Kasba.The epic may go to the origins: the archetypes of thought, emotion and spiritual desire, and dissolve them in the present. The sensuous, contemporary life, seen from the perspectives of both past and future: film. Like music, the cinema is experienced as a continuous, live process of energies. It is conceived and best remembered in a flash, a composite whole.—Kumar Shahani, Film as a Contemporary ArtA sequence from Kasba (1990), directed by Kumar Shahani, has remained imprinted in my mind. Adapted from Anton Chekhov’s 1900 novella In The Ravine, Shahani’s melodrama is an exploration of feudal patriarchy in a small township in the mountains of Kangra. The film follows the younger daughter-in-law Tejo’s (Mita Vashisht) brutal power grab, which will finally culminate in the killing of the male heir to the family business. Immediately following this harrowing scene, Tejo stands at the edge of an open window,...
- 4/24/2024
- MUBI
Kumar Shahani, one of the pioneers of India’s arthouse parallel cinema movement, died at a hospital in Kolkata on Feb. 24 after a period of illness. He was 83.
Shahani studied screenwriting and direction at the Film and Television of India, where he was tutored by Indian master Ritwik Ghatak. He won a French government scholarship for higher studies in France, where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques and assisted Robert Bresson on “Une Femme Douce” (1969).
He returned to India and directed his first feature “Maya Darpan” in 1972. Shahani was known for his formalist style of filmmaking and his landmark films include “Tarang” (1984), “Khayal Gatha” (1989) and “Kasba” (1990).
Internationally, Shahani’s work was particularly appreciated at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which programmed several of his films including “Maya Darpan,” the short “Var Var Vari,” “Tarang,” “Kasba,” the documentary “Bhavantarana” and “Char Adhyay.” “Khayal Gatha” won the Fipresci prize...
Shahani studied screenwriting and direction at the Film and Television of India, where he was tutored by Indian master Ritwik Ghatak. He won a French government scholarship for higher studies in France, where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques and assisted Robert Bresson on “Une Femme Douce” (1969).
He returned to India and directed his first feature “Maya Darpan” in 1972. Shahani was known for his formalist style of filmmaking and his landmark films include “Tarang” (1984), “Khayal Gatha” (1989) and “Kasba” (1990).
Internationally, Shahani’s work was particularly appreciated at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which programmed several of his films including “Maya Darpan,” the short “Var Var Vari,” “Tarang,” “Kasba,” the documentary “Bhavantarana” and “Char Adhyay.” “Khayal Gatha” won the Fipresci prize...
- 2/25/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
The world of Indian cinema mourns the loss of Kumar Shahani, a visionary filmmaker whose contributions have left an indelible mark on the landscape of parallel cinema. Shahani, who breathed his last on Sunday at the age of 83, leaves behind a legacy rich with artistic brilliance and innovation.
Born into a world enamored with the magic of storytelling, Kumar Shahani embarked on a journey that would redefine the contours of Indian cinema. His alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) in Pune, served as the crucible where his cinematic sensibilities were honed. It was here that he found himself under the mentorship of the legendary director Ritwik Ghatak, who recognized in Shahani a spark of genius.
Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Kumar Shahani ventured into the realm of filmmaking with a thirst for experimentation and a keen eye for detail. His sojourn to France, where...
Born into a world enamored with the magic of storytelling, Kumar Shahani embarked on a journey that would redefine the contours of Indian cinema. His alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) in Pune, served as the crucible where his cinematic sensibilities were honed. It was here that he found himself under the mentorship of the legendary director Ritwik Ghatak, who recognized in Shahani a spark of genius.
Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Kumar Shahani ventured into the realm of filmmaking with a thirst for experimentation and a keen eye for detail. His sojourn to France, where...
- 2/25/2024
- by Chesta Singh
- ReferSMS
Joint call from 40 cultural figures comes as Russian forces continue to amass on Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian filmmakers Oleg Sentsov and Sergei Loznitsa have joined leading figures from Ukraine’s cultural and scientific communities in an appeal for peace as Russian forces continue to amass on the Ukrainian border.
Some 40 cultural figures have issued a joint call to world leaders and urged Russia to deescalate tensions. “Today, Ukraine needs peace more than ever,” read their declaration. “Accumulation of Russian military forces around the borders of the European state as well as the constant discussions that the war will start almost tomorrow are alarming for us,...
Ukrainian filmmakers Oleg Sentsov and Sergei Loznitsa have joined leading figures from Ukraine’s cultural and scientific communities in an appeal for peace as Russian forces continue to amass on the Ukrainian border.
Some 40 cultural figures have issued a joint call to world leaders and urged Russia to deescalate tensions. “Today, Ukraine needs peace more than ever,” read their declaration. “Accumulation of Russian military forces around the borders of the European state as well as the constant discussions that the war will start almost tomorrow are alarming for us,...
- 2/14/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Steve McQueen and his installation "Year 3" at Tate Britain. Steve McQueen will be unveiling a new installation, “Sunshine State,” at the International film festival Rotterdam as part of its Art Directions section, which is dedicated to "daring films, installations, exhibitions and live performance." This is McQueen's first major commission since "Year 3," which was exhibited at Tate Britain in 2019. Martin Scorsese has set his eyes on his next project with Apple: a biopic about the Grateful Dead, starring Jonah Hill as frontman Jerry Garcia. As Variety points out, Scorsese did executive produce a 2017 documentary series about the band entitled Long Strange Trip. For that series, he described the Grateful Dead as "more than just a band." Hill and Scorsese previously worked together on Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and a Coca-Cola ad for last year's Super Bowl.
- 11/26/2021
- MUBI
Full Bloom is a series, written by Patrick Holzapfel and illustrated by Ivana Miloš, that reconsiders plants in cinema. Directors have given certain flowers, trees or herbs special attention for many different reasons. It’s time to give them the credit they deserve and highlight their contributions to cinema, in full bloom.Ivana Miloš, A Gentle Creature (2021), monotype and gouache on paper, 33 x 24 cmDEAD Flowers At The WAYSIDEEvery day there are hundreds of dead flowers, originally torn from the earth in order to display love, rotting at the side of the road. Some of them have just fallen victim to time: They dried out or their colors faded, leaving a sad and ultimately unbearable reminder of a beauty that is no more. Others, however, are thrown away in full bloom. Helpless bouquets cover streets and garbage cans like monuments to frustrated loves. Discarded in moments of anger or passionate refusal,...
- 11/19/2021
- MUBI
Sergei Loznitsa's State Funeral is exclusively showing in many countries starting May 21, 2021 in Mubi's Luminaries series.When the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014 broke out in Kiev, Ukraine, Sergei Loznitsa was its most appropriate chronicler. For in the fifteen years leading up to the demonstrations that overthrew the Putin-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian director had already managed to examine many moments of conflict and hardship in the history of Soviet and post-Soviet states. Be it through fiction, observational documentary, or archival collage, his work is mostly concerned with the way individuals are usurped by the masses, and the way these collective bodies are being framed and reframed throughout history. So when history was being written in real time on the central square of Kiev, Loznitsa was there to record it and to reinforce his cinematic thesis that captured events will always resist a linear narrative.Loznitsa avoids an overtly explicit approach to filmmaking.
- 5/18/2021
- MUBI
The heads of the national film institutes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania came together in Tallinn.
The heads of the national film institutes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania came together at the annual Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event as part of the Black Nights International Film Festival to pitch their countries as major film hubs to the international film industry.
The Baltic countries have opened up in the last two years as shooting locations for international productions from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet through TV series Chernobyl, Young Wallander, and Rise Of The Nazis to international features including Hans Petter Moland’s...
The heads of the national film institutes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania came together at the annual Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event as part of the Black Nights International Film Festival to pitch their countries as major film hubs to the international film industry.
The Baltic countries have opened up in the last two years as shooting locations for international productions from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet through TV series Chernobyl, Young Wallander, and Rise Of The Nazis to international features including Hans Petter Moland’s...
- 11/25/2020
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The snowbound thriller was recently picked up for on-demand release in North America.
Arclight Films has secured new international distribution deals for thriller Let it Snow, starring Ivanna Sakhno and directed by Stanislav Kapralov.
The film, about a free-riding snowboarder struggling to survive against nature and a masked masked snowmobile rider, goes to Hark & Company for Japan, Spentzos Films for Greece, McF Megacom for the former Yugoslavia, Falcon Films for the Middle East and Black Sheep Films for Africa.
North American rights to the film were recently picked up by Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment Group, with an on-demand release...
Arclight Films has secured new international distribution deals for thriller Let it Snow, starring Ivanna Sakhno and directed by Stanislav Kapralov.
The film, about a free-riding snowboarder struggling to survive against nature and a masked masked snowmobile rider, goes to Hark & Company for Japan, Spentzos Films for Greece, McF Megacom for the former Yugoslavia, Falcon Films for the Middle East and Black Sheep Films for Africa.
North American rights to the film were recently picked up by Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment Group, with an on-demand release...
- 7/9/2020
- by 31¦John Hazelton¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
The French director’s 1969 spectacle about the wife of a pawnbroker who kills herself is still difficult, devastating and captivating 50 years on
Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (A Gentle Woman), is now revived in UK cinemas 50 years after its original release – although this stark, austere, forbidding spectacle could just as well have been made in 1959 or 1949. This was his adaptation of the Dostoevsky short story Krotkaya, or A Gentle Creature (the inspiration for a quite different film of the same name by Sergei Loznitsa in 2017). It was his first colour film, and the colours themselves appear muted and darkened, as if from a neglected church tapestry.
Dominique Sanda plays Elle, the delicate young wife of a pawnbroker (that ominous Dostoevskian trope) who takes her own life by jumping from the balcony of their handsome Paris apartment, leaving no suicide note or explanation. The eerily calm widower Luc (Guy Frangin...
Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (A Gentle Woman), is now revived in UK cinemas 50 years after its original release – although this stark, austere, forbidding spectacle could just as well have been made in 1959 or 1949. This was his adaptation of the Dostoevsky short story Krotkaya, or A Gentle Creature (the inspiration for a quite different film of the same name by Sergei Loznitsa in 2017). It was his first colour film, and the colours themselves appear muted and darkened, as if from a neglected church tapestry.
Dominique Sanda plays Elle, the delicate young wife of a pawnbroker (that ominous Dostoevskian trope) who takes her own life by jumping from the balcony of their handsome Paris apartment, leaving no suicide note or explanation. The eerily calm widower Luc (Guy Frangin...
- 8/2/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
1. mother!Darren Aronofsky’s divisive nightmare boasted a number of very striking posters this year, including one that blatantly yet beautifully pastiched the iconic Gips/Frankfurt design for Rosemary’s Baby and another in which Jennifer Lawrence’s face is minutely cracked like a porcelain doll. But it is this first teaser poster for the film, by the extraordinary artist James Jean, that stands out for me not only as a surreally appropriate representation of Aronofsky’s uncompromising vision, but as the best movie poster of the year. Grotesque and gorgeous, and dotted with hidden clues, Jean’s looks more like a piece of devotional iconography than a poster for a horror movie. (There is also an accompanying poster by Jean which features Javier Bardem’s character.) Known for his covers for the DC comic book series Fables, Jean has been in high demand this year, creating the charcoal illustration...
- 12/11/2017
- MUBI
Above: Bedrich Dlouhy’s 1970 poster for Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1950).Flipping through the website of the incomparable Czech poster store Terry Posters the other day, I came across an artist whose name I hadn’t known before. I was aware of some of Bedřich Dlouhý’s posters: his split-screen design for Věra Chytilová’s Something Different was one of my favorites in Isabel Stevens’s recent piece on Chytilová’s posters in Sight & Sound, and I knew his designs for Rashomon, Red Desert, The Pink Panther and 8 1/2, but I had never put two and two together that they were by the same designer.Part of the reason I didn’t know more of his work is that most of the films Dlouhý worked on in the ten years that he was designing posters (from 1962 to 1971) were films from the Eastern Bloc that are little known here. Films from Hungary, Yugoslavia...
- 6/19/2015
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Le-Van Kiet's Gentle starts with an unexpectedly drastic scene, as if trying to wash away the tranquility so pleasantly accentuated by the film's opening credits and its intriguing title, inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1876 short story 'A Gentle Creature'.From the viewpoint of someone who has never read the aforementioned piece it seems all the more fascinating to observe how the profound, often distressing story of emotional disconnect in a marriage without any real future prospects unravels on the big screen.Dostoyevsky's short has been adapted into feature films a few times before (most notably by Robert Bresson in 1969, under the French title Une femme douce), and it's actually not the first time that a director from a country that's still undergoing massive changes, both cultural...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 10/14/2014
- Screen Anarchy
Above: 1979 Hungarian poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, UK/USA, 1968); Designer: unknown.
When I started the Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr almost two years ago to augment my weekly poster essays here, I thought I might well run out of great posters to post daily after a year or so. But the deeper I dig the more gems I seem to unearth and the more popular the site seems to become (nearly a quarter of a million followers to date).
I’ve been posting these Best Of round-ups every six months (see parts one, two and three) but I’ve found so much good stuff lately that I feel the urge to do these four times a year instead of twice. As usual I’m using the very unscientific method of number of likes and reblogs to judge a poster’s popularity, but it does tend to...
When I started the Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr almost two years ago to augment my weekly poster essays here, I thought I might well run out of great posters to post daily after a year or so. But the deeper I dig the more gems I seem to unearth and the more popular the site seems to become (nearly a quarter of a million followers to date).
I’ve been posting these Best Of round-ups every six months (see parts one, two and three) but I’ve found so much good stuff lately that I feel the urge to do these four times a year instead of twice. As usual I’m using the very unscientific method of number of likes and reblogs to judge a poster’s popularity, but it does tend to...
- 9/7/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
The Czech poster for Robert Bresson’s Une femme douce by Olga Poláčková-Vyleťalová is one of my favorite posters of all-time: an extraordinarily arresting, beautifully executed piece of Czech surrealism that yet has a strong thematic and visual connection to the film itself. (The girl wrapped in her own hair could be the isolated and suicidal character played by Dominique Sanda.) So I was taken aback when a friend pointed out this photograph recently.
The photograph is apparently by the great fashion and celebrity photographer Bert Stern, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 83. Stern, who was the subject of the documentary Bert Stern: Original Mad Man that was released earlier this year, is best known for his hundreds of photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken weeks before her death. But his most famous connection to movie posters is that he took the photographs of Sue Lyons wearing...
The photograph is apparently by the great fashion and celebrity photographer Bert Stern, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 83. Stern, who was the subject of the documentary Bert Stern: Original Mad Man that was released earlier this year, is best known for his hundreds of photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken weeks before her death. But his most famous connection to movie posters is that he took the photographs of Sue Lyons wearing...
- 6/28/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
It was hard to whittle down my favorite movie posters to a straight top ten this year. There was no absolute stand-out like Chris Ware’s Uncle Boonmee last year, and the majority of film posters continue to be depressingly rote and uninspired, even though the explosion of Diy illustration has started to make inroads into the world of commercial film promotion. As a symptom of my indecision I have tended to group posters together more than usual; laid out like this the year doesn’t look half bad.
1. Wreck-it Ralph (with The Lorax and Life Of Pi)
On its own the Wreck-It Ralph teaser would still have been one of the best posters of the year—a wittily simple 8-bit pixellated key-stroke of genius that compresses a blockbuster 3D extravaganza into a flat, three-color arrangement of squares and tells everyone walking by exactly what they need to know (except...
1. Wreck-it Ralph (with The Lorax and Life Of Pi)
On its own the Wreck-It Ralph teaser would still have been one of the best posters of the year—a wittily simple 8-bit pixellated key-stroke of genius that compresses a blockbuster 3D extravaganza into a flat, three-color arrangement of squares and tells everyone walking by exactly what they need to know (except...
- 1/5/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
“We are still coming to terms with Robert Bresson, and the peculiar power and beauty of his films,” Martin Scorsese said in the 2010 book “A Passion For Film,” describing the often overlooked French filmmaker as “one of the cinema’s greatest artists.”
But while he may be revered by some as the finest French filmmaker bar Jean Renoir, outside hardcore cinephile circles he and his films are virtually unknown (perhaps regarded as too opaque or nebulous). Just consider the fact that almost every definitive book on the elusive director was published during the aughts to feel the full truth of Scorsese's statement about how we're still in the process of appreciating and understanding his life and work. Even Bresson’s actual birthdate is contested, adding further the ambiguities surrounding the director.
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen,” the meticulous Bresson once famously said, hinting at...
But while he may be revered by some as the finest French filmmaker bar Jean Renoir, outside hardcore cinephile circles he and his films are virtually unknown (perhaps regarded as too opaque or nebulous). Just consider the fact that almost every definitive book on the elusive director was published during the aughts to feel the full truth of Scorsese's statement about how we're still in the process of appreciating and understanding his life and work. Even Bresson’s actual birthdate is contested, adding further the ambiguities surrounding the director.
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen,” the meticulous Bresson once famously said, hinting at...
- 4/18/2012
- by The Playlist
- The Playlist
On viewing Au hasard Balthazar (1966) at the Robert Bresson retrospective here in New York I noticed this interesting edit:
What's going on here? François Lafarge's miscreant teen Gérard, after insolently facing one of the only characters in the film sympathetic to him, his landlady and boss (or wife of his boss), seems almost to pass through her between the space of one shot (her wiping her tears away) and the next (him walking directly away from her).
What's actually going on here is that in the shot of the woman wiping away her tear, Gérard walks across the frame from left to right, but is so close to the camera he simply seems nearly to fill the frame rather than just move across it. Thus the next shot seems like a 180-degree reverse cut, as if the camera's view point is that of the woman. Actually it's more like a 90-degree cut,...
What's going on here? François Lafarge's miscreant teen Gérard, after insolently facing one of the only characters in the film sympathetic to him, his landlady and boss (or wife of his boss), seems almost to pass through her between the space of one shot (her wiping her tears away) and the next (him walking directly away from her).
What's actually going on here is that in the shot of the woman wiping away her tear, Gérard walks across the frame from left to right, but is so close to the camera he simply seems nearly to fill the frame rather than just move across it. Thus the next shot seems like a 180-degree reverse cut, as if the camera's view point is that of the woman. Actually it's more like a 90-degree cut,...
- 1/25/2012
- MUBI
Asked by Sight & Sound to name the ten greatest films of all time, Robert Bresson submitted the following, somewhat notorious list:
1. City Lights
2. City Lights
3. The Gold Rush
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
There are two ways in which Robert Bresson is rarely spoken about: as a comic filmmaker (though, as the above demonstrates, he could be pretty damn funny) and as someone whose work displays the influence of other directors.
Let's begin with that second point. Going back to some of the earliest defenses—as well as the earliest dismissals—of his work, Bresson has largely been described as a filmmaker "without precedent;" his detractors from the 1940s to the 1960s complained that his films didn't work the way movies were supposed to, and his supporters were more than happy to praise his films for the exact same reasons (Jacques Becker, for one, took the pages of L'Écran français to defend the poorly-received Les dames du Bois de Boulogne...
1. City Lights
2. City Lights
3. The Gold Rush
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
There are two ways in which Robert Bresson is rarely spoken about: as a comic filmmaker (though, as the above demonstrates, he could be pretty damn funny) and as someone whose work displays the influence of other directors.
Let's begin with that second point. Going back to some of the earliest defenses—as well as the earliest dismissals—of his work, Bresson has largely been described as a filmmaker "without precedent;" his detractors from the 1940s to the 1960s complained that his films didn't work the way movies were supposed to, and his supporters were more than happy to praise his films for the exact same reasons (Jacques Becker, for one, took the pages of L'Écran français to defend the poorly-received Les dames du Bois de Boulogne...
- 1/13/2012
- MUBI
A tonic for the New Year: for the next two weeks Film Forum is running a near-complete retrospective of the films of Robert Bresson programmed by the Tiff Cinematheque. The posters for Bresson’s films are a fascinating grab-bag of styles, verging from melodrama to minimalism to symbolism to the wildly inappropriate (see the Italian Mouchette), as designers tried to express and occasionally subvert Bresson’s celebrated and increasing austerity. My favorite may well be this lovely, witty French grande for Pickpocket, illustrated by the great Christian Broutin (best known for his iconic Jules and Jim posters). But there are plenty of other standouts, most especially Raymond Savignac’s series of playful cartoons for Bresson’s final three films: Lancelot du Lac, The Devil, Probably and L’Argent, and the stunning Czech surrealism for Une femme douce.
I present my favorite Bresson posters, a couple per film if possible, in chronological order.
I present my favorite Bresson posters, a couple per film if possible, in chronological order.
- 1/6/2012
- MUBI
First the history, then the list:
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
- 5/3/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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