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The Lady’s Companion debuted on Netflix only two months ago, and its future has finally been decided, though it's not looking so good. Local reports via What’s on Netflix suggest that the comedy-drama won’t return for a sophomore season despite earning favorable reviews after its release. However, rumors have circulated that the show has been renewed for another run, contradicting news of its cancellation. Meanwhile, Netflix Spain has confirmed that the renewal never happened, thereby quenching any hopes of a Season 2.

Created by María José Rustarazo and Gema R. Neira of Cable Girls, The Lady’s Companion, also known as Manual para Señoritas in Spanish-speaking regions, premiered on Netflix on March 28 with all eight episodes. The period drama is set in Madrid in 1880 and follows Elena Bianda, the city’s most sought-after, morally rigorous lady-in-waiting, who must navigate her greatest challenge yet when she’s tasked with guiding three...

Netflix’s ‘The Lady’s Companion’ is a Spanish period drama that intertwines romance and comedy, reminiscent of the popular series ‘Bridgerton.’ Released on March 28, 2025, the series is set in 1880s Madrid and follows Elena Bianda, a professional chaperone tasked with guiding young women through the intricacies of high society to secure suitable marriages. Elena’s latest assignment involves the Mencía family, specifically overseeing the three Mencía sisters during the social season. As she navigates the challenges posed by the sisters’ distinct personalities and aspirations, Elena finds herself entangled in unexpected romantic developments, particularly with Santiago Torres, the family’s charming godson. The series offers a vibrant portrayal of 19th-century Madrid, infused with modern storytelling elements and a dynamic soundtrack, providing a fresh take on the period drama genre.

Plot Overview

Elena Bianda is renowned in Madrid’s high society for her expertise as a chaperone, ensuring young women find appropriate husbands without scandal.

Picture: Bambú Producciones / Netflix

After filming in 2024, Netflix Spain is lining up its brand new period drama series The Lady’s Companion (also known as Manual Para Señoritas in Spanish regions) for a release on March 28th, 2025. Designed for multiple seasons, the new period romantic comedy-drama was filmed at Netflix’s expansive Tres Cantos production hub.

Premiering eight episodes on Netflix globally, the new series comes from Gema R. Neira and María José Rustarazo under the banner of Bambú Producciones. Gema is known for several high-profile and popular titles for Netflix over the years including Cable Girls, High Seas, and most recently, The Asunta Case.

Leading the cast for the series are Álvaro Mel as Santiago, Nadia de Santiago as Elena, and Isa Montalbán as Cristina, with the remainder of the cast for the new show including Zoe Bonafonte, Iratxe Emparán, Tristan Ulloa, Carloto Cotta, Paula Usero, Candela Pradas, Maria Barranco,...

Now available on DVD and On Demand from Magnet / Magnolia, we have an exclusive clip from Amelia's Children that you can watch right now!

"Amelia’S Children is a story of family. When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret."

Written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes, the film stars Brigette Lundy-Paine and Carloto Cotta. For those looking to watch On Demand, it's available on Apple TV, Prime Video, Fandango at Home, Google Play, DirecTV, and more.

The post Watch an Exclusive Clip from Amelia’S Children appeared first on Daily Dead.

Now in theaters and VOD, thanks to Magnet Releasing, we have an exclusive clip from Amelia's Children that you can watch right now!

"When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret."

Written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes, Amelia's Children stars Brigette Lundy-Paine, Alba Baptista, and Carloto Cotta.

The post Watch an Exclusive Clip from Amelia’S Children appeared first on Daily Dead.

Two well-reviewed indies are taking a bow in limited release in the shadow of Dune, A24’s Problemista by Julio Torres, and Shayda from Sony Pictures Classics, the feature debut of Noora Niasari.

Torres, the comedian, actor and writer, in his directorial debut, stars with Tilda Swinton as Problemista gets its release at last after being bumped from August due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. He also penned the screenplay, and produced alongside Fruit Tree’s Dave McCary, Ali Herting and Emma Stone. Premiered at SXSW last year, see Deadline review, and sits at 91% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

This surreal comedy adventure amid the treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system follows Torres’ Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador trying to land a spot at Hasbro’s incubator program. When he’s fired from the cryogenic center where he tends...

Family isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be in Amelia’s Children, the brand new supernatural horror movie from Magnet Releasing and writer/director/producer Gabriel Abrantes.

Amelia’s Children is Now Playing in select theaters, and it’s also available on VOD outlets beginning today. Whet your appetite with an exclusive clip from the film below.

The clip invites you to meet mother, and you can also watch the official trailer underneath.

In Amelia’s Children, a young man’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal. Full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother, he’s eager to will learn about who he is and where he comes from.

But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret.

The horror film stars Brigette Lundy-Paine,...

Amelia's Children is a generic horror thriller that fails to offer much that is unique or compelling. The movie's aesthetic lacks the ability to evoke emotion, resorting to safe, predictable visual storytelling. The movie's greatest strength is its cast, particularly lead actor Brigette Lundy-Paine.

Amelia's Children boasts a simple setup, one that will likely feel familiar to horror fans. Think 2022's The Invitation, but with Portuguese witchcraft legends as the center of the newfound family's issues instead of vampirism. The movie follows Ed (Carloto Cotta), a thirty-something man who has been trying to learn about his birth family. After his girlfriend Ryley (Brigette Lundy-Paine) gets him an ancestry kit for his birthday, they travel to Portugal to meet his long-lost twin brother Manuel (also Cotta) and their mother Amelia (played in the present by Anabela Moreira and in flashbacks by Alba Baptista).

5/10

Amelia's Children is a horror-thriller film directed by...

A gloriously demented fairy tale about a guileless soccer phenom who reacts to his World Cup loss by adopting a Mozambican who turns out to be an adult lesbian spy in disguise, Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s “Diamantino” is one of the most original movies of the 21st century. “Amelia’s Children,” which Abrantes has directed on his own, is not. And yet, this comparatively straightforward psychological horror movie — which adheres to genre convention whenever it can, and has even fewer surprises in store than its premise would seem to suggest — is still playful and perverse enough in its details to indicate a unique talent behind the camera.

Case in point: “Attractive people in a creepy house” might be the single most basic setup a horror movie could possibly have, but Abrantes’ script comes up with a novel way of putting those pieces in place. In a way, “Amelia’s Children...

A Portuguese production, the psychological thriller horror movie Amelia’s Children had its premiere at the MOTELx Lisbon Horror Film Festival last year, then received a theatrical release in Portugal last month. Now Magnolia Pictures is gearing up to give the film a VOD and limited theatrical release in the US on March 1st – and with that date just one month away, we’ve got a trailer for Amelia’s Children embedded above.

Written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes, who previously made the comedy Diamantino with Daniel Schmidt, the film has the following synopsis: When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward...

"This vision that haunts you. It just means you're part of this family." Magnolia Pictures has revealed an official trailer for an indie horror film from Portugal titled Amelia's Children, set for release in March in the US. This already opened in Portugal in January after premiering there at a genre festival last year. The latest from the filmmaker behind Diamantino. When Edward's search for his biological family leads him to a remote, mysterious villa in the mountains in Northern Portugal, he's thrilled to meet his long-lost mother and twin brother. However, he soon learns that he's linked to them by a scary monstrous secret. The horror film stars Brigette Lundy-Paine, Carloto Cotta, Anabela Moreira, Alba Baptista, and Rita Blanco. This doesn't look as good as it should, too many underlit scenes and generic scares about creepy family ties. // Continue Reading ›...

Family isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be in the haunting new trailer and poster that debuted today for Amelia’s Children, a supernatural horror film from writer/director/producer Gabriel Abrantes.

Magnet Releasing will release the psychological, ghostly horror movie in theaters and on VOD on March 1, 2024.

In Amelia’s Children: “When Edward’s search for his biological family leads him and his girlfriend Ryley to a magnificent villa high in the mountains of Northern Portugal, he is full of excitement at meeting his long-lost mother and twin brother. Finally, he will discover who he is and where he comes from. But nothing is as it seems, and Edward will soon learn that he is linked to them by a monstrous secret.”

The horror film stars Brigette Lundy-Paine, Alba Baptista, and Carloto Cotta.

All three actors have a background in horror, with Brigette Lundy-Paine recently starring in...

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its lineup for the Industry Selects program of films beyond the official fest lineup and available for worldwide acquisition as each gets an in-person screening for film buyers and industry execs.

Leading the selection is director James Marsh’s Dance First, a biopic with Gabriel Byrne playing the literary giant Samuel Beckett and Sandrine Bonnaire, Maxine Peake, Aidan Gillen and Fionn O’Shea also starring; and director Neil Burger’s Inheritance, a thriller that has a woman played by Phoebe Dynevor learning her father Sam (Rhys Ifans) was once a spy, which puts her at the center of an international conspiracy.

Also picked for market screenings in Toronto is Jimmy Warden’s Borderline, set in 1996 Los Angeles and starring Eric Dane, Ray Nicholson and Samara Weaving as a pop star taken hostage; The Home, a horror pic from Purge series creator James DeMonaco, and starring...

Fest also announces Connections, Microsessions, and Spotlight sessions.

TIFF has announced the Industry Selects acquisition titles available to buyers during the festival, a 12-strong roster featuring new work from James Marsh, Rebecca Snow, and Neil Burger.

Gabriel Byrne plays literary giant Samuel Beckett in Marsh’s Dance First alongside Sandrine Bonnaire, Maxine Peake, Aidan Gillen, and Fionn O’Shea. Film Constellation represents worldwide rights and the film will close San Sebastian.

Phoebe Dynevor stars with Rhys Ifans for Burger in Inheritance, a thriller about a woman who uncovers her father’s espionage past. CAA Media Finance handles sales.

Snow (Cheating Hitler:...

In May, the Cannes Film Festival injects a jolt of international cinema into year ahead, and expectations are even greater than usual this time around. In 2022, Cannes was the starting point for everything from future commercial hits “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Elvis” to arthouse successes like “Decision to Leave” and “Eo.” With less pandemic-era stagnation on productions, there are more newly finished (or almost finished) Cannes hopefuls in the mix than anytime in recent memory.

Some of the bigger ones have been widely reported: We already know that Martin Scorsese’s sprawling Osage Nation crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon” will bring the revered director back to the festival with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro in tow, while “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is poised to premiere in an out-of-competition slot 15 years after the last entry did the same thing. There’s also a lot of...

The independent film business is again showing signs of rude health as the global film industry struggles to recover post-pandemic. Sundance is often taken as the pace-setter, and distribution deals were plentiful this year, with seven- and eight-figure sales for the likes of Theater Camp (to Searchlight for an estimated 8 million), Flora and Son (Apple TV+, 20 million) and Fair Play (Netflix, 20 million), just the biggest of around a dozen 2023 Park City pickups. But Berlin’s European Film Market will be the industry’s true acid test.

“Sundance is more U.S.-focused in general,” says Alice Laffillé, vp sales at FilmNation, which did the Apple TV+ deal for Flora and Son. “There are always some big, splashy deals with streamers and U.S. buyers like Neon, A24 or Magnolia. Berlin is the first real international market, where we see where things stand.”

Berlin deals, which often involve the entire world,...

Exclusive: Wild Bunch International (Wbi) has boarded sales on buzzy Portuguese director, artist and producer Gabriel Abrantes’ upcoming English-language feature Amelia’s Children.

The film is among half a dozen new titles being launched by Wbi at the EFM, alongside a raft of previously announced upcoming films, including Cannes hopefuls such as Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Monster.

The company is also handling Berlinale Competition selections, Philippe Garrel’s The Plough and Makoto Shinkai’s hotly awaited anime Suzume, and the Panorama title Heroic, which world premiered at Sundance.

Abrante’s psychological thriller Amelia’s Children is his solo feature debut and his first feature since his 2018 Cannes Critics’ Week winner Diamantino (co-directed with Daniel Schmidt).

The film reunites him with its star Carloto Cotta. Other key cast members are Brigette Lundy-Paine (Atypical) and Alba Baptiste (Warrior Nun).

Cotta plays a man whose search for his biological family leads him and his...

Goran Stolevski’s debut feature You Won’t Be Alone is Australia’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Produced by Causeway Films’ Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings, the supernatural horror, set in 19th century Macedonia, stars Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud and Sara Klimoska. It first premiered at […]

The post ‘You Won’t Be Alone’ Australia’s submission for Best International Feature Film Oscar appeared first on If Magazine.

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture 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 January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

You Won’t Be Alone Review Video — You Won’t Be Alone (2022) Video Movie Review, a movie directed by Goran Stolevski, written by Goran Stolevski, and starring Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Felix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska. Crew Mark Bradshaw created the music for the film. Matthew Chuang crafted the cinematography for [...]

Continue reading: Video Movie Review: You Won’T Be Alone (2022): Bold, Unique, Daring, & Skillfully Made...

The heroine of Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone is a witch, with echoes of vampire and zombie, yes, but mostly with a haunting desire for human connection in 19th century rural Macedonia.

The film’s Sundance premiere got great reviews (see Deadline’s here). It’s 94 Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh with critics as Focus Features opens Stolevski’s debut feature on 147 carefully curated screens.

You Won’t Be Alone is subtitled and its narrator, the witch Nevena, grew up alone in a cave with a limited grasp of language.

Nevena (Sara Klimoska) is freed from her cave by a hideously deformed evil spirit called the Wolf-Eatress, or Old Maid Maria (Anamaria Marinca), who grows increasingly vengeful as they wander the mountainside and...

This review of “You Won’t Be Alone” was first published on Jan. 22 after its premiere at Sundance.

The dismal arthouse horror-drama “You Won’t Be Alone” will surely test the patience of viewers who expect a straightforward, character-driven, or even generic period chiller. Set in 19th century Macedonia, writer-director Goran Stolevski’s debut feature presents a disorienting narrative about Nevena (mostly played by Noomi Rapace), a shape-shifting teenage witch who’s kidnapped and then haunted by the malicious “wolf-eateress” conjurer Maria.

The movie’s heavy-handed and often distracting impressionistic style — lots of too-tight extreme close-ups, wobbly hand-held camerawork, whispery stream-of-conscious voiceover narration, and over-edited montages — will understandably frustrate some viewers and draw comparisons to recent dramas directed by Terrence Malick as well as Robert Eggers’ “elevated horror” movies “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.”

Stolevski’s pretentious and mindlessly alienating style also smothers his ensemble cast’s performances and his crew’s diligent contributions,...

The month of March will finish with a total box office gross of around 575-580 million, and more than half of that came from The Batman. That practically ties March with last July for the third best month since the beginning of the pandemic (after last October and December), but, beside the Dark Knight, it had little new content, save the late-in-the-month release (3/25) of the Channing Tatum\Sandra Bullock adventure/rom-com, The Lost City, to support it. Most of March's backup bucks came from February’s holdovers. While the month of April lacks a mega-release a la The Batman, it has what March did not, which is a steady supply of solid titles coming out pretty much every week. A few big franchise releases are in store, including new Harry Potter and Sonic the Hedgehog films, and first up is Morbius, the newest entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (or...

You Won’t Be Alone Trailer 2 — Focus Features has released the second movie trailer for You Won’t Be Alone (2022). View here the second You Won’t Be Alone trailer. Crew Goran Stolevski‘s You Won’t Be Alone stars Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Felix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska. Goran Stolevski wrote the [...]

Continue reading: You Won’T Be Alone (2022) Movie Trailer 2: Macedonian Witch Noomi Rapace stars in Goran Stolevski’s Haunting Folktale...

Noomi Rapace stars as “Bosilka” in director Goran Stolevski’s You Won’T Be Alone, a Focus Features release. Credit: Branko Starcevic / Focus Features

Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, You Won’T Be Alone follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human.

Focus Features will release You Won’T Be Alone in theaters on April 1, 2022.

An official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, the film stars Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Sara Klimoska.

From visionary director Goran Stolevski, watch the brand new trailer.

"Think you're fooling anyone? Dressed in corpses?" Focus Features has revealed a second trailer for the supernatural horror film You Won't Be Alone. This just premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in January, and opens in theaters in April. The film is a strange, supernatural horror set in an 1800s isolated Macedonian mountain village. "A young girl is taken from her mother and transformed into a witch by an ancient, shape-shifting spirit. Left to wander feral, the young witch beholds the natural world with curiosity and wonder. After inadvertently killing a villager and assuming her body, she continues to inhabit different people, living among the villagers for years, observing and mimicking their behavior until the ancient spirit returns, bringing them full circle." Noomi Rapace stars, joined by Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska. I watched this at Sundance and couldn't stand it, a mess of...

You Won’t Be Alone Review — You Won’t Be Alone (2022) Film Review from the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Goran Stolevski and starring Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Anamaria Marinca, Sara Klimoska, Felix Maritaud, Arta Dobroshi, Carloto Cotta, Irena Ristic, Kamka Tocinovski, Daniel Kovacevic and Verica Nedeska. Director Goran Stolevski’s new [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: You Won’T Be Alone: Intense Dramatic Film is Also the Artsiest Horror Film You’ll Ever See [Sundance 2022]...

You Won’t Be Alone

Treading the waters of short film filmmaking for almost a decade has culminated into the type of big leagues grand entrance that dreams are made of. Australian/Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski‘s feature debut was backed by Focus Features from the getgo. You Won’t Be Alone features an international cast comprised of an international cast of Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud and Sara Klimoska and was produced by The Babadook and The Nightingale producers Kristina Ceyton and Sam Jennings. Filmed in backwoods of Serbia back in December of 2020, Stolevski teamed with Blue Bayou Cinematographer Matthew Chuang – and worth noting – both have already re-teamed on (current filming) sophomore project titled Of An Age.…...

You Won’t Be Alone Trailer — Goran Stolevski‘s You Won’t Be Alone (2022) movie trailer has been released by Focus Features. The You Won’t Be Alone trailer stars Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Felix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska. Crew Goran Stolevski wrote the screenplay for You Won’t Be Alone. Mark Bradshaw created [...]

Continue reading: You Won’T Be Alone (2022) Movie Trailer: Shapeshifting Witch Noomi Rapace Experiences Life Through Other People’s Bodies...

"Am I the devil?" Focus Features has unveiled the first trailer for supernatural horror thriller You Won't Be Alone, from filmmaker Goran Stolevski. This one will be premiering at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival coming up in January, before opening in theaters in April next year. The film is a supernatural horror set in an 1800s isolated Macedonian mountain village. The Sundance synopsis explains better what's going on: "A young girl is taken from her mother and transformed into a witch by an ancient, shape-shifting spirit. Left to wander feral, the young witch beholds the natural world with curiosity and wonder. After inadvertently killing a villager and assuming her body, she continues to inhabit different people, living among the villagers for years, observing and mimicking their behavior until the ancient spirit returns, bringing them full circle." Noomi Rapace stars, joined by Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, and Sara Klimoska.

Cranking out a ton of short films for over a decade, Australian/Macedonian filmmaker Goran Stolevski saw his 2018 short Would You Look at Her win the Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction at Sundance. Fast forward to 2020, and the filmmaker is backed by Focus Features and the producers for The Babadook and The Nightingale for a project featuring Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud and Sara Klimoska. Filmed in Serbia, the supernatural horror You Won’t Be Alone was just dated by Focus with a January 28th date.

Gist: Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, the film follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit.…...

The Unkind: "This November, they awaken evil.

Six friends vacationing at a historic mansion release an ancient witch from her slumber, awakening her centuries old thirst for blood.

Tommaso Basili, Taylor Skeens, Corey T. Stewart, Sherine Mazzulli, and Fred Papa star in The Unkind, on VOD platforms November 30 from Wild Eye Releasing."

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Phantom Fun-world: "Jonestown Films has some exciting news about its next horror movie! From director Tory Jones and Executive Producer, Chris Gierowski comes the next greatest amusement park horror movie, Phantom Fun-World!

After meeting its initial Indiegogo crowdfunding goal of $15k in a matter of days, Phantom Fun-World has been climbing the ranks to be one of the most popular film campaigns on the site. Currently, it is almost up to $40k with a little over a week to go.

“We want to take this film to the next level, and we want you along for the ride.

Focus Features is planning a moderate release of You Won’t Be Alone on Friday, January 28, 2022 domestically in theaters.

Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, the film follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human. The witch will be played by different actors and the film will include an old Macedonian dialect.

The film is directed and written by Goran Stolevski. It stars Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), BAFTA-winner Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert (Ratched), Carloto Cotta (Tabu), Félix Maritaud (Sauvage) and...

There’s just so much summer in “The Tsugua Diaries” — great lashings of sunlight warming and slightly melting every 16mm frame, tangles of hyper-green foliage that seem to sweat in the heat, a generally horny, indolent air of human mischief — that you’d be forgiven for assuming “Tsugua” is some idyllic holiday spot you’ve never heard of, the best-kept secret on the Algarve. As with many elements of Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro’s woozy, insouciant experiment, however, a longer look reveals something both surprising and simple. “Tsugua” is simply “August” spelled backwards, which certainly ties into the film’s humid seasonality, and also clues us into its modus operandi.

Everything unfolds backwards in this film about filmmaking under curious circumstances, only gradually revealing the motivations and points of view driving the enterprise, and playfully withholding any sense of what it might all be about. “The Tsugua Diaries” is...

One of the most acclaimed films on this year’s festival circuit has found a North American home. KimStim have acquired The Tsugua Diaries, Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes’ wistful, sunny antidote to lockdown blues that blurs the line between cinema and life. Gomes is the acclaimed Portuguese director of the Arabian Nights trilogy, Fazendeiro an accomplished documentary filmmaker who first collaborated with him as casting director for Arabian Nights. The cast of Tsugua Diaries includes Crista Alfaiate and Carloto Cotta, both of whom starred in Arabian Nights, as well as João Nunes Monteiro.

The film, which KimStim will release in early 2022 in theaters, had its world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and screened at Karlovy Vary and TIFF, and will next make its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival as the opening night of Currents this Saturday, September 25. KimStim’s Ian Stimler negotiated the deal with...

When the idea of “pandemic movies” becoming a sort of subgenre was formed and necessitated by global conditions, there was a groan that could be heard around the world. We know how this goes. Artists will jump on gimmicky opportunities to shallowly explore interior space and entrapment. It became a cliché before any movie was even made. Yet some great artists found a way to make unique, memorable studies of the current moment. Mati Diop’s In My Room used interior space and feelings of inability to escape to explore monotonous life. Rob Savage’s clever Host turned entrapment into a nightmare of computer-aided terror. The latest film from Portugal’s Maureen Fazandeiro and Miguel Gomes is an exercise in how art itself––and, by virtue, the people involved in making it––has been changed by the pandemic.

The Tsugua Diaries are essentially a recounting of both the narrative arc...

Film at Lincoln Center on Tuesday revealed the slate for the Currents section of the 2021 New York Film Festival, a slate of cutting-edge and experimental works that showcase fresh voices in contemporary cinema. The section’s opening night film is “The Tsugua Diaries,” a pandemic-era tale that premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight about three housemates in lockdown from Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes (“Arabian Nights”).

Currents includes 15 features, plus 36 shorts contained in eight programs, and represent 27 countries. In addition to the Portuguese “The Tsugua Diaries,” several films center around the pandemic. Shengze Zhu’s “A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces,” is a meditation on Wuhan’s urban spaces before and after the outbreak, while Denis Côté’s “Social Hygiene” is an absurdist comedy in which characters exchange frank barbs from a humorous distance.

“Currents is the section of the festival that attests to cinema’s continued capacity for reinvention,” said Dennis Lim,...

It’s now been over half a decade since we’ve last seen a feature from Miguel Gomes––his epic three-part adaptation of Arabian Nights––and while the Lisbon-born director was in the works on his follow-up Selvajaria, the pandemic caused him to refocus his sights on a smaller scale project. Co-directed with Maureen Fazendeiro (casting director for Arabian Nights and co-writer for Gomes’ upcoming projects), The Tsugua Diaries will now premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and the first trailer has arrived.

In the film, Carloto Cotta, Crista Alfaiate, João Nunes Monteiro are building an airy greenhouse for butterflies in the garden. The three of them share household routines, day after day … And they are not the only ones. Screen Daily reports the 16mm-shot feature was made in Portugal and represents both “a lockdown journal” and “also a fiction”.

Watch the trailer below with a hat tip to Criterion Daily.

New feature from the ‘Arabian Nights’ director is co-directed by documentary filmmaker Maureen Fazendeiro.

Leading German sales company The Match Factory has acquired world sales rights to the upcoming feature by Miguel Gomes, the acclaimed Portuguese director of the Arabian Nights trilogy.

Co-directed by French documentarian Maureen Fazendeiro, Tsugua Diaries was shot entirely in 16mm during the Covid-19 lockdown in Portugal. The filmmakers are keeping plot details under wraps but describe it both as “a lockdown journal” and “also a fiction”.

It reunites The Match Factory with Gomes, having sold Arabian Nights, which debuted in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2015, and Tabu,...

Exclusive: Stephanie Vogt is set as a lead in Glória, Netflix’s upcoming historical spy thriller drama series from SPi productions and Rtp.

Written by Pedro Lopes and directed by Tiago Guedes, Glória takes place in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, in the small village of Glória do Ribatejo, where Raret is located, an American broadcasting center that broadcasts Western propaganda to the Eastern Bloc. João Vidal, an engineer from families linked to the Estado Novo, but recruited by the Kgb, will take on several high-risk espionage missions that could change the course of Portuguese and world history.

Vogt will play Anne. The wife of James, Anne comes from a wealthy and liberal family. She is a Harvard grad in International Relations, recruited by the CIA.

The ensemble cast includes Portuguese and international actors, including Miguel Nunes, Carolina Amaral, Victoria Guerra, Afonso Pimentel, Adriano Luz, Joana Ribeiro,...

Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta (Tabu) and Félix Maritaud (Sauvage) are among the cast of writer-director Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone, which recently wrapped filming in Serbia.

Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, the supernatural horror follows a young witch who is left to go feral in the woods.

Curious about life as a human, she accidentally kills a peasant in the village, then takes her shape to see what life is like in her skin. This ignites her deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.

The film marks the debut feature for Macedonian-Australian Stolevski, following on from 25 shorts, including Would You Look At Her, winner of Best International Short Film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Macedonian actress Sara Klimoska, who starred in that project, also reunites with Stolevski for You Won’t Be Alone.

Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to “You Won’t Be Alone,” a supernatural horror film that stars “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” actress Noomi Rapace and that just completed filming in Serbia.

“You Won’t Be Alone” is produced by the team that was behind “The Babadook,” and the film is directed by Australian/Macedonian writer and director Goran Stolevski in his feature film debut.

Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, “You Won’t Be Alone” follows a young witch who is left to go feral in the woods. Curious about life as a human, she accidentally kills a peasant in the village, then takes her shape to see what life is like in her skin. This ignites her deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.

Co-starring in “You Won’t Be Alone” are Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta,...

Exclusive: Focus Features has pre-bought world rights to under-the-radar supernatural-horror You Won’t Be Alone, which will star Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), BAFTA-winner Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert (Ratched), Carloto Cotta (Tabu), Félix Maritaud (Sauvage) and Sara Klimoska (Milcho Manchevski’s Willow).

Filming has just wrapped in Serbia on the English-language feature which is being made by The Babadook and The Nightingale producer Kristina Ceyton and Cargo producer Sam Jennings.

Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, pic follows a young witch who is left to go feral in the woods. Curious about life as a human, she accidentally kills a peasant in the village, then takes her shape to see what life is like in her skin. This ignites her deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others. The witch will be played by different actors.

The...

Frankie Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Ira Sachs Screenwriter: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie RenierPascal Greggory, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Carloto Cotta Sennia Nenua Screened at: Sony, NYC, 10/4/19 Opens: October 25, 2019 If you […]

The post Frankie Review: Falls short of embracing the Classical Unities by its involving subplots appeared first on Shockya.com.

Isabelle Huppert in a beautiful Burberry vest and jacket on Joan Crawford and movie star shoes in Mildred Pierce: "My favourite ever!" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Ira Sachs' Frankie, co-written with longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, starring Isabelle Huppert in the title role, with Brendan Gleeson, Jérémie Renier, Marisa Tomei, Pascal Greggory (Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction), Greg Kinnear, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Carloto Cotta, and Sennia Nanua, shot by Rui Poças in Sintra, Portugal, had its world première at the Cannes Film Festival.

Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) with her son Paul (Jérémie Renier)

At the Four Seasons on a stormy afternoon in New York, Isabelle connected Werner Schroeter's Two, Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Chantal Akerman, costume designer Khadija Zeggaï, and the magic of Sintra for the first half of our conversation on Frankie.

One day in the beautiful town of Sintra...

"People seldom say 'no' to Frankie." Sony Classics has debuted the new full-length trailer for Frankie, the latest film from acclaimed American indie filmmaker Ira Sachs. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and they originally put out a teaser trailer just before that festival to build up some buzz. Frankie is set in the lovely town of Sintra, Portugal outside of Lisbon, where a number of palaces and castles are nestled on a hillside. The story follows three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation. Starring Isabelle Huppert, along with Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Vinette Robinson, with Carloto Cotta, Ariyon Bakare, and Sennia Nanua. I very much like the way this film looks and feels, so light and fresh yet it's so deeply moving and tough in its heart. This one is worth a watch. Here's the...

If co-directors Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt have done their job correctly, audiences will walk out of their new film Diamantino feeling they were impregnated (to use Iñárritu’s lexicon) with “candy that doesn’t make you sick.”

Diamantino (played by Carloto Cotta) has Cristiano Ronaldo-like fame, but makes a fatal error on the soccer field and loses his superstar status. Left with nothing but his good looks, Diamantino is revealed to be a bewildered and wide-eyed Forrest Gump for the 21st century; a century plagued with right-wing machinations for which the former athlete is duped into lending his image.

We sat down with Abrantes and Schmidt at the 56th New York Film Festival to discuss the political power of mass entertainment, how Diamantino defies categories by playing in Midnight and Avant-garde sections of film festivals, and how the comedy of Lubitsch and crude special effects of Cocteau shaped their modern fairytale.

Points for originality should go to “Diamantino,” an amusing but scattershot comedy that revolves around a world-famous Portuguese soccer star patterned in part on Cristiano Ronaldo. Co-directed and written by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, this is a film that takes a lot of chances with its tone as it moves from farcical moments to scenes with earnest political messages.

Diamantino (Carloto Cotta) is a national idol on the soccer field, and whenever he scores a goal he sees enormous fluffy puppies surrounding him. This imagery of the giant puppies is funny because they’re so obviously meant to be small and harmless pets, and here they’re seen stomping around like dinosaurs. These giant fluffy puppies are an apt symbol of Diamantino himself, a sports God who is so absurdly innocent that he can be used by anyone around him for either good or bad purposes.

Diamantino is inspired...

"My mother thinks she knows everything..." Sbs Distribution has debuted the first official trailer, more of a teaser trailer / sizzle reel, for the film Frankie, the latest from acclaimed American filmmaker Ira Sachs. This is premiering at the Cannes Film Festival playing In Competition later this month, and it looks incredibly promising. Easily one of my most anticipated films of the festival. Frankie is set in the lovely town of Sintra, Portugal outside of Lisbon, where a number of palaces and castles are nestled on a hillside. The story follows three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation. Starring Isabelle Huppert, along with Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Vinette Robinson, with Carloto Cotta, Ariyon Bakare, and Sennia Nanua. This is such gorgeous footage, I have a very good feeling about this. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Ira ...

A disgraced world-class striker’s life descends into chaos as he adopts a child refugee, becomes a vote-leave poster boy – and gets cloned by the government

If Cristiano Ronaldo fell asleep after gorging on year-old camembert, his dreams could not match the bizarre bonkersness of this enjoyably throwaway romantic sci-fi satire from Portugal about a megastar footballer who falls victim of a government cloning plot. He grows breasts, adopts a child refugee and inadvertently becomes the poster boy for a “vote leave” campaign in a fictional EU referendum. Like I said, barking.

Ronaldo must be the inspiration, physically at least, for striker Diamantino Matamouros, so famous he’s known simply by his first name. It’s a nicely comic performance by Carloto Cotta, who plays the footballer like a ripped Forrest Gump: empty-headed but adorable. Even his narcissism is sweet – Diamantino sleeps under duvet covers printed with his own face...