There is a moment in Drift, the character study from filmmaker Anthony Chen, that you know is inevitable. (It’s now playing in New York, opens in L.A. on Feb. 16, and goes wide on Feb. 23.) You spend so much of this carefully constructed film’s running time bracing for it, aware that this tale of a woman named Jacqueline — quietly yet powerfully played by Cynthia Erivo — is building to a confessional crescendo. A Liberian citizen who’s been living in London for years, she now finds herself in Greece,...
- 2/14/2024
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Honor Swinton Byrne (“The Souvenir”) and Greta Bellamacina (“Tell That To The Winter”) are set to star in Jaclyn Bethany’s upcoming feature film “All Five Eyes.”
Co-written by Bethany and Bellamacina, the film tells the story of Marion (Swinton Byrne) and Cecily (Bellamacina) as they care for their disabled younger sister Willa. It is set to shoot in the U.K. in August.
Set in a small English village in 1967, liberated Marion is exploring the new social freedoms enjoyed by women in the late 1960s while conscientious and self-conscious Cecily runs the local girls school and is Willa’s main carer.
“Their differences reach a boiling point over their relationship with Willa, which leads to each sister making their own decision on what it means to have a life worth living,” reads the logline.
The screenplay was informed by Bellamacina’s own experience of caring for a child with autism.
Co-written by Bethany and Bellamacina, the film tells the story of Marion (Swinton Byrne) and Cecily (Bellamacina) as they care for their disabled younger sister Willa. It is set to shoot in the U.K. in August.
Set in a small English village in 1967, liberated Marion is exploring the new social freedoms enjoyed by women in the late 1960s while conscientious and self-conscious Cecily runs the local girls school and is Willa’s main carer.
“Their differences reach a boiling point over their relationship with Willa, which leads to each sister making their own decision on what it means to have a life worth living,” reads the logline.
The screenplay was informed by Bellamacina’s own experience of caring for a child with autism.
- 1/24/2024
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
The trailer for Cynthia Erivo‘s new movie has been released.
The 36-year-old Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner stars alongside Alia Shawkwat in the movie Drift directed by Anthony Chen. Along with starring in the movie, Cynthia also serves as a producer.
Based on the book A Marker To Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik, Drift follows Jacqueline (Erivo), a young refugee, who lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide (Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.
Keep reading to find out more…
The movie also stars Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon.
If you missed it, Cynthia also recently spilled some new details on filming the Wicked movies with Ariana Grande.
Drift hits select theaters...
The 36-year-old Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner stars alongside Alia Shawkwat in the movie Drift directed by Anthony Chen. Along with starring in the movie, Cynthia also serves as a producer.
Based on the book A Marker To Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik, Drift follows Jacqueline (Erivo), a young refugee, who lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide (Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.
Keep reading to find out more…
The movie also stars Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon.
If you missed it, Cynthia also recently spilled some new details on filming the Wicked movies with Ariana Grande.
Drift hits select theaters...
- 12/30/2023
- by Just Jared
- Just Jared
"Where are their parents?" "They fled." Utopia has revealed the trailer for an indie drama titled Drift, the third feature film from acclaimed Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, following his features Ilo Ilo and Wet Season previously. This premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to some mixed and positive reviews. Jacqueline, a young refugee from Africa, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide also working on the isalnd and together they find the resilience to forge ahead. "Jacqueline must face the ghosts that haunt her—or tip into full-blown madness." The very talented Cynthia Erivo stars as Jacqueline, with Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, and Vincent Vermignon. This trailer also features the song "It Would Be" written & sung by Cynthia Erivo & Laura Mvula.
- 10/25/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Accomplishing the rare feature of premiering two features this year, Anthony Chen’s Cynthia Erivo-led and -produced refugee drama Drift premiered at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, then a few months later he debuted The Breaking Ice at Cannes Film Festival. The former was picked up by Utopia and now ahead of a February 9 release, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “Jacqueline (Two-Time Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.”
Michael Frank said in his Sundance review, “Coming from a script by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, Drift rarely individualizes its main character, quietly watching her as she struggles to survive.
Here’s the synopsis: “Jacqueline (Two-Time Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour-guide (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.”
Michael Frank said in his Sundance review, “Coming from a script by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, Drift rarely individualizes its main character, quietly watching her as she struggles to survive.
- 10/25/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Grammy, Emmy, and Tony award-winning triple threat talent Cynthia Erivo emotionally unzips herself for moving film “Drift,” the first project she has produced to be released.
The Oscar-nominated actress leads the independent film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Based on Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift,” the film follows a refugee who crosses paths with a lonesome tour guide in Greece.
The official synopsis reads: “Jacqueline (Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with rootless tour-guide Callie (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.”
Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon also star.
“Drift” is the English-language debut of Camera d’Or-winning director Anthony Chen (“Ilo Ilo”), who won the...
The Oscar-nominated actress leads the independent film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Based on Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift,” the film follows a refugee who crosses paths with a lonesome tour guide in Greece.
The official synopsis reads: “Jacqueline (Erivo), a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island, where she tries first to survive and then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with rootless tour-guide Callie (Alia Shawkat) and together they find the resilience to forge ahead.”
Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon also star.
“Drift” is the English-language debut of Camera d’Or-winning director Anthony Chen (“Ilo Ilo”), who won the...
- 10/25/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
The Big Screen Awards unveils Best British Film shortlist, Breakthrough actor and filmmaker nominees
Aimee Lou Wood for ‘Living’, ‘Rye Lane’ team and ‘Aftersun’ director Charlotte Wells among the nominees
The Big Screen Awards can unveil the shortlists for best British film as well as the nominees for breakthrough British actor and filmmaker.
The nominees for British film, which will be decided by a public vote, include Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin, Matthew Warchus’s Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical and Sam Mendes’ Empire Of Light.
Vote for Best British Film of the Year here
Also among the nominees is Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane – both of...
The Big Screen Awards can unveil the shortlists for best British film as well as the nominees for breakthrough British actor and filmmaker.
The nominees for British film, which will be decided by a public vote, include Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin, Matthew Warchus’s Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical and Sam Mendes’ Empire Of Light.
Vote for Best British Film of the Year here
Also among the nominees is Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane – both of...
- 10/11/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Cynthia Erivo stars, alongside Alia Shawkat, Honor Swinton Byrne.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Drift, the English-language feature debut of filmmaker Anthony Chen, which stars in and is produced by Cynthia Erivo.
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s novel A Marker To Measure Drift by Susanne Farrell and Maksik, Drift is a character study of a refugee – played by Erivo – who is struggling to eke out a living on a Greek island, while traumatised by memories of her war-torn country.
Alia Shawkat and Honor Swinton Byrne star alongside Erivo. Memento Films International handles worldwide sales on the title.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Drift, the English-language feature debut of filmmaker Anthony Chen, which stars in and is produced by Cynthia Erivo.
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s novel A Marker To Measure Drift by Susanne Farrell and Maksik, Drift is a character study of a refugee – played by Erivo – who is struggling to eke out a living on a Greek island, while traumatised by memories of her war-torn country.
Alia Shawkat and Honor Swinton Byrne star alongside Erivo. Memento Films International handles worldwide sales on the title.
- 6/12/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Cynthia Erivo stars, alongside Alia Shawkat, Honor Swinton Byrne.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Drift, the English-language feature debut of filmmaker Anthony Chen.
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s novel A Marker To Measure Drift by Susanne Farrell and Maksik, Drift is a character study of a refugee – played by Cynthia Erivo – who is struggling to eke out a living on a Greek island, while traumatised by memories of her war-torn country.
Alia Shawkat and Honor Swinton Byrne star alongside Erivo. Memento Films International handles worldwide sales on the title.
Drift debuted in the Premieres strand of Sundance Film Festival in January.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to Drift, the English-language feature debut of filmmaker Anthony Chen.
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s novel A Marker To Measure Drift by Susanne Farrell and Maksik, Drift is a character study of a refugee – played by Cynthia Erivo – who is struggling to eke out a living on a Greek island, while traumatised by memories of her war-torn country.
Alia Shawkat and Honor Swinton Byrne star alongside Erivo. Memento Films International handles worldwide sales on the title.
Drift debuted in the Premieres strand of Sundance Film Festival in January.
- 6/12/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
BFI Distribution has picked up Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg’s latest collaboration, The Eternal Daughter, for theatrical release in the UK and Ireland.
The pic will hit cinemas this autumn and form the centerpiece of a Joanna Hogg retrospective season hosted at BFI Southbank that will also include a programme of films that have influenced her work.
The Eternal Daughter is the BFI’s second acquisition from A24, following the Irish drama God’s Creatures, starring Paul Mescal and Emily Watson earlier this year. The film also marks Hogg and Swinton’s third collaboration following the acclaimed two-part Souvenir series, which starred Swinton’s daughter Honor Swinton Byrne.
Written and directed by Hogg with Martin Scorsese once again on board as Executive Producer, the film follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past.
The pic will hit cinemas this autumn and form the centerpiece of a Joanna Hogg retrospective season hosted at BFI Southbank that will also include a programme of films that have influenced her work.
The Eternal Daughter is the BFI’s second acquisition from A24, following the Irish drama God’s Creatures, starring Paul Mescal and Emily Watson earlier this year. The film also marks Hogg and Swinton’s third collaboration following the acclaimed two-part Souvenir series, which starred Swinton’s daughter Honor Swinton Byrne.
Written and directed by Hogg with Martin Scorsese once again on board as Executive Producer, the film follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past.
- 3/22/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Sundance film festival: Cynthia Erivo stars as a west African migrant who befriends Alia Shawkat’s American émigré in this too-quiet character drama
Save for its few flashback moments of horrific, haunting trauma, Drift, the mostly quiet story of a west African migrant reeling from the unimaginable on a Greek resort isle, is easy on the eyes. Director Anthony Chen’s film, from a screenplay by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, gives harried aftermath the sheen of tranquil nobility, resilience hiding in plain sight – the crowd of barely clothed, languid white bodies dotting star Cynthia Erivo’s opening walk down the beach, the bleached yellow of the Mediterranean sun, the way Erivo’s Jacqueline slowly, carefully washes her one set of clothes. Even Jacqueline’s night ritual, arranging plastic bags of pebbles for a makeshift beach cave mattress, takes on the lulling rhythm of a reverie.
It’s a lot of compelling aesthetic,...
Save for its few flashback moments of horrific, haunting trauma, Drift, the mostly quiet story of a west African migrant reeling from the unimaginable on a Greek resort isle, is easy on the eyes. Director Anthony Chen’s film, from a screenplay by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, gives harried aftermath the sheen of tranquil nobility, resilience hiding in plain sight – the crowd of barely clothed, languid white bodies dotting star Cynthia Erivo’s opening walk down the beach, the bleached yellow of the Mediterranean sun, the way Erivo’s Jacqueline slowly, carefully washes her one set of clothes. Even Jacqueline’s night ritual, arranging plastic bags of pebbles for a makeshift beach cave mattress, takes on the lulling rhythm of a reverie.
It’s a lot of compelling aesthetic,...
- 1/25/2023
- by Adrian Horton
- The Guardian - Film News
The same piercing intimacy and absence of sentimentality that Singaporean director Anthony Chen brought to the beautifully observed Ilo Ilo — winner of Cannes’ 2013 Camera d’Or for best first feature — makes affecting drama of a displaced West African woman’s struggle to survive in the wake of unimaginable tragedy in Drift. Carried by Cynthia Erivo’s haunted performance as a refugee jolted into total retreat from the world on a Greek island, this sensitive character study also allows for cracks of light as she slowly reopens herself to the possibility of bonding with a lonely American tour guide played by Alia Shawkat.
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker to Measure Drift by the author and Susanne Farrell, the film opens with the eloquent image of footprints in the sand being slowly washed away at a shoreline. They belong to Jacqueline (Erivo), about whom we initially know nothing beyond...
Adapted from Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker to Measure Drift by the author and Susanne Farrell, the film opens with the eloquent image of footprints in the sand being slowly washed away at a shoreline. They belong to Jacqueline (Erivo), about whom we initially know nothing beyond...
- 1/22/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
We know the traumatized need the sense of safety to properly heal. But does art about trauma benefit from feeling safe?
That’s the nagging question that comes close to undermining the effect of “Drift,” the title referring to the unmoored state of mind in a homeless survivor of war-ravaged Liberia wandering the coastal edges of a blithely touristy Greece. Her portrayer Cynthia Erivo, however, is only ever a magnetic anchor in “Ilo Ilo” filmmaker Anthony Chen’s quietly compassionate if ultimately predictable drama.
Adapted from the 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift” by Alexander Maksik (also a credited co-screenwriter with Susanne Farrell), the film follows refugee Jacqueline (Erivo), who in the beginning we see cadging food (or just sugar packets) from vacated tables at restaurants, staring at the rippling sea for long stretches and sleeping in a cave on a makeshift mattress made from plastic bags of sand. As...
That’s the nagging question that comes close to undermining the effect of “Drift,” the title referring to the unmoored state of mind in a homeless survivor of war-ravaged Liberia wandering the coastal edges of a blithely touristy Greece. Her portrayer Cynthia Erivo, however, is only ever a magnetic anchor in “Ilo Ilo” filmmaker Anthony Chen’s quietly compassionate if ultimately predictable drama.
Adapted from the 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift” by Alexander Maksik (also a credited co-screenwriter with Susanne Farrell), the film follows refugee Jacqueline (Erivo), who in the beginning we see cadging food (or just sugar packets) from vacated tables at restaurants, staring at the rippling sea for long stretches and sleeping in a cave on a makeshift mattress made from plastic bags of sand. As...
- 1/22/2023
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
Drift
The second 2023 Anthony Chen film on our list (the other being The Breaking Ice at the #191 spot) is definitely more indie and working with an international conflux. Starring Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba and Honor Swinton-Byrne, this book to film project was filmed in Greece in May of last year. Based on the book A Marker to Measure Drift, Drift is about relocating, escaping, surviving but never truly getting away. Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik adapted the screenplay.
Gist: Drift follows a young Liberian refugee named Jacqueline (Erivo) who has barely escaped her war-torn country to a Greek island.…...
The second 2023 Anthony Chen film on our list (the other being The Breaking Ice at the #191 spot) is definitely more indie and working with an international conflux. Starring Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba and Honor Swinton-Byrne, this book to film project was filmed in Greece in May of last year. Based on the book A Marker to Measure Drift, Drift is about relocating, escaping, surviving but never truly getting away. Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik adapted the screenplay.
Gist: Drift follows a young Liberian refugee named Jacqueline (Erivo) who has barely escaped her war-torn country to a Greek island.…...
- 1/12/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
How did this emotional sketch become a movie? Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg, born on March 20, 1960 in London, England, UK and known for writing and directing The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir: Part II (2021) and Unrelated (2007), all produced by Emma Norton of Jwh Films, are favored by the charmed circle of rich white seemingly heterosexual men like Martin Scorsese (Sikelia Productions), David Fenkel and Daniel Katz (A24), and British vet producer Ed Guiney (Element Pictures). This is all conjuncture on my part, as it was when I wrote about the deal behind Triangle of Sadness, but the sketchiness of this and the formulaic quality of Triangle, coupled with the stellar names of those involved in the production lead me to believe there was more to the making of the movie deal than there is to the movie itself. In The Eternal Daughter, these men have chosen to celebrate womanhood as expressed by a particular female filmmaker as she attempts to create a story about herself and her mother plus one kindly black bereaved man played by Joseph Mydell (there is a hint of something about slavery here) and a cold modern young woman played by Carly-Sophia Davies whose heart also melts at the pathos of the celebate and lonely filmmaker, who actually is not pathetic but apparently just creatively alive. Watch the trailer here and then watch the movie and judge for yourself: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13874422/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Together these men must have brought the film to Kristin Irving of the BBC where it got made, somewhat along the same lines as highly touted The Souvenir which landed BBC Films with funds from BFI Film Fund and was also produced by Jwh Films, again in association with Scorsese’s incubator Sikelia. This time Protagonist Pictures was the international sales agent and A24 only distributed in North America. Its sequel, The Souvenir Part II stars real-life mother and daughter Tilda Swinton and Honor Swinton Byrne, a conceit which perhaps gave life to the idea of another mother-and-daughter movie in which both roles are played by Tilda Swinton and which was made by the same team plus Ed Guiney of Element Pictures. A24 has now taken on both international sales and US rights. All of these films must have made 2 cents at the box office. What’s up? What is Tilda Swinton herself up to these days? Her previous film Three Thousand Years of Yearning by stalwart filmmaker George Miler sold to more interternational distributors in 2021 and 2022 than the Jwh films did, but it still must not have fared much better at the box office. (Read my blon on that here.) The short by Almodovar, The Human Voice, was a little gem, showing off Swinton’s accomplished acting skills as she enacted the remake of Cocteau’s The Human Voice under strict Covid protocols. But none of these reaches the new heights always expected of her…We’ll see what her next four films The End (pre-production) by Joshua Oppenheimer, Asteroid City (post-production) by Wes Anderson, The Killer (post-production) by David Fincher, and an Untitled Julio Torres Project (post-production) bring to the audiences who eagerly await whatever she does (count me among them). The Eternal Daughter has been described as a mystery drama and as a ghost story about “a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to their former family home, a once-grand manor that has become a nearly vacant hotel brimming with mystery.” But there are no ghosts nor is there much of a mystery beyond why a mother and daughter have an eternal and universal tension between them, as most mothers and daughters do. Nor is the nearly vacant hotel ever revealed to be the ancestral home, nor is there much of a mystery about a banging shutter which keeps Tilda the daughter up at night. And whence cometh the acclaim of Joanna Hogg? Perhaps it was Covid. Dare I argue with the top film festivals and critics whom Rotten Tomatoes scored at 95%? Who are these critics? How many males among them? All Swinton has to do is attach her name to a project and it will be made — with male money. The film does truly touch emotions felt by every daughter trying to hard to please a mother who cannot express her own desires or her own heartfelt love for her daughter. But this situation makes the daughter seem pathetic except in her own creative mind as she grapples with the dilemna of The Eternal Duaghter. But what is the story here? That a writer’s imagination trumps reality? Are we so starved for emotional experiences that such a sketch brings us to tears? Am I horribly out of touch with the universe? Another film which touches this same raw nerve is Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. Where have I gone wrong? Compare this to Eo, a film with no ersatz emotion and created to produce an emotion the director Jerzy Skolomowski had not felt since he saw Au Hasard Balthazar in 1966. Read my blog and his quotations. I am longing for the days of Angelopoulos, of Terence Davies or even Peter Greenaway. Give me hard art, not oblique emotional sketches, playing like the little musical phrase that Proust’s Swann held so dear as a reminder of his lost love. Postscript: An interesting article by Carlos Aguilar appeared in the LA Times shortly after I published this. It explains the long friendship between Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg. At first I thought it negated my negative take on the deal, but on second reading, I decided that it only added another tier to the dealmaking process which is that Tilda swings her own weight and can bring in her friend to the circle of dealmaking whereas before, Hogg remained in the background of the art film world.
- 12/18/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter is, among other things, a spiritual sequel to her exquisite recent films The Souvenir (2019) and The Souvenir Part II (2021). Those movies studied a fledgling filmmaker named Julie Hart, who, bearing some autobiographical resemblance to Hogg herself, wound her way through memories of dating a charismatic, troubled drug addict, attending film school in England in the 1980s, and trying to carve out an artistic identity for herself under the conflicted but supportive eye of her parents and friends. In those movies, Julie was played by Honor Swinton Byrne.
- 12/14/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
There are six UK productions and four UK co-productions in the line-up.
The UK is well represented in the 2023 edition of Utah-based festival Sundance, with debut features including Girl, Scrapper, Rye Lane and documentary Is There Anybody Out There? joining the line-up, which was announced in full yesterday (December 7). Five of the UK filmmakers selected are Screen Stars of Tomorrow.
This year’s festival takes place as a hybrid event, running from January 19-29 as an in-person event, with a selection of films available online from January 24-29.
Six UK productions and four UK co-productions have made the 99-strong line-up...
The UK is well represented in the 2023 edition of Utah-based festival Sundance, with debut features including Girl, Scrapper, Rye Lane and documentary Is There Anybody Out There? joining the line-up, which was announced in full yesterday (December 7). Five of the UK filmmakers selected are Screen Stars of Tomorrow.
This year’s festival takes place as a hybrid event, running from January 19-29 as an in-person event, with a selection of films available online from January 24-29.
Six UK productions and four UK co-productions have made the 99-strong line-up...
- 12/8/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
With The Eternal Daughter, Joanna Hogg continues her method of cultivating an environment that allows dialogue to be discovered on set. A ghost story in a classical British sense it, provided complications to that long-standing working method—namely that Tilda Swinton plays both lead characters: mother and daughter duo, Rosalind and Julie. Refusing to employ camera tricks, the subsequent shot-reverse shot dynamic that dominates these dialogue-driven sequences meant the distinct possibility of “getting too bogged in the technicalities of it,” Hogg says. But they largely “managed to keep it in the air,” by having key crew members track those pesky technical details of who said what when, allowing Swinton and Hogg to zero in on the moment at hand—something so vital to Hogg’s on-set atmosphere of exploration.
Fans will recognize Julie and Rosalind as originating from her most recent collaborations with Swinton and Swinton’s daughter Honor Swinton Byrne...
Fans will recognize Julie and Rosalind as originating from her most recent collaborations with Swinton and Swinton’s daughter Honor Swinton Byrne...
- 12/5/2022
- by Caleb Hammond
- The Film Stage
Joanna Hogg received critical acclaim for her last two movies, the deeply personal "The Souvenir" and "The Souvenir Part II," which presented a fictionalized version of her experience during film school in the '80s. In those films, Honor Swinton Byrne played Julie, a fictionalized version of Hogg, while Byrne's real-life mother, Tilda Swinton, played Julie's mother, Rosalind.
"The Eternal Daughter" revisits Julie and Rosalind in our present day, with Swinton now playing both an older Julie and a more elderly Rosalind. The tone of "The Eternal Daughter," however, is markedly different than that of the two "Souvenir" films. Hogg's latest work is a gothic ghost story, set in an eerie old manor that has been converted into a hotel.
"All my films have been about places and the ghosts within them and the memories within them," Hogg told me in an interview about the making of her latest film.
"The Eternal Daughter" revisits Julie and Rosalind in our present day, with Swinton now playing both an older Julie and a more elderly Rosalind. The tone of "The Eternal Daughter," however, is markedly different than that of the two "Souvenir" films. Hogg's latest work is a gothic ghost story, set in an eerie old manor that has been converted into a hotel.
"All my films have been about places and the ghosts within them and the memories within them," Hogg told me in an interview about the making of her latest film.
- 12/2/2022
- by Vanessa Armstrong
- Slash Film
This review originally ran September 6, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.
An atmospheric labyrinth of reflections and projections, “The Eternal Daughter” expands on British director Joanna Hogg’s recent excavations into memory, both as torturous malaise and gratifying human virtue crucial to deciphering interpersonal relationships.
A master of meta storytelling, Hogg once again transmutes intimate biographical material into the dramatic foundation of her intricate cinematic monuments for this ghostly saga following a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother on a birthday holiday. They are, however, not just any progenitor-offspring duo, but characters from her last brainchildren.
Tilda Swinton, the director’s most loyal onscreen collaborator, incarnates Julie Hart, the burgeoning filmmaker and Hogg surrogate in “The Souvenir” films, but now at a more mature age. Miraculously, the actress also reprises her role as Julie’s mother, Rosalind, from the previous installments, effectively...
An atmospheric labyrinth of reflections and projections, “The Eternal Daughter” expands on British director Joanna Hogg’s recent excavations into memory, both as torturous malaise and gratifying human virtue crucial to deciphering interpersonal relationships.
A master of meta storytelling, Hogg once again transmutes intimate biographical material into the dramatic foundation of her intricate cinematic monuments for this ghostly saga following a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother on a birthday holiday. They are, however, not just any progenitor-offspring duo, but characters from her last brainchildren.
Tilda Swinton, the director’s most loyal onscreen collaborator, incarnates Julie Hart, the burgeoning filmmaker and Hogg surrogate in “The Souvenir” films, but now at a more mature age. Miraculously, the actress also reprises her role as Julie’s mother, Rosalind, from the previous installments, effectively...
- 12/2/2022
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
The rebranded awards returned for the first time as an in-person event since 2019.
The Walt Disney Company, Altitude, Paramount Pictures and Mubi were among the winners at The Big Screen Awards, which recognises excellence in UK marketing, distribution, publicity and exhibition.
The Big Screen Awards were rebranded from the Screen Awards, last held in 2019, and were unveiled tonight (November 24) at a ceremony in The Brewery, London, with comedian Phil Wang on hosting duties.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK & Ireland won a special distributor of the decade award, recognising 10 years of achievement. The company has released 145 titles in theatres since...
The Walt Disney Company, Altitude, Paramount Pictures and Mubi were among the winners at The Big Screen Awards, which recognises excellence in UK marketing, distribution, publicity and exhibition.
The Big Screen Awards were rebranded from the Screen Awards, last held in 2019, and were unveiled tonight (November 24) at a ceremony in The Brewery, London, with comedian Phil Wang on hosting duties.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK & Ireland won a special distributor of the decade award, recognising 10 years of achievement. The company has released 145 titles in theatres since...
- 11/25/2022
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Director Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi dedicates award to ‘women of Iran and younger generation.’
Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s directorial debut drama A Tale of Shemroon won the Marrakech International’s Film Festival’s Etoile d’Or grand prize as the nine-day festival wrapped its 19th in-person edition over the weekend.
The Farsi and French-language film takes place north of Tehran and follows a boy and his younger brother who, following the death of their mother, attempt to launch a quick money-making business to help their family, but end up getting caught up in an illegal drug trade and Tehran’s wealthy world of corruption.
Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s directorial debut drama A Tale of Shemroon won the Marrakech International’s Film Festival’s Etoile d’Or grand prize as the nine-day festival wrapped its 19th in-person edition over the weekend.
The Farsi and French-language film takes place north of Tehran and follows a boy and his younger brother who, following the death of their mother, attempt to launch a quick money-making business to help their family, but end up getting caught up in an illegal drug trade and Tehran’s wealthy world of corruption.
- 11/20/2022
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s story of brotherly bonds and criminal excess “A Tale of Shemroon” took home top honors at the Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday, closing out a 19th edition that saw a robust and welcome return to in-person events after two year’s of pandemic-forced delays.
Dehkordi’s feature debut follows a pair of brothers pulled deeper into the drug trade as they supply any number of illegal thrills to Tehran’s wealthy and hard-partying youths. While remaining a family drama above all, the Marrakech winner certainly evokes the simmering ennui felt by a young generation of Iranians and now boiling over into protest and rage on the real streets of Tehran.
Visibly moved, director Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s collected his Etoile d’Or by dedicating the prize to “all the Iranians fighting for their freedoms, to those who are faced with death sentences. This award is for...
Dehkordi’s feature debut follows a pair of brothers pulled deeper into the drug trade as they supply any number of illegal thrills to Tehran’s wealthy and hard-partying youths. While remaining a family drama above all, the Marrakech winner certainly evokes the simmering ennui felt by a young generation of Iranians and now boiling over into protest and rage on the real streets of Tehran.
Visibly moved, director Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s collected his Etoile d’Or by dedicating the prize to “all the Iranians fighting for their freedoms, to those who are faced with death sentences. This award is for...
- 11/19/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
With “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir: Part II,” Joanna Hogg proved that her ability to push the boundaries of meta-filmmaking is unparalleled. Her latest work, “The Eternal Daughter,” expands on the fictional universe (based on her own life experiences) that she began building with those films. It brings back the character of Julie Hart, a young film student who gets into a troubling relationship with an older man and sorts through the memories by making a film about it. Set later in her life, the role initially played by Honor Swinton Byrne is now played by Tilda Swinton. Swinton also reprises her role as Julie’s mother, doing double duty in a film that examines the way aging can impact family dynamics.
The film’s official synopsis reads: “An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past.
The film’s official synopsis reads: “An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past.
- 11/1/2022
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Joanna Hogg’s and Tilda Swinton’s creative partnership goes back nearly fifty years. The two became friends when they were only ten years old, and this school friendship eventually led to Hogg casting Swinton as the lead in her (1986) Nfts graduation film, “Caprice,” about a woman stuck in a fashion magazine. More recently, Swinton and her daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, took on lead roles in Hogg’s critically acclaimed film “The Souvenir” in 2019 and its sequel “The Souvenir: Part II” in 2021.
Continue reading ‘The Eternal Daughter’ Trailer: Tilda Swinton Plays Dual Roles In Joanna Hogg’s Ghostly New Drama at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘The Eternal Daughter’ Trailer: Tilda Swinton Plays Dual Roles In Joanna Hogg’s Ghostly New Drama at The Playlist.
- 11/1/2022
- by Oliver Weir
- The Playlist
In the tradition of Okja and Hail, Caesar!, writer-producer-director Joanna Hogg has gifted the world with two Tildas in one film. Just shy of Suspiria and Teknolust’s respective triple- and quadruple-Tilda count, The Eternal Daughter uses this device differently than others. Where Bong Joon-ho and the Coens employed such technique for twins and Guadagnino and Hershman-Leeson used it for science fiction and horror, Hogg plays it more subtly: mother and daughter. Or, to boil them into one, an eternal daughter.
We open on Rosalind and Julie—the former giving Swinton’s The Souvenir: Part II gray-haired grandma look and the latter mostly looking like herself, a shorter-haired Joanna Hogg—driving through a sea of fog in the dark, pulling into a Welsh bed and breakfast where they’ll stay for the remainder of the film. It’s a tonal precursor to a movie so fog-laden it makes Sleepy Hollow look clear-eyed.
We open on Rosalind and Julie—the former giving Swinton’s The Souvenir: Part II gray-haired grandma look and the latter mostly looking like herself, a shorter-haired Joanna Hogg—driving through a sea of fog in the dark, pulling into a Welsh bed and breakfast where they’ll stay for the remainder of the film. It’s a tonal precursor to a movie so fog-laden it makes Sleepy Hollow look clear-eyed.
- 10/10/2022
- by Luke Hicks
- The Film Stage
“The film possessed me.”
That is how Tilda Swinton described how she came to star in “The Eternal Daughter,” her third pairing with director Joanna Hogg, and a sequel to their two previous collaborations, “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir: Part II.”
The actress’ choice of words is fitting, since the new film is a ghostly, mysterious tale of a filmmaker, Julie, who’s caring for her elderly mother, Rosalind, in their family’s grand home in the country. Swinton reprises her “Souvenir” role as Rosalind and also takes on the role of Julie, who was played in the previous movies by Swinton’s own daughter Honor Swinton Byrne.
During a visit to TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at the Toronto Film Festival, Swinton and Hogg discussed “The Eternal Daughter” with TheWrap’s Editor in Chief, Sharon Waxman, explaining that the idea for the film came from a deeply personal place.
That is how Tilda Swinton described how she came to star in “The Eternal Daughter,” her third pairing with director Joanna Hogg, and a sequel to their two previous collaborations, “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir: Part II.”
The actress’ choice of words is fitting, since the new film is a ghostly, mysterious tale of a filmmaker, Julie, who’s caring for her elderly mother, Rosalind, in their family’s grand home in the country. Swinton reprises her “Souvenir” role as Rosalind and also takes on the role of Julie, who was played in the previous movies by Swinton’s own daughter Honor Swinton Byrne.
During a visit to TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at the Toronto Film Festival, Swinton and Hogg discussed “The Eternal Daughter” with TheWrap’s Editor in Chief, Sharon Waxman, explaining that the idea for the film came from a deeply personal place.
- 9/13/2022
- by Missy Schwartz
- The Wrap
Joanna Hogg concludes the story she began with "The Souvenir," and continued in "The Souvenir Part II", with the spooky "The Eternal Daughter." To be clear: this isn't quite a sequel to those films. But at the same time, it is. "The Souvenir" films were autobiographical works in which Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda Swinton, played Julie, a fictionalized version of Hogg, while Swinton played Rosalind, a version of Hogg's mother. Now, with "The Eternal Daughter," Swinton is back and pulling double duty — she's playing both Julie and Rosalind this time ("The Souvenir" films were set in the 1980s, while "The Eternal Daughter" is set in the present, which explains while the Julie character is older now).
Once again, Hogg is getting personal. Instead of making a movie about herself, here, she's making a movie about her mother. Sort of. More accurately, she's interrogating herself and asking the question:...
Once again, Hogg is getting personal. Instead of making a movie about herself, here, she's making a movie about her mother. Sort of. More accurately, she's interrogating herself and asking the question:...
- 9/13/2022
- by Chris Evangelista
- Slash Film
Click here to read the full article.
After the success of her paired portrait-of-the-artist features The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II, British writer-director Joanna Hogg takes a stylistic swerve with The Eternal Daughter, a melancholy winter’s tale with horror elements.
It’s effectively a third chapter in the Souvenir story, one that jumps into the present day after the 1980s setting of Part II. This time, Tilda Swinton takes over the role of Hogg’s fictional avatar Julie (originally played by Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne) and also reprises the role of Julie’s contained, genteel mother Rosalind, affording the actor a chance to indulge her enthusiasm for complex hair and make-up disguises. The two women travel to a remote hotel in Wales for a sentimental journey, one that stirs up both happy and unhappy memories. In the end, it plays a little too often like an...
After the success of her paired portrait-of-the-artist features The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II, British writer-director Joanna Hogg takes a stylistic swerve with The Eternal Daughter, a melancholy winter’s tale with horror elements.
It’s effectively a third chapter in the Souvenir story, one that jumps into the present day after the 1980s setting of Part II. This time, Tilda Swinton takes over the role of Hogg’s fictional avatar Julie (originally played by Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne) and also reprises the role of Julie’s contained, genteel mother Rosalind, affording the actor a chance to indulge her enthusiasm for complex hair and make-up disguises. The two women travel to a remote hotel in Wales for a sentimental journey, one that stirs up both happy and unhappy memories. In the end, it plays a little too often like an...
- 9/6/2022
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The subject of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the topics of discussion at the Venice Film Festival, bubbled to the surface again on Tuesday with Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton making a statement with her hair dyed yellow, reports ‘Variety’.
“It’s my honor to wear half of the Ukrainian flag,” Swinton said at the press conference for Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Eternal Daughter’, when complimented on her look by a journalist. The star wore a light blue top, which complements the dark blue of the Ukraine flag.
Shot during lockdown, ‘The Eternal Daughter’ follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past, notes ‘Variety’.
Swinton plays both mother and daughter. The names of the mother and daughter in the film are Rosalind and Julie, the names for Swinton and her real-life daughter,...
“It’s my honor to wear half of the Ukrainian flag,” Swinton said at the press conference for Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Eternal Daughter’, when complimented on her look by a journalist. The star wore a light blue top, which complements the dark blue of the Ukraine flag.
Shot during lockdown, ‘The Eternal Daughter’ follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past, notes ‘Variety’.
Swinton plays both mother and daughter. The names of the mother and daughter in the film are Rosalind and Julie, the names for Swinton and her real-life daughter,...
- 9/6/2022
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
At a critical moment towards the end of Joanna Hogg’s magnificent “The Souvenir Part II” — the second and supposedly final portion of her self-portrait of an artist — the director’s young avatar is overcome by her frustrations with the student film she’s trying to make (itself an autobiographical story called “The Souvenir”). “I don’t want to see life as it was,” she stresses, “I want to see life as I imagine it to be.” As played by Honor Swinton Byrne, the hurting but headstrong Julie Hart eventually finds a way to do just that, a breakthrough that allows Hogg’s self-reflexive memoir of a movie to follow suit.
Satisfied that she had committed the ecstatic truth of her own story to celluloid in a way that seemed more honest to her than her memories, Hogg apparently decided to see if she could work the same magic on someone else: Her mother.
Satisfied that she had committed the ecstatic truth of her own story to celluloid in a way that seemed more honest to her than her memories, Hogg apparently decided to see if she could work the same magic on someone else: Her mother.
- 9/6/2022
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A mysterious nighttime mist swirls through Joanna Hogg’s sorrowful, secluded “The Eternal Daughter.” It is pumped, in artificial, Hammer-horror puffs and plumes, across groves and gravel driveways. It snakes around gables topped with gargoyles, snags on hedges, rubs against dark, staring, possibly haunted windows. It shrouds the film the way the unspoken words, undefined guilt and unfulfilled duties that exist between maybe every mother and daughter can cloud the truth of their fraught, primal connection. And it is this grave film’s most apposite motif, in being beautiful and mood-making but vaporous: try to grasp it and your hand closes on nothing but a faint, damp chill.
Filmmaker Julie (Tilda Swinton), her aging mother Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and Rosalind’s dog Louis (Tilda Swinton’s dog Louis) arrive in a white cab one foggy night at the remote Welsh hotel that Julie has booked for a stay over Rosalind’s December birthday.
Filmmaker Julie (Tilda Swinton), her aging mother Rosalind (Tilda Swinton) and Rosalind’s dog Louis (Tilda Swinton’s dog Louis) arrive in a white cab one foggy night at the remote Welsh hotel that Julie has booked for a stay over Rosalind’s December birthday.
- 9/6/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
The subject of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the topics of discussion at the Venice Film Festival, bubbled to the surface again on Tuesday with Tilda Swinton making a statement with her hair dyed yellow.
“It’s my honor to wear half of the Ukrainian flag,” Swinton said at the press conference for Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter,” when complimented on her look by a journalist. Swinton expressed that it was an honor later during the conference as well. The star wore a light blue top, which complements the dark blue of the Ukraine flag.
Shot during lockdown, “The Eternal Daughter” follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Swinton plays both mother and daughter. The names of the mother and daughter in the film are Rosalind and Julie,...
“It’s my honor to wear half of the Ukrainian flag,” Swinton said at the press conference for Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter,” when complimented on her look by a journalist. Swinton expressed that it was an honor later during the conference as well. The star wore a light blue top, which complements the dark blue of the Ukraine flag.
Shot during lockdown, “The Eternal Daughter” follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Swinton plays both mother and daughter. The names of the mother and daughter in the film are Rosalind and Julie,...
- 9/6/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
TIFF announced its Short Cuts section today comprised of 39 live-action narrative, documentary, and animated short films from directors repping 18 countries.
Further broken down, the section includes 21 World Premieres and 15 North American Premieres presented in 20 different languages from countries such as Portugal, China, Colombia, Mongolia, Kenya, Ukraine, US, UK, and Canada.
“We’re thrilled to be returning with one of our strongest ever selections of short films by directors from all over the world,” says Jason Anderson, International Programmer for Short Cuts. “We’re always amazed by the breadth, depth, and diversity of the talents working in short-form cinema, whether they’re filmmakers who we’ve already had the privilege of presenting at TIFF or emerging storytellers who we can’t wait to introduce to our audiences. And however different these new works may be, what they share is an incredible sense of clarity and economy – these are films that don...
Further broken down, the section includes 21 World Premieres and 15 North American Premieres presented in 20 different languages from countries such as Portugal, China, Colombia, Mongolia, Kenya, Ukraine, US, UK, and Canada.
“We’re thrilled to be returning with one of our strongest ever selections of short films by directors from all over the world,” says Jason Anderson, International Programmer for Short Cuts. “We’re always amazed by the breadth, depth, and diversity of the talents working in short-form cinema, whether they’re filmmakers who we’ve already had the privilege of presenting at TIFF or emerging storytellers who we can’t wait to introduce to our audiences. And however different these new works may be, what they share is an incredible sense of clarity and economy – these are films that don...
- 8/17/2022
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Toronto International Film Festival has revealed its Short Cuts lineup, featuring 39 live-action narrative, documentary, and animated shorts films from 18 countries.
Presented by TikTok, the program represents a blend of returning filmmakers and newcomers. Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Pupille,” co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón, will make its Canadian premiere at the festival. Honor Swinton Byrne of “The Souvenir,” which screened at TIFF in 2018, stars in Hazel McKibbin’s “She Always Wins.” Actor Kiawentiio of 2020 TIFF awardee “Beans” is back, this time in Asia Youngman’s “N’xaxaitkw.” Other TIFF alum with new shorts in the program are Sarah McCarthy, Mbithi Masya, Matthew Rankin, Carol Nguyen, Karen Chapman, and Sophy Romvari.
Award-winning animated shorts that made the cut include “The Flying Sailor” and “Ice Merchants.” On the documentary side, “Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles” by Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, “Anastasia” by Sarah McCarthy of the U.K., and “Quiet Minds Silent Streets” by Toronto...
Presented by TikTok, the program represents a blend of returning filmmakers and newcomers. Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Pupille,” co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón, will make its Canadian premiere at the festival. Honor Swinton Byrne of “The Souvenir,” which screened at TIFF in 2018, stars in Hazel McKibbin’s “She Always Wins.” Actor Kiawentiio of 2020 TIFF awardee “Beans” is back, this time in Asia Youngman’s “N’xaxaitkw.” Other TIFF alum with new shorts in the program are Sarah McCarthy, Mbithi Masya, Matthew Rankin, Carol Nguyen, Karen Chapman, and Sophy Romvari.
Award-winning animated shorts that made the cut include “The Flying Sailor” and “Ice Merchants.” On the documentary side, “Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles” by Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, “Anastasia” by Sarah McCarthy of the U.K., and “Quiet Minds Silent Streets” by Toronto...
- 8/17/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Joanna Hogg and Kenneth Branagh join an eminent group of film-makers who have mined their youth for dramatic inspiration
“Write what you know,” students are always told on writing courses, though it’s not advice that should be followed to the letter: fantasy and science fiction would be in a sorry place if everyone complied. Perhaps the past two years of isolation and lockdowns have made everyone more reflective, however, since suddenly any number of established film-makers are returning to their youth for inspiration. Even Steven Spielberg, never previously the most personal of directors, is going autobiographical with his next film, The Fabelmans. Two of this week’s VOD releases, meanwhile, find British film-makers tackling the cine-memoir to very different ends.
Joanna Hogg’s inspired, opalescent The Souvenir Part II sees her continuing the portrait of the artist as a young woman that she began in 2019’s The Souvenir. The...
“Write what you know,” students are always told on writing courses, though it’s not advice that should be followed to the letter: fantasy and science fiction would be in a sorry place if everyone complied. Perhaps the past two years of isolation and lockdowns have made everyone more reflective, however, since suddenly any number of established film-makers are returning to their youth for inspiration. Even Steven Spielberg, never previously the most personal of directors, is going autobiographical with his next film, The Fabelmans. Two of this week’s VOD releases, meanwhile, find British film-makers tackling the cine-memoir to very different ends.
Joanna Hogg’s inspired, opalescent The Souvenir Part II sees her continuing the portrait of the artist as a young woman that she began in 2019’s The Souvenir. The...
- 4/23/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – Here we go again. Welcome to the annual Oscar Predictions on HollywoodChicago.com, for 2022 (the 94th Academy Awards). The film/entertainment contributors – Patrick McDonald, Spike Walters and Jon Lennon Espino – are joined by guest Michael Glover Smith, the director of the upcoming film “Relative.”
Michael Glover Smith is a locally-based Chicago filmmaker. “Relative” is his fourth feature film and will have its Chicago debut at a sold-out screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center on April 5th, 2022, as part of the Midwest Film Festival. The general release is scheduled for the upcoming summer.
The Predictors! The Oscars are on ABC-tv, March 27th, 2022
Photo credit: File Photo
Ten films of 2021 – “Belfast,” “Coda,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Drive My Car,” “Dune,” “King Richard,” “Licorice Pizza,” “Nightmare Alley,” “The Power of the Dog” and “West Side Story” – will vie for the Best Picture Award. The Hc.com predictors will opine on six categories … Best Picture,...
Michael Glover Smith is a locally-based Chicago filmmaker. “Relative” is his fourth feature film and will have its Chicago debut at a sold-out screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center on April 5th, 2022, as part of the Midwest Film Festival. The general release is scheduled for the upcoming summer.
The Predictors! The Oscars are on ABC-tv, March 27th, 2022
Photo credit: File Photo
Ten films of 2021 – “Belfast,” “Coda,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Drive My Car,” “Dune,” “King Richard,” “Licorice Pizza,” “Nightmare Alley,” “The Power of the Dog” and “West Side Story” – will vie for the Best Picture Award. The Hc.com predictors will opine on six categories … Best Picture,...
- 3/25/2022
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Part two of Hogg’s semi-autobiographical drama, in which a young film-maker finds her creative path after a doomed love affair, is the director’s most accessible work to date
What is “The Souvenir”? In Joanna Hogg’s autobiographically inspired 2019 drama, that title appeared to refer specifically to an 18th-century Fragonard painting depicting a young woman carving the name of her lover into a tree trunk. In that film, set in the 1980s, Julie Harte (played by Hogg’s goddaughter Honor Swinton Byrne) is introduced to the painting by an enigmatic man with whom she is falling in love. Like Hogg, Julie is perplexed by what the painting means and by her own increasingly tumultuous feelings for her mysterious companion.
In this flipside second instalment of Hogg’s most personal and surprisingly most accessible work, the word “souvenir” takes on a rather more metatextual meaning. This time the film itself...
What is “The Souvenir”? In Joanna Hogg’s autobiographically inspired 2019 drama, that title appeared to refer specifically to an 18th-century Fragonard painting depicting a young woman carving the name of her lover into a tree trunk. In that film, set in the 1980s, Julie Harte (played by Hogg’s goddaughter Honor Swinton Byrne) is introduced to the painting by an enigmatic man with whom she is falling in love. Like Hogg, Julie is perplexed by what the painting means and by her own increasingly tumultuous feelings for her mysterious companion.
In this flipside second instalment of Hogg’s most personal and surprisingly most accessible work, the word “souvenir” takes on a rather more metatextual meaning. This time the film itself...
- 2/6/2022
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
Our year-end coverage continues with a look at the best performances of 2021. Rather than divide categories into supporting or lead or by gender, we’ve written about our 35 favorites, period. Check our countdown below and start watching the ones you’ve missed here.
35. Katia Pascariu (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Katia Pascariu’s Emi, a teacher with a circulating home sex tape, is full of defiance. She walks around her Romanian homeland without pause, exasperated and disobedient. In the face of conflict she argues for her personal decisions, showing the sheer absurdity of the situation. Pascariu is the driving force behind Bad Luck Banging or Loony Poon, a comedy that leans on the effectiveness of her masked facial expressions and dialogue simmering with frustration. She’s the film’s only memorable face, synonymous with the farcical but realistic nature of her story, bringing to life a mishmash of ideas from writer-director Radu Jude.
35. Katia Pascariu (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Katia Pascariu’s Emi, a teacher with a circulating home sex tape, is full of defiance. She walks around her Romanian homeland without pause, exasperated and disobedient. In the face of conflict she argues for her personal decisions, showing the sheer absurdity of the situation. Pascariu is the driving force behind Bad Luck Banging or Loony Poon, a comedy that leans on the effectiveness of her masked facial expressions and dialogue simmering with frustration. She’s the film’s only memorable face, synonymous with the farcical but realistic nature of her story, bringing to life a mishmash of ideas from writer-director Radu Jude.
- 12/27/2021
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Picturehouse Entertainment has debuted a new trailer for Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir Part II.’
In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction. Joanna Hogg’s shimmering story of first love and a young woman’s formative years.
Related: The Souvenir II Review – Cannes 2021
The film is a portrait of the artist that transcends the halting particulars of everyday life – a singular, alchemic mix of memoir and fantasy.
Directed by Joanna Hogg, the film stars Honor Swinton Byrne, Jaygann Ayeh, Richard Ayoade, Ariane Labed, James Spencer Ashworth, Charlie Heaton, Joe Alwyn, Harris Dickinson and Tilda Swinton.
Also in trailers – Bradley Cooper undergoes questioning in trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’
The film hits UK cinemas on February 4th.
In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction. Joanna Hogg’s shimmering story of first love and a young woman’s formative years.
Related: The Souvenir II Review – Cannes 2021
The film is a portrait of the artist that transcends the halting particulars of everyday life – a singular, alchemic mix of memoir and fantasy.
Directed by Joanna Hogg, the film stars Honor Swinton Byrne, Jaygann Ayeh, Richard Ayoade, Ariane Labed, James Spencer Ashworth, Charlie Heaton, Joe Alwyn, Harris Dickinson and Tilda Swinton.
Also in trailers – Bradley Cooper undergoes questioning in trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’
The film hits UK cinemas on February 4th.
- 11/23/2021
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Following a nationwide search, “The Crown” has found its Prince William in newcomer Senan West, Variety can exclusively reveal.
The 13 year old is the real-life son of Dominic West, who takes over from Josh O’Conner as Prince Charles in the highly anticipated fifth season of the hit Netflix show. Elizabeth Debicki (“Tenet”) will play his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, replacing Emma Corrin.
Variety understands Senan has been cast as a slightly older Prince William, portraying him as he begins to mature into a young man. He will make his on-screen debut in the final episodes of the season. It’s believed the young actor’s audition, submitted via tape by his agent, caught the attention of the show’s producers.
William had only just turned 15 in 1997 when Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris alongside her beau, Dodi Al Fayed. As Variety revealed in September, Al...
The 13 year old is the real-life son of Dominic West, who takes over from Josh O’Conner as Prince Charles in the highly anticipated fifth season of the hit Netflix show. Elizabeth Debicki (“Tenet”) will play his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, replacing Emma Corrin.
Variety understands Senan has been cast as a slightly older Prince William, portraying him as he begins to mature into a young man. He will make his on-screen debut in the final episodes of the season. It’s believed the young actor’s audition, submitted via tape by his agent, caught the attention of the show’s producers.
William had only just turned 15 in 1997 when Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris alongside her beau, Dodi Al Fayed. As Variety revealed in September, Al...
- 11/17/2021
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on Wbgr-fm on November 11th, 2021, reviewing the new film written and directed by Joanna Hogg, “The Souvenir Part II” in theaters on November 12th.
Rating: 5.0/5.0
This is a sequel to the 2019 film. Julie is a graduate student in cinema working on her thesis film, which is about the events of the first film, during which she had an affair with a much older man who died as a result of his appetite for drugs. As the events unfold, the line between the reality and the film begin to blur. Featuring Tilda Swinton as Julie’s mother.
“The Souvenir Part II” is in theaters beginning on November 12th. Featuring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Switon, Alice McMillan, Charlie Heston and Jaygann Ayeh. Written and directed by Joanna Hogg. Rated “R”
Click here for Patrick McDonald’s full on-air...
Rating: 5.0/5.0
This is a sequel to the 2019 film. Julie is a graduate student in cinema working on her thesis film, which is about the events of the first film, during which she had an affair with a much older man who died as a result of his appetite for drugs. As the events unfold, the line between the reality and the film begin to blur. Featuring Tilda Swinton as Julie’s mother.
“The Souvenir Part II” is in theaters beginning on November 12th. Featuring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Switon, Alice McMillan, Charlie Heston and Jaygann Ayeh. Written and directed by Joanna Hogg. Rated “R”
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- 11/14/2021
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
A melancholic memory piece that continues to follow the young, budding filmmaker Julie’s (Honor Swinton Byrne) personal and artistic journey, Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographical “The Souvenir: Part II” picks up her tale where the former film had left it off, sculpting a B-side just as haunting and immersive.
Reuniting with Hogg after infusing “Part I” with her thoughtful vision, costume designer Grace Snell once again dresses Julie and her world through a sophisticated ‘80s lens. It’s a refined aesthetic that graciously sharpens and matures while the five-year period in which “Part II” is set progresses and Julie navigates her grief over Anthony [Tom Burke]; her older, manipulative boyfriend who passes away from an overdose in “Part I” after an invigorating yet toxic relationship with the innocent Julie. Snell also shoulders a double-duty of sorts here as one of the film’s key artisans. Mirroring the film-within-a-film structure of...
Reuniting with Hogg after infusing “Part I” with her thoughtful vision, costume designer Grace Snell once again dresses Julie and her world through a sophisticated ‘80s lens. It’s a refined aesthetic that graciously sharpens and matures while the five-year period in which “Part II” is set progresses and Julie navigates her grief over Anthony [Tom Burke]; her older, manipulative boyfriend who passes away from an overdose in “Part I” after an invigorating yet toxic relationship with the innocent Julie. Snell also shoulders a double-duty of sorts here as one of the film’s key artisans. Mirroring the film-within-a-film structure of...
- 11/12/2021
- by Tomris Laffly
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Dean Stockwell in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986)The actor Dean Stockwell, remembered for his performances in films like The Boy with the Green Hair (1948), Paris, Texas (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), and many more, has died at the age of 85. As Sheila O'Malley mentions in her tribute, Stockwell's career was marked by numerous disappearances. He didn't always love acting, but "he lived long enough to be able to not just appreciate but feel the love that people had for him, the way audiences fell in love with him for 70 years." A newly discovered memoir by Paul Newman will be published next year by Knopf. Based on Newman's conversations with screenwriter Stewart Stern, the book aims to tell the legendary actor's story in his own words. Following the exit of Robert Pattinson and Taron Egerton, Joe Alwyn...
- 11/10/2021
- MUBI
Joanna Hogg’s point of departure as a filmmaker, as is the case with her predecessors in Yasujiro Ozu and Chantal Akerman, is the idea that there is nothing stranger, more mesmerizing, more surreal than the lens of realism in its most granular and precise expression. The Souvenir Part II places Julie in the aftermath of Anthony’s (Tom Burke) death in The Souvenir (2019), together completing a two-part narrative that closely tracks Hogg’s own coming of age as a film student in eighties London. With Hogg’s subtle treatment the development of film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) between the two films can appear almost imperceptible from scene to scene, yet is tectonic in its entirety. The Souvenir’s Julie wants to make a movie about a young boy’s working class life in de-industrialized and impoverished Sutherland, a port city in the northeast of England. For Julie, her...
- 11/4/2021
- MUBI
Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho is an arthouse film that opened on 3,000 screens — a gamble in a theatrical market where multiplex-goers have been mostly turning out for big-budget, high-octane studio franchises.
Except for Downton Abbey, Focus has almost never launched a film on that many screens, period. Pre-Covid, it would surely have rolled out the 1960s-themed psychological thriller over weeks in a “platform” release starting with arthouses. But the pandemic has blurred the lines of what plays where.
Last Night — about an aspiring fashion designer mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she meets a dazzling wannabe singer and a very dark secret — did best in arthouse theaters,...
Except for Downton Abbey, Focus has almost never launched a film on that many screens, period. Pre-Covid, it would surely have rolled out the 1960s-themed psychological thriller over weeks in a “platform” release starting with arthouses. But the pandemic has blurred the lines of what plays where.
Last Night — about an aspiring fashion designer mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she meets a dazzling wannabe singer and a very dark secret — did best in arthouse theaters,...
- 10/31/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Focus Features presents Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, a twisty psycho-thriller with a great soundtrack, as Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch goes wider, testing the appeal of a director whose films have been called the arthouse equivalent of Marvel.
Last Night, a time-bending genre tale, unspools on just over 3,000 screens — not exactly specialty but it’s from a writer-director who “can dip his toe into anything, a true specialty film, a more commercial film like Baby Driver, and now a psychological thriller that harkens back to Hitchcock, Brian De Palma and David Lynch,” said Focus distribution president Lisa Bunnell. It’s “more than a typical commercial slasher movie. It takes the thriller genre to a new level.”
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and screened at TIFF, where it resonated strongly with preview and festival audiences. Deadline’s review “called it a dark and delicious trip.
Last Night, a time-bending genre tale, unspools on just over 3,000 screens — not exactly specialty but it’s from a writer-director who “can dip his toe into anything, a true specialty film, a more commercial film like Baby Driver, and now a psychological thriller that harkens back to Hitchcock, Brian De Palma and David Lynch,” said Focus distribution president Lisa Bunnell. It’s “more than a typical commercial slasher movie. It takes the thriller genre to a new level.”
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and screened at TIFF, where it resonated strongly with preview and festival audiences. Deadline’s review “called it a dark and delicious trip.
- 10/29/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s early morning in LA and Joanna Hogg is looking back. It is a process the filmmaker has grown accustomed to in recent years, not least with her latest film. Less a sequel to its acclaimed predecessor than a mirror––even a Matryoshka––and examination of how people remember things, or how they might choose for them to be remembered, The Souvenir Part II reintroduces the viewer to Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), now deep in mourning for her doomed lover Anthony, an enigma to whom she has devoted her graduation film. Layers beget layers: “I got so many ideas from that first shoot,” Hogg says over Zoom, “and the second part is a response to that shoot. It’s almost like I’m making some kind of documentation of that experience that I had had, not just the characters within the story.”
Born in London in 1960, Hogg studied at...
Born in London in 1960, Hogg studied at...
- 10/28/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
On an otherwise clean whiteboard, my undergraduate screenwriting professors used to scrawl two words: “want,” “need.” They'd circle them vigorously, then ask over and over, what does the character want? What does the character need? I sat around the classroom table unable to respond but considering the questions in earnest, marveling at the ease with which some of my peers came up with answers. My scripts faltered often, and I knew that their insufficiency wasn't of language but of articulation. I wanted my characters to need real though elusive things, like love and fulfillment. But my imagination resisted the stretch—their wants, needs, and obstacles came to be too neat, trying too hard to answer the questions. I knew what a good film was; more than that, I knew what a good film could be, and chased a sensation that tingles first behind your eyes, then in the bottom of your stomach,...
- 10/26/2021
- MUBI
"What did it make you feel?!" A24 has revealed an official trailer for the film The Souvenir: Part II, a follow-up to the 2019 film The Souvenir, both of them written and directed by filmmaker Joanna Hogg. This premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year playing in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar, and is also stopping by the Zurich, New York, and London Film Festivals this fall before its release. This is a direct sequel to The Souvenir, continuing the story of Julie, a young filmmaker in England trying to pick up the pieces of her life after a manipulative, destructive relationship (as seen in the first film) ends abruptly. Honor Swinton Byrne returns as Julie, who tries to make a film about her own life, with a cast including Jaygann Ayeh, Richard Ayoade, Ariane Labed, James Spencer Ashworth, Harris Dickinson, Charlie Heaton, Joe Alwyn, and Tilda Swinton. I'm not...
- 9/29/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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