News

Also out this weekend: Sony has anime fantasy ’Suzume’ and Paramount action thriller ‘Assassin Club’.

After a lively weekend for new releases at the UK-Ireland box office over the Easter bank holiday, this session is looking a little calmer, with Universal’s Super Mario Bros: The Movie likely to keep its spot at the top.

The widest new release to take the plunge this weekend is Universal’s Renfield, playing at 605 sites. Chris McKay’s action-comedy take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula is set in modern day New Orleans, with Nicolas Cage as the famous bloodsucker, and Nicholas Hault as his long-suffering familiar,...

Ostensibly about the relationships of the celebrated novelist, this documentary is coy about Patricia Highsmith’s obsessiveness and antisemitism

Here is a documentary about the love affairs of Patricia Highsmith, the author of Strangers on a Train and the Ripley series. These inspired hit movies from directors including Hitchcock, René Clément and Anthony Minghella, which cemented her reputation and bestseller-income and subsidised her elegant European wanderings and encounters; from this film, directed by Eva Vitija, I learned that Highsmith wrote journals in French, German and Spanish.

It is certainly a heartfelt tribute, with some interesting interviews with Highsmith’s old lovers, lots of sharp, intimate snapshots of Highsmith (evidently taken in each case by her lover at the time), TV interview archive material in which she is always unexpectedly accommodating and polite, and flavoursome readings from her letters and diaries with Gwendoline Christie providing the voiceover.

It is my experience that one gets a far richer, stranger cinema education in pursuing the careers of actors, that group defined first by (assuming luck shines upon them) two or three era-defining films and then so much that dictates their industry—pet projects, contractual obligations, called-in favors alimony payments, auteur one-offs, and on and on. Few embody that deluge of circumstance better than Michelle Yeoh and Isabelle Huppert, both of whom are receiving spotlights in March. The former’s is a who’s-who of Hong Kong talent, new favorites (The Heroic Trio), items we can at least say are of interest (Trio‘s not-great sequel Executioners), etc.

Huppert’s series runs longer, and notwithstanding certain standards that have long sat on the channel it adds some heavy hitters: Hong’s In Another Country, Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness, Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come. And, of course,...

The Lgbtqia+ festival takes place March 15-26.

The BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 37th edition which takes place March 15 – 26.

The programme features 58 features, six of which are world premieres, spread across three thematic strands – Hearts, Bodies and Minds.

Scroll down for full line-up

World premiering at the festival is John Hay’s documentary Willem & Frieda which is presented by Stephen Fry and explores how a gay man and a lesbian woman led the anti-Nazi resistance in Holland.

The other world premieres are Timothy Harris’ documentary Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn about the...

The best moments in Patricia Highsmith’s novels are the ones in which we see quick flashes of her protagonists’ interiority, before they reset the masks they’re inevitably presenting to the rest of the world.

We learn in the documentary “Loving Highsmith” that the author herself knew plenty about the duality that defined so many of her characters. As director Eva Vitija makes clear, Highsmith was required — by law, by society, perhaps also by personality — to wear a number of masks throughout her life and career.

Though she certainly qualified as a public figure, Highsmith remained deeply private. And who could blame her? The years between 1950 and 1980, when she wrote most of her bestsellers, were hardly welcoming to most female professionals, let alone gay women who soundly rejected cultural norms of marriage, children and strictly-defined femininity.

Also Read:

Dakota Fanning to Star Opposite Andrew Scott in Showtime’s ‘Talented...

With their pronounced and callous violence, their serpentine studies of obsession, delusion, and identity, Patricia Highsmith’s hypergraphic body of work has by now become as much a part of the culture of literary fiction and cinema as that of her lionized male counterparts. But where the personas of Hammett and Chandler have been crafted into legend, the Fort Worth-born Highsmith has stayed a cipher. While in recent years a pair of biographies and the release of her excerpted private diaries have let some light into the picture, Highsmith’s peripatetic nature remains elusive and secretive. Expatriated from the States and then […]

The post “I Believe Her Experience of Love Was a Brutal One”: Director Eva Vitija on Her Patricia Highsmith Doc, Loving Highsmith first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“My life is a chronicle of unbelievable mistakes.” So writes Patricia Highsmith, the acclaimed author of Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and many more. Loving Highsmith, directed by Eva Vitija, is a nifty chronicle of Highsmith’s turbulent life, anchored primarily by her own diary entries, television interviews, and the recollections of past lovers. It is, above all else, a fascinating window into the personal and creative life of a queer woman constantly rebelling against the restrictive social norms of her time while trying to decipher what kind of person she is herself. As Highsmith writes: “I am the forever seeking.”

English actress Gwendoline Christie voices Highsmith’s diary entries with appropriately calm intensity. She was an enigmatic persona: often progressive in her worldviews, yet frequently vicious in her observations of others. She was raised in Texas under the vast shadow of prejudice by her family,...

The American Friend director Wim Wenders on Patricia Highsmith: “Amazing strong person.” Photo: courtesy of Swiss Literary Archives

In honour of Patricia Highsmith and the US theatrical première of Eva Vitija’s intimate Loving Highsmith, Film Forum in New York has scheduled movies adapted from the novels of the acclaimed author to show simultaneously with the documentary.

Eva Vitija with Anne-Katrin Titze: “The character of Ripley shows much about Patricia Highsmith herself.”

Highsmith On Screen includes Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train; René Clément’s Purple Noon; Wim Wenders’s The American Friend (starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz); Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Todd Haynes’s Carol (screenplay by Phyllis Nagy, adapted from The Price of Salt, starring Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, and...

The 12th Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest (Amff) in Spain is reeling in a bevy of luminaries led by Neil Jordan, Isabelle Huppert and Ukraine’s Sergei Loznitsa who will be recognized with Master of Ceremonies honors.

Jordan is attending the festival’s inauguration to receive his award and is also presenting his Oscar-winning “The Crying Game,” which marks its 30th year since its acclaimed debut. Other leading lights attending the festival include Gaspar Noé (“Vortex”), Annie Ernaux (“The Super 8 Years”) and Alain Guiraudie (“Nobody’s Hero”) presenting their respective films.

Launched in 2010 by leading Spanish independent film streaming platform Filmin, the festival opens July 24 with “Ramona” the debut feature of Madrid-born Andrea Bagney, shot mostly in black and white on 16mm. Fest wraps July 31 with Goya-winner Kike Maillo’s docu-feature “El Falsificador” about the Catalan artist Oswald Aulestia Bach, considered one of the greatest art forgers in history. In all,...

"She was easy to love, let's put it that way." Zeitgeist Films & Kino Lorber in NYC have revealed an official US trailer for an indie documentary biopic titled Loving Highsmith, made by the Swiss filmmaker Eva Vitija. This will be showing in US art house cinemas starting in early September later this summer. Based on celebrated American author Patricia Highsmith's personal writings & accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous thriller writer's life and oeuvre, permeated by themes of love and its defining influence on identity. Highsmith herself was forced to lead a double life and had to hide her vibrant love affairs from her family and the public, only discussing any details in private correspondences. Excerpts from these notes voiced by Gwendoline Christie in the film, beautifully interwoven with archive material of her and her most famous novel adaptions, create a vivid,...

It turns out that the American writer Patricia Highsmith, whose work inspired such illustrious filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock and Todd Haynes, was just as prolific and popular with the most interesting women of her time. Women lotharios are hardly as revered as their male counterparts, and even less so for history’s great queer romancers, whose lives are often reduced to their saddest highlights when they’re remembered at all. In centering the writer’s sexuality in her lively and captivating documentary “Loving Highsmith,” filmmaker Eva Vitija does a great service not only to fans of Highsmith’s, but to all of queer history.

Highsmith kept exhaustive diaries in addition to her published work, and both are voiced pleasantly in the film by Gwendoline Christie. Her published writing takes on an obvious queerness when heard in concert with the diaries, though “The Price of Salt” (later renamed “Carol”) was her...

Click here to read the full article.

Patricia Highsmith’s second novel, The Price of Salt, broke with convention by depicting a lesbian relationship that defied the stereotypes of the time, not least by ending with the promise of fulfilment, not moral condemnation, misery or death. Published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, it was reissued in 1990 with the now more widely recognized title Carol; only then did Highsmith acknowledge authorship. While it was the writer’s sole completed “girls’ book,” as she referred to her lesbian novels, the semi-autobiographical work occupies a crucial position amply justified in Eva Vitija’s intimate documentary, Loving Highsmith.

Acquired for North America by Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber, the Swiss-German production is scheduled for a September theatrical release. It focuses extensively on Highsmith’s sexuality and relationships with women, shedding light on her double life and eventual choice of solitude while subtly suggesting...

Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have acquired North American rights to Eva Vitija’s documentary Loving Highsmith, which takes as its focus Carol and The Talented Mr. Ripley author Patricia Highsmith. Zeitgeist will release the film theatrically this September.

Loving Highsmith is a unique look at the life of the celebrated American author, focusing on Highsmith’s quest for love and her troubled identity through her personal diaries and the intimate reflections of her lovers, friends and family. The film sheds new light on her life and writings, the best known of which were adapted for the big screen: Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Carol, a partially autobiographical novel and the first lesbian story with a happy ending in 1950s America. Highsmith herself was forced to lead a double life and had to hide her vibrant love affairs from her family and the public, reflecting...

Eva Vitija’s documentary explores the life of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith.

Austrian documentary specialist Autlook has sold Eva Vitija’s Loving Highsmith, about crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, to multiple territories.

Deals confirmed are to FilmIn (Spain), Edge Entertainment, Madman and Iwonder (Italy).

Filmcoopi is handling the Swiss release, Salzgeber will release in Germany and Polyfilm in Austria, North American rights are under negotiation.

The feature documentary tells Highsmith’s life story using material from family, friends and her recently published private diaries. These testimonies paint a picture of a troubled love life and a lifelong search for identity.

As...

A miner in Germany’s last coal mine undergoing a gender change, a prima ballerina fighting to keep her status after becoming a mother, a repentant hooligan turned kickboxing champion, a father who fled the former Uruguayan dictatorship, rejected refugees awaiting deportation, and stuntwomen taking hit after hit for the film industry: to say that the 5th Swiss Films Previews at doc film fest Visions du Réel introduced us to strong characters is an understatement.

Six promising films soon to be launched on the festival circuit and the international market were selected for the event and pitched at VdR-Industry. Five of them were directed (co-directed for “Red”) by women. Four of them are first features. By the quality of the excerpts and the originality of the themes that fit the times, all of them demand to be seen as finished film.

Here’s an overview of what’s coming up...

Greenwich Entertainment has taken North American rights to dark comedy-drama “Concerned Citizen,” which had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlinale. Salzgeber has taken the rights for Germany and Austria. Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal is selling the film.

Idan Haguel’s film, a satirical parable on the insidious ways in which privilege can unleash the prejudice within, centers on Ben, who thinks of himself as a liberal and enlightened gay man, living in the perfect apartment with his boyfriend Raz. All that’s missing to complete the picture is a baby, which the couple are trying to make a reality.

Meanwhile, Ben decides to improve his up-and-coming neighborhood in gritty south Tel Aviv by planting a new tree on his street. But his good deed soon triggers a sequence of events that leads to the brutal police arrest of an Eritrean immigrant. The guilt trip that ensues...