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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine always put Chief O'Brien through a wringer but how do you rank the worst experiences for him? 

When Star Trek: Deep Space Nine began in 1993, a great link to The Next Generation was Chief Miles O'Brien. Colm Meaney had been a popular recurring face as the transporter chief on the Enterprise and moving him to the new spinoff helped get attention.

O'Brien had a great presence on DS9 as the chief engineer of the station, good friendships with Dr. Bashir, and it was wonderful seeing him and his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao) raise a family. However, for some reason, the DS9 writers seemed to have it in making O'Brien suffer over the course of the series.

We're not talking about the typical Trek bits of enduring disasters or attacks or such. No, for O'Brien, the poor guy had to be put through some brutal experiences...

Actor Colm Meaney has entertained audiences for more than half a century. Now, his work across film and television is set to be celebrated in his native Ireland. Meaney, arguably best known for portraying transporter chief Miles O’Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and later the senior engineer on all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, will be honored with the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) award for lifetime achievement.

“To say I was surprised when I got the news that IFTA wanted to give me this award, would be an understatement. I was truly shocked,” said Meaney, per Variety. “To be asked to join this long list of very illustrious previous recipients is a huge honour, and I’m thrilled and looking forward to a good night in Dublin,” added the actor. Meaney is set to receive the Lifetime Achievement award at the IFTA awards on Feb.

The nineties was the heyday of the mid-level action hero. Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal churned out a whole series of increasingly profitable action programmers in the early part of the decade. Seagal’s movies were wildly profitable for Warner Bros, while Van Damme had a home at Universal Pictures. Every studio wanted its own Jcvd or Seagal, with Paramount trying to launch Jeff Speakman with The Perfect Weapon (which has a devoted fan in our own writer Ej Tangonan) and Fox even trying with football player Howie Long in Firestorm. One studio that badly wanted their own action guy was New Line Cinema, but before they found their niche in the genre with Rumble in the Bronx and Mortal Kombat, they tried to launch two promising action heroes. One was Thomas Ian Griffith, whose (pretty awesome) action flick Excessive Force was only given a small regional release.

Q seeks help from the Kelvin timeline crew to defeat a more powerful enemy: the Pah Wraiths. The Pah Wraiths, evil counterparts to the benign Bajoran Prophets, nearly outmatch Q in power. Q turns to the Prophets for help in taking down the Pah Wraiths, revealing their formidable strength.

Q is an immensely powerful god-like being with few peers, but Star Trek has confirmed that one species is more than a match for the Continuum. In 2014s The Q Gambit storyline, running through Star Trek #35-40, the trickster dropped in on the Kelvin timeline, seeking their help in defeating the one race more powerful than the Q, and they stand revealed in issue 40.

Star Trek #40, first published by Idw, was written by Mike Johnson and drawn by Tony Shasteen. Q, trying to teach Kirk a lesson about no-win scenarios, creates a timeline where the Federation was overrun by the Dominion.

Screenwriter, director and producer Walter Hill will receive the 2024 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America West.

Per the guild, the award is bestowed upon members who have “advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter.” A few of Hill’s writing and co-writing credits include “The Getaway,” “48 Hrs.,” “Last Man Standing” and “Dead For A Dollar.”

“Walter Hill’s impact on our industry is undeniable,” said Wgaw president Meredith Stiehm. “His unique style influenced and educated generations of screenwriters who followed. He has had an enduring, renowned career, and the Guild is honored to present him with the Screen Laurel Award.”

In the early 1970s, Hill kicked off his writing career with “Hickey and Boggs,” “The Getaway,” “The Mackintosh” and “The Drowning Pool.” He stepped in the director’s chair for the first time with the 1975 Depression-era film “Hard Times.

Ahead of International Podcast Day, Black Podcasting Awards (BPAwards) bestowed 35 new awards to 29 different podcasts during a live stream from Podstream Studios on Times Square Sunday September 24. Black Love Inc. catapulted to BPAwards’ biggest overall winner to date with a grand total of 9 awards and 21 nominations; its Director of Podcasts Krystal Hill oversees these six BPAwards recognized podcasts, plus another two. She’s followed by Anna DeShawn who has five awards and six nominations for Queer News. While A’Shanti Gholar’s The Brown Girls Guide to Politics continues her four year stretch of nominations, plus three award wins.

Sunday’s Ophelia-delayed ceremony yielded six double award winners: Black is America (Editing; Sound Design), Black Love Podcast Network (Podcast Network; Producer), Every Voice with Terrance McKnight (Arts; Music), Mistakes That Made Me (Business; New), Parenting for the Culture (Education; Podcast of the Year), and Queer News (LGBTQ; Podcaster of...

Despite appearing in two of the films, Michelle Rodriguez keeps proving all the ways the Resident Evil franchise wasted her. Rodriguez first broke through with her lead turn in 2000's Girlfight and swiftly appeared in back-to-back hits like The Fast And The Furious and S.W.A.T. The actor has stayed consistently busy in the decades since, ranging from the highs of the later Fast & Furious sequels and Avatar to the lows of 2016's turgid The Assignment. Despite this track record, Rodriquez has yet to receive a franchise built around her.

One of her earliest, post-Girlfight roles came with 2002's Resident Evil, based on Capcom's hit video game. The original was sold as a two-hander between Rodriguez and Milla Jovovich's Alice, with the former playing a commando whose team ends up trapped in an underground lab filled with zombies. The film ended with the death of her character Rain after she turns into a zombie,...

James Bond is 60. To celebrate that major cinematic — not to mention spy adventure — milestone, the bespoke travel company Black Tomato has partnered with film company Eon Productions to bring into reality iconic moments for the ultimate thrill–seeking traveler who chases rare experiences.

Dubbed ‘The Assignment,’ their out-of-this-world European itinerary is full of Bond-inspired activities, special effects and stunts, decadent splurges and privileged access. Pricing starts at $18,500 per person for the fabulous five-night-minimum exploit (including two or more destinations, excluding airfare), and there are 60 customizable limited-edition trips available. They each come with an exclusively commissioned Dr. No–inspired attaché case from Globe-Trotter.

“It has been great to play a role in bringing components of the itinerary to life,” says Oscar-winning special effects supervisor and human Bond encyclopedia Chris Corbould, OBE.

Corbould, who was nominated for No Time To Die, adds that his consultations on the special itinerary have included “delivering...

Legendary filmmaker Walter Hill is teaming up with award-winning TV and comic writer Mike Benson to give Dark Horse Comics its latest neo-noir thriller: Cain. Film aficionados will recognize Hill as the director of such classics as 48 Hrs and The Warriors, as well as episodes of Tales from the Crypt and Deadwood. He has also produced all of the movies in the Alien franchise. Meanwhile, readers will recognize Mike Benson either for his writing/producing credits on televised projects like The Bernie Mac Show, Big Wolf on Campus, and Entourage, or for his extensive comic book work for Marvel characters like Moon Knight and Luke Cage.

Now, the two visionary Hollywood minds meet for the first time in collaboration with Dark Horse Comics to deliver Cain, a gritty expedition into the criminal underworld centered around a blind hitman. Hill and Benson will be joined on the creative staff by artist Beni R.

The Podcast Academy, a group of 1,000-plus industry creators and executives, awarded Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment’s Chameleon: Wild Boys with the top honor at this year’s 2023 Ambie Awards.

Wild Boys, which serves as the third season of Campside’s Chameleon series, uncovers the story of two young men who claimed to have been raised in the wilderness in British Columbia and proceeded to fool a small town. The eight-part series was led by Sam Mullins with producer Abukar Adan, senior producer Ashleyanne Krigbaum, editor Karen Duffin and ep Matthew Shaer.

“I had nothing happening in my career. I had two young kids, I was working in a taco restaurant, and I never made a podcast before. And Campside deserves so much credit because I cold-emailed these guys, and they just believed in the story, and they believed in me, and they changed my life, and I’ll never forget it,...

Broadcast and cable networks are planning specials, a town hall and other coverage Thursday tied to the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Correspondents also will report from sites around the country, with Vladimir Putin’s regime mounting a winter offensive.

Here’s a rundown:

ABC News: Ian Pannell, who was in Kyiv as the war began last year, provides reporting for an ABC News Live special Standing Strong: One Year of War in Ukraine, debuting at 8:30 p.m. Et on Thursday. The special will focus on individuals in the war zone and the challenges they have faced. David Muir continues to anchor World News Tonight from Poland on Wednesday, and chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz and senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce are among those who have been reporting from the region. Raddatz also will report for This Week with George Stephanopoulos as co-anchor of the Sunday show.

Audible received a total of 19 nominations for this year’s Podcast Academy Awards, with the Audible Original series Moriarty — based on the villain in the Sherlock Holmes universe — receiving a total of three nods, including in the top category of podcast of the year.

The narrative fiction series that stars Dominic Monaghan as Professor Moriarty will compete against Chameleon: Wild Boys (Campside Media), Design Matters with Debbie Millman (Design Matters Media, Inc.), Direct Deposit (Audible), Fiasco: The AIDS Crisis (Audible), Gay Pride & Prejudice (Gimlet), Pink Card (ESPN 30 for 30), Reclaimed: The Story of Mamie Till Mobley (ABC Audio), The Outlaw Ocean Podcast (CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times) and The Prince (The Economist) for the top prize.

The award last went to Pineapple Street Studios, Amazon Music and Wondery’s 9/12 during the 2022 ceremony.

Other individual shows tied with Moriarty for the most nominations include Bone Valley and Last Known Position,...

Click here to read the full article.

80-year-old American director Walter Hill can lay claim to have invented at least two movie genres: the street gang film — with the seminal 1979 action thriller The Warriors — and the buddy cop movie with the 1982 Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte hit 48 Hours. As a producer, Hill was behind Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking sci-fi horror blockbuster Alien and its franchise’s spin-offs, including the three Aliens sequels and the Scott-directed Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017).

But Hill’s first love is the Western. He’s explored the lives of Wild West legends Jesse James (in 1980s The Long Riders), Wild Bill Hickok (1995’s Wild Bill) and Geronimo (1993’s Geronimo: An American Legend) and turned Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, the inspiration for Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western classic A Fistful of Dollars, into 1995 Prohibition era oater Last Man Standing.

So it’s fitting that in Venice this year,...

Walter Hill’s new western “Dead for a Dollar,” starring Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan, is scheduled to premiere next week at the Venice International Film Festival and ahead of that premiere, a new trailer has debuted. Ready to ride out?

The official synopsis for the new movie follows: “Veteran bounty hunter Max Borlund (Waltz) is deep into Mexico where he encounters professional gambler and outlaw Joe Cribbens (Dafoe) – a sworn enemy he sent to prison years before. Max is on a mission to find and return Rachel Kidd (Brosnahan), the wife of a wealthy businessman, who as the story is told to Max, has been abducted by Buffalo Soldier Elijah Jones (Brandon Scott). Max is ultimately faced with a showdown to save honor.” Zounds!

Also Read:

Will This Fall’s Film Festivals Finally Kick Off a Normal Awards Season?

The impressive cast for “Dead for a Dollar” also includes Warren Burke,...

At 80 years old, Walter Hill shows no signs of slowing down. The veteran director of influential action thrillers like “The Warriors,” “48 Hrs.,” and “Streets of Fire” has reinvented himself in recent years as a reliable gun-for-hire on prestige TV Westerns and crime movies like “Bullet to the Head” and “The Assignment” that fall somewhere between VOD schlock and ‘70s grindhouse revivalism.

Continue reading ‘Dead for a Dollar’ Trailer: Walter Hill’s New Western With Christoph Waltz & Willem Dafoe Premieres In Venice at The Playlist.

It's out with the old and in with the new — another month is coming to a close, so it's time for each of our many different streaming services to refresh their libraries by adding new titles and getting rid of others. So far, no one is doing this quite as dramatically as HBO Max, but alas, no one is completely safe from the possibility of removal. Bet let's instead focus on the upside: More titles will be available to stream this month! Meaning lots more TV series and movies to add to your watchlist and hopefully cross off before they inexplicably disappear from the service.

This month, Hulu is whipping out a selection that really runs the gamut. Looking to linger in the comforting space of reality TV? The streamer has everything from Kardashian family drama to foodie-leaning titles like "Best in Dough" and the season premiere of "Hell's Kitchen.

ITN, one of the U.K.’s leading TV production and news outfits, has appointed Rachel Corp as CEO. Corp will join on September 1, with current CEO Deborah Turness, who is joining the BBC, continuing to lead the organization until then.

Corp is currently editor of ITV News, produced by ITN, where she has overall responsibility for ITV’s national news programs and digital output, as well as overseeing ITV News London, ITV News-produced “Tonight” program episodes, current affairs series “On Assignment,” and live programs such as general elections and Royal events. Corp leads a team of over 300 people in the U.K. and abroad and has a budget in the millions.

Under Corp’s editorship, ITV News has broken several major stories in recent times, including the Westminster “Partygate” scandal that has rocked Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government; the reports into substandard conditions in council housing; the undercover...

There are few things in contemporary cinema as pleasurable as witnessing Céline Sciamma’s fascination with childhood. Although she doesn’t technically make films for children (although she did co-write the screenplay for My Life as a Courgette) her stories often are told from their point of view. Whether it’s young Parisian women trying to find their place in the world in Girlhood, or the child in Tomboy discovering there is more to gender than they’ve been asked to believe, Sciamma’s way of seeing the world negotiates who we were and what we can become with utter wonder. Even at the end of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it’s the silent gaze of a child in a painting that ultimately highlights the film’s unrelenting power.

In Petite Maman, Sciamma explores the meaning of grief and how loss can strangely lead to wondrous beginnings. Not that her films,...

Céline Sciamma makes small films that contain multitudes, tender and vivid portraits of sisterhood and self-becoming.

Imagining spaces out of places where women can discover themselves and each other freely, the French filmmaker first earned acclaim for a trio of social-realist coming-of-age dramas: 2007’s “Water Lilies,” 2011’s “Tomboy,” and 2014’s “Girlhood.” Though connected in their study of adolescence, gender, and sexuality, as well as their close and empathetic attention to outsiders navigating rites of passage, these films — especially “Girlhood” — also revealed Sciamma’s burgeoning interest in modes of female-gaze storytelling beyond the naturalistic.

Read More: ‘Petite Maman’:Céline Sciamma Delivers An Intimate Tale Of Grief And Parenthood [Berlin Review]

And so it felt like a creative breakthrough as much as a commercial one when 2019’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which won the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay at Cannes, catapulted the screenwriter-director to international recognition.

Continue reading Céline Sciamma On ‘Petite Maman,...

“Petite Maman” may run a mere 72 minutes, but its artistry is immense. For her first film since the luminous period romance “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” — which only ran two hours but felt both visually and emotionally epic — the inimitable French filmmaker Céline Sciamma crafted something a little more, well, petite. A slightly magical fable about mothers and children, the themes in “Petite Maman” will be familiar to longtime admirers of Sciamma’s work, which began with the César Award-nominated “Water Lilies” (2007) and includes the best queer childhood film ever made, “Tomboy” (2011).

The film’s concept, which imagines if a young girl could befriend her mother when she was her age, is the first time Sciamma has dabbled in anything verging on magical realism. Her work is always marked by a balance of simplicity and complexity; emotionally ripe scenarios are elegantly distilled and planted firmly in one or two characters’ perspectives.

There is what you might call a “spoiler” in the title of Céline Sciamma’s new movie, a key to unlocking her look at childhood that’s hiding in plain sight. The French filmmaker’s follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire begins not with love, but with death: An eight-year-old named Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) has just lost her elderly grandmother. Her mom (Nina Meurisse) is packing up everything in the house she grew up in, located on the edge of a forest. Dad (Stéphane Varupenne) is helping out the best he can.

Following Portrait of a Lady on Fire, one might have expected Céline Sciamma to up her scale but instead, during the pandemic, she focused on a story with a smaller scope but is no less ambitious. Petite Maman, a tender, enchanting story about friendship, childhood, and mother-daughter connection, is perhaps her best film. Now set for a U.S. release from Neon beginning April 22, with a wide expansion a few weeks later on Mothers Day weekend, the new trailer and poster have arrived.

Orla Smith said in our Berlinale review, “After the ambitious and wildly popular Portrait of a Lady on Fire shot Céline Sciamma into the arthouse stratosphere, she has returned with her fifth feature, Petite Maman, a warm and contained film whose scale is more akin to Tomboy. The mighty hype from Sciamma fans anticipating the film’s Berlinale premiere may be too much to bear for this delicate,...

The upcoming Western movie Dead for a Dollar will star screen legends Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe. From acclaimed director Walter Hill, who has often been credited with helping to revive the Western genre, the movie is the first title to be directed by Hill since 2016's The Assignment. The filmmaker is also known for helming The Warriors and the 48 Hrs movies and previously directed Westerns like The Long Riders, Wild Bill, and Last Man Standing.

Per GamesRadar, Dead for a Dollar follows "Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz), a famed bounty hunter who's hired to find the wife of a successful California businessman, who he believes is being held for ransom in Mexico. However, when Max heads across the border, he encounters his nemesis Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe), a professional gambler and occasional outlaw, who Max had previously hunted down and sent to prison. On top of that, is the businessman's...

Walter Hill, the legendary filmmaker behind 48 Hrs., Streets of Fire, The Warriors, and so much more, is getting back behind the camera for the Western Dead for a Dollar. It’s Hill’s first feature since 2016’s questionable The Assignment, and will have the director working with Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe in a tale of a bounty hunter operating out of […]

The post Western ‘Dead for a Dollar’ Will Team Director Walter Hill With Willem Dafoe and Christoph Waltz appeared first on /Film.

After directing Willem Dafoe in one of his greatest early roles as the villain in Streets of Fire, director Walter Hill is set to reunite with the actor for a new western, also starring Christoph Waltz. Titled Dead For a Dollar, the film is set in 1897 in New Mexico Territory, Chihuahua, Deadline reports.

The project will mark Hill’s first feature since his poorly received Michelle Rodriguez-led The Assignment five years ago. Prior to that, the 48 Hrs. and The Warriors director helmed Bullet to the Head starring Sylvester Stallone. Scripted by Hill and Matt Harris, check out the synopsis for Dead For a Dollar below.

The story will follow Max Borlund (Waltz), a famed bounty hunter, hired to find and return Rachel Price, the politically progressive wife of Nathan Price, a successful Santa Fe businessman. Max is told she has been kidnapped by an African American army deserter, Elijah Jones,...

Exclusive: Here’s a fun one uniting three screen greats. Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) and Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) are set to star in Western thriller Dead For A Dollar from legendary filmmaker and western aficionado Walter Hill (The Warriors).

The film will mark Waltz’s first Western since his memorable performance as Dr Schultz in Django Unchained, for which he won his second Oscar. This time around he’ll also be playing a bounty hunter.

Myriad Pictures is launching international sales for the hot package at this week’s Cannes virtual market.

Hill will write and direct the feature which is set in New Mexico Territory, Chihuahua, in 1897. The story will follow Max Borlund (Waltz), a famed bounty hunter, hired to find and return Rachel Price, the politically progressive wife of Nathan Price, a successful Santa Fe businessman. Max is told she has been kidnapped by an African American army deserter,...

Up-and-coming rapper Coi Leray made her TV debut on The Tonight Show with a lively rendition of “No More Parties.” In the clip, Leray is joined by a group of dancers who move to the music around a beer pong table.

“No More Parties” became a hit on its release in January after the rapper debuted a 20-second snipper of the song on TikTok. Leray released a remix of the track featuring Lil Durk in February. The song shot Leray to No. 2 on the Rolling Stone Breakthrough 25 Chart in March...

"These kind of moments of breakthrough are positive because you understand better who you are..." This lovely animated short film is a self portrait of a filmmaker. Récit De Soi, which translates to Self Story (or Oneself Story) in French, is made by the Belgian non-binary animator Geraldine Charpentier. "Lou talks about their relationship to gender, clothes, and other markers." It's a film about their own experiences growing up and figuring themselves out. With a big nod to Céline Sciamma's film Tomboy (2011) as the key moment of discovery for them. An important lesson in representation in entertainment. But it's also just a good story to teach more of us about the lives of other people and the many ways they figure themselves out. Thanks to Short of the Week for the tip on this animated short. Brief description via YouTube: "While non-binary representations are rare, Lou talks about their relationship to gender,...

Celine Sciamma’s Berlinale competition title “Petite Maman” has been sold by MK2 Films around the world with some bidding wars in multiple territories.

The critically acclaimed film, which marks Sciamma’s follow-up to “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” has been sold to Alamode (Germany), Culture (Japan), Challan (South Korea) Sun (Latin America), Avalon (Spain), Madman (Australia/New Zealand), Red Cape (Israel), Cinéart (Benelux), Cineworx (Switzerland), Angel (Denmark), Folkets Bio (Sweden), Arthaus (Norway), Swallow Wings (Taiwan), Russian World Vision (Cis), New Horizons (Poland), Weirdwave (Greece), Midas (Portugal) and Demiurg (Ex-Yugoslavia).

“Petite Maman” was bought by Neon for North America and Mubi for the U.K. and Turkey during the virtual Berlin Film Festival. MK2 Films is currently negotiating further sales.

Described as a chamber piece, a ghost story and a fairy tale, “Petite Maman” follows Nelly, an 8-year-old girl who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping...

A little over a year ago, Céline Sciamma was coming off a hectic year. Her fourth feature, the acclaimed romance “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” became a breakout hit after its 2019 Cannes debut. Though the movie wasn’t selected by France as its Oscar submission, “Portrait” scored nine nominations from the César Awards. Sciamma joined her star (and ex-partner) Adele Haenel in a highly-publicized decision to walk out of the ceremony after the filmmaker lost Best Director to Roman Polanski.

It was late February 2020 and Sciamma, who has long pushed back on the sexist, patriarchal state of the French film industry, wanted to make a big statement. These days, as she gets on the phone from Paris to discuss her new movie, it’s the last thing she wants to talk about.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’ve been far away from that for...

After her recent dazzling foray into historical drama, with the magnificent Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma returns to the theme of childhood, which she last dealt with in Tomboy. However, to say that she returns to the present with Petite Maman would be misleading. And before you read any further, be warned that this is a film almost impossible to write about without a few spoilers.

The film begins with an end – the end of a life – and the first words we hear repeated are ‘Au revoir’ as our 8-year-old heroine Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) goes from room to room in an old people’s home to salute the inhabitants one last time. Nelly is with her parents, who are packing up her dead maternal grandmother’s belongings. Then it’s off to granny’s actual home to empty that out and then depart. There is a charming...

Going Home Again: Sciamma Delivers a Slight, Eloquent Slice of Novel Sci-fi

Céline Sciamma has built a formidable filmography on tenuous stages of women’s developmental stages, with dizzying intersections on race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Lust, love, guilt, and grief are often facets interwoven in complex patterns of repression and subjugation. Her latest title, Petite Maman, is arguably on the slight side, returning to the perspective of childhood not terribly unlike her central protagonist in 2011’s Tomboy. But it’s also divorced from her previous efforts in its melancholic, playful experimentation with genre and themes, an eloquent sci-fi tinged drama about mothers and daughters, death and nostalgia.…...

After the ambitious and wildly popular Portrait of a Lady on Fire shot Céline Sciamma into the arthouse stratosphere, she has returned with her fifth feature, Petite Maman, a warm and contained film whose scale is more akin to Tomboy. The mighty hype from Sciamma fans anticipating the film’s Berlinale premiere may be too much to bear for this delicate, low-key film. Of course it’s as impeccably directed and carefully structured as we’ve come to expect from Sciamma. But it’s more of a slow simmer than Portrait’s fiery blaze. Beware instantaneous hot takes: this is a modest work, one to sit with and chew over, one to look back on fondly after letting it percolate.

With Petite Maman, Sciamma returns to the topic of her first three features—childhood—now with one eye on the adult characters. We meet eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) in the hospital,...

Neon has scooped up North American rights to Céline Sciamma’s sixth feature directorial Petite Maman, bringing the Oscar-winning film studio back in business with the French filmmaker behind 2019’s award-winning pic Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Already there is great word of mouth brewing from critics on Sciamma’s new title out of its world premiere at the Berlinale.

The drama stars sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal. In Pete Maman, 8-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and built the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.

Neon has acquired North American rights to Céline Sciamma’s latest feature, “Petite Maman,” following its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

The sale reunites Sciamma with Neon, the New York-based independent studio that released her acclaimed drama “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

Written and directed by Sciamma, “Petite Maman” follows 8-year-old Nelly, who loses her beloved grandmother and goes to help her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and build the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day, her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.

It stars sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, as well as Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal.

Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge praised the film,...

“Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man,” proposed Aristotle, to which fiercely feminist French director Céline Sciamma might add, “Give me a woman, and I will show you the free, unbroken spirit she still was at age 8.”

Sciamma, who went from being a queer cult favorite (for such bracingly free indies as “Tomboy” and “Water Lilies”) to an internationally respected auteur with 2019’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” follows up that barrier-breaking achievement with the slight but hardly insignificant “Petite Maman.” Made during fall 2020 while the pandemic still severely limited film production, this 72-minute sketch looks at the connection between an 8-year-old girl, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), and her mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse), through a simple leap of imagination — one that necessitates a basic spoiler to meaningfully discuss, so be warned if you’d rather save that surprise for the screen.

Nelly is...

One of the best surprises of the Berlinale 2021 lineup is that the newest film from Céline Sciamma––marking her fifth feature and first since her widely acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire––is completed after shooting only a few months ago. Details have been sparse when it came to Petite Maman, but now the festival has unveiled a full synopsis, while also revealing a runtime of only 72 minutes.

Starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, and Margot Abascal, the film will find Sciamma returning to themes of adolescence, which she explored in different facets in Water Lillies, Tomboy, and Girlhood. Check out the synopsis below via Berlinale’s official site.

Eight-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mum, Marion, used to play and where...

An arthouse-orientated Berlin line-up could ultimately reveal some pleasant surprises.

“Apprehension” was the word used by artistic director Carlo Chatrian to describe the mood of the films at the Berlinale 2021. Given the precarious state of the world this pandemic midwinter, that’s possibly the best we could expect as he announced the titles under the gaze of the festival’s stern, bespectacled black bear..

But there was a sense of resilience as well. Chatrian and his co-chief, the festival’s managing director Mariette Rissenbeek, have responded to lockdown constraints with their second selection planted firmly in the European arthouse. It...

Berlinale Executive Director Mariette Rissenbeek and Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian were determined to be in a cinema today when broadcasting the lineup for this year’s Competition program.

“It is meaningful to be in a movie theater, this is where the films we select are meant to be shown,” Chatrian commented when unveiling the selection, which features a solid showing of arthouse fare.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the fest will not be able to show these films on the big screen for now. Instead the selection will be viewable online during the European Film Market (March 1-5) to accredited delegates.

The only people who will see the films on the big screen next month will be the festival’s international jury, composed of past Golden Bear winners, whom the festival are planning to fly into Berlin, authorities allowing, to view the program in a cinema and then debate their...

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By Doug Oswald

A French soldier and spy is sent on a mission to discover the location of a secret German U-Boat base in “Assignment in Brittany,” released on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection. Jean-Pierre Aumont plays Captain Pierre Metard, a member of the Free French army serving in Great Britain. He has an uncanny resemblance to a French farmer and soldier, Corporal Bertrand Corlay, a man with Nazi ties who ends up in a British hospital. The British devise a scheme where Pierre impersonates Bertrand and returns home to search out the U-Boat base. He spends weeks studying and memorizing everything known about Bertrand before being flown to and dropped by parachute in to Brittany and makes his way on foot to Bertrand’s family farm.

He runs in to two British soldiers who escaped from a...

New to the lineup are Petite maman by Céline Sciamma, Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl, Silver Star by Ruben Amar and The Good Boss by Fernando León de Aranoa. In action at the American Film Market (online from 9 to 13 November), the international sales team of mk2 Films, lead by Fionnuala Jamison, has added four new titles to its lineup. On display stands out Petite maman by Céline Sciamma, shooting in the Paris region until 4 December. This 5th feature from the director after Water Lilies (Un Certain Regard in Cannes 2007), Tomboy (Panorama of the 2011 Berlinale), Girlhood (Directors’ Fortnight 2014) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (best screenplay award at Cannes 2019), its main characters are two 8 year old children (in a plot still kept secret) and can count on Claire Mathon as its director of photography. Produced by Bénédicte Couvreur for Lilies Films,...

After the whirlwind festival and critical success of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (We called it one of our favorite films of 2019), Céline Sciamma is continuing to line up new projects.

We wrote earlier this year about her involvement with Jacque Audiard’s The Sister Brothers follow-up Les Olympiades. And now, Variety reports that Sciamma has began shooting her next film, Petite Maman, in Paris with returning Portrait of a Lady on Fire cinematographer Claire Mathon.

Little else is known about the plot of the film or the cast at this time, other than the fact of it returning to familiar thematic ground of the childhood of two eight-year-olds, putting it in line with Sciamma’s earlier film, Tomboy, and her work on My Life as a Zucchini.

Listen to our discuss of her latest acclaimed drama below.

The post Céline Sciamma Shooting Portrait of a Lady on Fire...

Following on the heels of critical smash “Portrait of a Young Lady on Fire,” Celine Sciamma has just started shooting her next film, “Petite maman,” in Paris.

Although the plot is under wraps, the movie will deal with childhood and will star two eight-year-old kids, according to Les Inrocks magazine.

Sciamma is re-teaming with her regular producer Bénédicte Couvreur at Lilies Films, and MK2 Films, which will handle international sales on the film. Headlined by Adele Haenel and Noémie Merlant, “Portrait of a Young Lady on Fire” was sold around the world by MK2 Films after competing at Cannes and winning the best screenplay award. On top of winning a flurry of prizes and a Golden Globe nomination, the French film performed well at the overseas box office, notably in the U.K.

“Petite maman” will mark Sciamma’s fifth film. The popular French screenwriter-director previously shed light on childhood...

Walter Hill is, like Jonathan Demme, one of those unsung American auteurs who has contributed greatly to the popular culture but rarely gets the attention or recognition that he rightfully deserves. Hill has been instrumental in a number of key cultural touchstones in decades past – everything from the Alien franchise to HBO’s Tales from the Crypt series – and remains active and creative, even if his output isn’t as regular or mainstream. What’s remarkable about Hill is that almost from the get-go, he had cultivated what a “…...

Long, hot days and nights of adolescent self-discovery abound in the movies, from Bonjour Tristesse to Eve’s Bayou, Tomboy to An Easy Girl

Whether you’ve managed to briefly get away from home or remained in a state of semi-lockdown, nobody has had exactly the summer they planned in 2020. And while we can all bemoan things we’ve missed out on in this lost season, it’s hard not to feel most for the young: summer, after all, is when kids are supposed to discover themselves and each other in an environment of balmy, untrammelled freedom.

Pending the return of that, there are plenty of coming-of-age movies out there to remind us what a youthful summer is supposed to be like. With little fanfare, Netflix is premiering one of the best recent ones this week. Rebecca Zlotowski’s lovely An Easy Girl (2019) sees the talented French film-maker rallying from the...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThis year, Mubi is proud to be partnering with the Locarno Film Festival to unveil A Journey in the Festival's History, a selection of 20 classic films from previous editions of the event, each hand-picked by past alumni. Directors including Lucrecia Martel, Lav Diaz, Miguel Gomes, and many others have chosen individual films from the festival’s rich history, from Michael Haneke’s haunting debut feature, The Seventh Continent to Kidlat Tahimik's The Perfumed Nightmare and Marguerite Duras' India Song. The Opening Night film of the New York Film Festival is Steve McQueen's Lover's Rock, one of five films McQueen directed for his Small Axe anthology. The festival will also be premiering two additional Small Axe films, Mangrove and Red, White and Blue. And at the top: The official poster for Wong Kar-wai's Blossoms Shanghai,...

Céline Sciamma’s 2011 sophomore effort has become an unlikely hit thanks to South Korea’s own feminist reckoning – and the clever use of merchandise

Tomboy, the second film by Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma, premiered at the Berlin film festival almost a decade ago in 2011. Following a summer in the life of a 10-year-old who’s recently moved to a new neighbourhood, the film won acclaim around the world for its depiction of a child experimenting outside gender norms, and has built up a steady fanbase ever since.

But it was never released in South Korea – at least, not until Portrait of a Lady on Fire swept the country’s box office earlier this year to the tune of nearly 150,000 admissions, becoming the most successful French film in Korea for more than five years. After that success, Tomboy was released on 14 May, and at time of writing,...

Netflix‘s new releases for August 2020 should be a hell of a good time.

How else are we supposed to describe the month that features the long-awaited arrival of Lucifer season 5? Yes, ol’ Lucy finally returns on August 21 for what is now the penultimate season of the show.

While Lucifer is the main highlight of Netflix’s original offerings on August, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some other intriguing options to stream. The Rain season 3 arrives on August 6, Wizards: Tales of Arcadia on August 7, and Teenage Bounty Hunters on August 14. That’s not even to mention a potential blockbuster movie in the form of the Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring Project Power.

In August, Netflix also continues its high-profile poaching of other worthwhile properties as well. August sees the arrival of both The Legend of Korra and Cobra Kai, opening up two worthwhile series to an even wider streaming audience.

Director Cho Jung-rae has made a name for himself with period films like “Spirits’ Homecoming” and its sequel “Spirits’ Homecoming, Unfinished Story” as well as “Duresori: The Voice of the East”, a story set in the National High School of Traditional Arts revolving around singing. For his new work “The Singer”, he combines both the period setting of the Spirits’ Homecoming films and the singing angle from his debut.

Synopsis

The story that made the world laugh

The voice that made the world cry

Ten years of King Yeongjo’s reign, Hak-gyu, a talented sorikkun (pansori singer) searches for his wife, Gan-nan. One by one, the band of entertainers led by a singer is filled with excitement as the Eight Provinces of Joseon’s traveling theater begins. We meet the impoverished Joseon on the road! Hak-gyu’s song that made the people cry begins to be the sound that changes the world.

While the country is beginning the first steps of emerging from quarantine––for now, at least––the summer season should still mean lots of reading time. Some selections in our latest roundup of books related to film and pop culture can be called escapist fare, while a few tread into darker realms. Let’s start with a trip to Arrakis––David Lynch’s Arrakis, not Denis Villeneuve’s.

Dune: The David Lynch Files Volume 2 by Kenneth George Godwin (BearManor Media)

Any opportunity to read a behind-the-scenes account of the making of a film by David Lynch is welcome. That is especially true when it comes to Dune, his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, which the filmmaker has repeatedly expressed his frustrations with. Lynch, of course, did not have final cut and has famously disowned the film, but it remains a strange, fascinating curio. For all of these reasons,...