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You’d have to be very bad at interviews, or really just conversations, to not get something from Abel Ferrara, who’s the perfect combination of endearing and pugnacious, amenable to ideas while unable to entertain even a hint of bullshit. He’s especially verbose discussing Turn in the Wound, his most recent documentary, which premiered at last year’s Berlinale and is now streaming on the Criterion Channel and parallels the effect of Russia’s war on the citizens of Ukraine with, in a slightly opaque but ultimately wise manner, concerts conducted by Patti Smith. Like many of Ferrara’s documentaries––Mulberry St., Chelsea on the Rocks, or Piazza Vittorio––it mines pathos from people and the places they live. I was only too happy to talk with him about this film and its endless concerns.

I also want to note that myself and Instagram sensation Rohmer Fits will...

My screening series Amnesiascope will return to the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research on July 22, 24, and 25 with Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Summer, co-presented by Instagram sensation @rohmerfits and through the cooperation of Janus Films. Following sold-out presentations of The Green Ray, two shorts programs, and A Tale of Autumn, I expect Rohmer’s sun-soaked delight––a perfect respite from summertime heat and awful tentpole cinema––will not be on the market long.

While perhaps a touch lesser-known than certain of Rohmer’s canonized films, A Tale of Summer is evidently worthy of their company. His comedy of romantic indecision features some of the most beautiful actors France produced in the ’90s, and the seaside Dinard proves a perfect stage for casual subterfuge and miscommunication. And let’s say it’s in some Rohmerian spirit that we present this film in an artists-friendly space (that could’ve been plucked...

There is a specific kind of paralysis that can set in during your early twenties, a feeling of being a player character stuck in the starting zone while a vast, explorable world waits just outside. This is where we meet Nicolau, the 24-year-old protagonist of João Rosas’ The Luminous Life. A year after a painful breakup, Nicolau is adrift in a sea of inertia.

He lives with his parents, plays bass in a band going nowhere, and floats between menial temp jobs. His inner world is muted and gray, a stark contrast to the film’s setting: Lisbon in the radiant bloom of spring. The city is alive with light, energy, and promise, an environment practically begging for engagement.

The film immediately establishes itself as a gentle, observational study of this dissonance, capturing the strange melancholy of navigating a personal crisis when the world around you feels so vibrantly, indifferently beautiful.

As quarter-life crises go, the one experienced by tousle-haired musician Nicolau in “The Luminous Life” looks more endurable than most. Yes, he’s unemployed, living at home, recently broke up with his dream woman and is firmly convinced that he’ll never love that way again — but it’s spring in Lisbon, the city’s sidewalks, bars and cinemas are alive with social possibilities for an affable, handsome young lad such as he, and he’s not about to miss out on all of them. Which is to say the title of Portuguese director João Rosas’ debut feature isn’t at all ironic: This droll, delightful romantic comedy is an ode to the good times that can be had amid and around heartache, and the healing that eventually comes out of that very conflict.

To most viewers, Nicolau — played with irresistible, lightly goofy guilelessness by Francisco Melo — will be a welcome new acquaintance.

Though it didn’t inaugurate the French New Wave, François Truffaut’s 1959 debut feature, The 400 Blows, did herald the true arrival of the movement, netting the critic turned filmmaker a best director award at the Cannes Film Festival and rave reviews around the globe. Drawing heavily from his own childhood, as well as inspiration from Italian neorealism and 1950s Hollywood melodramas such as Rebel Without a Cause, Truffaut charts the antics of bright but unruly misfit Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), who, without a sense of purpose, consistently gets into trouble with teachers and his parents.

Truffaut’s kinetic and restless camera style is keyed to the boundless energy of youth, and even the most carefully blocked and framed shots have a feel of spontaneity to them. But The 400 Blows ultimately belongs to Léaud. Flashing hints of innocence and yearning that recall James Dean’s smoldering intensity, the 14-year-old...

Films about 20-something characters drifting aimlessly through life have a tendency to drift themselves, but that can also be part of their charm. Not every movie needs to be a nail-biter, and not every plot needs to be engineered like a Maserati. Some of the best examples of the genre — Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Frances Ha, Fellini’s I Vitelloni — convey that feeling of endless drifting while remaining altogether captivating. In a sense, the drift becomes the crux of the story.

Nicolau (Francisco Melo), the shy and shaggy protagonist at the heart of Joao Rosas’ debut feature, The Luminous Life (A Vida Luminosa), feels like the quintessential drifter of our time — or at least as such a time exists in a contemporary western European capital. Lovesick and forever looking for gainful employment, he wanders around Lisbon in search of something he can’t quite name or put his hands on.

You could be forgiven for thinking Little Amélie is some sort of prequel to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s delightfully French 2001 fantasy Amélie. Instead, this animated feature from Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han is delightfully French in a different kind of way, perfect for sensitive adults and sophisticated children who dream of wearing rollnecks, shades and berets and sipping black coffee in tiny cups at Les Deux Magots while arguing with each other about whether or not Miles Davis went downhill after splitting up with Juliette Greco. Philosophically, it was one of les plus françoises films in the selection in Cannes this year, and that means a lot when the main competition is Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, which practically arrived on a bicycle, festooned with onions.

On closer inspection, however, Little Amélie is a lot more nuanced than that, a fascinating multicultural mélange that’s rooted in two very different cultures,...

Like Ingmar Bergman, Éric Rohmer, and Hong Sang-soo before him, Dag Johan Haugerud believes in the niceties of conversation. Sex, one third of the writer-director’s Oslo Stories trilogy, largely consists of dialogue-driven scenes across which his characters reveal their desires and emotions. If the style of these long, mostly static scenes isn’t exactly novel, it nevertheless indicates how Haugerud aligns his work within a certain arthouse tradition, which pays modest dividends throughout the film’s two-hour runtime.

Early on, an unnamed, middle-aged man (Jan Gunnar Røise) sits off screen, listening as his boss (Thorbjørn Harr), also unnamed and middle-aged, discusses a dream in which he encounters David Bowie, who mistakes him for a woman. “He was taking charge from there. And that felt so good,” the man says. But, he adds, the dream didn’t end in sex. Then, as the camera pulls back and pans right, the...

After countless misfires and successive rejiggings of its committee, France came close to winning its first Oscar for best international feature in over three decades with Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez.” But in a last-minute twist worthy of a movie, “Emilia Perez’s” chances of winning the statuette evaporated following the scandal surrounding Karla Sofia Gascon’s offensive tweets. Ultimately, nothing could stop Brazil from winning with Walter Salles’ heartfelt family saga “I’m Still Here.”

France’s misfortune in this category has often been blamed, among other things, on the abundance of French films to choose from, hence the large margin of error. And it appears that France will once again face an embarrassment of riches and some heated discussions within its selection board.

At this point, no films have been submitted for consideration, but the most likely candidate and probable frontrunner is “Nouvelle Vague,” Richard Linklater’s homage to...

Richard Linklater’s latest film, Nouvelle Vague, has found a home, with Netflix purchasing the rights for $4 million. That deal, according to Deadline, is the highest-ever domestic plan for a French-language film. Ooh la la!

Nouvelle Vague is undoubtedly a love letter to cinema, as Richard Linklater chronicles the making of 1960’s Breathless, which wasn’t only Jean-Luc Godard’s debut film but also changed the landscape of international film through its innovative use of camerawork, sound and editing, most notably seen in its famed jump cuts.

To bring the production of Breathless (À bout de souffle) to life in Nouvelle Vague, Linklater recruited Guillaume Marbeck to play Goard, Zoey Deutch as lead Jean Seberg and Aubry Dullin as star Jean-Paul Belmondo. There, too, are a number of other iconic international figures featured in Nouvelle Vague, including cinematographer Raoul Cotard (Matthieu Penchinat), along with fellow French New Wave directors François Truffaut...

Exclusive: Netflix has won out in a tug of war for Richard Linklater’s Breathless homage Nouvelle Vague after its Cannes Film Festival debut in the competition.

We understand the deal has closed for a hefty $4 million, a record domestic outlay for a French-language movie.

This is an interesting one. Breathless is viewed as a cinema classic and Nouvelle Vague a love letter to cinema. Could there be longer theatrical play either in the U.S. or overseas before it hits Netflix? At least domestically, we hear it’s likely to just be the usual awards-qualifying two-week window.

Nouvelle Vague launched to warm words at the Cannes Film Festival two weekends ago. In the right hands, the talk has been that the film could figure in the awards race.

Netflix is coming off an eventful awards season with Spanish-language movie Emilia Pérez, which scored 13 Oscar nominations and two wins. There...

Multiple domestic buyers are in the mix to buy Richard Linklater’s Breathless homage, Nouvelle Vague, which launched to warm words at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend.

We expect a deal to get done in the next 48 hours and it should be at the higher end for a U.S. acquisition of a French-language movie. In the right hands, there’s talk the film could figure in the awards race.

The film reconstructs the story behind Godard’s cinema classic. French actor Guillaume Marbeck portrays Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch plays Jean Seberg and newcomer Aubry Dullin portrays Jean Paul Belmondo. Characters in the movie include cinema legends Godard, Jean Cocteau, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Pierre Melville, Eric Rohmer, Agnes Varda and Jacques Rivette.

Following the Competition title’s world premiere at Cannes on Saturday, the audience at the Palais gave the movie an 11-minute ovation. Our critic Pete Hammond...

As Richard Linklater basked in a rapturous ovation following the Cannes premiere of “Nouvelle Vague,” his look at Jean-Luc Godard and a movement in French cinema that changed the course of film history, it was impossible not to be reminded of the indie revolution he had played a vital role in three decades ago. It helped, of course, that the biggest rebel in that group of backlot iconoclasts, Quentin Tarantino, was standing just in front of him, leading the cheering.

“I’ve known Tarantino, like for 30 years or whatever. He’s one of my oldest film buddies, so to have him there was cool,” Linklater said the afternoon after “Nouvelle Vague” took Cannes by storm, earning some of the festival’s best reviews.

The film follows Godard as he bluffs his way through the making of “Breathless,” the crime classic that gave the New Wave an irresistible dash of cool...

The official synopsis for Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague describes it as “the story of Godard making Breathless, told in the style and spirit in which Godard made Breathless.”

It’s a catchy pitch but also a bit deceiving. Godard’s 1960 film broke all sorts of narrative and stylistic conventions, writing its own rules about what a movie could do and paving the way for modern cinema as we know it. Linklater’s charming and well-researched homage is much more traditional: Told in a linear fashion, shot with a sizeable crew, featuring actors who look and act like the famous people they’re playing, relying on tons of VFX shots to recreate Paris at the time, it’s a far cry from the style of Godard. And yet it does an impressive job capturing the spirit of the man at work, highlighting what it took — and often didn’t take...

From Jean Seberg’s sideswept pixie cut to Jean-Paul Belmondo’s aviators, Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” has become more fashionable in today’s cultural imagination for its iconic looks and images than for how the jump-cut-pioneering renegade feature collapsed cinematic hierarchies as we knew them in 1960. That makes one of the greatest films of all time, and the standard bearer of the French New Wave, ripe for discovery for a younger generation — and fresher still for the older ones well familiar with it.

If the best way to criticize a movie, as Cahiers du Cinéma critic Godard once said, is to make one, then director Richard Linklater’s answer to making a tribute to “Breathless” might instead be to not quite criticize but certainly to subvert the tropes of movies about moviemaking. His black-and-white “Nouvelle Vague,” itself a meticulous recreation of a movie made in 1959 with all the celluloid, Academy-ratio crackle and pop,...

Richard Linklater — paragon of American cinema — has decided to go French. In addition to unveiling his Lorenz Hart chamber piece “Blue Moon” at this year’s Berlinale, Linklater went intercontinental by premiering his ode to the French New Wave, “Nouvelle Vague,” in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Watch a teaser for the film below.

“Nouvelle Vague” is set during the 1959 Paris-set shoot of Jean-Luc Godard’s debut feature, “Breathless.” Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and American actress Jean Seberg, “Breathless” follows an aimless criminal and his unwitting romantic interest as they fall in love, while at the same time being pursued by the law. Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch fill the roles of Belmondo and Seberg, while Guillaume Marbeck takes on the maestro himself, Godard. Other luminaries of the French New Wave featured in the film include François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Suzanne Schiffman (Jodie Ruth-Forest), Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson), Agnès Varda...

Christian Petzold’s gossamer latest film, “Mirrors No. 3,” is as compact as a novella, as ephemeral in its emotion, as delicate in register as one of the Chopin or Ravel pieces that float through it. A mystery woman, standing on a bridge, lost in thought. An amnesiac looking for respite. A car flipped upside down, its driver’s brains spilled onto the road while its passenger stares on, unharmed. Later, she eats apples in a bed that belongs to another woman, in clothes that belong to that woman’s daughter, trying on another life almost as a lark.

German filmmaker Petzold comes to Cannes for the first time with a minor-key new drama, which burrows into the psyche despite its slim running time and almost perverse refusal to explain itself or the shapes its narrative takes. The title comes from a piece written by Ravel — yes, that one you...

After releasing two films last year with Hit Man and the rather-overlooked God Save Texas: Hometown Prison, the ever-prolific Richard Linklater returns in 2025 with another pairing. Earlier this year he premiered Blue Moon at Berlinale. Ahead of that film’s October release, he’s at Cannes to premiere Nouvelle Vague, his tribute to the French New Wave and chronicle of the making of Breathless––all directed in the style of Jean-Luc Godard’s landmark debut. A first trailer has arrived for the feature (still seeking U.S. distribution) ahead of the premiere.

The cast includes Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Matthieu Penchinat as Raoul Coutard, Adrien Rouyard as François Truffaut, Antoine Besson as Claude Chabrol, Roxane Rivière as Agnès Varda, Jean-Jacques Le Vessier as Jean Cocteau, Côme Thieulin as Éric Rohmer, Laurent Mothe as Roberto Rossellini, Jonas Marmy as Jacques Rivette,...

When Sorda made its debut in the Panorama sidebar at the Berlinale earlier this year, its quiet power was immediately clear. Set against the sun‑baked plains of rural Spain, Eva Libertad’s first feature tracks Ángela, a deaf ceramicist, and her hearing partner Héctor as they brace for parenthood. There’s no grand spectacle here—moments unfold with the precision of a potter’s wheel, revealing the emotional contours of two people learning to share a world they experience in very different ways.

From the very first frame, Libertad invites us inside Ángela’s perspective: lips form questions she can’t hear, sign language punctuates conversations, and the only soundtrack is the soft echo of her own heartbeat. Yet the film never feels aloof or experimental for its own sake. Instead, it weaves intimacy with social reality, showing how a new baby can both unite and stretch a relationship.

Exclusive: Richard Linklater’s Cannes Competition-bound Nouvelle Vague, his homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s 1959 New Wave classic A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), has been boarded for international sales by Vincent Maraval’s Goodfellas.

The anticipated French-language film reconstructs the story behind Godard’s cinema classic and is a fitting addition this morning to the Cannes lineup.

Characters in the film are understood to include cinema legends Godard, Jean Cocteau, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Pierre Melville, Eric Rohmer, Agnes Varda and Jacques Rivette.

French actor Guillaume Marbeck is portraying Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch plays Breathless star Jean Seberg and newcomer Aubry Dullin portrays Jean Paul Belmondo.

There are rumours the film is shot in black and white and in 4:3 ratio. Arp Selection produces and distributes in France. Screenwriters include Holly Gent, Vince Palmo, Michèle Halberstadt and Laetitia Masson.

Related: Cannes Competition: Aster, Trier, Dardennes, Reichardt, Ducournau & Wes Anderson Among Lineup...

After releasing two films last year with Hit Man and the rather-overlooked God Save Texas: Hometown Prison, the ever-prolific Richard Linklater returns in 2025 with two more features. Earlier this year he premiered Blue Moon at Berlinale. Now Sony Pictures Classics, in the official CinemaCon program guide, has confirmed a fall release window for the drama.

Described as “a funny Valentine to old Broadway,” here’s the synopsis: “On the evening of March 31, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical Oklahoma!“

Meanwhile, Linklater looks to have locked his next feature Nouvelle Vague, his tribute to the French New Wave and chronicle of the making of Breathless, directed in the style of Jean-Luc Godard’s landmark debut. While it’s still seeking U.S. distribution, French distributor Arp Sélection has confirmed an...

Withdrawal tells the story of a romantic couple, Viv and Jay, who are addicted to heroin. At one point, Viv’s uber-rich parents decide that enough is enough and give her 24 hours to decide if she wants to go to rehab or sever any connection she has with her family. If Viv goes to rehab, she won’t be able to stay with Jay, and if she loses access to her bank account, then the couple won’t survive. So, Viv and Jay decide to go cold turkey, suffer through a night of drug withdrawal, and come out the other end as changed human beings. The movie is harrowing, riveting, and oddly romantic. I sat down with director Aaron Strand for a virtual chat about his style of visual storytelling, how he crafted one of the most uncomfortable scenes put to screen, and more.

Film Fugitives: How did you come...

Sean Baker had a history-making night at the Oscars, winning Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Picture for "Anora," while star Mikey Madison took home the statue for Best Actress for her performance as Ani. As a result, Baker had four opportunities to speak to the world at large through his acceptance speeches, and he came prepared. He encouraged audiences to watch movies on the big screen since independent theaters need support now more than ever, at the same time promoting the importance of independent cinema and telling unique stories. He also, given the subject of "Anora," opened his night by thanking the sex work community.

"I want to thank the sex worker community. They have shared their stories. They have shared their life experience with me over the years. My deepest respect. Thank you — I share this with you," he said. Madison echoed the sentiment in her own acceptance speech,...

La collectionneusewas the third of Éric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales," a series of films centered on the ethical quandaries that arise from romantic entanglements. Each entry essentially followed the same structure: a man who is in a committed relationship is briefly tempted by another woman, eventually returning to the stability of his partnership. That is not to say that the films are preachy or moralizing, despite their moniker: in fact, they're small-scale fables dripping with intelligence, humor, and sensuality. In many ways, La collectionneuse set the template not just for the rest of the moral tales but for the remainder of Rohmer's career, which was defined by stories centered on the intricacies of the human heart.

Best Friend Forever has unveiled the steamy trailer for “Queerpanorama,” the latest feature by Hong Kong filmmaker Jun Li, which world premieres at the Berlin Film Festival.

Set in Hong Kong, “Queerpanorama” revolves around a gay man who “impersonates men he has had sex with and brings this new persona with him to his next sex date. Only by pretending to be someone else can he be truly himself,” the synopsis reads.

Here’s the trailer:

The movie, which is slated to bow in the Panorama section, marks Li’s follow up to “Drifting,” which premiered in competition at Rotterdam in 2021 and won best adapted screenplay at the Golden Horse Awards.

Li said he wrote the movie “at a very dark time of my life and in the face of drastic change in our world.”

“I recalled every little kindness and comfort I received from these strangers I met, and...

Final voting is February 11-18. The 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2, and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Et/ 4 p.m. Pt. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

The Best Editing Oscar nominees are “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” and “Wicked.” “Conclave” is the favorite as a dark and moody Vatican conspiracy thriller, with “The Brutalist” gathering momentum for its epic drama about the struggle of post-Holocaust immigrants.

“Conclave,” Edward Berger’s follow-up to “All Quiet on the Western Front,” concerns the selection of a new pope at the Vatican in an interior battlefield within the sequestered conclave of the Sistine Chapel. Cardinal Lawrence (Oscar-nominated Ralph Fiennes) administers the ritual while dealing with a crisis of faith. This becomes exacerbated by his discovery of corruption and conspiracy within the Vatican,...

“Queerpanorama,” the latest feature by Hong Kong filmmaker Jun Li, has been boarded by Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (“Universal Language”) ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Slated to bow in the Panorama section, the movie marks Li’s follow up to “Drifting” which premiered in competition at Rotterdam in 2021 and won best adapted screenplay at the Golden Horse Awards. The film was also nominated for best picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Set in Hong Kong, “Queerpanorama” revolves around a gay man who “impersonates men he has had sex with and brings this new persona with him to his next sex date. Only by pretending to be someone else can he be truly himself,” the synopsis reads.

Best Friend Forever will launch international sales on “Queerpanorama” at the Berlin Film Festival’s EFM.

Li said he wrote the movie “at a very dark...

The holidays are upon us, so whether you’re looking for film-related gifts or simply want to get for yourself some of the finest this year had to offer, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and other home-video lines, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.

4K & Blu-ray Box Sets

There’s no better gift than an epic film collection, and 2024 was an embarrassment of riches thanks to a number of box sets. The king of them all, especially if you’re looking for a gift for a burgeoning cinephile, is Criterion’s massive CC40, collecting 40 landmark films form their 40-year history. It’s not the only stellar set from the company, of course, as I adored the essential Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978, Éric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène,...

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

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Autumn screens on Sunday courtesy of Amnesiascope and Rohmer Fits.

Roxy Cinema

A 35mm print of Silent Hill shows Friday and Saturday, as does a Radiohead-scored Nosferatu; the latter day brings Apocalypse Now: Final Cut and a print of Love Streams; Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro screens on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

A Brad Dourif retrospective includes the actor in-person for Wise Blood on Saturday and Horseplayer on Sunday; films by Dreyer play in “Essential Cinema.”

IFC Center

The Guy Maddin series “Forbidden Rooms” begins; black-and-white restoration of Johnny Mnemonic and Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat play, as does a 40th-anniversary restoration of Paris, Texas; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch play late.

Museum of Modern Art...

Rohmer Summer has fed into Rohmer Fall: following sold-out screenings of The Green Ray and a shorts program, my screening series Amnesiascope has partnered again with Instagram auteur Rohmer Fits for two special screenings of Éric Rohmer’s 1998 triumph A Tale of Autumn, which will play Sunday, October 13 and Tuesday, October 22 at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research.

Though perhaps the crowning achievement in Rohmer’s Tale of Four Seasons, A Tale of Autumn still seems underappreciated and underseen. A brisk fall evening in close quarters suggests the ideal time to discover or revisit the film––for my money his best take on both the romantic comedy and Shakespearian case of mistaken identity. Our thanks to Janus Films for facilitating these screenings.

Official synopsis is below and tickets are here. We look forward to seeing you.

The concluding installment of the “Tales of the Four Seasons” tetralogy is a breezy...

The Dinard film festival (2-6 October), traditionally a celebration of all things British, brought its 35th iteration to the seaside city’s screens with a soft relaunch this year, after retitling itself to include Irish films and co-productions. The result was suitably eclectic, with just six films competing for the Hitchcock d’Or, which was voted on by an eight-strong jury of actors and directors. Including The Quiet Girl director Colm Bairéad and House of the Dragon star Phoebe Campbell, the judging panel was headed up by French actress-director-model-singer Arielle Dombasle, a favorite of Claude Lelouch, Éric Rohmer and Alain Robbe-Grillet but more recently seen this summer singing her song “Olympics” to herald the arrival of the Olympic torch in Paris, ahead of the recent games.

Opening with Alice Lowe’s horror-comedy Timestalker and ending with Matt Brown’s psychological drama Freud’s Last Session, the festival — curated by Dominique Green...

Rock on: Jury president Arielle Dombasle welcomes her 'amazing family' of cohorts at the Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film Photo: Richard Mowe With a new title to reflect the upsurge in prominence of Irish cinema the 35th edition of the Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film in the Brittany resort on the Emerald Coast, launched last night with a glittering ceremony at the Palais des Arts overlooking the beach where such film-makers as Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol have been seduced by its picturesque charms.

One of the highlights of the opening marathon was the presence of Arielle Dombasle, French icon who embraced her fellow jurors as “my amazing family” - at least for the next two days. The jury comprises Julie Depardieu, Stanislas Mehrar, Phoebe Campbell, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Colm Bairéad, Charlotte Colbert and Alba Gaia Bellugi.

Dombasle who had a beach cabin named after her earlier in the day,...

Launched in 2019, Metrograph Pictures is the distributing arm of NYC’s Metrograph theater, with classics in its catalog from auteurs like Claire Denis, Eric Rohmer, and Hou Hsaio-Hsien, among others. But the independent distributor wants in on new releases too, and they’re hoping a recent pick up will accelerate that process. Enter “The Black Sea,” Derrick B. Harden and Crystal Moselle‘s film from SXSW this year.

Continue reading ‘The Black Sea’ Trailer: Derrick B. Harden Stars In & Co-Directs American-Bulgarian Dramedy at The Playlist.

San Sebastian — In bumper deals, premier French production-sales agency Playtime has secured a raft of sales across key territories for François Ozon’s “When Fall Is Coming,” which bows in San Sebastian’s main Competition.

Distribution so far takes in major territories such as Italy (Bim Distribuzione), Cis (A-One Russia), Spain (Caramel + La Zona), and Axia in Canada.

Playtime has cut further deals with Vertigo Media in Hungary, September Films in Benelux, Panda in Austria, Aurora in Poland, Filmcoopi in Switzerland, A-One Baltics, Outsider Film in Portugal, Filmtrade in Greece, Beta Films in Bulgaria, and Arthouse Traffic in Ukraine.

The pre-sales come on a film whose complex story is seemingly told effortlessly.

Perhaps it’s the moment two elderly friends, Michelle and Marie-Claude, leave the woods with wild mushrooms and laugh when Marie-Claude tells her friend to let her know how it goes. Perhaps it’s when we see Michelle...

To say that French director Emmanuel Mouret has had one thing on his mind since he started making features two decades ago would probably be an understatement. If you take the English-language titles alone of his prolific oeuvre — 11 features, including the latest — you get a fairly good idea of the subject dearest to him: Shall We Kiss, Please, Please Me, The Art of Love, Lovers, Caprice, Love Affairs, Diary of a Fleeting Affair…

The question, perhaps, is whether anything but love and sex actually interests Mouret. After making a few slapstick-style comedies early on, he’s decided to focus almost exclusively on people falling in and out of affairs and relationships. And if his first few films were inspired by both Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, his work since then draws heavily from the worlds of both Eric Rohmer and middle-period Woody Allen — up to using the Woodster’s trademark...

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

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

My screening series Amnesiascope partners again with Rohmer Fits for an encore presentation of Éric Rohmer shorts on Sunday.

Paris Theater

“Big & Loud!” returns with 70mm prints of Vertigo, Phantom Thread, and Boogie Nights, along with The Abyss, Close Encounters, and films by Don Hertzfeldt.

Bam

The controversial, remarkable The Spook Who Sat By the Door continues in a new restoration.

Roxy Cinema

Amalia Ulman has programmed prints of If… and The Holy Girl; “Explosive Cinema” offers First Reformed and The Battle of Algiers.

Film at Lincoln Center

As an essential restoration of Shinji Somai’s Moving continues, The Stranger and the Fog begins a run.

Museum of the Moving Image

Speed Racer and A Silent Voice have screenings.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by Buñuel, Chaplin, and Cocteau screen in “Essential Cinema“; Funeral Parade of Roses shows this Friday.

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.NEWSBlazing Saddles.With on-location filming in Los Angeles on the steep decline, Mayor Karen Bass has launched the Entertainment Industry Council, which plans to lobby the state to subsidize productions in the city.FESTIVALSViet and Nam.The Toronto International Film Festival (September 5–15) has added a number of titles to its lineup, including Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, bringing the total to 276. The Wavelengths slate will feature Truong Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, and Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’s Pepe, among others. Festival attendees are encouraged to use this nifty tool, lest they be lost forever in the scheduling labyrinth.

Three consecutive sold-out screenings of The Green Ray made one thing clear: the people want more Rohmer. Thus I’m thrilled to announce my screening series Amnesiascope returns next Monday, August 19 to the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research for a night of little-seen Éric Rohmer shorts co-presented with my friend (and Instagram sensation) Rohmer Fits.

It’s of course more fun if not to tell you precisely what we’re screening, but––if Letterboxd stats are any indication––it’s safe to say even the most ardent Rohmer fans will find discoveries and surprises, spanning the nascent days of his career to his final years, including rarely considered collaborations. This program runs about 95 minutes, with (per usual) a drinks-and-cigarettes intermission.

Tickets are available here. We look forward to seeing you.

The post Amnesiascope and Rohmer Fits Present a Night of Rare Éric Rohmer Shorts on August 19 first appeared on The Film Stage.

Margaret Menegoz, the producer of world-famous auteurs such as Michael Haneke and Wim Wenders, has died at the age of 83.

Menegoz was celebrated for her leadership of Les Films du Losange, an acclaimed production and distribution company which she ran for 46 years with an iron fist, guided by her passion for independent filmmaking and new voices.

Born in Hungary in 1941, during WW2, Menegoz grew up in Germany and ventured into the film industry after meeting her husband, Robert Menegoz, and traveled the world with him to shoot documentaries. She joined Les Films du Losange in 1975 and started as an assistant for revered directors Eric Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder who had co-founded the company in 1962. She quickly rose through the ranks and became manager of the company.

Under her helm, Les Films du Losange won an Oscar, three Palmes d’Or at Cannes. The company built a library of about 100 prestige films,...

Margaret Menegoz, the head of French production company Les Films du Losange, who produced the movies of Michael Hanke, Wim Wenders and Éric Rohmer, among others, has died. She was 83.

The company issued a statement confirming that Menegoz died in Montpellier on August 7. They cited her “love of films and work, and her loyalty to her filmmakers that have become the hallmarks of Les Films du Losange,” describing Menegoz as “open-minded towards Europe and the international scene, which she particularly cherished.”

Menegoz led Les Films du Losange for close to 50 years, taking over at the company in 1973. She produced more than 60 films, including Haneke’s Amour, The White Ribbon and Cache, Wenders’ 1977 feature The American Friend, Volker Schlöndorff’s Swann in Love (1984), Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990), Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime (1990) and A Tale of Winter (1992), among many others.

Amour received 5 Oscar nominations in 2013, including a nomination for Menegoz for best feature.

Margaret Menegoz, who led iconic French film company Les Films du Losange for close to 50 years, producing the films of Éric Rohmer, Michael Haneke and Wim Wenders among others, has died at the age of 83.

The German and French film producer was born in Hungary in 1941. Her family, which was of German origin, was expelled from the country in the wake of the 1945 Siege of Budapest, and Menegoz grew up in Germany.

Menegoz entered the film industry as an editor and then connected with the French independent filmmaking scene via her documentarian husband Robert Menegoz, who she met at the Berlin Film Festival in the early 1970s.

She took the reins of Les Films du Losange in 1975, having been originally hired as an assistant on co-founder Rohmer’s 1976 German-language film Marquise Of O, co-starring Edith Clever and Bruno Ganz.

Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder had created the company in 1962, but with...

Margaret Menegoz, the pioneering producer who was a central figure in France’s film industry during a career spanning decades, has died. She was 83.

The Hungarian-born German-French producer served as president of Les Films du Losange from 1975 until 2021, and was president of Unifrance from 2003 to 2008.

During a career that included a key role at the Cesar Academy, Menegoz produced films for directors such as Eric Rohmer, Barbet Schroeder, Wim Wenders, Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland and Michael Haneke, including the latter’s Palme d’Or-and Oscar-winning Amour in 2012.

After her tenure at Les Films du Losange ended, Menegoz handed over the...

Margaret Menegoz, the pioneering producer who was a central figure in France’s film industry during a career spanning decades, has died. She was 83.

The Hungarian-born German-French producer served as president of Les Films du Losange from 1975 until 2021, and was president of Unifrance from 2003 to 2008.

During a career that included a key role at the Cesar Academy, Menegoz produced films for directors such as Eric Rohmer, Barbet Schroeder, Wim Wenders, Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, and Michael Haneke, including the latter’s Palme d’or-and Oscar-winning Amour in 2012.

After her tenure at Les Films du Losange ended, Menegoz handed over the...

Famously press shy, but often going an extra mile in order to shock, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has been a mischievous and frustrating spirit who tormented arthouse audiences as much as he teased them. But the provocateur-in-chief is now too established to still be considered an enfant terrible.

Von Trier’s 40 years in the film business are now to be celebrated by South Korea’s leading cinema chain Cj-cgv in a two-week retrospective that kicks off on July 10.

The multiplex giant is dedicating 15 of its art-house screens nationwide to playing 12 von Trier titles, including his debut feature, 1984-release “The Elements of Crime.” The film was part of his so-called “trauma trilogy” and was followed by “Epidemic” and “Europa.”

The showcase will continue with his 1996 Cannes Grand Jury prize-winner “Breaking the Waves” and “Idiots,” an emblem of his Dogma 95 back-to-basics filmmaking manifesto, and “Dancer in the Dark,” which won von...

My screening series Amnesiascope returns to the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research on July 15, 16, and 17 with Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, co-presented by The Film Desk, Instagram sensation @rohmerfits, and fragrance auteur Second Edition Olfactive. With the latter two we’ll also celebrate the launch of Le Rayon Vert, their Rohmer-inspired perfume boasting “notes of pear, green florals, and an ocean air accord evoking summer melancholy.” Making these New York’s only repertory screenings that offer a chance to improve your personal hygiene.

Likely The Green Ray, whether you know different subtitle translations by heart or have never seen it, needs little introduction. But let’s say it’s in some Rohmerian spirit that we present this film in an artists-friendly space (one that could’ve been plucked straight from his milieu) with drinks in-hand and cigarette-benevolent rooftop attached––surely a finer, fuller experience than from your couch.

Tickets...

From her controversial 1976 directorial debut “A Real Young Girl” to even more confrontational later works like “Romance” (1999) and “Anatomy of Hell” (2004), French auteur Catherine Breillat has long been one of the cinema’s premier chroniclers of desire in all its complexities and contradictions. Her latest film, “Last Summer,” is one of her best, a riveting and nuanced portrayal of an affair between an attorney (Léa Drucker) and her 17-year-old stepson (Samuel Kircher) that’s paced like a languorous Éric Rohmer dramedy but grips the audience like a thriller. It’s a remake of the Danish movie “Queen of Hearts,” and while the script by Breillat and Pascal Bonitzer provides “Last Summer” with meticulously crafted dialogue, characterizations, and situations, it’s only a starting point; the greatness of the film is in the visual execution, which is just as Breillat intended.

“One mistake that people often make is they confuse the script with the film,...

by Eric Blume

With Margot at the Wedding, writer-director Noah Baumbach makes an Éric Rohmer film. The character’s names are French, it’s lit like a French movie, cut like a French movie, and has the rhythms and languorousness of, specifically, a Rohmer movie. But, and this may be a hot take: Rohmer never made a film as textured and exquisite as the one Baumbach makes here. Rohmer’s films often deal with an indecisive man-child choosing between two women: there’s a lovely wistfulness about them, but they’re repetitive and limited in depth.

Baumbach captures the Rohmer melancholia, but he fleshes out all the relationships in the film so they are deeply lived-in and layered. The film is all frayed edges, with unpredictable touches and uncomfortable complexities…...

Noah Schamus, as many creatives did, used their time unemployed in the pandemic lockdown to write a feature. The result is the warm, wise, and unsentimental “Summer Solstice,” an Éric Rohmer-inspired tale of friendship about trans actor Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) and the whirling dervish in a daffodil dress who lands back in his life, his long-ago and cisgender friend Eleanor (Marianne Rendón).

But beyond lessons learned in the pandemic or years before at Columbia film school during undergrad, “Summer Solstice” writer/director Schamus also learned a great deal from an unlikely source of inspiration: director Greta Gerwig. In 2019, Schamus cut their teeth on a major studio movie as a post-production assistant on “Little Women.”

It ”was incredible to just see the scope of what is possible for a filmmaker who comes from the indie space, from a mumblecore space, who then has stepped up into these sort of enormous and wonderful productions,...

The only thing more powerful than a first impression is a second one — at least, that’s the bet that “Summer Solstice,” a new anti-romantic comedy from Cartilage Films, makes on itself. Beginning with a character giving an impassioned monologue recounting his gender-affirming surgery, the speech quickly curdles into something pretty tacky, even including the line, “I went from a caterpillar to a butterfly.” But then another voice interrupts: “Okay, thanks. That’s enough.” This has all been in an audition room. And the audition is not going well.

“I had a family member come to a screening. And she said, ‘I was terrified in the first 30 seconds that this movie was going to be so awful,’” says writer-director Noah Schamus with a laugh.

The scene reorients to introduce Leo (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), a transgender man treading water in the ever-replenishing pool of auditioning New York actors. The performance drops and Leo returns to reality,...

Stephen J. Rivele, who shared an Oscar nomination for the screenplay for Oliver Stone’s Nixon and worked on such other biopics as Michael Mann’s Ali, Agnieszka Holland’s Copying Beethoven and Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead, has died. He was 75.

Rivele had heart issues and died May 17 at his home in Pasadena, California, his son Eli Bocek-Rivele told The Hollywood Reporter.

Rivele wrote on Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born and did an early draft for another 2018 release, Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

He also handled uncredited rewrites on the baseball movie Moneyball (2011) and All Eyez on Me (2017), about Tupac Shakur.

Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson enjoyed a 30-year screenwriting partnership. They worked together on Nixon (1995), starring Anthony Hopkins; Ali (2001), starring Will Smith; Copying Beethoven (2006), starring Ed Harris; Miles Ahead (2015), the Miles Davis biopic that Cheadle directed and starred in; Pawn Sacrifice...