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The octogenarian director Alejandro Jodorowsky relives his troubled childhood in 1930s Chile in a film of carnivalesque exuberance

The Chilean visionary Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first feature since 1990’s disappointing The Rainbow Thief is a fantastical quasi-autobiographical romp in the manner of Fellini’s Amarcord, or perhaps Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg. Adapted from Jodorowsky’s novel La Danza de la Realidad (with elements of El Niño del Jueves Negro), this is warmer than many of the director’s most revered works, yet not in the least constrained by its intimacy and affection. On the contrary, the phantasmagorial zest that first made El Topo and The Holy Mountain midnight-movie fixtures is very much to the fore, albeit tempered by a sense of resolution and resolve – the anarchic tranquillity of age.

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Some pretty significant viewing has appeared this week. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee have collaborated on an audiovisual essay about Jacques Rivette's Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971); Nicole Brenez talks with Eric Hurtado and Marc Hurtado about the work that desistfilm has made available online; and Milena Kans examines Alejandro Jodorowsky's view of humans and animals in Fando and Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Santa Sangre (1989) and The Rainbow Thief (1990). We also have news on upcoming work from Richard Linklater and David Fincher and we point to a lengthy conversation with David Lynch. » - David Hudson...

Some pretty significant viewing has appeared this week. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee have collaborated on an audiovisual essay about Jacques Rivette's Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971); Nicole Brenez talks with Eric Hurtado and Marc Hurtado about the work that desistfilm has made available online; and Milena Kans examines Alejandro Jodorowsky's view of humans and animals in Fando and Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Santa Sangre (1989) and The Rainbow Thief (1990). We also have news on upcoming work from Richard Linklater and David Fincher and we point to a lengthy conversation with David Lynch. » - David Hudson...

Thanks to our friends at Abcko Films, Filmmaker has a prize pack to give away tied to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality, the cult favorite’s first feature since 1990′s The Rainbow Thief. In this new film, Jodorowsky revisits his ’30s Chilean childhood while producing typically fantastical imagery. The prize pack includes an El Topo Blu-ray, The Holy Mountain Blu-ray, and the El Topo soundtrack on both CD and vinyl. To win, be the first to answer this question: what sci-fi novel did Jodorowsky try and ultimately fail to bring to the screen, as chronicled in a recently released documentary? […]...

Thanks to our friends at Abcko Films, Filmmaker has a prize pack to give away tied to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality, the cult favorite’s first feature since 1990′s The Rainbow Thief. In this new film, Jodorowsky revisits his ’30s Chilean childhood while producing typically fantastical imagery. The prize pack includes an El Topo Blu-ray, The Holy Mountain Blu-ray, and the El Topo soundtrack on both CD and vinyl. To win, be the first to answer this question: what sci-fi novel did Jodorowsky try and ultimately fail to bring to the screen, as chronicled in a recently released documentary? […]...

Art and history unfold at their own pace for French-Chilean artist Alejandro Jodorowsky. The 85-year-old filmmaker and comic-book writer is most well known for seminal midnight movies like The Holy Mountain (1973), a consciousness-raising exploitation film that both Marilyn Manson and Kanye West swear by. But Jodorowsky's now more active than ever. He's currently working on comic-book sequels to both El Topo (1970) and The Incal (1981–1989), respectively a midnight movie and the comic book series that The Fifth Element mercilessly ripped off. And after 23 years of waiting, Jodorowsky finally wrote and directed The Dance of Reality, his first film since little-seen 1990 fantasy The Rainbow Thief. In The Dance of Reality, Jodorowsky collects and mythologizes autobiographical stories about his traumatic childhood in Tocopilla, Chile. The film is a family affair: one son, Brontis, plays Jodorowsky's father, while the other, Adan, composed the film's soundtrack. Re-creating his own past helps Jodorowsky to keep it...

We’ll confess to just the tiniest amount of trepidation as we hovered on the threshold of our screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Dance of Reality." It had been 23 years since Jodorowsky last released a film, the compromised, and subsequently disowned Peter O’Toole-starrer “The Rainbow Thief,” and about 23 hours since we’d fallen for Jodo all over again during our viewing of the joyously entertaining “Jodorowsky’s Dune” (review here). What to expect from this ringmaster of the bizarre, now in his mid-eighties? How might the intervening decades of knockbacks and disappointments have rusted or warped the skills of an already pretty warped filmmaker? We needn’t have worried. While the meagre production budget of “The Dance of Reality” does make itself felt in the inescapably tacky production values, and while the photography overall lacks the richness and filmic qualities of, well, film (it’s shot digitally, using...

Abkco Films announced today that they've acquired domestic theatrical and home entertainment rights to Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky's highly anticipated "The Dance of Reality," his first new film in 23 years (since 1990's "The Rainbow Thief"). Watch the rapturously beautiful trailer below. Here's the synopsis:The legendary filmmaker was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on the edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there that Jodorowsky underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family. Blending his personal history with metaphor, mythology and poetry, "The Dance of Reality" reflects Jodorowsky's philosophy that reality is not objective but rather a "dance" created by our own imaginations.The acquisition continues the partnership between Jodorowsky and Abkco Films, which released his two beloved avant-garde epics, revisionist western "El Topo" and the wildly outlandish "The Holy Mountain" in...

We’ll confess to just the tiniest amount of trepidation as we hovered on the threshold of the theater screening Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Dance of Reality” at the Göteborg International Film Festival. It had been 23 years since Jodorowsky last released a film, the compromised, and subsequently disowned Peter O’Toole-starrer “The Rainbow Thief,” and about 23 hours since we’d fallen for Jodo all over again during our viewing of the joyously entertaining “Jodorowsky’s Dune” (review here). What to expect from this ringmaster of the bizarre, now in his mid-eighties? How might the intervening decades of knockbacks and disappointments have rusted or warped the skills of an already pretty warped filmmaker? We needn’t have worried. While the meagre production budget of “The Dance of Reality” does make itself felt in the inescapably tacky production values, and while the photography overall lacks the richness and filmic qualities of, well,...

An old master makes his long awaited return to the big screen with La Danza de la Realidad, and while it must be said that CGI visual effects and digital photography are not particularly Alejandro Jodorowsky's friends long time fans will, nonetheless, be pleased to see that his signature style has survived intact.Jodorowsky's first directorial effort since 1990s The Rainbow Thief is a fictionalized account of his own childhood in Chile and fresh from the film's premiere in Cannes the first trailer has arrived online. Like all of Jodorowsky's work it's more meant to be experienced than talked about so take a look below and let us know what you think....

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The last movie Alejandro Jodorowsky directed was 1990′s The Rainbow Thief, and while the visionary behind El Topo, Santa Sangre and others has done some writing and acting, The Dance of Reality (La danza de la realidad) is his first fully realized return to filmmaking in 23 years. That’s been an excruciatingly long wait for fans, but the trailer here delivers a lot of the director’s signature moves. So it’s a return in at least three ways. He’s back in the director’s chair (he also wrote and acts in it), he’s back exploring the circus (and several other thematic favorites), but he’s also looking into his own history as Dance is an autobiographical work envisioning his childhood in Chile with surreal liberties taken to champion the power of imagination. Check out the trailer for yourself:...

Of the many promising films by some of our favourite directors premiering at Cannes, my most anticipated film is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance Of Reality, the filmmakers first film in 23 years. At the age of 84, Jodorowsky who hasn’t made a film since 1990′s The Rainbow Thief, has returned to his hometown of Tocopilla in the Chilean desert to create a kind of magic-realist memoir of his father, Jaime Jodorowsky. The French/Chilean filmmaker, the man behind several cult hits including El Topo and The Holy Mountain, is widely known around the world as the creator of psycho-magic, a therapeutical technique that heals through metaphorical acts that appeal to the subconscious by combining literature, psychoanalysis, eastern philosophy, and magic. Although a controversial character, his work has long captivated fans because of its unusual essence. The very first clip from his new film has found its way online, and as expected,...

Jodorowsky returns with his first feature film in over twenty years – his last being the rather disappointing and atypical The Rainbow Thief – the bewitching La Danza de la Realidad (The Dance of Reality). An adaptation of his autobiographical book of the same name La Danza de la Realidad is obviously a deeply personal work but it is not a film that it is anywhere near as difficult to connect to as something like The Holy Mountain, a dazzlingly beautiful but near impenetrable riddle of a film.

Jodorowsky has lost none of his wit or imagination since making films such as The Holy Mountain, El Topo or Santa Sangre and despite La Danza de la Realidad being a far easier film to understand and appreciate immediately than his previous works it is still far, far, far from a straightforward film.

Beginning with Jodorowsky appearing on screen and delivering an introductory monologue...

For all the Goslings and Grays and Gatsbys on the Croisette, for some, the biggest news at Cannes this year is the return of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The French/Chilean filmmaker, the man behind cult hits "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain," hasn't made a film for 23 years, since 1990's "The Rainbow Thief," is now all over Cannes; a documentary about his ill-fated attempt to film "Dune" is premiering, and his return to directing with "The Dance Of Reality" just screened this morning. An adaptation of his own memoir that's drawing comparisons to Fellini, we haven't yet caught the film, but the word is pretty good (read Indiewire's take here). To tide us, and yourselves over, a new trailer for the film has arrived from French distributors Pathe, and it looks very, very promising indeed, not least for Jodorowsky fans. Take a look below.

Because, looking forward, 2013 promises to be such a fruitful cornucopia of cinema, we were excited to be able to easily list an additional 100 titles we are eagerly looking forward to catching in the new year. From these 200-101 titles, we’re happy to list several projects featuring the extremely busy Isabelle Huppert, include two English language projects, Ned Benson’s split film project The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby His/Hers and the Niels Arden Oplev film, Dead Man Down (and don’t forget her French projects, a starring turn in Serge Bozon’s followup, Tip Top as well as Guillaume Nicloux’s The Religious).

Additionally, the horror genre should be extremely noteworthy in the coming year, with new projects from Neil Marshall (The Descent), Alexandre Aja (High Tension), Fabrice Du Welz (Calvaire), Lucky McKee (May) and directing team Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (Inside). We’ve got two Australian beauties playing...

One day during the ‘70s, director Alejandro Jodorowsky was sitting in a bar in Mexico City when he was approached by a big-bellied, bespectacled man. “May I have a coffee with you? I love your page Fabulas Panicas,” said the man, referring to a weekly comic strip Jodorowsky wrote for the newspaper El Heraldo de Mexico. After Jodorowsky agreed to have a drink with the stranger, the man introduced himself as Goyo Cárdenas. The name rang a bell with the Chile-born filmmaker, as it would have done with pretty much everyone in Mexico. Cárdenas was an infamous serial killer who...