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"I'm already proud of you, Marcel." Sony Pictures Classics has revealed the first teaser trailer for a French animated film called Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, the latest creation from Sylvain Chomet. You already know his other films - The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist. This is his latest feature since Attila Marcel in 2013. He also directed the animated short at the start of Joker: Folie à Deux about his shadow. His new film follows the life of Marcel Pagnol, a playwright, novelist, and a filmmaker who became one of the world's most inventive & prolific artists in the mid-20th century. Based on Pagnol's book, examining his entire life from childhood through his successful career in France and beyond. No US release date is set - expected in early 2025. This teaser features an English-language voice cast with what sounds like Tom Hiddleston as the voice of Marcel, though they...

While his work was recently seen worldwide with crafting the opening animated sequence of Joker: Folie à Deux, Sylvain Chomet is also hard at work on his next feature. Set to arrive in 2025, a long 15 years after his previous feature The Illusionist, The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol follows the life of the acclaimed playwright and filmmaker. Ahead of next year’s release, Sony Pictures Classics has now released the first teaser for the latest work from The Triplets of Belleville director.

Here’s the synopsis: “In 1955, 60-year-old Marcel Pagnol is a well-known and acclaimed playwright and filmmaker. When the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine commissions a weekly column about Pagnol’s childhood, he sees this as a great opportunity to go back to his artistic roots: writing. Realizing his memory is failing him and deeply affected by the disappointing results of his last two plays, Pagnol starts doubting his ability to pursue his work.

Alexander Payne isn’t holding a grudge against “The Holdovers” script allegations, but the writer/director is admitting just how “stupid” he thought the perceived scandal was.

On the eve of the 2024 Oscars, Disney’s “Luca” co-screenwriter Simon Stephenson publicly accused Payne and “The Holdovers” screenwriter David Hemingson of plagiarizing the script from his 2013 Black List screenplay “Frisco.”

Now, Payne told Deadline while at the Sarajevo Film Festival what he really thought of the media coverage at the time.

“It was the stupidest thing in the world,” Payne said when asked about the Variety report. “It was irresponsible of Variety to report on that without having read the scripts and comparing them themselves. Do you think The New York Times would have done that?”

At the time, Variety cited emails that suggested Payne did read Stephenson’s script or was at least aware of it when he decided to pass...

Earlier this year, one day before the 2024 Academy Awards, Variety reported that The Holdovers director Alexander Payne and writer David Hemingson had been accused of plagiarism by another screenwriter. "It was the stupidest thing in the world," is how Payne describes the controversy now to Deadline. "It was irresponsible of...

Exclusive: Alexander Payne has lambasted a report from earlier this year that the script for his five-time Oscar-nominated film The Holdovers, which he directed from a script by David Hemingson, was plagiarized.

“It was the stupidest thing in the world,” Payne told us at the Sarajevo Film Festival when asked about the Variety report earlier this year, which dropped on the eve of the Oscar ceremony.

In the piece, Luca screenwriter Simon Stephenson accused The Holdovers script of being plagiarized from his 2013 Black List screenplay Frisco.

“It was irresponsible of Variety to report on that without having read the scripts and comparing them themselves,” claimed Payne. “Do you think The New York Times would have done that?”

He added: “I haven’t heard anything more about it and I wish him [Stephenson] well but there was just no merit to it. I mean, I didn’t even pay attention to...

As Cannes Film Festival kicks off, the Paris-based international sales company MK2 Films has revealed it has acquired three films and made substantial investments in new restorations, set against the backdrop of a strong presence at Cannes Classics.

MK2 Films has entered into a collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation on the global rights (excluding the U.S.) for two films directed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle: “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” (1976) and “Daddy” (1973). “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” has been restored in 4K by L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) under the supervision of Arielle de Saint Phalle and with funding from Dior. It was presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, New York Film Festival and the new Los Angeles Festival of Movies. “Daddy” will soon be available in a restored version. MK2 Films described it as a “unique feminist work by one of...

The much-awaited and the biggest night in Cinema is just around the corner. Everyone is waiting or rooting for their favorite star or film to win the respective category. Amidst such excitement, one film that earned five Oscar nominations this year has been accused of plagiarism. Luca and Paddington 2 writer Simon Stephenson claims that Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers has striking similarities to his film.

A still from The Holdovers

The Holdovers’ script has earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Paul Giamatti, Best Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Best Original Screenplay for David Hemingson.

SUGGESTEDOscar-Nominee Paul Giamatti Had the Most Iconic Last Words For MCU Star After Admitting He Was “Drunk the entire time” While Filming Their Movie

Simon Stephenson sent an email to the Writers Guild of America stating that this favorite-to-win movie clearly copied his unproduced dramedy project.

The Holdovers Accused of...

Following part one of our 2024 preview, we’re counting down our 50 most-anticipated films of the year.

50. The Actor (Duke Johnson)

Duke Johnson, one half of the directing duo behind Anomalisa, makes his solo directorial (and live-action) debut with The Actor. For being based on the posthumously published novel from Donald E. Westlake, a synopsis points towards an amnesia thriller with André Holland as a New York City actor beaten and stranded in 1950s Ohio. Gemma Chan and Toby Jones co-star. As a state native I’m intrigued how they shot Budapest for small-town Ohio––the two don’t exactly scream perfect matches, but I won’t doubt the movie magic before I see it. Anomalisa was a wholly original stop-motion feature; we’re intrigued how Johnson continues that creativity in the live-action realm. – Caleb H.

49. Presence (Steven Soderbergh)

Steven Soderbergh has flirted with horror before––2018’s Unsane in particular nearly...

Alexander Payne (Adapted Screenplay Oscar wins for Sideways with Jim Taylor and The Descendants with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) at JFK airport with Anne-Katrin Titze on the Wc Fields poster in The Holdovers: “I remember that. I had that poster in my room growing up.”

In the second instalment with Alexander Payne, director of the Golden Globe-nominated The Holdovers (screenplay by David Hemingson), starring Dominic Sessa and Golden Globe nominees Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, we start out discussing the Oscar-shortlisted score by Mark Orton after my recommendation of Wurzel-Sepp, an apothecary shop in Munich from 1887. From there we move on to the Trapp Family recordings of The Little Drummer Boy and Silent Night, plus Cat Stevens in the soundtrack; the influence of Marcel Pagnol’s Merlusse, Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, Robert Donat in Sam Wood’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and...

Following its world premiere at the 50th Telluride Film Festival in August, Alexander Payne‘s “The Holdovers” was released nationwide by Focus Features on November 10. The dramedy stars Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, a cranky history teacher at a remote prep school who is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student (Dominic Sessa) who has no place to go.

The film has solidified its place in this year’s awards chatter, with current Gold Derby odds forecasting Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Giamatti) and Best Editing. Front-runner status could lead to Oscar wins for Best Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and Best Original Screenplay. Critics are gushing over the movie, with a consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reading, “Beautifully bittersweet, ‘The Holdovers’ marks a satisfying return to form for director Alexander Payne.”

See ‘The Holdovers’ overtakes ‘Past Lives’ in Oscar odds...

The list of directors who get to do exactly what they want onscreen is not long. Even big-budget, A-list directors not named Scorsese or Nolan must work within commercial IP.

Alexander Payne is different. For one, his budgets have never exceeded eight figures or even close For another, this final-cut pro is always nurturing multiple projects in various stages of completion. Payne has so many knocking around in his head that during our Zoom interview he has to keep reminding himself which film he’s discussing.

The state of his development slate is “undisciplined,” he said. “When I have the time to sit down and work on it and make the time. You get these questions, like: ‘What is your daily writing routine?’ Well, none. I have to say: ‘I’m directing now,’ or ‘I’m editing now.’ I have to tell myself, ‘Oh, I’m writing now.'”

“The Holdovers” gestated for years.

Thank god for Alexander Payne. The filmmaker is, and always has been, a true humanist. A writer-director more interested in human beings, something that has always been the special effect of his movies. A two-time Oscar-winning writer, his latest film, The Holdovers, which had its world premiere on Thursday at the Telluride Film Festival, is one of his rare movies in which he doesn’t have a writing credit. David Hemingson did the screenplay, but the idea, an inspired one, came from Payne, a real film buff who was always intrigued by Marcel Pagnol’s 1935 French film Merlusse about a group of boarding school students stuck over the holidays with a much-despised teacher. The director thought it had the bones for a new story and developed it with Hemingson.

Set in 1970, it is Payne’s first period film after a celebrated career for movies like Sideways, The Descendants and many others.

Jacqueline West is one of Hollywood’s most respected costume designers with four Oscar nominations for Philip Kaufmann’s Quills, David Fincher’s The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One.

She is also Terrence Malick’s go-to costume designer, after a recommendation from his long-time production designer Jack Fisk, working with him on The New World, The Tree of Life, To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, while other credits include Stephen Norrington’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Ben Affleck’s Argo and Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers Of The Flower Moon.

Talking about her career in a masterclass for the Doha Film Institute, West said she fell into cinema by chance after connecting with Kaufmann through a clothes store she set up in Berkeley in the 1990s after majoring in art history, having originally planned to study sciences.

Agnès Varda, the late New Wave cinema legend, is the subject of “Viva Varda!,” a documentary boasting exclusive archive footage and interviews by filmmakers such as Atom Egoyan and Audrey Diwan. Mk2 Films is co-representing the documentary feature with Cinétévé Sales.

“Viva Varda!” will be first portrait of the Honorary Oscar recipient that’s not directed by Varda herself. The last film she directed was “Varda par Agnes,” a documentary shedding light on her own experiences as a filmmaker. Her sprawling career and legacy will be celebrated this fall at the French Cinémathèque.

Pierre-Henri Gibert, a film buff who’s made several documentaries about filmmakers, including Jacques Audiard, explored different aspects of Varda’s life and body of work and conducted insightful interviews with friends, family, and collaborators, including Varda’s children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy, along with Sandrine Bonnaire, Patricia Mazuy and Jonathan Romney, among others.

“Viva Varda!

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Israel, India and Italy, and aboard airlines and ships worldwide, to the animated film The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, from writer-director Sylvain Chomet. The deal for Chomet’s English-language feature follows SPC’s distribution of his past films The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist.

The latest film from the four-time Academy Award nominee and BAFTA winner is set in 1955 follows 60-year-old Marcel Pagnol—one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century. An author with 150 million books sold worldwide and translated into more than 50 languages, Pagnol was also a well-known and acclaimed playwright and filmmaker prior to his passing in 1974.

When the editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine commissions a weekly column about the acclaimed playwright and filmmaker’s childhood, he sees this as a great opportunity to go back to his artistic roots: writing.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Sylvain Chomet’s “The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol,” an animated feature about the life of the legendary author Marcel Pagnol.

Chomet is the BAFTA-winning, four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker of “The Triplets of Belleville” and “The Illusionist” which were both distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.

The deal covers all rights for North America, Latin America, Scandinavia, Middle East, Israel, India, Italy, and

worldwide airlines and ships at sea in all languages.

“‘The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol’ completes the animated feature film trilogy started with ‘The Triplets of Belleville’ and ‘The Illusionist’ (both enormous successes and evergreen titles for Sony Pictures Classics),” said SPC.

“Sylvain Chomet is one of the great masters of animation in the world. It is a pleasure and privilege to be back in business with Sylvain and to expand Sylvain’s audience wider than ever,” added the company.

A modern fable, the...

Cannes slates includes new restorations of David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Claire Denis’s Chocolat, and Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep.

France’s mk2 films is ramping up its heritage film operation with the appointment of Frédérique Rouault as head of collections and the acquisition of a raft of catalogues by directors who have marked cinema history.

In one of its most significant heritage deals to date, the company has acquired the rights to the entire collection of films by the late writer and director Marcel Pagnol.

Until now, the catalogue has been managed by grandson Nicolas Pagnol under the...

Hiventy, one of France’s leading post-production companies, is seeing rising demand across its range of services, including film processing, dubbing and subtitling, post-production, film restoration and BluRay mastering. It has operations in France, Poland, Singapore, Vietnam, Kenya and Nigeria.

Hiventy has one of the few film lab services in Europe. CEO Thierry Schindele says that there has been rising demand for the company’s film processing services. Recent 35mm shoots processed by the group include Pablo Larrain’s “Spencer,” Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” and Christophe Honoré’s “Le Lycéen,” produced by Les Films Pelléas. Recent French films handled by Hiventy include Mia Hansen Love’s “One Beautiful Morning,” Serge Bozon’s “Don Juan,” Léa Mysius’ “The Five Devils” and Pietro Marcello’s “The Flight.”

Schindele expects demand for film processing services to continue to rise. Hiventy is supplying film processing services for shoots across Europe. For example, “Asteroid City” was shot in Spain,...

First image from Sylvain Chomet for his vast project on Marcel Pagnol revealed at Annecy Festival of Animation Photo: Annecy Film Festival

A long cherished project by Sylvain Chomet, the film-maker who shot to prominence with The Triplets Of Belleville as well as the Scottish-set The Illusionist, has been unveiled with a teaser clip at the Annecy Festival of Animation.

Described by showbiz Bible Variety as “a modern fable,” the biopic will chart the life of Marcel Pagnol, the legendary French novelist, playwright and film director who grew up in Marseille and whose fabled Provence set trilogy Marius, Fanny And César, and other classics, were set in the region.

Sylvain Chomet receiving his honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh during his sojourn in Scotland to make The Illusionist Photo: Dawn Marie Jones / French Film Festival UK

Pagnol was prolific during the Thirties and Fifties. His books have sold 150 million...

Sylvain Chomet, the BAFTA-winning, four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker of “The Triplets of Belleville” and “The Illusionist,” has partnered up with Mediawan’s On Kids & Family on his next directorial outing, “The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol.”

The ambitious film is being co-developed and produced by What The Prod, the outfit created and headed by Ashargin Poiré and Valérie Puech, with veteran animation producer Aton Soumache at On Kids & Family. The project is being presented at Annecy Film Festival with a well-polished, English-speaking teaser.

A modern fable, the animated biopic will chart the epic life of Pagnol, a celebrated French novelist, playwright and filmmaker who grew up in a middle-class household in Marseille and became one of the world’s most inventive and prolific artists from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. Throughout his long career, Pagnol’s books were translated into more than 50 languages and sold more than 150 million units. Pagnol also...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

Fans of Jean Renoir will rush to see something ‘new’ from the great director; this very different Renoir picture sees him filming in the South of France, among regional laborers that bring their Italian and Spanish customs with them. It’s a tragedy about a crime of passion, all shot outside of a film studio, without big stars or glamorous trappings.

Toni

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1040

1935 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 84 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 25, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalvan, Édouard Delmont, Max Dalban, Jenny Hélia, Michel Kovachevitch, Andrex.

Cinematography: Claude Renoir

Film Editors: Suzanne de Troeye, Marguerite Renoir

Original Music: Paul Bozzi

Written by Jean Renoir from material by Jacques Levert

Produced by Marcel Pagnol

Directed by Jean Renoir

We’re told that in 1933 Jean Renoir was stinging from some pictures that didn’t go over well with the public, including the classic comedy-drama Boudou Saved from Drowning.

The most striking, urgent, up-to-the-minute film I’ve seen this week was directed by Spike Lee. It speaks to the moment, pulses with turbulent emotional and political currents, overflows with vibrant characters and bluntly confronts society’s painful unfinished business. No, I’m not talking about Da 5 Bloods but, rather, Do the Right Thing.

Yes, that’s right, Do the Right Thing, which is 31 years old (!) but looks and sounds as though it could have been made this year. Even if they’ve remained dramatically and politically relevant after two or three decades, most films show their age one way or the other, through costumes, hairstyles, attitudes, musical choices, outdated slang and language usage or, at the very least, the age of cars on the streets.

But nothing at all about Lee’s third feature needs to be explained, no apologies or adjustments in attitude are required; even if...

Dušan Makavejev was born on King Milutin Street in Belgrade on October 13, 1932. This was about nine years before the city was occupied by the Nazis, at which point the Chinese embassy across the street became the headquarters of the German Chief Command of the Southeast. As a child, he watched German officers go in and out of the building, one of whom, Kurt Waldheim, would later become the Secretary of the United Nations—though of course the young Makavejev didn’t know this at the time. Following the Second World War, it was under Tito's Communist, but anti-Stalinist Yugoslavia that Makavejev first emerged as a major Eastern European filmmaker, initially associated with the loosely defined Novi Film (new film) movement. His eclectic career, the subject of a major retrospective at New York's Anthology Archives, garnered praise from the likes of Amos Vogel, Robin Wood, Stanley Cavell, Jonas Mekas, and Roger Ebert,...

A central figure in French cinema, Bertrand Tavernier has an encyclopedic knowledge of the craft of filmmaking akin to the likes of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. The sense of history he possesses is seen in both his narrative and documentary, the latter of which is perhaps best exemplified in his recent film My Journey Through French Cinema. Clocking in at 3.5 hours, that 2016 documentary has now received a follow-up expansion with an eight-part series and we’re pleased to debut the U.S. trailer.

Titled Journeys Through French Cinema, the director-writer-actor-producer explores the filmmakers that most influenced him, how the cinema of France changed when the country was German occupation, the unknown films and filmmakers he admires (with a focus on female directors), and much more. From better-known filmmakers such as Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, and Jacques Demy to ones in need of (re)discovery such as Raymond Bernard, Maurice Turner,...

All five digitally restored classics will play theatrically in 2019, 2020.

Film Movement Classics has acquired North American rights to five renowned or unusual films including Peter Seller’s little-seen directorial debut Mr. Topaze, Luchino Visconti’s final film L’innocente, and Bill Forsyth’s beloved Gregory’s Girl.

The roster includes Bruno Barreto’s erotic comedy Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands, and King Hu’s Raining In The Mountain.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg said all five films will get limited theatrical releases starting this year, followed by release on home entertainment and digital platforms.

Mr. Topaze was recently digitally...

All five digitally restored classics will play theatrically in 2019, 2020.

Film Movement Classics has acquired North American rights to five renowned or unusual films including Peter Seller’s little-seen directorial debut Mr. Topaze, Luchino Visconti’s final film L’innocente, and Bill Forsyth’s beloved Gregory’s Girl.

The roster includes Bruno Barreto’s erotic comedy Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands, and King Hu’s Raining In The Mountain.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg said all five films will get limited theatrical releases starting this year, followed by release on home entertainment and digital platforms.

Mr. Topaze was recently digitally...

For auteurists in New York there can hardly be a better series playing right now than "Trilogies" at Film Forum: a four-week extravaganza of 78 films comprising 26 mini director retrospectives from Angelopoulos to Wenders and 24 other auteurs in between. Many of the groupings in the series are actual sequential trilogies, like Kobayashi’s The Human Condition or Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, while others more loosely stretch the term, such as Lucrecia Martel’s "Salta Trilogy" or Hou Hsiao-hsien’s "Coming of Age Trilogy," very welcome though those are.Very few of the trilogies in the series, however, have posters that were conceived as trios themselves, the French posters for Kieslowski’s Three Colors, above, and Albert Dubout’s cartoony designs for Marcel Pagnol’s Marseilles Trilogy being the major exceptions. There are two terrific matching posters by Jan Lenica for the first two films in Mark Donskoy's Maxim Gorky Trilogy,...

The Criterion Collection has announced its July titles, with Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Brd Trilogy — “The Marriage of Maria Braun,” “Veronika Voss,” and “Lola” — leading the new additions. Also joining the Collection are Agniezka Holland’s “Europa Europa,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Klute,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” and Michael Radford’s adaptation of “1984,” with Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” getting upgraded from DVD to Blu-ray.

The news comes just a week after Criterion’s streaming service, the aptly named Criterion Channel, went live in the wake of FilmStruck’s closure late last year. “These audiences do need hubs,” the company’s president, Peter Becker, told IndieWire last week.

“If you’re lucky enough to live in a city like New York, which has hubs like the Film Forum and the Metrograph and Lincoln Center, then you actually have living, breathing, every-night film culture with great...

Cinema St. Louis presents the 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival which takes place March 8-10, 15-17, and 22-24, 2019. The location this year is Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium, Forsyth & Skinker boulevards.

The 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE and produced by Cinema St. Louis — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema. The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features seven such works: Pierre Schoendoerffer “The 317th Platoon,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” Olivier Assayas’ “Cold Water,” Jacques Becker’s “The Hole,” Jacques Rivette’s “The Nun,” Agnés Varda’s “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” and Diane Kurys’ “Peppermint Soda.” The schedule is rounded out by Robert Bresson’s final film, “L’argent,” and two 1969 films celebrating...

Cinema St. Louis presents the 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival which takes place March 8-10, 15-17, and 22-24, 2019. The location this year is Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium, Forsyth & Skinker boulevards.

The 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE and produced by Cinema St. Louis — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema. The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features seven such works: Pierre Schoendoerffer “The 317th Platoon,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” Olivier Assayas’ “Cold Water,” Jacques Becker’s “The Hole,” Jacques Rivette’s “The Nun,” Agnés Varda’s “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” and Diane Kurys’ “Peppermint Soda.” The schedule is rounded out by Robert Bresson’s final film, “L’argent,” and two 1969 films celebrating...

Cinema St. Louis presents the 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival which takes place March 8-10, 15-17, and 22-24, 2019. The location this year is Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium, Forsyth & Skinker boulevards.

The 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE and produced by Cinema St. Louis — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema. The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features seven such works: Pierre Schoendoerffer “The 317th Platoon,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” Olivier Assayas’ “Cold Water,” Jacques Becker’s “The Hole,” Jacques Rivette’s “The Nun,” Agnés Varda’s “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” and Diane Kurys’ “Peppermint Soda.” The schedule is rounded out by Robert Bresson’s final film, “L’argent,” and two 1969 films celebrating...

Cinema St. Louis presents the 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival which takes place March 8-10, 15-17, and 22-24, 2019. The location this year is Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium, Forsyth & Skinker boulevards.

he 11th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — presented by TV5MONDE and produced by Cinema St. Louis — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features seven such works: Pierre Schoendoerffer “The 317th Platoon,” Marcel Pagnol’s “The Baker’s Wife,” Olivier Assayas’ “Cold Water,” Jacques Becker’s “The Hole,” Jacques Rivette’s “The Nun,” Agnés Varda’s “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” and Diane Kurys’ “Peppermint Soda.”

The schedule is rounded out by Robert Bresson’s final film, “L’argent,” and two 1969 films celebrating...

Flanked by UniFrance president Serge Toubiana and the National Orchestra of France, filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier stood before a rapt crowd at Paris’ Maison de la Radio this past Saturday to introduce an evening dedicated to French film scores called “May the Music Begin!”

That moniker – a reference to the original French title of his 1975 César winner “Let The Joy Reign Supreme” – highlighted Tavernier’s personal connection to this project.

“There are many unsung heroes of French cinema,” he explained, “but none more so than our composers.”

Working on a film and subsequent eight-part series, both titled “My Journey Through French Cinema,” the filmmaker became struck by the degree to which French composers had been overlooked in the official accounts of French film history – and spent many lonely years trying to rectify that.

“For five years I felt like I was wandering in the desert,” he reflected, “and then in one...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

MoMA

The 16th annual edition of “To Save and Project” continues, including Ernst Lubitsch’s newly restored Forbidden Paradise.

Metrograph

An all-35mm Pier Paolo Pasolini retrospective continues, as does a series on Miyazaki and Kay Francis.

Kaili Blues, The African Queen, and Film Socialisme have screenings.

Quad Cinema

A Henry James series is underway,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

The films of Alfonso Cuarón are playing through Tuesday, including Children of Men, Sólo con tu pareja, and more in 35mm, Y tu mamá también, and Roma in 70mm.

MoMA

The 16th annual edition of To Save and Project is now underway, featuring newly restored films from Barbet Schroeder, Yvonne Rainer,...

"We went looking for your wife, and we found friendship." Janus Films has revealed a brand new trailer for the 4K restoration re-release of The Baker's Wife (originally titled La femme du boulanger), French filmmaker Marcel Pagnol's "enchanting slice-of-life comedy" that was first released (in the Us) in 1940. The film tells a story about how the peace of a Provençal village is shattered when the baker's wife runs off with a handsome shepherd. In his despair, the baker becomes heartbroken and can no longer bake. The villagers organise themselves to bring the wife back to her husband and so regain their daily bread. An amusing satire about life in a tiny town. The film stars Raimu, Ginette Leclerc, Fernand Charpin, Robert Vattier, Charles Blavette, Robert Bassac, Marcel Maupi, and Alida Rouffe. Playing in NYC later this month. Here's the new 4K restoration trailer for Marcel Pagnol's The Baker's Wife,...

The RiderThe lineup for the 2017 Telluride Film Festival (September 1st - 4th) has been announced:

Arthur Miller: Writer (Rebecca Miller, U.S.)Battle of the Sexes (Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton, U.S.)Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, U.K.)Downsizing (Alexander Payne, U.S.)Eating Animals (Christopher Quinn, U.S.)Faces Places (Agnès Varda & Jr, France)A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lelio, Chile/U.S./Germany/Spain)Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (Paul McGuigan, U.K.)First Reformed (Paul Schrader, U.S.)First They Killed My Father (Angelina Jolie, U.S./Cambodia)Foxtrot (Samuel Maoz, Israel)Hostages (Rezo Gigineishvili, Georgia/Russia/Poland)Hostiles (Scott Cooper, U.S.)Human Flow (Ai Weiwei, U.S./Germany)The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, France-Lebanon)Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, U.S.)Land of the Free (Camilla Magid, Denmark-Finland)Lean on Pete (Andrew Haigh, U.K./U.S)Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia/France/Belgium/Germany)Love,...

Just because community is a beautiful thing never means it's an easy thing. Family relations, most everyone knows, can prove especially dicey. Even in comedies. Especially in comedies. In the early 1930s, just as the movies were learning to talk, French theater playwright and impresario Marcel Pagnol honed in on this truth as he brought his now-revered Marseille Trilogy to motion picture screens. Released between 1931 and 1936, the three films, Marius, Fanny and César, boast a cozy continuity in characters and the terrific actors playing them, not to mention their provincial seaside location. Originating on stage in Paris, Pagnol's initial entry, Marius, proved to be a popular hit as a film as well as a play. It immediately gave way to a followup one...

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Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This August will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Tuesday, August 1

Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train

Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.

Names you won’t hear in Bertrand Tavernier’s personal history of French cinema: Abel Gance, Marcel Pagnol, Sacha Guitry, Alain Resnais, Philippe Garrel. Don’t expect to hear about any directors who got started after the ’60s either: Tavernier begins with a solid overview of the glories of Jacques Becker, the first director to make an impression on him (“At age six, I could have chosen worse”) and ends with an equally lengthy tribute to Claude Sautet — along with Jean-Pierre Melville, one of his two professional fairy godmother gateways to the production side of French cinema. There is, to be sure, plenty of […]...

Marcel Pagnol’s famed Marseille Trilogy receives a loving placement in the Criterion Collection after its theatrical Us restoration release in early 2017 courtesy of Janus Films.

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No longer out of reach, Marcel Pagnol’s stunning 3-feature saga of love and honor in a French seaport is one of the great movie experiences — and the most emotional workout this viewer has seen in years. The tradition of greatness in the French sound cinema began with gems like these, starring legendary actors that were sometimes billed only with their last names: Raimu, Charpin. Those two, Pierre Fresnay and Orane Demazis are simply unforgettable — it’s 6.5 hours of dramatic wonderment.

Marcel Pagnol’s The Marseille Trilogy

Marius * Fanny * César

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 881-884

1931 – 1936 / B&W / 1:19 flat full frame, 1:19 flat full frame, 1:37 flat full frame / 127 * 127 * 141 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 20, 2017 / 79.96

Starring: Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Orane Demazis, Fernand Charpin, Alida Rouffe, Paul Dullac, Robert Vattier, André Fouché.

Cinematography: Ted Pahle, Nicolas Toporkoff, Willy Faktorovitch

Original Music: ?, Vincent Scotto, Vincent Scotto

Written by Marcel Pagnol

Produced by Ted Pahle,...

Come June, the Criterion Collection will be presenting some mighty fine alternatives to the Hollywood blockbuster machine. It starts with Mizoguchi Kenji's Ugetsu and includes two early works by Alfred Hitchcock (The Lodger) and Nicholas Ray (They Live By Night), as well as Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, which continues to stir controversy. For those with a taste for French cinema, a newly restored version of Marcel Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy arrives on Blu-ray for the first time. Click through the gallery below to see all the Blu-ray covers and read the official descriptions from Criterion....

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Marcel Pagnols’ Marseille Trilogy, Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog” and Nicholas Ray’s “They Live by Night” are among the new titles joining the Criterion Collection this June. In addition, Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” and Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” are being upgraded in new Blu-ray editions. More information below.

Read More: The Criterion Collection Announces May Titles: ‘Ghost World,’ ‘Dheepan,’ ‘Jeanne Dielman’ and More

“Ugetsu”

“Having refined his craft in the silent era, Kenji Mizoguchi was an elder statesman of Japanese cinema-fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other younger directors-by the time he made ‘Ugetsu.’ And with this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers whose pursuit of fame and...

It’s mid-month, which means it is time for the next line-up for The Criterion Collection. Arriving in June is Sam Pekcinpah‘s controversial Dustin Hoffman-led thriller Straw Dogs, Alfred Hitchcock‘s early silent film The Lodger (which also includes his film from the same year of 1927, Downhill), and perhaps the most substantial release of the month, Marcel Pagnol’s The Marseille Trilogy, featuring Marius, Fanny, and César.

Also in the line-up is is Nicholas Ray‘s directorial debut, the 1948 drama They Live by Night, as well as a Blu-ray upgrade of Kenji Mizoguchi‘s landmark classic Ugetsu, which recently enjoyed a 4K theatrical restoration. Check out all the details on the releases below by clicking the box art.

In 2017’s first major (and highly impressive) restoration, Janus films breathes new life into novelist/playwright/director Marcel Pagnol’s indelible Marseille Trilogy, a triptych of films each helmed by different auteurs in 1930s France, standing as the most effective Provencal saga ever committed to film (even though the material has been adapted several times for theater and television in the decades since).

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Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

In honor of Moonlight, a new series (about which more here) shows the seeds of Barry Jenkins’ sensation — including films from Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wong Kar-wai, and Claire Denis.

Tampopo also screens.

Metrograph

“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” brings films from Jane Campion, Nicolas Roeg, and more.

Vagabond, The Wolfpack,...

Welcome back to the first Weekend Warrior of 2017, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out (when applicable).

We’ll bypass the past couple holiday weekends cause that was so 2016, and we’ll instead get right into the new movies opening on Friday including two that opened in select cities and are expanding nationwide.

Underworld: Blood Wars (Sony/Screen Gems)

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Tobias Menzies, Lara Pulver, Charles Dance, James Faulkner, Peter Andersson, Clementine Nicholson, Bradley James, Daisy Head

Director: Anna Foerster (debut feature from director of TV shows Outlander & Criminal Minds)

Genre: Action, Horror, Thriller

Rated R

Plot: The vampire death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) finds herself facing both Lycans and vampires, both of them trying to use the blood of her daughter to create new hybrids, so she and David (Theo James...

It’s only the very beginning of 2017, but in the world of film things tend to move quickly. Well, in so many ways, at least. As the repertory film scene continues to expand, film studios and boutique distributors trying to find any classic catalog title that may hit the fancy of a specific niche film going audience, Janus Films continues to not only be leading the way but bringing to theaters some of the most exciting discoveries of any given year.

Take for example their latest release. January 4 marks the start of Janus’ touring of new restorations of not one, not two but three of the truly great and influential early entries into the French Film Canon. Written by Marcel Pagnol, Marius, Fanny and Cesar all find themselves under the watchful eye of different filmmakers, but carry with them the same sense of warmth and vitality that is crystal clear in Pagnol’s story.