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It was a historic scene at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, when Czech filmmaker Zuzana Kirchnerová climbed the stairs of the Lumière Theater for the premiere of her long-gestating debut feature “Caravan,” the first time in more than three decades that a Czech majority production played in the French fest’s official selection.

While the Cannes triumph was a crowning moment for the debutante director, it also marked the latest in a series of watershed achievements for the Czech industry. Beyond the Croisette, Czech directors are becoming a staple at prestigious festivals, including Venice, Berlin and Annecy, reflecting a steady growth arguably not seen in the Central European nation since the glory days of the Czech New Wave.

“I feel there’s real movement in the right direction,” says “Caravan” producer Dagmar Sedláčková. “That kind of consistency speaks to a maturation of the industry — better developed scripts, more precise...

The Wild West looks tame beside the lawless, senseless Continental plains and sierras of “Heads or Tails?,” an enjoyably off-kilter Euro-western that honors the stylistic and structural traditions of the genre while occupying its own reality entirely. The second feature from Italian directing duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis features a rogue outlaw cowboy, a gutsy, pistol-toting widow and Buffalo Bill Cody himself — all variously on the loose in a suitably parched stretch of northern Italy. But if those sound like standard ingredients for an old-school oater, or even a Leone-era spaghetti joint, this sui generis item takes a turn for the eccentric even before it pivots into outright surrealism.

One of the more irreverent titles at this year’s Cannes festival — where it premiered in the Un Certain Regard strand — “Heads or Tails?” is looser and loopier than de Righi and Zoppis’ cultish 2021 festival hit “The Tale of King Crab,...

Natalie Portman, Eiza Gonzalez and Rachel Brosnahan step out for the Dior Cruise 2026 fashion show held at Villa Albani-Torlonia on Tuesday (May 27) in Rome, Italy.

The ladies were just a few of the famous actresses in attendance at the presentation this week.

Also in attendance were Sarah Catherine Hook, Ashley Park, Rosamund Pike, Alexandra Daddario, Maria Fernanda Candido, Deva Cassel and Han So Hee, as well as Laura Morante, Angelina Woreth, Camille Cottin, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Marisa Berenson, Nine d’Urso and Razane Jammal.

In case you missed it, Natalie is set to star in an upcoming romantic comedy from director Lena Dunham, and the star-studded cast was recently revealed!

Earlier this month, Eiza gushed about her boyfriend Grigor Dimitrov while celebrating his birthday.

Fyi: All of the women are wearing Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Browse through the gallery to see more photos of the stars at the Dior Cruise 2026 fashion show…...

It was all about Wild West myths and classy Negronis as Rai Cinema celebrated “Heads or Tails?” in Cannes on Thursday.

Presented in Un Certain Regard and directed by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, the surreal western follows Rosa (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), who, trapped in an unhappy marriage, flees with daredevil Santino (Alessandro Borghi). Many go after them, including Buffalo Bill (John C. Reilly).

“It’s a very original film and I think it will have a great impact. Not only in Italy, but in the world. It touches upon themes that are universal. There’s love, power and a little bit of politics,” CEO of Rai Cinema Paolo del Brocco told Variety at the event.

“It’s difficult to invent new things in cinema, but we hope more original films will come [in the future]. When we see a new idea, we invest a lot in it. We want it to be done well.

The scent of sawdust and gunpowder, a phantom limb of the American frontier, drifts across the ancient stones of Italy. Here, in the twilight of the 19th century, Buffalo Bill Cody, that bewhiskered impresario of self-mythology, has imported his Wild West spectacle – a theatre of conquest played out for the amusement of a European gentry.

The performance, however, is merely a prelude, a gaudy curtain rising on a drama far less rehearsed. A wager, born of bravado and perhaps the weariness of an old world confronting a new, pits American bravura against local sinew. Santino, an Italian buttero, a man of the earth, triumphs, and in this small victory, a crack appears in the veneer of civility. A nobleman, Ercole Rupè, lies slain, and his young French widow, Rosa, her hands stained with an irrevocable act, flees into the ochre landscape.

With her rides Santino, now a cipher – murderer, kidnapper,...

The Italian-u.S. co-production Heads or Tails? starts with a re-enactment of an actual historical event: Buffalo Bill (played here by John C. Reilly) and his traveling rodeo show’s early-20th-century visit to Italy. But this freewheeling neo-anti-quasi-western, with its fictional yarn about young lovers (Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Alessandro Borghi) on the run from bounty hunters who encounter revolutionaries and train robbers, eventually goes well beyond printing the legend and wanders off into the realms of magical realism.

The project — directed by Matteo Zoppis and Alessio Rigo de Righi (whose previous effort was The Tale of King Crab) — is nothing if not ambitious, even if its big swings don’t always connect. Nevertheless, there’s a freshness in seeing this kind of horse opera set in Europe itself, as opposed to having southerly locations on the continent pretending to be American landscapes, like they did back in the spaghetti...

I could name few living filmmakers better equipped for the Western than Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis. The duo behind The Tale of King Crab––a film I revere like a sacred relic––have created their own niche in contemporary Italian magical realism, somewhere adjacent to Alice Rohrwacher and Pietro Marcello while very much its own thing. Their latest is called Heads or Tails and it’s another of the filmmakers’ ethereal campfire stories. If perhaps not the fullest realization of their Western potential, it will certainly do until that gets here.

Heads or Tails concerns Rosa (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), the intrepid wife of a wealthy and domineering landowner. It begins at the rodeo, where a kind of Vegas-era Buffalo Bill has come to town to tour his show. While charming the local dignitaries, he proposes a competition between his American riders and the local Italians, with the instruction to “lasso,...

It’s almost impossible to have a thorough discussion about the myth of the American West and the way it permeated pop culture without turning one’s attention to Italy. Italian filmmakers like Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci had a field day with cowboy iconography in the 1960s, churning out a series of violent Westerns that many enthusiasts would say rival or surpass the American Westerns made by the likes of John Ford and Howard Hawks. From their largely European casts and overtly Catholic imagery to their hot-blooded stories of violent revenge, the so-called Spaghetti Westerns were distinctly Italian products. But their existence was only possible due to the endless fascination that Italians had with America and the myths that Hollywood loved to perpetuate.

Italy’s love of American cowboys provides the backdrop for “Heads or Tails,” the new film from “The Tale of King Crab” directors Alessio Rigo de Righi...

Roughly a year after its launch, Italian state broadcaster Rai’s new sales unit for film is at Cannes with its first full-fledged slate headlined by surreal Western “Heads or Tails” starring John C. Reilly as Buffalo Bill during his stay in Italy that is launching in Un Certain Regard.

The Rai Cinema International Distribution slate also includes a new under-the-radar doc by prominent Russian documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky, known for “Gunda” and “Aquarela.” Kossakovsky is now making another ecology-themed doc titled “Tears for Firs” in collaboration with Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso, a pioneer in the plant neurobiology movement who has written several best-selling books including “Tree Stories.” “It’s about the entire life cycle of trees and the correlation between plant life and the life of our planet,” said Rai Cinema chief Paolo Del Brocco.

“Tears for First” is being produced by Rome-based Be Water Film with Rai Cinema.

All’s fair in love, war, and the flip of a coin. Italian Western “Heads or Tails?” turns back time to capture the famed “Wild West Show,” hosted by Buffalo Bill (née William F. Cody), which brought the myth of the American frontier abroad. In a twist of divine casting, John C. Reilly plays the iconic Buffalo Bill. The feature premieres at Cannes this year in the Un Certain Regard section as a sales title; this is Reilly’s recent return to the festival, as the star was previously the president of the Un Certain Regard jury for the 76th edition in 2023. Watch an exclusive clip in the video above.

Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis co-direct “Heads or Tails?,” which centers on how Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show changes the perspective of Italian woman Rosa, who is trapped in a stifling marriage to a powerful and violent landowner.

John C. Reilly stars as Buffalo Bill in the surreal westerns- and heroes-deconstructing parable Heads or Tails? (Testa o croce?), the new feature from Italian writers-directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (The Tale of King Crab), which world premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

French-Finnish actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Red Island, The Crime Is Mine) and Italian actor Alessandro Borghi (Supersex, The Eight Mountains) lead the cast of the movie that dissects such themes as fame, myths, and storytelling.

The story, which the creator duo wrote with Carlo Salsa, begins with a documented 1890 Italy trip by frontiersman Buffalo Bill to bring his popular “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show” to European audiences, and with it, the legend of U.S. frontier life.

At the show, Rosa (Tereszkiewicz), the young wife of a nobleman, falls in love with Santino (Borghi), an Italian cowboy, or buttero, who wins a contest...

Italian directorial duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, who made a splash at Cannes in 2022 with “The Tale of King Crab,” are back with “Heads or Tails,” a surreal Western starring John C. Reilly inspired by a true event that took place during Buffalo Bill’s stay in Italy. The film unspools in Un Certain Regard.

Italian cowboys, hailing from the central Italian plains of northern Lazio up through the coastal Italian region of Maremma into southern Tuscany and known as “butteri,” have a long-standing connection to Buffalo Bill and the history of America’s Wild West.

“We’ve known this story since we were kids,” said Zoppis. “There was a rodeo between the American cowboys and the Italian butteri from Cisterna Latina, just south of Rome, where we actually shot the film. And legend has it that the Italians won, though there are different versions of the outcome.

This year’s Italian presence at Cannes – one entry in competition by veteran auteur Mario Martone and two by young directors that landed slots in Un Certain Regard – accurately reflects the current state of Cinema Italiano.

Broadly speaking, following a protracted growth spurt, there has been a slowdown in production activity caused by the fact that the government has been dithering with modifications on tax incentives for local film and TV productions, which has stalled the greenlight process, especially for bigger-budget Italian movies.

But even though getting films financed has gotten tougher, a new generation of directors is bubbling under, alongside well-known names such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino, Alice Rohrwacher and Nanni Moretti.

“I have the impression that once again we are seeing young [Italian] directors emerging and this is formidable,” Thierry Fremaux noted while announcing the lineup. The Cannes boss went on to add that “Italy is historically a...

It’s the most exciting time of the year for a cinephile: the Cannes Film Festival is set to kick off next week, running May 13th-25th. Ahead of festivities we’ve rounded up what we’re most looking forward to, and while we’re sure many surprises await, per every year, one will find twenty films that should be on your radar. Check out our picks below and be sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest updates from the festival.

Alpha (Julia Ducournau)

Winning the Palme d’Or for your previous film is a pretty high bar to clear for your next. It’s also among the best problems any filmmaker could have. Four years after Spike Lee’s jury handed the coveted prize to the first female filmmaker in Cannes history––and one of the most violent films to ever take home a Palme––maverick...

The clock is ticking—it’s the eleventh hour. The Délégué général Thierry Frémaux is deep in the final throes of curating this year’s Competition lineup and he is currently weighing in on the last few masterstrokes for the Class of ’25. Rushed in at the wire, a handful of freshly picture-locked films are being evaluated and with only two or three slots left for the Palme d’Or comp, there are are maybe a dozen of antsy filmmakers hoping they get the invite. We might hear of the new titles tomorrow or perhaps early next week and we can only assume that Jim Jarmusch and Arnaud Desplechin might still options on the bingo card but were of the opinion that they were kept on ice incase something more noteworthy trickled in.…...

As studios, production houses, and agents return from the holidays and burn off the last energy of this ceaseless, shameless awards season, numerous projects are finding lifeblood. Case in point: at Wednesday’s New York Film Critics Circle dinner I had a brief exchange with Annie Baker, who was present to accept their Best First Film honor and casually mentioned a new project that’s set up at A24, who’d shepherded Janet Planet to such success. She was tight-lipped on further details (like I could help asking), but a couple inquiries confirmed casting is in motion; likely shooting commences before long.

Equally terse, likewise exciting is notice (via The New Yorker) that Lee Chang-dong has been writing his first film since 2018’s Burning with ambitions to shoot this year. That’s about the furthest we’re getting right now, but patience isn’t even necessary: with his earliest films...

Exclusive: In keeping with its start-of-the-year tradition, Goodfellas has rolled out the bulk of its French-language slate for 2025 ahead of the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris next week, and it’s a hot one.

The line-up features fresh additions An Affair by Arnaud Desplechin and Prime Rush by Carlos Abascal Peiró as well as half a dozen pictures that we expect to see at Cannes or Venice later this year.

An Affair marks a new chapter for Desplechin after achieving closure in 2024 with his long-running character of Paul Dédalus through Cannes-selected drama Filmlovers!, which hits French cinemas for Les Films du Losange next week.

New movie An Affair sees Desplechin collaborate with rising French stars François Civil (Beating Hearts) and Nadia Tereszkiewicz (The Crime is Mine) for the first time, in a cast also featuring Charlotte Rampling and Hippolyte Girardot.

Civil plays a pianist who returns to France after a long...

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.NEWSGoodbye, Dragon Inn.The Tamil Film Active Producers Association has filed a writ petition to ban social-media film reviews for the first three days of the theatrical release, claiming financial losses due to negative “review bombing.” Theater owners have likewise proposed banning YouTubers from recording audience reactions in cinema lobbies and parking lots.The McL Cinema in Hong Kong’s Diamond Hill district has shuttered after just two years of operations, the seventh theater in the city to have closed this year. Insiders are bracing for the hit to the local film industry’s reputation and financial stability that could follow. For the past decade, Hollywood executives believed that brief theatrical windows would boost subscriber numbers for their streaming services.

John C. Reilly will soon appear on the big screen as Buffalo Bill in “Heads or Tails?” a surreal Western by Italian directorial duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (“The Tale of King Crab”). The film is inspired by a true event that took place during Buffalo Bill’s stay in Italy.

Along with the Oscar-nominated U.S. actor – who co-starred with Joaquin Phoenix in Jacques Audiard’s Western “The Sisters Brothers” – the top notch “Heads or Tails?” cast also comprises rising French star Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Italy’s Alessandro Borghi, in lead roles, and Argentina’s Peter Lanzani.

Italian cowboys known as “butteri” –– and hailing from the central Italian plains of northern Lazio up through the coastal Italian region of Maremma into southern Tuscany — have a long-standing connection to Buffalo Bill and the history of America’s Wild West.

Buffalo Bill, born William F. Cody, was a...

For a film that is not much more than pure, delightful homage to 1930s cinema and the various genres of the time, there is nothing stale about The Crime Is Mine. François Ozon’s frilly farce/pointed courtroom drama is closest in style to his previous film, Peter von Kant — and equally, if not more, eye-popping. But thematically it shares most common ground with 8 Women (which also features Isabelle Huppert), where murder, melodrama and storming female leads also combine. The result is a lavish, briskly witty period romp with an ultra-modern post-MeToo sensibility.

The first of said leads is Nadia Tereszkiewicz as Madeleine Verdier, an ailing actor who we initially see skedaddling from the impressive Art Deco mansion of a powerful theatre producer (Jean-Christophe Bouvet), after he has tried to attack her. Not long later, her assailant is discovered dead, and Madeleine inadvertently becomes a prime suspect. To make...

Ozon and a stellar cast serve up an entertaining, if shallow caper that shades a little too close to #MeToo

François Ozon has directed plenty of complex, demanding and serious dramas: Everything Went Fine, Summer of 85 and By the Grace of God, along with adaptations of Fassbinder. But he also has a sweet tooth for breezy, silly, crowd-pleasing theatrical comedies like this one. Watching it is like being force-fed a large box of chocolates; moreish, though. There is certainly an amazing blue-chip cast of French movie-acting royalty, including Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini and André Dussollier.

The Crime Is Mine is adapted from a 1934 French stage comedy called Mon Crime by Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil which has already spawned two different madcap Hollywood versions in the 30s and 40s, respectively starring Carole Lombard and Betty Hutton. Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays Madeleine, an impecunious would-be stage star, engaged to wealthy young...

They say that history progresses in cycles, and Europe in the 2020s has much in common, socially and politically, with the 1930s. On the one hand, there have been striking advances in the rights of women and sexual minorities, the arts are thriving and everyone seems dazzled by celebrity culture. On the other, fascist movements are growing in strength and it is widely known that there is a culture of abuse and exploitation in the arts and elsewhere, with efforts to stamp it out making limited progress. Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil’s stage play Mon Crime captured all of this back in 1934. Ninety years later, who better to adapt it for the silver screen than François Ozon, who builds upon the high camp style of his sensational 8 Women to present it as a sugary delight with a delightfully bitter aftertaste.

Nadia Tereszkiewicz is Madeleine, a glamorous young actress.

Matt Dillon, Riley Keough and Isaach de Bankolé are set to star in Claire Denis’ Le Cri Des Gardes, which is being produced by French production outfits Curiosa Films and Vixens, with Senegal’s Astou Production. Arte France Cinema is also backing the project.

Denis is following her Berlin-winning Both Sides Of The Blade and Cannes-winning Stars at Noon with this adaptation of Bernard-Marie Koltes’ play Black Battles With Dogs (Combat de Nègres et Chiens) written by Denis, Suzanne Lindon and Andrew Litvack.

The story spans one night near a vast construction site in sub-Saharan Africa where a master builder...

We can start our week extending thanks to Arte France Cinéma, who’ve given two of France’s greatest directors the cash flow to support immediate endeavors: per Cineuropa, Claire Denis and Arnaud Desplechin can soon begin production on new features. The former’s is Le Cri des Gardes (The Cry of the Guards), which sounds an awful lot like The Fence, a project she detailed in March. Matt Dillon, Riley Keough, and Denis mainstay Isaach de Bankolé will star in the feature, described in these very Denis-like terms:

“As project supervisor Horn is welcoming his young partner Léone into the hut he shares with young and impetuous engineer Cal, a black man called Alboury appears outside the railings surrounding their quarters. Inflexible, hovering like a ghost in the darkness, he is determined to stay there until they return the body of his brother to him, who was killed on the site.

Exclusive: Veteran manager Trent Hubbard will join Linden Entertainment.

Hubbard moves to Linden after four years at Echo Lake Entertainment and previous to that he was in the Motion Picture Talent Department at UTA. He is currently executive producing Adam Rehmeier’s feature film Carolina Caroline starring Samara Weaving; executive producing Alok Vaid-Menon’s comedy special Biology!, who Hubbard represents and just secured a first look deal in Sony TV for them and executive producing Meredith Alloway’s directorial debut Forbidden Fruits with Mason Novick and Diablo Cody which is written by Alloway and Lily Houghton, both of whom Hubbard will continue to represent at Linden. Hubbard is also on the advisory board of the non-profit Rainbow Labs.

Other clients that will follow Hubbard includes Sarah Ramos (The Bear); Shirley Chen (Didi); Sarah Kameela Impey (We Are Lady Parts); Nadia Tereszkiewicz (Forever Young); Michelle Trachtenberg (Gossip Girl); Charly Clive (The...

French filmmaker Robin Campillo takes a more personal approach with his latest film, Red Island. Here, he brings us to his childhood on a French military base in Madagascar in the early-1970s, just over a decade after the Malagasy Republic officially gained independence from France. While this context is, of course, fundamental to understanding what happens in Campillo's new historical drama, the director offers us an entry-point by way of its protagonist, 10-year-old Thomas (Charlie Vauselle). It's through Thomas' young eyes which has both advantages and disadvantages that we bear witness to a time of great change and grief, and even greater anger.

Red Island follows Thomas' family as they enjoy a seemingly blissful life on a military compound in Madagascar. His father, Robert (Quim Gutirrez), is a low-ranking officer, but has clear ambitions to rise up the ranks at the base. Meanwhile, Thomas' mother, Colette (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), spends her days at home,...

A film about fantasies slipping away, Robin Campillo’s semi-autobiographical Red Island begins with a daydream, of a world of miniature buildings and puppet-faced men facing off against a masked girl. The girl is quickly revealed to be a visualization of Fantômette, the heroine of the popular Georges Chaulet book series that bears her name, and a particular obsession of Campillo’s 10-year-old stand-in, Thomas (Charlie Vauselle).

The film unfolds largely around a military base in Madagascar, from 1970 to 1972. It’s a decade after the island country’s independence from France, but various ties to the former colonial power remain in place, with French soldiers staying on their bases and working with the local troops. Perhaps inevitably, the oddly paradoxical Red Island is at once lackadaisical and urgent, relaxed but with a clear eye for how swiftly everything will end for the characters at its center.

Not that Thomas, peering...

"We don't pay enough attention. Things happen that we don't see." Film Movement has revealed an official US trailer for the French film titled Red Island, an intimate drama about living on Madagascar in the 1970s. This is finally getting a theatrical US release this August, after first opening in French cinemas last May (original trailer here) to mixed reviews more than a year ago. L'île Rouge, aka Red island, is set in the 1970s on the African island of Madagascar - taking place at one of the last French outposts at the end of their time as colonialists. The 10-year-old Thomas begins to find cracks in the surface of his family's blissful existence on the idyllic island. Taking inspiration from his comic book hero Fantomette, Thomas spies on those around him, discovering the hidden & tangled political and sexual lives of colonizers & the colonized. With Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Quim Gutierrez, Charlie Vauselle,...

Following up his Cannes Film Festival sensation in 2017, Bpm (Beats per Minute), Robin Campillo recently returned with his new feature, Red Island. A semi-autobiographical film inspired by the director’s childhood in Madagascar, following a festival tour it’ll now arrive in the U.S. next month. Ahead of its August 16 opening at NYC’s Film at Lincoln Center, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Living on one of the last remaining military bases amidst a hedonistic group of French armed forces in 1970s Madagascar, ten-year-old Thomas begins to find cracks in the surface of his family’s blissful existence on the idyllic island. Taking inspiration from his comic book hero Fantomette, Thomas spies on those around him, discovering the hidden and tangled political and sexual lives of the colonizers and the colonized. As relocation looms, Thomas questions whether the memories he has...

Rosalie is a compelling and empowering new drama from Stéphanie Di Giusto, which stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz in the eponymous lead role, while offering a fine supporting character for star Benoit Magimel. To mark the film’s release we had the pleasure in speaking to the former two women in Paris, as they discuss the film in great depth during a roundtable interview.

They speak about the original inspiration for the film, while Tereszkiewicz talks about both the physical and emotional process of having to wear a beard, while speaking about the empowering, feminist nature of the film – and what she learnt about herself having taken on the role. Meanwhile, the director Di Giusto explains her decision to not have the two leading stars meet each other before the shoot, while Tereszkiewicz tells us how the animosity on set between the actors was a generous act that helped her access her character.

Based on a true story, this film presents hormone-disordered Rosalie, who has hair on her face and body, as a perky outsider in period dress

Here is an intriguing, if not wholly successful, attempt to create a hero for gender-fluid times and give them the full mainstream period-film trimmings. In fact, the first half of this account of 19th-century bride Rosalie (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), who has a hormone disorder that covers her body in hair, almost resembles The Devil Wears Prada or another of those perky comedy-dramas about a young outsider who refuses to be cowed in their aspirations. In Rosalie’s case, by both the brutish mill workers of the community she marries into and by polite society.

Director Stéphanie di Giusto has loosely based her film on the life of 20th-century “bearded lady” Clémentine Delait, transposing the story to 1870s Brittany. Rosalie is married off by her father, with a dowry,...

Stéphanie Di Giusto on Nadia Tereszkiewicz in Rosalie: 'Nadia immediately and fully adopted the beard. It was carnally evident' Photo: Gaumont In her two films to date director Stéphanie Di Giusto has uncovered two extraordinary women. For her debut feature The Dancer (La Danseuse) the subject was Loïe Fuller, a farm girl from the American midwest, who revolutionised theatrical movement and the stage arts at the end of the 19th century. It bowed to acclaim in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.

Rosalie director Stéphanie Di Giusto Photo: Marie Rouge for UniFrance Now eight years on she offers another female discovery for her second feature Rosalie, about a young woman in 1870 France who is born with a face and body covered in hair. Rather than become a fairground “freak” as a bearded lady she strives to be seen as a woman despite the obvious difference. It...

"It's never simple to be a woman..." Picturehouse in the UK has revealed their official trailer for the indie film from France titled Rosalie, set for a UK debut in June this summer. This first premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival last year, playing at a few other festivals in Europe, though there's no US release date confirmed yet. Have to be patient if you're curious Set in France in 1870, inspired by a true story. Rosalie is a young woman with a secret... She was born with a face and body covered in hair. A genuine bearded lady. She's kept her secret safe all her life, until Abel, an indebted bar owner, marries her for her dowry. Now, she no longer wishes to hide from him... or anyone else. Starring Nadia Tereszkiewicz as Rosalie and Benoît Magimel as Abel, plus Benjamin Biolay, Guillaume Gouix, and Gustave Kervern. A story of hope and radical self-acceptance,...

Following the bracing sexual and political candor of “Bpm,” writer-director Robin Campillo’s much-laureled film about HIV/AIDS activism in 1990s Paris, “Red Island” initially appears to be a retreat into cozier nostalgia — a child’s-eye view of life on a French military base in 1970s Madagascar, flooded with sunlight, awash with the thrill of youthful exploration. That might seem an obtuse way to portray a time and place rife with fractious post-colonial tensions, only a couple of years before the African territory freed itself from the French Community to become a fully-fledged republic. But “Red Island” is a cannier work than that, slowly deromanticizing its purposely naive view of European family life, before sharply jackknifing into a different perspective, even a different film, altogether.

That switch is both arresting and jarring — a structural pivot that makes for a film easier to admire than it is to embrace. Yet its autobiographical elements are keenly felt,...

Patriarchal and paternalistic structures at both a family and country level are put in the spotlight by Robin Campillo in a story loosely inspired by his own childhood. It’s the early 1970s and though the island of Madagascar became independent a decade before, the French remain a dominant presence. The action unfolds at an air base where youngster Thomas Lopez (Charlie Vauselle) lives with his mum Colette (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), dad Robert (Quim Gutierrez) and his brothers.

We first encounter Thomas as he peeps out from the crate where he is reading his favourite books about masked crime fighting youngster Fantômette - she, in fact, gets her own fantasy sequences in the film, although it is the adults whose features are, tellingly, more fully masked.

“You’re always spying,” his mum tells him later, and it is through Thomas’ eyes that we voyeuristically soak up the details of life on the base,...

Alanté Kavaité’s third film The Islanders, about a woman taking care of a group of elderly people on a remote island off the coast of France, has been acquired by Elle Driver, which will start selling the film at the EFM.

The Islanders is now in post. It stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz with Dali Bensallah, Daphné Pataki and veteran talents Miou-Miou and Patrick Chesnais. Tereszkiewicz won the Cesar breakout award in 2023 for roles in Forever Young and The Red Island. Bensallah’s credits include Athena.

Kavaité’s credits include the coming-of-age story The Summer Of Sangaile, for which she won...

Two roommates, Pauline (Rebecca Marder) and Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) are having an unpleasant but, sadly, not at all uncommon female experience. While Pauline is trying to convince their landlord to once again postpone the paying of the rent which they do not have, Madeleine is fleeing the home of a notorious producer who invited her under the pretense of offering her a role in a play and then consequentially attempted to sexually harass her. Upon learning that her boyfriend considers prostituting himself to a wealthy heiress and making Madeleine his mistress, the latter briefly considers suicide, but opts for going to the movies with Pauline instead. The ladies’ luck changes abruptly when the creepy producer’s body is discovered, and Madeleine is singled out as the...

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

The Crime Is Mine is a fun and fast-paced film set in 1930s Paris, with a witty dialogue and a screwball comedy feel. The movie combines old and new elements seamlessly, from period costuming to physical comedy, creating a charming blend of styles. The film explores themes of loyalty, female connection, and lesbian subtext, while also touching on the sensationalization of trials and media obsession with crime.

The Crime Is Mine, the latest project from François Ozon (Swimming Pool), is pure indulgent fun. Set in Paris in the 1930s, we meet two friends, struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) and unsuccessful lawyer Pauline (Rebecca Marder). They're five months behind on rent for their cramped apartment, unlucky in love, and unemployed. However, when Madeleine rejects the advances of a lecherous producer shortly before he is found shot dead, she becomes the investigation's prime suspect. Realizing they have a chance at fame and fortune,...

Quick, silly and lent weight only by the costume department’s copious wigs and furs, “The Crime Is Mine” finds tireless French auteur François Ozon in the playful period pastiche mode of “Potiche” and “8 Women.” It’s a film less about any frenetic onscreen shenanigans as it is about its own mood board of sartorial and cinematic reference points — Jean Renoir, Billy Wilder, some vintage Chanel — and as such it slips down as fizzily and forgettably as a bottle of off-brand sparkling wine. This story of an aspiring stage star standing trial for a top impresario’s murder (and making the most of her moment in the tabloid flashbulbs) may be based on a nearly 90-year-old play, but for those versed more in Hollywood and Broadway than in French theater, Ozon’s adaptation resembles a kind of diva fanfic: What if Roxie Hart went up against Norma Desmond, except in rollicking 1930s Paris?...

As inevitable as a new day comes another François Ozon film––accomplishing the deft task of feeling equally breezy and clever, but never clearing an overall low ceiling of quality. Maintaining this pattern is The Crime Is Mine (whose awkwardly translated international title makes more sense in light of seeing the film), an Ozon which surprisingly skipped much of the international festival circuit and thus the critical corps’ frustration with his sometimes glib efficiency; it was a commercial-enough proposition to go straight to theaters, with a strong appeal to an older segment of the audience.

Which is not to say his latest film is overly lightweight; in its own way, this is a film of ideas––concerned with nascent 20th-century women’s liberation, and also musing on cinema and performance––however much production design and sparkling lighting dress it up to look like a pink-frosted cake in the window of a French patisserie.

Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire saw $2.5 million in Thursday previews as the Telugu action thriller opens in about 800 locations in North America. Bollywood superstar Shah Ruhk Kan toplines drama Dunki, his third film of the year after Pathaan and Jawan, both in the top ten of India’s highest-grossing films.

Presented by Moksha Movies/Pathyangira Cinemas, Salaar directed by Prashanth Neel, stars Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran in the story of a gang leader who makes a promise to a dying friend.

Indian films are a mainstay at the specialty box office, some weekends more than others. This is a big one. Key indie openings include Searchlight Pictures’ much-nominated All Of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh; Michel Franco’s Memory from Ketchup Entertainment; Freud’s Last Session from Sony Pictures Classics’ and Music Box Pictures’ The Crime Is Mine, all in limited release.

On Salaar: Prabhas (Baahubali) is one of the biggest stars of Telugu cinema.

Theatricality is the name of the game in The Crime Is Mine — for both the characters and the actors playing them. Even when the subject is murder, penury or thwarted ambition, everyone seems to be having a blast in François Ozon’s latest. Based on a 1934 play and set in the mid-’30s, the comedy opens with the image of a red velvet stage curtain, abounds in exquisite art deco flourishes, and is propelled by a screwball zaniness that arrives as a welcome antidote to awards season’s Serious Cinema Syndrome.

Sending up celebrity, the legal system and a medley of movie tropes, Ozon has spun serious ingredients into a zesty soufflé, albeit one that doesn’t avoid a sense of deflation. Led by two relative newcomers, with colorful support from a who’s who of French movie stars — key among them Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon and André Dussollier...

François Ozon’s fizzy comedy The Crime Is Mine, a loose adaptation of Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil’s 1934 play Mon crime, begins with murder, poverty, and a suicide threat. But the film delivers this material with such a bubbly optimism that it wouldn’t be a surprise if the cast broke into a choreographed number from Gold Diggers of 1933.

Set in 1935 Paris, the film follows two best friends fending off criminal charges, eviction, and professional failure. Struggling actress Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) flees the casting couch of producer Montferrand (Jean-Christophe Bouvet) only to discover that he was later murdered and that she’s the prime suspect. Her roommate, Pauline (Rebecca Marder), a struggling lawyer, offers to defend her. Given the media’s hyperventilating coverage of other accused female killers, Madeleine figures that a splashy trial could help her and Pauline’s careers. Madeleine then falsely confesses to shooting Montferrand and takes Pauline as her lawyer,...

16 nominees in each category will compete in the first round of voting.

France’s Cesar Academy has revealed the breakout stars selected for its annual Revelations list of local up-and-coming talent who will vie in the most promising actor and actress categories at the 2024 awards set for February 23 in Paris.

16 nominees in each category will compete in the first round of voting among Academy members, that will then be whittled down to five in each category.

The Revelations committee is comprised of 18 casting directors active in French film production and is then validated by the board of the Academy.

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Exclusive: Brittany Kahan Ward and Graciella Sanchez are leaving Echo Lake Entertainment after a decade as partners to join Tfc Management where they also will be partners.

The high-profile arrival of Ward and Sanchez — who launched and built Echo Lake’s talent management division, with Sanchez also serving as the Co-President — marks an expansion into on-camera talent representation for Tfc, founded in 2020 by UTA and WME partners Ben Jacobson and David Stone with initial focus on literary clients, including creators, showrunners, novelists, producers, and filmmakers.

Ward and Sanchez’s formidable roster of clients include Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Liz Hannah, Jd Pardo, Shira Haas, Ivana Milicevic, Marguerite Moreau, Phoebe Tonkin, Greg Smith, Alisha Wainwright, Momona Tamada, Golden Brooks, Colton Ryan, Marlo Kelly, Jordan Gavaris, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Jamila Gray, Maria Dragus, Lina El-Arabi, Tarryn Wyngaard and Floria Sigismondi. The majority of them are expected to follow them to Tfc.

During their stint at Echo Lake,...

Music Box Films has dropped the trailer for “The Crime Is Mine,” François Ozon’s screwball comedy set in 1930s Paris starring Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder and Isabelle Huppert.

A showbiz caper with a feminist edge in the vein of Ozon’s “8 Women” and “Potiche,” “The Crime Is Mine” will open in New York on Dec. 25, followed by Los Angeles and a national expansion.

Tereszkiewicz, who won a César award for best newcomer for her performance in “Forever Young,” stars as a struggling actress, Madeleine, who lives with her best friend, Pauline (Marder), an unemployed lawyer, in a cramped flat. Opportunity knocks after a lascivious theatrical producer who made an inappropriate advance toward Madeleine turns up dead. Madeleine admits to the crime and is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense — and in result becomes a star, as well as a feminist icon.

“The Crime Is Mine” was freely adapted...

The San Sebastián Film Festival has revealed the Official Selection for its latest edition, which is due to unfold from September 22 — 30.

The festival, which is celebrating its 71st edition, will screen Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu’s latest film Mmxx in competition. The festival describes the pic as a story that captures the “wanderings of a bunch of errant souls stuck at the crossroads of history.”

Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse returns to San Sebastian this year with his tenth full-length film, A Silence, a drama starring Emmanuelle Devos and Daniel Auteuil. In 2015, he won the fest’s Silver Shell for Best Director for The White Knights, and two of his films have screened in the Perlak sidebar: After Love (2016) and The Restless (2021).

American filmmaker Raven Jackson will enter Competition with her debut film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. The festival described the pic as “a lyrical exploration of the life of a woman in Mississippi.

Building on the foundation of her debut, The Dancer, a decorative biopic of Folies Bergere alumnus and fin de siècle bohemian Loie Fuller, French director Stephanie di Giusto returns to the 19th century with Rosalie, another feminism-informed story about a sensuous, unusual woman ahead of her time.

However, the subject here is not a specific historical personage, but a composite of various people from the time who all have the same condition as the eponymous heroine: a tendency to grow hair all over her body, or hirsutism, the condition that creates so-called “bearded ladies.” Both a matter-of-fact speculation on how a husband and a small town would react to someone like this in their midst (spoiler alert: not great, at least at first), and a barely disguised parable about intolerance, Rosalie offers a very watchable, offbeat slice of period drama. The writing gets a bit melodramatic and clunky in the last act,...

Period drama inspired by the true story of a French bearded woman.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Stephanie Di Giusto’s period drama Rosalie from France’s Gaumont, following its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Set in 1870s France, it stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz as a woman who must constantly shave her face to conceal her hairiness, which extends across her whole body. Her new husband, played by Benoît Magimel, is initially repulsed but when she lets go of her embarrassment, the novelty begins to attract curious customers to their struggling cafe.

‘Rosalie’: Cannes...

The female gaze is not some academic construct. It’s a real thing that shifts our ability to empathize and look at the world with a different perspective, something the new movie “Rosalie” demonstrates ably at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

Screening in the Un Certain Regard section the film, starring French-Polish-Finnish actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz and directed by French filmmaker Stephanie Di Giusto, tells a story set in the late 19th century of a woman – Rosalie – with a strange condition: She grows a beard. A real beard.

And she’s hairy on her body, like a man. What to do when Rosalie comes of age to marry, and desire all the things that women often do – love, sexual connection, motherhood?

“Rosalie” has many of the same rebellious and fierce emotions that lay within last year‘s feminist Cannes hit “Corsage,” starring Vicky Krieps as the late 19th century Empress Sissi.