The hype out of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, for those far-flung and on the ground, tells one story: This was among the weaker lineups in recent memory.
Sure, huge stories broke out of the festival, from Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution push for his self-funded, decades-in-the-making passion project “Megalopolis” to Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fleeing his home country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, finally making it to Cannes with his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” This journey inspired the jury to award him and his film a Special Prize (Prix Spécial).
Elsewhere in the official selection, Un Certain Regard already handed out its prizes on Friday from a jury led by Xavier Dolan and including Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy. Among the top winners were Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”) and Rungano Nyoni (“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”) tying for Best Director,...
Sure, huge stories broke out of the festival, from Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution push for his self-funded, decades-in-the-making passion project “Megalopolis” to Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fleeing his home country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, finally making it to Cannes with his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” This journey inspired the jury to award him and his film a Special Prize (Prix Spécial).
Elsewhere in the official selection, Un Certain Regard already handed out its prizes on Friday from a jury led by Xavier Dolan and including Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy. Among the top winners were Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”) and Rungano Nyoni (“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”) tying for Best Director,...
- 5/25/2024
- by Harrison Richlin
- Indiewire
It’s been a solid three decades since Shaji N Karun’s Swaham competed for Palme in 1994, making this a significant moment for Indian auteur cinema. Yet, it’s an even more monumental occasion for Payal Kapadia, transitioning from docum cinema to narrative fiction on the highest platform. She debuted on the Croisette in the Directors’ Fortnight section with her dreamy B&w feature film A Night Of Knowing Nothing which actually won the l’Oeil d’Or for Best Docu in Cannes and her association with the fest does not stop there: she presented her short Afternoon Clouds prior to that in 2017. Workshopped at the Oxbelly Writers & Directors Lab in 2020, All We Imagine as Light shot at two different junctures last year in January and July.…...
- 5/25/2024
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
BFI Distribution has acquired Payal Kapadia’s acclaimed Cannes Competition title All We Imagine As Light for UK and Ireland theatrical release.
The first Indian film to be selected in Official Competition at Cannes in three decades, All We Imagine As Light was strongly received at its premiere last night and currently sits in joint first place on Screen’s closely-watched Cannes jury grid.
The film centres on two nurses with troubled relationships in Mumbai who go on a road trip to a beach town — a welcome refuge that gives them the space to grow. It stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha,...
The first Indian film to be selected in Official Competition at Cannes in three decades, All We Imagine As Light was strongly received at its premiere last night and currently sits in joint first place on Screen’s closely-watched Cannes jury grid.
The film centres on two nurses with troubled relationships in Mumbai who go on a road trip to a beach town — a welcome refuge that gives them the space to grow. It stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha,...
- 5/24/2024
- ScreenDaily
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light landed a hearty eight minute standing ovation following its debut this evening at the Cannes Film Festival.
The pic, which screened in the late night competition slot this evening in Cannes, is Kapadia’s debut fiction feature. The pic also made history this evening. Kapadia is the first female Indian filmmaker to screen a movie in the Cannes competition. At the same time, her film is the first Indian production in competition in three decades.
Shot over 25 late summer days in Mumbai, followed by an extra 15 in the rainy western port town of Ratnagiri, the Malayalam-Hindi language feature tells the story of two young women — Prabha, a nurse from Mumbai, and Anu, her roommate. The story opens as Prabha’s daily routine is broken when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Meanwhile, Anu tries in vain to find a...
The pic, which screened in the late night competition slot this evening in Cannes, is Kapadia’s debut fiction feature. The pic also made history this evening. Kapadia is the first female Indian filmmaker to screen a movie in the Cannes competition. At the same time, her film is the first Indian production in competition in three decades.
Shot over 25 late summer days in Mumbai, followed by an extra 15 in the rainy western port town of Ratnagiri, the Malayalam-Hindi language feature tells the story of two young women — Prabha, a nurse from Mumbai, and Anu, her roommate. The story opens as Prabha’s daily routine is broken when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Meanwhile, Anu tries in vain to find a...
- 5/23/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
There is a moment early on in Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” — her second feature after 2021’s lyrical hybrid doc “A Night of Knowing Nothing” — that exemplifies this gently coruscating movie’s peculiar beauty. Prabha (Kani Kusruti) a hardworking nurse with tired eyes rides the commuter train home at the end of another long day, gazing out at the glimmering blur of the city. Her life is anything but a fairground and yet, clinging to a pole to steady herself with the rushing night air stirring her hair, she could almost be riding a carousel. Just two features into her young career, Kapadia has established her rare talent for finding passages of exquisite poetry within the banal blank verse of everyday Indian life.
Prabha works in a slightly shabby local hospital, where she spends her days tending to even the most difficult cases with a conspiratorial compassion...
Prabha works in a slightly shabby local hospital, where she spends her days tending to even the most difficult cases with a conspiratorial compassion...
- 5/23/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
It’s been 30 years since a film from India has been selected in the main competition at Cannes, but that finally changed this year.
Recent editions of Sundance, Tribeca, and Toronto have included riveting and even Oscar-nominated documentaries and features. In fact, Mira Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding” won the Golden Lion at Venice more than two decades ago. Granted, Cannes has recently programmed South Asian gems in other sections, such as the Queer Palm-winning “Joyland” from Pakistan in Un Certain Regard in 2022, or Anurag Kashyap’s “Kennedy” in Midnight last year. But would the South Asian drought in the main competition ever end?
Many were ecstatic last month when “All We Imagine as Light”, Mumbai-based Payal Kapadia’s narrative directorial debut, was announced in the competition lineup alongside legendary Cannes regulars: European heavyweights such as Jacques Audiard and Yorgos Lanthimos, American auteurs David Cronenberg and Paul Schrader, and Asian visionary Jia Zhangke.
Recent editions of Sundance, Tribeca, and Toronto have included riveting and even Oscar-nominated documentaries and features. In fact, Mira Nair’s “Monsoon Wedding” won the Golden Lion at Venice more than two decades ago. Granted, Cannes has recently programmed South Asian gems in other sections, such as the Queer Palm-winning “Joyland” from Pakistan in Un Certain Regard in 2022, or Anurag Kashyap’s “Kennedy” in Midnight last year. But would the South Asian drought in the main competition ever end?
Many were ecstatic last month when “All We Imagine as Light”, Mumbai-based Payal Kapadia’s narrative directorial debut, was announced in the competition lineup alongside legendary Cannes regulars: European heavyweights such as Jacques Audiard and Yorgos Lanthimos, American auteurs David Cronenberg and Paul Schrader, and Asian visionary Jia Zhangke.
- 5/23/2024
- by Ritesh Mehta
- Indiewire
Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” is the first Indian film in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), Kapadia’s “Afternoon Clouds” was a 2017 Cannes Cinefondation selection and she won the festival’s Golden Eye award in 2021 for her documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing.”
Fiction feature “All We Imagine as Light” follows two nurses (Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha) from Kerala, southern India, who are roommates in Mumbai. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.
What made you want to tell this particular story?
I was interested in women who come to a different place to work, and be financially independent. And it was something that I had seen growing up in a family of a lot of women, and also the ideas that we have,...
Fiction feature “All We Imagine as Light” follows two nurses (Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha) from Kerala, southern India, who are roommates in Mumbai. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.
What made you want to tell this particular story?
I was interested in women who come to a different place to work, and be financially independent. And it was something that I had seen growing up in a family of a lot of women, and also the ideas that we have,...
- 5/22/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light , the first Indian film to play in Cannes competition in 30 years, has lit up the market with sales to a slew of territories.
Paris-based sales house Luxbox has sold the film ahead of its Thursday (May 23) Cannes premiere to Atalante in Spain, Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Lev Cinemas in Israel, Krisco Media for Mena, DDDReam in China, Lighthouse in Singapore, Gutek Film in Poland, Cinobo in Greece, Green Narae Media in South Korea, Trigon-Film in Switzerland, Kino Pavasaris for the Baltics, and McF Megacom for former Yugoslavia.
Set and shot in Mumbai,...
Paris-based sales house Luxbox has sold the film ahead of its Thursday (May 23) Cannes premiere to Atalante in Spain, Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Lev Cinemas in Israel, Krisco Media for Mena, DDDReam in China, Lighthouse in Singapore, Gutek Film in Poland, Cinobo in Greece, Green Narae Media in South Korea, Trigon-Film in Switzerland, Kino Pavasaris for the Baltics, and McF Megacom for former Yugoslavia.
Set and shot in Mumbai,...
- 5/21/2024
- ScreenDaily
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light , the first Indian film to play in Cannes competition in 30 years, has lit up the market with sales to a slew of territories.
Paris-based sales house Luxbox has sold the film ahead of its Thursday (May 23) Cannes premiere to Atalante in Spain, Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Lev Cinemas in Israel, DDDReam in China, Lighthouse in Singapore, Gutek Film in Poland, Cinobo in Greece, Green Narae Media in South Korea, Trigon-Film in Switzerland, Kino Pavasaris for the Baltics, and McF Megacom for former Yugoslavia.
Set and shot in Mumbai, All We Imagine As Light...
Paris-based sales house Luxbox has sold the film ahead of its Thursday (May 23) Cannes premiere to Atalante in Spain, Leopardo Filmes in Portugal, Lev Cinemas in Israel, DDDReam in China, Lighthouse in Singapore, Gutek Film in Poland, Cinobo in Greece, Green Narae Media in South Korea, Trigon-Film in Switzerland, Kino Pavasaris for the Baltics, and McF Megacom for former Yugoslavia.
Set and shot in Mumbai, All We Imagine As Light...
- 5/21/2024
- ScreenDaily
Sideshow and Janus films (“Drive My Car”) have acquired all North American rights to Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” the first Indian film to screen in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years. The movie will world premiere on Thursday, May 23.
It’s also one of only four films in the Competition directed by a woman. Kapadia previously helmed the documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” which premiered at Directors’ Fortnight and won the L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary in 2021.
“All We Imagine as Light” stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon and Azees Nedumangad. Sideshow and Janus Films are planning a theatrical release.
In the last three years, Sideshow — along with its partner Janus Films — have had an impressive track record with their Cannes acquisitions, starting with Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” which went on to become the most...
It’s also one of only four films in the Competition directed by a woman. Kapadia previously helmed the documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” which premiered at Directors’ Fortnight and won the L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary in 2021.
“All We Imagine as Light” stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon and Azees Nedumangad. Sideshow and Janus Films are planning a theatrical release.
In the last three years, Sideshow — along with its partner Janus Films — have had an impressive track record with their Cannes acquisitions, starting with Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” which went on to become the most...
- 5/20/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The first iteration of the Cannes Film Festival, planned for 1939, was scuppered when Germany invaded Poland to trigger the start of World War II. But when the festival finally got off the ground in 1946, Indian cinema came out swinging. Mounted shortly after the conclusion of the war, the first “real” Cannes Film Festival featured competition entries from Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend), Roberto Rossellini (Open City), and David Lean (Brief Encounter). In the spirit of post-war peace and reconciliation, the competition jury, headed by French historian Georges Huisman, handed the top prize — then the Grand Prix — to films from 11 of the 18 countries represented that year.
This included India, with Chetan Anand’s social-realist drama Neecha Nagar, and, for a decade at least, the country was a regular fixture in Competition. After Anand came V. Shantaram with Amar Bhoopali (1952), then Raj Kapoor with Awaara (1953), and Bimal Roy with Do Bigha Zamin...
This included India, with Chetan Anand’s social-realist drama Neecha Nagar, and, for a decade at least, the country was a regular fixture in Competition. After Anand came V. Shantaram with Amar Bhoopali (1952), then Raj Kapoor with Awaara (1953), and Bimal Roy with Do Bigha Zamin...
- 5/18/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
(Photo Credit – IMDb)
The most prestigious film festival in the world has officially commenced at the French Riviera with 2024 being a significant year for Indian cinema. Seven Indian films have been chosen to be screened at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, with Payal Kapadia-directorial leading the line.
The Malayalam film “All We Imagine as Light” broke the jinx as it became the first Indian cinema in three decades to compete at the festival’s main segment, Palme d’Or. Shaji N. Karun’s 1994 film “Swaham” was the last film to compete in this category.
Though not the Palme d’Or, several other Indian productions have won big in these 30 years and brought glory to the Indian cinema.
Trending House Of The Dragon Season 2 Trailer Review: The Dance Of The Dragons Begins With Bloodbath, Desperation, Greed & A Final Play For The Iron Throne The Garfield Movie Review: The Adventures Of...
The most prestigious film festival in the world has officially commenced at the French Riviera with 2024 being a significant year for Indian cinema. Seven Indian films have been chosen to be screened at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, with Payal Kapadia-directorial leading the line.
The Malayalam film “All We Imagine as Light” broke the jinx as it became the first Indian cinema in three decades to compete at the festival’s main segment, Palme d’Or. Shaji N. Karun’s 1994 film “Swaham” was the last film to compete in this category.
Though not the Palme d’Or, several other Indian productions have won big in these 30 years and brought glory to the Indian cinema.
Trending House Of The Dragon Season 2 Trailer Review: The Dance Of The Dragons Begins With Bloodbath, Desperation, Greed & A Final Play For The Iron Throne The Garfield Movie Review: The Adventures Of...
- 5/17/2024
- by Koimoi.com Team
- KoiMoi
The 2024 Cannes Film Festival may be lighter on glitz and glamour than in years past, but that means arthouse and international fare from emerging and established filmmakers will get a chance to shine. Still, at least two American auteurs, Francis Ford Coppola (“Megalopolis”) and Paul Schrader, have films in the main competition for the first time in decades. David Cronenberg (“The Shrouds”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“Kinds of Kindness”) are also back at the festival, with both making personal stories in their own way: Cronenberg, here, reckons with grief over the death of his wife seven years ago, while Lanthimos appears to retreat back into “Dogtooth” territory in a film that’s almost a rebuke of the global success he’s acquired with “Poor Things” and “The Favourite.”
Sean Baker, Andrea Arnold, Ali Abbasi, Jia Zhangke, Karim Aïnouz, and Paolo Sorrentino are also back at Cannes this year with new films in the competition.
Sean Baker, Andrea Arnold, Ali Abbasi, Jia Zhangke, Karim Aïnouz, and Paolo Sorrentino are also back at Cannes this year with new films in the competition.
- 5/14/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio, David Ehrlich and Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
It’s the most exciting time of the year for a cinephile: the Cannes Film Festival is set to kick off next week, running May 14-25. Ahead of festivities we’ve rounded up what we’re most looking forward to, and while we’re sure many surprises await, per every year, one will find 20 films that should be on your radar. Check out our picks below and be sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest updates from the festival.
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
After one film, Payal Kapadia is a name you should know––a fresh, intrepid voice in cinema. And in the wake of student protests turning the world upside-down, she’s an essential up-and-comer. Her lone feature to date, 2021’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, is an experimental immersion into India’s own student revolutions––a brutal awakening into the shockingly violent...
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
After one film, Payal Kapadia is a name you should know––a fresh, intrepid voice in cinema. And in the wake of student protests turning the world upside-down, she’s an essential up-and-comer. Her lone feature to date, 2021’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, is an experimental immersion into India’s own student revolutions––a brutal awakening into the shockingly violent...
- 5/9/2024
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
After helming one of the great directorial debuts of the decade thus far with 2021’s A Night of Knowing Nothing, director Payal Kapadia is stepping up in a big way for her follow-up. All We Imagine as Light will premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the first Indian film to do so in decades, and now the first trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis for the film starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, and Hridhu Haroon: “In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.”
See the trailer below via Screen Daily.
The post First Trailer for Payal Kapadia...
Here’s the synopsis for the film starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, and Hridhu Haroon: “In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.”
See the trailer below via Screen Daily.
The post First Trailer for Payal Kapadia...
- 5/8/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The lineup for the 77th Cannes Film Festival has officially been unveiled. As of right now, 19 films will be competing for the prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or. The festival will be running from May 14 through the closing ceremony on May 25 in the small town on the French Riviera. This year’s jury will be led by Greta Gerwig, fresh off of her success writing and directing “Barbie,” which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The remaining members of the jury have yet to be announced.
Having an idea of a filmmaker’s history at the festival can sometimes help give us an insight as to who could be in the best position to take home the Palme. For example, two of this year’s entries come from filmmakers who have previously claimed the Palme. Another five are from directors who have won prizes in official...
Having an idea of a filmmaker’s history at the festival can sometimes help give us an insight as to who could be in the best position to take home the Palme. For example, two of this year’s entries come from filmmakers who have previously claimed the Palme. Another five are from directors who have won prizes in official...
- 4/18/2024
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
Yidff 2023 presented a total of 130 films across 11 categories. In the two competition sections, International Competition and New Asian Currents, there were 2,134 entries from 120 countries and regions, out of which 15 films were selected for the International Competition and 19 films for New Asian Currents, in a total of 34 films.
The opening film following the opening ceremony was the Asian premiere of Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, directed by Sora Neo, which captured the last solo concert of the musician who passed away in March 2023. Screenings were packed, with many sold out not only for the popular competition films, but also for screenings of the Special Programs, a particularly renowned feature of Yidff. The first large-scale retrospective of Noda Shinkichi in Japan was a great success, with full house every day, attracting many film fans. As Yamagata is the first Japanese city to join the Unesco Creative Cities Network in the field of film,...
The opening film following the opening ceremony was the Asian premiere of Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, directed by Sora Neo, which captured the last solo concert of the musician who passed away in March 2023. Screenings were packed, with many sold out not only for the popular competition films, but also for screenings of the Special Programs, a particularly renowned feature of Yidff. The first large-scale retrospective of Noda Shinkichi in Japan was a great success, with full house every day, attracting many film fans. As Yamagata is the first Japanese city to join the Unesco Creative Cities Network in the field of film,...
- 10/17/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The projects, all feature debuts aside from one, will receive €60,000 to support either their production or their post-production.
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected four projects for its first-ever Hbf+ Europe: Post-production Scheme, alongside eight projects for minority co-production support.
Scroll down for full list of projects
The projects, all feature debuts aside from one, will receive €60,000 to support either their production or their post-production. Hbf+Europe supports projects from filmmakers based in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, and encourages European co-production of said projects.
Among the...
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected four projects for its first-ever Hbf+ Europe: Post-production Scheme, alongside eight projects for minority co-production support.
Scroll down for full list of projects
The projects, all feature debuts aside from one, will receive €60,000 to support either their production or their post-production. Hbf+Europe supports projects from filmmakers based in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, and encourages European co-production of said projects.
Among the...
- 7/11/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
A project we’ve earmarked for a possible Cannes Film Festival showcase next year, Payal Kapadia‘s fiction debut is set to move into production shortly. Le film français reports that All We Imagine As Light which landed Gan Fondation grants and was part of the Oxbelly Writers & Directors Lab in 2020 will be produced by Petit Chaos’ Thomas Hakim and Julien Graff. We don’t have any leads on the casting of the film – but figure this will be unveiled much later down the line. We already put this among our most anticipated films for 2024. Kapadia broke out big in 2021 in the Quinzaine section for the magical A Night Of Knowing Nothing (was the winner of the L’Œil d’or award – Cannes’ Best Docu film).…...
- 6/8/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
All That Breathes.When Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh decided to mount an Oscar campaign in October 2021 for their film Writing with Fire, they were attempting a historic first. Until then, no Indian documentary feature had ever been on the radar for the Academy Awards. The general assumption has always been that India had only one category to gun for: Best International Feature Film. Every year since 1957, the Film Federation of India (Ffi), an apex body comprising Indian film producers, exhibitors, distributors, and studio owners, has appointed a committee to select the country’s official submission from the year’s releases. These selections have often proved to be arbitrary decisions, rarely standing a chance at even making the shortlist, primarily due to a vague selection process that lacks credibility. In the last six decades, only three Indian submissions—Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay (1988), and Lagaan (2001)—actually ended up with a nomination.
- 4/10/2023
- MUBI
In its first full-on post-pandemic edition, Locarno roared back into action as an industry hub over Aug. 3-9, smashing attendance records with delegates at industry arm Locarno Pro soaring from 2019’s prior record of 1,040 to 1,300.
That reflects the year-round work of festival artistic director Giona Nazzaro and industry head Markus Duffner at Locarno Pro, building on foundations laid by Nadia Dresti over 2010-19. Sky rocketing attendance also says much about the state of the international film industry as it is is rocked by titanic sea change propelled by global, regional and local streaming platforms. Following, 10 takes on Locarno as its turns its final bend towards Aug. 13’s awards announcement.
Latest Deals
A score or more of new deals announced since Sunday in exclusivity to Variety:
*Germany’s Pluto Film has been in negotiations with several theatrical distributors on Locarno Piazza Grande title “Semret,” ahead of its world premiere on Aug.
That reflects the year-round work of festival artistic director Giona Nazzaro and industry head Markus Duffner at Locarno Pro, building on foundations laid by Nadia Dresti over 2010-19. Sky rocketing attendance also says much about the state of the international film industry as it is is rocked by titanic sea change propelled by global, regional and local streaming platforms. Following, 10 takes on Locarno as its turns its final bend towards Aug. 13’s awards announcement.
Latest Deals
A score or more of new deals announced since Sunday in exclusivity to Variety:
*Germany’s Pluto Film has been in negotiations with several theatrical distributors on Locarno Piazza Grande title “Semret,” ahead of its world premiere on Aug.
- 8/10/2022
- by John Hopewell, Marta Balaga and Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes Best Doc Laureate Payal Kapadia Next Racks Up Production Partners for Petit Chaos (Exclusive)
One year after she dazzled at the Cannes Festival, winning its Golden Eye for best documentary for “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” Payal Kapadia’s fiction debut “All We Imagine as Light,” has attracted the most potent production partner support of any project introduced at this year’s Locarno Match Me!
“Night’s” producers. Petit Chaos’ Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff in France and Ranabir Das (also Dp and editor on “Night”) at India’s Another Birth will produce “Light.”
Also on board, confirmed early July, is Oliver Pere at Arte France Cinéma. Further co-producers take in Zico Maitra and Aastha Singh, Frank Hoeve, Gilles Chanial.
A potential sign of a project positively courted by producers, the multilateral backing is hardly surprising. “All We Imagine as Light” is highly awaited after “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” a film in which “a palimpsest of dusky imagery, reflective narration and evocative score create...
“Night’s” producers. Petit Chaos’ Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff in France and Ranabir Das (also Dp and editor on “Night”) at India’s Another Birth will produce “Light.”
Also on board, confirmed early July, is Oliver Pere at Arte France Cinéma. Further co-producers take in Zico Maitra and Aastha Singh, Frank Hoeve, Gilles Chanial.
A potential sign of a project positively courted by producers, the multilateral backing is hardly surprising. “All We Imagine as Light” is highly awaited after “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” a film in which “a palimpsest of dusky imagery, reflective narration and evocative score create...
- 8/7/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Anyone wanting signs that film production is alive and kicking in some parts of the world – and not only the most obvious – need go no further than Locarno’s Match Me!
A networking event, expanded this year from 24 to 32 producers and fortified by the first-time presence of France, Match Me! focuses on emerging producers.
Featuring new projects from tracked auteurs – Lithuania’s Ignas Jonynas, India’s Payal Kapadia and Mexico’s Francisco Vargas – and winners at Cannes, San Sebastian and other major meets, many producers look only a title or two from full emergence.
If the fulsome slates of some producers are anything to go by – Dr’s Leticia Brea, Estonia’s Tallifornia and Kask Films, for instance – production is a going concern in countries outside traditional production centers..
Out of necessity or ambition, producers are scaling up, pushing ever more into genre and reaching out to production partners and talent from around the world.
A networking event, expanded this year from 24 to 32 producers and fortified by the first-time presence of France, Match Me! focuses on emerging producers.
Featuring new projects from tracked auteurs – Lithuania’s Ignas Jonynas, India’s Payal Kapadia and Mexico’s Francisco Vargas – and winners at Cannes, San Sebastian and other major meets, many producers look only a title or two from full emergence.
If the fulsome slates of some producers are anything to go by – Dr’s Leticia Brea, Estonia’s Tallifornia and Kask Films, for instance – production is a going concern in countries outside traditional production centers..
Out of necessity or ambition, producers are scaling up, pushing ever more into genre and reaching out to production partners and talent from around the world.
- 8/5/2022
- by John Hopewell and Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
There’s a new giant in town, or at least at Locarno’s Match Me!, one of the festival’s biggest industry initiatives.
For years, by a large head, France has had more titles at the Locarno Festival’s two biggest sections, the Piazza Grande showcase and main International Competition than any other country in the world. 2022 is no exception.
Unifrance also hosts the Festival’s biggest industry bash, a first Friday night sit-down dinner or party which used to take place at Locarno’s hillside Belvedere Hotel and has now moved to the near Maggiore Lake-side Blu Restaurant.
Now, however, Unifrance, Europe’s biggest national film-tv promotion board, has put its weight behind Match Me!, a networking initiative this year bringing together 32 emerging producers from over the world.
“It’s a perfect fit,” said Locarno Pro head Markus Duffner. Unifrance’s first-time presence at Match Me! also says much...
For years, by a large head, France has had more titles at the Locarno Festival’s two biggest sections, the Piazza Grande showcase and main International Competition than any other country in the world. 2022 is no exception.
Unifrance also hosts the Festival’s biggest industry bash, a first Friday night sit-down dinner or party which used to take place at Locarno’s hillside Belvedere Hotel and has now moved to the near Maggiore Lake-side Blu Restaurant.
Now, however, Unifrance, Europe’s biggest national film-tv promotion board, has put its weight behind Match Me!, a networking initiative this year bringing together 32 emerging producers from over the world.
“It’s a perfect fit,” said Locarno Pro head Markus Duffner. Unifrance’s first-time presence at Match Me! also says much...
- 8/5/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
India’s All That Breathes followed up its victory at the Sundance Film Festival by winning top documentary honors in Cannes.
The film directed by Shaunak Sen, which documents a pair of Muslim brothers in Delhi who devote countless hours to restore the health of ailing black kite birds, earned the L’Œil d’or (“Golden Eye”) award in a ceremony on Saturday.
“From their makeshift bird hospital in their tiny basement, the ‘kite brothers’ care for thousands of these mesmeric creatures that drop daily from New Delhi’s smog-choked skies,” notes a description of the documentary. “As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this Muslim family and the neglected kite forms a poetic chronicle of the city’s collapsing ecology and rising social tensions.”
The Golden Eye jury, headed by filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, saluted All That Breathes for reminding “us that every life matters, and every small action matters.
The film directed by Shaunak Sen, which documents a pair of Muslim brothers in Delhi who devote countless hours to restore the health of ailing black kite birds, earned the L’Œil d’or (“Golden Eye”) award in a ceremony on Saturday.
“From their makeshift bird hospital in their tiny basement, the ‘kite brothers’ care for thousands of these mesmeric creatures that drop daily from New Delhi’s smog-choked skies,” notes a description of the documentary. “As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this Muslim family and the neglected kite forms a poetic chronicle of the city’s collapsing ecology and rising social tensions.”
The Golden Eye jury, headed by filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, saluted All That Breathes for reminding “us that every life matters, and every small action matters.
- 5/29/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
The top Iefta (Intl. Film Talent Assn.) award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s documentary-focused industry sidebar Cannes Docs has gone to “Twice Colonized” by Lin Alluna.
The film was developed by the Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers.
The win marks a hat-trick for Circle since they started their partnership with Cannes Docs in 2020: previous Iefta Docs-in-Progress Award laureates at the industry event include “Beauty of the Beast” by Anna Nemes, produced by Circle 2018 alumna Ágnes Horváth-Szabó, and “Cent’anni” by Circle 2020 alumna Maja Prelog, produced by Rok Biček.
“Twice Colonized” tells the story of renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people. When her youngest son unexpectedly passes away, Aaju embarks on a personal journey to bring her colonizers in both Canada and Denmark to justice.
It is produced by Emile Hertling Péronard...
The film was developed by the Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers.
The win marks a hat-trick for Circle since they started their partnership with Cannes Docs in 2020: previous Iefta Docs-in-Progress Award laureates at the industry event include “Beauty of the Beast” by Anna Nemes, produced by Circle 2018 alumna Ágnes Horváth-Szabó, and “Cent’anni” by Circle 2020 alumna Maja Prelog, produced by Rok Biček.
“Twice Colonized” tells the story of renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people. When her youngest son unexpectedly passes away, Aaju embarks on a personal journey to bring her colonizers in both Canada and Denmark to justice.
It is produced by Emile Hertling Péronard...
- 5/25/2022
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
The cream of the current crop of young Indian documentary filmmakers were on fire during the annual Doc Day at the Cannes Film Market, discussing ways of expressing dissent within India’s current political dispensation.
Since 2014, India has been ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” is showing as a special screening at the festival and previously won the documentary grand jury prize at Sundance. It follows Delhi-based Muslim brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who, against the backdrop of the territory’s polluted atmosphere and escalating sectarian violence, devote their lives to saving the black kite bird species.
“I was absolutely certain that this film was not a snapshot of the current political moment; this film’s main interests were ecological and the human-bird relationship,” Sen said. “However, the last couple of years, especially in Delhi, have been chaotic, and it doesn...
Since 2014, India has been ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” is showing as a special screening at the festival and previously won the documentary grand jury prize at Sundance. It follows Delhi-based Muslim brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who, against the backdrop of the territory’s polluted atmosphere and escalating sectarian violence, devote their lives to saving the black kite bird species.
“I was absolutely certain that this film was not a snapshot of the current political moment; this film’s main interests were ecological and the human-bird relationship,” Sen said. “However, the last couple of years, especially in Delhi, have been chaotic, and it doesn...
- 5/24/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Juan Pablo González’s fiction feature debut Dos Estaciones, which won a special jury award for lead actor Teresa Sánchez’s performance when it premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
The drama follows 50-year-old businesswoman María García (Sánchez), who owns Dos Estaciones—a once-majestic tequila factory now struggling to stay afloat. The factory is the final hold-over from generations of Mexican-owned tequila plants in the highlands of Jalisco, the rest having folded into foreign corporations. Once one of the wealthiest people in town, María knows her current financial situation is untenable. When a persistent plague and an unexpected flood cause irreversible damage, she is forced to do everything she can to save her community’s primary economy and source of pride.
Dos Estaciones was also an official selection of the True/False Film Festival, where González was honored with the True Vision Award,...
The drama follows 50-year-old businesswoman María García (Sánchez), who owns Dos Estaciones—a once-majestic tequila factory now struggling to stay afloat. The factory is the final hold-over from generations of Mexican-owned tequila plants in the highlands of Jalisco, the rest having folded into foreign corporations. Once one of the wealthiest people in town, María knows her current financial situation is untenable. When a persistent plague and an unexpected flood cause irreversible damage, she is forced to do everything she can to save her community’s primary economy and source of pride.
Dos Estaciones was also an official selection of the True/False Film Festival, where González was honored with the True Vision Award,...
- 4/19/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Bodies sway to a beat we cannot hear. Instead a hushed, disembodied voice (Bhumisuta Das) murmurs over flickering black and white images that look soft to the touch, like a love letter turned velvety with repeated reading. A film is being projected behind the dancers. Sometimes one of them will strut into the beam and become, for a moment, a part of the screen. Other times little dramas — embraces or arguments — occur. But mostly there’s just mute, almost ghostly movement, silhouetted and shadowy: Only a few seconds into Payal Kapadia’s shimmery, poetic essay doc “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” it feels like we are a few hours deep into the excavation of someone else’s memories.
Kapadia’s film was shot during her time at the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), and it is unusually interested in mulling over the role that third-level institutions can play...
Kapadia’s film was shot during her time at the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), and it is unusually interested in mulling over the role that third-level institutions can play...
- 4/4/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Payal Kapadia’s award-winning film sees artistic creativity go hand in hand with the fight for political freedom in Modi’s India
Cinephilia is, not surprisingly, a favourite subject of film directors, and it has a tendency to manifest itself on screen in nostalgic contexts that teeter on uncritical wistfulness. Here, however, Payal Kapadia’s kaleidoscopic, Cannes prize-winning documentary unlatches cinephilia from its fetishistic shackles as it chronicles the wave of student protests that exploded under the nationalist rule of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi. Love for the moving image – and love for artistic creativity – marches hand in hand with the fight for political freedom.
Threaded together by fictitious letters between two film students who have ended their intercaste relationship, A Night of Knowing Nothing lends a melancholic intimacy to the 2015 student strike at Kapadia’s alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India, after Modi’s appointment...
Cinephilia is, not surprisingly, a favourite subject of film directors, and it has a tendency to manifest itself on screen in nostalgic contexts that teeter on uncritical wistfulness. Here, however, Payal Kapadia’s kaleidoscopic, Cannes prize-winning documentary unlatches cinephilia from its fetishistic shackles as it chronicles the wave of student protests that exploded under the nationalist rule of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi. Love for the moving image – and love for artistic creativity – marches hand in hand with the fight for political freedom.
Threaded together by fictitious letters between two film students who have ended their intercaste relationship, A Night of Knowing Nothing lends a melancholic intimacy to the 2015 student strike at Kapadia’s alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India, after Modi’s appointment...
- 3/28/2022
- by Phuong Le
- The Guardian - Film News
Last month we learned that the upcoming 2022 edition of Directors’ Fortnight (aka Quinzaine) taking place between May 18th to the 27th will be topper Paolo Moretti’s last mandate and shockingly, the Société des Réalisateurs de Films are currently rethinking the name of the section and their own mandate. Highlights from last year’s edition include A Night of Knowing Nothing, Hit the Road, A Chiara, the Camera d’Or winner Murina and The Souvenir Part II. We’re once again expecting a generous supply of European and French films, solid international title discoveries and a repeat focus on films from the United Kingdom.…...
- 3/14/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: The Temenos screening in Lyssarea, Greece.Registration for Temenos 2022, which will premiere a new section of avant-garde master Gregory Markopoulos's epic Eniaios, is now open. This very special event, which usually takes place every four years, will be taking place June 9-19 in Lyssarea, Greece. For more information on the Temenos screenings and the ongoing restoration of Eniaios, visit here.Hou Hsiao-hsien has announced two new projects: the long-gestating, Shu Qi-led film Shulan River, an adaptation of the Hsieh Hai-meng novel about a river goddess; and a yet unnamed project starring Chang Chen about "an elderly father and his son." Filmmaker, painter, writer, Nick Zedd has died. In addition to his darkly funny no-budget films like They Eat Scum (1979) and his zine Underground Film Bulletin, Zedd is coining the term "Cinema of...
- 3/2/2022
- MUBI
Mumbai Film Festival Considers Physical Screenings After Filmmakers’ Appeal to Priyanka Chopra Jonas
Updated: Filmmakers have a glimmer of hope after the Mumbai Film Festival said it would consider physical screenings, but did not make any promises.
“We feel the disappointment of the filmmakers,” a statement released by the festival board of trustees and team on Monday said. “We are working on a plan to manage a physical screening for films in our selection that do not screen in India in the near future. Whenever that is possible, we will get in touch and work with the filmmakers to make it happen.”
“But we do not, as we have said repeatedly, want to make promises we cannot keep. We have never requested any of our filmmakers to make choices in our favor or to hold back from whatever they feel is the best platform for their film and we do not want to do it now,” the statement added.
The statement also revealed...
“We feel the disappointment of the filmmakers,” a statement released by the festival board of trustees and team on Monday said. “We are working on a plan to manage a physical screening for films in our selection that do not screen in India in the near future. Whenever that is possible, we will get in touch and work with the filmmakers to make it happen.”
“But we do not, as we have said repeatedly, want to make promises we cannot keep. We have never requested any of our filmmakers to make choices in our favor or to hold back from whatever they feel is the best platform for their film and we do not want to do it now,” the statement added.
The statement also revealed...
- 2/28/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed Gajendra Chauhan, a B-list actor and member of the right-wing Bjp (Bharatiya Janata Party), as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India. Recognizing this as yet another Bjp maneuver to saffronize (rewrite with right-wing policies and Hindu-nationalist agendas) curriculums, students protested and struck. Police arrested and tortured such dissenters across national institutes; administrations hiked up entry exam fees and cut nonconforming students’ stipends. Persisting today, the Bjp’s violent acts of suppression especially affect students of the Dalit caste. But film students across campuses (including the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute) continue […]
The post “The Way Forward is the Only Exit”: Payal Kapadia on A Night of Knowing Nothing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Way Forward is the Only Exit”: Payal Kapadia on A Night of Knowing Nothing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/22/2022
- by Aaron Hunt
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed Gajendra Chauhan, a B-list actor and member of the right-wing Bjp (Bharatiya Janata Party), as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India. Recognizing this as yet another Bjp maneuver to saffronize (rewrite with right-wing policies and Hindu-nationalist agendas) curriculums, students protested and struck. Police arrested and tortured such dissenters across national institutes; administrations hiked up entry exam fees and cut nonconforming students’ stipends. Persisting today, the Bjp’s violent acts of suppression especially affect students of the Dalit caste. But film students across campuses (including the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute) continue […]
The post “The Way Forward is the Only Exit”: Payal Kapadia on A Night of Knowing Nothing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Way Forward is the Only Exit”: Payal Kapadia on A Night of Knowing Nothing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/22/2022
- by Aaron Hunt
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.
In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch...
In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch...
- 2/16/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
A Night of Knowing Nothing, the debut of Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia and winner of the Oeil d’or for Best Documentary at last year’s Cannes, cannily fuses two forms of knowing, or two ways of absorbing an important moment in one’s life: experiencing and its near-opposite, remembering. Through its slippery cinematic language and elusive point-of-view, Kapadia depicts a moment happening urgently in the film’s present-day strand––a wave of anti-government student protests and their resulting crackdown––and treats it like memory, which we know operates as anything but a direct mental recording device. Influential film scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum convincingly argues that a film can’t be both incoherent and political––at its best, A Night of Knowing Nothing offers a challenge to this wisdom.
Through the narrative device of disputable “recovered” letters, juxtaposed with reams of poetic visuals that offer counterpoint, rather than simple illustration of the text,...
Through the narrative device of disputable “recovered” letters, juxtaposed with reams of poetic visuals that offer counterpoint, rather than simple illustration of the text,...
- 2/9/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to Cane Fire, an award-winning documentary from director Anthony Banua-Simon, with plans to release it in theaters across the U.S., beginning with a New York theatrical premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 20.
The filmmaker’s deal with Cinema Guild also encompassed his short films Third Shift and Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story, which will be released on the educational market.
Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history with accounts of numerous Hollywood productions shot there, along with troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.
The film premiered at Hot Docs in 2020, subsequently going on to screen at the Indie Memphis Film Festival,...
The filmmaker’s deal with Cinema Guild also encompassed his short films Third Shift and Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story, which will be released on the educational market.
Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history with accounts of numerous Hollywood productions shot there, along with troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.
The film premiered at Hot Docs in 2020, subsequently going on to screen at the Indie Memphis Film Festival,...
- 2/7/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Iffmh) is for the first time taking place in cinemas across both cities, introducing new sections, and looking back at its rich history with a special retrospective.
“Being 70 in a way is a starting point for reflection,” says festival director Sascha Keilholz. “What was the festival like in the past? What is it now? Where do we want to go in the future? The festival is in a transformational process that we started last year and was actually quite successful.”
Indeed, after adopting a new brand image last year, the Iffmh won the 2021 German Brand Award for brand strategy and design.
After being forced online last year amid the pandemic, going back into theaters was one of this year’s main goals, Keilholz says. “This is more important than ever.”
In celebrating its return to cinemas as well...
“Being 70 in a way is a starting point for reflection,” says festival director Sascha Keilholz. “What was the festival like in the past? What is it now? Where do we want to go in the future? The festival is in a transformational process that we started last year and was actually quite successful.”
Indeed, after adopting a new brand image last year, the Iffmh won the 2021 German Brand Award for brand strategy and design.
After being forced online last year amid the pandemic, going back into theaters was one of this year’s main goals, Keilholz says. “This is more important than ever.”
In celebrating its return to cinemas as well...
- 11/9/2021
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Payal Kapadia’s “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” which won the Golden Eye award for best documentary at Cannes.
Kapadia’s debut film, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” world premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight. It also won the Amplify Voices Award at Toronto, as well as the Emerging Cinematic Vision Award at Camden fest; and also played at the New York Film Festival.
The documentary is set in contemporary India, at the local film and television institute, where a student writes love letters to her estranged lover. The doc also delivers a snapshot of the drastic changes taking place within the school and across the country as young people take the streets to protest against discrimination.
Represented in international markets by Square Eyes, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” mixes reality with fiction and includes archival footage of student protests to draw...
Kapadia’s debut film, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” world premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight. It also won the Amplify Voices Award at Toronto, as well as the Emerging Cinematic Vision Award at Camden fest; and also played at the New York Film Festival.
The documentary is set in contemporary India, at the local film and television institute, where a student writes love letters to her estranged lover. The doc also delivers a snapshot of the drastic changes taking place within the school and across the country as young people take the streets to protest against discrimination.
Represented in international markets by Square Eyes, “A Night of Knowing Nothing” mixes reality with fiction and includes archival footage of student protests to draw...
- 10/18/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
First Teaser For UAE-Shot Pierre Morel Action Pic
AGC International and Image Nation Abu Dhabi have unveiled a slick first teaser trailer for Al Kameen (The Ambush), about the rescue mission of a small group of Emirati soldiers trapped by rebel fighters in a mountainous valley. According to producers, the film is the largest Arabic-language film ever made in the Gulf, with 400 cast and crew including an all-Emirati lead cast. Pic was shot entirely in the UAE and stars Marwan Abdulla Saleh, Khalifa Al Jassem and Mohammed Ahmed. The film was co-produced by AGC Studios and Image Nation Abu Dhabi and directed by Pierre Morel (Taken), with producers Derek Dauchy and Jennifer Roth (Black Swan). Pic was written by Brandon Birtell (Furious 7) and Kurtis Birtell (Medal of Honour) in consultation with the soldiers involved in the real-life 2018 ambush situation that inspired the plot. Image Nation...
AGC International and Image Nation Abu Dhabi have unveiled a slick first teaser trailer for Al Kameen (The Ambush), about the rescue mission of a small group of Emirati soldiers trapped by rebel fighters in a mountainous valley. According to producers, the film is the largest Arabic-language film ever made in the Gulf, with 400 cast and crew including an all-Emirati lead cast. Pic was shot entirely in the UAE and stars Marwan Abdulla Saleh, Khalifa Al Jassem and Mohammed Ahmed. The film was co-produced by AGC Studios and Image Nation Abu Dhabi and directed by Pierre Morel (Taken), with producers Derek Dauchy and Jennifer Roth (Black Swan). Pic was written by Brandon Birtell (Furious 7) and Kurtis Birtell (Medal of Honour) in consultation with the soldiers involved in the real-life 2018 ambush situation that inspired the plot. Image Nation...
- 10/13/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman, Max Goldbart and Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Nominations in the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa) were revealed today with nods for 38 films from 25 Asia Pacific countries and regions. Winners will be announced on Thursday, November 11, at the 14th Apsa Ceremony on the Australia Gold Coast. Nominations include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, which won the best screenplay award at Cannes, Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes Grand Prix winning, film A Hero, and the TIFF Platform award winning film Yuni directed by Kamila Andini.
Apsa celebrates cinema from over 70 countries, with an enhanced focus on content that reflects the region’s diversity.
Below is the full list of nominees.
Best Feature Film
A Hero (Ghahreman)
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
A Night of Knowing Nothing
Directed by Payal Kapadia
Drive My Car
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
The Pencil (Prostoy karandash)
Directed by Natalya Nazarova
There is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)
Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
Best Youth Feature...
Apsa celebrates cinema from over 70 countries, with an enhanced focus on content that reflects the region’s diversity.
Below is the full list of nominees.
Best Feature Film
A Hero (Ghahreman)
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
A Night of Knowing Nothing
Directed by Payal Kapadia
Drive My Car
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
The Pencil (Prostoy karandash)
Directed by Natalya Nazarova
There is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)
Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
Best Youth Feature...
- 10/13/2021
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
Essie Davis and Leah Purcell will battle it out in the best performance by an actress category at next month’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards, while Nitram lead Caleb Landry Jones and Australian/Afghan film When Pomegranates Howl are also among the nominees.
Films from Japan and the Islamic Republic of Iran lead the field for this year’s awards with six nominations each. Two films, both winners at Cannes this year, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero (Ghahreman), have garnered the most nominations, with both films up for the same four categories – Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Best Screenplay and Best Performance by an Actor.
Purcell gets the nod for The Drovers Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, for which she was also director and writer, with Davis recognised for her role in Gaysorn Thavat’s debut feature The Justice of Bunny King.
Films from Japan and the Islamic Republic of Iran lead the field for this year’s awards with six nominations each. Two films, both winners at Cannes this year, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero (Ghahreman), have garnered the most nominations, with both films up for the same four categories – Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Best Screenplay and Best Performance by an Actor.
Purcell gets the nod for The Drovers Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, for which she was also director and writer, with Davis recognised for her role in Gaysorn Thavat’s debut feature The Justice of Bunny King.
- 10/13/2021
- by Sean Slatter
- IF.com.au
Winners will be announced on November 11.
Cannes winners Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero lead the nominations at the Asia Pacific Screen Academy (Apsa) awards.
Drive My Car is Japan’s entry for the best international feature Oscar and the Cannes 2021 Competition best screenplay winner. It follows a theatre actor and director who is grappling with grief for his lost wife.
A Hero, which won the grand prix at Cannes, is a French-Iranian co-production which looks at what happens when an unlikely hero finds himself caught up in a social media storm.
Both...
Cannes winners Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero lead the nominations at the Asia Pacific Screen Academy (Apsa) awards.
Drive My Car is Japan’s entry for the best international feature Oscar and the Cannes 2021 Competition best screenplay winner. It follows a theatre actor and director who is grappling with grief for his lost wife.
A Hero, which won the grand prix at Cannes, is a French-Iranian co-production which looks at what happens when an unlikely hero finds himself caught up in a social media storm.
Both...
- 10/13/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Drive My Car” and Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero,” two films that debuted in Cannes, emerge as the strong favorites for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, after nominations were announced on Wednesday.
Both films are nominated for best film, best directing, best screenplay and best performance by an actor.
The best film category is rounded out by nominations for India-France co-production “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” directed by India’s Payal Kapadia; “The Pencil” from Russia’s Natalya Nazarova; and “There is No Evil,” an Iran-Czech-Germany co-production directed by Mohammad Rasoulof that won the Golden Bear in Berlin.
Organizers said that nominations had gone to 38 films from 25 Asia Pacific countries and regions. Films from Japan and Iran each collected seven nominations. And, after 14 years, a representative from Vietnam collected the country’s first Apsa nomination.
But the Apsa nominations represented a complete shut-out for both mainland China and Taiwan.
Both films are nominated for best film, best directing, best screenplay and best performance by an actor.
The best film category is rounded out by nominations for India-France co-production “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” directed by India’s Payal Kapadia; “The Pencil” from Russia’s Natalya Nazarova; and “There is No Evil,” an Iran-Czech-Germany co-production directed by Mohammad Rasoulof that won the Golden Bear in Berlin.
Organizers said that nominations had gone to 38 films from 25 Asia Pacific countries and regions. Films from Japan and Iran each collected seven nominations. And, after 14 years, a representative from Vietnam collected the country’s first Apsa nomination.
But the Apsa nominations represented a complete shut-out for both mainland China and Taiwan.
- 10/12/2021
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
As the New York Film Festival wrapped late last weekend, the bulk of the fall film festival season has now come to a close after a dizzying few weeks that saw Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and the more genre-leaning Fantastic Fest roll out in somewhat normal fashion. While some of this year’s festival lineups were understandably truncated and some of the buzziest titles arrived at events with distribution already in hand (as was the case with many of the biggest titles at Venice and NYFF), a number of hot titles are still looking for homes.
These films include some of IndieWire’s favorites from the past few weeks, including both new and established talents, exciting features for distributors looking for awards contenders or simply to get into biz with bright talents on the rise, and much more. Open up those pocketbooks, and take a chance on these standouts.
These films include some of IndieWire’s favorites from the past few weeks, including both new and established talents, exciting features for distributors looking for awards contenders or simply to get into biz with bright talents on the rise, and much more. Open up those pocketbooks, and take a chance on these standouts.
- 10/12/2021
- by Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The New Zealand International Film Festival had to cancel the Auckland leg of its multi-city exhibition series, but will continue in Wellington and Christchurch and other regional stops with a diverse lineup that includes an impressive Asian selection.
Wellington will screen a total of 164 feature films from 51 countries over 18 days (Nov. 4-21) across its eight venues. Christchurch will screen 95 features from 37 countries.
International highlights include Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Zhang Yimou’s “One Second,” and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Oscars contender Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?” Germany’s Oscar contender, Maria Schrader’s “I’m Your Man,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and “My Salinger Year” also screen. So too does Jane Campion’s U.S.-set, New Zealand-made “The Power of the Dog.” The middle of the festival includes Cannes Palme D’or winner “Titane” and Paulo Sorrentino’s Venice grand...
Wellington will screen a total of 164 feature films from 51 countries over 18 days (Nov. 4-21) across its eight venues. Christchurch will screen 95 features from 37 countries.
International highlights include Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Zhang Yimou’s “One Second,” and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Oscars contender Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?” Germany’s Oscar contender, Maria Schrader’s “I’m Your Man,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and “My Salinger Year” also screen. So too does Jane Campion’s U.S.-set, New Zealand-made “The Power of the Dog.” The middle of the festival includes Cannes Palme D’or winner “Titane” and Paulo Sorrentino’s Venice grand...
- 10/12/2021
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Memoria (2021)Distributor Neon has announced its release plans for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria: Playing only in theaters, Memoria will be “moving from city to city, theater to theater, week by week, playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time.”Tilda Swinton and George Mackay will be starring in the next film by Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence). Titled The End, the film has been described as a "a Golden Age musical about the last human family." Co-programmed by James Hansen & Eric Souther, Light Matter Festival is a new "moving-image art festival dedicated to experimental film and media arts." Taking place in Alfred, New York, the festival will be screening films by Simon Liu, Mary Helena Clark, Lynne Sachs, and more. Sylvester Stallone's...
- 10/6/2021
- MUBI
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) added 65 titles to its lineup Tuesday, unveiling the non-competitive program sections Best of Fests, Masters and Paradocs. The 34th edition of IDFA takes place from Nov. 17-28 in Amsterdam.
Best of Fests honors award winners, critics’ picks and audience favorites from the year’s festivals. The 46 strong selection includes India-set story about estranged lovers “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia, documentary award winner at Cannes, wildlife film “The Velvet Queen,” by debut director Marie Amiguet, “Users,” an exploration of humanity’s future by Natalia Almada, and “Taming the Garden,” the slow-cinema feature by Salomé Jashi.
These are joined by buzzy audience films such as Alison Klayman’s Alanis Morissette biopic “Jagged,” and Bing Liu and Joshua Altman’s “All These Sons,” from the filmmaking team behind “Minding the Gap.” The section also pays tribute to the surprise gems from the festival circuit,...
Best of Fests honors award winners, critics’ picks and audience favorites from the year’s festivals. The 46 strong selection includes India-set story about estranged lovers “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia, documentary award winner at Cannes, wildlife film “The Velvet Queen,” by debut director Marie Amiguet, “Users,” an exploration of humanity’s future by Natalia Almada, and “Taming the Garden,” the slow-cinema feature by Salomé Jashi.
These are joined by buzzy audience films such as Alison Klayman’s Alanis Morissette biopic “Jagged,” and Bing Liu and Joshua Altman’s “All These Sons,” from the filmmaking team behind “Minding the Gap.” The section also pays tribute to the surprise gems from the festival circuit,...
- 10/5/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
, Payal Kapadia’s feature debut “A Night of Knowing Nothing” is composed of archival footage, student chronicles of contemporary protests, and letters whispered aloud to an absent lover. Co-written by Kapadia and Himanshu Prajapati, its fictitious framing device — a box discovered in a room at the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), containing lost film reels and a diary written by a student known only as “L” — creates several floating layers of dramatic reality, which gently fall atop each other to create a vivid portrait of revolt and oppression, love and pain, and philosophical thought threatened by nationalist agenda.
The central thesis of this New York Film Festival Currents selection can be boiled down to a single question: What is the purpose of a university in modern India? However, its approach to this seemingly simple idea is boldly multifaceted, from its ghostly depiction of young love that blossoms in...
The central thesis of this New York Film Festival Currents selection can be boiled down to a single question: What is the purpose of a university in modern India? However, its approach to this seemingly simple idea is boldly multifaceted, from its ghostly depiction of young love that blossoms in...
- 10/4/2021
- by Siddhant Adlakha
- Indiewire
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