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Chinese director Tao Shen’s Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun has won the best film award by a new filmmaker in the Forward Future program at the 15th edition of the Beijing International Film Festival.

”After completing her so-called ‘mission’ in life, housewife Tianzhen wants to leave her hometown and go out to see the world,” according to a synopsis. “But her actions and thoughts begin to become unpredictable.”

Johanné Gómez Terrero was honored as best director in the section for his movie Sugar Island, a reflection on the complex past, present, and future lives of Afro-Dominican people in the Dominican Republic.

And At the Bench, directed by Yoshiyuki Okuyama, won the best screenplay award in the Forward Future program. The anthology film, which shows scenes of the everyday life of various people who gather by a small bench, also received the Best Artistic Contribution honor.

Finally, the Valentino Weaving...

The 15th edition of the Beijing International Film Festival will feature 15 films in its Forward Future section, which highlights first and second features from new directors. Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr will serve as jury president for the section. The festival runs April 18 to 26 in Beijing.

Established in 2014, Forward Future is dedicated to directors early in their careers. This year’s program includes titles from China, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Two Chinese titles, The Botanist by Jing Yi and Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun by Tao Shen, are part of the lineup. The Botanist made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Also screening in the section are Peacock by Austrian writer-director Bernhard Wenger, The Lonely Musketeer by Nicolai Schumann, and The Poet by Felix Umarov. Other selections include Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman by Kerry Ann Enright, My Eternal Summer by Sylvia Le Fanu, and At the Bench by Yoshiyuki Okuyama.

The Beijing International Film Festival has unveiled the 15 titles that will screen in the Forward Future section of its 15th edition later this month.

The Forward Future section, launched in 2014, is dedicated to discovering and promoting new filmmakers, focusing on directors’ first or second features. Hungarian director, screenwriter, and producer Béla Tarr (Damnation, Satan’s Tango, The Man From London) will serve as the president of the jury for the Forward Future program. Rounding out his jury will be Chinese actress Jin Chen, also known as Gina Jin, Chinese actor Song Yang, Japanese director, screenwriter and actor Sabu, and Swiss director and screenwriter Cyril Schäublin.

Beijing organizers promise “innovative” spirit, “unique styles,” and “cutting-edge” filmmaking in the Forward Future section, along with insight into the thinking and concerns of young filmmakers from all over the world.

Featured in the program are movies from first-time Chinese directors, namely Jing Yi’s The Botanist,...

Mubi has unveiled their lineup for next month’s streaming offerings, featuring a selection of notable new releases, including Kazik Radwanski’s Matt & Mara, Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka, Monica Sorelle’s Mountains, Marija Kavtardzé’s Slow, Monia Chokri’s The Nature of Love, and more. Additional highlights include films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Brady Corbet, Peter Weir, and more.

Recently naming Matt and Mara one of the best films of 2024, Blake Simons said, “Kazik Radwanski’s misty-eyed, mostly improvised tale of friends-not-quite-lovers excels at capturing intricacies of the unspoken. There’s a warming tenderness and quiet sadness to Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson’s restrained interactions. In the final moments, Mara places a crumpled receipt inside a book and returns it to its shelf. Sometimes that’s what a good film is: a leaf through our feelings. Matt and Mara is there on the shelf now, for when we feel like opening that book again.

February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.

February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...

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.

The world came back in 2023. The box office, the labor strikes, the raging wars, the Who-declared end of official global emergency, the AI explosion. People were stir-crazy, anxious to act, be it in the name of violence or peace or productivity. It’s been a sobering reminder that life fully lived is defined by bedrock tragedy as much as triumph––that to enter back into open community with the rest of the world is to feel the effervescence of life flowing naturally again while simultaneously laying oneself bare to fresh devastation. It’s been a reminder of the duality of being: that real life is much wilder than the movies and yet the day-to-day is still defined by mundanity and monotony––the amassed in-between moments.

In those in-betweens,...

As various critics groups and awards bodies dole out their top films of the year, it can be hard to parse which ones are actually worth paying attention to. Following our top 50 films of 2023, one such list has arrived today with Film Comment’s annual end-of-year survey. Revealed at a special live talk last night, Todd Haynes’s May December, Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon grabbed the top three spots, while Eduardo Williams’s The Human Surge 3, Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka, and Víctor Erice’s Close Your Eyes topped the best undistributed films.

“It speaks to the ongoing vitality of cinema as an art form, as well as the discernment of our critics in the year of ‘Barbenheimer,’ that this year’s top films represent some of the most boundary-pushing, complex movies of recent times—three new classics from contemporary masters,...

As 2023 draws to a close and the Oscar race begins to heat up, film publications around the world continue to roll out their lists of the year’s top films. IndieWire recently named Celine Song’s “Past Lives” the best film of the year, topping a list that also included “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” “Asteroid City,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Now Cahiers du Cinema has gotten in on the action, selecting Laura Citarella’s “Trenque Lauquen” as its top pick.

The legendary French film publication, which served as an intellectual hub for the French New Wave after launching the careers of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and famously named “Twin Peaks: The Return” the best film of the 2010s, revealed its top 10 films of 2023 on Friday, December 1. The list only includes movies that opened theatrically in France in 2023, so many films that had American theatrical runs or festival premieres in past years made the cut.

Established in the 1950s by André Bazin, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca, and Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, France’s Cahiers du cinéma has been a bastion for international film criticism for decades, even amidst recent changes. They’ve now unveiled their predictably stellar top 10 films of 2023 list.

Topping the list is Laura Citeralla’s four-hour epic Trenque Lauquen, while Víctor Erice’s long-awaited return Close Your Eyes and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall round out the top three. The list also features Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer, and Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World.

Cyril Schäublin’s overlooked drama Unrest also got a mention while Pierre Creton’s Un prince and Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up tied for tenth place. They also have room for one major surprise, this year being Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s Berlinale...

Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari‘s “Terrestrial Verses,” the sole Iranian film which premiered in Cannes’ official selection, has been acquired by KimStim for North American distribution. The movie, represented in international markets by Films Boutique, will soon play at U.S. festivals, including Chicago, Mill Valley and AFI Fest.

A satire of the Iranian regime, “Terrestrial Verses” follows everyday people from all walks of life as they navigate the cultural, religious and institutional constraints imposed on them by various social authorities, from school teachers to bureaucrats.

“We were struck by the film’s intelligence, thought-provoking ideas and elegant commentary on the experiences of ordinary citizens in Iran,” said Ian Stimmler, KimStim’s co-president. “The film will surely provoke spirited conversations with its dark sense of humor and its depiction of the cultural and religious constraints placed on everyday people there, especially women,” Stimmler continued.

Asgari, who attended the Cannes...

A growing list of 300 film professionals, including Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Joanna Hogg, and Radu Jude, have signed an open letter calling for the contract of outgoing Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian to be reinstated and extended beyond 2024.

Late last week, Chatrian released a statement via the Berlinale website announcing his intention to step down following next year’s edition of the German festival. In his statement, Chatrian pointed to the German Ministry for Culture and Media’s decision to scrap the Berlinale’s dual management structure as the main catalyst for his departure.

Last month, German Culture Minister Claudia Roth announced that she wants the Berlinale to be placed back under the control of a single director. Roth is reported to have told a meeting on Thursday of the supervisory board of federal cultural events in Berlin (Kbb), which oversees the festival, that her conclusion was the film should be led by one person.

Martin Scorsese, Radu Jude, Joanna Hogg, Claire Denis, Bertrand Bonello, M. Night Shyamalan, Kristen Stewart, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Margarethe von Trotta are among the international filmmakers and talents who have signed an open letter in support of Carlo Chatrian whose mandate as artistic director of the Berlinale will come to an end next year. The number of signatories has now exceeded 400 names and keeps growing.

As we reported last week, Chatrian had been expected to stay on beyond 2024, and was surprised to learn that the German body which oversees the festival, Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (Kbb), announced that it would no extend his contract. The org had previously said it would abandon the model of having an executive director and an artistic director and return instead to having a single director, following the next edition. The festival’s executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeek will also be leaving her post after the next edition.

Unrest.The year is 1872, and in the Jura Mountains outside Geneva, home to the world’s most renowned watchmakers, political unrest is fomenting. As the First International attempts unite the left, the watchmaker artisans of the small, picturesque towns dotting Switzerland’s western mountain range form the center of support for the anarchist wing of the revolutionary congress. In Cyril Schäublin’s new film Unrest, this moment in time and space is simultaneously roiling and tranquil. Seemingly calm people walk calm streets and work in calm factories, but the pressures and mundane brutality of capitalist logic are at all times bearing down, while the workers spread egalitarian ideas and organize in solidarity with each other and the international left. It’s into this environment that the influential Russian theorist Pyotr Kropotkin arrives for a visit. “When I came away from the mountains, after a week’s stay with the watchmakers,...

“Prince Aden,” a new drama by Italian directing duo Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, known internationally for their immigration-themed “Seven Acts of Mercy,” is among projects selected by Locarno’s Alliance for Development initiative.

The platform, now in its 8th year, is geared towards fostering co-productions between France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

Inspired by the book “Partigiani d’Oltremare,” by Italian historian Matteo Petracci, the De Serio twins’ new colonial-era film follows the vicissitudes of a 16-year-old Somali named Aden Sicré who in 1935 becomes a soldier in the Italian army that invaded Ethiopia on Mussolini’s orders. In an unexpected turn, he becomes hailed as a war hero by the Fascist regime. Then a few years later Aden and other African fighters play a pivotal role in the partisan struggle against fascism in Europe.

The Aug. 4-6 Alliance 4 Development goes beyond being a mere co-production platform since it allows for...

Includes projects by Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi.

New projects by directors Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi are among those selected for Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development initiative which runs from August 4-6.

The initiative is an integral part of Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand and is aimed at encouraging co-productions between Switzerland and France, Germany and Italy.

Scroll down for full list of projects

11 projects were chosen out of 74 submissions. During the three Alliance 4 Development programme, participants will meet with potential partners and attend panels and networking events.

Lorenz Merz will attend with Who/Man,...

11 projects selected for Locarno Film Festival’s industry strand.

New projects by directors Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi are among those selected for Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development initiative which runs from August 4-6.

The initiative is an integral part of Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand and is aimed at encouraging co-productions between Switzerland and France, Germany and Italy.

Scroll down for full list of projects

11 projects were chosen out of 74 submissions. During the three Alliance 4 Development programme, participants will meet with potential partners and attend panels and networking events.

Lorenz Merz will attend with Who/Man,...

(Welcome to Under the Radar, a column where we spotlight specific movies, shows, trends, performances, or scenes that caught our eye and deserved more attention ... but otherwise flew under the radar. In this edition: Paul Schrader is back and as provocative as ever with "Master Gardener," "Unrest" meets politics and philosophy in the middle, and "Land of Gold" puts a new spin on road trip movies.)

We should probably address the elephant in the room, right? The longer this writers' strike marches on, the clearer it becomes that we've reached a pivotal inflection point in this industry. Writers, the lifeblood of the entire moviemaking business, are rightfully fed up with a studio system that has progressively disenfranchised the most vulnerable (and irreplaceable) creative talent. As much as top-level studio executives forced the hands of writers through unfair wages, the insidious practice of "mini-rooms," and the worrisome possibilities involving A.I.

The summer season is upon us and, per each year, we’ve dug beyond studio offerings (though a few potential highlights remain) to present an in-depth look at what should be on your radar. From festival winners of the past year to selections coming straight from Cannes to genre delights to, yes, a few blockbuster spectacles, there’s more than enough to anticipate.

Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar.

Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim; May 2)

So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) didn’t want to leave South Korea. She had no choice. The father of her newborn son committed suicide and, as an orphan who was never adopted, she had no other family. So, with nowhere to turn and a boy who couldn’t legally become a citizen due to being born out of wedlock, she immigrated to Canada to start anew.

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.Newsa new short from Pedro Almodóvar, Strange Way of Life, will make its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film—coming soon to Mubi in Italy and Latin America—is a “western shot in the south of Spain” and stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Keep an eye on Notebook tomorrow for more Cannes updates as the festival unveils its official selection.In production news, Paul Schrader has finished writing an adaptation of a novel by Russell Banks; he plans to shoot it this summer with Richard Gere. (The full profile in Curbed is worth a read.)According to Ioncinema, Kiyoshi Kurosawa begins shooting a French-language remake of his 1998 film Serpent’s Path in May.Recommended VIEWINGSink into this two-hour interview with Béla Tarr,...

One of the most fascinating gems on the festival circuit last year was Cyril Schäublin’s carefully observed drama Unrest. Set in a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland, the Berlinale winner and NYFF selection follows Josephine, a young factory worker, who produces the unrest wheel, swinging in the heart of the mechanical watch. Exposed to new ways of organizing money, time and labor, she gets involved with the local movement of the anarchist watchmakers, where she meets Russian traveler Pyotr Kropotkin. Ahead of a May 5 release from KimStim, the new trailer and poster have now arrived.

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “The best word to describe Unrest is “clever.” It isn’t on the level of the artisans and thinkers it lovingly portrays—all the graphers and the ists—but not so far off; and more than enough to be worthy of their story. Consider the title’s neat duality.

Featured in our recent Spring Issue, Swiss filmmaker Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest now has an official trailer. The film premiered last year during Berlinale’s Encounters section, where Schäublin won Best Director. It went on to screen at TIFF, the New York Film Festival and the Viennale, among several other international festivals. Unrest will open via KimStim on May 5 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City and May 19 at Laemmle Monica Film Center in Los Angeles. An official synopsis for the film reads: New technologies are transforming a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland. Josephine (Clara Gostynski), a young […]

The post Trailer Watch: Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Featured in our recent Spring Issue, Swiss filmmaker Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest now has an official trailer. The film premiered last year during Berlinale’s Encounters section, where Schäublin won Best Director. It went on to screen at TIFF, the New York Film Festival and the Viennale, among several other international festivals. Unrest will open via KimStim on May 5 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City and May 19 at Laemmle Monica Film Center in Los Angeles. An official synopsis for the film reads: New technologies are transforming a 19th-century watchmaking town in Switzerland. Josephine (Clara Gostynski), a young […]

The post Trailer Watch: Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A drama set in the 1870s in the Swiss town of Saint-Imier and centered around the makers of timepieces may not sound like the stuff of thrilling cinema. But “Unrest,” Cyril Schäublin’s drama about the days and ways of watchmakers on the brink of an anarchist revolution, is indeed a quietly suspenseful and stirring piece, one that ticks toward social inevitabilities as Communist ideals begin to take over Europe. Exclusive to IndieWire, watch the trailer below before it hits theaters next month.

Swiss filmmaker Schäublin previously directed the 2017 Locarno prize winner “Those Who Are Fine,” and “Unrest” again found the director in the spotlight of the festival circuit. He won the Encounters Award at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival for “Unrest,” where the jury said, “With a strange and unsettling calm, the film immerses the viewer in a moment where ideals of collectivity and anarchism confront the encroaching powers of...

Cyril Schäublin's Unrest is now showing exclusively on Mubi in most countries starting February 22, 2023, in the series Festival Focus: Berlinale.My grandmother and grandaunts worked in the same watch factory, where their job was to produce the mechanical heart of the watch, the so-called “unruh” (unrest). With our film, we wished to reconstruct a watch factory from the past, and many questions came to our minds: Are the definitions of time and work, developed and established during early industrial capitalism, mere fictions? How are imaginations such as nations and other inventions of the past defining how we inhabit our present together today? Is there something like a capitalist mythology discreetly guiding our everyday life? What are its fairy tales? And what other tales might be possible?The film also explores the historical beginnings of the anarchist watchmaker unions in the valley of Saint-Imier in Northwestern Switzerland, the valley which...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed its juries, and the addition of Liu Jian’s animated feature “Art College 1994” to its competition lineup, which now has 19 films and is complete.

In addition to the already announced actor Kristen Stewart as president, the International Jury members will be actor Golshifteh Farahani (Iran/France), director and writer Valeska Grisebach (Germany), director and screenwriter Radu Jude (Romania), casting director and producer Francine Maisler (U.S.), director and screenwriter Carla Simón (Spain), and director and producer Johnnie To.

“Art College 1994” is set in China in the 1990s. It follows a group of young people who “prepare to face a world caught between tradition and modernity,” according to the festival. The film, represented for world sales by Memento Intl., was originally destined for Cannes, but Liu and the film were reported to have faced bureaucratic obstacles, which put the kibosh on those plans. The director...

Director Liu Jian was previously in Competition with ‘Have A Nice Day’ in 2017.

The Berlinale has made a last-minute addition to its Competition lineup with Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian’s animated feature Art College 1994 and revealed its competition juries.

Art College 1994 will receive its world premiere at the festival’s 73rd edition, which runs February 16-26, and marks Liu’s third feature after 2010’s Piercing I and Have A Nice Day, which became the first Chinese animation ever selected to play in Competition at the Berlinale in 2017.

Art College 1994 is set among a group of students in China in the...

Variety sat down with TorinoFilmLab’s managing director, Mercedes Fernandez Alonso, to talk through this year’s rich program of industry initiatives and its commitment to support new and established creative talents through Tfl Italia and Tfl Meeting.

“Tfl Italia aims to create a bridge between Italian and international professionals. […] This year, we are offering two main programs. The Alpi Film Lab focuses on Italian-French co-productions wherein, thorough several workshop held throughout the year, the participating teams could draft their co-production plans for their projects. We’ve put together each Italian project with a French producer, as well as the other way around. Last year, six projects out of eight became real co-productions,” explained Fernandez Alonzo.

“Meanwhile, Up & Coming Italia is open to Italian producers who want to take their first steps in the field of international co-productions. In these days, they worked with us and met with experts,” she added.

250 industry execs set to attend market this week.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) kicks off the 15th edition of its international co-production market Tfl Meeting Event this week, showcasing 30 feature film projects between November 24-26.

Tfl Meeting Event will present 20 titles that have taken part in Tfl’s nine-month scriptwriting programme ScriptLab, comprising 14 debut scripts, two sophomore titles and four mature projects. Each participant has been guided on the development of their scripts through five online and residential workshops. The ScriptLab titles were revealed in March.

Another 10 projects will be presented from Tfl’s FeatureLab strand for films at a more advanced stage.

The Swiss festival runs November 4-13.

The Geneva International Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 28th edition, as well as an honorary award for Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn.

The Swiss festival’s international competition includes Alice Diop’s Saint Omer which previously picked up the Silver Lion jury prize at Venice and is France’s Oscar submission for best international feature.

Also competing for the Reflet d’Or award for best film, worth CHF10,000 , is Japanese animation Inu-oh from Masaaki Yuasa. The Japan-China co-production premiered in Venice’s Horizons strand before screening as a special presentation at Toronto.

The 60th New York Film Festival kicks off on September 30th! Below you'll find all of Notebook's coverage of the films in the selection, gathered in one convenient place. As we cover more titles, this page will be updated with new essays and interviews, so check back frequently for updates.Main SLATEFilmmaker Interviews:De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor)Pacifiction (Albert Serra)Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)Dispatch Coverage:All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)Armageddon Time (James Gray)Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)Enys Men (Mark Jenkin)Eo (Jerzy Skolimowski)The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)No Bears (Jafar Panahi)The Novelist's Film (Hong Sang-soo)One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu)Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Scarlet (Pietro Marcello)Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)Stars at Noon (Claire Denis)TÁR...

Click here to read the full article.

It’s hard to think of a better title than the one writer-director Cyril Schäublin came up with for his second feature, which chronicles the political fervor swelling beneath the surface of a quiet, picturesque industrial town in late-19th century Switzerland.

That town, nestled cozily beside the Jura Mountains, is home to a factory where workers meticulously assemble watches by hand, setting the tiny balance wheel, known as an unrueh (unrest), with the type of scientific precision that the Swiss are famous for. But the real unrest is happening all around them, as the burgeoning anarchist movement takes hold of the factory as well as the community, pitting the workers — almost all of them women — against the powers-that-be who run everything like clockwork, reducing humans to mere cogs in the wheel of the capitalist machine.

The film occasionally shifts its focus onto...

Exclusive: Brooklyn-based arthouse distributor KimStim has acquired all U.S. rights for French director Mikhaël Hers’ fourth feature The Passengers Of The Night, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg as a recently divorced mother battling to keep her family afloat.

The film world premiered in competition in Berlin before playing at Hong Kong and Sydney and is set for sold-out screenings at the BFI London Film Festival this week.

The Passengers Of The Night unfolds against a period of optimism in France in the early 1980s as Francois Mitterrand took the reins of power as the country’s first socialist president in more than two decades.

Gainsbourg stars as a woman whose marriage is coming to an end, leaving her to support her two teenage children on her own. She finds work at a late-night radio show. There, she encounters a troubled teenager, whose free spirit will have a lasting impact on her...

The 60th annual edition of the New York Film Festival kicks off on Friday night with the North American premiere of Netflix’s “White Noise” – the first of many awards contenders set to screen at the Manhattan fest as the season marches forward.

“White Noise,” which actually kicked off the 2022 Venice Film Festival back in August, is Noah Baumbach’s latest project for the streamer and his first since “Marriage Story” landed numerous Oscar nominations in 2020, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay for Baumbach, Best Actor for Adam Driver, Best Actress for Scarlett Johansson, and Best Supporting Actress for Laura Dern (Dern was the film’s sole winner). The early reviews for “White Noise” leaned positive – with Baumbach’s adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel holding a 68 rating on Metacritic. That gives “White Noise” an edge, at least from a critical perspective, over a handful of other top awards contenders...

A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. Cyril Schäublin’s deep dive into nineteenth century Swiss watchmaking, the business and the labour, alongside the nascent political movement that was brewing in the Canton of Bern at the time, is perhaps the strangest historical biopic that I have ever encountered. It opens with aristocratic Russian women gossiping on the whereabouts of one Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin, philosopher, cartographer, and labour activist. They primp and pose, over glasses of wine and fresh air, for a new and novel technology: Photography. The camera is distant, the mood unhurried. This will be the signature visual motif, as well as the pacing, as the ‘action’ moves to a valley in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Festival runs September 30-October 16.

New York Film Festival (NYFF) has unveiled its 60th anniversary edition Main Slate, a roster that includes latest work by imprisoned Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, Park Chan-wook, Joanna Hogg, Todd Field, Kelly Reichardt and Claire Denis.

As previously announced, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise and Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection bookend the festival, Laura Poitras’s documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed is the Centrepiece screening and James Gray’s Armageddon Time is the NYFF 60th Anniversary Celebration screening.

“If there is one takeaway from this year’s Main Slate, it is cinema’s limitless capacity for renewal,...

Click here to read the full article.

Alice Diop, Kelly Reichardt, Paul Schrader, Park Chan-wook and Ruben Östlund are among the high-profile directors whose films are set to screen during the main slate of the 2022 New York Film Festival.

Park’s Decision to Leave and Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness are among the Cannes prize-winners coming to the annual fall event in Manhattan along with Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon and Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun.

Filmmakers making their first appearance in the festival’s main slate include Margaret Brown, Davy Chou, Laura Citarella, Alice Diop, Mark Jenkin, Marie Kreutzer, Cyril Schäublin, Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji.

Helmers returning to the festival include Todd Field, Mia Hansen-Løve, Hong Sangsoo, Joanna Hogg, Pietro Marcello, Cristian Mungiu, Jafar Panahi, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Kelly Reichardt, Paul Schrader, Albert Serra, Jerzy Skolimowski and Frederick Wiseman.

NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim said in a statement,...

This year’s 60th annual New York Film Festival Main Slate is bursting with can’t-miss auteur titles from festivals around the globe. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the festival takes place from September 30 through October 16 at Lincoln Center and in venues across the city.

“If there is one takeaway from this year’s Main Slate, it is cinema’s limitless capacity for renewal,” said Dennis Lim, artistic director, New York Film Festival. “Collectively, the films in the program suggest that this renewal takes many forms: breathtaking debuts, veterans pulling off new tricks, filmmakers of all stripes seeking new and surprising forms of expression and representation. We love the range and eclecticism of this group of films and are excited to share it with audiences.”

This year’s Main Slate showcases films produced in 18 different countries, featuring new titles from renowned auteurs, exceptional work from returning NYFF directors as...

The 60th New York Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled its main slate of movies from established and upcoming directors including Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund, Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon (tied for Cannes Grand Prize), Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (Cannes Best Director) and Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun (Cannes’ French Touch Jury Prize).

The list of 32 films from 18 countries also features Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, which took the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema and the l’Oeil d’Or for best documentary at Cannes. Another selection, Carla Simón’s Alcarràs, was awarded the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlin Film Festival.

Appearing in the NYFF main slate for the first time are Margaret Brown, Davy Chou (New Directors/New Films 2017), Laura Citarella (Nd/Nf 2015), Alice Diop (Nd/Nf 2021 and Art of the Real 2022), Mark Jenkin (Nd/Nf 2019), Marie Kreutzer,...

New movies from directors Claire Denis, Park Chan-wook, Ruben Östlund, Kelly Reichardt and Paul Schrader will play at the 60th New York Film Festival, which is running from Sept. 30 through Oct. 16.

On Tuesday, Film at Lincoln Center, which hosts the annual Manhattan-based celebration of cinema, unveiled the 32 films that comprise the main slate. The lineup showcases films produced in 18 different countries and spotlights a mix of first-time and returning filmmakers.

Several movies that first screened at Cannes Film Festival, including Claire Denis’s Grand Prix winner “Stars at Noon,” Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” and Charlotte Wells’ debut feature “Aftersun,” will play at NYFF. Carla Simón’s “Alcarràs,” which was awarded the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale Festival, and Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes,” which took Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize in the world cinema documentary competition,...

The 60th New York Film Festival’s Main Slate will consist of 32 titles from directors such as Claire Denis, Paul Schrader, Margaret Brown, Park Chan-wook, Kelly Reichardt and Mia Hansen-Løve, organizers said Tuesday.

As previously announced, the festival is set to kick off on Sept. 30 with Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” and close with the Oct. 14 premiere of Elegance Bratton’s “The Inspection.” The Centerpiece selection is “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras’ documentary about photographer Nan Goldin’s fight against the Sackler family and the opioid epidemic. James Gray will make his third NYFF showing with his film “Armageddon Time,” which will also screen at a special event celebrating the festival’s 60th anniversary.

Produced in 18 different countries, the Main Slate will showcase a mixture of new and auteur filmmakers. Among the featured prizewinners from Cannes earlier this year are Claire Denis’s “Stars at Noon,” Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,...

The WhaleWAVELENGTHS - FEATURESConcrete Valley (Antoine Bourges)De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor)Dry Ground BurningHorse Opera (Moyra Davey)Pacifiction (Albert Serra)Queens of the Qing Dynasty (Ashley McKenzie)Unrest (Cyril Schäublin)Will-o’-the-Wisp (João Pedro Rodrigues)Wavelenghths - SHORTSAfter Work (Céline Condorelli, Ben Rivers)Bigger on the Inside (Angelo Madsen Minax)Eventide (Sharon Lockhart)F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now (Fox Maxy)Fata Morgana (Tacita Dean)Hors-titre (Wiame Haddad)I Thought the World of You (Kurt Walker)Moonrise (Vincent Grenier)The Newest Olds (Pablo Mazzolo)Puerta a Puerta (Jessica Sarah Rinland, Luis Arnías )The Time That Separates Us (Parastoo Anoushahpour)What Rules the Invisible (Tiffany Sia)Gala PRESENTATIONSAlice, Darling (Mary Nighy)Black Ice (Hubert Davis)The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Peter Farrelly)Butcher’s Crossing (Gabe Polsky)The Hummingbird (Francesca Archibugi)Hunt (Jung-jae Lee)A Jazzman’s Blues (Tyler Perry)Kacchey Limbu (Shubham Yogi)Moving On (Paul Weitz)Paris Memories...

“Weird: The Weird Al Yankovic Story” will make its world premiere at TIFF, leading the Midnight Madness program’s 10-film lineup.

Starring Daniel Radcliffe as “Weird Al” Yankovic, the film chronicles the career of the music and comedy icon. Directed by Eric Appel, who co-wrote with Yankovic himself, the cast of the Roku biopic also includes Evan Rachel Wood, Quinta Brunson and Rainn Wilson.

As Midnight Madness’ opening night film, “Weird: The Weird Al Yankovic Story” will premiere on Sept. 8 at 11:59 Est.

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Daniel Radcliffe Was Cast as Weird Al Thanks to a Graham Norton Appearance (Video)

“For TIFF audiences in the know, the Discovery, Midnight Madness and Wavelengths programmes are where you’re rewarded for taking risks and being adventurous,” offered Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “Whether it’s the discovery of an audacious new auteur, a brilliant visionary work that reimagines storytelling or the most...

The best word to describe Unrest is “clever.” It isn’t on the level of the artisans and thinkers it lovingly portrays—all the graphers and the ists—but not so far off; and more than enough to be worthy of their story. Consider the title’s neat duality. “Unrest,” as the film explains, is another name for a wristwatch’s balance wheel: an instrument that, working in tandem with the spiral and escapement, creates the mechanism that makes it tick. Then there is the other kind.

Unrest is set in Jura, a Swiss town that became famous in the 19th century for its skilled watchmakers, most notably a group who were integral to the formation of the “Jura Federation,” an anti-state, anti-egalitarian anarchist offshoot of the First International. The director behind this precisely crafted curiosity is Cyril Schäublin, a rising auteur from Zurich whose For Those Who Are Fine...

Paris-based Alpha Violet handles international sales on period drama exploring the birth of the anarchist movement in a Swiss valley.

Brooklyn-based arthouse distributor KimStim has acquired North American rights to Swiss director Cyril Schäublin’s second feature Unrest, which won the best director prize in the Berlinale’s Encounters line-up in February.

Paris-based sales company Alpha Violet handles international sales. Due to the fact that the Berlinale’s European Film Market (EFM) was online this year, the feature had its first physical market screening in Cannes and the North American deal was signed on the back of that.

In other deals,...

“Like an Island” (“L’îlot”), a hybrid documentary fable tinged with magical realism by Swiss director Tizian Büchi, has won the Grand Jury Prize at international documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland.

The debut feature had its world premiere at the festival, bearing testimony to the event’s reputation as a launchpad for new talent and its tradition for hybrid fiction-reality films. A total of seven first features are among the winners. It is the first time since 2013 that a Swiss film has picked up the festival’s top prize.

“A small urban island becomes the metaphor of contemporary Europe and lends itself to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences and barriers. A brilliant observation, a surprising wondering, that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms,” said the jury, composed of filmmaker Jessica Beshir, the winner of last year’s Grand Prix,...

New director of Sarajevo Film Festival and an award-winning filmmaker among selection.

Switzerland’s Visions du Réel documentary film festival has unveiled the juries that will oversee the competition strands of its 2022 edition, set to run April 7-17.

The International Feature Film Competition jury will comprise Bosnia’s Jovan Marjanović, who was recently named the new director of Sarajevo Film Festival; Mexican-Ethiopian filmmaker Jessica Beshir, who won the grand prix at last year’s VdR with her debut feature, Faya Dayi; and Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.

They will judge a selection of 16 films,...

Renewals

The BBC has renewed four of its top rated dramas – “The Tourist,” “The Responder,” “Vigil” and “Time.”

Thriller “The Tourist,” starring Jamie Dornan and Shalom Brune-Franklin, is the highest-rating drama of 2022 so far, having launched with 12 million viewers and all six episodes were the most-watched episodes on BBC iPlayer in January.

The second biggest new drama of 2022 so far is crime thriller “The Responder,” starring Martin Freeman, which launched with some 10 million viewers across 30 days. Like the first season, the second will be set and filmed in Liverpool.

In 2021, Scotland-set submarine mystery “Vigil,” starring Suranne Jones, was the U.K.’s most-watched new drama launch since “Bodyguard” in 2018. It drew an audience of over 13 million viewers across 30 days for episode one, and the series overall had an average of 12.6 million viewers. The second season will also be set in Scotland.

Prison drama “Time,” starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSCarla Simón’s Alcarrás (Courtesy of MK2 Films)This year's Berlinale has now concluded, with Carla Simón’s Alcarrás taking home the Golden Bear, and Hong Sang-soo, Claire Denis and Natalia Lopez Gallardo taking home prizes as well. Check out the full list of awards winners here.Horror filmmaker and production designer Alfred Sole has died at the age of 78. Sole famously directed the cult horror classic Alice, Sweet Alice (1976). However, he first gained notoriety with his X-rated film Deep Sleep (1972), which was pulled from theaters. Sole continued as a prolific production designer for many television films and shows like Veronica Mars and Melrose Place. Netflix has officially signed an updated windowing agreement with France's film industry, which will "see the window between theatrical and SVOD release significantly reduced" from 36 months to 15 months. And as Deadline points out,...

The winners for the 2022 Berlin Film Festival have been revealed. The in-person event took place this year February 10–20. The competition jury, led by president M. Night Shyamalan, included filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, producer Saïd Ben Saïd, filmmaker Anne Zohra Berrached, filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga, Oscar-nominated “Drive My Car” director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and actor Connie Nielsen.

The festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear for Best Film, was presented by Shyamalan. “For its extraordinary performances, from the child actors to the actors in their 80s, for the ability to show the tenderness and comedy and struggle,” he awarded Spanish drama “Alcarras,” from director Carla Simon.

The festival did away with gendered acting awards once again, instead offering Silver Bears for Best Supporting and Best Lead Performance. Beloved auteur Claire Denis won best director for her romantic psychodrama “Both Sides of the Blade” — or “Fire,” as it’s known in the United States. (IFC Films has stateside rights.

Spanish director Carla Simón has won the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, for her second feature “Alcarràs,” a moving drama about a Catalan farming family facing eviction from their land. She received the prize from jury president M. Night Shyamalan, capping a strong night for female filmmakers. Full report to follow.

Official Competition

Golden Bear for Best Film: “Alcarràs,” Carla Simón

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: “The Novelist’s Film,” Hong Sangsoo

Silver Bear Jury Prize: “Robe of Gem,” Natalia Lopez Gallardo

Silver Bear for Best Director: “Fire,” Claire Denis

Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush,” Meltem Kaptan

Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: “Before, Now and Then (Nana),” Laura Basuki

Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush,” Laila Stieler

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution: “Everything Will Be Ok,” Rithy Panh

Special Mention: “A Piece of Sky,...