Julian (Dominic West) endures the actions of a performer named Oleg (Terry Notary), in Ruben Ostlund’s satire The Square. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures (c).
Ruben Ostlund’s satire The Square was Cannes’ Palme D’Or winner this year but this ambitious film is a decidedly unusual winner. Ostlund’s previous film, Force Majeure, explored a single morally-bad choice in a caustically comic way. The Square turns a satiric eye on modern art, contemporary society, political correctness, homelessness, sex, income inequality and more, although it often focuses on the subject of trust. The Square, partly in English and partly in Swedish with subtitles, is sly, darkly satiric and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny film, when it is not just downright disturbing. This is not a film for everyone, but it has rewards for those up for its wild ride.
The story revolves around Christian (Claes Bang), the curator at a modern art museum in Sweden.
Ruben Ostlund’s satire The Square was Cannes’ Palme D’Or winner this year but this ambitious film is a decidedly unusual winner. Ostlund’s previous film, Force Majeure, explored a single morally-bad choice in a caustically comic way. The Square turns a satiric eye on modern art, contemporary society, political correctness, homelessness, sex, income inequality and more, although it often focuses on the subject of trust. The Square, partly in English and partly in Swedish with subtitles, is sly, darkly satiric and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny film, when it is not just downright disturbing. This is not a film for everyone, but it has rewards for those up for its wild ride.
The story revolves around Christian (Claes Bang), the curator at a modern art museum in Sweden.
- 11/17/2017
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
From first frame to last, Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is a monumental achievement, a World War II epic of staggering visual spectacle (see it in IMAX if you can) that hits you like a shot in the heart. Leave it to a filmmaking virtuoso at the peak of his powers to break both new ground and all the rules – who else would make a triumphant war film about a crushing Allied defeat? And who but Nolan, born in London to a British father and an American mother, would tackle WWII without America in it?...
- 7/18/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: Stephen Graham, Dave Johns, Jill Halfpenny star in wrestling comedy; first look.
Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire), Dave Johns (I, Daniel Blake) and Jill Halfpenny (Humans) have been set for comedy Walk Like A Panther, which is now underway in the Yorkshire, England for Fox International Productions.
Screen can reveal the first look at the project, on which British director Dan Cadan makes his feature debut from his own original screenplay.
The ensemble British cast also includes Sue Johnston (Downton Abbey), Lindsey Coulson (EastEnders), Julian Sands (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Jason Flemyng (Snatch), Stephen Tompkinson (Wild At Heart), Michael Socha (This Is England) and hip hop artist/poet Scroobius Pip (Taboo).
The story revolves around a group of ‘80s wrestlers who are forced to don the lycra one last time when their beloved local pub is threatened by closure.
Led by father-son duo, Mark (Graham) and Trevor Bolton (Johns), the unlikely bunch of underdog heroes...
Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire), Dave Johns (I, Daniel Blake) and Jill Halfpenny (Humans) have been set for comedy Walk Like A Panther, which is now underway in the Yorkshire, England for Fox International Productions.
Screen can reveal the first look at the project, on which British director Dan Cadan makes his feature debut from his own original screenplay.
The ensemble British cast also includes Sue Johnston (Downton Abbey), Lindsey Coulson (EastEnders), Julian Sands (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Jason Flemyng (Snatch), Stephen Tompkinson (Wild At Heart), Michael Socha (This Is England) and hip hop artist/poet Scroobius Pip (Taboo).
The story revolves around a group of ‘80s wrestlers who are forced to don the lycra one last time when their beloved local pub is threatened by closure.
Led by father-son duo, Mark (Graham) and Trevor Bolton (Johns), the unlikely bunch of underdog heroes...
- 5/31/2017
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Alec Baldwin doesn’t get much screen time in “Paris Can Wait,” and that’s one reason the movie works. Nothing against the “SNL” hero; the character he plays is, like himself, a successful Hollywood insider. Director Eleanor Coppola is more concerned with the workaday dramas that happen backstage at an awards show, or just out of frame of a paparazzi shot. As the wife of Francis Ford and mother of Sofia, Coppola sticks to what she knows in her narrative feature debut. For the 80-year-old filmmaker (“Hearts of Darkness”), it’s a triumph worth saluting.
Read More: ‘Paris Can Wait,’ Eleanor Coppola’s French Valentine, Leads Arthouse Box Office Openers
Baldwin is Michael, a businessman who questions every expenditure and couldn’t match his socks without his wife, Anne (Diane Lane). They plan to vacation in Paris after Michael’s latest film wraps in Turkey, but Anne decides to...
Read More: ‘Paris Can Wait,’ Eleanor Coppola’s French Valentine, Leads Arthouse Box Office Openers
Baldwin is Michael, a businessman who questions every expenditure and couldn’t match his socks without his wife, Anne (Diane Lane). They plan to vacation in Paris after Michael’s latest film wraps in Turkey, but Anne decides to...
- 5/18/2017
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
You see “Iran” and think certain things. You go to Iran and see the people, the shops, street activity, the environment, its museums and you forget the two things about it which shape your emotional reaction to it: politics and history. Being one of two Americans attending the Fajr International Film Festival makes me feel responsible for sharing my best moments with a broader public.
The Fajr International Film Festival is a gala affair, small enough to meet and share time with the many participants, both filmmakers and invitees from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Armenia, Turkey, Japan, Mongolia and Korea (and more!). I can only think of one other film event which offered such a luxurious array of experiences to go along with film watching (when Rosskino of Russia invited 25 U.S.distributors and us to Moscow and St. Petersburg and then repeated the event for Brics countries...
The Fajr International Film Festival is a gala affair, small enough to meet and share time with the many participants, both filmmakers and invitees from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Armenia, Turkey, Japan, Mongolia and Korea (and more!). I can only think of one other film event which offered such a luxurious array of experiences to go along with film watching (when Rosskino of Russia invited 25 U.S.distributors and us to Moscow and St. Petersburg and then repeated the event for Brics countries...
- 5/1/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Starring Aamir Khan, Sakshi Talwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari
There are outstanding films. Then there is Dangal. A film so rich in the flavours of homegrown emotions you feel you are floating in a field of aromatic sensation for close to three hours without feeling manipulated. You come away from this experience so moved and so much wiser that you wonder why cinema can’t be so rewarding more often.
But then again, if every other film was a Dangal how would we know the difference?
There I go, raving about a film which, let me state right way, will be remembered by posterity as one of the landmarks of Indian cinema in the same breath as, say Mother India, Sholay or Lagaan. Yes, Dangal has that kind of an impact. Not because it has anything new to say. On the surface it is another...
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari
There are outstanding films. Then there is Dangal. A film so rich in the flavours of homegrown emotions you feel you are floating in a field of aromatic sensation for close to three hours without feeling manipulated. You come away from this experience so moved and so much wiser that you wonder why cinema can’t be so rewarding more often.
But then again, if every other film was a Dangal how would we know the difference?
There I go, raving about a film which, let me state right way, will be remembered by posterity as one of the landmarks of Indian cinema in the same breath as, say Mother India, Sholay or Lagaan. Yes, Dangal has that kind of an impact. Not because it has anything new to say. On the surface it is another...
- 12/24/2016
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Always Shine (Sophia Takal)
With the excess of low-budget, retreat-in-the-woods dramas often finding characters hashing out their insecurities through a meta-narrative, a certain initial resistance can occur when presented with such a derivative scenario at virtually every film festival. While Sophia Takal‘s psychological drama Always Shine ultimately stumbles, the chemistry of its leads and a sense of foreboding dread in its formal execution ensures its heightened view of...
Always Shine (Sophia Takal)
With the excess of low-budget, retreat-in-the-woods dramas often finding characters hashing out their insecurities through a meta-narrative, a certain initial resistance can occur when presented with such a derivative scenario at virtually every film festival. While Sophia Takal‘s psychological drama Always Shine ultimately stumbles, the chemistry of its leads and a sense of foreboding dread in its formal execution ensures its heightened view of...
- 12/2/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
MaryAnn’s quick take…
Luminous and plaintive, Moonlight is emotional virtual reality, transforming a unique human experience into something universal and unforgettable. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
I’ve been trying to think about the best way I could advocate for writer-director Barry Jenkins’s luminous and plaintive Moonlight: this is one of those reviews that I feel very keenly that I must get right. That I must do the film justice. That I must sell it in such a way that I convince everyone reading to see it. Because Moonlight isn’t just a good film. It’s not even “just” a great one. It’s perfect in a way that too few films are.
Movies like this are as scarce as water in a desert, and as welcome…
I don’t...
Luminous and plaintive, Moonlight is emotional virtual reality, transforming a unique human experience into something universal and unforgettable. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
I’ve been trying to think about the best way I could advocate for writer-director Barry Jenkins’s luminous and plaintive Moonlight: this is one of those reviews that I feel very keenly that I must get right. That I must do the film justice. That I must sell it in such a way that I convince everyone reading to see it. Because Moonlight isn’t just a good film. It’s not even “just” a great one. It’s perfect in a way that too few films are.
Movies like this are as scarce as water in a desert, and as welcome…
I don’t...
- 11/16/2016
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Michael Moore is fucking terrified.
He knows that Hillary Clinton is way up in the polls, but he remembers the huge lead she had in the polls on the morning of the Michigan primary earlier this year, a primary that she ultimately lost to Bernie Sanders. He knows that it’s going to be difficult for Donald J. Trump to be elected President with such a small percentage of the female vote — and the black vote, and the brown vote, and the Asian vote, and the gay vote, and the Jewish vote, and the college-educated vote and the cuck vote — but he was shaken to his core by the summer’s Brexit referendum, and he strongly believes that any Democrats who are already dancing in the end zone are doing their part to help usher America’s whiniest billionaire into the Oval Office. He was a Bernie supporter from day one,...
He knows that Hillary Clinton is way up in the polls, but he remembers the huge lead she had in the polls on the morning of the Michigan primary earlier this year, a primary that she ultimately lost to Bernie Sanders. He knows that it’s going to be difficult for Donald J. Trump to be elected President with such a small percentage of the female vote — and the black vote, and the brown vote, and the Asian vote, and the gay vote, and the Jewish vote, and the college-educated vote and the cuck vote — but he was shaken to his core by the summer’s Brexit referendum, and he strongly believes that any Democrats who are already dancing in the end zone are doing their part to help usher America’s whiniest billionaire into the Oval Office. He was a Bernie supporter from day one,...
- 10/19/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Ms Dhoni – The Untold Story
Starring Sushant Singh Rajput
Directed by Neeraj Pandey
Rating: ** ½ (2 and a half stars)
There is a moment of reckoning in Dhoni’s life when getting on that moving train would mean the difference between life and stillness. That metaphorical moment when Sushant Singh Rajput, playing Dhoni as though by birthright, jumps on that train, shot with astute honesty and gritty resplendence by Santosh Thundiyil, is so brilliant in capturing the moment that changes a life from ordinary to something extra, that greedily one waits for more such moments in the vast stretches of storytelling that occupy Ms Dhoni – The Untold Story.
First thing;s first. There is nothing ‘Untold’ in this 3 hour-plus sprawling paean to one of the most iconic cricketers of our times. All we see for what seems like an eternity of playing-time are scene after scene from Dhoni’s life and career.
Starring Sushant Singh Rajput
Directed by Neeraj Pandey
Rating: ** ½ (2 and a half stars)
There is a moment of reckoning in Dhoni’s life when getting on that moving train would mean the difference between life and stillness. That metaphorical moment when Sushant Singh Rajput, playing Dhoni as though by birthright, jumps on that train, shot with astute honesty and gritty resplendence by Santosh Thundiyil, is so brilliant in capturing the moment that changes a life from ordinary to something extra, that greedily one waits for more such moments in the vast stretches of storytelling that occupy Ms Dhoni – The Untold Story.
First thing;s first. There is nothing ‘Untold’ in this 3 hour-plus sprawling paean to one of the most iconic cricketers of our times. All we see for what seems like an eternity of playing-time are scene after scene from Dhoni’s life and career.
- 10/2/2016
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
Angela Schanelec. © Joachim GernSlowly accreting perplexed but beguiled word of mouth since its under-the-radar premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in August, German director Angela Schanelec’s The Dreamed Path is an immaculately composed and constructed drama of mysteriously recurrent discontent. Beginning in an instantly enthralling series of isolated images that come together to reveal a bohemian couple hiking and busking in Greece in the early 1980s, the woman is quickly discarded by the story and we follow the man as he travels home to England after learning his mother is gravely ill. The film seems to re-form around him, his shabby destitution—he reveals himself a drug addict—his nearly blind father, and their grief over the mother. But yet again the film’s narrative proceeds to skip over time, jump in space, and divert with rubbernecked angularity; the man is left behind, the woman is picked up in...
- 9/28/2016
- MUBI
Is J.A. Bayona’s A Monster Calls more poetically tragic than it is manipulatively saddening? At this moment in my writing, I’m not 100% sure. Did I cry? As anyone who might have read Patrick Ness’ novel can confirm (a story he finished after Siobhan Dowd’s passing), it’s hard not to soften like melted butter throughout this childhood nightmare. Quite literally, Bayona orchestrates a visual representation of “letting go,” right down to our young protagonist grasping dearly onto what he loves most. For children, it’s an easy-to-understand lesson that resonates on many levels (loss, bullying, outcast mentalities), but again, are we merely crying because the situation dictates it? Or is there a strong emotionally undercurrent dragging out our tears with each protest of inevitability.
Young Lewis MacDougall stars as Connor, a British child dealing with a not-so-typical conflict. His mother (played by Felicity Jones) suffers daily from a terminal illness,...
Young Lewis MacDougall stars as Connor, a British child dealing with a not-so-typical conflict. His mother (played by Felicity Jones) suffers daily from a terminal illness,...
- 9/10/2016
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
The beautiful thing about horror is its ever-shifting form. A heavy-metal gorevalanch like Deathgasm defines one extreme of the genre (raucous over-the-top fun), while A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (black-and-white, emotional arthouse) spans the opposite side of a wide-reaching spectrum. Horror can seep into any situation, like how first-time filmmaker Nicolas Pesce corrupts a child’s youth in his ever-haunting debut, The Eyes Of My Mother. Black and white? Check. Ominously forbidding and deeply disturbing? Oh yeah. Horror by way of arthouse exploration? You betcha. Hey, who said genre films can’t get experimental every now and then?
Pesce’s film follows the maturation of Francisca, a sweet country girl whose life is stricken by tragedy. At a young age (played by Olivia Bond), Francisca’s mother (Diana Agostini) was murdered as she sat in the room next-door. Her father (Paul Nazak) arrived home too late for a rescue,...
Pesce’s film follows the maturation of Francisca, a sweet country girl whose life is stricken by tragedy. At a young age (played by Olivia Bond), Francisca’s mother (Diana Agostini) was murdered as she sat in the room next-door. Her father (Paul Nazak) arrived home too late for a rescue,...
- 7/19/2016
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (Michael Bay)
For better or worse, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is the purest distillation of Michael Bay’s cinematic voice. Bay’s favorite themes recur here from his brand of cheerleading GI Joe patriotism to righteous bloodlust to endlessly off-color non-sequiturs. And years of carpet bombing criticism targeted at his continued lack of political correctness and subtlety have...
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (Michael Bay)
For better or worse, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is the purest distillation of Michael Bay’s cinematic voice. Bay’s favorite themes recur here from his brand of cheerleading GI Joe patriotism to righteous bloodlust to endlessly off-color non-sequiturs. And years of carpet bombing criticism targeted at his continued lack of political correctness and subtlety have...
- 5/27/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Seeing some of the scathing reviews for Sarbjit I was tempted to fish out the early reviews of a film released in 1975 which was condemned by critics for being “loud” , “brash”, “plotless” and “over-dramatic”.
That film was Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay.
Sarjbit is no Sholay. Thankfully. But I firmly believe its forceful message on prisoners of politics and its persuasive emotional velocity in the scenes showing the imprisoned man’s sister’s and wife’s suffering, would be acknowledged in retrospect as remnants of a truly remarkable cinematic achievement.
The sister is played by the helplessly beautiful Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who rises valiantly to confront and embrace the sister Dalbir’s anguished and defiant fight to the end to free her brother. This is Dalbir’s story, more than Sarbjit’s. And yet it’s also a film that doesn’t spare us Sarbjit’s anguish.
Sarbjit is not a film that holds itself back.
That film was Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay.
Sarjbit is no Sholay. Thankfully. But I firmly believe its forceful message on prisoners of politics and its persuasive emotional velocity in the scenes showing the imprisoned man’s sister’s and wife’s suffering, would be acknowledged in retrospect as remnants of a truly remarkable cinematic achievement.
The sister is played by the helplessly beautiful Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who rises valiantly to confront and embrace the sister Dalbir’s anguished and defiant fight to the end to free her brother. This is Dalbir’s story, more than Sarbjit’s. And yet it’s also a film that doesn’t spare us Sarbjit’s anguish.
Sarbjit is not a film that holds itself back.
- 5/20/2016
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
There are plenty of laughs to be found in Keanu, the big-screen debut of former Comedy Central stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. That the movie works in spite of its cliche-ridden script is a testament to its stars' excellent chemistry and infectious personalities.
A pair of silent assassins named the Allentown Brothers (played by Key & Peele in heavy makeup) burst into a drug den and blast the dealers into oblivion, and perhaps the cutest kitten in cinema history makes a daring escape from the bloodbath. After dodging bullets and dead bodies, the kitten wanders the streets of Los Angeles and eventually ends up on the doorstep of Rell (Peele), a stoner artist whose recent breakup has left him devastated. Rell names the kitten Keanu ("I think it means 'cool breeze.'") and his lousy mood instantly improves. Rell and his uptight cousin Clarence (Key) go out to see a "Liam Neesons" movie,...
A pair of silent assassins named the Allentown Brothers (played by Key & Peele in heavy makeup) burst into a drug den and blast the dealers into oblivion, and perhaps the cutest kitten in cinema history makes a daring escape from the bloodbath. After dodging bullets and dead bodies, the kitten wanders the streets of Los Angeles and eventually ends up on the doorstep of Rell (Peele), a stoner artist whose recent breakup has left him devastated. Rell names the kitten Keanu ("I think it means 'cool breeze.'") and his lousy mood instantly improves. Rell and his uptight cousin Clarence (Key) go out to see a "Liam Neesons" movie,...
- 4/29/2016
- by Ben Pearson
- GeekTyrant
The public thirst for all things O.J. Simpson - thanks to FX's remarkable American Crime Story, which concluded its 10-week run on Tuesday - is strong. And Espn is striking at just the right time with a long-in-the-works documentary that takes an even deeper dive into the life and times, and rise and fall, of Simpson himself. In 2010, the network's 30 for 30 documentary series presented an episode titled "June 17, 1994," which chronicled the dramatic day and night of Simpson's infamous white Bronco chase. But that event, and the subsequent trial, is only a piece of the sprawling, vivid mosaic on display in O.
- 4/8/2016
- by Joe McGovern
- PEOPLE.com
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The War On Terror meets The Final Frontier and asks the most important question of all time. What does God need with a starship?
Shatner fights God. That’s about all anyone remembers from the infamous Final Frontier. Over the years, the tale has grown in the telling. Some called it one of the worst films of all time, others call it a box office catastrophe. It killed the careers of the director, producer, the entire special effects company, and nearly ended the entire franchise right there and then. It is remembered merely as a vanity project gone horribly wrong.
But ask yourself this. What does God need with a starship? Can you answer it? Can you understand the question? To dismiss it out of hand is to dismiss the opportunity to think. Do not turn your brain off.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the ultimate question.
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The War On Terror meets The Final Frontier and asks the most important question of all time. What does God need with a starship?
Shatner fights God. That’s about all anyone remembers from the infamous Final Frontier. Over the years, the tale has grown in the telling. Some called it one of the worst films of all time, others call it a box office catastrophe. It killed the careers of the director, producer, the entire special effects company, and nearly ended the entire franchise right there and then. It is remembered merely as a vanity project gone horribly wrong.
But ask yourself this. What does God need with a starship? Can you answer it? Can you understand the question? To dismiss it out of hand is to dismiss the opportunity to think. Do not turn your brain off.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the ultimate question.
- 3/22/2016
- Den of Geek
Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
Creed (Ryan Coogler)
Perhaps after one well-remembered surprise hit and five sequels of quality varying from passable to laughable disaster, no one expected much from Ryan Coogler’s new spin on the Rocky franchise. But Coogler freed himself of the burden of trying to follow its footsteps while doing exactly that. Creed is Hollywood filmmaking at its absolute zenith: a film that sets up archetypes and, without subverting them, turns them into breathing characters who don’t have character goals,...
Creed (Ryan Coogler)
Perhaps after one well-remembered surprise hit and five sequels of quality varying from passable to laughable disaster, no one expected much from Ryan Coogler’s new spin on the Rocky franchise. But Coogler freed himself of the burden of trying to follow its footsteps while doing exactly that. Creed is Hollywood filmmaking at its absolute zenith: a film that sets up archetypes and, without subverting them, turns them into breathing characters who don’t have character goals,...
- 3/1/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
Like his last film, Love is Strange, Ira Sachs’ Little Men is a film about transition. It starts with the death of a grandfather, which leads 13-year-old Jake (Theo Taplitz) and his family (dad played by Greg Kinnear, mom by Jennifer Ehle) to move into his Brooklyn building – an upstairs apartment and a downstairs retail space, currently occupied by a failing clothing store. The grandfather had long kept rent low for Leonor (Paulina Garcia) so she might stay in business, but Jake’s parents have no such attachments. He, however, has become fast friends with Leonor’s son, Tony (Michael Barbieri), no small thing when he’s regarded as the weird kid at his own school.
Sachs co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias pull no punches with their premise, seeing it all the way through to its inevitable conclusion. But they do imbue so much of the film with warmth and honesty. This is not a film...
Sachs co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias pull no punches with their premise, seeing it all the way through to its inevitable conclusion. But they do imbue so much of the film with warmth and honesty. This is not a film...
- 2/5/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marie Heller)
Writer-director Marie Heller paints an accurate, honest, and vibrant portrait of her young protagonist, Minnie (Bel Powley), in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. With the use of some beautiful hand-drawn animation, an enlightening and funny narration, and Powley’s versatile performance, this is about as intimate as a subjective picture gets. We experience the world as this young girl does.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marie Heller)
Writer-director Marie Heller paints an accurate, honest, and vibrant portrait of her young protagonist, Minnie (Bel Powley), in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. With the use of some beautiful hand-drawn animation, an enlightening and funny narration, and Powley’s versatile performance, this is about as intimate as a subjective picture gets. We experience the world as this young girl does.
- 1/22/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
Nicholas Hoult shows charisma in the lead role, but this cast of repugnant characters is draining
John Niven adapts his own savagely satirical novel about the Britpop-era music industry and the monsters that dwell there into a grubby and gruellingly mean-spirited feature film.
Nicholas Hoult has a certain shark-like charisma as Steven Stelfox, the indie-pop Patrick Bateman at the centre of this tale of murderous ambition. Stelfox’s appetite for success is only matched by his appetite for debauchery – and in this, he is matched by pretty much every other character in the movie. All available surfaces are constantly coated with cocaine and prostitutes. This is not a film for anyone who requires their female characters to be more than the pneumatically inflated punchline to a lad gag.
Continue reading...
John Niven adapts his own savagely satirical novel about the Britpop-era music industry and the monsters that dwell there into a grubby and gruellingly mean-spirited feature film.
Nicholas Hoult has a certain shark-like charisma as Steven Stelfox, the indie-pop Patrick Bateman at the centre of this tale of murderous ambition. Stelfox’s appetite for success is only matched by his appetite for debauchery – and in this, he is matched by pretty much every other character in the movie. All available surfaces are constantly coated with cocaine and prostitutes. This is not a film for anyone who requires their female characters to be more than the pneumatically inflated punchline to a lad gag.
Continue reading...
- 11/5/2015
- by Wendy Ide
- The Guardian - Film News
Again thumbing his nose at the regime that has banned him, the courageous Iranian director makes his latest film in a taxi rigged with three hidden cameras
Much loose talk is bandied around in the film world about directors’ bravery and the heroism of “guerrilla” film-making – but those terms genuinely mean something when applied to Iran’s Jafar Panahi. After making several robust realist dramas about the challenges of everyday life in his country – among them The Circle, Crimson Gold and the exuberantly angry football movie Offside – Panahi fell foul of the Iranian government, which threatened him with imprisonment, prevented him from travelling and banned him from making films for 20 years. He has protested by working under the wire to make three extraordinary works, contraband statements that are at once a cri de coeur from internal exile, and a bring-it-on raised fist of defiance.
This Is Not a Film (2011, directed...
Much loose talk is bandied around in the film world about directors’ bravery and the heroism of “guerrilla” film-making – but those terms genuinely mean something when applied to Iran’s Jafar Panahi. After making several robust realist dramas about the challenges of everyday life in his country – among them The Circle, Crimson Gold and the exuberantly angry football movie Offside – Panahi fell foul of the Iranian government, which threatened him with imprisonment, prevented him from travelling and banned him from making films for 20 years. He has protested by working under the wire to make three extraordinary works, contraband statements that are at once a cri de coeur from internal exile, and a bring-it-on raised fist of defiance.
This Is Not a Film (2011, directed...
- 11/1/2015
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Again thumbing his nose at the regime that has banned him, the courageous Iranian director makes his latest film in a taxi rigged with three hidden cameras
Much loose talk is bandied around in the film world about directors’ bravery and the heroism of “guerrilla” film-making – but those terms genuinely mean something when applied to Iran’s Jafar Panahi. After making several robust realist dramas about the challenges of everyday life in his country – among them The Circle, Crimson Gold and the exuberantly angry football movie Offside – Panahi fell foul of the Iranian government, which threatened him with imprisonment, prevented him from travelling and banned him from making films for 20 years. He has protested by working under the wire to make three extraordinary works, contraband statements that are at once a cri de coeur from internal exile, and a bring-it-on raised fist of defiance.
This Is Not a Film (2011, directed...
Much loose talk is bandied around in the film world about directors’ bravery and the heroism of “guerrilla” film-making – but those terms genuinely mean something when applied to Iran’s Jafar Panahi. After making several robust realist dramas about the challenges of everyday life in his country – among them The Circle, Crimson Gold and the exuberantly angry football movie Offside – Panahi fell foul of the Iranian government, which threatened him with imprisonment, prevented him from travelling and banned him from making films for 20 years. He has protested by working under the wire to make three extraordinary works, contraband statements that are at once a cri de coeur from internal exile, and a bring-it-on raised fist of defiance.
This Is Not a Film (2011, directed...
- 11/1/2015
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
In director Jafar Panahi’s new film, a shared cab provides a space where passengers spill their secrets. It’s a far cry from James Bond’s Aston Martin in Spectre
Plus: Stuart Heritage on cars that stole the show
This week, the James Bond in Motion exhibition at Covent Garden’s London Film Museum has been open as usual. Fans and tourists have studied the Lotus Esprit submarine car (nicknamed “Wet Nellie”) from The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce Phantom III and the hearse-like BMW of Tomorrow Never Dies (with roof-mounted rocket launcher). Soon though, there will be a new exhibit: Cars of Spectre, with pride of place given to the ludicrously expensive Aston Martin DB10 that Daniel Craig ill-treats in the new film.
Then, in what feels like another world, a film is about to open with a different sense of what a car can be on screen.
Plus: Stuart Heritage on cars that stole the show
This week, the James Bond in Motion exhibition at Covent Garden’s London Film Museum has been open as usual. Fans and tourists have studied the Lotus Esprit submarine car (nicknamed “Wet Nellie”) from The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce Phantom III and the hearse-like BMW of Tomorrow Never Dies (with roof-mounted rocket launcher). Soon though, there will be a new exhibit: Cars of Spectre, with pride of place given to the ludicrously expensive Aston Martin DB10 that Daniel Craig ill-treats in the new film.
Then, in what feels like another world, a film is about to open with a different sense of what a car can be on screen.
- 10/29/2015
- by Danny Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ By the very nature of its existence, Jafar Panahi's latest film Taxi Tehran (2015) is a bold act of defiance. It's his third such exploit since he was convicted by the Iranian government five years ago and banned from filmmaking, but is a far less wilfully serious affair than either 2011's This Is Not a Film or the more recent Closed Curtain. Where the latter began to buckle beneath the collected weight of its expected, necessary, indictment of the state, this is a more light-hearted, but still deeply humane cab-ride through modern Iran.
- 10/29/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
For most filmmakers, being banned from practicing his or her craft by their own government would be cause for a career to come to an end. However, Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi has proven time and time again that he is not “most filmmakers.”
By now, most cinephiles have become privy to the injustice surrounding Jafar Panahi, but for those who may not be familiar with the name, it’s a story of gross governmental censorship. In 2010, Panahi was placed under arrest along with his wife, daughter and 15 other friends, and ultimately charged with crafting propaganda against the Iranian government. Later that year he was sentenced to six years in jail and a 20-year ban from writing, directing or even giving a simple interview to any press outlet.
As he awaited his an appeal on his sentence he made 2011’s This Is Not A Film, arguably the single greatest directorial achievement so far this decade,...
By now, most cinephiles have become privy to the injustice surrounding Jafar Panahi, but for those who may not be familiar with the name, it’s a story of gross governmental censorship. In 2010, Panahi was placed under arrest along with his wife, daughter and 15 other friends, and ultimately charged with crafting propaganda against the Iranian government. Later that year he was sentenced to six years in jail and a 20-year ban from writing, directing or even giving a simple interview to any press outlet.
As he awaited his an appeal on his sentence he made 2011’s This Is Not A Film, arguably the single greatest directorial achievement so far this decade,...
- 10/4/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Is the correct title for Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s latest film just Taxi, or Jafar Panahi’s Taxi? That ambiguity speaks to the movie’s beguiling, quietly revolutionary nature. On one level, this is a film about Panahi driving a taxi — which may not sound like much, but feels like an act of civil disobedience when you consider the fact that his last two, This is Not a Film and Closed Curtain, were made under house arrest. Panahi is still a marked man; the Iranian government’s 20-year filmmaking ban against him continues to stand, and he has very limited freedom of movement. He was unable to travel to Germany to pick up the Golden Bear that Taxi won at Berlin earlier this year. “The Ministry of Islamic Guidance approves the credits of all distributable films,” reads the onscreen text at the end of Taxi. “Despite my heartfelt wish,...
- 10/3/2015
- by Bilge Ebiri
- Vulture
The Museum of Modern Art has tapped La Frances Hui, an expert in Asian cinema who most recently served as Film Curator and Associate Director of Cultural Programs at the Asia Society in New York, as an Associate Curator in the Department of Film, the museum announced this morning. Hui joins what critic Thelma Adams called "the nation's preeminent museum film department," which has been led since 2007 by Rajendra Roy, whose tenure has been marked by a certain populist streak—including an ongoing exhibition curated by Adjunct Film Curator Dave Kehr devoted to the films of Robert Zemeckis, director of "The Walk," and a blockbuster Tim Burton retrospective in 2009-2010. Hui, who presented the films of Tsai Ming-liang ("Stray Dogs") and Jafar Panahi ("Taxi," "This Is Not a Film") at the Asia Society, brings to MoMA both breadth and depth of knowledge when it comes to Asian cinema, including Chinese cinema,...
- 10/2/2015
- by Matt Brennan
- Thompson on Hollywood
Riding in Cars with Directors: Panahi’s Continued Cinema of Resistance
Sanctioned Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi’s Taxi took home the 2015 Berlin Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear, is the third consecutive secret project from the filmmaker, still in the early stages of his twenty year ban from directing. The global cinematic audience has vehemently championed Panahi’s compromised works he’s valiantly managed to assemble and sneak out of the country, beginning with 2010’s angry This is Not a Film and the equally ruminative Closed Curtain in 2013.
Surprisingly, his latest projection is quite jovial by comparison, perhaps due to Panahi’s ability to adapt to these filmmaking prohibitions, replacing his standing prison with a mobile one this time around, roving around Iran within the confines and anonymity afforded transportation vehicles. Potentially inspired by fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who frequently films sequences in moving vehicles, including the entirety of his 2002 film Ten,...
Sanctioned Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi’s Taxi took home the 2015 Berlin Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear, is the third consecutive secret project from the filmmaker, still in the early stages of his twenty year ban from directing. The global cinematic audience has vehemently championed Panahi’s compromised works he’s valiantly managed to assemble and sneak out of the country, beginning with 2010’s angry This is Not a Film and the equally ruminative Closed Curtain in 2013.
Surprisingly, his latest projection is quite jovial by comparison, perhaps due to Panahi’s ability to adapt to these filmmaking prohibitions, replacing his standing prison with a mobile one this time around, roving around Iran within the confines and anonymity afforded transportation vehicles. Potentially inspired by fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, who frequently films sequences in moving vehicles, including the entirety of his 2002 film Ten,...
- 10/1/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
This is a reprint of our review from the 2015 Berlin Film Festival. The deplorable mistreatment of multi-award-winning Iranian New Wave director Jafar Panahi in his native country (he was arrested in 2010 and now labors under a 20-year ban from filmmaking, on pain of a prison sentence) is the irreducible fact that hangs over his recent films, "This Is Not A Film" and "Closed Curtain." And it means that when we approach a new Panahi film these days, made with bravery, often in secrecy, and in direct opposition to the Iranian authorities, it tends to be with furrowed brow, and a portentous sense of the Political Importance of what we're about to watch. But almost from the off in his new film, "Taxi," Panahi himself slyly cracks a window on all that gravity: it's reflexive, intelligent, and provocative, to be sure, and has lots to say about Iranian society in general...
- 9/30/2015
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
Read More: Berlin Review: Jafar Panahi's 'Taxi' is a Unique Cinematic Masterpiece Despite living in Tehran with a 20-year ban from filmmaking, Jafar Panahi continues to produce at a more prodigious rate than most other filmmakers. "Taxi," Panahi's third feature film since his arrest by the Iranian state, sees the defiant director posing as a humble cab driver. "Taxi" is a snapshot of modern Iran, filmed entirely with dashboard cameras. While Panahi's 2011 self-reflexive "This is Not a Film" was made under house arrest, "Taxi" depicts a more mobile and playful Panahi as he continues to creatively maneuver around his ban from filmmaking. Perhaps taking after his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Kiarostami, who has also explored the public/private space of the automobile in films like "Ten," Panahi appears set to once again blur the boundaries between what is real and what is staged in "Taxi." The humorous...
- 9/30/2015
- by Tarek Shoukri
- Indiewire
Jafar Panahi was jailed, then put on house arrest and banned from filmmaking for 20 years by the Iranian government in 2010 when it deemed the award winning filmmaker an anti-government propagandist. This didn't stop the filmmaker from making films though. At first, Panahi was creatively bending the absurd rules that were put on him by making unscripted films in his house with with a small video cameras and smart phones. His frustration and ingenuity were in full display in This is Not a Film and Closed Curtain. With Taxi, his latest, the Golden Bear winner at this year's Berlinale, Panahi raises his middle finger again. The film is yet another self-reflexive, droll, poignant whatsit and defies the powers that be.In Taxi, very much in...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 9/28/2015
- Screen Anarchy
One of the best films premiering at this year’s Venice Film Festival, I said in my review of Afternoon, “It’s always been easier to review Tsai Ming-liang’s films than to make sense of them. Characterized by an often impenetrable language of silence and immobility, the Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based filmmaker’s work triggers all kinds of intuitive response that writers crave, yet those same writers might be hard-pressed to explain what they’ve just seen on screen. In this sense, Afternoon poses the exact opposite dilemma, in that it’s by far the most verbal and straightforward project from Tsai – but how do you assess, evaluate, grade something so close to life you’re not even sure what to call it in cinematic terms?”
Featuring Tsai and his long-time actor-of-choice Kang-sheng Lee as themselves in an extended, unscripted conversation shot on static camera, Afternoon has no discernible narrative arc,...
Featuring Tsai and his long-time actor-of-choice Kang-sheng Lee as themselves in an extended, unscripted conversation shot on static camera, Afternoon has no discernible narrative arc,...
- 9/21/2015
- by Zhuo-Ning Su
- The Film Stage
Art house distributor Kino Lorber has an outstanding lineup at Tiff 2015 that includes some of the most acclaimed international films of the year. Miguel Gomes' "Arabian Nights," which Volume 2 (The Desolate One) was just announced as Portugal's Oscar entry; Guatemala's "Ixcanul," which will also represent the Central American country at the Academy Awards; and Jafar Panahi's latest clandestine feature ,"Taxi," made under incredibly difficult conditions and winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, are among their upcoming titles.
Take a look at when and where you can catch some of these films while you are at Tiff this week.
"Arabian Nights Trilogy" [Wavelengths]
A major hit at this year's Cannes, this epic, three-part contemporary fable by Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes ( "Tabu" ) adopts the structure from "Arabian Nights" in order to explore Portugal's plunge into austery.
Directed by Miguel Gomes
Screening with Volume 1-3,
381 minutes
Screening Date:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 1pm, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
North American Premiere, 125 minutes
Opens Dec. 4th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screening:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 11:45am, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
North American Premiere, 131 minutes
Opens Dec. 11th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screening:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 3pm, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
American Premiere, 125 minutes
Opens Dec. 18th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/14/15, P&I 1, 7:15pm, Scotiabank 6
9/16/15, Public Screening, 6:15pm, Jackman Hall
"Ixcanul" [Discovery]
In this dreamlike fusion of documentary and fable, two young, impoverished Mayan lovers escape from their servitude on a remote Guatemalan coffee plantation and attempt to make their way to the United States.
Directed by Jayro Bustamante
Canadian Premiere, 93 minutes
Upcoming Screenings:
9/16/15, Public Screening, 6:30pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/18/15, Public Screening, 9:30am, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/20/15, Public Screening, 9:30pm, Scotiabank 2
"Jafar Panahi's Taxi" [Masters]
Shooting almost entirely within a cab circling the streets of Tehran, the great director Jafar Panahi ( "Offside," "This Is Not a Film") offers a multilayered mosaic of life in today's Iran.
Directed by Jafar Panahi
Canadian Premiere, 82 minutes
Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival
Opens Oct. 2nd in New York (IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/17/15, Public Screening, 5pm, Winter Garden Theatre
9/19/15, Public Screening, 3:30pm, Cinema 1
"Mountains May Depart" [Masters]
The new film from Mainland master Jia Zhangke ("A Touch of Sin") jumps from the recent past to the speculative near-future as it examines how China's economic boom has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.
Directed by Jia Zhangke
North American Premiere, approximately 131 minutes
Upcoming Screenings:
9/14/15, Public Screening, 9:30pm, Princess of Wales
9/15/15, Public Screening, 11:45am, Cinema 1
"The Forbidden Room" [Wavelengths]
Evan Johnson and Winnipeg’s wizard of the weird Guy Maddin ("My Winnipeg," "The Saddest Music in the World") plunge us into celluloid delirium with this mad, multi-narrative maze of phantasmal fables.
Directed by Guy Maddin and co-directed by Evan Johnson.
North American Premiere, 119 minutes
Opens Oct. 7th at New York's Film Forum.
Upcoming Screenings:
9/16/15, Public Screening, 9:15pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/18/15, Public Screening, 3:15pm, Jackman Hall
"The Pearl Button" [Masters]
The great Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán ("The Battle of Chile," "Nostalgia for the Light") chronicles the history of the indigenous peoples of Chilean Patagonia, whose decimation by colonial conquest prefigured the brutality of the Pinochet regime.
Directed by Patricio Guzman
North American Premiere, 82 minutes
Winner of the Silver Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival
Opens Oct. 23rd in New York City (IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/13/15, Public Screening, 11:30am, Tiff Bell Lightbox 3
9/18/15, Public 3Screening, 3pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2...
Take a look at when and where you can catch some of these films while you are at Tiff this week.
"Arabian Nights Trilogy" [Wavelengths]
A major hit at this year's Cannes, this epic, three-part contemporary fable by Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes ( "Tabu" ) adopts the structure from "Arabian Nights" in order to explore Portugal's plunge into austery.
Directed by Miguel Gomes
Screening with Volume 1-3,
381 minutes
Screening Date:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 1pm, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
North American Premiere, 125 minutes
Opens Dec. 4th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screening:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 11:45am, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
North American Premiere, 131 minutes
Opens Dec. 11th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screening:
9/19/15, Public Screening, 3pm, Jackman Hall
"Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One" [Wavelengths]
Directed by Miguel Gomes
American Premiere, 125 minutes
Opens Dec. 18th in New York (Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/14/15, P&I 1, 7:15pm, Scotiabank 6
9/16/15, Public Screening, 6:15pm, Jackman Hall
"Ixcanul" [Discovery]
In this dreamlike fusion of documentary and fable, two young, impoverished Mayan lovers escape from their servitude on a remote Guatemalan coffee plantation and attempt to make their way to the United States.
Directed by Jayro Bustamante
Canadian Premiere, 93 minutes
Upcoming Screenings:
9/16/15, Public Screening, 6:30pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/18/15, Public Screening, 9:30am, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/20/15, Public Screening, 9:30pm, Scotiabank 2
"Jafar Panahi's Taxi" [Masters]
Shooting almost entirely within a cab circling the streets of Tehran, the great director Jafar Panahi ( "Offside," "This Is Not a Film") offers a multilayered mosaic of life in today's Iran.
Directed by Jafar Panahi
Canadian Premiere, 82 minutes
Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival
Opens Oct. 2nd in New York (IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/17/15, Public Screening, 5pm, Winter Garden Theatre
9/19/15, Public Screening, 3:30pm, Cinema 1
"Mountains May Depart" [Masters]
The new film from Mainland master Jia Zhangke ("A Touch of Sin") jumps from the recent past to the speculative near-future as it examines how China's economic boom has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.
Directed by Jia Zhangke
North American Premiere, approximately 131 minutes
Upcoming Screenings:
9/14/15, Public Screening, 9:30pm, Princess of Wales
9/15/15, Public Screening, 11:45am, Cinema 1
"The Forbidden Room" [Wavelengths]
Evan Johnson and Winnipeg’s wizard of the weird Guy Maddin ("My Winnipeg," "The Saddest Music in the World") plunge us into celluloid delirium with this mad, multi-narrative maze of phantasmal fables.
Directed by Guy Maddin and co-directed by Evan Johnson.
North American Premiere, 119 minutes
Opens Oct. 7th at New York's Film Forum.
Upcoming Screenings:
9/16/15, Public Screening, 9:15pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2
9/18/15, Public Screening, 3:15pm, Jackman Hall
"The Pearl Button" [Masters]
The great Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán ("The Battle of Chile," "Nostalgia for the Light") chronicles the history of the indigenous peoples of Chilean Patagonia, whose decimation by colonial conquest prefigured the brutality of the Pinochet regime.
Directed by Patricio Guzman
North American Premiere, 82 minutes
Winner of the Silver Bear at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival
Opens Oct. 23rd in New York City (IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas)
Upcoming Screenings:
9/13/15, Public Screening, 11:30am, Tiff Bell Lightbox 3
9/18/15, Public 3Screening, 3pm, Tiff Bell Lightbox 2...
- 9/14/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
★★★★★ Closed Curtain (2013), Jafar Panahi's symbolically charged follow-up to his critically acclaimed This Is Not a Film (2012), is about state repression, censorship, depression and the intersection between art and reality. Echoes of the former Soviet Union's 'Iron Curtain' are reflected in the title. The superb opening shot is filmed through the security grill of a window; an image reinforced by the bars of an iron fence directly in front of it. A car draws up. Two men approach the house. All that can be heard is the faint sound of birdsong. The first man, carrying a black bag, enters the house and we hear him set down his bag and keys. He accepts a suitcase and box of water from the second who then drives off.
As the camera's perspective moves to the interior, the man (co-director Kamboziya Partovi) closes the curtains of the main living space. He uses black fabric,...
As the camera's perspective moves to the interior, the man (co-director Kamboziya Partovi) closes the curtains of the main living space. He uses black fabric,...
- 9/7/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Jafar Panahi’s troubling film, again made in secret in defiance of the state, is part allegory and part Pirandellian fantasy
“A man, a dog, a villa… you think you can capture reality, especially in here?” Like 2011’s This Is Not a Film, Closed Curtain was made in secret, in defiance of a 20-year ban imposed on Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi in 2010. It’s a troubling piece that confronts both depression (suicide is a recurrent theme) and creativity. Fellow film-maker Kambuzia Partovi plays a writer, hiding his dog from a canine cull, whose home is invaded by a brother and sister – fugitives or spies? What begins as an allegory of imprisonment and state repression mutates into something more Pirandellian when Panahi himself appears, directing the action and seemingly losing faith in his characters. “Making these films is illegal,” protested the Iranian authorities when Closed Curtain won best screenplay at Berlin in 2013. Thankfully,...
“A man, a dog, a villa… you think you can capture reality, especially in here?” Like 2011’s This Is Not a Film, Closed Curtain was made in secret, in defiance of a 20-year ban imposed on Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi in 2010. It’s a troubling piece that confronts both depression (suicide is a recurrent theme) and creativity. Fellow film-maker Kambuzia Partovi plays a writer, hiding his dog from a canine cull, whose home is invaded by a brother and sister – fugitives or spies? What begins as an allegory of imprisonment and state repression mutates into something more Pirandellian when Panahi himself appears, directing the action and seemingly losing faith in his characters. “Making these films is illegal,” protested the Iranian authorities when Closed Curtain won best screenplay at Berlin in 2013. Thankfully,...
- 9/6/2015
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
Closed Curtain | Ricki And The Flash | No Escape | The Transporter Refuelled | Aaaaaaaah! | Me And Earl And The Dying Girl | Miss Julie | Bait
Coming after This Is Not A Film but before Taxi, this is the second of the three films that Panahi has made while under house arrest by the Iranian authorities (he was also banned from directing for 20 years – so much for that), and the most searching and sombre. In a villa overlooking the Caspian Sea, a writer hides out with his dog. But their peace is broken by the arrival of a woman on the run from the authorities. She presents a challenge to him: how can he really believe he is confronting reality while shuttered away from society?
Continue reading...
Coming after This Is Not A Film but before Taxi, this is the second of the three films that Panahi has made while under house arrest by the Iranian authorities (he was also banned from directing for 20 years – so much for that), and the most searching and sombre. In a villa overlooking the Caspian Sea, a writer hides out with his dog. But their peace is broken by the arrival of a woman on the run from the authorities. She presents a challenge to him: how can he really believe he is confronting reality while shuttered away from society?
Continue reading...
- 9/4/2015
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
A screenwriter finds a remote place to work and protect his dog, when his space is invaded, in Jafar Panahi’s Pirandellian sideswipe at Iranian repression
Jafar Panahi is the Iranian director and pro-democracy campaigner convicted in 2010 on charges of supposed anti-state propaganda, and now appealing against a jail sentence and 20-year ban on film-making. Like a Soviet dissident, he is finding subtle, complex and funny ways of challenging authority. His This Is Not a Film (2011) is a compelling, lo-fi personal document about his own sense of imprisonment, and his most recent film, Taxi (2015), is a playful comedy about a supposed new career as a cab driver. Closed Curtain came between these two, only now getting a UK release, and it is a more minor work: studiedly oblique and opaque, a self-reflexive essay about movie-making and artistic expression in a repressive society. Panahi directs jointly with his leading actor, film-maker and screenwriter Kambozia Partovi.
Jafar Panahi is the Iranian director and pro-democracy campaigner convicted in 2010 on charges of supposed anti-state propaganda, and now appealing against a jail sentence and 20-year ban on film-making. Like a Soviet dissident, he is finding subtle, complex and funny ways of challenging authority. His This Is Not a Film (2011) is a compelling, lo-fi personal document about his own sense of imprisonment, and his most recent film, Taxi (2015), is a playful comedy about a supposed new career as a cab driver. Closed Curtain came between these two, only now getting a UK release, and it is a more minor work: studiedly oblique and opaque, a self-reflexive essay about movie-making and artistic expression in a repressive society. Panahi directs jointly with his leading actor, film-maker and screenwriter Kambozia Partovi.
- 9/3/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
By Cate Marquis
Once upon a time, there was a news media covered that politics in a calm, pointedly-neutrally way. Then the televised debate between conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal Gore Vidal happened. Nielsen numbers went through the roof and TV political coverage was never the same. Television news discovered political coverage as blood sport and traded dispassionate reporting for the entertaining fireworks of shouted confrontation and punditry.
In the highly entertaining, engrossing documentary Best Of Enemies, directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon make a credible case for the Buckley-Vidal debates, a political face-off between, intellectual giants with opposing views, as a turning point in how the American media covers politics. The film takes us back to 1968 and the TV broadcasts of the Republican and Democratic political conventions, when these two prominent cultural and intellectual figures debated the direction of the nation.
In 1968, before cable and the internet,...
Once upon a time, there was a news media covered that politics in a calm, pointedly-neutrally way. Then the televised debate between conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal Gore Vidal happened. Nielsen numbers went through the roof and TV political coverage was never the same. Television news discovered political coverage as blood sport and traded dispassionate reporting for the entertaining fireworks of shouted confrontation and punditry.
In the highly entertaining, engrossing documentary Best Of Enemies, directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon make a credible case for the Buckley-Vidal debates, a political face-off between, intellectual giants with opposing views, as a turning point in how the American media covers politics. The film takes us back to 1968 and the TV broadcasts of the Republican and Democratic political conventions, when these two prominent cultural and intellectual figures debated the direction of the nation.
In 1968, before cable and the internet,...
- 8/20/2015
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
"Go faster and we'll make it, God willing." The first official trailer has debuted via Tiff for the outstanding film Taxi, or Jafar Panahi's Taxi, where Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi takes us for a ride throughout Tehran inside his taxi, picking up all kinds of fun passengers. This won the top prize at the Berlinale Film Festival, the Golden Bear, and that's where I saw it and loved it. It's a fun film and it has a heart aside from the themes it explores through Panahi's lens. This trailer is a quick intro to some of the people he picks up, and the light-hearted feel of the film. This is really one of the best discoveries of the year, so give it a look. Here's the first festival trailer (+ poster) for Jafar Panahi's Taxi, from Tiff's YouTube: Shooting almost entirely from within a cab circling the streets of Tehran,...
- 8/17/2015
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
As usual, the Masters programme is cholk-full of carryover items from world renowned auteurs who’ve already premiered last February (Berlin), this past May (Cannes) or as part of the upcoming action on the Lido (Venice). Of the thirteen titles and personalities that need no introduction, it’s the likes of Hong Sang-soo (Locarno) and the Venice preemed, and not yet picked up items from Skolimowski, Bellocchio & Sokurov (all potential Golden Lion winners) that are still sight unseen for several North American based cinephiles. Here are the baker’s dozen of items:
11 Minutes (11 Minut) – Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Ireland
North American Premiere
A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a hectic paramedics...
11 Minutes (11 Minut) – Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Ireland
North American Premiere
A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a hectic paramedics...
- 8/12/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
While the Toronto International Film Festival has its fair share of both Hollywood and Canadian productions, the festival has also cultivated a strong look at foreign and arthouse films during its run. Most of these films get their own spotlight in the Masters programme, which featured films from Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Winterbottom, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan in its 2014 lineup. With the 2015 incarnation fast approaching, Tiff announced some of the films that will be seen as part of this year’s Masters lineup. The films, with their official synopses, can be seen below.
Masters
11 Minutes, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, making its North American Premiere
A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a...
Masters
11 Minutes, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, making its North American Premiere
A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a...
- 8/11/2015
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
A big, deliciously mainstream spy comedy from Paul Feig. More than ever, it's a film worth seeking out for Jason Statham too...
Jason Statham bided his time. I'd bet hard cash that, since he established his action credentials, he's been offered umpteen playing against type comedy roles, in the style of Tooth Fairy, The Pacifier and Junior. But The Statham? He said no. Instead, when he took the plunge, he went for a comedy that didn't rely on such a central gimmick.
The Statham chose wisely.
For writer/director Paul Feig simply gets Statham to play things straight here in his new film, Spy. He plays Rick Ford, a spy who thinks he's the business, and has the anecdotes to prove it. He's a disaster area in practice, but doesn't believe for a second he is. Feig has an enormous amount of fun with this too, writing sweary, punchy dialogue...
Jason Statham bided his time. I'd bet hard cash that, since he established his action credentials, he's been offered umpteen playing against type comedy roles, in the style of Tooth Fairy, The Pacifier and Junior. But The Statham? He said no. Instead, when he took the plunge, he went for a comedy that didn't rely on such a central gimmick.
The Statham chose wisely.
For writer/director Paul Feig simply gets Statham to play things straight here in his new film, Spy. He plays Rick Ford, a spy who thinks he's the business, and has the anecdotes to prove it. He's a disaster area in practice, but doesn't believe for a second he is. Feig has an enormous amount of fun with this too, writing sweary, punchy dialogue...
- 6/5/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
★★★☆☆ "It was a low, late afternoon light ... that only spoke of distant things." And so it is that a film seems to perfectly encapsulate itself in the delivery of a single line of dialogue. Those words are spoken by the protagonist of Vítor Gonçalves' The Invisible Life (2013) in a typical moment of reflective voiceover as he traverses a dimly lit hallway. This is a film that clearly has ambition to expound poetically about existential malaise and deep-seated loneliness; but it's all fustian, amounting to little more than its muted brown hues, some strikingly elegant compositions and vague discussions of things too remote for them to ever drift into clear focus. Drifting is the apposite word.
This is not a film that is driven by any narrative or thematic concerns, but which instead moves at a gloomy glissade. The Invisible Life is Portuguese director Gonçalves' first work in over 25 years...
This is not a film that is driven by any narrative or thematic concerns, but which instead moves at a gloomy glissade. The Invisible Life is Portuguese director Gonçalves' first work in over 25 years...
- 4/20/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
In the political discourse, when a country addresses another, whether in positive or negative terms, such statements often fail to differentiate between said country’s government and its people, between the government’s policies and the people’s unheard sentiment towards these.
While useful in the theoretical realm in which politics take place, these generalizations create a distorted image of the foreign nation fed by assumptions and dangerously insensitive stereotypes. It’s much easier for rulers to justify their actions if the adversary is made out to look like an irredeemable villain. Sensationalism and ignorance are weapons far more destructive than missiles, because once the smoke dissipates hatred remains.
On that note, it should be clear that the Iranian people are not the Iranian government. Their rich cultural history is not reflected in the actions of those in power, but in the prevailing elegance and allure of their artwork. Remarkable poets, musicians, painters, and, what we are mostly concerned with here, filmmakers.
The history of Iranian cinema is vast and has survived the many transitions and troubling periods the country has experienced. Even more impressive is the fact that as masterfully as Iranian filmmakers and actors understand the medium, they have never watered down their individuality for the sake of mainstream international success. Instead, they’ve managed to create their unique cinematic language that aligns with their idiosyncrasies and that is not silenced despite the hardships they face, but finds a way around censorship or defies it altogether.
Certainly not a definitive list, the following collection of films aims to be an introduction to the compelling and diverse voices within this captivating national cinema and to encourage you to seek out other films in the future. There are films here that are concerned with rural and working class lifestyles, others that focus on the traditions of ethnic minorities, those that deal with the modern middle class, and also several works denouncing the country’s political situation and the oppression that comes with it.
There are also some films that are note worthy even if they don’t easily fit within the parameters of what an Iranian film is.
Special Mentions:
-Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour and her outstanding Farsi-language debut “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” a visually striking vampire story set in a fictional Iranian town.
-American filmmaker Till Schauder and his documentary “The Iran Job,” which follows Kevin Sheppard, an American professional basketball player in Iran, and uses his experience to build cultural bridges between the two countries.
-Farhadi’s “The Past,” which though is not precisely an Iranian story, continues to show the director’s specific talent for greatly written, puzzling narratives both in his home country and abroad.
-Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's “Chicken with Plums,” a gorgeously whimsical and darkly comedic love story set in pre-revolutionary Tehran starring Mathieu Amalric.
Lastly, in honor of Nowruz or Persian New Year, which is a peaceful celebration of renewal and rebirth that takes place from March 20-24 in Iran and Iranian communities around the world, let’s remember the deeply moving and wise words that Asghar Farhadi gifted us during his acceptance speech on Oscar night a few years back. No one could have said it better than him.
“At this time many Iranians all over the world are watching us, and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award, or a film, or a filmmaker, but because at a time in which talk of war, intimidation, and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country, Iran, is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people that respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment. Thank you so much.” –Director Asghar Farhadi after winning the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for “A Separation” on February 26, 2012
1. "About Elly" (2009)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
In Farhadi's tense psychological drama a casual trip to the sea evolves into a subtly plotted mystery. The director's depiction of the Iranian middle class in such a fascinatingly unexpected story connected with both local and international audiences earning him awards at home and abroad, among them Berlin's Silver Bear.
*The Cinema Guild will release the film theatrically on April 17, 2015
2. "Baran" (2001)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Taking a look at the diverse ethnic groups that coexist in Iran, the film follows a love story between a man and a young Afghan woman who must pretend to be a man in order to work. Eliciting truly naturalistic performance from his cast Majidi gives voice to his almost silent protagonist, a woman caught up in a system designed by men.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch
3. "Children of Heaven" (1997)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Iran's first ever Academy Award nominated film is also Majidi's most renowned work. Innocence permeates this sweet story about two siblings from a working class family trying to find a pair of missing shoes. Their adventure delivers valuable life lessons that are at once heartwarming and profound. Unquestionably a classic.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Lionsgate
4. "Closed Curtain" (2013)
Dir. Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi
In this enigmatic observation on repression and surveillance an anonymous screenwriter, played by co-director Kambuzia Partovi, hides with his dog in a secluded location. Eventually, as other surprising characters appear, the film becomes a complex dance between reality and fabrication. Both filmmakers had their passports confiscated by the Iranian government due to the subversive content of the film.
*Available on Amazon Instant Video
5. "Close-Up" (1990)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
In one of the greatest examples of reality and fiction blending in almost seamless ways, Abbas Kiarostami's masterwork poses complex questions about identity. When a film buff impersonates his favorite director, who happens to Mohsen Makhmalbaf , a series of events unravel as he plans his next, fake, film. Surreally enough the film is based on a true story and stars the actual people involved. It's all brilliantly meta.
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Criterion
6. "The Color of Paradise" (1999)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Though rejected by his father, a young blind boy rejoices in nature’s beauty and tries to understand the meaning of his struggles with the help of a mentor with the same condition. Showcasing Iran’s visually stunning rural landscapes and delicately embedding with philosophical concerns, Majidi’s poetic film delivers wisdom in wondrously unassuming ways.
*Available on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
7. "The Cow" (1969)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Considered a turning point in the nation’s cinematic history, this black-and-white work revolves around a man’s devotion for his cow and how its disappearance drives him into madness. While seemingly simple in its conception, Mehrjui manages to compellingly highlight the country’s traditional lifestyles.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
8. "Fireworks Wednesday" (2006)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Intimate conflicts in the Iranian middle class are Farhadi’s expertise and this domestic drama, set fittingly during the celebrations prior to the Persian New Year, is no exception. When a soon-to-be bride in need of money for her wedding gets a job cleaning a family’s house, their secrets begin to unravel through their interaction and confrontations.
*Available on DVD from Facets
9. "Gabbeh" (1996)
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Taking its name from a type of Persian carpet, this stunningly evocative fable is adorned with mysticism and magical realist elements that shine through its colorful visual palette. Gabbeh, a young nomadic woman who is likely the incarnation of one of these traditional rugs, falls in love with horseman, but her community follows beliefs that hinder her desire.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Video
10. "The Green Wave" (2010)
Dir. Ali Samadi Ahadi
Told through striking animated sequences, interviews and footage from the protests, this documentary constructs a bold portrait of the 2009 Green Movement following Ahmadinejad’s reelection. The regime's strong grip over its citizens is exposed, but the spirit of the Iranian people demanding change is even stronger.
*Available on DVD from Strand Releasing
11. "Hamoun" (1990)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Underscored by subdued comedy and poignant dream sequences, Mehrjui’s visionary drama centers on the decaying relationship between Hamoun, a businessman with hopes of becoming a writer, and his wife Mahshid, a painter. Insanity takes over him when she decides to divorce him because of his angry outbursts. A series of drastic occurrences ensue.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
12. "Kandahar" (2001)
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Despite being set in Afghanistan, this Iranian production is a powerful achievement that unveils the unjust treatment of women, not only under the Taliban’s control, but also in the entire region. Nafas, an Afghan women living in Canada, decides to return to her homeland to find her depressed sister. Through this dangerous journey she discovers much more about life in the war-torn country than she expected.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Video
13. "Leila" (1997)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Starting famous Iranian actress Leila Hatami in one her earliest roles as a married woman unable to have children, this conjugal drama explores the role of women within Iranian society. Leila’s husband, Reza (played by “The Past” star Ali Mosaffa), loves her, but his mother wants him to get another wife that can give him a son. The title character is divided between her happiness and what others think is best for her marriage.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
14. "Manuscripts Don't Burn" (2013)
Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
Rasoulof’s brave and searing political statement was shot illegally going against the20-year-ban from filmmaking imposed on him by the Iranian government. It denounces the terrifying lack of freedom of expression via the thrilling story a pair of writers risking it all to protect an incendiary manuscript that authorities are eager to destroy.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Kino Lorber
15. "Marooned in Iraq" (2002)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Highlighting the rich Kurdish culture, both in Iran and Iraq, Ghobadi’s film is set in the aftermath of the ravaging Gulf War. Marooned is an elderly man who must travel across the mountainous landscape that divides the two countries to find his ex-wife. While portraying the horrors of war in an affecting manner, the film is also a life-affirming work that finds hope in the most surprising places.
*Available on DVD from Wellspring
16. "My Tehran for Sale"
Dir. Granaz Moussavi
Devastating and current, this debut feature from renowned poet turned filmmaker Granaz Moussavi is a hard-hitting critique on the blatant criminalization of artists in Iran. An actress banned from her profession questions whether she should remain in the country or flee. Getting to safety means leaving everything she knows behind. There are no easy options for her.
*Available on DVD from Global Lens
17. "No One Knows About Persian Cats" (2009)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Music as the banner of freedom is the focus of Ghobadi’s film about the underground rock scene in Tehran. Secular music is essentially forbidden, and playing in public is considered a criminal act punished with prison. Crafted between reality and fiction, this quasi-documentary takes a look at a group of young musicians desperate to express themselves through their art.
*Available on DVD from Mpi Home Video
18. "Offside" (2006)
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Attending sporting events is prohibited for women in Iran, but that doesn’t stop many of them who go as far as to dress like men to get in. Panahi’s touching and insightful film takes place during the 2006 World Cup Qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, and follows several girls who despite being excluded cheer for their team as joyfully as any fan would.
*Available on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
19. "Persepolis" (2007)
Dir. Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud
Nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, this French-language marvel is based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel by the same name. With eye-popping hand-drawn animation, the film revisits the director’s childhood and teenage years in Iran during the events leading up to the Islamic Revolution. It’s a love letter to the bittersweet memories of the Iran Satrapi knew.
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
20. "A Separation" (2011)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Dealing with a marriage in turmoil facing the country's peculiar judicial system, Farhadi’s masterpiece is the most acclaimed film in the history of Iranian cinema and earned the country's first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for its enthralling thriller-like narrative that grips the audience until its unnerving conclusion. A must see!
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
21. "The Song of Sparrows" (2008)
Dir. Majid Majidi
When Karim (played by Berlin’s Silver Bear Winner Reza Naji), an ostrich farm worker, is forced to find a new job in the city to pay for his daughter’s hearing aid, Iran’s rural and urban realms collide. Thanks to the captivating grace that characterizes Majidi’s films, poverty and misfortune are observed here not with pity but with an optimistic and undefeated perspective.
*Available on DVD from E1 Entertainment
22." Taste of Cherry" (1997)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
This quiet and minimalist meditation on death and the simple joys of its antithesis is the first and only Iranian film to have won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes. Kiarostami follows a man who has decided to commit suicide and is looking for someone to help him achieve this. However, those he recruits along the way come with their own views on the meaning of our existence and attempt to persuade him to reconsider.
*Available on DVD from Criterion
23. "Ten" (2002)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
A female cabbie drives through the streets of Tehran picking up an array of characters that via their casual conversations shine a light on the Iranian society’s expectations of women. Constructed of ten individual scenes in which the only constant is the driver, this heavily improvised and peculiarly shot cinematic experiment is a work of fiction embedded with truth in every frame.
*Available on DVD from Zeitgeist Films
24. "This is Not a Film" (2011)
Dir. Mojtaba Mirtahmasb & Jafar Panahi
In an effort to tell his story despite being banned from filmmaking and under house arrest, filmmaker Jafar Panahi takes his frustration and ingeniously turns it into a courageous visual statement. Whether is shooting video with his cell phone or blocking an imaginary scene in his living room, his passion for storytelling is resilient even when confronting such suffocating censorship.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Palisades Tartan
25. "A Time for Drunken Horses" (2000)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
With the snow-covered Zagros Mountains as backdrop, Ghobadi’s debut feature tells the story of Ayoub, a young Kurdish boy who must provide for his siblings after their mother’s death. Added to the already difficult circumstances, his handicapped brother desperately needs a surgery. This pushes the heroic kid to persevere against all odds in the hostile environment.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Kino Lorber
26. "Turtles Can Fly" (2004)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Commanding a cast made almost entirely of children Ghobadi sets his film in an Iraqi Kurdish refugee camp just before the American occupation of 2003. Making a living by clearing the hazardous minefields that surround them, a group of orphan children create a small community to survive. The atrocities of war are ever-present, but like in most of the director’s works, the triumph of the human spirit is at the film's core.
*Available on Amazon Instant Video
27. "The White Balloon" (1995)
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Written by Kiarostami and directed by Panahi this is another film set during the important Persian New Year celebrations. It centers on a little girl trying to convince her parents to buy her a goldfish and who gets in a couple mishaps along the way. With utmost innocence, the seemingly simple premise manages to be a charming delight that showcases family values and ancient virtues with a nice dose of humor. It’s an uplifting gem.
*Sadly the film is not curently availble in any format in the U.S. Hopefully Criterion or another distributor will fix this soon.
28. "The White Meadows" (2009)
Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
While ethereal, almost otherworldly imagery achieved by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafori is reason enough to see this film, Rasoulof’s poetic storytelling elevates it to even greater intellectual heights. By using a barren coastal land and its inhabitant as a metaphor for the intolerance and injustice that many of his compatriots -creative people in particular - confront everyday, the filmmaker denounces these evils through melancholic beauty.
*Available on DVD from Global Lens
29. "The Willow Tree" (2005)
Dir. Majid Majidi
A writer, who had been blinded in an accident as a child, regains his vision as a middle aged adult only to be challenged by a world that has become foreign to him. At first, his miraculous new situation appears to be an answer to a prayer, but Majidi soon shows us how vision can become a curse in this spiritual drama about fate and regret. Exquisitely shot and sporting visceral performances, the film is both heart-rending and though provoking.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Films
30. "The Wind Will Carry Us" (1999)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Taking the audience on a trip to an untainted region of Iran where tradition hasn’t yet been disrupted by modernity, the acclaimed director crafted another unforgettable experience. Sublimely executed, the film joins four journalists pretending to be engineers as they document the funerary rituals of the local Kurdish people. More than learning about them as researchers, their interactions force them to engage on a much more human level.
*Availble on Blu-ray and DVD from Cohen Media Group...
While useful in the theoretical realm in which politics take place, these generalizations create a distorted image of the foreign nation fed by assumptions and dangerously insensitive stereotypes. It’s much easier for rulers to justify their actions if the adversary is made out to look like an irredeemable villain. Sensationalism and ignorance are weapons far more destructive than missiles, because once the smoke dissipates hatred remains.
On that note, it should be clear that the Iranian people are not the Iranian government. Their rich cultural history is not reflected in the actions of those in power, but in the prevailing elegance and allure of their artwork. Remarkable poets, musicians, painters, and, what we are mostly concerned with here, filmmakers.
The history of Iranian cinema is vast and has survived the many transitions and troubling periods the country has experienced. Even more impressive is the fact that as masterfully as Iranian filmmakers and actors understand the medium, they have never watered down their individuality for the sake of mainstream international success. Instead, they’ve managed to create their unique cinematic language that aligns with their idiosyncrasies and that is not silenced despite the hardships they face, but finds a way around censorship or defies it altogether.
Certainly not a definitive list, the following collection of films aims to be an introduction to the compelling and diverse voices within this captivating national cinema and to encourage you to seek out other films in the future. There are films here that are concerned with rural and working class lifestyles, others that focus on the traditions of ethnic minorities, those that deal with the modern middle class, and also several works denouncing the country’s political situation and the oppression that comes with it.
There are also some films that are note worthy even if they don’t easily fit within the parameters of what an Iranian film is.
Special Mentions:
-Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour and her outstanding Farsi-language debut “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” a visually striking vampire story set in a fictional Iranian town.
-American filmmaker Till Schauder and his documentary “The Iran Job,” which follows Kevin Sheppard, an American professional basketball player in Iran, and uses his experience to build cultural bridges between the two countries.
-Farhadi’s “The Past,” which though is not precisely an Iranian story, continues to show the director’s specific talent for greatly written, puzzling narratives both in his home country and abroad.
-Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's “Chicken with Plums,” a gorgeously whimsical and darkly comedic love story set in pre-revolutionary Tehran starring Mathieu Amalric.
Lastly, in honor of Nowruz or Persian New Year, which is a peaceful celebration of renewal and rebirth that takes place from March 20-24 in Iran and Iranian communities around the world, let’s remember the deeply moving and wise words that Asghar Farhadi gifted us during his acceptance speech on Oscar night a few years back. No one could have said it better than him.
“At this time many Iranians all over the world are watching us, and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award, or a film, or a filmmaker, but because at a time in which talk of war, intimidation, and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country, Iran, is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people that respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment. Thank you so much.” –Director Asghar Farhadi after winning the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for “A Separation” on February 26, 2012
1. "About Elly" (2009)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
In Farhadi's tense psychological drama a casual trip to the sea evolves into a subtly plotted mystery. The director's depiction of the Iranian middle class in such a fascinatingly unexpected story connected with both local and international audiences earning him awards at home and abroad, among them Berlin's Silver Bear.
*The Cinema Guild will release the film theatrically on April 17, 2015
2. "Baran" (2001)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Taking a look at the diverse ethnic groups that coexist in Iran, the film follows a love story between a man and a young Afghan woman who must pretend to be a man in order to work. Eliciting truly naturalistic performance from his cast Majidi gives voice to his almost silent protagonist, a woman caught up in a system designed by men.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch
3. "Children of Heaven" (1997)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Iran's first ever Academy Award nominated film is also Majidi's most renowned work. Innocence permeates this sweet story about two siblings from a working class family trying to find a pair of missing shoes. Their adventure delivers valuable life lessons that are at once heartwarming and profound. Unquestionably a classic.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Lionsgate
4. "Closed Curtain" (2013)
Dir. Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi
In this enigmatic observation on repression and surveillance an anonymous screenwriter, played by co-director Kambuzia Partovi, hides with his dog in a secluded location. Eventually, as other surprising characters appear, the film becomes a complex dance between reality and fabrication. Both filmmakers had their passports confiscated by the Iranian government due to the subversive content of the film.
*Available on Amazon Instant Video
5. "Close-Up" (1990)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
In one of the greatest examples of reality and fiction blending in almost seamless ways, Abbas Kiarostami's masterwork poses complex questions about identity. When a film buff impersonates his favorite director, who happens to Mohsen Makhmalbaf , a series of events unravel as he plans his next, fake, film. Surreally enough the film is based on a true story and stars the actual people involved. It's all brilliantly meta.
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Criterion
6. "The Color of Paradise" (1999)
Dir. Majid Majidi
Though rejected by his father, a young blind boy rejoices in nature’s beauty and tries to understand the meaning of his struggles with the help of a mentor with the same condition. Showcasing Iran’s visually stunning rural landscapes and delicately embedding with philosophical concerns, Majidi’s poetic film delivers wisdom in wondrously unassuming ways.
*Available on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
7. "The Cow" (1969)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Considered a turning point in the nation’s cinematic history, this black-and-white work revolves around a man’s devotion for his cow and how its disappearance drives him into madness. While seemingly simple in its conception, Mehrjui manages to compellingly highlight the country’s traditional lifestyles.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
8. "Fireworks Wednesday" (2006)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Intimate conflicts in the Iranian middle class are Farhadi’s expertise and this domestic drama, set fittingly during the celebrations prior to the Persian New Year, is no exception. When a soon-to-be bride in need of money for her wedding gets a job cleaning a family’s house, their secrets begin to unravel through their interaction and confrontations.
*Available on DVD from Facets
9. "Gabbeh" (1996)
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Taking its name from a type of Persian carpet, this stunningly evocative fable is adorned with mysticism and magical realist elements that shine through its colorful visual palette. Gabbeh, a young nomadic woman who is likely the incarnation of one of these traditional rugs, falls in love with horseman, but her community follows beliefs that hinder her desire.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Video
10. "The Green Wave" (2010)
Dir. Ali Samadi Ahadi
Told through striking animated sequences, interviews and footage from the protests, this documentary constructs a bold portrait of the 2009 Green Movement following Ahmadinejad’s reelection. The regime's strong grip over its citizens is exposed, but the spirit of the Iranian people demanding change is even stronger.
*Available on DVD from Strand Releasing
11. "Hamoun" (1990)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Underscored by subdued comedy and poignant dream sequences, Mehrjui’s visionary drama centers on the decaying relationship between Hamoun, a businessman with hopes of becoming a writer, and his wife Mahshid, a painter. Insanity takes over him when she decides to divorce him because of his angry outbursts. A series of drastic occurrences ensue.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
12. "Kandahar" (2001)
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Despite being set in Afghanistan, this Iranian production is a powerful achievement that unveils the unjust treatment of women, not only under the Taliban’s control, but also in the entire region. Nafas, an Afghan women living in Canada, decides to return to her homeland to find her depressed sister. Through this dangerous journey she discovers much more about life in the war-torn country than she expected.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Video
13. "Leila" (1997)
Dir. Dariush Mehrjui
Starting famous Iranian actress Leila Hatami in one her earliest roles as a married woman unable to have children, this conjugal drama explores the role of women within Iranian society. Leila’s husband, Reza (played by “The Past” star Ali Mosaffa), loves her, but his mother wants him to get another wife that can give him a son. The title character is divided between her happiness and what others think is best for her marriage.
*Available on DVD from First Run Features
14. "Manuscripts Don't Burn" (2013)
Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
Rasoulof’s brave and searing political statement was shot illegally going against the20-year-ban from filmmaking imposed on him by the Iranian government. It denounces the terrifying lack of freedom of expression via the thrilling story a pair of writers risking it all to protect an incendiary manuscript that authorities are eager to destroy.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Kino Lorber
15. "Marooned in Iraq" (2002)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Highlighting the rich Kurdish culture, both in Iran and Iraq, Ghobadi’s film is set in the aftermath of the ravaging Gulf War. Marooned is an elderly man who must travel across the mountainous landscape that divides the two countries to find his ex-wife. While portraying the horrors of war in an affecting manner, the film is also a life-affirming work that finds hope in the most surprising places.
*Available on DVD from Wellspring
16. "My Tehran for Sale"
Dir. Granaz Moussavi
Devastating and current, this debut feature from renowned poet turned filmmaker Granaz Moussavi is a hard-hitting critique on the blatant criminalization of artists in Iran. An actress banned from her profession questions whether she should remain in the country or flee. Getting to safety means leaving everything she knows behind. There are no easy options for her.
*Available on DVD from Global Lens
17. "No One Knows About Persian Cats" (2009)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Music as the banner of freedom is the focus of Ghobadi’s film about the underground rock scene in Tehran. Secular music is essentially forbidden, and playing in public is considered a criminal act punished with prison. Crafted between reality and fiction, this quasi-documentary takes a look at a group of young musicians desperate to express themselves through their art.
*Available on DVD from Mpi Home Video
18. "Offside" (2006)
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Attending sporting events is prohibited for women in Iran, but that doesn’t stop many of them who go as far as to dress like men to get in. Panahi’s touching and insightful film takes place during the 2006 World Cup Qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, and follows several girls who despite being excluded cheer for their team as joyfully as any fan would.
*Available on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
19. "Persepolis" (2007)
Dir. Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud
Nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, this French-language marvel is based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel by the same name. With eye-popping hand-drawn animation, the film revisits the director’s childhood and teenage years in Iran during the events leading up to the Islamic Revolution. It’s a love letter to the bittersweet memories of the Iran Satrapi knew.
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
20. "A Separation" (2011)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Dealing with a marriage in turmoil facing the country's peculiar judicial system, Farhadi’s masterpiece is the most acclaimed film in the history of Iranian cinema and earned the country's first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for its enthralling thriller-like narrative that grips the audience until its unnerving conclusion. A must see!
*Available on Blu-ray & DVD from Sony Pictures Classics
21. "The Song of Sparrows" (2008)
Dir. Majid Majidi
When Karim (played by Berlin’s Silver Bear Winner Reza Naji), an ostrich farm worker, is forced to find a new job in the city to pay for his daughter’s hearing aid, Iran’s rural and urban realms collide. Thanks to the captivating grace that characterizes Majidi’s films, poverty and misfortune are observed here not with pity but with an optimistic and undefeated perspective.
*Available on DVD from E1 Entertainment
22." Taste of Cherry" (1997)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
This quiet and minimalist meditation on death and the simple joys of its antithesis is the first and only Iranian film to have won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes. Kiarostami follows a man who has decided to commit suicide and is looking for someone to help him achieve this. However, those he recruits along the way come with their own views on the meaning of our existence and attempt to persuade him to reconsider.
*Available on DVD from Criterion
23. "Ten" (2002)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
A female cabbie drives through the streets of Tehran picking up an array of characters that via their casual conversations shine a light on the Iranian society’s expectations of women. Constructed of ten individual scenes in which the only constant is the driver, this heavily improvised and peculiarly shot cinematic experiment is a work of fiction embedded with truth in every frame.
*Available on DVD from Zeitgeist Films
24. "This is Not a Film" (2011)
Dir. Mojtaba Mirtahmasb & Jafar Panahi
In an effort to tell his story despite being banned from filmmaking and under house arrest, filmmaker Jafar Panahi takes his frustration and ingeniously turns it into a courageous visual statement. Whether is shooting video with his cell phone or blocking an imaginary scene in his living room, his passion for storytelling is resilient even when confronting such suffocating censorship.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Palisades Tartan
25. "A Time for Drunken Horses" (2000)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
With the snow-covered Zagros Mountains as backdrop, Ghobadi’s debut feature tells the story of Ayoub, a young Kurdish boy who must provide for his siblings after their mother’s death. Added to the already difficult circumstances, his handicapped brother desperately needs a surgery. This pushes the heroic kid to persevere against all odds in the hostile environment.
*Available on Netflix Instant Watch and on DVD from Kino Lorber
26. "Turtles Can Fly" (2004)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Commanding a cast made almost entirely of children Ghobadi sets his film in an Iraqi Kurdish refugee camp just before the American occupation of 2003. Making a living by clearing the hazardous minefields that surround them, a group of orphan children create a small community to survive. The atrocities of war are ever-present, but like in most of the director’s works, the triumph of the human spirit is at the film's core.
*Available on Amazon Instant Video
27. "The White Balloon" (1995)
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Written by Kiarostami and directed by Panahi this is another film set during the important Persian New Year celebrations. It centers on a little girl trying to convince her parents to buy her a goldfish and who gets in a couple mishaps along the way. With utmost innocence, the seemingly simple premise manages to be a charming delight that showcases family values and ancient virtues with a nice dose of humor. It’s an uplifting gem.
*Sadly the film is not curently availble in any format in the U.S. Hopefully Criterion or another distributor will fix this soon.
28. "The White Meadows" (2009)
Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
While ethereal, almost otherworldly imagery achieved by cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafori is reason enough to see this film, Rasoulof’s poetic storytelling elevates it to even greater intellectual heights. By using a barren coastal land and its inhabitant as a metaphor for the intolerance and injustice that many of his compatriots -creative people in particular - confront everyday, the filmmaker denounces these evils through melancholic beauty.
*Available on DVD from Global Lens
29. "The Willow Tree" (2005)
Dir. Majid Majidi
A writer, who had been blinded in an accident as a child, regains his vision as a middle aged adult only to be challenged by a world that has become foreign to him. At first, his miraculous new situation appears to be an answer to a prayer, but Majidi soon shows us how vision can become a curse in this spiritual drama about fate and regret. Exquisitely shot and sporting visceral performances, the film is both heart-rending and though provoking.
*Available on DVD from New Yorker Films
30. "The Wind Will Carry Us" (1999)
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
Taking the audience on a trip to an untainted region of Iran where tradition hasn’t yet been disrupted by modernity, the acclaimed director crafted another unforgettable experience. Sublimely executed, the film joins four journalists pretending to be engineers as they document the funerary rituals of the local Kurdish people. More than learning about them as researchers, their interactions force them to engage on a much more human level.
*Availble on Blu-ray and DVD from Cohen Media Group...
- 3/23/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
IndieWIRE reports that Kino Lorber has acquired the North American rights to Jafar Panahi’s latest film, the third film (2011′s This Is Not a Film and 2013′s Closed Curtain) under his “house” arrest. Having just premiered at the Berlin Int. Film Festival, by the looks of the image above, Taxi walked away with the grand daddy prize of them all – landing both the Golden Bear and the Fipresci prize. The film will be theatrically released in the fall, which means a showing at Tiff and/or Nyff are highly likely.
Gist: A yellow cab drives through the vibrant and colorful streets of Tehran, picking up a diverse group of passengers who each candidly express their opinions and worldview to the driver (Panahi).
Worth Noting: This is technically Kino Lorber’s second Panahi film release. They have the rights for This Is Not a Film – the film which saw the...
Gist: A yellow cab drives through the vibrant and colorful streets of Tehran, picking up a diverse group of passengers who each candidly express their opinions and worldview to the driver (Panahi).
Worth Noting: This is technically Kino Lorber’s second Panahi film release. They have the rights for This Is Not a Film – the film which saw the...
- 2/25/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Other prizes saw British actors Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling wins Silver Bears for their roles in 45 Years.Scroll down for full list of winners
Banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s Taxi won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear on Saturday (Feb 14).
The film captures life in contemporary Iran through interactions with passengers in a Tehran cab. Taxi is Panahi’s third feature since the Iranian authorities banned him from making films at the end of 2010, following This is Not a Film and Closed Curtain, which was in competition in Berlin 2013.
Panahi, who was also banned from travelling and giving interviews in 2010 sentence, was not able to travel to Berlin for the premiere of his film.
This time around, Panahi has circumvented the ban by turning a yellow cab into a mobile film studio with a camera placed on the dashboard. As the cab drives through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran, it picks up...
Banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s Taxi won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear on Saturday (Feb 14).
The film captures life in contemporary Iran through interactions with passengers in a Tehran cab. Taxi is Panahi’s third feature since the Iranian authorities banned him from making films at the end of 2010, following This is Not a Film and Closed Curtain, which was in competition in Berlin 2013.
Panahi, who was also banned from travelling and giving interviews in 2010 sentence, was not able to travel to Berlin for the premiere of his film.
This time around, Panahi has circumvented the ban by turning a yellow cab into a mobile film studio with a camera placed on the dashboard. As the cab drives through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran, it picks up...
- 2/14/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
★★★★★ A major work from Jafar Panahi screens in competition at the Berlin Film Festival as again the Iranian director challenges the ban on filmmaking set on him by the regime's authorities. Taxi (2015) is the director's third film since, and it's brighter and funnier than his moody This is Not a Film (2011), breezing along as it does through the streets of Tehran with Panahi disguised – not too well it must be said – as an on-the-beat cab driver. Its heart beats to a complex rhythm in which, unable to officially direct (the film comes without credits), Panahi films documentary-style with a camera strapped to his dashboard, shipping various members of Tehran's community across town.
- 2/9/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Dear Danny,
You describe the Maddin and Panahi well, and we have similar takes on them—but please allow me to digress before I address those films, as I’ve just come out of Jem Cohen’s Counting, and I’d like to take advantage of its freshness in my mind. Organized into 15 chapters, the film more or less documents certain excerpts from the filmmaker’s travels over the past three years. The chapters vary in length and focus, with different headings & descriptions (“New York City, 2012-2014,” “The Millions,” etc.), and taking place in different locations across the globe (Moscow, Porto, Istanbul). Entirely made up of subjective glimpses of these places, the film resembles a diary or travelogue—but in spite of its seeming slightness in its minute pieces, in total it is a perceptive and honest record of the world today. Cohen understands the limitations of the image, of...
You describe the Maddin and Panahi well, and we have similar takes on them—but please allow me to digress before I address those films, as I’ve just come out of Jem Cohen’s Counting, and I’d like to take advantage of its freshness in my mind. Organized into 15 chapters, the film more or less documents certain excerpts from the filmmaker’s travels over the past three years. The chapters vary in length and focus, with different headings & descriptions (“New York City, 2012-2014,” “The Millions,” etc.), and taking place in different locations across the globe (Moscow, Porto, Istanbul). Entirely made up of subjective glimpses of these places, the film resembles a diary or travelogue—but in spite of its seeming slightness in its minute pieces, in total it is a perceptive and honest record of the world today. Cohen understands the limitations of the image, of...
- 2/8/2015
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
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