News

In 2024, Steven Spielberg listed his 20 favorite movies of all time for Far Out Magazine, and many of them are indelible classics that one might expect Spielberg to list. "Seven Samurai," "Citizen Kane," "Day For Night," and "2001: A Space Odyssey" are all on the list, of course, although he did also throw in a few curveballs. James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy" was mentioned, as was Olivier Nakache's and Éric Toledano's 2011 film "The Intouchables." He also picked out Victor Fleming's relatively obscure 1943 film "A Guy Named Joe" as one of the best ever, although that tracks; Spielberg remade the film in 1989 as "Always." 

Spielberg's #1 film of all time, however, was a safe and reliable standby; he's very fond of Frank Capra's Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life." But then, who doesn't like "It's a Wonderful Life?" 

The story of Capra's classic is possibly well-known even to non-cinephiles.

Disney family title Lilo & Stitch and Paramount action film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning square off at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, in what exhibitors will hope is one of the highest-grossing weekends of the year.

Both titles are opening wide, and have built interest with extensive marketing campaigns and two days of previews, from Wednesday 21.

Box office takings are not expected to crack the weekend of July 21-23, 2023, when the Barbenheimer phenomenon brought in £29.4m from Barbie and Oppenheimer alone – the only occasion when two films have taken more than £10m on the same weekend in the territory.

“Nouvelle Vague” is not like any other movie you’ve seen. It’s not a prequel, sequel, or remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s debut film “Breathless” (“À Bout de Souffle”). It’s not a documentary about the making of the film, nor is it based on any known IP. You could conjure memories of the fictional “Day for Night,” from Godard’s fellow Cahiers du Cinéma critic and French New Wave member François Truffaut, which takes place on a movie set, or the recent Paramount series “The Offer,” which chronicles the production of “The Godfather” from the Pov of producer Al Ruddy (Miles Teller). Some have compared Linklater’s ensemble of icons from French cinema to Woody Allen’s ex-pat literary figures from “Midnight in Paris.”

The fact that Richard Linklater wanted to recreate the 1959 filming of “Breathless” on the streets of Paris, in French, in black and white, in the Academy aspect ratio,...

Warner Bros. claimed the No. 1 position at the U.K. and Ireland box office this weekend with “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” which opened to a powerful £4 million ($5.3 million), according to Comscore.

In its third week, Disney’s Marvel movie “Thunderbolts*” dropped to second but still posted a strong $1.6 million, bringing its running total $18.5 million. Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” followed in third, earning £718,770 $961,049 across its fifth weekend. The film has now reached $19.2 million.

Still a fixture in the top five after seven weeks, “A Minecraft Movie” added $630,986 to bring its cumulative total to $74.1 million. Altitude’s environmental documentary “Ocean With David Attenborough” held fifth place with $285,429 and is now at $1.4 million after two weeks.

New entry “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” released by Lionsgate U.K., debuted in sixth place with $254,125. Warner Bros.’ “The Accountant 2” continued in seventh, adding $149,259 in its fourth weekend for a total of $3.4 million.

Universal’s thriller “Hallow Road” opened...

In 1983, Jim McBride attempted an English-language remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1959 cinema landmark, Breathless with Richard Gere. It broke one of Godard’s cardinal rules: It was in color. Although not as terrible an idea as Gus Van Sant’s disastrous shot-by-shot 1998 color remake of Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho — which, like Godard’s forever-influential movie the year before, also broke all the rules of its genre — it is dismissed today with the original still finding new life with young audiences each generation, as France’s New Wave also continues to do.

With the truly wonderful Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), premiering today in Competition at Cannes (where else?), Richard Linklater smartly has not attempted a remake of Breathless but rather a certain regard and respect for the wildly creative cinematic period Godard and his contemporaries achieved with the French New Wave. A cinema revolutionary in spirit and deed himself — just watch his...

German director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria has been awarded the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the Panorama section at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

The behind-the-scene conspiracy thriller follows the drama on a German film shoot, a production about real-life arson attacks on a Turkish family by German skinheads, that kicks off when a copy of the Quran is burnt on set. That kicks off a cleverly plotted whodunit that also examines the issue of who benefits from fictionalizing real-world violence. “Imagine Knives Out meets François Truffaut’s Day for Night, but set in a present-day Germany rife with tensions about immigration and Islam,” The Hollywood Reporter critic Jordan Mintzer said in a rave review.

The Europa Cinemas jury—comprising Klaudia Elsässer (Art+ Cinema, Hungary), David Kelly (Light House Cinema, Ireland), Constanze Oedl (Stadtkino im Künstlerhaus, Austria), and Cenk Sezgin (Cinemarine Cinemas, Turkey)—praised Büyükatalay...

Imagine Knives Out meets François Truffaut’s Day for Night, but set in a present-day Germany rife with tensions about immigration and Islam. That’s the pitch behind Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s behind-the-scenes thriller, Hysteria, which kicks off when a copy of the Koran is accidentally — or not — burnt on a film set. Footage of the scene then goes missing, making us wonder who could have stolen it.

The incident happens during the production of a drama about the 1993 arson attack in Soligen, in which five members of a Turkish family were killed when a gang of German skinheads set fire to their home. Büyükatalay uses the recreation of that event as the catalyst for a cleverly plotted whodunit that questions the nature of fictionalizing real-world violence, asking us who ultimately profits off such issue-driven movies.

As with any good mystery, we have to keep guessing which person the culprit...

Jacqueline Bisset in Loren & Rose. Courtesy of Amazon Prime

The elegant, fascinating Jacqueline Bisset stars in Loren & Rose, as an aging star interviewing with a young filmmaker named Loren (Kelly Blatz) for a role in the filmmaker’s first feature film, after his first film, a short, became a hit on the film festival circuit. Loren is a fan of Rose (Bisset) but is unsure if he should cast her as the lead in his new film. Over appetizers at her favorite restaurant, and waited on by her favorite waiter, Rose charms young director Loren, and starts them on the path to friendship.

Jacqueline Bisset was a superstar in the early ’70s, appearing in a string of high-profile hits, including the Steve McQueen hit Bullit and Francois Truffaut’s Day For Night, and worked with directors including John Huston, Roman Polanski and George Cukor and starred with Paul Newman,...

Universal’s Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy leads new releases in UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend after grossing just shy of £2.1m in previews on Thursday (February 13).

Taking advantage of Valentine’s Day, the fourth instalment in the British romantic comedy franchise screens in 733 venues from today. The £2.1m Thursday total is on par with 2008’s Sex And The City as the highest-grossing single-day preview for a romantic comedy in the territory.

Renee Zellweger returns to screens as the titular Bridget Jones, now a fifty-something widow who decides to head back to work and begin dating again. Hugh Grant...

South Korean sales outfit Finecut has closed a raft of key deals for thriller A Girl With Closed Eyes ahead of its market premiere screening at the European Film Market (EFM).

The film, which stars Minha Kim from Apple TV+ series Pachinko, has been acquired for Japan, Poland (Media4Fun), Taiwan (Cola Films), Vietnam (Aeonbeta) and Cis (Red Castle Group) ahead of Berlin.

The story centres on a murder suspect and a detective with a shared past, reunited through the killing of a bestselling author, where hidden truths are uncovered as the investigation deepens.

Kim, who has secured several award nominations...

Sonali Joshi, founder of UK distributor Day for Night, has launched a Japan-based distribution, sales and production outfit titled Not That Films and landed its first title.

The new company, based in Tokyo, will be overseen by Joshi as founder and director alongside Day for Night co-director Chonpel Tsering as head of international projects. Both have relocated from the UK to Japan.

They have begun building its sales slate with the acquisition of State Of Statelessness, a four-part anthology drama by Tibetan filmmakers living in exile, which received its world premiere at Busan in October. The company will aim to acquire four titles a year,...

The 97th annual Oscar nominations were revealed Thursday morning in Los Angeles. And the newest lineup featured a number of historic milestones. Among them this year:

Best Picture With 13 nominations, “Emilia Perez” is the most nominated non-English-language film of all time, beating the record of 10 nominations held by “Roma” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” “Emilia Pérez” and “I’m Still Here” are also the 18th and 19th films predominantly not in the English language to be nominated for Best Picture. Both are nominated for Best International Feature – the first time ever that two nominees from that category have also been nominated for Best Picture. At 3:35, “The Brutalist” is the sixth-longest Best Picture nominee, a few minutes longer than two recent Martin Scorsese movies, “The Irishman” (3:29) and “Killers of the Flower Moon” (3:26). “Cleopatra,” from 1963, is the all-time longest Best Picture nominee at 4:11. Acting categories Seven acting nominees are...

As a film critic who’s spent countless hours analyzing how cultural movements shape our media landscape, I find the emergence of British boybands in the early ’90s particularly interesting. The British boyband trend started as a direct response to America’s New Kids on the Block, but with a unique British twist that would change pop music worldwide, much like the French New Wave’s reaction to Hollywood norms.

The British culture in the early ’90s was ready for change. As poll tax riots rocked the streets and Thatcherism waned, savvy music producers noticed a gap in the market. American groups like NKotB seemed distant and untouchable, while British managers wanted to create something more relatable and local. It was similar to how Ken Loach made realistic movies about everyday life in Britain. These producers wanted to make pop music feel true to working-class experiences.

The formation process itself...

From tuning out critics to reading every review, from ridiculed first-day rituals to when it’s Ok not to collaborate with the crew, the directors of six of this year’s most daring movies each have their own strategies for managing their careers and their sets. On a Sunday afternoon in November, Edward Berger (Conclave), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance), RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys), Ridley Scott (Gladiator II) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two) convened for The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Director Roundtable. The filmmakers chopped it up over their wildly different working styles but agreed on at least one thing about cinema: “Time dilates if you do it right.”

Does anybody have a day-one ritual on set, a thing you do when you’re starting out to set the mood?

Brady Corbet Have a panic attack.

Ramell Ross I tested positive for Covid.

Denis Villeneuve It’s an embarrassing thing,...

Screenis listing the 2024 release dates for films in the UK and Ireland in the calendar below.

For distributors who wish to add/amend a date on the calendar, please get in touch withScreenhere.Screenis also running a calendar for festival and market dates throughout 2025here.

January

Wednesday, January 1

Nosferatu(Universal),2073(Altitude),Vanangaan(DJ Tech),Game Changer(Dreamz),We Live In Time(Studiocanal)

Friday, January 3

Nickel Boys(Curzon),Rocco And His Brothers(BFI),Diabel(Magnetes)

Wednesday, January 8

A Real Pain(Disney)

Friday, January 10

Babygirl(Efd),The Girl With The Needle(Mubi),Maria(Studiocanal),The Damned(Vertical/Miracle),It’s Raining Men...

With major titles still dominating the UK and Ireland box office, it is a quiet weekend for new releases as event cinema leads the way while Nightbitch and Rumours also launch.

Andre Rieu’s 2024 Christmas Concert: Gold And Silver lands in 642 cinemas for A Piece Of Magic. The Dutch conductor’s last release opened with £700,000 while his 2023 Christmas concert scored £1.2m.

Indian actionPushpa 2 is screening in 230 venuesvia AA Films. The Telugu-language sequel follows Pushpa as his sandalwood smuggling business faces strong opposition from the police.

CinemaLive is playing music documentary Rm: Right People, Wrong Place in 109 sites this weekend after opening on Thursday.

Final movie of Pema Tseden, as he died four months before it premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, “Snow Leopard”, which won Best Film at Tokyo and the Cyclo D’or in Vesoul, is another testament to the significance of the loss of a truly great filmmaker.

The film is currently screening in the UK, courtesy of Day For Night

A regional television crew is driving through a Tibetan-speaking region of Qinghai province in northwest China to report on a herder who has captured the snow leopard which has killed nine of his sheep. Lead reporter Dradul has been contacted by the herder’s brother, Nyima, a former classmate who is now a monk. However, as soon as they arrive, they find Nyima’s brother, Jinpa, utterly enraged, having imprisoned the leopard in the pen, and waiting for the authorities to arrive in order to receive compensation for the dead animals.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (Nov 22-24) Total gross to date Week 1. Wicked (Universal) £13.7m £13.7m 1 2. Gladiator II (Paramount) £4.7m £18.4m 2 3. Paddington In Peru (Studiocanal) £4.2m £24.4m 3 4. Red One (Warner Bros) £822,000 £5.8m 3 5. Heretic(Efd) £205,457 £205,457 4

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.26

Wickedcast its spell on UK-Ireland audiences this weekend, bringing in £13.7m in its debut – the best-performing opening weekend for a stage-to-screen adaptation in the territory, and the biggest opening weekend of 2024.

The musical was released at 701 sites, for a site average of £19,543 for Universal.It beat previous stage-to-screen record holder Les Misérables, with £8.1m in 2013. Wicked also knocked Deadpool & Wolverine...

Musical Wicked is hoping to bewitch audiences this weekend, coming out in 698 sites for Universal.

The first of a two-part adaptation of the stage musical stars Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, with Jon M Chu directing.

Elphaba (Erivo), a misunderstood young woman because of her green skin, and Glinda (Grande), a more conventional and popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. Their friendship is taken in a new direction after they cross paths with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Wicked is the third in a trio of blockbuster November...

Paramount’s “Gladiator II” dominated the U.K. and Ireland box office with a £9.1 million ($11.5 million) opening weekend, according to numbers from Comscore.

Studiocanal’s “Paddington In Peru” maintained momentum in its sophomore session, collecting £6.8 million for a cumulative £18.8 million after two weeks. Warner Bros.’ “Red One” secured third place with £1.4 million, pushing its two-week total to £4.6 million.

Entertainment Film Distributors’ “Heretic” added £505,118 in its third frame, reaching £4.9 million total. Sony’s “Venom: The Last Dance” continued its run with £398,650, accumulating £11.8 million after four weeks.

Universal’s “The Wild Robot” showed staying power in its fifth week with £387,352, bringing its total to £13.2 million. Lionsgate U.K.’s “Small Things Like These” gathered £326,315 for a three-week cume of £3 million.

Trafalgar Releasing’s “Kiss Me, Kate: The Musical” debuted with £258,966 and Trinity’s “The Last Dance” earned £187,203 for a total of £1 million. Andrea Bocelli’s concert film, “Andrea Bocelli 30: The Celebration,...

Disney is hoping to perk up the summer box office with eagerly-anticipated Pixar sequel Inside Out 2 at 684 sites, making it this weekend’s widest new release.

Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust return for the follow-up, that once again dives into the emotional fabric of lead character Riley. This time, puberty has turned up, and it’s bringing with it Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, and Ennui, portrayed by Adèle Exarchopoulos. Returning voice cast members include Amy Poehler and Kyle MacLachlan. Kelsey Mann directs.

The first film, back in 2015, opened to £7.4m from 608 sites.

Re-releases out this weekend include...

Sony’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £3.8 million ($4.9 million), according to numbers from Comscore.

In second place, in its fourth weekend, Paramount’s “If” collected £866,474 for a running total of £10.8 million. In third position, in its third weekend, Sony’s “The Garfield Movie” earned £729,503 for a total of £7.3 million.

In fourth place, in its fifth weekend, Disney’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” added a further £620,911 for a total of £14.3 million. Rounding off the top five was Warner Bros.’ “Furiosa,” which collected £436,983 in its third weekend for a total of £5.5 million.

There were two more debuts in the Top 10. Warner Bros.’ “The Watched” bowed in sixth place with £387,339 and Signature Entertainment’s “The Dead Don’t Hurt” in eighth with £95,827.

There are a welter of releases the upcoming weekend, the widest of which is Disney’s animation sequel “Inside Out 2.

With 13 features made since 2007, and six in the past four years, French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupieux is clearly no slacker. Not only has he helmed all these films — he’s also written, shot and edited them, as well as composed many of their scores.

Starting with his surreal deadpan début, Rubber, and up through last year’s Yannick and Daaaaali!, Dupieux has had an impressively prolific run, gradually improving with each new movie while honing a style and tone that are completely his own.

If, however, there’s one drawback to this incessant activity, it’s that his films all have very short running times because they tend to lack classic denouements. They’re well-executed, high-concept affairs blending comedy, sci-fi, horror and other genres in fun ways, but they often play out like long second acts without real endings.

Dupieux was perhaps aware of this flaw when he decided to call...

These auteurs are ready for their close-up.

When Quentin Dupieux’s comedy about an ill-fated film set, “The Second Act,” opened the Cannes Film Festival May 14, it will be just one of several movies about filmmaking and filmmakers to touch down on the Croisette. After all, directors Christophe Honoré, Paul Schrader and Josh Mond are among the other prominent filmmakers who are ready to premiere semi-autobiographical stories.

Honoré’s in-competition comedy, “Marcello Mio,” casts Chiara Mastroianni as a version of herself who — after a director compares her to her late father, Marcello Mastroianni — dresses in drag and takes on his identity. Schrader’s in-competition drama, “Oh, Canada,” focuses on a documentary filmmaker (Richard Gere) telling his life story in a doc. Mond’s drama “It Doesn’t Matter” follows two friends chronicling their lives on video. Leos Carax’s 40-minute “C’est pas moi” is partly a self-portrait, with footage from his films and life.

Paris-based international film sales company Pulsar Content has formed a strategic partnership with Digital District Entertainment, a leading post-production, VFX and production facilities company, with offices in France, Belgium and India. The partnership will create “a streamlined and cost-effective production process for international film projects,” according to a statement.

Pulsar Content’s Cannes lineup includes Un Certain Regard’s “Niki” by Céline Sallette, Antoine Chevrolliers’ “Block Pass,” premiering in Critics’ Week, and Camila Beltran’s “Mi Bestia,” premiering at Acid.

Dde’s Cannes lineup includes Julien Colonna’s “Le Royaume” in Un Certain Regard and Patricia Mazuy’s “Visiting Hours” in Directors’ Fortnight.

The companies have previously worked together on several films, including “The Deep House” by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, which sold to Blumhouse for the U.S. and Universal for international territories. They also teamed up on Edouard Salier’s “Tropic” and “Mads” by David Moreau.

Dde...

It is the spring of “Baby Reindeer.” Netflix’s addictive limited series about a struggling comedian (Richard Gadd) working at a bar who makes the biggest mistake of his life when he gives a lonely woman (Jessica Gunning) a cup of tea on the house is the most watched series currently on the streamer and viewership is growing. And the fact that it’s based on a true story, makes “Baby Reindeer” even more creep and chilling. It’s a must-see voyeur thriller.

The same was true in the fall of 1987 with Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction.” Audiences flocked to the hard R-rated thriller which starred a wild-haired Glenn Close as an editor with a publishing company who has one-night stand with a happily married attorney (Michael Douglas) whose wife and daughter are out of town. Though it’s “understood” that it’s just a fling, Close’s Alex just won’t let go.

Lyon’s impressive Roman-style auditorium, normally used by the city’s symphonic orchestra, was sold out as U.S. writer and director Wes Anderson took to the stage as guest of honor of the Lumière Film Festival.

Mid-way through his conversation with festival director Thierry Frémaux, the crowd gathered in the massive 2,000-seat venue was treated to a screening of one of Anderson’s new Roald Dahl adaptations, the short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.”

The story of a rich man who sets out to master an extraordinary skill to cheat at gambling, it is one of four Dahl stories recently adapted by Anderson for Netflix, which acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company (Rdsc), that manages the rights to the late British author’s works, from back in 2021.

The only adaptations Anderson has done are Dahl stories, starting with his first animation film, “Fantastic Mr Fox,” in 2009. Asked...

Distributor, Day for Night has acquired a trio of Asian titles for U.K. and Ireland at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market.

Day for Night is acquiring the late Pema Tseden’s “Snow Leopard” from Rediance. Pema Tseden, the Tibetan art house film director known for “Jinpa” and “Balloon,” died at 53 earlier this year. The film explores the complicated coexistence of animals and people on the Tibetan plateau. After a snow leopard kills nine rams owned by a herder, a bitter conflict ensues between the herder who wants to kill the snow leopard and the father who wants to release it.

“Snow Leopard” world premiered at Venice and subsequently played Toronto and will next be at Tokyo.

“Next Sohee” by Korean filmmaker July Jung (“A Girl at My Door”), which premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week in 2022 and played at Busan and London, has been...

Above: 1973 New York Film Festival poster designed by Niki de Saint Phalle.The 61st edition of the New York Film Festival, which opens tonight, has 32 films in its Main Slate, fifteen films in its Spotlight section, ten films and seven collections of shorts in the Currents sidebar, and eleven revivals. That's over 60 feature films. Fifty years ago, in 1973, the 11th edition of the festival had just eighteen feature films and nineteen shorts. Just like this year’s opener—Todd Haynes’s May December—1973’s opening night film, François Truffaut’s Day for Night, had premiered four months earlier at the Cannes Film Festival. And as with this year’s festival, the 1973 edition opened, fifty years and one day ago exactly, in the shadow of an artists' strike. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians had been picketing the New York Philharmonic outside Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, where the festival was taking place,...

The two-day event will take place September 21-22 at The Ritzy in London’s Brixton

Paramount, Disney and Studiocanal are among the companies attending the UK’s Distributor Slate Days, a networking event for film distributors and exhibitors.

The two-day event will take place September 20-21 at The Ritzy in London’s Brixton. It is delivered by Film London in partnership with the Film Distributors’ Association (Fda) and support from Filmbankmedia, Comscore and Usheru.

The first day will see distributors present marketing and audience development plans for their upcoming titles while the second will be dedicated to one-to-one meetings between distributors,...

Jacqueline Bisset is an aging actress playing an aging actress in the feature “Loren and Rose,” which takes place almost entirely in a restaurant: her character meets with a young director (played by Kelly Blatz) who wants her for his next film. At 78, Bisset understands that festivals are necessary to promote films, even if she’s not here in New York, but back home in California. She is candid about the marketing of a film, acting and even an embarrassing look back at one of her biggest hits. No, it doesn’t involve a wet t-shirt or a car chase in the streets of San Francisco. The “silly girl” was a stewardess in love with Dean Martin. More on that in a moment. We begin with the conceit of “Loren and Rose”: acting as a reflection of real life.

Gd: In the film your character describes cinema as a “mirror.

When discussing the masters of French cinema, one name consistently stands out among the rest: François Truffaut. A pioneering director, screenwriter, and film critic, Truffaut left an indelible mark on the world of cinema, both in France and internationally. With a career spanning over three decades and numerous accolades to his name, Truffaut’s influence can be felt in the works of contemporary filmmakers to this day.

In this article, we will explore the life and career of François Truffaut, delving into the birth of the French New Wave, his key films, and his signature style and themes. We will also examine the impact Truffaut has had on contemporary filmmakers and his lasting legacy in French cinema. Finally, we will provide a list of essential François Truffaut films for those looking to immerse themselves in his remarkable body of work.

The Birth of the French New Wave

The French New Wave,...

The love affair between Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund and the Cannes Film Festival continues.

The 48-year-old director will return to the scene of his recent triumph, as it was just last year that his “Triangle of Sadness” came away with the coveted Palme d’Or, the top prize at the most prestigious festival in world cinema. (Don’t tell Venice I said that.)

“I am happy, proud, and humbled to be trusted with the honor of jury president for this year’s competition at the Festival de Cannes,” he wrote in an announcement released by the festival early Tuesday morning. “I am sincere when I say that cinema culture is in its most important period ever,” he continued.

Östlund’s “Triangle” is, of course, currently a long-shot Oscar candidate in three categories: Best Director (a nomination for Östlund), Best Original Screenplay (another nomination for Östlund), and Best Picture (a nomination...

Trends in documentary-making have shifted radically since Nicolas Philibert’s “Être et Avoir” was a surprise arthouse hit two decades ago: That sweetly observational little film, following the ins and outs of a village elementary school over the course of a year, seems a quaintly modest proposition beside today’s more slickly immersive and narrativized nonfiction breakouts. If times have changed, however, Philibert has not. His latest, “On the Adamant,” finds him once more examining the human workings of a care-based institution from a reserved but compassionate distance, avoiding commentary and editorialization in favor of real-life character portraiture.

It turns out to be the right approach for the institution under scrutiny: The Adamant, a day-care center in central Paris for adults with a variety of mental disorders, offering its visitors a range of therapy, education and cultural activity. The human subjects here are both expressive and highly vulnerable, open to the low-key,...

The Toronto Film Festival returned in spectacular fashion after two years of virtual premieres or limited capacity screenings. The parties were packed, the red carpets were glittering and the atmosphere was electric, bordering on euphoric, as director Rian Johnson’s acclaimed sequel “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story,” Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans” and the Harry Styles-led romantic drama “My Policeman” debuted to blockbuster-starved audiences in Canada. Hollywood seemed eager to make up for lost time. So, as the curtain comes down on TIFF, here’s a look back at the major trends and takeaways from the 10-day festival.

Venice Casts a Long Shadow

Toronto has spent years cultivating a reputation as the perfect catapult into awards season. In 2022, however, the Venice International Film Festival packed unbeatable heat by hosting highly anticipated films like “Blonde,” “Don’t Worry Darling,” and “The Whale,” as well as offering up significant star...

Originally planned to open the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year before the worsening Covid situation forced the festival to again go virtual, Oscar-winning writer-director Michel Hazanavicius made the right decision in insisting his comedy Final Cut (Coupez!), about the making of a low-budget bad zombie movie, should be presented with a full house in a theatre, thankfully not to be watched on your computer at a prestigious film festival. In holding out for the real thing he scored big as it was chosen as the opening-night out-of-competition film of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

It seems entirely appropriate that a movie all about the love of making movies should signal the full return of a fest devoted to all things cinema over the course of its 75 years. And for this director, whose 2011 black-and-white silent film The Artist was also a love letter to movies, and also premiered here on...

1996s “Irma Vep” saw Olivier Assayas contribute to a rich tapestry of meta cinema stretching back to Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “8½.” Itself drawing upon François Truffaut’s metafictional “Day For Night” as a direct source, the film followed René Vidal, an over-the-hill film director whose recent output has descended into alienating pseudo-intellectualism, and his attempt to remake the classic French film serial, “Les Vampires.” Introducing veteran of Hong Kong cinema, Maggie Cheung, to a western audience, playing herself as an actress cast in the fictional director’s film as Irma (keeping up?), Assayas’ film contemplated the nature of the creative process, using its verité aesthetic to capture the mania of a film set while also providing a broader meditation on the state of modern French cinema.

Continue reading ‘Irma Vep’ Trailer: Alicia Vikander To Star In HBO Limited Series Based on Olivier Assayas’ Cult Classic at The Playlist.

With fears our winter travel will need a, let’s say, reconsideration, the Criterion Channel’s monthly programming could hardly come at a better moment. High on list of highlights is Louis Feuillade’s delightful Les Vampires, which I suggest soundtracking to Coil, instrumental Nine Inch Nails, and Jóhann Jóhannson’s Mandy score. Notable too is a Sundance ’92 retrospective running the gamut from Paul Schrader to Derek Jarman to Jean-Pierre Gorin, and I’m especially excited for their look at one of America’s greatest actors, Sterling Hayden.

Special notice to Criterion editions of The Killing, The Last Days of Disco, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle, and programming of Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load, among the better debuts in recent years.

See the full list of January titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

-Ship: A Visual Poem, Terrance Day, 2020

5 Fingers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1952

After Migration: Calabria,...

It’s early morning in LA and Joanna Hogg is looking back. It is a process the filmmaker has grown accustomed to in recent years, not least with her latest film. Less a sequel to its acclaimed predecessor than a mirror––even a Matryoshka––and examination of how people remember things, or how they might choose for them to be remembered, The Souvenir Part II reintroduces the viewer to Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), now deep in mourning for her doomed lover Anthony, an enigma to whom she has devoted her graduation film. Layers beget layers: “I got so many ideas from that first shoot,” Hogg says over Zoom, “and the second part is a response to that shoot. It’s almost like I’m making some kind of documentation of that experience that I had had, not just the characters within the story.”

Born in London in 1960, Hogg studied at...

France has been a supreme force in the Oscars’ international feature race for decades. This year, three acclaimed films from women directors — Céline Sciamma, Audrey Diwan and Julia Ducournau — are believed to be at the top of the list to represent the country for the upcoming 94th ceremony, set to take place on March 27. Though France is the most-nominated country in the history of the category, it hasn’t walked away with the prize in nearly 30 years. Can that change this year?

The French submission is decided annually by the National Cinema Center. The committee will hold its first meeting on Thursday to pre-select a shortlist of films, with the producers being “auditioned” by the committee on Oct. 12, before the final choice is made. Sciamma’s “Petite Maman,” Ducournau’s “Titane” and Diwan’s “Happening” are believed to be the favorites for consideration. “Happening” was just acquired by IFC Films...

Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, which historically has always been the country’s prime local cinema catalyst, stands as testimony that despite impediments due to the pandemic and the country’s economy Turkish filmmakers are in fine fettle.

“At the start of the year people said: ‘You will not be able to assemble 10 [Turkish] films due to the pandemic,’” because “they thought nothing was getting made,” says Antalya fest chief Ahmet Boyacıoğlu.

Instead, programmers for the event’s upcoming 58th edition that will run Oct. 2-9 in the sprawling resort city on Turkey’s Southern coast, received 44 submissions for the national competition that is at its core. And the 10 features they’ve selected rep “the strongest selection at Antalya in maybe the past 10 years,” he says.

Antalya’s artistic director Başak Emre points out that with the Turkish lira hitting all-time lows against Western currencies and waning local government...

In movies as disparate and vividly imagined as Il Divo, Loro, the Oscar winning The Great Beauty, as well as English language efforts like This Must Be The Place, Youth, and his TV miniseries The Young Pope and The New Pope Paolo Sorrentino has always seemed to be a director with a large brush and even more of a Fellini influence in some cases. That is why his latest, a largely autobiographical coming of age film called The Hand Of God which just had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and is next headed this weekend to Telluride, is such a departure, one absent the usual flourish the director often favors. Instead is an enormously effective and touching personal memoir of growing up in Naples circa the 1980’s. In many ways this is Sorrentino’s Amarcord, Day For Night, Cinema Paradiso,Pain And Glory, but first and foremost...

American Night Trailer Alessio Della Valle‘s American Night (2021) movie trailer has been released by Saban Films. The American Night stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emile Hirsch, Paz Vega, Michael Madsen, Jeremy Piven, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Andy Warhol, Fortunato Cerlino, Manal El-Feitury, Anastacia, and Marco Leonardi. Crew Alessio Della Valle wrote the screenplay for American Night. [...]

Continue reading: American Night (2021) Movie Trailer: Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Emile Hirsch star in Alessio Della Valle’s Neo-noir Thriller...

Documentarian Senain Kheshgi takes us through a few of her favorite documentaries.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

American Movie (1999)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

The French Connection (1971) – Dennis Lehane’s trailer commentary, Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary

Grey Gardens (1975)

Salesman (1969)

Real Life (1979)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Seven Up! (1964)

Don’t Look Back (1967)

Primary (1960)

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Reds (1981)

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) – Dennis Cozzalio’s 2020 best-of list

High School (1968)

Hospital (1970)

Titicut Follies (1967)

Harlan County, USA (1976)

Salaam Bombay! (1988)

Mississippi Masala (1991)

India Cabaret (1985)

The 400 Blows (1959) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary

Bicycle Thieves (1949) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Muriel Awards column

Shoeshine (1946)

Citizen Kane (1941) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Day For Night (1973) – Neil Labute’s trailer commentary

Sherman’s March (1986)

Capturing The Friedmans (2003)

I Think We’re Alone Now (2008)

The Mole Agent (2020)

The Act of Killing (2012)

Other Notable Items

Walter Hill

Walton Goggins

The Majority

Mark Borchardt

Mike Schank

The...

The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger will publish his first-ever memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar With the Doors, this October.

The book, written with Jeff Alulis, tells Krieger’s story in a series of vignettes, from the pawnshop where he purchased his first guitar and his teenaged drug bust to his first writing sessions with Jim Morrison to the Doors’ awkward first concerts in backyards and empty bars.

The guitarist will also share never-before-told stories from his tenure with the Doors, including his perspective on...

At some point before his death in July 1971, Jim Morrison handwrote a list, titled “Plan for Book,” that laid out his thoughts on a collection of his poetry, lyrics, and other work. Now, 50 years after his passing and the release of his last album with the Doors, that blueprint is coming to fruition in what promises to be the most exhaustive collection of his writing to date.

Published June 8th by HarperCollins, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison: Poetry, Journals, Transcripts and Lyrics promises to be something of a Morrison motherlode.

Olivier Assayas takes a very different trip into silent movie nostalgia, with a director’s ill-fated attempt to remake the 1915 serial Les Vampires. Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung is cast as the erotic rooftop nightcrawler Irma Vep! We see the state of Paris filmmaking in the mid-90s, with a clueless, frustrated director (Jean-Pierre Léaud) out of ideas — what business has Irma Vep in the modern world? Meanwhile, Cheung dons her vinyl catsuit for a personal creepy crawly mission — just to see if it gives her a thrill. Criterion’s special edition contains both a full episode of the silent serial plus a must-see documentary on the life and work of the legendary Musidora, a major sex symbol of the silent era.

Irma Vep

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1074

1996 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 27, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Maggie Cheung, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Richard, Bernard Nissile,...

Among the Oscar nominations surprises every year is the Best Director lineup. Remember when Steven Spielberg (“The Color Purple”), Ron Howard (“Apollo 13”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”) all won at the Directors Guild of America Awards but were snubbed by the directors branch of the academy. This year DGA nominee Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) was likewise left off the list of Oscar contenders. He was replaced by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg for his superb “Another Round,” which also picked up a bid for Best International Feature. He joins a long roster of Best Director nominees for films other than in English.

The academy first embraced international filmmakers in the 1960s. Italian auteur Federico Fellini was nominated for his 1961 classic “La Dolce Vita.” He contended again two years later for “8 1/2.” He reaped two more bids for “Fellini Satyricon” (1970) and “Amarcord’ (1975).

Predict the 2021 Oscars winners through...

The star from Sid & Nancy, Terminator 2, Candyman, Gattaca, Leaving Las Vegas and the new chiller The Dark And The Wicked takes us on a journey through some of his favorite foreign films.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Candyman (1992)

Frankenstein (1931)

Sid and Nancy (1986)

The Dark And The Wicked (2020)

The Wall of Mexico (2019)

La Dolce Vita (1961)

Il Bidone (1955)

Day For Night (1973)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1967)

8 ½ (1963)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939)

Rififi (1955)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Z (1969)

The Sleeping Car Murders (1965)

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Burn! (1969)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

The Italian Job (1969)

The Italian Job (2003)

The Magician (1958)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Persona (1966)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Last House On The Left (1972)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Paperhouse (1988)

The Strangers (2008)

The Monster (2016)

Andrei Rublev (1966)

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Nostalghia (1983)

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Zorba The Greek (1964)

Pollyanna (1960)

Other Notable Items

Lon...

As Election Day begins to unfold across the United States, TV news channels in Europe and media around the world are girding for a long night ahead. The final heat between incumbent Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden might or might not be decided when Europe wakes up on Wednesday — Germany’s Der Spiegel is currently leading with the headline “Why There Could Be No Winner On Election Evening” — but teams are at the ready, and some programmers have gotten creative on non-news fare.

Sporadic coverage began on international cable channels throughout the day today, though many European outlets were also focused on Monday night’s terrorist shooting spree that left four dead in Vienna. Coronavirus, a main topic of the U.S. presidential election, remains a key talking point, particularly in France where a 9 p.m. curfew, to go along with the ongoing lockdown, has been evoked for Paris.