For his tenth Cannes feature premiere, Arnaud Desplechin chose to present a docu-fictional love letter to cinema. Two years after Brother and Sister was in Competition, Spectateurs (or Filmlovers!) is one of the festival’s Special Screenings, an effervescent walk down memory lane with a director who has helped shape contemporary French cinema for the better. It’s not hard for a Frenchman to be a cinephile––almost everyone is trained in film knowledge, either formally or informally, as part of their cultural upbringing. But Filmlovers! manages to set itself apart from all the other meta-documentaries or essays about how cinema made their director the person they are today. Instead it is both an honest and highly poetic feature that quite naturally absorbs film and literary references to address the structural role cinema has played for both Desplechin himself and our way of viewing the world.
Filmlovers! is narrated by Paul Dédalus,...
Filmlovers! is narrated by Paul Dédalus,...
- 5/26/2024
- by Savina Petkova
- The Film Stage
In the Moscow Times’ obituary for Eduard Limonov, who died four years ago aged 77, writer Mark Galeotti summed up the poet-turned-politician in two simple sentences: “Was Limonov a visionary or a poser, an artist or a politician, a leftist or a rightist? The answer to all of them is, of course, yes.” This is key to understanding Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest movie, a boundary-blasting biopic that simply drips with punk-rock energy, revealing everything and nothing about a slippery character whose modus operandi was reinvention from the get-go and for whom consistency really was the hobgoblin of small minds.
Limonov, the poet, fits into a long line of miscreant artists, such as writer Vladimir Mayakovsky, who co-wrote the manifesto of the Russian Futurist group (“A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”) in 1912, and Dziga Vertov, the avant-garde director whose Man with a Movie Camera (1929) changed the face of documentary altogether.
Limonov, the poet, fits into a long line of miscreant artists, such as writer Vladimir Mayakovsky, who co-wrote the manifesto of the Russian Futurist group (“A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”) in 1912, and Dziga Vertov, the avant-garde director whose Man with a Movie Camera (1929) changed the face of documentary altogether.
- 5/19/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.
List of journalists who have been killed.
The below is of lesser note:
Best First Watches:
Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...
In all honesty, the films of 2023 should take a backseat to the images we are seeing every day in Gaza, where journalists and average citizens have been recording and documenting a daily assault on their homes and livelihoods by the Idf. Whatever fakery we watched and enjoyed in the cinema this year should always be kept in perspective in importance with images that are real and actually happening right now. The Palestinians who have documented these important images have been targeted and killed with intent and purpose to silence what their photos and videos are showing and saying.
List of journalists who have been killed.
The below is of lesser note:
Best First Watches:
Angel’s Egg La belle noiseuse Centipede Horror Charley Varrick Coffy Crimson Gold...
- 1/3/2024
- by Soham Gadre
- The Film Stage
Knock Off.Tsui Hark’s Knock Off (1998) begins with an amniotic scene: baby dolls underwater, suggesting birth or possibly rebirth. Submerged off the coast of Hong Kong, which passed from British to Chinese governance in the historic 1997 Handover, the dolls gesture toward new beginnings. But these aren’t flesh-and-blood infants: they’re products, manufactured imitations of the real thing and copies of each other. Detached from any sense of originality, these toys can be reproduced and distributed wherever the market leads. The movement of the dolls through the water evokes the global flow of goods under late capitalism, as well as the postmodernist shift away from reality into simulacra. Moreover, their synthetic nature complicates the birth allegory—in what sense was the Handover a “real” rebirth?This is a fitting prologue for a film obsessed with the ersatz. Delivering on its title, Knock Off tracks two expat businessmen in Hong...
- 9/28/2023
- MUBI
Growing up as the only son of Ed Pressman, the prolific Hollywood independent producer behind more than 90 major productions including Wall Street, American Psycho and The Crow, it’s fair to say that the film business has always been in Sam Pressman’s blood.
“As a little kid, I got to be on set a lot and feel that beautiful sense of live shoots,” says Pressman, now CEO of Pressman Film, which was established by his late father in 1969. “Movies are deep inside of me, but I didn’t always believe that I would go into film. I really loved it more as an art. I remember taking a silent film class in my freshman year of college where we watched the really tough silent documentary Man With a Movie Camera and we studied it as a cultural phenomenon – it was fascinating.”
But his father’s love of the independent...
“As a little kid, I got to be on set a lot and feel that beautiful sense of live shoots,” says Pressman, now CEO of Pressman Film, which was established by his late father in 1969. “Movies are deep inside of me, but I didn’t always believe that I would go into film. I really loved it more as an art. I remember taking a silent film class in my freshman year of college where we watched the really tough silent documentary Man With a Movie Camera and we studied it as a cultural phenomenon – it was fascinating.”
But his father’s love of the independent...
- 9/11/2023
- by Diana Lodderhose
- Deadline Film + TV
British director Joe Wright, who helmed Winston Churchill drama “Darkest Hour” – which earned Gary Oldman an Oscar for his portrayal as the British prime minister – has now changed historical sides.
Wright is at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios shooting high-end TV drama “M. Son of the Century” which chronicles Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. A timely tale because, as he puts it: “Populist leaders are sprouting up all over the world.”
Aesthetically, the show will be “quite outlandish” with deeply saturated colors, punctuated by a “kind of techno score,” the director said during a recent set visit. Though “It’s not told in a vérité style,” Wright pointed out that “All the facts of what happened, they’re all there.”
Luca Marinelli plays Mussolini during the period between 1919, when he founded the fascist party in Italy, and 1925 when – having gained power with the 1922 March on Rome – Mussolini made an infamous...
Wright is at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios shooting high-end TV drama “M. Son of the Century” which chronicles Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. A timely tale because, as he puts it: “Populist leaders are sprouting up all over the world.”
Aesthetically, the show will be “quite outlandish” with deeply saturated colors, punctuated by a “kind of techno score,” the director said during a recent set visit. Though “It’s not told in a vérité style,” Wright pointed out that “All the facts of what happened, they’re all there.”
Luca Marinelli plays Mussolini during the period between 1919, when he founded the fascist party in Italy, and 1925 when – having gained power with the 1922 March on Rome – Mussolini made an infamous...
- 4/17/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
- 1/10/2023
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Italy in 2022 made several landmark strides in the international entertainment arena: an Italian play, Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy,” garnered five Tony Awards, a prize the country had never conquered; Roman rock band Måneskin scored a Grammy nomination; and even as domestic box office plunged this year, Italian film exports mushroomed.
Massini’s five-hour play, which follows the three Lehman brothers from their arrival from Germany in New York in 1844 up to the 2008 bankruptcy of their global financial services company, prompted Sam Mendes to stage an English-language adaptation, which ultimately triumphed at the Tonys. Now a high-end TV series based on his play is being developed by producers Domenico Procacci and Lorenzo Mieli with Florian Zeller attached to direct. Procacci, speaking to Variety, praised Massini for managing “to tell so effectively a story that doesn’t have any Italian elements, since most of it takes place in the U.
Massini’s five-hour play, which follows the three Lehman brothers from their arrival from Germany in New York in 1844 up to the 2008 bankruptcy of their global financial services company, prompted Sam Mendes to stage an English-language adaptation, which ultimately triumphed at the Tonys. Now a high-end TV series based on his play is being developed by producers Domenico Procacci and Lorenzo Mieli with Florian Zeller attached to direct. Procacci, speaking to Variety, praised Massini for managing “to tell so effectively a story that doesn’t have any Italian elements, since most of it takes place in the U.
- 12/21/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDesigned by Hartland Villa, the official poster for the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival features a still from Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol’s The Truman Show. The festival has also unveiled the lineup for its official selection, which features a hefty list of competitors for the Palme d'Or. Check out the full lineup here.Accompanying the official selection are the Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week lineups, which are not to be overlooked. Pietro Marcello's French-language debut Scarlet will be opening the Directors' Fortnight, while Yann Gonzalez and July Jung will be premiering new films at Critics' Week. Kelly Reichardt will be receiving an honorary Golden Leopard from this year's Locarno International Film Festival in celebration of her distinguished career, throughout which she's "[redesigned] the profile of genres, from western to thriller,...
- 4/20/2022
- MUBI
The embattled nation’s cinema is rich and distinctive, from 1929’s milestone Man With a Movie Camera to Sergei Loznitsa’s pitch-black comedy Donbass
Ukraine’s national cinema is a storied and distinctive one, though not one that has traditionally received the exposure it deserves. That’s been shifting of late, with Ukrainian film-makers such as Sergei Loznitsa and Valentyn Vasyanovych finding a following on the international film festival circuit. On the streaming side of things, availability is pretty patchy even when it comes to some major titles – though a couple of useful online initiatives are seeking to put that right.
We’ll begin with probably the most famous vision of Ukraine on screen: Dziga Vertov’s landmark 1929 documentary Man With a Movie Camera (BFI Player), which landed in the top 10 of Sight and Sound magazine’s all-time greatest films poll a decade ago. Nearly a century after it was made,...
Ukraine’s national cinema is a storied and distinctive one, though not one that has traditionally received the exposure it deserves. That’s been shifting of late, with Ukrainian film-makers such as Sergei Loznitsa and Valentyn Vasyanovych finding a following on the international film festival circuit. On the streaming side of things, availability is pretty patchy even when it comes to some major titles – though a couple of useful online initiatives are seeking to put that right.
We’ll begin with probably the most famous vision of Ukraine on screen: Dziga Vertov’s landmark 1929 documentary Man With a Movie Camera (BFI Player), which landed in the top 10 of Sight and Sound magazine’s all-time greatest films poll a decade ago. Nearly a century after it was made,...
- 3/5/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
It’s not every day a silent film is discovered, restored, and screened for audiences 100 years since it was last seen by any audience but attendees at this year’s Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam are in for just such a treat. It’s been revealed that Soviet director Dziga Vertov’s “The History of the Civil War,” filmed in 1921, will screen at the festival for just the second time in its existence. The film will be shown with live musical accompaniment from the Anvil Orchestra, using a newly composed soundtrack written by Roger Miller and Terry Donahue, former members of the Alloy Orchestra.
The film was initially presumed to be lost, last screening for members of the Comintern in 1921. It was presumed that only a 12-minute snippet was all that existed. This print was part of a two-year restoration effort by film historian Nikolai Izvolov, who had previously brought Vertov’s 1918 feature,...
The film was initially presumed to be lost, last screening for members of the Comintern in 1921. It was presumed that only a 12-minute snippet was all that existed. This print was part of a two-year restoration effort by film historian Nikolai Izvolov, who had previously brought Vertov’s 1918 feature,...
- 10/20/2021
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
The documentary universe has changed radically over the past dozen years. No longer the domain of a few cable channels or public television stations, no longer bound by the old cinema verite rules of engagement, non-fiction filmmaking has spent the past decade bursting out of the low-budget indie sidelines into mainstream acceptance, adopting tricks and tropes from fiction and series storytelling as directors capture audience attention from all over the world.
One force for change throughout has been the Cinema Eye Honors, an awards body created in 2007 by a group of independent filmmakers. Led by Los Angeles documentary filmmaker A.J. Schnack (“Kurt Cobain About a Son” and the recent “30 for 30” entry “Long Gone Summer”), the Cinema Eye Honors have led the charge in shaking up conversations about the types of non-fiction storytelling that were worthy of celebration.
“It was a reaction to what was happening elsewhere in the field,” Schnack...
One force for change throughout has been the Cinema Eye Honors, an awards body created in 2007 by a group of independent filmmakers. Led by Los Angeles documentary filmmaker A.J. Schnack (“Kurt Cobain About a Son” and the recent “30 for 30” entry “Long Gone Summer”), the Cinema Eye Honors have led the charge in shaking up conversations about the types of non-fiction storytelling that were worthy of celebration.
“It was a reaction to what was happening elsewhere in the field,” Schnack...
- 9/22/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
than the crowdsourced YouTube doc “Life in a Day 2020.” The internet video behemoth foretold a new era of DIY filmmaking when it launched in 2005, and just five years later it tried give an artistic patina to the amateur works that defined the site with “Life in a Day,” an assortment of uploaded clips given some coherence by veteran documentarian Kevin Macdonald. The result was meant to be profound, a glimpse at the beauty of the ordinary. But it was just ordinary.
A decade later, YouTube and Macdonald have doubled down with “Life in a Day 2020,” which leans into the gravitas — and what better year to get “deep” than 2020? Over 320,000 amateur videographers from 192 countries uploaded videos shot on July 25, 2020, and the footage could be anything. Some are performance works: a Black guy sings the Schubert Lied “The Elf King” in crisp, precise German; one teenage Italian girl poses coquettishly...
A decade later, YouTube and Macdonald have doubled down with “Life in a Day 2020,” which leans into the gravitas — and what better year to get “deep” than 2020? Over 320,000 amateur videographers from 192 countries uploaded videos shot on July 25, 2020, and the footage could be anything. Some are performance works: a Black guy sings the Schubert Lied “The Elf King” in crisp, precise German; one teenage Italian girl poses coquettishly...
- 2/2/2021
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
With regard to the concept of movies as a way to approach and better understand a subject, we, as the audience, certainly see the world through a different lens (pun intended) after having followed the story or having been through the same journey as the characters. However, in many ways, the same principle should also be applied to the creator(s) of the feature, because while the idea for the story, the characters and the aesthetics may have laid the theoretical foundation for it, the filming process often brings new experiences and knowledge to the surface, at times to an extent which changes the feature as a whole. In his feature debut “The Boy With Moving Image” Indonesian director Roufy Nasution puts this idea at the center of the story revolving around a young director whose encounter with a woman changes his perspective on his craft and on life itself.
- 1/23/2021
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, born January 23, 1898, in Latvia, was, for better and worse, a distinct product of his time. At the turn of the century, the Russian Empire was a vast, volatile region of intense sociopolitical upheaval, technological innovation, and artistic inspiration, cultural facets that would define and dramatically impact Eisenstein’s subsequently tremulous life and career. Intending to follow in the footsteps of his father, Eisenstein was admitted to the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering in 1915. But with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, he enlisted in the Red Army and became a designer for its theatrical unit. Enamored by the heady influence of the Bolshevik uprising, Eisenstein was also inspired by assorted manner of creative expression, including Kabuki theater, opera, and comic strips. After joining the Proletkult Theatre in Moscow,...
- 8/12/2020
- MUBI
“Everybody smile and say ‘cinema,'” young Myroslava Trofymchuk instructs several Ukrainian soldiers, as they obligingly pose and perform for her camera, their brawny tank reduced to a prop in the rubbly, wintry background. It’s the only time we see the masculine agents of conflict in “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange,” a documentary with its multiple lenses otherwise turned entirely on the women and children living through the War in Donbass. Under the fledgling filmmaker’s direction, however, the soldiers briefly become benevolent players in her vision of life under siege in Ukraine, where cinema sometimes feels like all she has to smile about; a momentary memory of kindness and goodwill is fashioned from the ashes of damage and trauma.
Trofymchuk is not the director of “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”: That task falls to Kyiv-based poet and filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk, though as she...
Trofymchuk is not the director of “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”: That task falls to Kyiv-based poet and filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk, though as she...
- 2/19/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
After spending $450 million on four months of renovation and some 47,000 square feet of new gallery space, MoMA reopens October 21 with a radical refashioning of its artwork and curation. The goal is to provide a more diverse and expansive understanding of modernism — and that includes film.
While Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” still greets visitors in the museum’s first gallery, they only have to look to the right for the first cinematic experience, a recording of the New York City subway from 1905. The piece sits at the center of an entire room dedicated to early photography and moving images, including a selection from the Bert Williams 1914 silent work “Lime Kiln Club Field Day,” a Biograph production considered the earliest surviving film with African American actors.
It keeps going. Wandering the galleries two weeks before the opening, much remained unlabeled and unfinished — but movies were almost everywhere, sharing space with the...
While Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” still greets visitors in the museum’s first gallery, they only have to look to the right for the first cinematic experience, a recording of the New York City subway from 1905. The piece sits at the center of an entire room dedicated to early photography and moving images, including a selection from the Bert Williams 1914 silent work “Lime Kiln Club Field Day,” a Biograph production considered the earliest surviving film with African American actors.
It keeps going. Wandering the galleries two weeks before the opening, much remained unlabeled and unfinished — but movies were almost everywhere, sharing space with the...
- 10/10/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
David Abelevich Kaufman – a.k.a. Dziga Vertov, a Ukrainian phrase meaning “spinning top” – is best known for his pioneering 1929 film “Man With a Movie Camera,” a snapshot of daily life in various Russian cities. Unusually for a documentary, the film wasn’t so much celebrated for its subject-matter as its style – even today, the film is a startlingly adventurous exploration of the possibilities of cinema, using slow motion, shot reversals, freeze-frames, optical illusions and more to create a hallucinogenic meditation on the everyday.
It was deemed to be the high watermark of the director’s career, even though he worked until his death in 1954, aged 58. But until now it’s been impossible to truly measure Vertov’s achievements, since his ambitious debut, 1918’s “The Anniversary of the Revolution,” has been unavailable to view. Last year, however, Russian film scholars made a breakthrough, finding a shot list that enabled them...
It was deemed to be the high watermark of the director’s career, even though he worked until his death in 1954, aged 58. But until now it’s been impossible to truly measure Vertov’s achievements, since his ambitious debut, 1918’s “The Anniversary of the Revolution,” has been unavailable to view. Last year, however, Russian film scholars made a breakthrough, finding a shot list that enabled them...
- 11/15/2018
- by Damon Wise
- Variety Film + TV
“Some things I cannot resist filming, they demand it.”
Ever since the arrival of film as a medium and as an art, the possibilities of it have been endless. In the influential documentary “Man with a Movie Camera” ,P olish filmmaker Dziga Vertov experimented not only with the medium in terms of form, but also aimed to define the relationship of the director, the camera and the subject which is to be filmed. Considering the medium has made many technical advances over the years since the release of Vertov’s there have been quite a few attempts to re-define this relationship. The most noteworthy examples in this field may be Jean-Luc Godard’s “Adieu au Langage” (2014) and the films by Chris Marker.
Generally speaking, the nature of film theory touches upon that exact link to the audience as well as the authenticity of the picture itself. In the end, one of the most interesting aspects,...
Ever since the arrival of film as a medium and as an art, the possibilities of it have been endless. In the influential documentary “Man with a Movie Camera” ,P olish filmmaker Dziga Vertov experimented not only with the medium in terms of form, but also aimed to define the relationship of the director, the camera and the subject which is to be filmed. Considering the medium has made many technical advances over the years since the release of Vertov’s there have been quite a few attempts to re-define this relationship. The most noteworthy examples in this field may be Jean-Luc Godard’s “Adieu au Langage” (2014) and the films by Chris Marker.
Generally speaking, the nature of film theory touches upon that exact link to the audience as well as the authenticity of the picture itself. In the end, one of the most interesting aspects,...
- 7/23/2018
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
The history of the Muriel Awards stretches aaaalllll the way back to 2006, which means that this coming season will be a special anniversary, marking 10 years of observing the annual quality and achievement of the year in film. (If you don’t know about the Muriels, you can check up on that history here.) The voting group, of which I am a proud member, having participated since Year One, has also made its personal nod to film history by always having incorporated 10, 25 and 50-year anniversary awards, saluting what is agreed upon by ballot to be the best films from those anniversaries during each annual voting process.
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
But more recently, in 2013, Muriels founders Paul Clark and Steven Carlson decided to expand the Muriels purview and further acknowledge the great achievements in international film by instituting The Muriels Hall of Fame. Each year a new group of films of varying number would be voted upon and,...
- 8/19/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Always Shine (Sophia Takal)
With the excess of low-budget, retreat-in-the-woods dramas often finding characters hashing out their insecurities through a meta-narrative, a certain initial resistance can occur when presented with such a derivative scenario at virtually every film festival. While Sophia Takal‘s psychological drama Always Shine ultimately stumbles, the chemistry of its leads and a sense of foreboding dread in its formal execution ensures its heightened view of...
Always Shine (Sophia Takal)
With the excess of low-budget, retreat-in-the-woods dramas often finding characters hashing out their insecurities through a meta-narrative, a certain initial resistance can occur when presented with such a derivative scenario at virtually every film festival. While Sophia Takal‘s psychological drama Always Shine ultimately stumbles, the chemistry of its leads and a sense of foreboding dread in its formal execution ensures its heightened view of...
- 12/2/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
I’ve spoken to many accomplished artists, but there are perhaps none who bear the same extent of experience as Kirsten Johnson. Don’t worry if the name doesn’t ring any bells: she’s built her repertoire as a documentary cinematographer by working with and for the likes of Michael Moore, Laura Poitras, and Jacques Derrida, and the things she’s seen have been funneled into Cameraperson, a travelogue-of-sorts through Johnson’s subconscious.
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
- 9/8/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
★★★☆☆ We all wonder how momentous individuals came to be: what Hitler or Stalin were like as children; what happened to them. Did we know anyone like that? How far were any of us from becoming something similar? Brady Corbet's debut feature The Childhood of a Leader, shoots for this target with all the subtlety of an artillery barrage. The opening scene paints the mood of the time, World War I, with a concussive score accompanying black-and-white war footage. It's a little like Man With a Movie Camera, only devoid of humour or optimism. This is not industry as a boon to revolution, but industrial slaughter. It shows mankind’s frightening, newfound power - the sort of power great leaders can, and did, come to harness.
- 8/23/2016
- by CineVue
- CineVue
These were only meant to be seen once. These explosive, unwieldy, nearly unprecedented and almost peerless essay films, densely packed with images so resonant they have been studied for nearly one hundred years, were only meant to be seen once. This observation comes from Adrian Martin on the excellent commentary track accompanying Man with a Movie Camera (1929), easily Dziga Vertov’s most important film. The other four films on the set were produced contemporaneously – Kino-Eye in 1924, Kino-Pravda #21 in 1925, Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass in 1931, and Three Songs About Lenin in 1934. The latter two are sound films. The silent films – Movie Camera, Kino-Eye, and Kino-Pravda #21 feature musical accompaniment, none more accomplished than Alloy Orchestra’s landmark work.
For viewers in my generation, and I would imagine for a great many older than I, Alloy Orchestra’s score for Man with a Movie Camera is as important a component to the film as anything else.
For viewers in my generation, and I would imagine for a great many older than I, Alloy Orchestra’s score for Man with a Movie Camera is as important a component to the film as anything else.
- 8/4/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
A few choice distributors have made a name for themselves by making their releases veritable own-able museums about the films they contain. Criterion can rightfully call themselves the inventor of the term "Special Edition", back in their Laserdisc days, experimenting with commentary tracks and such things, and thankfully those things were successful enough to be copied by many. While America had Criterion, in Europe we got a counterpart in UK distributor Eureka, when they decided to launch their own museum-style imprint, calling it the Masters of Cinema series. Movie buffs do well to keep their eyes on the line-ups of both. Case in point: Eureka MoC's new release of Man with a Movie Camera, the 1929 documentary feature by Dziga Vertov, which is still considered...
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[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 5/2/2016
- Screen Anarchy
★★★★☆ Even now, Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera remains a shining testament to the early days of filmmaking and the commitment to innovation and exploitation of the then-new medium. It has now also transformed itself into something of a time capsule, literally making itself into a scrapbook of a world long gone. Here, the mummification of time and people has reached its peak and Vertov's experimental masterpiece now a completely temporal travelogue. Its somehow still refreshing to watch, showing audiences spanning generations that film was and always will be a malleable medium as well as a mirror of the world.
- 4/19/2016
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
4K laughs in the face of HD TV, but does anyone besides the purists care?
There are two kinds of home entertainment enthusiasts. The first group would probably never use the phrase “home entertainment” but they represent the core of those who choose to watch movies at home. They’ve got a Netflix account and maybe a hundred plastic discs gathering dust on a shelf, but ultimately they’re more concerned with what they’re going to watch tonight than how they’re going to watch it.
Then there are the purists: a shrinking demographic who care deeply about bitrates, know resolution standards off by heart, and are eager to explore each and every special feature on the upcoming Blu-ray release of Man With A Movie Camera.
Continue reading...
There are two kinds of home entertainment enthusiasts. The first group would probably never use the phrase “home entertainment” but they represent the core of those who choose to watch movies at home. They’ve got a Netflix account and maybe a hundred plastic discs gathering dust on a shelf, but ultimately they’re more concerned with what they’re going to watch tonight than how they’re going to watch it.
Then there are the purists: a shrinking demographic who care deeply about bitrates, know resolution standards off by heart, and are eager to explore each and every special feature on the upcoming Blu-ray release of Man With A Movie Camera.
Continue reading...
- 4/9/2016
- by Charlie Lyne
- The Guardian - Film News
This wonderfully inventive meditation on director Mark Cousins’s hometown is refreshingly uncynical and pithy
Mark Cousins has created a meditative tribute to his hometown of Belfast in the “city symphony” tradition that stretches from Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera to Terence Davies’s Of Time and the City. It’s musing, free-associating and visually inventive, with wonderful images from cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Like all of Cousins’s documentary film-making and criticism, it refuses easy cynicism in favour of unashamedly heartfelt human sympathy. This is as refreshing, as ever, yet I wasn’t persuaded by his invention of a fictional wise old woman character who personifies Belfast. She is brutally upstaged by two real-life plain-speaking older women that Cousins interviews. I would have preferred to deal directly with the poetry of Cousins’s own authorial voice.
Continue reading...
Mark Cousins has created a meditative tribute to his hometown of Belfast in the “city symphony” tradition that stretches from Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera to Terence Davies’s Of Time and the City. It’s musing, free-associating and visually inventive, with wonderful images from cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Like all of Cousins’s documentary film-making and criticism, it refuses easy cynicism in favour of unashamedly heartfelt human sympathy. This is as refreshing, as ever, yet I wasn’t persuaded by his invention of a fictional wise old woman character who personifies Belfast. She is brutally upstaged by two real-life plain-speaking older women that Cousins interviews. I would have preferred to deal directly with the poetry of Cousins’s own authorial voice.
Continue reading...
- 4/7/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Museum of the Moving Image
“See It Big! Documentary” has an amazing weekend, starting with The Last Waltz on Friday. Following that are a new restoration of Vertov‘s Man with a Movie Camera (with live musical accompaniment) and a Maysles double-feature of Salesman and Gimme Shelter on Saturday. Sunday offers Errol Morris‘ Fast, Cheap & Out of Control,...
Museum of the Moving Image
“See It Big! Documentary” has an amazing weekend, starting with The Last Waltz on Friday. Following that are a new restoration of Vertov‘s Man with a Movie Camera (with live musical accompaniment) and a Maysles double-feature of Salesman and Gimme Shelter on Saturday. Sunday offers Errol Morris‘ Fast, Cheap & Out of Control,...
- 2/12/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Eureka Entertainment's Master of Cinema series announced today that they will be releasing Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Journey To The Shore on the boutique label later this year, following a theatrical run at the Glasgow Film Festival. April's slate of titles was also announced, unveiling a trio of tantalising releases. Sydney Pollack's classic espionage thriller Three Days Of The Condor starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, will arrive in a dual-format release on 11 April. The following week, Bernardo Bertolucci's epic 1900 (Novecento), starring Robert DeNiro and Gerard Depardieu, will be released on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.The jewel in their crown, however, is the long-awaited unveiling of Man With A Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov's seminal 1929 documentary, which will be released on 18 April...
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[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 2/3/2016
- Screen Anarchy
I’ve spoken to many people in my time, but few (if any) have the same credentials as Walter Murch, whose résumé would be amazing if it was only for the collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola: editing and / or audio work on all three Godfather films and The Conversation, truly groundbreaking sound design on Apocalypse Now, editing the terribly ignored Youth Without Youth and Tetro — even being around for the early days of The Rain People and lesser-seen oddities such as Captain Eo. But that’s not the half of it, really, since he’s also been instrumental in proving how consumer-grade editing software can be as effective as high-end systems. And then there’s the work that helped George Lucas getting his career started. And the cult sensation that is his only directorial effort, Return to Oz. Or his book, In the Blink of an Eye, which is...
- 11/18/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Read More: Errol Morris Reveals Idfa Top 10 Program, Including 'Man With A Movie Camera' A family of socially awkward people are getting together for the holidays in a house that feels weird to them in its obsessive perfection. Directed by Chris Kasick, written by Mike Demski and executive produced by Errol Morris, "Uncle Nick" stars Brian Posehn, Scott Adsit, Missi Pyle and Paget Brewster and promises one uncomfortable anti-Christmas movie. The official synopsis reads: "Lewd, drunken Uncle Nick stumbles his way through his brother's cookie cutter-family's annual Christmas gathering in the hopes of scoring with a super-hot party guest. But the arrival of his equally crass sister coupled with Nick's liquor-fueled faux pas cause family secrets to bubble to the surface that might spell disaster for the whole clan before the night is over." The film hits theaters nationwide December 4. Check out the uncomfortable trailer above. Read...
- 11/10/2015
- by Sonya Saepoff
- Indiewire
The festival will screen ten films picked by the Us filmmaker, who will also take part in a masterclass.
Errol Morris, the reverred documentary filmmaker, has revealed his top 10 programme for this year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Nov 18-29).
Each year, the festival invites an important figure in the world of documentary to compile a list of ten important works of factual film, all of which will be screened as part of the programme.
Morris’ selections include Werner Herzog’s surreal Fata Morgana, which is set in the Sahara Desert and features an exclusively Leonard Cohen soundtrack, and Dziga Vertov’s experimental early film Man With A Movie Camera.
Idfa will also show six of Morris’ films including his 1978 debut Gates of Heaven and his seminal investigative piece The Thin Blue Line.
Further screenings of his films will be: Fast Cheap And Out Of Control; Mr. Death: The Rise And Fall Of Fred A...
Errol Morris, the reverred documentary filmmaker, has revealed his top 10 programme for this year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Nov 18-29).
Each year, the festival invites an important figure in the world of documentary to compile a list of ten important works of factual film, all of which will be screened as part of the programme.
Morris’ selections include Werner Herzog’s surreal Fata Morgana, which is set in the Sahara Desert and features an exclusively Leonard Cohen soundtrack, and Dziga Vertov’s experimental early film Man With A Movie Camera.
Idfa will also show six of Morris’ films including his 1978 debut Gates of Heaven and his seminal investigative piece The Thin Blue Line.
Further screenings of his films will be: Fast Cheap And Out Of Control; Mr. Death: The Rise And Fall Of Fred A...
- 9/29/2015
- ScreenDaily
This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur and Scott Nye to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of August 11th, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.
Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.
Episode Links & Notes Follow-up Dressed To Kill Follow-up Vudu Aspect Ratios The Simpsons DVD sales Don Hertzfeldt’s Kickstarter News Arrow Announcements: Jacques Rivette box set, Honeymoon Killers, Nekromantik 2, Moc Announcements: Imamura box set, Naked Prey, Man With A Movie Camera, Seconds Kino Lorber Studio Classics: How I Won The War, Salaam Bombay, Cop, Bray Studios Kickstarter Toy Story That Time Forgot – November 3rd Twilight Time: November / December 2015 titles Star Wars Blu-ray Re-release / Steelbooks New Code Red Blu-rays up for order – Sweet Sixteen, Trick or Treats & The Cheerleaders More Sony Supreme Cinema Series Blu-rays announced: The Fifth Element and Leon The Professional...
Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.
Episode Links & Notes Follow-up Dressed To Kill Follow-up Vudu Aspect Ratios The Simpsons DVD sales Don Hertzfeldt’s Kickstarter News Arrow Announcements: Jacques Rivette box set, Honeymoon Killers, Nekromantik 2, Moc Announcements: Imamura box set, Naked Prey, Man With A Movie Camera, Seconds Kino Lorber Studio Classics: How I Won The War, Salaam Bombay, Cop, Bray Studios Kickstarter Toy Story That Time Forgot – November 3rd Twilight Time: November / December 2015 titles Star Wars Blu-ray Re-release / Steelbooks New Code Red Blu-rays up for order – Sweet Sixteen, Trick or Treats & The Cheerleaders More Sony Supreme Cinema Series Blu-rays announced: The Fifth Element and Leon The Professional...
- 8/12/2015
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 masterpiece celebrates the infinite possibilities of film
Made in 1929, this unclassifiable film is the work of pioneering Soviet experimenter David Kaufman, whose pseudonym Dziga Vertov means “spinning top” – if you like, cinema’s original dizzy rascal. Man With a Movie Camera came top last year in Sight & Sound’s poll of greatest documentaries, and to this day it looks and feels like nothing else.
It announces itself in the opening cards as “an experiment in the cinematic transmission of visual phenomena… without intertitles… without a script… without sets, actors, etc” – pure cinema, in other words, and Vertov isn’t just boasting. The film is a kaleidoscopic evocation of life in several cities, notably a sunlit Odessa, and to judge by the film life in the late-20s Ussr seems to have been a fairly jolly affair, although it wouldn’t be once the next decade got under way.
Made in 1929, this unclassifiable film is the work of pioneering Soviet experimenter David Kaufman, whose pseudonym Dziga Vertov means “spinning top” – if you like, cinema’s original dizzy rascal. Man With a Movie Camera came top last year in Sight & Sound’s poll of greatest documentaries, and to this day it looks and feels like nothing else.
It announces itself in the opening cards as “an experiment in the cinematic transmission of visual phenomena… without intertitles… without a script… without sets, actors, etc” – pure cinema, in other words, and Vertov isn’t just boasting. The film is a kaleidoscopic evocation of life in several cities, notably a sunlit Odessa, and to judge by the film life in the late-20s Ussr seems to have been a fairly jolly affair, although it wouldn’t be once the next decade got under way.
- 8/2/2015
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Dziga Vertov's 1929 art film/documentary spins the ordinary workings of city life in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa into a hallucinatory montage of the Soviet Union in frantic, constant motion. Here Peter Bradshaw explains why Vertov was the punk rock film-maker of his day and why Man with a Movie Camera is worth your time. Man with a Movie Camera is released in select UK cinemas today Continue reading...
- 7/31/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw and Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation | Hot Pursuit | The Cobbler | Iris | Beyond The Reach | Cub | Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder | Man With A Movie Camera
After four previous instalments of Mission Nearly Impossible But Somehow They Pulled It Off, you know where you’re going here, and there’s often a feeling you’ve been there before: exotic locations, opera assassinations, car chases, high-tech MacGuffins, and a plot that puts Cruise’s spy crew out in the cold. But the bar is still pretty high, especially in terms of action set-pieces and authentic-looking daredevil stunts, which are surely a better outlet for Tom Cruise’s excessive zeal than Scientology.
Continue reading...
After four previous instalments of Mission Nearly Impossible But Somehow They Pulled It Off, you know where you’re going here, and there’s often a feeling you’ve been there before: exotic locations, opera assassinations, car chases, high-tech MacGuffins, and a plot that puts Cruise’s spy crew out in the cold. But the bar is still pretty high, especially in terms of action set-pieces and authentic-looking daredevil stunts, which are surely a better outlet for Tom Cruise’s excessive zeal than Scientology.
Continue reading...
- 7/31/2015
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Dziga Vertov’s experimental silent documentary upends reality in ways that are still dizzying, thrilling and strangely sexy
The spirit of punk throbs in this extraordinary silent classic from 1929, now on cinema rerelease. Dziga Vertov’s experimental documentary essay remains fascinating after all these years, as potent as an exposed fragment of sodium. It shows scenes of city life in Moscow, Odessa and Kiev, and the credits describe it as an “experiment in cinematic communication of visible events”, which doesn’t do justice to its dedication to transforming and upending reality. This film is visibly excited about the new medium’s possibility, dense with ideas, packed with energy: it echoes Un Chien Andalou, anticipates Vigo’s À Propos De Nice and the New Wave generally, and even Riefenstahl’s Olympia. There are trick-shots, split-screens, stop-motion animation, slo-mo and speeded up action. Welles never had as much fun with his train-set...
The spirit of punk throbs in this extraordinary silent classic from 1929, now on cinema rerelease. Dziga Vertov’s experimental documentary essay remains fascinating after all these years, as potent as an exposed fragment of sodium. It shows scenes of city life in Moscow, Odessa and Kiev, and the credits describe it as an “experiment in cinematic communication of visible events”, which doesn’t do justice to its dedication to transforming and upending reality. This film is visibly excited about the new medium’s possibility, dense with ideas, packed with energy: it echoes Un Chien Andalou, anticipates Vigo’s À Propos De Nice and the New Wave generally, and even Riefenstahl’s Olympia. There are trick-shots, split-screens, stop-motion animation, slo-mo and speeded up action. Welles never had as much fun with his train-set...
- 7/30/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The British Film Institute has a mouth-watering July program for across-the-pond documentary buffs and moviegoers. The series culls from BFI's most recent Sight & Sound Poll of 340 critics, programmers and filmmakers in search of the greatest docs of all time. The program, detailed here, spans the birth and life of the genre, from early ethnographic classic "Nanook of the North" and earth-shaking Soviet experiment "Man with a Movie Camera" to Claude Lanzmann's Holocaust epic "Shoah" (here screened in its entirety) and Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line," which in 1988 was an early example of the true crime mysteries that are now the craze of the zeitgeist. Read More: British Film Institute Unlocks Ambitious Plan to Digitize Films The rest of the series includes a double bill of Chris Marker's ode to memory, "Vertigo" and cats "Sans Soleil" and Alain Resnais' profoundly upsetting concentration camp doc...
- 7/1/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of June 30th, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.
Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.
Episode Links & Notes Top 5 Of 2015 (So Far)
Brian
5. Wolfen (Warner Archive)
4. River’s Edge (Kl Studio Classics)
3. Sullivan’s Travels (Criterion)
2. Blood and Black Lace (Arrow)
1. Breaking Away (Twilight Time)
Honorable: Thunderbirds, The Fisher King, Zardoz, Last Embrace, Return to Oz.
Ryan
5. 3-D Rarities (Flicker Alley)
4. Journey To The Center Of The Earth Re-issue (Twilight Time)
3. Thunderbirds (Shout! Factory)
2. Classics From The Van Beuren Studio (Thunderbean Animation)
1. Watership Down (Criterion Collection)
Honorable mentions: Spirited Away, The Train (Arrow), Man With A Movie Camera
News Saturn Awards: Winners Announced New Releases 1990: The Bronx Warriors Come Fly with Me The Decline Of Western Civilization Collection Escape From the Bronx...
Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.
Episode Links & Notes Top 5 Of 2015 (So Far)
Brian
5. Wolfen (Warner Archive)
4. River’s Edge (Kl Studio Classics)
3. Sullivan’s Travels (Criterion)
2. Blood and Black Lace (Arrow)
1. Breaking Away (Twilight Time)
Honorable: Thunderbirds, The Fisher King, Zardoz, Last Embrace, Return to Oz.
Ryan
5. 3-D Rarities (Flicker Alley)
4. Journey To The Center Of The Earth Re-issue (Twilight Time)
3. Thunderbirds (Shout! Factory)
2. Classics From The Van Beuren Studio (Thunderbean Animation)
1. Watership Down (Criterion Collection)
Honorable mentions: Spirited Away, The Train (Arrow), Man With A Movie Camera
News Saturn Awards: Winners Announced New Releases 1990: The Bronx Warriors Come Fly with Me The Decline Of Western Civilization Collection Escape From the Bronx...
- 7/1/2015
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
There should be little, if any, link between Pete Rock and Cl Smooth's iconic 1992 hip-hop track "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)" and silent film star Harold Lloyd's 1928 action-comedy classic Speedy. But Z-Trip, the genre-bending Los Angeles musician who provided a live DJ score for the film Wednesday night at the Tribeca Film Festival, has carved a 15-year career unearthing unorthodox throughlines.
In this case, it was Pete Rock's instantly recognizable looped horns of Tom Scott's "Today" laced over one character's call-to-arms bugle blast, just...
In this case, it was Pete Rock's instantly recognizable looped horns of Tom Scott's "Today" laced over one character's call-to-arms bugle blast, just...
- 4/23/2015
- Rollingstone.com
This year’s Odessa International Film Festival has again been denied any state funding by the Ukrainian State Film Agency (Usfa).
This is the second consecutive year that the Agency, under the auspices of Ministry of Culture, has decided not to allocate around $430,000 (1m Hrvynia) to one of Ukraine’s leading international events.
Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, Oiff’s executive producer Julia Sinkevych said the continued absence of any funding from the Usfa had been “actively discussed” within the film professional community since her blog on the website of Lb.ua last week.
“For many people, it came as a surprise that Odessa Iff is not supported by the state,” said Sinkevych.
“Moreover, some weeks ago we sent an official request to provide the Plan of film events approved by Usfa for financial support in 2015. Usually this document should be published on the web site of Ukrainian State Film Agency, but it is not...
This is the second consecutive year that the Agency, under the auspices of Ministry of Culture, has decided not to allocate around $430,000 (1m Hrvynia) to one of Ukraine’s leading international events.
Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, Oiff’s executive producer Julia Sinkevych said the continued absence of any funding from the Usfa had been “actively discussed” within the film professional community since her blog on the website of Lb.ua last week.
“For many people, it came as a surprise that Odessa Iff is not supported by the state,” said Sinkevych.
“Moreover, some weeks ago we sent an official request to provide the Plan of film events approved by Usfa for financial support in 2015. Usually this document should be published on the web site of Ukrainian State Film Agency, but it is not...
- 4/10/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Copenhagen’s Cph Pix (April 9-22) will be bookended by films from two Danish directors shooting in the UK – Jeppe Ronde’s Welsh teen suicide drama Bridgend [pictured] and Thomas Vinterberg’s Thomas Hardy adaptation, Far From The Madding Crowd.
The audience-focused Cph Pix will show 130 feature films during 420 screenings and events.
Festival director Jacob Neiiendam said: “Artistically it’s a strong year for Danish cinema.”
Indeed, three Danish debut features will screen at Pix. “The first features from Thomas Daneskov [The Elite], Anna Sofie Hartmann [Limbo] and Jeppe Rønde showcase a diversity and nerve we have been missing in our fiction films, and they are just the tip of the iceberg,” added Neiiendam.
“We always wanted the festival to be a platform for local films which wouldn’t play well with regular releases, and this year we’ve been flooded with films produced outside the standard support system - and they are good films.”
Opening night will also...
The audience-focused Cph Pix will show 130 feature films during 420 screenings and events.
Festival director Jacob Neiiendam said: “Artistically it’s a strong year for Danish cinema.”
Indeed, three Danish debut features will screen at Pix. “The first features from Thomas Daneskov [The Elite], Anna Sofie Hartmann [Limbo] and Jeppe Rønde showcase a diversity and nerve we have been missing in our fiction films, and they are just the tip of the iceberg,” added Neiiendam.
“We always wanted the festival to be a platform for local films which wouldn’t play well with regular releases, and this year we’ve been flooded with films produced outside the standard support system - and they are good films.”
Opening night will also...
- 3/12/2015
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
A random bit of researching on a Tuesday night led me to something I didn't know existed: The Motion Picture Editors Guild's list of the 75 best-edited films of all time. It was a feature in part celebrating the Guild's 75th anniversary in 2012. Is this news to anyone else? I confess to having missed it entirely. Naturally, I had to dig in. What was immediately striking to me about the list — which was decided upon by the Guild membership and, per instruction, was considered in terms of picture and sound editorial as opposed to just the former — was the most popular decade ranking. Naturally, the 1970s led with 17 mentions, but right on its heels was the 1990s. I wouldn't have expected that but I happen to agree with the assessment. Thelma Schoonmaker's work on "Raging Bull" came out on top, an objectively difficult choice to dispute, really. It was so transformative,...
- 2/4/2015
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
Before receiving Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Guy Maddin's 2007 feature My Winnipeg I hadn't seen any of Maddin's films, and about 30 minutes into this one I felt I'd made the right choice. However, as the short, 80-minute, "something like a documentary" played out, I found myself increasingly intrigued. The Lynchian vibe matched with visuals appearing as if it had been made in the mid-'20s, slowly drew me in. I was fascinated by the preposterous (but true) story of Winnipeg's "If Day", the idea of a "Ledge Man" television show and then those frozen horse heads... I'll get to those in just a second. Described as a "docu-fantasia" by the folks at Criterion, Maddin sets out to tell the story of his hometown of Winnipeg, but in his own unique fashion. Using stories of his childhood to the point he even hires actors (including iconic femme fatale Ann Savage...
- 1/16/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Many people look to their streaming options as a way to unwind, to quickly turn something on for a simple evening of entertainment. How many times have we all been there, sitting with bitter, bickering family members torn between the Best Foreign Language Oscar winner from two years ago you’ve really been meaning to get to or finally catching up on Orange is the New Black or deciding, “Oh to hell with it, I’m watching Top Gear.“
Well fret no more, as the ultimate streaming choice has now become available, the most epic ordeal of a binge watching session imaginable, Claude Lanzmann’s near 10-hour documentary Shoah.
Subscription streaming service SundanceNow will have the exclusive, digital premiere streaming access to Lanzmann’s film starting November 9. Now you can watch the entire ordeal of Holocaust survivors recounting their grim stories of tragedy and suffering from the comfort of your own computer or smart phone.
Well fret no more, as the ultimate streaming choice has now become available, the most epic ordeal of a binge watching session imaginable, Claude Lanzmann’s near 10-hour documentary Shoah.
Subscription streaming service SundanceNow will have the exclusive, digital premiere streaming access to Lanzmann’s film starting November 9. Now you can watch the entire ordeal of Holocaust survivors recounting their grim stories of tragedy and suffering from the comfort of your own computer or smart phone.
- 11/5/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
Above: Italian poster for Confidential Agent (Herman Shumlin, USA, 1945). Artist: Luigi Martinati (1893-1984).
The most popular poster I’ve posted on Tumblr in the past three months—and actually the second most “liked” poster I’ve posted in the three years I’ve been doing this—was this Italian design by the great Luigi Martinati for a lesser known Lauren Bacall vehicle, but one in which the late star was unusually front and center. (You can see more of Bacall’s posters here.)
The rest of the top twenty are a wild variety of old (three for films from the 1920s, no less) and new (two 2014 releases). I was especially pleased to see Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch’s superb 1967 design for a Festival of Young German Film get such attention. A lot of other design greats are featured: Saul Bass, the Stenberg brothers, Macario Gomez, Karl Oskar Blase and Josef Fenneker. And...
The most popular poster I’ve posted on Tumblr in the past three months—and actually the second most “liked” poster I’ve posted in the three years I’ve been doing this—was this Italian design by the great Luigi Martinati for a lesser known Lauren Bacall vehicle, but one in which the late star was unusually front and center. (You can see more of Bacall’s posters here.)
The rest of the top twenty are a wild variety of old (three for films from the 1920s, no less) and new (two 2014 releases). I was especially pleased to see Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch’s superb 1967 design for a Festival of Young German Film get such attention. A lot of other design greats are featured: Saul Bass, the Stenberg brothers, Macario Gomez, Karl Oskar Blase and Josef Fenneker. And...
- 10/17/2014
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Throughout the summer, an admin on the r/movies subreddit has been leading Reddit users in a poll of the best movies from every year for the last 100 years called 100 Years of Yearly Cinema. The poll concluded three days ago, and the list of every movie from 1914 to 2013 has been published today.
Users were asked to nominate films from a given year and up-vote their favorite nominees. The full list includes the outright winner along with the first two runners-up from each year. The list is mostly a predictable assortment of IMDb favorites and certified classics, but a few surprise gems have also risen to the top of the crust, including the early experimental documentary Man With a Movie Camera in 1929, Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! in 1919, the Fred Astaire film Top Hat over Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing over John Ford’s...
Users were asked to nominate films from a given year and up-vote their favorite nominees. The full list includes the outright winner along with the first two runners-up from each year. The list is mostly a predictable assortment of IMDb favorites and certified classics, but a few surprise gems have also risen to the top of the crust, including the early experimental documentary Man With a Movie Camera in 1929, Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! in 1919, the Fred Astaire film Top Hat over Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing over John Ford’s...
- 9/2/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
Among the twenty-five films I’ve chosen to honor Labor Day you won’t find Man With a Movie Camera, or Modern Times, or even anything by that fly-on-the-wall of the working world, Fred Wiseman. Not because they don’t belong, but because this isn’t a top twenty-five list. It’s a blend of the canonical, the catholic and the idiosyncratic—a personal best culled from movies that speak to the pressing concerns of our age. Some chart the great changes that have rolled over our working world—global corporatism, marvelous innovation, alienation, unemployment, class inequality and conflict, environmental ruin. Others parse their meanings of these shifts, or draw beauty from ugliness or rage against the machine. Still others dwell on work undertaken for love of labor or fellow human beings.
- 8/31/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
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