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Rights to ‘Man in Black,” one of two documentary films by China’s Wang Bing to appear in Official Selection at Cannes this year, have been picked up by specialty sales agency Asian Shadows.

The 60-minute film, which will debut as a special screening, is a portrait of 86-year-old Wang Xilin, one of China’s most important modern classical composers and is now lives in exile in Germany. It was made in close collaboration with French cinematographer Caroline Champetier, whose credits include Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors,” Amos Gitai’s “Promised Land” and Andre Techine’s “Alice and Martin.”

During the 1960s, when China’s Cultural Revolution forced intellectuals into the fields and stripped the middle classes of their wealth, Wang Xilin was the was the target of severe persecution, including beatings, imprisonment and torture. The film examines the body and soul of a man scarred by a life of suffering,...

Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), the demon child of the 2009 horror thriller “Orphan,” was a 9-year-old psycho freak who dressed like a frumpy Victorian doll and spoke in a Russian accent, which upped the ante on her malevolence by making her seem not just a junior devil but a junior devil from the land of Putin. Movies about monster children go way back, and after “The Omen” and “The Brood” and “Ringu” and so many others, there wasn’t a lot of room left for a pulp horror film like “Orphan” to surprise us. But the movie, in its schlocky blunderbuss way, did have an original twist: Esther was not, in fact, 9 years old — she was a woman in her early 30s named Leena who had a rare hormonal disorder that stunted her physical development. The folly of “Orphan” is that it wasn’t much different from the film it would have...

During his eclectic career so far British actor Shubham Saraf has played a variety of roles.

Saraf, who studied at the U.K.’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama and France’s École Philippe Gaulier, played an aristocrat in newly independent India in Mira Nair’s BBC/Netflix series “A Suitable Boy”; a policeman in Netflix procedural “Criminal: U.K.” and a PR advisor in Jed Mercurio’s BBC series “Bodyguard.”

The actor stars opposite Charlie Hunnam and Alexander Siddig in the upcoming Apple TV+ adaptation of Gregory David Roberts’ bestseller “Shantaram,” which tells the story of a heroin addict and convicted bank robber who, in the 1980s, flees Australia to India, where he reinvents himself as a doctor and a gangster in the slums of Bombay.

Saraf’s role is under wraps at the moment but he describes the process as an “intense life-altering experience.” Once cast, in...

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For British actress Sarah Niles, therapist Sharon Fieldstone on Ted Lasso was one of the toughest roles in her career. The job was in the middle of the pandemic, and the role came to her as she was hoping to do more comedy after her serious work on I May Destroy You as well as a role in a version of Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters set in Nigeria. She admits that she hadn’t watched Ted Lasso before auditioning for it, to prepare for the fact that the second season isn’t as upbeat as the first.

Instead, it shines light on Ted’s (Jason Sudeikis) mental health struggles, and Niles plays the therapist who eventually succeeds in breaking through Ted’s optimistic, wisecracking surface and revealing what’s underneath. Niles says she loved her time on the show and that...

Stars: Lindsay Burdge, Jennifer Lafleur, Aleksa Palladino, Beth Grant, Ross Partridge | Written and Directed by Sarah Adina Smith

Originally premièring at the Fantasia International Film festival in 2014 and going on to win the Breakthrough Audience Award at AFI Fest, as well as Best Feature Film at the Denver International Film Festival, The Midnight Swim is now being digitally re-released alongside a special edition Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome/Yellow Veil Pictures. As a fan of found footage movies, I was excited to see this little known film.

We immediately meet three sisters who are returning to their childhood home after their mother has disappeared (presumed dead) after deep-sea diving into a mysterious lake near the home. Spirit Lake is apparently so deep that no one has ever managed to find the bottom. As the three sisters decide what to do with the house, the lake and its surroundings are the location...

The Academy (Afaa) revealed the nominees for the 15th Asian Film Awards today. Thirty-six films from eight Asian regions will compete for 16 awards. China’s One Second, South Korea’s The Book of Fish, India’s The Disciple, and two Japanese films, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Wife of a Spy, compete for this year’s “Best Film Award.”

Three Hong Kong films were nominated for this year’s Afa, including Drifting, directed by Jun Li, nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Limbo, directed by Cheang Pou-soi, was nominated for Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best sound; Adam Wong’s The Way We Keep Dancing was nominated for Best Original Music.

The Afaa is honoured that legendary South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong will be this year’s Jury President. Lee was the lifetime award recipient at the 13th Asian Film Awards.He won the “Best...

Vanessa Kirby has joined the cast of “The Son,” Florian Zeller’s follow up to his Oscar-winning feature debut “The Father,” Variety has learned.

Kirby, who was Oscar-nominated for “Pieces of a Woman,” will star in the film opposite Laura Dern and Hugh Jackman. As with “The Father,” “The Son” was adapted by Zeller and Christopher Hampton (“Dangerous Liaisons”), from Zeller’s critically acclaimed stage play. Zeller and Hampton just won the best adapted screenplay Oscar.

“The Son” focuses on Peter (Jackman) as his busy life with new partner Emma (Kirby) and their baby is thrown into disarray when his ex-wife Kate (Dern) turns up with their teenage son, Nicholas. The young man is is troubled, distant and angry, playing truant from school for months. Peter strives to be a better father, searching to help his son with those intimate and instinctive moments of family happiness. But the weight of...

Festival to open with Srdan Golubovic’s ‘Father’ and close with Aurel’s ‘Josep’.

South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (Jiff) has announced its second pandemic edition will again run as a hybrid event, but with more physical screenings than last year.

The festival is set to run April 29 to May 8 in cinemas and venues around Jeonju as well as on streaming platform wavve. Jiff has selected 186 films from 48 countries, of which 141 will screen online.

“Last year’s Jeonju International Film Festival was [one of] the first to open after the pandemic struck the world so we didn’t have a...

Pixar’s “Soul” was joined by Japanese hit sensation “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” at the top of the box office rankings in South Korea over the weekend to Jan. 31. Together they lifted nationwide theatrical revenues by 30% compared with the previous, dismal session.

“Soul” held up very strongly in its second weekend of release, scoring $2.32 million, down only 9% on its first outing. That gave it a $7.10 million cumulative since Jan. 20, according to data from the Korean Film Council’s Kobis film tracking service.

The film’s market share slipped from 84% to 59%, however, as it was joined by a viable new release contender. “Demon Slayer,” which has become the all-time top grossing film in Japan, and has scored well in other Asian markets including Taiwan, started its official release in Korea with $881,000. Together with previews, that gives the film a cumulative of $1.63 million.

Third place went to Korean-made, live action film “Three Sisters.

Conchata Ferrell, a three-time Emmy nominee who appeared in more than 200 episodes of Two and a Half Men and was a regular on L.A. Law‘s sixth season, died Monday at Sherman Oaks Hospital of complications following a cardiac arrest. She was 77 as a result She died peacefully surrounded by family.

Ferrell probably is best known for her role as no-nonsense housekeeper Berta on the hit CBS comedy Two and a Half Men. The role earned her a pair of Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy nominations in 2005 and 2007.

“She was a beautiful human,” Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer said. “I’m crying for the woman I’ll miss, and the joy she brought so many.” Added fellow Men star Charlie Sheen, “An absolute sweetheart, a consummate pro, a genuine friend. Berta, your housekeeping was a tad suspect, your ‘people’ keeping was perfect.”

The veteran...

The 25th Busan International Film Festival to close with animation ‘Josee, The Tiger And The Fish’.

The 25th Busan International Film Festival is set to open with the world premiere of Septet: The Story Of Hong Kong, directed by Sammo Hung, Ann Hui, Patrick Tam, Yuen Wo Ping, Johnnie To, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark.

The omnibus film, which received a Cannes 2020 label, was initiated by To as a tribute to his home city and shot on film in honour of the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, during which all seven of the directors first emerged. The segment directed...

Veteran actor David Schramm, who portrayed airline owner Roy Biggins on Wings for eight seasons, has died at the age of 73, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Schramm’s passing was announced Sunday by his publicist, Rick Miramontez, who said the actor died in New York. No additional details were given.

More from TVLineTim Daly Memorializes the True Casualty of Wings' Big Plane CrashJoe Exotic Casting Call: Which Actor's Got the Eye of the Tiger (King)? Vote!TVLine Items: Genius: Aretha Delayed, Bernie Visits Late Night and More

The actor’s career spanned four decades, including his stint on Wings from...

Political turbulence is making it tough for filmmakers in Turkey with ambitions to make movies that can travel globally. But despite many impediments, Turkish auteurs are still managing to maintain a significant presence on the festival circuit.

The past year has seen auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan back at Cannes with “The Wild Pear Tree”; newcomer Omar Atay’s “Brothers” bowed to positive reviews at Karlovy Vary; Tolga Karacelik’s “Butterfiles” make a splash at Sundance, where it won the Grand Jury prize; and Mahmout Fazil Coskun’s biting “The Announcement,” about a failed 1963 Turkish army coup, scooped the Special Jury nod in Venice’s Horizons section, among other outings.

Kicking off 2019 with an auspicious start is Emin Alper’s third feature, “A Tale of Three Sisters,” competing for a Berlin Golden Bear. Alper’s politically charged drama “Frenzy,” set in a dystopian Istanbul, won Venice’s Jury Special Prize in...

In a small village in the mountains of northeastern Turkey, three peasant sisters uneasily reunite under their father’s rustic roof in Emin Alper’s opaque, oddly theatrical “A Tale of Three Sisters.” Stunningly lensed in widescreen amidst the rocky peaks, the film struggles to excite admiration outside the visuals, forcing the viewer to vainly search for what exactly it was Alper wished to achieve. Bearing no evident connection to Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” apart perhaps from the girls’ desire, like Irina Sergeyevna, to live in town, this ultimately uninteresting drama is undermined by characters of little discernible intelligence whose plight will leave many viewers apathetic, partly due to the way dialogue seems to be artificially recited rather than naturally delivered. Outside a few festivals and Turkish showcases, it’s hard to imagine who’ll buy this “Tale.”

Unlike Alper’s previous feature “Frenzy,” with its clear parallels to the political situation today,...

Peng Fei was born into a family of opera performers in Beijing. Under his family’s influence, he developed a strong passion for the arts. After graduating from high school he went to Paris to study film at L’Institut International de l’Image et du Son, where he majored in directing. After seven years of immersion in European culture, he returned to China and became Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s assistant. His debut feature, “Underground Flagrance”, was selected at Venice Days and has been released in France in 2016.

On the occasion of his latest film, “Taste of Rice Flower” at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian cinema, we speak with him about his life and career, the film, China and the issue with people living their villages and their children behind, and many other topics.

How important for your career was the fact that you were born into a family of opera performers?...

The issue regarding millions of Chinese workers moving into urban areas to exploit the work opportunities and leaving their children behind, either with older relatives or even on their own has been a major subject, both in the country and abroad, with Wang Bing’s documentary “Three Sisters” highlighting the fact, in the most dramatic fashion. Pengfei deals with the same issue, although in a much “lighter” style.

The Taste of Rice Flower screened at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian cinema

Ye Nan, who belongs to the Dai minority, has been working in the city for some years and has left her 13-year-old daughter, Nan Hang with her grandfather in her native village in Yunnan, at the borders between China and Burma. Ye Nan has adopted the ways of the city, both in her appearance and her everyday life but is surprised to find that the children in the...

Anyone drawn to the protracted runtimes of Bela Tarr and Lav Diaz will likely be excited by the prospect of Wang Bing’s latest offering: “Dead Souls,” which clocks in at a prodigious 495 minutes. If you’ve never seen an eight-hour-plus documentary about China’s late-’50s re-education camps and the misery therein, this is surely the place to start.

Here’s the synopsis: “In Gansu Province, northwest China, lie the remains of countless prisoners abandoned in the Gobi Desert sixty years ago. Deemed ‘ultra-rightists’ in the Communist Party’s Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, they starved to death in the Jiabiangou and Mingshui reeducation camps. Dead Souls invites us to meet the survivors of the camps to find out firsthand who these persons were, the hardships they were forced to endure, and what became their destiny.”

Bing’s most recent film, “Mrs. Fang,” won the Golden Leopard at last year’s...

Often when one is reviewing a film, there can be a need to ascribe some kind of motivation to a director. While yes, we have to admit that a film is often the collected works of many different artists, it’s hard not to think of the medium as wholly more interesting when the mad pursuits of one single creator’s vision are on screen. That’s why it’s so intriguing in the case of Wang Bing’s eight-hour, twelve-years-in-the-making epic Dead Souls, to come away with the feeling of what’s being projected onscreen is nothing other than humility. Naturally, one would have this thought when the majority of a behemoth running time is spent dedicated to elderly citizens recounting their harrowing experiences back in the 1950s and 60s.

The specific subject itself is the survivors of China’s “re-education” camps populated by those who were deemed rightists,...

What a surprising city Rotterdam is and the Festival and Cinemart are full of surprises too.

Being in The Netherlands is like a homecoming for me. My first major job in the film industry was with 20th Century Fox International and City Fox Films in Amsterdam in 1975 which is when I first attended the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, three years after its founding by Huub Bals. It was much smaller then. Iffr’s logo is a tiger, loosely based on the M.G.M. lion as an alternative. From the beginning, the festival has profiled itself as a promoter of alternative, innovative and non-commercial films, with an emphasis on the Far East and developing countries. It has become one of the most important events in the film world, an integral part of the winter circuit of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festivals.

“Fox and HIs Friends”

Except for my...

Though the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) is going on its 46th year and its Cinemart on its 35th, 2017 marks only the third year since festival director Bero Beyer, a former producer, continues to reshape the event into a more focused selection of film projects whose life on the film circuit will have an impact beyond the festival scene itself, a field that is becoming increasingly crowded for many reasons which would take another article to explain.

But there will be quite a discussion about this very issue.The Rotterdam Cinemart, the first co-production market ever, started in 1982 and brought the then-small international film community together in a uniquely egalitarian and intimate way that only the Dutch could offer. In many ways it became a victim of its own success, mentoring similar events in Hong Kong and So. Korea and then copied by numerous others, but without the care and warmth of the original event.

Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Alexander Zeldovich's Target (2011) is playing exclusively December 16, 2016 - January 14, 2017 in the United States.All utopias are alike; each dystopia is dystopian in its own way. But is it a utopia or dystopia we are talking about here? In Alexander Zeldovich’s Target, Russia of the near future is prosperous and comfortably numb: energy sources for export still abound, heavy trucks rush along the Guangzhou–Paris highway replenishing the treasury with toll money, and sleek skyscrapers of Moscow symbolize the country’s welfare in stone, steel and concrete. Victor, the Minister of Natural Resource– “king of the mountain,” as he calls himself—has it all:a large, hi-tech apartment, a Chinese biographer and appropriately spiritless facial features. He is the perfect picture of a man who has made it in a land of bureaucratic capitalism. The film’s other dramatis personae...

A total of 26 film projects will participate in this year’s co-production market in Rotterdam.Scroll down for full line-up

The line-up for the 2017 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) co-production market CineMart has been revealed.

The 34th edition of the co-pro event features 26 projects and will run Jan 29 – Feb 1 as part of the Iffr Pro Days industry strand of the wider festival (Jan 25 – Feb 5).

Film-makers presenting projects at this year’s edition include Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro, whose 2015 feature Neon Bull [pictured] won prizes in Venice and Toronto. His next project is titled Centre Of The Earth.

Also participating in the event will be UK director Ben Rivers, whose credits include The Sky Trembles And The Earth Is Afraid And The Two Eyes Are Not Brothers. His latest project, After London, is being produced by Ben Wheatley’s Rook Films. Rivers previously won Rotterdam’s Tiger Award for his 2014 short film Things.

Nepalese director...

This was a busy year at Tiff, where I was a juror for Fipresci, helping to award a prize for best premiere in the Discovery section. Not only did this mean that some other films had to take a back burner—sadly, I did not see Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge—but my writing time was a bit compromised as well. Better late than never? That is for you, Gentle Reader, to decide.Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany)So basic in the telling—a record of several days’ worth of visitors mostly to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienberg, Germany—Austerlitz is a film that in many ways exemplifies the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. What is the net effect for humanity when, faced with the drive to remember the unfathomable, we employ the grossly inadequate tools at our disposal?Austerlitz takes its name from W. G. Sebald’s final novel.

To help sift through the increasing number of new releases (independent or otherwise), the Weekly Film Guide is here! Below you’ll find basic plot, personnel and cinema information for all of this week’s fresh offerings.

Starting this month, we’ve also put together a list for the entire month. We’ve included this week’s list below, complete with information on screening locations for films in limited release.

See More: Here Are All the Upcoming Movies in Theaters for July 2016

Here are the films opening theatrically in the U.S. the week of Friday, July 8. All synopses provided by distributor unless listed otherwise.

Wide

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Director: Jake Szymanski

Cast: Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Zac Efron

Synopsis: Two brothers place an online ad to find dates for a wedding and the ad goes viral.

The Secret Life of Pets

Director: Chris Renaud,...

Prince Harry made a particularly smiley appearance on Wednesday when he visited with children in the United Kingdom. The famous royal first stopped by the Blair Project at the Three Sisters Raceway, a program that helps disadvantaged kids, and later made an appearance at the Wigan Youth Zone, a facility that provides a safe and fun environment for young people with disabilities. Dressed in a gray button-down and black pants, Harry looked at ease as he greeted people with high fives and a huge grin. This is just one of the many times he has graced us with his charm over the past few months. Aside from having the sweetest response to a little girl's proposal and playing rugby with a group of children in Stockport, he practically made us swoon when he joined Coldplay on stage at Kensington Palace. If you just can't get enough of the royal, be...

Exclusive: Chinese drama centres on the culture of hit-and-run incidents in the country.

Hong Kong-based Asian Shadows has picked up worldwide rights excluding China and North America to Johnny Ma’s Old Stone (Lao Shi), which premiered in the Forum strand of last month’s Berlin Film Festival.

The film, which marks Ma’s feature debut, follows a taxi driver in a small Chinese town who faces losing his job, friends and family after refusing to follow custom and do a hit-and-run.

Produced by C2M Media and Shanghai Junrui Cultural Communication Co, the film will receive its Asian premiere in the Young Cinema Competition at the upcoming Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff). It also has two press and industry screenings at Filmart. Producers on the film include Wu Xianjian, Chi-an Lin, Jing Wang and Sarah Stallard.

Asian Shadows has also sold French rights to Wang Bing’s documentary Ta’ang, which also premiered...

While no one is making video essays about his work, and he doesn't grab the immediate attention of folks like Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, or the Coens, Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of our favorite filmmakers around these parts. The man behind lovely and affecting dramas like "Like Father, Like Son," "Still Walking," "Nobody Knows," and "After Life," his pictures are distinctly Hirokazu Kore-eda-esque, and that continues with his latest, "Our Little Sister." Read More: Review: Hirokazu Kore-Eda's 'Our Little Sister' Starring Sachi Koda, Yoshino Koda, Chika Koda, and Suzu Asano, and based on the graphic novel "Umimachi Diary" by Akimi Yoshida, the story follows three sisters who meet their teenage half-sister for the first time at their father's funeral. Here's the synopsis:  Three sisters - Sachi, Yoshino and Chika - live together in a large house in the city of Kamakura. When their father -.

Three Sisters (Les Trois Soeurs) director and star of Paolo Virzi's Human Capital, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

This year's New York Rendez-Vous with French Cinema opens with Guillaume Nicloux's Valley Of Love, starring Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert. Jacques Audiard's Cannes Palme d’Or winner Dheepan closes the festival. Melvil Poupaud, Julie Delpy, Alice Winocour, Diane Kruger, Maïwenn, Louis Garrel, Emmanuelle Bercot, Eva Husson, Rudi Rosenberg, Emmanuel Finkiel, Danielle Arbid, Nicolas Pariser, Clémence Poésy, Nabil Ayouch, Grégoire Hetzel, Mathieu Lamboley, Alain Resnais' composer Mark Snow, Huppert, Nicloux and Bruni Tedeschi are expected to attend.

Bercot's Standing Tall (Catherine Deneuve, Sara Forestier, Benoît Magimel, Rod Paradot); Winocour’s Disorder (Diane Kruger, Matthias Schoenaerts); Pariser's The Great Game (André Dussollier, Poésy) and Bruni Tedeschi's Three Sisters with cinematographer Simon Beaufils - who also brilliantly shot Paolo Virzi's study of capitalism in crisis Human Capital - are four of the early bird highlights.

With over 1,000 refugees housed temporarily in Berlin's famed Tempelhof Airport standing as an unavoidable reminder of the scores who are staying in the city and elsewhere in the country and the untold numbers trying to get to Germany and other countries of the EU, the on-going migrant crisis of Europe and around the world has thankfully been reflected by a strong presence at the Berlin International Film Festival.In the competition, for Fire at Sea Italian documentarian Gianfranco Rosi (El Sicario - Room 164) traveled to Lampedusa, Italy's southern most island, located between Sicily and Tunisia and a frequent landfall for migrants coming from the North African coast. There, the film splits its attention between the old island life of the residents—centered on a precocious young local boy, a fond hunter with a lazy eye—and the new rescue activities launched from Lampedusa and their interaction with the influx of refugees.

In this era of digital cameras and laptop editing, ambitious video essays and filmmaker documentaries are hardly the uncommon encounter they had been when Claire Denis made her film for the Cinéma, de notre temps television series, Jacques Rivette - Le veilleur—a movie on a lot of our minds with the passing of the New Wave master last week. Yet, as with fiction films, while the increased democratization and affordability of movie-making apparatus has meant more such essays and more such documentaries, the quality of this greater proliferation varies widely. Which is why it was such a pleasure to come in Rotterdam across two stupendous examples of each: Night and Fog in the Zona, Jung Sung-il's long-form documentary on Chinese independent filmmaker Wang Bing, and Juke: Passages from the Films of Spencer Williams, American teacher and filmmaker Thom Andersen’s video essay on the culturally forgotten films by the African American director.

Ponce de León may have been searching for the fountain of youth, but we're more interested in getting old. While doctors and nutritionists can offer up suggestions on how to live a long, healthy life, the people who know the most about reaching a ripe age are those who have already done it - namely centenarians. In order to unlock the secrets of living a long life, we've rounded up the tips and tricks that people who have reached 100 years of age have dished out. Their advice can sometimes be contradictory (some say to eat healthy, another says to drink...

Ponce de León may have been searching for the fountain of youth, but we're more interested in getting old. While doctors and nutritionists can offer up suggestions on how to live a long, healthy life, the people who know the most about reaching a ripe age are those who have already done it - namely centenarians. In order to unlock the secrets of living a long life, we've rounded up the tips and tricks that people who have reached 100 years of age have dished out. Their advice can sometimes be contradictory (some say to eat healthy, another says to drink...

Wang Bing, Adam Wong, Pema Tseden and Lav Diaz (pictured) among directors with projects in line-up.Scoll down for full line-up

The 14th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf) (March 14-16) has revealed its full line-up of 31 projects, including new works from renowned filmmakers such as Wang Bing, Pema Tseden and Lav Diaz as well as from new talents.

Hong Kong is well-represented with five projects, including The Way We Dance director Adam Wong’s new project Trains In The Night; 2012 Hong Kong Film Awards best new director Jessey Tsang’s erotic feature The Lady Improper; and Dot 2 Dot director Amos Why’s adaptation of award-winning suspense novel Napping Kid.

Other Chinese-language projects from Taiwan and China include Taiwan actress Rene Liu’s directorial debut Lieutenant Yi, which will be produced by her regular collaborator Sylvia Chang; new director Huang Zi’s From Black And White To Shades Of Grey, produced by Monga...

Hong Kong-based sales company Asian Shadows has picked up world rights (outside Greater China) to Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s Tharlo, which will receive its world premiere in Venice’s Orizzonti section.

Adapted from Pema Tseden’s novel, the film follows a 40-year-old Tibetan shepherd, who can recite Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book from memory, but whose quiet life changes when he is asked to go to the city to have his photo taken for his first ID card.

The film, which premieres in Venice on September 4, has also been selected for Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema section. It was produced by Beijing-based Heaven Pictures, which also produced Berlinale title River Road and Kaili Blues, which premiered in Locarno.

“Tharlo is typical of Tibetans of the present generation,” said Pema Tseden. “This is a story that shows them in a state of confusion, disorientation and desensitization. The film is in black-and-white as the ruggedness in the...

As usual, the Masters programme is cholk-full of carryover items from world renowned auteurs who’ve already premiered last February (Berlin), this past May (Cannes) or as part of the upcoming action on the Lido (Venice). Of the thirteen titles and personalities that need no introduction, it’s the likes of Hong Sang-soo (Locarno) and the Venice preemed, and not yet picked up items from Skolimowski, Bellocchio & Sokurov (all potential Golden Lion winners) that are still sight unseen for several North American based cinephiles. Here are the baker’s dozen of items:

11 Minutes (11 Minut) – Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Ireland

North American Premiere

A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a hectic paramedics...

While the Toronto International Film Festival has its fair share of both Hollywood and Canadian productions, the festival has also cultivated a strong look at foreign and arthouse films during its run. Most of these films get their own spotlight in the Masters programme, which featured films from Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Winterbottom, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan in its 2014 lineup. With the 2015 incarnation fast approaching, Tiff announced some of the films that will be seen as part of this year’s Masters lineup. The films, with their official synopses, can be seen below.

Masters

11 Minutes, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, making its North American Premiere

A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a...

It was interesting to note the reaction, head bowed in a pained half-smile, of Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda when hit with his first Cannes press conference question this year: “Is this an homage to Ozu?” or at least something to that extent. In fairness, it’s probably a question the man is sick of hearing at this point, but in the case of Our Little Sister it’s not quite as wayward or as ignorant as one might think. Indeed, Koreeda acknowledges as much in response: admitting to revisiting some of the master’s work in preparation for the project, or perhaps simply in preparation for such questions. And he’s right: there are similarities, and more than enough to provoke such a question. The opening shots alone of a sleepy suburban neighborhood, houses split by an unseen railway line whose heavy clients must shake these small abodes to their foundations,...

Read More: Cannes: We Break Down This Year's Jury Sony Pictures Classics has acquired U.S. distribution rights for Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes in-competition drama "Our Little Sister" ("Umimachi Diary"). The movie premiered at the festival on Thursday night. The filmmaker was last at Cannes with his 2013 drama "Like Father, Like Son," which won the festival's jury prize. Here's the official plot synopsis per Cannes: Three sisters - Sachi, Yoshino and Chika - live together in a large house in the city of Kamakura. When their father - absent from the family home for the last 15 years - dies, they travel to the countryside for his funeral, and meet their shy teenage half-sister. Bonding quickly with the orphaned Suzu, they invite her to live with them. Suzu eagerly agrees, and a new life of joyful discovery begins for the four siblings. Read More: The Cannes 2015 Indiewire Bible...

O.K. first of all let me state the obvious. “The Muthers” is not a great film. It isn’t even a good film. The acting is terrible when it’s not wooden, the dialogue is laughable, the plot looks as if they made it up as they were going along and the whole project reeks of cheesiness. But it is also, without question, deliriously entertaining! Name me the last time (or the only time) you’ve seen not one, not two, but Three sisters banding together to kick ass on the big screen? See what I mean? Forget "Fast and Furious 7" with its CGI overload. I want to see black people kicking ass in movies. Is that too damn much to ask for? Evidently it is these days. ...

The arthouse of the 1970s was transfixed by the marriage of sex and death and its crowning figure hailed from Sweden. More than 40 years later, "Cries and Whispers," on Criterion Blu-ray this week, feels like Ingmar Bergman's gloomiest, and most glorious, creation. Three sisters (Liv Ullman, Ingrid Thulin, Harriet Andersson) mope about a manor house as one (Andersson) lies on her deathbed, coming and going through dark corridors as they brood over the awful inevitability of dying, and the gossamer nature of faith. In 1972, B-movie king Roger Corman paid $75,000 for the film's Us rights, taking it all the way to the Oscars with five nominations including Best Picture. This arch chamber drama, perhaps Bergman's angriest film, won for longterm Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist's crimson-colored imagery. "Cries and Whispers" did impressively at the box office. It offered the crucial ingredient of foreign film appeal: a shocking scene of aberrant sexual violence.

Criterion repackages one of its earlier Ingmar Bergman inclusions this month, restoring his brilliant, enigmatic 1972 masterpiece Cries and Whispers for Blu-ray release. Financed with Bergman’s own money, the auteur had difficulty securing an American distributor, eventually finding an unlikely champion in Roger Corman, of all people, who had recently established his own releasing company, New World, and was in search of prestige titles to build artistic merit.

Rushed to theatrical release to qualify for Academy Awards consideration, it would secure five nominations, including for Best Picture and Director, winning Best Cinematography for Sven Nyqvist, before going on to be selected to play out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival (awarded the Vulcain Prize of the Technical Artist). In Bergman’s illustrious filmography, it’s unnecessary (and incredibly difficult) to endow any one title as his best from a body of work that sports a myriad of celebrated examples spanning seven decades.

Over the past decade Wang Bing has established himself as one of the most prominent figures in documentary cinema, recording the real lives of ordinary people being the safest, most economical way for an independent filmmaker like him to realize personal film projects in China without the State's approval and financial support. These somewhat difficult conditions of production must always be kept in mind when discussing his output, which also includes two fictional reenactments of actual events—the short film Brutality Factory (2007) and the several-year-in-the-making feature film The Ditch (2010).

Another crucial thing to Wang's work is that his primary interest lies in human emotions, not in political opposition. As he told me in April 2014, he does not consider himself a “political filmmaker” or a “dissident”, because he has no political claims, no political program, no political agenda to put forward. Rejecting two possibly hackneyed labels and keeping a low profile,...

ShortsHD, the Short Movie Channel, and Magnolia Pictures are partnering to release 2015’s Oscar-nominated Short Films in a record 450+ theaters in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America on Friday, January 30. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015 will showcase the Live Action, Animation and Documentary short film nominees as three separate theatrical events. This will be the only theatrical screening for the films prior to the 87th Academy Awards on February 22. This year’s release includes the following nominated short films:

Live Action Short Film Nominees

Aya

Directors: Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis

Synopsis: A young woman waiting at an airport has an unexpected encounter with an arriving passenger.

Countries of origin: France, Israel

Trt: 39:50

Language: Hebrew, English

Boogaloo and Graham

Directors: Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney

Synopsis: Jamesy and Malachy are presented with two baby chicks to raise by their soft-hearted father.

Country of origin: UK

Trt: 14:...

The acclaimed theatre director is preparing to make his feature directorial debut on the David Harrower stage play adaptation Blackbird with Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn attached to star.

Australian-born Andrews most recently directed Jean Genet’s The Maids starring Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert at Sydney Theatre Company and the Lincoln Center Festival.

He directed a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire starring Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster at London’s Young Vic Theatre and is currently directing a new production of La Boheme at Dutch National Opera, a co-production with English National Opera.

Benedict received the London Critics Circle best director award for his Young Vic production of Ibsen’s Three Sisters and his Stc production of Gross Und Klein won the 2011 Helpmann Best Director award.

Credits include marathon Shakespeare cycle The War Of The Roses starring Blanchett at the 2009 Sydney and Perth festivals and his production of Detlev Glanert’s Caligula.

Andrews...

'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...

The craft stores know something you don’t know. That’s right. It’s time for the 2014 Halloween Season TV Preview! This is where we let you know about the time and channel for everything we can find on TV having to do with Halloween or Horror for the month of October and sometimes late September. This will include holiday specials, horror movies, TV show premier dates and Halloween episodes of your favorite series as well as documentaries that might be considered scary. Anything and everything that might get your ghost good.

I always start with TCM because you can tell they take such care in developing their lineup. Be sure to check out their Thursday nights. This is truly a unique year for that station.

A quick note: We are not going to be able to get it all. So many different markets and channels and providers… it’s...

From Oscar-winning to Homeland and more, here's what the cast of My So-Called Life have been up to over the past 2 decades...

Twenty years has passed since we were first introduced to the characters of My So-Called Life, twenty years! Where has the time gone? And more importantly when did I get so old?

While most of you won’t really care too much what I’ve been up to since the show finished, let’s take a look at what the actors have been up to in the years since the cancellation of what is frankly the greatest teen TV drama ever.

Claire Danes (Angela Chase)

After breaking out in My So-Called Life, Danes focused on her film career first with a leading role in 1995’s Little Women and then supporting roles in smaller but interesting films like Home For The Holidays, How to Make An American Quilt and...

This is my tenth year attending the Fantasia Film Festival, though it is my first with a press pass. Gone are the days where I pay for tickets and try to snatch interview subjects for a blog no one really reads. This year’s line-up will certainly be keeping me busy. Here are five to which I’m particularly looking forward.

****

Welcome to New York

Written by Abel Ferrara and Chris Zois

Directed by Abel Ferrara

USA, 2014

Ferrara’s work almost always comes with the pre-requisite of controversy, and here we find him back in his own personal playground: New York City. Granted, it’s been some time since the likes of Bad Lieutenant, and the city itself has changed a great deal from Koch to Giuliani environs. It has also been home to the unspeakable financial crimes of the past decade, which makes New York all the more interesting...

Rebecca Crockett is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Gather round for some Doctor Who news bites! Today we feature Peter Capaldi’s honors from the Royal Television Society of Scotland, the debate between using groups of writers versus a single writer to pen a show, a review of Paul McGann in Chekhov’s Three Sisters, and some new Who merchandise including

The post Capaldi Honoured, Writer’s Rooms & Lego Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Hyena

The full line-up has been announced for this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, which runs from Wednesday 18th to Sunday 29th June. In total, 156 features from 47 countries will be screened, with 11 world premieres, 7 European premieres and 95 UK premieres.

The festival opens with the world premiere of British drug trafficking thriller Hyena from writer-director Gerard Johnson, starring Peter Ferdinando, Stephen Graham, Neil Maskell, and MyAnna Buring. The closing night gala is the international premiere of romantic comedy We’ll Never Have Paris, directed by husband and wife team Jocelyn Towne and Simon Helberg (best known for The Big Bang Theory). Written by and also starring Helberg, it features Melanie Lynskey, Maggie Grace, Zachary Quinto, and Alfred Molina in its cast.

We’ll Never Have Paris

The American Dreams strand highlights cutting-edge new works from American independent cinema. Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring featured last year, and now Gia Coppola...