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"'What to do with the rest of our lives?' is now the question." Music Box has debuted a new trailer for the film The Brand New Testament from Belgium, directed by filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael who last made Mr. Nobody. His new film is religious parody about a man in Brussels who is apparently God - as played by Benoît Poelvoorde. He lives with his family and the story focuses on his ten-year-old daughter Ea, played by Pili Groyne, who decides to text everyone in the world with their date of death. The full cast includes Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Laura Verlinden and Serge Larivière. There's some really wacky scenes in this, but I like the concept and it seems like a totally one-of-a-kind film. Here's the first trailer (+ poster) for Jaco Van Dormael's The Brand New Testament, from YouTube: God exists! He lives in Brussels,...

Back in December, we got our first look at Forum Expanded, a program of exhibitions, performances and other works that don't necessarily entail lowering the lights and peering straight ahead at the big white screen. So we already know that we'll be seeing new work by Luke Fowler, Harun Farocki and many others. The first of today's announcements from the Berlinale (February 9 through 19) fills in the details.

The addition, for example, of whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir (image above) by Eve Sussman/Rufus Corporation, "a film edited live in real time which shows a man under surveillance in a fictional East European city," solidifies the impression that Forum Expanded is a rough equivalent of Toronto's Future Projections program and Sundance's New Frontier since, by the time it rolls into Berlin, it'll already have been presented by both.

Other notable additions since December's announcement: Luc Moullet's "uncompleted project about two thieves (mother and daughter...

This is a competition for Séraphine directed by Martin Provost and starring Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Geneviève Mnich, Nico Rogner, Adélaïde Leroux, Serge Larivière and Françoise Lebrun. 1912, in a little town North of Paris. Séraphine Louis, works as a maid for Madame Duphot, who rents an apartment to a German art critic and dealer, Wilhelm Uhde, an enthusiastic advocate of modern and “primitive” artists. In her spare time, Séraphine paints with everything that comes to hand (wine, mud, fruits & flowers mixture).

Chicago – Her eyes are always looking forward, as if they possess the ability to peer into the parallel dimension next door. She feels most alive in the presence of nature, and feels great joy in recreating images of god’s creation. Her closest acquaintances seem to be of an otherworldly essence, and she acknowledges them every time her twinkly gaze is directed toward the sky.

There’s a great mystery about what goes on in the mind of Séraphine Louis, a middle-aged cleaning lady who harbors a primal compulsion to create art. She takes raw material from her natural surroundings (such as blood and clay), combines them with paint, and produces images of striking power. There’s an intensity about her imagery that frightens her, as mundane objects like fruit and flowers take on an unsettling life of their own. Her work would eventually be categorized as “naïve” because of its simplicity,...