Bouncing back in live form after two cancellations caused by Covid safety measures last year, the 55th edition of the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival has kept its core values intact but with significant new formatting.
Kviff’s most radical departure from long tradition — ending its dedicated documentary section and blending non-fiction films into the Crystal Globe and East of the West competition sections — was “a serious decision, which took us a few years to make,” says artistic director Karel Och.
But, he says, the fest is satisfied that the documentaries now being weighed by the two juries are worthy of their new role.
“Considering the types of documentaries we aim to highlight, the ambition, the level of script and directing,” says Och, they are “absolutely comparable with the non-docs. The distinction and a separate doc ‘ghetto’ was no longer necessary.”
Another challenge in a year full of them was...
Kviff’s most radical departure from long tradition — ending its dedicated documentary section and blending non-fiction films into the Crystal Globe and East of the West competition sections — was “a serious decision, which took us a few years to make,” says artistic director Karel Och.
But, he says, the fest is satisfied that the documentaries now being weighed by the two juries are worthy of their new role.
“Considering the types of documentaries we aim to highlight, the ambition, the level of script and directing,” says Och, they are “absolutely comparable with the non-docs. The distinction and a separate doc ‘ghetto’ was no longer necessary.”
Another challenge in a year full of them was...
- 8/18/2021
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Nent Group’s Swedish label Brain Academy is plotting two major films from A-list writing-directing teams. The first, “The World Council of Magic,” is helmed by “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World”’s Kristian Petri, based on a screenplay by genre-bending author John Ajvide Lindqvist(”Border,” “Let the Right One In”).
”The World Council of Magic” is my first script not based on one of my stories,” said Lindqvist, often dubbed the Stephen King of Sweden. The film deals with a group of elderly magicians of the practical kind. In their hungry youth, they searched for the secret behind actual magic. Now, when they’re in their seventies, one of them gets the long-awaited revelation that allows him to manipulate the material world with his mind,
“Magic, real magic! But like with all great powers, it comes at a high – and bloody – price” said Lindqvist. “Despite their own lack of powers,...
”The World Council of Magic” is my first script not based on one of my stories,” said Lindqvist, often dubbed the Stephen King of Sweden. The film deals with a group of elderly magicians of the practical kind. In their hungry youth, they searched for the secret behind actual magic. Now, when they’re in their seventies, one of them gets the long-awaited revelation that allows him to manipulate the material world with his mind,
“Magic, real magic! But like with all great powers, it comes at a high – and bloody – price” said Lindqvist. “Despite their own lack of powers,...
- 2/6/2021
- by Annika Pham
- Variety Film + TV
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle: Porumboiu Goes Mainstream with Neo-noir
Romanian New Wave alum Corneliu Porumboiu makes a marked departure with his latest feature, The Whistlers, a jaunty neo-noir exercise about a corrupt policeman ensnared in a tricky scheme, albeit one presented as more complicated than it really is. Known for his significant word play from past titles such as Police, Adjective (2009), When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (2013) and 2015’s The Treasure (review), his latest replaces his loquacious ruminations with a non-linear, constantly back-tracking chapter narrative which forces the audience to piece together a puzzle which sometimes seems to be missing some pertinent information.…...
Romanian New Wave alum Corneliu Porumboiu makes a marked departure with his latest feature, The Whistlers, a jaunty neo-noir exercise about a corrupt policeman ensnared in a tricky scheme, albeit one presented as more complicated than it really is. Known for his significant word play from past titles such as Police, Adjective (2009), When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (2013) and 2015’s The Treasure (review), his latest replaces his loquacious ruminations with a non-linear, constantly back-tracking chapter narrative which forces the audience to piece together a puzzle which sometimes seems to be missing some pertinent information.…...
- 2/29/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
There’s plenty of wit to be found in the films that constitute the Romanian New Wave, but any laughs they elicit wind up sounding more like dry coughs. These movies tend to find their humor in subjects like an overburdened health-care system (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”), corruption in the education system (“Graduation”), family strife (“Sieranevada”) and other topics relevant to the nation dealing with the lingering aftereffects of the Ceausescu era.
So even if writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu seems more amenable to absurdist comedy — and genre conventions — than his peers in this talented community, his latest film “The Whistlers” still traffics in bleak chuckles.
It’s a wonderfully labyrinthine story of cops and robbers that might not be an official sequel to Porumboiu’s 2009 “Police, Adjective” (that year’s Romanian Oscar entry), but it does explore many of that film’s concerns, from the subtle distinctions between law and...
So even if writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu seems more amenable to absurdist comedy — and genre conventions — than his peers in this talented community, his latest film “The Whistlers” still traffics in bleak chuckles.
It’s a wonderfully labyrinthine story of cops and robbers that might not be an official sequel to Porumboiu’s 2009 “Police, Adjective” (that year’s Romanian Oscar entry), but it does explore many of that film’s concerns, from the subtle distinctions between law and...
- 2/28/2020
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
The iconic guitar riff of Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” is the type of musical vignette that immediately evokes a scene in one’s mind. It’s an anthemic celebration of aimless wandering that stands as a testament to the drifters of the world, so when it plays during the opening moments of Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers, it feels like a match long overdue. In the context of the film, which premiered in competition at Cannes, the song serves as an introduction to the character of Cristi (Vlad Ivanov), a stoic and reluctant policeman. By merely going through the motions, Cristi finds himself in the middle of a criminal web of deception in the exotic sights of La Gomera island in Spain, but “The Passenger” could really describe any of the protagonists in the Romanian filmmaker’s oeuvre. Ever since his Caméra d’Or-winning debut, 12:08 East of Bucharest...
- 2/7/2020
- MUBI
Making his way up the “Croisette ladder”, Corneliu Porumboiu first arrived in Cannes (and helped launched what was known as the Romanian New Wave) in 2004 with Cinéfondation winner A Trip to the City. His 2006 Directors’ Fortnight selected 12:08 East of Bucharest (review) won him the coveted Caméra d’Or and he followed that up with the Un Certain Regard what could have arguably been a stoic comp selection but nonetheless confirmed his prowess with 2009’s Police, Adjective (Jury Prize and Fipresci Prize) and shored up once again in the same section with 2015’s The Treasure (review).…...
- 5/19/2019
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
With all due respect to Lauren Bacall, there’s always been a bit more to whistling than putting your lips together and blowing. Certainly for Cristi (Vlad Ivanov), the corrupt Bucharest policeman embroiled in a comically complex plot to get a local gangster off the hook in Corneliu Porumboiu’s Cannes competition title “The Whistlers,” it is a matter of life and death. It requires practise, training and a bent forefinger, angled between pursed lips, like it’s holding a gun and the bullet will exit the opposite ear.
Cristi has been sent to the island of La Gomera in The Canaries, where he is to learn the ancient whistling language originally, well, whistled by the Guanches, an aboriginal tribe native to the region. This is because, by the slightly lunatic logic of Porumboiu’s screenplay, in these days of easily hackable cellphones and widespread surveillance, whistling has the advantage...
Cristi has been sent to the island of La Gomera in The Canaries, where he is to learn the ancient whistling language originally, well, whistled by the Guanches, an aboriginal tribe native to the region. This is because, by the slightly lunatic logic of Porumboiu’s screenplay, in these days of easily hackable cellphones and widespread surveillance, whistling has the advantage...
- 5/19/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
When Corneliu Porumboiu began making films in Romania just after the turn of the century, we knew what Romanian cinema was like — or, at least, we knew what the branch that came to be known as the Romanian New Wave was like. The movement, one of the most vital cinematic eruptions of the 2000s, was full of dark, minimalist, realist films that depicted, either overtly or implicitly, a society that was rotten to the core.
There’s some of that in Porumboiu’s “The Whistlers,” which had its world premiere on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is dark and it’s set in a world where you can’t trust anyone — but it’s also got John Wayne and Alfred Hitchcock homages and enough twists and turns to require a detailed scorecard.
“The Whistlers” is no minimalist slice of realism, but an oversized, deliciously twisted ride that...
There’s some of that in Porumboiu’s “The Whistlers,” which had its world premiere on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is dark and it’s set in a world where you can’t trust anyone — but it’s also got John Wayne and Alfred Hitchcock homages and enough twists and turns to require a detailed scorecard.
“The Whistlers” is no minimalist slice of realism, but an oversized, deliciously twisted ride that...
- 5/18/2019
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu makes playful movies with a lot to say. From the chatty historical inquiries of his debut “12:08 East of Bucharest” to the deadpan musings on the language of justice in “Police, Adjective” to the ethics of filmmaking in “When Evening Falls in Bucharest or Metabolism,” Porumboiu has managed to mine compelling ideas out of slow-burn narrative techniques loaded with unpredictability. With 2015’s heartwarming father-son story “The Treasure” — in which the roving narrative builds to sentimental payoff — he started to enrich his style with more approachable methods. That proclivity grows even stronger with his entertaining noir “The Whistlers,” a polished mashup of genre motifs that suggests what might happen if the “Ocean’s 11” gang assembled on the Canary Islands.
That’s right: One of the directors tied to the so-called Romanian New Wave of the aughts, when dreary masterpieces like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and Two Days” and “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu...
That’s right: One of the directors tied to the so-called Romanian New Wave of the aughts, when dreary masterpieces like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and Two Days” and “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu...
- 5/18/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
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