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

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)

A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: Prime...

Exclusive: UK outfit Lightbulb Film Distribution has picked up three Sundance movies out of the Cannes market.

From Paris-based WTFilms, the company has acquired Touch Me (pictured above), the psychosexual horror-comedy which premiered at Sundance Midnight and then played SXSW.

Written and directed by Addison Heimann (Hypochondriac), Rustic Films’ duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Something In The Dirt) serve as executive producers on the film starring Olivia Taylor Dudley (The Magicians) and Lou Taylor Pucci (Moon Manor). The movie sees best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist, who may or may not be trying to take over the world.

Lightbulb has also added Grace Glowicki’s Sundance Midnight title Dead Lover to their line-up. Written, directed by and starring Glowicki (Booger), the film stars Ben Petrie, Leah Doz and Lowen Morrow in numerous roles.

In Dead Lover, a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man,...

The BFFoundation (Bff), in collaboration with founding partner Walmart and presenting partner Coca-Cola, has today announced the full lineup for the 2025 Bentonville Film Festival (Bff), launching next month. As ever, the festival remains committed to building a slate around inclusion and authentic representation.

This year’s festival will showcase 28 feature competition films, including 9 world premieres, plus the newly-launched Homegrown Competition highlighting powerful stories from filmmakers based in or filming in Arkansas. Of this year’s competition slate, 66 percent of the films are from creators identifying as female or gender non-conforming; 51 percent identify as Bipoc, Asian, or Pacific Islander; 29 percent identify as Lgbtqia+; 18 percent are filmmakers over the age of 50; and 12 percent identify as a person with a disability.

The festival, which was founded by Geena Davis and backed by Wal-Mart, celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, a period that’s been marked by profound growth, both for the festival and...

Exclusive: Magnify has bolstered its Cannes sales slate with international rights to Pete Ohs’ recent SXSW genre-bender The True Beauty Of Being Bitten By A Tick.

The Narrative Spotlight premiere stars Zoë Chao, whose credits include Bubble & Squeak, as a young woman whose idyllic rural escape unravels after a tick bite triggers a series of unsettling transformations.

The cast includes Callie Hernandez, Jeremy O. Harris (The Sweet East), and James Cusati-Moyer (Maestro).

Ohs, Hernandez, Harris, Chao, and Cusati-Moyer co-wrote the screenplay, and the producers are Ohs, Hernandez (Invention), Harris (Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.), and Josh Godfrey...

Celebrating the independent filmmaking spirit of NYC, the Lower East Side Film Festival returns this Thursday as the 15th edition runs through May 5. Featuring the Opening Night selection, the New York Premiere of Pete Ohs’ SXSW selection The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, the lineup also includes Joel Vargas’ Sundance and New Directors/New Films selection Mad Bills to Pay, and Amy Landecker’s For Worse, starring Bradley Whitford, Nico Hiraga, Missi Pyle, Gaby Hoffmann, and Ken Marino. Ahead of this anniversary, we’re pleased to exclusively debut a new trailer celebrating 15 years of the festival.

John Fink said his SXSW review of The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, “It might help to know the creative process going in. Tick was made collaboratively by its main cast: as Ohs explained during the SXSW premiere, they isolated on location at a country home where they...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Locarno Film Festival. “Invention” plays at the Metrograph in New York starting Friday, April 18.

When it comes to meta experiments that blur those good ole lines between fiction and the filmmakers’ own non-fiction life stories, there’s a risk that the resulting feature can border on being impenetrable if audiences aren’t fed a load of exposition in advance. That’s far less of an issue for classically-told narratives from mega-famous artists delving into (semi)autobiography (like Steven Spielberg with “The Fabelmans”), but definitely so for smaller scale projects from independent filmmakers whose output is more peculiar. What can be a compelling behind-the-scenes story as described in a press kit may not necessarily translate into the finished feature as something engaging, or even coherent, to anyone coming to the work without the luxury of reading production notes before the screening.

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

Bam

Triple Canopy Presents: In The Hole brings 35mm prints of Salò, Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole, and more.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese presents Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death on 35mm this Friday; Jerry Lewis’ Smorgasboard shows on 35mm Saturday; Dazed and Confused and Smiley-Face play on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

Essential Cinema brings Erich von Stroheim’s Greed and films by Dziga Vertov; Richard Beymer’s The Innerview plays in a new restoration.

Museum of Modern Art

Films by Howard Hawks, George Stevens, and more play in “The Lady at 100.”

Museum of the Moving Image

The Dead Zone plays throughout the weekend while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows Saturday and Sunday.

Film Forum

Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman plays in a new restoration; Bride of Frankenstein screens this Sunday.

IFC Center

Barry Lyndon begins screening for its 50th anniversary; Salò,...

In his review of Invention, the new film from writer/director Courtney Stephens and actor/writer Callie Hernandez, Martin Kudlac discusses the many ways it explores the lines between reality and fantasy, and how those lines are oddly similar in grief and conspiracy theories. It's a review that makes you want to see the film not only to luxuriate in a beautiful and thoughtful piece of art, but also so that you can talk about it, because there's so much to talk about. Thus, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk about the film with its creators and dive a little deeper with them on the many, many fascinating aspects of their unique film. [The film will be opening in New York at Metrograph theater...

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

Mubi will exclusively debut Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez’s semi-autobiographical conspiracy film “Invention” on streaming in North America. The specialty streamer will release the feature on its platform during the summer, following its limited theatrical engagement beginning Friday in New York City at Metrograph.

A collaboration between writer-director Stephens and writer and star Hernandez, the 16mm-shot “Invention” incorporates archival footage of Hernandez’s real father, an alternative medicine physician who died of Covid in 2021. Hernandez plays “Carrie,” a woman who must navigate her own grief after she inherits an odd healing doohickey from her late father. The film’s cast also features other indie filmmakers, such as Caveh Zahedi, Joe Swanberg and James N. Kienitz Wilkins.

“Invention” debuted at the 2024 edition of the Locarno Film Festival, where Hernandez won the Pardo for best performance in the Filmmakers of the Present Section of the fest. Since Locarno, the film had...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Berlinale coverage. Invention opens in theaters on April 18.

Grieving comes in many guises. In Courtney Stephens’ Invention, speculative fiction blends with personal history to explore the ways we process death. The subject is Callie Hernandez, an actress and filmmaker whose father died of a Covid-related illness in 2021. There’s much archival footage of the man, mostly television recordings from his times as a kind of telemarketer for new-age healing methods, but Stephens and Hernandez go one further, suggesting an alternative timeline. In this ersatz world, a patent for an electromagnetic healing device is left to her in her father’s will. No categorization does the film justice: it’s about death and mourning, of course, but it’s just as interested in people’s susceptibility to conspiracy.

Invention begins with Hernandez going through the most mundane posthumous rituals. She meets with her father’s lawyer,...

With Invention, director Courtney Stephens and writer-actor Callie Hernandez tell a very “American” story. In spite of its disarming, self-deprecating tone, the film depicts a culture of artifice held together with little more than dodgy credit and naïveté, where we’re happy to celebrate scammers if they can bamboozle enough of us into investing in their “therapeutic objects.” Invention, in this land of boosterism, has as much to do with reinventing the self as it does with patenting ideas for novel stress-reduction gadgets.

Invention blends fiction and autobiography to fascinating implications. The plot follows Carrie (Callie Hernandez), a cynical woman whose rather idiosyncratic father has recently died. Hernandez plays a lightly fictionalized version of herself here, with her real father, likewise deceased, making ghostly appearances throughout the film via various ’90s infomercials, in which he leverages his MD to hawk miracle cures beyond the pale of Western medicine.

Dr. J...

The 15th anniversary of the beloved Lower East Side Film Festival (Lesff) has a star-studded lineup. IndieWire can announce that Lesff 2025 will open with the New York premiere of Pete Ohs’ “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick” May 1. The festival will conclude May 5 with Lola Rocknrolla’s true crime documentary “The Big Johnson” about drag queen Dean Johnson.

“Our Opening and Closing Night films are proof that indie filmmaking packs a punch,” Roxy Hunt, Lesff Co-Director and CEO of Bfd Productions, said. “Pete Ohs and Lola Rocknrolla are true badass filmmakers, telling stories that are daring, original, and unapologetic. At a time when Hollywood is playing it safe and overlooking bold, visionary voices, independent film is where authentic stories have the freedom to break through. Lesff has always been about championing that spirit, and this year is no different.”

“The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villleneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt, and RaMell Ross––those are just a few of the filmmakers introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the last half-century.

Now returning for its 54th edition at Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art from April 2-13, this year’s lineup features 33 new films, presenting acclaimed titles from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Sundance, Rotterdam, and more. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered our recommended films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.

Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)

Shot largely on location in Queens, Blue Sun Palace explores a hidden culture and milieu.

"You see much more than what you see with your eyes open..." An official trailer is out for this abstract, experimental indie film titled Invention, made by filmmakers Callie Hernandez and Courtney Stephens as a collaborative effort. This initially premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival last year and won an award there, and it will also screen at the 2025 New Directors/New Films at MoMA next, with a theatrical release set for April. In the aftermath of a conspiracy-minded father's sudden death, his daughter inherits his patent for an experimental healing device. Starring Callie Hernandez, Sahm McGlynn, Tony Torn, Lucy Kaminsky, and Joe Swanberg. The film fictionalizes the aftermath of Hernandez's father's death using a real archive of varied TV appearances he made as an alternative health doctor in the late 90s through 2020. The storyline also revolves around the patent of an experimental healing device that becomes his daughter's...

Last year I was fortunate to see a rough cut of Invention, a new film by Courtney Stephens that toes the documentary-fiction boundary more nimbly than most: it stars Callie Hernandez (who also co-wrote and is credited as co-author) as a woman seeking clarification on the death of her inventor father whose death spurs an investigation both clerical and conspiratorial. Stephens interpolates conversations (both expository and atmospheric) with sequences that might be dreams, fantasies, or emanations from one of her father’s creations. Even as an enthusiast of the director I wasn’t entirely prepared for this experience, but understood it was unlike any recent narrative film. Now Invention, credited to both director and star, opens at Metrograph on April 18 following last summer’s Locarno premiere, during which Hernandez won a much-deserved Pardo for Best Performance in the Filmmakers of the Present section. With it comes a trailer that deftly...

What is grief if not living in the liminal space between mourning and coping, of life and death itself? Courtney Stephens’ fiction and autobiography hybrid film “Invention” blurs fact and fiction as it centers on the aftermath of actress/co-writer Callie Hernandez’s own father’s death.

Director Stephens and Hernandez both are credited for the script, with Hernandez also starring in it (the duo also produce together). Hernandez won the Pardo for Best Performance in the Filmmakers of the Present at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival.

The official synopsis for the film reads: “The film fictionalizes the aftermath of Hernandez’s father’s death using a real archive of varied TV appearances he made as an alternative health doctor in the late ’90s through 2020. The fictional storyline revolves around the patent of an experimental healing device that becomes his daughter’s (played by Hernandez as the character of ‘Carrie Fernandez’) sole inheritance.

This year’s South by Southwest Film and TV Festival was a more star-studded affair than ever. Big movie stars from Nicole Kidman to Ben Affleck and Jenna Ortega descended on the city of Austin, TX to celebrate the premieres of their latest projects. Meanwhile, the festival also served as an exciting showcase of some of the most promising up-and-coming talents in the indie film scene.

From blockbusters to indie gems, this writer saw a total of 51 movies at this year’s SXSW Film and TV Festival. Although narrowing it down to our top ten was challenging, we have decided which films we think you don’t want to miss — whether they come out a few weeks from now or are still looking for a distribution deal.

And if you keep reading after our top 10, you’ll catch some of our additional thoughts on other films that we saw at this year’s festival.

Although LGBTQ representation was few and far in between among the headliners at this year’s SXSW, several indie darlings broke the industry’s cis-heteronormative mold to stand out.

From Special Jury Award winner Fucktoys, multi-hyphenate Annapurna Sriram’s bold celluloid fever dream of a feature debut, to The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, co-writer/director Pete Ohs’ captivating model for cooperative filmmaking, there’s a glimmer of hope that the future of the industry lies in the hands of a new generation of marginalized folk with the right amount of passion, vision and ingenuity.

While catching up with Sophia Bush about her upcoming One Tree Hill revival in the works at Netflix, the actress emphasized the importance of LGBTQ representation in media as the Trump administration continues to dismantle Dei.

“I think 2025 sucks for everyone, to be clear, but what I think is worrisome, particularly for us,...

Falling somewhere between a horror film and dark comedy about wellness crazes, The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick is, like director Pete Ohs’ previous Jethica, a film that suggests watching a play within a movie. Both features are difficult to discuss without spoilers––they seem to operate on a wavelength beyond genre boxes.

It might help to know the creative process going in. Tick was made collaboratively by its main cast: as Ohs explained during the SXSW premiere, they isolated on location at a country home where they would write three scenes at a time, film and analyze said scenes, and then move forward. The result is a kind of mumblecore version of an Ingmar Bergman film that feels both loose and heavily controlled. But if you’re not on the film’s wavelength it may feel like a disjointed mess. Like the wellness cures offered by...

Life’s already a circus, right? You’re juggling work, relationships, and your own existential dread, and then someone suggests you go to the countryside for a peaceful escape. You’re thinking fresh air, calm vibes, and maybe some organic veggies on the side. But instead, what you get is a series of weirdly overenthusiastic conversations, a questionable bowl of soup, and—oh yeah—a tick bite that might just turn your whole world upside down.

Well, welcome to The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, a film that promises tranquility but delivers tension, weirdness, and a whole lot of strange vibes. Director Pete Ohs isn’t just playing with horror here—he’s toying with your mind, nudging you into a world where nothing feels quite right. Like a bad trip to a wellness retreat, it leaves you questioning everything.

Zoë Chao in The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick...

Yvonne (Zoë Chao) needs to get out of the city and she needs to do it fast. A tragic accident has brought down on her the kind of crushing trauma response that can only be resolved by removing herself from her situation. Thankfully, her good friend Camille (Callie Hernandez) has a place in the country where she can go to rest and recuperate. However, when Yvonne arrives, she discovers that Camille is also housing two new friends, real estate agent Isaac (Jeremy O. Harris) and his boyfriend A.J. (James Cusati-Moyer). Uncomfortable with the situation, but in desperate need of a break, Yvonne sticks around, and before long, things get very strange. Camille and her buddies have given themselves over to a super hippie-dippy lifestyle, living...

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

Our chronic need for self-care can sometimes feel like its own illness. Whether you’re slapping on your daily deodorant or attending a weekly therapy session, “taking care” of yourself means managing the symptoms of being a living-breathing person… forever. It’s annoying, time-consuming, and, in the world of wellness marketing, a lucrative and consumable constant. In “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick,” filmmaker Pete Ohs examines snake oil culture as a means for exploiting both anxiety and fear.

Co-written by the director/editor/producer and the movie’s four lead actors, this sunny-yet-claustrophobic nightmare asks if the faux “healing” mentality — seen here as a stranger-danger version of a weekend getaway you only think you know — is really what’s making modern people sick. Foregoing the influencer-inspired sheen of something like the beauty thriller “Skincare,” this decidedly strange SXSW premiere follows the grieving Yvonne (Zoë Chao) into...

Wellness culture takes sinister form in “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick,” a horror-adjacent domestic drama that can’t quite sustain its tongue-in-cheek delights. Directed by Pete Ohs (“Jethica”), and co-written by Ohs and his four lead actors, the ultra-indie SXSW discovery’s wry tone is accompanied by strange characters and even stranger sound design, and yields a wildly enjoyable initial half. However, like its grieving lead character lost in her millennial malaise, it loses itself down a rabbit hole of metaphors.

After Yvonne (Zoë Chao) experiences a personal tragedy — the surprising details of which are hinted at over a phone call, before gradually coming to light — she drives to the isolated, woodland home of her old college friend Camille (Callie Hernandez), only to discover a pair of surprise guests when she expected time alone. Camille’s real estate agent Isaac (Jeremy O. Harris) and his partner A.

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office.John C. Lilly may not have the name recognition of certain other twentieth-century scientists, but aspects of his work in neurophysiology and psychedelic psychiatry continue to reverberate throughout popular culture. His pioneering studies in the field of cetacean neurobiology during the 1950s and ’60s were the basis of Mike Nichols’s Day of the Dolphin (1973). He may be best known for inventing the sensory deprivation tank, the inspiration for Ken Russell’s vivid Altered States (1980). The latter film in particular grapples with Lilly’s late-career scientific standing, which was marred by his appetite for psychedelic substances and New Age mysticism.Composed of material found in Stanford University’s archives, talking-head interviews, and previously unseen footage preserved by Lilly’s late son, John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (2025) presents a nuanced portrait of this controversial scientific figure. Codirectors Courtney Stephens and...

Pete Ohs is bringing the horrors of domesticity to the screen in his third collaboration with Jeremy O. Harris. Ohs, who previously edited Harris’ documentary “Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.” and is helming the upcoming indie “Erupcja” starring Harris and Charli Xcx, directs and co-writes SXSW feature “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick.” This is the first film to be released by Harris’ new production company, bb².

Zoë Chao leads “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick” as a grieving woman who spirals into paranoia after being (as the title teases) bitten by a tick while on vacation. Chao co-wrote the film with Ohs, Harris, and fellow actors Callie Hernandez and James Cusati-Moyer. Ohs, Hernandez (in her third collaboration with Ohs after by “Obex” and “Jethica”), and Harris and Josh Godfrey of bb² all produce as well.

The official synopsis reads: “After a tragic event,...

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights to “Obex” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The surreal, black-and-white fantasy film was directed by Albert Birney (“Strawberry Mansion”) who wrote the script with Pete Ohs (“Jethica”). Birney also stars in the film.

The film was widely praised for its imagination and style, with Variety calling it “entrancing and singular” and comparing it favorably to “I Saw the TV Glow.” It follows Conor Marsh (Birney), a man living a secluded life with his dog, Sandy, until one day he begins playing Obex, a new, state-of-the-art computer game. When Sandy goes missing, the line between reality and game blurs, and Conor must venture into the strange world of Obex to bring her home.

The producing team includes Birney, Ohs, Emma Hannaway and James Belfer, the founder and CEO of production company Cartuna. “Obex” marks the company’s third collaboration with Birney,...

Writer-director Albert Birney’s latest film, Obex, an almost non-categorizable sci-fi/fantasy/comedy-drama, stands out as a vibe film through and through. If you’re on Obex’s wavelength or frequency, i.e., attuned to its oddball charms, quirky humor, and irony-free, poignant exploration of its central themes, then Obex will prove a deeply engaging, infinitely rewarding experience. Set in 1987 and everything that implies low-tech wise, Obex centers on Birney’s character, Conor, a mild-mannered type defined by his agoraphobia. Conor never leaves his home except to collect the groceries his unseen neighbor, Mary (Callie Hernandez), leaves on his front steps or his backyard to spend time outside with his longtime companion, Sandy. Sandy means everything to Conor. She’s his stalwart friend, the best...

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

“There it is,” says Computer Conor, finding the advert for his modest computer-art service in the latest issue of Personal Computing while his dog, Sandy, snuffles on the sofa. Though the aesthetic of Obex — Albert Birney’s follow-up to the pastel-hued Strawberry Mansion (2021) — is grainy ’70s Eraserhead monochrome, appearances can be deceiving. The year is 1987, with Reagan in the White House and Madonna in the charts, but Conor (played by Birney himself) is unaware. A virtual shut-in, he sees life through a screen, even sending his neighbor Mary to do his grocery shopping.

Flipping through the magazine, an advert for a new computer game catches his eye; illustrated with a gothic castle, a satanic goat’s head and human brain, it promises a breakthrough in interactive gaming: “Can you make it to the end of the maze and defeat the demon Ixaroth before he eats your mortal soul?” To take part,...

Hand-labeled VHS tapes line the shelves of the living room where Conor Marsh (Albert Birney), a 36-year-old man living alone with his dog Sandy in 1987 Baltimore, spends many hours watching late-night horror movies and broadcast programs he’s recorded on a setup composed of three stacked Ctr TV sets. This analog library of thrilling fictions and ephemeral images preserved on tape is part of the bevy of references in “Obex,” a miniature epic of melancholic whimsy endearingly conceived in black-and-white with a lo-fi aesthetic.

This ingenious fantasy about the perils of finding comfort in screens while avoiding flesh-and-blood connections is the product of the close artistic partnership between Birney — who wrote, directed, edited and stars — and Pete Ohs, credited as the cinematographer, co-writer and co-editor. Together, Birney and Ohs are also behind most of the modest, yet sagaciously employed visual effects. The result of their joint artistic labor amounts to...

A kite shaped like a horse, a cicada-filled Baltimore world, and a black-and-white aesthetic almost perversely hooked on its own disaffected weirdness — writer/director Albert Birney’s “Obex” is a surreal, early-’90s’-esque odyssey into its main character’s (also played by Birney) addiction to his vintage Mac and inability to form actual human connections. With the lo-fi scrappiness of a dot matrix printer and the hallucinatory male-specific anxiety of David Lynch‘s “Eraserhead,” “Obex” tells the story of an awkward-under-his-skin computer programmer named Conor who escapes dreary black-and-white Baltimore into a fantasy world to defeat a demon named Ixaroth.

Birney, who previously co-directed the sci-fi adventure rom-com “Strawberry Mansion” with Kentucker Audley, writes, directs and stars in the movie as Conor Marsh. Living alone with his dog Sandy, he makes custom dot matrix printer photo reproductions for money over the post, while a neighbor Mary (Callie Hernandez) brings...

While the likes of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Steven Lisberger’s Tron have examined the thrills and fears of humanity’s relationship with screens since the early ‘80s, there’s been a recent, renewed interest as the number of screens in one’s life has ever-expanded. At last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Jane Schoebruen explored identity-forming bonds with media and the eventual curdling nostalgia with I Saw the TV Glow. This year, Obex finds Albert Birney following Strawberry Mansion with another inventive and lo-fi adventure, but one that finds the director honing in with a more satisfying focus. Even though our main character spends every waking moment in front of a screen, this is no damning screed but an earnest, even poignant look at how entertainment can provide a sense of comfort for the most lonely souls.

It’s 1987 in Baltimore, an unlucky year in which 17-year cicadas...

Magnify has acquired the international and U.S. sales rights to “Obex” ahead of its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by and starring “Sylvio” and “Strawberry Mansion” filmmaker Albert Birney, “Obex” is a black and white fantasy film that marks Birney’s first live-action directorial effort.

Written by Birney and Pete Ohs, the film follows Connor Marsh (Birney), a man living in seclusion with his dog Sandy. One day he begins playing the titular Obex, a state-of-the-art computer game. When Sandy goes missing, the line between reality and the game blurs and Conor must venture into the

strange world of Obex to bring her home.

“[This] is a surreal and fantastical journey through time and space — a wild ride filled with

wonders, unexpected characters, and thrills along the way,” said Magnify SVP tof Global Sales

Lorna Lee. “We’re incredibly excited to champion the heart-forward, humorous and imaginative

cinema of Albert Birney.

How well do we know each other? Is it even possible to know a person “well” nowadays, with our varieties of lifestyles and diversified sources of information? What if it is a family member? A close relative? What happens with us when the mentioned close person dies? Does our perception change? What does the grieving process look like according to that, even though there is no formula for grieving?

Those are the questions the subject/protagonist/co-author of the film Invention has to face. Starring Callie Hernandez, directed by Courtney Stephens and written by both of them, it tells the meta-fictional, mostly true story of Hernandez’s experience of losing her father whom she barely knew outside of his public persona as an eccentric telemarketer. Since the premiere at this year’s Locarno, it has been touring the festivals, including Italy's Lanceono D'oro, spawning a discussion more about its categorisation than about its qualities.

Prometheus revisited Alien lore and Alien: Covenant teased a sequel movie. Actor Katherine Waterston echoes Ridley Scott’s interest in finishing the prequel trilogy.

Actor Katherine Waterston hopes her character survived Alien: Covenant’s ending. “I like to think that Daniels made it out of the pod, but I'm not sure,” she told Inverse. Daniels seemed the final girl of that film but the cliffhanger confirmed that David, not Walter (both played by Michael Fassbender), put Daniels into cryosleep. David linked Prometheus’ story to Alien: Covenant, which revealed that he experimented on Elizabeth Shaw and massacred the Engineers. Waterstone said Ridley Scott’s prequels deserved a wrap-up (or continuing story) to the David trilogy.

Related Alien: Why Did David Kill the Engineers?

Alien: Covenant arrived at a crossroads for the franchise, and included a startling act of genocide. Here are David's reasons for acting as he did.

“I just love that world.

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This November, Hulu is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the surreal action comedy-drama series Interior Chinatown to the Christmas comedy-drama film Nutcrackers. However, for this article, we only included the films that are coming to Hulu this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 7 best films that are coming to Hulu in November 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Aliens (November 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94% Credit – 20th Century Fox

Aliens is a sci-fi action thriller drama film written and directed by James Cameron. The 1986 film is set in a dystopian future and it follows Ellen Ripley who is sent back to the planet Lv-426 to establish communication with a terraforming colony but when she gets there she is hunted by an Alien Queen who is out for her life. Aliens stars Sigourney Weaver,...

Alien fans were excited about the news of an Alien: Romulus follow-up. Franchise creator Ridley Scott stokes the fire with a tease for another sequel's plot.

Director Ridley Scott told THR that Prometheus resurrected the Alien franchise. Expressing his regret over not taking ownership of the IP after the success of Alien, Scott also said the sequels botched the canon plot. "I watched Alien 2, 3 and 4 and realized, 'Oh, you just ran that firmly into the ground,'" he asserted. "Then I went back to [former 20th Century Fox chief Tom Rothman] and said, 'Listen, there's a way out. We should resurrect Alien with Prometheus.'" That movie divided the fan base but has since gained a cult following; it also earned a sequel in Alien: Covenant.

Related Ridley Scott Regrets Directing Alien: Covenant Over Blade Runner 2

Filmmaker Ridley Scott says he should have chosen Blade Runner 2049 instead...

Courtney Stephens’ new film Invention blends fiction and reality in insightful ways. Callie Hernandez, who co-wrote the project with Stephens, stars as a woman dealing with the recent death of her father. He was an inventor and alternative health practitioner who left behind archival footage and a mysterious healing device.

Through its nuanced storytelling, Invention delves into how people process grief and make sense of loss. Stephens shot the film on 16mm, crafting a gentle yet thought-provoking style to match the hazy nature of Hernandez’s character’s emotional state. In meeting those who knew her father, she sees him through new eyes and questions perspectives on life, healing, and belief.

Blending personal experiences – Hernandez’s real father passed in 2021 – with imaginative elements, Invention takes an intimate look at these complex topics. It seamlessly brings fiction and non-fiction together to examine our instinct towards narrative when confronting the unexplainable. With compassion and complexity,...

Though the music and big dance set pieces might grab the audience's attention, the best La La Land quotes show the emotional power of the movie. The romance between Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is full of heart and sadness, all conveyed in some of the movie's most memorable lines. The characters are flawed, which makes them relatable. While it has the glitz and glamor of an old-school Hollywood throwback, this movie is also very modern with its dialogue.

The movie tells a unique love story about the right couple at the wrong time in their lives. There are also strong themes about the right path to take in life, the love of art, and the struggle of having a dream. All of these aspects are reflected in some of the movie's best lines. The greatest La La Land quotes pull on the heartstrings of its audience with thoughtful lines,...

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As winter approaches we are all in need of something spicy to watch to make our temperature rise and if you are a fan of romantic comedies, then we have the perfect recommendations for you. From critically acclaimed movies like The Big Sick to new and popular romantic comedy movies like The Idea of You, Prime Video has everything you need. So, here are the 7 best R-rated romantic comedy movies available on Prime Video right now.

If you want to watch more R-rated romantic comedy movies here are some more recommendations for you available on Netflix, Hulu, and Max (formerly known as HBO Max).

The Idea of You Credit – Prime Video

The Idea of You is a romantic comedy-drama film directed by Michael Showalter from a screenplay co-written by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt. Based on the 2017 novel of...

Exclusive: Luke Brawley’s specialist non-fiction agency Indox has snapped up a trio of 2024 festival breakouts, including the TIFF debut title Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story by Sinead O’Shea (Pray For Our Sinners).

Blue Road is produced by Claire McCabe and Ellie Emptage and debuted as part of TIFF Docs. The pic is described as a deeply personal and captivating portrayal of Edna O’Brien, one of Ireland’s literary giants.

“I have loved working with Luke in the past and am excited to work with him again via Indox,” O’Shea said. “The world of film festivals can seem overwhelming but he is a smart and kind collaborator.”

Brawley has also added Locarno competition title Invention and Tribeca flick They’re Here from Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez to his slate. Invention is a project co-created by director Courtney Stephens (The American Sector...

Toxic (Akiplėša), the debut feature from Saulė Bliuvaitė, has won the 2024 Golden Leopard, the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival.

Toxic follows two teenage girls from a bleak industrial town who join an extreme local modelling school. Featuring a cast of non-actors, it was selected for Les Arcs work-in-progress programme in 2023, and was also a prize-winner at Meeting Point Vilnius this year.

Bendita Film Sales are handling sales. The film also won Locarno’s Swatch first feature award.

The Golden Leopard for best film includes a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.

Akiplėša (Toxic), the feature debut from Lithuanian writer and director Saulė Bliuvaitė that explores the human body and mysterious model agencies, is the winner of the Locarno Film Festival’s 2024 international competition, which was honored with the Pardo d’Oro, or Golden Leopard, in the Swiss town on Saturday. Locarno77 organizers called the movie “an incisive portrayal of teenage girls and the crushing expectations imposed upon them.”

Meanwhile, the special jury prize went to Iraq-born Austrian auteur Kurdwin Ayub for her sophomore fiction feature Mond (Moon). The film follows former martial artist Sarah who leaves Austria to train three sisters from a wealthy Jordanian family. “It’s all about sisters, no matter where they come from, and about cages, no matter where they are,” according to Ayub.

Lithuania, which has a population of about three million people but was represented by two features in this year’s Locarno international competition,...

Cinelounge Sunset is partnering with Rustic Films to present an outstanding weekend of movies on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood this weekend, August 17 & August 18.

The lineup includes Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead movies Resolution and The Endless, as well as Jim Cummings’ Thunder Road, a shorts block, and more.

Here’s the full lineup…

‘Resolution’

Resolution. Horror/Mystery. Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead. Written by Benson. Produced by Benson, Moorhead, and David Clarke Lawson Jr.

From Rustic Films. Starring Peter Cilelloa, Vinny Curran, Emily Montague, Kurt David Anderson, Skyler Meacham, Josh Higgins.

Soon-to-be-a-dad Michael makes a last-ditch effort to save his longtime but addicted friend Chris from a foreseeable drug related death. Visiting Chris and handcuffing him to an exposed plumbing pipe, Michael forces his buddy into detox, but while watching over his friend he also discovers that all is not right within the territory Chris has drifted into.

Following a decade of work in experimental and documentary cinema, director Courtney Stephens steps into fiction for the first time with Invention, a remarkably resourceful microbudget drama that nonetheless resists strict categorization. Starring and co-conceived by Callie Hernandez, the film draws upon the actress’s real-life relationship with her late father, a medical doctor turned small-time huckster who made a name for himself on local television talk shows and public access programs in the ’90s and 2000s. In this fictionalized telling set in the Berkshires, VHS footage of those TV appearances weave through a story in which Hernandez, playing a version […]

The post “America is Desperate for a Narrative”: Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez on Invention first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Following a decade of work in experimental and documentary cinema, director Courtney Stephens steps into fiction for the first time with Invention, a remarkably resourceful microbudget drama that nonetheless resists strict categorization. Starring and co-conceived by Callie Hernandez, the film draws upon the actress’s real-life relationship with her late father, a medical doctor turned small-time huckster who made a name for himself on local television talk shows and public access programs in the ’90s and 2000s. In this fictionalized telling set in the Berkshires, VHS footage of those TV appearances weave through a story in which Hernandez, playing a version […]

The post “America is Desperate for a Narrative”: Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez on Invention first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After the death of her father, Carrie (Callie Hernandez), the protagonist of “Invention,” finds herself the beneficiary of a patent for an electromagnetic healing device—modeled after one Hernandez’s own late father possessed, a flashing cylinder of multicolored tubes emitting odd electrical noises, looking like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Los Angeles-based director Courtney Stephens, speaking with Variety about her Locarno-premiering film “Invention,” describes the machine as “the mystery at the center of the film.” Unsure of what to make of it—or of her father’s death—Carrie struggles to process the loss of a larger-than-life figure: a doctor turned “spiritual healer,” and a man whose trustworthiness was always in question.

On the surface, “Invention” explores the universal human experience of grieving a complicated loved one. What sets the film apart, however, is its innovative format. Competing in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente category at this year’s Locarno Film Festival,...

In March I had the fortune to see a rough cut of Invention, a new film by Courtney Stephens that toes the documentary-fiction boundary more nimbly than most: it stars Callie Hernandez as a woman seeking clarification on the death of her inventor father the aftermath of whose death spans the clerical and conspiratorial. Stephens interpolates conversations (both expository and atmospheric) with sequences that might be dreams, fantasies, or emanations from one of her father’s creations. Even as an enthusiast of Stephens’ work I wasn’t entirely prepared for the experience, but understood it was unlike any recent narrative film. Whether or not other human beings would ever see it was even less certain.

And now Invention, credited to both director and star, premieres at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival, ahead of which we’re pleased to debut its trailer. As an official synopsis goes, “In the...

Música is a “non-musical musical” coming-of-age romantic comedy film co-written and directed by Rudy Mancuso. Based on his personal experiences, the Prime Video film follows the story of a young college student Rudy, who is about to graduate but still doesn’t if he should get a stable job or go after his dream of becoming a puppeteer. He finds himself stuck in a love triangle between his long-time girlfriend who doesn’t understand him and his dreams and a girl he recently met who seems to support his dreams, while also dealing with his overbearing mother who wants him to get himself a Brazilian girlfriend. Música stars Mancuso in the lead role with Camila Mendes, Francesca Reale, J.B. Smoove, and Maria Mancuso starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved the charming story and music of Música, here are some similar films you should check out next.

In the Heights...

Another Max show has been cancelled, but it wasn't the streaming service's idea this time. The Flight Attendant won't be returning for a third season because executive producer and star Kaley Cuoco feels two seasons is enough.

A dark comedy-drama series, The Flight Attendant is based on the novel of the same name by Chris Bohjalian. The series stars Cuoco and features Michiel Huisman, Zosia Mamet, T. R. Knight, Michelle Gomez, Colin Woodell, Merle Dandridge, Griffin Matthews, Nolan Gerard Funk, Rosie Perez, Deniz Akdeniz, Mo McRae, Callie Hernandez, J.J. Soria, and Cheryl Hines. Read More…...

The Flight Attendant will not be returning for a third season. The show, which was originally set as a limited series, aired two seasons on Max, with the second season ending in May 2022.

The move follows comments from star and executive producer Kaley Cuoco after the second season that the “plane had landed.” “I just kind of feel like we just ended,” she told People at the time.

The first season, which premiered in November 2020, followed Cuoco’s alcoholic, globe-trotting flight attendant Cassie Bowden who became embroiled in an espionage plot following her affair with a first class passenger, who winds up murdered after their night together.

The second season saw Bowden return with a fresh start in Los Angeles, sober and moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.