News

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much common cause between Pablo Larraín’s anticipated Maria Callas biopic, “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the titular opera singer, and Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” a 215-minute epic about a Holocaust survivor forging a new life in America. Though both films will premiere on the Lido at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where they’re competing for the Golden Lion, they are in most ways worlds apart.

Yet both owe a good deal to the contributions of Hungarian talent, joining a roster of recent awards bait and blockbusters to film in the Central European country that includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ multi-Oscar winner “Poor Things” and both chapters of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi tentpole “Dune.” While an attractive 30% cash rebate is undoubtedly part of the draw, it’s also a testament to a long history of artistry and technical craftsmanship in...

Over the past year, Andrew Scott and Greta Lee have broken audiences' hearts with their respective dramas, All of Us Strangers and Past Lives. Now, the powerhouse pair are teaming up for a new movie which aims to inflict the same level of emotional damage whilst blending in elements from the sci-fi genre. My Notes On Mars is the first English-language movie by acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvt (Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time) and, per Deadline, the new movie is scheduled to begin production in Spring 2025, shooting in Budapest and Vienna.

The movie is based on an original script penned by Lili Horvt, and is being produced by Poste Restante. No additional cast members have been announced, but Scott and Lee in the lead should be more than enough to draw audiences in. The report also features a synopsis for the movie, which sets it...

Lili Horvát’s English-language debut My Notes On Mars will star Greta Lee and Andrew Scott, we’ve learned. More on the sci-fi romance below.

Andrew Scott and Greta Lee starred in two of the most emotionally devastating films of the last few years. Scott’s turn in Andrew Haigh’s All Of Us Strangers left us weeping in our cinema seats, while Celine Song’s Past Lives had us longing for all those who got away.

The pair will now maximise their control over our emotions as they team up for Lili Horvát’s My Notes On Mars. Described as a sci-fi romance, Deadline reports that the film will follow “Margot (Lee), a brilliant young scientist with a troubled marriage, who disappears inexplicably while hiking with her husband Sam (Scott) and a group of friends. A few weeks later, she miraculously reappears the day of her own memorial service.

What do you get when you put the star of the best film of 2023 and the co-lead of one of the best films of 2024 on screen together at the same time? No, it's not the set up for a strangely specific cinephile joke, but rather a hamfisted way of saying that Past Lives' Greta Lee and All Of Us Strangers' Andrew Scott are making a movie together. Per Deadline's reporting, the dynamite acting duo have signed up to lead sci-fi romance My Notes On Mars, the English-language debut of Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvát (Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time).

Lili Horvát has written the script for this one herself, with the film set to shoot early next year between Budapest and Vienna. And whilst further casting details remain under wraps for the time being, we do have a curiosity piquing description of the plot from Deadline's piece.

Fantasporto, the Oporto Intl. Film Festival, kicked off Friday in Portugal’s Porto — a city famed for its elegant Romanesque cathedral, a bookstore that inspired “Harry Potter,” and the heady alcoholic drink — with an eclectic mix of titles but an emphasis on fantasy films.

Typifying the broad tastes of the festival chiefs, film critics Beatriz Pacheco Pereira and Mário Dorminsky, Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s satire “Testament” opened the event’s 44th edition at Batalha Centro de Cinema, and Chinese fantasy epic “Creation of Gods I: Kingdom of Storms,” directed by Wuershan, closes it.

Although Pacheco Pereira and Dorminsky, who compete with the Brussels Intl. Fantastic Film Festival and Sitges for fantasy films in Europe, know they can’t please everyone in Porto with their selection “what is really important to us is whether the audiences applaud the films,” Dorminsky says. “This is not a job for us. It is a pleasure.

The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows

Director: Áron Gauder

Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)

Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade

Director: Ádám Tősér

Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)

Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.

Sales: Nfi World Sales

The Game...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

It’s challenging to contextualize 2021, a year that largely felt like a gradual restart to moviegoing and, maybe, a new normal. Cinema, to that end, remains largely escapist, even if some pictures like Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and Stop and Go (nee Recovery) directly confronted some of the anxiety—perhaps even some of the absurdity—of Covid times. 2020 was slated to be a year of big films and many of those (F9 and No Time to Die) surfaced in 2021, while some (Licorice Pizza and Spider-Man: No Way Home) were freshly made under extensive safety protocols. In some ways the multiplex in 2021 felt a lot like outlet shopping: certain films were fresh and on-trend, others felt like relics from another time.

On the festival front,...

Anatomy of a Memory: Jankowska Dissects the Poetics of Belonging Nowhere

Part of the what could be coined as a niche genre of ‘melancholic European woman sitting in a room in silence’ (Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is a recent example), Anatomia is a cerebral piece of slow-burn cinema. Aleksandra Jankowska’s debut fiction feature is extremely poised, if not surprisingly mature for a first-time work, and exactly the type of cinema that often gets referred to as a “critics’ film.”

A return to native Poland to see her father in hospital sets Mika (Karolina Kominek) through a labyrinth of her own past.…...

Films include Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ and Blerta Basholli’s ‘Hive’.

More films than ever before are eligible for this year’s European Film Awards’ feature film and documentary film selection, with 40 feature films and 15 documentary films, and further feature film titles to be revealed in September.

Titles in the feature film selection include Blerta Basholli’s Sundance hit Hive and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The latter is eligible despite being listed as a film of US origin. The European Film Academy (Efa) told Screen this was because the film reaches the number of points in...

Of all the international film festivals to roll out the red carpet this summer in what feels like a global industry reboot, few can fall back on past experience when it comes to the logistics of an in-person pandemic edition. But amid the wave of cancellations that all but wiped out the calendar year in 2020, the Transilvania Intl. Film Festival managed to pull off what few others could, relying on a host of open-air venues to successfully welcome moviegoers to the medieval city of Cluj.

One year later, for what in a different era might have been a splashy 20th anniversary edition, TIFF founder Tudor Giurgiu admits, “I thought this year would be easier.” Just days after confusion over Pcr tests and vaccine certificates reigned on the Croisette, however, Giurgiu and the TIFF organizing team have realized that as the coronavirus’ deadly Delta variant sweeps across the globe, a return...

Jury includes ‘Amores Perros’ screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.

Transilvania International Film Festival has revealed the 12 films that will screen in its official competition and its international jury.

Each title competing for the Transilvania Trophy will receive its Romanian premiere at the 20th edition of the festival, which is set to take place in-person in the city of Cluj-Napoca.

They include What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?, by Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze, which played in competition at the Berlinale, and Lili Horvát’s Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time, which was Hungary’s Oscar submission.

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

“Mank” is the big leader at the 2021 Oscars with 10 nominations, but that wasn’t the case at the 36th Film Independent Spirit Awards. The nomination leader at this ceremony was Eliza Hittman’s acclaimed “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which the Academy shut out from the Oscars. The same goes for other beloved Spirit Award nominees like “First Cow,” “Miss Juneteenth,” and “The Assistant.” In other words, the Indie Spirit Awards were a breath of fresh air in this elongated awards season where underdog indie contenders finally get their due in the spotlight.

“Minari” also preformed strong at the Indie Spirits, earning six nominations to match its six Oscar nominations. Fellow Oscar nominees “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Nomadland” each picked up five Spirit Award nominations. Netflix was the most nominated studio with 16 nominations, followed by Focus Features with 10 and A24 with 9.

“Nomadland” was the big winner, taking home the prizes...

“Nomadland” wins four awards, including Best Feature; “Sound of Metal” wins three and “Promising Young Woman” takes two

“Nomadland” won Best Feature at the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which were announced live Thursday, and for the first time in primetime.

“Nomadland” took home four prizes, including Best Feature, Best Director for Chloé Zhao, as well as Best Editing and Best Cinematography. “Sound of Metal” also had a big night, winning Best First Feature, Best Supporting Male Paul Raci and an upset win for Best Male Lead Riz Ahmed. Carey Mulligan also won Best Female Lead for “Promising Young Woman,” and Yuh-Jung Youn won Best Supporting Female for “Minari.”

The coronavirus resulted in moving the Indie Spirits ceremony, now in its 36th year, away from its usual slot as an afternoon hangout in a tent near the Santa Monica pier on the Saturday before the Oscars to now taking place Thursday,...

The last major awards show before the Oscars has finally arrived, the 36th Independent Spirit Awards. The virtual ceremony aired Thursday, April 22 on IFC at 7 p.m. Pt/10 p.m. Et and was hosted by “Saturday Night Live” star Melissa Villaseñor. The Spirit Awards celebrated the best in indie filmmaking for the 2020 calendar year, and this year they invited TV shows to the party, too. Don’t forget, only American-made fare with budgets under $20 million were eligible for consideration. Winners were chosen by all of Film Independent’s eligible members, including industry insiders and any movie fans who signed up for membership.

Heading into the ceremony, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was the nominations leader with seven overall bids. “Minari” came in right behind it with six noms, followed by “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Nomadland” (the Oscar front-runner) with five bids each. On the TV side, both “Little America” and...

The 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards are finally upon us, after the nominations were announced three months ago, and the ceremony is taking place just a few days ahead of the Academy Awards. This year, the Spirit Awards won’t be held midday in a hangar in Santa Monica, but will instead live-stream on IFC on Thursday, April 22 at 7:00 p.m. Pt/10:00 p.m. Et. In addition to the linear broadcast, the Spirit Awards will also stream simultaneously on AMC+. Following the broadcast, the full awards ceremony will be made available on demand across AMC+ and IFC platforms starting Friday, April 23. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by “Saturday Night Love” comedian Melissa Villaseñor.

If you’re cord cutter who doesn’t have cable, you can watch IFC live with one of these streaming services, many of which offer a free trial: Philo, fuboTV, Sling TV, YouTube TV,...

It’s almost time for the 36th Independent Spirit Awards, which will celebrate the best in indie filmmaking for the 2020 calendar year. Remember, only American-made movies with budgets under $20 million were eligible for consideration. Winners will be chosen by all of Film Independent’s eligible members, including industry insiders and any movie fans who sign up for membership. So who will win? Read on to see what we’re predicting to prevail when this year’s trophies are handed out Thursday, April 22 in a virtual ceremony airing on IFC at 7 p.m. Pt/10 p.m. Et.

Gold Derby’s 2021 Spirit Awards odds are based on the combined forecasts of more than 2,300 Gold Derby readers, including Experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, Editors who cover awards year-round for this website, Top 24 Users who did the best predicting last year’s winners, All-Star Users who had the best prediction scores over the last two years,...

The 36th Film Independent Spirit Awards are set to take place this week as a welcome reprieve to this elongated Oscar season. Unlike the Academy Awards, where David Fincher’s “Mank” reigns supreme with 10 nominations, the 2021 Indie Spirit Awards are dominated by Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which was shut out of the Oscar nominations. “Never Rarely” boasts seven Spirit Award nominations this year, including Best Feature and Best Director.

Unlike the Oscars, the Spirit Awards also boast a Best First Feature category to honor the greatest directorial debuts of the last year. The 2021 nominees in this category are “I Carry You With Me,” “The 40 Year Old Version,” “Sound of Metal,” “Miss Juneteenth,” and “Nine Days.” Only “Sound of Metal” broke into the Oscars among these nominees.

As always, the budget cutoff for films to be eligible for the Spirit Awards is $22.5 million. For this reason, several high...

Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time (Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre) Greenwich Entertainment Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Lili Horvát Writer: Lili Horvát Cast: Natasa Stork, Viktor Bodó, Benett Vilmányi, Zsolt Nagy, Péter Tóth Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 1/7/21 Opens: January 22, […]

The post Preparations To Be Together for An Unknown Period of Time Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

For the first time ever, two Hungarian films are competing for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear: “Forest – I See You Everywhere,” a standalone sequel to the 2003 Berlinale hit “Forest,” from veteran auteur Bence Fliegauf, and “Natural Light” from feature debutant Dénes Nagy. Csaba Káel, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary (Nfi), says, “I believe it demonstrates the vitality and strength of the Hungarian industry flourishing despite the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic worldwide.”

The two films represent opposite poles of current Hungarian filmmaking. Brimming with discourse, the independently funded “Forest” tells multiple complex, engaging stories of contemporary life in Hungary. And as he did in his Berlinale-winner “Just the Wind” (2012), Fliegauf creates deep empathy for his characters who deliver standout performances.

On the other hand, “Natural Light,” with its minimal dialogue, harks back to an older tradition in Hungarian cinema where stunning cinematography leads the other formal elements.

Irish features and world cinema to run alongside Diff’s industry platform of events.

Dublin International Film Festival (Diff) is preparing to launch its first online-only edition with a line-up that aims to reflect the strength and diversity of contemporary Irish filmmaking alongside the best of world cinema.

“One of the aims every year is to try and find the key Irish films you want to include, because that is a very important aspect to the festival, providing a platform for new work,” says Diff festival director Gráinne Humphreys.

The 19th edition of the festival, which runs March 3-14, stays...

Shortlists to be announced on February 9.

The Academy on Thursday (January 28) published a list of 93 films eligible for international feature film Oscar category.

Algeria’s Heliopolis, about the brutal suppression by French colonial authorities of an uprising in 1945, is omitted from the list. Screen understands the national selection committee withdrew the submission.

There were also a record number of documentary submissions – 238 compared to the previous high of 170 – in light of amended eligibility rules this season due to the pandemic, and a reduced field of 27 animation contenders.

The shortlists will be announced on February 9. The 93rd annual Academy Awards are scheduled...

For the past two years, the Oscar race for international feature hasn’t been a race at all. With Mexico’s “Roma” and South Korea’s “Parasite” heavyweight contenders for best picture, the lower-profile award became a done deal. Disappointingly, early buzz doesn’t point to any equivalent crossover between the two categories this year. The flip side of that, however, is as excitingly competitive an international field as the Oscars have seen in years, while a pandemic-disrupted festival and arthouse scene has made for fewer advance-hyped contenders than usual.

In these topsy-turvy circumstances then, it remains to be seen whether members of the Academy’s international feature branch cleave to the familiar, or delve into the relatively unknown. If old habits prevail, look for Europe to dominate the field: the continent accounted for eight of last year’s 10 shortlisted titles. Over a third of this year’s 93 submissions, meanwhile,...

“First Cow,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Minari,” “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” and “Nomadland” scored Best Feature Film nominations for the 2021 Independent Spirit Awards, with “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” leading the pack with seven nominations. “Minari” had six film nominations, and “Nomandland” wound up with five.

And for the first time Film Independent recognized the best in TV. “A Teacher,” “I May Destroy You,” “Little America,” “Small Axe” and “Unorthodox” all landed nominations for Best New Scripted Series. “Unorthodox” and “Little America” each scored three nominations.

Nominations for the 36th annual ceremony were announced Tuesday via Film Independent’s website and YouTube channel by Laverne Cox, Barry Jenkins and Olivia Wilde.

Though the awards are generally held the Saturday afternoon before the Oscars ceremony, the show has been moved up to a primetime slot on Thursday, April 22 and will air on IFC that will also be simulcast on AMC+ and...

The 2021 Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced Tuesday, January 26. So who made the cut at these kudos, which celebrate the best in American independent films? Scroll down to see the full list of nominees for the 2021 Indie Spirits. Remember, only American-made movies with budgets under $20 million were eligible for consideration.

These Spirit contenders were decided by nominating committees that included film critics, film programmers, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors, actors, past nominees and winners, and members of Film Independent’s Board of Directors.

Winners will be chosen by all of Film Independent’s eligible members, including industry insiders and any movie fans who sign up for membership starting at $95 per year.

These awards have come to be a significant preview of the Oscars as the motion picture academy embraces more independent films. Five of the last 10 Spirit champs for Best Feature went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

With the Sundance Film Festival less than a week away (and available to anyone in the U.S. willing to buy tickets to a Covid-safe 2021 virtual edition), late January sees more streaming options than virtually any week since the pandemic began. That doesn’t necessarily mean big movies for home viewers, but at least it offers a raft of new options.

For those seeking diversion with familiar faces, genre movies such as “Brothers by Blood” (featuring Matthias Schoenaerts and Joel Kinnaman), “No Man’s Land” (with George Lopez) and “Born a Champion” (starring Sean Patrick Flanery). Jason Segel plays a family friend who helps a couple (played by Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson) through the ugliness of cancer in “Our Friend,” based on a true story. If that sounds too serious, try “Psycho Goreman,” in which resourceful low-budget horror director Steven Kostanski makes a deliberately schlocky family film.

On the foreign language front,...

A cerebral mystery thriller told by an unreliable narrator in a fugue of emotional dislocation, writer-director Lili Horvat’s Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time puts a lightly feminist spin on classic screen tropes about hysterical wronged women driven by romantic obsession and fatal attraction. Selected as Hungary’s official submission to the Academy Awards, this haunting slow-burn psychodrama is superbly acted and quietly gripping, despite some minor plot wobbles and that cumbersome title, which Horvat borrowed from an early 1970s underground theater play. Premiered to politely positive reviews in Venice and Toronto last year, the film ...

Lover Come Back: Horvat Forges Queasy Love Connection with Projections and Perceptions

For her sophomore narrative feature, the intoxicatingly titled Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Hungarian director Lili Horvat mines an exaggerated instance of unrequited love as a hypothetical exploration of the madness, or even possession, of what romantic perceptions can seem like. Transcending the assumptions conditioned as innate across pop songs, literature and film which purportedly convey the essence of being ‘in love,’ Horvat suggests, if we’re to continue in the arena of pop music under the lens of the heteronormatively inclined, the refrain of the classic 1985 Whitney Houston track “How Will I Know.”…...

Lili Horvát's mystery-drama has been selected for Hungary's submission to the best foreign language Oscar this year. The original title, Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre, and its English translation, Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time, present some graphic design challenges due to its unusual length. These challenges were easily met (and then some) by design firm Frost Foundry, who oft into a gradient of blood red bed sheets occupying more than half of the space, and title planted firmly on the lead actress, Natasa Stork's curved posterior. The point lighting on this image, the contrast in the white and red sheets, the curves and folds in both, and the dark shadow in the top corner all signal mystery, sex, privacy and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Talent showcase to move online due to ongoing virus restrictions.

The 10 rising actors selected for this year’s European Shooting Stars has been unveiled and will be showcased online for the first time as a result of the pandemic.

This year’s selection comprise: Seidi Haarla (Finland); Nicolas Maury (France); Albrecht Schuch (Germany); Natasa Stork (Hungary); Fionn O’Shea (Ireland); Zygimante Elena Jakstaite (Lithuania); Martijn Lakemeijer (Netherlands); Sara Klimoska (North Macedonia); Alba Baptista (Portugal); and Gustav Lindh (Sweden).

European Film Promotion (Efp) usually provides a high-profile platform for emerging talent at the Berlinale, introducing young actors to international casting directors, producers and filmmakers at the festival.

European Film Promotion has revealed the 10 actors who will take part in the 24th edition of European Shooting Stars. The program, which launches emerging European thespians onto the world stage, has boosted the careers of actors like Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Riz Ahmed and George MacKay.

For the first time, Efp will present the neophyte actors to the film industry, public and international press as part of a three-day online program. Efp’s oldest and most prestigious initiative will take place digitally from Feb. 23-25, one week before the industry events of this year’s 71st Berlinale (March 1-5). The Shooting Stars award ceremony will take place within the framework of the Berlinale screenings in the summer.

“Although this year we sadly cannot meet in person, we invite you to join, discover and celebrate the best in rising European acting talent, while staying safe at home,” Efp’s managing director Sonja Heinen said.

The European Shooting Stars, an annual list of the top 10 new acting talents coming out of Europe, unveiled its 2021 roster on Tuesday.

They include Germany’s Albrecht Schuch, who caught international attention for his performances in System Crasher (2019) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020); Irish actor Fionn O’Shea, who stars in David Freyne’s Dating Amber (2020) and has a supporting role in Hulu drama Normal People (2020); Natasa Stork, the star of Hungary’s international feature Oscar contender Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020); and Nicolas Maury, a member of the ensemble cast of Netflix’s French ...

The European Shooting Stars, an annual list of the top 10 new acting talents coming out of Europe, unveiled its 2021 roster on Tuesday.

They include Germany’s Albrecht Schuch, who caught international attention for his performances in System Crasher (2019) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020); Irish actor Fionn O’Shea, who stars in David Freyne’s Dating Amber (2020) and has a supporting role in Hulu drama Normal People (2020); Natasa Stork, the star of Hungary’s international feature Oscar contender Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020); and Nicolas Maury, a member of the ensemble cast of Netflix’s French ...

"You're a doctor. You know exactly where feelings get you." Greenwich has released an official US trailer for a Hungarian romantic drama called Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (originally Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre in Hungarian). This premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Venice Days sidebar last year. The film stars Natasa Stork as Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon, who has fallen in love. She leaves her shining American career behind after 20 years and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man she met at a conference. But the love of her life claims they have never met before. How is this possible? This also stars Viktor Bodó, Benett Vilmányi, Zsolt Nagy, Péter Tóth, Andor Lukáts, and Attila Mokos. This does indeed look very mysterious, though it's pretty obvious the guy is sketchy and has some secrets. But I'm intrigued to...

Deadline kicks off the New Year and movie awards season with our first edition of Contenders International, which gets underway this morning at 8 a.m. Pt. The event showcases 22 titles from 15 studios, streamers and distributors with presentations including clips and filmmaker/talent Q&As. In all, 19 of the films are official submissions to the Best International Film category at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Due to the pandemic Contenders International will be presented virtually, so click here to register and join the livestream. You can additionally follow along for the day on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram via @Deadline and #DeadlineContenders. See the full schedule of panels below.

While international markets have been a profit center for the studios for many years, local films have begun to take on greater importance outside festivals and indeed their home countries. That was particularly the case in 2019 with South Korea’s Parasite, which went on...

The Academy on Friday unveiled to its voters a record 93 films will compete in the Best International Feature Film category — which will no doubt leading to a busy four weeks of viewing before first-round voting begins on Feb. 1.

Helped by Covid-inspired rules that relaxed the usual entry requirements, the films topped the record of 92 entries set in 2017, as TheWrap suggested they likely would in December. The films include a record 34 female directors, seven more than the previous high of 27 set last year.

This is not the official list of qualifying films, which is expected to be released by the Academy later in January. But these 93 films are all in the members-only online screening room devoted to the category, and each of them has been put on a “required viewing” list for one-fourth of the voters. It is unlikely that any of the films will be disqualified at this point, although...

Had Jesse and Celine actually met six months after the events of “Before Sunrise” as planned, had their relationship gone horribly wrong to the point where one of them couldn’t even remember the other, and had they both been neurosurgeons, it might look something like “Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time.” This cool-headed debut from filmmaker Lili Horvát is Hungary’s submission for the 2021 Academy Award for Best International Feature. Watch the official trailer, exclusive to IndieWire, below.

With the gloomy echoes of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Horvát follows a doctor named Márta around Budapest — not unlike how Hitchcock chased Kim Novak in “Vertigo” — who’s convinced a perfect stranger is a man she met abroad and had plans to meet up with back in her home city. The mouthful of a title belies the filmmaker’s stark approach to complex material in this haunting cinematic puzzle.

’Preparations To Be Together For An Unkown Period Of Time’ will get a January release in the US.

Hungary’s submission for this year’s international film Oscar, Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time, has been acquired for US distribution by Greenwich Entertainment.

The drama, about a surgeon who returns to Hungary from the US for a romantic rendezvous with a fellow doctor, had its world premiere at the Venice festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto festival. It won several prizes on the festival circuit, including the Gold Hugo in the Chicago festival...

The Cairo Film Festival kicks off its 42nd edition Wednesday as a mostly physical event with the Middle East premiere of Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his hit stage play “The Father,” for which co-writer Christopher Hampton and actor Rufus Sewell are expected in attendance.

“I think it’s one of the best films of the year,” fest president Mohamed Hefzy tells Variety. “We felt that the way the subject (dementia) is treated is extremely humane and very cinematic,” he added, noting that “Father” is a great opener since it is “a very accessible film for a broader audience.”

The socially-distanced opening ceremony of the grande dame of the Arab world’s fests will take place in the Cairo Opera House’s open-air theater, which is being called The We Theater, where other expected attendees will include Russian master Alexander Sokurov (“Russian Ark”), who is presiding over this year’s main jury,...

by Nathaniel R

Preparations to be together for an unknown period of time (2020)

Hungary has announced its submission to the Oscar race. They have chosen the sophomore feature from new director Lili Horvát called Preparations to be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time. We love a memorable distinct title so this is up there with Lesotho's submission as the best-titled contender for Best International Feature this year. It's a romantic drama / mystery about a female surgeon that won prizes at several festivals including Philadelphia, Chicago, and Warsaw. Horvát began making short films in the Aughts and earlier this decade worked as a casting director, including on the acclaimed Hungarian Oscar submission White God (2014). This is the 29th announced submission that's from a female filmmaker so we're going to hit an all-time high percentage that's nearing gender parity. At this writing 42% of the entries come from female directors.

Let's look...

Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

Scroll down for the full list

The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September.

Lili Horvát’s “Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time” has been selected as the official Hungarian entry for the international feature film category at the Academy Awards.

The film had its world premiere as part of the Venice Days lineup, and premiered in North America at the Toronto Film Festival. It was awarded the Golden Hugo in the New Directors Competition at the Chicago Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival’s best narrative feature award, Valladolid’s Golden Spike and a Fipresci Prize at Warsaw, among others.

In Variety’s review, the film is described as “a slinky noir-inflected melodrama following a brilliant brain surgeon who fears her own brain may be tricking her into romantic delusion.”

It centers on Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon who falls in love. She gives up her successful career in America, and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man she loves.

The decision was reached earlier today after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The 2020 edition of the Thessaloniki international Film Festival (November 5-15) is moving fully online after previously being set to run as a hybrid event.

Screen has learned that the decision was reached earlier today (Oct 28) after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The festival was set to screen international competition titles and a number of other events at seven venues in the city. However, the recent rise in Covid cases in...

Chicago – The Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) is competitive, and the 56th edition presented its awards on October 23rd, 2020, as a live virtual and online event on the Ciff YouTube page. The winner of the Gold Hugo as Best International Film was “Sweat” (France), directed by Magnus von Horn.

The 56th Chicago International Film Festival Celebrates Day Ten of the movie extravaganza, with films available for 2020 virtually and online. Click here for a complete how-to guide on navigating the 2020 Ciff. Go to Page Two for the schedule of October 23rd, 2020.

The awards were presented by the various jury members in each film category, and were hosted by Artistic Director Mimi Plauché, Managing Director Vivian Teng, as well as programmers Anthony Kaufman and Sam Flancher. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named for the mythical God of Discovery.

International Feature Film Competition

‘Sweat’

Photo credit: Chicago International Film...

Skating into my halfway point for the 56th Chicago International Film Festival, I’m starting to realize the little things I miss about doing this in person. Sure, seeing movies on the big screen is always the preferred way, but what about the other stuff? What about starting each morning by kneeling at the altar of the Dunkin Donuts Express inside the Grand Red Line stop? My Keurig is getting me by, but binging several movies without eating anything just isn’t the same without those little touches.

And rest assured, those little touches cushion the blow each festival has. Meet the first empty movie of this year’s Ciff. It’s the United States premiere of Stefanie Klemm’s Of Fish and Men (Grade: C-), something so stagnant and stretched out that it almost feels like it’s trying to get nothing out of its audiences. Each festival has one of these movies,...

Chicago – Just because the majority of the 56th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) will be virtual and online, doesn’t mean that there won’t be filmmaker and talent appearances. Highlights for appearances for the 56th Ciff include “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Rachel Brosnahan (for “I’m Your Woman”), legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog (for “Fireball: Visions from Darker Worlds) and director Steve James of “Hoop Dreams” (for “City So Real”). Get the whole list by clicking here.

The 56th Chicago International Film Festival Celebrates Day Two of the just-launched movie extravaganza, with films available virtually and online. Click here for a complete how-to guide on navigating the 2020 Ciff.

Rachel Brosnahan will Appear at the 56th Ciff for ‘I’m Your Woman”

Photo credit: Amazon Prime Video

Events Of The Day: Industry Days (click here) are ongoing until October 18th. It is an opportunity to get an insiders view of the filmmaking industry,...

Jasmila Žbanić’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?” and Azra Deniz Okyay’s “Ghosts” won best film in the international and national competitions, respectively, at Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the 57th edition of which concluded on Saturday.

Unable to attend the festival due to the pandemic, Žbanić sent a video message in which she said: “This film came about through the collaboration of nine different countries. I emphasize this because I think now, more than ever, we need to show that we’re trying to understand each other better by telling our different stories together. This award will help the film to be watched by more people, as well as bringing us together through our love of cinema and for each other.”

Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi won best director for “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness.” Natasa Stork won best actress for “Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time.

The Pingyao International Film Festival, founded by Chinese helmer Jia Zhangke and former Venice head Marco Muller, has released its full lineup of global and local films. The selections in the two main sections focus on first or second features.

The festival is set to take place from Oct. 10-19 in the ancient city of Pingyao in central Shanxi province, not far from Jia’s own hometown. Few foreigners will be present, as China continues to maintain travel and quarantine restrictions for those entering the country, despite lifting some measures.

A dozen films are set to compete in the international “Crouching Tigers” section. They include a number of titles that first bowed at Venice: “Residue,” from American director Merawi Gerima, which debuted to a special mention earlier this month in the independent Venice Days section before being picked up by Ava DuVernay’s film company and released on Netflix; “The Book of Vision,...

Hungarian writer-director Kristóf Deák, who won an Academy Award for best live-action short, has started shooting his debut theatrical feature, “The Grandson.”

The coming-of-age drama, disguised as a crime thriller, with darkly comic undertones, will shoot for 40 days on location in Budapest. Nfi World Sales is handling global distribution, with an expected release date in autumn 2021.

The cast includes emerging actor Gergely Blahó, and Tamás Jordán, who appeared in Oscar nominated “On Body and Soul” (2018), as well as “Time Stands Still” (1981), “Sweet Emma,” and “Dear Böbe” (1992).

The film centers on quiet 28 year-old office manager Rudi, the “nice guy” everyone can count on. When his beloved grandpa falls victim to a particularly ruthless scam, his comfortable world is turned upside down. Pushed by guilt and a desire to bring justice to the criminals, Rudi starts his own investigation, descending into the world of petty crime – and finding peculiar allies along the way.

Turkey’s 57th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival is forging ahead with a hybrid edition this year that will feature a mix of the best new Turkish features and cherry-picked international titles.

The storied event being held Oct. 3-10 in the bustling resort city on Turkey’s Southern coast has been through a spell of politically-prompted turbulence that led to the appointment last year of new fest chief Ahmet Boyacıoğlu and artistic director Başak Emre, who both stated that “Return to Roots” would be their mantra as they took the helm.

That’s because the 2017 and 2018 editions, headed by British-Irish producer Mike Downey, had done away with the national competition, historically the backbone of Turkey’s oldest and most prominent film event.

Therefore lots of locals during those two years “boycotted the festival” since Turkish cinema, which had been folded into the international lineup, “was practically out,” says Boyacıoğlu, who...