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Yorgos Lanthimos’ career has long displayed a morbid fascination for the contours of the body, mind, and spirit, in all their ugliness. Well before “Dogtooth” shook the international film scene and “The Favourite” won Olivia Colman an Oscar, the Greek filmmaker made his debut with “Kinetta.” While this head-scratching puzzle box may at times feel like a sketchpad draft for his films to come, it nevertheless exerts a hypnotic power that makes it easy to see why Lanthimos quickly became a director to watch.

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Most of Lanthimos’ movies include self-flagellation of some sort, whether the literal acts of torture inflicted by the women of “The Favourite” on themselves,...

For all of his seemingly out-there ideas and distinctive obsessions, Oscar-nominated Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is one of world cinema’s most consistent creators. Even in his earliest solo feature, the hard-to-find “Kinetta,” Lanthimos’ unique aesthetic and worldview takes center stage. In the 2005 feature, bound for a U.S. release after all these years, Lanthimos’ panache for building out disturbing self-contained worlds that are bound by their own wild logic and weirdo rules is clear.

Though the film screened at various festivals in 2005 and 2006, it was never released stateside. Thanks to New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, the film will finally be available to American audiences, care of an upcoming run at the Queens institution. The film stars Aris Servetalis, Evangelia Randou, and Costas Xikominos.

Per the film’s official synopsis: “In a desolate Greek resort town, three tenuously connected people are motivated by mysterious impulses. A plain-clothes...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 19, 2012

Price: DVD $27.99

Studio: Strand Releasing

Friends Ariane Labed (l.) and Evangelia Randou get friendly in Attenberg.

Greece’s official entry for the Academy Awards, 2010’s Attenberg is a deadpan comedy-drama film by Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari.

The coming-of-age story concerns plucky Marina (Ariane Labed), a 23-year-old woman who lives in a small factory town by the sea where she passes her time watching Sir David Attenborough’s nature programs, listening to the proto-punk songs of Suicide, goofing with her only friend Bella (Evangelia Randou), and tending to her ailing father (Vangelis Mourikis). When a visiting engineer (Yorgos Lanthimos, director of the Academy Award-nominated Dogtooth) comes to town, the two form a tentative relationship that pushes Marina into contact with the strange and complex world of adulthood.

Rolled out to dozens of film festivals and theatrical screenings across Europe and South American, Attenberg had a...

Henry Barnes reveals the fifth of seven films to be offered for free to Guardian Extra members through Curzon on Demand

Athina Rachel Tsangari's beautiful tale of a father-daughter relationship turns the microscope on humans' animal behaviour

• Click here for details on the Curzon on Demand streaming scheme

• Sign in to Guardian Extra to get the promotional code and watch Attenberg on Curzon on Demand

The elaborate slurp of the opening kiss, the wacky walks, lonely 23-year-old Mariana (Ariane Labed) and her dad, Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) pretending to be gorillas on their hotel bed: there's moments in Attenberg that are kooky, quirky and all the other labels that director Athina Rachel Tsangari hates. They're the bits that singled the film out on its cinematic release last year, but caught alone they're red herrings, eye-catching add-ons to a beautifully told story about a father-daughter relationship that's coming into bloom just a little too late.

Sometimes a trailer hits that is so bizarre that it's difficult to explain its appeal. This is how I feel about Strand Releasing's theatrical trailer for the heralded Greek drama Attenberg. It's a peculiar mix of ambiguous yet engrossing dialogue, awkward but explicit sexual imagery, and stern yet funny walks that has me deeply intrigued. After winning acclaim abroad, including honors at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, this provocative drama was selected as Greece's submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Though it did not make the Academy's final cut of nominees, this trailer courtesy of Yahoo is proof that Attenberg could still score a U.S. release. Raised in an isolated factory town by the sea, Marina (Ariane Labed) is a misfit and a late-bloomer. At 23 she's never been kissed, and her only friends are her oddball bestie, Bella (Evangelia Randou), and her fatally ill father (Vangelis Mourikis). With each,...

The latest product of the Greek new wave is an intriguing oddity that suggests the troubling mind-state of a country in social and economic meltdown

Are we seeing the consolidation of a Greek new wave? Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg is an angular, complex, absorbing and obscurely troubling movie. It offers its audience a mordant commentary on modern Greece – deriding its cultural and social decay, though without commenting directly on economic difficulties – and affects a serio-comic, quasi-anthropological detachment. The title mispronounces the surname of David Attenborough, whose TV documentaries the lead character loves. Its deadpan mannerisms and eccentricities are a deliberately unreal stylisation, a distancing effect, and yet somehow at the same a real symptom of real unhappiness and dysfunction.

Tsangari was a producer on Giorgios Lanthimos's disturbing award-winner Dogtooth; Lanthimos acts in this and the movies share a cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis. The resemblances between the two are striking, particularly their demystified,...

(Rob’s Venice 2010 film festival review re-posted ahead of Attenberg’s UK theatrical release on Friday)

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I hope Greek director Athena Rachel Tsangari wasn’t in the screening of in competition film Attenberg in Venice this evening. It got what was definitely the worst reception a film has received here that, at least that I have personally witnessed. No booing or anything (that doesn’t seem to happen outside of Cannes) but very faint applause from a handful of people, in a large cinema which started full and ended up with less than half those people remaining. Walk outs were constant (and distracting) throughout.

The film is, like many of the films here, light on plot – although unlike many of the films here it doesn’t substitute that for ideas or to provoke an emotion. There was nothing nasty or offensive in the film, although two...

"Written and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Attenberg pivots on a 23-year-old late bloomer and only child, Marina (Ariane Labed), who, as she prepares for her father's imminent death, enters her first (and hilariously awkward) sexual relationship with a man." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "Shifting between deadpan comedy and dry-eyed drama, the film unwinds episodically, starting with one of the most spectacularly terrible kisses in the history of movies between Marina and her close friend Bella (Evangelia Randou).... The title refers to a mispronunciation of the last name of David Attenborough, whose nature documentaries Marina raptly watches and which mirror Ms Tsangari's observational if sympathetic approach toward her characters."...

Writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg opens with a few feeble attempts at open-mouthed French kisses exchanged between Bella (Evangelia Randou) and Marina (Ariane Labed). The absurdly uncomfortable exercise is not one that is fueled by hormones or attraction, but is purely a learning experience; the purportedly sexually advanced Bella is hopelessly attempting to teach her sexually naive 23-year old best friend, Marina, how to kiss.

After announcing the 58 films in four categories that would be eligible for awards at Sundance, the film fest has now announced the next 57 movies to be screened this coming January. These 57 films are of course out of competition and will be included in Premieres, Next, Spotlight, New Frontiers and Midnight categories. Most are big name projects from already established filmmakers and some have already made their way around film festival in 2010. The list includes Kevin Smith’s Red State, Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Submarine, I Saw the Devil (which had plenty of buzz at Tiff) and my most anticipated film of 2011, Hobo With a Shotgun.

Here is the full list:

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films.

Festival Adds New Native Showcase

As Previously Announced, Slacker to Screen From the Collection

Park City, Ut – Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Next (<=>), Spotlight, New Frontier, Park City at Midnight, as well as a new Native Showcase. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs January 20-30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at http://www.sundance.org/festival/.

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming said, “The Sundance Film Festival is uniquely a festival of discovery and we are once again privileged to showcase the work of talented new artists, including a special section devoted to Native filmmakers. But it’s also exciting to see returning directors honing their skills and emerging with dazzling new films. And the Next section highlights visionary work that shows aesthetic creativity is not limited by budget.

Some major Venice, Tiff, Nyff titles have been added to Sundance including high quality premium titles in Attenberg, Meek's Cutoff and Submarine. Gregg Araki will once again have had the chance to showcase his films at top fest on the circuit, his latest film Kaboom which was shown at Cannes and Tiff will find it's final fest presentation in Park City. Denis Villeneuve will deliver one extra push before the Oscars (Incendies is a top tier pick among all the nominees). Mumblecore member Joe Swanberg is also in the section but with a world premiere of his film. Attenberg /Greece (Director and screenwriter: Athina Rachel Tsangari) Marina, a young woman living with her father in a decaying, seaside factory town, acquires a new perspective on the mysteries of human nature after she meets a stranger. Cast: Ariane Labed, Yorgos Lanthimos, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou. U.S. Premiere Elite Squad 2 (Tropa...

Yes, you read that right, they are out of competition but into lesbians courtesy of the midnight lineup.

What do we have to look forward to waiting two years for? Let's see..

Hobo With a Shotgun

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (you had me at lesbian)

Attenberg (I'm loving the coming Greek weird wave)

And many many more films, some of which we'll probably never get to see. Damn.

Full list after the break.

Next ()

Eight American films selected for their innovative and original work in low- and no-budget filmmaking. Each is a world premiere.

Bellflower / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Evan Glodell) - A ballad for every person who has ever loved and lost - with enough violence, weapons, action and sex to tell a love story with apocalyptic stakes. Cast: Evan Glodell, Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Rebekah Brandes.

The Lie / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Leonard; Screenwriters: Jeff Feuerzeig,...

Following yesterday's announcement of the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions, the Sundance Film Festival has unveiled the second part of their lineup, which includes the more starry-eyed Premieres section, the best-of-fests Spotlight section, the sure-to-be-culty Park City at Midnight section, the low-budget Next section, and the more experimental New Frontier section (an extension of New Frontier Program, the collection of video art installations which has already been noted here for playing James Franco's dramatic multimedia examination of "Three's Company.")

In addition to the return of filmmakers like "Chuck & Buck"'s Miguel Arteta, "Clockwatchers" director Jill Sprecher, Kevin Smith and "The Station Agent"'s Thomas McCarthy to Park City, the festival will also welcome less frequent or first-time Sundance attendees such as Hollywood types Al Pacino ("Son of No One") and Tobey Maguire ("The Details") and mumblecore alums Joe Swanberg ("Uncle Kent," which announced it's been...

The Sundance Film Festival announced the in competition film line-up for the film festival running January 20th through January 30th 2011 in Park City, Utah.

Today the festival has announced the line-up for the non-competition films and there is one hell of a line-up! There are a ton of great films that will be premiering at the festival, and if you're going you have a lot of great films to choose from!

Each film has an incredible cast and a great story. These films include Cedar Rapids, about a man traveling to an insurance conference, featuring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Sigourney Weaver; Kevin Smith's Red State, about a group of misfits encounter extreme fundamentalism in Middle America; The Details, about domestic tensions spawned by raccoons with Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert; I Melt With You, starring Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay,...

Yesterday, we reported the films playing in-competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Today, Sundance has announced the films playing in the out-of-competition lineups for “Next(<=>)”, Spotlight, Native Showcase, and Park City at Midnight. Among the films playing are Hobo with a Shotgun, the critically-acclaimed Submarine, Lucky McKee’s new horror film The Woman, and Meek’s Cutoff starring Michelle Williams and Paul Dano. Each lineup has its own mission statement that relates to the films selected. The festival will also be showing Richard Linklater’s Slacker at part of its “From the Collection” lineup.

Hit the jump to check out the new films announced. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

Here’s the press release and lineups:

2011 Sundance Film Festival Announces Films In Next (<=>), Spotlight, New Frontier And Park City At Midnight

Festival Adds New Native Showcase

As Previously Announced, Slacker to Screen From the Collection

Native Showcase...

Well, yesterday, we saw the full list of films in-competition; today, we get to see those titles that have been selected for Sundance 2011′s out-of-competition lineup.

And as I said with yesterday’s post, I’ll be going over the complete list, highlighting titles that need to be, taking into consideration this blog’s specific interests. The only title that immediately stands out is Brit John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which MsWOO positively reviewed, after seeing it at the London Film Festival in October. Read her review Here.

But look for future posts profiling any other titles I deem worthy. I’ve applied for press credentials to attend next year’s festival. I won’t know until the 23rd of this month, whether I’ve been granted press access or not. If I am, I will attend the festival; and if I’m not, well, I probably won’t.

Well, if the Competition titles at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival don't generate any early year Oscar buzz, I think it's safe to say the Out of Competition titles will. Several films that have already been seen and positively reviewed can be found in the fest's Spotlight Line-Up along with a batch of anticipated hopefuls in the Premiere Section.

Beginning with the festival's premieres, Miguel Arteta (Youth in Revolt) is bringing Cedar Rapids to Park City where it will debut before it hits theaters only a couple weeks later on February 11. "Big Love" co-producers, Jill and Karen Sprecher are bringing an impressive cast for their crime drama The Convincer. Jacob Aaron Estes's The Details, which was shot only a few miles from my house in the Queen Anne district of Seattle, arrives with Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Tobey Maguire in tow.

Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies) will debut I Melt with You,...

Wednesday, the 2011 Sundance Film Festival announced the 58 films in four categories [1] that would be eligible for awards. Today, they've announced the next slice of their line up - 57 out of competition films in the Premieres, Next, Spotlight, New Frontiers and Midnight categories. This is generally where you get many of the bigger name projects and this year is no exception. We already knew [2] that Kevin Smith's Red State would be on the list, but there's also Tom McCarthy's new film Win Win, Morgan Spurlock's documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, the highly buzzed-about Submarine, Fantastic Fest darling I Saw the Devil as well as Hobo With a Shotgun and a whole bunch more including films with Al Pacino, Tobey Maguire, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Rudd and others. As we said yesterday, the announcement of the movies playing the 2011 Sundance Film Festival is like looking into our film futures.

Yesterday we revealed the in-competition line-up for this years Sundance Film Festival. Today the programmers have announced the second wave, the out-of-competition line-up. It includes six categories and you can check them all out below. We already knew Kevin Smith‘s Red State would be screening, as he announced on his podcast last night. The rest of this out-of-competition line-up is pretty unbelievable.

We get Cedar Rapids (from Youth In Revolt‘s Miguel Arteta), Mark Pellington‘s I Melt With You, My Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd, Tom McCarthy‘s Win Win, as well as Dito Montiel‘s third feature The Son of No One. We also have new documentaries by Morgan Spurlock and Eugene Jarecki. Some of my favorite Tiff films are also making an appearance, including Submarine (pictured above) and Meek’s Cutoff. Check it out below.

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance...

Attenberg/Greece (Director and screenwriter: Athina Rachel Tsangari) — Marina, a young woman living with her father in a decaying, seaside factory town, acquires a new perspective on the mysteries of human nature after she meets a stranger. Cast: Ariane Labed, Yorgos Lanthimos, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou. U.S. Premiere Elite Squad 2 (Tropa de Elite 2)/Brazil (Director: José Padilha; Screenwrtiers: Bráulio Mantovani, José Padilha and Rodrigo Pimentel) — Captain Nascimento of ...

Álex de la Iglesia's A Sad Trumpet Ballad (top); Vincent Gallo in Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing (middle); Ariane Labed, Evangelia Randou in Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg (bottom) Sofia Coppola Wins Golden Lion; Former Boyfriend Quentin Tarantino Must Explain Himself At the 2010 Venice Film Festival, the Silver Lion for best director and the Osella for best screenplay went to Spaniard Álex de la Iglesia for Balada triste de trompeta / A Sad Trumpet Ballad, a dark comedy-drama about a psycho love triangle set in a circus in 1937 Spain, then in the throes of a psycho civil war. De la Iglesia called A Sad Trumpet Ballad "a love story, a crazy, ruthless, wild kind of love. The anxiety and the search for revenge lead to the destruction of the object of love." The Special Jury Prize went to Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing, about a suspected Taliban fighter captured by...

Attenberg is the latest project from Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari, and one of the movies selected In Competition at 67th Venice Film Festival.

Attenberg

“I made a film about four people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. Three people become four, then two. Three, of course, being the only perfect number in a relationship.”

That’s what Tsangari had to say about her project that goes like this:

“…born and raised in an abandoned mill town, uniformly built around a single high-rise apartment building, Marina has fallen in love with a failed architectural experiment and forgotten all about the people who were supposed to live in it.

Built sometime in the sixties, Attenberg was never meant to harbour human warmth in the first place. Its sole purpose was to procure obedient workers for the nearby aluminum factory, offering a colorless life to go with the regulation outfit.

Festivals tend to have more than one jury so let's deal with the sidebar prizes first, before we get to the main competition jury, headed by Quentin Tarantino. But a little preview: Natalie Portman went home empty-handed for Black Swank but Mila Kunis didn't. Interesssssssting.

Various Sidebars

Europa Cinema Award: This honor comes from the Venice Days sidebar and the winning film was Bertrand Blier's Le Bruit des Glacons (The Clink of the Ice), a dark French comedy about an alcoholic dealing with cancer.

The Queer Lion: This prize focuses on the way films portray gay characters and themes. The winner was En el futuro (In the Future), a 62 minute black and white film directed by Mauro Andrizzi. None of the summaries seem to tell you what it's about. Hmmmm. It played in the Orizzonti sidebar of the festival. Guess they didn't like the disturbing sapphic tryst angle of Black Swan all that much.

#4. Attenberg Director: Athina Rachel TsangariCast: Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou, Yorgos Lanthimos Distributor: Rights Available. Buzz: If there is a positive repercussion from Greece's crumbling economy, it might have paved the way for a new kind of auteur cinema. If 2009, I can think of nothing more unique of an experience than Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth, and my early impression with Tsangari's sophomore picture, which receives its world premiere in the Main Competition category in Venice in less than 48 hours from now, is that this will only strengthen the argument that social, political and economic shifts can make for some unique examples of art. The Gist: A dying architect and his emotionally stunted daughter inhabit a once booming industrial community in the middle of nowhere, now populated by the precious few who didn’t have the heart to leave it behind. Tiff Schedule: Tuesday September 14 8:30:00 Pm AMC 6 Thursday September...

In adding this new batch of new images to the synopsis and other images we exclusively preemed, Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg is shaping up to be the most curious looking title from this year's Venice comp - here's hoping it makes it among the Toronto titles and thus make my future schedule, a little bit edgier. First time actress Ariane Labed toplines the pictures, you have her playing tonsil hockey along with actress Evangelia Randou (Bella).  Marina, 23, is growing up with her architect father in a prototype factory town by the sea. Finding the human species strange and repellent, she keeps her distance. Instead she stubbornly observes it through the songs of Suicide, the mammal documentaries of Sir David Attenborough, and the sex-ed lessons she receives from her only friend, Bella. A stranger comes to town and challenges her to a foosball duel, on her own table. Her father...

Are you guys ready for the oldest film festival in the world? Yeah, sure you are! Who’s crazy enough to miss all that glamour, great movies, and well-known faces? Guess nobody!

This year’s Venice Film Festival runs from September 1- 11th and some great titles will compete for Leone d’Oro, or if you prefer Golden Lion, indeed!

Just in case you don’t trust us, check out a list of all the films playing in competition:

In Competition

Black Swan, Opening Night Film (dir. Darren Aronofsky – U.S.) Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

La Pecora Nera, (dir. Ascanio Celestini – Italy) Ascanio Celestini, Giorgio Tirabassi, Maya Sansa

Somewhere, (dir. Sofia Coppola – U.S.) Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Benicio Del Toro, Michelle Monaghan, Laura Chiatti, Simona Ventura

Happy Few, (dir. Antony Cordier – France) Marina Fois, Elodie Bouchez, Roschdy Zem, Nicolas Duvauchelle

The Solitude of Prime Numbers,...

Earlier this week, the fifty films showing at the Toronto International Film Festival were announced. Today, we have a list of the films showing in-competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Highlights of the Festival include Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, Richard J. Lewis’ Barney’s Version, Julian Schnabel’s Miral, and Tom Tykwer’s Drei. What’s also cool about this list is that we see the runtimes of each of the films. However, it’s not unusual for a film to undergo changes between a festival and its general release.

Hit the jump for a list of all the films playing in-competition and click here for the films playing out-of-competition. This year’s Venice Film Festival runs from September 1 – 11th.

Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan

USA, 103′

Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

Ascanio Celestini – La Pecora Nera

Italia, 93′

Ascanio Celestini,...

The line-up for the 67th Venice Film Festival has finally been announced and we've handily posted the runners and riders below...

The Italian cinematic shindig, which runs from September 1-11 and features the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo Arriaga, Arnaud Desplechin, Danny Elfman, Luca Guadagnino and Gabriele Salvatores on the competition jury, has pulled out all the stops this year with some very exciting flicks.

Top on our list of must-see movies includes Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, Vincent Gallo's Promises Written In Water and Anh Hung Tran's Murasaki adaptation Norwegian Wood.

The films to be shown at the 67th Venice Film Festival are...

Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel.

La Pecora Nera, directed by Ascanio Celestini and starring Ascanio Celestini, Giorgio Tirabassi and Maya Sansa

Somewhere, directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Stephen Dorff,...