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“Threshold of the Visible” is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.While cinema is a photographic art, many subjects and experiences fail to come across on film in the same way that we experience them in life, if they can be reproduced at all. Issue 7 is organized around this very theme of “the unfilmable,” which contributing editor Paolo Cherchi Usai explores in an introductory feature. UFOs, stuntwork, hypnosis, microscopic imaging, and speculative technologies of the future—all arise in these pages. A series of conceptual film scripts by Yoko Ono challenge the reader to make movies in their own imaginations; Guy Maddin shares stunning collages for a film of torrid psychosexual impossibility, and, in an era- and genre-spanning essay, Bilge Ebiri finds room to dream between film frames. Notions of “unfilmability” also prompt ethical questions: filmmaker Ing K recounts (and illustrates) her experiences facing censorship in Thailand.

Fuelled by strong beer, broken glass, and raw fish, John Hollands' Le Tour De Canada is a frenetic race from St. John’s to Vancouver somewhere in an alternate 1970s - if the chroma keyed backdrops of Toronto are to be trusted, or that Vancouver is somehow both anti-bicycle and trigger-happy. It features a soundtrack that seems lifted out of Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, or at least the chase scenes from that film. It is a bloody and break-neck five-and-a-half minute ride that demands you not breathe, embrace the absurdity, and hang on. I love that there now is a post Guy Maddin nano-genre of superimposed, double-exposed, collage-montage hyper-kino Canadiana where the miracle of artifice is miracle enough. Filmmaker Matthew Rankin is the cheery narrator who sets...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Few artists march to the beat of their own drum as proudly as Rick Alverson. The Virginia-based filmmaker is known for his unapologetically bleak explorations of topics that might be funny in other contexts, like the Neil Hamburger tragedy “Entertainment” and the Tim Heidecker drama “The Comedy,” applying his singular, uncompromising voice to each project. And now, he wants to teach the next generation of filmmakers how to do the same thing with their own voices.

Alverson and musician Emilie Rex recently launched the Little Valley School, an arts education community in the Allegheny Highlands of Virginia. IndieWire can exclusively reveal the school’s first major program: a series of two online filmmaking workshops hosted by Guy Maddin, the director of provocative films like “My Winnipeg,” “The Saddest Music in the World” and “Rumors,” and Carlos Reygadas, the acclaimed Mexican arthouse director behind films like “Post Tenebras Lux,” “Japón,” and “Silent Light.

A pivotal figure in the Greek Weird Wave, Ariane Labed first gained attention with her role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (2009) before delivering an award-winning Venice Film Festival performance in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg (2010). Since then, she has collaborated with visionary directors such as Richard Linklater, Guy Maddin, Justin Kurzel, Joanna Hogg, and, most recently, Brady Corbet, further cementing her reputation as a versatile and compelling actress. In 2019 she presented her short feature debut in the Quinzaine section – we interviewed her for her remarkable “Olla,” and were excited when the trades announced that was she was going to direct her feature debut.…...

A Canadian Screen Awards that put marginalized voices front and center and challenged the global political landscape saw The Apprentice, a film about a young Donald Trump, dominate the national film and TV awards Sunday night in Toronto.

Director Ali Abbasi’s Trump origin story won best movie, while Sebastian Stan, the Romania-born American actor who plays the future U.S. president alongside Jeremy Strong as his consigliere Roy Cohn, earned top honors for best leading role.

Daniel Bekerman, co-producer of the Canada/Ireland/Denmark co-production The Apprentice, said when accepting the prize, “Our movie shows how the young Donald Trump amassed wealth and power by finding a dilapidated building and slapping his name on it as president. We’ll see how that works out.”

Then Bekerman turned to Trump taunting Canada as a possible 51st state for the United States. “Now he wants to slap his name on this country.

It is brutally unfair that Thierry Frémaux programmed “Resurrection” on day ten of the Cannes Film Festival when we, the remaining press foot soldiers on the ground, are holding onto our critical faculties by a hair. To say that this film is impenetrable is an understatement. It feels for long stretches like the fourth film by Chinese experimentalist Bi Gan has been designed to lock us out of our own brains, forcing us to wade through the treacly sludge of bored incomprehension amidst the nagging suspicion that we are not so cineliterate after all.

The film opens in a playful and straightforward manner, before launching into a digressive metatextual sprawl that I cannot in good faith claim to have grasped. In the absence of being able to confidently frame this film, all I can do is describe it and hope for the best.

Gan lulls us into a false sense...

Toronto, On — May 14, 2025

As the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrates its 50th edition this year, the organization is digging into its own archives—not just to reflect, but to narrate its own cinematic story. The initiative, aptly titled “The TIFF Story in 50 Films,” offers a sweeping retrospective that doubles as both a history lesson and a celebration of the thousands of films that have shaped TIFF over the decades.

Curated by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, the list of 50 films isn’t just another “greatest hits” compilation. “Lists are ridiculous, of course, but they’re also irresistible,” Bailey admits. Yet behind the irresistible impulse to rank and remember lies a deeper aim: to understand TIFF’s evolving identity through five decades of bold programming, audience connection, and artistic risk.

A Narrative in 50 Frames

Bailey, who began his TIFF journey programming Canadian films in 1990 and eventually rose to lead the organization,...

Director Yves Montmayeur is currently working on a feature-length documentary about the Oscar-winning filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro.

For over 30 years, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has fused the fantastical and the human, the beautiful and grotesque in a series of acclaimed films, TV shows, books and other works. Called Sangre Del Toro, a feature-length documentary is set to explore his life and output, from his early stop motion animated work and breakthrough live-action feature Cronos to his later, Oscar-winning success with such films as The Shape Of Water (2017) and Pinocchio (2022).

Currently in post-production, the documentary is by Yves Montmayeur, whose previous work includes The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin – about fellow filmmaker Guy Maddin – and Citizen Kitano – a portrait of Japanese actor, director and all-round polymath Takeshi ‘beat’ Kitano. In other words, Montmayeur knows how to tell a unique filmmaker’s story.

Variety reports that Sangre Del Toro has been picked...

Exclusive: French director Vincent Maël Cardona makes his Cannes Official Selection debut with huis-clos thriller No One Will Know, which premieres as a Midnight Screening.

The drama revolves around the clients and staff of the fictitious Le Roi Soleil café in the Paris periphery who unwittingly assist in the killing of an elderly regular just after he discovers he has won €294 million ($320M) in the lottery.

With the life-changing sum in their sights if not their grasp, the disparate group battle with their consciences and one another as they figure out a way to explain the death, as well as whether and how to take possession of the prize.

“They have to agree on a scenario, a fiction and a way of recounting what happened, which is not what happened, in a convincing manner, that stands up to scrutiny,” says Cardona. “They’re doing the work of a screenwriter.”

“But...

In devastating news on the eve of Cannes, Bleecker Street founder and CEO andindependent community stalwartAndrew Karpen has died of brain cancer. He was 59.

Karpen was diagnosed withglioblastoma in 2024 and died in hospital inConnecticut on Monday.

Longtime friend and Bleecker Street president Kent Sanderson said, “Our industry has lost a giant. Andrew taught us all so much, foremost of which is the value of kindness, honesty, and family above all else. His leadership and courage will inspire all of us at Bleecker Street for the rest of our lives.”

The popular East Coast native founded Bleecker Street in 2014 and guided...

We’re delighted to exclusively announce that KimStim has acquired all North American rights to the Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. A stop-motion/live-action masterpiece inspired by the works of Jewish-Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz, this personal passion project is their first feature since 2005’s The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.

KimStim plans to release the film theatrically later this year. Ian Stimler negotiated the deal with Thania Dimitrakopoulou, sales executive of The Match Factory, in Cologne.

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass first premiered as an Official Selection: Giornate degli Autori at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. The film is not a direct adaptation of the source material but a visual-poetic homage, blending stop-motion animation with projection-based theatrical staging that’s more about evoking Schulz’s mood and texture than telling a straightforward story.

The narrative centers on Jozef, who embarks on a journey...

The Cannes Film Festival’s Acid sidebar, run by France’s independent cinemas’ association l’Acid , unveiled its 2025 line-up on Tuesday, with the section kicking off with The Adventura (L’aventura), a French family drama from actor/director Sophie Letourneur, starring Letourneur and Philippe Katerine as the parents of small children who go on a summer road trip to Italy.

Acid’s 2025 drama lineup also includes Drunken Noodles, from U.S.-based Argentinian director Lucio Castro, a feature loosely inspired by the life of artist Sal Salandra; The Black Snake from French filmmaker Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux, about a man who, after years of absence, returns to the Colombian Tatacoa Desert to the bedside of his dying mother; Laruent in the Wind from directors Anton Balekdjian, Léo Couture, and Mattéo Eustachon, about a 29-year-old searching for the meaning in his life; the crime drama Entroncamento from Portuguese director Pedro Cabeleira; and Finnish...

Cannes parallel section Acid, run by France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (l’Acid), has unveiled its 2025 line-up.

The section will open with French actress and director Sophie Letourneur’s L’aventura set against a family road trip to Sardinia told by the 11-year-old daughter.

Letourneur co-stars as the mother opposite Philippe Katerine, who gained international fame over the summer when he appeared nearly naked and painted blue as Dionysus in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

The section will showcase nine features – eight of them world premieres – selected by a committee of directors from 600 submissions and aimed at showcasing “original and audacious” works.

International films include U.S.-based Argentinian director Lucio Castro’s Drunken Noodles. Loosely inspired by the life of embroidery artist Sal Salandra, it follows a young artist as he arrives in New York and tries to break into the gallery scene.

From Finland,...

Cate Blanchett may be looking to diversify her career away from the screen. The acclaimed actress/producer told the Radio Times that she is considering “giving up acting,” however, there is no timeline just yet for a possible exit.

“My family roll their eyes every time I say it, but I mean it: I am serious about giving up acting,” Blanchett said. “[There are] a lot of things I want to do with my life.”

IndieWire has reached out for additional comment.

Blanchett won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2005 for “The Aviator” and Best Actress in 2014 for “Blue Jasmine.” She also was nominated for six other Oscars. The prolific star recently led Guy Maddin’s “Rumours,” Alfonso Cuarón’s series “Disclaimer,” Eli Roth’s “Borderlands,” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag.” Blanchett will next appear in Jim Jarmusch’s “Father, Mother, Sister, Brother.”

Blanchett, through her Dirty Films banner, also launched...

[Editor’s note: this list was originally published in August 2024. It has since been updated with new entries, including “Black Bag.”]

When director Todd Field sat down and wrote his film “Tár,” there was only one option to play the title character. As he described to IndieWire in an interview, the film wouldn’t have been made if Cate Blanchett hadn’t agreed to take the part of lauded conductor Lydia Tár. “I had no backup plan,” he told IndieWire. “I’d met Cate 10 years ago and I knew coming out of that meeting that I had just been in conversation with somebody that had one of the great brains I ever met. And it was someone that I was really, really desperate to be able to collaborate with.”

It might seem silly to hinge your entire film on the participation of a single actor; the Australian Blanchett doesn’t share any notable biographical details with the fictional American conductor that makes her casting meaningful in a meta sense.

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Paramount+ is ready with an entertainment-packed January next year. The upcoming month will see the premiere of one of the most anticipated Paramount+ original shows, Happy Face, and the streaming release of the political horror comedy film Rumours. Just like every month, Paramount+ is ready to overload you with great content. So, we’re here to tell you about the 5 best movies and TV shows coming to Paramount+ in March 2025.

Titles with an * will only be available with Paramount+ With Showtime plan.

*Strange Darling (March 1) Credit – Magenta Light Studios

Strange Darling is a horror thriller film written and directed by Jt Mollner. The 2023 film is set in rural Oregon, and it follows a woman who discovers that the man she just had a one-night stand with is a serial killer, and now she must run to survive as the man chases her.

Spanish auteur Luis Buñuel helped shape the language of cinema with his now-iconic surrealist reveries, so it’s only fitting that the re-release of one of his most beloved films lands in a time of collective social discord and disillusionment.

Buñuel, who arguably is best known for directing Catherine Deneuve in the legendary 1967 film “Belle de Jour,” helmed an ode to the frustrating pitfalls of the male id more than a decade prior, with 1953’s “Él.” Translated to simply be titled “Him,” the film centers on a paranoid priest (Arturo de Córdova) whose grasp on reality is skewed amid his obsession with a woman seeking solace and absolution (Delia Garcés).

The late Mexican filmmaker directed 35 movies between 1929 and 1977 in the span of his career.

The official synopsis for “Él” reads: “After fleeing her abusive husband, Delia Garcés seeks out the advice of a clergyman, only to discover that her husband...

You certainly don’t need to be from Winnipeg to get a lot of the fun that “Universal Language” is having with an obviously alternate version of the capital of Manitoba. But for those who are from that corner of the Great White North, or particularly studied Guy Maddin devotees — and director Matthew Rankin is both — there are particular gifts much sweeter than an ice-cream cone in winter dotted throughout his film.

In “Universal Language,” two girls look for the means to liberate a huge bill frozen in ice; an intrepid tour guide leads a bewildered group around the landmarks of the city; and a dispirited government employee travels back to Winnipeg to visit his mother. The point isn’t that the stories eventually intersect, although they do. It’s that every overlapping moment gives Rankin and his collaborators room to play with the essential artifice of cinema; and for some of that artifice,...

It’s a sight familiar to anyone who’s been nurtured on a steady diet of international films: Children are sitting in a classroom, getting lectured by an irate teacher. The conversations are in Farsi, which suggests we’re somewhere on the outskirts of Tehran. The fact that one of the students is dressed as Groucho Marx signals we’re not in Kansas anymore. Eventually, the camera leaves the school grounds and begins to follow two sisters; they’re played by nonprofessional actors Rojina Esmaeili and Saba Vahedyousefi, and exhibit...

Rarely has a film synthesized a director’s career inspirations and personal history in more aesthetically unique and drolly entertaining fashion as director Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language. The Canadian-born Rankin’s influences range from Iranian cinema to American comedian Groucho Marx, and both find their way into this bizarre little gem, as do a number of surreal ideas and visual references. Rankin’s second feature is a gently unfolding oddity that mixes and matches time and place in ways that delight as much as they challenge.

And that’s no easy accomplishment. Universal Language contains visual quotes from directors such as Wes Anderson, Jacques Tati, fellow Winnipeg native Guy Maddin, and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, whose 1987 drama Where Is the Friend's House? is a touchstone here. But instead of being a prisoner to his cinematic role models, Rankin frees himself to put his own private-label stamp on a story...

Cate Blanchett “never, ever” thought she “could work in the film industry.”

“I was resigned, happily, to a career in theater. I didn’t think I was that girl. There was a sense women had a certain ‘shelf life’ in the film industry and a certain type of women got to parade on the screen and others didn’t,” she said at the Rotterdam Film Festival Saturday.

Watching Visconti’s “The Stranger” awakened her love for the cinema.

“Our French teacher took us to see it. I learnt more about cinema than I did about French. I don’t think I’ve seen it since, but I was hypnotized by the cinematic storytelling. Also, we grew up in such an incredible moment in Australian cinema-making. I remember watching ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock,’ ‘Sweetie,’ ‘An Angel at My Table.’ I thought: ‘Maybe I will be able to step into that frame...

Actress-producer Cate Blanchett and director Guy Maddin shared about their paths into the film industry as well as their experiences of “flow” in making art, while at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). They took the stage in front of more than 800 guests at the Oude Luxor Theater, shortly after a festival screening of their film Rumours.

“I never, ever thought I could work in the film industry,” said Blanchett. “I was resigned happily to having a career in the theater. I didn’t think that I was that girl, and at the time, there was certainly a sense that women had a certain shelf life in the film industry, and a certain type of woman got to parade on screen. But I loved watching films, and I had such an eclectic taste. I think it’s the benefit of growing up with four Australian terrestrial channels.”

The two-time Oscar-winner...

Because I will be covering the 2025 Sundance Film Festival entirely from snowy, frozen Chicago instead of snowy, frozen Park City, my screening options are limited. Only a select few films opted in to the festival’s online offerings this year, which means The A.V. Club won’t be getting a...

With her sophomore feature “Dead Lover,” director and co-writer Grace Glowicki deploys a minimalist approach to a familiar, high-concept premise. The film follows a lonely gravedigger (also Glowicki) who uses experimental science to bring her foppish lover back to life after he’s killed at sea. On paper, “Dead Lover” partly evokes Universal’s beloved 1931 “Frankenstein” adaptation, but because Glowicki shot the film entirely on a Toronto soundstage, it more closely resembles an experimental theater production than a bog-standard low-budget horror film.

The in-studio backdrop all but demands bountiful creativity from Glowicki’s small cast and crew, which “Dead Lover” exhibits in spades. Cinematographer Rhayne Vermette frequently spotlights actors so they’re bathed in darkness, which renders the film’s varied environments, from a graveyard to the open waters, suggestive playgrounds, with only set pieces to fill in a handful of blanks. This staginess not only lends a lively quality to the production,...

After a four-decade career in films, Isabella Rossellini scored her first Oscar nomination on Thursday for her supporting role as a Vatican nun in “Conclave.”

The nomination places Rossellini in the Academy history books. She is the daughter of three-time Oscar-winning actress Ingrid Bergman. Her father, the Italian neorealist filmmaking legend Roberto Rossellini was also nominated once, in 1950 for his screenplay for “Paisan.”

Swedish acting legend Bergman is often cited as one of the greatest screen icons of all time, famed for her roles in “Casablanca,” “The Bells of St. Marys” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious.” She was a seven-time nominee who won three Oscars: two for Best Actress (“Gaslight” and “Anastasia”) and one for Best Supporting Actress (“Murder on the Orient Express”).

Rossellini’s nomination this year, in fact, comes on the 50th anniversary of her mother’s win for “Orient Express,” an all-star mystery film in which Bergman...

by Cláudio Alves

In the last hours of voting for the Oscar nominations, let's celebrate one of the best films up for Academy consideration. It's none other than the Canadian submission for Best International Film, Matthew Rankin's sophomore feature – Universal Language. If watching the director's debut, The Twentieth Century, felt like witnessing the second coming of fellow Winnipegger Guy Maddin, seeing the wonder of his latest work is akin to re-encountering Jacques Tati in the 21st century. Or perchance a Manitoban Abbas Kiarostami. Rather than evading such comparisons, Rankin runs straight at them, making his latest project into a dialogue between filmic languages and other idioms along the way, reaching for the fantastical, so specific as to be universal…...

Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The End” revolves around an apocalyptic scenario in which a wealthy family lives in an underground bunker two decades after the apparent end of the world. It is not the only 2024 film that explores a catastrophic global crisis. Guy Maddin and Johnson brothers’ “Rumours” also highlighted the hypocrisy of those with wealth and power misusing it while being complacent about their minor noble deeds. Oppenheimer’s film uses the absence of an exterior world to highlight certain aspects of this family’s interior lives. Instead of calling its characters by their names, the writer refers to them by their roles in the context of their isolated setting. So, in this story, they are just friends, doctors, mothers, or girls – depending on what they represent in their isolated world.

Spoilers Ahead

The End (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

“The End” follows a wealthy family living in an underground luxurious...

World War II dramas and grand historical epics still have their place in the best international feature Oscar category — Italy’s contender, Vermiglio, the story of a Sicilian army deserter who arrives in a remote Alpine village in 1944, is betting on the Academy appeal of World War II tales — but the expansion of the Academy to include more members outside the U.S. has broadened the range of films in contention. An Oscar shortlist these days is as likely to include a Korean horror-thriller about class conflict (2019 Oscar winner Parasite) or a donkey-focused road movie from Poland (2022 nominee Eo) as it is a handsome old-school costume drama.

Beyond the obvious frontrunners this year, dark horses abound: Rich Peppiatt’s cheeky “docu-drama” Kneecap, about an Irish rap group, has been winning audiences to the cause since its Sundance debut (awards masters Sony Pictures Classics snatched it up on the eve of...

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.When making my sound work, I always try to bend the material in front of me to find alternative possibilities of context or (re)context. Here, I was drawn to so many personal favorites, moods, and textures that these 70-odd minutes are more akin to a year-end work of catharsis. The result is as much a personal mix as a 2024 roundup.This was aided by a number of films with great music supervision, particularly four heavy hitters: Love Lies Bleeding (all films 2024), Civil War, Dahomey, and Janet Planet. Artists like Throbbing Gristle, Anna Domino, Silver Apples, Suicide, Dean Blunt, and Laurie Anderson offered a huge prop of character within these films. They could set each film in a specific time and place, or, in the case of Civil War, give a punk, psychedelic energy to a near-future world.Staying through the end credits is important...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will debut 14 feature works in its main competition and host on-stage talks with Cate Blanchett and Cheryl Dunye during its upcoming 54th edition, which runs 30 January – 9 February 2025.

The festival announced its competition lineups and talks this morning during a presser.

IFFR’s main Tiger Competition comes with a €40,000 cash prize. The festival also hands out two Special Jury Awards worth €10,000 each. The films selected this year include Im Haus meiner Eltern by Tim Ellric, Bad Girl by Varsha Bharath, and Guo Ran by Li Dongmei. Scroll down for the full list of titles. The Tiger Competition Jury will feature Yuki Aditya, Soheila Golestani, Winnie Lau, Peter Strickland, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

The headline guests of the festival’s talks lineup are Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin, who will discuss their collaboration on Rumours. Also set for discussions in Rotterdam are DoP Lol Crawley and American...

The 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will begin on January 30 and run until February 9. This year’s festival will feature various films emphasizing emerging talents and well-known artists worldwide.

Festival Director Vanja Kaludjercic expressed enthusiasm for this year’s topic, noting, “Since our first festival in 1972, IFFR has been a space for bold creativity, where the unexpected finds a home, and cinema in all of its splendor is celebrated.” The festival strives to offer a vibrant arena for new filmmaking, with three competitive divisions reflecting the experimental essence of modern cinema.

The Talks program is a prominent part of IFFR. Highlights include a unique conversation between Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and filmmaker Guy Maddin. The two will discuss their recent collaboration on “Rumours” and the importance of creative relationships and short films.

Additional speakers include renowned cinematographer Lol Crawley, who will receive the Robby Müller Award and share insights from his work.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam revealed the lineups of its Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competition sections Tuesday, and the first tranche of speakers for the Talks program, who include Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin.

Following their recent collaboration on “Rumours,” Blanchett and Maddin will come together for “an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form,” IFFR said.

IFFR will also welcome Robby Müller Award recipient Lol Crawley, in conversation with writer and film critic Peter Bradshaw to discuss his cinematography, including his work on “The Brutalist” and other highlights from his career.

Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, known for Locarno’s “Listen Up Philip,” Toronto’s “Her Smell” and Sundance’s “Golden Exits,” will talk about his documentary “Videoheaven,” part of the Focus program “Hold Video in Your Hands,” celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. Perry...

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) unveiled its 2025 Big Screen and Tiger Short competitive sections on Tuesday. Typical for Rotterdam, the selection is truly global, with films traversing from Montenegro to Malaysia, and from Congo to India.

The Big Screen Competition, which features films that bridge arthouse and popular cinema, features highlights including The Assistant from Polish directors Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal, whose It Looks Pretty from a Distance was in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition in 2012, Albert Oehlen’s Bad Painter starring Udo Kier, and the Japanese drama Yasuko, Songs of Days Past from director Negishi Kichitaro.

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin will attend IFFR 2025 as part of the festival’s IFFR Talks lineup, to discuss their recent collaboration on Maddin’s Rumours. Other IFFR talks include a conversation with The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley — winner of the IFFR’s Robby Müller lifetime achievement award — and...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the Tiger and Big Screen competition line-ups for its 54th edition which takes place from January 30 – February 9.

The Tiger Competition, which showcases emerging voices from across the globe, has 14 world premieres spanning Montenegro to Malaysia and Congo to India. IFFR said one of the Tiger titles will be revealed closer to the festival due to sensitivities surrounding its release. Another 20 titles play in IFFR’s Tiger Short Competition.

The competition includes Julian Chou’s Blind Love, which recently won the Screenplay Award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (Fpp) project market.

Politics and the apocalypse collide in Rumours – a horror satire that threatens to steal Megalopolis’ crown as 2024’s most eccentric movie.

When Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis came out earlier this year, opinions were somewhat divided as to whether it was a grand folly, a visionary masterpiece, a piece of demented high camp, or a mixture of all of these.

What most could agree on was that there was nothing else quite like it in 2024’s line-up of movies, whether it was in its unnatural dialogue and bizarre character names (Aubrey Plaza as financial TV reporter Wow Platinum) or its incredibly uneven visuals, which veered from the captivatingly imaginative to the embarrassingly kitsch.

For better or worse, Coppola had managed to finally achieve his goal of creating a vision of the USA as a late Roman empire in danger of tipping over into facism. Which, as 2024 nears its end, now...

Rumours may have a mundane name, but this jet black horror comedy is one of the most insane films you will see all year – just don’t expect to understand it.

Set at the G7 summit in Dankwarderode Castle in Germany we meet the men and women who lead the most powerful countries on the planet. Assembling together to work on a provisional statement for the present crisis they eat, drink and pose for photos in the picturesque grounds of the ancient and eerie local.

Hosted by Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchet), the Chancellor of Germany we also meet elderly and oddly English accented Edison Wolcott (Game of Thrones and Alien 3’s Charles Dance), the President of the United States; poetic wannabe intellectual Sylvain Broulez (Inglorious Basterds Denis Ménochet), the President of France; practical and pragmatic Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka – Bird from Old and Knock on the Cabin), the Prime...

As 2024 winds to a close, film fans and critics alike begin to assemble their best of the year lists. And what list would be complete without at least one surprising entry, a film that sticks out like a sore thumb from its brethren. That's certainly the case with John Waters, the Pope of Trash himself and the creator of such gloriously quirky and even disgusting cinematic experiences, like Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, and Serial Mom.

The filmmaker released his annual top 10 list via Vulture, and amid some of the more expected titles, coming in at number six is Todd Phillips' much-maligned musical sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. It's not impossible, but the likelihood the vehicle for Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga will make many any other best-of lists this year is pretty slim. It boasts both a 32% critics and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Glenn Kenney of RogerEbert.com saying...

One of our favorite traditions in best-of-the-year festivities is a lineup that tends to find a more interesting path than any guilds or critics groups. The wonderfully eccentric John Waters, whose tastes always includes a mix of the unexpected and underseen, hasn’t let us down with his top 10 films of 2024.

Published at Vulture, where one should click over to read thoughts on each, his top 10 is led by Rose Glass’ neo-noir Love Lies Bleeding. Other selections include Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, Joker: Folie à Deux (“a love story I can relate to”), and Trương Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam, which will arrive next year. Waters also notes the latest from Pedro Almodóvar, Sean Baker, and Guy Maddin nearly made the cut.

Check out the list below, along with our reviews where available. Waters has also released a pair...

With major titles still dominating the UK and Ireland box office, it is a quiet weekend for new releases as event cinema leads the way while Nightbitch and Rumours also launch.

Andre Rieu’s 2024 Christmas Concert: Gold And Silver lands in 642 cinemas for A Piece Of Magic. The Dutch conductor’s last release opened with £700,000 while his 2023 Christmas concert scored £1.2m.

Indian actionPushpa 2 is screening in 230 venuesvia AA Films. The Telugu-language sequel follows Pushpa as his sandalwood smuggling business faces strong opposition from the police.

CinemaLive is playing music documentary Rm: Right People, Wrong Place in 109 sites this weekend after opening on Thursday.

What could be stranger than the hollow pomp of neoliberal politics in the face of Armageddon? While crafting this cheerfully bonkers satire, Canadian co-directors Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson became fascinated by real footage of G7 leaders coming across a puddle and awkwardly negotiating walking around it. This miniature farce didn’t exactly offer much hope for the future of humanity.

Hosted by German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett in a coral power suit channelling Angela Merkel), world leaders representing Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US gather for a summit on a palatial estate. They’re here for a terribly serious purpose, of course. But drafting a statement in response to an unspecified catastrophe has to wait until after the hand-shaking and toasting.

Every cast member is clearly enjoying themself, but Rumours — or perhaps ‘How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bog Bodies...

There is little to connect the desert planet of Arrakis in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune with the snow-covered streets and empty parking lots of Winnipeg, Manitoba as depicted in Matthew Rankin’s surreal comedy Universal Language. Except, of course, that both directors are Canadian — Villeneuve from Quebec, Rankin from Winnipeg — and that both find themselves in this season’s Oscar race.

Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 2 is looking to repeat the awards success of the first feature in the franchise, which was nominated for 10 Oscars, and won six. Rankin, as the saying goes, would be honored just to be nominated. His new film is Canada’s official submission for best international feature, a section Villeneuve knows a thing or two about, having scored his first Oscar nom in the category back in 2011 for his French-language break-out Incendies.

Rankin’s absurdist comedy is set in an alternative Canada where Farsi, alongside French,...

Peacock announced this morning that its psychological horror thriller Speak No Evil, starring James McAvoy, will begin streaming exclusively on the platform on December 6.

The film drew quite positive reviews in its September release — no easy feat for an English-language remake of a recent, highly lauded international title — and grossed over $76 million worldwide. Hailing from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, it adapts Christian Tafdrup’s Danish pic of the same name, released in 2022.

The story follows Americans Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis), who after befriending a British couple with a mute son, accept an unusual invitation to bring their daughter for a weekend at an idyllic country estate. Yet when they discover their hosts are hiding sinister motives, Ben and Louise fear their family may be pawns in a disturbing plot. Led by McAvoy as a charismatic man masking unspeakable darkness, a dream holiday warps into an unnerving nightmare.

Guy Maddin’s “Rumours” (2024), co-directed by Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, is a satire so absurd and farcical that it almost deliberately tries to pivot away from making too deep a point, choosing instead to delve into the silliness of the entire endeavor and highlight the stupidity of the administrators responsible for running the world. And that’s before Maddin brings in his signature nonsensical elements into the film, the big brain on a patch of field becoming a curious signature for a director comfortable in unconventional narratives.

Rumours (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis: What does the opening text box signify?

The movie employs its satirical tonality right from the opening beat itself. After the descriptions of the G7 flash across the screen, the consequent line of text reads as a note of thanks to the G7 leaders for the support and consultation for the making of this film. Considering...

Calling Guy Maddin’s 2024 film, Rumours, a convoluted and absurd satire would be an understatement, considering that the very appeal of the work is based on lowbrow comedy delivered through extremely unreal circumstances. The plot of this unique film follows the leaders of the G7 countries meeting at a convention of the forum to discuss some international crisis when they get lost in the woods and are haunted by mummified bodies from centuries ago. Rumours is surely not to everyone’s taste, but there is just enough entertainment for those who enjoy absurd and spoofy satires.

Spoiler Alert

What is the film about?

Rumours begins during a G7 summit being held in Germany, where the leaders of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies—Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America—have come together for an annual meeting. As the seven politicians and heads...

Universal Pictures has debuted a new trailer for the upcoming genre-blending satire on political ineptitude ‘Rumours.’

The movie follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit, where they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. These so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realise they are suddenly alone.

Written and co-directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, the film stars Cate Blanchett as the German Chancellor, Charles Dance as the President of the United States, Nikki Amuka-Bird as the UK Prime Minister and Alicia Vikander as the President of the European Commission.

Also in trailers – Misfits assemble… Explosive special look at Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts*’ lands

The film is released in UK & Irish cinemas 6th December.

Something apocalyptic has occurred…

The post “Something apocalyptic has occurred…...

Rumours skewers the world's most powerful political leaders as feckless incompetents in a dark and hilarious satire of the G7 (Group of Seven) a political organization consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the non-enumerated European Union. The premise from Canadian directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson have the G7 meeting in pastoral Germany for their annual summit. The all-star cast, led by Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, are so preoccupied with drafting a toothless "provisional statement" that they fail not notice they're all alone with the apocalypse imminent.

MovieWeb recently interviewed co-stars Nikki Amuka-Bird, who plays the UK prime minister, Roy Dupuis, the hunky Canadian prime minister in love with his UK counterpart, and Rolando Ravello, the sweet but simple Italian prime minister who follows the sleepy American president like a faithful puppy. The veteran actors were given great leeway in crafting their unique performances.

It is fitting that for the 30th year of the Geneva International Film Festival, artistic director Anais Emery and her team are going back to the future.

“It was very important to recall the history of the festival but not through a retrospective,” says Emery of the event that takes place in the Swiss city from November 1-10.

”We wanted to renew, to celebrate and underline Giff’s speciality and specificity.”

That means showcasing innovative storytelling delivered via the myriad audiovisual mediums available to creators, from film, TV and web content to installations, virtual reality and extended reality (Xr) works.

Directors Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin’s dark comedy Rumours portrays the situation of the inner workings of Western leadership in a time of crisis as a farcical satire, as comfortable played out on screen as perhaps on stage. As consistently sharp and witty as the dialogue is from its hapless leaders procrastinating over a joint statement of collective action in the middle of a German forest, it also is sobering, thought-provoking and timely in current unsettled times globally. The latter forever plays on the mind, even when presented with surreal moments that include the discovery of a giant live brain parked in the undergrowth.

The G7 leaders of Germany, France, United States, Canada, Italy, Japan and the UK – Cate Blanchett as summit host and German Chancellor Orlmann, Denis Ménochet as France’s Broulez, Charles Dance as U.S. President Wolcott (minus American accent), Roy Dupuis as Canadian premier Laplace,...

Guy Maddin is singular enough that the lending of his talents to another, far-younger director’s work perks up the ears. But one can understand such affinity within seconds of Dylan Greenberg’s The Triangular Door, a short whose form and tone are likewise indebted to cinema of yesteryear––in this case the New American Cinema of Jack Smith, George and Mike Kuchar, or Robert Downey Sr. After screening at the Tallahassee Film Fest and Nitehawk Cinema, and ahead of a presentation at Mix Festival and screening at Quad Cinema next month, we’re pleased to exclusively debut Greenberg’s project starring Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches.

Greenberg has already moved on to a feature debut, Spirit Riser, which will begin a Spectacle run on November 15 after premiering this spring in the Museum of the Moving Image’s Disreputable Cinema series, while also screening at PhilaMOCA and Nitehawk; the...

Cate Blanchett has been part of various successful movies, but her latest project, Rumours, just broke a horrible Rotten Tomatoes record that even her previous movie, Borderlands, avoided. Cate Blanchett is best known for her roles in drama movies like Elizabeth, Blue Jasmine, The Aviator, and Carol, and throughout her career, she has been nominated for various awards, winning two Oscars so far. Blanchett has branched out to various genres through the years, including superhero movies with Thor: Ragnarok and fairy tales with Cinderella.

2024 is seeing Blanchett in a variety of projects, beginning with the sci-fi action comedy Borderlands, directed by Eli Roth. Based on the video game series of the same name, Borderlands starred Blanchett as Lilith, a bounty hunter. Another project of Blanchett this year is the psychological thriller miniseries Disclaimer, written and directed by Alfonso Cuarn. Disclaimer has been well-received by critics so far, but the same...