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Niels Arestrup, an outstanding actor noted for his imposing performances in French cinema, stage, and television, passed away in an act on Sunday at his house outside Paris. His wife, Isabelle Le Nouvel, French actress and screenwriter, confirmed his death. He was 75.

Arestrup was praised for his ability to add depth and complexity to his parts, garnering three César Awards, France’s highest film accolade. His career, spanning decades, showed his versatility as an artist, shifting smoothly between stage and television.

Arestrup’s early life was distant from show business, as he was born to a French mother from Brittany and a Danish father. He struggled in school, failed his high school examinations, and performed various jobs before discovering his love of acting. Despite these hurdles, he forged a fantastic career, becoming one of France’s most reputable entertainers.

One of Arestrup’s most memorable parts was in Jacques Audiard’s 2009 crime drama A Prophet.

French-Danish actor, director and writer Niels Arestrup, known for his Cesar-winning performances in Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, has died at his home outside Paris at the age of 75.

Arestrup’s wife, the actress, screenwriter and author Isabelle Le Nouvel announced her husband’s death on Sunday.

The actor won a record three French Césars across his career with the final one being Bertrand Tavernier’s political satire The French Minister (Quai d’Orsay).

Arestrup was born to French mother, from Brittany, and a Danish father and grew up in humble conditions in Paris. After failing his high-school exams, he did odd jobs and then slowly moved into TV and drama.

In A Prophet, Arestrup played ruthless Corsican mobster César Luciani, who enlists the protagonist Malik (Tahar Rahim), introducing him to a life of crime in return for his protection.

Further highlights of...

Reflecting the breadth of her legacy across different continents, French actor Isabelle Huppert was celebrated by the likes of Alfonso Cuarón, Claire Denis, Alejandro Jodorowsky and François Ozon at the 15th edition of the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon where she received a sprawling career tribute on Oct. 18.

Huppert kicked off the festivities as she entered the 3000-seat auditorium dancing to the 1980’s disco beats of “Nuit de folie,” dressed in a shimmery champagne gown.

The joyful ceremony, emceed by Huppert’s longtime friend (and Cannes boss) Thierry Fremaux who runs the Lumiere Film Festival, was punctuated by live musical numbers ranging widely from Camelia Jordana’s singing a capella “I Will Survive,” to Julien Clerc performing his 1978 cult song “Ma Preference” by the piano, and French actor Sandrine Kiberlain playfully singing “Nuit de folie” which was said to be Huppert’s unexpected all-time favorite song.

The most vibrant homage...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News Kaizen.Kaizen (2024), a documentary about an influencer’s quest to scale Mount Everest, has attracted the ire of other French distributors after mk2 violated the terms of its “exceptional visa,” booking almost double its legal allowance of screenings before releasing the film on YouTube the next day. One industry professional compared the company to “guys in hoodies with machine guns robbing a bank.”Total Film, the British monthly, has ceased print publication after 356 issues and 27 years.The United Kingdom has passed into law an Independent Film Tax Credit, part of a large investment in the culture industry by the new Labour government. FESTIVALSBeing John Smith.In an open letter, filmmakers and workers call on the New York...

Beim Lumière Festival, das im Oktober in Lyon zum 16. Mal stattfindet, wird Isabelle Huppert mit dem Prix Lumière geehrt.

Isabelle Huppert wird am 18. Oktober mit dem Prix Lumière ausgezeichnet (Credit: G.Ferrandis – Sbs Productions – Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion – Entre Chien et Loup – France 2 Cinéma / Dr)

Im Rahmen der 16. Ausgabe des Lumière Festival, das von 12. bis 20. Oktober in Lyon zum 16. Mal stattfindet, wird die französische Schauspielerin Isabelle Huppert mit dem Prix Lumière ausgezeichnet. Mit diesem Preis würdigt das 2009 vom Leiter des Institut Lumière und künstlerischem Leiter des Festival de Cannes, Thierry Frémaux, ins Leben gerufene Festival eine Persönlichkeit für ihr Lebenswerk und ihre Verbindung mit der Filmgeschichte.

„Sie hat mit Filmemachern aus allen Teilen der Welt zusammengearbeitet, von herausragenden französischen Filmemachern bis hin zu den führenden Figuren des europäischen Kinos, von asiatischen New-Wave-Künstlern bis hin zu amerikanischen Independent-Regisseuren. Sie ist in der Lage, sich von einer raffinierten Komödie zu einem anspruchsvollen Autorenfilm zu bewegen,...

Iconic French actress Isabelle Huppert will be honored at this year’s Lumière Festival in Lyon with the prestigious Lumière Award for her contribution to cinema.

“Her career encompasses an immense part of the history of contemporary cinema,” the Institut Lumière, which oversees the festival, said of the French star of Elle, 8 Women and The Piano Teacher.

The institute gave just a sampling of Huppert’s more than 155 acting credits, which include collaborations with such French directing legends as Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, François Ozon and Bertrand Tavernier, as well as international filmmakers including Michael Haneke, Paul Verhoeven and Hong Sang-soo. Her few U.S. films include Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004) and Frankie (2019) by Ira Sachs.

Huppert’s Lumière Award will take its place alongside a trophy case of other honors, including two Cannes best actress prizes — for Violette Noziere (1978) and...

Isabelle Huppert has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Lumière Award at the 16th edition of the classic film-focused Lumière Festival in Lyon this fall.

“Her career encompasses an immense part of the history of contemporary cinema,” the Institut Lumière, which oversees the festival, declared of the French actress.

The institute cited some of the top directors she has worked with across her more than 155 acting credits including French directors Claude Chabrol, with whom she made seven features early on in her, as well as Jean-Luc Godard, Claire Denis, Bertrand Tavernier, Diane Kurys, Maurice Pialat, Catherine Breillat, Michel Deville, François Ozon and André Téchiné.

Internationally, Huppert has also collaborated with Joseph Losey, Marco Ferreri and Michael Haneke, Michael Cimino’s Brillante Mendoza, Hong Sang-soo and Paul Verhoeven, with whom she clinched a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in his 2017 thriller Elle.

The actress has also...

Isabelle Huppert will receive the 16th annual Lumiere Award at Lyon’s classic film-focused Lumiere Festival set to run October 12-20.

The prolific French actress will be honoured for her career during the week-long celebration of heritage film complete with a parallel classic film market run by Cannes’ Thierry Fremaux that typically draws a host of acclaimed talent from across the globe.

Huppert has earned two best actress prizes at Cannes for Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher and Claude Chabrol’s Violette, plus 16 Cesar nominations and two wins. She earned an Academy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe...

Nine women have accused prolific French producer Alain Sarde of rape and sexual assault in a detailed expose in the French edition of Elle magazine.

Sarde has denied the accusations. The 72-year-old producer has not been officially charged with any crimes for the incidents in question, according to the magazine.

The testimonies were published on May 14, on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival where Sarde has premiered 50 films over the years including Roman Polanski’s Palme d’Or-winning The Pianist and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

The accusations date from between 1985 and 2003 and are all from actresses who mostly...

Last Saturday, at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles (via The Hollywood Reporter), “Holdovers” director Alexander Payne presented The Robert Osborne Award — an award named for the late TCM anchor that honors individuals dedicated to preserving classic film history — to an educator and historian that many people may not have heard of. Her name is Jeanine Basinger and before her 60-year career teaching at Wesleyan University, or writing 13 books on film that continue to inspire, she was a movie theater usher in a town in South Dakota with only two venues. So vast was her love for the medium that, according to Payne, she worked “at both theaters.”

It was this love that fostered a passion in Payne as well despite never having had a single class with Basinger. In his speech to her, he said, “I didn’t go to Wesleyan. And I would say she’s...

The Wages of Fear is a French film directed by Julien Leclercq starring Franck Gastambide and Ana Girardot.

“The Wages of Fear” is a film based on Georges Arnaud’s novel, which, as you may already know, had a previous adaptation in 1953, directed by H.G. Clouzot. This has become a classic of French cinema and one of the best thrillers in film history.

In these current times, Julien Leclercq dares to create a new version of this story, modernizing it entirely and trying to maintain the character tension in this updated plot, although we’re not fully sure if it’s for the better.

It’s always a risk to compare yourself to a classic, but Julien Leclercq has the courage to try it.

Plot

To save a village during an oil extraction, four people must escort a convoy loaded with nitroglycerin in a desolate place, surrounded by armed gangs.

Sandra Reaves-Phillips, the actress and singer who appeared in the films ’Round Midnight and Lean on Me and portrayed six legendary divas in a one-woman, tour de force stage show, has died. She was 79.

Reaves-Phillips died Friday at her home in Queens, family spokesperson Sandra Lanman told The Hollywood Reporter. She had been in failing health since falling off a stage during a performance of Raisin in St. Louis in 2004 and enduring serious auto accidents in 2014 and ’15 in New York.

The South Carolina native worked opposite Maurice Hines in his 2006 Broadway musical Hot Feet, and she portrayed Mama Younger and Bertha Mae Little, respectively, in Raisin on Broadway and national and European tours and in a 1999 off-Broadway production of Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A.

Reaves-Phillips was featured with saxophonist Dexter Gordon in Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight (1986) in the role of Buttercup, and in the Morgan Freeman-starring...

After making “American Promise,” Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster were looking to create a very different type of documentary. The married co-directors had spent over a decade documenting their son and his best friend’s journey through Dalton, one of the most prestigious private schools in the country.

“That was 13 years of intense verité filmmaking,” said Stephenson, when she and Brewster were on IndieWire’s Toolkit podcast. “And I think as artists, we wanted to explore the medium and figure out what other kind of storytelling can we try.”

The filmmaking partners knew they were looking for a new project that would allow them to use archival footage to focus on an artist but push beyond a normal biography profile. Brewster, in particular, was focused on making a film about a musician. “Music is an entry to your soul,” said Brewster. “And so we thought that would be emotionally resonant...

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

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

Film Forum

The new 4K Days of Heaven restoration is now playing (read our interview with Brooke Adams) while Michael Powell’s career-killing masterwork Peeping Tom continues and Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon screens; Home Alone plays this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

Heaven Knows What plays on 35mm; Mondo New York and The Soldier’s Tale play in new restorations; Children of Men screens this Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

The films of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project are screening, while a retrospective of Jesus onscreen includes Night of the Hunter, Buñuel’s The Milky Way, and (of course) The Passion of the Christ.

Museum of the Moving Image

A career-spanning Todd Haynes retrospective continues with Velvet Goldmine, Mildred Pierce, and early works; The Matrix plays on 35mm Friday night; Keaton’s Our Hospitality and The Philadelphia Story play Saturday and Sunday,...

Thierry Frémaux is best known internationally as the long-time head of France’s Cannes Film Festival, which is organized out of its offices in Paris’s trendy Marais neighborhood.

The double-hatted cinema expert is perhaps more in his element in his home city of Lyon, where he is the director of the Institut Lumière, situated on the site of the former mansion and factory of cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière.

Alongside its late co-founders Bernard Chardère and Bertrand Tavernier, Frémaux has been a driving force behind the expansion of the institute and its activities, including the creation of its classic cinema-focused Lumière Film Festival, which has just wrapped its 15th edition.

Highlights this year included German director Wim Wenders receiving its prestigious Lumière Prize, following in the footsteps of the likes of Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jane Campion and Francis Ford Coppola. As part of the honor, the Paris,...

Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg made a moving presentation of her documentary Jane By Charlotte, capturing her complex relationship with her late mother Jane Birkin, ahead of a screening at the Lumière Film Festival on Saturday.

The documentary is playing as part of a tribute to iconic UK-French actress and singer Birkin, who died on July 16 at the age of 76.

Sparked by Gainsbourg’s desire to get closer to her mother amid a sense that time was running out, the film follows Birkin on tour in Japan, at her beloved Breton home and also on a visit to the untouched Paris mansion she once shared with Serge Gainsbourg.

“I haven’t yet dared to take on board what this film will mean in my eyes in the future. I miss her so much that I am not formulating anything yet,” a visibly moved Gainsbourg told a packed cinema in Lyon.

“But I...

The American French Film Festival, which had been due to take place in L.A. from October 18 to 22, has been shelved due to the writers and actors strikes.

The Franco-American Cultural Fund (Facf) which oversees the event (formerly known as Colcoa) said it had made the difficult to decision to cancel the 2023 edition after a board meeting.

“The Facf Board of Directors determined this week that it was not possible to continue with business as usual,” the fund said in a statement.

The festival said it would still announce the full 2023 festival slate as originally planned on September 27 to honor the projects that were selected.

Previously announced elements of the program included the U.S. premiere of TV bio-drama Bardot, about the life of Brigitte Bardot, in the presence of co-creator Danièle Thompson.

“The Facf is keenly aware of the impact of this decision on the filmmakers, actors, producers, and...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Astrakan (David Depesseville)

Astrakhan fur is unique: dark, beautiful, and stripped exclusively from newborn lambs, even ones killed in their mother’s womb. (Stella McCarthy once said it’s like wearing a fetus.) That ruthlessness—a sense of lost innocence; blood sacrifice—runs deep in Astrakan, a new film from France and one of the better in Locarno this year; and if that title isn’t enough to give pause, plenty else in the opening exchanges will. The first act is a procession of flags, both red and false: at the opening the protagonist, Samuel, lightly goads a snake in the reptile house of a zoo; moments later a rabbit is hung and skinned in his kitchen with all the ceremony of...

The ’80s was a decade of movies that you can hear at a roar even on mute. A screenshot of Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay aboard the train in “Risky Business” has a sound to it. The same goes for a still image of Kaneda riding towards Neo-Tokyo in “Akira,” or Jack Nicholson’s car snaking its way up the mountains towards the Overlook Hotel during the opening titles of “The Shining.”

It was a decade of synths and sad jazz; a decade of legends reaching the height of their powers (e.g. John Williams and Ennio Morricone), and of newcomers from other disciplines becoming cinematic virtuosos in their own right (e.g. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Philip Glass). The movies had never sounded that way before, but the best film scores of the ’80s — our picks are listed below — continue to echo in our minds as if they’ve always been there.

Birkin’s death has shocked her adopted France over the long Bastille Day weekend.

Anglo-French actress, director and singer Jane Birkin has died at the age of 76.

Born and brought up in the UK, Birkin rose to fame in France in the 1960s with a parallel acting and singing career and became a global fashion icon and a woman’s rights activist. France claimed the naturalised citizen as their own.

Birkin starred in around 70 films including Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up, 1969’s The Swimming Pool opposite Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, Roger Vadim’s Don Juan, Or if Don...

While the 1970s was known as a wild, bold, experimental time in modern cinema—which extended to all genres, including science fiction—the 1980s were best known for… well, we don’t know what, exactly. The rise of the erotic thriller, the action superstar, and cookie-cutter safe high-concept star vehicles, perhaps? As for sci-fi, the decade was marked by both undisputed blockbusters, including the Star Wars and Star Trek sequels, Aliens, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, as well as some inarguable classics like The Thing, Tron, and Blade Runner. Intriguingly, the more risky ones needed years to find their audience and critical acclaim.

At the same time, sci-fi began to rely less on literary adaptations of the previous decade and more on crossing its streams with other genres, like horror, the Western, and the action thriller—making somewhat of a turn away from the idea-driven films that had come before.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

BlackBerry (Matt Johnson)

In BlackBerry, the rise of a blue-chip tech company sets the stage for the dissolution of a longstanding friendship. Sound familiar? Just wait ‘til you hear the score. Directed by Matt Johnson, it tells the true story of Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, software engineers who founded the company Rim in the mid-80s and later invented a cellphone that could handle email. The film begins on the day when they meet Jim Basillie (Glenn Howerton), a Rottweiler who, alongside Lazaridis’ genius, turned Rim’s invention (only later christened BlackBerry) into the world’s most ubiquitous mobile device––at least for a time. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Hole in the Fence (Joaquín del Paso...

Room 999, one of the films premiering in the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival, poses the question of whether cinema is dying, a casualty of the digital age, streaming platforms and other factors.

The answer will only become clear down the line, but in the meantime Cannes Classics itself is playing a substantive role in preserving and celebrating cinema, an artform now over 125 years old. Each year, the festival section headed by Gérald Duchaussoy screens a curated selection of newly-restored classics, a lineup in 2023 that includes Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), the Armenian romantic drama Hello, It’s Me (1965), Bertrand Tavernier and Robert Parrish’s documentary Mississippi Blues (1983), the German drama Es (1966), and the 1934 French comedy Ces messieurs de la Santé.

‘El Esqueleto de la Señora Morales’

“We want to represent as many cinématographies as possible,” Duchaussoy tells Deadline, employing a French term that refers to the whole of a film and its techniques.

Locarno Film Festival runs August 2-12.

French actor Lambert Wilson has been named president of the jury at the upcoming Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12).

The prolific actor and his fellow jurors will award the summertime Swiss festival’s Golden Leopard Pardo d’oro to one of the yet-to-be-ennounced titles in the festival’s international competition.

Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said Wilson, who has worked with top French filmmakers during his decades long career including Claude Chabrol, Jacques Demy, Andrzej Żuławski and André Techiné, “has left a lasting mark on European and international cinema” and called him “ versatile performer,...

This is probably an odd thing to say, but whenever watching a modern potboiler I find myself asking, “What would Bertrand Tavernier think?” The kind of French cineaste that found themselves most at home in the company of the disposable American crime film, the esteemed director could wax poetic on the most disreputable of pictures. If you squint during Hypnotic––a collaboration between Robert Rodriguez and Ben Affleck that’s likely been cooking since they first met at a 1997 Miramax holiday party––you can see faint traces of a classic noir like Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool, or something of such ilk.

Though pitched as somewhat of a Christopher Nolan-like mind-bender, this is a throwback of another stripe: to 2010, not 1948. Stripped of the comfortable Hollywood budget that would’ve greeted that pairing during their respective heydays, this initially seems like the pilot for a slightly more high-concept detective show before accounting...

In keeping with tradition, the 2023 edition of Cannes Classics promises to be a feast for cineastes with tributes to global masters and restored versions of all-time classics.

Cannes Classics’ Memories of Jean-Luc Godard strand pays homage to the master who died in 2022 by screening a restored version of “Contempt” (1963); “Godard by Godard,” a self-portrait of the auteur; and the world premiere of “Phony Wars,” a trailer for a film that will never get made, described by the festival as a venture where the filmmaker “transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs.”

Liv Ullman will be present at the strand with “Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled,” a documentary directed by Dheeraj Akolkar.

Japanese master Ozu Yasujiro will be paid tribute to with screenings of “Record of a Tenement Gentleman” (1947) and “The Munekata Sisters” (1950) off restored prints. “Return to Reason” – where four films of painter, photographer and director Man Ray have been...

Guy Maddin: “I’m just always shuffling around timelines in my head to make sense of time’s great flow.”

Guy Maddin on hacking my dreams, elevators and escalators, Franz Wright’s Kindertotenwald, Lois Weber, Haruki Murakami, Mathieu Amalric and Arnaud Desplechin’s dreamwork, thinking of numbers, Federico Fellini’s dream journal, A Director’s Notebooks, I Vitelloni and Rimini, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, and an enchanted place called Riminipeg were all discussed in the second instalment on The Rabbit Hunters, co-directed with Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, and starring Isabella Rossellini as a “merged version” of Fellini and Giulietta Masina.

Guy Maddin with Anne-Katrin Titze on his hometown and Federico Fellini’s: “Fellini is from the city of Rimini in Italy, which is really just the Winnipeg of Italy.”

From Winnipeg, Guy Maddin joined me on Zoom for an in-depth conversation on The Rabbit Hunters.

Anne-Katrin Titze:...

Studio executives, renowned directors, and a crop of rising young talent huddled below crystal chandeliers in Paris’ Palais Royal on Thursday, turning out to fête “Benedetta” star Virginie Efira as she received the Unifrance French Cinema Award – a prize honoring those who carry the banner for Gallic cinema across the globe – in the presence of Unifrance president Serge Toubiana and the country’s Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak.

Organized as part of the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, the ceremony drew a fittingly international crowd, with filmmakers Emily Atef, Juho Kuosmanen, Sergei Loznitsa and Albert Serra joining “Athena” star Dali Benssalah, “Forever Young” lead Nadia Tereszkiewicz, “Mother and Son” breakout Annabelle Lengronne and “Everybody Loves Jeanne” director Céline Devaux for an intimate reception held in opulent surroundings.

Abdul Malak kicked off the Efira tribute with a victory lap of sorts, boasting about local theatrical attendance rates – which, with only 29 lost...

Canadian author, director, festival programmer, and publisher Kier-La Janisse is a true renaissance woman when it comes to film, having sculpted a unique career focusing on cult, horror, and exploitation cinema. Through her small press, Spectacular Optical, she has published books on French fantastique director Jean Rollin, the satanic panic craze, Christmas horror, and bizarre children’s films, among other fantastically niche topics. In recent years her directorial debut, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), won Best Documentary at several festivals, inspired folk horror film screenings in theaters and on Shudder, and was released as part of a massive, fifteen-disc box set through Severin Films. And now, ten years after its initial publication, Fab Press is releasing a new edition of her essential tome, House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films. Now including a preface and 100 new capsule reviews,...

Both public action and private initiatives will ensure heritage film is preserved and distributed, said key players gathered for the 10th edition of the Classic Film Market in Lyon.

The round table brought together Sophie Seydoux, president of the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé; Olivier Snanoudj, senior VP cinema distribution at Warner Bros. France; the BFI’s Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections, Arike Oke; Elodie Drouard, film program advisor at France Télévisions, and the Cineteca di Bologna head, Gian Luca Farinelli.

On film restoration funding, all agreed it cannot happen without public aid.

“Public funding represents about 22 of our restoration costs. Economic profitability is impossible on restorations, we couldn’t do it without the Cnc [the national film fund],” said Seydoux, whose foundation – a separate entity from Pathé, dedicated to the preservation, restoration and promotion of film heritage belonging to the historical French company – restores around 15 films a year.

The same goes for the British Film Institute’s archives,...

Tim Burton will receive the festival’s 14th Lumiere Award.

The 2022 Lumiere Festival (October 15-32) kicked off over the weekend for a week-long celebration of heritage films and modern masters.

Today (Oct 18) marks the start of the festival’s International Classic Film market reserved for industry professionals, the only such market in the world dedicated to classic cinema and film rights.

Highlights of this year’s event include a spotlight on Spain, a conversation with Manuel Alduy, director of cinema and digital fiction at France Télévisions, a DVD publishers fair and a focus on sustainability in the industry.

Now in...

France’s Tamasa Distribution has acquired a number of new films and classic titles, including works by Volker Schlondörff, Signe Baumane, Alain Cavalier and Jean-Louis Bertucelli.

The Paris-based distributor secured Schlondörff’s new documentary “The Forest Maker,” a portrait of Australian agronomist Tony Rinaudo, who has found a way to grow trees in the most barren areas by activating the tree stumps and roots that have continued to live for decades. Known as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, the method has secured the livelihood of thousands of farmers in Africa’s Sahel region, restoring not only soil but dignity and hope.

“My Love Affair With Marriage”

Tamasa also picked up Baumane’s award-wining animated film “My Love Affair With Marriage,” which premiered this year at the Tribeca Festival and won the jury prize at the Annecy Animation Festival. It follows Zelma, who is convinced from an early age that love would...

George Gershwin surmised “Life is a lot like jazz, it’s best when you improvise.” In keeping with the spirit of this given, Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘Round Midnight succeeds as a composite of jazz and its tormented originators thanks to the inspired casting and improvisational skills of real-life bebop musician Dexter Gordon, who was nominated for an Academy Award as Dale Turner, an amalgamation of Black expats and jazz legends who fled to Europe during the mid twentieth century.

A smoothly attenuated film which plays like elevated fan fiction from an outsider’s perspective, it’s a de-romanticized portrait of the jazz musician, artists whose contributions to their craft were exploited, but their well-beings disregarded during their professional tenure and eventual legacies erased or tarnished.…...

Tim Burton is set to receive the 14th Lumiere Award at the Lumiere Festival, a week-long celebration of heritage movies and film masters held in Lyon, France, in October.

Headed by Cannes Film Festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux, the Lumiere Festival previously honored Jane Campion, the Dardenne Brothers, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Wong Kar-wai, Catherine Deneuve, Pedro Almodóvar, Ken Loach, Gérard Depardieu and Milos Forman

“From his first movies and early successes, Burton establishes his universe, skilfully blending his intensely personal expressivity with novelistic lyricism and pictorial references, traversing the entire history of art,” said the Lumière Festival in a statement. “He cultivates his craft, delving into the gothic and baroque, comedy, horror, romanticism or works tinged with melancholy.”

Burton will be on hand in Lyon from Oct. 20 to Oct. 23. As part of the tribute, which will take place Oct. 21, Burton’s iconic movies will screen,...

Selection of Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko to be unveiled on September 2 opening day.

Telluride Film Festival will run from September 2-5 this year and has invited dissident Russian filmmakers Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko to be its guest directors.

Balagov directed Cannes 2017 Un Certain Regard Fipresci winner Closeness and followed that up with Beanpole, which premiered in the same section in 2019 and also won Fipresci, as well as the best director prize and made the shortlist as Russia’s Oscar submission. His next project, TV series The Last Of Us, is set to premiere on HBO in 2023.

Kovalenko’s...

Fanny Ardant and Gabriel Arcand set to star in crime drama.

French filmmaker Julie Bertuccelli is teaming with Canadian producer Roger Frappier of Max Films on Italian Shoes, an adaptation of the crime novel of the same name by Henning Mankell, set to star Fanny Ardant and Gabriel Arcand.

Frédéric Bourboulon, known for his collaborations with the late Bertrand Tavernier, is the French producer. The film, which will be shot in winter in Quebec, will tell the story of a man living in self-imposed exile on an island and running away from his past.

Bertuccelli is in Cannes with her documentary Jane Campion,...

Sometimes it’s like they read your mind—or just notice upcoming releases as you do. Whatever the case, I’m thrilled that the release of Terence Davies’ Benediction played (I assume!) some part in a full retro on the Criterion Channel this June, sad as I know that package will make me and anybody else who comes within ten feet of it. It’s among a handful of career retrospectives: they’ve also set a 12-film Judy Garland series populated by Berkeley and Minnelli, ten from Ulrike Ottinger, and four by Billy Wilder. But maybe their most adventurous idea in some time is a huge microbudget collection ranging from Ulmer’s Detour to Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard, fellow success stories—Nolan, Linklater, Jarmusch, Jia Zhangke—spread about.

Criterion Editions continue with Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight, Double Indemnity, and Seconds, while Chameleon Street, Karen Dalton: In My Own Time,...

Orange Studio has signed a two-year distribution deal with the aggregation company Under The Milky Way. The pact will allow the outfit to handle the distribution of titles from Orange Studio’s library across English-speaking territories as well as Latin America on transactional VOD services such as Amazon, PlutoTV, Roku and Tubi.

The first films which are part of the deal are Philipe Lacheau’s “City Hunter,” Olivier Nakache et Eric Toledano’s “Tellement Proches,” Riad Sattouf’s “Beaux gosses,” Bertrand Tavernier’s “Death Watch” (pictured), and Bertrand Blier’s “Going Places.”

“This new partnership with Under The Milky Way will give us the opportunity to increase the international visibility of our films and reach new audiences on VOD services that are currently booming,” said Kristina Zimmermann, managing director of Orange Studio.

Alexis de Rendinger, the co-founder of Under The Milky Way, said this deal with Orange Studio will give...

French actor Gaspard Ulliel, star of “It’s Only the End of the World” and Marvel’s upcoming “Moon Knight” series, has died following a ski accident in the French Alps on Wednesday, according to news agency Afp. He was 37.

The Cesar-winning actor was skiing in the Savoie region when he collided with another skier at an intersection between two slopes and suffered a serious brain trauma on Tuesday. He was transported by helicopter at a hospital in Grenoble. Local authorities have opened an investigation into the accident, according the Afp.

Ulliel was one of France’s best known actors and worked with critically acclaimed filmmakers in Europe and abroad. He began acting at the age of 12 with an uncredited role in the French TV movie “Une Femme En Blanc” (“A Woman in White”). In 2007, he took on his first major English-speaking role in Peter Webber’s “Hannibal Rising.” He delivered...

2022 is, I guess, in something like swing, and if there’s any bit of normalcy we’re glad to retain it’s the monthly Criterion announcements. On the disc side of things they’ve just unveiled April’s selection, their 4K project advancing with For All Mankind. Few movies deserve that fidelity more than Al Reinert’s documentary about the lunar landings—the experience might induce a kind of hallucinatory bliss.

The colors and curves of Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It will pop in HD while the sounds of Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight practically taunt you to upgrade your sound system. I’m thrilled Alex Cox (sort of) returns from semi-reclusion for a new restoration of his acid western Walker, long a glaring blind spot for yours truly; Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan and twin sibling Arie and Chuko Esiri’s recent...

“Drive My Car” has won best picture from this year’s edition of the National Society of Film Critics, continuing its streak of major prizes from major critics groups. The organization announced its honors on Saturday.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s sweeping drama also won top honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and New York Film Critics Circle.

Along with best picture, “Drive My Car” also won for director, screenplay and best actor for Hidetoshi Nishijima. “West Side Story,” “The Power of the Dog” and “Petite Maman” made frequent appearances across various runner-up slots.

A prestigious organization known for its highbrow taste, National Society of Film Critics (N.S.F.C.) boasts members from across top entertainment publications — including Variety‘s own chief film critics Peter Debruge and Owen Gleiberman — as well as notable freelancers. The L.A. Times’ Justin Chang serves as chair of the organization.

Any film that opened in the U.

“Drive My Car” racked up several wins from the National Society of Film Critics January 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor. As “Drive My Car” won Best Picture, the organization’s rules determined that there would not be a separate Best Foreign-Language Film category.

The winners were a distinctly international affair, with Penélope Cruz winning Best Actress for “Parallel Mothers,” Hidetoshi Nishijima as Best Actor for “Drive My Car,” and Anders Danielsen Lie scoring Best Supporting Actor for “The Worst Person in the World.” Ruth Negga picked up Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Passing.”

The critics group convened in New York and Los Angeles to vote January 8 using a weighted scoring system, choosing winners and runners up across a variety of categories. Hidetoshi Nishijima received the the highest weighted score of any single award winner for his Best Actor prize.

Prior to the start of voting,...

The National Society of Film Critics voting for the best films of 2021 is underway today.

The Nsfc features elected and eligible members from major media outlets. The annual awards honors the best in acting, direction, writing, cinematography and more across onscreen and streaming releases in the US.

Any film that opened in the US on a screen or streaming platform during the year is eligible for consideration. Last year, the group handed Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland its top prize, Best Picture, a feat the film duplicated at the Oscars.

The 60-members Nsfc include critics from major papers and outlets in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago including from outlets Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, the Christian Science Monitor and NPR.

The L.A. Times‘ Justin Chang is the organization’s current chair.

We’ll update results as they come in. Winners announced so far:...

French actress Isabelle Huppert will be the recipient of an honorary Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

As announced yesterday, the festival will premiere Huppert’s latest movie, About Joan, as a Berlinale Special Gala this year. The screening will be held in conjunction with the fest’s award ceremony on February 15, 2022, when Huppert will receive her prize.

Huppert has had a long and glittering career in the biz, performing on screen and stage and across multiple languages including French, German and English. The directors she has collaborated with include Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke, Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Chabrol, Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, Paul Verhoeven and many more.

Her films have appeared in Cannes’ Competition on 20 occasions, a record, and she has featured in the Berlinale’s Competition seven times.

Huppert has been nominated for France’s Cesar prize more than any other actress (16) and has won twice.

French actor Isabelle Huppert is set to receive the Berlin Film Festival’s Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Her films will also be honored as part of a special Homage section.

Huppert will be awarded the prize for lifetime achievement. In conjunction with the awards on Feb. 15 at the Berlinale Palast, the festival will screen her latest movie, Laurent Larivière’s “À propos de Joan” — unveiled on Wednesday in the fest’s first batch of titles — as a special gala premiere.

Huppert has a longstanding relationship with Berlin, and has starred in seven competition films to date. She was first a guest in Berlin with Jacques Doillon’s “La vengeance d’une femme” before appearing in Francois Ozon’s “8 Femmes” as an unprepossessing woman who emerges in the end as a confident beauty. The ensemble cast was awarded a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic accomplishment.

The Lumière festival, a week-long celebration of heritage movies created by late filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, is having a packed 13th edition in Lyon, the birthplace of the Lumiere brothers.

With a vast lineup including screenings of classic films, restored prints, discoveries and masterclasses, the festival had already sold nearly 90,000 tickets for film screenings and other related events at mid-point.

Among the 5,000 guests who attended the festival’s opening ceremony were Paolo Sorrentino, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Netflix’s co-ceo Ted Sarandos, Valeria Golino, Joachim Trier, Rossy de Palma, Melanie Laurent and Edouard Baer. The tribute to Tavernier was attended by 2,000 people at the Auditorium of Lyon, while 4,000 people turned up for the screening of “Shrek” with Alain Chabat.

Set to wrap on Sunday, the Lumiere festival is approaching the participation levels of its record year in 2019. The International Classic Film Market, a dedicated mini-market for heritage movies, also registered a record number of accredited visitors.

The 4K restoration (released this month by Cohen Media and featured at the New York Film Festival) of Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 “Hester Street” is getting deserved credit as a rare female-directed American film from its era. The black and white feature, set in the mostly Jewish immigrant community in New York’s Lower East side in the 1890s, overcame tough odds on multiple fronts to become a significant financial success.

The film grossed $5 million by the end of its run, the equivalent of over $22 million today. All this on a budget of $375,000 (about $1.7 million now). That was a significant success, even if at the time it wasn’t supplemented by home video, and as a black and white film it had limited interest for broadcast television.

Micklin Silver’s film is getting renewed credit for its quality, as well as for being the debut film that caused her to break out as a director.

Colcoa Classics to stage Bertrand Tavernier tribute.

The North American Premiere of Emmanuel Carrère’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight opener Between Two Worlds starring Juliette Binoche will open the in-person 25th Colcoa French film and series festival on November 1.

The event runs until November 7 and will screen 55 films and series at the DGA Theatre in Hollywood with a Colcoa Classics tribute to Bertrand Tavernier.

The closing films are Xavier Giannoli’s recent Venice Film Festival Lost Illusions and Arthur Harari’s 2021 Cannes Un Certain Regard opener Onoda, 10,000 Nights In The Jungle.

The feature line-up includes Leyla Bouzid’s A Tale Of Love And Desire...

Colcoa French Film and Series Festival announced the lineup for the 25th edition of the annual City of Lights, City of Angels event, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 1 to Nov. 7 at the Director’s Guild of America headquarters in Los Angeles as it has been traditionally held. The event will be in-person and will feature 55 films and series screened live, 30 of which will be considered for Colcoa cinema awards. Among the films are also 19 shorts.

The opening film, screening Nov. 1, will be “Between Two Worlds,” which recounts the adventures of Marianne Winckler, a celebrated author who goes undercover as a cleaning lady to write a book on job insecurity in the gig economy. The closing films scheduled are writer and director Xavier Giannoli’s “Lost Illusions” as well as writer and director Arthur Harari’s “Onoda, 10,000 Nights In The Jungle.” All three of these films will be premiering...