In the port city of Abadan in southern Iran, 11-year-old orphan Amiro (Madjid Niroumand) gazes out into the Persian Gulf, screaming and waving at the distant ships on the horizon. To Amiro, these vessels represent a sense of freedom that he’s never known yet innately yearns for. His yells are a frequent occurrence in Amir Naderi’s The Runner, and they’re a recurring reminder of Amiro’s unwavering desire to be heard and seen, and to connect with something, anything, outside of a society that has effectively discarded him.
Amiro lives in a region of the world where the oil trade has brought prosperity to few. Like many, he lives among the detritus left behind by the industry’s operations and the callous tourists and businessmen whose shoes he shines for pocket change. Spending his days collecting glass bottles that have been carelessly hurled into the sea and...
Amiro lives in a region of the world where the oil trade has brought prosperity to few. Like many, he lives among the detritus left behind by the industry’s operations and the callous tourists and businessmen whose shoes he shines for pocket change. Spending his days collecting glass bottles that have been carelessly hurled into the sea and...
- 4/1/2024
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures with an expansive retrospective titled The Lady with the Torch, mounted in collaboration with the studio’s parent company, Sony.
Organized in partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse, The Lady with the Torch will be curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual festival in Bologna dedicated to film history and film restoration. The official unveiling will take place at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Locarno has said the retrospective will present the studio in “all its glory,” shining a light on lesser-known genre filmmakers like Max Nosseck, Seymour Friedman, and William A. Seiter, as well as celebrating auteurs like Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Ford. After launching at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, running August 7-17, the retrospective will tour the world. The Retrospective will...
Organized in partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse, The Lady with the Torch will be curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual festival in Bologna dedicated to film history and film restoration. The official unveiling will take place at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday.
Locarno has said the retrospective will present the studio in “all its glory,” shining a light on lesser-known genre filmmakers like Max Nosseck, Seymour Friedman, and William A. Seiter, as well as celebrating auteurs like Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Ford. After launching at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, running August 7-17, the retrospective will tour the world. The Retrospective will...
- 3/28/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Celluloid Underground review – love letter to a lifelong passion for film and illicit treasure trove
Iranian critic Ehsan Khoshbakht’s personal essay about a man’s smizdat film print collection shows the lengths cinephiles will go to to protect the art form
The passion of cinephilia is the subject of this absorbing personal essay movie from Iranian critic and film historian Ehsan Khoshbakht, now co-director of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy, who narrates the film in a style that reminded me a little of Mark Cousins and also perhaps Werner Herzog.
Khoshbakht grew up in post-revolutionary Iran where he developed a love of movies and of moving images generally, even the sternly meagre output on national TV. I laughed out loud at Khoshbakht’s entranced description of the TV’s humble colour test card: “As exciting as an MGM musical!” Khoshbakht (daringly) started a film club as a teenager, digitally projecting foreign movies videotaped from TV. He got into serious trouble for...
The passion of cinephilia is the subject of this absorbing personal essay movie from Iranian critic and film historian Ehsan Khoshbakht, now co-director of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy, who narrates the film in a style that reminded me a little of Mark Cousins and also perhaps Werner Herzog.
Khoshbakht grew up in post-revolutionary Iran where he developed a love of movies and of moving images generally, even the sternly meagre output on national TV. I laughed out loud at Khoshbakht’s entranced description of the TV’s humble colour test card: “As exciting as an MGM musical!” Khoshbakht (daringly) started a film club as a teenager, digitally projecting foreign movies videotaped from TV. He got into serious trouble for...
- 3/25/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSRei.Tanaka Toshihiko’s Rei (2024)—the director’s debut feature, which he also produced and edited, and in which he acts—has won the Tiger Award in Rotterdam. Mark Gustafson, acclaimed animator and co-director of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), has died at the age of 64. Del Toro calls him “a pillar of stop-motion animation—a true artist.”In response to an open letter signed by more than 200 film workers (which has since been taken offline) the Berlin International Film Festival confirmed that it has invited two far-right German politicians to the opening ceremony but avers it stands “against right-wing extremism.”Recommended VIEWINGVia Dolorosa.The second part of Le Cinéma Club's two-week spotlight on Oraib Toukan features her film Via Dolorosa (2021), now streamable on the platform.
- 2/7/2024
- MUBI
Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2024
- by René Baharmast
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2024
- by René Baharmast
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
With the advent of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, many have predicted the end of physical media. The story comes up every year it seems, with DVDs, Blu-rays and even UHDs still present, whereas those relying solely on streaming start protesting as more and more of these services embrace advertisements in their content. However, this debate, which seemingly is based on ownership, misses the point of creating a large collection of movies, as people who do so may actively (or unknowingly) preserve these cultural artifacts. This side to the debate gets another meaning entirely, when viewed from the perspective of an authoritarian regime repressing all modes of expression or censoring them, which is one of the aspects of Ehsan Khoshbakht's documentary “Celluloid Underground”.
The story of the feature is about the biography of the director, who left his home country Iran for London as the political...
The story of the feature is about the biography of the director, who left his home country Iran for London as the political...
- 1/20/2024
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSStranger by the Lake.Production has begun on Alain Guiraudie’s next noir-esque feature, Miséricorde, with Dp Claire Mathon—their third collaboration after Stranger by the Lake (2013) and Staying Vertical (2016). The plot centers on a 30-year-old man named Jérémie who returns to a village in southern France, his prior home, for an old friend’s funeral, only to find himself at the center of a police investigation.Recommended VIEWINGJanus Films have shared a trailer for a new 4K restoration of Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964). A virtuosic, formally experimental work of militant cinema, it tells the story of Manoel, a cowherd who, after murdering a ranch owner, flees to join a religious cult headed by a self-proclaimed saint, only to find himself back among violence. A landmark of Brazil’s Cinema Novo...
- 11/9/2023
- MUBI
The film explores the post-revolutionary Iran and the director’s fight for Iranian cinema.
UK-based sales agent Impronta Films has boarded world sales of Ehsan Khoshbakht’s documentary Celluloid Underground which recently premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.
Exploring post-revolutionary Iran, the film is a personal essay about the director’s quest to preserve Iranian cinema in the face of the new Islamic regime.
‘Celluloid Underground’: London Review
In addition to London, Celluloid Underground is screening at Morelia, Vienna, Mumbai and Lisbon festivals.
It is produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey for UK outfit Bofa, with funding...
UK-based sales agent Impronta Films has boarded world sales of Ehsan Khoshbakht’s documentary Celluloid Underground which recently premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.
Exploring post-revolutionary Iran, the film is a personal essay about the director’s quest to preserve Iranian cinema in the face of the new Islamic regime.
‘Celluloid Underground’: London Review
In addition to London, Celluloid Underground is screening at Morelia, Vienna, Mumbai and Lisbon festivals.
It is produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey for UK outfit Bofa, with funding...
- 10/23/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSGasoline Rainbow.London Film Festival have announced the films in their competitive sections, with new work by Zhang Mengqi, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Bill and Turner Ross included in the Official Competition, plus films by Ehsan Khoshbakht, Cyril Aris, and Chloe Abrahams up for the Documentary award.Meanwhile, the Alliance of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently returned to the bargaining table with the Writers Guild of America, with CEOs like Bob Iger, David Zaslav, and Ted Sarandos in tow. "On the 113th day of the strike—and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side—we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was,” wrote the WGA in a statement circulated to members, followed two days later by a thorough explanation of why this proposal was inadequate.
- 9/11/2023
- MUBI
Titles include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.
BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.
The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.
Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which...
BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.
The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.
Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which...
- 8/29/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSOn July 13, SAG-AFTRA issued a strike order, joining the WGA, who have been striking since May. In an incendiary speech, the guild’s president, Fran Drescher, said: “SAG-AFTRA negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry…Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.” This Vulture Q&a with Jonathan Handel, author of Hollywood on Strike!: An Industry at War in the Internet Age, delves into the details of the work stoppage.Applications are open for Open City Documentary Festival & Another Gaze’s third annual critics’ workshop, which will take place in early September during the festival.
- 7/19/2023
- MUBI
Entrance to the Invisible Cinema at the Austrian Filmmuseum.In 1989, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Austrian Filmmuseum opened its famed “Invisible Cinema,” according to specifications laid out by filmmaker, theorist, and museum co-founder Peter Kubelka. Modeled after Kubelka’s original invisible cinema, built in 1970 at New York’s Anthology Film Archives, the Filmmuseum’s version is a black box creation that, by allowing for the least amount of peripheral light possible, points the viewer’s focus directly at the projected image. It is, as far as seating, quality of projection, and immersive atmosphere, an essentially perfect cinema. It was one of the places I most eagerly hoped to visit upon my first trip to the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale), which this year celebrated its 60th anniversary; luckily, as one of the the festival’s primary venues, the Filmmuseum is a frequent destination during the Viennale’s...
- 11/15/2022
- MUBI
Black Tuesday (1954).Hugo Fregonese’s best films are fueled by desperation, a clean and potent but highly flammable form of energy. Just as fight-or-flight adrenaline sharpens our senses and reflexes, his filmmaking reaches heights of rigor and intensity when his characters are in the tightest spots—locked up, on the run, or under siege. Often facing death, they are also sentenced for life to be themselves: fate in his films is not a capricious external force but an expression of character. As a pensive Jack the Ripper says in Man in the Attic (1953), “There are no criminals. There are only people doing what they must do because they are who they are.”But who was Hugo Fregonese? Watching his films, it is hard not to speculate on the link between their compulsive themes of escape and restless wandering and his own refusal or inability to settle down. Born in Argentina...
- 8/31/2022
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe poster for Hong Sang-soo's latest, Introduction, which will compete at this year's Berlinale. The competition slate for the 71st Berlin International Film Festival features a wide range of heavy hitters, from Hong and Radu Jude to Aleksandre Koberidze and Céline Sciamma. The competing titles, as well as the rest of the lineup, can be found here.The lineup for this year's SXSW Film Festival has been announced. The roster includes the directorial debut of House of Psychotic Women author Kier-La Janisse, a documentary on musician William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, and a restoration of Les Blank's I Went to the Dance. Recommended VIEWINGFrom February 17 to February 23, the National Gallery of Art is screening the series "The Voice and Vision of Billy Woodberry." The series includes Woodberry's Bless Their Little Hearts, a landmark work of the L.
- 2/19/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSRenowned composer Krzysztof Penderecki, best known to moviegoers for his work in The Shining, Wild at Heart, and The Exorcist, has died. In the Guardian's guide to Penderecki's inspirational catalog, Philip Clark writesPartnering with Art House Convergence and Janus Films, the Criterion Collection has announced an online fundraiser for art house cinemas impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Funds will be distributed among theatres according to needs, and will go towards helping theatres survive temporary closures. Recommended VIEWINGThis week, the late Albert Maysle's final film In Transit is available to stream for free. The film follows passengers travelling across America aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder. In his review of the film at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Tanner Tafelski writes that the film has a "go-west-young-man romanticism, and plenty of humanism." Isiah Medina—whose films Semi-Auto Colours,...
- 4/1/2020
- MUBI
Above: Shit-heels at the diner.As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***The Lindbergh Baby Case enthralled not just the world's journalists; in the funny pages, Dick Tracy was soon on the case, in a fiction-reality crossover soon brought to a halt by the tragic discovery of the murdered tot's remains. But movies continued to exploit the theme of baby-napping, and for some reason George Marshall, a useful Fox journeyman, was most associated with this particular sub-sub-sub-genre.Marshall had worked with Laurel & Hardy and is best known today for Destry Rides Again. Despite these strong comic associations,...
- 3/4/2020
- MUBI
Iranian cinema is often understood through a framework of post-revolutionary art-house film. Critically acclaimed works from the likes of Abbas Kiarostami to Mohsen Makhmalbaf ran rings around the international film festival circuit upon their releases outside of Iran, and the legacy of these works is still felt. In his epic exploration of pre-revolutionary films in Iran, Ehsan Khoshbakht seeks to excavate a new cinematic narrative for his country, at once humorous, moving, and confronting. Utilizing a personal collection of now-banned VHS tapes, Khoshbakht painstakingly compiled Filmfarsi, a visual essay that dips and dives through the melodramatic and the trashy, the romantic and the absurd. This feat is a humbling reminder of the temporality of film and the paramountcy of preserving a national cinema. In one clip, we see a sign in a local cinema that reads, “Please refrain from bringing guns into the cinema.” Through Filmfarsi, Khoshbakht repositions these once...
- 9/22/2019
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSFirst Case, Second Case (1979)A restoration of Abbas Kiarostami's banned 1979 film First Case, Second Case will premiere at this year's edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato. Ehsan Khoshbakht writes that the unseen film is a "testimony to [Kiarostami's] seldom acknowledged political shrewdness and his objective, complex perspective on the tumultuous events of the late 70s in Iran." Studio Ghibli has announced plans for a "Ghibli Park" to be built by 2023. The park will be divided into several themed "lands" as seen in My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Last week a meme of what appeared to some to be a real video of a man abandoning his family in light of an approaching avalanche took hold of social media—the clip was actually from Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure...
- 6/14/2019
- MUBI
Jazz music has long expressed its capacity to borrow from various, sometimes contradictory sources in order to create something which in every sense transcends the original elements. Since the earliest days of jazz as a musical form, it has been inspired by military and funeral marches; has stylishly interpreted popular songs; and even brought the classical intricacies of Wagner into the domain of swinging brasses and reeds. This multiculturalism and eclecticism of jazz likens it to cinema which, in turn, has transformed pop culture motifs into something close to the sublime and mixed ‘high’ and ‘low’ artistic gestures to remarkable effect.In the history of jazz, the evolution from ragtime or traditional tunes, to discovering the treasure trove of Broadway songs was fast and smooth. The latter influence was shared by cinema, as the history of film production quickly marched on. The emergence of ‘talkies’ in the United States meant rediscovering Broadway,...
- 6/1/2015
- by Ehsan Khoshbakht
- MUBI
How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2014?
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/5/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The legendary filmmaker has passed away at the age of 91.
Here is the Notebook's coverage of Alain Resnais, over the years:
Glenn Kenny on Muriel Alain Resnais on the set of Wild Grass Daniel Kasman on Wild Grass David Phelps on meeting Alain Resnais Adrian Curry on the poster for Wild Grass Miriam Bale's The Game Adrian Curry on the posters of films by Alain Resnais Daniel Kasman on You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet Ehsan Khoshbakht's Ten Photographs by Alain Resnais: Mise en scène of Memory, Aesthetics of Silence David Phelps' Virtual Refractions 2.0: Notes on Alain Resnais' Vous n'avez encore rien vu Boris Nelepo on You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet Alain Resnais on the set of Life of Riley Adrian Curry on the posters for Je T'aime, je t'aime...
Here is the Notebook's coverage of Alain Resnais, over the years:
Glenn Kenny on Muriel Alain Resnais on the set of Wild Grass Daniel Kasman on Wild Grass David Phelps on meeting Alain Resnais Adrian Curry on the poster for Wild Grass Miriam Bale's The Game Adrian Curry on the posters of films by Alain Resnais Daniel Kasman on You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet Ehsan Khoshbakht's Ten Photographs by Alain Resnais: Mise en scène of Memory, Aesthetics of Silence David Phelps' Virtual Refractions 2.0: Notes on Alain Resnais' Vous n'avez encore rien vu Boris Nelepo on You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet Alain Resnais on the set of Life of Riley Adrian Curry on the posters for Je T'aime, je t'aime...
- 3/2/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2013—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2013 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2013 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.
How...
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2013 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.
How...
- 1/13/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
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