News

Exclusive: Larry Clark, the filmmaker behind the Harmony Korine-scripted Kids and Brad Renfro starrer Bully, has come aboard the music documentary It Was Them, from filmmakers Edgar Morais (Heatstroke) and Luke Eberl (Choose Connor), as an executive producer.

Currently in production, It Was Them is a portrait of the highs and lows of Jonathan Velasquez, Eddie Velasquez, Frank Navarrette and Carlos Ramirez, a group of musically talented Indigenous-Latino friends from South Central L.A. who look to find their footing as immigrants in the foreign and labyrinthic streets of Paris. The film spans over a decade in the lives of the nomads and features an original soundtrack written and performed by the subjects.

In addition to co-directing, Morais has contributed writing to the film and is producing alongside Eberl. The U.S.-Portugal-German co-production’s team also includes producers Sol Tryon, Rodrigo Areias, and co-producers Andre Hörmann and Max Milhahn.

Morais and Eberl previously collaborated on the award-winning narrative short We Won’t Forget, in which a woman’s frustrations boil to the surface while hosting a party for her friends, culminating in a public freak-out that turns into collective hysteria. The short screened at over 25 festivals worldwide, including the Oscar-qualifying Palm Springs ShortFest, and was selected as Short of the Week and Vimeo Staff Pick. It also won various awards, including the Grand Jury Prize and award for Best Editing at the Castrovillari Film Festival, and was nominated for a Portuguese Academy Award for Best Short Film. Prior to It Was Them, Morais and Eberl also collaborated on music videos for bands such as Mothxr and the Grammy-nominated Shiny Toy Guns.

A filmmaker, photographer and actor, Morais’ directorial debut, the short film Heatstroke, won the CinEuphoria award for Best Screenplay. As an actor, he has worked with directors such as Teresa Sutherland, Victoria Mahoney, and Tiago Guedes in films that have screened at Cannes, Venice, Fantasia, Gothenburg, Vila do Conde, and Rotterdam.

Also an actor-filmmaker, Eberl’s feature directorial debut, Choose Connor, was released theatrically and on video by Strand Releasing following a successful festival run. That film followed an idealistic 15-year old who accepted the opportunity to serve as the youth spokesman for a U.S. Senate candidate, only to be exploited in a fierce campaign of TV and radio ads, posters, interviews, and speaking engagements. As an actor, he’s worked with directors such as Tim Burton, Alfonso Arau, Vincent Paterson, Peter Hoar, and Clint Eastwood.

Known for his unflinching explorations of youth culture, addiction, and rebellion, Clark first gained recognition with Tulsa, a book of photography documenting teenage drug use and disaffected lifestyles in his hometown. He transitioned to filmmaking with the iconic drama Kids, chronicling the lives of teenagers in New York City, which became a cultural flashpoint in 1995. Other works from the filmmaker include Bully, as well as Ken Park, Another Day in Paradise, Wassup Rockers, Marfa Girls, and The Smell of Us.

Morais is repped by Eleven Dot Eight, Middleweek Newton Talent Management, and Robert Stein Management; Eberl by Phoenix Artists, Blue Ridge Entertainment, and Hit Management.

A band of female skateboarders raise mayhem as they roar around New York City in this likable, laid-back drama

Crystal Moselle’s intensely likable and sympathetic movie, with its seductively laid-back documentary realist style, is all about skateboarders in New York City. For me, it reclaims the skater genre from movies like Larry Clark’s The Smell of Us and perhaps Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, which tended to fetishise skaters, pornifying their perceived alienation and affectlessness – and of course their maleness. This is about a women’s skater group calling themselves Skate Kitchen whose stunts and general freewheeling and life-enjoying attitude are publicised on Instagram.

Related: Skate Kitchen: wheel life tales of sexism and sisterhood...

In today’s film news roundup, “Whitney” filmmaker Kevin Macdonald is partnering with Docsville, “Marfa Girl 2” is getting distribution, and a Dave Gurney mystery series is heading into development.

Partnerships

Documentary streaming service Docsville has signed a partnership with “Whitney” filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, Variety has learned exclusively.

Macdonald’s credits include “Touching the Void,” “One Day in September,” “The Last King of Scotland,” the thriller “State of Play,” “How I Live Now,” and the upcoming Whitney Houston documentary “Whitney,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

He won an Academy Award for best documentary in 2000 for “One Day in September,” working with Docsville co-founder Nick Fraser on the film.

“It’s been a joy to work with Kevin over many years, from our collaboration on ‘One Day in September’ up until our most recent efforts with Docsville,” Fraser said. “Having such a talented director on board will surely...

Sales company was launched by Carole Baraton, Yohann Comte and Pierre Mazars last year.

Source: Charades

Marina Foïs in ‘Conviction’

Fledgling sales company Charades - launched by Carole Baraton, Yohann Comte and Pierre Mazars last year - makes its Unifrance Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Dec 18-22) debut this week with two first features.

The Paris-based outfit, working out of roof-top offices above the Rendez-vous’s Gaumont Opéra Cinema screening hub, will kick off sales on Antoine Raimbault’s murder trial drama Conviction and Margaux Bonhomme’s Head Above Water, about a young woman who takes on the care of her mentally and physically challenged sister.

The company has released exclusive first looks at both films.

Source: Charades

‘Head Above Water’

“We fell in love with these personal stories at the script stage,” said Mazars and Baraton.

“They correspond with our desire to work with young film-makers and defend them internationally as well as support talented female...

Issue 6 of Lola carries on rolling out with three new pieces, including an appreciation of Larry Clark's The Smell of Us. Also in today's roundup: Comparing and contrasting Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant and Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, reviewing a book by Werner Herzog and another on Groucho Marx, sorting through the early work of Charles Chaplin, interviewing John Akomfrah and Stephen Cone, a study of Yasujirô Ozu's methods, plus Laurie Anderson in Brighton, Spike Jonze at Vice, Pierre Lhomme in New York—and more. » - David Hudson...

Issue 6 of Lola carries on rolling out with three new pieces, including an appreciation of Larry Clark's The Smell of Us. Also in today's roundup: Comparing and contrasting Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant and Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, reviewing a book by Werner Herzog and another on Groucho Marx, sorting through the early work of Charles Chaplin, interviewing John Akomfrah and Stephen Cone, a study of Yasujirô Ozu's methods, plus Laurie Anderson in Brighton, Spike Jonze at Vice, Pierre Lhomme in New York—and more. » - David Hudson...

Todd Haynes' "Carol" has been receiving a lot of love from various critics groups and this time, it topped the ranking of the year's best films at the annual Film Comment magazine poll!

Take a look at the complete list below and then wonder, didn't these critics see "Star Wars: The Force Awakens?"

Film Comment's Top 20 Films of 2015

1. "Carol"

2. "The Assassin"

3. "Mad Max: Fury Road"

4. "Clouds of Sils Maria"

5. "Arabian Nights"

6. "Timbuktu"

7. "Spotlight"

8. "Phoenix"

9. "Inside Out"

10. "The Look of Silence"

11. "Hard to Be a God"

12. "Anomalisa"

13. "In Jackson Heights"

14. "Son of Saul"

15. "Horse Money"

16. "Jauja"

17. "Tangerine"

18. "Brooklyn"

19. "The Diary of a Teenage Girl"

20. "Bridge of Spies"

Film Comment's Best Undistributed Films of 2015

1. "Right Here, Right Now"

2. "Chevalier"

3. "The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers"

4. "The Academy of Muses"

5. "Don't Blink . Robert Frank"

6. "Cosmos"

7. "Journey to the Shore"

8. "Happy Hour"

9. "Lost and...

At the halfway point of December, there are, to put it lightly, many end-of-year lists hitting the web, and few publications have round-ups as consistently excellent as Film Comment‘s. (“Consistently excellent” translates to “aligns with my specific taste,” of course.) Their 20-film selection represents the year rather nicely, from the widely seen and frequently listed (e.g. Mad Max: Fury Road and Inside Out) landing among some of our limited-release favorites, including Timbuktu, The Assassin, and Jauja. As editor Gavin Smith says, “That balance, which happens to be encapsulated in the top five in micro form, feels about right for the agenda of this magazine, which, since the very beginning, has been to champion the best in cinema wherever it hails from, all creatures great and small. Since we managed to run features on 11 of these and sung the praises of another five, it’s a pleasure to close...

Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Setsuko Hara, 1920 - 2015The great Japanese actress of Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring and Mikio Naruse's Repast passed away in September but the news has only recently been released. An indelible screen presence whose absence from movies has been felt every year since 1966.My MotherTop 10s: Cahiers du Cinéma + Sight & SoundFor us it's still too early to make judgement—we've hardly caught up with all of 2015's great cinema!—but the esteemed magazines of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound have made their selections for the best of the year:Cahiers du Cinéma1. My Mother (Nanni Moretti)2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)3. In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel)4. The Smell of Us (Larry Clark)5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)6. Jauja (Lisandor Alonso)7. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)8. Arabian Nights...

Established in the 1950’s by André Bazin, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, France’s Cahiers du cinéma has long been a bastion for quality film criticism. Year after year their rundown of the top films usually ignites a response, and we doubt 2015 will be any different.

They’ve now released their list for this year, which includes a few films that won’t get a U.S. release until next year (the chart-topping Mia Madre, Cemetery of Splendour, In the Shadow of Women, and Journey to the Shore). Also among the list is Lisandro Alonso‘s stellar Jauja, Miguel Gomes‘ epic Arabian Nights, and George Miller‘s blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road.

Following Sight & Sound’s top 20 of 2015, check out the full list below (thanks to Jordan Cronk), and see reviews where available.

1. Mia Madre (Nanni Moretti)

2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

3. In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel...

Festival’s world premieres include Roxette Diaries, Taikon, Odödliga and Drottninglandet.Scroll down for full line-up

Sweden’s Way Out West Festival (Aug 13-15) will include the world premiere of Jonas Akerlund’s Roxette Diaries, about one of Sweden’s most popular bands.

“They are one of the biggest bands to come out of Sweden, and this film shows them in a new light. It was filmed during their tours from 1988 to 1995, and of course with Jonas Akerlund directing, it has a real art feel to it, he’s very brave with this material,” Svante Tidholm, Way Out West’s Head of Film Programming told Screen.

Another world premiere at the Gothenburg-based film and music festival will be Taikon, a documentary about civil rights activist and author Katarina Taikon. “She was one of the pioneers of human rights for the Romany community. It’s an amazing story and she’s an amazing character,” Tidholm added.

There...

Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.

Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.

Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.

As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...

Days Go By: Clark Returns to Apathetic Adolescence for Latest

After having won the top prize at the 2012 Rome Film Festival, controversial filmmaker Larry Clark’s Marfa Girl was available for streaming directly from his official website. Now, nearly three years later, Breaking Glass Pictures is distributing the title in limited theatrical release. For those familiar with Clark’s work, the title doesn’t feel like anything new from the director, navigating a milieu of loosely connected adolescents and the peripheral adults in their environment as they conquer their all-consuming boredom with illicit drugs and promiscuity. The customarily blatant yet generally believable crude conversations revolving around sexuality present in all of Clark’s work is full force here.

Seeing as this is the filmmaker’s first feature in seven years, following 2005’s Wassup Rockers (though it should be noted a 2014 title The Smell of Us premiered in last fall’s...

The 15th edition of Film Comment Selects opens tomorrow with Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films and runs through March 5 in New York. Films in this year's program for which we already have entries going: David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, Duane Hopkins's Bypass, Shinya Tsukamoto's Fires on the Plain, Christian Petzold's Phoenix and Larry Clark's The Smell of Us. At Critics Round Up, James Kang has an excellent entry on Ann Hui's The Golden Era. And in conjunction with the "rare screening of the test preview cut" of Gremlins (1984), Michael Sragow's been interviewing Joe Dante for Film Comment. » - David Hudson...

The 15th edition of Film Comment Selects opens tomorrow with Mark Hartley's Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films and runs through March 5 in New York. Films in this year's program for which we already have entries going: David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, Duane Hopkins's Bypass, Shinya Tsukamoto's Fires on the Plain, Christian Petzold's Phoenix and Larry Clark's The Smell of Us. At Critics Round Up, James Kang has an excellent entry on Ann Hui's The Golden Era. And in conjunction with the "rare screening of the test preview cut" of Gremlins (1984), Michael Sragow's been interviewing Joe Dante for Film Comment. » - David Hudson...

Film Comment Selects, Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual film series that showcases the best films from all corners of the world selected by folks at Film Comment magazine, marks the arrival of spring for New York cinephiles in an otherwise dreadful February/March movie season. This year's selections are as diverse as ever; the series blasts off with Mark Hartley's hilarious doc Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (read James Marsh's review here) with some of Cannon's greatest hits as the sidebar selections, includes Larry Clark's Kids part deux, The Smell of Us (skater kids in Paris, this time), a tribute to the late Mike Nichols with a screening of his underrated, underseen The Fortune, Philippe Garrel's rarely screened elegy Un ange passe,...

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

Annual event set to showcase 90 French productions, 48 of them market premieres.

Unifrance’s annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris will kick-off as planned on Thursday (Jan 15), a week after a series of terrorist attacks, in which 17 people were killed, rocked the capital.

France remains on high alert after the shooting of 12 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, by two radicalised brothers offended by its cartoon depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed; the shooting of a police woman and the slaughter of four people at a kosher supermarket in the east of the city.

The French government announced on Monday that it was deploying 10,000 troops to protect vulnerable sites across the country — including Jewish schools and neighbourhoods – amid news that security forces believed at least six members of the terrorist cell that plotted the attacks may still be at large.

Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staff have responded to the attack with a new edition of the...

Annual event set to showcase 90 French productions, 48 of them market premieres.

Unifrance’s annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris will kick-off as planned on Thursday (Jan 15), a week after a series of terrorist attacks, in which 17 people were killed, rocked the capital.

France remains on high alert after the shooting of 12 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, by two radicalised brothers offended by its cartoon depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed; the shooting of a police woman and the slaughter of four people at a kosher supermarket in the east of the city.

The French government announced on Monday that it was deploying 10,000 troops to protect vulnerable sites across the country — including Jewish schools and neighbourhoods – amid news that security forces believed at least six members of the terrorist cell that plotted the attacks may still be at large.

Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staff have responded to the attack with a new edition of the...

Edited by Adam Cook

Above: the incredible new issue of Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema is online now under the theme of "Manny Farber: Systems of Movement". Among the included pieces is a conversation on Farber between Kent Jones and Jean-Pierre Gorin. As a welcome break from the Best of 2014 overload, David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson continue their tradition of instead focusing their attention on the best films of the year...90 years ago:

"These lists are our way of calling attention to important silent films that some readers may have overlooked. In one case here we point out a largely forgotten film that deserves to be better known, in the hope that an archive will take the hint. With the proliferation of silent-film festivals, of DVD and Blu-ray releases with restored prints and supplemental material, and of TCM’s eclectic screenings of foreign and silent titles, there seems to be considerably...

It’s been nearly 20 years since Larry Clark shocked audiences with his directorial debut Kids; nevertheless his trademark theme of teenage rage continues to pervade his films. Whether you regard his movies as a tragic reflection on the state of disenfranchised youth or simply exploitation, there’s no denying that former social renegade photographer turned controversial filmmaker is the best at documenting the transgressive behaviour of teenage skaters. Now in his 70s, Clark partnered with French poet Scribe to follow a group of young Parisian skateboarders, as they skate around the city, drink, do drugs, and yes, have sex. The Smell of Us opens in France on January 14th. There is still no release date for North American audiences.

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The Smell of Us (Larry Clark) : Bande Annonce Vf by Filmsactu

The post Watch an intense trailer for Larry Clark’s ‘The Smell of Us’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.

As previously reported by my HitFix colleagues, 2014’s fall festivals represent something of a battle royale for various heavyweight Oscar hopefuls. The oldest fest in the big four, venerable Venice, is up against younger North American counterparts Toronto, Telluride and New York in the perennial fight to deliver a truly memorable Competition. Which films will be left standing once the critics have had their way with them? Contenders hoping to emerge victorious from La Biennale’s royal rumble include Alejandro González Iñárritu’s opening nighter "Birdman" starring Michael Keaton, David Gordon Green’s Al Pacino vehicle "Manglehorn" and Andrew Garfield vs Michael Shannon in Ramin Bahrani’s real estate showdown "99 Homes." As far as awards season goes, for me the big hitter to beat from Cannes is "Foxcatcher," an extraordinary and illuminating piece of filmmaking from Bennett Miller, a director I’ve not been personally persuaded by before now. In the documentary category,...

Rome -- The Smell of Us, the latest from Kids director Larry Clark, will have its premiere on August 31 as part of Venice Days, the independent sidebar of the Venice Film Festival, the film’s international distributor, Wild Bunch, has confirmed. The feature stars Michael Pitt, Alex Martin and Niseema Theillaud in a story of a group of self-destructive skateboarders in Paris. The Smell of Us is Clark's first film to shoot outside the U.S. Photos The Scene at Comic-Con 2014 Clark wrote the script with Mathieu Landais, a young writer more commonly known as S.C.

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The Smell Of Us

Director: Larry Clark

Writer: Mathieu Landais

Producers: Morgane Production’s Gérard Lacroix, Polyesters’ Pierre-Paul Puljiz

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Michael Pitt, Alex Martin, Lucas Ionesco

Larry Clark is back again, and quite quickly, since his last film was 2012’s Marfa Girl. The often controversial filmmaker turns his sights to skateboarders, which automatically puts us in mind of Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park. A cast led by Michael Pitt lends to the intrigue, as well as the presence of Lucas Ionesco, son of Eva Ionesco and grandson of Irina Ionesco, an infamous family in France (and Eva Ionesco directed a 2011 film called My Little Princess starring Isabelle Huppert, which documented her childhood as a nude model for her mother’s photographs).

Gist: Follows a group of self-destructive skateboarders in Paris.

Release Date: Clark’s last film, 2012’s Marfa Girl won top honors at the Rome Film Fest,...

The Face of an Angel

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Writer: Paul Viragh

Producers: Melissa Parmenter and Riccardo Tozzi

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Daniel Bruhl, Cara Delevingne

Further down on our list you’ll see Winterbottom’s The Trip To Italy. We should see a double dose of him this year, and a dramatic effort to boot. While 2012’s The Look of Love was a serious endeavor, this latest sees the director return to thriller mode. A screenplay adaptation from actor turned writer Paul Viragh should be an interesting element.

Gist: Both a journalist and a documentary filmmaker chase the story of a murder and its prime suspect.

Release Date: While we’ll see Winterbottom’s other 2014 title unveil at Sundance, we’re hoping to see this pop up in Venice and Toronto.

More Top 200 Most Anticipated Films of 2014 Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #115. Quentin Dupieux’s...

Larry Clark

Controversial American film director Larry Clark, who is making his first film outside the Us in French in Paris over the summer, is to receive a tribute and showings of his complete works at next week’s Deauville Festival of American Cinema.

The new film The Smell Of Us is about “self-destructive skateboarders” in the City of Light. The idea stemmed from poet Mathieu Landais whom he met during an exhibition in Paris and who ended up co-writing the screenplay.

Rocker Pete Doherety apparently plays a role in the film, but, as usual, the main focus for the Kids director is on messed up adolescents. Clark's sojourn at the Festival is geographically convenient as the Normandy watering hole is only two hours from Paris.

Clark, who directed sexually explicit scenes in both Bully and Ken Park, has returned to cinema after a long absence with Marfa Girl last year,...