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At the cusp of 1900, Soudain lies buried beneath a hush of glacial winds and drifting flakes. Here, in 1899’s remote Alpine realm, time wavers between centuries as candlelight struggles against endless night. Into this suspended moment arrives Aimée Lazare, a young republican schoolteacher bearing Descartes and a satchel of scientific ideals. Her footsteps crack the pristine white, each echo a herald of friction—hygiene rituals collide with the villagers’ crust-of-dirt superstition, and her insistence on French tongues unsettles an Occitan-speaking world.

Hémon’s drama creeps like frost between joints: a slow-burn architecture of folk horror and period intimacy. Farm-stead interiors pulse with the warmth of firelight, yet shadows gather quickly around Aimée’s missionary zeal. When she draws pupils to the washstand, the hush of flowing water becomes a declaration of progress—and a provocation. Lamplights, murmurs and a distant avalanche form the film’s pulse, underscoring cultural jousts over language,...

Vicious wind howling, a bit of abstract neo-folk music, utter darkness broken only by some distant torchlights. That is what we hear and see at the very beginning of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry The Girl in the Snow. It is a feature debut by Louise Hémon, so far best known for her short and mid-length documentaries. It should not come as too much of a surprise to learn that the story is rooted in actual events, stemming from the filmmaker’s own family history.

The strong symbolism of the opening shot probably stands for the way the protagonist of the film, the young, idealistic, even a bit zealous teacher Aimée Lazare (Galatea Bellugi) sees herself coming to the environment. We are about to see that environment shortly, in brighter but still dim lighting, as she settles into her modest accommodation and starts reading Descartes in the candlelight. It is wintertime.

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This November, Hulu is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the surreal action comedy-drama series Interior Chinatown to the Christmas comedy-drama film Nutcrackers. However, for this article, we only included the films that are coming to Hulu this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 7 best films that are coming to Hulu in November 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Aliens (November 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94% Credit – 20th Century Fox

Aliens is a sci-fi action thriller drama film written and directed by James Cameron. The 1986 film is set in a dystopian future and it follows Ellen Ripley who is sent back to the planet Lv-426 to establish communication with a terraforming colony but when she gets there she is hunted by an Alien Queen who is out for her life. Aliens stars Sigourney Weaver,...

Chicago – The great food movies of cinema history … think “Babette’s Feast” or “Big Night” … use food prep cinematically as a palette for the senses. A French/Belgium film from last year continues that tradition. “The Taste of Things,” featuring Oscar winner Juliette Binoche and written/directed by Ahn Hung Tran, is set in late 19th Century France within a romance between a chef and his muse.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Adapted from a popular French novel featuring Chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoit Magimel), and set in 1889, the story involves the developing love affair between Bouffant and his vital taster and sous chef Eugenie (Juliette Binoche). As Bouffant’s reputation grows, to a point where ambassadors and kings desire his meals, Eugenie continues to be his muse. Right at the height of their love and food creative relationship, Eugenie’s health becomes an obstacle.

Ahn Hung Tran and Benoit Magimel on the set of ‘The...

To note that Gloria!, the directing debut of Italian actor-singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario, is vapid, pseudo-feminist, sentimental piffle would be entirely accurate. And yet, one must also admit that it is at least mildly entertaining piffle, absorbing in the same way that pop videos with lots of dancing and catchy tunes playing in the corner of a quiet bar or a nail salon on a weekday morning are entertaining. If you’re waiting for the polish to dry and can’t use your hands to use your phone, then staring blankly at Gloria! would suffice as a distraction. Alternatively, this is exactly the kind of film you might chance on while channel surfing in a European hotel and find yourself absorbed by, even though there are no subtitles. Indeed, subtitles are barely necessary here given the plot is much like a puppet show or the kind of fable children make up while playing with dolls.

The César Awards are always the biggest night of the year for French cinema, but the massive award season impact of “Anatomy of a Fall” ensured that this year’s event took on additional importance for Oscar watchers around the globe. When the 49th César Awards took place in Paris on Friday night, all eyes were on Justine Triet and her Palme d’Or-winning film.

Predictably, “Anatomy of a Fall” swept many of the night’s biggest categories. In addition to winning the top prize of Best Film, Triet was honored with Best Director and shared Best Screenplay with her partner Arthur Harari. Stars Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud also won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

The night’s other big winner was Thomas Cailley’s “The Animal Kingdom,” which won awards for Cinematography, Visual Effects, Costume Design, and Sound.

Keep reading for a complete list of winners from the 2024 César Awards.

Italian singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut “Gloria!” has scored a slew international sales ahead of its world premiere in the Berlin Film Festival competition.

Rai Cinema International Distribution has sealed deals to nine territories on Vicario’s vibrant musical comedy set in a late 18th century Venetian female orphanage where a young rebel named Teresa leads a group of performers to challenge classical canons and invent a precursor to pop music.

“Gloria!” has been snapped up for France (Nour Films); Germany and Austria (Neue Vision); Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands (Arti Film); Greece (StraDa Films); Korea (Green Narea Media) and Bulgaria (Beta Films) with several other distribution deals in advanced negotiations.

French-Italian actor Galatéa Bellugi stars as young underprivileged woman with visionary talent who works with a quartet of fellow female musicians challenging preconceptions and defying abuses perpetrated against them by the evil priest who runs the institution.

“In my work as a singer-songwriter,...

Binoche and Benoît Magimel play a 19th-century French cook and her gourmand employer in Tran Anh Hung’s gorgeous, simmering drama

Sumptuous, sensual and impossibly handsome, at first glance French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung’s lavish foodie romance The Taste of Things looks like just another decorous prestige period drama. But in its elegantly restrained way, Tran’s film, which is set almost entirely in the kitchen, grounds and dining room of the country chateau of famed gourmet Dodin (Benoît Magimel) in 1880s France, is every bit as radical and risk-taking as some of the showier, quirkier awards contenders this year.

Take its exquisite opening sequence. Starting with a wordless nod of approval from Dodin’s celebrated cook, Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), as the gardener hands her a gnarled, freshly exhumed celeriac root, the film then gets down to the serious business of cooking. Around 35 minutes, much of it dialogue-free, is...

French-Vietnamese auteur Trần Anh Hùng crafts a modern classic in The Taste of Things. His beautifully told period romance between Dodin (Benoît Magimel), a celebrated chef, and his longtime cook and lover, Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) will take your breath away. Trần lingers over their cooking in a gastronomic celebration of love, artistry, and sensuality. His efforts won Best Director at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The film was also chosen as France's entry for Best International Feature at the upcoming 96th Oscars but was shockingly snubbed. Trần speaks honestly about his profound disappointment, "The heartbreak was over three days after. I made a very good movie. It's a gift to the audience. It was enough for me somehow. I don't need more."

We were fortunate to have Trần for an extended period of time. He goes remarkably in-depth with extraordinary revelations about the characters, his inspiration, expert shooting methods, and...

An acclaimed chef in 1880s France uses his incredible culinary talents to boldly win the heart of a beloved cook. The Taste of Things can best be described as a sumptuous cinematic feast for the soul. Vietnamese auteur Trần Anh Hùng, Best Director winner at last year's 76th Cannes Film Festival, masterfully crafts a gastronomic romance destined to be a modern classic. He tells a poetically entrancing love story through the clanking of brass pots and wondrous simmering stews in an idyllic château's kitchen.

Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) dutifully arranges a variety of meats, fish, and vegetables for an important dinner later that night. She beckons her assistant, Violette (Galatea Bellugi), to stoke embers in the fire. The stove must be hot and ready before they begin. Violette, at Eugénie's request, has invited young Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) to watch them cook. The girl moves quickly and performs every task with wide-eyed fascination.

Movies are designed to dazzle through sound and vision. That leaves three out of five senses untapped, at least until cinema reaches its inevitable maximum-immersive “feelie” stage. The Taste of Things, the latest from the French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, is one of those rare works that gives you the illusion of engaging much more than just your eyes and ears. “Sensuous” is too mild an adjective to describe the way that this drama films, focuses on, and fetishizes the food that the occupants of a 19th century kitchen in...

Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel in The Taste Of Things. Courtesy of IFC

Warning: Don’t see this film hungry! Delicious shots of delicious food in a luscious landscape fill the French romantic drama The Taste Of Things but it is the perfect Valentine’s Day movie, particularly if you are a foodie, or a romantic. A visually luscious film starring Juliette Binoche, the story centers on two people who express their love for each other and for fine food, by cooking together. Set in 1889 in an old rural manor house, The Taste Of Things creates a beautiful dreamworld in the French countryside where the abundance of the land provides all they need. The Taste Of Things is a feast for both the eyes and the hungry heart, with the bonus of the Oscar-winning Juliette Binoche. It was the official Oscar entry for France.

It all begins in the garden,...

Now that the Oscar nominations are official, catch-up time begins in earnest. But if you’ve already seen everything on Oscar voters honored, a worthwhile also-ran is hitting digital platforms this week.

The contender to watch this week: “Ferrari“

MIchael Mann‘s biopic about car mogul Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) never got the awards-season fuel it needed to make the nomination roster. The movie’s roaring engines missed out on the Best Sound nod that many pundits expected, and Penélope Cruz, who plays Ferrari’s wronged wife, couldn’t nab the Best Supporting Actress recognition she deserved. (Cruz fared better with the Screen Actors Guild Awards.) The film did, however, make the National Board of Review’s list of the year’s 10 best, and now you can rent or purchase it for a premium rate on VOD.

Other contenders:

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”: You know what did get Oscar nominations?...

Thomas Cailley’s sci-fi thriller The Animal Kingdom and Justin Triet’s Oscar-nominated courtroom drama Anatomy Of A Fall rose to the top of the nominations at France’s Cesar awards.

The Animal Kingdom, a supernatural twist on a father-son drama that first premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, has been nominated for 12 awards including best film and will vie in that category against the five-time Academy-award nominated, Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy Of A Fall with 11 nominations, alongside Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, Jeanne Herry’s All Your Faces and Jean-Baptiste Durand’s Junkyard Dogs.

Cailley, Triet, Kahn and...

Justine Triet’s Oscar-nominated Anatomy of a Fall and Thomas Cailley’s fantasy drama The Animal Kingdom are the front runners for this year’s Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent to the Academy Awards. In nominations announced Wednesday, Anatomy picked up 11 Cesar noms and The Animal Kingdom 12. Both were nominated in the best film and best director categories.

Also nominated for best film are Jean-Baptiste Durand’s Junkyard Dog, All Your Faces from director Jeanne Herry and Cédric Kahn’s The Goldman Case.

France’s official Academy Award contender, Anh Hung Tran’s foodie period drama The Taste of Things, which missed out on an Oscar nom on Tuesday, picked up three Ceasar nominations, but none in the main categories.

German actress Sandra Hüller, a best actress nominee at this year’s Oscars for her starring turn in Anatomy of a Fall, is also up for the Cesar for best actress,...

Thomas Cailley’s fantasy drama The Animal Kingdom topped the nominations for France’s César Awards, which were announced in Paris on Wednesday.

The drama picked up 12 nominations with Justine Triet’s Oscar hopeful Anatomy Of A Fall coming in second with 11 nominations, followed by Jeanne Herry’s All Your Faces, which nine, and The Goldman Case, with eight.

Set in a world where human beings start transmuting into animals, The Animal Kingdom world premiered as the opening film of Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2023 and went on to make $8.5M at the box office last fall.

The Animal Kingdom and Anatomy of a Fall are competing in eight categories spanning Best Film, Director, Original Screenplay, Male Revelation, Editing, Sound, Cinematography and Production Design.

The high nomination count for Herry’s ensemble drama All Your Faces was thanks to the fact it dominated the Supporting Actress category with separate nominations for cast members Leila Bekhti,...

Thomas Cailley’s supernatural drama “The Animal Kingdom” and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” are leading the race at the 49th Cesar Awards with 12 and 11 nominations, respectively.

Triet’s movie, which just garnered an impressive five Oscar nominations, and “The Animal Kingdom,” which opened at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and won a prize, will vie for top Cesar awards including best director and film.

“The Animal Kingdom” is an ambitious film that marks a departure from France’s cinema tradition of social realism. It’s both a creature-filled dystopia and a father-and-son drama, weaving some contemporary concerns over the future of mankind. It’s produced by Pierre Guyard at Nord Ouest Films and co-produced by Artemis.

“Anatomy of a Fall,” meanwhile stars Sandra Hüller — the German actor nominated for Cesar, Oscar and BAFTA awards — as a novelist who is put on trial following the...

Dark comedy is a delicate balance of humor and seriousness, and finding the right mix is crucial. Some examples of dark comedies done right are Beetlejuice, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and even American Psycho. Amanda is an Italian dark comedy-drama that explores themes of loneliness and dissatisfaction in a wealthy world.

Dark comedy is an interesting subgenre as it's making light of a tragedy, but it can be challenging to get right. You have to find just the right balance of humor and seriousness. If something earnest is downplayed with comedy, that sincere moment is taken as a poorly told joke. But you also can't have these elevated, gravity-defying moments of negativity without some sort of comic relief to keep us on the ground. Some good examples of dark comedy done right are titles like Beetlejuice, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, South Park, and even American Psycho.

That does...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition and its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

A total of 20 films have been selected for the international competition, with highlights including La Cocina, directed by Alonso Ruiz Palacios and starring Rooney Mara. The pic is described as a “kinetic and cinematic love story” set over a single day in a Times Square kitchen. French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop returns with Dahomey, a 60-minute doc about art repatriation and Hong Sangsoo plays in competition with A Traveler’s Needs, starring Isabelle Huppert. Scroll down for the full lineup.

The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 15-25.

Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, a feature documentary about influential British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger narrated by Killers of the Flower Moon...

Paris and Los Angeles-based sales agency has boarded films by Nicolas Benamou, Artus and Christophe Duthuron

Paris and Los Angeles-based Other Angle Pictures has boarded three French comedy dramas: Nicolas Benamou’s We Should Have Gone to Greece, Artus’ A Little Something Extra and Christophe Duthuron’s Happiness Therapy.

The company will launch sales for all three films at this week’s Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris in the French capital.

We Should Have Gone to Greece is the latest feature from Benamou, known for co-directing local and international hit comedies Babysitting and Babysitting 2 with Philippe Lacheau, 2020’s Mystery in St. Tropez,...

Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things is almost halfway done before it even hints that there’s something going on within its fin-de-siècle setting besides the creation and consumption of beautiful meals. The film’s first half hour is in fact just that, with Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), a veteran cook in the manor home of Dodin (Benoît Magimel), the epicure for whom she’s been working for over 20 years, making an extravagant, multi-course meal for him and his friends. The men eat the food, then compliment Eugénie on her cooking.

Given the close yet unfussy attention paid to the choreography of cooking, with Jonathan Ricquebourg’s camera flowing sinuously through the kitchen and peeking into pots as ingredients are added and steam billows out, it would have been satisfying if Hung had just concluded the film with well-fed Frenchmen chatting over a digestif. Fortunately, he’s interested not...

"We worked together for over 20 years. I read a recipe and she worked magic on the stove." Picturehouse has unveiled an official UK trailer for the acclimated French film The Taste of Things, originally titled La Passion de Dodin Bouffant ("The Passion of Dodin Bouffant") in French or The Pot au Feu, which is one of the key dishes in the film. It premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, including my own, proclaiming it as one of the finest food films ever made. Juliette Binoche stars as Eugénie, an outstanding cook, who has worked for the famous Dodin Bouffant (as played by Benoît Magimel) for 20 years. However, Eugénie, eager for her own freedom, has never wanted to marry Dodin. So Dodin decides to do something he's never done before: cook for her. Oh it's so incredible. All of it – the food, the romance. The cast includes Bonnie Chagneau Ravoire,...

Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) and Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) go about their work in a large kitchen with grace and care in this adaptation of Marcel Rouff’s book. It’s the 1880s France so there are no gadgets here, just graft and an oven to die for. The pair cook together in mostly companionable silence, with their helper Violette (Galatea Bellugi), to bring together a meal that is fit to make cinemagoers’ stomachs grumble as we enviously look on. Their movements suggest a symbiosis that can only be achieved over time, simmering gently just as the Pot-au-Feu of the original French title needs to do in order to achieve the perfect harmonious result.

This gourmand and his cook appear like a long-wed couple, and in many ways they are. Their marriage, however, has not been via vows but stems from a shared commitment to the culinary arts that has led to a.

"I read a recipe and she worked magic on the stove." IFC Films has debuted the official US trailer for the highly acclaimed food film called The Taste of Things, originally titled La Passion de Dodin Bouffant ("The Passion of Dodin Bouffant") in French or The Pot au Feu, which is one of the key dishes discussed in the film. It premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, including my own, proclaiming it as one of the best food films ever made. Juliette Binoche stars as Eugénie, an outstanding cook, who has worked for the famous gastronome Dodin Bouffant (as played by Benoît Magimel) for 20 years. However, Eugénie, eager for her own freedom, has never wanted to marry Dodin. So Dodin decides to do something he's never done before: cook for her. Oh it's so incredible. The cast includes Bonnie Chagneau Ravoire, Galatéa Bellugi, and Sarah Adler. I adore this film!

"It takes culture and memory to shape one's taste." Gaumont in France has revealed the first official French trailer for the highly acclaimed food film known as La Passion de Dodin Bouffant. And yes, the trailer has English subtitles so everyone can enjoy it. "The Passion of Dodin Bouffant", as it is known in French, also has two other English titles: The Pot au Feu and/or The Taste of Things (it's the official US release title to look for). It premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, including my own, already proclaiming it as one of the best food films ever made. Juliette Binoche stars as Eugénie, an outstanding cook, who has worked for the famous gastronome Dodin Bouffant (as played by Benoît Magimel) for 20 years. However, Eugénie, eager for her own freedom, has never wanted to marry Dodin. So Dodin decides to do something he's never done before: cook for her.

Sofia Coppola’s eighth feature doesn’t hit theaters for another few months, but you’d be forgiven if you thought it was actually Amanda, writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s darkly humorous, stylish feature debut about an indolent young woman looking for a friend. Consider its opening frame: a little girl lounging alone in a pool while munching on cereal and basking in the afternoon shadow of her bourgeois family’s Italian villa. When she subsequently splashes into the water, nearly drowning in front of her older sister and housekeeper, it’s clear that her brief life of solitary luxury has already thrust an incommunicable existential crisis upon her. You almost expect Stephen Dorff’s absentee father from Somewhere to have been responsible.

Things aren’t much better for Amanda (Benedetta Porcaroli) as a 25-year-old, living independently in her hometown after finishing school in Paris. Instead of taking on the duties...

Amanda hasn’t done a lot of living in her 24 years. She’s never had a job, a boyfriend, or even a friend. She doesn’t fit in with her family — all of them pharmacists — even though she loves the clan’s longtime housekeeper and she’s got a real bond with her too-serious young niece. She’s got a shitty apartment of her own, but it’s outfitted with fancy furniture she seems to have pilfered from the family home a few blocks down the street. She goes to secret raves to pass the time, stands outside the local cinema in hopes of catching a glimpse of someone who might make for a reasonable pal, and has begun harboring a desire to free a horse from a local farm. She’s addicted to her phone, which speaks to her in stilted Siri-ese and is programmed to only call her “Sexy Mama.

Across Amanda, Carolina Cavalli’s writing and cinematic style dovetail with lead actor Benedetta Porcaroli’s calibrated strangeness to express a sensibility that feels genuinely new. It’s also the rare film about mental instability (among other things) that doesn’t pathologize and reduce its characters to a diagnosis. Rather, it’s a vindication of idiosyncrasy.

The younger of two daughters in an Italian family that runs a chain of pharmacies across Europe, Amanda (Porcaroli) is a loner. While her harried sister, Marina (Margherita Missoni), has resigned herself to the family’s bourgeois responsibilities, the 25-year-old Amanda rejects them to the best of her ability, and to the aggravation of everyone around her. Her only friend is the family’s domestic worker, Judy. Amanda lives on her own in a barebones apartment but, without a job or an income, still begrudgingly depends on her family’s financial support.

Stubbornly opposed...

There’s food porn, which shows like Chef’s Table and Top Chef, not to mention last year’s horror hit movie The Menu, have turned into widely popular entertainment. And then there’s art house food porn, a subgenre that possibly dates back to Marco Ferreri’s 1973 satire La Grande Bouffe, and whose other examples include Babette’s Feast, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Tampopo, Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate. The latter films tend to be made in a language other than English, and they’re less about chefs competing for Michelin stars, or glowing reviews from Pete Wells, than about food as a way of life.

Where else but France, then, as the setting for the latest, and certainly one of the most appetizing, art house food porn flicks to come along in a while? Tràn Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu (La Passion du Dodin-Bouffant) is...

In the rose-gray light of dawn, Juliette Binoche strides through a verdant kitchen garden, wearing a straw hat as wide and undulating as an ocean wave. She plucks a majestically large, gnarled celeriac from the earth and sniffs it deeply and fondly, as if inhaling mythical ambrosia, and takes it back to the house. This is how Tràn Anh Hùng’s “The Taste of Things” opens, which is to say on a note of sensory reverence and a hint of kitsch, in knowing thrall to one of the less pretty vegetables in nature’s cornucopia. There are people — this critic included — who will watch this scene and immediately sense with a hungry tingle that the film to come has been made expressly for their palate, and there is everyone else. “The Taste of Things” is not for everyone else, and that’s just fine.

Thirty years after his first feature...

The Paris-based outfit also co-produced the Italian coming-of-age drama.

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired US and Canadian distribution rights and Curzon has taken UK rights to Italian coming-of-age story Amanda sold by co-producer and Paris-based international sales house Charades.

The debut feature of writer/director Carolina Cavalli premiered in Venice’s Horizons Extra section in September before screening in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section.

The film follows the titular character, a wealthy, self-absorbed, combative woman in her twenties who is feeling lost after studying abroad, and sets out to rekindle a childhood friendship with a woman who has become a sullen shut-in.

An eccentric 20-something tries to make friends in Amanda, a first feature for Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli. Premiering in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, it’s a comical, stylized character portrait with a strong central turn from Benedetta Porcaroli.

Her titular character is stubborn, abrupt to the point of rudeness but also witty and weirdly fascinating — qualities that only her family and their housekeeper get to see. Having moved from Paris to Italy, Amanda knows no one of her own age, and suffers from social awkwardness in her bid to connect with them.

There’s a tragicomic flavor to the scenes where she goes to techno raves in huge warehouses, hanging out by the toilets, pretending to wait for a friend, and fixating on a guy who may or may not be a drug dealer. Another tactic involves going onto online video forums, where she discovers men aren’t there for exactly the same reasons.

"The church would rather ignore a miracle than validate a sham." Music Box Films has released an official Us trailer for an indie religious drama title The Apparition, which premiered at a few minor film festivals earlier this year. The latest film from French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli, the story is about a journalist who is sent by the Vatican to investigate a young girl claiming to be visited by the Virgin Mary. "Jacques gradually uncovers the hidden motivations and pressures at work and sees his beliefs system profoundly shaken." Vincent Lindon stars as Jacques, and the cast includes Galatéa Bellugi, Patrick d'Assumçao, Anatole Taubman, Elina Löwensohn, Claude Lévèque, Gérard Dessalles, Bruno Georis, Alicia Hava, as well as Candice Bouchet. Even though the title makes this seem like a horror, it's much more of a religious thriller with some unique twists. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Xavier Giannoli's ...

There is something about French actor Vincent Lindon’s face which somehow manages to give any film he’s ever been involved in gravitas and urgency, no matter what the subject matter may be. Lindon, who most will remember from his award-winning turn in Stéphane Brizé’s 2015 Cannes hit The Measure of Man, manages yet another tour de force in Xavier Giannoli’s new film The Apparition in which he stars as a former war correspondent caught up in the middle of a religious investigation concerning a recent apparition of the Virgin Mary.

After years of reporting the news from war zones and putting his life at risk, Jacques Mayano (Lindon) is left in shock and deaf in one ear when a bomb blast in Iraq kills his best friend who also happens to be his photographer. Now back in Paris and attempting to make sense of his life once again,...

Exclusive: Vincent Lindon stars as journalist investigating saintly apparition

Paris-based Memento Films International (Mfi) will launch sales on French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli’s upcoming drama The Apparition at the forthcoming edition of Unifrance’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris (Jan 12-16).

Vincent Lindon will star as a journalist sent on a mission by the Vatican to investigate reports of a saintly apparition in a small French village. What he discovers shakes his personal beliefs to the core.

The $8.1m (€7.7m) drama is due to shoot early 2017 for a spring 2018 delivery. Olivier Delbosc’s Paris-based Curiosa Films is producing.

In the meantime, Lindon, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or for best actor for his performance in social drama The Measure Of A Man in 2015, will hit the big screen this year in the role of Auguste Rodin in Jacques Doillon’s bio-pic Rodin capturing the life of the legendary French sculptor.

Other Apparition...

A lead up to the evening’s most perplexing event, was the switcheroo announcement crowning the top film of the festival first (Very Big Shot) and once that was out of the way, the big “move” from the jury was to make sure that everyone gets a trophy, and that no one wins second place (or it can be certainly read this way). During a time where the Paris events have still in public consciousness, the 15th edition will be looked back as one that unites. Unfortunately for me, there would be no after party and Todd Haynes’ Carol will have to wait as my battle with stomach demons continued. Here is the complete tally of the prizes. I wonder what airport security thought about the statute.

L’ÉTOILE D’Or – Le Grand Prix Du Festival

The Golden Star – Festival Grand Prize

Very Big Shot (Film kteer kbeer) de/by...

Being 14 (2015) Film Review from the 14th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, a movie directed by Helene Zimmer and starring Athalia Routier, Galatéa Bellugi, Najaa Bensaid, Kevin Château, Françoise Lebrun, Louis Jacq. Every decade or so, there is a film that, to me, defines the adolescent feelings of that era in America; the “perfect high school movie,” so to speak. For the […]...