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Chiara Mastroianni has carved her own shape in the French film industry, even despite carrying her father Marcello’s name and being the daughter of Catherine Deneuve. She’s worked with Robert Altman, Claire Denis, Raúl Ruiz, Gregg Araki… we could go on. Yes, she’s the daughter of the stars of “La Dolce Vita” and “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” but her career is marked by bracingly original work with iconoclastic directors. Her father died in 1996, and she got the chance to work with him in a handful of films, including Altman’s “Pret-a-Porter.” But she mostly had to settle for knowing her parents as a couple onscreen, as they broke up when she was just two years old.

Still, see it in the picture above: Chiara does look like her father. In her new film “Marcello Mio” (Strand Releasing), now in theaters and directed by her friend and frequent collaborator Christophe Honoré,...

As she did with her recently released comedy “Marcello Mio,” Chiara Mastroianni emphasized what it’s like to live in the shadow of her father, Marcello, by highlighting his work while inside the Criterion Closet. Known as one of the most iconic performers of the 20th century, Marcello worked with the likes of Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Jeanne Moreau, Robert Altman, and Agnès Varda, starring in classic pieces of cinema such as “8 1/2” and “La Notte.”

During her visit to the Criterion Closet, his daughter Chiara made sure to express her appreciation for a few films he was a part of, including Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style,” which won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1962.

“It’s really, really funny,” Chiara said. “When I was a kid and I first saw it, to me, it was just a comedy. And then growing up and learning about Italian politics...

It may have taken 12 years for Walter Salles to direct another feature after his 2012 adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” but with his awards-buzzy political bio-drama “I’m Still Here,” the Brazillian filmmaker proves that cinema will always remain in his veins. Extolling the power of the form, Salles took to the Criterion Closet recently to share his appreciation for a number of films that have shaped him as an artist and continue to inspire. After starting with Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Andrei Rublev,” Salles went on to select Jim Jarmusch’s absurdist comedy “Stranger than Paradise.”

“I think it was so refreshing to…starting to do films and see that narratives could be actually told in a different manner than the Greeks had teached us at the beginning, you know, the structure with five acts and character arcs and everything else,” said Salles, “and what Jim Jarmusch offers us...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Minority Report shows on 35mm Friday; The Beguiled, The Age of Innocence, and City Dudes play Saturday; Jean Rollin’s Lost In New York and The Sealed Soil screen on Sunday.

Film Forum

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town begins a 35mm run; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg‘s 4K restoration continues; Battling Butler screens Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings Nanook of the North; Candyman screens on Saturday.

Museum of Modern Art

A dual celebration of Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni continues, this weekend bringing films by Fellini, Elio Petri and Antonioni.

Metrograph

Red Desert, L’eclisse, Playtime, Eyes Wide Shut, Moonstruck, and Con Air play on 35mm; The Holidays at Metrograph, It Looks Pretty from a Distance, Urban Ghosts, Absconded Art, and Nicolas Uncaged continue.

IFC Center

2001, Blood Simple, Eraserhead, and Society show late.

"It feels like everything is just out of my control..." Electric Ent. has revealed an official trailer for an indie romantic sci-fi film called Futra Days, created by filmmaker Ryan David. This initially premiered in 2022 at Cinquest and is finally on VOD to watch now if anyone is interested in giving it a time travel spin. After undergoing an experimental time travel "process" that sends a man into his future, he investigates the man that he has become, by engaging in a romance with his future self's girlfriend in a mind-bending reality. The movie is about Sean's yearning for escape, about being trapped, and about the price he paid in relinquishing grand ambitions. Sounds like a tragedy. Futra Days stars Brandon Sklenar, Tania Raymonde, Jordan Hearn, Emily McEnroe, and Rosanna Arquette. Director Ryan David lists the films that inspired this one: Certified Copy, Altered States, La Notte, Primer, The Rain People,...

Michelangelo Antonioni, the iconic Italian auteur, has been immortalized in cinema history thanks to his acclaimed classics “L’Avventura,” “Blow-Up,” and “The Passenger,” which redefined film grammar.

Yet three years prior to his international breakthrough with “L’Avventura,” which won the Cannes Jury

Prize, Antonioni directed his lesser-known feature “Il Grido.” The 1957 drama is relatively obscure and has rarely been screened stateside; however, the film is an early look at the themes of loneliness and fractured relationships that Antonioni later became synonymous with.

The official synopsis for “Il Grido” reads: “Michelangelo Antonioni crafted his first masterpiece with ‘Il Grido,’ a raw expression of anguish that remains one of Italian cinema’s great under-appreciated gems. Bridging Antonioni’s early, neorealism-inspired work and his hallmark stories of existential rootlessness, ‘Il Grido’ centers on Aldo (Steve Cochran), a sugar-refinery worker in the Po Valley. When Irma (Alida Valli), his lover of seven years, learns that...

Alain Delon, the striking French leading man known for his uncommonly beautiful, coldly calculating villains in Le Samouraï and Purple Noon, has died. As confirmed by his family to France’s Afp news agency, Delon died Sunday after years of health complications stemming from a 2019 stroke. He was 88.An icon of French cinema,...

Related Images invites readers behind the scenes and into the sketchbooks of working filmmakers to learn more about their creative processes.Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis is now showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries.We shot two scenes from the film three years before we did the actual feature, as part of the Wild Card initiative by the Swedish Film Institute and Svt. This was before we had even written the screenplay. The scenes were not to use in the final film, just to inform us in our process. We cast Herbert Nordrum and Asta Kamma August for it, so we got to work together for a lot longer than usual for a film.I wanted the process of making The Hypnosis to be more loose than was usual for me. I had made a lot of works in film school that were planned out and controlled, and...

While its often the world premieres that get the most buzz out of any major film festival, look to their restorations lineup (if they are smart enough to have one), and a treasure trove of classics sure to be better than most premieres await. Ahead of their official lineup being unveiled on July 23, the Venice Classics slate is here, featuring films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Fritz Lang, Frederick Wiseman, Howard Hawks, Nagisa Ōshima, Anthony Mann, Lina Wertmüller, and many more.

“The programme of Venice Classics includes the commemoration of several important anniversaries.” said Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera. “First and foremost, the centennial of the birth of Marcello Mastroianni, the most beloved and celebrated Italian actor in the world, whom we will see in The Night (La notte), one of Michelangelo Antonioni’s finest films. It has been fifty years since the death of Vittorio De Sica, who in The Gold of Naples...

As ever more Portuguese directors plan their first animated feature, Annecy is staging a timely Tribute to Portuguese Animation, its 2024 Country of Honor, with a seven section spread of key titles.

Variety has made its own selection of that selection, profiling modern milestones such as Abi Feijo’s “The Outlaws” and José Miguel Ribeiro’s “The Suspect” and taking in Regina Pessoa’s “Uncle Thomas, Accounting for the Days,” the dazzling 2D of Bap, Zagreb Animafest winner “The Garbage Man” and Oscar-nominated ‘Ice Merchants.”

There’s a larger narrative to the titles: the step-by-step and very often collaborative growth of a craft industry of social point and high artistic ambition prized at home and ever more abroad.

As multiple leading lights of the Portugal’s animation industry contemplate feature film creation, Annecy’s Tribute is a reminder of what Portugal has already achieved.

Some highlights:

“Ice Merchants,” (João Gonzalez, 2022)

Portugal’s first ever Oscar nominee,...

Roberta Torre with Anne-Katrin Titze on Gitt Magrini, Michelangelo Antonioni’s costume designer for Red Desert and with Bice Brichetto for L'Eclisse: “With Massimo Cantini Parrini we have thought a lot about this before making the film. So he went to all the beautiful costumes for Monica Vitti to see what remains today.”

A little over an hour and a half into Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, Monica Vitti’s Giuliana visits Richard Harris’s Corrado Zeller at his hotel. “Mi fanno male i capelli” she says, her hair hurts, as do her eyes, her throat and her mouth. Roberta Torre’s Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with a score by Wong Kar Wai’s longtime composer Shigeru Umebayashi takes the sentence as a starting point to investigate time and the mind, memory and the fluidity of identity.

Edoardo (Filippo Timi) with Monica (Alba Rohrwacher) in dress inspired by Monica...

After a bumper 40th anniversary edition of IFFR Pro last year, there’s a sense that Rotterdam’s industry strand has fined tuned things rather than introduced major changes for 2024.

IFFR Pro centres around key initiatives including co-production market CineMart, talent development programme Rotterdam Lab, works in progress section Dark Room and financial support for filmmakers through the festival’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Head of IFFR Pro a.i. Alessia Acone, who is overseeing the industry strand while IFFR Pro head Inke Van Loocke is on maternity leave, says one of the main differences about CineMart this year is that...

Ahead of its 41st edition, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s industry event CineMart isn’t interested in uniformity.

“The trend is diversity,” says head of IFFR Pro Alessia Acone.

“We feature different themes, different production structures and different filmmakers. We want to make sure we can represent many things at the same time. This year, more than ever.”

The “eclectic” lineup of projects includes Aisling Walsh’s “Lucia,” about the only daughter of James Joyce, two-time Tiger Short Competition-winner Beatrice Gibson’s debut feature “La nuit,” Barbara Rupik’s animation “Cherub,” produced by Madants, previously behind “The Silent Twins,” and another animated film “Cloud of the Unknown.”

“We go from a bigger-budgeted film to a collectively written story and animations coming from two different sides of the world. From biographic stories to arctic expeditions, from dreamy landscapes to car chases,” observes Acone.

“A new set of awards, courtesy of Eurimages,...

Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian director who worked mostly during the 1950s and '60s. He got his start with neorealist dramas but, over time, his films became more meditative and experimental, with a focus on atmosphere and poetic imagery. In particular, he was a master of landscape imagery and sweeping long takes. His innovative cinematography and editing pushed the boundaries of the medium and influenced many subsequent filmmakers, from Andrei Tarkovsky to Martin Scorsese. His crowning achievement was the loose trilogy comprising the films L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse, all of which continue to be held in high regard.

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its selection of 16 feature film projects for the 41st edition of CineMart, running Jan. 28-31.

In Another Journey Without Women six chain-smoking know-it-alls embark on a tragi-comedic polar expedition in Greenland in 1918. The film is directed by Illum Jacobi, whose The Trouble With Nature appeared at IFFR in 2020. The film features Greenlandic actor Hans-Henrik Suersaq Poulsen in the lead role, alongside David Dencik and Claes Bang as the famed explorer Knud Rasmussen.

“Lucia,” directed by Irish filmmaker Aisling Walsh, concerns the talented but troubled daughter of author James Joyce. The director’s “Maudie” (2016), starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, world premiered in Telluride.

In “Les Diplomates,” two diplomatic counterparts from Austria and Switzerland secretly negotiate the contours of history as the Eastern Bloc disintegrates – fueled by a petty personal grudge. The project is directed by Swiss filmmaker Andreas Fontana, whose eerie thriller “Azor” (2021) picked...

Exclusive: Silver Lining Entertainment has signed Niousha Noor, the star of Maryam Keshavarz’s multiple prize-winning Sundance dramedy The Persian Version, for representation.

Currently in theaters via Sony Pictures Classics and Stage 6 Films, The Persian Version centers on Leila (Layla Mohammadi), an aspiring Iranian American filmmaker who reunites with her family in New York City amidst her father’s heart transplant, coming into conflict with her mother when a personal secret is revealed. Drawing strong reviews out of Sundance 2023, where it laid claim to the fest’s Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, the film has Noor portraying Leila’s conservative mother, Shireen.

Noor can also currently be seen starring alongside Giancarlo Esposito, Rufus Sewell, Paz Vega, Jai Courtney and more in Kaleidoscope, Netflix’s heist show from creator Eric Garcia, which premiered in January. She was seen prior to that in IFC Midnight’s horror thriller The Night,...

European powerhouse Studiocanal, part of Vivendi’s Canal+ Group, has rolled out robust sales on Xavier Dolan’s Sundance-selected psychological thriller “The Night Logan Woke Up,” Spanish period drama “The Vow” and a bevy of first documentaries.

The deals underscore the continuing upside for Studiocanal of illustrious cinema talent exploring premium TV direction, as well as the company’s beneficial diversification into documentary sales and daily series.

A Sundance world premiere and Canal+ original based on Michel Marc Bouchard’s play “La Nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est réveille,” “The Night Logan Woke Up” has sold to Netflix for the U.S., Star Channel Japan, Sbs Australia, Filmin for Spain and Portugal and Wdr Germany, among major territories.

Among a slew of deals, “Logan,” which marks the first TV series from Cannes Jury Prize-winning Quebecois actor-director Dolan, has also been licensed by Studiocanal to BeTV Belgium, Lumiere Benelux, Ltv Latvia,...

International TV market MIPCOM Cannes kicked off Monday with a flurry of licensing deals, a sign that despite the uncertainty and challenges facing the global TV industry, there is still business being done.

Paramount Global Content Distribution announced a major European deal on Monday, licensing the new Good Wife spin-off Elsbeth to French free-to-air network TF1 in France. The show features Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tascioni, the astute but unconventional attorney she played in both The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Wendell Pierce co-stars as NYPD Captain C.W. Wagner and Carra Patterson as Officer Kaya Blanke.

Studiocanal announced a raft of deals for The Night Logan Woke Up, the first TV series from famed Canadian film auteur Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, Tom at the Farm), with Netflix taking U.S. rights and international deals signed with Star Channel Japan, Sbs Australia, BeTV Belgium, Canal+ Poland, Wdr...

Above: first US teaser poster for Poor Things. Design by Vasilis Marmatakis.I don’t know whether it’s because of the power of Yorgos Lanthimos, or the popularity of Emma Stone, or the sheer genius of designer Vasilis Marmatakis, or a combination of all of them, but three out of the four most liked posters on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram over the past six months have all been posters for Lanthimos’s latest, Poor Things. The teaser above is now the most liked poster ever on my feed.Breaking up the Poor Things monopoly at number two is Polish designer Maks Bereski’s fan-art design for Ridley Scott’s yet-to-be-released Napoleon, which also went through the roof with over 4,000 likes when I posted it in June in conjunction with my article on Bereski and his favorite movie posters. Instagram likes are a fickle thing but it...

This year’s selection will be announced at 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by Roberto Cicutto and Alberto Barbera.

The line-up for the 80th Venice International Film Festival (August 30-September 9) will be revealed this morning at 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera

The press conference will be live-streamed below, and this page will be updated with the films as they are announced.

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers was originally set to open the festival but was pulled by MGM amid the actors’ strike. It was replaced by Edoardo De Angelis’ Comandante.

The closing film...

Co-production strand of French festival FIDMarseille ran July 6-7.

Slovenian filmmaker Gregor Božič’s new projectTales Of Fruits And Monsters took home three awards at FIDLab, the co-production strand of French festival FIDMarseille.

Tales Of Fruits And Monsters won the Providenza prize, a month-long writing residency; the Da Films – VOD Platform prize, a distribution package worth €5,000; and the Nebulae prize offering a slot in the 2023 edition of the DocLisboa co-production platform.

The film explores a Slovenian filmmaker-botanist and a Japanese neuroscientist who join forces to investigate the case of a pear tree believed to hold a miraculous power to defy time.

Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s hand-painted marvel “Chicken for Linda!” took home dual honors at the Annecy Animation Festival on Saturday, scooping up the festival’s top prize, the Cristal Award for best feature, as well as the Gan Foundation award for distribution.

A bittersweet childhood tale that finds screwball humor in mourning and melancholy, the French-language film premiered to some acclaim out of Cannes’ Acid sidebar last month, and was picked up for North American distribution by Gkids while competing in Annecy.

“We wanted something both funny and affecting,” said co-director Chiara Malta. “The two elements were never in conflict, because we made the film for children, putting ourselves in their perspectives while adopting their language.”

“We wanted a [joyful mess],” added co-director Sébastien Laudenbach. “The film is sad and funny. It’s full of energy and emotion, and as a result, the graphic style is dynamic as well.”

Hungary...

Disney is taking over May with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5) and The Little Mermaid (May 26) taking over screens across the country. Right when the first trails off, the second takes its place. So, the smaller titles need all the help they can get to compete. As always, a memorable poster can pave the way.

Windows/barriers

The most recognizable image you can use to sell a film about Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is The Girl with a Pearl Earring. Whether the Scarlett Johansson film or the countless memes (Pearl with a Girl Earring is a personal favorite), you don’t need to be well-versed in Renaissance art to know this masterpiece. The trick is therefore presenting it in a unique way.

For Close to Vermeer, the designers choose to simply take the title at its word. Wielding a magnifying glass, they bring us closer to this painting that we all know.

Titles comprise ’Lillian Gish’, ‘Lumiere’ and ’L’Adolescente’.

Three films directed by iconic French actress Jeanne Moreau have been sold to King Records for Japan by Paris-based Carlotta Films.

The titles, packaged under the banner Jeanne Moreau, Filmmaker, comprise Lumière, L’Adolescente and documentary Lillian Gish. The trio is also set to be screened in April’s Hong Kong International Film Festival.

The features’ restoration was initiated and supported by Fond Jeanne Moreau, and spotlights the lesser-known filmmaking talents of the late star of Jules And Jim, Seven Days… Seven Nights, Elevator To The Gallows and La Notte.

Lillian Gish is a...

Exclusive: Poorna Jagannathan has joined the cast of the untitled Apple Original Films thriller starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt from writer, producer, and director Jon Watts.

Hailing from Apple Studios, the thriller follows two lone-wolf fixers assigned to the same job. Previously announced cast also includes Austin Abrams and Amy Ryan.

Clooney produces alongside Grant Heslov through Smokehouse Pictures. Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and Dianne McGunigle also serve as producers.

Jagannathan is gearing up for the release of the fourth and final season of the Netflix coming-of-age series, Never Have I Ever. From the show’s inception, the actress has brought to life the character of Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar, a dermatologist and devoted mom to the show’s central character, Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan).

Jagannathan is also notably known for her portrayal of Safar Khan in the HBO drama miniseries The Night Of.

On April 7, rock icons Kiss will release the next installment of their Off The Soundboard official live bootleg series with Kiss – Off The Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, New York, 1984. Recorded live at the Mid-Hudson Arena on November 28th, 1984, during the Animalize World Tour, this is the fifth in a series of live releases by the band and will be available to stream and download, with a 2-lp standard black vinyl set, CD, and a limited edition 2-lp set pressed on 180g custard yellow vinyl which are available to pre-order now exclusively through the Official Kiss online store, Here.

The multi-platinum band’s fifth authorized Soundboard live release comes from the November 28th, 1984 Animalize Tour show at the Mid-Hudson Arena in Poughkeepsie, NY, featuring the only known soundboard recording with guitarist Mark St. John. While the tracks “Young And Wasted” and “Rock And Roll All Nite” from this historic show are incomplete due...

Seattle-based MindRiot Entertainment is teaming up with Panama’s Hypatia Films, an associate producer of Claire Denis’ Cannes Grand Prix winner “Stars at Noon,” on the groundbreaking documentary, “In Search of Atlantis,” based on the findings of Seattle native Dr. Jason Rubin who has used deductive reasoning, the writings of philosopher Plato and the most advanced satellite sonar imagery to pinpoint the location of the fabled lost island of Atlantis.

According to MindRiot co-founder and chief creative officer Jonathan Keasey, Dr. Rubin passed on other Hollywood suitors as he liked MindRiot’s approach to the content and the fact that it had marshalled the support of multiple universities, including deep sea explorer Don Walsh, the honorary president of the Explorers Club, and even European authorities, given the maritime jurisdiction of Rubin’s site in the Atlantic Ocean.

Denis is among the constellation of world talent descending on the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival.

Exclusive: Mammoth Pictures has announced that it’s bringing back its Mammoth Pictures Screenplay Competition, for the first time since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.

Mammoth looks with its competition to discover and support emerging writers, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. The competition is unique in that the Grand Prize-winning screenwriter will have their screenplay developed, financed and produced as a feature-length film by Mammoth Pictures, with the screenwriter receiving a standard pay scale. Mammoth Pictures has partnered with Coverfly for the first time this season to accept submissions for the competition on their platform, which can be entered now.

Mammoth’s new Head of Development Alexis Brontë is heading up this year’s competition, which is geared toward genre feature screenplays — particularly those under the speculative fiction umbrella in the categories of horror thriller, psychological thriller, mystery thriller, crime thriller, science fiction, dystopian and fantasy — though it remains...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month and amongst the highlights are a Ricky D’Ambrose double bill, including his new film The Cathedral, as well as a trio of films by Maurice Pialat, Gaspar Noé’s Vortex, David Osit’s Mayor, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, an expansion of their Tilda Swinton series, and more.

Also including films by Tsai Ming-liang, Sky Hopinka, Nacho Vigalondo, Anton Corbijn, and more check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

September 1 – Classical Period, directed by Ted Fendt | Ted Fendt Focus

September 2 – 2 Days in New York, directed by Julie Delpy

September 3 – Timecrimes, directed by Nacho Vigalondo

September 4 – Małni – Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore, directed by Sky Hopinka

September 6 – Mayor, directed by David Osit

September 7 – Friendship’s Death, directed by Peter Wollen | The One and Only: Tilda Swinton

September 8 – Hideous, directed by Yann Gonzalez | Brief Encounters

September 9 – The Cathedral,...

Peacock has set a streaming premiere for both Jurassic World Dominion and its extended, 14-minutes-longer edition.

Both the original cut and the Xl version will be released on the streamer Friday, Sept. 2, TVLine has learned.

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From Jurassic World franchise “architect” and director Colin Trevorrow, Dominion is set four years after Isla Nublar has been destroyed,...

Exclusive: Mammoth Pictures has acquired film and TV rights to the bestselling novella Diary of a Murderer from award-winning Korean author Young-ha Kim. The company’s Creative Director Kourosh Ahari is set to direct an English-language feature adaptation, marking the first production under the deal, from a script by Henry Chaisson.

Diary of a Murderer tells the story of a former serial killer stricken with Alzheimer’s disease and suffering from escalating memory loss. When his now peaceful life with his daughter is threatened by new killings mimicking his murders of decades past, he sets his sights on one final kill before he loses his memory completely: the new serial killer he suspects is stalking his daughter – all told in a series of notes the narrator writes to himself throughout his psychological descent into dementia.

Kim’s novella was previously...

Sydney, Aug 13 (Ians) Though Chris Lynn has registered himself as a marquee player in the UAE’s ILT20, he will still need a No-objection Certificate (Noc) from Cricket Australia, a move for which many are doubtful considering that the country has their Big Bash League (Bbl) running at the same time. Lynn, one of the major stars of the Bbl, had to leave Brisbane Heat ahead of the next edition of the tournament.

Now, former Australia captain Ian Chappell has said that if he was in Lynn’s place and hadn’t got the Noc to play in ILT20 in the UAE, he would have taken Cricket Australia (CA) to court. Currently, Lynn neither has a contract with Cricket Australia nor with his state side Queensland.

“To me, you then go back to the World Series Cricket days, where they took the board to court over restraint of trade. Is it a restraint of trade?...

When Drake stepped onstage to give his acceptance speech for the BMI Songwriter of the Year Award in 2011, one of the names he shouted out — along with his mom, Kanye West, and Andre 3000 — belonged to Phonte. The name of the rapper from the acclaimed North Carolina duo Little Brother probably wasn’t familiar to many of the fans who’d been suffering through a broadcast about music licensing just to see the emergent Canadian superstar. But the plaudit made sense. The melodic marriage of singing and rapping that Phonte...

This What We Do in The Shadows review contains spoilers.

What We Do in the Shadows Season 4 Episode 6

Speak now, because you’ll be holding your peace for the duration of What We Do in the Shadows’ “The Wedding,” if Laszlo (Matt Berry) has anything to say about it. Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) is living up to his name. The once-living and still blood-thirsty medieval warlord will stop at nothing to procure the perfect wedding, and sees only treachery and betrayal in its path. His campaign is almost Shakespearean in its tragic comedy, and plays out well for the groundlings.

The quest for the perfect mix of matrimonial makings grinds the Best Man, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), magnificently under its weight. The former-familiar now bodyguard-and-embezzling-bookkeeper bottles more conflicting emotions and anguish than a Djinn’s (Anoop Desaigenie) lamp could contain, so when Guillermo cracks in his first onscreen appearance, it is a wish fulfilled.

HBO has narrowed down the premiere date of The White Lotus Season 2.

According to Variety, the premium cabler will allow viewers to check back into the show's satire-filled world in October.

Variety first revealed the news, but we don't have a confirmed date in October.

If we had to guess, we'd say it will arrive later in the month, after House of the Dragon wraps its freshman season.

The new series will be set in Sicily, with Jennifer Coolidge returning in her widely praised Tayna role.

She was the heart of the freshman season, which told a compelling murder mystery.

Jon Gries, who played Greg, a guest who fell for Tanya in the first season, will also be back.

Theo James and Meaghan Fahy are set to play married couple Cameron and Daphne Babcock.

They join new series regulars F. Murray Abraham (Mythic Quest), Adam Dimarco, Tom Hollander (The Night...

In exactly two months’ time, the second edition of Electric Shadows will open at De Cinema in Antwerp. Starting today, the films to be screened between 29/9 and 2/10 will be gradually revealed.

Last year’s festival ended with a screening of Tsai Ming-liang’s latest feature film Days (2020) and his work will return during the next edition. A program of his most recent shorts accentuates Tsai’s continued focus on patient observation within small-scale projects.

The Night

The Night (2021) offers a look at street life in Hong Kong after the sun has set and the frenzy of the city Tsai calls the Pearl of the East has subsided. Local music played a vital role in the creation of this short. It did too for The Moon and the Tree (2021), in which Tsai films two performers: ‘Moon singer’ Lee Pei-jing and actor Chang Feng.

Both shorts absorb the rhythm of their locations and the people inhabiting them.

Leticia Dolera, co-writer, lead director and star of the Movistar Plus-HBO Max produced “Perfect Life,” a 2019 double Canneseries winner, is developing a new series, “Puberty,” which looks sure to be one of the hottest titles at this month’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment.

Now in development, “Puberty” will be presented in Conecta Fiction’s High-End Series section.

Penned by Dolera and writer-producer Almudena Monzú and to be directed by Dolera, “Puberty” (“Pubertat”) turns on an alleged sexual assault among adolescents, which sheds light on the sexual taboos of the adults in charge of them.

“Can a 13-year-old boy be a sexual aggressor? And who’s responsible? The under-age boy, his family or society? Surely all of them,” the synopsis runs.

“‘Puberty’ talks about the weight of taboo and how this is transmitted between generation and generation, at a cultural, emotional and psychological level,” Dolera commented. “One of the big taboos...

Getting back into the first-time host groove, this week’s “Saturday Night Live” brought in “Only Murders in the Building’s” Selena Gomez to do the honors.

Host: Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez’s monologue was quite charming, and by the end she had the live audience eating out the palm of her hand as she sang the “Barney” theme song. Seriously. She even bust out a solid Miley Cyrus impression, making for the first of two great “accent” moments in the episode from her. (The other was in “Irish Play.”)

Then after revealing the advice she got from her legendary co-stars and friends Steve Martin and Martin Short, Gomez set out to do what all “SNL” cast members hope the host will do: She tried to find romance. While the live audience definitely seemed to want her to end up with Punkie Johnson, sadly, that was not what the sketch “Intuition” ended up being about.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” star Benedict Cumberbatch stopped by Studio 8H this week to host “Saturday Night Live” for the second time. The last time he hosted was back in November of 2016, just a few days before Election Day. This time around, his hosting stint came off the heels of the leaked Supreme Court Roe v. Wade draft — while also being the Mother’s Day episode, which meant this episode also had plenty of material to work with.

Host: Benedict Cumberbatch

Cumberbatch’s first time hosting provided the memorable “Why Is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot?” sketch, showing just how game he is when it comes to poking fun at his — let’s say, distinct — physical appearance. This episode’s cold open also continued down that path, specifically when it came to his — let’s also say distinct — smile. But the point of this monologue was more the Mother’s Day of it all,...

The two-hour series finale of Marvel TV's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", included the episode "The End Is at Hand", directed by Chris Cheramie and "What We're Fighting For", directed by Kevin Tancharoen, following a 'Life Model Decoy' of 'Phil Coulson', as his team of 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' agents return to their timeline to stop the 'Chronicoms':

"...after all is said and done, one year later, the team virtually gather at the 'Swordfish' speakeasy to reminisce about their time together. 

"'Mack' continues to lead 'S.H.I.E.L.D.', with 'Yo-Yo' as one of his top agents, 'May' is a professor at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s 'Coulson Academy' with 'Flint' as one of her students, 'Fitz' and 'Simmons' have retired to raise 'Alya'...

"...'Johnson' explores the cosmos with 'Sousa' and 'Kora' on 'Zephyr Three' and Coulson travels...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

All the Old Knives (Janus Metz Pedersen)

All the Old Knives wants you to sweat and swoon in equal measure. Playing in the same tried and true sandbox as some of the great espionage thrillers before it, director Janus Metz Pedersen’s adaptation of Olen Steinhaur’s 2015 novel traffics in all necessary trappings of its genre. Between the clandestine correspondence and popped peacoat collars against wet European streets, it’s certainly not shy about cinematic crushes. This infatuation is wholly appropriate, because––chilly demeanor notwithstanding––All the Old Knives is a burning romantic at heart. – Conor O. (full review)

Where to Stream: Amazon Prime

Bull (Paul Andrew Williams)

It’s been ten years since Bull’s (Neil Maskell) son Aiden was taken...

Ariana DeBose is taking home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Anita in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. She is the second actress to win the Oscar for playing the Broadway character, following Rita Moreno‘s win in 1962.

Oscars Winners List – Updating Live

DeBose becomes the third Latina to win the statuette for Best Supporting Actress after Moreno and Mercedes Ruehl who won in 1992 for The Fisher King.

The North Carolina native is also making history as the first queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar.

“Imagine this little girl in the backseat of a white Ford focus, look into her eyes and you see an openly queer woman of color, an Afro-Latina who found her strength in life through art,” DeBose said during her acceptance speech.

“So to anybody who has ever questioned your identity— ever, ever ever—or you find...

No two cities are alike. Because of this, every city has a different kind of urban consciousness. Especially after dark. Shot in 2019, Tsai Ming-Liang’s experimental short “The Night” documents the heartbeat of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay over the span of a few hours after the sun has set.

The Night is Screening at the Museum of the Moving Image

Because of the very nature of this short, viewers are forced to look for subtleties within long shots of city ambiance. It might not seem like much is going on at first, but closer examination brings forward a few simple narratives of everyday life: two elderly ladies desperately try to hail a taxi; a restaurant’s open door showcases a woman eating soup while people pass by on a sidewalk; hundreds of people cross the street at different moments. Getting a small glimpse into the lives of these people is simultaneously mundane and beautiful.

First Look, the Museum of Moving Image's annual showcase, scoping new, innovative films from around the world, is back and I'm happy to announce that it's a real treasure trove this year. This year's lineup includes Murina, a Cannes Camera d'Or (Best First Feature) winner from Croatia, two documentaries by Ukrainian master filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, Valentyn Vasyanovych's all-too-precient realization of the Russian invasion in Reflection, Chinese artist Qiu Jiongjiong's spectacularly cinematic display of history and art, A New Old Play, Tsai Ming-liang's love letter to flourescent light-soaked Hong Kong's afterhours in The Night, Adèle Excharpoulos starring satire on capitalism, Zero Fucks Given, just to name a few. The festival runs Wednesday, March 16 through Sunday, March 20. For tickets and info, please visit MoMI's website....

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

Stay the Night SXSW Film Festival Narrative Spotlight Section Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Renuka Jeyapalan Writer: Renuka Jeyapalan Cast: Andrea Bang, Joe Scarpellino, Humberly González, Raymond Ablack Screened at: SXSW Film Festival Online, LA, 3/13/22 Opens: March 12th, 2022 All it takes is one chance encounter to change a person’s life. There […]

The post SXSW 2022: Stay the Night Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Above: 2021 UK quad poster for 4K restoration of The 400 Blows. Design by The Posterhouse.50,000 Movie Poster of the Day fans can’t be wrong. Yes, just this week my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram—a feed that was a spin-off from this column—surpassed 50,000 followers, which is a little ways off Cristiano Ronaldo’s 411 million and still a tenth of the half a million that Movie Poster of the Day used to have on Tumblr, though I never quite believed those numbers. But I put a lot of faith in my Movie Poster of the Day followers and so every six months I like to collect and rank the most “liked” posters that I have posted in the previous 26 weeks as some sort of bellwether of popular taste.The 400 Blows poster above racked up 3,168 likes earlier this year, making it the third most-liked poster I’ve ever posted (for...

by Leon Overee

“Precious Is the Night” is Singapore’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards. Hoping to achieve the herculean task of getting his film nominated is the much-lauded filmmaker, Wayne Peng. The director, known for his expertise in commercials, helms the title that would be the Southeast Asian nation’s fifteenth entry at the Oscars since “The Kingdom and The Beauty” (1959).

A piercing gaze starts off this dark and moody thriller that oozes art house charm right at the get-go. We are introduced to one contemporary writer (Chuando Tan) who stumbles upon a pile of 1969 newspaper articles detailing the deaths of a wealthy socialite Ku Yang (played by Taiwanese model Nayeli in her film debut) and a physician, Dr Tan (also played by Chuando), who, strangely, is a complete Doppelganger of the writer.

The excited scribe begins to probe into the mystery of...

Above: Italian poster for The Girl with a Pistol. Artist: Giorgio Olivetti.Monica Vitti, who died on February 2nd at the age of 90, was an icon of modern cinema—one of its most famous and most beautiful faces—but she is best known outside Italy for just four films, all of which she made for her one-time partner Michelangelo Antonioni. In the original Italian poster for L’avventura (1960), the film that made both their names, her head is tilted to the side, her face barely visible: she is mostly a shock of blonde hair. But in the posters that were created as that film travelled the globe, and in her ensuing posters for Antonioni's La notte (1961), L’eclisse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), she gets her close-up, usually staring into the middle distance or directly at the viewer. Always impassive, never smiling. But of course, in a career that lasted another 25 years there were many more films,...

The Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 11th edition of First Look, the Museum’s festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 16–20, 2022. The Festival introduces New York audiences to formally inventive works that seek to redefine the art form while engaging in a wide range of subjects and styles. The 2022 lineup includes both nonfiction and fiction, features and shorts, as well as forms that fall outside the boundaries of traditional theatrical distribution, from gallery presentations to live performances to artist talks. This year, the festival will premiere 38 works, including 18 features representing more than 30 countries. Artists will appear both in person and remotely.

“Now in its 11th year, First Look has evolved into an event reflective of both the current state of the cinematic arts and MoMI’s curatorial character and curiosity,” said Eric Hynes, Curator of Film.

The 11th annual First Look festival at the Museum of the Moving Image released its star-studded lineup February 7.

The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.

The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...