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Hong Kong and global film icon Jackie Chan got a rapturous reception at the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on Saturday evening as he was honored with the Pardo alla Carriera, or Career Leopard award, on the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande square.

“Buona sera,” Chan said, showing off his Italian skills with a wave the second he hit the stage. When he received the award, he pointed out that it was “very, very heavy.”

He then said: “[I am] just so happy and so honored to be here.” He continued with a thank-you to Locarno and the crowd “for giving me this sweet award” and thanked all directors and stars around the world who have “made me look good.” And he particularly thanked the Jackie Chan fans around the globe, noting: “Because of you, I am standing here.”

Chan recalled how his father once asked him if...

Summer Screenings

Vue Entertainment is banking on anime’s growing U.K. fanbase with a quartet of theatrical releases anchored by the highly anticipated “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle,” set to bow Sept. 12.

The exhibition chain will roll out two newly remastered 4K classics from acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda alongside a fresh Hatsune Miku feature. “Summer Wars” launched Aug. 3, and will be followed by “Wolf Children” on Aug. 17 and “Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing” on Aug. 31.

“Summer Wars” follows a shy math prodigy who accidentally unleashes a rogue AI threatening global digital infrastructure. “Wolf Children” centers on a young mother raising two half-human, half-wolf offspring across a decade-spanning narrative exploring themes of identity and acceptance. The Miku film introduces a twist on the virtual idol phenomenon, featuring a version of the character who has lost her singing ability.

September’s “Demon Slayer” sequel,...

Following their Main Slate announcement, the 63rd New York Film Festival has unveiled its Currents lineup, featuring 40 boundary-pushing films from around the world. Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s new feature Back Home; Radu Jude’s second feature of the festival, Dracula; Ben Rivers’ Mare’s Nest; Alexandre Koberidze’s Dry Leaf; Lucio Castro’s Cannes favorite Drunken Noodles; Trương Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux’s Hair, Paper, Water…; Pin de Fartie, from El Pampero Cine of La Flor and Trenque Lauquen, and much more.

“In a film landscape that is so often homogeneous by design, this year’s Currents lineup is energizing for being a showcase of the boundless possibilities of cinematic language,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “Resurrecting old technologies and subverting new ones, the filmmakers and artists here use an ingenious array of styles and forms to investigate the past and illuminate the present,...

The New York Film Festival continues to roll out its 2025 lineup, with the 63rd annual edition of the festival promising to give New York cinephiles access to many of the biggest titles emerging from the world of global cinema this year. In addition to buzzy world premieres like Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?,” the festival’s main slate includes many of the biggest films premiering at Venice and Telluride, including Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt,” Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother, Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” and Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice.”

But for movie-goers seeking out hidden gems that fly under the radar of the buzziest festival titles, the Currents section is where it’s at. The sidebar, which prides itself as a showcase of boundary-pushing international cinema, will feature 16 features and 24 shorts representing 28 countries around the world.

The Currents Centerpiece is “Mare’s Nest,...

The 82nd Venice International Film Festival will run at the Lido di Venezia from 27 August to 6 September 2025. Here is the line-up of Asian films screening at this year’s event.

The Sun Rises on Us All by Cai Shangjun, China (In Competition)

The former lovers meet after many years. Estranged and fettered daily, opening the sighs of the past. Love and sacrifice, repentance and repayment. Finally saying goodbye again, with painful hearts but then upon waking up, two lost people finally embrace and cry. (Source: Mubi)

No Other Choice by Park Chan-wook, South Korea (In Competition)

After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition. (Source: IMDb)

Girl by Shu Qi, Taiwan (In Competition)

In 1988, the smoke and dust covered the sky in Keelung Harbor. Lin Xiaoli grew up in confusion and longed to escape the darkness. Until she met Li Lili,...

Metrograph Pictures, the upstart distributor that launched in 2019 with an eye toward restorations and re-releases before pushing into new acquisitions ahead of Cannes 2024, is pausing all theatrical releases, IndieWire has learned.

This is the distribution arm of Metrograph, Alexander Olch’s company, which also operates a successful two-screen indie theater in Manhattan’s Lower East Side that opened in 2016. With theatrical releases on hold, IndieWire understands via sources that Metrograph Pictures is handling payments to third parties in due course as the distributor pauses business operations.

In better news, David Laub, the former A24 executive whom Olch tapped as Metrograph Pictures’ distribution film chief in February 2024, has now been hired by Neon to serve as senior vice president of publicity and marketing. Prior to Laub’s hiring, Metrograph Pictures was primarily focused on re-releasing unsung classics, such as Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 film “Possession” and Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 film “Goodbye, Dragon Inn.

Dos presencias españolas, ‘Extraño Río’ y ‘Calle Málaga’, en la programación de la Biennale.

© Biennale

Ayer se desveló la impresionante programación de la 82 edición del Festival Internacional de Cine de Venecia, que se celebra del 27 de agosto al 6 de septiembre. Una selección potente, con claro protagonismo del cine en lengua inglesa, que busca posicionar a Venecia como la antesala decisiva de la temporada de premios. No es un gesto gratuito: Anora, ganadora en Cannes el año pasado, acabó llevándose el Óscar a la Mejor Película. Y ahora, todos miran a la Mostra como el próximo trampolín. Así, en la competición por el León de Oro hay nombres de peso como Guillermo del Toro, Yorgos Lanthimos, Jim Jarmusch, Noah Baumbach, Park Chan-wook, o Benny Safdie. La riqueza de la programación se extiende también a las secciones paralelas y fuera de competición. En ellas se presentarán, entre otros, los nuevos trabajos de...

The lineup for this year’s Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, with the likes of Giullermo del Toro, Noah Baumbach, Kathryn Bigelow, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, and Yorgos Lanthimos all competing for the coveted Golden Lion.

Here is the full lineup of 20 films in competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival:

Ballad of a Small Player, Edward Berger

Below the Clouds, Gianfranco Rosi

Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos

Duse, Pietro Marcello

Elisa Leonardo Di Costanzo

Father Mother Sister Brother, Jim Jarmusch

Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro

The Grace, Paolo Sorrentino

A House of Dynamite, Kathryn Bigelow

Jay Kelly, Noah Baumbach

Mother Bhum, Chong Keat Aun

No Other Choice, Park Chan-wook

A Pied D’Oeuvre, Valerie Donzelli

Silent Friend, Ildiko Enyedi

The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie

The Stranger, François Ozon

The Sin Rises on Us All, Cai Shangjun

The Testament of Ann Lee, Mona Fastvoid

The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben...

The Venice Film Festival is back on the Lido for its 82nd edition, kicking off August 27-September 6. The packed lineup of auteur premieres heading to Italy include new films from Olivier Assayas, Guillermo del Toro, Mona Fastvold, Kathryn Bigelow, Noah Baumbach, Yorgos Lanthimos, Benny Safdie, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, László Nemes, François Ozon, Pietro Marcello, and many more in competition.

Out of competition, we’ll see new films from Luca Guadagnino (“After the Hunt”), Werner Herzog (“Ghost Elephants”), Sofia Coppola (Marc Jacobs documentary “Marc by Sofia”), Charlie Kaufman (the short “How to Shoot a Ghost”), Julian Schnabel (“In the Hand of Dante”), Gus Van Sant (“Dead Man’s Wire”), Laura Poitras (“Cover-Up”), Lucrecia Martel (“Nuestra Tierra”), and Tsai Ming-liang (“Back Home”)

Artistic director Alberto Barbera’s programmers had already unveiled a wave of announcements before Tuesday’s lineup: Alexander Payne heads up the jury, Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia” opens the festival Italian-style,...

Celebrating its 82nd edition this year, Venice Film Festival will take place August 27 through September 6. Ahead of the event, President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and Director Alberto Barbera have now unveiled the lineup.

Highlights include new films from Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, Lucrecia Martel, Laura Poitras, Benny Safdie, Werner Herzog, Kathryn Bigelow, Luca Guadagnino, Olivier Assayas, Sofia Coppola, Kent Jones, Yorgos Lanthimos, Mark Jenkin, Tsai Ming-liang, Mamoru Hosoda, Gus Van Sant, Noah Baumbach, Mona Fastvold, Pietro Marcello, Guillermo del Toro, László Nemes, and more.

See the lineup below.

Opening Film

La Grazia (Paolo Sorrentino) (in competition)

Closing Film

Chien 51 (Cédric Jimenez) (out of competition)

In Competition

The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas)

Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach)

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania)

A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow)

The Sun Rises on Us All (Cai Shangjun)

Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro)

Elisa (Leonardo Di Costanzo)

À pied d’œuvre...

Kathryn Bigelow’s A House Of Dynamite, Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, and Luca Guadagnino’s After The Hunt are among the films selected for the 82nd Venice Film Festival (August 27 - September 6).

Scroll down for full line-up

The first two are among 21 Competition titles, with further Competition entries including Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly starring George Clooney, Olivier Assayas’ The Wizard Of The Kremlin starring Jude Law as Vladimir Putin, Mona Fastvold’s The Testament Of Ann Lee, and Guillermo del Toro’sFrankenstein starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi.

The selection was announced by artistic director Alberto Barbera,...

The line-up for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival (August 27-September 9) is being unveiled today at 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by festival president Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and artistic director Alberto Barbera.

Scroll down for lineup

The press conference is live-streamed above, and this page will be updated with the films as they are announced.Refresh page for latest updates.

Alexander Payne will preside over the jury, which also includes Mohammad Rasoulof, Fernanda Torres, Stephane Brize, Maura Delpero, Cristian Mungiu and Zhao Tao. Julia Ducournau will chair the Horizons jury.

The Venice Critics’ Week line-up was announced yesterday.

Competition

La Grazia

Dir.

After landing on our radar with his Golden Leopard-winning feature A Land Imagined, Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua returned to the festival circuit last fall with his Venice premiere Stranger Eyes. The mysterious drama, starring Tsai Ming-liang regular Lee Kang-sheng, will now get a release on August 29 from Film Movement and the new trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “After enduring months of a fruitless police investigation into the disappearance of their daughter, a young, estranged couple, Junyang and Peiying, realize they are bring filmed surreptitiously when they begin receiving mysterious packages at their door containing DVDs with footage of their daily lives. The moments captured are unnerving not only for the violation of their privacy, but for what is exposed about Junyang and Peiying’s relationship on a most intimate level. Suspecting their voyeur is responsible for taking their daughter, the couple embark on a desperate mission to seek him out,...

Venice Classics will screen restorations of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita and Pedro Almodóvar’s Matador as part of an 18-film line-up at the 82nd Venice Film Festival (August 27-Septemer 6).

Lolita is a US-uk co-production, adapted by Kubrick from Nabokov’s novel, with James Mason and Sue Lyon in the leading roles. It first played at Venice in 1962.

Matador is one of Almodóvar’s early works. The 1986 erotic thriller sees Antonio Banderas play a student matador who wrongfully confesses to murder.

Among the four Italian films are Giuseppe De Santis’ once underestimated 1952 filmRome 11:00andLuciano Salce’s 1967 filmI Married You For Fun.

Restored movies by Pedro Almodóvar, Stanley Kubrick, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Manoel de Oliveira, Krzysztof Kieślowski and Tsai Ming-Liang are set to screen as part of the Venice Film Festival’s 18-title Venice Classics lineup.

Almodóvar’s 1986 erotic thriller “Matador,” featuring Antonio Banderas as a young bullfighter and exploring themes of sex and violence in the bullfighting world – a film that Quentin Tarantino has cited an inspiration – is part of a clutch of European titles in the selection. It also includes de Oliveira’s first film “Aniki-Bóbó”; Marcel Carné’s classic noir “Quai des brumes,” starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan, which was a prizewinner at Venice in 1938; and Kieslowski’s “Blind Chance, which heralded his famed “Decalogue.”

U.S. highlights comprise Kubrick’s 1962 Vladimir Nabokov adaptation “Lolita,” starring James Mason and Sue Lyon; Delmer Daves’ 1957 western “3:10 to Yuma,” redone by James Mangold in 2007 in a version starring Russell Crowe...

The Venice Film Festival has unveiled the 18 recently restored movies that will be showcased in its Venice Classics sidebar at upcoming 82nd edition.

The line-up features Delmer Daves’ 1957 western 3:10 to Yuma, based on a 1953 short story by Elmore Leonard, which was revisited by James Mangold in 2007 in a version starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

Other U.S. highlights include The Delicate Delinquent, starring Jerry Lewis, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, House of Strangers, starring Edward G. Robinson in the role of a rags-to-riches Italian American banker accused of criminal activity.

The sidebar will also showcase Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Vladimir Nabokov adaptation Lolita, starring James Mason and Sue Lyon.

European classics in the selection include Manoel de Oliveira’s first film Aniki-Bóbó, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blind Chance, which heralded Decalogue; Pedro Almodóvar’s Matador, and Marcel Carné’s pioneering film noir Le Quai des brumes, starring Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan,...

Chu Chun-Teng received a master’s in fine art from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2010 after first studying film directing and cinematography, and making his graduation short “The House of Sleeping Beauty” in 2006. The short was selected for festivals including Clermont-Ferrand and Singapore. After completing his BA in film, he shifted his focus to contemporary art. His work explores themes of individual existence, social hierarchy, and political conflict, reflecting the dilemmas of modern society, and has been presented at major festivals and art institutions around the world. “The Eel” is his feature debut, which premiered in the inaugural, debut-focused Perspectives competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

Check also this video

Liang lives in a half-submerged shack, works a ghost-town job at a waste management center, tends to his sick grandmother, and frequently goofs around with his sole friend Hao, passing his time without a particular goal in mind.

Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino is this year’s recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award to be bestowed upon him during the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, which will also feature a retrospective of his films that will be screened as part of the fest’s “tribute to” program.

The honor and tribute will be “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of cinema,” Sarajevo fest organizers said on Tuesday. Sorrentino will also hold a masterclass and “share his thoughts on contemporary art in a conversation with the audience,” they noted.

“I am deeply honored to receive this prestigious recognition and grateful for the attention given to my filmography,” said Sorrentino. “I look forward to being with you in Sarajevo. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The fest highlighted the effect the Italian director and screenwriter’s oeuvre has had on audiences. “Paolo...

Exclusive: Veteran French producer Jacques Bidou, renowned for his work with Rithy Panh, Merzak Allouache, Patricio Guzman, Tsai Ming-Liang, and Pablo Agüero, is in Cannes to talk to potential partners about Indian director Prantik Basu’s debut feature Dengue, a story of a forbidden romance in 1990s Calcutta that will shoot later this year in the city,

Dengueis being made as a coproduction between India’s Riverine Films and France’s Jba Production, the company Bidou runs with Marianne Dumoulin, with Luxembourg’s Samsa Film, the Netherlands’ The Film Kitchen and India’s Kindling Pictures.

The film draws on the...

The Locarno Film Festival will hand its Pardo alla Carriera career achievement award to veteran actor Jackie Chan during this year’s edition, which runs August 6-16.

Chan will pick up the award on Aug 6. The actor will also introduce his films Project A (1983) and Police Story (1985) as part of the tribute and take part in a Q&a session on August 10.

“Director, producer, actor, screenwriter, choreographer, singer, athlete, and daredevil stuntman, Jackie Chan is both a key figure in contemporary Asian cinema and one whose influence has rewritten the rules of Hollywood cinema,” Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, said in a statement.

“From his years at the China Drama Academy under Master Yu Jim-Yuen, working at a very young age as a stuntman in King Hu’s masterpiece A Touch of Zen, Chan has continually reinvented martial arts cinema and much beyond it. A pure comic talent,...

The Locarno Film Festival will honor Jackie Chan with a lifetime career award honoring the martial arts master who helped define Hong Kong action cinema before becoming a Hollywood mainstay.

Chan is “beloved for action films that bridged the gap between East and West,” the Swiss event dedicated to indie cinema noted in a statement.

Chan, who made his name in martial-arts films in his native Hong Kong before establishing himself in Hollywood with 1995’s “Rumble in the Bronx” and then achieving global attention in the wildly popular “Rush Hour” films, will be making the trek to the Swiss fest where he will introduce his early films “Project A” (1983) and “Police Story” (1985) – both of which he directed and starring in – as part of the tribute.

Chan will hold an onstage conversation in Locarno on Aug. 10.

A far more complete filmmaker than is widely appreciated, Chan has co-directed, stunt-directed, financed or...

There are two extremely jarring elements to Constance Tsang’s “Blue Sun Palace,” an otherwise soft and immaculately textured micro-portrait of three Chinese immigrants whose lives criss-cross at the Flushing massage parlor where two of them work. The first is the casting of Lee Kang-sheng, whose presence in Tsang’s fluorescent take on New York City — a world removed from the dilapidated Taipei he’s come to embody in the films of Tsai Ming-liang — instills every frame with an extratextual aura of dislocation. The second jolt comes from a shocking act of violence that triggers the title card some 33 minutes into the movie. It’s a cold reminder of the risks that come with starting over so far from home, and a new beginning for the warmly purgatorial story that follows; a story less compelled by the American Dream than it is by the void that forms in the wake of that empty promise.

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

Bam

Triple Canopy Presents: In The Hole brings 35mm prints of Salò, Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole, and more.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese presents Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death on 35mm this Friday; Jerry Lewis’ Smorgasboard shows on 35mm Saturday; Dazed and Confused and Smiley-Face play on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

Essential Cinema brings Erich von Stroheim’s Greed and films by Dziga Vertov; Richard Beymer’s The Innerview plays in a new restoration.

Museum of Modern Art

Films by Howard Hawks, George Stevens, and more play in “The Lady at 100.”

Museum of the Moving Image

The Dead Zone plays throughout the weekend while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows Saturday and Sunday.

Film Forum

Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman plays in a new restoration; Bride of Frankenstein screens this Sunday.

IFC Center

Barry Lyndon begins screening for its 50th anniversary; Salò,...

Talking about the Taiwan New Cinema movement, film historians and cinephiles often discuss the works of Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Tsai Ming-liang due to their Western acclaim. Though these filmmakers produce great cinema, their acclaim often overshadows other important works of the movement. The 1983 film ‘Out of the Blue‘ belongs to this overlooked category.

Autumn Tempest is screening at BFI for Myriad Voices: Reframing Taiwan New Cinema

Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien’s cinematographer Chen Kun-hou and written by Hou himself alongside Chu T’ien-wen—who later became his regular co-writer and based on the novel by Chu’s sister—’Out of the Blue’ offers a slow yet profound rendering of life in 1980s Taiwan.

The film tells the story of Ho Jie-lung, a young man in his late teens who falls in love with Tang Mi, a girl of the same age. Both characters come from different backgrounds.

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

Anthology Film Archives

A series on sex workers includes Spike Lee’s Girl 6, Working Girls, and House of Tolerance.

Bam

Queering the Canon runs between in-theater showings and virtual screenings, including Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’amour.

Spectacle

Tomu Uchida’s A Fugitive from the Past screens on Saturday.

Roxy Cinema

The French Connection plays on 35mm, as curated by Martin Scorsese; Beethoven screens for free on Sunday.

Film Forum

Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman begins playing in a new restoration; Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman plays on 35mm this Sunday.

IFC Center

Salò, The Holy Mountain, Stop Making Sense, The Elephant Man, Sorcerer, and Funny Games (the good one) show late.

Nitehawk Cinema

Twelve Monkeys screens early on Saturday and Sunday.

Metrograph

Donnie Darko and Diabolique play on 35mm; In Good Faith and In the Pinku start while Tonino Guerra,...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villleneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt, and RaMell Ross––those are just a few of the filmmakers introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the last half-century.

Now returning for its 54th edition at Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art from April 2-13, this year’s lineup features 33 new films, presenting acclaimed titles from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Sundance, Rotterdam, and more. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered our recommended films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.

Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)

Shot largely on location in Queens, Blue Sun Palace explores a hidden culture and milieu.

The 18th Asian Film Awards recognized achievements in regional cinema on Sunday, with Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light winning Best Film. The ceremony, held at the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong, brought together filmmakers from across Asia to celebrate accomplishments in directing, acting, and technical contributions.

Kapadia’s drama, which previously earned the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, marked a milestone for Indian cinema, a country that has often been nominated at the AFAs without securing major wins. On stage, Kapadia credited her lead actors for shaping the film’s impact. “Thank you so much to my lead actors—three incredible artists and human beings. They are the ones who made this film what it is,” she said.

The Best Director award went to Japan’s Yoshida Daihachi for Teki Cometh, a character study that premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival before...

Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng is set to reprise his role in the next two films of auteur Tsai Ming-liang’s celebrated “Walker” series.

“Director Tsai is making two films in the Walker series soon. So I’ll be doing those,” Lee confirms to Variety, adding to his decades-long collaboration with the Malaysian-born Taiwanese director that began in 1989. Currently earning acclaim for his supporting role in Yeo Siew Hua’s surveillance thriller “Stranger Eyes,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and for which he is nominated in the supporting actor category at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, Lee discussed how his longstanding partnership with Tsai has influenced his approach to other projects.

“There’s a lot of influence, because director Tsai isn’t a director who works with a full script. He often gives me a synopsis, so there’s a lot of room for improvisation,” Lee explains.

Let’s get this out the way: Nobody titles their film “Eel” if they don’t want critics to reach for the adjective “slippery,” and Chu Chun-Teng’s woozily gorgeous first feature invites it from the off. Its story, slender but charged, is in a constant state of retreat, repeatedly darting into psychological and existential alleys just out of view. Its images, too, are often as elusive as they are beautiful, symbolically layered but accommodating of uncertain, Rorschach-style intuition. The chase is the thrill in “Eel,” an open-ended love story in which an atmosphere of suspended summertime yearning is sometimes cut through with gestures of brazen, unambiguous, horny human need — like a head-clearing pang, or pain, amid lapping waves of more inchoate feeling.

Arguably the most esoteric selection in the inaugural, debut-focused Perspectives competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, “Eel” also announces one of its most emphatically confident...

The most significant change introduced by new Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle is the cancellation of the Encounters sidebar which hosted many arthouse gems supposedly too experimental for the main competition. In its stead, Perspectives––a competitive section dedicated to first films––was created. Its inaugural edition includes Eel, the feature debut of Taiwanese visual artist Chu Chun-teng. Gliding between genres and styles, the film is as slippery as its namesake and may not satisfy those who prefer to understand what they see onscreen. Regardless of how one rates its success as a work of narrative storytelling, Eel certainly announces the arrival of an exciting new voice.

The film’s strangeness and beauty are apparent from the get-go. In the opening sequence, a woman dressed in fiery red walks wordlessly into a river, her gradual disappearance unnoticed by the city on the opposite shore. Then it’s suddenly night and a...

Jogja-netpac Asian Film Festival (Jaff), Indonesia’s largest and longest-running film festival, proudly announces its 20th edition, taking place from November 29 – December 6, 2025. Marking two decades of its journey, Jaff continues to serve as a premier platform for Asian filmmakers to celebrate, share, and develop the cinematic ecosystem.

Over the years, Jaff has been honored by the presence of esteemed figures such as Tsai Mingliang, renowned master director; Kim Dong-ho, founder of the Busan International Film Festival; Julien Rejl, artistic director of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; Lee Kang Sheng, Taiwanese actor & director; Kristy Matheson, Director of BFI London Film Festival; and Park Sung Ho, Busan International Film Festival’s programmer. Their participation underscores Jaff’s significance in the global film community.

In 2024, the Indonesian box office achieved a historic milestone, surpassing 80 million admissions, with local films capturing a 65% market share. Notably, the closing film of Jaff 2024, “A Brother and 7 Siblings,” emerged as a box office hit,...

Indonesia’s Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (Jaff) will mark its 20th anniversary with an expanded edition running Nov. 29-Dec. 6, in Yogyakarta. The festival will continue its Jaff Market component for a second year, running Nov. 29-Dec. 1.

The market’s inaugural 2024 edition proved a success, hosting 151 booths and attracting 6,723 participants including producers, distributors, investors and streaming platforms. The main festival drew 24,462 visitors across its eight-day run.

“There are two key moments that make Jaff especially significant this year: the celebration of the festival’s 20th edition and the continuation of Jaff Market’s second edition following its remarkable success in its inaugural year. We will seize these moments to further strengthen Jaff’s position in supporting the culture and film industry in Indonesia. We are preparing a grand celebration to mark the festival’s 20-year journey, while this year’s Jaff Market will provide even more space for exhibitors and international film industry players,...

After William Friedkin’s Cruising spent the better part of the aughts as the subject of earnest, if guarded, revisionist critique, how does the film hold up in our current era of representational politics and trigger warnings? And why does it feel like how you answer that question will determine which side pocket you keep your handkerchief in?

The gay side of Film Twitter had previously treated Friedkin’s 1980 ode to fisting, frottage, and flash cuts with a level of curiosity nearly equal to the fury of the disco era’s gay community. What currency could an undercover police officer’s punk-disco battle with the monsters in his closet possibly have when held against the ironic sense that an avowed sexual assaulter with a fondness for golden showers will soon be the one to usher in a rollback of LGBT gains at every level? But in its day, Cruising was...

These days, gay men can arrange sex by a smartphone app as easily as ordering a pizza. But back in the ’90s, when “Plainclothes” takes place, such trysts not only had to be coordinated in person, but could be punished by arrest. Audiences of a certain age and demographic almost certainly remember the risk and fear (not to mention the illicit excitement) of the hunt, back when undercover police monitored public “tearooms” for lewd behavior. In writer-director Carmen Emmi’s “we’ve come a long way, baby” debut, the cops take it one step further, luring frisky men into exposing themselves.

But what if the officer in question was closeted and one of these strangers slipped him his phone number? That’s the intriguing — if credulity-stretching — premise of “Plainclothes,” which casts Tom Blyth (the outlaw star of Epix’s “Billy the Kid”) as Lucas, a second-generation cop with all kinds of identity issues.

Arriving just in time for spring training, Carson Lund’s Cannes and NYFF hit Eeephus is the perfect baseball movie. Following the final game in an amateur baseball game in rural Massachusetts, those who enjoy the rhythms of Richard Linklater and Tsai Ming-liang will find much to appreciate. Ahead of its March 7 theatrical release from Music Box Films, the first trailer and poster have now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Two recreational baseball teams, the River Dogs and Adler’s Paint, have been meeting on their New England field on Sunday afternoons for longer than anyone can remember. These middle-aged sportsmen can’t run as fast as they used to or connect as reliably with a pitch, but their vigorous appetite for socializing, squabbling, and busting chops remains undiminished. After the know-nothing county board opts to raze the baseball diamond to make way for a school, the teams meet for...

While the downfall of physical media has been predicted time and time again, 2024 has proved the opposite with many impressive and interesting releases, not juts Asian titles. However, when it comes to Asian cinema many boutique labels especially have given film-lovers the opportunity to (re-)discover many gems of the cinematic landscapes of Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand to name but a few. The following list may serve as an overview of some of these releases, some of which may stand representative of a whole catalogue from a production company.

Without further ado, let’s delve into the list of the 30 best physical media releases of Asian cinema in 2024, in random order

1. Seven Samurai (BFI)

Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece certainly needs no introduction and its release on 4k was one of the most anticipated releases for connoisseurs of Asian cinema. While there is also the Criterion edition of the film,...

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.NEWSGoodbye, Dragon Inn.The Tamil Film Active Producers Association has filed a writ petition to ban social-media film reviews for the first three days of the theatrical release, claiming financial losses due to negative “review bombing.” Theater owners have likewise proposed banning YouTubers from recording audience reactions in cinema lobbies and parking lots.The McL Cinema in Hong Kong’s Diamond Hill district has shuttered after just two years of operations, the seventh theater in the city to have closed this year. Insiders are bracing for the hit to the local film industry’s reputation and financial stability that could follow. For the past decade, Hollywood executives believed that brief theatrical windows would boost subscriber numbers for their streaming services.

The 19th Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival has wrapped in Yogyakarta (Jogja), Indonesia, with local feature “Yohanna” dominating the Indonesian Screen Awards while Neo Sora’s “Happyend” secured the festival’s top Golden Hanoman Award.

“Yohanna,” directed by Razka Robby Ertanto, collected five honors including best film, director, storytelling, performance, and cinematography (Odyssey Flores). Truong Minh Quy’s “Viet and Nam” took home the Silver Hanoman Award.

In other awards, “Ma – Cry of Silence” by The Maw Naing won the Netpac Award and Geber Award, while Hung Chen’s “When the Wind Rises” secured both the Blencong Award and Jaff Student Award. Behzad Nalbandi’s “Anita, Lost in the News” received a Special Jury Mention.

The festival program featured a masterclass with Taiwan-based auteur Tsai Ming Liang, which attracted filmmakers like Riri Riza, Mira Lesmana, Kamila Andini, and Jaff director Ifa Isfansyah. Three of Tsai’s works were screened: “Vive L’Amour...

1. Film Review: Abiding Nowhere (2024) by Tsai Ming-liang

If art is putting an emotion into something you create to transfer that feeling on to its audience, then Tsai certainly achieves something with “Abiding Nowhere” (and the Walker series in general). Beyond slow cinema, this is positively static, as the camera, and indeed the cast, barely move. The slowness, the silence – apart from the background noise – the time allowed to fully contemplate, create a relaxing series of shots to absorb yourself into, feeling your heart rate slow and eyes sigh in a natural progression to sleep.

2. Film Review: Victory (2024) by Park Beom-su

The production also makes the most of its leading ladies’ dancing abilities, choreographing largely pleasing cheerleading sequences, even if more acrobatic sequences, whose absence is fairly explained within the script, could have been welcome. Park Jeong-hoon’s cinematography shies away from being flashy, instead satisfied in capturing the pastel colours...

Arthouse cinema is still very much a broad term that covers a wide range of styles and genres, how should we consume cinema that feels more at home in an art gallery than a cinema? Tsai Ming-liang‘s “Walker” series has now hit double figures, with a variation on a theme much like Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mount Fuji”, with “Abiding Nowhere” being the latest.

Abiding Nowhere is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival

A red-robed monk (Lee Kang-sheng) slowly steps across the landscape of various streets and landmarks of Washington DC. A static camera captures his slow motions, as he gradually makes his way from one side of the shot to the other. Another man (Anong Houngheuangsy) is also seen wandering some of the same locations, though at a slightly more normal pace, as what seems like everyday behaviour forms a striking contrast.

If art is putting an...

The last film by writer, director, and editor Tetsuichirô Tsuta, 2013’s “The Tale of Iya” didn’t get to make a big splash in the UK or US. But perhaps the association with names such as Lee Kang-sheng and Ryuichi Sakamoto will help move things along for “Black Ox,” a standout from the Tokyo International Film Festival’s fascinating and varied “Asian Futures” program, which showcases a variety of critical perspectives from across the continent.

“A certain island country is on the path to civilization.” That wry prelude is all the introduction we get before Tsuta plunges us into the story of a mountain man (Lee) whose life is framed by the assimilation of all peoples under one unified umbrella of “Japanese” identity during the latter half of the 19th century (starting around the time of the Meiji Restoration). If the festival’s opening film, the samurai epic “11 Rebels,...

Marek Šulík’s “Ms. President” was named the winner of the Opus Bonum section at Ji.hlava Documentary Festival Saturday.

The film, which also opened the festival, was one of the buzziest titles this year, provoking discussions about upcoming U.S. elections and zooming onto the fifth president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová – the first woman ever to be elected to that role. However, after completing her term, she did not seek reelection. It was produced by Barbara Janišová Feglová.

The director told Variety that constantly forced to face “an aggressively misogynistic atmosphere in society, Čaputová was really tired after five years.” Now, it seems that “the populists have the upper hand.”

“It really feels like something out of a bad movie that could be called ‘The Return of the Bad Guys,’” he said.

Šulík’s win marked an end of an especially lucky night for Slovak and Czech documentaries, with...

Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang might be done with his semi-retirement. “I have a strong desire to make another feature film,” he tells Variety at Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival.

“With my actors, we’ve been working together for such a long time. Recently, they’ve been starring in other people’s films and I want them to be in my film again. I am waiting for them to reach a certain age, and we will do it again. Hopefully, I’ll live long enough to see that happen. Just one more feature film! That’s enough for me.”

His biggest concern?

“My physicality. Do I still have the energy to shoot more films? Looking back, I can see I am different now, but I also like the idea of being old and having a different energy,” says the 67-year-old, still dedicated to “making portraits” of his actors.

“I want to...

“Black Ox,” a powerful rural drama from Japan’s Tsuta Tetsuichiro, has been picked up for world sales by Hong Kong and Beijing-based agency Asian Shadows. The film has its world premiere on Friday in the Asian Future section of the Tokyo International Film Festival and will go on commercial release in Taiwan the following week.

Set in the 19th century, “Black Ox” follows the life of a man, transitioning from a hunter-gatherer existence in the mountains to a life in the farm. One day, he comes across an ox, which somehow, he succeeds in leading back to his home. He lives with the animal, which becomes his companion in a life of changing seasons.

The Japan-set film is inspired by the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” a series of short poems and illustrations from the Zen Buddhist tradition that depict the path to enlightenment and spiritual awakening.

The cast includes the Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng,...

Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, who was awarded the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes film festival for her debut narrative feature All We Imagine As Light, talked about the challenges facing indie filmmakers in India during a conversation with Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda at Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).

She also touched on how she felt about the fact that All We Imagine As Light was not selected by India’s Oscars committee as its submission for the Best International feature category, but was gracious about the snub.

Kore-eda was on the Cannes competition jury that awarded Kapadia’s film, and said he was impressed by her work, but due to the restraints of jury duty, had not been able to talk to her and find out more about her career. The Japanese director is a Cannes regular, winning the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters in 2018, while Yuji Sakamoto...

Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has unveiled the full programme for its 35th edition, which includes honorary awards for Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng and Yang Kuei-mei, and the launch of a Sgiff Industry Days conference.

Set to run from November 28 - December 8, the festival will continue to champion local and regional voices, with Asian cinema representing 80% of the line-up. The full selection comprises 105 films from 45 countries and features recurring themes of migration and displacement as well as the influence of technology on the medium of film.

The Asian Feature Film Competition, the festival’s main competition section, showcases nine features by promising directors across Asia,...

The Singapore International Film Festival is marking its 35th edition with 105 films from 45 countries, with Asian titles comprising 80% of the program.

Running Nov. 28-Dec. 8, the fest will host three world premieres of Singapore features, including Ong Keng-Sen’s “The House of Janus,” Wong Chen-Hsi’s “City of Small Blessings,” adapted from Simon Tay’s novel, and Jason Soo’s documentary “Al Awda.”

Among the international highlights are Amy Adams-starrer “Nightbitch,” David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour,” and a restored version of Bong Joon-ho’s feature debut “Barking Dogs Never Bite.”

Two special gala presentations are scheduled: Raam Reddy’s “The Fable,” starring Indian actor Manoj Bajpayee, and Myanmar-born Taiwanese filmmaker Midi Z’s “The Unseen Sister,” featuring Zhao Liying and Xin Zhilei.

The fest will present its Screen Icon Award to Taiwanese talents Yang Kuei-mei and Lee Kang-sheng. Yang, a four-time Sgiff performance award winner, recently appeared in “Yen and Ai-Lee,...

Tsai Ming Liang Guide: As the 20th century drew to a close, cinema, like other art forms, was undergoing a metamorphosis. Hollywood, in a desperate attempt to keep audiences engaged, embraced new technological advancements, such as improved visual effects. It sought to captivate the masses by blurring the lines between reality and imagination, producing sci-fi blockbusters like “Terminator 2” (1991), “Jurassic Park” (1993), and “Armageddon” (1998). However, thousands of miles away from sunny Los Angeles, another group of filmmakers across Europe and Asia consciously took cinema in a different direction. Rather than helping audiences forget the fourth wall, they aimed to reinforce it, creating films that were acutely aware of their own impact, intentionally distancing viewers from the on-screen events by withholding the cut.

In contemporary film theory, this shift is referred to as ‘Slow Cinema.’ To an avid cinephile, it is now a fairly common term. Maestros like Béla Tarr, Pedro Costa,...

The 28th Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival, which runs Oct. 25 – Nov. 3, will offer 340 films, of which 129 are world premieres, 23 international premieres and 11 European premieres.

The program includes a retrospective of Swiss filmmaker Anne Marie Miéville’s work and a showcase of films by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang.

The festival will be attended by U.S. director Kirsten Johnson, the creator of this year’s festival trailer, Italian director Roberto Minervini, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra and Romanian director Andrei Ujică.

Marek Hovorka, the festival’s director, said: “The program of Ji.hlava shows the extraordinary power of documentary film. Documentary filmmakers replace the literalness of reality with playfulness and originality of thought. They show us the world as we could hardly see it ourselves – unless, like them, we would like to spend long years with a camera in those places.

“Dialogue has been important to Ji.hlava since its beginning,...

Japan’s leading indie film festival, Tokyo Filmex (November 23-December 1) has unveiled the line-up for its competition, opening and closing films, and other sections.

The festival, which marks its 25th year in 2024, will open with Jia Zhang-Ke’s Caught By The Tides, which played in competition at this year’s Cannes, and close with Hong Sang-soo’s By the Stream, for which actor Kim Min-hee won the Pardo for best performance at Locarno.

The 10 competition titles include the Georgian film April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, which won the special jury prize at Venice this year; Girls Will Be Girls, the...