Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martínez) in Oceans Are The Real Continents. Tommaso Santambrogio: 'It was like working, or even, basically re-enacting their past reality and reshaping the character based on them' “Dreams overcome reality,” says Italian director Tommaso Santambrogio. He’s referring to the fact that his debut feature Oceans Are The Real Continents, opened Venice Days at this year’s Venice Film Festival just five years after he was a jury member for the same section.
“The selection committee was saying it never happened before,” he adds.
His film is a beautifully shot in black and white and, via the stories of three different generations of Cubans - elderly Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martínez), young couple Edith (Edith Ybarra Clara) and Alex (Alexander Diego) and childhood pals Frank (Frank Ernesto Lam) and Alain (Alain Alain Alfonso González) - he offers a meditation on migration and the nature of freedom.
He...
“The selection committee was saying it never happened before,” he adds.
His film is a beautifully shot in black and white and, via the stories of three different generations of Cubans - elderly Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martínez), young couple Edith (Edith Ybarra Clara) and Alex (Alexander Diego) and childhood pals Frank (Frank Ernesto Lam) and Alain (Alain Alain Alfonso González) - he offers a meditation on migration and the nature of freedom.
He...
- 9/17/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
‘Oceans Are the Real Continents’ Review: A Poetic Chronicle of Cubans Trapped Between Home and Exile
Director Tommaso Santambrogio’s beautifully realized first feature, Oceans Are the Real Continents (Los Océanos Son Los Verdaderos Continentes), presents a number of intriguing paradoxes: It’s both grounded in realism and highly stylized, like a social documentary shot by a first-class photographer. It’s a stark portrait of Cubans deeply impacted by exile, but one that was made by a foreigner (Santambrogio is Italian). And it’s a film about the quiet desperation of a place many people are struggling to leave — although it makes Cuba look much more like a country you want to visit rather than escape from.
A previous example of this kind of filmmaking — and one that feels like a major influence on Oceans — is Russian auteur Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 feature I Am Cuba, a gorgeous and monumental study of the island that was shot several years after the revolution (and only released worldwide in the early 1990s,...
A previous example of this kind of filmmaking — and one that feels like a major influence on Oceans — is Russian auteur Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 feature I Am Cuba, a gorgeous and monumental study of the island that was shot several years after the revolution (and only released worldwide in the early 1990s,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ariane Louis-Seize’s “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” has picked up the director’s award at Venice Days.
“It bravely addresses crucial themes such as depression, mental health, euthanasia and neurodiversity. Nevertheless, it is able to do so with a light-hearted feel, which makes the film radical and courageous,” noted the jury, composed of European cinephiles from the 27 Times Cinema program and led by Portugal’s João Pedro Rodrigues, behind “The Ornithologist” and “Will-o’-the-Wisp.”
“While the film has unique tone and style, it joyfully reaches a wider audience thanks to its tenderness and emotional engagement,” they added, praising Louis-Seize’s “strong directorial vision.”
In the film, a young vampire has a problem: she is too sensitive to kill. When her parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha meets Paul, a teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers.
It’s produced by...
“It bravely addresses crucial themes such as depression, mental health, euthanasia and neurodiversity. Nevertheless, it is able to do so with a light-hearted feel, which makes the film radical and courageous,” noted the jury, composed of European cinephiles from the 27 Times Cinema program and led by Portugal’s João Pedro Rodrigues, behind “The Ornithologist” and “Will-o’-the-Wisp.”
“While the film has unique tone and style, it joyfully reaches a wider audience thanks to its tenderness and emotional engagement,” they added, praising Louis-Seize’s “strong directorial vision.”
In the film, a young vampire has a problem: she is too sensitive to kill. When her parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha meets Paul, a teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers.
It’s produced by...
- 9/8/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Canadian director Ariane Louis-Seize’s comedy-drama Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person has scooped the Director’s Award at the Venice Film Festival parallel section Giornate degli Autori.
The coming-of-age tale revolves around a teenage vampire Sasha, who is too sensitive to kill. When her concerned parents decide to cut off her blood supply, her life is in peril.
Fortunately, she crosses paths with Paul, a desolate teenager with suicidal tendencies who willingly offers his life to save hers. However, what begins as a mutual agreement soon evolves into a nocturnal journey to fulfil Paul’s final desires before the break of day.
It was among 10 titles playing in the GdA competition this year.
The jury was composed of young European cinephiles from the 27 Times Cinema program, a joint initiative between the GdA, the European Parliament’s Lux Audience Award and Europa Cinemas.
It was presided over by Portuguese director...
The coming-of-age tale revolves around a teenage vampire Sasha, who is too sensitive to kill. When her concerned parents decide to cut off her blood supply, her life is in peril.
Fortunately, she crosses paths with Paul, a desolate teenager with suicidal tendencies who willingly offers his life to save hers. However, what begins as a mutual agreement soon evolves into a nocturnal journey to fulfil Paul’s final desires before the break of day.
It was among 10 titles playing in the GdA competition this year.
The jury was composed of young European cinephiles from the 27 Times Cinema program, a joint initiative between the GdA, the European Parliament’s Lux Audience Award and Europa Cinemas.
It was presided over by Portuguese director...
- 9/8/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
“Freedom is the essence of life,” children in a Cuban classroom are told. The concept is a wide one that stretches far beyond the birds we’ll see flapping in a small cage on a balcony and one which echoes in many forms through Tommaso Santambrogio’s feature debut. Although this is lightly fictionalised, there appears to be a strong documentary underpinning to this measured and melancholic monochrome portrait of the country as observed through the lives of three generations of Cubanos living in San Antonio De Los Baños, with his actors all playing versions of themselves.
The oldest is Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martínez), whose husband lost his life as a “freedom fighter” in Angola. We hear his thoughts in letters she still reads in between tidying her house and selling cones of peanuts at the local theatre. Freedom, meanwhile, is a difficult subject for puppeteer Edith (Edith Ybarra Clara) and her actor.
The oldest is Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martínez), whose husband lost his life as a “freedom fighter” in Angola. We hear his thoughts in letters she still reads in between tidying her house and selling cones of peanuts at the local theatre. Freedom, meanwhile, is a difficult subject for puppeteer Edith (Edith Ybarra Clara) and her actor.
- 8/30/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori (GdA), running alongside the main festival from August 30 to September 9, celebrates its 20th edition this year.
Partly modeled on Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, GdA (which is still often referred to by its initial name of Venice Days in English) was launched in 2004 as an alternative space for independent filmmakers to the star-studded, red-carpet focus of the main festival.
The compact 12-title inaugural edition featured Hubert Sauper’s feature-doc Darwin’s Nightmare, which was later nominated for an Oscar; This Is England director-writer Shaun Meadows’ fifth feature Dead Man’s Shoes and John Lvoff’s drama Now And Then, featuring Julie Depardieu in her first starring role.
Over the past 19 years, the event has expanded to include also special screenings, tributes and talks.
This year’s 10-title Competition line-up includes quirky Canadian teen vampire tale Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person; Moroccan road movie Backstage, Spanish adoption drama Foremost By Night,...
Partly modeled on Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, GdA (which is still often referred to by its initial name of Venice Days in English) was launched in 2004 as an alternative space for independent filmmakers to the star-studded, red-carpet focus of the main festival.
The compact 12-title inaugural edition featured Hubert Sauper’s feature-doc Darwin’s Nightmare, which was later nominated for an Oscar; This Is England director-writer Shaun Meadows’ fifth feature Dead Man’s Shoes and John Lvoff’s drama Now And Then, featuring Julie Depardieu in her first starring role.
Over the past 19 years, the event has expanded to include also special screenings, tributes and talks.
This year’s 10-title Competition line-up includes quirky Canadian teen vampire tale Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person; Moroccan road movie Backstage, Spanish adoption drama Foremost By Night,...
- 8/29/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Italy’s Fandango Sales will launch international distribution at the Venice Film Festival on Tommaso Santambrogio’s “Oceans Are the Real Continents,” set and shot in a run-down contemporary Cuba. The film opens the festival’s independently run Venice Days section. Variety is debuting the trailer exclusively.
The timely drama shot in black-and-white is Santambrogio’s first feature but expands from the director’s well-received short by the same title about a Cuban couple in their 30s and the daily gestures of their love story.
“The first time I went to Cuba, I was eight years old. As I approached customs, I remember witnessing a desperate and endless embrace – with deep sobs and tears – between a father and his daughter who evidently had found a way to leave the island and would never come back,” Santambrogio, who is Italian, said in his director’s statement.
“It was a farewell, a separation,...
The timely drama shot in black-and-white is Santambrogio’s first feature but expands from the director’s well-received short by the same title about a Cuban couple in their 30s and the daily gestures of their love story.
“The first time I went to Cuba, I was eight years old. As I approached customs, I remember witnessing a desperate and endless embrace – with deep sobs and tears – between a father and his daughter who evidently had found a way to leave the island and would never come back,” Santambrogio, who is Italian, said in his director’s statement.
“It was a farewell, a separation,...
- 8/29/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
La BêteCOMPETITIONComandante (Edoardo De Angelis)The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel)Dogman (Luc Besson) La Bête (Bertrand Bonello) Hors-Saison (Stéphane Brizé) Enea (Pietro Castellitto) Maestro (Bradley Cooper)Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)Finalmente L’Alba (Saverio Costanzo)Lubo (Giorgio Diritti) Origin (Ava DuVernay) The Killer (David Fincher)Memory (Michel Franco)Io capitano (Matteo Garrone)Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)The Theory of Everything (Timm Kröger)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)El conde (Pablo Larrain)Ferrari (Michael Mann)Adagio (Stefano Sollima)Woman OfHolly (Fien Troch)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionSociety of the Snow (J.A. Bayona)Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)The Penitent (Luca Barbareschi)L’Ordine Del Tempo (Liliana Cavani)Vivants (Alix Delaporte)Welcome to Paradise (Leonardo di Constanzo)Daaaaaali! (Quentin Dupieux)The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (William Friedkin)Making of (Cedric Kahn)Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)Hitman (Richard Linklater)The Palace (Roman Polanski...
- 7/29/2023
- MUBI
Isabelle Huppert Drama, Peter Sarsgaard Spanish Flu Satire, Celine Sciamma Short Set for Venice Days
The Giornate Degli Autori — the independently run event that takes place alongside the Venice Film Festival and is often referred to simply as Venice Days — has unveiled the lineup for its 2023 edition (also it’s 20th).
Among the 10 titles world premiering in competition is Elise Girard’s drama Sidonie in Japan, starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour. Out of competition, Coup! — a satire set during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and starring Peter Sarsgaard and Billy Magnussen — will bow, while special events include the world premiere of This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet, a short from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma (who was previously president of the Venice Days jury). There will also be a special daylong event in honor of late Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, including a screening of his 2005 drama C.R.A.Z.Y.
Venice...
Among the 10 titles world premiering in competition is Elise Girard’s drama Sidonie in Japan, starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour. Out of competition, Coup! — a satire set during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and starring Peter Sarsgaard and Billy Magnussen — will bow, while special events include the world premiere of This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet, a short from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma (who was previously president of the Venice Days jury). There will also be a special daylong event in honor of late Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, including a screening of his 2005 drama C.R.A.Z.Y.
Venice...
- 7/27/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori (GdA) has unveiled the selection for its 20th edition running from August 30 to September 9, featuring a surprise short by Céline Sciamma, a new feature by Teona Strugar Mitevska as well as a tribute to late Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée.
The line-up spans 10 films in competition, seven special events, eight titles in Venetian Nights as well as a special day-long event devoted Vallée and the cinema of Québec, featuring a screening of his 2005 coming of age drama C.R.A.Z.Y.
Highlights of the competition include Canadian filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize’s quirky vampire tale Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person; Atlas Mountains-set ensemble theatre group road movie Backstage by directorial debut Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane; Through The Night, in which Belgian director Delphine Girard expands her Oscar-nominated short A Sister, and Sidonie In Paris, starring Isabelle Huppert as a writer mourning the...
The line-up spans 10 films in competition, seven special events, eight titles in Venetian Nights as well as a special day-long event devoted Vallée and the cinema of Québec, featuring a screening of his 2005 coming of age drama C.R.A.Z.Y.
Highlights of the competition include Canadian filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize’s quirky vampire tale Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person; Atlas Mountains-set ensemble theatre group road movie Backstage by directorial debut Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane; Through The Night, in which Belgian director Delphine Girard expands her Oscar-nominated short A Sister, and Sidonie In Paris, starring Isabelle Huppert as a writer mourning the...
- 7/27/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
French director Élise Girard’s “Sidonie in Japan,” starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour of Japan, is among titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori.
The section, also known as Venice Days, has unveiled its lineup comprising 10 titles world premiering in competition – six of which are first works – and in other sections displaying a wide range of genres and visual styles, but tied together by “a common discourse,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer.
The selected films “with all their thematic or formal eclecticism, still dialogue with each other,” Furrer said in a statement.
Opening the section in competition is Italian director Tommaso Santambrogio’s black-and-white drama “Oceans Are the Real Continents,” set and shot in decadent contemporary Cuba (see image below). This is Santambrogio’s first feature, but...
The section, also known as Venice Days, has unveiled its lineup comprising 10 titles world premiering in competition – six of which are first works – and in other sections displaying a wide range of genres and visual styles, but tied together by “a common discourse,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer.
The selected films “with all their thematic or formal eclecticism, still dialogue with each other,” Furrer said in a statement.
Opening the section in competition is Italian director Tommaso Santambrogio’s black-and-white drama “Oceans Are the Real Continents,” set and shot in decadent contemporary Cuba (see image below). This is Santambrogio’s first feature, but...
- 7/27/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Lights On, the Turin-based world sales company, has made a double swoop on Locarno titles, taking international sales rights to Lucy Kerr’s “Family Portrait” and “Dreaming & Dying” (“Hao Jiu Bu Jian”), written and directed by Singapore’s Nelson Yeo.
Both play in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presenti Sierra, focused on new talent. Locarno’s 2023 lineup was announced July 5.
‘Family Portrait’
The first feature from Kerr, a Texas-born filmmaker and video and installation artist, “Family Portrait” turns on a sprawling Texas family that gets together on a morning to take a group picture.
The mother disappears; the rest of the family seem reluctant to take the photos; one of the daughters, Katy, sets off to find her. Doing so, the synopsis says, she loses herself and her family.
Written by Kerr, “Family Portrait’s” key cast includes Deragh Campbell, Chris Galust “Give Me Liberty”), Rachel Alig (“Girl Next”) and Katie Folger (“Day 5”). Insufficient Funds,...
Both play in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presenti Sierra, focused on new talent. Locarno’s 2023 lineup was announced July 5.
‘Family Portrait’
The first feature from Kerr, a Texas-born filmmaker and video and installation artist, “Family Portrait” turns on a sprawling Texas family that gets together on a morning to take a group picture.
The mother disappears; the rest of the family seem reluctant to take the photos; one of the daughters, Katy, sets off to find her. Doing so, the synopsis says, she loses herself and her family.
Written by Kerr, “Family Portrait’s” key cast includes Deragh Campbell, Chris Galust “Give Me Liberty”), Rachel Alig (“Girl Next”) and Katie Folger (“Day 5”). Insufficient Funds,...
- 7/5/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel is guest of honour at Swiss non-fiction festival
Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has revealed the line-up for its 54th edition which opens with Juliette de Marcillac’s Nightwatchers and runs April 21-30.
The festival has programmed 163 films – including 82 world premieres.
Nightwatchers is part of the previously announced Grand Angle competition. Filmed at high-end ski resort Montgenèvre on the French-Italian border, it tells the story of volunteers trying to help migrants, and the authorities trying to catch them.
VdR’s flagship international competition has 14 competing films, including 12 world premieres and two international premieres.
Swiss...
Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has revealed the line-up for its 54th edition which opens with Juliette de Marcillac’s Nightwatchers and runs April 21-30.
The festival has programmed 163 films – including 82 world premieres.
Nightwatchers is part of the previously announced Grand Angle competition. Filmed at high-end ski resort Montgenèvre on the French-Italian border, it tells the story of volunteers trying to help migrants, and the authorities trying to catch them.
VdR’s flagship international competition has 14 competing films, including 12 world premieres and two international premieres.
Swiss...
- 3/28/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
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