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The Hong Sangsoo universe has always orbited artists of one stripe or another — wandering filmmakers, poets, and other writers, some more erratic than others. A recurring theme is the serenity and emotional salve that art can provide, along with an alternative to more ordinary, well-traveled roads through life. But in What Does That Nature Say to You, Hong takes a hard look at the artistic pursuit and at sincerity in relationships, with a seemingly straightforward story that has a bit of a sting in its tail.

The opening scene has a charming ambiguity: a man and a woman sit in a car parked at the side of a road, as if it’s the shy farewell at the end of a date. In fact, Donghwa (Ha Seongguk) is dropping off his girlfriend, Junhee (Kang Soyi), at her family’s home after a long drive. Impressed by the big house Donghwa joins her for an impromptu visit. And in the serendipitous manner of Hong’s films, a “meet the parents” scenario soon gets underway.

Part of the appeal of Hong’s deftly scripted films is being in the moment with characters who, beyond perhaps some vague idea of taking a trip, seem to be reacting on the fly with a beguiling openness. That organic quality can wear on those who (for some odd reason) have gone to a Hong film expecting a plot that moves like clockwork, and What Does That Nature Say to You does hold its cards close. For a long time, Donghwa is simply getting to know Junhee’s father (Kwon Haehyo), a friendly man who is full of kind words for his daughter’s boyfriend (and even his beat-up 1990s car).

Donghwa is a poet by profession, as he keeps saying, and that delights Junhee’s father, whose wife (Cho Yunhee) also writes poetry. Junhee’s family is well off — her father apparently owns the hill where the house sits — and there’s an echo of the class undertones in Hong’s A Traveler’s Needs, in which Kwon Haehyo played an affable, wealthy man with a fondness for music (and a wife who’s a bit skeptical of their visitor). Gradually Donghwa’s hang-time with the girlfriend’s fam starts to show small signs of strain during an outing to a temple and restaurant, and then a home-cooked chicken dinner.

The problem is that Donghwa’s life as a thirtysomething poet begins to look less and less substantial, maybe more of a lifestyle choice than a full-fledged calling. Junhee’s homebody sister keeps pointing out, with some satisfaction, that Donghwa has a fallback plan because his father is a wealthy attorney. The sort of sentiments that sound like bohemian wisdom in other Hong movies have a try-hard ring from Donghwa: “A life spent pursuing beauty is good … right?” he says, as if reassuring himself as well. When he prostrates himself at the memorial tree for Junhee’s grandmother, the gesture impresses her father, but again, it’s a bit much.

Hong has never been above puncturing the pretensions of his shambling artist characters, but it’s striking how the family’s open-hearted welcome eventually pales before Junhee’s mother’s doubts at the dinner table. Hong again employs the long table-time takes that have witnessed the mortification of so many drunken characters, this time skewering Donghwa. But in the process we come to understand the father’s initial sincere embrace as a real form of trust, one that is granted but can also be withdrawn. These parents might love poetry but they’re also vetting their daughter’s suitor, and their hilariously withering post-dinner evaluation shows they are not naive.

But before that, this multi-chapter film unfolds for so long as a relatively mild encounter between the young couple and her family that one keeps wondering when the other shoe will drop. Unlike some of Hong’s trickier narrative schemes, the visit unfolds in a linear manner over just about 24 hours. Given Donghwa’s increasingly apparent unremarkability, the story coasts for a while on the family’s subtle interplay: the subtle passive-aggression among the sisters (as Junhee gets increasingly frustrated with her boyfriend), and the way the warmth of Hong all-star Kwon Haehyo prevails until Cho Yunhee cuts in with motherly reality checks.

It’s all a big contrast to the portrayal of the older poet in Hong’s In Our Day, a lone but lionized figure who happily tipples the afternoon away. Donghwa might not even have the chops for his chosen career, judging from reactions to his poetry. In the end, What Does That Nature Say to You lands as a quietly bruising portrait in failure, not lacking in compassion but also not indulging in easy romantic illusions.

Title: What Does That Nature Say to You (Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani)

Festival: Berlin (Competition)

Director-screenwriter: Hong Sangsoo

Cast: Ha Seongguk, Kwon Haehyo, Cho Yunhee, Kang Soyi, Park Miso

Sales agent: Finecut

Running time: 1 hr 48 mins...

If you’re familiar with Hong Sangsoo, you might think you know what to expect from “What Does That Nature Say to You.” The Korean DIY extraordinaire pumps out new movies practically between meals, each with its own naturalistic observations about characters engaging in casual chatter, but whose disarming malaise resides deep within. His 33rd feature holds true to that broad approach, with soothing conversations eventually giving way to a handful of revelations stemming from repressed opinions. However, it’s also Hong’s most formally experimental work in some time, for reasons that may not initially be obvious.

Shot on notably lo-fi, blurry video, the story begins with struggling thirty-something poet Donghwa (Ha Seongguk) dropping his girlfriend Junhee (Kang Soyi) off at her parents’ suburban hillside home, only to discover that it’s much fancier and more sprawling than he’d assumed, or been led to believe. They don’t...

The fizzy, milky Korean rice wine makgeolli is as much a main character as Isabelle Huppert in Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo‘s third collaboration with the iconic French actress. In fact, her character in “A Traveler’s Needs” can’t make it through the day without having at least a few glasses.

“A Traveler’s Needs” stars César winner Huppert as a tourist drifting through Seoul who, with no money of her own and only a few jaunty sunhats and colorful cardigans, takes to teaching French to the locals to pay her room and board. But her unorthodox approach both alienates and entrances those around her in the latest delicate comedy from Hong, where characters booze and smoke their way through their ennui without ever succumbing to soul-crushing misanthropy. Watch the trailer for “A Traveler’s Needs,” an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “A comedy of improbable encounters and unlikely language lessons,...

Hong Sang-soo’s films have tricky narrative juxtapositions and symbols that often render potentially mundane moments transcendent. In Our Day, for instance, is composed of a handful of talky plot strands that are subtly connected by props and recurring references in the dialogue. Turn away at a pivotal juncture and you risk failing to grasp the film’s anatomy, as its essence resides in how carefully and fleetingly those and other strands coalesce.

In A Traveler’s Needs, though, Hong’s sleight of hand with narrative is less consistent than usual. For a long stretch of the film’s running time, Hong appears to have built the wrong concept around the wrong actor, giving Isabelle Huppert a conceptual role that leans hard on her brand of curt whimsicality. Kim Min-hee, a veteran of similar roles in Hong’s films, as well as his partner and a key collaborator behind the scenes,...

Renowned Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s delicate and thought-provoking new movie, In Our Day, weaves together the stories of two Seoul-based artists. Released in 2022, the film stars Hong’s longtime collaborator Kim Min-hee as well as veteran actor Ki Joo-bong. Through their engaging performances and Hong’s signature subtle yet resonant style, In Our Day invites reflection on life, work, and creativity at different stages.

The movie presents two parallel tales, alternating between poet Hong Ui-ju and actress Sang-won. Ui-ju, played brilliantly by Ki, has found unexpected popularity late in his career and ponders his art and legacy. Sang-won, embodied vividly by Kim, has walked away from acting and stays with a friend, mulling her next steps. Though the characters never meet, their worlds overlap in intriguing ways that Hong explores with finesse through economical yet poignant scenes.

Shot on digital with Hong’s trademark restrained technique, In Our Day possesses a calm,...

Cinema Guild has secured U.S. distribution rights for “Matt and Mara,” directed by Kazik Radwanski and starring Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson.

The film debuted in the Encounters section at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year and closed the Jeonju International Film Festival in May.

The narrative follows Mara (Campbell), a creative writing professor, whose life takes an unexpected turn when she reconnects with Matt (Johnson), an author from her past. As their relationship develops, Mara navigates the complexities of her strained marriage to an experimental musician. When her husband unexpectedly cancels plans to drive Mara to a conference out of town, Matt accompanies her instead and the pressure in their undefined relationship slowly builds.

Campbell and Johnson reunite for the film after their roles in Radwanski’s “Anne at 13,000 ft.”

The deal was brokered by Cinema Guild president Peter Kelly and the film’s producers, Medium Density Fibreboard Films.

Exclusive: Cinema Guild has picked up U.S. distribution rights to Richland, the latest feature from British-American nonfiction filmmaker and artist Irene Lusztig.

The film debuted at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and has gone on to play across the international circuit, including IDFA, Sheffield, Doctober in Chicago, and the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Doc Stories. Cinema Guild will release the film on DVD and digital platforms on June 11.

The pic is set in Richland, a town in Washington State next to the Hanford Nuclear Site which, from the early 1940s, housed nuclear government workers at the height of the Manhattan Project. It’s also a town that produced weapons-grade plutonium for decades, and its citizens have pridefully embraced their identity. The official synopsis reads: Richland offers a prismatic, placemaking portrait of a community staking its identity and future on its nuclear origin story, presenting a timely...

In Our Day.In the cinema, as elsewhere, the notion of “late style” has become a critical commonplace—shorthand for dealing with an artist’s “mature” work, particularly when said artists are dismissed or misunderstood after a period of acclaim. The problem with shorthand, of course, is that not everyone can read it, the result being that appeals to “late style” can come across as abdications of critical responsibility, promissory notes that have yet to be fulfilled. Such debts are in many cases eventually paid, obscure references to “late style” giving way to fuller, more perspicuous accounts of an artist’s achievement. Few would now dispute the considered analyses of how Howard Hawks, pivoting on the success of Rio Bravo (1959), made a deliberate move into the late-career languor of Hatari! (1962), Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964), and Red Line 7000 (1965). In the case of Hong Sang-soo, however, this critical due has yet to...

Babes by Pamela Adlon, co-written and starring Ilana Glazer, debuts in limited release with films by Hang Song-soo and Bertrand Bonello and docs on a controversial Venice Biennale, ground-breaking female clerics, and the Blue Angels Navy Squadron. A trio of festival favorites expand. While eyes now are on fare at Cannes — where Neon has been making high-profile moves — each week Stateside remains a test of indie film’s theatrical boundaries in a post-Covid, streaming-centric marketplace.

There have been notable hits. A24’s I Saw The TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun is having a nice run so far as is Evil Does Not Exist — Sideshow/Janus Films’ second outing with Ryusuke Hamaguchi after Oscar-winning Drive My Car. (That 2021 Japanese film about a...

Writing and directing your 30th feature film is a milestone that few filmmakers ever reach, and likely prompts a bit of introspection. It could be seen as an opportunity for reinvention and experimentation now that your legacy is secure, or it could be justification to double down on the traits that made you so successful in the first place.

Hong Sang-soo takes the latter approach with “In Our Day,” a film that sees him playing many of his greatest stylistic hits. There’s an excellent performance from Kim Min-hee, a script that’s divided into separate vignettes, lengthy shots that afford actors the room to dive into their characters’ subtlest mannerisms, and of course, bottles of soju that lurk over the story like a Chekhov’s Gun as we wait for everyone to begin imbibing and sharing their true feelings. It’s the kind of film that might be described...

Hong Sansoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert, has sold North American distribution rights to New York’s Cinema Guild.

The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize.

A Traveler’s Needs will premiere in North America later in 2024, after which Cinema Guild will release in theaters. The pic is a comedy with a strong Korean connection, with Huppert playing Iris, a woman struggling in Seoul who turns to teaching French to make ends meet. Regular collaborators Lee Hyeyoung and Kwon Haehyo also feature as Huppert’s student and flirty husband respectively.

Sangsoo and Huppert have collaborated twice before, on 2012 comedy-drama In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.

“A Traveler’s Needs hits like a meteorite from another galaxy,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly. “Huppert delivers a beguiling and hilarious performance. Her Iris is a character that only Hong and Huppert,...

Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for “You Burn Me” (aka “Tú me abrasas”), directed by Argentina’s Matías Piñeiro.

The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February in the festival’s Encounters section. It won a special mention from the jury at Paris’s Cinéma du réel in March.

Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its currently unspecified North American festival premiere later this year. The company has also acquired rights to three earlies films by Piñeiro – “The Stolen Man” from 2007; “They All Lie” from 2009; and “Rosalinda” which will be released on home video and digital alongside “You Burn Me.”

An adaptation of “Sea Foam,” a chapter in Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò, Piñeiro’s latest is an intimate and expansive meditation on death and desire. It is also a challenging exploration of the possibilities of adapting text to film.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSThe Pill Pounder.The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival is known for audiences who talk back to the screen, but such rowdiness took a dark turn last weekend at a screening of Love Lies Bleeding (2024), during which homophobic and misogynistic taunts caused more than 60 attendees to walk out and then to stage a protest at the cinema door, which was broken up by the police.Italy’s right-wing government has left the country’s motion-picture industry stalled in uncertainty as they debate new regulations to tax incentives for film and television production, some of which may give preference to films “tied to Italy’s national identity.”Ten of thirteen IATSE locals now have tentative agreements with AMPTP. Talks...

Death, taxes, and one-to-three Hong Sang-soo movies per year. I much prefer the latter, and it’s nice knowing we’re just a month out from In Our Day, his 30th feature and latest on which he serves as director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and composer. Following last year’s Directors’ Fortnight debut, the film begins a rollout on May 17 at Film at Lincoln Center before expanding; naturally, there is a trailer.

As Michael Frank said in his review, “In Our Day remains straightforward in its filmmaking, attaining depth through dialogue designed to cause the viewer to think about the value and meaning of the art they consume––among other things, the film itself. It’s cyclical in a way, and Hong knows that, adding to his collection of understated, underseen films with great performances.”

Find the preview below:

Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend,...

You’d be forgiven for not having seen every Hong Sangsoo movie. The South Korean director, known for films like “On the Beach at Night Alone,” “Claire’s Camera,” and “The Novelist’s Film” has released 29 features, and often more than one in the same year. So was the case for 2023, which saw the festival circuit premieres of “In Water” and “In Our Day.” And as of writing, Hong already has another movie that premiered at the Berlinale, “A Traveller’s Needs.” A new Hong movie is always a pleasure to celebrate, and so IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for “In Our Day” ahead of the upcoming release from Cinema Guild. Watch below.

Here’s the synopsis for the film:

Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend, Jungsoo (Song Sunmi), and her cat, Us. Elsewhere in the city, the aging poet Hong Uiju (Ki Joobong) lives alone,...

Like makgeolli — Korea’s unique fizzy, fermented, cloudy-white rice wine — the films of director Hong Sang-soo are an acquired taste. Fortunately for him, many film programmers at repertory houses and festivals beyond South Korea love the peculiar handmade, improvisational flavor of his work, with its complicated emotional entanglements and near primitive levels of craftsmanship. The last feature of his to premiere at the Berlinale, In Water, wasn’t even in focus, although Hong insists that was deliberate, to reflect the fuzziness of its creatively blocked film director protagonist.

Thankfully, his latest, A Traveler’s Needs, a competitor for the Golden Bear this year, is not only in focus, it’s also rather watchable, even for diehard Hong-skeptics. Partly that’s thanks to the presence of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role (her third collaboration with Hong, after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera), playing Iris, a mysterious Frenchwoman with eccentric habits.

Iris, the petite enigma at the center of “A Traveler’s Needs,” dresses at once to be noticed, and to disappear. Over a bright sundress, spattered all over with red and violet blossoms, she wears a cardigan of a most assertive, eye-searing green. It’s the grassy hue, in fact, of green-screen backdrops, as we notice when she fades into the foliage of a city park in full summer leaf, or is consumed by the paint job of a tennis court-like roof terrace. Nobody knows exactly where she has come from, beyond the clue of her thick French accent, and even she seems uncertain as to where she’s going: One imagines her, with that effects-friendly knitwear, being dropped into any number of imagined locations, and looking just as out of place as she does on the streets of Seoul.

But Iris is played, with typically curt, quizzical good humor, by Isabelle Huppert,...

Hong Sang-soo's movies capture the beauty of everyday life, focusing on daily rituals and small moments of gratitude. His films maintain a consistent style and thematic approach, depicting life as circular, stable, and serene. The inclusion of Kim Min-hee as his muse has had a significant impact on Hong's career, adding a personal and heartfelt element to his storytelling.

Hong Sang-soo has become a fixture in the world's most revered film festivals, the fruit of the audience's great admiration for his approach to everyday mundanity. The South Korean filmmaker made his feature debut in 1996 and has, ever since, remained one of the most active film directors of his generation, totaling over 30 movies in nearly 30 years of his career.

The beauty in Hong's movies is plain to see: in daily remarks, small celebrations, and tokens of gratitude. His style hasn't changed much over the years, but all of his...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

There was much to be thankful for in 2023. Besides new works by several legendary directors, there were personal opportunities that allowed me to spread a larger net and take stock of the cinema landscape from a more privileged vantage point. I got to attend the Cannes and Toronto film festivals for the first time and also became a voter for some key year-end awards. The experience of thus watching films, before most of my cinephile brethren, allowed me to contemplate how much campaigns and narratives can alter a film’s reception and trajectory.

What has come into sharper relief, and what is evident from the list below too, is that Cannes has the lock on much of the best product of the year––at least anything not...

2023 was a year of seemingly seismic change for the film industry, as superhero movies (especially Marvel) lost their grip on the box office while more auteur-led efforts such as Oppenheimer and Barbie made serious bank. Audiences seem hungry for a return to thoughtful and engaging efforts, voting for their wallets against a decade of cape-clad hegenomy in favour of more challenging (and visually interesting) cinema. But as with the majority of contemporary film analysis, these are mostly concerns for Hollywood. The international arthouse scene plugs away as usual, providing a diverse range of exciting visions that once again expand the very possibilities of the cinematic form. I went back and forth on this list several times, only coming to a final top ten this very morning. With courtroom drama, oddball romance, epic character study and even outright horror, this year’s selection subverted and expanded genre norms, showing that great cinema,...

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

The jury comprised of Indian director Anup Singh, Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak, Palestinian actress Yasmine Al-Massri, French Lebanese actress Manal Issa and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

In the non-fiction category, Ibrahim Nash’at’s acclaimed documentary “Hollywoodgate” took the top prize, with “Seven Winters in Tehran” and Mila Turajlić’s Serbian film “Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels” sharing the Silver Star, and “On the Adamant,” directed by French director Nicolas Philibert, taking the Bronze Star. The...

Leaff 2023 brings a diverse programme from East and Southeast Asia, including international and UK premieres. This year, our programme will be showcased through these strands: Retrospective: Director Chung Ji-Young, Leaff’s Official Selection, Competition, Stories of Women, Halloween Horror Special, Cherish the World, Lgbtqia+ and Classics Restored. The festival will open and close at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square. Other screenings and Q&As will take place at Odeon Luxe West End and the Cinema at Selfridges.

For more information about tickets, please visit: https://www.leaff.org.uk/2023tickets

Here is the full programme:

Opening Gala

The Boys + Q&a with the Director | Dir. Chung Ji-Young | Korea | 2023 | 124 mins

Closing Gala

Concrete Utopia + Q&a with Director, Actor Park Bo-young | Dir. Um Tae-hwa | Korea | 2023 | 130 mins

Leaff Official Selection

The Breaking Ice | Dir. Anthony Chen | Singapore | 2022 | 97 mins

Dan Dan | Dir. Song Chuan | China | 2022 | 103 mins

Hidden Blade | Dir. Cheng Er | Hong Kong | 2022 | 128 mins

In Broad Daylight | Dir.

When Hong Sang-soo made his directorial debut in 1996, with the movie The Day a Pig Fell Into a Well, it marked the beginning of one of the most prolific careers of any modern auteur. time that the world was able to see the man who has now become such a prolific director. Now, with thirty films under his belt, Hong Sang-soo established himself as one of the leading and most important South Korean directors of his generation. Film festivals and cinephiles alike have loved his movies, which often deal with everyday problems and debates about the philosophical elements of the mundane, relationships, and art. He’s become well-known and award-winning for his defined style, which can be seen evolving throughout the year and his filmography, and collaborations with actress Kim Min-hee.

Hong’s latest film is In Our Day, which is one of two films he premiered in 2023 (the other...

Let’s not be quite so declarative as to insist there are only two types of cinephile, but among the many varieties that exist, there are those who have never managed to connect with Hong Sang-soo’s ongoing movie project, and those who can watch a minutes-long sequence of Kim Min-hee petting and feeding an already portly cat, and think ecstatically “This is cinema!” The former type will know by now to steer wide clear of “In Our Day,” which will look to them like yet another reinvention of Hong’s eternal mandala-wheel of talky two-shots, unadorned aesthetics and glancing, enigmatic, echoing themes. The latter type will love it for much the same reasons, and may even find themselves surprised by a film that, while not as robust in construction as recent career highlight “Walk Up,” does work in new elements, amongst so much that is welcomingly familiar.

One obvious new development is intertitles,...

Like other Hong Sang-soo films, In Our Day passes, on the surface, for simple fare. The prolific South Korean director layers weighty themes amidst naturalistic filmmaking, almost documentary-style in his willingness to let the camera sit without needing any extra flourishes. Cutting between two scenes––both playing out over a single afternoon––Hong focuses his energy on the dialogue between his characters, on the rapid intergenerational misconceptions. In doing so he muses on the pessimism of art, the somewhat meaningless nature of life, and how we interpret the actions and words of our fictional heroes.

In one scene, a student goes to visit Ui-ju (Ki Joo-bong), a poet who lives like a hermit, drinking his days away. In the other, a young woman visits her cousin, a former actress named Sang-won (Kim Min-hee) who’s disillusioned by the roles she’s been given, due to lack of autonomy on set.

The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is set to return from October 27 for 10 days of a loaded line-up of films from across the world to treat the cinephiles. It will feature 250 films from October 27 to November 5. Farhan Akhtar, Rana Daggubati, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Vikramaditya Motwane, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy, Ajay Bijli and Anupama Chopra unveiled line-up whhich includes over 40 World Premieres, 45 Asia Premieres, and 70+ South Asia Premieres.

This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.

This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...

The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is set to return from October 27 for 10 days of a loaded line-up of films from across the world to treat the cinephiles. It will feature 250 films from October 27 to November 5. Farhan Akhtar, Rana Daggubati, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Vikramaditya Motwane, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy, Ajay Bijli and Anupama Chopra unveiled line-up whhich includes over 40 World Premieres, 45 Asia Premieres, and 70+ South Asia Premieres.

This time, the festival received over 1000 submissions for the South Asia programme. The festival promises to spotlight contemporary films and new cinematic voices from South Asia. The main competition at the festival this year is the South Asia Competition.

This competitive section aims to showcase breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, will see 14 films from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. South Asian films are also part of a...

The festival has dropped its international competition in favour of a South Asia focus.

The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival has unveiled a South Asia-focused revamp for its first in-person event since 2019, set to run October 27 to November 5.

The festival has dropped its international and India Gold competitions and will launch its first South Asia competitive section as part of a new approach to become a hub for cinema and talent from the region and diaspora.

The 14 films in the South Asia Competition are from first and second-time filmmakers from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany,...

After a three-year hiatus, the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival is returning with a larger lineup and an expanded focus on South Asian cinema.

The festival will feature 250 films including 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres and 70 South Asia Premieres. The opening and closing films have not been finalized yet.

The festival’s new vision is to become a hub for South Asian and South Asian diaspora cinema and talent and, in keeping with this, the main competition is for 14 films from the region. These include the world premieres of Leesa Gazi’s “A House Named Shahana” (Bangladesh-u.K.), Dibakar Das Roy’s “Dilli Dark” (India), Sumanth Bhat’s “Mithya” (India) and Fazil Razak’s “The Sentence” (India). The new focus will also include 46 non-competition films from South Asia.

The Icons South Asia strand features Anand Patwardhan’s Toronto title “The World is Family”; “Indi(r)a’s Emergency” by Vikramaditya Motwane...

Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side.

The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

“If there is a positive from the fact that we were forced to skip a year it’s that we were sorely...

Marks the second feature of ‘Red Carpet’ director Park Beom-su.

South Korean sales agency Finecut has boarded international sales of high school drama Victory and will launch the title at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm) in Busan this week.

It marks the latest feature of Korean director Park Beom-su, known for his 2014 debut Red Carpet, and stars Lee Hye-ri (aka Hyeri) of K-pop group Girl’s Day and Park Se-wan of 2022 feature Life Is Beautiful.

They play two high school girls who create a cheerleading club to pursue their love for dance but soon find themselves cheering for an...

“The unsettled state of the industry is an unavoidable talking point these days, but my hope is that our festival, as it has done through its 61-year history, will serve as a reminder that the art of cinema is in robust health,” said Dennis Lim, the New York Film Festival’s director of programing and chair of the main slate selection committee, in a statement last month accompanying the announcement of the titles that will screen as part of the 61st edition of the esteemed festival. From Hollywood’s double strike chaos, to worries about artificial intelligence, to the ongoing threat that streaming poses to the theatrical model—if there was ever a time when we needed that reminder, it’s now.

While all the features in the main slate this year enjoyed their world premiere earlier in the year at Sundance, Berlinale, Cannes, Toronto, and beyond, many will have...

Hong Sang-soo’s In Our Day is composed of two alternating strands, both pivoting on conversations between artists and their acolytes. The film has no plot in the conventional sense, even by Hong’s spare standards, and the audacious structural gamesmanship of films like Walk Up has been abandoned. In Our Day is meant to feel tossed-off, though Hong’s braiding of scenes—by echoes, symbols, and subjects—is characteristically deliberate.

The uninitiated may find In Our Day baffling or uneventful, as inscrutability is a risk that Hong is willing to run for his art, but for the admirer the familiarity of Hong’s subjects and patterns is pleasing and reflective of a working ethos so obsessive that it’s become a life philosophy. Hong keeps chipping away at the mandates of commercial narrative cinema, fashioning a radical cinema aesthetic that abounds in the fleeting observational textures of poetry or journals.

The festival will open with ‘Because I Hate Korea’ and close with ‘The Movie Emperor’.

The Busan International Film Festival has revealed the full line-up for its 2023 edition and announced that Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat will receive the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award.

The festival in South Korea will open with the world premiere of Jang Kun-jae’s Because I Hate Korea and close with Ning Hao’s Chinese film industry satire The Movie Emperor, starring Andy Lau, following its debut at Toronto.

At an online press conference today, organisers also revealed that Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat...

The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites.

“The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival chief Nam Dong-chul, speaking at an online press conference.

International guests expected to attend the festival include Luc Besson, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Japanese directors Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Korean Americans Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”).

Hong Kong-based superstar Chow Yun-fat has been named as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and will be in person to receive the award. The Korean Cinema Award will presented to the late Yun Jung-hee, the actress who starred in “The General’s Mustache” and Lee Chang-dong’s 2010 drama “Poetry.

Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in ‘All of Us Strangers’

The 61st New York Film Festival will feature 32 films in its Main Slate, with the chosen slate of films representing 18 countries. The lineup includes Cannes winners Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone Interest, Fallen Leaves, About Dry Grasses, and Perfect Days.

The 2023 festival runs September 29th through October 15th.

“The unsettled state of the industry is an unavoidable talking point these days, but my hope is that our festival, as it has done through its 61-year history, will serve as a reminder that the art of cinema is in robust health,” stated Dennis Lim, Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival. “The filmmakers in this year’s Main Slate are grappling with eternal questions—about how movies relate to the world, about what it means to make art from life, about the most interesting ways to approach the contemporary...

The Zone Of Interest, Poor Things and Last Summer among the new additions.

The New York Film Festival (NYFF) has unveiled another 29 films – including new projects from Catherine Breillat, Jonathan Glazer and Andrew Haigh – for the main slate of its sixty-first edition, set to run from September 29 to October 15.

In all, the main slate will comprise 32 features from 18 countries.

A special addition to this year’s main slate is the North American premiere of a newly unearthed and restored short directed by Agnès Varda and featuring Pier Paolo Pasolini while both were in New York for the 1966 NYFF.

The new...

The New York Film Festival’s Main Slate of films will consists of almost three dozen films from a lineup of international directors that includes Justine Triet, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Alice Rohrwacher, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Aki Kaurismaki, Wim Wenders, Yorgos Lathimos and Jonathan Glazer. Film at Lincoln Center announced the lineup on Tuesday morning.

Among the 32 films are three special presentations that NYFF had already announced. The opening-night film will be Todd Haynes’ “May December,” its centerpiece screening will be Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” and its closing-night movie will be Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.”

The rest of the Main Slate lineup includes 12 films that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year, including the prize winners “Anatomy of a Fall” from Triet, “The Zone of Interest” from Glazer, “About Dry Grasses” from Ceylan, “Perfect Days” from Wenders and “Fallen Leaves” from Kaurismaki.

Others films include “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World...

Film at Lincoln Center has set the 32 features from 18 countries making up the Main Slate of the New York Film Festival, from Cannes prize-winners Anatomy Of A Fall by Justine Triet (Palme d’Or) and Zone Of Interest by Jonathan Glazer (Grand Prix), to the latest by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Wim Wenders, Agnieszka Holland, Hong Sangsoo, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos and Alice Rohrwacher.

Wenders’ Perfect Days saw a Best Actor for Kōji Yakusho in Cannes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses a Best Actress for Merve Dizdar. Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves received the Grand Jury Prize. Hailing from Berlin, Angela Schanelec’s Music, Silver Bear winner for Best Screenplay.

The lineup includes films from Lisandro Alonso, Marco Bellocchio, Bertrand Bonello, Catherine Breillat, Bas Devos, Víctor Erice, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Martín Rejtman. Appearing in the Main Slate for the first time: Annie Baker, Devos, Felipe Gálvez, Glazer, Andrew Haigh,...

The 2023 New York Film Festival Main Slate lineup has officially been revealed.

Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, this year’s NYFF Main Slate boasts the latest films from Wim Wenders, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Jonathan Glazer. As previously announced, the festival will open September 29 with Todd Haynes’ “May December,” followed by Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” as the Centerpiece screening. The festival will conclude with Closing Night selection “Ferrari” by Michael Mann, debuting October 15.

The 61st NYFF includes Cannes winners “The Zone of Interest,” helmed by Glazer, “Anatomy of a Fall” directed by Justine Triet, and Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” as well as Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves.” Berlinale Silver Bear winner “Music” will also screen.

“The unsettled state of the industry is an unavoidable talking point these days, but my hope is that our festival, as it has done through its 61-year history,...

After teaming on In Another Country (2012) and Claire’s Camera (2017) we’ve learned via a key internet sleuth that the two workhorses of actress Isabelle Huppert and Hong Sang-soo are teaming again for their third collaboration. Hong Sang-soo hit Berlinale and Cannes this year with In Water and In Our Day, while Huppert has a load of works that’ll pepper feature A-list fests with the next being Venice/TIFF. It’s next to impossible to keep tabs on the filmmaker but we’ll try our best.

…...

Below you will find the results of Notebook's critics' poll for the best films of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage of the festival.Awardstop 101. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)3. May December (Todd Haynes)4. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)5. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)6. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)7. La chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)8. The Pot-au-feu (Tràn Anh Hùng)9. A Prince (Pierre Creton)10. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)(Poll contributors: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal, Anna Bogutskaya, Jordan Cronk, Flavia Dima, Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, Daniel Kasman, Jessica Kiang, Roger Koza, Elena Lazic, Beatrice Loayza, Guy Lodge, Łukasz Mańkowski, Savina Petkova, Caitlin Quinlan, Vadim Rizov, Christopher Small, Öykü Sofuoğlu, Blake Williams)DISPATCHESThe Obscenity of EvilLeonardo Goi on The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer), The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams), Eureka (Lisandro Alonso), and Killers of the Flower Moon...

Text written on June 6, 2023 by Jean-Marc Thérouanne

Asia in the juries :

Franco-Afghan writer and director Atiq Rahimi was the only Asian member of the prestigious jury at the 76th Cannes Film Festival

Fench-Cambodian director Davy Chou was the only Asia-related member of the Un Certain Regard jury

Davy Chou

Shlomi Elkabetz was the only member of the short film jury and the Cinef with a connection to geographical Asia.

Asia in the selections:

Asia, from the Near to the Far East, was present with 31 features and 13 shorts in all the official and parallel sections of the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

In compétition :

– China: Youth (Spring) by Wang Bing

– Japan: Monster by Kore-eda Hirokazu,

Kim Dong-ho, Hirokazu Koreeda

– Turkey: About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan,

and The Pot-au-feu by French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days, set in Japan.

Out of compétition :

– Korea: Cobweb by Kim Jee-won,...

By Khushi Jain

Can the theory of art help develop the theory of being? Or perhaps the theory of art is the theory of being? The conversationalists in Hong Sang-soo's latest feature “In Our Day” immerse themselves in these questions over bowls of spicy ramyeon and the company of a fat and fluffy cat. The film's calm and observant engagement with such universal creative and existential material made it the perfect way to close the 2023 edition of Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. A dissertation on routine, “In Our Day” is a nihilistic cinematic game of rock-paper-scissors with several bottles of soju.

In Our Days screened at Cannes Official poster – 76th edition © Photo © Jack Garofalo/Paris Match/Scoop – Création graphique © Hartland Villa

The film runs on two parallel strands of a threadbare narrative. Sang-won (Kim Min-hee) is an actress in her 40s, staying with her friend Jung-soo and her cat ‘Us.

The average South Korean consumes around 80 packets of ramyeon a year. The rehydrated mix of dried, curly noodles, freeze-dried vegetables and a sachet of powdered soup is one of the country’s most beloved comfort foods, a quickly-whipped, heartwarming meal that sits at the tricky intersection of tasty and convenient. The characters in Hong Sang-soo’s “In Our Day” are in the minority who takes their ramyeon extra spicy, with thick gochujang paste seeping through the clear soup and tainting it red.

Continue reading ‘In Our Day’ Review: Cats And Rock Paper Scissors Make Up Hong Sang-soo’s Charming Chronicling Of Routine [Cannes] at The Playlist.

There are only two days left until Cannes 2023 comes to a close, and much like yesterday, things have seemed a bit quiet. The movie on most everyone’s lips, at least if social media is any indicator, was Trần Anh Hùng’s period drama “The Pot au Feu,” a feature that, according to TheWrap’s Ben Croll in his review, “might very well be the most handsomely shot and soothingly felt serving of art house food porn ever brought to screen. It’s about to become your mother’s favorite film, and it’s an absolute delight.”

But before the screening started, as Variety reported, a demonstration in support of Indigenous land rights took place on the film’s red carpet. It was led by the directors and actors of “The Buriti Flower,” a film showing in Un Certain Regard directed by Portugal’s João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora.

Updated with Sacd prize details: Spanish director Elena Martín Gimeno’s Creatura won the Europa Cinemas prize as Best European Film, while Pierre Caton’s Le Prince scooped the Sacd for best French film at Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday.

The prizes were announced ahead of the evening closing ceremony for the non-competitive parallel Directors Fortnight section.

The Europa Cinema label and Sacd prizes are the key collateral prizes awarded to films world premiering in the section.

Under the Europa Cinema prize, the release of Creatura will receive the support of cinemas belonging to the independent exhibitor network representing 3,060 screens in 38 countries. The jury consists of four exhibitor members of the network.

Creatura revolves around a seemingly perfect couple who no longer manage to have sex, prompting one partner to probe her past and her sexual sexual awakening, from adolescence back to early childhood.

French writers guild Sacd’s prize is...

Two years after his previous effort, “Three Floors” opened with a high-profile belly flop, festival-stalwart Nanni Moretti returns to Cannes with “A Brighter Tomorrow,” a comeback of sorts that also airs a list of grievances and could serve – should need arise – as a closing statement.

Not that it likely will. Funny and endearing in some places, and typically grumpy and old-fashioned in others, “A Brighter Tomorrow” should, at very least, keep Moretti far from director’s jail for years to come. And if the sheer existence of this title proves he wasn’t detained for very long, Moretti was very clearly shook by the experience, and very clearly used this follow-up to work through those anxieties.

As in his earlier beloved films “Dear Diary” and “April,” Moretti plays a version of himself, holding the screen as Giovanni (guess what Nanni’s short for), a Roman director about to shoot an...

“In Our Day,” the new Hong Sang-soo film premiering later this week as the Cannes Film Festival’s closing night film, has been acquired by Cinema Guild. A theatrical release is planned following its North American festival premiere later this year.

The picture stars Kim Min-hee, Song Seon-mi, Gi Ju-bong and Ha Seong-guk. This character dramedy marks Hong’s 30th feature film, this time using long, elaborate takes to articulate simple pleasures like an interspecies encounter, the discovery of a new drink and a game of rock, paper, scissors.

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Rebel Wilson to Make Directorial Debut With Musical Comedy ‘The Deb’

“Adding to the rich tableau of his work, Hong Sang-soo’s ‘In Our Day’ not only makes us laugh, it makes us think about what it means to be alive,” Cinema Guild president Peter Kelly said in a statement. “It’s a gift that we hope continues and continues.

Hong Sang-soo’s latest film “In Our Day,” which will premiere on closing night of Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, has been acquired by Cinema Guild for North America.

Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its North American festival premiere later this year.

“In Our Day” stars Kim Minhee as Sangwon, an actress who has recently returned to South Korea and is temporarily staying with her friend, Jungsoo (Song Sunmi), and her cat, Us. Elsewhere in the city, the aging poet Uiju (Ki Joobong) lives alone, his cat having recently passed away. On this ordinary day, each of them has a visitor: Sangwon is visited by her cousin, Jisoo (Park Miso) and Uiju, by a young actor,

Jaewon (Ha Seongguk). Each of them wants to learn about a career in the arts, but they also

have bigger questions.

Hong’s 30th feature outing, “In Our Day” demonstrates a new...