News

I felt a tad guilty about enjoying the pandemic. Yes, it was obviously a tragic worldwide nightmare, the ramifications of which are still not truly known, and I was extremely privileged to not be that affected by it. Nonetheless, I couldn't help how much I enjoyed the sudden closure of society. What can I say: I'm an only child and an antisocial one. I hunkered down with my partner at the time, my parents, and my dog, and it was really lovely. It was honestly idyllic, and that feeling is beautifully reflected in director Olivier Assayas' new film, Suspended Time, which is playing at the 30th Rendez-Vous with France from Film at Lincoln Center.

Olivier Assayas Has a 'Day in the Country'

Suspended Time is set in those confusing early days of Covid-19 and lockdowns, back in April 2020. Assayas narrates the film himself, gently introducing us to a beautiful, endlessly...

Oscar-nominated actress Chloë Sevigny (“Boys Don’t Cry”), poses for the Jimmy Choo Spring 2025 footwear campaign, photographed by Ezra Petronio:

Sevigny started acting for indie films throughout the 1990’s, then was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of ‘Lana Tisdel’ in the drama feature “Boys Don't Cry”(1999).

She then appeared in “American Psycho” (2000), “Demonlover” (2002), “Party Monster”, “Dogville” (both 2003) and “The Brown Bunny” (2004).

From 2006 to 2011, Sevigny portrayed ‘Nicolette Grant’ on the HBO series “Big Love” earning a ‘Golden Globe Award’ for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ (2010).

She also appeared in mainstream films including David Fincher's “Zodiac” (2007) and starred in numerous TV projects, including the Brit series “Hit & Miss” (2012)…

…and a supporting role in “Portlandia” (2013).

Click the images to enlarge…...

Alex Wolff is praising his “Magic Farm” co-star Chloë Sevigny for setting the tone for the satirical feature.

Wolff, who stars alongside Sevigny, Simon Rex, Camila del Campo, and Joe Apollonio in the film, said during the IndieWire Studio at Sundance, presented by Dropbox, that Sevigny is one of his acting inspirations. Thus, he understandably was “nervous” to act opposite her on the indie.

“Magic Farm” centers on a Vice News-esque documentary film crew led by Sevigny’s character. The crew travels to Argentina to expose the effects of pesticides on people; Amalia Ulman wrote and directed the film.

When asked by IndieWire’s editorial director Kate Erbland how the two onscreen generations, represented by Sevigny and Rex’s respective characters and del Campo and Wolff’s roles, impacted the making of the film, Wolff credited Sevigny’s three decades in Hollywood as key to making “Magic Farm” work.

“Chloë,...

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

Roxy Cinema

Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover plays on 35mm Friday and Sunday; Frederick Wiseman’s High School screens on 16mm Saturday and Sunday; A Woman Under the Influence and Faces continue.

Bam

Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit begins playing in a 4K restoration; the black-and-white restoration of Basquiat begins a run.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of first-person documentaries begins; Vanishing Point screens on Saturday.

Film Forum

The Devil, Probably plays in a new restoration, while Sleeping Beauty screens on Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Johnnie To retrospective continues.

Anthology Film Archives

A Christopher Harris retrospective begins; a Yugoslav cinema series begins.

IFC Center

The black-and-white restoration of Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat continues; Tim Burton’s Batman and a 40th-anniversary restoration of Paris, Texas play daily; The Warriors, Tetsuo the Iron Man, Twister, and a print of The Cell play late.

If you’ve already dived into our massive fall movie preview, then you have a strong sense of what to have on your radar over the next four months. Now let’s examine September a little closer, already including a few new additions since our fall preview went up. Of course, from Venice to TIFF to NYFF, much of the month will be dedicated to our festival coverage, which you can follow here.

12. The Featherweight (Robert Kolodny; Sept. 20)

With the never-ending glut of biopics, particularly those centered in the world of sports, it can often feel like there’s not much new territory to cover. While Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw recently showed how a singular vision can elevate the genre, another film taking place partially inside the ring breathes new life. Robert Kolodny, who worked on the cinematography team of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Procession,...

Killers of the Flower Moon‘s epilogue felt like the last word on true crime: a director with several based-on-a-true-story tales to his name emerging from behind the camera to highlight the shortcomings of a genre that reduces victims to collateral damage in stories more compelled by their killers. That it arrived as splashy courtroom dramas made a big comeback––and even partially falling into that category itself––was an accident, but taken alongside the likes of Anatomy of a Fall or Saint Omer, it was clear that a need to tackle the subjectivity of this genre, and our obsession as uninvolved observers, was in the air.

Arriving more than a year after its Karlovy Vary premiere, Canadian thriller Red Rooms feels most like a dark companion piece to Saint Omer in its perspective-shifting analysis of a courtroom observer, although that’s where the similarities end. Director Pascal Plante’s...

Writer-director Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms opens with what sounds like a variation on the Handel music used in Barry Lyndon. Composer Dominique Plante’s eerie score is layered atop the pre-dawn routine of model Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) as she heads out not to work but a courthouse where a sensationalized murder case is set to begin. The trial concerns one Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), who stands accused of the brutal murder of three teenage girls whose deaths were recorded for distribution on the dark web.

As opening arguments in the trial begin, Plante lays out a meticulous aesthetic of slow tracking movements and long takes. When the prosecutor shows the jury photos of the deceased, the camera doesn’t cut to the screen showing the dead girls, instead slowly moving toward one of the TVs displaying the images, circumventing a lurid fetishizing of their innocent faces. Only in a few,...

With the summer movie season now quietly winding down, fall is upon us. As we do each year, after highlighting the best films offered thus far, we’ve set out to provide an overview of the titles that should be on your radar.

Featuring 40 films, the below preview includes both the best we’ve already seen (with full reviews where available) and the anticipated with (mostly) confirmed release dates over the next four months. A good amount will premiere these next few weeks at Telluride, Venice, TIFF, and NYFF, so check back for our reviews. Dates below are theatrical releases unless otherwise noted.

For more, explore our 20 most-anticipated films premiering at fall festivals that currently don’t have a fall release date confirmed.

Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier; Sept. 6 on Netflix)

A ruthlessly efficient thriller fueled by boiling rage, Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge wastes no time setting the stakes. Terry Richmond...

It’s been a few months since I saw Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow at Sundance Film Festival and I haven’t been able to shake its overwhelming, ultimately terrifying power. Telling the story of Owen (played early on by Ian Foreman and later by Justice Smith in a revelatory performance) we follow a journey questioning his identity through childhood and adulthood, and particularly a special infatuation with a late-night TV show and the ineradicable bond it creates with another lonely soul, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine).

As I said in my review, “The deeply expressive, imaginative ways in which Schoenbrun is able to articulate one’s struggle with identity is nothing short of staggering. This may not be a horror film in the conventional sense––in fact, every directorial decision assertively refutes convention––but I Saw the TV Glow emphatically argues nothing is more terrifying than being trapped...

Documentary fans have a lot to be excited about this month on HBO and Max. April begins with the premiere of The Synanon Fix, a docuseries that follows the rise and fall of the cult-like drug rehabilitation program Synanon. The documentary Brandy Hellville and the Cult of Fast Fashion takes a deep-dive into the controversial “one size fits most” clothing brand Brandy Mellville and the impact of fast fashion on the planet.

An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th looks at the surge of political violence and anti-government sentiment that led to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, and the effects still felt nearly 30 years later. HBO is also returning with a second part to their popular docuseries The Jinx, with filmmakers continuing their investigation of Robert Durst.

But if documentaries aren’t your thing, there’s still plenty of popular films hitting Max in April, like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,...

It's a new month, and HBO and Max will be showering their subscribers with gifts all April long! This month, the Wbd properties will welcome the arrival of unscripted projects like the premiere of Conan O’Brien’s new travel comedy series “Conan O’Brien Must Go” and the fourth season of the Emmy Award-winning drag-centric “We're Here.” Plus, Park Chan-wook and A24’s “The Sympathizer” limited series and the highly anticipated continuation of “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” will all be available to stream throughout the month.

Find out everything coming to Max this April, including The Streamable’s top picks to add to your watch list!

Sign Up $9.99+ / month Max.com What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Coming to Max in April 2024? “Alex Edelman: Just For Us” | Saturday, April 6

Filmed in front of a live audience at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in August 2023, Alex Edelman brings his solo special,...

Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki continues his investigation of convicted murderer Robert Durst in The Jinx – Part Two, a six-episode documentary series premiering on Max on April 21, 2024. The streaming service’s April lineup also includes the seven-episode limited series The Sympathizer, based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and starring Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr in multiple roles.

Comedian Alex Edelman hosts a brand new comedy special, and Conan O’Brien visits favorite fans from his podcast series in the four-episode unscripted series Conan O’Brien Must Go. The documentary series The Synanon Fix exploring the drug rehabilitation program joins Max’s lineup on April 1st. And the streaming service has set April premiere dates for the documentaries Brandy Hellville & The Cult Of Fast Fashion and An American Bombing: The Road To April 19th.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In April 2024

April 1

American Renegades (2018)

Basquiat (1996)

Black Swan (2010)

Body of Lies (2008)

Bridget Jones’s Diary...

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

Michelle Yeoh is looking back on watching everything in competition at Cannes all at once while serving on the jury under then-president David Lynch in 2002.

Yeoh reflected on the particularly “emotional” year of films, ranging from Gaspar Noé’s jarringly violent sexual thriller “Irréversible” to Michael Moore’s school shooting documentary “Bowling for Columbine” and films like Olivier Assayas’ sex-trafficking mystery “Demonlover” and the Dardennes’ drama “The Son.” The Palme d’Or was eventually awarded to “The Pianist,” the harrowing Holocaust drama starring Adrien Brody and directed by Roman Polanski — who both went on to win Oscars.

Yeoh, who was fresh off of her iconic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” role, served as part of the 2002 Cannes jury at a time when she admitted she may have been “too young” to refrain from getting “too emotional” watching the heavier films back-to-back.

“It is very intense, because you’re watching two or three movies a day,...

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

Both Sides of the Blade (Claire Denis)

In Both Sides of the Blade a romance breaks down and threatens to break up in a stylish apartment overlooking the sweet Parisian skyline. The director is of course Claire Denis, a filmmaker whose last work began in a place that looked like Eden and ended in a spaceship plummeting toward no less than a black hole. A baroque melodrama that might just maybe be a trolling farce, Both Sides of the Blade‘s concerns are of a more earthbound variety–though if the insistent strings of Tindersticks’ score are something to go by, they are of no less importance. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

Demonlover (Olivier Assayas)

Like so many Olivier Assayas films,...

A couple months after spotlighting the world’s greatest actress, the Criterion Channel have taken a logical next step towards America’s greatest actress. May (or: next week) will bring an eleven-film celebration of Jennifer Jason Leigh, highlights including Verhoeven’s Flesh + Blood, Miami Blues, Alan Rudolph’s Mrs. Parker, her directorial debut The Anniversary Party, and Synecdoche, New York, and a special introduction from Leigh. Another actor’s showcase localizes directorial collaborations: Jimmy Stewart’s time with Anthony Mann, an eight-title series boasting the likes of Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie. Two more: a survey of ’80s Asian-American cinema (Chan Is Missing being the best-known) and 14 movies by Seijun Suzuki.

That would be enough for one month (or two), but No Bears and Cette maison will have their streaming premieres, while Criterion Editions offers the Infernal Affairs trilogy (plus its packed set), Days of Heaven, and the aforementioned Chan Is Missing.

Feature incarnation of the Idris Elba cop drama sees a ropey but savage snuff-porn plot get too much explicit attention

Neil Cross’s smash-hit BBC TV crime drama now gets its own standalone feature film, with Idris Elba returning as the troubled London police officer John Luther, effectively continuing the story from the end of the fifth season. This may well play very effectively to the show’s fanbase and there’s certainly an alpha supporting cast including Cynthia Erivo, Andy Serkis and Hattie Morahan.

But I have to say – and those squeamish about spoilers and cliches had better look away now – that without the extended context of longform TV, the greater emphasis on explicit, violent horror is a bit exhausting. The serial-killer accessories feel hand-me-down; the Scandi noir touch is spurious and storylines in the movies about evil criminal plans to livestream snuff-porn are frankly always lame and implausible.

French filmmaker Olivier Assayas has spent has spent decades crafting unforgettable stories and establishing himself as a major international talent well worth following. His collaborations with actor Kristen Stewart on "Clouds of Sils Maria" and especially 2016's "Personal Shopper" did a lot to pave the way for the actor's Best Actress nomination in last year's "Spencer" (but we still maintain that she should've won that award handily!). Meanwhile, earlier efforts such as "Sentimental Destinies," "Demonlover," and "Clean" helped turn him into a regular presence at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival year in and year out. After so much success on the big...

The post Irma Vep First Look: Alicia Vikander is a Star in the HBO Limited Series appeared first on /Film.

Metrograph

With her sublime debut All is Forgiven now playing, Mia Hansen-Løve has curated a series populated by the likes of Varda, Rohmer, and Edward Yang.

Museum of Modern Art

A series curated by Mark McElhatten sees India Song screen on Saturday and L’amour Fou this Sunday.

Film Forum

Miraculously rediscovered and restored, the Iranian film Chess of the Wind continues; Harold Lloyd’s For Heaven’s Sake and an Amos Vogel program screen on Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Prints of Boarding Gate and Demonlover screen throughout the weekend; Irma Vep also plays.

IFC Center

While the 4K restoration of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s masterpiece Cure continues and World of Wong Kar-wai keeps going, El Topo, Natural Born Killers, Mulholland Dr., House, and Hour of the Wolf have showings.

Anthology Film Archives

A series on “Folk Horror” continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

A 90th-anniversary retro of Universal Horror continues, while an Amos Vogel retrospective is underway.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.GoldenEye (1995)A boxy, European sports car races through the medieval street-layout of Paris in pursuit of "The Package." A hacker using a black, plastic-heavy Thinkpad laptop connects to "The Uplink" via cellular phone while sitting on a Eurostar train speeding from London to Brussels. A puffy-jacketed secret agent trying to look inconspicuous exchanges grainy photographs of "The Target" with their "Handler" in Berlin’s bustling Alexanderplatz square. Meanwhile, in some nondescript, Crt-clad control center, green dots mark everyone’s position on an oversized map.What do these characterizations, so specific to a certain time in moviemaking, have in common? Call it Nokiawave, a term first coined by David Rudnick while tracing tropes across American action movies. Across a non-conclusive set of films—amongst them GoldenEye (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996), Ronin (1998), and the first...

It’s no secret the connection between the worlds of cinema and video games has never been more blurred. The recent Ghost of Tsushima featured none other than “Kurosawa Mode,” while films like Hardcore Henry place you inside an Fps albeit one you can’t control, not to mention the number of movie adaptations of celebrated games and vice versa. However, it’s rare that a videogame developer would straight-up mine classic Hollywood cinema for a new project.

Such an occurrence has happened with the announcement of a new videogame “freely inspired” by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the most-acclaimed film of all-time. Directly borrowing the title of the 1958 classic itself, Gematsu reports the narrative adventure game is coming later this year from publisher Microids and developer Pendulo Studios. However, as afterglow reminds us, it’s not the first game to take from the Hitchcock canon as Arxel Tribe released the...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Cowboys (Anna Kerrigan)

Hearing writer/director Anna Kerrigan talk about the origins of her latest film Cowboys is to understand the love she has for Montana and the way it provides a respite from the noise of city life. With that sense of comfort in nature’s majesty, however, also lies the potential for disconnect where politics are concerned since those who call that state home aren’t always the most diverse or understanding when it comes to lifestyle choices that fall outside the “norms” of their conservative religious worldview. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Kerrigan would seek to bridge that gap creatively. She chose Montana’s...

Like so many Olivier Assayas films, Demonlover belongs to the ghosts. In this particular case they are enigmatic, ladder-climbing players in a high-stakes game of corporate espionage. Devoid of backstories or any motivation beyond power, influence, and desire, they are walking ellipses created for the sole purpose of inspiring visceral appeal and narrative misdirection.

Demonlover blends elements of the thriller, heist film, and porn with revolutionary verve, revealing the incredibly close proximity of high art and lowbrow kinks. But what makes this hallucinatory and nightmarish vision of early-online subterfuge so singular is how it fixates on analog textures within a crumbling post-modern world slowly being consumed by all things digital. Every grainy frame exudes the dying gasp of celluloid.

Nearly twenty years after its premiere at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Demonlover returns in a newly restored, unrated director’s cut that only magnifies its themes of disappearance and submersion. Cold...

"No one sees anything. Ever. They watch, but they don't understand." Janus Films has debuted a re-release trailer for the 2K restoration of acclaimed French filmmaker Olivier Assayas' early 00s film Demonlover, which first premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. The film is about a French corporation that goes head-to-head with an American web media company for the rights to a 3D manga pornography studio in Japan, resulting in a power struggle that culminates in violence and espionage. Starring Gina Gershon, Chloë Sevigny, Connie Nielson, & Charles Berling. It's described as "hallucinatory, globe-spanning... neo-noir thriller and media critique in which nothing — not even the film itself — is what it appears to be." Reviews call the erotic film "a beautiful and disturbing contemporary filmic object." The new re-release is a 2K restoration of the unrated director's cut supervised by Olivier Assayas himself. Quite spicy - have a look. Here's the new restoration...

Oliver Assayas‘ 2002 thriller, “Demonlover” is dense, hypnotic, and out there, and out there. Starring Connie Nielson, Gina Gershon, Chloë Sevigny, and Charles Berling, the byzantine plot centers on a French corporation that goes head-to-head with an American web media company for the rights to a 3D manga pornography studio, resulting in a power struggle that culminates in bloody violence and espionage. But the film, while a thriller, is not a typical espionage film, much more surreal, and nightmarish.

Continue reading ‘Demonlover’ Restoration Trailer: Oliver Assayas’ Paranoid Post-Modern Thriller Returns In A Unrated Director’s Cut In February at The Playlist.

The equally eclectic and fantastic cinema of Olivier Assayas makes picking favorites a fool’s errand, but among many (yours truly included) there is a special place for his 2002 techno-spy-hentai thriller Demonlover, an apotheosis of his dual interests in genre cinema and globalization. Though I might’ve lost you at the hentai: it’s also hugely funny for centering its murderous espionage plot on anime porn, which Gina Gershon insists will allow them to “control 75% of the world market.”

Janus’ new restoration of his director’s cut will debut on February 12, ahead of which is a trailer that does well to encapsulate the mad frenzy of Assayas’ project. First, here’s the official synopis:

“No one sees anything. Ever. They watch, but they don’t understand.” So observes Connie Nielsen in Olivier Assayas’s hallucinatory, globe-spanning Demonlover, a postmodern neonoir thriller and media critique in which nothing—not even the...

As his new film Wasp Network hits Netflix, delve into the French director’s wide-ranging back catalogue from Demonlover to Personal Shopper

Many film-makers dream of their name becoming its own adjective. Hitchcockian, Tarantinoesque, Lynchian: all terms (some of them even validated by the Oxford English Dictionary) that brand the signature aesthetic, tone and/or thematic fixations of one director and his various imitators. Not every great film-maker is suitable for this treatment, however: it would be difficult to adjectivise the French director Olivier Assayas, and not just because “Assayasesque” is rather a mouthful.

Forty years into his career, Assayas’s work can loosely be characterised by his cool, elegant formal style, but you’d be stretching to find many throughlines in an oeuvre that runs the gamut from muscular genre workouts to brittle comedies of manners, from tender naturalism to whirling avant-garde experimentation. He’s no workaday journeyman, but...

The director of Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies, Pearl Jam’s Jeremy and many more reflects on his career and some of the movies that made him.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Arlington Road (1999)

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Firewall (2006)

The Orphanage (2007)

Nostalgia (2018)

Avatar (2009)

Titanic (1997)

Chef (2014)

The Laundromat (2019)

Honeymoon In Vegas (1992)

Demonlover (2003)

Under The Sand (2000)

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Under The Skin (2013)

The Great Beauty (2013)

Slap Shot (1977)

Network (1976)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Pawnbroker (1964)

Star Wars (1977)

The Exorcist (1973)

Jaws (1975)

The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)

All The President’s Men (1976)

Liquid Sky (1982)

The Brother From Another Planet (1984)

City Of Hope (1991)

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Snowpiercer (2013)

The Flintstones (1994)

Matinee (1993)

Batman (1989)

Transformers (2007)

A History Of Violence (2005)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Psycho (1960)

Psycho (1998)

Mandy (2018)

Phantom Thread (2017)

Magnolia (1999)

Boogie Nights (1997)

The Master (2012)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

The Mustang (2019)

Inherent Vice (2014)

The New World (2005)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

The Last Word (2017)

Cocaine Cowboys (2006)

The Burglar (1957)

What Lies Beneath...

Discussions of eternal virtues between characters with self-made problems, their self-articulated solutions and delusionary implementations, the real pitter-patter of the intelligentsia, fill up Non-Fiction, the new film from Olivier Assayas. Now the doyen of widely distributed art-house cinema, Assayas’s long and protean career has covered the waterfront of cinematic genres: the period piece (Sentimental Destinies), the inside-showbiz drama (Irma Vep and Clouds of Sils Maria), youthful romance (Cold Water and Something in the Air), the ghost story (Personal Shopper), a scuzzy espionage thriller (Demonlover), and, with Late August, Early September and Non-Fiction, two takes on the literary world. This genre globetrotting is indicative of Assayas’s lifelong closeness with cinema. Born to a screenwriter father in 1955, Assayas began as critic for Cahiers du cinéma in the late-70s and became a scriptwriter for André Techiné in the mid-80s before embarking on his long career directing features. His worldview...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Birds of Passage (Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra)

It probably says more about Ciro Guerra’s last film than this inimitable new offering (which he co-directed with his long-serving producer Christina Gallego) to suggest that fans of Embrace of the Serpent might find Birds of Passage just a little on the linear side. However, to compare the two is surely akin to comparing the varying potency of two strains of class-a hallucinogens. Set in Columbia in the 1960s, this violent, operatic, and sparsely trippy film follows the early days of marijuana trafficking in the region. Don’t worry if that all sounds a touch familiar. – Rory O.

The French Publisher’s Wife: Assayas Straddles Digital Criminals and Corporate Cannibals in Playful Bon Mot

Hardly a stranger to the back room wheeling and dealing of industry, whether it’s the faux porn producers at the heart of Demonlover (2002), high fashion’s supporting players in 2016’s Personal Shopper (which also examines how modern technology dictates our lives) or the internecine fall-out between an actress and her assistant in Clouds of Sils Maria (review), Olivier Assayas applies his interests in publishing with his latest film Non-Fiction. A behind-the-scenes portrait of an industry still struggling to transition between digital and print, Assayas collaborates for the third time with Juliette Binoche, starring as a successful television actress as equally uncertain of her future as her publisher husband is of his.…...

Watch an auteur’s early short and it usually goes one of two ways: a) the pieces, or fragments, of directorial style and thematics are all there, and hindsight makes it no wonder that said auteur ended up a major figure; or b) they clearly found a different way down the road, and “minor anomaly” thus becomes the common response.

Olivier Assayas’ 1982 piece Left Unfinished in Tokyo, as its title may suggest, has a way of splitting the difference. Le CiNéMa Club continue their programming hot streak with this 20-minute film, available for free until Friday and something of a must-see for fans and skeptics alike. It will take all of a minute to recall the international cross-referencing and espionage(-ish) dealings of Demonlover, Boarding Gate, and Irma Vep, its narrative — wherein some academics in over their heads find the picturesque qualities of their adopted country are perhaps enough to maintain security — a neat supplement.

Several decades into the digital revolution, there’s still a twinge of discomfort whenever new work from a major auteur dares to invoke the internet. Even worse: when it does so by name. Facebook. YouTube. Snapchat. Such vulgar things become virtually unavoidable in any movie that’s about the modern world, but the transience of social media remains hard to reconcile with the timelessness of great cinema. It’s the residue of a cannon that’s loaded with dead men and often pointing backward, the legacy of a pantheon that tends to regard modernity as more of an existential threat than a tool at its disposal.

It’s also why Olivier Assayas’ sly and delightful “Non-Fiction” (née “E-book”) feels like such a lark at first — like a master filmmaker clearing his throat between more significant projects. That’s exactly what Assayas wants you to think.

It’s one thing when...

Women in television, Darren Aronofsky and Barry Jenkins keynotes, Nasa mission to the sun talk on the agenda.

March 10 Update: SXSW director of film Janet Pierson has confirmed the world premiere of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One will be the (not so) surprise screening on Sunday.

The world premiere of John Krasinski’s horror film A Quiet Place starring Krasinski alongside his wife, Emily Blunt kicked off the annual film festival in Austin, Texas, which runs from March 9-17.

However SXSW isn’t all about the big screen and offers a panoply of music, gaming, technology discussions, conferences, and keynote speeches to savour.

Fierce, committed and above all, tough — these are the words that collaborators use to describe producer Robin O’Hara, a longtime fixture of the New York independent film scene, who died suddenly last week after complications from cancer treatment.

When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.

As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”

Echoing Wu,...

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out….but mostly movies.

This Past Weekend:

It was absolutely no surprise that Hugh Jackman’s last Wolverine movie Logan would top the box office, but it actually ended up doing even better than my prediction when actual numbers came in, grossing $88.3 million over the weekend. That makes it the fourth highest X-Movie opening (including Deadpool) but also the biggest R-rated opening for March, defeating 300’s once-impressive $70 million opening. It’s also the fourth highest R-rated opening of all time after Deadpool, The Matrix Reloaded and American Sniper.

The bigger surprise was how well Jordan Peele’s thriller Get Out held up in its second weekend, not only because it was going up against Logan, but also because high-profile horror films tend...

One week a month, Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by the week’s new releases or premieres. This week: Equity inspires a look back at other films set in the corporate world.

Demonlover (2002)

Olivier Assayas has never differentiated between art and trash: Of all the serious European filmmakers who’ve experimented with genre since the 1990s, Assayas may be the most at home within the form. Which is not to say that 2002’s Demonlover is some sort of cozy exercise. On the contrary, it’s a wildly discomfiting, borderline-experimental thriller that works the viewer over with relentless, pounding purposefulness.

Fresh off of supporting turns in Hollywood fare like The Devil’s Advocate and Gladiator, Connie Nielsen plays Diane, a sleek upper-management executive negotiating the overseas purchase of a Japanese anime studio. (She works for the Volf Corporation, whose name suggests a predatory, lupine mindset). In a series ...

Diving into the hundreds of new theatrical releases, including large chunks of grueling, gluttonous marathons through world cinema’s greatest offerings from a variety of film festivals, and coming to a reasonable list of selections demonstrating what one deems to be ‘the best,’ remains an utterly self-involved, sometimes fruitless tradition. Who, after all, can rightly determine what is indeed ‘best’ in an art form where one person’s trash is another’s treasure? Personally, I prefer to compile a list of ‘favorite’ things, items which remain meaningless unless you put stock in its author’s general tastes.

Amidst the incessant jabbering of awards season exaggeration, it’s difficult not to be swayed by the most topical, most shiny and brand new theatrical releases courting awards voters (which is why I felt it necessary to see Inarritu’s new film twice). Nearly half of my selections appeared on my mid-year list of favored theatrical releases,...

With the first half of 2015 officially coming to a close, it’s time for our mid-year list of best theatrical releases. As seems to be the trend, a bulk of these titles were selections premiering in the late fall circuit of 2014, a move sometimes granting offbeat art-house selections a bit more breathing room (though not always). Here’s a glance at what represents the best of the year thus far, including two directorial debuts, one posthumous work, and one studio feature:

10. The Salt of the Earth – Dir. Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Premiering at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, German auteur Wim Wenders explores the prolific career of Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, here with the help of his son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado serving as co-director. Known for capturing catastrophic events in striking fashion, the documentary finds the artist in search of something positive after decades documenting human nature at its worst.

Clouds Of Sils Maria Sundance Selects Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B+ Director: Olivier Assayas Screenwriter: Olivier Assayas Cast: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 1/7/15 Opens: April 10, 2015 Olivier Assayas, now sixty years old, has been in the film business since co-writing his first movie in 1985 at the age of thirty. His contributions have included “Alice and Martin” about a young man who leaves his home town for Paris at the age of twenty and becomes a model (which he co-wrote with director André Téchiné at the age of forty-four) and my own favorite, “Demonlover,” [ Read More ]

The post Clouds of Sils Maria Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Birdman, Fury and Leviathan among main competition titles; Roland Joffé to preside over main jury.

Alejandro G Ińárritu, Yimou Zhang, Mike Leigh and Jean-Marc Vallée are among the directors with films screening in competition at the 22nd Camerimage (Nov 15-22), the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

The main competition at the festival, held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, comprises:

Alejandro G Ińárritu’s Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki

Yimou Zhang’s Coming Home (Gui lai); China, 2014; Cinematographer: Zhao Xiaoding

Richard Raymond’s Desert Dancer; UK, 2014; Cinematographer: Carlos Catalán Alucha

Lech J. Majewski’s Field of Dogs - Onirica (Onirica - Psie pole); Poland, 2014; Cinematographers: Paweł Tybora and Lech J. Majewski

Krzysztof Zanussi’s Foreign Body (Obce cialo); Poland, Italy, Russia, 2014; Cinematographer: Piotr Niemyjski

David Ayer’s Fury; USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Roman Vasyanov

Tate Taylor’s Get on Up; USA, 2014; Cinematographer: Stephen Goldblatt

Łukasz Palkowski’s Gods (Bogowie); Poland, 2014; Cinematographer:...

Polish film festival sets competition juries; Roland Joffe to preside over main competition.

Camerimage (Nov 15-22), the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, has set an impressive roster of jurors for its various competition categories.

The Killing Fields director Roland Joffe will preside over the main competition jury, which incldues cinematographers Christian Berger and Manuel Alberto Claro.

Caleb Deschanel has been appointed president of the Polish Films Competition.

The full list of jurors is below.

Main Competition

Roland Joffé – Jury President (director, producer; The Killing Fields, The Mission, Vatel)

Christian Berger (cinematographer; The Piano Teacher, Hidden, The White Ribbon)

Ryszard Bugajski (director, screenwriter; Interrogation, General Nil, The Closed Circuit)

Ryszard Horowitz (photographer)

David Gropman (cinematographer; The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, Life of Pi)

Arthur Reinhart (cinematographer, producer; Crows, Tristan + Isolde, Venice)

Oliver Stapleton (cinematographer; The Cider House Rules, Pay It Forward, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark)

Manuel Alberto Claro (cinematographer; Reconstruction, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac...

Perhaps making a more robust offer than IFC Films (who released her last pair of features in Goodbye First Love and The Father of My Children), Gabriel and Daniel Hammond’s Broad Green Pictures have landed Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, a track-heavy fourth feature film which had it’s world premiere, not in Venice but at Tiff. Essentially building their 2015 calendar year with 2014 Toronto Film Fest preemed items, after picking up 99 Homes and Samba, this third grab in less than three weeks means the outfitter isn’t afraid of committing to auteur-driven art-house projects with perhaps a broader appeal. Bgp plans to release the film in Spring 2015.

Gist: This follows Paul (Félix de Givry), a teenager in the underground scene of early-nineties Paris. Rave parties dominate that culture, but he’s drawn to the more soulful rhythms of Chicago’s garage house. He forms a DJ collective named Cheers (as,...

Above: Pedro Costa's Horse Money

The Locarno Film Festival has announced their lineup for the 67th edition, taking place this August between the 6th and 16th. It speaks for itself, but, um, wow...

"Every film festival, be it small or large, claims to offer, if not an account of the state of things, then an updated map of the art form and the world it seeks to represent. This cartography should show both the major routes and the byways, along with essential places to visit and those that are more unusual. The Festival del film Locarno is no exception to the rule, and I think that looking through the program you will be able to distinguish the route map for this edition." — Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director

Above: Matías Piñeiro's The Princess of France

Concorso Internazionale (Official Competition)

A Blast (Syllas Tzoumerkas, Greece/Germany/Netherlands)

Alive (Jungbum Park, South Korea)

Horse Money (Pedro Costa,...

Clouds of Sils Maria looks like an airy puzzle, and a showcase for its excellent cast. The new film from Olivier Assayas (Carlos, Demonlover) casts Juliette Binoche as an actress forced to confront the progression of time and her career. She once found fame playing the ingenue in a play about a woman who drives […]

The post New ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ Trailer: A Showcase for Kristen Stewart and Juliette Binoche appeared first on /Film.

Every year is filled with dubious Robert De Niro choices, but most people forget that he tends to be pretty good, even in garbage. He's always been dedicated to his craft, whether he's working with Scorsese or Jay Roach. Now Olivier Assayas is going to be the next guy who shepherds a Robert De Niro performance, because it looks like the two of them are teaming up. Deadline reports that De Niro is starring alongside Twilight sensation Robert Pattinson in Idol's Eye. The Assayas-directed film has an unrevealed plot thus far, but it's said to be a sophisticated heist thriller. You'd think this would be something more commercial, but this is Assayas we're talking about. His idea of "commercial suspense thriller" was the mind-bending Demonlover, set in the world of hentai company espionage, which can haunt the viewer years after they've caught the film. See a trailer below (Nsfw) and...

Hubris

Director: Olivier Assayas

Writer: Olivier Assayas

Producers: Charles Gillibert, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan, Scott Stuber

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Unkown

Once a project that was set to be helmed by Todd Field, Assayas, not even fresh off bowing his 2014 feature, Clouds of Sils Maria, will be churning out his first feature to film in the Us with this true crime story that suddenly seems even more lucrative now that he’s at the helm. Sure, Assayas has worked in English language films before—his latest film, along with Demonlover and Irma Vep feature a variety of languages, but we’re excited to see what names will populate his cast list in the coming year, as well as how his vision of Chicago’s underbelly will unfold.

Gist: Follows a group of small-time thieves who rob a man who turns out to be Chicago mafia boss Tony Accardo.

“To describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions and the forces which tend to dissolve it, one must artificially distinguish certain inseparable elements. When analyzing the spectacle one speaks, to some extent, the language of the spectacular itself in the sense that one moves through the methodological terrain of the very society which expresses itself in the spectacle. But the spectacle is nothing other than the sense of the total practice of a social-economic formation, its use of time. It is the historical movement in which we are caught.” – Thesis 11 from Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover (2002) is a genre-bending corporate espionage thriller that takes elements from neo-noir, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), and Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle to depict the final triumph of the image over organic solidarity in late-capitalism. Beginning as a simple thriller about a multinational conglomerate named the Volf Corporation,...

Olivier Assayas's new film is set amid the fallout of the May 68 uprising and the rebellious antics of its hero recall the director's own youthful protests. He talks about adrenaline rushes and breaking rules

Olivier Assayas, the writer, director and former film critic, is truly cool. He is the maker of some of the most playful, intellectual French cinema of the past two decades. His tastes are eclectic, his skill-set vast: he can move confidently between witty romps (such as his 1996 breakthrough, Irma Vep, one of the cleverest of all films about film-making, or the techno-thriller Demonlover) and lavish, patient period pieces (Les Destinées Sentimentales) or slow-burn emotional studies (Summer Hours). His most formidable achievement is the five-and-a-half-hour Carlos, a painstaking recreation of the rise of Carlos the Jackal made for television in 2010 but mounted with a scope and handsomeness to shame any Hollywood equivalent.

Separated from the actor Maggie Cheung,...

There's a good reason why Olivier Assayas is one of my favorite French filmmakers. Partially, it's because he has never made the same movie twice while he always seems to be veering away from his fellow country men to do things that are edgy and modern and different, whether it's Irma Vep and Clean or the craziness of Demonlover . Following the 5 ½ hour Golden Globe-winning epic Carlos , Assayas is back with Something in the Air (Apres mai) , a coming-of-age tale set in the early '70s that's a surprisingly fitting follow-up to a mini-series about a terrorist, this time making his most personal and autobiographical film to date as well as his most youthful. The film follows Gilles, an ambitious shaggy-haired high school student played by newcomer Clément Métayer, who could...