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It’s a quiet but quality indie weekend led by documentaries and a few features in limited release as Gladiator 2 and Wicked storm in, other independents hold over, and ahead of anticipated specialty debuts next week like Queer, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Maria.

Docs out today follow artists in Ukraine, women in Afghanistan, South African photographer Ernest Cole and Amichai Lau-Lavie, a gay Israeli descendant of rabbis who becomes one himself. Narrative features include Hong Sangoo’ A Traveler’s Needs, animated Flow and The Black Sea.

Porcelain War from Picturehouse, the Sundance Grand Jury/U.S. Documentary Award winner that just screened at Doc NYC, opens at NYC’s IFC Center. Filmmakers Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev and participant Anya Stasenko are on hand for Q&As with award-winning producer Paula DuPré Pesman.

Set amid the chaos and destruction of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the...

“In Another Country,” “Claire’s Camera,” and now “A Traveler’s Needs” — Isabelle Huppert and Hong Sang-soo are three for three in conjuring one of contemporary cinema’s most psychically in-sync pairings. Hong, who has directed more than 30 films dating back to his 1996 debut “The Day a Pig Fell into the Well,” is a tireless achiever and one could say workaholic at the level of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, often releasing two films a year. While the sun-dappled and deceptively light “A Traveler’s Needs,” his loveliest and funniest film in years, debuted at the Berlinale in February, Hong already had “By the Stream” heading for Locarno this past summer.

In “A Traveler’s Needs,” which shot in under two weeks on location in Seoul, Huppert plays a drifting tourist named Iris who funds her walkabout by teaching French and piano lessons to locals. She gets by on the largesse of others — including a younger man she’s staying with,...

Just when you thought you knew what to expect from Hong Sang-soo, South Korea’s most prolific auteur has crafted his funniest film in years with his 31st feature, “A Traveler’s Needs.”

This delightfully mischievous comedy, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin back in February, marks Hong’s third collaboration with Isabelle Huppert following 2012’s “In Another Country” and “Claire’s Camera” both released in 2017. To round off that unlikely triptych, the pair embark on an adventure without purpose, or so it would seem as we follow a French woman named Iris as she wanders adrift through Seoul in search of who knows what. For long stretches of time, Iris practices the recorder (badly) in community parks or sits alone, savoring her beloved Korean rice wine, aka Makgeolli, in between bites of bibimbap. Of the titular needs this traveler requires, money ends up being one of them, so she turns to teaching French,...

Tilda Swinton facing life and death, Saoirse Ronan searching wartime London and Pablo Larraín retelling a grand diva’s last days are just a few of this year’s must-sees

It’s one of the most intriguing director-star pairings in world cinema: Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo and French icon Isabelle Huppert. This is their third film together, after In Another Country (from 2012) and Claire’s Camera, six years later; it is another witty, elusive, airy vignette, talky and musingly cerebral in the manner of Rohmer or Resnais. Huppert is a woman in Seoul making a living teaching French and perplexing her students (and the audience) with the question of who she is and what she is doing there.

Isabelle Huppert, Hong Sang-soo favourite stars in New York Film Festival highlight A Traveler’s Need Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (co-written with Mona Fastvold and Silver Lion Best Director winner at the Venice International Film Festival), starring Adrien Brody with Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Stacy Martin, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird, Isaach De Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig with Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, and Missagh Zareh; Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April (Special Jury Prize in Venice) with Ia Sukhitashvili, plus Hong Sang-soo’s By The Stream, starring Kwon Haehyo, Kim Minhee, and Cho Yunhee and his A Traveler’s Needs (winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival) starring Isabelle Huppert, round out the five early bird highlights in the Main Slate program...

South Korean sales agency Finecut has closed a raft of distribution deals on Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert, and upcoming horror-thriller Noise.

A Traveler’s Needs premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in February, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, and was recently acquired for North America by Cinema Guild.

The film has now been picked up for Italy (Minerva Pictures), Spain (L’Atalante Cinema), Austria (Filmgarten), Cis (A-one Film), Greece and Cyprus (Ama Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), Baltics (A-one Films Baltic). In Asia, it has been acquired for Japan (Mimosa Films), Taiwan...

Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights to Hong Sangsoo’s Berlin Silver Bear winner A Traveler’s Needs starring Isabelle Huppert.

‘A Traveler’s Needs’: Berlin Review

Cinema Guild will release the comedy theatrically following its North American festival premiere later this year.

A Traveler’s Needs marks the third collaboration between Hong and Huppert following 2012’s In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.

Huppert plays Iris, a woman who finds herself adrift in Seoul and, without any means to make ends meet, turns to teaching French through a peculiar method. Through a series of encounters the mysteries of her circumstances deepen.

Hong Sansoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert, has sold North American distribution rights to New York’s Cinema Guild.

The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

A Traveler’s Needs will premiere in North America later in 2024, after which Cinema Guild will release in theaters. The pic is a comedy with a strong Korean connection, with Huppert playing Iris, a woman struggling in Seoul who turns to teaching French to make ends meet. Regular collaborators Lee Hyeyoung and Kwon Haehyo also feature as Huppert’s student and flirty husband respectively.

Sangsoo and Huppert have collaborated twice before, on 2012 comedy-drama In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.

“A Traveler’s Needs hits like a meteorite from another galaxy,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly. “Huppert delivers a beguiling and hilarious performance. Her Iris is a character that only Hong and Huppert,...

You’d be forgiven for not having seen every Hong Sangsoo movie. The South Korean director, known for films like “On the Beach at Night Alone,” “Claire’s Camera,” and “The Novelist’s Film” has released 29 features, and often more than one in the same year. So was the case for 2023, which saw the festival circuit premieres of “In Water” and “In Our Day.” And as of writing, Hong already has another movie that premiered at the Berlinale, “A Traveller’s Needs.” A new Hong movie is always a pleasure to celebrate, and so IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for “In Our Day” ahead of the upcoming release from Cinema Guild. Watch below.

Here’s the synopsis for the film:

Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend, Jungsoo (Song Sunmi), and her cat, Us. Elsewhere in the city, the aging poet Hong Uiju (Ki Joobong) lives alone,...

Dahomey, a documentary from French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, has won the Golden Bear for best film at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.

The multifaceted docu-fictional essay explores the return, in November 2021, of plundered royal treasures of the African Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to the present-day Republic of Benin, examining the complicated response of those in Benin, whose culture has developed for more than a century without these artifacts.

While taking the stage to accept her award, Diop made a direct political statement, calling out, “I stand with Palestine!”

Jury president, the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actor Lupita Nyong’o, announced the Golden Bear winner from the stage of the Berlinale Palast Saturday night. Nyong’o is the first Black and first African to chair the Berlinale jury.

Dahomey is only the second African film to win the top prize at Berlin, following Mark Dornford-May’s...

The awards ceremony for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival kicks off Saturday night, where this year’s jury, headed by 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actress Lupita Nyong’o, will hand out the coveted Gold and Silver Bears.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iranian drama My Favourite Cake is being given good odds for an award this year. The drama, about a 70-year-old widow and her tentative attempts at romance with an age-appropriate taxi driver, was a critical fave. A win for the film would also send a political message after the Iranian government banned the directors from attending Berlin. If the jury picks out Cake for the Golden Bear it would be the third time in 10 years —following Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) and There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof —that Berlin has given its top honor to Iranian directors in absentia. World sales for My...

Like makgeolli — Korea’s unique fizzy, fermented, cloudy-white rice wine — the films of director Hong Sang-soo are an acquired taste. Fortunately for him, many film programmers at repertory houses and festivals beyond South Korea love the peculiar handmade, improvisational flavor of his work, with its complicated emotional entanglements and near primitive levels of craftsmanship. The last feature of his to premiere at the Berlinale, In Water, wasn’t even in focus, although Hong insists that was deliberate, to reflect the fuzziness of its creatively blocked film director protagonist.

Thankfully, his latest, A Traveler’s Needs, a competitor for the Golden Bear this year, is not only in focus, it’s also rather watchable, even for diehard Hong-skeptics. Partly that’s thanks to the presence of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role (her third collaboration with Hong, after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera), playing Iris, a mysterious Frenchwoman with eccentric habits.

Two things can be true at once. The old debate over whether Hong Sangsoo’s cinema is overly earnest or self-aware was always a bit reductive––when the most light-hearted of the director’s films transcend, it is usually a result of both. Regardless, those arguments fade further into the rearview mirror with A Traveler’s Needs, his first collaboration with Isabelle Huppert since Claire’s Camera (2017) and Hong’s funniest film in years. In one gloriously stilted scene at around the halfway point, a lawyer played by Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo attempts to flirt with Huppert’s character, Iris, who responds with a kind of unhinged wink-and-giggle movement––she then, insanely, repeats the trick. Wise to the cringing discomfort of the moment, Hong quickly cuts to a zoom reminiscent of the fan-favorite in The Woman Who Ran. Don’t say he isn’t in on the joke.

A Traveler’s Need...

Leading Korean rights sales firm Finecut is to handle the international distribution of “A Traveler’s Needs,” which on Monday was confirmed as debuting in the main competition section of next month’s Berlinale. Remarkably, it is director Hong Sang-soo’s sixth selection for Berlin since 2020.

The picture is also the third time that French acting icon Isabelle Huppert stars in a film by the Korean veteran director, following their previous joint efforts “Claire’s Camera” and “In Another Country.”

A synopsis provided reads: “She came from France. She was playing a child’s recorder in a park. With no means of supporting herself she was advised to teach French. She became a teacher to two women. She likes to lie down on rocks and rely on makkeolli [Korean rice wine] for comfort.” Dialog is a mix of Korean, English and French.

Hong is known for his micro-budget, minimalist drama films that are long on conversation,...

With two features under his belt this year thus far, Hong Sangsoo has embarked shooting his next project. While details are sparse, he’s reportedly reunited with Isabelle Huppert, marking their third collaboration after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera. Don’t be surprised to see it turn up as early as Berlinale next year.

We’re now less than two weeks from the Japanese release of Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live?, which is now confirmed to clock in at 2 hours and 4 minutes. Studio Ghibli has decided to take a marketing approach that only a director like Miyazaki could warrant: by not doing much of any marketing at all, with no images or trailers released in promotion. Miyazaki recently exclaimed some hesitation, revealing, “I wonder if it’ll be okay without publicity. I am beginning to worry […] I’m concerned, that’s all.” With a release on July 14 fast approaching,...

After teaming on In Another Country (2012) and Claire’s Camera (2017) we’ve learned via a key internet sleuth that the two workhorses of actress Isabelle Huppert and Hong Sang-soo are teaming again for their third collaboration. Hong Sang-soo hit Berlinale and Cannes this year with In Water and In Our Day, while Huppert has a load of works that’ll pepper feature A-list fests with the next being Venice/TIFF. It’s next to impossible to keep tabs on the filmmaker but we’ll try our best.

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The pace of arthouse /smart-house releases accelerated this weekend as wide-for-specialty openings like A Good Person and The Lost King joined a handful of solid single-theater openings from distributors Greenwich Entertainment, Sideshow/Janus Films, Mubi, Abramorama and Cinema Guild – all set for some expansion.

MGM released Killer Films and Elevation Pictures’ A Good Person on 530 screens with a $834k cume for the film by writer/director Zach Braff starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. It’s got a 96% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, indicating continued playability at commercial smart-house locations as an alternative to current tentpole programming.

Pugh is Allison, whose life falls apart after her involvement in a fatal accident but is revived by a unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law (Freeman). Deadline review here.

The Lost King from IFC Films, by Stephen Frears, and starring Sally Hawkins as an amateur historian who unearthed the 500-year-old remains of Richard III,...

After a six-year hiatus, Korean cinema is set to return to the Chinese big screen in wide release at last.

This Friday, Dec. 3, Chinese cinemas will run the 2020 comedy “Oh! My Gran (Oh! Moon-Hee),” official posters said Wednesday. Directed by Jeong Se-Gyo and written by Kim Soo-jin, the title stars Na Moon-hee as Moon-hee, the titular spirited grandma suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who, along with her dog, are the only witnesses of a hit-and-run accident that leaves her grandchild unconscious. The film tells the story of the sleuthing that ensues when she remembers a clue to the culprit.

When Seoul deployed the Thaad U.S. missile defense system in 2016, Beijing expressed its displeasure with a ban on Korean film and culture imports. A Korean film hasn’t had a proper theatrical outing in the mainland since 2015’s “The Assassination,” co-written and directed by Choi Dong-hoon.

Seven Korean films were...

First trip to Cannes for South Korean auteur since Claire’s Camera,The Day He Arrives in 2017.

Cinema Guild has picked up all US rights from Finecut to South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s In Front Of Your Face ahead of its world premiere in the inaugural Cannes Premiere section.

The distributor has a set a 2022 launch for the drama, which marks Hong’s eleventh visit to the Croisette and stars Lee Hyeyoung, Cho Yunhee, and Kwon Haehyo.

In Front Of Your Face follows a former actress with a secret who returns to Seoul to live with her sister in...

Sean Gilman: I had a particularly Hongian experience as I readied myself to write this first dispatch to you, Evan, about Introduction. Right after finishing the movie, I took a brief nap. This is a regular part of my pre-writing process: the twenty minutes of calm and quiet help me organize my thoughts, and the dreaminess helps with my creativity. I had the whole thing planned and written out in my head. I assure you it was brilliant, funny and clever and insightful. Then when I woke up, I had forgotten all of it. Not just what I was going to write, but the movie itself was gone. I’ve been trying to piece it all back together over the past 24 hours, and in doing so I’ve been wondering if this is a bit like how Hong constructs his films in the first place. It’s well-documented that he...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ak vs Ak (Vikramaditya Motwane)

Over the 21st century, Bollywood cinema has entered into a completely different era of filmmaking and storytelling than was being made in the decades prior. Actors and directors who started their careers in the ‘80s and ‘90s have experienced such a drastic shift from their beginnings to what they are doing now that their older works seem almost archaic and unrecognizable. This has led, expectedly, to many of Bollywood’s artists making self-reflexive work that also reflects on the industry in general––Fan, Sanju, The Dirty Picture, Luck By Chance, and Shamitabh are just a few examples. Vikramaditya Motwane’s Ak vs Ak is...

Kim Min-hee began modeling when she was in middle school, and soon appeared as a cover girl in teen magazines. In 1999, she was cast in the campus drama School 2 as a rebellious high school girl, which launched her to stardom. She became a popular young star at barely 20 years old, appearing in TV dramas and movies. However, a string of poor acting performances brought her negative criticism. Critics and viewers disparagingly called her an “attractive but blank actress,” more famous for being a fashion icon and actor Lee Jung-jae‘s then-girlfriend.

In 2006, after reading the synopsis of TV series “Goodbye Solo”, Kim knew that she wanted the role of Mi-ri more than anything, saying “I was ready to do anything to play her.” She begged renowned screenwriter Noh Hee-kyung to cast her, and though Noh turned her down five times, Kim would not give up, and her determination eventually convinced...

If there was one director working today that can be said to have a distinctive style, then it would be Hong Sang-soo. The writer-director has a distinct flare for the drunken conversation, playful looks at alternative endings and non-linear narrative, as well as a drunken love affair, often between a filmmaker and a younger student, and laughing at both truth and lies.

“Claire’s Camera” is streaming on Mubi

With a Special Screening at Cannes, Hong moves the setting away from Korea to 2016 Cannes itself, though the cast remains largely Korean. Man-hee (Kim Min-hee), a film sales agent working at the festival, suddenly finds herself sacked by her boss, Yang-hye (Chang Mi-hee), for she no longer believes Man-hee to be honest. Left somewhat bewildered by this, we later discover that the probable real reason for her dismissal is her love affair with drunken director So (Jung Jin-young), Yang-hye’s lover.

The decision made,...

Wedged between “Right Now, Wrong Then” (2015) and the successive “Claire’s Camera” and “On the Beach at Night Alone” (both 2017), “Yourself and Yours” marks a delicate and pivotal moment for director Hong Sang-soo’s life, a time for changes which sips through the film and that will affect (undoubtedly in a positive way) his following works. The film enjoyed great success at the Toronto, San Sebastian (winner), Hamburg and many other Festivals.

“Yourself and Yours” is streaming on Mubi

The film opens in a hot and sticky Korean summer, with a conversation between the painter Young-soo (Kim Joo-hyuk) and a friend. Young-soo is worried about his dying mother but this concern is soon relegated to the back burner when his friend drops a bomb; his girlfriend Min-jung (Lee Yoo-young) was spotted drinking with a man in a bar, where she eventually even caused a drunk fight. Young-soo is incredulous, he doesn’t think it’s possible,...

Mubi, the premier streaming service for curated independent films, has revealed its picks for December. The selection of films coming exclusively to Mubi includes the world premiere of Benoit Toulemonde’s “Tripping With Nils Frahm,” an extraordinary musical trip that brings a unique concert experience to the screen, and “Cold Meridian,” the latest experimental short film by acclaimed director Peter Strickland. Mubi will also exclusively present “Liberté”, a period-piece provocation by visionary Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra as well as Kirill Mikhanovsky’s award-winning comedy “Give Me Liberty.” For those in the mood to relive the vibrant 90’s rave scene, Mubi is excited to present the streaming premiere of “Beats” from Scottish director Brian Welsh and executive producer Steven Soderbergh.

Also in December, Mubi is proud to launch a retrospective dedicated to prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo. Capturing the pleasures and perils of attraction in anti-romantic comedies, this selection includes...

For several years now, Sean Gilman and Evan Morgan have been discussing the latest Hong Sang-soo releases in-person, at film festivals, via Twitter and on their site, Seattle Screen Scene, including The Day After, Claire’s Camera, Grass, and Hotel by the River. Now, on the occasion of the New York Film Festival's presentation of Hong's The Woman Who Ran, the discussion continues here at the Notebook.***Sean Gilman: We’ve been doing these correspondences about Hong Sang-soo movies (corresp-Hong-dences?) for a few years now and I’m more curious than ever to know what you think of this one. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more surprised, initially at least, by one of his films. Hong seems to have reduced his cinema down to its barest essence: structure and subtext, while allowing the text itself to drift away into nothingness. A woman played by Kim Min-hee has...

The normally busy AMC Kips Bay 15 on Manhattan's Second Avenue is to close tonight at 8pm Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, all cinemas in New York City will close at 8pm tonight (March 16).

His statement follows New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's executive order yesterday stating that nightclubs, movie theatres, small theatre houses, and concert venues must all close by Tuesday, March 17, at 9am.

The remaining French Institute Alliance Française (Fi:Af) CinéSalon program Foreign Eyes Filming France has all been cancelled: Manoel de Oliveira’s I’m Going Home (Je rentre à la maison), Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Véronique (La Double vie de Véronique), Hong Sang-soo’s Claire’s Camera (La Caméra de Claire), Costa-Gavras’s The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartiments tueurs), and Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms (Synonymes).

Mayor de Blasio said: “Our lives...

The normally busy AMC Kips Bay 15 on Manhattan's Second Avenue is to close by 9am on Tuesday, March 17 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze On Sunday night, March 15, due to the coronavirus pandemic, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order stating that nightclubs, movie theatres, small theatre houses, and concert venues must all close by Tuesday, March 17, at 9am.

The remaining French Institute Alliance Française (Fi:Af) CinéSalon program Foreign Eyes Filming France has all been cancelled: Manoel de Oliveira’s I’m Going Home (Je rentre à la maison), Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Véronique (La Double vie de Véronique), Hong Sang-soo’s Claire’s Camera (La Caméra de Claire), Costa-Gavras’s The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartiments tueurs), and Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms (Synonymes).

Mayor de Blasio said: “Our lives are all changing in ways that were unimaginable just a week ago. We are taking a series...

Hotel by the RiverIsn't the miracle of art how we see the panoply of our own lives via a magical panopticon? Every time we look, we see something that's really all about us. In concert with this, I vaingloriously clutch Walter Pater's concept of how art gives “nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.” But each of these moments, for me, is a multiplicity of moments, the past surfacing after bottom-feeding for minutes, months, or years. It might not be easy to see one's life in film—not in the narrative itself, but in the regard of the camera, the editing, how people say things and what their silences are like. It's really only happened for me with Eric Rohmer and now Hong Sang-soo. But it shouldn't be so surprising, since they are both romantics who capture the improvisatory moments in life,...

"An exquisite hangout movie." The Cinema Guild has debuted an official Us trailer for the film Grass, one of the latest works from prominent Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo. This originally premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year, and also played at the Busan and New York Film Festivals last year, but is only now getting a release in Us cinemas. Grass is Hong Sang-soo's fourth feature film over the last two years - following On the Beach at Night Alone, which also premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as The Day After and Claire's Camera. This one, also shot in black & white, is about a young Korean woman, played by award-winning actress Kim Min-hee, who sits at a cafe in the corner writing on her laptop about people she sees around here and their interactions. Seems like a good time, offering some nice insight. It's only 68 minutes,...

"Why do you keep lying?" Cinema Guild has released the official Us trailer for one of the latest films from prolific Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, this one titled The Day After. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Those who know Hong Sang-soo know he's always making new films. He premiered another one at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, titled Grass, and released two others in the last few years including Claire's Camera and On the Beach at Night Alone. The Day After tells the story of a married man struggling with an affair who just left him. His wife suspects something, and attacks his innocent new secretary. It "begins as a darkly hilarious look at a man embroiled in extramarital entanglements but soon shifts - in a way only Hong can manage - into a heartfelt portrayal of a young woman on a quest for spiritual fulfillment.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGWe're very much in love with Zama, Lucrecia Martel's long-anticipated return to filmmaking. The new trailer calls us back to our encounter of the film at Toronto last year and our conversation with the director.We all know that Rainer Werner Fassbinder made a lot—a whole lot—of films in his all too brief 15 years of activity, but it's truly remarkable how new (old) work of his keeps appearing. First there was the revelation of World on a Wire (1973) and now another made-for-tv epic has been restored and is being re-released, Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1972-1973). We wonder what other future delights and provocations Rwf has in store for us!Recommended READINGDoll & EmAt The Guardian, Lili Loofbourow takes a look at how stories about women are perceived and received differently than those about men.

While many expected Disney to retain the top spot at the box office this weekend with A Wrinkle in Time, that didn't exactly happen, with Black Panther finding a way to win for a fourth weekend in a row. Just one day after Black Panther surpassed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, the superhero adventure managed to win for a fourth weekend in a row, dropping just 38% from last weekend to win with $41.1M. While A Wrinkle in Time still did fare well with a decent $33.3M, its middling reviews may have lead it to underperform at the box office.

While A Wrinkle In Time was considered one of the spring's most highly-anticipated movies, the reviews that started to come in were more mixed than expected, with the movie currently posting a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie actually opened wider than Black Panther, debuting in 3,980 theaters while...

Last year saw the premiere of not one but three Hong Sang-soo films—the gently oneiric On the Beach at Night Alone, the anguished black-and-white The Day After, and the airy 79-minute Claire’s Camera. All feature muse Kim Min-hee (now seemingly, welcomingly forever a fixture in Hong’s work). In Beach, she’s quietly recovering from an affair with a filmmaker first in Hamburg, then in her sleepy Korean hometown. In The Day After, she’s innocently caught in the middle of her book publisher boss’ sexual dalliance, so much so that his wife mistakes her for his mistress. And in Claire’s Camera, she plays yet another character enmeshed in the intimacies of friends and associates. Although this observation virtually applies to every filmmaker, it is more so with Hong: with each and every film in his continually expanding oeuvre, Hong’s aesthetic alters, now becoming more forthrightly...

"Even with a dead friend beside you, you don't think of your own death." The first teaser trailer has arrived for the latest film made by prominent Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, a feature titled Grass, which will be premiering at the Berlin Film Festival later this month. This is Hong Sang-soo's fourth feature film in two years time - following On the Beach at Night Alone, which premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival, as well as The Day After and Claire's Camera. It's hard to keep up with all of his new films he keeps making them one right after another. Grass is about a young woman, played by award-winning actress Kim Min-hee, who sits at a cafe in the corner writing on her laptop about the people she sees around here. There's not much to this teaser, just setting up this idea of her sitting & writing, as well...

“Isabelle who…?” It’s a question I’ve gotten more times than I’d care to count this Oscar season, as audiences discover the fearless star of Paul Verhoeven’s subversive French thriller “Elle” — who just added an Independent Spirit Award to the collection of accolades the role has earned. Still, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, if you count yourself among the cinephiles who are only now learning Mme Huppert’s name (pronounced “Hoo-pair”).

Just yesterday, the French film academy honored Huppert with her second César award — but even her compatriots are late to the party. She’s been nominated 16 times, but France takes the provocative — and extremely prolific — actress for granted. After all, she’s never not acting, whether it’s on stage (from “Medea” to “The Maids”) or screen (at a rate of two or three movies a year). When French audiences see “Elle,” in which...

Isabelle Huppert has had a stellar year, making a splash in two critically acclaimed films this year: Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Things to Come” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle,” which could earn her an Oscar nomination.

With a career spanning over four decades and with over 100 credits to her name, the French actress has earned 15 César nominations, winning the coveted Best Actress award in 1995 for her role in “La cérémonie.” She also has a BAFTA Award, won two Best Actress titles at the Cannes Film Festival and most recently won Best Actress at the 2016 Gotham Awards. To pay tribute to her remarkable career, filmmaker Candice Drouet created the video essay, “Isabelle Huppert: 100 Faces.”

The clip includes scenes from “Every Man for Himself,” “Copacabana,” “Violette Nozière,” “8 Women” and many others. The video looks at Huppert’s previous work and adds tidbits about her roles, like the fact that she portrayed a...