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In my opinion, the two greatest directors to emerge from the nexus of international cinema in the 1990s were both Scandinavian. One of them, Lars von Trier, became quite famous, for reasons both good and bad. The other director I’m speaking of never got famous, and his movies, even during his brief heyday, didn’t become art-house sensations. Yet for a time, Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson burned with an intoxicating flame.

He made three films of astonishing organic craft and humanistic purity: “Show Me Love” (1998), a shockingly lyrical love story about two high-school girls who fall for each other in a small town that didn’t look very tolerantly upon them; “Together” (2000), an ensemble comedy set in a sharehome commune in Stockholm in 1975 that is one of the only films that totally gets the counterculture; and “Lilya 4-ever” (2002), a haunting tragedy about a wayward girl in the former Soviet...

“Sound of Freedom” is being sold as a “conservative” thriller. It’s based on the true story of Tim Ballard, the former Department of Homeland Security special agent who has devoted himself to fighting child sex trafficking, and who took his crusade private when he founded Operation Underground Railroad, with backing from Glenn Beck. The movie stars Jim Caviezel, who in the 19 years since he played the title role of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” has been a go-to actor for the kind of faith-based projects the vast majority of Hollywood stars steer clear of. Wearing a trim dark beard and coppery blond hair, Caviezel plays Ballard as a beatific G.I. Joe meets George C. Scott in “Hardcore” meets an avenging Jesus.

The movie has a Christian undercurrent that occasionally becomes an overcurrent, as when Ballard explains why he’s fixated on the crime of trafficking: “Because...

Confrontational, provocative, outrageous, heartbreaking, hilarious – all can be applied to director Lukas Moodysson, who has been hailed internationally as one of Sweden’s greatest filmmaking talents, delighting and confounding audiences in equal measure. Drawing his inspiration from an eclectic and startling array of subjects, including commune living, teenage angst, punk rock, reality TV and graphic novels, Moodysson’s extraordinary filmography is keenly observed and deeply felt. Later this month, on the essential, alternative streaming service Arrow, you can see all of his films together for the first time (and the collection is released on a Limited Edition Blu-ray boxset on January 30th by Arrow Video). Here’s a look at each film and what to expect from this unique talent.

Show Me Love (Aka F*Cking Amal) (1998)

Moodysson’s multiple-award winning first film, Fucking Åmål (released overseas as Show Me Love), tells the story of awkward smalltown teenager Agnes and...

While a space traveler’s greatest fear is typically what’s waiting out there in the great unknown, what they bring back to Earth could be much, much worse. That’s the premise of Russian filmmaker Egor Abramenko’s feature debut “Sputnik,” a sci-fi chiller with the stately echoes of Ridley Scott’s classic “Alien.” Set in the 1980s, “Sputnik” blends creature-feature effects with heady extraterrestrial thrills. An official selection of the canceled 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, the movie debuts from IFC Midnight in select theaters and on VOD August 14. Watch the trailer for the film below.

Here’s the creepy synopsis: “Due to her controversial methods, young doctor Tatiana Yurievna is on the precipice of losing her medical license. Her career may not be over, though. After she’s recruited by the military, Tatiana is brought to a secure science research facility to assess a very special case, that of Konstantin Sergeyevich,...

As evidenced in Stephen King's short story "I Am the Doorway," sometimes it's not what you encounter in space that's scary, but what you bring back with you. Such is the case in Egor Abramenko’s feature-length debut Sputnik, which has been acquired for North American distribution by IFC Midnight, with a release planned for August 14th:

Press Release: New York, NY – IFC Midnight announced today that it is acquiring North American rights to Egor Abramenko’s directorial debut Sputnik from Xyz Films. Abramenko’s sci-fi thriller short film The Passenger played in the 2017 Fantastic Film Festival in Austin, and was the inspiration for his feature debut. The film stars Oksana Akinshina who debuted in Lukas Moodysson’s award-winning film Lilya 4-ever, alongside Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov, and Anton Vasilev. The script was written by Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev. Producing is Vodorod Pictures, Art Pictures Studio, Hype Film,...

Central Partnership has picked up international sales rights to “Chernobyl. Abyss,” directed by Danila Kozlovsky, and produced by Alexander Rodnyansky and Sergey Melkumov, who were both Oscar-nominated for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan” and “Loveless.”

The drama is the first major Russian feature film to focus on the aftermath of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, the topic of HBO’s Emmy-winning miniseries “Chernobyl.”

As well as directing, Kozlovsky, one of Russia’s best-known actors, seen in History’s “Vikings,” AMC’s “McMafia” and Berlin competition title “Dovlatov,” also stars in the film, alongside Oksana Akinshina (“Lilya 4-Ever”) and Filipp Avdeev (“Corrections Class”).

Rodnyansky and Melkumov’s Non-Stop Production will produce alongside Kozlovsky’s Dk Entertainment. The film is set to be released on Oct. 8, 2020.

Lukas Moodysson is directing the eight-part comedy-drama.

Filming is now underway on Gösta, the first Scandinavian original from HBO Europe.

Produced through the company’s HBO Nordic division, the comedy-drama is being written and directed by Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson, whose feature credits include Show Me Love (Fucking Åmål), Together (Tillsammans), Lilya 4-Ever (Lilja 4-ever), and We Are the Best! (Vi är bäst!).

The eight-part series is shooting in the Småland forests, south Sweden. Producers are Lars Jönsson for Memfis Film. Executive producers for HBO are Hanne Palmquist, Steve Matthews and Antony Root.

Vilhelm Blomgren will play the lead role of Gösta,...

Nicholas Bell’s Top 20 films of 2014…

#20. Madeleine Olnek’s The Foxy Merkins

#19. Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash

#18. Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child

#17. Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook

#16. Adam Wingard’s The Guest

#15. Dardenne Bros.’ Two Days, One Night

#14. David Fincher’s Gone Girl

#13. Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer

#12. Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive

#11. David Mackenzie’s Starred Up

#10.Tip Top

Serge Bozon’s latest genre mash, Tip Top, which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes 2013, was at last treated to a limited release in New York. A curiously unique and incredibly bizarre adaptation of a British thriller by Bill James, Bozon has created another strange hybrid of form with this blackly comedic, sexually perverse examination of racial inequality and notable political bigotry. For those reveling in the perverse and uniquely offbeat (especially when you throw Huppert and Kiberlain into the mix), Tip Top is not to be missed.

This year’s festival saw 45% of its lineup coming from female directors, including Alone Together from Liza Minou Morberg [pictured].

Women took centre stage at Way Out West’s Film Festival, with head of film programming Svante Tidholm giving credit to 45% of its line-up deriving from female directors.

Headlining the film side of the joint music and film event was Alexandra Dahlström’s All We Have is Now that documents all-girl Swedish punk rock band Vulkano, and Liza Minou Morberg’s coming-of-age drama Alone Together detailing the friendship of three young women on their way to Way Out West.

Both films served as feature length directorial debuts.

“It was our privilege (and luck) to have two world premieres that were both directed by women, and also about strong women. We work closely with Sweden’s film industry, and one aim is to balance equality and gender. And from watching their films – you can immediately tell they are very...

Magnolia Pictures announced today that the critically acclaimed We Are The Best! will debut on iTunes and On Demand tomorrow, Friday, June 20th, as it continues its expansion to select theaters across the country.

From director Lukas Moodysson (Together, Lilya 4-Ever), We Are The Best! is one of the best reviewed films of the year, and has been opening in cities across the country to near universal acclaim:

“There is hardly a shortage of movies about rock ‘n’ roll, but there are few as perfect as We Are The Best!.” – A.O. Scott, NY Times

“A blissfully funny film. Director Moodysson is masterly and there’s a magical sense of life caught on the fly. When measured by the pleasure it confers, We Are The Best! is a big deal that will be winning hearts—and even grownup minds—for a long time to come.”– Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

“If...

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's filmography has had a spotty history of even being seen in the United States. His earlier works Show Me Love and Together managed to receive distribution here, but some of his more serious films (like the brutal sex-trafficking drama Lilya 4-ever and A Hole In My Heart) never were even properly released here. In 2009, he made his English-language debut with a film called Mammoth that IFC released stateside and then he fell off the radar for a few years.  

He's finally returned to the big screen with We Are the Best!, a lighthearted adaptation of the graphic novel Never Goodnight, written by his wife Coco Moodysson. Set in 1982 Stockholm, we're introduced to Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin), two 13-year-old best friends who don't really fit in socially at school. They're tomboyish and seem to live in their own little world, mostly happy to...

Back in 1998, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s debut Show Me Love (original title: Fucking Åmål) offered up a tender story of teenage lesbian love. His follow-up Together, which depicted a troubled commune in the late ‘70s, continued in much the same vein, but starting with his third film, Lilya 4-Ever, his work grew darker and more experimental. The change in tone really didn’t suit him. Fortunately, his latest film, We Are the Best!, is a return to form. It follows three 13-year-old girls in 1982 Stockholm as they form a punk band and try to master one song (a protest […]...

Back in 1998, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s debut Show Me Love (original title: Fucking Åmål) offered up a tender story of teenage lesbian love. His follow-up Together, which depicted a troubled commune in the late ‘70s, continued in much the same vein, but starting with his third film, Lilya 4-Ever, his work grew darker and more experimental. The change in tone really didn’t suit him. Fortunately, his latest film, We Are the Best!, is a return to form. It follows three 13-year-old girls in 1982 Stockholm as they form a punk band and try to master one song (a protest […]...

Horses of God

Not Rated, 1 Hr., 55 Mins.

Four boys from the slums of Morocco mutate into suicide bombers in this tense drama, which uses the 2003 Casablanca terror attack as its backdrop. Director Nabil Ayouch hammers his points rather bluntly, but his filmmaking is hypnotic. The camera, initially jittery and handheld, slows to static shots, eerily matching the characters’ stagnant mindsets on their atrocious road to martyrdom. B+ –Joe McGovern

Korengal

Not Rated, 1 Hr., 30 Mins.

Sebastian Junger’s follow-up to 2010′s Restrepo (his Oscar-nominated war doc codirected by the late Tim Hetherington) shifts focus from combat in Afghanistan’s “Valley of Death” to the soldiers’ psychology,...

Outcast tween girls in 1980s Stockholm form a band and flip the bird to everyone who tells them punk is dead — and it’s a Lukas Moodysson film? The director is perhaps best known for his devastating, challenging stories — I don’t think I’ve recovered from Lilya 4-Ever — but he shows his softer side with this adaptation of his wife Coco’s graphic novel Never Goodnight. We Are the Best! isn’t a brutal tale of human trafficking and isolation like Lilya, but Moodysson is still a master at revealing the inner lives of others — in this case, the alienation that rebellious girls Bobo, Klara and Hedwig feel as they try to find their place at school, at home and with each other. There’s no American release date planned for the...

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While we don't have a full review up just yet, Lukas Moodysson's "We Are The Best!" made a strong enough impression on us on the festival circuit, that it made the honorable mentions of our list of The 21 Best Films Of 2014 We've Already Seen. While the filmmaker is perhaps best known for his grittier fare such as “Lilja 4-ever," “Together," and “Mammoth," for his latest he turns in a different direction. Set in early-1980s Stockholm, and starring Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin and Liv LeMoyne, the story follows three teenage girls who form a punk rock group and let their new ethos spread into every aspect of their education, friendships, and family lives. Sounds like a unique take on the coming-of-age tale, and it's based on the actual experiences of Moodysson's wife, Coco Moodysoon, whose graphic novel “Never Goodnight," was adapted for the film. "We Are The Best!" plays...

The 61st Sydney Film Festival today announced 32 films to be featured in this year.s event (June 4-15) in advance of the full program launch on May 7.

The line-up includes the world premiere of The Redfern Story, 19 Australian premieres, 13 features, 11 documentaries and an eight-film retrospective on maverick American filmmaker Robert Altman. Altman.s son, filmmaker Michael Altman, will attend festival and introduce several of the Altman screenings.

Darlene Johnson.s The Redfern Story chronicles the volatile birth of the first all-Indigenous theatre company, the National Black Theatre. It features interviews with indigenous media pioneer Lester Bostock, writer Gerry Bostock, actor Lillian Crombie, activist-academic Gary Foley, academic Marcia Langton, actors Rachael Maza, Bryan Brown and Bindi Williams. .We are pleased to present this sneak preview of 32 of the 180-plus films in this year.s program,. said Festival Director Nashen Moodley. .We have gathered a selection of the best films from the...

Darren Aronofsky

As the contemporary director most obsessed with the idea of obsession, Aronofsky would be a great fit for an episode or whole season of True Detective. Often, in the more intelligent entries in the genre, detective series focus not just on plot but on how the horrific events that take place within the plot affect the characters we’re following. The first season of True Detective was pretty much a vehicle for looking at the Rust-Marty relationship. Aronofsky’s resume is full of character studies, such as The Wrestler and Black Swan. But it’s that obsession – the kind that kept Rust on the Dora Lange case long after he walked away from being a detective – that Aronofsky would be able to bring out. On top of that, Aronofsky’s visual storytelling suits Pizzolatto’s content – at least what we’ve seen of it. It’s easy to...

With a slate of films during the ‘00s including “Lilja 4-ever," “Together," and “Mammoth," director Lukas Moodysson may not seem the most apt director for an upbeat, crowd-pleasing period rock drama. Yet that’s exactly what he’s done across the world with his new film “We Are The Best!” and a brand new trailer has landed to showcase the unique type of tale that Moodysson has concocted. Based on Moodysson’s wife Coco’s graphic novel “Never Goodnight”, the film follows three tween girls—Bobo, Klara, and Hedwig—in 1985 Stockholm who form a punk rock group and let their new ethos spread into every aspect of their education, friendships, and family lives. Showings at Venice, Tiff, and AFI Fest last year led to solid critical notices all around, we named the film as an Honorable Mention in our piece on the Best Upcoming Films of 2014. A U.K. release...

Our Nicholas Bell consider it among his top 5 best at Tiff this year and both Variety (will thrill to this sweet, spirited return to form) and THR (boards the rollercoaster of early adolescence with infectious results) come to the same consensus in Venice claiming that Together and Lilya 4-ever director Lukas Moodysson is back in great form and the Magnolia Pictures took notice (and so did 24 other territories who picked up the rights from TrustNordisk) – picking up the North American rights to the punk fueled coming-of-ager. Magnolia will release We Are The Best! in 2014.

Gist: VI ÄR BÄST! is about Bobo, Klara and Hedvig. Three 12-13-year-old girls who roam the streets. Who are brave and tough and strong and weak and confused and weird. Who have to take care of themselves way too early. Who heat fish fingers in the toaster when mom is at the pub. Who start...

Devil’s Knot, a docudrama about the tangled and still-loaded West Memphis Three case, directed by Atom Egoyan, is for the most part a tense and absorbing movie. It’s the intelligent, detail-jammed, well-executed version of what we used to call “a TV movie” — a phrase you can’t really use anymore, since it once connoted a certain second-rate, connect-the-dots Madame Tussauds biopic quality that’s become irrelevant in the age of HBO. (There was never a “TV movie” like Behind the Candelabra or Recount.) Yet that term also summoned up the basic, childlike voyeuristic appeal of seeing interesting actors...

★★☆☆☆ Based on a true case of human trafficking in the Us, Megan Griffiths' Eden (2012) is a decidedly low-key circumvention on the usual gritty, unforgiving exposés of the sex industry. Set in a small rural town back in 1994, naive teenager Hyun Jae (Jamie Chung) works in her parents' bric-a-brac store, occasionally sneaking out-back to share a smoke with her rebellious friend, Abbie (Tracey Fairaway). The pair are intent on exploring their burgeoning sexuality, with Abbie coaxing Hyun to join her for an evening of underage drinking and harmless flirting. Here, Hyun Jae catches the eye of a young fireman who offers to give her a lift.

However, the next thing Hyun Jae experiences is a chloroform hangover and the view from inside the trunk of a Chevrolet - all before being hauled off to a soulless warehouse in the middle of nowhere where she, like many, will be held hostage...

Alexandros Avranas both wrote and directed this Venezia 70 entry and after the wife abuse of Die Frau des Polizisten and the necrophilia of Child of God the competition moves onto child suicide and other dark and disturbing subjects.

The setting is contemporary Athens, though there are none of its wonderful sights to behold. Here, we are in a grey and anonymous apartment building that could be in almost any city in Europe. In fact, the film rarely ventures out of the apartment and when it does, we’d rather have stayed at home. One factor that keeps it firmly anchored in Greece is the theme of unemployment and welfare benefits. However, the current economic climate and its effects on your typical Athenian household is not what this film is about.

The opening scene is in the family apartment. It’s unclear who’s who at this point, but it appears...

Lore is director Cate Shortland’s long-awaited follow-up to Somersault, her acclaimed 2004 drama and feature film debut that was also an international breakthrough for stars Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington. A UK/Australia/Germany co-production, the new film is similarly concerned with a young female protagonist. Following the defeat of the Nazis, teenager Lore must guide herself and her destitute siblings through Germany in the dying days of the Second World War. Her parents having been arrested by Allied Forces for their Nazi ties, Lore has assimilated many of their anti-Semitic values, and must come to terms with the horrors of Hitler’s rule now coming to light for the German population.

Ahead of its recent Glasgow Film Festival showing prior to the film’s theatrical release in the UK, I spoke to one of Lore‘s producers, Paul Welsh, about the film’s interesting, lengthy production process, its influences,...

With Anchor Bay Films’ psychological rape/revenge feature Girls Against Boys opening theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on February 1st, we conducted a lengthy interview with the flick’s acclaimed writer and director, Austin Chick.

Girls Against Boys (review here), which lands on Blu-ray and DVD on February 26th, stars Danielle Panabaker (2009’s Friday the 13th ), Nicole Laliberte (“Dexter”), Liam Aiken (Road to Perdition), Michael Stahl-David (Cloverfield), and Andrew Howard (2010’s I Spit On Your Grave) in a film which revolves around the character of Shae (Panabaker), a naïve New York college student, who, after being tormented by several men in a matter of days, reaches her breaking point and is drawn into co-worker Lu’s (Laliberte) twisted plan for revenge.

Filmmaker Chick chatted with us at length regarding the production. Dig in!

Dread Central: In ways the film seems the offspring of Baise-moi and Fight Club, although with a more languid,...

We Are The Best!

Director/Writer: Lukas Moodysson

Producer(s): Memfis Film’s Lars Jönsson

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne in the main roles as Bobo, Klara and Hedvig with supporting cast includes: David Dencik, Johan Liljemark, Anna Rydgren and Mattias Wiberg.

We qualify 2013 as a definite “it” year for output of auteur-driven graphic novel adaptations and first on our countdown we find this Swedish item (expect a more fitting international title). Most recently known for his lesser items such as the experimental Container and existentialism inside a world romance in Mammoth, this adaptation, Moodysson’s 7th feature film could be considered a throwback, yet nifty counter-film when measured up against his more nihilistic beginnings in Fucking Åmål, Lilya 4-ever, and the fierce, A Hole in My Heart. If Moodysson manages to add a punk/alternative soundtrack, then this coming-of-ager should be sought out.

It's time for our weekly pick of your responses to our favourite film series, for which Guardian writers have selected the movies they just can't get enough of

Here's a roundup of what you thought in week seven, when the selections were The Goonies, Together, The Ladykillers, Night of the Hunter and Star Trek II – The Wrath of Kahn

My favourite film's fish and visitors moment finally arrived at the start of week seven. We'd got away with Back to the Future, slipped Predator past you in a cloak of respectability and zapped Ghostbusters's critical hot spots. Yet Matt Andrews's championing of The Goonies was a flashback too far for those suffering from nostalgia fatigue. "Is there anything edifying at this point in another Guardian contributor picking some 80s kids' movie as their favourite?" asked JohnBarnesOnToast. "The articles are basically the same (and in this instance it's not...

Plenty of provocative and disturbing films pass through the festival circuit. But of those that really tug at societal taboos, it's a select few that make it to theaters. Over the years, these have included titles like "Fat Girl" (child rape), "Irreversible" (Nine-minute, single-take anal rape scene), "Happiness" (sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile) and "Lilya 4-Ever" (violent rape), but the recent success of movies like "Antichrist" (genital mutilation) and "The ...

Jon Hewitt directed Hanna Mangan Lawrence in Acolytes, and now the pair have teamed up again for X, which looks like it might be a disturbing thriller set within the bowels of Sydney's sex industry.Viva Bianca from Spartacus: Blood and Sand stars. After the break, there's a just barely safe for work trailer with enough dark, foreboding context that you might just feel bad about enjoying how great both stars are occasionally made to look. Looking at this I see glimmers of Lilya 4-Ever and Pusher III, and more than a few reflections of Enter the Void, though the movie on the whole appears to be a more mainstream sort of thriller that deals with the issues of control and violence that so often characterize the sex trade. (Someone's bound to mention Hardcore, too.) It's nicely shot, though, and seemingly well-acted, and the trailer packs a bit of a punch.

In 1998 the 29-year-old Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson's feature debut, the refreshingly frank small-town love story Fucking Åmål, was greeted by Ingmar Bergman as "a young master's first masterpiece". Four years later he made Lilya 4-Ever, an affecting movie about the sex-trafficking of teenage girls from eastern Europe. In the highly schematic Mammoth, his first film in English, he treats the theme of social and economic exploitation on a global scale. Leo (Gael García Bernal), a rich inventor of website games, and his wife Ellen (Michelle Williams), a surgeon at a New York public hospital, employ Gloria, a Filipino maid, to care for their eight-year-old daughter Jackie. Leo goes by private plane to Thailand to clinch a big business deal while Ellen stays in New York performing major surgery on badly injured ghetto children, and Gloria, who weeps for the two little sons she's supporting back home, holds the house together.

Every summer, hundreds of projects - from films to TV shows and comics - compete for attention amid the mad maelstrom that is San Diego Comic-Con.

It's easy for many of the smaller ventures to be overshadowed by the big-budget presentations and among the lesser-known projects at the event was a 3D space thriller called Shockwave, Darkside.

Duncan Jones' recent lunar-based drama Moon brought us a return to classic sci-fi and reminded the industry that quality can be crafted with careful thought and the judicious use of budget as much as with throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the screen for endless, explosive spectacle.

Writer/director Jay Weisman has taken a similar approach - and hopes for a similar reception - with his independently financed Shockwave, Darkside, which also happens to be set on the moon. Weisman unveiled a trailer (see below) at Comic-Con along with plans for a web-based tie-in comic.

I confess, looking back, that I have no great generalizations to make about the movies that came along this decade. Except for this: There were more films of extraordinary and inspiring quality than I can count -- or include on this list. Without any trouble at all, I could easily have compiled a Top 100 list. Yet there's something about that magical arbitrary number 10 that focuses you, disciplines you, forces you to ask yourself what matters. Here, in order of preference, are the movies of the last 10 years that thrilled, moved, delighted, fascinated, and meant the most to this critic. They're...

Sweden's Lukas Moodysson burst onto the international film scene with 1998's "Fucking Åmål" (or, as it was cowardly renamed in English-speaking countries, "Show Me Love"), a carefree, naturalistic drama about a reluctant romance between two small-town teenage girls. Just as ebullient is his 2000 period satire and popular favorite "Together," which focuses on the dysfunctional relationships and values of '70s left-wingers living in a commune, after which Moodysson began pursuing darker, moodier fare. 2002's critical darling "Lilya 4-ever" couldn't get much bleaker, tracing a Russian girl's journey from drop-out to prostitute to kidnapped sex slave. Following that were two avant-garde experiments: 2004's shockingly explicit take on amateur porn, "A Hole in My Heart," and his 2006 stream-of-consciousness curiosity, "Container."

Though American actress Jena Malone provided narration to that last film, Moodysson's new drama is also his first English-language production, mostly. "Mammoth" splits between three related storylines in New York, the Philippines and Thailand.

Rarely has a filmmaker experienced as rapid a rise and fall as Swedish director Lukas Moodysson. His intimate 1999 romance Fucking Åmål (a.k.a. Show Me Love) and his sprawling 2000 comedy Together were praised for their warmth and insight. Then he swapped optimism for pessimism with 2002’s heartbreaking (but artful) Lilya 4-Ever. After that, Moodysson tested audiences with the intentionally repellant A Hole In My Heart and the aggressively experimental Container, and in just a few short years, he went from being a favorite of critics and audiences to being a director whose name evokes winces ...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? Mammoth Trailer Two things: 1. Lilja 4-Ever is a heartbreaking, sad, dismal film from 2002 and could not be more worth hunting out and watching. 2. Nothing good...

Below we have the trailer and poster for Lukas Moodysson new drama “Mammoth“

Synopsis: “Mammoth” revolves around successful New York couple Leo (Gael García Bernal) and Ellen (Michelle Williams). Leo is the creator of a booming website, and has stumbled into a world of money and big decisions. Ellen is a dedicated emergency surgeon who devotes her long shifts to saving lives. Their 8-year old daughter Jackie (Sophie Nyweide) spends most of her time with her Filipino nanny Gloria (Marife Necesito), a situation that is making Ellen start to question her priorities. When Leo travels to Thailand on business, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events that will have dramatic consequences for everyone.

“Mammoth” is the first English-language film from acclaimed Swedish writer/director Lukas Moodysson (A Hole in My Heart, Together, Lilya 4-Ever).

Mammoth Poster

IFC Films will open “Mammoth” in Us on November 20, 2009.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In honor of Halloween, a day of vampires and naughty misdeeds, I sat down to watch Let the Right One In again -- a movie tied to a naughty misdeed of my own. My offending act of immoral behavior? Back when it was released, one year ago, on Oct. 24, 2008, I wrote a review that trashed this pensive and brooding Swedish vampire movie. I called it "arty," I said that it wasn't "coherent," and I accused the hero -- a 12-year-old blond boy in a wintry Stockholm suburb who befriends the vampire child next door -- of "skulk through the movie in a blank-faced torpor.

Tina Mabry's "Mississippi Damned," an independent American production, won the Gold Hugo as the best film in the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, and added Gold Plaques for best supporting actress (Jossie Thacker) and best screenplay (Mabry). It tells the harrowing story of three black children growing up in rural Mississippi in circumstances of violence and addiction. The film's trailer and an interview with Mabry are linked at the bottom.

Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"

The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...

• A little bit of fluff (Harald Zwart’s Pink Panther II), an Oscar hopeful (Stephen Daldry’s The Reader) and some prestige titles from master filmmakers who might have lost their touch and offerings from less-seasoned directors are among the world preems that have been announced in the Berlin Film Festival’s Competition and Out of Competition section). Some long-awaited films from the veterans in Sally Potter, Theo Angelopoulos and Chen Kaige (see pic) are being paired with filmmakers such as Moodysson, Bouchareb and Rebecca Miller. Along with Miller and Moodysson’s films, I’m looking forward to seeing Oren Moverman’s directorial debut – which will be soon a couple of weeks earlier at Sundance. Here is the complete ten list of films announced. The fest begins on the 5th of February. Alle Anderen Germanyby Maren Ade (The Forest for the Trees)with Birgit Minichmayr, Lars Eidinger, Hans-Jochen Wagner,

...

While we eagerly await more info (and trailers) for the films playing at Sundance (and hopefully news on where Cory McAbee's Stingray Sam is going), the first competition and out of competition titles have been announced for one of the other biggest fests on the planet, the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, and all I have to say is Wtf? Pink Panther II is playing out of competition?! Who's running this menagerie? They redid the entire program this year, so I hope they're still going to have the genre goods.

You can check out the real short list after the break or you can read the press release.

Alle Anderen Germany

by Maren Ade (The Forest for the Trees)

with Birgit Minichmayr, Lars Eidinger, Hans-Jochen Wagner, Nicole Marischka

World premiere

Rage Great Britain / USA

by Sally Potter (The Tango Lesson, Orlando)

with Dame Judi Dench, Jude Law, Dianne Wiest,...

LONDON -- Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams will star alongside Gael Garcia Bernal in Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's first English-language movie, Mammoth, producer Lars Jonsson of Memfis Film said Friday.

Moodysson's project is scheduled to shoot on location in Thailand, the Philippines, Sweden and New York beginning Nov. 5.

It revolves around a successful New York couple played by Williams (Brokeback Mountain) and Garcia Bernal, their daughter and their Filipino nanny whose lives take a dramatic turn after the father goes on a business trip to the Philippines.

The film is produced by Moodysson's longtime producer partner Lars Jonsson of Memfis Film.

The director said he thinks Williams "relays intelligence, poise and presence in every character she plays."

A regular on the international big-name festival circuit, Moodysson's previous films include Fucking Amal, Together and Lilya 4-ever.

Williams is represented by Hylda Queally at CAA. The deal was brokered by co-producer Vibeke Windelov on behalf of Memfis Film.

A Swedish/German/Danish co-production, "Mammoth" will be produced by Memfis Film in co-production with Zentropa Berlin and Zentropa Entertainments with backing from Film i Vast, SVT, TV2 Denmark, Medienboard Berlin, Swedish Filminstitute, Danish Filminstitute, Filmforderungsanstalt, Nordic Film- & TV Fund and Eurimages.

• Ioncinema’s indie king of 2006, Gael Garcia Bernal, is shaping up to take home the number one honors in 2007 as well. The Mexican actor is now slated to star in Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, his follow up to 2006’s experimental drama Container. The Swedish writer/director/poet Moodysson established a reputation as an envelope-pushing filmmaker with his previous work Fucking Amal (Show Me Love), Together and Lilya 4-ever. Mammoth, Moodysson’s first English-language narrative, follows a successful New York couple, their daughter and her Filipino nanny. It is scheduled to shoot in New York, Thailand, The Phillipines and Sweden beginning in October. Bernal, who we all know and love from Amores Perros, La Mala Educación and everything else he has appeared in, is currently working with Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore on Fernando Meirelles’ dramatic thriller Blindness. This means there are now at least two chances to see Gael

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COLOGNE, Germany -- Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal will topline Mammoth, the English-language debut from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson.

Mammoth is a domestic drama revolving around a young couple, their child and their Filipino nanny, played by Filipino actress Marife Necisito. Casting for the other roles is under way.

Moodysson, director of the critically acclaimed features Show Me Love, Together and Lilya 4-ever, plans to shoot Mammoth in Sweden, New York, Thailand and the Philippines.

The film is a co-production among Sweden's Memfis Film, Denmark's Zentropa Entertainment and Zentropa's new German outpost, Zentropa Berlin.

Funding will come from a patchwork of subsidy bodies in Sweden, Germany and Denmark as well as from the Eurimages fund.

Zentropa's Peter Aalbaek Jensen and director Lars von Trier will produce Mammoth along with Zentropa Berlin managing director Maria Kopf. Danish sales group Trust Film, under new CEO Rikke Ennis, will handle international sales.

Bernal is shooting Fernando Meirelles' literary adaptation Blindness alongside Julianne Moore.

NEW YORK -- Indie distributor Newmarket Films said Tuesday that it has acquired a trio of Scandinavian movies from international sales outfit Trust Films Sales -- Old, New, Borrowed and Blue, In Your Hands and Daybreak. Newmarket previously has rolled out such Trust films as Open Hearts, by Susanne Bier, and Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-ever. Natasha Arthy's Danish dogma project, Borrowed and Blue, is a bittersweet comedy about the perils of love and honesty. The film, which screened stateside at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival, was written by Kim Fupz Aakesen and stars Sidse Babett Knudsen, Bjorn Kjellman and Soeren Byder.

The contest for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar got a little tougher this year, as the Academy released a list of the official international contenders on Tuesday . a record-breaking 54, three more than last year's tally. In fact, this year's list was a wee bit late, as the Academy debated the eligibility of three films: the U.K.'s Hindi-language The Warrior; Hong Kong's The Touch (starring Michelle Yeoh); and Afghanistan's Fire Dancer. Of the three, only Fire Dancer made the cut, as Yeoh's Touch contained more English than Mandarin, and The Warrior was nixed since Hindi is not a language indigenous to the British Isles, nor was it about the Hindi community in the U.K. (it was replaced with the Welsh Eldra). Also, Palestine's award-winning romance Divine Intervention was ruled ineligible, as the Academy does not recognize Palestine as a nation. Other finalists include Italy's Pinocchio, Mexico's The Crime of Father Amaro, France's 8 Women, Finland's The Man Without a Past, Russia's House of Fools and Sweden's Lilja 4-Ever. The final five will be announced on Feb. 11, along with all the other nominations.

LONDON -- Scandinavian production and distribution company Svensk Filmindustri sealed a three-year first-look deal with Swedish- and Danish-based production company Early Bird Films, the companies said Monday. Through the deal, signed for an undisclosed amount, SF will have first look on distribution and co-production potential on all new projects aimed at the Nordic market from Early Bird Films, a film and television production house. Early Bird, with offices in Copenhagen and Stockholm, is developing a slate of film and TV projects and has Danish producers Ole Sondberg and Lars Sund Duus under its company wing. They have previously produced movies based on the crime novels by the writing team Sjowall & Wahloo. The company also includes Swedish producer Malte Forssell, who has worked with Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark), Thomas Vinterberg (It's All About Love) and Lukas Moodysson (Lilja 4-Ever).

LONDON -- Denmark's Open Hearts and Sweden's Lilya 4-Ever will compete for nominations in the foreign language film category at the Academy Awards, the countries' film institutes said Tuesday. Susanne Bier's Dogme-certified Open Hearts centers on a young couple who plan to marry before a car accident leaves the bridegroom-to-be paralyzed. Lilya 4-Ever, directed by Lukas Moodysson, concerns a 16-year-old girl who lives in a dreary suburb in the former Soviet Union and decides to try to escape to Sweden to start a new life. Both titles have been sold by Denmark's Trust Film Sales to Newmarket Films, the newly launched film distribution arm of Newmarket Capital Group, for U.S. distribution.