America, told the New York Times. "Although his films are not well known at the moment, they'll take their place"

The Florida-born Blank's early documentaries focused on musicians, including 1965's "Dizzy Gillespie" and "The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins," a portrait of the Texas bluesman that won Blank his first wide renown.

He shifted to food with documentaries like 1980's "Garlic is as Good as 10 Mothers," and 2007's "All in This Tea.

Les Blank, the documentary director who followed fellow filmmaker Werner Herzog to record his devotion to art (Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe in 1979) as well as his exotic descent into obsession (Burden of Dreams in 1982), died Sunday at age 77, according to the The New York Times.

Leslie Harrod Blank Jr.’s own obsessions included a rapturous appreciation of regional music and cuisine, which echoed in a filmography that included The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins in 1969; Chicken Real in 1970; Garlic Is as Good as 10 Mothers in 1980; and Ry Cooder And The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces in 1988;. Blank, born in Tampa,...

The myriad stories of venerable filmmaker Werner Herzog are mythic, and he's often considered a living legend. He was shot with an air rifle during an interview and brushed it off. He pulled a man out of car wreckage on a canyon road above Sunset Blvd. and it turned out to be Joaquin Phoenix. But the early legends of Herzog and his cinematic exploits crystallized largely thanks to documentarian Les Blank. The filmmaker captured the short film, “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe” in 1979 -- Herzog lost a bet to then-fledgling filmmaker Errol Morris who he ventured would never make a movie -- and then later directed and shot the astounding doc, "Burden Of Dreams" (1982), about the chaotic production Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo," filmed in the jungles of South America in the same year. Known for his idiosyncractic docummentaries about the eccentric, sadly, the New York Times reports this afternoon that Blank died...

The great documentary filmmaker Les Blank, who no doubt visited many of your theaters to show films and waft garlic through the air, passed away peacefully Sunday morning after a battle with cancer that didn't keep him from holding on. (Here's the New York Times obit.) See film clips below. The city of Berkeley recently honored Les and he showed up to meet with his fans. He and Roger Ebert were friends and had a mutual admiration society. Les Blank is a renowned independent filmmaker, whose poetic work offers intimate, idiosyncratic glimpses into the lives, culture, and music of passionate people at the periphery of American society. Topics have included Cajun, Mexican, Polish, Hawaiian, and Serbian-American music and food traditions, Afro-Cuban drummers, Texas bluesmen, Appalachian fiddlers, flower children, garlic, and gap-toothed women. Blank is perhaps best known for his feature-length “Burden of Dreams” (1982), documenting the chaotic production of Werner Herzog’s 1982 film.

With Insignificance (1985) out from Criterion last week (see the roundup), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) opening at Film Forum in New York tomorrow and, in the UK, Don't Look Now (1973) out on Blu-ray on July 4, following the BFI retrospective in March, there's a Nicolas Roeg mini-revival going on.

Writing about Insignificance and The Man Who Fell to Earth for Artforum, Darrell Hartman argues, "Past is present in the cinema of Nicolas Roeg. To simply call those extratemporal sequences that punctuate his work 'flashbacks' is to downplay the role that images of what came before play in his films. Such 'digressive' framing devices are, in many ways, the emotional and visual keystones of Roeg's work. In his heyday, from the 1970s until the mid-80s, Roeg was known as an envelope pusher. He employed nonlinear editing as part of an ambitious attempt to bridge space and time, cutting frames together...