Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.
New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.
Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.
Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...
- 3/18/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Although he only made two fiction features, filmmaker Michael Roemer benefited greatly from an early rediscovery in the 1990s, thanks to the fortuitous unearthing of a film he made in 1969, The Plot Against Harry, a wry, dry comedy starring Martin Priest. His other film, 1964’s Nothing But a Man, is often compared by critics to the slicker, middle-America-friendly films that Sidney Poitier was making during the same era. Almost without exception, film about the minority experience in ’60s America were smoothed-over paeans to “the triumph of the human spirit,” starring or co-starring whites whose presence is required as witnesses, arbiters, and the final, thankful beneficiaries of growth and change. Bland but well-meaning, films like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and A Patch of Blue, seeking to instruct the white moviegoer by giving them a diagrammatic path to sociopolitical enlightenment, had a funny habit of discounting, even nullifying, the Black experience.
- 2/22/2024
- by Jaime N. Christley
- Slant Magazine
Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.
A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.
A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.
- 2/14/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The idea of found footage as a filmmaking technique stretches back to at least 1961 with the release of Shirley Clarke's relatively obscure drama "The Connection." The found footage style was used to present scripted material as if it were documentary footage, employing a lot of shaky, handheld camera work and extemporaneous-sounding dialogue. The term "found footage" sprung from a common conceit of the style, which often implied that something horrible had happened to the filmmakers that prevented them from assembling and editing their footage. Once their footage was found, it was edited by a third party and presented in the theater.
There were many found footage films from 1961 until 2007, but the release and overwhelming success of Oren Peli's "Paranormal Activity" sparked a years-long wave of the format, with most of its glory-chasers employing horror as their baseline. Late 2000s found footage horror was largely effective, as it often...
There were many found footage films from 1961 until 2007, but the release and overwhelming success of Oren Peli's "Paranormal Activity" sparked a years-long wave of the format, with most of its glory-chasers employing horror as their baseline. Late 2000s found footage horror was largely effective, as it often...
- 1/28/2024
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.
February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...
February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...
- 1/11/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Film geeks, rejoice. Leading indie label Kino Lorber is entering the world of streaming. The company has launched Kino Film Collection, a new subscription video service available in the U.S. via’s Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. The Collection will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, many now streaming for the first time. It will cost users $5.99 per month.
Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).
Joining them are entries...
Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical releases and critically acclaimed festival favorites and classics from around the globe, such as The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci), Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos), Taxi (Jafar Panahi), Poison (Todd Haynes), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski), Portrait of Jason (Shirley Clarke), and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke).
Joining them are entries...
- 11/2/2023
- by Patrick Brzeski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
While Apple opted to skip all the North American fall film festivals when it comes to Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, the 3.5-hour epic did stop by the BFI London Film Festival where the director took part in a 1.5-hour masterclass detailing his legendary career with moderator Edgar Wright. Considering the sheer breadth of film knowledge from both directors, it’s quite a fascinating conversation, particularly detailing Scorsese’s love for film history as well as a chronological tour through his own filmography and looking toward the future of the medium he’s dedicated his life to.
Speaking about The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese noted how his Jordan Belfort biopic was a prescient metaphor for the election of Donald Trump. “Politically, the country, they elected him,” the director said. “It’s about kill, go get the money, lie, do anything you want. You can’t do anything to me.
Speaking about The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese noted how his Jordan Belfort biopic was a prescient metaphor for the election of Donald Trump. “Politically, the country, they elected him,” the director said. “It’s about kill, go get the money, lie, do anything you want. You can’t do anything to me.
- 10/11/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Having recently shifted away from their one-film-a-day approach, Mubi has now unveiled their October lineup, which is headlined by Ira Sachs’ stellar drama Passages following its theatrical run this summer. The slate also features handpicked selections by Sachs, with work by Maurice Pialat, Luchino Visconti, Jack Hazan, Shirley Clarke, and Tsai Ming-liang.
Also arriving in October is “Watch If You Dare: Horror Halloween,” a series featuring a trio of giallo classics, with The Fifth Cord, The Possessed, and Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, alongside Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and more. The service will also spotlight the work of underseen Japanese director Yasuzô Masumura, including his aching melodrama Red Angel, his biting workplace satire Giants and Toys, his thrilling noir Black Test Car, and more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
October 1
The Infiltrators, directed by Alex Rivera, Cristina Ibarra | National Hispanic Heritage Month
The Vanished Elephant,...
Also arriving in October is “Watch If You Dare: Horror Halloween,” a series featuring a trio of giallo classics, with The Fifth Cord, The Possessed, and Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, alongside Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and more. The service will also spotlight the work of underseen Japanese director Yasuzô Masumura, including his aching melodrama Red Angel, his biting workplace satire Giants and Toys, his thrilling noir Black Test Car, and more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
October 1
The Infiltrators, directed by Alex Rivera, Cristina Ibarra | National Hispanic Heritage Month
The Vanished Elephant,...
- 9/28/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Documentary festival IDFA, which runs Nov. 8 to 19 in Amsterdam, has revealed its first 50 titles, including the top 10 Chinese films selected by Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing, IDFA’s Guest of Honor.
The festival has also revealed the films playing in two of the three Focus programs: Fabrications, which probes the difference between reality and realism, and 16 Worlds on 16, an homage to 16mm film.
Wang’s selection will take the viewer “on a contemplative journey into contemporary Chinese cinema,” according to the festival. “The films and their politics are subtle in their film language, representing a wave of filmmaking rarely shown internationally.”
The selection (see below), which covers films produced since 1999, includes Lixin Fan’s 2009 film “Last Train Home,” which was supported by IDFA’s Bertha Fund. The film documents the millions of migrant factory workers that travel home for Spring Festival each year.
Fabrications explores the relationship of trust between documentary film and audiences,...
The festival has also revealed the films playing in two of the three Focus programs: Fabrications, which probes the difference between reality and realism, and 16 Worlds on 16, an homage to 16mm film.
Wang’s selection will take the viewer “on a contemplative journey into contemporary Chinese cinema,” according to the festival. “The films and their politics are subtle in their film language, representing a wave of filmmaking rarely shown internationally.”
The selection (see below), which covers films produced since 1999, includes Lixin Fan’s 2009 film “Last Train Home,” which was supported by IDFA’s Bertha Fund. The film documents the millions of migrant factory workers that travel home for Spring Festival each year.
Fabrications explores the relationship of trust between documentary film and audiences,...
- 9/19/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Seven years ago this month, in the aftermath of the attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, one call to action rose above the din: “Say their names.” New Yorkers chanted it steps from the Stonewall Inn. The mother of a child gunned down at Sandy Hook penned it in an open letter. The Orlando Sentinel printed the names. Anderson Cooper recited them. A gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in the wee hours of that awful Sunday, massacring LGBTQ people of color and their allies in the middle of Pride Month, and the commemoration of the dead demanded knowing who they were. “These,” as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell urged his viewers, “are the names to remember.”
The titles on our list of the best LGBTQ movies of all time are a globe-spanning, multigenerational testament to our existence in a world where our erasure is no abstraction. From...
The titles on our list of the best LGBTQ movies of all time are a globe-spanning, multigenerational testament to our existence in a world where our erasure is no abstraction. From...
- 6/12/2023
- by Slant Staff
- Slant Magazine
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
BlackBerry (Matt Johnson)
In BlackBerry, the rise of a blue-chip tech company sets the stage for the dissolution of a longstanding friendship. Sound familiar? Just wait ‘til you hear the score. Directed by Matt Johnson, it tells the true story of Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, software engineers who founded the company Rim in the mid-80s and later invented a cellphone that could handle email. The film begins on the day when they meet Jim Basillie (Glenn Howerton), a Rottweiler who, alongside Lazaridis’ genius, turned Rim’s invention (only later christened BlackBerry) into the world’s most ubiquitous mobile device––at least for a time. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Hole in the Fence (Joaquín del Paso...
BlackBerry (Matt Johnson)
In BlackBerry, the rise of a blue-chip tech company sets the stage for the dissolution of a longstanding friendship. Sound familiar? Just wait ‘til you hear the score. Directed by Matt Johnson, it tells the true story of Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, software engineers who founded the company Rim in the mid-80s and later invented a cellphone that could handle email. The film begins on the day when they meet Jim Basillie (Glenn Howerton), a Rottweiler who, alongside Lazaridis’ genius, turned Rim’s invention (only later christened BlackBerry) into the world’s most ubiquitous mobile device––at least for a time. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Hole in the Fence (Joaquín del Paso...
- 6/2/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
This Barbie is part film programmer.
Hari Nef makes history at Mubi with the Hand-Picked by Hari Nef curated series, the first of its kind for the streaming and distribution platform.
The “Barbie” and “And Just Like That” actress selected Todd Haynes’ “Safe” and “Velvet Goldmine,” Alex Ross Perry’s “Listen Up Philip,” the fashion documentary “Martin Margiela: In His Own Words,” Jean-Luc Godard’s “La Chinoise,” the coming-of-age day-in-the-life “The African Desperate,” Maurice Pialata’s “Loulou” with Isabelle Huppert, Robert Greene’s “Actress,” Shirley Clarke’s documentary “Portrait of Jason,” and cult classic “Center Stage” from the Mubi vault for the inaugural program.
Check out Nef’s full selection, ready to stream, here.
“I was thinking about what resonates with me in film, and it starts with ideas of spectacle, performance, and queerness,” Nef said in a press statement. “I love films about performers, and the confrontation that happens between a person,...
Hari Nef makes history at Mubi with the Hand-Picked by Hari Nef curated series, the first of its kind for the streaming and distribution platform.
The “Barbie” and “And Just Like That” actress selected Todd Haynes’ “Safe” and “Velvet Goldmine,” Alex Ross Perry’s “Listen Up Philip,” the fashion documentary “Martin Margiela: In His Own Words,” Jean-Luc Godard’s “La Chinoise,” the coming-of-age day-in-the-life “The African Desperate,” Maurice Pialata’s “Loulou” with Isabelle Huppert, Robert Greene’s “Actress,” Shirley Clarke’s documentary “Portrait of Jason,” and cult classic “Center Stage” from the Mubi vault for the inaugural program.
Check out Nef’s full selection, ready to stream, here.
“I was thinking about what resonates with me in film, and it starts with ideas of spectacle, performance, and queerness,” Nef said in a press statement. “I love films about performers, and the confrontation that happens between a person,...
- 5/31/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
February, marking both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, is the kind of stretch from which a programmer can mine plenty. Accordingly the Criterion Channel have oriented their next slate around both. The former is mostly noted in a series comprising numerous features and shorts: Shirley Clarke and William Greaves up to Ephraim Asili and Garrett Bradley, among them gems such as Varda’s Black Panthers and Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground; a six-film series on James Baldwin; and 10 works by Oscar Micheaux.
Meanwhile, the 23-film “All You Need Is Love” will cover the blinding romance of L’Atalante, the heartbreak of Happy Together, and youthful whimsy of Stolen Kisses; four Douglas Sirk rarities should leave their mark, but I’m perhaps most excited about three starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Perhaps more bracing are 12 movies by Derek Jarman and four by noir maestro Robert Siodmak. Also a major...
Meanwhile, the 23-film “All You Need Is Love” will cover the blinding romance of L’Atalante, the heartbreak of Happy Together, and youthful whimsy of Stolen Kisses; four Douglas Sirk rarities should leave their mark, but I’m perhaps most excited about three starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Perhaps more bracing are 12 movies by Derek Jarman and four by noir maestro Robert Siodmak. Also a major...
- 1/26/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including Carla Simón’s Golden Bear winner Alcarràs, Ruth Beckermann’s Mutzenbacher, a series celebrating Black cinema with works from Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Ephraim Asili, Bill Duke, and more.
Additional highlights include Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, shorts by Emilija Škarnulytė, and the beginning of a series spotlighting Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
February 1 – Softie, directed by Samuel Theis | From France with Love
February 2 – The Sleeping Negro, directed by Skinner Myers
February 3 – Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater
February 4 – To Sleep with Anger, directed by Charles Burnett
February 5 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer | Performers We Love
February 6 – Aphotic Zone, directed by Emilija...
Additional highlights include Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, shorts by Emilija Škarnulytė, and the beginning of a series spotlighting Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
February 1 – Softie, directed by Samuel Theis | From France with Love
February 2 – The Sleeping Negro, directed by Skinner Myers
February 3 – Before Midnight, directed by Richard Linklater
February 4 – To Sleep with Anger, directed by Charles Burnett
February 5 – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer | Performers We Love
February 6 – Aphotic Zone, directed by Emilija...
- 1/19/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
What will be your first movie of 2023? If you’re reading this it’s likely you put some (let’s be honest: too much) thought into what commences the cinematic year. The Criterion Channel’s January lineup will put some good things front and center: they’re launching a 20-film cinema verité series that highlights all major figures of the form; an eight-film Mike Leigh retrospective that focuses on his little-seen, lesser-discussed BBC features produced between 1973 and 1984; a series on Abbas Kiarostami’s studies of childhood; and because you’ve either seen Eo or have it marked to watch, Jerzy Skolimowski’s three most-acclaimed films should be of equal note.
Another 2022 favorite, Il Buco, will have its streaming premiere alongside Kamikaze Hearts, the Depardieu-led Cyrano de Bergerac, and the recent restoration of Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane. The sole Criterion Edition for this month is 3 Women, while some notable recent documentaries—The American Sector,...
Another 2022 favorite, Il Buco, will have its streaming premiere alongside Kamikaze Hearts, the Depardieu-led Cyrano de Bergerac, and the recent restoration of Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane. The sole Criterion Edition for this month is 3 Women, while some notable recent documentaries—The American Sector,...
- 12/20/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Nostalgia fuels Quentin Tarantino’s career, as his movies bear the DNA of his obsessions, be it blaxploitation (“Jackie Brown”), Shaw Brothers classics (“Kill Bill”) or the Los Angeles of his youth (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”).
Yet the last few years have marked a turning point for the auteur. Instead of letting his movies do the talking, Tarantino has embraced more of a professorial role. In July, he launched the podcast “Video Archives” with former video store co-worker and “Pulp Fiction” co-writer Roger Avary, in which the pair pick random selections from their former rental place (the inventory of which Tarantino bought once they shuttered) and analyze them. It’s a joy to hear motormouthed Tarantino shoot the shit with an old friend who can break him out of filibuster.
On Nov. 1, Tarantino released a more formal analysis of film with his first non-fiction book, “Cinema Speculation.” Structured as essays mixed with memoir,...
Yet the last few years have marked a turning point for the auteur. Instead of letting his movies do the talking, Tarantino has embraced more of a professorial role. In July, he launched the podcast “Video Archives” with former video store co-worker and “Pulp Fiction” co-writer Roger Avary, in which the pair pick random selections from their former rental place (the inventory of which Tarantino bought once they shuttered) and analyze them. It’s a joy to hear motormouthed Tarantino shoot the shit with an old friend who can break him out of filibuster.
On Nov. 1, Tarantino released a more formal analysis of film with his first non-fiction book, “Cinema Speculation.” Structured as essays mixed with memoir,...
- 11/17/2022
- by William Earl
- Variety Film + TV
The 26th edition of the Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival will screen 300 films, including a retrospective on American Oscar-winning innovator Shirley Clarke, and what fest organizers describe as the largest-ever retrospective of Filipino cinema outside Asia.
The fest, running Oct. 25-30, will include work on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a conference on ethics in documentary filmmaking.
Some 95 films are world premieres, 33 are international bows and six are European firsts.
Films include what fest director Marek Hovorka calls one of the earliest known feature-length documentaries, shot in the Philippines in 1913. “Native Life in the Philippines” by Dean C. Worcester will screen alongside 40 other Filipino works spanning a wide variety of genres and formats. Some, including “Advance of Kansas Volunteers at Caloocan,” a U.S. war doc produced by the Edison Manufacturing Co., date back to the American invasion of the islands.
At the other end of the historical spectrum,...
The fest, running Oct. 25-30, will include work on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a conference on ethics in documentary filmmaking.
Some 95 films are world premieres, 33 are international bows and six are European firsts.
Films include what fest director Marek Hovorka calls one of the earliest known feature-length documentaries, shot in the Philippines in 1913. “Native Life in the Philippines” by Dean C. Worcester will screen alongside 40 other Filipino works spanning a wide variety of genres and formats. Some, including “Advance of Kansas Volunteers at Caloocan,” a U.S. war doc produced by the Edison Manufacturing Co., date back to the American invasion of the islands.
At the other end of the historical spectrum,...
- 10/25/2022
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Festival will explore power relationships in doc filmmaking
The world premiere of Andrea Kleine’s The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be, is among the international films making their debut at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival running from October 25-30 in the Czech Republic,
The film features Kleine performing comedy shows to a closed theatre in New York City during the pandemic.
Held in the town of Jihlava in central Czech Republic, the festival has seven competition sections, including Opus Bonum, for documentary films from around the world.
The section will play 16 films of which 13 are feature-length,...
The world premiere of Andrea Kleine’s The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be, is among the international films making their debut at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival running from October 25-30 in the Czech Republic,
The film features Kleine performing comedy shows to a closed theatre in New York City during the pandemic.
Held in the town of Jihlava in central Czech Republic, the festival has seven competition sections, including Opus Bonum, for documentary films from around the world.
The section will play 16 films of which 13 are feature-length,...
- 10/12/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Whether it’s film “recovered” from a crime scene/disaster site or continuous “live video” watched in real time, found footage movies are among the most terrifying titles available to horror lovers. From the collected clips of “V/H/S” to the harrowing ordeal captured in “Unfriended,” these frightening flicks feel at once like pieces of entertainment and physical proof of hell on Earth.
The naturalistic approach to cinema doesn’t belong exclusively to the horror arena, believe it or not. Some film historians posit that the first found footage film was “The Connection”: an experimental joint by Shirley Clarke from 1961 about drug addicts (which is arguably horrific but definitely not a horror movie). And yet, the found footage technique has become so prevalent within the horror genre that it’s almost impossible to extricate the form from the fear it has inspired.
Horror filmmakers are notoriously canny creators,...
The naturalistic approach to cinema doesn’t belong exclusively to the horror arena, believe it or not. Some film historians posit that the first found footage film was “The Connection”: an experimental joint by Shirley Clarke from 1961 about drug addicts (which is arguably horrific but definitely not a horror movie). And yet, the found footage technique has become so prevalent within the horror genre that it’s almost impossible to extricate the form from the fear it has inspired.
Horror filmmakers are notoriously canny creators,...
- 7/30/2022
- by Kate Erbland, Ryan Lattanzio and Alison Foreman
- Indiewire
British-Canadian documentarian and direct cinema pioneer Terence Macartney-Filgate has died in Toronto.
The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.
A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.
A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).
Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.
American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.
The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.
A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.
A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).
Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.
American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.
- 7/13/2022
- by Adam Benzine
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Terence Macartney-Filgate, a pioneering documentary maker and cinematographer who helped develop an unscripted, observational style of filmmaking common in reality TV today, has died. He was 97.
Macartney-Filgate died Monday in Toronto. No cause of death was available.
Over a 60-year career, he was a longtime collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada and directed his first film for the public filmmaker, Emergency Rescue — T33 Jet Aircraft, in 1956. With documentaries like The Days Before Christmas (1958), Blood and Fire (1958), Police (1958) and the ground-breaking The Back-breaking Leaf (1959), he developed the free-form, fly-on-the-wall documentary tradition that became part of the wider cinema verite tradition in the U.S.
“With the passing of Terence Macartney-Filgate, the Nfb has lost a dear friend and passionate champion of documentary cinema. A key figure in the Nfb’s legendary Unit B and its Candid Eye series, he helped to revolutionize non-fiction storytelling,...
Terence Macartney-Filgate, a pioneering documentary maker and cinematographer who helped develop an unscripted, observational style of filmmaking common in reality TV today, has died. He was 97.
Macartney-Filgate died Monday in Toronto. No cause of death was available.
Over a 60-year career, he was a longtime collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada and directed his first film for the public filmmaker, Emergency Rescue — T33 Jet Aircraft, in 1956. With documentaries like The Days Before Christmas (1958), Blood and Fire (1958), Police (1958) and the ground-breaking The Back-breaking Leaf (1959), he developed the free-form, fly-on-the-wall documentary tradition that became part of the wider cinema verite tradition in the U.S.
“With the passing of Terence Macartney-Filgate, the Nfb has lost a dear friend and passionate champion of documentary cinema. A key figure in the Nfb’s legendary Unit B and its Candid Eye series, he helped to revolutionize non-fiction storytelling,...
- 7/12/2022
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSUndine.Christian Petzold has begun filming The Red Sky, which will star Paula Beer of Transit and Undine. Set on the Baltic Sea, the film follows four young people sharing a vacation home surrounded by uncontrollable forest fires, navigating desire in the midst of environmental disaster.Production has also commenced on a new feature from Marco Bellocchio. The Conversion is inspired by the life of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped by the Catholic Church in 1858. Steven Spielberg was previously attached to the project.Verso Books has acquired the debut novel from Love Witch director Anna Biller. Set to publish in September 2023, Bluebeard's Castle is a "contemporary gothic suspense novel" about a young mystery writer who falls in love with a dashing baron—only for their marriage to crumble disastrously in a remote castle.
- 7/6/2022
- MUBI
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
The Before Trilogy (Richard Linklater)
Earning its status amongst the likes of Three Colors, Apu, Human Condition, Antonioni’s ’Decadence’ trilogy, and Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke’s exploration of romance both fledgling and tested is one of the great film trilogies of all time. Though there’s Before Movie, Says Julie Delpy”>no plans for a fourth film in sight, one can enjoy all three films, now available to stream on The Criterion
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Blue Bayou (Justin Chon)
After Antonio (Justin Chon) is wrongfully arrested in front of his wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and step-daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), he’s surprised to learn he’s been flagged for deportation. Due...
The Before Trilogy (Richard Linklater)
Earning its status amongst the likes of Three Colors, Apu, Human Condition, Antonioni’s ’Decadence’ trilogy, and Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke’s exploration of romance both fledgling and tested is one of the great film trilogies of all time. Though there’s Before Movie, Says Julie Delpy”>no plans for a fourth film in sight, one can enjoy all three films, now available to stream on The Criterion
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Blue Bayou (Justin Chon)
After Antonio (Justin Chon) is wrongfully arrested in front of his wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and step-daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), he’s surprised to learn he’s been flagged for deportation. Due...
- 7/1/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
The 4K Lost Highway restoration begins its run as a 20-film Dario Argento retrospective continues.
Roxy Cinema
Scanners plays on 35mm Friday night; on Saturday, a print of Marie Antoinette screens, Steve Gunn plays live music over some of the greatest films ever made—Ken Jacobs, Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren—and Nick Pinkerton and Sean Price Williams’ secret-screening series “City Dudes” returns; Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice plays Saturday and Sunday, while on the latter day a mixture of digital and 16mm shorts shows for Pride.
Anthology Film Archives
Essential Cinema has a Warhol double on Friday, while “Imageless Films” returns.
Museum of Modern Art
One of the year’s great retrospectives looks at deep cuts of Shochiku Studios, while a slashers retrospective is underway.
Film Forum
A 35mm print of Diva continues, while The Discreet Charm of...
Film at Lincoln Center
The 4K Lost Highway restoration begins its run as a 20-film Dario Argento retrospective continues.
Roxy Cinema
Scanners plays on 35mm Friday night; on Saturday, a print of Marie Antoinette screens, Steve Gunn plays live music over some of the greatest films ever made—Ken Jacobs, Shirley Clarke, Maya Deren—and Nick Pinkerton and Sean Price Williams’ secret-screening series “City Dudes” returns; Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice plays Saturday and Sunday, while on the latter day a mixture of digital and 16mm shorts shows for Pride.
Anthology Film Archives
Essential Cinema has a Warhol double on Friday, while “Imageless Films” returns.
Museum of Modern Art
One of the year’s great retrospectives looks at deep cuts of Shochiku Studios, while a slashers retrospective is underway.
Film Forum
A 35mm print of Diva continues, while The Discreet Charm of...
- 6/23/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The origins of electronic music in cinema go back to the first half of the 20th century. This mix is a homage to some of those moments.It begins with a 1930s Pathé archive example of an early version of what would become a synthesizer, before moving into Dmitri Shostakovich’s first use of theremin on screen in the 1931’s Alone, directed by Grigori Kozintsev. Originally a silent film, Alone gained a soundtrack by Shostakovich just before release once film sound was made available in Russia. Bernard Herrmann’s iconic use of the theremin in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) has a wonderful moment in this mix wherein we hear the studio sketches of this score’s creation. Taken from the 2018 reissue of the score, this recording presents studio outtakes and rehearsal moments during the production. Herrmann can be heard in the background prompting different actions from his orchestra.
- 3/28/2022
- MUBI
If you weren’t around at the time, it’s hard to communicate just what a splashy, dominating place the Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller occupied during the 1970s. Wertmüller, who died on Thursday at 93, was far from the first celebrated woman director — just think of Agnès Varda, Shirley Clarke, Elaine May, Lois Weber, Ida Lupino, Dorothy Arzner, or Barbara Loden. But apart from the infamous Leni Riefenstahl, it’s fair to say that Wertmüller was the first woman filmmaker to become a household name. She was the first to receive an Academy Award nomination for best director, the first to adorn the cover of major magazines, the first to rule and own the zeitgeist.
And rule it she did. “Swept Away,” Wertmüller’s controversial 1974 drama about a wealthy snob (Mariangela Melato) and one of her lowly yacht crew members (Giancarlo Giannini), who wind up swapping roles after the two are stranded on a desert island,...
And rule it she did. “Swept Away,” Wertmüller’s controversial 1974 drama about a wealthy snob (Mariangela Melato) and one of her lowly yacht crew members (Giancarlo Giannini), who wind up swapping roles after the two are stranded on a desert island,...
- 12/10/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Todd Haynes's The Velvet UndergroundIn his decades-long career, cinematographer Ed Lachman has brought an artful eye to dozens of films across a diverse array of directors and genres. One his most fruitful collaborations has been with director Todd Haynes, with whom he’s worked since 2002, when he shot the sumptuous '50s-set melodrama Far From Heaven. Their latest collaboration, The Velvet Underground, is a documentary that fully immerses viewers in the bohemian world of '60s downtown New York, showing the origins of the iconic band and capturing a distinct time and place without the typical rise-and-fall cliché and aesthetic blandness often found in rock docs. While the film is Haynes’s first documentary feature, Lachman has shot a variety of documentaries throughout the years, working with directors like Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Shirley Clarke, and The Velvet Underground gives Haynes’s passion for musical mythology, previously seen...
- 10/13/2021
- MUBI
Milestone’s library of more than 150 titles includes Portrait Of Jason, Say Amen, Somebody.
Kino Lorber has signed a multi-year strategic distribution and acquisition agreement with Milestone Films, the New York-based company renowned for restoring and distributing classics such as Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba.
Under the pact Kino Lorber gets exclusive US and international distribution rights to Milestone’s library of more than 150 titles and all its future restorations and acquisitions under the Milestone Films In Association With Kino Lorber label.
Husband-and-wife partners Dennis Doros and Amy Heller founded Milestone in 1990 and have over the past three decades...
Kino Lorber has signed a multi-year strategic distribution and acquisition agreement with Milestone Films, the New York-based company renowned for restoring and distributing classics such as Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba.
Under the pact Kino Lorber gets exclusive US and international distribution rights to Milestone’s library of more than 150 titles and all its future restorations and acquisitions under the Milestone Films In Association With Kino Lorber label.
Husband-and-wife partners Dennis Doros and Amy Heller founded Milestone in 1990 and have over the past three decades...
- 6/2/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
So, How Was Your 2020? is a series in which our favorite entertainers answer our questionnaire about the music, culture and memorable moments that shaped their year. We’ll be rolling these pieces out throughout December.
With last year’s Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering tackled themes of climate change, technology, the economy, and — of course — the ill-fated maiden voyage of the White Star Line ship. “I was feeling very societal,” Mering tells Rolling Stone from her home in Los Angeles. “I could sense this is a catastrophe waiting to happen,...
With last year’s Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering tackled themes of climate change, technology, the economy, and — of course — the ill-fated maiden voyage of the White Star Line ship. “I was feeling very societal,” Mering tells Rolling Stone from her home in Los Angeles. “I could sense this is a catastrophe waiting to happen,...
- 12/10/2020
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.
Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.
Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.
Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.
Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.
- 11/24/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
The November 2020 lineup for The Criterion Channel has been unveiled, toplined by a Claire Denis retrospective, including the brand-new restoration of Beau travail, along with Chocolat, No Fear, No Die, Nenette and Boni, Towards Mathilde, 35 Shots of Rum, and White Material.
There will also be a series celebrating 30 years of The Film Foundation, featuring a new interview with Martin Scorsese by Ari Aster, as well as a number of their most essential restorations, including films by Jia Zhangke, Ritwik Ghatak, Luchino Visconti, Shirley Clarke, Med Hondo, and more.
There’s also David Lynch’s new restoration of The Elephant Man, retrospectives dedicated to Ngozi Onwurah, Nadav Lapid, and Terence Nance, a new edition of the series Queersighted titled Queer Fear, featuring a new conversation between series programmer Michael Koresky and filmmaker and critic Farihah Zaman, and much more.
See the lineup below and learn more on the official site.
There will also be a series celebrating 30 years of The Film Foundation, featuring a new interview with Martin Scorsese by Ari Aster, as well as a number of their most essential restorations, including films by Jia Zhangke, Ritwik Ghatak, Luchino Visconti, Shirley Clarke, Med Hondo, and more.
There’s also David Lynch’s new restoration of The Elephant Man, retrospectives dedicated to Ngozi Onwurah, Nadav Lapid, and Terence Nance, a new edition of the series Queersighted titled Queer Fear, featuring a new conversation between series programmer Michael Koresky and filmmaker and critic Farihah Zaman, and much more.
See the lineup below and learn more on the official site.
- 10/27/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Orson Welles doesn’t waste time searching for the truth. Moments into “Hopper/Welles,” he declares, “Fuck the audience!” Meanwhile, a bemused Dennis Hopper allows for a dutiful grin. Such are the joys of this glorified behind-the-scenes feature, cobbled together from footage produced for Welles’ long-delayed swan song, “The Other Side of the Wind.” Assembled by producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski one year after they conjured “Wind” from Welles’ archives, this two-hour conversation from 1970 . It’s a long, drunken party conversation that allows you a seat at the table.
With Welles sitting just off-screen, cameraman Gary Graver sticks with Hopper’s bearded face for the duration, and the pair just go at it. The gorgeous black-and-white conversation was one of the many fragments produced for the “Wind” production, much of which takes place over the course of a long party hosted by the Wellesian protagonist and fictional...
With Welles sitting just off-screen, cameraman Gary Graver sticks with Hopper’s bearded face for the duration, and the pair just go at it. The gorgeous black-and-white conversation was one of the many fragments produced for the “Wind” production, much of which takes place over the course of a long party hosted by the Wellesian protagonist and fictional...
- 9/8/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
More than 50 years since black protestors first attempted to walk with protestors across a bridge in Selma—a bridge where they were met with violence and bloodshed at the hands of local authorities—it appears much and little has changed in American life. Millions make that connection each day as we head into the second weekend of protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Maybe that’s why some are eager to revisit the history of this American experience.
Hence Paramount Pictures announced Friday it is making Ava DuVernay’s Selma available for free across all major content platforms. This means you can watch the movie on Amazon, Apple, YouTube, or streamer of your choice.
“We hope this small gesture will encourage people throughout the country to examine our nation’s history and reflect on the ways that racial injustice has infected our society,” Paramount said in a statement.
Hence Paramount Pictures announced Friday it is making Ava DuVernay’s Selma available for free across all major content platforms. This means you can watch the movie on Amazon, Apple, YouTube, or streamer of your choice.
“We hope this small gesture will encourage people throughout the country to examine our nation’s history and reflect on the ways that racial injustice has infected our society,” Paramount said in a statement.
- 6/5/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
The Criterion Collection on Thursday joined the wave of industry supporters who’ve come out in the past week to help fight systemic racism, and help advocate for police reform and support protesters across America. From A24 to Bad Robot, film’s leading voices are stepping up in response to current events. In an email from Criterion president Peter Becker and CEO Jonathan Turell, the company announced a $25,000 initial contribution, followed by an ongoing $5,000 monthly commitment for organizations supporting Black Lives Matter.
But Criterion also announced that it’s lifting the paywall on select titles from Black filmmakers, and white filmmakers who’ve captured the Black experience through documentary, so that audiences at home can stream them for free, with no need for a subscription.
Titles streaming for free on Criterion Channel include Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust,” Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta,” Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason,...
But Criterion also announced that it’s lifting the paywall on select titles from Black filmmakers, and white filmmakers who’ve captured the Black experience through documentary, so that audiences at home can stream them for free, with no need for a subscription.
Titles streaming for free on Criterion Channel include Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust,” Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta,” Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason,...
- 6/4/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Since any New York City 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
“No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” commences with Xavier: Renegade Angel, Starship Troopers and more.
“See It Big! Ghost Stories” continues.
The Greek feature Electra plays this Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Restorations of Le Professeur and Sergei Parajanov shorts play as part of the 57th New York Film Festival’s final weekend.
Museum of the Moving Image
“No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” commences with Xavier: Renegade Angel, Starship Troopers and more.
“See It Big! Ghost Stories” continues.
The Greek feature Electra plays this Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Restorations of Le Professeur and Sergei Parajanov shorts play as part of the 57th New York Film Festival’s final weekend.
- 10/10/2019
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Since any New York City 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.
Metrograph
A series of New York-set films from 1981 begins with work by Abel Ferrara, Frederick Wiseman and more.
Alain Corneau’s Série noire has been restored and brought to screens. See the trailer here.
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” continues with The Awful Truth.
House, Mulholland Dr., Ms. 45, and Fantastic Planet play late-night, while Edward Scissorhands screens early.
Metrograph
A series of New York-set films from 1981 begins with work by Abel Ferrara, Frederick Wiseman and more.
Alain Corneau’s Série noire has been restored and brought to screens. See the trailer here.
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” continues with The Awful Truth.
House, Mulholland Dr., Ms. 45, and Fantastic Planet play late-night, while Edward Scissorhands screens early.
- 10/3/2019
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Festival releases titles due to be showcased in retrospective exploring Black film.
A restored copy of Spike Lee’s 1989 classic Do The Right Thing (1989) will be given a 30th anniversary Piazza Grande screening at the Locarno Film Festival as part its Black Light retrospective exploring Black cinema.
It is among some 20 titles included in the ambitious overview encompassing race films of the 1920s and 30s, 1970s Blaxploitation classics and works by cult directors including Lee and the late John Singleton, whose 1991 breakthrough debut Boyz N The Hood is in the selection.
Lee’s explosive comedy-drama Do The Right Thing, exploring...
A restored copy of Spike Lee’s 1989 classic Do The Right Thing (1989) will be given a 30th anniversary Piazza Grande screening at the Locarno Film Festival as part its Black Light retrospective exploring Black cinema.
It is among some 20 titles included in the ambitious overview encompassing race films of the 1920s and 30s, 1970s Blaxploitation classics and works by cult directors including Lee and the late John Singleton, whose 1991 breakthrough debut Boyz N The Hood is in the selection.
Lee’s explosive comedy-drama Do The Right Thing, exploring...
- 6/25/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Festival releases titles due to be showcased in retrospective exploring Black film.
A restored copy of Spike Lee’s 1989 classic Do The Right Thing (1989) will be given a 30th anniversary Piazza Grande screening at the Locarno Film Festival as part its Black Light retrospective exploring Black cinema.
It is among some 20 titles included in the ambitious overview encompassing race films of the 1920s and 30s, 1970s Blaxploitation classics and works by cult directors including Lee and the late John Singleton, whose 1991 breakthrough debut Boyz N The Hood is in the selection.
Lee’s explosive comedy-drama Do The Right Thing, exploring...
A restored copy of Spike Lee’s 1989 classic Do The Right Thing (1989) will be given a 30th anniversary Piazza Grande screening at the Locarno Film Festival as part its Black Light retrospective exploring Black cinema.
It is among some 20 titles included in the ambitious overview encompassing race films of the 1920s and 30s, 1970s Blaxploitation classics and works by cult directors including Lee and the late John Singleton, whose 1991 breakthrough debut Boyz N The Hood is in the selection.
Lee’s explosive comedy-drama Do The Right Thing, exploring...
- 6/25/2019
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on direct-to-camera for Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am: "It really conveys how much Toni is controlling the narrative." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the first instalment of my conversation with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director of Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, which took place on the day we heard that Sylvia Miles died, Timothy goes into the direct-to-camera of Shirley Clarke, Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, Warren Beatty's "slightly off camera" Reds, and Errol Morris. Raoul Peck's brilliant I Am Not Your Negro on James Baldwin, Kirk Simon's The Pulitzer At 100, Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, being seated where Toni Morrison sat for The Black List, and what's in a gaze came up.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on Toni Morrison: "I felt it was my portraiture coming to life." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am...
In the first instalment of my conversation with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director of Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, which took place on the day we heard that Sylvia Miles died, Timothy goes into the direct-to-camera of Shirley Clarke, Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, Warren Beatty's "slightly off camera" Reds, and Errol Morris. Raoul Peck's brilliant I Am Not Your Negro on James Baldwin, Kirk Simon's The Pulitzer At 100, Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, being seated where Toni Morrison sat for The Black List, and what's in a gaze came up.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on Toni Morrison: "I felt it was my portraiture coming to life." Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am...
- 6/17/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Chuck Smith at The Bowery Hotel on Barbara Rubin: "I think Walt Disney fascinated her all the time and fairy tales." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Through interviews with Jonas Mekas, Amy Taubin, Gordon Ball, Richard Foreman, J Hoberman, Ara Osterweil, Rosebud Feliu-Pettet, Debra Feiner Coddington, and illustrated by film clips, and photographs, Chuck Smith is in search of answering questions such as, who is Barbara Rubin and why haven't you heard about her?
Chuck Smith on Barbara Rubin friend Amy Taubin, seen here with Richard Gere and Oren Moverman: "She's in Michael Snow's Wavelength, the legendary experimental film." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Barbara Rubin And The Exploding NY Underground, with an original score by Lee Ranaldo, resurrects the filmmaker and instigator to take her place as a vital interconnected thread for the likes of Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Federico Fellini, Lenny Bruce, and many others.
Through interviews with Jonas Mekas, Amy Taubin, Gordon Ball, Richard Foreman, J Hoberman, Ara Osterweil, Rosebud Feliu-Pettet, Debra Feiner Coddington, and illustrated by film clips, and photographs, Chuck Smith is in search of answering questions such as, who is Barbara Rubin and why haven't you heard about her?
Chuck Smith on Barbara Rubin friend Amy Taubin, seen here with Richard Gere and Oren Moverman: "She's in Michael Snow's Wavelength, the legendary experimental film." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Barbara Rubin And The Exploding NY Underground, with an original score by Lee Ranaldo, resurrects the filmmaker and instigator to take her place as a vital interconnected thread for the likes of Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Federico Fellini, Lenny Bruce, and many others.
- 5/19/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Agnes Varda is deservedly eulogized in newspapers and on social media all over America today, but critics, programmers and audiences in the U.S. took time in recognizing her accomplishments. It took several decades for her work gain appreciation in the U.S., and during that time, I witnessed Varda’s ability to continue evolving as an artist every step of the way.
While Varda’s debut feature, “La Pointe Courte” (1955) has yet to have a theatrical release in America, her early short, “L’Opera Mouffe” (1958), was distributed by Cinema 16, an important film club run by Amos and Marcia Vogel in the 50’s and early 60’s dedicated to the showing and release of experimental and avant-garde cinema. The film won some notoriety because of its casual nudity — then still rare on American screens — and it was booked in film societies around the country seeding the bed for later Varda appreciation.
While Varda’s debut feature, “La Pointe Courte” (1955) has yet to have a theatrical release in America, her early short, “L’Opera Mouffe” (1958), was distributed by Cinema 16, an important film club run by Amos and Marcia Vogel in the 50’s and early 60’s dedicated to the showing and release of experimental and avant-garde cinema. The film won some notoriety because of its casual nudity — then still rare on American screens — and it was booked in film societies around the country seeding the bed for later Varda appreciation.
- 3/31/2019
- by Laurence Kardish
- Indiewire
Until today, if you had asked me to name the greatest living filmmaker, I would have answered Agnès Varda. What a loss that the 90-year-old director — who died Friday, leaving behind such intimate masterpieces as “Cléo from 5 to 7,” “Vagabond,” and “The Gleaners and I” — will create no more.
Her passing is a chance for the world of cinema to come together and recognize the achievements of an outsider artist who lived long enough to appreciate the impact her work has had on both audiences and multiple generations of younger directors. Before the French New Wave took form in the late 1950s, it was Varda who paddled out from shore and shouted, “Hey boys, come on in! The water’s fine!” And in recent years, with a series of increasingly personal documentaries — including two, “The Beaches of Agnès” and “Faces Places,” that the Los Angeles Film Critics awarded along the way...
Her passing is a chance for the world of cinema to come together and recognize the achievements of an outsider artist who lived long enough to appreciate the impact her work has had on both audiences and multiple generations of younger directors. Before the French New Wave took form in the late 1950s, it was Varda who paddled out from shore and shouted, “Hey boys, come on in! The water’s fine!” And in recent years, with a series of increasingly personal documentaries — including two, “The Beaches of Agnès” and “Faces Places,” that the Los Angeles Film Critics awarded along the way...
- 3/29/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Jonas Mekas, a towering figure in New York’s avant-garde film scene and a pioneering force for film preservation, died today at age 96. His death was announced by Anthology Film Archives, the still-active archive and theater he cofounded in Manhattan’s East Village 48 years ago.
“Jonas passed away quietly and peacefully early this morning,” Anthology Film Archives wrote in a statement posted on Instagram today. “He was at home with family. He will be greatly missed but his light shines on.”
Director and friend Martin Scorsese said, in a lengthy statement released today (read it below), said, “Jonas Mekas did and meant so much to so many people in the world of cinema that you’d need a day and a night to just begin. He was a prophet. He was an impresario. He was a provocateur in the truest and most fundamental sense – he provoked people into new ways...
“Jonas passed away quietly and peacefully early this morning,” Anthology Film Archives wrote in a statement posted on Instagram today. “He was at home with family. He will be greatly missed but his light shines on.”
Director and friend Martin Scorsese said, in a lengthy statement released today (read it below), said, “Jonas Mekas did and meant so much to so many people in the world of cinema that you’d need a day and a night to just begin. He was a prophet. He was an impresario. He was a provocateur in the truest and most fundamental sense – he provoked people into new ways...
- 1/23/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
In 1961, Shirley Clarke finished directing her first feature film and debuted The Connection at the Cannes Film Festival to much acclaim.
Previously, Clarke had begun her creative career as a dancer before moving on to direct many well-respected short experimental films, such as 1958’s Bridges-Go-Round. Clarke had always aimed her sights high with her career and, despite the improbability of a woman directing an independent feature film in the early 1960s, she accomplished just that.
The Connection was originally a play written by Jack Gelber and performed by New York City’s Living Theatre in 1959. The plot revolves around a group of junkies waiting around one afternoon for their drug dealer to arrive.
Clarke had seen and loved the play, but it was her brother-in-law — theater critic Kenneth Tynan — who convinced her to make a film of it. Money was raised through Lewis Allen, a theater investor who wanted to move into producing films.
Previously, Clarke had begun her creative career as a dancer before moving on to direct many well-respected short experimental films, such as 1958’s Bridges-Go-Round. Clarke had always aimed her sights high with her career and, despite the improbability of a woman directing an independent feature film in the early 1960s, she accomplished just that.
The Connection was originally a play written by Jack Gelber and performed by New York City’s Living Theatre in 1959. The plot revolves around a group of junkies waiting around one afternoon for their drug dealer to arrive.
Clarke had seen and loved the play, but it was her brother-in-law — theater critic Kenneth Tynan — who convinced her to make a film of it. Money was raised through Lewis Allen, a theater investor who wanted to move into producing films.
- 9/9/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
In October 1968, the transcript of a conversation between filmmakers Shirley Clarke and Storm de Hirsch was published in the 46th issue of Film Culture magazine. Excerpts from that conversation are below.
At the time, Clarke and de Hirsch were totally unique in their respective careers. While there were certainly many women filmmakers active in the New American Cinema movement of the late ’60s, only these two had directed feature films. Clarke had directed three: The Connection, The Cool World and Portrait of Jason; and de Hirsch just one: Goodbye in the Mirror.
Therefore, most of the conversation in Film Culture revolved around the ideas of women making feature films — from differences in “masculine” and “feminine” storytelling to the future of women working in the industry, either independently like themselves or within the Hollywood system.
Both women have very different opinions on the subject. De Hirsch frequently states that she sees...
At the time, Clarke and de Hirsch were totally unique in their respective careers. While there were certainly many women filmmakers active in the New American Cinema movement of the late ’60s, only these two had directed feature films. Clarke had directed three: The Connection, The Cool World and Portrait of Jason; and de Hirsch just one: Goodbye in the Mirror.
Therefore, most of the conversation in Film Culture revolved around the ideas of women making feature films — from differences in “masculine” and “feminine” storytelling to the future of women working in the industry, either independently like themselves or within the Hollywood system.
Both women have very different opinions on the subject. De Hirsch frequently states that she sees...
- 8/19/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Since any New York City 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.
Bam
Films by Elaine May, Yvonne Rainer, and Shirley Clarke play under “A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era, 1967—1980.”
Metrograph
As an Emile de Antonio retro ends, four of Paul Schrader’s best films screen.
Quad Cinema
The long-longed-for Alan Rudolph retrospective continues and mustn’t be missed.
Museum of Modern Art...
Bam
Films by Elaine May, Yvonne Rainer, and Shirley Clarke play under “A Different Picture: Women Filmmakers in the New Hollywood Era, 1967—1980.”
Metrograph
As an Emile de Antonio retro ends, four of Paul Schrader’s best films screen.
Quad Cinema
The long-longed-for Alan Rudolph retrospective continues and mustn’t be missed.
Museum of Modern Art...
- 5/4/2018
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
It’s only been around for five years, but The Art of the Real has already established itself as one of the world’s most essential showcases for game-changing, rule-breaking, genre-busting new cinema. Dedicated to films that blur the line between fact and fiction — or reveal to us how blurred that line is and always will be — this annual Film Society of Lincoln Center series is the kind of thing that makes you want to put quotation marks around reductive terms like “documentary” and “non-fiction.” These are unclassifiable works of freeform cinematic innovation, movies that are more accurately defined by their inclusion in this program than they are by any of the words we often use to describe them.
The 2018 edition of The Art of the Real is predictably stacked with strong work, from a movie about a tennis player that reimagines how we think about sports, to a movie...
The 2018 edition of The Art of the Real is predictably stacked with strong work, from a movie about a tennis player that reimagines how we think about sports, to a movie...
- 4/28/2018
- by David Ehrlich and Jude Dry
- Indiewire
The Cannes Film Festival’s official selection might be lacking in new works from female directors, but elsewhere in this year’s lineup, women are staking a claim for supremacy. In the International Critics’ Week sidebar, they’re actually leading the way. In the first time in a decade, this year’s competition slate includes a majority of films made by female directors.
The seven titles that will play in Critics’ Week include four directed by women: Agnieszka Smoczynska’s (best known for her wild debut “The Lure”) “Fugue,” Anja Kofmel’s “Chris the Swiss,” Rohena Gera’s “Sir,” and Sofia Szilagyi’s “One Day.” Also competing in the section: Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Kona Fer I Strid” (“Woman at War”), Camille Vidal-Naquet’s “Sauvage,” and Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s “Diamantino.”
The last time female directors offered up the majority of films in the sidebar’s competition, it was...
The seven titles that will play in Critics’ Week include four directed by women: Agnieszka Smoczynska’s (best known for her wild debut “The Lure”) “Fugue,” Anja Kofmel’s “Chris the Swiss,” Rohena Gera’s “Sir,” and Sofia Szilagyi’s “One Day.” Also competing in the section: Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Kona Fer I Strid” (“Woman at War”), Camille Vidal-Naquet’s “Sauvage,” and Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s “Diamantino.”
The last time female directors offered up the majority of films in the sidebar’s competition, it was...
- 4/16/2018
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
In a letter dated June 1, 1962, the newly formed Film-Makers’ Cooperative offered their first list of films that were available to rent. Fourteen filmmakers were represented.
The need to form a cooperative distribution center for what were then called “independent filmmakers” was made in a series of meetings in the autumn of 1960. The meetings were organized by Jonas Mekas and Lew Allen; and included New York City-based filmmakers such as Robert Frank, Shirley Clarke, Adolfas Mekas, Ben Carruthers, Peter Bogdanovich and others. These informal meetings would eventually coalesce into the formation of the New American Cinema Group.
On September 30, 1960, Jonas Mekas presented The First Statement of the New American Cinema Group manifesto. One of the items in the manifesto stated that filmmaker Emile de Antonio was entrusted with the task of forming the distribution center, although there’s no record of de Antonio’s actual involvement beyond that.
The distribution center...
The need to form a cooperative distribution center for what were then called “independent filmmakers” was made in a series of meetings in the autumn of 1960. The meetings were organized by Jonas Mekas and Lew Allen; and included New York City-based filmmakers such as Robert Frank, Shirley Clarke, Adolfas Mekas, Ben Carruthers, Peter Bogdanovich and others. These informal meetings would eventually coalesce into the formation of the New American Cinema Group.
On September 30, 1960, Jonas Mekas presented The First Statement of the New American Cinema Group manifesto. One of the items in the manifesto stated that filmmaker Emile de Antonio was entrusted with the task of forming the distribution center, although there’s no record of de Antonio’s actual involvement beyond that.
The distribution center...
- 4/1/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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