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Just a day after New York Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival made major announcements, Venice Film Festival is here with their full lineup ahead of the festival taking place August 28 through September 7.

Highlights include Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, Harmony Korine’s Baby Invasion, Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Takeshi Kitano’s Broken Rage, Errol Morris’ Separated, Lav Diaz’s Phantosmia, Thomas Vinterberg’s Families Like Ours, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April, and more.

Check out the lineup below with a hat tip to Cineuropa.

Competition

The Room Next Door – Pedro Almodóvar

Campo di battaglia – Gianni Amelio

Leurs enfants après eux – Ludovic & Zoran Boukherma

The Brutalist – Brady Corbet

Jouer avec le feu – Delphine & Muriel Coulin

Vermiglio – Maura Delpero

Iddu (Sicilian Letters) – Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza

Queer – Luca Guadagnino

Love – Dag Johan Haugerud...

TCM is honoring William Friedkin's career with a two-night event showcasing five of his best films, including The French Connection and The Exorcist. Friedkin had a successful Hollywood career, directing acclaimed films across various genres such as Sorcerer and Killer Joe. Hollywood mourned Friedkin's death and praised his genius and influence, with collaborators and actors from The Exorcist speaking highly of him.

Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the life and career of the late, great William Friedkin with a two-night event. TCM's tribute will showcase five films, the first three airing on Thursday, September 14, and the remaining two airing Sunday, November 26. September's event will feature The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A., and The Boys in the Band; while November's event kicks off with the TCM premiere of Friedkin Uncut, a documentary about Friedkin's life and work, and concludes with The Exorcist.

Early in his career, Friedkin...

Between the pore-rich tightness of his close-ups and the mysterious, patient grandeur of his landscapes, Sergio Leone took the Hollywood-forged myths that enraptured him as a child and created one of cinema’s most influential oeuvres.

Considering Leone’s impact, from those sun-cooked, Ennio Morricone–scored westerns through the nostalgic sweep of his final film, “Once Upon a Time in America,” there’s never not a good time to enjoy a detailed, clip-rich tribute to the legendary Italian filmmaker, and now we have Francesco Zippel’s gratifying biographical appraisal “Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America,” making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Cineastes who watch it should start pulling those Leone DVDs from the shelf beforehand; you’ll want them handy when the parade of praised sequences and behind-the-scenes insight is over, and after interviewee-superfan Quentin Tarantino offers up an amusing post-credits anecdote built around the shorthand...

Francesco Zippel’s Sergio Leone doc, which premieres on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, is the first portrait of the Italian master made with full support of his children Raffaella and Andrea.

Titled “Sergio Leone: The Man Who Invented America,” the high-profile doc is premiering in the Venice Classics section for docs on cinema. It features an impressive list of voices holding forth on what makes Leone special for them. Among these are: Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Giuseppe Tornatore, Frank Miller, Darren Aronofsky, Damien Chazelle and Robert De Niro (see clip).

But aside from Leone’s visionary talent as a director what emerges is that as his career escalated from the so-called “Dollars Trilogy” to “Once Upon a Time in the West” through to his final masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in America,” Leone’s life was steeped in two inextricably linked passions: film and family.

Italian actor and director Valeria Golino is set to make her debut as a TV series director with “The Art of Joy,” an erotically charged female empowerment drama set in early 20th-century Sicily and produced by Sky Studios.

Golino’s high-end period skein about a Sicilian young woman named Modesta, born into an impoverished family in early 1900 and driven by a strong belief that she’s destined for a better life, was announced during a Sky Italy presentation in Rome where the pay-tv operator unveiled its upcoming lineup of 60 Italian originals – series and films – for 2022, most of which have been already announced.

The presentation’s standout, revealed for the first time, is “The Art of Joy,” which is based on an epic, and highly erotic, feminist novel by the late Italian author and actor Goliarda Sapienza.

“Art of Joy” has been a longtime passion project for Golino, who was very...

Paris-based international sales company The Party Film Sales has nabbed the rights for Antongiulio Panizzi’s hybrid documentary “The Girl in the Fountain,” a double portrait of icons Anita Ekberg and Monica Bellucci, which opened at the Torino Film Festival last November.

The story of an actress devoured by her own icon, the film alternates between archive footage of Ekberg and reenacted scenes by Bellucci, who retraces Ekberg’s weaknesses and choices, inviting the viewer to reflect on what it is like to be an icon, providing a fresh look at femininity, fame and media exposure.

The famous scene in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” in which Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg take a midnight dip in the Trevi Fountain, hides a much more chaotic life – that of an actress consumed by her own iconic image, says Panizzi.

Speaking to Variety ahead of the Torino premiere, Panizzi said that...

Historians may now acknowledge Oscar Micheaux as a pioneering Black filmmaker, and the industry could be catching up. However, that acclaim certainly didn’t follow him through his lifetime, when the hustling novelist and director made complex dramas about Black life in America across three decades, starting with the silent era and continuing for many years after that. By the time of his death in 1951, the child of former slaves in Kentucky had written six novels and directed 44 films, but around 80 percent of them have been lost.

Needless to say, most people have been late to the party when it comes to Micheaux’s career, including Cannes. But the festival’s Cannes Classics sidebar made up for that this year by screening a new restoration of Micheaux’s 1935 crime thriller “Murder in Harlem,” alongside a new documentary about the filmmaker’s contemporary resonance, “Oscar Micheaux – The Superhero of Black Cinema,...

Cannes Classics

Mark Cousins‘ documentary “The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas,” following the legendary “The Last Emperor” and “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” producer’s annual drive to Cannes, will be the pre-opener at the Cannes Classics selection this year.

Restored titles this year include “Friendship’s Death” by Peter Wollen, starring Tilda Swinton; “F For Fake” by Orson Welles; “Mulholland Drive” by David Lynch (2001 U.S.); “I Know Where I’m Going!” by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; and “The Double Life Of Véronique by Krzysztof Kieślowski”.

The section will also celebrate the work of actor/director Bill Duke with a screening of “The Killing Floor” (1985); Japanese actor and filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s “Tsuki Wa Noborinu”; Spanish actor and filmmaker Ana Marisca’s “El Camino” from 1964; French maven Marcel Camus’ “Orfeu Negro” and Italian master Roberto Rossellini’s “Francesco, Giullare Di Dio”.

Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American director in the history of U.

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 2021 Cannes Classics section. Made up of a selection of restored prints, the roster also includes new documentaries that explore the history of cinema. Among the offerings is Mark Cousins’ pre-opening doc, The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, which covers a yearly drive with the British producer from London to Cannes. Cousins and Thomas will be in town for the presentation. (Scroll down for the full Cannes Classics list.)

Restored titles include David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive; 1945’s I Know Where I’m Going! by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 1991 drama The Double Life Of Véronique; Orson Welles’ F For Fake from 1973; and Friendship’s Death by Peter Wollen which features Tilda Swinton’s first role.

Among the special events are a tribute to director and actor Bill Duke who will present his 1985 The Killing Floor which premiered at Critics...

Tilda Swinton to attend restored screening of Peter Wollen’s 1987 UK film Friendship’s Death.

Two documentaries from Mark Cousins and restored films from Kinuyo Tanaka, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles will screen in Cannes Classics, announced on Wednesday (June 23).

Cousins’ The Story Of Film: A New Generation and The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, a profile of the celebrated British producer, are among a documentary line-up that incudes Buñuel, Un Cineasta Surrealista from Javier Espada, and All About Yves Montand by Yves Jeuland.

The roster of restored narrative films includes David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive, Japanese actor-filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s (pictured) The Moon Has Risen,...

Yes, sure, all the new films are exciting and sure to dominate discourse from here to January, but every year (i.e. when a pandemic doesn’t kneecap them) the Cannes Film Festival provides an equal-if-not-greater service: Cannes Classics, their mix of favorite and soon-to-be-discovered films from yesteryear.

2021’s lineup is representative of that variety, offering as it does Orson Welles and David Lynch alongside an early Raoul Peck feature (restored by Scorsese’s World Cinema Project), Tilda Swinton’s screen debut, a lesser-seen Masahiro Shinoda, and (frankly!) names that don’t ring a bell.

Take a look at the list below, with hope that these will make their way to American shores.

A Tribute To Bill Duke

The director, actor and producer, in Competition at Cannes with A Rage in Harlem in 1991, returns to the Croisette with his first film as director, presented at the Semaine de la critique...

Classic cinephiles are in for a treat with two new projects coming to screens. The life of legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky is getting the limited series treatment, as revealed with the announcement of a new project out of the ongoing Cannes virtual marketplace. Meanwhile, Pulse Films has partnered with the Sergio Leone estate to mount a documentary in tribute to the late, great pioneer of Spaghetti Westerns.

As first reported by Variety, Kirill Serebrennikov will write and direct the series about Tarkovsky, and it will be produced by Ilya Stewart, Murad Osmann, and Pavel Burya of the Moscow-based company Hype Film. Tarkovsky’s film career in the Soviet Union yielded seven features, all considered masterpieces by most, including “Ivan’s Childhood,” “Andrei Rublev,” “Solaris,” “The Mirror,” “Stalker,” “Nostalghia,” and “The Sacrifice.” Tarkovsky died in 1986. Hype Film previously repped Kirill Serebrennikov’s films “Leto,” a 2018 Cannes competition title about an underground rock music scene,...

Classic cinephiles are in for a treat with two new projects coming to screens. The life of legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky is getting the limited series treatment, as revealed with the announcement of a new project out of the ongoing Cannes virtual marketplace. Meanwhile, Pulse Films has partnered with the Sergio Leone estate to mount a documentary in tribute to the late, great pioneer of Spaghetti Westerns.

As first reported by Variety, Kirill Serebrennikov will write and direct the series about Tarkovsky, and it will be produced by Ilya Stewart, Murad Osmann, and Pavel Burya of the Moscow-based company Hype Film. Tarkovsky’s film career in the Soviet Union yielded seven features, all considered masterpieces by most, including “Ivan’s Childhood,” “Andrei Rublev,” “Solaris,” “The Mirror,” “Stalker,” “Nostalghia,” and “The Sacrifice.” Tarkovsky died in 1986. Hype Film previously repped Kirill Serebrennikov’s films “Leto,” a 2018 Cannes competition title about an underground rock music scene,...

Exclusive: London-based production studio Pulse Films is expanding its global footprint with the addition of an office in Milan, Italy.

The move is part of a larger partnership with local indie Indiana Production, which has recent credits including Liam Neeson pic Made In Italy and The Burnt Orange Heresy. The endeavor will see Pulse produce Italian content across film, docs, TV, music and commercials under the banner Pulse Films Italia.

Kicking off the venture is a feature documentary about legendary Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, which will be made in co-production with the Leone Film Group. Francesco Zippel is directing and writing the pic, which will chronicle how Leone became one of the most influential directors of his era. In particular, Leone is noted for his pioneering Spaghetti Western movies A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly,...

Always bold to some degree, seldom less than ambitious, William Friedkin’s career as a filmmaker has seen countless awards won; box offices records broken; and left us with more than a few classics. While the director can tell a story behind the camera, he’s also a knowledgeable, entertaining personality in front of one. Gifted with a voice worthy of sports broadcasting, he manages to appear even larger than his resume–in the same way his contemporary Peter Bogdanovich often does, another director who kept a foot in both “New Hollywood” and the gilded past of cinema history. Yet Friedkin is perhaps the only filmmaker so intrinsically linked with both the birth of New Hollywood and, unwittingly, with its ideological demise.

This irresistible combo of charisma, auteurism, and historical clout has inspired a number of documentary filmmakers in recent years. Francesco Zippel’s 2018 movie Friedkin Uncut provided a rollicking career overview,...

Legendary director William Friedkin is getting his own career-spanning documentary with Francesco Zippel’s feature debut Friedkin Uncut. In a similar vein to Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s 2015 film De Palma, which allowed that eclectic director to discuss his filmography in-depth, Friedkin Uncut provides an opportunity for the filmmaker to discuss his early successes and his eventual financial failures.

One of the dominant voices in independent 1970s cinema, with his back to back classics The French Connection and The Exorcist, Friedkin, like most New Hollywood directors, couldn’t sustain his critical and financial success, creating a string of financial failures with Wages of Fear remake Sorcerer and erotic thriller Cruising, two films that have only gained critical stature in the ensuing years. A constant voice in independent film, Friedkin’s output has been steady, if somewhat under the radar with his most recent films, including his last two Tracy Letts collaborations,...

In today’s film news roundup, “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” is unveiled, “Friedkin Uncut” gets a fall release and Sony Classics buys “The Traitor” at Cannes.

Movie Releases

Netflix has set a Sept. 20 release date for Zach Galifianakis’ “Between Two Ferns: The Movie,” based on his 11-year-old talk show.

Galifianakis made the announcement during a Netflix awards event with David Letterman on Thursday night. Galifianakis co-wrote the movie with Scott Aukerman, who’s directing the film.

Aukerman was the director of 14 of the 21 episodes of the talk show, which began in 2008 with an interview with Michael Cera. The most recent “Between Two Ferns” aired in 2018 with Jerry Seinfeld, Wayne Knight and Cardi B.

Aukerman and Galifianakis are producing with Funny or Die’s Caitlin Daley and Mike Farah. The logline involves the comedian and his crew taking a road trip to complete a series of high-profile celebrity interviews and restore his reputation.

Chicago – Day Six of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) on Monday, October 15th, 2018, features a tribute to the Chicago-born director William Friedkin, two made-in-Chicago films and four films vying in the International Competition.

’Friedkin Uncut’ on Day Six of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival/Wanted Cinema

Events It took an Italian director, Francesco Zippel, to do a proper documentary on an American director icon, the Chicago-born William Friedkin. The film is entitled “Friedkin Uncut,” and will be featured along with a Red Carpet event and appearance by the maverick filmmaker himself – who also directed the notable “Socerer” (1977), “Cruising” (1980) and the recent “Killer Joe” (2011) – in a “Tribute to William Friedkin” on Monday. (click here for details).

There will also be a Red Carpet event for the film “What They Had” (see below), with director Elizabeth Chomko and actor Robert Forster.

Film Of...

Set in 2085, the end-of-the-world drama is directed by Jonathan Nossiter.

Doc & Films International has boarded sales on Us director Jonathan Nossiter’s end-of-the-world, 2085-set drama Last Words, starring Nick Nolte, Charlotte Rampling, Alba Rohrwacher, Stellan Skarsgard and Valeria Golino.

The long-gestating project, which was first unveiled at the Les Arcs Coproduction Village in 2016, unfolds against the backdrop of a near-future world devastated by ecological disasters and conflicts, where there have been no human births in over a decade.

A handful of survivors respond to a mysterious call to meet up in Athens. The feature’s narrator Jo, a 17-year-old boy of African origin,...

At the beginning of Friedkin Uncut, Italian documaker Francesco Zippel’s admiring career portrait, the 83-year-old subject compares “the two most interesting characters in history,” Jesus and Hitler. One brought the people he met up to heaven, and the other took them down to hell. There is good and evil in everybody, William Friedkin concludes wickedly, “even in me.”

It’s a startling aperture onto the bright, witty, original mind of a man who isn’t afraid to make unconventional leaps and rather dotes on controversy and hell-raising. And it illustrates the filmmaker's fascination with extreme ...

At the beginning of Friedkin Uncut, Italian documaker Francesco Zippel’s admiring career portrait, the 83-year-old subject compares “the two most interesting characters in history,” Jesus and Hitler. One brought the people he met up to heaven, and the other took them down to hell. There is good and evil in everybody, William Friedkin concludes wickedly, “even in me.”

It’s a startling aperture onto the bright, witty, original mind of a man who isn’t afraid to make unconventional leaps and rather dotes on controversy and hell-raising. And it illustrates the filmmaker's fascination with extreme ...

When William Friedkin says that Hitler and Jesus are the two most interesting characters in history, one is inclined to listen. The Oscar-winning director of “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” and “The French Connection” is fascinated by the extremes they represent: One brought people down to hell with him, the other helped them ascend to heaven. Friedkin proves so talkative in Francesco Zippel’s documentary about him, riffing on matters both cinematic and spiritual, that it’s almost surprising he didn’t pursue a career that allows him to do it more — you can almost imagine him in front of a congregation of his own.

He isn’t the only one with a lot to say. “Friedkin Uncut” also includes testimonials from collaborators and admirers such as Ellen Burstyn, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Francis Ford Coppola; docs of this type never lack for talking heads, but there’s a sense that...

Friedkin Uncut, the documentary by Francesco Zippel about the Exorcist and French Connection director William Friedkin, has been acquired by social entertainment platform TaTaTu ahead of the film’s world premiere in Venice.

TaTaTu, whose founder Andrea Iervolino is a producer on the movie, has taken North American and UK rights. The film is among the first blockchain/cryptocurrency backed titles to screen at a major film festival. It’s running in the Venice Classics Documentary section.

Written and directed by Zippel, Friedkin Uncut aims to offer an introspective insight into the titular filmmaker’s life and artistic journey. A Venice favorite, he started his career at the age of 16 as a mail room boy at Wgn-tv and ultimately became one of the most important American filmmakers of the 70s and beyond. Among his credits are The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, Cruising, To Live and Die In L.A.

Social entertainment platform TaTaTu has acquired rights for North America and the U.K. to the documentary “Friedkin Uncut” ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week.

Written and directed by Francesco Zippel, “Friedkin Uncut” aims to offer insight into the life and artistic journey of William Friedkin, director of “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” “Cruising,” “To Live and Die in L.A.,” and “Killer Joe.”

Friedkin started his career at the age of 16 as a mail room boy at Wgn-tv. He won the Academy Award for best director for 1971’s “The French Connection,” which also won best picture. He received a best director nod two years later for “The Exorcist,” one of its 10 Oscar nominations.

The film includes appearances by Ellen Burstyn, Wes Anderson, Dario Argento, Damien Chazelle, Francis Ford Coppola, Willem Dafoe, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Shannon, Quentin Tarantino, and Edgar Wright.

“Frieddkin Uncut” is...

TaTaTu, a blockchain-based social entertainment platform, will release the Francesco Zippel documentary Friedkin Uncut in North America and the U.K.

The company, which co-produced Zippel’s doc on William Friedkin, director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, will stream the film exclusively on its platform in the territories.

TaTaTu made the announcement ahead of the world premiere of Friedkin Uncut at the Venice Film Festival.

Zippel’s doc features the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle and Michael Shannon talking about the cult director. Friedkin also talks on camera about his journey from being the mailboy ...

TaTaTu, a blockchain-based social entertainment platform, will release the Francesco Zippel documentary Friedkin Uncut in North America and the U.K.

The company, which co-produced Zippel’s doc on William Friedkin, director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, will stream the film exclusively on its platform in the territories.

TaTaTu made the announcement ahead of the world premiere of Friedkin Uncut at the Venice Film Festival.

Zippel’s doc features the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Damien Chazelle and Michael Shannon talking about the cult director. Friedkin also talks on camera about his journey from being the mailboy ...

Non-FictionThe programme for the 2018 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Tsai Ming-liang, Frederick Wiseman, Sergei Loznitsa, Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, and many more.COMPETITIONFirst Man (Damien Chazelle)The Mountain (Rick Alverson)Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard)The Ballad of Buster ScruggsVox Lux (Brady Corbet)Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)22 July (Paul Greengrass)Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino)Werk ohne autor (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)Peterloo (Mike Leigh)Capri-revolution (Mario Martone)What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire? (Roberto Minervini)Sunset (László Nemes)Frères ennemis (David Oeloffen)Where Life is Born (Carlos Reygadas)At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel)Acusada (Gonzalo Tobal)Killing (Shinya Tsukamoto)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Morgan Neville)L'amica geniale (Saverio Costanzo)Il diario di angela - noi...

The Venice Film Festival is celebrating its 75th year in 2018 with a star-studded lineup that includes world premieres from Damien Chazelle, Bradley Cooper, Luca Guadagnino, and Alfonso Cuarón. The festival takes place August 29 to September 8 and marks the official kickoff of the 2018 fall awards season.

As has been previously announced, Damien Chazelle will open the festival with the world premiere of “First Man.” The space race drama stars Chazelle’s “La La Land” Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong and recounts the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The world premiere will be Chazelle’s second Venice opener after “La La Land.” Also confirmed prior to the announcement lineup was Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born,” which marks the actor’s directorial debut.

Check out the full lineup for the 2018 Venice Film Festival below. This year’s competition jury is led by Guillermo del Toro, who won the...

Martin Scorsese will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and take part in an interview about his career and Italian cinema at this year’s Rome Film Festival (October 18-28).

The iconic director will present the restored version of an as-yet undisclosed Italian classic film and serve as the subject of an in-conversation session with festival director Antonio Monda. His award will be presented to him by Italian director Paolo Taviani.

Also among the festival’s Close Encounters interview program will be Sigourney Weaver, Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore, artist and screenwriter Pierre Bismuth, acclaimed Italian DoP’s Luca Bigazzi and Arnaldo Catinari as well as feted editors Giogiò Franchini and Esmeralda Calabria.

Rome is also revealing snippets of its film lineup today, including Notti Magiche by Paolo Virzì, retrospectives of Peter Sellers and Maurice Pialat, the restoration of Italiani Brava Gente by Giuseppe De Santis and an exhibition on Marcello Mastroianni.