News

This intriguing noir mystery with a twist in its tale sees a couple befriend a tennis coach at a holiday resort with unnerving results

German film-maker Jan-Ole Gerster has created an intriguing noir mystery starring Sam Riley and Stacy Martin. It has very good performances and witty visual ideas, but the dramatic shape and emotional focus could have been tightened and sharpened. Yet this is a smart film which pays its audience the compliment of assuming they are intelligent enough to work things out on their own in a drama of sexual tension and dangerously polite encounters, something like Jacques Deray’s The Swimming Pool or Paul Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers.

Riley plays Tom, a tennis coach at a middling hotel resort in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. He has been here for almost a decade, increasingly unhappy with his aimless, pointless life of no worries, no responsibilities,...

La Piscine Photo: Criterion Collection The French Film Festival is returning to cinemas next month across the UK with a programme of French and Francophone films, mostly UK Premieres, spreading over 60 screenings.

Talents in attendance include actor and director Mathieu Amalric and filmmakers Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu, Claire Simon, Emmanuel Mouret, Payal Kapadia, Isabelle Prim and Yolande Zauberman.

Cinemas showing films include the French Institute in Edinburgh and the city's Dominion, Glasgow's Gft, Chichester Cinema and London's Ciné Lumière.

Holy Cow Photo: Laurent Le Crabe Among the current crop of Francophone films that will screen is Emmanuel Courcol's The Marching Band, which recently won the Audience Award at San Sebastian Film Festival, charming coming-of-age film Holy Cow and Belgian #MeToo drama Julie Keeps Quiet.

Classic movies in the line-up include Claude Sautet's César And Rosalie and Jacques Deray's sultry La Piscine.

Read more about the festival and...

Above: Italian 4-foglio for Purple Noon. Artist uncredited.In April of this year, on the occasion of a retrospective tribute to French movie star Alain Delon at New York’s Film Forum, Anthony Lane wrote an article in the New Yorker titled “Can a Film Star Be Too Good-Looking?” In the article Lane talks of Delon’s limitations as an actor but says “if we watch him greedily, asking for more, it is for a reason so obvious, and so elemental, that stating it plainly seems almost indecent, but here goes. Alain Delon, in his prime, was the most beautiful man in the history of the movies.”Lane doesn’t really describe Delon’s beauty as much as he examines the concept of beauty with the help of Kant and Stendhal, but the one thing he does focus on is his eyes: those blue eyes that Delon demurred to cover...

The 1958 version of “Bonjour Tristesse” is everything Hollywood seems to be wary of these days: a notoriously mean, allegedly misogynistic filmmaker’s interpretation of a book written by and about a French teenage girl. “He used me like a Kleenex and then threw me away,” Jean Seberg said of director Otto Preminger. Well, get out your hankies for a more sensitive (and plenty chic) take, one that asks: What might an adaptation of “Bonjour Tristesse” look like if it were a woman interpreting Françoise Sagan’s words? Better yet, how might it feel?

Montreal-born writer-director Durga Chew-Bose offers an impressionistic retelling, emphasizing tactile details: the way the Côte d’Azur sun hits the skin, the relief of sitting before an open icebox on a hot summer night, the smell of Dad’s aftershave. While promising, Chew-Bose’s attractive but ultimately hollow debut offers audiences a vicarious vacation to the south of France,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSChicken Run.After earlier claims that they were “not in jeopardy,” the 29-location Landmark Theatre chain now faces foreclosure, though IndieWire reports that may not be such a bad thing.After releasing a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis that included phony, apparently AI-generated pull quotes attributed to real film critics, Lionsgate has issued an apology and ceremonially fired a marketing consultant.The fast-food chain Chick-Fil-a plans to launch a streaming service, which will apparently include game shows and reality programming.FESTIVALSAhead of its premiere this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, we are pleased to share the first poster for Sofia Bohdanowicz's Measures for a Funeral (2024), designed by Charlotte Gosch of studio other types.

Cinema isn’t a beauty contest, but if it were, Alain Delon surely would have won the title of the 1960s’ most handsome actor.

That’s a subjective call, of course, and as such, Delon is the kind of figure about whom writers tend to fall back on the word “arguably” — as in, “arguably the most handsome” — which is kind of a cop-out, as it leaves the argument to somebody else. When it comes to Delon, plenty have made the case. I loved Anthony Lane’s longform analysis of Delon’s allure in The New Yorker earlier this year. And none other than Jane Fonda, who co-starred with Delon in 1964’s “Joy House,” described him as “the most beautiful human being.”

The French star, who died Sunday, made more than 100 movies in a career that spanned 50 years, but for that one transformative decade in film history — beginning with the Patricia Highsmith...

Alain Delon, the French actor who became a screen icon in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai, has died aged 88.

Delon died “peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family”, according to a statement released to the Afp news agency by his family.

As well as his famous role as professional hitman Jef Costello in Le Samourai, Delon collaborated with Melville in 1970 heist The Red Circle and 1975 crime thriller Flic Story.

Delon’s career began after he was spotted at Cannes Film Festival in 1957 by US talent agent Henry Willson, recruiting on behalf of David O. Selznick.

French acting star Alain Delon, whose many iconic roles included Le Samouraï, Plein Soleil and The Leopard, has died in France at the age of 88.

The actor’s children said in a statement that their father had passed away in the early hours of Sunday, surrounded by his family and beloved Belgian Shepherd Loubo, in his long-time chateau home in the village of Douchy, in the Le Loiret region some 100 miles south of Paris.

Delon’s death marks the passing of one of the last surviving icons of the French cinema scene of the 1960s and 70s, when the country was on an economic roll as it reconstructed in the wake of World War II.

Related: French Pres. Emmanuel Macron Leads Tributes To Alain Delon: “More Than A Star, A Monument”

The star, who was at the peak of this career from the 1960s to the 1980s, fell into acting by chance.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Luca Guadagnino knows how to make a goddamn movie. That was clear to fans of his earlier works, like the sumptuous "I Am Love," more than a decade ago. It was clear to most other people about five years ago when the bold one-two punch of "Call Me By Your Name" and "Suspiria" made moviegoers sit up and pay attention. And it's more clear than ever now, with the release of the director's latest (and reportedly biggest-budgeted) effort, the endlessly thrilling Zendaya-led sports drama "Challengers." Film after film, Guadagnino manages to tap into some hidden corners of our hearts by telling stories that are evocative and colorful, musical and sensual, messy and true.

Though Guadagnino has gained more attention in recent years, the filmmaker has actually been working since the '90s and has by now made eight narrative (or meta-narrative) features, a TV show, and several documentaries and shorts.

Jumper, Justin Anderson’s first short, opened on a naked man bathing in a pool. Conceived in 2014 for the tenth anniversary of British fashion designer Jonathan Saunders, the film was a riff on Pasolini’s Teorema; it followed a lunar stranger who shows up uninvited at a luscious Spanish villa and upends the frigid lives of its tenants. Ten years later, the same idea and shot survive more or less intact in Anderson’s feature debut, Swimming Home, based on a 2011 Man Booker-shortlisted novel by Deborah Levy. Except this time the setting is a summer home on an unidentified Greek island, the nude intruder a young woman, and her target is not a whole family but its taciturn, haunted patriarch.

His name his Josef (Christopher Abbott); hers is Kitti (Ariane Labed). He’s a poet and she’s a botanist––but this is his story, not hers, and for all...

Swimming Home is an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2011 novel, written and directed by debut UK flmmaker Justin Anderson.

The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.

Anderson studied...

Swimming Home is an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2011 novel, written and directed by debut UK flmmaker Justin Anderson.

The UK-Dutch co-production premiered in the Tiger competition of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

The film centres around a war reporter played by Mackenzie Davis, on a family holiday with her husband (Christopher Abbott), a poet, and their teenage daughter. Returning home to their villa with a friend (Nadine Labaki) they find a naked stranger, Kitti (Ariane Labed) floating in the pool. Invited to stay, Kitti’s presence comes to emphasise the tensions within the family.

Anderson studied...

Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg made a moving presentation of her documentary Jane By Charlotte, capturing her complex relationship with her late mother Jane Birkin, ahead of a screening at the Lumière Film Festival on Saturday.

The documentary is playing as part of a tribute to iconic UK-French actress and singer Birkin, who died on July 16 at the age of 76.

Sparked by Gainsbourg’s desire to get closer to her mother amid a sense that time was running out, the film follows Birkin on tour in Japan, at her beloved Breton home and also on a visit to the untouched Paris mansion she once shared with Serge Gainsbourg.

“I haven’t yet dared to take on board what this film will mean in my eyes in the future. I miss her so much that I am not formulating anything yet,” a visibly moved Gainsbourg told a packed cinema in Lyon.

“But I...

Jane Birkin graced the front pages of most French newspapers on Monday as France mourned the death of the late British actress and singer who enjoyed icon status in the country that she had called home since the late 1960s.

“Our tears can’t change anything,” proclaimed Le Parisien newspaper, which first broke the news of Birkin’s death at the age of 76 on Sunday.

Libération ran with the simple headline “Without Jane”, while regional newspaper Le Maine Libre referred to the late actress as “The Eternal English Bride of France”.

International obituaries have highlighted Birkin’s notorious performance with partner and late bad boy of French pop music Serge Gainsbourg on the 1968 pop song, ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, or the fact she inspired the Hermès Birkin bag.

For the French, she was much more.

In a six-page tribute, Libération mused over the reasons for Birkin’s never-ending...

Jane Birkin, the beloved British-French actor and singer who spent most of her life in France and is known for a tumultuous relationship with French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, died on Sunday at her home in Paris, according to Le Parisien newspaper. She was 76.

No cause of death has yet been confirmed.

Birkin was best known internationally for her steamy 1969 duet “Je t’aime… moi non plus” which she sang with Gainsbourg, one year after meeting him on the shoot of Pierre Grimblat’s “Slogan.” Although she hadn’t broken through at the time, she had a small but memorable part in Michelangelo Antonioni’s sultry 1966 film “Blow Up.”

Together, Birkin and Gainsbourg had a daughter, the actor and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg. After splitting in 1980, the pair remained close and pursued their artistic collaboration. Birkin was creatively involved in three albums by Gainsbourg, “Baby Alone in Babylone” in 1983, “Lost Song” in...

Welcome to a new edition of Pop Culture Imports for the month of October! Now granted, this month's column may not be quite as spooky themed as past October editions, but you could argue that it does give us a taste of different kinds of horror — from the erotic horrors of "Thirst" and "La Piscine," to the horrors of war in "All Quiet on the Western Front," to the horrors of having a chainsaw for a head. Don't say I don't give you variety.

Let's fire up those subtitles and get streaming.

All Quiet On The Western Front – Netflix

Country: Germany

Genre: War drama

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Daniel Brühl, Albrecht Schuch, Sebastian Hülk, Felix Kammerer, Aaron Hilmer, Edin Hasanovic, Devid Striesow.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" opens with the aftermath of a massacre, as a young man is killed in the name of a war he doesn't understand,...

The Zurich Film Festival will honor Italian director and screenwriter Luca Guadagnino at its 18th edition, which runs Sept. 22-Oct. 2.

He will receive its “A Tribute To…” award on Sept. 30 before the screening of his latest film “Bones and All,” which plays in the Gala Premiere section, and will hold a public masterclass on Oct. 1. The film world premieres in Venice tomorrow.

Guadagnino, born in Palermo in 1971, has been one of the most internationally sought-after directors since the success of “Call Me By Your Name” in 2017, which Guadagnino presented in person at the Zurich fest.

“Luca Guadagnino is a filmmaker who tells incredibly powerful visual stories and surprises time after time. With his distinctive style, the European director has also managed to make a name for himself abroad and is at the peak of his creative powers,” Christian Jungen, the festival’s artistic director, said.

“Guadagnino is also not afraid...

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

Legendary French stage and screen actor Michel Bouquet has died. He was 96. The César Award winner passed away today at a Paris hospital, his spokesperson confirmed to Afp. A tribute on the official website of the Elysée Palace did not cite a cause of death.

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

Born in 1925, Bouquet began his film career in 1947 and went on to appear in more than 100 movies. In the 1960s and ’70s, he collaborated with New Wave directors François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol in such films as Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid and Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife and Just Before Nightfall, among others.

Later in his career, Bouquet won a European Film Award for Jaco Van Dormael’s Toto Le Héros (1991) and took two Best Actor Césars for Anne Fontaine’s How I Killed My Father (2001) and Robert Guédiguian’s The Last Mitterand...

Cohen Film Collection is gearing up for a number of newly restored releases, among them Simon Callow’s 1991 drama “The Ballad of the Sad Café” and a number of Buster Keaton works.

Part of New York-based Cohen Media Group, Cohen Film Collection restores classic films and re-releases them theatrically. It’s vast catalogue includes the Merchant Ivory collection, of which “The Ballad of the Sad Café” is a part.

Based on the 1951 novella by Carson McCullers, the film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine and Rod Steiger.

The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is currently finishing the restoration of the film, which Cohen Film Group plans to release next year.

“There’s still a number of features to go, so we’re working our way through those, including some of the films set in India, which I’m personally really interested in,” says Tim Lanza, Cohen Film Collection vice president and archivist.

Irene Jacob (“Three Colours: Red”), a critically acclaimed film and theater actor, is set to preside over the Lumière Institute in Lyon, succeeding to Bertrand Tavernier, the revered French filmmaker who died in March.

Tavernier led the institution for nearly four decades and worked closely with Thierry Fremaux, the Lumière Institute’s managing director, and Cannes Film Festival’s general delegate, to host the annual Lumière festival, a star-studded celebration of heritage films and cinema masters. Lyon is actually the birthplace of the Cinematograph and its creators, the Lumiere brothers.

Kicking off on Oct. 9, the event’s 13th edition will pay homage to Tavernier with a special tribute on Oct. 10.

Jacob, who is originally from Switzerland, is the granddaughter of Maurice Jacob, a scientist and humanist who lived in Lyon all his life and has a street named after him in the city. A passionate film buff, Jacob has been...

Above: detail from the Argentinian poster for Magnet of Doom. Artist unknown.Jean-Paul Belmondo, the great French movie star who died last week at the age of 88, had a marvelous face. He wasn’t a classic matinee idol like his friend and compatriot Alain Delon but with the combination of his soulful puppy-dog eyes, lopsided boxer’s nose, and luscious feminine lips he could play both hoodlums or heartthrobs (and in Breathless he played both at the same time). A classic tough guy best known outside France for art movies, he was initially synonymous with the angry alienation of the French New Wave and starred in films by Godard, Truffaut, Melville, Malle and Lelouch. But he could play comedy as well as action (he was renowned for doing his own stunts) and was for a while promoted as a French James Bond. By the ’70s and ’80s—when he was...

Above: 1981 French grande for Stalker. Art by Bougrine.It’s been six months since I last did one of these round-ups of the most popular posters featured on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram (previously Tumblr).With some 3,349 likes to date, this rare French poster for Tarkovsky’s Stalker, posted just last month, outstripped the pack and is in fact the second most “liked” poster I’ve ever posted, just a couple of hundred likes shy of Andrew Bannister’s UK poster for Parasite which I posted over a Pandemic ago. With art signed by one “Bougrine” the poster is currently offered for sale at Posteritati. Though the style and signature don’t quite look right, there was a Vladimir Bougrine (1938-2001) who was a prominent Soviet dissident painter who ended up in Paris in 1977 where, according to Wikipedia, “the French Ministry of Culture introduced him to...a community of writers,...

Due to its persistent on-screen presence, the swimming pool can be taken for granted; but beneath the surface it is cinema’s Jungian friend, representing secrets lying underneath. It exudes glamour and danger, shifting beyond conscious realms. It is a key to transformation, coming of age tales and renewed relationships. It is a status symbol and whether or not the pool is intact says a lot about the mood of the film and the state of its characters. Away from states of intensity, the swimming pool emerges on screen as a signifier of a time to unwind and to forget life past the poolside. The films featured in this mix show how the pool alludes mysterious symbolism and sexual awakening; murder, lust, and love brush shoulders as sun kissed babes in bikinis whisper sweet truths or uncover deadly secrets (such as the strange swimming pool activities in Three Women or...

The 13th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival runs weekends from Aug. 13 through Aug. 29 at Webster and Washington Universities. Courtesy of Cinema St. Louis

The 13th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE, sponsored by the Jane M. & Bruce P. Robert Charitable Foundation, and produced by Cinema St. Louis (Csl) — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s extraordinary cinematic legacy, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

The Robert Classic French Film Festival is the first Csl in-person event since the Covid-19 pandemic. The host venues — Washington University on Aug. 13-15 and Webster University on Aug. 20-22 and 27-29 — have not yet determined whether capacity limits or masks will be required. Details will be announced on the Csl website when available.

The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features a quintet of such works: Melvin Van Peebles’ “The Story of a Three-Day Pass,” Diane Kurys’ “Entre Nous,...

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.

The Hottest August (Brett Story)

Where better than New York City to make a structuralist film? Cities are iterative, their street grids diagrams of theme and variation, and New York most of all—with its streets and avenues named for numbers and letters and states and cities and presidents and Revolutionary War generals spanning an archipelago, intersecting at a million little data points at which to measure class, race, culture, history, architecture and infrastructure. And time, too—from this human density emerge daily and seasonal rituals, a set of biorhythms, reliable as the earth’s, against which to mark gradual shifts and momentary fashions. Summer is for lounging on fire escapes, always, and, today, for Mister Softee. Yesterday it was shaved ice.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers (2021). The lineup for the 2021 Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring the latest from Pedro Almodóvar, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Pablo Larraín, Paul Schrader, Ridley Scott, and more. Find the full lineup here. The New York Film Festival has announced that this year's Centerpiece Selection will be Jane Campion's Power of the Dog, an adaptation of Thomas Savage's novel starring Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, and Benedict Cumberbatch. New additions to the TIFF roster include Joachim Trier's The Worst Person In The World, Masaaki Yuasa's Inu-Oh, and Ho Wi Ding's Terrorizers. A24 has won the rights to Octavia E. Butler's science-fiction novel Parable of the Sower, and Time director Garrett Bradley is set to direct. The novel follows a girl with a unique gift who rises to...

Next month’s lineup at The Criterion Channel has been unveiled, featuring no shortage of excellent offerings. Leading the pack is a massive, 20-film retrospective dedicated to John Huston, featuring a mix of greatest and lesser-appreciated works, including Fat City, The Dead, Wise Blood, The Man Who Would Be King, and Key Largo. (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will join the series on October 1.)

Also in the lineup is series on the works of Budd Boetticher (specifically his Randolph Scott-starring Ranown westerns), Ephraim Asili, Josephine Baker, Nikos Papatakis, Jean Harlow, Lee Isaac Chung (pre-Minari), Mani Kaul, and Michelle Parkerson.

The sparkling new restoration of La Piscine will also debut, along with Amores perros, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth, Cate Shortland’s Lore, both Oxhide films, Moonstruck, and much more.

See the full list of August titles below and more on The Criterion Channel.

Abigail Harm,...

The films of French director Quentin Dupieux spin self-contained worlds that revolve around absurd obsessions: an automobile tire with an urge to kill (“Rubber”), a man consumed with desire for a fringed leather jacket (“Deerskin”), and now, in the low-key, blank-stare silliness of “Mandibles,” two dimwitted dirtbags determined to train a shockingly large pet housefly to steal.

Tall, oafish, jorts-wearing Manu (Grégoire Ludig) and smaller, squirrely Jean-Gab (David Marsais) are affable idiots. Jean-Gab is happy to walk away, at a moment’s notice, from the small gas station he manages without locking up, while Manu is first seen sleeping on a beach, unaware he’s being soaked by the encroaching tide. They’re thirtysomething fools, a live-action Beavis and Butthead whose only constant is their lifelong friendship, one punctuated by inside jokes, private handshakes, and a recurring habit of getting stuck in the middle of a thought with a very French “duh” on their lips.

The 13th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE, sponsored by the Jane M. & Bruce P. Robert Charitable Foundation, and produced by Cinema St. Louis (Csl) — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s extraordinary cinematic legacy, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

The Robert Classic French Film Festival is the first Csl in-person event since the Covid-19 pandemic. The host venues — Washington University on Aug. 13-15 and Webster University on Aug. 20-22 and 27-29 — have not yet determined whether capacity limits or masks will be required. Details will be announced on the Csl website when available.

The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features a quintet of such works: Melvin Van Peebles’ “The Story of a Three-Day Pass,” Diane Kurys’ “Entre Nous,” Joseph Losey’s “Mr. Klein,” Jacques Deray’s “La piscine,” and the extended director’s cut of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s “Betty Blue.

It’s French! It’s hot! Jacques Deray’s most unusual film is an intimate, minimalist murder story that digs deep into the affairs of four very superficial people. Among the wealthy set are four pleasure seekers with a laissez faire take on relationships, that think they’re above basic drives — jealousy, possessiveness, resentment. The movie also makes book on the fame & notoriety of the off-on show biz couple Romy Schneider and Alain Delon — the film’s opening seems to celebrate their bigger-than-life glamour and beauty. A notable extra is a 2019 documentary with Delon and his co-star Jane Birkin, plus the film’s famous writers.

La piscine

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1088

1969 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 122 min. / Available at The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 20, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet, Jane Birkin, Paul Crauchet, Suzie Jaspard.

Cinematography: Jean-Jacques Tarbès

Production Designer: Paul Laffargue

Film Editor: Paul Cayatte

Original Music: Michel Legrand

Written by Jean-Claude Carriìre,...

All products and services featured by IndieWire are independently selected by IndieWire editors. However, IndieWire may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Criterion Collection has a slew of new releases coming your way to amp up your list of summer movie must-haves. Criterion specializes in restoring and distributing “important classic and contemporary” films from around the world. And with a catalog of over 1,400 ranging from avant-garde to Westerns, film noir to science fiction, their impressive selection has something for even the toughest movie critic. These specialized movies are complete with revamped rare finds, as well as exclusive in-depth commentary, and fascinating analysis.

Below, check out new Criterion Collection pre-orders for the month of July and August. Click here for more Criterion Collection movies to add to your film vault.

“La Piscine”

Release Date: July 20

Buy:...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Paris Theater

A Bob Dylan retrospective is now underway through June 7, with Dont Look Back, No Direction Home, The Last Waltz, and more.

Film Forum

A new restoration of Ealing comedy classic The Ladykillers opens while the new restorations of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine are playing daily.

Quad Cinema

A “Celebrate Pride” series is underway with Girls Will Be Girls, Straight-Jacket, and more.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new restoration of In the Mood for Love continues playing daily.

Museum of the Moving Image

2001: A Space Odyssey,...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Quad Cinema

Eyes Wide Shut, Funny Girl, and Ghostbusters play as part the series “A New York State of Mind.”

Listen to Bilge Ebiri discuss Stanley Kubrick’s final film on The B-Side.

Paris Theater

A Charlie Kaufman retrospective is underway through June 1, while A Color Purple plays on Sunday with Michael Koresky in person.

Film Forum

The new 4K restorations of Frederico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine are playing daily.

Roxy Cinema

Stranger Than Paradise plays on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

World of Wong Kar Wai,...

After a hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place.

Paris Theater

The late Monte Hellman’s masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop plays in 35mm on Saturday and Sunday.

IFC Center

The long-lost, newly restored George A. Romero feature The Amusement Park is now playing.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Fabulous Baker Boys plays in 35mm on Saturday. Read Matthew Eng on Michell Pfeiffer’s performance from his recent feature:

Pfeiffer egregiously lost an easy Oscar years earlier to Driving Miss Daisy’s sentimental favorite Jessica Tandy, despite claiming every major critics’ prize for playing escort-turned-lounge-singer Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Slinking on...

To make up for the summer we never had last year, or to whet our appetite for vacation days ahead, Film Forum and Rialto Pictures are reviving Jacques Deray’s sweltering St. Tropez-set erotic thriller La Piscine, a.k.a. The Swimming Pool (1969), on the big screen starting today.The beautiful new poster for the re-release was illustrated by one of my favorite contemporary poster artists, the great Laurent Durieux, whose magnificent modern-retro designs for classic films are always drop-dead gorgeous, impeccably detailed and invariably very clever. His Hitchcocks are especially remarkable. His composition for La Piscine plays off David Hockney’s 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) which features a fully-clothed man standing on the edge of a pool looking down on a man swimming underwater. The reflections on the water in Durieux’s painting are undeniably Hockneyesque, but he replaces the man on the pool...

After a 14-month hiatus as theaters in New York City and beyond closed their doors during the pandemic, we’re delighted to announce the return of NYC Weekend Watch, our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. While many theaters are still focused on a selection of new releases, there’s a handful of worthwhile repertory screenings taking place. If you don’t live in NYC, some of these films are also available in the respective theater’s Virtual Cinema, so check out the links below.

Film at Lincoln Center

World of Wong Kar Wai, featuring new restorations from the legendary Hong Kong director, begins today, while the new restoration of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror is playing daily.

Film Forum

The new 4K restoration of Jacques Deray’s La Piscine opens, while Melvin Van Peebles’ The Story of a Three–Day Pass continues playing daily.

Museum of the Moving Image

Along with...

We can think of no finer way to kick off the summer than hanging in the sun with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. The new restoration of director Jacques Deray and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière’s 1969 feature La Piscine was recently announced as Criterion release this July, but first it’ll roll out in theaters via Rialto Pictures beginning this month.

Ahead of the theatrical debut, a new trailer has arrived, backed by the tunes of composer Michel Legrand. Marking a reunion between Delon and Schneider, who had broken up about a decade prior to making this film, the story follows a summer holiday on the Côte d’Azur simmering with sexual tension.

See the new trailer below, along with the new theatrical poster by Laurent Durieux and the Criterion cover by Michael Boland.

La Piscine opens on May 14 at Film Forum.

The post Alain Delon and Romy Schneider Heat Up...

Summer is coming, and what better way to languish away in the hot heat than poolside with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider? They star together with Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin in Jacques Deray’s 1969 thriller “La Piscine,” a volley of sexual jealousies and resentments between four people vacationing in the Côte d’Azur, which provides the perfect backdrop to simmering psychosexual tensions. One of the biggest box office successes in France of all time, “La Piscine” is getting a re-release from Rialto Pictures this summer, kicking off with a two-week exclusive run at Film Forum in New York beginning May 14. Then, the restoration will begin a national rollout.

In “La Piscine,” Jean-Paul and Marianne (Delon and Schneider) are spending an idyllic holiday together at a luxurious villa near St. Tropez, loaned to them by a friend. Their sensual solitude is interrupted by the impromptu arrival of their mutual friend Harry,...

Bill Duke's Deep Cover, Lizzie Borden's Working Girls, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror lead the class of July 2010 from the Criterion Collection. In keeping with the season, Jacques Deray's La piscine is also on the release slate, along with Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. The first two titles are the ones that have already stirred up quick interest on social media; they are the kind of films that devoted adherents have dreamed of receiving "the Criterion treatment," though never quite imagining the reality. Deep Cover, especially. Here's the official description, if you've never had the pure satisfaction of seeing it for yourself: "Film noir hits the mean streets of 1990s Los Angeles in this stylish and subversive underworld odyssey from veteran actor-director Bill Duke. Laurence...

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

Legendary screenwriter collaborated with scores of filmmakers including Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, Milos Foreman and Louis Malle.

French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, whose 60-year career spanned more than 150 writer credits and collaborations with Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, Milos Foreman and Louis Malle, has died in Paris aged 89.

Born into a family of winegrowers in south-western France, Carrière moved to the outskirts of Paris at the age of 14 when his parents took over the running of a bar.

After obtaining a degree in history and literature, he embarked on a writing career, publishing debut novel Lezard in 1957. Set against the backdrop of a restaurant in the suburbs,...

Luca Guadagnino isn’t scared of remakes. One look at his filmography shows that clearly. In addition to his previous feature, 2018’s “Suspiria” remake, his “A Bigger Splash” is also a loose remake of the Jacques Deray film “La Piscine.” In both cases, it’s clear that his definition of “remake” isn’t just making a carbon copy of what came before.

Continue reading Luca Guadagnino Talks His ‘Scarface’ Idea & Why Remakes Aren’t “A Lazy Way” To Make Films at The Playlist.

French actor Claudine Auger, who broke through internationally with her part opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond film “Thunderball,” has died. She was 78.

Auger’s talent agency Art Time announced the news and said she had died in Paris.

Auger started her acting career with a small part in the 1958 film “Christine,” in which she starred alongside Romy Schneider and Alain Delon. She then appeared in Jean Cocteau’s 1960 film “Testament Of Orpheus.”

She was the first French actress to be cast as a “Bond girl” in a movie with the dashing British spy, years ahead of Lea Seydoux, Sophie Marceau, Eva Green and Carole Bouquet. In 1965’s “Thunderball,” she played “Domino,” a femme fatale and mistress of Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) who falls in love with Bond and helps him bring down a criminal organization. She reportedly won the role over Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway and Julie Christie.

Claudine Auger, who played Domino opposite Sean Connery in Thunderball has died.

The actress died in Paris on Thursday, according to her agent, reports Afp. She was 78.

Before Léa Seydoux, Eva Green and Carole Bouquet, Auger was the first French actress to star opposite 007 appearing in the Bond series’ fourth entry in 1965.

Born Claudine Oger in Paris, she began her career as a model before representing France and becoming runner-up in the 1958 Miss World competition.

Turning to acting, she appeared on stage and in films including Jean Cocteau’s The Testament of Orpheus in 1960 before winning the part in Thunderball...

I normally try to avoid egregious spoilers, but only one thing really happens in Jacques Deray's La piscine, and it happens quite near the end. Up until then, this 1969 anti-thriller compels fascination and infuriation as events fail to unfold over its two-hour-plus runtime.There's an indefinable tension in the air, some of it erotic. Ad-man Alain Delon and his partner, journalist Romy Schneider, are vacationing at a friend's place in the south of France. They're joined by a friend, possibly her former lover, Maurice Ronet, and his teenage daughter, Jane Birkin. Delon suffers pangs of jealousy and suspicion. He decides to "retaliate" against Schneider's perceived unfaithfulness by seducing Birkin. That's it for the first ninety minutes, but it's less eventful than I'm making it sound.The film coasts along, a tanned flesh-scape augmented by rippling water and searing blue skies. It has the pace of a holiday, maybe one...

With Luc Besson’s Cite du Cinema and the Bry-sur-Marne studios both facing uncertain futures, France hopes to lure ambitious productions with a vast new studio complex in Bretigny, on the outskirts of Paris, and with a revamped La Victorine, the historic 100-year-old studio on the French Riviera.

Lacking a facility as large as Pinewood in the U.K. or Babelsberg in Germany, France has struggled to attract big productions for non-exterior shoots, despite the fact that its tax incentive for international productions is highly competitive, offering a 30% tax rebate capped at €30 million ($33.5 million) per project. Private and public investors are now working to remedy the situation by ordering up studios that combine top-notch technology with massive back lots and sound stages.

Bretigny Studios is based at a former air force base in Plessis-Pâté, near Paris, and boasts a 20-acre back lot. Launched in 2018, the new studios are operated by Tfs Groupe,...

Above: detail from 2018 UK quad for Khrustalyov, My Car!.One of the most beautiful and confounding of modern masterpieces, Aleksei German’s Khrustalyov, My Car! is getting a 20th anniversary restoration release in both the U.K. and the U.S. on December 14 courtesy of Arrow Films. A potent source for Armando Ianucci’s The Death of Stalin, German’s fever dream of a satire has some the most gorgeous high-contrast black and white cinematography I’ve ever seen (watch the trailer here). It is fitting then that the new poster for the film, by the great Andrzej Klimowski, is in such stark black and white.A new film poster by Klimowski is an event. Born in London to Polish parents in 1949, the designer emigrated to Poland in 1973 to study under the legendary Henryk Tomaszewski at the Academy of Fine Arts. By 1976 he was designing posters for the state-run Film...

This week, it is was officially announced that Luca Guadagnino would direct an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks.” The script, written by Richard Lagravenese (“The Fisher King”), is a drama based on the album’s themes that follows characters throughout the ’70s. In an interview with IndieWire, Guadagnino talked about what drew him to the project, and why he wasn’t worried about doing justice to the source material.

“It is an idea of Rodrigo Teixeira, one of the producers of ‘Call Me By Your Name,’ whom I started to have a great relationship with,” said Guadagnino. “He said to me, ‘You know, I have the rights to make a movie out of ‘Blood on the Tracks’ by Bob Dylan. What do you think?’ And I found this concept very good because, as I’ve said many times, I don’t believe in originality in filmmaking.

France’s La Victorine, a Hollywood-style centenary studio located on the French Riviera is joining forces with the Provence Studios, a five-year old studio, to become France’s largest studio hub.

Created in 1919, La Victorine is located in Nice and has hosted shoots for iconic movies directed by Roger Vadim (“…And God Created Woman”), Jacques Deray (“La Piscine”), François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock, among others.

Currently being restored, the glamorous studio spreads across 7 acres, 10 sets of 64,314 square feet. Meanwhile, the Provence Studios (also called Studios de Martigues) spread across 22 acres, 129,167 square feet of interior sets, 322,917 square feet of backlot and a motion capture set.

The alliance of the two studios – which are both in the South of France and located near France’s second biggest airport (in Nice) — would rank the new hub ahead of Babelsberg in Germany, Barrandov in Prague or France’s Bry-sur-Marne and the Studios of Paris...

To see the feline countenance of Alain Delon is to immediately understand his movie stardom. How could he have been anything else? It would almost be a cosmic insult to his beauty not to commit it to celluloid. But beyond the erotically-charged pin-up and genre tough guy, Delon would also become a respected actor with a long list of auteur collaborators: Visconti, Melville, Antonioni, Joseph Losey, and the like. The mega-star of European cinema, with his cold grey eyes and louche attitude, could be forbidding or aloof; dashing or innocent. There’s a chance to see all of those iterations of the actor at a new retrospective dedicated to him at New York’s Quad Cinema, aptly-titled "L’Homme Fatal."Early in his career, Delon’s youthful beauty would be utilized in Luchino Visconti’s classics Rocco and his Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), but filmmakers also quickly recognized his ability to play the cad,...