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Documentaries lead the spring 2025 funding session of Bangkok-based Purin Pictures, representing four out of six selected titles that will receive a combined $160,000 in grants.

Three documentary winners, which receive a production grant of $15,000 each, comprise Arts Centre, in which veteran documentarian Tan Pin Pin continues her exploration of Singaporean identity; Woven Bamboo Neighbour by Indonesia’s Gama Triono, who turns to filmmaking through social work; and Vietnamese director Nhan Tran’s And The Mountains Echoed, which follows three generations of Hmong women as they navigate life between village and city.

The fourth documentary winner, Baby Jackfruit, Baby Guava from Vietnam,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 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 November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

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

Film at Lincoln Center

A Catherine Breillat retrospective begins, featuring many restorations; Before Sunset screens outdoors on Friday.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Powell and Pressburger retrospective begins.

Roxy Cinema

Fellox Roxy programmer Charli Xcx presents Daisies on 35mm this Saturday, which also brings Jackass: The Movie; a print of Mad Max: Fury Road screens throughout the weekend.

Anthology Film Archives

The restored films of Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz screen in a new collection (watch our trailer debut).

Film Forum

Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine continues playing in a new restoration; Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West shows on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

The two best comic-book movies, Darkman and Dick Tracy, play on 35mm as part of “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex,” as does The Straight Story; a series inspired by visionary psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles begins.

Previous | Image 1 of 11 | NextJohn C. Reilly, Career Achievement Award honoree.

Chicago – The Red Carpet was for rock … er, cinema … stars at the the 60th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) Summer Gala, and the directors, actors and film VIPs were present and feted. Patrick McDonald and Photographer Joe Arce of HollywoodChicago.com were also there, and got the stars to pose and talk.

Hosted with raucous glee by “Today Show” personality Al Roker, the night was a luminous event with brilliant speeches, highlighted by Career Achievement Awardee John C. Reilly, who thanked his born-and-bred Chicago upbringing for his movie star career. Also honored was filmmaker Jennifer Reeder (“Knives and Skin”) who received the Tour De Force Award for her progressive feminist filmography, and took us through her journey in a screenplay speech format. Ciff Founder Michael Kutza was also honored, and received a standing ovation.

Also among the Red Carpet attendees...

Yearning can be a difficult feeling to capture on-screen. Love stories are little without a tragic element, and defining the spaces in between moments of romantic reverie can be a challenge for even the best filmmakers and the most dedicated actors. Yun Su-ik and leading performers Han So-hee and Han Hae-in have taken a surprisingly unconventional approach to a tale of young love with “Heavy Snow”, a slight but cutting series of snapshots of a brief high-school fling that has long-lasting ramifications.

Heavy Snow is screening at BFI Flare

Han Hae-in is Su-an, an acting-major loner living in a small coastal town, introduced by wielding a loaded paintball gun as part of her performance in drama class. When performing Shakespeare, she resembles less of a traditional Hamlet and more of a school shooter, keeping her classmates on the backfoot as she alienates them with her extreme commitment to her version of a classic role.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

I love going to the movies every year, but I really loved going to the movies this year. I saw Knock at the Cabin in Providence, I saw May December in Tallinn. I saw Enys Men in a small theater at Village East where it felt like everyone in the audience turned against the film but me. Somehow I liked Equalizer 3 despite loathing the other two. The worst movie I saw in theaters was Fast X, which I watched on an edible that put me to sleep during a set piece. I missed out on seeing Magic Mike’s Last Dance with some friends who wound up running into Christopher Nolan going to see Skinamarink. I loved breaking Yom Kippur fast during The Beast (out next year—I...

I found this year’s list to be quite tricky. I’m quite happy with my order from ten through six but the top five have changed a fair amount over the last month or so. Like with any list I guess, it’s just a temperature test of how you’re feeling at that time. I also wrestled with the inclusion of my choice for number ten but sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself and admit when you’ve really enjoyed a movie. On an observational level, there’s slightly less animation on this year’s list than there has been in previous couple of years. The latest Spider-Verse instalment, which I have got in my honourable mentions, could’ve made the cut but it feels like the first part of a wider story. If they stick the landing with Beyond though it’ll likely retroactively...

Celine Song’s quietly bewitching drama told a complex story of shifting identity and love with beguilingly simple means

• More on the best films of 2023

• More on the best culture of 2023

Slowly and quietly this year, the film Past Lives from Korean-Canadian dramatist and director Celine Song, has been working its discreet magic. Pretty much every new audience member has been turned into a convert, recommending it to a handful more who joined this film’s growing congregation of fans that can hardly describe the spell it has cast over our hearts. This is partly a deeply romantic and sad movie about lost love and missed chances. It’s also a kind of reverie about alternative existences, and what-if life paths. And this is a more urgent question for first- and second-generation immigrant communities in the US. They may well, as they grow into their 30s and 40s, consider the...

Final five nominations to be announced on November 2.

Steve McQueen’s Occupied City, Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall and Todd Haynes’ May December are among the titles on the latest British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) longlists, for Best Feature Documentary and Best International Independent Film.

15 films are on the documentary longlist, with five of them by first-time directors; with 17 films on the international list.

Scroll down for the longlists

Alongside McQueen’s film combining analysis of Amsterdam during the Second World War with the present day, documentary titles include Kevin MacDonald’s High & Low: John Galliano about the...

After making four documentary features about border conflicts, ethnicity, prostitution and human rights, Thai director Nontawat Numbenchapol picks up many of the same themes in his first fiction feature “Doi Boy.”

The film, which premieres this week in the Jiseok competition section of the Busan International Film Festival, is the story of three young men living on the margins of society in Thailand and their common quest for justice. The characters are an illegal immigrant from Myanmar working, despite his own heterosexuality, as a gay prostitute in Chiang Main, a customer and an on-the-run political activist he is trying to help.

The narrative takes in a large number of the social and political problems that have beset seemingly idyllic Thailand in recent years – undocumented workers, illegal immigrants fleeing the civil war in Myanmar, an oppressive political power structure, enforced ‘disappearance’ of those who the government’s political opponents and critics,...

Korean-Canadian writer-director Celine Song’s tremendous feature debut tells the poignant tale of childhood sweethearts separated by fate and thousands of miles

This supremely confident feature debut from Korean-Canadian writer-director Celine Song is a spine-tingling gem – a tale of not-so-brief encounters between star-crossed souls, played out over a period of 24 years. Combining the aching yearning of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love with the casual intimacy of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, it paints a picture of unresolved affection as delicate as it is profound, interweaving timeless themes of fate and providence with more playfully down-to-earth musings on happenstance and shapeshifting identity. The result, which has one foot in South Korea and the other in North America, feels at times like an impossible mashup of Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul and Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, shot through with a stoical melancholia that recalls the final...

This year’s Un Certain Regard selection was a pretty sturdy class and the jury comprised of John C. Reilly, Alice Winocour, Paula Beer, Davy Chou and Émilie Dequenne made some excellent palmares decisions here. One of the most unforgettable award ceremonies in recent time due to the winner being “on her way back”, the charismatic John C. Reilly charmed the audience.

Un Certain Regard Prize

How To Have Sex directed by Molly Manning Walker

New Voice Prize

Augure (Omen) directed by Baloji

Ensemble Prize

CROWRÃ (The Buriti Flower) directed by João Salaviza & Renée Nader Messora

Freedom Prize

Goodbye Julia directed by Mohamed Kordofani

Directing Prize

Asmae El Moudir in Kadib Abyad (The Mother Of All Lies)

Jury’s Prize

Les Meutes (Hounds) directed by Kamal Lazraq

…...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSMay December.The first flurries of fall festival news have arrived. The New York Film Festival opens on September 29 with the North American premiere of Todd Haynes's May December—read Lawrence Garcia's take on the "immediately invigorating" film here, toward the conclusion of his Cannes dispatch. The San Sebastián Film Festival (September 22 through 30) has announced its first group of competition titles: among them, Cristi Puiu’s Mmxx, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Martín Rejtman’s La prática, and Robin Campillo’s Red Island. Finally, the Venice Film Festival will open on August 30 with the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers.Lucile Hadžihalilović has announced her follow-up to Earwig (2021), the 1970s-set La Tour de Glace. Based on a brief plot synopsis,...

Davy Chou’s lovely drama about a young woman searching for her past follows in the footsteps of The Deer Hunter, Get Carter, Tiny Furniture and more

Earlier this year I visited my home city of Johannesburg after seven years away, to find – as I do every time I return – everything at once the same and entirely different: old houses and haunts nestled just as I left them, but surrounded by unfamiliar spikes of development and decay. “You can’t go home again” goes the old phrase, but we can and we do, the warmth of nostalgia constantly battling the shock of the new.

That tension is why homecoming is a such a recurrent, irresistible theme in the movies, though Davy Chou’s lovely, glimmering Return to Seoul (Mubi) offers a less common angle on that bittersweet pang. Its Gen-z protagonist, Freddie (a wonderful Park Ji-min), is searching for any...

Davy Chou's Return to Seoul is now showing exclusively on Mubi from July 7, 2023, in many countries—including the United Kingdom, India, and Turkey—in the series The New Auteurs.Return to Seoul.Although stories about adoptees run the risk of becoming hackneyed melodrama, Return to Seoul skillfully avoids this trap. It’s both a singular portrait of a ferociously memorable character and a universal story of finding one’s identity at large—but this summation doesn’t capture the film’s nuances and canvas of references. Working in a country that is not his own, French-Cambodian director Davy Chou keenly observes the subtleties of Korean culture, as well as the limits of language that perpetually unveil the characters’ divergent motives. The film follows Frédérique “Freddie” Benoît, a young woman who was born in Korea but raised in France, as she spontaneously travels to the country of her birth. Checking into an unassuming hostel,...

There are not many character studies in cinema done with such care and empathy as Davy Chou’s Return To Seoul. With a nuanced performance from Park Ji-Min, Chou brings to life the story inspired by his friend Laure Badulfe, who was born in Korea but was adopted by a French couple. The personal touch is quite apparent as the smallest details about the life of the film’s protagonist, Frédérique, are put on celluloid. The plot revolves around her after she visits Seoul for the first time and tries to find her biological parents, unaware that her stay in South Korea will become the epicenter of her emotionally turbulent life. Let’s deep dive into her character, which goes through a lot of changes throughout the film:

Spoilers Ahead

The 25-year-old Freddie comes to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, on a two-week holiday that was initially scheduled for Tokyo,...

Halfway into Davy Chou’s predominantly French Return To Seoul, I was close to giving up hope and adding it to the list of films with an insufferable, cruel lead with troubled emotions masquerading as her quirks. Lucky for me, the film devotes just enough time to convincingly communicate that it’s more sensible and self-aware than it may have seemed right off the bat. It’s a tremendous challenge not to pick sides in a passive-aggressive battle of helpless abandonment and the subsequent rage that permeates the entirety of a person’s life. Yet Return To Seoul is cautious in the wreckage it allows the one who’s perpetually in a state of being eaten alive by pain. And it never stretches its boundaries more than it’s supposed to in order to accommodate the ones who tried to do the right thing and inadvertently messed someone up for life.

Text written on June 6, 2023 by Jean-Marc Thérouanne

Asia in the juries :

Franco-Afghan writer and director Atiq Rahimi was the only Asian member of the prestigious jury at the 76th Cannes Film Festival

Fench-Cambodian director Davy Chou was the only Asia-related member of the Un Certain Regard jury

Davy Chou

Shlomi Elkabetz was the only member of the short film jury and the Cinef with a connection to geographical Asia.

Asia in the selections:

Asia, from the Near to the Far East, was present with 31 features and 13 shorts in all the official and parallel sections of the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

In compétition :

– China: Youth (Spring) by Wang Bing

– Japan: Monster by Kore-eda Hirokazu,

Kim Dong-ho, Hirokazu Koreeda

– Turkey: About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan,

and The Pot-au-feu by French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days, set in Japan.

Out of compétition :

– Korea: Cobweb by Kim Jee-won,...

It’s been a whirlwind two weeks, and as relieved as attendees and observers around the world are that the 2023 edition of Cannes has come to a close, we’re already eager for next year’s. Though too much attention may have been paid to the wrong things – controversies regarding the opening night selection, “Jeanne du Barry,” and altercations with police over bicycles come to mind – cinema and its celebration ultimately took centerstage. By most accounts, 2023 was an improvement over two (understandably) subdued years.

This year’s Main Competition jury was headed by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and co-jurored by Julia Ducournau (“Titane”), Paul Dano, Brie Larson, Denis Ménochet (recently seen in “Beau is Afraid”), Atiq Rahimi (“Our Lady of the Nile”), Damián Szifron (“Wild Tales” and this year’s “To Catch a Killer”), Rungano Nyoni (“I Am Not a Witch”) and Maryam Touzani (“The Blue Caftan...

With his debut feature “Hopeless”, director Kim Chang-hoon tells a story about a 17-year-old highschooler Yeon-gyu (Xa Bing-hon) who seeks to escape domestic violence in a very wrong milieu, and a mid-level gang boss Chi-geon who (Joong-ki Soon), on the one hand comes to his rescue, and on the other – involuntarily drags him into a deeper abyss. This slow-pacing noir had its premiere towards the end of the festival in Un Certain Regard competition, in the presence of the jury consisting of John C. Reilly, Alice Winocour, Paula Beer, Davy Chou and Émilie Dequenne.

We met with Kim at the rooftop terrace of the festival Palais, a day after the premiere to inquire about the brutal milieu depicted in the movie, his impressions from Cannes and his methods. Since his biography is still a blank page that needs to be filled, we asked him to present himself in his own words,...

As relieved as attendees and observers around the world are that the 2023 edition of Cannes has come to a close, we’re already eager for next year’s. Though too much attention may have been paid to the wrong things – controversies regarding the opening night selection, “Jeanne du Barry,” and altercations with police over bicycles come to mind – cinema and its celebration ultimately took centerstage. By most accounts, 2023 was an improvement over two (understandably) subdued years.

This year’s Main Competition jury was headed by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and co-jurored by Julia Ducournau (“Titane”), Paul Dano, Brie Larson, Denis Ménochet (recently seen in “Beau is Afraid”), Atiq Rahimi (“Our Lady of the Nile”), Damián Szifron (“Wild Tales” and this year’s “To Catch a Killer”), Rungano Nyoni (“I Am Not a Witch”) and Maryam Touzani (“The Blue Caftan”). The Un Certain Regard series was presided over by John C. Reilly.

The 76th edition of the Cannes film festival concludes today with the Closing Ceremony and presentation of the coveted award, the Palme d’Or which was awarded to Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall.

The Jury, presided over by director Ruben Östlund and includes director Maryam Touzani, actor Denis Ménochet, writer/director Rungano Nyoni, actress/director Brie Larson, actor/director Paul Dano, writer Atiq Rahimi, director Damián Szifron and director Julia Ducournau, selected the winners from the 21 films in Competition this year.

The Closing Ceremony marks the end of the 76th Festival de Cannes, and was followed by the screening of Peter Sohn‘s film Elementary in the Grand Théâtre Lumière.

Related: Cannes Film Festival Winners Announced

The last 2 weeks the Croisette has been a buzz with extravagant parties and bold fashion statements captured at the 21 world premieres on the Palais des Festivals red carpet.

Johnny Depp’s period...

Rites of passage … Mia McKenna Bruce in How To Have Sex Photo: Quinzaine des Cinéastes

The Cannes Film Festival awards focus is hotting up ahead of tomorrow’s closing ceremony when the Palme d’Or and other major prizes will be announced.

Un Certain Regard which claims to concentrate on "artistically daring films” and has included 20 features – eight of which are first features also competing for the Caméra d’or. The opening film was Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom / Le Règne Animal but the main honour went to UK director Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex which walked off with the top gong - Un Certain Regard Prize.

Pierre Creton’s A Prince has won the French writers’ guild Sacd prize for best French-language feature, awarded to a title selected for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Photo: Quinzaine des Cinéastes

Our review said: "Manning Waller views the disintegration of...

Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes festival breakout How to Have Sex has won the prize for best film in the 2023 Un Certain Regard sidebar. The astounding debut, which follows three British teens out for a summer holiday in Greece that turns dark, was The Hollywood Reporter‘s hidden gem pick this Cannes and was among the most talked-about movies on the Croisette this year.

Four African films also took home awards at the Un Certain Regard ceremony Friday night. Asmae El Moudir won the Un Certain Regard’s best director honor for her hybrid documentary, The Mother of All Lies, a search for the truth behind her family’s stories of the 1981 Bread Riots in Morocco. Kamal Lazraq won the Un Certain Regard jury prize for Hounds, a crime drama set in the suburbs of Casablanca. Omen, the directing debut of Belgian-Congolese hip-hop artist Baloji, took the new voice prize for best first feature.

Other winners included ’Hounds’, ’The Mother Of All Lies’, ’Goodbye Julia’ and ’The Buriti Flower’.

Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature How To Have Sex has won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).

The film follows a group of teenage girls on a rite-of-passage clubbing holiday, and was shot in Greece with a cast including Mia McKenna-Bruce, Lara Peake and Samuel Bottomley. It is produced by Wild Swim Films and co-producer Heretic, with backing by Film4, BFI and mk2 Films, with Mubi releasing in the UK, North America and other key territories.

Molly Manning Walker’s “How to Have Sex” was named the best film Friday of the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The UK director’s first film tells the story of three girls vacationing in Greece. The girl who is still a virgin expects to have slept with a boy by the time their trip is over, as do her two friends. She ends up losing her virginity to a guy on the beach, but she checks out during the process. The boy then makes unwanted advances on her while she is asleep. She wakes up to him ready to have sex with her, and resigns once more.

Mia McKenna-Bruce stars.

Also Read:

Cannes 2023: See the Star-Studded Red Carpet Arrivals (Photos)

This year’s Un Certain Regard competition included 20 feature films, eight of which are also competing for the Camera d’or. The jury, chaired by actor John C. Reilly,...

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival ends tomorrow, but awards for the fest start today, at least in the Un Certain Regard category. With John C. Reilly presiding as Jury president, and Paula Beer, Davy Chou, Alice Winocour, and Émilie Dequenne as fellow jurors, announced their winners today on la Croisette. And the winner of the Uncertain Regard Prize?

Read More: ‘How To Have Sex’ Review: Snapshot Of Brits Abroad Proves A Refreshing Take On Female Sexual Coming Of Age [Cannes]

It’s Molly Manning Walker‘s debut film “How To Have Sex,” about three British teens who go on a rite-of-passage holiday that ends up much more sobering than the girls expect.

Continue reading Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Awards: Molly Manning Walker’s Debut ‘How To Have Sex’ Wins Top Prize at The Playlist.

UK director Molly Manning Walker’s first film How To Have Sex won the top prize in Cannes Un Certain Regard on Friday evening.

The tale of a group of teenagers on a rite of passage clubbing holiday was described by Deadline reviewer Damon Wise as “a visceral and sensory experience” and an “exceptional debut”. Read the review here and a Deadline interview with the director here.

The Jury Prize went to Moroccan filmmaker Kamal Lazraq’s Hounds about a father and son who find themselves caught up in a kidnapping plot that goes wrong.

Best Director went to Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir’s documentary The Mother Of All Lies about the bread riots that shook a working-class Casablanca neighborhood in 1981.

She follows in the footsteps of Alain Guiraudie, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Sergei Loznitsa who also won the prize early in their careers.

In other awards, the Ensemble Prize...

It was an evening of surprises, song and spontaneous vamping at this year’s Un Certain Regard awards ceremony, with jury president John C. Reilly putting on quite a show for the assembled audience in addition to handing out six awards to films in the festival’s second-most prestigious competition.

But the real winner of the night was British freshman director Molly Manning Walker, who not only took the section’s top award for her buzzy, fluorescent debut feature “How to Have Sex,” but managed to accept in person against the odds. Not present at the ceremony when the announcement was made, owing to a flight delay, Manning Walker scrambled to the stage five minutes later — dressed, not unlike one of the principals in her youth-centered film, in a neon-green T-shirt and Adidas shorts — directly from her airport taxi. Reilly obligingly filled the time by singing two Great American Songbook standards for a delighted crowd.

Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” is a hot property in Cannes, and it’s yet to even premiere.

Several buyers are currently circling the Japan-set, music-infused title from master filmmaker Wenders, which bows in competition on Thursday. Sources tell Variety that interested parties so far include Utopia, Mubi, Sideshow and Janus Films and Sony Pictures Classics.

Wenders’ “Perfect Days” follows Tokyo toilet cleaner Hirayama, who seems content with his simple life. Outside of his everyday routine, he enjoys his passion for books and, in particular, for music. Over the course of the film, a series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.

“Memoirs of a Geisha” star Koji Yakusho — whom some critics have tipped as a contender for Cannes’ best actor prize on Saturday — leads the cast as Hirayama. He also co-starred in “Babel,” a film that was honored by the Cannes Film Festival and earned Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

An adopted woman travels from France to South Korea in search of her roots in Davy Chou’s star-making second film

The Cambodian-French film-maker Davy Chou, a longtime champion of “lost” Cambodian cinema, made a splash in Cannes in 2016 with his dramatic feature debut, Diamond Island, a prize winner in the international critics’ week strand. For the lead role in his follow-up feature, Return to Seoul, about an adoptee who travels from France to Korea in search of her roots, he turned to Korean-born visual artist Park Ji-min, who had moved to France as a child but had no acting experience. An intense period of collaboration followed, and the result is this remarkably intimate and very affecting drama – an episodic odyssey (inspired by script consultant Laure Badufle) spanning the best part of a decade. It became Cambodia’s entry for this year’s 95th Academy Awards, and confirms both Chou...

Mohammad Rasoulof’s invitation to Cannes has ignited a campaign to allow the Iranian filmmaker to leave his home nation.

International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (Icfr), an Amsterdam-based organization, issued a statement titled “Let Mohammad Rasoulof Go!” urging the Iranian government to allow the filmmaker to travel to France for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The “There Is No Evil” filmmaker was invited to serve on the Un Certain Regard jury but is unable to attend due to Iran’s travel embargo on him.

Rasoulof was recently banned from leaving Iran after being arrested in July 2022 for posting statements criticizing government-sanctioned violence against protesters. Rasoulof was later temporarily released in February 2023 due to ongoing health concerns. He was later pardoned and sentenced to one year of penal servitude and a two-year ban from leaving Iran on the charge of “propaganda against the regime.”

Similarly, director Jafar Panahi, who was detained alongside Rasoulof,...

‘Return To Seoul’, ‘Pamfir’ also in cinemas.

Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) title Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in 705 cinemas this weekend, and will look to continue the increase in takings from the first to the second film.

The third standalone Guardians film sees Peter Quill rally his team to defend the universe, in a mission that could mean the end of the group.

Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff all return with Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Maria Bakalova in voice roles, with Screen Star of Tomorrow 2013 Will Poulter new to the cast as Adam Warlock,...

Mohammad Rasoulof revealed he was invited to serve on the 2023 Cannes Un Certain Regard jury but was forced to turn down the spot due to a travel ban from his home nation of Iran.

Per Radio France Internationale (Rfi), Rasoulof was prevented from leaving Iran to attend the French festival. Rfi also reported that Cannes organizers are still trying to provide conditions for Rasoulof to be in attendance. The director formerly received the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2011 for “Goodbye” and won the Fipresci prize in 2013 for “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” followed by the Un Certain Regard award for “A Man of Integrity” in 2017.

The 2023 Cannes Un Certain Regard jury will be overseen by jury president John C. Reilly and consists of French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actress Paula Beer, Franco-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou, and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne.

Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has been banned from leaving Iran to serve as a member of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard jury, he has confirmed to Variety.

News of the travel ban for the director who was recently released from Tehran’s Evin prison after being arrested last July for criticizing the government on social media, was first reported by the Farsi-language news service of Radio France Internationale (Rfi). Rasoulof via text message confirmed he was not allowed by Iranian authorities to leave the country to be a member of the Un Certain Regard jury. No reason was provided.

The Cannes Film Festival declined to comment.

U.S. actor John C. Reilly will serve as president of the Un Certain Regard jury. The other jury members are French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actor Paula Beer, French-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou and Belgian actor Émilie Dequenne.

In a terrific acting debut, Park Ji-min visits the country of her birth and decides on a whim to seek out her biological parents – with gripping consequences

The implacable forces of nature, nurture and destiny are what this movie grapples with; it is a really emotional and absorbing drama about adoption with terrific performances (many from nonprofessional first-timers) and compelling soundtrack musical cues. Franco-Cambodian film-maker Davy Chou directs, co-writing the screenplay with artist Laure Badufle, a Korean adoptee brought up in France whose personal story inspired the film.

Park Ji-min makes her acting debut in a role that mirrors her own life as well as Badufle’s: a Korean with adoptive French parents. She plays Freddie Benoît, a footloose twentysomething who on a whim comes on a trip to Seoul, checks into a hostel for foreigners and imperiously decides that the polite, French-speaking receptionist Tena, subtly played by author Guka Han,...

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival officially has its jury.

After some delay and speculation over who’d be the judges at the Croisette this year, the 76th edition has finally unveiled its complete jury, led by previously announced jury president Ruben Östlund. The “Triangle of Sadness” Palme d’Or winner will oversee the Competition, with the festival running May 16 through 27.

Paul Dano, Brie Larson, Moroccan director Maryam Touzani, French actor Denis Ménochet, British-Zambian screenwriter and director Rungano Nyoni, Afghan author Atiq Rahimi, Argentinian director and screenwriter Damián Szifrón, and “Titane” director Julia Ducournau, who won the top prize in 2021, round out this year’s jury. The jury will award the Palme d’Or to one of the 21 films announced in competition.

Awards will be presented May 27 at the closing ceremony, which will be broadcast live by France Télévisions in France and by Brut. The final festival screening for its closing night,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSNon-Fiction.The Writers Guild of America went on strike Tuesday; this is the first major Hollywood strike since 2007. Michael Schulman of the New Yorker speaks with several screenwriters about the conditions they are advocating to change, highlighting the ways in which streaming has transformed their livelihoods.Olivier Assayas is cooking up a new project with his current muse Vincent Macaigne, titled Hors du temps, per the actor’s Instagram. Macaigne wonderfully held the center of Assayas’s limited-series rewiring of Irma Vep (2022), and brought a similarly melancholy pathos to Non-Fiction (2018).The Cannes Film Festival has announced that John C. Reilly will preside over the Un Certain Regard jury—a worthy recognition of his Mvp status in Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon (2022). Alongside...

John C. Reilly will head up the jury for the 2023 Cannes Un Certain Regard sidebar.

Reilly has been a frequent visitor to the French film festival, screening such titles as The Lobster, Tale of Tales and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

“I have had so many life-changing moments at the Festival de Cannes (from my miraculous first trip with Paul Thomas Anderson to celebrating my 50th birthday from the Palais stage!) So to be chosen as the president of Un Certain Regard Jury is truly such an incredible honor,” Reilly said in a statement. “Many of the films I have been lucky to appear in have been selected by the Festival over these many years and nothing feels as special as being invited to this amazing annual gathering of the very best cinema has to offer the world. I look forward to helping launch another generation of filmmakers on...

New feature from the director of ‘Sheherazade’ added to Un Certain Regard strand.

US actor John C. Reilly will preside over the jury for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, which has added Salem by Cesar award-winning French director Jean-Bernard Marlin to its line-up.

Alongside Reilly on the five-person jury are French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actress Paula Beer, French-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne.

Reilly made his film debut in Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War in 1989 by Brian De Palma and played roles in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line,...

U.S. actor John C. Reilly will serve as president of the jury of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes Film Festival. “Salem,” directed by Jean-Bernard Marlin, has been added to the lineup.

The other members of the jury will be French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actor Paula Beer, French-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou, and Belgian actor Émilie Dequenne.

The Un Certain Regard section showcases art and discovery films by young auteurs.

In a statement, Reilly said: “I have had so many life changing moments at the Festival de Cannes (from my miraculous first trip with Paul Thomas Anderson to celebrating my 50th birthday from the Palais stage!) so to be chosen as the president of Un Certain Regard jury is truly such an incredible honor.”

Reilly’s movie credits include Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Hard Eight” (1996), “Boogie Nights” (1997), and “Magnolia” (1999), Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line...

John C. Reilly will now help pick which film will have its own winning time at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

The “Winning Time” star and “Chicago” Oscar nominee has officially been selected as the president of the Un Certain Regard jury for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. Reilly’s previous films ranging from Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin” to Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” and Yórgos Lánthimos’ “The Lobster” have formerly debuted at the festival. Reilly most recently appeared briefly in the Cannes Competition-selected “Stars at Noon” helmed by Claire Denis.

“I experienced so many unforgettable moments at the Cannes Film Festival, from my unexpected first visit with Paul Thomas Anderson to my 50th birthday, celebrated on the stage at the Palais!” Reilly said in a press statement. “It is therefore an incredible honor for me to be chosen as President of the Un Certain Regard Jury.

John C. Reilly will preside over the Un Certain Regard Jury at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, running May 16-27.

He will be joined by French director and screenwriter Alice Winocour, German actress Paula Beer, French-Cambodian director and producer Davy Chou and Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne.

“I have had so many life changing moments at the Festival de Cannes, from my miraculous first trip with Paul Thomas Anderson to celebrating my 50th birthday from the Palais stage! So to be chosen as the President of Un Certain Regard Jury is truly such an incredible honor,” said Reilly.

“Many of the films I have been lucky to appear in have been selected by the Festival over these many years and nothing feels as special as being invited to this amazing annual gathering of the very best cinema has to offer the world. I look forward to helping launch another generation of...

It’s a slow week for new releases, both in theaters and at home. “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” deserves to be an Oscar contender — let’s get Rachel McAdams‘ supporting-actress campaign started pronto — but you’ll have to leave the couch to see that one. Without venturing to the multiplex, you can catch two favorites from the Oscars’ most recent shortlists and two new movies with very different sensibilities.

This contender to watch this week: “Moonage Daydream”

“David Bowie: The Last Five Years,” released in 2017, focused on the final chapter in the glam rocker’s storied career. “Moonage Daydream” is about what came before. The film made last year’s Oscar shortlist but was left out when nominations were announced, surprising many who thought this kaleidoscopic profile would be a shoo-in for Best Documentary Feature. Brett Morgan, who also directed the stylish “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

All These Sons

With his first documentary Minding the Gap, Bing Liu turned the lens on himself and his friends to examine the domestic violence around them. One of the more human documentaries of the last decade, Liu’s film looked at Rockford, Illinois, and the racial and social elements that affect young men and women in this decent-sized city. With his newest effort, All These Sons, Liu and collaborator Joshua Altman focus on Chicago’s South and West Sides, following young Black men at Iman and Maafa, two community organizations aiming to keep these men away from the gun violence that surrounds them. Once again the resulting film bursts with empathy, built-in trauma, and forgiveness. – John F. (full review)

Where to...

On paper, the basic premise of Davy Chou‘s Return to Seoul doesn’t seem that original: the story of a French Korean woman who visits her home country of South Korea in an attempt to find and connect with her parents who had left her at an adoption center only to discover that her desire to build some sort of relationship doesn’t pan out the way she hoped.

Almost every aspect of this film’s story has been done before: Lulu Wang’s The Farewell explores a similar concept about a Chinese American woman visiting her home country and experiencing a sense of culture shock, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Brokers explores similar themes about family and friendship amongst a group of orphans, and Jocham Trier’s The Worst Person in the World follows a young woman lost and trying to find meaning in her life.

And yet in spite of all these similar parallels,...

Pedro Almodóvar’s hotly anticipated short “Strange Way of Life” has secured its first deal ahead of its Cannes Film Festival world premiere next month.

In the project’s first announced multi-territory deal Mubi — the indie streamer, distributor and producer — has acquired all rights for Italy and Latin America. Pathe will be releasing the film in the U.K. under a longstanding agreement.

Shot in southern Spain’s Tabernas desert, “Strange Way of Life” stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as two gunmen who reunite after 25 years. The half-hour film has been described by Almodóvar as a “queer Western, in the sense that there are two men and they love each other,” the director said last December on Dua Lipa’s “At Your Service” podcast.

The short marks Almodóvar’s second foray into English-language filmmaking following Tilda Swinton starrer “The Human Voice” in 2020. “Strange Way of Life” will screen at...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSKillers of the Flower Moon.Amid brewing Cannes selection rumors, a US theatrical release date has been announced for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is being co-distributed by Apple and Paramount. The film will open in limited release on October 6 before expanding nationwide on October 21. This speaks to Apple’s new strategy to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical releases, geared toward raising its profile in the film industry.Unions representing screenwriters in the US are currently negotiating for better working conditions and equitable wages in a new three-year contract. The New York Times looks at whether or not a strike might be likely after the current agreement expires on May 1.Recommended VIEWINGWe’re thrilled to exclusively premiere Mdff...

Often hilarious and moving, Adele Lim’s anticipated directorial debut Joy Ride takes the girls-trip formula in both new and familiar directions, crossing borders and breaking boundaries. Meeting as the only two Asian kids on the playground in a Norman Rockwell-esque, all-white town in the Pacific Northwest (aptly named White Falls), Audrey and Lolo become fast friends. But they couldn’t be any more different––while Audrey’s adoptive but somewhat uncomfortable guardians (David Denman and Annie Mumolo) encourage her academic pursuits and law career, Lolo’s successful parents accept her as a rebel artist making work about sexual liberation in everyday objects.

25 years later, Lolo (Sherry Cola) lives in the guest house behind Audrey (Ashley Park), now a successful corporate attorney who’s dispatched to China to close a deal for her firm. She brings Lolo along as a “translator” to help close the deal; along the way they...

Neramitnung Film has closed deals on ’Inhuman Kiss: The Last Breath’.

Thai sales and production company Neramitnung Film has closed multiple deals on upcoming romantic horror sequel Inhuman Kiss: The Last Breath.

Encripta has acquired the film for Latin America, South America and non-us Caribbean Basin, while Kinologistika has taken Cis territories. In Southeast Asia, deals have been closed for Cambodia and Laos (Westec), Vietnam (Mocking Bird), Malaysia and Brunei (Suraya Film), Indonesia and Myanmar (Shiva) and Singapore (Clover Films).

The film marks the feature directorial debut of TV commercial director Paphangkorn Punchantarak and stars Chanya McClory from Netflix series The Girl From Nowhere.