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"I just want a better life." Curzon Film has debuted an official trailer for the upcoming release of the Belgian film Young Mothers, also known as The Young Mother's Home in English, which is the next feature film from the acclaimed Belgian duo known as The Dardennes. This is Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardennes' 13th feature film so far, and it also premiered at the Cannes Film Festival like so many other films they've made before. The film already debuted in France back in May just after Cannes, and will be released in UK cinemas soon (though no US date set yet). Five mothers living in a shelter strive for a better future for themselves & their kids amidst challenging upbringings. Starring Babette Verbeek, Elsa Houben, Janaïna Halloy Fokan, Lucie Laruelle, & Samia Hilmi as the moms. Housed in a shelter for young mothers, Jessica, Perla, Julie, Naïma and Ariane, all of whom have grown up in difficult circumstances,...

In what has become a familiar sight on the Croisette, Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne strolled up the red carpet to present their new film to a welcoming crowd.

The Dardennes’ latest, The Young Mother’s Home premiered early Friday evening, marking the brothers’ ninth entry in Cannes competition. The Dardennes almost never leave Cannes empty-handed.

Casual with suits and no ties (the early afternoon screenings are not mandatory black-tie), the Dardennes strolled up to the premiere accompanied by their somewhat more excited (and better dressed) young stars: Lucie Laruelle, Babette Verbeek, Elsa Houben, Janaïna Halloy Fokan and Samia Hilmi.

Warm, enthusiastic applause rolled over the auditorium in waves as the film credits rolled, and the Dardennes embraced their co-stars. The young actresses wiped away tears. Laruelle, who plays Perla in the film, was visibly shaking with emotion, before joining her co-stars in a group hug. The film, while containing...

Cannes habitués Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne debuted their latest film, Young Mothers, in Competition this afternoon, greeted by a 10.5-minute ovation.

The story follows five girls who are housed in a shelter for young mothers. The teenagers are hoping for a better life for themselves and their babies.

Marking their ninth time in Competition, the Dardenne brothers are two-time Palme d’Or winners, for 1999’s Rosetta (which also took a Best Actress prize for Emilie Dequenne who passed away earlier this year), and for 2005’s L’Enfant.

Other laurels the Belgian brothers have received on the Croisette include Best Screenplay for 2008’s Lorna’s Silence, a shared Grand Prize for 2011’s The Kid with a Bike, Best Director for Young Ahmed in 2019 and a special 75th Award for 2022’s Tori and Lokita.

Luc Dardenne told the Cannes Film Festival of Young Mothers, “We wanted to tell five stories about five young girls who,...

"We're getting through this." Diaphana Distribution in France has unveiled the official trailer for the film titled Young Mothers, also known as The Young Mother's Home in English, which is the next feature film from the acclaimed Belgian duo known as The Dardennes. This is Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardennes' 13th feature film so far, and it's also playing at Cannes like so many other films they've made before. It will be premiering in the Main Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival this month. Five mothers living in a shelter strive for a better future for themselves & their kids amidst challenging upbringings. Starring Babette Verbeek, Elsa Houben, Janaïna Halloy Fokan, Lucie Laruelle, & Samia Hilmi as the moms. Housed in a shelter for young mothers, Jessica, Perla, Julie, Naïma and Ariane, all of whom have grown up in difficult circumstances, struggle to obtain a better life for themselves and their children. Another social...

The lineup for the 78th Cannes Film Festival has officially been announced. As of today, 19 films will be competing for the prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or, which last year was won by Sean Baker's Anora. This year’s festival runs between May 13 and May 24, and the jury is headed by actress Juliette Binoche. Binoche won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2010 for Certified Copy and an Oscar in 1996 for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The English Patient.

Two of this year’s entries come from directors who have won the Palme in the past. Another three are from helmers who have won prizes in official competition other than the Palme. Seven selections are from directors who are having their first films screened in competition.

Cannes can also be a place to see the first glimpses of major Oscar contenders. Last year, three of the...

The much-maligned Richard III finally gets the royal treatment in Stephen Frears’ The Lost King as amateur historian Philippa Langley unearths the monarch’s five-century-old remains in a parking lot in Leicester, England, in 2012. Two books and a documentary later, IFC Films presents the feature film version in 750+ theaters.

“It took eight years from starting the search to cutting the tarmac. To see it telescoped into a hundred or so minutes made it really powerful for me,” Langley, who’s played in the film by Sally Hawkins, told Deadline.

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Richard III (1461-1483) is one of Shakespeare’s most malevolent villains,...

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

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso starts screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)

IFC Center

The Dardenne brothers are subject of a career-spanning retrospective, with L’Enfant, The Kid with a Bike, and Lorna’s Silence showing on 35mm; Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Times Square, and Poison Ivy have late screenings.

Film Forum

Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 begins a run; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration, while The Conformist returns; Selena plays this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Dressed to Kill, Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, Minnie and Moskowitz, Belly, and Synecdoche, New York have 35mm showings.

Museum of the Moving Image

With First Look underway,...

After being cancelled in 2020 and then delayed in 2021, the Cannes Film Festival is finally back on track for May 2022 on the French Riviera. The 75th installment of the international cinema showcase will take place from May 17 to May 28, and there will be 18 films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. Last year that honor went to the French thriller “Titane,” directed by Julia Ducournau. As of this writing several details are still to be announced including who will be on this year’s jury and who will be serving as jury president after Spike Lee presided over last year’s program.

A filmmaker’s previous track record at Cannes can sometimes give us an idea of who’s in a good position to claim the Palme. For instance, seven of this year’s entries in the official competition come from directors who have previously won...

Andreas Fontana’s haunting Azor, co-written with Mariano Llinas, stars Fabrizio Rongione and Stéphanie Cléau: “The cinematography was done by Gabriel Sandru and we were talking a lot about that.”

Andreas Fontana’s Azor, co-written with Mariano Llinas, shot by Gabriel Sandru with costumes by Simona Martínez, stars Fabrizio Rongione and Stéphanie Cléau.

Andreas Fontana with Anne-Katrin Titze on Jorge Luis Borges: “Borges of course in terms of literary inspiration is very important.”

In my discussion with the director we touch on the influence of Howard Hawks and Jorge Luis Borges, Joan Didion’s codes and games, casting director Alexandre Nazarian, the cinematography, costumes, and filming in Argentina with non-professional actors, “men who are very impressive”.

Boredom is seen as “divine punishment,” old money...

Starring Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel and Cécile de France, “Peaceful,” directed by Cannes best actress winner Emmanuelle Bercot, will head Studiocanal’s 2021 Berlin slate.

“Peaceful” is produced by Les Films du Kiosque, whose credits include “La Belle Epoque” and Bercot’s own “Standing Tall.”

Introduced to buyers from Feb. 27, the movie marks the latest from Bercot who is best known as a 2015 Cannes Festival best actress award winner for her no-holds barred performance in “My King” but is a notable writer and director in her own right. 20-year career highlights include co-writing Maiwenn’s

“Polisse” and directing “Standing Tall,” which opened the 2015 Cannes Festival and snagged Cesar Award nominations for film, director and original screenplay. Studiocanal handled international distribution on “My King.”

As becomes an actor, Bercot’s six features are distinguished by their top notch casts.

“Peaceful” is no exception. Set over four seasons, the feature stars Benoit Magimel,...

When Jean-Luc and Pierre Dardenne won the Palme d’Or for “Rosetta” in 1999 — upending such hotly fancied contenders as Pedro Almodovar’s “All About My Mother” — it wasn’t exactly an out-of-nowhere arrival. The Belgian brothers were already in their mid-forties, having begun their career in documentary filmmaking 20 years before, and had already enjoyed a fiction breakthrough with 1996’s award-winning “La Promesse.”

But it felt like an invigorating new wave all the same. Toward the end of a decade marked by auteurist flash and swagger, the empathetic, unvarnished realism of their working-class survival tale gave world cinema a clean-scrubbed human face: intent on making audiences concentrate more on the lives being presented than the directors’ style of presentation.

In a career-making performance, the 18-year-old Emelie Dequenne played a teen struggling to support herself and her alcoholic mother with fleeting, fragile jobs: Though incidentally a damning study of Belgian labour law and social welfare,...

Created by Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, the Lumiere Festival is due to take place in Lyon from October 10-18. Largely a retrospective event with hundreds of restored films, thematic strands and uncovered gems, it will also feature some titles officially selected for the Cannes Classics 2020 edition which was unable to be held owing to the coronavirus crisis. Today, the Lumière Fest announced that this year’s recipients of the honorary Prix Lumière are Belgian auteurs Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

The brothers are among the winningest filmmakers at Cannes, having taken the Palme d’Or twice (for Rosetta in 1999 and The Child in 2005), as well as prizes for screenwriting and directing, among others. They are known for naturalistic films that tackle social issues and shine a light on the young generation. The Lumière festival calls their work, “human, engaged… and crying out for truth.”

Other notable credits include La Promesse,...

In an aim to help now-shuttered independent theaters, IFC Films will allow cinemas to screen 200 of its library titles for free once they open back up. The distributor hopes that favorites like “Frances Ha,” “Y Tu Mamá También,” and even “The Human Centipede” will help drive audiences back to theaters in the coming months, a time when fewer and fewer new releases are being scheduled.

The Indie Theater Revival Project‘s offerings will be available to theaters beginning May 29, with traditional rental fees for library titles waived for theaters in the first 30 days that they’re open, starting from whatever date they reopen their doors. That means more money in the pockets in the form of ticket sales for local theater owners who have been faced with a near-zero revenue stream after closing their doors last month.

More from IndieWireHow France Is Supporting Its Film Industry During a Global CrisisWhy...

Curated retrospectives include Cannes winners, genre, family documentaries.

IFC Films has launched The Indie Theater Revival Project and curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres when they emerge from lockdown, offering library titles for free during the first month they open.

The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and IFC Films said on Tuesday (21) it will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.

Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No...

Curated retrospectives to be made available for participating theatres.

IFC Films announced on Tuesday (21) The Indie Theater Revival Project and has curated 20 retrospective programmes for Us theatres to screen when they reopen in the weeks and months ahead.

The selections comprise approximately 200 films spanning IFC Films’ 20-year history – the company celebrates its anniversary this year – and will make them available to cinemas starting on May 29.

Theatres will be able to book any number of the retrospective programmes, in part or in total, any time through the first month after they reopen. No film rental will be due for any of...

In an effort to help independently-owned movie theaters recover from the coronavirus pandemic, IFC Films announced on Tuesday that it will offer over 200 of its films to those theaters without any rental fees. This will help give those theaters some classic films to screen when they reopen while they wait for new films to be released.

“Independent theaters across the country have been essential partners for us at IFC Films, and we would not be where we are today without their support,” the distributor announced in a statement. “We wanted to take the first step and let theaters know that we are committed to helping them reopen their doors by providing a selection of films to program while the new release landscape gets back to normal.”

Dubbed “The Indie Revival Project,” the program will offer selections from IFC’s catalog in various curated packs, including a “Yes We Cannes!” program...

IFC Films is offering embattled indie theaters hundreds of films from its library to screen when they re-open from their mass Covid-19 related shutdown.

The movies, which include such IFC classics as “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Boyhood,” will be made available to cinemas without any rental fees. The retrospective program boasts roughly 200 films. Theaters will not be charged any film rental.

“We are honoring the partnership we’ve had with theaters over the last 20 years and we’re sending them a message of solidarity and gratefulness,” said Lisa Schwartz, co-president of IFC Films. “They’ve been with us since beginning and when they come back, we want to be there with them.”

The indie studio is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and had been putting together programming to honor the occasion. After coronavirus closed most theaters in March, IFC began to rethink its plans.

“This was a positive way...

Jean-Pierre Dardenne on Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed): “We're always very concerned with avoiding imagery …” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

With Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed), starring Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed, featuring Myriem Akheddiou, Victoria Bluck, Claire Bodson, Othmane Moumen, Olivier Bonnaud, and Cyra Lassman, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne enter a new realm of their oeuvre.

And yet their latest film, for which they won the top director prize at Cannes, is very much in line with what they do best. They illuminate seemingly impossible situations that are deeply grounded in social realities. Body language, quotidian objects, and a hesitant glance speak volumes.

Luc Dardenne on Idir Ben Addi as Ahmed: “We define the character not by his psychology, but by his accessories.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second half of my conversation at Ian Schrager's Hudson Hotel with the master filmmakers, I started out...

Fitting their preoccupations with contemporary Europe’s working class, the latest from Belgian’s preeminent filmmaking duo, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, seeks to boldly tackle the radicalization of a Belgian-Arabic teen. Their approach in Young Ahmed is as compassionate and conscientious as one can expect from the brothers—they’re master storytellers operating at their most consistent and polished—yet it lacks the moral specificity of their best work or formal daring of their second-most-recent outing (The Unknown Girl), the end result being a derivative misstep.

At school, the erratic Ahmed (first-time actor Idir Ben Addi) displays intense animosity for his instructor, Madame Inès (Myriem Akheddiou), who seems to genuinely care for him and worries about his recent rash behavior. Ahmed rushes to leave class early, refusing to say goodbye and asserting that it’s unacceptable for a true Muslim to shake a woman’s hand. This opening uncannily mirrors...

Palme d’Or winners for 1999’s Rosetta (review) and L’Enfant (2005), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have attempted to three-peat this past decade with 2011’s The Kid with a Bike (winner of the Grand Prix prize), 2014’s Two Days, One Night and 2016’s The Unknown Girl (review). Their eleventh feature film and eighth consecutive competition film, Le Jeune Ahmed adheres to their beginnings in cinema mixing non professional actors with socially conscious template and bleak realism. Set in Belgium, this is about a young fanatic barely out of childhood who plans to kill his teacher in the name of his religion.…...

In “Young Ahmed,” a pubescent Ahmed is enamored with hardline Islam. He diligently prays five times a day. He criticizes his mother for drinking wine, his sister for showing cleavage, his female teacher for promoting Arabic in song.

But when Ahmed steps over the line toward violence, he finds himself in a youth detention center, nursing an extremist philosophy while being coached back toward Western society.

Going where a documentary cannot, directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who are Cannes Film Festival favorites, explore the heart-wrenching allure of politicized Islam to some young Muslims in Europe. The film screened in the main competition on Monday.

Also Read: Cannes Report, Day 6: 'The Lighthouse' Shines, Tarantino Begs for No Spoilers

What draws these young (mostly) men to a philosophy of an exclusionary and violent Islam? The sweet-faced and smooth-cheeked Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi), betrays little emotion. But his father is gone,...

There’s a darkness to “Young Ahmed” that audiences have never seen before in the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the gifted Belgian brothers whose profoundly humane, unapologetically realist dramas have twice earned them the Palme d’Or in Cannes. Like surrogate parents to troubled children, the sibling directors have taken on their share of difficult adolescents. In “Rosetta,” “The Son,” and “The Kid With a Bike” in particular, the characters’ circumstances may be harsh, but audiences can sense an underlying optimism behind those stories, whereas with Ahmed, a radicalized Muslim teenager who tries to kill his teacher, there’s a difference: He could be too far gone to save.

In a sense, that brings fresh urgency to the latest from a pair of master filmmakers whose style has become so familiar that audiences can almost predict how their intense slice-of-life scenarios might play out. But introduce a 13-year-old itching for jihad,...

Both titles recorded an average of 2.5.

Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers and Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life are the latest titles to bed down on Screen’s Cannes 2019 jury grid, with both films receiving the same average of 2.5.

Porumboiu recorded consistent scores across his 10 marks, with four threes (good) and four twos (average) broken only by a four (excellent) from Meduza’s Anton Dolin and a one (poor) from Sight And Sound’s Nick James.

The Whistlers stars Vlad Ivanov as a corrupt cop who gets involved in a high-stakes heist, using the secret whistling language spoken on the Spanish island of La Gomera.

IFC Films is getting into the streaming game, launching its own subscription-based, video on demand streaming service on Thursday.

Called IFC Films Unlimited, the catalog of movies will draw on titles from the IFC Films, IFC Midnight and Sundance Select labels, including so far “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “The Trip,” “45 Years,” “The Babadook” and more as part of an initial offering of several hundred movies.

The service launches today and will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video channels for $5.99 per month. The service hopes to eventually be available on additional platforms.

Also Read: 'The Sound of Silence' With Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones Acquired By IFC Films

The launch was made to coincide with the Cannes Film Festival, taking place now. IFC has distributed five winners of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, and three of those movies, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “Dheepan...

Nineteen films are in contention for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 14 to May 25. The history of a filmmaker at this festival can offer wisdom as to who could be out front to win the coveted Palme d’Or. Seven of the entries are by filmmakers that have been honored during past closing ceremonies. Newcomers to Cannes could end up being big winners with three filmmakers making their first appearance on the Croisette and another four having their films shown for the first time in competition. The jury will be headed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, who claimed the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2006 for “Babel.”

Below is a breakdown of the 19 films competing this year and the history of their helmers at the festival.

Pedro Almodóvar (“Pain and Glory”)

The acclaimed Spanish director is back at Cannes...

Leading curated streaming platform Mubi announced today its May release slate of films and curated series from both emerging talent and acclaimed directors from across the globe. The Cannes Film Festival, quite rightly, dominates next month’s line-up, with a new Cannes Official Selection each day for the duration of the festival. Mubi’s cream of the Croisette features such past festival favorites as: Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist, Cristi Puiu’s seminal Romanian New Wave classic The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, Cristian Mungiu’s groundbreaking and harrowing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s game-changer Amores Perros, and the 2007 Grand Prize winner, The Kid with a Bike, from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

Cannes Takeover

Mubi’s 2019 Cannes Takeover is a force to be reckoned with. While the best of international cinema graces the famed Croisette, Mubi will present an impressive selection of 12 films from the festival’s...

New York-based Distrib Films Us has acquired three films from Studiocanal, including “One Nation, One King,” Pierre Schoeller’s sprawling movie about the French Revolution, which world premiered out of competition at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

“One Nation, One King” is headlined by a strong French cast, including Gaspard Ulliel, Adele Haenel, Olivier Gourmet, Louis Garrel, Niels Schneider and Denis Lavant. The big-budget film unfolds in 1789 Paris and is told from the perspectives of revolutionaries.

Produced by Denis Freyd at Archipel 35 (“The Kid With a Bike”), “One Nation, One King” follows Françoise, a young washerwoman, and Basile, a drifter, who begin to fulfill a dream of emancipation in the newly formed assembly where they witness the creation of a new political system along with the working-class people of Paris.

Distrib Films Us will release “One Nation, One King” in the U.S., along with two more Studiocanal films,...

Ahmed

The Dardenne Bros. turn their socially minded lens to religious extremism with their eleventh narrative feature, Ahmed. As usual, the Dardennes are collaborating with production company Les Films du Fleuve, returning to a template which saw them find early success by using a cast of unknowns. Having twice won the Palme d’Or, the duo are the most celebrated directors to have come from Belgium, making any of their projects of instant note. Besides their Palme wins, their offerings almost always leave Cannes with a major prize, including the Ecumenical Jury Prize for 2002’s Le fils, Best Screenplay for Lorna’s Silence in 2008, the Grand Jury Prize for 2011’s The Kid with a Bike, and again the Ecumenical Jury Prize for 2014’s Two Days, One Night (which also resulted in an Oscar nod for Marion Cotillard).…...

Photo by Darren HughesThe Unknown Girl opens with a handheld close up of Dr. Jenny (Adèle Haenel) examining a patient. “Listen,” she says, handing her stethoscope to Julien (Olivier Bonnaud), a medical student who is interning at her clinic. Never ones to shy away from a glaring metaphor, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne announce in that brief exchange their film’s driving thematic and formal concerns. When Jenny later learns that her decision to not allow a late-night visitor into the clinic might have contributed to the young woman’s death, she puts her skills and training to new purpose: listening for clues that might help solve the murder.The Unknown Girl differs from the Dardennes’ previous fiction films only in its more obviously generic plotting. This seems to have contributed to the uncharacteristically mixed reviews that greeted the film at its 2016 Cannes premiere, where it was faulted for failing to...

Exclusive: Curzon12 will stream recent and classic movies; first lineup revealed.

Curzon is beefing up its online offering with the launch of Curzon12, a monthly VoD service built into its membership packages.

The service will host 12 recent and classic movies which will be available to stream when logging in with a Curzon membership.

Scroll down for first lineup

Each month’s curated lineup, taken exclusively from Curzon’s library, is selected by the company’s programming team and is designed to complement the films playing across Curzon’s cinemas and its day-and-date service on Curzon Home Cinema that month.

The collection will feature the work of directors such as Yorgos Lanthimos, Charlie Chaplin, Andrea Arnold, Satyajit Ray and Agnes Varda as well as lesser known filmmakers.

The offering will be accompanied by a monthly newsletter that will delve deeper into three headline titles for that month.

The subscription is a benefit for existing and future members at no additional...

Any list of the greatest foreign directors currently working today has to include Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The directors first rose to prominence in the mid 1990s with efforts like “The Promise” and “Rosetta,” and they’ve continued to excel in the 21st century with titles such as “The Kid With A Bike” and “Two Days One Night,” which earned Marion Cotillard a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Read MoreThe Dardenne Brothers’ Next Film Will Be a Terrorism Drama

The directors will be back in U.S. theaters with the release of “The Unknown Girl” on September 8, which is a long time coming considering the film first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. While you continue to wait for their new movie, the brothers have provided their definitive list of 79 movies from the 20th century that you must see. La Cinetek published the list in full and is hosting many...

I’m tremendously fond of the Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes‘ work. They deserve to be high on the list of the best filmmakers working in the French film industry today, and although their last film, “The Unknown Girl,” would qualify as their first misfire, they have given us so many great films over the years (“The Kid With A Bike,” “L’Enfant,” “Rosetta“) that it’s a no brainer to have them situated next to Michael Haneke and Olivier Assayas as the current European masters.

Continue reading The Dardennes List Their Favorite Films Of The 20th Century at The Playlist.

An enlightening conversation with the team behind one of the best films at this year’s SXSW.

“Patricia Highsmith is Texas-born. A lot of people think she’s English, or from New York or something, but she’s Fort Worth born and bred.” Jason Cortlund, who along with Julia Halperin wrote and directed the SXSW narrative competition entry La Barracuda, is telling me about how the famed writer of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train was an influence on the film’s screenplay. Indeed, Cortlund and Halperin’s engrossing Austin-set thriller evokes shades of those page-turning mysteries, albeit with a Texas-fried perspective that is entirely their own. La Barracuda is one of those films you can only hope to catch at a festival, an utterly new take on familiar conventions that leaves you with the unshakeable feeling that you have witnessed a breakout for all involved. You’ve seen the dysfunctional Texas family drama...

Etienne Comar’s directorial debut stars Reda Kateb as iconic musician.

The 67th Berlin International Film Festival will open on Feburary 9 with the world premiere of Etienne Comar’s (Of Gods And Men) directorial debut Django.

The film, which will play in competition at the Berlinale, revolves around Django Reinhardt, the iconic guitarist and composer, and his flight from German-occupied Paris in 1943 where as Sinti his family was harassed and hounded by the Nazis.

Reda Kateb (Far From Men) stars in the title role alongside Cécile de France (The Kid with a Bike), as well as Alex Brendemühl and Ulrich Brandhoff.

Director Comar is best known as the screenwriter and producer of titles including Of Gods And Men, Haute Cuisine and My King, and as a co-producer of The Women on the 6th Floor and Timbuktu.

The screenplay comes from Comar and Alexis Salatko. Django Reinhardt’s music was re-recorded for the film by the Dutch jazz band...

David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:

L’enfance nue (translated into English, “Naked Childhood”) consists of a series of sharply observed and well-chosen moments in the troubled life of Francois Fournier, a ten-year old ward of the French foster care system. Director Maurice Pialat made his feature debut, with the support and assistance of Francois Truffaut and Claude Berri, among others, presenting a story that some might find reminiscent of The 400 Blows but without the romantic charm and lovable mischief we associate with Antoine Doinel. (There are no picturesque romps through the streets of Paris or heroic-epic pilgrimages to the ocean in this one, though there is a mad dash tracking shot of a kid nursing a sprained wrist after he’s tossed to the ground following his assault of one of his peers.) Here, the cast is populated by ordinary people in the most quotidian situations,...

The Dardenne Brothers always write and direct their films at a steady clip, often releasing their films in three- or four-year intervals. Their latest film “The Unknown Girl,” about a doctor who sets out to find the identity of an unknown young woman who died after she was refused surgery, premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Now, Variety reports that Luc Dardenne says that the duo are set to make their next film, which will be about the rise of terrorism in Europe. “We are writing the script now, and hope to shoot it in Belgium by the fall of next year,” says the Dardenne brother.

Read More: Cannes Review: ‘The Unknown Girl’ is Dardenne Brothers Doing a Detective Movie

Luc Dardenne is currently at the 20th Lima Film Festival as they are paying tribute to his film work. As part of the tribute, Lima is screening a section of the Dardennes’ films,...

There are few actresses quite like Cecile de France.

Best known for her work in films like The Kid with a Bike, de France has become one of the mainstays of French cinema, with mainstream Us audiences getting to know the great actress through a range of performances in films such as High Tension to the Clint Eastwood-helmed Hereafter. De France has captivated audiences with her stunning beauty and magnetic screen presence and physicality, and her latest picture shines a distinct light on both of those things.

Entitled Summertime, de France stars opposite Izia Higelin, in what is one of the year’s most touching tales of romance. Higelin is the picture’s lead, starring as a young farm girl named Delphine who leaves the strict confines of her parents’ farm to move to Paris with the hopes of growing personally and economically. When she comes across a group of feminists,...

If you don’t like the result of something — or if others don’t — do it again. That seems to be the approach by directing brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne with their most recent feature The Unknown Girl, which rounded Cannes with mixed reviews, including our own. After a slew of successes — including Two Days, One Night, The Promise, The Kid With A Bike, and Rosetta — The Unknown Girl stands out rather glaringly as an anomaly for the pair.

Screen Daily reports that the Palme d’Or-winning duo sat down with their editor to make minor tweaks to The Unknown Girl, only to realize a more extensive revision felt right. Now, 32 cuts have been made to the film about a young doctor who is propelled to uncover the identity of a patient who died after refusing treatment. This new cut will run seven minutes shorter — the original cut ran 1 hour...

As Cannes approaches, Screen recalls what came top (and bottom) of our Jury Grid in 2011 - a year that included The Artist, Drive and a wave of controversy from Lars Von Trier.

In annual tradition, Screen’s illustrious jury of international critics delivered their verdict on the films in Competition at Cannes 2011 - the year that the Palme d’Or went to Terrence Malick for his experimental drama The Tree of Life.

The film marked the elusive Us auteur’s first return to the festival since winning best director for Days of Heaven in 1978.

But Screen’s jury was not as impressed. While The Tree of Life scored a respectable 2.8 out of 4, top marks went to atmospheric Turkish crime drama Once Upon a Time in Anatolia by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, with a score of 3.3.

The film was Ceylan’s fourth in Competition at Cannes, and tied for the Grand Jury Prize with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s [link...

As Cannes approaches, Screen recalls what came top (and bottom) of our Jury Grid in 2011 - a year that included The Artist, Drive and a wave of controversy from Lars Von Trier.

In annual tradition, Screen’s illustrious jury of international critics delivered their verdict on the films in Competition at Cannes 2011 - the year that the Palme d’Or went to Terrence Malick for his experimental drama The Tree of Life.

The film marked the elusive Us auteur’s first return to the festival since winning best director for Days of Heaven in 1978.

But Screen’s jury was not as impressed. While The Tree of Life scored a respectable 2.8 out of 4, top marks went to atmospheric Turkish crime drama Once Upon a Time in Anatolia by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, with a score of 3.3.

The film was Ceylan’s fourth in Competition at Cannes, and tied for the Grand Jury Prize with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s [link...

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller)

Writer-director Marie Heller paints an accurate, honest, and vibrant portrait of her young protagonist, Minnie (Bel Powley), in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. With the use of some beautiful hand-drawn animation, an enlightening and funny narration, and Powley’s versatile performance, this is about as intimate as a subjective picture gets. We experience the world as this young girl does. What’s exciting for Minnie feels truly exciting, and...

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)

Calling Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence the year’s finest documentary is not inaccurate; the film certainly deserves that crown. Yet it’s hard not to feel like such a classification does Silence a slight injustice. The film is, after all, an overwhelmingly emotional modern classic. Like Oppenheimer’s 2012 masterpiece The Act of Killing, this stunning follow-up features the actual perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965–66. With shocking openness, these...

The Barnes & Noble sale may have ended a couple of weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still buy some Criterion Collection releases for 50% off. Best Buy is currently having a 50% off sale on a number of Criterion releases, and Amazon has begun to match their prices.

Thanks to everyone for supporting our site by buying through our affiliate links.

A note on Amazon deals, for those curious: sometimes third party sellers will suddenly appear as the main purchasing option on a product page, even though Amazon will sell it directly from themselves for the sale price that we have listed. If the sale price doesn’t show up, click on the “new” options, and look for Amazon’s listing.

I’ll keep this list updated throughout the week, as new deals are found, and others expire. If you find something that’s wrong, a broken link or price difference,...

It should surprise precisely nobody that Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne made a single list for Sight & Sound, and it doesn’t strike me as odd that they acted so nonchalant about the effort. Their comments section will say it all: “A random list of ten greatest films.” I do, however, question the extent to which this is “random,” insofar as connections to their oeuvre are concerned, and fellow fans will probably notice commonalities from the word “go.”

All right, yes, The Big Heat doesn’t exactly scream “social realism,” but the concerns shared by many of these pictures — economic and social inequality, for one, as well as the strains they put on romantic and parent-child relationships — rings through the Dardennes’ long career. If Shoah or Modern Times are a bit more dour and comedic (guess which adjective applies to which film) than The Kid with a Bike, they have the qualities of forebears,...

“It’s hard to think that a pair of filmmakers who have won two Palme d’Or prizes at the Cannes Film Festival could be underrated, but the extent of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s talents still feel insufficiently realized. Their latest work, 'Two Days, One Night' — which is now available through the Criterion Collection— showcases an area of their acumen seldom discussed when praising their work: shot composition.” Marshall Shaffer’s 7-and-a-half-minute video essay begins with that big thesis. What follows is extremely well edited video that deftly delivers on its premise, showcasing Shaffer’s astute eye for dissecting the latest work by the Dardenne brothers, known for movies like “L’enfant,” “The Son,” and “The Kid with a Bike.” Just a heads up: this video essay lays out the broad strokes of the plot of “Two Days, One Night” and gets into specifics about scenes, even hinting at the film’s conclusion.

The Price of Salt is at a market high according to our critics. While Le Film Francais have Mia Madre in the pole position and Screen Daily have a pair in a tie among their voting clan, our sixteen strong have place Todd Haynes’ Carol firmly at the top of the leader board with average 3.8 grade. In a year where French cinema was a little off-balance, where Italy cinema didn’t disappoint, where Asian films were especially strong and where a first time work from Hungary stole the show, it is one portrait and one love story in 1950’s America that is tops.

In our inaugural year, our Cannes Critics’ Panel favored Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In by one point over the Dardenne’s The Kid With a Bike, von Trier’s Melancholia, Nicolas Refn’s Drive and Malick’s Palme d’Or winning The Tree of Life.

The 2011 Cannes Film Festival was crushed with great films — "The Tree Of Life," "The Artist," "We Need To Talk About Kevin," "The Kid With A Bike," "Melancholia," "Drive" — so perhaps it's easy to see why the epic, Mexican crime drama "Days Of Grace," which screened in the Midnight Movie lineup, didn't quite get the spotlight it deserved. But Cinema Libre is finally bringing the film stateside, and today we have the exclusive U.S. trailer. Marking the directorial debut by Everardo Gout, and starring Tenoch Huerta, Kristyan Ferrer, Dolores Heredia, Carlos Bardem, and Eileen Yañez, the Mexico City-set film spans twelve years — benchmarked by the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cup — and follows three very disparate lives that intersect as they are impacted by violence and abduction. Lupe, an idealistic cop, is tasked to investigate a crime ring and finds that justice has no value when a human life has a price....

Marion Cotillard is nominated for “Performance by an actress in a leading role” for her work in Two Days, One Night at the 87th Oscars.

For the first time, the Dardenne Brothers have teamed with the Academy Award winner and the result is another masterwork of humanism.

Sandra (Cotillard) has just returned to work after recovering from an illness. Realizing that the company can operate with one less employee, management tells Sandra she is to be let go while the remaining employees will each receive a bonus. Over the course of a weekend, Sandra, often with the help of her loving husband (Fabio Rongione), races against time to convince each of her fellow co-workers to sacrifice their much-needed bonuses in order for her to keep her job. With each encounter, Sandra is brought into a different world with unexpected results while her fate hangs in the balance. The Dardennes have...

Below is Part 2 of my annual look at the films that have a shot at making the Foreign Language Oscar shortlist. There are 83 submissions this year with some truly remarkable films in the bunch — and no 100% frontrunner. Here’s a refresher on how the nine films are chosen for the shortlist which is expected to be revealed tomorrow: The phase one committee determines six of the candidates, and the other three entries are selected by the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee. For the profiles below and yet to come, I spoke with the directors of the films about their inspirations and expectations. In many cases, I also checked in with the U.S. distributor about why they acquired the movies. Below is a look at the second group of four titles that have generated serious buzz over the past several weeks of screenings, Q&As and consulate lunches. For...

The Dardenne Brothers (The Kid With a Bike) aren’t known for working with actors who might also be found in a Christopher Nolan tentpole, but Marion Cotillard is that rare talent who can seem at ease in both environments. And she seems perfectly cast in Two Days, One Night, the new film from the Dardennes, in […]

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