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Exclusive: Goodfellas has unveiled one of its biggest European Film Market slates ever featuring upcoming films by Cristian Mungiu, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Saeed Roustaee, Claire Denis, Mario Martone and Raoul Peck.

The company is also handling a trio of Berlin Film Festival titles: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Golden Bear contender The Ice Tower with Marion Cotillard; Burhan Qurbani’s No Beast. So Fierce. in Berlinale Special; and a fresh acquisition, Bálint Dániel Sós’ Growing Down.

The latter film, which premieres in the new competitive Perspectives section aimed at first films, revolves around a widowed father of two who is tested by fate when he becomes the only witness of a serious accident involving his stepdaughter caused by his youngest son.

Goodfellas will begin pre-sales on Romanian director Mungiu’s first English-language picture Fjord, with Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) and Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World...

Amazon Studios’ feature film “Crime 101” is rounding out its cast.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, Tate Donovan, Babak Tafti, Payman Maadi, Deborah Hedwall, Devon Bostick, Paul Adelstein, Drew Powell and Matthew Del Negro have boarded the upcoming crime thriller, which will be released in theaters.

They join previously announced cast members Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins and Halle Berry. Bart Layton wrote the script, which is based on a novella by Don Winslow, and will direct.

Per the logline, Winslow’s original story follows a series of high level jewelry thefts up and down the Pacific Coast Highway that have gone unsolved for years, mostly because the perpetrator has lived by a strict code he calls ‘Crime 101.’ Police attribute the thefts to the Colombian cartels, but Detective Lou Lubesnick’s gut says it’s the work of just one man. Now the lone-wolf jewel...

If you have been a fan of David E. Kelley‘s legal dramas, then there is no chance you missed his latest Apple TV+ series, Presumed Innocent, starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. Based on the 1987 novel of the same name by author Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent follows the story of a Chicago city prosecutor whose life turns upside down when he is accused of murdering a colleague he has been having an affair with. Presumed Innocent also stars Ruth Negga, Bill Camp, O-t Fagbenle, Chase Infiniti, Nana Mensah, Renate Reinsve, and Peter Sarsgaard. So, if you loved the courtroom and family drama in Presumed Innocent, here are some similar shows for you to watch next.

Anatomy of a Scandal (Netflix) Credit – Netflix

Anatomy of a Scandal is a political and legal thriller drama miniseries created by David E. Kelley and Melissa James Gibson. Based on the 2018 novel of...

Opponent

Iranian-born writer/director Milad Alami’s sophomore feature, Opponent, centres on Iman (Payman Maadi), an Iranian refugee who has arrived in Northern Sweden with his family and hopes to be granted asylum. As a former Olympic wrestler, it’s suggested that he competes for Sweden to support his asylum request. The decision not only brings him into conflict with his family, but creates internal and external conflicts.

In conversation with Eye For Film, Alami discussed cinema’s lack of an inner life, how he used the stories of immigrants to grow the story, and his desire to create an elusive protagonist.

Paul Risker: Do you consider storytellers to be naturally curious about human nature and what makes people tick?

Opponent

Milad Alami: Definitely! With filmmaking you have to be a sponge and the fun part is trying to understand those difficult things. I think it was [Andrei] Tarkovsky who said if you want to.

Payman Maadi brings a fierce intelligence to his portrayal of a refugee seeking a secure new home for his family in Sweden

Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher from 2015 and Sean Durkin’s recent The Iron Claw show the sport of wrestling as deeply dysfunctional; wrestling fans might wonder if their favourite pastime is ever going to be depicted in the movies as vital and dramatic, like football, or even tragically noble and masculine, like boxing. Well … not in this film.

Motståndaran, or Opponent, is a tense, complex drama from Iranian-born and Denmark-based director Milad Alami, drawing on some of his own experiences as a refugee in northern Sweden. Payman Maadi (from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation) plays Imam, a grizzled Iranian wrestling champ seeking asylum in Sweden with his pregnant wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) and their two young daughters. He and his family left behind a good, prosperous life in Tehran,...

There’s a lone wolf out there in the mountains, somewhere near the Finnish border. In an early scene we see him walking through the snow, faint brown stains in the fur around his mouth evidence of a recent kill. From the hotel car park where the asylum seekers gather, we can hear him howl. Somebody will hunt him down and kill him soon, Iman (Payman Maadi) is told.

In the interviews the state interrogators ask “Why don’t you want to go back to your own country?” and, of course, most asylum seekers want that very much. Iman and his wife, Maryam (Marall Nasiri), are exhausted by being moved around, asked now to shift their belongings into yet another room to make way for a fresh wave of displaced people. They have two daughters and a new baby on the way. Iman is trying to make a bit of money by delivering.

The Swedish Film Institute on Wednesday announced the nominations for the Guldbagge (Golden Bug) awards, Sweden’s top film prize, with politics taking center stage among the feature contenders.

Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land, a neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers who fled Sweden for refuge in Malta, lead the pack with 9 Guldbagge nominations. But it was snubbed in the best film category. Per Fly’s cold war thriller Hammarskjöld, starring Mikael Persbrandt as the titular Swedish diplomat, and former Un Secretary-General, who died in a mysterious plane crash, received seven nominations, including best film, tying with Opponent, Milad Alami’s drama about a family who flee Iran for Northern Sweden.

Alongside Hammarskjöld and Opponent, best film nominees include Mika Gustafson’s social drama Paris Is Burning, the relationship drama 100 Seasons from director Giovanni Bucchieri, and The Gullspång Miracle, a documentary from director Maria Fredriksson about...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Payman Maadi as time-travel inventor Jabir in the sci-fi drama Aporia. Courtesy of WellGoUSA

Time-travel tales always raise logical questions about inconsistencies and effects. One of the tropes is that everything will go kablooey if your time-traveling self meets the prior one. Another is the warning to minimize interactions with those of yore to avoid collateral influences that will change their future and your present, as in the “Butterfly Effect.” Generally, films using this premise minimize our mental gymnastics by filling the screen with so much action that we don’t have time to think about the science what-ifs. The Terminator franchise exemplifies the distraction factor. The title’s definition is of internal contradictions or a logical impasse.

Aporia tries a different approach to avoid the first problem in this drama. A guy named Jabir (Payman Maadi) builds a time machine that’s not strong enough to send a person...

Since losing her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk-driving incident, Sophie (Judy Greer) has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Faithe Herman). When her husband’s best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), a former physicist, reveals that he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice—and unforeseeable consequences.

Aporia is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital on September 12.

Enter for your chance to win a Blu-ray of Aporia, courtesy of Well Go USA. Five (5) winners will be selected at random.

Here’s how to enter:

Step 1: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Step 2: Tweet this message:

I want to win a Blu-ray of #Aporia (@wellgousa) from @Slant_Magazine. https://www.slantmagazine.com/giveaways/aporia-blu-ray-giveaway/ #SlantGiveaway

Note: One entry per person/email address/Twitter handle.

Aporia is a time travel film that focuses on the drama and emotions of its characters, rather than the sci-fi elements. Judy Greer delivers an excellent dramatic performance in Aporia, stepping out of her comedic comfort zone. The film understands its limitations and delivers a sensible and well-executed story, without relying on flashy visuals or gimmicks.

Editor's note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.

Writer-director Jared Moshe’s third feature is his first that is not a Western. For Aporia, he turns to the world of time travel and family tragedy. The film boasts some of Judy Greer’s best dramatic work to date and familiar faces like Edi Gathegi help to solidify the film's supporting cast. There are many time travel films with similar plots,...

Stars: Judy Greer, Edi Gathegi, Payman Maadi, Faithe Herman, Whitney Morgan Cox, Veda Cienfuegos | Written and Directed by Jared Moshé

Aporia is the second film I have watched in the last few weeks which has kind of tackled time travel but not been what most people would call a time travel movie. And that’s no bad thing. The first movie was the beautiful anime The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes. It was an excellent and interesting new take on time travel, and you can read my review for Nerdly here.

Aporia might feel a little bit more familiar – it has a slightly different take on The Butterfly Effect but it might just be as beautiful as the animated movie I have just mentioned.

The always reliable Judy Greer plays Sophie. A mother who since losing her husband (and father of their child) has struggled to be a good parent,...

Judy Greer’s iconic career has spanned from “13 Going on 30” to the revamped “Halloween” franchise, proving the actress can delicately balance comedy, horror, and even a certain flavor of signature detachment onscreen. Yet, somehow, the time travel logic of 2004’s comedy “13 Going on 30” makes more sense than the kind at hand in “Aporia,” the latest Greer vehicle that attempts to marry scraps from Greer’s recent haunting performance as a grieving mother in recent festival premiere “Eric Larue” and repurposes her masterful tears into a bland sci-fi drama that asks too many unanswered questions about morality, mortality, and the price of happiness.

Greer stars in the film as Sophie, a widowed single mother who lost her scientist husband Malcolm (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk driving accident. She is left to care for their 11-year-old daughter Riley (“This Is Us” alum Faithe Herman), with the pre-teen acting...

Aporia offers a refreshing twist on the time travel formula, centered on a grieving widow faced with the choice of bringing her husband back. The movie showcases powerful performances from the cast, including Judy Greer in her best role yet, bringing a grounded approach to the story. The director aimed to establish simple rules for the time travel concept, avoiding excessive complications and allowing the story to flow naturally.

The time travel formula gets a refreshingly new and powerful twist with Aporia. The drama centers on grieving widow Sophie, whose husband's best friend reveals a time machine that can kill someone in the past. Thus she is faced with the impossible choice of whether to bring her husband back and the consequences to come from the choice.

Judy Greer leads the cast of Aporia alongside The Night Of star Payman Maadi, For All Mankind's Edi Gathegi, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods' Faithe Herman.

Aporia Photo: courtesy of WellGoUSA

A smart independent science fiction film with a fresh approach to meddling with time, Jared Moshé’s Aporia didn’t have the glamour of some of this year’s other Fantasia films, but stood out nonetheless because of its combination of a clever plot and sensitive, finely tuned performances. It focuses on a bereaved mother, Sophie (played by Judy Greer), who gets a new lease on life when her old friend Jabir (Payman Maadi) reveals a machine which he and her deceased husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) were working on prior to the fatal car crash. With it, she could change what happened to him – at the cost of another man’s life. Though she struggles at first, it’s not a difficult decision – but what happens afterwards opens up a much more complex narrative about grief and the importance of learning to live with vulnerability.

Normally at the top of these Don’t-Miss Indies round-ups, we like to make a little joke that’s somewhat topical. But if you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on in Hollywood for the past couple of months, you’ll know that the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are no laughing matter (unless we’re talking about the writers’ signs.) In fact, right at press time not one but two of this months featured titles have been pushed, due to strike-related issues.

And while our blog deadlines being imperiled by the inhuman machinery of Late Capitalism is certainly a headache, our real concern is the wellbeing of our filmmaking community during this lean, labor-conscious strike period. Please consider donating to artist support funds like this or this.

Shortcomings

When You Can Watch: August 4

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Randall Park

Cast: Justin H. Min,...

It’s become increasingly common to lend genre films some semblance of emotional depth by having their protagonists burdened from the start with profound grief or loss. That is especially the case with “Aporia,” producer Jared Moshe’s third feature as writer-director. Its variation on a particular kind of fantasy premise (often involving time travel) underlines the familiar wisdom of “Be careful what you wish for,” as the ability to alter tragic past events only ends up complicating the present for our main characters.

Starring Judy Greer as a recent widow in a lower-middle-class Los Angeles milieu, this is more an effective drama with a novel hook than any typically violence- or spectacle-driven dive into the fantastic— the lo-fi sci-fi on tap here requires nary a special effect. Those expecting more action or thrills may be underwhelmed. But “Aporia” (the title of which is a term for a state of...

Big concept science fiction too often neglects the human side, which is a problem, because by and large it’s humans who determine how science is used. This smart independent feature by Jared Moshé, which screened as part of Fantasia 2023, is all about human experience and the deep needs which drive our engagement with technology, its development and its destructive potential.

At the heart of it is Sophie (Judy Greer), who is at rock bottom when we first encounter her. Six months ago she lost her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi). Her devastated daughter Riley (Faithe Herman) wants nothing to do with her. She’s struggling to cope at work and everyone is running out of sympathy – everyone, that is, except for her friend Jabir (Payman Maadi). He has been there throughout to bail her out of trouble. In the process they have built up the kind of trust which makes.

What would your life be like if you didn’t go to work the day an accident would otherwise change everything? How much of your future might shift if you decide to simply alter your schedules to better accommodate picking up your child from school? One question seems bigger than the other, yet the second may actually impact what occurs next more. Because you can’t know for certain. And there aren’t any do-overs. Perhaps it’s better that way, to accept and move on rather than risk an even worse fate. Or is it?

That’s what writer-director Jared Moshé seeks to contemplate with his grounded science fiction drama Aporia. In it exists a woman named Sophie (Judy Greer) who has recently watched her life fall apart. Her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) was the victim of a drunk-driving collision eight months prior, and the void left has all but shattered their family.

Forget Westerns: “The Ballad of Lefty Brown” director Jared Moshé is going on a whole different journey.

In “Aporia,” which world premieres at Fantasia, Sophie (Judy Greer) is trying to keep things together after her Mal husband is killed in a drunk-driving accident. Struggling to comfort teenage daughter, she makes a shocking discovery: his friend, a former physicist, has managed to build a mysterious machine.

Edi Gathegi, Faithe Herman and Payman Maadi also star.

“I like to call it a time-traveling movie that never goes back in time,” Moshé tells Variety.

“I had this idea: What if there was a gun you could shoot into the past? I didn’t want to, say, kill baby Hitler and change the entire world, but show a character who wants to regain control of her life.”

“I started writing this when I became a father. I was getting ‘The Ballad’ off the ground,...

"We have this power, why shouldn't we use it?" "It's too risky." Well Go USA has revealed an official trailer for Aporia, an indie sci-fi thriller from filmmaker Jared Moshe. It's premiering soon at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, which is why this trailer is dropping now. Opening in August to watch just after. Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage her grief, her job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice. He offers her a chance to restore her previous life, but of course, this kind of attempt to change history always comes with other dangerous consequences. Judy Greer stars with Payman Maadi, plus Edi Gathegi, Faithe Herman, Whitney Morgan Cox, and Rachel Paulson. It all seems familiar, rehashing the same "you can't change the past" story in so many other time machine movies.

Grief is a complicated emotion. People say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, but what if you can go back and change the past? In today’s Aporia trailer, Judy Greer plays a mother devastated by loss who alters time and space to change the course of history. However, manipulating the laws of time is dangerous, and the results could be worse than the event you hoped to change.

In the Aporia trailer, Greer’s Sophie learns about a secret time machine built by her husband’s best friend, played by Payman Maadi. Sophie thinks she can bring her husband back after he dies in a tragic drunk-driving accident, but the consequences of her actions could lead to losing her teenage daughter or worse.

Jared Moshe directs from his own script, with Greer, Edi Gathegi, Payman Maadi, and Faithe Herman starring as the main cast.

In Moshe’s Aporia trailer,...

The chance to undo a tragedy leads to time-bending sci-fi thrills in Aporia, and a new trailer unveiled today gives a glimpse of the emotional stakes and haunting morality choices made.

Aporia stars Judy Greer as a widow grappling with impossible choices when presented with a time machine.

The dramatic sci-fi thriller will make its world premiere at Fantasia Film Festival on July 27 ahead of the film’s August 11 US theatrical release from Well Go USA.

Aporia follows “Sophie (Greer), who since losing her husband Mal (Gathegi) in a drunk-driving accident, has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Herman). When her husband’s best friend (Maadi), a former physicist, reveals he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice — and unforeseeable consequences, posing the question ‘If you...

Would you change the past? It’s a difficult question that one woman faces in “Aporia.” The film sees a widow confront a new form of technology, soon learning that every revelation comes with a high price. “Aporia” offers an inspection of humanity’s complex relationship with emotions while also addressing an infatuation with innovation. The project hails from writer and director Jared Moshé — he last did double duty on 2017’s Western drama “The Ballad of Lefty Brown.”

Read More: Summer 2023 Movie Preview: 52 Must-See Films To Watch

Judy Greer stars as the widow given an uneasy choice; the role expands past her comedic work with “Reboot” and “Archer.” It’s also far from her first foray into genre work — appearing in 2018’s “Halloween” as well as its sequel “Halloween Kills.” She’s joined by a host of talents from various films and series, including “The Harder They Fall” star Edi Gathegi,...

‘Opponent’ debuted in Panorama at Berlinale.

MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).

The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.

The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.

A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...

The winners of the 2023 Inside Out 2Slgbtq+ Film Festival Awards were announced this weekend in Toronto where $32,000 in prizes were handed out to various 2Slgbtq+ filmmakers. Top honours went to Juan Sebastián Torales’ Almamula (Best First Feature), Lulu Wei’s Supporting Our Selves (Best Canadian Feature), Beth Warrian’s Adore (Best Canadian Short), and Karimah Zakia Issa with Scaring Women At Night (Emerging Canadian Artist).

The Audience Award winners are Ally Pankiw’s I Used To Be Funny for Best Narrative Feature, Loveleen Kaur’s Leilani’s Fortune for Best Documentary Feature, and Zeppelin Zeerip’s Apayauq for Best Short Film.

The festival is also proud to announce director Judith Schuyler’s upcoming project There Is Light won the annual “Pitch, Please!” contest. The “Pitch, Please!” competition took place in person on June 3, 2023, with competitors from across the globe presenting a short, two-minute pitch to a jury and audience. Prizes...

Exclusive: Edi Gathegi (For All Mankind) has been tapped for a prominent role opposite Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen and Connie Britton in Netflix’s limited series Zero Day, the six-episode conspiracy thriller from creators Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim and Michael S. Schmidt.

Gathegi will play Carl, an intense bureaucrat and loyalist of De Niro’s former U.S President George Mullen.

Falling under a deal between Netflix and Newman’s Grand Electric Productions, Zero Day asks the question, how do we find truth in a world in crisis, one seemingly being torn apart by forces outside our control? And in an era rife with conspiracy theory and subterfuge, how much of those forces are products of our own doing, perhaps even of our own imagining?

At the center of the narrative is De Niro’s Mullen, a popular but complicated figure who is yanked back...

The 27th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is set to run from from July 20th through August 9th at the Concordia Hall Cinema in Montreal, with additional screens at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée – and today the festival announced the first wave of titles that will be screening there this year! The festival runners promise this edition of the show will deliver “a whiplashing program of screenings, workshops, and launch events”, with a spotlight on South Korean cinema, a Canadian trailblazer Award being presented to Larry Kent, and World Premiere screenings of new films from the likes of Larry Fessenden, Xavier Gens, Jenn Wexler, The Adams Family, and Victor Ginzburg. They’ll also be hosting the International Premieres of Tsutomu Hanabusa’s blockbusters Tokyo Revengers 2 – Part 1 & 2.

2023 marks 60 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and the Republic of Korea, so Fantasia is teaming up with the Korean...

Exclusive: Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Aporia, a previously unannounced sci-fi thriller from Armian Pictures starring Judy Greer (Halloween Kills), Edi Gathegi (The Harder They Fall), Payman Maadi (A Separation) and Faithe Herman (Shazam!). The film, written and directed by Jared Moshé (The Ballad of Lefty Brown), is slated for release in theaters in August. (Check out the first still from it above.)

Aporia follows Sophie (Greer), who since losing her husband Mal (Gathegi) in a drunk-driving accident, has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Herman). When her husband’s best friend (Maadi), a former physicist, reveals he and Mal had been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice — and unforeseeable consequences.

The film is produced by Neda Armian (Rachel Getting Married) and...

EFM project ‘Maria Montessori’ has also sold robustly.

Paris-based Indie Sales has sold Belgian filmmaker Zeno Graton’s Berlinale Generation film The Lost Boys to Dark Star Pictures in the US, Pecadillo Pictures in the UK/Ireland and to the Filmin platform in Spain.

The film stars Khalil Gharbia alongside Julien de Saint Jean in a story of two young men attempting to keep their burgeoning relationship under wraps at a tough juvenile detention centre. The Lost Boys is produced by France’s Silex Films and Belgium’s Tarantula and will be released in Belgium by O’Brother and in...

Saeed Roustayi’s tense policier about a cop hunting a drug kingpin deftly mixes brutality and gallows farce

This increasingly nerve-jangling narco policier from Life and a Day writer-director Saeed Roustayi, who has since made the feted 2022 Palme d’Or contender Leila’s Brothers, was hailed as Iran’s highest-grossing non-comedic domestic film. Not that Law of Tehran (Aka Just 6.5), which won the audience award at Iran’s Fajr film festival back in 2019, is without a pointedly nihilistic streak of jet-black humour. For proof, check out the horrifyingly absurdist opening salvo: a drug bust that turns into a breakneck, on-foot chase sequence, climaxing in a lethal disappearing act that combines the vérité grit of The French Connection with the physical slapstick of Buster Keaton. Really. It’s a deliberately bewildering cocktail of brutal tragedy and gallows farce that runs throughout this very arresting feature.

Playing out amid the human...

It’s striking how often the word “removal” comes up in various governments’ official policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers — a pointedly chosen term that conjures images of inanimate refuse or clutter awaiting collection, rather than human lives in desperate limbo. Fail to make your case to officials and you’ll be “removed,” a near-literally dehumanizing threat that hangs over Milad Alami’s tense, bristling social thriller “Opponent” like a pounding migraine. Following an Iranian wrestler and father whose urgent reasons for fleeing his homeland aren’t entirely what he claims them to be, this is a tightly wound affair that unravels an obscured past and an uncertain future neatly in tandem. Alami maintains suspense at both ends of his narrative without making a blank cypher of his protagonist, played with seething specificity by an electrifying Payman Maadi.

That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...

Milad Alami’s Opponent begins with an Audre Lorde quote: “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” The Black lesbian poet wrote eloquently about the violence of silence, arguing that breaking through silence and speaking out is a radical act, as essential to self-knowledge as it is to communication. The protagonist of this tightly knotted drama — played in a knockout performance by Payman Maadi, churning with rage, desire and pained vulnerability — is imprisoned by his silence, literally wrestling with himself, to use the metaphor that gives the film its bristling vitality.

Maadi plays Iman, who fled Tehran with his family and is seeking asylum in the far north of Sweden. The reasons for that abrupt flight are revealed only later, but there are clues in a prologue that starts effectively with a blank screen and the sounds of body slams and grunts of wrestlers training hard in a gym.

Paris-based sales company Indie Sales has boarded Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Milad Alami ’s sophomore feature “Opponent” ahead of the film’s premiere at the Berlinale. The banner has unveiled the trailer (below) for the movie which will bow in the Panorama section.

“Opponent” is headlined by popular Iranian actor Payman Maadi, who previously starred in Asghar Farhadi’s films such as “A Separation” and “About Elly.” The movie shot in English and Farsi.

The film follows Iman and his family who have been forced to flee Iran in the aftermath of a devastating rumor. As refugees, they end up in a run-down hotel in Northern Sweden. Despite feeling powerless, Iman tries to maintain his role as the family patriarch. To increase their chances of asylum, he breaks a promise to his wife and joins the local wrestling club. As the rumours start to resurface, Iman’s fear and desperation begin to take a hold.

Sepideh Farsi’s “La Sirène” (“The Siren”) is opening the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand.

The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.

Panorama Selections

“After”

by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska

France

World premiere | Debut film

“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”

by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe

Nigeria

World premiere | Debut film

“And, Towards Happy Alleys”

by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani

India

World premiere | Debut film | Documentary

“La Bête dans la...

Filmmaker Michael Bay is facing charges in Italy related to the killing of a pigeon on the 2018 set of the Netflix blockbuster “6 Underground,” TheWrap has exclusively learned.

Bay, who has made several attempts to clear the case with Italian authorities — to no avail — categorically denied the allegations Thursday.

“I am a well-known animal lover and major animal activist,” Bay said in a statement to TheWrap. “No animal involved in the production was injured or harmed. Or on any other production I’ve worked on

in the past 30 years.”

Also Read:

Ryan Reynolds and Michael Bay Make Everything ‘So F—ing Dangerous’ in ‘6 Underground’ Trailer (Video)

Italian authorities say a homing pigeon was killed during the “6 Underground” production in Rome.

Pigeons are a protected species in Italy. Italy has a national law that makes it illegal to harm, kill or capture any wild bird, including pigeons. Pigeons are also protected in the E.

The first major awards ceremony of the year took place tonight, with The Gotham Film & Media Institute hosting the 32nd Annual Gotham Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Leading the pack of winners was Everything Everywhere All at Once, which picked up Best Feature, while its star Ke Huy Quan picked up a trophy, alongside Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Gracija Filipovic (Murina), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Todd Field (Tár), All That Breathes, and Happening.

Check out the film winners below, along with a stream of the ceremony.

For Best Feature, presented by Jennifer Lawrence

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Produced by Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Mike Larocca, Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang

Released by A24

The Best Feature jury included Colman Domingo, Mary Harron, Bill Holderman, Emily Mortimer, and Michael H. Weber.

For Best Documentary Feature, presented by Soledad O’Brien...

The Gotham Awards, honoring the best in American independent films, held their 32nd annual event on Monday night, November 28, launching the fall and winter awards season. So who were the big winners? Scroll down for the complete list of film and television champs in all categories, updating live throughout the night.

SEE2023 Oscars: Best Picture Predictions [Updated: November 28]

Nominees were decided by panels of film and television critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. The winners were then selected by juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors, and others directly involved in filmmaking. Those small juries change from year to year and from category to category, so these awards can produce surprising results.

Telling the story of a composer and conductor who comes under fire, “Tar” led the nominations with five bids including Best Feature, as well as for writer-director Todd Field‘s screenplay and for the performances by lead actress Cate Blanchett...

The news of the arrest of Jafar Panahi, Mostafa Al-Ahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof last week came to cement the oppressive tactics of the current Iranian regime, with the industry now being in more fear than ever for more incarcerations. At the same time, and despite these issues and the whole censorship that dominates all aspects of life, the Iranian movie industry remains rather vibrant, still one of the biggest in the world, with hundreds of movies produced every year. In a homage to both the arrested and the industry, we present 25 Iranian movies, released post-2010, in alphabetical order.

1. 180° Rule (2020) by Farnoosh Samadi

Based on real events, Samadi’s first feature film after 3 increasingly successful short ones, is not an easy work. It’s highly dramatic and is a real punch in the guts; we assist, unable to intervene, to a self-destructive behaviour that appears fool to say the least. However,...

The darling of Iranian cinema. Being not only the country’s highest earner at the box office but also the first-ever to win a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, and the Golden Bear at the 61st Berlinale. The colossal success of this drama made Asghar Farhadi a household name both domestically and overseas, granting him a seat in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. ‘A Separation’ is another fine example of Farhadi’s expertise in crafting stories that examine family conflict and turmoil.

on Amazon

Legal documents fill out the opening shot, bringing with it an air of apathy, foreshadowing the combustible relationship between Nader (Payman Maadi) and his wife Simin (Leila Hatami). The camera then pans to a Pov of a magistrate in the crossfire of a verbal spat between the couple, each person one-upping the other in a tense he-says-she-says over their impending divorce.

One of the two Iranian entries at this year’s Cannes competition, this is Saeed Roustayi‘s first time. Starring Taraneh Alidoosti, Saeed Poursamimi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Payman Maadi — Leila’s Brothers is the filmmaker first trip to Cannes. Previously he directed Life and a Day (2016) and Just 6.5 (2019).

With a 2h45 runtime, this centers around Leila — the young matriarch having to juggle many agendas – excluding her own. Caring for her parents and four brothers — this is at once a parable about debt, being indebted and a patriarchal overreach.

Currently with fifteen of our twenty critics having graded the film, despite some support Leila’s Brothers enters the grid at a paltry 2.7 — which places this almost at the bottom.…...

Iran’s Saeed Roustayi puts the spotlight on a woman driven to distraction by the indolent, incompetent patriarchy

Iranian film-maker Saeed Roustayi delivers a big, absorbing, character-driven family drama in the Italian-American style with fierce performances, a huge set-piece wedding scene and touches of Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers and Coppola’s The Godfather. There’s even some Arthur Miller amid the angry, painful recrimination.

We get a blistering turn from Taraneh Alidoosti – known for her work on movies by Asghar Farhadi – playing the Leila of the title: a woman driven to distraction by the indolent, incompetent patriarchy. Leila lives with her elderly parents; she is plagued with periodic back pain brought on by stress and overwork and is basically the only regular wage-earner, single-handedly supporting four adult brothers.

Overweight Parviz (Farhad Aslani) works as a toilet cleaner in the mall, but does not make enough to feed his family,...

They all hate one another, Leila (the magnificent Taraneh Alidoosti) tells her brother Alireza (Navid Mohammad Zadeh) when he returns to the family home. It is a rare visit; he works in an industrial plant somewhere on the other side of Iran. He isn’t going to tell his family that he has been laid off with the promise of pay that has never materialized; in the Tehran family that crowds Saeed Roustaee’s long and absorbing clan drama Leila’s Brothers, he is supposed to be the properly functioning son.

What can you say about the other three brothers in this Cannes competition film? There is Manouchehr (Payman Maadi) who, as they all like to say, thinks with his pectorals. Parvis (Farhad Aslani) is very fat and a heavy drinker; they all expect him to die any day, though he does seem to keep fathering children successfully. Farhad (Mohammad Ali Mohammadi...

In “Leila’s Brothers,” a once proud, now pathetic Persian family teeters on the brink of ruin, held together by the assertive sister who’s tired of relying on men to decide her fortune. Taking matters into her own hands may be empowering to watch — there’s no question that “The Salesman” alum Taraneh Alidoosti, who plays Leila, towers over this male-dominated ensemble — but it’s also a recipe for potential tragedy in Iranian writer-director Saeed Roustaee’s novelistic, nearly-three-hour saga, his first to be selected for Cannes.

Some audiences may recognize Roustaee from another turbulent family portrait, “Life and a Day” (2016), whereas it was his terrific cop thriller “Just 6.5” (2019) — the closest thing Iran has produced to “The French Connection,” still unreleased in the U.S. — that put the helmer on my radar. Born in 1989, Roustaee represents a new generation of Iranian auteurs, and one who’s sly enough to...

Sundance 2022 has officially crowned its winners. On Friday, the Sundance Film Festival’s awards were announced on Twitter via @sundancefest. Juries and audience members alike weighed in to select winners across a variety of categories, out of 84 feature films and 59 short films.

The grand jury prizes went to Nikyatu Jusu‘s feature directorial debut “Nanny,” for the coveted U.S. Dramatic title, along with Christine Choy’s “The Exiles” for U.S. Documentary, Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” for World Cinema Documentary, and Alejando Loayza Grisi’s “Utama” for World Cinema Dramatic.

The Audience Awards were earned by U.S. documentary “Navalny” and Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” for U.S. Dramatic. “Navalny” also won the Festival Favorite Award.

Jusu is the second Black woman ever to win the Grand Jury Prize U.S. Dramatic, following Chinonye Chukwu in 2019 for “Clemency.”

“This year’s entire program has...

“Nanny” was the big winner at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, picking up the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition in a virtual awards ceremony Friday.

Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” was also a winner, nabbing the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category, while “Navalny,” a late addition to the festival, won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award. The Sundance jury also recognized “The Exiles” in the documentary category and “Utama” in the World Cinematic category.

This year’s Best of the Fest announcement caps off the second year in a row in which the festival was forced to go virtual amid the pandemic.

Although the awards were announced virtually, the emotion was palpable when juror Chelsea Bernard announced that “Nanny” director and screenwriter Nikyatu Jusu had won for her harrowing story of an undocumented nanny working for a privileged couple in New York...

The Sundance Institute announced the jury members of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, taking place in hybrid format from Jan. 20 to 30.

Comprising six juries awarding prizes for artistic and cinematic achievement, the jurors include Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”), Andrew Haigh (“Looking”), Payman Maadi (“A Separation”) and more.

Chelsea Barnard, a producer on “C’mon C’mon” and “Booksmart,” serves alongside Heller and Maadi on the jury for U.S. dramatic competition. U.S. documentary competition jurors include Garrett Bradley (“Time”), Peter Nicks (“The Force”) and veteran documentary cinematographer Joan Churchill.

Haigh joins Mohamed Hefzy (“The Walls of the Moon”) and film curator La Frances Hui on the world cinema dramatic competition jury, while Cannes artistic adviser Emilie Bujès, former U.S. ambassador Patrick Gaspard and Dawn Porter (“The Way I See It”) will judge the world cinema documentary competition.

Joey Soloway, the creator, writer, director and executive producer of “Transparent,...

Now that Sundance has answered the question looming over the 2022 festival by going all-virtual for the second year in a row, it’s full-steam ahead. And today the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the members of its six juries, including Marielle Heller (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”), Andrew Haigh (“Weekend”), Joey Soloway (“Transparent”), and Payman Maadi (“A Separation”). The 16 jurors will bestow awards upon the festival’s winners January 28, with award-winning movies available for extended online viewing during the festival’s closing weekend.

“These exceptional individuals will come together to offer a collaborative lens on our program,” said Sundance’s Director of Programming Kim Yutani in an official statement. “Their diverse personal perspectives can elevate work above the sum of its parts.” As previously announced, the jury for Alfred P. Sloan jury deliberated in advance of the festival and awarded the prize to “After Yang,” directed by Kogonada.

And audiences will...