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Dubai-based sales company Mad World has acquired worldwide rights to Maja Ajmia Zellama’s Têtes Brûlées, ahead of its world premiere at the Berlinale.

Parent company Mad Solutions has also taken distribution rights for the Middle East and North Africa on the film, which will play in the Generation 14plus strand of the festival in February.

The Belgian film centres on a 12-year-old girl named Eya who has to face the sudden death of her older brother Younès, with whom share shared an inseparable bond. As she grieves, Eya’s draws on her creativity, resilience and the support of Younès...

RadicalMedia and Dirty Dozen Productions are partnering on a documentary film about the Titan submersible disaster. Currently in post-production, the film is being directed and produced by Aron Arngrimsson.

The disaster occurred in June 2023, when a submersible on an expedition to view the wreck of the Titanic imploded, killing all five occupants.

The producers plan to release the film next year, with festival screenings to be followed by distribution across major platforms.

Dirty Dozen director Arngrimsson was present when the Titan set out on its last voyage. Arngrimsson, Stacey Reiss, Antti Apunen and Geoff Creighton are producing the film, with Louie Psihoyos,...

Tull Stories has picked up UK-Ireland rights to Victoria Mapplebeck’s documentary Motherboard from Autlook Filmsales.

Filmed over 20 years, Motherboard charts Mapplebeck from her surprise pregnancy through to her relationship with her son and her breast cancer diagnosis. Large portions of the film were shot on an iPhone.

The film had its world premiere at Cph:dox and later screened at the BFI London Film Festival.

Tull Stories is eyeing a summer 2025 release.

Mapplebeck previously won a Bafta TV award in 2019 in short form programme for Missed A Call, a documentary shot entirely on an iPhone and also chronicling her relationship with her son.

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first wave of titles for its 75th edition, including features in its Panorama, Berlinale Special and Generation strands.

An initial 12 titles have been revealed for Panorama, of which eight are world premieres. These include Paul, a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Denis Cote, who has played in competition at Berlin four times with titles including Vic + Flo Saw A Bear and That Kind Of Summer. His latest follows a man struggling with social anxiety who finds refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

Scroll down for full list of...

The Berlin Film Festival forges a new path next year with the first year under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, who succeeds Carlo Chatrian and brings a background as a journalist and curator to the annual German showcase. This year’s festival runs February 13-23, and also in new positions this year are Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz, both serving as co-directors of programming.

With bigger announcements to come, the Berlinale unveiled its first wave of titles across the Panorama and Berlinale Special gala lineups on Tuesday. As previously announced, Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” is opening this coming 75th edition. Filmmakers getting a boost from today’s announcement include Denis Côté, Michel Gondry, and Ira Sachs, all bringing new films to the festival.

In the Berlinale Special lineup, German director Jan-Ole Gerster debuts the neo-noir thriller “Islands,” starring Sam Riley and Stacy Martin. Per the festival synopsis, in the film,...

The Berlin Film Festival has named the first dozen titles for its 2025 Panorama lineup, Berlin’s main sidebar, and there are a few familiar faces in the mix.

Berlinale regular Ira Sachs will return with Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall, a feature based on a 1974 conversation between photographer Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz, offering insight into the New York art scene. Canadian filmmaker and fellow Berlinale alum Denis Côté is back in Panorama with Paul, a documentary on a cleaner who uses his job cleaning homes and sharing his routines on social media to help combat depression and social anxiety.

Other Panorama titles announced Tuesday include Emilie Blichfeldt’s Danish horror feature Den stygge stesøsteren (The Ugly Stepsister), a dark twisted fairy tale, which will premiere in Sundance; Frelle Petersen’s Hjem kaere hjem, a social realist drama on the life of an elder...

The Belin Film Festival has unveiled its Panorama lineup, including new works by Denis Côté, Ira Sachs, Michel Gondry and Shatara Michelle Ford, among others.

Sachs’ movie, “Peter Hujar’s Day,” stars Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall. Set for an international premiere in Berlin, the film portrays a 1974 conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz, set against the backdrop of the New York art scene of the time.

Côté’s film, “Paul,” is a documentary about a man struggling with depression and social anxiety who found refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

Gondry’s “Maya, Give Me a Title” is described by the festival as a “stop-motion love letter to his daughter Maya brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that invites you to dream and laugh.” It features the voice of “The Count of Monte-Cristo” star Pierre Niney.

Ford’s “Dreams in Nightmares,...

Palestinian director Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays has won the Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos prize for best film at the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which ran from October 31-November 10.

The family drama centring on an Arab-speaking Israeli family premiered earlier this year in Venice’s Horizons strand, winning best screenplay. Copti had previously won the best film and screenplay prizes at Thessaloniki in 2009 for his Academy Award nominated Ajami.

The Silver Alexander for best director went to Belgian Leonardo van Dijl for his debut feature Julie Keeps Quiet, winner of the Sacd award in Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar.

The jury of the international competition,...

Happy Holidays, the latest feature from Palestinian Filmmaker Scandar Copti, has taken the top prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece.

Copti’s film won the Best Feature Film Award, which comes with a 10,000-euro cash prize. Awarding the prize, the jury, headed by Sara Driver, praised the film for “intricately weaving different narratives and perspectives that fully expose the complexity of national, gender and class dynamics that can divide societies and for seeing the future in the face of a young woman the Golden Alexander goes to Happy Holidays by Scandar Copti.”

Happy Holidays debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The story open after a minor accident sets off a chain of events, unraveling lies and unspoken truths that sow division within a multifaceted patriarchal society.

The festival’s Best Director Award, which comes with a 5,000-euro cash prize, was picked up Leonardo Van Dijl for Julie Keeps Quiet.

Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Israel-set family drama “Happy Holidays” won the top prize Sunday at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, taking home the Golden Alexander for best feature film.

Copti’s sophomore feature, his first film since his Oscar-nominated 2009 debut “Ajami,” premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar, winning the best screenplay prize. Variety’s Siddhant Adlakha described it as “a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity.”

“Happy Holidays” follows four interconnected characters who share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations and cultures. The ensemble cast — comprised of Arab and Jewish characters alike — creates a multifaceted portrait of life in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

The Thessaloniki jury, which included filmmaker and producer Sara Driver (“Boom for Real”), filmmaker Denis Côté (“Vic + Flo Saw a Bear”) and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis (“How to Have Sex...

Thessaloniki Film Festival has revealed its International Competition section, which showcases 12 films by up-and-coming directors from around the world. The selection includes “Julie Keeps Quiet,” which is Belgium’s entry in the Oscars, and “Under the Volcano,” which is Poland’s entry.

Also selected are “Arcadia,” which won best director at Sarajevo for Yorgos Zois; “Happy Holidays,” which won best screenplay in Venice Horizons for Scandar Copti; “On Falling,” which won best director at San Sebastian for Laura Carreira; and “Pierce,” which won best director at Karlovy Vary for Nelicia Low.

The jury is composed of filmmaker and producer Sara Driver, filmmaker Denis Côté and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis.

The top prize is the Golden Alexander for best feature film, accompanied by a 10,000 euro cash prize. There is also the Silver Alexander for best direction, accompanied by a 5,000 euro cash prize; the best actor and actress awards; and the best screenplay and best artistic achievement award.

Paris-based Totem Films has acquired world sales rights, excluding Canada, to Canadian filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz’s “Measures for a Funeral” in advance of the film’s world premiere in the Toronto Film Festival’s Centrepiece program.

Margot Hervée, Totem’s head of sales and acquisitions, first encountered Bohdanowicz’s work a few years ago. “It immediately resonated with me,” she told Variety. “We’re thrilled to now have her as part of the Totem family and to represent her latest film.”

Vortex Media is the film’s Canadian distributor.

As part of today’s announcement, Totem has shared with Variety a first teaser for “Measures,” which stars Deragh Campbell as Audrey Benac — a “family detective” character she has played in previous Bohdanowicz films, including the feature “Ms Slavic 7,” which premiered in Berlin in 2019 and also screened in Toronto.

Filmed in Canada, the U.K. and Norway, “Measures”— which won the...

Taking place August 7-17, the official selection for the 77th Locarno Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring a stellar-looking slate of highly anticipated films. Highlights include Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, By the Stream, starring Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee; Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), as well as new films by Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Courtney Stephens, Ben Rivers, Gürcan Keltek, Denis Côté, Kevin Jerome Everson, Fabrice Du Welz (featuring Abel Ferrara!), and many more. Also of particular note is the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored cut of The Fall, which features a slightly different edit as he recently noted.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival said, “We are very excited and happy with our selection for Locarno’s 77th edition, which we believe...

The Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland has unveiled an eclectic lineup for its 77th edition, taking place Aug. 7-17. The fest will screen 225 total films, including 104 world premieres, five international premieres and some debut features, including new films from such directors as Hong Sang-soo, Spanish actress Paz Vega and Radu Jude. Gianluca Jodice’s Le Déluge, starring Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet, will also world premiere and open the fest, with Locarno on Wednesday unveiling that the two French stars will receive the Excellence Award Davide Campari on the fest’s opening night.

Beyond new fare, some of this season’s film festival favorites and classics will screen in Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section, taking place on the town’s main square set up with 8,000 seats. Films to be screened include Cannes hits such as Laetitia Dosch’s Dog on Trial, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof is set to attend the Cannes premiere of his latest feature, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, after receiving an eight-year prison sentence from Iranian authorities and fleeing his home country.

Speculation had been rife that the dissident director would attend the festival when the film receives its world premiere in Competition on Friday (May 24), having found asylum in Germany, but Cannes’ general delegate Thierry Fremaux has now confirmed his attendance.

“We are particularly touched to welcome [Rasoulof] here as a filmmaker,” Fremaux said in a statement to Agence France-Presse (Afp).

Our joy will be that of...

International filmmakers are calling for solidarity with Mohammad Rasoulof and persecuted filmmakers in Iran in an open letter, shared with Variety.

Rasoulof – about to screen his latest film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in Cannes’ main competition – was sentenced to imprisonment and torture by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He fled the country.

“We condemn the inhumane treatment of Rasoulof and numerous other independent artists in Iran, who are being severely punished, criminalized and silenced for exercising their artistic freedom,” it was stated in the letter, already signed by “Holy Spider” star Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Fatih Akin, Atom Egoyan, Ildiko Enyedi, Andrew Haigh, Agnieszka Holland, Laura Poitras, Sandra Hüller, Sean Baker, Payal Kapadia and Ariane Labed.

“We stand in full solidarity with Rasoulof’s demands and call upon the international film community to raise our voices against an Islamist dictatorship that systematically oppresses every aspect of their society’s lives.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDahomey.Mati Diop’s Dahomey (2024), a documentary about the repatriation of artifacts plundered by French colonists to the present-day Republic of Benin, won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. It is only the second film from the African continent to take the festival’s top prize.The Berlinale has filed criminal charges against activists who hacked the festival’s Instagram account on Sunday to post calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which the festival deemed “anti-Semitic.”The festival has also released a statement disavowing the acceptance speeches of award winners who used their platform to speak out against the occupation and war. Such speeches included those by Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau, whose Direct Action won Best Film in the Encounters section, and by Yuval Abraham,...

Mati Diop’s documentary Dahomey, about artefacts being returned from Paris to present-day Benin, was awarded the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival tonight (February 24).

The film, handled internationally by Les Film du Losange, is the second from the African continent to take the Berlinale’s top prize after Mark Dornford-May’s musical U-Carmen eKhayelitsha in 2005. It is also the second year in a row that a documentary has clinched the Golden Bear, following Nicolas Philibert’s On The Adamant last year.

In her speech, Diop said: “To restitute is to do justice. We can...

The 74th Berlin International Film Festival announced the winners of the fest at the awards ceremony held at the Berlinale Palast on February 24.

20 films competed for the awards in this year’s competition with Lupita Nyong’o heading the International Jury alongside Ann Hui, Christian Petzold, Albert Serra, Jasmine Trinca and Oksana Zabuzhko. The Encounters Jury, Lisandro Alonso, Denis Côté and Tizza Covi choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and the Special Jury Award.

The Golden Bear for Best Film was awarded to Dahomey by Mati Diop. Emily Watson won The Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for her role in Small Things Like These, while Sebastian Stan received The Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance in A Different Man. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias was honored with The Silver Bear for Best Director for his film Pepe, and the Silver Bear Jury Prize went to Bruno Dumont for Empire.

The Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its full juries for the 2024 edition (February 16-24), with Italian actress Jasmine Trinca and German filmmaker Christian Petzold among those joining president Lupita Nyong’o on the main international jury.

Also on the jury are filmmakers Ann Hui (Hong Kong) and Albert Serra (Spain) alongside Ukrainian novelist and poet Oksana Zabuzhko.

The international jury will select the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears from the 20 films playing in Competition.

The three-member jury for the Encounters strand comprises filmmakers Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Denis Côté (Canada) and Tizza Covi (Italy).

The Encounters jury will choose the winners of best film,...

The Berlinale Film Festival has unveiled the jury members for its main International Competition, which will be presided over by Lupita Nyong’o.

The members of the International Jury are American actor and filmmaker Brady Corbet, Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui, German director Christian Petzold, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra, Italian actress Jasmine Trinca, and Ukrainian novelist and poet Oksana Zabuzhko.

Nyong’o’s presidential appointment was announced in December.

The festival also unveiled the three-member jury for its Encounters strand. Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Denis Côté (Canada), and Tizza Covi (Italy) will pick the competition sidebar’s Best Film, Best Director, and Special Jury award winners.

The 2024 Berlin Film Festival runs Feb 15 – Feb 25. The festival opens with the Cillian Murphy movie Small Things Like These. The film reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalen laundries – horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform “fallen young women.” It...

The international jury at the 74th Berlin Film Festival, led by Lupita Nyong’o, will include filmmakers Christian Petzold (Germany) and Ann Hui.

The international jury members also include actor-producer-director Brady Corbet (U.S.), filmmaker Albert Serra (Spain), actor-director Jasmine Trinca (Italy) and writer Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine). They will decide who will win the festival’s Golden and the Silver Bears.

The three-member jury that chooses the winners for best film, director and the special jury award at the Berlinale’s Encounters strand is made up of filmmakers Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Denis Côté (Canada) and Tizza Covi (Italy).

Director and screenwriter Ilker Çatak (Germany), sound artist and researcher Xabier Erkizia (Spain) and director, screenwriter, video artist and lecturer Jennifer Reeder (U.S.) are the international short film jury for the 2024 Berlinale Shorts competition. They will be choosing the winner of the Golden Bear for best short film, the winner of the...

This writer is not necessarily fond of Quebecois director Denis Côté’s experiments, which oscillate between slow-cinema, documentary, and deeply unfunny deadpan comedies. Yet his newest film Mademoiselle Kenopsia, though highly self-conscious, is strangely effective, connecting for once his formal and thematic concerns––if simply because the experiment in “boredom” is put to a more pointed use than the easy festival requirements.

At only 77 minutes, Mademoiselle Kenopsia doesn’t wear out its welcome, other than maybe a few sequences that ring tedious or suggest the film is filling time. We find our recognizable figure of the times, and modern Jeanne Dielman figure-of-sorts (Larissa Corriveau), working a job somewhere between janitor and watchwoman (like if you wanted a whole movie of that time in The Simpsons where Milhouse was a night watchman at the cracker factory Bart bought). Her job takes place in a rotting figure of the past: an abandoned...

Toronto: “Humanist Vampire,” “Solo” Heat Up Market for Toronto’s Quebec Feature Slate

By Jennie Punter

Toronto has long been a go-to place for Quebec filmmakers to launch new work, connect directly to the U.S. marketplace and, by extension, propel their careers to the next level — Denis Villeneuve, Phillippe Falardeau and Jean-Marc Vallée, for example, premiered most of their early films here.

Many of this year’s bumper crop of mostly world-premiering Quebec titles explore less familiar corners of society — First Peoples and newcomer stories, the drag scene — and there are also fresh takes on romantic dramedy (Monia Chokri’s “The Nature of Love”), true-story-inspired WWII drama (Louise Archambault’s “Irena’s Vow”) and horror comedy.

Five of the festival’s eight Quebec features are directed by women. Sophie Dupuis, whose third film, the drag-scene character study “Solo,” told Variety that support from government funding agencies Telefilm and Sodec (Quebec...

Pakistani Canadian filmmaker Anam Abbas has won the Canadian Media Producers Assn.’s 2023 Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Award, it was announced Sept. 7 at the Indiescreen Awards, the opening event of the Toronto International Film Festival’s industry conference at Glenn Gould Studios.

Abbas’ latest feature is writer and director Zarrar Kahn’s feature debut “In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies. The film, which screens next week in Toronto, premiered in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, where XYZ Films’ announced the title would launch its New Visions slate.

The award, which comes with a C$10,000 cash prize, recognizes the talents of emerging feature producers. Abbas was recognized by the jury for her ingenuity and her passion for creating films that feel real and essential.

Nancy Grant of Metafilms received the...

Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi, 2023).The lineup is being unveiled for the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, starting with 60 selections from the Gala and Special Presentations programs. The festival takes place from September 7–17, 2023.Gala PRESENTATIONSConcrete Utopia (Um Tae-Hwa)Dumb Money (Craig Gillespie)Fair Play (Chloe Domont)Flora and Son (John Carney)Hate to Love: Nickelback (Leigh Brooks)Lee (Ellen Kuras)Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi)Nyad (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin)Punjab ’95 (Honey Trehan)Solo (Sophie Dupuis)The End We Start From (Mahalia Belo)The Movie Emperor (Ning Hao)The New Boy (Warwick Thornton) The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)The Holdovers.Special Presentationsa Difficult Year (Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache)A Normal Family (Hur Jin-ho)American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)Close to You (Dominic Savage)Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud)The Rescue (Daniela Goggi)Ezra (Tony Goldwyn)Fingernails (Christos Nikou)Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania...

In one of their festival announcements, Toronto International Film Festival have unveiled some of the most exciting international offerings of the year with Wavelenghts. Featuring Jean-Luc Godard’s posthumous short Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, Pedro Costa’s Daughters of Fire, Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Bas Devos’ Here, Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge 3, Phạm Thiên’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, Angela Schanelec’s Music, and much more, it’s quite an eclectic lineup.

“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” stated Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “It is also evidence that artist-driven experimental films are thriving and growing a new generation of cinephiles.”

“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules, and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths program for artist-driven experimental work that includes films by avant garde directors Denis Côté, Radu Jude, the late Chantal Akerman and Wang Bing.

There’s selections for Isiah Medina’s He Thought He Died, an experimental heist film; Angela Schanelec’s Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth; and Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which stars Larissa Corriveau and will first bow at the Locarno Film Festival.

Wavelengths also booked fiction debuts with Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, a portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress; and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, the Vietnamese director’s hypnotic first feature about a man haunted by past memories when returning to his hometown that picked up the Caméra d’Or in Cannes.

“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,...

And now we can officially state that the TIFF selections are now complete with the Wavelengths programme being unveiled. A mix of Berlin, Cannes and a good chunk of Locarno titles make up the almost dozen choices here with (almost exclusively North American Premieres) with award winners in Paul B. Preciado‘s Orlando, My Political Biography, Phạm Thiên An‘s Camera d’Or winner Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell with a quartet from Locarno in Radu Jude‘s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Bas Devos‘ Here, Eduardo Williams‘ The Human Surge 3 and Denis Côté‘s Mademoiselle Kenopsia.…...

A 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s 1993 Palme d’Or winner “Farewell My Concubine” is a highlight of the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Classics strand while Jean-Luc Godard’s last film will feature in Wavelengths.

The Classics strand also includes Canadian producer-director Brigitte Berman’s Oscar-winning feature documentary “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got” (1985), portraying the life of the clarinettist and bandleader, and, after decades of oblivion Jacques Rivette’s New Wave classic “L’amour fou” (1969), whose original celluloid elements were damaged in a fire. A 50th anniversary screening of “Touki Bouki” (1973), from Sengal’s Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ousmane Sembène’s “Xala” (1975), presented in 4K, complete the program. Classics is curated by Robyn Citizen, director of programming and platform lead, with contributions from Andréa Picard.

The Wavelengths strand has 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by...

The trailer has debuted for “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” the latest film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin Film Festival with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.” “Mademoiselle Kenopsia” had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival this month, and will premiere in North America at next month’s Toronto Film Festival in the Wavelengths section, which was unveiled Friday. H264 is handling international sales.

Côté says: “We imagined and intended the trailer as a sort of refuge that invites a sense of calm… while still provoking a slight anxiety. This essentially encapsulates ‘Kenopsia’: an anguished state of floating that hangs over the whole film to the point of overwhelming its main character.”

The press notes explain what the word “kenopsia” means: “The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.”

“Mademoiselle Kenopsia” focuses on a woman,...

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced this year’s Wavelengths and Classics sidebars, the former section known for its politically charged, geographically diverse fare with a wide range of work drawn from the worlds of documentary, contemporary art, and international art-house cinema.

Wavelengths this year counts 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by the singular Chantal Akerman.

Of note in the Wavelengths short section, North American audiences will finally get to see Jean-Luc Godard’s swan song short, Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, which played Cannes this past spring.

Another highlight in the Classics sidebar is the 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, the only movie from China to win the Palme d’Or. The original film had 20 minutes cut by then Miramax Boss Harvey Weinstein much to the chagrin of jury...

Classics includes restored version of Jacques Rivette’s New Wave film L’amour Fou.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced selections in the Wavelengths and Classics programmes ahead of the festival (September 7-17).

The expanded Wavelengths section offers 11 features and 19 shorts including the world premiere of Canadian artist and filmmaker Isiah Medina’s deconstructed heist tale He Thought He Died (pictured), Denis Côté’s Mademoiselle Kenopsia, and Angela Schanelec’s retelling of the Oedipus myth, Music.

“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” said Anita Lee, TIFF’s chief programming officer. “It is also evidence...

The Toronto International Film Festival has added an additional 17 films to its 2023 lineup, with the new entries the work of a variety of bold international directors, from Radu Jude and Kleber Mendonca Filho to the late Jean-Luc Godard and Chantal Akerman.

The Wavelength section contains 12 features, two films paired in a single program and 19 shorts grouped in three separate programs. It is devoted to “artist-driven experimental films,” in the words of TIFF Chief Programming Officer Anita Lee. “Wavelengths continues to be a celebration of subversion, personal expression, and the vast, inexhaustible capabilities of cinema to enlighten, inspire, awe, resist, disrupt, and propose new ways of seeing and being in the world.”

Films in the section include “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” from the fiery Romanian satirist Radu Jude, “Here” from Belgian director Bas Devos,” the “Oedipus” retelling “Music” from Angela Schanelec, Brazilian Kleber Mendonca...

Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World (Radu Jude).The lineup for the 76th edition of the festival has been announced, including new films by Eduardo Williams, Leonor Teles, Lav Diaz, Radu Jude, and others.Concorso INTERNAZIONALEAnimal (Sofia Exarchou)Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Essential Truths of the Lake (Lav Diaz)Home (Leonor Teles)The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams)The Invisible Fight (Rainer Sarnet)Do Not Expect Too Much Of The End Of The World (Radu Jude)Lousy Carter (Bob Byington)Manga D’Terra (Basil Da Cunha)Nuit Obscure – Au Revoir Ici, N’Importe Où (Sylvain George)Patagonia (Simone Bozzelli)The Permanent Picture (Laura Ferrés)Rossosperanza (Annarita Zambrano)Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Sweet Dreams (Ena Sendijarević)The Vanishing Soldier (Dani Rosenberg)Yannick (Quentin Dupieux)Excursion (Una Gunjak).Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTECamping du Lac (Eléonore Saintagnan)Ein Schöner Ort (Katharina Huber)Excursion (Una Gunjak)Family Portrait (Lucy Kerr)Dreaming...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSConann.The lineup for the 76th Locarno Film Festival is now online, and it includes new films from Radu Jude, Eduardo Williams, Bertrand Mandico (a feature and two shorts), Leonor Teles, Lav Diaz, and Denis Côté, plus many more. The festival runs from August 2 through 12.Following Barbie, which releases later this month, Greta Gerwig will next direct two Chronicles of Narnia adaptations for Netflix. This news comes as a side detail in a wide-reaching New Yorker piece on Mattel Films by Alex Barasch, which details the toy company’s plans to develop more than 45 films using its properties, including a Hot Wheels film by J.J. Abrams and a Daniel Kaluuya-led, "surrealistic" reboot of the children's show Barney.REMEMBERINGThe great comic actor Alan Arkin died last week at age 89. For the New York Times,...

Canada-based movie distributor and aggregator H264 is launching a world sales arm with the acquisition of “Red Rooms,” which has its world premiere next week in the Crystal Globe Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The company is focused on festival-driven, innovative films.

“Red Rooms,” directed by Quebec filmmaker Pascal Plante, is a cyber-thriller questioning the collective fascination with murderers. It will screen at Karlovy Vary on July 4, and will then open the Fantasia Film Festival on July 20 for its North American premiere.

Montréal-based H264 is also ramping up its international slate by adding “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” from filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.”

The company is also representing the dark comedy “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” directed by Ariane Louis-Seize, starring Sara Montpetit (“Falcon Lake”) and Steve Laplante.

Jean-Christophe J. Lamontagne, founder and president of H...

The folks at Sodec (Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles) the Quebec government agency that promotes culture an hands out some major coin have given some funds to eight co-productions and seven productions in post with notable items in Xavier Legrand‘s sophomore feature Le successeur (with thesp Marc-André Grondin), Canuck filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz‘s Opus 28 and Denis Côté‘s (now fifteen feature) Mademoiselle Kenopsia with actress Larissa Corriveau toplining. Here is the complete list of projects below:

Fanon /...

The Locarno Film Festival is launching a first-of-its-kind contest, offering a free complete restoration service to a selected vintage cinema classic.

The contest is part of The Swiss fest’s Heritage Online program that was launched in 2021 when its Locarno Pro industry side branched out into vintage cinema creating a platform that serves as a database of film titles that premiered prior to 2005.

The goal of the fest dedicated to indie cinema is to play an active role in restoring older films to their former glory and also to become a business facilitator between rights holders and classic film distributors, streaming platforms and other outlets.

Locarno’s new Heritage Online Contest is open to feature films from all over the world that premiered no later than 2009. Applicants must prove they are the rightful owners of the submitted works in need of either partial or complete restoration. Applications will be open...

Denis Côté's That Kind of Summer is now showing exclusively on Mubi in most countries—including the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Mexico, and India—starting December 1, 2022, in the series Luminaries.A few sparks made me create this story. One of them is that I read a fascinating book about nymphomania by Carol Groneman, a New York-based historian. That's when the project really took off. I felt like writing a script that looked kindly on these complex characters, that didn't pass judgment or give easy answers. Something a bit twisted that wouldn't be an “issue film” with a message or a thesis. As a man, I was interested in a private world that didn't much belong to me. I had to slowly navigate it and appropriate it. Of course it was risky, but I figured that despite the mood of the era we currently live in, there's still nothing...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, alongside his 1999 short film Judgement, as well as Bi Gan’s new short A Shory Story and his second feature Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and Peter Strickland’s new short.

Additional highlights include new episodes of Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom Exodus, Denis Côté’s That Kind of Summer (which we caught at Berlinale earlier this year), Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy ahead of his imminent new project, and an Abel Ferrara double bill to close out 2022.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

December 1 – That Kind of Summer, directed by Denis Côté | Luminaries

December 2 – The Cat’s Meow, directed by Peter Bogdanovich

December 3 – La chinoise, directed by Jean-Luc Godard | For Ever Godard

December 4 – The Kingdom Exodus: The Congress Dances, directed by Lars von Trier | The Kingdom Exodus

December 5 – Judgement,...

Probably as a consequence of reading Viennale 60. On Film Festivals during my long train ride back to Berlin, a few of the films I saw at this year’s Viennale became emblematic of my four days there and of the festival as a whole. Published on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, the book collects essays by and conversations between two dozen experts: current and former directors of Europe’s major fests (Cannes’ Thierry Frémaux is conspicuously absent), programmers, curators, critics and scholars, as well as one filmmaker, festival fixture Denis Côté. Spread over some 200 pages, these combine into a […]

The post Viennale 60: Curating Politically first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Probably as a consequence of reading Viennale 60. On Film Festivals during my long train ride back to Berlin, a few of the films I saw at this year’s Viennale became emblematic of my four days there and of the festival as a whole. Published on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, the book collects essays by and conversations between two dozen experts: current and former directors of Europe’s major fests (Cannes’ Thierry Frémaux is conspicuously absent), programmers, curators, critics and scholars, as well as one filmmaker, festival fixture Denis Côté. Spread over some 200 pages, these combine into a […]

The post Viennale 60: Curating Politically first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman).The lineup for the 75th-anniversary edition of the festival has been announced, including new films by Helena Wittmann, João Pedro Rodrígues, Aleksandr Sokurov and others, alongside retrospectives, tributes, and much more.Piazza GRANDEAlles über Martin Suter. Ausser die Wahrheit. (Everything About Martin Suter. Everything but the Truth.) (André Schäfer)Annie Colère (Blandine Lenoir)Bullet Train (David Leitch)Compartiment tueurs (The Sleeping Car Murder) (Costa-Gavras)Delta (Michele Vannucci)Home of the Brave (Laurie Anderson)Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk)Last Dance (Delphine Lehericey)Medusa Deluxe (Thomas Hardiman)My Neighbor Adolf (Leon Prudovsky)Paradise Highway (Anna Gutto)Piano Piano (Nicola Prosatore)Printed Rainbow (Gitanjali Rao)Semret (Caterina Mona)Une femme de notre temps (Jean Paul Civeyrac)Vous n'aurez pas ma haine (You Will Not Have My Hate) (Kilian Riedhof)Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman)Human Flowers of Flesh (Helena Wittmann).Concorso INTERNAZIONALEAriyippu (Declaration) (Mahesh Narayanan)Balıqlara xütbə...

Thirteen North American premieres also added, including Next Sohee for closing night.

Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival has unveiled its third and final wave of titles, including nine world premieres and a closing night slot for Cannes Critics’ Week entry Next Sohee.

The festival has also announced the presentation of its Prix Denis-Heroux, recognising an exceptional contribution to genre and independent cinema in Quebec, to producer Pierre David, known for his collaborations with David Cronenberg, Jean-Claude Lord and other directors.

The new additions complete the line-up of more than 130 features and 200 shorts for this year’s Fantasia festival, which...

Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival will close its 26th edition with a screening of July Jung’s “Next Sohee,” an interesting take on exploitation starring the Wachowski siblings’ regular collaborator, South Korean actress Bae Doona.

The film, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, won’t be the only title to discover on the closing night, however, with a special screening of A24’s horror comedy “Bodies Bodies Bodies” also planned. Directed by Halina Reijn and featuring Amandla Stenberg, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” breakout Maria Bakalova and Pete Davidson, the film shows a party game that leads to murder, all the while maintaining “a taut balance of uneasy tension and wicked humor,” teased the festival organizers.

The announcement came alongside Fantasia’s third wave of titles, finally rounding up this year’s varied selection. Among the world premieres, Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez will bring “The Elderly,” Shuichi Okita “The Fish Tale,...

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The Fantasia Film Festival is set to close with July Jung’s thriller Next Sohee, organizers said on Thursday.

Korean filmmaker Jung’s drama, which debuted by closing the Cannes Critics’ Week and will get a North American bow in Montreal, follows a young woman driven to suicide by a relentless work environment and an outraged investigator trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

Fantasia on closing night will also host a special screening for Halina Reijn’s Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, which stars Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Rachel Sennott and Pete Davidson.

Unveiling its third wave of titles, the genre fest will also hold world premieres for Yuki Tanada’s My Broken Mariko and Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez’s The Elderly.

There’s also North American debuts for Quebec auteur Denis Côté’s That Kind of Summer...

FireFollowing a successful but necessarily impersonal virtual edition in 2021, the Berlin International Film Festival returned to in-person activities this year, drawing skepticism in some quarters but ultimately quieting the naysayers with a safe and efficient event that put the movies back where they belong: on the big screen. With mandatory daily Covid tests, 2G plus vaccination protocols, ticket reservations, assigned seating, and half-capacity venues, the Berlinale’s typically convivial vibe was sterilized and regimented in a way that’s already become familiar in an era of masks and social distancing. But no matter: the program, overseen by Carlo Chatrian in his third year as artistic director, while never quite reaching the skyscraping heights of recent editions (in which films like Days and What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? confirmed the new regime’s dedication to auteur-driven art cinema), provided a deep and rewarding wellspring of work...

Denis Côté is a weird kind of humanist, arriving at that angle from an offbeat starting point. Maybe the key to his work thus far is his short, powerful 2012 documentary Bestiaire, surveying a bevy of exotic animals in a Quebec safari park, all pulled from their natural habitats. Beyond its prescient aspect, foreshadowing other recent animal-focused docs like Gunda and Cow, Côté enacts the role of a skewed portrait artist, showing the zebras, giraffes, and ostriches resplendent in their odd physicality, where you can feel them both attempting to evolve into, as well as neutralized by, their new environment of iron bars, railings, and peepholes.

A Skin So Soft, showing male bodybuilders in a similar state of haunted repose (and reviewed perceptively by Tfs’s Rory O’Connor on its 2017 premiere), is a byway from there towards his latest film, That Kind of Summer. This look at sex addiction could again...

“You are not here for a cure,” the founder of a 26-day sexual therapy retreat tells the small group of women enrolled in her program at the outset of “That Kind of Summer.” Laying out the ground rules for the sensitive self-awareness exercise that follows — a loosely structured hiatus from unhealthy temptations, designed for those whose out-of-control impulses have made their lives unmanageable — she reassures, “You are not forbidden any sexual thoughts or behavior here. You are not sick.”

Shot on grainy Super 16 with the kind of unsteady handheld aesthetic that suggests the cameraperson really ought to get their inner ear checked, Denis Côté’s radically nonjudgmental “let’s talk about sex” drama looks and feels like a documentary — at least, it could pass as one until a giant CG tarantula crawls up the wall while one of the women is masturbating late in the game. By then, it’s safe to say,...