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
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
I’ve always liked female bodies. This is the first line of voice-over spoken in French across the opening seconds of black that launch While I’m Still Breathing (Tandis que je respire encore), a 12-minute short film playing in Sundance New Frontier by a creative collective that includes writer and actress Laure Giappiconi; sound and performance artist Elisa Monteil; and photographer and filmmaker La Fille Renne. The voice, a woman’s, speaks over a whirl of black and white grain in a medium shot showing a woman standing against a horizon of black tree trunks and blurred branches. The images are a […]...
- 1/30/2020
- by Holly Willis
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
I’ve always liked female bodies. This is the first line of voice-over spoken in French across the opening seconds of black that launch While I’m Still Breathing (Tandis que je respire encore), a 12-minute short film playing in Sundance New Frontier by a creative collective that includes writer and actress Laure Giappiconi; sound and performance artist Elisa Monteil; and photographer and filmmaker La Fille Renne. The voice, a woman’s, speaks over a whirl of black and white grain in a medium shot showing a woman standing against a horizon of black tree trunks and blurred branches. The images are a […]...
- 1/30/2020
- by Holly Willis
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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