Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
Move over, Sandra Bullock—there’s a new Bird Box in town. The only film to have collected prizes at both Sundance and Cannes, Shaunak Sen’s taut, tender documentary has a healing power that’s sourced straight from its subjects: two brothers in Delhi who have devoted their lives to saving the Black Kite—a majestic, medium-sized, hypercarnivorous raptor of the air—from going extinct in Delhi’s fatally-polluted skies. Set to the backdrop of India’s rising social turmoil and Islamophobia, the threatened and neglected state of this bird reflects the brothers’ reality in a place that doesn’t fully recognize their humanity. But that doesn’t stop them from operating. It seems nothing can.
All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
Move over, Sandra Bullock—there’s a new Bird Box in town. The only film to have collected prizes at both Sundance and Cannes, Shaunak Sen’s taut, tender documentary has a healing power that’s sourced straight from its subjects: two brothers in Delhi who have devoted their lives to saving the Black Kite—a majestic, medium-sized, hypercarnivorous raptor of the air—from going extinct in Delhi’s fatally-polluted skies. Set to the backdrop of India’s rising social turmoil and Islamophobia, the threatened and neglected state of this bird reflects the brothers’ reality in a place that doesn’t fully recognize their humanity. But that doesn’t stop them from operating. It seems nothing can.
- 2/9/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
This history of Blaxploitation cinema, dispatches from the front lines of war, adventurous volcanologists, portraits of legendary artists, and a group of jackasses that repeatedly hit each other in the balls—just a few of the subjects and stories this year’s documentaries brought us. With 2022 wrapping up, we’ve selected the features that left us most impressed. If you’re looking for where to stream them, check out our handy guide here.
All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
Move over, Sandra Bullock—there’s a new Bird Box in town. The only film to have collected prizes at both Sundance and Cannes, Shaunak Sen’s taut, tender documentary has a healing power that’s sourced straight from its subjects: two brothers in Delhi who have devoted their lives to saving the Black Kite—a majestic, medium-sized, hypercarnivorous raptor of the air—from going extinct in Delhi’s fatally-polluted skies. Set...
All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
Move over, Sandra Bullock—there’s a new Bird Box in town. The only film to have collected prizes at both Sundance and Cannes, Shaunak Sen’s taut, tender documentary has a healing power that’s sourced straight from its subjects: two brothers in Delhi who have devoted their lives to saving the Black Kite—a majestic, medium-sized, hypercarnivorous raptor of the air—from going extinct in Delhi’s fatally-polluted skies. Set...
- 12/9/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.
In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch...
In The Novelist’s Film, Lee Hyeyoung (Hong’s In Front of Your Face) plays Junhee, a novelist who has grown disenchanted with her writing. On a trip to see an old friend, she runs into a film director who was set to adapt one of her novels before the project fell through. One chance encounter leads to another and soon she finds herself having lunch...
- 2/16/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to Cane Fire, an award-winning documentary from director Anthony Banua-Simon, with plans to release it in theaters across the U.S., beginning with a New York theatrical premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 20.
The filmmaker’s deal with Cinema Guild also encompassed his short films Third Shift and Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story, which will be released on the educational market.
Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history with accounts of numerous Hollywood productions shot there, along with troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.
The film premiered at Hot Docs in 2020, subsequently going on to screen at the Indie Memphis Film Festival,...
The filmmaker’s deal with Cinema Guild also encompassed his short films Third Shift and Pure Flix and Chill: The David A.R. White Story, which will be released on the educational market.
Cane Fire examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history with accounts of numerous Hollywood productions shot there, along with troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.
The film premiered at Hot Docs in 2020, subsequently going on to screen at the Indie Memphis Film Festival,...
- 2/7/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
From Sweetgrass to Leviathan to Manakamana to El Mar La Mar to Caniba, Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab is responsible for some of the most fascinating non-fiction cinematic work of the century thus far. Their latest project is Expedition Content, directed by Ernst Karel, a master of sound works including some of the aforementioned titles, and Veronika Kusumaryati, a political and media anthropologist working in West Papua. Following a premiere at last year’s Berlinale, the film will open at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives on January 7 and we’re pleased to exclusively debut the trailer.
An immersive sonic journey, the film is culled from 37 hours of audio recordings made in 1961 on the so-called Harvard-Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea by recent college graduate and Standard Oil heir Michael Rockefeller to study the indigenous Hubula (also known as Dani) people. Using almost no images, Karel and Kusumaryati’s film documents...
An immersive sonic journey, the film is culled from 37 hours of audio recordings made in 1961 on the so-called Harvard-Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea by recent college graduate and Standard Oil heir Michael Rockefeller to study the indigenous Hubula (also known as Dani) people. Using almost no images, Karel and Kusumaryati’s film documents...
- 12/9/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“Come Here” is a rather strange film, since it has no specific narrative to speak of, as it functions more like a collage of episodes, in black-and-white, that begin in Kanchanaburi, in the west part of Thailand, but are not limited there.
Come Here is screening in Electric Shadows Letters from Panduranga © Nguyen Trin Thi
As the “story” begins, four friends in their mid-twenties arrive in the area to check the memorial site of the ‘Death Railway’, built to honor tens of thousands war prisoners who lost their lives here, and the local museum, which they find, though, closed. At night, back at the impressive raft house they have rented, they drink, smoke weed, talk, and have as much fun as possible, occasionally even mimicking sounds of animals. Soon, it turns out that they are all actors in a theater company, acting out scenes from a play. Eventually, fireworks go off,...
Come Here is screening in Electric Shadows Letters from Panduranga © Nguyen Trin Thi
As the “story” begins, four friends in their mid-twenties arrive in the area to check the memorial site of the ‘Death Railway’, built to honor tens of thousands war prisoners who lost their lives here, and the local museum, which they find, though, closed. At night, back at the impressive raft house they have rented, they drink, smoke weed, talk, and have as much fun as possible, occasionally even mimicking sounds of animals. Soon, it turns out that they are all actors in a theater company, acting out scenes from a play. Eventually, fireworks go off,...
- 9/3/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Exclusive: Cinema Guild has secured the North American distribution rights to Expedition Content, a documentary that premiered in the Forum section at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and had its U.S. debut as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real. Directed by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, the doc will be released in theaters later this year.
Karel produced the film, which draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate and Standard Oil heir Michael Rockefeller as part of the so-called Harvard-Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea in 1961 to study the indigenous Hubula (also known as Dani) people. It documents the strange encounter between the expedition and the Hubula people.
“With this film, Ernst and Veronika have created a movie-going experience unlike any other,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly, who negotiated the acquisition deal with the film’s producers. “We’re excited for...
Karel produced the film, which draws on audio recordings made by recent college graduate and Standard Oil heir Michael Rockefeller as part of the so-called Harvard-Peabody Expedition to Netherlands New Guinea in 1961 to study the indigenous Hubula (also known as Dani) people. It documents the strange encounter between the expedition and the Hubula people.
“With this film, Ernst and Veronika have created a movie-going experience unlike any other,” said Cinema Guild President Peter Kelly, who negotiated the acquisition deal with the film’s producers. “We’re excited for...
- 3/26/2021
- by Amanda N'Duka
- Deadline Film + TV
European film festivals were always hospitable to experimental cinema from Asia, and this year’s Berlinale proves the fact in the most eloquent way. “Come Here” is a rather strange film, since it has no specific narrative to speak of, as it functions more like a collage of episodes, in black-and-white, that begin in Kanchanaburi, in the west part of Thailand, but are not limited there.
Come Here is screening on Berlinale
As the “story” begins, four friends in their mid-twenties arrive in the area to check the memorial site of the ‘Death Railway’, built to honor tens of thousands war prisoners who lost their lives here, and the local museum, which they find, though, closed. At night, back at the impressive raft house they have rented, they drink, smoke weed, talk, and have as much fun as possible, occasionally even mimicking sounds of animals. Soon, it turns out that...
Come Here is screening on Berlinale
As the “story” begins, four friends in their mid-twenties arrive in the area to check the memorial site of the ‘Death Railway’, built to honor tens of thousands war prisoners who lost their lives here, and the local museum, which they find, though, closed. At night, back at the impressive raft house they have rented, they drink, smoke weed, talk, and have as much fun as possible, occasionally even mimicking sounds of animals. Soon, it turns out that...
- 3/3/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Magnolia Pictures has picked up North American rights to “Stray,” a documentary about the stray dogs of Istanbul, from London-based doc distributor Dogwoof.
Marking Elizabeth Lo’s directorial debut, the film takes a canine’s-eye-view of the streets of Istanbul, and follows three dogs — Zeytin, Nazar and Kartel — as they roam free, offering a unique take on the Turkish city and its inhabitants. The dogs’ lives ultimately intersect when they bond with a group of young Syrians who share the streets with them.
Originally slated to bow in April at the postponed Tribeca Film Festival, Variety critic Tomris Laffly describes “Stray” as conveying “the wholesomeness of humans’ four-legged best friends, but also the soulful voice of an exciting new filmmaker with immense moral queries on her mind.”
The doc joins a small but mighty group of films to set their sights on the stray animals of Istanbul. Ceyda Torun’s...
Marking Elizabeth Lo’s directorial debut, the film takes a canine’s-eye-view of the streets of Istanbul, and follows three dogs — Zeytin, Nazar and Kartel — as they roam free, offering a unique take on the Turkish city and its inhabitants. The dogs’ lives ultimately intersect when they bond with a group of young Syrians who share the streets with them.
Originally slated to bow in April at the postponed Tribeca Film Festival, Variety critic Tomris Laffly describes “Stray” as conveying “the wholesomeness of humans’ four-legged best friends, but also the soulful voice of an exciting new filmmaker with immense moral queries on her mind.”
The doc joins a small but mighty group of films to set their sights on the stray animals of Istanbul. Ceyda Torun’s...
- 6/11/2020
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
The Turkish word zeytin, which means “olive,” sometimes doubles as a complimentary adjective used to define a pair of deeply expressive, dark-colored eyes. With that context in mind, the Istanbul street dog much of Elizabeth Lo’s virtuosic feature documentary debut “Stray” tracks couldn’t have been more appropriately named. From the first moment Lo, an award-winning filmmaker of mostly documentary shorts, graces the screen with a closeup of Zeytin, it’s the canine’s eyes that register. Possessing a dramatic screen quality with her striking gaze, elegant lashes and playfully twitching and raising eyebrows, Zeytin steadily lends the film a piece of her incorruptible purity that at once enchants and strengthens spirits.
Thanks to the mutt’s magnificent orbs, one feels a soul-baring affinity with the fearless Zeytin as she searches for kindness while wandering and conquering the streets of Istanbul. It’s a tough town, but the young...
Thanks to the mutt’s magnificent orbs, one feels a soul-baring affinity with the fearless Zeytin as she searches for kindness while wandering and conquering the streets of Istanbul. It’s a tough town, but the young...
- 4/27/2020
- by Tomris Laffly
- Variety Film + TV
The 2020 Berlin Film Festival, the first edition under new artistic director Carlo Chatrian, has unveiled its first wave of titles.
Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio, starring Roberto Benigni, will have its international premiere at the festival as a Berlinale Special Gala. The team have removed the ‘out of competition’ classification this year and those films will now play as Special Galas. Pinocchio is released theatrically in Italy this weekend and Berlin will mark its festival premiere.
“Garrone succeeds in re-telling the well-known story with his very own world of images. Although he is faithful to Carlo Collodi’s ideas, he has nevertheless created a very personal Pinocchio that is much more cheerful than we’ve experienced before,” commented Carlo Chatrian on the selection.
Also announced today were four films in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino program, which presents debut features. The section will open with Kids Run from Barbara Ott, whose graduation...
Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio, starring Roberto Benigni, will have its international premiere at the festival as a Berlinale Special Gala. The team have removed the ‘out of competition’ classification this year and those films will now play as Special Galas. Pinocchio is released theatrically in Italy this weekend and Berlin will mark its festival premiere.
“Garrone succeeds in re-telling the well-known story with his very own world of images. Although he is faithful to Carlo Collodi’s ideas, he has nevertheless created a very personal Pinocchio that is much more cheerful than we’ve experienced before,” commented Carlo Chatrian on the selection.
Also announced today were four films in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino program, which presents debut features. The section will open with Kids Run from Barbara Ott, whose graduation...
- 12/17/2019
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Anne Wivel’s Mand Falder will open the festival, which will screen 200 docs including 60 world premieres.
Copenhagen documentary festival Cph:dox has revealed the programme for its 13th edition, which runs Nov 5-15.
The line-up features 200 documentaries including 60 world premieres, 18 European premieres and 14 international premieres.
Danish film Mand Falder, directed by Anne Wivel, will open the festival. The film centres around the artist Per Kirkeby and his recovery after suffering from a brain hemorrhage.
16 documentaries will compete in the main competition for the Dox:award, including Friedrich Moser’s journalistic docu-thriller A Good American about William Binney’s programme ‘Thinthread’ that could have prevented 9/11, but was cancelled by the Nsa, and Aslaug Holm’s Norwegian documentary Brodre, which was shot over 8 years and centres around two boys growing up.
Helena Trestikova’s Czech documentary Mallory about life at the bottom of Czech society also features in the competition, which was won last year by Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence.
Sean McAllister...
Copenhagen documentary festival Cph:dox has revealed the programme for its 13th edition, which runs Nov 5-15.
The line-up features 200 documentaries including 60 world premieres, 18 European premieres and 14 international premieres.
Danish film Mand Falder, directed by Anne Wivel, will open the festival. The film centres around the artist Per Kirkeby and his recovery after suffering from a brain hemorrhage.
16 documentaries will compete in the main competition for the Dox:award, including Friedrich Moser’s journalistic docu-thriller A Good American about William Binney’s programme ‘Thinthread’ that could have prevented 9/11, but was cancelled by the Nsa, and Aslaug Holm’s Norwegian documentary Brodre, which was shot over 8 years and centres around two boys growing up.
Helena Trestikova’s Czech documentary Mallory about life at the bottom of Czech society also features in the competition, which was won last year by Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence.
Sean McAllister...
- 10/16/2015
- by sarah.cooper@screendaily.com (Sarah Cooper)
- ScreenDaily
Below you will find an index of all our coverage of the 67th Locarno Film Festival by Adam Cook, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, and Celluloid Liberation Front.
Web Exclusive: The World of Titanus by Carlo Chatrian
Films
From What is Before by Lav Diaz
The Princess of France by Matías Piñeiro
Buzzard by Joel Potrykus (x two)
Listen Up Philip by Alex Ross Perry
Horse Money by Pedro Costa
Sosialismi by Peter von Bagh
Single Stream by Ernst Karel, Toby Lee, & Pawel Wojtasik
White Nights on the Pier by Paul Vecchiali
La Sapienza by Eugène Green
Une jeune poète by Damien Manivel
Interviews
Soon-Mi Yoo (director of Songs From the North)...
Web Exclusive: The World of Titanus by Carlo Chatrian
Films
From What is Before by Lav Diaz
The Princess of France by Matías Piñeiro
Buzzard by Joel Potrykus (x two)
Listen Up Philip by Alex Ross Perry
Horse Money by Pedro Costa
Sosialismi by Peter von Bagh
Single Stream by Ernst Karel, Toby Lee, & Pawel Wojtasik
White Nights on the Pier by Paul Vecchiali
La Sapienza by Eugène Green
Une jeune poète by Damien Manivel
Interviews
Soon-Mi Yoo (director of Songs From the North)...
- 9/9/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Described by the filmmaker as a "gallery," Sosialismi assembles footage from 40-something films, while also mixing in quotes, songs, and more. The theme that unites the cited material is, as the title might suggest, socialism. Peter von Bagh appropriates the footage to reconstruct a unified, idealist, and even dreamlike vision of socialist / left-wing ideas...or maybe not ideas so much as faith. This reconstruction knows no borders, and transcends place and temporality. Rather than delving into the details of the history/reality of socialism in the 20th century, the film creates a tapestry of socialist belief as found in disparate works from around the world. It is a take on what cinema thinks of / imagines as socialism. Ranging from Dziga Vertov to John Ford to Chaplin to Pasolini, dozens of films and filmmakers take part, if only implicitly, in testifying to a certain way of thinking/believing/living.
Von Bagh...
Von Bagh...
- 8/19/2014
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Just steps from the outdoor screen and the 8,000 seats that have been set up on the Piazza Grande where the 67th Locarno International Film Festival will open on 6 August, I sat down with Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian to talk about films of the past and present, the American independent film line-up, Roman Polanski and Agnès Varda.
The Festival
Kouguell: This is your second year as Artistic Director. What changes will we see at the Festival this year?
Chatrian: “Last year, I didn’t want to change the Festival that much because I felt, and still feel, that the structure is good and fits the goals -- to continue on the same path with (both) the history of cinema and new films. This year’s selection of new films will have more surprises than last year. The main competition last year was composed of mainly quite well-known directors; this year there is a good balance of first-time, lesser known and established directors.”
Kouguell: Are there any current trends in filmmaking that you have found in this year’s films?
Chatrian: “Cinema as an art form has more than one direction. Luckily there are filmmakers willing to take different directions and we see this here at this year’s Festival. I’m always a little bit concerned when some critics say, ‘the new cinema will be this or that’ -- what I can say is that cinema -- especially through young filmmakers -- seems quite vibrant and not a dead art form.”
On American Indie Films at the Festival
Chatrian: “We try to provide a complete panorama of American indie cinema but we are not concerned about being exhaustive. Locarno is a good festival to help the career of a director. One of the purposes of the Locarno Film Festival is to discover new talent. I’m happy to have back -- they were discovered by Locarno -- American indie directors Alex Ross Perry ( "Listen Up Philip"), Joel Potrykus ("Buzzard") and J.P. Sniadecki with his documentary "The Iron Ministry".”
The other American films include "Single Stream" directed by Ernst Karel, Toby Kim Lee and Pawel Wojtasik, "Songs from the North" by Soon-Mi Yoo, the "Tony Longo Trilogy" directed by indie cinema veteran Thom Anderson, "Creep" (Patrick Brice’s first feature- length genre film), "Thirst" a short narrative film directed by Rachel McDonald, and the fiction feature "Christmas Again" directed by Charles Poekel.
On Roman Polanski
Kouguell: Some might feel that inviting Roman Polanski to the Festival is a controversial choice. What are your thoughts on this?
Chatrian: “I’m aware of this. I don’t want to hurt anyone. When I had the chance to invite him to do a master class for the young filmmakers at the Locarno Summer Academy, it was a chance to gain an inside angle of this director. That’s the purpose of the festival -- we exchange ideas; Polanksi can give his film knowledge to other people. One side is justice and one is the filmmaker. He is a great creator of moving images and for me, not controversial, simple as that. He is willing to share his ideas with young directors. If anyone else wants to take him and bring him to justice this is not the right place to do it because we are a film festival.”
On Honoring Agnès Varda with The Pardo d’onore Swisscom Award
Chatrian: “It is important to pay tribute to her as a woman director, and as a major figure in modern and independent cinema. Varda and I discussed the titles to choose to screen at the Festival. As you see there are well known films -- and others not as known [like] the 2011 documentary television series Agnès de ci de là Varda.
“What is interesting in her work is that she is absolutely free to choose topics, format, length, and style. She is free to switch from documentaries to fiction -- to work with big stars or not, to reflect on her own experience. Through her work we can see and experience a number of important movements in the 20th Century -- the American Blank Panthers (Huey), the women’s movement, "The Gleaners and I," " Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma," and more. Varda allows me and the Festival to watch cinema as language; she allows the festival to retell important stories of the past years. At age 86 she is full of energy and willing to exchange her experience with the audience.”
The Locarno International Film Festival offers a vast range of work from the past and present, a diverse selection of shorts, feature-length, narrative and documentary films, and a window onto the future of cinema around the globe.
The Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 6-16, 2014. For more information visit: www.pardo.ch
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide.www.su-city-pictures.com , http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
The Festival
Kouguell: This is your second year as Artistic Director. What changes will we see at the Festival this year?
Chatrian: “Last year, I didn’t want to change the Festival that much because I felt, and still feel, that the structure is good and fits the goals -- to continue on the same path with (both) the history of cinema and new films. This year’s selection of new films will have more surprises than last year. The main competition last year was composed of mainly quite well-known directors; this year there is a good balance of first-time, lesser known and established directors.”
Kouguell: Are there any current trends in filmmaking that you have found in this year’s films?
Chatrian: “Cinema as an art form has more than one direction. Luckily there are filmmakers willing to take different directions and we see this here at this year’s Festival. I’m always a little bit concerned when some critics say, ‘the new cinema will be this or that’ -- what I can say is that cinema -- especially through young filmmakers -- seems quite vibrant and not a dead art form.”
On American Indie Films at the Festival
Chatrian: “We try to provide a complete panorama of American indie cinema but we are not concerned about being exhaustive. Locarno is a good festival to help the career of a director. One of the purposes of the Locarno Film Festival is to discover new talent. I’m happy to have back -- they were discovered by Locarno -- American indie directors Alex Ross Perry ( "Listen Up Philip"), Joel Potrykus ("Buzzard") and J.P. Sniadecki with his documentary "The Iron Ministry".”
The other American films include "Single Stream" directed by Ernst Karel, Toby Kim Lee and Pawel Wojtasik, "Songs from the North" by Soon-Mi Yoo, the "Tony Longo Trilogy" directed by indie cinema veteran Thom Anderson, "Creep" (Patrick Brice’s first feature- length genre film), "Thirst" a short narrative film directed by Rachel McDonald, and the fiction feature "Christmas Again" directed by Charles Poekel.
On Roman Polanski
Kouguell: Some might feel that inviting Roman Polanski to the Festival is a controversial choice. What are your thoughts on this?
Chatrian: “I’m aware of this. I don’t want to hurt anyone. When I had the chance to invite him to do a master class for the young filmmakers at the Locarno Summer Academy, it was a chance to gain an inside angle of this director. That’s the purpose of the festival -- we exchange ideas; Polanksi can give his film knowledge to other people. One side is justice and one is the filmmaker. He is a great creator of moving images and for me, not controversial, simple as that. He is willing to share his ideas with young directors. If anyone else wants to take him and bring him to justice this is not the right place to do it because we are a film festival.”
On Honoring Agnès Varda with The Pardo d’onore Swisscom Award
Chatrian: “It is important to pay tribute to her as a woman director, and as a major figure in modern and independent cinema. Varda and I discussed the titles to choose to screen at the Festival. As you see there are well known films -- and others not as known [like] the 2011 documentary television series Agnès de ci de là Varda.
“What is interesting in her work is that she is absolutely free to choose topics, format, length, and style. She is free to switch from documentaries to fiction -- to work with big stars or not, to reflect on her own experience. Through her work we can see and experience a number of important movements in the 20th Century -- the American Blank Panthers (Huey), the women’s movement, "The Gleaners and I," " Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma," and more. Varda allows me and the Festival to watch cinema as language; she allows the festival to retell important stories of the past years. At age 86 she is full of energy and willing to exchange her experience with the audience.”
The Locarno International Film Festival offers a vast range of work from the past and present, a diverse selection of shorts, feature-length, narrative and documentary films, and a window onto the future of cinema around the globe.
The Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 6-16, 2014. For more information visit: www.pardo.ch
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide.www.su-city-pictures.com , http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
- 8/6/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
The 52nd annual Ann Arbor Film Festival will be a jam-packed experimental feature and short film screening event running for six days and nights, this time on March 25-30.
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
- 3/18/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
This year’s quintessential art doc, Leviathan is the latest feature from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, the duo behind Sweetgrass and the driving force behind Harvard’s experimental Sensory Ethnography Lab. With a myriad of weather-proof digital cameras strapped to a North American trolling ship, the film documents the grotesque nature of commercial fishing with the grainy high-contrast visuals of a shipwrecked acrobat. We slosh about the deck bathed in the blood of countless sea creatures and watch weathered men be pelted by an ever present downpour as hungry gulls flutter against a black sky hoping to score a scrap of remains. This is Deadliest Catch without the embellishments of competition, personality or theme music – a purely guttural experience to be had.
Never before has the objective of the Sensory Ethnography Lab been brought to life with such direct and brutal eloquence as within. Certainly documenting the hard-knock lives...
Never before has the objective of the Sensory Ethnography Lab been brought to life with such direct and brutal eloquence as within. Certainly documenting the hard-knock lives...
- 10/29/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
News.
Above: Filmmaker Andrei Ujică in conversation with Dennis Lim.
Dennis Lim is the new year-round Cinematheque programmer for the Film Society at Lincoln Center. Not too long ago we reported Robert Koehler had taken the position, but due to family health issues, he has stepped down. We congratulate Dennis Lim and our thoughts are with Robert Koehler. He may not be a household name, but he meant a lot to those who knew him: Ric Menello passed away at the age of 60 last week. Menello is known for co-writing Two Lovers and Lowlife with James Gray, and for directing this. Take a look at the Ditmas Park Corner blog's remembrance of Menello.
Editor of The Chiseler and Notebook contributor Daniel Riccuito has a new book coming out, and it's a humdinger: The Depression Alphabet Primer, with illustrations by Tony Millionaire. You can find a sample of the delights...
Above: Filmmaker Andrei Ujică in conversation with Dennis Lim.
Dennis Lim is the new year-round Cinematheque programmer for the Film Society at Lincoln Center. Not too long ago we reported Robert Koehler had taken the position, but due to family health issues, he has stepped down. We congratulate Dennis Lim and our thoughts are with Robert Koehler. He may not be a household name, but he meant a lot to those who knew him: Ric Menello passed away at the age of 60 last week. Menello is known for co-writing Two Lovers and Lowlife with James Gray, and for directing this. Take a look at the Ditmas Park Corner blog's remembrance of Menello.
Editor of The Chiseler and Notebook contributor Daniel Riccuito has a new book coming out, and it's a humdinger: The Depression Alphabet Primer, with illustrations by Tony Millionaire. You can find a sample of the delights...
- 3/6/2013
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Leviathan is yet another rich project hailing from the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, which has brought us fascinating, anthropologically-driven experimental work since its inception in 2007, including award-winning films like Sweetgrass (2009) and Foreign Parts (2010). The lab was formed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor, who co-directs Leviathan with Véréna Paravel. The film takes place on a fishing boat, shot on cheap, tiny digital cameras that are attached to fishermen, dead fish and even thrown overboard on tethers. Just as Abbas Kiarostami's Five was a film that somehow articulated the essence of Yasujiro Ozu with its patient observation of the slow and beautiful ebb and flow of life, Leviathan does the same, though unconsciously, for the late Tony Scott with its kinetic, often aesthetically stunning visual noise. It is a film that evades description with its originality, something which is brought up in the following exchange I had with Véréna Paravel at the Locarno Film Festival,...
- 8/29/2012
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.