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Previous winners include Roger Deakins, Charlotte Bruus Christensen.

Swedish cinematographer Annika Summerson has won the National Film and Television School (Nfts)’s Sue Gibson Bsc Award for cinematography, for her work on Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli.

Nfts alumna Summerson is the fifth winner of the award from the UK film school, joining previous winners Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Roger Deakins, Jakob Ihre and last year’s winner Natasha Braier.

The award was established in memory of Nfts alumna Gibson, who was the first woman to be invited to join the British Society of Cinematographers and its first female president.

Summerson...

Jakob Ihre’s work on “Chernobyl”‘s second episode earned him his first Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or Movie Sunday evening at the Creative Arts Emmys.

The HBO historical miniseries, which dramatized the Soviet Union’s 1986 nuclear disaster, did not shy away from painting bleak pictures. “Please Remain Calm,” the series’ second episode, followed the events that occurred several hours after the explosion, including the eventual evacuation of Pripyat.

“Chernobyl”‘s harrowing cinematography is one of many reasons the miniseries became a breakout hit for HBO. IndieWire’s Ben Travers lauded the series’ bleak atmosphere and emotional weight in his A- review.

Although 2019 was the first year that Ihre was nominated for an Emmy, the cinematographer has been on the rise in Hollywood for years. Ihre was recognized by IndieWire in 2015 as one of the industry’s rising cinematographers due to his exceptional work on projects...

Here we go again! It’s day two of the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and the stars are gathering in downtown L.A. for the celebration at the Microsoft Theater – and on a slightly less hot day. IndieWire has rounded up the best of the red carpet.

More from IndieWire'Game of Thrones': Creative Arts Dominance Predicts Primetime Emmy Coronation'An Emmy For Megan' Loses Both Emmys (Again) -- But Do We All Win a Third Season?'Chernobyl': Jakob Ihre Wins Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or Movie...

It’s all happening. Today’s hottest (literally) televisions stars and below-the-line craftspeople put on their Saturday best as the red carpet rolled out outside the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles in anticipation of the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy Awards — part one. The remainder of the awards unspool Sunday night. Here, IndieWire has rounded up the best of the red carpet, which at press time straddled about 100 degrees.

More from IndieWire'Game of Thrones': Creative Arts Dominance Predicts Primetime Emmy Coronation'An Emmy For Megan' Loses Both Emmys (Again) -- But Do We All Win a Third Season?'Chernobyl': Jakob Ihre Wins Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or Movie...

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards are upon us, and with them, they bring a whole host of questions, not the least of which include: The Emmys are tonight? Why can’t I find them on TV? Why isn’t “Stranger Things” nominated? I bet my house on Outstanding Period Costumes, did I make a mistake?

While some of those queries will remain a mystery, here are a few things to keep an eye on headed into two nights of honoring the best of what television has to offer.

Watch the ‘Thrones’

Every Emmy story this year seems to boil down to “Game of Thrones.” At the Creative Arts Emmys, the question is if the HBO behemoth can break the single season record for Emmy wins before the Primetime Emmys even begin. While it’s not likely, it is possible, with the series boasting 18 nominations in 16 separate categories, this weekend alone.

The award is given in memory of UK cinematographer Sue Gibson.

Jakob Ihre has won the National Film and Television School (Nfts)’s third annual Sue Gibson cinematography award for his work on HBO/Sky series Chernobyl.

The award goes to an Nfts cinematography alumnus who has advanced the profession in a significant way.

It is given in honour of cinematographer Gibson, who died in 2016. She was an award-winning Nfts alumna and also the first female president of the British Society of Cinematographers (Bsc). Her credits include Alien v Predator, The Holiday and Poirot.

The other nominees this year were...

Hannah Gadsby.

Hannah Gadsby has scored two nominations for the 71st annual Emmy Awards while Daina Reid earned her first nomination for directing an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Australian cinematographer Zoe White also landed a nomination for her work on The Handmaid’s Tale, and production designer Deborah Riley for Game of Thrones episode The Bells.

Also, Dop Germain McMicking is up for an Emmy for his work on the HBO True Detective episode The Great War and Modern Memory.

Netflix’s Hannah Gadsby: Nanette is in contention for outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) and writing for a variety special. Reid was nominated for the episode Holly, as was White, one of two episodes of the Hulu series which Reid directed; the other was Postpartum.

Riley had already won four Emmys for the HBO show, shared with art director Paul Ghirardani and set decorator Rob Cameron.

HBO’s Game of Thrones...

Jane Featherstone, exec producer of HBO’s Chernobyl, has lifted the lid on producing the “vast” and “compelling” period drama and how the series fits into her rapidly growing Sister Pictures.

The Broadchurch and Humans producer had only just recently set up her own indie when she received a call from Kary Antholis, who was HBO miniseries chief at the time, asking her to check out an outline from The Huntsman: Winter’s War’s Craig Mazin.

“I took a look at the pitch and I thought it was one of the most fascinating, compelling and brilliant outlines I had ever read and I called Kary back within 24 hours and said ‘yes please, I love this.’ I then flew out to meet Craig and Carolyn [Strauss] and we became a triumvirate of passion and hope [for the show],” she told Deadline.

Chernobyl tells the story of the 1986 nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and stars Jared Harris,...

Award named after the late Sue Gibson award recognises an Nfts cinematography alumni.

Roger Deakins will be the recipient of the 2018 Sue Gibson Bsc Cinematography Award, the UK’s National Film and Television School (Nfts) has announced

The award recognises an Nfts cinematography alumnus who has “advanced the profession of cinematography in a significant way”. It was first presented last year.

Gibson, who died in 2016, was an award-winning Nfts alumna and also the first female president of the British Society of Cinematographers (Bsc). Her credits indlude Alien v Predator, The Holiday and Poirot.

Deakins won his first Oscar earlier this...

Iram Haq’s What Will People Say won best director, Norwegian film, actor and screenplay.

Iram Haq’s What Will People Say triumphed at the Amanda Awards on Aug 18, winning the Norwegian national awards for best director (Haq), best Norwegian film in theatrical release, best actor (Adil Hussain) and best screenplay (Haq).

The film, a hit at festivals including Toronto, Les Arcs, AFI Fest and Goteborg, is about a Norwegian teenage girl who clashes with her traditional Pakistan-born parents.

Erik Poppe’s Utoya story U-July 22 won best actress and best supporting actress for newcomers Andrea Berntzen and Solveig Koløen Birkeland.

The list includes Roger Deakins and last year’s winner Charlotte Bruus Christensen.

Roger Deakins and Charlotte Bruus Christensen are among the six nominees for the annual Sue Gibson Bsc Cinematography award presented by National Film and Television School (Nfts).

Now in its second year, the award recognises a member of Nfts Cinematography alumni who has advanced the profession of cinematography in a significant way.

The nominees are:

Ula Pontikos for Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool Benjamin Kracun for Beast Charlotte Bruus Christensen for A Quiet Place Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049 Benoit Soler for Mobile Homes Jakob Ihre...

Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervag, Oskar Pask, Steiner Klouman Hallert | Written by Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Directed by Joachim Trier

Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.

Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.

The pair quickly become close, with Anja introducing...

Some people are calling Joachim Trier‘s “Thelma” his first foray into the horror genre. It is not. “Thelma” is actually an indescribable mix of genres: drama, thriller, family, horror, mystery, comedy and, yes, even supernatural elements infuse Trier’s hypnotic fever dream of a movie.

Beautifully shot by Jakob Ihre with an attention to detail for every frame, the film is a calm, slow-burning character study.

Continue reading Joachim Trier Talks Making ‘Thelma’ & Rooting For Terrence Malick [Interview] at The Playlist.

Review by Matthew Turner

Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervag, Oskar Pask, Steiner Klouman Hallert | Written by Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Directed by Joachim Trier

Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.

Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.

The pair quickly become close,...

Exclusive: Trier kicks off Oslo shoot with Eili Harboe in lead role.

Louder Than Bombs director Joachim Trier started shoot on his new feature Thelma (working title) in Oslo yesterday (Sept 20) with Le Pacte’s Jean Labadie and Thomas Pibarot newly aboard the project as co-producers.

Eili Harboe, whose credits include The Wave and Kiss Me You Fucking Moron, will star in the title role. The cast also includes Kaya Wilkins (aka musician Okay Kaya) and two actors from co-writer Eskil Vogt’s Blind, Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Henrik Rafaelsen.

Thelma is a supernatural thriller about a young woman who falls in love and discovers that she has terrifying and inexplicable powers.

The film – set in Oslo and west Norway – is shooting for 44 days in Oslo, Norway and in Gothenburg, Trollhattan and Kiruna, Sweden. Budget is $5.7m (Nok 47.5m).

Thelma will be Trier’s most genre-influenced work yet; VFX work will be done by Copenhagen-based outfits Ghost and...

Joachim Trier’s drama Louder Than Bombs won four prizes including Best Director, while The Wave scooped Best Film.Scroll down for full list

Joachim Trier’s Louder than Bombs [pictured] starring Jesse Eisenberg and Gabriel Byrne won four Amanda awards at the 44th Norwegian Film Festival (Aug 20-16), including Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

In 2015, the film was the first Norwegian feature to play in competition at Cannes for 36 years.

Marking the first English language film made by Trier, Louder Than Bombs follows a father and his two sons who are made to come to terms with the death of their mother, a notable war photographer.

Roar Uthaug’s The Wave took the night’s top prize, Best Norwegian Film in Theatrical Release. Submitted by Norway to last year’s Academy Awards for the best foreign-language category, it depicts the 1934 Tafjord Tsunami which resulted in the death of 40 people.

Rune Denstad Langlo’s [link...

Exclusive: Sales launch in Cannes on Trier’s first genrefilm

Memento Films International (Mfi) has boarded sales on Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s romantic supernatural thriller Thelma about a young woman unaware that she possesses frightening powers.

After his English-language Louder Than Bombs, Trier has returned home for the Norwegian-language thriller, which is due to shoot in Oslo this autumn.

“This is an exciting new departure for Trier,” said producer Thomas Robsahm at Oslo-based Motlys, who is lead producing.

“The remarkably constructed and suspenseful script manages to find an original new take on genre material without losing any of Trier’s unique and personal touch. The film will be Trier’s most visually ambitious project to date, with striking VFX.”

Alexandre Mallet-Guy of Memento Films Production in France, Mikkel Jersin at Denmark’s Snowglobe and Mattias Nohrborg at Sweden’s B-Reel are on board as co-producers.

Trier will work with his usual team of co-writer Eskil Vogt, director...

In his new film "Louder Than Bombs" Norwegian director Joachim Trier masterfully captures the underlying, aimless desires of very decent people who struggle to be authentic in their own lives. Written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, the film is structured as a collage of episodes that fit together like a perfect puzzle, packed with emotions let loose by the death of the mother and wife of a suburban New York family. The action does not offer anything overtly dramatic, yet the emotional intensity is louder than bombs which the dead woman famously photographed in the war zones around the world. Those still images pulse with explosive emotions; the actual lives of the protagonists are woefully devoid of that raw energy of authentic, harsh life. The players, however, keep searching for what they cannot have and do not possess any more.

Three years on, the father and two sons keep trying to make sense of their lives, left rudderless after the death of the mother and wife. She is played as beautifully as ever by the wonderful Isabelle Huppert. Cinematographer Jakob Ihre gives us a full measure of her expressive face in unforgettable close ups on the scale of Bergman’s famous shots of Victor Sjöström’s face in "Wild Strawberries," or Visconti’s close up of Burt Lancaster in "The Leopard." We see her in flashbacks, edited to perfection by Olivier Bugge Coutté, with her searching eyes that have seen so much outside her suburban domestic routine. She knows that she loves her husband and sons, yet struggles to understand why that knowing of love does not exactly feel like love when she is with them.

For them, her comings and goings to and from the war zones have filled the family life with a measure of second-hand authenticity. Her death pushes them to examine the void that suddenly presents itself as mundane and unsatisfying. They have everything the people she photographed lacked, yet they are the ones left lacking.

Each tries to understand his own circumstances and his place in his own life. Living seems a difficult task, and it’s that difficulty of living in a contemporary western society that is the subject of Trier’s precise, powerful examination. He guides his actors to heights rarely seen these days, with Gabriel Byrne’s father outshining everything he has done before this film, and Jesse Eisenberg as the older son and very confused new father giving a perfectly calibrated, nuanced performance. The emotional center of the film rests with the teenage son, played by the incredibly talented Devin Druid in a career-making turn that might very well net him a handful of awards.

Trier’s work with actors, his writing, and his taut treatment of the difficult subject of contemporary search for our human core in a world that lacks any sense any more is the great sum of "Louder Than Bombs'" emotions. Trier catches us in his carefully plotted net and lets us feel the confused emotions of people living good but ultimately unsatisfying lives, struggling with the realization that it is what it is and not more. This is a film that charts a whole new course, a singular one, with people trying to figure out how to live life after it is no longer possible to just let life play itself. An extra marital affair or a computer game are the devices that provide semblance of a pulsing life, in the same way that any activity outside of daily routine provides anyone living today with a sense of accomplishment. Trier beautifully captures the moment in time of the still comfortable middle class, and displays a great understanding of the human soul - at least the woefully self-centered and self-examining, quietly and politely dissatisfied one that inhabits the body of a Western man and woman.

This is Isabelle Huppert’s world, we all just happen to have the glorious honor of living in it.

After starring in the beautiful and moving Valley Of Love which finally hit theaters a handful of weeks ago, screens across the country are once again blessed with her beauty and talent thanks to the newest, and arguably greatest, film from director Joachim Trier. Best known for his critically beloved debut Reprise and his Cannes darling Oslo, August 31st, Trier is back with his first English-language picture, the understated and seemingly misunderstood (just look at the absurd and off base Rotten Tomatoes score) Louder Than Bombs.

Huppert takes on the role of photographer Isabelle Reed who we see through flashbacks, as her family is still reeling from her death in a tragic car accident two years prior. The film actually opens with the starting of a new life, as we see her eldest son,...

For Glenn Heath Jr. at Little White Lies, Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs, with Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid, David Strathairn and Amy Ryan, "doesn’t share the raw and ambiguous resolve of [Oslo, August 31st]; not many films do. But it does prove that Trier is a filmmaker passionately attuned to the types of long-gestating conflicts of miscommunication and doubt that most studio pictures often sensationalize." Screen's Dan Fainaru argues that "the success of Trier’s deceptively complicated script relies to a great extent on working with the same technical team who have been there since the beginning. They include cinematographer Jakob Ihre and editor Olivier Bugge Coutte who has tied an unusually complicated collection of puzzle pieces into one coherent picture." We've got clips and more reviews. » - David Hudson...

For Glenn Heath Jr. at Little White Lies, Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs, with Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid, David Strathairn and Amy Ryan, "doesn’t share the raw and ambiguous resolve of [Oslo, August 31st]; not many films do. But it does prove that Trier is a filmmaker passionately attuned to the types of long-gestating conflicts of miscommunication and doubt that most studio pictures often sensationalize." Screen's Dan Fainaru argues that "the success of Trier’s deceptively complicated script relies to a great extent on working with the same technical team who have been there since the beginning. They include cinematographer Jakob Ihre and editor Olivier Bugge Coutte who has tied an unusually complicated collection of puzzle pieces into one coherent picture." We've got clips and more reviews. » - David Hudson...

Festival top brass have revealed a high-profile roster of out-of-competition Premieres and Documentary Premieres entries featuring many returning heroes, as well as a new Special Events section and panel participants including George Lucas.

Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael is likely to become a major talking point and stars James Franco and Zachary Quinto in the true tale of activist and Young Gay America co-founder Michael Glatze, who renounced his homosexuality and became a Christian pastor. The Exchange handles international rights.

James Ponsoldt’s David Foster Wallace film End Of The Tour (pictured, photo by Jakob Ihre) starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel makes the cut — Fortitude International is the international sales agent — as does the latest from the newly prolific Noah Baumbach, whose Mistress America stars his Frances Ha and Greenberg muse Greta Gerwig and arrives three months after the Toronto premiere of While We’re Young.

Sundance regulars Ryan Fleck and Anna Bowden return with Mississippi Grind...

Noah Pritzker first surfaced with his short Little Dad (SXSW ’12), and in the summer of 2013 (see set pic), plugged away in the fog with his directorial debut. The San Fran resident shot in his own backyard with a cinematographer worth noting in Jakob Ihre (Oslo, 31. august). Backed by a strong indie duo producing team, Pritzker had Moonrise Kingdom‘s Kara Hayward, Saffron Burrows, Mira Sorvino and Kieran Culkin as his set of players.

Gist: Co-written by Pritzker and Ben Tarnoff, this explores the upper class San Franciscan society and centers on Clark (Ben Konigsberg), a high school student, struggling to come to terms with the demands of his family, society, love. Kara Hayward plays Etta, a high school freshman dealing with her parents divorce.

Production Co./Producers: Luca Borghese (Girl Most Likely) and Ben Howe (Gabriel)

Prediction: Park City at Midnight is a possibility, and SXSW will certainly we circling this as well.

Greta Gerwig needs a new agent. The indie darling, the “Mumblecore Muse” was on a winning streak after Baghead, House Of The Devil, and Greenberg. She’s a likeable, unaffected presence; a foxy, flaky ingenue whose films I looked forward to, but something’s gone horribly wrong. Ms Gerwig was somehow convinced to sign on for the ill-advised Arthur remake, then Whit Stillman’s disastrous Damsels In Distress, and now Lola Versus, a smug, wretched hipster comedy that’s another giant waste of her considerable charms. The script for Lola Versus, from director Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones, finds Gerwig as the 29-year old eponymous character who lives that perfect Manhattan lifestyle I suspect only exists in movies. She has a spacious, impeccably decorated apartment even though she’s a PhD student (her dissertation is on “silence in 19th century French literature – yuk yuk) and she’s engaged to...

To create a poignant and funny portrait of creative young New Yorkers trying to make their mark in Manhattan, writer/director Daryl Wein and co-writer Zoe Lister-Jones looked to their own lives and those of their peers for inspiration. The filmmakers were drawn to the idea of a contemporary romantic comedy with a spirited and authentic woman at its heart that would take the classic boy-meets-girl scenario and turn it on its ear. As Lola Versus begins, Lola’s fiance Luke breaks off their engagement just weeks before the wedding. Over the next 12 months, she slowly, sometimes awkwardly and often comically, adjusts to her new life as a single woman in the city. We sat down at a roundtable interview with director Daryl Wein to talk about what it was like to write and direct a female-driven movie that tells a story in a fresh and intelligent way. He told...

In March, Joachim Trier introduced his second film, Oslo, August 31st, to an enthusiastic audience at the 2012 Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films series. The film focuses on Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), a recovering drug addict who aimlessly roams the streets of Oslo trying to reunite with friends and family. Oslo, August 31st is a tremendous work featuring an intense yet understated performance by Danielsen Lie and exquisite cinematography by Jakob Ihre.

During the post-screening Q&A, Trier explained that with his latest film, he wished to portray Oslo as a character – a city in constant change filled with memories both beautiful and tragic. This is immediately evident in the film’s opening which features archival footage of the city cut together with actual accounts of people who live there. According to Trier, he used interviews he conducted with Oslo natives in which he asked them...

Oslo, August 31st

Directed by Joachim Trier

Screenplay by Joachim Trier

Norway, 2011

“I always thought happy people were morons,” says Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), the hero of Joachim Trier’s witty but inevitably rather downbeat drama, Oslo, August 31st. No one could accuse Anders of being a moron, but after months holed up in a clinic, this 34-year-old drug addict definitely isn’t cured. When he leaves the scene of a one-night stand, Anders has what you might call a dry run at suicide – immersing himself in a lake with a large rock. Neither of these episodes leads us to believe that his future looks bright.

Oslo, like Louis Malle’s acclaimed Le Feu Follet/The Fire Within (1963), is based on a novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Trier’s challenge here is to make the Norwegian capital come alive in the same way that Paris did in Malle’s film.

Year: 2009

Directors: Alexis Dos Santos

Writers: Alexis Dos Santos, Marianela Maldonado

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Marina Antunes

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Not to be confused with Nicholas Barker’s 1997 film with which it shares its title, Alexis Dos Santos’ Unmade Beds is a modern story of romance and self discovery.

Axl has a bad habit of drinking too much and waking up in strange beds which he, more often than not, shares with even stranger individuals. He’s landed in London and is searching out his English father, a man he’s never met. Vera is a girl in search of companionship, something with no strings attached. The two have ended up sharing a London warehouse with a group of other individuals but their paths have never crossed but they will, you’re sure of it.

Santo’s film is an interesting beast overcrowded with colourful characters who weave...

See images from "Unmade Beds," starring Fernando Tielve, Déborah François, Michiel Huisman, Michiel Huisman, Michiel Huisman, Katia Winter and Katia Winter. The film is a 2009 Sundance Film Festival Award nominee for the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema - Dramatic).   Alexis Dos Santos directs the film as well as writes. Dos Santos won the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Special Jury Award in 2007 for the drama "Glue."   UK Film Council, Em Media, The Bureau and Film4 produce.   See the whole gallery!   Movie Jungle's Steve Ramos says "Young love deserves a freewheeling and dreamlike movie like Argentine filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos' sweet London romance "Unmade Beds," premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. With colorful and vibrant imagery (courtesy of cameraman Jakob Ihre), an attractive cast and great music from up-and-coming British bands, "Unmade Beds" has a feel-good energy sure to attract young audiences willing to check out alternative films,...

Unmade Beds Review by Steve Ramos, Writer Young lovers add sparkle to London romance 'Unmade Beds' Young love deserves a freewheeling and dreamlike movie like Argentine filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos' sweet London romance "Unmade Beds," premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. With colorful and vibrant imagery (courtesy of cameraman Jakob Ihre), an attractive cast and great music from up-and-coming British bands, "Unmade Beds" has a feel-good energy sure to attract young audiences willing to check out alternative films, if not specialty audiences of all ages. Vera (DŽborah Fran.ois) and Axl (Fernando Tielve) are two foreigners and fellow squatters at a loft in London's East End. Vera is looking for a recent boyfriend after a silly game where they agreed not to exchange names or phone numbers in order to make their dates more mysterious. Unexpected help comes from one of Vera's...

Young love deserves a freewheeling and dreamlike movie like Argentine filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos' sweet London romance "Unmade Beds," premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. With colorful and vibrant imagery (courtesy of cameraman Jakob Ihre), an attractive cast and great music from up-and-coming British bands, "Unmade Beds" has a feel-good energy sure to attract young audiences willing to check out alternative films, if not specialty audiences of all ages. Vera (DŽborah Fran.ois) and Axl (Fernando Tielve) are two foreigners and fellow squatters at a loft in London's East End. Vera is looking for a recent boyfriend after a silly game where they agreed not to exchange names or phone numbers in order to make their dates more mysterious. Unexpected help comes from one of Vera's personal art projects - taking Polaroid pictures of the beds she has slept in through her life.

Young love deserves a freewheeling and dreamlike movie like Argentine filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos' sweet London romance "Unmade Beds," premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. With colorful and vibrant imagery (courtesy of cameraman Jakob Ihre), an attractive cast and great music from up-and-coming British bands, "Unmade Beds" has a feel-good energy sure to attract young audiences willing to check out alternative films, if not specialty audiences of all ages. Vera (DŽborah Fran.ois) and Axl (Fernando Tielve) are two foreigners and fellow squatters at a loft in London's East End. Vera is looking for a recent boyfriend after a silly game where they agreed not to exchange names or phone numbers in order to make their dates more mysterious. Unexpected help comes from one of Vera's personal art projects - taking Polaroid pictures of the beds she has slept in through her life.

Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- Although director and writer Penny Woodcock's post-apocalyptic fable "Exodus" wears its heart on its sleeve and occasionally staggers under the weight of its earnestness, it's an engaging piece of work.

Woodcock places the story from the second book of the Old Testament in a future England where Pharoah (Bernard Hill) is a local politician and Moses Daniel Percival) is his adopted son. It's a time when anyone not lilywhite has been lumped together -- minorities, asylum-seekers, rebels, criminals, deviants -- and walled into a place called Dreamland.

It's a ghetto familiar from films such as "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" and "Children of Men", and Moses ends up there when he causes the death of a guard who is threatening a young woman.

All the key points of the Biblical story are touched upon as Moses stands up to Pharoah and strives to free what have become his people. Well-made and acted with enthusiasm, the film is another Channel 4 production and should do well at the boxoffice on its travels abroad. It screened in the Horizons sidebar of the Venice International Film Festival.

Daniel Percival is Moses, a young man first seen as a baby abandoned for safekeeping on a beach by his Romany mother. He is found by Batya Mann (Ger Ryan) whose husband Pharoah becomes the leading politician 20 years later when the world is in uproar.

Moses is a marine scientist with only academic plans, but when he visits Dreamland he becomes a changed man. Not only does he learn about his real background from activist Aaron (Anthony Johnson) but also he falls in love with the woman he saved from the guard, Zipporah (Clare-Ashitey, from "Children of Men").

The population of Dreamland is deprived, hungry and constantly threatened by the roaming "pest control" -- soldiers with masks and rifles. Moses negotiates with Pharoah for the walls to be pulled down, but it takes measures of Biblical proportions before something happens.

Woodcock invents clever modern variations on the Old Testament plagues involving poisoning the ocean and spreading viruses on the Internet. Production designer Christina Moore created Dreamland in a disused funfair that had the same name in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, that was once a haven for working-class holidaymakers. Cinematographer Jakob Ihre captures it well. There's also an impressive bit of business involving a 25-meter tall funeral pyre in the figure of a man made from trash and old furniture created for the film by artist Antony Gormley. Such images help the film overcome its occasional awkwardness and tendency to preach.

EXODUS

Artangel, Channel 4

Director, writer: Penny Woodcock

Producer: Ruth Kenley-Letts

Executive producer: Michael Morris

Director of photography: Jakob Ihre

Production designer: Christina Moore

Music: Malcolm Lindsay

Costume designer: Suzanne Cave

Editor: Brand Thumim

Cast:

Pharoah Mann: Bernard Hill

Moses: Daniel Percival

Batya Mann: Ger Ryan

Zipporah: Clare-Hope Ashitey

Aaron: Anthony Johnson

Jethro: Delroy Moore

Yardman: Michael Tulloch

Loony preacher: Justin Smithers

Dada: Matthew Smith

No MPAA rating, running time 11 minutes...