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

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese has programmed Living, Breathing New York, which starts with Shadows and a 35mm print of Heaven Knows What on Sunday; The Rubber Gun (watch our exclusive trailer debut) plays Saturday with a Stephen Lack Q&a; Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Wild at Heart screen.

Anthology Film Archives

Robina Rose’s Nightshift (watch our exclusive trailer debut) begins playing in a new restoration; Matías Piñeiro-curated series offers Antonioni, Hollis Frampton, and Straub-Huillet.

Film Forum

Luis Buñuel’s Él begins screening in a 4K restoration; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Spring Fever screen; Play It As It Lays and Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman continue; Space Jam screens on Sunday.

IFC Center

Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop plays in a new restoration; eXistenZ, Mulholland Dr., Paprika, Best in Show, Palindromes, and Pink Flamingos show late.

In films like Suzhou River and Saturday Fiction, Lou Ye nests his political criticisms within the protective comfort of self-reflexive narrative structures. The films’ meta-cinematic qualities—say, an old theater as both an espionage headquarters and a place of political spectacle—offer a manageable distance from reality while also creating a mesh netting for the real world to seep in. Lou’s scathing critiques—of political corruption and personal complicity—emerge through the gradual corrosion of the artificiality of his narrative frameworks.

An Unfinished Film provides no such buffer from reality, nor does it employ stylized fiction as a conduit to real life, as Lou just aims dead on for it. The Covid-19 pandemic is still recent history, and, to some degree, Lou employing his own history in the form of outtakes from films like Spring Fever and Mystery for Xiaorui’s (Mao Xiaorui) movie within the movie is relatively...

Director Lou Ye has sparked the ire of the Chinese government for capturing niche stories onscreen; perhaps the biggest backlash came from his docu-fiction feature “An Unfinished Film.”

The aptly-titled film follows a director as he tries to resume shooting of a film he had abandoned 10 years earlier. The only catch? The filmmaker Xiaorui is trying to go into production in Wuhan, China during the January 2020 lockdown. It wasn’t a great place to be.

Qin Hao, Qi Xi, Huang Xuan, Liang Ming, and Zhang Songwen also star.

“Suzhou River” and “Summer Palace” director Lou helms the feature that blends fact with a fictional narrative. The real footage uses images that were banned or blocked by the government, creating a hybrid docudrama that captured the early days of the Chinese lockdown. Lou and Ma Yingli cowrote the script.

The official synopsis reads: “Set in January 2020, the film follows director Xiaorui...

Madrid-based distributor Atalante is ramping up its heritage cinema titles in Spain, where it’s set to release Vera Chytilová’s 1966 Czechoslovakian dark comedy “Daisies” and Kavery Kaul’s 1988 calypso music documentary “One Hand Don’t Clap.”

“Daises,” which Atalante is releasing in November, “is maybe one of the most iconic modern European films that we are very proud to put in theaters,” Atalante CEO Ramiro Ledo Cordeiro told Variety at the Lumière Film Festival’s International Classic Film Market (Mifc) in Lyon, France.

While the company had previously released one or two heritage films a year, 2024 saw an extraordinary number of releases, Ledo added.

Indeed, Atalante’s releases this year included the 4K restoration by Toho of Yasujiro Ozu’s 1950 Japanese drama “The Munekata Sisters,” which premiered last year in Cannes; the new restoration of Martha Coolidge’s 1975 U.S. drama “Not a Pretty Picture,” a reconstruction of sexual...

Philippe Bober’s Coproduction Office has boarded worldwide sales of Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film ahead of its premiere at Cannes and has already closed two major deals.

The film, which is set to play in the Special Screenings section of the festival next month, has been snapped up by Bac Films for France and Lucky Red for Italy. A first look at the film can be seen above.

Set in January 2020, the story follows a film crew that reunites near Wuhan to resume shooting a film halted 10 years earlier, only to share unexpected challenges as cities are placed under lockdown.

After the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989, the Chinese government implemented censorship policies that led to the emergence of a film movement known as “the Sixth Generation”. Many movies, due to the absence of government funding, were produced in a short amount of time and on a tight budget. They had a raw, documentary-like style with handheld camerawork, extended takes, and naturalistic sound. One of the representatives of this generation is Lou Ye, whose third full-length feature, “Suzhou River”, despite garnering praise internationally, was banned in China. What's more, Lou was forbidden from making movies for two years after an unauthorized screening of this picture at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 1999 where it won the Tiger Award.

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“Suzhou River” depicts a story which is narrated by the Videographer (Fang Zhang Ming). His job is to film the...

A high-powered panel at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market pondered the condition of the theatrical market for arthouse films in Asia and Europe post-pandemic.

The two themes that emerged from the discussion were the necessity for films to have an X factor that can be marketed and, second, that restored classics are finding new audiences.

June Lee, content business team lead at Korea’s Watcha said that the company’s acquisition strategy for this year and the next is to either pick up a Hollywood blockbuster or “really arthouse films with elements that could go viral.”

The panel, which was moderated by Katarzyna Siniarska, head of sales at Poland’s New Europe Film Sales, also included Valeska Neu, international sales agent at Germany’s Films Boutique, Kini Kim of France’s The Jokers Films, Felix Tsang, sales and acquisitions manager at Hong Kong’s...

It was more than a little heartening to see Roger Corman paid tribute by Quentin Tarantino at Cannes’ closing night. By now the director-producer-mogul’s imprint on cinema is understood to eclipse, rough estimate, 99.5% of anybody who’s touched the medium, but on a night for celebrating what’s new, trend-following, and manicured it could’ve hardly been more necessary. Thus I’m further heartened seeing the Criterion Channel will host a retrospective of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations running eight films and aptly titled “Grindhouse Gothic,” though I might save the selections for October.

Centerpiece, though, is a hip hop series including Bill Duke’s superb Deep Cover, Ghost Dog, and numerous documentaries––among them Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, making Michael Rapaport a Criterion-approved auteur. Ten films starring Kay Francis and 21 Eurothrillers round out series; streaming premieres include the Dardenne brothers’ Tori and Lokita,...

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

Roxy Cinema

Dressed to Kill and Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders have 35mm showings; Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, starring a young Greta Gerwig, screens on Friday.

Film Forum

A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Fassbinder, Truffaut, Welles and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T plays this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A series on snubs brings films by David Lynch, Todd Haynes, the Safdies, and Rebecca Hall.

Film at Lincoln Center

Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and continues its run.

IFC Center

Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Jaws have screenings, while Body of Evidence plays on 35mm.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Dressed to Kill, La Notte, Safe & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

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

Film Forum

A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Malle, Becker and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while King Kong plays this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A series on snubs brings films by the Coens, Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, David Lynch, and Todd Haynes.

Film at Lincoln Center

Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and begins a run.

Roxy Cinema

Minnie and Moskowitz has 35mm showings Saturday and Sunday, the latter day also bringing Polanski’s Frantic; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.

Anthology Film Archives

Barbarella, Wr: Mysteries of the Organism, and more play in Wilhelm Reich series; Brakhage screens in Essential Cinema.

IFC Center

Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Akira have screenings, while Showgirls plays on 35mm.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Jeanne Moreau,...

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

Film at Lincoln Center

Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and begins a run.

Anthology Film Archives

“Working Girl(s)” highlights the working woman, spanning Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames to Mike Nichols’ Working Girl, while a series curated by Borden gets underway.

Paris Theater

After Hours screens on Sunday with a Griffin Dunne Q&a to follow.

Film Forum

The Sorrow and the Pity begins a run; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration while Song of the Sea plays this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

The Todd Solondz retro continues with 35mm showings of Palindromes and Life During Wartime, while Wiener-Dog also shows; a puppet program plays on 16mm this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

Miyazaki’s Ponyo plays Saturday and Sunday; Argento’s Deep Red plays Saturday.

IFC Center

House,...

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

Anthology Film Archives

Citizen Kane plays on 35mm this Saturday and Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

The Todd Solondz retro continues with 35mm showings of Happiness, while Wild at Heart, Poetic Justice, Vanilla Sky, and Kuroneko also play on film.

Japan Society

The anime classic Whisper of the Heart plays on 35mm this Friday.

Museum of Modern Art

A series on Claudia Cardinale continues, including 8 1/2 this Friday.

Film Forum

Lou Ye’s Suzhou River has been given a 4K restoration, while Black Orpheus screens on 35mm this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A series on awards-snubbed films continues with Scorsese, Elaine May, von Sternberg and more.

IFC Center

House, Akira, and Rosemary’s Baby have screenings.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Citizen Kane, Vanilla Sky, Whisper of the Heart & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

In 2013, after a riot in a redevelopment district in Guangzhou, the Construction Committee Director Tang Yijie (Zhang Songwen) is found murdered. A young police detective Yang Jiadong (Jing Boran) is tasked with the investigation and soon discovers the involvement of the town´s real estate tycoon Jiang Zicheng (Qin Hao), Tang’s long-suffering wife Lin (Song Jia) who also turns out to be Jiang’s lover, and Tang’s daughter Xiaonuo (Ma Sichun). A cold case from several years ago concerning the mysterious disappearance of Lian Ahyun (Michelle Chen), who was known to Tang and Jiang, seems to be the missing link. Soon Yang finds himself framed, suspended from duty and on the run in Hong Kong…

A 2018 Chinese crime mystery directed by Lou Ye who is renowned for his controversial movies Suzhou River (2000) and Summer Palace (2006). The Shadow Play made its world premiere at the 58th Taipei Golden Horse...

A filmmaker perhaps too prolific for his own good, Lou Ye takes his latest spin ‘round the festival circuit with Saturday Fiction, a movie stuffed to bursting with sumptuous movie-movie atmosphere, the swoony charge of ideas about art, love, and espionage, and good-enough storytelling solutions.

Set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai over the first seven days of December, 1941, Saturday Fiction begins with the heralded return of Jean Yu (Gong Li) after several years in Hong Kong. She’s back to star in a new play about love and underground intrigue opposite its director, her one-time lover; their intimate dialogue scenes, both at the Lyceum Theater’s barroom set and Shanghai’s shipyard bar, are tantalizing autobiographical, and delivered in whispers that definitely won’t make it for the cheap seats. The line between acting and reality blurs further as Lou enters (and moves beyond) the play’s barroom set with his snaking handheld camera.

Where realism and wild imagination meet in contemporary Chinese cinema.

Unexpected Journeys is a film programme introducing and celebrating Magical Realism in Chinese cinema and curated by Giada Liu from the National Film and Television School.

The films selected explore and challenge the limits of realistic storytelling, either aesthetically or narratively. They combine realism with imagination, absurdity and fantasy, creating a ‘new vision’ of reality that highlights Chinese filmmakers’ self-reflection in a drastically changing society.

Unexpected Journeys is composed by four films from Mainland China that created their own version of Magical Realism.

On September 27th at Curzon Goldsmiths in London, there will be the screening of the visually spectacular and dreamlike second feature “Crosscurrent” (2016) by Yang Chao and one of Jiang Wen’s witty and nostalgic creations “The Sun Also Rises” (2007).

On September 30th at Rio Cinema in London, we are showing the poetic journey in time “Kaili Blues...

Shanghai International Film Festival

SHANGHAI -- The evocative title might mislead one to imagine Shanghai Red as one of those pre-Liberation epics like A Time to Remember (1998) or a propaganda film about the fiery days of the Cultural Revolution. In fact, the film is an attempt at an Eastern La femme Nikita with an interracial romantic twist set in contemporary Shanghai.

As a U.S.-Chinese co-production with Shanghai Film Group Corp., the film could gain theatrical release in China and draw in crowds curious about how their own city appears in a Hollywood film. Beyond that, some Asian-American festivals also might consider it for their selection.

Vivian Wu (The Pillow Book, Eve and the Fire Horse) plays Meili, an interpreter who becomes an angel of vengeance when her husband is shot dead on his way to sign a joint-venture contract. The appearance of an enigmatic American who claims to be a kind of troubleshooter for companies draws her into a web of deceit, love and guilt.

Still ravishing after all these years, Wu is the biggest interest-sustaining factor in the film. She gives subtle gradations in performance for the three phases and identities in her life but still maintains continuity of personality in spite of the film's more contrived moments, like when Meili slips into a scarlet red cheongsam and dons wide-brimmed Ray-Bans -- that really helps her blend in with the crowd when being tailed by the police on her way to assassinate her adversaries!

Director Oscar Luis Costo (Wu's husband) is a recognized Hollywood producer, so production quality is what one would expect of Hollywood. Costume and production design are thoughtfully consistent, with the film's color schemes of green, red and gray conceived to reflect the three stages and states of mind of the female protagonist.

However, the script is compromised by an attempt to make the film accessible to both American and Asian audiences by throwing together a mixed cast from U.S., Hong Kong and China. Ge You (To Live, The Banquet), a superstar in China, gets only a cameo role as the inscrutable boss, with little to do except look shady. Kenny Bee, once a Hong Kong heartthrob and now a veteran actor, spends most of his time playing a corpse or a ghostly apparition.

Richard Burgi (Hostel: Part II), on the other hand, gets the most screen time as the international love interest. Although he looks the part as the handsome "man of mystery," he and Wu have as much chemistry as a fish and a bicycle. She hits off much better with Sun Honglei (The Road Home, "Zhou Yu's Train"), another well-known Chinese actor who plays her defense lawyer in the film's overlapping narrative.

Although their interaction takes place exclusively in the confined space of a prison, it generates more dramatic tension as the two alternate roles as confessor and confidant, judge and therapist. Yet any attempt at psychological penetration is distracted by all the action, suspense, romance and Shanghai city tours that fill up the film's running time.

Moviegoers who choose this film for a bit of Oriental mystique will get their money's worth, from panoramic views of the Bund to lessons on how to eat xiaolongbao (soup-filled dumpling), with some modern images of snazzy, skyscraper-filled Shanghai thrown in. Those looking for the essence of Shanghai had better stick to Lou Ye's Suzhou River.

SHANGHAI RED

MARdeORO Films Inc. USA/Shanghai Film Group Corp.

Credits:

Director-screenwriter: Oscar Luis Costo

Director of photography: Adam Kane

Producer: Ren Zhonglun

Production designer: Jeff Knipp

Music: Randy Miller

Editor: Josh Muscatine

Cast:

Zhu Meili: Vivian Wu

Michael Johnson: Richard Burgi

The Lawyer: Sun Honglei

The Boss: Ge You

Running time -- 115 minutes

No MPAA rating...

BEIJING -- China has banned acclaimed director Lou Ye from making movies for five years as punishment for sending his Summer Palace to the Cannes Film Festival without government approval in May, official media reported Monday. Lou, who previously suffered a two-year blacklisting in 2000 for his Rotterdam Film Festival winner Suzhou River (HR 7/18), could not be reached for comment. In a telephone interview, the film's French co-producer called the decision by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television "shameful." "I am very sad that the Chinese public will not be allowed to see the fantastic love story," Sylvain Bursztejn, the head of Paris-based Rosem Films, said. Love story, sure, but it was the film's backdrop which caused trouble with the censors who refused to review it for approval for Cannes, claiming the print submitted was of poor quality. In May, the director and producers said this was a groundless excuse by the state, used to avoid addressing the film's content.

BEIJING -- China has banned acclaimed director Lou Ye from making movies for five years as punishment for sending his Summer Palace to the Cannes Film Festival without government approval in May, official media reported Monday. Lou, who previously suffered a two-year blacklisting in 2000 for his Rotterdam Film Festival winner Suzhou River (HR 7/18), could not be reached for comment. In a telephone interview, the film's French co-producer called the decision by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television "shameful." "I am very sad that the Chinese public will not be allowed to see the fantastic love story," Sylvain Bursztejn, the head of Paris-based Rosem Films, said. Love story, sure, but it was the film's backdrop which caused trouble with the censors who refused to review it for approval for Cannes, claiming the print submitted was of poor quality. In May, the director and producers said this was a groundless excuse by the state, used to avoid addressing the film's content.