In Our Day.In the cinema, as elsewhere, the notion of “late style” has become a critical commonplace—shorthand for dealing with an artist’s “mature” work, particularly when said artists are dismissed or misunderstood after a period of acclaim. The problem with shorthand, of course, is that not everyone can read it, the result being that appeals to “late style” can come across as abdications of critical responsibility, promissory notes that have yet to be fulfilled. Such debts are in many cases eventually paid, obscure references to “late style” giving way to fuller, more perspicuous accounts of an artist’s achievement. Few would now dispute the considered analyses of how Howard Hawks, pivoting on the success of Rio Bravo (1959), made a deliberate move into the late-career languor of Hatari! (1962), Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964), and Red Line 7000 (1965). In the case of Hong Sang-soo, however, this critical due has yet to...
- 5/20/2024
- MUBI
Babes by Pamela Adlon, co-written and starring Ilana Glazer, debuts in limited release with films by Hang Song-soo and Bertrand Bonello and docs on a controversial Venice Biennale, ground-breaking female clerics, and the Blue Angels Navy Squadron. A trio of festival favorites expand. While eyes now are on fare at Cannes — where Neon has been making high-profile moves — each week Stateside remains a test of indie film’s theatrical boundaries in a post-Covid, streaming-centric marketplace.
There have been notable hits. A24’s I Saw The TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun is having a nice run so far as is Evil Does Not Exist — Sideshow/Janus Films’ second outing with Ryusuke Hamaguchi after Oscar-winning Drive My Car. (That 2021 Japanese film about a...
There have been notable hits. A24’s I Saw The TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun is having a nice run so far as is Evil Does Not Exist — Sideshow/Janus Films’ second outing with Ryusuke Hamaguchi after Oscar-winning Drive My Car. (That 2021 Japanese film about a...
- 5/17/2024
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
‘In Our Day’ Review: Hong Sang-soo Celebrates Hot Pepper Paste in Bifurcated Ode to Simple Pleasures
Writing and directing your 30th feature film is a milestone that few filmmakers ever reach, and likely prompts a bit of introspection. It could be seen as an opportunity for reinvention and experimentation now that your legacy is secure, or it could be justification to double down on the traits that made you so successful in the first place.
Hong Sang-soo takes the latter approach with “In Our Day,” a film that sees him playing many of his greatest stylistic hits. There’s an excellent performance from Kim Min-hee, a script that’s divided into separate vignettes, lengthy shots that afford actors the room to dive into their characters’ subtlest mannerisms, and of course, bottles of soju that lurk over the story like a Chekhov’s Gun as we wait for everyone to begin imbibing and sharing their true feelings. It’s the kind of film that might be described...
Hong Sang-soo takes the latter approach with “In Our Day,” a film that sees him playing many of his greatest stylistic hits. There’s an excellent performance from Kim Min-hee, a script that’s divided into separate vignettes, lengthy shots that afford actors the room to dive into their characters’ subtlest mannerisms, and of course, bottles of soju that lurk over the story like a Chekhov’s Gun as we wait for everyone to begin imbibing and sharing their true feelings. It’s the kind of film that might be described...
- 5/17/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
The best festivals point to the future, capture the zeitgeist, or honor the past. At Locarno in 2015, you could have had all three: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour (his first time premiering in a major competition), Chantal Akerman’s No Home Movie (the director in attendance just months before she died), and Hong Sangsoo’s Right Now, Wrong Then (a mid-career masterpiece), all played. So did Rick Alverson’s Entertainment, the final film of Andrzej Żuławski, and the directorial debut of Josh Mond, at the time best known for producing Martha Marcy May Marlene for Borderline, a company he established with Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos in 2003. Mond’s debut James White featured Cristopher Abbott’s first lead role and (one year before dazzling in A Quiet Passion for Terrence Davies) a Cynthia Nixon performance that made you sit up and take note. It won a prize in Locarno and another at Sundance.
- 5/17/2024
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Unlike Cannes’ industry-catered competition section, the festival’s independent sidebar Directors’ Fortnight defines itself around audience outreach.
Headquartered halfway down the Croisette, equidistant from the Palais des Festivals, where the official selection screens for an industry-only crowd, Fortnight embraces the sprawl. The 56th edition programs 21 features and another eight shorts from May 15-25 (starting with Sophie Fillières’ posthumous “This Life of Mine”) while bringing select titles to many theaters far from the main drag.
That same selection will also offer the easiest point of access for so many locals, for whom Fortnight is often synonymous with Cannes, and who can always count on a 30-minute Q&a after each screening. Further afield, however, that clarity of identity begins to fade.
For one thing, the showcase doesn’t have a recognizable pitchman. In the time since Thierry Frémaux took over the official selection in 2004, Directors’ Fortnight has seen four artistic directors come and go,...
Headquartered halfway down the Croisette, equidistant from the Palais des Festivals, where the official selection screens for an industry-only crowd, Fortnight embraces the sprawl. The 56th edition programs 21 features and another eight shorts from May 15-25 (starting with Sophie Fillières’ posthumous “This Life of Mine”) while bringing select titles to many theaters far from the main drag.
That same selection will also offer the easiest point of access for so many locals, for whom Fortnight is often synonymous with Cannes, and who can always count on a 30-minute Q&a after each screening. Further afield, however, that clarity of identity begins to fade.
For one thing, the showcase doesn’t have a recognizable pitchman. In the time since Thierry Frémaux took over the official selection in 2004, Directors’ Fortnight has seen four artistic directors come and go,...
- 5/15/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Indiewire
The 21st IndieLisboa International Film Festival will take place from 23rd May to 2nd June in Lisbon. The festival aims to address the gap in film distribution created by the dominance of mainstream productions. Each year, it attracts casual viewers and film professionals worldwide, offering them the chance to discover recent works by emerging talents and revisit films made by renowned directors.
IndieLisboa features 7 sections, with 4 of them being competitive. Additionally, it offers events for industry professionals, including workshops, masterclasses, debates, a script-writing lab, a film fund, a pitching forum, and screenings of works in progress. This year, apart from the retrospective of Palestinian artist Kamal Aljafari, the festival will present 12 short and 13 full-length films that are productions or co-productions of Asian countries.
A Traveler's Needs (2024) by Hong Sang-soo (National Premiere)
South Korea, 90'
The newest film of the prolific director had its world premiere at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival,...
IndieLisboa features 7 sections, with 4 of them being competitive. Additionally, it offers events for industry professionals, including workshops, masterclasses, debates, a script-writing lab, a film fund, a pitching forum, and screenings of works in progress. This year, apart from the retrospective of Palestinian artist Kamal Aljafari, the festival will present 12 short and 13 full-length films that are productions or co-productions of Asian countries.
A Traveler's Needs (2024) by Hong Sang-soo (National Premiere)
South Korea, 90'
The newest film of the prolific director had its world premiere at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival,...
- 5/14/2024
- by Tobiasz Dunin
- AsianMoviePulse
Something has subtly shifted in Quentin Dupieux’s perspective, leaving the one-man-band of French cinema a rather different auteur than the anti-comedy punk that nearly stumbled onto the festival stage so many years ago. Chalk it up to maturity or to an impressive professional rise — reaching new highs this year with the opening slot at the Cannes Film Festival — but the director’s tone has softened and his targets have shifted, even as his working methods (and working ethic) remain set-in-stone.
Like a distant Gallic cousin to Wes Anderson and Hong Sang-soo (now there are two names you rarely see together), Dupieux has connected a distinctive voice into a well-honed system built for productivity, allowing him to write-direct-shoot-edit-and-score a new film every year. And sometimes, he finds time for two.
Within the past twelve months, he’s brought films “Yannick” and “Daaaaaalí!” to Locarno and Venice, and now steps into...
Like a distant Gallic cousin to Wes Anderson and Hong Sang-soo (now there are two names you rarely see together), Dupieux has connected a distinctive voice into a well-honed system built for productivity, allowing him to write-direct-shoot-edit-and-score a new film every year. And sometimes, he finds time for two.
Within the past twelve months, he’s brought films “Yannick” and “Daaaaaalí!” to Locarno and Venice, and now steps into...
- 5/14/2024
- by Ben Croll
- Indiewire
Pan-Arab outfit Mad Solutions has launched international sales company Mad World, which will introduce its first slate of titles and executive team at the Cannes market next week.
The Dubai-based firm will handle worldwide sales and international distribution of new Arab-language feature films, led by Mad Solutions’ co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab as well as the company’s managing partner Colin Brown. All three are co-presidents of Mad World, with Karkouti serving as CEO.
Also joining Mad World are European executives Edin De Liancourt as vice president of sales and acquisitions and Jeanne Deny as director of sales and acquisitions.
The Dubai-based firm will handle worldwide sales and international distribution of new Arab-language feature films, led by Mad Solutions’ co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab as well as the company’s managing partner Colin Brown. All three are co-presidents of Mad World, with Karkouti serving as CEO.
Also joining Mad World are European executives Edin De Liancourt as vice president of sales and acquisitions and Jeanne Deny as director of sales and acquisitions.
- 5/9/2024
- ScreenDaily
Chinese streamer iQiyi is set to launch sales of action-comedy Clash from producer Guan Hu at the Cannes Market next week.
The film, directed by Jiang Jiachen, is based on the true story of a food delivery rider, dubbed the Usain Bolt of Shapingba in Chongqing, Sichuan province, who assembles 30 young men to form a rugby team.
Through clashes and crashes, the men channel their frustrations in their mundane lives to positive energy on the field. The cast includes Li Jiuxiao, Wang Qianyuan, Liang Chao and Pan Binlong. The iQiyi production was shot by Qian Tiantian, one of a few female DoPs in China.
The film, directed by Jiang Jiachen, is based on the true story of a food delivery rider, dubbed the Usain Bolt of Shapingba in Chongqing, Sichuan province, who assembles 30 young men to form a rugby team.
Through clashes and crashes, the men channel their frustrations in their mundane lives to positive energy on the field. The cast includes Li Jiuxiao, Wang Qianyuan, Liang Chao and Pan Binlong. The iQiyi production was shot by Qian Tiantian, one of a few female DoPs in China.
- 5/9/2024
- ScreenDaily
Korean sales firm Finecut has inked multiple deals for horror thriller “Noise” and for “A Traveler’s Needs,” the recent Berlin prize-winner directed by Hong Sangsoo.
“Noise” is a “multi-sensory and realistic horror” film that intertwines societal motifs of “floor noise” with suspenseful elements. Directed by Kim Soo-jin, the film centers around a woman with a hearing aid haunted by inexplicable sounds linked to her sister’s disappearance in her own apartment and attracting a malevolent presence. The film is currently in post-production.
Among the pre-completion buyers are France’s Kmbo, Red Castle Group for the Cis region, Indonesia’s Prima Cinema Multimedia and Thailand’s Iris Cinema Thailand. Finecut will screen a promotional extract at its booth and in the Cannes Market.
The Isabelle Huppert-starring, Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize-winner “A Traveler’s Needs” has scored multiple deals since launching at Berlin’s EFM. These include one with The Cinema...
“Noise” is a “multi-sensory and realistic horror” film that intertwines societal motifs of “floor noise” with suspenseful elements. Directed by Kim Soo-jin, the film centers around a woman with a hearing aid haunted by inexplicable sounds linked to her sister’s disappearance in her own apartment and attracting a malevolent presence. The film is currently in post-production.
Among the pre-completion buyers are France’s Kmbo, Red Castle Group for the Cis region, Indonesia’s Prima Cinema Multimedia and Thailand’s Iris Cinema Thailand. Finecut will screen a promotional extract at its booth and in the Cannes Market.
The Isabelle Huppert-starring, Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize-winner “A Traveler’s Needs” has scored multiple deals since launching at Berlin’s EFM. These include one with The Cinema...
- 5/9/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
South Korean sales agency Finecut has closed a raft of distribution deals on Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert, and upcoming horror-thriller Noise.
A Traveler’s Needs premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in February, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, and was recently acquired for North America by Cinema Guild.
The film has now been picked up for Italy (Minerva Pictures), Spain (L’Atalante Cinema), Austria (Filmgarten), Cis (A-one Film), Greece and Cyprus (Ama Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), Baltics (A-one Films Baltic). In Asia, it has been acquired for Japan (Mimosa Films), Taiwan...
A Traveler’s Needs premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in February, winning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, and was recently acquired for North America by Cinema Guild.
The film has now been picked up for Italy (Minerva Pictures), Spain (L’Atalante Cinema), Austria (Filmgarten), Cis (A-one Film), Greece and Cyprus (Ama Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), Baltics (A-one Films Baltic). In Asia, it has been acquired for Japan (Mimosa Films), Taiwan...
- 5/8/2024
- ScreenDaily
Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights to Hong Sangsoo’s Berlin Silver Bear winner A Traveler’s Needs starring Isabelle Huppert.
‘A Traveler’s Needs’: Berlin Review
Cinema Guild will release the comedy theatrically following its North American festival premiere later this year.
A Traveler’s Needs marks the third collaboration between Hong and Huppert following 2012’s In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.
Huppert plays Iris, a woman who finds herself adrift in Seoul and, without any means to make ends meet, turns to teaching French through a peculiar method. Through a series of encounters the mysteries of her circumstances deepen.
‘A Traveler’s Needs’: Berlin Review
Cinema Guild will release the comedy theatrically following its North American festival premiere later this year.
A Traveler’s Needs marks the third collaboration between Hong and Huppert following 2012’s In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera.
Huppert plays Iris, a woman who finds herself adrift in Seoul and, without any means to make ends meet, turns to teaching French through a peculiar method. Through a series of encounters the mysteries of her circumstances deepen.
- 5/1/2024
- ScreenDaily
“The Roundup: Punishment,” the fourth film in the Don Lee-starring crime action franchise, earned $20.9 million between Friday and Sunday and punched out all competition at the South Korean box office.
“Challengers,” which headed the box office this weekend in North America, with $15 million, opened fourth in Korea a 0.5% market share.
Global cinema data service, Comscore reported that “Punishment” was the top-scoring film worldwide with $24.4 million earned from collections in six territories. It was narrowly ahead of “Challengers” which earned $24.0 million from 53 markets.
“Punishment” accounted for a crushing 94% market share in Korea and collected its weekend haul from 2.92 million ticket sales, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).
The film opened officially on Wednesday, when it scored $4.92 million, and followed that with a $3.25 million Thursday. Including the weekday takings and a smattering of previews from the previous weekend, the film finished Sunday with a cumulative of $29.3 million,...
“Challengers,” which headed the box office this weekend in North America, with $15 million, opened fourth in Korea a 0.5% market share.
Global cinema data service, Comscore reported that “Punishment” was the top-scoring film worldwide with $24.4 million earned from collections in six territories. It was narrowly ahead of “Challengers” which earned $24.0 million from 53 markets.
“Punishment” accounted for a crushing 94% market share in Korea and collected its weekend haul from 2.92 million ticket sales, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).
The film opened officially on Wednesday, when it scored $4.92 million, and followed that with a $3.25 million Thursday. Including the weekday takings and a smattering of previews from the previous weekend, the film finished Sunday with a cumulative of $29.3 million,...
- 4/28/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
The word “mimang” holds multiple meanings in Korean. One, being unable to make sense from ignorance. Two, being unable to forget what one wants to forget. And three, searching far and wide. Following the rather successful short “Snail”, Kim Tae-yang, in his feature debut that was shot for four years in Seoul, presents a film that implements the meanings of the word in three different chapters, through a distinct ‘walk-and-talk' style.
Mimang is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival 2024
A female curator reunites with an old friend (probably something more) by accident, when they stumble upon each other on the street, where he informs her that currently, he is undertaking urban sketching lessons. As she finds it difficult to navigate the area (in a recurring theme in the movie) he walks her close to her destination. Later on, he meets his partner and she meets the organizer of a...
Mimang is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival 2024
A female curator reunites with an old friend (probably something more) by accident, when they stumble upon each other on the street, where he informs her that currently, he is undertaking urban sketching lessons. As she finds it difficult to navigate the area (in a recurring theme in the movie) he walks her close to her destination. Later on, he meets his partner and she meets the organizer of a...
- 4/28/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for “You Burn Me” (aka “Tú me abrasas”), directed by Argentina’s Matías Piñeiro.
The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February in the festival’s Encounters section. It won a special mention from the jury at Paris’s Cinéma du réel in March.
Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its currently unspecified North American festival premiere later this year. The company has also acquired rights to three earlies films by Piñeiro – “The Stolen Man” from 2007; “They All Lie” from 2009; and “Rosalinda” which will be released on home video and digital alongside “You Burn Me.”
An adaptation of “Sea Foam,” a chapter in Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò, Piñeiro’s latest is an intimate and expansive meditation on death and desire. It is also a challenging exploration of the possibilities of adapting text to film.
The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February in the festival’s Encounters section. It won a special mention from the jury at Paris’s Cinéma du réel in March.
Cinema Guild will release the film in theaters following its currently unspecified North American festival premiere later this year. The company has also acquired rights to three earlies films by Piñeiro – “The Stolen Man” from 2007; “They All Lie” from 2009; and “Rosalinda” which will be released on home video and digital alongside “You Burn Me.”
An adaptation of “Sea Foam,” a chapter in Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò, Piñeiro’s latest is an intimate and expansive meditation on death and desire. It is also a challenging exploration of the possibilities of adapting text to film.
- 4/22/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSThe Pill Pounder.The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival is known for audiences who talk back to the screen, but such rowdiness took a dark turn last weekend at a screening of Love Lies Bleeding (2024), during which homophobic and misogynistic taunts caused more than 60 attendees to walk out and then to stage a protest at the cinema door, which was broken up by the police.Italy’s right-wing government has left the country’s motion-picture industry stalled in uncertainty as they debate new regulations to tax incentives for film and television production, some of which may give preference to films “tied to Italy’s national identity.”Ten of thirteen IATSE locals now have tentative agreements with AMPTP. Talks...
- 4/17/2024
- MUBI
Death, taxes, and one-to-three Hong Sang-soo movies per year. I much prefer the latter, and it’s nice knowing we’re just a month out from In Our Day, his 30th feature and latest on which he serves as director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and composer. Following last year’s Directors’ Fortnight debut, the film begins a rollout on May 17 at Film at Lincoln Center before expanding; naturally, there is a trailer.
As Michael Frank said in his review, “In Our Day remains straightforward in its filmmaking, attaining depth through dialogue designed to cause the viewer to think about the value and meaning of the art they consume––among other things, the film itself. It’s cyclical in a way, and Hong knows that, adding to his collection of understated, underseen films with great performances.”
Find the preview below:
Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend,...
As Michael Frank said in his review, “In Our Day remains straightforward in its filmmaking, attaining depth through dialogue designed to cause the viewer to think about the value and meaning of the art they consume––among other things, the film itself. It’s cyclical in a way, and Hong knows that, adding to his collection of understated, underseen films with great performances.”
Find the preview below:
Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend,...
- 4/15/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
You’d be forgiven for not having seen every Hong Sangsoo movie. The South Korean director, known for films like “On the Beach at Night Alone,” “Claire’s Camera,” and “The Novelist’s Film” has released 29 features, and often more than one in the same year. So was the case for 2023, which saw the festival circuit premieres of “In Water” and “In Our Day.” And as of writing, Hong already has another movie that premiered at the Berlinale, “A Traveller’s Needs.” A new Hong movie is always a pleasure to celebrate, and so IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for “In Our Day” ahead of the upcoming release from Cinema Guild. Watch below.
Here’s the synopsis for the film:
Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend, Jungsoo (Song Sunmi), and her cat, Us. Elsewhere in the city, the aging poet Hong Uiju (Ki Joobong) lives alone,...
Here’s the synopsis for the film:
Sangwon (Kim Minhee), an actress recently returned to South Korea, is temporarily staying with her friend, Jungsoo (Song Sunmi), and her cat, Us. Elsewhere in the city, the aging poet Hong Uiju (Ki Joobong) lives alone,...
- 4/15/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Quentin Dupieux's Yannick is now showing exclusively on Mubi from April 5, 2024.Yannick.Ever since he dogged a sentient tire on a killing spree in Rubber (2010), musician-turned-filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has been distilling a singular form of gonzo. The films he’s crafted—a body of work swelling at the speed of Hong Sang-soo, with six features released since 2019—all belie their modest means. Rarely stretching longer than eighty minutes, they’ve followed a number of deranged characters, which have recently included a man reprogrammed as a killing machine by his leather jacket; a pig-sized fly and the two bums who try to make a pet out of it; a gang of Power Rangers–type avengers armed with tobacco smoke’s chemical constituents, and a middle-aged couple who discovers a time-travel portal in their basement. Dupieux—who routinely writes, shoots, directs, and edits his own films—likes to work with a...
- 4/8/2024
- MUBI
As some of the lists of the previous years were not on par with the ones we have been publishing lately, we decided to take a closer look at some of the years that were not as covered at the time. In that fashion, here is a list with the 50 of the Best Asian movies of 2015, in completely random order.
1. Monster Hunt
Raman Hui evidently shot a film to indulge every demographic category in the country. In that fashion, the movie entails elements of RPGs, comics, martial arts, comedy, musicals, romance, some drama and a plethora of action scenes. (Panos Kotzathanasis)
on Amazon by clicking on the image below 2. Spl 2: A Time for Consequences
The action scenes are magnificent, with Tony Jaa as Chatchai and Wu Jing as Kit giving their best selves. Furthermore, the film excels in the technical department, both in cinematography and special effects,...
1. Monster Hunt
Raman Hui evidently shot a film to indulge every demographic category in the country. In that fashion, the movie entails elements of RPGs, comics, martial arts, comedy, musicals, romance, some drama and a plethora of action scenes. (Panos Kotzathanasis)
on Amazon by clicking on the image below 2. Spl 2: A Time for Consequences
The action scenes are magnificent, with Tony Jaa as Chatchai and Wu Jing as Kit giving their best selves. Furthermore, the film excels in the technical department, both in cinematography and special effects,...
- 4/1/2024
- by AMP Group
- AsianMoviePulse
Yearning can be a difficult feeling to capture on-screen. Love stories are little without a tragic element, and defining the spaces in between moments of romantic reverie can be a challenge for even the best filmmakers and the most dedicated actors. Yun Su-ik and leading performers Han So-hee and Han Hae-in have taken a surprisingly unconventional approach to a tale of young love with “Heavy Snow”, a slight but cutting series of snapshots of a brief high-school fling that has long-lasting ramifications.
Heavy Snow is screening at BFI Flare
Han Hae-in is Su-an, an acting-major loner living in a small coastal town, introduced by wielding a loaded paintball gun as part of her performance in drama class. When performing Shakespeare, she resembles less of a traditional Hamlet and more of a school shooter, keeping her classmates on the backfoot as she alienates them with her extreme commitment to her version of a classic role.
Heavy Snow is screening at BFI Flare
Han Hae-in is Su-an, an acting-major loner living in a small coastal town, introduced by wielding a loaded paintball gun as part of her performance in drama class. When performing Shakespeare, she resembles less of a traditional Hamlet and more of a school shooter, keeping her classmates on the backfoot as she alienates them with her extreme commitment to her version of a classic role.
- 3/16/2024
- by Simon Ramshaw
- AsianMoviePulse
A snapshot of the most exciting voices working in American and international cinema today––and with a strong focus on newcomers––the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival returns this week, taking place March 13-17.
As always, the annual festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making this series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. Check out our top picks below, along with the exclusive premiere of the festival trailer.
Arthur&Diana (Sara Summa)
A lo-fi siblings road trip movie shot with a mix of MiniDV, Betacam, and 16mm, Sara Summa’s Arthur&Diana marks an interesting, mostly successful gamble of personal storytelling, in which Summa stars alongside her-real brother, Robin Summa. Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “As such, we glean...
As always, the annual festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making this series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. Check out our top picks below, along with the exclusive premiere of the festival trailer.
Arthur&Diana (Sara Summa)
A lo-fi siblings road trip movie shot with a mix of MiniDV, Betacam, and 16mm, Sara Summa’s Arthur&Diana marks an interesting, mostly successful gamble of personal storytelling, in which Summa stars alongside her-real brother, Robin Summa. Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “As such, we glean...
- 3/11/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Seoul-based sales company Finecut has boarded international sales on the action-comedy Boss and will launch sales at this week’s Filmart in Hong Kong.
The synopsis reads: This action-comedy follows gang members embroiled in fierce competition, struggling not for the title of the next boss but to achieve their own dreams in normal life.
Starring are Jo Woo-jin (Inside Men), who wants to run the family’s Chinese restaurant, Jung Kyung-ho (Men of Plastic), who believes in the destiny of being a Tango dancer and Park Ji-hwan (The Roundup), who is most eager to be the boss but nobody wants him. The film is directed by Ra Hee-chan (Going By The Book). Boss is produced and presented by Hive Media Corp, the production company behind Kim Sung-soo’s record-breaking 12.12: The Day. The first exclusive footage of the film will be available at Finecut’s booth during Filmart.
Finecut’s...
The synopsis reads: This action-comedy follows gang members embroiled in fierce competition, struggling not for the title of the next boss but to achieve their own dreams in normal life.
Starring are Jo Woo-jin (Inside Men), who wants to run the family’s Chinese restaurant, Jung Kyung-ho (Men of Plastic), who believes in the destiny of being a Tango dancer and Park Ji-hwan (The Roundup), who is most eager to be the boss but nobody wants him. The film is directed by Ra Hee-chan (Going By The Book). Boss is produced and presented by Hive Media Corp, the production company behind Kim Sung-soo’s record-breaking 12.12: The Day. The first exclusive footage of the film will be available at Finecut’s booth during Filmart.
Finecut’s...
- 3/11/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey, about artefacts being returned from Paris to present-day Benin, was awarded the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival tonight (February 24).
The film, handled internationally by Les Film du Losange, is the second from the African continent to take the Berlinale’s top prize after Mark Dornford-May’s musical U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2005. It is also the second year in a row that a documentary has clinched the Golden Bear, following Nicolas Philibert’s On The Adamant last year.
In her speech, Diop said: “To restitute is to do justice. We can...
The film, handled internationally by Les Film du Losange, is the second from the African continent to take the Berlinale’s top prize after Mark Dornford-May’s musical U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2005. It is also the second year in a row that a documentary has clinched the Golden Bear, following Nicolas Philibert’s On The Adamant last year.
In her speech, Diop said: “To restitute is to do justice. We can...
- 2/24/2024
- ScreenDaily
After two weeks of new cinema, the Berlin Film Festival comes to a close this Sunday, February 25, with its annual awards ceremony. This year’s event marks one of change, as festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian, at his post since 2018, steps down to make way for Tricia Tuttle, who will take over for next year’s outing.
This year’s Berlinale has already stirred plenty of buzz for films like Alonso Ruizpalacios’s “La Cocina,” a drama set in a New York City kitchen and starring Rooney Mara, and Tim Mielants’ opener “Small Things Like These,” starring likely Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. Both films are eligible for awards, along with “Timbuktu” director Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Black Tea,” “Goodnight Mommy” filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s “The Devil’s Bath,” “The Guilty” director Gustav Möller’s “Sons,” Olivier Assayas’ “Suspended Time,” plus Aaron Schimberg’s Sundance hit “A Different Man,” and many more.
This year’s Berlinale has already stirred plenty of buzz for films like Alonso Ruizpalacios’s “La Cocina,” a drama set in a New York City kitchen and starring Rooney Mara, and Tim Mielants’ opener “Small Things Like These,” starring likely Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. Both films are eligible for awards, along with “Timbuktu” director Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Black Tea,” “Goodnight Mommy” filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s “The Devil’s Bath,” “The Guilty” director Gustav Möller’s “Sons,” Olivier Assayas’ “Suspended Time,” plus Aaron Schimberg’s Sundance hit “A Different Man,” and many more.
- 2/24/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop made history at tonight’s Berlin Film Festival awards ceremony, becoming the first Black director ever to win the Golden Bear, the fest’s top prize, for her inventive, resonant documentary “Dahomey.” She accepted the award from Lupita Nyong’o, in turn the first Black person ever to preside over the festival’s Competition jury — a stark image of progress to cap off a ceremony marked by impassioned statements against war and social discrimination.
Following French docmaker Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear triumph last year with his film “On the Adamant,” “Dahomey” is the second consecutive nonfiction feature to take the award. But it’s a radically unorthodox winner nonetheless, beginning with its 67-minute running time. Yet Diop, the actor-turned-director who took the Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 with her fictional debut feature “Atlantics,” packs a world of historical and political perspective into her film’s tight framework,...
Following French docmaker Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear triumph last year with his film “On the Adamant,” “Dahomey” is the second consecutive nonfiction feature to take the award. But it’s a radically unorthodox winner nonetheless, beginning with its 67-minute running time. Yet Diop, the actor-turned-director who took the Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 with her fictional debut feature “Atlantics,” packs a world of historical and political perspective into her film’s tight framework,...
- 2/24/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Dahomey, a documentary from French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, has won the Golden Bear for best film at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.
The multifaceted docu-fictional essay explores the return, in November 2021, of plundered royal treasures of the African Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to the present-day Republic of Benin, examining the complicated response of those in Benin, whose culture has developed for more than a century without these artifacts.
While taking the stage to accept her award, Diop made a direct political statement, calling out, “I stand with Palestine!”
Jury president, the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actor Lupita Nyong’o, announced the Golden Bear winner from the stage of the Berlinale Palast Saturday night. Nyong’o is the first Black and first African to chair the Berlinale jury.
Dahomey is only the second African film to win the top prize at Berlin, following Mark Dornford-May’s...
The multifaceted docu-fictional essay explores the return, in November 2021, of plundered royal treasures of the African Kingdom of Dahomey from Paris to the present-day Republic of Benin, examining the complicated response of those in Benin, whose culture has developed for more than a century without these artifacts.
While taking the stage to accept her award, Diop made a direct political statement, calling out, “I stand with Palestine!”
Jury president, the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actor Lupita Nyong’o, announced the Golden Bear winner from the stage of the Berlinale Palast Saturday night. Nyong’o is the first Black and first African to chair the Berlinale jury.
Dahomey is only the second African film to win the top prize at Berlin, following Mark Dornford-May’s...
- 2/24/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Berlin Film Festival kicked off its 74th edition February 15 with the opening-night world premiere screening of Small Things Like These, the Irish drama starring Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy. It started 10 days of debuts including for movies starring Rooney Mara, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Kristen Stewart and more.
This year’s Competition lineup features films from a swath of international filmmakers including Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Hong Sangsoo, Bruno Dumont and Abderrahmane Sissako.
The Berlinale runs through February 25.
Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
Another End ‘Another End’
Section: Competition
Director: Piero Messina
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Renate Reinsve, Bérénice Bejo, Olivia Williams, Pal Aron
Deadline’s takeaway: The script, while ambitious, is laden with philosophical musings that often feel detached from the emotional core of the story. Another End...
This year’s Competition lineup features films from a swath of international filmmakers including Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Hong Sangsoo, Bruno Dumont and Abderrahmane Sissako.
The Berlinale runs through February 25.
Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
Another End ‘Another End’
Section: Competition
Director: Piero Messina
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Renate Reinsve, Bérénice Bejo, Olivia Williams, Pal Aron
Deadline’s takeaway: The script, while ambitious, is laden with philosophical musings that often feel detached from the emotional core of the story. Another End...
- 2/24/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury, Damon Wise, Pete Hammond and Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
The awards ceremony for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival kicks off Saturday night, where this year’s jury, headed by 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actress Lupita Nyong’o, will hand out the coveted Gold and Silver Bears.
Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iranian drama My Favourite Cake is being given good odds for an award this year. The drama, about a 70-year-old widow and her tentative attempts at romance with an age-appropriate taxi driver, was a critical fave. A win for the film would also send a political message after the Iranian government banned the directors from attending Berlin. If the jury picks out Cake for the Golden Bear it would be the third time in 10 years —following Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) and There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof —that Berlin has given its top honor to Iranian directors in absentia. World sales for My...
Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iranian drama My Favourite Cake is being given good odds for an award this year. The drama, about a 70-year-old widow and her tentative attempts at romance with an age-appropriate taxi driver, was a critical fave. A win for the film would also send a political message after the Iranian government banned the directors from attending Berlin. If the jury picks out Cake for the Golden Bear it would be the third time in 10 years —following Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) and There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof —that Berlin has given its top honor to Iranian directors in absentia. World sales for My...
- 2/23/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Like makgeolli — Korea’s unique fizzy, fermented, cloudy-white rice wine — the films of director Hong Sang-soo are an acquired taste. Fortunately for him, many film programmers at repertory houses and festivals beyond South Korea love the peculiar handmade, improvisational flavor of his work, with its complicated emotional entanglements and near primitive levels of craftsmanship. The last feature of his to premiere at the Berlinale, In Water, wasn’t even in focus, although Hong insists that was deliberate, to reflect the fuzziness of its creatively blocked film director protagonist.
Thankfully, his latest, A Traveler’s Needs, a competitor for the Golden Bear this year, is not only in focus, it’s also rather watchable, even for diehard Hong-skeptics. Partly that’s thanks to the presence of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role (her third collaboration with Hong, after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera), playing Iris, a mysterious Frenchwoman with eccentric habits.
Thankfully, his latest, A Traveler’s Needs, a competitor for the Golden Bear this year, is not only in focus, it’s also rather watchable, even for diehard Hong-skeptics. Partly that’s thanks to the presence of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role (her third collaboration with Hong, after In Another Country and Claire’s Camera), playing Iris, a mysterious Frenchwoman with eccentric habits.
- 2/22/2024
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The 74th Berlin International Film Festival announced the winners of the fest at the awards ceremony held at the Berlinale Palast on February 24.
20 films competed for the awards in this year’s competition with Lupita Nyong’o heading the International Jury alongside Ann Hui, Christian Petzold, Albert Serra, Jasmine Trinca and Oksana Zabuzhko. The Encounters Jury, Lisandro Alonso, Denis Côté and Tizza Covi choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and the Special Jury Award.
The Golden Bear for Best Film was awarded to Dahomey by Mati Diop. Emily Watson won The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for her role in Small Things Like These, while Sebastian Stan received The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance in A Different Man. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias was honored with The Silver Bear for Best Director for his film Pepe, and the Silver Bear Jury Prize went to Bruno Dumont for Empire.
20 films competed for the awards in this year’s competition with Lupita Nyong’o heading the International Jury alongside Ann Hui, Christian Petzold, Albert Serra, Jasmine Trinca and Oksana Zabuzhko. The Encounters Jury, Lisandro Alonso, Denis Côté and Tizza Covi choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and the Special Jury Award.
The Golden Bear for Best Film was awarded to Dahomey by Mati Diop. Emily Watson won The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for her role in Small Things Like These, while Sebastian Stan received The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance in A Different Man. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias was honored with The Silver Bear for Best Director for his film Pepe, and the Silver Bear Jury Prize went to Bruno Dumont for Empire.
- 2/22/2024
- by Robert Lang
- Deadline Film + TV
Hong Sang-soo is known for a slow-paced filmmaking style that studies everyday situations through an almost peculiar minimalism. His nonchalant characters always seem to make way for intimate moments of connection, offering the patient viewer experiences of unexpected warmth. Still, his abstruse style can set up a project to fail, with conversations fading within a series of ellipses and momentum diminishing in what feels like a wholly improvised exercise. This is mainly the case with A Traveler’s Need, a half-hearted story about a French woman in Korea which seems to resemble an odd comedy sketch on most occasions.
In her third collaboration with the Korean filmmaker, Isabelle Huppert plays Iris, a wandering French woman with no past and few worries. We open as she converses with Isong (Kim Seungyun), a shy young woman who answers the protagonist's questions about her piano playing. Huppert's lines feel stiff from the get-go,...
In her third collaboration with the Korean filmmaker, Isabelle Huppert plays Iris, a wandering French woman with no past and few worries. We open as she converses with Isong (Kim Seungyun), a shy young woman who answers the protagonist's questions about her piano playing. Huppert's lines feel stiff from the get-go,...
- 2/21/2024
- by Sergiu Inizian
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Two things can be true at once. The old debate over whether Hong Sangsoo’s cinema is overly earnest or self-aware was always a bit reductive––when the most light-hearted of the director’s films transcend, it is usually a result of both. Regardless, those arguments fade further into the rearview mirror with A Traveler’s Needs, his first collaboration with Isabelle Huppert since Claire’s Camera (2017) and Hong’s funniest film in years. In one gloriously stilted scene at around the halfway point, a lawyer played by Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo attempts to flirt with Huppert’s character, Iris, who responds with a kind of unhinged wink-and-giggle movement––she then, insanely, repeats the trick. Wise to the cringing discomfort of the moment, Hong quickly cuts to a zoom reminiscent of the fan-favorite in The Woman Who Ran. Don’t say he isn’t in on the joke.
A Traveler’s Need...
A Traveler’s Need...
- 2/20/2024
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs and Mati Diop’s Dahomey earned strong average scores on Screen’s Berlin jury grid, while Bruno Dumont’s The Empire divided critics.
A Traveler’s Needs stars Isabelle Huppert as a French woman teaching in Korea and is currently on an average of 2.9, with one score still to come (from Paolo Bertolin from cinematografo.it). Screen’s own critic awarded it four stars (excellent), while three critics gave it three stars (good) and three gave it two (average).
Click on the jury grid above for the most up-to-date version.
The score is currently slighter...
A Traveler’s Needs stars Isabelle Huppert as a French woman teaching in Korea and is currently on an average of 2.9, with one score still to come (from Paolo Bertolin from cinematografo.it). Screen’s own critic awarded it four stars (excellent), while three critics gave it three stars (good) and three gave it two (average).
Click on the jury grid above for the most up-to-date version.
The score is currently slighter...
- 2/20/2024
- ScreenDaily
Iris, the petite enigma at the center of “A Traveler’s Needs,” dresses at once to be noticed, and to disappear. Over a bright sundress, spattered all over with red and violet blossoms, she wears a cardigan of a most assertive, eye-searing green. It’s the grassy hue, in fact, of green-screen backdrops, as we notice when she fades into the foliage of a city park in full summer leaf, or is consumed by the paint job of a tennis court-like roof terrace. Nobody knows exactly where she has come from, beyond the clue of her thick French accent, and even she seems uncertain as to where she’s going: One imagines her, with that effects-friendly knitwear, being dropped into any number of imagined locations, and looking just as out of place as she does on the streets of Seoul.
But Iris is played, with typically curt, quizzical good humor, by Isabelle Huppert,...
But Iris is played, with typically curt, quizzical good humor, by Isabelle Huppert,...
- 2/19/2024
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Korean director Hong Sang-soo is such a Berlinale favorite that his film in competition, featuring Isabelle Huppert as an apparently penniless tourist trying to scrape together a living in Seoul, is his sixth film to be invited to the festival since 2020 — remarkably, that’s not even his entire output over that time. He hits this pace by keeping things simple, shooting each film in just a couple of weeks with very few crew and small casts, most of whom have been his collaborators for years, and covering many of the key technical jobs himself.
He writes about a milieu he knows: Seoul’s community of writers, actors and filmmakers, all with well-stocked bookcases and even more lavishly stocked drinks cabinets. His stories, which generally consist of the back-and-forth of conversations, occur to him on the wing and turn on chance meetings, which are also pivotal in his working life. Isabelle...
He writes about a milieu he knows: Seoul’s community of writers, actors and filmmakers, all with well-stocked bookcases and even more lavishly stocked drinks cabinets. His stories, which generally consist of the back-and-forth of conversations, occur to him on the wing and turn on chance meetings, which are also pivotal in his working life. Isabelle...
- 2/19/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
“This might sound very irresponsible, but I don’t know what I’m doing,” South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo told a Berlinale presser this afternoon when quizzed on his unique directing style.
The prolific filmmaker is back at Berlin with A Traveler’s Needs, his seventh film in three years. The film stars French screen veteran Isabelle Huppert and Sangsoo has six credits on the film, including director, screenplay, cinematography, editing, and music and he is also listed as the film’s producer.
“I start with some objectives and then I have a recognized working method that I have developed. And I believe in a certain happening between people,” he continued.
A Traveler’s Needs is Huppert’s third collaboration with Sangsoo, and she told the Berlinale presser that the Korean filmmaker provides a creative environment like no other filmmaker she has worked with. She said this is largely thanks to his...
The prolific filmmaker is back at Berlin with A Traveler’s Needs, his seventh film in three years. The film stars French screen veteran Isabelle Huppert and Sangsoo has six credits on the film, including director, screenplay, cinematography, editing, and music and he is also listed as the film’s producer.
“I start with some objectives and then I have a recognized working method that I have developed. And I believe in a certain happening between people,” he continued.
A Traveler’s Needs is Huppert’s third collaboration with Sangsoo, and she told the Berlinale presser that the Korean filmmaker provides a creative environment like no other filmmaker she has worked with. She said this is largely thanks to his...
- 2/19/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Director of “Oxhide” I and II, Liu Jiayin, had not shot anything since the latter and 2009, since he spent most of his time as an associate professor of screenwriting at the Beijing Film Academy. It seems that his days there have also given him inspiration, as the story of his newest movie, “All Ears” focuses on a mediocre screenwriter.
All Ears is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
The aforementioned character is Wen Shan, who is struggling to make a living in Beijing, as his script writing, and particularly his inefficiency of creating a captivating, full fledged character are causing significant issues for him, while it becomes obvious that the pace of the megalopolis does not suit him exactly. By chance, he ends up writing eulogies, which he does so in the most meticulous fashion, meeting the families of the deceased, observing them carefully, listening to their...
All Ears is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
The aforementioned character is Wen Shan, who is struggling to make a living in Beijing, as his script writing, and particularly his inefficiency of creating a captivating, full fledged character are causing significant issues for him, while it becomes obvious that the pace of the megalopolis does not suit him exactly. By chance, he ends up writing eulogies, which he does so in the most meticulous fashion, meeting the families of the deceased, observing them carefully, listening to their...
- 2/17/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The build-up to the 74th Berlin Film Festival has been highly politicized, and the international jury press conference Thursday morning was no different.
Lupita Nyong’o presides over the International Competition jury, whose members include American actor and filmmaker Brady Corbet, Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, German director Christian Petzold, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra, Italian actress Jasmine Trinca and Ukrainian novelist and poet Oksana Zabuzhko.
This wasn’t like most jury press conferences, however, with members drawn into multiple — occasionally testy — discussions about their own political stances on events in Ukraine, Gaza and Germany.
Russia’s war in Ukraine was a central topic, with multiple journalists asking Serra about a 2018 interview in which he supposedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. Serra was asked whether he had changed his mind on Putin since the war:
“I don’t know,” said the director. “This is a political question. Everyone is upset with Russia right now.
Lupita Nyong’o presides over the International Competition jury, whose members include American actor and filmmaker Brady Corbet, Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, German director Christian Petzold, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra, Italian actress Jasmine Trinca and Ukrainian novelist and poet Oksana Zabuzhko.
This wasn’t like most jury press conferences, however, with members drawn into multiple — occasionally testy — discussions about their own political stances on events in Ukraine, Gaza and Germany.
Russia’s war in Ukraine was a central topic, with multiple journalists asking Serra about a 2018 interview in which he supposedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. Serra was asked whether he had changed his mind on Putin since the war:
“I don’t know,” said the director. “This is a political question. Everyone is upset with Russia right now.
- 2/15/2024
- by Andreas Wiseman and Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s the end of an era for the Berlin International Film Festival, as Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian and his co-head Mariette Rissenbeek — a pair of fearless cineastes and programmers who came onboard together in the summer of 2019, and helped steer the world’s largest film festival through the crisis of the pandemic years — are being unceremoniously shoved out to sea after the 2024 edition as a part of cost-cutting measures instituted by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth.
It’s too soon to say how the Berlinale will shrink and suffer in the absence of the leadership that has allowed the festival to remain such a vital arena for world cinema at a time of industry-wide constriction, but even a quick overview of this year’s program suggests that Chatrian and Rissenbeek will be going out with a bang.
As usual, the Berlinale will play...
It’s too soon to say how the Berlinale will shrink and suffer in the absence of the leadership that has allowed the festival to remain such a vital arena for world cinema at a time of industry-wide constriction, but even a quick overview of this year’s program suggests that Chatrian and Rissenbeek will be going out with a bang.
As usual, the Berlinale will play...
- 2/14/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Look out, Hong Sangsoo. Your distinction as the most prolific director working today is being challenged. It’s been nearly four years since Kiyoshi Kurosawa last released a film with 2020’s Wife of a Spy, but in 2024, the Japanese director will make up for lost time, premiering a trio of new films.
As featured in our 2024 preview, he remade his own film with Serpent’s Path, starring Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Grégoire Colin, and Ko Shibasaki. Before that feature sets its premiere, his 45-minute thriller Chime will debut at Berlinale this month. Now, a third 2024 film has been unveiled with Cloud.
Screen Daily reports he’s already finished shooting the project, with the first still featured above, and is in the editing process with a Japanese release planned for this September. Backed by Nikkatsu Corporation and Tokyo Theatres Company Inc., the Kurosawa-scripted project stars The Boy and the Heron‘s Masaki Suda as Ryosuke Yoshii,...
As featured in our 2024 preview, he remade his own film with Serpent’s Path, starring Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Grégoire Colin, and Ko Shibasaki. Before that feature sets its premiere, his 45-minute thriller Chime will debut at Berlinale this month. Now, a third 2024 film has been unveiled with Cloud.
Screen Daily reports he’s already finished shooting the project, with the first still featured above, and is in the editing process with a Japanese release planned for this September. Backed by Nikkatsu Corporation and Tokyo Theatres Company Inc., the Kurosawa-scripted project stars The Boy and the Heron‘s Masaki Suda as Ryosuke Yoshii,...
- 2/13/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2024 will celebrate its 21st edition from July 13th (Sat) to 21st (Sun), 2024 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production.
(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)
Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)
Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.
Call for entries for the International Competition!!
Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)
Submit via FilmFreeway
https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)
All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.
(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)
Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)
Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.
Call for entries for the International Competition!!
Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)
Submit via FilmFreeway
https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)
All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.
- 2/2/2024
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
It seems that the approach Nikkatsu has been implementing for the pinku film through her Roman Porno is creating ripples in the Japanese movie industry, with Toei also following suit, through the same, more sensitive to the times approach, that also focuses on women as much as on men. Haruhiko Arai has been another ‘champion' of the approach, as witnessed in his previous work, “It Feels So Good”. “A Spoiling Rain”, based on the Akutagawa Prize-winning 2000 novella “Hanakutasi” by Hisaki Matsuura, follows in the same footsteps, although the focus on the actual Japanese movie industry gives it a more personal sense, since Arai, as a scriptwriter, got his start as a screenwriter in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno.
A Spoiling Rain is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
Two bodies wash on a beach in the winter of 2012, in a lover's suicide involving actress Shoko Kirioka and director Kuwayama. It is left to Suichi Kutani,...
A Spoiling Rain is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
Two bodies wash on a beach in the winter of 2012, in a lover's suicide involving actress Shoko Kirioka and director Kuwayama. It is left to Suichi Kutani,...
- 1/29/2024
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
“Nobody's Daughter Haewon” had its world premiere at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival, and was chosen to be part of the line-up for the 37th Hong Kong International Film Festival. Additionally, it was honored with awards and nominations at the Buil Film Awards and Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, among others.
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The movie presents the experiences of a young woman named Haewon (Jung Eun-chae) over a span of a few days. The starting point of the story is the information that her mother (Kim Ja-ok) is moving to Canada, which causes Haewon's descent into sorrow. During this challenging time, she gets in touch with her former lover, Lee Seong-joon (Lee Sun-kyun), a married man who is a professor at her university.
Hong Sang-soo decides to raise subjects not only typical for him, such as loneliness, disconnection, and romantic turmoil,...
on Amazon by clicking on the image below
The movie presents the experiences of a young woman named Haewon (Jung Eun-chae) over a span of a few days. The starting point of the story is the information that her mother (Kim Ja-ok) is moving to Canada, which causes Haewon's descent into sorrow. During this challenging time, she gets in touch with her former lover, Lee Seong-joon (Lee Sun-kyun), a married man who is a professor at her university.
Hong Sang-soo decides to raise subjects not only typical for him, such as loneliness, disconnection, and romantic turmoil,...
- 1/24/2024
- by Tobiasz Dunin
- AsianMoviePulse
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSBreathless.The Mubi Podcast returns on January 25. Titled “Tailor Made,” the fifth season will consider landmark movies that captured major fashions of their times—from Jean Seberg in Breathless to Sofia Coppola’s body of work to date—with insights from leading costume designers, fashion designers, cinematographers, and directors.Alongside the announcement of the Competition and Encounters sections, with the addition of new films by Abderrahmane Sissako, Mati Diop, Hong Sang-soo, Ruth Beckermann, and more, we’ve updated our Berlinale lineup post ahead of the festival’s commencement on February 15.June Givanni, a writer on and curator of African and African diasporic cinema and the founder of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, is to be recognized by BAFTA with an Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema...
- 1/23/2024
- MUBI
A Different Man.The Berlinale have begun to announce the first few titles selected for the 74th edition of their festival, set to take place from February 15 through 21, 2024. This page will be updated as further sections are announced.COMPETITIONAnother End (Piero Messina)Architecton (Victor Kossakovsky)Black Tea (Abderrahmane Sissako)La Cocina (Alonso Ruiz Palacios) Dahomey (Mati Diop)A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)The Empire (Bruno Dumont)Gloria! (Margherita Vicario)Suspended Time (Olivier Assayas)From Hilde, With Love (Andreas Dresen)My Favourite CakeLangue Etrangère (Claire Berger)Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)Who Do I Belong To (Meryam Joobeur)Pepe (Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias)Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham)Sterben (Matthias Glasner)Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo)Sleep With Your Eyes Open. ENCOUNTERSArcadia (Yorgos Zois)Cidade; Campo (Juliana Rojas)Demba (Mamadou Dia)Direct ActionSleep With Your Eyes Open (Nele Wohlatz)The Fable (Raam Reddy...
- 1/23/2024
- MUBI
Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian announced his final Competition and Encounters line-ups on Monday ahead of bowing out of the festival alongside Managing Director Mariette Rissenbeek at the end of the upcoming 74th edition in February.
News of Chatrian’s ousting by the German Culture Minister Claudia Roth back in September prompted anger in some quarters of Europe’s indie film biz. The seasoned festival programer made it clear at the time that he wanted to stay on but now appears to have made peace with the decision.
“It’s true that in the beginning I said I was willing to go on with the shared role. But then the people who are responsible for the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone,” he told Monday’s press conference in...
News of Chatrian’s ousting by the German Culture Minister Claudia Roth back in September prompted anger in some quarters of Europe’s indie film biz. The seasoned festival programer made it clear at the time that he wanted to stay on but now appears to have made peace with the decision.
“It’s true that in the beginning I said I was willing to go on with the shared role. But then the people who are responsible for the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone,” he told Monday’s press conference in...
- 1/23/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
South Korean sales agency Finecut has secured international sales rights to Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, which stars Isabelle Huppert and is set to premiere in Competition at the Berlinale.
It marks the third collaboration between French actress Huppert and Korean filmmaker Hong after In Another Country, which played in Competition at Cannes 2012, and Claire’s Camera, which was shown in the Special Screenings section of Cannes in 2017.
Announcing its selection for the Berlinale today, artistic director Carlo Chatrian described the film as a “light but piercing take on human relationships”.
It follows a woman, played by Huppert,...
It marks the third collaboration between French actress Huppert and Korean filmmaker Hong after In Another Country, which played in Competition at Cannes 2012, and Claire’s Camera, which was shown in the Special Screenings section of Cannes in 2017.
Announcing its selection for the Berlinale today, artistic director Carlo Chatrian described the film as a “light but piercing take on human relationships”.
It follows a woman, played by Huppert,...
- 1/22/2024
- ScreenDaily
Berlinale co-directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek are going out with a bang in their final year, with a lineup unveiled today featuring the latest works by Olivier Assayas, Bruno Dumont, Mati Diop, Hong Sang-soo, Abderrahmane Sissako, Jane Schoenbrun, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Matias Pineiro, Travis Wilkerson, Kazik Radwanski, Annie Baker, and more.
When the co-directors were asked by Screen Daily about their departure, Chatrian said, “It’s quite simple. Mariette and I had a mandate of five years. It is true that at the beginning I said that I was willing to go on because there was a shared will with the [German] Ministry [of Culture] to go on. But then the people who have the responsibility to see the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone. And that was the decision of the Ministry.
When the co-directors were asked by Screen Daily about their departure, Chatrian said, “It’s quite simple. Mariette and I had a mandate of five years. It is true that at the beginning I said that I was willing to go on because there was a shared will with the [German] Ministry [of Culture] to go on. But then the people who have the responsibility to see the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone. And that was the decision of the Ministry.
- 1/22/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Leading Korean rights sales firm Finecut is to handle the international distribution of “A Traveler’s Needs,” which on Monday was confirmed as debuting in the main competition section of next month’s Berlinale. Remarkably, it is director Hong Sang-soo’s sixth selection for Berlin since 2020.
The picture is also the third time that French acting icon Isabelle Huppert stars in a film by the Korean veteran director, following their previous joint efforts “Claire’s Camera” and “In Another Country.”
A synopsis provided reads: “She came from France. She was playing a child’s recorder in a park. With no means of supporting herself she was advised to teach French. She became a teacher to two women. She likes to lie down on rocks and rely on makkeolli [Korean rice wine] for comfort.” Dialog is a mix of Korean, English and French.
Hong is known for his micro-budget, minimalist drama films that are long on conversation,...
The picture is also the third time that French acting icon Isabelle Huppert stars in a film by the Korean veteran director, following their previous joint efforts “Claire’s Camera” and “In Another Country.”
A synopsis provided reads: “She came from France. She was playing a child’s recorder in a park. With no means of supporting herself she was advised to teach French. She became a teacher to two women. She likes to lie down on rocks and rely on makkeolli [Korean rice wine] for comfort.” Dialog is a mix of Korean, English and French.
Hong is known for his micro-budget, minimalist drama films that are long on conversation,...
- 1/22/2024
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
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