Nothing quite hits like a tale straight from the heart and after realising he needed to find his own authentic authorial voice, filmmaker Joshua Okwuosa set out to tell an evocative story central to the Nigerian experience and his own life with Okem. A story with origins that are hauntingly commonplace, Okwuosa maintains the verisimilitude of his storytelling by ratcheting up the tension as we focus on the helpless and desperate attempts made by Nigerian immigrant Okem to help his mother back home. Okem is a sharp reminder of the brutal realities faced by people all over the world who are forced to leave their homelands in the hope of providing for their families back home. Ahead of Okem’s premiere on the pages of Dn today, we were able to talk to Okwuosa about the struggles he faced finding an Igbo speaking actor for the role, building the claustrophobia...
- 11/27/2023
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Lightning strikes twice. Having won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2018 with “The Dead and the Others,” filmmaking duo Renée Nader Messora and João Salaviza scooped a Un Certain Regard Ensemble Prize on Friday night, including the collective crew and creative team, for “The Buriti Flower.”
The couple, whom across the years have developed what they describe as a profound relation with the Krahô Indigenous community, have delved once again into a unique production process resulting in a portrait of strong, sensorial visuals, while tabling an urgent dialogue on the means of resistance in a modern world.
Produced by Karõ Filmes, Entrefilmes and Material Bruto and sold by Films Boutique, the film tackles the impact of policies pursued by former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s on the life of Indigenous communities, eloquently shifting between fiction and documentary as it registers their own political discourse.
Shooting the previous film required...
The couple, whom across the years have developed what they describe as a profound relation with the Krahô Indigenous community, have delved once again into a unique production process resulting in a portrait of strong, sensorial visuals, while tabling an urgent dialogue on the means of resistance in a modern world.
Produced by Karõ Filmes, Entrefilmes and Material Bruto and sold by Films Boutique, the film tackles the impact of policies pursued by former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s on the life of Indigenous communities, eloquently shifting between fiction and documentary as it registers their own political discourse.
Shooting the previous film required...
- 5/29/2023
- by Emiliano Granada
- Variety Film + TV
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Japan Society
One of Japan’s greatest directors, Shinji Somai, is subject of a retrospective that features many of his films in new restorations. Read our piece on Somai here.
Museum of Modern Art
A Rialto Pictures retrospective offers a smorgasbord of classic films, including The Conversation and That Obscure Object of Desire on 35mm.
Bam
A series on actor-director jobs includes Touch of Evil, Do the Right Thing, and Playtime on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Three by Jean Cocteau screen in Essential Cinema, while Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One screens and a Jean Rouch retrospective begins.
Film at Lincoln Center
György Fehér’s remarkable, Béla Tarr-produced Twilight continues in a new restoration (read Z.W. Lewis on the film and its history here).
Museum of the Moving Image
Major League and a print of The Untouchables screen on Saturday.
Roxy Cinema
Schrader’s Affliction,...
Japan Society
One of Japan’s greatest directors, Shinji Somai, is subject of a retrospective that features many of his films in new restorations. Read our piece on Somai here.
Museum of Modern Art
A Rialto Pictures retrospective offers a smorgasbord of classic films, including The Conversation and That Obscure Object of Desire on 35mm.
Bam
A series on actor-director jobs includes Touch of Evil, Do the Right Thing, and Playtime on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Three by Jean Cocteau screen in Essential Cinema, while Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One screens and a Jean Rouch retrospective begins.
Film at Lincoln Center
György Fehér’s remarkable, Béla Tarr-produced Twilight continues in a new restoration (read Z.W. Lewis on the film and its history here).
Museum of the Moving Image
Major League and a print of The Untouchables screen on Saturday.
Roxy Cinema
Schrader’s Affliction,...
- 4/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Cordelia Dvorák’s intimate documentary about Marceline Loridan-Ivens – writer, director, and Holocaust survivor – captures her irresistible personality
While still little-known outside France, the inimitable Marceline Loridan-Ivens was a formidable force of nature. A Holocaust survivor, her awe-inspiring resilience is deeply felt in her works as a writer and director. Finishing shooting mere weeks before her death in 2018 at the age of 90, Cordelia Dvorák’s intimate documentary is as vibrant as the signature auburn shade of Loridan-Ivens’ short, unruly hair.
Loridan-Ivens’ harrowing experience as a teenager at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she befriended Simone Veil, undoubtedly informed the ceaseless energy with which Loridan-Ivens embraced life and arts. In her brief period as an actor in Jean Rouch’s 1960s cinéma vérité films, she sparkles with a lively curiosity and an irresistible charm. Equally arresting is her romantic and creative partnership with her husband, leftist documentary film-maker Joris Ivens. At the height of the Vietnam war,...
While still little-known outside France, the inimitable Marceline Loridan-Ivens was a formidable force of nature. A Holocaust survivor, her awe-inspiring resilience is deeply felt in her works as a writer and director. Finishing shooting mere weeks before her death in 2018 at the age of 90, Cordelia Dvorák’s intimate documentary is as vibrant as the signature auburn shade of Loridan-Ivens’ short, unruly hair.
Loridan-Ivens’ harrowing experience as a teenager at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she befriended Simone Veil, undoubtedly informed the ceaseless energy with which Loridan-Ivens embraced life and arts. In her brief period as an actor in Jean Rouch’s 1960s cinéma vérité films, she sparkles with a lively curiosity and an irresistible charm. Equally arresting is her romantic and creative partnership with her husband, leftist documentary film-maker Joris Ivens. At the height of the Vietnam war,...
- 9/13/2021
- by Phuong Le
- The Guardian - Film News
I first learned that “Roadrunner,” Morgan Neville’s documentary about the life and death of Anthony Bourdain, contains three sentences spoken by Bourdain that he never actually spoke out loud in the same way that you learn about a lot of things these days: by seeing an eruption of outrage about it on Twitter. The eruption immediately sent me to the New Yorker article in which Neville, the award-winning director of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and “20 Feet From Stardom,” first explained how he used AI technology to feed 10 hours of Bourdain voice recordings into a computer, which then simulated Bourdain’s reading of those sentences — every one of which he had, in fact, written.
The words weren’t faked; the sound of him speaking them was. This was characterized, on social media, as an ethical lapse, and my first reaction is to say that I don’t necessarily disagree.
The words weren’t faked; the sound of him speaking them was. This was characterized, on social media, as an ethical lapse, and my first reaction is to say that I don’t necessarily disagree.
- 7/18/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
African cinema may, for most, be top of the blindspot list. The history of filmmaking, distribution, and access to cinema in African countries is contentious: for most of the 20th century Africa as a whole was represented exclusively through the eyes of the nations and kingdoms who colonized it, western filmmakers from Europe and the Americas shaping the world’s opinions of this continent and its artistic contents with their colonialist perspectives. Even ethnographic films (e.g. Jean Rouch), while depicting a more realistic version of various nations such as Nigeria or Cote d’Ivore, bore the outsider’s gaze. That all changed in the 1960s. In his 1983 documentary Camera d’Afrique, Férid Boughedir states that with the release of Ousmane Sembène’s debut short film Borom Sarret in 1963, “for the first time, the image of Africa had come from within.”
Camera d’Afrique, which was presented in a new...
Camera d’Afrique, which was presented in a new...
- 5/6/2021
- by Soham Gadre
- The Film Stage
Breathing in its deadly gases, Yono works for a few dollars a day at an East Java sulfur mine. When unexpectedly abandoned by his wife, he turns to animism, Islamism and finally capitalism to try to find an answer to life. To no avail.
Barcelona-born Alvaro Gurrea is a singular figure in Spanish cinema, an economist and art curator who, as becomes a student at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra U., attempts to portray in his feature debut, “Ancient Soul” not only the mores of a community, but its dominant mindsets which explain how its conceives capital ideas such as progress.
Living between Indonesia and Catalonia, the scenario he chooses, however, is unexpected, an East Java sulfur mine so dangerous that it has become a tourist trap, where Yono slaves extracting sulfur blocks from the lap of volcano.
Melding naturalistic scenes and spiritualism in what calls an “ethno-fictional” mix, Gurrea employs austere fixed shots,...
Barcelona-born Alvaro Gurrea is a singular figure in Spanish cinema, an economist and art curator who, as becomes a student at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra U., attempts to portray in his feature debut, “Ancient Soul” not only the mores of a community, but its dominant mindsets which explain how its conceives capital ideas such as progress.
Living between Indonesia and Catalonia, the scenario he chooses, however, is unexpected, an East Java sulfur mine so dangerous that it has become a tourist trap, where Yono slaves extracting sulfur blocks from the lap of volcano.
Melding naturalistic scenes and spiritualism in what calls an “ethno-fictional” mix, Gurrea employs austere fixed shots,...
- 3/8/2021
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary is named Best French Film 2020 while Josep by Aurel is crowned the winner in the first films category. Awarded by a jury composed of critics and key figures from the world of the 7th art and presided over by Gilles Jacob, the prestigious 2020 Louis-Delluc Award for the French film of the year has gone to Sébastien Lifshitz’s Adolescentes, which is the first documentary to have scooped this prize since 2008 (Modern Life by Raymond Depardon) and only the fourth in the award’s history (following the Louis-Dellucs won by Nicole Védrès in 1947 and Jean Rouch in 1958). Unveiled in Critics’ Week during the Locarno Film Festival of 2019, Adolescentes is the 4th documentary feature film by Sébastien Lifshitz after Les Invisibles, Bambi and Les vies de Thérèse. The director has...
Always be wary of claims of “first” or “only.” Such is the case with brand-new streaming platform Documentary Plus+, which announced this summer that it would be “the first of its kind to focus exclusively on documentary films.” The venture comes from Xtr, the well-financed Los Angeles-based nonfiction film and television studio that Oscar-nominated documentary short producer Bryn Mooser (“Lifeboat”) launched last year.
Xtr, which took five co-financed films to Sundance 2020 — including well-received docs “Feels Good Man,” “Mucho Mucho Amor,” and “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” — plans to roll out Documentary Plus+ this fall; a representative said they’re hoping for the end of September.
Billed as a “highly curated documentary streaming service,” Documentary Plus+ aims to “provide audiences with the best in documentary film and further serve as a permanent home for the work of nonfiction filmmakers along with added distribution and amplification of their projects across all social channels.
Xtr, which took five co-financed films to Sundance 2020 — including well-received docs “Feels Good Man,” “Mucho Mucho Amor,” and “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” — plans to roll out Documentary Plus+ this fall; a representative said they’re hoping for the end of September.
Billed as a “highly curated documentary streaming service,” Documentary Plus+ aims to “provide audiences with the best in documentary film and further serve as a permanent home for the work of nonfiction filmmakers along with added distribution and amplification of their projects across all social channels.
- 8/20/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Francesca Mazzoleni’s “Puntasacra,” Francisco Bermejo’s “The Other One” and Nick Brandestini’s “Sapelo” scooped the top prizes in the three major sections at Switzerland’s Visions du Réel prize ceremony Sunday night, held online as the whole of the documentary festival.
Major plaudits in the festival’s main International Feature Film Competition also went to Markku Lehmuskallio and Johannes Lehmuskallios “Anerca, Breath of Life,” Afsaneh Salari’s “The Silhouettes,” Mo Scarpelli’s “El Father Plays Himself” and José Permar’s “Off the Road.”
The Audience Award, one of the key prizes for distributors,was nabbed by Chines-German feature “Mirror Mirror on the Wall.”
Acquired by Italy’s True Colours for world sales, “Puntasacra” won Visions du Réel’s top Sesterce d’Or la Mobilière for a doc feature that portrays the resilient inhabitants of the last triangle of habitable land at the mouth of the Italy’s Tiber...
Major plaudits in the festival’s main International Feature Film Competition also went to Markku Lehmuskallio and Johannes Lehmuskallios “Anerca, Breath of Life,” Afsaneh Salari’s “The Silhouettes,” Mo Scarpelli’s “El Father Plays Himself” and José Permar’s “Off the Road.”
The Audience Award, one of the key prizes for distributors,was nabbed by Chines-German feature “Mirror Mirror on the Wall.”
Acquired by Italy’s True Colours for world sales, “Puntasacra” won Visions du Réel’s top Sesterce d’Or la Mobilière for a doc feature that portrays the resilient inhabitants of the last triangle of habitable land at the mouth of the Italy’s Tiber...
- 5/3/2020
- by John Hopewell and Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
It would be a great mistake, sight unseen, to pigeonhole Ulrike Ottinger’s “Paris Calligrammes” as just another nostalgia-filled personal documentary about how amazing life was in Paris in the 1960s. Where others self-servingly wax lyrical about being in the nexus of the Left Bank’s Golden Age of hipness and activism, Ottinger takes us through this formative time of her life in a way that deftly balances past and present to paint a picture of a threshold era of both positives and negatives.
Recounted in the director’s own measured voiceover (the English version features Jenny Agutter while the French version has Fanny Ardant) and largely composed of found footage, film clips and home movies, the film reflects the director’s generosity of spirit as well as the period’s bubbling cauldron of syncretic and opposing movements. Promoted together with a handsome book tie-in, “Paris Calligrammes” should spark renewed...
Recounted in the director’s own measured voiceover (the English version features Jenny Agutter while the French version has Fanny Ardant) and largely composed of found footage, film clips and home movies, the film reflects the director’s generosity of spirit as well as the period’s bubbling cauldron of syncretic and opposing movements. Promoted together with a handsome book tie-in, “Paris Calligrammes” should spark renewed...
- 3/6/2020
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
From retrospective screening series celebrating everything from Hammer films to the movies of Jean Rollin and Mario Bava, New York's Quad Cinema has always featured an eclectic lineup of classic horror films, and this month is certainly no exception. To celebrate the January 24th opening night screening of Bertrand Bonello's Zombi Child, Quad Cinema is featuring a bunch of 35mm screenings of movies that inspired Bonello's latest film, including Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow, Brian De Palma's Carrie, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and more.
You can view the full lineup of Quad Cinema's "Bertrand Bonello’s Footnotes to Zombi Child" screenings below, and to learn more, visit their official website.
"Origin Stories:
Bertrand Bonello’s Footnotes to Zombi Child
Starts Fri January 17
French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello selects films that inspired and informed his upcoming Zombi Child, opening January 24
Titles include 35mm prints of Carrie, I Walked with a Zombie,...
You can view the full lineup of Quad Cinema's "Bertrand Bonello’s Footnotes to Zombi Child" screenings below, and to learn more, visit their official website.
"Origin Stories:
Bertrand Bonello’s Footnotes to Zombi Child
Starts Fri January 17
French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello selects films that inspired and informed his upcoming Zombi Child, opening January 24
Titles include 35mm prints of Carrie, I Walked with a Zombie,...
- 1/15/2020
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
How do you document a film with film? How is it possible to use the technology of writing with movement to incorporate everything on a film strip, and everything that surrounds it? Director John Torres’ “People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose” is a film that attempts to accomplish this mission.
According to the director’s statement, he found the footage of “Diary of Vietnam Rose” under the bed of a former Filipino sex icon. The film was shot by the “self-professed Messiah of Philippine Cinema” Celso Ad Castillo. Castillo was shooting the film when Oliver Stone was finishing “Platoon” on the same island. The consultant in Stone’s film, Richard Boyle, also had a part in “Vietnam Rose”. Meanwhile, on the main island, the People Power movement has already started. Marcos and his gangs were ousted. A democracy was reborn.
“People Power Bombshell: Vietnam Rose Diary” is screening...
According to the director’s statement, he found the footage of “Diary of Vietnam Rose” under the bed of a former Filipino sex icon. The film was shot by the “self-professed Messiah of Philippine Cinema” Celso Ad Castillo. Castillo was shooting the film when Oliver Stone was finishing “Platoon” on the same island. The consultant in Stone’s film, Richard Boyle, also had a part in “Vietnam Rose”. Meanwhile, on the main island, the People Power movement has already started. Marcos and his gangs were ousted. A democracy was reborn.
“People Power Bombshell: Vietnam Rose Diary” is screening...
- 12/16/2019
- by I-Lin Liu
- AsianMoviePulse
Paris-based Moroccan filmmaker Laila Marrakchi is developing a pair of daring female-driven projects, “Casa Girls,” a series about four twentysomething single women living in Casablanca, and a drama based on a real-life sex scandal set against an agricultural backdrop in Spain.
Marrakchi, who has so far directed “Rock the Casbah” and “Marock,” both of which were box office hits in Morocco and traveled well, as well as episodes of the hit spy thriller series “The Bureau,” just wrapped the shoot of two episodes of Damien Chazelle’s anticipated Netflix series “The Eddy,” and is getting ready to helm a couple of episodes of “The Opera,” an ambitious show unfolding at the Paris Opera that will start filming next spring.
In between those two shoots, the much sought-after director is developing the scripts of both “Casa Girls” and her next feature film, which will be inspired by a New York Times...
Marrakchi, who has so far directed “Rock the Casbah” and “Marock,” both of which were box office hits in Morocco and traveled well, as well as episodes of the hit spy thriller series “The Bureau,” just wrapped the shoot of two episodes of Damien Chazelle’s anticipated Netflix series “The Eddy,” and is getting ready to helm a couple of episodes of “The Opera,” an ambitious show unfolding at the Paris Opera that will start filming next spring.
In between those two shoots, the much sought-after director is developing the scripts of both “Casa Girls” and her next feature film, which will be inspired by a New York Times...
- 12/3/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
In 2016, Brett Story made a documentary about the state of penitentiaries in the U.S. without ever shooting inside one. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes offered a snapshot of the American incarceration system through a dozen of thematically and formally distinct vignettes. They were not portraits of prisons, but of the people and spaces orbiting around them. There were female inmates who’d fought wildfires in California, a man who made a business out of people struggling to send life’s necessities to their loved ones behind bars, and a group of women waiting for a bus to ship them to visit relatives held captive. The whole project was, as Story would later put it, a reaction to conventional prison documentaries and their pernicious tendency to put inmates on display, “as if there were no other way of making the prison or its captive subjects visible, and as if visibility...
- 11/13/2019
- MUBI
The Cool WorldAt the Locarno Film Festival, we sat with the Los Angeles-based independent curator and writer Greg de Cuir Jr. to discuss the 46-film collage he programmed at the festival dedicated to the representation on film of the black peoples and cultures in the African diaspora. It was an invitation to reflect on the notion of black cinema and a journey throughout the 20th century revisited under a different light.Notebook: How did the idea of this retrospective came about and why have you decided to bring it to Locarno?Greg De Cuir Jr.: Well, Locarno decided to bring it. So it was their idea. It was [Artistic Director] Lili Hinstin’s idea to do something on black culture. So it wasn’t necessarily that I created something and brought it here. What I did was to expand and develop a theme and put together a method. Then, I fixed...
- 9/2/2019
- MUBI
In this engaging film, two innocent, smiling nuns hit the streets of Chicago in 1968 to ask its citizens how happy they are
The second film by what would grow into Chicago powerhouse outfit Kartemquin, this 1968 documentary curio has the fun conceit of sending two smiling nuns out into the Windy City to quiz citizens about their lives. Directors Gordon Quinn and Gerald Temaner were inspired by Jean Rouch’s 1960 cinéma vérité touchstone Chronicle of a Summer. “How much should we do?” wonders Sister Marie Arné as she and Sister Mary Campion gather themselves before setting forth. Her efforts to demarcate their interviewing are almost a manifesto statement for the rawness with which vérité’s American counterpart, Direct Cinema, sought to encounter daily reality.
“Are you happy?” is what the sisters settle on: a humdinger they put to people in the streets, outside shopping malls, in museum and art galleries, to working men,...
The second film by what would grow into Chicago powerhouse outfit Kartemquin, this 1968 documentary curio has the fun conceit of sending two smiling nuns out into the Windy City to quiz citizens about their lives. Directors Gordon Quinn and Gerald Temaner were inspired by Jean Rouch’s 1960 cinéma vérité touchstone Chronicle of a Summer. “How much should we do?” wonders Sister Marie Arné as she and Sister Mary Campion gather themselves before setting forth. Her efforts to demarcate their interviewing are almost a manifesto statement for the rawness with which vérité’s American counterpart, Direct Cinema, sought to encounter daily reality.
“Are you happy?” is what the sisters settle on: a humdinger they put to people in the streets, outside shopping malls, in museum and art galleries, to working men,...
- 5/22/2019
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
“We wanted to show how a chicken dealer (Lam’s actual profession at the time) lives. The whole film unfolded in a bizarre way because we were overwhelmed by incidents in the improvisation. Lam’s car had no brakes, no headlights, and no registration. It was really a patience-mobile that forced us to stop when we least expected. The introduction of the character of the devil in the bush came up in Lam’s reflections when we broke down. ‘Let’s not stop here,’ he said every time the car refused to go on, ‘there are devils here!’” —Jean Rouch, from Cine-Ethnography “I’m not a poet, I’m an entrepreneur”—Jimmy Van Horn Eminently practical people, when Americans do diaspora it’s usually a kind of one-stop shopping—aiming to hit both sides of the same coin—hedonism and capitalism. So when Jimmy Van Horn (David Zellner) the Ghostbox Cowboy of the title,...
- 4/22/2019
- MUBI
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Bumblebee (Travis Knight)
With Bumblebee, director Travis Knight and writer Christina Hodson weave together two different movies: 1) A sensitive, familiar riff on E.T. about a young girl who, struggling with the recent death of her father, regains her confidence through a clandestine friendship with an alien and 2) A less bombastic version of a Michael Bay-helmed Transformers movie, complete with Autobot vs. Decepticon lore, mechanical fight scenes with grinding metal sounds high in the mix, explosions, etc. To their credit, Knight and Hodson semi-seamlessly combine both movies without too much tonal clash. It’s just a shame that the end result never amounts to more than a “fine,...
Bumblebee (Travis Knight)
With Bumblebee, director Travis Knight and writer Christina Hodson weave together two different movies: 1) A sensitive, familiar riff on E.T. about a young girl who, struggling with the recent death of her father, regains her confidence through a clandestine friendship with an alien and 2) A less bombastic version of a Michael Bay-helmed Transformers movie, complete with Autobot vs. Decepticon lore, mechanical fight scenes with grinding metal sounds high in the mix, explosions, etc. To their credit, Knight and Hodson semi-seamlessly combine both movies without too much tonal clash. It’s just a shame that the end result never amounts to more than a “fine,...
- 3/22/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In today’s film news roundup, “Spider-Man: Far From Home” sets a studio record, Chris Meledandri and Glenn Close are honored, an art-house streaming service is unveiled, and “Cliffs of Freedom” gets a release.
Trailer Stats
The first “Spider-Man: Far From Home” trailer has set a record as the biggest digital launch in Sony Pictures history after 24 hours.
The teaser trailer was unveiled Jan. 15 and generated 130 million views, topping the 116 million views for the first “Spider-Man: Homecoming” trailer. Sony said Friday the trailer was shared at twice the frequency of the first trailer for “Homecoming” and social conversation volume was also the highest in the studio’s history, topping 1.1 million posts in the first day. The studio reported that audiences were particularly excited to see Tom Holland’s return as Spider-Man and Jake Gyllenhaal’s debut as Mysterio.
The trailer began with Holland embarking on a European adventure that’s...
Trailer Stats
The first “Spider-Man: Far From Home” trailer has set a record as the biggest digital launch in Sony Pictures history after 24 hours.
The teaser trailer was unveiled Jan. 15 and generated 130 million views, topping the 116 million views for the first “Spider-Man: Homecoming” trailer. Sony said Friday the trailer was shared at twice the frequency of the first trailer for “Homecoming” and social conversation volume was also the highest in the studio’s history, topping 1.1 million posts in the first day. The studio reported that audiences were particularly excited to see Tom Holland’s return as Spider-Man and Jake Gyllenhaal’s debut as Mysterio.
The trailer began with Holland embarking on a European adventure that’s...
- 1/19/2019
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
With FilmStruck gone and Fandor recently sold to a new entity, cinephiles would appear to be running out of streaming services catered toward them. Here to fill that void is Ovid.TV, a new venture from six different independent film distributors — Bullfrog Films, Distrib Films Us, First Run Features, Grasshopper Film, Icarus Films, and KimStim — set to launch in March. In a statement announcing the new Svod platform, Ovid is is said to be “designed to provide North American viewers with access to thousands of mostly un-streamable documentaries, independent films, and notable works of international cinema.”
Jonathan Miller of Icarus Films, who will serve as director of Ovid, said, “the time for this kind of partnership is now, as the streaming giants focus on generating fast-turnaround new content, this coalition will offer new access to high-quality catalogs found nowhere else, featuring some of the most celebrated filmmakers and films in the canon.
Jonathan Miller of Icarus Films, who will serve as director of Ovid, said, “the time for this kind of partnership is now, as the streaming giants focus on generating fast-turnaround new content, this coalition will offer new access to high-quality catalogs found nowhere else, featuring some of the most celebrated filmmakers and films in the canon.
- 1/18/2019
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean Rouch's The Lion Hunters (1966) is showing January 3 – February 1, 2019 in the United States as part of the retrospective, The Groundbreaking Ethnography of Jean Rouch.The Lion Hunters (1965) is, on the surface—on the very surface—an adventure story. A band of hunters leave the safety of their village and go into the wilderness to hunt down a pack of lions. These are not ordinary lions, who adhere to the leonine custom of only targeting the sick and eating what they kill. They are rather an outlaw band, who kill wantonly and for sport. Thus the hunters have a moral purpose: their goal is to restore balance, to fix a flaw in the natural order which has caused both human and animal alike to fall crooked. And in this they succeed. After the usual trials they kill most of the lions in question,...
- 1/18/2019
- MUBI
Mubi's retrospective, The Groundbreaking Ethnography of Jean Rouch, is showing December 2018 – February 2019 in the United States.Jean RouchWhen asked by Robert Gardner, on his TV interview program “Screening Room,” whether he primarily considered himself a filmmaker or an anthropologist, Jean Rouch gave a customarily playful answer. “Anthropologists consider me as a filmmaker. When I’m with filmmakers they consider me as an anthropologist . . . you see I’m a Gemini by birth, which means I’m in two places [at] the same time.”1 To understand how Rouch could stand so completely between chairs, one should have a bit of background in the state of ethnographic film before Rouch, and for that matter, a bit of context for his impact on the larger world of cinema. Ethnography has, of course, been primarily a written form, an adjunct discipline to anthropology, its humanistic or literary side, if you will. Nevertheless, ethnographers, like anthropologists generally,...
- 1/2/2019
- MUBI
Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Jean Rouch's Gare du Nord (1965) is free to watch below. From December 2018 through February 2019, Mubi is showing the retrospective The Groundbreaking Ethnography of Jean Rouch in the United States.Jean Rouch's Gare du Nord is my favorite episode of Paris vu par… (1965)—a portmanteau film composed of six stories, each set in a different part of Paris. Rouch blends a fully fictional framework—a narrative about the crisis of a couple, Odile (Nadine Ballot) and Jean-Pierre (Barbet Schroeder)—with the kind of documentary techniques embraced by cinéma-vérité: the story unfolds in real time, across only four shots, in everyday locations, with the characters followed by a shaky handheld camera. This approach is stunning not just for its bravura, but also for the ways in which it contributes to telling and structuring a story full of mood changes,...
- 12/16/2018
- MUBI
How do you document a film with film? How is it possible to use the technology of writing with movement to incorporate everything on a film strip, and everything that surrounds it? Director John Torres’ “People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose” is a film that attempts to accomplish this mission.
According to the director’s statement, he found the footage of “Diary of Vietnam Rose” under the bed of a former Filipino sex icon. The film was shot by the “self-professed Messiah of Philippine Cinema” Celso Ad Castillo. Castillo was shooting the film when Oliver Stone was finishing “Platoon” on the same island. The consultant in Stone’s film, Richard Boyle, also had a part in “Vietnam Rose”. Meanwhile, on the main island, the People Power movement has already started. Marcos and his gangs were ousted. A democracy was reborn.
“People Power Bombshell: Vietnam Rose Diary” is screening...
According to the director’s statement, he found the footage of “Diary of Vietnam Rose” under the bed of a former Filipino sex icon. The film was shot by the “self-professed Messiah of Philippine Cinema” Celso Ad Castillo. Castillo was shooting the film when Oliver Stone was finishing “Platoon” on the same island. The consultant in Stone’s film, Richard Boyle, also had a part in “Vietnam Rose”. Meanwhile, on the main island, the People Power movement has already started. Marcos and his gangs were ousted. A democracy was reborn.
“People Power Bombshell: Vietnam Rose Diary” is screening...
- 9/27/2018
- by I-Lin Liu
- AsianMoviePulse
Above: French poster for A Grin Without a Cat.Starting today, the Metrograph in New York will be launching an extensive series celebrating the 40th anniversary of one of the most dedicated, unsung heroes of U.S. film distribution: Icarus Films. Founded in 1978 by filmmaker Ilan Ziv and sold two years later (in exchange for a video camera) to Jonathan Miller who has run the company ever since, Icarus has become one of the leading repositories for aesthetically challenging, politically engaged documentary cinema. The two-week long series contains 56 films by some of the most important names in documentary film: Chantal Akerman, Jean Rouch, Peter Watkins, Chris Marker, Marcel Ophuls and Wang Bing, to name just a few.Finding posters for a lot of these films was not easy. Many of the titles were never really theatrical material (they range in length from 44 minutes to 345) and so a theatrical poster would...
- 9/14/2018
- MUBI
Bertrand Mandico's The Wild Boys (2017), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing September 14 – October 14, 2018 as a Special Discovery.French director Bertrand Mandico shared with us the films he thought about before, during, and after making his feature debut, The Wild Boys:ISLANDSThe Saga of AnatahanMatango: Attack of the Mushroom People: The island and its fauna and flora, the mushroom-men, the sinking. A sublime film.Lord Jim: The tempest sequence in the opening and the cowardice of Lord Jim—an amazing film.A High Wind in Jamaica: For the confusion of the captain played by Antony Quinn, the phlegm of James Coburn and the beauty of his young crew.The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Lewis John Carlino, 1976): For the erotic figure of the Captain (Kris Kristofferson) and its clique of violent boys.Remorques: A romantic and captivating film with sequences...
- 9/13/2018
- MUBI
Sol NegroWhy do we categorize documentary films as non-fiction? If fiction is a means to truthfulness and documentary filmmaking attempts to represent the realities of lived experience, then can’t the languages of emotion and introspection operate within the genre?These are the questions that preoccupy the students of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab. At this year’s Open City Documentary Festival will be the U.K. premieres of films produced by Colombian filmmaker Laura Huertas Millàn during her practice-based PhD there. Sol Negro (2016), La Libertad (2017) and jeny303 (2018) are part of her ethnographic fiction series. In dialogue with visual anthropology, they consider how narrative creation can liberate the single, fixed colonial viewpoint.In the tradition of Jean Rouch, ethnofiction filmmaking uses less conventional techniques to provide an insight into the lives of an indigenous population. Rouch compared this form of filmmaking to Surrealism, defining it as an art form...
- 8/28/2018
- MUBI
When I spoke to Anthony Bourdain on May 31, eight days before he committed suicide, I mostly wanted to talk about movies. While not everyone associated the food-show host with cinema, it informed every episode of CNN’s “No Reservations,” from the echoes of “Happy Together” in Buenos Aires to “City of Ghosts” in Thailand. He was a brilliant filmmaker in disguise.
Our conversation got granular. He shared references to revered and obscure filmmakers, recalled his youth experiences working through the Janus film library, and mused about a few new releases. It was a neat opportunity to explore the creative mindset behind a program that became more of a cultural investigation than a culinary one.
Food experts can assess how Bourdain brought a personable edge to highbrow cuisine, and pushed beyond fine-dining formulas to explore the value of food at every level of society. However, what defines his legacy may have...
Our conversation got granular. He shared references to revered and obscure filmmakers, recalled his youth experiences working through the Janus film library, and mused about a few new releases. It was a neat opportunity to explore the creative mindset behind a program that became more of a cultural investigation than a culinary one.
Food experts can assess how Bourdain brought a personable edge to highbrow cuisine, and pushed beyond fine-dining formulas to explore the value of food at every level of society. However, what defines his legacy may have...
- 6/10/2018
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
This is Part Two in a series of articles on the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (Rbmc). As detailed in Part One, the Rbmc was an experimental film screening series in New York City, started by filmmaker Brian L. Frye.
Frye programmed the first screening on May 12, 1998 at the Collective Unconscious theater space. The screening included the feature-length documentary Underground by Emile de Antonio about the left-wing militant group the Weather Underground, and a kinoscope of Richard M. Nixon’s infamous “Checker’s Speech.” At the screening, fellow media artist Bradley Eros introduced himself to Frye and the pair co-programmed the Rbmc together for several years.
The goal of the screenings was to present work that typically wouldn’t be projected anywhere else, such as small gauge film formats and expanded cinema performances. The Rbmc would also host filmmakers in town for larger shows elsewhere in the city and asked them to screen their older,...
Frye programmed the first screening on May 12, 1998 at the Collective Unconscious theater space. The screening included the feature-length documentary Underground by Emile de Antonio about the left-wing militant group the Weather Underground, and a kinoscope of Richard M. Nixon’s infamous “Checker’s Speech.” At the screening, fellow media artist Bradley Eros introduced himself to Frye and the pair co-programmed the Rbmc together for several years.
The goal of the screenings was to present work that typically wouldn’t be projected anywhere else, such as small gauge film formats and expanded cinema performances. The Rbmc would also host filmmakers in town for larger shows elsewhere in the city and asked them to screen their older,...
- 2/4/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Above: French poster for Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin, France, 1961). Design by Raymond Gid.There is an essential and vital film series opening today at Film Forum in New York: a survey of 1960s Cinema Verité productions which brings vividly to life a decade of instability and protest as well as a new era of introspection. While this survey of posters doesn’t give a complete look at the series—“more than 50 modern classics which not only changed the recording of social history, but revolutionized filmmaking itself”—since many of the films are not feature-length (some of the shows pair an hour long film with a 30 minute short) and thus were not theatrically released. But those that I’ve gathered do convey the urgency of the movement as well as its seat-of-the-pants guerrilla style of film marketing as much as film making.I’ve not included the...
- 1/19/2018
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Museum of Modern Art
Fassbinder’s newly restored Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day screens on Saturday as part of “To Save and Project.”
“Film at Club 57” continues with the likes of Masculin Féminin.
The Zvyagintsev retrospective continues.
Metrograph
Paul Thomas Anderson and fashion — but not together.
“Welcome to Metrograph” has Yi Yi, Griffith,...
Museum of Modern Art
Fassbinder’s newly restored Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day screens on Saturday as part of “To Save and Project.”
“Film at Club 57” continues with the likes of Masculin Féminin.
The Zvyagintsev retrospective continues.
Metrograph
Paul Thomas Anderson and fashion — but not together.
“Welcome to Metrograph” has Yi Yi, Griffith,...
- 1/18/2018
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Above: Polish poster for The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria, 1965). Designer: Jerzy Flisak.As the 55th New York Film Festival winds down this weekend, I thought I’d look back half a century at the films of the 5th edition. That 1967 festival, programmed by Amos Vogel, Richard Roud, Arthur Knight, Andrew Sarris and Susan Sontag, featured 21 new films, all but three of which were from Europe (six of them from France, 2 and 1/7 of them directed by Godard), all of which showed at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall. (They also programmed Gance’s Napoleon, Mamoulian’s Applause and King Vidor’s Show People in the retrospective slots). The only director to have a film in both the 1967 festival and the 2017 edition is Agnès Varda, who was one of the directors of the omnibus Far From Vietnam and was then already 12 years into her filmmaking career.It will come as...
- 10/13/2017
- MUBI
Jean Rouch may not be a household name, but some of the world’s most revered filmmakers — from Jean-Luc Godard to Werner Herzog — are indebted to him. The French filmmaker pioneered the concept of “ethno-fiction,” fictional films built around the lives of everyday people, and developed the bulk of his filmography out of time spent in Africa. His 1958 feature “Moi, un Noir” follows the daily routine of a trio of Nigerian immigrants off the Ivory Coast who imagine themselves as movie stars, and its blend of jump cuts and amateur performances reportedly inspired Godard’s 1960 debut “Breathless.” Rouch’s documentary “Chronicle of a Summer,” co-directed with Edgar Morin, is considered a foundational achievement of the cinéma vérité movement.
Nevertheless, Rouch has remained a cinephile secret for decades, and in the wake of his death in 2004, much of his work has been unavailable in the U.S. — until now.
On November...
Nevertheless, Rouch has remained a cinephile secret for decades, and in the wake of his death in 2004, much of his work has been unavailable in the U.S. — until now.
On November...
- 9/21/2017
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
The Venice International Film Festival has added a world premiere screening of the previously unreleased Jean Rouch film Cousin, cousine on the centennial of his birth. The film, from 1985-1987, is the only film Rouch ever made in Venice. It will debut on Sept. 7.
Cousin, cousine stars Nigerian actor Damoure Zika and Nigerian filmmaker Mariama Hima, who were in Venice in 1985 to present their film Baabu Banza. Mariama introduces Damoure to Venice, studying how gondolas are made, in a film fantasy inspired by a painting by Gentile Bellini. The film, recently restored by the French Cnc, will screen in...
Cousin, cousine stars Nigerian actor Damoure Zika and Nigerian filmmaker Mariama Hima, who were in Venice in 1985 to present their film Baabu Banza. Mariama introduces Damoure to Venice, studying how gondolas are made, in a film fantasy inspired by a painting by Gentile Bellini. The film, recently restored by the French Cnc, will screen in...
- 8/16/2017
- by Ariston Anderson
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Crime thriller remake will be presented Out of Competition.
The Venice International Film Festival has rounded off the programme of its 74th edition with three world premieres.
John Woo’s Zhuibu (Manhunt) will be presented Out of Competition and marks the director’s return to crime thrillers such as The Killer and Hardboiled.
The film is a remake of a Japanese classic, telling the story of a Chinese man who is framed for murder in Japan who has to dodge a manhunt and the attacks of mysterious killers as he tries to clear his name.
Woo received the Golden Lion for Career Achievement in Venice in 2010.
Venice will also host the world premieres of Andrea Segre’s L’ordine Delle Cose in Special Screenings and Marco di Castri, Paolo Favaro and Daniele Pianciola’s documentary L’Enigma Di Jean Rouch A Torino - Cronaca Di Un Film Raté in competitive section Venezia Classici - Documentaries.
The 74th Venice...
The Venice International Film Festival has rounded off the programme of its 74th edition with three world premieres.
John Woo’s Zhuibu (Manhunt) will be presented Out of Competition and marks the director’s return to crime thrillers such as The Killer and Hardboiled.
The film is a remake of a Japanese classic, telling the story of a Chinese man who is framed for murder in Japan who has to dodge a manhunt and the attacks of mysterious killers as he tries to clear his name.
Woo received the Golden Lion for Career Achievement in Venice in 2010.
Venice will also host the world premieres of Andrea Segre’s L’ordine Delle Cose in Special Screenings and Marco di Castri, Paolo Favaro and Daniele Pianciola’s documentary L’Enigma Di Jean Rouch A Torino - Cronaca Di Un Film Raté in competitive section Venezia Classici - Documentaries.
The 74th Venice...
- 8/7/2017
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera has added a trio of titles to the program for the 74th edition which begins later this month. World premiering out of competition is John Woo’s Manhunt, while L’Ordine Delle Cose by Andrea Segre will have a Special Screening and Italian documentary The Enigma Of Jean Rouch In Turin will screen in the Venice Classics section. Woo’s Manhunt (Zhuibu) marks the Hong Kong master’s return to the crime thriller genre. The film is a…...
- 8/7/2017
- Deadline
In The Overlook, A.V. Club film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky examines the misfits, underappreciated gems, and underseen classics of film history.
“I want the racists to talk like racists. For a film on robbery, I’d ask someone to steal. But even if it’s a fake theft, I’d be an accomplice, even if I’m filming.”
—Jean Rouch, La Pyramide Humaine
How many white filmmakers have actually addressed the nitty-gritty, insidious social constructions of race and racism? France has produced two important ones. The one who is better known now is Claire Denis, who grew up in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s as the daughter of a French civil servant, moving around present-day Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Somalia, and Djibouti. (I wrote about No Fear, No Die, her excellent existentialist noir about two black immigrants who go to work for a cockfighting ring in a...
“I want the racists to talk like racists. For a film on robbery, I’d ask someone to steal. But even if it’s a fake theft, I’d be an accomplice, even if I’m filming.”
—Jean Rouch, La Pyramide Humaine
How many white filmmakers have actually addressed the nitty-gritty, insidious social constructions of race and racism? France has produced two important ones. The one who is better known now is Claire Denis, who grew up in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s as the daughter of a French civil servant, moving around present-day Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Somalia, and Djibouti. (I wrote about No Fear, No Die, her excellent existentialist noir about two black immigrants who go to work for a cockfighting ring in a...
- 5/9/2017
- by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
- avclub.com
It’s an art film boom time in New York City. With more and more theaters cropping up than one could try and name off the top of their heads, citizens of The Big Apple have everything from the retrospective-centric programming of The Metrograph to their very own Alamo Drafthouse to give their money to in hopes of making a great cinematic discovery. However, don’t forget the museum scene.
As we make our way through the month of May, The Museum of Modern Art has scheduled two fantastic retrospective series, running back to back, that couldn’t be more different. Looking at the worlds of pre-Code Hollywood and African animation, May at MoMA is one of the most interesting repertory lineups seen yet this year.
Running May 5-16, MoMA follows-up their beloved 2016 series Universal Pictures: Restorations and Rediscoveries, 1928-1937 with a return to the studio, this time looking...
As we make our way through the month of May, The Museum of Modern Art has scheduled two fantastic retrospective series, running back to back, that couldn’t be more different. Looking at the worlds of pre-Code Hollywood and African animation, May at MoMA is one of the most interesting repertory lineups seen yet this year.
Running May 5-16, MoMA follows-up their beloved 2016 series Universal Pictures: Restorations and Rediscoveries, 1928-1937 with a return to the studio, this time looking...
- 5/8/2017
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
The 2017 Cannes Film Festival has announced the lineup for Cannes Classics, a selection of vintage films and masterpieces from the history of cinema. This year’s program is dedicated primarily to the history of the festival, and includes one short film and five new documentaries.
Read More: Cannes Adds Roman Polanski Film to Lineup
Highlights from the lineup include “Belle du Jour” (1967), Luis Bunuel’s classic about a housewife who dabbles in prostitution, and “All That Jazz ” (1979) Bob Fosse’s story of a womanizing, drug-using dancer played by Roy Scheider. There is also the documentary “Filmworker,” which tells the story of Leon Vitali, an actor who abandoned his career after “Barry Lyndon” to become Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man and creative collaborator behind the scenes.
Rights holders to the films decide whether to screen them in 2K or 4K, or use an original print. Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante,...
Read More: Cannes Adds Roman Polanski Film to Lineup
Highlights from the lineup include “Belle du Jour” (1967), Luis Bunuel’s classic about a housewife who dabbles in prostitution, and “All That Jazz ” (1979) Bob Fosse’s story of a womanizing, drug-using dancer played by Roy Scheider. There is also the documentary “Filmworker,” which tells the story of Leon Vitali, an actor who abandoned his career after “Barry Lyndon” to become Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man and creative collaborator behind the scenes.
Rights holders to the films decide whether to screen them in 2K or 4K, or use an original print. Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante,...
- 5/3/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Strand will focus on the history of Cannes for the festival’s 70th anniversary.
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
- 5/3/2017
- ScreenDaily
While Cannes Film Festival premieres some of the best new films of the year, they also have a rich history of highlighting cinema history with their Cannes Classics line-up, many of which are new restorations of films that previously premiered at the festival. This year they are taking that idea further, featuring 16 films that made history at the festival, along with a handful of others, and five new documentaries. So, if you can’t make it to Cannes, to get a sense of restorations that may come to your city (or on Blu-ray) in the coming months/years, check out the line-up below.
From 1946 to 1992, from René Clément to Victor Erice, sixteen history-making films of the Festival de Cannes
1946: La Bataille du Rail (Battle of the Rails) by René Clément (1h25, France): Grand Prix International de la mise en scène and Prix du Jury International.
Presented by Ina.
From 1946 to 1992, from René Clément to Victor Erice, sixteen history-making films of the Festival de Cannes
1946: La Bataille du Rail (Battle of the Rails) by René Clément (1h25, France): Grand Prix International de la mise en scène and Prix du Jury International.
Presented by Ina.
- 5/3/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Though it’s far from sadistic or brutal, Salesman is designed to stir up a viewer’s discomfort, even to the point of outrage, with an end goal of rousing our empathy. The merciless exposure of a quartet of traveling door-to-door Bible peddlers (though they’re explicitly told to avoid thinking of themselves in such terms) strikes us as quite funny at first but gradually wears us down to a state of mournful pity as we tap into the grim desperation that pushes them forward to each new sales call, each awkward encounter with a reluctant prospect. In the early going, we’re struck by the refreshingly honest and fairly astonishing footage as we take in this unrehearsed, unscripted record of high pressure tactics used by representatives of the Mid-American Bible Company. We get a rare opportunity to view the...
Though it’s far from sadistic or brutal, Salesman is designed to stir up a viewer’s discomfort, even to the point of outrage, with an end goal of rousing our empathy. The merciless exposure of a quartet of traveling door-to-door Bible peddlers (though they’re explicitly told to avoid thinking of themselves in such terms) strikes us as quite funny at first but gradually wears us down to a state of mournful pity as we tap into the grim desperation that pushes them forward to each new sales call, each awkward encounter with a reluctant prospect. In the early going, we’re struck by the refreshingly honest and fairly astonishing footage as we take in this unrehearsed, unscripted record of high pressure tactics used by representatives of the Mid-American Bible Company. We get a rare opportunity to view the...
- 5/16/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Take a look at the roots of American campaign image consciousness, and the then-new techniques of cinéma vérité to bring a new 'reality' for film documentaries. Four groundbreaking films cover the Kennedy-Humphrey presidential primary, and put us in the Oval Office for a showdown against Alabama governor George Wallace. The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Blu-ray Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, Faces of November The Criterion Collection 808 1960 -1964 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 53, 52, 53, 12 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 39.95 Starring John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Drew, Hubert H. Humphrey, McGeorge Bundy, John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Goodwin, Albert Gore Sr., Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Pierre Salinger, Haile Selassie, John Steinbeck, George Wallace, Vivian Malone, Burke Marshall, Nicholas Katzenbach, John Dore, Jack Greenberg; Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Peter Lawford. Cinematography Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker,...
- 4/15/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
BAMcinématek
“Chantal Akerman: Images Between the Images” continues with Night and Day on Friday, News from Home this Saturday, and, on Sunday, Golden Eighties and The Meetings of Anna.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers The Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter on Friday, Deux Fois on Saturday, and, this Sunday, three short films by Julie Dash.
BAMcinématek
“Chantal Akerman: Images Between the Images” continues with Night and Day on Friday, News from Home this Saturday, and, on Sunday, Golden Eighties and The Meetings of Anna.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers The Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter on Friday, Deux Fois on Saturday, and, this Sunday, three short films by Julie Dash.
- 4/15/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Eva Orner's Chasing Asylum.
The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival has unveiled its full 2016 program, featuring 31 feature films and 25 shorts.
The festival will open with the Australian premiere of Eva Orner's offshore-detention documentary Chasing Asylum, fresh off its Hot Docs international premiere.
Also featured is Michael Graversen's Dreaming of Denmark, which follows a teenager who has spent his adolescent years in Denmark after fleeing his native country of Afghanistan..
The festival will close with the Australian premiere of Sundance award-winner The Bad Kids, an immersive dive into America.s most pressing education problem: poverty..
Another highlight is documentary They Will Have to Kill Us First: Malian Music in Exile, which follows various musicians in Mali in the wake of a jihadist takeover and subsequent banning of music in the region. The film features Damon Albarn (Blur), Brian Eno and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the band Songhoy Blues.
The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival has unveiled its full 2016 program, featuring 31 feature films and 25 shorts.
The festival will open with the Australian premiere of Eva Orner's offshore-detention documentary Chasing Asylum, fresh off its Hot Docs international premiere.
Also featured is Michael Graversen's Dreaming of Denmark, which follows a teenager who has spent his adolescent years in Denmark after fleeing his native country of Afghanistan..
The festival will close with the Australian premiere of Sundance award-winner The Bad Kids, an immersive dive into America.s most pressing education problem: poverty..
Another highlight is documentary They Will Have to Kill Us First: Malian Music in Exile, which follows various musicians in Mali in the wake of a jihadist takeover and subsequent banning of music in the region. The film features Damon Albarn (Blur), Brian Eno and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the band Songhoy Blues.
- 4/10/2016
- by Staff Writer
- IF.com.au
Hong Kong-based sales company Asian Shadows has picked up world rights (outside Greater China) to Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s Tharlo, which will receive its world premiere in Venice’s Orizzonti section.
Adapted from Pema Tseden’s novel, the film follows a 40-year-old Tibetan shepherd, who can recite Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book from memory, but whose quiet life changes when he is asked to go to the city to have his photo taken for his first ID card.
The film, which premieres in Venice on September 4, has also been selected for Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema section. It was produced by Beijing-based Heaven Pictures, which also produced Berlinale title River Road and Kaili Blues, which premiered in Locarno.
“Tharlo is typical of Tibetans of the present generation,” said Pema Tseden. “This is a story that shows them in a state of confusion, disorientation and desensitization. The film is in black-and-white as the ruggedness in the...
Adapted from Pema Tseden’s novel, the film follows a 40-year-old Tibetan shepherd, who can recite Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book from memory, but whose quiet life changes when he is asked to go to the city to have his photo taken for his first ID card.
The film, which premieres in Venice on September 4, has also been selected for Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema section. It was produced by Beijing-based Heaven Pictures, which also produced Berlinale title River Road and Kaili Blues, which premiered in Locarno.
“Tharlo is typical of Tibetans of the present generation,” said Pema Tseden. “This is a story that shows them in a state of confusion, disorientation and desensitization. The film is in black-and-white as the ruggedness in the...
- 9/2/2015
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Spanish director José Luis Guerín is best known in the States for his pseudo-fictional love letter to women-watching In the City of Sylvia, but in fact is a prolific documentary filmmaker and has brought with him to Locarno the lovely and elegant pseudo-documentary L’Accademia delle Muse. Playful and clever as ever, Guerín has collaborated with Professor Raffaele Pinto and several actresses, perhaps students, to stage a false course in philology. The class, populated almost entirely by women, discusses the nature, influence and meaning of muses in poetry, and what starts as seemingly a documentary on this classroom, its teacher and a few select students, subtly evolves into a drama of words and unseen actions.The issues at stake as discourse in the class—what desire means, if it has to be sexual, the difference between a woman and a muse, how a lover influences the beloved and vice versa...
- 8/10/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
There is a case to be made for home movies as the purest form of cinema. It’s folly, of course, to pit films against one another based on the circumstances under which they were made; to argue what is realer, and thus more valid, than the other. In a camera’s lens, especially, the lines of truth and lies blur and overlap. It’s just that in what we believe to be reality the stakes are always higher, the emotions elevated. One of the first films ever made, the Lumière brothers’ L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat, was a succinct 56 seconds that depicted the arrival of a train at its station in Lyon, France. When it was first shown to the public it was the audience’s virgin film-viewing experience, and it was reported that many were frightened by the illusion that the train was coming straight for them.
- 6/29/2015
- by Oliver Skinner
- MUBI
With the passing of seminal documentarian Albert Maysles on March 5, it would only be appropriate to speak to Susan Froemke, his long time friend and frequent co-director. Albert Maysles –along with his brother David - made some of the most iconic American documentaries of all time, all the while revolutionizing the art form, largely through the utilization of cinema verite or direct cinema. This documentary motif, which grew popular by the Maysles and their contemporaries like D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock, actually had been invented by Jean Rouch and originally inspired by Dziga Vertov’s theory about Kino Pravda nearly a century ago.
Cinema verite is sometimes called observational cinema, but that does not entirely explain its phenomenon; the style is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera’s presence. One can feel the visceral and –at times- spontaneous reactions by its performers. (Take for instance Mick Jagger’s despair upon seeing footage of one of his fans killed at the Altamont Free Concert by a member of the Hells Angels in "Gimme Shelter").
The Maysles’ brothers were co-directors of acclaimed films such as the aforementioned "Gimme Shelter," "Grey Gardens" and "Salesman." They continued to make cinema verite documentaries together for thirty years until David’s death in 1987. They chronicled Hollywood luminaries like Orson Welles and Marlon Brando, and also chronicled the Beatles’ first visit to the U.S. Their range was vast and eclectic. They were nominated for a Best Documentary, Short Subjects Academy Award in 1974 for "Christo’s Valley Curtain." Afterward, Albert Maysles would co-direct with Deborah Dickson and Susan Froemke, and would go on to win an Emmy in 1992 for "Abortion: Desperate Choices." Up until his death, Albert continued making films on his own and in collaboration with other filmmakers for HBO and others. The collaboration between Albert Maysles and Susan Froemke had been just as impressive. Such films as "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic" and "Ozawa" are part of their canon. Perhaps their most prominent collaboration (along with Deborah Dickson) was the 2001 Oscar nominated "Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," which followed a Mississippi Delta school district and a struggling Delta family. The film reflected the damaging effects of poverty in the Deep South.
In this Exclusive interview, Susan Froemke discusses Albert Maysles’ brilliance as co-director, collaborator, his integral place within cinematic history as well as generous artistic spirit.
Jared Feldschreiber: What were the circumstances in which you met Albert Maysles as film artists? Since you both collaborated on close to twenty films, how would you characterize your relationship both artistically and on a personal basis?
Susan Froemke: I arrived at Maysles Films in the early 70’s, 21 years old, and worked with Al and David until 2003. The Maysles shied away from hiring people right out of film schools because they wanted you to be open to their approach. They didn’t want to “un-teach you”—their word. I was an English Lit major which pleased them. I was privileged to be one of the few allowed to be on shoots with them (Bob Richman was too) so I saw their filming approach first hand. I worked very closely with David, Charlotte Zwerin and Ellen Hovde in the edit room. I eventually produced for them.
Jf: How would you describe your collaborative process?
Sf: When David died in 1987, Al and I partnered as a filming team--Al on camera while I took sound. A two person filming crew—no larger-- was essential to capturing the intimate footage we loved. Maysles Films was very much a family and it lasted for over 40 years. Everyone who worked there, and many talented filmmakers came through the company, felt the spirit of the place and we were all committed to the Maysles’ approach and very close personally.
We’d find a subject we thought was worthy of filming, follow the direction that subject took us on and then edit the footage all as a team. Our end credits were “a film by” and that was the true working relationship. Everyone had an equal voice. We are all so sad today.
Jf: In a TV interview, Albert disclosed a telling adage by Orson Welles, which seemed to fit his approach to documentaries: ‘In a fiction film, the director is God, in a non-fiction film, God is the director,' Albert cited Welles. Would you say that this was Albert’s modus operandi, and if so, would you say as a documentarian he remained resolute to never ‘prejudge’ his subjects and let the events on camera determine the film’s focus?
Sf: Oh yes, I heard that quote often from Al. Al and David (and I have to always include David as well because they developed their approach—their philosophy—together) took their direction from their subject. The only thing we asked from a subject was access. Al and David never told a subject what to do, never asked them to repeat an action or sentence. They never talked to the subject while filming. Never. They wanted to minimize the fact that filming was going on. They wanted to keep the true-life situation as real as possible. But this was Not fly on the wall filming. They hated being called that because there was always a deep bond between filmmaker and subject. A deep trust. Wherever the subject took us always produced the strongest footage. And reality never disappointed us.
Jf: Do you know who were Albert’s main film inspirations?
Sf: I don’t think Al ever saw any films except his own. He didn’t really go to the movies. Certainly not fiction films! He was inspired by the people he met on a train; or walking down the street, if he saw someone sad, he’d ask them why; faces in the crowd, this is what interested him. I do know that he did admire Henri Cartier–Bresson’s photographs.
Jf: In layman’s terms, what’s the value of cinema verite? How can one define it? Do you feel as though the modern sensibility is patient enough to deal with its approach? Was this ever a concern for you and Albert over time that you may lose your audience?
Sf: Al was never interested in any approach to filmmaking but “direct cinema” which we defined as the truth that unfolded before our camera. This is a timeless approach, one that allowed us to examine the human spirit. I think it will last through the ages, like great literature. It never occurred to us to worry about losing an audience. If you have a complex narrative with charismatic characters, your film will always find viewership.
Jf: How many films did you work on with Albert, and which ones were your favorites in terms of content, their form and other personal collaborative memories?
Sf: I made over 20 films with Al. Favorites include "Grey Gardens", "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic," "Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," "Soldiers Of Music: Rostropovich Returns to Russia." There are so many. The trip to Russia in the early 90’s with Al to film Rostropovich’s return to Russia after 16 years of exile was a magnificent trip. Al had a tremendously nostalgic feeling towards Russia because he and David had taken a motorcycle trip there in the 50’s and began filming then. We traveled with Rostropovich and his family for a week and each encounter they had—whether musical or political-- was profound so we came back with rich, beautiful footage that told a story of courage and bravery. Al’s intuitive, lyrical camera was stunning whether filming Rostropovich playing the cello or just faces of strangers in a crowd.
Jf: In which scenes in the films you worked on together would you say you achieved a kind of ‘cinema truth?’
Sf: There is a scene in "Lalee’s Kin" which was filmed in the Mississippi Delta’s poorest county where Lalee, a 60 year old Great Grandmother, realizes her 12 year old granddaughter hasn’t made it to school on the first day of classes because she didn’t have any pencils or paper to take with her. The granddaughter is softly crying as Lalee searches through her house trying to find some pencils. This is a child who wants to be educated but painfully knows the odds aren’t in her favor. It’s a heartbreaking scene that illuminates the scale of the problems of poverty—how difficult it is to educate the child from an illiterate family. It is ‘cinema truth’ at it’s best.
Albert Maysles’ documentary film career began in 1955 when he traveled abroad to shoot "Psychiatry in Russia." He made films until his death, as exemplified by his latest “In Transit," which is due to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. The film centers on the Empire Builder - America’s busiest long-distance train route that runs from Chicago to Seattle. "Iris," another documentary of the fashion icon Iris Apfel, will also be released next month.
Cinema verite is sometimes called observational cinema, but that does not entirely explain its phenomenon; the style is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera’s presence. One can feel the visceral and –at times- spontaneous reactions by its performers. (Take for instance Mick Jagger’s despair upon seeing footage of one of his fans killed at the Altamont Free Concert by a member of the Hells Angels in "Gimme Shelter").
The Maysles’ brothers were co-directors of acclaimed films such as the aforementioned "Gimme Shelter," "Grey Gardens" and "Salesman." They continued to make cinema verite documentaries together for thirty years until David’s death in 1987. They chronicled Hollywood luminaries like Orson Welles and Marlon Brando, and also chronicled the Beatles’ first visit to the U.S. Their range was vast and eclectic. They were nominated for a Best Documentary, Short Subjects Academy Award in 1974 for "Christo’s Valley Curtain." Afterward, Albert Maysles would co-direct with Deborah Dickson and Susan Froemke, and would go on to win an Emmy in 1992 for "Abortion: Desperate Choices." Up until his death, Albert continued making films on his own and in collaboration with other filmmakers for HBO and others. The collaboration between Albert Maysles and Susan Froemke had been just as impressive. Such films as "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic" and "Ozawa" are part of their canon. Perhaps their most prominent collaboration (along with Deborah Dickson) was the 2001 Oscar nominated "Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," which followed a Mississippi Delta school district and a struggling Delta family. The film reflected the damaging effects of poverty in the Deep South.
In this Exclusive interview, Susan Froemke discusses Albert Maysles’ brilliance as co-director, collaborator, his integral place within cinematic history as well as generous artistic spirit.
Jared Feldschreiber: What were the circumstances in which you met Albert Maysles as film artists? Since you both collaborated on close to twenty films, how would you characterize your relationship both artistically and on a personal basis?
Susan Froemke: I arrived at Maysles Films in the early 70’s, 21 years old, and worked with Al and David until 2003. The Maysles shied away from hiring people right out of film schools because they wanted you to be open to their approach. They didn’t want to “un-teach you”—their word. I was an English Lit major which pleased them. I was privileged to be one of the few allowed to be on shoots with them (Bob Richman was too) so I saw their filming approach first hand. I worked very closely with David, Charlotte Zwerin and Ellen Hovde in the edit room. I eventually produced for them.
Jf: How would you describe your collaborative process?
Sf: When David died in 1987, Al and I partnered as a filming team--Al on camera while I took sound. A two person filming crew—no larger-- was essential to capturing the intimate footage we loved. Maysles Films was very much a family and it lasted for over 40 years. Everyone who worked there, and many talented filmmakers came through the company, felt the spirit of the place and we were all committed to the Maysles’ approach and very close personally.
We’d find a subject we thought was worthy of filming, follow the direction that subject took us on and then edit the footage all as a team. Our end credits were “a film by” and that was the true working relationship. Everyone had an equal voice. We are all so sad today.
Jf: In a TV interview, Albert disclosed a telling adage by Orson Welles, which seemed to fit his approach to documentaries: ‘In a fiction film, the director is God, in a non-fiction film, God is the director,' Albert cited Welles. Would you say that this was Albert’s modus operandi, and if so, would you say as a documentarian he remained resolute to never ‘prejudge’ his subjects and let the events on camera determine the film’s focus?
Sf: Oh yes, I heard that quote often from Al. Al and David (and I have to always include David as well because they developed their approach—their philosophy—together) took their direction from their subject. The only thing we asked from a subject was access. Al and David never told a subject what to do, never asked them to repeat an action or sentence. They never talked to the subject while filming. Never. They wanted to minimize the fact that filming was going on. They wanted to keep the true-life situation as real as possible. But this was Not fly on the wall filming. They hated being called that because there was always a deep bond between filmmaker and subject. A deep trust. Wherever the subject took us always produced the strongest footage. And reality never disappointed us.
Jf: Do you know who were Albert’s main film inspirations?
Sf: I don’t think Al ever saw any films except his own. He didn’t really go to the movies. Certainly not fiction films! He was inspired by the people he met on a train; or walking down the street, if he saw someone sad, he’d ask them why; faces in the crowd, this is what interested him. I do know that he did admire Henri Cartier–Bresson’s photographs.
Jf: In layman’s terms, what’s the value of cinema verite? How can one define it? Do you feel as though the modern sensibility is patient enough to deal with its approach? Was this ever a concern for you and Albert over time that you may lose your audience?
Sf: Al was never interested in any approach to filmmaking but “direct cinema” which we defined as the truth that unfolded before our camera. This is a timeless approach, one that allowed us to examine the human spirit. I think it will last through the ages, like great literature. It never occurred to us to worry about losing an audience. If you have a complex narrative with charismatic characters, your film will always find viewership.
Jf: How many films did you work on with Albert, and which ones were your favorites in terms of content, their form and other personal collaborative memories?
Sf: I made over 20 films with Al. Favorites include "Grey Gardens", "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic," "Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," "Soldiers Of Music: Rostropovich Returns to Russia." There are so many. The trip to Russia in the early 90’s with Al to film Rostropovich’s return to Russia after 16 years of exile was a magnificent trip. Al had a tremendously nostalgic feeling towards Russia because he and David had taken a motorcycle trip there in the 50’s and began filming then. We traveled with Rostropovich and his family for a week and each encounter they had—whether musical or political-- was profound so we came back with rich, beautiful footage that told a story of courage and bravery. Al’s intuitive, lyrical camera was stunning whether filming Rostropovich playing the cello or just faces of strangers in a crowd.
Jf: In which scenes in the films you worked on together would you say you achieved a kind of ‘cinema truth?’
Sf: There is a scene in "Lalee’s Kin" which was filmed in the Mississippi Delta’s poorest county where Lalee, a 60 year old Great Grandmother, realizes her 12 year old granddaughter hasn’t made it to school on the first day of classes because she didn’t have any pencils or paper to take with her. The granddaughter is softly crying as Lalee searches through her house trying to find some pencils. This is a child who wants to be educated but painfully knows the odds aren’t in her favor. It’s a heartbreaking scene that illuminates the scale of the problems of poverty—how difficult it is to educate the child from an illiterate family. It is ‘cinema truth’ at it’s best.
Albert Maysles’ documentary film career began in 1955 when he traveled abroad to shoot "Psychiatry in Russia." He made films until his death, as exemplified by his latest “In Transit," which is due to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. The film centers on the Empire Builder - America’s busiest long-distance train route that runs from Chicago to Seattle. "Iris," another documentary of the fashion icon Iris Apfel, will also be released next month.
- 3/8/2015
- by Jared Feldschreiber
- Sydney's Buzz
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