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Chinese director Tao Shen’s Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun has won the best film award by a new filmmaker in the Forward Future program at the 15th edition of the Beijing International Film Festival.

”After completing her so-called ‘mission’ in life, housewife Tianzhen wants to leave her hometown and go out to see the world,” according to a synopsis. “But her actions and thoughts begin to become unpredictable.”

Johanné Gómez Terrero was honored as best director in the section for his movie Sugar Island, a reflection on the complex past, present, and future lives of Afro-Dominican people in the Dominican Republic.

And At the Bench, directed by Yoshiyuki Okuyama, won the best screenplay award in the Forward Future program. The anthology film, which shows scenes of the everyday life of various people who gather by a small bench, also received the Best Artistic Contribution honor.

Finally, the Valentino Weaving...

The Beijing International Film Festival has unveiled the 15 titles that will screen in the Forward Future section of its 15th edition later this month.

The Forward Future section, launched in 2014, is dedicated to discovering and promoting new filmmakers, focusing on directors’ first or second features. Hungarian director, screenwriter, and producer Béla Tarr (Damnation, Satan’s Tango, The Man From London) will serve as the president of the jury for the Forward Future program. Rounding out his jury will be Chinese actress Jin Chen, also known as Gina Jin, Chinese actor Song Yang, Japanese director, screenwriter and actor Sabu, and Swiss director and screenwriter Cyril Schäublin.

Beijing organizers promise “innovative” spirit, “unique styles,” and “cutting-edge” filmmaking in the Forward Future section, along with insight into the thinking and concerns of young filmmakers from all over the world.

Featured in the program are movies from first-time Chinese directors, namely Jing Yi’s The Botanist,...

Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Let the Bullets Fly) will serve as the head of the main competition jury at the 15th Beijing International Film Festival, which will hand out its Tiantan Awards.

The jury will also include Chinese American director and actor Joan Chen (The Last Emperor), British director David Yates (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Chinese actor Ni Ni, Finnish director Teemu Nikki, Swiss director and actor Vincent Perez, and art director Tim Yip from Hong Kong. The panel will select the winners across 10 award categories, including best feature film, best director and best screenplay.

The festival also unveiled its 15 main competition films, with organizers saying they received a record 1,794 feature film submissions from 103 countries and regions, marking a 19 percent increase over last year.

The three Chinese films in the main competition lineup are Hao Ming and Li Peiran’s Better Me,...

The Berlin Film Festival is to fete Tilda Swinton with an Honorary Golden Bear for her career achievement. The award will be presented at the Opening Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast on February 13, 2025.

“The range of Tilda Swinton’s work is breathtaking. To cinema she brings so much humanity, compassion, intelligence, humour and style, and she expands our ideas of the world through her work. Tilda is one of our modern filmmaking idols, and has also long been part of the Berlinale family. We are delighted to be able to present her with this Honorary Golden Bear,” said Festival Director Tricia Tuttle.

Swinton commented: “The Berlinale is the first film festival I ever went to, in 1986 with Derek Jarman and the first film I made, his Caravaggio. It was my portal into the world in which I have made my life’s work – the world of international filmmaking – and I...

Yoshida Daihachi’s black and white drama Teki Cometh dominated the awards ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)today (November 6), winning the grand prix and the prizes for best director,and best actor.

Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film centres around a retired and widowed college professor who receives a sudden and unsettling message telling him that the enemy is coming.The film marks the latest in a string of literary adaptations from Daihachi including Pale Moon, The Kirishima Thing, and Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! which premiered at Cannes Critic Week in 2007.

Teki Cometh,...

Yoshida Daihachi’s black and white drama Teki Cometh dominated the awards ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF)today (November 6), winning the grand prix and the prizes for best director,and best actor.

Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film centres around a retired and widowed college professor who receives a sudden and unsettling message telling him that the enemy is coming.The film marks the latest in a string of literary adaptations from Daihachi including Pale Moon, The Kirishima Thing, and Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! which premiered at Cannes Critic Week in 2007.

Teki Cometh,...

Tarr to receive Honorary Award of the European Film Academy president and board.

Hungarian director Béla Tarr is to receive the Honorary Award of the European Film Academy president and board at this year’s European Film Awards.

Béla Tarr is the sixth filmmaker to receive this recognition. Previous recipients were Manoel de Oliveira, Michel Piccoli, Michael Caine, Andrzej Wajda and Costa-Gavras.

Efa said it wished to pay special tribute to an “outstanding director and a personality with a strong political voice, who is not only deeply respected by his colleagues but also celebrated by audiences worldwide.”

Tarr made his...

Hungarian director Béla Tarr will receive the Honorary Award of the European Film Academy president and board at the 36th European Film Awards in Berlin on Dec. 9.

“With this award the European Film Academy (Efa) wishes to pay special tribute to an outstanding director and a personality with a strong political voice, who is not only deeply respected by his colleagues but also celebrated by audiences worldwide,” Efa said on Wednesday. “Béla Tarr is the sixth filmmaker to receive this recognition – earlier recipients were Manoel de Oliveira, Michel Piccoli, Sir Michael Caine, Andrzej Wajda and Costa-Gavras.”

Born in Hungary, the auteur started experiments in filmmaking at the age of 16. His feature debut, Family Nest. In 1982, The Prefab People received a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival. Tarr followed that up with Almanac of Fall (1984) and Damnation, which was nominated for the first European Film Awards in 1988.

One of Tarr’s best-known films is Sátántangó,...

It’s Béla Tarr season this year, as not only is the Hungarian filmmaking making a rare appearance in the United States for a Los Angeles American Cinematheque retrospective of his work, but Janus Films is also re-releasing his 2000 masterpiece “Werckmeister Harmonies.”

Per distributor Janus Films, one of the major achievements of 21st-century cinema, Béla Tarr’s mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by the celebrated writer and frequent Tarr collaborator László Krasznahorkai, “Werckmeister Harmonies” unfolds in an unknown era in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus — complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince — arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens, which builds inexorably toward violence and destruction. In 39 of his signature long takes, engraved in ghostly black and white, Tarr...

Bleak Week just got a whole lot bleaker.

The American Cinematheque in Los Angeles has set the second edition of its “Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” series, and this year’s guest of honor will be none other than Béla Tarr, Hungarian master of plumbing the nadirs of the human experience from his last feature “The Turin Horse” to his beloved epic “Sátántangó,” about a farming village in crisis. IndieWire can announce that Tarr will make a rare appearance in the U.S. beginning June 6 at the Aero Theatre for a series of Q&As.

“Hi LA! It will be nice to see you again, after a very long time. I am curious how you are now and what is going on in the town! I hope we will have a good meeting and we will spend a good time together. See you there!” said the filmmaker in a statement shared with IndieWire.

Hungarian auteur will also mentor young Egyptian filmmakers at the festival.

Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr is to receive a lifetime achievement award at the 44th Cairo International Film Festival (November 13-22).

The award-winning film director, producer and screenwriter will also mentor a workshop with young Egyptian filmmakers at the festival and will separately deliver a masterclass at the event.

The festival will also screen 4K restorations of Tarr’s 2000 feature Werckmeister Harmonies and 2011 drama The Turin Horse, considered two of his finest works. This will make Ciff “one of the early platforms to screen Tarr’s newly restored film copies,...

An adaptation of the book by Georges Simenon, Patrice Leconte’s new film starring Gérard Depardieu and currently being shot has arrived in the French vendor’s well-stocked line-up. The international sales division of Snd is setting a course for the 71st Berlinale's European Film Market (online 1-5 March), armed with a watertight line-up of 10 titles, which now includes a particularly interesting new work which began filming on 8 February: Maigret and The Mysterious Dead Girl by Patrice Leconte, an adaptation of the detective novel of the same name by the prolific Belgian writer Georges Simenon. This will be the 30th feature film to come courtesy of the seasoned and eclectic director, who was well-received...

What better way to kick off a new month than a look at the many movies coming to Hulu? Ok, if you don’t have a Hulu subscription you might need an alternative. Maybe this list will convince you to take one out, though (not that I’m there salesperson). But enough patter, let’s crack on with it.

Here’s every new film that arrived on July 1st:

12 and Holding (2006)

2001 Maniacs (2005)

52 Pick-Up (1986)

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2009)

A Kid Like Jake (2018)

A Mighty Wind (2003)

A Storks Journey (2017)

An Eye for a Eye (1966)

The Axe Murders of Villisca (2017)

The Bellboy (1960)

Beloved (2012)

Best In Show (2000)

Between Us (2017)

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Birdwatchers (2010)

Boogie Woogie (2010)

The Bounty (1984)

Brokedown Palace (1998)

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Bug (1975)

Buried (2010)

Cadaver (2009)

California Dreamin’ (2009)

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Catcher Was A Spy (2018)

The Catechism Cataclysm (2011)

Change of Plans (2010)

Cheech & Chong...

Hulu is out with its list of everything new coming to the streaming service in July.

Highlights include season three of “90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days” and season one of “90 Day Fiance: The Other Way: Complete Season 1,” as well as some classic movies like “The Color Purple” and “Best in Show,” all coming July 1.

A new Hulu original movie “Palm Springs” drops on July 10, and a new episode of “Into the Dark” called “The Current Occupant” premieres July 17.

Movies leaving Hulu on July 31 include “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” “Thelma & Louise” and “Wayne’s World.”

See the full list of everything new and leaving the streamer below.

Also Read: ABC Already Changes Fall TV Schedule, Moves 'Black-ish' Up From Midseason

July 1

1000-lb Sisters: Complete Season 1 (TLC)

90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days: Complete Season 3 (TLC)

90 Day Fiance: The Other Way: Complete Season 1 (TLC)

BBQ Rig Race: Complete Season...

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 an archive of past round-ups here.

Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve)

One of the best coming-of-age films of the decade, what begins as a fairly standard, but intimately captured story of young passion quickly blossoms to one of the most mature takes on such an event thanks to Mia Hansen-Løve’s remarkably natural style and a script that’s conscious of time and its effects on love. Praise must also go to Lola Creton and Sebastian Urzendowsky for seemingly organic chemistry from such material. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)

The Man From London (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky)

Upon the release of The Man from London, one might...

The first time Tilda Swinton went to Cannes, it was for a film she hated. It was “Aria” in 1989, an omnibus title with contributions from Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Bruce Beresford, Nic Roeg, Charles Sturridge, Franc Roddam, and Derek Jarman. “We all got on like a house on fire,” she said. “A lot of people were drawn to libations in the crew. We all saw the film at the end, we all hated the film, and were friends for life.”

Since then, she’s attended to serve on two juries, and for eight films: Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” and “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Béla Tarr’s “The Man From London,” David Mackenzie’s “Young Adam,” Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Bong Joon Ho’s “Okja,” and Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” This year, she returns with Jarmusch’s opening-night zombie comedy, “The Dead Don’t Die.

The first time Tilda Swinton went to Cannes, it was for a film she hated. It was “Aria” in 1989, an omnibus title with contributions from Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Bruce Beresford, Nic Roeg, Charles Sturridge, Franc Roddam, and Derek Jarman. “We all got on like a house on fire,” she said. “A lot of people were drawn to libations in the crew. We all saw the film at the end, we all hated the film, and were friends for life.”

Since then, she’s attended to serve on two juries, and for eight films: Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” and “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Béla Tarr’s “The Man From London,” David Mackenzie’s “Young Adam,” Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Bong Joon Ho’s “Okja,” and Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” This year, she returns with Jarmusch’s opening-night zombie comedy, “The Dead Don’t Die.

With all due respect to whoever lands the leading role in the next Marvel movie, we now have the most exciting casting news of the year: Tilda Swinton is set to star in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria,” the Thai filmmaker’s first outing since “Cemetery of Splendour.” Affectionately known as “Joe,” Weerasethakul won the Palme d’Or in 2010 for his dreamlike “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.”

The film will be shot in Colombia. “During the 70s and 80s, it was very violent (in Colombia), much more than now,” Weerasethakul recently told Screen Daily. “When you were driving, there could be a bomb and sometimes the traffic stops and you don’t know (why). People imagine things and have a fear. The movie is about this, waiting for something you don’t know.” According to the Independent, “Memoria” will delve into “colonial history and how collective memory can lead to fear.

Looking back on this still-young century makes clear that 2007 was a major time for cinematic happenings — and, on the basis of this retrospective, one we’re not quite through with ten years on. One’s mind might quickly flash to a few big titles that will be represented, but it is the plurality of both festival and theatrical premieres that truly surprises: late works from old masters, debuts from filmmakers who’ve since become some of our most-respected artists, and mid-career turning points that didn’t necessarily announce themselves as such at the time. Join us as an assembled team, many of whom were coming of age that year, takes on their favorites.

Upon the release of The Man from London, one might have been hard-pressed to consider Béla Tarr and his co-director Ágnes Hranitzky genre filmmakers beyond the broad designation of “European art house cinema.” While still fitting snugly...

Sony Pictures Classics has released the Us trailer and poster for Son Of Saul, opening in NY & La on December 18th, followed by more theaters.

October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination.

While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son.

As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.

Director László Nemes’ film is Hungary’s official selection for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

His first feature, Nemes spent the last five years bringing this project to fruition.

Director László Nemes and...