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The San Sebastián Film Festival has revealed a bumper Official Selection for its latest edition, which will unfold from September 20 — 28.

The festival, which is celebrating its 72nd edition, will screen new films from established filmmakers such as Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon alongside works from new filmmakers including Laura Carreira and Xin Huo.

Coppola’s The Last Showgirl heads to San Sebastián following a debut in Toronto. The film stars Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dave Bautista. The film’s plot follows a seasoned showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run. Also heading to Spain from The Six is Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin. The British-Spanish production is said to portray the everyday life of a London family, addressing such issues as family relations,...

Vipco & BayView Entertainment have released the Asian horror film The House Of The Serpent, which is now available on Digital Platforms worldwide including on Hoopla in the USA.

The House Of The Serpent will arrive on AVOD Digital Platforms worldwide on 30th July 2024.

Takahashi gained prominence in the horror genre with collaborations with director Hideo Nakata on films such as “Don’t Look Up” (1996) and “The Ring” (1998), contributing significantly to the J-horror boom. His other screenplay credits include “Serpent’s Path”, “Orochi: Blood”, and Netflix’s “Ju-On: Origins”. In 2004, he made his feature film directorial debut with “Sodom the Killer.” Subsequently, he directed a series of horror films including “Sea of Madness” (2007), “The Sylvian Experiments” (2010), “The Carol of the Old Ones” (2011), and “Occult Bolshevism” (2017). Takahashi is also an author and published books as well as a collection of screenplays.

Synopsis:

Naomi (Shoko Nakahara, an actress and playwright, is writing a new play...

You know how it is: you wait 4 years for a new Kiyoshi Kurosawa film to follow “Wife of a Spy” and then three come along in quick succession int he same year. After his remake to his own “Serpent's Path” and a short film, we now gear up for the release of his new work, “Cloud”, starring Masaki Suda.

Synopsis

Ryosuke Yoshii is an ordinary person, who supports himself by reselling things on the internet. He carelessly earns grudges by people around him and, in the end, he is dragged into a desperate struggle that risks his life.

in addition to Suda, “Cloud” stars Kotone Furukawa, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama, YosiYosi Arakawa and Masataka Kubota. It is scheduled to release in Japan on September 27th, 2024.

What a pleasure it is to see Kiyoshi Kurosawa in his Hong Sangsoo period. The typically prolific filmmaker is having an especially verdant 2024: his medium-length Chime debuted at Berlinale to strong notices; Serpent’s Path, a remake of his 1998 feature, opens in France this June; and September 27 brings the Japanese release of a new horror feature, Cloud. Ahead of this, there’s a 30-second preview and two posters.

As previously reported, Cloud stars The Boy and the Heron‘s Masaki Suda as Ryosuke Yoshii, “an enigmatic young man who tries to make money by reselling shrewdly obtained goods on the internet under the pseudonym ‘Ratel.'” Kurosawa expanded upon this by saying,

“In the obscure corners of modern-day Japan, violent incidents sometimes occur for seemingly no reason whatsoever. When the causes are investigated, it becomes apparent that a system of sorts exists through which petty grudges and frustrations are accumulated...

Safe to say few movies this year engender more excitement than Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path, a remake of his superb, bad-vibes 1998 thriller. Though an expected Cannes debut didn’t come to pass, the film releases in France on June 14; we now have a trailer that shows the known cast members with the pleasant surprise of Drive My Car‘s Hidetoshi Nishijima, and though enthusiasts of the original will spot bare bones of its revenge plot, quick shots imply scenes and scenarios not in Kurosawa’s original. News of U.S. acquisition already feels overdue.

Here’s the synopsis: “An intense desire for revenge fills Albert Bacheret: his daughter Marie. This father, exalted by violence, joins forces with Sayoko, to find and kill the culprits one by one. But at the same time, Sayoko leads her own mission of revenge which risks turning against Albert at any moment… Sayoko Mijima,...

How do you even start to write about Chime, a film that keeps secrets guarded and lives off the shocks of its knife-edge turns? It’s safe to say the director is Kiyoshi Kurosawa. It’s also safe to say Chime is 45 minutes long, making it feel more like the pilot for a TV series we’ll never see––only adding to the intrigue. Like much of the director’s work, it’s the kind of thing you could have seen late night on television when you were much too young. It would have also left a mark.

The story follows Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka), a strick-ish teacher at a culinary school, where the story begins. We’re in a classroom where nothing seems out-of-the-ordinary, the usual washing and slicing, then Kurosawa draws your attention to one student at the back, Tashiro, who seems to be working erratically, chopping onions in...

Update: the first poster for and a new image from Serpent’s Path are below, courtesy Cinefil, which lists the French release date as June 14. Sounds like a Cannes premiere to us!

Few directors loom over 2024 like Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who’s expected to debut two films these next twelve months. We just learned of Chime, a genre-bending Japanese feature, and for some time have anticipated Serpent’s Path, a remake of his (fantastic) 1998 horror thriller that’s set to star Damien Bonnard and Ko Shibasaki (The Boy and the Heron). Today brings a major update courtesy the financier Tax Shelter, who’ve shared three stills featuring Mathieu Amalric (previously of Kurosawa’s Daguerrotype) and Claire Denis regular Grégoire Colin, while further digging has revealed the involvement of Michaël Vander-Meiren.

Though it had been reported this new Serpent’s Path (perhaps officially subtitled La vengeance du serpent) would be female-led, Tax Shelter’s synopsis...

Look out, Hong Sangsoo. Your distinction as the most prolific director working today is being challenged. It’s been nearly four years since Kiyoshi Kurosawa last released a film with 2020’s Wife of a Spy, but in 2024, the Japanese director will make up for lost time, premiering a trio of new films.

As featured in our 2024 preview, he remade his own film with Serpent’s Path, starring Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Grégoire Colin, and Ko Shibasaki. Before that feature sets its premiere, his 45-minute thriller Chime will debut at Berlinale this month. Now, a third 2024 film has been unveiled with Cloud.

Screen Daily reports he’s already finished shooting the project, with the first still featured above, and is in the editing process with a Japanese release planned for this September. Backed by Nikkatsu Corporation and Tokyo Theatres Company Inc., the Kurosawa-scripted project stars The Boy and the Heron‘s Masaki Suda as Ryosuke Yoshii,...

Follow French actors on Instagram, is the rule. Not even two weeks after Damien Bonnard let a clapperboard announce his involvement in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path remake, the great Vincent Macaigne––who gave perhaps last year’s single finest performance in Irma Vep––revealed an Olivier Assayas reunion: production’s just begun on their next collaboration (short? feature? series?) Hors du Temps, or Out of Time en Anglais, with the director’s once-regular Dp Eric Gautier on camera duties for the first time since 2012’s Something in the Air.

That, thus far, is that. I’ve done some digging (read: exact-phrase Google searches and logging into an old Cinando account) to little avail. Word last year had it he was working on something for Kristen Stewart (“in preparation” being the expectation-laden term) and some further digging (her IMDb page) suggests no projects currently have her on set. Inconclusive, sure,...