News

A new year means a new New Directors/New Films lineup.

The 2023 festival, presented by the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center, is set to take place from March 29 through April 9 and boasts films from 41 directors. The 52nd edition of the festival kicks off with Savannah Leaf’s A24 drama “Earth Mama” and concludes with Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s trans coming-of-age story “Mutt.” Both premiered at Sundance to acclaim.

In total, the festival boasts 27 features and 11 short films, with screenings taking place at theaters both at MoMA and Flc. Nations represented range from Argentina to Angola, Nigeria to Ukraine.

“This geographically diverse lineup brings together new directors from all over the world presenting works that make bold and creative statements on everything from identity and family to political repression and postcolonial discourse,” MoMA film curator and 2023 Nd/Nf co-chair La Frances Hui said in a press statement. “The...

Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art have set Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Sundance Special Jury Award winner Mutt, both debut features, as opening and closing film at the 52st edition of their collaboration, New Directors/New Films, running March 29–April 9 in NYC.

The festival will introduce will showcase 27 features and 11 shorts from 41 directors at theaters in both venues.

Mutt star Lio Mehial was awarded a U.S. Special Jury Award for acting at Sundance Film festival for their portrayal of Feña, a twentysomething trans man contending with an onslaught of aggravation, surprise encounters and emotional choices over the course of a single hectic day in New York City. “We were charmed, seduced, and compelled by this fresh new performer as we watched them navigating the intimate complexities of their everyday life and relationships in his search for acceptance,” the jury citation said.

The BFI has hired independent producer Ama Ampadu as the new senior production and development executive for the BFI Film Fund. Ampadu replaces Kristin Irving, who joined BBC Film late last year.

Reporting to Natascha Wharton, the film fund’s Head of Editorial, Ampadu will work alongside Louise Ortega, who joined the organization last year as a Senior Production and Development Executive, as well as Editor-at-Large Lizzie Francke.

Ampadu’s brief will have a central focus on filmmaking debuts, as well as working closely with BFI Network to ensure there is a practical crossover for new and emerging talent.

Alongside Ortega and the rest of the team, Ampadu will also oversee the fund’s slate, which has projects at various stages of production, supporting filmmakers at each stage of the filmmaking process and beyond, as well as developing outreach strategies to engage filmmakers with the BFI.

The BFI said that...

Ama Ampadu will report to Fund’s head of editorial Natascha Wharton.

UK producer Ama Ampadu has been appointed senior production and development executive for the BFI Film Fund.

Ampadu, who has worked as an independent producer across UK and international projects for over 12 years, started in her role this week.

She will work on both the development and production funds, assessing applications, recommending funding decisions and providing hands-on creative, production and holistic support for filmmakers and film projects.

Ampadu will report to Natascha Wharton, the Fund’s head of editorial. She will work alongside Louise Ortega, who joined the...

The most exciting new actors, writers, directors, producers, and heads of department emerging across the UK and Ireland.

Screen International has revealed the 2022 edition of Stars of Tomorrow, our prestigious annual showcase of the UK and Ireland’s most exciting young actors, directors, writers, producers and heads of department.

The 2022 UK & Ireland Stars of Tomorrow are following in the footsteps of some of today’s biggest names in film and television, many of whom are now Bafta and Oscar winners and nominees.

From Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrea Arnold in the inaugural selection in 2004 to David Oyelowo, Ruth Negga, Abi Morgan (2005), Riz Ahmed,...

The lineup for the 2022 Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) at Cannes has been announced. See also the lineup of the Official Selection.Feature Films Scarlet (Pietro Marcello): In northern France, Juliette grows up alone with her father, Raphaël, a veteran of the First World War. Passionate about singing and music, the lonely young girl meets a magician one summer who promises that scarlet sails will one day take her away from her village.1976 (Manuela Martelli): Carmen is 49 years old. Her life as a bourgeois housewife is interrupted when the priest at the church where she does charity work asks her to take care of a young revolutionary, a man he is giving asylum to, who has just been hurt.The Water (Elena López Riera)The Dam (Ali Cherri): Sudan. Maher works in a traditional brickyard fed by the waters of the Nile. Every evening, he secretly wanders...

List promotes a selection of screenplays by women and non-binary writers.

Streaming service Mubi is partnering with Paris-based talent platform Wscripted for the second edition of its Cannes Screenplay List, a selection of screenplays by women and non-binary writers that will be unveiled during the Cannes Film Festival.

The curated list of vetted screenplays promotes projects that are available for option or financing with international distribution potential.

Last year’s inaugural list featured 25 English-language screenplays from female and non-binary writers based mainly in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe.

It featured works by rising US writer and director Gabriella Moses,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDore O.'s Alaska (1968)The German avant-garde artist Dore O., whose poetic films were at once vast and intimate explorations of dreams, has died at 75. O. was a founder of the Hamburg Filmmakers Co-op (1968-1974), a participant in the famous German exhibit documenta 5 in 1972, and a prolific painter. The DVD label Re:voir Video had recently released a collection of six restored films by O. In 1988, the critic Dietrich Kuhlbrodt wrote: "Dore O. has become classic, and suddenly it turns out that her work has passed the various currents of time unharmed: the time of the cooperative union, the women's film, the structuralists and grammarians, the teachers of new ways of seeing."Subscriptions are now open for Notebook magazine, our print-only publication devoted to the art and culture of cinema. Subscribe now and you’ll...

Next month’s lineup at The Criterion Channel has been unveiled, featuring no shortage of excellent offerings. Leading the pack is a massive, 20-film retrospective dedicated to John Huston, featuring a mix of greatest and lesser-appreciated works, including Fat City, The Dead, Wise Blood, The Man Who Would Be King, and Key Largo. (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will join the series on October 1.)

Also in the lineup is series on the works of Budd Boetticher (specifically his Randolph Scott-starring Ranown westerns), Ephraim Asili, Josephine Baker, Nikos Papatakis, Jean Harlow, Lee Isaac Chung (pre-Minari), Mani Kaul, and Michelle Parkerson.

The sparkling new restoration of La Piscine will also debut, along with Amores perros, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth, Cate Shortland’s Lore, both Oxhide films, Moonstruck, and much more.

See the full list of August titles below and more on The Criterion Channel.

Abigail Harm,...

Five Inspirations is a series in which we ask directors to share five things that shaped and informed their film. The series Becoming and Belonging: An Ayo Akingbade Focus is exclusively showing on Mubi in many countries starting July 21, 2021. Fire in My BellyInspiration #1Homework (Abbas Kiarostami (1989)Schoolchildren. Coming of age. I liked the interview set-ups and how naturalistic it all felt. I heart Kiarostami.

Inspiration #2The HeptonesOne of my favourite rocksteady reggae bands, I listen to them often. Whilst filming the party scene in Dear Babylon their song ‘Love Me Always’ was played non-stop. Inspiration #3LandI had the pleasure of assisting Annabel a few years ago—her work is brilliant. I deeply admire the book, which features photographs partly shot in and around Homerton, Hackney in the late 90s and early 2000s. That’s how I remember the place to be.Inspiration #4Richard Dumas' portraits of Alaïa's Kitchen (1989)I came...

Next month’s Mubi lineup has been unveiled and if you can’t make it to Cannes Film Festival, they are spotlighting recent favorites from the event. As part of a Cannes Takeover series, they will show Lisandro Alonso’s Viggo Mortensen-led Jauja, the Zambian drama I Am Not a Witch, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After the Storm, plus two films from directors who have new films in this year’s lineup, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II and Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre, plus more.

Also in the lineup will be the Mubi debut of Magnus van Horn’s Sweat, which opens in theaters today, plus series on Jean-Claude Carriére and Luis Buñuel’s collaboration and a trio of films by the prolific Chilean master Raúl Ruiz. There will also be some recent festival favorites, including Arab Blues starring Golshifteh Farahani...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe announced today in IndieWire the upcoming launch of our new original podcast! Hosted by arts and travel reporter Rico Gagliano, the first season of the Mubi Podcast will focus on films that have great importance in their home country, but are lesser known by international audiences and critics. We begin with Paul Verhoeven's second feature Turkish Delight and its unique significance during the counterculture movement in 1970s Holland. The episode feaures exclusive interviews with Paul Verhoeven, Monique van de Ven, and Jan de Bont. Check out the trailer above and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts here.Filmmaker Milton Moses Ginsberg, best known for his debut feature Coming Apart (1969) and the horror comedy film The Werewolf of Washington (1973), has died. The Tribeca Film Festival has announced that Steven Soderbergh's latest, the...

As a young black woman in a white-dominated industry, the film-maker has faced huge obstacles. But her enigmatic, uplifting works about housing estates and gentrification are now winning awards worldwide

“I was ready to shake up the world,” says Ayo Akingbade, remembering the day she graduated from film school. But she soon encountered obstacles. “People think you don’t have a voice,” she says, “because you don’t have the money, the name, or whatever.”

Akingbade is sitting in her London studio surrounded by pictures of her idols: Sade, Naomi Campbell and Tina Turner – women famed for doing things their own way. And, despite the obstacles, or perhaps because of them, Akingbade has forged her own path as well. The 26-year-old artist and film-maker has written, produced and directed 12 short films that have won international awards, and travelled to prestigious festivals worldwide. She recently scooped the £10,000 Brewers award – and her...

Fresh off Sundance and a series of compelling interviews about how she chronicled the Covid-19 outbreak in China and its rampage across the the U.S., Nanfu Wang’s In the Same Breath will have its New York premiere as the opening film in the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight 2021.

The twenty-year old fest will be virtual, running from March 18 to April 5, with 18 documentary features, short films and special projects. Two films are world premieres and several are North American premieres, including the closing selection, Julien Faraut’s Les sorcières de l’Orient (Oriental Witches), the account of a historic Japanese women’s volleyball team and its meteoric ascent to the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

The lineup includes Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers’ Inside the Brick Wall; Mohamed Soueid’s The Insomnia of a Serial Dreamer; Rosine Mbakam’s Delphine’s Prayers; Anthony Banua-Simon’s Cane Fire; Ali Essafi’s...

The Museum of Modern Art has unveiled the festival lineup for Doc Fortnight 2021, the 20th edition of its annual showcase of nonfiction films from around the globe. Over 18 documentary features and four short films will be screened as part of the festival.

In a concession to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s films will be offered exclusively on MoMA’s Virtual Cinema from March 18 to April 5, 2021. The festival boasts two world premieres and numerous North American debuts. Doc Fortnight 2021 will kick off with the New York premiere of Nanfu Wang’s “In the Same Breath,” a look at the origins and spread of Covid-19, charting its early days in Wuhan, China to its deadly rampage through the United States. The festival is truly global in scope including filmmakers from Lebanon, Cameroon, Brazil and Morocco, among many other countries.

The closing night film is “Les sorcières de l’Orient (Oriental Witches...

“Game of Thrones” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story” star Emilia Clarke will be on the jury of the Official Competition of the 62nd BFI London Film Festival, which runs Oct. 10-21. Another “Thrones” star, Natalie Dormer, is on the fest’s First Feature Competition jury, which hands out the Sutherland Award.

Joining Clarke on the Official Competition judging panel are “Mamma Mia” star Dominic Cooper and actress Andrea Riseborough, whose credits include “Birdman” and “Black Mirror.” Also on the jury are Daily Mail journalist Baz Bamigboye; Cairo Cannon, the producer of Carol Morley’s “Out of Blue,” screening as a Special Presentation in the festival; and Gonzalo Maza, the producer and screenwriter of Oscar-winner “A Fantastic Woman.” Director Lenny Abrahamson, Oscar nominated for “Room,” is the jury president, as previously announced.

Dormer, whose recent credits include “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” is joined on the First Feature Competition jury by jury president Francis Lee,...

Trio join Lenny Abrahamson as heads of the four juries this year.

Francis Lee, the writer-director of God’s Own Country, documentary producer Simon Chinn, whose credits include the Oscar and Bafta-winning Man On Wire and Searching For Sugarman, and writer-director Rungano Nyoni, whose debut film was I Am Not A Witch, will head the juries of the First Feature Competition, the Documentary Competition and the Short Film Competition respectively at the 62nd BFI London FIlm Festival this month.

They join director Lenny Abrahamson who will preside over this year’s Official Competition.

The remaining jurors are:

Official Competition (Best Film Award): Baz Bamigboye,...

Total of 9 individuals are the first to be supported since the charity relaunched in April.

The Film & Television Charity, recently relaunched from its former incarnation as the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, has announced the recipients of its 2018 John Brabourne Awards.

The nine awardees were selected from 127 applicants from an industry panel chaired by Film & Television Charity vice president Cameron Saunders. Each one will receive £5,000 to put towards development and post-production costs and Nfts course tuition fees.

Named in honour of producer John Brabourne, the awards were established in 2007 “to provide a stepping stone for individuals who are talented and driven,...

Top, L-r: Amri Rigby, Andrea Porras-Madero, Ayo Akingbade, Carol Nguyen, Crystal Kayiza. Middle, L-r: Gerardo Coello Escalante, Matthew Puccini, Matty Crawford, Mohamed Touahria, Paloma Lopez. Bottom, L-r: Sindha Agha, Sky Bruno, Sydney Butler, Terrance Daye, Varun Chopra. Photo: Sundance Institute British filmmakers Ayo Akingbade and Matty Crawford are among the 15 young filmmakers chosen to participate in this year's Sundance Ignite Fellowship. Ignite is a one-year fellowship for 18-to-24-year-old filmmakers, who spanning from television writing to documentary photography to narrative short films.

Crawford and Akingbade will join the other fellows on a trip to the festival in January and be paired with a Sundance Institute alumni professional for a full year of guidance and development, in a bid to gain industry exposure and meaningful mentorship. This year’s mentors include Effie Brown (Dear White People), Jeff Orlowski (Chasing Coral) and Jason Berman (Burning Sands). In addition to a personalised festival experience and mentorship track,...