News

Longtime collaborators and two-time Palme d’Or winners Ken Loach and Paul Laverty have shared a lengthy open letter backing Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk, the latest feature from Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, which debuts this evening in Cannes.

The film is a hot topic in Cannes this week as it predominantly features Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed on April 16 in an Israeli airstrike on her home in northern Gaza. Hassouna was killed alongside 10 members of her family, including her pregnant sister.

Since Israel began its offensive in Gaza, following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed more than 1000 people, at least 52,000 people have been killed, more than half of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Dozens of Gazan civilians have been killed this week alone. Meanwhile, 58 Israeli hostages remain in the enclave.

In the open letter posted to social media,...

When memory slips away, what do we know to be real anymore?

That’s the question asked by “Great Absence,” a new film that sees legendary Japanese actor Tatsuya Fuji return to the big screen in a father-son drama about life, death, mortality, and morality. Filmmaker Kei Chika-ura writes and directs the feature which centers on a rekindled family amid an Alzheimers diagnosis and a suicide.

The official synopsis reads: Distanced from his father Yohji (Tatsuya Fuji) for twenty years, actor Takashi (Mirai Moriyama) is brought back home by a jarring police call. Yohji has disconnected from reality due to dementia, and his second wife Naomi (Hideko Hara) is missing. Asked where she is, the old man replies that she committed suicide. While trying to find out about the stepmother, Takashi traces the past of Yohji he has never been able to accept. And since Yohji abandoned his family 20 years ago for Naomi,...

Tatsuya Fuji, Mirai Moriyama star.

Gaga Corporation has acquired international sales rights excluding Japan on Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Platform entry Great Absence ahead of its European premiere in San Sebastian later this month.

Tatsuya Fuji and dance artist Mirai Moriyama star in the recent TIFF world premiere, which marks director Kei Chika-ura’s second feature after Complicity premiered at 2018 TIFF.

Great Absence is inspired by Chika-ura’s own experiences and centres on Takashi, a man who has been estranged from his father Yohji for 20 years and returns home with his wife after receiving a call from the police...

Great Absence, the second feature film from Japanese director Kei Chika-ura, is receiving its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform section.

Inspired by Kei’s real-life experiences, the film tells the story of an actor living in Tokyo who is forced to travel home when the police call to say his father is suffering from dementia and has lost touch with reality. Making matters worse, his father’s second wife appears to be missing.

The actor makes the trip home with his own wife, full of conflicted emotions over a man who left the family when he was still a child, and starts an exploration into the mysteries of his father’s life. Along the way, the film touches on themes including time and memory, familial obligation and the role that women play in male-dominated Japanese society.

Veteran actor Tatsuya Fuji (In The Realm Of The Senses) plays the father,...

The San Sebastian Film Festival added six movies to its competition lineup on Friday.

Joining the list of contenders for the Golden Shell award at the Spanish fest’s 71st edition are the latest films from directors Kitty Green (The Assistant), Isabella Eklöf (Holiday), Xavier Legrand (Jusqu’à la garde/Custody), Kei Chika-Ura (Complicity) and Christos Nikou (Apples), as well as the debut from Tzu-Hui Peng and Ping-Wen Wang. Nikou’s new movie features a star-studded cast, including Riz Ahmed, Jessie Buckley, Luke Wilson, Jeremy Allen White and Annie Murphy.

They join a competition program that includes two American titles in Ex-Husbands from director Noah Pritzker (Quitters) and Raven Jackson’s first feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.

In addition, Thomas Lilti’s Un métier sérieux (A Real Job) will be part of the special screenings in the San Sabastian official selection, fest organizers said. The new film from...

Headlined respectively by “Sound of Metal” lead Riz Ahmed and “Matrix” stars Jessica Henwick and Hugo Weaving, Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails” and Kitty Green’s “The Royal Hotel” figure among seven newly unveiled films which will play in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

Also in the running are buzz titles “A Journey in Spring,” from Taiwan’s Peng Tzu-Hui, Wang Ping-Wen, and “Kalak,” directed by Denmark’s Isabella Eklöf.

Announced Friday, the new additions are comprised by one debut (“Spring”) and five second features from emerging talent ranging from Japan’s Kei Chica-ura to France’s Xavier Legrand, nominated for an Academy Award for best live action short film for 2013’s “Just Before Losing Everything.”

The new titles confirm a 2023 main competition which, including previously announced titles, frames three feature debuts – Raven Jackson’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” Isabel Herguera’s “Sultana’s Dream...

Exclusive: Emmy and Golden Globe winner Brian Cox (Succession) has been tapped as the narrator for Sacrilege: The Unholy Radicalization of Europe, a documentary from director Barry Avrich (Oscar Peterson: Black + White) and his Melbar Entertainment Group that recently wrapped production.

Avrich’s latest explores how Europe became a global centre of extremism, offering illuminating perspectives and personal stories of how radical Islam, political errors, and the failure of immigration and integration government policies changed the course of the continent forever. The film was shot on location in Vienna, Paris, Copenhagen, Nice, and Malmo, and features unprecedented access to former Isis radicals, as well as victims of terrorism, radicalization experts, journalists and clerics such as the Chief Rabbi of Denmark and Nice’s top Imam.

Avrich produced Sacrilege alongside Melissa Coghlan and Mark Selby, also serving as the film’s executive producer. Melbar is looking to release the feature in late fall,...

After an extremely successful five days, the 13th edition of CinemAsia Film Festival has come to a close. The festival had its highest seat occupancy ever and the program also enjoyed great public acclaim. As is tradition, during the Closing Ceremony of the 13th edition of CinemAsia Film Festival, the Competition Jury Award and the new Tao Kae Noi Young Critics Award were presented last night. The winners received an award specially designed by Megan Carapezza (artist and designer). The Taiwanese film Heavy Craving, which represents a strong female narrative of body shaming for international women’s day and was screened as Closing Film, was particularly well received by the audience.

Competition Jury Award

The Competition Jury, consisting of Aileen Li (Producer Detention), Inge de Leeuw (Programmer Iffr), Julian Ross (Programmer Iffr / Locarno), Floortje Smit (Film Journalist De Volkskrant) and Pete Wu (Writer and journalist), unanimously chose the Chinese “Balloon“, directed by Pema Tseden.

Amazon Prime Video is out with its list of new titles coming in June, and it includes the new Jonas Brothers movie, “Chasing Happiness.” Featuring never-before-seen footage of the brothers’ younger years, the film offers long-time JoBros fans a personal look at Nick, Joe and Kevin’s journey to success, from a family struggling to make ends meet to their ascent to pop stardom. The Amazon Original is out June 4, just ahead of the band’s comeback album, “Happiness Begins,” out June 7.

Another June highlight is “Yardie,” which is directed by Idris Elba and set in ’70s Kingston, Jamaica and ’80s Hackney, London. “Yardie,” which will be released on June 17, centers on the life of a young Jamaican man named D who has never fully recovered from the murder of his older brother Jerry Dread. Dispatched to London where he reconnects with his childhood sweetheart, Yvonne and his daughter who...

Jessie Buckley onstage after Wild Rose Photo: Ingrid Mur

By day nine, some people’s Glasgow Film Festivalexperiences were coming to an end, but there was still a great deal going on. Daytime screenings included one for Argentinean thriller Rojo, which we recently discussed with director Benjamin Naishtat, whilst the evening included Complicity, a story about an illegal Chinese immigrant in Japan which drew a lot of praise from viewers, and Lgbt history documentary Are You Proud? Multiple award nominee Eighth Grade proved an audience favourite whilst Alpha, The Right To Kill impressed and disturbed in equal measure.

Robby Muller: Living The Light Q&A with Claire Pijman Photo: Pete Copeland

Also screening that night were Bhonsle, the story of an ordinary man caught up in a racist war, and musical epic The Song Of The Tree about a feud among nomads. The première of Wild Rose, which brought a tear to many an eye,...

Kei Chikaura was born in Japan in the year 1977. and before he got into filmmaking he majored in economics at the University of Osaka, while studying also film history. He learned the filmmaking trade while working for various production companies. Later on, Chikaura founded a production company through which he developed his shorts, some of them screened at the most prestigious film festivals.

His first feature film “Complicity” premiered in Toronto and was shown in Busan before its European premiere at Berlinale where we got the chance to have a quick chat about the film, food and its importance, soba and other topics.

“Complicity” is screening at Berlin Film Festival

“Complicity” is your feature debut. Can you tell me the difference regarding working on a feature versus working on a short film?

At first I thought that a feature film is a six-piece set of short films. Later, I found out I was totally wrong.

The widely acclaimed science fiction writer Iain Banks, whose novel Complicity was made into a film starring Jonny Lee Miller and Brian Cox, has died of cancer at the age of 59. He had been ill for several months and taking chemotherapy in an effort to prolong his life.

Banks sprang to fame in 1984 with The Wasp Factory and went on to write The Crow Road, which became a popular television series, along with numerous other novels, many of which have been considered for films. He created the Culture series, considering how a human-like species might behave in an age of plenty, and he was described by the Times as one of the top 50 writers of the century.

To those of us who had the pleasure of meeting him, he was also a warm, likeable individual, known for his sense of humour. His use of the middle initial 'M'...

He’s had a hard time of it being the King of the North on Game Of Thrones, so perhaps Robb Stark – aka as actor Richard Madden – will have a better time of it as a prince. Kenneth Branagh and Disney certainly think so, as he’ll play the Prince in the new, live-action Cinderella.Downton Abbey’s Lily James is already aboard as the titular girl who becomes a princess for a night, and Cate Blanchett has been attached for a while to play her wicked stepmother.We don’t yet know what tweaks the script (currently credited to Aline Brosh McKenna and Chris Weitz) will make to the original fairy tale story, but we do know the film has already lost one director in Mark Romanek, who departed over creative differences. Still, Branagh definitely has the chops to bring this one in with style.Madden has previously appeared...