Academy Award-winning producer Daniel Dreifuss (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) has boarded “Red Men,” the latest feature from Mexico’s Hari Sama, best known for his lauded autobiographical pic “This is not Berlin,” which world premiered at Sundance in 2019.
Described as an “edgy and provocative coming-of-age story” about the life of Austrian expressionist painter Egon Schiele, “Red Men” hones in on Schiele’s role in reshaping European aesthetics through his intimate relationship with lover and muse, Dominik Van Osen.
Their bond inspired Schiele’s pioneering Expressionist style while also compelling the young artist to confront his sexually fluid identity amidst repressive laws banning homosexuality in turn-of-the-century Vienna. This romantic saga delves into the emotional complexities of two artistic companions turned lovers, which drove Egon’s artistic vision while he struggled to navigate society’s norms. Schiele, whose provocative art was known for its contorted body shapes and dramatic lines,...
Described as an “edgy and provocative coming-of-age story” about the life of Austrian expressionist painter Egon Schiele, “Red Men” hones in on Schiele’s role in reshaping European aesthetics through his intimate relationship with lover and muse, Dominik Van Osen.
Their bond inspired Schiele’s pioneering Expressionist style while also compelling the young artist to confront his sexually fluid identity amidst repressive laws banning homosexuality in turn-of-the-century Vienna. This romantic saga delves into the emotional complexities of two artistic companions turned lovers, which drove Egon’s artistic vision while he struggled to navigate society’s norms. Schiele, whose provocative art was known for its contorted body shapes and dramatic lines,...
- 3/12/2024
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
This week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris will kick off with the Tuesday night world premiere of Pascal Bonitzer’s “Auction” – a ripped-from-the-headlines ensemble drama set in the crosshairs of high art and high finance.
Produced by Sbs Productions and sold by Pyramide International, the art-world saga follows – among others – a hotshot auctioneer, his less-than-reliable assistant, and the working class bloke who sets the narrative in motion upon realizing that his erstwhile innocuous wall art bears the signature of Egon Schiele.
Writer-director Pascal Bonitzer originally thought to explore this world of high-verve auctioneers as a series, but keyed into the story’s singular, cinematic potential thanks to the real-life discovery of Schiele masterworks thought lost during World War II.
“I was fascinated by this collision of two worlds,” Bonitzer tells Variety. “On the one hand, these auctioneers need to play a game – they must seduce potential sellers, wresting artifacts from...
Produced by Sbs Productions and sold by Pyramide International, the art-world saga follows – among others – a hotshot auctioneer, his less-than-reliable assistant, and the working class bloke who sets the narrative in motion upon realizing that his erstwhile innocuous wall art bears the signature of Egon Schiele.
Writer-director Pascal Bonitzer originally thought to explore this world of high-verve auctioneers as a series, but keyed into the story’s singular, cinematic potential thanks to the real-life discovery of Schiele masterworks thought lost during World War II.
“I was fascinated by this collision of two worlds,” Bonitzer tells Variety. “On the one hand, these auctioneers need to play a game – they must seduce potential sellers, wresting artifacts from...
- 1/15/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Alex Lutz stars in Pascal Bontizer’s Auction slated to open the 26th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris next month Photo: UniFrance If it’s January in the world of le cinéma français it must be the Unifrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema which will open in Paris on 16 January with Pascal Bonitzer’s new film Auction (Le Tableau Volé) featuring a cast of Alex Lutz (whose Strangers By Night closed Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year).
The cast also features Léa Drucker, Louise Chevillotte and Nora Hamzawi. Lutz plays an auctioneer who is alerted to a rare canvas by Egon Schiele, found in Mulhouse, near the Swiss-German borders - but he becomes suspicious about its authenticity and decides to investigate further.
Pascal Bonitzer presents his ninth feature as a director at the Uni-France Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris Photo: UniFrance Bonitzer...
The cast also features Léa Drucker, Louise Chevillotte and Nora Hamzawi. Lutz plays an auctioneer who is alerted to a rare canvas by Egon Schiele, found in Mulhouse, near the Swiss-German borders - but he becomes suspicious about its authenticity and decides to investigate further.
Pascal Bonitzer presents his ninth feature as a director at the Uni-France Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris Photo: UniFrance Bonitzer...
- 12/4/2023
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The man is not in black. He is in nothing at all. Wearing his nakedness calmly, like a fact so obvious it requires no explanation, an 86-year-old Chinese male stands up slowly in the otherwise empty gallery of Paris’ famous Bouffes du Nord theatre. The artfully peeling, faded-grandeur interior, dim but for gathered pools of warm light, booms with the sound of his wooden seat swinging back into place, then with the creaks of the floorboards under his bare feet. This is the arresting opening to Chinese documentarian Wang Bing’s other Cannes 2023 film, “Man in Black,” a project so diametrically different from his Competition entry “Youth: Spring” that it feels hard to credit them both to the same person. Perhaps we shouldn’t. This brief but profoundly moving film represents such a consummate collaboration between director, cinematographer, editor and subject that its authorship could be recorded as a four-way tie.
- 7/1/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
On March 17 Focus Features released “Inside,” a psychological thriller that stars Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe as Nemo, an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.
Critics are raving about Dafoe’s performance, despite mixed reception for the film overall. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, which rates the movie fresh at 61%, states, “Inside might be a one-note drama that verges on an endurance test, but it does have Willem Dafoe going for it, which is nice.” Read our full review round-up below.
See Berlin International Film Festival: Top 20 buzz-worthy awards contenders that premiered this year [Photos]
Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics writes, “Why is it that so many crime films are about art theft? It’s because the exploration of man’s desire...
Critics are raving about Dafoe’s performance, despite mixed reception for the film overall. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, which rates the movie fresh at 61%, states, “Inside might be a one-note drama that verges on an endurance test, but it does have Willem Dafoe going for it, which is nice.” Read our full review round-up below.
See Berlin International Film Festival: Top 20 buzz-worthy awards contenders that premiered this year [Photos]
Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics writes, “Why is it that so many crime films are about art theft? It’s because the exploration of man’s desire...
- 3/20/2023
- by Vincent Mandile
- Gold Derby
Willem Dafoe defies classification. He appears in blockbusters and arthouse films, in lead roles or as part of an ensemble. What can be counted on is that he’ll add a dash of idiosyncratic malevolence to whatever part he’s playing. Whether he’s playing Christ, Antichrist or somewhere in between, there’s always something slightly off that makes him watchable. In “Inside,” director Vasilis Katsoupis provides him with a showcase part in what is essentially a one-man show that Dafoe carries with aplomb.
Dafoe’s character is an art thief named Nemo. He is first shown breaking into a high-tech Manhattan apartment. He’s connected to someone on the outside via microphone. It’s clear they hacked into the apartment’s security system. The camera slowly reveals the apartment as an expensive and impeccably designed but sterile abode. Its colors are monochromatic in a mostly bluish hue, there’s...
Dafoe’s character is an art thief named Nemo. He is first shown breaking into a high-tech Manhattan apartment. He’s connected to someone on the outside via microphone. It’s clear they hacked into the apartment’s security system. The camera slowly reveals the apartment as an expensive and impeccably designed but sterile abode. Its colors are monochromatic in a mostly bluish hue, there’s...
- 3/17/2023
- by Murtada Elfadl
- Variety Film + TV
We don’t learn the name of our protagonist until the final credits roll on Vasilis Katsoupis’ “Inside.” It’s “Nemo,” perhaps picked to conjure a spirit of adventure, but this Nemo isn’t traveling under the sea or to an island, this one is trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare, one spent entirely with the art-lover-turned-thief in the world’s most pretentious (and deadly?) penthouse. There, he is forced to use all his wits (and priceless works of art) to survive a waking nightmare.
It’s a natty-enough twist on the survivor story — what if you were stuck inside, not outside? — and one bolstered by the inherent watchability of star Willem Dafoe, one of the few performers absolutely up to the task of this particular feature. But , as “Inside” soon turns from clever questions to muddled answers, ending on the oddest possible note for a film that opened with such promise.
It’s a natty-enough twist on the survivor story — what if you were stuck inside, not outside? — and one bolstered by the inherent watchability of star Willem Dafoe, one of the few performers absolutely up to the task of this particular feature. But , as “Inside” soon turns from clever questions to muddled answers, ending on the oddest possible note for a film that opened with such promise.
- 2/20/2023
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
You didn’t think Willem Dafoe would star in a conventional escape room thriller, did you? Then again, “Inside” is barely an escape room thriller despite it being about an art thief trapped in the location of his latest heist. Greek filmmaker Vasilis Katsoupis’s elegant provocation may be closer to the kind of existential mood pieces that generations ago defined so much of European cinema, but it’s been given a modern gloss of design, tension, and star power more in keeping with the gripping tales of solitude that have found a mainstream audience.
Inevitably, because of its challenging nature, “Inside” and its methodical excavation of one man’s survival instincts in a place not assumed to require endurance –- a luxury penthouse in Manhattan — will likely only appeal to the arthouse crowd. Even among discerning moviegoers its more indulgent elements may occasionally grate.
But in Dafoe, an actor...
Inevitably, because of its challenging nature, “Inside” and its methodical excavation of one man’s survival instincts in a place not assumed to require endurance –- a luxury penthouse in Manhattan — will likely only appeal to the arthouse crowd. Even among discerning moviegoers its more indulgent elements may occasionally grate.
But in Dafoe, an actor...
- 2/20/2023
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
There’s more than enough blurring of the lines between reality and dark fantasy, not to mention any conventional grasp of temporality, to position Inside as a new entry in the Greek Weird Wave. But subtract the brutalist-chic design aesthetics and the meticulously curated art collection, both of which have major bearing on the unfolding psychological thriller, and you have an inverted take on familiar one-person survival dramas like Cast Away or All is Lost. How much you get out of the narrative feature debut of commercials director Vasilis Katsoupis will depend on your appetite for another of Willem Dafoe’s heady plunges into a character’s soul in torment.
From Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ through Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini to Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, Dafoe throughout his long and celebrated career has shown an uncommon willingness to put himself through the emotional,...
From Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ through Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini to Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, Dafoe throughout his long and celebrated career has shown an uncommon willingness to put himself through the emotional,...
- 2/20/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
After a hugely successful year for domestic films, Austria’s movie industry is looking forward to another impressive crop of titles, including many international co-productions that reflect not only cultural and historical ties with neighboring countries but also the sector’s strong cross-border partnerships.
Highly anticipated films this year include Hans Steinbichler’s “A Whole Life,” the story of a humble man’s existence in an Alpine valley that spans more than eight decades; Dieter Berner’s “Alma and Oskar,” which explores the passionate and tumultuous affair between Viennese composer and socialite Alma Mahler and artist Oskar Kokoschka in the early 1900s; and Timm Kröger’s “The Theory of Everything,” a black-and-white, 1960s-set mystery-thriller that takes place in a scientific conference in the Alps.
Forthcoming releases include works from established directors and young filmmakers, says Anne Laurent-Delage, executive director of promotional organization Austrian Films. This year’s strong showing follows...
Highly anticipated films this year include Hans Steinbichler’s “A Whole Life,” the story of a humble man’s existence in an Alpine valley that spans more than eight decades; Dieter Berner’s “Alma and Oskar,” which explores the passionate and tumultuous affair between Viennese composer and socialite Alma Mahler and artist Oskar Kokoschka in the early 1900s; and Timm Kröger’s “The Theory of Everything,” a black-and-white, 1960s-set mystery-thriller that takes place in a scientific conference in the Alps.
Forthcoming releases include works from established directors and young filmmakers, says Anne Laurent-Delage, executive director of promotional organization Austrian Films. This year’s strong showing follows...
- 2/18/2023
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Comics author Matt Kindt grew up with cats, having the critters through his school and university years. He even had a few when he got married and had his child. Then around the age of 30, he became suddenly allergic to them.
“It was a pretty miserable experience,” Kindt tells The Hollywood Reporter. “They were in my house but they couldn’t be on my bed. I couldn’t play with them. I loved the cats but hated what they were doing to me.”
That dynamic informs Hairball, the newest comic from Kindt and his frequent collaborator, artist Tyler Jenkins, with whom he created well-regarded comics Grass Kings, Black Badge and Fear Case. Jenkins’ wife Hilary Jenkins, handles the coloring.
The title is a rare foray into horror for the author, who is known for his crime, spy and action books such as Mind Mgmt,...
Comics author Matt Kindt grew up with cats, having the critters through his school and university years. He even had a few when he got married and had his child. Then around the age of 30, he became suddenly allergic to them.
“It was a pretty miserable experience,” Kindt tells The Hollywood Reporter. “They were in my house but they couldn’t be on my bed. I couldn’t play with them. I loved the cats but hated what they were doing to me.”
That dynamic informs Hairball, the newest comic from Kindt and his frequent collaborator, artist Tyler Jenkins, with whom he created well-regarded comics Grass Kings, Black Badge and Fear Case. Jenkins’ wife Hilary Jenkins, handles the coloring.
The title is a rare foray into horror for the author, who is known for his crime, spy and action books such as Mind Mgmt,...
- 12/14/2022
- by Borys Kit
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ritu Arya gives an incredible performance as the thrill-seeking assassin Lila Pitts in "The Umbrella Academy." Lila's mischievous attitude, cynical worldview, and choppy bangs closely resemble Angelina Jolie's character in "Girl, Interrupted," and as it turns out, Jolie's preparation for her role influenced Arya's own process on the set of "Umbrella Academy."
At first glance, "Girl, Interrupted" might seem like an odd source of inspiration for Arya. "The Umbrella Academy" is a playful sci-fi series about time-traveling superheroes, while "Girl, Interrupted" is set in the woman's ward of a mental institution. In a conversation with Brief Take, Arya describes her "Umbrella Academy" character as "unhinged, playful, [and] unpredictable." This description also matches Jolie's "Girl, Interrupted" character, Lisa. These very traits are what initially drew Arya to her role. "I completely fell in love with [Lila] right away," she revealed.
The actress knew that a character as special as Lila would require a unique approach.
At first glance, "Girl, Interrupted" might seem like an odd source of inspiration for Arya. "The Umbrella Academy" is a playful sci-fi series about time-traveling superheroes, while "Girl, Interrupted" is set in the woman's ward of a mental institution. In a conversation with Brief Take, Arya describes her "Umbrella Academy" character as "unhinged, playful, [and] unpredictable." This description also matches Jolie's "Girl, Interrupted" character, Lisa. These very traits are what initially drew Arya to her role. "I completely fell in love with [Lila] right away," she revealed.
The actress knew that a character as special as Lila would require a unique approach.
- 9/18/2022
- by Shae Sennett
- Slash Film
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