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Celebrating women directors and their incredible contributions to filmmaking, the new book “Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words” includes a brief history about groundbreaking trailblazers, in-depth interviews with singular female directors, and a comprehensive list of noteworthy talents and their films from author, critic, and IndieWire contributor Marya E. Gates.

The filmmakers interviewed for the upcoming book are: Allison Anders, Gillian Armstrong, Lizzie Borden, Jane Campion, Martha Coolidge, Julie Dash, Josephine Decker, Cheryl Dunne, Bette Gordon, Marielle Heller, Miranda July, Karyn Kusama, Mary Lambert, Mira Nair, Sally Potter, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Isabel Sandoval, Susan Seidelman, and Katt Shea.

IndieWire shares an exclusive excerpt from Gates’ introduction below.

I first became aware that women could direct films when I was eight years old and my mother took me to see Gillian Armstrong’s “Little Women.” That movie affected me deeply and has remained my favorite film ever since.

Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.

A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.

When we think of the great director-actor pairings throughout Asian cinema history, at the top is Kurosawa and Mifune. But we can’t forget Kenji Mizoguchi and Kinuyo Tanaka or Wong Kar-wai and Tony Leung. But for many of us, we were straight up introduced to international action movies through the teamings of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat, chiefly The Killer and Hard Boiled. But the pair hasn’t worked together in more than 30 years – unfortunately, that may have been the last time.

Despite their place as one of the best director-actor duos in all of action, we only ever got five movies directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-fat, two of the most recognizable figures of Hong Kong cinema. As the 77-year-old Woo recently told HK01 (via Yahoo!), “We are getting older and it would be hard to find the right script…[But] I still want to be like...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSLeos Carax in Holy Motors (2012).On Monday, SAG-AFTRA members voted 97.9 percent in favor of a strike if their contract negotiations stall. This sets the stage for an industry-wide work stoppage in solidarity with the Writers Guild, even after the weekend’s news that the Directors Guild had reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.Away from Hollywood, CG Cinema have confirmed that Leos Carax has wrapped production on a new film, C’est pas moi, set to release in 2024. This is a "free format" self-portrait, spanning the "major stations" of Carax's four-decade career amid "the political tremors of the time." The images shared by CG Cinema feature Denis Lavant in character as Monsieur Merde, made infamous in...

Shichiro Fukazawa's story “Narayama” is a haunting tale of ubasute, an ancient practice in Japanese folklore of carrying an elderly family member to a remote area, where they are left to die. Fukazawa's short story has notably been adapted twice. The most popular and successful version is Shohei Imamura's “The Ballad of Narayama,” released in 1983, which was both a critical and financial success and is regarded as a classic. Yet, the first adaptation of the powerful tragedy that came long before is a film that is very different in style from Imamura's depiction but equally wonderful. That magnificent picture is Keisuke Kinoshita's “The Ballad of Narayama.”

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

By the late 1950s, Keisuke Kinoshita had made quite a name for himself, especially after having graced moviegoers with his powerful film, “Twenty-Four Eyes.” Around the same time,...

Marking its tenth edition, the Lumière Festival’s International Classic Film Market (Mifc) celebrated on Tuesday with a special anniversary get-together of industry specialists to take stock and discuss the key issues facing the heritage film sector.

Guests included the festival’s director, Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux; MK2 CEO Nathanaël Karmitz; Sandra den Hamer, director of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam; Frédéric Maire, director of Cinémathèque Suisse; Davide Pozzi, director of Italian restoration company L’Immagine Ritrovata; and Mifc director Juliette Rajon.

Each was given five minutes to answer three questions on themes ranging from the role of streaming platforms in the distribution of classic cinema, educating younger audiences, the international distribution and availability of heritage cinema, its economic health and legislation, technical evolutions, and accessibility and sustainability.

Conclusions identified trends – such as the growth of the heritage industry – and cruxes for its future: The role of streamers, and education.

Asked...

10 films were competing for the Powell and Pressburger award.

Scottish animators Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson’s 60-minutes documentary A Cat Called Dom has won the inaugural Powell and Pressburger Award for best film at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Anderson and Henderson star in and co-direct the inventive documentary, which had its world premiere at Eiff. The film explores how Will deals with his mother’s cancer diagnosis and also the frustrations of trying to make a film.

The jury, comprised of president Gaylene Gould (founder of creative lab The Space to Come), producer Rosie Crerar and author Sarah Winman,...

After a near-five-year break, Kinuyo Tanaka returned behind the camera to direct her fourth feature film, “The Wandering Princess”. The studio Daiei project sees the director take advantage of both color and Cinemascope for the first time, garnering gorgeous results with both. By far Tanaka’s most ambitious directorial effort at this point in her career, the feature is a tragic historical epic that tackles a controversial part of modern Japanese history and is centered around the struggles of women.

“The Wandering Princess” is screening at the BFI London as part of “Kinuyo Tanaka: A Life in Film”

Based on the memoirs of Hiro Saga, the narrative begins at the outset of World War II and follows the story of Ryuko Korinkakura (Machiko Kyô), a distant relative of the emperor Hirohito. With Japan looking to cement ties throughout its empire, Ryuko is chosen as a suitable bride for Futetsu (Eiji Funakoshi...

After her directorial debut “Love Letter” in 1953, Kinuyo Tanaka had received some international recognition, with the feature being a contestant at Cannes Film Festival in 1954. It also marked the end of her working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi, with whom she had collaborated on “Oharu” and “Sansho the Bailiff”, which cemented her reputation as one of the leading ladies of Japanese cinema. However, while the famous filmmaker was against this next step in her career, the experience of her first directorial effort encouraged her to continue working behind the camera as well. Her next project would be “The Moon Has Risen”, a family drama/ light comedy, which was co-written by Yasujiro Ozu, who originally had planned to direct it himself. While Ozu’s signature themes are still quite obvious, Tanaka proved her growth as a visual storyteller, making her sophomore feature a remarkable development in her career.

“The Moon Has...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSEnys Men (Mark Jenkin).The New York Film Festival announced its Main Slate. Highlights include new films from Park Chan-wook, Claire Denis, and Kelly Reichardt; a fiction feature from Frederick Wiseman; Mark Jenkin's Bait follow-up Enys Men; and much more.Hong Kong action director John Woo will reimagine his 1989 crime classic The Killer in a new remake due out in 2023. French actor Omar Sy (The Intouchables) will play the lead.Lars Von Trier has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, his production company Zoetrope has confirmed. The director is doing well, and is currently being treated for symptoms whilst continuing to work on The Kingdom Exodus.Artist and El Planeta filmmaker Amalia Ulman's visa is expiring, meaning she may have to leave the United States, where she is currently working on her next feature film.

After successfully collaborating on “The Eternal Breast”, director/actress Kinuyo Tanaka and scriptwriter Sumie Tanaka would work together again when it came to the adaptation of a Masako Yana novel. Her fifth feature, which would only be followed by “Love Under the Crucifix”, after which the filmmaker would concentrate more on acting again, appearing mostly in Japanese television, focuses on themes she had discussed previously, most significantly the status of women within the society of her home country. “Girls of the Night” tells a story of a woman trying to adapt to a society after being labeled rehabilitated from her previous life as an “honorableness woman of the night”, and her struggles as no matter what she does, her reputation and her past follow her. It is a challenging film, even by today’s standards, and probably Tanaka’s strongest effort as a director.

“Girls of the Night” is screening...

The 79th Venice International Film Festival has just announced the line-up for the next edition. The 79th Venice International Film Festival is organised by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera. It will take place at Venice Lido from 31 August to 10 September 2022. The Festival is officially recognised by the Fiapf (International Federation of Film Producers Association).

The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote international cinema in all its forms as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue. The Festival also organises retrospectives and tributes to major figures as a contribution towards a better understanding of the history of cinema.

Here are all the Asian Titles on the Programme:

Competition:

Love Life

Director Koji Fukada

Main Cast Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada / Japan, France / 123’

Shab, Dakheli, Divar (Beyond The Wall)

Director Vahid Jalilvand

Main Cast Navid Mohammadzadeh, Diana Habibi,...

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has unveiled the complete line-up for its 75th Anniversary edition (August 12-17) as it gears up for its first full-scale roll-out since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Palestinian director Maha Haj’s drama Mediterranean Fever, US musician and filmmaker Amanda Kramer’s musical queer thriller Please Please Me, and Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet will be among the 10 feature films competing in the rebooted competition strand for the new Powell and Pressburger Award.

There will be gala screenings for previously announced opening film Aftersun by Edinburgh-born filmmaker Charlotte Wells and closing film After Yang by South Korean-us director Kogonada, as well as New Zealand director Armağan Ballantyne’s comedy Nude Tuesday, which will play mid-way through the festival.

Kogonada, who has been invited to curate a selection of films under the Eiff’s Carte Blanche sidebar, has chosen Kor-eda Hirokazu’s After Life,...

Armağan Ballantyne’s gibberish comedy “Nude Tuesday” will be the central gala at the 75th Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff).

In the film, which has previously played at Tribeca and Sydney, 40-somethings Laura (Jackie van Beek) and Bruno (Damon Herriman) head to a three day couples’ retreat run by relationship and sexual healing guru Bjorg Rasmussen (Jemaine Clement) in an effort to rekindle the spark in their troubled marriage. Upon arrival, the path to their reconnection is met with increasingly absurd farce. The film is spoken entirely in an improvised, gibberish-esque language with subtitles created by Julia Davis.

The festival has reimagined its major award, the Michael Powell Award for best British feature. “With a renewed commitment to internationalism and cultural exchange, the principles on which the Edinburgh Festivals were founded, Eiff will present the Powell & Pressburger award for best feature film. This competition of 10 films is composed of a mix of U.

Kenji Mizoguchi was a brilliant and influential filmmaker. Besides his movies being visual marvels, he was a master of emotional storytelling. The projects of Mizoguchi were also vey much ahead of their time, especially regarding the themes and issues they often tackled. Much of the artist’s work is character studies of women forced into suffering and pushing through struggles in Japanese society. He frequently worked with brilliant actress Kinuyo Tanaka who starred in a substantial amount of his filmography. Gender inequality and sexism in Japan date far back in history and remain an issue there to this day. An advocate of equality, Mizoguchi would be one of the first Japanese directors to raise awareness of these issues while tearing down the facade that Japanese society is perfect, all while giving a voice to those forced to comply with social injustices. Such matters are brought to the forefront in one...

Although she would go on to make feature films as an actress, Kinuyo Tanaka’s last project as a director would be the 1963 jidaigeki “Love Under the Crucifix”, a work based on the novel “Ogin-sama” by Toko Kon. At the same time, given her development as a filmmaker, this is truly an interesting climax to a career which saw her progressing more and more, developing her skills, especially when it comes to cinematic storytelling. Additionally, the themes that defined her previous works such as “Love Letter” and “Forever a Woman” also found a fitting conclusion in a feature that, even though it was not set in the present as her other movies, it certainly made a very relevant point about gender roles within Japanese society as well as the conflict between duty and desire as expressed in the story of the main characters.

“Love Under the Crucifix” is screening at...

After her first two features as a director, “Love Letter” and “The Moon Has Risen”, actress Kinuyo Tanaka, best known for her roles in Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu” and “Life of Oharu”, would continue her exploration of femininity, especially within focus of the Japanese society and tje traditional concepts of sexuality and marriage. Based on the life and works of Japanese poetess Fumiko Nakajo, “The Forever Woman” or “The Eternal Breasts”, which it was also called, would cement her status as someone with talents before and behind the camera. While Tanaka is mostly known for being an actress, current retrospectives focusing on her directing career shed some light onto this aspect of her life, showing a person well aware of the contradictions within the traditions of her home country, while also following paths which might constitute some kind of escape from these ideas.

“Forever a Woman” is screening at the...

After a successful career as an actress, starring in such features like “Oharu”. “Ugetsu” and “Sansho the Bailiff”, perhaps Kinuyo Tanaka thought she would receive support from Kenji Mizoguchi, the director whose work she had been a part of for so many years. However, when a recommendation from the Director’s Guild came to hire her as a director, Mizoguchi was against it, marking the end of their collaboration, and the start of a new part in Tanaka’s career, which would begin with her debut “Love Letter” entering the competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954. Within the context of Japan’s post-war cinema, the story of two lovers who became separated during the war is quite special, telling a story from a perspective which is rarely seen, even nowadays.

“Love Letter” is screening at the 11th Sdaff Spring Showcase

At the beginning of the feature, we meet Reikichi...

One can’t dig too deep in Japan’s cinematic catalogue without confronting the talents of Kinuyo Tanaka. History has chosen to favor Tanaka’s career as an actor, which is hardly surprising since she starred in 200+ film productions and appeared in timeless classics by Mizoguchi, Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Keisuke Kinoshita. But Tanaka bears an even more important distinction since she was the second woman in her country to direct her own feature film.

Across a span of nine years, Tanaka would direct six of her own features from 1953 to 1962.…...

In a 15+ film collection, Pacific Art Movement’s 11th San Diego Asian Film Festival (Sdaff) Spring Showcase returns to in-person programming at the Ultrastar Cinemas in Mission Valley, San Diego from April 21 through 28, 2022. This year’s showcase recognizes the impact of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders (Aapi) on popular culture. Audiences will enjoy eight days of films from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam including a four-film retrospective on director and actress Kinuyo Tanaka. The showcase opens with the biopic Anita on April 21 telling the captivating story of the “Madonna of Hong Kong”. Closing night features Free Chol Soo Lee which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this January. Other programming includes live Q&As from filmmakers and a panel discussion with the authors of Rise: A Pop History of Asian America From The Nineties To Now.

“Our 11th Spring Showcase marks more than just a return in-person for the Asian,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Metrograph

Resnais, Demy, and Varda lead Left Bank Cinema; Metrograph A to Z continues with Hawks and Lang; Kim’s Video has Hooper and Fulci; The Muppets Take Manhattan screens in Play Time;; Delta Space Mission is in “Late Nights.”

Roxy Cinema

Romeo + Juliet has 35mm showings, while Flaming Creatures and Fuses screen on 16mm this Saturday.

Film at Lincoln Center

A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, as has Bronco Bullfrog, while Space is the Place screens this Saturday; Fantasia and Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances play on Sunday.

IFC Center

Late-night showings of Eraserhead, Dune, Twilight, Brazil, and Mysterious Skin have showings.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Alain Resnais,...

Kinuyo Tanaka on the set of The Moon Has Risen (1955) Directed between 1953 and 1962, six newly restored features by Kinuyo Tanaka are the subject of a historic retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Tanaka was already a preeminent actress of international renown when she turned to directing, a decision that made her Japan’s second female filmmaker and the only woman making pictures during the nation’s postwar era. Tanaka’s relationship with major studios ensured that her directorial works would be mainstream productions with high-profile talent and skilled crews. As Irene González-López and Michael Smith state in Tanaka Kinuyo: Nation, Stardom and Female Subjectivity, the first English-language book on Tanaka: “Only a few others, including the actress Ida Lupino (1918–95) in America and Jacqueline Audry (1908–77) in France, worked in commercial cinema.” The retrospective, however, calls for a reappraisal of her filmmaking career as much more than the sum of these important but gendered accomplishments,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A regular performer for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka is celebrated in a retrospective of films she directed, as restored by Janus, alongside work by her collaborators.

Bam

“Lynchian” mostly does what it says on the tin—and plenty on 35mm—but also includes those influenced: Perfect Blue, Trouble Every Day, and Uncle Boonmee.

Film Forum

Joseph Losey’s great Mr. Klein has been restored, while School of Rock screens this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Manhunter and Ikiru screen on 35mm this weekend.

Paris Theater

The all-35mm Jane Campion retrospective winds down with Holy Smoke and Bright Star.

Metrograph

Metrograph A to Z continues; two Muppet movies screen in Play Time; Eyes Without a Face, Vagabond, and The Young Girls of Rochefort lead “Left Bank Cinema“; South Park and Perfect Blue are in “Late Nights.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Fatal Attraction (1987)The next season of Karina Longsworth's podcast You Must Remember This will focus on the thorny and sumptuous erotic films of the 1980s and 1990s, including films by Adrian Lyne, Brian De Palma, and Stanley Kubrick. The two-part season will start on April 5. Ahead of its theatrical release, the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick will play at a special screening in Cannes for the 75th edition of the festival in May. This year's Cannes Film Festival also has a new official partner: TikTok. The partnership will include exclusive festival-related content for users and an in-app competition called #TikTokShortFilm. James Morosini's I Love My Dad and Rosa Ruth Boesten's documentary Master of Light lead this year's SXSW Film Festival awards. Actor William Hurt has died at the age of 71. Hurt was known...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDore O.'s Alaska (1968)The German avant-garde artist Dore O., whose poetic films were at once vast and intimate explorations of dreams, has died at 75. O. was a founder of the Hamburg Filmmakers Co-op (1968-1974), a participant in the famous German exhibit documenta 5 in 1972, and a prolific painter. The DVD label Re:voir Video had recently released a collection of six restored films by O. In 1988, the critic Dietrich Kuhlbrodt wrote: "Dore O. has become classic, and suddenly it turns out that her work has passed the various currents of time unharmed: the time of the cooperative union, the women's film, the structuralists and grammarians, the teachers of new ways of seeing."Subscriptions are now open for Notebook magazine, our print-only publication devoted to the art and culture of cinema. Subscribe now and you’ll...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: The Temenos screening in Lyssarea, Greece.Registration for Temenos 2022, which will premiere a new section of avant-garde master Gregory Markopoulos's epic Eniaios, is now open. This very special event, which usually takes place every four years, will be taking place June 9-19 in Lyssarea, Greece. For more information on the Temenos screenings and the ongoing restoration of Eniaios, visit here.Hou Hsiao-hsien has announced two new projects: the long-gestating, Shu Qi-led film Shulan River, an adaptation of the Hsieh Hai-meng novel about a river goddess; and a yet unnamed project starring Chang Chen about "an elderly father and his son." Filmmaker, painter, writer, Nick Zedd has died. In addition to his darkly funny no-budget films like They Eat Scum (1979) and his zine Underground Film Bulletin, Zedd is coining the term "Cinema of...

Tokyo International Film Festival is screening four of the six films directed by Kinuyo Tanaka, a screen legend who then broke ground as Japan’s first female director in the postwar era.

Born in 1909, Tanaka made her debut aged just 15 for Shochiku, which she would work with until she became a free agent after a trip to the US more than two decades later.

At a festival talk show to introduce the screenings, Mika Tomita of the National Film Archive of Japan noted that Tanaka was, “…so popular as an actress that her films were presented under her name, like Chaplin’s ...

Tokyo International Film Festival is screening four of the six films directed by Kinuyo Tanaka, a screen legend who then broke ground as Japan’s first female director in the postwar era.

Born in 1909, Tanaka made her debut aged just 15 for Shochiku, which she would work with until she became a free agent after a trip to the US more than two decades later.

At a festival talk show to introduce the screenings, Mika Tomita of the National Film Archive of Japan noted that Tanaka was, “…so popular as an actress that her films were presented under her name, like Chaplin’s ...

Paris-based Carlotta Films, a leading player in the distribution of heritage cinema, is preparing a number of major releases next year, including a retrospective of Pier Paolo Pasolini and a showcase of works by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pasolini’s birth, the retrospective will featuring restored versions of “Accattone” (1961), “Mamma Roma” (1962) and others.

Carlotta is currently at the Lumière Festival and International Classic Film Market in Lyon, where it’s launching several titles, including 4K restorations of François Truffaut’s five-picture series “The Adventures of Antoine Doinel,” released between 1959 and 1979. They include “The 400 Blows,” “Antoine and Colette,” “Stolen Kisses,” “Bed and Board” and “Love on the Run.” Carlotta is releasing the films, newly restored in 4K by MK2, in French theaters and on DVD/Blu-ray in December. They are part of Carlotta’s ongoing collaboration with Paris-based MK2 that also included the 2020 release of a Claude Chabrol collection.

An event like the Festival Lumière, with its wide remit that sees classic films and retrospectives rub shoulders with the very latest and chic-est new titles, is always going to boast a thicket of hidden connections and surprising collisions. This year, for example, you could go from watching “8 ½,” Federico Fellini’s 1963 metafiction about his relationship with filmmaking, straight into “The Hand of God,” Paolo Sorrentino’s 2021 autofiction about his relationship with (among other things) Fellini. You could gorge yourself on Francois Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, and then find yourself watching Gaspar Noé’s “Vortex,” featuring a superb Francoise Lebrun, who is best known for her role in Jean Eustache’s “The Mother and the Whore,” where she starred opposite… Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Such coincidences and congruities are part of the joy of a film festival, but occasionally they can also point to something deeper. This edition features...

The French city of Lyon is gearing up for its annual Lumière film festival which will be honoring the work of New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion on this 13th edition.

The event, named after the Lyon-born brothers who staged the first cinema screenings, is a star-studded affair that celebrates both heritage and contemporary cinema in crowded theaters throughout the city.

It is run by the Institut Lumière, an institution dedicated to film heritage preservation and distribution, whose director is also Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux.

Festival-goers will be able to enjoy some 440 screenings, ranging from black and white classics by the likes of Luis Buñuel (“Un Chien Andalou,” 1929), Sergueï Eisenstein and Julien Duvivier to premieres of highly anticipated films including Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”, Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” – all Netflix pics that will be presented by the directors themselves in Lyon.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Kinuyo Tanaka. Courtesy of Nikkatsu / Carlotta. The Cannes Film Festival has announced the titles of its Cannes Classics section, which includes restored films by Kinuyo Tanaka, Bill Duke, Peter Wollen, and Oscar Micheaux. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Mati Diop, Jessica Hausner, Mylene Farmer, Tahar Rahim, Song Kang-ho and Kleber Mendonça Filho will join director Spike Lee on the Cannes 2021 Competition jury.The Toronto International Film Festival is starting to announce its lineup for this year's edition, from an Alanis Morissette documentary and Kenneth Branagh's Belfast to Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho and Denis Villeneuve's Dune.In a special episode of New Beverly's Pure Cinema Podcast, Quentin Tarantino has announced he will work with Sony on a new, boutique Blu-Ray label "Tarantino Archives," taking inspiration from Twilight Time and reissuing films from their catalogue.

Cannes Classics

Mark Cousins‘ documentary “The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas,” following the legendary “The Last Emperor” and “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” producer’s annual drive to Cannes, will be the pre-opener at the Cannes Classics selection this year.

Restored titles this year include “Friendship’s Death” by Peter Wollen, starring Tilda Swinton; “F For Fake” by Orson Welles; “Mulholland Drive” by David Lynch (2001 U.S.); “I Know Where I’m Going!” by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; and “The Double Life Of Véronique by Krzysztof Kieślowski”.

The section will also celebrate the work of actor/director Bill Duke with a screening of “The Killing Floor” (1985); Japanese actor and filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s “Tsuki Wa Noborinu”; Spanish actor and filmmaker Ana Marisca’s “El Camino” from 1964; French maven Marcel Camus’ “Orfeu Negro” and Italian master Roberto Rossellini’s “Francesco, Giullare Di Dio”.

Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American director in the history of U.

Led by Spike Lee, the jury contains five women and four men.

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the main Competition jury for its 74th edition which runs July 6-17.

For the second time in the festival’s history, female jury members will be in the majority with five women and three men due to join previously announced jury president Spike Lee. In 2018, when Cate Blanchett was jury president, the split was also five women and four men.

This year’s female jury members comprise French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, Canadian-French singer/songwriter Mylène Farmer, US actress, producer and director Maggie Gyllenhaal,...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 2021 Cannes Classics section. Made up of a selection of restored prints, the roster also includes new documentaries that explore the history of cinema. Among the offerings is Mark Cousins’ pre-opening doc, The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, which covers a yearly drive with the British producer from London to Cannes. Cousins and Thomas will be in town for the presentation. (Scroll down for the full Cannes Classics list.)

Restored titles include David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive; 1945’s I Know Where I’m Going! by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; Krzysztof Kieślowski’s 1991 drama The Double Life Of Véronique; Orson Welles’ F For Fake from 1973; and Friendship’s Death by Peter Wollen which features Tilda Swinton’s first role.

Among the special events are a tribute to director and actor Bill Duke who will present his 1985 The Killing Floor which premiered at Critics...

Mark Cousins joins iconic producer on annual road trip to Cannes.

Visit Films has boarded worldwide rights on Mark Cousins’ Cannes Classics documentary The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas.

Cousins joins Thomas on the producer’s annual road trip from London to the Cannes Film Festival as he recalls some of his most iconic films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s multiple Oscar winner The Last Emperor, David Cronenberg’s Crash, and Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing.

Thomas discusses Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, and David Bowie, and the journey is interspersed with commentary from Tilda Swinton and Debra Winger, and features a range of film clips.

Tilda Swinton to attend restored screening of Peter Wollen’s 1987 UK film Friendship’s Death.

Two documentaries from Mark Cousins and restored films from Kinuyo Tanaka, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles will screen in Cannes Classics, announced on Wednesday (June 23).

Cousins’ The Story Of Film: A New Generation and The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas, a profile of the celebrated British producer, are among a documentary line-up that incudes Buñuel, Un Cineasta Surrealista from Javier Espada, and All About Yves Montand by Yves Jeuland.

The roster of restored narrative films includes David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive, Japanese actor-filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka’s (pictured) The Moon Has Risen,...

Yes, sure, all the new films are exciting and sure to dominate discourse from here to January, but every year (i.e. when a pandemic doesn’t kneecap them) the Cannes Film Festival provides an equal-if-not-greater service: Cannes Classics, their mix of favorite and soon-to-be-discovered films from yesteryear.

2021’s lineup is representative of that variety, offering as it does Orson Welles and David Lynch alongside an early Raoul Peck feature (restored by Scorsese’s World Cinema Project), Tilda Swinton’s screen debut, a lesser-seen Masahiro Shinoda, and (frankly!) names that don’t ring a bell.

Take a look at the list below, with hope that these will make their way to American shores.

A Tribute To Bill Duke

The director, actor and producer, in Competition at Cannes with A Rage in Harlem in 1991, returns to the Croisette with his first film as director, presented at the Semaine de la critique...

After six days packed with films, workshops, lectures and film talks, the 21st Nippon Connection Film Festival ended on Sunday, June 6, 2021 with an online award ceremony. Due to the pandemic, the world’s biggest festival for Japanese cinema once more took place entirely online. The closing ceremony was broadcast via livestream from the festival center at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt. All four award winners tuned in live from Japan. The numerous positive reactions of the audience via social media proved that the atmosphere of the Nippon Connection Festival, characterized by a lively exchange and encounters, also worked in the digital space.

Rikiya Imaizumi

The audience could vote online for three audience awards. The sixteenth Nippon Cinema Award, sponsored by Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt and endowed with a prize money of 2,000 euros, went to the queer film “his”. Director Rikiya Imaizumi offers a hopeful story about the revision of traditional gender...

It will replace the Kinuyo Tanaka retrospective planned by former director Lili Hinstin.

The Locarno Film Festival will turn the spotlight on the work of late Italian director Alberto Lattuada for the retrospective of its 74th edition, scheduled to run from August 4- 14 this year.

The programme, which will be curated by Roberto Turigliatto, is the first element of Locarno’s 74th edition to be unveiled by the festival’s newly appointed artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro.

Plans have been dropped for a retrospective celebrating the work of Japanese director and actress Kinuyo Tanaka, which was announced by Nazzaro’s...

By Raktim Nandi

Shohei Imamura is the only Japanese director to see his films win the prestigious Palme D’Or twice. The first of the wins came in 1983, with “The Ballad Of Narayama.” An adaptation of Shoichiro Fukazawa’s debut novel of the same name, the film is a winner of several more awards and much acclaim, including three wins at the Japanese Academy Awards.

The story takes place in an isolated village in the 19th century. The senicidal practice of Obasute, the procedure of which involves carrying an infirm aged relative to a mountain to die, is an important part of the village traditions. In this particular village, one needs to turn 70 before being carried to a sacred mountain. Orin, played by Sumiko Sakamoto, is 69, and spends her time readying herself for the one-way trip. She is not afraid to die; tradition condemns refusal of the trip.

Mubi’s retrospective, Spotlight on Kenji Mizoguchi, is showing in France until May 22, 2020.Above: Kenji Mizoguchi and Kyōko Kagawa on the set of The Crucified Lovers (1954).On multiple occasions, Kenji Mizoguchi was said to have compared himself to Vincent van Gogh, even calling the painter his "artistic model" in conversation with actress Kinuyo Tanaka. One has good reason to take Mizoguchi's word for such self-identification, considering his former aspirations to become a painter. On set, he was a notoriously stringent perfectionist and, if displeased at all with the technicalities of a production, rather cruel towards those with whom he worked. What does it mean to refer to Mizoguchi's films as "painterly," as is so often done? Indeed, the filmmaker wanted to be a painter in his youth, and was an ardent student of the craft: In Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s, Donald Kirihara writes that Mizoguchi even "wept before the Mona Lisa.

Pioneering filmmaker and actress was second woman to direct a feature in history of Japanese cinema.

The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate the work of Japanese director and actress Kinuyo Tanaka at its upcoming 73rd edition (August 5-15), in its first ever retrospective dedicated to a female artist.

Tanaka (1909 –1977) was a pioneering figure in Japanese cinema throughout her 50-year career, appearing in the films of legendary directors Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi before striking off to direct her own films.

“This is the first time that the festival will be dedicating its retrospective to a female director, after 73 years,” said...

Andy Serkis will receive the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award at this year’s BAFTAs on February 2. The actor’s notable performances as Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings films and as Caesar in the Planet Of The Apes franchise have seen him rise to the top of his field in the performance-capture medium. He also co-founded the Imaginarium with Jonathan Cavendish, a production entity and digital studio – its work to date includes on Star Wars pics The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens, as well as Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle. Upcoming, the outfit is producing Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins, and Serkis himself will helm a re-telling of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Serkis has been up for two BAFTAs before, for playing Ian Dury in Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll, and for playing Ian Brady on television in Longford. His upcoming work includes helming Venom 2,...

I learned to talk Ozu in the baths. Chin-deep in hot spring, lips pruning, my mother and my grandmother would wait for women to walk just out of earshot. Then, they offered their verdicts: Setsuko Hara forehead. Those Kinuyo Tanaka cheeks. Wrists made for slipping out wallets, like hers, oh you know, that actress so good with showing appetite—Haruko, yes, Haruko Sugimura. I should specify that we talked Ozu women—he gave us so many shades—because there really was only one Ozu man: Chishu Ryu, the poet of sighs. That’s not quite true, of course. There are wagons of men in the four decades of his films. But in the waters of Hakone and Atami, my mother and her mother weren’t quite interested in dissecting man or brotherhood. Disrobed, we wanted to get to the heart of things, to the kinds of truths, and un-truths, mothers pass on to daughters.

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

Stars: Masayuki Mori, Eitaro Ozawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Mitsuko Mito, Machiko Kyō | Written by Matsutarō Kawaguchi, Yoshikata Yoda | Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi

Kenji Mizoguchi was one part of the Holy Trinity of directors – alongside Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu – spearheading the Golden Age of Japanese cinema in the 1950s. Released in 1953, Ugetsu is based on the book by Ueda Akinari, written in the 18th century (one of two known works by the author). Mizoguchi states upfront that he’s “refreshing the fantasies” of Akinari, which is a nice way of putting it.

The story opens in the village of Nakanogō in Omi Province, sometime in the 16th century. Genjūrō (Masayuki Mori) and Tōbei (Eitaro Ozawa) are best pals. Genjūrō is a potter; Tōbei is a clutz who dreams of being a samurai. One day the village is attacked by soldiers. Genjūrō and Tōbei flee with their wives, Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka) and...

Mark Cousins is captivated by film. The director-film historian’s 15-hour documentary “The Story of Film” traversed the globe for a comprehensive look at cinema as an art form. His latest feature documentary, “The Eyes of Orson Welles,” digs into helmer-actor Orson Welles’ highly visual world, exploring his now legendary life and work. And debuting at Venice Classics Documentary Film section (it also played for press and industry at Toronto), a four-hour peek at Cousins’ next docuseries: “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Film,” a 16-hour voyage covering the mostly omitted and unrecognized contribution of women directors. Executive produced and narrated by Tilda Swinton, the series aims to challenge the ignorance surrounding women filmmakers.

Edited as a master class, the cinematic lesson features only female teachers. Forty thematic chapters answer 40 questions on how films are made from dissecting topics like openings to tone to believability. Scenes from works by Hollywood’s established,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.News We are devastated to learn that the late Theodoros Angelopoulos' home, which housed the director's archives, has burnt down amidst the Attica wildfires in Greece. It is currently unclear what has been lost in the fire. This is the house that housed the whole archives of late director Theo Angelopoulos. Everything has been burnt. A massive loss to not only modern Greek culture but world culture. pic.twitter.com/DM60QxWP6a— Konn1e (@ntina79) July 25, 2018Recommended Viewing The ever-elegant "Mandopop diva" Faye Wong reprises her cover of The Cranberries' "Dreams"—best known for its appearance in Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express—in the first episode of Phantacity, a Chinese variety show that creates "music video-worthy performances." The full episode can be viewed here. Lucrecia Martel has directed a music video for Argentine...