In the last decade, the Maltese film industry has undergone radical development, with a strong focus on seeing the island country evolve from a service provider to Hollywood productions to telling their own stories on screen.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival, Maltese filmmakers have highlighted the importance of fostering local talent, rerouting foreign investment into native productions and strengthening bonds with neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Things have changed drastically in recent years,” said veteran filmmaker Mario Philip Azzopardi, whose 1971 “Il-Gaġġa” is widely presumed to be the first full-length feature filmed entirely in Maltese. “The building of shooting facilities, especially the water tanks, attracted a lot of movies and now there’s the attraction of 40% tax rebate. The problem is we have become primarily a service country, and creating Maltese movies is extremely difficult. We can’t afford the budgets of foreign films.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the second edition of the Mediterrane Film Festival, Maltese filmmakers have highlighted the importance of fostering local talent, rerouting foreign investment into native productions and strengthening bonds with neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Things have changed drastically in recent years,” said veteran filmmaker Mario Philip Azzopardi, whose 1971 “Il-Gaġġa” is widely presumed to be the first full-length feature filmed entirely in Maltese. “The building of shooting facilities, especially the water tanks, attracted a lot of movies and now there’s the attraction of 40% tax rebate. The problem is we have become primarily a service country, and creating Maltese movies is extremely difficult. We can’t afford the budgets of foreign films.
- 6/24/2024
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- Variety Film + TV
A directorial debut programmed into the main Cannes competition is typically viewed with suspicion, if not overlooked altogether. Very rare is that lightning-in-a-bottle moment like the arrival of Son of Saul some years back. Typically, the only conversation these debuts generate is the critical debate as to why they’ve been elevated to the top of the pile when there are far more striking debuts buried deeper within the festival. This often means that accomplished films are overlooked and underappreciated by those on the ground, who may be subconsciously comparing a striking feature to the work of more established names it’s competing against for the Palme d’Or, approaching each debut with a “show me” attitude it wouldn’t be treated with if selected for placement in, say, Un Certain Regard.
Banel & Adama, the feature debut of Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, is an assured work that has been plagued...
Banel & Adama, the feature debut of Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, is an assured work that has been plagued...
- 6/4/2024
- by Alistair Ryder
- The Film Stage
The 2024 Cannes Film Festival concluded on Saturday, May 25 following two weeks packed with screenings, stars, press and parties. With the prizes having been handed out for the festival’s 77th anniversary, we can now start looking at what contenders might be in the best spot to get into the upcoming Oscar race. Let’s examine the winners from this year’s festival and see the history that each category has when it comes to the Oscars.
In recent years, we’ve seen the festival serve as a huge springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. Three of the last four winners of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, have nabbed Best Picture nominations: “Parasite” (2019), “Triangle of Sadness” (2022) and “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023). Other big winners at recent festivals that became big Oscar players include “Drive My Car,” “The Zone of Interest” and “BlacKkKlansman.” This year’s...
In recent years, we’ve seen the festival serve as a huge springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. Three of the last four winners of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, have nabbed Best Picture nominations: “Parasite” (2019), “Triangle of Sadness” (2022) and “Anatomy of a Fall” (2023). Other big winners at recent festivals that became big Oscar players include “Drive My Car,” “The Zone of Interest” and “BlacKkKlansman.” This year’s...
- 5/25/2024
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
When it comes to the wild success of the film industry in Hungary, which is the largest production hub in continental Europe and second in Europe only to the U.K., film commissioner Csaba Káel is quick to credit a rich cinematic legacy dating back more than 100 years. “There is a huge tradition,” he said. “We have a special film DNA in Hungary.”
The industry’s ongoing success, however, as well as its hopes for the future, is just as reliant on sound policy and investment from the country’s National Film Institute, along with a deep pool of world-class talent that is the envy of industries twice its size.
Those were among the takeaways of a panel during the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film that included Káel, Hungarian producer Ildikó Kemény (“Poor Things”), Hungarian-born and Canadian-based producer Robert Lantos (“Crimes of the Future”), and the U.K.
The industry’s ongoing success, however, as well as its hopes for the future, is just as reliant on sound policy and investment from the country’s National Film Institute, along with a deep pool of world-class talent that is the envy of industries twice its size.
Those were among the takeaways of a panel during the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film that included Káel, Hungarian producer Ildikó Kemény (“Poor Things”), Hungarian-born and Canadian-based producer Robert Lantos (“Crimes of the Future”), and the U.K.
- 5/22/2024
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Filming in Hungary offers everything from a massive amount of production space and a 20-year strong tax rebate to eight symphony orchestras and thermal baths.
On a panel during the Cannes Film Festival at the Marche du Film, film commissioner Csaba Kael, as well as producers Ildikó Kemeny, Robert Lantos and Mike Goodridge, spoke about the experiences of filming in Hungary.
Kael noted that commercial film production began in the country in the early 1900s. “It is built into our DNA,” he said of filmmaking. Only the U.K. has more film production than Hungary, Kael added. This year, Hungary is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its tax rebate program, which offers films produced in Hungary a 30 percent rebate based on their expenditure.
Lantos, who has been filming in the country since the 1990s prior to the tax credits, said, “Whenever I have a project that needs a European-looking city,...
On a panel during the Cannes Film Festival at the Marche du Film, film commissioner Csaba Kael, as well as producers Ildikó Kemeny, Robert Lantos and Mike Goodridge, spoke about the experiences of filming in Hungary.
Kael noted that commercial film production began in the country in the early 1900s. “It is built into our DNA,” he said of filmmaking. Only the U.K. has more film production than Hungary, Kael added. This year, Hungary is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its tax rebate program, which offers films produced in Hungary a 30 percent rebate based on their expenditure.
Lantos, who has been filming in the country since the 1990s prior to the tax credits, said, “Whenever I have a project that needs a European-looking city,...
- 5/20/2024
- by Mia Galuppo
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Mike Goodridge has been on a rare journey. Not many in the industry can boast a CV that includes running a trade publication, an international sales company, a film festival and being the producer of multiple Cannes Film Festival movies.
Goodridge, the former editor of Screen International, CEO of Protagonist, and artistic director of the Macao Film Festival, is on the Croisette this year with Un Certain Regard thriller Santosh. In the UK-Germany-France co-production by filmmaker Sandhya Suri, a government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh (Shahana Goswami) inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.
Filming begins this summer in Asia on Good Chaos/Nine Hours production for Netflix The Ballad Of A Small Player, Ed Berger’s...
Goodridge, the former editor of Screen International, CEO of Protagonist, and artistic director of the Macao Film Festival, is on the Croisette this year with Un Certain Regard thriller Santosh. In the UK-Germany-France co-production by filmmaker Sandhya Suri, a government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh (Shahana Goswami) inherit her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a low-caste girl is found raped and murdered, she is pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.
Filming begins this summer in Asia on Good Chaos/Nine Hours production for Netflix The Ballad Of A Small Player, Ed Berger’s...
- 5/16/2024
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Mubi has taken László Nemes’ Orphan on board in a multi-territory deal on the post- World War II Hungarian family drama; Le Pacte will release the film in France.
Charades and New Europe Film Sales are handling sales on the film.
Mubi has acquired all rights in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey.
The Hungarian-language film is the third film by Nemes following Son Of Saul and Sunset. Set in Budapest in 1957 after the uprising against the Communist regime, Orphan follows a young Jewish boy raised by his mother whose world turns upside down...
Charades and New Europe Film Sales are handling sales on the film.
Mubi has acquired all rights in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Latin America and Turkey.
The Hungarian-language film is the third film by Nemes following Son Of Saul and Sunset. Set in Budapest in 1957 after the uprising against the Communist regime, Orphan follows a young Jewish boy raised by his mother whose world turns upside down...
- 5/15/2024
- ScreenDaily
Following Raw and Titane, Julia Ducournau has set her third feature with Alpha. Though no plot details have been unveiled this far, Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) will lead the film, Deadline reports. “Alpha is Julia’s most personal, profound work yet, and we are looking forward to a global audience discovering the story with as much excitement as we did,” said Filmnation and Charades, while the producers added, “Alpha is a new page in Julia Ducournau’s corpus that is both very consistent with the previous ones and entirely new in its tone.”
Following All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh is stepping up to a major studio project with a Leonardo da Vinci film set up at Universal Pictures. The film is based on Walter Isaacson‘s 2017 biography, which showed “how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity,...
Following All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh is stepping up to a major studio project with a Leonardo da Vinci film set up at Universal Pictures. The film is based on Walter Isaacson‘s 2017 biography, which showed “how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity,...
- 5/3/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Charades and New Europe Films are joining forces to co-sell Oscar-winning Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes’ long-awaited new feature Orphan, as the production gears up to commence shooting in and around Budapest this June.
Orphan will be Nemes’ third film after Sunset, which world premiered in Venice in 2018, and his Oscar-winning breakthrough Son of Saul, which debuted in Cannes in 2015, winning the Grand Prize of the Jury before clinching Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year.
The new film is set in Budapest in 1957, twelve years after the end of WWII and one year after the uprising against the Communist regime.
The story follows a young Jewish boy whose mother has raised him in the hope that his father will return from the camps. These hopes are shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the doorstep to take his family back.
Nemes co-wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer,...
Orphan will be Nemes’ third film after Sunset, which world premiered in Venice in 2018, and his Oscar-winning breakthrough Son of Saul, which debuted in Cannes in 2015, winning the Grand Prize of the Jury before clinching Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards the following year.
The new film is set in Budapest in 1957, twelve years after the end of WWII and one year after the uprising against the Communist regime.
The story follows a young Jewish boy whose mother has raised him in the hope that his father will return from the camps. These hopes are shattered when a brutish stranger appears on the doorstep to take his family back.
Nemes co-wrote the screenplay with Clara Royer,...
- 4/24/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
While Martin Scorsese aims to kick off production on his Jesus film this year, Terrence Malick is going on year five of editing his, marking one of the only films to wrap production pre-pandemic that still has yet to be released. As so happens every year before the Cannes Film Festival announces its lineup, rumors have swirled that the director’s Biblical epic The Way of the Wind (formerly known as The Last Planet) may see a premiere in 2024. We will, unfortunately, have to wait another year, but in the meantime we have exclusive new details on the highly anticipated project.
Actor Géza Röhrig, who stars as Jesus in the film, recently stopped by a university in the Northeast for a conversation on his career. During the chat he confirmed the film is targeting a 2025 Cannes debut. Wind will not exactly focus on Jesus and Peter (as played by Matthias Schoenaerts...
Actor Géza Röhrig, who stars as Jesus in the film, recently stopped by a university in the Northeast for a conversation on his career. During the chat he confirmed the film is targeting a 2025 Cannes debut. Wind will not exactly focus on Jesus and Peter (as played by Matthias Schoenaerts...
- 3/27/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech was a mistake, “Son of Saul” director László Nemes said. Though he praised Glazer’s film as “an important movie,” Nemes told The Guardian in a statement that Glazer “should have stayed silent.”
In Glazer’s speech, he said that he and producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”
Nemes explained in full, “‘The Zone of Interest’ is an important movie. It is not made in a usual way. It questions the grammar of cinema. Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilization, before or after the Holocaust.”
“Had he embraced the responsibility that...
In Glazer’s speech, he said that he and producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”
Nemes explained in full, “‘The Zone of Interest’ is an important movie. It is not made in a usual way. It questions the grammar of cinema. Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilization, before or after the Holocaust.”
“Had he embraced the responsibility that...
- 3/16/2024
- by Stephanie Kaloi
- The Wrap
László Nemes, the director of acclaimed Holocaust film Son of Saul, has spoken out against the speech made by the The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, when he accepted his Oscar last weekend.
Glazer has ignited support but also a huge backlash with his speech, in which he said he and his producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”
Now Nemes, who won the foreign language award in 2015 for his film about the Holocaust, Son of Saul, writes in The Guardian newspaper:
“The Zone of Interest is an important movie… Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust.
Glazer has ignited support but also a huge backlash with his speech, in which he said he and his producer James Wilson “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”
Now Nemes, who won the foreign language award in 2015 for his film about the Holocaust, Son of Saul, writes in The Guardian newspaper:
“The Zone of Interest is an important movie… Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust.
- 3/16/2024
- by Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
In a statement shared with the Guardian, László Nemes says The Zone of Interest director’s speech ‘resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate all Jewish presence’
László Nemes, the director of acclaimed film Son of Saul, has criticised The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech.
Speaking at the ceremony on Sunday, Glazer said he and his producer, James Wilson, “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”...
László Nemes, the director of acclaimed film Son of Saul, has criticised The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech.
Speaking at the ceremony on Sunday, Glazer said he and his producer, James Wilson, “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”...
- 3/15/2024
- by Catherine Shoard
- The Guardian - Film News
The Academy’s tendency to award trophies to Holocaust movies has long been whispered about — and even occasionally joked about by cheeky comedians.
In 2009, shortly after Kate Winslet won a Golden Globe for her performance as a former Auschwitz guard in “The Reader,” presenter Ricky Gervais pointed to her in the audience and deadpanned, “I told ya, do a Holocaust movie; the awards come.”
Winslet, who would go on to receive an Academy Award for her part in Stephen Daldry’s film, had several years earlier appeared on Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s HBO comedy “Extras” as an actor who stars in a film about the Holocaust in the hopes that it will earn her an Oscar.
The night of the Globes, Winslet laughed at Gervais’ ribbing, as did many in the crowd. It was a much a jab at the industry as much as it was at her.
“The spoof wasn’t entirely wrong,...
In 2009, shortly after Kate Winslet won a Golden Globe for her performance as a former Auschwitz guard in “The Reader,” presenter Ricky Gervais pointed to her in the audience and deadpanned, “I told ya, do a Holocaust movie; the awards come.”
Winslet, who would go on to receive an Academy Award for her part in Stephen Daldry’s film, had several years earlier appeared on Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s HBO comedy “Extras” as an actor who stars in a film about the Holocaust in the hopes that it will earn her an Oscar.
The night of the Globes, Winslet laughed at Gervais’ ribbing, as did many in the crowd. It was a much a jab at the industry as much as it was at her.
“The spoof wasn’t entirely wrong,...
- 2/16/2024
- by Whitney Friedlander
- Variety Film + TV
It’s an old canard in the movie business: Never underestimate a Holocaust movie when it comes to Oscar attention. From Hungary’s Best Foreign Language winner “Son of Saul” (2016) and Oscar-winners “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), “Cabaret” (1973), “Sophie’s Choice” (1983), and “The Pianist” (2004) to Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture winner “Schindler’s List” (1994), many Holocaust subjects, especially shorts and documentary features, have won Oscars. Documentaries like “Anne Frank Remembered” won for 1995, “The Long Way Home” for 1997, “The Last Days” for 1998, and “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport” for 2000, and more recently, the nonfiction short “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” won for 2014 — just one week after its subject, Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, passed away.
This season’s most decorated Holocaust film, “The Zone of Interest” (Metascore: 91) has multiple Oscar advantages. First, the film, which British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer adapted from the Martin Amis novel of the same name,...
This season’s most decorated Holocaust film, “The Zone of Interest” (Metascore: 91) has multiple Oscar advantages. First, the film, which British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer adapted from the Martin Amis novel of the same name,...
- 2/8/2024
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
As we languor in the doldrums of a wet, grey and dispiriting February, the motivation to get out of bed and take our place in society, whatever that may be, can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Set in a dystopian, bleak and indiscernible time, filmmaker Gabriel Caste’s psychological thriller Are You Awake? envisages a world where a service is available to help you rise, if not shine, each morning. Opening with an insight into the typical monotony of the wake-up caller’s door-to-door role, it’s not long before Caste injects the sharp thriller backbone into his short as our detached protagonist sees her own terrifying dread reflected in of one her clients. Are you Awake? takes a haunting approach to its analysis of the pressures of living and the weight of suffering with depression and is a film we were eager to speak to Caste about, digging into...
- 2/7/2024
- by Sarah Smith
- Directors Notes
Arthouse streamer Mubi has unveiled a deal to take a majority stake in Benelux indie distributor Cineart.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement will see the management team at Cineart remain intact, while co-CEOs and longtime execs Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter will retain “significant” stakes in the company.
“I’ve known and worked with Marc and Stephan for over 15 years, and admire what they’ve done with Cinéart. They are two of the most sophisticated and visionary operators in the business. We are delighted to be partnering with them and the whole team at Cineart, and can’t wait to bring more great films to audiences in Benelux together,” Efe Cakarel, founder and CEO of Mubi, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Cineart was part of a multi-territory deal for Sofia Coppola’s feature Priscilla ahead of a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement will see the management team at Cineart remain intact, while co-CEOs and longtime execs Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter will retain “significant” stakes in the company.
“I’ve known and worked with Marc and Stephan for over 15 years, and admire what they’ve done with Cinéart. They are two of the most sophisticated and visionary operators in the business. We are delighted to be partnering with them and the whole team at Cineart, and can’t wait to bring more great films to audiences in Benelux together,” Efe Cakarel, founder and CEO of Mubi, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Cineart was part of a multi-territory deal for Sofia Coppola’s feature Priscilla ahead of a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
- 2/6/2024
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mubi has acquired a majority stake in Amsterstam and Brussels-based distributor Cineart.
Led by Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, Cineart focuses on releasing independent films across Benelux. Over the years, it has handled titles such as Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, Son Of Saul, The Worst Person In The World, The Whale and The Zone Of Interest.
Cineart is the latest European company acquisition by streamer and distributor Mubi. Two years ago, Mubi acquired sales agent and production company The Match Factory and Match Factory Productions.
In a statement, Mubi said that Cineart’s management team will continue to lead...
Led by Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, Cineart focuses on releasing independent films across Benelux. Over the years, it has handled titles such as Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, Son Of Saul, The Worst Person In The World, The Whale and The Zone Of Interest.
Cineart is the latest European company acquisition by streamer and distributor Mubi. Two years ago, Mubi acquired sales agent and production company The Match Factory and Match Factory Productions.
In a statement, Mubi said that Cineart’s management team will continue to lead...
- 2/6/2024
- ScreenDaily
Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has acquired a majority stake in leading Benelux indie distributor Cinéart, further bolstering its global firepower as it continues to expand outside of its core streaming business.
Financial details of the deal were not revealed, but the acquisition will see Cinéart’s management team continue to lead the company as an independent European distributor, with no changes in operations. Cinéart will maintain its current team structure and slate of films, and will carry on working closely with its long time partners. Co-CEOs of Cinéart, Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, will remain significant shareholders of the company.
Founded in 1975 by the late Eliane Dubois, Cinéart has offices in Amsterdam and Brussels and has released numerous prestige independent films, including “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Artist,” “Amour,” “I Daniel Blake,” “Deux Jours Une Nuit,” “Son of Saul,” “The Worst Person in the World,” “The Whale” and current awards contender “The Zone of Interest.
Financial details of the deal were not revealed, but the acquisition will see Cinéart’s management team continue to lead the company as an independent European distributor, with no changes in operations. Cinéart will maintain its current team structure and slate of films, and will carry on working closely with its long time partners. Co-CEOs of Cinéart, Marc Smit and Stephan De Potter, will remain significant shareholders of the company.
Founded in 1975 by the late Eliane Dubois, Cinéart has offices in Amsterdam and Brussels and has released numerous prestige independent films, including “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Artist,” “Amour,” “I Daniel Blake,” “Deux Jours Une Nuit,” “Son of Saul,” “The Worst Person in the World,” “The Whale” and current awards contender “The Zone of Interest.
- 2/6/2024
- by Alex Ritman
- Variety Film + TV
There is beauty in capturing the human face in close-up. The face becomes the stage for the drama to unfold on the screen. Will, directed by Tim Mielants, is a film that is interested in capturing moments in the close-up first and foremost. The spatial dynamics of the scenes are secondary. That being said, Will has a brilliant screenplay, and the characters are so grounded in the story, which we are told has something to do with history (with an H).
I hadn’t ever heard any stories about the Belgian occupation by Germany during World War 2. There might have been some good films made, and Will has just piqued my interest to look for them. World War II dramas are a somewhat dubious category of cinema for me. The dramatization of events and circumstances of the characters neatly tied into a story often becomes entertaining, and this entertainment is...
I hadn’t ever heard any stories about the Belgian occupation by Germany during World War 2. There might have been some good films made, and Will has just piqued my interest to look for them. World War II dramas are a somewhat dubious category of cinema for me. The dramatization of events and circumstances of the characters neatly tied into a story often becomes entertaining, and this entertainment is...
- 1/31/2024
- by Ayush Awasthi
- Film Fugitives
Playtime (“Son of Saul”) is reteaming with celebrated French directors François Ozon (“By the Grace of God”) and sister duo Delphine and Muriel Coulin (“17 Girls”) on their respective upcoming films, “When Fall Is Coming” and “The Quiet Son.”
“When Fall is Coming” marks Ozon’s follow up to “The Crime Is Mine.” The film stars Hélène Vincent (“The Specials”), Josiane Balasko (“Back to Mom’s”), Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin”) and Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”).
The film tells the story of Michelle, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a charming Burgundy village near her longtime friend Marie-Claude. She eagerly anticipates her grandson Lucas spending the school vacation with her, but things don’t go as planned. Feeling lonely, Michelle loses her sense of purpose, until Marie-Claude’s son gets out of prison.
The film is self-produced by Ozon through his vehicle Foz. Diaphana Distribution will release it in France.
“When Fall is Coming” marks Ozon’s follow up to “The Crime Is Mine.” The film stars Hélène Vincent (“The Specials”), Josiane Balasko (“Back to Mom’s”), Ludivine Sagnier (“Lupin”) and Pierre Lottin (“Notre-Dame on Fire”).
The film tells the story of Michelle, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement in a charming Burgundy village near her longtime friend Marie-Claude. She eagerly anticipates her grandson Lucas spending the school vacation with her, but things don’t go as planned. Feeling lonely, Michelle loses her sense of purpose, until Marie-Claude’s son gets out of prison.
The film is self-produced by Ozon through his vehicle Foz. Diaphana Distribution will release it in France.
- 1/31/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
A slow-cinema spin on well-burnished tropes, In a Violent Nature largely strips the artifice of the slasher formula, which dictates a deformed man must hunt down attractive teens or young adults in either the woods or suburbia. A film built around a mythology that comes to life, as our killer rises from a grave, Chris Nash’s picture could almost be the kind of film Kelly Reichardt might make if her current patron A24 asked her to make a slasher flick.
The result is a deconstruction of all of the clichés that never quite comes into its own, suffering from the same shortcomings as David Gordon Green’s more traditional slasher character study Halloween Ends. The story is told largely from the perspective of a masked killer who may or may not be the son of a rural logging town figure who was executed due to a vendetta. Like László...
The result is a deconstruction of all of the clichés that never quite comes into its own, suffering from the same shortcomings as David Gordon Green’s more traditional slasher character study Halloween Ends. The story is told largely from the perspective of a masked killer who may or may not be the son of a rural logging town figure who was executed due to a vendetta. Like László...
- 1/25/2024
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
How, given the weight of history, and the history of all the other films on the subject, can you make a new film about the Holocaust?
That was the central challenge facing British writer-director Jonathan Glazer and the creative team behind A24’s The Zone of Interest.
“When Jon and I started, back in 2014, to talk about this, about making a film on this subject, we of course knew Schindler’s List and Son of Saul and everything in between,” says Zone producer James Wilson. “And our conversations were all about, ‘What new is there to say about the Holocaust?’ Except that it was evil, which everyone knows and which felt like a straw target.”
Glazer had been “circling around” the idea of doing a Holocaust film for years. “But because the subject is so vast and because of the sensitivities involved, I felt I first needed to educate myself in a deeper way,...
That was the central challenge facing British writer-director Jonathan Glazer and the creative team behind A24’s The Zone of Interest.
“When Jon and I started, back in 2014, to talk about this, about making a film on this subject, we of course knew Schindler’s List and Son of Saul and everything in between,” says Zone producer James Wilson. “And our conversations were all about, ‘What new is there to say about the Holocaust?’ Except that it was evil, which everyone knows and which felt like a straw target.”
Glazer had been “circling around” the idea of doing a Holocaust film for years. “But because the subject is so vast and because of the sensitivities involved, I felt I first needed to educate myself in a deeper way,...
- 1/8/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Plot: Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) is named the commandant of Auschwitz. His wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) builds a dream life for the family in the camp’s bucolic outskirts while unimaginable suffering occurs just moments from their doorstep.
Review: Director Jonathan Glazer doesn’t make many films, but when he does, you can bet it’ll pack a wallop. This is certainly true of The Zone of Interest, which takes inspiration from Martin Amis’ novel of the same name and is a Holocaust movie unlike any other you’ve seen. While Schindler’s List and the more recent Son of Saul did a great job depicting the horror, The Zone of Interest perhaps does an even better job portraying the inhumanity of Nazi Germany. That Glazer does this without ever taking us inside the walls of the concentration camp itself or even showing a single scene of violence is the point.
Review: Director Jonathan Glazer doesn’t make many films, but when he does, you can bet it’ll pack a wallop. This is certainly true of The Zone of Interest, which takes inspiration from Martin Amis’ novel of the same name and is a Holocaust movie unlike any other you’ve seen. While Schindler’s List and the more recent Son of Saul did a great job depicting the horror, The Zone of Interest perhaps does an even better job portraying the inhumanity of Nazi Germany. That Glazer does this without ever taking us inside the walls of the concentration camp itself or even showing a single scene of violence is the point.
- 12/6/2023
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
“The most beautiful gestures from my film came to mind at the kitchen in the Résidence when I was pressing oranges in the juice machine,” said Nadiv Lapid.
Six first or second-time international filmmakers are taking part in the Cannes Film Festival’s annual Résidence programme that kicked off on October 1 in Paris and will run through February 2024.
Belgian director Meltse Van Coillie, Czech-Vietnamese filmmaker Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Chinese director Zhao Hao, Haitian director Gessica Généus, Croatian filmmaker Andréa Slaviček, and Moroccan director Asmae El Moudi will all work on their upcoming features with advice from industry experts in writing and producing their films.
Six first or second-time international filmmakers are taking part in the Cannes Film Festival’s annual Résidence programme that kicked off on October 1 in Paris and will run through February 2024.
Belgian director Meltse Van Coillie, Czech-Vietnamese filmmaker Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Chinese director Zhao Hao, Haitian director Gessica Généus, Croatian filmmaker Andréa Slaviček, and Moroccan director Asmae El Moudi will all work on their upcoming features with advice from industry experts in writing and producing their films.
- 10/6/2023
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
Foe’s potential is immense. The new sci-fi drama from director Garth Davis, who garnered acclaim after 2016’s Lion, stars beloved under-30 actors in Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan. It’s adapted from a book by Iain Reid (I’m Thinking of Ending Things). The two Irish stars play an American couple, Henrietta and Junior, living in the Midwest later this century, existing in a world ravaged by a climate crisis that’s caused an unending drought. An unknown man named Terrance (Aaron Pierre) visits their farm, claiming that Junior must go to space to help save the human species while Henrietta stays behind with a clone of her husband. Foe has a solid director, a great cast, and a good-enough premise. The movie, considered against its potential, borders on laughable and cements itself as inane.
The movie thrives when the mystery hasn’t been unraveled and Reid’s script remains amorphous.
The movie thrives when the mystery hasn’t been unraveled and Reid’s script remains amorphous.
- 10/1/2023
- by Michael Frank
- The Film Stage
The Oscars Best International Feature Film race landed two major frontrunners on the same day on Thursday, with the United Kingdom submitting Jonathan Glazer’s chilling World War II drama “The Zone of Interest” and France following with Tran Anh Hung’s rapturous “The Taste of Things” in the one-film-per-country competition.
“The Zone of Interest,” set among German families who live on the outskirts of Auschwitz, won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won raves as one of the most original and unnerving films to deal with the Holocaust since “Son of Saul,” which won the Oscar in this category eight years ago. It was considered the obvious choice for the U.K. to submit.
France, on the other hand, had an extremely difficult choice between Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” starring Sandra Huller as a woman on trial for murdering her husband,...
“The Zone of Interest,” set among German families who live on the outskirts of Auschwitz, won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won raves as one of the most original and unnerving films to deal with the Holocaust since “Son of Saul,” which won the Oscar in this category eight years ago. It was considered the obvious choice for the U.K. to submit.
France, on the other hand, had an extremely difficult choice between Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” starring Sandra Huller as a woman on trial for murdering her husband,...
- 9/21/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Vuelta Group, the rising European film studio which recently launched with the high profile acquisitions of France’s Playtime, Germany’s SquareOne and Scandinavia’s Scanbox, is expanding its footprint in Italy and France.
Spearheaded by media finance veterans (and childhood friends) Jerome Levy and David Atlan-Jackson, Vuelta has bought Indiana Production, a leading Italian company founded by Fabrizio Donvito and Marco Cohen, which had Giorgio Diritti’s “Lubo” playing in competition at Venice and just teased its big-budget Netflix series project “The Leopard” and Sky’s “Unwanted.”
Vuelta has also taken a stake in France’s Pan (formerly called Pan-Europeenne), the well-established production and distribution banner headed by Nathalie Gastaldo, Philippe Godeau and Camille Gentet, whose credits include the hit franchises “Largo Winch” and “Legendaries.”
Vuelta bowed last year with more $100 million provided by a U.S. private equity firm and has now diversified its backing through its European partners.
Spearheaded by media finance veterans (and childhood friends) Jerome Levy and David Atlan-Jackson, Vuelta has bought Indiana Production, a leading Italian company founded by Fabrizio Donvito and Marco Cohen, which had Giorgio Diritti’s “Lubo” playing in competition at Venice and just teased its big-budget Netflix series project “The Leopard” and Sky’s “Unwanted.”
Vuelta has also taken a stake in France’s Pan (formerly called Pan-Europeenne), the well-established production and distribution banner headed by Nathalie Gastaldo, Philippe Godeau and Camille Gentet, whose credits include the hit franchises “Largo Winch” and “Legendaries.”
Vuelta bowed last year with more $100 million provided by a U.S. private equity firm and has now diversified its backing through its European partners.
- 9/20/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Olivier Dahan: “I didn’t want to make a film about Simone Veil as we know her in France.”
Simone: Woman Of The Century director, writer, editor Olivier Dahan (La Vie En Rose with Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf and Grace de Monaco with Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly) is no stranger to depicting influential women. His all-embracing portrait of Simone Veil stars Elsa Zylberstein as Veil from 1968 till 2006, and Rebecca Marder (Arnaud Desplechin’s Tromperie and François Ozon’s Mon Crime) from 1942 through 1967.
Olivier Dahan with Anne-Katrin Titze on young people not knowing Simone Veil, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and László Nemes’s Son Of Saul: “I was really trying to connect with those young people and this woman, of course.”
In Bernard-Henri Lévy’s homage to Simone Veil he writes: “The world, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard said a century ago,...
Simone: Woman Of The Century director, writer, editor Olivier Dahan (La Vie En Rose with Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf and Grace de Monaco with Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly) is no stranger to depicting influential women. His all-embracing portrait of Simone Veil stars Elsa Zylberstein as Veil from 1968 till 2006, and Rebecca Marder (Arnaud Desplechin’s Tromperie and François Ozon’s Mon Crime) from 1942 through 1967.
Olivier Dahan with Anne-Katrin Titze on young people not knowing Simone Veil, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and László Nemes’s Son Of Saul: “I was really trying to connect with those young people and this woman, of course.”
In Bernard-Henri Lévy’s homage to Simone Veil he writes: “The world, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard said a century ago,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
It’s a welcome sight for any longtime visitors returning to Sarajevo, the white-jacketed waiters circling the terrace of the majestic, Austro-Hungarian-built Hotel Europe as film and TV industry professionals parse scripts and close deals amid the espresso-fueled chatter. Around them a haze of cigarette smoke hovers like the mist that settles each morning over the green hills that ring this scenic Bosnian city.
Each summer hundreds of industry guests from around the globe descend on the historic, 140-year-old Hotel Europe, which survived two World Wars and the shelling that razed Sarajevo in the 1990s and serves as the de facto hub of industry events during the Sarajevo Film Festival. Twenty years after its launch in a city still emerging from the rubble of a brutal, four-year siege, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region — a success story as improbable...
Each summer hundreds of industry guests from around the globe descend on the historic, 140-year-old Hotel Europe, which survived two World Wars and the shelling that razed Sarajevo in the 1990s and serves as the de facto hub of industry events during the Sarajevo Film Festival. Twenty years after its launch in a city still emerging from the rubble of a brutal, four-year siege, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region — a success story as improbable...
- 8/12/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
$120,000 of prizes were handed out at the ceremony at the new Sam Spiegel building.
Tommaso Landucci and Damiano Femfert’s Italian drama Children Of The Monkey won the top prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival Industry Days, hosted on Saturday, July 15 on the rooftop of the new Sam Spiegel building in the city.
The film, about a father who forms a stronger bond with his athletic nephew than with his severely disabled son, took the $50,000 Grand Prize from the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl), which organised the event in partnership with Jff.
Scroll down for the full list...
Tommaso Landucci and Damiano Femfert’s Italian drama Children Of The Monkey won the top prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival Industry Days, hosted on Saturday, July 15 on the rooftop of the new Sam Spiegel building in the city.
The film, about a father who forms a stronger bond with his athletic nephew than with his severely disabled son, took the $50,000 Grand Prize from the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl), which organised the event in partnership with Jff.
Scroll down for the full list...
- 7/17/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Europe has a brand-new media giant.
Vuelta Group, a private-equity fueled company headed by former Canal+ and Goldman Sachs executive Jerome Levy, made a very big launch on the European scene on Thursday, announcing its acquisition of Scandinavian independent film company Scanbox, German distributor/producer SquareOne Entertainment and French international sales company Playtime.
Vuelta (Latin for “to go around”) is planning future acquisitions in France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux region as it looks to build a pan-European television and film studio focusing on the production and distribution of European content across the continent.
The Vuelta launch is a further sign of consolidation in the European indie market, which has already seen several independent producers and distributors subsumed into Pe-backed studios such as Leonine and Mediawan or snatched up by global indie giants like Fremantle and Banijay.
The Veulta setup will see each of its subsidiary companies continue to operate...
Vuelta Group, a private-equity fueled company headed by former Canal+ and Goldman Sachs executive Jerome Levy, made a very big launch on the European scene on Thursday, announcing its acquisition of Scandinavian independent film company Scanbox, German distributor/producer SquareOne Entertainment and French international sales company Playtime.
Vuelta (Latin for “to go around”) is planning future acquisitions in France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux region as it looks to build a pan-European television and film studio focusing on the production and distribution of European content across the continent.
The Vuelta launch is a further sign of consolidation in the European indie market, which has already seen several independent producers and distributors subsumed into Pe-backed studios such as Leonine and Mediawan or snatched up by global indie giants like Fremantle and Banijay.
The Veulta setup will see each of its subsidiary companies continue to operate...
- 7/6/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Deadline spoke to leading international sales firm Playtime about why it made sense to join new European film and TV studio Vuelta Group, which we revealed earlier this morning.
Paris-based Playtime, founded in 1997, is well known for handling leading European projects including Oscar winner Son Of Saul, Cannes winner 120 Bpm and horror hit Goodnight Mommy. The firm, which handles the international rights to a library of more than 600 titles, has collaborated with filmmakers including Céline Sciamma, Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Naomi Kawase and Nanni Moretti.
It was most recently at the Cannes Film Festival with Competition titles About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Homecoming by Catherine Corsini. It is currently financing and pre-selling Monsieur Aznavour with Tahar Rahim.
In addition to its Paris office, the Playtime Group includes sales and financing companies Films Boutique in Berlin, Be For Films in Brussels and Film Constellation in London.
Paris-based Playtime, founded in 1997, is well known for handling leading European projects including Oscar winner Son Of Saul, Cannes winner 120 Bpm and horror hit Goodnight Mommy. The firm, which handles the international rights to a library of more than 600 titles, has collaborated with filmmakers including Céline Sciamma, Jacques Audiard, François Ozon, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Naomi Kawase and Nanni Moretti.
It was most recently at the Cannes Film Festival with Competition titles About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Homecoming by Catherine Corsini. It is currently financing and pre-selling Monsieur Aznavour with Tahar Rahim.
In addition to its Paris office, the Playtime Group includes sales and financing companies Films Boutique in Berlin, Be For Films in Brussels and Film Constellation in London.
- 7/6/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close on Saturday, May 27 after two weeks of films, celebrities, parties and interviews in the small city on the French Riviera. Now that the prizes have been given out, we can start looking at what could be top contenders for next year’s Oscars. Let’s analyze the results from this year’s festival and see this history that each category has when it comes to the Academy Awards.
Over the past several years the festival has been a springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. We’ve really seen it be an influence in the International Feature category where in-competition films have been nominated a regular basis. Recent Cannes films that ended up being top awards contenders in above the line categories include “Triangle of Sadness,” “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman.
Over the past several years the festival has been a springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. We’ve really seen it be an influence in the International Feature category where in-competition films have been nominated a regular basis. Recent Cannes films that ended up being top awards contenders in above the line categories include “Triangle of Sadness,” “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman.
- 5/28/2023
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
Exclusive: Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino and Geza Rohrig (Son of Saul) have joined the spy thriller Fog of War from Yale Entertainment.
We understand filming has just wrapped on the project. Also starring are Jake Abel, Briana Hildebrand (Deadpool Lucifer), and John Cusack.
Michael Day (Clawfoot) is directing from a screenplay by Luke Langsdale. Producers are Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, Michael Day, and Scott Levenson. Jodie Lazar is Executive Producer. Great Escape is handling world sales. The project was presented to buyers at the recent Cannes Market.
Set during WWII, the pic follows an injured American pilot Gene (Abel), and his Oss agent fiancée Penny (Hildebrand), who retreat to a remote estate in Massachusetts to visit her extended family (Cusack and Sorvino). Unbeknownst to Penny, the Oss has recruited Gene to spy on the family and the surrounding community,...
We understand filming has just wrapped on the project. Also starring are Jake Abel, Briana Hildebrand (Deadpool Lucifer), and John Cusack.
Michael Day (Clawfoot) is directing from a screenplay by Luke Langsdale. Producers are Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, Michael Day, and Scott Levenson. Jodie Lazar is Executive Producer. Great Escape is handling world sales. The project was presented to buyers at the recent Cannes Market.
Set during WWII, the pic follows an injured American pilot Gene (Abel), and his Oss agent fiancée Penny (Hildebrand), who retreat to a remote estate in Massachusetts to visit her extended family (Cusack and Sorvino). Unbeknownst to Penny, the Oss has recruited Gene to spy on the family and the surrounding community,...
- 5/26/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired the international rights of Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s debut feature “City of Wind.” The film is in post-production and will be ready for a world premiere in fall 2023.
Purev-Ochir is known for several high-profile short films, including “Mountain Cat,” which was in Cannes Competition in 2020, and won best short in Busan in 2020, and “Snow in September,” which was awarded the Golden Lion for best short in Venice, and best short in Toronto last year.
Ze is a timid 17-year-old shaman. He studies hard at school to succeed in the cold, callous society of modern Mongolia, while communing with his ancestral spirit to help those in his community. But when Ze encounters Maralaa, his senses are awakened and another reality seems possible.
The film stars young Mongolian actors such as Tergel Bold-Erdene and Nomin-Erdene Ariunbyamba together with veterans Bulgan Chuluunbat, Ganzorig Tsetsgee and Tsend-Ayush Nyamsuren.
Purev-Ochir is known for several high-profile short films, including “Mountain Cat,” which was in Cannes Competition in 2020, and won best short in Busan in 2020, and “Snow in September,” which was awarded the Golden Lion for best short in Venice, and best short in Toronto last year.
Ze is a timid 17-year-old shaman. He studies hard at school to succeed in the cold, callous society of modern Mongolia, while communing with his ancestral spirit to help those in his community. But when Ze encounters Maralaa, his senses are awakened and another reality seems possible.
The film stars young Mongolian actors such as Tergel Bold-Erdene and Nomin-Erdene Ariunbyamba together with veterans Bulgan Chuluunbat, Ganzorig Tsetsgee and Tsend-Ayush Nyamsuren.
- 5/21/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
One of the rarest sightings at the Cannes Film Festival is the first-time filmmaker whose debut feature has been admitted to the exclusive Main Competition lineup. That section is normally the domain of veteran directors who’ve been to Cannes before, but a Senegalese-French director named Ramata-Toulaye Sy has joined the 2023 ranks with “Banel & Adama,” her first feature after one short and a couple of writing credits.
Hers is the first debut film to land in the Main Competition since Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables” did so four years ago; the former film made the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category and the latter was nominated for that award. In the past decade, the only other first films to crash the competition were Abu Bakr Shawky’s “Yomeddine” in 2018 and Laszlo Nemes’ Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” in 2015.
So Sy is in rarefied company,...
Hers is the first debut film to land in the Main Competition since Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables” did so four years ago; the former film made the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category and the latter was nominated for that award. In the past decade, the only other first films to crash the competition were Abu Bakr Shawky’s “Yomeddine” in 2018 and Laszlo Nemes’ Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” in 2015.
So Sy is in rarefied company,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
We all know the Holocaust is an atrocity and there have already been hundreds of films made about it. The only other recent film to offer something new and different was the Cannes 2015 feature Son of Saul, which ended up winning the Oscar after premiering at the festival. After years of working on his project, British director Jonathan Glazer brings his latest film to Cannes - The Zone of Interest. It is another Holocaust film, very clearly that and not much else, telling a profoundly unsettling and hard-to-watch story about a German family living right next to a concentration camp. It is overpowering in its clarity and simplicity as a film - never showing any of the atrocities happening at the camp, focusing solely on this German family and nothing more. It is the cinematic epitome of the iconic phrase "the banality of evil," originally coined by writer Hannah Arendt...
- 5/19/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Of the thousands of dramatic feature films that deal with the subject of the Holocaust, few have evoked — or have even tried to — the experience of what went on inside the concentration camps. That’s understandable; the horror of that experience is forbidding and in some ways unimaginable. But there’s a small group of movies, like “Schindler’s List” and “Son of Saul” and “The Grey Zone,” that have met that horror head-on, and in an indelible way. To that list we can now add Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.”
It’s a remarkable film — chilling and profound, meditative and immersive, a movie that holds human darkness up to the light and examines it as if under a microscope. In a sense, it’s a movie that plays off our voyeurism, our curiosity to see the unseeable. Yet it does so with a bracing originality. “The Zone of Interest...
It’s a remarkable film — chilling and profound, meditative and immersive, a movie that holds human darkness up to the light and examines it as if under a microscope. In a sense, it’s a movie that plays off our voyeurism, our curiosity to see the unseeable. Yet it does so with a bracing originality. “The Zone of Interest...
- 5/19/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
‘The Zone of Interest’ First Look: Jonathan Glazer Returns with First Feature Since ‘Under the Skin’
Jonathan Glazer is back on the big screen.
The “Under the Skin” director returns for his first feature in 10 years with “The Zone of Interest,” based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel. The period piece follows Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) who both strive to build a dream life for their family in the garden next to the concentration camp. The novel charts a love triangle with a Nazi officer who falls in love with Hedwig; the story is told from the perspective of three characters, one being a Jewish Sonderkommando.
Max Beck, Ralph Herforth, Stephanie Petrowitz, Sascha Maaz, Marie Rosa Tietjen, and Lilli Falk also star.
Łukasz Żal, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” and “Cold War,” serves as the director of photography, with Paul Watts editing. The A24 film will be scored by composer Mica Levi. Glazer and Levi...
The “Under the Skin” director returns for his first feature in 10 years with “The Zone of Interest,” based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel. The period piece follows Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) who both strive to build a dream life for their family in the garden next to the concentration camp. The novel charts a love triangle with a Nazi officer who falls in love with Hedwig; the story is told from the perspective of three characters, one being a Jewish Sonderkommando.
Max Beck, Ralph Herforth, Stephanie Petrowitz, Sascha Maaz, Marie Rosa Tietjen, and Lilli Falk also star.
Łukasz Żal, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” and “Cold War,” serves as the director of photography, with Paul Watts editing. The A24 film will be scored by composer Mica Levi. Glazer and Levi...
- 5/8/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Is reinvention overrated? For at least 45 minutes, Athena (named for the fictional area where the film is based as well as the goddess of wisdom and war) threatens to be Romain Gavras’ magnum opus, but the building blocks haven’t changed. Look at his earliest music video, released in 2002: high rises, young men, tracksuits, BMX tricks. Then look at his work on Justice’s Stress, released seven years after: high rises, young men, tracksuits, only this time with Molotov cocktails and a strain of nihilistic chaos. Even as his most acclaimed work took him to bigger budgets and distant places, Gavras has never strayed far from his core ideas; his career has been an ode to finessing and amping up.
Just wait for the opening sequence, where Gavras, in a single take, moves a tornado of action all the way from a police station to an apartment block that...
Just wait for the opening sequence, where Gavras, in a single take, moves a tornado of action all the way from a police station to an apartment block that...
- 9/4/2022
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
New films from Tribeca prize winner Elina Psykou, Sarajevo winner Nikola Ležaić and the producers behind the upcoming Venice Horizons premiere “The Happiest Man in the World” are among the projects selected for the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Co-Production Market, the leading financing forum in Southeast Europe.
This year marks the 20th edition of the influential co-production market, which has launched films such as László Nemes’ Academy Award winner “Son of Saul,” Adina Pintilie’s Golden Bear winner “Touch Me Not” and Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Oscar nominee “Honeyland.” Nine new feature film projects from the region currently in development will be presented to industry guests, along with seven new dramatic series in the event’s Drama strand.
The carefully curated selection is among the smallest for a major regional market. That allows the organizers to begin working with the chosen filmmakers months in advance, employing script...
This year marks the 20th edition of the influential co-production market, which has launched films such as László Nemes’ Academy Award winner “Son of Saul,” Adina Pintilie’s Golden Bear winner “Touch Me Not” and Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Oscar nominee “Honeyland.” Nine new feature film projects from the region currently in development will be presented to industry guests, along with seven new dramatic series in the event’s Drama strand.
The carefully curated selection is among the smallest for a major regional market. That allows the organizers to begin working with the chosen filmmakers months in advance, employing script...
- 8/14/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
After two years of cancellations and delays, the Cannes Film Festival finally returned to the south of France during the month of May. The winners of this year’s festivities were announced on Saturday, May 25. How many of these will become major players in this year’s Oscar derby? Below let’s review the results from the 75th installment of the international festival and examine the history each serves as a forecaster for the Academy Awards.
In recent years, Cannes has served as a launching pad for films that have become major contenders in awards season. This is particularly true in the International Feature category which, for the past several years, has had several nominees that were screened in competition. It’s also been true in other categories, including several above the line races, with films like “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman” having their premieres on the Croissette.
In recent years, Cannes has served as a launching pad for films that have become major contenders in awards season. This is particularly true in the International Feature category which, for the past several years, has had several nominees that were screened in competition. It’s also been true in other categories, including several above the line races, with films like “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman” having their premieres on the Croissette.
- 6/6/2022
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
War films are horror films, aren’t they? Both genres explore inevitable death intertwined with moral quandaries and are full of suspense. Come and See is often hailed as one of the scariest films and Son of Saul almost plays like a found footage in Auschwitz. There is a thin line between the two, but military […]
The post For Those About to Slash, We Salute You: 14 Military Horrors to Stream for Memorial Day appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The post For Those About to Slash, We Salute You: 14 Military Horrors to Stream for Memorial Day appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
- 5/27/2022
- by Xanthe Pajarillo
- bloody-disgusting.com
If the Academy is having a hard time getting itself out of its unpopular hole, it might help if they brought the public in, not by awarding The Most Favorite Film — which goes against the grain of the Academy itself, being made up of the august members of the motion picture industry. The Academy is the exact opposite of the masses who are not attending theatrical events as much as watching streaming in the comfort of their living rooms, and obviously not watching movies enough to want to watch the Academy Awards.
How about spreading the love for movies by making the international films broadly available before, not after, the Oscars have been awarded? Convincing distributors to rethink how they release their non-English films or docs or shorts to the public might stir up more interest in these categories. When they are hot, on the tail of being picked up at the famous festivals when news of them first breaks, rather than giving them one-week releases close to the end of the year in order to qualify them for the Oscars and then removing them from theaters and streaming platforms until they win the Oscar — if they do — might help.
Put them on streaming platforms if not in theaters and advertise their availability even if you can’t book a theater. The same thinking goes for the shorts which are now being decamped to an off-camera pre-Oscar event. If we (the public) wanted to see what the contenders are, then why can we not easily find and watch the shortlisted and then the five nominated films?
Films up for Academy Awards to be televised March 27 and upon which the Academy member will vote March 17–22 should be more widely available to the public. The films being feted, and particularly the international, the docs and the shorts, should be made widely available to the public so that the public will have more of a stake in the Awards ceremony and therefore be more likely to tune into it.
A quick look at them, two from Asia and three from Europe and an overview of them and the other shortlisted films shows the importance of world class festival premieres. Another look shows some are ubiquitous on multiple streaming platforms while others are nowhere to be found.
Upcoming filmmakers should be aware that these top festivals demand world premieres, so they should aim high when planning the festival and distribution strategy for their films initially and apply or get invited, two ways the festivals choose their programs. But this insular film circuit, only open to cineastes and cinephiles, could be the launch pads to seeing contenders and spreading some word of mouth pre-Oscar season, if only the public were allowed to see them. Looking at TelescopeFilm.com, the U.S. distribution via streaming platforms of these films ranges from the unseeable to the ubiquitous.
Drive My Car — Japan by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Premiered in Cannes. (US: Janus, Isa: The Match Factory). Not available anywhere on streaming...not even on Criterion, the streaming platform of Janus, its distributor.
Flee — Denmark by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Premiered in Sundance 2022. (US: Neon, Isa: Cinephil). Available everywhere: Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Google Play, Vudu, Microsoft, YouTube, Direct TV and AMC.
The Hand of God — Italy by Paulo Sorrentino. Premiered in Venice. (Netflix worldwide) Literally a fabulous film, a real winner whether or not it takes the Oscar. Available only on Netflix.
The Worst Person in the World — Norway by Joachim Trier. Premiered in Cannes. (US: Neon, Isa: MK2). Not available anywhere…what gives with Neon and how it handles this and its other nominated film Flee?
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom — Bhutan by Pawo Choyning Dorji. Premiered simultaneously in BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals. (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique). Surprisingly for Goldwyn, the film is available on many platforms, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Vudo, YouTube, Direct TV and Spectrum.
Again to stress the importance of the world class film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and Sundance), two of the nominated films this year premiered in Cannes 2021, one showed in Venice and one in Sundance and one stood alone in premiering simultaneously at three world class film festivals other than the top 5. Film festivals have been the primary source of Oscar Best International Features for a long time with Cannes and Venice Film Festivals leading the way for qualifying films. Only in 2008 was a non-Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Toronto playing film, the Japanese film Departures, the winner.
Previous Cannes Oscar winners were Parasite, Son of Saul, The Great Beauty (Sorrentino’s current nominated film is The Hand of God a Netflix film which premiered in Venice) and Amour. Last year’s winner Another Round was selected for Cannes last year, although it ended up premiering in Toronto.
Cannes
18 Oscar submissions (out of 93) in the Best International Film category premiered in Cannes this year and five were shortlisted and two were nominated: Norway’s entry, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (US: Neon, Isa: MK2), two-time Oscar winner for A Separation and The Salesman Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Finland’s Compartment №6 (US: Sony Pictures Classics, Isa: Totem), Japan’s entry, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Murakami adaptation Drive My Car, and Colombia’s multinational selection Memoria by Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starring arthouse top-star Tilda Swinton. (Neon’s novel, much-discussed U.S. release strategy for the film states that it will only ever be in theaters, never on streaming. Why? Who will ever see it? Isa:The Match Factory).
Austria’s queer prison drama A Great Freedom (US: Mubi, Isa: The Match Factory), Iceland’s Lamb (US: A24, Isa: Films New Europe) was a prize winner in Un Certain Regard. Mexico’s Prayers for the Stolen. Playground also played in Cannes and is winning many awards at other top fests. Playground could also have taken the Oscar in my opinion. You can read my blog on Playground here.
Venice
Venice Film Festival had four Oscar submissions but only one, The Hand of God, made the shortlist. Poland’s Leave No Traces, Bolivia’s The Great Movement and Slovakia’s 107 Mothers were their countries’ submissions. Venice hit, Pedro Almodóvar’s Penelope Cruz-starring Parallel Mothers was not submitted by Spain, perhaps because of the still politically sensitive subject of the disappeared of the Civil War. Instead San Sebatian’s premiering The Good Boss, starring Javier Bardem was submitted.
Berlin
From Berlin, which was totally digital in 2021, of Romania’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Radu Jude and Germany’s I’m Your Man, — read my blog here — only the latter made the shortlist making it director Maria Schrader’s second Oscar submission, after Stephan Zweig: Goodbye to Europe which was last year’s submission from Austria.
Sundance
Again taking place digitally this year as last was the Sundance premiering film from Denmark Flee (US: Neon, Isa: Cinephil), also nominated in the documentary category (I favor Summer of Soul) and animated categories. I would prefer that it win in the animated category thus leaving room for a fiction feature and a domestic documentary to win the Oscars as well. Kosovo’s entry Hive, was the first in Sundance history to win the Grand Jury Prize, Director and Audience awards in its section and it was shortlisted for Oscar nomination.
BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals had nearly simultaneous premieres of Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.
Short List and Nominations By Territory
Scandinavian films had four of the 15 slots for this year’s international feature film Oscar Shortlist of which two are nominations: Norway’s The Worst Person In The World and Denmark’s Flee. The other two were Iceland’s Lamb, Finland’s Compartment №6. Of these my prediction is that ‘Flee’ will win either this or the Oscar for Best Doc or Best Animated Feature.
Latin America had two short listed: Mexico’s Prayers For The Stolen (Mubi worldwide) and Panama’s Plaza Catedral aka Biencuidao(Goldwyn has US Distribution, Isa *: Gulfstream & Luminosity). Congratulations are long due to the writer- director, Abner Benaim, known for Ruben Blades Is Not My Name (2018), Chance (2009) and now Plaza Catedral (2021). Associate produced by Ruben Blades, among others, the story is about 42-year-old Alicia, a grief-stricken woman, whose grief has caused her to be estranged from society. Her world is turned upside down when a 14-year-old boy who looks after people’s cars, stumbles into her house, bleeding…The film premiered at Guadalajara International Film Festival in October last year and won the Mexcal awards for best actress and best actor. It won the audience award at the International Film Festival of Panama in December.
Starring Ilse Salas, a coproduction of Colombia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Panama, United States
Plaza Catedral is Panama’s first time to reach the shortlist as are first time films from Kosovo, Hive (US: Zeitgeist, Isa: Level K), and Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique).
Two entries from Asia included Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique) and the Japanese entry — and critics’ favorite — and mine— Drive My Car (US: Janus, Isa: The Match Factory).
The only Middle Eastern film is Iran’s A Hero (US: Amazon, Isa: Memento) by two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi. Africa has no film on the shortlist, despite admired entries including Chad’s Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (US: Mubi, Isa: Films Boutique) and Morocco’s Casablanca Beats (US: Kino Lorber, Isa: Wild Bunch) and for the very few who saw it and loved it in Burkino Faso, Toronto, Marrakesh or El Gouna Film Festivals, Senegal’s The Gravedigger’s Wife (no US Distributor, Isa: Orange Studios) who had no money to hire a publicist.
My predictions in order of my preferences — and I was so extremely impressed with all those I was lucky enough to see *:
Drive My Car (Japan)
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
This Cannes Competition Best Screenplay Winner is a three-hour drama adapted from a couple of Haruki Murakami short stories, about a recently widowed stage director rehearsing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya during a theatre residency in Hiroshima, and the bond he forms with his young female driver.
Drive My Car has been named this year’s best film by the New York and Los Angeles critics. Janus Films released Drive My Car in the US in November. My question remains: Why is this great film not available on any streaming platform? Word of mouth should be building as people watch it and reflect on their own lives, the hidden and the profane, our daily bread and the wish for redemption.
The many layered drama was able to take a short story and layer it with overlapping stories in a way that quietly stirs the depth of your heart. It is slow and acts slowly upon your emotions but once you are in the rhythm of it, you are infused by its fragrance and its cathartic action which unfolds within you.
The Russian play itself that our hero will direct (Uncle Vanya) is enough to set off its own chain of reactions for those aware of its content. After Anton Chekhov published it in 1898 the director of the Moscow Art Theatre, the great Konstantin Stanislavski brought it to the stage. The play, about an elderly professor and his much younger glamorous second wife who are considering selling the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle in order to have more money to live their lives, is also about those who care for the estate — his daughter by his first wife and his first wife’s brother, those who will be left bereft by the actions of the others. So he and his driver reflect on their own states of being left bereft.
Isa (International Sales Agent) The Match Factory has licensed to A-One Films (Baltics, Estonia), Andrews (Taiwan), Arthaus (Norway), Bitters End (Japan), Diaphana Films (France), Elastica (Spain), Future Film (Finland), Gutek Film (Poland), Janus Films (USA), Lighthouse Pictures (Singapore), Mars (Turkey), Modern Films (UK), NjutaFilms (Sweden), Polyfilm (Austria), Rapid Eye Movies (Germany), September Film (Netherlands), Tucker Film Udine (Italy)
The Hand Of God (Italy)
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Sorrentino — who won this Oscar category in 2014 with The Great Beauty (see blog) — is nominated for this autobiographical tale of himself as a teenager (Filippo Scotti) growing up in Naples in the 1980s with a characteristically southern Italian family (including dad Toni Servillo). As he finds his path to filmmaking he realizes the hand of God has saved him and redeems him. The Hand Of God premiered in competition in Venice where it won the Grand Jury Silver Lion and the Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor (for Scotti), and has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Critics Choice and Golden Globes. Comparable to, but surpassing Almodóvar’s autobiographical film Pain and Glory and referencing plenty of Fellini, this film fills the emotional need we have to believe our fates are somehow connected to a higher register than that of mere mortals.
Worldwide: Netflix except Greece and Spain
Flee (Denmark)
Dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Last year Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round won the Oscar for Denmark, and now, Flee is not only nominated for Best International Feature but also for Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature. Flee tells the story of an Afghan refugee, on the verge of marriage, who is compelled to reveal his hidden past for the first time. Flee debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the grand jury prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, and has gone on to win Best Documentary and Best Animated feature at the European Film Awards.
It is analogous in storytelling and emotional impact to Waltz With Bashir, with the emotional staying power. It has created very strong word of mouth and much praise. It is a shocking story by an adult who as a young teen escaped Afghanistan and in order to be allowed residency must live a lie.
Isa** Cinephil has licensed it to Neon for US and Elevation Pictures for Canada, I Wonder Pictures for Italy, Madman Entertainment for Australia/ Nz, Periscoop Film for Benelux, Reel Pictures for Denmark, Film Europe for Czech Republic and Slovakia, Must Kasi/ Kino Soprus for Estonia, Mer for Norway, Triart for Sweden, Hooray for Taiwan, Curzon for UK
The Worst Person In The World (Norway)
Dir. Joachim Trier
The final film in Trier’s Oslo trilogy, (Reprise and Thelma were both submitted but neither made the shortlist), The Worst Person In The World saw its star Renate Reinsve receive the Best Actress Award in Cannes, and then to being nominated for European Film Award. A young woman navigating the unknown future with a turbulent love life and floundering career choices struggles to find a steady path in life. Last year Norway did make the shortlist with Maria Sødahl’s Hope, and it received a nomination in 2012 with Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s Kon-Tiki.
This was emotionally complex and satisfying, perhaps more for women of uncertain age than for men. I think its limitation is in its audience potential.
Watch the trailer here.
Isa MK2 has licensed the movie to Neon for USA, Madman for Australia/ Nz, Cineart for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Memento for France, Mozinet for Hungary, Gaga for Japan, Front Row for Middle East and Africa, Sf Studios for Norway, M2 for Poland, Alambique for Portugal, Independenta for Romania, Anticipate for Singapore, Elastica for Spain, Triart for Sweden, Frenetic for Switzerland, Hooray for Taiwan, Arthouse Traffic for Ukraine, Mubi for France, Germany, Latin America, Turkey, India
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom — Bhutan by Pawo Choyning Dorji. Premiered in BFI London FIlm Festival. (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique). The debut of writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji, this Dzongkha-language film is about a young Bhutanese teacher who aspires to be a singer in Australia but finds himself assigned to an isolated school in the Himalayan glacial village of Lunana, inhabited by a small nomadic community. Dorji started as an assistant on Bhutanese lama and director Khyentse Norbu’s Vara: A Blessing (2013) and went on to produce Hema Hema: Sing Me A Song While I Wait, which premiered in Toronto’s Platform section in 2016 and received a special mention.
Lunana premiered simultaneously at BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals in October 2019. In 2020 it was submitted for Bhutan but was disqualified because the selection committe was not Academy-approved. It was resubmitted and accepeted in 2021. Bhutan has only been at the Academy Awards three times — the first being The Cup in 1999, and twice with this film. This is the first time it has made the shortlist.
Recapping the shortlisted films which were so engaging, entertaining and engrossing this year:
Compartment №6 (Finland)
Dir. Juho Kuosmanen
Kuosmanen’s second feature — which shared the Grand Jury prize in Cannes Competition with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero — is about a well-educated idealistic young woman who must share a compartment on a train travelling up to the Arctic circle with a complete derelict. Kuosmanen’s previous feature, The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki, was Finland’s Oscar submission for the 2017 awards, although it did not make the shortlist. Finland has yet to win and its only nomination ever was for Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without A Past in 2003. Compartment №6 earned three European Film Award nominations including Best Film, but did not win its categories.
A Hero (Iran)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Iran’s best-known filmmaker directed foreign-language Oscar winners A Separation and The Salesman. Farhad’s newest morality tale is about a prisoner — jailed for defaulting on a debt — who spends his two-day exit pass trying to persuade his creditor to agree to terms, thus expediting his release. A Hero shared the Cannes Grand Jury Award with Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment №6. Amazon releases in North America and UK/Ireland, while Memento achieved multiple sales in other territories, and releases itself in France.
I’m Your Man (Germany)
Dir. Maria Schrader
The fourth feature from Schrader (including 1998’s The Giraffe, which she co-directed) stars Maren Eggert as a scientist who agrees to live with a humanoid robot (a German-speaking Dan Stevens) in order to fund her research. Eggert won the acting Silver Bear in Berlin, where I’m Your Man premiered, and the film went on to win four major prizes at the German Film Awards: feature film, direction, screenplay and actress. Austria submitted her film on Stefan Zweig for the Oscar last year, making this her second Oscar contender. Germany’s last Oscar was in 2007 with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives Of Others, and has been nominated four times since, most recently in 2019 with von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away.
Playground (Belgium)
Dir. Laura Wandel
Wandel’s debut feature Playground follows a seven-year-old girl named Nora as she enters first grade at a French primary school and must learn to manoeuvre in a strange new world. The Belgian production has been a hit with critics since its premiere in Cannes Un Certain Regard where it won the Fipresci Prize, going on to win the Best Debut Award at the BFI London Film Festival. Indie Sales is handling international sales. Belgium has never won this category, but has been nominated seven times, most recently in 2014 with Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown.
Great Freedom (Austria)
Dir. Sebastian Meise
Premiering at Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Great Freedom won the Jury Award and went on to play many European festivals. The second fiction feature from Meise stars Frank Rogowski (Transit, Undine) as a gay man in post-war Germany who discovers intimacy in prison over the course of several incarcerations for his infractions against the country’s notorious Paragraph 175. Mubi has rights in North America, UK, Ireland, Turkey, India and most of Latin America. Austria has twice won this category before: in 2013 for Michael Haneke’s Amour and 2008 for Stefan Ruzowitsky’s The Counterfeiters.
Prayers For The Stolen (Mexico)
Dir. Tatiana Huezo
After eight previous nominations, Mexico finally won its first International Feature Award in 2019 for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, one of three Oscars that year. Huezo’s Prayers For The Stolen is based on Jennifer Clement’s novel, and shows life in a town at war seen through the eyes of three young girls on the path to adolescence. The film debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and went on to festivals including Melbourne, Karlovy Vary, San Sebastian and New York. It is the director’s third feature, after 2011’s El Lugar Mas Pequeño and 2016’s Tempestad.
The Good Boss (Spain)
Dir. Fernando León de Aranoa
Spain won the Best Foreign Language film Oscar — as it was then called — for The Sea Inside starring Javier Bardem in 2005. This black comedy starring Bardem as a not-so-good factory boss was chosen over Almadovar’s Parallel Mothers, perhaps for political reasons. Director León de Aranoa teamed up with Bardem in Mondays In The Sun — Spain’s pick for the Oscar in 2003, which was not nominated. Cohen Media Group releases The Good Boss in North America. Its international sales agent MK2 has sold it to Future Film for Finland, Paradiso Entertainment for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Front Row for the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) and Iran, Pris Audiovisuais for Portugal, TriPictures for Spain, Paname for France, Limelight for Australia, New Zealand and associated islands, and Pathe for Switzerland.
‘The Hand of God’ source: © Netflix
Lamb (Iceland)
Dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson
Jóhannsson’s debut feature, which won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Prize of Originality this year, stars Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason in the story of a childless farming couple in rural Iceland who make an alarming discovery one day in their sheep barn and face the consequences when they defy the will of nature. Lamb delivered the highest opening weekend for an Icelandic release in North America and has now grossed 2.7m in the territory via A24. Iceland has only been nominated once so far in this category — in 1992, with Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Children Of Nature — and also made the shortlist in 2013 with Baltasar Kormakur’s The Deep.
Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (Bhutan). Source: Lff
Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (Bhutan)
Dir. Pawo Choyning Dorji
Not submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards
Plaza Catedral (Panama)
Dir. Abner Benaim
Panama’s Oscar entry has already been beset by tragedy: the film’s lead actor Fernando Xavier de Casta was killed earlier this year, aged just 15, in reported gang violence. In a haunting echo, Plaza Catedral centres on a woman who, while mourning the loss of her 13-year-old son in an accident, has her life turned upside down when a teenager (de Casta) asks her for help after being shot in a street conflict. De Casta and Ilse Salas won the best actor and actress awards at Guadalajara Film Festival, where the film debuted in October 2021. Benaim represents Panama for the third time on the Oscar stage, after Ruben Blades Is Not My Name for the 2019 awards and Invasion, the country’s first entry, for 2015. This is the first time the country has made the Oscars shortlist.
Not submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards
Hive (Kosovo)
Dir. Blerta Basholli
Kosovo’s nascent film industry continues to grow, with its eighth Oscar entry — all consecutively, since the 2015 awards — and has now achieved its first shortlist inclusion. Basholli’s debut feature premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance in 2021, winning the section’s grand jury prize as well as the directing and audience awards. Hive centres on a woman whose husband has been missing since the Kosovan war, leaving her to set up her own business to provide for her children. LevelK represents sales, while Kino Lorber releases in the US.
Submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards (Altitude)
**Descriptions credit to ScreenDaily.com
*Isa=International Sales Agent...
How about spreading the love for movies by making the international films broadly available before, not after, the Oscars have been awarded? Convincing distributors to rethink how they release their non-English films or docs or shorts to the public might stir up more interest in these categories. When they are hot, on the tail of being picked up at the famous festivals when news of them first breaks, rather than giving them one-week releases close to the end of the year in order to qualify them for the Oscars and then removing them from theaters and streaming platforms until they win the Oscar — if they do — might help.
Put them on streaming platforms if not in theaters and advertise their availability even if you can’t book a theater. The same thinking goes for the shorts which are now being decamped to an off-camera pre-Oscar event. If we (the public) wanted to see what the contenders are, then why can we not easily find and watch the shortlisted and then the five nominated films?
Films up for Academy Awards to be televised March 27 and upon which the Academy member will vote March 17–22 should be more widely available to the public. The films being feted, and particularly the international, the docs and the shorts, should be made widely available to the public so that the public will have more of a stake in the Awards ceremony and therefore be more likely to tune into it.
A quick look at them, two from Asia and three from Europe and an overview of them and the other shortlisted films shows the importance of world class festival premieres. Another look shows some are ubiquitous on multiple streaming platforms while others are nowhere to be found.
Upcoming filmmakers should be aware that these top festivals demand world premieres, so they should aim high when planning the festival and distribution strategy for their films initially and apply or get invited, two ways the festivals choose their programs. But this insular film circuit, only open to cineastes and cinephiles, could be the launch pads to seeing contenders and spreading some word of mouth pre-Oscar season, if only the public were allowed to see them. Looking at TelescopeFilm.com, the U.S. distribution via streaming platforms of these films ranges from the unseeable to the ubiquitous.
Drive My Car — Japan by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Premiered in Cannes. (US: Janus, Isa: The Match Factory). Not available anywhere on streaming...not even on Criterion, the streaming platform of Janus, its distributor.
Flee — Denmark by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Premiered in Sundance 2022. (US: Neon, Isa: Cinephil). Available everywhere: Amazon, Apple, Hulu, Google Play, Vudu, Microsoft, YouTube, Direct TV and AMC.
The Hand of God — Italy by Paulo Sorrentino. Premiered in Venice. (Netflix worldwide) Literally a fabulous film, a real winner whether or not it takes the Oscar. Available only on Netflix.
The Worst Person in the World — Norway by Joachim Trier. Premiered in Cannes. (US: Neon, Isa: MK2). Not available anywhere…what gives with Neon and how it handles this and its other nominated film Flee?
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom — Bhutan by Pawo Choyning Dorji. Premiered simultaneously in BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals. (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique). Surprisingly for Goldwyn, the film is available on many platforms, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Vudo, YouTube, Direct TV and Spectrum.
Again to stress the importance of the world class film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and Sundance), two of the nominated films this year premiered in Cannes 2021, one showed in Venice and one in Sundance and one stood alone in premiering simultaneously at three world class film festivals other than the top 5. Film festivals have been the primary source of Oscar Best International Features for a long time with Cannes and Venice Film Festivals leading the way for qualifying films. Only in 2008 was a non-Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Toronto playing film, the Japanese film Departures, the winner.
Previous Cannes Oscar winners were Parasite, Son of Saul, The Great Beauty (Sorrentino’s current nominated film is The Hand of God a Netflix film which premiered in Venice) and Amour. Last year’s winner Another Round was selected for Cannes last year, although it ended up premiering in Toronto.
Cannes
18 Oscar submissions (out of 93) in the Best International Film category premiered in Cannes this year and five were shortlisted and two were nominated: Norway’s entry, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (US: Neon, Isa: MK2), two-time Oscar winner for A Separation and The Salesman Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Finland’s Compartment №6 (US: Sony Pictures Classics, Isa: Totem), Japan’s entry, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Murakami adaptation Drive My Car, and Colombia’s multinational selection Memoria by Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starring arthouse top-star Tilda Swinton. (Neon’s novel, much-discussed U.S. release strategy for the film states that it will only ever be in theaters, never on streaming. Why? Who will ever see it? Isa:The Match Factory).
Austria’s queer prison drama A Great Freedom (US: Mubi, Isa: The Match Factory), Iceland’s Lamb (US: A24, Isa: Films New Europe) was a prize winner in Un Certain Regard. Mexico’s Prayers for the Stolen. Playground also played in Cannes and is winning many awards at other top fests. Playground could also have taken the Oscar in my opinion. You can read my blog on Playground here.
Venice
Venice Film Festival had four Oscar submissions but only one, The Hand of God, made the shortlist. Poland’s Leave No Traces, Bolivia’s The Great Movement and Slovakia’s 107 Mothers were their countries’ submissions. Venice hit, Pedro Almodóvar’s Penelope Cruz-starring Parallel Mothers was not submitted by Spain, perhaps because of the still politically sensitive subject of the disappeared of the Civil War. Instead San Sebatian’s premiering The Good Boss, starring Javier Bardem was submitted.
Berlin
From Berlin, which was totally digital in 2021, of Romania’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Radu Jude and Germany’s I’m Your Man, — read my blog here — only the latter made the shortlist making it director Maria Schrader’s second Oscar submission, after Stephan Zweig: Goodbye to Europe which was last year’s submission from Austria.
Sundance
Again taking place digitally this year as last was the Sundance premiering film from Denmark Flee (US: Neon, Isa: Cinephil), also nominated in the documentary category (I favor Summer of Soul) and animated categories. I would prefer that it win in the animated category thus leaving room for a fiction feature and a domestic documentary to win the Oscars as well. Kosovo’s entry Hive, was the first in Sundance history to win the Grand Jury Prize, Director and Audience awards in its section and it was shortlisted for Oscar nomination.
BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals had nearly simultaneous premieres of Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.
Short List and Nominations By Territory
Scandinavian films had four of the 15 slots for this year’s international feature film Oscar Shortlist of which two are nominations: Norway’s The Worst Person In The World and Denmark’s Flee. The other two were Iceland’s Lamb, Finland’s Compartment №6. Of these my prediction is that ‘Flee’ will win either this or the Oscar for Best Doc or Best Animated Feature.
Latin America had two short listed: Mexico’s Prayers For The Stolen (Mubi worldwide) and Panama’s Plaza Catedral aka Biencuidao(Goldwyn has US Distribution, Isa *: Gulfstream & Luminosity). Congratulations are long due to the writer- director, Abner Benaim, known for Ruben Blades Is Not My Name (2018), Chance (2009) and now Plaza Catedral (2021). Associate produced by Ruben Blades, among others, the story is about 42-year-old Alicia, a grief-stricken woman, whose grief has caused her to be estranged from society. Her world is turned upside down when a 14-year-old boy who looks after people’s cars, stumbles into her house, bleeding…The film premiered at Guadalajara International Film Festival in October last year and won the Mexcal awards for best actress and best actor. It won the audience award at the International Film Festival of Panama in December.
Starring Ilse Salas, a coproduction of Colombia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Panama, United States
Plaza Catedral is Panama’s first time to reach the shortlist as are first time films from Kosovo, Hive (US: Zeitgeist, Isa: Level K), and Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique).
Two entries from Asia included Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique) and the Japanese entry — and critics’ favorite — and mine— Drive My Car (US: Janus, Isa: The Match Factory).
The only Middle Eastern film is Iran’s A Hero (US: Amazon, Isa: Memento) by two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi. Africa has no film on the shortlist, despite admired entries including Chad’s Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (US: Mubi, Isa: Films Boutique) and Morocco’s Casablanca Beats (US: Kino Lorber, Isa: Wild Bunch) and for the very few who saw it and loved it in Burkino Faso, Toronto, Marrakesh or El Gouna Film Festivals, Senegal’s The Gravedigger’s Wife (no US Distributor, Isa: Orange Studios) who had no money to hire a publicist.
My predictions in order of my preferences — and I was so extremely impressed with all those I was lucky enough to see *:
Drive My Car (Japan)
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi
This Cannes Competition Best Screenplay Winner is a three-hour drama adapted from a couple of Haruki Murakami short stories, about a recently widowed stage director rehearsing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya during a theatre residency in Hiroshima, and the bond he forms with his young female driver.
Drive My Car has been named this year’s best film by the New York and Los Angeles critics. Janus Films released Drive My Car in the US in November. My question remains: Why is this great film not available on any streaming platform? Word of mouth should be building as people watch it and reflect on their own lives, the hidden and the profane, our daily bread and the wish for redemption.
The many layered drama was able to take a short story and layer it with overlapping stories in a way that quietly stirs the depth of your heart. It is slow and acts slowly upon your emotions but once you are in the rhythm of it, you are infused by its fragrance and its cathartic action which unfolds within you.
The Russian play itself that our hero will direct (Uncle Vanya) is enough to set off its own chain of reactions for those aware of its content. After Anton Chekhov published it in 1898 the director of the Moscow Art Theatre, the great Konstantin Stanislavski brought it to the stage. The play, about an elderly professor and his much younger glamorous second wife who are considering selling the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle in order to have more money to live their lives, is also about those who care for the estate — his daughter by his first wife and his first wife’s brother, those who will be left bereft by the actions of the others. So he and his driver reflect on their own states of being left bereft.
Isa (International Sales Agent) The Match Factory has licensed to A-One Films (Baltics, Estonia), Andrews (Taiwan), Arthaus (Norway), Bitters End (Japan), Diaphana Films (France), Elastica (Spain), Future Film (Finland), Gutek Film (Poland), Janus Films (USA), Lighthouse Pictures (Singapore), Mars (Turkey), Modern Films (UK), NjutaFilms (Sweden), Polyfilm (Austria), Rapid Eye Movies (Germany), September Film (Netherlands), Tucker Film Udine (Italy)
The Hand Of God (Italy)
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Sorrentino — who won this Oscar category in 2014 with The Great Beauty (see blog) — is nominated for this autobiographical tale of himself as a teenager (Filippo Scotti) growing up in Naples in the 1980s with a characteristically southern Italian family (including dad Toni Servillo). As he finds his path to filmmaking he realizes the hand of God has saved him and redeems him. The Hand Of God premiered in competition in Venice where it won the Grand Jury Silver Lion and the Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor (for Scotti), and has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Critics Choice and Golden Globes. Comparable to, but surpassing Almodóvar’s autobiographical film Pain and Glory and referencing plenty of Fellini, this film fills the emotional need we have to believe our fates are somehow connected to a higher register than that of mere mortals.
Worldwide: Netflix except Greece and Spain
Flee (Denmark)
Dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Last year Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round won the Oscar for Denmark, and now, Flee is not only nominated for Best International Feature but also for Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature. Flee tells the story of an Afghan refugee, on the verge of marriage, who is compelled to reveal his hidden past for the first time. Flee debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the grand jury prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, and has gone on to win Best Documentary and Best Animated feature at the European Film Awards.
It is analogous in storytelling and emotional impact to Waltz With Bashir, with the emotional staying power. It has created very strong word of mouth and much praise. It is a shocking story by an adult who as a young teen escaped Afghanistan and in order to be allowed residency must live a lie.
Isa** Cinephil has licensed it to Neon for US and Elevation Pictures for Canada, I Wonder Pictures for Italy, Madman Entertainment for Australia/ Nz, Periscoop Film for Benelux, Reel Pictures for Denmark, Film Europe for Czech Republic and Slovakia, Must Kasi/ Kino Soprus for Estonia, Mer for Norway, Triart for Sweden, Hooray for Taiwan, Curzon for UK
The Worst Person In The World (Norway)
Dir. Joachim Trier
The final film in Trier’s Oslo trilogy, (Reprise and Thelma were both submitted but neither made the shortlist), The Worst Person In The World saw its star Renate Reinsve receive the Best Actress Award in Cannes, and then to being nominated for European Film Award. A young woman navigating the unknown future with a turbulent love life and floundering career choices struggles to find a steady path in life. Last year Norway did make the shortlist with Maria Sødahl’s Hope, and it received a nomination in 2012 with Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s Kon-Tiki.
This was emotionally complex and satisfying, perhaps more for women of uncertain age than for men. I think its limitation is in its audience potential.
Watch the trailer here.
Isa MK2 has licensed the movie to Neon for USA, Madman for Australia/ Nz, Cineart for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Memento for France, Mozinet for Hungary, Gaga for Japan, Front Row for Middle East and Africa, Sf Studios for Norway, M2 for Poland, Alambique for Portugal, Independenta for Romania, Anticipate for Singapore, Elastica for Spain, Triart for Sweden, Frenetic for Switzerland, Hooray for Taiwan, Arthouse Traffic for Ukraine, Mubi for France, Germany, Latin America, Turkey, India
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom — Bhutan by Pawo Choyning Dorji. Premiered in BFI London FIlm Festival. (No. America: Goldwyn, Isa: Films Boutique). The debut of writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji, this Dzongkha-language film is about a young Bhutanese teacher who aspires to be a singer in Australia but finds himself assigned to an isolated school in the Himalayan glacial village of Lunana, inhabited by a small nomadic community. Dorji started as an assistant on Bhutanese lama and director Khyentse Norbu’s Vara: A Blessing (2013) and went on to produce Hema Hema: Sing Me A Song While I Wait, which premiered in Toronto’s Platform section in 2016 and received a special mention.
Lunana premiered simultaneously at BFI London, Vancouver and Busan Film Festivals in October 2019. In 2020 it was submitted for Bhutan but was disqualified because the selection committe was not Academy-approved. It was resubmitted and accepeted in 2021. Bhutan has only been at the Academy Awards three times — the first being The Cup in 1999, and twice with this film. This is the first time it has made the shortlist.
Recapping the shortlisted films which were so engaging, entertaining and engrossing this year:
Compartment №6 (Finland)
Dir. Juho Kuosmanen
Kuosmanen’s second feature — which shared the Grand Jury prize in Cannes Competition with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero — is about a well-educated idealistic young woman who must share a compartment on a train travelling up to the Arctic circle with a complete derelict. Kuosmanen’s previous feature, The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki, was Finland’s Oscar submission for the 2017 awards, although it did not make the shortlist. Finland has yet to win and its only nomination ever was for Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without A Past in 2003. Compartment №6 earned three European Film Award nominations including Best Film, but did not win its categories.
A Hero (Iran)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Iran’s best-known filmmaker directed foreign-language Oscar winners A Separation and The Salesman. Farhad’s newest morality tale is about a prisoner — jailed for defaulting on a debt — who spends his two-day exit pass trying to persuade his creditor to agree to terms, thus expediting his release. A Hero shared the Cannes Grand Jury Award with Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment №6. Amazon releases in North America and UK/Ireland, while Memento achieved multiple sales in other territories, and releases itself in France.
I’m Your Man (Germany)
Dir. Maria Schrader
The fourth feature from Schrader (including 1998’s The Giraffe, which she co-directed) stars Maren Eggert as a scientist who agrees to live with a humanoid robot (a German-speaking Dan Stevens) in order to fund her research. Eggert won the acting Silver Bear in Berlin, where I’m Your Man premiered, and the film went on to win four major prizes at the German Film Awards: feature film, direction, screenplay and actress. Austria submitted her film on Stefan Zweig for the Oscar last year, making this her second Oscar contender. Germany’s last Oscar was in 2007 with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives Of Others, and has been nominated four times since, most recently in 2019 with von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away.
Playground (Belgium)
Dir. Laura Wandel
Wandel’s debut feature Playground follows a seven-year-old girl named Nora as she enters first grade at a French primary school and must learn to manoeuvre in a strange new world. The Belgian production has been a hit with critics since its premiere in Cannes Un Certain Regard where it won the Fipresci Prize, going on to win the Best Debut Award at the BFI London Film Festival. Indie Sales is handling international sales. Belgium has never won this category, but has been nominated seven times, most recently in 2014 with Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown.
Great Freedom (Austria)
Dir. Sebastian Meise
Premiering at Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Great Freedom won the Jury Award and went on to play many European festivals. The second fiction feature from Meise stars Frank Rogowski (Transit, Undine) as a gay man in post-war Germany who discovers intimacy in prison over the course of several incarcerations for his infractions against the country’s notorious Paragraph 175. Mubi has rights in North America, UK, Ireland, Turkey, India and most of Latin America. Austria has twice won this category before: in 2013 for Michael Haneke’s Amour and 2008 for Stefan Ruzowitsky’s The Counterfeiters.
Prayers For The Stolen (Mexico)
Dir. Tatiana Huezo
After eight previous nominations, Mexico finally won its first International Feature Award in 2019 for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, one of three Oscars that year. Huezo’s Prayers For The Stolen is based on Jennifer Clement’s novel, and shows life in a town at war seen through the eyes of three young girls on the path to adolescence. The film debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and went on to festivals including Melbourne, Karlovy Vary, San Sebastian and New York. It is the director’s third feature, after 2011’s El Lugar Mas Pequeño and 2016’s Tempestad.
The Good Boss (Spain)
Dir. Fernando León de Aranoa
Spain won the Best Foreign Language film Oscar — as it was then called — for The Sea Inside starring Javier Bardem in 2005. This black comedy starring Bardem as a not-so-good factory boss was chosen over Almadovar’s Parallel Mothers, perhaps for political reasons. Director León de Aranoa teamed up with Bardem in Mondays In The Sun — Spain’s pick for the Oscar in 2003, which was not nominated. Cohen Media Group releases The Good Boss in North America. Its international sales agent MK2 has sold it to Future Film for Finland, Paradiso Entertainment for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Front Row for the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) and Iran, Pris Audiovisuais for Portugal, TriPictures for Spain, Paname for France, Limelight for Australia, New Zealand and associated islands, and Pathe for Switzerland.
‘The Hand of God’ source: © Netflix
Lamb (Iceland)
Dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson
Jóhannsson’s debut feature, which won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Prize of Originality this year, stars Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason in the story of a childless farming couple in rural Iceland who make an alarming discovery one day in their sheep barn and face the consequences when they defy the will of nature. Lamb delivered the highest opening weekend for an Icelandic release in North America and has now grossed 2.7m in the territory via A24. Iceland has only been nominated once so far in this category — in 1992, with Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Children Of Nature — and also made the shortlist in 2013 with Baltasar Kormakur’s The Deep.
Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (Bhutan). Source: Lff
Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (Bhutan)
Dir. Pawo Choyning Dorji
Not submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards
Plaza Catedral (Panama)
Dir. Abner Benaim
Panama’s Oscar entry has already been beset by tragedy: the film’s lead actor Fernando Xavier de Casta was killed earlier this year, aged just 15, in reported gang violence. In a haunting echo, Plaza Catedral centres on a woman who, while mourning the loss of her 13-year-old son in an accident, has her life turned upside down when a teenager (de Casta) asks her for help after being shot in a street conflict. De Casta and Ilse Salas won the best actor and actress awards at Guadalajara Film Festival, where the film debuted in October 2021. Benaim represents Panama for the third time on the Oscar stage, after Ruben Blades Is Not My Name for the 2019 awards and Invasion, the country’s first entry, for 2015. This is the first time the country has made the Oscars shortlist.
Not submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards
Hive (Kosovo)
Dir. Blerta Basholli
Kosovo’s nascent film industry continues to grow, with its eighth Oscar entry — all consecutively, since the 2015 awards — and has now achieved its first shortlist inclusion. Basholli’s debut feature premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance in 2021, winning the section’s grand jury prize as well as the directing and audience awards. Hive centres on a woman whose husband has been missing since the Kosovan war, leaving her to set up her own business to provide for her children. LevelK represents sales, while Kino Lorber releases in the US.
Submitted for this year’s Bafta Film Awards (Altitude)
**Descriptions credit to ScreenDaily.com
*Isa=International Sales Agent...
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
The movie calendar can’t seem to find its old rhythm: Oscar season intersects with SXSW and “The Batman” is soaring in a period that was once a box-office dumping ground. But one element is returning to the scene right on schedule and it’s more than welcome in this column: Cannes hype!
While Covid case counts in Europe may be cause for concern, the world’s most glamorous celebration of the art form remains on track for its 75th edition as it returns to its usual May slot. Although the festival won’t announce its selections until April 14, the buzz machine has already begun with Tom Cruise expected to grace the Croisette with his pandemic-delayed “Tom Gun: Maverick” (a full two years after it was originally expected to land there), Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” and George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” Meanwhile, festival programmers have been combing...
While Covid case counts in Europe may be cause for concern, the world’s most glamorous celebration of the art form remains on track for its 75th edition as it returns to its usual May slot. Although the festival won’t announce its selections until April 14, the buzz machine has already begun with Tom Cruise expected to grace the Croisette with his pandemic-delayed “Tom Gun: Maverick” (a full two years after it was originally expected to land there), Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” and George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” Meanwhile, festival programmers have been combing...
- 3/19/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Although Haider Rashid’s drama tells us frustratingly little about its Iraqi protagonist, this expertly-made film demands to be seen
Not to be confused with the half-dozen or so other films with the same (or similar) name, this brisk but effective drama offers a timely reminder of just how hard it is to cross borders, especially into countries that might not want you there. This Europa premiered last year, when the conversation about immigration focused mainly on those fleeing war-ravaged or even just unstable places in the Middle East or Africa. Such immigrants were far more likely to be met with hostility at Europe’s edges than the compassion the west is currently extending to refugees from Ukraine, so that sheer accident of the release schedule throws this film into a whole new light. Viewers can’t but fail to be aware of the discrepancy between how two different sets...
Not to be confused with the half-dozen or so other films with the same (or similar) name, this brisk but effective drama offers a timely reminder of just how hard it is to cross borders, especially into countries that might not want you there. This Europa premiered last year, when the conversation about immigration focused mainly on those fleeing war-ravaged or even just unstable places in the Middle East or Africa. Such immigrants were far more likely to be met with hostility at Europe’s edges than the compassion the west is currently extending to refugees from Ukraine, so that sheer accident of the release schedule throws this film into a whole new light. Viewers can’t but fail to be aware of the discrepancy between how two different sets...
- 3/15/2022
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
"Brave, bold, brilliant." Bulldog Distr. in the UK has revealed the trailer for a film called Europa, which originally premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last year in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar. This film is essentially Son of Saul but for Middle Eastern refugees in Europe today. It has the same intense, non-stop focus on just one Iraqi refugee on the run on the Turkey-Bulgaria border. Europa is based on real events happening on the dangerous 'Balkan Route' where migrants are smuggled into Europe across the Turkish border and are often subject to violence, intimidation and illegal pushback. Iraqi-Italian filmmaker Haider Rashid's goal was to create an immersive experience to allow the audience to be with the character, close to him, sometimes breathing with him, and to create questions in the audience's mind, testing their definition of empathy, as this character of whom they know very little, tries to survive and remain a human.
- 2/25/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
French filmmaker Audrey Diwan’s “Happening” has had a long journey. But it began back at the Venice Film Festival in September 2021 when the jury, led by president Bong Joon Ho and with members including Chloé Zhao, awarded the film the Golden Lion, its top prize. Since then, this sensitive and well-directed abortion drama has notched nominations for Best Director at the BAFTAs and nominations at the César Awards for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Female Newcomer, and the film also screened virtually at this year’s Sundance. Now, it’s finally headed to stateside theaters on May 6 from IFC Films. Exclusively on IndieWire, watch the official trailer for the film below.
Adapting a 2000 memoir by Annie Ernaux, Audrey Diwan directs French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei (a quietly volcanic presence) as Anne. She’s a promising young student steadfastly committed to her studies and dreams of becoming a writer,...
Adapting a 2000 memoir by Annie Ernaux, Audrey Diwan directs French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei (a quietly volcanic presence) as Anne. She’s a promising young student steadfastly committed to her studies and dreams of becoming a writer,...
- 2/18/2022
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
With her forceful feature debut Playground, Laura Wandel takes an intimate, intense look at the intricacies of abuse at school from a child’s point of view. Following 7-year-old Nora and her big brother Abel, Belgium’s Oscar short-listed drama is a microcosm of the cycles of bullying and violence playing out across the world.
“Wandel pulls no punches in her depiction, and both Leklou and Vanderbeque deliver performances well beyond their years. (A child’s ability to embark on roles this psychologically draining will never cease to amaze.),” Jared Mobarak said in his review. “With only 70 minutes at its disposal, Playground pushes forward with powerful intent. Not a second can be wasted. Not a single glance can be unmoored from the bigger picture. That sacrifice above is thus the catalyst for Abel’s rapid descent into abuse from those who know him and those who don’t.”
With the...
“Wandel pulls no punches in her depiction, and both Leklou and Vanderbeque deliver performances well beyond their years. (A child’s ability to embark on roles this psychologically draining will never cease to amaze.),” Jared Mobarak said in his review. “With only 70 minutes at its disposal, Playground pushes forward with powerful intent. Not a second can be wasted. Not a single glance can be unmoored from the bigger picture. That sacrifice above is thus the catalyst for Abel’s rapid descent into abuse from those who know him and those who don’t.”
With the...
- 2/16/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
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