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Some stories feel less like they are told and more like they are constructed, each piece a gear in a machine designed to create a specific emotional state. Bille August’s The Kiss is just such a machine, a meticulously crafted narrative device that explores the crushing weight of good intentions. Set in Denmark on the precipice of the First World War, it immediately immerses us in an era of rigid social hierarchies and a brittle, all-consuming code of honor.

This is the world that has shaped our protagonist, Anton Abilgaard, a young cavalry officer whose life has a singular objective: to cleanse his family’s sullied name through an impeccable military career. He is a man on a mission, and his every action is calibrated for advancement and the restoration of dignity.

His quest for honor leads him to perform a simple act of roadside assistance for a nobleman,...

Let’s get this out of the way right from the top: Wes Anderson has never made a bad movie, and — in all likelihood — he probably never will. He’s too particular, too immaculate, too in command of his craft. Of course, the fact that he has always been so sure of himself only makes it more tempting to chart the progress of his career and to measure his films against each other. Or maybe it’s just fun because there are still only 12 of them, and everyone seems to have their own favorite. Who could say?

Anderson is the rarest of rarities, an arthouse filmmaker who not only finds ways to consistently make ambitious original projects, but also maintains genuine influence on what remains of mainstream pop culture. (None of the other esteemed directors who competed for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival were...

The Kiss director Bille August with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I just finished a big eight-hour series, The Count of Monte Cristo.”

Bille August’s The Kiss (Kysset), based on the 1938 Stefan Zweig novel Beware Of Pity, transports us to 1914, when the Great War was a looming threat and not yet a reality. Anton (Esben Smed), a young man eager to re-establish his family honour, wants to join the cavalry and become an officer in the Danish army. During the revealing opening scene, he and his mother (Lone Rødbroe) visit a rich aunt (Lane Lind) in an attempt to convince her to provide the necessary means for Anton to buy a horse and all that goes with a fine military career. Already many of the themes that will haunt him and us are established - his good heart plagued by insecurities, family shame, pride, and guilt.

Baron Løvenskjold (Lars Mikkelsen) introducing his...

If family is the sharpest and most cutting of double-edged swords, few storytellers have ever wielded it with more violent enthusiasm than Wes Anderson, whose movies often start with — and then scab over — the seemingly mortal kind of wound that only a severed relationship can leave behind, and only a carefully mended one can ever hope to fix. In that sense and several others, “The Phoenician Scheme” is the most enthusiastically violent film that Anderson has made thus far.

Spackled together from all the gray paint and seriocomic grotesquerie that he couldn’t find a use for in his previous work, the “Asteroid City” auteur’s hectic father-daughter story takes pains to clarify a certain ethos at the root of his art, even if it does frustratingly little to flesh that ethos out any further.

We’ll go to that, but first — the violence. Like so many of Anderson’s bad dads before him,...

After a stellar limited opening last weekend, A24’s Friendship jumps from 6 to 60 screens in top ten markets plus Detroit, the hometown of star Tim Robinson. The comedy bromance with Robinson and Paul Rudd soared to $451k on screens in New York and L.A., the top limited opening of 2025, with a per screen average of over $75k. Written and directed by Andrew DeYoung. With Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer. Robinson, the former SNL performer and writer is the face of his popular Netflix sketch comedy I Think You Should Leave.

Magnolia Pictures/Magnet Releasing opens Sister Midnight, the debut feature of London-based Indian artist and writer-director Karan Kandhari starring Radhika Apte, Ashok Pathak, Chhaya Kadam and Smita Tambe, at the Angelika Film Center in NYC. A rebellious small-town misfit Uma (acclaimed Indian actress Apte) arrives in Mumbai to find herself totally unsuited to life as a housewife.

More than half a century after Riyoko Ikeda first penned her revolutionary manga, The Rose of Versailles, the opulent world of pre-revolutionary France, courtly intrigue, and groundbreaking characters returns to the screen. A new animated film adaptation, produced by the acclaimed studio Mappa, hit Japanese theaters earlier this year and is now set for its global debut, streaming on Netflix. This release marks a revival of a beloved classic for its 50th anniversary, bringing back the fantastic character, the iconic heroine, Lady Oscar.

A Legacy Reborn: The Enduring Power of The Rose of Versailles

First serialized in Weekly Margaret from 1972 to 1973, Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles was more than just a manga; it was a cultural earthquake. Selling over 20 million copies in Japan alone, it sparked a social phenomenon. The story primarily follows two women navigating the treacherous currents leading up to and during the French Revolution: the...

The interview was conducted through the good offices of Total Stage Produce Inc.

Isao Yukisada is a prominent Japanese film director, screenwriter, and producer, born in 1968, in Kumamoto, Japan. He began his filmmaking career after studying at School of Imaging Technology in Japan (Toho Kakuen) where he developed his craft. Before stepping into the role of a director, Yukisada worked as an assistant director under Shunji Iwai, a highly respected filmmaker known for his poetic, emotionally rich films such as ‘Love Letter’ (1995) and ‘Swallowtail Butterfly’ (1996). His time working with Iwai helped him gain valuable insights into visual storytelling, pacing, and emotionally resonant character development, which would later become a hallmark of his own directing style.

Yukisada made his directorial debut with ‘Open House‘, a romantic drama about a woman navigating complex emotional relationships. The film was a relatively low-profile start to his career but set the foundation for his future works,...

Mélanie Laurent is Marie Antoinette and Guillaume Canet her husband Louis XVI in Italian director Gianluca Jodice’s Le Déluge (The Flood), which opened the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival on Wednesday night in the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande, which seats 8,000 people during the fest.

On Thursday afternoon, the two stars, along with their director, met members of the press to discuss the movie, which is set in 1792 when the two main characters and their children were arrested and imprisoned in a chateau in Paris, awaiting their trial.

THR‘s Locarno review called the movie “an intriguing palace drama chronicling the last days of France’s ultimate royal couple,” also highlighting that “nuanced performances from both Canet and Laurent help to make the famous couple more than mere caricatures.”

The stars on Thursday shared how they got into their characters and their mindset. Actress-writer-director Laurent (Inglourious Basterds,...

Mid-century Mexican films are being feted at the Film at Lincoln Center as part of a new partnership with the Locarno Film Festival. Titled Spectacle Every Day: Mexican Popular Cinema, the program spans Mexican cinema from the ’40s through the ’60s, featuring works from directors such as Roberto Gavaldón, Emilio Fernández, Julio Bracho, Alejandro Galindo, and Chano Urueta. The 22-film retrospective takes place at Flc from July 26 through August 8.

Highlights include the 4K restoration of Julio Bracho’s “Take Me in Your Arms” (1954), Alejandro Galindo’s “Wetbacks” (1955), “The Sword of Granada” (1953) which was the first 3-D film produced in Mexico, and Matilde Landeta’s sex work melodrama “Streetwalker” (1951). Landeta was one of the country’s first female directors.

The features screening as part of Spectacle Every Day: Mexican Popular Cinema have been rarely screened stateside. Some even have never before seen theatrically in the United States, per the official press release.

The most notorious unmade Stanley Kubrick project is probably his "Napoleon," a massive biopic that the director infamously researched for years. In 2012, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted a Kubrick exhibit, and guests were permitted to see Kubrick's filing cabinet where he stored thousands of hand-written notecards, each one detailing a single day in Napoleon Bonaparte's life. Kubrick worked on "Napoleon" in the 1970s, and claimed he wanted Jack Nicholson to play the part. Kubrick wrote a screenplay, secured filming locations in Romania, and was all ready to go. The 1970 film "Waterloo" bombed, however, and the then-recent film version of "War and Peace" threatened to flood the market with too much Napoleon. A lot of Kubrick's "Napoleon" research went into the production of 1975's "Barry Lyndon." 

Kubrick's unrealized projects are plentiful. Audiences may also know all about Kubrick's plans to make "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" near the end of his life,...

Exclusive: Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) has been tapped for a role in Lionsgate’s Good Fortune, the debut feature of Master of None and Parks and Rec star Aziz Ansari, in which he also stars alongside Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves, and Keke Palmer.

Oh’s role is being kept under wraps, as is the plot of the movie. Ansari directed from his own script and also produced alongside Anthony Katagas and Alan Yang, with Aniz Adam Ansari and Jonathan McCoy exec producing. At Lionsgate, the film is overseen by Brady Fujikawa and Jon Humphrey.

The film is the second Ansari has looked to direct, on the heels of the Searchlight dramedy Being Mortal, which was shut down amid complaints of inappropriate behavior on the part of cast member Bill Murray in 2022. Previously, he’s helmed his 2022 comedy special Nightclub Comedian for Netflix, as well as 11 episodes of Master of None,...

2023 was a year of sustained gains year-on-year across the Nordics, although moviegoing is still down 23%-30% from pre-covid times. The summer was exceptional thanks to the “Barbenheimer” mania that boosted all five Nordic countries. Iceland was the only territory where “Oppenheimer” ranked third, after the local comedy “Wild Game” one of three Icelandic titles that enabled local fare to jump 123% in box office for a 14% market share.

Norway enjoyed a solid year and a 27% market share for domestic fare, led by three blockbusters based on popular IPs, including the top seller “Christmas at Cobble Street.”

In Finland, the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was perhaps the strongest among the Nordic nations, making July the biggest ever in Finnish cinema history. Also notable was the success of Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” the fourth biggest hit of the year, which helped local titles secure a 23.4% share.

Less glorious were results in Denmark where overall...

Vienna-based Terra Mater Studios, a subsidiary of Red Bull, is developing its first fictional series “Salon of Sugar.”

The historical drama will focus on Berta Zuckerkandl, born in 1864: a writer, journalist and a hostess of an important literary salon in Vienna, frequented by the likes of Auguste Rodin, Gustav Klimt, director Max Reinhardt or Stefan Zweig.

“Composer Gustav Mahler actually met his wife Alma there,” says producer Nina Steiner, teasing other familiar faces bound to appear in the show, from Freud to Georges Clemenceau. Verena Puhm writes.

According to the makers, by creating an environment where revolutionary ideas and discussions flourished, Berta found herself at the very center of cultural and intellectual evolution during a “transformative” era in European history.

“I was drawn to this story because it encapsulates the timeless struggle for freedom and equality amidst a backdrop of societal change. Berta’s journey embodies the resilience and...

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.NEWSStanley Kubrick in Filmworker.Stanley Kubrick’s long-lost passion project, a biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, may soon be realized. This week at the Berlinale, Steven Spielberg expanded on plans to executive-produce a seven-part series for HBO based on Kubrick’s original script.In June, Terence Davies will begin filming an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s The Post-Office Girl. According to a production announcement, the cast includes Sophie Cookson, Richard E. Grant, and Verena Altenberger.Recommended VIEWINGWe’ve been enjoying the “redefining the food film” video-essay series on Vittles, a food and culture newsletter. Below is Andrew Key’s discussion of A Woman Under the Influence, and the ways that food can tear us apart:Shellac has shared a first trailer for Angela Schanelec’s Music,...

Following up one of last year’s finest (and most overlooked) films, Benediction, Terence Davies has been prepping his next project for some time. First announcing it two years ago, the English director has written an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s novel The Post Office Girl, published posthumously in 1982. One of Wes Anderson’s inspirations for The Grand Budapest Hotel, the book is set in post-wwi and follows a female post-office clerk who lives outside Vienna.

Last year the director told us, “We’ve been on this three years now. The script is written and we’re raising the money. But, you know, it will be a co-production, which means if one domino does fall, then everything collapses. It’s the same thing. You know, it took six years to get Benediction onto the screen, and that’s a long time. It’s a long time. And you begin to...

Shudder and IFC Midnight are launching microbudget Skinamarink on a not-so-micro 629 screens, giving the viral horror pic a major push after a well-received premiere back at Fantasia-fest that just kept snowballing with strong reviews and social media love.

“I was over the moon. For a horror filmmaker in Canada, [Fantasia] is like getting a Cannes screening,” says first-time filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball about the leadup to this weekend’s buzzy specialty opening. He shot the 15k feature at his parents’ home in Edmonton, Canada.

In it, two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. “I’d had a nightmare when I was little. I was in my parents’ house, my parents were missing, and there was a monster. And lots of people have shared this exact same dream,” Ball tells Deadline.

"What do you have to lose?" "More than you can imagine." Film Movement has debuted the US trailer for a German-Austrian film titled Chess Story, based on the classic novel of the same name by Stefan Zweig. Set in Vienna in 1938, Dr. Josef Bartok is preparing to flee to America with his wife Anna when he is arrested by the Gestapo. He refuses to cooperate and is locked in solitary confinement. Just as his mind is beginning to crack, Bartok happens upon a book of famous chess games. To withstand the torture of isolation, Bartok disappears into the world of chess, maintaining his sanity only by memorizing every move. When it flashes forward to a transatlantic crossing on which he is a passenger, it seems as though Bartok has finally found freedom. But recounting his story, it's clear his encounters with both the Gestapo and with the royal game itself have not stopped haunting him.

With his work the basis for such great cinematic works as Letter from an Unknown Woman and Only Yesterday, the latest adaptation of a Stefan Zwieg novel comes with Chess Story, a German drama directed by Phillip Stolzl. Ahead of a January 13th theatrical release beginning at Quad Cinema, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer.

Based on Zweig’s final novella The Royal Game, the film stars Oliver Masucci, Albrecht Schuch (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else), and Rolf Lassgård (A Man Called Ove).

Set in Vienna, 1938, Austria is occupied by the Nazis. Just as Dr. Josef Bartok is about to flee to America with his wife Anna, he is arrested and taken to Hotel Metropol, the Gestapo headquarters. As a notary to the aristocracy, he is tasked with helping the local Gestapo leader gain access to their private bank accounts. After refusing to cooperate, Bartok is put in solitary confinement.

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" is Wes Anderson's apotheosis, the film which is key to understanding his artistry. Indeed, his most recent film, "The French Dispatch," feels like a mere echo of "Grand Budapest."

His most visible trademarks are there. Every regular from his troupe of actors show up for parts large and small. The tone is deadpan comedy with tragedy sprinkled in. Anderson's filmmaking is quirky yet precise; he prefers center framing and adorns his shot subjects with exaggerated costume and set design. "Grand Budapest" includes all that and, combined with the use of miniatures, it looks like it was filmed in Anderson's own personal dollhouse.

Beneath the beauty and the hilarity, though, what does it all mean?

The film is the story of the eponymous, fictional hotel in the equally fictitious country of Zubrowka (named for a Polish Vodka brand). Though the story and setting is fictional, the film's inspirations weren't.

Wes Anderson's 2014 period dramedy "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is a fetching cinematic confection with a profound sense of sadness at its core. The movie pays homage to the work of artists like English filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, both of whom used populist genres to explore the changing social and political landscape in Europe during the 20th century. In the same way, Anderson's film examines the rise of Euro-fascism (both in the years leading up to and just after World War II) through the lens of a whimsical, irreverent, and even raunchy caper plot.

Ralph Fiennes, who was unduly snubbed by the Oscars...

The post The Grand Budapest Hotel Hit Close To Home For Ralph Fiennes appeared first on /Film.

As the human race straddles an unprecedented pandemic, hostile divisions and conflicts, fake news (and real news) and digital opportunism, we also discover new strengths and beauty of moral courage and perseverance. This programme celebrates the Austrian master of literature, Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942), who is famed for his steadfast pacifism, insistence on vaster understanding and intricate reading on passion and desire.

Zweig experienced two world wars. As a famous Jewish-Austrian writer, Zweig’s books were censored, vilified and destroyed by the Nazi in the 1930s and 1940s. He left his hometown, Vienna, to escape German persecution, living in England and America before settling in his final destination, Brazil. When Zweig was in exile, a journalist asked how the writer thought of Germany, he answered, “I will make no prophecy. I would not speak against Germany. I would never speak against any country.”

Zweig’s work has served as the basis of many film adaptations and inspirations.

The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows

Director: Áron Gauder

Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)

Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade

Director: Ádám Tősér

Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)

Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.

Sales: Nfi World Sales

The Game...

Moviegoing Memories is a series of short interviews with filmmakers about going to the movies. Terence Davies’ Benediction is Mubi Go's Film of the Week in the United Kingdom and Ireland for May 20, 2022. Notebook: How would you describe your movie in the least amount of words?Terence Davies: A journey toward redemption. Notebook: Where and what is your favorite movie theater? Why is it your favorite?Davies: It was called the Hippodrome in Liverpool, long since pulled down. It was Hengler’s Music Hall before that and in fact when I went there, the boxes were still there and there were gods. When it was a music hall, when Siegfried Sassoon was in Litherland, he went there several times to see some shows.Notebook: What is the most memorable movie screening of your life? Why is it memorable?Davies: My very first film at seven, I was taken to see Singin' in the Rain.

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on May 1, 2017, and has been updated on March 5, 2022.

Let’s get this out of the way right from the top: Wes Anderson has never made a bad movie, and — in all likelihood — he probably never will. He’s too particular, too immaculate, too in command of his craft. Of course, the fact that he has always been so sure of himself only makes it more tempting to chart the progress of his career and to measure his films against each other. Or maybe it’s just fun because there are still only nine of them, and everyone seems to have their own favorite. Who could say?

Here are all of Wes Anderson’s feature films, ranked from “worst” to best.

Christian Zilko contributed to this story.

10. “Bottle Rocket”

Wes Anderson arrived fully formed (or close to it), and so much of his...

Exclusive: Film Movement has acquired U.S. rights to the dramedy Queen of Glory, written, directed by and starring Nana Mensah, from Magnolia Pictures International, with plans to release it in theaters and on digital and VOD later this year.

In her debut feature, Mensah plays Sarah, a Ghanaian-American doctoral student at Columbia University who is weeks away from following her very married boyfriend to Ohio when her mother dies suddenly, leaving her as the owner of the small, Bronx-based Christian bookstore, King of Glory. Tasked with planning a culturally respectful funeral befitting the family matriarch, Sarah is forced to juggle the expectations of her loving, yet demanding family while also navigating the reappearance of her estranged father. Aided by an only-in-New York ensemble of Eastern European neighbors, feisty African aunties and a no-nonsense ex-con co-worker, she faces her new responsibilities while figuring out how to remain true to herself.

Oscar and double Palme d’Or winning director Bille August is attending the Göteborg Film Festival for a Director’s Talk and the gala screening of his psycho-drama “The Pact”.

He will also pitch at the adjoining Nordic Film Market (Feb. 3-6), the work in progress of his upcoming Danish pic “The Kiss”.

August spoke exclusively to Variety about “The Kiss,” his enduring interest in the complexity of human beings, book-to-screen adaptations and his belief in the big screen experience.

Loosely based on Stefan Zweig’s novel “Beware of Pity and transposed from an Austrian to a Danish setting, “The Kiss” is a romantic drama set in 1913. The helmer has reunited with “A Fortunate Man”’s lead Espen Smed, cast as cavalry officer trainee Anton. Introduced to Baron von Løvenskjold’s daughter Edith, a wheelchair user following an accident, Anton is attracted to her, but unsure if his feelings are of pity or true love.

18 works in progress by some of the Nordic region’s biggest names – Bille August, Björn Runge, the multi-prized Jp Valkeapää and Malou Reymann will be showcased at the hybrid Nordic Film Market (Feb. 3-6), along with some Sundance and Rotterdam competition entries.

The Nfm runs parallel to the final stretches of the Göteborg Film Festival (Jan.28-Feb.6).

So far, over 450 international delegates have signed up for the major Nordic film confab. Only 250 will be able to attend in-person, due to Covid restrictions in Sweden.

“We’ve received a huge interest from professionals to attend in-person, following the decision of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin’s European Film Market to go online. It’s been very difficult to say ‘no’ to people, but our priority is to guarantee a safe event,” said Göteborg head of industry Cia Edström who underlines the various safety measures to be implemented at the Nfm, from vaccination checks,...

The aim is to shoot in summer next year with a mix of UK and European actors.

UK-based sales agency Bankside Films has boarded worldwide rights on Terrence Davies’ upcoming feature The Post Office Girl, adapted from the Stefan Zweig novel.

Davies has been scouting locations on the project in Vienna this week, with the aim to shoot in summer next year with a mix of UK and European actors.

The Post Office Girl screenplay has already been fully developed by UK producers, Sheryl Crown of Rubicon Pictures and Ruth Caleb.

The project is being put together as an Austrian/UK co-production with Austrian Producers,...

Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Olivia Peace’s “Tahara,” a coming-of-age starring Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”) which played at Slamdance and TIFF Next Wave.

The film will be released theatrically in North America in 2022, followed by a roll out on home video and digital services. “Tahara” follows Carrie Lowstein (DeFreece) and Hannah Rosen (Sennott) who are best friends. When their former Hebrew school classmate, Samantha Goldstein, commits suicide, the two girls go to her funeral as well as the “Teen Talk-back” session designed to be an opportunity for them to understand grief through their faith. But, after an innocent kissing exercise turns Carrie’s world inside out, the pair finds themselves distracted by teenage complications.

On top of playing at Slamdance and TIFF Next Wave, the film won the Grand Jury Special Mention at Outfest as well as the best feature debut award by a Black LGBTQ+ Filmmaker at NewFest.

Scope around certain movie sites or Film Twitter and you may find reference to a slated upcoming DC comics adaptation title Justice League Dark—Guillermo del Toro and Doug Liman have been attached, so it’s probably not too embarrassing. The French Dispatch, in a similar naming fashion, could really be title Wes Anderson Dark, or even Wes Anderson After Dark. The film is primarily presented in black-and-white academy ratio; in the occasional color sequences its palette is still a grim, swirling miasma of moonlit tones. And the themes and subject matter couldn’t be accused of indulging anyone’s inner child, wonderful as the likes of Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox remain. Isle of Dogs, flawed and sometimes misguided as it was, provided hints Anderson was growing tired of his patented, semi-cutesy aesthetic fussiness. The French Dispatch pleases as a larger fulfillment of this promise.

Just as his partner...

Journalists are the heroes in “The French Dispatch,” so expect film critics to be a little bit biased in their embrace of Wes Anderson’s latest. It flatters the field, after all, just not in the way that Pulitzer-centric mega-scoop sagas “All the President’s Men” or “Spotlight” may have done before. Anderson is more of a miniaturist, albeit one whose vision grows more expansive — and more impressive — with each successive project.

Here, the Texas-to-Paris transplant sets out to honor The New Yorker and its ilk, re-creating the joy of losing oneself in a 12,000-word article (or three) on the big screen while relocating the entire affair to his adoptive home. Set in the fictional city of Ennui-sur-Blasé — a cross between Paris and frozen-in-time Angoulême (where most of the exteriors were shot) — the film offers an expat’s-eye view of France, packaged as a series of clips from the eponymous publication.

Eldar Grigorian adapted screenplay from Stefan Zweig’s autobiographical book The Royal Game.

Film Movement has picked up all North American rights from Studiocanal to Philipp Stölzl’s upcoming wartime drama Chess Story, which will be released internationally as The Royal Game.

Eldar Grigorian adapted the screenplay from Stefan Zweig’s novella of the same name about Dr. Josef Bartok, a lawyer who recalls on a cruise his prior torture and imprisonment by the Nazis in Vienna.

After Austria is taken over by the Germans in 1938, Bartok and his wife attempt to flee before he is captured and interrogated by the Gestapo,...

For the first time ever, two Hungarian films are competing for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear: “Forest – I See You Everywhere,” a standalone sequel to the 2003 Berlinale hit “Forest,” from veteran auteur Bence Fliegauf, and “Natural Light” from feature debutant Dénes Nagy. Csaba Káel, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary (Nfi), says, “I believe it demonstrates the vitality and strength of the Hungarian industry flourishing despite the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic worldwide.”

The two films represent opposite poles of current Hungarian filmmaking. Brimming with discourse, the independently funded “Forest” tells multiple complex, engaging stories of contemporary life in Hungary. And as he did in his Berlinale-winner “Just the Wind” (2012), Fliegauf creates deep empathy for his characters who deliver standout performances.

On the other hand, “Natural Light,” with its minimal dialogue, harks back to an older tradition in Hungarian cinema where stunning cinematography leads the other formal elements.

‘Next Door’ is directed by Daniel Brühl and Dan Stevens stars in ‘In Your Man’.

World sales agent Beta Cinema has swooped on international rights to Daniel Brühl’s directorial debut Next Door and Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man, which will both premiere in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival (March 1-5).

The Munich-based outfit will introduce the features to buyers at the European Film Market (EFM), which will run alongside this year’s industry-focused, online-only event.

Next Door marks the directing debut of Brühl, who also stars in the black comedy alongside Peter Kurth and Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams on the set of Meek's Cutoff (2010). Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams will be working on a fourth project together, entitled Showing Up. The film, which goes into production this summer, follows an artist ahead of a career-changing exhibition. The Berlin Film Festival is unveiling its plans for this year's festival, beginning with its selection of six titles to premiere at the Berlinale Series that follow this year's theme: Toxic Antiheroes, Utopias of Freedom. Italian director, screenwriter, and producer Alberto Lattatuda will be the subject of the Locarno Film Festival's annual retrospective, to be held August 4-14. Following his biopic of Siegfried Sassoon, Terence Davies is set to direct an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s post-wwi-set novel The Post Office Girl. Recommended VIEWINGThe official trailer for Beginning, the striking...

One of the previous decade’s great cinematic was receiving back-to-back Terence Davies films with Sunset Song and A Quiet Passion. Now it looks like a repeat is in store as the director is prepping another production just after finishing his last. Following a pandemic-related delay, he recently wrapped the Jack Lowden-led biopic Benediction, about World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon, and now has announced plans for what he’ll direct next.

Davies will write and helm an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s novel The Post Office Girl, published posthumously in 1982. One of Wes Anderson’s inspirations for The Grand Budapest Hotel, the book is set in post-wwi and follows a female post-office clerk who lives outside Vienna. “Stefan Zweig’s novel set in post-war Austria sows the seeds for the rise of fascism, the end of the Empire, and ultimately the Second World War. This is a story...

This story about Shira Haas and “Asia” first appeared in the International Film Issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

She has had a very unusual pandemic. At a time when Shira Haas has mostly been at her home in Tel Aviv, the 25-year-old Israeli actress has become an Emmy nominee and something of a star for her role in “Unorthodox,” the Netflix series that became a lockdown sensation. And while that was happening, she also won the best actress award at the Tribeca Film Festival — the festival didn’t take place but the jury still watched films and voted — for her role in Ruthy Pribar’s delicate but wrenching “Asia,” in which Haas plays a teenage girl trying desperately to have a normal adolescence despite a degenerative motor disease.

“Asia” swept Israel’s Ophir Awards to become that country’s Oscar entry, another happy 2020 event that Haas mostly enjoyed in isolation.

The film, entitled Schachnovelle, will star Oliver Masucci in the lead role, alongside Albrecht Schuch, Birgit Minichmayr, Rolf Lassgard and Samuel Finzi. Best known for having directed the alpine drama North Face, as well as commercially successful adaptations of Winnetou novels and music videos featuring the likes of Madonna and Rammstein, German filmmaker Philipp Stölzl is now working on a reinterpretation of Stefan Zweig’s literary classic The Royal Game. Schachnovelle tells the story of lawyer Bartok, who, while on a cruise, recalls being imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis in Vienna. In 1938, Bartok gets arrested and taken to the Gestapo’s headquarters before he can flee to the USA with his wife. Because he refuses to cooperate with the Nazi officials and provide information about accounts that he manages, Bartok is sent into solitary confinement. A chess book helps him survive in captivity and overcome the mental suffering inflicted on.

She had previously worked at Senator Film, Atlas Film & Medien and her own company Mk Film Consulting.

Milada Kolberg has been appointed to the newly created position of head of acquisitions at Berlin-based distributor X Verleih, with responsibility for acquiring new projects and completed films from Germany and internationally for distribution.

Kolberg, who arrives in Locarno today (August 8) on the lookout for new titles at the festival, took up her position at X Verleih at the beginning of August.

She had previously served as head of acquisitions and sales at Senator Film, Atlas Film & Medien and, most recently, managed her own company,...

Netflix has announced the start of production on its Yiddish- and English-language German series “Unorthodox,” which is shooting in Berlin. The streaming giant is partnering with “Deutschland 83” creator Anna Winger on the original four-part miniseries which will be directed by “Deutschland 83” and “Deutschland 86” star Maria Schrader.

Based on a novel by Deborah Feldman, “Unorthodox” tells the story of a young ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman in New York (Shira Haas) who flees her arranged marriage and religious community to start a new life in Berlin. It was adapted for television by Winger and Alexa Karolinski. Winger serves as executive producer. The project was first revealed by Variety in February.

“‘Unorthodox’ explores female emancipation, identity and sexuality through the prism of a unique young woman’s experience,” said Schrader. The German actress is making her first move into TV directing with the show, having previously stepped behind the camera for three features,...

Exclusive: Production is underway in Berlin on Netflix Original mini-series Unorthodox, which will star Shira Haas (The Zookeeper’s Wife) and be directed by actor-filmmaker Maria Schrader (Deutschland 83).

The Yiddish and English-language four-part mini-series, executive produced by Deutschland 83/86 creator Anna Winger, will see Haas star as a young woman who leaves an arranged marriage in New York and sets out on her own to Berlin. The story is inspired by Deborah Feldman’s bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect. Also starring are Jeff Wilbusch (Little Drummer Girl) and Amit Rahav (Dig).

Feldman’s novel has been adapted for screen by Winger and Alexa Karolinski (Oma & Bella). Eli Rosen of the New Yiddish Repertory Theater in New York is translating. The series is produced by Anna Winger’s Studio Airlift, Henning Kamm at Real Film Berlin. It marks the first project out of...

Variety has been given the first-look image from Oscar-nominated director Ildikó Enyedi’s “The Story of My Wife,” starring Palme d’Or winner Léa Seydoux. We spoke to Enyedi about the film, which is being sold at Cannes by Films Boutique.

Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul” won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2017 and was Oscar nominated the following year. Seydoux won Cannes’ Palme d’Or, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” in 2013.

“The Story of My Wife,” budgeted at Euros 10 million ($11.2 million), is an adaptation of Milan Fust’s 1942 novel of the same name. The story, a variation of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, is set in the 1920s. In it sea captain Jakob Storr makes a bet in a cafe with a friend that he will marry the first woman who enters the place, and then in walks Lizzy.

Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) and The Killers (1946) are showing in March and April, 2019 on Mubi in many countries around the world.The KillersThere’s a long-told apocryphal story about German-born silent film star Emil Jannings. He was the first-ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1929. After his career had waned, he would return to his homeland and form close ties with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda. His stardom was renewed within the Third Reich’s film industry. When Berlin was reduced to rubble and Allied troops advanced on Jannings’ home, the story goes that he held his golden statuette aloft and shouted some placating words to the soldiers: “Don’t shoot, I won an Oscar!” True or not, Jannings’ tale is a cruel sort of reversal of the reality faced by artists who were forced to escape Europe during the Nazis’ reign. Throughout the thirties,...

Now in its 48th year, New Directors/New Films is a stellar showcase for new voices in cinema, both domestic and international, and this year’s lineup is no exception. The festival’s opening, centerpiece, and closing slots all go to Sundance hits with Clemency, Monos, and Share, respectively, while the rest is filled out with some of our favorite titles from the international circuit the past year, including The Load, All Good, Genesis, Joy, The Plagiarists, Manta Ray, A Land Imagined, and more.

“Spanning the globe and a wide spectrum of styles and concerns, the bold and brilliant films in this year’s New Directors lineup are collective proof that cinema is still as supple a medium as ever,” said Film Society Director of Programming Dennis Lim. “Demanding our attention and exemplifying the vitality of contemporary cinema, this year’s class of emerging directors is one of the most courageous in years,...

Actress-director Noémie Lvovsky’s “Tomorrow And Thereafter,” a heartfelt homage to the director’s own mother, and Fabien Gorgeart’s “Diane Has the Right Shape,” about one woman’s surrogate motherhood, both won big at the 2019 UniFrance MyFrenchFilmFestival which skewed female in its winners and viewership, making particularly notable inroads into South East Asia and Latin America.

Opening Switzerland’s 2017 Locarno Festival to mixed reviews, “Tomorrow and Thereafter” came good at MyFFF, scoring on Tuesday both its best feature Lacoste Audience Award and International Press Award for the fantasy laced family tale of an increasingly not quite there mother and her precocious eight-year-old who is advised on how to cope with maman, whom she adores, by her talking pet owl.

The Directors Jury prize – adjudicated by Houda Benyamina (“Divines”), Coralie Fargeat (“Revenge”), Mikhael Hers (“Amanda”), Canada’s Kim Nguyen and Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael – went to “Diane Has the Right Shape,...

Paris-born Emmanuel Blanchard studied and then taught history before becoming a documentary filmmaker responsible for films such as “Bombing War,” “Le diable de la République” and “Après la guerre.” He’s currently directing “Notre-Dame de Paris”, a 90-minute animated part-doc, part-fiction film on the building of the world-famous Paris cathedral. Competing at MyFFF, “The Collection” is his first fiction short. In it, French writer and Honorary Oscar winner Jean-Claude Carrière. Luis Buñuel’s longtime co-writer, plays a main role. Blanchard is developing his feature-debut under the working title “Brumaire.”

What is the “The Collection” about?

It’s about an unscrupulous merchant who “buys” artistic pieces from Jewish collectors forced to leave Paris in the midst of the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. Informed by a janitor, he hears about Mr. Klein’s extraordinary collection.

I think it’s a stylized piece about subjugation and oppression with a puzzling development.

“Burning Secret,” the long lost Stanley Kubrick script that was discovered over the summer, is being auctioned off later this month at Bonhams New York, Deadline reports. The original manuscript is expected to sell in the $20,000 region, so now the question remains whether or not anyone in the film industry will jump at the chance to buy the script and turn it into a feature film.

As reported earlier this year, “Burning Secret” is an adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s novella of the same name. Kubrick co-wrote the script with Calder Willingham in 1956, shortly before making “Paths of Glory.” The script was discovered by Bangor University film professor Nathan Abrams, and while many would assume studios would jump at the chance to make the film (Netflix just released Orson Welles’ long-delayed “The Other Side of the Wind”), the film’s subject matter is controversial.

Abrams has described “Burning Secret” as “the inverse of ‘Lolita,...

Long-lost Stanley Kubrick script Burning Secret is up for auction at Bonhams New York on 20 November. The original manuscript is expected to fetch in the region of $20,000.

The script, which has been certified by Kubrick experts, is said to be virtually complete, begging the question, would a film or TV company take it on today? We’ve just had a semi-complete Orson Welles movie pieced together, after all.

Entitled Burning Secret, the script is an adaptation of the 1913 novella by the acclaimed and often-adapted Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. In Kubrick’s adaptation of the story, a suave insurance salesman befriends a 10-year-old boy at a spa resort so he is able seduce the child’s married mother. In Zweig’s original, the story is set in Austria but Kubrick’s script transfers the story to America of the 1950s with American characters.

The visionary filmmaker wrote it in 1956 with American...

Above: French grande for Capricious Summer. Artist: F. Dervanore.As the 56th New York Film Festival winds down this weekend, I wanted to look back half a century to the 6th edition of the festival. Uppermost in everyone’s minds in September 1968 was Czechoslovakia, which, after a brief seven months of liberation known as the Prague Spring, had been invaded less than a month before the festival began, by Warsaw Pact tanks and troops intended to suppress reforms. Whether it had been planned before the Soviet invasion, the 6th New York Film Festival notably opened and closed with Czech films: Jiri Menzel’s Capricious Summer and Milos Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball. It also featured Jan Nemec’s previously banned 1966 film A Report on the Party and the Guests which had been released in ’68 under the reformist president Alexander Dubček and shown as a special event on Czech national...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe controversial production of Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy's Dau has come to an end, and there is now a trailer and a promotional website to prove it. The film was rumored to have taken nearly twelve years, recruiting a cast and crew of thousands in an isolated town that recreated life in the 1950s Soviet Union. Dau will likely be released as multiple films and a television series, but the new trailer presents it as primarily an "experiment." As Siddhant Adlakha says in his 2017 dissection of the film, "the remaining details, both factual and emotional, are still speculation that falls in the realm of audience interpretation." Professor and Kubrick expert Nathan Abrams has discovered the presumably lost screenplay to Kubrick's Burning Secret, an adaptation of a 1913 novella by Viennese writer Stefan Zweig. Long...