The Glasgow-based “post rock” band Mogwai is no stranger to cinema, having scored numerous films and TV shows, from the original French version of Les Revenants to Douglas Gordon and Phillippe Pareno’s experimental doc, Zidane, to, most recently, the Apple TV+ show Black Bird. And now, after a 25 year career that has included 10 studio albums, the band is the subject of its own documentary, Antony Crook’s If the Stars Had a Sound,” which premieres March 12 at SXSW. Band member Stuart Braithwaite says in a press release: “We’re incredibly excited for people to see Antony’s film If the […]
The post Trailer Watch: Antony Crook’s SXSW-Premiering Mogwai Doc, If the Stars Had a Sound first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Antony Crook’s SXSW-Premiering Mogwai Doc, If the Stars Had a Sound first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 3/6/2024
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The Glasgow-based “post rock” band Mogwai is no stranger to cinema, having scored numerous films and TV shows, from the original French version of Les Revenants to Douglas Gordon and Phillippe Pareno’s experimental doc, Zidane, to, most recently, the Apple TV+ show Black Bird. And now, after a 25 year career that has included 10 studio albums, the band is the subject of its own documentary, Antony Crook’s If the Stars Had a Sound,” which premieres March 12 at SXSW. Band member Stuart Braithwaite says in a press release: “We’re incredibly excited for people to see Antony’s film If the […]
The post Trailer Watch: Antony Crook’s SXSW-Premiering Mogwai Doc, If the Stars Had a Sound first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Antony Crook’s SXSW-Premiering Mogwai Doc, If the Stars Had a Sound first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 3/6/2024
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSRei.Tanaka Toshihiko’s Rei (2024)—the director’s debut feature, which he also produced and edited, and in which he acts—has won the Tiger Award in Rotterdam. Mark Gustafson, acclaimed animator and co-director of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), has died at the age of 64. Del Toro calls him “a pillar of stop-motion animation—a true artist.”In response to an open letter signed by more than 200 film workers (which has since been taken offline) the Berlin International Film Festival confirmed that it has invited two far-right German politicians to the opening ceremony but avers it stands “against right-wing extremism.”Recommended VIEWINGVia Dolorosa.The second part of Le Cinéma Club's two-week spotlight on Oraib Toukan features her film Via Dolorosa (2021), now streamable on the platform.
- 2/7/2024
- MUBI
Cph:forum, the financing and co-production event held during Cph:dox documentary film festival in Copenhagen, will introduce new projects by filmmakers such as Ljubomir Stefanov (“Honeyland”), Jessica Kingdon (“Ascension”), Finlay Pretsell (“Time Trial”), Ousmane Samassekou (“The Last Shelter”), Mila Turajlić (“The Other Side of Everything”), Tonislav Hristov (“The Good Postman”), Iryna Tsilyk (“The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”) and Brett Story (“The Hottest August”), among others.
Stefanov, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Honeyland,” will be pitching “House of Earth.” He teams with producer Maya E. Rudolph, who produced Emmy-nominated “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” and Sarah D’hanens. The film centers on transgender sex worker Pinky, who returns to her Roma community after 30 years, and finds two families in need of a matriarch. Torn between her biological kin and chosen queer family, Pinky attempts to build a future that feels like home.
Kingdon, who was Oscar nominated for “Ascension,” arrives with “Untitled Animal Project,...
Stefanov, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Honeyland,” will be pitching “House of Earth.” He teams with producer Maya E. Rudolph, who produced Emmy-nominated “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” and Sarah D’hanens. The film centers on transgender sex worker Pinky, who returns to her Roma community after 30 years, and finds two families in need of a matriarch. Torn between her biological kin and chosen queer family, Pinky attempts to build a future that feels like home.
Kingdon, who was Oscar nominated for “Ascension,” arrives with “Untitled Animal Project,...
- 2/10/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Cph:dox also sets work-in-progress, Change co-production selections.
New feature documentaries from Honeyland director Ljubomir Stefanov and Ascension filmmaker Jessica Kingdon are among the 33 projects selected for Cph:Forum, the financing and co-production market of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
Macedonian filmmaker Stefanov is presenting House of Earth, about a transgender sex worker who returns to her Roma community after 30 years on the run, only to be torn between her biological kin and her chosen queer family. The Macedonian-us co-production is produced by Maya E. Rudolph and Sarah D’hanens, and is looking for €405,000 funding to supplement its €45,000 in place from Louverture Films and private equity.
New feature documentaries from Honeyland director Ljubomir Stefanov and Ascension filmmaker Jessica Kingdon are among the 33 projects selected for Cph:Forum, the financing and co-production market of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
Macedonian filmmaker Stefanov is presenting House of Earth, about a transgender sex worker who returns to her Roma community after 30 years on the run, only to be torn between her biological kin and her chosen queer family. The Macedonian-us co-production is produced by Maya E. Rudolph and Sarah D’hanens, and is looking for €405,000 funding to supplement its €45,000 in place from Louverture Films and private equity.
- 2/10/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
In September 2014, veteran filmmaker Paul Schrader was livid. He had recently directed “Dying of the Light,” a grim thriller starring Nicolas Cage as CIA agent Evan Lake, who obsesses over tracking terrorists while suffering from a brain disease and losing his mind. The movie’s financiers wanted a more conventional espionage thriller than Schrader’s experimental, subjective narrative, so they took the movie away from Schrader, who sent an email explaining the conundrum to Cage. The actor struck a note or resignation.
“The unfortunate aspect to my having had so many careers in so many genres is that they can make a case to put me in box b instead of box a for money’s sake,” Cage wrote, in an email shared with IndieWire years later.
Schrader could relate. “Dying of the Light” arrived nearly 40 years after Schrader catapulted to fame with his screenplay for “Taxi Driver” and maintained...
“The unfortunate aspect to my having had so many careers in so many genres is that they can make a case to put me in box b instead of box a for money’s sake,” Cage wrote, in an email shared with IndieWire years later.
Schrader could relate. “Dying of the Light” arrived nearly 40 years after Schrader catapulted to fame with his screenplay for “Taxi Driver” and maintained...
- 12/11/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Each year the film industry sacrifices one of its blockbusters to the movie gods, in the hope that its other releases will be spared the vicious lash of mass opprobrium. This year the designated victim was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Critics spotted Luc Besson’s space opera on the horizon, sensed weakness, singled it out from the big budget herd, and moved in for the kill, savaging it as, “a stinker”, “a travesty of storytelling” and, “one of the worst films I have ever seen”. Social media gleefully swooped on the carcass to declare it the year’s biggest Doa turkey. And all this before the public had even had a chance to see it.
Rotten Tomatoes gave Valerian a 49% rating, but looking at the site’s reviews round-up (something I do only when writing a piece like this), I’m struck now by how many...
Rotten Tomatoes gave Valerian a 49% rating, but looking at the site’s reviews round-up (something I do only when writing a piece like this), I’m struck now by how many...
- 11/25/2017
- by Anne Billson
- Trailers from Hell
Author: Steven Neish
Jonas Mekas took his first photograph in Lithuania as a boy, documenting Russia’s occupation of his homeland, only to have the film torn from his camera by a suspicious solider and trodden into the dirt. An extract from his 1991 memoir I Had Nowhere to Go, this is just one of several anecdotes relayed to Scottish director Douglas Gordon for his documentary of the same name — the first in a series, perhaps, as this film only charts Mekas’ early experiences of war-torn Europe and his emigration to America. There is much more material where that came for, and according to the director a considerable amount has already been recorded.
There is little mention of Mekas’ work as a celebrated artist or his legacy as the so-called godfather of American avant-garde in Gordon’s I Had Nowhere to Go, or indeed context of any kind. Taken in isolation...
Jonas Mekas took his first photograph in Lithuania as a boy, documenting Russia’s occupation of his homeland, only to have the film torn from his camera by a suspicious solider and trodden into the dirt. An extract from his 1991 memoir I Had Nowhere to Go, this is just one of several anecdotes relayed to Scottish director Douglas Gordon for his documentary of the same name — the first in a series, perhaps, as this film only charts Mekas’ early experiences of war-torn Europe and his emigration to America. There is much more material where that came for, and according to the director a considerable amount has already been recorded.
There is little mention of Mekas’ work as a celebrated artist or his legacy as the so-called godfather of American avant-garde in Gordon’s I Had Nowhere to Go, or indeed context of any kind. Taken in isolation...
- 3/2/2017
- by Steven Neish
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The distribution landscape continues to evolve, with a healthy mixture of new players and stalwarts, and yet every year there are great movies that slip through the cracks. For the most part, movies that gain serious traction on the festival circuit find their way to various American buyers and usually wind up with some kind of home.
While ambitious newcomers like A24 and Amazon Studios continue to up their game while veterans such as Sony Pictures Classics keep rolling along, even they have limits to the kind of content they can gamble on.
Read More: The 25 Best Movie Moments of 2016, According to IndieWire Critic David Ehrlich
Usually, the movies that struggle to find homes aren’t ignored so much as they’re deemed non-commercial or risky. Distributors often shy away from the prospects of a “difficult” movie simply because they can’t imagine a trailer for it, or because it...
While ambitious newcomers like A24 and Amazon Studios continue to up their game while veterans such as Sony Pictures Classics keep rolling along, even they have limits to the kind of content they can gamble on.
Read More: The 25 Best Movie Moments of 2016, According to IndieWire Critic David Ehrlich
Usually, the movies that struggle to find homes aren’t ignored so much as they’re deemed non-commercial or risky. Distributors often shy away from the prospects of a “difficult” movie simply because they can’t imagine a trailer for it, or because it...
- 12/7/2016
- by David Ehrlich and Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Dawn City: Frozen Time“A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability. A space exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables… Every story is a travel story, a spatial practice."—Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday LifeTime is the central tenet of all cinema. The impression of its passing is the enthralling illusion at the medium’s flickering heart; petrified images are reanimated by the whirr of the projector. Even at its most micro level cinema traverses the intersection of time and place, as the static location of a single picture is temporally transported before our eyes by the flurry of subsequent frames. On a macro level, that relationship and those concepts are no less pervasive or vital. In 2006, found footage filmmaker Bill Morrison told Senses of Cinema that: "for better or worse, the projector is...
- 11/29/2016
- MUBI
It’s not hard to get a sense for the big movies at this year’s edition of the New York Film Festival. Ava Duvernay’s Netflix documentary “13th” will open the festival with much fanfare over its powerful message about America’s broken justice system. Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” has many anticipating its inventive storytelling technology, and “20th Century Women” is said to be a terrific showcase for Annette Bening. Add in a number of festival favorites, from “Moonlight” to “Manchester By the Sea,” and the current edition of Nyff looks like a terrific consolidation of 2016 cinematic highlights.
But these headline-grabbing titles aren’t the whole story. A tightly-curated program assembled by a handful of discerning cinephiles, the festival offers a number of lower-profile titles that are just as worthy of your attention. Here’s a look at 10 of them.
“Aquarius”
Like so many...
But these headline-grabbing titles aren’t the whole story. A tightly-curated program assembled by a handful of discerning cinephiles, the festival offers a number of lower-profile titles that are just as worthy of your attention. Here’s a look at 10 of them.
“Aquarius”
Like so many...
- 9/28/2016
- by Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
This was a busy year at Tiff, where I was a juror for Fipresci, helping to award a prize for best premiere in the Discovery section. Not only did this mean that some other films had to take a back burner—sadly, I did not see Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge—but my writing time was a bit compromised as well. Better late than never? That is for you, Gentle Reader, to decide.Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany)So basic in the telling—a record of several days’ worth of visitors mostly to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienberg, Germany—Austerlitz is a film that in many ways exemplifies the critical theory of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. What is the net effect for humanity when, faced with the drive to remember the unfathomable, we employ the grossly inadequate tools at our disposal?Austerlitz takes its name from W. G. Sebald’s final novel.
- 9/20/2016
- MUBI
The Film Society of Lincoln Center today announced the lineup for Explorations, a new section featuring bold selections from the vanguard of contemporary cinema, and Main Slate shorts for the 54th New York Film Festival.
Read More: Nyff Reveals Main Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Manchester By the Sea,’ ‘Paterson’ and ‘Personal Shopper’
Explorations is devoted to work from around the world, from filmmakers across the spectrum of experience and artistic sensibility. It kicks off with six features, including Albert Serra’s latest, “The Death of Louis Xiv,” featuring a tour de force performance by French cinema legend Jean-Pierre Léaud; Douglas Gordon’s portrait of avant-garde icon Jonas Mekas, “I Had Nowhere to Go”; João Pedro Rodrigues’s “The Ornithologist”, which won him the Best Director prize at Locarno; as well as Natalia Almada’s “Everything Else”, Gastón Solnicki’s “Kékszakállú,” and Oliver Laxe’s “Mimosas.”
New York Film Festival Director...
Read More: Nyff Reveals Main Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Manchester By the Sea,’ ‘Paterson’ and ‘Personal Shopper’
Explorations is devoted to work from around the world, from filmmakers across the spectrum of experience and artistic sensibility. It kicks off with six features, including Albert Serra’s latest, “The Death of Louis Xiv,” featuring a tour de force performance by French cinema legend Jean-Pierre Léaud; Douglas Gordon’s portrait of avant-garde icon Jonas Mekas, “I Had Nowhere to Go”; João Pedro Rodrigues’s “The Ornithologist”, which won him the Best Director prize at Locarno; as well as Natalia Almada’s “Everything Else”, Gastón Solnicki’s “Kékszakállú,” and Oliver Laxe’s “Mimosas.”
New York Film Festival Director...
- 8/29/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
Plus: Nyff unveils inaugural Explorations strand; Academy announces 17 student winners; and more…
Focus Features has pushed J A Bayona’s imminent Toronto world premiere into December.
A Monster Calls will launch on a ten-city run on December 23 before expanding wide on January 6, 2017.
The film premieres in Toronto as a gala presentation on September 9 and recounts the story of the son of a dying woman who befriends a tree-shaped beast.
Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell and Lewis MacDougall are among the cast. The original release date was October 21. Lionsgate International handles sales outside the Us.
Top brass at The Film Society Of Lincoln Center have announced Explorations, a new section of the New York Film Festival from global film-makers “across the spectrum of experience and artistic sensibility.” The inaugural roster comprises: Albert Serra’s The Death Of Louis Xiv; Douglas Gordon’s I Had Nowhere to Go; João Pedro Rodrigues’ The Ornithologist; Natalia Almada’s Everything...
Focus Features has pushed J A Bayona’s imminent Toronto world premiere into December.
A Monster Calls will launch on a ten-city run on December 23 before expanding wide on January 6, 2017.
The film premieres in Toronto as a gala presentation on September 9 and recounts the story of the son of a dying woman who befriends a tree-shaped beast.
Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell and Lewis MacDougall are among the cast. The original release date was October 21. Lionsgate International handles sales outside the Us.
Top brass at The Film Society Of Lincoln Center have announced Explorations, a new section of the New York Film Festival from global film-makers “across the spectrum of experience and artistic sensibility.” The inaugural roster comprises: Albert Serra’s The Death Of Louis Xiv; Douglas Gordon’s I Had Nowhere to Go; João Pedro Rodrigues’ The Ornithologist; Natalia Almada’s Everything...
- 8/29/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists.
Since its invention, cinema has been used to examine the past. However, few films centered on historical narratives move past dissecting events and into questioning how such events are portrayed and disseminated. But filmmakers continue to innovate with the form and find new ways to push beyond its limitations. Three films screening at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival — Dain Iskandar Said’s “Interchange,” Douglas Gordon’s “I Had Nowhere to Go,” and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s “By the Time It Gets Dark” — challenge the construction of history and provide alternate ways to experience history beyond the hegemonic image.
The follow-up to his magical realist action-drama “Bunohan,...
Since its invention, cinema has been used to examine the past. However, few films centered on historical narratives move past dissecting events and into questioning how such events are portrayed and disseminated. But filmmakers continue to innovate with the form and find new ways to push beyond its limitations. Three films screening at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival — Dain Iskandar Said’s “Interchange,” Douglas Gordon’s “I Had Nowhere to Go,” and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s “By the Time It Gets Dark” — challenge the construction of history and provide alternate ways to experience history beyond the hegemonic image.
The follow-up to his magical realist action-drama “Bunohan,...
- 8/20/2016
- by Kelley Dong
- Indiewire
This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists. The following interview, conducted by a member of the Critics Academy, focuses on a participant in the affiliated Filmmakers Academy program at the festival.
Read More: Reinaldo Marcus Green: How a Young Person of Color’s Life Can Change in a Single Moment
Leonor Teles won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, but she would never tell you that. Neither would she present herself as a director.
Being the 24-year-old daughter of a gypsy, Teles had already depicted her Romani community in her first short film, but in “Batrachian’s Ballad” she went a step further.
Read More: Reinaldo Marcus Green: How a Young Person of Color’s Life Can Change in a Single Moment
Leonor Teles won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, but she would never tell you that. Neither would she present herself as a director.
Being the 24-year-old daughter of a gypsy, Teles had already depicted her Romani community in her first short film, but in “Batrachian’s Ballad” she went a step further.
- 8/18/2016
- by Raquel Morais
- Indiewire
The Toronto International Film Festival's unleashed another round of lineups for this year's edition (September 8 through 18), including new films by Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kelly Reichardt, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Hong Sang-soo, Emmanuelle Bercot, Walter Hill, Antonio Campos, Joseph Cedar, Philippe Falardeau, James Franco, Ken Loach, Douglas Gordon, Lav Diaz, Jõao Pedro Rodrigues, Ana Vaz, Matías Piñeiro, Angela Schanelec, Wang Bing, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, installations by Sharon Lockhart and Albert Serra—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/16/2016
- Keyframe
The Toronto International Film Festival's unleashed another round of lineups for this year's edition (September 8 through 18), including new films by Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kelly Reichardt, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Hong Sang-soo, Emmanuelle Bercot, Walter Hill, Antonio Campos, Joseph Cedar, Philippe Falardeau, James Franco, Ken Loach, Douglas Gordon, Lav Diaz, Jõao Pedro Rodrigues, Ana Vaz, Matías Piñeiro, Angela Schanelec, Wang Bing, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, installations by Sharon Lockhart and Albert Serra—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/16/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Nigerian metropolis Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.
Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.
A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.
Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.
Rounding out the...
Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.
A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.
Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.
Rounding out the...
- 8/16/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Nigerian capital Lagos is the focus of the eighth City To City showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) as top brass anoint two international Rising Stars.
Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.
A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.
Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.
Rounding out the...
Tiff’s latest line-up announcement also featured extra selections in Galas and Special Presentations, among them Walter Hill’s (Re)Assignment, Philippe Falardeau’s The Bleeder, David Leveaux’ The Exception (pictured), Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake and Terry George’s drama The Promise.
A vibrant crop of Contemporary World Cinema entries includes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie, The Courage Of Knowledge and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya.
Hirokazu Kore-eda brings After The Storm to the Masters showcase, alongside Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Once Again.
Rounding out the...
- 8/16/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists.
You probably came across this essay while scrolling along your Twitter or Facebook feed, where the image above was one of dozens of embedded pictures and videos vying for your attention. This is a typical experience in a time when social media is central to our lives and advances in consumer technology have endowed everyone with the ability to capture high-quality images with ease. On a daily basis, we’re faced with a deluge of visual stimulation, as looping comedy clips, breaking news and glamorous vacation shots flood our devices. With so much to see, it’s easy to lose touch...
You probably came across this essay while scrolling along your Twitter or Facebook feed, where the image above was one of dozens of embedded pictures and videos vying for your attention. This is a typical experience in a time when social media is central to our lives and advances in consumer technology have endowed everyone with the ability to capture high-quality images with ease. On a daily basis, we’re faced with a deluge of visual stimulation, as looping comedy clips, breaking news and glamorous vacation shots flood our devices. With so much to see, it’s easy to lose touch...
- 8/12/2016
- by Andrew Rogers
- Indiewire
"'I am not a filmmaker, I am a filmer,' said legendary Lithuanian-American filmmaker Jonas Mekas during his address to the audience at L’atra Sala, one of the smaller, more alternative venues of the 69th Festival del Film Locarno," writes Ela Bittencourt in a dispatch to frieze. "Mekas was introducing Walden/tag> (1969), an intimate portrait in 16mm of his beloved New York, and his friends’ comings and goings. Mekas, who is also the subject of I Had Nowhere To Go/tag> (2016), a meandering retelling of wartime experience and emigration by artist Douglas Gordon, which premiered this year in Locarno’s Signs of Life section, challenged the audience to envision cinema as willfully amorphous: fresh, intimate, visually incestuous." We're collecting reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/12/2016
- Keyframe
"'I am not a filmmaker, I am a filmer,' said legendary Lithuanian-American filmmaker Jonas Mekas during his address to the audience at L’atra Sala, one of the smaller, more alternative venues of the 69th Festival del Film Locarno," writes Ela Bittencourt in a dispatch to frieze. "Mekas was introducing Walden/tag> (1969), an intimate portrait in 16mm of his beloved New York, and his friends’ comings and goings. Mekas, who is also the subject of I Had Nowhere To Go/tag> (2016), a meandering retelling of wartime experience and emigration by artist Douglas Gordon, which premiered this year in Locarno’s Signs of Life section, challenged the audience to envision cinema as willfully amorphous: fresh, intimate, visually incestuous." We're collecting reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/12/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
In the 98 minutes of “I Had Nowhere to Go: Portrait of a Displaced Person,” there are about 10 minutes of visuals. The rest of the experience takes place on a black screen as accompanying audio tracks doing the legwork. It’s a bold gamble by director and veteran artist Douglas Gordon that doesn’t always pay off, but a big part of the experience stems from the ever-engaging storytelling at its center. Narrated by legendary avant-garde film diarist Jonas Mekas, now 93 and livelier than ever as he recollects his wartime experiences, “I Had Nowhere to Go” attempts to capture the journeys of a man known for capturing images through their absence. Though not always the sum of its compelling ingredients, “I Had Nowhere to Go” applies an appropriate degree of cinematic innovation to one of the medium’s greatest advocates.
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
- 8/5/2016
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
For the fifth year, IndieWire is co-hosting the Locarno Critics Academy, giving a group of talented up-and-coming critics a chance to help their role in the current climate for film criticism and journalism at the Locarno International Film Festival. With assistance from Penske Media, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, participants will engage in a series of activities and then get to work. They will spend the first half of the festival which begins today, in roundtable discussions with working critics and industry figures; beginning next week, they’ll write about films at this year’s festival, as well as topics ranging from television to digital media.
Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.
Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.
- 8/3/2016
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column.
– Beloved genre festival Fantasia has completed announcing its very, very full final lineup for its twentieth edition. Highlights include Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” the Mel Gibson-starring thriller “Blood Father,” the world premiere of “The Top Secret: Murder in Mind,” Billy O’Brien’s “I Am Not a Serial Killer,” a screening of “Train to Busan,” a heart-stopping series of documentaries (“Beware The Slenderman”!), an action-centric series that includes the world premiere of “Kickboxer: Vengeance” and so very much more. (Seriously, this is just a very small taste of the wild goodies on offer.) Check out the full lineup at the festival’s official website. The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal July 14 – August 2.
– New York City’s own Rooftop Films is partnering with the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa...
– Beloved genre festival Fantasia has completed announcing its very, very full final lineup for its twentieth edition. Highlights include Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” the Mel Gibson-starring thriller “Blood Father,” the world premiere of “The Top Secret: Murder in Mind,” Billy O’Brien’s “I Am Not a Serial Killer,” a screening of “Train to Busan,” a heart-stopping series of documentaries (“Beware The Slenderman”!), an action-centric series that includes the world premiere of “Kickboxer: Vengeance” and so very much more. (Seriously, this is just a very small taste of the wild goodies on offer.) Check out the full lineup at the festival’s official website. The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal July 14 – August 2.
– New York City’s own Rooftop Films is partnering with the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa...
- 7/7/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The Broadchurch star on our fear of wolves, the joy of working with English actors and her ‘iconic’ image
Very shortly, you’ll be appearing in Manchester in Neck of the Woods, a theatrical collaboration between Turner prize winner Douglas Gordon, pianist Hélène Grimaud, writer Veronica Gonzalez Peña and you. It’s about wolves, isn’t it?
Yes, I will be the narrator, the interpreter, the person who will actually lead you through the story. There is a fundamental theme, which is the mysteriousness of the wolf, the bad reputation of the wolf, the mythology and the wolf in psychoanalytical terms.
Wolves seem to have come back to the fore recently, especially with an interest in rewilding. Why do you think they continue to fascinate?
There’s something about the wolf, I guess, because since childhood and fairy stories we have had this idea of this ultimate predator, just waiting to pounce on us,...
Very shortly, you’ll be appearing in Manchester in Neck of the Woods, a theatrical collaboration between Turner prize winner Douglas Gordon, pianist Hélène Grimaud, writer Veronica Gonzalez Peña and you. It’s about wolves, isn’t it?
Yes, I will be the narrator, the interpreter, the person who will actually lead you through the story. There is a fundamental theme, which is the mysteriousness of the wolf, the bad reputation of the wolf, the mythology and the wolf in psychoanalytical terms.
Wolves seem to have come back to the fore recently, especially with an interest in rewilding. Why do you think they continue to fascinate?
There’s something about the wolf, I guess, because since childhood and fairy stories we have had this idea of this ultimate predator, just waiting to pounce on us,...
- 6/28/2015
- by Alex Clark
- The Guardian - Film News
Crowds gathering for Christmas-window displays are a New York holiday standard, but the audience at the storefront on the corner of 75th and Park on a wintry evening weren’t looking at a traditional merry Yuletide spectacle. In the space behind the darkened windows, a large-scale art installation by Douglas Gordon was in full swing, although given the lugubrious piano chords accompanying the slow-motion film of a blackened, blinking eye, the word swing hardly applies.Phantom, currently running through January 17 at Gagosian’s latest outpost — an atypically compact space that opened in April, features a continuously looped, high-contrast shot of Rufus Wainwright’s heavily made-up eye, sometimes large, sometimes small, sometimes multiplied, and several times shedding a tear. (Phantom refers not only to the piece’s ghostly spirit, but to the high-speed digital camera used to make it.) The mournful songs from his 2010 album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu,...
- 12/15/2014
- by Phoebe Hoban
- Vulture
Tears become … streams become … opened at the Park Avenue Armory on a day when New York was totally waterlogged, a bit of timing that seemed ironic at first and then surreally deliberate. If, as we squelched into the great Drill Hall with steaming clothes and windblown hair, we had forgotten how vulnerable the city is to rising waters, Douglas Gordon’s immense liquid installation stood ready to remind us.For a while nothing happened, as we sat around the edge of the Drill Hall, studying the lights that hung from the ceiling, suspended a few feet above a vast expanse of rubber mats. Eventually, water began bubbling up and spread so slowly that tracking it was almost like watching paint moisten. Audience members hushed at first, then lost patience and chattered, produced snacks, and remembered to send urgent texts. Half an hour after the nominal start time, some large puddles...
- 12/10/2014
- by Justin Davidson
- Vulture
**Massive spoilers for every Godzilla movie, with the exception of the 2014 reboot, and Mothra follow**
August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...
August 6th and 9th, 1945 forever changed the course of history. When the first nuclear bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, World War II ended, but a new fear was born that dominated the thoughts of all men, women, and children for decades to come. The Cold War, atomic bomb testing, a cartoon turtle telling children to “duck and cover”, and this new technology that had the actual potential to literally end the world changed the perception of what was scary. Art reflects life, so cinema began to capitalize on these fears. Gone were the days of creepy castles, cobwebs, bats, vampires, werewolves, and the other iconic images that ruled genre cinema in film’s earliest decades. Science fiction was larger than ever and giant ants, giant octopi, terror from beyond the stars, and...
- 11/4/2014
- by Max Molinaro
- SoundOnSight
What follows is a highly selective, unavoidably partial guide to the Wavelengths section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off today. Perhaps it seems that “selective” and “partial” are synonymous enough to produce redundancy when placed within the same sentence, and in most instances I would agree with this objection. In the first case, "selective," I will note that, of the 28 shorts and features that I was able to preview from the Wavelengths section (impeccably curated, as always, by the perspicacious Andréa Picard), I have chosen to highlight the fifteen that I personally found most aesthetically and intellectually bold, invigo(u)rating, troubling, critical-verbiage-thwarting, or otherwise worthy of hearty recommendation. This in no way implies that the other works were somehow lacking, only that I could not see my way through to them at this particular time and place. A different set of viewing circumstances (the ones you’re about to embark upon,...
- 9/10/2014
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
The Oscar-winning director of 12 Years a Slave has pushed back the boundaries of film because of the fearlessness that comes with a background in art
When the director Steve McQueen was an art student learning basic film-making skills at Goldsmiths College, London, he joked he was already aiming for the time when his name would eclipse that of his glamorous namesake, star of The Great Escape and Bullitt. "One day," he told his tutor, Professor Will Brooker, "when people talk about Steve McQueen, I am going to be the first person they think of."
Now, with an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave, the transition from Turner prizewinning artist to celebrated director has been made in style. It is a path to cinematography also taken by the British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, nominated for a Turner prize in 1998 and now editing her high-profile film of the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.
When the director Steve McQueen was an art student learning basic film-making skills at Goldsmiths College, London, he joked he was already aiming for the time when his name would eclipse that of his glamorous namesake, star of The Great Escape and Bullitt. "One day," he told his tutor, Professor Will Brooker, "when people talk about Steve McQueen, I am going to be the first person they think of."
Now, with an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave, the transition from Turner prizewinning artist to celebrated director has been made in style. It is a path to cinematography also taken by the British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, nominated for a Turner prize in 1998 and now editing her high-profile film of the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.
- 3/9/2014
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
Even the best football movies struggle to capture the sport's drama on film. The worst (and there are many) are truly abysmal
Why has cinema found football to be such a tricky customer? Football scenes in film and television are traditionally very awkward affairs, with the "defenders" tip-toeing nervously around the "attackers" as they advance, the goal finally coming via the sort of impractical flying volley you just never see on a real pitch. It's clearly very difficult to let someone score a script-dictated goal while pretending to try to stop them but, at the same time, trying not to look like you're pretending to try to stop them. Perhaps they teach it at Rada, who knows?
Furthermore, filmmakers have the challenge of adding a fictional big-screen gloss to what is already an overwhelmingly camera-friendly and consistently dramatic spectacle in its own right. Real-life football already has its own "script...
Why has cinema found football to be such a tricky customer? Football scenes in film and television are traditionally very awkward affairs, with the "defenders" tip-toeing nervously around the "attackers" as they advance, the goal finally coming via the sort of impractical flying volley you just never see on a real pitch. It's clearly very difficult to let someone score a script-dictated goal while pretending to try to stop them but, at the same time, trying not to look like you're pretending to try to stop them. Perhaps they teach it at Rada, who knows?
Furthermore, filmmakers have the challenge of adding a fictional big-screen gloss to what is already an overwhelmingly camera-friendly and consistently dramatic spectacle in its own right. Real-life football already has its own "script...
- 2/27/2014
- by Adam Hurrey
- The Guardian - Film News
Lou-Lelia Demerliac in My Name Is Hmmm... My Name Is Hmmm... director agnès b (her chi-chi brand-name signature all in lowercase with the “b” borrowed from her second husband Bourgeois) has emerged over three decades as probably France's best-known instigator of chic, no nonsense, ready-to-wear clothing. She is frequented by an A-list that includes Jodie Foster, David Bowie and Gérard Depardieu and she has provided costumes for films including the clothes worn by John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
agnès B The Dear Green Place - where her film will screen at Gff - came in to her field of vision through her friendship and support for the Glasgow-raised artist Douglas Gordon. She pursues myriad activities in the arts world, especially cinema, as well as supporting social causes such as the rebuilding of Sarajevo, a hospital in Tibet, and commitments closer to home.
“I love Douglas and his work,...
agnès B The Dear Green Place - where her film will screen at Gff - came in to her field of vision through her friendship and support for the Glasgow-raised artist Douglas Gordon. She pursues myriad activities in the arts world, especially cinema, as well as supporting social causes such as the rebuilding of Sarajevo, a hospital in Tibet, and commitments closer to home.
“I love Douglas and his work,...
- 2/20/2014
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Future Film Festival | Glasgow Film Festival | Deep Desires & Broken Dreams | Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival
Future Film Festival, London
This three-day festival is aimed at nurturing young film-makers, and there's plenty for them to be inspired by. The first day focuses on documentary as a tool for radical politics and social change (as in The Act Of Killing or Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer), and the second, on fiction, brings rebellious teen flick We Are The Freaks. The third day is on animation, with screenings, workshops (on how to make a short doc on your mobile)and professional advice, including wise words from Gravity's visual effects ace, Neil Corbould.
BFI, SE1, Fri to 23 Feb
Glasgow Film Festival
Where to start with this many-tentacled sprawl of a festival? How about Scarlett Johansson cruising Glasgow in a Transit van trying to pick up men? That's on offer in Jonathan Glazer's dark sci-fi Under The Skin,...
Future Film Festival, London
This three-day festival is aimed at nurturing young film-makers, and there's plenty for them to be inspired by. The first day focuses on documentary as a tool for radical politics and social change (as in The Act Of Killing or Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer), and the second, on fiction, brings rebellious teen flick We Are The Freaks. The third day is on animation, with screenings, workshops (on how to make a short doc on your mobile)and professional advice, including wise words from Gravity's visual effects ace, Neil Corbould.
BFI, SE1, Fri to 23 Feb
Glasgow Film Festival
Where to start with this many-tentacled sprawl of a festival? How about Scarlett Johansson cruising Glasgow in a Transit van trying to pick up men? That's on offer in Jonathan Glazer's dark sci-fi Under The Skin,...
- 2/15/2014
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Park Avenue Armory announced today its 2014 season, an unprecedented mix of presentations and commissions ranging from Kenneth Branagh's highly-anticipated New York stage debut in an immersive and visceral staging of Macbeth to the London-based trio The xx in a performance that alters the interaction and relationship of the audience with the band to a visual art commission by artist Douglas Gordon and classical pianist Helene Grimaud that will transform the drill hall into a water-filled environment to Peter Sellars's staging of St. Matthew Passion which fuses the audience, the orchestra, and soloists into one dramatic, unified assembly.
- 12/12/2013
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Although the latest Turner prize went to a video artist, the 12 Years a Slave director shows that the art form is just a finishing school for serious film-making
The rise of video and film art appears irresistible. The Turner prize has just been given to a video for the second year in a row.
Yet in spite of the successes of Laure Prouvost and Elizabeth Price, the triumph of video art is an illusion. It is not a stable, enduring art form; it may not even be an art form at all. It is in reality an experimental space at the margins of a much bigger culture of the moving image – a place for talented film-makers to mess around with a freedom they could never enjoy in commercial cinema or mainstream television, but which the true artists among them hunger to apply in those bigger, more important arenas.
For it...
The rise of video and film art appears irresistible. The Turner prize has just been given to a video for the second year in a row.
Yet in spite of the successes of Laure Prouvost and Elizabeth Price, the triumph of video art is an illusion. It is not a stable, enduring art form; it may not even be an art form at all. It is in reality an experimental space at the margins of a much bigger culture of the moving image – a place for talented film-makers to mess around with a freedom they could never enjoy in commercial cinema or mainstream television, but which the true artists among them hunger to apply in those bigger, more important arenas.
For it...
- 12/6/2013
- by Jonathan Jones
- The Guardian - Film News
After 14 years reporting from the red carpet, our film diarist bids farewell with a selection of glilttering memories…
Best festival
Trash was born at Cannes in 1999, when the idea struck me that the best way to cover this polymorphously perverse festival was through a diary. So it's probably in that environment that my column has thrived most. It coincided with the rise of the "festival circuit", and I was fortunate to have the willing co-operation of the Observer and the festivals themselves in getting to cover so many of them.
I still recall the jolt of a morning vodka with Alan Parker in Moscow where, because his Pink Floyd film The Wall was the most famous bootleg of the Soviet era, he is some kind of deity. Marrakech is a wonderful setting for a film festival and I shall cherish an afternoon with Martin Scorsese there, even though he spilt...
Best festival
Trash was born at Cannes in 1999, when the idea struck me that the best way to cover this polymorphously perverse festival was through a diary. So it's probably in that environment that my column has thrived most. It coincided with the rise of the "festival circuit", and I was fortunate to have the willing co-operation of the Observer and the festivals themselves in getting to cover so many of them.
I still recall the jolt of a morning vodka with Alan Parker in Moscow where, because his Pink Floyd film The Wall was the most famous bootleg of the Soviet era, he is some kind of deity. Marrakech is a wonderful setting for a film festival and I shall cherish an afternoon with Martin Scorsese there, even though he spilt...
- 9/30/2013
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
Name Dropper: Conflicting Techniques Clutter Agnes B.’s Debut
French fashion designer and film producer Agnes Trouble makes her directorial and screenwriting debut under the pseudonym Agnes B. with Je M’appelle Hmm…, a hodge podge of jarring techniques that distorts an otherwise difficult narrative hinged upon such taboo subject matter as incestuous pedophilia. A debut born from a creative mind outside of the cinematic medium, it shares many shortcomings and other similarities with the 2011 debut of Eva Ionesco, My Little Princess. While that film’s subpar elements hide neatly behind the blonde frizzied monstrous feminine of Isabelle Huppert, Agnes B. has no such forgiving beacon, truncating narrative growth at every turn.
Celine (Lou-Lelia Demerliac) is an 11 year-old with a rather troubling secret, one she can only discuss while alone with her disheveled Barbie doll. While mom (Sylvie Testud) wastes away her time as a waitress, out of work dad...
French fashion designer and film producer Agnes Trouble makes her directorial and screenwriting debut under the pseudonym Agnes B. with Je M’appelle Hmm…, a hodge podge of jarring techniques that distorts an otherwise difficult narrative hinged upon such taboo subject matter as incestuous pedophilia. A debut born from a creative mind outside of the cinematic medium, it shares many shortcomings and other similarities with the 2011 debut of Eva Ionesco, My Little Princess. While that film’s subpar elements hide neatly behind the blonde frizzied monstrous feminine of Isabelle Huppert, Agnes B. has no such forgiving beacon, truncating narrative growth at every turn.
Celine (Lou-Lelia Demerliac) is an 11 year-old with a rather troubling secret, one she can only discuss while alone with her disheveled Barbie doll. While mom (Sylvie Testud) wastes away her time as a waitress, out of work dad...
- 9/5/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Agnès b. owns a film theater in Hong Kong, produces films such as "Spring Breakers," dabbles in the world of film festival partnerships and maintains a line of clothing called "On aime le cinéma." But that's not enough for the fashion designer to prove with her debut feature "Je m’appelle…Hmmm" that she has a true cinematic eye to accompany her highly praised fashion one. Recounting the age-old story of incest with no new insight or innovation, the movie follows 11 year-old Céline Meunier (Lou Lélia Démerliac) who, at a school field trip, seizes the opportunity to run away from home and from her abusive father (Jacques Bonnaffé). She then meets Peter, a 40 year-old English truck driver who has nothing to lose (Douglas Gordon), and accompanies him on his journey back to his homeland, where she forms an intense bond with him. Facing unrealistic expectations for a first-time director, Agnès b.
- 9/1/2013
- by Tara Karajica
- Indiewire
Shock And Gore | British Airways Silent Picturehouse | Pride film festivals | Mogwai + Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait
Shock And Gore, Birmingham
Like all good horror festivals, this is a mix of old classics and new blood, the latter led by James "Saw" Wan's Amityville-like The Conjuring. Talking of blood, Xan Cassavetes makes her fiction debut with modern vampire flick Kiss Of The Damned, while a post-dinner dare game gets horribly messy in Would You Rather. For the more civilised there's Coppola's Dracula, and for the sincerely debauched, Saturday is an all-nighter, with films, parties, horror-director guests and offbeat awards such as Best Death and Worst Nicolas Cage Movie.
Various venues, Sat to 25 Jul
British Airways Silent Picturehouse, London
Cementing the relationship between movies and air travel, BA transforms the arched caverns of Vinopolis into a sumptuous cinema lounge this week, where you can choose between five films playing simultaneously (in different...
Shock And Gore, Birmingham
Like all good horror festivals, this is a mix of old classics and new blood, the latter led by James "Saw" Wan's Amityville-like The Conjuring. Talking of blood, Xan Cassavetes makes her fiction debut with modern vampire flick Kiss Of The Damned, while a post-dinner dare game gets horribly messy in Would You Rather. For the more civilised there's Coppola's Dracula, and for the sincerely debauched, Saturday is an all-nighter, with films, parties, horror-director guests and offbeat awards such as Best Death and Worst Nicolas Cage Movie.
Various venues, Sat to 25 Jul
British Airways Silent Picturehouse, London
Cementing the relationship between movies and air travel, BA transforms the arched caverns of Vinopolis into a sumptuous cinema lounge this week, where you can choose between five films playing simultaneously (in different...
- 7/20/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The Unpopular Opinion is an ongoing column featuring different takes on films that either the writer Hated, but that the majority of film fans Loved, or that the writer Loved, but that most others Loathed. We're hoping this column will promote constructive and geek fueled discussion. Enjoy! ****Some Spoilers Ensue**** Douglas Gordon created an art installation in 1993 called 24 Hour Psycho which slows the frame rate of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece to 2 frames...
- 7/3/2013
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
I do not think anyone can accuse James Franco of not doing interesting things with his time. Between being a director, writer, actor, artist and wizard, I wonder when he has time to do things like sleep, or breathe. Franco’s most recent foray into the ‘is it art or is it pretension?’ world is his art installation ‘Psycho Nacirema’ at London’s Pace Gallery. The installation is not quite an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho, but rather an investigation of the questions and concerns that the movie inspires.
Franco created the art installation with Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon. The installation is a combination of media, including models of the Psycho motel rooms and flashing neon sign, a mirror installation that is supposed to install both the artist and the viewer in the position of Marion Crane, and video and film feeds. Franco and Douglas also include...
Franco created the art installation with Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon. The installation is a combination of media, including models of the Psycho motel rooms and flashing neon sign, a mirror installation that is supposed to install both the artist and the viewer in the position of Marion Crane, and video and film feeds. Franco and Douglas also include...
- 6/10/2013
- by Lauren Humphries-Brooks
- We Got This Covered
What made the actor dress up as Janet Leigh and recreate her murder in Psycho? Here, he explains the thinking behind his latest artwork
What interests me about Psycho is how the film addresses one man's imaginary life – how Norman Bates keeps his mother alive in the world of his imagination. It's all about role-playing: he plays her and the character then takes him over. And he excuses his extreme actions, including murder, because they occur when he has slipped into a different psychological state. I do love Hitchcock's 1960 film, but Psycho Nacirema, the art installation I have made with the Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon, isn't supposed to be a homage.
The show is about using films and performances as the inspiration for new works. Last year, I did a collaborative show with a group of artists that included Douglas, the film-maker Harmony Korine and the La-based artist Paul McCarthy.
What interests me about Psycho is how the film addresses one man's imaginary life – how Norman Bates keeps his mother alive in the world of his imagination. It's all about role-playing: he plays her and the character then takes him over. And he excuses his extreme actions, including murder, because they occur when he has slipped into a different psychological state. I do love Hitchcock's 1960 film, but Psycho Nacirema, the art installation I have made with the Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon, isn't supposed to be a homage.
The show is about using films and performances as the inspiration for new works. Last year, I did a collaborative show with a group of artists that included Douglas, the film-maker Harmony Korine and the La-based artist Paul McCarthy.
- 6/10/2013
- by Skye Sherwin
- The Guardian - Film News
James Franco is going 'Psycho' for his most recent art exhibit, on view at London's Pace Gallery this week.
For the cinematic-inspired show, the actor performs his best Janet Leigh impersonations in a lofty reimagination of Alfred Hitchcock's epic 1960 film. That's right, the ever-reaching Franco dons a blonde wig and screams his lungs out in a shower, all in an effort to recreate the disturbing terror magic of a Hollywood relic.
"Psycho Nacirema," the official title of Franco's homage to Hitchcock, is a large-scale video installation that functions as a full-on mise-en-scène of the original "Psycho." Created with Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (someone who seems all too eager to produce multiple projects centered on Norman Bates), the work references a real-life murder as well, intertwining plot points from the investigation of suspected killer Fatty Arbuckle. Arbuckle was the first actor to receive a $1 million pay check, but...
For the cinematic-inspired show, the actor performs his best Janet Leigh impersonations in a lofty reimagination of Alfred Hitchcock's epic 1960 film. That's right, the ever-reaching Franco dons a blonde wig and screams his lungs out in a shower, all in an effort to recreate the disturbing terror magic of a Hollywood relic.
"Psycho Nacirema," the official title of Franco's homage to Hitchcock, is a large-scale video installation that functions as a full-on mise-en-scène of the original "Psycho." Created with Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (someone who seems all too eager to produce multiple projects centered on Norman Bates), the work references a real-life murder as well, intertwining plot points from the investigation of suspected killer Fatty Arbuckle. Arbuckle was the first actor to receive a $1 million pay check, but...
- 6/4/2013
- by Katherine Brooks
- Huffington Post
The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous’s jaw-dropping tale of war crimes, guilt and moviemaking, took the top prize at Cph:dox here in Copenhagen Friday night. The film, pictured above, boasts Werner Herzog and Errol Morris as executive producers and follows a group of former death squad leaders as they make Hollywood-style movies based on their murders of communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals following Indonesia’s military coup in 1965. Director Edwin (Postcards from the Zoo) presented the award and read the jury’s statement: “The Jury would like to award a film for its ability to show the construction of fear in a society and for its courageous re-enactment of the madness of the past, still echoing in the present.” As an Indonesian, Edwin added a personal testament to the film’s powerful confrontation of the country’s history. Accepting the award, Oppenheimer thanked the country’s community of survivors,...
- 11/11/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
A Romanian cinema linchpin returns with a daunting existential drama
Six years ago, Cristi Puiu made a film that came to be regarded as a jewel of the Romanian new wave: The Death of Mr Lazarescu, a tragicomedy showing an old man's final hours in hospital. Now Puiu has returned with a substantial new feature film – first shown at Cannes two years ago – entitled Aurora, and by substantial I mean dauntingly long: a little over three hours. This is a formidable, enigmatic piece of work in many ways; with control and technique deployed with absolute confidence.
It is an opaque existential drama, and Puiu himself stars as Viorel, a middle-aged guy who is apparently at the end of his tether, having endured humiliations at work and at home. And now he has got a gun. Viorel's accumulating Weltschmerz finds expression in this slo-mo 180-minute explosion: I found myself thinking of...
Six years ago, Cristi Puiu made a film that came to be regarded as a jewel of the Romanian new wave: The Death of Mr Lazarescu, a tragicomedy showing an old man's final hours in hospital. Now Puiu has returned with a substantial new feature film – first shown at Cannes two years ago – entitled Aurora, and by substantial I mean dauntingly long: a little over three hours. This is a formidable, enigmatic piece of work in many ways; with control and technique deployed with absolute confidence.
It is an opaque existential drama, and Puiu himself stars as Viorel, a middle-aged guy who is apparently at the end of his tether, having endured humiliations at work and at home. And now he has got a gun. Viorel's accumulating Weltschmerz finds expression in this slo-mo 180-minute explosion: I found myself thinking of...
- 11/9/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Rome Film Festival (November 9-17) unveils its complete lineup, including the world premiere of Cinema Xxi opening night selection "Centro Historico," an anthology by international auteurs Aki Kaurismaki, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice and Manuel de Oliveira. Ex-Venice Fest director Marco Muller presides for the first time as the fest's artistic director, while an international jury of Scottish visual artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon (Chair), Hans Hurch, Ed Lachman, Andrea Lissoni and Emily Jacir will give out the following awards: CinemaXXI Award (reserved for feature-length films) Special Jury Prize – CinemaXXI (reserved for feature-length films) CinemaXXI Award for short films and medium-length films Complete lineup: Out Of Competition Feature Films: (World Premiere) O Batuque Dos Astros Julio Bressane, Brazil, 2012, 74’ (World Premiere) Centro HISTÓRICO / Historic Centre Aki...
- 10/23/2012
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Tasher Desh, the latest film by Gandu fame Kaushik Mukherjee (Q) will compete in the Cinema Xxi section of the 7th edition of the Rome Film Festival. The festival will run from 9th – 17th November, 2012.
Tasher Desh is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s dance drama with the same name. The film is co-produced by Anurag Kashyap. In an interview with DearCinema, Q described the film as “Tagore on an acid trip”, a psychedelic and intense rendition of the work of Tagore. The film stars Anubrata Basu, Rituparna Sen and Soumyak Kanti De Biswas.
The Rome Film Festival has four sections, Competition, Out of Competition, CinemaXXI and Prospettive Italia. The jury of the CinemaXXI section is led by Douglas Gordon with Hans Hurch, Ed Lachman, Andrea Lissoni and Emily Jacir. The film in the section will compete for the CinemaXXI Award.
Q came into international prominence with Gandu that had its...
Tasher Desh is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s dance drama with the same name. The film is co-produced by Anurag Kashyap. In an interview with DearCinema, Q described the film as “Tagore on an acid trip”, a psychedelic and intense rendition of the work of Tagore. The film stars Anubrata Basu, Rituparna Sen and Soumyak Kanti De Biswas.
The Rome Film Festival has four sections, Competition, Out of Competition, CinemaXXI and Prospettive Italia. The jury of the CinemaXXI section is led by Douglas Gordon with Hans Hurch, Ed Lachman, Andrea Lissoni and Emily Jacir. The film in the section will compete for the CinemaXXI Award.
Q came into international prominence with Gandu that had its...
- 10/13/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
The horror film that breaks many of the conventions of the genre still retains the power to shock
My mother was inflating an airbed in the next room. The foot pump's high-pitched wheezing sounded exactly like the violin stabs in the shower scene from Psycho. Even though I understood that real murders did not generally have soundtracks, my first instinct was there's a killer in the house.
Even before I had seen Psycho, I felt like I'd seen it. But when I first watched it, I was surprised by how much was unfamiliar. There are all these scenes that aren't the shower scene. Almost all of the film, in fact. It's also strange it should be considered one of the archetypal horror films because, in a genre obsessed with fulfilling conventions, Psycho doesn't. Hitchcock kills off Marion, the protagonist, before the halfway mark. When we meet the villain, he's bumbling and likable.
My mother was inflating an airbed in the next room. The foot pump's high-pitched wheezing sounded exactly like the violin stabs in the shower scene from Psycho. Even though I understood that real murders did not generally have soundtracks, my first instinct was there's a killer in the house.
Even before I had seen Psycho, I felt like I'd seen it. But when I first watched it, I was surprised by how much was unfamiliar. There are all these scenes that aren't the shower scene. Almost all of the film, in fact. It's also strange it should be considered one of the archetypal horror films because, in a genre obsessed with fulfilling conventions, Psycho doesn't. Hitchcock kills off Marion, the protagonist, before the halfway mark. When we meet the villain, he's bumbling and likable.
- 6/16/2012
- by Joe Dunthorne
- The Guardian - Film News
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