This writer is not necessarily fond of Quebecois director Denis Côté’s experiments, which oscillate between slow-cinema, documentary, and deeply unfunny deadpan comedies. Yet his newest film Mademoiselle Kenopsia, though highly self-conscious, is strangely effective, connecting for once his formal and thematic concerns––if simply because the experiment in “boredom” is put to a more pointed use than the easy festival requirements.
At only 77 minutes, Mademoiselle Kenopsia doesn’t wear out its welcome, other than maybe a few sequences that ring tedious or suggest the film is filling time. We find our recognizable figure of the times, and modern Jeanne Dielman figure-of-sorts (Larissa Corriveau), working a job somewhere between janitor and watchwoman (like if you wanted a whole movie of that time in The Simpsons where Milhouse was a night watchman at the cracker factory Bart bought). Her job takes place in a rotting figure of the past: an abandoned...
At only 77 minutes, Mademoiselle Kenopsia doesn’t wear out its welcome, other than maybe a few sequences that ring tedious or suggest the film is filling time. We find our recognizable figure of the times, and modern Jeanne Dielman figure-of-sorts (Larissa Corriveau), working a job somewhere between janitor and watchwoman (like if you wanted a whole movie of that time in The Simpsons where Milhouse was a night watchman at the cracker factory Bart bought). Her job takes place in a rotting figure of the past: an abandoned...
- 9/13/2023
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths program for artist-driven experimental work that includes films by avant garde directors Denis Côté, Radu Jude, the late Chantal Akerman and Wang Bing.
There’s selections for Isiah Medina’s He Thought He Died, an experimental heist film; Angela Schanelec’s Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth; and Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which stars Larissa Corriveau and will first bow at the Locarno Film Festival.
Wavelengths also booked fiction debuts with Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, a portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress; and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, the Vietnamese director’s hypnotic first feature about a man haunted by past memories when returning to his hometown that picked up the Caméra d’Or in Cannes.
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
There’s selections for Isiah Medina’s He Thought He Died, an experimental heist film; Angela Schanelec’s Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth; and Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which stars Larissa Corriveau and will first bow at the Locarno Film Festival.
Wavelengths also booked fiction debuts with Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, a portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress; and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, the Vietnamese director’s hypnotic first feature about a man haunted by past memories when returning to his hometown that picked up the Caméra d’Or in Cannes.
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...
- 8/11/2023
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The trailer has debuted for “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” the latest film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin Film Festival with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.” “Mademoiselle Kenopsia” had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival this month, and will premiere in North America at next month’s Toronto Film Festival in the Wavelengths section, which was unveiled Friday. H264 is handling international sales.
Côté says: “We imagined and intended the trailer as a sort of refuge that invites a sense of calm… while still provoking a slight anxiety. This essentially encapsulates ‘Kenopsia’: an anguished state of floating that hangs over the whole film to the point of overwhelming its main character.”
The press notes explain what the word “kenopsia” means: “The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.”
“Mademoiselle Kenopsia” focuses on a woman,...
Côté says: “We imagined and intended the trailer as a sort of refuge that invites a sense of calm… while still provoking a slight anxiety. This essentially encapsulates ‘Kenopsia’: an anguished state of floating that hangs over the whole film to the point of overwhelming its main character.”
The press notes explain what the word “kenopsia” means: “The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.”
“Mademoiselle Kenopsia” focuses on a woman,...
- 8/11/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
The Toronto International Film Festival has announced this year’s Wavelengths and Classics sidebars, the former section known for its politically charged, geographically diverse fare with a wide range of work drawn from the worlds of documentary, contemporary art, and international art-house cinema.
Wavelengths this year counts 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by the singular Chantal Akerman.
Of note in the Wavelengths short section, North American audiences will finally get to see Jean-Luc Godard’s swan song short, Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, which played Cannes this past spring.
Another highlight in the Classics sidebar is the 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, the only movie from China to win the Palme d’Or. The original film had 20 minutes cut by then Miramax Boss Harvey Weinstein much to the chagrin of jury...
Wavelengths this year counts 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by the singular Chantal Akerman.
Of note in the Wavelengths short section, North American audiences will finally get to see Jean-Luc Godard’s swan song short, Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, which played Cannes this past spring.
Another highlight in the Classics sidebar is the 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, the only movie from China to win the Palme d’Or. The original film had 20 minutes cut by then Miramax Boss Harvey Weinstein much to the chagrin of jury...
- 8/11/2023
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
The folks at Sodec (Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles) the Quebec government agency that promotes culture an hands out some major coin have given some funds to eight co-productions and seven productions in post with notable items in Xavier Legrand‘s sophomore feature Le successeur (with thesp Marc-André Grondin), Canuck filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz‘s Opus 28 and Denis Côté‘s (now fifteen feature) Mademoiselle Kenopsia with actress Larissa Corriveau toplining. Here is the complete list of projects below:
Fanon /...
Fanon /...
- 3/13/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
The Canadian Screen Awards has unveiled nominations for the national film and TV prize-giving, and the CBC civil rights drama The Porter leads the film and TV field with 19 mentions in all, including for best small-screen drama.
The first Canadian drama series from an all-Black creative team, which also streams on BET+, centers on the lives of Black train porters and their families as they launch North America’s first Black labor union in the 1920s.
The TV categories, voted on by around 3,000 Canadian industry insiders, also sees the CBC series Detention Adventure and Sort Of – a Peabody award-winning show about a gender fluid young Muslim in Toronto played by Bilal Baig — nab 15 nominations each in an awards show shaping up to be a major showcase for people of color.
That follows Canadian film, and TV industry efforts to ensure diversity and inclusivity in the country’s indie production sector and prize-giving process.
The first Canadian drama series from an all-Black creative team, which also streams on BET+, centers on the lives of Black train porters and their families as they launch North America’s first Black labor union in the 1920s.
The TV categories, voted on by around 3,000 Canadian industry insiders, also sees the CBC series Detention Adventure and Sort Of – a Peabody award-winning show about a gender fluid young Muslim in Toronto played by Bilal Baig — nab 15 nominations each in an awards show shaping up to be a major showcase for people of color.
That follows Canadian film, and TV industry efforts to ensure diversity and inclusivity in the country’s indie production sector and prize-giving process.
- 2/22/2023
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"You are a near-perfect replica of our crew." A festival promo trailer is out to watch for this funky sci-fi Quebecois film titled Viking, which is premiering at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival underway right now. A behavioral research team observes and attempts to replicate the experiences of the first manned mission to Mars. TIFF adds more: "The latest from Stéphane Lafleur (Tu dors Nicole) balances absurdist humour with poignant reflection on the human condition as it follows the subjects of behavioural research — and the astronauts they mirror — in advance of the first manned mission to Mars." The film stars Steve Laplante, Larissa Corriveau, Fabiola N. Aladin, Hamza Haq, Denis Houle, Marie Brassard, and Martin-David Peters. Our friend at Quiet Earth watched this already, saying that "it's that rare kind of science fiction where gadgets and fantasy are overshadowed by the mysteries of the human psyche, and arguably Lafleur’s finest film to date.
- 9/14/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Slate includes Nigerian comedy-drama ‘Niagara’.
Sphere Films International, formerly WaZabi Films, heads to Toronto with sales rights to TIFF Platform pair Viking and Riceboy Sleeps and Australian Discovery selection Sweet As.
Viking is a French and English-language sci-fi drama directed by Montreal’s Stéphane Lafleur about researchers who try to replicate a manned mission to Mars in the hopes of solving conflict among the real crew.
Luc Déry and Kim McCraw of micro_scope produced Viking, which Lafleur co-wrote with Eric K. Boulianne. Hamza Haq stars alongside Fabiola N. Aladin, Marie Brassard and Larissa Corriveau.
Lafleur’s first film Continental,...
Sphere Films International, formerly WaZabi Films, heads to Toronto with sales rights to TIFF Platform pair Viking and Riceboy Sleeps and Australian Discovery selection Sweet As.
Viking is a French and English-language sci-fi drama directed by Montreal’s Stéphane Lafleur about researchers who try to replicate a manned mission to Mars in the hopes of solving conflict among the real crew.
Luc Déry and Kim McCraw of micro_scope produced Viking, which Lafleur co-wrote with Eric K. Boulianne. Hamza Haq stars alongside Fabiola N. Aladin, Marie Brassard and Larissa Corriveau.
Lafleur’s first film Continental,...
- 8/9/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Slate includes Australian Discovery selection ‘Sweet As’, Nigerian comedy-drama ‘Niagara’.
Sphere Films International, formerly WaZabi Films, heads to Toronto with sales rights to TIFF Platform pair Viking and Riceboy Sleeps.
Viking is a French and English-language sci-fi drama directed by Montreal’s Stéphane Lafleur about researchers who try to replicate a manned mission to Mars in the hopes of solving conflict among the real crew.
Luc Déry and Kim McCraw of micro_scope produced Viking, which Lafleur co-wrote with Eric K. Boulianne. Hamza Haq stars alongside Fabiola N. Aladin, Marie Brassard and Larissa Corriveau.
Lafleur’s first film Continental, A...
Sphere Films International, formerly WaZabi Films, heads to Toronto with sales rights to TIFF Platform pair Viking and Riceboy Sleeps.
Viking is a French and English-language sci-fi drama directed by Montreal’s Stéphane Lafleur about researchers who try to replicate a manned mission to Mars in the hopes of solving conflict among the real crew.
Luc Déry and Kim McCraw of micro_scope produced Viking, which Lafleur co-wrote with Eric K. Boulianne. Hamza Haq stars alongside Fabiola N. Aladin, Marie Brassard and Larissa Corriveau.
Lafleur’s first film Continental, A...
- 8/9/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
FireFollowing a successful but necessarily impersonal virtual edition in 2021, the Berlin International Film Festival returned to in-person activities this year, drawing skepticism in some quarters but ultimately quieting the naysayers with a safe and efficient event that put the movies back where they belong: on the big screen. With mandatory daily Covid tests, 2G plus vaccination protocols, ticket reservations, assigned seating, and half-capacity venues, the Berlinale’s typically convivial vibe was sterilized and regimented in a way that’s already become familiar in an era of masks and social distancing. But no matter: the program, overseen by Carlo Chatrian in his third year as artistic director, while never quite reaching the skyscraping heights of recent editions (in which films like Days and What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? confirmed the new regime’s dedication to auteur-driven art cinema), provided a deep and rewarding wellspring of work...
- 2/25/2022
- MUBI
Denis Côté is a weird kind of humanist, arriving at that angle from an offbeat starting point. Maybe the key to his work thus far is his short, powerful 2012 documentary Bestiaire, surveying a bevy of exotic animals in a Quebec safari park, all pulled from their natural habitats. Beyond its prescient aspect, foreshadowing other recent animal-focused docs like Gunda and Cow, Côté enacts the role of a skewed portrait artist, showing the zebras, giraffes, and ostriches resplendent in their odd physicality, where you can feel them both attempting to evolve into, as well as neutralized by, their new environment of iron bars, railings, and peepholes.
A Skin So Soft, showing male bodybuilders in a similar state of haunted repose (and reviewed perceptively by Tfs’s Rory O’Connor on its 2017 premiere), is a byway from there towards his latest film, That Kind of Summer. This look at sex addiction could again...
A Skin So Soft, showing male bodybuilders in a similar state of haunted repose (and reviewed perceptively by Tfs’s Rory O’Connor on its 2017 premiere), is a byway from there towards his latest film, That Kind of Summer. This look at sex addiction could again...
- 2/21/2022
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
“You are not here for a cure,” the founder of a 26-day sexual therapy retreat tells the small group of women enrolled in her program at the outset of “That Kind of Summer.” Laying out the ground rules for the sensitive self-awareness exercise that follows — a loosely structured hiatus from unhealthy temptations, designed for those whose out-of-control impulses have made their lives unmanageable — she reassures, “You are not forbidden any sexual thoughts or behavior here. You are not sick.”
Shot on grainy Super 16 with the kind of unsteady handheld aesthetic that suggests the cameraperson really ought to get their inner ear checked, Denis Côté’s radically nonjudgmental “let’s talk about sex” drama looks and feels like a documentary — at least, it could pass as one until a giant CG tarantula crawls up the wall while one of the women is masturbating late in the game. By then, it’s safe to say,...
Shot on grainy Super 16 with the kind of unsteady handheld aesthetic that suggests the cameraperson really ought to get their inner ear checked, Denis Côté’s radically nonjudgmental “let’s talk about sex” drama looks and feels like a documentary — at least, it could pass as one until a giant CG tarantula crawls up the wall while one of the women is masturbating late in the game. By then, it’s safe to say,...
- 2/16/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
An isolated house in the country, a small tribe of peculiar characters mostly keeping a wary distance from each other: That Kind of Summer (Un Ete Comme Ca) is a film set up perfectly for the pandemic era. The bonus zinger is that the house is a live-in retreat for supposedly, or maybe just possibly, recovering sex addicts. Nobody leaves, and everyone talks dirty. Denis Cote, the prolific Quebecois provocateur, must have been hugging himself when he thought of that one.
Cote’s previous feature, made during Canada’s strictest lockdown, was wittily titled Social Hygiene. It was filmed on a hillside, where a succession of different women hurled abuse at a man who had offended all of them; he looked and sounded as if he had just wandered on set from a Dostoevsky novel. By comparison, That Kind of Summer is quite conventional. At least we know the sex addiction program lasts just 26 days,...
Cote’s previous feature, made during Canada’s strictest lockdown, was wittily titled Social Hygiene. It was filmed on a hillside, where a succession of different women hurled abuse at a man who had offended all of them; he looked and sounded as if he had just wandered on set from a Dostoevsky novel. By comparison, That Kind of Summer is quite conventional. At least we know the sex addiction program lasts just 26 days,...
- 2/15/2022
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
The women and their sexuality are arguably glamorised and male-gazed but strong acting means the film makes an impact
Berlin juries have an interest in the confrontational and the transgressive: my guess is that this film in competition from Canadian director Denis Côté may well win the big prize. I am still not entirely sure how to view its exploitative aesthetic. But it’s undoubtedly true that the characters and performances grow and develop, unexpectedly, into something poignant and even rather melancholy by the end.
The setting is a therapeutic summer residency in a country house near a lake for young women who have issues with hypersexuality and sex addiction. They must surrender their phones (except for certain permitted breaks) and live together as a group with their mentors, with one weekend pass for the entire time; there are also activities and discussion groups. Geisha (Aude Mathieu) is a sex...
Berlin juries have an interest in the confrontational and the transgressive: my guess is that this film in competition from Canadian director Denis Côté may well win the big prize. I am still not entirely sure how to view its exploitative aesthetic. But it’s undoubtedly true that the characters and performances grow and develop, unexpectedly, into something poignant and even rather melancholy by the end.
The setting is a therapeutic summer residency in a country house near a lake for young women who have issues with hypersexuality and sex addiction. They must surrender their phones (except for certain permitted breaks) and live together as a group with their mentors, with one weekend pass for the entire time; there are also activities and discussion groups. Geisha (Aude Mathieu) is a sex...
- 2/14/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Premiering in competition at Berlin, Denis Côté’s “That Kind of Summer” began life as a kind of thought experiment meant to address a rather large oversight in modern Quebecois cinema.
“I asked myself, why was it so difficult to name a Quebecois film from the past 25 years that treated sexuality as its central theme?” Côté told Variety. “Why could France foster directors who filmed the human body in direct and unselfconscious ways, and Quebec could not? Were Quebecois more prudish than others?”
And so the Montreal-based filmmaker started on his 14th feature, which follows three so-called “hypersexual” women, plagued with troubled histories and fragile mental states, as they participate in a month-long therapy retreat. But as he developed the script with a local sexologist, the filmmaker saw potential traps in two very different directions.
“The film could never be meant to judge,” Côté explained. “I didn’t want to...
“I asked myself, why was it so difficult to name a Quebecois film from the past 25 years that treated sexuality as its central theme?” Côté told Variety. “Why could France foster directors who filmed the human body in direct and unselfconscious ways, and Quebec could not? Were Quebecois more prudish than others?”
And so the Montreal-based filmmaker started on his 14th feature, which follows three so-called “hypersexual” women, plagued with troubled histories and fragile mental states, as they participate in a month-long therapy retreat. But as he developed the script with a local sexologist, the filmmaker saw potential traps in two very different directions.
“The film could never be meant to judge,” Côté explained. “I didn’t want to...
- 2/12/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
French-Canadian returns to Competition after last year’s Encounters prize.
France’s Shellac has boarded worldwide sales on French-Canadian director Denis Côté’s Berlin-bound That Kind Of Summer in the run-up to next month’s festival and market.
Larissa Corriveau, who starred in Côté’s 2019 Golden Bear nominee Ghost Town Anthology, Laure Giappiconi and Aude Mathieu play the leads in Montreal-based Metafilms’ French-language Competition entry about three women invited to a rest home to explore their sexual issues.
As they co-exist under the detached supervision of a German therapist and a considerate social worker, the group attempts to maintain a...
France’s Shellac has boarded worldwide sales on French-Canadian director Denis Côté’s Berlin-bound That Kind Of Summer in the run-up to next month’s festival and market.
Larissa Corriveau, who starred in Côté’s 2019 Golden Bear nominee Ghost Town Anthology, Laure Giappiconi and Aude Mathieu play the leads in Montreal-based Metafilms’ French-language Competition entry about three women invited to a rest home to explore their sexual issues.
As they co-exist under the detached supervision of a German therapist and a considerate social worker, the group attempts to maintain a...
- 1/28/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The complete lineup for the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, taking place February 10-20, 2022, has been unveiled and it’s a major collection of some of our most-anticipated films of the year. As teased yesterday, Claire Denis’ Fire (which now has the title Avec amour et acharnement (aka Both Sides of the Blade)) will premiere in competition, alongside Hong Sangsoo’s The Novelist’s Film, Carla Simón’s Summer 1993 follow-up Alcarràs, Ulrich Seidl’s Rimini, Rithy Panh’s Everything Will Be Ok, and more.
Elsewhere in the festival is Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, Andrew Dominik’s Nick Cave & Warren Ellis doc This Much I Know To Be True, Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, Gastón Solnicki’s A Little Love Package, Quentin Dupieux’s Incredible But True, plus new shorts by Lucrecia Martel, Hlynur Pálmason, and more. Also recently announced was the Panorama section, which will open...
Elsewhere in the festival is Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, Dario Argento’s Dark Glasses, Andrew Dominik’s Nick Cave & Warren Ellis doc This Much I Know To Be True, Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, Gastón Solnicki’s A Little Love Package, Quentin Dupieux’s Incredible But True, plus new shorts by Lucrecia Martel, Hlynur Pálmason, and more. Also recently announced was the Panorama section, which will open...
- 1/19/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Films by auteurs Claire Denis, Hong Sangsoo and Rithy Panh are part of the lineup in competition at the 72nd Berlin Film Festival.
Berlin’s 2022 selection spans 18 movies, seven directed by women, which will compete for the Golden and Silver Bears. The films originate from 15 countries, with 17 serving as world premieres. Two of the films are first features, both from women.
Artistic director Carlo Chatrian discussed the thematic throughline of “human and emotional bonds” across the selection, with the family unit serving as a key focal point in a number of movies. More than half are set in the present time, and two are within the pandemic era.
The festival hosts 12 returning filmmakers, eight of whom are in competition and five of whom already hold a Bear from Berlin.
The festival will go ahead as an in-person event, albeit with seating capacity in movie theaters reduced to 50% and without any parties or receptions.
Berlin’s 2022 selection spans 18 movies, seven directed by women, which will compete for the Golden and Silver Bears. The films originate from 15 countries, with 17 serving as world premieres. Two of the films are first features, both from women.
Artistic director Carlo Chatrian discussed the thematic throughline of “human and emotional bonds” across the selection, with the family unit serving as a key focal point in a number of movies. More than half are set in the present time, and two are within the pandemic era.
The festival hosts 12 returning filmmakers, eight of whom are in competition and five of whom already hold a Bear from Berlin.
The festival will go ahead as an in-person event, albeit with seating capacity in movie theaters reduced to 50% and without any parties or receptions.
- 1/19/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Un été comme ça
Easily Canada’s most prolific filmmaker, without exaggeration, Denis Côté has been on a film per year pace for the past dozen years now and what’s even more remarkable is that he rarely visits the same mental or physical space twice. Shot around the month of July, Un été comme ça sends Ghost Town Anthology thesp Larissa Corriveau, Laure Giappiconi, Aude Mathieu, Samir Guesmi and Anne Ratte Polle to a different kind of day camp – one that Lars von Trier quasi investigated with the Nymphomaniac pair? Clocking over the two hour mark, this was shot in the North of Montreal and produced by Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre and Sylvain Corbeil (who had produced Côté’s Boris Without Béatrice).…...
Easily Canada’s most prolific filmmaker, without exaggeration, Denis Côté has been on a film per year pace for the past dozen years now and what’s even more remarkable is that he rarely visits the same mental or physical space twice. Shot around the month of July, Un été comme ça sends Ghost Town Anthology thesp Larissa Corriveau, Laure Giappiconi, Aude Mathieu, Samir Guesmi and Anne Ratte Polle to a different kind of day camp – one that Lars von Trier quasi investigated with the Nymphomaniac pair? Clocking over the two hour mark, this was shot in the North of Montreal and produced by Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre and Sylvain Corbeil (who had produced Côté’s Boris Without Béatrice).…...
- 1/9/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
with “Social Hygiene,” which brought him the best director prize in the Berlinale Encounters sidebar (shared with Ramon and Silvan Zürcher for “The Girl and the Spider”). The tendency to dodge from sincerity to satire and vice versa is unmistakably self-serving, but parsing the foibles of this little comedy makes a pleasant diversion, for a film that largely amounts to stagey scenes of two people bellowing petty philosophies at each other across a blustery meadow.
In the first setup, composed of two-thirds sky and one third grassy field that rolls away to distant mountains, the dissipated Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) is disappointing his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau). Their very names may be reminiscent of Chekhov and Ibsen, and their declamations may have a ring of 19th-century dramaturgy to them, but these characters are carefully styled to appear somewhat timeless, and their exchanges are peppered with references to Volkswagens and discount mattresses.
In the first setup, composed of two-thirds sky and one third grassy field that rolls away to distant mountains, the dissipated Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) is disappointing his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau). Their very names may be reminiscent of Chekhov and Ibsen, and their declamations may have a ring of 19th-century dramaturgy to them, but these characters are carefully styled to appear somewhat timeless, and their exchanges are peppered with references to Volkswagens and discount mattresses.
- 3/16/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
An aura of pure eccentricity billows off the new film by Québécois provocateur Denis Côté, like a fug of stale-smelling nitrous oxide. Akin to his prior work only in its magpie-like experimental sensibility, Social Hygiene finds the festival mainstay delving into the static visuals of filmed-theatre presentations, but with a postmodern streak that collapses historical eras and cinematic conventions at will. All through its compact but still satisfying 75-minute runtime, the viewer is liable to ask, “What on earth is this?”, and by its finale, this unanswered query feels rewarding as opposed to exasperating. But you can still feel Côté chuckling behind our backs.
Social Hygiene has an austerity of means initiated by a modest budget, although Côté has opted for this to harness the experimentation it frees up. So we have the majority of the action taking place in around half-a-dozen set-ups of static master shots, all photographed from...
Social Hygiene has an austerity of means initiated by a modest budget, although Côté has opted for this to harness the experimentation it frees up. So we have the majority of the action taking place in around half-a-dozen set-ups of static master shots, all photographed from...
- 3/2/2021
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
There’s a whiff of Samuel Beckett about Denis Côté’s latest film, which is a rake’s progress of sorts and which, despite its title and its socially distant staging being perfect for these Covid times, was written back in 2015.
The film plays out in a number of deliberately stagey episodic encounters that a young man, Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) has with a series of women. Firstly, there’s his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau), who disapproves of his thievery. Then there’s his wife Eglantine (Evelyne Rompre), who finds his lack of commitment irritating, even as she has a dalliance with another man, Clovis. Antonin also has a lover, Cassiopee (Eve Duranceau), who is looking for more than he wants to offer. He’s not having much luck out of the bedroom either, being confronted by Aurore (Eleonore Loiselle), a woman whose car he has broken into and by Rose (Kathleen Fortin) – decked out.
The film plays out in a number of deliberately stagey episodic encounters that a young man, Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) has with a series of women. Firstly, there’s his sister Solveig (Larissa Corriveau), who disapproves of his thievery. Then there’s his wife Eglantine (Evelyne Rompre), who finds his lack of commitment irritating, even as she has a dalliance with another man, Clovis. Antonin also has a lover, Cassiopee (Eve Duranceau), who is looking for more than he wants to offer. He’s not having much luck out of the bedroom either, being confronted by Aurore (Eleonore Loiselle), a woman whose car he has broken into and by Rose (Kathleen Fortin) – decked out.
- 3/2/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
This year’s Berlin International Film Festival will look a bit different this year, with a virtual edition taking place March 1-5 for industry and press, then a public, in-person edition kicking off in June.
The complete lineup has now been unveiled, including Céline Sciamma’s highly-anticipated Portrait of a Lady on Fire follow-up Petite Maman, a surprise new Hong Sang-soo feature, the latest work from Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, along with new projects by Radu Jude, Xavier Beauvois, Dominik Graf, Pietro Marcello, Ramon Zürcher & Silvan Zürcher, and more.
Check out each section below.
Competition Tiles
“Albatros” (Drift Away)
France
by Xavier Beauvois
with Jérémie Renier, Marie-Julie Maille, Victor Belmondo
“Babardeală cu buclucsau porno balamuc” (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Romania/Luxemburg/Croatia/Czech Republic
by Radu Jude
with Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Olimpia Mălai
“Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde” (Fabian – Going to the Dogs)
Germany
by Dominik Graf
with Tom Schilling,...
The complete lineup has now been unveiled, including Céline Sciamma’s highly-anticipated Portrait of a Lady on Fire follow-up Petite Maman, a surprise new Hong Sang-soo feature, the latest work from Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, along with new projects by Radu Jude, Xavier Beauvois, Dominik Graf, Pietro Marcello, Ramon Zürcher & Silvan Zürcher, and more.
Check out each section below.
Competition Tiles
“Albatros” (Drift Away)
France
by Xavier Beauvois
with Jérémie Renier, Marie-Julie Maille, Victor Belmondo
“Babardeală cu buclucsau porno balamuc” (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Romania/Luxemburg/Croatia/Czech Republic
by Radu Jude
with Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Olimpia Mălai
“Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde” (Fabian – Going to the Dogs)
Germany
by Dominik Graf
with Tom Schilling,...
- 2/11/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Day 3 of this year’s Berlinale announcements contain the line-ups for Encounters, Panorama and Perspektive Deutsches Kino. Check back in tomorrow for the Competition program.
Encounters was first introduced at last year’s festival to support new voices in cinema. A three-member jury will award Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award during the industry event in March, with the prizes handed out physically at the summer event.
The selection consists of 12 titles from 16 countries, including seven debuts. Scroll down for the full list.
Over in Panorama, there are 19 titles including 14 world premieres. Several titles arrive from Sundance such as Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK feature Censor and Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors.
Perspektive Deutsches Kino will again present new views on German cinema, with six titles, all of which are world premieres. The full lists are below.
This week so far has seen the Generation, Retrospective, Forum, Forum Expanded and Shorts programs announced.
Encounters was first introduced at last year’s festival to support new voices in cinema. A three-member jury will award Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award during the industry event in March, with the prizes handed out physically at the summer event.
The selection consists of 12 titles from 16 countries, including seven debuts. Scroll down for the full list.
Over in Panorama, there are 19 titles including 14 world premieres. Several titles arrive from Sundance such as Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK feature Censor and Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors.
Perspektive Deutsches Kino will again present new views on German cinema, with six titles, all of which are world premieres. The full lists are below.
This week so far has seen the Generation, Retrospective, Forum, Forum Expanded and Shorts programs announced.
- 2/10/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Following hard on the heels of the film’s selection for this year’s Berlin Film Festival Encounters section, director Denis Côté has shared a first trailer for his new movie “Social Hygiene,” the latest from the Canadian director who won a Silver Bear for 2013’s “Vic+Flo Saw a Bear.”
At first glance, if the trailer is anything to go by, “Social Hygiene” seems at first glance a perfect pandemic movie: characters talking much more than two meters apart in a fresh verdant Canadian countryside.
Côté, however, wrote the movie — even down to its title — in 2015 when alone on holiday in Sarajevo “in a state of alienation.” The only Covid-19 connection is the film’s expression of a desire to flee and to defy reality and his desire to make a comedy in such somber times, he’s said.
That escapist need is embodied in Antonin who’s confronted...
At first glance, if the trailer is anything to go by, “Social Hygiene” seems at first glance a perfect pandemic movie: characters talking much more than two meters apart in a fresh verdant Canadian countryside.
Côté, however, wrote the movie — even down to its title — in 2015 when alone on holiday in Sarajevo “in a state of alienation.” The only Covid-19 connection is the film’s expression of a desire to flee and to defy reality and his desire to make a comedy in such somber times, he’s said.
That escapist need is embodied in Antonin who’s confronted...
- 2/10/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Denis Côté's Ghost Town Anthology is exclusively showing April 21 - May 20, 2020 in Mubi's Luminaries series.There is a certain point in any winter where it becomes unending. Long past the picturesque first snow fall, what Canadian author Mavis Gallant wisely calls “the only clean thing in a dirty year,” the snow becomes grey, packed down, blending into the constantly overcast sky. Very little breaks up this eyeline, some barren trees, long snaking highways linking what few towns remain. Northern Quebec is dotted with these landscapes, towns once prosperous and now a shadow of their past selves. Not much happens in these dreary winters of Irénée-les-Neiges, the titular town of Denis Côté’s Ghost Town Anthology. But breaking up the winter is a sudden car crash, and when the life of a young man is taken with it, the...
- 4/15/2020
- MUBI
Simon died, or perhaps he killed himself. His car raced through a wintry country road, span, crashed. None of the 215 inhabitants of his native Quebecois hamlet of Irénée-les-Neiges would dare to call it a suicide, not even his older brother Jimmy, mother Gisèle, and father Romuald. But the boy’s death was no isolated case. “We lost him in a battle, but we haven’t lost the war,” Irénée’s mayor Simone Smallwood addresses the townspeople at the vigil, where the battle she hints at rekindles the lad’s death to the several suicides the remote town has suffered through the decades. The war, in turn, speaks to something far larger: a small community’s struggle against an outer urban world that concurrently poaches its residents, and pushes those who remain deeper into oblivion.
Denis Côté’s perturbing Ghost Town Anthology pivots on this conflict. It is a haunting portrait...
Denis Côté’s perturbing Ghost Town Anthology pivots on this conflict. It is a haunting portrait...
- 2/19/2019
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
A film that’s every bit as bleak and fragmented as its title implies, Denis Côté’s “Ghost Town Anthology” is a pointedly modern portrait of a place that’s come unstuck in time. The fictional hamlet of Irénée-les-Neiges is located in a barren stretch of backwoods Québec, and the 215 people who still live there are almost as dead as the trees in winter, or the local economy since the mine shut down. Simon Dubé, the 21-year-old hockey player who crashes his car into a cement wall in the opening scene, is just a little bit deader than the rest.
His departure sends a destabilizing shiver through everyone who knew him; one of the many characters in Côté’s small mosaic likens the community to a house of cards that won’t be able to sustain itself in Simon’s absence, as if the young man’s suicide violated the...
His departure sends a destabilizing shiver through everyone who knew him; one of the many characters in Côté’s small mosaic likens the community to a house of cards that won’t be able to sustain itself in Simon’s absence, as if the young man’s suicide violated the...
- 2/11/2019
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A chill air blows through the small Quebecois village of Irénée-les-Neiges following a young man’s suicide, bringing with it unexpected and largely unwelcome visitors. Denis Côté’s “Ghost Town Anthology” has superficial parallels to Robin Campillo’s “They Came Back,” in which the dead return, but in keeping with the maverick Canadian’s style, his film is a more intimate, more unsettling work that approaches narrative elliptically: Mysteries remain mysteries, and the value isn’t in finding answers but in emotionally exploring where the questions take you. Shot on 16mm for a suitable graininess, “Ghost Town” is a largely monochrome ensemble piece that muses on, rather than directly addresses, the current hot topics of the “other” and the viability of small-town life. Skirting genre formulas, the film takes a more modest approach than “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear,” and though more universal/accessible, will require intelligent marketing to...
- 2/11/2019
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
Films Boutique has debuted the first promo trailer for an indie drama titled Ghost Town Anthology, aka Répertoire des villes disparues, set in snowy Quebec. The film takes place in a small and isolated town. A boy named Simon Dubé dies in a car accident. The stunned townspeople are reluctant to discuss the tragedy. From that point on time seems to lose all meaning, and the days stretch on without end. This is premiering at the Berlin Film Festival which is now underway, and it's playing In Competition during the fest. Starring Robert Naylor, Josée Deschênes, Jean-Michel Anctil, Larissa Corriveau, Rémi Goulet, Diane Lavallée, and Hubert Proulx. This is such an odd trailer - playing like an old news reel, and more of a behind-the-scenes look than a real trailer. The film is also in color, not B&W. I'm curious to see this anyway. Here's the first promo trailer...
- 2/8/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Ghost Town Anthology (Repertoire des villes disparues)
For his eleventh feature film, French-Canadian auteur Denis Côté adapts the first novel by Laurence Olivier Repertoire de villes disparues as Ghost Town Anthology. Starring Robert Naylor (of Wim Wenders’ 2015 film Everything Will Be Fine) alongside a supporting cast of Josée Deschênes, Jean-Michel Anctil, Larissa Corriveau, Diane Lavallée and Rémi Goulet, the project was produced by Ziad Touma of Couzin films and was part of the Frontieres Buyers Showcase in Cannes 2018. Locarno provided Côté with his first major platform, where he won an award for 2005’s Drifting States, returning in 2007 with Our Private Lives and winning Best Director for 2008’s All That She Wants and another Best Director win for 2010’s Curling.…...
For his eleventh feature film, French-Canadian auteur Denis Côté adapts the first novel by Laurence Olivier Repertoire de villes disparues as Ghost Town Anthology. Starring Robert Naylor (of Wim Wenders’ 2015 film Everything Will Be Fine) alongside a supporting cast of Josée Deschênes, Jean-Michel Anctil, Larissa Corriveau, Diane Lavallée and Rémi Goulet, the project was produced by Ziad Touma of Couzin films and was part of the Frontieres Buyers Showcase in Cannes 2018. Locarno provided Côté with his first major platform, where he won an award for 2005’s Drifting States, returning in 2007 with Our Private Lives and winning Best Director for 2008’s All That She Wants and another Best Director win for 2010’s Curling.…...
- 1/4/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Nine titles announced for Berlinale, which runs Feb 7-17.
The first films have been announced for the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlinale Special sections.
The Competition line-up includes new films by Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove), François Ozon (By the Grace of God) and Denis Côté (Ghost Town Anthology).
The other three films in the strand are Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet, Angela Schanelec’s I Was at Home, but and Emin Alper’s A Tale of Three Sisters. All are world premieres except By the Grace Of God which is an international premiere.
The...
The first films have been announced for the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlinale Special sections.
The Competition line-up includes new films by Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove), François Ozon (By the Grace of God) and Denis Côté (Ghost Town Anthology).
The other three films in the strand are Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet, Angela Schanelec’s I Was at Home, but and Emin Alper’s A Tale of Three Sisters. All are world premieres except By the Grace Of God which is an international premiere.
The...
- 12/13/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the first wave of titles for its competition lineup, including new films from François Ozon, Marie Kreutzer, Denis Côté and Fatih Akin. Charles Ferguson’s Watergate documentary is among the Berlinale Special titles.
The first nine Competition and Berlinale Special films were revealed today, alongside the previously announced opening film, The Kindness of Strangers by Lone Scherfig.
Festival favourites Akin (In The Fade) and Ozon (In The House) return with German-language thriller The Golden Glove and French-language drama By The Grace Of God, respectively. The former follows a serial killer who strikes fear in the hearts of residents of Hamburg during the early 1970s. The latter looks at a real-life case of sexual abuses allegedly committed by a French priest in the late 1980s. Oscar-winner Ferguson (Inside Job) will present anticipated 260-minute feature doc Watergate, which is sure to draw plenty of contemporary parallels.
The first nine Competition and Berlinale Special films were revealed today, alongside the previously announced opening film, The Kindness of Strangers by Lone Scherfig.
Festival favourites Akin (In The Fade) and Ozon (In The House) return with German-language thriller The Golden Glove and French-language drama By The Grace Of God, respectively. The former follows a serial killer who strikes fear in the hearts of residents of Hamburg during the early 1970s. The latter looks at a real-life case of sexual abuses allegedly committed by a French priest in the late 1980s. Oscar-winner Ferguson (Inside Job) will present anticipated 260-minute feature doc Watergate, which is sure to draw plenty of contemporary parallels.
- 12/13/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
At ease in both the fiction, docu and in hybrid forms, Denis Côté is moving back to fiction with a fantasy drama offering and has cast Robert Naylor (Wim Wender’s Everything Will Be Fine) leading a cast comprised of Josée Deschênes, Jean-Michel Anctil, Larissa Corriveau, Diane Lavallée and Rémi Goulet for the inspired by book to film adaptation of Laurence Olivier’s eponymous novel, Répertoire des villes disparues.
Continue reading...
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- 2/26/2018
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
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