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Audiences will be getting a double dose of director Mouly Surya this year. The Indonesian filmmaker’s new feature The City Is A Battlefield closes International Film Festival Rotterdam this weekend.

Sold by Asian Shadows, it already has a Dutch distributor, Periscoop, who plan to launch it in Dutch cinemas in April, having previously released her 2017 Cannes Directors Fortnight title Marlina The Murderer in Four Acts.

Surya has another feature in post-production, thriller Tukar Takdir, which should be ready by the autumn.

All this comes at a busy time for Surya, who recently made her English language debut with Netflix thriller Trigger Warning,...

Mouly Surya’s new war drama This City Is a Battlefield (Perang Kota) will screen as the final film at the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which runs from January 30 to February 9. The film depicts Jakarta’s 1946 fight for independence by telling stories of people caught between personal lives and national struggle.

The story centers on Isa, played by Chicco Jerikho, a former war hero who teaches violin. He becomes involved in fighting Dutch colonial forces. His student Hazil (Jerome Kurnia), from a rich family, joins the mission and falls in love with Isa’s wife Fatimah (Ariel Tatum), who plays piano and works to keep her family safe during wartime.

Companies from eight countries made this film together: Indonesia’s Cinesurya and Starvision led the project, working with teams from Singapore, the Netherlands, France, Norway, the Philippines, and Cambodia. Willawati, Mona Surya, and Rieza Jusuf served as executive producers.

Asian Shadows has acquired international sales rights to “This City Is A Battlefield” (Perang Kota) the upcoming neoclassical war drama from Indonesian director Mouly Surya that will serve as the closing night film at the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Set in 1946 Jakarta during Indonesia’s struggle for independence, the film follows Isa (Chicco Jerikho), a former war hero turned violin teacher who becomes entangled in the resistance movement alongside his wealthy student Hazil (Jerome Kurnia). When Isa is tasked with an underground mission to assassinate a Dutch official, complications arise as Hazil pursues not only the mission but also Isa’s wife Fatimah (Ariel Tatum), a talented pianist fighting to protect her family.

An Indonesia, Singapore, Netherlands, France, Norway, Philippines, Cambodia co-production, “This City Is a Battlefield” is produced by Rama Adi and Fauzan Zidni for Cinesurya, Chand Parwez Servia for Starvision, and Kaninga Pictures from Indonesia; in co-...

In the sea of content on Netflix coming from Asia, “Kang Mak Pee Mak” is certainly one of the most entertaining you can find. The ghost dramedy based on a beloved Thai original, and directed by Indonesian helmer Herwin Novianto isn’t short of crazy ideas and cynical commentaries on the country’s history, politics, and local superstitions, and it does the trick with the winning elegance of a movie that doesn’t pretend to be something more than an exciting time-eater. As we know, it is one of the hardest things to pull off, and Novianto knows his trade.

A brief scene introduces us to the highly pregnant Sari (Marsha Timothy) who waits for her beloved husband Makmur (Vino G. Bastian) to return from the war. While he is doing everything possible to stay alive and rejoin his family, Sari succumbs while giving birth. Yet, her ghost remains, and...

Jessica Alba's newest action film is the undisputed champion this week on Netflix, taking the top spot away from Richard Linklater's latest film, Hit Man.

Trigger Warning premiered on Netflix on June 21, and immediately climbed to the top to become the number one movie on the platform. Trigger Warning stars Alba, Anthony Michael Hall, Tone Bell, Mark Webber, Jake Weary, and Gabriel Basso. The official synopsis for the film reads, "A Special Forces commando uncovers a dangerous conspiracy when she returns to her hometown looking for answers into her beloved father's death." Helming the movie is Mouly Surya, director of 2017's Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, and is written by Josh Olson, John Brancato, and Halley Wegryn.

Related Jessica Alba Talks Using Dark Angel Skills for New Netflix Movie Trigger Warning

Exclusive: Jessica Alba speaks about how she was able to use some of the skills she...

Trigger Warning premieres on Netflix on June 21, 2024. The premise of the movie tells a tale as old as time with a few new twists. If youre a fan of films like Walking Tall, First Blood, or any other movies that center on a highly trained soldier coming to a small town only to discover that its been overrun with corruption and gang violence, add this to your watchlist. Written by John Brancato (The Game), Josh Olson (A History of Violence), and Halley Gross (Westworld), Trigger Warning is directed by Mouly Surya (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts). This will be Suryas first English-language feature film, with Jessica Alba executive producing.

Jessica Alba unleashes her inner Rambo in “Trigger Warning,” wherein her active U.S. military officer gets pulled homeward by tragedy, only to uncover corruption she’ll have to clean up before leaving again. Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s well-crafted first English-language feature is too formulaically contrived to qualify as “elevated genre” or to boast the personal stamp of her prior work. Still, it’s an entertaining, pacey action melodrama that should do well for Netflix, where it launches on June 21.

After two intriguingly conceived but somewhat vague initial features, Surya made an assertive impression with 2018’s “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts.” That striking “feminist outlaw Western” distinctively juggled elements of revenge thriller, black comedy and character-driven social critique. Her more conventionally commercial American debut is another vengeance tale driven by a strong-willed, capable female protagonist. But this is also the first film on which Surya has not had a hand in the screenplay.

Trigger Warning brings intense action sequences and a larger conspiracy to a small town setting. Director Mouly Surya and star Jessica Alba deliver a gripping, story-driven performance with impressive stunts. Anthony Michael Hall praises the female-led production team and teases his villainous role in Reacher season 3.

Parker returns home to take over her father's bar after his sudden death in Trigger Warning. However, not all is as it seems in this small town. As she tries to figure out how her father died, Parker discovers that her hometown has been overrun by gang violence. As she digs deeper, it seems a larger conspiracy is at play that could be the key to finding the truth about her father and saving her home.

87eleven once again brings their ability to deliver story-driven, intense action sequences to the screen, with star Jessica Alba infusing her performance with impressive stunt work, but pathos as well.

Leo Tolstoy once said, “All great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.” The action genre is particularly suited for the latter plot line and the premise forms the backbone of “Trigger Warning,” a new action thriller set to premiere on the Netflix streaming service.

Read More: Summer Movie Preview: 50 Must-See Films To Watch

Directed by Mouly Surya, the director of the Cannes Film Festival premiering thriller “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts,” “Trigger Warning” is led by Jessica Alba (“Sin City” “Fantastic Four”) in her first acting role in nearly four years.

Continue reading ‘Trigger Warning’ Trailer: Jessica Alba Cleans Up Her Hometown In New Netflix Action Thriller at The Playlist.

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017), directed by Mouly Surya and based on a story by Garin Nugroho, is an Indonesian "Satay Western." It is notable for its cinematic stylistic adaptations of Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa, especially regarding setting, themes, character development, and cinematography. Much like a Sergio Leone film, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts combines traditional Spaghetti Western amorality and brutality with the cinematic sensibilities of Akira Kurosawa. What takes place is a hero's journey through rural Indonesia to defend her place in the world from violent and amoral men, told through a series of axial cuts with decadent color pallets. What makes this film unique, however, is that the story is told from the female perspective instead of the male-dominated west of Leone, a refreshing spin on the genre. This anti-Western film uses the Spaghetti Western genre conventions to tell a brutal and compelling story...

Very little has been heard from Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya since her buzzy 2017 Cannes title Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts.

“I’ve been in the pandemic like everybody else, wearing a mask, staying at home afraid if I step out of the house that I might die, and taking the whole family with me,” Surya told Deadline at the Tokyo Film Festival, where she is set to receive the honorary Kurosawa Akira Award.

Surya has released three features. Her debut, Fiction, won four awards, including Best Picture at the Festival Film Indonesia in 2008. Her second feature, What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love (2013), was the first Indonesian film to be selected for the Sundance Film Festival. In 2017, her third feature, Marlina, was released in theaters in 14 countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan, following it’s Cannes debut. It also won the Grand Prize at...

Korean powerhouse Cj Enm is set to continue its already extensive investment in Indonesia.

The company will announce a slate of Indonesian films imminently. It is also planning to produce films and series that can be remade in other international territories, said Justin Kim, head of international productions at Cj Enm, which has production and distribution businesses in Indonesia.

“There’s a lot of series that have been produced by us in Indonesia and we’re still waiting for that one definitive Indonesian series to break out,” Kim said.

Kim was speaking at a panel focusing on international coproductions with Indonesia at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market. The Indonesian panelists included prolific producer Yulia Evina Bhara (“Autobiography”), director Mouly Surya (“Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts”) and Alex Sihar from the country’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology and was moderated by Lorna Tee,...

Previous recipients include Steven Spielberg, Yoji Yamada and Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is to honour Chinese filmmaker Gu Xiaogang and Indonesian director Mouly Surya with the Kurosawa Akira Award at its upcoming 36th edition, which runs October 23 to November 1.

The award, which was revived last year after an absence of 14 years, is presented to filmmakers who have “made waves in cinema” and are expected to help guide the industry’s future. A ceremony to present the awards will be held at Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel on October 31.

Director Gu broke through with internationally acclaimed debut Dwelling In The Fuchun Mountains,...

The Tokyo Film Festival has set Gu Xiaogang and Mouly Surya as the recipients of the Kurosawa Akira Award at its upcoming 2023 edition, running October 23 — November 1.

The award was handed out for the first time last year after a 14-year gap. The gong is “presented to filmmakers who have made waves in cinema and are expected to help guide the industry’s future.” Last year’s recipients were Alejandro González Iñárritu and Kōji Fukada.

The 2023 winners were chosen by a selection committee, including Yamada Yoji, Dan Fumi, Narahashi Yoko, Kawamoto Saburo, and TIFF programming director Ichiyama Shozo.

Xiaogang is best known for his first feature, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and also won the Special Jury Prize at Tokyo Filmex in 2019. Surya’s debut feature, Fiction, won four awards, including Best Picture at the Festival Film Indonesia in 2008. Her second feature, What...

Game Show Returns

The British version of the iconic reality TV series “Big Brother,” which first launched 23 years ago, is set to return to ITV screens on Oct. 8. The show is hosted by Aj Odudu and Will Best and produced by Initial, part of Banijay U.K. “Big Brother: The Launch” will air on ITV1, ITV2 and streamer Itvx, while the remainder of the series will be available nightly at 9pm on ITV2 and Itvx, except Saturdays.

“Big Brother” will be followed each night by “Big Brother: Late & Live,” hosted live by Odudu and Best from the site of the Big Brother house in front of a studio audience, where evictees will be interviewed. Following this, “Big Brother: Live Stream” will stream live footage seven nights a week on Itvx.

The Banijay format is popular globally with some 500 seasons of the show having aired around the world in 64 countries and regions.

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

The Melbourne International Film Festival have announced the inaugural Miff Awards recipients. The newly introduced Miff Awards, which include the Bright Horizons Competition and Award and the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award, were launched as part of the 70th anniversary alongside the return of the Miff Audience Award. Chosen by a distinguished jury of industry figures. Alongside Jury President, stage and screen Actor and Director Shareena Clanton (Wentworth), the jury comprised Emmy award-winning filmmaker and artist Lynette Wallworth, Australian cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (Animal Kingdom) and Indonesian film director and screenwriter Mouly Surya (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts). The jury gathered at Olinda Hall, the site of the very first Melbourne Film Festival event in 1952, to deliberate and determine the 2022 category winners,...

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

Sometimes it’s like they read your mind—or just notice upcoming releases as you do. Whatever the case, I’m thrilled that the release of Terence Davies’ Benediction played (I assume!) some part in a full retro on the Criterion Channel this June, sad as I know that package will make me and anybody else who comes within ten feet of it. It’s among a handful of career retrospectives: they’ve also set a 12-film Judy Garland series populated by Berkeley and Minnelli, ten from Ulrike Ottinger, and four by Billy Wilder. But maybe their most adventurous idea in some time is a huge microbudget collection ranging from Ulmer’s Detour to Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard, fellow success stories—Nolan, Linklater, Jarmusch, Jia Zhangke—spread about.

Criterion Editions continue with Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight, Double Indemnity, and Seconds, while Chameleon Street, Karen Dalton: In My Own Time,...

It is not a secret that in many countries, foreign domestic helpers are a big help with regard to the middle-class maintaining a certain kind of standard. At the same time, many parts of Germany and the US depend on foreign workers, and their willingness to take whatever job is at hand if it means having some kind of opportunity to support their families at home. Hong Kong is no exception to the rule with many families employing foreign domestic workers from the Philippines or Indonesia, which creates a similar necessity on both sides. Given the work culture of places like Hong Kong on the one hand, and the fact these workers depend on a steady paycheck for themselves and those left behind on the other hand, there is a certain dynamic which, in many ways, mirrors the downfalls of today’s era of globalization and its mechanisms of exploitation.

Specialty U.S. distribution company KimStim is to give a North American release to “Wood and Water,” a German-made feature set against the backdrop of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

The film premiered in the Deutsche Perspektive section of this year’s erlinaleand won the Compass-Perspektive Award special mention during the Berlin festival’s summer edition. It also scored at the New Directors/New Films festival at new York’s Lincoln Center.

It is the feature debut of Jonas Bak, who was previously based in London and Hong Kong, where he worked as a freelance film director and director of cinematography, before returning to his native Germany.

“Wood and Water” was shot on 16mm film and is loosely inspired by real events. The film’s lead role is played by Bak’s mother Anke, as she finds herself facing the void of retirement. A trip to Hong Kong, where...

Sometimes having good intentions and eye-witness testimony is not enough to make a topical, issues-driven movie connect with its anticipated audience.

The movie “Dea,” recently boarded by Hong Kong sales company Good Move Media, is a case in point. It probes the put-upon lives of foreign domestic helpers, who number several hundred thousand in Hong Kong, but are politically invisible.

These female helpers, mostly hailing from Indonesia or The Philippines, enable Hong Kong’s middle classes to function as double income families and facilitate the territory’s hard-charging, long-hours work culture. And yet foreign domestic helpers endure often demeaning living standards, sleeping in their employer’s smallest rooms, precarious employment conditions and widespread ridicule for their colorful group activities in public places on their Sunday rest days.

The film was written by a workshop of such women in Hong Kong and neighboring Macau, who had experienced sexual violence in the course of their work.

Actress Carrie Coon joins Josh and Joe to discuss the Best of what she’s been watching during the pandemic.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Nest (2020)

Gone Girl (2014)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Sabrina (1954)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Opening Night (1977)

Husbands (1971)

Too Late Blues (1961)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Faces (1968)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Gloria (1980)

Mephisto (1981)

The Cremator (1969)

Zama (2017)

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017)

Wanda (1970)

Blue Collar (1978)

The Lunchbox (2013)

63 Up (2019)

To Sleep With Anger (1990)

Killer of Sheep (1978)

The Glass Shield (1994)

My Brother’s Wedding (1983)

Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)

Rio Bravo (1959)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979)

Cutter’s Way (1981)

Scenes From A Marriage (1973)

The Magician (1958)

The Silence (1963)

The Magic Flute (1975)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1963)

Summer with Monika (1953)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Black Girl (1966)

Fat Girl (2001)

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Parasite (2019)

Jesus of Montreal (1989)

Other Notable Items...

The 6-day conference will run online from November 20-26.

Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, and Mouly Surya from Indonesia are among the speakers confirmed for the second annual Asia Pacific Screen Forum, which will run online from November 20-26.

Events in the six-day conference will be accessible to participants across the continent, as well as in-person at the Home Of The Arts venue in Gold Coast, Australia.

The schedule includes panels, smaller-scale roundtable discussions, and a screening programme.

Chen, whose second feature Wet Season was recently selected as Singapore’s entry for the 2020 Oscar international feature award, will take part in...

The Locarno Festival’s Open Doors platform dedicated to nurturing cinema in areas where filmmaking is especially tough is continuing its focus on South-East Asia this year with a selection of projects being unveiled from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Mongolia, including several market previews.

The Swiss festival’s pioneering industry initiative – which will also see selected producers from these countries participating in an online training and networking program – is a good fit with the “Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films” format focussed on works-in-progress taken on in its virtual iteration after Locarno’s physical edition was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Production teams of projects selected for the Open Doors co-production hub will meet on dedicated online platforms with prospective partners for presentations and pitches during the first week of Locarno 2020 that will run August 6-11.

Open Doors chief Sophie Bourdon in a...

Following the success of Chris Hemsworth’s “Extraction,” Netflix is doubling down on action movies, tapping Jessica Alba to lead the next one.

Sources tell Variety that Alba will star in the new Netflix action-thriller “Trigger Warning,” with Mouly Surya directing. Josh Olson and John Brancato penned the script, and Thunder Road’s Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee are producing. Alba will exec produce.

Alba plays a traumatized veteran who inherits her grandfather’s bar, and is faced with a moral dilemma after discovering the truth behind his untimely death.

Sources consider this a possible franchise starter and have high hopes for its success, considering the reception of the streamer’s other action pics, including “Spenser Confidential” and “Extraction.”

Surya’s profile has been on the rise in the directing circuit after her movie “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts” premiered as an official Directors’ Fortnight selection at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Five-year-old Ott service cited a failure to grow revenues quickly enough and cover its increasing operating costs.

Pan-Asian streaming service Hooq has filed for liquidation in Singapore, citing a failure to grow revenues quickly enough and cover its increasing operating costs.

Launched in 2015, Hooq is jointly owned by Singapore telecoms operator Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. The Singapore-based service last reported around 80 million users across five territories: India, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.

In a statement, the Ott service said it had survived through “significant structural changes” in the streaming market for the past five years, but...

Recipients include a Berlin Silver Bear winner.

The Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has selected 11 film projects from countries across Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia for its latest script and project development programme.

Two sections, Hbf Bright Future and Hbf Voices, will see the selected films receive grants totalling €99,000.

Hbf Bright Future is supporting nine projects, all of which are debuts with the exception of Pepe, La Imaginación En El Tercer Cine by Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias. His debut Cocote premiered at Locarno 2017.

The selection also includes Rwandan filmmaker Samuel Ishimwe,...

Nominated for seven awards at the 2019 Famas, “Ode to Nothing” is a rather unusual film that lingers between the black comedy and the drama and mostly focuses on the “relationship” between an embalmer and a cadaver.

“Ode to Nothing” is screening at Fantasia 2019

The embalmer mentioned is Sonya, a former maid who lives a life with no friends, desperately trying to keep her family-owned funeral home afloat, while living in a large house just with her rather strange father. Her financial situation is awful, and the presence of a constantly nagging usurer named Theodore, makes matters even harder. Sonya’s only solace is to hear the Chinese folk song “Mo Li Hua” over and over again.

Her luck, however, seems to change when a pair of strangers appears in the parlor with a bloodied corpse, and ask her to take care of it, no questions asked. Sonya reluctantly agrees, but...

Hulu Japan and HBO Asia’s “Miss Sherlock” won best drama series at the inaugural Asian Academy Creative Awards. The awards were spread over two evenings at Singapore’s Capitol Theatre on Friday and Saturday.

India’s Anurag Kashyap won best direction (fiction) for season one of Netflix original series “Sacred Games.” The series also won best editing for Aarti Bajaj. Adinia Wirasti won best actress for Indonesia’s “Critical Eleven,” a Starvision production for Hooq while China’s Yu Hewei won best actor for “The Hunter,” produced by Jetsen Huashi Wangju (Changzhou) Cultural Media Co.

Indonesia’s Michael Kho won best supporting actor for Viu show “Kenapa Harus Bule?” while Taiwan’s Candy Yang won best supporting actress for “Roseki,” by Content Digital Film Co and Hakka TV.

HBO Asia and Star India’s “The Talwars: Behind Closed Doors,” produced by Make Productions, won best documentary series, while CNN...

Mouly Surya’s film “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts” may be set on an island in Indonesia, but she imbues the film with touches from Spaghetti Westerns.

In fact, the film hems so closely to the Western genre, from explicit nods to Ennio Morricone’s scores from Sergio Leone’s films, to vast shots of open desert and prairies and the title character Marlina emerging on the wavy horizon on horseback, Surya said she hopes Clint Eastwood might see her film and enjoy it.

“I would love to be there to see that,” Surya told TheWrap’s Beatrice Verhoeven Thursday as part of TheWrap’s Awards and Foreign Screening Series at the Landmark Theatres in Los Angeles. “Little by little it takes the shape of this Indonesian feminist Western, even if that doesn’t make sense because we’re not in the West.”

Also Read: 'Capernaum' Director...

A whopping 87 countries submitted entries in the Foreign-Language Film race at the 2019 Oscars. That is down by five from last year’s record 92 submissions but up by two from 2017, which had broken the benchmark of 83 set in 2015. The nations represented ranged from A (Afghanistan) to Y (Yemen). Among the contenders is the Mexican entry “Roma” by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (“Gravity”). This Venice Film Festival winner is a strong contender in both this and the Best Picture race at the Oscars.

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film is made difficult by the two-step process.

First, the several hundred academy members of the Foreign-Language Film screening committee are required to watch a number of the submissions (upwards of a dozen) over a two-month period that ends in mid December. They will rate them from 6 to 10 and their top six vote-getters make it to the next round, as...

Ophelia Lovibond, Dominic Buchanan among names announced for best film jury.

Turkish-German director Fatih Akin will talk at an ‘In Conversation’ event as part of the 17th East End Film Festival (Eeff), held in London from April 11-29.

Akin’s appearance will be his first in the UK since his latest film In The Fade won the Golden Globe for best foreign -language film. It was the German entry for best foreign- language film at the 2018 Oscars, and screens as part of Eeff.

Also appearing for an ‘In Conversation’ event will be Us director Sara Driver (Sleepwalk), whose documentary Boom...

Hollywood is in a state of semi-suspended upheaval at the moment. The patriarchal cycle of aggression, shame, and silence has been exposed, at least on the surface. The process has thrown crucial light onto depictions of brutality against women in film, which often seem exploitational or punishing for no reason simply due to the characters’ gender. Stories involving these elements are now being told through the lens of female filmmakers, however, and this year has seen a number of powerful trope inversions. Mouly Surya brings us what might be the most singular example of this from Indonesia, in the form of Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts.

As the evocative title suggests, Surya unfolds her film over four distinct stages. The first sets itself up like a quiet Peckinpah film: seven bandits rob widowed Marlina, force her to cook them dinner, and prepare to assault her. Marlina is more resourceful than they expect,...

In making a film, any film, it is nearly essential to have an image or scene that the audience takes away with them. Think about a film you love, and get it in your minds eye, and that is what will first spring to mind.    Indonesian neo-Western Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts has a wealth of such memorable scenes and compositions, enough to fill more than a few films. The standout is a long shot of the heroine slowly appearing into the view on horseback, no saddle, rising out of an endless range of rolling foothills, rippled by heat waves, and carrying a severed head wrapped up in rope like a tote bag.    In the fine tradition of exporting the Western into...

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

While the Toronto International Film Festival doesn’t boast a market as robust as other festivals, like Sundance or Cannes, the yearly event often plays home to some major buys of big contenders. Last year, films as diverse “I Am Not Your Negro,” “Salt and Fire,” and “A Quiet Passion” found a home at the festival, and this year will likely include a slate of picked-up offerings that are as wide-ranging as the festival itself. We will be tracking every buy below, so keep checking back to stay up to date.

Read More:tiff Adds More Titles, Including ‘The Florida Project,’ ‘Molly’s Game,’ New Films From Brie Larson and Louis C.K., and Many More

The Toronto International Film Festival runs September 7 – 17 in Toronto, Canada. Stay up to date on all of this year’s Tiff acquisitions below.

– In an early deal that was announced before the festival even kicked off,...

Exclusive: Nikkatsu, Commes des Cinemas, Kaninga team on Koji Fukada project.

Japan’s Nikkatsu Corporation is teaming with France’s Commes des Cinemas and Indonesia’s Kaninga Pictures to co-produce Koji Fukada’s new project The Man From The Sea.

Nikkatsu is also handling international sales on the film, which will be filmed entirely in Indonesia with production scheduled to start this summer. Indonesian production outfit Palari Films, headed by Meiske Taurisia (Postcards From The Zoo) and Muhammad Zaidy, is on board as the local production partner.

Fukada, who won the jury prize in Un Certain Regard last year for Harmonium [pictured], was inspired to write The Man From The Sea when he visited Indonesia in 2012.

The story follows a man who is found washed up on a beach in Banda Aceh, Indonesia suffering from amnesia and speaking in broken Indonesian and Japanese.

“Fukada’s original screenplay digs deep into universal themes and will again touch people all over...

With its sweeping vistas and blade-wieiding protagonist on a roaming quest for justice it's hard not to see Mouly Surya's Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts as some sort of neo-Western with more tha a small tip of the hat to Japanese wandering hero tale Zatoichi. But this story of a woman seeking justice after being raped - coming as it does from a female filmmaker in a very conservative religious nation - clearly has far more going on. In the deserted hills of an Indonesian island, Marlina, a young widow, is attacked, raped and robbed for her cattle. To defend herself, she kills several men of the gang. Seeking justice, she goes on a journey for empowerment and redemption. But the road is long,...

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Baker, Nyoni, Jasper and Carpignano join Cannes veterans Denis, Ferrara, Dumont, Garrel and Gitai.Scroll Down For Full List

Tangerine director Sean Baker, the UK’s Rungano Nyoni and Italo-American film-maker Jonas Carpignano will be among the buzzed-about names premiering new works at the 49th edition of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this year (18-28 May).

Artistic director Edouard Waintrop unveiled the eclectic selection, comprising 19 feature-length films and another 11 shorts, at a press conference at the Cinéma Le Grand Action in Paris on Thursday (20 April).

Read more: Cannes 2017: Official Selection in full

Opening And Closing Films

Claire Denis will open the 49th edition – running May 18-28 - with Un Beau Soleil Intérieur starring Juliette Binoche, Gérard Depardieu and Xavier Beauvois.

Us director Geremy Jasper’s debut feature Patti Cake$ - which world premiered at Sundance this year has been selected as the closing film.

Us Presence

It is one of two Sundance titles in this year’s selection...

Co-producers join Indonesian director Mouly Surya’s new feature; Asian Shadows picks up international rights.

Malaysia’s Astro Shaw, Singapore-based streaming service Hooq and Thailand’s Purin Pictures have boarded Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s Marlina The Murderer In Four Acts.

Currently in post-production, the film is also produced by Indonesia’s Cinesurya and Kaninga Pictures and France’s Shasha & Co-production, founded by Isabelle Glachant.

The film tells the story of a young widow who goes on a journey seeking justice and empowerment after she is attacked and robbed by a gang. Indonesian stars Marsha Timothy, Dea Panendra, Yoga Pratama and Egi Fedly head the cast.

Rama Adi and Fauzan Zidni are producing the film for Cinesurya, the Jakarta-based production company founded by Surya and producer Parama Wirasmo.

Glachant’s Hong Kong-based sales company Asian Shadows has picked up international rights.

The film marks the second original production for Hooq following Otj: The Series, a six-part...