News

‘Harbin’ To Be Present At Christmas

Poised to be one of the biggest blockbusters of an uneven year for Korean cinema, “Harbin” is finally confirmed to release on Christmas Day (Dec. 25). The movie had its premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival but its distributor and financier Cj Enm chose to hold back the commercial release in its native Korea until the busy end-of-year season.

The period action film follows Korean independence activists who launch a daring attack against the Japanese occupying forces in Manchuria (modern-day China).

It is directed by Woo Min-ho and stars Hyun Bin (“Crash Landing on You”), Park Jeong-min (“Decision to Leave”) and Jeon Yeo-been (“Cobweb”), who were all in action at a press launch event Monday in Seoul.

Apple Cider

Netflix has unveiled a trailer for Australian-produced “Apple Cider Vinegar,” a limited series which it will upload in 2025. The six-part drama chronicles the...

“Desert of Namibia,” about a caustic 21-year-old Japanese wanderer, embodies its protagonist’s listlessness to a fault. Director Yôko Yamanaka was still a teenager when she made her debut feature “Amiko” in 2017, a sharply funny high school film with the jagged, quick-cut energy of a YouTube travel vlog. It marked her as a Gen Z voice to watch. “Desert of Namibia” similarly follows a young woman trying to find herself, but it swings stylistically in the opposite direction, holding and zooming for hilariously, sometimes painfully long. Your mileage may vary, as the film has a tendency to meander off course, but that is exactly its intention.

Actress Yuumi Kawai is immediately magnetic as Kana, a young Tokyo woman hinted to have roots in a different city or country, but the film is often opaque about important details. While shot with straightforward clarity, its narrative, like its protagonist’s mood, feels enveloped by fog.

Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” won the Fipresci award at Cannes.

The jury of the International Federation of Film Critics called it “a courageous story set in modern-day Iran that deals with the conflict between tradition and progress, depicted in a very powerful and imaginative way.”

Following a rapturous screening and 2024 record 12-minute standing ovation, the film became a Palme d’Or frontrunner, reported Variety.

“The only reason I left Iran – and that was what made me take that decision – was to go on telling the stories of my land. That was really my only motivation.”

“I need to go on telling stories, creating stories. However, this does not mean that I have left the narratives of Iran. Iran is still inside me, and I still can go on telling Iranian stories and conveying them to the rest of the world,” Rasoulof told Variety’s Nick Vivarelli two days ago.

IndieWire has published its Cannes 2024 Cinematography Survey. We analyzed the data to explore (again and again) that the nine-year-old camera, Arri Alexa Mini, is the most popular camera among Cannes filmmakers. Furthermore, interestingly, in its first appearance on the Cannes Cinematography Chart and jumped straight to second place, is the Arri 35.

The main cameras of Cannes 2024 are the Arri Alexa Mini and the 35. Cannes 2024 cinematography

The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival is taking place from 14 to 25 May 2024. IndieWire has reached out to the filmmakers behind 59 films screened in various categories in the festival. The DPs elaborated on the tools they utilized to tell their stories. Read the entire survey here.

Official poster of the 77th Cannes Film Festival featuring a still image from the movie Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991)

As the tradition calls, we took the data and filtered it to the cameras used, to explore tendency. Based on the info,...

The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight section has unveiled its lineup for the 2024 festival, which will open with This Life of Mine, the final feature from the late French director Sophie Fillières. The drama features Agnès Jaoui as a woman whose identity starts to unravel when she turns 55. Fillières died shortly after wrapping principal photography on the film and her children finished post-production.

There are four U.S. titles in the feature section of the non-competitive sidebar: Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point, Carson Lund’s Eephus, India Donaldson’s Good One and Gazer from Ryan J. Sloan.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, starring Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Francesca Scorsese. Ben Shenkman, Gregg Turkington, Sawyer Spielberg, Maria Dizzia and newcomer Matilda Fleming, follows four generations as they gather for what might be their last Christmas in the family home. Lund, who lensed Christmas Eve, makes his feature debut with Eephus,...

The 77th edition of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight will kick off with “This Life of Mine,” a dramedy directed by Sophie Fillières, a renowned French filmmaker who died last year. Presented posthumously, the film is headlined by French stars including Agnès Jaoui, Philippe Katerine and Valérie Donzelli. The independent selection, which has recently gone through a rebranding and is now spearheaded by artistic director Julien Rejl, will close with another French film, Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s “Plastic Guns,” an offbeat crime comedy headlined by popular actor Jonathan Cohen.

The lineup includes as many as four U.S. features, three of which are feature debuts, including India Donaldson’s coming-of-age film”Good One” which premiered at Sundance and garnered solid reviews. Set in upstate New York, “Good One” follows 17-year-old Sam as she joins her father and his oldest friend, Matt, on their annual backpacking trip in the Catskill Mountains. “Good One” has...

Directors’ Fortnight has unveiled the selection for its 56th edition heavy on films from first-time US filmmakers, South American titles, and talent including Isabelle Huppert, Michael Cera and Agnès Jaoui.

Artistic director Julien Rejl revealed the line-up at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 16) for the Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.

Scroll down for the full selection

After undergoing a complete rebranding for last year’s edition complete with new artistic director Rejl and a new more inclusive female-forward name in French to La Quinzaine des Cinéastes, this year’s selection includes eight...

Facing relationship difficulties due to a lack of sexual drive, a young woman confides in her best friend the personal reasons why she feels disengaged from the concept of intercourse. The female friend goes on to admit her own love of the woman, as well as advise that she has to tell her partner about her feelings. However, the woman chooses a third option, and that is to lie about being in love with someone else who recently confessed their love. To try to figure the situation out, the three move in together, but jealousy soon takes its toll on the situation.

See You on the Other Side is screening at Japan Cuts Festival

Having previously directed the charming indie film “Amiko“, director Yoko Yamanaka’s newest short film certainly embodies the energy and character charm of her feature debut. Furthermore, the short also builds off of her ability to create strong female voices,...

With a final wave of programming, the 2019 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival has now released its full lineup, featuring over 130 incredible features from across the globe.

Fantasia International Film Festival

Montreal, Quebec – July 11 to August 1

In addition, the festival is also very proud to announce a record number of repertory titles, its esteemed 2019 jury, a horror film location bus tour through Montreal, and exciting, one-of-a-kind live events with producer Edward R. Pressman, “First Blood” director Ted Kotcheff, and iconic horror host Joe Bob Briggs.

Japanese horror icon ”Sadako” will open fantasia 2019!

Sadako

Twenty years ago, Fantasia celebrated the North American Premiere of Hideo Nakata’s “Ringu” and its sequel, which led to Dreamworks acquiring the franchise and is largely seen as having been the birth of J-Horror in the West. This Summer, the festival is proud to open its 23rd edition with the series’ latest sequel, “Sadako” (North...

One of the most interesting films I saw at Fantasia this year was Amiko, the debut feature of Yoko Yamanaka. In addition to the film being a new twist on the recent wave of films about teenage girls, it stands out as being made by such a young director (20 years old) with no formal training. Yamanaka clearly has a natural gift for storytelling, and for setting her story before the camera in a unique way. I sat down to chat with the director about her vision and her views on teenage girls, representations of women, and the state of Japanese independent cinema. ScreenAnarchy: There is a certain stereotype of Japanese schoolgirls that is quite prevalent in film - giggling, vapid, girly - have you...

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

A massive, multi-week celebration of cinema in Montreal, the Fantasia International Film Festival is still going strong with a week of screenings to go. As per usual, the 22nd annual edition of the festival has been brimming with innovative films and eclectic perspectives that are reflected in the newly announced juried award winners:

Press Release: 24 July 2018, Montreal, Canada – The Fantasia International Film Festival is very proud to announce the award winners of the juried sections of its 22nd edition, which celebrates its Closing Night on August 2, 2018.

The festival’s Best Film Award was presented to Daniel Roby's Paris-set science fiction adventure Dans la brume, which opened Fantasia 2018 to massive acclaim and adoration. The epic apocalyptic thriller, which stars Romain Duris and Olga Kurylenko, sees The City of Lights covered in a deadly white fog that threatens the very existence of humanity.

The awards in each of Fantasia’s categories...

The Fantasia International Film Festival is very proud to announce the award winners of the juried sections of its 22nd edition, which celebrates its Closing Night on August 2, 2018.

The festival’s Best Film Award was presented to Daniel Roby’s Paris-set science fiction adventure “Dans la brume”, which opened Fantasia 2018 to massive acclaim and adoration. The epic apocalyptic thriller, which stars Romain Duris and Olga Kurylenko, sees The City of Lights covered in a deadly white fog that threatens the very existence of humanity.

The awards in each of Fantasia’s categories were chosen by carefully selected juries of filmmakers, scholars, journalists, and industry professionals.

The Cheval Noir Awards

Best Film: Dans La Brume (d. Daniel Roby)

Best Director: Nosipho Dumisa (Number 37)

Best Screenplay: Isa Mazzei (Cam)

Best Actor: Joshua Burge (Relaxer)

Best Actress: Kim Da-mi (The Witch Part 1: The Subversion)

Tim Matheson presided over Fantasia’s 2018 Cheval Noir Jury,...

Nosipho Dumisa wins best director award for Number 37.

The 22nd Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal has announced its juried award winners, including Daniel Roby’s best film award recipient and opening night sci-fi thriller Dans La Brume starring Romain Duris and Olga Kurylenko.

Nosipho Dumisa won the best director award for Number 37, while Isa Mazzei’s Cam received the best screenplay award. Joshua Burge won best actor for his role in Relaxer, and Kim Da-mi won best actress for The Witch Part 1: The Subversion.

Each of these awards was decided by the Cheval Noir Jury, which was led...

After bonding over a mutual interest in the band “Radiohead” and their views on being outcasts among their peers. The young, impressionable Amiko falls in love with the popular Aomi. However, after their chance encounter, Aomi does not speak to Amiko again, in spite of her attempts to pop up where ever he goes. Even without the returned affection, her obsession with Aomi deepens. When Amiko hears the news that her crush is leaving her school, she becomes distraught and determined to make a romantic gesture to get him back in her life.

“Amiko” is part of the Asian selection at Fantasia International Film Festival

Amiko leaves her home in order to follow Aomi, under the pretenses she is staying with friends. When she finds Aomi, she learns that he has a girlfriend and that they are living together. Amiko begins an adventure of self-exploration by wandering the city streets,...

In the recent renaissance of films exploring the lives of teenage girls, Yoko Yamanaka’s feature debut Amiko is a Japanese insight into the mind and turbulent emotions of a young girl, trying to figure out what she feels and why she feels it. Rough-hewn, sombre, yet tinged with a vibe on the verge of insanity, it’s another welcome look at how teenagers try (and usually fail) to figure how to find emotional equilibrium in the midst of raging hormones and short and incomprehensible relationships. Amiko (Aira Sunohara) lives in Nagano, a town far from the city lights, and even farther from anywhere she wants to be (if she could figure out what that was). She attends a school she describes...

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

The Night Is Short, Walk on GirlNew York City’s remarkable summer of Asian film programming continues this week, when, just as the New York Asian Film Festival comes to a close, the Japan Society begins its annual series highlighting the best of contemporary Japanese cinema. This twelfth edition of Japan Cuts features 28 films over ten days, most of which are premiering for the first time in the United States. It’s an eclectic mix of arthouse and genre films from world famous directors as well as young unknowns. I was able to sample a handful of this year’s program, for the most part steering away from the biggest names1 in favor of less heralded filmmakers. In all I saw six films: three romantic comedies; a road movie; a 1980s pink film (Masayuki Suo’s Abnormal Family); and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hanagatami, which is some kind of a historical drama.

Now in its 12th year, Japan Cuts continues to grow as the largest festival of contemporary Japanese cinema in North America. Bringing a wide range of the best and hardest-to-see films made in and around Japan today — from blockbusters, independent productions and anime, to documentaries, avant-garde works, short films, and new restorations — Japan Cuts is the place to experience Japan’s dynamic film culture in New York City. Like every year, this thrilling 10-day festival offers exclusive premieres, special guest filmmakers and stars, fun-filled parties, live music and more! Tickets are on-sale now!

The festival programmers Aiko Masubuchi, Kazu Watanabe and Joel Neville Andersonhave highlighted in a note that “perhaps most strikingly, the struggle for dignity and individual rights reverberates throughout the lineup—including Lgbtq advocacy (“Of Love & Law”), reparations for government abuse (“Sennan Asbestos Disaster”) or the plight of refugees (“Passage of Life”). Additionally, multiple films deal with the...